Echoes of the Dead (34 page)

Two upright chairs had been positioned to face the sofa.

Robert Howerd gestured towards them and said, ‘Please take a seat.' Then, as if he realized he'd made a mistake, he turned to his niece. ‘I'm so sorry, Elizabeth, I should have asked if that was all right with you.'

‘It's all right with me,' Elizabeth Eccles said, through tight lips.

Paniatowski and Beresford sat down.

‘I assume that the reason you've come is to report on your findings to me,' Howerd said.

‘If that
is
what you assume, then you're very much mistaken,' Paniatowski told him. ‘The only person we
report
to is the chief constable. We're here because we've
decided
, purely as a matter of
courtesy
, to inform you of the latest developments in the investigation.'

The
old
Robert Howerd might have leapt to his feet at this point, demanded an apology and then told them to leave.

But the
new
Robert Howerd was a spent force – as even his maid had realized – and all he said was, ‘Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter how you phrase it, as long as justice is done.'

‘Oh, justice will be done,' Paniatowski said. She paused for a second. ‘Your brother was a very bad man, Mr Howerd, but that should come as no surprise to you, because – deep down – you always knew it.'

As she was speaking, she risked a glance at Elizabeth. The other woman's face was impassive – as fixed and rigid as if it were made out of wax.

She knows most of what's coming, and she's prepared to bluff it out, Paniatowski thought worriedly.

‘My brother was sometimes a weak man, and sometimes a foolish man, but he was
never
a bad man,' Robert Howerd said.

‘Is that right?' Paniatowski asked. ‘So how would you describe the numerous visits he made to under-aged prostitutes? Was
that
weak – or was it merely
foolish
?'

‘My brother never patronized prostitutes,' Robert Howerd protested. ‘If he had done, I would have known about it.'

‘Perhaps you would, if it had been one of his long-term habits, like getting drunk or stealing cars,' Paniatowski conceded. ‘But it wasn't – it only really started when Elizabeth reached the age at which she stopped being attractive to him.'

‘My father never touched me,' Elizabeth said flatly. ‘He never laid a hand on me.'

Despite herself, Paniatowski found her heart going out to Elizabeth Eccles.

‘I was an abused child myself, Elizabeth, so I understand,' she said – knowing it was a mistake, knowing it undermined everything she was there to achieve, yet unable to stop herself. ‘I've had the same feelings of shame and self-loathing that you must have had. I've felt the same urge to kill myself, just so it would all finally be over. But denying it ever happened won't help – you'll never heal as long as you're in denial.'

A smirk flickered briefly across Elizabeth Eccles's tight lips. ‘You're pathetic!' she said. ‘You're an emotional cripple yourself, so you think I must be, too. But I'm not – because
nothing
happened!'

She'd blown it, Paniatowski thought, close to despair. She'd had her chance – and she'd blown it.

A silence followed – a terrible crushing silence.

Then Beresford said, ‘Why don't you tell us about your daughter, Mrs Eccles?'

‘My daughter?'

‘That's right. We'd be most interested to learn who her father is.'

‘Her father's Mike Eccles – my no-good husband.'

Beresford shook his head. ‘No, he isn't. You were already pregnant when you married him.'

‘Of course she was pregnant – that was no secret – and Michael Eccles was the father of that unborn child,' said Robert Howerd, drawing on what reserves of strength he still had left, in order to defend his niece.

‘Didn't you find it strange at the time, Mr Howerd, that Elizabeth should even have been going out with someone like him?' Beresford asked.

‘None of us can choose who we fall in love with, can we?' Howerd asked, awkwardly.

‘I spent some considerable time talking to Mike Eccles this afternoon,' Beresford said. ‘He's a wreck. He's dirty, shifty, stupid and idle – and he can't have been
that
different when he married Elizabeth. So I'll ask you again – didn't you find it strange that she should have been going out with him?'

