A Long Time Dead

by Sally Spencer

  ‘You seem to be a lot more confident about the outcome than you were,’ Woodend said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That when you rang me up in Whitebridge, you were pretty near to shittin’ yourself with worry. Now, you’re takin’ everythin’ very calmly – almost unnaturally calmly.’

  ‘I did go into something of a panic when I heard about all the evidence which seemed to implicate me in the murder,’ Coutes admitted. ‘But when I’d had time to think about it, I began to take a much more sanguine view of the whole affair. You see, since I’m innocent, I really have no need to worry.’

  ‘The evidence hasn’t gone away,’ Woodend reminded him. ‘It’s still as strong as it ever was – an’ it’s still pointin’ the finger at you.’

  ‘But not for much longer. You’ll soon find a way to discredit it,’ Coutes said confidently.

  The bastard was still so arrogant, Woodend thought. Still so bloody, bloody arrogant!

  ‘I’ve been followin’ your career through the reports in the newspapers for years,’ he said to Coutes.

  ‘I’m flattered at your interest,’ the Minister replied.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Woodend corrected him. ‘And you shouldn’t be. As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothin’ but a carbuncle on the arse of humanity. I’d have wiped you from my memory years ago, if it hadn’t been for the fact that there’s one question about you that I’ve always wanted to find an answer to.’

  ‘And have you finally found the answer you were seeking?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. To tell you the truth, I think I’m about as far away from finding it now as I’ve ever been.’

  ‘Then why not ask me your question?’ Coutes suggest. ‘Why not see if you can get your answer straight from the horse’s mouth?’

  ‘All right, I will,’ Woodend agreed. ‘The old Douglas Coutes – the one I knew – was not particularly principled, not particularly likeable, an’ not particularly talented.’

  ‘That’s a rather harsh judgement to make, don’t you think?’ Douglas Coutes asked, and it was plain from the expression on his face that he was starting to enjoy himself.

  ‘Harsh?’ Woodend repeated. ‘No, I don’t think so. If anythin’, I’m givin’ you the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, that’s not the point.’

  ‘Then what is?’

  ‘I’ve been in this room with you for less than ten minutes – an’ already I can tell that you haven’t changed at all.’

  Coutes smiled. ‘Then at least you have to give me full marks for consistency,’ he said.

  ‘So my question is this,’ Woodend continued, ignoring the interruption. ‘What’s the secret of your success? How is it that you’ve managed to climb so far up the political ladder that some people are startin’ to talk about you as a potential prime minister?’

  ‘Perhaps you’re wrong about me,’ Coutes said, with the amused smile still in place. ‘Perhaps I have changed over the years. Age may have mellowed me, and experience could well have taught me valuable lessons. Isn’t it just possible that, in spite of what you seem to think of me, I have become a much better man than the one you knew all those years ago?’

  ‘Aye, an’ it’s also possible that pigs might fly, an’ the leopard might trade in its spots for stripes,’ Woodend said. ‘Come on, Mr Coutes, you know you’re not goin’ to fool me whatever you say, so why not break the habit of a lifetime, an’ be honest for once?’

  ‘Do you really want to know how I succeeded?’ Coutes asked, growing more serious.

  ‘I really want to know,’ Woodend confirmed.

  ‘I think I’m going to tell you,’ Coutes said reflectively. ‘But I won’t do it to satisfy your childish curiosity – I’ll do it because I know you won’t like the answer, and that my answer will make it even harder for you, when you have to do the right thing and prove my innocence.’

  ‘Even for a politician, you’re takin’ one hell of a time to say what you’ve got to say,’ Woodend told him. ‘So why don’t you just forget all the neat phraseology an’ cut straight to the chase.’

  ‘Very well, I will,’ Douglas Coutes agreed. ‘Some people advance by playing to their own strengths. Most of my esteemed cabinet colleagues owe their current positions to doing just that. I, on the other hand, put much greater store in playing to other people’s weaknesses.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I told you that you wouldn’t like the answer.’

