Murder at Swann's Lake (27 page)

“But you loved him, didn't you?”

Woodend chuckled. “Oh aye. He was me dad, and when I was little, I thought he was the best feller in the world.” He was hit by an unexpected revelation. “I still do think that, as a matter of fact,” he said.

A tear fell from Jenny's eye, making a dark stain on her white blouse. Woodend noticed that even her breasts seemed to have lost their firmness and thrust. It was as if she was contracting into herself.

“I mustn't keep you from your work,” she said. “You can find your own way out, can't you?”

Then she stood up and ran into the kitchen.

The police car pulled into The Hideaway's yard just as Woodend was leaving the house, and a uniformed constable with a brown paper envelope in his hand got out of it. “Inspector Chatterton's sends this with his compliments, sir,” he said, handing the envelope over.

“Any idea what's in it?” Woodend asked.

“Mr Chatterton said it's from the passport office in Liverpool. Apparently you put in a request for somebody's application.”

Alexander Conway's passport application! Finally there was a chance of tracking the bloody man down. First there would be a picture of him, which – even though passport photographs were notoriously distorting – was worth a thousand words of written description. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, someone – a professional person who had known Conway for years – would have to have signed the photograph to certify that it was a good likeness. And there was a very good chance that that person, whoever he was, would be able to lead them to wherever Conway was hiding.

Woodend took the envelope into the office, slit it open and pulled out the form. The photograph was clipped to the corner of the application. Conway appeared to be much as witnesses had described him – except that no one had mentioned the heavy spectacles he was wearing.

The Chief Inspector ran his eyes down the form. Conway had given the flat in Doncaster as his home address, and under occupation had written ‘company director'. That was only to be expected – but the name of the guarantor took Woodend completely by surprise.

“Bloody hell!” he said aloud, hardly able to believe his eyes.

The man who had vouched for Conway claimed to have known the man for ten years. His occupation was listed as ‘teacher', and it wouldn't be at all difficult to contact him, because he lived very close to Swann's Lake. His name was Michael Clough.

J
ust from the way Rutter walked across the yard, holding the brown paper bag in front of him like a trophy of war, Woodend could tell that his sergeant had met with success in Doncaster. And if any more proof were needed, there was the fact that the Sergeant did little more than nod to his boss before upending the bag and tipping the shoes onto the desk.

“Elevator heels,” he announced. “We've been looking for a man of around five feet eleven, when we should have been after someone who was at least three or four inches shorter.”

Woodend shook his head despairingly. How many false leads would there be on this bloody case? he wondered. “Sit down, lad,” he said. “Sit down, an' we'll see if we can make any sense of this.”

Rutter straddle the chair opposite him. “All the way back in the car I've been asking myself why he should wear elevator heels, and the only answer I could come up with was vanity.”

“Did you ask the cobbler if he was wearin' elevator heels when he took these shoes in to be repaired?” Woodend asked.

“Yes, I did. And he wasn't.”

“Then it's not vanity,” Woodend said. “If it had been, all his shoes would have built-in lifts.”

“They're an expensive item to buy,” Rutter pointed out.

“Everythin' in the flat was expensive,” Woodend countered. “Whatever else Alex Conway is, he's not short of a bob or two.”

“So what's your theory?” Rutter asked.

“I'm not sure how this will work, so bear with me,” Woodend said. “He wants to look taller when he's in Doncaster, but anywhere else he couldn't give a toss. An' since he isn't in Doncaster that often, he only needs one pair of shoes.”

“But if being short doesn't bother him in other places, why should it have bothered him in Doncaster?”

Woodend picked up the passport photograph and showed it to his sergeant. “What's the one recurrin' theme runnin' through all the descriptions we've had of him?” he asked.

“Blond hair and pale moustache?” Rutter hazarded.

“Spot on,” Woodend agreed. “But you're missin' out one important thing in that description.”

Rutter frowned. “I'm afraid I'm not following you, sir.”

