‘I will, Mr Tyndale,’ Harry promised. ‘I swear I will.’
Harry moved away from the door, and Paniatowski got her first look at Tyndale.
It was a shock! He had aged at least twenty years since they had last met. His skin had grown slack, his complexion was almost yellow, and he was leaning heavily on an ebony walking stick with a silver handle. If she’d seen him out on the street, she doubted she’d even have recognised him.
‘I see you’re admiring my walking stick, chief inspector,’ he said in the same thin voice she had heard earlier.
‘Yes, I …’ she said – because she had been looking at it, if only to avoid looking at his face.
‘The stick originally belonged to my father,’ Tyndale said. ‘When he died, I kept it as a memento. I certainly never thought that there’d come a time when I’d be needing it myself.’
It was hard to know what to say – so she said nothing.
‘Please come through,’ Tyndale said.
He led her into his office, gestured towards the visitor’s chair, and – with obvious effort – installed himself behind his old mahogany desk.
‘It seems very strange to be volunteering information to the police,’ Tyndale said. ‘It feels like – no, to hell with “feels like”, it actually is – breaking the carefully acquired habits of a lifetime, but on this occasion, I really feel I have absolutely no choice in the matter.’
‘Does your information concern Mary Edwards?’
‘It does, and ever since I telephoned the Kremlin—’
‘The what?’
‘The Kremlin. That’s what I call Whitebridge police headquarters. It’s sort of a joke.’
‘And sort of not,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And sort of not,’ Tyndale agreed. ‘Anyway, ever since I made that call, I’ve been giving serious consideration to the question of what I could tell you – and what I could not – about what passed between myself and my client.’
‘You’re saying she was your client?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since early last week, I think. My secretary will have the exact details. As I said, I have given the matter serious thought, and have decided that since our conversation was so general in its nature, I can reveal almost all of it.’
‘So not absolutely all of it?’
‘That is correct.’
‘I’ll settle for what you’re willing to tell me for the moment,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Later on, it might be a different matter.’
‘Later on, you’ll get no more from me than you’re getting now,’ Tyndale said firmly.
‘I’m listening,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Mary Edwards told me at the start of our meeting that she had some business to conduct in Whitebridge, but we didn’t actually discuss that at all.’
‘So what did you talk about?’
‘How can I best describe it, I wonder?’ Tyndale mused. ‘She seemed to want me to brief her.’
‘On what?’
‘On the town of Whitebridge in general, and the local police force in particular.’
‘What did she want to know about the police?’
‘She asked me what I thought of them. I said that on an institutional level, the corruption was endemic, though not – thankfully – too widespread. I added, perhaps a little immodestly, that I myself had played a small part in preventing that corruption from growing. I went on to say that within the police you’ll find the good, the bad and the ugly, the intelligent, the average and stupid, much as you’d expect to find in any organisation.’
‘Was she happy with your answer?’
‘No, she wasn’t – not at all. She listened to my explanation – which was, in the original, much longer and much wittier than the brief summary I’ve given you – but when I’d finished, the only thing she could think of to say was, “But they’re not armed, Mr Tyndale”.’
‘Had she expected them to be?’
‘Yes, I believe she had. She came from New York, where all the police are armed, and I think she assumed that to be the norm around the world, which – by and large, you know – it is. At any rate, I explained to her that there were some officers trained in the use of firearms, and when the situation calls for it, those firearms will be issued to them. That didn’t seem to reassure her at all, because what she said next was, “It might be too late by then.” So I further explained that there was very little gun crime in this country, and she said that that was no consolation to someone who’d been shot.’
Tyndale suddenly began to cough violently. As his body shook, he fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, and when he spat into it, Paniatowski was sure he was spitting blood.
She had to say something, she told herself. She simply couldn’t ignore it any longer.
‘Is there anything that I can do for you, Mr Tyndale?’ she asked.
He shook his head, and when he had stopped coughing, he said, ‘It isn’t always like this, you know. Some days I almost feel like my old self. But that, the doctors tell me, is the nature of the disease.’
‘Are you very ill?’
‘I’m dying.’
‘Then are you sure you should be at work?’
Tyndale laughed. It was a throaty laugh – and seemed to Paniatowski almost like a death rattle.
‘After the death sentence had been passed on me by my doctor, I spent a year and a half at home – and that did nearly kill me,’ he said. ‘Working may speed up the inevitable process, but at least I’ll have the satisfaction of dying in harness.’ He examined the handkerchief, folded it neatly, and put it in his pocket. ‘Now where was I? Oh yes. She asked me how easy it would be for a foreign criminal, arriving in this country, to smuggle his gun in with him.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told her that with enough determination, nothing was impossible, but it was difficult enough to deter most people from even trying. So then she asked me how difficult it would be for him to get one here, because she’d looked in all the pawnbrokers’ shops in Whitebridge, and they didn’t seem to have any. Do pawnbrokers’ shops in America really sell guns, chief inspector?’
‘I believe they do.’
‘What an extraordinary country it must be. At any rate, it was at that point that I asked her if she was a crime novelist, because if that was what she was, she’d be better off talking to the police, who both know more about the subject than I and wouldn’t charge my extortionate fees.’
