The man was a brute, Jenny decided.
‘Tom isn’t here today,’ she said.
‘I know he isn’t. It would be nothing less than a bloody miracle if he was,’ Walker retorted.
‘You said this was about a severed hand.’
‘And so it is.’
‘But I’ve just been reading the evening newspaper, and that said it was a woman’s hand which had been found.’
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers, madam, although, for once, they’re right, and we have found a woman’s hand. But we’ve found a man’s hand, as well – one that used to be attached to the wrist of this Mr Whittington of yours.’
‘Oh, sweet Jesus!’ Jenny gasped. ‘Oh, Holy Mother of God. Are you sure it’s Tom’s hand?’
‘Take it easy, Miss Brunskill,’ DC Crane said soothingly. ‘Try taking a few deep breaths.’
What the bloody hell is the young idiot playing at? Walker thought angrily. I don’t want the sodding woman taking it easy. She’s more useful to me when she’s on edge.
‘You can go, DC Crane,’ he said.
‘But, Sarge . . .’
‘Now!’ Walker said firmly. ‘You can wait for me outside.’
For a moment, Crane looked as if he was about to disobey the order, then he turned and stepped back into the foyer.
‘I asked you if you were sure it was Tom’s hand,’ Jenny Brunskill repeated shakily.
‘Did you know that this feller Whittington, who you’re telling me you employed as your head baker, had a criminal record?’ Walker demanded, ignoring the question.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.’
‘But you still gave him a job?’
‘It isn’t much of a criminal record. He stole a car, when he was young. It was a foolish thing to do, but he’s never repeated it. He’s not been in trouble for over twenty years.’
‘So you say, madam, though in my experience a leopard never changes his spots,’ Walker said. ‘But that’s all pretty much by the by. The fact is that Whittington does have a criminal record, and that means we’ve got his fingerprints – which, in turn, means that we know that he’s now minus one hand.’
Jenny glanced across at Stan for some sign of support in her time of distress, but her brother-in-law was gazing fixedly at the wall, and seemed to be in another world.
‘I think you’re being very callous and insensitive about the whole situation,’ she complained to Walker.
‘Do you, madam?’
‘Yes, I do. Tom’s not just a name to us. He’s someone we work with. In some ways, he’s almost family.’
Walker’s lip curled. ‘Then that would be the black sheep of the family, wouldn’t it, madam?’
Paniatowski glanced down at her wristwatch, and saw that it was already three twenty-five.
‘I must go,’ she said. ‘There are quite a lot of bakeries in the Whitebridge area, and they’ll need checking.’
‘Give my love to Louisa,’ Shastri said.
‘I will,’ Paniatowski promised.
‘Give it to her today – before you forget.’
Paniatowski smiled. ‘Is that another way of saying that however busy I am with this investigation, I should still find some time to spend with my daughter?’ she asked.
Shastri smiled back. ‘Oh, you are far too clever for me,’ she said. ‘You see right through me.’ Her face grew more serious. ‘Remember, Monika, she has no father, no aunties or uncles – there is only you.’
‘I do remember,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘But thank you for reminding me of it, anyway.’
The phone rang, and Shastri picked it up.
‘Yes? Yes, she is.’ She handed the phone to Paniatowski. ‘It’s for you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I did not ask and he did not say, but I suspect that it is probably one of your handsome young policemen, who, I have no doubt, looks upon you as almost as he might look upon a goddess.’
Monika took the phone from the doctor.
‘DCI Paniatowski,’ she said.
‘Go to Brunskill’s Bakery,’ said a man’s voice.
The voice didn’t sound at all natural, Paniatowski decided. Either the man was talking through a handkerchief, or else he was finding some other way to distort it.
‘Who am I talking to?’ she asked.
‘Go now!’ the man said.
‘I shall need a name before I can . . .’ Paniatowski said.
But the man had hung up.
There were only two of them in Jenny Brunskill’s office now – Jenny herself and DS Walker.
‘This is the way we’re going to play it, Miss Brunskill,’ Walker was explaining. ‘I’ll ask you a few questions, and you’ll give me a few answers. It shouldn’t take long at all. Once we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like you to vacate the office if you don’t mind, so that I can use it to question your staff, starting, I think, with that Polack who was with you when I arrived.’
‘Are you referring, by any chance, to my brother-in-law, Stanislaw?’ Jenny Brunskill asked.
‘Yes, if that’s his name,’ Walker agreed easily. ‘But I think I’d find it easier just to call him Stan, like you do.’
‘No doubt you would find it easier,’ Jenny said icily. ‘But it would be more appropriate for you to call him Mr Szymborska, especially considering the fact that he is not merely one of my staff, as you so readily seem to assume, but is a part-owner of this business.’
‘Szym . . .’ Walker said experimentally. ‘Szym . . .’ He grinned. ‘No, I think I’ll just stick to Stan.’
‘You said you’d use my office to question the staff if I didn’t mind?’ Jenny said.
‘Yes?’
‘Suppose I do mind? Suppose I don’t want you questioning my staff in my office? Suppose, for that matter, that I don’t want to answer any of your questions myself?’
