Death of an Innocent (16 page)

‘No.'

‘No? But you've just told us, on the record, that you don't have any other accounts.'

‘Nor do I,' Woodend agreed. ‘But whoever's out to get me is doin' a thorough job of it, so I'm not surprised a second account exists. When was it opened, by the way? Yesterday?'

‘According to the bank's records, you opened that account eleven months ago.'

Woodend took a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘Eleven months, eh? Well, I'm willin' to bet that if you look at those records closely, you'll find the ink isn't even dry yet.'

‘Tideswell has been paying five hundred pound a month into that account,' Evans said, as if Woodend had never spoken. ‘In other words, it now contains five and a half thousand pounds. It would have taken you over four years to earn that much money legitimately. I can see how it must have been a big temptation to you.'

‘Do you really think any jury is goin' to believe that I'd be stupid enough to open bank accounts in my own name, an' then have bribes from this Tideswell feller paid straight into them?'

‘You wouldn't be the first bent bobby to act in that way,' Evans said. He clasped his hands in front of him, as if he were a lay preacher about to deliver a sermon. ‘That's the trouble with officers who go bad, like you have, Mr Woodend – you're all so cocksure you're completely fireproof that you don't bother to take even the most elementary precautions.'

‘So accordin' to you, Mr Evans, I'm not only greedy, but I'm also
thick
,' Woodend said.

‘As I told you just a moment ago, you wouldn't be the first to be so blatant about it – not by a long chalk.'

‘It's getting rather smoky in here, don't you think, Chief Inspector?' Ainsworth said to Evans.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?'

‘I said, it's getting rather smoky in this room. It must be difficult for a non-smoker like you to tolerate. Why don't you go outside, and get a few breaths of fresh air?'

‘I'm all right for the moment,' Evans said.

‘But you'd be even
better
for a short break,' Ainsworth insisted. He turned to the WPC. ‘You can take a break, too, Constable.'

They would have to have had the sensitivity of concrete not to take such a heavy hint. DCI Evans and the woman constable stood up and stepped out of the room.

Ainsworth waited until the sound of their footsteps had receded down the corridor, then turned his attention back to Woodend. ‘Well, this is a
real
mess you've found yourself in, isn't it, Charlie?' he said.

‘For once, I agree with you,' Woodend replied.

‘And I still want to help all I can,' Ainsworth continued. ‘If you'll stop screaming about being fitted up, and just take your punishment like a man, I'll make sure the prosecution asks the judge to impose a minimum sentence.'

‘For a while, I thought Evans might be in on all this,' Woodend said. ‘But he isn't, is he?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Evans is just a dupe – but a very useful one. People may not like him very much, but they know he's fundamentally straight an' honest. So if he believes that I'm guilty, then I must be.'

‘We
all
believe you're guilty, Charlie.'

Woodend shook his head. ‘No, you don't. For a scam like this to have a chance of workin', it needs two things goin' for it.'

‘It's pointless to still try and pretend that⎯'

‘The first is a hell of a lot of money to splash around. Well, that's really no problem for a rich feller like Terry Taylor, is it? But the second thing it needs is the co-operation of somebody inside the force – somebody quite high up.'

‘And that's me?' Ainsworth asked.

‘An' that's you,' Woodend agreed. ‘I've been sittin' here wonderin' what's makin' you do it. I've never liked you – you were never my kind of bobby – but I've always thought you got more pleasure out of makin' the people around you jump through hoops than you did from worldly goods. An' I still think I'm right about that. So if it's not the money you're after, what
is
in it for you? Has Taylor got friends who can help you make Chief Constable? Or do you have political ambitions? Has he offered to see to it that, in the course of time, you become the Honourable Member for Whitebridge?'

‘You're losing your marbles,' Ainsworth said dismissively.

‘Am I?' Woodend asked. ‘Or have I finally started to see things as they really are? You told me to take my punishment like a man. That's funny.'

‘Is it?'

