Death of an Innocent (27 page)

Get on with it, man! Woodend urged silently from the passenger seat of the MGA. Bloody-well get on with it!

Hardcastle pulled a rough oblong of wire mesh free from the fence, leant through the gap he'd cut, and fixed his cutters on the padlock on the other side of the gate.

There was the sound of another heavy vehicle – possibly a crane – starting up inside the building site.

‘Won't be long now,' Paniatowski said.

No, Woodend thought, it wouldn't. It shouldn't take more than another three or four minutes – at the most – to find out if he really was as good a detective as he thought he was.

Hardcastle's arm emerged from the gap in the wire, then he and Duxbury took hold of one gate each, and swung them open.

‘Ready, sir?' Paniatowski asked.

‘As ready as I'll ever be,' Woodend replied.

Paniatowski slammed the MGA into gear, and the car shot forward towards the open gateway. Hardcastle's vehicle fell in behind it. The operation – for better or worse – was entering its final phase.

Once through the gates, the MGA made a sharp turn, its tyres screeching as it skidded past the site office – and past the four furious Dobermanns which were chained to the rail in front of it.

Bouncing up and down on the rough track, the MGA roared past the show house with its genuine hardwood doors and real brass fittings. Buckets of slush were being thrown up, and the windscreen wipers gave a dull rubber moan as they did their best to combat them.

Paniatowski kept her foot down on the pedal as they passed the completed shells of the first row of houses, then wrenched the steering wheel to make a sharp right turn. The virgin section of the building site was now ahead of them – the couple of acres of muddied grass that lay between the last building and the fence. And right in the middle of it – at roughly the point where he had found the sliver of yellow paint – was just the tableau that Woodend had been praying he would see.

The mechanical digger was closest to them, with a large mound of earth piled up next it. Beyond that there was a heavy crane. Three cars were parked near to the crane – Taylor's Jaguar, Ainsworth's Volvo, and the garishly red Mercedes Benz which Woodend had seen parked outside the Victoria Hotel on the night Taylor had had the heated argument with Philip Swales.

But it was the lorry he was most relieved to see – the lorry with a battered, yellow Austin A40 sitting on the back!

They were less than twenty yards from the large hole in the ground now – close enough for Woodend to see Taylor was sitting in the cab of the crane, and that Ainsworth and another man were standing by the cars.

Paniatowski slammed on the MGA's brakes, and skidded to a halt near the Jaguar so suddenly that DC Hardcastle, who had been right behind, had to swerve to avoid tail-ending her.

The sergeant looked at the yellow A40, and allowed a broad grin to spread across her face. ‘Caught the bastards with their pants right down around their ankles, haven't we!' she said gleefully.

But as Woodend climbed out of the passenger seat he saw the Deputy Chief Constable striding furiously and confidently towards the MGA – and realized that it was going to be nothing like as easy as Monika seemed to think.

Ainsworth drew level with them and, looking straight through Woodend, turned his anger on Paniatowski.

‘What the bloody hell's going on, Sergeant?' the DCC demanded.

‘I've got a search warrant here, sir,' Paniatowski replied, offering him the precious piece of paper.

Ainsworth brushed the warrant angrily aside without even taking a proper look at it. ‘Who authorized this warrant?' he asked.

‘Mrs Johnson, sir.'

‘I'm not talking about which of Whitebridge's magistrates actually put their name to it. What I want to know is which of your superiors swore it out. Was it DI Harris?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Then who?'

‘I did it on my own initiative.'

‘On
his
initiative, you mean!' Ainsworth said, glaring briefly at Woodend. ‘You had no right to request a warrant without getting it cleared through me, or someone else in authority, first.'

‘Maybe I didn't,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘but that still doesn't invalidate it as a legal document.'

