He suddenly remembered the old bobbies that he had known when he was a bright, young constable, and how they had constantly – and bitterly – complained about how things had changed during their time on the force.
‘DCI Archie Compton would never have done things like that,’ one would say.
‘And old Bugger-it Bill Wallace would never have had us filling in all these forms,’ another would add. ‘He was what you might call a real policeman.’
Was he becoming like them?
Was he already looking back at his time working with Monika Paniatowski as the never-to-be-repeated golden days?
Because if that was what he was doing, it was time to start thinking about a new career!
‘This is Doctor Shastri’s autopsy report on Terry Lewis,’ Wellbeloved said, holding up one of the documents. ‘It’s not an impressive piece of work, by any standards.’
Beresford felt his resentment flaring up again, because – just as George Martin had often been called the fifth Beatle – he regarded Doc Shastri as the fifth member of this team.
‘The only three things the doctor has been able to tell us are that Lewis was killed by a blow to the back of the head, that he wasn’t killed where the body was found – both of which we could already see for ourselves at the crime scene – and that he’d been dead for a couple of hours when he was discovered,’ Wellbeloved continued. ‘I can’t help thinking that some other doctor would have been able to come up with a great deal more.’
‘When you say “some other doctor”, I assume you mean one who wasn’t either female or Indian,’ Meadows said, in a tone which reminded Beresford of a rumbling volcano.
‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ Wellbeloved said, ‘though I do feel that a man who had been brought up in the English tradition might have had a better grasp of what we needed.’
‘In other words—’ Meadows began.
‘Shall we move on, sir?’ Beresford suggested.
‘Yes, by all means,’ Wellbeloved agreed. ‘Let’s look at the facts, shall we? Yesterday lunchtime, Terry Lewis has a pint and a meal in a pub close to the Royal Victoria, then he goes back to the hotel, and that’s the last anybody sees of him until he turns up dead in a back alley. So, given that it’s highly unlikely he could have left the hotel again without being noticed, the chances are that that’s where he was killed, don’t you think?’
‘I’m not sure that it is so unlikely that he could have slipped out without anyone noticing him, sir,’ Crane said.
‘If you were talking about him slipping out some time late at night after the bar had closed and everyone had finally gone to bed, then I agree with you, it’d be more than possible,’ Wellbeloved said. ‘The only problem with that theory is that he was dead by then – and we have the autopsy report to prove it! But leaving the hotel unobserved earlier in the day would have been impossible. The Royal Victoria has a large number of staff, and they’re trained to be observant.’
‘Maybe if he was wearing a disguise …’ Crane suggested.
‘Oh yes, he could certainly have bought one of those plastic nose, glasses and moustache sets from a joke shop and pretended to be Groucho Marks, but I don’t think he did,’ Wellbeloved said dismissively.
‘I wasn’t suggesting the disguise he might have used would be as crude as that, sir, but—’
‘Thank you, we’ve had quite enough of that theory,’ Wellbeloved said. ‘I’m convinced he remained in the hotel until he was murdered, which means that his killer had to be one of the other guests.’
‘How did the killer manage to get the body out of the hotel?’ Beresford wondered.
‘There are any number of ways he could have done it,’ Wellbeloved said irritably. ‘He could have bribed one of the staff to wheel him out in a laundry basket. He could have taken a chance and carried him down to the underground garage, put him in the boot of his car, and driven him out. That’s no more than a minor detail, and I’m sure that as we continue to build up our case, we’ll find answers to all the minor details.’
So it would have been impossible for a live Lewis to leave the hotel, but a doddle for a dead one to be smuggled out, Meadows thought. That was illogical – but, as far as Wellbeloved was concerned, logic didn’t seem to come into it.
‘He’s already got a suspect in mind, and he’s not about to let any other evidence get in the way of that,’ she told herself. ‘So perhaps he is as stupid as I first took him to be.’
‘I’ve been looking through the list of the guests, and one name jumped right out at me,’ Wellbeloved continued. He paused, for dramatic effect. ‘And that name is Jeff Hill!’
