Echoes of the Dead (29 page)

In the distance, he could hear the sound of the church bell tolling. It was a very un-English sound, he thought, as different from the church bells back home as it could possibly be. There, in Anglican England, a peal of six or eight beautifully constructed bells created a melodious sound which gently drifted across the verdant countryside and reminded the faithful that, if it was not too much trouble, God would rather like their presence in His house. Here, in Catholic Spain, it was a single bell – little more than an upturned bucket, in Woodend's opinion – which harshly and uncompromisingly called the worshippers to mass.

The kettle had boiled. Woodend poured the steaming water into the pot, and was just lighting up his first cigarette when he suddenly froze.

‘Jesus!' he said.

Paco had been quite right to advise him to stop thinking about the anonymous caller and turn his mind to something else for a while – because he'd done just that, and it had worked.

Now he had the answer, it was so obvious that he almost couldn't believe it had taken so long to occur to him – because of all the answers he
could have
come up with, it was the only one which truly
fitted
.

He wished that he could be whisked back to Whitebridge in a second, so that he could follow up the sudden insight himself.

But since that was not going to happen, he thought, he'd better talk to Monika as soon as possible.

The bookshop door was open, and Walter Brown was sitting behind the counter, quietly reading. He was aware she was there, but did look up until he had finished the paragraph.

‘I called you at home last night, but you didn't pick up the phone,' Paniatowski said reproachfully, before she could stop herself.

And then she thought, Don't pressurize him. For God's sake, don't
pressurize
him.

‘I didn't answer the phone because I wasn't there to answer it,' Brown told her. ‘I went for a long walk. I visited all the places that I knew as a younger man – as a
different
man. I thought doing that might help me to decide whether or not to give you the list you wanted.'

‘And
did
it help?' Paniatowski asked calmly, though what she really wanted to do was grab him by his cardigan and scream, ‘Give me the bloody list!'

‘Yes, it helped,' Walter Brown said. Then he added, with a slight smile, ‘I decided that I'm going to trust you to do the right thing – even though you
are
a police officer.'

The list! a voice in Paniatowski's head thundered. Hand over the bloody list!

Brown's smiled widened. ‘I can see that you're more than eager to read it, so here it is,' he said, holding up a piece of paper which been lying on the counter.

As Paniatowski took the list from him, she could not fail to notice the slight tremble in her hand.

Calm down, she ordered herself. It's only a few names. It may not lead anywhere.

‘Would you allow me to ask you about the people on this list?' she said to Brown.

‘By all means, ask,' Brown replied, as if he'd been anticipating the question. ‘But you must accept – right from the start – that if I don't want to give you answers, I won't.'

‘That's understood,' Paniatowski agreed.

Walter Brown's handwriting was large, clear and almost childlike, and though she'd cautioned herself that it would be a few names, the list was, in fact, very long.

Paniatowski scanned the names. She recognized a few of them from the days when she'd been in uniform, and in regular contact with Whitebridge's petty criminal fraternity, but this list was history, rather than news, and most of the names were unknown to her.

This wasn't going to help, she thought with sickening realization. In her desperation, she'd pinned most of her hopes on this list – and it wasn't going to lead her anywhere!

And then she saw a name which made her heart beat a little faster.

‘What's Fred Howerd doing on this list?' she asked, almost breathlessly.

‘You asked me for the names of all Mottershead's known associates, and that's what I've given you,' Brown told her.

‘But Fred Howerd was . . .'

‘A little wild in his youth, but later a successful market trader who would one day inherit his half-share of his father's business?' Brown asked, with obvious amusement.

‘Well, yes.'

‘You've really no idea what Fred was actually like, have you, Chief Inspector?' Brown asked.

‘Then enlighten me,' Paniatowski said.

‘There are men who are just naturally bent – who couldn't resist the opportunity of stealing a penny from a poor orphan, even if they already had a thousand pounds in their pocket – and Fred Howerd was one of them.'

‘Are you saying he was a thief?'

‘Not exactly a thief. He was more of a fence, I suppose. To be strictly accurate, he was the last stage in the fencing process.'

‘Could you explain that?'

‘Fred sold electrical goods on the market, but they didn't belong to him, they belonged to his father – and his father took most of the profit.'

‘Yes, it's natural that he would.'

‘But let's just suppose that, as well as doing that, he used his father's business to sell goods the old man
hadn't
provided him with.'

‘Stolen goods! You're saying Fred dealt in
stolen goods
?'

‘That's exactly what I'm saying. If I nicked anything new – or even nearly new – Mottershead would pass it on to Fred, who'd sell it off at a slight discount.' He chuckled. ‘And do you know what's ironic – some of the stolen goods that Fred sold from his father's stall had actually been stolen from his father!'

‘So Fred fenced the goods and then split the profits with Mottershead?'

‘Yes, and the real beauty of the racket was that Howerd Electrical had a reputation in Whitebridge for absolute honesty – the old man was a God-fearing Catholic, you know – so it never occurred to anybody that some of the goods might be a bit dodgy.'

And so Fred had abused his position and cheated his father, Paniatowski thought.

Worse than that, he had risked his father's reputation, because if he'd been caught, there would have been plenty of people who would think the old man was in on it.

A sudden fresh wave of depression washed over her. She had discovered a minor racket which had been played out nearly a quarter of a century earlier – but where did
that
get her?

‘Did Howerd ever have a falling out with Mottershead, like the one you had?' she asked hopefully.

Brown shook his head. ‘They never exchanged a cross word, as far as I know.'

‘But it's possible, isn't it, that Mottershead cheated Howerd just as he cheated you, and that Howerd found out about it?'

