Fatal Quest

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I’d just like to know—’ Woodend said.

  ‘I’m sure you would,’ Tongue agreed. ‘However, Mr Machin has made his statement, and now has no more to say.’

  ‘He might have made the statement, but there are still a number of questions that haven’t been—’

  ‘Leave it out, Sergeant,’ DCI Bentley ordered. ‘We’ve got what we wanted, so just leave it out.’

  The drinking session in the Black Lion had been DCI Bentley’s idea.

  ‘We’ve got a result,’ he’d told the rest of the team, when he and Woodend returned to the office. And when the cheering and whistling died down, he continued, ‘And what do we do when we get a result, DC Cotteral?’

  ‘We go out for a lunchtime piss-up, sir,’ the DC answered.

  ‘We go out for a lunchtime piss-up,’ Bentley agreed.

  So there they were, at a table almost over-spilling with drinks.

  Bentley stood up. ‘When you’re looking at me, you’re looking at a man whose stock around the Yard has shot up considerably as a direct result of this morning’s work,’ he said to his team. ‘Now, as all you know, I’ve never have a bad word to say about any of my fellow chief inspectors …’

  There were more whistles and whoops, and DC Cotteral said, ‘Not much you haven’t, guv’nor!’

  Bentley smiled, indulgently. ‘But I will say this,’ he continued, ‘the bastards had grins stretched right across their poxy faces when the case was handed to me, rather than to one of them. And why was that? Because they didn’t think there was a cat in hell’s chance of cracking it. But we proved them wrong, didn’t we?’

  The constables banged their glasses on the table, and shouted, ‘Yes, we certainly bloody did.’

  ‘In this job, getting a result is always down to a team effort,’ Bentley continued. ‘But sometimes there’s one particular member of the team who stands out – and that’s the case here.’ He raised his glass. ‘So here’s to Charlie Woodend, who not only made a case that even I wasn’t quite sure could be made, but managed to do it in only two days.’

  Glasses were clinking, and hands slapped Woodend on the back and patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Nice one, Sarge!’ Cotteral said.

  Nice one, Woodend repeated – silently and bleakly.

  For now, at least, he had his boss’s approval and his colleagues’ admiration. This should have been a moment of crowning glory – but it wasn’t, because though he had got a result, he was far from believing that it was the right one.

  ‘When I’d been questionin’ Jimmy Machin the previous afternoon, I’d been convinced I was talkin’ to Wally Booth’s killer,’ Woodend told Paniatowski. ‘An’ then I walked out of the interview room an’ ran straight into that bastard Tongue, who not only cost more than Machin could ever afford to pay, but had turned up to defend a client who nobody even knew was under arrest. An’ that’s when I started havin’ my doubts.’

  ‘And the more you thought about it, the less convinced you were,’ Paniatowski said, signalling for another round of drinks.

  ‘Exactly,’ Woodend agreed. ‘The doubts had blossomed overnight, an’ after I’d heard Machin’s confession they’d grown so big they were completely blockin’ out whatever warmin’ glow of triumph I might have felt.’

  ‘You never wanted the case in the first place, Charlie,’ Paniatowski reminded him.

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘In fact, what you actually did want was to get rid of it as soon as possible – so that you’d be free to investigate the Pearl Jones murder.’

  ‘There’s no disputing that.’

  ‘So what was your problem?’

  ‘There wasn’t just one problem – there were two! The first was that I didn’t like to see justice being perverted, even if the victim of that perversion in this case was a habitual criminal, who, for all I knew, might well have blood on his hands, even if that blood wasn’t Wally Booth’s.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘The second was that I didn’t appreciate being used as a pawn in someone else’s game, which was what – I was almost sure – I had been.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t like that,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘You wouldn’t like that at all.’

  Woodend became aware of the fact that Bentley was calling for yet another round of drinks, and stood up.

  ‘Off for a slash, Charlie?’ the chief inspector asked.

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ Woodend lied.

