Dying in the Dark Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  By Sally Spencer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  By Sally Spencer

  The Charlie Woodend Mysteries

  THE SALTON KILLINGS

  MURDER AT SWANN’S LAKE

  DEATH OF A CAVE DWELLER

  THE DARK LADY

  THE GOLDEN MILE TO MURDER

  DEAD ON CUE

  THE RED HERRING

  DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

  THE ENEMY WITHIN

  A DEATH LEFT HANGING

  THE WITCH MAKER

  THE BUTCHER BEYOND

  DYING IN THE DARK

  STONE KILLER

  A LONG TIME DEAD

  SINS OF THE FATHERS

  DANGEROUS GAMES

  DEATH WATCH

  A DYING FALL

  FATAL QUEST

  The Monika Paniatowski Mysteries

  THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY

  THE RING OF DEATH

  ECHOES OF THE DEAD

  BACKLASH

  LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

  A WALK WITH THE DEAD

  DYING IN THE DARK

  Sally Spencer

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2005 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1DF.

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2005 by Sally Spencer.

  The right of Sally Spencer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Spencer, Sally

  Dying in the dark

  1. Woodend, Charlie (Fictitious character) - Fiction

  2. Police - England - Fiction

  3. Detective and mystery stories

  I. Title

  823.9’14 [F]

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6186-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0110-2 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  Prologue

  Maria Rutter was sitting on a bench in Whitebridge Corporation Park, thinking about what she knew – and what she didn’t!

  She knew it was a bench she was sitting on, because she could feel the wooden slats pressing against her bottom. (‘Your perfect little bottom,’ her husband had called it – but not recently.)

  She knew it was a park because she could hear ducks calling to each other across the pond. (And where else would there be wildfowl so close to the hum of the passing traffic?)

  She knew it was autumn. (She had only to move her feet a little to have them brush against the brown, brittle leaves; only to rotate the toe of her shoe to hear them crackle as they disintegrated.)

  She knew it had been raining. (The earth, the grass and the flowers all had a distinctive smell which came only after rain.)

  And she knew it was the Corporation Park, rather than any of the other parks in Whitebridge, partly because of the time it had taken to drive here, and partly because her husband had told her it was – and why should he lie? (Why should he lie? Why should he lie?)

  She was sure he hadn’t lied to her when they’d first started walking out together. Sure that he hadn’t used their marriage certificate as licence to stop telling her the truth. But that had been then – and this was now.

  She heard a clattering sound, coming from beside her.

  Damn! she thought.

  Her white stick, which she’d balanced against the edge of her seat, must have somehow managed to fall over. She groped around with her foot – rustle, rustle, rustle went the dried leaves – and managed to locate it.

  She couldn’t be bothered to pick it up if it was only going to fall down again. She’d retrieve it when it was time to leave.

  Her keen ears – even keener since the accident – detected the sound of thrashing about in the bushes behind her, and she understood immediately what it was.

  The lovers’ passion must be burning strongly for them to chance making love in the middle of the park, she thought. And with a cold wind blowing in from the moors, public exposure was not the only kind they risked.

  She smiled briefly at her own play on words, but the dark preoccupations of her mind soon melted the smile away.

  She and Bob had once been like this couple, she thought. Not just in love, but in lust. So much in lust that they, too, would have risked almost anything to satisfy each other.

  The rustling behind her stopped, to be followed by the sound of zips being zipped, studs being popped back into place, and other articles of clothing being adjusted.

  ‘That was lovely, wasn’t it?’ a man’s voice said.

  His partner made no reply.

  ‘Just like it used to be,’ the man said, a hint of concern creeping into his voice.

  ‘You said I was the only one who mattered to you,’ the woman said.

  ‘You are the only one who matters to me!’

  ‘You said we’d be together for ever.’

  ‘We will be.’

  ‘Then what about her?’

  ‘She’s a complication. No more.’

  ‘She seems like more than that to me.’

  Was she suddenly going mad? Maria asked herself.

  Was this dialogue – which she’d thought was taking place in the bushes – actually only being played out in her own fevered mind?

  Because while she had never actually had this same conversation with Bob, she had certainly imagined it often enough in the previous few days.

  The lovers – whether behind her, or only in her brain – had fallen silent. Now she heard a new sound – the noise of rubber wheels bumping over the uneven flag-stoned path.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Bob’s voice asked, worriedly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Maria said.

