Sins of the Fathers (23 page)

There was another pause from Springer.

‘Listen, Charlie,' he said finally, ‘I've known you for a long time, and chancing your arm because you think you've finally got Henry Marlowe out of the way is just the sort of thing I'd expect you to do.'

‘Pardon?' Woodend said.

‘But he may
lose
the election, you know, in which case, he'll be back with you as chief constable.'

‘So what?'

‘And even if he wins, he might still have some considerable influence – even at a distance – over how the Central Lancs Force is run. So if I was you, I wouldn't even think of crossing him.'

‘I've no idea what you're talking about,' Woodend confessed.

‘Pull the other leg, Charlie – it's got bells on,' Springer said.

‘You really
have
lost me,' Woodend protested.

‘Three years ago, there was a climbing accident in the mountains involving two experienced climbers and a novice,' Springer said, as flatly as if he were reading it off a piece of paper. ‘The novice broke his leg, probably through his lack of experience. The other two climbers did all they could to save him, but it was a losing battle from the start, and, weakened as he was by his injuries, he died of exposure. That's not only all you
need
to know – it's all there
is
to know.'

‘Then why is this phone in my hand almost frostin' over?' Woodend wondered.

‘Now
you're
the one who's not making any sense at all, Charlie,' Springer said.

‘You say you've known me for a long time. Well, I've known you for a long time, an' all,' Woodend said. ‘Three or four minutes ago, you sounded just like my old mate Ron. Then I mentioned Bradley Pine and Alec Hawtrey, an' suddenly you turn as cold as a Siberian blizzard. What's it all about?'

‘It's not about anything,' Springer said. ‘If I seem a little strange to you, it's probably because, at the moment, I'm under a lot of pressure at work.'

‘Fair enough,' Woodend said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced. ‘But to get back to that other matter—'

‘What other matter?'

‘Me an' Joan comin' up there, havin' dinner with you, an' maybe stayin' the night. By the middle of next week, the case I'm workin' on will either be solved or completely in the doldrums, so I can't see any reason why we shouldn't at least pencil in Friday or Saturday—'

‘Listen, about that,' Springer interrupted.

‘Yes?'

‘I'll … err … have to talk to Mary, and see when we can fit it in,' Springer said. ‘We'll definitely do it, but I can't promise it will be all that
soon
, because, as I've just explained, I've got a lot of work on.'

‘I see,' Woodend said thoughtfully, ‘So maybe we'll wait until things have eased off a bit for you.'

‘Yes, I think that would be the best idea.'

‘But in the meantime, if anythin' does occur to you about what happened to Alec Hawtrey on that—'

‘Leave it, Charlie!' Springer urged. ‘Alec Hawtrey's dead and buried. Let him rest in peace, for God's sake!'

And then he hung up.

Rutter and Paniatowski were in Woodend's office, studying a detailed street map of Whitebridge.

‘If the boss and I are right, then the only reason that the killer drove the car back into Whitebridge is because he needed to get back here himself,' Rutter said. ‘An if we work on that assumption, then it's only reasonable to also assume that he doesn't live more than a mile away from Greenfields. Would you agree with that?'

‘Probably,' Paniatowski replied. ‘Chances are that, however careful he'd been, there was probably some blood on him – and the longer he was out on the streets, the more chance there was of someone spotting that.'

Being in such close proximity to Bob Rutter again was a bit like forcing yourself to walk into the church after a long absence, she thought – you were probably never going to be entirely comfortable with it, but it got a little easier every time you did it.

‘So let's see just what falls within that one-mile area, shall we,' Rutter suggested.

He picked up a compass, set it to scale, and drew a circle on the map, with the spot where the Cortina had been found at the centre of it.

To the south of the centre were the old cotton mills, the
raison d'être
for Greenfields ever having been built. To the east was the city centre, and the beginnings of the access road out to the dual carriageway. Council estates lay to the west, and private housing estates to the north. St Mary's Church – the last place that Pine had been seen alive – was well outside the circle, but Bankside – where he met his death – was neatly dissected by it.

