Dying Fall (27 page)

‘Go on,' Paniatowski encouraged, although she'd already guessed it would be a story she'd rather not hear the end of.

‘We'd been hiding there for about three days, and I went out on recce. When I got back, there was blood everywhere, and the farmer, his wife and his granddaughter were all dead.' Tears had begun to run down Pogo's face. ‘What had happened, you see, was that while I was out, one of my men – my comrades, my brothers-in-arms – had raped that sweet little girl. Then, once he'd had his share, the others wanted theirs, too. And they couldn't let the family live after that, could they? They would have been a danger. It would have been most
unmilitary
to let them survive to tell the tale.' He shook his head despairingly. ‘I should have shot the bloody lot of them right there on the spot.'

‘But you didn't,' Paniatowski said.

‘But I didn't,' Pogo agreed. ‘There was a war going on, and we still had a job to do. But
after
the war, I promised myself, I'd get justice for that girl and her grandparents.'

‘And did you?'

‘Of course I bloody didn't! Nobody was interested – not my superiors, not the military police. Hundreds of thousands of Germans had been killed – so what did three more matter? But I still cared, you see. And I decided, then and there, that if I couldn't trust the lads I'd fought with, then I couldn't trust anybody. So I've not got close to another human being for … how long is it now, did you say?'

‘Over twenty years.'

‘But then, because of you, I got close to Brunel.'

‘To who?'

‘Not that he called himself Brunel any longer. He told me that, for years, he's been going by the name of Brian.'

‘I still don't …'

‘I'd finally persuaded him to move away from the pipe, and he was sleeping in the black-lead factory tonight. It's his body you found.'

‘I'm sorry,' Paniatowski said. ‘Had you become very good friends?'

‘Not in the normal way you think of friendship, no,' Pogo said. ‘Brian had no time for that. He had no
space
for it. He was in Whitebridge on a mission – and that was all that mattered.'

‘What kind of mission?'

‘There were questions he wanted answering. He'd forgotten what they were, but he was convinced that being in this particular town would remind him of them, even if, half the time, he couldn't even remember what the bloody place was called.'

‘I'm not sure I quite understand what you're getting at,' Paniatowski said.

‘Why would you?' Pogo asked. ‘I'm not even sure I understand it myself. We spent our days scouring the town, looking for clues. He thought a pub called the Engineers' Arms might have been the clue he needed, but it wasn't. We saw this big black shiny Bentley once, and he was quite excited about that for a while, but then he said it wasn't quite the right shape.'

‘What did he mean by that?'

‘God knows!' Pogo took another slug of vodka. ‘Oh, and he told me he'd known a killer – a very bad man – but that it had all been a long time ago.'

‘Did he say any more about this killer?' Paniatowski asked.

Pogo shook his head. ‘He only mentioned him the once, and even then, I didn't take him seriously. To be perfectly honest with you, he wasn't right in the head. But none of that matters, you see, because despite it all, he still had a
purpose
! He still knew that the answer he was looking for was out there somewhere, floating in the darkness, and that if he grabbed out often enough, he might catch hold of it. He became an inspiration to me. And in return for that inspir­ation, I protected him.'

But not tonight, Paniatowski thought.

‘But not tonight,' Pogo agreed, almost as if she'd said the words out loud. ‘Tonight, when I should have been there with him, I was lying in an alley, thinking I was dying.'

‘Who beat you up?' Paniatowski asked.

Pogo shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. ‘Some lads.'

‘What did they look like?'

‘They all had short hair and wore big boots.'

‘Did you do anything to provoke them? Anything at all they might have taken the wrong way?'

‘Nothing,' Pogo said. ‘I'd been to get some cigarettes, and I was just walking down this alley. They were waiting there for me. One of them said, “That's him!”, and then they attacked me.'

Barry Thornley's gang, Paniatowski thought. It just
had to be
them.

