Death of an Innocent

by Sally Spencer

  Bad news travelled very fast, Woodend thought – but then, what had he expected?

  ‘I need your help, Mickey,’ he admitted. ‘To be honest, I need it pretty badly.’

  ‘I’m not sure that, under the circumstances, that would be appropriate,’ Lee said, stony faced.

  ‘We’ve been pals since we were kids,’ Woodend cajoled. ‘I even went out with your sister Joyce for a while.’

  ‘That was a long time ago – before I’d settled for bein’ a humble desk sergeant close to home, an’ you’d gone down to London to become a hot-shot chief inspector.’

  ‘I’ve pulled you out of a few nasty scrapes in your time,’ Woodend reminded him.

  ‘An’ now you’ve come to collect your debts?’

  Woodend shrugged awkwardly. ‘It’s not somethin’ I like doin’, but I don’t seem to have any choice.’

  Lee sighed theatrically. ‘Well, now you’re here, I suppose you’d better come inside.’

  He led Woodend down a neat hallway into a carpeted lounge which had three plaster ducks flying on the wall.

  ‘Joyce not around?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘She’s doin’ shift work up at the hospital.’

  ‘Our Annie’s trainin’ to be a nurse,’ Woodend said. ‘She started in September.’

  ‘Joyce has to work, you see,’ Lee said, as if Woodend had never spoken. ‘We can’t get by on just a sergeant’s pay.’

  Then why don’t you do something about it? Woodend thought. Why didn’t you put in for promotion while you had the chance? But Mickey Lee had never been one to show much initiative.

  ‘Would you like a beer?’ Lee asked. ‘I think there’s a couple of bottles in the fridge.’

  It was tempting, but Lee was just the sort of man to regard one beer as enough to square off all accounts.

  ‘As you’ve already pointed out to me, Mickey, this isn’t a social visit,’ Woodend said.

  Lee nodded. ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘We’re lookin’ for an old farmer, a feller called Wilfred Dugdale⎯’ Woodend began.

  ‘What’s all this “we” business?’ Lee interrupted him. ‘I know the Whitebridge police are lookin’ for him – I read that in the papers – but since you’ve been suspended, I can’t see what it has to do with you.’

  ‘I’m conductin’ my own investigation.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘You heard me the first time.’

  Lee shook his head. ‘The whole of the Central Lancs police can’t find this feller, an’ yet you think you can do it on your own? Grow up, Charlie.’

  It wasn’t going to be easy, Woodend thought, but at least Lee was calling him ‘Charlie’ again.

  ‘I know somethin’ they don’t know,’ he said. ‘Dugdale used to live at Forty-six Derby Road, Rochdale.’

  ‘Then it’s your duty to make whoever’s in charge of the case aware of that as soon as possible.’

  Woodend sighed. ‘I’m out on a limb,’ he admitted. ‘If I can come up with somethin’ which will help to solve these murders, I might just be able to stop my career from goin’ down the drain. But knowin’ that the feller used to live in Rochdale isn’t nearly enough.’

  ‘You want me to find out what I can about this Dugdale feller, do you?’

  ‘That’s about the long an’ short of it.’

  Lee shook his head again. ‘I’m five years away from drawin’ my pension. I’ve got an unblemished record, you know . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’

  ‘. . . an’ I’d like to keep it that way.’

  ‘I’m not askin’ you to do much,’ Woodend said. ‘All I want is for you to come up with a bit of background on him. What he did for a livin’. Who he associated with. That kind of thing.’

  ‘In case you’ve forgotten, the man’s right at the centre of an investigation into a serious crime.’

  ‘I know he is, Mickey. I wouldn’t be interested in him if he wasn’t, now would I?’

  ‘If the bosses back in Whitebridge find out I’ve been askin’ questions about somethin’ which is no concern of mine . . .’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘But if they do . . .’

  ‘Then you could turn it to your own advantage – say you were only tryin’ to do your bit to help the investigation.’

  ‘An’ just how would I go about justifyin’ that?’

