The Red Herring

by Sally Spencer

  The driver wound down his window and stuck his head out. ‘Seems to be some kind of demonstration, sir,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s what it is, all right. There’s a bunch of people in duffel coats ahead, wavin’ placards about all over the place. I think I can just about make one of them out.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It says, “End this nuclear madness”.’ The driver shook his head disdainfully. ‘It’s probably that loony lot from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. You’d think they’d have somethin’ better to do with their time than to go about causin’ inconvenience for other people, wouldn’t you, sir?’

  ‘I don’t think they see it quite that way themselves,’ Woodend said quietly. ‘I think they believe that as much as it might inconvenience people to be held up, it’d inconvenience them even more to be blown up.’

  The driver gave him a speculative, slightly worried, look. ‘Sorry if I spoke out of turn, sir. I didn’t know you looked at things that way.’

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion, whatever I think,’ Woodend replied. ‘Would you like to make a guess as to how long it’ll take us to get to the television studio from here?’

  The driver scratched his head. ‘That rather depends on them demonstrators, sir. Could be a good thirty minutes, at least.’

  ‘Then bugger it, I’ll clog it the rest of the way,’ Woodend told him, reaching for the door handle. ‘Pick me up at the main studio door in about an hour and half, will you?’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  Woodend stepped out on to the pavement and slammed the car door behind him. There were about a hundred people involved in this particular demonstration, he guessed – and his driver was right, most of them were wearing duffel coats. Looking at them, he was not sure whether the cause they were espousing was the height of wisdom or the very depths of folly – but he was glad that at least they cared.

  It was a five-minute walk to the NWTV studio, and as he strode down towards Deansgate, he found himself wondering why he was in Manchester at all. His original intention had been to send Bob Rutter to supervise the Dunns’ television appeal, but as it got closer to the time of the actual broadcast, he found himself wanting more and more to be there himself. He could not exactly say why he had the urge – there was no logical reason for it, and he was confident that Bob Rutter would cope admirably – yet he still could not shake the vague feeling that he would be needed.

  He was about thirty yards from the studio when he saw two figures entering the building. One was a blonde woman with good legs and curvy body. The other was a man, as tall as he was himself – but infinitely more graceful. Monika Paniatowski and the detective chief inspector from the Yard – going to make their own broadcast for information about the murder of Verity Beale. He’d been actively involved in that case himself only hours earlier, but now the disappearance of Helen Dunn – and the memories that had evoked of Ellie Taylor – seemed to have turned Verity’s death into no more than an ancient memory.

  By the time he’d reached the studio lobby himself, there was no longer any sign of Paniatowski and Horrocks.

  A large commissionaire stepped in front of him the moment he’d walked through the door. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked in a tone which just managed to avoid being either suspicious or aggressive.

  ‘I’m from the Whitebridge police. Chief Inspector Woodend. I believe I’m expected.’

  The commissionaire nodded. ‘If you’d just like to sit over there, I’ll ring upstairs to say you’ve arrived, sir,’ he said, indicating several easy chairs arranged around a low coffee table.

  Woodend took a seat. There were a number of magazines scattered on the coffee table, but he felt no desire to pick one up and flick through it. Instead, as Bob Rutter had done earlier, he began to speculate as to whether the two serious cases the Whitebridge police had on their hands might not be no more than two parts of the same case.

  It would be stretching credibility to believe that Helen Dunn had been kidnapped because she knew something about Verity Beale’s murder, he thought. But what if things were the other way round? Helen’s kidnapping could have been an impulsive act, but the fact that there had been no leads – no sightings of her at all – suggested it was more likely to have been carefully planned. And wasn’t it possible that Verity Beale had learned something of that planning – and so had had to die?

  ‘Chief Inspector Woodend?’ said a voice. Woodend looked up to find a bright, smartly dressed young woman standing over him, clipboard in hand.

  ‘Aye, that’s me,’ he admitted.

