Best Served Cold

by Sally Spencer

  ‘There was only one typewriter in the theatre, and Geoff and Joan were always banging away on it, trying to look busy – trying to seem as if they had a function. And even when they weren’t there, other people were, and I couldn’t afford to let them see me typing the letter. So when I got my opportunity, I took it. My mistake was leaving the letter where Mrs Hodge would see it.’

  ‘Because you’d planned to post it much later. But the moment you discovered it had gone, you realized you’d have to advance your plans if they were to have any chance of working. So why didn’t you fix the rope for one of the rehearsals?’

  ‘I couldn’t have known for sure which of them would be playing Hieronimo in rehearsals. Mark was very unpredictable. Sometimes he’d want to do it himself, and at others he’d tell Jerry to do it. I needed to set it up for a time when it would definitely be Mark.’

  ‘But at the same time, you needed to do it as soon as possible.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘My clever young detective constable, Jack Crane, was watching the video tapes this morning, and it seemed to him that if Sarah had been going to kill Cotton, she’d never have bothered to piss him off beforehand,’ Paniatowski said. ‘And then it occurred to him that when the letter was sent, only two people in Whitebridge knew Sarah had got a part in DCI Prince – Sarah herself, and you. So he went back through some footage he’d been looking at earlier, and he saw you standing next to Cotton and pointing into the auditorium. There was also some other footage of Cotton in which he was pointing into the auditorium. Do you know what he was pointing at?’

  ‘He was pointing at the box where Laurence Olivier would be sitting that night.’

  ‘Olivier didn’t come, did he?’

  ‘Of course not. But I needed to get Mark to play the part that night, and I knew he’d be bound to if he thought Olivier was there.’

  ‘Mark bribed the cameraman to make sure he took some shots of Olivier, and because he was bribed, the cameraman didn’t put it in his statement.’

  ‘I’m getting bored,’ Ruth said. ‘I don’t want to talk about the cameraman.’

  ‘Then let’s talk about Mark Cotton,’ Paniatowski suggested. ‘Did you really hate him so much that you felt you had to kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t hate him at all,’ Ruth said, as if she was surprised Paniatowski had even asked the question. ‘He was a bit of a shit, but then you can say that about a lot of people. If he had been drowning, I might have thrown him a rope if I was standing on the pier, but if I’d had to cross the road to get to the pier, then I probably wouldn’t have bothered. As I said before, Mark was no more than a means to an end.’

  ‘And what end was that?’ Paniatowski asked.

  While she’d been talking about how she’d planned the murder, Ruth’s expression had almost returned to normal. She had stopped crying, and there had been a certain flush of pride in her complexion. Now that all changed. Her cheeks were suddenly almost impossibly hollow, and her whole face became a bleak canvas of over forty years of misery and despair.

  ‘I wanted Sarah to go to prison,’ she said. ‘I wanted her to find out for herself what it was like to be trapped between four walls year after year, and at the end of it come away with absolutely nothing. I wanted her to waste her life as I’d wasted mine. For the first time in my miserable existence, I wanted justice!’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The charges had been laid. The prisoner had been taken down to the cells.

  Paniatowski slowly and uncomfortably made her way back to her office. She was feeling neither a sense of satisfaction nor elation. Maybe those feelings would come later, when the team met up in the Drum and Monkey, but for the moment, it was mainly sadness and depression which held sway.

  As in so many of her previous cases, she did not know who to blame – or how much to blame them.

  Ruth Audley had murdered Mark Cotton. It was only proper she should go to prison for a long time, because no one had the right to rob anyone else of his life. But without excusing what she had done, it was almost impossible not to sympathize a little with a woman who had loved – and had worked hard all her life to be loved in return – only to have that love thrown back in her face.

  As for Sarah, she had turned selfishness and lack of responsibility into almost an art form, but hadn’t she been brought up to believe – encouraged to believe – that that was what she had been put on earth to do?

  And then there was the mother. She had been wrong to deny Ruth love, but perhaps there was nothing she could do about it – perhaps she had really tried but could still feel nothing for the child who had led to her giving up a life she enjoyed and marrying a man she didn’t love.

  And perhaps that’s how I will feel, Paniatowski thought – perhaps, however hard I try, I will feel nothing.

  As she entered the CID suite she stopped, and grabbed the nearest desk for support.

  ‘Colin!’ she shouted. ‘Colin! Get over here now!’

  Beresford came running. ‘What’s the matter, boss?’ he asked. ‘She’s never gone and retracted her confession, has she?’

  ‘It’s not retractions you need to worry about at the moment – it’s bloody contractions,’ Paniatowski told him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘But you’re not due for another three weeks, so it’s probably no more than a false …’

  ‘Look down at my feet, Colin,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘You’re standing in a puddle of water,’ Beresford said. ‘And that means – oh my God!’

  ‘Exactly,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘How long have I been here now?’ Paniatowski demanded.

  ‘Eight and a quarter hours,’ Louisa replied.

  ‘Eight and a quarter hours?’ Paniatowski repeated. ‘Then why haven’t I given birth yet?’

  ‘If you’d done the reading you should have, you’d know that first births usually take more than eight hours,’ Louisa said. She paused for a moment. ‘Sorry, Mum, that really wasn’t helpful, was it?’

