Golden Mile to Murder Page 12

  It was the building between lighthouse and pier which took her by surprise. For a start, it was four stories high, which made it much taller than any of the other structures in the vicinity. Then there was its shape – it was built in a crescent, rather then being square or oblong. It seemed to the sergeant to be altogether far too grand to be in a place like Fleetwood and judging from the name spelt out in individual letters along its frontage – The Palace Hotel – that was an opinion its owners shared with her.

  Monika stopped to light a cigarette. The hotel was nothing more than a monument to unfulfilled hopes, she thought. Yet despite the fact that Fleetwood had never become the swish resort the builders had anticipated, the Palace was still there – still doing business. How had it managed to survive after it had become clear that there would never be enough holidaymakers – and certainly not the right kind of holidaymakers – to fill up all its rooms?

  A triumphant smile found its way to her lips. It was obvious, she told herself – there was only one way it could have survived.

  Sixteen

  It simply wasn’t in the nature of Northern males to have a fuss made over them, even when they were no longer around to see it for themselves, Woodend thought – which was why he hated men’s funerals in general and the idea of his own in particular. And a funeral of a police officer was even worse than most.

  All those uniforms!

  All that pomp and ceremony!

  It was enough to make a corpse cringe, and he hoped that when his time came, Joan would have him popped into the ground with as little bother as possible.

  Still, full-blown funerals like this one did serve a function, he admitted as he stood in a corner of Blackpool’s Layton Cemetery – even if that function was only to help those left behind to come to terms with death. And perhaps, especially in a case like that of Detective Sergeant William Davies – a man cut down in his prime – the family needed to be assured that his contribution had been appreciated and his presence would be missed.

  You’re thinkin’ too much, Charlie, he told himself.

  That was another thing about funerals – they made you think too bloody much.

  The funeral cortège was approaching – a coffin carried shoulder-high by officers in full dress uniform, and followed by a sea of navy-blue serge interspersed with islands of grey and black, which denoted the civilian mourners. The Blackpool police must have galloped through the forensics and all the other formalities in order to make this happen so quickly, Woodend thought. Maybe they’d done that out of respect for the family, too. But there was at least a part of him which couldn’t help seeing the whole thing as an unseemly rush – which couldn’t help wondering whether the hurried funeral was any more than one part of a process aimed at getting Davies buried and forgotten as quickly as possible.

  Wishing he could light up a cigarette, he moved a little closer to the hole in the ground which was to be Punch Davies’ last resting-place. The widow took up her position next to the grave. She was wearing a black dress with a veil. Standing beside her were her two children. The boy, who looked around eleven years old, was unnaturally pale, and was gripping his mother’s right hand tightly. The girl, by contrast, had a vacuous look on her face, as if – as far as she were concerned – it didn’t matter whether she was here or in some other place entirely. Her hand was in her mother’s, too, but in this case it was Edna Davies who was maintaining a tight grip.

  Though he was too far away to hear the actual words distinctly, Woodend could see the vicar’s lips moving, and knew that the service had begun. He turned his attention back to the widow and her children. The girl – Susan – was gazing uncomprehendingly at what was happening in front of her. On the other hand, the boy – Peter, was it? – seemed to be becoming increasingly agitated.

  Woodend watched in fascination as the pale child tugged at this mother’s arm, seeking – no, more like, demanding – attention. The widow finally gave way, bending her head so that the boy could whisper something in her ear. She nodded. The boy spoke again, and this time she shook her head. Peter’s agitation was, if anything, increasing. He was pulling so hard now that his mother was in danger of overbalancing.

  The boy broke free. His mother stood there uncertainly. She had a husband to bury, a retarded daughter to look after, and a wayward son to control. She couldn’t do all three, and when the boy took a couple of steps backwards, cannoning into those people standing behind him, she could do nothing more than shrug helplessly.

  Peter disappeared into the forest of adult legs. Poor little bugger, Woodend thought, it had obviously been too much for him. He could only hope that one of the adults attending the funeral had the presence of mind to try to calm the child down.

  Peter appeared again at the very edge of the half-circle of mourners. He was crying, but there was a determined expression on his face, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. He began to move quickly, cutting a wide arc around the funeral party and heading in Woodend’s direction. It was perhaps thirty seconds before the chief inspector realised that the child was not just heading in his direction – he was making directly for him.

  Another fifteen seconds and they stood facing each other – the big policeman and frail, pallid boy.

