‘It must be a difficult job for you, sir – I can well appreciate that – but what the bloody hell am I doin’ here?’ Woodend interrupted. ‘As far as I can tell, I’ll only be in the way.’
‘You haven’t been told, have you?’ the superintendent asked.
‘Told what?’
The superintendent raised his right hand, and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of it. ‘One of the first things we did was to establish a dedicated phone link with the bank. I rang it, and one of the robbers answered. But he didn’t want to listen to what I had to say. In fact, he demanded to talk to you.’
‘To me?’ Woodend said, astounded. ‘To me personally?’
‘That’s right. He was quite explicit.’
Woodend turned to his sergeant. ‘Well, what do you think of that, Monika?’ he asked. ‘Fame at last, eh?’ He returned his attention to the superintendent. ‘I’d better get on the blower to him, then, hadn’t I?’
‘He … er … doesn’t want to talk to you over the phone,’ the superintendent said awkwardly. ‘He insists on a face-to-face meeting.’
‘My place or his?’ Woodend asked.
‘Pardon?’
‘Is he comin’ out – or does he want me to go in?’
‘He made it pretty clear he wants you to go in,’ the superintendent said grimly. ‘Look, Charlie, I can’t order you to go in there. In fact, I’d quite understand if you refused.’
Woodend lit up a Capstan Full Strength, and noted as he did so that his hand was shaking slightly. ‘How many people are this feller an’ his gang holdin’ hostage?’ he asked.
‘It’s impossible to say with any degree of accuracy,’ the superintendent admitted. ‘We know there are seven bank employees, for certain, but as to the number of customers … well, on a busy day like this there could have been anything up to a couple of dozen of them there when the robbers burst in.’
Woodend took a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘I’d better go an’ talk to him then, hadn’t I?’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ the superintendent asked.
Woodend forced a grin to his face. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, the gang are armed and dangerous and—’
‘Don’t worry about it, sir,’ Woodend said, maintaining his grin with some difficulty. ‘This kind of thing happens over in America all the time. Heaven knows, I’ve seen it in enough Hollywood films. An’ the thing about those films is that whatever else happens, the hero – which in this case appears to be me – never, ever, gets killed.’
Two
The Lancaster Cotton Credit Bank was one of the older banking houses in Whitebridge. And that showed in its layout, for whereas the newer, more ‘modern’ banks had a warren of small offices in which to conduct their affairs with discretion, the LCCB devoted most of its floor space to one large room in which business could be transacted and seen to be transacted.
Standing in the doorway – still not sure how to proceed – Woodend studied that room. It was square, and lined with second-grade – but still respectable enough – black granite. A long counter, with elaborate scrollwork grilles, separated the third of it in which the clerks worked from the two-thirds where the customers waited to be dealt with. On the wall, an enormous nineteenth-century clock loudly ticked away the seconds, as if to remind those who heard it that time was money – and money didn’t like to be kept waiting.
The room was empty, though the discarded morning newspapers on the floor and the smell of cigarette smoke which still hung in the air were evidence enough that it had been recently occupied.
This was just like the bloody Marie Celeste, Woodend thought.
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ he said aloud.
It was then that he noticed the camera. It was crudely mounted on the wall close to the counter – there was evidence of plaster dust on the floor beneath it – and was pointing at the door to the street.
Closed-circuit television! Woodend told himself.
Jesus!
Equipment like that was being used, as an experiment, at a few of the underground railway stations in London, but as far as he knew, it wasn’t operating anywhere else in the whole bloody country.
So whatever else these bank robbers were, they certainly weren’t run-of-the-mill.
A door behind the counter swung open, and a man stepped through the gap. He was tall and broad. He was wearing camouflage uniform and a ski mask. And in his hands he was holding what Woodend recognized to be a submachine gun.
‘Come closer,’ he ordered.
Woodend began to walk slowly towards the counter. When he was half-way between it and the door, the man snapped, ‘That’s far enough.’