‘How did she respond?’
‘She assured me that she was no kind of novelist at all, and then she asked me what I could tell her about safe houses. Safe houses, for God’s sake! I said I assumed such places existed, and that the police had access to them, but that was as far as my knowledge went. And with that, the meeting came to an end. She paid me for my time – in cash – and added a retainer to cover any future services that I might perform for her. She did not specify what those future services might be.’ Tyndale paused, perhaps to catch his breath. ‘When she left, I gave serious consideration to calling the chief constable, but one does not like to engineer a situation in which one’s clients are almost certain to be questioned by the police.’ He chuckled again. ‘That, I think, smacks too much of drumming up business for oneself.’ A look of pain flashed across his face. ‘That’s about all I have to say. I’ll show you to the door.’
‘There’s no need to get up,’ Paniatowski said.
‘I want to show you to the door,’ Tyndale insisted. ‘It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.’
He rose stiffly, and – leaning on his stick even more heavily than he had earlier – made his way to the door.
‘How’s Charlie Woodend getting on these days?’ he asked, as they both stood on the threshold.
‘He’s living in Spain, and doing fine,’ Paniatowski said. ‘He had a bit of a scare a while back, when they discovered he had cancer, but …’
She stopped, horrified at herself.
How could anybody be so stupid? she wondered.
‘But …?’ Tyndale prompted.
She had to finish the sentence. There was no other way.
‘But he’s recently been given the all-clear,’ she said.
‘Hmm, they’re obviously much more generous with their drugs in Spain than they are here in England,’ Tyndale said. He shook his head in what looked like self-disgust. ‘I’m sorry, that came out wrong.’
‘No, it’s understandable,’ Paniatowski said. ‘It’s all my fault. I should have thought before I sp—’
‘I asked you a straight question and you gave me a straight answer,’ Tyndale interrupted her. ‘You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, and I’ve no reason to feel aggrieved. There isn’t any point in being bitter about the hand that fate has dealt you. That only serves to sour the little time you’ve got left.’
‘You’re right about that,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘but it’s still a brave thing to say.’
‘There’s nothing brave about accepting the inevitable,’ Tyndale said, brushing the compliment aside, ‘and I wish Charlie Woodend nothing but well.’
He was hit by a sudden coughing fit and reached for his handkerchief. When it was over, he examined the blood with almost clinical detachment, then took a plastic bag out of his pocket and dropped the handkerchief into it.
‘I know what I’ve got isn’t catching, but I don’t really see why anyone else should have to deal with the results,’ he said. He paused again. ‘I miss Charlie, you know, or rather, I miss the chats we used to have.’
‘You had chats with Charlie Woodend?’ Paniatowski asked, almost incredulously.
‘Yes. We had them on a regular basis – and some of them could go on for hours and hours.’
‘He kept very quiet about it, then.’
‘And so did I. We were from opposite sides of the fence, and neither of us wanted to be seen to be consorting with the enemy. But, in fact, we weren’t really consorting at all. When we had our meetings, he wasn’t a detective chief inspector and I wasn’t a solicitor. We were simply two men who had been drawn together by a mutual passion.’
‘You’re a fan of Charles Dickens!’ Paniatowski said, with sudden understanding.
‘Indeed I am,’ Tyndale agreed. ‘I’ve read all Dickens’ novels three or four times – my favourites much more than that – and Charlie Woodend is the only man I’ve ever met who’s done the same. He is quite wrong about Martin Chuzzlewit, of course, but other than that his views are quite sound and his knowledge is both broad and deep.’
Paniatowski checked her watch.
‘I have to go,’ she said apologetically.
‘Of course you do, my dear,’ Tyndale replied. ‘You have a busy life, full of challenges, and you can’t afford to waste too much of your valuable time talking to a dead man.’ He smiled. ‘That came out wrong, as well. I’ve appreciated our chat, Monika, but now I’m tired and need to rest, and you need to get about your business.’
They shook hands – Tyndale’s grip was very weak – and Paniatowski was about to leave when the solicitor said, ‘Looking back, I really wish I had phoned the chief constable after Miss Edwards’ visit. I feel I have failed her as a client, and a dying man already has enough regrets, without adding to them.’
‘What you’re saying is that, though she didn’t state as much explicitly, she genuinely believed her life was in danger,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Yes, and given the way events have transpired, it seems that she was right to be afraid.’
DS Graham Yates – twenty-four years in the service, and not a single blemish on his record – understood incident rooms in much the same way as a skilled surgeon understands the workings of the human body, or a talented motor mechanic knows what makes a complex engine tick. He was sensitive to their dynamics and moods, and he knew, as the big hand on the clock on the wall ticked round towards twelve o’clock, that soon the calls would start to taper off, because everybody – nutters and earnestly concerned citizens alike – got hungry.
At noon, he banged his fist on his desk to get the attention of the detective constables.
‘You’ll all get a break, but we’ll have to do it on a shift system,’ he explained. ‘You’ll each have forty minutes – and not a second more. On the first break –’ he pointed with his index finger – ‘will be you, you, you, you, you, and that lad at the back of the room – Simcox is it?’
