Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

He was speaking no more than the truth. Though he might have glibly told Henry Marlowe that he had put his religion in moth balls, that had never really been the case, and recently he had found it a great source of comfort and a great source of strength.

  ‘Are you here for a moment of quiet prayer?’ Father Taylor asked. ‘If so, I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘No, I …’ Pine began. ‘I’d rather like to make my confession. I know it’s not the normal time, but …’

  Father Taylor laughed. ‘This is a church, not an office with fixed opening hours,’ he said. ‘If you wish to confess your sins, I’m more than willing to hear them at any time.’

  ‘That’s … er … very kind of you, Father, but Father Kenyon is my usual confessor,’ Pine said awkwardly.

  ‘So he is,’ Father Taylor agreed. ‘But we in the priesthood are all God’s instruments. Each and every one of us serves as no more than a telephone line to the Almighty.’

  Pine frowned. He knew the young priest meant well – and it couldn’t have been easy, coming into a parish in which the other priest was already an established figure – but he was not sure he was quite comfortable with the casual, modern way that Father Taylor talked about his religion.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Father, I’d prefer to make my confession to Father Kenyon,’ he said.

  A look of disappointment flickered across Father Taylor’s features, and then was gone.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he told Pine. ‘Father Kenyon’s in the vestry. I’ll go and fetch him.’

  Pine watched the young priest cross the church. He supposed he could have confessed to him rather than to Father Kenyon – they were both God’s instruments, as the priest had pointed out – but he had a feeling that Father Taylor was perhaps a little too unyielding for his taste.

  Father Kenyon, on the other hand, was almost as much of a politician as he was himself. Father Kenyon would give him the absolution he needed, even though the old priest would probably have a pretty shrewd idea of where he was going when he had made his confession – and even what he would do once he got there!

  There was some truth in what the landlord of the Drum and Monkey had said earlier about Charlie Woodend’s drinking habits. The chief inspector liked pubs, especially his local. He claimed that best bitter was nature’s way of lubricating the brain, and given his success rate in clearing up cases, there were very few people – at least, few below the rank of chief superintendent – who were prepared to dispute it. That night, however, Woodend hadn’t gathered his team together to discuss an investigation. Instead, he planned to make an announcement about what was potentially a very delicate situation. And now – having been in the pub for over two hours, and with four pints under his belt – he supposed he’d better get on with it.

  He cleared his throat, looked from Monika Paniatowski to Colin Beresford and back again.

  ‘Inspector Rutter was given his final clearance from the police shrink the day before yesterday,’ he said. ‘Which means that he’ll be reportin’ for duty again tomorrow mornin’.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  Then Constable Beresford said, ‘Well, sir, I must admit that certainly is good news.’

  Good news? Woodend repeated silently.

  It all depended on who you were – and how you looked at it.

  It was good news for Bob Rutter, certainly – he’d been saying for some time that he’d finally got over the nervous breakdown he’d suffered as a result of his wife’s murder, and was eager to climb back into the saddle.

  It was good news as far Woodend himself was concerned, too. He’d worked with Rutter since his days down in Scotland Yard, and had come not only to trust him absolutely, but almost to regard him as the son he’d never had.

  But what about Monika – Bob Rutter’s one-time lover, his co-conspirator in the adulterous affair carried on behind Rutter’s blind wife’s back? She’d been wracked with guilt when Maria was murdered, even though the affair was long over by then. How would she feel about having to work closely with Rutter again?

  Not that any of these considerations were on young Beresford’s mind at that moment, Woodend realized. He was much more concerned about the effect that Rutter’s return would have on him.

  The landlord leaned out over the bar counter. ‘Phone call for you, Mr Woodend,’ he called out.

  Woodend rose to his feet and walked over to the bar.

  ‘Do you think there’ll still be a place for me on the team when Inspector Rutter gets back, Sarge?’ Beresford asked Paniatowski, the moment the chief inspector had gone.

