‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Paniatowski said coldly.
‘Well, if she is dead, like you say she is, then surely there must be compensation,’ the fat woman explained.
‘And whose job do you think it is to compensate you for the loss of your daughter?’ Paniatowski wondered.
The fat woman shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe the council should come up with the money,’ she suggested. ‘And if they won’t do it, then it’s the government’s responsibility, isn’t it? I don’t really care who coughs it up – as long as somebody does.’
‘No, you don’t care, do you?’ Paniatowski asked angrily. ‘As long as somebody pays out your blood money, you don’t give a toss.’
‘You can’t go talking to me like that,’ Mrs Hudson said. ‘I’ve a good mind to report you.’
‘And I’ve a good mind to kick the shit out of you – if only to give your kids a good laugh,’ Paniatowski told her. She turned towards the door again. ‘Fifteen minutes, remember,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Be ready.’
SIXTEEN
PC Jim Clarke was young, fresh and enthusiastic, and while many of the other officers had spent their time in the locker room bitching about the fact that they’d been called in for extra duty, Clarke himself had not joined in with the moaning. The truth was that he was thrilled to be part of this early morning canvass, and the thrill only increased when he was assigned a bus stop near the park – which was no more than a quarter of a mile from where the murder had actually been committed! Thus, it was hardly surprising that as he approached the bus stop – the folder and clipboard he’d been issued with held firmly in his right hand – he should be nursing a secret hope that he would return to police headquarters with a vital piece of information that would crack the investigation wide open.
There were about a dozen people standing at the bus stop, and they were a fair cross-section of the Whitebridge bus-travelling public – men and women, boys and girls, young and old. It was a schoolboy who noticed Clarke first, and after concealing the cigarette he was smoking in the palm of his hand – because bobbies could be buggers about under-age smoking – he passed the information on to his mate. The mate told the man next to him, who informed the woman next to him, and by the time Clarke arrived at the shelter, there were twelve pairs of eyes fixed on him.
Clarke drew himself up to his full height – an impressive six feet one – and cleared his throat.
‘Could I have your attention, please,’ he said. ‘My name is PC Clarke, and I’m here to ask you—’
‘Is this about the murder?’ asked a cloth-capped middle-aged man, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
‘Of course it’s about the murder, Juggins,’ said the woman standing next to him. ‘What else would get a bobby out of his bed at this time of day?’
Sensing he was losing control of the situation, Clarke decided to abandon the rest of his opening speech, and get to the heart of the matter.
‘I have in this folder the photograph of a girl,’ he said.
One of the schoolboys nudged the other in the ribs, and both sniggered.
‘A photograph of a girl,’ Clarke repeated, glaring at the boy. ‘In a moment, I’m going to give them out. I want you to look at them very carefully. If you saw her at any time yesterday, I’d like you to tell me. Then I’ll take down your name and address, and one of my colleagues will visit you later today.’
‘One of your what?’ asked the man in the cloth cap.
‘Colleagues,’ said the woman next to him. ‘Don’t you know what that means?’
‘No,’ the man replied. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Well,’ the woman said, suddenly looking helpless, ‘it’s . . . err . . . it’s like colleges, only different.’
‘What I meant was that another police officer will call round and see you,’ Clarke explained.
‘Then why didn’t you say that in the first place?’ the man in the cloth cap wondered.
Clarke took the pictures from the folder and passed them around. Several of the women tut-tutted in a sympathetic sort of way, most of the men seemed vaguely embarrassed to find themselves in a situation in which any emotion was being expressed, and the two schoolboys merely looked disappointed.
‘Poor little mite,’ said a woman in headscarf and curlers. ‘You used to feel safe walking round this town, but you don’t any more.’
‘It was different before the war,’ the woman who was standing next to her contributed. ‘Times were hard, but at least you didn’t have to worry about being murdered in your bed.’
‘The girl was murdered in the park,’ Clarke pointing out.
‘And the buses ran on time back then,’ said first woman, ignoring him, and looking hopefully down the road. ‘There were always plenty of buses around before the war.’
It wasn’t like this in films, Clarke thought. In the films, members of the general public showed the greatest respect for the police, and were always falling over themselves to help see that justice was done. But then, he supposed, that was because most of those films weren’t set in Whitebridge, the dour and grumpy capital of the north.
‘Has anybody seen the girl?’ he asked, hoping for one of those breakthroughs that always come about a third of the way through the movie.
Nobody had.
By eight thirty, reports were beginning to land on Beresford’s desk, some filed by constables who had canvassed public places (like PC Clarke), some from the units that had stopped drivers on their way to work and shown them Maggie’s picture, and some from officers who had disturbed householders at their breakfasts in order to put the standard questions.
There were already a fair number of positive responses, and a younger, less-experienced Beresford would have been over the moon about them. This Beresford, however, had now acquired a great deal of experience of that kind of work – and was prepared for disappointment.
‘I know I said I’d seen her, but I’d forgotten that I was in Accrington that day.’
‘Turns out the girl I saw was the niece of Mrs Clegg from next door, who’s come up for a visit.’
