The Dead Hand of History (29 page)

Watching him from the back of the shop, Jenny Brunskill was forced to admit to herself that his uniform looked much smarter than the uniforms which Brunskill's men wore.

She should have noticed that before, she thought. It was her
job
to notice the little details which made all the difference. And now she
had
noticed it, she would make it her business to see to it that, within a month, Brunskill's men had uniforms which made Tompkins' men look positively slovenly.

The delivery man walked up to the counter, and placed his tray on it. ‘A dozen?' he suggested.

‘Not sure about that,' Mr Handley said dubiously. ‘This is a small business, and I don't normally sell more than eight or nine.'

The delivery man laughed. ‘You've still not quite sussed out the system, have you?' he asked. ‘We don't care what you sell – we're much more interested in what you
don't
sell, if you know what I mean.'

‘I know what you mean,' Mr Handley agreed.

‘So take a dozen, and if you have to throw any of them away, well,
you
won't be the loser, will you?'

He wasn't talking like a bread-delivery man, Jenny thought – at least, not like any bread-delivery man
she
'd ever known.

‘A dozen, then?' the delivery man asked.

‘A dozen,' Mr Handley agreed.

‘We might as well settle up for the week, mightn't we?' the delivery man suggested.

‘If that's all right with you,' Handley agreed.

The bread man consulted his clipboard, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of banknotes and laid them on the counter. ‘I think you'll find that's right,' he said.

‘Seems to be,' Handley agreed.

Jenny waited until the bread man had left the shop, then went over to the counter.

‘Here you are,' Handley said to her. ‘A loaf fresh from the bakery, just like you wanted.'

‘And
you
only wanted to take nine, though you ended up taking a
dozen
,' Jenny said.

‘You naughty girl,' Handley said, wagging his finger playfully at her. ‘Didn't your mother ever tell you that you should never listen in on other people's conversations?'

‘And didn't anybody ever tell
you
that when you buy something, it's customary for you to pay the seller for it, and not the other way around,' Jenny countered.

Handley's face darkened. ‘Look, I don't know what your game is,' he said, ‘but I want you to leave my shop right now.'

‘Don't worry, I'm going,' Jenny told him. ‘And as for the Tompkins' crusty loaf I asked you to put aside for me – well, you know what you can do with
that
!'

Even the most devoted of grieving relatives would have thought twice before appearing at the dear departed's graveside at eight o'clock in the morning, and the official party assembled around this particular grave had the cemetery to themselves.

‘How the hell did you get things moving so quickly?' Beresford asked, as he watched the gravediggers at work.

‘I called in a few favours,' Paniatowski replied.

‘Including, I presume, some that were owed to you by our beloved chief constable himself?'

Paniatowski looked away.

‘Well no, that was one of the favours that I
didn't
actually call in,' she admitted.

‘What?' Beresford exclaimed. ‘You're surely not trying to tell me that Mr Baxter gave his approval for a dodgy enterprise like this one without even having to be strong-armed into it?'

‘The disinterment is perfectly legal, and I've got the papers in my pocket to prove it,' Paniatowski said flatly.

The pile of earth was growing on the canvas which the gravediggers had laid beside the grave, and if the corpse was literally six feet under they were probably halfway to reaching it.

‘Let me see if I've got this right,' Beresford said, with growing incredulity. ‘What you're saying – or rather, what you're
implying
– is that Mr Baxter doesn't even
know
about any of this?'

Paniatowski forced a weak grin to her face. ‘I didn't want to disturb his beauty sleep.'

‘I want to be quite clear about this,' Beresford persisted. ‘Do you,
or do you not
, have authorization from the big chief?'

‘As I've already told you, it's all perfectly legal,' Paniatowski replied, avoiding the question.

‘But not authorized,' Beresford pressed.

‘But not authorized,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘Last night, when we were in the Drum, you talked about stirring the stew to see what bubbled to the surface,' Beresford said. ‘But if you're doing all this entirely off your own bat, then it's not a stew pot you're stirring at all – it's a bloody cesspit.'

‘That's certainly one way of looking at it,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘It's the
only
way of looking at it, Monika,' Beresford countered. ‘The shit will be flying in all directions – any minute now – and some of it's bound to stick to you.'

‘Maybe,' Paniatowski said.

‘There isn't any
maybe
about it. You deliberately went out of your way to blind-side the chief constable.'

‘Charlie Woodend used to do that all the time.'

‘Yes, he did. But Mr Woodend always knew what he was looking for when he pulled a stunt like this.'

‘
Usually
knew,' Paniatowski corrected him.

‘All right, usually knew,' Beresford conceded. ‘But
you
have no idea
what
you'll find when you hand this stiff over to Dr Shastri.'

‘True,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But there've been two murders, so why shouldn't there have been three?'

‘Because we know the motive for the murders of Tom Whittington and Linda, and there isn't
any
possible motive here.'

He was right, Paniatowski thought, in a sudden burst of panic. It
had been
a crazy idea – an idea she'd never even have contemplated if she hadn't been both exhausted and desperate.

But it was too late to stop it now, she told herself, as she watched the gravediggers step back and the undertaker's assistants move in to lift the coffin from the grave.

‘I think you'd better leave,' she told Beresford.

‘Now why would I want to do that?' the inspector asked.

‘Because if you leave now, you might still just be able to get away with claiming that you didn't know was going on – that I'd kept you as much in the dark about it as I kept the chief constable.'