  ‘You young coppers!’ Bentley called after him, with comic disgust. ‘You might be faster on your feet than us old-timers, but when it comes to a true test of a man’s physical prowess – holding his drink – we leave you standing.’

  Woodend stepped out into the corridor. It was the phone, not the toilet, that he felt a strong urge to use, and even as he was searching for coins with his right hand, he was reaching for the receiver with his left.

  He asked the operator for the Daily Globe, and when he was connected he said he wanted to speak to Tom Townshend.

  ‘Have you found out anything for me yet, Tom?’ he asked, the moment Townshend came on the line.

  ‘Found out anything?’ the journalist replied. ‘What do you think I am, Charlie, a bloody miracle-worker? Do I need to remind you that it’s less than twenty-hours since you asked me to start rooting around?’

  ‘Which is more than enough time for an ace reporter like you to have come up with results,’ Woodend countered.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Townshend agreed complacently. ‘Most men would still be floundering around in a swamp of uncertainty, but Thomas Townshend, the Pride of Fleet Street, has already begun to drain that swamp – and to discover what lies beneath it.’

  Woodend laughed. ‘The richer you get, the more flowery you become,’ he said. ‘Listen, Tom, the Globe may pay you by the word, but I don’t – so get to the bloody point!’

  ‘You don’t pay me at all,’ Townshend reminded so. ‘You’re a charity case. So shall I tell you what I’ve got so far, Oliver Twist?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Well, for a start, I can’t give you any details of Victoria Jones’s bank account, because she doesn’t have one.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Then how does she pay her bills? How did she buy all that expensive stuff I saw in her house?’

  ‘She pays cash.’

  ‘An’ where does the cash come from?’

  ‘Now that,’ Townshend said, ‘is another question entirely, and one which – for the moment – I don’t have an answer to. But what I can tell you is that her daughter’s school fees are paid by the Meadows Educational Trust. Does that name ring any bells with you?’

  ‘No,’ Woodend admitted. ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘That’s hardly surprising, because it’s a small trust – a very small one indeed.’

  ‘How small?’

  ‘The only reason it exists at all – as far as I can tell – is to provide a scholarship for Pearl Jones.’

  ‘So who’s behind it?’

  ‘It’s administered by a solicitor, who is, in turn, instructed by a firm of chartered accountants. What I don’t know yet is who instructs the accountants.’

  ‘Can you keep diggin’?’ Woodend asked hopefully.

  ‘Now that I’ve got the scent firmly in my nose, you just try and stop me,’ Townshend replied.

  Woodend hung up, and returned to the bar. Though he’d only been gone for a few minutes, the team seemed considerably rowdier than when he’d left them, and Bentley in particular was well on the way to being drunk.

  ‘Here he is again – the man of the hour,’ the chief inspector said, slurring his words slightly. ‘We’ve … we’ve been talking it through, Charlie, and we’ve decided that when we finish here, we’ll go to a little drinking club I know in Soho.’

  And bollocks to the Pearl Jones murder, eh, you lazy bastard! Woodend thought angrily.

&
nbsp; ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’d prefer to go home and get my head down for a few hours,’ he said.

  For a moment, it looked as if Bentley was about to take offence at having his offer turned down, then he said, ‘Good idea, Charlie. You’ve been working hard. You go home and have a good long rest.’

  But as Woodend left the pub, going home was the last thing on his mind.

  On every other day of the week, Greyhound Ron Smithers either ate lunch with his business associates or made do with a sandwich at his desk, but on Fridays he had a permanently booked table for one at the Savoy Grill. He valued this time alone, and liked the fact that the waiters who deferred to him did not do it through fear, as most people did, but simply because he was such a good tipper. So he was far from pleased when, just as he was sipping his coffee and liqueur, the man in the hairy sports coat pulled a chair and sat down beside him.

  ‘How did yer know I was ’ere?’ Smithers hissed.

  Woodend smiled. ‘You’re a criminal, Ron. The Met likes to keep track of you, an’ all your regular haunts are noted down in your record.’

