Death of an Innocent (28 page)

‘Stuff? What kind of stuff?'

Paniatowski pulled the driver's seat forward, and leant further into the car. For perhaps thirty seconds, she rummaged through the contents of the back seat. As she emerged from the A40, she took a deep breath, sucking the air in greedily.

‘There's a couple of whips, some leather corsets, and a stack of dirty magazines,' she said. ‘And two stained bed sheets,' she added, looking down at her hands in disgust.

It was as bad as Woodend had ever imagined it could be. Some of the material was probably illegal, but that, in itself, was not enough to tie it to the murders. Christ, it wasn't even enough to tie it in with Dugdale's Farm!

What a fool he'd been, Woodend thought bitterly. He'd managed to convince himself that by taking sudden, dramatic action, he'd rush Taylor and Ainsworth into making a mistake. Now he saw the situation as it really was. It had been desperation rather than his usual judgement that had guided him, and the only person who'd been rushed into a wrong move had been him. He'd taken his gamble at entirely the wrong moment. He should have waited. He should have bloody waited!

Paniatowski was still standing on the back of the lorry, uncertain of what more he expected of her.

‘Check the boot, Monika,' he said.

‘Think carefully about what your next move should be, Sergeant!' Ainsworth warned.

‘I have, sir,' Paniatowski told him. ‘Since I'm here, I think I might as well check the boot.'

Paniatowski stepped carefully round the side of the car, clicked the boot open, and immediately pulled a face.

‘What's the matter?' Woodend asked.

‘It stinks.'

‘What of?'

‘Strong disinfectant, I think. It smells as if someone's poured a gallon of the stuff in here.'

But excessive use of disinfectant was no crime, was it?

‘Is there anything else in the boot?' Woodend asked.

‘More filth – a few more magazines, couple of leather masks – but nowhere near as much stuff as there is on the back seat.'

Why had they stored nearly all the pornographic material on the back seat? Woodend wondered. Wouldn't most people have automatically put it in the boot?

But it was pointless asking such questions now. He might have a car with Taylor's and Ainsworth's prints on it, but they could easily explain that away.

‘
Of course it's got my prints on it
,' he could almost hear Ainsworth saying. ‘
I helped disinter it
.'

‘
We have reason to believe some of the prints were made when you were burying the car
,' his interrogator would reply weakly.

‘
That's impossible, since I had nothing to do with burying it
,' Ainsworth would reply.

And there would be no way of proving that he was lying.

Possibly they would find Dugdale's prints on the car, too – but Dugdale had disappeared, so that would get them precisely nowhere.

He may as well face the truth, Woodend thought. The game had been played through to its end – and he had lost.

He became aware that Ainsworth had been studying him closely – no doubt charting his thought processes and observing the changes on his face as the case he thought he'd built up disintegrated into nothingness. Now, satisfied that total collapse was on hand, the Deputy Chief Constable turned his attention back to Paniatowski.

‘Consider yourself suspended, Sergeant Paniatowski,' he said harshly. ‘And as for you two,' he continued, turning towards Hardcastle and Dugdale, ‘don't think you're getting away from this scot-free. I'll see the pair of you – and anybody else I find out was involved – up before a disciplinary board.'

‘They were just obeying my orders,' Paniatowski protested.

‘Then they should have known better. Now get the hell out of here – the whole pack of you! Oh, and Duxbury,' he added maliciously, ‘be sure to give my best wishes to your son – the school Sportsman of the Year.'

‘What about the A40, sir?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Mr Taylor and I will take it down to police headquarters for forensic examination – just as we always intended to.'

Just as they'd always intended to!

Bullshit! Woodend thought. Their plan had been to either bury the car somewhere else, or destroy it completely. Now they
would
have to take it down to headquarters, but before they did that, they'd go over it with a fine-toothed comb, to make completely sure that there was not even a shred of evidence to connect it with the murders.

But then, if they'd been going to destroy it, why swill all that disinfectant around in the boot, he wondered? That just didn't make sense at all.

