‘It’s all right, Monika,’ Woodend told her. ‘We’re all a bit edgy.’
‘What would you like us to do?’ Paniatowski asked contritely.
‘I think one of you should put in an appearance at headquarters. Don’t speak to anyone you don’t have to, but keep your ear to the ground. If it seems to you that the game’s nearly up, ring me, an’ I’ll put more pressure on Brunton.’
‘What kind of pressure?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Woodend said – and Paniatowski could tell from the tone of his voice that he’d forced a grin to his face. ‘Maybe I’ll take a leaf out of Brunton’s own book, an’ resort to torture.’
‘Why not?’ Paniatowski said, forcing herself to grin, too. ‘Everybody should have a hobby.’ She hung up the phone.
‘Anything?’ asked Rutter from the other side of the room – though there was no evidence of hope in his voice.
‘The boss wants one of us to go to headquarters and check things out, while the other carries on the search here. Do you want me to go, or will you?’
Rutter shrugged. ‘You go. Since we’re all going to hang, it doesn’t really matter which of us puts his head in the noose first, does it?’
Twenty-Five
The sun had recently risen, and was casting a warm golden light over the moors. It was going to be a beautiful day, Woodend thought, looking out of the window – at least, it was going to be a beautiful day for some people.
He turned around, to face the woman who was sitting at the table in the interview room/kitchen.
When they’d pulled her husband in the first time – in the autumn – Brunton had hinted that the reason she married him was to improve her position in Whitebridge society. Well, maybe there was something in that, Woodend thought, but he didn’t think that was the only reason.
She’d been forced to dress hurriedly after her arrest, and looking at her now – without the benefit of her make-up and expensive coiffure – he had to admit that Monika had been spot on when she’d said that Mrs Brunton was plain. And how would such a plain woman have felt when Edgar Brunton – her impoverished but handsome Prince Charming – started paying attention to her? The most likely answer was that she’d been swept off her feet!
So maybe she really did love him – and all her bullying was nothing more than a pathetic effort to make sure that she did not lose him.
‘If I was in your position, I’d be seriously considerin’ what was in my own best interest, Mrs Brunton,’ Woodend said. ‘Because you know what’s goin’ to happen if you don’t, don’t you? Your husband’s goin’ to stand up in court an’ say it was never his intention to kill the girl, an’ that it was all your idea.’
‘You’re mad,’ Mrs Brunton said. ‘You’re completely out of your mind.’
‘Your husband’s wallet was found at the scene of the first kidnappin’ an’ we can produce a witness to prove that he bought the drug the girl was doped with. That alone is enough to convict him,’ Woodend said wearily. ‘It’s all over, so why don’t you save us all a lot of effort an’ just come clean?’
‘My husband had nothing to do with the kidnapping and murder of that girl – and neither did I.’
‘Why was he seein’ a shrink, Mrs Brunton?’ Woodend asked. ‘An’ you must have known that he was seein’ a shrink – because you’re the one who was payin’ all the bills.’
From the tortured expression on her face, it was all too clear that Mrs Brunton’s mind was in turmoil.
She wants to confess, Woodend thought. She wants to get it off her chest. All it will take is one more push. ‘Why don’t you come clean?’ he suggested softly.
Mrs Brunton sighed. ‘You’re not going to ease up until I tell you the whole truth, are you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Woodend agreed. ‘I’m not.’
‘Don’t you even care about how humiliating it will be for me?’
‘No, I don’t – because I’m tryin’ to save a young girl’s life.’
‘What I have to tell you has nothing to do with her,’ Mrs Brunton said.
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ Woodend countered.
Mrs Brunton sighed again. ‘All right,’ she said resignedly. ‘Edgar puts on a good show of being in charge, but that’s all it is – a show. Strip away the smooth veneer, and what you will find underneath is a frightened little boy whose mother used to lock him in the cupboard under the stairs – for hours at a time! – whenever he misbehaved.’
