Dying Fall
Page 17
‘They’re confidential records,’ the officer said, in case Rutter had missed the point.
It was time to lay it on with a trowel, Rutter decided.
‘A man has been murdered,’ he said.
‘So you’ve already explained.’
‘And not just murdered, but murdered in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. Set on fire! Can you imagine the fear he must have felt before he finally died? Can you imagine the pain?’
The personnel officer shuddered. ‘One of my best friends in Fighter Command crashed his kite,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t killed on impact, though it might have been better if he had been, because by the time they’d pulled him out of the burning cockpit …’
‘It must have been terrible,’ Rutter said, sympathetically.
‘It was.’
‘Quite as terrible as it was for our murder victim. But, you see, we can’t do anything for either of them now. What we can do, however, is prevent the same thing from happening to some other poor soul.’
‘If you could get a court order …’ the officer said hopefully.
‘We can’t,’ Rutter told him. ‘We haven’t got enough evidence yet. But we know that Scranton is our man.’
‘I’m sorry, but without a court order, there’s nothing I can do,’ the officer said. He paused for a second. ‘Have you had the chance to visit any of the local pubs while you’ve been here?’
‘No,’ Rutter said, uninterestedly.
‘You should,’ the officer urged. ‘Some of them are very fine indeed. I’d particularly recommend the Foresters’ Arms.’
‘I don’t think I’ll—’
‘The landlord was one of our chaps before he retired. Name of Trubshawe. Now I think about it, he served here at the same time as your chum Scranton.’
‘I see,’ Rutter said.
The personnel officer smiled. ‘I rather thought you would.’
Paniatowski was having lunch with Councillor Scranton in the Dirty Duck – and hating every minute of it.
It might have been easier to take if she hadn’t read the British Patriotic Party pamphlet that he’d given her, she thought. But she had read it – every loathsome word of it.
Councillor Scranton and his party, it seemed, had a violent dislike of Africans, Asians, Eastern Europeans, Catholics, Jews, gypsies and tramps. If only these undesirable elements could be purged from British society for ever, the country would again become the earthly paradise it had once been. The pamphlet did not make any clear concrete suggestions as to how this purging might be done, but anyone reading between the lines would have no difficulty in discerning what it thought would be the right approach.
‘You’re very quiet, Monika,’ Scranton said.
‘I was thinking,’ Paniatowski replied.
‘I’ve been thinking, too,’ Scranton told her. ‘I’ve been wondering how it came about that we suddenly started spending so much time together.’
Paniatowski laughed. ‘That’s down to you,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who keeps issuing the invitations.’
‘But you’re the one who keeps accepting them. And I find myself asking why you accept them.’
‘I believe in what you stand for. I think that people like you—’
‘That might explain why you would come to meetings and offer to work for the party, but it doesn’t at all explain these more intimate moments we’ve been having.’
‘What’s the matter? Do you think I’m some kind of police undercover agent?’ Paniatowski asked.
Scranton shook his head. ‘No, if that had been the case, you’d never have told me you worked for the police in the first place. But looking at you across the table, I see a beautiful woman. And looking at myself in the mirror, I see a rather homely middle-aged man. Now do you see what I’m getting at?’
‘I think so,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You’re fishing for compliments.’
Scranton looked sheepish. ‘It was more a case of seeking an explanation,’ he said unconvincingly.
‘Well, firstly, you may be no Hollywood star, but you’re certainly not homely,’ Paniatowski said. ‘And secondly, and much more importantly, I’m not too interested in purely physical appearances. What draws me to a man is a sense of his power.’
Scranton smiled – almost smirked. ‘And you think I have that sense of power, do you?’
Yes, she was supposed to say. Yes, Ron, of course you have!
Instead, she frowned and said, ‘I haven’t quite made up my mind about that, yet.’
Scranton looked crushed. ‘But you know that my men call me the Leader, don’t you? And that I have bodyguards,’ he said.
