Dying Fall (18 page)

Spot on, Paniatowski thought, admiringly.

‘Of course, if you hadn't been stupid enough to use your own name, it would have taken me longer to find you,' Mrs Lowry continued, ‘but I would have found you eventually.'

‘Yes, I believe you would,' Paniatowski conceded.

‘And now I'm here, I have one simple question I'd like to ask you,' Mrs Lowry said. ‘And can you guess what it is?'

‘You want to know why I was asking questions about your son?'

‘Exactly.'

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you that.'

‘Then let me try you with another one. Were you doing it off your own bat, or because you were told to?'

‘I'm afraid I can't answer that either,'

‘So you were
told
to do it. Who by? Chief Inspector Woodend?'

‘I—' Paniatowski began.

‘I know, you can't tell me that, either,' Mrs Lowry interrupted.

‘That's correct,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘It'll have been Woodend,' Mrs Lowry said confidently. ‘He'll have
made
you do it, whether you wanted to or not. Men are such bastards – and I should know, because I was married to one of them for over thirty years. So, bearing that in mind, I'm not blaming you for what's happened – I'm just telling you that it has to stop. Is that clear? I will
not
tolerate a police vendetta against my son.'

‘Does he know you're here?' Paniatowski asked.

‘He does not. He knows nothing about this whole sordid business. He's got enough on his plate, trying to make this town a better place to live in, without having to deal with matters I can perfectly well manage myself.'

‘I can't make any promises,' Paniatowski said.

‘Of course you can't,' Mrs Lowry agreed. ‘You're nothing but a minor cog in the wheel. So I'll make a promise myself. I've lived in this town for over sixty years, and I've got to know a lot of important people in that time. In some ways, I have much more influence than my son does – and I'll use that influence if DCI Woodend doesn't call off his dogs.'

‘I'll pass your message along,' Paniatowski said.

‘Thank you, I'd appreciate that.' Mrs Lowry stood up and walked over to the door. ‘There is one more thing I'd better make clear before I leave,' she said.

‘Yes?'

‘I said I don't blame you for what's happened, but that shouldn't lull you into thinking I admire you as a plucky little woman keeping her head held high in a man's world. The simple truth is that I disliked you on first sight, and that I never expect to see you, or hear from you, ever again. Have I made myself clear?'

‘More than clear,' Paniatowski said.

‘This is Mr Lowry's office,' said the secretary with the blue-rinsed hair, as he pushed open the large double doors. ‘He asked me to apologize for not being here to greet you personally, but something's come up on the shop floor that he had to deal with immediately. If you don't mind waiting, he shouldn't be more than a few minutes.'

‘No problem,' Woodend told her.

‘Well, then, please go inside and make yourself at home.'

Woodend stepped into the office, and looked around him with frank curiosity. It was a big room, but even so, the rosewood desk in the centre managed to dominate it. The walls were lined with books, many of them leather-bound, and close to the picture window were two leather chairs and an inlaid coffee table.

It was a room designed to impress, the chief inspector decided, and – despite his best efforts – it was doing just that.

Hanging on the wall behind the desk was a large oil painting of a man standing in the foreground, with the factory behind him. He was dressed in the style of an earlier generation, but it was not his clothes which caught Woodend's attention. Rather it was the eyes, which were intense and ice-cold.

‘When Oliver Cromwell had his portrait painted, he instructed the artist to portray him as he was – warts and all – and I rather suspect that my father gave his painter exactly the same instruction,' said a voice from the doorway.

Woodend turned, and saw that Tel Lowry had entered the room.

‘Your note said you wanted to see me,' he said, neutrally.

‘It was the eyes you were drawn to in the picture, wasn't it?' Lowry asked.

‘Yes, it was,' Woodend agreed.

