A Death Left Hanging

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Did you tell the police back then what you’re telling me now?’

  ‘Well, of course I did. I told it all to the first constable who turned up. That’s why he arrested Fred the moment he turned up at the yard.’

  ‘I thought Fred was never charged.’

  ‘He wasn’t. A couple of hours later he comes back to the yard, as bold as brass, an’ says that Sergeant Parker’s let him go.’

  ‘And that was that? Wasn’t there any more to the investigation?’

  Clem Hodnut shrugged. ‘Sergeant Parker come to the yard himself, an’ asked a few questions, but he didn’t seem very interested in my story about the fight. If you ask me, he was just goin’ through the motions. He never had no real interest in solvin’ the case.’

  ‘And why do you think that was?’

  ‘Beats me!’ Clem admitted. ‘I never have been able to work out how the Law thinks.’

  ‘So Fred inherited the coal yard.’

  ‘He did, but I knew he wasn’t goin’ to stay long. He thought he was too good for this place, you see. It could only to be a matter of time before he sold up this business an’ bought himself somethin’ that was a bit cleaner.’

  ‘Did you resent that?’ Rutter asked.

  Hodnut looked puzzled. ‘Resent it. Why should I have? If you don’t do what you want with the money you’ve been left, what’s the point of killin’ your dad in the first place?’

  Twenty

  There was an old saying, in common use during Woodend’s youth, that if the mountain would not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed had better go to the mountain. It had always seemed to him to be one of the more sensible adages that people tended to spout without even thinking about them. It was, therefore, something of a shock for him to discover that – on a morning that was just perfect for a round of golf – the highest mountain in his particular chain was not only in the building, but actually standing in the doorway of his office.

  ‘Do you think you could spare me a few minutes, Charlie?’ Henry Marlowe asked.

  His choice of responses being limited to one, Woodend rose to his feet, said that of course he could spare a few minutes, and gestured the Chief Constable to sit down.

  Marlowe did not look comfortable on the wrong side of the desk, and for a moment Woodend found himself wondering what had compelled the great man to leave the security of his inner sanctum. And then he had it! If Marlowe had summoned Woodend, it would have given the meeting something of an official status. By dropping in as he had, he was keeping it informal – and ensuring that there was no record of the encounter.

  The Chief Constable pulled a packet of cigars out of his pocket, and offered it across the desk.

  ‘No thanks, sir. I’d prefer to smoke my own kind of coffin nail,’ Woodend said, reaching for his Capstan Full Strengths.

  Marlowe lit his cigar, puffed on it, and was instantly surrounded by a halo of blue-grey smoke.

  ‘I had Eric Sharpe on the phone to me for half an hour last night,’ he said casually.

  Woodend nodded. ‘I can’t pretend that comes as a shock, sir.’

  ‘He told me that he had suggested to you that if you did what he wanted, he’d see to it that you got promoted.’

  ‘He might well have done, for all I know,’ Woodend replied. ‘But I can’t say that I was really listenin’ to him.’

  Marlowe’s face slipped painfully into the expression that he probably considered to be a good-natured smile. ‘Oh, come on, Charlie! Pull the other one – it’s got bells on!’ he said.

  ‘All right, that’s what he offered me,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘He was quite wrong to ever make such an offer, of course. And quite incorrect in his assumption that he had the power to see such an offer brought through to fruition. We, in the Mid Lancs Constabulary, are justly proud of our independence from outside influence.’

  Since when? Woodend thought, remembering back to some of his previous cases.

  But aloud, all he said was, ‘Yes, sir. We couldn’t do our job properly if we weren’t independent.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘So what we have to consider, in any given situation, is what’s good for us – the bobbies on the ground, the poor bloody infantry whose only concern is solving crimes. Now, let’s examine this current situation. You could bring the government down, Charlie. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘As I explained to Lord Sharpe yesterday, that’s not my intention,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And what we have to ask ourselves is, do we want a change of government at this precise moment? What do you know about economics and international finance, Charlie?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Woodend admitted. ‘The wife usually takes care of things like that.’

  Marlowe grimaced, to show he could take a joke as well as anyone, then turned serious again. ‘If the Labour Party was elected tomorrow, there would undoubtedly be a run on the pound,’ he said. ‘To combat it, the government would have to cut back on its domestic spending. In other words, there’d be less resources for the police.’

  ‘That would be a pity, but as far as this investigation goes, it simply can’t be my concern, sir,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Then there’s our reputation to consider. It’s true that Eric Sharpe hasn’t been a policeman for over thirty years, but when he was a serving officer, he was one of our own. If he’s shown to be rotten, what do you imagine people will think about the Mid Lancs force?’

  Hang on a second! Woodend thought. What exactly is goin’ on here?

  Marlowe had rescued him from death by committee meeting not through compassion, but because the Chief Constable could recognize a hot potato when he saw one. Caught between Sharpe on one side and Jane Hartley on the other, he had quickly determined that if anyone was going to get his fingers burned, that person would be Charlie Woodend. So what had changed? Had Marlowe suddenly developed asbestos fingers – or was there some reason for him suddenly coming down on the side of the noble lord?