The Chief Inspector came to an abrupt and complete halt. ‘Whatever you say. You’re the boss.’
‘Have you come alone?’ the man with the machine gun asked.
Woodend glanced over his shoulder. ‘Seem to have,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, this wasn’t exactly a popular assignment.’
‘Do you think this is funny, Chief Inspector?’ the other man demanded aggressively.
‘Not at all,’ Woodend replied. ‘To be honest with you, I’m findin’ it so unfunny that I’m almost shittin’ myself.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that. It’s certainly the frame of mind I want you to be in,’ the man said, and though the ski mask made it difficult to know for sure, Woodend was almost certain that he was smiling.
‘You seem to know who I am,’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘Would you care to tell me who you are?’
‘You can call me Apollo,’ the man answered.
‘Apollo,’ Woodend mused. ‘Funny name to choose. Wasn’t he the Roman god of the sun or summat?’
‘Amongst other things,’ the man replied. Then, as if he had lost interest in the subject and felt it was time to move on, he said, ‘But you seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, Chief Inspector. I’m the one with the gun, so I’m the one who gets to ask the questions.’
‘Fair enough,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Ask away.’
‘Did you see active service in the war?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you must have had guns pointed at you before.’
‘Aye, I have. Plenty of ’em. But, in my experience, at least, it’s not somethin’ you ever get used to.’
‘Were you decorated for your war service?’ the man calling himself Apollo asked.
‘Whether I was or whether I wasn’t, it’s not really any of your business, is it?’ Woodend countered.
‘You’re wrong about that,’ Apollo told him. ‘It is my business, because I have the gun and I want to know. And it’s your business to answer, because I have twenty hostages back there, and if you refuse to co-operate, I just might make them suffer.’
‘I got a couple of medals,’ Woodend said reluctantly.
‘The Victoria Cross?’
Despite the situation he found himself in, Woodend couldn’t help chuckling. ‘No, not the VC,’ he said. ‘I never did anythin’ anywhere near impressive enough to merit that.’ He paused for just a moment. ‘Now, about these hostages of yours,’ he continued.
‘What about them?’
‘Are any of them hurt?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Then it seems to me you should let them all go, before one of them does get hurt.’
‘And what if I don’t?’
Woodend sighed. ‘Then that complicates matters. An’ I don’t see there’s any point in makin’ things complicated when there’s a simple solution to hand,’ he said. ‘Let ’em go. You’ll feel better once you have.’
‘If I don’t release them, you’ll try to storm the place, won’t you?’ Apollo said.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Woodend replied.
‘Don’t lie to me!’ Apollo said harshly.
‘Honestly, I really don’t know,’ Woodend protested. ‘I’m no expert in such matters. The only re
ason I’m here at all is because you wanted me here.’ He paused for a second time. ‘Why did you want me here?’
‘Would you like to know what would happen if you did storm the place?’ Apollo asked.
‘Like I said, I’d rather discuss other ways of resolvin’ the situation,’ Woodend told him.
‘All the hostages are wired up to explosives,’ Apollo said. ‘The second I get the feeling you’re even thinking of going on the offensive, I’ll blow them all to Kingdom Come.’
‘Dear God!’ Woodend breathed softly – and to himself.
Aloud, he said, ‘But if you did that, you’d go straight to Kingdom Come with them.’
‘So what?’
‘So I always thought that the main point of pullin’ a bank robbery was to get away with the money, an’ spend the rest of your life on some nice secluded beach surrounded by dusky maidens.’
‘That might be true if this were a real bank robbery,’ Apollo told him. ‘But, you see, it isn’t.’
‘Then what the bloody hell are you doin’ inside a bank an’ armed to the teeth?’
‘If a man chooses to make his stand, he should always select the most defensible position he can from which to make it,’ Apollo said. ‘And what more defensive position could there be than a bank – especially a bank with a vault in which to hold his hostages?’
