Echoes of the Dead (14 page)

‘Over there, at the table in the corner,' Paniatowski told him.

‘But there's already somebody sitting there,' Hall pointed out.

‘I know there is,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘He's my inspector.'

‘Is he, now!' Hall asked. ‘Well, isn't that a pleasant surprise?'

They walked across to the table. Beresford and Hall shook hands, and Paniatowski signalled the ever-vigilant waiter.

Once the drinks had arrived, Hall immediately launched into a series of amusing stories about life at Scotland Yard, as if he were that one guest at a dinner party who is expected to pay for his supper by keeping the other guests entertained.

Paniatowski let him talk for ten minutes, and then said, ‘I think we'd better get down to business.'

‘Yes, we had,' Hall agreed, his face growing more serious. He turned to Beresford. ‘I don't want you to take this the wrong way, son, but I think it's time you left.'

‘Time he left? But he's my inspector,' Paniatowski protested.

‘And that's exactly the problem,' Hall said. ‘The deal that's been worked out between your bosses and mine is that we're the only two involved in this investigation. If my bosses read in my report that your inspector was also involved, they'll want to know why I didn't have back-up as well – and then they could create a real stink.'

‘So leave it out of your report,' Paniatowski suggested.

Hall shook his head. ‘I can't do that. I've always played things by the book, and I'm too long in the tooth to change my ways now.' He turned to Beresford again. ‘I expect Monika will tell you everything in the morning, anyway – I know I would if you were my inspector.'

Beresford looked questioningly at Paniatowski. ‘Boss?'

‘You go, Colin,' Paniatowski said. ‘Tom's right – I can tell you everything you need to know in the morning.'

Beresford stood up – but reluctantly, as if he worried about leaving Paniatowski alone with the man from the Yard – and said, ‘I'll see you again, then, Chief Inspector.'

‘Undoubtedly,' Hall agreed. ‘And next time you do, please call me Tom.'

They watched Beresford walk to the door, then Paniatowski said angrily, ‘So exactly what is it that you don't want my inspector – who I'd trust with my life – to know?'

‘There's
nothing at all
I don't want him to know,' Hall said, apologetically, ‘but – given the snakepit in which I'm forced to work – there's plenty that I don't want him to be able to say he got
directly from me
.'

‘Like what?'

‘Well, for a start, the way the people who really matter at the Yard view this investigation.'

‘And how
do
they view it?'

‘Their main concern, above all else – and that “all else” includes seeing justice done – is to protect Assistant Commissioner Bannerman's reputation.'

‘And what about Charlie Woodend's reputation?' Paniatowski demanded. ‘He used to work at the Yard, as well.'

‘So he did,' Hall agreed. ‘But that was a long time ago, and if the Blessed Charlie comes crashing down off his pedestal – so the thinking goes – the vibrations from his fall will hardly be felt in London at all. But Bannerman's an entirely different case. He's still at the Yard. He still has a future. And, most important of all, he's owed a lot of favours – which he can call in any time he chooses to.'

‘Or, to put it another way, he know where all the bodies are buried,' Paniatowski said.

‘Exactly,' Hall agreed. ‘But the truth is, for all they're in a sweat over this situation, they've really got nothing to worry about – because if Fred Howerd
was
fitted up for the murder, Bannerman had nothing to do with it.'

‘How can you be so sure of that?' Paniatowski asked, sceptically.

‘Because the very fact that
I'm
here in Whitebridge is the living proof of it.'

‘How is
that
proof?'

‘I know for a fact that Bannerman played no part in assigning this investigation to me – but he didn't block it, either, and he could have easily done that, if he'd wanted to.'

‘So?'

‘We've never worked together, but he knows me by my reputation – just as I know him by his. And that means he also knows that if you want something sweeping under the carpet, Tom Hall is the last man you should think of sending.'

‘You're saying that if Bannerman
did
have something to hide, he'd have made certain that it was one his cronies who came to Whitebridge?'

