Dying Fall

by Sally Spencer

  Hanging on the wall behind the desk was a large oil painting of a man standing in the foreground, with the factory behind him. He was dressed in the style of an earlier generation, but it was not his clothes which caught Woodend’s attention. Rather it was the eyes, which were intense and ice-cold.

  ‘When Oliver Cromwell had his portrait painted, he instructed the artist to portray him as he was – warts and all – and I rather suspect that my father gave his painter exactly the same instruction,’ said a voice from the doorway.

  Woodend turned, and saw that Tel Lowry had entered the room.

  ‘Your note said you wanted to see me,’ he said, neutrally.

  ‘It was the eyes you were drawn to in the picture, wasn’t it?’ Lowry asked.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘It’s the eyes that draw everyone,’ Lowry said. ‘My father was a hard, unrelenting man, and he didn’t care who knew it. He was a firm believer in the adage that if you were determined enough – and ruthless enough – you could achieve anything you desired. But one thing he couldn’t do – though he desperately wanted to – was get elected to the council. He stood several times, you know, but despite the fact that he had a lot of clout in this town, he never even came close to winning a seat.’

  ‘An’ you did,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And I did,’ Lowry agreed. He walked across the room, and sat down in one of the easy chairs. ‘Please join me,’ he said, gesturing to the other one.

  Woodend sat.

  ‘Tea?’ Lowry asked. ‘Coffee? Something a little stronger?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Woodend replied.

  ‘Then I suppose we’d better get down to business,’ Lowry suggested. He cupped his left knee with both his hands, then continued, ‘We seem to have got off on quite the wrong footing the last time that we met, and that was probably mostly my fault. I’ve been under a lot of pressure over the council budget, you see, and I may have slightly over-reacted to the idea of a sudden huge increase in police overtime payments.’

  ‘Is there an apology hidden in there, somewhere?’ Woodend wondered aloud.

  ‘You’re not an easy man to handle, are you, Chief Inspector?’ Lowry asked. ‘Most of the people I deal with would have seen where I was leading the conversation by now, and made at least a token effort to smooth my path for me.’

  ‘Ah, but then, you see, most of the people you deal with are probably politicians,’ Woodend replied. ‘An’ I’m not especially noted for my skill in that particular area.’

  Lowry frowned, and then the frown turned into a smile. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘That’s the very root of the problem. I dealt with you as one politician would deal with another.’

  ‘So politicians use each other’s families as leverage, do they?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Politicians use anything they can as leverage,’ Lowry said airily. ‘But it’s a game, you see. A simple tactic on the chessboard of municipal affairs, which nobody involved ever takes seriously. Your ex-boss, the largely unlamented Henry Marlowe, knew the rules, and would have responded pretty much as I expected him to – but I should never have tried that kind of approach on a down-to-earth straight­forward bobby like you.’

  ‘Down-to-earth straightforward bobbies aren’t very susceptible to flattery, either,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I wasn’t flattering you, I was merely stating an obvious fact,’ Lowry told him. ‘And since you, quite rightly, don’t like apologies which are hidden in a thicket of other words, here’s one out in the open – I’m very sorry I tried to bully you, Chief Inspector, and it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Excuse me for bein’ suspicious but—’ Woodend began.

  ‘But you’re wondering what’s behind all this? You’re wondering, specifically, what’s in it for me?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘A chance to put things right. I should never have tried to cut back on the night-time patrols. It almost cost another life, in addition to giving Henry Marlowe a reason – at least by his lights – for doing something which was quite un­acceptable.’

  ‘An’ which landed you right in the shit with Accrington Council,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And which landed me right in the shit with Accrington Council,’ Lowry agreed. ‘But that’s all ancient history now. You want to maintain the night-time foot patrols, and I’m more than willing to agree to that. But they can’t go on indefinitely. They’d bankrupt the town if they did.’

  ‘So how long can they go on?’

  ‘Another week,’ Lowry said.

