‘There wasn’t one.’
Woodend nodded. ‘Good, because if there had been, God alone knows what her defence brief might have made out of it when he had you up there on the witness stand.’
‘What?!’
‘I must say, I admire your public spirit,’ Woodend said. ‘Most men would think twice before filin’ charges against a prostitute. They’d be too worried about what their friends and family might think, especially if they’re married. Are you married, Mr Allcard?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Anyway, as I was sayin’, they might worry their wives would think they’d actually been consorting with the woman. But not you! You know your duty! You won’t be deterred by all the finger-pointin’ and the sniggers. You’ll stand up in open court and say exactly what happened.’
‘I … er … I’m no longer sure I want to go ahead with this,’ Allcard said uneasily.
‘But you must,’ Woodend said sternly. ‘A crime has been committed, a prosecution must follow. Otherwise this has all been a waste of police time, which is a very serious matter indeed.’
‘I … er … think that I might possibly have got a bit confused when I fell over.’
‘Fell over?’ Woodend repeated, mystified. ‘I thought you said this prostitute hit you.’
‘No … er … that’s where the confusion comes in, you see. I thought she hit me, but now I see that I only fell over.’
‘So it was an accident after all? And this whole thing has been nothing but a misunderstanding?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And I can let the young lady go, can I, confident that I’ll hear no more about it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then perhaps you’d like to come with me to the cells.’
‘What for?’
‘To apologize to the young lady for all the inconvenience your confusion had caused her.’
‘Do I have to?’ Allcard whined.
‘Strictly speaking, there’s no obligation to,’ Woodend admitted. ‘An’ thinkin’ about it, I suppose you might be better off goin’ straight back to your hotel and getting’ a good night’s sleep. After all, you’ve had a very difficult evening.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Allcard moaned. ‘A very difficult evening.’
Nineteen
Woodend was in no mood to be messed about, and, if Jack the landlord had taken too long answering his knock on the side door of the Drum and Monkey, it was more than likely he’d have kicked the door in first and worried about the consequences later. Fortunately, no such drastic action proved necessary. Jack must have been listening for their arrival, and as soon as Woodend knocked there was the sound of the bolts being drawn back.
Woodend and Paniatowski stepped through the door, and the landlord quickly closed it behind them.
‘By Christ, but you look like you really could use a drink, Mr Woodend,’ Jack said. He turned his attention to Monika. ‘An’ you an’ all, Sergeant Paniatowski – if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.’
‘You can say what you like, as long as there really is a drink at the end of it,’ Monika told him.
Jack led his two late-night visitors into the public bar. ‘What’ll it be? The usual? Or is it a whisky night, Mr Woodend?’
‘I’ll have a pint, but I’ll pull it myself,’ Woodend said. ‘You get off upstairs to your missus, Jack. When we’ve finished here, we’ll leave our money on the till an’ let ourselves out.’
‘You’re sure that’ll be all right?’ the landlord asked.
‘I’m sure,’ Woodend replied.
Jack nodded and left. Woodend slipped behind the bar, pulled himself a pint and – while it was settling – drew a triple vodka from the optic.
Though the bar was empty, and Paniatowski could have sat wherever she wanted to, her legs took her automatically to their usual table in the corner.
‘What happens now?’ she asked, when Woodend had finished preparing the drinks and joined her.
‘About the assault charges?’
‘Yes, about the assault charges!’ Paniatowski snapped. ‘After all that’s happened tonight, I’m not likely to be talking about the bloody weather, am I?’ She took a deep slug of her vodka. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I should never have said that,’ she continued, contritely.
‘After we discussed the matter at some length, Mr Allcard decided he didn’t really want to press charges after all,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ I’ve taken the extra precaution of ensurin’ that there’s no record of you an’ him ever havin’ been at the station.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Paniatowski said sincerely.
‘There’s nothin’ to thank me for. It’s what you always do for one of your own,’ Woodend said. ‘But I would like to know why I had to do it.’
