Supping with the Devil

by Sally Spencer

  She should have realized, back then, that Baxter was falling in love with her and pulled away before too much damage was done.

  But she hadn’t even guessed.

  So it was only when Baxter realized it himself – and realized, a little later, that whatever he did, and however much she tried to make herself, she would never grow to love him – that the relationship came to a sticky end.

  And the problem was that, despite his marriage, he had never quite fallen out of love with her. It was when Jo had begun to understand this that she’d started drinking heavily, and that, in turn had led to her lonely death amid the wreckage of her car, on the bleak moors.

  If I’d broken up with George Baxter earlier – or never gone to bed with him in the first place – Jo Baxter would still be alive, Paniatowski told herself, not for the first time.

  She knew it was irrational – that Baxter and Jo were responsible for their own fates, just as she was responsible for hers – but there were moments when she could not help feeling a little to blame.

  George Baxter suffered from no such ambiguity of feeling. He never wavered from blaming both of them for Jo’s death – there was absolutely no doubt about that. And perhaps he really did think that she had done something to engender Jo’s jealousy, though it was more likely that as the guilt festered away inside him, he had felt the need – for his own survival – to shovel some of it on to someone else.

  Whatever the case, his love had turned to hatred, and he wanted her off the force. But he couldn’t sack her. All he could do was make life unpleasant for her, and hope that she eventually resigned.

  But she would not resign. She had worked too hard and too long to give up now.

  And besides, she couldn’t do it to Charlie Woodend. While he was battling with the cancer, she couldn’t pull the rug from under what he considered one of his greatest achievements.

  She lit up a cigarette, and went back into the bar. Her team saw her approaching and fell awkwardly silent. It looked as if they had been talking about her – and, of course, they had.

  ‘Drink up, you lot,’ she said, ‘it’s about time we were getting back to headquarters.’

  Beresford glanced up at the large clock on the wall – the clock that all the customers had learned to loath as they watched its big hand moving ever closer to the time at which last orders would be called.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked.

  ‘The hurry is that your new boss is reporting for duty this afternoon, and, first impressions being very important, I’d prefer him to find you in the office rather than at the boozer.’

  ‘Our new boss!’ Crane said.

  ‘You mean our temporary new boss, don’t you?’ Beresford asked.

  Paniatowski sighed. She had already made it as plain as she possibly could what the situation was, yet Crane and Beresford still seemed to be in denial.

  ‘Think of him as temporary if it will make it easier for you in the short term,’ she said wearily.

  ‘No, I’ll think of him as temporary, because that’s what he’s going to be,’ Meadows said.

  So even the Machiavelli of the team was refusing to come to terms with reality.

  ‘You have to make this work,’ Paniatowski pleaded. ‘For the sake of your own careers, you need to make it work.

  THREE

  The grounds of Stamford Hall formed an almost-perfect rectangle, and could be entered through one of the four gates – the North Gate, the South Gate, the East Gate and the West Gate – all of them set in the high stone walls which surrounded the estate. The sign on the minor road skirting the Hall, however, made it clear that though there were, in theory, four possible choices, visitors and tradesmen should report to the North Gate, and – supposing that she was probably both those things – it was to the North Gate that Monika Paniatowski drove her little red MGA that early afternoon.

  A large notice, conspicuously displayed on the ornamental gates, announced that this was private property – as if anyone would have bothered building such a high wall around something that wasn’t private! – and that visitors should hoot to summon the gatekeeper.

  Paniatowski hit the horn. While she was waiting for some response, she reached into the glove compartment for her cigarettes, but when her palm wrapped around the packet, the celluloid felt so clammy and sticky that she released her grip immediately.

  It was too hot a day to smoke, she told herself, and anyway, she had promised Louisa that she would cut down.

  The door in the small lodge by the side of the gate opened, and a man stepped out. He was middle-aged, and dressed in a grey suit that was not quite a uniform, but was not quite civilian dress either.

  The man walked over to the gate. He had a security badge hanging from the buttonhole of his left lapel, and carried a clipboard in his hand.

  He looked down at the clipboard.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Panya … Pania …?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  The man nodded, took a plastic card out of his pocket, and slid it into a slot in a metal strip in the wall.

  The iron gates swung slowly and majestically open, and Paniatowski edged the MGA forward.

  ‘Follow the avenue up to the Hall,’ the man said. ‘Mr Bell, the estate manager, will be waiting for you in front of the main fountain.’

  ‘Is this gate always kept manned?’ Paniatowski asked, with a professional curiosity which almost surprised her.

  ‘Not round the clock, no,’ the gatekeeper said. ‘I’m here from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon.’

  ‘What if anyone wants to enter outside those hours?’

  ‘The family and staff have their own cards to open the gates.’

  ‘And if you don’t happen to be family or staff?’

  ‘Then you ring up the Hall in advance, and, if Mr Bell decides there’s a legitimate reason for you to enter the grounds, one of the servants will be waiting here to let you in.’

