‘When did he first become a tramp?’ Rutter asked.
Turner’s eyes hardened. ‘Our Phil was never a tramp!’ he said with feeling. ‘He might have lived a bit rough from time to time, but that didn’t make him a tramp!’
Didn’t it? Rutter asked himself. Then what did it make him?
‘What would you prefer me to call him?’ he asked.
‘He was a traveller,’ Henry Turner said firmly, ‘looking for the peace of mind on the road that he could never have found living in the city where his darling Edith died.’
‘Of course, a traveller,’ Rutter agreed hastily. ‘So how long was he a traveller?’
‘Must be eight years now,’ Henry Turner guessed. ‘For the first two or three, he used to send me postcards from the places he visited – Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow – but then even that stopped.’
‘Can you think of any old enemies he might have had?’ Rutter asked, suspecting, even as he spoke, that it was a pointless question to put.
‘Phil wasn’t the sort to make enemies, and even if he had any, how would they find him when even his own brother didn’t know where he was?’ Turner replied, confirming the suspicion. Then he looked Rutter straight in the eyes, and said, ‘Who do you think killed him? And why did he kill him?’
‘We don’t know,’ Rutter admitted. ‘Our best guess at the moment is that it was a random act of violence. Somebody wanted to kill a tram— a traveller, and your brother just happened to be the victim he lighted on.’
Turner shook his head. ‘It seems such a waste,’ he said. ‘Can I claim the body?’
‘Of course,’ Rutter agreed. ‘I’ll put the wheels in motion as soon as I get back to Whitebridge.’
‘I’d like to see him properly buried. It’s the least I can do for him.’ Turner hesitated for a second, then added, ‘I suppose it’ll have to be a closed coffin?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Rutter agreed. He looked around the living room, at the beautifully polished display cabinets and the framed pictures on the walls, then added, ‘Do you happen to have a photograph of your brother? Preferably one that was taken not too long before he started travelling?’
Turner walked over to the display cabinet like an old man, and returned with a photograph in a silver frame. Two people smiled out of it – a woman who could not be called pretty but looked very pleasant, and a man who bore a close resemblance to Henry Turner.
‘That’s the most recent one I have,’ Turner said. ‘It was taken about three years before he went away.’
‘Can I borrow it?’ Rutter asked. ‘You’ll get it back when we’ve copied it.’
‘Will it help you to catch the man who did this terrible thing to him?’ Turner asked.
Probably not, Rutter thought, but aloud he said, ‘In an investigation like this one, every single piece of additional information we get can be a help.’
‘Then take it,’ Turner said. ‘Take it with my blessing.’
Though he’d been dying to do so for some time, it was not until he was out on the street again that Rutter looked at his watch.
He was running late again, and for a moment he almost abandoned his plan to do a bit of shopping away from the watchful eyes of his colleagues. Then he told himself that the purchase was important to him, and if his colleagues didn’t like it, they could bloody well lump it.
Elizabeth Driver thought quickly on her feet, but even better when she was behind the wheel of her Jaguar, which was why, for the previous hour or so, she had been driving around the Whitebridge area with no particular destination in mind.
The book was going well, she told herself, as she slotted another piece of its venom mentally into place. Better than well – it was going bloody marvellously.
The town would never be the same again after her book came out. It would do its best to prove her wrong, but the corruption she would expose – some of it, no doubt, true – would leave a stink that would cling to the place like sprayed-on cow piss.
The book would also, of course, make her a figure of hatred in the town, but that wouldn’t bother her – not when all she had to do was take the money and run.
She had just turned on to Hardcastle Street when she noticed the big police van. It was parked in front of an off-licence, and though there was nothing at all unusual about that, the behaviour of the uniformed constable standing by the double doors at the back of the van immediately aroused her interest.
She pulled into the kerbside and switched off her engine. She was probably wasting her time, she told herself, but even as her brain was processing the thought, her reporter’s instinct was bringing a tingle to the back of her neck.
The back doors of the van were open, and the constable was having a heated discussion with a couple of rough-looking men who looked like tramps. The tramps, it appeared from their gestures, wanted to get out of the van, and the constable was intent on persuading them to stay in.
It was the persuasive element of the encounter that interested Elizabeth Driver. If the tramps had been arrested, she argued, persuasion wouldn’t have come into it. And if they hadn’t been arrested, what were they doing in the back of the van, and why was the bobby so keen to keep them there?
The door of the off-licence opened, and another constable stepped out on to the pavement. He had a carrier bag in his hand, and when the tramps saw it, they became even more agitated. And not only them, but the tramps behind them – because it now became apparent that there were at least half a dozen of them inside the vehicle.
The constable with the carrier bag had arrived back at the van, and when his colleague had stood aside, he reached into the bag and produced a bottle of cider. Several hands made a lunge for it, but the constable brushed most of them aside and handed it to a youngish man wearing a threadbare fawn overcoat, who, once having a firm grip on his prize, disappeared into the bowels of the van.
