‘I’m not a simpleton, you know,’ Robson said, and now there was a hint of real anger in his voice. ‘In fact, I’m very far from the naive fool that you seem to take me for!’
‘Sorry, lad, I never meant to suggest . . .’ Baxter began.
‘It’s my fault,’ Robson interrupted, calming down a little. ‘I should never have talked about Mrs Templar’s looks, because her looks weren’t what was important about her.’
‘Then what was important?’
‘Her sensitivity and her intelligence were what mattered. If he’d been guilty, she’d have known – and she’d never have come to see him like she did.’
‘Maybe she’d simply forgiven him,’ Baxter said, speaking tentatively, so as not to upset Robson again.
The officer shook his head firmly. ‘If she’d just forgiven him, you’d have been able to tell.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so. There was pity in her eyes – yes – but it wasn’t pity for a man who had fallen short of the standards she expected of him, it was pity for a man who should never have been in the awful situation he now found himself in.’
An innocent man in Templar’s position would be just as likely as a guilty man to take his own life, Baxter thought. Perhaps even more likely to, because he would see no point in continuing to live in a world in which right and wrong had been turned upside down.
He reminded himself that as a special investigator, his only task was to determine whether or not Templar’s death could have been prevented – and that the man’s guilt or innocence was well beyond his remit. But if Templar had been innocent, then it seemed to Baxter more important than ever that the report he wrote reached the right conclusions.
‘Who would I go to if I wanted some fingers breaking?’ he asked.
‘I beg your pardon!’ Robson said, shocked. ‘Do you want to have someone’s fingers broken?’
‘Of course not,’ Baxter replied. ‘But I would like to know who’s in control on the other side of the bars.’
Robson glanced guiltily around him, as if to check that none of the other officers were listening.
‘The man you’re looking for is called Lennie Greene,’ he said in a whisper.
According to his record sheet, Harold William Swain was fifty-four years old, and though his body looked a lot older than that, there was still a hint in his eyes of the much younger man’s obsession that had driven him to lose everything he must once have valued.
Paniatowski and Beresford sat down opposite him, and Paniatowski said, ‘Sorry to have dragged you in here so early in the morning, Mr Swain.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Swain replied. ‘You’re not sorry at all. And I didn’t do it, you know.’
‘Didn’t do what?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I didn’t kill that young girl in the Corporation Park. I’ve never killed anybody.’
‘That’s surely more by luck than judgement,’ Paniatowski pointed out. ‘You gave the girl who you raped such a thorough and vicious beating that she certainly could have died.’
‘I couldn’t help myself. I’m not a violent man, but I was in the grip of a force beyond my control – a force I didn’t even understand back then.’
‘Do you understand that force now?’
Swain nodded. ‘Yes, I believe I do.’
‘Then why don’t you explain it to me?’
‘The girl didn’t make me happy,’ Swain said simply.
‘And that was your reason for half killing her, was it?’
‘Yes, that was my reason. It wasn’t a good reason – but it was reason enough, at the time. I felt she’d betrayed me, you see.’
‘How could she have betrayed you? You didn’t even know her!’
‘It didn’t matter that we were strangers to one another. She was still supposed to make me happy.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Nobody. It was just something I knew, deep inside me. She was supposed to quench the terrible yearning that had been burning me up. And she didn’t. All she did was cry and scream. So I punished her – though I now know that the person who I really wanted to punish was myself.’
‘I’m sure it would be a great consolation to her to know that,’ Paniatowski said sarcastically.
‘Don’t think I haven’t tried to explain it to her,’ Swain said passionately. ‘When they finally let me out of prison, the very first thing I did was to find out where she lived, and beg her to forgive me. She wouldn’t listen. She called the police instead, and they warned me that if I didn’t want to go back to gaol, I’d better keep away from her.’
‘You can hardly blame either the girl herself, or the police, for that,’ Paniatowski said.
‘No,’ Swain admitted. ‘I can’t.’
‘So tell me, Mr Swain, do you still feel the same urges?’
‘Yes, I do, but I’m getting treatment for them.’
‘Is it working?’
‘I think so. The urges are still there, but they’re nowhere near as strong as they used to be.’
‘So on Saturday, when you were in the park . . .’
‘I was not in the park when that poor girl was killed.’
‘How do you know when exactly she was killed? There was nothing about her time of death in the papers.’
‘I don’t know when she died, but that doesn’t matter, because I wasn’t in the park at all. I was attending a weekend residential course in Preston, to help deal with my problem.’
Swain had never been her prime suspect, Paniatowski thought, but she still couldn’t help the sinking feeling she had when he mentioned an alibi which she was sure would check out.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were on this residential course earlier?’ she demanded.
‘My wife – my ex-wife – won’t speak to me,’ Swain said. ‘When we pass in the street, she looks right through me. All my old friends give me the cold shoulder. Even the landlord of the disgusting little bedsit in which I now exist can barely bring himself to collect the rent from me, because he doesn’t want to touch the same envelope that I have.’
‘Get to the point,’ Paniatowski snapped.
