A Death Left Hanging

by Sally Spencer

  ‘No, but I can tell you where he and his family went after the partnership broke up,’ Bithwaite said.

  ‘An’ where was that?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Canada.’

  ‘Canada!’

  ‘That’s right. Within a couple of months of the final papers being signed, they’d emigrated. I think that perhaps Mr Cuthburtson wanted to leave the unpleasant memories of the past behind him. You know, make a clean start in some completely new place.’

  ‘An’ nobody’s heard from him since?’

  ‘I haven’t, certainly.’

  ‘Did you become a partner after Cuthburtson had gone?’

  Bithwaite laughed. ‘Good heavens, no. I might have taken a lot of the burden of Mr Cuthburtson’s work on my own shoulders, but my position in the company was essentially unchanged until I bought the whole thing outright.’

  ‘An’ when was that?’

  ‘After Mr Dodds death.’

  ‘Bought it outright, after Mr Dodds’ death,’ Woodend repeated. ‘The company was very much a goin’ concern back then, from what you’ve said.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So it must have been very expensive.’

  ‘Not really,’ Bithwaite said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘There was a depression on. People were cautious. They thought twice before investing whatever cash they’d managed to salvage from the Great Crash in a new business. And a certain amount of superstition came into it, too. The owner had been brutally murdered – perhaps the business itself was unlucky.’

  ‘But those considerations didn’t bother you?’

  ‘To a certain extent, they did. But remember, I’d seen the business from the inside. I knew that, even in hard times, I’d have to be the unluckiest man alive not to make it work. Besides, the executors of the will eventually dropped the asking price so much that I just couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘Tell us more about Dodds as a man,’ Woodend suggested.

  Bithwaite gave the matter some thought. ‘He could be very charming,’ he said. ‘Quite the gentleman, in fact. But there were occasions when he forgot himself – and then his rough edges tended to show through.’

  ‘Rough edges?’

  Bithwaite looked embarrassed.

  ‘How can I express this without seeming like a snob?’ he wondered aloud. ‘I’m not exactly out of the top drawer myself, but my father was a senior clerk in a highly respected solicitor’s office, and I was educated at King Edward’s Grammar School. Whereas Mr Dodds . . . Mr Dodds . . .’

  ‘Whereas Mr Dodds’ father was a mill worker, an’ he went to an elementary school?’ Woodend suggested.

  ‘I couldn’t say about that. I don’t know what his father did for a living, because the family weren’t from round here. But Mr Dodds’ rough edges must have come from somewhere, and I would seriously doubt that his father was the kind of man one could comfortably have invited to dinner.’

  ‘Where was Mr Dodds from?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Simcaster, I believe. He always claimed he’d attended Simcaster Grammar School.’

  ‘But you think he was lyin’?’ Woodend said.

  ‘I suppose I had no real reason to disbelieve him,’ Bithwaite admitted. ‘He just didn’t have the stamp of a grammar school boy on him.’ He paused for a second, as if he’d suddenly retrieved a long-forgotten memory. ‘He used to sit there examining his hands.’

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘He’d sit behind his desk, examining his hands. Especially his fingernails. It was almost as if he couldn’t quite believe they were really clean.’

  ‘What about women?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Unattached man with plenty of money. Loads of charm – even if he wasn’t quite a gentleman. Your Mr Dodds seemed to have had all the qualities to make him a perfect ladies’ man.’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know about that,’ Bithwaite said, almost haughtily. ‘He certainly never brought any “ladies” here. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of the existence of the lady who became Mrs Dodds until a week or so before the wedding.’

  ‘She wasn’t exactly the sort of woman you’d have expected him to marry, was she?’ Woodend said.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’

  ‘Daughter of a vicar, degree from Oxford. I’d have thought she’d have been a little too refined for his taste.’

  ‘You misunderstand him,’ Bithwaite said. ‘She was the perfect choice for just those reasons. As I see it, she represented a step up the ladder. Money can’t buy you breeding, but it can buy you people who have breeding.’

