Death of an Innocent (19 page)

‘Maybe his parents never gave him a toy bulldozer when he was a kid, an' now – when there's nobody else around – him an' his mates like to play with the real thing,' Woodend suggested.

Paniatowski looked worried. ‘What, in God's name, is the matter with you, sir?' she asked.

‘Nothin' – as far as I know. Why do you ask?'

‘Because you're not acting like yourself at all!'

‘Aren't I?' Woodend challenged.

‘No, you're bloody not.'

‘An' in what particular way do you think that I've suddenly stepped out of character?'

‘Normally, when I bring you something new during the course of an investigation, you're over the moon about it. This time, all you seem to want to do is pick holes in everything I tell you.'

‘Isn't it my job to see if I can pick holes in your argument?'

‘Yes, but only when I've finished outlining it. You're usually such a good listener – but today I feel as if you're fighting me every step of the way.'

Was it possible she was right, and that was
just
what he was doing? Woodend wondered.

Could it be that he was deliberately setting out to crush any hope of escaping from the dark tunnel in which he found himself trapped, simply because he couldn't bear the disappointment of having his hopes dashed again?

If that were the case – if he really
were
thinking like that – then Dick the Prick need not bother to fight him any more, because the bastard had already won.

‘Let's hear the rest of it, Monika – an' this time I'll try to be a bit more positive,' he promised.

‘Taylor's Jag had come from Whitebridge, but the second car came from the other direction. And it wasn't a big fancy job like you'd be expecting one of Taylor's mates to be driving – it was a yellow Austin A40.'

‘
The
yellow A40!'

‘It has to be, doesn't it?'

‘Did this Metcalfe feller happen to see who was in the car?'

‘He was too far away to get a good look – and, anyway, I suspect his eyes are not what they were – but he's sure there were two people in the car, and that the passenger was white-haired.'

‘Dugdale has white hair!'

‘So do thousands of other men in this neck of the woods,' Paniatowski cautioned.

‘Aye, you're right,' Woodend agreed. ‘Go on, lass.'

‘The A40 turned on to the site, and then, a few minutes later, the third car arrived. It came from the same direction as the A40 had, but it was a much more impressive vehicle altogether.'

‘You're gettin' as bad as Bob Rutter when it comes to paddin' a story out,' Woodend said, regaining some of his old spirit. ‘What exactly do you mean by sayin' it was a more impressive car altogether?'

‘I mean that it was a Volvo.'

‘A Volvo! Ainsworth's?'

‘How many Volvos are there in Lancashire?'

‘Not a lot.'

‘And what are the chances that two of the few that
are
around would have been travelling down the same stretch of country road at the same time on a Sunday morning?'

‘Virtually nil.'

‘Then I think we can assume that DCC Ainsworth was the driver.'

‘So let's see if I've got this straight,' Woodend said. ‘A short time after the murder, Taylor arrives at the buildin' site. A few minutes later, an old A40 turns up, an' the passenger is a white-haired man who may – or may not – have been Dugdale. We're not sure of the exact timin', but it must have been roughly when that reporter, Bennett, was discoverin' the bodies.'

‘You're sure of that?'

‘Yes I am, because otherwise, Bennett wouldn't have passed the A40 on the road to the farm.'

‘You're right, of course,' Paniatowski said.

‘Then the third car arrives,' Woodend continued. ‘A Volvo driven, presumably, by our beloved Deputy Chief Constable, who hasn't gone home, as he told me he was intendin' to do, but has driven straight to Moorland Village.'

‘Correct.'

‘An' it's right after Dick the Prick arrives on the scene that the machinery starts up.'

‘That's about it,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘Why didn't Metcalfe report all this earlier?'

‘He's been in bed ever since then with a nasty cold. He didn't even know we were looking for the A40 until I told him.'

Woodend looked into the fire. He had poked it a few minutes earlier, and now it was blazing brightly. He began to think that his own hopes might just be starting to be rekindled, too.

