A Death Left Hanging

by Sally Spencer

  ‘But I will be on leave?’

  ‘The rest will do you good, Monika.’

  ‘And just how long is this “rest” of mine supposed to go on for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Woodend admitted. ‘I was rather hopin’ that you’d be able to gauge that for yourself. But since you can’t even seem to understand that if you don’t take a break you’ll––’

  ‘You need me here,’ Paniatowski said desperately.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Woodend said, shaking his head and looking up at the wall clock again. ‘What I need right at this moment is a trusty bagman. That’s what you used to be – an’ what I hope you’ll be in the future. But we’re not talking about the future – we’re talkin’ about the here an’ now. An’ here an’ now, you’re nothin’ but a liability.’

  Paniatowski felt her eyes begin to moisten. ‘I never thought that you – of all people – would ever stab me in the back,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Go home, Monika,’ Woodend said. ‘Get your head down an’ have a good night’s sleep. Who knows, by tomorrow mornin’ you might be feelin’ fit enough to come back.’

  ‘Charlie, please . . .’

  ‘Go home now!’

  Paniatowski sprang to her feet, and saluted. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said crisply.

  Then, before he could see her tears, she opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Follow the main corridor to the end, then turn left. The matron’s door is the first on your right,’ said the young woman who was mopping the tiled entrance hall of the Councilman Stephenson Old People’s Home.

  As Rutter walked down the corridor, he was aware that his progress was being followed by several pairs of eyes. He supposed he should not have been surprised. Visitors at that time of day were probably a novelty, especially relatively young visitors with a full head of hair and their own teeth.

  The home had once been the town workhouse, which, while turning away the poor it had judged to be undeserving, had served as a refuge for any of the deserving poor who were willing to leave their personal dignity in a wicker basket by the entrance. Some attempt had been made to soften the atmosphere of the place since those austere days – the bare brick walls had been plastered and painted, pictures of seaside towns had been hung – but to Rutter the atmosphere seemed still to be thick with the odour of carbolic soap and the clogging sickliness of the workhouse attendants’ self-satisfied piety.

  The matron’s office was located in the heart of the building, and the matron herself was a stocky woman with blue-rinsed hair captured in a tight perm.

  ‘So you’d like to see Mr Parker, would you?’ she said, when Rutter had introduced himself. ‘Not on official business, I trust.’

  ‘Well, in a way it is,’ the inspector admitted.

  ‘But Mr Parker can’t have done anything wrong! He hasn’t put a foot outside the home for years.’

  ‘I’m probably not making myself clear,’ Rutter said. ‘It’s more in the nature of a professional visit. I want to consult him about a case he worked on when he was a sergeant in the Mid Lancs Police.’

  ‘But he’s been retired for years.’

  ‘Since 1945,’ Rutter agreed. ‘Mr Parker retired from the Force as soon as the war was over, and they had the fresh manpower available to be able to release him from his duties.’

  The matron laughed. The sound of her amusement had an unexpected tinkling bell quality about it. ‘I’d have thought all the cases Mr Parker worked on would have been closed long ago,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t know just how much I wish that was true,’ Rutter told her.

  Mr Parker turned out to be a very old man who was confined to a very old chair. When Rutter offered him one of his cigarettes, the ex-sergeant shook his head.

  ‘Can’t be doing with them modern cork-tipped things,’ he said. ‘They make me cough.’

  Rutter reached into his pocket, and pulled out a packet of Players’ Navy Cut. ‘How about one of these?’ he suggested.

  A twinkle came into the old man’s eyes. ‘Now you’re talking,’ he said. ‘Smoke them as well, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Rutter replied. ‘I brought them for you. It was my boss, DCI Woodend, who suggested you might prefer them.’

  ‘Sounds like the right kind of boss to work for.’ Mr Parker lit his Players’ with trembling hands and inhaled greedily. ‘A real fag,’ he said happily. ‘I’ve not been able to afford anything more than roll-ups since the Coronation.’

  ‘The reason I’ve come is because I’d like to ask you about the Marcus Dodds case,’ Rutter said.

  A look of caution instantly flooded into the old man’s eyes. ‘Oh aye?’ he said.

  ‘You were the detective in charge of the investigation, weren’t you?’

  ‘You know I was.’

  ‘And at first you arrested Fred Dodds.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. It was a uniformed constable who arrested Fred. I was the one that let him go.’

  ‘Yes – why did you do that?’ Rutter asked casually.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He was the obvious suspect, yet you released him less than two hours after he’d been taken into custody. I wouldn’t have thought that was anything like enough time for you to have examined all the evidence and decided you could rule him out.’

  ‘What if he’d had a cast-iron alibi?’ Parker asked.

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He might have done.’

  ‘What about other suspects? Were there any?’

  ‘Aye, every other bugger on two legs in the whole of Simcaster. Marcus Dodds was a brute and a bully. Nobody liked him, and when his wife died of the flu, there were them as said it came a blessed relief to her. I never actually heard anybody say they were sorry Marcus was dead, but if I had’ve done I’d have wondered why – and probably put him right at the top of my list of suspects. Even if we’d put some poor sod on trial, we’d never have found a jury in this town that didn’t want to give him a medal.’ The old detective smiled. ‘I’m exaggerating, of course, but you get the general picture.’