  On the contrary, it was very helpful, Paniatowski thought. If Louisa hadn’t been issuing her usual gentle rebukes, that would have shown that she was worried – and the last thing that was needed in this situation was two people who were shit scared.

  And there was cause to be scared. There were two midwives and a student midwife in the delivery room with them, and, for most of the time, there was a doctor, too – because she was quite old to be having her first baby, she was having it prematurely, and the chances of things going wrong were high.

  ‘I said I was sorry, Mum,’ Louisa repeated softly.

  Paniatowski squeezed her hand. ‘There’s no need to be, my little love. It’s wonderful that you’re here, and I don’t know how I would have managed it without you.’

  ‘You haven’t managed it yet, but you’re about to,’ said the elder, sterner midwife after a quick glance under the sheet. ‘It’s time to start pushing.’

  She pushed – and it hurt.

  She pushed again – and it hurt more.

  ‘I can see the head,’ said the midwife.

  And Paniatowski knew – with absolute certainty – that her vagina was on fire.

  Her vagina is on fire, she has lost her shoes, her skirt is up around her waist, and her breasts feel as if they have been put through the mangle.

  She groans.

  ‘Can you hear me, bitch?’ asks a disembodied voice.

  She says nothing.

  ‘Tell me you can hear me, or I’ll hurt you again.’

  ‘I … I can hear you.’

  ‘Good, then listen carefully! You’re probably thinking of going to the police, to report what’s happened to you, but I wouldn’t do that if I was you. And do you know why I wouldn’t do that?’

  She doesn’t answer.

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No, I …’

  ‘Because they won’t believe you. They’ll think you came out here looking fo
r a bit of fun, and that it was only when it got out of hand that you decided you didn’t like it. They’ll think that you’re just a slag – no different to all the other slags we’ve screwed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says another voice, ‘and even if they do believe you, it won’t get you anywhere. We weren’t here at all, we were in the camp – and all the other Devil’s Disciples will swear we were in the camp. So if I was you, bitch, I’d just put it down to experience.’

  ‘And let’s be honest,’ says the first voice, ‘you must have enjoyed being shagged by three real men for a change.’

  ‘It’s a boy – a little under-weight, but beautiful,’ said the older, sterner midwife, whose face had been transformed by an almost angelic smile.

  But the younger midwife was paying no attention to the baby, and instead was leaning over Paniatowski with her stethoscope.

  ‘I can hear another heartbeat,’ she said. ‘I told you it was twins.’

  The older midwife handed the baby over to the student, then took hold of Louisa by the shoulders, and began to edge her towards the door.

  ‘But I want to stay!’ Louisa protested. ‘Mum needs me.’

  ‘You can’t stay,’ the midwife. ‘Things might turn very complicated, and you’ll only be in the way.’

  ‘What do you mean – turn complicated?’ Louisa asked, almost hysterical now.

  ‘You have to go,’ the midwife said.

  Paniatowski opened her eyes and discovered that she was in a room which was painted in gentle pastel shades. Then she heard someone cough discreetly, and when she turned her head she saw that Dr Shastri was sitting by her bed.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘You gave birth to two boys, and then you haemorrhaged,’ Shastri said. ‘Haemorrhaged rather badly, as a matter of fact. But the kindly doctors pumped enough blood into you to float a battleship, and there does not appear to have been any permanent damage.’

  ‘The boys?’

  ‘They are fine, too. They were in intensive care for a while, but now they are in the nursery with all the other babies.’ Shastri hesitated. ‘It would be usual, at this point, for the mother to see the babies.’

  ‘Then that’s what should happen now, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Shastri admitted. ‘If you are considering putting them up for adoption, it might be better not to see them at all.’

  ‘I’m not putting them up for adoption,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Please do not be so hasty,’ Shastri said. ‘If you keep the babies, you will be responsible for them for the next twenty or so years, and as you grow older, so it will get harder. You have vital work to do in the Mid Lancs police, and you might find that was no longer possible. And there are many loving, responsible couples who cannot have children of their own, but are yearning for a baby.’ She paused again. ‘No one would blame you if you put them up for adoption, Monika. Everyone would understand.’

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ Paniatowski said.

  Shastri sighed. ‘Very well. Shall I ask the nurses to bring the babies to you?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  Everything Dr Shastri had said made sense, Paniatowski thought, as she lay there, but she still could not put the babies up for adoption.

  There had been times, over the previous few months, when she had blamed herself for the rape. She no longer did that, but she was still the one it had happened to, which meant that, since there was no one else to do it, she was the one who would have to carry the burden.

  Her children were the seed of evil, violent men, and whilst it was possible that would have no effect on them, it was equally possible that the bad blood of the bikers would run through their veins. And as long as there was even the slightest chance that the boys had inherited their fathers’ bad blood, she could not, in all conscience, foist them on to some poor unsuspecting party who only wanted to do good.

  She could hear footsteps in the corridor and knew that soon she would be presented with her sons. She wondered if, when she looked on them for the first time, she would think of them as sweet, innocent babies, or whether she would read incipient evil into their small red faces.

  Then the door opened and two nurses – each one carrying a baby – entered the room.