  ‘My boys are just outside,’ Smithers said, threateningly.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they are,’ Woodend agreed. ‘An’ I dare say that they could throw me out easily enough, if they put their minds to it. But if they did do that – if they caused a scene – then you’d never be welcome here again.’

  Smithers sighed. ‘What do yer want?’

  ‘I want what coppers like me always want – the answers to a few simple questions.’

  ‘Let’s get it over with, then,’ Smithers said, resignedly.

  ‘Question number one: why have you been havin’ me followed?’

  ‘I ’aven’t.’

  ‘Of course you have, Ron. How else would you have known that I’d arrested Jimmy Machin?’

  ‘’Oo?’

  ‘I’d also like to know how you persuaded him to confess to Wally Booth’s murder,’ Woodend continued. ‘An’ it will have taken some real persuadin’, because he must have known that if he’d just kept his mouth shut, I’d never have been able to make the charges stick.’

  ‘Yer really are talking in riddles today,’ Smithers said.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think he wasn’t even in the pub when Wally Booth died. Now ask me why I think that.’

  Smithers took a sip of his brandy. ‘All right. Why do yer think that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because if he’d seen what really happened in the Waterman’s – and coverin’ that up is what this whole elaborate pantomime is all about – he might have let the true story slip in an unguarded moment.’ Woodend paused. ‘Anythin’ you’d like to say at this point?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Smithers told him. ‘Firstly, if the Jimmy Machin yer talking about is Jimmy Machin the keyman …’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘… then while I’ve ’eard of ’im, I’ve never actually met ’im. And secondly, ain’t it possible that when ’e confessed to Wally’s murder, ’e was doing no more than telling the truth?’

  ‘No, it isn’t possible,’ Woodend said. ‘He’d been briefed on exactly what to say, and he didn’t say it particularly convincingly. And when I asked him how he’d become mates with Booth – which was a question that he hadn’t been coached to answer – he was completely lost for a minute. Anyway, why are you botherin’ to pretend you think he might have done it. You know he couldn’t have – because if he’d been in the Waterman’s Arms that afternoon, you’d have seen him for yourself.’

  Smithers laughed. ‘As traps go, that’s a pretty basic one, ain’t it? I wasn’t in the Waterman’s that afternoon.’

  ‘Your lads were.’

  ‘Maybe they were, and maybe they weren’t. But while there are some bosses ’oo like to go out drinking with their boys – in, for instance, the Black Lion – I’m not one of them. I like to keep a certain distance from my employees.’

  ‘I still can’t see why you went to all the trouble of fittin’ Machin up for the murder, when you didn’t have to,’ Woodend admitted. ‘It must have been expensive. Tongue alone will have cost you an arm an’ a leg.’

  ‘Tongue?’ Smithers said. ‘“Silver” Tongue? Was ’e involved in all this?’

  ‘You know he was.’

  ‘Listen very carefully,’ Smithers said. ‘It’s possible I was in the Waterman’s on that afternoon, though I’ll deny it if I’m pushed. And it’s possible – if I was there – that I saw a fight break out in which nobody was meant to get seriously ’urt, but somebody ended up dead. But it really is as simple as that. There’s no conspiracy to uncover – no deep dark secrets I’m trying to ’ide from you. All that ’appened was that a simple accident occurred.’

  ‘Well, all that certainly sounds plausible enough,’ Woodend said. ‘But if that is what happened, how do you explain Tongue’s involvement?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Smithers told him. ‘Because if somebody asked him to fit up Jimmy Machin, that somebody certainly wasn’t me!’

  Fifteen

  The single-decker bus creaked and wheezed its way along the country lanes like an old donkey which it would have been no more than a kindness to have had put down. The driver, as venerable as his vehicle, crunched the gears with regularity, hooted his horn occasionally, and maintained a low, muttered monologue which seemed to be aimed at no one in particular. Only the conductor, a thin young man with a rash on his neck and a home-rolled cigarette between his fingers, seemed to be enjoying the journey.

