Dying Fall (4 page)

Woodend grinned. ‘What can you tell me about this particu­lar appetite-suppressor?' he asked, as he took the seat which Shastri offered him.

‘He died of sixth-degree burns,' the doctor said, ‘which in layman's terms means not only was his skin destroyed (fourth-degree burning) and his muscular structure irreversibly damaged (fifth-degree burning) but also that his bones were charred.'

‘So I assume there's really not much you can tell me about him at all?'

‘If, by that, you mean that you wish to know whether he was a concert pianist or an industrial labourer while he was alive, then you are quite correct in your assumption. His hands, or what is left of them, are no more than blackened claws, and provide no clues as to their previous usage. If, however, you wish to know how tall he was before the fire shrunk him, or how old he was when he died, then I might be able to be a little more helpful.'

‘So how tall was he?'

‘Somewhere between five feet eight and five feet ten. And, in age, I would place him between forty-five and fifty-five.'

‘What kind of man can set fire to another human being?' Woodend wondered. ‘What could his motive possibly be?'

‘You are doing it again,' Dr Shastri said, wagging a playfully rebuking finger at him.

‘Doin' what again?'

‘Asking me to speculate on something well beyond my own area of expertise.'

Woodend grinned for a second time. ‘Yes, that's
just
what I'm doin', isn't it?' he admitted. ‘But I'd still like to hear your thoughts on the matter.'

‘Very well,' Shastri agreed. ‘The first thought that occurs to me is that your killer is a very disturbed individual who enjoys inflicting pain and has chosen to inflict it on tramps because they are the easiest targets.'

‘Aye, that had occurred to me, too.'

‘Alternatively, he may hate tramps in general because of what one in particular has done to him.'

‘For example?'

Dr Shastri shrugged an elegant shoulder. ‘He may have been robbed by a tramp of something he held very dear to him,' she suggested. ‘He may have been beaten up by a tramp. Or perhaps a tramp raped his wife or his sister.'

‘Possible,' Woodend agreed. ‘But I've never heard of a tramp bein' arrested for committin' any major offence. The most any of 'em usually get up to is petty thievin'.'

‘Then there is a third possibility,' Shastri said warily, ‘though, without proof of any kind, I am reluctant to suggest it.'

‘Go on,' Woodend urged, ‘let's hear it.'

‘It could have been the mods,' Shastri said quickly, as if she were in a hurry to get the words out of her mouth before she changed her mind.

‘The mods?' Woodend repeated. ‘Them lads with puffy haircuts an' sharp suits, who ride around on scooters?'

‘Not the
peacock
mods,' Dr Shastri said. ‘The
hard
mods. The ones with the short hair and big boots.'

‘Are
they
mods, an' all?' Woodend asked. ‘Because they don't look like the other lot at all.'

‘That is because they can't afford to look like “the other lot”,' Dr Shastri said. ‘The peacock mods work in offices, and come from prosperous homes. The hard mods are working-class boys who labour in the same factories as their fathers. And since they do not have the money to compete with the peacock mods successfully in terms of style, they have stopped competing altogether.'

‘Which is why, given the kind of town this is, we've got more of the hard mods in Whitebridge than we have the other kind,' Woodend said.

‘Exactly,' Dr Shastri agreed.

‘I've got two more questions for you,' Woodend told her. ‘The first is, how come you seem to know so much about these lads? An' the second is, why do you think they might have been involved in the murder?'

‘That is not two questions, but two parts of the same question,' Dr Shastri replied. She paused for a second, then continued, ‘Though I have not sought out the position, I seem to have become a person who many in the Asian community of Whitebridge come to for advice.'

That was hardly surprising, Woodend thought. Most of the Asians in the town were recent immigrants who held low-paid jobs. Dr Shastri, who, in addition to holding an important post, was brimming with assurance and self-confidence, would be the natural person for them to turn to for help.