‘Just because you’ve given yourself a fancy bloody name doesn’t mean you have to talk in riddles,’ Woodend said. ‘Why don’t you spell out for me exactly what it is you want?’
‘Very well,’ Apollo agreed. ‘I want justice.’
‘Justice?’
‘I have tried to find it through the conventional means, but that has been a dismal failure, so now I have been forced to take more drastic action.’
‘You’re still soundin’ a bit airy-fairy to me,’ Woodend said. ‘What, exactly, do you want?’
‘I want an innocent woman released from prison.’
Woodend shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘You’re livin’ in cloud cuckoo land, lad,’ he said regretfully.
‘Am I?’
‘You most certainly are. The powers that be are never goin’ to give in to your demands, however many hostages you’re holdin’ – and whatever you threaten to do to them.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ Apollo said. ‘I don’t just want her released – I want her innocence proved. And I want you to prove it.’
‘An’ if I can’t?’
Apollo glanced for a moment at the door behind him. ‘If you can’t, then the blood of those people down in the vault will be as much on your hands as it is on mine,’ he said.
Three
What he was having to do at that moment was nothing more than a waste of time, Woodend told himself, as he knocked on the Chief Constable’s office door, less than an hour after he had left the Cotton Credit Bank.
No, it was worse than that, he amended, taking a last drag on his cigarette before grinding it under his heel. A waste of time merely prevented him doing something useful – whereas this meeting could do actual harm.
The problem, of course, was Henry Marlowe himself. In Woodend’s opinion – and in the opinion of the majority of hard-working bobbies in Central Lancashire – Marlowe was the worst possible kind of chief constable. Where he should have used his intelligence, he usually relied on his cunning. Where he should have been even-handed, he was selectively vindictive. The main function of the Lancashire Constabulary, as far as Henry-Bloody-Marlowe saw it, was to maintain him in his cushy sinecure, so that rather than looking ahead – which was what the job called for – he was perpetually glancing over his shoulder, in order to be best able to guard his own back.
‘Enter,’ said a deep, practised voice from inside the office.
Woodend opened the door. Marlowe had recently acquired a conference table – he must have read in some management magazine or other that it was the right thing to do – and he was sitting at it now, flanked by four other men.
Woodend already knew the two seated closest to the Chief Constable. The one on Marlowe’s right was Chief Superintendent Cunningham, who was – in theory – his own immediate boss, but – in fact – served as nothing more than Henry Marlowe’s mouthpiece. To Marlowe’s left was Cedric Townsend, the local Member of Parliament, a man who – even for a politician – seemed to be dangerously short of scruples.
But it was the other two men in whom Woodend was more interested. One was tall and thin, and wore his tweed suit as if it were a heavily starched uniform. The other was shorter, and dressed in a pin-striped suit, the waistcoat of which was clearly straining against his rounded belly. Neither of them had the air of local men about them. Both, instead, exuded the smell of outside trouble.
‘Take a seat, Chief Inspector,’ Marlowe said, somehow managing to make even this simple invitation seem both unwilling and ungracious.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You won’t have met these gentlemen before,’ Marlowe continued. ‘This –’ he indicated the tall, thin man – ‘is Colonel Danvers of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and this –’ pointing to the smaller, pin-striped man – ‘is Mr Slater-Burnes, from the Home Office.’
Woodend nodded to both of them, and, after a slight pause, they half-nodded back.
‘The reason I have convened this extraordinary meeting is that we are facing an extraordinary situation,’ Marlowe intoned impressively. ‘Cases of hostage-taking are not at all common in Central Lancashire. Indeed, with the exception of seeing such occurrences in the American talking pictures, I personally have never come across one before.’
The same thought had occurred to Woodend earlier, and had probably crossed the minds of scores of other folk as well. But of all the people who might have shared the thought, only Henry Marlowe would ever have dreamed of referring to films as ‘talking pictures’.