‘You've done a brilliant job, Monika,' he said.

‘I may have opened a new line of inquiry, but we're still a long way from getting a result,' Paniatowski said, a touch despondently.

‘What's happened to you, Sergeant?' Woodend asked. ‘Five minutes ago you were as bubbly as a shaken-up bottle of lemonade. Now you look as if you're expectin' the roof to drop in on you.'

‘Five minutes ago, I believed we'd got a really good lead,' Paniatowski confessed.

‘You were right. It
is
a really good lead.'

‘Maybe, but now I've thought about it for a while, I don't see how we can use it.'

‘Don't you?' Woodend asked, sounding more cheerful than he had in a long time. ‘Then it's a bloody good job that at least one of us has still got a brain-box that hasn't been left out in the rain, isn't it?'

What had Cloggin'-it Charlie seen which had so obviously passed her by? Paniatowski wondered.

‘You've got a plan, haven't you? she asked.

‘I wouldn't go quite that far, but I may just have what could be the beginnin's of an idea.'

‘And do you want to tell me what it is?'

Woodend looked slowly around his living room, a slight smile playing in the corners of his mouth.

‘I'm very fond of this old cottage of mine,' he said. ‘It reminds me of where I used to live when I was a kid. But, do you know, Monika, there are times when I think that it's not quite the sort of place that other people would expect a feller with the rank of Detective Chief Inspector to live in.'

He was going weird again, Paniatowski thought. Charlie Woodend was not the kind of man to give a bugger what other people thought. And even if he
had
suddenly started to care about the opinions of others, why the hell was he talking about it now, of all times?

His career was hanging by the slenderest of threads. Unless a miracle came to pass, the chances were that he wouldn't have a rank at all in a few months' time, only a number. And as for choosing where to live, that choice would be made for him by the judicial system – and wherever it was, he'd be seeing the world through a set of bars.

‘Aye, I think it's about time I started raisin' my sights a bit,' Woodend continued. ‘I really should give some serious consideration to movin' into a residence which is more in keepin' with my position in society.'

He'd gone cheerfully mad, Paniatowski thought. That was the only possible explanation. The strain he'd been under for the last few days had finally pushed him over the edge.

‘If we could just get back to the case for a minute, sir . . .' she said, as tactfully as she could.

‘Yes, it's time for a change,' Woodend said, ignoring her. ‘An' since I've got a bit of unexpected free time on my hands, now seems the ideal opportunity to go house huntin'.'

A slow smile spread across Paniatowski's lips. ‘Oh, now I get it,' she said.

T
he estate agent who worked for T. A. Taylor and Associates (Properties) said his name was George Fletcher. He drove an aggressively red Vauxhall Velox, and it was plain from the way he talked on the journey out to the Moorland Village that he had either not heard of Woodend's problems or would have been prepared to be pleasant to Judas Iscariot himself if it could have assured him of a sale.

‘The whole concept of the development is that it will be a
real
village,' he said, as they drove across the moors.

‘A real village,' Woodend repeated.

‘That's right,' Fletcher said, as if he were inordinately pleased that his potential customer had grasped a particularly difficult point. ‘There'll be a pub – with a genuine thatched roof. There'll be shops and a community hall for the use of boy scouts, amateur dramatic societies, et cetera, et cetera. The village will have its own general works department, too. It's going to be a model for what can be done if only we dare to transform our dreams into reality.'

‘As long as the “we” that you're talkin' about happen to be filthy rich,' Woodend said dourly.

Fletcher wrinkled his nose up, as he would have done if he'd detected a particularly bad smell coming from under the dashboard.

‘Not rich, Mr Woodend,' he said. ‘You only have to be moderately prosperous to share in Moorland Village – to become a part of the golden rural future.'

Woodend looked around him. The thaw had arrived in earnest. Slush lay piled up by the sides of the road, and though the moors still had snow on them, there were now islands of green floating in the sea of dirty white.