‘Quite a number of these poor people have either been threatened or abused by the hard mods,' Shastri continued. ‘Several of them have been beaten up.'

‘An' have they reported it to the police?'

Dr Shastri laughed scornfully. ‘Of course they haven't reported it. They remember the brutality of the police in their own countries, and steer well clear of authority whenever possible.'

‘So what
are
they doin' about it?'

‘They are avoiding the places where the attacks are most likely. They feel that is all they
can
do.'

‘You should have reported it to me yourself,' Woodend said accusingly.

‘They would not have thanked me for doing so,' Dr Shastri told him. ‘And the next time they had a problem they would take it to someone else, who might not be able to deal with it as well as I could.'

‘I still don't see why you think these hard mods should have had anythin' to do with the victim,' Woodend said.

‘I told you from the beginning that the link was tenuous,' Dr Shastri pointed out.

‘Aye, you did,' Woodend agreed. ‘But let's hear what you think it is, anyway.'

‘It seems to me that what mainly drives these young men is anger,' Shastri said.

‘Anger at what?'

‘At a world that seems to be offering so many opportun­ities to other people, while all it shows them is a dead end. And this anger they feel makes them want to strike out at something different to themselves. The Asians offer them a perfect target, but so do the tramps. After all,' she concluded, with a bitter edge entering her voice, ‘we are both parasites – and we both stink.'

Her initial contact with Pogo had so intrigued Paniatowski that she'd reserved the job of questioning him for herself, but even before they'd properly sat down at the table in the interview room, he'd begun questioning
her
.

‘Tell me about the big sod in the hairy jacket,' he said. ‘What's he like to work for?'

‘Why do you ask?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Because I'm interested,' Pogo replied. ‘Do I need any more reason than that?'

‘I suppose not,' Paniatowski admitted. ‘Well, he's a hard task-master, but he's very fair. He expects you to be at your best at all times, but if you deserve any credit, he'll make sure that you get it.'

Pogo nodded. ‘That's the impression he gave me,' he said.

‘You're about the same age,' Paniatowski said.

‘We probably are.'

‘Which means, I suppose, that you will have fought in the same war.'

‘How do you know I fought in any war at all?' Pogo asked.

‘You're not going to deny you were a soldier, are you?' Paniatowski said, smiling. ‘Because if you do, I certainly won't believe you.'

‘You seem very certain of yourself,' Pogo said wonderingly.

‘I am,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘And what's that certainty based on?'

‘It's based on a lot of things. For example, it can't be easy to keep clean, given the kind of life you lead, but you're a lot cleaner than any of the other tramps we brought in.'

‘So I'm fastidious,' Pogo said. ‘That proves nothing.'

‘When I told you my rank, you practically came to attention, which means that while you were undoubtedly in the army, you never rose above the rank of corporal. So is that what you were? A corporal?'

‘No comment.'

Paniatowski smiled. ‘Not even name, rank and number?' she asked. ‘And then there's the question of your possessions,' she continued. ‘When I asked you to come to headquarters with me, you collected them all up.'

‘Well, of course I did. I wasn't going to leave them there for anybody who came across them to steal, was I?'

‘But it was the way you picked them up which was interesting,' Paniatowski continued. ‘You did it purposefully, and according to a pre-determined routine. Everything in your knapsack has a designated place – and you made sure that's where it went.'

‘You're building something out of nothing,' Pogo said.

Paniatowski smiled. ‘If you say so,' she said.

Pogo was silent for a few seconds, then he said, ‘All right, it's a fair cop. I was a soldier once. And now I'm a tramp. What of it?'

‘What
made
you become a tramp?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Next question!' Pogo said, with a vehemence which startled her.

‘Can you think of any reason why someone would set a tramp on fire?' Paniatowski asked.

‘No.'

‘Aren't you worried that the same thing might happen to you?'

‘It
won't
happen to me.'

No, it won't, Paniatowski thought. You might not be the man you used to be, but you can still take care of yourself.