‘You’d be well within your rights,’ Walker said. ‘But you have to ask yourself one question. And it’s this – if you refuse to cooperate, what conclusions am I likely to draw from that?’
‘Why should I care what conclusions you draw?’
‘Because I’m the police, madam,’ Walker said, his voice suddenly hardening. ‘And though I can be through this place like a dose of salts if I choose to, I think you’ll find that if you force me to take a roundabout route – which will include getting warrants issued – then it might take two or three days to complete the job, during which time no work will get done in the bakery at all. Besides,’ he added, ‘I’d have thought you’d be willing to do anything you could to help us catch the man who cut off Tom Whittington’s hand.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Jenny admitted. ‘Catching this terrible man is what really matters. So what would you like to know?’
‘Let’s start with the obvious question,’ Walker suggested. ‘Have you got any other jailbirds working here?’
‘Tom never went to jail,’ Jenny said. ‘He was given a suspended sentence and three years’ probation.’
Walker sighed heavily. ‘All right, if you prefer it that way, have you any other employees with criminal records?’
‘Two or three.’
‘Which is it?’
‘Three.’
‘So you’ve actually got four jailbirds working for you.’
‘In this company, we pride ourselves on giving people who’ve made a mistake a second chance.’
‘Have any of these “second chancers” of yours ever been done for violence?’ Walker asked.
‘No.’
‘Any of them who’ve not been done for violence, but who you feel could turn very nasty, given the right circumstances?’
‘Certainly not. We like to encourage a happy working atmosphere here in Brunskill’s Bakery, and that kind of person – anyone prone to violence – would simply not fit in.’
Walker sighed again. ‘I have to say, you’re not being very helpful, madam,’ he told her.
‘So what wou
ld you like me to do in order to be more helpful?’ Jenny wondered. ‘Tell you that Billy the cake mixer often looks at me in a funny way, as if he’d like to beat me up?’
‘Only if it’s the truth, madam,’ Walker said. ‘Does he often look at you in a funny way?’
‘No, of course he doesn’t. He’s a perfectly sweet boy. That’s why I gave him the responsibility of looking after the bakery cat.’
‘Then why bring his name up at all?’
‘I was just trying to make the point that . . .’
‘Unless, deep down – subconsciously, shall we say? – there’s something about him that does worry you.’
The office door swung violently open, and Walker looked up to see Paniatowski framed in the doorway.
‘I’d like a word with you outside, Sergeant!’ she said.
Walker raised his eyes towards the ceiling, in a gesture of mock despair towards a vengeful god.
‘Yes, ma’am, I’m sure you would like a word with me, and I’d like one with you, so if you could just give me a few minutes to finish off this—’
‘Now!’ Paniatowski said.
Walker rose heavily to his feet. ‘I’m sorry about this, Miss Brunskill,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘If I was you, Sergeant, I wouldn’t go putting any money on that,’ Paniatowski told him.
EIGHT
‘This isn’t right,’ Sergeant Walker complained to his new boss, as he stepped into the foyer of the administration block and closed Jenny Brunskill’s office door behind him. ‘It isn’t . . .’
‘I think we’d better go outside,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Why?’ Walker asked – furious, willing to take issue on almost anything that was said to him. Then he saw Elaine, the secretary, apparently absorbed in what she was reading at her desk, but with her ears flapping like a circus elephant’s. ‘All right,’ he agreed.
They walked out on to the forecourt. The staff car park was just ahead of them, and the loading bay to the left. To the right was a public telephone box, and Paniatowski found herself wondering if this was the box that the call to the mortuary had come from.
‘I really don’t think you should have done that, ma’am,’ Walker said morosely.
‘You don’t think I should have done what?’
‘Spoken to me in the way you did, in front of a member of the general public. A male DCI would never have—’
Walker stopped abruptly, as if he’d suddenly decided that he was pushing things just a little too far.
‘Yes?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘We’re supposed to be working as a team,’ Walker continued, in a tone which was a strange mixture of the aggrieved and the conciliatory. ‘We’re supposed to put up a united front when we’re dealing with civilians.’
‘Then why don’t you start acting like you’re a member of that team?’ Paniatowski demanded angrily.
‘Sorry, ma’am?’ Walker replied, as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
It had been a mistake to lose her temper, Paniatowski realized, because it was just what Walker had wanted. Now, from his viewpoint, she was being the typical hysterical woman, and that made him feel as if he had the upper hand.
‘What brought you to this bakery in the first place?’ she asked, in a much calmer voice.
‘I came in my Ford Escort,’ Walker said. He waited for Paniatowski to explode again, and when it became plain that she wasn’t about to, he continued, ‘The reason I’m here is that I’ve identified the hand as belonging to somebody who works here.’
‘And why didn’t you let me know that you’d developed such an important lead?’
‘Tried to, ma’am, but you weren’t in your office, and nobody at the station seemed to know where you were.’
‘I was at the mortuary,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Oh!’
‘Which, given the discovery of the second hand, shouldn’t have been too hard for you to work out.’
