She turned her attention to Sir William Langley, who was huddled protectively in the wing armchair in front of her.
No one wants to find a naked, murdered man in his own back yard – even if the back yard in question is at least a couple of hundred yards from the back doorstep – she thought, but even allowing for that, Langley seemed to have taken it harder than most men in his situation would have.
‘Who could have done such a thing?’ Langley asked, speaking over the top of a brandy glass which had been nearly full a couple of minutes earlier, and now was almost empty. ‘Who could have done such a thing to me?’
‘Quite,’ Paniatowski agreed silently. ‘Let’s not bother our heads about who could have done it to the poor bugger out there – we should concentrate on who could have done it to you!’
‘Did you get a close look at the victim, sir?’ she asked.
‘Sir William,’ the man in the armchair replied. ‘I would appreciate it if you’d call me Sir William.’
So that was how it was going to be, was it? Paniatowski wondered. Nerves shot to hell, but still clinging to his precious title at all costs.
‘Did you get a close look at the victim, Sir William?’ she said.
Langley shuddered. ‘A closer look than I’d have liked. I didn’t know he was dead at first, you see. I didn’t even know he was real.’
‘And did you recognize him?’
‘How could I possibly have recognized him?’ Langley demanded, in what could have been anger, and could have been fear – and just possibly was both. ‘I’m a merchant banker, my good woman.’
‘So?’
‘So I draw my circle of friends exclusively from other merchant bankers and the top men in the professions. So I simply don’t come into any contact with that class of person.’
‘Which class of person?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘People like him,’ Langley said, amazed that she’d felt the need to even ask such a stupid question. ‘People . . . like . . . the . . . dead . . . man,’ he added, spacing out his words in case she still hadn’t got the point.
‘Ah, I see,’ Paniatowski said.
‘I should damned well think you would,’ Langley said. ‘After all, you are supposed to be a chief inspector.’
‘But what I still don’t see is how you know he is, in fact, “that class of person”.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We tend to judge people by the clothes they’re wearing and the way they speak. But the dead man wasn’t wearing any clothes at all – and dead men are notoriously silent. So if you don’t know him, how do you know he isn’t another merchant banker?’
‘He doesn’t look like a merchant banker,’ Langley said peevishly.
‘And how do merchant bankers look?’ Paniatowski countered.
Langley considered the question for a second. ‘I may have expressed myself badly,’ he conceded, ‘but that’s perfectly understandable, after the ordeal I’ve been through.’
‘So you forgive yourself,’ Paniatowski said softly.
‘What was that, Chief Inspector?’
‘I said, yes, Sir William, it is understandable. So how did you mean to express yourself?’
‘I suppose what I really meant to say was that the people with whom I rub shoulders are simply not the kind of people who get themselves murdered – and, especially, murdered in such a ghastly manner.’
‘So, just to be quite clear on that matter, you’re saying that you’ve definitely never seen the dead man before?’
Langley looked vague – and slightly troubled.
‘I suppose I may possibly have seen him before,’ he said finally. ‘One sees all sorts of people – hundreds of them, every day – whether one wants to or not, doesn’t one?’
One does, Paniatowski thought. But one isn’t usually so bloody cagey about it.
‘Sorry to be so persistent,’ she said, ‘but I really need you to spell it out for me. You’re saying, if I understand you correctly, that even if you have seen him, you don’t recognize him – and you certainly couldn’t put a name to him?’
‘Just so,’ Langley agreed.
‘Bloody liar!’ Paniatowski thought.
The grounds outside the house had been transformed since Langley had taken his early morning stroll. A large section – from the artificial lake to the trees which ran around the boundary – had been cordoned off, and within this roped-in area more than a dozen policemen were already at work.
In the statue garden, several technicians were dusting the metal statutes for fingerprints.
On the lawn surrounding the statue garden, a line of uniformed officers were slowly advancing, carefully examining each blade of immaculately cut grass in front of them before taking a step forward.
There was no sign of either an ambulance or Dr Shastri’s Land Rover, but tyre tracks at the edge of one of the flower beds were ample proof that they had both been there.
DS Cousins was standing just outside the cordon, from where he could observe all the other officers at the same time. He had his hands reflectively on his hips, and a cigarette dangled languidly from his mouth.
‘I thought you’d given up smoking, Paul,’ Paniatowski said.
Cousins smiled sheepishly. ‘I had, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but there’s nothing like a couple of nasty murders for driving you back to the weed.’
Paniatowski watched the technicians at work for a moment, then said, ‘So what have you got for me, Sergeant?’
‘In most respects, this murder seems to be almost identical to the previous killing, ma’am,’ Cousins replied. ‘For example, while Dr Shastri’s not prepared to be definite about it until she’s conducted a thorough examination, she thinks that the latest victim’s been dead for about the same amount of time as the last victim was when we found him—’
‘But we didn’t really find him at all, did we?’ Paniatowski interrupted. ‘It’s much more a case of us having been led to him. The killer dumped his first victim in a place he knew the kennel owner walked past every morning, and left his second where he knew Langley would be bound to come across it on his stroll. It’s as if he doesn’t just want them to be found – he wants them to be found quickly.’
