Woodend remembered what Monika Paniatowski told him about cigarette-burn scars on Bradley Pine’s arms.
‘How did he come to be an orphan?’ he asked.
‘Bradley’s parents died in a car crash – doubtless they were both drunk at the time – and since he had no other relatives able or willing to take care of him, he was sent here.’
‘An’ how did he settle in?’
‘Remarkably well. The orphanage is, by its very nature, a highly structured society, and structure was something that had been sadly lacking in Bradley’s previous life. He embraced the order he found here. His locker was the tidiest and best set-out that I think I have ever seen.’
‘An’ that was a habit which stayed with him,’ Woodend said, thinking of the arrangement of both Pine’s office and his home.
‘He also developed a remarkable self-discipline,’ the director continued. ‘Once he had decided there was something he wished to achieve, he would work towards that goal with a slow, single-minded determination. He exhibited absolutely none of the impatience that most children – and indeed, a great many adults – would have shown in his situation.’
‘In other words, he was a bit cold an’ ruthless,’ Woodend suggested.
‘I suppose you could apply that term, if you feeling uncharitable,’ the director said, with a hint of mild rebuke in his voice, ‘but I would much prefer to describe him in the way I just have. At any rate, I was not at all surprised to learn that he had risen to be a partner in the company we placed him in as a fifteen-year-old boy. Of all the orphans who have passed through this institution, he was the one of whom I expected the most.’
‘What can you tell me about his friends?’ Woodend asked.
‘He didn’t have any,’ the director replied, without a second’s hesitation. ‘And that was not because the other boys wouldn’t accept him, but because he wouldn’t accept them.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I suspect it was because he thought he didn’t need them.’
‘Everybody needs somebody.’
‘Indeed they do, and in his case, the person he seemed to need was his sister, who had been placed in St Claire’s Orphanage, in the care of Sister Martha and her nuns.’ The director paused for a moment. ‘I think that little girl was the only person in the whole world who Bradley ever really cared about.’
‘What was the age difference between them?’
‘Round about four years. I suspect Bradley had to be both mother and father to her, almost from the moment she was born. And it was perhaps because of that – and perhaps because of what they had had to endure together – that they had developed an amazing bond with each other.’
‘An amazin’ bond,’ Woodend repeated, musingly. ‘How would you know that? Did he tell you?’
The director laughed. ‘As if he would have confided in me! As if he would have confided in anybody! No, Chief Inspector, he didn’t tell me – I observed it for myself.’
‘So you allowed Bradley Pine an’ his sister to see one another sometimes, did you?’
‘Not at first. Sister Martha and I discussed the matter when the children arrived at our respective orphanages, and we came to the conclusion that to allow them to meet would have a disturbing effect on both of them. We even feared that, in order to be together, they might contemplate running away. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened with orphans who’d been separated.’
‘So what eventually made you change your mind?’
‘Bradley did. Not so much from what he said, as by the way he behaved – by his general approach to life. I soon came to understand that he would never do anything which might upset his sister, and that he was far too much of a realist to ever think that running away would be a solution to their problems. He was prepared to wait, you see – he was always prepared to wait.’
‘How do you mean? Prepared to wait.’
‘He never complained about the amount of time we allowed them to spend together when he was still living here, nor about the number of occasions on which he was permitted to visit her once he had left the orphanage himself. But the second she was old enough to leave St Claire’s, he found her a job which ensured that they would see each other every day.’
‘An’ where was this job?’ Woodend asked.
‘In Whitebridge, of course,’ the director replied, sounding slightly surprised that Woodend even needed to ask the question. ‘He found her a position in the typing pool of the company he himself was working for.’
Woodend, Rutter and Paniatowski were sitting around their usual table in the Drum and Monkey. It had been obvious – from the moment he had entered the pub – that the chief inspector had something of significance to tell his team, and once the drinks had arrived, he launched straight into it.
‘The story that Thelma Hawtrey told her charlady about her life before she came to Whitebridge had some truth in it, but not a lot,’ Woodend said. ‘Her parents were killed in a car crash, but they weren’t big landowners – not by any stretch of the imagination. What they actually were was a pair of drunks who’d never amounted to anythin’.’
‘You can’t blame her for lying about that,’ Rutter said. ‘It isn’t something anybody would find it easy to admit to.’
‘Agreed,’ Woodend said. ‘But the other thing she forgot to mention to Mrs Chubb is that Bradley Pine was her half-brother.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Rutter asked.
‘I’m sure. The only reason she came to Whitebridge at all was that her brother made all the arrangements.’
‘Then she was lying when she said that Pine was her lover!’ Rutter exclaimed.
‘Was she?’ Woodend asked.
‘Of course. If she was his sister—’
‘She changed the bed-sheets after he’d visited her,’ Monika Paniatowski interrupted. ‘And when they went away together, they booked into hotels as husband and wife.’
‘I asked her why they didn’t get married, an’ she said it was because she didn’t want to,’ Woodend continued. ‘But now we know the truth, don’t we? They didn’t get married because they couldn’t.’
‘But that’s monstrous!’ Rutter said.
