Dying in the Dark

by Sally Spencer

  The mention of cars was too good an opening to miss, and Woodend seized his chance with both hands. ‘Did you happen to notice any strange vehicles parked on this street last night?’ he asked.

  ‘There was a fire engine parked on the road over there,’ Bascombe said, pointing through the picture window into the darkness. ‘But I’ve no doubt you’ll have heard all about that.’

  ‘I have,’ Woodend said patiently. ‘But I was asking about cars parked on this road, especially ones which left shortly before the fire engine arrived.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with Miss Rainsford’s murder?’ Bascombe asked suspiciously.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Woodend admitted. ‘But it might have a great deal to do with Maria Rutter’s murder.’

  ‘I thought some other policemen were investigating that,’ Bascombe said. ‘The ones who came round to talk to my wife while I was out at work.’

  ‘You haven’t talked to them yourself, have you?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘No. Like I said, I wasn’t here.’

  If they’d missed him earlier, they should have paid a second visit by now, Woodend thought. But Evans’s team probably hadn’t considered that necessary – because they were convinced they had their man, and there was no point in busting a gut collecting any more evidence.

  It was sloppy police work, Woodend thought. He hated that at any time, but he hated it even more when the fate of Bob Rutter depended on the investigation being conducted properly.

  ‘The reason I brought the matter up is because I’m doing a favour for the lads who were round earlier,’ Woodend lied. ‘If you tell me what you know, they won’t have to come back, will they? So did you see any strange cars?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, there was one of those new Ford Cortina GTs parked just down the road, about half an hour before the fire engine arrived,’ Bascombe said.

  ‘You’re sure that’s what it was?’

  ‘Positive. I went to have a good look at it, because I’m thinking of buying one myself. It’s different to last year’s GT, you see, because the grille’s wider and there’s a new panel for the auxiliary instruments in the middle of the—’

  ‘This car couldn’t have belonged to one of your neighbours, could it?’ Woodend interrupted

  Bascombe shook his head. ‘No, they’d soon have let me know about it if they’d bought one. Besides, it wasn’t parked in front of any of the houses that people are actually living in. It was next to one of the shells down the road.’

  ‘What colour was it?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘It was green,’ Bascombe said. ‘But then most of them are.’

  Sixteen

  Woodend was driving towards the Drum and Monkey almost on automatic pilot when it suddenly struck him that it was the last place on earth he wanted to be.

  The reasons for this change of heart were obvious enough, he thought.

  The first was Bob Rutter wouldn’t be there, and his very absence would serve as a silent rebuke to the man who should have been able to get him out of gaol – and was far from certain that he could.

  The second was that while there would be no Bob, there probably would be Monika, and he just couldn’t face the thought of being with her on that particular evening.

  So where should he do his drinking? he wondered.

  There was a pub called the Bluebell straight ahead of him. That seemed as good a place as any.

  The last time Woodend had been in the Bluebell, it had been a traditional pub like the Drum and Monkey, with a number of smallish rooms, each catering to a different mood and clientele. It wasn’t like that now. Some smart alec at the brewery – a man who obviously thought he knew more about pubs than the people who actually used them – had set his evil plans in motion, and modernized the place.

  Woodend gazed around the vast cavern of a room which had been created, and almost walked out. Then, remembering the Bluebell served one of the best pints of bitter in the whole of Central Lancashire, he walked across to the bar and ordered himself a drink.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Charlie Woodend,’ said a woman’s voice immediately to his left. ‘How you doin’, Charlie?’

  Woodend turned. Perched precariously on a very high bar stool was the obviously drunk Elizabeth Driver.

  ‘I’m not givin’ any interviews to the press at the moment, Miss Driver,’ he said. ‘An’ even if I was, I wouldn’t be givin’ one to you.’

  ‘Don’t want an interview,’ Elizabeth Driver slurred. ‘Want … want to talk to my old pal Charlie.’

