The Dead Hand of History (31 page)

It was while Stan Szymborska was being processed that WPC Margaret Hill informed Paniatowski and Beresford of Jenny Brunskill's presence in the building.

‘She's been demanding to speak to someone in authority, ma'am,' the WPC said.

‘And where is she now?

‘She looked like she was about to start screaming the place down, so I thought it best to put her in one of the interview rooms.'

‘You just did right,' Paniatowski said. She turned to Beresford. ‘What do you think she wants?'

‘She's probably come to ask for Stan Szymborska's head on a spike,' Beresford replied. ‘Would you like
me
to talk to her, boss?'

Paniatowski considered the matter. On the one hand, the last thing she wanted was to listen to a hysterical rant from a woman who probably considered slow torture too easy a death for her brother-in-law. But on the other, she might just learn something – one tiny piece of significant information – which she could use to crack Szymborska's calm self-reliant shell and push him into confessing to the crimes of which he was so patently guilty.

‘I'll see her,' she said. ‘But if I'm in there for more than five minutes, send in the cavalry.'

Jenny Brunskill was in a
far
worse state than her brother-in-law. Her pageboy hair was a mess, as if she'd been tugging at it, furiously and unrelentingly. Her eyes were enlarged and wild-looking. And her hands, resting on the table, were twitching uncontrollably.

Paniatowski sat down opposite her. ‘I know this is a very difficult time for you, Miss Brunskill,' she said sympathetically, ‘but I promise you, we'll make it as painless as we possibly can. There's the identification of the body to be dealt with first. Legally speaking, you are required to do that, but since there's no doubt it's her, it should be enough for you to just sign the paperwork.'

‘What?' Jenny Brunskill asked.

‘I said that, though legally speaking you're supposed to make a formal identification of the body—'

‘Did you know that Tompkins' Bakery has been bribing some of the small shopkeepers around Whitebridge to take their bread, rather than ours?' Jenny Brunskill interrupted.

‘Oh, for God's sake!' Paniatowski exploded. ‘Just what kind of woman are you, Miss Brunskill? Your sister's been murdered, and all you can worry about is bloody bread sales!'

‘It's vitally important to keep the bakery going at all costs,' Jenny said. ‘Now that she's dead, it will be Linda's monument, just as it has always been Father's, but that's not the—'

‘Monument!' Paniatowski repeated angrily. ‘It's not a hospital or a charitable foundation we're talking about here. It's not even a work of art. It's nothing but a bloody bakery!'

‘You're right, it's not a hospital or a charitable foundation,' Jenny said, suddenly almost eerily calm. ‘It
is
just a bloody bakery. But, as I was saying, that's not the point.'

Paniatowski sighed. ‘So what
is
the point?'

‘Warren Tompkins will do anything to take over our business. Anything at all!'

‘You're wasting my time,' Paniatowski said.

‘But don't you see?' Jenny demanded, with astonishment evident in her voice. ‘Isn't it obvious to you?'

‘Isn't
what
obvious to me?'

‘Stan didn't kill Jenny and Tom at all – someone who was working for Tompkins did!'

‘You've lost your mind,' Paniatowski said, with disgust.

‘Think about it,' Jenny insisted. ‘Think about
who
was killed. The managing director and the head baker. Why them? Because they were the cornerstones of the business!'

‘They weren't killed because they were
bakers
,' Paniatowski said. ‘They were killed because they were
lovers
.'

‘I didn't believe you the first time you made that wicked, wicked suggestion, and I don't believe you now,' Jenny Brunskill told her. ‘It's simply not true. It
can't
be true.'

‘You need to get away from all this for a while, Jenny,' Paniatowski said softly.

‘Get away?' Jenny Brunskill repeated, as if the words were totally meaningless to her.

‘Getting away will allow you to find another perspective on what's happened. I promise you, you'll see things differently once you're somewhere else. So go, Jenny. Please! Spend some time with friends or relatives . . .'

‘My only relative's been
murdered
,' Jenny said. ‘And my only friend's been
arrested
for killing her. And now they're gone, who's left to run the bakery? There's only me.'

‘Listen, Jenny . . .' Paniatowski began.

‘When will you arrest the people at Tompkins' who murdered my sister?' Jenny demanded.

‘They
didn't
murder your sister, and I'm not
going to
arrest them,' Paniatowski said firmly.

‘Then I will make a complaint,' Jenny said. ‘I'll complain at the very highest level.'

‘I hope you do,' Paniatowski said.

And she meant it, because while it was not her place to try and have Jenny Brunskill sectioned under the Mental Health Act,
somebody
in authority should certainly see that it was done.

TWENTY-SEVEN

‘
D
oesn't it bother you that you'll probably end up going to prison for the rest of your natural life?' Paniatowski asked Stan Szymborska across the table in the interview room.

‘Yes, it bothers me,' Szymborska admitted, in a voice which was so flat and unemotional that it was almost robotic. ‘But it does not bother me for any of the reasons you might imagine.'

‘So you won't mind being locked up twenty-four hours a day?' Paniatowski asked, deliberately taunting the man in the hope of getting a reaction –
any
reaction – out of him. ‘You won't mind not feeling a soft summer breeze on your face, and the sun on your back, ever again? You won't mind losing the right to make any choices of your own?'

‘No,' Szymborska said.

And he put so much conviction into that one simple word that she almost believed him.

