“The night that German feller was killed, I went to a pigeon-fanciers’ do at the Golden Cock in Maltham,” Robinson said. “The pub’d got an extension on the licensin’ hours, so the barman didn’t stop servin’ till midnight.”
“Which means you’d probably had quite a lot to drink by the time they called last orders,” Woodend said.
“I only had a couple of pints,” Robinson answered, unconvincingly. “Anyroad, when I got out of the pub, I discovered my bike had got a flat front tyre. If you ask me, somebody had done it deliberate. Well, I couldn’t ride it like that, could I? So I had to push it all the way home.”
“Is this fascinatin’ little tale of yours actually leadin’ us anywhere?” Woodend asked.
“The point is, it must have been around half-past two when I finally got back here. My house is on the edge of the park, an’ I was just openin’ my front door when I saw them.”
“Saw who?”
“Them Poles. Four of ’em.”
“Which Poles?”
“I don’t know all their names, but I do know that one of ’em was that Rozpedek feller.”
Woodend took out his Capstan Full Strength. Ted Robinson looked hopefully at them, but after extracting one for himself, the chief inspector put the packet straight back in his pocket.
“So what were these four Polish fellers doin’ when you saw them?” the policeman asked.
Robinson’s cunning eyes sank to fresh levels of deviousness. “They were comin’ out of the woods,” he said. “All furtive-like, as if they’d been up to no good.”
“From which direction were they comin’? Along the path that runs down to the lake?”
For a moment it looked as if Robinson were about to say, yes, that was exactly where they were comin’ from. Then, with evident regret, he shook his head and said, “No, they were comin’ out at the other end of the park.”
“Did you speak to them?”
“I did not,” Robinson said emphatically. “I like to keep away from the likes of them as much as possible, thank you very much.”
“Did they see you?”
“No, I don’t think they did.”
“So you saw them, but they didn’t see you. Now that is what I call convenient.”
“It’s the plain truth I’m tellin’ you,” Robinson said. “They were out in the open, under the moon, so they were easy enough to spot, but me, I was standin’ in a dark doorway.”
“So what happened after they came out of the woods?”
“They stood whisperin’ together for a couple of minutes, an’ then they went their separate ways.”
Woodend leaned back in his chair. “There’s one thing that’s been puzzlin’ me right from the start of your story, Mr Robinson,” he said.
“An’ what’s that?”
“Why did you wait until now to come forward with this valuable information of yours?”
The shift worker looked lost for an answer. “I didn’t think it had anythin’ to do with the murder,” he said finally.
“You saw four men comin’ out of the woods where the body was found the next mornin’, and you didn’t think it had anythin’ to do with the murder?”
“Like I told you, they came from a different part of the woods,” Robinson said sulkily.
“All right, let’s say I accept that,” Woodend said. “What’s made you change your mind now?”
Robinson licked his lips again, though this time, Woodend suspected, it was more through worry than anticipation.
“I saw the notice Mr Hailsham had put up all over the works,” the shift man said, “an’ I thought to myself that maybe what I saw might turn out to be important after all.”
“An’ when you talked to Mr Hailsham, did you tell him the same story that you’ve just told me?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly the same story?” Woodend persisted “He didn’t ask you to change it at all?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, for example, you could have said you’d seen four figures comin’ out of the woods, but that you didn’t recognise them, an’ he could have persuaded you that they were probably the Poles.”
“No, there was none of that. I know what I saw, an’ I don’t care whether you believe me or not, because I’ve already got the . . .”
“Got the what?”
“Nothin’,” Robinson said sullenly.
“You can go now,” Woodend said.
“That’s it?” the shift man asked.
“You were expectin’ somethin’ else?”
“Well, I rather thought you might thank me for my help.”
Woodend sighed. “On behalf of both Scotland Yard an’ the Mid-Cheshire police force, not to mention the friends an’ relatives of the victim of the crime, I would like to express our appreciation for your help in this matter.”
“Yes, well, that’s all right then,” Robinson said, standing up and walking to the door.
Woodend watched him go. Even if the man had, in fact, seen what he claimed to have seen, it wouldn’t take a halfway decent lawyer more than a couple of minutes of questioning him on the witness stand to destroy whatever dubious value his testimony might have.
Eight
It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and there was that special summer softness in the air which seemed to make living through the rest of the year of English weather all worthwhile.
Woodend walked down Elm Street, oblivious to the watching eyes from behind the curtains. He was wondering what it would be like to be a shift man – to start work at around dawn one week, in the early afternoon the next, and just before it was most people’s bedtime the week after that.
He himself had sometimes worked through the night on investigations, but always with the knowledge that once the case was cracked, once the murderer was arrested, his body would be allowed to return to its natural rhythms. For the shift men, that was true only briefly – when they got their days off in lieu. For the rest of time, they lived in a strange world out of step with the rest of humanity. And the chief inspector couldn’t help thinking that, in the end, it was bound to turn them all a little peculiar.
