Dying in the Dark

by Sally Spencer

  ‘If you’re a flasher, then I’d advise you to seek urgent medical help,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But I’m certainly not going to arrest you for something you’ve done in the past.’

  ‘A flasher!’ Tewson repeated. ‘Exposing myself in public! Is that what you think I’m talking about?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it bloody well isn’t!’

  ‘Then tell me what you do mean.’

  The first time, Tewson explained, was when they’d been going out together for a couple of weeks. Up to that point, Pamela had allowed him to stick his tongue in her mouth and give her breasts the occasional squeeze, which he’d considered to be very satisfactory progress for a few dates.

  That evening, they were out for a drive in the country, and had been going down a quiet lane when the engine of his Morris Minor had started to miss. He’d coaxed it on for another hundred yards, then it had finally died on him.

  ‘So what do we do know?’ Pamela had asked. ‘Can you fix it?’

  ‘Not me,’ Tewson had replied. ‘I know nothing about cars. But there’s a phone box about half a mile back down the road. You wait here, and I’ll go and call the AA.’

  The Automobile Association had told him that it was a busy night, but they could probably get a breakdown truck to him within the hour. He walked back to the car, and gave Pamela the news.

  ‘The point is, she could have started right then,’ Tewson explained to Paniatowski. ‘But she didn’t. She waited for at least half an hour before she began making her moves.’

  ‘I think I’m beginning to get the picture,’ Monika Paniatowski said.

  ‘Have you ever made love in the back of this car?’ Pamela asked.

  ‘Made love?’ Tewson repeated stupidly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What do you think I mean? Have you ever done it. Have you ever gone the whole way?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘It’ll be a bit cramped back there, but that should make it all the more interesting.’

  He noticed her use of tenses. ‘It’ll’ not ‘It’d’. ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘Now!’

  He tried to calculate how long it was since he’d made his phone call. ‘But the breakdown van will be here soon,’ he said.

  ‘So what? We’ll see its headlights long before it arrives, and have plenty of time to adjust our clothing.’

  ‘But it’s not only the breakdown truck that could come,’ he said, panicking. ‘There might be other cars. For all I know, this lane could be on the route of a police patrol car.’

  ‘Don’t be such a chicken. We’re in the middle of the countryside,’ Pamela said contemptuously.

  ‘Or walkers!’ Tewson said. ‘If somebody was walking down this lane, we wouldn’t see them until they were right on top of us.’

  ‘But by then you’ll be right on top of me. Don’t you think it’s worth the risk?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t fancy me enough to take a little chance like that, maybe we should stop seeing each other.’

  ‘There’ll be other opportunities,’ he said.

  ‘No, there won’t,’ Pamela replied firmly. ‘It’s now or never.’

  He was young. His hormones were raging. It was now.

  ‘Even then, she seemed to hold back,’ Tewson explained to Paniatowski. ‘It wasn’t … it wasn’t until we saw the headlights of the AA van, that she really got going. That she really began moving her …’

  ‘There’s no need to paint me the full picture,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘We tried to act normally when the mechanic arrived. But he could tell what had been going on. I could see it in his eyes.’

  ‘It wasn’t a one-off, was it?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘No,’ Tewson admitted.

  It was far from a one-off. A few days later Pamela wanted to do it again, this time in the car park behind the cinema, just minutes before the picture was about to end. And as time passed, her demands became increasingly dangerous. They did it in the church yard. They did it on some rough ground within spitting distance of the police station. They did it in the multi-storey car park.

  It was a Bank Holiday Monday that was the final straw. They were in the woods when Pamela made the suggestion, and this time she insisted they take all their clothes off.

  ‘There’s loads of people around,’ Tewson had protested. ‘Picnickers and such like.’

  ‘I’m not saying we should do it on the path,’ Pamela said scornfully. ‘We could go deeper into the woods.’

  ‘I don’t fancy it.’

  ‘Then maybe I’d better start looking for a new boyfriend.’

  They had done it, shedding all their clothes, as Pamela had wished. And this time, finally, their luck had run out. As he had approached his climax Tewson had heard the sound of whistles and catcalls behind him, and turning his head, was horrified to see that they were being observed by a group of young men holding bottles of beer in their hands.

  He and Pamela had picked up their clothes and fled, to the accompaniment of more ribald comments. But even at the time, it had occurred to him that Pamela’s desire to escape had not been half as strong as his was.

  When they had put some distance between themselves and their watchers, they came to a halt and dressed.

  ‘Well, that’s the last time we try that,’ Tewson had said firmly, as he struggled into his trousers.

  ‘Why?’ Pamela had asked.

  ‘Because we got caught,’ he told her, hardly able to believe that she had even needed to ask the question.

  ‘So we got caught,’ she said calmly. ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later.’

  ‘You liked it, didn’t you?’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I didn’t mind it,’ Pamela replied.

  ‘Well, I did,’ Tewson said. ‘And we’re not doing it any more.’

  ‘Aren’t we?’ Pamela asked, and he noticed a dangerous edge creeping into her voice.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to. You’ve got a flat. We could do it there.’

  ‘If we can’t do it where I want to, then we’re not doing it at all,’ Pamela said.

