Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

  ‘That the killer could have been one of Thelma Hawtrey’s neighbours?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Exactly. A neighbour wouldn’t have known exactly when Pine was planning to visit Thelma, but that wouldn’t have mattered – because he could have seen him arrive through his front window.’

  ‘But if that had been the case, he wouldn’t have had time to set his ambush in the shrubbery.’

  ‘If he was a neighbour, there’d have been no need for an ambush.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! Just put yourself in Pine’s position for a minute. He’s very careful about when he visits Thelma, because he doesn’t want to be seen to be doing it. But with the cover provided by the fog, he probably thinks he’ll be safe enough that night. Then, just as he’s parking, he sees somebody coming out of one of the other houses. What’s he going to do now? Is he going to walk straight up to Thelma’s door, even though he knows that he’s been spotted?’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ Paniatowski said. ‘He’s going to wait until the neighbour draws level with him, and then produce some kind of story which will explain why he’s there.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘He’ll probably claim that he’s got lost in the fog.’

  ‘Exactly. So he’s standing there – worried, but not the least suspicious – as the neighbour approaches him. Now all that neighbour has to do is to get him to turn his back for a second, and the job’s done.’

  ‘So the neighbour says something like, “I thought I saw somebody moving around outside Mrs Hawtrey’s front door”?’

  ‘Yes. And Pine turns to look. He’s already standing in the gateway, so when the blow is struck he falls straight into the rhododendron bushes.’

  ‘And if the killer was a neighbour, he might also have been a friend of Alec Hawtrey’s,’ Paniatowski said, with growing enthusiasm. ‘Living where he was, he could have worked out what was going on between Pine and Thelma, and been outraged that Thelma was dishonouring his friend’s memory.’

  ‘But would he have been outraged enough to kill Pine?’ Rutter wondered. ‘Enough to mutilate his body?’

  They had been building up a bubble of excitement between them, but these last few words from Rutter quite punctured it.

  ‘It’s hard to imagine anyone hating Pine enough to do that,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘If I could have got my hands on the bloody bastard who killed Maria …’ Rutter said.

  An awkward silence followed, as it always did when Maria’s name accidentally came up.

  Then Paniatowski said, ‘Would you have killed Maria’s murderer for what he did to her – or for what he’d done to you?’

  ‘You can be cruel,’ Rutter told her.

  Had she meant to be cruel, Paniatowski wondered.

  Had she been punishing him for what he’d done to her?

  And if that was the case, did she have any right to do it?

  ‘I’m not being cruel,’ she said, pushing self-analysis to one side. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that really what you’re doing? And if it is, would you like to explain how?’

  ‘The boss says we have to try to get into the heads of murderers, and if we need to use our own experiences to do that – however painful they might be – we just need to bite on the bullet and go ahead.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Rutter said, somewhat pacified, ‘and I apologize for taking it the wrong way.’

  ‘And I apologize for pushing you like that,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to.’

  ‘But I do want to, because you’re spot on when you say that it might help,’ Rutter told her. He thought for a moment. ‘If I’m honest,’ he continued, slightly shakily, ‘I think I’d have to say I would have killed him for my own benefit, because however much pain I could have caused Maria’s murderer, it wouldn’t have helped her at all.’

  ‘So we think this murderer did it for himself, and not to avenge someone else?’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘That’s what we think.’

  ‘And because he was so full of hatred, he wanted to humiliate Pine even in death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what I still don’t understand is why the murderer put Pine in the back of the car,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Rutter admitted.

  ‘If he was so keen to rob Pine of his dignity, why not cram him in the boot? Putting him on the back seat instead seems … I don’t know … to be almost cherishing him.’

  ‘And even with the thick fog, placing him on the back seat increased the risk tremendously,’ Rutter said. ‘It would have been much safer for him to hide the body away in the boot.’

  There was a discreet cough behind them, and they turned to see Sergeant Dix standing there in the open doorway.

  ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know that me an’ the lads are about to set off for Upper Bankside, sir,’ Dix told him. ‘Will you be coming with us?’

  ‘Yes I will,’ Rutter replied. ‘Just give me a minute to finish off here, will you?’

  Dix nodded and left.

  ‘I think we might have hit on something important with this question of why the killer didn’t put the body in the boot,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Do you want to bounce it around some more, later?’

  Rutter smiled. ‘That’s a good idea. Bouncing ideas off each other was what we used to do in the good old days, wasn’t it?

  Paniatowski returned his smile. ‘Yes, it was. That’s exactly what we did in the good old days.’

  ‘And there’s no reason we can’t get back into the habit.’

  ‘None at all.’ Paniatowski took a deep breath. ‘We could perhaps discuss it over lunch,’ she suggested.

  Rutter shook his head. ‘That’s not on, I’m afraid. I’ve already got a lunch appointment booked.’

  ‘With the boss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who with?’

  ‘That’s really none of your business, is it?’ Rutter asked, an angry note suddenly present in his voice.

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ Paniatowski replied, surprised by the unexpected vehemence.

  ‘I don’t have to justify my movements to you,’ Rutter said. ‘You’re not my wife, you know!’

  ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to remind me, but I was already quite well aware of that,’ Monika answered quietly.

  Rutter slapped his forehead – hard – with the palm of his hand. ‘Oh God, Monika, I didn’t mean … I wasn’t trying to say …’

  ‘I know,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘We’ll meet up sometime this afternoon,’ Rutter promised. ‘There’s … there’s a lot to talk about, and I do think we’re making progress.’

  Then he stood up and strode quickly out of the office.

  When Henry Marlowe put down the telephone, the look on his face was one of almost blind panic.

  ‘That was the Cumberland Police on the line,’ he told Bill Hawes. ‘They’ve just had a phone call from Woodend. He wanted to know all about Alec Hawtrey’s accident.’

  ‘Who did he talk to?’

  ‘Superintendent Springer.’

  ‘And what does this superintendent know about it?’

  ‘Everything! He was there on the mountainside at the time. It couldn’t have been done without him.’

  ‘“I am in blood stepp’d in so far, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er,”’ Bill Hawes said.

  ‘What in God’s name are you talking about, Bill?’ Henry Marlowe demanded.

  ‘It’s a quote.’

  ‘A quote!’

  ‘From Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or, as actors prefer to call it, the Scottish Play.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s a very bloody useful thing to know, isn’t it, now?’ Marlowe said.

  ‘It is, as a matter of fact,’ Hawes told hi
m. ‘It reminds us, in case we need reminding, that there’s no going back – that once we’ve done something wrong, we have to keep on doing wrong in order not to be found out.’

  ‘So what’s the point?’

  ‘The point is that once you’d told me this Superintendent Springer was involved in the incident, I ceased to be in the least bit concerned. Not only will he not shop you, Henry, he’ll continue to tell lies – perhaps even bigger ones than he’s told already – in order to protect you. He has no choice. He can’t protect himself, if he doesn’t first protect you.’

  ‘I hope to God you’re right,’ Marlowe said.

  So do I, Hawes thought. Because the last thing I need at this stage in the election is to have to come up with a third candidate.

  Twenty-Five

  The weather was still not quite warm enough for Dr Shastri to have abandoned the trademark sheepskin jacket which she wore over her sari, but, as she climbed down from her Land Rover, Woodend saw that her small delicate feet were now clad only in elegant thong sandals.

  Actually, the chief inspector thought, ‘climbing down’ was not the right way to describe the motions she’d just gone through. Other people – ordinary people – climbed down from their Land Rovers. Dr Shastri seemed to float, and though she was not, in fact, bathed in a cloud of swirling rose petals as she descended, it almost seemed as though she were.

  The doctor saw him standing there next to his Wolseley, and favoured him with a wide smile.

  ‘Ah, my dear Chief Inspector!’ she said. ‘How thoughtful of you to drive all the way over here with the sole purpose of providing me with an escort from my vehicle to my place of business.’

  Woodend grinned. ‘Your place of business! Sometimes, you know, you talk just like my bank manager.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ the doctor agreed. ‘And is there not good reason for it, considering that, in many ways, the resemblance between the bank manager and the police surgeon is quite remarkable?’

  ‘How do you figure that out?’

  ‘I should have thought it was obvious. Both of us deal with customers who would never come to see us if they weren’t already dead men.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And though the bank manager may use only cutting words, whereas I use a very sharp scalpel, we are both intent on draining whatever is left of those poor customers’ blood.’

  ‘You really should go on the stage,’ Woodend said, and – unlike when he’d used almost the same words to Foxy Rowton, the solicitor – he meant it as a compliment.

  ‘You seem very eager to move me into another line of work,’ Dr Shastri said. ‘But ask yourself this, my dear Chief Inspector – if I were gone, seduced by the glamour of a life in the limelight, who would then be here to perform those miracles that you demand of me on almost a daily basis? And it is another miracle that you have come here to request, is it not?’

  ‘Not quite a miracle,’ Woodend said.

  ‘No?’ Dr Shastri asked sceptically.

  ‘It’s more like a small favour.’

  ‘Now I am becoming most concerned,’ Dr Shastri told him. ‘To ask me for a favour is one thing, but if you go out of your way to soften your request by calling it a small favour, I can only assume it is, in reality, the size of an elephant. Am I not right?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But not a full-sized elephant. At most, it’s a cute little baby.’

  ‘My concern is mounting by the minute,’ Dr Shastri told him. ‘But let us see this beast of yours anyway.’

  ‘Do you happen, by any chance, to know the Cumberland police surgeon?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘We have met.’

  ‘An’ would you say that you’re on good terms with him?’

  ‘Of course I’m on good terms with him. All doctors are on the best of possible terms with each other – just as all policemen are on the best of possible with their own colleagues.’

  Woodend thought of his own relationship with Henry Marlowe, and grimaced.

  ‘Does that mean that he’d send you a copy of an autopsy report, if you asked for it?’ he asked.

  ‘I should think so. What is the name of this deceased person you have suddenly developed a morbid interest in?’

  ‘He’s a feller called Alec Hawtrey,’ Woodend said.

