Echoes of the Dead

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I’m sitting across that table from you right now, Tom – listening to your confession, seeing that look in your eyes – and I don’t understand at all,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘I’d never have acted as you did. I wouldn’t bend the rules for a decent bobby who’d done wrong, let alone for a piece of offal like Bannerman.’

  ‘You can say that now – I might have said the same thing at your age – but just you wait until you get bit older,’ Hall said weakly.

  ‘I’ll never get that old, Tom,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘I’ll never get that rotten.’

  The train pulled into the station and juddered to a halt. Hall did not offer her his hand, because he knew she would not have taken it if he had done. Instead, he simply reached out and opened the carriage door closest to him.

  He stepped on to the train, then swivelled round to see if she was still there. He seemed almost surprised that she was.

  ‘I really had you fooled, though, didn’t I, Monika?’ he asked, rallying a little. ‘I had Charlie Woodend down to a “t”. I was so much like him that I think you might have agreed to sleep with me – if I could have been bothered to ask.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’ Paniatowski asked with a mixture of pity and contempt – both genuine – in her voice. ‘After all the time you’ve had to prepare your parting shot, could you really not come up with anything better than that?’ She shook her head. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else,’ she conceded. ‘It’s pathetic because you’re pathetic. You’ve sold your soul for your pension. And not even to the Devil – who at least has some terrible dark satanic majesty about him – but to a worm of a man who’s not fit to lick Charlie Woodend’s boots.’

  A sense of loss filled Hall’s eyes. ‘You’ll see,’ he said weakly. ‘Give it a few more years on the job, and you’ll see it for yourself.’

  Hall closed the door, the guard blew his whistle, and the train began to pull out of the station.

  Paniatowski stood watching until it was out of sight. Slowly, she noted, her vision was becoming more blurred, and supposed that was because she was crying.

  NINETEEN

  The boss looked rough, DI Colin Beresford thought – rougher than she’d looked when there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel in the bakery murders investigation; rougher, even, than when, whatever they did, they were making no headway at all in the hunt for the serial killer who stripped his victims naked and posed them on their hands and knees. But then, on those cases, it had only been her own future on the line – and now it was Charlie Woodend’s.

  Beresford took a sip of his pint, which was probably just as good as the Drum and Monkey’s best bitter always was, but tasted – at that moment – like old engine oil.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Monika,’ he said.

  ‘It really isn’t, boss,’ agreed DC Jack Crane. ‘From what you’ve told us about him, DCI Hall was so good at pulling the wool over people’s eyes that he would have fooled anybody.’

  Paniatowski looked around the bar which was almost her second home – at the dedicated darts players engaged in a fierce competition in the corner, at the inveterate gamblers hungrily feeding coins into the one-armed bandit.

  It was kind of her lads to say she wasn’t to blame, she thought – but was it really true?

  Or was the truth actually that there had been some point at which she could have penetrated Hall’s ‘honest’ disguise and thereby had at least a chance to limit the damage?

  ‘We have to fight back,’ she said aloud. ‘We have to find a way to protect Charlie.’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘I’m not including you in this, Jack, by the way.’

  ‘And why’s that?’ Crane demanded angrily. Then he swallowed – twice – before adding, ‘Sorry, boss, I seem to have got a bit carried away there. But why am I not included?’

  ‘Because you didn’t know Charlie Woodend,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You never worked for him like we did, so you don’t owe him a thing. And if there’s any fallout from whatever we decide to do, I don’t want it landing on you.’

  ‘I’m part of the team, aren’t I?’ Crane asked.

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Then if there’s any fallout, I’ll take my fair share.’

  Paniatowski reached across the table and patted his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Jack,’ she said.

  And then she thought, Jesus, I just patted his bloody hand. Now he’ll think I’m either treating him like a baby, or – worse – that I bloody fancy him.

  ‘If you want your share of the fallout, you’ve got it,’ she said, trying to sound crisp and efficient – trying to sound, in fact, like a DCI who had the best part of two decades on the young detective constable. She turned her attention back to Beresford. ‘The thing is, Colin, what can we do?’

  ‘If we can get Mrs Dawson to say that Bannerman had the opportunity to go upstairs while she was outside, we can at least establish the possibility that it was the sergeant who took the pencil,’ Beresford suggested.

  ‘And if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,’ Crane murmured to himself.

  ‘What was that you just said?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘She remembers Mr Woodend going upstairs, because he’d asked to see her daughter’s things – which will have mattered to her. But how likely is it, after nearly a quarter of a century, that she’ll not only remember that she went outside for a breath of air, but how long she was outside for?’

  ‘It’s very unlikely,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘And even if – against all odds – she did have vague memories of it, you can be certain that DCI Hall will have scrambled them up during his cosy little chat with her,’ Crane concluded.

  Right again, Paniatowski thought. Whatever they managed to squeeze out of Mrs Dawson – if they could squeeze anything at all – the finger of suspicion would remain pointing almost entirely at Charlie.

  So just what the hell could they do?

  ‘Phone call for you, Chief Inspector,’ the barman called across the room. ‘Do you want to take it here, or should I put it through to the other phone?’