‘Hitler’s early followers called him the Leader. And he had bodyguards right from the start, even when most people thought of him as nothing but a clown,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You don’t demonstrate your power by what you’ve got – you show it through what you do. It was only when his SS troopers began smashing Jewish shops and beating up gypsies that people really started to take him seriously. That’s when he really started to emanate power.’
‘Do you want me to start beating up gypsies?’ Scranton asked lightly, trying to turn it into a joke.
‘Not necessarily,’ Paniatowski said in a serious tone, ‘although it would be no bad thing if somebody did. But if you want me to really admire you, you’ll have to show me that there is something beyond the mere words. After all, even the captain of a school debating team can make a good speech – and he has got no real power of any kind.’
‘Something beyond the mere words,’ Scranton mused. ‘Something violent, you mean?’
‘Violence is power,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Or if not violence itself, the ever-present threat of violence.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ Scranton asked.
‘I believe that if Tsar Nicholas had crushed the peasants and workers as he should have done, I’d be at my country estate in Russia right now,’ Paniatowski said.
‘There is more to me than words, you know,’ Scranton told her.
‘Then I’d certainly like to hear about it.’
‘There have been certain things which have happened in Whitebridge recently which would not have happened had I not issued the order,’ Scranton said.
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I think you can guess like what.’
‘I’d still prefer to hear it from you.’
Scranton glanced around him. ‘Not in such a public place. And not today. But soon, when we have a little more privacy, I promise I’ll give you all the details.’
Paniatowski forced her sexiest smile to her lips. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said.
The Foresters’ Arms was a traditional country pub. Its windows were leaded, old oak beams ran the length of the ceiling, and there were horse brasses on the walls. The landlord was standing behind the bar when Rutter entered, and immediately introduced himself as Tubby Trubshawe, which left the inspector wondering if Trubshawe had always been on the plump side or whether – given his second name – he had felt under some sort of obligation to develop his substantial girth.
In Rutter’s experience, pub landlords fell into one of two categories, the loquacious and the morose, and as they got talking it soon became clear that Trubshawe was a master of loquacity.
‘Ron Scranton and I were both corporals,’ Trubshawe said. ‘Now normally, you try to get on with men of the same rank as yourself – it’s a bit of the us-against-the-world mentality, I suppose – but I couldn’t get on with him.’
‘Why not?’
‘To be honest with you, he was a bit right-wing for my tastes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a staunch Conservative myself, but you have to draw the line somewhere, don’t you?’
‘And where did you draw the line?’
‘He had this thing about racial purity. Said that Hitler might have had his faults, but that he’d had some good ideas, too. And this – mark you – was just five years after we’d fought a bloody war to defeat the swine.
’
‘Must have been hard to take,’ Rutter said.
‘It was,’ Trubshawe agreed. ‘Didn’t like gypsies, either. There was a camp quite close to the base, and he was always going on about them. Saw them as vermin. Parasites. Said we should burn them out.’
‘How did he feel about tramps?’ Rutter wondered.
‘Much the same, I would imagine.’
‘He was dishonourably discharged, wasn’t he?’
‘I believe he was.’
‘What was the reason for that?’
‘You can never be entirely certain why the RAF does things the way it does,’ Trubshawe said. ‘The army’s perfectly prepared to admit it’s got some riff-raff in its ranks, but we like to think we’re a cut above that, and when we wash our dirty linen, we make damn sure we don’t do it in public.’
‘But you could probably make a good guess at why he was discharged, couldn’t you?’ Rutter coaxed.
‘Well, I certainly have my suspicions,’ Trubshawe conceded, ‘but I’m not sure I’d like to be quoted on them.’
‘You won’t be,’ Rutter promised.
