Dangerous Games Page 10

  ‘So we’ve got a name,’ Woodend said. ‘Do we have any background on this Lewis?’

  ‘It’s only been an hour since we got his name,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You can’t expect miracles, sir.’

  ‘But I do expect miracles,’ Woodend told her with a smile. ‘And fortunately, you usually provide them.’

  Paniatowski smiled back. ‘We do have a little information on him,’ she admitted. ‘He was twenty-nine years old …’

  ‘Which is roughly the same age as Terry Pugh was, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. And we also know that he lived in a bedsit on Balaclava Street.’

  ‘Or Rat Alley, as it’s popularly known,’ Woodend said. ‘A very salubrious address.’

  ‘Lewis was born in Whitebridge,’ Paniatowski continued, consulting her notes, ‘but he doesn’t have any family living here any more. His mother and father are dead, and his only brother moved away years ago.’

  ‘So what’s kept him here?’

  Paniatowski shrugged. ‘Why would he move? Whitebridge is as good a place to draw his unemployment benefit as anywhere else.’

  ‘I suppose I should have guessed he’d be on the dole the moment you told me where he lived,’ Woodend said. ‘What else have you got for me?’

  ‘The longest he’s ever held down a job, as far as I’ve been able to discover so far, is a couple of months. He also has a prison record.’

  ‘He wasn’t banged up for bein’ a bookie’s runner, was he?’ Woodend asked, hoping to establish a connection between the two dead men.

  Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No. He did six months for receiving stolen property, and two years for burglary. He hasn’t been in any trouble recently, but I suspect that’s more of case of not getting caught than it is of keeping his nose clean.’

  ‘You’d really make my day if you could tell me that Terry Pugh had been in the same prison at the same time, an’ that they’d both shared a cell with a foreign-lookin’ man,’ Woodend told her.

  ‘I imagine I would,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘But unfortunately, it wouldn’t be true. Terry Pugh was only arrested once – eight or nine years ago – for being drunk and disorderly. But he got away with paying a fine. And there was no one in prison with Lewis who matches the description of the man Terry Pugh was seen leaving the Tanners’ Arms with.’

  ‘Then maybe they both attended Sudbury Street Primary School,’ Woodend suggested hopefully.

  ‘I’m afraid that I’m going to have to piss on your chips yet again, sir,’ Paniatowski told him regretfully. ‘When he was a kid, Reg Lewis lived right on the other side of town from Terry Pugh. In Millbank, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So he went to Millbank Primary.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Woodend lit up a cigarette, because if he was going to breathe in smoke, it might as well be his own.

  ‘Mr Marlowe wants us to find a link between Pugh and Lewis,’ he said. ‘An’ I do, too. Not because I give a damn about pullin’ him out of the shit – he talked his own way into that, an’ he can find his own way out – but because I think there simply has to be one.’

  ‘Unless the killer just has something against men in their late twenties,’ Beresford said unhelpfully.

  ‘If he does – if that’s his only motivation – then we’re really up the creek without a paddle,’ Woodend told him.

  The phone rang, and Woodend answered it.

  ‘There’s a man on the line who wouldn’t give me his name when I asked for it, but says he has some very important information on the murders, sir,’ the switchboard operator said. ‘Shall I put him through?’

  ‘I don’t know, Daphne,’ Woodend said. ‘What’s your opinion of him? Do you think he’s on the up-an’-up, or is he one of the nutters who always rings when a case makes the papers?’

  ‘I don’t recognize his voice,’ the operator replied cautiously. ‘And he doesn’t sound like one of our usual nutters. Which is not to say he isn’t upset. In fact, I think he sounds rather desperate.’

  ‘Put him through,’ Woodend said.

  There was a click on the line, then he heard a worried voice say, ‘Chief Inspector Woodend?’

  ‘That’s me,’ Woodend agreed. ‘What can I do for you, Mr …’

  ‘You … you haven’t released the name of the second victim, yet,’ his caller said, refusing the invitation to supply his name.

  He was a local man, Woodend guessed. Not posh, but not exactly rough, either. He sounded as if he were in very early middle age, but it could just be that he was trying to disguise his voice.

  ‘I said, you haven’t released the name of the second victim,’ the caller repeated insistently.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I … I was wondering if you might tell me who it was.’

  ‘An’ why should I do that?’

  ‘Because I need to know.’

  Woodend sighed. ‘Listen, the only reason I took this call at all was because I was told you had some important information to give me – and so far you’ve told me absolutely nothin’ at all.’

  ‘Please give me the name!’ the other man begged.

  ‘Do you have some sort of connection to these murders?’ Woodend asked. ‘Or are you just one of those sick bastards who get a twisted pleasure out of this kind of thing?’ he continued, his voice hardening.

  ‘Was it … was it Reg Lewis, by any chance?’ the caller asked, almost hysterical now.

  ‘Before we can go any further, I’m goin’ to need your name an’ address,’ Woodend told him firmly.

  ‘It was Reg, wasn’t it? I can tell it was from the way your voice changed once I’d said the name!’