‘Yes, I saw the girl, but I won’t tell you who killed her until you’ve told me how big the reward is.’
‘Of course I recognized her. She’s my sister – and she’s been missing since 1943.’
Yes, they would get all that – and more.
All kinds of cranks – and lonely people who simply wanted some attention paid to them – would come crawling out of the woodwork, as they always did whenever there was a murder. Hundreds of police hours would be spent in chasing up the delusional or the merely confused. But it had to be done, because there was just a chance that one of those people wouldn’t be delusional, and might give them the lead they now so desperately needed.
Beresford lit up a cigarette – he calculated it was his fourth one of the morning – did a couple of stretches to get his muscles working again, and then set off to brief his team.
Lennie Greene was already sitting at the table in the interview room when Baxter arrived. He was not a big man, but with his square body and bullet-shaped head, the chief constable had absolutely no doubt that he was a very hard one.
‘It was good of you to agree to meet me,’ Baxter said, as he sat down. ‘The prison authorities didn’t think you would.’
‘The prison authorities don’t know shit,’ Greene replied.
‘The reason you’re in here is because you blinded a policeman, isn’t it?’ Baxter asked. ‘They gave you twenty years for it.’
‘That’s right, they did – the justice system doesn’t like it when a member of the criminal classes attacks a guardian of law and order. The only thing is, I didn’t do it.’
‘You didn’t blind him?’
‘Oh, I blinded him, all right. I hit him so hard that when he came to, he couldn’t see. But I didn’t attack him.’
‘Tell me more,’ Baxter invited.
‘He was one of those coppers who
not only thinks he’s really hard, but always has to prove it. You know the type?’
‘Yes, I know the type – and it’s a type not confined to police officers,’ Baxter said.
‘Granted,’ Greene replied. ‘Anyway, we happened to be in the same club one night. He was drunk, and looking for trouble, and when he saw me – a man with something of a reputation – he couldn’t resist the temptation to start pushing me around. I held off until he actually hit me, then I hit him back.’
‘And blinded him?’
‘No, I only gave him a little tap – just to show him how out of his depth he was. But he wouldn’t learn his lesson, and he came after me with a broken bottle. That’s when I really hit him.’
‘The way you’ve described it, it sounds like self-defence,’ Baxter said.
‘And so it was – except that when it came to trial, nobody in the club seemed to be able to remember the broken bottle. I didn’t blame them for that – the filth were determined to get me banged up, and they’d have crushed anybody who got in their way.’
‘So you’re an innocent man?’
‘Of course I’m not an innocent man. I’ve done enough in my time to have earned half a dozen life sentences – but I didn’t do that!’
‘You were an important man on the outside, weren’t you?’
‘Within my own small community, I had a certain amount of influence, yes,’ Greene agreed.
‘And being in prison hasn’t really changed that, because, from what I hear, on this side of the bars, you’re an absolute monarch.’
Greene grinned. ‘Now that’s an interesting choice of words. Have you been dipping into my file?’
‘I have.’
‘I never had much interest in learning before I got banged up, but now I really do love history,’ Greene said, in a surprisingly dreamy way.
‘And you’ve got an O-level in it,’ Baxter said.
‘And I’ve got an O-level in it,’ Greene agreed. ‘You’re completely wrong with that “absolute monarch” idea, you know.’
‘Am I?’
‘Couldn’t be wronger. Take Louis XIV of France, for example – now there was an absolute monarch. He once said, “L’etat, c’est moi,” – I am the state – and he was right. He could do anything he wanted to.’
‘And “you are the prison” – at least as far as the other inmates are concerned,’ Baxter countered.
‘It’s not the same,’ Greene said. ‘Louis XIV never had to worry that if he overstepped the line, he’d be woken up in the middle of night by three or four screws armed with truncheons – but I do. And after the beating, I’d be on the next bus out of here, en route to another prison – which wouldn’t be good, because I’m too old to start building up my reputation again from scratch.’ He paused. ‘Where exactly is all this chit-chat leading?’
‘I want to make a deal with you,’ Baxter said. ‘I need to know how things work in this prison – not in specific terms, but generally – and you’re in a position to tell me.’
‘And what do I get out of it?’ Greene asked.
‘You get the chance to do a long-distance learning degree in history at the Open University,’ Baxter said.
A hunger – a deep yearning – appeared in Greene’s eyes.
‘You can fix that?’ he asked, with a tremble in his voice.
Baxter nodded. ‘I think so. You know how things work – I don’t know anybody at the Open University, but I do know a professor at Lancaster University who owes me a favour, and I’ve no doubt that he’s got a mate in the OU who owes him a favour . . .’
‘Wheels within wheels,’ Greene said.
‘Wheels within wheels,’ Baxter agreed. ‘So, yes, I think I can swing it – but only if you give me what I need.’
‘I’ll try,’ Greene said earnestly. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘You say you’re nothing like the absolute monarch in this prison, so just what are you?’
‘I’m a facilitator. Dunston Prison is a cooking pot, sitting on a high heat and in constant danger of boiling over. I’m the one who keeps the lid on.’
‘And how do you do that?’