‘None of them – not my wife, not my friends, not even my landlord – want to hear me say how sorry I am for what happened,’ Swain told her. ‘And if I had given you my alibi for Saturday at the start of this interview, you wouldn’t have wanted to hear it either. But I didn’t do that, so you had to listen – and I feel just a little better for having told you.’
TWELVE
Paniatowski and Beresford were sitting in the police canteen, chain smoking and drinking industrial strength tea from large brown mugs.
‘Well, that was a complete waste of three hours of our valuable time,’ Beresford said.
Yes, it had been, Paniatowski agreed silently. Of the five men who had been taken into custody that morning, they’d already questioned four. Two of them had alibis for the whole of Saturday afternoon. One had a partial alibi that made it highly unlikely he would have had time to commit the murder. And the fourth, who had no alibi at all, was such a wreck that he would have struggled to tie his own shoelaces, let alone strangle a girl.
‘But we always knew they were long shots, didn’t we?’ Beresford asked. ‘Bill Horrocks has been our prime suspect from the moment young Crane pointed us in the direction of lesbian-bashing.’
‘It’s still only a theory that Jill was killed because she was a lesbian,’ Paniatowski said cautiously.
‘It’s a theory that fits all the facts we have like a glove,’ Beresford said. ‘We know Jill was a lesbian, don’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘We also know that Bill Horrocks hates lesbians – and, in the past, has been prepared to do more than just talk about it.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And we know he was in the Corporation Park on Saturday. It’s game, set and match. He did it – I’m sure he did it.’
Paniatowski had been almost sure herself a few hours
earlier, but the closer they got to the interview with Horrocks, the more she could feel her confidence ebbing away.
The problem was, she thought, there was far too much riding on it. She had assured the chief constable that she was the best person to handle the case – had promised him that she would get a result. But if Jack Crane’s theory was wrong – if there had been another motive behind the murder – then they were no further on with the investigation than they had been when she’d made that promise to Baxter in the car park of the Drum and Monkey. And even worse, she had no idea where to start looking next.
‘Let’s get it done and dusted, shall we?’ Beresford suggested, standing up. ‘Then we can all go to the Drum for a marathon piss up.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Paniatowski said, reaching up and touching his arm. ‘I think I’ll use Kate in this interview.’
‘Well, you’re the boss, and you must do what you think best,’ Beresford said, trying not to look hurt. ‘Is there any particular reason that you want to use Sergeant Meadows?’
‘Yes, there is,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘Horrocks is a big man, and so are you – and if you’re in the interview room, it’ll be like waving a red rag at a bull. He’ll spend his whole time trying to prove he’s so much more masculine than you are, and I don’t want that.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want him to focus on the thing that happened between him and his wife – and what that should tell him about himself – because if anything’s going to break him, it will be that.’
‘You’re right,’ Beresford said. ‘Good thinking.’
Yes, it was, Paniatowski agreed, but that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to keep Beresford out of it. The simple fact was that she was desperate for the interview to go well – and she was terrified that her inspector’s cocksureness would screw the whole thing up.
William Horrocks was a large man in his early forties, with hands more than wide enough – and more than strong enough – to have easily choked the life out of little Jill Harris.
‘And how are you on this fine morning, Bill?’ Paniatowski asked, as she and Meadows sat down opposite him.
‘I’m not called Bill any more,’ Horrocks told her. ‘My name is William now.’
‘But you used to be known as Bill, didn’t you?’
‘I was a different man, back then.’
‘It’s true – he was,’ Paniatowski told Meadows. ‘Back then, when he was a builder’s labourer, he was a very different man indeed. It’s all in his record – charged with being drunk and disorderly, charged with disturbing the peace, charged with common assault . . . That’s right, isn’t it, William?’
‘I don’t drink no more,’ Horrocks said.
‘That’s true as well,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘He’s hooked on quite a different drug now, aren’t you, William?’
Kate Meadows began silently counting up to ten as she waited for Horrocks to respond, and when she had reached that number – and he still had not spoken – she said, ‘So just what drug is William hooked on now, boss?’
‘Religion,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You surely must have seen him preaching in the Corporation Park.’
‘No, I don’t think I have.’
‘It’s quite a sight. He gets himself worked up into a right old lather.’ Paniatowski paused. ‘But I have to admit, I’m not quite sure which church you belong to, William.’
‘I don’t belong to none of them,’ Horrocks said. ‘They’re all in league with the Devil.’
‘How do you know that?’
Horrocks crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I’m not saying no more,’ he told Paniatowski firmly.
‘Well, we certainly can’t force you to speak if you don’t want to, so we’ll just talk to each other,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Do you know when William first got this so-called religious calling of his, Sergeant?’
‘No, boss, I don’t.’
‘It came to him, funnily enough, around about the time that his wife decided to leave him.’
‘She did not leave me,’ Horrocks growled. ‘I cast her out – for she had been defiled!’
