Fatal Quest

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Just keep on walkin’, son,’ the constable said gruffly. ‘No point in trying to rubber-neck, ’cos there’s nuffink for yer to see ’ere.’

  ‘I’m from the Yard,’ Woodend told him, holding up the warrant card. ‘It was me who called you out.’

  The constable ignored the card, and instead shone his torch up and down Woodend’s body.

  ‘Yer don’t look much like a detective,’ he sniffed, noting that instead of the expected suit, Woodend was wearing a hairy sports jacket and cavalry-twill trousers. ‘Don’t sound much like one, eiver.’

  Meaning I don’t sound like I was born within the sound of Bow Bells, Woodend translated mentally.

  Meaning, in addition, that since I don’t have a Southern lilt to my voice, I must be some kind of yokel.

  ‘From the Norf, are yer?’ the constable asked.

  ‘From the North, are you, Sergeant!’ Woodend snapped back, in much the same tone as he would have used when he’d been another kind of sergeant – one who wore battledress.

  ‘No need to take the hump,’ the constable said. Then, after a while, he came to something like attention, and added a reluctant, ‘Sorry, Sarge.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘This way. Mind ’ow yer step.’

  Woodend followed the constable over the heaps of rubble which must once – before a Luftwaffe bomb paid it an unwelcome visit – have been part of a substantial building.

  There were thousands of sites like this all around London, because even though the War had been over for five years – and even though there was a desperate housing shortage – the capital city (like Britain as a whole) was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and simply could not afford to rebuild.

  Four men were gathered around the corpse on the ground – three uniformed officers and a civilian whose stethoscope and black bag conveniently identified him as the police doctor. Despite the gagging smog, they were all smoking cigarettes, and Woodend felt his own hand reach automatically in his jacket pocket for his packet of Capstan Full Strength.

  ‘DS Woodend,’ he told the doctor, as he lit up. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘She’s a girl, and she’s dead,’ the doctor replied curtly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’ll save the details till your guv’nor gets here, because there’s no point in me saying everything twice, now is there?’

  ‘My guv’nor won’t be comin’,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘A bit too damp for him, is it?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘Somethin’ like that,’ Woodend agreed.

  Although what DCI Bentley had actually said, when Woodend had phoned him at home, was, ‘I’ve spent years arsing round this city, cleaning up other people’s shit, Sergeant – and now it’s your turn.’

  ‘I’ll have a look at the body now, if you don’t mind,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Be my guest,’ the doctor replied indifferently.

  Woodend knelt down and shone his torch on the girl’s face.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t I mention the fact that she was a nigger?’ asked the doctor innocently, though his tone suggested that Woodend’s obvious surprise was a source of some amusement.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ the sergeant replied coldly.

  He objected to the use of the word ‘nigger’ on principle and, in fact, though she had black curly hair and a broad nose, this girl was not particularly dark at all.

  ‘I don’t expect you’ve got many niggers up Norf, Sarge,’ one of the constables said.

  ‘I’d like you to refer to her as “coloured”, if you don’t mind,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘Oh, come on, Sarge, what’s the harm?’ the constable asked. ‘It’s not as if she can hear me, is it?’

  ‘An’, in case I didn’t make myself clear, I’d like you to refer to her as “coloured” even if you do mind,’ Woodend said, with an edge to his voice.

  ‘Fair enough,’ the constable replied sulkily.

  He’d been right about one thing, though, Woodend thought – there were no coloured people in Lancashire, and the first time he’d ever seen a black face, it was in London.

  ‘Cause of death is a slit throat,’ the doctor said.

  ‘I’m no medical man, but I think I might have been able to work that out for myself, even if you hadn’t been here,’ Woodend replied, shining his torch on the violent gash beneath the girl’s delicate chin.

  ‘Do you think she was on the game?’ the doctor wondered.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Woodend said cautiously.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time a prostitute’s met a sticky end in London, would it, though?’ the doctor asked jovially. ‘Shades of Jack the Ripper, eh?’

  ‘Not you as well!’ Woodend growled.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Can’t you show a little respect for the dead, for Christ’s sake!’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘You see a lot of death in my business, and I suppose you just get used to it,’ he said, in what might – or might not – have been a vague apology.

  I’ve seen a lot of death myself, too, Woodend thought. I’ve seen mountains of bodies piled up inside a German concentration camp. But that doesn’t make this particular death any less tragic.

  ‘When was she killed?’ he asked.

  ‘Three hours ago at the earliest, two at the latest.’

  From the near distance came the sound of a bell chiming midnight.

  ‘Big Ben,’ said one of the constables, as if he thought that the yokel sergeant with the Northern accent would need the information.

  Woodend stood up and looked back towards the pavement. There was no way the woman who’d called him could have seen the girl’s body from the road, he thought.

  But then she’d never claimed to have seen the body, had she?

  What had her actual words been?

  ‘He said she was dead. And he doesn’t lie. Not about things like that. He’s not that kind of man.’

  She not only knew there’d been a murder, but she knew the murderer’s name. So why wouldn’t she tell him that name? Why wouldn’t she even give him her own name?