  ‘I work for the town hall,’ Tewson told Paniatowski. ‘Some of the bosses there are very conservative. If word had got out about what I’d been doing, my chances of promotion would have gone right down the tubes.’

  ‘So you broke it off,’ Paniatowski said.

  With his confession over, Tewson was starting to relax, and now he even risked a grin. ‘No, she nearly broke it off,’ he said. ‘Several times! She might have been a bit weird, but she was certainly very energetic.’ A wistful look crossed his face. ‘Despite all the worry it involved, I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy sex quite as much again.’

  ‘Do you think that was why she was on the canal bank?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Was she doing more of what she’d done with you?’

  ‘That did occur to me,’ Tewson said seriously. ‘Poor Pamela. I was shocked when I heard what had happened to her, but I can’t say I was surprised, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘She was like a drug addict, wanting a bigger fix all the time,’ Tewson said. ‘Something was just bound to go terribly wrong eventually.’

  Fifteen

  ‘Where the hell’s Cloggin’-it Charlie?’ Monika Paniatowski wondered, as she sat alone at the team’s usual table in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey. ‘If he’s coming, he should be here by now.’

  It couldn’t be pressure of work that was keeping him away, she thought, because when the pressure was really on, this place was where Woodend did most of his work.

  So it had to be her, didn’t it? She had to be the reason that he hadn’t turned up.

  Instead of understanding why she would find it difficult to help him in his attempt to clear Bob’s name, Woodend had taken it as a personal insult – and possibly as a betrayal!

  Well, if th
at was his attitude, she told herself angrily, he could go screw himself!

  But even as the thought ran through her mind, she knew she didn’t mean it. Charlie Woodend was her rock – her one certainty in an uncertain world. When she was in trouble, he helped her. When she needed encouragement, he provided it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she could manage without him.

  ‘It’s a crying shame to see a pretty girl sitting there all alone,’ said a voice somewhere above her head.

  She looked up. The man was a stranger to her – which meant that he was a stranger to the public bar of the Drum and Monkey. He was around thirty, with heavily slicked-back black hair. He was wearing a check jacket – which, for all its garishness, hadn’t been cheap – cavalry twill trousers and suede shoes. A sales rep of some kind, Paniatowski decided – a man whose stock in trade was that he believed he could talk anybody into anything.

  ‘I don’t want company,’ she said.

  A lie! She wanted company all right – just not his.

  ‘What experience has taught me about pretty girls is that they don’t know what they want until they’ve tried it,’ the man said. ‘What are you drinking? Gin and tonic, is it?’

  ‘Vodka and tonic.’

  ‘Oh, I say! A lady with exotic tastes indeed. Please do me the honour of letting me buy you another one.’

  ‘I’ve hardly started this one.’

  ‘Never mind that. There’s no harm in having a fresh one lined up, now is there?’

  The man glanced down at his gold watch.

  She could read his mind, she thought. It’s getting late, he was telling himself, so I’ll give this bird one more try, and if I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll go and see what else I can pull.

  He was everything she disliked about men, Paniatowski decided. Crude, manipulative and insincere. Selfish, insensitive and arrogant. Though Charlie Woodend and Bob Rutter were so different to each other in so many ways, they almost looked like twins when contrasted to this loathsome creature.

  ‘So what do you say, darling?’ he asked. ‘Can I sit down, or what?’

  ‘It’s a free country,’ Paniatowski told him, ‘but I think you’d be making a mistake.’

  A smile of triumph flashed across his thin lips and was gone again in little more than a second. ‘Making a mistake, am I?’ he asked. ‘Well, why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

  Ash Croft – the latest phase in the Crofts Estate development – was in a state of transition, Woodend thought, as he coaxed his car over the bumps and potholes of the as-yet-unmetalled road. The first houses he passed were little more than shells, while those in the next section lacked doors and window frames. Only the last few houses, at the end of the row, had been fully completed – and even of these, only two or three actually looked as if they were being lived in.

  He pulled up in front of one of the houses which was inhabited. There was no garden to speak of yet, but that had not deterred its owner from installing at least half a dozen leering garden gnomes.

  Woodend walked up to the door and rang the bell. The man who opened the door had a pinched face and a thinning thatch of mousy brown hair.

  ‘You’re that detective,’ he said, making it sound like an accusation. ‘I’ve seen you at the factory.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Woodend agreed. He looked around him. ‘You don’t seem to have many neighbours as yet, Mr Bascombe.’

  The other man scowled. ‘There are those who can afford to keep two establishments running, but I’m not one of them,’ he said. ‘The wife didn’t like it, but as soon as the house was ready, we moved in.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Woodend told him. ‘I’d have done the same, in your position. Any sensible man would.’

  ‘There’s too much money around these days,’ Bascombe complained.

  ‘And the problem is, most of it’s in the wrong hands,’ Woodend chimed in obediently.

  ‘You’re right about that,’ Bascombe agreed. ‘So … er … what can I do for you?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like a bit of a chat,’ Woodend said.

  ‘What? Now?’

  No, not now, Woodend thought. I’ve driven all the way out here just to tell you I’d like a chat tomorrow.

