So why wasn’t that enough for him?
Why did he want more?
He realized he had been silent for several seconds.
‘You’re probably asking yourselves how you’ll feel when we get a result,’ he said, picking up where he had left off. ‘Well, get rid of that feeling, as well, because a result is by no means guaranteed, and the more you’re sure it will all eventually come together, the less the likelihood that it will. Assume nothing. Check everything. And then check it again.’ He paused, and smiled. ‘But if you do get a result, lads, it’s a great feeling. It’s not better than sex, because nothing’s better than sex,’ he paused again, to allow for the expected laughter which followed the remark, then added, as a kicker, ‘but, let me tell you, it comes pretty bloody close.’
He saw that Paniatowski had entered the hall and was standing at the back with Meadows, and he felt suddenly self-conscious.
‘That’s about it, lads,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Orchard will assign the streets he wants each of you to cover on the door-to-door, and remember, when you’re out there, that though your individual contribution is crucial to the success of the investigation, the most important thing is that you’re part of a team.’
He walked down the steps, and made his way to the back of the hall.
‘Lunch?’ he asked his boss.
‘Lunch,’ Paniatowski agreed.
The landlord of the Green Dragon had spotted the team’s approach, and was waiting for them at the door.
‘Welcome, welcome, welcome,’ he said effusively, already beginning to compose in his mind the heavily embellished stories of this visit that he would soon be telling to his – until recently much-envied – colleague at the Drum and Monkey in Whitebridge. ‘I’ve reserved a table in the corner for you.’
‘Thank you,’ Beresford said.
‘It’s for your exclusive use,’ the landlord said as they entered the pub, in case Beresford had missed the point. ‘As long as you’re here conducting your investigation, there’ll be no one else allowed to use it.’
‘Thank you again,’ Beresford said – though he couldn’t help thinking that since there was no one else in the pub at the time, it was less of a singular honour than it might have been.
‘If there’s anything you want – anything at all – then you only have to ask,’ the landlord said.
‘There’s such a thing as being shown too much hospitality, you know,’ Beresford said gruffly. ‘In fact, it gets rather wearing after a while.’
The landlord looked puzzled for a second, then smiled and said, ‘Oh, I see, it’s your little joke.’
‘That’s right,’ Beresford agreed. ‘What’s for lunch?’
‘You could have Lancashire Hotpot,’ the landlord suggested. ‘It’s made to my wife’s special recipe, and I can thoroughly recommend it.’
‘Sounds a bit fattening,’ Meadows said. ‘What else have you got?’
The landlord shrugged. ‘Well, nothing really,’ he admitted.
And so the whole team decided that, taking all factors into consideration, they’d have the hotpot.
The landlord’s wife’s special recipe Lancashire Hotpot turned out to be not that special after all, but it was undoubtedly food, and as they ate it, Paniatowski told Beresford and Crane what the doctor and Susan Danvers had said, and Beresford told Paniatowski about the fight in the Miners’ Institute.
When the plates had been cleared away, Paniatowski lit up a cigarette, turned to Crane, and said, ‘Why don’t you summarize what you think we’ve learned so far, Jack?’
‘We know that Len Hopkins went to Accrington to see the regional final of the brass band competition, and that – for some reason – he didn’t take Susan Danvers with him,’ Crane said. ‘We know that when he got back to Bellingsworth, he paid a visit to the Miners’ Institute and got into a fight with Tommy Sanders.’
‘Do we have a time for that fight?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘It was at about a quarter past eight, boss,’ Meadows said.
‘Who told you that?’ Paniatowski wondered.
‘Can’t remember, boss – somebody I talked to,’ Meadows said vaguely. ‘It’s in my notes.’
Or, at least, it will be in my notes, when I can find someone to confirm what I already know from seeing it with my own eyes, she thought.
‘Len leaves the Institute shortly after that,’ Crane continued ‘He goes back home . . .’
‘We don’t know that for a fact,’ Beresford interrupted.
‘No, we don’t, sir, but all his mates were still at the Institute – celebrating the victory – and there’s nowhere else to go in this village.’
‘When did they have their daily power cut?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘It started at ten o’clock,’ Crane told her.
‘So the village is plunged into darkness at ten. And then, at some time in the night, Len pays a visit to the lavatory,’ Paniatowski said. ‘We know it was in the night, rather than early morning, because by the time the body was discovered, full rigor had set in. But until we get the post-mortem report, we can’t pin it down any more accurately than that.’
‘Have we got an inventory yet, Sergeant?’ Beresford asked Meadows.
‘Yes, sir. The SOCOs gave it to me a few minutes ago.’
‘And is there a chamber pot on it?’
Meadows reached down into her bag, pulled out the thick wad of paper, and flicked through it.
‘Yes, it was under the bed, just as you might expect.’
‘So why would he go outside, on a cold night, when he could have used the pot in his bedroom instead?’ Beresford wondered.
‘And more to the point, how could the killer have possibly known he would do that?’ Crane asked.