‘
Very
funny, coming from a feller like you – a feller who isn't enough of a man to stop play-actin' even when there are only two of us here.'

Ainsworth's already red face flushed with anger. ‘You want me to stop play-acting?' he hissed. ‘You want me to be straight with you? All right, I will be. There's only one person to blame for the situation you find yourself in now – and that's Charlie Woodend.'

‘Me?'

‘You! If you'd just been willing to lie low for a while, you'd have waltzed your way through the Disciplinary Board hearing and come out at the other end smelling of roses. But you couldn't do that, could you, Charlie? You just had to keep sticking your nose into things that were none of your business.'

‘Murder
is
my business.'

‘And you simply can't see beyond it, can you? You just go barging in without any thought of the consequences –without even considering the innocent lives you might be destroying in the process.'

‘What innocent lives?'

‘Battersby's, for a start.'

‘He was scarcely innocent.'

‘Maybe not – but he didn't deserve to die either, did he?'

‘No,' Woodend admitted, feeling a fresh pang of his recurring guilt. ‘He didn't deserve to die.'

‘And he's only a marginal case, at best. You could have wrecked dozens of lives! Dozens!'

‘An' what's that supposed to mean, exactly?'

Ainsworth, who had been riding on a crest of anger, seemed suddenly to recall where he was, and what he was saying. ‘Nothing,' he told Woodend. ‘It means absolutely nothing.'

The two men fell silent for perhaps half a minute, then Woodend said, ‘Shall we get the formal chargin' over with now?'

‘Yes,' Ainsworth said. ‘As soon as DCI Evans returns, we'll get the formal charging over with.'

‘I'm sorry about this, sir,' the sergeant said as he rolled the new detainee's fingers over the inkpad.

‘It's all right,' Woodend told him.

As had been the case with the interview room, the holding cell area took on an entirely new aspect when viewed from the other side of the fence. It had seemed so neutral and antiseptic when he'd visited it in the past. Now it felt full of menace. And the cells! He was well aware that they were perfectly adequate – not much smaller than the spare bedroom back at the cottage, as a matter of fact – yet they
appeared
so cramped and confined.

‘Photograph next, sir,' the sergeant said, leading him through to a second small room where the camera was permanently mounted.

‘I've not had my picture taken since I was dressed up as Henry VIII at the fancy dress ball,' Woodend said.

‘Just sit on the stool, sir,' the sergeant said, his voice as bland as the expression on his face.

Woodend sat.

‘Look straight at the camera, sir.'

A flash.

‘Now turn your head to the side, please.'

A second flash.

‘Should you wish to consult a lawyer⎯' the sergeant began.

‘I know my rights,' Woodend interrupted him.

‘I'm sure you do, sir,' the sergeant said levelly, ‘but I am still obliged by police procedure to remind you of them.'

Woodend nodded. ‘Of course you are. Sorry, Sergeant.'

‘Should you wish to consult a lawyer or telephone one friend or relative, then you are entitled to do so.'

But who would he call? There was no point in worrying Joan – far better to wait until he was out on bail and could explain the situation to her face-to-face. And he couldn't ring Monika Paniatowski, because a record of the call would be kept – and people might start asking why he'd
needed
to call her.

‘Sir?' the sergeant said.

‘There's nobody I want to speak to. We've completed all the paperwork, haven't we?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Then if you wouldn't mind showin' me to my cell . . .'

‘Of course, sir.'

‘I got a parkin' ticket once,' Woodend said, as the sergeant led him down the corridor.

‘Beg pardon, sir?'

‘I said I got a parkin' ticket once. In Accrington, it was. Left the car too close to a zebra crossin'. An' up until today, that's the only illegal thing I've ever been charged with.'

‘We all get parkin' tickets at one time or another, sir,' the custody sergeant replied.

‘But most of us don't get charged with corruption – is that what you're sayin'?'

‘No sir, I'm not. I'm just sayin' that most of us have had parkin' tickets at one time or another.'