  ‘Get on with it for God’s sake,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ Coutes continued. ‘Some people manage to get away with them, and others have their mistakes exposed to the full glare of public scrutiny. Now I’ve never exposed anybody else’s failings in my entire life. But I haven’t forgotten them, either – not a single one of them.’

  ‘I’ll bet you haven’t,’ Woodend said dourly.

  ‘So now you have your answer.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Of course. People help me to climb the ladder because they know that if they don’t, I could damage them. In other words,’ Coutes’s smile returned, even more broadly now he was about to deliver his punch-line, ‘in other words – and only figuratively speaking – I know where all the bodies are buried.’

  Nine

  ‘Welcome to the operational command module!’ Special Agent Grant said cheerily, as Woodend opened the door of the trailer into which all the cardboard boxes had been unloaded.

  Operational Command Module! Woodend thought. Sweet Jesus!

  Grant might be nearly thirty years younger than Henry Marlowe – and come from the other side of the Atlantic as well – but he was fluent enough in gobbledegook to make even the Chief Constable jealous.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Grant asked eagerly.

  ‘I like it,’ Woodend said, ‘but then I always have been partial to big caravans with a lot of table space.’

  ‘Say what?’ Grant asked.

  ‘It’s grand, lad,’ Woodend replied, feeling slightly ashamed of himself for attempting to prick the bubble of Grant’s enthusiasm. ‘It’s just what we need to get the job done.’

  And he didn’t need to be a detective to see that the job was obviously already underway. The table was covered with documents, most of them turned yellow with age, and Paniatowski and Grant, positioned at opposite ends of it, had begun the tedious process of sifting through the stacks.

  ‘Well, Douglas Coutes was certainly here at Haverton Camp on the day that Kineally vanished,’ Paniatowski said, looking up at her boss.

  ‘In all fairness to the man, he’s never actually denied that,’ Woodend pointed out.

  ‘And according to the documents I’ve examined so far, the last time Kineally was seen alive was on the seventh of May, 1944.’

  ‘Which was just a couple of days after I’d left,’ Woodend said, almost to himself.

  A couple of days after I met Mary Parkinson – in tears – on that railway station, he added mentally.

  ‘Well, if you weren’t here at the time, sir – and you can prove you weren’t – then I suppose that pretty much lets you off the hook as a possible suspect,’ Paniatowski said.

  Grant looked up from the table. ‘I didn’t realize Mr Woodend ever was a suspect,’ he said.

  So earnest, Woodend thought. So literal, and so bloody earnest.

  ‘It was a joke,’ Paniatowski explained.

  Grant absorbed this new information carefully, and then laughed.

  ‘Oh, sure, I knew that all along,’ he said, unconvincingly. He reached for a pile of shiny photographs, which were balanced precariously on the edge of the table, and handed them to Woodend. ‘Got some pictures here that just might be of interest to you.’

  Woodend took the photographs from him, and found himself staring at the image of a knife which he had last seen, twenty-one years earlier, in the hands of Douglas Coutes.

  The incident with the knife occurred on what might have been called Coutes’s and Mary’s third ‘date’ in the Dun Cow.<
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  The two of them were sitting at a table. Woodend – who Coutes had banished from their company in order that he might pursue his relentless campaign of seduction – had fallen into conversation with a young man in civvies.

  ‘I get heartily sick of almost everybody I meet asking me why I’m not in uniform,’ the young man complained. ‘Even when I tell them I’m a merchant seaman, it makes no difference, because then they ask me if I wouldn’t be of more use in the “real” navy.’

  ‘They just don’t understand, do they?’ Woodend asked, sympathetically.

  ‘Too right, they don’t! This country couldn’t survive without the goods we bring over from America. And sailing in a convoy is no bloody cakewalk, even with naval protection. Do you know how many times ships I’ve been serving on have gone down?’

  ‘Twice?’ Woodend guessed.

