‘He could have been followed there. His wife could have followed him. Or anybody else, for that matter.’
‘An’ then there’s the question of Judith’s overall,’ Woodend continued, unperturbed. ‘That was a big black mark against her at her trial. The jury assumed that, because of the bloodstains it had acquired durin’ the course of the murder, she’d thrown it away. But we know she didn’t kill him, so it wouldn’t be bloodstained at all. Besides, there was a witness to her leavin’ the buildin’ – a nightwatchman called Goodrich – an’ he’s convinced she didn’t have it with her.’ He paused. ‘By the way, that nightwatchman didn’t only see Judith – he also saw you.’
‘You must think I’m a complete fool,’ Keene said angrily.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘If the nightwatchman had seen me – which he couldn’t have done, because I wasn’t there – he would have told the police at the time.’
‘Ah, but he didn’t know he’d seen you,’ Woodend said. ‘He claims he saw Judith drive up. But he’s wrong about that. What he actually saw was simply a white van with the words “Élite Catering” written on the side. Then he went off to have his brew, an’ to listen to the radio for a few minutes. When he came back, he saw Judith drive away in what he thought was the same white van. That’s how he was sure she’d been there for fifteen minutes. But she hadn’t – and it wasn’t. What he’d actually seen was two white vans from the same fleet – the first driven by you, an’ the second driven by Judith.’
‘You’ll never be able to prove that,’ Keene told him.
‘Probably not,’ Woodend said easily. ‘But with all the other proof I’ve got, I won’t need to, will I? Let’s get back to the overall, shall we? What actually happened to it?’
‘How can you possibly expect me to know that?’
‘Judith said it was still in the back of the van when she entered the builders’ merchant’s. But the police didn’t find it there when they looked there later. So it must have disappeared while she was inside the buildin’. An’ who took it? Why, you did! After you’d killed Burroughs, you hid your van somewhere Judith wouldn’t see it, then returned to the scene of the crime on foot. You must have been lurking in the shadows when Judith drove up.’
‘Fantasy! Pure fantasy!’
‘All right, let’s assume for a second that somebody else took the overall,’ Woodend said amiably. ‘How would they have gone about it?’
‘I’d imagine they’d simply have opened the back door of the van and removed it.’
‘The van would have been locked – just like all the ones parked outside are. Judith’s not the kind of woman to have one rule for her employees an’ another for herself. Whatever her mental state at the time, she’d have instinctively made sure she’d locked her vehicle.’
‘Then whoever took the overall must have forced the lock.’
‘They couldn’t have done that with leaving evidence of their handiwork behind – an’ accordin’ to the police experts, there was none.’
‘Then they picked the lock, for God’s sake!’
‘Even that would have left traces. Besides, they wouldn’t have had long enough. Judith was in that office for a very short time indeed – you don’t hang about when you discover a dead body – so whoever removed the overall would have had to be very quick. That suggests he had a key. An’ who had a spare key to Judith’s van, Mr Keene?’
‘You’re surely not suggesting—’
‘You did! You killed Burroughs, and made sure Judith would be charged with it. Because even though she was in gaol, there was no reason why she still couldn’t be a partner in your firm. An’ as long as she was your partner, nobody else was goin’ to ask to take a look at your accounts.’
‘This is outrageous!’
‘Were you wearin’ gloves that night, Mr Keene?’
‘I … I … I wasn’t there, so it doesn’t matter whether I was wearing gloves or not.’
‘I’m guessin’ that you were. But even gloves leave traces at the crime scene, you know. Minute threads that you don’t even notice have gone. Then there’s the other clothes you were wearin’. More minute threads left behind. The forensic boys will have bagged them all, you know. They’ll still be there in the evidence store – just waitin’ to be compared to what you’ve got in your wardrobe.’
‘I’ve …’
‘Got rid of all those clothes? Well, that doesn’t matter. It was just an example of what we can do to pin the murder on you. There are a hundred other ways we can place you at the scene of the crime – ways you wouldn’t even dream of – once we know where to look. An’ now we do.’
