Sins of the Fathers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  By Sally Spencer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Whitebridge Evening Courier – 6th April 1965

  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

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  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

  SINS OF THE FATHERS

  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 2006 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

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

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2006 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

  Sins of the fathers

  1. Woodend, Charlie (Fictitious character) - Fiction

  2. Police - England - Fiction

  3. Detective and mystery stories

  Title

  823.9'14 [F]

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6395-9 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-44830-113-3 (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

  The English Lake District – January 1962

  From the moment the shivers had taken hold of him, Jeremy Tully had been convinced that he was dying.

  Now, several hours later – if it was hours, rather than minutes or days, both of which seemed equally possible – the shivering had almost stopped.

  Tully took no consolation from this fact. He knew enough about hypothermia to understand that rather than indicating that his condition was improving, it was a sign it was getting much worse. What had happened was that his body – independent of his mind – had decided, in a desperate attempt to preserve its glucose, to partly shut itself down.

  But the attempt wouldn’t work.

  Nothing would work.

  He was dying. That was the end of it – the end of him.

  There were three of them on the ledge – Tully himself, Bradley Pine and Alec Hawtrey.

  Of the trio, Alec was easily in the worst shape. He was the oldest member of the party – the least physically fit from the beginning – and when he had fallen and broken his leg, it had only served to stack the odds even further against him.

  Every time the other two had attempted to move the injured man, he had screamed with agony.

  But it was now a long time since Alec had even had the strength to express his pain.

  So he would probably go first.

  Then, Tully thought, it would be his turn.

  But Bradley would not follow them down the route to oblivion. He wouldn’t die – however intense the blizzard grew, however long it took the rescue party to find them – because he was a survivor.

  More than that – Bradley Pine was a planner, who always thought three steps ahead. So that while his body might be trapped on this mountainside, his mind was already back in Whitebridge, making its next move.

  The snow no longer seemed to be lashing them quite as fiercely as it had been. Perhaps the blizzard had finally decided to let up, Tully thought. Perhaps he would live through the experience after all.

  He uncurled a little from the foetal position that his battling body had instinctively taken. His muscles did not want to co-operate, but he forced them to, because he had to see for himself if it were really true that the weather was getting better – that there was finally some faint glimmer of hope.

  What he did see, through the swirling snow, was that Pine had shifted position, so that now he was bent over Alec Hawtrey.

  What he did see was the large sheath knife in Pine’s hand.

  He wanted to shout out to Pine that he should put the knife away. Wanted to tell him that Alec was probably past the point of conscious suffering, and it would be no act of kindness to rob him of what dignity he had left by killing him now – that he should just be allowed to die of natural causes.

  But the words would not come – not as a shout, not even as a whisper.

  And perhaps, he thought, with a mind half-turned to ice, it wouldn’t have mattered even if the words had come. Because perhaps what he was witnessing wasn’t a mercy killing at all.

  Whitebridge Evening Courier – 6th April 1965

  The sudden death of Seth Johnson, Member of Parliament for the Whitebridge Constituency since 1945, has created turmoil in both the leading political parties.

  Labour has been losing ground for a number of years, and, in the considered opinion of many political observers, has only maintained the slim majority it now holds because of Seth Johnson’s personal prestige. The Labour candidate selected to fight for Johnson’s seat in the coming by-election will, therefore, have an uphill struggle.

  The Conservati
ve Party is currently deciding between two strong candidates.

  The first, Henry Marlowe, has been Chief Constable of Central Lancashire for the last three years, and was Deputy Chief Constable before that.

  The second, Bradley Pine, is a local businessman, whose company (Hawtrey-Pine Holdings) is one of Whitebridge’s most successful manufacturing firms. Many of our readers will remember the tragedy which occurred three years ago, when, despite Bradley Pine’s heroic efforts to save him, Alec Hawtrey lost his life in a mountaineering accident.

  The election promises to be one of the liveliest in quite some time, and you may rest assured that the Courier will be covering it in the greatest possible detail, every step of the way.

