The Dark Lady (26 page)

Woodend shook his head. “At the time I said it, I hadn't spoken to you, an' I'd no idea who the killer was, so I certainly wasn't doin' anythin' to cover his tracks for him.”

“So why didn't you tell Armstrong the truth?”

“Because he'd then have been obliged to tell Gerhard's parents,” Woodend explained.

“So what?”

“It's bad enough them knowin' their son's dead now, without them learnin' that he's been gone for fifteen years, an' was killed by his own cousin. At least this way they'll be able to kid themselves into thinkin' that he had a few happy years before he met his end.”

You never cease to amaze me, you old bugger, Rutter thought. But aloud, all he said was, “It's all very well you being so magnanimous, sir, but it'll be a black mark against my record.”

“I'm the feller who was in charge of the case,” Woodend said. “If anybody's goin' to take the blame for not closin' it, it'll be me.”

“Mud sticks,” Rutter told him. “Once you've been associated with a failure, you're marked for life.”

Woodend sighed. “I'll tell you what, lad. If you really want us to arrest Karl Müller, we can go back to Cheshire right now an' do it. An' I really mean that. You only have to say the word, an' we'll do it.”

Rutter opened his mouth and tried to will himself into saying, ‘OK, let's do it,' but the words just wouldn't come.

Cloggin'-it Charlie had got things right again, he thought – God damn the bloody man!

I
t was late afternoon. Woodend sat across the desk from Commander Greaves. There was a distinct chill in the atmosphere which had nothing at all to do with the room temperature.

“You really screwed things up this time, didn't you, Charlie?” the commander asked.

Woodend shrugged, wondering what special skill it took to make the use of his first name sound so much like an insult.

“So I didn't come back with a result this time,” he said. “Nobody's got a perfect record – an' mine's a bloody sight better than most.”

“I'm not just talking about results,” the commander said, with an edge of anger slipping into his voice, which Woodend thought might merely be there for effect. “I'm talking about the fact that in a few short days you've managed to piss off one chief constable and one very large chemical company. And it's not the first time something like that's happened either.”

“An' it probably won't be the last,” Woodend replied.

“You might be wrong about that, Charlie – at least as far as the Yard's concerned.”

Woodend felt his heart suddenly start to beat a little faster. What was his boss saying to him? he wondered. Or did he really wonder at all? Weren't the commander's words open to only one possible interpretation?

He thought about living a life in which he wasn't a policeman – and found the notion inconceivable. However frustrating he found his work, however much it sometimes sickened him, he was a bobby through and through.

He took a deep breath. “Would you mind explainin' that last remark, sir?” he asked.

Greaves lit up a Player's Navy Cut. Woodend watched as the grey smoke spiralled into the air, like a dangerous snake which seemed languid, but was always ready to strike.

“If you had have got a result, you'd probably have saved your skin – at least until the next time you got up the nose of someone important,” the commander said. “But you didn't get a result. You've absolutely no idea who killed Gerhard Schultz, now have you?”

Though the commander didn't know it, he had just opened a loophole. All Woodend had to do was produce the name of Karl Müller, like an ace from up his sleeve, and he was in the clear. And what would Müller get for his crime. Four years? Maybe even less than that? It was even possible, given that Johann Schultz was a war criminal, that he might not serve any time at all.

He closed his eyes and pictured the concentration camp he had seen for himself during the Allied invasion of Germany. The hollow eyes of the starving prisoners. The feeling of desperation which was so great that those prisoners could not even rejoice in their own liberation. Karl Müller had come through all that, had regained his faith in God, and had even been willing to forgive Johann Schultz if he'd shown the slightest sign of repentance.

“I said, you've no idea who killed Gerhard Schultz, have you?” the commander repeated.

“No, sir,” Woodend replied, “I haven't got a clue.”

“So I've had to send a fresh team up to Cheshire to sort out your mess, which means you're about as deep in the shit as it's possible to be.”

“There's a move to get me dismissed, is there?” Woodend asked – though he didn't know why he even bothered to state such an obvious inference.

“It's more than a move. The Top Brass are tired of having to apologise for you, tired of having to patch things up after you've been through your ‘bull in a china shop' routine.”

