The Butcher Beyond (11 page)

Woodend squeezed his large frame into the tiny car.

‘This is very kind of you,' he said, though he was well aware that if kindness was one of Ruiz's motives, it was – at best – a very secondary one.

‘Are you willing to tell me about your meeting with Captain López,' Paco asked, as he pulled the car away.

If there'd been room in the small vehicle to shrug, Woodend would have shrugged. As it was, all he said was, ‘There's not much to tell.'

‘I wouldn't trust López,' Paco cautioned.

‘I don't. I've seen snakes I'd rather go into partnership with. But whatever my personal feelin's on the matter, the Captain an' I are still goin' to have to work as a team, because that's what the powers that be want to happen.'

Behind the wheel, Paco stiffened. ‘And where does that leave me?' he asked.

‘Out in the cold, I'm afraid.' Woodend sighed. ‘Look, Paco, I know you really wanted to work on this case, but you have to see that it's just not possible any more. I've got to use the Guardia Civil in my investigation – there's simply no choice in the matter. An' you know the way they work – if you get in their way, they'll stomp on you. They might even lock you up. You don't want Cindy to go through all that again, do you?'

‘You talk about Cindy, but what about Joan?' Ruiz countered. ‘You're supposed to be on holiday
together
, yet now you'll abandon her while you go chasing a killer.'

‘She's used to it,' Woodend said awkwardly.

‘And Cindy is used to living with the possibility that one day I will do something which will cause the police to take me away again. She knew what I was like when she married me and – just as with you and Joan – she accepted me for what I was.'

‘I'm really sorry, Paco,' Woodend said.

There was a difficult silence for a few seconds, then Ruiz said, ‘Well, I suppose I must be philosophical about these things. Can you at least tell me what stage the investigation has reached?'

‘It doesn't seem to have gone very far at all,' Woodend admitted. ‘López says he's had his men out on the streets lookin' for possible witnesses, but I don't believe him.'

Paco shook his head, wonderingly. ‘That is very strange,' he said. ‘López is an ambitious man. This case could quite make his reputation. And yet you say he seems to have made very little attempt to solve it?'

‘That's how it looks to me.'

‘Politics!' Paco said decisively.

‘What?'

‘In this country, everything is down to politics, in one way or another,' Paco said. ‘If López is being lethargic, it is because he has been told—'

He stopped, suddenly, as if he had just decided that to say more would be a very bad idea.

‘Go on,' Woodend encouraged.

Paco laughed. ‘Franco grabbed power through a conspiracy, and conspiracies have been endemic to government here ever since. But that is not to say that
every
action of
every
man who works for the government is driven by his involvement in some conspiracy. No doubt I have misjudged López. No doubt his apparent laziness is no more than
real
laziness.'

‘I'd still very much like to hear what it was that you were goin' to say,' Woodend told him.

Paco slowed the car down to a halt. ‘Here is your hotel,' he said, pointing to the main entrance. ‘In your situation, I would go straight up to my room. Because, as the old proverb says, only a fool – or a man of great courage – dares to keep his woman waiting.'

Woodend smiled. ‘Is that really an old proverb?' he asked. ‘Or did you just make it up as a way of changin' the subject?'

‘The truth of a saying is not to be tested only by its antiquity,' Paco said enigmatically. ‘Go to your wife, because – God knows – she will be seeing very little of you in the next few days.'

Woodend struggled out of the car. ‘I'm truly sorry things turned out the way they did,' he said.

‘Think no more of it,' Paco Ruiz replied.

‘Really?'

‘Really. It was a disappointment, naturally, but part of being a man is learning to live with disappointments.' Ruiz paused. ‘I would still like to see Joan again. Perhaps the four of us can get together before you leave for England, and have another meal.'

‘I'd like that,' Woodend said. ‘An' I'm sure that Joan would like it, too.'

‘Well, then, we must stay in contact,' Paco Ruiz said.

He closed the door and slammed his car into reverse. As Woodend watched the tail lights disappearing down the street, he found himself wondering again exactly what it was that Paco had been about to say.

T
here were two police officers sitting opposite the still-distraught Jessica Medwin in her sunny lounge that morning.

One of them was a man – handsome, early thirties, with an air about him which seemed to suggest more of the high-flying businessman than a detective inspector. The other, the woman, was blonde, a little younger, and had a slightly larger than average nose which hinted at her Central European origins but in no way detracted from her obvious appeal.

They seemed to know each other very well, Jessica thought, even through her grief, yet they did not look entirely comfortable about being together.

She was right. They did know each other
very
well. They had once, in fact, been lovers – but now were trying to put all that behind them.

‘What I don't see is why I should be talking to officers from Whitebridge,' Jessica said to the man. ‘Surely, if I needed to speak to anyone, it should have been a local policeman.'

‘Normally, that would have been the case,' Bob Rutter said gently. ‘But it's
our
Chief Inspector who's in Spain, you see.'

‘He's flown out already?'

‘No. He's – he
was
– on holiday in the place where your husband met his tragic death …'

‘Where my husband was
murdered
!' Jessica Medwin said firmly.

‘Where he was murdered,' Rutter agreed. ‘And
because
Mr Woodend was already there, it's been decided that he'll be the one who conducts the investigation on behalf of the British government.'

‘Is he good at his job?' Jessica asked, her lower lip trembling slightly as she spoke.

‘He's better than that,' Rutter assured her. ‘He's the best I've ever worked with, and the best I
will
ever work with. But he's going to need your help. Can you think of any motive for his murder?'

Jessica Medwin suppressed a sob. ‘I've been racking my brains to think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Peter,' she said. ‘And I can't come up with a single name. He was a lovely man. Ask the people who knew him. Ask the people who worked for him.'

‘We will,' DS Monika Paniatowski promised. ‘But you must realize that there are some details we can get only from you.'