‘Perhaps he didn’t,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Maybe he entered the house, saw that Len wasn’t there, and worked out that the lavatory was the only place he could possibly be.’ She paused for a second, as she saw the flaw in her own logic. ‘For that to be true, the killer would have had to have a key, wouldn’t he? And as it’s unlikely that he did . . .’
‘Len Hopkins could have left the front door unlocked,’ Beresford said.
‘He could have,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘but he didn’t, because when Susan Danvers got there this morning, the door was locked.’
‘She could be mistaken about that,’ Beresford said.
‘She seems quite certain,’ Paniatowski countered.
Beresford shrugged. ‘She’s an old woman, and old women are always making mistakes.’
‘She’s not that old.’
‘She’s old enough to have forgotten the door wasn’t locked when she got there this morning.’
Why was Colin so keen to establish that the front door was unlocked when the evidence clearly suggested that it wasn’t? Paniatowski wondered. Did he have his own agenda that he wasn’t telling anyone else about?
‘But while it’s highly unlikely that his entry point was through the front door, we can be almost certain that he did go into the house after he’d killed Len,’ she said, moving on, and leaving the bone of contention behind her. ‘And how do we know that, DC Crane?’
‘He was on his way to the house when he threw the pickaxe away,’ Crane replied.
‘Exactly,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Now it’s possible he went into the house because he was planning to make his escape down the street – though why he should decide to do that, when the alley was much safer, I’ve no idea – but it’s much more plausible that there was something inside the house that he needed to take away. The only question is – what could it be?’
‘Something that could connect him with Len in some way – something that would point us in his direction, when we were looking for the killer,’ Meadows suggested.
‘Like what, for example?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘Then let’s try thinking about something else – let’s consider motive,’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘What’
s to consider?’ Beresford asked. ‘Hopkins was killed because of his opposition to the strike. That’s what everybody in this village probably thinks – and that’s what I think too.’
‘It’s a bit early in the investigation to be making that sort of judgement,’ Paniatowski said mildly.
She was slapping him down, Beresford realized. She was doing it gently – for the moment – but she was definitely slapping him down. And she had every right to, because she was the boss, so his best plan – by far – would be just to sit back and take it.
‘I disagree,’ he heard himself say. ‘There’s an obvious motive for the murder of Len Hopkins, and given that obvious motive, Tommy Sanders has to be the prime suspect.’
That was why he’d been so keen to discount the idea that the front door had been locked, Paniatowski thought – because an unlocked door would explain away the problem of how Tommy Sanders could have known Len would be in the lavatory, and make it easier for Beresford to paint a picture of him as the guilty man.
If she’d been dealing with any other inspector but Colin Beresford, she’d have cut him off long before that point, she thought. But it was Colin – her friend and loyal lieutenant – and she didn’t want to do that to him, especially in front of the rest of the team.
‘This isn’t America, Colin,’ she argued. ‘I can’t think of a single recorded case in this country of anyone being murdered for their political views.’
‘Can’t you?’ Beresford fired back. ‘Try telling that to all the people who’ve been killed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland!’
‘That’s a different matter altogether,’ Paniatowski said. ‘The IRA and the Protestant paramilitary groups see themselves as at war.’
‘And how do you think the miners see themselves? Passions are running very deep about this strike – and they’re running in both directions.’
Paniatowski sighed. ‘You may be right,’ she said, ‘but when I was at Len’s house – which, incidentally, you’ve still to see for yourself – my gut was telling me, very strongly, that this particular murder was personal. I’m almost certain that the killer was feeling a real rage against his victim as Len Hopkins, rather than just as somebody on the other side of the argument.’
‘Imagine you were a miner,’ Beresford suggested. ‘You see this strike as vital for ensuring the future of your family. And this one feller – Len Hopkins – is threatening that future. As far as you’re concerned, he’s a traitor to his class. Wouldn’t you feel a real rage towards him?’
‘Yes, if he was the one feller,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But he wasn’t, was he? There are plenty of other people who oppose the strike.’
‘And Martin Luther King wasn’t the only black man in the Civil Rights Movement,’ Beresford said. ‘But King was the symbol of that movement – he inspired others to follow him.’
‘I think you’re stretching the analogy a bit, Colin,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And I think . . .’ Beresford said hotly; then checking himself he continued, in a much calmer voice, ‘I think that whoever chose the pickaxe as a murder weapon didn’t choose it because it was a weapon of opportunity, or because he was in a rage and wanted to make a real mess of Hopkins. I think he chose it because it was symbolic of the struggle.’
Enough was enough! Paniatowski decided.
‘Since you feel so very strongly that this line of investigation is worth pursuing, we will – despite any misgivings that I might have – pursue it, Inspector Beresford,’ she said.
‘Thank you, boss,’ said Beresford, finally accepting that he’d gone too far.
‘What time is this meeting in the Miners’ Institute?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Half past seven.’
‘I don’t think the killer is likely to stand up and confess to his crime in the middle of the meeting – though it would certainly be very nice for us if he did,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But if he is a miner, as DI Beresford is convinced he is, he’ll almost definitely be there, and he may just say something – or do something – which will give him away. And in case that happens, I’d like you to be there to see it, Inspector.’
Beresford nodded. ‘Right, boss.’