  ‘Jesus, it shouldn’t be too difficult,’ Woodend said exasperatedly. ‘Use your initiative.’

  But as he’d reminded himself earlier, even at school Mickey Lee hadn’t had much initiative.

  ‘Spell it out for me,’ Lee said.

  ‘All right,’ Woodend said wearily. ‘You can tell them that when you read about Dugdale in the papers, you remembered seein’ his name in some report or other an’⎯’

  ‘What if they ask me to produce the report in question?’

  ‘Show them a report on another Dugdale. Or on a Duggins or Dugson. Tell them that you made a genuine mistake. Bloody hell, man, they’re not goin’ to come down on you like a ton of bricks for showin’ a little enthusiasm for your job, even if it doesn’t lead anywhere.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of that.’

  ‘Anyway, like I said, that won’t happen. The brass in Whitebridge might have bloody big ears, but even theirs aren’t large enough to hear a few casual conversations goin’ on in a station twenty miles away from their offices.’

  For a moment it looked as if Lee would agree, then he said, ‘I know I owe you a few favours, sir – but this is too big a risk.’

  He should have known, Woodend thought. He should have recognized from the start that if there were a world championship for Jobsworth of the Year, Mickey Lee would win it hands down.

  ‘I’d have done it for you, you know,’ he said, making one last effort.

  ‘You’d have done for it for somebody you hardly even knew,’ Lee replied, a little sadly. ‘But, you see, you’re not me.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Woodend agreed. ‘You’d best get on with whatever you were doin’ when I turned up like a bad penny. I’ll see myself out.’

  ‘One thing before you go,’ Mickey Lee said.

  ‘An’ what might that be?’

  ‘If you tell anybody you’ve been here, I’ll deny I even let you through the door.’

  ‘You amaze me,’ Woodend told him.

  Twelve

  Not too many cars went down the dirt track which ran alongside the Woodends’ cottage, but there were enough of them during the week for Charlie Woodend not to find himself wondering who it was every time he heard a vehicle carefully negotiating its way down the rutted road. So he did no more than register the rumble of a car as he was preparing his bedtime cocoa at the end of the long day which included his visit to Rochdale. And even when he heard the car’s engine die, the driver’s door slam, and the sound of footsteps coming towards his front door, he was no more than mildly curious.

  He glanced up at the grandfather clock. It was well after midnight. Chances were his visitor was some poor, hapless motorist who had taken a wrong turning and found himself wandering the labyrinth of country lanes with no idea of which turn to take next.

  It came as something of a surprise, when he answered the urgent knocking at the door, to find Monika Paniatowski standing there. And it was even more surprising – possibly even shocking – to see the state the sergeant was in.

  Paniatowski’s eyes were red. The silky blonde hair drooped in rat’s tails over her shoulders. And the shoulders themselves had developed an uncharacteristic droop since the last time he’d seen her.

  ‘I promised myself an early night for once,’ Paniatowski said tiredly. ‘I thought I’d fall asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. But I didn’t. I couldn’t go to sleep however hard I tried.’

  ‘I know that feelin’ well enough myself,’ Woodend said sympathetically.

  ‘So in the end, I gave up. I got dressed again, and for the last couple of hours, I’ve just been
driving around. I didn’t mean to come here – at least, I don’t think that I did. It wasn’t until I realized what that bloody lane of yours was doing to my suspension that it even registered that I was anywhere near your house. Then I saw your downstairs light was still on, and it seemed like a good idea to stop. Would you mind if I came in for a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course not, lass,’ Woodend said. ‘Step inside an’ make yourself comfortable.’

  Paniatowski flopped down heavily on the sofa. ‘God, life’s an awful bloody thing, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You don’t happen to have any vodka in the house, do you, sir?’

  ‘You emptied the bottle the last time you were here. But there’s some twelve-year-old single-malt whisky sittin’ in the cupboard, if you’d like to try that instead.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Paniatowski said dismissively, as if he had offered her methylated spirits.