  Rutter returned his smile. ‘That was a very nice little speech,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Very smooth. Very polished. I wonder how many times you’ve delivered it, over the years.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Of course you do. Every time anybody’s asked you why you didn’t get a result on the Marcus Dodds case, you’ll have given them that little speech. But what’s the real reason you came up empty-handed, Sergeant Parker?’

  ‘It’s like I said––’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s not like that at all. Listen, Sergeant, Marcus is dead, Fred is dead. And if you think I’m the sort of chap to persecute an old bobby for something he did over forty years ago, you’re not as good a judge of character as I took you for.’ Rutter paused for a moment. ‘Come on, Sergeant Parker! All I want from you is the truth.’

  ‘Could I have another fag?’ Parker asked.

  ‘You can keep the packet,’ Rutter said. ‘And if you tell me what I want to know, I’ll see to it personally that you get a fresh packet delivered every week.’

  Parker was silent for perhaps half a minute, then he said, ‘I’d not been back from the War that long when Marcus Dodds was killed. And it’s the Great War I’m talking about, you must understand – not that fussy little thing your dad probably fought in.’

  ‘Understood,’ Rutter said.

  ‘It was a real bugger of a war. We lost a million men in less than four years. Most of them were killed by the Hun, but I had two pals who committed suicide – shot themselves in the mouth with their own rifles. Now why do you think they did that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rutter confessed.

  ‘They did it because, as terrible as dying is, there are some things that are worse. And most of the things that are worse are done to you by other people. I think there must have been
times when Fred Dodds thought about committing suicide. Are you following what I’m saying?’

  ‘I think so,’ Rutter said.

  ‘The reason I didn’t look too hard for Marcus Dodds’ murderer was that I already knew who it was. Fred confessed to me in the first ten minutes. But he also told me why he’d done it. He thought he had good reason for killing his father. And so did I. That’s why I let him go.’

  Twenty-Four

  Maudsley Tower had been built to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It stood fifty feet high, and the fact that it tapered as it rose meant that it could almost have been mistaken for a primitive attempt to build a spaceship out of dressed stone. It was located at the crown of a hill which overlooked the Whitebridge valley, and though it was possible to drive almost the whole way there on crumbling tarmac road, the last fifty yards – up the dog-legged path – had to be covered on foot.

  Monika Paniatowski, standing at the base of the monument, was not there to pay her respects to the memory of Queen Victoria. She had climbed the hill solely for the view it would afford her. She did that sometimes – climbed the hill, and looked down on the town that Arthur Jones, her stepfather, had brought her to at the end of the war.

  She had been eleven, and after years as a refugee in war-torn Europe, the town of Whitebridge – for all its industrial ugliness – had seemed like her own personal Jerusalem.

  Her mother had shared her hopes. ‘We’re going to be happy here, Monika,’ Blanca Paniatowski (now Blanche Jones) had promised.

  And perhaps they could have been. If Arthur Jones had not turned out to be such a swine. If his frustrations at his own inability to get on in the world had not led to his drinking – and then to what inevitably seemed to follow it.

  Yet despite the obstacles in her way – Jones’ desertion of the family, her mother’s premature death brought by years of hardship – Monika had managed to build a life for herself. She had her own flat, she had a career. She could pull a man – most men – whenever she felt like it. She had not found love, but that was all to the good, because she didn’t trust love. Yes, she had every reason to feel pleased – perhaps even every reason to be proud.

  ‘I’ve built a life for myself!’ she shouted down the hill towards the smoky town in the valley.

  ‘I’ve built a life for myself!’ she repeated, turning around to face the wild moorland.

  And now she was in danger of losing that life, she thought. Because though she had told Woodend he was wrong, she had known in her heart that he was right. He couldn’t trust her any more. He could no longer rely on her judgement. Somehow, in the short period between the interview with Jane Hartley and that present moment, she had lost control. She didn’t know – she could no longer tell – whether it had been a gradual process or whether it had happened in a flash. That was how bad a state she was in!

  She was drowning in a morass of emotion and illogicality, and though she was doing her best to claw her way back to firm ground again, she had no idea whether she would ever make it – whether she’d ever be stable enough to serve as Cloggin’-it Charlie’s bagman again.

  Her hands were trembling; her heart was galloping. On unsteady legs, she made her way back down the dog-legged track towards her car. She didn’t ask herself where she was going next. She didn’t have to. There was only one place she knew of where she might find the life belt that could save her.

  There were senior police officers who thought they could conduct their interviews almost as well over the phone as they could do in person, but Charlie Woodend was not one of them. He felt the need to see the man or woman he was talking to – wanted to look into their eyes and sense the rhythms of their being. But this time there was no choice. Louise Cuthburtson was in Canada, and if he wanted to speak to her at all, then it would have to be done down a wire.

