Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘If I were to suggest that we walked over to the confessional together, would you turn me down?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘No. I’d be perfectly willing to walk over to it with you. It’s going into it that I’d object to.’

  ‘Then let’s go somewhere else,’ Father Taylor suggested. ‘I know a little spot, not far from here. I can’t say it has a pretty view to look at, or a brilliant band to listen to. I can’t even claim it serves the best food in town – because it doesn’t have a kitchen.’

  ‘You’re talking about the vestry, aren’t you?’ Paniatowski asked, with a smile slowly creeping across her mouth.

  Father Taylor laughed again. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, Detective Sergeant, I’m talking about the vestry,’ he admitted. ‘Are you willing to accept my less-than-dazzling invitation?’

  Paniatowski shrugged. ‘Why not?’ she said.

  There was still what Woodend would have called, ‘a good two hours suppin’ time’ left in the day, but Bob Rutter had had enough of pouring beer down his throat, and told his boss that he’d decided to have an early night.

  The moment he’d reached his car, he began to think that he’d made a mistake. True, he hadn’t wanted to spend any more time in the pub, but there was nothing else that he particularly wanted to do either.

  For an hour or two, he drove around, thinking about the past and fretting about the future.

  He was so lonely, and there was a part of him that wanted to ask Monika if they might pick up again where they had left off. But he understood – deep within himself – that he could never do that. However much he missed her – and he did – however much he wished he could take her in his arms again – and he ached to do just that – he knew that the shadow of his wronged, dead wife would always be hanging over them like a poisonous cloud.

  So what was he to do? What was he to bloody do?

  Still unable to bring himself to move into the house he had once shared with Maria, he had taken a room in a moderately priced boarding house on the edge of town, and it was to there that he finally decided to head.

  It was already after eleven when he pulled up in the street outside, and most of the houses were in darkness. He hoped that once he was in bed himself, he would eventually drop off to sleep.

  He was slipping his key into the lock when he heard a voice just behind him say, ‘Bob!’

  He turned around, and saw a blonde woman standing by the gate.

  ‘Monika?’ he asked.

  Then he realized that it was not Monika at all, and when he spoke again, his voice had hardened.

  ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ he told the woman.

  ‘I know I have,’ Elizabeth Driver replied.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ he asked.

  Elizabeth Driver laughed, but it was a nervous laugh rather than an amused one.

  ‘I’m a reporter,’ she said. ‘It’s all a part of my job to know where to find people.’

  ‘You haven’t been following me, have you?’ he demanded angrily.

  Elizabeth Driver shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t been following you, I promise you that.’

  ‘Then how did you know I was going to turn up here at just this time. Until ten or fifteen minutes ago, I didn’t even know it myself.’

  ‘I had no idea when you’d arrive. But I knew you had to come eventually, and I’ve been waiting.’

  ‘For how long?’

  Elizabeth Driver shrugged. ‘A couple of hours. Maybe more. I don’t really know.’

  ‘Why have you been waiting?’

  ‘Because I needed to talk to you, and I knew if I approached you anywhere else, you’d probably refuse to speak to me.’

  ‘I should refuse to speak to you now,’ Rutter said.

  ‘I know you should. But please don’t!’

  Rutter sighed heavily. ‘Say what you’ve got to say – and then get the hell out of here.’

  ‘I wanted to say how sorry I am for ever telling Maria about your affair with Sergeant Paniatowski,’ Elizabeth Driver said.

  ‘Why should you want to do that now?’ Rutter demanded angrily. ‘Is it because she’s dead?’

  ‘No, it’s not at all because she’s dead, though that only makes it even worse than it would have been otherwise. I should never have told her at all – even if she’d been going to live to a hundred.’

  ‘Then why did you?’

  ‘Because I thought there’d be a story in it. Because, at the time I did it, I thought that getting stories was the only thing that really mattered in life. But I don’t think that now.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Because I want your forgiveness.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can forgive you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what? Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘You said you don’t know if you can forgive me – but that’s not the same as saying you know you can’t, is it, Bob?’

  ‘No,’ Rutter agreed. ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Elizabeth Driver told. ‘Search your soul, to see if you can find a little charity somewhere in it for me. If you can, it will be a great weight off my shoulders.’

  ‘And if I can’t?’

  ‘If you can’t,’ Elizabeth Driver said, ‘I suppose that’s no more than I deserve.’

  Then she turned on her heel, and walked quickly away up the street.

  Henry Marlowe had been drinking steadily since late afternoon, and now he was unquestionably – demonstrably – drunk.

  ‘Bloody Woodend!’ he growled.

  ‘It was your decision to assign him to the case,’ Bill Hawes, his political agent, pointed out.

  ‘I know it was my bloody decision, but what choice did I have? I needed a quick result, and Woodend, of all the officers serving under me, was the man most likely to get me one. But I never thought – not for a second – that he’d arrest Thelma Hawtrey.’

  ‘I fail to see why you’re getting so het up about it,’ Dawes said. ‘So what if he arrested her? He let her go again, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he let her go.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘But you don’t know the bastard like I do. Once he’s got a scent in his nose, he won’t let go until he’s sunk his teeth into something.’

