Supping with the Devil Read online

  ‘All the papers in Fleet Street were desperate to have him writing a column for them, and he’d turned every one of them down. So why did he agree to write for the Gazette? There can be only one reason. He did it because he was blackmailed into doing it.’

  ‘You should be more careful with the words you use, or the next time you appear in court it will be because you’re being sued for slander by either your editor or Mr Langtree himself,’ the judge warns him.

  ‘With your lordship’s permission, I think I will ask a few more questions after all,’ the barrister says.

  ‘After that extraordinary outburst from the witness, I think you’re certainly entitled to,’ the judge agrees.

  ‘You got fired from your job on the Gazette, didn’t you, Mr Lewis?’ the barrister asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘Because Dave Langtree wanted me off the paper as revenge for me putting him in such a difficult position. I think it was part of the deal he struck with my editor when he agreed to write the column.’

  ‘Really? That’s what you think, is it? Well, I put it to you that that was not the case at all. I put it to you that you went to see Mr Langtree, and threatened him that if he didn’t give you a considerable amount of money, you would go to his wife and tell her the same cock-and-bull story you’ve just told to this court. But Mr Langtree, who had done absolutely nothing wrong, refused to be intimidated. And being the nasty, vindictive sort of person you are, you went to see Mrs Langtree anyway – and that was when your editor fired you.’

  ‘I did go to Mrs Langtree,’ Lewis admits, ‘but only after I’d lost my job – and I never asked either of them for a penny.’

  ‘So, two conflicting stories, then – yours and Mr Langtree’s,’ the barrister says. ‘I wonder which one the court will believe.’

  Elaine had not got her divorce on that occasion, though later Dave had agreed to one based on the ‘no fault’ principle. She’d walked away with a fraction of the money she would have got if the adultery had been proved, and Dave had become a real hero with his drinking mates.

  But not every story could have the same happy ending, Hill thought. Lewis might not have any proof this time either, but he’d only to drop the whisper in Mona’s ear and she wouldn’t rest until she’d found enough proof herself to take him for everything he owned.

  So Lewis had to be dealt with. One way or another, he simply had to be dealt with.

  Edward Bell’s cottage – the Lodge – was near the North Gate. It was a rectangular building, redbrick and grey slate, two stories high. The windows were smaller than those in modern houses, and the window frames, like the doors, were made of solid oak. Running along the side of the house there was a vegetable garden – as neat and tidy as any ever shown on a television gardening show – and just beyond it there was a small orchard.

  Bell parked the Land Rover close to the back door – which was open – and immediately two small brown dogs appeared from inside the house, wagging their tails and barking furiously.

  ‘Well, here it is, home sweet home,’ Bell said, as he fussed over the dogs. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Very nice,’ Paniatowski replied.

  Bell laughed. ‘What you’re really thinking is that it’s a bit small – and maybe a bit humble – for a man with a couple of university degrees who runs an estate worth millions of pounds.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that at all,’ Paniatowski lied.

  ‘Every year, the earl offers me a bigger house, and every year I point out that if my ancestors – who sometimes had as many as nine or ten children – could live in this house, then it should be more than comfortable enough for a man who only has two kids.’

  ‘Well, as long as you’re happy with it,’ Paniatowski said, feeling a little inadequate.

  ‘It’s not so much that I’m happy with it as that I’d be miserable without it,’ Bell confessed. ‘My family’s history is steeped into these bricks. Their presence is in the very air.’ He paused. ‘My great-grandfather was nearly a hundred when he died. He was a wonderful man, and when I was a very small child, he used to sit me on his knee and tell me stories about the old days. Sometimes, when the kids are asleep, and the missus has finally gone upstairs to bed, I still sit in that same armchair and talk to him. And, do you know, it’s not hard to imagine that he’s talking back.’

  ‘Are you telling her about Grandad Joshua?’ asked a voice from the doorway.