  One

  Henry Marlowe stood at the very back of the Sleaburn Village Hall, watching the man on the small stage as he addressed an audience which had dragged itself out on a densely foggy evening, just for the privilege of hearing him speak.

  Bradley Pine looked good, Marlowe thought reluctantly. Better than good. He looked sharp. He looked caring. He looked like a man who was confident of winning the coming by-election.

  And the bastard probably would win!

  ‘For nearly twenty years, this constituency has been in the hands of a party which hates individual freedom and individual responsibility with a passion,’ Pine was telling his eager listeners. ‘A party which wants to reward the scrounger for his idleness – and will do it at your expense. Well, my friends, it’s time to draw a line in the sand – time to show them, with this election, that we won’t stand for it!’

  The audience applauded enthusiastically.

  ‘It should have been me standing on that platform,’ Marlowe said softly to himself.

  He deserved it, he thought. Nobody had worked harder to win the selection committee’s approval than he had. Nobody had bought more drinks, slapped more backs or done more favours. And it had all been for nothing!

  Now this jumped-up little creep had been handed the mantle that he – the upholder of law and order throughout the county – had been denied.

  It didn’t seem right.

  It didn’t seem fair.

  And Marlowe found himself wondering if – even at this late stage in the proceedings – there was anything he could do to seize back what was properly his.

  Bradley Pine opened the door of the village hall and stepped out into the chill night air. He supposed that instead of making such a rapid exit, he could always have stayed longer – shaking a few more hands, making a few more personal promises. But, on the whole, he felt that would have been running an unnecessary risk – because the more time the glittering star spends among his acolytes, the greater the danger that some of the glitter will begin to flake off.

  The fog had thickened while he’d been making his speech, and his car – which was conveniently parked in the country lane behind the hall – was no more than a vague shape. Even so, he could not fail to notice, as he drew closer to it, that a man was standing beside the vehicle.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s me,’ said a voice that he recognized instantly as belonging to Henry Marlowe.

  ‘I saw you standing at the back of the hall, Henry,’ Pine said. ‘It was very good of you to put in an appearance.’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice, did I?’ Marlowe growled. ‘I couldn’t have people saying I was a sore loser.’

  ‘No, of course you couldn’t,’ Pine agreed. ‘Especially since such an assumption on their part would have been so patently unfair.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Marlowe demanded. ‘Is it meant to be some sort of joke?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Pine assured him.

  ‘Then what’s your point?’

  Pine sighed. ‘I suppose I was just giving you the opportunity to show that you could accept defeat gracefully.’

  ‘You could have supported my nomination, you know,’ Marlowe said, showing no desire to do anything of the kind. ‘You could have dropped your own candidature and given me your backing.’

  ‘I seriously thought about doing just that,’ Pine said, with the kind of sincerity that only a politician can ever truly manage.

  ‘Did you? Well, you didn’t show much sign of it!’

  ‘But, ultimately, I had to base my decision on what I thought would be best for the Party, Henry. I knew I could win the seat, you see, and I very much doubted that you could.’

  ‘In the current political climate, we could have put up a turnip as our candidate and it would still have romped home,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Pine conceded.

  ‘You know I’m right.’

  ‘But you still shouldn’t look on this as a rout, Henry. You should see it more as a postponement.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Of course. It won’t be long before you’re selected for another constituency. And think what an advantage it will be for you to have a friend in Westminster, speeding the process along.’

  ‘Throwing me crumbs from his table would be closer to the truth,’ Marlowe said bitterly.

  ‘That’s a little harsh,’ Pine said. ‘Listen, Henry, I’m very grateful for what you’ve done for me—’

  ‘And so you bloody-well should be!’

  ‘—but even gratitude must eventually have its limitations. You can rely on my help in the future, there’s no question about that – but you can’t keep drawing on debts from the past, as if they were some kind of bottomless well.’

