A Death Left Hanging

by Sally Spencer

  Paniatowski’s face had grown gradually more impassive, and it was becoming plain to Woodend that if he’d been expecting a response, he was going to be disappointed.

  ‘Have you finished, sir?’ the sergeant asked. ‘Can I go now?’

  Woodend sighed heavily. ‘Yes, Monika, you can go now,’ he said.

  Fourteen

  The visitor – who was not entirely unexpected – arrived at Woodend’s office door a few minutes after Paniatowski had made her graceless exit. The man was in his mid-sixties, Woodend estimated. He must once have had an athletic build, but now his good appearance owed more to the skilful cut of his expensive suit than it did to rigorous physical exercise. His skin shone, his white hair flowed over his collar in a patrician mane, and he had dark brown eyes that were quick, rather than intelligent. If Hollywood had been looking for someone to cast in the role of the noble lord, he would have been its man.

  Eric Sharpe glanced quickly round the office, then held his hand out to Woodend. ‘Well, that is a relief,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’ the Chief Inspector asked.

  ‘You are! I was dreadin’ havin’ to waste my time talkin’ to some snotty-nosed little university graduate who’d learned all his policin’ from books, but I can tell just by the cut of your jib that you’re exactly the kind of old-fashioned bobby I used to be.’

  Woodend favoured him with a ghost of a smile, invited him to sit down, and offered him a Capstan Full Strength.

  Lord Sharpe accepted the cigarette, took a deep drag on it, then settled back comfortably in his chair.

  ‘I expect you’re wonderin’ why I’m here,’ he said.

  ‘I assume that it’s got somethin’ to do with the Margaret Dodds case,’ Woodend said.

  ‘You’ve hit the nail right on the head there, Charlie,’ Sharpe said. He paused for a second. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Charlie, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind, Lord Sharpe,’ Woodend assured him.

  ‘An’ please, if I’m to call you Charlie, then you must call me Eric. Bein’ ennobled can be quite useful in some social situations – I never have to queue for theatre tickets these days, for instance – but even though I’ve been “lordin’ it” for years now, the title still doesn’t always sit too comfortably on the shoulders of a lad whose dad was nowt but a mill worker.’

  Woodend looked puzzled. ‘Now that is strange,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your dad wasn’t a mill worker. He was the station master at Whitebridge railway station. He had his own office, an’ a lass whose job it was to brew up for him.’

  Sharpe’s crafty eyes suddenly hardened. ‘You’ve been checking up on me,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Aye, I have,’ Woodend agreed. ‘An’ you’ve been checkin’ up on me. That’s how you know my dad did work in the mills.’

  For a moment it looked as if Sharpe was unsure exactly how to react. Then he threw back his head and laughed as if he were genuinely amused.

  ‘You’ve caught me out, fair an’ square,’ he said. ‘It’s an old politician’s trick, is that.’

  ‘What? Pretendin’ to come from the same background as the person you’re talkin’ to?’

  ‘That’s right. There’s no harm in it, you know.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  ‘Of course not. To tell you the truth, I do it more for the sake of the fellers I’m talkin’ to than for my own. People get a bit tongue-tied when they’re dealin’ with a lord, an’ it puts them more at their ease to realize I’m an ordinary chap, much like themselves.’

  ‘I see,’ Woodend said, noncommittally.

  Sharpe grinned ruefully. ‘Still an’ all, I should never have tried that trick on with a smart bobby like you – a man who, but for a few years difference in our ages, could have been one of my colleagues. I’m sorry, Charlie!’

  ‘We all make mistakes. Think nothin’ of it,’ Woodend said. ‘Now, just what can I do for you, Lord––’

  ‘Eric!’

  ‘What can I do for you, Eric?’

  ‘It’s more a question of what I can do for you,’ Sharpe said. ‘I was in on the Dodds case from the very start. In fact, I was the first officer to reach the crime scene. So I thought I might be able to fill you in on some of the background – an’ perhaps point you in the right direction.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Woodend said.