  ‘Two weeks,’ Woodend countered.

  ‘All right,’ Lowry agreed. ‘But if they’re going to be running for a fortnight, they’ll have to be gradually scaled back.’

  ‘Meanin’ there’ll have to be less men in a patrol in the second week than there are in the first?’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘Could I borrow your phone for a minute?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Lowry agreed.

  Beresford had only just walked through the door of police headquarters when the duty sergeant informed him that his boss was on the phone, and wanted to talk to him.

  ‘Well?’ Woodend asked, without preamble.

  ‘Big Bazza really has gone to Spain,’ Beresford said. ‘He’ll be away for a week.’

  ‘So he wasn’t lyin’ after all,’ Woodend said. ‘Right, I’ll see you in the Drum at one o’clock.’

  The line went dead, and Beresford handed the phone back to the duty sergeant.

  ‘Have you got anythin’ planned for tonight, young Beresford?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘That depends on Mr Woodend,’ Beresford replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  The sergeant grinned. ‘Well, if you are free, I thought we might go dancin’ an’ have a bite of supper,’ he said. ‘An’ after that,’ he winked suggestively, ‘who knows what might happen?’

  The bloody make-up! Beresford thought.

  He’d been sure he’d got it all off, but the sergeant’s piss-take was a clear indication that he hadn’t. Maybe he’d better follow the advice of the woman behind the BEA counter, and apply a little Boots No. 7 cleansing cream.

  When Woodend put down the phone, he saw that Lowry was smiling.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing some of that,’ the councillor said, ‘and from what I heard, it would seem there’s a lot of truth in the Woodend legend.’

  ‘The Woodend legend?’

  ‘It’s widely believed, in certain circles, that you and your team do some of your best work in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey. Henry Marlowe always thought it was a disgrace, and would have put a stop to it if he’d dared.’

  ‘An’ what do you think about it?’

  ‘I think that I do some of my best work at cocktail parties and in the golf-club bar,’ Lowry said. ‘Shall we get back to the issue of the foot patrols?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Woodend agreed. ‘If I can have full strength for one week an’ reduced strength for another, then I’d prefer to have the full strength at my disposal in the second week.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘You can ask,’ Woodend said. Then he realized how churlish he must sound, and continued, ‘My prime suspect has just left Whitebridge. We expect him to stay away for a week.’

  ‘I see,’ Lowry said. ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the amount of money you spend which matters, not when you choose to spend it. But that amount of money is fixed, Chief Inspector. And if, after two weeks, you’ve still not caught the killer, we’ll have to assume that you’ll never catch him unless there’s another incident which might yield further information.’

  Or, to put it another way, we’ll go back to usin’ what Monika Paniatowski called live bait, Woodend thought.

  ‘There is one small condition attached to my support for you in this matter,’ Lowry said.

  He should have been expecting this, Woodend thought. He should have – but he hadn’t been.

  ‘What smal
l condition?’ he asked.

  ‘You may have noticed a number of rather unsavoury young men, wearing braces and big boots, have started hanging around the streets,’ Lowry said.

  ‘They call themselves the hard mods,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘Do they indeed,’ Lowry replied. ‘And is it your opinion, Chief Inspector, that these young men are not only violent, but violently anti-immigrant?’

  ‘They’ve a growin’ tendency to be,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘That sort of thing simply cannot be tolerated in a town like Whitebridge,’ Lowry said. ‘The Pakistani and Indian members of our community are entitled to protection, and it is our job to see that they are given it. Which is why, when the officers on your foot patrols come into contact with these young men, I want them to make it clear to them that violence against the darker-skinned members of the community will not be tolerated.’

  ‘I think I’m beginnin’ to get the hang of how this politics lark works,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Oh? You think so?’