‘But at the same time as we’re following that line of investigation – the DI Beresford line – I’d like to find out more about Len Hopkins as a man, and the people who he interacted with,’ Paniatowski continued. She looked Beresford straight in the eye. ‘Is that all right with you, Inspector?’
There was only one permissible answer, and Beresford gave it by nodding his head again.
‘Now we know that Len Hopkins was a religious man from some of the books that he had in his house,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘What was it that the vicar said about him, Jack?’
‘That he belongs to some kind of wild Methodist sect in the next valley,’ Crane replied.
‘Which is not exactly a very Christian attitude, and probably tells us much more about the vicar of Bellingsworth than it does about the Methodists,’ Paniatowski said drily. ‘I’d like you to go and talk to this pastor of Len’s first thing in the morning, Jack.’
‘Got it,’ Crane said.
‘I’d like you, Kate, to find out if the fight in the Miners’ Institute was the only example of violence yesterday, and, if there were others, whether or not Len Hopkins was involved – because if he spent his whole day getting into punch-ups, I need to know about it.’
‘Hopkins wasn’t in Bellingsworth for most of yesterday,’ Meadows pointed out.
‘I know that,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘He wasn’t here, and neither was anyone he might have come into conflict with. That’s why I want you in Accrington tomorrow, talking to the people who organized the brass band competition – and in particular to any of them who were involved in the security arrangements.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘And there’s one more thing that comes to mind,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Last week – on Thursday, to be precise – a young man, supposedly from the Department of Education and Science, paid Len Hopkins a visit. We don’t know what he said to him, but we do know that whatever it was, it made Hopkins absolutely furious. So when you can spare the time, Inspector Beresford, I’d like you to check up on who he was, and what he said.’
‘So you think he might be the killer, do you?’ asked Beresford, with a little aggression creeping back into his voice.
I saw enough of him to know he’d have thought it far too messy to smash in Len’s head with a short-handled pickaxe, Susan Danvers had said, sitting in the sad monument to the past that was her front parlour.
‘No, I don’t believe he killed Len Hopkins,’ Paniatowski told Beresford, ‘but he’s a loose end in this investigation, and I don’t like loose ends.’
‘I’ll deal with it,’ Beresford said – though the tone in his voice suggested he wouldn’t exactly be making it a priority.
There was the sound of a large van pulling up outside the pub.
Meadows stood up, and looked out of the window.
‘I don’t want to bother you, boss, but we’ve got trouble,’ she said.
‘Trouble?’ Paniatowski repeated.
And then she looked out of the window herself, and saw exactly what Meadows meant.
ELEVEN
The trouble that Meadows had spotted through the window of the Green Dragon took the form of Lynda Jenkins, until recently a reporter for Radio Whitebridge and now elevated to regional television.
Lynda had her fans, but her producer, Roger Hardcastle, was definitely not one of them. In his opinion, her soaring career owed less to her innate abilities as a journalist than to her willingness to make the people who mattered at Northern TV aware of her large – and Hardcastle had reluctantly to admit, rather shapely – breasts.
In her own assessment, she had the true reporter’s instinct for a good story, which, roughly translated, meant that she considered the accuracy of what she was reporting on to be of lesser importance than the splash it would cause. And as she
stepped down from the outside broadcast van in front of the Green Dragon, she was sensing a very big splash indeed.
Terry, her cameraman, followed her on to the pavement, and looked in the direction of the pub.
‘Are you going inside, Lynda?’ he asked.
‘No need,’ Jenkins told him. ‘Now that we’re here, they’ll come out.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Absolutely sure – if they didn’t, it would look as if they were hiding from me.’
‘Do you want me to have the camera running when they come out?’ Terry asked.
It was a tempting idea, Jenkins thought. The image of two bobbies leaving a pub would be good television, especially with the scathing comment she would add during editing. But filming them at that moment might make them less willing to cooperate, and it would be much better – in splash terms – if they agreed to be interviewed live on air.
The door of the Green Dragon opened, and Paniatowski and her inspector stepped out on to the street.
‘Told you, didn’t I, Terry?’ Jenkins said complacently. She switched her attention to the two police officers. ‘Good afternoon to you both, Chief Inspector Paniatowski and Inspector Beresford. I’m Lynda Jenkins, and I’m here on behalf of Northern Television News.’
‘I know who you are,’ Paniatowski said, flatly.
‘I’ve got a time-spot booked for my report on the next news bulletin, and I wondered whether you’d care to appear in it,’ Jenkins said.
Paniatowski hesitated. On the one hand, appealing for information could be very helpful at this point in the investigation. On the other, the last time Jenkins had covered a serious crime – the murder of a prostitute whose body had been found in a moorland pub called the Top o’ the Moors – the reporter had revealed far too much information on air.
‘I’m prepared to be interviewed, but I want something in return,’ she said finally.
‘And what might that be?’ Lynda Jenkins wondered.
‘For reasons I’m not at liberty to go into, I want to keep the investigation very low-key at the moment,’ Paniatowski said, ‘which means that what I really don’t need are any outrageous statements from you.’
Lambs to the Slaughter Page 9