‘Didn’t think of that, ma’am,’ Walker said.
‘Anyway, even if you couldn’t find me, why didn’t you call me on my radio?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I tried that as well, ma’am. I couldn’t get through to you.’ Walker laughed. ‘But that’s hardly surprising, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Well, since you were at the mortuary, you were in a dead zone.’
‘I like a man with a good sense of humour,’ Paniatowski said, between clenched teeth.
‘Do you, ma’am?’ Walker asked.
‘Yes, I certainly do. So you will let me know if you come across any, won’t you?’
He was lying about radioing her, of course, she thought. He had stumbled on a lead and rushed down to the bakery in the hope that he could solve this case on his own – thus making his new boss look a complete bloody fool.
As if the case could be solved that simply!
As if the killer, who had planned everything so well so far, would allow it to be solved so simply.
She realized there was one important question she had still not asked. ‘So what was the lead which led you to this bakery?’
Walker smirked complacently. ‘Fingerprints.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘We took the man’s hand and fingerprinted it, and then we matched the prints against our records, and came up with a name.’
‘You fingerprinted it before the medical examiner had had the opportunity to examine it?’ Paniatowski asked incredulously.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Let me be clear on this. First you contaminated the evidence, and then you handed it over to the doctor?’
Walker shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say we contaminated it, exactly. When we’d finished, we wiped the ink off.’
Well, that certainly explained the ink stains that Dr Shastri had found, Paniatowski thought.
Was Walker really as stupid as he seemed? she wondered. Could anybody be as stupid as he seemed?
‘And once you’d matched the fingerprints, you came straight here?’ she asked.
‘That’s right, ma’am.’ Walker paused. ‘Well, not straight here, of course. As I’ve already explained, the first thing I did was to spend quite a lot of time trying to contact you.’
‘What did you hope to achieve by coming here without me? Was it your plan to have the killer in handcuffs before I even knew what was going on?’
‘Yes, of course it bloody was!’ the sergeant’s eyes said.
‘No, ma’am, it wasn’t that at all,’ Walker told Paniatowski. ‘The way I saw it, I was just taking a bit of the donkey work off your shoulders and placing it on to my own.’
‘So you didn’t expect to find the killer here?’
‘Now that’s a different question entirely, if you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the killer does work here.’
And neither would I, Paniatowski thought – because most murder victims are killed by someone they see nearly every day.
‘Would it be all right if I got back to interrogating the witness now, ma’am?’ Walker asked.
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘I’m taking over the questioning myself.’
‘That’s just not bloody fair,’ Walker muttered, almost under his breath.
‘What was that, Sergeant? Something about it not being fair?’
‘No, ma’am. I was just wondering, since you’re taking over the lead I developed, what you wanted me to do.’
‘I want you to find out if the uniformed branch have uncovered anything useful from the house-to-house search yet. And I want to see you in the Drum and Monkey at seven o’clock sharp. Got that?’
Walker nodded. ‘Got it, ma’am. But did you just say seven o’clock in the Drum and Monkey?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘It just seems a bit early to be thinking of rounding off the day, that’s all. I believe that when Mr Woodend was in charge . . .’
‘I know what Mr Woodend did, because I was
with him,’ Paniatowski said, keeping her temper under control – but only just. ‘And perhaps, when we’re further into the investigation, the meetings at the Drum will be held later. But tonight’s meeting is at seven o’clock.’
‘You’re the boss,’ Walker said.
‘Yes, I am,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘There’s one more thing before you go, Sergeant.’
‘Yes, ma’am? And what might that be?’
‘You’ve made a number of mistakes today, not the least of which are contaminating evidence and failing to keep me informed of developments in the investigation. I could issue a reprimand for both those actions – and maybe I will.’
‘That’s your decision to make, ma’am,’ Walker said flatly.
But what the expression in his eyes said was, ‘You won’t be issuing any reprimands, ma’am, because even if you can’t control your own men, you don’t want your bosses thinking that you can’t – especially on your first day in the job.’
A small conference room adjoined Jenny Brunskill and Stan Szymborska’s office, and it was in this conference room that Monika Paniatowski began taking the first steps in repairing the damage which had clearly been done by DS Walker’s bull-in-a-china-shop routine.
‘I thought it might useful to interview you together,’ she said, speaking to the two of them, across the conference table. ‘Then, if one you forgets something, the other can fill in the gaps. But it isn’t essential that we do things that way, and if you would prefer to be interviewed separately . . .’
Stan and Jenny exchanged rapid glances.
‘We have no objection to a joint interview,’ said Jenny, taking on the role of spokesman. ‘Stan and I work together all day, every day, and we have no secrets from each other.’
Everybody has secrets, Paniatowski thought – from their friends, from their partners, from their business associates, and probably even from their cats and dogs – but now was not the time to point it out.
She studied the two people opposite her.
Jenny Brunskill was a little younger than she was herself, she guessed. It would have been an exaggeration to say she could have become a beautiful woman, however hard she’d tried – but with even a little more care, she would certainly have been a rather pretty one.
The Dead Hand of History Page 8