They both fell silent, and the only noise to fill the air was the sound of their feet on the tiled floor. They reached the cells and the sergeant opened one of the doors.

‘We don't know each other very well, but we do
know
each other,' Woodend said. ‘Do you really think I'm guilty of corruption, sergeant?'

‘It's not for me to say, sir,' the other man replied. ‘My job's to see that you get fed properly and that your rights aren't violated. I wouldn't like to go much further than that.'

‘Quite right,' Woodend agreed, chastened. ‘I'm sorry to have put you on the spot like that.'

He stepped over the threshold of the cell, and heard the door click closed behind him. He looked around. A bed, a wash basin, and a toilet alcove which was not visible from the door.

He placed his bag on the floor, and sat down on the bed. You are in deep, deep trouble, Charlie, he told himself.

DCC Ainsworth probably wouldn't oppose his bail in court the following morning, but even once he was out on the street again, he was not sure that he could do himself any good. He needed the police records and a dozen trained men at his disposal. As it was, he wasn't even sure that Monika Paniatowski would dare to help him any further.

He had to find a way to get something on Terry Taylor, he told himself. Once he'd done that, everything else would fall into place like iron filings around a magnet. But where the hell could he begin?

He looked around at the walls and the metal door. If things went the way Ainsworth had planned they should, a prison cell would become as familiar to him as his own home. More familiar – because work so often kept him away from the cottage, but once in jail, the cell would become the centre of his world.

How long a sentence would he get?

Five years?

More?

It would probably depend on just how thick the Crown Prosecutor chose to lay it on – corrupt officer, callously abusing his position of trust, etc – and which judge he had the luck to draw.

However long or short the sentence he was given, it wouldn't be an easy stretch to serve – ex-bobbies were not exactly the most popular inmates in prisons, and the other prisoners would be sure to find a thousand ways to make his life a living hell.

He tried to read, but simply could not focus his attention on
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
. The day dragged on, and gradually turned into night. Woodend lay on his narrow bed, and gazed up at the cell ceiling. Occasionally there was some noise to distract him – a bellicose drunk being processed, a muted conversation as one officer went off duty and another took his place, the sergeant's footsteps as he made his slow, steady rounds – but mostly there was nothing to keep his mind occupied but his own dark thoughts.

He must have eventually fallen asleep without noticing it, because suddenly he was very cold, and when he looked up at the window he saw that dawn was starting to break.

I
t was early afternoon when the custody sergeant appeared at the door of Woodend's cell with two uniformed constables.

‘We're here to escort you to the magistrates' court, sir,' one of the officers said, in a flat featureless voice.

‘Both of you?'

‘Both of us.'

‘Do you really think that's necessary?'

‘I couldn't say, sir. We're just obeying orders.'

‘An' whose orders might they be? DCC Ainsworth's?'

‘No, sir. The sergeant's.'

But the order would have
originated
from Ainsworth, Woodend thought as he walked down the corridor, flanked by his escort.

The timing of his appearance before the magistrates had been another of Ainsworth's masterstrokes, Woodend admitted grudgingly. The DCC could have used his influence to arrange a special closed session of the court if he'd wished to, but that wouldn't have suited his purposes at all. Better – far better – to have Woodend arraigned in open court under the critical gaze of a general public whose view of humanity had already been distorted by having sat through dozens of cases of drunk and disorderliness, shoplifting and child neglect.

It wasn't even a case of kicking a man when he was down – always an Ainsworth speciality – it was kicking him when he was down
and
out.

The magistrates' court was an impressively oak-panelled room which often seemed far too grand a setting for the display of pathetic human weaknesses which were pronounced on within its walls, but for the grave matter of indicting a fallen angel, it was just right.

Woodend was not surprised to discover that he knew all three of the magistrates socially. In a town the size of Whitebridge, everyone of a certain standing knew everyone else of that same standing – and even his lack of dress sense and quirky nature were not
quite
enough to debar him from being at the edges of the elite.