‘He has to nerve himself up for that. Javier Martinez is still a relatively fit man, and the killer knows it won’t be as easy to deal with him as it will be to deal with Elena.’
‘And he continues to nerve himself up for another four days?’ Beresford asked sceptically.
‘Yes – and it might have taken him even longer than that if circumstances hadn’t changed. But they did change, and once Javier had identified Elena’s body, the killer knew he had no choice but to act quickly, so he went to the house that same night.’
‘Have I got this wrong, or do we seem to have completely abandoned the theory that there could have been two distinct killers?’ Meadows asked, somewhat waspishly.
‘No, we haven’t abandoned it,’ Paniatowski said. ‘We’re still pursuing the two lines of investigation, because we daren’t ignore either of them.’
‘Although the single killer proposition is looking stronger and stronger all the time,’ Beresford said.
‘Maybe it is,’ Meadows conceded. ‘But after what I’ve found out today, the opposite proposition is looking rather stronger, too. There seems to have been any number of people in Whitebridge who had a grudge against Javier Martinez, and would have liked to have seen him dead.’
‘Do you agree with that, Jack?’ Paniatowski asked Crane.
Crane shifted awkwardly in his chair.
‘I agree with the sergeant that any number of people might have been glad to see him dead – but I’m not sure we’ve come across anybody yet who hated him enough to actually kill him,’ he said cautiously.
Meadows gave him a look which said, ‘Thank you so much for your support, Jack.’
Then she turned her attention back on Paniatowski. ‘Martinez’s account books just don’t smell right to me,’ she said. ‘I’d like to have them put through a forensic audit.’
‘All right. I’ll see what I can do about getting you the funding,’ Paniatowski said.
‘I don’t need funding,’ Meadows told her. ‘I’ve found an accountant who’s willing to do it for free.’
Paniatowski frowned. ‘That’s unusual,’ she said.
‘Yes, it is,’ Meadows admitted. ‘But he owes me a favour.’
And knowing Meadows, Paniatowski thought, it was probably wise not to inquire too closely about the nature of the favour she’d done him.
‘And is this accountant of yours Lancashire Constabulary Approved, Kate?’ she asked.
‘Yes, he is,’ Meadows said confidently – and her eyes flashed a warning to Jack Crane that if he knew what was good for him, he’d keep his mouth very firmly shut.
‘In that case, go ahead,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Right, that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow morning, I want your lads out on the streets again, Colin. But this time, they’ll be showing round a sketch of Elena wearing the kind of hat she got in Manchester, and maybe with that we’ll have better luck pinning down her movements than we’ve had so far.’
‘Got it,’ Beresford said.
‘Kate will be busy with her forensic accountant,’ Paniatowski continued, ‘and you, Jack … you can come to Elena’s funeral.’
‘OK, boss,’ Crane said, without much enthusiasm.
‘Wrong attitude, Jack,’ Paniatowski said, a little sharply. ‘You can learn a lot from funerals, especially if you can spot people who have no reason to be there. And for a job like that, two pairs of eyes are always better than one.’
‘Right, boss,’ Crane said again, more positively this time.
And there was another advantage to having Crane at the funeral, Paniatowski thought. His presence would serve to prevent her – or Robert Martinez, or both of them – from doing anything foolish.
EIGHTEEN
It was eight-fifteen on a cold and frosty morning, and Meadows was standing outside the office at the small private aerodrome close to Manchester, looking up at the grey winter sky.
In her right hand, she was holding a bulky suitcase which contained all the financial ledgers relating to Sunshine Holidays.
In her left, she held a zipped bag containing a backless leather corset, a set of handcuffs, a mask, a wig and a collection of small whips – which was really all she needed to shuck off the identity of Detective Sergeant Kate Meadows and assume the role of Zelda, Daughter of the Night.
She could still not see the Cessna approaching, but she could hear its twin engines, buzzing away in the distance, like angry mosquitoes.
Jonathan Sowerby would be piloting the plane himself, she thought – because Jonathan Sowerby always liked to be in charge.
The Cessna emerged from behind the clouds, and as it came in to land, she thought about the last time that she and Sowerby had met, and the phone calls that he – but not she – had made following that meeting.
The plane landed perfectly, and taxied over to the hangar. And a few moments later, Sowerby was walking across the tarmac towards her.
He was a tall man, with a confident stride which hinted at a privileged background – and given that Sowerby had attended Eton College, studied at Cambridge and served as an officer in the Guards, the stride did not lie.
He drew level with her, and came to a halt.
They did not kiss, because kissing had never played any part in their relationship.
They did not hug, because when they did get to the stage of making physical contact, there was nothing warm or friendly about it.
And so they stood there for a few seconds, each carefully – and almost clinically – examining the other.
‘You’re looking wonderful, Katherine,’ Sowerby pronounced finally, with an easy drawl.
‘It’s Kate now,’ Meadows said firmly. ‘And you’re not looking too bad yourself, Jonathan.’
‘When was the last time we saw each other?’ Sowerby asked. ‘Was it in Martinique?’
Oh God, yes, it was in wonderful Martinique, all right, Meadows agreed silently.