  Paniatowski took a sip of her vodka. ‘You know, Beresford, the question you should really be asking yourself is not whether you’ll be allowed to stay on the team, but whether you want to.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I want to?’

  ‘Because, if you do stay, you’ll be working directly under the man who’s at the very top of Mr Marlowe’s Shit List. And some of that shit is bound to stick to you eventually.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, but it doesn’t seem to bother you too much,’ Beresford pointed out.

  ‘It bothers me a great deal,’ Paniatowski corrected him. ‘I’d like to be the first female chief inspector in the county, but I’ll never get promotion as long as I’m Cloggin-it Charlie’s bagman.’

  ‘So why don’t you put in for a transfer?’

  ‘I’ve given that possibility serious consideration,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘But in the end, I just can’t bring myself to do it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Why not indeed, Paniatowski wondered.

  Because, she supposed, she owed Woodend.

  Because a couple of times when she’d been in danger of drowning in a sea of her own neuroses, he had kept her afloat.

  Because there was a bond between them that … that she didn’t even want to start trying to analyse.

  ‘He’s very good at what he does,’ she said, knowing full well she was copping out of really answering the question – and not giving a damn. ‘I’m learning a lot from him – more than I think I could learn from any other senior officer on the Force.’

  ‘I think I could learn a lot from both of you,’ Beresford said seriously. ‘And if that means joining the Shit List myself, it’s a price that I’m more than willing to pay.’

  Woodend returned from the bar, looking thoughtful.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘It seems there’s been somethin’ of a blip in the normally smooth an’ democratic process of electin’ ourselves an MP,’ Woodend told her.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I’m not sure I quite understand what you’re getting at?’ Beresford said.

  ‘He means one of the candidates has been murdered,’ Paniatowski translated. ‘Which one is it, sir?’

  ‘Off-hand, I’d have to say it was the one who’d really pissed somebody off,’ Woodend replied.

  Two

  There was very little traffic moving on the dual carriageway which ran between Whitebridge and Accrington that night, and the few drivers who had chosen to brave the thick fog did so with all the hesitation and timidity of an old lady negotiating an icy puddle.

  ‘I can remember when this road was first opened, in the early fifties,’ Woodend said, peering through the windscreen of his battered Wolseley into the swirling confusion. ‘The local press made such a noise about it that you’d have thought it was the newest wonder of the world, beside which the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Coliseum in Rome shrank to mere insignificance.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Do either of you remember all the fuss?’

  ‘No, I can’t say that I do, sir,’ Beresford replied – truthfully – from the back seat. ‘I was only a little kid, back then.’

  ‘And I’m not that much older than the constable,’ Paniatowski said, from the front passenger seat.

  ‘Babies!’ Woodend said, in mock disgust. ‘I’m workin’ with babies. I’m more like a nanny to you than a boss.’

  ‘And a very
good nanny you are, sir,’ said Paniatowski, who actually did remember the opening of the dual carriageway quite well, but had learned from previous experience that when Woodend was in the mood to blow off steam about ‘the modern world’, as he somewhat disparagingly called it, the easiest thing was just to let him get on with it.

  ‘At long last, accordin’ to the Evenin’ Courier, two of the great mill towns of Lancashire had a connectin’ road that was worthy of them,’ Woodend continued. ‘Aye, an’ where do you think they found the space from to make this modern wonder?’

  ‘They pulled down houses and despoiled the countryside,’ Paniatowski said, deadpan.

  ‘They pulled down houses an’ despoiled the countryside!’ Woodend agreed. ‘Bloody good houses, some of them. Houses that had stood for two hundred years, an’ would have stood for another two hundred if they’d been left alone. New houses went, an’ all – houses that had only just gone up. An’ I don’t even want to talk about the huge bleedin’ gash they tore through the fields and meadows!’

  ‘Well, that’s progress for you, sir,’ said Beresford, who had not been with the team long enough to have learned any better.

