A Walk With the Dead

by Sally Spencer

And that was just plain stupid, she told herself every time it happened, because no real harm had been done, and Louisa seemed to have quite got over it.

  But even so . . .

  ‘Are you all right?’ she heard Liz’s voice ask.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I don’t know the girl. Why don’t we talk about someone else?’

  TWO

  Jill Harris was sitting in the corner of the banqueting room of the Royal Victoria, feeling thoroughly miserable and angry – though she was not quite sure which of the emotions had the upper hand.

  She hated the flounced pink dress her mother had forced her to wear for the occasion.

  She hated the fact that being at this stupid wedding meant she was missing out on a Very Important Date.

  And worst of all, it broke her heart to see her lovely Auntie Vanessa being dragged through this travesty of a wedding.

  Nor were things about to get any better, she realized, as she saw her mother making a beeline for her.

  ‘What’s the matter with you now?’ Mary Harris asked, in a tone which was part concerned, part accusatory. ‘Why are you over here in the corner, love, all by yourself?’

  ‘I just felt like being on my own for a bit,’ Jill said.

  ‘People will be looking at you,’ her mother informed her. ‘People will be wondering.’

  And that was the trouble with her mum, Jill thought – she spent most of her life worrying about what other people would think.

  ‘These curtains are getting a bit shabby. We’d better buy some new ones, before the neighbours notice.’

  ‘You can’t go out dressed like that, Jill. Everybody will think I’m not looking after you properly.’

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Mary Harris asked sharply.

  ‘Let them wonder,’ Jill said.

  Mary clicked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘You can’t go doing that,’ she said. ‘Look, the bride and groom are having the first dance.’

  And so they were, Jill saw. The Mac Williams Quartet, who had been setting up their instruments for the previous fifteen minutes, had finally got their act together, and were playing a sickly sweet tune, to which Vanessa and Robert were gliding smoothly across the floor.

  ‘Don’t they look lovely?’ Mary asked.

  ‘She does,’ Jill said, with emphasis.

  The dance finished, and, to the sound of thunderous applause, the happy couple returned to their seats at the top table and disappeared behind the three-tiered wedding cake.

  Now, as the band struck up its second song, a number of other couples were drifting onto the floor.

  ‘Do you know what would be nice?’ Mary asked.

  Jill said nothing.

  ‘I asked you if you knew what would be nice!’ Mary said.

  ‘How can I?’ Jill demanded. ‘I’m not a mind reader, Mum – I leave that sort of thing to you.’

  ‘I’m no mind reader – I just know what’s right and proper,’ Mary Harris said. ‘And what would be right and proper at this moment would be you going over to your Uncle Robert and asking him for a dance.’

  ‘I don’t have an Uncle Robert,’ Jill said stubbornly.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ her mother persisted. ‘Since half-past eleven this morning, that man at the top table has been your uncle.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t!’ a voice screamed in Jill’s head.

  He could never be her Uncle Robert, whatever the law and the church said. She positively refused to acknowledge that this man – this thief – could ever be part of her family.

  And he was a thief – he had stolen her lovely Auntie Vanessa right away from her.

  Because the simple fact was that before he had appeared on the scene, everything had been going beautifully. Auntie Vanessa had been more like an older sister than an aunt, and looking back on the time they’d spent together, it seemed like a golden age.

  She had worshipped Vanessa. She had trusted her. She had even been going to tell Vanessa her Big Secret, because she had known that her auntie would be both sympathetic and supportive.

  But she couldn’t tell her that secret now.

  Not after she had been stolen away.

  ‘If you don’t ask him to dance, people will wonder what’s the matter with you,’ Mary Harris said.

  ‘If he wants to dance with me, then why doesn’t he come across and ask me?’ Jill countered.

  ‘You know he won’t do that – and you also know why,’ Mary said, with an edge to her voice.

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, you damn well do. He won’t ask you because he doesn’t know what you’ll say. And after the way you’ve treated him all the while he’s been courting your Auntie Vanessa, who can blame him for being cautious?’