  ‘You can read into my voice whatever you want to, sir,’ Woodend said, ‘but I’m afraid I’m in no position to either confirm or deny your suspicions. An’ it’s my duty to warn you that if you’re holdin’ back any information which might be pertinent to this inquiry …’

  But he was talking to a dead line.

  Twelve

  If she had been asked, two weeks earlier, how she would describe her life, Rosemary Bygraves would have said, with absolutely no hesitation, that it was perfect.

  Not all right.

  Not quite good.

  But perfect.

  There would have been reason enough for this assertion. She had a nice home – a substantial semi in a good street – which she always kept in the most immaculate condition. She had two wonderful children, who never earned less than the highest praise from their teachers. She was a force for good in the community, regularly contributing to charity drives and being one of the stalwarts of the Brighter Neighbourhood Committee which she had helped to found.

  She could have been complacent about all this – but she wasn’t. For though she knew that she had worked hard to achieve the life she wanted, she also knew that the foundation stone on which it was all built was her husband, Tom.

  Tom would not have been every woman’s choice. He was not particularly handsome or witty. In his work, he was steady, rather than innovative and inventive – but that had served him well in Brown Brothers’ Furnishings, a conservative company in which steadiness was one of the cardinal virtues, and where he had already risen to the position of assistant manager in the soft furnishings department. In the bedroom, Rosemary suspected that he was not a great lover – and since she had been a virgin when he married her, all she could do was suspect. He seemed clumsy and awkward during their lovemaking, and sometimes, as he entered her, he would tense up – as though he found the very act distasteful. But his lack of flair, both in life in general and between the sheets in particular, did not really bother Rosemary, because he was a good man – a kind, gentle and thoughtful man – and she knew that he loved her and the children with all his heart.

  But that was all two weeks ago. In the fortnight since then, Tom had begun to change. It had been little things at first – an uncharacteristic flare-up of temper, a refusal to look her in the eye – but i
t was getting worse all the time. When he had arrived home from the shop the previous day – arrived home early! – she could almost have sworn he had been crying. And that morning he had refused to get out of bed, even though he knew as well as she did that punctuality was regarded as one of Brown Brothers’ most important measures of their employees’ performance.

  Things had gone from bad to worse as the morning wore on. When he had finally got up, and found her polishing the cocktail cabinet in the lounge, he’d announced that she would have to leave the room because he needed to make a private phone call.

  ‘A private phone call?’ she’d repeated incredulously.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  But there was no such thing as a private phone call in the Bygraves family. In the family, there wasn’t really a private anything.

  ‘Who is it you’re going to call?’ she’d demanded.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ he snapped back.

  And then he’d practically bundled her into the kitchen, and told her to stay there until the call had been made.

  And so, there she was now – polishing a fridge-freezer which had been gleaming clean before she’d even touched it. There she was now – unable to hear the precise words her husband was speaking, yet still catching the note of desperation in his tone.

  She heard the sound of the receiver being slammed down on its cradle, and waited for her husband to come into the kitchen and apologize for his behaviour – or at least try to explain it.

  It didn’t happen that way. Instead of seeking to placate her, Tom went straight upstairs.

  She followed him, and found him in the bedroom, throwing his clothes distractedly into an open suitcase on the bed.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, on the verge of tears.

  ‘I have to go away,’ he snapped back, giving no sign that he had even noticed her distress.

  ‘Away?’ she repeated dully. ‘Where to?’

  Tom continued to hurl clothes into the open case. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s best you don’t know.’

  ‘But … but how long will you be away?’

  ‘I don’t know that, either.’

  Tears were streaming down her face now. Surely he would soon stop what he was doing, and make some attempt to console her.

  ‘You have responsibilities,’ she sobbed. ‘To me. To the children. To your work.’

  He suddenly looked so angry that she was afraid that – for the first time in their entire marriage – he was about to hit her.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, I’m fighting for my life here,’ he said, as she shrank back.

  ‘I … I don’t understand.’

  ‘Of course you don’t understand! How the bloody hell could you possibly understand?’

  He closed the suitcase, and barged past her onto the landing. She followed him downstairs and into the street.

  It was a lovely day. The sun was shining and there was a gentle breeze in the air. Normally she could have relied on Tom to seize on the weather as a worthy subject for conversation, but she doubted if – at that moment – he’d have noticed if there’d been a blizzard going on around them.

  She watched with horror as he opened the boot of the car and put the suitcase inside it.

  ‘You … you can’t really be going,’ she said, though she now finally accepted that he was. ‘You just can’t.’

  ‘The rubbish!’ Tom said, exasperatedly.

  ‘The what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Tom turned and headed back towards their home. But he didn’t enter the house itself. Instead, he went down the passageway between the side of the house and the fence, which led to the back garden.

  ‘Tom!’ Rosemary said, still hot on his heels.

  But he ignored her.

  The garden was looking nice – as it should have done, after all the work they’d both put into it – but Tom had no interest in admiring the flowers or the small immaculate lawn. Instead, he strode straight to the end of the garden, where the potting shed was.

  He came to an abrupt halt next to the rubbish heap – a collection of grass cuttings and other garden waste which they were planning to turn into a compost heap – and squatted down beside it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Rosemary asked. ‘Please tell me what you’re doing, Tom.’

