‘Whitebridge Police Headquarters,’ said the switchboard operator. ‘Can I help you?’
‘What a pleasant manner you have about you, young lady,’ Forsyth replied. ‘It’s almost worth ringing up just to hear your voice.’
‘Why, thank you,’ the switchboard operator said, obviously delighted. Then she remembered what she was there for, and continued, ‘What is the nature of your business, sir?’
‘I’d like to speak to Detective Inspector Walker, if that’s possible,’ Forsyth said.
‘Is it urgent?’ the operator asked.
‘Well, no, it’s not exactly urgent,’ Forsyth admitted. ‘But it is quite important.’
Looking out of the picture window of her well-appointed detached home in one of the most salubrious areas of Whitebridge, Mary Dunston was amazed to see her husband’s car pulling into the driveway.
Edward never came home in the middle of the afternoon.
‘It’s the best time of the day to do business,’ he always told her. ‘When the clients come to see me, they’ve already had a heavy lunch and probably the best part of a bottle of wine. The food’s making them sleepy, and the alcohol’s convinced them they’re the sharpest operator in the whole of Whitebridge. So I can run rings round them, and they don’t even know it’s happening.’
Yet there he was, getting out of his car, in the middle of the afternoon.
And didn’t he look pale?
She went out to the hallway to meet him.
‘Is something wrong, Edward?’ she asked, worriedly. ‘Has your mother been taken ill?’
Dunston brushed past as if she wasn’t even there, and started to climb the stairs.
‘Edward!’ she called after him.
‘I have to go away,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘It’s business – urgent business.’
She followed him up the stairs, and by the time she reached the bedroom he was already throwing clothes haphazardly into a suitcase.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked, almost in tears by now.
‘For God’s sake, woman, have you gone deaf?’ Dunston asked, harshly. ‘I said, I have to go away.’
The phone on the bedside cabinet rang, making them both jump.
‘Well, answer it,’ Dunston said, continuing to cram the suitcase with his clothes.
Mary picked up the phone. ‘Yes?’ she asked in a sniffly voice. ‘Yes, he is. I’ll tell him.’ She held the phone to her husband. ‘It’s for you.’
‘I can’t talk to anybody at the moment,’ Dunston said dismissively. ‘Take his number and say I’ll call him back.’
‘But he says it’s very important. He says to tell you that it’s about Moors’ End Farm.’
Dunston snatched the phone from his wife’s hand.
‘Out!’ he said to her.
Mary Dunston gasped with amazement.
‘I’m sorry, Edward,’ she said, in as dignified a tone as she could muster, ‘but I’m not sure that I quite see what you expect me to—’
‘Can’t you understand plain simple English, you stupid bitch?’ Dunston asked viciously. ‘I told you to get out! Now bloody do it!’
With a sob, Mary Dunston fled from the room.
The man on the other end of the line chuckled. ‘Have I just been inadvertently eavesdroppin’ on a bit of a domestic disturbance, Edward?’ he asked.
‘I—’ Dunston began.
‘Plannin’ to do a runner, are you?’ the caller interrupted him. ‘Now that really wouldn’t be too clever at all – not when they’re watchin’ the house.’
‘Who’s . . . who’s watching the house?’ Dunston asked, with a tremor in his voice.
‘The people who did for Andy Adair an’ Simon Stockwell, o’ course. See, Eddie, if you do a runner, they’ll just follow you, an’ as soon as they get their opportunity, they’ll slit your throat. So your best move is to stay where you are, ’cos they can’t snatch you without your missus seein’ them – an’ since they’ve got nothin’ against her, they don’t want to hurt her unless they absolutely have to. Course, if you stay there too long, they might decide they’ll just have to pop her as well. That’s why you need a Plan B.’
‘Who are you?’ Dunston gasped.
‘Who am I? I’m the bloke who’s goin’ to save your bacon. Only it’s goin’ to cost you. How much cash have you got in the house?’
‘I don’t know. I have to think. There’s probably around two hundred pounds in the safe.’
‘Not enough,’ the caller said dismissively. ‘What’s your wife’s jewellery like? Good stuff?’
‘Well, yes, it’s . . .’
‘I’ll need that as well.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Dunston whined.
The man at the other end of the line sighed heavily.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can only get away with doin’ this once, then for my own safety I’ll have to make myself scarce. So if you don’t want my help, I’ll call somebody else on their list. I could try Len Gutterridge, for example. Course, he probably couldn’t pay me as much as you could, but since you’re clearly not interested . . .’
‘Don’t hang up!’ Dunston pleaded. ‘I am interested. I do want your help.’
‘In that case, get all the valuables that you can together, and wait for my next call.’
‘When will you call?’ Dunston asked desperately.
‘I can’t say for certain, Eddie. But it will have to be within the next few hours, won’t it? Because if I leave it any longer than that, you’ll already be dead when I get there!’
Mr Forsyth had only been in possession of the office he’d commandeered for himself in Whitebridge Police Headquarters for a few hours, but it had already undergone some small – but significant – changes.
The desk had been moved, Paniatowski noted, so that now the person behind it sat with his back to the wall, rather than to the window.
