Sins of the Fathers (31 page)

‘Why are you
really
here?' Marlowe asked.

‘I'm really here because of Alec Hawtrey,' Woodend replied, lighting up a cigarette and inhaling deeply. ‘I was quite convinced, for a while back there, that Bradley Pine had murdered him, you know.'

‘That's a quite ludicrous assumption for anyone – even you – to make!' Marlowe said.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir,' Woodend said dryly. ‘But there's more.'

‘More?'

‘I was also convinced that Bradley Pine knew some nasty little secret of yours, an', because of that, he was able to blackmail you into helpin' him to cover up the murder.'

‘How dare you even have such thoughts?' Marlowe demanded. ‘I'm a chief constable! I'm
going to be
a member of parliament. It would never even occur to me to become involved in a sordid cover-up.'

‘Now that's not strictly true, is it?' Woodend asked mildly. ‘You didn't cover up a murder, but you did cover up somethin' sordid – somethin' pretty horrific, in fact – that Pine did on that mountainside.'

‘I must tell you that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!' Marlowe said hotly.

‘What made you do it?' Woodend mused. ‘The only explanation that I can come up with is that you saw it as no more than a natural extension of the mutual back-scratchin' that you Golf Club types have made a way of life. But it was a rather
big
favour he was askin' on that particular occasion, wasn't it?'

‘I've heard quite enough of this, Chief Inspector Woodend. I don't know where you get your—'

‘Of course, your lot never do anythin' without expectin' somethin' in return. So what were you expectin' from Pine? That he'd support your application to be the next Tory candidate? Because if that
was
what you were after, he let you down quite badly, didn't he?'

‘I should never have trusted the man,' Marlowe said bitterly. ‘I should never have taken him at his word.'

He was talking to himself, rather than to Woodend. In fact, in his anger at the dead man, he seemed almost to have forgotten that the chief inspector was even there in the room.

‘I don't see you had much choice
but
to take him at his word,' Woodend pointed out. ‘After all, it wasn't the kind of deal that you could ever have put down in writin', now was it?'

‘Deal? What deal?' Marlowe asked, suddenly conscious of the other man's presence again. ‘There was no
deal
. And I can assure you that there was absolutely no
cover-up
.'

Woodend shook his head slowly – and almost mournfully – from side to side.

‘That really won't wash any more, you know,' he said. ‘You can go on denyin' it till you've turned blue in the face, but I talked to your old mate Doc Pierson earlier this mornin' – an' so I'm never goin' to believe you.'

‘You talked to Pierson? And he told you …?'

‘He told me everythin'.'

‘What Pine did wasn't a crime, you know!' Marlowe said. ‘They'd never have locked him up for it.'

‘Possibly you're right, though I think I could find half a dozen lawyers who might disagree with you,' Woodend replied. ‘But that's not really the point, is it, sir? Even if it wasn't strictly a
criminal
act, it would have ruined him socially. It wouldn't have done much for his business, either. People tend to be a bit squeamish about havin' dealin's with a man like that.'

‘What was so wrong with it, when you look at it objectively?' Marlowe asked. ‘Strip away all the sugary emotionalism behind it, and what are you left with? The fact that Bradley Pine found himself in a difficult situation, and did no more than he needed to do to ensure his own well-being!'

‘That's certainly one way of lookin' at what happened,' Woodend agreed. ‘But since I'm not one of the élite of Whitebridge society – like you are, an' Pine was – I don't think I'd look at it that way myself.'

He stood up and walked towards the door.

‘What are you going to do?' Marlowe asked, with a strong hint of panic in his voice.

‘Do?' Woodend repeated. ‘I'm goin' to do what I get paid to do – which is to try my hardest to find Bradley Pine's murderer.'

‘That isn't what I meant, and you know it,' Marlowe said.

‘Oh, you mean, am I goin' to tell anybody else what Pierson told me?' Woodend said.

‘Listen, Charlie, I'll still have considerable influence in the Central Lancs Constabulary once I'm elected, you know.'

‘I'm sure you will.'

‘I'll still have a say in who gets promoted and who doesn't. Would you like to be a superintendent? Or even a
chief
superintendent? That can be arranged – as long as you're prepared to keep quiet.'

‘There's no need to offer me a bribe,' Woodend told him. ‘
I
won't tell anybody your nasty little secret.'

Marlowe mopped his sweating brow with his handkerchief.

‘Thank you, Chief Inspector,' he said. ‘Thank you so much.'

‘But whether or not it leaks out from some
other
source will depend, I would imagine, on who killed Pine, an'
why
he killed him.'

S
ince his mother appeared to be having one of her more lucid mornings, Colin Beresford had decided to take off a couple of the hours that his recent spate of overtime entitled him to, and spend them with her.

Why bother going into work anyway, he asked himself, when – despite Woodend's pep talk the previous evening – he was far from convinced he was contributing anything of importance to the investigation.

It was true, he argued, putting the case from the other side – as Woodend had done the previous evening – that the chief inspector would probably not have realized, had it not been for him, that Bradley Pine's body had been dumped on the site of what had once been ‘Tara' – the old Hawtrey family house.

But how did that particular piece of knowledge help them advance the investigation?

Even if it were more than a coincidence – and that was a long way from being firmly established – neither he nor Woodend had any real idea of
what
it signified.

The inside of his poor mother's head must be a little like this case, he thought. There was so much information – so many memories – floating around in there.

But no structure at all.

No system.

No coherent whole.

‘Why don't we look at the old photograph albums, Colin?' his mother suggested.

Why not, Beresford agreed.

Leave it a couple of hours, and all the faces smiling up at her would mean nothing to his mother. So why not grab the opportunity to have her live in the real world while she still could?