But aloud, all she said was, ‘Yes, thinking about it, I believe it might have been there.’
‘And what a good old time we had together, didn’t we?’
‘It was good,’ Meadows agreed, because if she’d denied it, she’d have been lying – and Sowerby would have known she’d been lying, which would have put her at a definite disadvantage.
‘And yet, when I called you up to arrange a rematch, you didn’t seem interested,’ Sowerby said, sounding both a little hurt and a little mystified. ‘Why was that?’
Because it was too good a time, Meadows thought – because I was in danger of losing my independence.
She shrugged. ‘I suppose it was because we’d done what we wanted to do, and I’d moved on,’ she said. ‘That’s what I do.’
‘Are you really as unemotional about sex as you seem to be – or is it all a pretence?’ Sowerby wondered.
‘I’m not unemotional about sex at all,’ Meadows countered.
‘No?’
‘No. I get very emotional about sex. What I think you’re doing, Jonathan, is confusing emotion and affection – and I much prefer to save my affection for my friends.’
‘I didn’t know you had any friends,’ Sowerby said, with a hint of maliciousness in his voice.
‘I didn’t used to have any – not when you knew me – but I do now,’ Meadows said.
And what an unusual collection of friends they were, she thought – a Polish chief inspector who was sometimes plagued with doubts over her own ability; a detective inspector who could sometimes act like a throwback and with whom she had once had gentle – and therefore disastrous – sex; and a sweet young detective constable who could have been a poet.
‘So when you do have sex, you’re just using your partner, are you?’ Sowerby asked accusingly.
‘Yes, and my partner’s just using me,’ Meadows replied. ‘I find that works out nicely for everyone concerned.’
‘That could be very hurtful for someone who has real feelings for you.’
Meadows smiled. ‘And do you have feelings for me, Jonathan?�
��
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’
‘Honestly?’ Meadows challenged, looking into his eyes.
‘Well, no,’ Sowerby admitted. ‘If the truth be told, I’m not sure I even like you.’
‘But you do want to have sex with me?’
‘Desperately.’
Of course he did. That was why, when she’d rung him, he had dropped whatever high-level financial negotiations he was conducting in Frankfurt, and had flown straight to Lancashire.
‘I’ve booked a hotel room,’ Meadows said. ‘You can go over the books there.’
‘I don’t suppose we could have a little session before we get down to work, could we?’ Sowerby asked hopefully.
‘A sort of payment in advance?’
‘If that’s the way you want to look at it.’
‘No,’ Meadows said, ‘we couldn’t.’
‘Oh come on, Katherine, you know that you want it as much as I do,’ Sowerby cajoled.
‘It’s Kate,’ Meadows reminded him. ‘And yes, I do want it as much as you do – but I’m strong enough to put business before pleasure.’
As they approached the sign which said that Arco de Cañas was only three kilometres away, Paco pulled into the side of the road.
‘It is time for me and my little car to don our disguises, Charlie,’ he told Woodend.
From his small travelling suitcase in the boot, he produced a portrait of General Franco, and a Fuerza Nueva key ring. He tacked the portrait to the back window, and hung the key ring from his rear-view mirror.
‘Do you think those little changes will be enough to fool them?’ Woodend asked.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Paco replied. ‘Fascists are greedy, and fascists are ruthless – but no one ever accused them of being intelligent.’
Arco de Cañas was bigger than Val de Montaña, just as the soldiers had claimed so long ago, but it was still no more than a small, dreary town in the middle of a large, empty plain, which had no more interest in the modern world than the modern world had in it.
Paco parked in the town square, and looked around. There were three bars under the arcade, but only one of them – the Bar del Pueblo – had the sound of martial music blearing from it.
‘I assume that’s the place we’ll be going into,’ Woodend said.
‘No,’ Paco replied. ‘First we go to one of the other bars, to give the men in Bar del Pueblo time to do what they need to do.’
The bar Paco chose was called Pedro’s, and they were the only customers. They ordered a glass of wine each, and then Paco positioned himself at the window. He did not have to wait long before four old men emerged from the Bar del Pueblo, crossed the square, and stood looking at his little car.
‘Fascists are so predictable,’ he said, with some disgust. ‘If they had not had help from Hitler and Mussolini, we would have beaten them hollow.’
The four old men had finished their inspection of the Seat 500, and walked slowly back to the Bar del Pueblo.
‘And now we join them?’ Woodend asked.
‘Now I join them,’ Paco replied. ‘If this is going to work, you must content yourself with the role of observer.’
Javier Martinez’s neighbours on Tufton Court were not pleased to see Detective Constable Andrew Bailey.
They had already told the police – more than once – that they had never seen the woman in the sketch, they said, and if he thought that drawing a hat on her head would make them admit that they had seen her, he was very much mistaken.
Bailey was neither surprised nor disappointed. If he had been watching the Martinez house – which was, apparently, DCI Paniatowski’s latest theory on what the dead woman had done – he wouldn’t have chosen to do it from the cul-de-sac, because there was nowhere to hide, and someone would have been bound to spot him.
So where would he have positioned himself? he wondered.
