The Red Herring (14 page)

‘That sounds very reasonable, doesn't it, Sergeant?' Horrocks asked Paniatowski.

‘Yes, that
sounds
reasonable,' Paniatowski replied, forcing the words out through her clenched teeth.

‘There . . . er . . . is one other thing,' Dole continued. ‘I'd be grateful if, until you've spoken to him, you didn't drop the captain's name in conversations with other people any more than is absolutely necessary.'

‘Security considerations again?' Paniatowski asked sourly.

‘In a way,' Dole said, reluctantly.

‘In
what
way?' Paniatowski persisted.

‘You're determined to have your pound of flesh, aren't you?' the major asked.

‘I think I've earned it,' Paniatowski told him.

Dole sighed. ‘Very well. Captain Tooley happens to be a married man. If you discover that he had anything to do with Miss Beale's death, then his little assignation with her will, of course, have to be made public. But if he's innocent – and I'm personally convinced that he is – then there really is no point in dragging his private life through the mud, is there?'

‘Are you telling us he was having an affair with Verity Beale?' Paniatowski demanded.

‘I think it would be better to let Captain Tooley speak for himself on that particular matter.'

‘So do I,' said Horrocks. He stood up and held out his hand to Major Dole. ‘Thank you for your help,' he continued. Then he looked pointedly at Monika Paniatowski.

‘Yes, thank you,' Paniatowski said grudgingly.

All the way back to Whitebridge, Paniatowski kept replaying both her meetings with Dole in her head.

What had caused the change in his attitude between the first and the second encounters? What had converted him from a man apparently determined to fight her every inch of the way to one who seemed almost willing to do at least half their job for them?

Was it because she was only a detective sergeant, while Horrocks carried the weight of being a chief inspector?

It was a tempting theory, but if that had been case, why hadn't he come right out and
said
that he wasn't prepared to deal with someone so low down the chain of command? Why had he, instead, seemed to indicate that he wouldn't deal with the civilian authorities under
any
circumstances?

If she couldn't work out what had changed, she should perhaps try to isolate what
hadn't
, she told herself.

She pictured his face, and quickly came to the conclusion that there had been no real change at all. Despite his smiles and his jokes, the same, basically antagonistic Major Dole had been present at both meetings. So if he'd shifted his ground, it hadn't been because he wanted to, but because someone else – someone more important – had told him that was what he
had
to do.

T
hrough the windscreen of the police car, Woodend could see the long queue of double-decker buses and taxis, vans and private cars. Occasionally one of the frustrated motorists in that queue would hoot angrily on his horn, but it was a pointless gesture, because nothing was moving. In fact, nothing had moved for a good ten minutes.

‘I'm sorry about this, sir,' said his driver.

‘It's not your fault, lad,' Woodend told him. ‘The only people who can take any blame for this are God an' the Manchester Police. Any idea what's causin' the hold-up?'

The driver wound down his window and stuck his head out. ‘Seems to be some kind of demonstration, sir,' he said. ‘Yes, that's what it is, all right. There's a bunch of people in duffel coats ahead, wavin' placards about all over the place. I think I can just about make one of them out.'

‘What does it say?'

‘It says, “End this nuclear madness”.' The driver shook his head disdainfully. ‘It's probably that loony lot from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. You'd think they'd have somethin' better to do with their time than to go about causin' inconvenience for other people, wouldn't you, sir?'

‘I don't think they see it quite that way themselves,' Woodend said quietly. ‘I think they believe that as much as it might inconvenience people to be
held
up, it'd inconvenience them even more to be
blown
up.'

The driver gave him a speculative, slightly worried, look. ‘Sorry if I spoke out of turn, sir. I didn't know you looked at things that way.'

‘You're entitled to your opinion, whatever I think,' Woodend replied. ‘Would you like to make a guess as to how long it'll take us to get to the television studio from here?'

The driver scratched his head. ‘That rather depends on them demonstrators, sir. Could be a good thirty minutes, at least.'

‘Then bugger it, I'll clog it the rest of the way,' Woodend told him, reaching for the door handle. ‘Pick me up at the main studio door in about an hour and half, will you?'

‘Right you are, sir.'

Woodend stepped out on to the pavement and slammed the car door behind him. There were about a hundred people involved in this particular demonstration, he guessed – and his driver was right, most of them
were
wearing duffel coats. Looking at them, he was not sure whether the cause they were espousing was the height of wisdom or the very depths of folly – but he was glad that at least they
cared
.

It was a five-minute walk to the NWTV studio, and as he strode down towards Deansgate, he found himself wondering why he was in Manchester at all. His original intention had been to send Bob Rutter to supervise the Dunns' television appeal, but as it got closer to the time of the actual broadcast, he found himself wanting more and more to be there himself. He could not exactly say
why
he had the urge – there was no logical reason for it, and he was confident that Bob Rutter would cope admirably – yet he still could not shake the vague feeling that he would be
needed
.

He was about thirty yards from the studio when he saw two figures entering the building. One was a blonde woman with good legs and curvy body. The other was a man, as tall as he was himself – but infinitely more graceful. Monika Paniatowski and the detective chief inspector from the Yard – going to make their own broadcast for information about the murder of Verity Beale. He'd been actively involved in that case himself only hours earlier, but now the disappearance of Helen Dunn – and the memories that had evoked of Ellie Taylor – seemed to have turned Verity's death into no more than an ancient memory.

By the time he'd reached the studio lobby himself, there was no longer any sign of Paniatowski and Horrocks.

A large commissionaire stepped in front of him the moment he'd walked through the door. ‘Can I help you, sir?' he asked in a tone which just managed to avoid being either suspicious or aggressive.

‘I'm from the Whitebridge police. Chief Inspector Woodend. I believe I'm expected.'