So the unthinkable really was about to happen. “I won't take it lyin' down, you know,” Woodend warned the commander.

“You know Jack Dinnage, don't you, Charlie?” Greaves asked, totally out of the blue.

“Aye, he was my inspector when I first joined the force. We got on well. But what's that got to do with . . .?”

“You may not know it, but he's recently been appointed the chief constable of Central Lancashire.”

“Good for him,” Woodend said. “I'm very pleased. He deserves it. But I thought it was
my
future we were talkin' about.”

“It is. For some reason I don't pretend to understand, Jack wants you to work for him.”

Woodend saw exactly what Greaves had been doing – first paint the situation as hopeless, and then throw the drowning man a lifeline. But it wasn't a lifeline he was prepared to grasp at just yet.

“Will there be a promotion in it for me if I agree to move?” he asked.

“Don't push your luck,” the commander growled.

“I could fight you over this,” Woodend said. “I could set the Police Federation on you.”

“And what would be the point of that?” the commander asked, shaking his head. “Even if you won – and I don't think there's much chance of that – there'd be so much bad blood that you wouldn't ever want to work for the Yard again. And you wouldn't have the Lancashire job to fall back on, either.”

The bastard was right, Woodend thought. He was dead bloody right. Anyway, why should he even want to stay in London? He was a northerner who had never quite come to terms with living in the south. And who was to say the cases which came the way of a regional police force wouldn't be every bit as interesting as the ones handled by the Yard? Of course, it would mean losing Bob Rutter, who was the best bagman he'd ever had but . . .

“I'll take the job on one condition,” he said.

“And what's that?” the commander asked suspiciously.

“My sergeant gets a promotion.”

“But he's only held his present rank for five minutes,” the commander protested.

“He's a quick learner,” Woodend countered. “He's picked up more in them five minutes he's been my sergeant than a lot of bobbies do in a whole lifetime on the job.”

The commander shook his head dismissively. “We can't have him leapfrogging other applicants. The Yard doesn't work like that.”

“He wouldn't be in the Yard. I'd want to take him with me to the Mid-Lancs force.”

Greaves stubbed his cigarette exasperatedly in the ashtray. “For God's sake, talk sense! Even if I agree, your sergeant probably wouldn't want the job if it was offered to him.”

“He'd take it,” Woodend assured him. “He's far too ambitious a lad to turn down a quick promotion. Besides, we're a good team, an' he won't want to see us split up.”

“So you think he'll move up to the darkest north just so he can still work with you?” the commander asked incredulously. “You've got a very high opinion of yourself, haven't you?”

“Aye, an' I think a lot of young Bob Rutter an' all. So what's it goin' to be, sir? Do we have a fight on our hands – you an' me – or do you agree to give me what I want?”

“If it was left up to me, I'd tell you to go hell,” the commander said, and now the anger in his voice was definitely real.

“But . . .?” Woodend asked.

Greaves sighed. “But since Jack Dinnage is so keen to have you working with him, I expect he'll go along with the deal.”

It was towards dusk, and the sky was filled with crimson swirls. Woodend walked slowly along the Embankment, looking down at the river which had, for so long, been the very heart of the city. Yet it was not quite the vital heart it had once been. When he'd first come to London, just after the war, it had been chock-a-block with traffic – liners, cargo vessels, tugs – but not any more.

Things change, he thought. Sometimes they change so slowly that we hardly notice it happening – but they change all the same. How long had it been since he'd been an earnest young bobbie just starting out on his first solo beat? Half a lifetime ago! And yet it seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye.

He thought of Joan, who had been a slim girl when he married her, but now had settled into comfortable matronly plumpness. And of Annie, a tiny baby he had held in his arms who would soon be bringing her first boyfriend home for Sunday afternoon tea.

Yes, things changed, and he should never have expected to stay in Scotland Yard for ever.

He was going back to Lancashire, where people didn't look at you strangely when you asked for black pudding. He would be able to walk up the hills he had walked up in his youth, to visit the lakes he had not seen since before he started shaving. It was a wonderful prospect, so he wondered why, even as he was savouring his return home, there was a part of him which was almost dreading it a little.