Death of an Innocent

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I may just have what could be the beginnin’s of an idea.’

  ‘And do you want to tell me what it is?’

  Woodend looked slowly around his living room, a slight smile playing in the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I’m very fond of this old cottage of mine,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of where I used to live when I was a kid. But, do you know, Monika, there are times when I think that it’s not quite the sort of place that other people would expect a feller with the rank of Detective Chief Inspector to live in.’

  He was going weird again, Paniatowski thought. Charlie Woodend was not the kind of man to give a bugger what other people thought. And even if he had suddenly started to care about the opinions of others, why the hell was he talking about it now, of all times?

  His career was hanging by the slenderest of threads. Unless a miracle came to pass, the chances were that he wouldn’t have a rank at all in a few months’ time, only a number. And as for choosing where to live, that choice would be made for him by the judicial system – and wherever it was, he’d be seeing the world through a set of bars.

  ‘Aye, I think it’s about time I started raisin’ my sights a bit,’ Woodend continued. ‘I really should give some serious consideration to movin’ into a residence which is more in keepin’ with my position in society.’

  He’d gone cheerfully mad, Paniatowski thought. That was the only possible explanation. The strain he’d been under for the last few days had finally pushed him over the edge.

  ‘If we could just get back to the case for a minute, sir . . .’ she said, as tactfully as she could.

  ‘Yes, it’s time for a change,’ Woodend said, ignoring her. ‘An’ since I’ve got a bit of unexpected free time on my hands, now seems the ideal opportunity to go house huntin’.’

  A slow smile spread across Paniatowski’s lips. ‘Oh, now I get it,’ she said.

  Twenty

  The estate agent who worked for T. A. Taylor and Associates (Properties) said his name was George Fletcher. He drove an aggressively red Vauxhall Velox, and it was plain from the way he talked on the journey out to the Moorland Village that he had either not heard of Woodend’s problems or would have been prepared to be pleasant to Judas Iscariot himself if it could have assured him of a sale.

  ‘The whole concept of the development is that it will be a real village,’ he said, as they drove across the moors.

  ‘A real village,’ Woodend repeated.

  ‘That’s right,’ Fletcher said, as if he were inordinately pleased that his potential customer had grasped a particularly difficult point. ‘There’ll be a pub – with a genuine thatched roof. There’ll be shops and a community hall for the use of boy scouts, amateur dramatic societies, et cetera, et cetera. The village will have its own general works department, too. It’s going to be a model for what can be done if only we dare to transform our dreams into reality.’

  ‘As long as the “we” that you’re talkin’ about happen to be filthy rich,’ Woodend said dourly.

  Fletcher wrinkled his nose up, as he would have done if he’d detected a particularly bad smell coming from under the dashboard.

  ‘Not rich, Mr Woodend,’ he said. ‘You only have to be moderately prosperous to share in Moorland Village – to become a part of the golden rural future.’

  Woodend looked around him. The thaw had arrived in earnest. Slush lay piled up by the sides of the road, and though the moors still had snow on them, there were now islands of green floating in the sea of dirty white.

  The ‘dream which was soon to become a reality’ loomed up ahead – surrounded by its high wire fence. Early on Sunday morning, four men had met behind that fence. One of them was probably the richest man in Whitebridge; the second, one of the county’s most senior police officers and the third an old farmer who had not actually farmed his land for over fifteen years. Who was the fourth man? And where were he and Dugdale now?

  The main entrance to Moorland Village had big double gates, and though one of them was firmly closed, the other was half open. Fletcher drove his Vauxhall Velox carefully through the gap. Immediately ahead of them were two rows of neo-Georgian detached houses, separated by a morass of slush, which would eventually be turned into a street.

  ‘There’s going to be a village green,’ the estate agent enthused. ‘With a duck pond.’

  And floating on it would be mechanical ducks that were radio-controlled from the general works department, no doubt, Woodend thought dryly.