‘Maybe it’s more a case of him wanting them found before the rigor wears off,’ Cousins suggested.
‘You may have a point,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Go on with what you were saying.’
‘In each case, death was caused by the victim having his throat ripped out by some kind of steel claw,’ Cousins said, ‘and both victims were – I assume – posed on their hands and knees until rigor set in. The only difference between the first and second killings is that there’s no evidence of pre-mortem torture this time.’
‘And how do you explain the fact that the second victim wasn’t tortured?’ Paniatowski wondered.
‘I can’t explain it,’ Cousins admitted. ‘If we knew why the killer tortured the first one, we might be able to speculate on why he spared the second. But since we haven’t got a clue what his motivation is . . .’ He waved his hands helplessly in the air. ‘Well, we’re a bit stuck for the moment, aren’t we?’
‘We are indeed,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘What about the driving licence that was left in front of the body?’
‘That’s another point of comparison for you,’ Cousins said. ‘It belonged to the victim, just like the first one belonged to Adair.’
‘So who is the victim this time?’
‘A feller called Simon Stockwell. He’s thirty-two years old – or, at least, he was thirty-two years old until sometime last night.’
‘Do we have any details, apart from name and age?’
‘We do,’ Cousins said. ‘In fact, I’m amazed at the amount of stuff that Inspector Beresford’s team has been able to come up with at this early stage in the investigation.’ He took his notebook out of his pocket, and flicked it open. ‘Stockwell lived on the Pinchbeck Estate with his wife and three kids, and he was a painter and decora
tor by trade.’
Paniatowski looked over Cousins’ shoulder at Sir William Langley’s home. ‘Find out if Stockwell had ever done any work here,’ she said.
‘Here?’ Cousins repeated, as if he suspected he might have misheard. ‘At Ashton Court?’
‘That’s right.’
Cousins shrugged. ‘I’ll have it checked out since you’ve asked me to, ma’am, but I think it’ll be a waste of time. Knowing how to slap on three coats of emulsion paint and hang wallpaper more or less straight isn’t enough to get you work in a place like this.’
No, it probably wasn’t, Paniatowski agreed silently. But if he’d done some work there, it would explain how Langley came to know him – and she was more convinced than ever that Langley had known him.
‘What else have you got for me?’ she asked.
‘Our Simon seems to have been a bit of a thug, and had a criminal record, stretching back to the time he was a teenager.’ Cousins said, consulted his notebook again. ‘He was first arrested for being drunk and disorderly in 1957.’
‘He would only have been sixteen then,’ Paniatowski said, doing a quick mental calculation.
‘That’s right, he would,’ Cousins agreed. ‘He was arrested again, for assault and battery this time, when he was nineteen, and he was put on two years’ probation. When he was twenty-three, he did a thirty-month stretch for grievous bodily harm. Since then, he’s not been charged with anything, so maybe he’s kept out of trouble – or maybe he’s just got more careful.’
‘Perhaps getting married calmed him down,’ Paniatowski speculated.
But even if he had calmed down, he still didn’t sound like the kind of person who Sir William Langley would invite round for cocktails, she thought.
‘Was he ever in the army?’ she asked.
Cousins looked pained – or perhaps merely unwilling to disappoint her.
‘No, ma’am, I’m afraid he wasn’t.’
So if he did know Andy Adair, it was not as a result of them having served together.
‘Does he have any other connection with Northern Ireland?’ Paniatowski asked, grasping for a straw – any straw. ‘Did he, for example, work there for any length of time?’
‘If he did, Inspector Beresford’s lads haven’t found out about it yet.’
If Stockwell hadn’t been to Northern Ireland, then the IRA connection to the murders was looking more tenuous, Paniatowski thought.
But if there wasn’t an IRA connection, then what the hell was that bastard Forsyth doing here in Whitebridge?
Perhaps they were dealing with a real nutter, who selected his victims at random.
But that didn’t make any sense either, because the killer had chosen to leave Stockwell’s body in the grounds of Ashton Court, which meant that he’d known Sir William Langley would recognize him.
She was going round in circles, she thought. Maybe it was time to go off on a different tack, and see if that led anywhere.
She looked around the sculptures. They might be called an eclectic collection, she supposed, but indiscriminate definitely had a more convincing ring to it as a description.
‘Do you reckon these are valuable?’ she asked.
Cousins grinned. ‘I’m no expert on such matters, ma’am, but I certainly wouldn’t give them garden-space.’
‘Me neither,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘but then, as my daughter’s always telling me, I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to the fine arts.’
She realized that she no longer had Cousins’ full attention, and the reason was that some of that attention was now focused on the uniformed men conducting the search on the lawn.
‘Excuse me a minute, ma’am,’ Cousins said. He raised his cupped hands to his mouth and called out loudly, ‘Can you hear me, Constable Pickering?’
The constable in question, who was slightly ahead of the other officers in the line, turned around.
