Watching them line up through his office window – men of all shapes and sizes, some in oilskins, some in plastic mackintoshes, some even wearing rain-hats they had obviously scrounged from their wives – Chief Inspector Barrington was surprised to discover that he was becoming emotional.
These men – his fellow Lancastrians – had come out in filthy weather, he thought, to take part in a search which could only be counted a success if it ended in tragedy – and he was proud of them.
‘Another call from somebody who claims to know who the dead girl is, boss,’ said his sergeant from the other side of the room.
Barrington turned round to face him.
‘It’s probably just another crank,’ he said.
‘It could be,’ the sergeant agreed, ‘but not only is this one making sense, she sounds a bit upset.’
Barrington sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better talk to her,’ he said.
Tiny vertical rivers of rain ran energetically down Paniatowski’s office window, only to come to an abrupt halt when they hit the frame at the bottom.
The investigation had been like that, she thought, gazing through the window at the watery world outside – they had seemed to be making steady progress, and then, suddenly, they had hit what seemed an insurmountable barrier, and spattered.
She turned around to face her team.
‘I take it everyone who had any contact at all with the Danbury house has already been interviewed?’ she asked her inspector.
‘Yes, they have,’ Beresford replied. ‘But those interviews were given low priority, because we were pouring most of our effort into following our strongest lead – which was Danbury.’
‘So who’s on the list?’
Beresford flicked through the reports. ‘There’s the gardener and his assistant. They work for Danbury four days a week, but the gardener’s sixty-two and the assistant’s only seventeen.’
‘Their ages make it unlikely that either of them was Jane’s lover, but it certainly doesn’t rule them out,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Who else is there?’
‘All the heavy housework is done by the contract cleaning team, who come in three times a week. The composition of that team changes regularly. According to the officers who conducted the interviews, seventeen different members of staff have worked on the Danbury contract over the last year – all of them women.’
‘That doesn’t rule them out, either,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Jane’s lover doesn’t have to have been a man. In fact, given her experiences with men – or rather, with one man in particular – it’s more than possible that if she was looking for love, she’d look for it in the arms of a woman.’
‘All the groceries come from Lomax and Sons, which is the posh supermarket in the shopping precinct,’ Beresford continued. ‘William Danbury phones in the order personally. They make three deliveries a week, using one of four drivers, all of them in their late thirties to early forties.’
‘Who else is there?’
‘No one. That’s it.’
Dear God, Paniatowski thought, what a life Jane Danbury had had, locked up in that luxury prison, and only seeing tradesmen. Would it have been any wonder if she had fallen for the first person to smile at her?
‘Can I ask a question, boss?’ Meadows said.
‘Yes.’
‘How do we know Jane even had a lover?’
‘Dr Lucas said …’
‘I know what he said, but he could have misread the signs – God knows, he’s only a man.’
‘Even if he hadn’t pointed us in that direction, we’d have come to it eventually ourselves, Paniatowski argued. ‘Jane Danbury virtually never left the house, and was killed in an excessively violent manner. It has to be a lover. That’s the only possible logical inference.’
‘With respect, boss, that might be what you’re saying today, but yesterday we all thought that the only possible logical inference was that her husband, William, had done it.’
‘Have you got any other ideas, sergeant?’ Paniatowski snapped.
‘No, boss.’
‘Then that’s the one we run with. I want all the cleaners, gardeners and deliverymen re-interviewed – and this time, I want it done in-depth. Additionally, check on any other tradesmen who might have visited the Danbury house in the last year or so – people like plumbers, electricians and painters. You’ll have to get that information from Danbury himself.’
‘That may not be too easy, boss,’ Beresford pointed out. ‘At the moment, Danbury hates the police.’
‘He doesn’t hate the police – he hates me,’ Paniatowski countered. ‘Send round a detective constable who plays rugby – God knows, one of them shouldn’t be too hard to find – and I think you’ll find he’ll cooperate. After all, it is his wife who’s been murdered and his daughter who’s gone missing, and even though he doesn’t seem to have cared a great deal for either of them, he’ll still want whoever did it brought to justice.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Beresford agreed.
‘I also want a fresh round of door-to-doors on Milliners’ Row.’
‘They didn’t turn up anything very useful last time, which given the sorts of lives the people on the Row live is hardly …’
‘Last time, we were asking them questions about the day of the murder,’ Paniatowski said. ‘This time, I want to know if they’ve seen any men – or women – visiting the house in the last few months. If they have, try and pin them down to a date. Then get Danbury’s appointment book from his secretary, and cross-reference whatever sightings and dates you’ve got from the neighbours with the days William Danbury was away from home.’
‘How do we know that, if this lover actually exists, Jane didn’t go and visit him or her, rather than have him or her visiting her?’ Beresford asked.
‘Two reasons,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘One: she didn’t trust Gretchen to look after the kids. And two: even if she had decided it was safe to leave the au pair in charge, she’d have been worried that Gretchen would have told William about her little excursions.’