  But he was thinking: The man’s actin’ like he’s never read that article in the Globe – like he doesn’t know that he’s as much a subject of the investigation as the murderer is.

  ‘So what have you come up with so far, Charlie?’ Sharpe asked.

  Woodend shrugged. ‘It’s early days yet, Eric. You know yourself how long it takes to get to grips with a case.’

  Sharpe frowned. ‘That’s certainly true of some of the cases I’ve handled – but I would have thought this one was really pretty straightforward. Quite frankly, it should never have been re-opened. Indeed, if the hysterical bloody woman who’s kickin’ up all the fuss had been anythin’ other than a QC, it wouldn’t have been re-opened.’

  ‘Maybe so. But the fact that you think she’s a hysterical bloody woman doesn’t mean that there’s nothin’ to investigate.’

  Sharpe shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘You’re wastin’ your time on this one, Charlie. Margaret Dodds was guilty as charged.’

  ‘So why did she do it?’

  Sharpe made some pretence of thinking. ‘I can’t really remember all the details,’ he said. ‘After all, thirty years is a hell of a long time, you know – especially –’ he paused to laugh self-deprecatingly – ‘especially when you’re gettin’ as long in the tooth as I am.’

  ‘But it was your last major case before you went into parliament, wasn’t it? Surely you’ve still got at least a vague memory of it,’ Woodend coaxed.

  ‘Maybe I can recall bits here an’ there,’ Sharpe conceded. ‘As far as I remember, she killed her husband for his money.’

  ‘It wasn’t a very clever murder, was it?’

  ‘She didn’t strike me as a particularly clever woman. Besides, as you know yourself, greed can make people do some incredibly stupid things.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Woodend agreed. ‘If people want anythin’ badly enough, they’ll as often as not cut corners. Either that or they’ll go ahead without givin’ proper consideration to the consequences of their actions.’

  Sharpe gave him another hard stare. ‘We are still talking about Margaret Dodds here, aren’t we?’

  ‘I was talkin’ in general terms,’ Woodend said. ‘But I agree that it could certainly apply to the murder of Fred Dodds.’

  Sharpe leant forward. ‘Cards on the table, Charlie. How long will it take you to wrap this whole thing up, so that I can turn my attention to more important matters?’

  ‘You seem to have lost your accent,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When you first came in here, you were droppin’ your Gs, an’ soundin’ like a true son of Whitebridge. Now you’re talkin’ more like a man who feels quite at home in influential London circles.’

  ‘I do feel at home in influential London circles,’ Sharpe said, his voice hardening. ‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘What happened to the record of the interview you conducted with Mrs Fortesque, Lord Sharpe?’

  ‘Mrs Fortesque? Who’s she?’

  ‘She’s the woman who lived next door to the Doddses. Still lives there, as a matter of fact. On the night of the murder, she heard two cars stop in front of the Doddses’ house, not more than half an hour apart. She thought the occurrence was important enough to mention it to the police.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘There should have been a report on it. Now you’ll not have met my lad Inspector Rutter, but take it from me he’s a conscientious bobby both by nature an’ trainin’. An’ yet he can’t find hide nor hair of any such document.’

 
Sharpe waved his hand airily. ‘Paperwork sometimes gets lost, Charlie. You should know that. After thirty long years, I’m surprised there’s only one report missing.’

  ‘We don’t know it is only one,’ Woodend said. ‘In fact, we’re reasonably sure it isn’t.’

  ‘Since there was no overall index of all the documents, I don’t see how you can possibly say that.’

  ‘Now that is interestin’.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You say you can’t remember even some of the broad details of the case, but you do remember a minor clerical detail like the fact there was no overall index of contents.’

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Sharpe said.

  ‘If I’d have been investigatin’ the case, one thing that I’d have been certain to do was follow up on Mrs Fortesque’s statement,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Perhaps I did follow it up. I don’t remember.’