  ‘Progress!’ Woodend repeated, derisively. ‘The road hadn’t been opened for more than a few months before them same newspapers were complainin’ that traffic was movin’ along it at a snail’s pace, an’ sayin’ that what Central Lancs really needed was a new dual carriageway to take some of the pressure off the old dual carriageway. An’ what’s the next step after that? A new-new dual carriageway to take the pressure off the old-new dual carriageway?’

  He stopped speaking, not because he had run out of things to say on the subject but because of the flashing orange lights which had suddenly – and somewhat eerily – appeared out of the fog.

  ‘We’ve arrived, an’ to prove it, we’re here,’ Woodend told his team.

  The lay-by was long enough to accommodate half a dozen parked lorries, but there was only one there at that moment – a twelve-wheeler with the name ‘Holden Brothers Transport, Carlisle’ painted on its side in large blue letters. Most of the rest of the available space was taken up by several police patrol cars, an ambulance and a Land Rover.

  ‘I see Dr Shastri’s already here,’ Woodend said approvingly as he parked behind the doctor’s Land Rover. He turned his head to address the constable in the back of the car. ‘Have you met our esteemed an’ intrepid police surgeon yet, Beresford?’

  ‘Can’t say I have, sir.’

  ‘Then you’ve a real treat in store for you, lad. You’re bound to fall in love with her – she could bring a statue out in a sweat – but however tempted you might feel to go romancin’ her, I’d appreciate it if you’d curb the urge.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘She’s the best police surgeon that we’ve had in a very long while, so I don’t want her fallin’ for a handsome young bobby, getting’ hitched to him, an’ leavin’ the job.’

  Beresford felt himself starting to blush. Sergeant Paniatowski seemed to appreciate when Mr Woodend was joking and when he wasn’t, the constable thought, but so far it was not a skill he had entirely mastered himself.

  A uniformed inspector walked over to the Wolseley. ‘I’ve secured the site, sir,’ he said.

  Woodend winced.

  Secured the site!

  Why was it that so many bobbies now felt the need to talk like that, he wondered. At what point had good straight-forward policing become tangled up in jargon?

  ‘Who found the stiff?’ he asked aloud.

  ‘The driver of that lorry. He pulled in because the fog was getting thicker. He noticed the body straight away, but thought it was just a tramp lying there at first. It was only when he got right on top of it that he could see there’d been foul play.’

  ‘An’ where is he now?’

  ‘I got one of the lads to drive him into town. I thought he could use a good hot cup of tea.’

  Now that was good policin’, Woodend thought – an’ not a hint of jargon in sight.

  ‘Right, well, I suppose we’d better go an’ look at the corpse,’ he said.

  Emergency spotlights had been set up in a rough circle around the dead man, and kneeling next to the body was a woman wearing a heavy sheepskin jacket over a colourful silk sari.

  ‘How’s it goin’, Doc?’ Woodend asked.

  Dr Shastri looked up from her grisly work, and favoured him with one of her more radiant smiles.

  ‘My dear Mr Woodend,’ she said warmly. ‘What a great pleasure it is to see you.’

  ‘The feelin’s mutual,’ Woodend told her. ‘What can you tell me about the body?’

  Dr Shastri clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

  ‘Always so eager to get down to business, with not even a hint of polite chit-chat first,’ she said. ‘You are completely bereft of social skills, aren’t you, you poor fellow?’

  Woodend grinned. ‘Completely,’ he agreed. ‘Now what about my stiff, Doc?’

  ‘He was killed by a blow to the back of the head.’

  ‘How hard was it?’

  ‘Very violent indeed. If you wish to replicate the effect for yourself, I suggest you get a packet of crisps – any flavour will do – place it on a flat surface, and bring the palm of your hand down on it, as hard as you can.’

  Woodend grimaced. ‘So whoever delivered the blow almost certainly meant to kill him?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. Especially in the light of the injuries the killer inflicted on his victim after he had delivered it.’

  ‘An’ what might they have been?’

  Dr Shastri straightened up, and moved away from the body.