  Woodend poured his sergeant a large shot, then watched her as she knocked it back with scant regard to its delicate flavour.

  ‘What’s on your mind, lass?’ he asked gently.

  Paniatowski gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘You? The investigation at Dugdale’s farm? The clutch on the MGA? I don’t know any more. My judgement’s so shot that I can’t work out what’s important and what isn’t.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about the case?’

  ‘If you like – not that that’ll take us long. We’re getting nowhere fast. DI Harris is happy enough, because he’s having so much fun playing Big Chief that he hasn’t even noticed how low the team’s morale is. And as for Mr Ainsworth – well, Dick the Prick seems much more interested in nailing you to the wall than he is in finding out who blew that poor bloody girl’s face away.’

  Should he tell her about Dugdale? Woodend asked himself. Should he give away the one card he still had in his hand?

  ‘I’ve found somethin’ out that might help the investigation, an’ since it doesn’t look like it’s goin’ to be much use to me any more, you might as well take the credit for it yourself,’ he said.

  Paniatowski’s tired eyes were suddenly alive and intelligent again. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s about Dugdale. For at least some of his missin’ years, he was livin’ in Rochdale. I don’t really know if that bit of information will lead you anywhere positive – but it’s all I’ve got to give you.’

  ‘It might help,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But if there’s any credit to be extracted from it, I’ll make damn sure it goes to you.’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘That’d be a waste of time, lass,’ he said regretfully. ‘From what you’ve told me about what’s been happenin’ in the last couple of days, my stock’s so low that if I turned up at the station tomorrow with the murderer in tow, an’ his confession in my hand, Ainsworth would still probably arrest me as an accomplice.’

  The phone rang shrilly, making Paniatowski jump. ‘Are you expecting a call?’ she asked, sounding panicked.

  ‘At this time of night? No, I’m not.’

  The same thought was running through both their minds, Woodend realized – that the caller was DCC Ainsworth, demanding to know what Paniatowski was doing at the cottage of a man currently under investigation.

  It was a ludicrous idea, of course. It would never have crossed Ainsworth’s mind that one officer would go out on a limb for another officer. And even if it had done, Paniatowski – despite her present state – could not have failed to notice if she’d been followed down the country lane.

  So it was insane to think – even for a moment – that it was Ainsworth on the other end of the line. But the fact they had both thought it showed just how screwed up their minds were.

  Woodend picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that DCI Charlie Woodend?’ asked a familiar voice.

  ‘Mickey? Mickey Lee?’

  ‘No names,’ the caller said hastily. ‘No names, an’ no follow-ups. This is a once-only call. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘An’ after it, our account’s squared?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  There was a pause as if, even at this stage, Lee was contemplating hanging up, then he said accusingly, ‘You never mentioned the fact that Wilfred Dugdale’s got a criminal record!’

  ‘I didn’t know he had.’

  ‘Are you playin’ straight with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Woodend said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I swear I am.’

  ‘You always did play straight,’ Mickey Lee said grudgingly. ‘All right, here’s what I’ve got for you. Dugdale did live in Rochdale for a fair number of years before the war. He worked as a builder’s labourer, on an’ off, but most of the time he was drawin’ the dole. In other words, he was a typical scrounger, livin’ off the fat of the land while me an’ my missus have to work our balls off to meet the mortgage payments every month.’

  But Dugdale hadn’t shown any signs of being a scrounger since he’d got back to Whitebridge, Woodend thought. Far from it – he was fully entitled to an old age pension, but he’d never bothered to register for it.

  ‘Go on,’ he said encouragingly.

  ‘Dugdale was suspected of any number of minor crimes durin’ his time in Rochdale.’

  ‘What kind of minor crimes?’

  ‘Breakin’ an’ enterin’. Fencin’ stolen goods. That kind of toe-rag stuff. He was pulled in for questionin’ a couple of dozen times, but the bobbies in charge of the cases could never make anythin’ stick.’

  ‘If they couldn’t make anythin’ stick, why does Dugdale have a criminal record?’

