“I see,” Rutter said. “I should have spotted that.”
“So we’re back to the question of why Atkinson gave Towers special treatment,” Woodend continued. “Remember what I said at the start of this case – when we were on the ferry comin’ across the Mersey – about not all villages bein’ geographical?”
“Yes?”
“The only reason Atkinson could have had for lookin’ after Towers so well was that they were friends – from the same non-geographical village. But what kind of village would it be that could accommodate both a successful doctor an’ a humble shippin’ clerk? As soon as I learned that Doctor Atkinson was a homosexual, I had my answer.”
“Very smart,” Rutter admitted.
“Aye,” Woodend agreed, almost complacently. “I do have my moments now an’ again.”
Rutter took a sip of his drink, and wondered whether he had better order another round before last orders were called. “And now you’re going to tell me how you knew that Jack Towers was the killer?” he asked.
“It was timin’ again,” Woodend replied. “When I went to see Geoff Platt over at the Mersey Sound, he told me he’d heard Eddie Barnes was leavin’ the Seagulls, but he also said he couldn’t remember who’d told him. But he did remember. He’d got the information from Jack Towers.”
“So why did he lie? Was he deliberately shielding a murderer?”
Woodend absent-mindedly reached across and helped himself to one of his sergeant’s cork-tipped cigarettes.
“I’m sure it never occurred to Geoff Platt for an instant that Towers might have killed Eddie Barnes,” he said, “but you’re right when you say he was shieldin’ him from somethin’. He didn’t want to give us a reason to take a closer look at Towers – in case we found out he was a homo. It was simply a case of one villager doin’ all he could to protect another.”
“That makes sense,” Rutter agreed.
Woodend smiled, almost mischievously. “But you’ve still not asked the important question, which is: why did Towers lie to Platt about Eddie leavin’ the group in the first place?”
“Why did Towers lie about Eddie leaving the group in the first place?” Rutter asked deadpan, slipping effortlessly into the role of comedian’s dupe again.
“Because he didn’t have any choice,” Woodend replied. “Look, he’d convinced himself that the Seagulls needed lots of time to practise with their new guitarist before the audition, an’ that meant he had to be available even before Eddie Barnes was cold. On the other hand—”
“On the other hand,” Rutter interrupted, “the Mersey Sound, which was the best place to advertise for a replacement, went to press before Towers had had a chance to murder Eddie!”
“Exactly,” Woodend agreed. “Even if Eddie Barnes had been plannin’ to leave the group – an’ he’d have been a fool to do that when things were just startin’ to happen for them – he’d have told Steve Walker long before he told Jack Towers. An’ Steve said he didn’t know anythin’ about it. So when I saw that advert in the Mersey Sound, it told me that Towers knew Barnes was goin’ to die days before it happened – an’ that could only mean he was the killer.”
Steve Walker entered the pub and made a beeline for them. “I’ve just heard you’ve charged Jack Towers with Eddie’s murder,” he said.
“That’s right,” Woodend agreed.
A lopsided, ironic grin came to Walker’s face. “Well, at least now you won’t have to question the lovely Mavis, an’ ruin her chances of becomin’ a Mother Superior someday,” he said.
“You knew Jack Towers was a homosexual, didn’t you?” Woodend asked.
“Yeah, I knew he was queer,” said Steve Walker. “Once you’d knocked around with him for a while, it became pretty obvious.”
Of course he’d known. But he had hidden that knowledge from the police – not because he was a fellow villager as Geoff Platt was, but because protecting people more vulnerable than himself was just part of his nature.
“An’ did you also know that he had a big crush on you?” the chief inspector said.
“Yes, I knew Jack had a bit of a thing for me,” Steve Walker said, shrugging awkwardly. “So what? He never tried anythin’ on. There was no real harm in it.”
No, Woodend thought. No harm at all. Except that it had resulted in the death of Eddie Barnes – and had almost cost Terry Garner his life, too.
