It was a test, he decided. He didn’t know what Badger was testing – or how he was supposed to react – but it simply had to be a test.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘I don’t think the police are going to bother us, but you can never be too careful,’ Badger said. ‘And if they do come into these woods with sniffer dogs, they’ll find the stash wherever we’ve hidden it.’
Not a test, then. Not a joke at all.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Spike asked.
‘Because there’s one place they definitely won’t be allowed to search, and that’s in the Hall itself. And you can do something the rest of us can’t – you can get inside.’
The words hit Spike with all the force of a knuckleduster.
‘You … you know about me,’ he said.
‘Go to the top of the class.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘Only since I had my first little chat with that bald git, Harry Elton. You’re the only reason that we got this gig, Spike. I thought you would have guessed that by now.’
‘I never …’ Spike said. ‘It didn’t even cross my mind that …’
‘Anyway, I’ll give you the stuff, and you can take it up to the Hall,’ Badger said. ‘All right?’
‘No, not all right. I won’t do it.’
Badger’s eyes hardened. ‘You’re a Devil’s Disciple,’ he said, ‘and when another Devil’s Disciple asks you to do something, you bloody do it.’
‘Not any more,’ Spike told him.
He walked over to his own tent, at the other side of the clearing. For a minute, he thought of packing up his stuff, but then he realized he didn’t want his stuff. He didn’t want anything associated with the Devil’s Disciples – not even his bike, once it had served its purpose in getting him away from there.
He mounted his bike and kicked it up.
‘If you ride out now, you can never come back, you know,’ Badger shouted at him.
Spike put his bike into gear, and pulled off.
The pub was a stone’s throw from Honnerton Police Headquarters. It was called the Fireman’s Bucket, but – as far as he knew – Crane had yet to see any firemen drinking in it. Bobbies were quite another matter. Even though it was Sunday, and there were, presumably, pubs much closer to their homes, the Honnerton police seemed to be drawn to the Bucket like iron filings to a powerful magnet.
Sitting quietly at the bar, Crane had already discovered much about the local force. He knew, for example, that their rugby team’s first eleven had a good chance of winning the league that year, provided, of course, the referee chose not to turn a blind eye to the tactics of ‘them cheatin’ bastards from Halifax’. He had learned that one of the local magistrates was a bleeding heart liberal who would have let Jack the Ripper get away with a slap on the wrist, and that while the chief superintendent might not actually be a ‘big puff’, he certainly behaved like one.
But as illuminating as all this gossip might be, it told him absolutely nothing on the thorny question of why DCI Wellbeloved seemed to have it in for Jeff Hill.
His best hope of coming away with something useful lay in Tom, the barman, who was middle-aged, good-natured and had sharp, intelligent eyes. The two of them had been chatting – on and off – for over an hour when the pub had quietened down a little and Crane decided it was time to make his move.
‘How long have you worked here, Tom?’ he asked casually.
‘It must be eleven years now,’ the barman replied. ‘No, I tell a lie – it’s twelve.’
‘In that time, you must have seen a lot of people come and go.’
‘A fair number, I suppose.’
‘You don’t happen to remember an Inspector Wellbeloved, do you?’
The barman put down the glass he was polishing, and looked Crane straight in the eyes.
‘A friend of yours, is he?’ he asked, somewhat suspiciously.
‘Not exactly a friend, no,’ Crane admitted. ‘He’s recently started going out with my sister.’
‘And this would be where?’ the barman asked.
‘Over the border – in Whitebridge.’
‘And you just happened to be in Honnerton, and thought you might ask a few questions while you were,’ the barman said. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Jack?’
Crane grinned. ‘I might have done, if I thought you’d believe it – but the simple fact is that the only reason I’m here at all is to find out what I can about Wellbeloved.’
The barman nodded. ‘I guessed as much.’
‘The thing is, she’s my big sister and she looked after me while I was growing up,’ Crane said. ‘And now I’d like to return the favour.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Her last boyfriend was a real swine, you see. He really broke her heart – and I wouldn’t like to see her make the same mistake again.’
‘So you thought you’d pump Tom, the jovial barman, and see if you could find out whether it would be a mistake?’
‘That’s right. Do you have any objection to that?’
The barman shrugged. ‘Not really. After all, it helps to pass the time, doesn’t it?’
‘So what can you tell me about him?’
‘I don’t think you need worry about him treating your sister badly – he’s not that sort of feller – but if she’s hoping to be swept off her feet, then she’s due for a real disappointment with your friend Wellbeloved.’
‘Tell me more,’ Crane encouraged.
‘He was always a bit awkward with women. Some men are, but in his case, it was so bad that I began to suspect that maybe he was a homo. As it turned out, I was quite wrong.’
‘I’m still listening,’ Crane said.