Rutter and Paniatowski gazed down at the line for a moment, then Rutter said, ‘Maybe we've been overlooking the obvious solution.'

‘That the killer could have been one of Thelma Hawtrey's neighbours?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Exactly. A neighbour wouldn't have known exactly when Pine was planning to visit Thelma, but that wouldn't have mattered – because he could have seen him arrive through his front window.'

‘But if that had been the case, he wouldn't have had time to set his ambush in the shrubbery.'

‘If he was a neighbour, there'd have been no need for an ambush.'

‘No?'

‘No! Just put yourself in Pine's position for a minute. He's very careful about when he visits Thelma, because he doesn't want to be seen to be doing it. But with the cover provided by the fog, he probably thinks he'll be safe enough that night. Then, just as he's parking, he sees somebody coming out of one of the other houses. What's he going to do now? Is he going to walk straight up to Thelma's door, even though he knows that he's been spotted?'

‘No, he isn't,' Paniatowski said. ‘He's going to wait until the neighbour draws level with him, and then produce some kind of story which will explain why he's there.'

‘Like what?'

‘He'll probably claim that he's got lost in the fog.'

‘Exactly. So he's standing there – worried, but not the least suspicious – as the neighbour approaches him. Now all that neighbour has to do is to get him to turn his back for a second, and the job's done.'

‘So the neighbour says something like, “I thought I saw somebody moving around outside Mrs Hawtrey's front door”?'

‘Yes. And Pine turns to look. He's already standing in the gateway, so when the blow is struck he falls straight into the rhododendron bushes.'

‘And if the killer
was
a neighbour, he might also have been a friend of Alec Hawtrey's,' Paniatowski said, with growing enthusiasm. ‘Living where he was, he could have worked out what was going on between Pine and Thelma, and been outraged that Thelma was dishonouring his friend's memory.'

‘But would he have been outraged enough to
kill
Pine?' Rutter wondered. ‘Enough to
mutilate
his body?'

They had been building up a bubble of excitement between them, but these last few words from Rutter quite punctured it.

‘It's hard to imagine anyone hating Pine enough to do that,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘If I could have got my hands on the bloody bastard who killed Maria …' Rutter said.

An awkward silence followed, as it always did when Maria's name accidentally came up.

Then Paniatowski said, ‘Would you have killed Maria's murderer for what he did to her – or for what he'd done to you?'

‘You can be cruel,' Rutter told her.

Had she
meant
to be cruel, Paniatowski wondered.

Had
she
been punishing
him
for what
he'd
done to
her
?

And if that was the case, did she have any right to do it?

‘I'm not being cruel,' she said, pushing self-analysis to one side. ‘I'm just doing my job.'

‘Are you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is that
really
what you're doing? And if it is, would you like to explain
how
?'

‘The boss says we have to try to get into the heads of murderers, and if we need to use our own experiences to do that – however painful they might be – we just need to bite on the bullet and go ahead.'

‘You're right,' Rutter said, somewhat pacified, ‘and I apologize for taking it the wrong way.'

‘And I apologize for pushing you like that,' Paniatowski said. ‘You don't have to answer the question if you don't want to.'

‘But I
do
want to, because you're spot on when you say that it might help,' Rutter told her. He thought for a moment. ‘If I'm honest,' he continued, slightly shakily, ‘I think I'd have to say I would have killed him for my own benefit, because however much pain I could have caused Maria's murderer, it wouldn't have helped her at all.'

‘So we think this murderer did it for himself, and not to avenge someone else?' Paniatowski said.

‘That's what we think.'

‘And because he was so full of hatred, he wanted to humiliate Pine even in death?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then what I still don't understand is why the murderer put Pine in the back of the car,' Paniatowski said.

‘You've lost me,' Rutter admitted.