“Why did you think he might have been a military man?”

The light of understanding dawned in Rutter's eyes. “Because they were always so well trimmed!”

“Or perhaps they don't need trimmin' at all.”

“A wig and a false moustache!” Rutter exclaimed. “But surely, if that were true, the librarian – Miss Noonan – would have told you about it.

“Not after she started to suspect we might want to lock him away,” the Chief Inspector said. He took a Capstan Full Strength from the packet on his desk and lit up. “So let's assume the hair and moustache are fake. Seen from that angle, the shoes are no more than part of his disguise. But it isn't a disguise he wears all the time, or there'd have been more pairs of shoes. So the question is, why does he only feel the need of a disguise in Doncaster?”

“Maybe there's someone there he doesn't want to recognise him,” Rutter said.

“Like who?”

Rutter shrugged. “Some other gangster who he's done the dirty on in the past?”

“Then he's taking a hell of a chance being in Doncaster
at all
. Besides, he's probably from Liverpool – he wouldn't have known the other Alex Conway if he wasn't – and if he's got enemies,
that's
where they'll be.”

“Maybe it's to disguise himself from
himself
,” Rutter said suddenly.

“How do you mean?”

“I suppose it was what Maria did which gave me the idea . . .” Rutter began. Then he stopped, and put his hands up to his head. “Oh God, my mind's been so much on the case that I haven't thought about her since I entered that shoe shop. Just what kind of heartless bastard does that make me?”

“You're not doin' any good worryin' about her,” Woodend said. “An' it's not what
she'd
want you do.”

“I know.”

“So why don't you tell me your idea?”

Rutter took a deep breath. “A few weeks back, she got very depressed,” he said. “There were lots of reasons for it – she was worried about her father's health, she didn't like her new supervisor, the situation was getting very bad in Spain. I was really concerned about her. Then, one day, out of the blue, she turned up all bright and chirpy.”

“What's the point?” Woodend asked.

“It wasn't that all her problems had magically disappeared overnight, just that she had decided to adopt a new, more positive attitude to them. She
looked
different too. Physically, I mean. I thought at first that it was just that she was more animated. But it wasn't. She'd had her hair done. A completely new style. New attitude – new look.”

His sergeant might just be onto something, Woodend thought. After all, didn't his own wife always buy a new frock when she felt she was getting into a rut? And wasn't that new frock always a contrast to everything else in her wardrobe?

And then there was Annie Peterson – pretty, mixed-up Annie – who always wore revealing dresses and heavy make-up, as if to convince herself that she fitted into the new life she'd chosen for herself.

A new person – a new start. Woodend's mind was going into overdrive. “Get me somethin' out of the filing cabinet,” he said to his sergeant.

“Something?” Rutter repeated quizzically. “Nothing specific?”

“A receipt,” Woodend said impatiently. “A manifest. A letter. Anythin' will do.”

Maria had been dozing, but now she was awake again. She could hear the birds chirping happily in the hospital grounds, and feel the breeze which blew in through the open window, carrying with it the subtle fragrance of flowers. She wished she could see the birds and the flowers, but her world, as it had since Monday morning, contained nothing but darkness.

“Are you there, Joan?” she asked.

“Yes, I'm here,” came a soft voice from somewhere to her right.

“It hasn't worked,” Maria said as calmly as she could muster.

“What hasn't worked?”

“The operation. I know it. I can feel it. When they take the bandages off my eyes on Sunday, it won't make any difference at all.”

“There's no point in speculatin',” Joan Woodend told her. “Why worry yourself unnecessarily. You'll be far better off if you just wait and see.”

The second the words were out of her mouth, she realised her mistake. Wait and
see
. Oh God, what a thing to say!

But Maria didn't seem to notice – or if she did, pretended not to. “I think Bob was planning to ask me to marry him,” she said.

“So do I,” Joan said candidly.

“Do you think he'll still ask if the operation's a failure?”

