Death of an Innocent (24 page)

There was the sound of the latch being reluctantly drawn back, then the door swung open and they got their first look at Mrs Hargreaves. The police record Paniatowski had read said the woman was forty-two, but she could have passed for at least twenty years older. She was around five foot one, with frizzy, bleached hair, bloodshot eyes and a slack mouth. The skin on her cheeks and above her lip was faintly discoloured.

Bruising, Woodend thought. Not too recent, but definitely bruising.

Paniatowski held out her hand. ‘Could I have my warrant card back, please?'

Mrs Hargreaves gave it to her, then placed her hands aggressively on her hips. ‘What do you want?' she demanded.

‘Just a little chat,' Paniatowski replied. ‘Do you mind if we come inside, out of the cold and wet?'

And in her best police-officer manner, she was moving into the passageway even as she spoke.

‘I haven't done nothin',' Mrs Hargreaves protested.

‘Of course you haven't, luv,' Paniatowski said reassuringly. ‘That's the door to the lounge, is it? We'll go in there, shall we?'

She opened the living-room door at the same moment as Woodend closed the front door behind him. Though they had no right to be there, they were now firmly inside the house.

The ‘lounge' looked as if it belonged on a council rubbish tip. The furniture was old and neglected, the carpet was stained and littered with greasy pieces of newspaper which had once contained fish and chips. The air stank of cigarettes and unwashed clothes. Only the large television, which dominated one corner of the room, looked new and cared for.

Without waiting to be invited, Paniatowski sat down on the threadbare sofa. ‘Why don't you take a seat yourself, Mrs Hargreaves?' she suggested.

The frizzy-haired woman looked confusedly from Paniatowski to Woodend, and then back again. ‘Just who's in charge here?' she asked.

‘I'll be conducting the interview,' Paniatowski said firmly. ‘
Do
sit down, Mrs Hargreaves. You're making me tired, just looking at you standing there.'

The woman sank reluctantly into a rickety armchair. ‘You said this wouldn't take long.'

‘It won't,' Paniatowski promised. ‘Now then, Mrs Hargreaves, what we're here to talk about is your brother, Harry.'

The frizzy-haired woman snorted contemptuously. ‘Oh, him! Waste of time, he is. Mam always said he would never amount to anythin'.'

Whereas
you
have really come up in the world, Paniatowski thought.

But aloud, all she said was: ‘When was the last time that you saw your brother?'

‘Last Saturday, it was. The day they let him out of the nick.'

And the day
before
he was found at Dugdale's Farm with his face blown away!

‘Was there any particular reason for his visit?' Paniatowski asked. ‘Was he planning to stay with you?'

‘He was not! I told him after the last time they released him that I was tired of him spongin' off me. So he already knew, when he came out this time, that he wouldn't be welcome.'

‘So why
did
he come? Was it to pick something up from here? A suitcase, perhaps?'

‘He came to pick
Enid
up.'

‘And Enid would be . . .?'

‘Don't you know nothin'? Enid's his daughter.'

The idea that Judd even had a daughter came as a complete surprise to Woodend, but then, unlike Paniatowski, he hadn't had the luxury of studying the man's file.

‘I thought his daughter had lived with her mother ever since her parents separated,' the sergeant said.

Mrs Hargreaves shook her head disdainfully. ‘You really should keep your records up to date,' she said. ‘Enid's mother – like the slag that she is – buggered off with the rent man years ago.'

‘And so Harry's been bringing her up himself?'

‘He does when he can – which isn't very often. Thinks the world of her, he does. Our Enid can't do nothin' wrong as far as he's concerned. An' whatever happens, he'll always take care of her. Except that he
can't
take care of her when he's doin' time, can he? So who do you think's landed with the job? Her soft Auntie Doris, of course!'

‘How old is Enid?' Woodend asked.

‘She's fifteen.'

‘Does she have blonde hair?'

‘Yeah.'

‘An' how tall is she? About five feet?'

‘Why are you askin' all these questions about Enid?' Mrs Hargreaves said. ‘I thought you'd come to talk about Harry.'

