Dying in the Dark (24 page)

‘Not behind
my
back, no,' Woodend agreed.

‘I beg your pardon, sir.'

‘You don't trust DCI Evans, do you?'

Now Beresford did turn away. ‘Mr Evans is my superior, sir,' he said. ‘We are told to trust our superiors. We're told that if we don't, the whole system will collapse.'

‘Is that a “no” or a “yes”?' Woodend wondered.

‘I suppose you'll take it to mean whatever you want it to mean,' Beresford said.

‘Aye, I probably will,' Woodend said. ‘So you didn't trust DCI Evans. An' that's why findin' the service sheet in Mr Rutter's car presented you with a problem. You see, bein' the smart lad that you are, you'd already worked out that it would be helpful to DCI Evans's case if the Cortina on Ash Croft turned out to be Mr Rutter's. An' you were worried that he might accidentally-on-purpose lose any evidence which proved that it wasn't. Now I happen to think you were worryin' unnecessarily – Evans may not be your kind of bobby, an' he's
certainly
not mine, but I don't think he's bent. Still, your concern does you credit.'

‘No comment,' Beresford said.

‘I'm not surprised,' Woodend told him. ‘So where were you to go from there? Well, you decided that the best way to make sure the evidence didn't go missin' was to make another senior officer aware of its existence. That's why you rang me at the Drum, an' told me about Melton's Garage. I couldn't quite pin the voice down at first, but now I'm sure it was you.'

‘But I dis—' Beresford began.

‘You did
what
?'

‘Nothin', sir.'

‘You disguised your voice. But you didn't disguise it very well. An' you called me “sir”, which was a mistake.'

‘We all make mistakes,' Beresford said.

‘Aye, we do,' Woodend agreed. ‘But you shouldn't suffer too badly from this one, young Beresford, because if you ever need a friend in the Central Lanes Police, you've only to whistle an' I'll come runnin'.'

Provided, of course, I'm still
in
the Central Lanes Police when this case is over, he thought, as he made his way to the door.

T
he storm which had broken when he'd been in the Chief Constable's office was continuing to vent its spleen on the inhabitants of Whitebridge more than an hour later. Rivers of angry water rushed headlong through the gutters, cascades of it gurgled furiously down the drains. Woodend, his collar turned up ineffectively against the deluge, strode rapidly towards the Yew Tree Café.

He would have preferred a different venue for what would probably turn out to be a difficult meeting with Monika Paniatowski, he thought as he hurried along. The Drum and Monkey came immediately to mind, but since that blessed haven wouldn't be opening its doors for another hour, the café would just have to do.

Monika was already there when he arrived, sitting at a table by the window and gazing out at the storm without really seeing it. He would have said she looked rough, but that would have been rather like saying that Derek Higson's Rolls-Royce was a moderately expensive car.

He sat down opposite her.

‘Have you seen him?' she asked without preamble.

There was no need to ask who ‘he' was, so Woodend merely nodded and then said, ‘Yes, I have.'

‘And how is he?'

‘Considerin' he was probably no more than a minute or two from death when I found him, he's not in bad shape.'

‘Have there been any … any …'

‘Permanent effects? They don't think so. He'll be speakin' with a bit of a croaky voice for a while, but as far as they can tell at the hospital, there's been no brain damage.'

‘He didn't do it!' Paniatowski said, letting the words gush from her mouth as if they'd been bursting to break free for quite some time.

‘Didn't do what? Didn't try to kill himself? Well, there was nobody else in the cell when I got there, an' as much as I feel nothin' but contempt for bobbies like Fatty Fletcher, I can't actually see him just sittin' back while somebody tried to commit murder on his watch.'

‘That's not what I meant.'

‘Then what
did
you mean?'

‘Bob didn't kill Maria!'

It was the last thing that Woodend had been expecting his sergeant to say to him.

‘What's brought you round to this sudden change of mind?' he asked, amazed.

‘The fact that he tried to hang himself last night,' Paniatowski said, as if that explained everything.