  ‘You’re the one who solved the murders at our Maddox Row studios last year, aren’t you?’

  Woodend shrugged. ‘If you ask me, those murders pretty much solved themselves,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘From what I’ve heard from people who were there at the time, I’d say you’re being far too modest,’ the young woman said. ‘Anyway, my name’s Lynn Taylor, and I’m here to sort of look after you until the broadcast.’

  ‘That’s nice of you.’

  ‘Just doing my job. And I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, but with this Cuban missile business, everybody here’s in an absolute flap, scrabbling through the archives and looking for bits of film we can use to cobble together a series of instant “specials” on the Cold War. Jolly exciting!’

  ‘Aye, I suppose it must be,’ Woodend said, thinking to himself that the world seemed to be divided up between the people who saw what was happening on the other side of the ocean as a dramatic slide into annihilation and those who saw it as a great adventure.

  ‘Well, now you are here, what would you like to do?’ Lynn Taylor asked. ‘I’ve been told by my friends who were working at the Madro studio at the time of the murder that you’re not averse to the odd drink or two. Shall I take you down to the bar?’

  ‘It’s temptin’,’ Woodend said, ‘but I think I’d better go an’ have a word with Mr and Mrs Dunn instead.’

  Lynn Taylor frowned. ‘Were you expecting both of them to be here?’ she asked.

  ‘Aren’t they?’

  ‘Mrs Dunn’s here, but I can’t say I’ve seen her husband. Maybe he’s intending to arrive just before the broadcast.’

  ‘So where’s Mrs Dunn?’

  ‘I was planning to take her down to the hospitality suite, but then I saw the state she was in, and decided it would be too much of a strain on her to see a lot of other people. So I’ve put her in one of the dressing rooms instead.’

  ‘An’ that’s where she is now, is it?’

  ‘I assume so.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Then I think you’d better take me to her right away, hadn’t you?’ Woodend said.

  Paniatowski looked around the bar. At the table closest to hers, a couple of men in Elizabethan ruffs and tights were drinking gin and tonics. Just beyond them were two men in paint-stained overalls who could have been taken for ordinary workmen except that ordinary workmen did not wear make-up or speak with such posh accents. But it was the penguins who really caught her attention, and she watched in fascination as they waddled over to their table, lifted their beaks until they were pointing at the ceiling, and began to swig at their pints of beer.

  ‘I take it you’ve never been in a television studio bar before,’ DCI Horrocks said, amusement evident in his voice.

  ‘No, sir, I haven’t,’ Paniatowski admitted. She opened the folder which was lying in front of her, and slid it across to Horrocks. ‘All the details are in here. The last place Verity Beale was seen alive. Where her body was discovered. How many hours are unaccounted for. It might be wise to stress that any information, however obscure it might seem to the person who has it, could be of immense value to us.’ She stopped, and almost blushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she continued. ‘I’m trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, aren’t I? You must have made television appeals like this at least a dozen times before.’

  ‘Probably
even more than that,’ Horrocks said. ‘But I won’t be making this one.’

  ‘Then who . . .?’

  ‘Who do you think? It’ll give you a chance to shine.’

  ‘I don’t think I should do it,’ Paniatowski said firmly.

  ‘What’s the matter, Monika?’ Horrocks asked, slightly mockingly. ‘Getting stage fright at the thought of all those cameras?’

  ‘No, sir. It’s just that I think an appeal of this importance would carry more weight if it was delivered by a high-ranking officer like yourself.’

  ‘In most cases, that’s probably true,’ Horrocks agreed. ‘But when it’s a young woman who’s been murdered, what could be better than having another young woman – and such an attractive one – asking for help?’

  ‘I’m flattered you think I could do it, but––’

  ‘Anyway, when a man’s in as much debt as I am, he can’t go appearing on television. That’d be as good as giving his creditors a map to his front door.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Paniatowski said.

