“No,” Rutter said. “All I want some information. Is there a café near here that’s still open?”
“There’s a Wimpy bar just up the road.”
“Good,” Bob Rutter said. “Show me where it is, and I’ll buy you a frothy coffee.”
Nine
It was ten fifty-three, which meant that the shift workers in the bar of the Westbury Social Club, had just seven minutes in which to order their last drink of the day. Woodend took a sip of his pint and looked around the bar. There was a fair crowd in the club that evening. Some of the faces were new to him, but there were others which were rapidly becoming as familiar as his own.
The Poles, for example. Despite the heated confrontation he’d had with Zbigniew Rozpedek earlier that day, they were all sitting at their usual table. Or perhaps it was because of the confrontation, he thought. Perhaps they were deliberately going out of their way to show him that they were not about to be intimidated – to demonstrate by their physical presence that as long as they all stuck to their story, there was nothing he could do to them. And they were right; it was the word of four men against one witness. And it certainly didn’t help that that one witness was a slimy character like Ted Robinson.
There were still many questions left unanswered in the chief inspector’s mind. Assuming for the moment that it was the Poles who had killed Gerhard Schultz, why had all four of them gone into the woods after him? Surely two would have been enough? If they’d done it that way, the pair who were not involved in the killing could have stayed in Rozpedek’s house, making a noise and moving about in front of the window to help establish their alibi. And even if they had decided it had to be the four of them – perhaps because they wanted to share the responsibility for the murder – why had they re-entered the park from a different side of the woods to where the body was found? Once they had done the deed, wouldn’t they have wanted to get out of the woods as soon as possible, and taken the path, which was undoubtedly the shortest route? So . . . still assuming that they were the killers, what had made them go blundering through the trees with the blood of Gerhard Schultz still on their hands?
Woodend shifted his gaze to one of the other tables. Kurt Müller was presiding over the German table with quiet authority. The man was still a bit of an enigma, the chief inspector thought. He was deeply religious, but it didn’t stop him having a drink. He was a qualified engineer, but preferred to spend his time on a boring, repetitive production line. And he seemed strangely detached from what went on around him – as if he’d learnt that the petty worries and cares which weigh down most people were of no real significance. Perhaps his sense of detachment stemmed from his religion, Woodend thought. When you were grappling with the complexities of the nature of God, you had little time left over to worry about pay rises and hire-purchase payments.
The chief inspector lit a cigarette, and made a mental note to see Müller’s wife the next day and ask her if she could confirm his alibi, and shifted his gaze to the English table.
Mike Partridge, having cycled all the way from Maltham, was sitting with his cronies. He never looked happy, Woodend decided. He had none of the aura of tranquillity which seemed to hover over Kurt Müller. But there was more an absence of something about him – his red face and balding head made him an unlikely figure for a tragic hero, yet that was the impression he gave Woodend. Maybe Bob Rutter’s inquiries in Southampton the next day would explain why.
He took another swig from his pint glass. Why had the Poles taken that route through the woods? he asked himself for the fiftieth time. Perhaps he would take a leaf out of Tim Chatterton’s book and go and find out for himself.
He stood up, and would have headed straight for the door if he hadn’t noticed that someone was missing from the Italian table.
“Why hasn’t Mr Bernadelli come out to play tonight?” he asked the Italians who were there.
Two of the men grinned broadly at him, and the third actually sniggered.
“Maybe he has better things to do with his time,” said the one who’d sniggered.
“Oh aye? Like what?”
“He is very good with his hands,” the Italian said. “Maybe he’s mending a broken chair – or stuffing a new cushion!”
The other men at the table, who had obviously had a fair amount to drink, found this comment so achingly funny that they spluttered into their beers.
“The big trouble with private jokes is that people who aren’t in on them never get to appreciate just how clever you’ve been in makin’ them,” Woodend told the smirking man. “An’ the big trouble with murder inquiries is that most of the time, they’re not really very humorous at all. So I’ll ask you again, shall I? Where’s Mr Bernadelli tonight?”
The Italian’s face assumed a mock-serious expression. “I really do not know, Mr Policeman,” he said.
“But if he was not our friend, we might make a pretty good guess,” said one of the others, giggling.
Bob Rutter ignored the knowing, slightly repelled look from the girl behind the counter, and took the two frothy coffees back to the table where the woman – who said her name was Roxy – was waiting for him.
Under the bright lighting, the prostitute’s thick make-up appeared even more garish than it had out on the street. He took a closer look at her face. Her grey eyes had a hardness about them, her nose was quite a large one for a woman – almost, in fact, hooked – and her lips were perhaps a little too thick. Yet despite it all, there was no denying there was a strange attractiveness about her. Still, the sergeant found himself wondering just what kind of man would seek out her services.
Well, he reminded himself, there was Gerhard Schultz, ex-fighter pilot and time-and-motion man, for one.
Roxy unwrapped her sugar cubes carefully, and dropped them into her coffee. She watched the bubbles which formed as a result, and only when they had subsided did she look up at Rutter.