She even remembered where they
kept
the albums, he thought, as he watched her open the drawer.

But he shouldn't let that fool him, even for a moment, into thinking she was getting any better. She would
never
get any better. All he had left to hope for was that her decline would not be too rapid.

His mother placed one of the albums on the table, and opened it.

‘This was the holiday we all spent in Blackpool, when you were just a little boy,' she said. ‘Do you remember?'

‘I remember.'

‘There's your dad in front of the Tower …' Mrs Beresford paused and looked around the room. ‘Where
is
your dad, by the way? Has he gone out?'

‘Dad's dead, Mum,' Beresford said.

Mrs Beresford blinked, then tried to pretend that she hadn't.

‘Of course he's dead, I knew that,' she agreed. ‘And there's you, on the sands,' she continued, hastily. ‘Weren't you a lovely little boy?'

Beresford examined the faded photograph. The boy in it looked serious – almost brooding.

Had he sensed, even then, what lay ahead of him, he wondered. Could he already see into a future in which his father was dead and his mother was slowly going gaga?

The picture began to remind him of another photograph – though it was not one of him.

And suddenly, he realized why the priest had seemed so familiar!

Woodend had only just got back to his office when the phone on his desk began to ring.

He picked it up, and heard the operator say, ‘I have a long-distance phone call from Australia for you. I'm connecting you now.'

Australia?

‘Chief Inspector Woodend?' asked a cheery voice down the crackling line. ‘G'day! It's Sergeant Archie Boon of the Western Australia Police here. I'm told you've been making inquiries about Jeremy Tully.'

‘That's right,' Woodend agreed.

‘Then I'm the bloke you need to speak to. He works on one of the farms on my patch.'

‘He works on a
farm
!'

‘That's what I said. He's a sheep-shearer. An' for a beginner, he's a damn good one.'

‘Are you quite sure that we're talkin' about the same man?' Woodend wondered.

‘Jeremy Nathan Tully?' Boon asked. ‘Moved here from Whitebridge, Lancashire? Used to be an accountant?'

‘That's him. What's he doin' shearin' sheep?'

‘There's not much choice in the matter, since the sheep can't shear themselves,' Boon pointed out. ‘An' old Jerry tells me he quite likes the work. Says he's found peace at last – whatever that means.'

‘D'you mean to say you've already talked to him?' Woodend asked.

‘Talked to him? I've done more than that. I've
interrogated
him.'

‘You done
what
?'

‘Interrogated him. But not like you might have done over there in the Old Country – shining bright lights into his face and tapping your truncheon menacingly against your trouser leg.'

Woodend grinned. ‘You've been watchin' too many old films, Sergeant,' he said.

‘You're probably right,' Boon agreed. ‘Anyway, since he's one of my closest neighbours – which means he only lives a couple of hours drive from where I live – I thought I'd better leave the lamp and truncheon at home, and interrogate him the
Ozzie
way.'

‘An' what way's that?' Woodend wondered.

‘I turned up at his place with a case of beer, and suggested he light up the barbie and throw a few thick juicy steaks on it. We had a real good chin-wag once he'd done that – especially after we'd drained a few tinnies of the amber nectar.'

‘What did you talk
about
?'

‘Mainly about why he came to Oz. Seems he had a bit of a rough time up a mountainside in old England. Must admit, I didn't know you even had mountains over there.'

‘They probably don't look much in comparison to yours, but we're used to them,' Woodend said. ‘And I know what happened on the mountainside, so you can skip that bit.'

‘Oh, all right,' Boon agreed easily. ‘Well, after he came down from the mountain, he was having trouble sleeping, and when he did fall asleep he had these terrible nightmares. He's a Catholic. Did you know that?'

‘Yes, I did.'

‘Anyway, he went to his priest, and confessed. I don't understand how these things work – not got much time for religion myself – but I think that was supposed to make everything all right again. Only it didn't work out like that. He was still getting the sweats and the trembles. So he went to see the priest again, and the priest suggested that he moved to Oz.'

‘The
priest
did?'

‘Yeah, that's right. He told Jerry he should put his past behind him – get as far away from England as he could, and make a new start. And you can't get further away from England than Oz. Turns out it was a real beaut of an idea, because he has no trouble at all sleepin' now.' The sergeant chuckled. ‘Course, that
could
have something to do with the fact that he's shearing sheep from dawn till dusk.'

‘Did he happen to tell you the name of the priest who gave him this advice?' Woodend asked.

‘Can't say that he did. But he did tell me that it was a very
young
priest.'

Paniatowski crossed herself awkwardly and self-consciously. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,' she said.

‘You shouldn't have come here, Monika,' the voice hissed from the other side of the grille.

‘Isn't this the right place to talk about what happened last night?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Yes, but—'

‘Well, that's why I'm here.'

‘—but not with
me
.'

‘I want to know if I did wrong,' Paniatowski said firmly.

‘We
both
did wrong,' Father Taylor said. ‘But though I know there are no degrees of difference within mortal sin, I still believe that I did more wrong than you – and that I will burn in hellfire for eternity as a result.'

‘Not if you confess! Not if you get some other priest to absolve you from your sins!'

‘I
can't
confess,' Father Taylor said, agonized.

‘Why?'

‘Because there can be no forgiveness without true repentance – and I cannot bring myself to repent.'

‘So what will happen to
us
?'

‘That is in God's hands.'

‘Don't give me all that crap!' Paniatowski said angrily. ‘You still have your free will, don't you? You can still go where you want to, and be with who you want to be with.'

‘Perhaps you're right about that – for the moment,' Father Taylor said. ‘But I don't think it will be the case for very much longer.'

‘Why?'

‘Because events – circumstances – are closing in on me.'

‘And just what's that supposed to mean?'