‘If she was killed by her lover,’ Meadows said, ‘why did he or she …’ She paused. ‘I’m finding this annoying. Is it all right if I call the supposed lover “him” for the present?’
‘Yes, as long as that doesn’t mean you fixate on it being a man,’ Paniatowski said.
‘I won’t,’ Meadows promised. ‘So if she was killed by her lover, why did the lover take Melanie with him?’
‘For the same reason that we thought Danbury had taken her, when he was our number one suspect – to move the focus away from the murder and onto the disappearance. And the lover would have had even less compunction about killing her than Danbury – because she wasn’t his child.’
There was a knock on the office door, and Chief Inspector Barrington walked in.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, DCI Paniatowski, but I think I’m about to tie up a loose end in this investigation,’ he said, ‘and if you can spare the time, I’d really like you to come with me.’
Paniatowski looked questioningly at her team.
‘We know what we’ve got to do,’ Beresford said.
William Danbury had slept in his own bed for the first time in nearly a week, but it had been a far from peaceful sleep.
A tall, stern man had haunted his unconscious hours – a shouting, contemptuous man, whose disapproval was more crushing than the angry blow of a sledgehammer.
‘You’re tired, you say? But you’ve only walked six miles. What kind of man are you going to be when you grow up?’
‘You want to know where the cat is? The cat’s dead. It got run over. You’re not crying, are you? I’d better not catch you crying.’
‘How old are you now? Fourteen? A fourteen-year-old should be able to drink five pints of best bitter without spewing up his ring. You make me ashamed to be your father.’
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he’d mumbled over and over again, in a voice that sounded like his much younger self. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Yet for all his suffering in the night, he discovered, when he finally awoke mid-morning, that he felt surprisingly fresh. He felt, in fact, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from him.
He walked over to the window, and looked out onto the garden. It had stopped raining, and Gretchen and the boys were playing football on the all-weather pitch he had had specially installed.
Gretchen did not have a maternal bone in her body, he thought, and she hated playing with the boys, but she was doing it because she knew that was what he wanted. He smiled. That really was most satisfying.
Gretchen made him a late breakfast, and when he’d finished it, he said, ‘I think I’ll go down to the rugby club, and sink a few pints.’
Gretchen frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?’
‘Well, because …’
‘Are you questioning me?’ he demanded.
‘No, of course not,’ the girl said hastily. ‘Things have been very difficult for you. It is only right that you should have some relaxation.’
As he drove to the rugby club, he was thinking of his dead wife. He had wanted her to persuade her father to change his will, and she had failed him in that, a fact he often reminded her of, sometimes punctuating each reminder with a kick to her prone and terrified body. But she’d been a good wife in other ways – she had borne him two fine sons and then conveniently got herself murdered, thus freeing him from the bother of having to take her to Canada with him. Yes, on the whole, he had no complaints about her.
The rugby club car park was quite full. That was good, because it meant that when he made his entry, he would have a large audience.
As he walked across the car park, there was a spring in his step. He had been the strongest and most ferocious prop forward the club had ever known, and was something of a hero to the men in the bar, he reminded himself. He was in no doubt at all about the kind of reception he would get.
The street that Paniatowski and Barrington were driving down was lined with highly respectable semi-detached houses. It was the sort of street on which husbands religiously washed their cars every Sunday, and where wives made cakes for the parent-teacher association raffles.
They parked in front of No. 26, walked down the neat path to the front door and rang the bell. Their ring was answered by a skinny man with thinning hair, who was probably only in his thirties, but was starting to look much older.
The man gazed with horror at Barrington’s uniform, then said, ‘Yes?’ in a voice which quivered with fear.
‘Mr Holloway?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Mr Reginald Holloway?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we come in, do you think, Mr Holloway?’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘We have some questions we’d like to ask you.’
‘The thing is, you see, I’ve got to get the kids fed before I drop them off at the childminder’s.’
‘We really do need to come in,’ Paniatowski said firmly.
Holloway gave her a defeated shrug, and said, ‘I suppose you’d better follow me, then.’
He led them into the living room. Four children, aged between five and ten, were sitting around the table, eating an early lunch.
‘What’s that bobby doing here, Dad?’ the eldest one – a boy – asked, pointing at Barrington. ‘And who’s the lady?’
‘They’re both bobbies, and they just want a bit of a chat, like,’ Holloway said. ‘You kids go up to your rooms and get ready, and then I’ll take you to Mrs Finnigan’s house.’
‘But I haven’t finished eating, Dad,’ a girl of around eight said.
‘Then take it up to your bedroom, Lucy.’
‘You said we couldn’t eat food in our bedrooms. You said …’
‘Well, now I’m telling you that you can,’ Holloway snapped. ‘Be a good girl,’ he continued, softening, ‘and we’ll have fish and chips for tea.’
‘Bought fish and chips?’ asked Lucy, who was clearly a natural negotiator. ‘From the chip shop?’
‘From the chip shop,’ the father agreed tiredly.