‘I'd like you to help me,' she said.

‘I don't see how I can,' Pogo replied. ‘I told you back at ba— back at the place where you found me, that I don't know anything.'

‘But you could
find out
things,' Paniatowski said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm a bobby,' Paniatowski said. ‘The moment I'm on the scene, it's not the same scene any longer. My mere presence there
changes
things. But you can go to all kinds of places I couldn't, and not be noticed.'

‘So you want me to become a spy? A narc? An informer?'

Paniatowski grinned. ‘I prefer the term “undercover operative”,' she said.

‘And what's in it for me?' Pogo asked.

‘A couple of packets of cigarettes,' Paniatowski told him. ‘A little money. But, most of all, the chance to be useful again – the chance to earn your own respect and the respect of others.'

For the briefest of moments, Pogo's face began to crumple in self-pity, but then his features hardened again, and became a mask of inscrutability.

‘I'll think about it,' he said.

T
he man sitting at a table near the counter in the police canteen was close to sixty, and had a shock of white hair and a complexion which looked as if it had been constructed out of sandpaper.

When Woodend approached him, it was with a reverence that went far beyond what his position in the police hierarchy merited, because Sid Roberts was not so much a sergeant as an institution.

Roberts was not only the oldest sergeant in the force, but had held the rank for so long that there was no serving officer who could actually remember a time when he
wasn't
a sergeant. And the reason he had never been promoted above that rank was, the chief inspector suspected, largely a matter of his own choice. He was a ‘coal-face' policeman, who loved his home town, and loved the perspective on it that the three stripes on his sleeve allowed him. And when people said that he was a
natural
sergeant, what they really meant was that it seemed as if he had been there first, and the title had been invented specifically to fit him.

Woodend sat down opposite him, and said, ‘What can you tell me about the hard mods, Sid?'

‘Depends what you want to know, sir,' Roberts replied.

‘I don't
know
what I want to know,' Woodend admitted. ‘Just give me a thumbnail sketch of them.'

‘They like to think they're hard, hence the name – and they generally are. Most of them are working-class lads, and the great majority of them have jobs in factories. One of the things that gives them a sense of identity is their taste in music – they're very big on “ska”, which is sometimes also known as “rocksteady”.'

‘I've never heard either of those names before,' Woodend admitted.

‘You wouldn't have, sir,' Roberts replied, though not dismissively. ‘It's Jamaican music. There's one song in particular, “Rudie Got Soul” by Desmond Dekker, which has practically become their anthem, and I have to say, they could have chosen worse.'

‘You're amazing, Sid,' Woodend said, full of admiration.

‘Well, I do try to keep my finger on the pulse,' Roberts said. ‘I'm a bit like our beloved leader in that way.'

Woodend grinned, then grew serious again. ‘You said they were hard. Does that mean they're violent?' he asked.

‘You're wondering if they were behind that tramp's murder,' Roberts guessed.

‘Exactly,' Woodend agreed.

‘It's possible,' Roberts said cautiously. ‘Until recently, their main concern has been beating
each other
up, but now they've started to fall under the influence of Councillor Scranton.'

‘Oh, that bastard!' Woodend said.

‘That bastard,' Roberts agreed. He checked his watch. ‘Have you got half an hour to spare, sir?'

‘Why?'

‘Because if you want to get a closer look at some of the hard mods, I know just where to find you a few.'

The man was standing on the soapbox outside the factory gates of Lowry Engineering. He was small, in his late forties, and sported a moustache which did not stretch far beyond his nostrils. Gathered around him were some of the workers from the factory, who were on their dinner break.

‘How did you know this was goin' to happen?' Woodend asked, surveying the scene through the windscreen of his Wolseley.

‘It's my
job
to know things like that,' replied Sid Roberts from the passenger seat. ‘See that big ugly sod standing close to Scranton?'

‘I see him,' Woodend said, studying a youth whose hair was so closely cropped he was almost bald.