Tears were forming in Steve Walker’s eyes. “Why did Jack do it?” he asked, pleadingly.
“He wanted to be rich,” Woodend lied, “an’ he thought he’d never make money out of the group as long as Eddie was in it.”
“You’re not makin’ any sense. How would Eddie have stopped him makin’ money?”
“Jack didn’t think Eddie was good enough to play with the Seagulls. He thought he’d hold the rest of you back.”
A look of deep sadness came into Steve Walker’s eyes. “Do you want to hear somethin’ funny?” he said. “Or is the word I’m really lookin’ for ‘ironic’?”
“I won’t know till I’ve heard it,” Woodend said softly.
“The Mersey Sound had a poll last month. All the readers got the chance to vote on who they thought was the best lead guitarist in the whole of Liverpool. Eddie came top by a mile.” Steve Walker wiped a tear from his eye with his shirt cuff. “Thank you for savin’ Terry’s life,” he said, and then, without another word, he turned and walked away.
“That was a nice thing you did there, sir – lying about Towers’ real motive,” Rutter told his boss.
Woodend’s shrug was almost as awkward as Walker’s had been earlier. “The lad’s had enough tough breaks in his time without havin’ to live with the knowledge that, however indirectly, he’s responsible for Eddie’s death,” he said. “But even though I’m a good liar when I want to be, I don’t know if, deep down, he was really fooled.” The chief inspector sighed. “It’s a funny thing, is love. Jack Towers has convinced himself that he killed Eddie because he wasn’t a good guitarist, but it wasn’t that at all, was it?”
“No,” Rutter agreed. “It was jealousy. He killed him – and he would have killed Terry – because they could get closer to Steve Walker than he could.”
Woodend glanced down at his watch. “Well, there’ll be some paperwork to do in the mornin’, but with any luck we should both be back in London by this time tomorrow night.”
“Yes, sir, it’ll be good to be home,” Rutter said, though the thought of seeing Maria and hearing whatever it was that she had to tell him was already starting to churn his stomach up.
Epilogue
Jack Towers had been in custody for over twenty-four hours when Bob Rutter paid off his taxi and opened his own front gate for the first time in days. There were no welcoming lights shining in the windows of his home, but that didn’t necessarily mean Maria had gone to bed, he reminded himself, because – day or night – his wife’s world was one of total darkness.
He inserted the key in the lock, turned it as quietly as he could, and eased the front door open.
“Is that you, Bob?” asked a voice from the front parlour.
“It’s me,” Rutter said, putting down his suitcase in the hallway and reaching for the light switch.
Maria was sitting on the sofa, her hands sedately folded on her lap. Rutter hadn’t been away long, but after all the tense phone calls he had been half expecting some incredible transformation to have taken place in his wife during his absence. He need not have worried. If anything, she looked even more beautiful than he remembered her.
He knelt down in front of her, and took her hands in his. “I missed you,” he said. “And I know you don’t want to hear me say this, but I was worried about you, as well.”
She didn’t get angry, as she might have done. Instead she smiled the most beautiful smile he thought he had ever seen.
“You’re going to have more to worry about than me in future,” she said. The smile suddenly faded, and was replaced by a look of deep concern – pe
rhaps even of fear. “At least, you are if we decide to go ahead with it.”
“Go ahead with what?”
“Because we don’t have to if we don’t want to, you know,” Maria continued, speaking faster than he’d ever heard her speak before. “The doctor said that for a woman in my position it would be perfectly possible to argue that the psychological pressure would be too great and I could have the . . . the operation.” She stopped – breathless and exhausted.
“Psychological pressure?” Rutter repeated. “Have the operation? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
Maria squeezed his hands, very, very tightly. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “The doctor confirmed it yesterday afternoon. If it’s what you want, you could be a father in a few months’ time.”
