‘How long have you been here, Jack?’ she asked.
‘About twenty minutes.’
‘That long!’
‘More or less.’
Twenty minutes earlier, she hadn’t even seen the woman in the film glaring down at Maggie with such obvious hatred, Paniatowski thought.
‘At the time you got here, I didn’t even know we’d be making an arrest,’ she said. ‘So how did you know?’
‘Ah, well, you see, I had the advantage over you, because I was a friend of hers in the old days,’ Crane said sadly. ‘I knew her boyfriend, too, but I didn’t know she’d eventually married him, because she never told me that. She just said he’d left her, which – in a way – I suppose he had.’
‘Go on,’ Paniatowski said.
‘He was a handsome feller,’ Crane mused. ‘As a matter of fact, he looked a lot like Roger Moore did, when he was playing Simon Templar – the Saint – on television. And by one of those little quirks of fate, his name was Templar, too, so even though he’d been christened Jeremy, almost everybody called him Simon.’
TWENTY-FOUR
When Paniatowski and Meadows entered Interview Room B, Liz Duffy looked up at them and smiled.
‘What a pleasant surprise, ladies,’ she said. ‘Do take a seat.’
There was no longer any sign of the rage that Duffy had shown earlier. Now she was sitting quite calmly, with her hands clasped loosely in front of her, and but for one broken fingernail, it would have been almost impossible to believe that this woman had done so much damage to Jack Crane’s cheek.
‘What do we call you?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Elizabeth Duffy or Elizabeth Templar?’
‘Legally, I suppose, I’m Liz Templar, but professionally, I continued working under the name of Dr Duffy after I got married, so it’s whichever the two of you feel more comfortable with,’ Liz said accommodatingly.
‘Interview with Elizabeth Templar, née Duffy begins at twelve oh seven,’ Paniatowski said, switching on the recorder. ‘Present in the room are DCI Monika Paniatowski and DS Katherine Meadows.’
‘Weird DS Katherine Meadows,’ Liz Duffy said. ‘At least, that’s what Jack Crane calls you.’
This wasn’t going to be easy, Paniatowski thought – in fact, if they didn’t handle it just right, it could end in complete disaster.
‘Don’t you find it ironic that geography can play such a role in the tide of human affairs?’ Duffy asked taking the lead – showing, in case they had not already worked it out for themselves, that she knew she had a strong hand to play.
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean by that,’ Paniatowski.
‘You’re not sure you know what I mean? Then you really are a rather dense little chief inspector, aren’t you?’
‘So why don’t you enlighten me?’
Liz Duffy sighed. ‘Oh, all right then. I suppose it’s as a good a way to pass the time as any. Are you listening carefully, so I don’t have to repeat myself?’
‘Yes.’
‘The role of geography in human affairs,’ Liz Duffy said, as if she were giving a lecture. ‘The only reason I ever came to this God-forsaken industrial wasteland was because it meant I’d be physically closer to my dear husband than I’d been in Birmingham. And probably the only reason why your bumpkin of a chief constable was appointed to investigate Simon’s death was that he was already conveniently just across the county border from Dunston Prison.’
That – combined with the fact that Baxter knew Yorkshire well – probably was why he’d been appointed, Paniatowski conceded.
‘The Home Office informed me that there would be an inquiry into Simon’s suicide, but, of course, they didn’t bother to mention that it would be your chief constable who would be conducting it,’ Liz Duffy said. ‘I got that particular piece of information from you, Monika.’
Yes, she had, Paniatowski thought.
‘The fact is that I’m so desperate over this case that I was hoping for a miracle – and miracles simply don’t happen every day.’ Paniatowski had said to Duffy in the morgue, the day before.
‘Is it really as bad as that?’ Duffy had asked. ‘Is your boss giving you a hard time?’
‘Not at the moment. He’s in Yorkshire, investigating a prison suicide. But when he gets back, the fat will really be in the fire.’
‘Oh God!’ Duffy had said.
And what Paniatowski thought she meant by that was, Oh God, I’m so sorry for you, Monika!
But that hadn’t been it at all.
It had had nothing to with Paniatowski.
What Liz Duffy had really meant was, Oh God, if it’s the chief constable of Mid Lancs who’s conducting the inquiry, then it’s only a matter of time before Jack Crane hears Simon’s name and puts two and two together!
And then she had panicked. She had packed her bags, and when Jack Crane had visited her the previous evening, her first thought had probably been that he’d gone there to arrest her. Now, she’d calmed down. She knew the police knew what she’d done and why she’d done it, but she also knew that the case against her was based on a little circumstantial evidence and a lot of imaginative leaps – and that it would never stand up in court.
So all she had to do was sit quietly, and she would be in the clear.
‘I’d like to go over your confession, if you don’t mind,’ Paniatowski said.
‘What confession?’ Liz Duffy countered.
‘The one you made to DC Crane.’
‘Is that what he told you – that I’d confessed?’
‘Yes, and I believe him.’
‘He’s such a dear boy, Jack, but he’s always had far too vivid an imagination.’
‘So you deny it?’
‘Of course I do.’
