Echoes of the Dead

by Sally Spencer

  ‘You must have some idea – even if it’s only a very vague one,’ Paniatowski pressed him.

  ‘I do know is that they sometimes used to go off for half-day excursions together, if that’s any help.’

  ‘Where did they go, when they took these excursions?’

  ‘Again, they never talked about it. But I remember them once lettin’ it slip – accidentally like – that they’d been to Bolton.’

  The message that the desk sergeant handed to Paniatowski said simply that Charlie Woodend had called from Spain and wanted to speak to her urgently.

  ‘He asked me to underline “urgently” three times, so I’d imagine he means it,’ the sergeant said.

  Charlie must believe that he’d come up with the name of the anonymous informer, Paniatowski thought, too impatient to wait for the lift, and instead taking the stairs three at a time.

  And maybe he had.

  But even if he was wrong about that, she still wanted to talk to him, because – suddenly – the case was on new level.

  Charlie had once told her that, in many ways, an investigation was just like a jigsaw puzzle, she remembered, as she rushed down the corridor towards her office. All you had to do was fit all the pieces of the puzzle together and you’d have the complete picture. But unlike a jigsaw, he’d cautioned, the pieces weren’t all lying neatly in the box – they were spread all over the place, and before you could begin to slot them into place, you first had to bloody well find them.

  Well, she’d scooped up a number of the pieces that morning. There were not enough for the complete picture, it was true, but at least she now had some idea of what kind of picture it was – and she wanted to find out what Charlie made of it all.

  She had meant to hear what Woodend had to say before laying out her own discoveries in front of him, but when he answered the phone, Paniatowski just began talking.

  She told him all about the fencing racket deal that Howerd had been running with Mottershead, and how, beyond that – or so it seemed to Walter Brown – the two men were united by a strong common interest. She talked about their half-day excursions, at least one of which had been to Bolton.

  It was as she was talking that she suddenly realized she did not sound like the detective chief inspector who was in charge of the case at all, but much more closely resembled the eager young sergeant who she’d once been, in the process of reporting a triumph to her wise and all-seeing boss. She realized it – and she didn’t give a damn!

  When she’d finished, Woodend said, ‘You’ve done well, Monika. Now let’s talk about what it all means.’

  And they did. They argued the case back and to, and inside out. They challenged each other’s theories with a passion, and reached common ground with some relief. And when they had finished, Paniatowski felt exhausted.

  ‘You’ve been a great help, Charlie,’ Paniatowski said. ‘No, more than that – you’ve been a bloody marvel.’

  Woodend chuckled.

  The chuckle annoyed Paniatowski for a second, because it seemed as if he was laughing at her. Then she told herself not to be so sensitive, that it was good that he could chuckle, because that meant that – at least in his opinion – the darkest days were possibly behind them.

  ‘What’s so funny, Charlie?’ she asked.

  ‘You were about to hang up the phone, weren’t you, Monika?’ Woodend replied – and he was still laughing at a joke that, as yet, she seemed unable to share with him.

  ‘Well, yes, I was about to hang up,’ she admitted. ‘I thought we’d thrashed out pretty much all we could thrash out for the moment, and that I needed to brief my team next. Anything wrong with that?’

  ‘Not really,’ Woodend said, ‘except that you seem to have forgotten that though you rang me, it was only because I asked you to.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Paniatowski replied, a slightly perplexed frown crossing her brow. ‘Why was that, Charlie? Was it because . . .’ And then it hit her. ‘Of course! You think you know who Mr X is!’ she all but screamed.

  ‘That’s right,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘So who the bloody hell is he?’

  ‘What you’re looking for is a man wracked by guilt and weighed down by his sense of responsibility,’ Woodend told her.

  He was teasing her, she thought, but after what he’d been through, she supposed he was entitled to.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘He knows the right thing to do, and he wants to do it. The only problem is that in doing the right thing, he will also be doing the wrong thing – because it will mean betraying the principles which have guided his life. So he looks for a compromise – a way of letting you know what you need to know, without breaking the confidences that have been entrusted to him.’

  ‘A name, Charlie,’ Paniatowski said, giving in to her exasperation. ‘Give me a bloody name!’

  And he did.

  ‘Of course!’ she said, banging her forehead with the flat of her hand. ‘I was a fool not to have seen it earlier.’

  ‘We were both fools not to have seen it earlier. But now we’ve got the information, you have to use it, an’ if you want my opinion . . .’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘You have to use it quickly. This is one of them cases where you must strike while the iron is hot. If you don’t crack it today, the people involved will soon start buildin’ up walls between you an’ the truth – an’ then the chances are that you’ll never crack it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she agreed.

  ‘So bearin’ that in mind, I’d better leave you to get on with it. Good luck, Monika.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Paniatowski said.

  As she hung up, it occurred to her that, for a while back there, they really had been the old team, with Charlie Woodend firmly in charge. But it wasn’t like that any more, now that she’d put the phone down, she reminded herself. She was in charge – and whatever successes or failures the day brought would all be down to her.