  ‘You didn’t like him much, did you?’ Woodend said. ‘In fact, from what you’ve said I’d guess you positively despised the man.’

  A sudden change came over Bithwaite’s face. The avuncular softness drained from his eyes and was replaced by the mongoose-sharpness of a man who had traded in rubber and tin.

  ‘It’s been so pleasant to have someone to talk to that it never occurred to me to wonder why you’re asking all these questions,’ he said in the voice of a younger, harder man. ‘Well, I’m asking now.’

  ‘We’re givin’ the murder of Fred Dodds the quick once-over,’ Woodend said.

  ‘For what reason? The murderer was arrested and hanged. Isn’t that the end of it?’ The trader’s eyes flashed. ‘Unless, of course, you suspect that someone else killed him.’

  ‘It’s certainly not an idea I’m willin’ to rule out at the moment,’ Woodend admitted.

  Bithwaite stood up and walked around his desk towards the door. ‘You’ve been here longer than I’d realized,’ he said. ‘I’m falling behind with my tasks, and so I’m afraid –’ he pointedly opened the door to the corridor – ‘that I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.’

  ‘I wonder if we could just ask––’ Woodend began.

  ‘I told you as much as I know,’ Bithwaite said firmly. ‘See yourselves out. And please make sure to close the front door properly behind you.’

  Six

  It was just after midday. In the lounge bar of the Drum and Monkey, young men in suits drank bottles of Bass and ate either triangular-shaped ham sandwiches or chicken and chips from the basket. The public bar, just a few feet away from the lounge, was an entirely different story. Here, most of the men were dressed in greasy or paint-stained overalls, and drank pints. They ate pickled eggs, and expected their ham butties – never sandwiches – to be oblong in shape, just as God intended. It was, Rutter had learned long ago, his boss’s natural environment, and though he still called it ‘the public’, he thought of it as ‘Woodend Land’.

  The two of them had been sitting at their usual table in the public for nearly a quarter of an hour, and for most of that time the Chief Inspector had been outlining to Rutter his interview with Bithwaite. Now, he came to the end of his tale, took a deep slug of his pint, and asked, ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘I think that it might well be worth contacting the Canadian Mounties,’ Rutter replied.

  ‘To see if Cuthburtson’s still alive?’

  ‘And to find out if they know whether or not he made a short trip to England in the summer of 1934.’

  ‘Do you think that’s likely, lad?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Rutter said. ‘Imagine this. Dodds finds some way to eject Cuthburtson from the business that they started together. At first, Cuthburtson’s bloody furious. Then he calms down, and starts to tell himself that what happened was probably for the best. It’s not a defeat at all, he decides. It’s more an opportunity to make a new start. But it doesn’t work out quite like that.’

  ‘Why doesn’t it?’

  ‘Either because he’s not the success in Canada that he thought he would be, or he is a success but the memory of Dodds having shafted him is still gnawing away at his insides. He knows he’ll have no peace of mind until he’s had his revenge, so he comes back to Whitebridge and kills his old partner. And not just kills him – pulverizes his skull.
Because that’s how deep his anger runs.’

  ‘An’ he’s prepared to let Margaret Dodds, an innocent party, swing for what he’s done?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a man’s been too weak to face up to the consequences of his actions,’ Rutter pointed out. ‘Besides, who’s to say he even knew Margaret Dodds had been arrested, let alone convicted?’

  ‘How could he not?’

  ‘Because he’s timed the whole thing very carefully – including his escape – and within a couple of hours of killing Fred Dodds, he’s stepping on to a steamer in Liverpool bound for Canada.’

  ‘An’ between then an’ the time Margaret Dodds is hanged, he never picks up a newspaper? Isn’t that a bit unlikely?’