  ‘Definitely. Councillor Scranton’s erodin’ some of your white workin’-class support in your ward, but by the time the next elections come around, you’ll have a fair number of Pakistani voters livin’ there. Now if you can show these new voters that you’re concerned about them, you might just keep your seat. An’ what you’ve just asked me to tell my lads to do is the first step in showin’ just how concerned you really are.’

  Lowry was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘You would accept, wouldn’t you, that my doing the right thing for me could also be doing what is simply the right thing in general?’

  ‘Yes, I’d accept that,’ Woodend said.

  ‘What I’ve just asked you to do is the right thing in general, don’t you think?’

  Woodend thought about Councillor Scranton, and the vile speech he had delivered outside the factory gates.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe it is the right thing.’

  ‘Then we’re agreed?’ Lowry asked.

  ‘We’re agreed,’ Woodend confirmed.

  ‘I have to go away for a while,’ Elizabeth Driver told Bob Rutter in the breakfast room of the Royal Victoria.

  ‘But I thought you told me you were planning to stay until this case was over,’ Rutter said, disappointedly.

  ‘That was my plan, and my editor agreed to go along with it. But then he changed his mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he wants to punish me,’ Driver said, speaking in a light, off-hand way, as if to demonstrate that whatever adversity she was faced with, she would handle it bravely and cheerfully.

  ‘Punish you?’ Rutter repeated.

  ‘He’s furious with me for not keeping the Henry Marlowe story to myself. That’s why he’s making me go.’

  ‘Why didn’t you keep the story to yourself?’

  ‘I seriously thought about doing just that. It would have been a wonderful feather in my cap if I had done. But, you see, if the story had only run in one newspaper, there was a chance that Marlowe would have somehow weathered the storm. And I knew how it important it was – both to you and Cloggin’-it Charlie – to get rid of the bloody man.’

  Rutter smiled. ‘You’re far too good to be true, you know,’ he said.

  But he didn’t mean it. There was no hint of suspicion in the statement, and if she was too good to be true, then all he could be was eternally grateful for it.

  ‘I’m a better person for knowing you,’ Driver said. ‘In fact, I think I’m getting better every day, if that doesn’t sound too arrogant.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Rutter said. ‘So where is this bastard of an editor sending you to?’

  ‘Oxfordshire,’ Driver told him. ‘There’s been a double murder down there. I have to admit that it does seem quite juicy, but … you know …’ she shrugged helplessly, ‘… I’d rather stay with you.’

  ‘I do know that,’ Rutter replied.

  Wearing his hard-mod gear again, Beresford had returned to the road on which Big Bazza lived. It was a depressing street, he thought, but it was not the actual buildings themselves which made it so.

  In fact, there was nothing at all wrong with terraced houses like the ones he was walking past, as long as they were properly cared for. But these weren’t. The paint on the doors and window frames was worn and faded. Where windows had been cracked, the panes had been repaired with sticky tape, rather than replaced. And it wasn’t lack of money that led to this dilapidation, he knew from his own experience as a beat bobby – it was lack of care.

  The people who lived in these houses had given up caring. As long as they had the cash for a drink in their pockets, nothing else bothered them. And aside for the fact that they had roofs over their heads and that some of them occasionally had jobs, there was very little difference between them and the tramps.

  He had reached the right door, and knocked. The woman who answered the knock was overweight, with pendulous breasts and scraggy hair. She was wearing a loose smock which looked far from clean, and had an untipped cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, in an ungracious rasp.

  ‘I’m callin’ for Bazza,’ Beresford said. ‘Are you his mum?’

  ‘Yes I am, an’ he isn’t here,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He said he had some holiday time due, so he’s gone away. I don’t know where, exactly – I didn’t ask, an’ he didn’t tell me – but it can’t have been far, ’cos I keep most of his wages to pay for his food an’ board.’

  ‘Thanks, you’ve been very—’ Beresford began, but he was only talking to the door, because the woman had gone back inside.