  The door opened, and Crane and Beresford entered the office. They looked first at her, and then at each other.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ Beresford guessed.

  ‘You’re damn right something’s happened!’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Sit down, lads – but don’t make yourselves too comfortable, because you’ve got a busy day ahead of you.’

  ‘A busy day?’ Crane repeated. ‘What is it that you’ll be wanting us to do, boss?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ admitted Paniatowski, whose head was still spinning from her conversation with Woodend. ‘I haven’t had time to work out all the details, but give me five minutes and I’ll get there.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mike Eccles had never walked with a bounce in his entire life, but as he made his way up the steep cobbled street he had last walked over twenty years earlier, there was less of a shuffle to his step than usual.

  In his own mind’s eye, he was nothing less than a hero – for how else could you describe a man who had made the epic journey from Manchester to Whitebridge with unfailing courage and determination?

  It had not been easy. His first lift that morning – after he’d woken up by the side of the road, still drunk – had been on a farm tractor. The second had involved sitting on the back of a builder’s lorry, where his fellow passengers had been breeze blocks and bags of cement. And the final stage, from the outskirts of Whitebridge, had had to be made on foot, since an aggressive bus conductor had refused to let him mount the bus on the totally unreasonable grounds that, as well as having no money, he stank.

  No, it hadn’t been easy at all, but against the odds, he had made it – and now, as heroes always do, he was about to claim his reward.

  It would have occurred to most men in his situation that, as twenty-one years had passed since he’d left Whitebridge, his wife might no longer live in the house they had briefly shared, but he was not a great thinker, and the idea never crossed his mind. Nor, as things turned out, had his mind needed to exercise itself unduly,
because as he drew closer to his old home, he saw Elizabeth standing on the doorstep, watching workmen loading her furniture into a large van.

  So she was moving, he thought. Well, given all that had happened recently, that certainly made sense.

  The furniture van was pulling away as he reached the house, and his wife was just about to go back indoors when he called out, ‘Liz!’

  She turned towards him, and a look of disgust – though not of recognition – filled her face.

  ‘It’s me – Mike,’ he said. ‘Your husband.’

  Disgust rapidly turned to shock.

  ‘Just look at the state of you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not in such great shape yourself,’ he told her. Then, realizing it would make things easier if he had her on his side, he added, ‘It’s been a long time, Elizabeth. We’ve both got older.’

  ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

  ‘My share,’ he said simply.

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘We both know why you married me – and why I married you,’ he said.

  He had seen disgust in her eyes, and shock in her eyes, and now – for just an instant – he saw fear.

  ‘Yes, we both do know why we got married,’ she agreed, looking down at the pavement.

  ‘Well, I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain,’ Eccles said. ‘I’d done that the moment I put the ring on your finger. But you never came through for me, did you? And now it’s time you did.’

  Elizabeth raised her head again, and looked frantically up and down the steep street.

  ‘Listen, I’ve only got a few pounds in the house at the moment,’ she said urgently, ‘but if you take them – and then leave straightaway – I’ll get you some more later.’

  ‘How much more?’ he asked.

  She ran her eyes over his threadbare clothes, and did a quick mental calculation. ‘Five hundred pounds,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ he told her.

  ‘Not enough!’ she repeated scornfully. ‘It’s more money than you’ve seen in your life.’

  ‘You might be right about that,’ Eccles agreed. ‘But when you think about what I’ve been through—’

  ‘What you’ve been through?’ Elizabeth interrupted him. ‘I’m the one who’s had to stay here. I’m the one who’s put up with the neighbours sniggering at me and people crossing the road to avoid me.’

  ‘He was your father, not mine,’ Eccles pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and if he hadn’t been my father – if I’d had some other father – you’d never have wanted to marry me in the first place.’

  ‘I want my share,’ Eccles said, stubbornly reverting back to his original argument.

  ‘I might perhaps be able to raise a thousand pounds, if you give me enough time,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘That isn’t enough, either,’ Eccles said, sticking firmly to his guns. ‘I want half of what you’re getting.’

  It was anger that blazed in Elizabeth’s eyes now. ‘You’re totally insane!’ she said.

  And before he could stop her, she had stepped back inside the house, and slammed the door.

  Eccles hammered on the door with his fists. ‘Let me in!’ he screamed. ‘I want my share.’

  A neighbour – a stocky middle-aged woman in a floral pinafore – opened her door.

  ‘Will you please stop makin’ all that dreadful noise,’ she said. ‘My husband’s on shift work, an’ he’s tryin’ to get some sleep.’

  ‘Bugger off!’ Eccles said.

  ‘If you don’t stop immediately, I’ll call the police,’ the pinafored woman threatened.

  ‘Call ’em if you want to – see if I care,’ Eccles told her, before resuming his banging.

  More doors opened.

  ‘Tell him you’ll call the police, Edna,’ shouted another woman, from across the road.

  ‘I’ve already told him that,’ the neighbour shouted back. ‘He’s taken no damn notice.’

