‘That’s right, and Crane had a gut feeling that that murder is somehow connected to the one we’re investigating now, so—’
‘Don’t tell me, lass, let me guess,’ Woodend interrupted her. ‘You don’t think much of the theory yourself, but you’re letting him run with it because it’s all part of his education.’
‘That’s right,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘You’re a good boss, Monika,’ Woodend said fondly. ‘Mind you, you bloody-well should be, considering you were trained up by a feller who was a pretty good boss himself.’
‘You were the best, Charlie,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Nay, I wasn’t – but I was better than most,’ Woodend said. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, Monika.’
‘It’s been nice talking to you, Charlie.’
They didn’t say goodbye – they never said goodbye – and Paniatowski had almost returned the phone to its cradle when she heard Woodend shouting, ‘Monika! Don’t hang up, Monika!’
She put the phone to her ear again, and said, ‘Is something the matter, Charlie?’
‘That murder you were just talking to me about – the one that happened in 1924 …?’
‘Yes?’
‘Was the victim called Wilfred Hardcastle, by any chance?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, he was.’
Paniatowski heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line.
‘Are you all right, Charlie?’ she asked worriedly.
‘I’m fine,’ Woodend assured her. ‘It was just a bit of shock, that’s all. You do know who Wilfred Hardcastle’s grandson is, don’t you?’
‘No,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘I don’t.’
Frankie Flynn was walking almost normally when he entered the interview room, but the moment he saw that it was Meadows who was sitting there, he began to exaggerate his limp.
He might be a tough man on the street, Meadows thought, but take him out of his comfort zone and he was like a puppy, looking at the world through big sad eyes which said he’d been treated cruelly, and pleading for kindness and understanding.
Flynn and Robinson sat down, the formalities were gone through for the record, and then Meadows said, ‘You’ve been seen hanging around the Royal Victoria Hotel in the last few days, Frankie. You don’t deny that, do you?’
Last time he had been asked the question, he’d answered it by saying it was a free country. This time, he merely shook his head.
‘You have to say “no”, Frankie, because this is being recorded,’ Meadows told him.
‘No, I don’t deny it,’ Flynn said.
‘Did you have any special reason for loitering there?’
‘I was trying to find out more about that woman.’
‘What woman?’
‘The one what kicked me square in the knackers, in the best room of the Rising Sun.’
‘Mary Edwards?’
‘Yes, that’s her.’
‘What kinds of things were you trying to find out about her?’
‘What her address was over in America. What family she’s got. Things like that.’
‘And how did you hope to find these things out?’
‘I was going to see who she talked to, and then I was going to have a quiet word with them myself.’
‘Just a quiet word?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
Flynn looked at his solicitor for guidance, and Robinson nodded.
‘It might have got a bit rough if I’d thought they were hiding something from me,’ Flynn admitted.
‘There, you see, it’s much better if we’re straight and honest with each other,’ Meadows said. ‘Why did you want to know where her family lived in America? Were you planning to visit them?’
‘No.’
‘So what was the reason?’
‘I wanted to let her know that I knew where she lived.’
‘Again, why?’
‘Because she’s a lezzie, and she’s got plenty of money.’
‘How do you know she’s got plenty of money?’ Meadows asked.
Flynn gave her a look which said she must be the stupidest woman he’d ever met.
‘She was staying in the Royal Vic, wasn’t she? An’ on the top floor, an’ all, which is where the really posh people stay.’
‘Forgive me, I know I’m being a bit thick here, but I still don’t see why you needed her address,’ Meadows said, although she was beginning to think that she just might.
Flynn checked with his solicitor again, and got another quick nod.
‘Why would a woman like her ever want to come to a dump like this?’ Frankie asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘She came for sex. She’d have had her nasty way with my missus if I hadn’t stopped her.’
Oh, you stopped her, all right, Meadows thought. You hurt her foot so much with your balls that she was quite incapable of getting her end away.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘But why would she come here at all? There are lezzies in America, aren’t there?’
‘Yes, there are.’
‘So why didn’t she just have sex where she lived?’
‘You tell me.’
‘You really are thick, aren’t you?’ Flynn asked. ‘She didn’t want to get her end away in America because her family didn’t know she was a lezzie, and she was frightened that if she did, they’d find out.’
It was not a very sophisticated – or even clever – theory, Meadows thought, but then Frankie Flynn wasn’t a very sophisticated man.
‘I think I’m finally getting it now,’ she said. ‘Once you’d got her address, you were planning to go up to her, and say something like, “If you don’t give me some money, I’m going to tell your family that you’re a lesbian.” In other words, you were going to blackmail her.’
‘My client saw it more in terms of demanding compensation for the damage she’d done to his crown jewels,’ Robinson said smoothly. ‘The strategy he’s just outlined was merely a negotiating tool.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Flynn agreed. ‘I wanted some compensation, and it was a nego … nego … it was a tool.’
Meadows consulted the note Robinson had given her.
‘Where were you the afternoon that Mary Edwards was killed, Frankie?’ she asked.
‘I was at the hospital.’
