Murder at Swann's Lake

by Sally Spencer

Was the funeral oration going to be no longer than the message on the back of one of those comic picture postcards people sent when they were staying at the seaside? Apparently it was. The vicar nodded his head solemnly and stepped down.

  The doctor was a short man, and his small, tired steps along the never-ending hospital corridors seemed infuriatingly slow to the man who had been pacing the waiting room for what had felt like an eternity.

  “Try not to get her too excited, and if she appears to be getting tired, tell her you’d better go,” the doctor said.

  “Why won’t you tell me exactly what the situation is before I see her?” Rutter asked. “It would help to assess how I should deal with her.”

  “Believe me, I’d like to give you the information,” the doctor replied, “but there are rules governing these matters. She can tell you what she likes, but we’re only allowed to reveal her medical status to close relatives.”

  “I’m going to marry her,” Rutter pointed out. “You don’t get much closer than that.”

  “Hmm,” the doctor said.

  Rutter stopped walking, took the doctor by the shoulder and swung him round so they were facing each other. “And what’s that ‘hmm’ supposed to mean?” he demanded angrily.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor replied. “I’m exhausted. If I hadn’t been without sleep for the last forty-eight hours, I probably wouldn’t have said that.”

  “But you did say it,” Rutter insisted. “And now I want to know what you meant by it.”

  “I’m sure that you’re a fine young man and that you love my patient very much, but—”

  “But what?”

  The doctor sighed. “I’ve seen scores of young men in your situation,” he said. “They know they’re in love, and they’re sure they can cope with whatever fate throws at them. And then they think about it. I mean really think about it. They ask themselves what their lives will be like in five years’ time. In ten years’ time. In twenty years. And in the end, they decide that love is simply not enough to sustain them through such a difficult existence.”

  “Take me to my fiancée,” Rutter said, through gritted teeth. “Take me to her now.”

  The doctor sighed again, as if such shows of determination were nothing new to him. “As you wish,” he said.

  The burial was over, and the mourners began to drift away from the grave. The vicar bestowed a few platitudes on the widow, told her that his door was always open should she need comfort, then turned and walked rapidly towards the vicarage, where he would just have time for a small sherry before lunch. He did not get far. Standing between two lines of graves – and effectively blocking his path – was the big man in the hairy sports jacket he’d noticed in church earlier.

  “I’m Chief Inspector Woodend,” the big man said. “Could you spare me a couple of minutes, Mr Jones?”

  “Cunliffe Jones,” the vicar corrected him.

  “Could you spare me a couple of minutes Mr Cunliffe Jones?”

  The vicar glanced down at his watch. “I have got rather a busy day ahead of me,” he said irritably.

  Woodend nodded. “Of course you have,” he agreed. “What with buryin’ the dead and visitin’ the sick, you must be run off your feet. Tell you what, I’ll come round to the vicarage tonight. Would nine o’clock suit you?”

  It wouldn’t suit him at all, the Reverend Cunliffe Jones thought. And it wouldn’t suit the guests at his wine and cheese party, either. “You said you only wanted two minutes?” he asked.

  “Well, not more than ten, anyway,” Woodend said cheerfully.

  The vicar gave in to the inevitable. “What would you like to ask me?”

  Woodend rested his right hand on the nearest gravestone. “You didn’t like Robbie Peterson much, did you?” he said.

  The vicar looked vaguely offended – but only vaguely. “Mr Peterson was one of my parishioners, and as such—” he began.

  “I’m investigatin’ a murder,” Woodend told him. “I go a lot by impressions, an’ most of the time I’m spot on. An’ I get the definite impression that you didn’t like Robbie Peterson much. Are you goin’ to say I’m wrong this time?”

  The vicar hesitated for a second. “Perhaps it would kinder to say that I was not used to his city ways,” he conceded. “After all, as you will have seen for yourself, we are largely a rural parish here.”

  “Did he often come to church?”

  “He attended quite regularly when he first arrived in the village. It would be misleading to say he has worshipped with us recently.”