‘I think you're wrong there,' Beresford said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I think that if I leave now, I'll have a
very good
chance of getting away with it.'

The undertaker's assistants had removed the coffin from what should have been its last resting place, and were about to take it to the waiting hearse – but Beresford still showed no signs of moving.

‘Well?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Well what?'

‘You're still here.'

Beresford shrugged. ‘If you're on a sinking ship, the least you can do is make sure the deckchairs are arranged nicely,' he said.

There were two ways to enter the old bakery's loading bay. The first, which had once been used by the bread-delivery vans, consisted of a set of high double gates, which were now heavily chained and padlocked. The second entrance was a small door next to the gates, which had been used by the bakery's staff, and the key that DC Crane had in his hand was to the smaller entrance.

He inserted the key in the lock, and felt an uneasy twinge when it actually turned.

He pushed the door open, and stepped inside. A little of the outside light filtered into the large loading bay, but not enough to really see very much at all. Crane, congratulating himself for having anticipated this problem, switched on the torch he'd brought with him, and aimed it across the room.

His beam of light picked out the shape of the car – and not just an ordinary, common-or-garden car, but an E-type Jag!

Crane felt his stomach clench up. It had all been a game so far, he suddenly realized – a light-hearted version of a Shakespearian tragedy which he had been playing in his head for his own amusement.

And while he'd argued to himself that it was possible this was the scene of the crime, he'd never
really
believed it would be.

Not until now!

He walked over to the car, ran his finger across the bonnet and examined the result with his torch. The finger had picked up some dust, but not a great deal, and he was willing to bet that the vehicle had not been parked there for more than a couple of days.

It was then he began to feel that he was not alone in the loading bay – to sense that there was some presence watching his every move.

‘Come out, wherever you are!' he shouted, with all the authority he could muster.

There was no answer.

‘This is the police,' Crane continued. ‘There is no escape. We have the place surrounded.'

Christ! he thought. What a terrible thing to say. I sound like I'm in some cheap American cop show.

The silence continued.

‘Stay where you are,' he ordered, then remembered that only seconds earlier he'd told whoever it was to come out.

During his training, it had been drummed into him that in situations like this he should always proceed with caution.

But that training had not taken place in a dark bakery delivery bay, in which a murder victim's car had been stored. It had not prepared him for the hair-raising sense of evil which seemed to be floating through the air. In other words, the training had been a complete waste of time.

He plunged into the darkness, the torch in his hand – held at chest level – cutting a thin path through the darkness.

‘You can't escape!' he shouted, and was surprised to discover that even the sound of his own voice was starting to frighten him.

He was not expecting any obstacles to be in his way, and when he encountered one he was totally unprepared to deal with it.

Suddenly, he had lost his balance and was lurching forward. He put out his hands to break his fall, but even as they were making contact with the ground, his head collided with something hard and unyielding.

He had heard that a blow to the head could cause you to see stars, but was amazed to discover that it was actually true.

What the hell happened there? he asked himself, aware, even as the thought passed through his mind, that only a small part of his brain was working properly, and that the rest of it was off on some kind of sun-dozed holiday.

He tried to force himself to focus.

The object he had hit his head on had undoubtedly been metal, but the one that he had tripped over had not. It had been solid, but not as solid as a lump of iron. Not as sharp, either. It had been rounded, and – he was guessing here – it had probably been quite long.

He was wasting time, he told himself. If he really wanted to find out what had tripped him and what had assaulted him, he should examine them in the light of his torch.

He had dropped the torch, but he could see the beam shining into the darkness.

It was no more than a few feet away, he estimated. In order to retrieve it, he didn't even need to stand up.

And maybe it would be better
not
to stand up until he had the torch in his hand, and could see what he was doing.

He wriggled, moving his whole body closer to the torch, then stretched out his hand to grasp it.

But there was something in the way – a long, rounded object.

Was this what he had tripped over, he asked himself. No, that thing – whatever it was – was still somewhere behind him. This had to be another
thing
.

He inched his body a few inches further towards the torch, and let his hand climb over this new obstacle, like a mountaineer scaling a small mountain range.

As his fingers ran over the hard ridges, surrounded by a softer – and much more pliable – material, he finally realized what he was touching, and almost pulled his hand back in revulsion.

But that would never do. It wouldn't do at all. He was a policeman, after all. And policemen didn't scare easily.

‘You need the torch!' screamed a panicking voice in his head. ‘You
have to have
the torch!'

His fingers, exhausted by the climb, finally wrapped around the torch, and he was able to pull it back over the mound.

Now was the time to
see
, he told himself. Now was the time to confirm what he already suspected.

It was a body, all right.

A woman's body!

The beam of the torch picked out the details of her torso. Her blouse had been slashed to ribbons, and was covered with rusty-brown stains, which could only be blood.

There's no need to look at the head, he told himself. You don't need to see
that
at all.

But his arm refused to obey his brain, and the torch beam travelled up the woman's body, stopping only when it reached the face.

‘Oh, my God!' he moaned.

Now he understood all the warnings his kindly, well-meaning subconscious had been flinging at him, and promised he would never ignore it again.

But there were more much pressing matters to deal with than his own foolishness.

He wanted to be sick – he really
wanted
to be sick – but he knew that if he
was
sick in his current prone position, he was in danger of swallowing his own vomit and choking on it.