  ‘No, I …’ Bell said awkwardly.

  ‘He always tells people about Grandad Joshua,’ the woman said. ‘There are times when I think the best thing I could do with him would be to have him locked up for his own safety.’

  ‘Now don’t go showing me up in front of the company, love, or she’ll be starting to regret having accepted your invitation to lunch,’ Bell said with mock severity. He turned back to Paniatowski. ‘In case you haven’t guessed, this is my wife, Rosie. Rosie, this is DCI Paniatowski.’

  ‘Monika,’ Paniatowski said.

  Rosie had been appropriately named, she decided. She had cheeks like apples, and the country air had given them a warm, red glow. It would have been inaccurate to call her fat, but she was certainly ample, and had the sort of hips that her peasant ancestors would have balanced heavy buckets on.

  ‘The food will be on the table in five minutes,’ Rosie said. ‘I hope you’ve brought your appetite with you, Monika.’

  And Paniatowski, catching a whiff of what was being prepared in the kitchen, was surprised to discover that she had.

  Terry Lewis chose a seat at the back of the bus, and sat there quietly turning over in his mind what he had learned that morning. He’d known immediately that it was Jeff Hill he was walking towards in the corridor of the Royal Victoria, but when he’d heard the woman shout that Hill had forgotten his tie, he’d automatically assumed she was Mrs Hill. Then Jeff had made that stupid comment, and he’d felt his tabloid journalist’s instinct tingle.

  So where did that leave him?

  He’d no proof that Hill was having an affair, so there was no way he could sell the revelation to one of the more salacious papers. And anyway, he reminded himself, he was trying to leave that type of story behind him and move into more serious, hard-hitting copy.

  So, all in all, it might be better to just forget the whole thing.

  And then he remembered the broad smirk on Jeff Hill’s face as Dave Langtree’s barrister had torn him apart in the witness box – and with that came a wave of shame and humiliation.

  That barrister had called him a blackmailer. It hadn’t been true, but everybody in the court had believed it.

  If he had been a blackmailer – if he’d actually asked Langtree for money – he had no doubt that the man would have paid up, so he would have both kept his job and been given a great wad of cash.

  It had taken him a long time to learn a simple truth, but now he finally realized that blackmailers – like the editor of the Gazette, who had blackmailed Langtree – prospered, while people who tried to do their honest – if slightly seedy – job as best as they could, ended up getting shafted.

  Well, from now on, things would change. He would not give up his quest to become a better, more respected reporter, but if, along the way, he was presented with the opportunity to squeeze cash out of people who wanted to protect their sordid secrets, he would grab it with both hands.

  And he would start with Jeff Hill.

  They dined on shepherds’ pie, followed by baked apple. It should, in theory, have been too heavy a meal for a hot day in summer, but Paniatowski had no difficulty at all in clearing her plate.

  When the meal was over, Rosie Bell insisted that she – and she alone – should clear away and wash up.

  ‘I get very nervous over the idea of guests coming into my kitchen,’ she said.

  ‘You get very nervous over the idea of anybody else at all in your kitchen,’ her husband told her.

  ‘That’s true enough,’ Ros
ie agreed.

  When she’d gone, Paniatowski said, ‘Rosie had no idea I was coming to lunch, had she?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Bell wondered.

  ‘When you reminded her that she’d invited me, I could tell from the expression on her face that it was complete news to her. That look wasn’t there for long – but it was there long enough.’

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t be a problem,’ Bell said. ‘Rosie always cooks too much food.’

  ‘So why did you invite me?’

  ‘I thought you could do with a bit of cheering up. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Paniatowski said cautiously.

  ‘It’ll go no further,’ Bell promised her.

  And almost before she realized she was doing it, she was telling him the whole thing, starting from her affair with Baxter all those years ago, and ending with Jo’s death and the way Baxter had treated her since.

  Bell was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt while she was speaking, but once he was sure she’d finished, he said, ‘The chief constable seems to have behaved very badly.’