  ‘Well, you don’t look it. In fact, you’ve gon
e quite pale.’

  ‘Is the baby asleep?’

  ‘Yes, I thought we were going to have real trouble with her dropping off at first, but by the time we’d got past the duck pond—’

  ‘Sit down,’ Maria commanded.

  ‘Don’t you think we should be getting back home now? I know the baby’s well wrapped up, but it’s still turning quite chilly. And anyway, I’m worried about you.’

  ‘Sit!’ Maria said, and felt the bench give slightly, as Bob lowered himself down beside her.

  ‘What’s really the matter?’ Bob asked, sounding like the concerned husband she’d thought he always would be.

  ‘Are you looking at me?’

  Using your seeing eyes to look into my lifeless ones?

  Bob laughed. ‘Of course I am. I thought you could always tell whether I was or not.’

  ‘I used to be able to tell.’

  There was a pause, then Rutter said, ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘What is there to hear?’

  Another pause. ‘I had an affair,’ Rutter admitted. ‘But it’s over. It’s been over for nearly a year. If … if you can forgive me, I’ll make it right again. Things can be just like they used to.’

  Maria felt a shiver of horror run through her whole body, a horror which only deepened when she heard the words which came, without her willing them, from her own mouth – ‘You said I was the only one who mattered to you.’

  ‘You are!’

  ‘You said we’d be together for ever.’

  ‘We will be.’

  Am I mad? Maria wondered. Did I only imagine I heard these same words earlier? Am I saying them now? Did I say them earlier and am now only imagining them? Or have the words never been spoken? Is all this just my thoughts? Do Bob – and the baby – only really exist inside my head?

  Once – long ago – she would have focused her eyes on some solid object, in the hope that would bring her back to reality. But now she couldn’t see – and any focusing she did would have to be accomplished in her mind’s eye.

  How could she make this seem real? she asked herself. How could she make it seem concrete?

  ‘Who did you have this affair with?’ she demanded.

  ‘Does that really matter?’

  ‘Yes, it bloody well does! Was it with Monika Paniatowski?’

  ‘You seem to know already, so why ask?’

  ‘She came to my house!’ Maria said outraged. ‘She sat down to dinner at our table! We laughed and joked together!’

  ‘She likes you. She really does.’

  ‘Is that why she stole my husband?’

  ‘She didn’t steal me.’

  ‘What did she do then? Borrow you?’

  ‘I love you,’ Rutter said helplessly. ‘I always have. I loved you even when I was betraying you.’

  ‘So why did you go with her? Because she’s a whole woman? Because she can see?’

  ‘You’re a whole woman. And it wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘So you loved her, did you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did.’

  ‘And you still love her?’

  ‘I haven’t so much as touched her on the arm since we broke up,’ Rutter said. ‘We don’t even go out drinking together, unless we know that someone else is going to be there.’

  He knew the words were a mistake the moment they had spilled out of his mouth.

  ‘You still love her,’ Maria repeated.

  ‘Not in the way I love you.’

  ‘Could you pick up my stick for me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But—’

  ‘I want to go home now.’

  ‘I want to put it all behind me,’ Rutter repeated desperately. ‘I want to make it up to you and the baby.’

  ‘It might be too late for that,’ Maria said.

  ‘Might be?’ Rutter asked, the anguish evident in his voice. ‘Do you mean you still haven’t made up your mind?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Maria agreed. ‘I still haven’t made up my mind.’

  One

  ‘I tell you, I wish I’d been lucky enough to work with Paco Ruiz when he was in his prime,’ Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend said enthusiastically, as the barman placed another round of drinks on the table. ‘What a bobby that man must have been! An’ as to the conditions he had to work under, well it makes you think twice before you complain yourself! The boss he had in Madrid, before the Civil War, makes our Chief Constable seem like gentle Jesus.’

  He paused, and examined the faces of the two people sharing the table with him. Monika Paniatowski – blonde hair and a figure to die for, even if her nose was a little too large for Lancashire tastes – had a glazed look in her normally vivacious eyes. Bob Rutter – sharp suit, looking more like a rising young executive than a rising young police inspector – seemed equally far away.

  ‘He could have cracked Kennedy’s assassination, could Paco,’ Woodend continued.

  Still no response.

  ‘In fact, that’s just what I was tellin’ President Johnson the other day,’ Woodend said. ‘I went over to see him, you know. Me an’ the Beatles together. I suppose we could have flown on a plane, like everybody else, but John Lennon thought it’d be much more fun if we went by hot-air balloon.’

