Clough nodded. “Yes I am.”
“How long have you known about her dealin’ in illegal drugs?”
“Not long,” Clough admitted. “I learned about it from one of the boys at my school. His older brother had friends who were Annie’s customers. He was worried his brother might become an addict, and so he came to me.”
“Sensible lad,” Woodend said.
“I’d talked her out of it, you know. Actually, it wasn’t too hard – she’d already half-decided to give it up herself. The night she was arrested was going to be her last time.”
Woodend looked him straight in the eye. “Do you love Annie, Mr Clough?” he asked.
Michael Clough seemed embarrassed by the question. “I think she loves me,” he said. “I’m the only man who’s treated her decently in years.”
“That wasn’t what I asked, an’ you know it,” Woodend said.
“She’s got a lot of fine qualities,” Clough replied. “I’m sure I’ll learn to love her in time.”
“And what about Jenny? Where does that leave her?”
“So you knew about that?”
“Not at first,” Woodend admitted, “but there were so many little things which only made sense if that was the case. Like the night Robbie was killed, for example. You and your brother were down at the lake, talkin’. And what exactly were you talkin’ about? It was about Jenny, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Clough admitted. “Terry had suspected something was going on between us for quite some time, but on Friday night he asked me straight out if it was true.”
“An’ what did you tell him?”
“That Jenny was going to divorce him and marry me.”
“And that’s when he hit you?”
“Yes. I didn’t fight back. I felt I owed him at least one swing at me.”
“There were other things that put me on the right track as well,” Woodend continued. “Do you remember when I was interviewin’ you about your movements on Friday night?”
“Of course I do.”
“I couldn’t see why you’d abandoned your committee meetin’ to come to The Hideaway. You didn’t seem like that kind of man. So what I suggested was that you’d come to meet the Peterson girl – and you reacted like I’d hit you in the face with a wet fish.”
“Well, it was a bit of a shock,” Michael Clough confessed.
“Of course it was,” Woodend agreed. “And for a while, I thought it was because you were havin’ a secret affair with Annie. But you weren’t. What had happened was that we were talkin’ about different people. My wife was a Howard before we got married. In London, she’s called Joan Woodend, because the neighbours don’t know any different. But around Preston she’s Joan Howard, even now. There’s only one Peterson girl to me – Annie. But to people who’ve been brought up around the family, there are two. For them, Jenny will be Jenny Peterson until the day she dies. And that’s who you thought I meant – you thought I’d found out about your affair with Jenny.”
“And then you knew it all?” Michael said, with just a trace of amused irony in his voice.
But Woodend found nothing amusing in the situation, because now that he knew that Conway was really Peterson – now that the veil had been lifted from his eyes and he was no longer chasing a criminal with a grievance – he had finally pieced together what had happened the night Robbie Peterson met his death.
“No,” he said in answer to Michael’s question. “Even then I didn’t work it out. It was the scene between Jenny and Annie yesterday that finally did it. What could cause two sisters to fight with such ferocity? It could only be a man. An’ if I needed anythin’ else, there was the look on your brother’s face when he worked out what the fight was about. Terry wanted to make a lot of money fast, so he could get Jenny away from here. Away from you! But after the fight he realised there was no longer a problem. Jenny couldn’t have you because you’d chosen Annie instead.”
“You’re right,” Michael Clough admitted.
“But it’s still Jenny you love, isn’t it?” Woodend demanded roughly.
“Oh yes,” Clough said sadly. “It’s still Jenny I love.”
“Then why are you abandonin’ her now?”
“Jenny’s got Terry,” Michael Clough said. “He might not be the ideal husband, but he loves her and he’s capable of change – especially now Robbie’s gone. Annie’s got nobody. She needs me.”
“You’re way off the mark, lad,” Woodend said.
“You don’t think Annie needs me?”
“I know Jenny needs you more. She won’t have Terry to stand by her – Terry will be goin’ down for quite some time.
“Going down?” Michael repeated, incredulously.