‘Why were you there?’
‘When I woke up that morning, it hurt me to pee, and my thing kept dripping, so I went to the hospital to see if she’d done any permanent damage.’
‘And had she?’
‘No, it wasn’t what she’d done that was causing the problem – I’ve got the clap.’
‘You were at the hospital all afternoon?’
‘Yeah, it was one o’clock when I went in, and six o’clock when I came out. They did a lot of tests. They … they stuck things in my … in my …’
‘Penis?’ Meadows suggested.
‘No, they stuck them in my dick.’
‘So why didn’t you tell us that you’d been at the hospital when we first arrested you?’
‘Mr Tyndale said I shouldn’t.’
‘Did he give you a reason?’
‘He said if I gave you an alibi, you’d realise you could never pin the murder on me, so you’d do me for the blackmail, just out of spite. He said my best plan was to keep quiet until you found the real murderer, ’cos once you’d done that, you’d be so busy with him that the blackmail wouldn’t even seem worth bothering about.’
‘Had you actually asked anyone for Mary Edwards’ address in America?’ Meadows asked.
‘No.’
‘Had you talked to Mary yourself?’
‘No.’
‘And did Mr Tyndale know all this?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to make sure I’ve got this absolutely clear,’ Meadows said. ‘You didn’t talk to anyone about Mary, you didn’t talk to Mary herself, and you made Mr Tyndale aware of both these f
acts. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t be charged with something you haven’t done, you know,’ Meadows said.
‘Mr Tyndale told me I could. He said you’d do me for intent. He said what I’d done was exactly like a burglar loitering outside a house with his tools in his pocket, or a robber parked in front of a bank, with a sawn-off shotgun and a ski mask in the boot of his car.’
‘Jesus!’ Meadows said.
She turned to Mr Robinson, but the solicitor was focussing his attention on the upper part of the wall opposite him.
THIRTEEN
The watery winter sun had made a valiant attempt to warm up the earth in the late morning, but around noon, a massed army of heavy grey clouds had blocked it. The temperature had begun to drop almost immediately, causing sparrows perched on telephone lines to shiver, and stray dogs to search for exterior walls which interior heating had warmed up just a little.
Ice had begun to form in the dips in the Whitebridge General visitors’ car park, and one of the porters had spread a thin layer of sand over it, because the last thing anybody wanted was for a visitor to slip and be transformed – via an unlucky fracture – into a patient.
Paniatowski, with Crane just behind her, followed the sandy path to the main entrance of the hospital. From three different sources, she had learned three things that morning. The first was the victim’s real name, the second that Frankie Flynn had a rock solid alibi for the time of the murder, and the third was the identity of Wilfred Hardcastle’s grandson. They all pointed her in the same direction – and that direction led to a room on Whitebridge General’s second floor.
Arthur Tyndale had been taken straight to intensive care when he’d first been admitted, but had shown some improvement during the morning, and after lunch he had been moved to a private room.
It was there that Paniatowski and Crane found him – propped upright in bed by several pillows, and with a morphine button in his hand.
‘It appears I’m going to live to fight another day, chief inspector,’ he said, with a weak smile. ‘I confidently expect that will be about my limit.’
It should have been difficult not to be affected by such cheerful courage in the face of death, but – given what she already knew – Paniatowski found it the easiest thing in the world.
‘Is that true?’ she asked.
‘It could be true,’ Tyndale told her, ‘but – though this is highly unlikely – I could hold out for another six months.’
‘We’ve let Frankie Flynn go,’ she said.
Tyndale sighed. ‘I expected as much. Without me there to control the situation, it was almost bound to happen.’
‘You manipulated him for your own ends,’ Paniatowski said accusingly.
‘Yes, I did,’ Tyndale agreed. ‘Over the years, I’ve manipulated most of my clients.’
‘Why? What did you get out of it?’
‘I got nothing out of it personally. Not a thing! It was a question of duty. The police seemed unable or unwilling to do their job, so I felt obliged – as a responsible citizen – to do it for them.’
‘Does this have something to do with John Entwistle’s trial?’
‘It has everything to do with John Entwistle’s trial. Because of police incompetence, the killer walked free.’
‘Have you ever read the transcript of John Entwistle’s trial?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘No. I’ve never seen a need to. I was brought up on that trial. It was my bedtime story from before I even learned to speak. Other children had Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, but I had Rex v. Entwistle at Preston Crown Court. It destroyed the family, you know. My great uncle Oswald was so devastated by the death of his brother that he let the business go to pot, and drank himself to death.’
‘I’ve heard Oswald wasn’t much of a businessman, even without the drink,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Perhaps,’ Tyndale conceded, ‘but drowning his sorrows certainly didn’t help. After Uncle Oswald’s death, we had to sell the mill for a pittance. My father was never a very successful barrister, and without the Hardcastle family money, we simply could not afford to go on living where we were. We sold the mansion – again for a pittance – dismissed most of the servants, and moved to a much smaller home. Sometimes, when my father was going through a particularly lean patch, things were so bad that Mother had to get down on her knees and scrub the floors herself. It broke her heart to do that. And none of it would have happened if John Entwistle hadn’t killed my grandfather. That was why we were so bitter! That was why we wanted to see justice done! And it wasn’t done!’