  Horrocks grinned. ‘I’m joking, of course. But I still think you’d be the best person to make the appeal. I don’t want to order you to do it, Monika – I never like ordering people around when I can get them to do something of their own free will – but I really would appreciate it if you’d make the broadcast.’

  ‘All right,’ Paniatowski said, still unconvinced.

  Woodend knocked softly on the dressing-room door, then turned the handle and stepped inside. Mrs Dunn was sitting at the dressing table, gazing into the mirror. It was obvious that the make-up girls had already worked on her. Her hair had a little more life to it, and the bruise on her cheekbone was now almost invisible. She must have been a very attractive woman – once – Woodend thought.

  ‘Where’s your husband?’ he asked. ‘He’s cuttin’ it a bit fine, leavin’ it this late, isn’t he?’

  ‘He won’t be coming,’ Margaret Dunn said apologetically.

  ‘What!’

  ‘He went out to the base as soon as you’d left us. He said he’d be back home in time to come down to Manchester with me. Then, about half an hour before the car arrived, he called me to say there was a real flap on, and they needed him to stay there.’

  ‘An’ doesn’t the bas–– . . . doesn’t he realise that you need him, too?’ Woodend said angrily.

  ‘He’s . . . he’s very serious about doing what he sees as his duty,’ Margaret Dunn said. ‘Besides, I think I’ll be better making the appeal on my own. You see, Reginald’s never really had a close relationship with the girls.’ She put her hand up to her mouth, as if by saying what she had, she’d shocked even herself. ‘I don’t mean that he doesn’t love them . . . didn’t love Janice, and doesn’t love Helen,’ she amended, ‘but he doesn’t find it easy to show his emotions . . . except, of course, his emotions for his country. I think he would have looked rather wooden on television, and I’m not sure that the hurt he’s feeling inside would really have come across. And that’s what you want, isn’t it – for the hurt to come across?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I want,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘Then I’m right, and it’ll be better if it’s just me.’

  ‘You’re a very brave woman, Mrs Dunn,’ Woodend said admiringly.

  ‘Am I?’ the woman replied, as if the remark had surprised her. ‘I’m not sure that Reginald would agree with you.’

  ‘Then he’s never really looked at you properly,’ Woodend said.

  ‘No,’ Margaret Dunn agreed sadly. ‘I don’t think he ever really has.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  Margaret Dunn laughed, though without much humour. ‘At an RAF dance, of course. Where else? My father was an air commodore – a bit of a war hero, actually. I sometimes think that what really attracted Reginald to me was the hope that something of Daddy had rubbed off on his daughter.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘Why am I talking about me?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t matter. Reginald doesn’t matter. Only Helen matters.’

  There was a knock on the door, and a voice called out, ‘We’re ready for you now, Mrs Dunn.’

  Margaret Dunn looked up at Woodend, and he could see the anxiety written in her eyes.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ she pleaded. ‘Will you be sitting by my side when I try to reach out to that . . . that man?’

  ‘Of course I will, lass,’ Woodend said.

  Seventeen

  Woodend and Rutter sat at the corner table in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey as they had most nights for over a year. For the previous ten minutes the chief inspector had been doing most of the talking, but now he took a long slurp of his pint and waited for his subordinate to start picking holes in his theory.

  ‘Tell me again why you think the kidnapping had to be planned in advance,’ Rutter said.

  ‘Think of other kidnappin’s you’ve read about,’ Woodend said. ‘Witnesses have come forward to say they’ve seen vans cruisin’ around, as if they were on the lookout for somethin’. Or else they’ve seen a kid bein’ dragged along by somebody they took to be a parent at the time – but aren’t so sure about any more. Neighbours have rung up to say blokes who live alone suddenly have a girl stayin’ with them. An’ what leads have we got this time? None at all! It just has to have been planned.’

  ‘For Verity Beale to have learned about it, she must have come into contact with the kidnapper.’