  ‘Even if he does read the papers, there’s still no guarantee he would have found out. Look, sir, if there’s a murder in Whitebridge, you can be pretty sure that the local Lancashire papers will splash it across the front page. But in Manchester – which is only thirty miles away – the story doesn’t merit more than a few paragraphs towards the back of the paper. And the further away from the crime scene you get, the less interest there is in it. The nationals may not mention it at all, and if they don’t, why should the foreign papers?’

  ‘You’ve got a point,’ Woodend agreed. ‘So Cuthburtson’s a possibility. But he’s not the only one, is he? Isn’t it equally possible that Mr Bithwaite could turn out to be our killer?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Rutter said firmly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because if he was the murderer, he’d never have told you as much as he did.’

  Woodend smiled indulgently. ‘Ah, youth!’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Rutter asked, sounding slightly offended.

  ‘Just that growin’ older tends to change the way you look at life,’ Woodend replied.

  ‘You mean, you get more cynical?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that at all. It’s more to do with time an’ memory than attitude.’

  ‘Go on,’ Rutter said.

  ‘The things I did as a kid are more vivid to me now than they’ve ever been,’ Woodend said. ‘I can remember the first soapbox car I ever had. An’ I mean remember it in every detail. I can still feel that rough string in my hands. I can still smell the rubber of the tyres. On the other hand, there’s parts of the war which are becomin’ so distant that they’re startin’ to seem like they happened to somebody else. An’ in a way, they did. Because while the kids we once were will always be locked up somewhere inside us, I’m certainly not the same man as I was on that Normandy beach in 1944.’

  ‘But how does that apply to Bithwaite?’

  ‘Back in 1934 he was workin’ for a man he didn’t like – a man he didn’t even consider his equal. It was tearin’ him apart. Then he began to see a solution to his problem. If he killed Dodds, there was a good chance he could step into the bastard’s shoes himself. At the time, he had so much rage in him that he murdered Dodds in a particularly violent way. But thirty years have passed since then. He’s an old man now. He doesn’t experience the same depths of passion as he used to, an’ when he talks about Dodds it’s almost like he’s describin’ a dream – a dream in which the murder plays only a small, terminal part. Then I press the wrong button by sayin’ that he couldn’t stand Dodds, could he? It doesn’t really make him feel guilty – it’s very difficult to feel guilty about somethin’ you did half a lifetime ago – but it does put him on his guard, an’ he switches from being a jovial old duffer to a feller who can’t wait to get us out of his office.’

  ‘So Bithwaite’s the one you’re putting your money on?’

  ‘I’m certainly not pullin’ him out of the race at this stage. Which is not to say I’m willin’ to dismiss Cuthburtson, either. Put through that inquiry to the Mounties, and then see whether you can find out any more about the causes of the ill feelin’ that sprung up between the partners.’

  ‘It won’t be easy after all this time,’ Rutter told him.

  ‘Nothin’s easy after all this time,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But you have to play the cards you’ve been given as best you can.’

  Rutter grinned. ‘You’re getting very philosophical today,’ he said. ‘Where’s Paniatowski, by the way?’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to call her “Monika” now and again,’ Woodend pointed out.

  Rutter grimaced. ‘All right, sir. If it makes you any happier – where’s Monika?’

  ‘I’ve sent her up to Hebden Row, to find out what she can about the married life of the Doddses,’ Woodend said. He glanced towards the door, and frowned. ‘Fasten your seatbelts. It’s goin’ to be a bumpy night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bette Davis in All About Eve,’ Woodend said, with mock despair. ‘Another thing that you’re too bloody young to remember.’

  ‘I still don’t see . . .’

  ‘Prepare yourself for an unexpected – an’ definitely unwanted – visitor,’ Woodend told him. He looked up. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hartley. Why don’t you take a seat?’

  Jane Hartley sat. She was dressed in a severely cut beige suit with a definite masculine feel to it. Her hair was tied in a tight bun at the back of her head, and there was a look of fierce determination – but also, Woodend thought, of vulnerability – on her face.

  ‘I take it that you’ve got some new information which you wanted to give us?’ Woodend said.