Above their heads there was a gentle pitter-pattering sound, and looking up, Paniatowski saw that rain had begun to fall on the skylight.
She needed to break Liz Duffy, she told herself, and she was not sure – even with the ammunition that Jack Crane had provided – that she could.
‘Since you’re not interested in confessing, I’d like to talk a little about your background,’ she said. ‘Do you have any objection to that?’
‘You’d like me to say I do object, wouldn’t you?’ Duffy asked.
‘Would I?’
‘Of course, because my refusal would indicate that you’d hit a weak spot in my psyche, which you could then use to your advantage. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no objection at all to discussing my background, so feel free to ask whatever you want to.’
She was using her arrogance as a shield, Paniatowski thought, but then she had no choice in the matter, because if she ever lowered that shield – if she ever abandoned her belief that she was totally right and everyone else was totally wrong – she would have to face the horror of what she’d done.
‘Jack Crane says that when you were at Oxford University together, he doesn’t remember you once mentioning your parents,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Now why was that?’
Liz Duffy blinked, but said nothing.
‘I never thought it would be that easy to find the weak spot,’ Paniatowski said. ‘To tell the truth, I’m a little disappointed in you.’
‘I don’t know whether I mentioned my father or not, but if I didn’t, it was probably because he died when I was nine,’ Duffy said.
‘I imagine that must have been a terrible blow to you. Am I right?’
‘That’s really none of your business.’
‘But your mother was still alive when you were studying at Oxford, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why didn’t you talk about her?’
‘You never went to university yourself, did you, Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Of course you didn’t. Well, if you had, you know that it was considered rather “uncool” to talk about your mother,’ Liz Duffy said. ‘Besides,’ she added, almost as an afterthought, ‘ther
e wasn’t much to say.’
‘So of the two, it was plainly your father who you loved the most?’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘I didn’t say that.’
The rain was getting angrier, and pounding down on the skylight as if it thought that, with a little more effort, it could shatter the skylight and bombard those below with a lethal shower of glass.
‘It would only be natural if you did love your father more than your mother,’ Paniatowski said. ‘When I was a little girl, I used to think of my own father as almost godlike. In my eyes, he could do no wrong.’
‘Did you have to go on a course to learn how to conduct interrogations?’ Liz Duffy sneered. ‘If you did – and if this what they taught you – then you’ve got good grounds for asking for your money back.’
‘He probably wouldn’t have remained godlike to me,’ Paniatowski said, ignoring the interruption. ‘As I grew up, and left my innocence behind, I’d probably have started seeing all kinds of flaws in him. But that never happened, because, like you, I lost him when I was a child.’
Liz Duffy laughed. ‘You have such a crude approach,’ she said. ‘You’re doing your best to make me empathize with you, and it’s simply not working. I very much doubt that your father did die when you were a little girl. For all I know, he’s still alive.’
‘My father was an officer in the Polish Cavalry,’ Paniatowski said, with a sudden ferocity. ‘He was a hero who died fighting the Nazis, and I had his bones buried in Whitebridge so I could be close to them!’
The outburst had had an effect on Liz Duffy, and she looked almost ashamed of herself.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I never meant to . . .’
Nice one, boss, Meadows thought. Very sneaky!
But Paniatowski did not follow through on the opportunity she had created. Instead, she seemed as stricken as Duffy was.
Jesus, all that was genuine, Meadows told herself.
‘Then again, perhaps you didn’t love your father at all,’ the sergeant said, stepping in to fill the breach. ‘Perhaps the reason you didn’t talk about your mother at university was that you hated her for not protecting you from him.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Duffy asked, reddening.
There was a loud crash of thunder overhead, and, for a moment, the lights flickered.
‘What did I mean?’ Meadows asked. ‘I suppose I meant that you were probably in need of protection. Was your father physically abusive to you? Did he visit you in your bed at night?’
‘My father would never have hurt me – in any way,’ Liz Duffy screamed. ‘He adored me.’
‘And you worshipped him,’ said Paniatowski, taking control again. ‘He left a gap in your life that you’ve been trying to fill ever since.’
Duffy unclenched her hands, crossed her arms, and clutched her shoulder-blades.
‘I don’t want to talk about that any more,’ she said, in a much lower voice that could almost have been a whimper.
‘Then what else can we talk about?’ Paniatowski wondered. ‘I suppose you could tell me about what you did to those girls – but no, that would never work, because you’re far too ashamed to say anything about that.’
Liz Duffy’s mood changed again, and she slammed her hands down on the table.
‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said. ‘I’m not! I’m not!’
‘Then why don’t you tell us all about it?’ Paniatowski challenged.
‘All right,’ Duffy agreed. ‘I will.’
‘I should remind you again, at this point, that you have the right to have a lawyer present,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Why would I need a lawyer?’ Liz Duffy asked. ‘It’s not as if I’ve done anything wrong.’
George Baxter would already have left Dunston, had it not been for the telephone call from the sergeant at the local police station, who had told him that an Inspector Grimes was already on his way to the prison, and would like to speak to him.