‘Are you asking me why I hit him?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Well, I’m certainly not talkin’ about the bloody weather,’ Woodend replied, giving her a taste of her own medicine.
‘I hit him because he attacked me. I warned him not to do it, but when he refused to take that warning, I was forced to defend myself.’
‘Well, that’s an answer of sorts,’ Woodend admitted, ‘but it’s certainly not the answer to the question I asked – an’ you bloody know it isn’t.’
Paniatowski nodded. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted. ‘I went down to the canal with him because I hoped he’d attack me – because I wanted to strike out at something, and he was a convenient target.’
‘So why take him back to the station? Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to drive him to the hospital?’
‘It was the station he wanted to go to.’
‘You could have insisted on the hospital. I imagine he’d have been too weak to argue. You could have dropped him off outside the casualty department, an’ then just driven off into the night.’
Paniatowski sighed. ‘What would have been the point of that? I’d have been caught eventually, whatever I did. The creep knew where he’d picked me up, and that’s a strong enough trail for even our beloved Chief Constable to follow. Besides, I did it, and I wasn’t about to pretend that I hadn’t.’
She opened her handbag and took out her cigarettes. As she lit one, Woodend saw that her hands were trembling.
‘Do you know what I think?’ Woodend said.
‘I don’t really care what you think, sir!’ Paniatowski said, with a sudden burst of anger. ‘I thought we were here to discuss the case. Do you want to do that? Or should we just call it a night?’
‘Which case do you mean?’ Woodend asked.
‘There is only one case that concerns us,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘The bloody Pamela Rainsford case!’
‘All right, let’s talk about that for the moment,’ Woodend conceded. ‘I’m findin’ it difficult to form any clear impression of her. The way her boss talks about her, you’d think she’d never so much as say boo to a goose. Then there’s her so-called best friend, who’s so caught up between need an’ jealousy that she doesn’t know what she thinks. An’ finally there’s the feller I talked to earlier tonight. Mr Bascombe, his name is. Admittedly, I wouldn’t automatically classify him as one of the world’s most reliable witnesses, but he certainly seems to think that Pamela was little less than a nymphomaniac.’
‘Bascombe’s probably not too far from the truth,’ Paniatowski said, and told Woodend about the discussion she’d had with Peter Tewson, the dead woman’s ex-boyfriend from the town hall.
‘What do you think to the idea that the killer in this case could have been a woman?’ Woodend asked tentatively.
Paniatowski considered it for a second. ‘It’s possible,’ she said. ‘An ex-lover, driven mad by jealously, would certainly be capable of doing the kinds of things which were done to Pamela.’
Woodend almost choked on his beer. ‘You think Pamela Rainsford was a lesbian?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, but it’s certainly not something we should rule out,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘We already know that she was experiment
al in her sex life. Maybe her experimentation led her to trying women as well as men.’
‘There are times when I think I’m getting’ far too old for this job,’ Woodend said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d never have come up with the idea that you just have. Because I was brought up in a world that was a lot less complicated than the one we’re livin’ in now. Take Bob an’ Maria as an example.’
‘I don’t want to talk about Bob!’ Paniatowski said fiercely.
‘All right, let’s talk about couples in general terms then,’ Woodend said soothingly. ‘It used to be the case that if a woman found out her husband was havin’ an affair, she’d give him absolute hell for it. But she wouldn’t think of leavin’ him, because you just didn’t do that kind of thing. You stayed together for the sake of the kids, an’ because economically, you didn’t have any other choice. But it’s not like that now.’
‘Where are you going with this?’ Paniatowski asked suspiciously.
‘I’m just tryin’ to illustrate a point,’ Woodend said. ‘Take another example. I’m sure there were as many homosexuals an’ lesbians around when I was growin’ up as there are now, but we never heard about them. An’ that’s not just because they were cleverer at hidin’ what they were doin’, it was because most of them didn’t do anythin’. You suppressed your urges, because society didn’t approve – an’ because you didn’t really approve yourself, either. I’m not sayin’ it was a better world we lived in back then – but, by God, it was certainly a different one.’