‘I don’t see what this has to do with the matter in hand,’ Woodend said.
‘You will, if you’ll shut up and listen for a minute,’ Mrs Brunton said fiercely. ‘Why do you think that the people who matter in this town – most of whom are Edgar’s friends – don’t take their business to him? It’s because they know him well enough to have seen that frightened little boy – and they prefer to have their affairs managed by someone more competent – more adult.’
‘This is getting’ us nowhere,’ Woodend said exasperatedly. ‘I’ve asked you why he was seein’ a shrink. Why don’t you answer that one simple question?’
‘He’s been seeing Dr Stevenson because he has violent fantasies about women.’
‘I think you’ve just made my case for me,’ Woodend said.
Mrs Brunton laughed mockingly. ‘I’ve done no such thing. He has the fantasies – but not the backbone to make them real.’
‘You don’t really know him,’ Woodend said.
‘On the contrary, I know him far too well.’ Mrs Brunton looked down at the table, and Woodend noticed that her hands had started to tremble ‘There was a time – when I still hoped our marriage might become more than a sham – when I was more than willing to indulge those fantasies of his,’ she continued bitterly. ‘I even offered to be involved in them myself. Do you understand what I’m saying? I gave him permission to hurt me. And he couldn’t do it! He hadn’t got the strength to inflict even minor pain on me. So don’t tell me he tortured that girl. He’d never have had the nerve!’
Woodend turned away, so that Mrs Brunton couldn’t see the troubled look on his face.
The problem was that he believed her when she said she didn’t believe her husband could have tortured the girl.
And even if she was wrong about that – and she had almost convinced him that she wasn’t – he was now certain that she herself had had absolutely nothing to do with Angela’s death!
Before she’d even entered police headquarters, Monika Paniatowski had already made a conscious decision to stay there for half an hour, and no more.
Thirty minutes! Just long enough to establish whether or not Marlowe and Crawley had any idea that there was a mutiny going on below decks, and not quite long enough for anyone to begin wondering what she was doing, and if she knew where Woodend was.
Once inside, she glided around the building almost like a ghost – hearing what was being said, seeing what was happening, but touching nothing and leaving no impression of herself anywhere. Yet she was far from unaffected by the experience. Just observing the normal life of the station taught her something she should already have known for some time – that the three of them, herself, Rutter, and Woodend, were further out on a limb than they’d ever been before; that they’d reached the point of no return.
The thirty minutes she’d allowed herself soon passed, and though she’d heard nothing to suggest that the powers that be were aware of what was going on in Brunton’s house and Topton police station, she felt no sense of relief – because she knew it could only be a matter of time before they did.
As she walked down the corridor which led to the car park, she turned her mind to the search that Rutter was still conducting at Brunton’s home, and in which she would soon be joining him.
They would find nothing, she told herself. They’d been fools to ever imagine that they would.
‘Sergeant Paniatowski!’ boomed a voice in the corridor behind her.
Superintendent Crawley! she thought. Bloody Superintenden
t Bloody Crawley!
She froze, rearranged her face into a look of complete innocence, then turned around. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Are you busy at the moment, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir, as a matter of fact, I am.’
‘Only, as it happens, I’ve got a little job I would like you to do for me.’
‘As I’ve just said, sir, I’m always willing to help out in any way I can, but I really am rather—’
‘Don’t give me a hard time, Sergeant,’ Crawley growled. ‘You’re one of the few officers in this building not involved in the search for young Mary Thomas. And we all know why that is, don’t we?’
Yes! Because you and your arse-licking cronies pulled me off the case, Paniatowski thought viciously. Because you decided you knew better than Cloggin’-it Charlie, whereas, the truth is, you haven’t got a bloody clue what’s going on.
‘I said we all know why that is, don’t we?’ Crawley repeated.
‘Yes, sir, I expect we all do know,’ Paniatowski replied, through gritted teeth.
‘So, bearing that in mind, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to expect you to take on a minor job which will relieve the pressure on those of us who are doing the real work,’ Crawley said.