The ‘dream which was soon to become a reality' loomed up ahead – surrounded by its high wire fence. Early on Sunday morning, four men had met behind that fence. One of them was probably the richest man in Whitebridge; the second, one of the county's most senior police officers and the third an old farmer who had not actually farmed his land for over fifteen years. Who was the fourth man? And where were he and Dugdale now?

The main entrance to Moorland Village had big double gates, and though one of them was firmly closed, the other was half open. Fletcher drove his Vauxhall Velox carefully through the gap. Immediately ahead of them were two rows of neo-Georgian detached houses, separated by a morass of slush, which would eventually be turned into a street.

‘There's going to be a village green,' the estate agent enthused. ‘With a duck pond.'

And floating on it would be mechanical ducks that were radio-controlled from the general works department, no doubt, Woodend thought dryly.

Fletcher pulled up on a stretch of asphalt which had been designated a temporary car park. Along the edge of the asphalt stood several lorries and some earth-moving equipment.

‘They've been standing there idle for over two weeks now,' the estate agent said. ‘Bloody shame! Bloody weather!'

But it wasn't true. At least
some
of the vehicles had been on the move the previous Sunday, because a retired farmer called Obediah Metcalfe had heard them when he was out on his walk.

‘Shall we go and take a look at the show house, Mr Woodend?' Fletcher suggested.

‘Aye, we might as well.'

As he opened the passenger door and stepped out, Woodend heard the sound of furious barking. He turned towards the source of the noise. Just to the left of the main gate was a rectangular prefab with the words ‘Site Office' written over the door. Two cars were parked by the side of it, and chained to sturdy posts beyond them were four large Dobermanns, straining against their leashes.

‘Are those dogs always chained up?' Woodend asked – though he knew from his previous visit that they weren't.

The estate agent laughed. ‘Always chained up?' he repeated. ‘They wouldn't be much use as guard dogs if they were, now would they?'

‘So why are they chained up now?'

‘They usually are when there's somebody working in the site office. You see, they've been trained to attack anybody and everybody – with the exception, of course, of Mr Taylor and a couple of his security people.'

Woodend and Fletcher walked towards the show house, their Wellington-booted feet squelching in the slush.

‘Now's the time to buy, while the property market's still relatively low,' the estate agent said, ‘because – mark my words, Mr Woodend – it'll soon be on the rise again.'

They had reached the front door of the show house, and Fletcher pulled a key out of his pocket.

‘Look at that finish,' he said, pointing at the door. ‘That's none of your pine veneer rubbish that you get in most new houses these days – it's genuine hardwood, all the way from South America.'

‘Nice,' Woodend said.

‘And that's real brass around the lock. I tell you, Mr Woodend, you're lucky to find quality like this any more.'

Fletcher guided Woodend through the hall, the kitchen and the lounge with its big picture windows. They went upstairs and the estate agent showed the policeman the four bedrooms – all of them, as he did not fail to point out, large enough to take a full-sized double bed.

‘Are you impressed with the place?' Fletcher asked, when the tour was finally over.

‘Very,' Woodend lied.

‘And you think you might like to buy?'

‘It's certainly a possibility.'

‘People are very cautious when it comes to purchasing a house,' Fletcher said. ‘And I can understand that myself. It's a very big commitment, as I'm always at pains to point out. But I've been in the business for a long time and, believe me, Mr Woodend, your first instinct is almost always the right one. If you don't act on it, you could find yourself regretting it forever. So if you like the place, why don't we go back to the office and start the paperwork?'

‘If it's all the same to you, I'd like to take a few minutes to walk around the site,' Woodend said.

‘But there's nothing to see as yet – except, of course, for a couple of acres of slush. Now back at the office, I've got proper artist's impressions of what it will look like when⎯'

‘I want to get a feel of the place,' Woodend said firmly. ‘Besides, I think better when I'm walkin' around.'

‘Building sites can be very rough places, you know, Mr Woodend,' Fletcher warned him.