An expensive-looking map of the British Empire in the nineteenth century had been mounted on the wall.
And then, of course, there was the photograph in the silver frame!
In the centre of the picture stood a tall white-haired woman, dressed in a sensible tweed suit, and with a string of pearls slung casually around her neck. She looked perfectly content with life, and the source of that contentment was clearly the two children – a dark-haired boy and a blonde girl – who were standing just in front of her, and had her hands resting comfortably on their young heads. In the foreground was a short stretch of immaculate lawn, and behind the woman’s head was a mature oak tree.
It was the positioning of the picture which gave the game away, Paniatowski thought. It had been placed so the visitor could see it as clearly as the man behind the desk could – and what that visitor was meant to think was that this was a photograph of Forsyth’s wife and grandchildren.
But it wasn’t. She was sure of that.
So why was Forsyth making such a display of these people he had possibly never even met?
She didn’t know.
She would perhaps never know.
But she still recognized the picture as nothing more than a prop in the elaborate game he was playing – a game whose rules she didn’t understand and had no desire to learn.
Forsyth smiled up at her. ‘The reason I summoned you here this afternoon, Monika—’ he began.
‘You didn’t summon me,’ Paniatowski interrupted. ‘I can only be summoned by people I work for – and I don’t work for you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Forsyth agreed easily. ‘But you do work for people who are prepared to sub-contract you to me – with all that entails.’
‘Just who are we talking about here?’ Paniatowski demanded. ‘The chief constable?’
Forsyth laughed lightly. ‘Oh no, my dear. It goes much higher up the ladder than Mr Baxter.’
‘So I’m to be your errand girl?’
‘If you choose to see yourself in that light, it’s entirely up to you. I would prefer to think of us as two
people who are collaborating in the interest of the common good.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Paniatowski said wearily. ‘So what is it you want?’
‘I thought I’d already explained that adequately enough. I want you to give me a detailed report on the progress of your investigation into the murder of Andrew Adair.’
‘And on my progress in the investigation into the murder of Simon Stockwell?’
‘Yes, that too, I suppose – but only in so far as it overlaps with the Adair investigation.’
‘In other words, you’re not really at all interested in who killed Simon Stockwell?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Which means, by logical extension, that you’re not really interested in finding out who killed Adair, either.’
‘Andy Adair was a soldier who served his country faithfully and honourably, so naturally I wish to see his killer brought to justice,’ Forsyth said, with a hint of rebuke in his tone.
Paniatowski shook her head. ‘Faithfully and honourably,’ she repeated. ‘That’s just words. The truth is that you don’t really give a shit whether I find the killer or not.’
‘I think you’re being rather harsh again,’ Forsyth said.
‘Let’s cut through all the crap,’ Paniatowski suggested. ‘You want a briefing on the investigation, and I’m prepared to give it to you – but I want something in return.’
Forsyth frowned. ‘What you fail to grasp is that you’re in no position to make conditions, my dear,’ he said.
‘And what you fail to grasp is that you can only push me so far, and then I’ll dig my heels in and will not be moved another inch – whatever it costs me.’
‘How like your old boss, Charlie Woodend, you’re starting to sound,’ Forsyth said.
‘Yes, I’ve been working on it,’ Paniatowski countered. ‘And before we go any further, there’s one other matter we should get cleared up.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’d prefer it if you addressed me by my official title, which is Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski, but I’m prepared to tolerate you calling me Monika, if you must. What I will not tolerate is being addressed as “my dear”. That’s the way creepy old men with bags of sweets in their sweaty hands address gym-slipped schoolgirls in the park – and I’m no gym-slipped schoolgirl.’
‘But I’m a creepy old man with a bag of sweets?’ Forsyth asked, with the slightest hint of anger in his voice.
‘If you choose to see yourself in that light, it’s entirely up to you,’ Paniatowski said, mockingly flinging his own words back at him.
Forsyth sighed. ‘What is it that you want in return for graciously agreeing to brief me?’
‘I want you to get your people to do a comprehensive background check on Sir William Langley. And I mean comprehensive. I want information I couldn’t get myself, even with a search warrant.’
‘I see,’ Forsyth said. ‘And in return for my doing that, I’ll get your full cooperation?’
‘Yes,’ Paniatowski agreed, perhaps a little too readily.
‘I want to be quite clear on this – I’ll get your full and unqualified cooperation?’ Forsyth pressed.
‘As far as is possible,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And what does that neat little twisting of “full and unqualified” mean, exactly?’ Forsyth wondered.
‘It means that if I find out that you’re attempting to pervert the course of justice, then all bets are off.’
‘That seems more than reasonable, my dear Chief Inspector,’ Forsyth said, taking his defeat gracefully.
Mike Traynor stood under the bridge, looking down at the brackish water. If he’d had any real empathy with history, he could have been thinking that this was, in many ways, one of the most poignant spots in the whole of Whitebridge. For it was along this now-lonely canal that scores of barges had once travelled, bringing bales of cotton to the mills and taking away the cloth that the mill workers had produced from it. If he’d had an ounce of poetry in his soul, he might have seen the stagnation of the canal as a symbol of the wider stagnation which had overtaken the whole town. But he had no interest in either history or poetry. And instead of thinking at all, he was busy nursing a sense of grievance over the fact that, instead of meeting in a cosy pub, Ted Walker had selected this grim spot for their rendezvous.
