A Long Time Dead

by Sally Spencer

  Maybe the problem was that these were not pictures of just any old skeleton to him, he thought. Maybe it was because, in looking down at these bones, he could not help putting flesh and muscle on them.

  He had always known he liked Robert Kineally, but until now, he had never realized quite how much affection he had felt for the man – never understood how a confirmation of Kineally’s death would bring with it such a great sense of loss.

  Doing his best to shrug aside personal feelings, he picked up the batch of photographs taken in Washington, once the ‘jigsaw’ had been completed.

  He remembered Kineally as being around six feet two inches tall, and the ruler which lay beside the reconstructed skeleton proved that his memory had not been playing tricks on him.

  Once they had photographed the skeleton as a whole, the FBI photographers had taken close-ups of each distinct part. Woodend examined these now – the skull, grinning obscenely, bereft of Kineally’s perfect teeth; the teeth themselves, which had been reassembled separately, in order to match them to the dental records; the fingers; the toes …

  ‘Take a look at the ribcage,’ Grant suggested, when he noticed what the Chief Inspector was doing.

  Woodend flicked through the glossy pack of death shots until he found what he was looking for.

  ‘Is it the third rib down on the left hand side you particularly wanted me to look at?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the one,’ Grant agreed. ‘The bone’s chipped.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘And the lab back in DC says there’s a perfect match between the injury inflicted and the knife we found in the grave.’

  Coutes’s knife, Woodend reminded himself.

  ‘If I slice up your stomach in just the right way, it could take you several agonizing hours to die,’ Douglas Coutes had told the sailor.

  But the wound which had killed Robert Kineally had not been meant to make him suffer. It had been intended to dispatch him with maximum efficiency – to rob him of his life with a minimum of fuss.

  There were more shots of bones in the grisly pile – perhaps a hundred or more of them.

  Kineally had been a very fit man back in ’44, Woodend thought, flicking through them. He could well have lived on to a ripe old age. And who knew what great things he might have achieved if he’d been allowed to?

  It didn’t seem right that he was dead – and that bastard Douglas Coutes was still alive.

  ‘Do you need our help for anything specific at the moment, or are you happy to plough through this pile of documents on your own for a while, Special Agent Grant?’ Woodend asked.

  Grant looked shocked. ‘You want to leave?’ he asked.

  ‘If you’d rather we didn’t—’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind at all,’ Grant assured him. ‘Whatever you’d processed yourselves, I’d have double-checked it myself later, anyway. It’s just that …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s just that I’m surprised you’d want to go anywhere else, when all the action is here.’

  Woodend looked down at the stacks of dusty pages. ‘All the action?’ he repeated.

  ‘Sure,’ Grant reaffirmed. ‘Mr Hoover says there’s tremendous amounts to be learned from following a paper trail.’

  ‘Does he now?’

  ‘He says that the guys who make the big dramatic gestures out on the streets – like Eliot Ness did in Chicago in the ’thirties – might get all the glory, but it’s agents like us who do the real work.’

  ‘Eliot Ness was generally believed to be quite effective at enforcing the law,’ Woodend said gently.

  ‘Oh, sure, maybe he did OK when it came to tracking down criminals—’

  ‘Which is, after all, what he was supposed—’

  ‘—but with his methods, he’d have been no good at finding Communists and radicals, which is what law enforcement is really about.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Woodend told him, aware, even as he spoke the words, that their import would be completely lost on the special agent.

  ‘Mr Hoover says that when you’re hunting Commies, you need to be as cunning as they are,’ Grant continued. ‘He says it’s just plain dumb to follow a suspect around all day, when all you really need to do is tap his phone.’

  ‘Mr Hoover seems to say a great deal,’ Woodend said. ‘Do you talk to him often?’

  Grant actually blushed. ‘Talk to him? Gosh, no! The FBI’s far too big an operation for Mr Hoover to talk to all its operatives. The closest I’ve ever got to him is seeing him walk down to the corridor – and what a tremendous moment that was for me. But even he can’t find the time to guide us personally, though he makes sure we all know which way his thinking is going.’

  ‘That’s very considerate of him,’ Woodend said dryly. ‘An’ now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re goin’ to make the “dramatic gesture” of visitin’ one of the local public houses.’

  ‘You want a drink?’ Grant asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s the general idea,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘So what’s your poison?’

  ‘Mine’s a pint of beer, an’ my lovely assistant is partial to the odd drop of vodka.’

  ‘Gee, I don’t know if we’ve got any vodka—’ Grant began.

  ‘It bein’ well-known that’s what the goddam Commies drink,’ Woodend said to Paniatowski in a soft aside.

  ‘—but if it’s beer you want, you’ll find crates of the stuff over at the commissary trailer.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, lad, but American beer’s a bit too cold an’ a bit too gassy for my taste,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ anyway, servin’ yourself is no substitute for bein’ served by a bad-tempered barmaid.’

  ‘I’m sure it can’t be,’ Grant said, but the bemusement in his tone showed that Woodend had, once more, lost him.

  The two English detectives had reached the trailer door when Grant spoke again.

  ‘Don’t you find it a little weird?’ the Special Agent asked, completely out of the blue.