‘It's the eyes that draw everyone,' Lowry said. ‘My father was a hard, unrelenting man, and he didn't care who knew it. He was a firm believer in the adage that if you were determined enough – and ruthless enough – you could achieve anything you desired. But one thing he
couldn't
do – though he desperately wanted to – was get elected to the council. He stood several times, you know, but despite the fact that he had a lot of clout in this town, he never even came close to winning a seat.'

‘An' you did,' Woodend said.

‘And I did,' Lowry agreed. He walked across the room, and sat down in one of the easy chairs. ‘Please join me,' he said, gesturing to the other one.

Woodend sat.

‘Tea?' Lowry asked. ‘Coffee? Something a little stronger?'

‘Nothing,' Woodend replied.

‘Then I suppose we'd better get down to business,' Lowry suggested. He cupped his left knee with both his hands, then continued, ‘We seem to have got off on quite the wrong footing the last time that we met, and that was probably mostly my fault. I've been under a lot of pressure over the council budget, you see, and I may have slightly over-reacted to the idea of a sudden huge increase in police overtime payments.'

‘Is there an apology hidden in there, somewhere?' Woodend wondered aloud.

‘You're not an easy man to handle, are you, Chief Inspector?' Lowry asked. ‘Most of the people I deal with would have seen where I was leading the conversation by now, and made at least a token effort to smooth my path for me.'

‘Ah, but then, you see, most of the people you deal with are probably
politicians
,' Woodend replied. ‘An' I'm not especially noted for my skill in that particular area.'

Lowry frowned, and then the frown turned into a smile. ‘You're quite right,' he said. ‘That's the very root of the problem. I dealt with you as one politician would deal with another.'

‘So politicians use each other's families as leverage, do they?' Woodend asked.

‘Politicians use
anything
they can as leverage,' Lowry said airily. ‘But it's a game, you see. A simple tactic on the chessboard of municipal affairs, which nobody involved ever takes seriously. Your ex-boss, the largely unlamented Henry Marlowe, knew the rules, and would have responded pretty much as I expected him to – but I should never have tried that kind of approach on a down-to-earth straight­forward bobby like you.'

‘Down-to-earth straightforward bobbies aren't very susceptible to flattery, either,' Woodend said.

‘I wasn't flattering you, I was merely stating an obvious fact,' Lowry told him. ‘And since you, quite rightly, don't like apologies which are hidden in a thicket of other words, here's one out in the open – I'm very sorry I tried to bully you, Chief Inspector, and it won't happen again.'

‘Excuse me for bein' suspicious but—' Woodend began.

‘But you're wondering what's behind all this? You're wondering, specifically, what's in it for me?'

‘Exactly.'

‘A chance to put things right. I should never have tried to cut back on the night-time patrols. It almost cost another life, in addition to giving Henry Marlowe a reason – at least by his lights – for doing something which was
quite
un­acceptable.'

‘An' which landed you right in the shit with Accrington Council,' Woodend said.

‘And which landed me right in the shit with Accrington Council,' Lowry agreed. ‘But that's all ancient history now. You want to maintain the night-time foot patrols, and I'm more than willing to agree to that. But they can't go on indefinitely. They'd bankrupt the town if they did.'

‘So how long
can
they go on?'

‘Another week,' Lowry said.

‘Two weeks,' Woodend countered.

‘All right,' Lowry agreed. ‘But if they're going to be running for a fortnight, they'll have to be gradually scaled back.'

‘Meanin' there'll have to be less men in a patrol in the second week than there are in the first?'

‘Just so.'

‘Could I borrow your phone for a minute?' Woodend asked.

‘Of course,' Lowry agreed.

Beresford had only just walked through the door of police headquarters when the duty sergeant informed him that his boss was on the phone, and wanted to talk to him.

‘Well?' Woodend asked, without preamble.

‘Big Bazza really has gone to Spain,' Beresford said. ‘He'll be away for a week.'

‘So he wasn't lyin' after all,' Woodend said. ‘Right, I'll see you in the Drum at one o'clock.'

The line went dead, and Beresford handed the phone back to the duty sergeant.

