Golden Mile to Murder

by Sally Spencer

  Aye, that will just suit Ainsworth, Woodend thought. Why should he nail me for failin’ to solve one murder when he’s got the chance of nailin’ me for failin’ to solve two?

  ‘Will you be needing more of my men now the scope of the investigation’s widened?’ Turner said.

  Would I like to invite more possible spies into my camp? Woodend asked himself. No, I bloody well wouldn’t.

  ‘I don’t want any more men reportin’ directly to me,’ he said aloud. ‘But I would appreciate it if your lads could save my team a bit of leg-work.’

  ‘What do you want them to do?’

  ‘I want to know as much about Elizabeth Rose’s movements last night as you can come up with. What time did she leave her booth? Where did she go after that? Who was the last person to see her alive? You know the routine.’

  Turner nodded. ‘If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll get on to it right away.’

  ‘Aye, you do that,’ Woodend agreed.

  He turned his attention back to the body. Had there been any indication, when he’d been talking to the dead woman the previous day, that she’d soon end up like this? No, he didn’t think there had been. So he had no reason to feel guilty, then. But he did – because however much he tried to persuade himself he couldn’t have known, there was something inside him which said that he should have.

  He walked over to the window and looked out on to the car park. DCI Turner had already left the building, and was heading towards his vehicle.

  Woodend closed his eyes, and tried to visualise the other occasions on which he’d seen Turner walking away from him. Was there any difference in his demeanour this time? he wondered.

  Yes! Yes, there bloody well was!

  Turner had a definite spring in his step now – almost as if some heavy burden of responsibility had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders.

  The chief inspector took a deep drag on his Capstan Full Strength. It wouldn’t be strictly accurate to say that Turner was glad Gypsy Elizabeth Rose had been murdered, he thought – but the man was certainly relieved about something. Now why the hell should that be?

  The team had been gathered together around the basement table, and they all looked suitably grave and responsible. But could they just be play-acting, as Turner had been earlier?

  ‘We know for a fact that Mr Davies went to see the murdered woman,’ Woodend said, ‘but when I talked to her, she claimed he’d only dropped in for a consultation. Did he seem like the kind of man who’d believe in fortune-telling, Sergeant Hanson?’

  ‘No sir,’ Hanson said, without hesitation. ‘Mr Davies was one of the most down-to-earth officers I’ve ever worked with.’

  ‘So assumin’ that the two murders are connected, then what Davies an’ Elizabeth Rose said to each other could be of vital importance to the case. The only problem is, we can’t ask them what it was – because they’re both dead. We’ve found nothin’ to connect Mr Davies with the gypsy, so what I want to do is turn the thing on its head, an’ see if we can find anythin’ to connect the gypsy with Mr Davies. Chief Inspector Turner’s men are investigatin’ what she did in the last few hours of her life – what I want you to come up with is what she did with the rest of it. Am I makin’ myself clear?’ The four local men nodded. ‘Right,’ Woodend continued. ‘Sergeant Hanson will co-ordinate. Get on with it.’

  Woodend watched Hanson and three constables leave the room, then turned his attention to Sergeant Paniatowski, who had gone back to her desk.

  ‘How’s it lookin’ from your end of things, Monika?’ Woodend asked. ‘Are you still convinced there could be a link between Mr Davies’ murder an’ the hit-an’-run?’

  ‘More than ever,’ Paniatowski lied.

  ‘In that case, you’d better stick with it.’ The phone rang on Woodend’s desk. He walked over and picked it up. ‘Yes? This is Woodend, sir. Yes, she has been considerin’ the possibility that . . . No, I haven’t . . .’

  After making sure that his back was turned to her, Paniatowski quietly picked up the receiver on her own desk. ‘I’ve been getting nothing but complaints about her all day,’ she heard Ainsworth bark.

  ‘That can sometimes be the sign that an officer’s doin’ his job – her job,’ Woodend countered.