‘Why are you still here?' Ainsworth asked. ‘Don't you recognize an order when you hear one?'

Hardcastle and Duxbury looked first at each other, and then, expectantly, at Woodend. When he nodded his head to indicate that they should obey – what else was there left for them to do? – they turned and began to move lethargically back towards their car.

I've let them down, the Chief Inspector thought. I've let them down – and they'll be paying for it for the rest of their careers.

Monika Paniatowski would be out of a job, and he himself would go to prison for a long, long time. The only thing he could find behind the dark cloud that had loomed on his horizon all morning was an even darker one.

It was as Hardcastle was reaching for the car door handle that a small miracle occurred. It manifested itself in the form of a sudden smile on DDC Ainsworth's face, and though there was perhaps nothing truly miraculous about it all, it seemed to Woodend to be heaven-sent. Because it was not the smile of triumph that the Chief Inspector would have expected to appear! It was a smile of relief – a smile that said Ainsworth thought he had got away with it, but
only just
. A smile that told Woodend that there was still evidence lying around, if only he had the wit to work out what it was!

‘Wait a minute, lads,' the Chief Inspector called out to Hardcastle and Duxbury. ‘Sergeant Paniatowski hasn't finished her search yet.'

Paniatowski, having climbed down off the lorry and now back on the ground, looked at him with amazement.

And who could blame her?

‘What do you mean, she's not finished the search?' Ainsworth asked, now – finally – speaking to him directly. ‘She's already examined the interior of the Austin thoroughly. Do you want her to take the engine to pieces next?'

‘The warrant covers everything on the site,' Woodend said.

‘So what else would you like her to examine? The site office? The concrete mixers?'

‘No. There wouldn't really be much point in that, sir. But she would like to search your Volvo – as well as the vehicles which belong to Mr Taylor and Mr Swales.'

A look of fear and uncertainty flickered briefly across Ainsworth's face – then it was gone, to be replaced by the arrogant expression of a man who acknowledged that he might have had a few set-backs, but knew that he still held most of the winning cards.

‘Sergeant Paniatowski will search nothing further,' Ainsworth said, speaking to Hardcastle and Duxbury, as well as to Woodend. ‘In case you didn't hear me before, Sergeant Paniatowski has been suspended.'

There was a still a way out, Woodend thought, but it was a way which was open solely to Monika – if only she had the bottle to carry it through.

‘Look at me, Sergeant Paniatowski,' Ainsworth said. ‘Look at me, and listen very carefully to what I have to say. Things are already bad enough for you – don't make them any worse.'

But Paniatowski did
not
look at him. Instead, her uncertain, questioning eyes were gazing at Woodend.

‘Do it, Monika,' Woodend's eyes said in return. ‘It's the only chance we've got left. Grab it while you can.'

Paniatowski squared her shoulders, and turned back to Ainsworth. ‘With all due respect, sir, I'm not sure that you still have the necessary authority to suspend me,' she said.

‘What the devil are you talking about?'

Paniatowski gulped, as if she knew exactly what she wanted to say, but just couldn't seem to get the words out.

‘Do it!' Woodend urged her silently. ‘Do it now!'

The sergeant took a deep breath. ‘Richard James Ainsworth, I am arresting you on the charge of conspiracy, after the fact, in the murders of Harold Judd and Enid Judd,' she said in a rush. ‘You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.'

‘This is insane,' Ainsworth protested.

Paniatowski held out a shaky hand. ‘If you'd just like to give me the keys to your car, sir.'

‘I'll do no such thing.'

‘Please don't make me use force, sir,' Paniatowski said, dredging up courage from the very bottom of her reserves. ‘That would really be terribly undignified.'

Ainsworth patted his pockets perfunctorily. ‘Don't seem to have the keys on me,' he said.

‘That's not true! You must have them. You couldn't have driven here without them.'

‘Oh, I had them then, but I don't seem to have them now.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘Don't you?' Ainsworth asked. ‘So what are you going to do about it?'