‘I stand corrected. Thank you for that,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Forget what I just told you, Sergeant – she didn’t leave him, he cast her out. But isn’t it true, Bill, that as this “casting out” was going on, your Thelma had already packed her bags, because she was planning to move in with her lover?’
‘Satan – in his most diabolical form – had her in his grasp,’ Horrocks said. ‘He held her in his slimy fingers.’
‘For Satan, you should read a woman called Lucia Evans,’ Paniatowski told her sergeant.
‘Lucia Evans?’ Meadows repeated, in mock-surprise. ‘I thought you said Bill’s wife was moving in with her lover.’
‘And so she was,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Lucia Evans was that lover.’
‘Good grief – how shocking,’ Meadows said.
‘William doesn’t blame himself for any of what happened, of course. As he sees it, he was a totally innocent party. And the amusing thing is that I don’t think he blames his wife, either. In fact, I believe that he thinks – deep down – that she’s just as innocent as he is.’
‘Even though she left him?’
‘Now, Sergeant, you know she didn’t leave him – she allowed herself to be “cast out”.’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Meadows said. ‘Still, it’s strange that he doesn’t blame his wife for any of it, isn’t it?’
‘No, it isn’t strange at all,’ Paniatowski disagreed. ‘William thinks that way because he has no choice but to think that way.’
‘No choice? What do you mean?’
‘Put yourself in his shoes for a minute. Imagine you’re a big strong builder’s labourer, just like Bill used to be. You work hard on the building site, carrying hods of bricks up ladders all day, and you go to the pub at night to sink a few pints with your mates. Are you with me so far?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘So you’re in the pub, and closing time comes around. That’s when you stand up and say something like, “Well, I’d better be going, lads – the wife’s waiting for me at home, and I know for a fact that she’ll have been gasping for a good rattling all day.” And you’re sure, as you leave the pub, that all the others are looking at you enviously, because you’re a real man, and though they’d like to be just like you, they know they never can be.’
‘Sounds like a nice feeling to have,’ Meadows said.
‘As intoxicating as the beer – maybe even more so,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘And then your wife – who you claim has been gasping for a good rattling all day – leaves you for a woman! There’s only two ways to explain that, aren’t there?’
‘The first one being that you’re not as attractive – and not half as good at giving her a rattling – as you thought you were,’ Meadows suggested.
‘Exactly,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘And that’s clearly not acceptable to any self-respecting man. So you turn to the other explanation. The other woman used underhand tactics to trick your wife into leaving you, in which case, the lover is the only villain of the piece.’
It’s probably only a short step from thinking one lesbian is evil to thinking that all lesbians are evil – and that they’re the Devil’s agents,’ Meadows said.
‘And that’s exactly what William does think, and why he founded his one-man church, which I suppose – since he refuses to give it a title himself – I’ll have to call the Church of God the Lesbian Basher. And you did bash some lesbians, didn’t you, William?’
‘I smote the foul Beelzebub in whatever nether regions he dwelt,’ Horrocks replied.
‘Or to be a little more accurate, you smote a woman called Shirley Maxwell when she was standing on the Boulevard one Saturday afternoon,’ Paniatowski said dryly.
‘She was tempting other innocent souls to join her in her abomination,’ Horrocks said.
‘Yes, she certainly was handing out leaflets advocating equal rights for fema
le homosexuals,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘You served three years in Strangeways Prison for that attack, didn’t you, William?’
‘It was God’s way of testing me,’ Horrocks told her. ‘I bore the suffering, and I emerged a stronger man.’
‘You bore your suffering and emerged a stronger man,’ Paniatowski said, with a mixture of scorn and disbelief. ‘That’s not what the governor of Strangeways told me on the phone, just half an hour ago. He says that for the first three months of your sentence, you stayed huddled in a corner, sitting in your own shit. He says that they had you on suicide watch three times!’
‘You . . . you don’t know hard it is for a man used to the open air to be locked in a cage like a rat,’ Horrocks said. ‘You can’t imagine it.’
‘But you can – very easily,’ Paniatowski countered. ‘You’ve only got to close your eyes and you’re back in that cage.’ She turned to Meadows. ‘And that’s why, since he got back to Whitebridge, he’s been very, very careful.’
‘Careful?’ Meadows repeated. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There have been a number of attacks on lesbians since William was released, but most of them have taken place at night, when there were no witnesses around to see them. And after every attack, you’ve been pulled in for questioning, haven’t you, William?’
‘You know I have.’
‘But they’ve never been able to pin any of those vicious assaults on you, have they?’
‘Almighty God protects me as I go about His work.’
‘In other words, you did attack those women – but God’s letting you get away with it!’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Maybe not directly – but you as good as said it.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
She was giving this interview all that she had, Paniatowski thought – and it wasn’t working.
She took a deep breath, and marshalled whatever strength she had left to draw on.
‘I’m willing to bet that recently you’ve started to question whether you’ve been doing Almighty God’s work well enough,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’
‘Then let me put it another way – one you might find easier to understand. The Lord demands that you smite the guilty with the flaming sword of vengeance, doesn’t he?’
A Walk With the Dead Page 12