‘Spot on.'

‘Which means you're also saying that you think Fred Howerd's conviction was sound – that there
is
no dirt to sweep under the carpet?'

Hall frowned. ‘No, I don't think I'd go
that
far, Monika,' he replied, cautiously. ‘At the moment, you see, I'm not really in a position to.'

‘Then what you're
actually
saying is that if
anyone
twisted the evidence, that person was Charlie Woodend?' Paniatowski demanded.

Hall looked embarrassed. ‘Look, Monika,' he said uncomfortably, ‘I've never even met Charlie Woodend, so you can't expect me to . . .'

‘That
is
what you're saying, isn't it?' Paniatowski persisted.

‘Yes,' Hall agreed reluctantly, ‘If you're going to pin me down, then I suppose it is.'

‘Charlie would never have sent an innocent man to jail,' Paniatowski said fiercely.

Yet Fred Howerd had claimed – with what was almost his dying breath, and under the seal of the sacrament of confession – that he had not killed Lilly Dawson.

‘At least, he would never
knowingly
have sent an innocent man to jail,' she amended, realizing how weak that sounded.

‘I think we've been getting a bit ahead of ourselves – and that's probably entirely my fault,' Hall said apologetically. ‘At this stage of the investigation it was wrong of me to assume we could rule Bannerman out. I see that now. I should
never
have done it – however good my reasons were.'

‘No,' Paniatowski said firmly. ‘You shouldn't.'

And she was thinking to herself, If only I'd sounded half so firm – half so decisive – just a minute ago, when I was supposed to be defending Charlie.

Hall smiled in an ugly-charming way. ‘I promise you that I'm not a habitual assumption-maker, so do you think you could let me off with a caution this time?' he asked.

‘No, I don't think I could,' Paniatowski told him. Then she smiled back – because it was hard not to – and added, ‘but I'm prepared to give you a suspended sentence.'

‘That'll do,' Hall said cheerfully. His face grew serious again. ‘I'd like to make a suggestion, if that's all right with you.'

‘It's all right with me.'

‘I think that instead of just sitting here and debating who should get blamed for what, we should get off our arses and go and see if there's any need to blame
anybody
for
anything
.'

‘A good idea,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘Where do you want to start?'

‘A little chat with Fred Howerd's daughter, Elizabeth, might be as good a place as any,' Hall said.

TWELVE

‘
I
f I'd known you had streets like this in your lovely city, I'd have gone into training from the moment I knew I was being sent here,' DCI Tom Hall puffed good-naturedly, as he and Paniatowski walked up the steep street, towards the house where Fred Howerd had taken his last breath.

Paniatowski grinned. ‘You get used to it, Tom,' she said.

She found herself wondering if Sergeant Bannerman had said something similar to Charlie Woodend, twenty-two years earlier, when the pair of them were clogging it around the hilly streets of Whitebridge.

Probably not.

Back then, Bannerman would have been young and fit, and driven by a burning ambition which would eventually land him in the post of Assistant Commissioner. He would have seen any hill – whatever the gradient – as no more than a minor obstacle in what he must already have known was going to be a long, hard climb.

The real question was whether, at some point, he had decided to look for a short-cut – because despite Hall's protestations that he
had to
be clean, she was still convinced that if anybody had fitted Fred Howerd up, that somebody could not be Charlie Woodend.

As they drew closer to Elizabeth Eccles's house, they saw that a car was just pulling away from it. And not just any old car, but a Bentley with a personalized number plate which read ‘RJH 1'.

‘Mrs Eccles would appear to have some rich and powerful friends,' Hall commented wryly. ‘Let's hope, for all our sakes, that
they're
not taking too personal an interest in the case.'

A woman answered their knock on the door. Her black hair was drawn tightly in a bun, and she had the pale complexion of someone who rarely left the house. Her eyes were hostile, her mouth seemed permanently fixed in a downward turn, and her chin jutted out aggressively.

