Echoes of the Dead

by Sally Spencer

  Fred Howerd tensed, and then began to wave his hands frantically about in the air.

  He was probably saying that this whole thing was a stupid mistake, and it would be much better if the policemen just left him alone, Woodend thought.

  Because men like him – however careless they’d been while committing their crimes – often simply refused to believe it when they were finally tracked down.

  The constable shook his head, and said something else, probably to the effect that it would be better for Howerd if he agreed to come quietly.

  And the message seemed to have finally got through, because now Howerd held his wrists out, and allowed the constable to slip the handcuffs on them.

  A small crowd of stallholders, noticing that something unusual was happening, had started to gather, but they kept their distance from Howerd’s stall, and watched in complete silence as the whole drama was played.

  Were they surprised about the turn of events? Woodend asked himself.

  Or had they perhaps always thought there was something a little strange about Fred Howerd?

  The two policemen each put one of his hands firmly on Howerd’s shoulders, and led him away. Without any bidding from the officers, the small crowd parted to let them pass.

  He had solved his first major crime as a chief inspector in less than two days, Woodend reminded himself. He would return to Scotland Yard – where there were many who still had their doubts about him – as a conquering hero.

  He should, by rights, have been elated.

  But he wasn’t!

  Because there was a large part of him which wished that this triumph of his had never been possible.

  That he had won no victory because there had been no victory to win.

  That instead of being raped and murdered in a derelict potting shed, Lilly Dawson had been allowed to go home, with the prospect of a full and happy life ahead of her.

  This feeling – this near-despair that life could be so brutish – was one that would revisit him many times over the years, but this particular experience of it, he knew even then, would never leave him – because it had been branded onto his soul.

  Solving this case was bit like desperately looking forward to losing your virginity – and then realizing, once it was over, that it wasn’t at all it was cracked up to be, he thought.

  He turned to Bannerman and said, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better go back to the station and tie up all the loose ends.’

  ‘And then we can crack open the champagne,’ replied the sergeant, sounding as though he, at least, felt as if he was riding the crest of a wave.

  PART THREE

  Whitebridge–Costa Blanca,

  October 1973

  ELEVEN

  The London train was right on time, and Paniatowski – who was not usually superstitious – caught herself wondering whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

  She had thought of waiting on the platform to greet DCI Hall, but instead had decided to stand just beyond the ticket barrier.

  ‘That way,’ she told herself, ‘I’ll have a chance to study him before he even knows I’m here.’

  It wasn’t much of an advantage, she realized, but at that moment she was prepared to grab any advantage – however small – that was going.

  The train doors opened, and as the passengers began to spill out on to the platform, she ran her gaze quickly from one end of it to the other.

  She had a very clear idea of what she should be on the lookout for. The man from the Yard would be young, and he would be tall – high-fliers were always both. He would be the kind of police officer who can find always time to play a punishing game of squash, even in the middle of the most demanding investigation, and his slim, athletic body would reflect that. He would be smartly, though not flashily, dressed. He’d have the sharp features of the typical hatchet man, and the cunning eyes of a consummate politician.

  Yes, that was how he’d look – and she was sure she’d dislike him from the second she set eyes on him.

  Most of the people who’d got off the train were already rushing towards the barrier, but the last man to disembark was still standing there, as if he was quite content to wait until the rush was over.

  He was of no more than average height, Paniatowski noted. He was chunky, rather than athletic, and was wearing a sports jacket which had seen better days and a pair of grey flannel trousers.

  ‘That can’t be him,’ she said to herself. ‘That simply can’t be him.’

  Yet all the other passengers continued to sweep past her, and when the man in the jacket and grey trousers finally reached the barrier, he looked her and said, ‘DCI Paniatowski?’

  Paniatowski nodded.

  The man smiled. ‘And I’m Tom Hall,’ he said. ‘I must admit, you’re not at all what I expected.’

  He was a few years older than she was – which probably made him no more than a couple of years younger than Assistant Commissioner Bannerman. He had a face which – though even the kindest of observers would have been pushed to call it attractive – was pleasant enough. And while his eyes were as intelligent as she’d pictured them, they seemed to be quite lacking in guile.

  ‘You’re not what I expected, either,’ she admitted.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think I am,’ Hall said, ‘but the difference between us is that people are usually disappointed when they see how I look.’ The smile, which had never quite left his face, now turned into a grin. ‘You’re not one of those coppers who insist on driving their visitors straight to their hotel and ignore all the pubs on the way, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Hall said.

  The hill on which Charlie and Joan Woodend’s villa stood had once been shared – in almost equal parts – by a few herds of scavenging goats and a handful of determined peasants who had cultivated their almonds on its steep terraces. Now the goats had gone, and most of the almond groves were in terminal decline. Building work had begun almost a decade earlier, but it was a slow, leisurely process, and though Woodend knew several people who lived close enough to him to be called neighbours, most of the building plots still stood empty.

  It would all change, he accepted, with just a touch of regret. More and more houses would spring up, and the hillside would eventually become a full-blown village. But it hadn’t happened yet, and – in the meantime – he still had his virtually uninterrupted view.

