The Dead Hand of History
Page 25
‘I’ve never hired a private detective in my life. I promise you, the idea would never have occurred to . . .’
‘Would you stand up, please, Mr Tompkins?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s hard enough to handcuff a thin man when he’s sitting down – and it would be almost impossible with a fat bastard like you.’
‘Do something, Mr Cutler,’ Tompkins gasped.
Cutler rose to his feet, his hands already bunched up into fists.
‘If I was you, I wouldn’t even think about it, Mr Cutler,’ Paniatowski advised him.
An unpleasant smirk spread across Cutler’s face. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ he asked. ‘Why not?’
‘Two reasons,’ Paniatowski said. ‘The first is that any man should think twice before assaulting a police officer.’
‘I could say you completely lost your rag, and I was only defending Mr Tompkins from your attack,’ Cutler said. He paused, thoughtfully. ‘What was your second reason?’ he wondered.
‘Oh, that!’ Paniatowski replied. ‘Well, you look to me like the kind of man who might be very dangerous if you’ve got a weapon in your hands or the element of surprise on your side – but neither of those apply here.’
‘So what?’
‘So I’m a fifth dan in judo – and in any fair contest, I’ll spatter you all over the walls.’
Cutler’s fixed smile stayed firmly in place, but his eyes were busy assessing the situation.
‘Do you know something,’ he said finally, ‘I think you might be right about that.’
‘You’d better believe it,’ Paniatowski told him.
‘And if that’s the case, then I think the best thing for me to do would be to just sit down again.’
‘Good plan,’ Paniatowski agreed.
She turned her attention back to Tompkins. The bakery owner seemed to be frozen to his chair, and with his mouth he was doing a more than competent impression of a landed fish.
‘For the second time of asking, would you please stand up, Mr Tompkins?’ she said.
‘Did you . . . did you say this photograph was taken a week last Wednesday?’ Tompkins asked.
‘Yes?’
‘And you’re sure of that?’
‘I am.’
‘But . . . but that was when the Leeds Catering Convention was on. I know that for a fact, because I was there myself.’
‘That’s no alibi,’ Paniatowski pointed out. ‘Whether or not you actually took the photograph yourself is irrelevant.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ Tompkins said, almost babbling now.
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘I wasn’t the only one at the convention. Linda was there, as well.’
‘She was certainly supposed to be there,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘And she was! She definitely was.’
‘You’re lying,’ Paniatowski said.
‘No!’
‘Then you’re merely mistaken. Possibly you caught a glimpse of a woman across a crowded room, and just assumed it was Linda.’
‘She was there,’ Tompkins insisted. ‘We had dinner together – in a crowded restaurant where dozens of people will have seen us. And after that, we went to the bar, where we spent another two hours talking about our deal.’
TWENTY-NINE
Jenny Brunskill seemed in much better shape than she had the previous day, Paniatowski thought, examining her from across the desk. She looked tidier, her hands were still and – most significantly of all – the half-crazed look had completely disappeared from her eyes.
‘Before we go any further, Chief Inspector, I want to apologize for the way I behaved the last time we met,’ Jenny said. ‘I know it’s no excuse, but I’d been under a lot of strain and . . .’
‘Forget it,’ Paniatowski said. ‘The important thing is that you’re all right now. You are all right, aren’t you?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Yes, I am.’
Paniatowski gave her a gentle smile, full of understanding and sympathy. ‘So you no longer believe that it was Warren Tompkins who was behind your sister’s murder?’
‘Of course not. The man would do almost anything to ruin us, but even he has his limits.’
‘And you accept that Stan killed both Linda and Tom Whittington in a fit of jealous rage?’
‘I still don’t want to – but I think I must.’
‘Which means you now also accept that Tom and Linda were having an affair?’
‘In some ways, that’s the hardest thing of all to come to terms with,’ Jenny said. ‘You didn’t know Linda, but if you had, you’d have found it very hard to believe, too.’ She sighed. ‘But if you say you have proof . . .’
‘I do,’ Paniatowski said, placing a copy of the works outing photograph on the desk. ‘Look at the four of you, standing on the front row – you next to Stan, Stan next to Linda and Linda next to Tom.’
Jenny Brunskill sniffed. ‘It was a different world,’ she said. ‘A much happier world. And now it’s gone for ever.’
‘It was this picture which led us to find out about the affair in the first place,’ Paniatowski explained. ‘One of my smart young detective constables showed it to the receptionist at the Old Oak Tree Inn, and she picked out Linda and Tom Whittington immediately.’
‘How could they have been so careless about it?’ Jenny wondered. ‘If only they’d been more discreet, they might both still be alive today.’
‘Do you know, I don’t think it’s anything like as simple as that,’ Paniatowski said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anyway,’ Paniatowski continued, ignoring the question, ‘since the detective constable was so young – and the young, in their enthusiasm, can make mistakes – I thought I’d better make sure he’d got it right, so I went to the Oak Tree myself. In fact, I’ve just got back.’
‘Oh?’ Jenny said, noncommittally.