Jessica Medwin nodded. ‘Of course.'

‘How long were you married?'

‘How long
were
we married?' Jessica asked, as if she thought she'd slightly misheard. Then she nodded sadly. ‘Yes, it is “were” now that he's dead, isn't it? We were married for nearly twenty years.'

‘So you must have been childhood sweethearts.'

Jessica Medwin managed a small smile. ‘It's kind of you to say that, but I'm older than I look,' she told Paniatowski. ‘We were both well into our twenties when we started going out together.'

‘So you're not the one we should talk to about his early years,' Bob Rutter said.

‘Why should you want to talk to
anybody
at all
about Peter's early years?' Jessica Medwin wondered. ‘How can that possibly help you to find out who killed him?'

‘It probably won't,' Monika Paniatowski said. ‘But we're asking the questions because that's the way we work.'

‘I'm not sure I understand.'

‘We collect all the information we can, even though most of it is eventually rejected as irrelevant.'

‘I see,' Jessica Medwin said. ‘Well, even though I didn't know him then, I can tell you something about Peter's youth, if you think it might be helpful.'

‘As I said, we won't know until we've heard it.'

‘Peter comes – came – from a mining family. His father was a miner, and so was his grandfather. When they were old enough, both Peter and his two brothers followed the family tradition, and went down the pit.'

‘But he didn't
stay
down the pit.'

Jessica Medwin smiled again, this time with a kind of sad pride. ‘No, he didn't. He started going to evening classes as soon as he could. He wanted to better himself, you see.'

‘So by the time you met him, he wasn't actually a miner any more,' Rutter said.

‘What makes you think that?' Jessica Medwin asked, an abrasive note entering her voice.

Rutter looked confused. ‘Well, I …'

‘Is it that you can't imagine someone like me ever falling for a man who spent half his life covered with coal dust?'

‘No, I … I didn't mean to suggest—'

‘Of course you did,' Jessica interrupted. ‘That's exactly what you meant to suggest.' Her mouth suddenly lost some of its tightness. ‘But don't feel
too
guilty about it,' she continued, softening a little. ‘You're not the first person to see things in that way – not by a long chalk. All my friends were horrified when I started walking out with Peter. “You're a manager's secretary,” they reminded me. “You've got a good job. You shouldn't be associating with a grubby little miner.” I didn't argue with them. Why should I have? If
they
couldn't see what
I
saw in Peter, then there was really very little point in continuing our friendships any more.'

‘What
did
you see in him?' Paniatowski asked.

‘People thought he was timid. But he wasn't. He was gentle. And strong! God, he was strong. I came from a background in which compromise and hypocrisy were the norm. Getting on with people – being
acceptable
– was all that mattered to most of the people I knew. Peter wasn't like that at all. If he believed in something, there was no power in the world that could have talked him out of doing what he thought was right.'

‘Why was he in Spain?' Rutter asked.

‘I don't know.'

‘Didn't he give you an explanation before he left?'

‘No. He didn't even say he was
going
to Spain.'

‘Then what
did
he say?'

‘He said there was something important he had to do, and he would only be away for a few days.'

‘And you accepted that?'

‘Why shouldn't I have? If it was important to him, I knew he had to do it. And if he didn't want to tell me what it was he was doing, or where he was going to do it, that was fine with me. I trusted him. I always have, and I always will. Whatever his reason for being there, it was a
good
reason.'

‘Had he been to Spain before?' Rutter asked. ‘Perhaps you'd taken a holiday there together.'

‘I used to travel to the Continent quite a lot, with my family. But I haven't been abroad since we got married. Neither of us have.'

‘And why was that?'

‘Peter didn't want to travel. He seemed to have an aversion to it.' Jessica Medwin frowned. ‘Which was strange – in a way.'

‘Why?'

‘He had no prejudices of any kind. He was the first Coal Board manager to employ coloured people in his mine. Some of his superiors really didn't like that at all.'

‘Why not?'

‘There's too much prejudice even now – God knows – but if you think back, you'll remember there was even more in the fifties. Some people simply didn't want to employ coloured folk. But my Peter was having none of that. He said a man shouldn't be judged by the colour of his skin – especially since the mine turned everybody black anyway.' Jessica Medwin paused. ‘That was just his little joke.'

‘We understand,' Monika Paniatowski said.

‘He had to fight damned hard to get his own way on that particular issue. In the end, he even threatened to resign. And he meant it, you know! He really would have gone through with it, at whatever the cost to himself. And the coloured people weren't the only ones he went out of his way to help. He was the same with the Eastern Europeans – the Poles and the Romanians. He said they'd had quite enough of a tough time already, and it was his duty to help them. Yet when it came to the question of holidays abroad, he was adamant. Said he didn't trust foreigners. I could never quite understand that. But there you are, that's how he felt, and I wasn't going to argue with him.'

‘We'd like to talk to other people who knew him,' Monika Paniatowski said. ‘You wouldn't mind if we did that, would you?'

‘Why should I mind? You're not going to find out anything unpleasant about him, because there's nothing unpleasant for you to find. Peter's life was an open book.'

Except that nobody – not even you – has the slightest idea what he was doing on the Costa Blanca, Paniatowski thought.

I
f this had been an English police station rather than a Guardia Civil barracks, Woodend thought, there would have been a two-way mirror through which to look at the men in the next room. As it was, he found himself peering – like a voyeur – through a grille in the party wall.

There were five men in all, sitting side-by-side on an uncomfortably narrow bench. But though their shoulders were – of necessity – touching, they didn't speak. In fact, they didn't even look at each other.

‘Who are they?' Woodend asked.

‘You do not recognize any of them?' Captain López asked, a slight smile playing on his lips as if Woodend's ignorance amused him.