‘I’m sure that’s all very interesting – in its way – sir,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But your home-spun philosophy’s not going to help us find out who killed Pamela Rainsford, now is it?’
‘Christ, but you’re ready to lash out at just about anybody who’s standin’ in your path, aren’t you?’ Woodend said, starting to feel an anger of his own coming to the boil.
The intensity of his tone pulled Paniatowski up short. ‘No, I just—’ she began.
‘Shall I tell you why I think you took Allcard back to the station?’ Woodend asked. ‘You did it because you wanted to land yourself in the shit!’
‘That’s ridiculous. I—’
‘You had no idea that good old Charlie Woodend would come ridin’ in like a knight in shinin’ armour to rescue you. You didn’t expect to be rescued. You didn’t want to be rescued. What you did want was to be suspended. Because if you were under suspension you’d be able to tell yourself that it wasn’t that you wouldn’t help Bob, it was that you couldn’t.’
‘Are you saying that I deliberately planned—?’
‘Of course I’m not! I’m sure that on the conscious level you had no idea what you were doin’. But that is why you did it.’
‘Not true!’ Paniatowski said stubbornly.
‘You’ve got a closed mind when it comes to Maria’s murder,’ Woodend said, ‘an’ that’s just not like you. You’ve got to learn to rise above your own personal pain, an’ seek out the truth.’
‘We already know the truth.’
‘If you really think like that, there’s no real point to havin’ bobbies at all, is there?’ Woodend demanded furiously. ‘If crime detection involves doin’ no more than arrestin’ somebody who could be the murderer, then school dinner ladies could do our job.’
‘Please, Charlie, won’t you just look at the facts of the case?’ Monika pleaded.
‘That’s just what I intend to do,’ Woodend told her. ‘But first I’ve got to make sure I have all the facts available to me. An’ I don’t. Not yet! But I’m gettin’ there.’
‘Are you?’ Paniatowski asked, almost pityingly.
‘Yes, I bloody am. An’ I don’t think I’ll even have to look very hard to find them. I think they’re probably so thick on the ground that I’ll practically trip over the buggers. So why hasn’t DCI Evans found them? Because he isn’t even botherin’ to look for them.’
‘Or because he’s right and you’re wrong,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Because you wish that certain facts were there, and he knows they aren’t.’
‘You’re such a smartarse, aren’t you, Monika,’ Woodend said. ‘So sure you know everythin’ there is to know. Well, let me tell you somethin’ that I’ve already found out.’
‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ Monika pleaded.
‘This Bascombe feller, who I was talkin’ to tonight, happens to live on Ash Croft,’ Woodend said, ignoring her. ‘An’ do you know where Ash Croft is, Sergeant Paniatowski?’
‘Yes, I know where it is.’
‘It’s very close to Bob and Maria’s house. In fact, the only thing that separates it from Bob’s house is a strip of buildin’ land.’
‘I know.’
‘Good! I’m delighted to hear that you do at least know somethin’. Anyway, the point about Ash Croft is that there are very few houses on it which are occupied yet. Which means – an’ I shouldn’t need to tell you this – that very few cars will normally be parked on that road. So I asked this Bascombe feller if he’d noticed any strange vehicles parked there the night Maria was murdered. An’ he bloody had, Monika! He bloody had! He’d spotted a dark-green Ford Cortina GT. One of the new models. An’ before you ask how he can be sure of that, he’s sure because he’s a motor enthusiast, an’ he went right up to it to get a closer look. Do you see where I’m goin’ with all this, Monika?’
‘Yes, I see where you’re going,’ Paniatowski replied.
There was a dull, almost lifeless tone to her voice, but Woodend was now so fired up that he didn’t even notice it.