It was a pure affectation, the Chief Inspector thought, aimed at reinforcing the impression of those listening to him that Marlowe was an old-fashioned bobby with old-fashioned values. But all it really showed, he decided, was that the Chief Constable stood head and shoulders above anybody else when it came to talking a load of old bollocks.
‘Perhaps we had better begin with a briefing from Mr Woodend,’ the Chief Constable said. He leant back expectantly. ‘Chief Inspector?’
‘What the man in the bank seems to want me to do, is to find—’ Woodend began.
‘Never mind what he wants!’ Colonel Danvers interrupted. ‘I don’t give a damn what he does – or does not – want from you. What I need – what we all need – is to be briefed on the security situation!’
‘I’m no expert on such matters,’ Woodend warned.
‘Of course you’re not,’ Colonel Danvers said scornfully. ‘But you’ll just have to do the best you can, won’t you?’
‘As far as we know, there are three armed men an’ around a score of hostages in the bank,’ Woodend said, slowly and carefully.
‘Three of them. Well, that shouldn’t present too much of a problem for my lads,’ Danvers said.
‘The man I talked to – he called himself Apollo, by the way – was at pains to inform me that all the hostages are bein’ held in the vault,’ Woodend said. ‘Now I’ve done some checkin’ on that, an’ it seems that back in the old days – when local banks backed the paper money they issued with actual gold – the Cotton Credit was the place where most of the other banks in the area chose to keep their bullion. Which means, I would suggest, that it’s a very secure vault indeed.’
‘Even so—’ Danvers began.
‘In addition,’ Woodend interrupted, ‘Apollo claims to have wired up all the hostages to explosives – an’ I’m rather more than inclined to believe him.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Danvers said dismissively.
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is. Handling explosives is a tricky and dangerous business. To have organized anything like that without creating an explosion, the man would have to have
had military training.’
‘I believe that he has,’ Woodend said. ‘In fact, I believe that I know who he is.’
‘Then why didn’t you tell us right away?’ Marlowe asked.
‘I was goin’ to, sir – before your friend over there interrupted me,’ Woodend said mildly.
Marlowe shot him a look of pure hatred, then said, ‘Tell us about it in your own way, if that’s what makes you happier, Chief Inspector. And try not to keep us here all day.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Woodend said, pretending not to notice the sarcasm. ‘Apollo’s main – and as far as I can see, his only – concern, is the current situation of a woman called Judith Maitland.’
‘Current situation?’
‘She’s servin’ a life sentence, with a recommended twenty-five years minimum, in Skipley Prison.’
‘For what?’
‘For murder.’
‘Should we have heard of her?’ Marlowe asked.
Yes, you most certainly should have, Woodend thought. And would have – if you ever read anything in the newspapers besides the golfing reports.
But he contented himself with saying, ‘Possibly. Her trial made quite a stir, a few months ago.’
‘Ah yes, I think I remember it now,’ Marlowe said, unconvincingly. ‘Just fill me in on the details.’
‘She’s a Whitebridge woman, but since the murder she was accused of took place in Dunethorpe, we weren’t directly involved in the investigation,’ Woodend said. ‘Anyway, as I said, she was convicted of this murder an’ sent to prison. Then, three days ago, she tried to commit suicide by slittin’ open her veins. The prison authorities got to her in time, and she’ll recover – but it was a damn close-run thing.’
‘I still don’t see what all this has got to do with this Apollo chap?’ Colonel Danvers said impatiently.
‘I was just comin’ to that,’ Woodend told him. ‘Apollo’s not only the Roman god of light, which is what I’d always thought of him as, but he’s also their god of truth. I know that for a fact, because I looked it up.’
‘I’m so pleased that you feel you have so much free time on your hands you can afford to chase up classical references,’ the Chief Constable said, his sarcasm thicker than ever.
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