  ‘I’m comin’ to that. One night back in 1938 he got into a fight in a pub called the Dun Horse.’

  ‘A serious fight?’

  ‘Serious enough. He went for the other feller with a broken bottle an’ cut him up pretty badly, too, by all accounts. Anyway, to make a long story short, he was charged with GBH, an’ drew an eight stretch.’

  Woodend felt his pulse start to race. He was on to something, he thought – at last, he was on to something.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure of all this, are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Certain. If you want more details, I can give them to you.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘He served his time in Strangeways, an’ his cellmate for most of his sentence was a nasty young tearaway who went by the name of Philip Swales. Both Dugdale an’ Swales were released at the same time – June 1946.’

  Right around the time Clem Dugdale, Wilfred’s father, had finally popped his clogs. And Wilfred, finally free to go wherever he wanted to after eight long years in prison, had heard about his old man’s death and come back to Whitebridge to claim his inheritance.

  ‘Did he⎯?’ Woodend began.

  ‘That’s it,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘That’s all I’ve got – and that’s all you’re gettin’. Ever.’

  The line went dead. Woodend replaced the receiver on its cradle, and turned back to Paniatowski.

  ‘Accordin’ to the man I’ve just spoken to, Dugdale did time in Strangeways for GBH,’ he said, with the new hope he felt evident in his voice. ‘He attacked another feller in a pub in Rochdale. An’ it must have been a pretty nasty attack, because he served eight years.’

  Paniatowski frowned worriedly. ‘Don’t go getting carried away, sir,’ she cautioned him.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Just what I say: however desperate we are, there’s no point in trying to twist the facts so that they’ll fit into a convenient theory.’

  ‘Is that what I was doin’?’

  Paniatowski nodded. ‘I’m afraid I think that it was. So Dugdale’s got a record for violence. What does that really prove? Getting into a heated pub brawl – even a particularly nasty one – is an entirely different matter to shooting two people, one of them a girl, in cold blood.’

  ‘You think I’m tryin’ to pin the murders on Dugdale?’

  ‘Aren�
��t you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. This isn’t about Dugdale at all.’

  ‘Then what is it about?’

  ‘The Central Lancs police force.’

  Paniatowski’s frown deepened. ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Woodend urged.

  Paniatowski did. ‘If Dugdale has a criminal record, then his fingerprints should be on file,’ she said finally.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And it’s almost inconceivable that none of the prints that Battersby lifted from the farmhouse belonged to the owner of the place.’

  ‘Agreed. So we should have got a match – and we didn’t. Now why do you think that is?’

  ‘There are two possible explanations,’ Paniatowski said, speaking slowly and carefully. ‘The first one is that DC Battersby made a lousy job of doing the comparisons.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the only time there’s been a slip-up of that nature,’ Woodend said, playing Devil’s Advocate.

  ‘But Battersby didn’t just do the comparisons only once – he did them a second time.’

  ‘That’s right, he did.’

  ‘And after that, they were sent down to Scotland Yard. So if a mistake was made, it had to be made three times, by two different sets of people. And I simply can’t see that happening.’

  ‘Which leaves us with the other possibility, doesn’t it?’ Woodend said. ‘An’ that is . . .?’

  ‘That the reason there was no match was because Dugdale’s prints were never submitted for examination.’

  ‘Or, at least, they were never submitted to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Or at least they were never submitted to Scotland Yard,’ Paniatowski echoed.

  ‘That information I gave you on Dugdale earlier . . . about where he was durin’ the missin’ years . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Forget what I said about sharin’ it with the rest of your team. I think you should keep it to yourself for a while longer.’

  ‘Do you really?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Do you think I’m wrong about that?’

  ‘In a way. But it’s more a question of degree than anything else.’ Paniatowski gave him a tired – perhaps even vaguely optimistic – smile. ‘You don’t think we should share the information about Dugdale with the rest of the team yet – whereas I’m bloody sure that we shouldn’t.’