Five members of the crew and two passengers had been killed when a British European Airways Viscount crashed on the approach to Nott’s Corner Airport in Belfast.
Another Viscount had collided with an Italian fighter plane near Anzio, and crashed with the loss of all thirty-one people on board.
Maria’s hand gently squeezed his lower arm. “You feel so tense,” she said. “There’s really no need for it, you know.”
“I do know,” Rutter replied unconvincingly.
But he was thinking, And then there’s the famous one, the one that everybody remembers.
Just over three years earlier, a BEA Ambassador had failed to clear a fence when taking off from Rhiem airport. The plane had been carrying the Manchester United team, who were celebrating qualifying for a place in the semi-finals of the European Cup.
Rutter had seen the pictures in the newspapers. The plane had been no more than a shattered shell – a twisted, distorted wreck. Eight members of the team had been killed, along with thirteen other passengers.
“You’re still thinking about planes crashing, aren’t you, my darling?” Maria asked.
“It’s hard not to when there seems to have been so many of them,” Rutter admitted.
“Not so many at all,” Maria assured him. “Certainly not in comparison to the number of flights. I got the operator to ring BEA for me. Do you know that they carried over half a million passengers last year? Everybody’s travelling by plane these days. There’s even a regular service to America now.”
Rutter lit one of his corked-tipped cigarettes. Maria’s assurances were all very well, he told himself, but what did they call the crash which killed all those Manchester United players? The Munich Air Disaster. And where was he flying to? Bloody Munich!
“Listen, the Comet’s a very big plane,” Maria persisted. “It’s got a crew of four, and it carries over sixty passengers. It’s safer than a bus.”
“Buses don’t hang up in the sky with no visible means of support,” Rutter said gloomily.
Maria squeezed his arm again. “I love you so much that I’d know if anything was going to go wrong,” she whispered softly. “I’d know – and I wouldn’t let you fly.”
It was a silly thing to say, Rutter thought. Love had nothing to do with seeing into the future. In all the cases he’d investigated, the death of a loved one had always come as a complete shock to the victim’s friends and family. And yet, even knowing that, he found that after Maria’s soothing words he was suddenly starting to feel a little better.
Mike Partridge lived in a modern block of flats on the edge of Maltham. The place was probably owned by BCI, just as everything else in the town seemed to be, Woodend thought grumpily as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.
He rang Partridge’s bell. He heard the sound of movement from the other side of the door, but after perhaps half a minute had passed, it became obvious that no one was going to open it for him.
He rang again. And then a third time. Still he was ignored, and it was only by resorting to the tactic of keeping his finger permanently on the bell that he finally brought Partridge to the door.
“What the bloody ’ell do you want?” the red-faced shift man demanded gruffly.
“I’ve got a few questions I’d rather like answers to,” the chief inspector replied.
“I’ve answered all your questions once,” Partridge countered. “That should be enough for you.”
“Maybe it would have been if you’d told me the complete truth,” Woodend said. “But you didn’t, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“The last time we spoke, you did everythin’ you could to create the impression that you were a bachelor. But you’re not. You’re a widower.”
Partridge’s eyes flashed with anger. “You’ve been checkin’ up on me,” he said accusingly.
“Well, of course I have. That’s my job. Did you really expect me to do anythin’ else?”
The shift man sighed. “I suppose not.”
“I don’t like talkin’ to people in corridors,” Woodend said. “They’re nasty, draughty places. I’d much rather be inside.”
“Why should I let you into my flat?”
“Why shouldn’t you let me in? Unless, of course, you’ve got somethin’ to hide?”
Partridge shrugged, then turned around and re-entered his flat. Woodend followed him down the short hallway and into his living room. It was a sparse, soulless place. There were no pictures on the walls, and no ornaments on the mantelpiece or sideboard. The only personal touch of any kind was a framed photograph on the windowsill. Here was a man who used his flat as nothing more than a place to sleep.
Woodend walked over to the window to take a closer look at the photograph. It was of a young woman, who was proudly holding an apple-cheeked child in her arms.
“When was this taken?” he asked.
“1940,” Partridge replied dully. “The kiddie would ’ave been twenty-three if she’d lived. She might even ’ave been married. I could ’ave been a grandfather by now.”
“A lot of the children in Southampton were evacuated to the countryside, but your family stayed with you,” Woodend said. “Why was that? Wasn’t there anywhere you could send her?”
“Oh yes, there was somewhere I could ’ave sent her. My wife ’ad a sister who lived in the country. She invited Doris an’ the kiddie to go an’ live with ’er, but Doris decided to stay with me.”
“Tell me about your girlfriend – the Dark Lady.”
If the chief inspector had been expecting Partridge’s ruddy face to go suddenly pale, he would have been disappointed, because the expression which filled it at that moment was far more complex than simple guilt.
“She was Jamaican,” he said. “I’d seen a few coloured merchant seamen down at the docks, but I’d never met a black woman before. I loved my wife, but this was different. Lucinda was so . . . so . . .” He waved his hands, frustrated at his lack of ability to express himself. “She didn’t think things through. She just did what she wanted to do. She was . . . what’s the word?”