  ‘I’d have interviewed all the residents of Hebden Brow, as well as the ones in the surroundin’ area. I’d have found out whether or not they’d noticed the cars, too. Then I’d have got all the information I could from the registry in County Hall. I’d also have sent men to all the garages in Central Lancashire. It wouldn’t have been as big a job as it would be today, because there weren’t as many cars around then. But it would have been big enough. By the time I’d finished with that line of inquiry I’d have had a thick folder of information on cars. There’s not a hint of any information at all in your records.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right in what you implied,’ Sharpe said. ‘Perhaps I did cut a few corners in my eagerness to get a result. But it was the right result. I can assure you of that.’

  ‘After the sloppy investigative work you allowed to go on, you can’t assure me of anythin’,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘You do read the papers, don’t you?’ Sharpe demanded.

  ‘Aye. When I get the time.’

  ‘Well, in case you’ve missed this particular story, the government’s facing a real crisis. It’s all the fault of that idiot John Profumo. I don’t object to him consorting with whores, but he should have had the sense to take some precautions to cover his back. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The fact is, we’re hanging on to power by a thread. One more scandal – or even the appearance of a scandal – and that thread will be broken.’

  ‘That’s not my concern,’ Woodend said.

  Sharpe sneered. ‘Why? What are you – a strong Labour Party man or something?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am,’ Woodend said. ‘But that has nothin’ to do with the way I’m handlin’ this case. I’d do exactly the same as I’m doin’ now if Labour was in power.’

  ‘You haven’t thought this through – and that’s a huge mistake,’ Sharpe warned in a voice which reminded Woodend of the hiss of a poisonous snake. ‘Very few people ever have the chance to bring a government down, but you have that power in your hands right now. No doubt that makes you feel a very big man. No doubt you’re revelling in it like a pig rolling around in shit!’

  ‘Maybe you’d feel like that in my situation, but I’m just––’

  ‘Shut up!’ Sharpe said. ‘Shut up and listen! It’s not just your chance to bring down the government – it’s also a chance to make either powerful enemies or powerful friends. You could use some powerful friends right now, Charlie, because as things stand, your career is pretty much washed up. I could get you promotion, if I felt inclined that way. Maybe even a double promotion. You could be Chief Superintendent Woodend by the end of next week. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Charlie?’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘But what you can’t even begin to understand is what I – and the people behind me – could do to you if you crossed us. You wouldn’t just lose this job – we’d make sure you never got another one anywhere else. Your bank would suddenly demand you pay off your overdraft – which, I know for fact, you couldn’t. So what would the bank do then? It would start legal proceedings to repossess that little cottage of yours. You’d soon find yourself with no job and no home – and that’s even before we started to get really nasty.’

  ‘I don’t like makin’ physical threats to old men like you,’ Woodend told Sharpe, ‘but if you’re not out of my office within five seconds I’ll knock your teeth so far down your throat that you’ll have to stick your fingers up your arse to bite your nails.’

  ‘You’re still not thinking straight,’ Sharpe said. ‘You don’t want to put everything you’ve ever worked for at risk, just for the sake of––’

  ‘One . . .’ Woodend counted. ‘Two . . . three . . .’

  It was on the count of four that Lord Sharpe stood up. He backed to the door and, with his eyes still on Woodend, groped for the handle. He pulled the door open, took a step backward, then paused on the threshold.

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ he said, one foot still inside Woodend’s office. ‘I promise you, you’ll regret this to your dying day.’

  ‘At least I’ll still be able to look myself in the eye when I’m shavin’ in the mornin’,’ Woodend said. ‘How long is it since you’ve been able to do that, “My Lord”?’

  ‘You won’t be able to afford a mirror to look into by the time we’re through with you,’ Sharpe told him.

  The minister stepped fully into the corridor, and slammed the door hard behind him.

  ‘Temper, temper!’ Woodend said softly to himself.

  Fifteen

  Bob Rutter was all right in himself about parking in the space between the Rolls Royce and the Bentley, but he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for his two-year-old Ford Cortina, which definitely seemed overawed by the experience.