  ‘You’ve got two murders on your hands. Isn’t that enough for you, without upsetting everybody who matters in Blackpool?’

  ‘My sergeant thinks there may be a connection.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I won’t know until she’s completed her investigation and reported back to me.’

  ‘Let me get this straight!’ Ainsworth said. ‘You’ve let Paniatowski loose on some of the most important people in Lancashire without a shred of evidence that she’ll come up with anything worthwhile?’

  ‘You have to have confidence in your team,’ Woodend replied evenly. ‘Besides, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that in order to come up with a few right answers, you have to ask a lot of what will probably turn out to be pointless questions.’

  ‘Do you want to be taken off this investigation, Chief Inspector?’ Ainsworth asked threateningly.

  ‘No sir. But if I can’t conduct it the way I see fit, then I might as well be.’

  ‘You’re relying on the chief constable to protect you, aren’t you?’ Ainsworth demanded. ‘You think you can pull the old-pals act on him. Well, let me tell you, Woodend, he’s got his own position to protect, and he’s not about to sink himself just to keep you afloat.’

  ‘I quite appreciate that, sir.’

  ‘So you’ll call Paniatowski off?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Will you, indeed? Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t think about it too long, Chief Inspector.’

  There was the sound of the receiver being violently slammed into its cradle, and then the line went dead.

  Paniatowski replaced her own receiver just as Woodend was turning to face her. The chief inspector’s eyes looked troubled, and there were lines on his brow she’d never even noticed before. It came as a shock to her to see how much he could change during the course of one brief phone call.

  ‘Was that Mr Ainsworth?’ she asked.

  ‘What makes you ask that?’

  Paniatowski forced herself to grin. ‘I caught you saying the occasional “sir” and, being a trained detective, I worked out that you must be speaking to someone of a higher rank than you. So it was a good bet you were talking to the DCS.’

  Woodend returned her grin with a weary smile of his own. ‘Aye, it was him,’ he admitted.

  ‘Did he want anything important, sir?’

  ‘Not really. He was just askin’ me to keep him up to speed on the investigation.’

  Paniatowski turned back to the notes which lay on the desk in front of her. She almost had it cracked, she told herself. Five names – five possible hit-and-run drivers. They’d kept up a united front so far, but when she finally used the implied threat of revealing what she knew about the ‘entertainment’ – when they realised that their wives might learn what they’d been up to their boys’ night out – one of them would break ranks and give her the name of the guilty party. All she needed was a little more time – and Woodend had completely surprised her by buying that time for her. But at what cost, both to his investigation and to his position in the Central Lancs police?

  You have to have confidence in your team, he’d said.

  And he’d been talking about her!

  ‘I’ve been reviewing my notes, sir,’ she said, across the empty room.

  ‘Have you now? An’ have you come up with any conclusions?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I now think that I was quite wrong in what I said earlier. There is no connection between the hit-and-run case and Mr Davies’ murder. I’d be much more valuable to the team following another line of investigation.’

  Woodend gave have a long stare which seemed to be reaching down right into th
e depths of her soul.

  ‘I wish you’d told me that about five minutes ago,’ he said. ‘You’re sure you’ve got it right this time?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sure.’

  Woodend picked up the phone. ‘Could you get me Chief Superintendent Ainsworth in Whitebridge Headquarters, please?’ he asked the switchboard operator.

  And suddenly Monika Paniatowski knew that she was not brave enough at that moment to hear a second conversation between the man who had trusted her and the other man who seemed hell-bent on destroying him. Feeling both ashamed and confused, she rose from her desk and tiptoed to the door.

  It was almost nine o’clock when Monika entered Dutton’s OBJ Tavern and saw Frank Hanson – a welcoming smile on his face – waiting for her at a corner table.

  As Paniatowski flopped into the seat opposite him, Hanson, noticing her anxious look, and his smile transformed itself into concern. ‘Want to talk about it?’ he asked sympathetically.