  ‘Now would be best, if that’s convenient for you,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Well, I suppose—’ Bascombe began.

  ‘Excellent,’ Woodend said, taking a step forward, and thus obliging the other man to take a step back, so that before Bascombe knew what was happening, they were both inside the house.

  Bascombe reluctantly led him into the living room. It was neat and tidy, and totally antiseptic – the sort of room which people who don’t know any better think will impress their visitors.

  ‘I suppose you’d better take a seat,’ Bascombe said ungraciously.

  Woodend sat down on the mock-velvet sofa; Bascombe lowered himself into the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table.

  ‘This really is very good of you,’ Woodend said ingratiatingly.

  ‘What I don’t see is why, if you wanted to talk to me about Miss Rainsford’s murder, you couldn’t have done it at New Horizons, like you did with all the others,’ Bascombe complained.

  Because the others don’t live on the same estate as Bob Rutter, Woodend thought. Because the others don’t have houses which are only separated from Bob’s by a strip of empty land.

  ‘There simply isn’t time to talk to everyone during the course of the working day, Mr Bascombe,’ he said. ‘So what we have to do in that situation is make choices.’

  ‘Choices?’

  He was a vain, self-important little man, Woodend decided, the kind of man who always thinks that only he could do his job, whereas everything that goes on around him could easily be accomplished by a team of trained monkeys.

  ‘In police work, we generally find that we have to deal with two kinds of people,’ he said gravely. ‘There are those who we can see right away will have little of use to tell us, and we rush through them while we’re on the site.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, those people we think might be able to make a significant contribution to our investigation we leave till later, so we can talk to them at leisure.’

  ‘You think I could make a significant contribution to your investigation?’ Bascombe asked, half-alarmed, half-flattered.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I can’t think why.’

  Woodend laughed. ‘You would if you thought about it,’ he promised. ‘Look at it this way, Mr Bascombe. Most of the women I talked to are little more than teenagers, with their minds too fixed on their love lives to notice much of anything else.’

  Bascombe chuckled. ‘You’re right about that.’

  ‘As for the men, well, I don’t mean to be rude, but …’

  ‘Go on,’ Bascombe said eagerly.

  ‘… but experience has taught me that men who work with their hands are far less observant than those who work with their brains.’ Woodend paused again, even more weightily this time. ‘What did you say was your position again, Mr Bascombe?’

  ‘Assistant dispatch manager,’ the other man said, with some pride.

  ‘Exactly. A man who works with his brain. That’s why it’s worth my while to make a special effort to see you. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?’

  Bascombe puffed out his chest a little. ‘Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I do,’ he said.

  ‘I want to find out what Pamela Rainsford was like as a person,’ Woodend continued. ‘What her interests were, for example. Who she was friendly with. I’ve talked to Mr Higson, but I have to admit I didn’t find what he had to tell me very helpful. I’m not saying it wasn’t accurate, you understand, just that it didn’t give me any leads.’

  Bascombe’s chest puffed out a little further. ‘Well, of course, he’s not in the factory all that often. Travels around a lot. So I think you’re right. I think that those of us who spend more time at New Horizons
– and use our brains – will probably be in a better position to help you.’

  ‘Mr Higson seems to think that Pamela was a rather quiet girl,’ Woodend said.

  Bascombe chuckled again. ‘Mr Higson would think that,’ he said. ‘Pamela was quiet enough when she was with him, but when he wasn’t there she was a completely different person.’

  ‘Completely different? In what way?’

  ‘Very sure of herself. Cocky, even. And though I have no wish to speak ill of the dead, I have to say that I found her attitude to some of my colleagues a little too free-and-easy.’

  ‘Are you sayin’ that she flirted with them?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘But it was just a harmless flirtation, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ Bascombe said darkly.

  ‘She never tried it on with you, did she?’

  Bascombe folded his arms. ‘She did not. She wouldn’t have dared.’

  ‘So she was always respectful to you?’

  ‘Not as respectful as I would have liked, but at least she didn’t throw herself at me.’

  ‘Maybe the reason she was so quiet with Mr Higson was because she was afraid of him, too,’ Woodend suggested.

  ‘Afraid of him!’ Bascombe said, mildly contemptuous. ‘If you think that, you can’t know Mr Higson very well.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Woodend agreed. ‘That’s why I’m asking your opinion.’

  ‘Mr Higson doesn’t want people to be afraid of him. He likes to be liked. And I suppose,’ Bascombe added grudgingly, ‘he generally is.’

  ‘So if she wasn’t afraid of him, why didn’t she flirt with Mr Higson?’

  ‘Because a woman like she was couldn’t take rejection,’ Bascombe said, speaking solemnly as if he were revealing a great truth which lesser men might well have missed. ‘She wanted all the men around her to be enchanted with her. And she knew Mr Higson never would be.’

  ‘Because of his wife?’

  ‘Of course it was because of his wife. Mr Higson likes the best. He drives a Rolls-Royce, and he’s got a Rolls-Royce of a wife.’ Bascombe smirked. ‘So why should he go chasing after a cheap, flashy model that so many other men have already had a ride in?’