‘Oh, you don’t like to hear the truth, do you?’ Thomas taunted, all signs of camaraderie now quite absent from his voice. ‘You don’t mind taking the benefits, but you don’t want to dirty your own hands in winning them.’
At least half the miners were on their feet now, and some looked ready to silence Thomas by any means necessary.
The four constables moved rapidly to the table, and formed a protective phalanx round the man from Kent.
‘Len Hopkins lived as a traitor and he died as a traitor,’ Thomas bawled, to make himself heard above the noise. ‘And if another traitor has to die – if another hundred traitors have to die – we should give our support to the men who killed them, because this is a war, and they are our front-line troops.’
The two men from Special Branch suddenly appeared next to Thomas, forced his hands behind his back, cuffed him, and frogmarched him towards the exit. The speed of the whole operation took all the miners by surprise, and they were still wondering quite what had happened when the officers and their prisoner reached the door and disappeared.
Beresford rushed after them, but even so, by the time he was outside the club the two officers were already bundling Thomas into the back of their car.
The hatchet-faced man heard his approach, and turned to face him.
‘Keep back, sir,’ he said. ‘This man is being arrested for a breach of the peace, and it has nothing to do with you.’
‘Police!’ Beresford said, reaching into his pocket and producing his warrant card. ‘We met earlier.’
‘Oh, that’s right, we did,’ Hatchet-face agreed. ‘You were with that cute little blonde – who you’re probably slipping a length to on the quiet – but it’s still nothing to do with you.’
‘I’m investigating a murder, and this man may be germane to my enquiries,’ Beresford insisted.
‘Ed had nothing to do with your murder, son,’ Hatchet-face said. ‘He’s been stirring up trouble in the Kent coalfield for years, which means we’ve been keeping an eye on him for years – and we know exactly where he was at the time Len Hopkins was killed.’
‘And where exactly was he?’
Hatchet-face smiled. It wasn’t pleasant.
‘I’m not allowed to tell you that – but he was at least a hundred and fifty miles away from this shithole,’ he said.
Beresford looked down at the prisoner, who was still handcuffed, and was now sitting in the back of the car.
Thomas didn’t look particularly shaken by what he had just gone through, but then, Beresford supposed, an agitator like him must regard being arrested as no more than an occupational hazard.
‘Why don’t you get back to your nice little murder, and leave the important work – protecting this country – to us?’ Hatchet-face suggested.
And then he climbed into the car, and his partner, who was already behind the wheel, pulled away.
‘When I went back into the concert room, it was like attending a completely different meeting,’ Beresford told the rest of the team, at their ‘specially reserved’ table in the Green Dragon. ‘You could have bottled the hostility in the air – and it wasn’t just hostility towards Ed Thomas, it was hostility towards each other.’
‘Are you saying that he managed to convince some of the miners that Len Hopkins was killed because he was against the strike?’ Paniatowski asked.
Beresford shook his head. ‘It was more subtle than that. It was as if . . . I don’t know quite how to describe it.’ He took a sip of his pint. ‘It was as if they were already thinking, deep down, that he’d been killed because of the strike, but they were trying to keep the thought buried. Then Thomas made that speech of his, and it all came to the surface.’ He had another slug of beer. ‘Anyway, nobody seemed to want to say much after that – or maybe they did want to say something, but thought they shouldn’t – and the meeting more or less broke up.’
‘So, in your opinion, Colin, there are now quite a number of men in this village who are willing to accept that Len Hopkins was killed by a pro-strike miner?’ Paniatowski said.
‘That’s right,’ Beresford agreed. ‘And it’s also my opinion that a lot of them might be starting to think not just that it was any pro-strike miner, but that that miner is Tommy Sanders.’
Paniatowski nodded. ‘And they may well be right,’ she said.
Beresford almost choked on his beer. ‘So you’ve come round to my way of thinking, have you?’
‘I have,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘I can’t think of any reason why Tommy Sanders would have put his own granddaughter through what he has put her through if he wasn’t the murderer.’
Beresford seemed to swell in size.
‘So Tommy Sanders is our prime suspect – like I always said that he should be?’ he asked.
‘So Tommy Sanders is our prime suspect,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘Right,’ Beresford said firmly, ‘then the first thing we need to do is break his alibi.’
An image of Becky Sanders – all thin arms and big frightened eyes – came into Paniatowski’s mind.
‘If that’s absolutely necessary, then that’s what we’ll do,’ she said. ‘But I’d rather get at him some other way, if that’s at all possible.’
‘Oh, come on, boss, be sensible!’ Beresford protested. ‘Breaking the alibi is the obvious way to—’
Paniatowski raised a hand to silence him. ‘It’s not up for negotiation,’ she said, and there was a firmness in her voice which even Colin Beresford – in his moment of triumph – could not ignore. ‘Anyway, breaking the alibi will only prove that Becky’s lying – and that’s not enough to arrest Tommy on.’
‘It would prove that Sanders was lying, as well,’ said Beresford, who had not yet quite given up.
