Murder at Swann's Lake (17 page)

“Stop playin' games, Mr Dowd,” Woodend said. “If that had been it, you'd wouldn't have sent one of your lads up to The Hideaway last Friday night.”

Dowd grinned like a guilty schoolboy who'd been caught out in a lie. “All right,” he said, “I don't give up easily, an' I don't take kindly to bein' turned down. But I'd never have used strong-arm tactics to get The Hideaway. Why run the risk when there are so many other ways I could have got the same result?”

“Are there?”

“Of course there are. Money's the real muscle in this day an' age, an' I've got plenty of it. All I'd have to have done to bring Robbie to heel was to sell booze at cost price to some of the other clubs – on the understandin' that they passed the savings on to their customers. I'd have had The Hideaway empty in a week.”

“Maybe,” Woodend admitted. “If it had worked out like that. But what if the other clubs didn't want to play along?”

“Then I'd have come up with some other scheme,” Dowd said, without a second's hesitation.

“Like what?

Dowd thought about it. “I'd have turned up at The Hideaway with a couple of charabancs every Friday and Saturday night,” he said, “an' as the customers were goin' in, I'd have offered them a free trip to Blackpool, and all they could drink when they got there. A month or two of that and Robbie would have been out of business.”

“It would have cost,” Woodend pointed out.

“Like I said, I can afford it. You think I'm in business now 'cos I need the dosh? Hell, I could have retired years ago if I'd wanted to.”

“And Robbie?”

“He wasn't poor when he left Liverpool, but he invested all he had in Swann's Lake. He needed the cash that was comin' in from his businesses.”

It all made sense, Woodend thought, yet he was still suspicious of the man from Liverpool. “Why are you tellin' me all this?” he asked.

Dowd shrugged. “Like I said, it's in my interest not to have you barkin' up the wrong tree.”

“An' there's really nothin' more to it than that?”

Dowd looked a little embarrassed. “All right,” he admitted. “There
is
more to it. Robbie worked for me for years. He was a good kid – a loyal kid – an' I don't like the thought of whoever topped him gettin' away with it.”

“You're offerin' me your help?” Woodend asked incredulously.

“Much as it goes against the grain, yes, I am,” Dowd told him. “I'm not sure if there's anythin' I can actually do, but—”

“I am,” Woodend interrupted. “Did you know about Robbie's rackets?”

“I heard he'd gone straight,” Dowd said.

“You heard wrong. He was in it up to his neck – smugglin' stolen fags across the Pennines.”

Dowd made a tutting sound. “I've never liked that kind of racket myself,” he said. “The trouble with it is, since you're operatin' outside your own patch, you need to take on partners.”

“Exactly,” Woodend agreed.

“An' you think it might have been one of his partners who killed him?”

“It's a possibility.”

Dowd nodded his head sagely. “Yes, I like that better than the idea that young Annie might have done it,” he said. “So what exactly do you want me to do?”

“I want to know who Robbie was workin' with, and where they were the night he died. An' I think you're the man who could find out for me.”

Dowd took a pensive sip of his scotch. “I'm not turnin' coppers' nark,” he said.

“I'm not askin' you to,” Woodend told him.

“Aren't you? Suppose I gave you a list of names tomorrow mornin'. By nightfall, everybody on it'd be in gaol.”

“That won't happen,” Woodend said firmly. “I'll only use your list to track down the murderer. It's not my job to do the local bobbies' work for them.”

“What guarantee have I got of that?” Dowd asked dubiously.

“You've got my word.”

Dowd sneered. “The word of a bobby?”

“No,” Woodend said, his voice turning ice cold. “The word of a man who'll take you outside and try to beat the crap out of you if you ever say anything like that again.”

“Try?” Dowd repeated. “I must have ten years on you.”

“And a lifetime's experience of fighting dirty,” Woodend pointed out. “So I think there's a fair chance I'd be the one who ended up on my back. But I'm still willing to give it a bash.”