The children, recognising a good offer when they heard one, quickly left the room.
‘Well, I suppose you’d better sit down,’ Holloway said.
They sat.
‘So what’s this about?’ Holloway asked.
They all of them knew where this conversation would end, Paniatowski thought, but there was a ritual that must be gone through first.
‘We’d like your wife to sit in on this conversation, too, Mr Holloway,’ she said.
‘She isn’t here.’
‘What time will she be back?’
Holloway hesitated. He seemed to be contemplating telling a lie, then realising just how pointless that would be.
‘She won’t be back,’ he said. ‘She’s gone away.’
And not alone, according to the neighbours. She had, in fact, taken a car mechanic called Sam with her, to change her tyres, when necessary, and keep her company in the night.
‘So you look after all your children on your own,’ Paniatowski said. ‘That must be hard work, especially if you also have a job.’
‘I’ve got two jobs – one in the day to put the food on the table, and the other at night to pay for the childminder,’ Holloway told her. ‘The only reason you find me here now, is because it’s a Saturday. And yes, you’re right, it is hard – but the kids make it all worthwhile.’
‘We’ve been talking to the neighbours, and they say they haven’t seen your youngest child – Ruth, is it? – for several days.’
‘It’s nothing to do with them,’ Holloway said. ‘They want to learn to mind their own business.’
‘Apparently, you always take her out in her trolley as soon as you get home from work – regular as clockwork, they say – but sometime last week you stopped doing that.’
‘It’s been too cold to take her out.’
‘Really, I’d have said it’s been unseasonably warm for the time of year,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Can we see her, Mr Holloway?’
‘No, you can’t – because she isn’t here, either.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘Her mum came and took her away.’
‘She took Ruth, but left the other children?’
‘She likes babies – it’s only when they get a bit bigger that she can’t be bothered with them.’
‘So could you please give us her address?’
‘She didn’t leave an address.’
‘You obviously care very much about your children, Mr Holloway,’ Paniatowski said softly.
‘I do. I love them all to pieces.’
‘So are you seriously trying to tell us that you’d hand Ruth over to your wife, without even asking where she was taking her?’
Holloway started to cry. ‘She was in her cot – just lying there,’ he said. ‘I thought at first she was sleeping, then I realised that she wasn’t breathing at all. It was nothing I did to her. I swear that it was nothing I did to her.’
‘We know that already,’ Paniatowski said. ‘She died of an aneurysm. It’s been like a time-bomb ticking away in her head since the moment she was born. She could have gone at any time.’
‘I wrapped her up in her shawl, and I drove her to the woods,’ Holloway said. ‘I found a tree I thought she would have liked, and I buried her in front of it. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my whole life.’
‘Why did you do it, Mr Holloway?’ Paniatowski asked, although she thought she knew the answer already.
‘I thought they’d blame me for her death,’ Holloway sobbed. ‘I thought social services would take the rest of my kids off me.’
He was a good man, Paniatowski thought – a very good man.
She felt as if she had been swimming in a pit of slime – the natural home of a man like William Danbury – for days, and now, at last, she had reached fresh, clean water.
‘What happens now
?’ Holloway asked.
Chief Inspector Barrington sucked in air, and squared his shoulders.
Paniatowski recognised the signs. He was adopting a formal stance as a prelude to a formal act.
‘Could you come outside with me for a moment, Chief Inspector Barrington?’ she asked.
‘Now?’ Barrington asked, clearly annoyed by the unexpected interruption to the small drama he’d been about to play out.
‘Now!’ Paniatowski insisted.
They stepped out of the front door, and walked back down the path towards the garden gate.
‘You’re going to charge him, aren’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Yes, of course I am,’ Barrington replied. ‘He’s failed to report a death and he’s buried a body in a place not authorised for that purpose, both of which are criminal acts.’
‘And once you’ve charged him, you’ll take him down to headquarters for processing.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then you’ll lock him up in the custody suite until Monday morning, when he’ll appear before the magistrate.’
‘That is how things are done.’
‘And what will happen to the children?’
‘Social services will have to make arrangements for looking after them.’
‘You could easily put off charging him until Monday morning,’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘No, I couldn’t. Once I’m aware that a crime has been committed, I’m duty bound to act on that information.’
‘You could leave it until Monday,’ Paniatowski repeated. ‘He’ll still be here. It’s not as if he’s about to abandon his kids and do a runner, now is it?’
‘There is a clear procedure to follow in cases like this one, and I intend to follow it.’
‘I’m going to ask you one last time,’ Paniatowski said. ‘In fact, I’m not going to ask – I’m going to plead with you.’
‘I’m sorry, I’d like to do it, but I simply can’t go making exceptions,’ Barrington said. ‘Once you put one foot on that particular slippery slope, there’s no telling where it might end.’ He paused. ‘After yesterday, we’re both on shaky ground, Monika. Let’s not do anything to make our situation any worse than it already is.’
Thicker Than Water Page 21