She had thought long and hard before taking the decision to release the names. She didn’t want to do it – it was too early in the drama to drench the stage with light – but she had reluctantly decided that she had no choice.
The problem was Jenny Brunskill. She, like her brother-in-law, had promised to say nothing, but Paniatowski had little confidence in that promise.
It would not have been more than an hour, she guessed, before Jenny Brunskill had rung a friend, and – after swearing her to secrecy – had tearfully poured out the whole tragic tale. And the friend, in turn, would have rung another friend and extracted the same promise – so that already, even this early in the morning, there were probably at least a score of people who already knew that Linda Szymborska had been murdered.
And the process would both escalate and mutate. Jenny’s account would grow in the telling, and by the time a hundred people got to hear it (and that would not take too long), it would be distorted beyond belief.
Better to nip it in the bud, then – even if that did make investigating the case more difficult.
The caretaker coughed. ‘I said, you didn’t mention why you wanted to look round the flat,’ he repeated.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘If I remember rightly, all I did do was show you the warrant which gives me the right to carry out the search.’
The caretaker rubbed his nose pensively. ‘Mr Whittington isn’t in any sort of trouble, is he?’ he persisted.
‘Can you think of any particular reason why he might be?’ Paniatowski countered.
The caretaker shrugged to indicate that he couldn’t, and opened the door. ‘Want me to come in with you?’ he asked hopefully.
‘I can manage.’
‘I can show you how things work.’
‘I’m searching the place – not thinking of buying it.’
‘Only trying to be helpful,’ the caretaker grumbled.
Then he turned and walked reluctantly back to the lift.
This was like taking a journey back in time, Paniatowski thought, as she stepped into Tom Whittington’s hallway – and it was not a particularly pleasant journey, at that.
Her first sight of the lounge came as a shock. She had expected it to have the same basic layout as her old flat – and so it did – but what she had not expected was how much the furnishings would remind her of the furnishings she had once owned.
She wondered why it should seem so familiar, when, to all intents and purposes, it was not the same at all.
The three-piece suite, for example, was of an entirely different colour and material to hers.
The coffee table had a tiled surface, instead of wood veneer.
And yet . . .
And yet she still could not overcome the strong feeling of eerie familiarity.
And suddenly, she thought she had it! It was that the furniture was there to simply fulfil a function – and nothing more.
Tom Whittington hadn’t agonized over which three-piece suite would best express his personality. He had needed somewhere to sit, and so he had gone down to the nearest furniture shop and had bought whatever it had in stock at the price he was prepared to pay.
Just as she had done herself!
She crossed the room to the kitchen, which was tucked away in a corner. When she’d lived in the Court, she had rarely cooked. And why should she have? What would have been the point of lavishing time and effort on a meal she would end up eating alone?
She opened one of the cupboards and peered inside. There were only a few pans, and even they looked as if they had hardly ever been used. She opened the fridge and found only milk and orange juice.
It was already becoming clear that Tom Whittington’s attitude to catering was virtually identical to her own. In fact, she thought, they seemed alike in so many ways.
She wondered if he had been as lonely as she had – if he had thrown himself into his work because it was the only thing which gave meaning and purpose to his life. And if he had been that lonely, whether the aching emptiness inside him had resulted in him embarking on a dangerous affair with his boss – an affair that had cost him his life.
From the vantage point of the kitchen counter, she surveyed the lounge.
The room was far from tidy. In one corner, there was a heap of discarded clothing. At least half a dozen newspapers were strewn across the floor next to the sofa. And several coffee cups, some already growing fur, lined the mantelshelf.
There was nothing unusual in any of this, Paniatowski thought. If anything, it was typical of the kind of bachelor who, without a mum to look after him, quickly allowed himself to fall into bad habits.
So why did it jar?
She ran her finger along one of the kitchen shelves, and got her answer. It had been dusted recently.
She checked the rest of the fitments in both the kitchen and the bathroom, and discovered that everything was sparkling.
The furniture, too, had been recently polished.
So what kind of sense did that make? she wondered.
Why would Whittington have cleaned his flat from top to bottom, yet neglected to tidy up the old newspapers and dirty laundry?
It didn’t make any kind of sense at all, she thought, answering her own question.
She began a slow and methodical search of the flat. It was pretty much as she’d expected. There was a small bookcase containing a couple of dozen popular paperbacks, none of which, she found when she checked them, had been used to hide anything. There was a small stereo system, and a stack of long-playing records, but nothing was hidden in the record sleeves either.
Whittington seemed to have received no mail other than bills and special offers, nor was there any other indication – apart from a packet of condoms in the bathroom cabinet – that he knew anyone else in the entire world. It was a depressing life he seemed to have led, and Paniatowski thanked God that it wasn’t her life any more.
It was only when she was giving the place one final look-over – and decided to move the sofa to see if there was anything underneath – that she hit pay dirt. Lying under the sofa was a headscarf with the Liberty’s label. It looked genuine – and running it through her fingers, she decided it was genuine.
