Dying Fall (30 page)

‘I'm sorry, I can't,' Paniatowski said.

‘You … you can't?'

‘I think it must be this room. I know you've given me all kinds of reasons why it should be so mean and scruffy, and I accept them. Really I do. But there's still a part of me that says, “Maybe he's not that important after all, Monika. Maybe he's just a pathetic little nobody who's
lying
about his importance because he desperately wants to sleep with you.” '

‘A nobody?' Scranton repeated.

‘I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings,' Paniatowski said contritely. ‘I didn't mean to. But you
must
see how I could get that impression.'

Scranton gulped, then, with a great show of reluctance, he said, ‘Would a
nobody
have been authorized, by the very top people in the party, to purge society in the most extreme way possible?'

‘Do you mean …?' Paniatowski began.

‘I … I … might as well tell you, since you've already guessed,' Scranton said. ‘Those two tramps who were killed …'

‘Yes?'

‘It was done on my direct orders.'

Paniatowski had finished buttoning her blouse, and now she stood up. ‘How very interesting,' she said. ‘Ronald Arthur Scranton, I am arresting you for the murders of Philip Turner and another vagrant, as yet unidentified.'

‘This is a joke!' Scranton said. ‘It
has to be
a joke. You're on our side. When I mentioned that Hitler had had the gypsies beaten up, you said that somebody should do the same thing here.'

‘You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence against you,' Paniatowski continued, calmly.

‘But … but … you hate tramps and Pakis – and all the other scum of the earth,' Scranton gasped, as if he knew he was in the middle of a nightmare, and desperately wanted to wake up. ‘You have to. For God's sake, you're a White Russian!'

Paniatowski laughed. ‘Wrong again,' she said. ‘I'm a Pole.'

The confusion drained from Scranton's face and was replaced with an expression of loathing and contempt. ‘A Pole!' he repeated. ‘A filthy Polak! And to think, I nearly … I almost …'

‘You didn't nearly
anything
,' Paniatowski said. ‘I'd rather sleep with all the tramps in Whitebridge than let you so much as
touch
me.'

It had been meant to provoke him, and it did. Scranton picked up a heavy ashtray, and rushed across the room at her, screaming, ‘Polak bitch! Dirty, filthy Polak bitch!'

Paniatowski waited calmly until he was almost close enough to hit her with the ashtray, then struck out with her right leg and kicked him on the kneecap.

It was a hard kick – harder than was strictly necessary – and Scranton collapsed on the floor and began rolling around in agony.

‘Thank you,
Ronnie
,' Paniatowski told him, though she was sure he was in far too much pain to ever appreciate what she was saying. ‘Thank you for giving me a reason to do something I really
needed
to do.'

I
t was Bob Rutter who had come up with the idea of driving out into the countryside for dinner.

‘I discovered this restaurant a few weeks ago, and I've been dying to take you there ever since,' he told Elizabeth.

‘Where is it?'

‘Just the other side of the tops of the moors road.'

‘Seems like a bit of a long haul on a winter's night.'

‘It'll be worth it,' Rutter promised. ‘I think it's as good as anything you'll find in London, and I'm sure you'll agree.'

‘I'm sure I will,' Elizabeth said.

And though she didn't believe that for a minute, she did find his provincial pride quite sweet – and rather touching.

Rutter said he would drive, and she agreed to let him – because it was sometimes important to allow the man to feel he was in charge, and this might turn out to be one of those occasions.

Bob was going to propose, Elizabeth told herself, as he drove along the twisty, windy road of the high moors. He had been plucking up the nerve to ask her for some time, and had finally judged the moment was right.

She wondered how she would feel about it when he popped the question, and discovered that the truth was, she wasn't sure.

People got married either because they needed the sense of security or because they wanted children, she thought. But security was not an issue in this case – Bob was hers for as long as she wanted him. And as for children, there was certainly no room in
her
life for mewling, puking brats.

So why bother to tie the knot at all?

Yet she had a sneaking suspicion that the whole thing wasn't quite as clear-cut as she liked to pretend it was. Because if she was going to reject him, why had she agreed to go for the meal with him in the first place? If she was going to make him feel small by turning him down, why had she already gone to such great efforts to boost his ego?

They had reached the very top of the high moors, and just ahead of them was a small car park, built on the edge of the drop, where motorists could stop and admire the view. Rutter slowed down, and though there were no other cars on the road, he signalled before pulling in.

‘Why have we stopped?' Elizabeth asked.

‘You can see for miles from here,' Rutter said.

Elizabeth laughed. ‘Not on a dark winter's night, you can't.'

‘I used to bring Maria to this place,' Rutter told her. ‘She could see no more in the daylight than we can see now, in the dark. But she liked the smells. She liked the peace and quiet.'

Bloody Maria! Elizabeth thought.

‘I've never been much of a one for peace and quiet myself,' she said. ‘And you still haven't told me why we've stopped.'

‘I need a few minutes to think,' Rutter told her. ‘You don't mind, do you, Liz?'

It would be a shame to destroy the atmosphere she had worked so hard to create by being difficult now, Driver thought. Besides, maybe this had been the plan all along. Maybe he'd never intended to propose inside the restaur­ant. Maybe the meal was to be a celebration of an agreement already reached.

‘No, I don't mind,' she said.

Rutter fell silent.

He was probably thinking about their future life together, Driver told herself, and hoped he didn't imagine that that future life included Louisa, because looking after the daughter of the blind saintly Maria would be even worse than having kids of her own.

But Rutter wasn't thinking about the future.

He wasn't even
thinking
about the past.

Instead, he was watching a mental slide show of what had been his life – a slide show that he himself seemed to have no control over.

Click!