  “Have you any idea what made him stop?”

  Again, the vicar hesitated. “When he’d been here for a few months, he came to see me at the vicarage.”

  Woodend could well imagine it. He could see Robbie, perfectly at home and in control in any of the tougher areas of Liverpool, looking totally lost as he knocked on the vicar’s door. He could picture Cunliffe Jones, too – smug and superior. “I expect you offered him a sherry, did you?” he asked.

  “If memory serves, I did.”

  Woodend grinned. “Bet it wasn’t your good stuff, though. You’d never waste any of that on somebody like Robbie. I’d guess you fobbed him off with some Australian plonk.”

  “If I remember rightly, it was a perfectly acceptable Cyprus sherry,” the vicar said huffily.

  Woodend assumed a look of mock-contrition. “Sorry to have interrupted you,” he said. “You were tellin’ me Robbie came to the vicarage. What did he want to see you about?”

  “He’d noticed our church roof appeal fund hadn’t been as successful as we hoped. He offered to make a substantial contribution.”

  “Which, of course, you readily accepted.”

  The vicar frowned. “At first I did. Just as, at first, I accepted his offer to cater for the Sunday school picnic.”

  “But then?”

  “Then it became plain to me that Mr Peterson was not being purely philanthropic.”

  “Strings attached, were there?”

  “Indeed.”

  “He wanted you to co-opt him onto the parish council, did he?” Woodend asked.

  Cunliffe Jones’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “However did you know that?”

  “What else could you have had to offer that he’d want?” Woodend replied. “Anyway, I imagine you told him the answer was no.”

  “I put it to the sitting members,” the vicar said defensively.

  Woodend grinned again. “Backed with your own strong recommendation that they agree to let him into their exclusive little club?”

  “I’m not sure I care for your tone, Chief Inspector,” the vicar said. “Try to understand our position. We have retired army officers on the parish council. There are headmasters, solicitors and justices of the peace. They reflect the community they live in.”

  “An” Robbie Peterson wouldn’t have, would he?”

  The vicar looked at his watch again. “Mr Peterson wasn’t really one of us. I think, despite what I said in my funeral oration, that he would have been happier back in Liverpool. With people of his own kind. And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  As the vicar turned and walked away, Woodend became aware of a slow, methodical clapping sound. He turned and saw that the noise was coming from the broad, silver-haired man who’d arrived in the Rolls Royce, and now was standing a few feet to his left.

  “Well, you really showed that pompous bastard up for what he was, didn’t you?” the man asked. He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Sid Dowd.”

  “Charlie Woodend,” the Chief Inspector replied, taking the proffered hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Dowd.”

  Dowd grinned. “All good, I hope.”

  “You’d be surprised if I said yes, wouldn’t you?” Woodend asked.

  “Surprised? I’d be bloody astounded,” Dowd admitted. “Look, I’ve got a bit of time to spare before I go back to Liverpool. Don’t you think you an’ me should have a little talk?”

  “It might be
a very good idea,” Woodend agreed. “I’ll see you in Robbie’s office in ten minutes.”

  “I don’t like offices that aren’t my own,” Dowd said, grinning again. “They intimidate me.”

  “I don’t think there’s much that intimidates you, Mr Dowd,” Woodend told him. “But if you’d prefer it, there’s a pub up the road called The Red Lion. We could meet there”

  “That’d do nicely,” Dowd said.

  The room was painted in a gentle pastel blue, the carpet was a shade darker. There was a window facing the hospital grounds, and through it the patient could see a fine clump of elm trees. It was a pleasant room – a soothing room – and it was completely wasted on its present occupant, because she couldn’t see anything.

  Rutter stroked Maria’s hand. “They’ve told me so little,” he said. “Only that you’ve had an accident and it’s affected your sight. What happened?”

  “A policeman at the demonstration hit me over the head with his truncheon,” Maria said simply. “The doctors think that’s what caused the loss of vision.”

  She sounded so weak, Rutter thought. She sounded as if she had sobbed herself into a state of complete exhaustion. And she probably had. “I think you’re being very brave,” he said.