Grimes probably had some paperwork he wanted signing – because there was always paperwork that needed signing – Baxter thought, as he looked out of the window at the approaching police car. Still, that shouldn’t take long – probably no more than five or ten minutes.
He was not expecting anything like a hero’s send-off from Dunston Prison. Ever since the police had taken Chief Officer Jeffries away, all the other prison staff had acted as if he wasn’t even there. But then, that sort of thing went with the job, and he wasn’t about to let it get to him.
He wondered what sort of reception would be waiting for him when he got back to Whitebridge, and suspected that it wouldn’t exactly be a warm one, either. Well, he couldn’t, in all conscience, complain about that.
He’d been unfair to Jo, he told himself, and that was not just a recent occurrence, either – he had been unfair to her right from the start.
He had proposed to her because he knew she had wanted him to, and because – as things had stood between them at the time – he’d been getting all the comforts of being a married man, and she’d been getting none of the status of being a married woman. It had been the logical thing to do, the civilized thing to do – but it had been so wrong.
If only Monika had wanted him . . .
‘You can’t go blaming Monika for your own mess,’ he said aloud.
And that was quite true, but the fact remained if Monika had wanted him, he would never have courted Jo, and she would have been free to find a man without baggage – a man who could really appreciate her for the wonderful woman that she actually was.
He heard a knock on the office door, and looked up to see a uniformed inspector standing there.
Baxter smiled at the new arrival. ‘Inspector Grimes?’ he asked.
‘That’s right, sir,’ the inspector said – though he did not return the smile.
‘So what can I do for you?’ Baxter asked. ‘Is there something you want me to sign?’
Grimes shook his head. ‘No, sir, it’s nothing like that.’ He paused for a moment, then continued, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, sir. Your wife’s been in an accident.’
‘I followed Jill Harris from her aunt’s wedding reception to her home, because I wanted to see what she was going to do next,’ Liz Duffy told Paniatowski, as the rain continued to beat against the skylight. ‘I wanted to give her a second chance, you see.’
‘A second chance to do what?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘You really are rather dense, aren’t you?’ asked Duffy, with a return to the arrogance she had displayed at the beginning of the interview. ‘If you ask me, it’s a miracle you ever became a chief inspector.’ She waved her hand through the air. ‘But then, I suppose, in a place like this, anyone can rise to the top.’
‘A second chance to do what?’ Paniatowski repeated.
‘A second chance to prove to me that she was a decent girl, of course. But when she came out of the house again, she was wearing a rather tarty top – so I knew I’d been right all along.’
‘You followed her to the park?’
‘She should never have gone to the park,’ Liz Duffy said, with sudden vehemence. ‘That was a big mistake.’
‘Tell me what happened in the park?’
Liz Duffy shrugged. ‘What’s to tell? I persuaded her to step off the path. How I did it doesn’t really matter, does it?’
‘No,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘it doesn’t really matter.’
‘And once I was sure that no one could see me doing it, I strangled her. It was all very quick. She must have lost consciousness almost immediately – so, all in all, it was a much kinder death than she deserved.’
‘Tell me about Dolly.’
‘Who?’
‘The second girl you attacked.’
‘Oh, her! I went back to the park the following night.’ Liz Duffy frowned. ‘I don’t really know why I did that.’
‘Perhaps you did it to see if you’d left any clues behind,’ Paniatowski suggested – though she strongly suspecte
d that wasn’t the real reason at all.
‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Duffy said airily. ‘I’m the police doctor. I know all about clues, and I was already certain I hadn’t left any.’ She paused, obviously still puzzled as to what her motivation might have been. ‘At any rate, I saw the girl – Dolly, did you say it was?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I saw her disappear into the bushes with a man.’ Another pause. ‘You really ought to arrest her, you know – the man she was with was much older than her.’
‘I ought to arrest Dolly?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Yes, that’s what I said. Are you having trouble keeping up with me again?’
‘That second attack didn’t go as planned, did it?’
‘No, it didn’t. The little bitch managed to kick me on the knee, and it hurt a great deal. It was as much as I could do to escape.’
‘Tell me about Maggie – the third girl.’
‘Now that really wasn’t planned at all – I was just out doing a little innocent shopping – but the moment I saw the way she acted with that man in Woolworths, I knew she had to die.’
‘How did you detach her from her friends?’
‘I didn’t need to. They’d run off, and she was sitting on a bench, all alone. I said I’d got a gentleman friend who’d like to meet her, and if she’d come to the park, I’d give her five pounds. She jumped at the chance.’
‘You went to the park together?’
‘No, I didn’t want to be seen with her, so we went separately, and met up in the bushes.’
‘And this time, after your experience with Dolly, you made sure your victim didn’t have a chance to fight back?’
‘That’s right. I said something like, “Oh, there he is now,” and when she turned to look, I hit her over the head.’
‘You killed her in the afternoon, but when I asked you for an estimated time of death, you put it much later.’
‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’
‘And by establishing the time of death as much later, you were able to use Jack Crane as your alibi.’
‘You’re quite correct.’
‘Did you plan that in advance?’ Meadows asked, with unexpected harshness. ‘Did you always intend to use him?’
A Walk With the Dead Page 24