The Dead Hand of History

by Sally Spencer

  ‘We now not only know the names of the two victims,’ she said, forcing herself to continue, ‘but we’ve established a connection between them – that they both worked in Brunskill’s Bakery.’

  ‘Yes, you have to say that luck’s certainly been on our side so far,’ Walker commented.

  But he didn’t mean that at all, Paniatowski thought.

  What he’d actually wanted to say was, ‘If we have made a good start, then that’s all down to me – because I’m the one who led us to Brunskill’s Bakery in the first place.’

  But he couldn’t say that, could he? Not without reminding the others of the corners he’d cut, and the breaches of discipline that involved.

  So all he’d done had been to draw the picture – and let Paniatowski and Beresford fill in the caption for themselves.

  ‘Can I ask a question, ma’am?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘You don’t need to ask my permission,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘That’s not how we work on this team – especially when we’ve left the office behind us and we’re in the Drum.’ She paused to light up a cigarette. ‘So what was it you wanted to ask, Ted?’

  ‘I was just wondering why we hadn’t arrested the Polack yet,’ Walker said. Then he remembered – belatedly – that Paniatowski wasn’t exactly a Lancashire name, and quickly added, ‘What I mean is, I was wondering why we hadn’t arrested Mr Szym . . . Mr Szym . . . why we haven’t arrested Stan.’

  ‘Do you think he’s our man?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘No question about it in my mind. After all, he is the husband, and he doesn’t have an alibi for any of the time between leaving the bakery last night and turning up for work this morning.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘And, as you know yourself, ma’am, in cases like this, it’s nearly always the husband who did it.’

  That was true, Paniatowski thought – very depressing, but true enough nonetheless.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ Walker continued, ‘you’ve got to really hate somebody to cut their bloody hands off, haven’t you – and where else do you find that kind of hatred but in marriages?’

  ‘How do you see Tom Whittington’s death fitting into the scheme of things?’ Paniatowski wondered.

  ‘Oh, that’s an easy question to answer,’ Walker said. ‘He was Linda Thingy’s lover.’

  ‘Linda Szymborska’s lover.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  And that, too, was probably all too depressingly true, Paniatowski thought. It was only too easy to see how Linda would have been attracted to Tom, who was – whichever way you looked at it – little more than a younger version of the man she’d chosen to marry.

  ‘So it was a crime of passion?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Walker agreed.

  ‘But crimes of passion are normally committed in the heat of the moment,’ Beresford said.

  ‘Ah, I see what you’re getting at, Inspector,’ Walker replied. ‘Since we know that the note Stan sent to Traynor will have taken him some time to prepare, it can’t have been in the heat of the moment at all.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Beresford agreed.

  ‘So it’s more of a cold passion we’re talking about here.’

  ‘A cold passion?’

  ‘One that probably has much more to do with pride than it does with love.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Beresford said, reluctantly. ‘But what was the point of the pantomime after the murder?’

  ‘What pantomime?’

  ‘Why did he cut their hands off?’

  ‘Maybe that’s what they do in Poland when they find out that the wife’s been having it off with somebody else.’

  ‘What exactly do you think Poland is like?’ Paniatowski asked, angry over what she saw as an attack on the reputation of a country she had not lived in since she was a small child. ‘Do you see it as some kind of exotic Third World country, Sergeant?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly exotic,’ Walker said.

  ‘And why did he draw attention to what he’d done?’ Beresford asked, like a dodgy plasterer hurriedly smoothing over the cracks. ‘Why phone the press after he’d dumped the first hand, and send a note to Mike Traynor, telling him where the second hand was?’

  Walker shrugged. ‘Who knows? You have to remember that foreigners just don’t think like us.’ He realized that he’d put his foot in it again. ‘I didn’t mean you, ma’am. You’re different, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Of course you are. You’ve been living here for so long that you’re almost English.’

  ‘Stan Szymborska’s been living here a long time as well,’ Paniatowski pointed out. ‘He was stationed here during the war, and after the war – weighed down by the medals he’d won as a fighter pilot – he came back.’

  ‘I’m not disputing he did his bit in helping to defeat Hitler,’ Walker conceded, ‘but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t capable of killing his wife, does it?’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘it doesn’t.’

  ‘And if you recall, ma’am, I did point out this morning, right after the first hand was discovered on the river bank, that I thought there was a military mind behind it.’

  Yes, there was no disputing that, Paniatowski thought.

  ‘If Linda Szymborska was having an affair with Tom Whittington,’ she said aloud, ‘then someone will have known about it, however careful they’ve been about not being seen together.’ She turned to Beresford. ‘And we need to find out who that someone is, Colin.’

  ‘You’re thinking they must have had a secret rendezvous somewhere?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’ll have all the hotels in a twenty-mile radius checked out first thing in the morning.’

  ‘In that case, you’ll need this,’ Paniatowski said, placing a plain brown envelope on the table.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A photograph of Brunskill Bakery’s annual outing to Blackpool. I want you to have copies made and shown to all the hotel receptionists.’

  Beresford studied the picture for a moment. ‘Individual photographs would probably be better,’ he said.