Rutter felt as if he’d been hit squarely in the chest with a sledgehammer. Maria – his beautiful blind wife – was expecting a baby! It wasn’t something they’d planned. It wasn’t even something they’d discussed. And it still didn’t have to happen if they decided they didn’t want it to.
Bob took a deep breath and tried to decide how he felt about the bombshell his wife had just dropped.
It was in the kitchen where Joan Woodend was at her most comfortable, and it was in the kitchen that she was waiting for her husband when he returned from his rock’n’roll murder in Liverpool.
Woodend pecked his wife on the cheek, and lowered himself into the chair opposite her. “Well, that’s another one wrapped up,” he said.
“Yes, I expect I’ll be readin’ all about your exploits in the paper tomorrow,” Joan replied.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Woodend agreed, though the thrill of seeing his name in print had long since faded away.
Joan stood up. “I’ll make you some grub, Charlie,” she said. “Will a fry-up do you?”
“I don’t feel like eatin’ right now.”
“You don’t! You’re not ill, are you?”
Woodend shook his head. “No, I’m not ill. I just seem to have lost my appetite for quite a lot of things lately.” He forced a tired smile to his face. “If I feel like some food later, I’ll let you know. Right now, I’d like to talk.”
With a puzzled look on her face, Joan sank back into her seat. “What’s this all about, Charlie?” she asked.
“I had this discussion with Bob last night about the difficulty of balancin’ home an’ work, an’ it got me thinkin’. We’ve been married for over twenty years. How much of that time do you think we’ve actually spent together?”
“Well, it wasn’t always possible to be together,” Joan said, slightly awkwardly. “There was the war for a start, an’ . . .”
“Forget the war,” Woodend told her. “How much time have we spent together since I got demobbed?”
“Not a great deal,” Joan admitted, “but your work takes you away from London a lot.”
“Aye, that’s the point,” Woodend agreed. “Neither of us are gettin’ any younger—”
“It’d be a miracle if we were,” Joan interrupted. “But you’re still a fine figure of a man, Charlie Woodend, an’ even though I’m a bit heavier than I used to be, I can manage to turn the occasional head on the street.”
Woodend grinned. “I’ve no doubt about that. But the fact is, I’ve been wonderin’ whether I might take the same advice I gave Bob, an’ get a job that will keep me in town.”
Joan frowned. “Is that what you want?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, I’m sure what I want,” Joan said. “Or should I say, I’m sure of what I don’t want.”
“You are?”
“Most definitely. What I don’t want is to have a great lollopin’ brute like you hangin’ around the house all the time, forever gettin’ under feet when I’m tryin’ to do the housework.”
“You don’t?”
“I do not. The reason this marriage of ours has lasted so long, Charlie Woodend, is that we spend just enough time apart for us to be able to appreciate each other when we get the chance.”
“Are you sayin’ that I should stick to the job I’ve got?”
Joan stood up again. “Indeed I am. An’ now we’ve got that sorted out, I’ll go an’ make you that food I promised you.”
Woodend’s stomach rumbled just at the thought of it. He could murder a fry-up, he decided. As he reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, he felt a great sense of relief surge through him, and realised that even the prospect of a desk job had weighed on him like a prison sentence.
He lit up a Capstan Full Strength and inhaled deeply. Capstans were such a bloody lovely smoke. And to think that just the day before he’d actually been contemplating switching to his sergeant’s cork-tipped. He must have gone temporarily insane.
Joan, her back to him as she melted the lard over the stove, finally allowed herself the luxury of the amused smile she’d been holding back for the previous couple of minutes. Men! she thought affectionately. Most of the time they were nothin’ but big soft kids.
The telephone rang in the hallway. Woodend sighed theatrically and rose to his feet.
“I’ll get it,” he said. “At this time of night it could only be the Super, tellin’ me to pack my bags an’ ship out to some Godforsaken hole in the middle of nowhere as soon as possible.”
But he did not seem displeased at the prospect, Joan noted.