  “It . . . it was terrifying at first,” Maria told him. “When I realised I couldn’t see, I was in the bedroom, and the phone was in the living room. I knew I had to get to it, but it was so hard.”

  “I understand,” Rutter said, stroking her hand again.

  Maria shook her head. “No, you don’t. You can’t until it’s happened to you. I thought I knew my flat like the back of my hand, but I was very, very wrong. When you can’t see, everything’s different. I . . . I kept banging into my furniture. It felt almost as if it was lying in wait to ambush me.”

  “What happens now?” Rutter asked.

  “They’re going to operate on her tomorrow,” Joan Woodend said from her chair in the corner of the room. “They think there’s a very good chance it will be successful.”

  “How good?”

  “Sixty per cent. Maybe even as much as seventy.”

  Which meant there was at least a thirty per cent chance of failure. The doctor’s words came back to Rutter. ‘They know they’re in love, and they’re sure they can cope with the situation. And then they think about it. I mean really think about it. They ask themselves what their lives will be like in five years’ time. In ten years’ time. In twenty years.’

  “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “But even if you weren’t, it still wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Maria looked up at him, even though she could see nothing through her bandaged eyes. He thought about how beautiful she looked – and how vulnerable. “Of course it would make a difference,” she said softly.

  “Not to us,” Rutter argued passionately. “I want to be with you whatever happens.”

  He meant every word of it, he thought. He truly did. But even as he’d been speaking, there’d been a tiny corner of his brain which had asked him if he was lying – even to himself.

  Maria squeezed his hand tightly. “I didn’t want you to come, you know,” she said. “Joan never told me she was ringing you, or I’d have asked her not to. But I’m glad you came. You’ve given me new strength. And now I want you to go back to Cheshire.”

  “And leave you alone?” Rutter protested. “I could never think of doing that!”

  The pressure of Maria’s hand increased. “You would go insane sitting around and doing nothing,” she said. “It will be much better for you to be kept busy – and I know that Mr Woodend will see to that.”

  How could she think of him, and his feelings, at a time like this? he marvelled. How could any woman be strong? So loving? “I want to stay,” he said.

  “And I’d rather you went back to your case,” she told him firmly. “I don’t want to have to worry about you, as well as worrying about myself. Please do this one thing for me. Is it so much to ask?”

  “No,” Rutter said gently. “No, it isn’t.”

  But he already knew that forcing himself to get on a train back to Cheshire would be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life.

  The uniformed constable stood in the hospital corridor, fiddling with his jacket buttons and wishing that his Super had sent someone else out on this particular job. He heard the click of the door handle, then the door itself opened to reveal a young man who looked like he’d just been through hell.

  “Detective Sergeant Rutter?” the constable asked.

  The other man nodded. “That’s right. What can I do for you?”

  The constable shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “My guv’ner sent me down. He’d like to see you.”

  “Your guv’ner?” Rutter repeated. “And who might he be?”

  “Superintendent Jackson, Sarge.”

  The name rang no bells with Rutter. “You wouldn’t have any idea why he wants to see me, would you?” he asked.

  The constable looked down at his boots. “I think it might be about what happened at the Spanish embassy on Sunday,” he admitted. “You see, Superintendent Jackson was the man in charge.”

  “Then we’d better not keep him waiting, had we?” Rutter said, fighting for breath as he felt an iron band suddenly start to tighten across his chest.

  Eleven

  The lounge of The Red Lion was full of horse brasses and plush seating, but almost entirely empty of customers. Woodend bought a pint of bitter for himself and a double whisky for Sid Dowd, then took them over to the table where the Liverpudlian was waiting. “Doris seemed very appreciative of the fact you’d turned up for the funeral,” he said as he sat down.

  “Doris is a two-faced cow who’ll suck up to anybody with money,” Dowd said, without obvious heat. “Now if I was still Young Sid – the lad who used to deliver groceries on his push-bike when she was a little girl – it would have been an entirely different story. She’d have told me to piss off before I even got through the churchyard gate.”