  ‘You did a good piece of work for me this morning,’ Monika said tiredly. ‘I’m almost convinced that one of the last five men to leave the Palace Hotel is guilty of manslaughter.’

  ‘But –?’

  ‘But Mr Woodend’s in charge of investigating two murders now, and they have to take precedence over anything else.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Hanson said.

  ‘I know I have,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘Or maybe I’ve just finally heard somebody else’s tune, and decided it’s my job to dance to it.’

  ‘I’ve never been very good at riddles,’ Hanson said. ‘Would you mind explaining that particular one to me?’

  ‘Not tonight. I’m a bit too confused to even explain it to myself.’

  The waiter came over and deposited the vodka Paniatowski had ordered on the table.

  Hanson paid for it. ‘You need something to take you out of yourself,’ he said. ‘How about a spot of dancing at the Tower Ballroom?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Come on,’ Hanson said encouragingly. ‘I know you don’t want to take me on because you’ve noticed I’ve got feet the size of coal barges – but appearances can be deceptive. I have it from a number of sources that dancing with me is like walking on air.’

  Paniatowski reached across the table and touched his hand. ‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘It’s me. The mood I’m in tonight, I wouldn’t be any fun.’

  ‘So there’s no chance you’ll be coming back to my flat for a nightcap?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I need some time on my own – time to think things through.’

  ‘Is this a brush-off?’ Hanson asked. ‘Because I’m a big boy now, and if that’s what it is, there’s no need to sugar the pill.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ Paniatowski assured him. ‘Look, Frank, I don’t know how things are going to turn out with us, but maybe once the case is closed we’ll be able to get a clearer picture.’

  ‘So there’s a chance that what we had could turn out to be more than a one-night stand?’

  ‘A good chance. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to be patient.’ Monika paused. ‘I’m asking a lot, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Hanson agreed. ‘But if a thing’s worth having, it’s worth waiting for. And you, Detective Sergeant Paniatowski, are worth a long, long wait.’

  Twenty-Six

  From his table in the breakfast room of the Sea View Hotel, Woodend looked across the road at the uniformed constable who was leaning against the cast-iron railings which ran along the promenade.

  ‘Is something wrong, sir?’ asked Monika Paniatowski, as she finished off her fry-up with a gusto Bob Rutter could never have hoped to emulate.

  ‘Wrong?’ Woodend repeated abstractly.

  ‘Yes. You seem to have something on your mind this morning.’

  Woodend took an automatic sip of his tea. ‘Have you ever seen a bobby on duty over there on the sea front before?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ Paniatowski admitted.

  ‘Me neither,’ Woodend said thoughtfully. ‘So I wonder what the bugger’s doin’ there now.’

  There was a second uniformed constable positioned on the promenade at the corner of Barton Avenue, and a third a little further down. It was when he saw the fourth, posted near St Chad’s Road, that Woodend decided he had had enough.

  The constable noticed him crossing the road and turned to look towards the Pleasure Beach. He was still looking at it – gazing at the Big Wheel with a fixed intensity – when the man in the hairy sports jacket drew level with him.

  ‘What’s this all about, son?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ the constable said, trying to act as if Woodend’s approach had taken him by surprise – and failing miserably.

  ‘When you called me “sir” just now, were you bein’ polite to a member of the general public – or were you givin’ rank its due?’ Woodend asked.

  The constable looked confused – as well he might.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ he spluttered.

  ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ Woodend demanded.

  ‘Y-yes, sir. I . . .’

  ‘But I don’t know who you are. Have we been introduced?’

  ‘No, sir. You . . . you must have been pointed out to me in the canteen.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Woodend told him, and before the hapless constable had time to reply, he turned and walked away.

  They were watching him, Woodend thought as he walked along the sands. They were bloody well watching him. And not only that, but they were making no secret about it. They wanted him to know he was being observed – wanted him to be intimidated by the fact. Well, sod them! He’d solved more murders than the local flatfeet had had hot dinners, and he wasn’t about to let them stop him solving this one.