  It was hard to believe they were only a few miles away from central London, Woodend thought, as he shifted position in an attempt to make himself as comfortable as he could on a seat which had been designed to take a much smaller man.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked his wife.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Joan replied.

  But she wasn’t. From the moment that they’d left their tiny flat that Sunday morning, she’d seemed entirely wrapped up in her own thoughts. She’d said nothing to him as they’d travelled by the underground to the last station on the line, and left it entirely up to Woodend to discover which bus they had to take for the next stage of their expedition. And though she had always loved the countryside – even in winter – she was making absolutely no comment on it now.

  The bus had ground to a protesting halt in several small villages, and people had got off at each stop, so that now the Woodends were the only remaining passengers.

  ‘It’s further than I thought it would be,’ Charlie said.

  And Joan said nothing.

  They reached a T-junction, where an even narrower lane ran off the lane they were now on, and the bus stopped again.

  ‘This is it, mate,’ the conductor said cheerfully.

  ‘This is what?’ Woodend asked, looking around and seeing nothing but bare trees and naked hedgerows.

  ‘This is Thamesview Lane.’

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t see any houses,’ Woodend said.

  The conductor chuckled. ‘There ain’t no view of the Thames, eivver, but walk for ’alf a mile down that lane over there, and yer’ll have both.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better get off, then,’ Woodend said to Joan.

  ‘Yes, I suppose we better had,’ Joan agreed reluctantly. Then, as she began to descend the steps to the lane, she turned to the conductor and said, ‘Can you tell me when the next bus back is, please?’

  ‘They’re every two hours,’ the conductor replied.

  ‘Every two hours!’ Joan repeated bleakly.

  The bus slowly pulled away again, and Joan watched its departure with a mournful look in her eye.

  Woodend took her hand, and led her towards Thamesview Lane. ‘Soon be there,’ he said optimistically.

  ‘Hmm,’ Joan replied noncommittally.

  Woodend sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry it’s taken us so long to get here, luv,’ he said. ‘But it won’t always be like this. I’ve been doin’ my sums, an’ I think that next year we should be able to afford a little second-hand
car – maybe a Wolseley – to do our runnin’ around in.’

  Joan stopped walking. ‘It’s not the time it’s taking us to get there that’s botherin’ me, Charlie,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! What’s botherin’ me is why we’re goin’ there at all.’

  ‘We were invited.’

  ‘Yes, but why were we invited?’

  ‘Commander Cathcart wants to have a talk with me.’

  ‘An’ couldn’t he have done that much more easily in the city, one day in the week?’

  ‘Perhaps. But he also said that he wanted to meet you, an’ have us meet his missus. Remember, I did serve with him in the War.’

  ‘An’ did you save his life or somethin’?’ Joan asked.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Because every time I meet one of your old mates from the army, he always seems to have a story about how you saved his life.’

  Woodend laughed. ‘Everybody saved everybody else’s life in them days,’ he said. ‘Besides, I was a sergeant – it was my duty to look after my men.’

  ‘But you didn’t save Commander Cathcart’s life?’ Joan persisted.

  ‘Nay, lass, by the time him an’ me ended up servin’ together, most of the fightin’ was over.’

  ‘Then I still don’t see why we’ve been “honoured” with an invitation to his house for Sunday lunch,’ Joan said, but, despite her doubts, she began walking down the lane again.

  They turned a corner in the lane, and the Cathcarts’ house was suddenly laid out in front of them.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Woodend said.

  Joan tugged at his arm. ‘I want to go home, Charlie,’ she said.

  And though he didn’t want to admit it, Woodend could quite see her point.

  The house was a substantial tile and brick building which just fell short of being a mansion, and it did not so much stand on the bank of the river as loom over it. There were, Woodend calculated as he counted the upstairs windows, at least twelve bedrooms. And if the house itself was not enough to impress, there were also the gardens which surrounded it, and managed, even in winter, to maintain an air of grandeur and elegance.

  ‘What? No struttin’ peacocks?’ Woodend said jovially. ‘I expected there to be at least a few of them.’