A Liberty silk scarf!
How many women could have persuaded themselves that they were entitled to such an indulgence?
And of those who did, how many would have been careless enough to leave it behind in someone else’s flat?
Paniatowski could only think of one.
SIXTEEN
On the street of expensive detached houses, surrounded by their own beautifully manicured grounds, the slightly battered Ford Escort stood out like costume jewellery in Tiffany’s window.
It didn’t bother DS Walker that he was being so conspicuous. In fact, he wanted Stan What’s-’is-name to know that he was being watched – wanted the Polish bastard to feel the noose tightening around his neck.
Not that nooses tightened around anybody’s neck any more, he thought regretfully.
The good old days of criminals plunging to their deaths – their necks broken and their bowels opening – were long gone. The bleeding-heart liberals had seen to that.
But who knew, maybe the pendulum would swing back once again, and the judges could joyfully take their black caps out of mothballs.
Walker had no definite or carefully worked-out plan for collaring the Pole. But he was certain that if he stayed there long enough, Stan would come out of the house and do something suspicious – or at least do something that could be argued to have been suspicious – which would give him all the excuse he needed to pull his suspect in.
And once he had him in the interview room – war hero or no war hero – the man would crack.
Walker smiled as he imagined the look on the face of that other bloody Pole – DCI Paniatowski – when he handed her the investigation on a plate.
Pissed off? That wouldn’t come near it.
He glanced down at his
wristwatch, and saw that it was already eleven thirty-five.
Why didn’t the bastard come out, he wondered.
Probably because he was putting on a show – pretending to be in deep mourning for the poor bloody woman whose hand he’d cut off.
As if that was going to fool anybody!
Still, if he wasn’t coming out, he wasn’t coming out, Walker told himself – and since the pubs were already open, it was pointless to stay there in the vague hope that he would.
He turned the ignition key in the Escort, slipped into gear and pulled away from the kerb.
The Chorley Court porter was back behind his desk, with a Player’s No. 6 cigarette in his hand and a martyred look filling his face.
‘Have you finished?’ he asked.
‘I’ve finished,’ Paniatowski confirmed.
‘An’ have you made sure the door locked itself behind you?’
‘It’s locked.’
‘Are you certain, because if it isn’t, I’ll have to . . .’
‘I double-checked it,’ Paniatowski assured him. She paused for a second. ‘Do you remember Mr Whittington having many visitors?’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ the porter replied, looking away.
He had been rebuffed – excluded from the mysteries of the police investigation – and as a consequence he was being awkward, Paniatowski thought. If she was ever going to get his cooperation, she would have to throw him at least one small titbit.
She glanced over her shoulder – the better to increase the drama surrounding the coming revelation – then whispered, ‘You mustn’t tell this to a soul, but he’s been murdered.’
‘Murdered!’ the caretaker gasped, and the expression which came to his face said that while he had been hoping for a bit of juicy gossip, he had never expected it would be this good.
‘Do you remember reading about a man’s severed hand in the papers this morning?’ Paniatowski continued, still conspiratorial.
‘Yes?’
‘It was his.’
The porter nodded sagely. ‘I thought it must have been,’ he said, conveniently ignoring his very recent astonishment.
‘So now you see how vital your answers to my questions might be?’ Paniatowski asked.
The caretaker puffed out his chest, and nodded again – self-importantly this time.
‘Mr Whittington didn’t spend that much time here, but when he did, he kept himself pretty much to himself,’ he said.
The more I learn about him, the more he sounds like the me that I used to be, Paniatowski thought.
‘Yes,’ the porter continued, ‘it would be fair to say that he didn’t usually have any visitors at all.’
‘But occasionally he did?’ asked Paniatowski, picking up on the emphasis, just as he’d expected her to.
‘Yes, occasionally he did,’ the porter said, with gravity. ‘There was this woman who came here a few times.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘I couldn’t say, exactly. You see, she always wore a headscarf. And big sunglasses! In Lancashire! Now I ask you, how often do you need to wear sunglasses in Lancashire?’
‘But even in the headscarf and sunglasses, you’ll have got a general impression of her,’ Paniatowski coaxed. ‘How tall was she?’
‘About medium height – maybe just an inch or two shorter than you.’
Which would make her just about Linda’s height, Paniatowski thought.
‘And how old would you say she was?’
‘This is only a guess, but from the way she moved I’d put her somewhere in her thirties.’
Which, by what was probably no coincidence at all, was Linda’s age.
She was still a long way from being able to claim she’d got a positive identification, Paniatowski thought – but she was certainly getting closer to it by the minute.
‘What about her hair?’ she asked.
‘Couldn’t see the colour, but I know it was long.’
‘How do you know it was long?’ Paniatowski asked suspiciously.
‘You know how women’s hair looks, when they just cram it inside the headscarf, instead of making a proper job of pinning it up?’ the porter asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s how her hair looked – bunched up inside the headscarf.’