  Paniatowski felt a sudden pang of guilt.

  ‘You’ve only heard my side of the story,’ she said. ‘I’m sure George Baxter would give you a completely different picture, and – who knows – his version of events may be more accurate than mine.’

  ‘Us men are such weak creatures,’ Bell said musingly, as if he hadn’t really heard her last comment at all. ‘We act on instinct a lot of the time, and sometimes it seems as if we’ve got no more control over our feelings and actions than animals. But what makes us different from the beasts of the field is that we know when we’ve done wrong, and – if we’re any kind of men at all – we’re willing and ready to take the consequences.’ He paused. ‘I’d like to think that if I’d been in his shoes when his wife died, I wouldn’t have blamed anyone else for her death. I’d like to think that if I’d been George Baxter, I’d have picked up a shotgun, gone into the orchard, and blown my own bloody head off.’

  He was serious, she thought – he really was serious!

  Bell saw the expression on her face, and smiled.

  ‘Of course, the other thing about all men is that we’re perfectly capable, on occasion, of talking a complete load of old bollocks,’ he said. ‘Shall we get back to work?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘I think that would be a good idea.’

  Sitting outside his tent, Spike thought about how he hated being back in Lancashire, and how he hated being in these particular woods – which he knew so well – most of all.

  The trees were not just trees to him, but living monuments to some of his past failures.

  This oak represented the misery of his ninth birthday.

  That elm embodied the humiliation he had felt when he had realized that there were other sorts of lives to be led out there in the wider world – but that those lives were not for him.

  The previous evening, when Edward Bell had come to the woods to talk to the Devil’s Disciples – and make it perfectly clear what he expected of them – Spike had hidden himself away like a small, frightened child. And later, once Bell had gone, he had sat shivering, fearful that some other phantom from his past might make an appearance and expose him as both a fraud and a failure.

  Yet even as wrapped up in his own suffering as he was, he still couldn’t help noticing that Badger and his two lieutenants had been behaving very strangely since they’d pitched camp in Backend Woods.

  In many ways, the Devil’s Disciples were like the sort of medieval court that he had learned about in school. Badger was the monarch – there was no doubt about that. But Chainsaw and Sharkteeth were important too, and other members of the gang tended to cluster around them as minor lords had once gathered around royal dukes. Normally the two accepted it as their right, and seemed to revel in the attention, but the moment they had arrived in the woods, they’d thrown up an invisible shield around themselves.

  The other Devil’s Disciples had all sensed this, and wisely decided to keep their distance, and while the rest of the gang had spent the evening drinking beer in the middle of the camp, Badger and his lieutenants had drunk as a lonely trio in front of Badger’s tent.

  And then, that morning, while everyone else was sleeping off the booze, Chainsaw and Sharkteeth had ridden out of the camp and been away for more than two hours.

  Where had they gone, Spike wondered.

  What had they been doing?

  And – in violation of the Devil’s Disciples’ code – what secret had they been keeping from the rest of the gang?

  Because there had to be a secret, didn’t there? It was the only explanation for their behaviour.

  The phantoms had not come for him the night before, Spike thought, but they would come eventually. And Badger’s secret – whatever it was – would lie there and fester, until it had poisoned everything the Devil’s Disciples had ever been.

  It would all end badly – it simply had to.

  Time-keeping being the true rock and roller’s Antichrist, the RockStately Festival did not start at the advertised time, but by six fifteen there were some signs of activity from the technicians, and at a quarter to seven, four long-haired young men walked on to the stage, and peered out at the crowd, which had now swelled to about fifty thousand.

  The singer walked up to the microphone. ‘We’re LSD and we’re here to blow your minds,’ he announced.

  The crowd cheered and whistled and clapped, the drummer launched a vicious assault on his drums which lasted for almost a minute, and then the guitars joined in, weaving in and out of the beat like electric worms.