  Fletcher pulled up on a stretch of asphalt which had been designated a temporary car park. Along the edge of the asphalt stood several lorries and some earth-moving equipment.

  ‘They’ve been standing there idle for over two weeks now,’ the estate agent said. ‘Bloody shame! Bloody weather!’

  But it wasn’t true. At least some of the vehicles had been on the move the previous Sunday, because a retired farmer called Obediah Metcalfe had heard them when he was out on his walk.

  ‘Shall we go and take a look at the show house, Mr Woodend?’ Fletcher suggested.

  ‘Aye, we might as well.’

  As he opened the passenger door and stepped out, Woodend heard the sound of furious barking. He turned towards the source of the noise. Just to the left of the main gate was a rectangular prefab with the words ‘Site Office’ written over the door. Two cars were parked by the side of it, and chained to sturdy posts beyond them were four large Dobermanns, straining against their leashes.

  ‘Are those dogs always chained up?’ Woodend asked – though he knew from his previous visit that they weren’t.

  The estate agent laughed. ‘Always chained up?’ he repeated. ‘They wouldn’t be much use as guard dogs if they were, now would they?’

  ‘So why are they chained up now?’

  ‘They usually are when there’s somebody working in the site office. You see, they’ve been trained to attack anybody and everybody – with the exception, of course, of Mr Taylor and a couple of his security people.’

  Woodend and Fletcher walked towards the show house, their Wellington-booted feet squelching in the slush.

  ‘Now’s the time to buy, while the property market’s still relatively low,’ the estate agent said, ‘because – mark my words, Mr Woodend – it’ll soon be on the rise again.’

  They had reached the front door of the show house, and Fletcher pulled a key out of his pocket.

  ‘Look at that finish,’ he said, pointing at the door. ‘That’s none of your pine veneer rubbish that you get in most new houses these days – it’s genuine hardwood, all the way from South America.’

  ‘Nice,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And that’s real brass around the lock. I tell you, Mr Woodend, you’re lucky to find quality like this any more.’

  Fletcher guided Woodend through the hall, the kitchen and the lounge with its big picture windows. They went upstairs and the estate agent showed the policeman the four bedrooms – all of them, as he did not fail to point out, large enough to take a full-sized double bed.

  ‘Are you impressed with the place?’ Fletcher asked, when the tour was finally over.

  ‘Very,’ Woodend lied.

  ‘And you think you might like to buy?’

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility.’

  ‘People are very cautious when it comes to purchasing a house,’ Fletcher said. ‘And I can understand that myself. It’s a very big commitment, as I’m always at pains to point out. But I’ve been in the business for a long time and, believe me, Mr Woodend, your first instinct is almost always the right one. If you don’t act on it, you could find yourself regretting it forever. So if you like the place, why don’t we go back to the office and start the paperwork?’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to take a few minutes to walk around the site,’ Woodend said.

  ‘But there’s nothing to see as yet – except, of course, for a couple of acres of slush. Now back at the office, I’ve got pro
per artist’s impressions of what it will look like when⎯’

  ‘I want to get a feel of the place,’ Woodend said firmly. ‘Besides, I think better when I’m walkin’ around.’

  ‘Building sites can be very rough places, you know, Mr Woodend,’ Fletcher warned him.

  ‘What did you do in the war?’

  ‘I was in the Pay Corps – in Aldershot. Why?’

  ‘I was part of the D-Day Invasion of France, myself,’ Woodend said. ‘The beaches we had to land on were mined an’ fortified, but we didn’t worry too much about that, because we were more interested in all the stuff the Germans were firin’ at us from the tops of the cliffs.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite see⎯’

  ‘If I came through that all right, I think I can just about manage a stroll round a buildin’ site without doin’ myself much harm. Don’t you?’

  The estate agent shrugged. ‘I suppose so. If you think a stroll will help you to make up your mind, Mr Woodend . . .’

  ‘I’m sure it will.’