Just ahead of him lay Zbigniew Rozpedek’s house. Woodend knocked on the door. The Pole answered almost immediately, but when he saw who had come calling, his face went red with rage.
“I would expect this kind of harassment from the authorities if I was living under the jackboot of those communist bastards who run Poland nowadays, but I do not expect it in England,” he said.
“When in doubt, go on the attack, eh?” Woodend said dryly. “That tactic didn’t do the Polish cavalry a lot of good, did it?”
Rozpedek made tight balls of his fists. “If you weren’t a policeman . . .” he growled.
“But I am a policeman. Can I come inside, please, Mr Rozpedek?”
“I do not want you in my house.”
The chief inspector shrugged. “In that case, it looks like we’ll be havin’ our conversation down at Maltham police station.”
“You can do that?”
“Oh yes. Even in England, the police still have some powers.”
The Pole took an angry step back. “Then it would seem that I have no choice but to let you come in,” he said.
Woodend followed the other man into his living room. Rozpedek did not invite him to sit down, and when he poured himself a vodka from the unlabelled bottle, he did not ask Woodend if he would like one too.
“You were seen the other night. Did you know that?” the chief inspector asked.
“Seen?” Rozpedek repeated. “Seen where?”
Woodend sighed deeply. “You’re not goin’ to make this easy for me, are you? All right. We’ll play it your way, if that’ll make you any happier. On the night Gerhard Schultz was murdered . . .” He paused. “You do remember that night, don’t you?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“On the night Gerhard Schultz was murdered, you an’ your mates were seen comin’ out of the woods.”
Rozpedek knocked back his shot of vodka. “Who is making these accusations against me?” he demanded.
“It doesn’t really matter who the people are, does it?” Woodend countered. “The fact is, that you were seen.”
A sudden smile came to the Pole’s face, as if he had just worked something out.
“Who the people are?” he repeated. “I do not think we are talking about people here. If you had more than one witness, you would not be playing this so close to your chest. And what is the value of only one witness. He says that he saw us coming out of the woods, and we say we were not there. It’s one man’s word against four.”
“Four?” Woodend said. “I told you the witness had seen you an’ your mates. I don’t remember sayin’ how many mates.”
“There were four of us playing cards. However many of us he claims to have seen, it is his word against ours,” Rozpedek explained. “This witness of yours? Is he someone who works at the plant?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal that information at the moment,” Woodend told him.
“Of course he is from the plant,” the Pole said contemptuously. “The only people who would be around the park at that time of night are those who live here. And that means he has to work for BCI. In which case, his word counts for absolutely nothing.”
“Would you mind explainin’ that?” Woodend asked.
“Certainly I will explain it. Mr Hailsham, the son-of-a-bitch who calls himself our personnel manager, had notices put up all over the plant asking for information about the night of the murder.”
“I know that.”
“Did you also know that he offered a month’s wages to anybody who supplied that information?”
“He did what?”
Rozpedek smiled again. “A month’s pay is a lot of money,” he said. “I was tempted to go and see him myself, and tell him I’d seen the Germans coming out of the woods.”
Fulton Crescent, which was where, according to BCI company records, Gerhard Schultz had lived for most of his time in Hereford, was a pleasant, tree-lined street of neat semi-detached houses. Bob Rutter walked up the path of the one next door to Schultz’s old home and rang the bell.
The man who opened the door was around sixty-five, and was wearing carpet slippers and an old, ragged cardigan. A chap who didn’t leave the house much by the look of him, Rutter thought – and therefore a good chap to talk to if you wanted information about the neighbours.
He produced his warrant card, and said that he’d like to ask a few questions about Gerhard Schultz.
“Oh him,” the man said indifferently. “Got himself killed somewhere up north, didn’t he? I read about it in the papers.”
“How well did you know him, Mr . . .?”
“Dobson,” the man supplied. “Edgar Dobson. How well did I know him? Hardly at all. We lived next door to each other for thirteen years, but we were never close. We exchanged a few words over the garden fence now and again, and that was about it.”
“But you must have formed some impression of him in all that time,” Rutter coaxed. “There must be something you can tell me that will help me to build up a picture of the man.”
“How do you mean?” Dobson asked.
Rutter sighed. From his experience, there were only two kinds of witness – the ones who would talk to you for ever if you let them; and the ones you had to play dentist with, dragging each word out of them like a troublesome wisdom tooth. Dobson plainly belonged to the latter category.
“Did Mr Schultz, for instance, spend a lot of time at home?” the sergeant asked.
“Not during the day.”
“Of course not. He had his job at BCI. But what about the evenings and at weekends?”
“Yes, he was at home then,” Dobson said. “He wasn’t a great one for going out.”
“What about his holidays? Do you know if he ever used them to travel back to Germany?” Rutter asked, remembering that all the guidebooks back in Schultz’s room at Westbury Hall had been on places in Great Britain.
“I asked him once if he ever went home,” Dobson replied. “He said he didn’t. Said he’d had just about enough of Germany. Said he was perfectly happy to stay here in England. Can’t say I blame him. After all, it is the greatest country in the world, isn’t it?”