Ainsworth shook his head dolefully. ‘I always thought you were a smart bobby, Sergeant Paniatowski. But it seems as if I was wrong, doesn't it? You haven't even got the brains of a rat on a sinking ship – because Charlie Woodend's already well below the waterline and you're
still
clinging on to him. Well, let me tell you, this misjudged loyalty's going to cost you dear, Sergeant. You may not have fully realized it yet, but unless you start playing this by the rules – by
my
rules – you're finished in the force.'

The short speech had had its intended effect, and Paniatowski shifted her weight uncertainly from her left foot to her right, and then back again.

‘Would you like to explain what you're doin' out here at this time of the mornin', sir?' Woodend asked.

‘And in case you're wondering why
I'm
here, Sergeant,' Ainsworth said, ignoring the Chief Inspector completely, ‘I'm here because, shortly after I spoke to you about the Austin A40 you were so eager to find, I got an anonymous telephone call telling me where I could find it.'

‘What about the others?' Paniatowski asked, trying her hardest to keep her voice steady. ‘Why are they here?'

‘Mr Taylor is here because this is his site, and because he knows how to operate the heavy equipment we needed to use to dig the car out,' Ainsworth said. ‘And as for Mr Swales,' he indicated the thin-faced man who had not moved an inch during the whole discussion, ‘he is one of Mr Taylor's associates, and we brought him along to act as a witness to whatever we found.'

‘Why did you bring along a man I'd already told you was a suspect in my investigation?' Paniatowski asked shakily.

‘
Your
investigation?' Ainsworth asked. ‘I wasn't aware that you had an investigation of your own. And as to bringing a murder suspect along with me, I really have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘I told you when I called that I thought Philip Swales was the man we were looking for. You said you'd never heard of him.'

‘I did no such thing, Sergeant. I've met Mr Swales socially on several occasions and⎯'

‘Did you know he's got a record? That he's a violent criminal?'

‘⎯and if you
had
mentioned his name to me – which you certainly did not – then I would have told you that although he's had certain problems in the past, he is now a thoroughly respectable businessman.'

This wasn't how things should be going, Woodend thought. It didn't even come close.

Ainsworth had been caught red-handed, trying to remove the evidence of a serious crime. By now he should have been so panicked that he would be doing all he could to shift most of the blame on to Swales and Taylor. Instead, he had not only kept his nerve, but seemed to be getting more confident by the minute.

And he was not alone in that. Philip Swales, standing a few feet away from him, was watching the whole confrontation with little more than the interest of a mildly curious passer-by. And even Terry Taylor, who had climbed down from the crane and was now walking towards them, showed none of the concern he should have been displaying.

There was nothing incriminating in the A40! Woodend thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Or if there
was
something, the conspirators had all realized that it was not enough – nothing
like
enough – to tie them in with the double murder at Dugdale's Farm!

Terry Taylor had reached the edge of the circle, and came to a stop. Woodend looked on, powerless to do anything, as the builder searched Ainsworth's face for some hint as to how he was expected to react to the situation.

‘I was just explaining to my rather over-enthusiastic sergeant here that I rang you the moment I got the anonymous call about the Austin being buried here on your site, Terry,' Ainsworth said, giving him all the lead he needed. ‘About what time would you say you received that call?'

‘I suppose it must have been around twenty to eight – or perhaps five minutes later than that,' Taylor said, falling in easily with Ainsworth's line. ‘As you can imagine, it came as something of a shock to me.'

‘Let's stop playin' games, shall we, Mr Taylor?' Woodend asked.

‘Games?' Taylor repeated.

‘You weren't shocked at all. An' you didn't need any call from anybody to learn where the Austin was. You've known all along. You
had
to know, because only you – or one of the two security men you employ – could have buried it in the first place.'

Ainsworth shot Taylor a glance that warned him not to say any more, but the builder now appeared to be so sure of himself that he allowed a bemused smile to appear on his face.

‘I had to know the car was buried here, because there were only three of us who could have buried it?' he said. ‘Now that
is
a very interesting theory, Chief Inspector. Can I ask what you base it on?'