  ‘I could destroy you, you know!’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Not without destroying yourself,’ Pine countered.

  ‘So what?’ Marlowe asked defiantly. ‘It might almost be worth it!’

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ Pine told him. He glanced down at his watch, though given the combination of night-time darkness and swirling fog, he knew he would be unable to read it. ‘I’m afraid I really do have to go now, Henry. I’m due at St Mary’s Church.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve suddenly found your religion again, have you?’ Marlowe asked aggressively.

  ‘I never lost it,’ Pine said mildly. ‘It’s simply been in moth balls all these years – and now I’m taking it out for an airing.’

  ‘You’re a cynical bastard,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘And you are perhaps not quite cynical enough, Henry,’ Pine responded, opening the door of his Cortina and climbing in. ‘You see things far too much in terms of black and white. The politician’s art is to be able to distinguish the various shades of grey, and it’s an art you’ll have to learn if you’re ever to start climbing the political ladder yourself.’

  He turned the ignition key and, despite the dampness in the atmosphere, the Cortina fired first time.

  Henry Marlowe stood and watched as the vehicle’s tail lights were swallowed up by the fog.

  If ever a man was asking to get himself topped, he thought, that man was Bradley Pine.

  The three people – two men and a woman – who were sitting in the corner of the public bar of the Drum and Monkey that night were regulars, not only of that particular boozer but of that particular table.

  The older of the two men, Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend, was in his early fifties. He was what people in Whitebridge would call ‘a big bugger’, which meant that even violent drunks would think twice before taking a poke at him. He was wearing a hairy sports jacket and a pair of cavalry twill trousers, both items selected at random that morning from a wardrobe containing half a dozen similar jackets and several pairs of trousers which were almost identical.

  The younger man, Constable Colin Beresford, was in his early twenties. He was wearing a blue suit which looked like it should have been reserved for Sundays. Occasionally, he would take a surreptitious glance at his watch, for while he felt honoured to be sitting in the company of the others, he was also conscious of the fact that it had been quite some time since he’d last checked on the state of his poor, demented mother.

  The woman, Detec
tive Sergeant Monika Paniatowski, was around thirty, and a blonde. She was smartly – though not expensively – dressed in a two-piece check suit, the skirt of which was short enough to reveal that she had rather sensational legs. Her largish nose suggested that she might be Central European in origin – and the nose did not lie. She could not have been called a beautiful woman, but to label her as merely ‘attractive’ would not have done her justice, either.

  The barman, who had been watching them – and waiting for a signal which would indicate they required two more pints of best bitter and one vodka without ice – turned to the landlord, who was polishing beer glasses.

  ‘Have you noticed that though there’s not been a major crime for weeks, “the usual suspects” are in here again tonight,’ he said jokingly.

  The landlord placed the pint mug which he had been shining down on the counter.

  ‘You’ve got it arse-over-backwards, haven’t you, lad?’ he asked. ‘Since they’re the bobbies, they’d have to be “the usual suspectors”.’

  The barman chuckled. ‘Which would make Cloggin-it Charlie the Chief Suspector, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Chief Suspector Woodend! I rather like the sound of that.’

  ‘I think we’ve gone quite far enough with that particular line of whimsy,’ the landlord cautioned.

  ‘It’s only a joke!’ the barman protested.

  ‘It’s always a mistake to take the piss out of the customers,’ the landlord told him gravely. ‘They’re our bread an’ butter, in case you need remindin’.’

  ‘I know that, but—’

  ‘An’ Mr Woodend alone spends enough in here to keep us in puddings an’ all.’

  It was Father Taylor who greeted Bradley Pine at the door of St Mary’s. He was a young priest, who had been in the parish for less than three years, and thus presented a marked contrast to Father Kenyon, who had served this particular flock for so long that there were now very few of the communicants of the church under the age of forty who had not been personally baptized by him.

  ‘Welcome, Mr Pine!’ the young priest said, full of enthusiasm. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘It’s good to be here, Father,’ Pine replied.