Young Bobbie Rutter, living above his father's greengrocer's shop, weighed down by the knowledge that his mother hated her life as a shopkeeper's wife, and thought that fate should have dealt her a much better hand.

Click!

His first day in grammar school – standing alone in the playground, a small, short-trousered boy, wishing that he had failed the eleven-plus as all his friends had, so that now he would be in the local secondary modern with people he knew, instead of surrounded by strangers.

Click!

A taller, more confident Rutter, being awarded the Headmaster's Prize for Excellence.

Click!

Euston Station. A big ambling man in a hairy sports jacket, looking around him with interest and then turning to Rutter and saying, ‘Dear God, they're gettin' younger every day. Ever worked on a murder case before?'

‘No, sir, I've only just been made up to sergeant.'

‘They've given me another virgin. Typical. Absolutely bloody typical!'

Click!

His wedding day. Charlie Woodend, now very firmly his mentor, watching affectionately from the front pew as Maria walked down the aisle with such practised confidence that no one would ever have guessed she was blind.

Click!

Holding the newly born Louisa in his arms, and feeling a joy he would have never thought possible.

Click!

Lying in
Monika
's arms, and feeling a different kind of a joy – a joy which was already coated in guilt.

Click!

Burying Maria. Watching her coffin being lowered into the ground. Praying that she had not died hating him, but knowing that if she had, the hatred was well deserved.

‘This thinking of yours is certainly taking a long time,' Elizabeth Driver said, and though she was trying to keep her tone light, there was an underlying level of her natural impatience in it. ‘What
is
on your mind?'

‘I was thinking about your book on Maria,' Rutter said.

‘Oh that!'

‘I kept asking you how it was going, and you said it was going fine. But you wouldn't let me see it.'

Elizabeth Driver sighed. ‘I've explained to you a thousand times, Bob, that I never show anybody my work until I'm completely satisfied with it.'

‘But I couldn't
wait
, you see,' Rutter said. ‘I had to know how it was going, before it was too late.'

‘Too late,' Elizabeth Driver repeated, mystified. ‘Too late for what?'

‘I don't want to talk about that, right now,' Rutter said.

‘Well, I do,' Driver said firmly. ‘You can't go being all enigmatic on me, and then say you don't want to talk about it. I want to know what it will be too late
for
.'

‘So I did something I'd never thought I would do,' Rutter continued, ignoring her. ‘I searched through your things at the Royal Victoria, and I found the book – only it wasn't about Maria at all.'

Elizabeth Driver was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Ah well, I suppose you had to find out eventually.'

‘It's full of lies!' Rutter said.

‘I know it is,' Elizabeth Driver agreed. ‘But the truth simply doesn't sell books.'

‘But even though it is all lies, it will completely destroy Charlie Woodend. Monika, too.'

‘You come out of it all right. You weren't going to, but I re-wrote whole sections of it to make sure you did. It took me for ever.'

‘And am I supposed to be grateful for that?' Rutter asked.

‘Yes, you bloody well are,' Elizabeth Driver replied. ‘Anyway, why are you so worried about what happens to Cloggin'-it Charlie? He's been riding on your coat-tails for years. You've done the work, and he's taken all the credit.'

It was the perfect excuse she was presenting him with, and most of the people she knew would have grasped it with both hands.

Yes, they would have agreed, he's treated me badly in the past, so it's perfectly all right to stab him in the back now.

‘What you've just said about Charlie is as much of a lie as the rest of your vile book,' Rutter said. ‘I owe most of what I am to him.'

But
what
am I? he asked himself.

I'm a man who's made a mess of his life – who's made two women desperately unhappy.

If I was going to follow Charlie's example, why didn't I follow it in
all
things? Why couldn't I have resisted Monika like Charlie resisted Liz Poole back in Salton, on that first case we ever worked together? He wanted her. God, he wanted her. But he thought of Joan, and he backed away. Why don't I have his
strength
?

Elizabeth Driver sighed with exasperation.

‘You want to grow up, Bob,' she said. ‘Your future's not in Whitebridge with Woodend – it's travelling around with me, living high on the hog and making passionate love every night.'

‘Love?' Rutter repeated. ‘Don't you mean
sex
?'

Elizabeth Driver shrugged. ‘Isn't it the same thing?'

‘How many copies of your manuscript are there?' Rutter asked. ‘Three? One original and two carbons?'

‘That's right.'

‘I thought so. I've destroyed them all.'

‘I really wish you hadn't done that. But it doesn't matter in the long run, because it's all still in my head.'

‘And that's where I want it to stay,' Rutter said.

‘No chance,' Driver scoffed.

‘We don't need the book,' Rutter told her. ‘We can have the life together that you've just described
without
the book.'

And silently, he added, At least, we can for a
little
while.

‘I'm very fond of you, Bob,' Driver said. ‘Really I am. In fact, I think I love you.'

‘Well, then?'

‘But if it comes down to a choice between you and fame and fortune, fame and fortune win out every time.'

‘I see,' Rutter said. He started up the engine again. ‘The table's still booked at the restaurant, but I don't suppose either of us fancies the meal now.'

‘No,' Driver agreed, feeling strangely dispirited. ‘I don't suppose either of us does.'

‘Of course, there is one way I
could
stop you writing the book,' Rutter said.

‘And what way might that be?'

‘I could kill you.'

What started as a gurgle in the pit of Driver's stomach soon developed into a full-blown laugh.

‘Why do you find that funny?' Rutter asked.

‘It's not funny in itself – it's funny because it comes from
you.
'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You couldn't kill me, Bob. You couldn't kill
anybody
.'

‘Are you so sure of that?'

‘Of course I'm sure. I know you better than you know yourself. And there's one big reason why you couldn't kill me – even if you hated me.'

‘And what is it?'