‘I want to see my lawyer!’ Keene said.
‘What for?’ Woodend wondered. ‘We’re only chattin’ here, Mr Keene, an’ if you don’t want to say anythin’, then I’m certainly not goin’ to make you.’ He took another sip of the brandy, and smacked his lips in appreciation. ‘Shall we talk about Major Maitland now?’
Keene folded his arms, and kept his mouth tightly shut.
‘No?’ Woodend asked. ‘Then I’ll just have to talk it through with myself, won’t I? Let me see … what was I goin’ to say about Major Maitland? Oh yes! Everythin’ was goin’ so well after the murder. Your scheme had worked out just perfectly. Then Maitland came along, took his hostages, an’ forced us to re-open the case. You must have hated him for that. But then you persuaded yourself that once he was out of the way, the whole thing would soon blow over again. Any comment you’d care to make at this point?’
Keene shook his head.
‘But you had to make sure he was really out of the way,’ Woodend continued. ‘That’s why you came to me, and asked if you could talk to him. That’s why – when you did get to talk to him – you reminded him of just how long his wife still had to serve of her sentence. Your objective was never to convince him to give up – it was to strengthen his resolve to stay in there. Because the longer he held out, the more chance there was of him gettin’ killed. Of course, there was also the chance that some of the hostages would also get killed in the process, but that was a risk you were prepared to run, because you don’t really care what happens to other people.’
‘I care about my mother,’ Keene said.
‘That’s true,’ Woodend agreed.
‘And I cared about Judith. You have to believe that.’
‘Aye, you probably did,’ Woodend conceded. ‘But you were still willin’ to destroy her if she got in your way. An’ if that’s what you do to people you care about, what lengths will you go to with people you don’t give a toss for?’
During the course of the conversation, Keene’s face had run through the whole gamut of expressions – from concern to mystification, from mystification to outrage, from outrage to self-justification. Now it had assumed the cunning look of an animal which finds itself trapped – but believes there might still be some way of escaping.
‘If I’m as big a monster as you seem to think I am, why are you offering me an easy way out?’ he wondered aloud. ‘If I did what you say I did, why aren’t you pushing for the maximum sentence?’
‘I thought we’d already discussed that,’ Woodend said. ‘I’m doin’ it for young Timothy’s sake – so he’ll never learn the truth about his father and Judith Maitland.’
Keene studied him carefully, for at least half a minute. ‘I believe that is part of it,’ he said finally. ‘But there’s something else, isn’t there – something you’re not telling me.’
‘I give you my word that if you sign the confession I want you to sign, I’ll back you to the hilt. After all, I’ve no choice, have I?’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘None. Because if your story falls apart, then the career of the feller who came up with it – which is me – will go just the same way. So we both have an interest in hidin’ the truth, don’t we, Mr Keene?’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Keene said accusingly. ‘You’re still holding something
back.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Woodend conceded. ‘But that’s my business, isn’t it? Your business is to decide whether you serve ten years or twenty-five. Your business is to work out whether you want your mum to go to her grave thinkin’ of you as a cold-blooded murderer, or whether she dies believin’ that you found Miss Right after all, an’ killed to protect her. So which of the two is it goin’ to be?’
‘I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?’ Keene asked miserably.
‘No, you don’t,’ Woodend agreed. He lifted his brandy glass, held it up to the light, then took another drink. ‘Do you know, I thought this stuff was perfect when I had my first sip,’ he said. ‘But it tastes even better now.’
Thirty-Three
‘There are some cases that are mainly down to the work done by one member of the team, an’ when it’s solved it’s he or she who deserves most of the credit,’ Woodend said, reaching for his freshly arrived pint. ‘But I can honestly say that in this particular investigation, that’s not true at all. If you, Monika, hadn’t found out about Judith’s baby, we’d have been stymied. An’ if you, Beresford – Colin, I should say – hadn’t come up with the information on Keene’s attempt to kill her, we’d never have had the glue we needed to stick all the other pieces we’d collected together.’ He raised his glass. ‘So here’s to us – a bloody good team.’