  Big Bazza wasn’t like his mother, or most of the other residents of this street, Beresford thought, as he turned and walked away. His appearance might frighten little children and old ladies, but at least he took some pride in it. And it was possible that if he had been born into some other family, on some other street, he might have made something of himself, instead of growing into a man who measured his own worth by the number of people he hated.

  It was really no surprise that Bazza hadn’t told his mother where he was going, Beresford thought. But it was surprising that he had chosen to go there at all.

  What had put the idea of Spain into his head?

  And how the hell had he managed to pay for it?

  Sixteen

  Woodend had not been expecting to see Bob Rutter at the Drum and Monkey, but not only did Rutter turn up, he was actually on time for once. So maybe the heated exchange between them earlier had served a purpose, Woodend thought hopefully, as he sat down at the usual table – maybe fences could still be mended, and Bob could regain his rightful place on the team.

  After he had taken a sip of his pint, he told the rest of the team about his meeting with Councillor Lowry.

  ‘I think we can work with him,’ he concluded, after he’d spelled out all the detail. ‘I really do.’

  ‘Talk about going into reverse gear!’ Paniatowski said, almost under her breath.

  ‘What was that, Monika?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I was just saying that your attitude to Lowry seems to have changed,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘And I mean changed more than somewhat.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it have changed?’ Woodend wondered. ‘He’s not given me everything I want – no chairman of the Police Authority would ever have done that – but at least he’s made an effort to meet me halfway.’

  ‘So yesterday he was the devil incarnate, and now he’s a knight in shining armour?’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘You should know me better than to imagine I’d ever think like that. Tel Lowry’s a politician down to his boot straps, and that little trick that Marlowe pulled has damaged his own standing more badly than he’s willing to admit.’

  ‘I still don’t see …’

  ‘An’ if he’s ever to regain the ground he’s lost as a result of it, he has to be seen to be distanc
in’ himself from our beloved ex-chief constable – an’ that means him gettin’ closer to me. So no, Sergeant Paniatowski, I don’t see him as a knight in shinin’ armour, but for the moment, at least, it’s in his interest to ally himself to us – an’ we need all the allies we can get.’

  ‘So all the work that I did on his background has been wasted?’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘You never wanted to do that background check in the first place,’ Woodend pointed out.

  That was true enough, Paniatowski thought, and after the session she’d had with the formidable Mrs Lowry, it was perverse of her to be annoyed. But the simple fact was that she was annoyed. Bloody annoyed!

  ‘Right,’ Woodend said, ‘if Sergeant Paniatowski’s willin’ to concede that we’ve spent enough time on Councillor Lowry, we can move on to Barry Thornley? Up until this mornin’, Bazza was no more than a possible suspect, because he’s not the only lad in Whitebridge who wears big boots an’ hates Pakistanis an’ tramps. But as a result of his takin’ this trip, he’s become our prime suspect, hasn’t he? An’ why is that, Colin?’

  ‘Because he’d never have raised the money himself, and even if he had, it would probably never have occurred to him to spend it on a holiday in Spain,’ Beresford replied.

  ‘Exactly,’ Woodend agreed. ‘It was somebody else’s money, an’ somebody else’s idea. An’ it wasn’t family money or family ideas, because you’ve already checked out that possibility, haven’t you, Colin?’

  Beresford nodded. ‘His mother could never have raised the cash – even if she’d wanted to – and she has no idea where he’s gone.’

  ‘So the way I see it, the holiday was both a reward for what he’d already done, an’ a way of gettin’ him out of Whitebridge until the heat died down a bit.’

  ‘Why do you keep talking about somebody, when we all know you mean Councillor Scranton?’ asked Paniatowski.

  ‘Because I don’t know it is Councillor Scranton,’ Woodend countered. ‘He’s certainly a possibility, but there are more right-wing middle-class nutters in Whitebridge than you could shake a stick at.’

  ‘Scranton was dishonourably discharged from the RAF,’ Paniatowski said. ‘He was stationed in Abingdon at the same time as Lowry. You might ask your new pal, Tel, about that.’