‘I showed the receptionist the photograph, and again, she picked out Linda immediately. I asked her if she was sure – I was being thorough, you see – and she said yes, she was.’
‘So it looks as if there’s no doubt at all.’
‘And then I did this,’ Paniatowski said, picking up a pen, and quickly sketching in long wavy hair on the Jenny in the photograph. ‘And after I’d done that, she wasn’t sure at all.’
‘Linda was my sister,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s only natural that some people will confuse us.’
‘Linda wasn’t at the Oak Tree Inn at all that day,’ Paniatowski said. ‘She was in Leeds – just as she was supposed to be – and I can produce a dozen witnesses to confirm it.’
Jenny started to cry.
‘I should have told you that it was me, not Linda, who was having an affair with Tom,’ she said. ‘But then I thought of what Father would have said, and I was so ashamed that I just couldn’t.’
‘So you were the one at the Oak Tree Inn?’
‘Yes, isn’t that obvious?’
‘But you were driving Linda’s Jag?’
‘She was going to Leeds by train, so she said I could borrow it if I wanted to. And I said I’d like that. I’ve always been the mousy one, you see, but I felt so glamorous that day, driving a Jag and having an affair. If only I’d known then what it would lead to.’
‘What it would lead to?’ Paniatowski repeated, sounding puzzled. ‘What it would lead to? Oh, I think I see what you mean! You must be partly blaming yourself for Linda’s death.’
‘I am,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Because if I hadn’t had an affair with Tom, Stan would have had no grounds at all for suspecting that Linda had.’
‘But you did have the affair, and then Stan saw the photograph,’ Paniatowski said.
‘What photograph?’
‘The one of you and Tom, kissing in front of the Oak Tree Inn. Who took it, by the way?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And who sent it to Stan?’
‘I don’t know that, either.’
‘I don’t . . .’
‘You must know that!’
‘I do – inside me – but I can’t really explain it in words.’
‘Try!’ Paniatowski said.
‘I suppose it just felt right. Perhaps, subconsciously, I felt the need for a disguise.’
‘A disguise?’
‘That’s right. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, you see, and perhaps I thought that by wearing a disguise, it would be as if it wasn’t really me who was doing it at all.’
‘Yes, that makes sense,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘If I’d been brought up in the kind of home you were brought up in, I might have felt the need to do that, too.’ She paused for a second. ‘But what I still don’t understand is why you chose a wig which was an exact copy of your sister’s real hair.’
‘I . . .’
‘And that kiss is another thing that’s got me puzzled. So passionate! And in such a public place! What made you do it? Tom was clearly uncomfortable with the whole idea. You can tell that by the way he’s standing.’
‘I couldn’t help myself. I was in love with him.’
Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No, you weren’t. And that wasn’t why you did it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You do look a lot like your sister, but even with the wig on, you wouldn’t fool anyone who knew you really well – not unless you were partially hiding your face.’
‘I never wanted to pretend—’
‘Of course you did,’ Paniatowski interrupted. ‘When did you first learn that Stan and Linda were planning to sell the bakery?’
‘I never learned it, because that’s a lie!’
Paniatowski shrugged. ‘Have it your own way. Let’s say it was three months ago. You must have hated the fact that they were going to abandon Daddy’s little kingdom . . .’
‘Don’t you dare call him that!’ Jenny hissed angrily. ‘He wasn’t Daddy at all – he was Father.’
‘All right, that they were going to abandon your father’s little kingdom. But they held two-thirds of the voting shares between them, and so there was nothing you could do to stop them. Unless, of course, they died.’
‘What a horrible thing to say!’
‘I imagine you thought of killing both of them at first, but since you would have been the main beneficiary of their deaths, suspicion would be bound to fall on you. And there was no point in killing just one of them, was there, because the other would simply inherit the shares. But say it could be made to seem as if Stan killed Linda. He couldn’t inherit her shares, because you can’t profit from a criminal act, so they would have gone to you.’
‘It’s not true,’ Jenny said, sobbing. ‘None of it’s true.’
‘I have to give you full marks for both planning and foresight,’ Paniatowski said, unmoved. ‘When you sent the photograph to Stan, you knew exactly what would happen, didn’t you? You knew that Stan and Jenny would have a blazing row, and that Jenny – distraught at being falsely accused of having an affair – would run straight to her beloved sister for comfort. Because that’s exactly what she did, isn’t it – drove straight from her house to yours?’
‘I never saw her that night,’ Jenny said stubbornly.
‘I’m guessing that when she arrived at your door, the first thing you did was to pour her a drink with a knock-out drop in it,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘Then, once she was unconscious, you bundled her into her own car and drove to the old bakery. I’m also guessing that she was still unconscious when you tied her to the baking table. But she wasn’t unconscious when you cut her hand off, was she?’
‘I didn’t do that. It was Stan! He cut off her hand, just like he’d cut off someone’s hand before.’
‘Now how did you know about that?’ Paniatowski wondered.
‘I . . .’