The others raised their drinks and clinked them against his pint pot, but not with the full enthusiasm he would have liked to see. Monika Paniatowski seemed strangely distracted. And young Beresford – who should have been over the moon that his first case had reached a successful conclusion – looked positively depressed.
Monika stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I have to make a phone call,’ she said.
‘Just make sure you’re not away too long,’ Woodend told her. ‘Because we’ve got some serious drinkin’ to do tonight.’
Paniatowski dialled the Dunethorpe number, and the man at the other end picked up immediately, almost as if he’d been waiting for the call.
‘It’s me,’ she said.
‘I thought it might be,’ Baxter replied. ‘I’ve just seen the news on the television. Congratulations.’
‘It was a team effort,’ Monika said.
‘And it certainly leaves me with a good deal of egg on my face, doesn’t it?’ Baxter asked.
‘You were part of the team,’ Monika told him. ‘If you hadn’t collected all that evidence, we’d never have got anywhere.’
‘I might have collected it, but I certainly don’t seem to have known what to do with it.’
‘You just had a blind spot,’ Monika said. ‘Your gut was telling you all the right things, but you chose – on this occasion – not to listen to it. We’re all guilty of that, from time to time.’
‘That’s more than generous of you,’ Baxter told her.
‘Bollocks!’ Monika replied. ‘Listen, I’ve a few loose ends still to tie up in Dunethorpe tomorrow, so maybe we’ll finally get the lunch we’ve been promising ourselves.’
‘That would be delightful,’ Baxter said.
Constable Beresford had not said a word since Paniatowski had left the table to make her call. In fact, he was doing a fair impersonation of a man who’d rather not be there in the pub at all.
‘Are you goin’ to sulk all evenin’, lad?’ Woodend asked. ‘Or would you rather tell me what’s on your mind?’
‘I don’t see why you let Stanley Keene off so easily, sir,’ the constable said, the words bursting from his mouth as if he’d only been containing them with great effort.
‘When I’d spelled out the alternatives to Keene, he was just about willin’ to sign a confession which would earn him a ten- or twelve-year stretch,’ Woodend said. ‘But he’d never have signed one which would have put him away for a quarter of a century.’
‘I know that, but—’
‘An’ while I managed to convince him that we could put together a case which we were bound to win, the truth is that it was a long way from a racin’ certainty that we would. There was always the distinct possibility he might have been found not guilty.’
‘It still doesn’t seem right,’ Beresford said. ‘He didn’t just murder Burroughs, did he? He destroyed other lives as well.’
‘Aye, he did,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Major Maitland’s for a start. Even though the guns he used in the siege weren’t loaded, he’ll still be goin’ to gaol for a long, long time. An’ then there’s the rest of them. Judith – who’s had enough tough times in her life already – has all but lost her husband. Timothy an’ his sister, who have lost their father. It’s a complete bloody mess, an’ it’s all Keene’s doin’.’
‘Then how could you even consider offering him the soft option?’ Beresford asked, almost in anguish.
‘Is that what you think it is? A soft option?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I had quite a little talk with Major Maitland before he finally gave himself up,’ Woodend said. ‘I asked him how he thought he’d get on in prison. He said that a hard man like him will be virtually runnin’ the gaol within a year. An’ I think he’s probably right.’
‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with Keene.’
‘Then I’ll explain it to you. Keene’s not a hard man. He’s cunnin’ an’ he’s vicious, but he’s not hard. I don’t particularly want to go into the details of what the other prisoners will do to him once he’s inside – it’d give a lad like you nightmares just to think about it – but trust me, gaol will be hell on earth for him.’
‘He’ll be able to stand it though – because however bad it is, he’ll know it won’t be for ever,’ Beresford said.
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Woodend contradicted him. ‘He won’t be able to stand it. I agreed to a short sentence because I knew it would have exactly the same effect as a long one.’
‘How’s that possible?’
‘Because whether he’s servin’ ten years or twenty-five years, the only way he’ll ever come out of that prison will be in a box,’ Woodend said.
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