He saw Detective Inspector Walker coming along the towpath with a folder under his arm.
‘And about time!’ he thought.
‘Evening, Mike,’ Walker said, as he drew level.
‘You sound bloody cheerful,’ Traynor complained.
‘You will, as well, in a minute or two,’ Walker told him. He held up the folder for the journalist to see. ‘What I have in here, Michael, is a nice little earner for me, and a nice little scoop for you.’
‘A nice little scoop for me,’ Traynor repeated sceptically. ‘Do you know how many real scoops there are around?’
‘Very few, I should imagine, or they wouldn’t be scoops at all. But they do exist – this is undoubtedly one of them.’
‘Anyway, however good it is, we’re already too late to catch tonight’s edition,’ Traynor said peevishly.
‘Indeed we are,’ Walker agreed, his good humour unabated. ‘But then this story would be wasted on a nasty little provincial rag like the Lancashire Chronicle. This, my friend, is a story for the nationals.’
Traynor felt his hands start to itch.
‘Let me see it,’ he said, reaching out.
Walker jerked the folder away. ‘Before I show it to you, we should talk about how much you’re going to have to pay for it,’ he said.
‘How can we possibly do that before I even know what the bloody story’s about?’
‘I’ve been thinking about what it’s worth,’ Walker continued, as if the other man hadn’t spoken, ‘and I’ve decided I’d like two hundred quid for it.’
‘Two hundred quid?’ Traynor repeated. ‘Are you mad? Have you gone completely off your head?’
‘No, I leave that sort of thing to DS Cousins, who’s much better suited to it,’ Walker said. ‘The reason I fixed on that amount is that I reckon you can sell the story to the nationals for at least twice that – or maybe even more. But I’m not a greedy man by nature, so I’ll settle for the two hundred smackers.’
Traynor licked his lips, and discovered that they’d suddenly gone very dry. ‘It must be one hell of a story,’ he said.
‘It is one hell of a story,’ Walker agreed.
The policeman wouldn’t try to con him, Traynor thought.
Not for two hundred quid.
Not when they had an ongoing business relationship.
‘All right, you’ll get your money,’ he agreed. ‘But if the story’s not as good as you say it is, I’ll expect a discount on the next one you give me.’
Walker smiled complacently.
‘Read the story and tell me what you think,’ he said, handing the journalist the folder.
Traynor opened it, and flicked through the contents. Then he read it again, much more slowly, this time.
‘Bloody hell, if this is true, it’s a dynamite story,’ he said when he’d finished. Then a concerned look came to his face. ‘But is it true?’ he continued.
Walker’s smile widened.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Then what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing wasting my time with this piece of crap?’ Traynor asked angrily.
‘It’s not true now,’ Walker said, ‘but by the time the story’s published it will be true.’
EIGHTEEN
When it happened, it happened so quickly that if DC Jack Crane had blinked, he might well have missed it.
One moment, Crane was sitting in the lobby of the Royal Victoria – pretending to read the newspaper and deciding that since Forsyth had gone straight up to his suite after consuming his large and expensive meal in the Balmoral Restaurant, the spy was probably bedded down for the night.
The next moment Forsyth himse
lf appeared, crossed the lobby, and stepped out on to the street.
Crane glanced down at the sweeping second hand of his watch. He’d give it a minute before he set off in pursuit, he told himself. For caution’s sake, a minute was the least he should allow.
But how long that minute seemed to be lasting!
How listlessly that hand on his watch seemed to be performing its duty!
His resolution broke down after forty-five seconds, and as the hand reached fifty, he was at the exit.
Even with the broken resolution, he had almost left it too late – because the doorman had the door of a Rover 2000 held open, and Forsyth was already climbing into the driver’s seat.
‘I didn’t even know he had a bloody car,’ Crane thought.
‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ sneered a malevolent voice from another part of his brain. ‘But you should have made it your business to bloody find out.’
The doorman closed the car door, Forsyth started the engine, and the Rover pulled away from the kerb.
Crane – forcing himself to walk at a leisurely pace – made his way towards his Vauxhall Victor, which was parked a little way further down the road.
‘Thank God that I at least had it pointing in the right direction,’ he thought, as he slipped behind the wheel and fired up the ignition.
He joined a stream of vehicles which was moving with typical downtown sluggishness. Looking ahead of him, he saw, with increasing panic, that there was no sign of Forsyth.
This was the first really independent assignment that the boss had given him, he reminded himself – and he’d fallen before he’d even reached the first post.
How would he explain that to her?
Would she blame him?
And what were the chances of her ever allowing him to work on his own again?
When he caught sight of the Rover, held up by a red traffic light on Market Street, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
It was going to be all right!
He hadn’t blown it!
Yet!
What was important now was to let the boss know exactly what was going on. He picked up his radio, pressed the right button, and waited for the reassuringly competent voice of someone in Whitebridge Police Headquarters.
The Ring of Death Page 15