  ‘I’m surprised she’s not already called them,’ said a third woman, pointing at Elizabeth Eccles’s house.

  ‘Her!’ said the first neighbour. ‘She’s as bad as he is.’

  Eccles stopped flailing against the door and looked around him.

  ‘I need a key,’ he said. ‘Has anybody got a key?’

  The women all moved back from their steps into their hallways, and closed the front doors behind them.

  ‘A key,’ Eccles said, to the now empty street. ‘Will somebody please give me a key?’

  He searched around for a weapon, and found one in the shape of a half-brick that was lying in the road.

  He walked back to the door, and called through the letterbox, ‘This is your last chance, Liz.’

  When there was no answer, he stepped back again, and hurled the half-brick through Elizabeth’s front window.

  The street was suddenly filled with the sound of shattering glass – and then it was filled with the sound of a police car siren.

  The chief constable looked up from his pile of paperwork and said, ‘Would you like to take a seat, Chief Inspector?’

  Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No, thank you, sir. I can see you’re busy and I don’t want to detain you longer than I need to.’

  Or to put it another way, she thought, the less time I’m here, the less chance you’ll have of asking me questions I don’t want to answer.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’ George Baxter asked.

  ‘I think that perhaps I may have been acting a little unreasonably recently, sir,’ Paniatowski said contritely. ‘I think I—’

  ‘You, Chief Inspector?’ Baxter interrupted her. ‘Acting unreasonably? I find the very idea almost impossible to comprehend.’ He smiled. ‘What do you actually want, Monika?’

  ‘I want you to schedule a press conference in time for the midday news bulletin, sir,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Really!’ Baxter replied. ‘And is there anything specific you’d like me to say at this press conference – or shall I just make it up as I go along?’

  ‘I’d like you to say that there is clear evidence of police misconduct in the Fred Howerd case, and that you expect to issue a more comprehensive statement by tomorrow morning at the latest.’

  ‘Why?’

  Paniatowski shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. ‘That – or something like it – is what you’ve been wanting to say for some time, sir.’

  ‘I know it is,’ Baxter agreed. ‘What I’m interested in now is why you want me to say it.’

  ‘I’m hoping that by shaking things up a bit, I’ll get the answers to several questions that have been troubling me, sir,’ Paniatowski said, almost clinically.

  ‘Oh, come on, Monika, that won’t do at all,’ the chief constable told her. ‘You’re going to have to be much more specific.’

  Yes, Paniatowski thought, sighing inwardly, she supposed she was.

  She outlined her reasons for wanting the press conference, and when she’d finished, Baxter said, ‘It’s a risky strategy, Monika.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You may not get the result that you’re hoping for.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And once I’ve promised the press a more comprehensive statement by tomorrow, I will deliver that statement – and you’ll help me to prepare it.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘And when I have delivered it, any chance you might once have had of protecting Charlie Woodend could be gone for ever.’

  ‘I have thought it all through, you know,’ Paniatowski said, only just containing her irritation. ‘I do realize all that.’

  ‘And do you also realize that not only may I have to serve up Woodend’s head on a platter, but I might also have to use the officer who tried to protect him as garnish?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve thought it all through,’ Paniatowski said.

  And then she shivered.

  It really bothered DC Crane that he found Dr Shastri so attractive, because though she was not quite
old enough to be his mother, she was probably the same age as his Aunt Sarah, and a young man like him had no business fancying anybody’s auntie. It bothered him even more that, as a trained doctor, she might possibly notice the physical manifestation of that attraction – which was even now straining against the trousers of his second-best suit – and, instead of being flattered, would merely laugh at him.

  ‘You seem preoccupied, Detective Constable,’ Shastri said, in a silky voice which didn’t make the situation any easier for him.

  Crane swallowed hard. ‘I was . . . err . . . just running through the details of the case I’ve come to ask you about, Ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘Please call me “Doc”,’ Shastri said. ‘Which case are you interested in?’

  ‘The Barry Mottershead murder.’

  Shastri frowned – which seemed to make her even more attractive, if that were possible.

  ‘The name is not familiar to me,’ she said.

  ‘No, of course, it wouldn’t be,’ Crane agreed. ‘It was long before your time, Ma’am . . . Doc. 1951, to be exact. But there will still be a copy of the autopsy report somewhere, won’t there?’

  ‘Of course there will,’ Shastri agreed. ‘And if you want to see it, all you have to do is go to the general office and ask one the clerks to take you down to the archives.’

  ‘Thank you, Doc,’ said Crane, finally getting it right this time.

  Shastri smiled, and, but for the fact that she was a highly qualified doctor in a senior position, Crane would almost have called the smile a mischievous one.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with it at all, you know, Detective Constable,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing wrong with what?’

  ‘With what you are experiencing at the moment. Among men of your tender age, the rampant Oedipus complex is much more prevalent that you might imagine – but do not fear, you will no doubt grow out of it in time.’

  ‘I . . . err . . . I’d better go and find your clerk, ma’am,’ Crane said.

  ‘Yes, I think you better had,’ Shastri agreed.