  The earl’s own version of Woodstock had begun.

  EIGHT

  Saturday, 7th August

  By the time DS Meadows arrived at Crook Lane – a narrow alley that ran between Whitebridge High Street and Accrington Road – the police operation was already well under way.

  There were patrol cars parked at both ends of the alley, and beside them stood uniformed constables who had strict instructions to move on any passer-by who had got it into his or her head that murder was a spectator sport. An ambulance had arrived and was ready, the moment Dr Shastri gave the word, to whisk the dead body to the mortuary. And in the alley itself, floodlights had been erected, so that even though it was one thirty in the morning, the whole area was as bright as day.

  When Meadows arrived at the scene, she found Wellbeloved and Beresford standing next to the corpse, and though that was exactly who she’d been expecting to find there, it still came as a slight shock not to see Paniatowski, too.

  The dead man was laying face down, next to a row of dustbins. As near as she could tell, he was in early middle age, and even without getting too close, she could see that the back of his head was a real mess. He was dressed only in his underpants and vest, and, despite the fact there’d been no rain, the vest was soaked.

  ‘What happened to the vest?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wellbeloved replied, though it was obvious that he did. ‘Maybe you could explain it, Mr Grimshaw.’

  He was talking to a little old man in a cloth cap, who was standing just beyond the circle of light around the body.

  ‘Well, it’s like this,’ the old man began, nervously licking his lips. ‘I was on my way home from the George and Dragon when I was suddenly caught a bit short.’ He paused. ‘And the … err … the reason I happened to be coming back from the pub so late was because—’

  ‘Because there’d been a lock-in,’ Beresford interrupted him. ‘We’re conducting a murder inquiry here, Mr Grimshaw, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Yes, I … err …’

  ‘And because we’re conducting a murder inquiry, we’ve absolutely no interest at all in prosecuting the landlord of the George and Dragon for serving a few drinks after hours.’

  ‘Right,’ said Grimshaw, looking relieved. ‘Anyway, as I said, I was caught a bit short. I did go to
the toilet before I left the pub, but my bladder’s not what it used to be and—’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Wellbeloved said impatiently.

  ‘I could have had a pee on the High Street – it was nearly one o’clock, and there was nobody around – but I thought, no, that’s not really very salubrious, so I came down this alley.’

  ‘And pissed all over our murder victim,’ Wellbeloved said.

  ‘There was no light in the alley,’ Grimshaw explained. ‘I didn’t even know he was there, though I must admit, it didn’t sound as if I was peeing on cobblestones. Anyway, this car came down the High Street – so it was just as well I’d decided not to have a slash there – and as it drew level with the top of the alley, the driver must have realized he was going in the wrong direction, because he slowed down and did one of them three-point turns. The headlights shone down the alley, and that’s when I saw the body.’

  ‘And you phoned us straight away?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘As soon as I’d finished peeing,’ Grimshaw said. ‘Well,’ he added, obviously feeling the need to defend himself, ‘once you’ve started, you can’t stop, can you? And I did turn away, so I wasn’t peeing on him any more.’

  ‘Most considerate of you,’ Wellbeloved said drily.

  ‘Go back up to the top of the alley, and tell the constable on duty there that you need a lift home,’ Beresford said.

  The old man turned to go, then hesitated.

  ‘Will my picture be in the papers?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s more than likely,’ Beresford told him.

  ‘And will it … will it mention how I discovered him? Because if my missus found out that I’d been …’

  ‘We’ll ask the reporters to keep quiet about that bit of the story,’ Beresford promised.

  The old man nodded gratefully, and took his leave. Halfway down the alley, his path crossed that of Dr Shastri, who was coming from the opposite direction.

  Shastri first looked down at the body, and then across the circle of light at Colin Beresford.

  ‘Where’s DCI …?’ she began, making the same mistake as Meadows earlier, but in her case starting to put it into words, and only pulling back in the nick of time.