  ‘But we haven’t got individual photographs yet,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘In fact, given that Tom Whittington appears to have been both shy and a bit of loner, we don’t even know if there is an individual photograph of him. Besides, look on the positive side of things.’

  ‘The positive side?’

  ‘If a receptionist at one of the hotels can pick out two people from a group – rather than from individual photographs – it’s a pretty good indication that we’re on solid ground.’

  ‘You’ve got a point,’ Beresford agreed.

  ‘Another priority is to check out Tom Whittington’s flat and Linda Szymborska’s house,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I’ll see to that myself. And we also need more information on Linda and Stan’s marriage. If we ask him about it, I’ve no doubt he’ll claim that it was a marriage made in heaven, and that – until last night – there was never a cross word between them. And Jenny Brunskill will probably tell us the same – because she’s a loyal little thing. So what we need to do is talk to people who don’t have quite as much invested in the perfect-marriage theory.’

  ‘I’ll handle that,’ Walker offered.

  Oh no, you won’t, Paniatowski thought. I don’t want you jumping into anything as delicate as that with your size-nine boots.

  ‘There’s another job I have in mind for you,’ she said. ‘I want you to be in charge of the search.’

  ‘The search? For Linda Thingy’s and Tom Whittington’s bodies?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Walker sighed heavily. ‘If that’s what you really want, ma’am. You’re the boss, and I’m here to do no more than your bidding.’

  ‘But I take it from your sigh that you’re not very enthusiastic about the idea yourself?’

  ‘If I’m honest, ma’am, no, I’m not
. As I see it, it’ll be a waste of resources which could be more usefully employed elsewhere.’

  ‘In what way will it be a waste of resources?’

  ‘I’d have thought that was obvious.’

  ‘Not to me, it isn’t.’

  ‘We have almost no chance of actually finding the bodies, because they could be anywhere in Lancashire by now – or maybe even further afield than that,’ Walker said.

  ‘They could be – but I don’t think they are,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘It takes time to move bodies around, and given that both of the victims must have been killed after they left work—’

  ‘It’s true, they were, but that’s more than twenty-four hours ago now,’ Walker interrupted.

  ‘. . . and that Stan, if he is the killer, has been in his office for most of the day, that time simply hasn’t been available.’

  ‘He could have shifted them overnight,’ Walker said.

  ‘Could he?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘If you’d just murdered two people, would you put their bodies – still leaking all kinds of unpleasant fluids – into the boot of your car and drive through central Lancashire in the dark with them?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I wouldn’t, because even assuming you could fit both of them into the boot, think of the risk you’d be running. You might have an accident. People do – even careful drivers. You might be stopped by a random police roadside check – and there are plenty of those around, now that the traffic units are clamping down on drunk-driving.’

  ‘That’s true, but . . .’

  ‘Our killer’s planned out everything far too carefully to be willing to take that kind of chance. So I think the bodies are still here – somewhere in Whitebridge. And having heard my arguments, don’t you agree, Sergeant?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Walker said reluctantly.

  ‘And given the careful man we think he is, the odds are that he chose to commit the actual murders somewhere he knew he could safely leave the bodies once it was all over,’ Paniatowski continued, ‘because even moving them a short distance involves an element of risk.’

  ‘Which means that you won’t just be finding the bodies,’ Beresford added supportively, ‘you’ll also be uncovering the scene of the crime – which is far more significant.’

  ‘Because we all know that however careful they are, murderers almost always leave at least one clue at the crime scene,’ Paniatowski concluded. ‘Isn’t that true, Inspector Beresford?’

  ‘It is, ma’am,’ Beresford concurred.

  ‘And you’d agree with that, too, wouldn’t you, Sergeant Walker?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Yes, they usually do,’ Walker conceded.

  Paniatowski glanced down her watch, and then knocked back her remaining vodka.

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ she said, standing up. ‘We’ve done all we can for one day, we already know what we’ve all got to do tomorrow – and I’m going home.’

  ‘There’s just one more thing, ma’am,’ Walker said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You will remember that it was me who first suggested Stan as a suspect, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Paniatowski promised. ‘I’ll remember.’

  ELVEN

  Lily Perkins had been Louisa Paniatowski’s nanny from the time Monika had adopted the four-year-old until her sixth birthday party, which was the occasion that the little girl chose for her historic announcement.

  ‘I don’t need a nanny any more,’ she said, with deadly seriousness, after the candles had been blown out, the presents had all been opened and her guests were finally gone.

  Paniatowski looked at the girl worriedly, and even the subject of the conversation herself, who was standing at the other end of the room, seemed somewhat concerned.

  ‘You’re not upset with Lily, are you?’ Monika asked.

  ‘Course not,’ Louisa replied in an offhand way which indicated that she thought that was just the kind of stupid question you could expect from grown-ups. ‘I love Lily – but I’m too old for a nanny now.’

  Paniatowski relaxed. ‘So you are,’ she agreed. ‘I’m sorry, Lily, but you’re just going to have to go.’

  ‘Go?’ Louisa repeated, her lower lip already starting to tremble.