Dowd smiled. “You know what they told me in Liverpool?” he asked.

“Who's
they
?”

The smile broadened. “Best not to go into details. It's enough to say that ‘they' told me you can't be bought. An' after ten minutes of sitting with you, I think they're right.”

“Which means that you'll help me?”

Dowd nodded. “You'll get your list,” he said. “Maybe not by tomorrow, but you'll get it.”

T
he woman standing next to The Hideaway's organ was middle-aged, just a little overweight – and clearly regretting her decision to climb up onto the stage.

“I'm . . . I'm goin' to sing a song which was a big hit for Connie Francis,” she said, peering myopically into the bright lights. “It's called ‘Who's Sorry Now?' and I hope you'll all join in on the chorus.”

The organist struck up the opening chords and the woman came in just a couple of beats too late. Woodend shifted his attention from the stage to the rest of the club. A syndicate from the caravan site was clustered around the one-armed bandit, one of them holding the plastic bag containing their sixpences, another feeding the coins into the slot, a third pulling the handle. In one corner, a group of old men in cloth caps were playing dominoes. The singer's friends, more out of loyalty than interest, were giving her their full attention as she gamely struggled her way through the song. It was, in other words, a typical night in the place which styled itself ‘Swann Lake's Premier Social Club'.

“Chief Inspector,” someone called from the bar.

Woodend looked round. Wally the bar steward was holding the phone in one hand and gesturing with the other. A call for him. He hoped it wasn't Bob Rutter phoning with bad news.

The Chief Inspector walked over to the bar and took the phone from Wally. “Is that you, Charlie?” asked the voice at the other end of the line.

Woodend covered his left ear which his free hand. “It's me,” he admitted. “Who am I speakin' to?”

“Andy Jackson.”

Woodend grimaced. There were officers in the Met he liked and officers he didn't. Superintendent Jackson fell firmly into the latter category. “What can I do for you, Andy?” he asked.

“I had a talk with your boy Sergeant Rutter today,” Jackson said.

“Oh aye,” Woodend replied neutrally.

“I didn't like his attitude at all. Just before he left my office – without first getting my permission, mind you – he told me I could sod off.”

Woodend allowed himself a small smile at the thought of how Jackson must have reacted to that, then his face was serious again. “That doesn't sound like Bob Rutter,” he said. “What had you done to provoke him?”

“Provoke him!” Jackson repeated. “I'm his superior! It doesn't matter what I said to him. It's how he spoke to
me
that counts.”

“Is this something to with that lass of his?”

“Well, yes,” Jackson admitted grudgingly. “He more or less accused me of deliberately protecting whoever was responsible for injuring her.”

And I wouldn't put that past you, Woodend thought. Not for a second. “The lad was probably distraught,” he said.

“I don't care about that,” Jackson told him. “He's been guilty of extreme insubordination, and I feel under an obligation to put in a report.”

With visible relief, the singer had finally finished her number and was climbing down the steps to a smattering of applause. Who's sorry now? Woodend thought. And who's goin' to be sorry in the future?

“Did you hear what I said?” Jackson asked. “I'm going to put in a report on him.”

Woodend took a deep breath. “I'd much rather you didn't do that, Andy, at least for the moment,” he said. “I don't want the lad suspended. I need him for the case I'm working on up here.”

“But damn it, Charlie, if I let him get away with it—”

“Give me a few days,” Woodend said. “We'll talk it over when I get back to London.”

“There are prescribed procedures in these cases.”

“It'd be a pity for us to fall out over this,
sir
,” Woodend said, with a new edge in his voice. “I don't think that would do either us any good. Best to leave it till we can talk.”

There was a hesitation on the other end of the line, then Jackson said, “When do you expect to be back at the Yard?”

“In a few days. A week at the latest.”

“I won't file my report until I've talked to you,” Jackson promised. “But I'm warning you now that whatever you say isn't going make any difference.”