‘This was about six or seven years back, now,’ the barman said. ‘There was a crowd of girls used to come in here, and one of them was called Maggie Thorpe. She was cracking looking, but – for some reason – she seemed almost as unsure about herself as he was about himself. In fact, if you ask me, she was still a virgin – and that’s rare enough in this day and age.’
‘Yes, it is,’ agreed Crane – and he thought about Inspector Beresford, who most people now referred to as Shagger Beresford, but who hadn’t lost his virginity until he’d turned thirty.
‘Anyway, for the first few weeks he just sat there looking at her across the bar, but then he finally worked up the nerve to talk to her. It went on like that for a while. They’d just chat, as casual acquaintances who quite liked each other sometimes do. But he was still holding back, to such an extent that I’m not even sure she knew he fancied her. And it was more than just fancied her, in my opinion – I think he was madly in love with her.’
‘Did he ever make his move?’ Crane asked.
‘No, he didn’t. I think he was about to, but he left it just that little bit too late, and somebody else waltzed in and swept her off her feet. Of course, that particular romance ended badly – very badly indeed.’
‘Who was it who swept her off her feet?’ Crane asked.
Though he thought he already knew the answer.
‘No chance of a bit of service, is there, Tom?’ asked a voice from the other end of the bar.
‘Coming right up,’ the barman said. He turned to Crane. ‘Be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’
The last song of the day had been sung as darkness fell, and the audience, marshalled by the Devil’s Disciples, had left the grounds and returned to their canvas city. Some – exhausted by ten hours of heavy rock – had crawled into their tents and fallen instantly into a deep sleep. Others, reluctant to come down from their electronic high, sat in front of their tents, talking about this festival, and other festivals they had attended, and smoking a little dope.
It was still the day on which Linda Davies had died, but that already seemed so long ago – a little bit of rock and roll history about which, in later years, they would be able to say, ‘Yes, I was there.’
Jimi H
endrix, Janis Joplin, Linda Davies – they had all been soldiers in the war against mediocrity and conservatism, and, as in all wars, you just had to expect casualties.
Paniatowski was pacing her bedroom in Stamford Hall, trying to exhaust herself so that she could grab a few hours sleep. But her body was too tense – her mind too active – to surrender to pain-free unconsciousness.
She had absolutely no idea why three of the Devil’s Disciples had beaten up the countess so viciously. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a totally random, mindless attack, fuelled by drugs. Perhaps they simply hated her for who she was, and what she had. But whatever the reasoning behind the attack, she was convinced that the Disciples were responsible for it.
Even more puzzling than why she’d been attacked was the question of why the countess should have denied they had done it – why she should have been terrified, in fact, at even the thought of them being blamed.
Had the Devil’s Disciples also killed Terry Lewis?
The circumstantial evidence all seemed to be pointing that way.
He had been in the Backend Woods, they had been in the Backend Woods – and now he was dead.
But why had they run the risk of dumping his body in the centre of Whitebridge, instead of merely burying it in the woods, where – since no one seemed to even know that Terry Lewis had gone to the Hall – it could have lain undisturbed for years?
If she had been in charge of the murder investigation, and if the earl had given her permission to interrogate the Devil’s Disciples, she might already have had answers to some of her questions. But she wasn’t in charge, and the earl wouldn’t let her talk to the Devil’s Disciples.
She would go to the woods herself, she decided, and get as close to the Devil’s Disciples camp as she dared. The Disciples would all be drunk – or high – by the time she got there, and as they sat talking, she just might overhear something which would give her a clue as to what exactly had been going on.
It wasn’t a good plan, she told herself – in all honesty, it was a rubbish plan – but it was the only plan that she had.
She was still some distance from the Devil’s Disciples’ camp when she saw the light bobbing up and down like an ambitious firefly.
It was an electric torch, she thought – held by someone who was attempting to both provide illumination and do something else with his hands.
She moved slowly closer to the light, testing each step carefully before she took it, in case she might step on a twig and signal her presence.
She could hear one of the men talking.
‘A hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles … a hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles …’
The man sounded drunk, she thought. But there was more to it than that. There was an almost-hysterical excitement in his voice.
‘A hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles … a hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles …’
She was close enough now to be able to see what was going on. The two men were no more than dark shapes, but the space between them was lit up by the torch, and in that space, there was a great deal of money.
‘A hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles … a hundred for me, a hundred for you, a hundred for Knuckles …’
She became aware that someone was creeping up behind her only a split-second before he hit her on the back of the head, and once he had hit her, she was aware of nothing at all.
Paniatowski slowly began to regain consciousness. She was lying on the ground, she thought, and her head hurt.
And then she realized it was not only her head which was causing discomfort, but the area between her legs, which seemed to be on fire.
She began to be aware of more things about her condition. She had lost her shoes, her skirt was up around her waist, and her breasts felt as if they had been put through a mangle.
She groaned.