  ‘Are you not the tiniest bit concerned about how Miss Hartley might react if we play it your way, sir?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘No.’

  Woodend shrugged. ‘Well, I expect you have your reasons.’

  ‘Indeed I do. A couple of days ago, Jane Hartley was a power to be reckoned with. She’d got political clout, and she had friends in high places. And then what did she do? She pissed it away! She talked to the Daily Globe about her mother’s history – and all the influence she’d worked so hard for years to build up simply evaporated overnight.’

  ‘You’re sure about that, are you, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve spoken to her chambers. The members have absolutely no wish to see this matter go any further. Nor do any of the other people she might have been relying on. Once she starts trying to call in her debts, it won’t take her long to realize that she’s been cut adrift.’

  ‘But what about the Daily Globe?’ Woodend asked. ‘To be honest with you, I can’t see Elizabeth Driver givin’ up a juicy story once she’s got her teeth clamped round it.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Miss Driver, too. She seems quite prepared to eat a little humble pie.’

  ‘Meanin’ what?’

  ‘Meaning that she’s more than willing to write an article admitting to her mistakes.’

  ‘What mistakes?’

  ‘Primarily that she was completely taken in – but only for a moment – by Jane Hartley’s histrionics.’

  ‘An’ what does she get in return?’

  Marlowe smiled again. Woodend hated it when he did that.

  ‘I’ve been thinking for some time about forming a new, elite squad – Lancashire’s equivalent of Scotland Yard,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘And I’ve promised Miss Driver that if the chief superintendent in charge of it has no objections, she can work closely with it. You won’t have any objections to her working with you, will you, Charlie?’

  Woodend lit up another Capstan, and took a deep – disgusted – drag. ‘It’s a funn
y thing, but as independent as we are, we still seem to be doin’ exactly what Lord Sharpe wants us to do,’ he said.

  ‘As I told you before, Charlie, this has nothing to do with Lord Sharpe. We’ll do what’s good for the Force.’

  ‘I don’t always like Jane Hartley,’ Woodend said reflectively. ‘She’s brittle, she’s untrusting – an’ she can be downright rude. But for all that, I still have to admire her. An’ do you know why?’

  ‘Why?’ Marlowe said suspiciously.

  ‘For two reasons. Firstly, because while she’s tried to threaten me from time to time, she’s never gone so far as to insult me by offering me a bribe.’

  ‘Careful, Charlie. You don’t want to––’

  ‘An’ secondly, she seems to be the only person involved in this mess who’s prepared to put her own neck on the line. Or maybe I should say she was the only person – because now there’s two of us.’

  ‘I can take you off this case, Chief Inspector,’ Marlowe said, with a new harshness in his voice. ‘I can take you off it right now.’

  ‘You could,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But if you did, wouldn’t you be worried that a report of my findings might be leaked to the newspapers?’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare do that!’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ the Chief Inspector agreed, making no effort to sound convincing. ‘But if you remove me from the case, you also take away my ability to stop anybody else from leakin’ the findings.’

  ‘What exactly are these findings of yours?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘I’d prefer not to say at the moment, sir.’

  ‘And if I ordered you to?’

  ‘Then I’d have to answer, hand on heart, that so far we’d come up with bugger all.’

  ‘But you’d be lying!’

  ‘Would I, sir? An’ if I was, could you prove it?’

  The veins in Marlowe’s neck bulged dangerously. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do, Chief Inspector?’ he asked. ‘I’m going to put this on an official footing. By this afternoon, I’ll have formed a board of inquiry. By this evening, you’ll be its star witness. Lie to it – or even hold the smallest detail back – and I’ll personally see to it that you’re ruined.’

  ‘An’ how will the board know if I’m holdin’ anythin’ back?’ Woodend asked.

  A smile – a genuine one, this time – came to Marlowe’s face. ‘Oh, it can never truly know,’ he admitted. ‘So what it will all boil down to is what the board decides to believe. And who do you think is best placed to sway it one way or the other?’

  ‘You are,’ Woodend said.

  ‘I am,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘You’ve been walking on water for a long time now, Chief Inspector – but even the nimblest-footed self-appointed messiah eventually ends up hanging from a cross.’

  It was as good an exit line as he was ever likely to be able to deliver, and recognizing it as such, the Chief Constable rose to his feet and left the office without another word.

  Woodend took a further deep drag on his cigarette, and reviewed the situation he’d just talked himself into. By threatening to leak the details of the case to the press, he had effectively been buying himself time by holding a gun to his boss’s head. The problem was that – though Marlowe didn’t yet know it – there were no bullets in that gun.

  In the previous few days, and with the help of Rutter and Paniatowski, he had learned a great deal about the lives of the people involved in the Frederick Dodds case. But in terms of actually achieving a result, he’d been more or less speaking the truth when he’d told the Chief Constable that he had bugger all – and as far as he could see, a result was the only thing that would save him now.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and looked up at the clock on the wall.

  ‘What’s the time, Woodend?!’ he demanded in the voice of Miss Scoggins, the harridan who had terrorized him when he’d been in Standard One of Wesley Street Elementary School.