‘About five feet tall?' Woodend repeated, commandingly. ‘Slim figure, but not
too
slim?'

‘Yeah, that'd about fit her,' Mrs Hargreaves agreed sullenly.

‘So Harry took her away with him, did he?'

‘Er . . . yes . . . that's right.'

‘Where did she get the clothes from?' Paniatowski asked.

‘What clothes?' Mrs Hargreaves countered.

‘The silk blouse, the skirt with the Italian label and the hand-stitched shoes. Did you buy them for her?'

‘Do I
look
cracked in the head?'

‘So where did they come from?'

‘H . . . Harry must have bought 'em for her.'

‘They were this year's fashions,' Paniatowski said, all the understanding and reassurance she'd shown earlier now completely absent from her tone.

‘So?'

‘Your brother was inside at the start of the season. And even if he hadn't been, where would a loser like him have found the money?' She paused again. ‘Or have I missed something? Have they suddenly started paying out a small fortune for stitching mailbags in prison?'

Mrs Hargreaves' eyes narrowed with ever-increasing suspicion. ‘What's this about? Has Enid been arrested?'

‘Now why would you even begin to think a thing like that?' Paniatowski wondered.

‘Well, what with the questions you keep askin'⎯'

‘The clothes, Doris!' Paniatowski shouted. ‘Where the bloody hell did she get the clothes from?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I have enough of this,' Woodend said, his exasperation only half faked. ‘Arrest her, Sergeant. She'll talk soon enough, after she's been in the cells for a few hours.'

‘There's no need for that, sir,' Paniatowski told him, slipping back effortlessly into her gentle earlier approach. ‘You'll tell us what we want to know, won't you, Doris?'

‘Yer'll . . . if I tell you truth, yer'll only get the wrong idea,' Mrs Hargreaves said weakly.

‘It's here – or at the station,' Woodend threatened.

Doris Hargreaves sighed. ‘How do you
think
kids who live in places like this get the money to buy fancy clothes?'

‘Doing something bent,' Paniatowski guessed.

‘I tried to control her,' Mrs Hargreaves whined, ‘but yer know what kids are like these days.'

‘What was she doing?' Paniatowski asked. ‘Shop-lifting?'

‘You're a bit of dab hand at that yourself, aren't you, Doris?' Woodend demanded. ‘What did you do – spend a few hours teachin' her all the tricks of the trade?'

‘No, I . . . she didn't steal nothin'.'

‘So where did she get the money from?'

‘She was . . . you know . . . she was doin' the . . . well, the
other
thing I got nicked for.'

‘She was on the game?' Paniatowski asked, her voice filled with incredulity. ‘Is that what you're saying?'

‘That's right,' Mrs Hargreaves agreed. ‘She was on the game.'

O
nly a minute had passed since Mrs Hargeaves' revelation that her niece had practised prostitution. Yet in that brief sixty seconds, Woodend's mind had performed mental gymnastics – swinging on ropes of speculation across a whole panorama, vaulting over wooden horses of theory – only to end up slamming into a brick wall of facts which seemed to contradict everything his instincts told him.

He'd had no idea who the dead girl found at Dugdale's farm was when he'd first entered the room, but within a few minutes he'd convinced himself that she simply had to be Enid Judd. And now that no longer seemed possible. The girl at the farm had died a virgin, and Enid – if her aunt was to be believed – had been far from that. But perhaps – just perhaps – the aunt was wrong about the girl.

‘You're
sure
she was on the game?' he asked.

‘Not exactly
on
it.'

‘An' what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?'

‘Well, she wasn't what you'd call a “professional”. She didn't do it all the time – only when she wanted a few bob. An' she didn't charge half as much as she could have got if she'd wanted to.'

‘What a cosy scene it must have made,' Paniatowski said.

‘What are yer talkin' about?'

‘I can just see it. You and little Enid sitting in front of a glowing coal fire, while she tells you about all the men she's slept with that day.'

‘We don't have no coal fires in this street. We're on gas,' Doris Hargreaves said uncomfortably. ‘At least, we are when we've not been cut off. Anyway, it wasn't like that.'