  ‘Don’t I find what a little weird?’ Woodend responded.

  ‘The fact that we’re here at all.’

  ‘On earth?’

  ‘In Camp Haverton.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m followin’ you,’ Woodend admitted.

  ‘Well, say Kineally hadn’t been murdered at all. What do you think would have happened to him?’

  ‘I’d say he’d almost definitely have taken part in the Allied Invasion of Normandy.’

  ‘And landed on Omaha Beach?’

  ‘More than likely.’

  ‘And am I right in thinking that the casualty rates on Omaha Beach were absolutely astronomical?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Then if he had landed in Normandy, he could easily have been one of those killed.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So what we’re doing, in point of fact, is pouring vast amounts of resources into the investigation of the death of man who may only have had a few more weeks to live anyway. Don’t you find that ironic?’

  ‘Aye, I do,’ Woodend said. ‘But then life’s full of little ironies, don’t you find?’

  Ten

  It had always been one of Woodend’s most cherished beliefs that just as a engine needs oil to help it run smoothly, so the brain requires a pint of best bitter if it is to work at its most efficient. Thus, while Special Agent Grant may have been shocked that Woodend would abandon the paperwork in favour of the pub, his sergeant – who knew him considerably better – had only been surprised that it had taken so long for Woodend to feel the need for the necessary lubrication.

  By the time they left the camp it was already night, and the narrow country lane, which had looked so picturesque in the daylight, now seemed to Paniatowski to have taken on a slightly menacing air.

  ‘The pub that we’re headin’ for used to be called the Dun Cow,’ Woodend said as they drove through the darkness. ‘But if it’s still there – if the barbarians who are runnin’ the breweries these da
ys haven’t pulled it down – it’ll probably be goin’ by some poncy modem name by now.’

  Paniatowski laughed. ‘What was it like, living in the Middle Ages?’ she asked.

  ‘Cheeky!’ Woodend said, without rancour. ‘I can’t tell you much about the Middle Ages – the older you get, the more your memory goes, so I’ve all but forgotten my days as King Richard the Lionheart’s shield-bearer – but I think I can just about remember enough to tell you what Haverton was like in the ’forties.’

  ‘That’s as near to the Middle Ages as makes practically no difference,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘I suppose it is, when you’re your age,’ Woodend agreed dryly. ‘Would you like to hear what I’ve got to say, or are you perfectly happy to just sit there takin’ the piss?’

  ‘I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say,’ Paniatowski told him, with mock-contrition in her voice.

  ‘Haverton was a sleepy little place back then,’ Woodend said. ‘There were only two shops – an’ one of them had to double up as the local post office. An’ I seem to remember that in the middle of the village there was a garage.’

  ‘A garage!’ Paniatowski said. ‘Just imagine that! How terribly, terribly modern!’

  ‘Aye, but it only had the one petrol pump,’ Woodend replied. ‘An’ while the feller who ran it was willin’ enough to work on any cars that might be brought to him, he was much happier – an’ much more competent – when he was dealin’ with tractors.’

  ‘And the people?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Did they all wear agricultural smocks and suck on straws?’

  ‘No, but you’re not as far off the mark as you might imagine. They were slow-talkin’, slow-thinkin’ and slow to take on anything new. Most of them still lived in houses which had been in the same family for generations, an’ followed the same callin’ as their fathers an’ grandfathers before them.’ He sighed lightly. ‘But I imagine everythin’s changed now.’

  His suspicions were confirmed as they drew level with the garage – now relocated to the edge of the village – which had a shiny new shop attached to it, and boasted not one, but three, petrol pumps on its forecourt.

  There was more evidence of change in the village itself. One of the shops had been transformed into a small supermarket, and the few people who were out on the street moved more briskly – and dressed more sharply – than any of the inhabitants would have thought of doing twenty years earlier.

  ‘I’m beginnin’ to have serious concerns about the fate of the dear old Dun Cow,’ Woodend said.

  The pub was at the other end of the village. It had a thatched roof, and small, leaded windows. There was a beer garden in front – open only during the heady summer days – and a skittle alley at the side.

  ‘The only thing that really seems to have changed is that they’ve built a car park,’ Woodend told Paniatowski. ‘They didn’t need one in ’forty-four.’

  ‘Petrol rationing?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Very few cars,’ Woodend replied.

  Inside, the pub had low oak beams and a flagstone floor. There was a fire burning in the grate, and the slight smell of wood-smoke hung – not unpleasantly – in the air.

  The man behind the bar was very nearly bald, but had compensated for the loss of hair on top by cultivating a set of thick white side-whiskers. He had a red, roundish face. And his belly, which was even rounder, strained valiantly against the buttons on his blue velvet waistcoat.

  Woodend ordered a pint for himself and a vodka for Paniatowski, and was slightly surprised – and perhaps a little disappointed – when the landlord seemed to have no difficulty in supplying him with his sergeant’s favourite tipple.

  ‘I know you,’ the landlord said, as he counted out the money that Woodend had placed on the bar.

  ‘I remember you as well,’ Woodend said. ‘Your name’s Reg, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘That’s right, it is,’ the landlord agreed.