  The barman placed his pint on the counter.

  ‘Lemme … lemme pay for that,’ Elizabeth Driver said.

  ‘I’ll buy my own,’ Woodend told her, sliding some coins across the bar.

  He was about to take his drink over to a table when Elizabeth Driver reached across and grabbed his arm. ‘Please!’ she said. ‘Please! I need to talk.’

  As much as he disliked and mistrusted her, there was something in her voice that prevented him from brushing her hand aside immediately.

  ‘If you want to talk, make it quick,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Do you … do you believe in hell?’ Elizabeth Driver said.

  ‘I believe there are people who can make life hell for other folk,’ Woodend replied.

  ‘And I’m one of them?’ Elizabeth Driver asked.

  ‘An’ you’re one of them,’ Woodend confirmed.

  Elizabeth Driver shook her head, though not in denial. ‘I’ve done some terrible, terrible things to get a good story,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’

  ‘I’ve broken up marriages. I’ve made people lose their jobs. But this is the worst I’ve ever done, and I’ll burn in hell for it.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ Elizabeth Driver asked, with some of her hectoring old self back in her voice. ‘Can’t you work it out?’

  ‘You’re drunk, Miss Driver,’ Woodend said. ‘Your best plan is to get back to your hotel an’ try to sleep it off.’

  ‘There’s a … there’s a saying in my trade,’ Elizabeth Driver told him. ‘“I’ll kill for a story.” That’s what we say. Only we’re not suppos … supposed to mean it, you see. It’s only fig … figurative. Nobody’s … nobody’s ever intended to take it literally.’

  ‘You’re makin’ no sense, you know,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I’m a killer. Don’t you understand that? I’m a bloody killer. I should be arrested.’ Elizabeth Driver held her hands out in front of her. ‘Come on, Charlie, put the cuffs on me.’

  Given the state she was in, and where she was sitting, she should never have tried such a complicated manoeuvre. As she thrust her hands forward, her body swayed and she lost her balance completely. If Woodend hadn’t caught her, she would have fallen right to the floor.

  ‘Call a taxi,’ Woodend told the barman.

  Cradled in his arms, Elizabeth Driver moaned softly.

  At first, the taxi driver was dubious about managing the drunken journalist all on his own, but when Woodend dangled the possibility of a large tip in front of him, his attitude suddenly changed and he agreed that it would no problem at all.

  Woodend watched the taxi pull away, then wondered what he should do next. He could go back into the Bluebell, he supposed, but it wasn’t the pub it used to be, and anyway, his encounter with Elizabeth Driver had soured the place for him.

  Much better then, to try somewhere else completely. The Wheatsheaf was just up the road. He didn’t use the place very often, and the chances of running into someone he didn’t want to talk to were practically nil.

  Yes, he decided. He’d go to the Wheatsheaf, have a couple of quiet pints on his own, and then call it a night.

  His theory that there would be no one he knew in the pub was shot to pieces the moment he crossed the threshold. To get to the public bar, it was necessary to walk down the corridor, which entailed passing the best room. And sitting in the best roo
m, he saw, were Lucy and Derek Higson.

  If the couple hadn’t noticed him, Woodend would probably have continued on until he reached his natural habitat. But Derek Higson did notice him. Worse, he looked delighted to see him.

  For a second, Woodend contemplated ignoring Derek’s energetic waving, then decided that would be churlish. There really was no alternative but to go and join the Higsons.

  Woodend sighed heavily.

  First Elizabeth Driver, and now the Higsons. It just wasn’t turning out to be his night, was it?

  Paniatowski and the man, who said his name was Teddy, were walking along the canal towpath. Twice Teddy had tried to grab hold of her hand, and twice Paniatowski had rejected it. Now Teddy stopped, and looked at his watch with the flame provided by his lighter.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I’ll have to be going back to my hotel soon,’ Teddy said. ‘I’ve got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow.’

  ‘You could head back now,’ Paniatowski suggested.

