âWith respect, Ma'am . . .' Beresford began, in a stilted, wooden voice.
âRespect is what it's all about,' Paniatowski interrupted him. âEither you respect my gut on this matter or you don't. And if you
don't
, then â no hard feelings, Inspector â you're of no use to me in this investigation.' Her face suddenly softened and she smiled sadly at him. âReally, Colin, I
do
mean that â no hard feelings at all.'
Damn the woman! Beresford thought angrily. Why did she seem to have so much power over him? Why was it always so easy for her to pull him in the direction in which she wanted him to go?
And then he shrugged, smiled back at her, and said, âWell, if it's one of your famous gut feelings, I suppose there's no point in arguing with it, is there? So where do we start?'
âWe start with Walter Brown. He's always said he didn't kill Mottershead â let's find out who he thinks did.'
âWouldn't it just be easier to track down Mr X, boss?' Crane asked tentatively. âHe says he knows who did the killings, and you say you believe him. So if we can just get our hands on him, we'll have the answer to all our questions.'
âAnd if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,' Paniatowski said, throwing his earlier comment back at him. âSorry, Jack,' she continued, looking guilty. âYou're right, of course â he would be able to answer all our questions. The only problem is, as you've already pointed out, he's
anonymous
.'
âWe should still be able to narrow down the number of people it
could have
been,' Crane pointed out.
âOr we could put someone else on that particular line of inquiry,' Paniatowski replied.
âWho?' Beresford asked.
âWho do you think?' Paniatowski replied.
And then she picked up the phone, and dialled a number in Spain which she knew by heart.
TWENTY
I
t was a chill early morning, but Monika Paniatowski's brisk pace, as she walked down Whitebridge High Street, had less to do with the temperature than with the fact that she knew that if she once lost her self-imposed sense of momentum on this case, she would never get it back.
She turned off the main road, and was soon swallowed by a series of lanes which were just wide enough for two horses and carts to pass each other. This was the old part of town, the few remaining blocks of historic Whitebridge which the developers had yet to get their itchy hands on.
Browns' Second-Hand Books was located on Primrose Lane. To its left there was a joke shop â or joke
emporium
, as the faded sign above it proclaimed â which had severed rubber hands, devil masks and itching powder on display in the window. On the other side was a tobacconist's, which had as its display a large â and sun-bleached â cardboard model of a brand of cigarettes which the manufacturers had stopped making years earlier.
The bookshop itself presented a pleasing contrast to the quiet desperation of the two businesses that it was sandwiched between. Its window, unlike theirs, had been cleaned in the recent past, and the books on display had clearly been placed there with care, if not with a great deal of presentational skill.
When Paniatowski entered the shop, a brass bell jangled, and the door to the back room opened to reveal a large man in his late fifties.
He was wearing an old cardigan with leather patches on the elbows, and a pair of trousers which were probably not new at the time of the Queen's Coronation. It was the perfect uniform for a seller of old books, and it blended in like a dream with the rest of the shop.
The man's
face
, unfortunately, was not quite such a good match. It was obvious that his nose had been broken at some time in the past, and his cheeks, chin and forehead bore numerous scars of ancient battles. It was the sort of face that had old ladies nervously reaching for the communication cord in railway carriages â the sort of face that mothers would hold up to their children as an example of what might happen to them if they continued to run wild.
And yet when he smiled â as he did now â the harshness melted away, and a much gentler soul was revealed.
The man peered myopically at Paniatowski for a second, then said, âMrs Gaskell?'
âNo, I'm . . .'
âYou're quite right, and I'm quite wrong,' the man said firmly. âMrs Gaskell wouldn't suit you at all. You'd be much happier with something a little less stylized â something with a bit more zing to it.
The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot, perhaps? I'm getting closer, aren't I? I can always tell what people will like â even when they're not quite sure themselves.'
âI'm sorry, but I'm not a customer,' Paniatowski said, producing her warrant card. âI'm looking for Walter Brown.'
âAh!' the man said, disappointedly. âAnd which Walter Brown might that be? Walter Brown the lover of old books? Or could it be Walter Brown the convicted murderer?'
Paniatowski grinned, despite the macabre nature of the question. âWhich one are you?' she asked.
âI'm both, as you've probably already realized,' Brown said. âBut I imagine it's the latter, rather than the former, that you're interested in.'
âI'm afraid it is,' Paniatowski admitted.
Brown nodded, perhaps a little sadly.
âIn that case, you'd better come into the back room, and we'll have tea and biscuits,' he said. âTea and biscuits
always
make interrogations just a little more bearable.'
âI was a real thug at the time I was sent down for Mottershead's murder,' Walter Brown said, as he poured Paniatowski a cup of Earl Grey. âA thoroughly nasty piece of work â and a semi-literate one, to boot. Back then, I'd as soon have cut off my own arm than open a book. Prison changed all that. At first, I only took the reading classes they offered because it was a soft option. Then something magical happened. I started to enjoy it. And by the time I came out, I'd read everything in the prison library at least three or four times. But I didn't mind that, because there's always something new to find in a book, however well you think you know it.'
âYou always maintained your innocence,' Paniatowski said.
âI still do,' Brown told her.
âSo why did the police fix on you as their prime suspect?' Paniatowski wondered.
âOh, they had reasonable enough grounds, I suppose,' Brown admitted. âAs I said, I was a thug. I gloried in violence. It excited me, back then, almost as much as books do now. I may not have killed anybody, but I put a number of men in hospital, and one of them could
easily
have died.' He paused, and looked Paniatowski straight in the eyes. âI didn't murder Bazza Mottershead â but, given more time, I might well have done.'