‘He . . . err . . . he wouldn't have been my ideal choice for my niece,' Howerd admitted.

‘He wouldn't have been
anybody's
ideal choice,' Beresford said.

Thank you, Colin, Paniatowski thought. Thank you for saving me from myself.

‘Eccles wasn't exactly Elizabeth's choice, either,' she said aloud. ‘But she had to do
something
, didn't she – because she was carrying her father's baby?'

‘That's a wicked lie,' Elizabeth said.

‘So he was never more than camouflage,' Paniatowski said, ignoring her. ‘And what did he expect to get out of it? Well, he expected his share of the family's fortune. But once Fred was convicted of the murder, there
was
no fortune – just a modest monthly allowance.'

‘In the past, I treated Elizabeth very badly,' Robert Howerd said, almost in tears. ‘I admit that. But I have made up for it now.'

‘How?' Paniatowski asked.

‘This is no longer my house. It belongs to Elizabeth, as does the family business.'

No wonder he was now no more than a shell, Paniatowski thought. He'd just given away everything he'd ever worked for, everything – outside his religion – which was important to him.

‘I can see from your face that you think that I'm no more than an old fool,' Robert Howerd said. ‘But you're wrong – I have paid my penance, and now I am at peace with myself.'

Of course he'd tell himself that, Paniatowski thought. He
had
to tell himself that – but he certainly didn't
look
at peace.

‘I blame myself, but I also blame the
police
– because none of this would have happened if my brother had not been convicted of a crime he did not commit,' Howerd said, and now there was real anger back in his voice.

‘Ah, but you see, he did commit it,' Paniatowski said. ‘And not only that, but he killed Bazza Mottershead, as well.'

‘Who's Bazza Mottershead?' Howerd asked.

‘Why don't
you
tell him, Elizabeth?' Paniatowski suggested.

‘I can't. I've never heard of the man,' Elizabeth Eccles said.

No more mercy! Paniatowski cautioned herself. The time for mercy is long past.

‘Of course you've heard of him,' she told Elizabeth Eccles. ‘Your father brought Mottershead round to your house to “play” with you, didn't he?'

‘No!'

‘But Mottershead got bored with you at around the same time your father did. That was when they started visiting prostitutes together.'

‘You're insane,' Elizabeth Eccles said.

‘I think they must have found the whole experience rather disappointing after having you, and they soon decided that what they needed was another
non-professional
. So they started cultivating Lilly Dawson, a sad little girl who missed her father and was delighted to be shown the pigeon loft by a kind man.'

‘You can't prove any of this,' Elizabeth said contemptuously.

Too bloody right, I can't, Paniatowski agreed silently.

‘Fred's plan, I believe, was to take things slowly,' she pressed on. ‘But Bazza was too impatient for that, and one Saturday afternoon – when Fred was out of town, recruiting a new member, by the name of Terry Clegg, to the ring – Bazza persuaded Lilly to go with him to the allotment. He drove her there in his own car – which is why the police could find no trace of her in Fred's van – and once they were there, he raped her.'

‘And we know
he
was the one who raped her, because his autopsy report reveals that there were scratch marks on his arm,' Beresford said.

‘Then, surely, he was the one who killed her,
too
– and my poor dead brother had nothing to do with it,' Howerd said.

‘He couldn't have killed her,' Paniatowski told him. ‘Whoever strangled Lilly needed two strong hands, and Mottershead's right hand was crippled with arthritis.' She shook her head. ‘No, Fred did it, all right, and he did it for the same reason he married off his daughter – to protect his secret. That's probably why he killed Mottershead, as well.'

‘And we know that Fred killed him because of the wound on his arm,' Beresford said. ‘Woodend and Bannerman thought it was self-inflicted – that he'd cut himself to disguise the scratch marks Lilly had left. But Mottershead was the one with the scratch marks, and Fred's injury was as a result of the fight to the death that they'd had.'