  ‘What?’ Bob Rutter asked.

  ‘I said that me an’ the Beatles went over to the United States by hot-air balloon.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Rutter replied, puzzled.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been borin’ you with my tale of how I cracked open a complicated murder case on my holidays, an’ still found time to get a nasty case of sun-burn,’ Woodend said tartly.

  ‘The Beatles went to America by hot-air balloon?’ Monika Paniatowski asked, as if his previous remark had only now penetrated her brain.

  What was the matter with the two of them? Woodend wondered.

  They couldn’t have restarted their affair, because, even if they’d tried to hide it from him, he would have known.

  Perhaps it was simply the lack of serious activity which had dulled their edges. Both of them worked at their best under pressure, and since he’d returned from Spain there’d been no major crime to speak of in the whole of the Whitebridge area. So maybe that was it. Maybe they’d let their brains go into hibernation, in order to build up strength for their next serious challenge.

  Or maybe the answer was even simpler, he told himself with a sudden shudder.

  Maybe the reason they hadn’t been listening was because it hadn’t been worth listening to – because, even without realizing it, he was turning into a boring old fart.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I was miles away,’ Monika Paniatowski said. ‘You were telling us about Inspector Ruiz.’

  ‘Forget it, lass,’ Woodend said, feeling both more self-conscious and more self-critical by the minute. ‘Let’s talk about somethin’ you want to talk about, shall we?’

  But from the look on her face, it was plain that there was nothing she did want to talk about – at least, not to him.

  ‘Mr Woodend!’ called the landlord, from behind the bar.

  ‘What is it now, Jack?’

  ‘The station is on the phone for you.’

  Woodend gave a sigh which he meant to sound like exasperation – but came closer to relief – stood up, and headed for the bar.

  The moment he’d gone, Rutter said, ‘If she does divorce me, she’ll want custody of the baby. And there’s no guarantee she’ll stay here in Whitebridge if she gets it. Why should she? All her family live in London.’

  ‘She won’t get custody,’ Paniatowski said in a whisper. ‘She’s blind, for God’s sake!’

  ‘And I’m a proven adulterer, with a job which hardly ever allows me to get home,’ Rutter said mournfully. ‘If you were the judge, which one of us would you consider the better bet?’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Monika said earnestly.

  ‘It’d better not,’ Rutter told her. ‘Because if it does – if she takes the baby away – I don’t
think I could go on. I think I’d probably kill myself.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Monika hissed. Then, in a louder voice, she said, ‘But you don’t always get that kind of lucky break on a murder investigation, you know, Bob.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘The boss, you bloody fool,’ Monika said, her voice lower again. ‘He’s coming back.’

  He was indeed. And there was a look as grim as a granite tombstone on his face.

  ‘Finish your drinks, an’ then grab your coats,’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘We’ve copped a particularly nasty one this time.’

  Woodend and Paniatowski stood on the bridge, looking down at the dark water in the canal below.

  The canal cut straight through the centre of old Whitebridge, passing all the dark satanic mills which had once thrived there. In its heyday, Woodend thought, countless stolid, plodding bargees had walked along the towpath, leading their equally stolid and plodding horses. Sometimes they’d even allowed the local kids – little Charlie Woodend among them – to hop on to the cotton-cloth-laden barge which the horse was towing behind it.

  ‘We used to love ridin’ on them barges,’ Woodend said.

  He thought he’d spoken softly enough for no one else to hear him, but he must not have done, because Monika Paniatowski said, ‘Loved riding on the barges? Why?’

  ‘God alone knows!’ Woodend replied.

  Certainly it would have been quicker to walk than ride. But perhaps the speed at which they were going had not mattered so much, because it was where they were going that was really important.

  Those stolid men and stolid horses were leaving the grimy town of Whitebridge behind them, and heading for the port of Liverpool, which the kids were certain – though they had never seen it – was a golden and glorious place to be. Yes, maybe that was it. The barges were escaping Whitebridge. The kids knew – or at least believed – that they never could. But for just half an hour or so – until it was time to get off the barge and go for their tea – they could live under the illusion that such an escape was possible, even for them.

  The dead woman was lying on the towpath, in the shadow of the old Empire Mill. Two uniformed officers, torches in their hands, stood on guard over her. Other officers had been posted further up and down the canal, in order to keep civilians away.