âIf it's true that you were wrongly convicted, I'm surprised you don't sound bitter,' Paniatowski said.
âWhat would be the point of that?' Brown asked. âIt's over and done with, and we can't change the past, however much we might want to. Besides, in some ways, being wrongly convicted was the best thing that ever happened to me. In fact, I think you might say it made me free.'
âCould you explain that?' Paniatowski asked.
âWillingly. I've paid my debt to society â not for killing Mottershead, but for all the other terrible things I did â and now I can look the world squarely in the face. And prison made me a new man â a better man, I hope. If I'd gone on as I was, I'd probably have ended up dead in some back alley, without ever having experienced the joy of books, so, on one level at least, everything that happened, happened for the best.'
âThe police must have thought they had enough evidence to arrest you,' Paniatowski said. âWhat sort of case did they actually have?'
âA circumstantial one,' Brown said. He chuckled. âBack then, of course, I didn't know the word “circumstantial”.'
âWhy don't you fill in the details for me?' Paniatowski suggested.
âThere was really bad blood between you and Bazza, wasn't there, Wally?' Chief Inspector Paine demands.
âNo, I liked the feller,' Walter Brown says unconvincingly.
âYou
worked
with the feller â he was your fence â but you didn't
like
him at all,' the chief inspector replies. âTell me, Wally, when exactly did it finally penetrate that thick skull of yours that Bazza had been cheating you for years?'
A few days before he died, Brown thinks.
âI don't know what yer talkin' about,' he says aloud.
The chief inspector laughs. âHe always told you that the stuff you took to him was far less valuable than it actually was â and you were too stupid to know any different. But somebody must have finally tipped you the wink â and when they did, you went bloody mad.'
Yes, Brown thinks, I went bloody mad. I cornered Bazza in the lounge bar of the Pig and Whistle, grabbed him by throat, an' told him if he didn't pay all the money he owed me, I'd slit his bloody throat.
âI don't know what yer talkin' about,' he says, for the second time.
âYou really
are
thick, aren't you?' the chief inspector jeers. âWe've got half a dozen witnesses â decent, respectable people â who are willing to swear they heard you threaten to kill him.'
âSo you had a motive for murdering him,' Paniatowski said. âWhat else did the police use to build up their case against you?'
âI'll make a deal with you, Wally,' the chief inspector says. âYou give me an alibi for the night Bazza was killed, and I'll let you go immediately.'
But Brown has no alibi. He remembers nothing of the period between six o'clock on the evening of the murder, when he was drinking heavily in the Lamb and Flag, and eight o'clock the next morning, when he woke up among the bushes in the Corporation Park, with an empty whisky bottle at his side.
âCome on, Wally, if you didn't do it, just give us your alibi,' the chief inspector says.
âI can't,' Brown admits. âI don't
have
an alibi.'
âSo they had motive and opportunity,' Paniatowski mused. âWhat else did they have on you?'
âNothing,' Walter Brown told her.
Paniatowski frowned. âWell, if that's
really
all they had, I'm surprised they thought they had enough to charge you,' she admitted.
âMaybe they wouldn't have charged me if it hadn't been for the race,' Brown said.
âThe race?
What
race?'
âThe race with Scotland Yard!'
âI'll be honest with you, Wally, a lot of the younger lads in the division are really pissed off that the chief constable called in Scotland Yard on the Lilly Dawson murder,' the chief inspector tells Wally Brown.
Brown, who has no idea of what any of this can possibly have to do with him, says nothing.
âIt's true we hadn't made a lot of progress in that case,' the chief inspector admits, âbut, given time, we'd have cracked it, wouldn't we?'
Wally Brown is obviously expected to say something, so he says, âI don't know.'
âOh, we'd have cracked it, all right,' the chief inspector asserts. âBut we've lost our chance, because the “experts” have arrived and taken over. Now, I've nothing against Charlie Woodend â apart from the fact that he's from the Yard â but that poncey sergeant of his is really getting up my nose.' He reaches into his pocket, and takes out a packet of cigarettes. âFancy a smoke, Wally?'
âPlease,' Brown says.
The chief inspector lights up their cigarettes. âNow the question you're probably asking yourself is, are we just going to take this lying down?' he continues. âAnd my answer is that we're not. You see, if we can solve our murder before they solve theirs, it'll be obvious to anybody who are the
real
detectives and who are just big girls' blouses. Are you following me, Wally?'
âNo,' Brown says.
âThe way I see it, we can do each other a bit of good here, you and me. You can help me by confessing to the murder, and I can help you by putting in a good word for you with the judge. What do you say to that?'
âI didn't do it,' Brown tells him.
The chief inspector's eyes harden. âThink carefully, Wally,' he advises, âbecause there's a time limit to how long this offer will be on the table. If they catch their man before you confess, we'll be left with egg on our faces, and you've no idea what kind of a rough time we'll give you then.'
âI wouldn't confess, but they charged me anyway,' Walter Brown told Paniatowski. âFunnily enough, it was shortly after that when I met Chief Inspector Woodend.' He smiled. âThey were taking me to the cells, and Mr Woodend was standing in the corridor. I asked him to help me, and when he said he couldn't, I reacted like I always did in those days. I tried to hit him â and he, quite rightly, flattened me.'
Paniatowski was hardly listening to him any more.
It couldn't be as simple as Brown had described it, she told herself. It simply couldn't be.
âIsn't it possible that you were so drunk on the night Bazza Mottershead was murdered that you might have killed him, and then remembered nothing about it?' she asked.
âNo,' Brown said emphatically.
âBut if you had a complete memory loss about that evening . . .'
âIf I'd have killed him, I'd have known. However drunk I'd been, I'd have
known
.'