  ‘The little hand’s on ten, an’ the big hand’s nearly on twelve,’ he answered, in something like the squeaky voice he had once possessed.

  ‘And what time does that make it, Woodend?’

  ‘Nearly ten o’clock, Miss.’

  He chuckled, and lit another cigarette. Back then, life had been so much simpler – and your enemies so much more straightforward.

  The big hand of the clock clicked loudly, and covered the twelve. He had eight hours before he was hauled up in front of the board, he calculated. Eight hours at the most.

  He hoped to Christ that Rutter and Paniatowski could come up with some ammunition for him by then.

  Twenty-One

  The sign at the edge of the village of Picket Forge announced that the visitor was on the point of entering ‘the Garden of Lancashire’. The boast was more than backed up by the reality. There were well-tended gardens wherever the newcomer chose to look, and most of the houses also had window boxes. Tubs of flowers stood on the streets; borders of plants ran around virtually every piece of public land. On a sunny morning – and that particular morning was wonderfully sunny – the whole village became one big glorious display of carefully nurtured horticulture, a treat to both the eyes and the nose.

  The big, glorious display was wasted on Monika Paniatowski. She noticed neither the flowers nor the weather. And though her body was driving the MGA down the village’s main street, her mind was alternating between roving free and turning in on itself.

  She wished she knew what was happening to her. She had never got on well with Bob Rutter, but at no point in the past had their relationship ever even approached being as bad as it had become in the last couple of days.

  It was almost as if, to her, Rutter had ceased being himself and become instead a symbol of everything she disliked about the opposite sex. Which meant that he could never be right – even when he so obviously was. Nor, by the same token, could he ever be given credit for being well intentioned. And yet, intellectually at least, Paniatowski was well aware of the fact that he was one of best-intentioned men she had ever met.

  The real problem, she recognized, was that while she could think these things through when she was alone, in Rutter’s presence she found it almost impossible to think at all. Increasingly, she was becoming a creature of instinct – little more than two pairs of sharp claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth – which wanted only to lash out.

  She suddenly realized that she had driven straight through the village and was now more than a mile the other side of it.

  ‘Get a grip on yourself, Monika,’ she said angrily, pulling the MGA through a fast, tyre-screeching U-turn.

  She did not make the mistake of driving through a second time. When she saw the village post office, she signalled and pulled into the curb. The house she was intending to visit, she had already established, was to the immediate right of the post office and belonged to Dorothy Hill, 55, spinster – and surviving sister of the long-dead Sidney Hill.

  Paniatowski walked up the path. The garden on either side of it – she noted now that she had collected herself enough to becoming aware of her surroundings again – was rather neglected. So perhaps Miss Hill had no interest in growing things, nor felt any compunction to join with her neighbours and share their pride in the village.

  Paniatowski rang the bell, and the door was opened by a woman who looked as if she were in her very late sixties.

  ‘Yes?’ the woman said.

  ‘I’d like to see Miss Dorothy Hill, if she’s in.’

  ‘I’m Dorothy Hill.’

  God, but the woman hadn’t aged at all well, Paniatowski thought, as she forced a smile to her lips in an attempt to mask her shock.

  ‘I’m Sergeant Monika Paniatowski, from Whitebridge Police Headquarters,’ she said. ‘I wonder if I might come inside.’

  ‘Why?’ Dorothy Hill demanded.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about your brother, Sidney.’

  ‘He’s been dead for over forty years. That’s well before you were even born. What c
an you possibly want to know about him now?’

  ‘It’s . . . er . . . it’s a bit difficult to explain here on the doorstep,’ Paniatowski said, slipping effortlessly into her young-inexperienced-woman-out-of-her-depth routine. ‘Do you think I could just pop inside for a few minutes?’

  For a moment it looked as if the older woman had seen right through her act, then Dorothy Hill shrugged her slumped shoulders and said, ‘Why not, if that’s what you want.’

  She led Paniatowski down the passageway, and into the living room.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, indicating the ancient winged armchair that stood next to an equally venerable occasional table.

  Paniatowski sat. It was not only the armchair and the occasional table that were close to being antiques, she realized. Everything else in the room was as old, or even older. The place could almost have been a museum.

  ‘This all belonged to my parents,’ Dorothy Hill said, reading the sergeant’s mind. ‘I never bought anything myself.’

  ‘Really,’ Paniatowski said, lost for any other reply.

  ‘I was the only child in the family after Sidney’s death, and my parents left me everything they had,’ Dorothy Hill continued. ‘On their deaths, I was suddenly quite well-off. I could have replaced everything in here if I’d wanted to – but I didn’t want to!’

  ‘The room certainly has . . . has charm,’ Paniatowski said, knowing she was not doing a particularly good job of making a connection – yet unable to work out what approach might establish a better one.

  ‘I don’t care about charm,’ Dorothy Hill told her scornfully. ‘I don’t care about style, either. I like this room the way it is because it reminds me of my early childhood – of a time of innocence.’ She laughed with surprising bitterness. ‘We never value our innocence properly, do we? We can’t – because until we lose it, we don’t know we’ve ever possessed it.’