‘Like what?'

‘Cosy chats about the men she'd slept with.'

‘But she did tell you
something
about it?'

‘Yeah. She mentioned it.'

‘She might have been lying,' Paniatowski suggested.

‘Why should she have done that?'

‘To shock you.'

‘Shock me? What do yer mean?'

Doris Hargreaves had no idea what Paniatowski was talking about, Woodend thought. And why should she? In her world, there was nothing
shocking
about girls going on the game. She would probably have been surprised if Enid
hadn't
followed in her footsteps.

‘You're sure she wasn't making it all up?' Paniatowski persisted.

The frizzy-haired woman shook her head. ‘I know some of her customers.' She sighed regretfully. ‘A couple of them even used to be mine.'

It should all have fitted together so neatly, Woodend thought.

Judd comes out of prison and picks up his daughter on Saturday, and the very next morning he and a blonde girl matching Enid's description are found dead in a lonely Lancashire farmhouse. Logic dictated it
had
to be her. And yet flying in the face of that logic, there was the medical evidence that clearly stated that . . .

His mind travelled back to that Sunday morning – to the farmhouse living room where two people lay horrendously murdered.

He saw Doc Pierson standing there, just as he had stood at the scene of numerous other slayings in his time. Yet somehow the doctor had seemed different that day – far from his usual positive, helpful self.

For openers, there'd been his estimate of the time of death. He'd put it at much earlier than the hands on the smashed wristwatch indicated, and when the discrepancy had been pointed out to him, he'd apologized for the mistake and blamed it on his hangover.

And Woodend had believed him at the time – because the man had looked so rough. But now he was no longer sure that it had been the amount of alcohol in Pierson's system that had been responsible for the slip.

The Chief Inspector squeezed his eyes tightly closed, and re-lived the moment when Pierson had finished examining the girl's body and had straightened up again. He should have been inured to the sight of blood and gore. But he hadn't been! He'd looked really shaken!

And what was it he had said?

‘
It should never have happened, Charlie. It simply should never have happened
!'

Almost as if he'd known the victim personally!

Almost as if he knew why she'd been killed!

Woodend glanced across at Paniatowski, and saw she'd reached the same conclusion he had – that if the second victim really was Enid Judd, then Battersby and Chief Superintendent Ainsworth had not been the only ones who'd been tampering with the evidence.

‘Do you know a man called Philip Swales?' he asked Doris Hargreaves.

‘Never heard of him!' the woman replied – far too quickly, far too emphatically.

Woodend shook his head sadly. ‘I really am tryin' to do all I can to keep you out of jail, you know, Doris. But you're not doin' much to help yourself, now are you?'

Doris Hargreaves bit her lower lip. ‘Look, yer've got to understand it had nothin' to do with me.'

‘What hadn't?'

‘Phil Swales came round here one day – about six months ago, it must have been – an' said he wanted to talk to Enid. Well, I knew what he was up to o' course – I remembered him from the old days⎯'

‘When you were on the game yourself?'

‘I was no more a professional then than our Enid is now,' the frizzy-haired woman said, with injured dignity.

‘But that's when you knew him?'

‘Yeah.'

‘An' you worked for him?'

Mrs Hargreaves shrugged. ‘Not exactly worked
for
him. But he helped me out a bit. I mean, a girl's got to have some protection, hasn't she? It's rough out on them streets.'

‘So when he came round, you knew exactly what he was up to, didn't you? You knew he was offerin' to pimp for her?'

Another shrug. ‘I couldn't have stopped her doin' what she wanted to, even if I'd tried. Anyway, it's her life, ain't it?'

‘An' she agreed to work for Swales?'

‘Yeah, I suppose so.'

‘You
suppose
so? Stop pissin' me about! Did she agree to work for him or didn't she?'

‘She agreed to work for him,' Mrs Hargreaves admitted.

‘An'
where
did she agree to work for him? Around here?'

‘That's right.'

‘You're lyin'!' Woodend snapped. ‘She couldn't earn enough round a shit hole like this to make it worth Swales' while pimpin' for her.'