‘You could have killed them all in one night, if you’d really put your mind to it,’ Paniatowski pointed out.
‘Yes, I suppose I could,’ Cousins agreed.
‘Or you could have hidden the first few bodies until you’d finished the job – so we wouldn’t even have been sure there’d been any murders.’
‘True.’
‘But you didn’t do that. You slit their throats with the closest thing you could find to a dog’s teeth, you stripped their bodies, you posed them like fighting dogs, and then you put them on public display. Why?’
‘You know the answer to that, don’t you, ma’am?’ Cousins asked.
‘Yes, I rather think I do,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘But I’d still like to hear it from you.’
‘I couldn’t kill all the members of the club – I knew my luck wouldn’t hold out that long – but I did want to make all of them suffer. I wanted them to know what it was like to feel naked and afraid.’
‘So you left Stockwell’s body at the home of the man who was financing the fights?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you left Dunston’s and Gutterridge’s facing each other in the Rovers’ stadium, because that was like the dog pit writ large?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But what I still don’t understand is why you left Adair’s body in the woods. Was the kennel owner – Toynbee – a member of the dog-fighting ring?’
‘No, ma’am. As far as I know, he’s exactly what he seems to be – a decent man who loves animals.’
‘Well, then?’
‘I didn’t do it for his benefit – I did it for his dogs.’
‘For his dogs?’
‘Dogs can sense evil. They can sniff out their natural enemies. I thought that I’d show them that – just once in a while – cruelty wasn’t triumphant.’
‘You do know that you’re insane, don’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’ Cousins agreed easily. ‘In fact, I’d go further than that.’ He smiled. ‘I’d say I was barking mad!’
EPILOGUE
It was an unseasonably cold September morning, and even the birds in the elm trees seemed less enthusiastic about the start of the new day than they would normally have been.
Three people – a man, a woman and a Catholic priest – stood next to the newly re-opened grave and watched the coffin being slowly lowered into it.
‘It was kind of you to come with me, Colin,’ Monika Paniatowski said, in a voice which was thick with emotion.
‘Think nothing of it,’ Beresford replied.
‘Did I do the right thing?’ Paniatowski wondered, and now there was anguish in her tone. ‘Would he have wanted to be buried in foreign soil, so far away from his beloved Poland?’
‘From what you’ve told me about him, he’d have wanted anything that he knew would bring you some comfort. And this does.’
Paniatowski sniffled. ‘Yes, it does.’
‘Besides, after all these years, he’s finally been reunited with his wife, and I think that would have mattered to him much more than a line on a map.’
‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But thank you for saying it, anyway. You’re a true friend.’
‘I’m better than that,’ Beresford told her. ‘I’m a true mate.’
‘Yes,’ Paniatowski agreed, sniffling again. ‘Yes, you are.’
Two men stood watching the scene from a distance. One was tall and chunky, and had ginger hair. The other was more compact, with silvery hair atop a face which gave away nothing of what he was thinking.
‘What made you go to all this trouble?’ asked the chunky man, Chief Constable George Baxter.
‘I knew it would mean a lot to Monika,’ Mr Forsyth replied.
‘If I’d never seen the way you operate, I might almost believe you,’ Baxter said. ‘But since I have, I don’t.’
Forsyth shrugged. ‘Believe what you wish.’
‘I think she’s got something on you. You probably made her sign the Official Secrets’ Act . . .’
‘I did.’
‘. . . and you were also probably very explicit about what would happen to her if she ran foul of it. But knowing Monika as you do, you weren’t sure that was enough. You thought you needed an additional hold on her, and that’s what returning the bones gave you.’
‘Possibly,’ Forsyth conceded.
‘She’s grateful to you now – she might hate herself for that, but there’s nothing she can do about it. And, for the record, I hold you in nothing but contempt for ever putting her in that situation.’
‘Without wishing to be impolite, I should tell you, again for the record, that your opinion of me is not something I will lose any sleep over,’ Forsyth said. ‘I do what needs to be done in order to keep my country safe.’
‘You do it because you love doing it,’ Baxter said harshly. ‘The dirty tricks, the double-crossing, the intimidation, the assassinations – it’s all meat and drink to you.’
‘That, too,’ Forsyth agreed. ‘I am most fortunate in having a talent and a temperament which fit so well together.’
Paniatowski had turned, and begun to walk away from the grave. Beresford, by her side, held out his arm in case she felt a need for support, and she took it gratefully.
‘Just tell me one more thing,’ Baxter said to Forsyth. ‘Are they really her father’s bones in that grave?’
‘Why don’t you ask Monika?’ Forsyth replied. ‘I’m sure she’ll tell you they are.’
Baxter grabbed him by the lapels, and shook him furiously.
‘I know what she’ll tell me,’ he growled. ‘But I’m not asking her. I’m asking you, you bastard.’
He released his grip and took a step backwards. Forsyth brushed his lapels lightly, as if he’d just noticed a few specks of dust on them.
‘Are they his bones?’ he asked. ‘Why wouldn’t they be? They come from the battlefield on which he died, so there’s as much chance they’re his as there is that they’re anybody else’s.’
The Ring of Death Page 26