She must have been quite a pretty woman once, Paniatowski thought, but years of giving in to resentment and bitterness had indelibly marked her face, and though she was probably no more than forty, it was not a
good
forty.

‘Mrs Eccles?' Hall asked politely.

‘Who are you?' the woman demanded rudely.

Paniatowski produced her warrant card. ‘I'm DCI Paniatowski, and this my colleague, DCI Hall, from Scotland Yard.'

‘Are you here about my father?' Elizabeth Eccles asked.

‘Yes, we are,' Paniatowski replied.

‘Then you should have let me know exactly when you were coming – so I could have had some witnesses here.'

‘Now why would you need witnesses?' Hall asked mildly.

‘Because I don't trust you as far as I could throw you,' Elizabeth Eccles said. ‘Because I think the only reason that you're here is to protect your own – and anything else will just be for show.'

‘It's not like that at all, Mrs Eccles,' Paniatowski assured her. ‘We're both here with completely open minds, and if your father was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted . . .'

‘He was!'

‘. . . then we're more than willing to uncover any evidence which could prove that.'

For a moment it really looked as if Elizabeth Eccles was about to slam the door in their faces. Then she seemed to change her mind and said gracelessly, ‘Well, I suppose you'd better come in.'

She led them the short distance down the hallway to the front parlour.

It was a neat, tidy room, Paniatowski noted. A three-piece suite – in almost-neutral blue mock velvet – faced the fireplace, and both armchairs had been carefully placed at precisely the same angle to the sofa. The dark-brown hearth rug which lay stretched in front of the grate did not have a single wrinkle in it. The wallpaper had a floral pattern – which could have been cheerful, but wasn't – and if there had ever been pictures hanging on the walls, there was no evidence of it now. The only thing that gave the place a personal touch was the line of photographs arranged along the mantelpiece.

It was a cold room, Paniatowski thought – a room in which it was almost impossible to imagine there had ever been fun and laughter.

‘Sit down, if you want to,' Elizabeth Eccles said, indicating the two armchairs. ‘I won't be offering you tea because—'

‘Quite right, Mrs Eccles,' Hall interrupted her. ‘You shouldn't even have bothered to mention it. The last thing that either of us would want to do is to put you to the trouble.'

And he sounded as if he meant it, Paniatowski thought – sounded as if even the idea of Mrs Eccles making all the effort of boiling the water and filling the teapot was enough to cause him acute distress.

The phone rang in the hallway.

‘That'll be my daughter ringing,' Mrs Eccles said. ‘I've been expecting her to call.'

Most women in her position would have felt the need to add something like, ‘So if you'll excuse me for a minute . . .' but Mrs Eccles merely left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

Hall chuckled. ‘This is the warm Northern welcome that I've been told so much about, is it?' he asked. ‘Still,' he continued, more seriously, ‘if she really does believe that her father didn't kill Lilly, she was never going to take us to her bosom, now was she?'

The photographs had fascinated Paniatowski since she'd first entered the room, and now – just as her mentor, Charlie Woodend, would have done in her situation – she stood up and walked over to the fireplace.

The photographs appeared to have been deliberately arranged from left to right in strict chronological order.

The one on the extreme left was of a man and a young girl. The man had his hand resting lightly on the girl's shoulder. The girl herself stared at the camera with a look of dissatisfaction.

So even back then, before the family had been turned upside down by her father's arrest, Elizabeth had had a sour view of life, Paniatowski thought.

There were a few more photographs of Elizabeth's childhood, and in each of them she displayed the same look of peevishness.

Then, in the centre of the mantelpiece, there was her wedding photograph. Elizabeth looked older than she had in the earlier pictures, but not
that
much older. Nor could she have been described as a radiant bride, for though she had all the trappings necessary – the white dress, the bouquet – she still managed to appear as if life had somehow cheated her.