Pogo took another slug of the vodka. ‘And now Brian's dead, and the quest is over,' he said. ‘I failed him – just like I failed that little girl in Germany.'

‘You … you mustn't blame yourself,' Paniatowski told him, close to tears.

‘It's not about blame, it's about purpose,' Pogo told her. ‘I've no purpose any more, and without purpose, there's no point in staying here.'

‘So you'll be moving on?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where will you go?'

‘Don't know. Doesn't really matter.'

‘It matters to
me
,' Paniatowski said, as she felt a tear run down her cheek.

Pogo opened the car door and stepped out into the night. ‘You can't look after me, you know,' he said.

‘I could try,' Paniatowski said.

Pogo shook his head. ‘We've not spent much time together, but we've spent enough for me to know that you can't even take care of yourself.'

Then he turned, and started to walk away.

And Paniatowski – with tears streaming down her face in earnest now – let him.

Because she didn't know what else she
could
do.

S
cuddie had always thought that getting in real trouble with the police would be both glamorous and exciting.

In his daydreams, he would be taken straight to an interrogation room after his arrest, where at least three big buggers would be waiting for him. They'd ask him questions at first, but when he refused to talk, they would start to beat the shit out of him. Then, when that didn't work either, they would shake their heads wonderingly, and one of them would probably say, ‘We've had some hard cases in here before, Scuddie, but none of them have been anything like as hard as you.'

After that, of course, they would let him go, and once out on the streets again he could bear his scars with pride and bask in the total admiration of the other hard mods.

It hadn't worked out like that. Since he'd been arrested, he'd been locked in a holding cell and virtually ignored.

As if he didn't matter!

As if they'd decided he was small fry, who they'd get round to when they had the time!

Even when they did eventually take him to be interrogated – on Friday morning, a full
twelve hours
after his arrest – there was only one man waiting for him. And while it was true that he was big enough to match the bobbies in Scuddie's daydream, he wasn't going to do much damage with those bandaged hands.

‘When are the others comin'?' Scuddie asked.

‘What others?' Woodend asked.

Scuddie lolled back in his chair. ‘The ones who'll do the dirty work for you,' he said.

‘Sit up straight!' Woodend snapped.

‘You what?'

‘Sit up straight, you bastard.'

Scuddie tried to think of a smart, funny reply he could tell the boys about later, but all he could come up with was, ‘You'll get nothin' out of me, copper!'

And then he realized, with surprise, that while he'd been speaking he'd also been straightening his posture, just as Woodend had ordered him to.

‘Why did you attack Detective Constable Beresford?' Woodend demanded.

‘Who's he?' Scuddie asked.

Woodend sighed. ‘So it's goin' to be like that, is it? All right, you sack of shit, why did you attack
Col
?'

This was getting better, Scuddie thought. This was how it was
supposed
to be.

‘Didn't know he was a bobby,' he said. ‘An' anyway, he was the one who started it. I was only defendin' myself.'

‘So it was just you against him, was it?'

‘That's right.'

‘Well, your mates will certainly be relieved to learn you've said that,' Woodend told him.

‘What are you talkin' about?'

‘I should have thought that was obvious. Constable Beresford died last night, and since you were the only one actually
involved
in his murder, you're the only one who'll hang.'

‘Hang!' Scuddie gasped. ‘What do you mean?'

‘It's when they place a noose around your neck, make you stand on a trapdoor an' …'

‘They've got rid of hangin',' Scuddie said, with terror in his voice. ‘I heard it on the telly.'

‘What you heard on the telly, you ignorant sod, is that they're
goin
'
to
get rid of it. But if we rush through your trial – an' we will, because it's a bobby you murdered – there'll still be time, before the law changes, for you to have your neck stretched.'

‘It wasn't just me. We all did it,' Scuddie said hysterically.

‘I thought that might be the case, from the amount of bruisin' on his body,' Woodend said.

‘So does that make a difference?' Scuddie moaned.