‘I don’t really want to tell you – and you don’t really want to know,’ Greene replied. ‘Let’s just say that since I’ve been here, not a single prison officer has been attacked.’
‘And in return, the prison authorities turn a blind eye to whatever you get up to?’
Greene shrugged. ‘If it wasn’t me who was given a bit of leeway, it would be somebody else, because there are some jobs – like tobacco distribution – that always need to be done.’
‘Do you ever have anybody beaten up?’ Baxter asked.
‘Next question,’ Greene said.
‘If you want to get on a history course, you’ll have to do better than that,’ Baxter told him.
‘Put it this way,’ Greene said, ‘in any organization, there has to be some instrument for enforcing discipline. Does that answer your question?’
‘I think so,’ Baxter said. ‘Second question – does anybody ever get beaten up without your permission?’
‘What you mean is, did I authorize the attacks on Jeremy Templar.’
‘And did you?’
‘I didn’t try to stop them.’
‘And why was that – because he was a sex offender, and so he only got what he deserved?’
‘No, it was because, as we’ve already established, I’m not an absolute monarch.’
‘Something’s not quite adding up here,’ Baxter mused. ‘Power’s not just about deciding who gets hurt – it’s also about deciding who doesn’t get hurt. And if you don’t have that power, then you really have no power at all.’
‘What happened to Templar was nothing to do with me,’ Greene said, and in his tone there was the implication that he was not prepared to debate the matter any further.
‘You do know who attacked him though, don’t you?’
‘Would you believe me if I said I didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘So there’s no point in denying it.’
‘I want to know about the attacks,’ Baxter said. ‘I want to know if they were so carefully planned that there was nothing that the prison officers could have done to prevent them, or if the attackers merely took advantage of a lapse in prison security. In other words, were the guards outmanoeuvred or simply incompetent?’
‘So now you’re asking me to snitch on my fellow lags?’
‘No, not at all. I don’t need to know their names, just the circumstances in which the attacks took place.’
‘I can’t do it,’ Greene said flatly. ‘It’d be a step too far.’
‘Then I can’t recommend you to the Open University,’ Baxter said, just as flatly.
‘I know,’ Greene said – and there were tears in his eyes.
The police surgeon’s office at the morgue had been central to so many cases that Monika Paniatowski had almost come to regard it as an extension of her own office, and looking around it at that moment – at the prints of Indian gods that had been hung by Dr Shastri, and the bag of golf clubs belonging to Dr Taylor – she reminded herself of just how important a good police doctor was to any investigation.
The newest police doctor – Liz Duffy – was sitting behind the same desk that Shastri and Taylor had occupied, and she seemed very, very tired.
‘Yes, I know that I look like death warmed up,’ Dr Duffy said, reading Paniatowski’s expression, ‘but then I do work in a morgue, so it’s really quite appropriate, isn’t it?’ She smiled weakly. ‘That’s a little pathologist’s humour for you, Monika.’
‘Did the autopsy take all night?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘No – just most of it.’
‘So you haven’t been home at all?’
‘There didn’t seem much point, and anyway, I didn’t know exactly when you’d be coming, and I wanted to make sure that I was here when you did.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Maggie Hudson’s death was due to strangulation, which should come as no surprise to anybody who’s seen her. Last night in the park, I estimated that she’d died between two and three hours earlier, but having run some tests, I’d be inclined to say it was closer to two than to three. I hope that’s of some help to you.’
‘So that would put her death at around seven o’clock?’
‘Yes.’
When it was already dark, Paniatowski thought – when, chances were, the park was all but deserted.
‘I also found a contusion on the back of her head,’ Liz Duffy said.
‘Was it recent?’
‘Very recent. I’d say the blow was delivered shortly before death, and my guess – and bear in mind that I’m no detective – is that since she was obviously much stronger than Jill Harris, the killer did that to ensure she didn’t struggle too much.’
‘Last night in the park, you told me that you couldn’t say whether there was one killer or two,’ Paniatowski said. ‘From the way you’re talking now, it seems as if you’d decided there was only one.’
‘That’s my gut feeling,’ Liz Duffy said, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t have any conclusive medical evidence to back it up.’
‘Was Maggie unconscious when she died?’
‘She may have been – but if she wasn’t, she’d certainly have been too dazed to put up much of a struggle.’
‘Was there any evidence of sexual assault?’
‘There was some bruising in the vaginal area, but the bruises are at least a few days old.’
An image of her stepfather, lowering himself on to her, flashed across Paniatowski’s mind, and then was gone.
‘Do you think that Maggie was raped?’ she asked.
‘It’s possible,’ the doctor conceded, ‘but there aren’t any bruises on her thighs or arms, which was what you’d expect with forcible penetration.’
‘So what conclusions do you draw from that?’
‘That while the sex may have been rough, it was probably also consensual. Some girls like it rough – or, at least, they expect it to be rough, so they don’t complain when it actually is. From her own appearance – and from that of her mother, who came in last night to identify the body, but seemed more interested in talking about compensation – I suspect Maggie may have been one of those girls.’
A Walk With the Dead Page 16