‘Stan told Linda that story – and possibly she was the only one he ever told it to – because he loved and trusted her. And she told you, because you were her sister, and sisters share things. And you used that knowledge to help build up the case against Stan.’
‘I couldn’t have cut off her hand. I loved her,’ Jenny protested.
‘You might have done once,’ Paniatowski said, ‘but when she tried to destroy your father’s monument, that love quickly turned to hatred.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘Of course it is. You’ve proved that by what you did to her. You could have cut off the hand once you’d killed her, but you hated her so much that you did it while she was still alive.’
‘You’re wrong!’ Jenny said.
‘I’m right,’ Paniatowski replied firmly. ‘And then there was Tom. Poor hopeless lonely Tom. A man without friends. A man who didn’t even know how to make friends. It must have been so easy for you to seduce him. And for only the second time in his entire life, he was really happy. The first time he was happy, he stole a car in order to hold on to that happiness. And what did he do to hold on to it the second time? Did you force him to help you kill Linda?’
‘I’m not playing your mad game,’ Jenny said.
‘No, on reflection, I don’t think you did,’ Paniatowski said. ‘That was a pleasure you wouldn’t have wanted to share with anybody. But you did get him to dump Linda’s hand down on the river bank. And you did get him to ring up the press to announce the fact. And it had to be a man who made those calls, didn’t it? Because, in the careful plot you’d spun, the murderer was a man. But that was the last thing poor Tom did for you. After that, he was of no more use. In fact, it would have been dangerous to let him live, because he was the weak link in the chain. And besides, how much more convincing it would make the case against Stan look if he appeared to have killed not only his wife, but also her lover.’
‘Stan did kill them both,’ Jenny said fiercely. ‘Why won’t you . . . why won’t you believe me?’
‘But at least you didn’t make Tom suffer,’ Paniatowski said. ‘So perhaps you did care about him a little, after all. You poisoned him, and strangled him, and cut off his hand. And then you left the hand outside the newspaper office. But this time, you couldn’t let Mike Traynor know by phone – if he’d heard a woman’s voice, the whole structure you’d so carefully built up would have collapsed – so you sent him an anonymous note instead. Is there anything I’ve missed out?’
Jenny Brunskill said nothing.
‘Ah yes, the other clues. After you cleaned Tom Whittington’s flat thoroughly – to make sure there was no trace of you there – you planted one of Linda’s scarves for me to find. And you also took a pair of Stan’s shoes, which you’d dipped into his wife’s blood, and hid them at the back of his wardrobe after the first time my men searched his house. I think that’s about all. Is there anything you’d like to say?’
‘You’ll never prove any of this,’ Jenny told her.
‘Of course I will. The process has already started. You had an important meeting on the morning that Linda’s hand was found, and I’ve sent one of my men to find out if you turned up for it. And, of course, he’ll discover that you didn’t – even though it was so important – because you were too busy killing Tom and leaving his hand outside the Chronicle offices.’
‘I . . . I was too nervous to go to that meeting on my own, so I just walked around town.’
‘I’m having your home searched even as we speak. We’ll find traces of glue there – the same kind of glue as was used to stick the words to the anonymous letter that Mike Traynor received. We may even find the magazines you used to cut out the words. And we’ll find the chemist’s shop where you had the picture of you and Tom developed. I could go on, but there’s really no need to.’
‘No, there probably isn’t,’ Jenny agreed, her head slumping forward. Then she raised it again, and when she did, there was fire in her eyes. ‘I’m not ashamed o
f what I did, you know,’ she continued. ‘I did it all for Father – and he approved.’
‘Your father’s dead,’ Paniatowski said.
‘But he still talks to me. And I still talk to him. Where else do you think the plan came from?’
‘The plan?’
‘Making it seem as if Linda was having an affair! Blaming the murders on Stan! Cutting off the hands! You didn’t think that came from me, did you? Poor stupid me! Of course not! It was all Father’s idea!’
EPILOGUE
It was the morning after Jenny Brunskill’s arrest, and as Monika Paniatowski drove her red MGA past one of the old cast-iron milestones that the council had somehow never got around to replacing, she felt as if she was passing a significant milestone in her life, too.
Today would be the day she tied up the final loose ends of her first case as a chief inspector. But it would also be the day that Charlie Woodend left England on the first stage of his journey to his new life in Spain.
She was experiencing a double sense of loneliness – the loneliness that Charlie’s departure was already causing her, and the loneliness that command brought with it. Well, she couldn’t do anything about the former, and the latter had been her own choice, she reminded herself, so she’d better learn to live with it and – maybe – start to bloody well enjoy it.
She arrived at her destination – Brunskill’s Bakery – at just after nine o’clock, and when she entered the managing director’s office, she found Stan Szymborska staring thoughtfully up at the oil painting of Seth Brunskill.
‘The first time I came into this office and saw that picture, I thought Linda was as obsessed with her father as Jenny was,’ she told Szymborska.
‘And so she had been,’ Stan replied. ‘As I told you, even after his death, it took her some time to come out of the box, but though she died horribly, she at least died free of him – and that is some little consolation.’