‘It certainly does. Now it won't be just you that hangs – it'll be the rest of the gang as well.'

‘It wasn't our idea,' Scuddie sobbed. ‘None of it was our idea!'

‘Then whose idea was it?'

‘Bazza's.'

‘I need details!' Woodend barked.

‘Will … will that make a difference to what happens to me?'

‘It's possible.'

‘Bazza said we should beat Col up at exactly nine o'clock.'

‘An' then wait for the police to arrive?'

‘No, he … he said we should get away as fast as we could.'

‘Then why didn't you?'

‘Once we'd started, we couldn't stop. It was so …'

‘Excitin'?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Tell me about the tramp you beat up.'

‘Is he dead as well?'

‘No.'

‘Bazza told us to beat him an' all.'

‘Him? Or any old tramp?'

‘Him. Bazza pointed him out to us. He said we should make sure he was out of action for a few hours.'

‘Right, that's it. They'll take you back to your cell now,' Woodend said.

‘Don't … don't you want to know anythin' else?'

‘Nothin' that scum like
you
can tell me.'

For a moment, Woodend considered informing Scuddie of the fact that Beresford had come out of his coma, but he quickly rejected the idea. It would do the little bastard good to stew in his own juice for a few hours, he thought.

Woodend didn't like being driven by anyone else, but his hands were in such a state that there was no way he could hold the steering wheel, and so it was a police driver who took him to the morgue.

Dr Shastri met him at the door.

‘So what's this important new information you've got for me?' Woodend asked immediately.

‘Good morning, Dr Shastri. I apologize for destroying your beauty sleep by sending you two cadavers in a single night,' the doctor said.

Woodend grinned. ‘Good morning, Dr Shastri. I apologize for destroying your beauty sleep by sending you two cadavers in a single night,' he dutifully repeated. ‘Now what's this important new information?'

‘It concerns the second victim, Barry Thornley. How do you think he came to be on fire?'

‘I should have thought it was
obvious
how he came to be on fire. He accidentally spilled some of the petrol on himself, an' when he was burning the poor bloody tramp, he set himself alight, too. Isn't that right?'

‘I will answer that question in a moment, but let me ask you another one first,' Dr Shastri said. ‘I found traces of fibre on Thornley's head. Did they, perhaps, come from one of your stylish sports coats?'

Woodend grinned again. No one else, in the whole of Whitebridge, would ever have described any of his sports coats as
stylish
.

‘Probably,' he said. ‘I wrapped it around him when I was tryin' to put out the fire.'

‘And were burned yourself, as a result. I do not think there are many men who would run such personal risk in an attempt to save the life of a particularly nasty murderer.'

‘To tell you the truth, I didn't even think about what he'd done. I saw he was on fire, an' I did my best to put that fire out.'

‘So like you,' Dr Shastri said. ‘And, in this case, at least, virtue has been its own reward.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘If you had stood by and done nothing, the damage to Thornley's head would have been much more extensive.'

‘Yes, that's obvious enough.'

‘And then, even a brilliant physician, such as I am myself, would have been unable to detect the fact that shortly before he was set on fire, he received a blow to the head.'

‘Are you sayin' that somebody knocked him unconscious?'

‘Possibly, but I suspect not,' Dr Shastri said. She smiled. ‘You are always trying to persuade me to do your detective work for you, you lazy man, and this time I think I will indulge you.'

‘Go right ahead,' Woodend said.

‘If the person who struck Thornley on the head simply wanted him dead, why not hit him as hard as he possibly could? It would be much safer, because Thornley was what I believe you would call “a big strapping lad”.'

‘He was, an' I would,' Woodend agreed.

‘Even if his murderer intended to burn him, his task would have been made much easier if Thornley had been unable to resist.'

‘Agreed.'

‘But his killer does not hit him with the maximum force he can summon. Instead, he delivers a blow calculated only to stun him, and when he pours the petrol over him, he restricts himself to pouring it over the trunk and legs. Now why was that?'