  “You’ve know her a long time, then?”

  “Too long.”

  “If she’s as bad as you’re makin’ out, what did Robbie Peterson ever see in her?” Woodend asked.

  “She was a good-lookin’ girl,” Dowd replied. “But that’s not really the point. It’s what she saw in him that mattered.”

  “An’ what did she see?”

  “She saw a young man who was goin’ places in the rackets.” Dowd shook his head. “Poor Robbie. Once she’d got her hooks into him, he had no chance. It was years before he even started to suspect that she’d married him for what she could get out of him. Still, once he had realised it, he didn’t let history repeat itself.”

  “How d’you mean? Repeat itself?”

  “With Jenny,” Dowd said. “When she was no more than a kid, she had this lad sniffin’ after her. A good-lookin’ boy, he was, but it was Robbie’s dosh, not Jenny herself, that he was after.”

  “An’ what happened?”

  “Robbie warned him off.”

  “Worked him over, you mean?”

  Dowd shook his head. “There was no need for violence. A stern warnin’ an’ a hundred quid in his pocket, an’ the lad was soon gone. Mind you, if he hadn’t taken the hint, then Robbie really would have got nasty.”

  “He didn’t do such a good job of protectin’ his other daughter, did he?” Woodend asked.

  Dowd frowned. “Annie was a lovely little kid,” he said, “as soft an’ sweet as you could ever wish for. But she changed completely when Robbie sent her to that fancy boardin’ school.”

  “In what ways?”

  “All sorts of ways. She started shop-liftin’, but stupidly – as if she wanted to get caught. She was never charged, of course – Robbie saw to that – but if she hadn’t had a dad with influence, she’d probably have ended up in a remand home.”

  “Maybe she would have considered that preferable to her posh boarding school,” Wood
end said thoughtfully. “What else did she do?”

  “She liked throwin’ bricks through windows an’ smashin’ up cars – especially if they were her dad’s windows or her dad’s cars. It was like she hated the whole world in general, but Robbie in particular.” Dowd’s eyes suddenly widened. “You don’t think Annabel could have killed Robbie, do you?”

  “I’m more interested in findin’ out whether you think she could have done it,” Woodend said.

  Superintendent Jackson was around forty-five years old, with a square head and belligerent eyes which, for the moment, he was trying to infuse with sympathy. “I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your fiancée, Sergeant,” he said to Rutter, who was sitting opposite him. “A tragic accident.”

  Accident? Rutter thought. Accident! “There’ll be an inquiry, of course,” he said.

  “Indeed there will,” Jackson assured him. “My men came under very heavy attack from stones and bottles. I’ve no intention of letting the perpetrators get away with it.”

  Rutter gripped the arms of his chair. “I meant an inquiry into what happened to Maria. I want to see the policeman who assaulted her up on serious charges.”

  “We don’t even know it was a bobby,” Jackson said. “Perhaps she was hit by one of the bricks or bottles. Maybe she fell down and got kicked in the head by one of her own people. I’m afraid those are the chances you take when you go on that kind of violent demonstration.”

  “I’ve talked to her,” Rutter said, holding his rage in – but only just. “She’s quite clear in her mind about what happened. She was attacked by one of the officers outside the embassy.”

  “Assuming that’s true,” Jackson said. “Assuming that, as a foreigner with left-wing views, she’s not just saying it to discredit the British police.”

  “What!” Rutter exploded.

  “Let me finish,” Jackson said firmly. “Assuming – as I think likely – that she’s not merely confused by the blow to the head. Where does that leave us?”

  “With a policeman who’s a disgrace to his uniform,” Rutter said through gritted teeth.

  “For all we know, she might have been threatening the officer concerned,” Jackson continued. “Or appearing to threaten him. And let us say, for the sake of argument, that this officer made a poor decision and lashed out. Not meaning to hurt her, you understand, but only to drive her back. Are you prepared to ruin that young officer’s career for one momentary mistake? How will that help your fiancée?”