  And what a bloody marvellous view it was, he told himself, as he stood on his sunny terrace that afternoon, a glass of Mahou beer in one hand and a Ducados cigarette in the other.

  Straight ahead of him lay the Mediterranean Sea, a carpet of deep, rippling blue which stretched from the shoreline to the far horizon. To his right, the Peñon Ifach – a vast, breathtaking, outcrop of rock which the ancient Phoenicians had regarded as the younger sister of the Rock of Gibraltar – reared out of the water like a fierce primeval monster. And to his left – less dramatic, but equally enchanting – there was the sleepy fishing village of Moraira, dancing lazily in the heat haze.

  ‘Looking back on it, are you happy with the way your life has gone, Charlie?’ asked a voice from somewhere to his left.

  Woodend turned to face the man who had posed the question – a wiry, seventy-three-year-old Spaniard whose full name was Francisco Ibañez Ruiz, but who was better known simply as Paco.

  ‘That’s a strange question to ask on a warm afternoon, after half a dozen bottles of beer, Inspector Ruiz,’ he said.

  ‘It is the perfect question to ask on a warm afternoon, after half a dozen bottles of beer,’ Paco replied, with a smile.

  Yes, Woodend agreed, it probably was.

  Though he liked most people, there were few he actually admired, and Paco was one of that select band. He was in awe of the way that Ruiz had put the horrors he had seen during the Civil War behind him, and grateful for the fact that, since they had solved a murder together, several years earlier, they had become firm f
riends.

  ‘Am I happy about the way my life has gone?’ he said. ‘Yes, I think so. I’ve had a very good marriage an’ I’ve got a wonderful daughter. An’ as far as my work went—’

  ‘You were an honourable policeman,’ Paco interrupted.

  Woodend grinned. ‘Honourable!’ he repeated. ‘You’re very fond of that word in Spain, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s at the root of our being,’ Paco told him. ‘If you cannot understand what honour means to a Spaniard, then you will never understand Spain.’

  ‘It’s probably not that different in Lancashire,’ Woodend admitted. ‘But we’d never call it “honour” – that’s far too poncey a word for a mill town like Whitebridge.’

  ‘So what would you call it?’ Paco asked.

  ‘Decency, I suppose,’ Woodend said. ‘I was a very decent policeman. In all the time I was on the Force, I never once did anything that I was ashamed of.’

  ‘I wonder how many men could honestly say that?’ Paco mused.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Woodend replied. ‘But it’s important to me that I can – because everything I am now is based on everything I was then.’

  DCI Hall looked around the public bar of the Drum and Monkey and said, ‘Now this is what I call a pub. Where shall we sit?’

  ‘Over there, at the table in the corner,’ Paniatowski told him.

  ‘But there’s already somebody sitting there,’ Hall pointed out.

  ‘I know there is,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘He’s my inspector.’

  ‘Is he, now!’ Hall asked. ‘Well, isn’t that a pleasant surprise?’

  They walked across to the table. Beresford and Hall shook hands, and Paniatowski signalled the ever-vigilant waiter.

  Once the drinks had arrived, Hall immediately launched into a series of amusing stories about life at Scotland Yard, as if he were that one guest at a dinner party who is expected to pay for his supper by keeping the other guests entertained.

  Paniatowski let him talk for ten minutes, and then said, ‘I think we’d better get down to business.’

  ‘Yes, we had,’ Hall agreed, his face growing more serious. He turned to Beresford. ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, son, but I think it’s time you left.’

  ‘Time he left? But he’s my inspector,’ Paniatowski protested.

  ‘And that’s exactly the problem,’ Hall said. ‘The deal that’s been worked out between your bosses and mine is that we’re the only two involved in this investigation. If my bosses read in my report that your inspector was also involved, they’ll want to know why I didn’t have back-up as well – and then they could create a real stink.’

  ‘So leave it out of your report,’ Paniatowski suggested.

  Hall shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. I’ve always played things by the book, and I’m too long in the tooth to change my ways now.’ He turned to Beresford again. ‘I expect Monika will tell you everything in the morning, anyway – I know I would if you were my inspector.’

  Beresford looked questioningly at Paniatowski. ‘Boss?’

  ‘You go, Colin,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Tom’s right – I can tell you everything you need to know in the morning.’

  Beresford stood up – but reluctantly, as if he worried about leaving Paniatowski alone with the man from the Yard – and said, ‘I’ll see you again, then, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Hall agreed. ‘And next time you do, please call me Tom.’

  They watched Beresford walk to the door, then Paniatowski said angrily, ‘So exactly what is it that you don’t want my inspector – who I’d trust with my life – to know?’

  ‘There’s nothing at all I don’t want him to know,’ Hall said, apologetically, ‘but – given the snakepit in which I’m forced to work – there’s plenty that I don’t want him to be able to say he got directly from me.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, for a start, the way the people who really matter at the Yard view this investigation.’

  ‘And how do they view it?’

  ‘Their main concern, above all else – and that “all else” includes seeing justice done – is to protect Assistant Commissioner Bannerman’s reputation.’