‘We’ll go about it another way,’ Paniatowski said briskly. ‘I want Len Hopkins’ house thoroughly examined again, in case we’ve missed anything the first time that might suggest Sanders was there last night. And I want another door-to-door, looking for possible witnesses, and this time I want special attention paid to people whose bedrooms overlook the back alley which could have been the route from Tommy’s house to Len’s.’
‘Got it,’ Beresford said, with as much good grace as he could muster.
‘Everything else I’ve already laid out will go ahead as planned, but with a slightly different focus,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘I still want you, Jack, to talk to Len’s minister, but now I’d be particularly interested to learn if Len had told him anything about Tommy Sanders.’
‘Are you saying you think there might be a personal motive behind the murder, as well as a political one?’ Beresford asked, as if he suspected Paniatowski of trying to steal his thunder.
‘I’m saying that if you’ve convinced yourself you have to kill somebody for the good of the mining community as a whole, it certainly wouldn’t be a drawback if you already hated his guts,’ Paniatowski replied.
‘Good thinking, boss,’ Crane said, and tried to ignore the black look that Beresford shot at him.
The phone rang behind the bar. The landlord answered it, then called out, ‘Phone call for Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski!’ in a voice loud enough for all the customers to hear.
‘Must be something wrong with my beeper,’ Paniatowski said.
Crane grinned. ‘Maybe the landlord’s found some way to sabotage it. You’re a real feather in his cap, you know.’
‘You’re not wrong,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘If I had a heart attack and died while I was in this pub, I swear he’d want me stuffed and mounted.’
She stood up, and walked across to the bar.
‘You should take what you’ve just witnessed as an object lesson, young Jack,’ Beresford said.
‘How do you mean, sir?’
‘When you’re investigating a murder, you shouldn’t overlook the obvious suspect just because he is obvious – nine times out of ten, he’ll be the man you’re looking for.’
I used to like you, Colin, Crane tho
ught. I really used to like you. But I don’t think I like you much any more.
‘If you’re right about that, sir – and I’m sure you are, given that you seem to be right about most things – then we’re a bit of an irrelevance, aren’t we?’ he said aloud.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Beresford asked.
‘Well, if solving murders is as simple as you seem to think it is, we might as well leave it in the hands of country constables like PC Mellors.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Beresford demanded
‘No, sir, he’s not trying to be funny – he’s trying to make a point,’ Meadows said.
‘And what point might that be?’
‘That you’ve suddenly become a complete bloody prick.’
Beresford reddened. ‘I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to, Detective Sergeant Meadows,’ he said.
‘And when you’re talking to the boss, you seem to have forgotten who you’re talking to, Detective Inspector Beresford,’ Meadows countered.
‘I don’t have to tolerate this insolence from you,’ Beresford said angrily.
‘Oh, I see, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it,’ Meadows taunted. ‘Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you file a complaint?’
‘Shut up, the pair of you,’ Crane hissed. ‘The boss is coming back, and she looks a bit upset.’
Paniatowski looked more than a bit upset. Her face was as pale as death, and her whole body was shaking.
‘What’s happened, Monika?’ Beresford asked, turning pale himself.
‘That . . . that was Lily Perkins on the phone,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Something’s . . . something’s happened to Louisa, and I have to go home straight away. But I . . . but I don’t know what I’ve done with my car keys.’
Beresford sprang to his feet and hugged her to him. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll find your car keys for you. But you can’t drive yourself home in this state.’
‘But I have to . . . I have to . . .’
‘I’ll leave my car here, and drive you home in yours,’ Beresford said. ‘Now that would be better, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Paniatowski replied, in a tiny, tiny voice.
SIXTEEN
There had been no snow, despite the threatening grey clouds the day before, but a heavy frost had formed during the night, and the hills which surrounded Bellingsworth glimmered and twinkled in the weak early sunlight.
In the village itself, the air was clear and sharp that Tuesday morning, and as DC Jack Crane stood on the steps of the church hall, watching the patrol car driven by Inspector Beresford pull up opposite, he clutched his cup of steaming coffee tightly in an effort to keep his hands warm.
Beresford climbed out of the car, walked across to his own vehicle, which had been parked in the village overnight, and ran a finger through the thick frost on the bonnet.
‘If I can get this started again without help, it’ll be a bloody miracle,’ he said grumpily.
‘How’s Louisa?’ Crane asked.
‘I don’t know any more than I did when I rang you at home last night,’ Beresford told him.
‘So you haven’t called the boss this morning?’ Crane asked, surprised.
‘No,’ Beresford replied. ‘And before you accuse me of being completely insensitive to anyone’s problems but my own, I should perhaps inform you that I went one better than just calling her on the phone, I drove round to the house!’
‘But you didn’t talk to the boss?’
‘No, I didn’t. It was Lily Perkins who answered the door, and she was in such a state herself that she hardly made any sense at all. The one thing I did manage to gather from her was that Monika was upstairs with Louisa, and didn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘So I take it the boss won’t be coming to the village today,’ Crane said.
‘The boss won’t be coming to the village at all,’ Beresford replied. ‘She’s asked the chief constable to grant her some compassionate leave.’
‘Then who’ll be taking over from her?’ Crane asked, running through his mind the list of available DCIs, and quickly deciding that none of them was immediately appealing.