  ‘Three times!’ the seaman told him. ‘Because however many battleships and cruisers you’ve got around you, it only takes one U-Boat to get through, and you’re finished.’

  ‘It must have been rough,’ Woodend said.

  ‘It bloody was! The first time, I was lucky enough to get into a lifeboat. But the second and third times, I was bobbing up and down in the water like a cork when I was rescued.’

  ‘An’ I imagine the North Atlantic can be quite cold in the middle of winter,’ Woodend said.

  The seaman grinned. ‘It is a bit nippy,’ he agreed. ‘Still, I shouldn’t complain. At least I was rescued eventually. Some of my shipmates were never found.’

  ‘You all deserve medals,’ Woodend said, with feeling. ‘But since I’m in no position to award you one, how about a pint instead?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ the seaman said. ‘And better than a medal, any day of the week.’

  Up until that moment, Coutes’s back had been blocking any view of Mary, but now, as he stood up and headed towards the toilets, she became clearly visible from the bar.

  The seaman noticed her immediately. ‘That girl looks familiar,’ he said. ‘You don’t happen to know her name, do you?’

  ‘Mary Parkinson,’ Woodend said.

  ‘That’s right! Mary Parkinson! We were at school together, but I haven’t seen her for years. She’s certainly grown up a lot since we were both in Miss Eccles’s class.’

  ‘I imagine she has,’ Woodend said. ‘I imagine you have, an’ all.’

  The sailor grinned again. ‘You ‘reprobably right about that,’ he agreed. ‘Look, if you’ll guard my pint for me, I think I’ll just go over there and have a quick word with her.’

  There was too much general noise in the public bar of the Dun Cow for Woodend to hear what the seaman said to Mary, or Mary said to the seaman in return, but then he didn’t really need to catch the actual words to be able to work out what was probably being said.

  It was typical of most encounters between two people who hadn’t seen each other for years – and had very little in common any more – he thought, as he watched them. They smiled, they each asked how the other was getting on, and then they covered the common ground of shared memories and old friends.

  By the time five minutes had ticked away, they were running dry of conversation, and the sailor was glancing over his shoulder at the pint waiting invitingly for him on the bar. If they’d have been given another minute, they’d have found a graceful way to separate, and their unexpected meeting would have been over.

  But, as chance would have it, they were not given that minute! Coutes re-entered the room, saw the sailor leaning over Mary’s table, and immediately went black with rage.

  The Captain tapped the sailor on the shoulder and said a few words to him, then the two men walked towards the door. Mary – innocent, young Mary – was left there alone, looking completely mystified.

  Woodend still sat at the bar, wondering what to do next. On the one hand, he liked the sailor, and he did not like Coutes. On the other, Coutes was his boss and had the means at his disposal to make his life uncomfortable, whereas the sailor had no power over him at all. It was probably best, he decided, to keep well out of the whole business.

  Yet even as this thought settled in his mind, he was following the other two men out into the yard.

  Once outside, Woodend paused for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  The government imposition of the Blackout in 1939 had created a very different night-time England to the one in which he had grown up, he thought. For the last five long years, there had been no street lamps, no car headlights, no dazzlingly illuminated advertisements, and though lights might burn inside the houses and pubs, the heavy blinds on the windows prevented that same light from spilling out onto the streets. Even so, the country had not lived in complete darkness. For a time at least, the fires started by Herr Hitler’s bombing raids had lit up some areas as bright as day. And the moon and stars – unbowed by bureaucratic regulation, continued to illuminate the sky as they had always done.

  There was a half-moon that night, and as Woodend’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he was able to see the drama unfolding by the skittle alley wall.

  The sailor was pressed up against the wall, and Coutes was standing so close to him that their faces were almost touching.

  ‘Stay away from Mary Parkinson,’ the Captain said, in a voice which was almost like the growl of a wild animal.

  ‘What are you getting so upset about?’ the sailor asked, perplexed. ‘I was only talking to her as an old friend.’