The commissionaire nodded. ‘If you'd just like to sit over there, I'll ring upstairs to say you've arrived, sir,' he said, indicating several easy chairs arranged around a low coffee table.

Woodend took a seat. There were a number of magazines scattered on the coffee table, but he felt no desire to pick one up and flick through it. Instead, as Bob Rutter had done earlier, he began to speculate as to whether the two serious cases the Whitebridge police had on their hands might not be no more than two parts of the
same
case.

It would be stretching credibility to believe that Helen Dunn had been kidnapped because she knew something about Verity Beale's murder, he thought. But what if things were the other way round? Helen's kidnapping
could
have been an impulsive act, but the fact that there had been no leads – no sightings of her at all – suggested it was more likely to have been carefully planned. And wasn't it possible that Verity Beale had learned something of that planning – and so had had to die?

‘Chief Inspector Woodend?' said a voice. Woodend looked up to find a bright, smartly dressed young woman standing over him, clipboard in hand.

‘Aye, that's me,' he admitted.

‘You're the one who solved the murders at our
Maddox Row
studios last year, aren't you?'

Woodend shrugged. ‘If you ask me, those murders pretty much solved themselves,' he said awkwardly.

‘From what I've heard from people who were there at the time, I'd say you're being far too modest,' the young woman said. ‘Anyway, my name's Lynn Taylor, and I'm here to sort of look after you until the broadcast.'

‘That's nice of you.'

‘Just doing my job. And I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, but with this Cuban missile business, everybody here's in an absolute flap, scrabbling through the archives and looking for bits of film we can use to cobble together a series of instant “specials” on the Cold War. Jolly exciting!'

‘Aye, I suppose it must be,' Woodend said, thinking to himself that the world seemed to be divided up between the people who saw what was happening on the other side of the ocean as a dramatic slide into annihilation and those who saw it as a great adventure.

‘Well, now you are here, what would you like to do?' Lynn Taylor asked. ‘I've been told by my friends who were working at the
Madro
studio at the time of the murder that you're not averse to the odd drink or two. Shall I take you down to the bar?'

‘It's temptin',' Woodend said, ‘but I think I'd better go an' have a word with Mr and Mrs Dunn instead.'

Lynn Taylor frowned. ‘Were you expecting
both
of them to be here?' she asked.

‘Aren't they?'

‘Mrs Dunn's here, but I can't say I've seen her husband. Maybe he's intending to arrive just before the broadcast.'

‘So where's
Mrs
Dunn?'

‘I was planning to take her down to the hospitality suite, but then I saw the state she was in, and decided it would be too much of a strain on her to see a lot of other people. So I've put her in one of the dressing rooms instead.'

‘An' that's where she is now, is it?'

‘I assume so.'

‘Alone?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘Then I think you'd better take me to her right away, hadn't you?' Woodend said.

Paniatowski looked around the bar. At the table closest to hers, a couple of men in Elizabethan ruffs and tights were drinking gin and tonics. Just beyond them were two men in paint-stained overalls who could have been taken for ordinary workmen except that ordinary workmen did not wear make-up or speak with such posh accents. But it was the penguins who really caught her attention, and she watched in fascination as they waddled over to their table, lifted their beaks until they were pointing at the ceiling, and began to swig at their pints of beer.

‘I take it you've never been in a television studio bar before,' DCI Horrocks said, amusement evident in his voice.

‘No, sir, I haven't,' Paniatowski admitted. She opened the folder which was lying in front of her, and slid it across to Horrocks. ‘All the details are in here. The last place Verity Beale was seen alive. Where her body was discovered. How many hours are unaccounted for. It might be wise to stress that any information, however obscure it might seem to the person who has it, could be of immense value to us.' She stopped, and almost blushed. ‘I'm sorry,' she continued. ‘I'm trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, aren't I? You must have made television appeals like this at least a dozen times before.'

‘Probably even more than that,' Horrocks said. ‘But I won't be making this one.'

‘Then who . . .?'

‘Who do you think? It'll give you a chance to shine.'

‘I don't think I should do it,' Paniatowski said firmly.

‘What's the matter, Monika?' Horrocks asked, slightly mockingly. ‘Getting stage fright at the thought of all those cameras?'

‘No, sir. It's just that I think an appeal of this importance would carry more weight if it was delivered by a high-ranking officer like yourself.'

‘In most cases, that's probably true,' Horrocks agreed. ‘But when it's a young woman who's been murdered, what could be better than having another young woman – and such an attractive one – asking for help?'

‘I'm flattered you think I could do it, but––'

‘Anyway, when a man's in as much debt as I am, he can't go appearing on television. That'd be as good as giving his creditors a map to his front door.'

‘I beg your pardon?' Paniatowski said.

Horrocks grinned. ‘I'm joking, of course. But I still think you'd be the best person to make the appeal. I don't want to order you to do it, Monika – I never like ordering people around when I can get them to do something of their own free will – but I really would appreciate it if you'd make the broadcast.'

‘All right,' Paniatowski said, still unconvinced.

Woodend knocked softly on the dressing-room door, then turned the handle and stepped inside. Mrs Dunn was sitting at the dressing table, gazing into the mirror. It was obvious that the make-up girls had already worked on her. Her hair had a little more life to it, and the bruise on her cheekbone was now almost invisible. She must have been a very attractive woman – once – Woodend thought.

‘Where's your husband?' he asked. ‘He's cuttin' it a bit fine, leavin' it this late, isn't he?'

‘He won't be coming,' Margaret Dunn said apologetically.

‘
What!
'

‘He went out to the base as soon as you'd left us. He said he'd be back home in time to come down to Manchester with me. Then, about half an hour before the car arrived, he called me to say there was a real flap on, and they needed him to stay there.'