  ‘Or how about this for an idea?’ Paniatowski said quickly, before the tears could begin to fall. ‘We give Lily the sack as your nanny, and we hire her to do our cooking and cleaning for us?’

  ‘That is a good idea!’ Louisa agreed, with obvious relief.

  And so Nanny Lily had been banished from the house forever, and Housekeeper Lily had immediately taken her place.

  Lily Perkins finished polishing the cooker hob and turned around to inspect the rest of the kitchen. She’d done a good job on it, she decided, a job that would satisfy even the most demanding of employers – so it would certainly more than satisfy Monika, who left half her mind in police headquarters and hardly even noticed what the house looked like.

  There was the sound of a key turning in the front door, and Lily stripped off her rubber gloves and made her way to the hall.

  ‘Thank the Lord you’re home,’ she said, as her employer stepped across the threshold.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter? Is something wrong?’ Paniatowski asked, with obvious alarm.

  ‘Al-Jebra,’ Lily said darkly.

  ‘Al-Jebra?’

  ‘You know! It’s like doing normal sums, but you use letters instead of numbers.’

  Algebra! Paniatowski thought, with relief.

  ‘It was all right when Louisa was in primary school,’ Lily continued. ‘Then all I had to do was help her decide what crayon to use to colour things in with, and I was quite good at that. But I tell you, Monika, the stuff that she’s bringing home now gives me a blinding headache. I’ve explained to her I’m well out of my depth – but, even so, I do so hate to disappoint the little lass.’

  Paniatowski smiled. Lily was a real treasure, she thought, and though the woman might not be much in the brain stakes, she was full of common sense and had a heart as big as a double-decker bus.

  Lily was already reaching for her coat from the hallway rack.

  ‘If I rush, I’ll just be in time for bingo,’ she explained. ‘To tell you the truth, I was fully resigned to missing it tonight.’

  ‘I told you I’d be home by eight.’

  ‘So you did.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘But what with you starting a new job, and there being a new murder to investigate, I took all that with a pinch of salt.’

  ‘I said I’d be home at eight and I am home at eight,’ Paniatowski said defensively. ‘I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lily said, unimpressed. ‘A new leaf, you say.’

  ‘A new leaf,’ Paniatowski repeated.

  ‘Well, we’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?’ Lily asked sceptically, as she headed through the door.

  Louisa was sitting at her desk, her pencil clutched tightly in her hand and her tongue pensively licking the corner of her mouth as she tried to penetrate the mysteries of Al-Jebra.

  She really was a beautiful child, Paniatowski thought, watching her from the doorway – her skin was olive brown, her eyes were dark pools, and her hair was as jet-black as the coat of an Andalusian stallion.

  She looked so much like her natural mother, and Paniatowski often found herself wondering just how much Louisa actually remembered of the woman who had been murdered by mistake.

  She wondered, but she didn’t ask, because since the child had never brought the subject up herself, she didn’t feel brave enough to bring it up either.

  Louisa sensed her presence, and looked up, smiling.

  ‘You’re home early, Mum,’ she said.

  ‘I’m trying to turn over a new leaf,’ Paniatowski said, for the third time in as many minutes.

  Louisa rolled her eyes in disbelief.

  ‘Right,’ she
agreed. ‘You’re turning over a new leaf. And there really is a Father Christmas.’

  ‘Don’t make me feel guilty,’ Paniatowski pleaded silently. ‘Not tonight. Not on my first day in a job that I’m not even sure I can handle.’

  ‘Cheer up, Mum,’ Louisa said. ‘It was only a joke, you know.’

  Paniatowski forced herself to smile.

  ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘Of course I do. So, tell me, how’s the homework going?’

  ‘It didn’t make any sense at first, but I think I understand it now,’ Louisa said seriously. ‘You can check it, if you like.’

  ‘I’d be more than delighted to,’ Paniatowski said, pulling up a chair and sitting down beside her. ‘In fact, I’d be honoured to.’

  Louisa giggled. ‘You do lay it on a bit thick sometimes, Mum, you know,’ she said.

  Yes, I suppose I do, Paniatowski thought. But that’s because I’m trying to be both mother and father to you – and there are times when I think I’m not up to either job.

  ‘By the way,’ she said aloud, as she checked through Louisa’s homework, ‘I’ve got a message for you.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Dr Shastri. She sends her love.’

  Louisa looked puzzled. ‘Do I know any Dr Shastri?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course you do. She’s the police doctor.’

  ‘Oh, Auntie Putibai!’ said Louisa, as the penny dropped.

  ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘Didn’t you know that’s her name?’ Louisa asked quizzically.

  No, Paniatowski admitted, I didn’t.

  In fact, she’d be willing to bet that there was no one in the Mid-Lancs Constabulary who did.

  She had worked with Dr Shastri for over ten years, and they had become friends – at least to the extent that the doctor’s familiar-yet-distant attitude ever allowed anyone to become her friend – but Shastri had never volunteered her name, and, as time went by, it had grown increasingly difficult, not knowing it already, to ask what it was.

  Besides, it didn’t seem quite right that Shastri should have a first name, as if she was just an ordinary mortal like the rest of them.