  ‘I don’t care if you were talking to her as her maiden aunt,’ Coutes told him. ‘Stay away from her!’

  If the situation had only been handled a little differently, there would have been no trouble at all, Woodend thought.

  If Coutes had simply told the other man that Mary was his girlfriend, the sailor would, in all probability, have immediately apologized for the intrusion. But no man who had been torpedoed three times in the middle of the Atlantic winter was going to stand for being pushed around by a soldier who had yet to see any action himself.

  ‘I’m not in the army, you know,’ the sailor said. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

  Coutes laughed unpleasantly, and stepped back.

  ‘Maybe I can’t,’ he agreed, reaching into his tunic, and pulling something out. ‘But this can.’

  He had produced a knife – a bloody big one, with a wicked-looking blade which glinted in the moonlight.

  ‘Put that away!’ the sailor said, with an edge of panic entering his voice. ‘You could hurt somebody with that.’

  ‘I could hurt you with it,’ Coutes said. ‘I could do worse than just hurt you. If I slice up your stomach in just the right way, it could take you several agonizing hours to die.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ the sailor said, though he was sounding more and more as if he believed that Coutes might well carry out his threat.

  ‘I’m an officer and gentleman, and you’re nothing but scum,’ Coutes said. ‘If I claimed you attacked me, and I was only defending myself, who do you think the authorities would believe?’

  ‘Please put the knife away,’ the sailor said.

  ‘No, I don’t think I will,’ Coutes said calmly. ‘But I’m not going to kill you, after all. It’s not necessary. All I have to do is put you in hospital for a few weeks. That should be more than enough to deter any other lout round here from thinking that he might try sniffing around in places he has no business to.’

  ‘That’s enough, sir,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Mind your own bloody business, Sergeant!’ Coutes shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘I said, that’s enough,’ Woodend repeated. ‘If you really fancy havin’ a go at somebody, then let this feller leave, an’ have a go at me.’

  Coutes hesitated for a second, then said to the sailor, ‘Get out of here, you piece of shit!’

  The sailor slid clear of the wall, but instead of making a run for it while he had the chance, he looked to Woodend for further instructions.

  �
��You go,’ Woodend said. ‘I can handle him.’

  The sailor went – though into the dark night, rather than back to the pub where his pint was waiting for him.

  Coutes turned around, the big Prussian knife still in his hand. ‘Do you really think you could handle me, Sergeant?’ he asked sneeringly.

  ‘There’s only one way for both of us to find out, now isn’t there?’ Woodend asked evenly.

  For an instant, it looked as if Coutes were planning to lunge, then he straightened up and slid the knife back into its scabbard.

  ‘It’s not wise of you to cross me, Sergeant Woodend,’ he said. ‘Not wise at all.’

  ‘You’ll thank me for it in the morning, when you’ve sobered up, sir,’ Woodend told him.

  He knew, even as he spoke the words, that Coutes was not drunk, but he said them anyway: to give Coutes an out – an excuse for his bad behaviour.

  No, Coutes wasn’t drunk. He never was. Alcohol was not his drug – it was power over others which intoxicated him. And that made him more dangerous than even the most violent heavy drinker.

  Woodend put the photograph of the knife to one side, and turned his attention to a set of pictures of the shallow grave, with Robert Kineally’s skeleton still in it.

  ‘Who took these?’ he asked Special Agent Grant. ‘Was it the local police force?’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ the FBI man replied, then added, almost as if it surprised him, ‘and they seem to have made a good job of it.’

  They had, Woodend agreed, looking at the collection of bones, some of which must have been disturbed by earth movements over the years, others by the digging which had finally uncovered them.

  ‘The rest of the shots in that pile were taken by our own boys in Washington DC, once the jigsaw had been fitted back together again,’ Grant continued.

  Woodend grimaced at the Special Agent’s choice of words, then found himself wondering why he had reacted in such an uncharacteristic way.