  The question seemed to knock Jane Hartley off balance. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No I don’t have any new . . . I just thought . . .’

  ‘So why are you here?’ Woodend said, speaking crisply though not unkindly. ‘You surely can’t expect any results from us yet. We’ve been on the case for less than a day.’

  ‘So you are on the case?’ Jane Hartley countered.

  ‘Meanin’ what?’

  ‘Meaning you are actually investigating.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because it would be a mistake just to try and fob me off, you know.’ Jane Hartley’s eyes narrowed. ‘A very, very grave mistake.’

  Woodend sighed. ‘We all know what a big important lawyer you are, Miss Hartley,’ he said. ‘An’ trust me on this, we’re all far too frightened of you not to follow out your wishes to the letter.’ He grinned. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way, would you like a drink?’

  Jane Hartley coloured slightly. ‘Yes . . . I mean no. It’s a little early in the day for me.’

  But you’d like one, wouldn’t you? the Chief Inspector thought, noticing the way her eyes strayed towards the optics. You’d really like one.

  ‘Why do you think your mother decided to marry Fred Dodds?’ he said aloud.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘We know more about Fred Dodds now than we did when we talked to you yesterday. I can’t say that what we’ve learned has impressed us all that much. He seemed to be a rough an’ ready sort. So I was wonderin’ why your mother – an Oxford-educated parson’s daughter – should have chosen to marry a man like him.’

  ‘Perhaps she’d fallen in love with him,’ Jane Hartley said, instantly defensive.

  ‘Perhaps she had,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But by all accounts, he wasn’t a very wise choice. Besides, I can’t help askin’ myself how they ever got to meet in the first place.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they have met?’

  ‘Well, because he was a reasonably successful businessman who probably moved in quite prominent social circles.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘An’ she was nothin’ more than a humble filin’ clerk, who can’t have got about town much, because she had a little kid at home to look after.’

  ‘What are you implying?’ Jane Hartley demanded, the flush in her cheeks now more the result of anger than embarrassment. ‘That she tracked him down like some kind of big game hunter? That she was tired of living in a small cottage on a meagre salary, and set her sights on a man – any man – with money? That she decided I’d have a better chance in life if she was married
to someone who could buy me my opportunities? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, not me,’ Woodend countered softly. ‘Truth is, I rather think it’s what you’re sayin’.’

  The tower of rage that Jane Hartley had built for herself cracked, and then crumbled.

  ‘I don’t know why my mother married him,’ she said in a voice that could almost have belonged to a little girl. ‘I was too young then to understand what was going on – and that’s the truth, whatever you seem to think. I admit that I have wondered since if she did it for the money – if she did it for me – but that shouldn’t make any difference, should it? We’ve already agreed that she couldn’t have killed him, because if she had, she’d have gone about it in a much cleverer way. We have agreed that,’ she continued, sounding increasingly desperate, ‘haven’t we?’

  ‘I’m certainly willin’ to agree that it would be surprisin’ if an intelligent woman like her was responsible for such a crude murder,’ Woodend said cautiously.

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question – and you know it!’

  ‘I’d like to tell you what you want to hear, lass,’ Woodend said. ‘But at this stage in the investigation I couldn’t even swear that you didn’t kill Fred Dodds. You’ll just have to learn to be patient.’

  Jane Hartley nodded, and it was obvious to him that she was fighting a losing battle to hold back her tears.

  ‘I’ll try be patient,’ she promised, ‘but it’s a very hard thing to do when you seem to have been waiting for an answer for most your life.’

  ‘Aye, I can see that,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And if I’m to be patient, then first I need to know that I trust you. I can trust you, can’t I?’

  ‘It would be easy enough for me to say yes, but it wouldn’t mean anythin’,’ Woodend told her.

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Because the trust can’t come from me – it has to come from deep inside you.’

  Jane Hartley gazed at him – through tear-streaked eyes – for well over a minute.

  ‘I do trust you,’ she said finally. ‘I believe you’ll uncover the truth – whatever it takes.’