When Woodend returned to the kitchen a couple of minutes later, there was a broad smile on his face. “That wasn’t the Super after all,” he said. “It was that sergeant of mine.”
Joan looked up from her cooking. “What’s Bob doin’ ringin’ at this time of night? I’d have thought that after the last few days, you’d both be sick of the sound of each other’s voices.”
“An’ so we are,” Woodend agreed. “But he’s just had a bit of good news, an’ he wanted us to be the first ones to hear about it.”
Epilogue
Jack Towers had been in custody for over twenty-four hours when Bob Rutter paid off his taxi and opened his own front gate for the first time in days. There were no welcoming lights shining in the windows of his home, but that didn’t necessarily mean Maria had gone to bed, he reminded himself, because – day or night – his wife’s world was one of total darkness.
He inserted the key in the lock, turned it as quietly as he could, and eased the front door open.
“Is that you, Bob?” asked a voice from the front parlour.
“It’s me,” Rutter said, putting down his suitcase in the hallway and reaching for the light switch.
Maria was sitting on the sofa, her hands sedately folded on her lap. Rutter hadn’t been away long, but after all the tense phone calls he had been half expecting some incredible transformation to have taken place in his wife during his absence. He need not have worried. If anything, she looked even more beautiful than he remembered her.
He knelt down in front of her, and took her hands in his. “I missed you,” he said. “And I know you don’t want to hear me say this, but I was worried about you, as well.”
She didn’t get angry, as she might have done. Instead she smiled the most beautiful smile he thought he had ever seen.
“You’re going to have more to worry about than me in future,” she said. The smile suddenly faded, and was replaced by a look of deep concern – perhaps even of fear. “At least, you are if we decide to go ahead with it.”
“Go ahead with what?”
“Because we don’t have to if we don’t want to, you know,” Maria continued, speaking faster than he’d ever heard her speak before. “The doctor said that for a woman in my position it would be perfectly possible to argue that the psychological pressure would be too great and I could have the . . . the operation.” She stopped – breathless and exhausted.
“Psychological pressure?” Rutter repeated. “Have the operation? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
Maria squeezed his hands, very, very tightly. “I’m pregnant,” she said
. “The doctor confirmed it yesterday afternoon. If it’s what you want, you could be a father in a few months’ time.”
Rutter felt as if he’d been hit squarely in the chest with a sledgehammer. Maria – his beautiful blind wife – was expecting a baby! It wasn’t something they’d planned. It wasn’t even something they’d discussed. And it still didn’t have to happen if they decided they didn’t want it to.
Bob took a deep breath and tried to decide how he felt about the bombshell his wife had just dropped.
It was in the kitchen where Joan Woodend was at her most comfortable, and it was in the kitchen that she was waiting for her husband when he returned from his rock’n’roll murder in Liverpool.
Woodend pecked his wife on the cheek, and lowered himself into the chair opposite her. “Well, that’s another one wrapped up,” he said.
“Yes, I expect I’ll be readin’ all about your exploits in the paper tomorrow,” Joan replied.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Woodend agreed, though the thrill of seeing his name in print had long since faded away.
Joan stood up. “I’ll make you some grub, Charlie,” she said. “Will a fry-up do you?”
“I don’t feel like eatin’ right now.”
“You don’t! You’re not ill, are you?”
Woodend shook his head. “No, I’m not ill. I just seem to have lost my appetite for quite a lot of things lately.” He forced a tired smile to his face. “If I feel like some food later, I’ll let you know. Right now, I’d like to talk.”
With a puzzled look on her face, Joan sank back into her seat. “What’s this all about, Charlie?” she asked.
“I had this discussion with Bob last night about the difficulty of balancin’ home an’ work, an’ it got me thinkin’. We’ve been married for over twenty years. How much of that time do you think we’ve actually spent together?”
“Well, it wasn’t always possible to be together,” Joan said, slightly awkwardly. “There was the war for a start, an’ . . .”
Death of a Cave Dweller Page 22