  ‘Well, if he won’t ask me, and I won’t ask him . . .’ Jill began.

  ‘It’s up to you to make the first move,’ Mary interrupted.

  ‘Why is it up to me?’

  ‘Because he’s always been perfectly nice to you, and you’ve always been perfectly horrid to him in return. So if anybody’s going to hold out the olive branch, it should be you.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’ Jill asked.

  ‘If you don’t, he’ll want nothing more to do with you.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t want anything to do with you, Vanessa won’t have much to do with you, either.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Jill said, agonizingly.

  But deep down inside her, she knew it was. Deep down inside, she recognized that Vanessa’s first loyalty – for some perverse, twisted reason – now lay with her new husband.

  ‘Go on – ask your Uncle Robert for a dance,’ said her mother, sensing that she was faltering.

  Jill glanced down at the watch which Vanessa had given her for her twelfth birthday, and realized that, for the moment, at least, she was in a strong negotiating position, and that if she played her cards right, she might just make her Very Important Date after all.

  ‘If I dance with him, can I go home?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course you can. We’ll all be going home in two or three hours’ time,’ her mother said, mystified.

  ‘I mean, can I go home straight after the dance?’

  ‘You most certainly can not. Whatever will people think?’

  ‘You can tell them I wasn’t feeling well.’

  ‘Then they’ll expect me to go home with you and look after you, won’t they? And I want to stay.’

  ‘Say Dad’s picking me up.’

  ‘Everybody knows that the only reason your dad’s not at the wedding is that he’s working in Saudi Arabia.’

  ‘Then tell everybody I’m being picked up by a friend of yours.’

  ‘What friend?’ Mary Harris asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jill said, exasperatedly. ‘Just invent somebody.’

  ‘And what if people find out?’

  Jill sighed. ‘Other people aren’t half as interested in what we get up to as you seem to think, Mum.’

  Mary wavered. ‘If I tell a white lie for you, will you promise me you’ll be very nice when you’re dancing with your Uncle Robert?’ she asked.

  ‘I promise you I’ll be very nice when I’m dancing with my Uncle Robert,’ Jill said earnestly, though she very nearly choked on the penultimate word.

  ‘All right,’ her mother agreed reluctantly. ‘But I’ll be watching you while you’re dancing.’

  ‘I’ll be the perfect picture of a loving niece,’ Jill said.

  ‘But I’ll hate it,’ she added silently. ‘I’ll loathe every minute of it.’

  Chief Constable George Baxter was in the marital bedroom, packing his small suitcase with the same meticulous attention to detail that he gave to every task which came his way.

  Watching him from the fluffy stool at her dressing table, Jo Baxter, his wife, said, ‘I thought you told me that you’d be leaving earlier than this.’

  ‘That’s what I intended, but I had some paperwork to catch up on at the o
ffice,’ Baxter replied, folding a pair of underpants and sliding them neatly into a corner of the suitcase.

  ‘So, as it turns out, we could both have gone to Vanessa Clough’s wedding after all,’ Jo said.

  ‘You’re not listening, love – I’m not running late because I’ve wasted time, I’m running late because I had paperwork that needed doing,’ Baxter replied. ‘Anyway, you hardly know either the Freemans or Cloughs, so you wouldn’t have enjoyed the thing at all, and, speaking for myself, I would have been bored out of my socks.’

  ‘Will there be somebody else at the wedding to represent the police?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Yes, there’ll be someone there,’ Baxter said.

  ‘Who?’ asked Jo, sensing he didn’t want to tell her who that ‘someone’ would be.

  ‘A suitably high-ranking officer,’ Baxter said, stalling.

  ‘Who?’ Jo repeated.

  Baxter sighed. ‘DCI Paniatowski,’ he admitted.

  Jo shivered.

  ‘So why were you being so evasive about it?’ she asked, with a slight tremble to her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, I should have told you right off that it was DCI Paniatowski, but every time I mention her name, you go weird on me,’ Baxter said.