  ‘. . . then I’ll be in the site office when you want me.’

  Woodend walked to the end of the row of mock-Georgian houses, then stopped and looked around him. Half the building site had already fallen victim to the developers’ bulldozers and excavators, but the rest of it was relatively untouched and – as with the moors on the other side of the fence – patches of green grass were beginning to appear through the melting snow.

  The question was not whether there had been activity on the site the previous Sunday, Woodend thought. He was sure that there had been. What mattered was where that activity had taken place. And why?

  He started to cross the strip of undeveloped land that separated him from the chain-link fence. It was unlikely that Taylor and Ainsworth had used the heavy equipment to do anything to the part of the site which had already been dug up, he argued, yet why should they have bothered to⎯?

  He came to an abrupt halt. Just ahead of him enough snow had melted to reveal a patch of bare earth about the size of a bath towel. Excavations? But why there, rather than closer to the finished buildings?

  Dragging his Wellingtoned right foot along the ground, he cleared a trail through the sludge from the exposed patch of earth to the point at which the excavation finished and the grass began again. That done, he returned to his starting point, and made a fresh trail in the opposite direction. When he hit grass a second time, he stopped and examined the line in the slush.

  ‘Just about two yards wide,’ he said to himself. ‘Now let’s see how long it is.’

  He repeated the process, working at right angles to his original line. It took him a couple of minutes to discover that the excavation had been about four yards long, and another five minutes to scrape the slush back into its original position – masking the fact that he had ever been there.

  He was on the point of heading back to the site office when the sun, suddenly emerging from behind a cloud, cast its rays on a small patch of brightness in the nearby grass. Woodend moved closer and saw that the object was a fleck of yellow paint. He put his hand in his overcoat pocket, took out one of the small plastic bags he always carried with him, and dropped the fleck into it. He wasn’t certain he knew what he’d found – but he thought he had a pretty good idea.

  There was a third car parked next to the site office now – an E-type Jaguar. Its owner, a man in a yellow safety helmet and an expensive blue suit, was standing in front of the office. He was not alone. Mr Fletcher, the estate agent who would sell his houses to anyone – even a bent bobby – was with him. Fletcher was hanging his head, and Taylor was waving his hands agitatedly. It was clear to Woodend that the agent was on the receiving end of a tremendous rocket.

  The two men noticed Woodend’s approach simultaneously. Taylor let his hands drop to his sides, and Fletcher hastily stepped forward to speak to his prospective buyer.

  ‘Mr . . . Mr Taylor was just telling me that I should never have allowed you to wander around the site on your own,’ the estate agent said nervously. ‘It’s a question of the insurance, you see. The company would have been liable if there’d been an accident.’

  ‘But there wasn’t, was there?’ Woodend asked. ‘So you’ve got nothin’ to worry about.’

  Terry Taylor took a few steps forward, so that he was standing next to Fletcher. He smiled. His teeth were very white and regular, but even all the expensive remedial dentistry they had obviously undergone did not quite hide the evidence of earlier neglect.

  ‘Chief Inspector Woodend! What a pleasant surprise!’ Taylor said in a voice full of flat Northern vowels, but with a hint of Southern springiness lurking just below the surface. ‘My man Fletcher, here, tells me that you’re interested in buying into Moorland Village. Is that right?’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘Not really. I got used to livin’ in the town when I was down in London, an’ I’ve got used to livin’ in the country now I’m back in Lancashire – but this place is neither the one thing nor the other.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how quickly people can adapt,’ Fletcher said earnestly, attempting to compensate for his earlier gaffe by clinching a sale now. ‘Why, we had this customer in one of our earlier developments who’d lived in a flat all his life, but I saw him the other week and he said that buying one of our houses was the best move he’d ever⎯’

  ‘Don’t you have some work you should be getting on with, Fletcher?’ Terry Taylor interrupted.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Taylor?’

  ‘Work!’ the builder repeated. ‘In the office!’

