Meadows simpered. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘After two glasses I become quite giggly.’
The day I hear Kate giggle, Paniatowski thought, is the day I’ll know that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are waiting just around the corner.
Sensing that Meadows was moving into attack-dog mode, she’d been about to muzzle her, but now she decided that the best way to interrogate someone like Jackson was to let her sergeant loose on him.
‘So what are we celebrating?’ she asked, sensing that Jackson would burst if she didn’t invite him to say his piece.
‘We have a partnership with a French company called Roussillon Aéronautique,’ Jackson said. ‘We have been developing a fighter plane called the Faucon.’ He grimaced. ‘We would have preferred to call it the Falcon, but you know what the French are like, don’t you?’
‘Oui!’ Meadows said.
‘Anyway,’ Jackson continued, ignoring the remark, ‘there’s no point in building a first-class plane if no one wants to buy it – and for quite a while it seemed as if no one would. I don’t mind telling you, I had some sleepless nights.’
‘So you were shitting yourself at the thought of the company going belly up,’ Meadows said.
Valerie giggled awkwardly, because only George – only Mr Jackson – was allowed to use naughty words.
Jackson himself seemed suddenly to have realized that in the interests of telling a dramatic story, he had been far from prudent.
‘No, I never thought it would ever be anything like as bad as that. We don’t just build aeroplanes. We’re a very diverse company. We help submarines to navigate their way under the polar ice cap. We make it possible for democratic governments not only to detect hostile missiles, but to neutralize them.’
‘Democratic governments!’ Meadows repeated. ‘So you only sell to democracies, do you?’
‘We also sell to governments which are striving to become democratic. Our technology buys them the time they need to develop their democratic institutions,’ said Jackson, probably quoting a line straight out of the company prospectus. ‘At any rate, the point I’m making is that we don’t just depend on one or two products for our survival. But it is true that if we hadn’t sold the Faucon, I would have had to lay off quite a number of highly skilled workers.’
You wouldn’t have had to lay off anybody – your boss would, Paniatowski thought. And it’s more than possible that one of the casualties would have been a surplus to requirements deputy personnel manager.
‘Who did you make the sale to?’ she asked.
‘Saudi Arabia. The Saudis had been very reluctant to have anything to do with the project, and then, out of the blue, they placed a very substantial order. I like to think of myself as a rational man, but I have to admit that this does seem a little like a miracle.’
‘Interesting!’ Paniatowski said briskly. ‘Now, the reason we’re here is that there are a few questions we’d like to ask you.’
‘Oh!’ Jackson said, in mock surprise. ‘And here was me thinking you’d come to sell me tickets for the policemen’s ball.’
‘So if you wouldn’t mind leaving us,’ Paniatowski said pointedly to Valerie.
‘It must be serious if you want my Girl Friday to leave the room,’ Jackson said, in one of those film-trailer voices.
‘Yes, it is,’ Meadows told him. ‘You can leave the tray for now,’ she said to Valerie, who was collecting up the glasses.
‘It won’t take a minute,’ the secretary said.
‘You can leave it for now,’ Meadows repeated, in a voice which said it was rather more than a request. She turned to Paniatowski. ‘Would you like us to sit down, ma’am?’ she asked.
‘What a good idea,’ Paniatowski agreed, sitting down in one of the visitors’ chairs.
‘And there’s your chair, Mr Jackson – the nice mock-leather one behind the desk,’ Meadows said.
Jackson knew something was going on here, but he wasn’t quite sure what. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t had all that brandy while waiting for the champagne to chill.
He was drunk, he realized. He was bloody well drunk!
Being careful not to crash into the furniture, he negotiated his way around the desk, and sat down.
‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked, trying to sound serious.
‘Do you know an Arthur Wheatstone?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Well, yes, he works here.’
‘Do you know the names of everyone who works here?’ Meadows wondered.
‘Of course not. There are over eleven thousand people, so I couldn’t possibly be expected to know them all.’
‘And yet you know Wheatstone. Why is that? Has he been causing you problems?’
‘No, he’s never caused any problems, as far as I know.’
‘So you must share an interest? What is it? Do you both enjoy swimming with sharks? Do you share a mistress?’
‘No, nothing like that. As I said, I can’t be expected to know the name of everyone who works here, but I do know everyone above a certain level.’
‘And what level might that be?’
‘I suppose I know everyone who has a key to the executive toilets and eats in the executive dining room.’
‘So Arthur’s an executive, is he?’ Meadows said.
‘Yes, in a way. But I wouldn’t exactly call him management, because he’s more on the technical side of the business.’ He paused, as if a new thought, quite unconnected with his ego, had managed to find its way to the forefront of his self-obsessed brain. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ he demanded. ‘Has something happened to Arthur?’
‘What exactly does he do?’ Meadows asked, as if he’d never spoken.
‘Now look here, I just asked you …’
‘What exactly does he do?’ Meadows insisted.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Jackson said, wiping away the sweat that had been gathering on his brow.
‘Why? Is it because you’re so low in the pecking order of this place that you don’t even know?’
‘I am not low in the pecking order,’ Jackson said furiously. ‘I review all the files. I know what everybody does.’