‘There was this Indian restaurant that opened in Abingdon. It was called the Taj Mahal, if memory serves,’ Trubshawe said. ‘You see them all over the place now, but back then they were a bit of a novelty. In fact, I think the Taj was the first one in Oxfordshire. Anyway, it hadn’t been open for more than a week when it was burned to the ground. As luck would have it, nobody was hurt – but they quite easily could have been.’
‘And you think it was Scranton who set the fire?’ Rutter asked.
‘Wouldn’t go that far, old boy,’ Trubshawe replied, suddenly cagey. ‘But I will say this – the very next day, the powers that be whisked Scranton out of the camp as if he had the plague, and we heard no more about him until we were told he’d been given a DD. No idea what happened to him after that.’
‘He went back home to Whitebridge,’ Rutter said.
‘With his tail between his legs, no doubt.’
‘Not really. He’s on the town council now.’
‘Extraordinary how things turn out, isn’t it?’ Trubshawe said. ‘There was another chap from Whitebridge here at the same time as Scranton. Name of Lowry. If anyone was going to be a town councillor, I’d have thought it would be him.’
‘I take it that you got on better with Lowry than you did with Scranton,’ Rutter said.
‘Didn’t really know the man, to be honest. He was an officer, you see, so our paths very rarely crossed. The only reason I remember him at all is because of his mother.’
‘His mother?’
‘Flight Lieutenant Lowry was being presented with a gong for conspicuous bravery under fire, and his mother came down here for the ceremony. She must have been in her forties then – as old as my own mother was at the time – but, by Christ, she was a stunning bloody woman. She positively oozed sex appeal.’
‘There are some women who can’t help doing that,’ Rutter said.
‘Maybe there are, and maybe they can’t,’ Trubshawe agreed. ‘But that certainly wasn’t the case with Mrs Lowry. She knew what she was doing, all right. She was like a lioness on the prowl, stalking her prey.’
‘Did she stalk you?’ Rutter asked.
Trubshawe laughed. ‘There’d have been no need to stalk me. I’d have jumped at the chance if it had been offered. But she didn’t seem very interested in the other ranks.’
‘So it was the officers who attracted her, was it?’
‘Let me put it this way,’ Trubshawe said. ‘After she’d gone back home, there were a couple of wing commanders who couldn’t wipe the smiles off their faces for a week!’
Nineteen
It was the rain, that Wednesday morning, which was the start of Barry Thornley’s black mood. It was pelting down as his plane landed at Ringway Airport, and it continued to fall in bucketfuls as the bus took the passengers to the terminal. And even inside the building – which was dry and cheerfully lit – there was a smell of dampness and a general feeling of depression.
The taxi ride back to Whitebridge didn’t help, either.
‘The ring road’s a bugger for traffic when it rains like this,’ the driver said, ‘so, if you don’t mind, we’ll take a route that’s a bit less direct.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Bazza said morosely.
‘It’ll put a bit more on the clock, but it’ll be quicker,’ the cabbie told him, as if he still felt the need to make his case.
‘I said I don’t mind!’ Bazza snapped.
The cabbie’s quicker route took them through parts of Manchester that Bazza had never seen before – rundown areas of drab grey streets, populated by drab grey people.
‘I expect it’s a lot nicer where you’ve just been,’ the cabbie said, noticing that his passenger was looking out of the window.
‘A lot nicer,’ Bazza agreed.
‘Yes, there’s no arguing that this is a bit of a rough part of the world,’ the cabbie continued. ‘You’d not catch me picking up passengers here after dark.’
The taxi driver was right, Bazza thought, it was a bit of a rough part of the world. But, he was also slowly coming to realize, this was his world they were passing through – a world he had been born into, a world he understood.
A world he would die in.
Spain had seemed like a dream, and now he understood that was actually what it had been. And it was a dream which was not for him.
Spain – like heaven – was reserved for someone else.
Woodend was standing in the corridor outside his office and looking through the window at the man who was sitting at his desk.
Bob Rutter was staring blankly at the wall. He did not seem to be aware that he was being observed – he did not seem to be aware of anything that was going on around him.