‘They’ve loved each other from the time they were little kids,’ Woodend said. ‘I don’t know when they started to crave for each other sexually, but whenever it was, they held back until they’d both left the orphanage. An’ I think that’s all down to Pine’s determination. The director told me he always knew what he wanted, but would wait patiently until the time was right to get it. That’s what he was doin’ in that case – waiting patiently until the time was right.’
‘How can you be so sure they didn’t have a sexual relationship while they were still in the orphanages?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Their meetings were always supervised. If there’d been any hint of physical attraction passin’ between them, Thelma would never have been allowed to come to Whitebridge when she’d just turned fourteen.’
‘So when do you think their affair did begin?’ Rutter asked.
‘My guess would be that it began the second she started workin’ in the typin’ pool.’
‘And did it carry on, even after she’d begun seeing Alec Hawtrey?’
‘Oh yes! In fact, I think she only made her play for Hawtrey because Pine told her to.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Rutter protested. ‘If he loved her, as you say he did—’
‘He wanted to get on in life. He wanted them both to get on in life. He hadn’t earned enough money from his patent to buy his own factory, but he could just about scrape together a sufficient amount to buy his way into Hawtrey’s Mattresses – if Alec Hawtrey was willing to let him. And once Hawtrey had made the settlement on his first wife – a settlement made necessary by his affair with Thelma – he didn’t have a lot of choice but to take on a partner in the long term.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ Rutter said. ‘I can just about see Pine encour
aging Thelma to split up Hawtrey’s first marriage, but why would he then agree to letting her become the second Mrs Hawtrey?’
‘To make sure that when Alec Hawtrey did take on a partner, that partner was Bradley. It was like havin’ a spy right in the middle of the enemy camp. Besides, why would he object? He couldn’t marry Thelma himself, could he? And if she was married to a good friend, who eventually became his partner, he’d have all the excuse in the world for bein’ in her company.’
‘But knowing he had to share her—’
‘Maybe he didn’t,’ Woodend argued. ‘Maybe she stopped sleepin’ with Alec the moment they were married. Maybe that’s why Alec went mountain climbin’ – because he thought that might excite her, an’ make her want him back in her bed again. But even if Pine did have to share her, it’s possible it didn’t bother him overmuch. Not everybody places as much of a premium on sexual fidelity as … as …’
Oh shit! he thought, as he felt his words dry up in his mouth.
Caught up in making his case, as he had been, he’d inadvertently wandered back in Rutter’s emotional minefield again – for though he hadn’t actually been going to say, ‘… as Maria did,’ he was sure that Bob was perfectly capable of burning those words on to his own brain himself.
‘Besides, even if he had to share her body with Alec Hawtrey, he had her heart all to himself, and that was probably all that mattered to him,’ Paniatowski said, coming to the rescue.
‘Exactly,’ Woodend agreed gratefully.
‘I don’t really understand why we’re still discussing Pine’s relationship with his sister,’ Rutter said, eager to move away from the subject as soon as possible. ‘After all, that’s not going to help us to find our murderer, now is it?’
‘Not that murderer, no,’ Woodend agreed.
‘What other murderer is there?’ Rutter wondered.
‘Think about it,’ Woodend said. ‘In carryin’ on as they always had, Pine an’ Thelma were playin’ a very dangerous game. An’ what would have happened if Alec Hawtrey found out about it?’
‘At the very least, they’d have become social pariahs,’ Monika Paniatowski said, embracing Woodend’s line of argument. ‘There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that Alec Hawtrey would have divorced Thelma, and Bradley Pine would have lost any chance of pursuing his political ambitions.’
‘The business partnership would have broken up – there’s no doubt about that, either – and the business itself would probably have collapsed,’ Woodend continued. ‘An’, very possibly, both Thelma Hawtrey an’ Bradley Pine would have gone to prison.’
‘But why should Alec Hawtrey have started to suspect what was going on?’ Rutter asked. ‘They’d been getting away with it for years.’
‘An’ maybe they thought that their luck couldn’t hold for very much longer,’ Woodend suggested. ‘Or perhaps Alec Hawtrey was already startin’ to get suspicious.’
‘So they killed him?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘It’s pure speculation!’ Rutter protested.
‘Speculation is what we do, lad,’ Woodend said patiently. ‘It’s how we work. We’re presented with numerous strands of life, an’ the way we narrow them down to leads which are worth followin’ is by speculation.’
‘Even so—’
‘Say we’re right – Monika an’ me. Say Thelma an’ Pine had decided they had to get rid of Alec Hawtrey. What better way would there be to go about it than by stagin’ an accident on a mountainside?’
Twenty-Three
It hadn’t taken Beresford long to prepare his mother’s evening meal, for though she had once been a wonderful cook herself, she would now very rarely eat anything other than baked beans on toast.
Watching her eat it – since even this simple task could sometimes be something of a challenge for her – he found himself wondering what he would do when the increasing demands of his job eventually made it impossible for him to look after her any more.
‘You don’t have to sit there like a stuffed owl, you know, Colin,’ Mrs Beresford said. ‘I’m sure there are any number of things that you’d rather be getting on with.’