“So just what was it that you were so bloody keen to talk to me about?” she asked.
“I’d like you to tell me everything you know about a man called Gerhard Schultz.”
Roxy looked puzzled. “Never heard of ’im,” she said. “Is he a foreigner, or somethin’?”
“That’s right. A German. He used to live on in a semi-detached house in Fulton Crescent.”
“Oh, now I know who you mean,” Roxy exclaimed. “I used to call ’im Adolf. Not to ’is face, of course.”
“How did you meet him?”
“The first time, he picked me up outside Woolworths. Said he wanted me for the whole night. Well, I was glad to get the weight off me feet, if the truth be told, so I said yes.”
“You went to his house?”
“That’s right.”
“And you had sex?”
The prostitute smiled wearily. “Not straight away. He liked to play around a bit first.”
Rutter was starting to feel hot under the collar. Cloggin’-it Charlie, he was sure, would have had no difficulty with this conversation, but then Woodend wouldn’t have felt quite so much like a callow youth under this experienced woman’s gaze.
“Er . . . what do you mean when you say that he liked to play about a bit first?”
“He ’ad these costumes hangin’ in ’is wardrobe. He said we should put them on.”
She was teasing him, Rutter thought – taking pleasure in his obvious discomfort. But he supposed that was fair enough – he’d scared her earlier, and now she was getting her own back.
“What sorts of costume did Schultz have?” he asked the prostitute.
Roxy smiled again. “You men! Policemen and milkmen, doctors an’ bus drivers – you’re all the same when it comes down to it, aren’t you? All you’re really interested in is the juicy details.”
Rutter was sure he was blushing furiously. “The details might be pertinent to the inquiries I’m conducting,” he said – meaning it, but knowing that he was sounding unconvincing.
“Oh, that’s why you’re askin’, is it?” Rox
y said disbelievingly. “Well, there were only two. A corset for me – which was so tight it nearly crushed me bleedin’ ribs, by the way – an’ a uniform for ’im.”
“What kind of uniform?”
Roxy laughed throatily. “Most men would be more interested in what kind of corset it was.”
“Tell me about the uniform,” Rutter said, running his index finger between his shirt collar and his neck.
“It was an army uniform. German, I suppose.”
“Are you sure it was army?” the sergeant asked. “Or could it perhaps have been airforce?”
“I couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Did it have wings on it?” Rutter persisted.
“Can’t say I noticed.”
“Close your eyes and try to picture it.”
Roxy shook her head. “That wouldn’t do no good,” she said.
“You don’t know that until you try.”
The prostitute sighed. “Yes, I do. The punter rents me body, but he doesn’t rent me mind. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“All the time he’s puffin’ an’ gruntin’ away, I’m not really with ’im. I’m thinkin’ about where I’m goin’ for me ’olidays next year or addin’ up the Co-Op bill. So you see, you’re lucky I can remember ’e was wearin’ a uniform at all.”
“What did you do when you’d put your costumes on?” Rutter asked, trying another line of questioning.
“He’d tie me to a chair, an’ shout at me. Really rant, if you know what I mean. Sometimes he could go on for hours.”
“What kinds of thing would he shout?”
Roxy laughed again. “Do I look like somebody who understands German?” she asked.
“So he shouted at you in German?”
“I imagine it was German he was speakin’. It certainly wasn’t nothin’ that I could understand.”
What happened next?”
“He’d untie me legs – but not me hands – an’ I’d stand facin’ the wall, while he whipped me.”
“Whipped you!” Rutter repeated.
“Only very light. There was no way I was goin’ to get cut for a miserable five quid. Then, when that was over, we’d do the business. All the messin’ around got ’im proper worked up. I ’ave to admit, he was a real tiger between the sheets. Once or twice I even enjoyed meself.”
“How often did you see him?”
Roxy shrugged. “I don’t keep a diary,” she said. “It was probably about once a month over the last couple of years. Then he said he wouldn’t be needin’ me again, because he was movin’ away.”
“Did he ever tell you any personal details? You know what I mean. Did he ever confide in you when you were lying in bed together?”
“He wasn’t one of them who needed to be conned into thinkin’ it was a romantic evenin’,” Roxy said. “He paid for ’is pleasure, an’ he wanted full value for money.”
“Did you ever meet any his friends?”
Roxy gave him a hard stare. “Listen, I may be on the game, but there’s some things that even I draw the line at, an’ three in a bed is definitely one of them.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Rutter said hastily. “All I was asking was whether any of his friends called at the house while you were there.”
“No.”
“And he didn’t mention any names. Like Simon Hailsham? Or Mike Partridge?”
“I told you, it was strictly business with ’im. I could turn ’im on in bed without askin’ ’im what he wanted, but apart from that, I don’t know any more about ’im now than I did when he first picked me up outside Woolies.”
It was half an hour past midnight as Woodend made his way though the park, but there were lights on in at least a third of the living rooms, no doubt because men who had come off the ten o’clock shift wanted to grab a couple of hours’ relaxation before turning in for the night.