  That was true enough, Jo agreed silently. For though she knew her husband’s relationship with Monika Paniatowski had been over for some time before she had met him herself, even the mention of Paniatowski’s name was sometimes enough to start her feeling insecure.

  ‘Were you the one who wangled her the invitation?’ she heard herself ask accusingly.

  Baxter sighed. ‘No, it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Then why was she invited? Why didn’t they invite someone of a higher rank – like Chief Superintendent Potter?’

  ‘Monika knows both families. Maybe that was the reason.’

  ‘How well does she know them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Baxter admitted wearily.

  ‘Does she know them better than Tom Potter knows them?’

  ‘Probably not – but Monika’s a celebrity, and Tom isn’t.’

  ‘A celebrity,’ Jo repeated, with disgust.

  ‘That’s what she is, whether you like it or not,’ Baxter said. ‘Since she’s taken over from Charlie Woodend, she’s solved several murders which were such big news that they were splashed all over the front pages of the papers.’

  ‘She’s solved them,’ Jo said bitterly. ‘You don’t mention the rest of her team, I notice – it’s all down to clever little Monika.’

  ‘Of course it’s not, but that’s how it’s perceived by the general public, and that’s why there’s a certain cachet to having her at your function. She doesn’t like it – I know that for a fact – but she’s stuck with it.’

  ‘I’ll just bet she doesn’t like it,’ Jo said.

  ‘Perhaps you can see now why I was reluctant to mention her name,’ Baxter said. ‘The way you react to it, it almost seems as if you think we’re having an affair.’

  ‘Having a second affair,’ Jo corrected him.

  ‘All right, having a second affair,’ Baxter conceded. ‘Well, we’re not.’

  ‘I know you’re not.’

  And so she did. George was too decent and honourable a man to attempt to reignite the relationship, even if Monika were to prove willing.

  ‘I love you,’ Baxter said.

  She was sure of that, too. Yet there were times, when they had made love and lay side by side in bed, that she couldn’t help feeling that he would rather it was Paniatowski who was beside him.

  ‘Will you be able to slip back home for a few hours, sometime in the week?’ she asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Baxter replied. ‘The thing is, love, I never wanted to be given this inquiry in the first place, and the sooner it’s over and done with, the sooner I can get back here.’

  ‘Back to running your precious police force,’ Jo said – and instantly wished she hadn’t.

  Baxter looked hurt. ‘Back to you,’ he said.

  ‘I knew that’s what you meant, really,’ Jo said, smiling in an effort to take the sting out of her previous words.

  Baxter closed his case and clicked the fasteners shut.

  ‘Right, I’ll be off, then,’ he said.

  He crossed the bedroom, bent down, and gave Jo a kiss.

  It had been a nice kiss, she thought, as she listened to him walk down the stairs – a warm kiss, a loving kiss. But she wondered if there would have been more passion behind it if the person he’d kissed had been Monika Paniatowski.

  Jill Harris walked around the far side of the top table and came to a halt next to Robert Freeman’s chair. Robert, engaged in conversation with one of the other guests, did not notice her at first, but when he did become of aware of her, he turned and said, ‘Is there something I can do for you, Jill?’

  He sounded a bit worried, she thought. Maybe he was afraid she would make a scene. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

  ‘Would you like to dance with me?’ she asked.

  Though her new uncle heard the words, he seemed unable to register the meaning.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘A dance. Would you like to dance with me?’

  A smile slowly spread across Robert’s face. It was a smile of relief, but also of pleasure.

  ‘I’d be more than honoured to dance with you,’ he said, standing up and taking her hand.

  She might quite get to like this man if he wasn’t married to her auntie, Jill thought. But he was married to her auntie – and that was unforgivable.

  Mac Williams, the leader and saxophone player of the Mac Williams Quartet, stepped up to the microphone.

