The Dead Hand of History (28 page)

Beresford shrugged. ‘By following standard procedures,' he said. ‘By continuing to investigate as carefully and methodically as we can . . .'

‘An approach which, so far, has got us precisely nowhere!'

‘. . . and by hoping that, eventually, we'll get a lucky break.'

What Colin was saying made perfect sense, Paniatowski thought. Even the great Charlie Woodend himself had put his faith in lucky breaks occasionally. But he had never just sat back and
waited
for the luck to happen. Instead, he found ways to
encourage
it to appear.

‘We need to do something that will stir up the stew pot,' she said aloud.

‘Sorry, boss?'

‘Another of Charlie Woodend's little theories was that looking for clues was a bit like staring into a stew pot. He said that when you look into the pot, you know that there must be all kinds of juicy things cooking away, but all you can actually
see
are the bubbles on the surface. So what you need to do, according to Charlie, is give the pot a serious stir, and see what rises to the top.'

‘And you have an idea about what you might do to stir the pot?' Beresford asked.

‘Yes, I do. It's just come to me.'

There was something about the way she said the words which immediately made Beresford feel uneasy.

‘What does it involve?' he asked.

‘Well, the first thing it involves is an early morning visit to Borough Councillor Polly Johnson JP.'

‘I suppose you'd better tell me about it,' Beresford said, without a great deal of enthusiasm.

Paniatowski outlined her scheme, and when she'd finished, Beresford said, ‘But you do realize, don't you, that you haven't any real grounds for doing that?'

‘Yes, I do,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘And you are aware that the whole thing could blow up in your face?'

‘I am.'

‘I'm still not convinced you've thought it through properly,' Beresford said. ‘The press could decide that they'll go to town on it. And if they do, they could
crucify
you.'

‘Well, you really are my little ray of sunshine tonight, aren't you?' Paniatowski said.

‘And if there's
enough
of an outcry, even the chief constable won't be able to protect you,' Beresford pressed on.

‘No, he won't.'

‘I have to say that what you're proposing sounds like an act of desperation to me,' Beresford told her.

Paniatowski smiled thinly. ‘Maybe that's because it
is
an act of desperation,' she said.

TWENTY-FOUR

F
red Handley always opened his general store at seven o'clock in the morning. There wasn't much passing trade at that time of day, but since he had to be there himself to take deliveries, he thought he might as well catch what little there was.

The woman's arrival, at seven-oh-three, surprised him, partly because it
was
so early, and partly because it was only a few hours since he'd
last
seen her.

‘It's Jenny, isn't it?' he asked.

‘That's right,' Jenny Brunskill agreed.

‘So what brings you back so soon? Did you forget something when you were here yesterday?'

Jenny laughed, as if he'd made a joke.

‘Oh no, nothing like that. But I've got some time on my hands, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to stock up a bit.'

Stock up? Handley thought. At this bloody awful time of the morning?

But he nodded encouragingly anyway, because he always approved
in principle
of people stocking up – just as long as they did it at
his
shop, rather than one of the big supermarkets.

‘So what can I get you?' he asked.

‘I think I'll just look around, if you don't mind,' Jenny said, slightly awkwardly.

‘I don't mind at all,' he assured her. ‘Make yourself right at home, love.'

He didn't expect her to be there for long, because in a shop the size of his, there wasn't much
looking around
to do. Yet Jenny seemed intent on making a thorough job of it, carefully studying each shelf before moving along to the next – and at half-past seven, she was still there.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular, love?' Handley asked.

‘No, like I told you, I'm just getting a feel for the place,' Jenny Brunskill replied. ‘Although now I come to think of it, I will be needing a loaf of your thick sliced bread.'

‘Would that be Brunskill's or Tompkins'?' Handley asked, with a throaty chuckle.

Jenny smiled at him. ‘Tompkins',' she said. ‘You've got such a smooth tongue in your head that you've talked me into it.'

Handley reached to the shelf and put a loaf on the counter. ‘It's there when you want it.'

‘Is that fresh today?' Jenny asked.

‘Of course it's fresh,' Handley said.

‘But fresh
today
?' Jenny repeated.

‘Well, no,' the shopkeeper admitted. ‘But bread like this stays good for days, you know.'

‘When will
today's
loaves be delivered?' Jenny persisted.

Handley checked his watch. ‘I imagine it should be sometime in the next half-hour or so. But you don't want to . . .'

‘I'll wait,' Jenny said firmly.

In her youth, Polly Johnson had always woken up as fresh as a daisy, sprung out of bed immediately and – much to her late father's annoyance – been singing at the top of her voice by the time she reached the foot of the stairs.

But those days were long gone. She was Councillor Polly Johnson JP now, and as both the years and her responsibilities had taken something of a toll, she liked, instead of jumping in with both feet, to ease herself gently into the day.

She was easing herself into it that morning when she heard a tap on her kitchen window, and looked up to see Monika Paniatowski.

Polly opened the door for her unexpected visitor.

‘Nice to see you, Monika,' she said, doing her best to erase from her voice the grumpiness she still thought she was perfectly entitled to feel.

‘Nice to see you, too, Councillor Johnson,' Paniatowski replied.

‘Tea?'

‘Yes, please, I'd like it with . . .'

‘No milk, no sugar and a slice of lemon.'

‘You remembered.'

Polly nodded. ‘I'm like a mother to you.'

She went to the counter, selected a medium-sized mug and picked up her teapot.

‘So it's like
that
, is it?' she asked, as she filled the mug almost to the top with the recently brewed, steaming black liquid.

‘Like what?' Paniatowski asked innocently – far
too
innocently – from the kitchen table.