‘If he was so keen to rob Pine of his dignity, why not cram him in the boot? Putting him on the back seat instead seems … I don't know … to be almost
cherishing
him.'

‘And even with the thick fog, placing him on the back seat increased the risk tremendously,' Rutter said. ‘It would have been
much
safer for him to hide the body away in the boot.'

There was a discreet cough behind them, and they turned to see Sergeant Dix standing there in the open doorway.

‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?' Rutter asked.

‘I just thought you'd like to know that me an' the lads are about to set off for Upper Bankside, sir,' Dix told him. ‘Will you be coming with us?'

‘Yes I will,' Rutter replied. ‘Just give me a minute to finish off here, will you?'

Dix nodded and left.

‘I think we might have hit on something important with this question of why the killer didn't put the body in the boot,' Paniatowski said. ‘Do you want to bounce it around some more, later?'

Rutter smiled. ‘That's a good idea. Bouncing ideas off each other was what we used to do in the good old days, wasn't it?

Paniatowski returned his smile. ‘Yes, it was. That's exactly what we did in the good old days.'

‘And there's no reason we can't get back into the habit.'

‘None at all.' Paniatowski took a deep breath. ‘We could perhaps discuss it over lunch,' she suggested.

Rutter shook his head. ‘That's not on, I'm afraid. I've already got a lunch appointment booked.'

‘With the boss?'

‘No.'

‘Then who with?'

‘That's really none of your business, is it?' Rutter asked, an angry note suddenly present in his voice.

‘I didn't mean to pry,' Paniatowski replied, surprised by the unexpected vehemence.

‘I don't have to justify my movements to you,' Rutter said. ‘You're not my wife, you know!'

‘Thank you for taking the trouble to remind me, but I was already quite well aware of that,' Monika answered quietly.

Rutter slapped his forehead – hard – with the palm of his hand. ‘Oh God, Monika, I didn't mean … I wasn't trying to say …'

‘I know,' Paniatowski said.

‘We'll meet up sometime this afternoon,' Rutter promised. ‘There's … there's a lot to talk about, and I do think we're making progress.'

Then he stood up and strode quickly out of the office.

When Henry Marlowe put down the telephone, the look on his face was one of almost blind panic.

‘That was the Cumberland Police on the line,' he told Bill Hawes. ‘They've just had a phone call from Woodend. He wanted to know all about Alec Hawtrey's accident.'

‘Who did he talk to?'

‘Superintendent Springer.'

‘And what does this superintendent know about it?'

‘Everything! He was there on the mountainside at the time. It couldn't have been done without him.'

‘“I am in blood stepp'd in so far, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er,”' Bill Hawes said.

‘What in God's name are you talking about, Bill?' Henry Marlowe demanded.

‘It's a quote.'

‘A quote!'

‘From Shakespeare's
Macbeth,
or, as actors prefer to call it, the Scottish Play.'

‘Oh, well that's a very bloody useful thing to know, isn't it, now?' Marlowe said.

‘It is, as a matter of fact,' Hawes told him. ‘It reminds us, in case we need reminding, that there's no going back – that once we've done something wrong, we have to
keep on
doing wrong in order not to be found out.'

‘So what's the point?'

‘The point is that once you'd told me this Superintendent Springer was involved in the incident, I ceased to be in the least bit concerned. Not only will he not shop you, Henry, he'll continue to tell lies – perhaps even bigger ones than he's told already – in order to protect you. He has no choice. He can't protect himself, if he doesn't first protect you.'

‘I hope to God you're right,' Marlowe said.

So do I, Hawes thought. Because the last thing I need at this stage in the election is to have to come up with a
third
candidate.

T
he weather was still not quite warm enough for Dr Shastri to have abandoned the trademark sheepskin jacket which she wore over her sari, but, as she climbed down from her Land Rover, Woodend saw that her small delicate feet were now clad only in elegant thong sandals.