  ‘It’s been both a great pleasure and a great honour for us to play at Vanessa and Robert’s wedding,’ he said, ‘and in anticipation of a rebooking – for their silver wedding celebration – we’d like to give you our own special version of the “Anniversary Waltz”.’

  Oh God! Paniatowski thought. Haven’t I endured enough saccharine for one day?

  She looked around for the parents of either the bride or groom, and could see neither pair.

  It didn’t really matter, she told herself – she would write them both a note apologizing for having to leave without saying goodbye, and thanking them for inviting her to this wonderful wedding.

  Sticking close to the walls – to make her exit as discreet as possible – she was already out of the door when the first few chords of the ‘Anniversary Waltz’ fought their way clear of Mac Williams’ golden saxophone.

  ‘Do you know how to waltz?’ Robert asked Jill, as he led her over to the centre of the dance floor.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ the girl admitted.

  ‘It’s not so difficult,’ Robert assured her. ‘Take my right hand in your left, and put your left hand on my shoulder. Then look down at what I’m doing with my feet, and just do the same yourself, and by the time the song’s over, you’ll be dancing like a real expert.’

  It was all going wrong, Jill thought. He was being much too nice.

  They started to dance. Jill was clumsy, but not as clumsy as she might have been, and was beginning to quite enjoy it. Then, as Robert twirled her around, she saw her Auntie Vanessa watching them – an indulgent smile on her face – and something snapped inside.

  Jill pressed up tighter against Robert. She was not sure why she was doing it. Perhaps it was to embarrass him. Perhaps it was to hurt the aunt who had betrayed her. Maybe, even, she hoped to stir up trouble between the bride and groom. But whatever her reasons, she moved in on him, her legs touching his, her thin bosom pressed heavily against his lower chest.

  ‘Steady on, little girl,’ Robert said jocularly. ‘If you’re as close to me as that, you’ll not be able to see my feet.’

  ‘I’m not a little girl,’ Jill said fiercely.

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ Robert agreed hastily. ‘You’re a young lady. But I still think you�
��re dancing far too close for both our comfort.’

  She was suddenly feeling both hot and ashamed. When she pulled her hand out of his and stepped backwards, she encountered no resistance.

  ‘I’m not feeling very well at all,’ she mumbled. ‘I need to sit down.’

  ‘Yes, I think that would be a good idea,’ said Robert, who was still not entirely clear about what had just happened.

  Paniatowski paused to light a cigarette on the steps of the Royal Victoria Hotel, and was surprised to discover that she was feeling guilty about the fact that she had not gone over and talked to the unhappy girl in the pink flounced dress.

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ she told herself.

  Why should she have gone and talked to the girl? She wasn’t family. She didn’t even know the kid. There must have been at least twenty or thirty people in that banqueting room who were better qualified to deal with the child’s misery. And anyway, kids weren’t like adults – what looked to them like the end of the world one moment could seem of little consequence a few minutes later.

  So she was in the clear, she decided – she absolved herself of all failings, and would banish the sad girl completely from her mind.

  And so she did.

  But later – when she saw Jill Harris for a second time – all these thoughts would come flooding back to her.

  THREE

  The village of Dunston was a medium-sized hamlet of stone-built cottages, on the main road from Pickering to Whitby. It had one pub, a post office, a couple of shops, and boasted that it was in the heart of the North Yorkshire Moors. What it did not boast about was its penal institution, and the side road which led to HM Prison Dunston was so badly signposted that the first time Baxter had driven through the village, he had missed the turning completely.

  He was more successful on his second attempt, and was soon travelling along a narrow asphalt road, with the wild moors on either side of him.

  Had any modern government contemplated building a prison in such a beauty spot, he thought as he drove along, there would have been a roar of anger from local conservationists which would have rattled the windows of the Houses of Parliament, two hundred miles away. But the prison had been built in the 1860s, when people had known their God-given place in society – ‘the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate’ – and if the Queen wanted to put a prison in the middle of unspoiled nature, well, they probably supposed that it was her unspoiled nature, and nothing to do with them at all.