  He climbed out of the car, quickly put some distance between himself and it, then stopped to examine the Grand Hotel, Simcaster. It was a mid-Victorian structure and thus had all the attendant crenellations, small towers, and other fanciful additions that the tastes of the era had dictated. It was situated in an elevated position on the edge of Simcaster and faced north, so that its guests could look out over the moors – and imagine the lakes beyond them – rather than being forced to gaze down on the grimy cotton town.

  Such guests no longer came. It was a long time since the hotel had catered for visiting British business magnates with cash in their pockets and a hunger for profits burning in their eyes. It had been at least forty years since any foreign dictator had strutted through the lobby, surrounded by his grim-faced bodyguards, and bragged about the mills he would set up with the cheap labour available to him, once he returned home.

  Yes, times had changed, but the Grand – unlike many other businesses in Simcaster – had known how to adapt to those changes. Now, prosperous visitors came on most weekends, purely for pleasure – to breathe the country air, to play a round or two of golf, to conduct their illicit affairs far from the gaze of anyone who knew them. The Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Conservative Association, and the Simcaster and District Hunt, regularly booked the place for their annual dinners and formal balls. And since it was still undoubtedly the poshest place in town, it had become the established watering hole for those members of the community who would rather not rub shoulders in a social context with men they would be ordering about at work the following morning.

  Rutter nodded to the uniformed doorman, and stepped into the marble foyer. The Excelsior Bar was to his immediate left, and three well-dressed, self-satisfied men in their early sixties were already occupying a table near the window, just as they’d promised they would be.

  Rutter walked across the room to the table. It was the bald, jovial-looking member of the trio who noticed him first.

  ‘Watch out, lads!’ he said in a stage whisper. ‘The law’s here!’

  Rutter, who had not heard this particular joke much more than a thousand times before, smiled politely.

  ‘At least, I assume it’s the law,’ the bald man continued. ‘You are Inspector Rutter, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s r
ight.’

  ‘Then pull up a pew, and I’ll perform the introductions. I’m Edward Bliss, solicitor of this parish. To my left we have Alfred Potter, the merciless capitalist owner of Potter Investments Ltd, and to my right is Philip Stokes, the best plumber in the county.’

  ‘Plumber?’ Rutter repeated, thinking he must have misheard.

  ‘Waterworks specialist. If you ever have any problems with your prostate, he’s the man to see,’ Bliss explained. ‘So tell me, how did you track us down? Or is that what you might call a professional secret?’

  ‘No secret,’ Rutter assured him. ‘Simcaster Grammar School keeps excellent records on its past pupils. I simply asked the school secretary for the names of some of the men who had been in the same class as Fredrick Dodds.’

  ‘And she came up with the three of us,’ Alfred Potter said. ‘Actually, I’m not sure we can be of much use to you.’

  ‘You must have spent five years in the same classroom as Dodds,’ Rutter pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Potter said awkwardly. ‘But that’s not to say we ever really got to know him.’

  ‘His father was a coalman, for God’s sake!’ Dr Stokes said.

  Bliss tut-tutted. ‘A coal merchant, Philip,’ he said reproachfully.

  ‘Perhaps that’s what he was by the time he enrolled his son in “Simmie”, but it hadn’t always been like that. I can remember him delivering coal to our house personally when I was five or six. My mother always used to tell the maid to watch him like a hawk while he tipped the coal into the cellar – just to make sure he didn’t get away with delivering one bag too few.’

  ‘Even so . . .’ Bliss protested.

  ‘His father might have been richer than any of ours by the time Fred came to Simmie, but all the money in the world won’t quite wash away the coal dust from under your fingernails,’ Stokes said remorselessly. ‘Not that there was much of a chance to wash it away in Fred Dodds’ case. If I remember rightly, Fred’s father – who, typical of his class, had no vision at all – pulled Fred out of school to work on his wagons.’