  Both those questions would be answered if he could find her – but how the hell was he supposed to do that?

  Two

  It was a long walk through the smog from the scene of the crime to the dingy one-and-a-half-bedroom flat which Woodend was still reluctant to call ‘home’, and it was a quarter past two in the morning before he finally opened the front door and saw that his wife, Joan, was sitting in the living room, half asleep.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, lass,’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’ Joan asked innocently.

  ‘Wait up for me.’

  Joan yawned. ‘Who says I was waitin’ up?’

  He grinned. ‘I’m a detective, love. It’s printed on my warrant card. An’ usin’ my detectin’ skills, I’ve deduced that you were waitin’ up because you’re still here.’

  ‘The reason I’m still here is because I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed,’ Joan lied. ‘Anyway, you’ll be wantin’ somethin’ to eat.’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Woodend told her.

  ‘An’ I’ve got just the thing,’ Joan continued, with the showmanship of a magician who was just about to pull a rabbit out of his top hat. ‘What would you say to some nice lamb chops?’

  Woodend’s stomach turned over. ‘I’m really not hungry,’ he said.

  He felt guilty about disappointing her, but the simple truth was that, after seeing the girl with her throat cut, he no longer had any appetite.

  ‘I had to queue in the butcher’s for over an hour to get them,’ Joan said, disapprovingly.

  ‘I’m sure you did, but—’

  ‘I got the very last ones he had. You should have seen the way the women behind me in the queue glared at me. If looks could kill …’

  ‘I’m sorry, love, I really am,’ Woodend said.


  Joan nodded, as if she’d suddenly understood. ‘Another murder?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A nasty one?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘You take it all too personally, Charlie.’

  ‘I know,’ Woodend said. ‘But that’s the way I am.’

  ‘Yes, that is the way you are,’ Joan agreed. ‘Still, I suppose I shouldn’t complain, because if you hadn’t been the way you are, I’d never have married you in the first place.’ She paused. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t fancy the chops?’

  ‘Maybe I’ll have them tomorrow,’ Woodend said.

  ‘An’ maybe you won’t,’ Joan replied, as if she had already foreseen what the next twenty-odd years of their married life held – her buying the food, and Charlie being too wrapped up in his work to eat it.

  ‘You get yourself off to bed,’ Woodend said.

  ‘An’ what about you?’

  ‘I’ll just have a last fag, an’ then I’ll join you,’ Woodend promised.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Joan warned, as she headed for the bedroom.

  Woodend slouched back in his chair, lit up the cigarette he’d promised himself and traced in his mind the events that had led him, a Northern lad who had always considered Southerners a breed apart – and who had never even been to London before the War – to be actually living there now.

  ‘How did you end up in London, Charlie?’ Paniatowski asked.

  Woodend smiled. ‘A few minutes ago you were clamourin’ to hear how I got a man killed, an’ now you’re askin’ for my life story. Which is it you want?’

  ‘Both,’ Paniatowski said.

  And she meant it. By asking about Woodend’s first case, she had inadvertently found the key to a part of her boss’s life she had known nothing about – had stumbled on the opportunity to build up a more complete picture of the man she was already missing, even as she sat there opposite him.

  ‘I suppose the decision was taken in Berlin, back in 1945,’ Woodend said. ‘You should have seen the place at the time.’ Then he noticed Paniatowski shudder, and added, ruefully, ‘I’m sorry, lass, you did see it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Monika agreed. ‘I did.’

  But though she had managed to keep her voice flat and emotionless, her heart was beating faster and there was a pounding in her head.

  It was all over half a lifetime ago! she thought. More than half a lifetime! So why does it feel like it only happened yesterday?

  After six years of wandering Europe as refugees, she and her mother, hoping to make contact with the victorious Allies, had reached Berlin just after it had fallen. And what they had found was a city devastated by RAF bombs and Russian shells.

  A wasteland.

  A true vision of hell.

  They had looked on as German civilians, clad in little more than rags, sifted desperately through the rubble, looking for something they could use or something they could sell. Or perhaps even just something – anything – that would remind them of their old lives, before the inferno.

  They had looked on, and they’d felt something they’d thought they’d never feel for the enemy – pity.

  ‘Anyway,’ Woodend said hurriedly – as if he could see the pictures in Monika’s head himself, and felt a strong urge to distract her – ‘anyway, I was sittin’ in this jeep with Major Cathcart, who I was servin’ under at the time, when the major turns to me an’ says, “So what are your plans once you’re demobbed, Charlie?” An’ I told him the first thing I was goin’ to do was to get married.’

  ‘To Joan?’ Paniatowski asked, as a little of the colour returned to her cheeks.

  ‘Of course to Joan. There was never anybody else but Joan. So then the major says, “Good idea. We could all do with a little of the peace and stability that marriage brings.” An’ that was when I made the mistake of askin’ him if he was married himself.’

  ‘Why was that a mistake?’ Paniatowski wondered.

  ‘Firstly because it’s not an NCO’s place to go askin’ officers intimate questions. But secondly – an’ more importantly – because of the effect it had on him.’

  ‘What effect was that?’