The next bottle the constable produced was sherry, and once again he seemed to know exactly who it was intended for. A bottle of red wine followed the sherry, and a bottle of white wine came after that. Soon, all the tramps had been issued with a bottle of something or other, and had retreated into the van. Once they were gone, the constable closed – and locked – the doors.
He’s not only bought all them a drink, he’s done it to order, Driver thought incredulously.
The two constables climbed into the front of the vehicle, and the van pulled off.
Driver waited until they were almost at the end of the street and then set off in pursuit.
You never know what’s going to happen to you, Bob Rutter thought, as he stood at the counter of a very expensive shop in the centre of Manchester.
Take Philip Turner’s case, for example. One minute he was a happily married man – as was obvious from the silver-framed photograph – and the next his wife had been run over by a corporation bus.
Take his own case. He hadn’t been happily married – the guilt he felt over his affair with Monika Paniatowski had ensured that – but he had loved Maria, and he had been devastated when she was murdered.
So what was the moral to be learned from all this?
Simple! When you wanted something that you thought would make your stay on earth a little more bearable, you grabbed it immediately.
Because if you stopped to think about it – even for a second – it might well be gone.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the cashmere-clad assistant.
‘Yes, you can,’ Rutter replied. ‘I’d like to buy an engagement ring.’
What Constables Warner and Crabtree really wanted, when they’d finished the task that Henry Marlowe had assigned to them, was a good strong drink – or several good strong drinks – but they were still in their uniforms, so they settled for large mugs of tea in the nearest cafe.
The tea helped soothe them – but only a little.
‘I just can’t help thinking we’ve done the wrong thing,’ Crabtree said worriedly, as he sipped at the dark sweet liquid.
‘What choice did we have?’ Warner countered. ‘When the chief constable says, “Jump!” all we can ask is, “How high, sir?” That’s the way things are in this world.”
‘I know that. But did it feel right to you?’ Crabtree persisted.
‘No,’ Warner said gloomily. ‘It didn’t feel right at all. I knew when I joined the police that there’d be lots of things I’d have to do that I wouldn’t like doing, but I never expected I’d—’
‘Mind if I join you?’ asked a voice.
They looked up, and saw a woman standing over them. Crabtree noticed that she was in her late twenties, and rather smartly dressed to be in a place like this scruffy cafe. Warner noticed that she had long black hair and breasts you could drown in. Both wondered why she wanted to waste her time sitting with them.
The woman sat down anyway, without waiting for the invitation.
‘I’m Elizabeth Driver,’ she announced. ‘I’m a reporter for the Gazette. You may have read some of my stuff.’
Neither constable said anything, though they were already beginning to fear the worst.
‘Well, you have been busy boys, haven’t you?’ Elizabeth Driver asked brightly.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, madam,’ Crabtree said.
Driver laughed. ‘Even if you were a good liar, that particular line wouldn’t work. And you’re not a good liar. In fact, you’re a bloody awful one.’
‘Now look here, madam—’ Crabtree started to protest.
‘I think you should know that I’ve been following you since you left the off-licence,’ Driver interrupted.
‘Oh!’ Crabtree said.
‘Oh!’ Warner agreed.
‘Oh!’ Elizabeth Driver confirmed. ‘You’re in big trouble, boys. You know that, don’t you?’
‘We were only—’ Warner began.
‘Following orders?’ Driver interrupted again.
‘Well, yes.’
‘That’s the defence the Nazi war criminals used – and look what happened to them.’ Driver tilted her head to one side and mimed being hanged, then continued, ‘Somebody’s going to have to take the fall for this, and if you don’t help me, it could be you. On the other hand, if you decide to cooperate …’
‘What do you want to know?’ Warner asked desperately.
‘Who issued the orders that you were “only following”?’
‘Mr Marlow,’ Crabtree said. ‘He’s the—’
‘Chief constable! I know. And did Mr Marlowe give you these orders personally – or were they relayed through a flunky?’
‘He gave them personally,’ Crabtree admitted.
‘So who paid for all the booze that I saw you buying at the off-licence?’
‘He did. He gave me a couple of pounds, and said if I needed any more, I’d only got to tell him.’
A look of perfect happiness spread across Elizabeth Driver’s face. ‘Excellent!’ she said.
Thirteen
The Alderman Baxter Retirement Home was housed in what had once been the Whitebridge Workhouse.
A great deal had been done to brighten up the place since those far-off days when it catered for desperate paupers with no choice but to throw themselves on the mercy of the Board of Guardians – liberal applications of pastel paint had all but obliterated the institutional chocolate-brown colour with which the walls had once been coated, gaily patterned curtains somewhat softened the stern windows – and yet, for all that, the building still had an air of Victorian pious self-righteousness and inflexibility which made Paniatowski shiver as she walked through the entrance archway.
She had not seen James Fuller, the person she was there to visit, for nearly twenty years. Back then, viewed through the eyes of childhood, he had seemed a tall, almost godlike figure, but he had probably never been as imposing as she’d believed, and now he was nothing more than a little old man.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember me,’ she told him.
‘You underrate yourself,’ Fuller replied. ‘I never forget any of my star pupils.’