There was a twitch in the inspector’s left eye that Woodend could detect even from a distance, and his hands, which were resting on the desk, were performing an erratic drumbeat.
God, he looked rough, Woodend thought. But then, feelings of guilt – and betrayal – could do that to a man.
The chief inspector opened the office door, and stepped into the office. ‘So you’re back, then,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Rutter agreed, in a flat, deadened voice. ‘I’m back.’
‘What can I do for you, lad?’
‘I thought you might like to hear my report,’ Rutter said.
‘Might as well,’ Woodend agreed, aiming for indifference but falling just short of anger.
‘Ron Scranton was discharged from the RAF just after a fire in an Indian restaurant in Abingdon,’ Rutter said. ‘He was never charged with anything, but I think we can draw our own conclusions.’
‘Is that it?’ Woodend asked.
‘Yes, it is. And I would have thought it was a pretty significant piece of information,’ Rutter countered.
‘Aye, it is,’ Woodend conceded. ‘But it’s not much to show for a whole week’s work.’ He paused. ‘Still, it hasn’t been a whole week’s work, has it? Because you’ve been ill.’
‘That’s right,’ Rutter agreed. ‘I’ve been ill.’
‘You must think I’ve gone bloody soft in the head,’ Woodend exploded. Then he reached for a copy of the Gazette that lay at the corner of his desk, and slammed it down in front of Rutter. ‘Read that to me.’
Rutter picked the paper up. ‘“Crazed grandma goes on murderous spree”,’ he read in a flat voice.
‘An’ the next bit,’ Woodend ordered.
‘By Elizabeth Driver, Oxford.’
‘Oxford!’ Woodend repeated. ‘That’s where you were, isn’t it?’
‘You know it was.’
‘I wondered at the time why you were so keen on havin’ that particular assignment, but I never thought your reasons could be as bad – as bloody outrageous – as they turned out to be.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rutter said.
‘Sorry isn’t good enough!’ Woodend barked. ‘Do you r
emember what I said last week? That I thought you should transfer to some less stressful area of police work? Well, I don’t think that now. Now, I think you don’t belong in the police at all.’
‘You’re quite right, of course, sir,’ Rutter said. ‘I’d already accepted that myself, which is why I’ve decided to resign,’
Although it was what Woodend wanted to hear – although he knew it was what had to happen – he still felt a wave of sadness wash over him.
‘What will you do once you’ve left the Force, lad?’ he asked.
‘That’s really none of your business, sir,’ Rutter replied.
As if he were speaking to a comparative stranger. As if they hadn’t shared so much over the years.
‘I assume Elizabeth Driver’s offered you some kind of job,’ Woodend said.
‘She has.’
‘But if you take it, what will happen to Louisa? Constantly travellin’ around the country from one sensational crime to the next is no life for a little girl. An’ the alternative – leavin’ her behind – is just as bad. She doesn’t need a dad who she only sees once every few weeks. She needs one who’s there to tuck her in at night.’
‘That’s a bit rich, isn’t it, coming from a man who continually belly-ached if I wasn’t there at the precise second he wanted me?’ Rutter asked. He stood up. ‘As I told you just before I set off for Oxford, I’m not your lad any more, Charlie.’
‘Bob—’ Woodend said.
‘I’m my own man now,’ Rutter interrupted. ‘And what happens to me – and to Louisa – is really no concern of yours.’
Bazza told the taxi driver to drop him off at the corner of his street, and walked the last hundred yards home. He found his mother in the kitchen – a grease-encrusted hole where cooking pans went to die.
‘So you’re back, then,’ she said.
She was standing over the stove, lethargically stirring a lumpy stew. There was a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, and when some of the ash fell into the pot, she either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
‘How’d it go, Barry?’ Big Bazza asked.
‘You what?’ his mother asked.
‘Did my little darlin’ have a nice time on his holidays?’ Bazza said.