‘But if it hadn’t been bunched up, how long would it have been?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Would it have reached her shoulders?’
‘Easily,’ the porter said.
‘Tell me about the headscarf,’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘I only saw it from a distance.’
‘But you must still have got some impression of it.’
The porter thought about it. ‘Let me put it like this,’ he said finally. ‘I’m no expert on women’s clothes, but I wouldn’t have said it was the kind of headscarf you could have bought in Woolworth’s.’
Paniatowski took an evidence envelope out of her bag, and held it up for him to see.
‘Was this the headscarf that the woman you saw visiting Mr Whittington was wearing?’ she asked.
‘It might have been,’ the porter replied. ‘If not, it was certainly one very similar.’
‘Can you remember the last time you saw the woman?’
‘It must have been the night before last.’
The night that Tom Whittington and Linda Szymborska were murdered, Paniatowski noted.
‘Do you have any idea of the actual time the woman was here?’
‘I’d just finished watching The Nine O’Clock News on the telly, and was going round the place locking up. So that would make it . . . What? About nine thirty-five, would you say?’
‘Something like that,’ Paniatowski agreed.
The porter’s mouth suddenly fell open, as if his train of thought, though slow and ponderous, had finally pulled into the station.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘according to the paper, it wasn’t just a man’s hand that turned up – it was a woman’s as well.’
‘That’s right,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘And did the woman’s hand belong to the woman in the headscarf – the one who was having it off with Tom Whittington?’
Of course it bloody did! Paniatowski thought.
‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,’ she said.
DC Blake was known among his friends for both his off-beat sense of humour and his self-confidence. He was rather proud of the fact that he had been the one to introduce the term ‘dirty weekend’ in Inspector Beresford’s briefing session, though a little embarrassed that, before being so worldly-wise, he’d raised his hand for permission to speak. Still, that could be glossed over later, and he knew from experience that by the time he’d re-told the tale for the third or fourth time, the hand-raising would have been transformed into a gesture designed to take the piss out of authority.
The Old Oak Tree Inn in Knorsbury had impressed him from the moment he had driven up to it. It had a heavy stone roof and mullioned windows. Ivy grew up the thick stone walls, and bees flitted between flowers in the immaculate gardens. It was, he decided, the kind of place you never really thought existed outside the world of chocolate-box tops – and if it was also the kind of place you used for dirty weekends, then dirty weekends were starting to look like a jolly good idea.
The receptionist at the Old Oak Tree was a serious-looking middle-aged woman with her hair drawn into a tight bun. No doubt that severe expression of hers melted when she was greeting the inn’s guests, Blake thought, but it certainly showed no signs of melting for a mere detective constable, and the way she looked at him made him feel about seven years old.
‘I’d like you to take a careful look at this photograph, if you wouldn’t mind, madam,’ Blake said, laying the picture of the Brunskill’s works outing down on the counter.
‘I am not a “madam”,’ the woman said haughtily. ‘I am Miss Dobbs – and I would be grateful if that was how you addressed me.’
‘Right,’ Blake agreed. ‘
Sorry about that. So could you look at the photograph, Miss Dobbs?’
The receptionist took one pair of horn-rimmed spectacles off her nose and replaced them with another, almost identical, pair.
‘This is a photograph of a charabanc outing – a day trip to the seaside,’ Miss Dobbs said, in a tone which managed to convey her evident disdain for such working-class frivolities.
‘Yes, it is,’ Blake agreed.
‘I would have thought that the least you could have done would have been to produce individual photographs of the person or persons who you were interested in,’ Miss Dobbs said.
‘Well, of course, we could have done that, but this is so much better,’ Blake replied.
‘Is it?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s called the Group Format Identification Procedure, and when they tried it out in America, it was very successful,’ Blake explained, making it up as he went along, and feeling much better for having done so.
‘I see,’ Miss Dobbs said dubiously. Then she glanced down at the photograph, and added, ‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘You asked me if I could identify any of these people in the photograph, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I can.’
She recognized someone. She bloody recognized someone, Blake thought. It was almost too good to be true.
The detective constable felt a powerful urge to ‘help’ the receptionist – just to make sure she got it right.
But then he remembered what Inspector Beresford had said, and – almost holding his breath – he asked, ‘Which ones?’
‘This man,’ said Miss Dobbs, pointing to Tom Whittington, ‘and this woman standing next to him,’ she continued, indicating Linda Szymborska.
‘How do you know them?’
‘How do you imagine I would know them, Constable? They were guests at the inn.’
Blake was tempted to say, ‘That’s Detective Constable, Miss Dobbs,’ but his nerve failed him at the last moment, and he contented himself with a simple, ‘Ah, they were guests!’
‘Are they married to one another?’ Miss Dobbs asked, her lip already curled in anticipatory contempt. ‘Or do they, as this photograph would seem to suggest, merely work together?’
The Dead Hand of History Page 14