  ‘Or kidnappers! Because it wouldn’t be the first time there’s been more than one nutter involved in a case like this.’

  ‘So you’re saying the kidnappers must be people she knows socially?’

  ‘Aye, they could be,’ Woodend agreed. ‘It could be somebody she’s been out with, or the mate of somebody she’s been out with. It could have been somebody she heard talkin’ at the next table when she was out on a date. Then again, it could be somebody she worked with – or one of them Yanks she’s been teachin’. I’m not offering a blueprint for an arrest here, lad, I’m just openin’ one of speculation that I don’t think we can afford to ignore.’

  The door opened and Monika Paniatowski entered the bar. She nodded to her two colleagues, then went over to the bar to order her customary double vodka.

  ‘Are you going to run this theory of yours by Monika?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘No,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she’s not workin’ on our team at the moment.’

  ‘It’s not like you to keep things to yourself,’ Rutter said, sounding slightly reproving.

  ‘It’s not a question of keepin’ things to myself,’ Woodend said. ‘This feller they’ve sent up from the Yard will have his own way of goin’ about things. An’ maybe since he’s from the outside he might see things we’ll overlook or just take for granted. So the last thing I want to do is put blinkers on him. As far as I’m concerned, the more different approaches we have to these the cases the better.’

  Paniatowski, having bought her drink, came over to join them. The moment she had sat down she took a generous swig of her vodka.

  ‘How did your very first television appearance go, Monika?’ Woodend asked her.

  ‘Fine,’ the sergeant replied, noncommittally.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘About my appearance on television?’

  ‘Nay, lass. About whatever else it is that’s so obviously preyin’ on your mind.’

  ‘I’m not sure there is much to talk about yet,’ Paniatowski confessed. ‘All I’ve got is this feeling.’

  ‘What kind of feelin’?’

  ‘That there’s a new set of rules in play, and nobody’s bothered to tell me what they are. That though I think I’m in control of myself, there’s somebody hidden behind the curtain, pulling my strings.’

  ‘Who’s hidin’ behind the curtain? Are we talkin’ about that feller from the Yard here?’

  Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No. At least I don’t think so. He’s got h
is faults but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  A slight smile came to Monika Paniatowski’s face. ‘Well, he’s a boss, isn’t he? So he’s bound to have faults. And he’s certainly a cocky devil, but then everybody who’s ever worked at the Yard is like that.’ The smile disappeared, and she became serious again. ‘But I don’t see him as the puppet-master. If anybody is pulling strings, I suspect his are being yanked as well as mine.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Woodend asked. ‘Maybe I know him.’

  ‘I don’t think you do – unless it’s by reputation. His name’s Jack Horrocks, and he didn’t start working at the Yard until after you’d left.’

  ‘Until after I was pushed, you mean,’ Woodend said. ‘What’s your general impression of him – an’ you leave out that dig about all Yard men bein’ cocky, because you’ve already scored enough points off me with that particular dig.’

  ‘It’s too early in the investigation for me to have anything as grand as a general impression,’ Paniatowski said cautiously. ‘I think I like him, but until I’ve seen how he handles the interview in the morning, I won’t know how good a bobby he is.’

  ‘What interview?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘We’re going to talk to the American officer who was drinking with Verity Beale just before she died.’

  ‘An’ presumably also slept with her, an’ all,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Presumably.’

  The waiter came across to the table. ‘Phone call for you, Mr Woodend,’ he said.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give his name. Just said it was very important he talked to you right away.’

  Woodend stood up. ‘Probably the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve been on their hit list for some time,’ he said, forcing a grin to his face.

  The phone was in the passageway which led to the toilets, next to a stack of empty beer crates.

  ‘Woodend!’ the chief inspector said, picking it up.

  ‘I saw you on the television tonight.’

  The voice at the other end of the line sounded hoarse, but Woodend suspected that was more to disguise it than because the caller had some kind of throat infection.