  The woman who answered the door of the house directly opposite Thelma Hawtrey’s was called Mrs Comstock. She was somewhere in her mid-fifties, and had enough rings on her fingers to open a jewellery store.

  ‘It’s absolutely appalling that there was a murder just beyond my gate,’ she said to Rutter, with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Yes, it’s always a shock when something terrible like that happens so close to home,’ Rutter replied, sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t know how I shall bear it,’ Mrs Comstock continued. ‘All my friends will be laughing at me.’

  ‘Laughing at you?’

  ‘I can almost hear them telling one another that perhaps their houses didn’t cost quite as much as ours did, but at least the streets in front of them aren’t running with blood.’

  ‘I can’t begin to describe how deeply, deeply, sorry I feel for you,’ Rutter said.

  ‘We always thought we were above that kind of thing,’ Mrs Comstock said, not even noticing the sarcasm. She sniffed. ‘Of course, Mr Pine wasn’t actually a resident,’ she continued, brightening a little, ‘so in a way, it doesn’t really reflect on us at all, does it?’

  ‘Did you see anything?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘When?’

  ‘On the night of the murder.’

  ‘No, we didn’t. We only got back from our holiday – from our vacation, I should say – yesterday afternoon. We went on a cruise, in the Caribbean, you know. Very expensive, but absolutely delightful.’

  ‘Do you have any holiday snaps that you could show me?’ Rutter asked, and then, before the bloody woman could reply that she had, he quickly added, ‘No, you won’t have, will you? They won’t be back from the chemist’s yet.’

  ‘Our photographs of the excursion are being developed in a professional laboratory, to the highest possible standards,’ Mrs Comstock said, missing the point yet again.

  ‘Well, much as I’d love to stay and chat some more, Mrs Comstock, I do have a murderer to catch,’ Rutter said, before turning and starting to walk back down the drive.

  ‘We used to go to Spain for our vacations, you know,’ Mrs Comstock called after him. ‘But we had to stop that, because every Tom, Dick and Harry goes there now.’

  ‘My chief inspector went to Spain himself, last year,’ Rutter said, over his shoulder.

  ‘Well, that just goes to prove my point, doesn’t it?’ Mrs Comstock asked, stepping back into her expensive hallway and closing her polished oak door behind her.

  Rutter walked down the driveway, then paused at the gate to look up and down the street.

  This was not a promising area to trawl for eye-witnesses, he thought. The distance between the houses – the separation of one property from the next – was far too great for that. But when you really needed to find someone who’d seen what happened, you just had to hope – against the odds – that someone actually had.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘We’ve stumbled across somethin’ very big here, Monika,’ Woodend said gravely to his sergeant, ‘somethin that goes far beyond the boundaries of a single murder. What we’ve got here is a conspiracy – an’ I’ve absolutely no idea why it should have happened.’

  Paniatowski nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘I can understand why Bradley Pine killed Alec Hawtrey,’ Woodend continued. ‘He did it in order to protect the life he’d built up for himself and his relationship with Thelma. But what I simply can’t get my head around is why Ron Springer – who used to be a bloody good bobby – should have allowed himself to be involved in the cover-up.’

  ‘Hang on, aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, here, sir?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘You can’t say for certain that Pin
e did kill Hawtrey.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ Woodend asked. ‘Not even after Jeremy Tully’s letter? What was that about, if it wasn’t about murder?’

  ‘Fair point,’ Paniatowski conceded. ‘But I’m still a long way from being convinced that whatever happened on that mountainside in Cumberland – even if it was murder – has anything to do with us.’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘And our job at the moment is to catch Bradley Pine’s murderer.’

  ‘So if I was a surgeon who’d cut somebody to remove his appendix an’ found he’d got stomach cancer, I should ignore the cancer an’ just finish the job I’d originally set out to do, should I?’

  ‘It’s not the same thing,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘It’s exactly the same thing,’ Woodend insisted. ‘If we’re in the process of investigatin’ one crime, an’ see another bein’ committed, we don’t just turn the other way.’

  ‘But the crime you’re talking about isn’t being committed now. It happened nearly three years ago. The trail’s cold.’

  ‘You might be right that the murder trail’s cold,’ Woodend countered, ‘but the trail leadin’ to the cover-up is anythin’ but. That stays hot for as long as the cover-up exists. I want to follow it, Monika. I have to follow it. And I’m not sure I can do it without your help.’

  ‘But it didn’t even happen on our patch,’ Paniatowski protested. ‘Following that trail would be just like advancing into enemy territory under heavy fire. And if anything went wrong, we could take a real fall for this, Charlie.’

  ‘So you’re sayin’ you don’t want anythin’ to do with it?’ Woodend asked disappointedly. Then he shrugged. ‘Well, I can’t entirely blame you for that, lass,’ he continued, ‘an’ I want you to know that I won’t hold it against you in the future.’

  ‘I’m not saying I don’t want anything to do with it,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘I’m saying I shouldn’t have anything to do with it.’ She paused for a second. ‘But if you’re going to stick your head above the parapet, I don’t suppose I have any choice but to stick mine up next to it.’