‘On any other occasion, I'd have been “Polly” to you, but this morning I seem to be Councillor Johnson. I take that to mean this is an official visit, rather than a social one. Not that I really needed that clue to tip me off. At this unearthly hour of the morning, it could hardly be anything else but an official one.'

‘It is partly official . . .' Paniatowski began.

‘It's
entirely
official,' Polly Johnson corrected her, slicing off a piece of lemon and dropping it into Paniatowski's tea. ‘And don't think I haven't noticed that, even though you've only been a chief inspector for a couple of days, you're
already
trying to use one of Charlie Woodend's old tricks on me.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘As well you might, my girl. You've turned up at a moment when you're certain that a poor old soul like me will be far from her sharpest.' Polly walked over to the table, and placed the mug of tea in front of Paniatowski. ‘And the
reason
you've done that is because you want me to sign something which, if I had more of my wits about me, I'd probably baulk at.'

‘I . . .' Paniatowski began.

‘Charlie did exactly the same thing,' Polly Johnson continued. ‘The only difference is that he used to turn up at around three o'clock in the morning, so I suppose you could be said to be at least
something
of an improvement.'

Paniatowski grinned weakly. ‘It's a fair cop,' she admitted.

‘So what
is
this outrageous thing you want me to sign?' Polly asked. ‘Do you want to search the bishop's palace for drugs? Or maybe the Women's Institute, for those sex toys that they fondly imagine nobody else knows they have?'

‘No, neither of those things,' Paniatowski said.

‘Or maybe you woke this morning and decided, on a whim, that you fancied arresting the mayor for being an idiot in a public place – which, though easy enough to prove, is not
strictly speaking
a criminal act.'

‘Not that either.'

‘Has no one ever told you that if you want to get something out of somebody, you should laugh very loudly at their jokes – however weak those jokes might be?' Polly asked.

‘Sorry,' Paniatowski said.

She hadn't even laughed at that last comment, Polly Johnson thought – and that was surely worth at least a mild titter. She must be really desperate.

The poor little thing!

‘So what
do
you want?' she asked.

‘I want you to sign this,' Paniatowski said, sliding the slip of paper across the kitchen table.

Polly read it quickly.

‘Sweet Jesus!' she said. ‘I take it you've got solid, well-documented grounds for making this request?'

Paniatowski grimaced. ‘Not exactly. But I can have an X-ray taken of my stomach, if that would help.'

‘What?'

‘I've got a gut feeling, Polly. A strong one. And I need you to sign on the dotted line, so I can make my case.'

‘Charlie Woodend used to have gut feelings, too,' Polly reminded her.

‘I know.'

‘And often – more often than not, in fact – they were spot on. But even so, it usually took a great deal more than one of his gut feelings for me to give
him
what he wanted. You see, unfortunately for you, Monika, when I was taking my oath as a JP, I forgot to keep my fingers crossed. And what that means is that there's only so far I can allow myself, in all conscience, to go.'

‘And, God knows, I can
use
all the help I can get on this one,' Paniatowski said.

She didn't even hear me, Polly thought. She's so wrapped up in her own worries that she isn't even listening.

For perhaps half a minute, Polly sat there in silence, then she opened her handbag and took out her fountain pen.

‘You are to regard this as a welcome-to-the-job present, Chief Inspector Paniatowski,' she said sternly. ‘But I won't be this much of a pushover the next time you come knocking on my door – whatever time of day or night it is.'

‘Understood,' Paniatowski said, nodding gravely.

Polly signed quickly – as if she wanted it over and done with before she changed her mind – and when she put her pen down again, she shivered.

‘That made me feel really quite odd,' she said. ‘Do you know, I don't think I've ever signed an exhumation order before.'

There was a time when Brewer's Street would have been heaving with activity, even at that early hour of the morning. Moore's Brewery (after which the street was named) would already have begun its daily task of producing thousands of gallons of ale, and in Brunskill's Bakery (which made the bread, which made the sandwiches, which men scoffed down
after
drinking the ale) the ovens would have been working at full pelt. But the brewery had been taken over by an industrial conglomerate which produced a mere parody of real beer, and which – being more interested in Moore's market than in its traditions and facilities – had immediately closed the place down. Then the bakery had gone, moving to a site more suitable for Linda Szymborska's ambitious expansion plans.

DC Crane stood in front of the old bakery, thoughtfully jangling the keys which he'd picked up from the estate agents the previous evening.

Now he was there, all he had to do was open the door at the back of the building and step inside, he told himself.

Mission accomplished.

So why was he having doubts? Why was there a small part of his mind – possibly his subconscious, though he couldn't be sure – which kept urging him to return the keys and forget that he'd ever planned to enter the bakery at all?

It couldn't be that he was worried he'd get into trouble for disobeying Sergeant Walker's orders, because Walker hadn't explicitly told him
not
to come to the bakery.

Besides, the sergeant never need find out about it.

Then what
was
his problem? Was he worried that when he discovered the empty bakery was just that –
an empty bakery
– he'd feel a complete fool?

Possibly that
was
it, he decided.

But what was foolish about ruling the bakery out of the investigation? Wasn't the process of elimination one of the cornerstones of this kind of work?

There was no point in procrastinating any further, he thought. He had come here with a purpose, and it was time that purpose was fulfilled.

‘Walk away!' his subconscious – if that's what it was – screamed. ‘You'll regret it if you don't!'

‘Bollocks!' Crane said aloud, as he began to walk down the alleyway which led to the loading bay.

TWENTY-FIVE

T
he Tompkins' Bakery's bread-delivery man arrived at Handley's General Store at five minutes to eight.