  ‘But is there anything there for him to sink his teeth into? Is Thelma Hawtrey aware of what happened up that mountainside?’

  ‘How the bloody hell am I expected to know that?’

  ‘I thought perhaps you might have asked her.’

  ‘I might have asked her,’ Marlowe repeated bitterly. ‘Oh, absolutely! I could just have gone up to her, and said casually, “Do you know what your boyfriend did to your husband on that mountainside?” That would have been a brilliant stroke, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘The only reason I raised that particular point is because, if he didn’t tell her, then the secret died with Bradley Pine, and you’re in the clear.’

  ‘Died with him?’ Marlowe repeated, slurring his words. ‘How could it have died with him, when all those top bobbies up in Cumberland know about it?’

  ‘They’ll say nothing, because they’re almost as guilty as you are.’

  Marlowe shuddered. ‘Guilty?’ he repeated. ‘Am I guilty?’

  ‘What else would you call it?’ Hawes asked practically. ‘But, as I said, it’s as much in their interest to keep it quiet as it is in yours.’

  ‘And then there’s that other bugger, who knows exactly what happened,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Jeremy Tully? The company’s accountant? But he’s in Australia now, isn’t he?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter where he is,’ Marlowe moaned. ‘If Woodend decides he wants to find him, that’s just what he’ll bloody-well do.’

  Twenty-Four

  Had Bradley Pine still been alive, the letter would have been del
ivered to his home address, but since he was now occupying a refrigerated drawer in the police morgue, it was diverted instead to Whitebridge Police Headquarters, where it was waiting on Woodend’s desk when he got into work the next morning.

  It was postmarked ‘Western Australia’, and contained a single sheet of paper. Even before he started to read it, Woodend could tell from the wild handwriting that the sender had been very agitated.

  I know you are no worse a man than most of us, Bradley. The Devil tempts us all. He tempted Jesus Christ on a mountainside, just as he tempted you. But Our Lord resisted – and you did not. Before I went away, I begged you to confess your sins, but you would not listen. And now, I beg you again to confess. There will be no rest for either of us until you do.

  What if you die, Bradley? What if you have a fatal accident before you cleanse your soul? Confess! For the love of God, confess.

  Jeremy

  Woodend lit up a Capstan Full Strength, and took a deep and thoughtful drag of it.

  ‘Speculation’ was what Bob Rutter had called the theory that he’d been propounding in the Drum and Monkey the previous night. Well, this was more than speculation – this was proof positive!

  But so what?

  ‘Stop thinking about it, Charlie!’ he said aloud. ‘It’s nothin’ but a waste of time.’

  A complete waste of time, in fact!

  A bloody waste of time!

  Because if Bradley Pine had killed Alec Hawtrey, then any chance of bringing him to justice had ended with his own murder. And if Thelma Hawtrey had assisted Pine – or at least, strongly encouraged him to go ahead – there was absolutely no way of proving it now.

  Woodend took another drag on his cigarette. ‘Focus on the matter in hand,’ he ordered himself. ‘Focus on Pine’s death!’

  And then, completely ignoring his own sound advice, he picked up the phone and asked to be connected to Superintendent Springer of the Cumberland Constabulary.

  It was ten minutes before Springer could be tracked down, but when he finally came on to the line he seemed more than delighted to be talking to an old colleague from his days in Scotland Yard.

  ‘It’s really quite absurd that we don’t see much more of each other, Charlie,’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘How far is your patch from mine, would you think?’ Springer asked. ‘Sixty miles, more or less?’

  ‘Somethin’ like that.’

  ‘So it’s two hours at the most – even in bad traffic. There’s no reason at all why we shouldn’t get together. You and Joan should come up for dinner. Soon! And rather than drive back to Whitebridge, you could spend the night with us. The house is plenty big enough for you to bring your Annie, too, if she’s available – though if she’s anything like my kids, she won’t want to be spending her time with old farts like us.’

  Woodend chuckled. ‘She probably wouldn’t, but she couldn’t even if she wanted to, because they’re keepin’ her very busy in that nursin’ school in Manchester – or so she’d have me believe.’

  ‘But you an’ the missus could certainly come up?’

  ‘I’ll have to check with Joan first, but I’m sure she’d enjoy it as much as I would,’ Woodend said.

  He meant it. A lot of the bobbies who he’d worked with in the Yard had got right up his nose most of the time, but Ron Springer never had. He was a bloody good bobby, and a thoroughly decent feller.

  ‘Anyway, that probably isn’t why you’re calling me now, is it?’ Springer asked.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Woodend agreed. ‘I’m ringin’ you about a feller called Alec Hawtrey, who was killed in a mountaineerin’ accident on your territory about three years ago.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, then Springer said, ‘Why would you be asking about that, Charlie, after all this time?’

  ‘Any reason why I shouldn’t?’ Woodend countered.

  ‘I suppose not. But that’s all over and done with, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes, in a way, I suppose it is,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But, as it happens, I’m investigating the murder of a man called Bradley Pine, who was standin’ as Conservative—’

  ‘I read the newspapers, Charlie,’ Springer interrupted. ‘I know all about that.’