‘It
will
bother you once you're there,' she said harshly. ‘Believe me, it will bother you
then
!'

Stan shook his head slowly and sadly from side to side. ‘You can only miss those things you still want,' he said. ‘The part of my life I cared about came to an end with my Linda's death. I am already in prison. And what does it matter if I lose the right to choose for myself when there are no longer any choices I wish to make? Besides, though I will have been imprisoned for a crime I did not commit, I have done things in my life for which I
deserve
to go to jail.'

‘Your sister-in-law, Jenny, thinks that you're innocent, you know,' Paniatowski said.

Szymborska smiled sadly. ‘I knew she would.'

‘How did you know? Was it because you, better than most people, know just how gullible she is?'

‘No, it isn't because of what I know about her, it's because of what she knows about me – and she
knows
that I would never kill my Linda.'

‘You care about Jenny, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do care about her. Like my darling Linda, Jenny has a deep inner beauty.'

‘But
unlike
your Linda's inner beauty, Jenny's was never allowed to emerge? Unlike your Linda, she's still living in the shadow of her father?'

‘Yes. I tried to help her – but perhaps I did not try hard enough. And for that, I feel a guilt which I will carry with me to the grave.'

‘You can help her now,' Paniatowski said. ‘If you really want to, you can help her without even leaving this room.'

‘How?'

‘She thinks some of the people who work at Tompkins' Bakery were behind your wife's murder. Does that surprise you?'

For a moment, Szymborska was silent.

Then he said, ‘No, it doesn't really surprise me – not when I stop to think about it. The bakery is Jenny's world, you see, and anything that happens in the
rest
of the world can only be explained in terms of the bakery.'

‘But you'll admit that believing someone in Tompkins' Bakery had Linda killed is delusional?'

‘Of course it's delusional.'

‘Then help Jenny to escape from that delusion by confessing – by showing just
how
delusional the idea is.'

‘If I confess, you'll stop looking for the real killer,' Szymborska said. ‘And then my Linda will
never
get justice.'

‘We've
already
stopped looking for the real killer – because we've got him in custody!'

‘Perhaps you may think that now,' Stan Szymborska said calmly, ‘but if I continue to maintain my innocence, you will find seeds of doubt starting to grow within you. And eventually – even though I have been convicted of the crime – you will open the investigation again.'

‘Now that really
is
delusional,' Paniatowski said.

And yet, she thought, those seeds were already there, and his very certainty was starting to make them grow.

But it was all bollocks, of course, she told herself angrily. He was playing her now, just as he'd played her all along. Well, it was time to show him that he couldn't pull on her emotional strings any longer – that she finally saw him for what he truly was.

‘Tell me about the hands,' she said.

‘I did not kill my Linda, and I did not kill Tom Whittington, and so I know nothing about—'

‘Not those hands!' Paniatowski interrupted contemptuously. ‘The other hands. The ones you cut off in the prisoner-of-war camp!'

For the first time in the interrogation, Szymborska looked as if he'd been knocked off balance.

‘How did you . . . who told you . . .?'

‘Doesn't matter, does it?' Paniatowski asked. ‘I
do
know. All I'm missing is the details. So why don't you fill me in on them?'

‘No,' Szymborska said firmly.

‘Why not?' Paniatowski asked, in a hectoring voice. ‘Because you're ashamed of what you did? Because that's one of the things that you think you deserve to go to prison for?'

‘Because if I tell you, you will only use it as a prop to shore up your suspicions about me.'

‘I don't
need
any prop to shore up my suspicions,' Paniatowski told him. ‘Why should I? I already
know
you're guilty as sin. So why not come clean! Why not be a man about it!'

‘All right, I will tell you,' Stan said, suddenly weary. ‘But not because of your bullying and your pathetic mind games.'

‘No?'

‘No! I will tell you because it will show you, for good or bad – and only you can decide which it is – what kind of man I
really
am.'

It surprised Paniatowski to discover that her heart had begun to beat a little faster, and that the room was suddenly stuffier.

Stan was right, she thought. She
had
tried to bully him into telling her this story – but now that he was about to tell it to her, she was no longer sure she wanted to hear it!

‘Come on, then, let's have it, Mr Szymborska,' she said. ‘I haven't got all day!'

‘You were wrong when you talked about
hands
earlier,' Szymborska said. ‘The truth is that there was only one.'

He told Paniatowski about the prisoners' growing suspicion that there was a spy in their midst, and how they had searched Tadeujz's belongings and found the chocolate bar. And then he told her about the hatchet that Stefan had produced from the hiding place in the wall.

‘And you thought it was a jolly good idea, did you?' Paniatowski asked, still hectoring.

‘No,' Szymborska said seriously. ‘Not at first.'

‘If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off,' Stefan quotes, almost in a whisper. ‘In this place, we are all
each other's
right hands.'

‘If we do this, we will probably be shot for it,' Stefan says. ‘And that means that if you agree to it, you are almost certainly choosing to die. And none of you – my comrades – should be
forced
to make such a decision. So if you do not give your consent, Stanislaw, it will not happen.' Stefan puts his hand on Stan's shoulder. ‘If you say no, none of us will hold it against you. I can promise you that.'

Stan believes him. If he says that Tadeujz should be spared, Tadeujz
will
be spared. And none of the others will blame the man who saved the traitor – because they will respect his right to choose life for himself.