“The problem about always tryin’ to see the good side of people is that you don’t see the bad side even when it’s starin’ you in the face. Your brother’s both brighter and a lot more crooked then you’d ever have guessed.”
“Oh God, my darling Jenny,” Clough groaned.
“Aye, your darlin’ Jenny,” Woodend agreed dourly. “I think it’s about time we had a word with her.”
Annie Peterson, out on police bail, began counting the flowers on the living-room wall-paper for the sixth or seventh time and – again for the sixth or seventh time – lost her concentration less than halfway up the wall.
She lit a cigarette, then shredded the empty packet it had come from. Her life was a mess, she thought bitterly. And not only hers – the lives of everybody she touched were messes, too. It was easy to blame Robbie – she’d been doing that for years – but it was time to take some responsibility herself.
She thought back to her last conversation she’d had with her sister – the conversation which had ended with them fighting like two wild cats in the yard in front of The Hideaway. The words played in her head. Harsh. Accusing.
‘Don’t take Michael away from me,’ Jenny had pleaded. ‘I’ve suffered so much—’
‘Suffered!’ Annie had replied heatedly. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. You got to stay at home. I was Robbie’s experiment in social climbing.’ She’d laughed without humour. ‘What a joke that was! Who did he ever hope to fool?’
‘He tried to do the best for all of us. It wasn’t his fault he got it wrong.’
‘Well it certainly wasn’t mine,’ Annabel had retorted. ‘And now I’ve got the chance of being happy at last, I’m not going to let you stand in my way.’
Yes, that was what she’d said. But even at the time there’d been at least a part of her which had realised it wasn’t true. Michael and Jenny belonged together, and nothing good could ever come from splitting them up. And once she had admitted that to herself, it was obvious to her what she had to do.
“Mrs Clough isn’t in the house,” Rutter told his boss, through the open office door.
Woodend looked up from the report he was writing. “Then maybe she’s in the club,” he said abstractly.
“She isn’t there, either.”
Woodend sighed. “So ask Doris where she is. Really, Bob, I should have thought a detective sergeant was perfectly capable of—”
“Mrs Peterson doesn’t know either,” Rutter interrupted. “Says she hasn’t seen her for a couple of hours.”
The pen dropped out of Woodend’s hand, and he was suddenly giving his sergeant all his attention. “Are you sayin’ she’s disappeared?” he demanded.
Rutter laughed. “I wouldn’t put it as melodramatically as that, sir.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Woodend asked, picking up the phone. “Well, I soddin’ well would!” He dialled 999 rapidly. “Operator, put me through to Maltham Police.” He covered the mouthpiece. “I should have anticipated this, Bob. I should have bloody known.”
“Known what?” the puzzled Sergeant asked.
But by then the Chief Inspector had been put through. “This is Woodend . . . yes, Scotland Yard. Get me Inspector Chatterton as quickly as you can.” There were several seconds paus
e before Woodend said, “Chatterton? . . . Jenny Clough’s gone missin’ . . . That’s what I said. . . . I want her found as soon as possible. Put all your available men on the job. An’ draft in as many as you can lay your hands on from other divisions. I want a search like there’s never been in this area before. An’ send a man round to Annie Peterson’s. I want her picked up and bringin’ down to The Hideaway.”
Rutter listened with growing incredulity. When Inspector Chatteron had offered men to help in the murder inquiry, Cloggin’-it Charlie had said he couldn’t use them, he reminded himself. Now Woodend seemed to be attempting to mobilise the whole of the Cheshire police force over a matter which couldn’t be called anything more than trivial. Of course, there was some cause for concern when the daughter of a murdered man went missing, he admitted to himself – especially when that daughter looked as upset as Jenny Clough had been doing recently. But did an absence of a couple of hours really justify such a hullabaloo? And what business was it of Woodend’s anyway?
The Chief Inspector put the phone down and the Sergeant saw that his face was ashen. Woodend reached for his cigarettes, lit one and inhaled deeply. What was the matter with him? Rutter wondered.