‘Is that what I was?’ Paniatowski asked, surprised. ‘A star pupil? I don’t recall doing that well at school.’
Fuller laughed. It was a dry, rasping laugh, which was almost a cough. ‘Oh, I don’t mean you were a star pupil in the academic sense,’ he explained. ‘You were only slightly above average when it came to your school work.’
‘Well, then?’
‘What made you stand out was that you had a spark. You had character. Look how you fought them when they tried to change your name!’
‘When who tried to change my name?’
‘Your mother and your stepfather. They wanted to change your surname so it was the same as theirs. But you weren’t having that. You were eleven years old, living in a country you hardly knew, and with still a trace of a Polish accent, but you still stood firm. And, in the end, it was them who gave way. Do you really not remember that?’
‘No, I don’t remember it at all,’ Paniatowski admitted.
But then, she told herself, she had tried to forget as much as she possibly could about her abused childhood.
‘I wanted to ask you about someone else’s school days,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Whose?’
‘Councillor Tel Lowry’s. He was at the school quite a few years before me, but …’
‘You don’t need to tell me that.’
‘… but since he’s become such an important man in the community, I expect you remember him even better than you remember me.’
‘I remember him as well as I remember you,’ Fuller said, with just a hint of reproach in his voice. ‘But given that it’s well over thirty years since he passed through my hands, why have you come to ask me about him?’
Because I’m desperate, Paniatowski thought. Because Charlie Woodend – for reasons of his own – wants me to find a weakness where none seems to exist.
‘We can learn a lot about people from their childhood,’ she told Fuller. ‘Don’t they say that the child is father to the man?’
‘They do say that,’ Fuller agreed. ‘And they’re not far off the mark.’
‘So what was he like?’
‘In a word, unhappy. Parents always have favourites among their children, you know, however much they may deny it, and it was Tel’s older brother, Barclay, who was his father’s favourite.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because Joseph Lowry – hard, unbending man he was – never made even the slightest attempt to disguise the fact. Barclay was the crown prince. He was destined to take over the family firm. He was sent to an expensive school, so that he’d gain a place in one of the top universities. Tel, on the other hand, had to make do with being educated locally.’
‘And the mother just accepted that?’
‘I don’t think she had any choice in the matter. Joseph held the purse strings, and Joseph called the shots.’
‘It must have been terrible for Tel,’ Paniatowski said with feeling.
‘It got worse,’ Fuller told her. ‘Whatever Tel did – however successful he was – it was never good enough for Joseph. Tel won prizes, and Joseph never turned up to see him collect them. Tel captained the school football team, and had to play without his father there to cheer him on. But he overcame all obstacles, didn’t he? Just like you did. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the RAF.’
‘And became a hero,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And became a hero,’ Fuller agreed. He paused, to suck a little air into his leathery old lungs. ‘I liked most of the pupils I taught, Monika, but there were only a few I actually admired – and you and Tel Lowry were both members of that select group.’
Paniatowski sighed. The problem about trying to dig up dirt on Tel Lowry, she decided, was that the more she got to know about the man – and the disadvantages that he, too, had suffered – the more she found herself warming to him.
‘Councillor Scranton didn’t happen to pass through your hands, as well, did he
?’ she asked.
Fuller scowled. ‘That piece of shit!’ he said.
The phrase rocked Paniatowski. She knew, objectively, the teachers must swear, just like ordinary people, but it was still a shock to hear one of them actually do it.
‘In what way was he a piece of shit?’ she asked, marvelling at her own courage in repeating the words in front of her old teacher, even if he had used them first.
‘In what way?’ Fuller said. ‘In any way you’d care to think of. He was a bully and a sneak – and possibly a thief as well. He liked to pick on the children who didn’t quite fit in, and, of course, Tel Lowry was one of them. The bullying went on for quite some time, until Tel decided to square up to him in the playground one day. I was on playground duty at the time, and if I’d seen the fight, of course, I’d have been morally – and contractually – obliged to stop it.’
‘But you didn’t see it?’
Fuller grinned. ‘No. I could see what was about to happen, and I found I had developed a sudden fascination for the cloakroom door. And that door didn’t stop being fascinating until Scranton was on the ground, and had no intention of getting up again. When I did finally deign to notice him, I could see he was a real mess, so I told him he’d better be more careful in the future, or he’d fall over again. He got the message clearly enough.’
‘He would have done,’ Paniatowski agreed.
‘Funnily enough, though they obviously didn’t plan it, they both ended up not only in the RAF, but posted to the same base. Abingdon, I think it was.’
Paniatowski smiled. ‘Where they buried the hatchet, and became great friends?’ she suggested.
‘That sort of thing might happen in films, but I’ve never seen it happen in real life,’ Fuller told her. ‘Besides, Tel was an officer and a hero, while Scranton was nothing more than an enlisted man. And from what I’ve heard, they weren’t on the same base for long, anyway, because Scranton was dishonourably discharged.’
‘And now he’s a town councillor,’ Paniatowski said.
‘And now he’s a town councillor,’ Fuller agreed. ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
Dying Fall Page 11
