Dangerous Games (16 page)

What was occupying all the sergeant's attention was a woman. At first glance, she looked to be in her late twenties. She was smartly – though not expensively – dressed, and she appeared to be in what, in Lancashire, was known as ‘a right old state.'

‘You have to do
something
!' she was screaming at the duty sergeant.

The sergeant, a man who had seen pretty much everything during his long service on the force – and as a consequence was rarely surprised, and almost
never
disconcerted – shook his head regretfully.

‘There's nothing I
can
do, madam,' he said. ‘Your husband's only been missing for a few hours, and, by your own admission, he left your home of his own free will.'

‘But it's not like him,' the woman bawled. ‘He has two little children, who he adores. It's … it's just not like him at all.'

That's what most deserted women said after they discovered their husbands had done a bunk, Woodend thought as he walked over to the lift. Even when all the signs had been there for months – and sometimes even for years – they never actually saw them until the fellers had gone.

‘If you'll just fill in this form, we'll act on it as soon as an appropriate time has elapsed,' the desk sergeant said soothingly.

Woodend pressed the button, and heard the sound of the lift coming to life overhead.

‘You don't understand!' he heard the woman say. ‘This can't wait. Something terrible may
already
have happened.'

‘Don't be so pessimistic, Mrs Bygraves,' the desk sergeant said, shifting smoothly from a measured approached to one which attempted to jolly the woman along. ‘For all you know, your Tom may be waiting for you at home even now.'

The lift doors slid open, but instead of stepping inside, Woodend reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the list of names that Priscilla Charlton had given him as he left Hough Engineering.

The one that he was looking for was halfway down it – Pte Thomas Bygraves.

The Chief Inspector turned, and walked back to the duty desk.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Bygraves, but when your husband did his National Service, did he happen to be posted to Cyprus?'

The woman sniffed. ‘Yes, he did serve in Cyprus, but what's that got to do with …?'

But Woodend already had his hand on her shoulder, and was guiding her gently towards the lift.

‘I think what we both need to do is to go up to my office an' have a little talk,' he said reassuringly.

His first impression – that Mrs Bygraves was in her late twenties – had been spot on, Woodend thought, looking at her across his desk. He'd been right about the ‘respectable' side of things, too. Before she'd come to the police station, she'd taken the trouble to put on her make-up, though, in her obvious distress, she'd made a really botched job of it.

‘It's so unlike my Tom to do anything like this,' Mrs Bygraves said, making an effort to fight back the tears.

‘Have a sip of your police canteen tea, love,' the chief inspector said gently. ‘There's not much to recommend it in the flavour stakes, but at least it's hot an' sweet.'

Mrs Bygraves did as she'd been instructed, but it didn't seem to be helping much.

‘He's normally so steady,' she said, with a sniffle. ‘So reliable. They said at work that they could set their clocks by him.'

‘When did you start to notice a change in your husband's behaviour?' Woodend asked.

‘It must have been over two weeks ago now. I thought at first it might be something to do with his job. He can get in a real tizzy during the half-yearly stock-taking. But that was all over and done with by last Friday, and instead of just looking exhausted – as he usually does when it's finished – he seemed to have more nervous energy than ever.'

‘An' did he suddenly get worse yesterday – say around early afternoon?' Woodend suggested.

‘How could you have known that?' Mrs Bygraves asked, amazed.

Because that's about the time he would have learned that Terry Pugh was dead, Woodend thought.

‘It was just a guess,' he said aloud.

‘He came home from work at about one o'clock. He said he wasn't feeling well, and had decided to take the rest of the day off. But he
never
does that kind of thing.'

‘Did you meet your husband after he'd left the army, or did you know him before that?'

‘Before. We got engaged just before he was called up.'

‘So he'll have told you all about it?'