‘There are those who'd say that was a confession of guilt, rather than a protestation of innocence,' Woodend pointed out.

‘But I'm not one of them,' Paniatowski countered. ‘Look, sir, you don't know Bob like I do. I'm sorry, you may not like to hear that, being as close to him as your are, but it's true.'

‘I'm not arguin',' Woodend said. ‘Let's hear the rest of what's on your mind.'

‘If Bob had killed Maria, he'd have taken his punishment like a man,' Paniatowski said fiercely. ‘But he never
would have
killed Maria – I see that now I've started looking at the case through the eyes of a woman who loves him, rather than the eyes of a policewoman.'

‘If it wasn't guilt that made him try to top himself, then what was it?' Woodend asked.

‘Despair!'

‘Because he couldn't face the thought of all them years in gaol for a crime he didn't commit?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Have you got another theory?'

‘It might just have been that he couldn't bear the thought of everybody looking at him and
thinking
he was guilty.'

It didn't ring true, Woodend thought. It just didn't ring true.

‘Now tell me what it is that's really eatin' away at you, Monika,' he said gently.

‘Perhaps he tried to kill himself because he simply didn't want to go on living now that Maria's dead,' Paniatowski said bitterly. ‘And what lesson can you draw from that, sir?'

‘I'm not sure that I can draw any—'

‘Then I'll spell it out for you! He could tolerate life without me, but not life without her. He said he loved me, and perhaps he meant it. But she was the one who had his heart. She was the one who had his soul.'

Monika was on the verge of tears.

‘Listen, lass—' Woodend began.

‘I don't want your sympathy!' she said, a burst of anger driving away the tears. ‘You asked why I thought he tried to kill himself, and I've told you. That's the end of the matter. Can we now turn our minds to the problem of proving that he didn't kill his wife?'

‘If you feel up to it.'

‘Of course I feel up to it! We've got a job to do, so let's cut out all the emotional crap and get down to hard cases, shall we?'

‘Whatever you say,' Woodend agreed. ‘Let's talk about the Cortina GT, shall we? We know it wasn't Bob's, and it didn't belong to any of Bascombe's neighbours – so who
did
it belong to, and what the bloody hell was it doin' there?'

‘The driver could have been a friend of one of Bascombe's neighbours, just paying a social call,' Paniatowski suggested.

‘In that case, he'd have parked in front of the house he was visitin', instead of in front of one of the buildin' shells. Nobody would have walked further down that muddy lane than he had to. Besides, if it belonged to a visitor, Evans would have found out about it from one of his team.'

‘How do you know he hasn't?'

‘Because he assured Marlowe that he'd sent for the list of owners from Melton's Garage. An' he'd have no need to do that if he already knew whose car it was.'

‘Even so, the Cortina could have been parked there for a completely innocent purpose,' Paniatowski said.

‘Even so, it's the only bloody lead we've got!' Woodend reminded her.

Paniatowski nodded. ‘You're right.'

‘Since Paul Melton's garage is the only official Ford dealer in this area – and since there's a long waitin' list for the new GT – we have to assume that's where the car came from,' Woodend continued.

‘So we need to know who he's sold them to, and which of the cars he's sold weren't in the garage, being checked over, at the time of Maria's murder.'

‘Exactly.'

‘And the only person we can get that information from is Paul Melton himself.'

‘Yes.'

‘But will he give it to us?'

‘I don't see why he shouldn't.'

Paniatowski lit up a cigarette, and took a deep, thoughtful drag. ‘But there's also no reason why he shouldn't tell DCI Evans that we've asked to see the list,' she said.

‘True,' Woodend agreed.

‘And Mr Marlowe's already warned us off sticking our noses into the investigation.'

‘True again.'

‘So if Melton does tell Evans, we're finished.'

‘No, we're not,' Woodend corrected her. ‘If he tells Evans,
I'm
finished – because I'll be the one who does the askin'.'

‘You're taking a big risk,' Paniatowski cautioned.

‘I'm takin' a bloody
huge
risk,' Woodend said.