“I should have had her in here before I talked to Michael Clough,” Woodend said, “but I didn’t think there was any hurry. To tell the truth, I was probably deliberately puttin’ it off. I can see now it was a big mistake – but it’s too bloody late. God knows where she’s gone, or what she’s done.”
Rutter sat down opposite his boss. “I’ve a few questions I’d like to ask about the investigation, sir,” he said tactfully.
“The investigation?” Woodend repeated, as if he had no idea what Rutter was talking about.
Rutter suppressed a sigh. Woodend seemed to have completely lost his sense of balance – and the Sergeant had no idea why. Could it be that Jenny Clough had turned his head, just as Liz Poole had in the Salton case? Well, they said there was no fool like an old fool. But somebody had to snap him out of it – and quickly.
“I realise you’re worried about Mrs Clough,” he said, “but now we know that Conway can’t be our killer—”
“The murder!” Woodend said, as if the pin had just dropped. “You’re still worryin’ your head about the murder, aren’t you?”
“It is why we’re here, sir,” Rutter reminded him.
Woodend let out a deep sigh and looked at his protégé with disappointment in his eyes. “Bloody hell, lad, it’s obvious who killed Robbie Peterson,” he said. “An’ after what happened to Maria, you should be in a better position than most people to work that out. There were only three—”
The phone rang, and Woodend wrenched it off its cradle. “Yes,” he said. “Yes . . . yes . . . I see. Are you sure? . . . Well, tell your lads about her as well.” He put down the phone and turned his attention back to Rutter. “That was Inspector Chatterton,” he said grimly. “He’s just had a report in from the man he sent to pick up Annie. Seems that she’s disappeared an’ all.”
Twenty-One
The fairground was long since deserted, its flashing lights replaced by the pale glow of the moon, the gentle slap-slapping of the waves against the shore the only noise now that the hurdy-gurdy had been closed down for the night.
“I wonder where the hell they’ve gone,” Woodend said worriedly, as he looked across the lake. “I’d give half my pension to know that right now.”
“They’ll be back,” Rutter said. “Doris says Jenny’s taken nothing with her, and Inspector Chatterton told me Annie’s suitcase is still on top of her wardrobe.”
“Oh, I never thought either of them was doing a runner,” Woodend told him. “I just wish I knew where they were.”
Rutter lit one of his cork-tipped cigarettes and held it up in front of him, like a firefly in the night. “Do you think the two of them are together?”
Woodend shook his head. “They’re havin’ enough difficulty handlin’ their own misery, without dealin’ with anyone else’s.”
A fork of lightning cut across the sky, soaking both the funfair and the lake in its eerie light. For a few seconds, the air sizzled softly, then was filled with the explosive anger of a loud clap of thunder.
“When I was a kid back in Lancashire, we used to believe that if we counted slowly after a flash of lightnin’, then whatever number we’d reached by the time we heard the thunder was how many miles away the storm was,” Woodend said.
“Actually there’s a pretty solid scientific basis for that,” Rutter told him. “You see, light travels faster than sound and—”
“Oh, to hell with science,” Woodend said. “The way I see it is, when you’re a kid it’s very comforting to know what’s comin’, even if you don’t know why it’s comin’. The problem with us grown-ups is we forget the ‘what’ an’ think too much about the ‘how’ and ‘why’. That’s what gets us into so much trouble.”
A few drops of rain spattered on Rutter’s shoulder. “I think we’d better get back to The Red Lion before the storm really arrives, sir,” he said.
“What time is it?” Woodend asked.
Rutter took out his torch and shone it on his watch. “It’s two-fifteen, sir. That probably explains why I’m so bloody tired.”
Woodend didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. “Jenny’s somewhere near here,” he said, almost to himself. “She’s got to be somewhere near here.”
“You’re wrong,” Rutter said. “If she’d been within a couple of miles of Swann’s Lake, the local bobbies would have found her.”