‘Well, yes. I mean, no. I mean, I don't know
what
I mean! He did tell me about it at the beginning. And he did talk about it when he came home on that unexpected leave from Cyprus, because of his mother's condition. But after that, well, it was almost as if he wasn't the same man at all, so I don't really know how to answer your question honestly.'

‘Maybe it would be better if we took each leave in turn,' Woodend suggested. ‘Do you think that might make it easier?'

‘Maybe.'

‘So let's start with the first one.'

‘That was after basic training. He hadn't enjoyed the training at all. He said that it seemed to him as if they were trying to turn him into some kind of unthinking, unfeeling machine.'

Woodend grimaced, remembering his own early days in the army.

‘When you see an enemy soldier, don't think about whether he's got a wife and kids at home,' young Charlie Woodend's Sergeant Major had bawled at the men as he'd strode up and down the line along which they were standing stiffly to attention. ‘Don't think about him at all. You kill the bastard – before he kills you!'

‘What did your husband have to say about his time in Cyprus?' Woodend asked.

‘I don't see what this has to do with Tom's disappearance,' Mrs Bygraves told him.

‘I don't expect you do,' Woodend agreed. ‘But humour me, an' it will all become clear later.'

Mrs Bygraves nodded. ‘He came home on compassionate leave shortly after he'd been posted there. His mum was having a very serious operation,' She paused. ‘Did I say that before?'

‘More or less. But it doesn't really matter why he was there. Just tell me what he said.'

‘He said he really liked the place, and that if that was “abroad”, then he was all for it. He even went as far as to suggest that, if we could afford it, we might spend our honeymoon there. But soon after he went back, things turned very nasty, what with the terrorists and everything.'

‘Was he scared when things turned nasty?'

‘I think he must have been.'

‘You
think
he must have been?'

‘Yes, but I can't know for certain, because the next time he came home he'd already been demobbed, and he wouldn't talk about the place at all. In fact, he's
never
talked about it to this day.'

‘Not even when he's been out for a few drinks with some of his old comrades?'

‘He doesn't.'

‘Doesn't what? Doesn't drink?'

‘No, not that. He likes the odd tipple – though always within reason. But he's never been out with the men he served with. I don't even know who they are.'

Now that really was amazing, Woodend thought.

His own wife, Joan, knew almost as much about his old comrades as he did himself, because after what he'd been through with those lads, he couldn't
help
talking about them. And as for never going out for a drink with them, he couldn't understand that either, because there were times when every man
needed
to talk about his war – and the people he needed to talk about it
to
were those men who'd been through the same experience themselves.

‘Tell me about what happened this mornin',' he suggested.

‘Tom wouldn't get out of bed at first. I asked him if he was still feeling poorly, but he wouldn't even answer me. Honestly, it was just like talking to a brick wall.'

Or a man almost paralysed with fear, Woodend thought.

‘Anyway, I went downstairs and started doing a bit of cleaning up in the lounge,' Mrs Bygraves continued. ‘I find dusting and polishing has a very soothing effect on me.'

‘I'm sure it does,' Woodend agreed.

‘I heard him turn on the little radio we keep by the side of the bed, just in time to catch the local news, and I thought:
Well, at least he's taking an interest in something
. And the next thing I knew, he was rushing down the stairs like the house was on fire. He said he had to make a phone call – a
private
phone call – and he bundled me into the kitchen as if I was no more than a pile of rags.'

And as soon as he'd done that, he rang me and pleaded with me to tell him the name of the second victim, Woodend thought.

‘Then he packed his suitcase, got into the car and drove away,' Mrs Bygraves continued. ‘He wouldn't tell me where he was going. To be honest, I don't think he knew himself.' She paused. ‘He is going to be all right, isn't he?'

She had no idea why her husband had run away, Woodend thought. She had made no connection in her mind between him and the two hanged men. But from the tone of those last few words of hers, it was plain that she already had the smell of death in her nostrils.