  A sudden look of comprehension crossed Fletcher’s face. ‘Oh . . . er . . . yes, I suppose I do,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Then you’d better go and do it, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Right away, Mr Taylor.’

  Taylor watched Fletcher until he had disappeared through the site office door, then turned back to Woodend, and smiled again. It was a smile totally devoid of warmth, Woodend thought – almost an inhuman smile.

  ‘Imagine that fool Fletcher trying to sell you a house on this pricy estate when the government will soon be providing you with somewhere to live for absolutely nothing,’ he said.

  Woodend shivered – though not with the cold.

  ‘I have to be goin’,’ he told the builder.

  ‘But before you consider extreme outcomes like going to jail, it’s always best to look around for alternative solutions,’ Taylor continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. The builder glanced down at his expensive wristwatch. ‘Do you happen to know a pub called the Last Chance Inn, Mr Woodend?’

  ‘Out on the moors? Near Hoddlesworth?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I think I’ve been past it a few times, but I can’t say I’ve stopped an’ gone inside.’

  ‘It’s got a little restaurant attached to it. The chef is French. He does a very decent lunch.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ Woodend said. ‘I’ll remember it the next time I’m in the area.’

  Taylor smiled again. ‘I mustn’t be making myself clear. What I’m trying to say to you is that, as it’s almost my lunchtime, I thought I’d pop over there. And if you’d care to join me . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t be so hasty,’ Taylor urged. ‘When two people have business to discuss, it’s always better to do it over lunch.’

  ‘But we don’t have any business to discuss. I’ve told you already, I’m not interested in buyin’ one of your houses.’

  ‘And given your current, somewhat precarious, situation, I wouldn’t dream of selling you one of them, even if you were interested. But that’s not the kind of business I’m talking about – and we both know that, don’t we?’

  ‘Aye,’ Woodend conceded. ‘I suppose we do.’

  ‘So will you join me?’

  ‘As long as we each pay for our own grub.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me treat you?’ Taylor suggested. ‘I’m a rich man. I can afford it.’
r />   ‘I’ve no doubt you can,’ Woodend replied. ‘I’ll bet you spend more on little luxuries than I earn altogether. But that’s not the point, is it?’

  ‘Then what is the point?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to put myself in a position where I could be accused of bein’ beholden to you.’

  Taylor chuckled. ‘Given the position you’re already in, I would think it’s rather late in the day for you to be worrying about minor matters like a free meal,’ he said.

  Twenty-One

  Terry Taylor was an excellent – if aggressive – driver, sitting behind the wheel of an excellent – if aggressive – car, and though some of the lanes were narrow and the slush was slippery, they were making excellent time.

  They were mid-way between two remote moorland villages when Taylor turned to Woodend – the humourless smile firmly back in place again – and said, ‘Don’t you think you’re taking something of a chance by accepting my invitation, Mr Woodend?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because, given that you apparently seem to think I’m some sort of law-breaker⎯’

  ‘“Criminal’s” the word you’re graspin’ for, Mr Taylor,’ Woodend interrupted. ‘An’ I don’t think anythin’. I know. You’re as big a villain as I’ve come across in a long, long time.’

  ‘So, as I was saying, given your poor opinion of me, isn’t it rather foolish of you to agree to come out here, to the middle of the moors – where anything could happen?’

  Woodend ran his eyes slowly up and down the other man’s frame.

  ‘You’re a big feller, Mr Taylor,’ he said finally. ‘An’ I reckon you must have been quite a hard man in your time. But you’ve been livin’ the good life for quite a while, an’ now I could take you with one hand tied behind my back and the other one pickin’ my nose.’

  Taylor laughed. ‘But suppose I’d not planned to hurt you myself,’ he said. ‘Suppose I’d arranged to have some of the brutes I employ on my building sites – men who’d break their own mothers’ bones for a couple of pounds – waiting in ambush further up the road?’