‘Even so, it's true that it was when Bannerman saw the wound that Fred decided to confess to Lilly's murder,' Paniatowski added.

‘I . . . I don't understand,' Howerd said, in a gasping voice. ‘If you say that the wound had nothing to do with Lilly's death—'

‘It didn't,' Paniatowski interrupted. ‘But it had a lot to do with how Fred saw his own future.'

‘His . . . his future?'

‘Bannerman had worked Fred up into a state of terror by telling him just what it would be like to be hanged. And then the sergeant offered him a way out. If Fred would confess to Lilly's murder, he'd be spared the rope. And what Fred was afraid of, once they'd seen his wound, was that if he
didn't
confess, they'd take a closer look at it, hoping to prove that Lilly had scratched him. They wouldn't be able to prove that, of course – because she hadn't – but there was a risk they might suddenly connect the wound to Mottershead's murder. And if they did that, he was doomed – because he might escape hanging for
one
murder, but he certainly wasn't going to escape it for
two
.'

‘I don't believe any of this,' Howerd said shakily. ‘With almost his dying breath, and in the presence of a priest, my brother protested his innocence.'

‘Yes, he did do that, didn't he?' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But then he had to – because that was part of the deal he struck with Elizabeth.'

‘What deal?'

‘Fred didn't want to die in prison, so he asked her if she'd take him into her home. And Elizabeth, who had been living under a cloud of shame and humiliation – and
near-poverty
– for nearly a quarter of a century, saw a way to turn it to her advantage. If Fred would only act out the little play-let that she would write for him, in front of a priest, she told herself, it would be as if everything she had suffered had never happened at all. Her father would never have been a killer. The people who shunned her would accept her again – more than
accept
her, they'd be all over her, because they'd feel so guilty.'

Elizabeth Eccles was still sitting perfectly still, her hands lightly clasped on her lap and her face giving away nothing.

She should be starting to crack by now, Paniatowski thought, but there was no sign that she was even close to it.

It wasn't going to work, she told herself. It wasn't going to bloody work!

‘Yes, everyone would feel guilty, but her uncle would feel guiltiest of all,' she continued, going through the motions because that was all that she had left. ‘Her uncle would have to give her what was rightfully hers. Tell me, Mr Howerd, was it you who
offered
to pay the penance, or Elizabeth who
demanded
it?'

‘It was her right to ask, and my obligation to give her what she wished for,' Howerd said mournfully.

‘We'll see if you still think so when you've heard the rest,' Paniatowski told him. ‘Elizabeth knew that by making her father lie during his confession, she'd done a wicked thing. And since she was a good Catholic, she went to church and took confession herself.' She turned to Elizabeth Eccles. ‘But instead of going to
another
priest, you went to the one who had heard your father's confession – and that was a big mistake.'

‘I really don't know what you're talking about,' Elizabeth Eccles said.

‘You unburdened yourself, and he forgave you – because that's what priests do. But you left him with a burden of his own, because now he knew that the witch-hunt he'd instigated against Charlie Woodend was based on a lie, and, try as he might, he couldn't forgive
himself
for that – which is why he started calling me, and dropping hints that things weren't what they seemed.'

‘Father O'Brien always was a weak-willed fool,' Elizabeth said. ‘That was why I—'

She stopped herself before she could say any more.

But she had
almost
made a slip, Paniatowski thought, so perhaps there was still hope.

‘“That was why I . . .”,' Paniatowski mused. ‘Why you
what
? Chose him to hear your father's confession?'

‘No.'

‘Then what
were
you about to say?'

‘Nothing.'

‘But you weren't just relying on a weak-willed priest to make sure the confession went well, were you? Your real secret weapon was the fact that you controlled the supply of morphine.'

‘You're surely not suggesting that Elizabeth withheld my brother's morphine, are you?' Howerd gasped.

‘She had to,' Paniatowski said, matter-of-factly. ‘She couldn't trust Fred to do as he'd promised, otherwise.'