‘Yes, skipper.’
‘And Simcox, who, as you can all see for yourselves, is currently engaged in the complex task of trying to push his tiny brain out through his right ear by inserting a pencil in his left.’
‘I’m just cleaning the ear, skip,’ Simcox protested.
‘You should try soap and water, lad,’ the sergeant told him. ‘It’s always worked for me. Off you go then – and remember, you’ve got forty minutes.’
The Royal Victoria Hotel’s doorman stood – as might be expected – in the doorway of the hotel. He was dressed resplendently in a scarlet carriage coat, top hat, and black leather gloves.
Beresford thought he looked vaguely familiar, but was that because he had a criminal past – or for some other reason entirely?
He decided on the direct approach.
‘I know you from somewhere,’ he said.
The doorman grinned. ‘Then, my friend, you must be a follower of the pugilistic arts,’ he said.
That was it!
‘You’re Wally White, the Accrington Whirlwind!’ Beresford said. ‘I saw you fight in the Memorial Hall, when I was a nipper.’
‘Did I win?’ White asked.
‘Yes, you most certainly did. I think your opponent was Mac Danvers—’
‘Aye, I fought Mac a few times.’
‘And you gave him this amazing uppercut to the jaw in the third round and got a technical knockout.’
The doorman sighed. ‘Them was the good old days,’ he said. ‘These days I’m not so much Wally White, the Accrington Whirlwind as Wally White the Accrington Gentle Breeze.’
Beresford shook his head in wonder. White had seemed a giant of a man back then, and it was because he wanted to grow up to be just like him that the young Colin had started body building, so it was something of a shock – edged perhaps with a little sadness – to find that he was now looking down at the man.
‘Of course, the advantage of these days over the old ones is that nobody tries to play ping pong with my brain anymore,’ White continued. He paused for a moment. ‘Is there something I can do for you, inspector?’
‘What?’ Beresford asked, as if he had no idea what the doorman was talking about. ‘Oh, yes,’ finally remembering why he was there. He unfolded the sketch he had in his hands and held it up for inspection. ‘Have you seen this man?’
It was a good sketch, he thought while the doorman examined it, a credit to both the artist’s ability and Terry Carson’s observational skills. There was real character in it – real, but not necessarily good – and whilst an impartial observer might not automatically have said that he looked like a man who had no qualms about hitting women, that observer would probably not have been surprised to learn that he had done just that.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the doorman said, ‘I’m almost certain I have – but not since the murder.’
No, you wouldn’t have seen him since – not if he’s the feller we’re looking for, Beresford thought.
‘So when did you notice him?’ he said aloud.
‘Saturday – a couple of days before Miss Edwards was killed.’
‘Tell me more,’ Beresford said eagerly.
It was no great distance from the Royal Victoria to Whitebridge police headquarters, but most of the constables leaving the ballroom on the first break felt like a change from the regulation stodge served up in the police canteen, and so headed for a nearby pub, the Spinner and Bergamot, where they ordered stodge of an entirely different kind in the form of Hopkinson’s Celebrated Meat Pies with Brow
n Gravy (famous since 1911) which they washed down with pints of best bitter.
Thus it was that when the appeal for information on Mary Edwards was broadcast by the regional television station for perhaps the tenth time that day, DC Simcox happened to be sitting at the bar in the company of DC Rowley.
‘How’s it gone this morning, Rollo?’ Simcox asked. ‘Did any of the people you spoke to have anything useful to tell you?’
Rowley shrugged. ‘Not really. A couple of them thought they might have seen Miss Edwards, but when I started questioning them, it turned out that the woman they’d seen was the wrong height or the wrong age – or just plain wrong.’
‘What a load of tossers they all are, aren’t they?’ Simcox asked, as some of the famous brown gravy slithered down his chin.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Rowley countered. ‘Most of them are concerned citizens who just want to help us do our job.’
‘Quite right – that’s exactly what they are,’ Simcox agreed, wiping the gravy away with the back of his hand.
‘Mind you, there are some nutters about,’ Rowley continued. ‘I had this one woman who seemed hopeful at first – she got the description down to a T – and then she went and spoiled it all by saying she’d seen Miss Edwards being beamed up from the Boulevard into a UFO.’
Under normal circumstances, that would be a hard story to top, Simcox thought, but fortunately he had one which, if not so dramatic, was even weirder.
‘One of mine was a librarian,’ he said. ‘She claimed that Miss Edwards had spent two whole days in the library. Two whole days! And guess what this batty bitch said Mary was doing there. Not that you could guess – even if I gave you a million chances.’
‘If I’d never guess, I might as well give up now then,’ said Rowley, who was starting to find Simcox irritating.
‘She said that she was reading old newspapers – on something she called microfiche!’
‘And did you report it to the skipper?’ Rowley asked.
‘Do I look like an idiot? Of course I didn’t report it. The librarian was either mistaken, or she was making the whole thing up in the hope that some handsome young police officer, much like myself, would go round to the library and question her.’
Death in Disguise Page 8