  ‘He was older than me by a good ten years, but suddenly he seemed much younger an’ much more vulnerable. “No,” he said. “No, I … er … never quite seemed to get around to it.” Well, I apologized for pryin’, an’ he told me it didn’t matter – though it clearly did. Then he shifted ground – which is what people do when they find themselves in sticky situations – an’ he said, “Tell me, Charlie, have you given much thought to how you’ll support a wife and – soon enough, I would imagine – a family?”’

  ‘And you said, “Well, I’ve always had this burning ambition to work for the Metropolitan Police Force”?’ Paniatowski suggested.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Woodend replied. ‘The fact was that even though I wouldn’t admit it – even to myself – there was a part of me which believed that if you had any plan for a future, you wouldn’t get one, whereas if you expect to be killed, you just might survive. Still, the major was clearly expectin’ an answer to his question, so I said, “I’ll probably get a job as a tackler in one of the mills. It’s what I did before the War.”’

  ‘And how did he react to that?’

  ‘Didn’t like it at all. He was back in control of himself by this point – very much the officer again – an’ he clicked his tongue disapprovingly an’ said, “You disappoint me, Sergeant. There’s no future for you as a … as a tackler, was it?”’

  ‘Cheeky bastard!’ Paniatowski said. ‘He had no idea what a tackler does, did he?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But he meant well. “The mills are finished,” he said. “Everybody knows that.” Not in Lancashire, they don’t, I thought. But aloud, all I said was, “Is that right, sir?” “Yes, it certainly is,” he told me. “In ten or fifteen years’ time, all the cloth we buy in England will be made in India or China. And even if the mills weren’t finished, that’s not the kind of job to really stretch a man of your obvious abilities, now is it?’

  ‘A man of your obvious abilities!’ Paniatowski repeated, teasingly. ‘Do you think he fancied you or something?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Woodend said firmly. ‘There was nothin’ even vaguely homosexual about Major Cathcart – as you’ll find out for yourself if you stop interruptin’ an’ just listen to the story.’

  ‘Sorry, Charlie,’ Monika said, with mock humility.

  ‘Anyway, I asked him what he thought I should do,’ Woodend continued, ‘and he suggested I should think about becomin’ a bobby. “I was a policeman before the War,” he told me. “In the Met. And when I’m demobbed, that’s what I shall be again.” I said it was certainly worth thinkin’ about once I was back in Lancashire, an’ that’s when he started clickin’ his tongue disapprovingly again.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘He said, an’ I think I’m quotin’ exactly here, “If you’re going to paint a picture, set out to produce a masterpiece. If you’re going to write a book, aim at it being the best one ever written. And if you intend to become a policeman, join the best police force in the world – which is the Met.” I pointed out that would mean livin’ in London, an’ he laughed an’ said, “Well, of course it would – so there’s another advantage for you.”’

  ‘That’s the problem with Londoners,’ Paniatowski said. ‘They believe there are only two kinds of people – those who live in London and those who want to live in London.’

  ‘Those were exactly my thoughts at the time,’ Woodend agreed. ‘An’ there were other considerations to be taken into account. “I’m not sure my fiancée would fancy the idea of movin’ down South, sir,” I told him. “For God’s sake, Charlie,” he said, “you’re going to be the head of a family – so you’d better start thinking like one, even before you’re married. The Met’s desperately short of good men at the moment, and for anyone who’s even halfway competent – and you’re
much more than that – it’s a golden opportunity. If your wife has anything about her, she’ll see that, and want you to do whatever’s necessary to get on in life. And if she doesn’t like it, well, as I said, you will be the head of family, so she’ll just have to lump it, won’t she?”’

  A smile played on Paniatowski’s lips. ‘And did Joan “just have to lump it”?’ she asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, she raised no objection at all,’ Woodend told her. ‘What she actually said was, “I’ve got faith in your judgement, Charlie. After all, you showed enough of it to be pretty desperate to marry me, now didn’t you?”’

  Paniatowski laughed. ‘That sounds like Joan,’ she said. ‘But tell me, Charlie, did you ever regret taking the decision?’

  ‘Now an’ again,’ Woodend admitted. ‘On nights like the one I’ve just been talkin’ about, when the smog was so thick it settled in your lungs an’ didn’t seem like it would ever go away, I did get a bout of the blues an’ start to yearn for home, where even the industrial filth seemed to taste better. But when that happened, there was always somethin’ – one thing – I could do to lift my spirits.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Go an’ look at our Annie, sleepin’ peacefully in her little bed.’

  Woodend stood in the doorway of his daughter’s bedroom. From the illumination provided by her nightlight he could see that she was deeply asleep, but still he held his breath for fear of waking her.

  She was a wondrous child, he told himself. A precious gift that – most of time – he felt unworthy of.

  She had been born just before the move to London, and, after much thought, he and Joan had christened her Pauline Anne. Woodend was still not sure which of the two names he preferred. And neither, it appeared, was his daughter, since for weeks on end she would insist on being called Annie, and then – completely out of the blue – would recognize no other name but Pauline.

  He realized suddenly that the War – or at least his War – had been for her. That before she’d even been conceived, it was for her future – for the future of children everywhere – that he’d been fighting.