‘I’m still surprised that someone with your legal training hasn’t even bothered to read the trans—’ Paniatowski began.
‘My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I knew that was not the way, because by the time a case gets to court – by the time a John Entwistle is standing in the dock – the damage has already been done. But I am a solicitor – I can attack the evil at the root.’
‘And how exactly do you attack it?’
‘If I had a client who I knew to be guilty, I’d gently guide him towards self-incrimination, so that no matter how stupid the prosecutor, he would not be able to wriggle out of getting his just deserts. Sometimes, I’d use what my client had told me to uncover evidence which was previously hidden. And sometimes I used the press to plant ideas. I have used a number of journalists over the years.’
DCI Stokes told me that on a few occasions he even got an idea about how to refocus the investigation from something he read in the newspapers, Charlie Woodend had said.
That can happen to all of us, Paniatowski had replied. At least, it’s certainly happened to me. You just never know what’s going to give you a new perspective on a case.
You’re missing the point entirely, lass. Yes, it does happen with everybody – but it happened much more often with Tyndale’s clients than with any other solicitor’s clients – that’s why Bill Stokes called Tyndale the Jinx.
‘You used Mike Traynor, didn’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Oh yes, I used him. He was one of the best reporters I ever worked with – because he had absolutely no morals at all.’ Tyndale gave himself a shot of morphine, and grinned weakly. ‘Do you want me to tell you how I’ve got away with it all these years?’
‘Since you’re the prime suspect in a murder case, your wisest course would be to say nothing,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘But I can give you that advice without any fear that you’ll follow it, because you want to tell us how clever you’ve been – in fact, you’re bursting to tell us.’
‘When I got one of my clients off, I was a bit like those gambling machines which we call one–armed bandits, and the Americans – less imaginatively, but more accurately – call slots. When they have a big payout, it’s all bells and whistles, and people talk about what a good machine it is for days after. What they forget, of course, is that for there to be one big winner, there have to be a lot of small losers.’
‘Hence the newspaper headlines so prominently displayed on your office walls,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Hence the newspaper headlines on my office walls,’ Tyndale agreed. ‘But you see, though those headlines talked about the innocent, it wasn’t about them at all – it was about the guilty. I was never Jay North – the Lone Ranger.’
‘Then who were you?’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘He thinks that he was Steve McQueen – the bounty hunter,’ Jack Crane said.
‘That’s right,’ Tyndale agreed. He smiled again, and this time it was a smile of triumph. ‘There are two reasons why you won’t be arresting me for the murder of Melissa Evans. Shall I tell you what they are?’
‘Why not?’
‘The first is that your whole case is built on circumstantial evidence – at best – and you’d stand virtually no chance of getting a conviction, even if I lived long enough to stand trial. But it’s the second one that’s the really important one –
if you arrested me, then everything I’ve just told you would be public knowledge, and every convicted toss-pot I’ve ever represented – and, believe me, there are literally hundreds of them – would be launching an appeal. The Lancashire judicial system would grind to a halt – and everyone would blame you. I know how hard you’ve worked to get where you are now, Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski, but that would just about finish you.’
Paniatowski took her handcuffs out of her bag.
‘Arthur Tyndale, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Margaret Entwistle, who was also known as Mary Edwards and Melissa Evans,’ she said. ‘You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.’
‘Are you insane?’ Tyndale demanded. ‘Or is it that you don’t believe me when I tell you that it will ruin you?’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ Paniatowski told him, ‘but I still have to do what I have to do.’
‘And are you going to handcuff one of my wrists to the bed frame, as if I were a common criminal?’ Tyndale asked, clearly in a panic now.
‘I certainly am,’ Paniatowski confirmed, ‘because you are a common criminal, and it’s standard operating procedure.’
‘But I couldn’t possibly escape.’
‘There have been numerous cases of men in your condition who’ve suddenly found the strength to do a runner,’ Paniatowski said, ‘and anyway, as I’ve just told you, it’s standard procedure.’
‘But don’t you understand – my wife will be arriving soon. She can’t possibly see me like that.’
‘I’m sorry, but she’ll have to,’ Paniatowski said. ‘And just in case you get the wrong idea – it’s her I’m sorry for, not you.’
‘I’d like to make a deal,’ Tyndale said.
‘What do you want, and what have you got to offer in return?’ Paniatowski said.
‘I’ll tell you everything I know – things you’ll never find out about if you don’t get them from me – and, in return, you promise not to handcuff me.’
It would mean posting a constable on permanent duty, Paniatowski thought, but it just might be worth it.
‘Agreed,’ she said. She took a tape recorder out of her pocket, and switched it on. ‘Interview with Arthur Tyndale at 2.30 p.m. on the 16th of March, 1978. I am Detective Chief Inspector Monika Paniatowski. Also present is Detective Constable Jack Crane.’
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