“She wouldn’t go far from home,” Woodend mused, as if he hadn’t heard his sergeant. “Home means security – an’ Jenny’s never been one to strike out on her own.”
The rain was falling harder now, and starting to create small puddles in the indented clay beneath their feet.
Rutter felt a couple of drops of water wriggle their way past his shirt collar and slide down the back of his neck. “I really think we should make a move, sir,” he said.
A second sheet of lightning, even brighter that the first, filled the night sky, exposing in its harsh glare the lakeside attractions – the roundabout, now shrouded in green canvas; the coconut shy, firmly shuttered; the ghost train, squat and menacing . . .
“Follow me . . .” Woodend said, as if he’d had a sudden inspiration.
“Where are we going?” Rutter asked.
“. . . an’ get your torch out again, because we’re goin’ to need it.”
Woodend strode rapidly past the rifle range and hoop-la stall. When he reached the ghost train, he mounted the platform, then stepped straight down onto the track. He pushed against one of the swing doors with his hand, and felt it give.
“She’d have her own key,” he said over his shoulder. “Or if she didn’t, she’d know where to lay her hands on one.”
He pushed the door open wide enough to step through the gap and held it there while Rutter followed him. The Sergeant ran the beam of his torch over the walls, spotlighting papier maché ghouls and crude plaster tarantulas.
From somewhere beyond the first bend in the track came a noise which sounded like a wooden crate hitting the metal rails.
“She’s in here!” Woodend exclaimed. “I bloody knew she was in here. Christ, I hope we’re not too late.”
He was already running as he spoke. Twice, he stubbed his toes against the sleepers. Three times he almost lost his balance and only saved himself by slamming into the walls. Behind him, Rutter held the torch as steady as he could – and tried to avoid falling flat on his face.
They turned one bend and there was nothing ahead of them but more yards of empty track. Gasping for breath, they turned the second, and still there was no sign of Jenny Clough. It was only when they had rounded the third that they saw the body swinging from the steel beam.
Woodend grabbed Jenny around the waist and lifted her higher into the air. “My clasp knife!” he shouted to Rutter, as Jenny pummelled his head. “Get my bloody clasp k
nife! It’s in my jacket pocket.”
The Sergeant reached into his boss’s pocket and pulled out the old-fashioned knife.
“Now cut through the noose,” Woodend said. “An’ for God’s sake be quick about it.”
Rutter found the box which Jenny Clough had stood on – the one they had heard falling as they entered the tunnel – and righted it. As he climbed onto it, Jenny lashed out with her left arm, knocking him to the ground.
“Get behind her,” Woodend gasped, as he struggled to maintain his grip on the wriggling, kicking woman.
Rutter moved the box, mounted it again, and opened the clasp knife. Jenny was trying to speak – to scream – but her words came out as no more than a loud gurgle.
“Don’t struggle, Jenny, luv,” Woodend begged. “Please don’t struggle.”
Rutter tried to hold his torch with one hand and cut through the swinging rope with the other. But it wasn’t working! It wasn’t bloody working! He needed both hands to do a proper job. He dropped the torch and groped in the darkness for the rope. When he’d found it, he began to slice, hoping he didn’t take his own hand off in the process. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Christ, the rope was thick. Thick – and as hard as granite.
“Hurry up, lad,” Woodend grunted. “I’m not sure how much longer I can hold her.”
The rope finally gave. With that parting, Jenny Clough’s resistance collapsed, and she went from being a writhing, clawing she-cat into nothing more than a dead weight. Woodend lowered her gently to the ground, but kept a firm hold on her. “Are you all right, lass?” he asked into the darkness.
“I left it too late, didn’t I?” Jenny Clough croaked.
The sun was shining brightly across the interview room at Maltham police station. It was hard to believe that only a few hours earlier the thunder and lightning had been hurling their anger towards the earth. Woodend and Rutter sat side by side at one end of the table, and seated opposite them was the pale, dark-haired woman with the rope burns around her neck.
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