‘The ex-footballer?’ Beresford asked. ‘Honnerton United star centre forward?’
‘The very same,’ Wellbeloved agreed. ‘When I was an inspector in uniform, it used to be one of my jobs to police Honnerton United’s home games, and I got plenty of opportunity to study our Mr Hill. He was a dirty player on the pitch, and he was no better off it. The man had a real temper, and violence was second nature to him. He had a couple of fights which would have landed anybody else in gaol, but because he was the team’s star player, he could always find a few important people – and I’m ashamed to say there were senior police officers amongst them – to get him off the hook.’
‘Even so …’ Beresford said.
‘The other thing you should know is that he was a real bugger for the women,’ Wellbeloved continued. ‘If it moved, he wanted to screw it. Are you starting to see how all this fits together?’
‘Not entirely,’ Crane said.
‘We know that Terry Lewis’ stock in trade was exposing celebrities who liked a bit on the side, and we know that he hired a private detective called Elton. Now what did he hire Elton to do, Inspector Beresford?’
‘Elton wouldn’t say.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t say – but surely you can work it out for yourself! He hired him to uncover a few sordid little celebrity affairs. And Elton put him straight on the trail of Jeff Hill,’ Wellbeloved paused. ‘Is something bothering you about the argument I’m building up, Inspector?’
‘Only that Elton looked really worried when he learned that Lewis had been killed, but he relaxed as soon as I informed him that when we found the body, it was only dressed in its underwear.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, it seems to me that he thought that someone else – someone other than the person who did actually kill Lewis – was responsible for the murder. And that really frightened him, because that other person really frightened him, and he thought if that person was the murderer, he might be next on the list. But the moment I mentioned the underwear, he realized who the real killer was – and the real killer doesn’t scare him at all.’
‘I still don’t see where you’re going with this at all,’ Wellbeloved said.
‘Well, if Jeff Hill was the killer, why would he undress Lewis before dumping the body? And even if he did do that, how would the fact that the body was undressed tell Elton that it was Hill’s doing, so he personally would have nothing to worry about?’
‘Hill undressed Lewis because he thought that would confuse us – and in your case, Inspector, it certainly seems to have worked,’ Wellbeloved said. ‘As for Elton, it must have been something else you said which made him stop worrying, or perhaps you’re completely misreading what you saw, and he was never really worried at all. I don’t know which of the two it was, because I wasn’t there.’
‘I didn’t misread anything,’ Beresford said stubbornly.
‘You’re getting bogged down in irrelevances now,’ said Wellbeloved, who was starting to sound irritated. ‘Look, we know what sort of a man Lewis was, we know what sort of a man Hill is, and we know they were in the same place at the same time. And that’s really all we need to know.’
‘It’s still a bit tenuous, sir,’ Meadows said.
‘Then look at his alibi,’ Wellbeloved said, waving around the form that one of the young detective constables h
ad filled in earlier. ‘He claims he spent last night caring for a sick friend.’
‘Maybe he did.’
‘Jeff Hill doesn’t have any friends – anyone who knows him well will tell you that. Jeff Hill doesn’t give a toss about anyone else. You can’t always have a smoking gun to help you, Sergeant. Sometimes, you have to really work to get a result. And that’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow morning we’ll pull Hill and this other man – Lawrence Taylor – in for questioning, and we’ll break them down.’
Both Wellbeloved’s methods and reasoning were crude, and there were certainly things along the way that were unexplained, but having listened to his arguments, it was perfectly possible that he was right about Jeff Hill, Meadows thought.
And if he was right, and if he managed to crack the case within forty-eight hours, he would have attained an almost unassailable position in the Mid-Lancs Police – which would mean that Monika Paniatowski could never return to her old role.
And wasn’t that a depressing thought?