  ‘I’m not in that much of a rush,’ Teddy protested. ‘I was thinking. It’s quite a mild night for autumn, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s a bit of a nip in the air,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘We wouldn’t notice that if we cuddled up together on the bank over there. We could lie on my coat.’

  Paniatowski took several steps back from him. ‘No!’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I should have thought it was plain enough.’

  ‘I’ve bought you three vodka and tonics!’ Teddy said, with just a hint of outrage in his voice.

  ‘I never asked you to,’ Paniatowski reminded him. ‘In fact, if I remember rightly, I refused all three times. But you insisted.’

  ‘It didn’t stop you from drinking them, though.’ Teddy paused for a second, as if considering what approach to try next. ‘Why did you come down here with me in the first place, if you didn’t fancy a bit of how’s-your-father?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you want the truth?’

  ‘I most certainly do! I think I’m entitled to the bloody truth.’

  ‘You’re entitled to nothing, but I’ll tell you anyway,’ Monika Paniatowski said. ‘We’re here because I wanted to give you the opportunity to prove that – contrary to all appearances – you could behave in a decent and dignified manner if the occasion calls for it.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean.’

  ‘It means that when I say “no”, you accept it with good grace.’

  ‘Like hell I will,’ Teddy said angrily. ‘Not after you’ve been leading me on, like you have.’

  ‘I haven’t been leading you on,’ Paniatowski said firmly. ‘I promised you nothing – and you’re getting nothing.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to get rough with you—’ Teddy began.

  ‘Good,’ Paniatowski interrupted. ‘Because I really wouldn’t advise it.’

  ‘… but after all the time and money I’ve spent on you I’m entitled to a little something. And I’m going to take it.’

  ‘Don’t make me hurt you,’ Paniatowski said.

  Teddy laughed. ‘You hurt me? You must be joking. You might be quite fit for a lass, but you’re no match for me.’

  Two seconds later, when he was kneeling on the canal bank, holding his nose and moaning softly, he realized he might have been wrong about that.

  Seventeen

  ‘I didn’t realize that you drank in pubs, just like us ordinary mortals,’ Woodend said, with forced joviality, as he sat down at the Higsons’ table.

  ‘But I am an ordinary mortal,’ Derek Higson said.

  And though he’d said the words with a mock seriousness which invited dismissal, Woodend suspected he really did believe them.

  ‘It’s true I’m probably the only one from our old class who can afford to ride around in a Rolls-Royce,’ Higson continued, ‘but that’s only skin deep. You won’t have to scratch very far below the surface before you uncover the Sudbury Street Elementary School kid with a runny nose and his socks round his ankles.’

  ‘You never had a runny nose,’ Woodend said scornfully. ‘If memory serves me well, you were sent out every mornin’ with a freshly ironed Irish linen hankie. An’ I know for a fact that your mam stitched together the best black elastic stockin’ garters in the area.’

  ‘Aye, she was a grand woman, was my mam,’ Higson said, slipping easily back into the vernacular he had used as a child. He hesitated before he spoke again. ‘Listen, you must have thought it terrible of me not to mention what happened to your inspector’s wife this morning, but I’d only just got back, and I hadn’t even heard about it.’

  ‘Do you think the husband did it?’ Lucy Higson asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether he did it or not,’ Derek Higson said, in a voice which was almost a rebuke. ‘Guilty or innocent, Charlie will have taken it hard, because that’s the way he is.’

  Lucy Higson frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ she confessed.

  Higson laughed, taking the edge off his earlier implied criticism. ‘You wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You’d have to have been at Sudbury Street Elementary, instead of at your posh prep school, to really understand. Charlie here has always had what you might call a protective instinct. He took any number of younger lads under his wing in his time. And I was one of them.’

  Oh, you most certainly were, Woodend thought.

  He tried to remember the name of the boy who made Derek Higson’s life a misery for quite a while.