“Thank you, sir,” Woodend said, replacing the phone on its cradle.

“From the expression on your face, I'm guessin' that wasn't exactly a friend of yours you were just talkin' to,” Wally said.

“His name's Jackson,” Woodend replied. “An' if the bastard ever calls again, I'm not here. Got that?”

Wally nodded. “Understood.”

It was that time of night when nothing stirred; the time when shift workers were beginning to look forward to going home, but day workers still had a few hours more sleep left to them; the time between the last sleeper train leaving for London, and the first mail train arriving with the national newspapers. It was, in other words, the insomniac's waking nightmare, a lonely, aching time, midway between the bubble which appeared on the screen as the television closed down at ten-forty-five and the first crackle as the radio came to life with the programme for farmers at six o'clock.

Constable Len Taylor stepped well away from his observation post at the window of The Hideaway, flicked on his torch and read his watch face. Half-past two. That meant he had been sitting there, watching the office door, for nearly three hours. He'd seen American coppers doing this kind of work on programmes like
The Naked City
and
77 Sunset Strip
, and somehow when Bailey and Spencer had been involved, it had all seemed rather glamorous. Now he knew the truth. It was dull. It was mind-numbingly boring.

“No smokin' while you're at that window, lad,” the Chief Inspector from London had told him. “And if you feel like goin' to the bog, pee into a bottle or a bucket or somethin'. Because the last thing I want is for you to miss anythin' while you're answerin' a call of nature.”

As if there was anything to miss! Taylor thought. All there was out there was an empty yard, and an office door which nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in.

It was just as this bitter thought was going through his head that he saw the man standing hesitantly at the gate which led to the caravan site. Taylor whistled softly to himself. This might turn out to be like
The Naked City
after all, except – he hoped – there wouldn't be any shooting.

The man at the gate seemed to have reached a decision and now made his way across the yard. But instead of stopping by the office, he walked straight past it. Taylor felt a stab of disappointment. The feller wasn't planning to break in – he just felt like a breath of fresh air.

The dark figure returned to Taylor's line of vision and this time he did stop in front of the office door. With his back to the window, it was impossible for the constable to say exactly what he was doing, but Taylor was willing to bet that he was trying to force the lock. The constable tensed, but did not move.

‘Don't be hasty, lad,' that Chief Inspector had said earlier. ‘Give him enough rope to hang himself. I don't want him collared until he's right inside.'

The door swung open, the man entered the office and Taylor rose from his chair and headed for the exit. Once outside, the constable sprinted across the cinder yard, because there was no point in trying to be quiet now – it was speed which mattered.

The man inside the office heard the running feet and panicked. His tools clattered to the floor and he rushed back to the door. But he was too late! Before he even had time to reached the yard again, his terrified face was squarely in the beam of Constable Taylor's torch.

Like many of the buildings in Maltham, the police headquarters was mock Tudor.

“It's because of all the subsidence caused by the minin' around here,” the Duty Sergeant explained helpfully. “See, none of these buildin's have any foundations, so that if the ground starts to sink, you can just jack them up an' put in half a dozen layers of bricks under them. Course, that means you have to climb up a few steps to get in through the door, but it's a damn sight better than climbin'
down
a few steps once you're inside.”

Woodend yawned. “That's very interestin',” he said, rubbing his eyes. “In fact, if it wasn't half-past three in the mornin' I'm sure I'd find it bloody fascinatin'. Can I see the prisoner now?”

The Sergeant looked crestfallen. “I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to be borin'.”

“You weren't, lad,” Woodend said. “It's just that it's been a long day, an' I'd rather like to see the prisoner.”

“Of course, sir,” the Sergeant said. “If you'll follow me, he's waitin' for you in the interview room.”

Gerry Fairbright didn't look as if he was waiting for anything, except perhaps the imminent end of the world.

“You're in big trouble, son,” Woodend said as he sat down the chair opposite him.