‘And it still might not lead anywhere, because the Cortina could be just a red herring.'

Woodend grinned weakly. ‘Are you tryin' to talk me out of it, Monika?' he asked.

Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No, I'm not. Getting our hands on that information may just give us a chance. It might be a bit like drawing the three-legged horse in a sweepstake, but when it's the only horse you've got, you just have to believe it will come through.'

Paul Melton was sitting behind his desk, munching his way through a plateful of thick-sliced toast, heavily ladled with strawberry jam.

‘One of the perks of being the boss is that you indulge yourself whenever you feel like it,' he said with relish. ‘Would you fancy a piece of toast yourself, Chief Inspector?'

‘No thanks,' Woodend said. ‘But there is something I would like.'

‘The list of people who've bought the new Cortina GT?'

‘That's right.'

Melton nodded, and crammed another piece of toast into his mouth. When he'd chewed it up enough to speak again, he said, ‘The other bobby who was here told me you might come around and ask for it. He said that if you did, I wasn't to give it to you.'

‘Did he, now?' Woodend asked neutrally.

‘Which puts me in a sticky situation,' Melton continued. ‘The thing is, I've always gone out of my way to avoid offending the police, but as matters stand, I can only avoid offending one bobby by offending another. So the question I have to ask myself is, which of the two bobbies is the more important? Would you like to help me out there?'

It would be pointless to lie, Woodend decided. ‘The lad who came round to see you probably isn't as important as me, but he has the backin' of the Chief Constable, an' I don't,' he said.

‘Well, there you are then,' Melton said, sucking some jam off his fingers. ‘There's nothing I can do for you, is there?'

‘The other night, somebody killed a defenceless blind woman in Elm Croft,' Woodend said. ‘That same somebody robbed a little baby of her mother. The Chief Constable an' his cronies think Bob Rutter did it, but those of us who know him well are sure that he didn't. Would you like to see the real killer brought to justice, Mr Melton?'

‘Well, of course I would. Anybody would. But given the pressure that's been put on me, I don't see how I can help you.'

‘Suppose this isn't a one-off,' Woodend said. ‘Suppose the killer strikes again, an' it's a child he kills this time. Will you be able to sleep at night, knowin' you could have prevented it, but decided not to?'

‘You play a dirty game,' Melton said.

‘I'm in a dirty business,' Woodend told him.

Melton wiped his hand on a paper towel, then stood up and extracted a single sheet of paper from his filing cabinet. He read through it quickly, then laid it down on his desk.

‘I'm going out on to the forecourt for a while,' he said. ‘When I get back, I expect you and this piece of paper will be long gone.'

‘Thank you,' Woodend said.

‘I'm not sure I'm due much thanks,' Melton told him, ‘because I need to cover my own back – and the best way to do that is to report to your boss that the list's gone missing and you're the only person who could have taken it.'

‘When will you make this report?' Woodend asked.

Melton thought about it. ‘I suppose I could leave it for twenty-four hours, at a push. Will that be long enough?'

Probably not, Woodend thought, but it was the best deal he was likely to get out of Melton.

‘Twenty-four hours will be fine,' he said.

Melton looked out on to the forecourt. ‘It's a nice car, that Wolseley of yours, but you'll need to trade it in eventually for something a bit more modern,' he said reflectively. ‘And when you do, I hope you'll consider bringing your business to Melton's Motors.'

‘I wouldn't think of takin' it anywhere else,' Woodend promised.

‘Well, that just about wraps it up,' Paul Melton said, opening the door and stepping outside.

Woodend waited until Melton had closed the door again before picking up the list. There were a dozen names on it. He had not been expecting to recognize any of them, and when he
did
recognize one – when one stood out as if it were in lights – he felt as if he'd been smacked in the face with a shovel.

Back in the café, Woodend told Paniatowski about Paul Melton's list of Cortina GT owners, and Paniatowski told Woodend about Pamela Rainsford's diary. For perhaps half a minute, they fell into a profound silence, then Woodend said, ‘Of course, it could all be a coincidence.'