  Terry Dawes! Foxy Dawes! That was it!

  There were those who said that Dawes had earned his nickname because of his red hair, but others – who knew – said it was because he was a cunning, ruthless little bastard.

  As a copper-knob, Foxy should have been the natural object of the playground bullies, but he’d avoided that fate by becoming the leader of the bullies himself.

  He’d been very good at it, Woodend thought. He’d had a natural talent for picking out the best targets – for honing in on the boys it would be most satisfying to persecute. And one of his chief victims had been Derek Higson.

  The thing that made Derek so vulnerable was that his family was poor, even by the standards of Sudbury Street Elementary. Derek’s clothes were always beautifully clean, but he wore second-hand short trousers all the time he was at school, and his grey socks were more darning than they were socks.

  Little Charlie Woodend had ignored the bullying at first, believing then – as he still did now – that if you were ever to grow to be a man, you had to learn to fight your own battles. But the incident in the lavatories had changed all that.

  The boys’ lavatories are at the end of the school yard. They are not a place Charlie ever goes to by choice – they are freezing in winter and stink in the summer heat – but sometimes the call of nature cannot be resisted.

  On this particular day, he hears all the shouting and screaming as he is walking towards the door, but it is only when he gets inside that he realizes what is happening.

  Foxy Dawes’s gang is crowded around a prone figure on the floor That figure is Derek Higson. His short trousers are around his ankles, and he is crying his heart out.

  ‘Look at him, Charlie!’ Foxy Dawes says gleefully, pointing at Derek’s crotch area.

  Charlie, to his own eternal shame, does look, then says, ‘I think you should leave him alone.’

  ‘Look at him!’ Foxy chants. ‘Look at him, look at him, look at him!’

  ‘Let him go,’ Charlie says.

  Foxy should take warning from his tone, but he is having too good a time to even notice.

  ‘Look at him, look at him, look at him!’

  Charlie lashes out with his fist. He will get six strokes of the cane for it later, but Foxy loses three teeth and his gang will never bother Derek Higson again.

  ‘You seem miles away,’ the much older, much richer, Derek Higson said, cutting into Woodend’s
memories of his childhood.

  ‘What?’ the Chief Inspector asked, startled.

  ‘You seemed miles away. I was just saying that you stuck up for me in the old days, and I bet you’ve stuck up for this Inspector Rutter of yours in just the same way.’

  ‘I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Of course you’d rather not,’ Higson said, looking abashed. ‘I’m sorry that I ever brought the matter up. I get rather carried away with my own curiosity, sometimes.’

  ‘Sometimes? You always get carried away,’ his wife said adoringly. ‘You have a real interest in people, Derek. That’s what makes you so good at your job.’ She stood up. ‘I hope you gentlemen will excuse me for a second,’ she continued, before turning and heading towards the toilets.

  Woodend found himself admiring her retreating rear, then instantly felt guilty about it.

  ‘How did we manage to get so out of touch with each other after we left school, Charlie?’ Derek Higson wondered.

  It happened long before we ever left school, Woodend thought. I think it happened that day in the lavatory, when it became plain to both of us that you needed me more than I needed you. We should have been equals, but we weren’t – and neither of us was ever really comfortable with that. ‘People do just drift apart,’ he said aloud. ‘When we left school, we set off on such different paths. Then there was the war. Then I moved down to London. It was inevitable.’

  ‘I suppose it was,’ Higson said reflectively.

  Woodend tried to remember just how much he did know about Higson since their school days together. It was a very incomplete picture at best. Derek entered the furniture business as an apprentice cabinetmaker, that much he was sure of. And he had married even before he came out of his time.

  ‘Your first wife died, didn’t she?’ he said, then realized with horror that he had spoken what he had meant only to be thinking.

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Higson replied. ‘It was cancer that took my Jane. It was a tragedy. She was barely into her thirties.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Derek. I never should have mentioned it,’ Woodend said contritely.