‘Yes, Sarge,’ he called back.
‘You’re involved in a search, lad, not a race,’ Cousins told him. ‘There’s no prize for breasting the tape first. So stop getting ahead of yourself, and match your pace to that of your mates.’
Constable Pickering looked mortified. ‘Yes, Sarge, I will,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’
‘Don’t apologize,’ Cousins told him. ‘Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ He turned back to Paniatowski. ‘Shouldn’t have done that while you were here, should I, ma’am?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it’s bad enough being told off by a sergeant, but it must be even worse when you know the boss is watching.’ He paused. ‘Don’t hold it against the lad, ma’am. Keeping in line is more difficult than it looks.’
Paniatowski smiled. ‘I do remember, you know. I wasn’t born a chief inspector.’
Cousins smiled back. ‘Course you weren’t, ma’am, though there are some chief inspectors I could mention who act not only as if they descended straight from heaven into the job but also already had three pips on their shoulders when they did it.’ He lit up a fresh cigarette from the stub of his old one. ‘It’s getting to be a habit this,’ he said, grinning as he drew the smoke into his lungs. ‘You were asking me about whether or not I thought the statues were valuable, ma’am.’
‘Yes, I was,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘As far as the municipal ones go, I think he’d be hard pushed to give them away.’
‘What about the modern and classical ones?’
‘That’s a different matter altogether. I’ve not talked to Sir William myself, but from the general atmosphere of this place I get the distinct impression that if they weren’t valuable, he would never have bothered putting most of them on display.’
That was the impression she’d got too, Paniatowski thought.
‘So if they are valuable, what kind of security has he got protecting them?’ she asked.
‘You can’t see it for the trees, but there’s a ten-foot wall running around the entire property,’ Cousins told her. ‘That’s enough to keep most people out, and anybody wanting to steal one of these monstrosities would have a bugger of a job getting it out over the wall.’
‘And how about getting a body with full rigor mortis in over the wall?’
‘I don’t see that would be much of problem. Two fellers with ladders could manage it easily.’
‘And what about one man with a ladder?’
Cousins was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘So you think it’s just one man, do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any particular reason – or is it just a feeling in your gut?’
‘It’s just a feeling in my gut,’ Paniatowski admitted.
Cousins shook his head wonderingly ‘And there I was thinking that it was just me.’
‘So you think it was only one man, as well.’
‘I do. I don’t know how many men are involved in the actual killings – if I learned it was half a dozen, I wouldn’t be too surprised – but when it comes to disposing of the bodies, I firmly believe it’s down to one of them. The way I see it, it’s his vision of how things should be done – and it’s too personal a vision to share.’ Cousins grinned self-consciously. ‘Which, I suppose, is just a fancy way of saying it’s my gut feeling as well,’ he concluded.
‘So could one man manage it?’
‘It would be more difficult than if there were two of them, but by no means impossible. The thing is, you see, there are large sections of the wall facing nothing but open countryside. So even if he hit difficulties, he had all the time in the world to work out a solution to them.’
‘We need to check the perimeter, to find out exactly where he did enter the grounds,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Good idea, ma’am,’ Cousins replied.
Paniatowski smiled again. ‘The way you said that, you made it sound as if I hadn’t told you we should conduct the search, you’d never thought of it yourself,’ she said. ‘Why was that?’
Cousins looked guilty. ‘It’s what they
call applied psychology, ma’am,’ he admitted.
‘Explain yourself.’
‘With some DCIs, the very worst thing you can do is suggest we follow a particular course of action, because that pretty much guarantees that the last thing they’ll do is follow it. So what I do, ma’am, is wait for them to make the right suggestion.’
‘And if they don’t?’
Cousins’ guilty expression deepened. ‘Well, you know . . .’ he said, very vaguely.
‘No,’ Paniatowski replied, ‘I’m not sure I do.’
‘If they don’t come up with the idea themselves, then I suppose I usually find a way to make them think they have.’
‘But you won’t be trying that trick on me again, will you, Sergeant?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘No, ma’am, I’ve learned my lesson, and I most certainly won’t,’ Cousins agreed.
‘So when were you planning to conduct the perimeter search?’ Paniatowski wondered.
‘As soon as the lads have finished the grounds, ma’am.’
‘Good.’
‘Not that I’ve exactly got high hopes of finding anything useful. If it had rained last night – like it was supposed to – the ground would have been sodden and we might have got some decent footprints. But it didn’t bloody rain, did it?’ Cousins grumbled.
If it rained last night, the bastard would either not have left the body here at all, or would have some ingenious way to cover his tracks, thought Paniatowski, who was gained a grudging respect for the killer.
‘I’m going to leave you in charge here,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Fine with me,’ the sergeant said easily. ‘Where will you be if I need to contact you?’
‘From about half-past two, I’ll probably be in the Drum, with Inspector Beresford,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And before then?’
‘I could be anywhere, but one of things I’ll definitely be doing is talking to Simon Stockwell’s widow.’
The Ring of Death Page 10