‘Have you got anythin' planned for tonight, young Beresford?' the sergeant asked.

‘That depends on Mr Woodend,' Beresford replied. ‘Why do you ask?'

The sergeant grinned. ‘Well, if you are free, I thought we might go dancin' an' have a bite of supper,' he said. ‘An' after that,' he winked suggestively, ‘who knows what might happen?'

The bloody make-up! Beresford thought.

He'd been sure he'd got it all off, but the sergeant's piss-take was a clear indication that he hadn't. Maybe he'd better follow the advice of the woman behind the BEA counter, and apply a little Boots No. 7 cleansing cream.

When Woodend put down the phone, he saw that Lowry was smiling.

‘I couldn't help overhearing some of that,' the councillor said, ‘and from
what
I heard, it would seem there's a lot of truth in the Woodend legend.'

‘The Woodend legend?'

‘It's widely believed, in certain circles, that you and your team do some of your best work in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey. Henry Marlowe always thought it was a disgrace, and would have put a stop to it if he'd dared.'

‘An' what do you think about it?'

‘I think that I do some of
my
best work at cocktail parties and in the golf-club bar,' Lowry said. ‘Shall we get back to the issue of the foot patrols?'

‘Good idea,' Woodend agreed. ‘If I can have full strength for one week an' reduced strength for another, then I'd prefer to have the full strength at my disposal in the
second
week.'

‘May I ask why?'

‘You can
ask
,' Woodend said. Then he realized how churlish he must sound, and continued, ‘My prime suspect has just left Whitebridge. We expect him to stay away for a week.'

‘I see,' Lowry said. ‘Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's the amount of money you spend which matters, not
when
you choose to spend it. But that amount of money
is
fixed, Chief Inspector. And if, after two weeks, you've still not caught the killer, we'll have to assume that you'll
never
catch him unless there's another incident which might yield further information.'

Or, to put it another way, we'll go back to usin' what Monika Paniatowski called live bait, Woodend thought.

‘There is
one
small condition attached to my support for you in this matter,' Lowry said.

He should have been expecting this, Woodend thought. He should have – but he hadn't been.

‘
What
small condition?' he asked.

‘You may have noticed a number of rather unsavoury young men, wearing braces and big boots, have started hanging around the streets,' Lowry said.

‘They call themselves the hard mods,' Woodend told him.

‘Do they indeed,' Lowry replied. ‘And is it your opinion, Chief Inspector, that these young men are not only violent, but violently
anti-immigrant
?'

‘They've a growin' tendency to be,' Woodend agreed.

‘That sort of thing simply cannot be tolerated in a town like Whitebridge,' Lowry said. ‘The Pakistani and Indian members of our community are entitled to protection, and it is our job to see that they are given it. Which is why, when the officers on your foot patrols come into contact with these young men, I want them to make it clear to them that violence against the darker-skinned members of the community will not be tolerated.'

‘I think I'm beginnin' to get the hang of how this politics lark works,' Woodend said.

‘Oh? You think so?'

‘Definitely. Councillor Scranton's erodin' some of your white workin'-class support in your ward, but by the time the next elections come around, you'll have a fair number of Pakistani voters livin' there. Now if you can show these new voters that you're concerned about them, you might just keep your seat. An' what you've just asked me to tell my lads to do is the first step in showin' just how concerned you really
are
.'

Lowry was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘You would accept, wouldn't you, that my doing the right thing for
me
could also be doing what is simply the right thing
in general
?'

‘Yes, I'd accept that,' Woodend said.

‘What I've just asked you to do is the right thing in general, don't you think?'

Woodend thought about Councillor Scranton, and the vile speech he had delivered outside the factory gates.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I believe it
is
the right thing.'

‘Then we're agreed?' Lowry asked.

‘We're agreed,' Woodend confirmed.

‘I have to go away for a while,' Elizabeth Driver told Bob Rutter in the breakfast room of the Royal Victoria.