  ‘An’ Pine, in case you haven’t made the connection, was the same Bradley Pine who was with Alec Hawtrey when he died.’

  ‘And did everything he possibly could to keep him alive. But Hawtrey was in his fifties, and had a broken leg.’

  ‘You seem to be remarkably well informed about the incident,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I was there,’ Springer told him.

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Policing up here’s not at all like it is down there in Lancashire. We have to get involved in all kinds of things that you lot never even have to bother your heads about.’

  ‘Which means what, exactly?’

  ‘One of our jobs is to provide tactical support to the mountain rescue teams, and, during the particular incident you’re asking about, I was the one who happened to be co-ordinating it.’

  ‘An’ did you notice anythin’ out of the ordinary?’

  ‘What do you mean – out of the ordinary?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought the phrase was too difficult to understand,’ Woodend said, wondering exactly what was going on at the other end of the line. ‘I mean strange! Unusual! Not quite the norm!’

  There was another pause from Springer.

  ‘Listen, Charlie,’ he said finally, ‘I’ve known you for a long time, and chancing your arm because you think you’ve finally got Henry Marlowe out of the way is just the sort of thing I’d expect you to do.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Woodend said.

  ‘But he may lose the election, you know, in which case, he’ll be back with you as chief constable.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘And even if he wins, he might still have some considerable influence – even at a distance – over how the Central Lancs Force is run. So if I was you, I wouldn’t even think of crossing him.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Woodend confessed.

  ‘Pull the other leg, Charlie – it’s got bells on,’ Springer said.

  ‘You really have lost me,’ Woodend protested.

  ‘Three years ago, there was a climbing accident in the mountains involving two experienced climbers and a novice,’ Springer said, as flatly as if he were reading it off a piece of paper. ‘The novice broke his leg, probably through his lack of experience. The other two climbers did all they could to save him, but it was a losing battle from the start, and, weakened as he was by his injuries, he died of exposure. That’s not only all you need to know – it’s all there is to know.’

  ‘Then why is this phone in my hand almost frostin’ over?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘Now you’re the one who’s not making any sense at all, Charlie,’ Springer said.

  ‘You say you’ve known me for a long time. Well, I’ve known you for a long time, an’ all,’ Woodend said. ‘Three or four minutes ago, you sounded just like my old mate Ron. Then I mentioned Bradley Pine and Alec Hawtrey, an’ suddenly you turn as cold as a Siberian blizzard. What’s it all about?’

  ‘It’s not about anything,’ Springer said. ‘If I seem a little strange to you, it’s probably because, at the moment, I’m under a lot of pressure at work.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Woodend said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. ‘But to get back to that other matter—’

  ‘What other matter?’

  ‘Me an’ Joan comin’ up there, havin’ dinner with you, an’ maybe stayin’ the night. By the middle of next week, the case I’m workin’ on will either be solved or completely in the doldrums, so I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t at least pencil in Friday or Saturday—’

  ‘Listen, about that,’ Springer interrupted.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll … err … have to talk to Mary, and see w
hen we can fit it in,’ Springer said. ‘We’ll definitely do it, but I can’t promise it will be all that soon, because, as I’ve just explained, I’ve got a lot of work on.’

  ‘I see,’ Woodend said thoughtfully, ‘So maybe we’ll wait until things have eased off a bit for you.’

  ‘Yes, I think that would be the best idea.’

  ‘But in the meantime, if anythin’ does occur to you about what happened to Alec Hawtrey on that—’

  ‘Leave it, Charlie!’ Springer urged. ‘Alec Hawtrey’s dead and buried. Let him rest in peace, for God’s sake!’

  And then he hung up.

  Rutter and Paniatowski were in Woodend’s office, studying a detailed street map of Whitebridge.

  ‘If the boss and I are right, then the only reason that the killer drove the car back into Whitebridge is because he needed to get back here himself,’ Rutter said. ‘An if we work on that assumption, then it’s only reasonable to also assume that he doesn’t live more than a mile away from Greenfields. Would you agree with that?’

  ‘Probably,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘Chances are that, however careful he’d been, there was probably some blood on him – and the longer he was out on the streets, the more chance there was of someone spotting that.’

  Being in such close proximity to Bob Rutter again was a bit like forcing yourself to walk into the church after a long absence, she thought – you were probably never going to be entirely comfortable with it, but it got a little easier every time you did it.

  ‘So let’s see just what falls within that one-mile area, shall we,’ Rutter suggested.

  He picked up a compass, set it to scale, and drew a circle on the map, with the spot where the Cortina had been found at the centre of it.

  To the south of the centre were the old cotton mills, the raison d’être for Greenfields ever having been built. To the east was the city centre, and the beginnings of the access road out to the dual carriageway. Council estates lay to the west, and private housing estates to the north. St Mary’s Church – the last place that Pine had been seen alive – was well outside the circle, but Bankside – where he met his death – was neatly dissected by it.

  Rutter and Paniatowski gazed down at the line for a moment, then Rutter said, ‘Maybe we’ve been overlooking the obvious solution.’