“What about Mr Schultz’s friends, then? Did any of them come round to visit him?”
“Not male friends,” Dobson said, his upper lip twisting with contempt as he spoke. “Not couples, either. He wasn’t one for throwing noisy parties, I’ll say that much for him.”
“But he did have lady friends?” Rutter asked, picking up on Dobson’s obvious disgust.
The other men snorted loudly. “If that’s what you want to call them, then yes, he did.”
“What would you call them?”
“I’d call them tarts,” Dobson said. “There was a whole stream of them. Some would only be there for a couple of hours, some would stay all night. But however long they stayed, I knew what they were doing once that front door was closed. I complained to him about it once. Told him he was bringing down the tone of the neighbourhood.”
“And how did he reply?”
“He told me to mind my own bloody business.”
I’m not surprised, Rutter thought. “How long did these girlfriends of his usually last?” he asked.
“I told you already, they weren’t his girlfriends, they were nothing but common tarts.”
Perhaps there was more to this than simple blind prejudice or sour grapes. “How can you be so sure they were prostitutes?” Rutter asked.
“Because I’ve seen a couple of them plying their filthy trade in the town centre. There was one I remember in particular – a big blonde woman who was almost as tall as Schultz was. Every time you go past Woolworths at night you’ll see her – standing there in the doorway and waiting for her next customer to come along.”
When Woodend entered the Westbury Social Club at just after seven o’clock, the first person he noticed was Elizabeth Driver. The journalist was sitting at the bar. She couldn’t have been a member of the club, but she seemed to have persuaded Tony into serving her a gin and tonic. The chief inspector got the impression that when she really put her mind to it, she could persuade most men to give her anything she wanted.
Miss Driver smiled at him. “She was seen again last night. And not just by one person either – there were several sightings.”
“I assume that you’re talkin’ about the so-called Dark Lady of Westbury Hall,” Woodend said.
“Well, of course I am. She rode up Westbury Lane towards the canal, then vanished into thin air.”
“Maybe,” Woodend agreed.
Elizabeth Driver took a sip of her drink. “How’s the investigation going?” she asked.
“So far I’ve managed to narrow it down to the murderer bein’ either a man or a woman, who could be young or old – or very possibly middle-aged,” Woodend told her.
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you, chief inspector?” Elizabeth Driver said, accusingly.
“No, lass, I’m just bein’ honest with you. I have no idea who killed Gerhard Schultz.”
Elizabeth Driver glanced at her watch. “Well, I must go,” she said. “I’ve got deadlines to meet.”
“A word of warnin’, Miss Driver,” Woodend said. “You should never forget that your job is to report the news.”
The journalist smiled at him. “You mean, report the news,” she suggested.
“I know what I mean,” Woodend told her.
Gerhard Schultz’s nosy ex-neighbour had certainly been right about one thing, Rutter thought as he gazed from the other side of the road at Woolworths’ doorway – the blonde woman certainly was tall. And since even at a distance he could see that she was wearing far too much make-up and had a slit up the side of her skirt which almost reached the top of her stocking, it looked as if Edgar Dobson had been right about the other thing, too.
Rutter crossed the road
and walked past the woman, making a deliberately clumsy pretence of not noticing her. He carried on for a few yards, hesitated, then turned around and repeated the process in reverse.
It was the third time he passed her that she spoke.
“Are you lookin’ for company, darlin’?” she asked, in throaty, seductive voice.
Rutter froze. “I’m . . . I’m a married man,” he stuttered.
The woman laughed. “You’d be surprised just how many of the men you see wanderin’ around the town centre at night have a little wife waitin’ for them at home,” she said. “What they’re doin’, you see is lookin’ for somethin’ they can’t get from ’er.”
“And what might that be?” Rutter asked.
The woman licked her lips. “You know? A little bit of this an’ a little bit of that.”
“And . . . er . . . how much would a little bit of this and a little bit of that cost me?” Rutter mumbled.
“Two quid if you want it straight, an extra ten bob for anythin’ special. Payable in advance.”
Rutter put his hand in his jacket pocket. When he took it out again, it was holding not his wallet but his warrant card.
“Detective Sergeant Rutter,” he said. “I am arresting you under the Street Offences Act of 1959. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”
“’Ere, what is this?” the prostitute demanded. “Are you really a copper?”
“Yes, indeed,” Rutter assured her.
“Well, you’re not one of the ones from the local nick. I’d’ve recognised you if you was.”
“I’m part of a special task force drafted in to stamp out prostitution,” Rutter lied. “Have you been pulled in before?”
“Yeah,” the woman said gloomily.
“How did it go? Did the magistrate just give you a fine, or did you serve any time?”
“The beak gave me three months last time.”
Rutter nodded sagely. “In that case it could easily be six months this time. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” the woman asked. She stamped her foot. “Oh, I see what this is all about now. You never intended to take me in. You just want a free shake, don’t you?”
The Dark Lady Page 9