When the chief inspector reached the edge of the woods – the edge from which Ted Robinson claimed he had seen the Poles emerging – he switched on his torch. The closest tree was lit up almost as if it were day, but the ones beyond the edges of the beam were little more than ominous black shapes. Woodend lit a cigarette for company, and stepped into the woods.
He did not know which direction to strike out for, so he chose the course of least resistance, walking in a straight line until he encountered the brambles of a rhododendron bush, then veering off to either the left or the right. Around him, tiny insects buzzed. In the distance, an owl hooted. But other than that, the wood was silent.
He wondered how far he was from the lake. And how easy it was going to be to find his way back to the park. Perhaps, like Hansel and Gretel, he should never have entered the enchanted forest without first making sure that his pocket was filled with breadcrumbs.
He sensed that he was not alone in the woods just seconds before he heard the sound of a snapping twig. He came to a sudden halt, and swung his torch round in an arc.
“This is the police!” he said in a loud, commanding voice. “Whoever you are, come on out.”
Nothing moved. No one emerged.
“This is a free country, an’ you’ve a perfect right to be in the woods at this time of night,” the chief inspector said. “So you’re not in any trouble. I’d just like to know who you are.”
Talk about an understatement, he told himself. I’d bloody love to know who you are!
From the other end of the woods, the owl hooted again and this time, because of what had happened since the last call, it startled him. He strained his ears to pick up the sound of a cough or heavy breathing, but there was nothing.
Who could it be out there hiding in the trees? And whoever it was, why the hell should they want to be out there?
He had three choices, he decided. The first was to stick to his original plan and carry on exploring the woods, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The second was to beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of Westbury Park. And the third? The third was to try to find whoever else was in the wood – which, given that someone had been murdered in this same wood less than a week before, was probably not the wisest course.
He strained his ears for sound of the man’s movement – and whatever else he was uncertain about, he felt absolutely sure it was a man out there – but the silence still prevailed. He would have to be guided by the noise of the snapping twig he had heard a minute earlier.
It was, he knew from experience, very difficult to pinpoint noise in a wood, where sound bounces from tree to tree, but as far as he could tell, the man was hiding somewhere over to his left. Shining his torch in front of him, he took a cautious step in that direction.
He had covered no more than a few yards when the man jumped him. The assailant came up from behind, springing on to his back, and wrapping his arms tight around the chief inspector’s neck.
He’d never have got me so easy a few years ago, Woodend thought, as the two of them hit the ground. I must be gettin’ old.
His attacker rolled him over, and straddled his chest. Woodend felt a fist crunch against his left cheekbone. This bastard meant business – and, by Christ, he was strong.
The other man raised his arm to strike again. Woodend caught it at the elbow with both his hands – and twisted. His opponent screamed, then did a somersault which was so sudden that Woodend lost his grip.
The chief inspector struggled to his feet at roughly the same moment as his attacker. He looked around for his torch. It was lying several feet away, uselessly lighting up an area of the wood where nothing was going on.
The other man had raised his fists, ready for a fresh onslaught.
“Aye, come on, lad,” Woodend said softly, taking up a fighting stance himself. “Let’s see how well you do when you haven’t got the element of surprise on your side.”
His opponent hesitated for a second, then turned and fled deeper into the woods. The chief inspector followed, but had taken only a few steps when his foot caught against a root and he went sp
rawling forward.
“Shit,” he groaned as he was lying on the ground. “Doesn’t matter who you’re chasin’, Charlie – dark ladies on horseback or dangerous nutters in the woods, you always seem to end up fallin’ over.”
He picked himself up and dusted himself down. He would have a few bruises come the morning, he guessed, but apart from that, all he had suffered was a loss of dignity.
He rescued the torch and shone it on the ground. There were several footprints, some of his own and some which looked as if they’d been made by a size-eight or -nine heavy industrial boot. So no surprises there.
If his attacker had wanted to, he could have done a much better job of it, the chief inspector thought. Why jump on him when it would have been just as easy to hit him on the back of the head with one of stones which lay readily at hand? And why, once he had chosen the former course of action, hadn’t he followed it through?
Because he had suddenly lost his nerve? No, Woodend told himself, it wasn’t that. His assailant had run away because the real purpose of the attack had never been to hurt – it had only been to distract. And for that night, at least, it had worked. He’d lost his appetite for exploring, and as soon as he could find his way back to the club, he’d go straight to bed.
He discovered he was limping slightly, but that would soon wear off. And it had been worth a few aches and pains to learn so much – because while he still didn’t know what he was looking for, he was convinced it was out there, somewhere in the woods.
Ten
Woodend watched the tall silver-haired man in the expensive tweed suit hover on the threshold of the Westbury Hall breakfast room as if he had still not made up his mind whether or not to enter it.
A BCI man? the chief inspector wondered, as he speared the last remaining piece of sausage and popped it into his mouth. Probably – or why else would he be there?
The man had evidently made his decision, and walked over to Woodend’s table.
“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Chief Inspector Woodend?” he asked, in a plummy voice.
The Dark Lady Page 10