‘I’ll be taking over from her,’ Beresford said.
‘You!’ Crane exclaimed, before he could stop himself.
‘Me,’ Beresford replied. ‘The chief constable seemed to think I was perfectly capable of leading the investigation, but, of course, if you have any doubts about me, Detective Constable Crane, I’m sure he’ll be more than willing to reconsider his decision.’
‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean it to sound like that, but it just took me by surprise, coming out of the blue,’ Crane said.
But he was thinking to himself, Well, shit! That’s the last thing this investigation needs.
It only took him a moment to realize that if he was stuck with working for Colin Beresford, then he’d better make the best of it – and part of making the best of it involved clearing the air.
‘I’m sorry about last night, sir,’ he said.
‘Last night?’ Beresford repeated vaguely, as if he had no idea what the detective constable was talking about.
He wants his pound of flesh, Crane thought, and to get his pound of flesh, he’s going to make me spell it out.
‘I was a bit sarcastic to you in the Green Dragon, sir,’ he said.
‘It was rather more than a bit, don’t you think?’ Beresford asked.
No, it bloody wasn’t! Crane thought. Given what you were like last night, it was a model of restraint.
‘I went too far,’ he said.
‘Forget it, Jack,’ Beresford said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘As your new boss, I’m sure that I can overlook one minor indiscretion.’ He made great show of checking his watch. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be over in Brigden this morning, having a little talk with Len Hopkins’ vicar?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, half the morning’s gone already, so you’d better get moving, hadn’t you, lad?’
‘I’m on my way,’ Crane said.
The new boss was trying to act like a patrician, he thought, as he walked over to his car, but he couldn’t carry it off, and instead he was coming across as just bloody patronizing!
The phone was ringing when Beresford entered the church hall.
‘Taylor the Cutter here,’ said the unreasonably cheerful voice of the caller. ‘Have scalpel, will slash.’
‘Do you have some information for us on the cadaver, Dr Taylor?’ Beresford asked.
‘I do indeed, young man. Your stiff died sometime between ten o’clock at night and two o’clock in the morning, as near as I can tell. Death was, as you’ve no doubt already concluded yourselves, the result of being smote on the noggin with the sharp end of a pickaxe. There wasn’t that much force behind the blow, and a younger and fitter man might well have survived it. Your chap wasn’t so lucky. He died instantly.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Beresford said.
‘There’s something else,’ Taylor told him. ‘I don’t know if you wondered what would drive a man to visit an outside shithouse on a cold winter’s night, but I certainly did.’
‘Yes, we were puzzled by that,’ Beresford said, ‘especially as we know he had a chamber pot under his bed.’
‘Unless it was as big as a bath tub, the chamber pot simply wouldn’t have been up to the job,’ Taylor said. ‘He’d have filled it in two minutes.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The man had enough laxative inside him to have given a bull elephant Montezuma’s Revenge. Now I’m not in a position yet to say exactly what laxative it was, you understand . . .’
‘Could it have been self-administered?’
‘It could, I suppose, but the man would have had to be a complete idiot to have exceeded the instructions on the bottle by the amount that’s banging around in his system now.’
‘Thanks a lot, Doc,’ Beresford said.
‘I’ll ge
t back to you when I have more,’ the doctor promised.
When Beresford hung up the phone, there was a puzzled expression on his face.
If Len Hopkins hadn’t administered the laxative himself – and according to the doctor, he’d have to have been insane to take such a large dose voluntarily – then somebody else had been responsible.
And that somebody else had done it to make sure that Len would visit his outside lavatory in the middle of the night – which turned everything they’d thought about the crime so far completely on its head!
The assumption had been that the killer had planned to murder Len in the house, but finding him on the toilet, had realized that made him an easier target. But that assumption had been wrong. It must always have been his intention to do it while his victim was sitting on the bog, weakened by an attack of diarrhoea.
In other words, he hadn’t taken the opportunity at all – he had created the opportunity.
And just how could their prime suspect have managed that?
How could a man who had come to blows with his victim just a few hours earlier ever get close enough to him to administer the laxative?
The nameplate on his desk announced that the managing director of Brough’s Premium Brewery (Accrington) was called William Radcliffe, and the letters which followed the name – OBE – provided the additional information that he had been awarded the Order of the British Empire in recognition of some unspecified service he had done for the nation.
Radcliffe was a bald man, with a broad walrus moustache which seemed to belong to another era, and when his secretary showed Kate Meadows into his office, he greeted the visitor with a broad walrus smile.
‘Ah, Lady Katherine,’ he said, gesturing that she should take a seat, ‘what an absolute delight to see you again.’
Meadows groaned inwardly, as she always did when her past managed to catch up with her.
‘As far as I’m concerned, Lady Katherine’s dead and buried,’ she said. ‘My name’s just Kate Meadows now, or, when I’m working, Detective Sergeant Kate Meadows.’
‘Ah, yes, of course,’ Radcliffe said awkwardly. ‘I did hear that after you . . . I mean, I should have realized that you wouldn’t want to be—’
Lambs to the Slaughter Page 14