  ‘An’ I’m—’

  The landlord quickly put up his hand, to cut off any further comment from the visitor.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘It’ll come to me in time. I never forget a face.’ He pondered for some seconds, then continued, ‘Woodford! No, not Woodford – Woodend! Charlie Woodend!’

  The Chief Inspector beamed with obvious pleasure. ‘You’re spot on!’ he agreed.

  ‘And how long is it since you’ve done us the honour of payin’ us a visit, Charlie?’

  ‘Twenty-one years.’

  The landlord shook his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘Twenty-one years,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Twenty-one years. Doesn’t time just seem to fly by, Charlie?’

  ‘It slips through your fingers like sand,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘You used to come in with that Coutes bloke, didn’t you?’ the landlord asked. ‘He’s in the government now, you know.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And that Yank. You used to come in with him, as well. Now what was his name?’

  ‘Robert Kineally.’

  ‘That’s right. He was a proper credit to his uniform, that Captain Kineally. Which, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, is more than could be said for that boss of yours.’

  ‘No need to apologize, Reg,’ Woodend said. ‘I think we were pretty much in agreement about Coutes.’

  The landlord’s eyes took on a dreamy gloss, as eyes sometimes do when memories of the past return unexpectedly.

  ‘Do you remember the night that you and Captain Kineally had the argument with those young thugs over the coloured boys?’ he asked.

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  ‘I had no idea what was going on in the skittle alley. I’d have tried to put a stop to it if I had, but they’d never have listened to me, and I’d probably have got hammered for interfering. They listened to you, though, didn’t they? By God, they did! I have to take my hat off to you for the way you handled it.’

  ‘It was much more Captain Kineally’s doing than it was mine,’ Woodend said.

  ‘It was both of you that did it,’ the landlord said firmly. He stopped counting Woodend’s money, and slid it back across the counter. ‘Here, have this one on me, Charlie. An’ that goes for your lady-friend as well.’

  Bob Rutter sat in the guest bedroom of his parents-in-laws’ house, looking out at the brightly lit night sky over London, and deciding that he was probably going quietly – but irreversibly – insane.

  After Maria’s death, he had brought their baby down to stay with her grandparents for a while. It had been the right thing to do, he had argued to himself at the time. They had lost their daughter. They were entitled to whatever solace they could draw from their grandchild’s presence.

  But it had only ever been intended to be a temporary arrangement – just until he had pulled himself back together sufficiently to be able to look after the baby on his own.

  A week.

  Two weeks at the most.

  Yet the weeks had somehow stretched into months, and he felt no more capable of taking charge now than he had in the first few days following his poor wife’s murder.

  Was it guilt over his affair with Monika Paniatowski which was holding his recovery back? he wondered.

  It shouldn’t be. The affair had been over for a long time – and had had nothing to do with Maria’s death.

  Even his father-in-law did not blame him.

  ‘Men are born into weakness,’ Don Antonio had told him gravely, when he’d confessed all, during one drunken evening they had spent together.

  ‘Perhaps they are, but that still doesn’t excuse—’ Rutter had started to protest.

  ‘It is only natural that a man will stray away from the fold,’ Don Antonio interrupted. ‘Though I hold my own wife in the greatest of respect, I, myself, have not been entirely immune to that particular failing. But you were a good husband to my daughter. You loved her—’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘—and you married her when she ha
d already gone blind – which many in your place would not have done. You have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself for. Even so,’ Don Antonio continued, with a new note of caution entering his voice, ‘it would perhaps be unwise of you to be as candid with my wife as you have been with me.’

  The confession had not worked the magic that Rutter had hoped it would. For what was the point of confession without the retribution which should follow it? How could he ever cleanse himself, if others refused to accept that he was guilty?

  Despite Don Antonio’s warning, he felt the urge to tell Doña Pilar the truth, too, and was only held back from doing just that by the thought of how much the revelation might hurt her.

  So what was he to do? Was he to continue living as he had been – staying in bed until midday, walking the streets aimlessly for hours on end – until he had degenerated enough to be clearly certifiable? Or was he to make one last attempt to regain control of his life.

  ‘I need work!’ he told the empty room. ‘I need to get back to doing the only thing I do well.’

  Douglas Coutes lay on the bed of his trailer, thinking about the past and contemplating the future.

  He was as superior to most men as the ruthless lion is to the hapless antelope, he thought.

  He had grasped the harsh rules in the game of life before most of his contemporaries had even realized there were any rules, and – because his nerve had held – he had experienced triumph after triumph.

  All the terrible things that had happened to him over the previous few days were as good a case in point. Most men – finding themselves not only accused of murder, but seemingly already convicted by the weight of evidence – would have been completely destroyed. But not he.

  True, he had experienced a short period of almost total panic, during which he had felt so desperate that he had actually phoned Charlie Woodend in Whitebridge. But then, in a sudden flash of insight, he had understood just what kind of game was about to be played out in this old American Army camp. And with that insight, calmness had returned.

  He had not yet worked out what the resolution to the game would be – there were far too many factors in play for that to be possible – but he was sure that it would be resolved.