  She kept him waiting for at least two minutes before she came to the phone. Even then, she merely acknowledged she had arrived, rather than apologizing for the delay.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to the RCMP,’ she said.

  ‘I know you have,’ Woodend conceded. ‘But you don’t seem to have told them much.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s because there was not much to tell.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Woodend said – knowing he was running the risk of her hanging up on him, fully appreciating the fact that if she did hang up, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ the woman demanded.

  Woodend sighed. ‘No, Miss Cuthburtson. All I’m sayin’ is that you must have been nine or ten when your father packed up an’ moved the family to Canada. An’ at that age, you’re no longer a baby.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’ve got a daughter of my own, an’ you should have seen what emotional gymnastics she put me through when I told her we were leavin’ London to come back to Lancashire. Now I don’t know you, but you sound to me like a woman of spirit. An’ that’s why I can’t believe you accepted the move any more easily than my Annie did. You’d have wanted to know why you were movin’ away from your friends an’ the places you loved. You’d have demanded to know.’

  ‘Perhaps I did,’ Louise Cuthburtson said. ‘And perhaps, once my father had told me his reasons for moving, I found them too compelling to kick up a fuss about what I was being made to leave behind.’

  ‘An’ what might those reasons be?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Come on, lass, give me a break,’ Woodend said. ‘This ain’t just me shoe-leather I’m wearin’ out, it’s taxpayers’ money. An’ when me boss sees t’ bill for this call he’ll have me guts for garters!’

  Louise Cuthburtson laughed – just as he’d hoped she would.

  ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a proper Lancashire accent,’ she said. ‘I like it. Did you miss the place while you were in London?’

  ‘Aye, I did. What about you? Do you still miss it?’

  ‘Canada’s really a wonderful country.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘I didn’t say there was a “but”.’

  ‘You didn’t put it into words, maybe, but I could still sense it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she confessed. ‘I still do think of Lancashire as home.’

  ‘You could come back,’ Woodend suggested.

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ Louise Cuthburtson said. ‘Because I’d never be able to find my Lancashire again. My Lancashire ceased to exist when Fred Dodds . . . when Fred Dodds . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ Woodend encouraged.

  ‘I can’t. There are other people to consider, apart from myself.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My brother. My poor dead father. I tell myself the family’s got nothing to be ashamed of, and I know that’s true, but I still think that there are some secrets which are better kept buried.’ She paused. ‘It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Chief Inspector – it really has – but I’m afraid I’m going to have to hang up now.’

  Once she put the receiver back on its cradle, he’d lost her. Woodend felt the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and wondered what he should say next.

  ‘Well, goodbye,’ Louise Cuthburtson said.

  ‘Wait!’ Woodend urged her. ‘You say there are other people to consider, and you’re right. How about considerin’ Jane Hartley?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You knew that Fred Dodds got married, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not until he was already dead. Some friends in England mistakenly thought it would be a kindness to send us a newspaper report of the murder. In the very first paragraph of the article it said that the police had arrested his wife. We didn’t read any further than that. We’d wished Dodds dead often enough, and now that he was, we hoped we could finally lay his memory to rest.’ Louise Cuthburtson paused again, as if she’d suddenly realized that she’d been going off at a tangent. ‘What does any of this have to do with this Jane Hartley woman?’


  ‘She was Dodds’ stepdaughter,’ Woodend said. ‘She’s convinced her mother didn’t kill him. She half-believes she’ll go insane if I don’t find out who the real murderer was.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Louise Cuthburtson gasped. ‘Fred had a stepdaughter!’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How . . . how old was she when he was murdered?’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘And was she living with her mother and Fred?’

  ‘Aye, she was.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’ Louise Cuthburtson said, and it sounded to Woodend as if she was starting to cry. ‘We didn’t know. Nobody told us.’ She was sobbing in earnest now. ‘If only we’d realized . . . if . . . only . . . we’d . . . realized . . .’

  ‘Better not try to say any more just for the moment,’ Woodend said, concerned.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘Take a couple of deep breaths. Look out of window. Do anythin’ to take your mind off it for a second.’

  The sobs on the other end of the line grew shallower, then stopped altogether. Woodend noticed that he was gripping the receiver so tightly he was in danger of breaking it.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Louise Cuthburtson asked in a small, broken voice.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘And do you still want to know why we emigrated to Canada?’

  ‘Yes. Very much so.’

  Louise Cuthburtson took a deep gulp of air. ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ she said.

  Monika Paniatowski stood in the Catholic churchyard, reading – though she already knew it by heart – the inscription on her mother’s grave.

  BLANCA PANIATOWSKI

  1916–1953

  Death Brought Her the Peace

  She Was Denied in Life

  It was the inscription Monika herself had wanted, but she had had to fight like a lion to get it.

  ‘Everyone round here knew her as Blanche Jones,’ Harold Jones, Monika’s stepuncle, pointed out. ‘Surely that’s how she’d like to be remembered. Don’t you think that’s what we should put on her grave?’

  ‘No!’ the eighteen-year-old Monika replied firmly. ‘No, I don’t.’