He walked to the point at which the cul-de-sac met Ashton Avenue. The houses on this road were not as large as the ones in Tufton Court, but they were still substantial dwellings with double frontages – family homes – and anyone hanging around in front of them would have been very conspicuous.
He shifted his gaze. Fifty yards down the road was a copse of trees for which the council – in the interest of creating a balanced environment, and much to the annoyance of the owner – had refused to grant planning permission.
It’s certainly a possibility, he thought.
He walked across to the copse and stood between two of the trees. From there, he had a clear view of the entrance to Tufton Court. At that distance, it wasn’t a perfect view, of course, but it was close enough for him to see that the man just turning into the court was probably middle-aged. And choosing that particular location had another advantage, which was that while he was not exactly invisible, he probably wouldn’t be noticed by anyone who wasn’t specifically looking at the copse.
It was unfortunate that the ground was hard – and had been the previous week – because there would be no footprints. But if the woman in the hat had been there, she might have left some other evidence.
He looked around, and his eyes fell on a small red object. He picked it up and found that it was a piece of meat, and though it was too frozen for him to smell, he was almost certain that it was something called chorizo, which he had once tried when on holiday in Spain, and hadn’t liked very much.
He took an envelope out of his pocket, and slipped the meat into it. It was a good morning’s work, he told himself, and it would earn him brownie points with Shagger Beresford, who was the inspector in charge of the team.
It was when he turned around again that he noticed the curtain move in the house across the road from the copse.
Could he be that lucky, he wondered?
It appeared that he could.
He crossed the road and knocked on the front door. It was some time before his knock was answered, the reason for which was quickly explained by the fact that the old woman who opened the door was using a Zimmer frame.
‘I’m from the Whitebridge police,’ Bailey explained. ‘Have you talked to us before?’
‘Talked to you before?’ the old woman repeated. ‘Well, I used to talk to the constable on the beat, but it’s all cars these days, isn’t it?’
Bailey smiled indulgently. ‘I meant, has any policeman talked to you about this woman?’ he said, holding up the artist’s sketch.
‘Oh, her!’ the old woman said. ‘No, nobody’s talked to me about her.’
‘But you have seen her?’
‘Yes, of course I have. I couldn’t miss her.’
Bailey felt his heart skip a beat.
‘It’s a bit cold for both of us, standing on the doorstep,’ he said. ‘Would it be all right if I came in?’
‘I suppose so,’ the old woman said.
The old woman’s name was Mrs Potts, and she suffered from an arthritis the like of which no woman in human history had ever had to suffer before.
‘So I don’t get around much,’ she told Bailey, once they were in the living room which overlooked the copse. ‘That’s why I spend so much time looking out of the window. It’s nice to watch the world go by.’
‘If you saw the woman, why didn’t you contact us before now?’ Bailey asked, in an effort to establish whether she was any more than a lonely old lady who would say anything to get a bit of company.
‘I didn’t know you were looking for her,’ Mrs Potts replied.
‘But surely you must have seen the picture in all the newspapers,’ Bailey prodded.
‘Don’t read them,’ Mrs Potts said.
‘Or seen it on the news?’
‘Don’t watch the news. It’s too depressing.’
‘So tell me about this woman,’ Bailey suggested.
‘The first time I noticed her was last Tuesday afternoon.’
‘You’re sure it was Tuesday?’
‘Yes, I’d just been watching my favourite programme on the televisi
on when I saw her. It only comes on once a week, and it’s always on a Tuesday.’
‘So what was she doing?’
‘Nothing. Just standing there.’
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know. Once it gets dark, you can’t really see across the road, so she could have been there, and I wouldn’t have known it.’
She wouldn’t have been there after dark, because she wouldn’t have been able to see the turning into Tufton Court, either, Bailey thought.
‘When did you see her again?’ he asked.
‘She was back there the next morning.’
‘Didn’t that worry you?’
‘Why would it? It wasn’t as if she was a young thug or something. She was an old woman, just like me, though you could tell from the way she moved that she didn’t suffer like I do.’
‘How long did she stay there on Wednesday?’
‘All day. She must have been cold. I’d have offered her a cup of tea, but there was no way I could have crossed that road – with my legs – to ask her.’
‘And you don’t know when she left?’ Bailey asked.
‘As a matter of fact, I do know,’ Mrs Potts said.
‘So when was it?’
‘She left just as dusk was falling.’
Many, many brownie points, Bailey thought happily.
The Bar del Pueblo was bigger than the one that Woodend and Ruiz had just left. It had a long zinc counter, and behind the counter there was a large picture of General Franco and two crossed Spanish flags. The loud military music they’d heard earlier had, it seemed, been coming from the radio, but now it had ended, and there was only a man’s voice explaining how the general’s tragic death had been an almost incalculable loss to Spain.
‘Sit down over there,’ Paco said to Woodend, pointing to a table which was as far as it could be from the table at which the only other customers – the four old men who had inspected his car – were sitting.
Paco walked over to the bar. In the mirror behind it, he could see that one of the old men had stood up and was walking towards him, and as he ordered the drinks, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He turned. The other man was in his late sixties, he guessed. He had a low forehead, and eyes which showed cunning, rather than intelligence.
Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire Page 19