“Spontaneous?” Woodend supplied.
“That’s it. Spontaneous. She loved life, an’ was determined to squeeze the last drop out of it. I fell for ’er in a big way. I wanted ’er, but at the same time I wanted my family.” He laughed bitterly. “That was ’ow I was in those days. Always wantin’ to ’ave my cake an’ eat it too.”
“After your family was killed, did you think of settin’ up house with your Dark Lady?” Woodend asked.
Partridge shook his head. “She wanted to, but I couldn’t. I . . . just . . . couldn’t.”
“So you joined the army instead,” Woodend said. “You didn’t have to – the job you were doin’ was considered vital war work, so you’d never have been called up – but you wanted to go into battle, didn’t you?”
“No, I wanted to die,” Partridge corrected him. “I expected to die. But all I got was a bullet in the leg.” He paused, as if a thought had suddenly struck him. “I can see where this is leadin’ now,” he said, anger entering his voice again. “My wife an’ little daughter were killed by a German bomb, an’ when a German flier came to Westbury Park, I just couldn’t bear it. So I killed ’im. Isn’t that what you’re about to tell me?”
Woodend shook his head. “I might have thought that, but for what you said to Horace Greenwood.”
“Horace?” Partridge repeated. “You talked to him?”
“No, my sergeant was the one who saw him. But that’s neither here nor there, is it? It’s what he told us that’s important. He visited you in hospital after the D-Day landin’.”
“I remember that.”
“An’ all you would say to him was, ‘It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.’ He thought you were talkin’ about the men who’d died durin’ the invasion – men you’d promised would come through it all in one piece. But I don’t think you were meanin’ that at all. Am I right?”
Partridge bowed his head. “Yes, you’re right,” he agreed. “I lied earlier, when I told you that my wife ’ad decided not to go an’ stay with her sister in the country. She wanted to go, an’ I talked ’er out of it because what I wanted was to have ’er an’ the baby there when I came home from work. It wasn’t the Germans who killed her – it was me. I killed them both.”
“An’ ever since then, you’ve been tryin’ to atone for it,” Woodend said sadly. “You’ve not looked at another woman since your wife died. You do a lot of charity work, but you don’t claim any credit for it. An’ you can’t see anybody in trouble without wantin’ to help them, can you?”
“No,” Partridge admitted. “I can’t.”
“The night Gerhard Schultz was killed? You didn’t come straight home, did you?”
“Why would I?” Partridge asked, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “What is there ’ere to come ’ome to?”
“So what did you do instead?”
“I’m not really sure. I suppose I must have just walked around the park, thinkin’.”
From beyond the bedroom door came the muffled sound of a dog barking.
“I wouldn’t have put you down as the sort of feller to keep a pet, Mr Partridge,” Woodend said.
“It was a stray, wanderin’ the streets. A poor, ’alf-starved thing. I was sorry for it.”
Woodend shook his head disbelievingly. “I’ve never known a man who kept a dog say he had nothin’ to come home to. An’ I’ve never known a man who had a dog who wouldn’t introduce it to his visitors.” He took his Capstan Full Strength out of his pocket, and lit one up. “Come on, Mr Partridge! Isn’t it time we stopped playin’ games an’ brought Fred Foley out here?”
“You want me to ’elp you with that, darlin’?” the taxi driver asked, as Maria ran her fingers over the coins in her purse.
“No, thank you,” she answered. “I can manage quite well on my own.”
“I wouldn’t steal from yer, or anyfink like that!” the cabbie said, sounding slightly offended.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Maria told him. “It’s just that the more things I learn to do on my own, the easier it is.”
She handed over the fare, opened the gate, and, using her white stick, tapped her way carefully up the path. She still found it incredible that Bob – her big, strong husband – had been so afraid of a simple thing like flying. But then, she supposed, fear was rarely very rational. There were people who were afraid of being in enclosed spaces, and people who were afraid of wide-open spaces. Some were frightened of heights, others of dogs.
And some people were afraid to ask for things because it might draw attention to the fact that they were blind.
She slotted her key into the front door – it was getting easier every time she did it – and stepped into the hallway. She could hear the sound of vigorous vacuuming from the living room. That German girl would wear the Hoover out, she thought with a smile.
“Ah, you are home, Mrs Rutter,” the au pair shouted over the noise of the machine.
“Switch that off, please, Ute,” Maria said. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
The vacuum cleaner fell silent.
“Yes, madam?”
“Ever since you got here, I’ve been wondering what you look like. How would you describe yourself?”
There was a pause, then Ute said in an embarrassed voice, “I am quite ordinary. Quite normal.”
“Could I touch your face?” Maria asked. “Just so I get an impression of your features?”
“Of course.”
Of course! Was that what she’d actually said?
“You really don’t mind?” Maria asked, hardly able to believe it.
“I haf a grandmother who is blind,” Ute said. “Always she touches my face ven I go to see her.”
“Stand closer to me,” Maria said, and when Ute had done so, she lifted her hands.
The German girl was taller than she’d thought. As her fingers explored, she was building up a picture in her mind. Slightly upturned nose, wide mouth, and rounded chin. It was a pleasant face, and knowing about it made her feel as if she’d got to know the au pair a little better, too.