‘So why can’t you tell us?’
‘Because, you idiot, I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.’ A look of real horror came to Jackson’s face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whined. ‘I never meant to …’
‘You’re right, I am an idiot,’ Meadows said.
The horror was replaced by incredulity. ‘You are?’ Jackson asked.
‘A complete idiot,’ Meadows said humbly. ‘You see, it never really occurred to me that the work Arthur Wheatstone was doing might be secret.’
‘Everything that happens here is secret,’ said Jackson, who seemed to believe he was back on top.
‘So has Arthur been working on this fighter plane of yours?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Jackson said, still confident but becoming cautious again. ‘I’d be in breach of the act.’
‘He hasn’t been working on it, has he?’ Meadows teased. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’
‘No comment.’
‘Nah, he hasn’t been working on it,’ Meadows said. ‘That’s a definite, one hundred percent nailed-down certainty.’
‘I never told you that,’ Jackson croaked, almost panicking. ‘You can’t say you got it from me.’
‘So where does that leave us?’ Meadows mused. ‘Well, since he wasn’t working on the French project, he must have been working with the Americans, instead.’
‘Now you look here …’ Jackson began, raising a warning finger, ‘you can’t just go …’
‘Missiles, is it?’ Meadows asked. ‘Blow up the world with the push of a button? Or is it navigation equipment, in case the Yanks want to sneak up the river to Moscow?’
‘I’m saying no more,’ Jackson told her, as he folded his arms firmly across his chest.
‘That’s probably how he got to know Robert Proudfoot, isn’t it?’ Paniato
wski asked.
‘Who?’
‘Robert Proudfoot.’
‘I’ve never heard of the man, and I’m not going to answer any more questions about the company without my lawyer being present,’ Jackson said.
Meadows and Paniatowski exchanged the briefest of glances, yet it was enough for them to agree that while this line of questioning was dead, they might squeeze a little more interesting information out of him if they switched to talking about the crime.
‘You never asked us why we were asking questions about Arthur Wheatstone,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Well, now’s your chance to question us.’
Jackson hesitated, as if he suspected some kind of trap.
‘Go right ahead,’ Paniatowski said encouragingly. ‘You’ve no need to worry about Sergeant Meadows – she’s pretty much used up her supply of venom for the day.’
‘What’s … what’s happened to Wheatstone?’ Jackson asked.
‘What do you think might have happened to him?’
‘Has he been hurt?’
‘It’s a bit more serious than that.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘Well, that is the next step.’
‘Was it an accident, then?’
‘I’m a sergeant, and my boss is a DCI,’ Meadows pointed out. ‘Do you seriously think we’d be wasting our time investigating an accident?’
‘So it’s suicide, then?’
Paniatowski felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
‘Now why would you assume that the next step beyond accidental death is suicide, I wonder?’ she asked.
‘It’s surely the sort of assumption anybody would make,’ Jackson said defensively.
‘I wouldn’t make it,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Me neither,’ Meadows echoed.
‘Well, it wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t suicide, either,’ Paniatowski said, studying Jackson’s face closely. ‘He was shot.’
‘Shot!’ Jackson repeated.
‘You sound surprised.’
‘Well, yes, I must admit I am. It’s not the sort of crime you think of as happening round here.’
‘Actually, we still don’t know how he died, though we suspect he was strangled.’
‘So what was all that shooting bollocks about?’ Jackson demanded.
‘I wanted to see how you reacted.’
‘Does that mean I’m a suspect?’
Paniatowski laughed. ‘Mr Jackson, you must surely realize that everyone in central Lancs is a suspect.’
‘But you’re not sitting across from everybody in central Lancs, are you?’ Jackson asked.
‘And I have to say, I’m quite surprised at the way you’re reacting to the news of a colleague’s death.’
‘As I told you earlier, I really didn’t know Wheatstone well,’ Jackson said, ‘and I’m simply not the kind of man to shed buffalo tears.’
‘Crocodile tears,’ Meadows said.
‘Come again?’
‘If you’re wishing to illustrate insincere emotion, then the phrase you’re looking for is crocodile tears, not buffalo tears.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ Jackson asked.
‘Absolutely,’ Meadows told him.
TWELVE
Put Dr Shastri in a sari and white clinician’s coat and she looked like a beautiful Indian model hired to do a hospital photo shoot. Add large glasses, perched on the end of her nose, as they were now, and she looked like a very sexy beautiful Indian model.
‘The reason I have kept you waiting so long, my dear Monika, is that there was one nagging question that I didn’t have an answer to,’ she said.
‘And now you do have an answer,’ Paniatowski said.
Shastri shook her head. ‘No, but I am beginning to think that I will never have an answer, and that I might as well give you what I can.’
‘All right,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘Your victim died as a result of asphyxia, the asphyxia itself being as a result of hanging.’
‘But he couldn’t have killed himself,’ Paniatowski interrupted. ‘He simply couldn’t have reached the beam.’
‘Did I say he had killed himself?’ Shastri asked sternly.