  ‘And if Mr Bell decides there isn’t a legitimate reason?’

  ‘Then you don’t get in.’

  ‘Whoever you are?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Whoever you are,’ the gateman confirmed.

  ‘Well, thanks for your help,’ Paniatowski said.

  And as she was pulling away, she was thinking, welcome to the eighteenth century, Monika.

  The trees which flanked the avenue seemed almost like a funnel designed to focus the eyes on the Hall. But a funnel wasn’t really necessary, Paniatowski thought, as she drove along, because the building had enough grandeur to command the watchers attention without resorting to artificial aids.

  It was, strictly speaking, two stories high, though, judging by the apparent size of the windows, each one of those stories was as tall as both floors of her own little house. And it was capped by a huge majestic dome which should have looked unnecessarily ostentatious, but somehow didn’t.

  As she got closer, she realized that the funnel of trees had only allowed her to see part of the structure, and that beyond the central block on which the dome rested, the house continued – now single storied, but in both directions – for another fifteen or twenty rooms.

  ‘Jesus!’ she said to herself, ‘so this is how the rich live.’

  She reached the end of the avenue, and found herself in an open courtyard large enough to accommodate the dozens of carriages which must once, in times gone by, have stood there for hours on end, while their aristocratic owners enjoyed themselves at formal balls thrown by the de Courtney family.

  There was a big, elaborate fountain in the middle of the courtyard – a Queen Anne version of a traffic island, Paniatowski supposed – and rising up from the centre of it was a ten-foot high, bronze statue of a naked man with a leer on his lips which probably identified him as a Greek or Roman god.

  Just beyond the fountain, a Land Rover was parked, and standing next to it was a solidly built man of around forty, who, while he could not compete with
the ancient god, was nonetheless rather impressive.

  That would be the formidable Mr Bell, Paniatowski thought – the holder of the magic keys to the sacred fiefdom.

  The estate manager signalled that she should pull up next to his vehicle, and the moment she had come to a halt, he stepped forward and opened the door of the MGA for her.

  ‘I’m Edward Bell, the estate manager,’ he said, holding out his right hand to her. ‘Welcome to Stamford Hall, DCI Paniatowski.’ He took a step back, and opened the passenger door of the Land Rover. ‘The earl has agreed to see you later in the afternoon, but before that meeting, he thought it might be useful to you to get some idea of the layout of the estate.’

  ‘How big are the grounds?’ Paniatowski asked, as they pulled away.

  ‘All together, a little under twelve hundred acres,’ Bell said. ‘That includes the outhouses, the stables, the greenhouses, the ornamental gardens, the two lakes – one for boating and fishing, the other a sort of nature reserve – the deer park, half a dozen follies – some of them perched on top of artificial hills – and Backend Wood. The estate is surrounded by a high wall …’

  ‘Yes, I couldn’t help but notice that.’

  ‘… which was begun early in the seventeenth century, and finally completed just before the dawn of the eighteenth. They didn’t rush things in those days, because they liked to make sure they’d got it right.’

  ‘You sound almost nostalgic.’

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for the seventeenth century. The people back then didn’t have televisions and fridges like we do, but then there’s more to life than material possessions.’

  They had driven around the side of the house, and were heading down another tree-lined avenue at ninety degrees to the one that Paniatowski had used to reach the courtyard.

  ‘Beyond the walls, there are a dozen tenanted farms – and most of them have been lived in by the same families for around three hundred years,’ Bell said. ‘What we’re approaching now is the East Gate. It’s normally locked, but it will be open for the festival, because that’s how the visitors will get in.’

  Next to the East Gate, a dozen workmen were involved in erecting the scaffolding which would be the basis of the stage. Further away, to both the left and right, perhaps two dozen more workmen were sinking tall metal posts into the ground.

  ‘You going to fence the whole of the concert area in, are you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With wire-netting?’

  ‘That’s right, except we bought it from America, and over there they call it chain-link fencing.’

  ‘You imported the wire-netting from America?’

  ‘American chain-link is supposed to be the best in the world – and the earl always insists on the best.’

  ‘That’s nice for him,’ Paniatowski said drily.

  Bell swung the Land Rover expertly on to the rough track which ran around the inside of the perimeter wall. They passed the deer park, caught a glimpse of two of the follies, and finally reached the wood.

  ‘This is Backend Wood – it’s where the security staff will be sleeping,’ Bell said.

  ‘They’ll be sleeping in the woods?’ Paniatowski asked incredulously.

  ‘That’s right. We offered them accommodation in some of the outbuildings, but they said they’d prefer to camp in the woods.’

  ‘Just what kind of security company is it that you’ve employed?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘It’s not a security company as such,’ Bell said, a little awkwardly. ‘It’s a motorcycle appreciation club.’

  ‘You’re telling me you’ve hired a biker gang?’

  ‘I really would prefer to use my description of them.’