  He reached into his pocket, and pulled out his lighter.

  ‘We can’t have a fire until it’s time to burn the autumn leaves,’ she said. ‘We passed a resolution about it at the Brighter Neighbourhood Committee Annual General Meeting.’

  He continued to ignore her, and held the lighter next to the grass cuttings, until they caught alight.

  ‘It was my resolution. I was the one who put it forward,’ Rosemary said, but even as she spoke the words, she was wondering what the hell she was saying – why she should be bothered about the Brighter Neighbour Committee and its bloody resolutions, when her life was being turned upside down.

  Tom rose to his feet again, and walked quickly up the garden path to the front of the house. When he reached the car, he opened the door and climbed inside.

  ‘What … what have I to tell them at the shop?’ Rosemary asked, for it was plain to her now that her husband had no intention of ringing Brown Brothers’ himself.

  ‘Tell them anything you like,’ Tom said dismissively. ‘I don’t care one way or the other.’

  ‘And the children? What shall I tell them?’

  Finally she seemed to be getting through to him, she thought. He paused, in the middle of inserting his ignition key, and looked directly at her for the first time since she’d gone upstairs.

  ‘Tell them I’ll miss them,’ he said.

  And she could see that he was crying, too.

  He started up the car, and pulled away.

  As he turned the corner, Rosemary noticed that a black van, which had been parked up the road, had begun to move in the same direction. Though she knew most of her neighbours’ vehicles, she did not think she had seen this one before.

  In Whitebridge Police Headquarters, the Chief Constable was mounting the podium for the second time that morning.

  ‘Since you all seemed so eager to learn the name of the second victim earlier, I have decided to release it,’ he said to the gathered journalists. ‘His name was Reginald Lewis. He was an unemployed man of twenty-nine, and he lived in a bed-sitting room at an address in Balaclava Street. That is all I have for you for the moment, so if you’ll excuse me …’

  ‘Not two hours ago, you refused to reveal his name for what you said were operational reasons,’ Arthur Williams called out.

  Marlowe considered ignoring the comment, then realized that if he did so, he would only be giving Williams more ammunition for his column.

  ‘For once, you seem to be quoting me correctly, Arthur,’ he said, smiling to show that he was only joking.

  Williams did not smile back.

  ‘So what’s changed in a couple of hours?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not prepared to go into that.’

  ‘Operational reasons again?’

  ‘Just so.’

  Now Williams did smile.

  ‘Or could it be that you didn’t know his name then, but now that you do you want to release it before we find it out ourselves, and make you look a complete prat?’ he wondered.

  Yes, that was exactly it, Marlowe thought, wishing that the bastard wasn’t quite so sharp.

  ‘It has always been my policy to keep the local press abreast of developments as far as possible, Mr Williams,’ he said coldly. ‘That is, of course, as long as the press in general – and specific reporters in particular – behave in a responsible manner.’

  ‘Is that a threat, Mr Marlowe?’ Williams asked, suddenly looking a little concerned.

  Marlowe grinned at him. ‘Of course not, Arthur. It’s no more than a policy statement.’

  ‘Why isn’t Chief Inspector Woodend here with you?’ one of the other rep
orters asked.

  Now that was the kind of question he liked, Marlowe told himself – the kind of question he could turn to his own advantage.

  ‘Based on information received, I have suggested some possible lines of inquiry in the case,’ he said, ‘and Mr Woodend, who always looks to me for guidance, is out pursuing them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t keep a dog in a place like this,’ Woodend said, looking around Reg Lewis’ bedsit in Balaclava Street.

  He had a point, Paniatowski thought.

  The fixtures and furnishings of the room consisted of no more than a narrow single bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, a sink and an old kitchen unit. The sheets on the bed were torn and grey with filth; the table was scarred with cigarette burns, and there was something nasty growing out of the plughole in the sink. There was a window over the sink, but it was so encrusted with grime that even when the sun was on it – as it was now – very little light was allowed to enter the dreary space in which Lewis could have done no more than just exist.

  ‘I’ll bet there’s some germ-warfare scientists somewhere who’d pay a fortune to be left alone in here for an hour or so,’ Woodend commented. ‘That said, I’m afraid we’re still goin’ to have to search it.’

  Not that there was much to search. The chest of drawers was virtually empty, and most of Lewis’ discarded clothes had been flung carelessly onto the filthy floor, where they competed for space with empty whisky bottles and crumpled cigarette packets.

  ‘Aside from the fact that they were around the same age, and lived in the same town, the two victims seemed to have had absolutely nothing in common,’ Monika Paniatowski said, as she gingerly poked at a rotting grey sock with the toe of her shoe.

  ‘You’re right about that,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Terry Pugh was a reliable man with a steady job – the kind of man that most fathers hope an’ pray their daughters will end up marryin’ – while Reg Lewis was the sort of feller who gives even toe-rags a bad name.’

  ‘So what is the link?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I’m buggered if I know,’ Woodend admitted.

  Paniatowski’s radio crackled, and then a metallic – and virtually inaudible – voice began to speak.