Beresford smiled, sadly.
There were times when his mother seemed so lucid – so aware of the world around her. On such occasions it was almost possible to believe that her Alzheimer’s had been no more than a bad dream from which he was just waking up. But if that were really the case – and sometimes he found himself questioning what was real and what wasn’t – the period of wakefulness did not last long, and soon he was back in his nightmare again.
‘You never talk to me much about your work, these days,’ his mother said, between mouthfuls of baked beans. ‘Why is that?’
‘I didn’t think you’d be interested,’ he said weakly.
‘Didn’t you? Well, I can assure you that I am. So why don’t you tell me about it now?’
‘There’s this murder case that we’re investigating at the moment,’ Beresford said, feeling his mental floodgates burst open, and the words come spilling out. ‘My boss, Chief Inspector Woodend, has been letting me carry out a lot of inquiries on my own. I think that’s because he’s impressed with the work I did on the Judith Maitland case.’
‘That’s nice,’ his mother said, encouragingly.
‘It is,’ Beresford agreed. ‘In fact, it’s a lot more than just nice. He’s giving me a chance that no other chief inspector on the Force would even think of giving me. The thing is, I’m not sure he’s right to have so much faith in me. There are times when I think that any success I had with the Maitland case may have been no more than a fluke.’
‘Oh dear! That must be very worrying for you, son,’ his mother commiserated.
‘Very worrying,’ Beresford agreed. ‘You see, Mum, I don’t want to tell him just how unsure of myself I am, in case he stops trusting me to do the job. On the other hand, I’m terrified that I might miss a vital clue, and let him and the rest of the team down.’
‘It is a problem,’ his mother agreed.
‘I suppose I could ask Sergeant Paniatowski what to do,’ Beresford continued. ‘She’s not that much older than me, so she probably remembers what it was like to have doubts about herself. Of course, there’s always the danger that if I do that, she’ll go straight to Mr Woodend and tell him exactly what I’ve told her. So what do you think I should do, Mum?’
His mother pushed her plate of beans to one side.
‘Didn’t you …’ she began. ‘Didn’t you … I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name for the minute.’
‘Colin,’ Beresford said dully. ‘My name’s Colin.’
‘That’s right,’ his mother agreed. ‘Didn’t you used to be a policeman, Colin?’
It was easier to walk through the church door this time, Monika Paniatowski thought. It was getting easier every time she did it.
But why should it ever have been hard? She was no longer the frightened little girl she’d been the last time she had attended church on a regular basis. She was a grown woman – a detective sergeant in the Central Lancs Constabulary. It had been nothing but an act of cowardice on her part to ever allow her past to intimidate her as she had.
Father Taylor was standing near the main door, almost as if he had been waiting for her to arrive.
‘Now that’s what I call a quick response,’ he said. ‘Not only has it only been missing for a little over half an hour, but I haven’t even got around to reporting it gone yet.’
‘What’s missing?’ Paniatowski asked, mystified. ‘What haven’t you reported?’
‘My bicycle. I left it outside the church, and when I went back – no more than five minutes later – it wasn’t there any more.’
‘Was it chained up?’
‘No.’
‘You should have a chain, you know.’
‘I do, but I never bother to use it.’
‘Did you see anybody suspicious hanging around at the time you parked the bicycle?’
/> Father Taylor laughed. ‘Monika, Monika, Monika …’ he said, shaking his head.
‘What’s so funny,’ Paniatowski demanded.
‘It was just a joke, dear Monika. I thought you’d have seen that long before now.’
‘So you didn’t have your bicycle stolen after all?’
‘Yes, I did. Or, at least, it’s gone missing. But the point of the joke was in my pretending to think that a detective sergeant – with much more important things on her mind – would even be interested in a stolen bicycle.’
Paniatowski smiled weakly. ‘I get it now,’ she admitted. ‘But if your bicycle has been stolen—’
‘Monika, Monika, Monika,’ the priest repeated, shaking his head again. ‘My bike doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it does. There are laws—’
‘If it’s only been borrowed, it will be returned. If it’s been stolen, then perhaps whoever took it needed it more than I do.’
‘Still, you do need the use of your bike, if you’re to visit your parishioners and—’
‘If I don’t get it back, Father Kenyon will probably give me a little money from the parish funds to buy another one. And he doesn’t, well, I’ve been blessed with strong legs, and I can always walk.’ Father Taylor’s face grew more serious. ‘You must learn not to focus your attention on the small matters whilst the larger matters are still left unresolved. You must not use the little picture as a way of escaping having to deal with the big one.’
‘Is that what I was doing?’
‘Yes, I truly think it was.’
‘And what big picture am I attempting to escape from?’
‘The state of your spiritual health, of course.’
‘I didn’t come here to talk about that.’
‘Then why did you come here?’
A good question, Paniatowski thought. Why did I come here?
‘I had a little free time on my hands, and I thought the walk up the hill might be good exercise,’ she said aloud.
‘Of course! That would explain everything,’ Father Taylor agreed. ‘Can I ask you another question?’
Sins of the Fathers Page 16