‘No, but …’
‘Then, as they say around here, if tha’ wants to learn somethin’, tha’ should keep tha’ trap shut till I’ve finished,’ Shastri said, riding roughshod over her normally exquisitely polished vowels with a broad Whitebridge accent.
Paniatowski grinned. ‘Sorry,’
‘And so you should be,’ Shastri said, grinning back. She laid some photographs on the desk. ‘These are pictures of the victim’s throat.’
There was a dark band of bruising around the throat, where the rope had bitten in, cutting off his air.
‘What is wrong with that?’ Shastri asked.
For a moment, Paniatowski could see nothing wrong. Then she said, ‘It’s very regular.’
‘Just so! A man may be truly determined to hang himself, but once he feels himself walking on air, he will struggle for the few seconds available to him. He can’t help it – he is gripped by the human instinct for survival. This struggle will inevitably spread the area of the bruising. In some cases, it is hardly noticeable – a little wider here, a little more irregular there. In others, it is obvious he has fought like the very devil, and you can see bruises where he has tried to get his fingers between the rope and his neck. I even had a case where a man managed to dislocate his jaw. There is no sign of extended bruising here, which means he did not struggle at all.’
‘So he was unconscious when he was strung up?’
‘He may have been unconscious, or he may have been conscious but paralysed. I cannot say for sure.’
‘But you do think he was doped?’
‘I know he was doped. There are bruises on his arms where he was held down, and beneath one of them is the tiniest of pin pricks.’ Shastri paused for a moment. ‘And now you are going to ask me what drug was used, aren’t you, Monika?’
‘Yes.’
‘I do not know. I can find no trace of it in his system.’
‘You mean, it’s not there anymore?’
‘No, I mean that none of the standard tests will identify it.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible it’s a newly discovered poison, in which case it will probably have come from South America. Then again, it might have been created by a rogue scientist, probably as a by-product of his work on a new synthetic opiate.’
‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ Paniatowski said. ‘The whole fake suicide was an incompetent disaster from start to finish – yet the killer somehow managed to get his hands on a Rolls Royce of a poison.’
‘That would seem to be the case,’ Shastri agreed.
‘Could this drug be the reason there was no pool of urine on the floor?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Yes, that is possible,’ Shastri conceded, ‘It could also explain why his bowels were not evacuated.’ She picked up her notebook. ‘Now what else do I have for you? A few hours before he died, your victim ate a vindaloo curry which I suspect – from the quality of the material – came from a packet.’ She crinkled her pretty nose in disgust. ‘Why would anyone eat vindaloo from a packet?’
‘It takes all sorts,’ Paniatowski said.
‘There was evidence in his lungs of a kind of compost which Forensic Science for Ambitious Little Indians tells me is often associated with growing pot plants. Did your victim have a greenhouse attached to his home?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Then perhaps he has a friend with one, and finding this friend will lead you to the murderer. I offer this suggestion free of charge, and with no thought of future reward.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Paniatowski said, with a smile. ‘Anything else?’
‘He had also drunk two glasses of wine.’
‘Did he have a drinking problem?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘No, Moni
ka,’ Shastri said. ‘Why would he have a drinking problem? He was not, after all, a police officer! In fact, I would say from the evidence of his liver that he was in excellent shape for a man of his age.’
‘You treat your body like a temple – and then you get murdered,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Just goes to show, doesn’t it?’
‘If that is intended to get a rise out of me, it will fail,’ Shastri said severely. ‘I have given up trying to save you, Monika, and hence I no longer lecture you on your health.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Now you’ve trained Louisa up to do it, you’ve no need to.’
‘She is a good girl,’ Shastri said, with a fond smile. ‘And now, since I have no more to tell you, I will escort you off the premises.’
‘Why do you need to escort me?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Are you afraid I’ll nick something from this lovely mortuary of yours?’
‘Of course not,’ Shastri said. ‘But one can never be too careful with the constabulary.’
As they walked towards the door, Shastri said, ‘I should not even have been on duty today, you know.’
‘Why’s that?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I have a list of approved locums, and one of them – a man who has only just left the army – is always pestering me to let him fill in for me. He says it would help to plug an important gap in his curriculum vitae – and I suppose he is right.’
‘His problem is, he’s never going to get his foot through the door because you’ve got an aversion to taking time off,’ Paniatowski said.
‘That is generally true, but today would have been special,’ Shastri said. ‘There was a concert of Indian Carnatic music in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester this afternoon. The performers are famous throughout India, and though I applied almost as soon as the tickets became available, they were all sold out. I was naturally very disappointed, but then someone, an admirer, perhaps …’ She paused. ‘Or do I flatter myself when I say I have admirers?’
‘You know you don’t.’
‘At any rate, whether he was an admirer or not, someone sent me a ticket – one of the best seats in the house. So I rang this doctor and I asked if he’d fill in for me, and he said he’d be delighted. Then this morning, he rang me up at eight thirty to say he couldn’t fill in for me today. At eight thirty! And five minutes later, I got another call, telling me there was a cadaver waiting for me in Barrow Village. It’s almost as if he’d been given the details, and decided he just couldn’t be bothered with that particular corpse.’
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