‘It's early days yet,' he told her, hoping he was sounding reassuring, yet almost certain that he was not. ‘There's absolutely no point in worryin' yourself about him unnecessarily. Is there anything else you can remember which might help us to find him quicker?'

Mrs Bygraves thought about it for a moment. ‘There is one strange thing he did just before he left,' she said finally. ‘But I don't see how it could possibly have anything to do with where he is now.'

‘Tell me about it anyway,' Woodend encouraged.

‘He seemed in such a rush to get away – he'd just
thrown
his clothes into the suitcase, and that wasn't like him at all, because he's normally such a careful packer and …'

‘He seemed in such a rush to get away,' Woodend said, steering her back on course.

‘That's right. But then he suddenly decided to go into the back garden and set fire to the garden rubbish we were planning to turn into a compost heap. Don't
you
find that strange?'

‘Very strange,' Woodend said levelly.

‘I didn't understand why he was doing it at the time, and I
still
don't understand. Do you have any idea why he might have done it?'

‘Not a clue,' Woodend said.

But he was lying. He thought he knew
exactly
why Tom Bygraves had set fire to the nascent compost heap. He'd done it to destroy evidence.

T
he sun was just beginning to set as Woodend drove towards RAF Blackhill. The road he was travelling along was there solely for military purposes, coming to a dead halt when it reached the base, and that showed in the road surface, which presented no challenges at all to an RAF lorry or sturdy Land Rover, but was drawing considerable complaints from the suspension of the chief inspector's ageing Wolseley.

Woodend remembered the last time he had visited the base. It had been three years earlier, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Reading about the crisis in their history books, he thought as his suspension emitted another whine of agony, future generations would probably wonder what all the fuss had been about. Russia had wanted to establish a missile base on the island of Cuba, they would learn, and the United States of America had said it couldn't. The two powers had argued hotly about it for a few days, then America had made some token concessions, and Russia had backed down as gracefully as they could. A simple problem, then, those students of the future might well decide. A simple problem, simply resolved.

But it hadn't felt like that at time, Woodend told himself, as he saw the barbed-wire fence of RAF Blackhill up ahead of him. It hadn't felt like that
at all
.

Back then, it had seemed with each successive, and ever-worsening, news bulletin that nuclear war was inevitable – as if the end of the world was not only likely, but imminent. People in Whitebridge had walked round in a daze, almost like sleep walkers, their stomachs gripped by fear, their minds attempting to fight off an all-engulfing panic. And then, in the middle of this count-down to destruction, a young girl had gone missing.

Her name was Helen, and she had been the daughter of Squadron Leader Dunn. From the very start of the investigation, Woodend had been almost certain that she'd been kidnapped by a dangerous psychopath, and was already as good as dead – but that had not stopped him from driving his team of officers harder than he'd ever driven a team before.

As he approached the gate of the base, Woodend slowed down, coming to a halt just in front of the barrier. Two sentries had been watching him for some time, and now one of them walked over to him.

‘This is a military installation, sir,' he said, politely but firmly.

‘I know that,' Woodend replied, looking up the towers at the corners of the perimeter fence, and thinking it would be difficult to miss the fact. ‘I'm Chief Inspector Woodend of the Central Lancs Police, an' I've got an appointment with Group Captain Featherington-Byres.'

The sentry first ran his eyes over Woodend's hairy sports coat and then over the Wolseley. He did not seem unduly impressed with either.

‘I'll have to ring through and get confirmation,' he said.

‘Of course you will,' Woodend agreed.

The sentry returned to his box and picked up the phone.

Watching him only vaguely, Woodend found his mind returning to the Helen Dunn case.

He'd been totally wrong about the nature of that investigation, he thought. But that hadn't been his fault, because what he'd believed had been what he'd been
intended
to believe – what he'd been
manipulated
into believing. Helen's abductor, as he discovered when he personally rescued her, was no sexual deviant – and her kidnapping was less to do with the girl herself than with the Cold War between the West and the USSR.