Paniatowski sighed. ‘What is it you want me to do, sir?’
‘An old friend of yours got beaten up in the Dog and Duck yesterday.’
‘An old friend?’
‘Peter Mainwearing.’
‘I’d scarcely call him an old—’
‘Anyway, the uniformed branch have only just got round to collaring the man who committed the assault. Now, if it was left up to me, we’d give the feller a medal, but we still have to do things by the book, apparently, so somebody needs to take his statement and charge him. And that someone, Sergeant Paniatowski, is going to be you.’
‘I’ll get right onto it, sir,’ Paniatowski said.
It had been easy enough to make the joke about getting a job as a porter at the Pendleton Clinic, but the joke was wearing a bit thin now, Bob Rutter thought, as he surveyed the pile of documents on Edgar Brunton’s desk.
The team had been hopelessly optimistic to ever imagine, even for a moment, that if there were any incriminating documents which might lead them to where the girl was being held, Brunton would have been stupid enough to leave them in his own home.
Such documents – if they even existed – would be safely tucked away in a safe-deposit box, in a bank somewhere. And though someone with determination could probably track them down eventually, the only people who had that determination would already be out on the street.
The phone rang.
Was it Woodend, desperate to hear that he’d found something useful? Rutter wondered. Or was it Paniatowski, calling to tell him that Marlowe and Crawley were already onto them?
Rutter picked up the phone.
‘Edgar?’ asked a hoarse, worried voice at the other end of the line.
‘Yes,’ Rutter replied, in a tone a little deeper than his normal one.
‘Your voice sounds strange. What’s the matter?’
‘I have a cold.’
‘But that didn’t stop you from going out last night, did it?’
Whoever the caller was, he seemed to be having difficulty with his breathing, Rutter thought.
‘Please tell me it didn’t stop you seeing her?’ the man on the other end of the line begged.
‘No. It didn’t stop me seeing her,’ Rutter agreed.
‘And how is she?’
The unknown caller was talking about Mary Thomas, Rutter thought. He had to be talking about Mary Thomas!
‘She was scared out of her wits,’ Rutter said.
There was a pause long, then the caller said, ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Edgar.’
‘No, you’re not,’ the caller said with a horrified gasp. ‘Edgar would have described it better. Edgar would have told me just how she was feeling.’
Rutter could no longer hear the other man’s heavy breathing, but now there was a new sound – a slow, rhythmic banging.
The bastard’s dropped the phone, he thought. He’s dropped it so suddenly that it’s swinging from side to side, and banging against the walls of the booth.
And then Rutter heard something else – a metallic voice which said, ‘Would Dr Traynor please report to Casualty.’
Appearances could sometimes be deceptive, Paniatowski thought on first seeing Walter Decker from the door of the interview room – but that didn’t seem to be a very likely possibility in this case.
Decker not only looked like a thug, but his record confirmed that was exactly what he was – and, it also suggested, not a very bright one.
Paniatowski crossed the room, and sat down opposite him. ‘You’ve been advised of your rights, have you?’ she asked.
Decker sniffed. ‘I suppose so.’
‘So you know that anything you say can be taken down and used in evidence against you?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,’ Decker said. ‘Let’s get it over with, shall we?’
‘All right,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Your name is Walter Archibald Decker, you’re thirty-eight years old, a jobbing builder, and you reside at 38 Wesley Terrace. Is that correct?’
‘Reside?’ Decker repeated, questioningly.
‘Is that where you live?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘This is not the first time you’ve been arrested for violent assault, is it, Mr Decker?’ Paniatowski asked.
Decker’s lip curled. ‘He had it comin’,’ he said.
Paniatowski looked down at the record sheet in front of her. ‘Who had it coming?’ she asked. ‘Are you talking about Peter Mainwearing, who you kicked the shit out of in the Dog and Duck? Or do you mean Simon Burgess, whose arm you broke a couple of years ago? Perhaps it was neither of those men. Perhaps Harold Decker – who I assume is your brother – had it coming. Then again, it could just as easily have been …’
‘All right, so I’ve got a bit of a temper,’ Decker admitted.