‘I . . .' Paniatowski began.

‘A body search?' Ainsworth suggested. ‘You can't do it yourself, you know – because you're a woman. So you'll have to order either Hardcastle or Duxbury to do it, won't you? And do you really believe either of them will obey you? Do you really believe – even for a second – that a mere
detective constable
would have the nerve to search a
Deputy Chief
Constable?'

He probably knew the words were a mistake the moment they were out of his mouth, Woodend thought. And if he didn't then, the look on the face of DC Duxbury – who should have been
Sergeant
Duxbury by now – would have been enough make it clear.

Duxbury took two steps forward. ‘I'll do it,' he said. ‘I'll search him if you tell me to, Sergeant.'

‘An' I'll help him – if he needs any help,' Hardcastle added, moving forward to join his partner.

It was then that Philip Swales decided the moment had come to move. He had been leaning against his Mercedes, a mere spectator to the drama unfolding before him, but now he made a break for it, suddenly beginning to sprint towards the chain-link fence like a fox which has got his first sniff of the hounds.

He did not get far. Hardcastle's time on the rugby pitch had taught him to mark his man, and he brought the pimp down with an impressive flying tackle.

Paniatowski looked on as Hardcastle and Duxbury pulled Swales to his feet and handcuffed him, then turned her attention back to Ainsworth.

‘If a hard case like Philip Swales knows when the game's up, don't you think it's about time you admitted it yourself, sir?' she asked, with a new confidence in her voice. ‘Why don't you give me the keys?'

Ainsworth sighed, then put his hand in one of the pockets he had patted down earlier and pulled his keys out. Paniatowski nodded to Woodend, and the two of them walked over to the Volvo.

‘I hope you've got it right
this
time, sir,' Paniatowski whispered, as she inserted the key in the boot lock.

‘You're not the only one,' Woodend agreed.

The key clicked in the lock. ‘Here goes nothing,' Paniatowski said, opening the boot.

The smell of disinfectant was overpowering. Now Woodend understood why it had been used so liberally in the boot of the A40. It hadn't been the car itself they'd wanted to disinfect – it was the package they intended to transfer from there to the Volvo.

It was a long, sausage-shaped package, wrapped up in an old blanket. Woodend took hold of the corner of the blanket and peeled it back to find himself looking at the head of a white-haired man in his middle sixties. The disinfectant had not quite succeeded in masking the smell of rotting flesh, and even without the maggots crawling on his skin, the man would still have looked very dead indeed.

Woodend stepped back, looked across at Ainsworth, and pointed to the boot. ‘I think you might have just a little difficulty explainin'
this
away, sir,' he said. ‘It is Farmer Dugdale, I presume.'

Ainsworth nodded. ‘Yes,' he admitted. ‘That's Wilfred Dugdale.'

A
s Woodend walked down the corridor, he was aware that the eyes of other officers were following him. And why wouldn't they? He was Lazarus returned from the dead, Napoleon landing in France after his escape from Elbe, the man who had fought against the odds and – this time, at least – had beaten the system. He was also, he admitted to himself, what he had always been before any of this had happened – a maverick. Perhaps even, in some people's eyes, a bit of a freak.

He came to a halt in front of Interview Room Number Two – the room in which he himself had been grilled by the humourless DCI Evans and malicious DCC Ainsworth. He wondered whether he should go inside – wondered whether he even
wanted
to.

As if I really have any choice! he thought, turning the handle and pushing the door open. As if young Enid Judd – although dead – wasn't still compelling him to be there.

There were three people already in the room – DI Harris and DS Paniatowski sitting at one end of the table, DCC Ainsworth at the other.

Woodend only gave the Deputy Chief Constable a brief glance, but it was enough to see that the man seemed to have aged twenty years in the previous hour or so.

Ainsworth glared at him. ‘Why are you here, Chief Inspector? Have you come to gloat?'

Woodend shook his head. ‘You should know me better than that. This is what I do – not what I enjoy.'