  But even though he’d gone through the ritual of asking the question, he already knew the answer. None of DCI Paniatowski’s team – nor DCI Woodend’s team before it – had ever taken their calls on the bar phone, because there were too many flapping ears close to it.

  The Drum’s ‘other’ phone was in the corridor, midway between the ladies’ and gents’ toilets.

  It looked like every other wall-mounted telephone in the world, Paniatowski mused, as she navigated her way between the crates of empty beer bottles to reach it. But it wasn’t – at least, not to her.

  Important milestones in her life had been marked out by this phone. It had been from this phone that she had received the information which had helped crack several major cases. And it had been on this phone, too, that George Baxter – then still only a DCI himself – had finally forced her to admit that their relationship was going nowhere.

  There should be a brass plaque over it, she thought – though if there had been one, she had no idea what it ought to say.

  She picked up the receiver, and heard a faint click as the barman transferred the call.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski?’ asked the man on the other end of the line.

  It was a harsh voice. She didn’t recognize it – but that was not surprising, because she was almost certain that the man was doing his best to disguise it.

  ‘Yes, this is Paniatowski,’ she said. ‘Who am I speaking to, please?’

  ‘Is anything bad going to happen to those policemen of yours who investigated the Lilly Dawson murder back in 1951?’ asked the caller, ignoring her question.

  Jesus, how does he know anything about that? Paniatowski thought.

  ‘What policemen are you talking about?’ she asked, stalling for time.

  ‘Don’t play games with me,’ the caller said. ‘You know the ones I mean – DCI
Woodend and his sergeant.’

  ‘Sergeant Bannerman.’

  ‘That’s right. Will they be punished for arresting the wrong man?’

  ‘You must realize I can’t possibly discuss that with you,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘I take it that means they will be,’ the caller said. ‘Doesn’t it bother you that your old boss will be getting a raw deal?’

  ‘Of course it bothers me,’ Paniatowski said, before she could stop herself.

  ‘And would you do anything that you possibly could to help him out of the mess he’s in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what you have to do is to find out who really killed Lilly Dawson.’

  ‘Do you know who did it?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then give me a name.’

  ‘I can’t do that. But if you want me to, I’ll tell you something that will point you in the right direction.’

  ‘Why can’t you give me a name?’ Paniatowski insisted.

  ‘If you ask me that again, I’ll hang up,’ the man threatened, and now the harshness in his voice was more than just a disguise. ‘Just give me a yes or no to my question – do you want pointing in the right direction or don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I want pointing in the right direction,’ Paniatowski confirmed.

  ‘Then if you’re ever to find out who really killed Lilly, you first need to find out who really killed Bazza Mottershead,’ the man told her.

  The name rang a bell – but not a loud one.

  ‘Who’s Bazza Mottershead?’ Paniatowski asked.

  But by then, the line had already gone dead.

  Most of the lights in Whitebridge police headquarters had long since been extinguished, but the one in Monika Paniatowski’s office – to which the team had returned straight after the phone call – still valiantly blazed on.

  ‘The moment the anonymous caller mentioned Bazza Mottershead’s name . . .’ Paniatowski began. She paused for a second. ‘We can’t go on referring to him as “the anonymous caller”,’ she continued. ‘We need to give him a name.’

  ‘How about “Looney Tunes”?’ Beresford suggested.

  Paniatowski glared at him. ‘That’s really not very helpful, Colin,’ she said. ‘If no one has any objections, I’ll call him “Mr X”.’

  ‘I’ve no objections,’ Beresford replied, indifferently.

  ‘The moment Mr X mentioned Bazza Mottershead’s name, I knew it sounded vaguely familiar,’ Paniatowski said, picking up her thread again. ‘And, of course, that was because I’d read it in the papers, while I was researching Lilly’s death.’ She opened the file which was lying on her desk. ‘Bazza Mottershead was killed a few days after Lilly’s body was discovered. He was a small-time criminal, and the bobbies back then soon arrested another minor thug, who went by the name of Walter Brown, for his murder. Brown pleaded not guilty at his trial, but he was duly convicted and sentenced to fifteen years.’

  ‘Which means he was out in ten,’ Crane said.

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘He wasn’t out in ten. In fact, he served his full sentence.’

  ‘Probably couldn’t keep his nose clean, even when he was inside,’ Crane said dismissively. ‘Some people never learn.’

  ‘You’re making an assumption – and it’s a wrong one,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘Far from causing trouble, Brown was an almost exemplary prisoner.’

  ‘So why didn’t they let him out on licence?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Crane thought about it. ‘The likely reason is that Brown would never admit his guilt,’ he said finally.

  ‘Correct!’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘After he’d served ten years, he became eligible for release. All he had to do was say he was sorry for what he’d done, but he wouldn’t – because he still claimed he hadn’t done it.’

  Beresford had been twitching awkwardly for some time, and now he said, ‘I think that we may be wasting our time here, boss.’

  ‘Do you?’ Paniatowski asked, in a voice which suggested she wouldn’t welcome further discussion on the subject.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Beresford said determinedly. ‘I think we’re desperate to find something we can do for Mr Woodend . . .’

  ‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score.’

  ‘. . . and because we’re desperate, we’re more than willing to go off on any wild goose chase that presents itself to us.’

  ‘What you really mean is that I’m more than willing to go off on any wild goose chase, don’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Beresford admitted.

  ‘And what makes you think this is a wild goose chase?’

  ‘Look at the facts,’ Beresford said. ‘Some feller rings you up in a pub, and tells you that neither the real killer of Lilly Dawson nor the real killer of Bazza Mottershead has ever been found. Now, under any normal circumstances, you’d just dismiss him as a nutter, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski said firmly. ‘I’d carefully examine the call on its own merits, and then decide what action to take.’

  ‘Right,’ Beresford said, unconvinced. ‘And having carefully examined this anonymous call on its own merits, you’ve decided that it’s opened a whole new line of inquiry for us?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Mr X said it would help Charlie if we found out who really killed Lilly—’

  ‘But I don’t see how it possibly could,’ Beresford interrupted. ‘Even if we did find the real killer, it wouldn’t alter the fact that someone dropped the pencil in the pigeon loft in order to frame Fred Howerd – and though we know that wasn’t Mr Woodend, the evidence certainly points to him.’

  ‘I don’t understand how it would help, either,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘But Mr X says that it would – and I believe him.’

  ‘You don’t understand, but you still believe him,’ Beresford said. ‘And why is that? Because you need to believe him!’

  ‘No, that’s not it at all,’ Paniatowski countered. ‘I believe him because he knows things that most people don’t.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That we’ve reopened the murder investigation, for a start. How many people do you think are aware of that?’

  ‘Half the town, by now,’ Beresford said, with what was almost a snort of derision. ‘Look, boss, DCI Hall talked to Mrs Dawson, Mrs Dawson will have talked to her neighbour, the neighbour will have discussed it in the shops, the people who heard the neighbour will have told their friends . . . Do I need to go on?’

  ‘He also knows that Charlie’s in trouble.’

  ‘That’s no more than can be worked out by exercising a bit of simple logic. If we’re re-investigating the case, then we think mistakes have been made. And if mistakes have been made, somebody’s bound to be in trouble.’

  Everything that her inspector had said made perfect sense, Paniatowski thought, and yet . . .

  And yet . . .

  ‘You didn’t talk to Mr X, Colin,’ she said. ‘But I did, and if you’d heard the way he spoke, you’d be as convinced as I am.’

  ‘With respect, Ma’am . . .’ Beresford began, in a stilted, wooden voice.

  ‘Respect is what it’s all about,’ Paniatowski interrupted him. ‘Either you respect my gut on this matter or you don’t. And if you don’t, then – no hard feelings, Inspector – you’re of no use to me in this investigation.’ Her face suddenly softened and she smiled sadly at him. ‘Really, Colin, I do mean that – no hard feelings at all.’

  Damn the woman! Beresford thought angrily. Why did she seem to have so much power over him? Why was it always so easy for her to pull him in the direction in which she wanted him to go?

  And then he shrugged, smiled back at her, and said, ‘Well, if it’s one of your famous gut feelings, I suppose there’s no point in arguing with it, is there? So where do we start?’

  ‘We start with Walter Brown. He’s always said he didn’t kill Mottershead – let’s find out who he thinks did.’


  ‘Wouldn’t it just be easier to track down Mr X, boss?’ Crane asked tentatively. ‘He says he knows who did the killings, and you say you believe him. So if we can just get our hands on him, we’ll have the answer to all our questions.’

  ‘And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ Paniatowski said, throwing his earlier comment back at him. ‘Sorry, Jack,’ she continued, looking guilty. ‘You’re right, of course – he would be able to answer all our questions. The only problem is, as you’ve already pointed out, he’s anonymous.’

  ‘We should still be able to narrow down the number of people it could have been,’ Crane pointed out.

  ‘Or we could put someone else on that particular line of inquiry,’ Paniatowski replied.

  ‘Who?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Who do you think?’ Paniatowski replied.

  And then she picked up the phone, and dialled a number in Spain which she knew by heart.

  TWENTY

  It was a chill early morning, but Monika Paniatowski’s brisk pace, as she walked down Whitebridge High Street, had less to do with the temperature than with the fact that she knew that if she once lost her self-imposed sense of momentum on this case, she would never get it back.

  She turned off the main road, and was soon swallowed by a series of lanes which were just wide enough for two horses and carts to pass each other. This was the old part of town, the few remaining blocks of historic Whitebridge which the developers had yet to get their itchy hands on.

  Browns’ Second-Hand Books was located on Primrose Lane. To its left there was a joke shop – or joke emporium, as the faded sign above it proclaimed – which had severed rubber hands, devil masks and itching powder on display in the window. On the other side was a tobacconist’s, which had as its display a large – and sun-bleached – cardboard model of a brand of cigarettes which the manufacturers had stopped making years earlier.

  The bookshop itself presented a pleasing contrast to the quiet desperation of the two businesses that it was sandwiched between. Its window, unlike theirs, had been cleaned in the recent past, and the books on display had clearly been placed there with care, if not with a great deal of presentational skill.