When a member of the Devil’s Disciples had completed his initiation ceremony, he became a new man, born in the jaws of Hell and catapulted into the world of mere mortals to drink, steal, rape and maim as he desired. The past was buried for ever, the future was still to be carved out with sharpened bicycle chains, or beaten into shape with baseball bats. Thus, in the gang’s mythology, all members of the Devil’s Disciples came from nowhere – and yet, despite the mythology, Knuckles, Slash and Wolfman came from Birmingham.
The three of them never acknowledged their common background when the other Devil’s Disciples were around, but occasionally they would slink off together and discuss the places they had known and the things they had done as children. They knew it was wrong – a clear breach of the code – yet they felt it gave them something to hold on to in what was otherwise a rootless life.
They were in a quiet part of the woods that night, taking it in turns to relive their individual pasts, and conjuring up familiar images of a city they had all once shared.
It was Knuckles who was speaking at that moment.
‘The first time I had it, I was thirteen,’ he said. ‘Me and three of my mates got talking to this girl. She was an ugly bitch – but then you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire – and she was a bit slow. Anyway, we said to her that after it went dark, we’d go down to Wyndley Pool and look at the birds.’
‘And she believed that, did she?’ Slash asked, chuckling. ‘She really believed you were going to look at the birds after it got dark.’
‘Like I said, she was mental. And she must have believed it, because when we met up on Sommerville Road, she had a bag of crumbs in her hand to feed the poxy birds with,’ Knuckles said. ‘We took her down to the pool, and one of my mates said she should lie down, because, that way, she wouldn’t scare the birds. Once she was on the ground, I put my hands on her shoulders to hold her down, and another lad put his hand up her skirt. She didn’t like that, but when we told her it was a game that all lads and girls played, she sort of went along with it. Then she saw that one of my mates was holding his prick in his hand, and she started screaming. Well, we couldn’t have that, so I punched her in the head a couple of times and …’
There was a sudden rustling in the bushes, no more than a few yards away from them.
But it was not the accidental rustling made by someone in hiding, who inadvertently makes the wrong move. It was, rather, a rustling they were meant to hear – a rustling designed to attract their attention.
‘Who’s there?’ asked Knuckles, taking his knuckleduster out of his pocket and slipping it on to his fingers.
‘Come here,’ said a voice which was both calm and commanding.
‘What did you say?’ asked Knuckles, not sure he had heard correctly.
‘I said come here,’ the voice repeated. ‘I want to talk to you.’
TWELVE
Sunday, 8th August
The day began unexpectedly early for Lawrence Taylor, Jeff Hill and Harry Elton. At five fifteen in the morning, each of them heard a loud knocking on his door, and by five twenty-five, having been given the opportunity to get dressed and collect a few personal possessions together, all three were handcuffed and being assisted into waiting police cars.
By six o’clock, Hill and Taylor were in the custody cells at Whitebridge Police Headquarters. A third cell had already been prepared for Elton, who was, at that moment, being driven up the M6 to Whitebridge.
At seven o’clock, the forensic teams descended on the Royal Victoria Hotel. They had been instructed to conduct a detailed examination of Hill’s and Taylor’s rooms, and of both their cars, and though their instructions had been general rather than specific, they knew that it would be greatly appreciated if they could come up with a few bloodstains.
Paniatowski tried to ignore the knocking on her bedroom door, but when it graduated from a gentle tapping to a persistent hammering, she gave up and said, ‘All right, come in then, if you must!’
The door swung open, and a uniformed maid, carrying a heavily-laden tray, entered the room.
‘I thought I made it clear yesterday that I didn’t expect – or want – breakfast in bed,’ Paniatowski said irritably, and then – because the young maid looked so worried – she added, ‘It’s really very kind of you, but to honest, I don’t feel comfortable about being waited on.’
‘Sorry, ma’am, but I get my orders from the housekeeper, she gets hers from the butler, and the butler gets them from the earl,’ the maid replied, infusing the last two words with an awe and reverence which suggested there was really no arguing with such a command issued from on high. ‘But you don’t have to eat it, if you don’t want to.’