“Thank you, Ute,” she said.
“It vas nothing,” the German girl said.
But it was! It really was! And it was a wonderful thing to be pregnant! There were going to be difficult times ahead, but she was sure now that she could get through them.
The man standing just beyond the barrier at Rhiem Airport was not very tall for a policeman, but had enormous square shoulders. His hair was blond and clipped very short. Despite the heat, he was wearing a black leather jacket, and he was smoking an HB cigarette with all the intensity of someone who took everything he did seriously. When he saw Rutter, he stepped forward and held out his hand.
“Inspector Hans Kohl,” he announced, pumping the English detective’s hand vigorously. “Welcome to Germany, Sergeant Rutter. I am to be your guide for as long as you are here, and – when necessary – your interpreter.”
Rutter, who had decided after getting off the flight unscathed that he finally knew what the survivors of the Titanic must have felt like, pumped the German’s hand back.
“I don’t know how well you’ve been briefed, but he reason I’m here is to find out all I can about a man called Gerhard Schultz . . .” he began
“Ja, ja, that has all been arranged,” Inspector Kohl said brusquely. “I have a car waiting outside. It should not take much more than an hour to reach the town where his parents live. They have already been told to expect you.”
He was standing on foreign soil, Rutter realised now he had put his fear of the flight behind him and had time to think. He was actually in another country. And he knew absolutely nothing about it. He didn’t even know where he’d be spending the night.
“Have you fixed up any accommodation for me, sir?” Rutter asked, doing his best to sound like Woodend.
“But of course. I have booked both of us into a small hotel in Herr Schultz’s home town. That means that if you wish to question the parents again tomorrow morning, we will be in walking distance of the house. And if you do not wish to see them, well, I’m told the hotel is a good place to stay, with excellent food and plentiful beer. I hope that is satisfactory.”
“Very satisfactory,” said Rutter, who was rapidly coming to the conclusion that whatever else happened while he was in the country, he was certainly going to enjoy working with the German police.
Fred Foley stood in Mike Partridge’s bedroom doorway, his mangy dog by his side. The man had looked a real mess the last time Woodend had met him – during the Salton case – but he was even worse now. His eyes were so bloodshot it was almost impossible to detect any white. His nose was a mass of blackheads. His hands shook, and his jaw wobbled. And there was a distinct whiff about him.
“I try to get ’im to wash every day, but it’s not always easy,” Partridge said apologetically.
“What about booze?” Woodend asked.
“I’m slowly tryin’ to wean him off it. ’E ’asn’t had much today, but there must still be a hell of a lot floatin’ around in ’is system.”
Woodend turned his attention on Foley, who was still standing uncertainly in the doorway.
“Can you hear me, Mr Foley?” he asked. “Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”
The other man merely nodded.
“The reason you’ve been hangin’ around Westbury Park so much for the past year or so was because of the Poles, wasn’t it?” the chief inspector asked. “If you went down to the old pumpin’ station by the lake when they were there, they’d sometimes give you some of that vodka they made. Am I right?”
Foley licked his dry lips. “Yes,” he croaked.
“You were down there the night the German was killed. They gave you enough booze to get you well an’ truly plastered, an’ then you went wanderin’ off into the woods.”
“I don’t remem
ber much,” Foley admitted.
“But you do remember findin’ Schultz, don’t you?”
“He was lyin’ on the ground. I didn’t see him. I tripped over his feet an’ landed right on top of him.”
“An’ that’s how you came to get his blood on your overcoat. What happened next?”
“I panicked,” Foley said. “I’d already been involved in one murder case. I didn’t want to get caught up in another. I got out of the woods as quick as I could, an’ started headin’ for Maltham. I didn’t know what I was goin’ to do when I got there. It . . . it was just somewhere to go. Then I felt these pains in my belly, an’ I had to stop to be sick.”
“Which is when you met Mr Partridge?”
“He was cyclin’ past. He stopped to see if I was all right. I told him what had happened.”
“’E swore to me that ’e ’adn’t done the killin’, an’ I believed him,” Partridge said.
“So the first thing you did was to throw his coat behind the nearest hedge, an’ the second was to bring him here – which is where he an’ his dog have been ever since.”
“I didn’t think ’e could face bein’ questioned by the police, the state ’e was in.”
“But you did know he’d have to face them eventually, didn’t you, Mr Partridge?”
Partridge shrugged. “I suppose I did, but I ’adn’t really thought that far ahead.”
“I can’t go the police,” Fred Foley whimpered. “They’ll lock me up an’ never let me out again.”
“They’ll lock you up,” Woodend conceded, “but not for long. Without a signed confession, there’s nowhere near enough evidence to hold you for more than a couple of days. So you’re goin’ to have to be strong, Mr Foley. You’re goin’ to have to pull yourself together – at least for the time you’re in custody. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’ll try,” Foley promised.
“Right, you an’ me had better get ourselves down to the local nick,” Woodend said.
“What about me?” Mike Partridge asked.
“What about you?” Woodend replied.
The Dark Lady Page 15