  ‘See for yourself, my dear Chief Inspector,’ she invited

  The corpse had been placed on to a large plastic sheet. It was dressed in an expensive blue lounge suit, and since it was lying on its front, the wound to the back of the head was clearly visible.

  The killer must have used massive force to stove in his skull like that, Woodend thought, letting his eyes travel slowly from the wound itself to the shoulders of the jacket, which were stained bright red.

  ‘He was not killed here,’ Dr Shastri said conversationally, ‘so although pieces of his brain will have been spattered everywhere, I have very little hope of being able to recover any of them.’

  Behind him, Woodend heard Beresford gulping for air.

  ‘Easy, lad,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Think of it as no more than a piece of dead meat.’

  He turned his attention back on the corpse. There had been real anger – real hatred – behind the attack, he thought.

  ‘Where are the injuries which were inflicted after he was dead?’ he asked Dr Shastri.

  ‘Ah, I must turn him over in order for you to see the results of the post-mortem attack,’ the doctor said, crouching down again. ‘It might be wiser for you to leave now, Constable.’

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ Beresford said, unconvincingly.

  ‘Very well, that is your choice,’ Shastri said, and expertly rolled the corpse over on to the other end of the plastic sheet.

  It was the victim’s mouth that Woodend noticed first – or rather, the place where the mouth had been. All that remained now was a mush of bone, muscle and flesh.

  ‘Jesus!’ Woodend said.

  ‘I think I have managed to find most of the teeth,’ Dr Shastri informed him. ‘Not that I expect them to tell us anything that we don’t already know. I should have thought it would be fairly obvious to anyone what had happened to him.’

  ‘Aye, you don’t need a medical degree to see he’s been given a right good hammerin’,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘But it is the other wound which truly fascinates me,’ Dr Shastri continued. ‘I do not think I have ever come across an attack quite like that before.’

  ‘The other wound?’ Woodend asked.

  Dr Shastri laughed. ‘Tear your eyes away from his face for a moment and examine his mid-section,’ she suggested.

  Th
e chief inspector shifted his gaze downwards. Pine’s jacket was open and largely undamaged, but his shirt had been slashed by the same cut which had ripped through the flesh and muscle it had been covering.

  The incision had opened up the dead man from just below his sternum right down to his pelvis, and exposed most of his stomach and a great deal of his intestines, thereby turning what had once been an ingenious biological machine into no more than a pile of bloody offal.

  ‘It must have been very messy work to carry out,’ Dr Shastri said, clinically. ‘To tear through someone else’s stomach in this way, you need a fairly strong stomach yourself.’

  Yes, that was exactly what you would need, Woodend thought, as behind him, he heard the sound of Constable Beresford throwing up.

  Three

  Woodend stood in the reception room outside the chief constable’s office, waiting for the green light (set into the door-frame) to flash and buzz, as a signal that he was now permitted to enter the inner sanctum.

  He was anticipating a long wait, since this was the style of the man he had been summoned to see. Henry Marlowe measured his own importance by the fact that he could keep his subordinates waiting, and Woodend had no doubt that even once he was inside the office itself, the chief constable would prolong the wait by pretending to study whatever documents – however irrelevant to the matter in hand – that he happened to have on his desk at that particular moment.

  The chief inspector looked out of the window. The fog which had plagued Whitebridge the previous day had almost completely lifted, and the late spring sun was making its first appearance in nearly a week. Birds were swooping and diving in the air over the police car park, and squirrels were busy scuttling around the bases of the nearby trees.

  Life was renewing itself everywhere, Woodend thought fancifully, though – thanks to a person or persons as yet unknown – Bradley Pine would most definitely not be taking part in that particular process.

  The green light buzzed.

  It was probably a technical fault, Woodend thought, glancing down at his watch and noting that he had been standing there for no more than a couple of minutes. Or perhaps it was human error – a case of Marlowe pressing the button accidentally. Whichever it was, the chief constable couldn’t be willing to see him already. But since the light undoubtedly had flashed – and his was not to reason why – he knocked on the door, then turned the handle and stepped inside.