‘What is it?’ Paniatowski asked, weakening.
‘It’s a lightly poached salmon omelette with wild mushrooms,’ the maid told her.
Paniatowski felt herself salivating. ‘I suppose it would be a waste not to eat it now it’s already been prepared,’ she said. ‘Could you leave it on the bedside table, please?’
‘Certainly, ma’am.’
The maid put the tray down, and turned to leave.
‘Sorry if I seemed bad-tempered,’ Paniatowski said.
‘That’s all right, ma’am, you get used to bad tempers, working here,’ the maid told her.
Then she moved quickly and quietly out of the room, and closed the door behind her.
It would have been perfectly possible for Paniatowski to have her breakfast lying in bed, but her exposure to life at the Hall hadn’t made her quite that decadent – yet – so she got out of bed and carried the tray over to a second small table, by the window.
As well as the omelette and pot of tea, there was a local newspaper on the tray, and the headline on the front page screamed, ‘Whitebridge Murder Inquiry Continues.’
She averted her eyes while she flicked the paper open, because she didn’t want to learn about the murder – she really didn’t.
As she ate the omelette, she glanced through the stories on the inside pages of the newspaper, but when she reached the end of a longish article on the new ring road extension, she realized she had no idea what she’d just read, and that her mind had been on the murder all along.
She looked down at her plate. The omelette was gone, so she must have eaten it, though she had no memory of doing so.
She sighed, and, giving in to the inevitable, turned back to the front page. The newspaper was running the picture of the murder victim for a second day, it said, because though the police thought an arrest was imminent, they were still appealing to the general public for information.
Paniatowski studied the picture of the murdered man. It was clearly an amateur shot – perhaps taken by his wife or a friend. He was looking straight at the camera, and seemed to be trying his best to appear both thoughtful and strong. But he couldn’t pull it off. Instead, he gave off the aura of a man who would always be a follower rather than a leader, a man who might aim at bein
g profound, but would ultimately have to settle for being merely competent.
Paniatowski held the newspaper in the air, and examined the picture from several angles.
‘Jesus!’ she said to herself. ‘Who would have thought it?’
Wellbeloved looked across the table at the man who seemed to be trying to shrink himself into invisibility.
‘Let’s make this as quick and painless as possible, shall we, Mr Taylor?’ he suggested. ‘Jeff Hill asked you to give him an alibi for the night of the murder, and you agreed. Is that right?’
‘No, I …’
‘You agreed to do it because of this,’ Wellbeloved said, taking a piece of paper from his folder and waving it through the air. ‘Tell him what it is, Inspector Beresford.’
‘It’s a contract between you and Hill, which we found in your room,’ Beresford said. ‘It was signed the morning after the murder.’
‘That’s … that’s just a coincidence,’ Taylor babbled. ‘We’d been talking about signing that deal for weeks, and it just so happened that …’
‘Funny how you’ve never done business with each other before, isn’t it?’ Wellbeloved asked. ‘Or maybe it’s not funny at all, because, according to some of your colleagues, who my lads interviewed over breakfast at the Royal Vic, you and Hill couldn’t stand each other.’
Taylor’s top lip began to tremble. ‘If I tell you the truth, will I end up going to gaol?’
‘It’s possible,’ Wellbeloved said, ‘though it’s much more likely you’ll be given a couple of years probation. If, on the other hand, you insist on sticking to this story of yours …’
‘It’s like you said – he offered me a share of the contract if I’d say he spent the night in my room. But I’d never have agreed to it if I’d thought, even for a minute, that he’d killed anybody.’
‘Thank you, Mr Taylor,’ Wellbeloved said.
Jean Harris liked to keep her home spick and span at all times, but on Sundays, she always got up early and made a special effort. And it was worth it, she thought, as she looked around at the result of her labours. It might only be a simple farmhouse, but the pans were gleaming, the floor was sparkling, and you wouldn’t find a speck of dust if you went down on your hands and knees and searched for it.
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