‘Can you hear me, bitch?’ asked a disembodied voice.
She said nothing.
‘Tell me you can hear me, or I’ll hurt you again,’ the rough, drunken voice told her.
‘I … I can hear you,’ she gasped.
‘Good, then listen carefully! You’re probably thinking of going to the police, to report what’s happened, but I wouldn’t do that if I was you. And do you know why I wouldn’t do that?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Do you know why?’
‘No, I …’
‘Because, if you do, the police won’t believe you. They’ll think that you came here looking for a bit of fun, and that it was only when it got out of hand that you decided you didn’t like it. They’ll think you’re just a slag – no different to all the other slags we’ve screwed.’
‘Yeah, just like all the other slags that we’ve screwed,’ said a second voice.
‘And even if they do believe you, it won’t get you anywhere,’ said the first voice. ‘We weren’t here at all, we were in the camp – and all the other Devil’s Disciples will swear we were in the camp. So if I was you, bitch, I’d just put it down to experience.’
‘And let’s be honest,’ said the second voice, ‘you must have enjoyed being shagged by three real men for a change.’
Then they were gone – crashing through the woods, making their way drunkenly back to their camp.
FOURTEEN
Monday, 9th August
They were five simple words – ‘I won’t be reporting it’ – and once they were out, that should have been the end of it.
But the words wouldn’t go away. They were trapped in an echo chamber which may have been an examination room, but could just as easily have been Monika Paniatowski’s mind.
I won’t be reporting it … I won’t be reporting it … I won’t be reporting it … I won’t be reporting it …
‘You can get dressed now, Monika,’ said a soft, caring voice that she recognized as belonging to Dr Shastri.
‘Thank you.’
‘Would you like me to help you down?’
‘No, I can manage.’
As Paniatowski eased herself off the examination table, a little sunlight managed to ease its way through a gap in the blinds.
It seemed wrong that even the weather should be mocking her like this, she thought.
The sky had no right to be such a brilliant blue. It should be filled with dark, heavy clouds, and thunder should roll between them like the grumblings of an angry giant.
But she was not living in the middle of a Shakespearean tragedy, she reminded herself – and almost laughed at her own inflated fancy.
She was no Othello or King Lear. She was a Polish immigrant who, through some luck and a little judgement, had made a modest success of her life. And now that luck had run out, and that judgement had failed her.
She padded, barefoot, across the room to the chair on which her clothes were hanging.
‘Monika …’ Dr Shastri said tentatively.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But you must talk about it. And you must report it. You’re not just a victim in this case, you know, you’re also a senior officer in the Whitebridge Police Force. It’s your duty to report it!’
‘You’re asking me to confess to making a huge error of judgement – an error that no one in my position should ever have made,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Anyone can make a mistake.’
‘It would ruin me.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to get into the position I’m in now? Can you even begin to grasp how difficult it is to earn respect in a world dominated by men?’
‘I know it hasn’t always been easy …’
‘Well, once I report the rape, all that will be gone. I’d get sympathy, that’s true, but there’d be derision as well. There would be some bobbies – maybe quite a lot of bobbies – who’d be laughing behind my back.’
‘It wouldn’t be as bad as that,’
Shastri said.
‘It would. Male officers don’t get raped – so they can’t really understand how it could happen to a female officer. Remember, I’ve been on the force a long time, and I’ve seen some of my so-called colleagues sniggering in corners about rape victims. “Maybe it was what Paniatowski wanted,” they’ll say. “Maybe she went to the Devil’s Disciples’ camp because she secretly fancied a bit of rough.”’
‘But, surely, people who know you could never believe …’
‘It would give George Baxter the excuse he’s been looking for to take me out of front-line policing forever. And if – by some miracle – Baxter was replaced, it wouldn’t make any difference. The new chief constable would take me out of front-line policing, too. And he’d be right to do it – because if I couldn’t command the respect any more, I couldn’t do the job. And so I’d end up as DCI in charge of paper clips and luncheon vouchers. And I couldn’t stand that.’
‘Monika …’ Shastri implored.
‘Besides, rape’s not exactly a new experience for me, is it? My stepfather raped me regularly, throughout most of my childhood.’
‘But that was different,’ Shastri said. ‘It was a long time ago, and you’ve managed to put it behind you. This new attack—’
‘It wasn’t a long time ago, and I haven’t put it behind me,’ Paniatowski said angrily. ‘Arthur Jones didn’t just rape me thirty years ago, he raped me yesterday, and he’ll rape me tomorrow – because it never really goes away. And what happened last night won’t go away either, but if I don’t report it, at least I’ll still have the chance to try and patch up my life again. And that matters to me, Doc – because, for all its drawbacks and frustrations, I still like that life.’
‘And so you’re going to let your attackers get away with it,’ Shastri said.
‘That’s right,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘I’m going to let the bastards get away with it.’
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