‘On the four bloody big Dobermanns you've got chained up at the entrance to the site.'

Taylor laughed. ‘Ah, you've been questioning them, have you? I'm surprised you could understand them. I thought the only language they spoke was some kind of doggie German.'

‘You're a funny man, an' I'm sure you'll be a real hit at the prison concert parties. Because you
are
goin' to prison, you know,' Woodend said, with more conviction than he felt.

‘On the evidence of four foreign canines?'

‘Aye, if you like. When the site's got people workin' on it, the dogs are kept chained up. But when it's closed, they're let loose to roam as they please. I've seen them myself.'

‘So?'

‘The dogs won't allow just
anybody
to come in an' chain them up again. It has to be somebody they've been trained to obey. And that's what happened on Sunday, when the car was buried – somebody they'd been trained to obey came on to the site an' chained them up. So who was it, Mr Taylor? You? Or one of the dog handlers whose wages you pay?'

Taylor should have crumbled – but he didn't. ‘Perhaps it was someone whose wages I
used
to pay,' he suggested.

‘Come again?'

‘During the time I've owned the dogs, I've employed five different handlers. Two of them still work for me, but the rest have moved on. It could quite easily have been one of those other three who came to the site on Sunday.'

It was plausible, Woodend thought – it was all too
bloody
plausible.

‘What if it turns out that the three men who
used
to work for you all have alibis for Sunday mornin'?' he asked.

Taylor shrugged. ‘I don't know,' he admitted. ‘I'm a builder. I have no knowledge of how police investigations work. If they do turn out to have alibis, perhaps you'll want to question me again – but I have an alibi, too.'

I bet you bloody do, Woodend thought. An' I bet the two handlers you still employ have alibis, an' all. God knows, you've had long enough to set somethin' up for them.

‘Where will I find these three ex-dog handlers of yours, Mr Taylor?' he asked.

‘I have absolutely no idea,' the builder told him. ‘They worked for me – and now they don't. They could be in Australia, or even Timbuktu, for all I know. I really have no interest in them any more.'

Woodend glanced quickly over his shoulder at Hardcastle and Duxbury. The two detective constables were standing by their car listening to the whole exchange – and registering the defeat they were already beginning to feel on their faces.

And they were right to feel defeated, the Chief Inspector told himself. He had completely lost control of the situation – and everybody there knew it!

He looked up at the yellow A40 on the back of the lorry and saw, not a car, but his last chance to make anything stick.

‘Search the Austin, Monika,' he said.

‘I forbid you to take orders from a man who has been suspended from duty and is currently under investigation for his criminal activities,' Ainsworth snapped at Paniatowski.

‘I'm not taking orders from Mr Woodend,' Paniatowski replied. ‘But since I've gone to all the trouble of getting the warrant sworn out, I might as well search the car now that I'm here. If that's all right with you, sir.'

‘And what if it's
not
all right with me?' Ainsworth countered.

Paniatowski hesitated for a second, as if she were considering her options. And perhaps she really was, Woodend thought.

‘I think I'm
still
going to have to search it,' the sergeant said finally.

The DCC shrugged. ‘Go ahead, if that's what you want. After all, it's your career that is on the line.'

He shouldn't have given in anything like so easily, Woodend thought miserably. Given the position he was in, the DCC should have fought against the idea of a search every inch of the way. And the fact that he hadn't bothered – didn't even seem to really care – could only mean one thing. He was willing to let them go through the ritual of a search because he knew that they would find
nothing
.

P
aniatowski walked over to the open lorry, placed her right foot on the top of one of the rear tyres, and pulled herself up on to the tailboard.

She's not goin' to find anythin', Woodend told himself. She's not goin' to find a bloody thing!

The sergeant dusted off her hands, opened the driver's door of the A40, and peered inside.

‘The front's empty, but there's a lot of stuff on the back seat,' she said, over her shoulder.