‘Let’s talk about the attack on Mr Mainwearing,’ Paniatowski suggested. ‘Did he provoke you in any way?’
‘You could say that.’
‘How did he provoke you?’
‘He provoked me by bein’ what he was. He provoked me, ’cos after I worked for him, all my mates said I must be a pervert, just like him. But I didn’t know! When I built that room for him, I had no idea he was a perv.’
Paniatowski felt a sudden, unexpected tingling in her nerve endings. ‘Room? What room?’ she asked.
‘At the back of the garage.’
‘What was it? A toilet? A kitchen?’
‘No, it was just a plain room,’ Decker said, obviously mystified by this new line of questioning. ‘Must have been for storin’ things in, or somethin’.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Well, he told me to brick up all the windows, didn’t he? An’ he got me to put in this heavy steel door.’
‘Did you see anything of particular value in the garage?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Something he would have needed to keep secure? Something he would have wanted to protect behind a steel door?’
‘No, there was just the usual sort of clobber you’d expect to find in a workin’ garage.’
‘So why did Mainwearing need a room which was so secure at all?’ Paniatowski wondered.
Decker shrugged. ‘Never really thought about it,’ he said.
No, I bet you didn’t, Paniatowski thought. I bet you don’t think about much at all – other than boozing and beating people up.
The ambulance and the police cars arrived at Mainwearing’s Garage almost simultaneously, the fire engine a little later.
It took the firemen fifteen minutes to burn their way through the steel door with their oxyacetylene cutting tools, and when they had it finally opened it, the stench which wafted out of the room – a mixture of sweat and fear and faeces – was almost overpowering.
> The girl was naked, and huddled in the corner of the room. She seemed to have no idea who these people were, or that they had come to rescue her, but she did not resist when she was wrapped in a blanket and carried out to the waiting ambulance.
The doctor who examined her said later that she had suffered very little bodily abuse and that – physically, at least – she should make a full recovery.
Twenty-Six
There had never been an armchair in Interview Room Two before, and the only reason there was one there now was because it had been deemed unreasonable to ask the suspect to sit on one of the straight-backed chairs.
Woodend looked down at the man in the armchair, and said, ‘You’ll never guess what they’re doin’ downstairs.’
‘You should never have had me brought here,’ Peter Mainwearing complained. ‘I’m a sick man. It isn’t right.’
‘Bollocks!’ Woodend said lightly. ‘If you were well enough to be discharged from hospital, you’re well enough to be questioned by me.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you want to know what they’re doin’ downstairs?’
Mainwearing sighed. ‘What are they doing downstairs?’ he asked.
‘They’re havin’ a whip-round for Wally Decker’s defence fund. Funny that, isn’t it? A couple of hours ago, he was nothin’ but a common thug, an’ they wouldn’t have pissed in his mouth if his throat was on fire. But now he’s a hero – the feller who kicked the shit out of Peter Mainwearin’ – an’ the boys in blue want to get him the best lawyer that money can buy.’
‘I’m tired of this conversation,’ Mainwearing said.
‘Fair enough,’ Woodend said easily. ‘I’ll do all the talkin’, then, shall I? An’ don’t you go worryin’ about that bein’ any hardship on me – because I love the sound of my own voice.’
‘You’re a buffoon,’ Mainwearing said.
‘The last time I interviewed you, you warned me that sex offenders are very good actors – an’ you were quite right about that,’ Woodend said. ‘When I realized that Edgar Brunton had to have had an accomplice, the first person who came into my head was his wife. I never thought of you. Partly, of course, that was because you had an alibi. But partly it was because you were so convincin’ during that interview that I really thought you were what you were pretendin’ to be – a reformed sex offender, weighed down by guilt for his past mistakes.’
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