There was a pause which seemed to Maria to last for a thousand years, then Joan said, “Yes, I do.”

“So do I,” Maria said, a tear slowly coursing down her cheek. “I know it wouldn't be fair to accept. I really do. Why should he be saddled with a blind woman for the rest of his life?” She clutched her bed sheet tightly with both hands. “But sometimes I get . . . so scared . . . of being alone that I worry I might say yes.”

Clem Green, looking no less shifty after his arrest than he had before it, was already sitting at the interview table in Maltham police station when Woodend arrived. The Chief Inspector pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

“Mr Chatterton called to tell me you wanted to speak to me,” he said.

“That's right,” Green agreed. “I've been thinkin' over what you said this mornin'. I don't see why me an' our Burt should take the whole rap for this. I want to make a deal.”

Woodend shook his head. “You're too late, lad. The deal was that if you could tell us somethin' which might lead us to Alex Conway, I'd ask the local bobbies to go easy on you. Well, we know where Conway is now, so we don't need you any more. You should have taken your chance while you had it. Now, since they can't send your boss to jail – on account of him being dead – they're likely to try an' get the maximum sentences they can for you an' your brother.”

Green threw back his heard and roared with laughter.

“I wouldn't have thought I'd said anythin' particularly funny,” Woodend said

“Funny?” Clem Green spluttered. “It's bloody side-splittin'. With my
boss
dead, you said! You really have got it all wrong about Robbie Peterson, ain't you?”

Terry Clough shuffled into Peterson's office, looked suspiciously over his shoulder at the two uniformed officers who were standing by the door, then slid into the chair Woodend was gesturing towards. “What's this all about?” he asked.

Woodend held out the brown envelope which had first put him on the trail of Alex Conway. “Do you know what was in this envelope originally?” he asked.

Clough's eyes flickered for the briefest of moments. “I've no idea.”

“A passport,” Woodend told him. “But later it had another use. Somebody drew a sketch map on it – a sketch map which showed where to drop off all those stolen cigarettes we found in the ghost train.”

“That's of no interest to me,” Clough said. “I told you, I kept well clear of Robbie's rackets.”

“Yes, you did say that,” Woodend agreed. “But you were lyin' through your teeth. Harold Dawson is prepared to swear that you and he were both involved in the blackmailing of Hideaway customers. So is Gerry Fairbright – an' he should know, because he was of them.”

Terry Clough's shoulders slumped. “All right, I admit it,” he said. “But you don't know what Robbie Peterson was like. He'd have killed me if I hadn't helped him.”

Woodend leant back in his chair. “When Robbie left Liverpool, he had every intention of going straight,” he told Clough. “An' do you know somethin'? That's exactly what he did.”

“I've no idea what you're talkin' about,” Clough protested.

“Harold Dawson told me Robbie was too smart to be
seen
to be involved in the blackmail. Gerry Fairbright told me Robbie had just decided to up the amount of money he paid out every week. Neither of those things was true. All the people involved in the various rackets thought they were workin' for Robbie, but they weren't. They were workin' for
you
. You only said Robbie was behind it because while they might think of double crossin' a nobody like Terry Clough, it would never enter their heads to do the same to a hard case like Robbie Peterson.”

“Who told you all this?” Clough demanded.

“Clem Green,” Woodend said. “You made the mistake of tellin' him and his brother what the real situation was. An' I think I know
why
you did it. Everybody else involved in the rackets saw you only as Robbie's dogsbody, and while that was very useful, it was also gallin' not to have the respect you felt you deserved. You had to have
somebody
who knew you were the real boss, and you chose the Greens.”

“Robbie was an idiot,” Clough said. “There's a fortune to be made around here if only you've got the sense to see it.”

“Robbie didn't want a fortune,” Woodend told him. “The club and the attractions were bringin' in enough to keep him more than happy. I don't even know why you wanted one – unless you thought that you're bein' rich would impress your wife.”