‘Mottershead would never even have dreamed of cheating Fred,' Brown said, with conviction.

‘How can you be so sure of that?'

‘Would
you
cheat your best friend?'

‘They were
best friends
?' Paniatowski asked, incredulously.

‘Maybe
friends
is the wrong word,' Brown admitted, ‘but it's difficult to find the right one.' He waved his hands helplessly in the air, then grinned, and added, ‘Do you know, there are some days when I really wish I was Tolstoy.'

And there are some days when I wish I was one of those detectives you read about in mystery novels, who always seem to know all the answers immediately, Paniatowski thought.

‘You're doing fine,' she assured Walter Brown. ‘Just take your time.'

‘I used to know two fellers called Brian King and Eric Dewhurst,' Brown said. ‘They were very keen fly-fishermen – almost fanatical about it, if the truth be told. They spent nearly all their free time together, but apart from the fishing, they had nothing at all in common. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

‘I think so.'

‘Brian liked dancing, but Eric had two left feet. Eric was a supporter of the Rovers, but football left Brian cold.' Brown chuckled. ‘You'd only got to look at their wives to really see how different they were – they'd never have gone in for wife swapping, that pair, because each one thought his own wife was gorgeous and that his mate's wife wouldn't have looked at all out of place in a horror movie. And then there was—'

‘I get the point,' Paniatowski interrupted. ‘They'd never have been friends under normal circumstances, but their mutual interest – their mutual obsession – in fly-fishing held them together.'

‘That's it!' Walter Brown agreed. ‘It created a sort of invisible bond between them – a bond that outsiders, who didn't share their obsession, couldn't possibly understand.'

‘And Howerd and Mottershead had the same kind of bond?'

‘That's what I'm saying.'

‘So what was it
they
were interested in?'

‘To tell you the truth, I don't really know,' Walter Brown confessed. ‘Whatever it was, they never talked about it when there were ever any other people around – which is more than you could say for Brian and Eric, with their bloody fly-fishing.'

‘You must have some idea – even if it's only a very vague one,' Paniatowski pressed him.

‘I do know is that they sometimes used to go off for half-day excursions together, if that's any help.'

‘Where did they go, when they took these excursions?'

‘Again, they never talked about it. But I remember them once lettin' it slip – accidentally like – that they'd been to Bolton.'

The message that the desk sergeant handed to Paniatowski said simply that Charlie Woodend had called from Spain and wanted to speak to her urgently.

‘He asked me to underline “urgently” three times, so I'd imagine he means it,' the sergeant said.

Charlie must believe that he'd come up with the name of the anonymous informer, Paniatowski thought, too impatient to wait for the lift, and instead taking the stairs three at a time.

And maybe he had.

But even if he was wrong about that, she still wanted to talk to him, because – suddenly – the case was on new level.

Charlie had once told her that, in many ways, an investigation was just like a jigsaw puzzle, she remembered, as she rushed down the corridor towards her office. All you had to do was fit all the pieces of the puzzle together and you'd have the complete picture. But
unlike
a jigsaw, he'd cautioned, the pieces weren't all lying neatly in the box – they were spread all over the place, and before you could begin to slot them into place, you first had to bloody well find them.

Well, she'd scooped up a number of the pieces that morning. There were not enough for the complete picture, it was true, but at least she now had some idea of what
kind
of picture it was – and she wanted to find out what Charlie made of it all.

She had meant to hear what Woodend had to say before laying out her own discoveries in front of him, but when he answered the phone, Paniatowski just began talking.

She told him all about the fencing racket deal that Howerd had been running with Mottershead, and how, beyond that – or so it seemed to Walter Brown – the two men were united by a strong common interest. She talked about their half-day excursions, at least one of which had been to Bolton.

It was as she was talking that she suddenly realized she did not sound like the detective chief inspector who was in charge of the case at all, but much more closely resembled the eager young sergeant who she'd once been, in the process of reporting a triumph to her wise and all-seeing boss. She realized it – and she didn't give a damn!

When she'd finished, Woodend said, ‘You've done well, Monika. Now let's talk about what it all means.'

And they did. They argued the case back and to, and inside out. They challenged each other's theories with a passion, and reached common ground with some relief. And when they had finished, Paniatowski felt exhausted.

‘You've been a great help, Charlie,' Paniatowski said. ‘No, more than that – you've been a bloody marvel.'

Woodend chuckled.

The chuckle annoyed Paniatowski for a second, because it seemed as if he was laughing at
her
. Then she told herself not to be so sensitive, that it was good that he
could
chuckle, because that meant that – at least in his opinion – the darkest days were possibly behind them.

‘What's so funny, Charlie?' she asked.

‘You were about to hang up the phone, weren't you, Monika?' Woodend replied – and he was still laughing at a joke that, as yet, she seemed unable to share with him.

‘Well, yes, I was about to hang up,' she admitted. ‘I thought we'd thrashed out pretty much all we
could
thrash out for the moment, and that I needed to brief my team next. Anything wrong with that?'

‘Not really,' Woodend said, ‘except that you seem to have forgotten that though
you
rang
me
, it was only because I asked you to.'

‘That's true,' Paniatowski replied, a slightly perplexed frown crossing her brow. ‘Why was that, Charlie? Was it because . . .' And then it hit her. ‘Of course! You think you know who Mr X is!' she all but screamed.

‘That's right,' Woodend agreed.

‘So who the bloody hell
is
he?'

‘What you're looking for is a man wracked by guilt and weighed down by his sense of responsibility,' Woodend told her.