  He took the steps down to the beach. Let the buggers follow him along the sands if they wanted to. Let them find out for themselves what effect the sight of three or four uniformed bobbies would have on the packed ranks of holidaymakers who associated bobbies with summonses for having no lights on their bikes or passing illegal betting slips – and who had come to Blackpool to get away from that kind of thing.

  Just ahead of him, he saw the Punch and Judy booth he’d noticed a couple of days earlier. Two or three dozen kids were sitting cross-legged in front of it, waiting for the show to start, and Woodend saw no reason why he shouldn’t join them – if only to see a nosy uniformed policeman puppet get a pasting!

  The grotesque Mr Punch appeared above the parapet and bobbed around. ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he screeched at the top of his thin voice.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ his young audience screamed back.

  Punch’s wife, Judy, entered from the left. ‘What’s all this noise, Mr Punch?’ she demanded.

  A sound of crying came from off-stage. Judy looked towards it, and then back at Mr Punch. ‘I do believe you’ve woken the baby,’ she complained.

  ‘Oh no, I haven’t!’ Punch protested.

  ‘Oh yes, you have!’ shouted Judy, and her young audience joined in with cries that, yes, he had.

  ‘Oh no, I haven’t!’

  ‘Oh yes, you have!’

  His earlier irritation vanishing, Woodend felt a broad grin come to his face. It was like being in the time machine again, he thought. Little Charlie Woodend, sitting on the sand and ignoring the fact that the sun was burning his legs – though he knew he would pay for it later. The Punch and Judy show had seemed nothing short of a miracle back then. But that was before the days of television. He wondered how much longer shows like this would survive now that there was a box in the corner of the living-room that seemed able to deliver so much more.

  Judy disappeared for a second, and returned holding a swaddled bundle in her arms.

  ‘The baby is crying,’ she told Punch, ‘and now I’m going to make you take care of it.’ She handed the bundle over to him, then turned to the audience. ‘Now boys and girls, I want you to make sure
that Mr Punch looks after the baby properly. If he doesn’t, you will call me, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ shouted the children – and one middle-aged adult in a hairy sports jacket.

  The baby continued to cry after Judy had left the stage. Punch looked down at it. ‘What a cross baby you are,’ he said.

  Some of the children were already calling for Judy to come to the rescue, but Woodend did not join them. Instead, he had fallen into a thoughtful silence.

  ‘Naughty baby!’ Punch screamed. ‘Naughty, naughty baby. Do shut up! Do shut up!’

  Woodend stood frozen to the spot, cursing his own stupidity. The indications had all been there, he told himself, and he had seen the Punch and Judy show often enough to know it backwards. He should have made the right connection long ago!

  The puppet baby was still crying loudly. In exasperation, Punch banged its head on the playboard and threw it out of the booth. The children were calling for Judy even louder now, but when she appeared Woodend was not there to see her, because the chief inspector was already striding at a furious pace towards the promenade.

  Edna Davies opened her front door to find the chief inspector from Whitebridge standing awkwardly on the step.

  ‘What is it this time?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve got a few more questions I need to ask you,’ Woodend told her. ‘I’m afraid they’re goin’ to be rather painful ones.’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly easy talking to you the last time,’ the widow countered.

  ‘Last time all we were talkin’ about was the few days before your husband’s death,’ Woodend said. ‘This time, we’re goin’ to have to go back a lot further.’

  Mrs Davies’ shoulders slumped. ‘You know,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve guessed,’ Woodend replied. ‘But I still need you to fill in some of the details.’

  Edna Davies nodded, resignedly. ‘What, exactly, do you want to know?’

  ‘Your daughter, Susan, wasn’t born backward, was she?’

  ‘No,’ Edna Davies admitted. ‘She wasn’t.’