‘It could have been the killer’s car,’ he said. ‘The killer could have parked there, slipped across the buildin’ site under the cover of darkness, an’ murdered Maria. But does Chief Inspector Evans know anythin’ about this green Cortina? Does he buggery!’
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Paniatowski said, her voice as flat and cold as an ice rink.
‘Can’t I? Then tell me this. If he knows about it, why hasn’t he done a follow-up investigation?’
‘Perhaps he has.’
‘Bollocks! If he’d followed it up, he’d have had the driver in for questionin’ by now. Findin’ him would have been an absolute doddle, wouldn’t it? Because, when all’s said and done, there can’t be that many new, dark-green Cortina GTs in the Whitebridge area.’
‘No, there can’t,’ Paniatowski agreed heavily. ‘But I know of one, at least.’
‘Well, there you are then!’
‘What kind of car do you think Bob drives?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I know what kind of car he drives. A Vauxhall Victor. But what’s that got to do with anythin’?’
‘He did drive a Victor. But he’s been planning to trade it in for something else for a quite a while, and he took delivery of his new car just a couple of days before Maria was killed.’
‘An’ what … what make of car is it?’ Woodend asked, wishing he was dead.
‘It’s a Ford Cortina GT,’ Paniatowski said. ‘The latest model. And it’s dark green.’
Twenty
The weather forecasters had been predicting a relatively mild autumn, but the weather itself was refusing to play along with them, and on the morning after Teddy Allcard had his nose broken, the air in Whitebridge was chilly and the sky heavy with thick grey clouds.
Monika Paniatowski, crossing town in her beloved MGA, found herself thinking about the nature of murder investigations.
It was a common belief in police circles that a squad assembled to deal with a homicide should strive to become a well-oiled machine. It was a belief she herself had shared, until she’d started working for Charlie Woodend.
‘I don’t like usin’ the term at all,’ Woodend had told her, back in their early days together. ‘A well-oiled machine! It’s too cold. Too mechanical. It makes what we do seem like a science.’
‘And isn’t it?’ Paniatowski had asked.
‘Oh, I’ll not deny there’s room for science an�
�� logic in an investigation, but there’s an art to it as well.’
‘So if we shouldn’t try to be a machine, what exactly should we try to become?’
‘An organism,’ Woodend had said. ‘A livin’ breathin’ organism.’
‘Like a cat or a dog?’
‘No, more like an octopus. The way I see it, each member of the team is a tentacle, feelin’ about in the murk, an’ sendin’ its impressions back to the brain. An’ the brain’s job is to put all these impressions together, an’ build up a complete picture.’
He was right, of course. Cloggin’-it Charlie usually was right. And thinking back over the cases they’d investigated together, Monika Paniatowski could appreciate just how well the theory worked out in practice – just how well the tentacles and the brain had gelled with one another.
But that only worked as long as the brain was up to the job. And Woodend’s wasn’t – not on this particular case. Because the brain was ignoring the tentacles. It had no real interest in receiving the messages they were sending it on the Pamela Rainsford case. Its only concern was to try to prove that someone other than Bob Rutter had murdered Maria Rutter two nights earlier.
Paniatowski pulled up at a red light, and reached into the glove compartment for her cigarettes. She shouldn’t have to be making this visit to Pamela Rainsford’s flat, she thought, because that ground had already been covered by someone else. But now the brain had abdicated its responsibility, the tentacles were going to have to do more of the thinking.
Like the few of its original inhabitants who were still in residence there, Hebden Brow had seen itself go down in the world.
Once it had stood on the very edge of Whitebridge. There had been an uninterrupted view of the moors from bedroom windows, and the row of single-residence houses had been owned mainly by mill managers, doctors and rising businessmen. Now there was only an uninterrupted view of the new council estate, and most of the houses had been converted into flats.
This was not new territory to Monika Paniatowski – most of the Margaret Dodds case had been centred on Hebden Brow – and as she turned on to the street, she remembered the details of that investigation and felt an involuntary shudder run through her whole body.
Dying in the Dark Page 14