  ‘And what’s the name of this motorcycle appreciation club?’

  ‘I believe they’re called the DDs,’ Bell said evasively.

  ‘And that stands for what?’

  ‘Err … the Devil’s Disciples.’

  ‘That’s a nice, friendly name. Don’t you think you’re taking a bit of a risk by using them as your security?’

  ‘I’ve been told that similar organizations have fulfilled that role at other festivals.’

  ‘Indeed, they have,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘The Hell’s Angels are a good example. They were used at the Altamont Free Festival in 1969 – and they murdered a member of the audience.’

  ‘That was the Yanks,’ Bell said dismissively. ‘You can’t see British people behaving like that, can you?’

  ‘America – put your faith in its wire netting, but not in its thugs-on-wheels!’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘And not in its hamburgers, either,’ said Bell, in a clear attempt to change the subject.

  But Paniatowski didn’t want the subject changed, not if she was to be involved – even peripherally – in the festival’s security arrangements.

  ‘Who was it who decided to hire the Devil’s Disciples to take care of the security?’ she asked.

  ‘The earl himself made that decision.’

  ‘And you didn’t try to talk him out of it?’

  ‘It’s not my place to question the earl.’

  ‘Did you actually just say that it’s not your place to question the earl?’ Paniatowski said, amazed.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You’re the estate manager, for God’s sake!’

  ‘And God put my family on this earth to serve the de Courtney family – not to criticize them.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘You’re an intelligent man,’ Paniatowski protested.

  Bell smiled. ‘And an educated one, to boot. I have a BSc degree in estate management from Manchester University, and a postgraduate degree from Yale.’

  ‘So what’s all this about having been “put on the earth to serve the de Courtney family?” It sounds like something your grandfather would have said.’

  ‘It is something my grandfather would have said.’

  ‘And do you seriously expect me to believe that someone like you – a man who’s seen something of the wider world – can still have the same vision of that world as his grandfather – a feller who probably went no more than a few miles from the estate in his entire life?’

  ‘You’re wrong about my grandfather,’ Bell said. ‘He served as the earl’s grandfather’s servant in the First World War, just as my father served as the earl’s father’s batman in the Second. And when it was all over – when they both had seen something of the wider world – they came back here and resumed the lives they had led before those terrible conflicts occurred.’

  ‘I’m amazed,’ Paniatowski admitted.

  ‘That’s because you’re trying to measure my sense of duty with your own logical yardstick – and it won’t work,’ Bell said easily. ‘I’m not a fool. I know that the world’s changed since my grandfather’s day. I know most people don’t look up to the aristocracy in the way they used to. But my family has cared for this estate and its owners for nearly four hundred years – and duty is in our very bones.’

  Perhaps it had been like that for her father, when he had led the cavalry charge against German tanks at the start of the Second World War, Paniatowski thought. His logic must have told him that it was a futile gesture – but his sense of duty had made him do it anyway.

  ‘I never meant to offend you in any way, Mr Bell – and I’m sorry if that’s what I’ve done,’ she said humbly.

  ‘You haven’t offended me, Chief Inspector,’ the estate manager told her. ‘As I said earlier, I am not so naive as to expect other people to understand the way I feel. All I ask is that they recognize those feelings as genuine, and show the proper respect for them.’

  They had reached the end of the track, and Bell turned the Land Rover on to the south avenue, which led back to the Hall. When they reached the carriage turning circle, Bell pulled up in front of the fountain.

  ‘This is as far as I go,’ he said. He checked his watch. ‘The earl sho
uld be just about ready to receive you now.’

  ‘Won’t you be coming inside with me?’ Paniatowski asked, surprised.

  ‘No, I haven’t been invited to this particular meeting,’ the estate manager said. ‘Ring the bell at the main door, and the butler will take you to see the earl.’

  ‘Good God, did you actually just say that he still has a butler?’ Paniatowski exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Bell sighed. ‘In my grandfather’s day, there were over two hundred servants working at the Hall. These days, with all the modern labour-saving devices now available, you could probably maintain the same level of service with about fifty – as long as they were really dedicated workers. But most people don’t want to go into service now, so the Hall has to get by with just ten servants, excluding, of course, the ground staff.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The work the servants can’t manage themselves is done by contract staff brought in from the outside. They’re efficient enough, but they’ve no real pride in what they do.’ He sighed again. ‘It’s just a job to them.’

  ‘Well, there you go,’ Paniatowski said philosophically. ‘Life is tough all over – even for earls.’

  Edward Bell chuckled. ‘Even for earls,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll see you around and about, Chief Inspector.’

  Then he slipped the Land Rover into gear and drove away.

  She liked Edward Bell, Paniatowski thought as she watched the Land Rover grow smaller and smaller, and while she still could not quite get to grips with the way his brain worked, she was sure that she could put her absolute trust in him.

  Ignoring the heat and stickiness of the cigarette packet, she lit up a Winston, and took her time smoking it.