  ‘And what about Charlie Woodend’s reputation?’ Paniatowski demanded. ‘He used to work at the Yard, as well.’

  ‘So he did,’ Hall agreed. ‘But that was a long time ago, and if the Blessed Charlie comes crashing down off his pedestal – so the thinking goes – the vibrations from his fall will hardly be felt in London at all. But Bannerman’s an entirely different case. He’s still at the Yard. He still has a future. And, most important of all, he’s owed a lot of favours – which he can call in any time he chooses to.’

  ‘Or, to put it another way, he know where all the bodies are buried,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Hall agreed. ‘But the truth is, for all they’re in a sweat over this situation, they’ve really got nothing to worry about – because if Fred Howerd was fitted up for the murder, Bannerman had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘How can you be so sure of that?’ Paniatowski asked, sceptically.

  ‘Because the very fact that I’m here in Whitebridge is the living proof of it.’

  ‘How is that proof?’

  ‘I know for a fact that Bannerman played no part in assigning this investigation to me – but he didn’t block it, either, and he could have easily done that, if he’d wanted to.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We’ve never worked together, but he knows me by my reputation – just as I know him by his. And that means he also knows that if you want something sweeping under the carpet, Tom Hall is the last man you should think of sending.’

  ‘You’re saying that if Bannerman did have something to hide, he’d have made certain that it was one his cronies who came to Whitebridge?’

  ‘Spot on.’

  ‘Which means you’re also saying that you think Fred Howerd’s conviction was sound – that there is no dirt to sweep under the carpet?’

  Hall frowned. ‘No, I don’t think I’d go that far, Monika,’ he replied, cautiously. ‘At the moment, you see, I’m not really in a position to.’

  ‘Then what you’re actually saying is that if anyone twisted the evidence, that person was Charlie Woodend?’ Paniatowski demanded.

  Hall looked embarrassed. ‘Look, Monika,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘I’ve never even met Charlie Woodend, so you can’t expect me to . . .’

  ‘That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?’ Paniatowski persisted.

  ‘Yes,’ Hall agreed reluctantly, ‘If you’re going to pin me down, then I suppose it is.’

  ‘Charlie would never have sent an innocent man to jail,’ Paniatowski said fiercely.

  Yet Fred Howerd had claimed – with what was almost his dying breath, and under the seal of the sacrament of confession – that he had not killed Lilly Dawson.

  ‘At least, he would never knowingly have sent an innocent man to jail,’ she amended, realizing how weak that sounded.

  ‘I think we’ve been getting a bit ahead of ourselves – and that’s probably entirely my fault,’ Hall said apologetically. ‘At this stage of the investigation it was wrong of me to assume we could rule Bannerman out. I see that now. I should never have done it – however good my reasons were.’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski said firmly. ‘You shouldn’t.’

  And she was thinking to herself, If only I’d sounded half so firm – half so decisive – just a minute ago, when I was supposed to be defending Charlie.

  Hall smiled in an ugly-charming way. ‘I promise you that I’m not a habitual assumption-maker, so do you think you could let me off with a caution this time?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think I could,’ Paniatowski told him. Then she smiled back – because it was hard not to – and added, ‘but I’m prepared to give you a suspended sentence.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Hall said cheerfully. His face grew serious again. ‘I’d like to mak
e a suggestion, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘It’s all right with me.’

  ‘I think that instead of just sitting here and debating who should get blamed for what, we should get off our arses and go and see if there’s any need to blame anybody for anything.’

  ‘A good idea,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Where do you want to start?’

  ‘A little chat with Fred Howerd’s daughter, Elizabeth, might be as good a place as any,’ Hall said.

  TWELVE

  ‘If I’d known you had streets like this in your lovely city, I’d have gone into training from the moment I knew I was being sent here,’ DCI Tom Hall puffed good-naturedly, as he and Paniatowski walked up the steep street, towards the house where Fred Howerd had taken his last breath.

  Paniatowski grinned. ‘You get used to it, Tom,’ she said.

  She found herself wondering if Sergeant Bannerman had said something similar to Charlie Woodend, twenty-two years earlier, when the pair of them were clogging it around the hilly streets of Whitebridge.

  Probably not.

  Back then, Bannerman would have been young and fit, and driven by a burning ambition which would eventually land him in the post of Assistant Commissioner. He would have seen any hill – whatever the gradient – as no more than a minor obstacle in what he must already have known was going to be a long, hard climb.

  The real question was whether, at some point, he had decided to look for a short-cut – because despite Hall’s protestations that he had to be clean, she was still convinced that if anybody had fitted Fred Howerd up, that somebody could not be Charlie Woodend.

  As they drew closer to Elizabeth Eccles’s house, they saw that a car was just pulling away from it. And not just any old car, but a Bentley with a personalized number plate which read ‘RJH 1’.

  ‘Mrs Eccles would appear to have some rich and powerful friends,’ Hall commented wryly. ‘Let’s hope, for all our sakes, that they’re not taking too personal an interest in the case.’