  ‘My mummy says you’re the man who’s going to catch the man who killed my daddy,’ Peter said, without preamble.

  Going to catch! By God, what it was to be young, Woodend thought – to believe that right would always prevail.

  He crouched down, so that his eyes were at the same level as the boy’s. ‘I’m certainly lookin’ for him,’ he said softly.

  ‘He’s a very bad man,’ Peter replied, as if he expected that would make Woodend’s task easier.

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Woodend agreed.

  The boy cocked his head to one side, as though he was looking at Woodend as a person for the first time.

  ‘Do you have any children?’ he asked.

  ‘One,’ Woodend told him. ‘A girl. But she’s a bit older than you.’

  ‘A girl,’ Peter repeated in disgusts. ‘Girls are soppy. Why couldn’t you have a boy?’

  ‘She’s what the stork brought me,’ Woodend said. ‘And I love her very much.’

  ‘My daddy loved me,’ the boy said defiantly.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Woodend agreed. ‘He still loves you, even though he’s in Heaven. And you still love him too, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ the boy said seriously. ‘I still love him. My daddy did a very bad thing once, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But he was still a very good daddy!’

  Woodend became aware of another person – a woman who looked like a younger version of Peter’s mother – standing a few feet away from them.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, not quite sure yet whether she ought to be suspicious or grateful.

  ‘Chief Inspector Woodend. And you’d be Peter’s auntie?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the woman agreed.

  ‘Peter and I have been havin’ a nice little talk,’ Woodend told her, ‘but I think it’s time he went back to his mummy and sister.’ He reached into his pocket and extracted two half-crowns. ‘Here you are,’ he said, holding them out to the boy. ‘Buy yourself some sweets when you get home.’

  Peter looked up questioningly at his aunt, and, when she nodded, he extended his arm, like a well-mannered little boy, so that Woodend could drop the coins into the palm of his hand.

  ‘Say thank you,’ the aunt ordered.

  ‘Thank you,’ Peter said dutifully.

  ‘And I’d like to thank you, too,’ the aunt said.

  Woodend shrugged awkwardly. ‘I didn’t do anythin’,’ he told her. ‘Like I said, me an’ Peter were just havin’ a nice little chat.’

  The aunt put her hand on Peter’s shoulder, and shepherded him, unprotesting, back towards the open grave.

  Woodend straightened up. ‘My daddy did a very bad thing once . . . but he was still a very good daddy,’ h
e said softly to himself.

  ‘Sir,’ called a voice to his left.

  Woodend turned to see Sergeant Hanson standing there.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here, sir,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Oh aye? An’ why should you have thought that?’

  ‘Because if I’d been in charge of the investigation, it’s where I would have been.’

  Hanson was a good bobby, Woodend thought – his kind of bobby.

  ‘Why didn’t you attend the funeral?’ he asked the sergeant. ‘Didn’t you want to pay your last respects to Inspector Davies?’

  ‘I did consider coming,’ Hanson admitted, ‘but it seemed me that the best way to show my respect to Billy was to do all I could to catch the man who killed him.’

  ‘An’ are you getting’ anywhere?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘It’s too early to say for sure, sir,’ Hanson told him. ‘But I think I might finally have come up with a good lead.’

  Seventeen

  The lobby of the Palace Hotel, Fleetwood, was in a different world to the entrance hall of the Sea View boarding house in Blackpool. There was no danger in the Palace of new arrivals barking their shins against their suitcases as they bent over to sign the guest book. The lobby was a celebration of space. Its front desk would have more than filled Monika Paniatowski’s living-room. It had polished wooden floors and a jungle of palms sitting complacently in brass pots on top of delicate inlaid tables. Yet for all its pretensions, the sergeant noted, its grandeur had a faded edge to it – the leather sofas showing distinct signs of cracking, the wood panelling crying out for a little maintenance.

  Paniatowski walked over to the desk. Behind it stood no harridan who looked as if she would measure the soap to see if the guests were washing too much, but a pleasant young man in a grey suit and grey and silver checked tie.

  The young man looked up from the ledger which he’d been studying, and gave Paniatowski a smile which was more practised than welcoming.

  ‘How can I help you, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘Police,’ Paniatowski replied, producing her warrant card. ‘I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?’

  As if a switch had been clicked in the back of his head, the young man’s smile evaporated, and he was suddenly very guarded. ‘What kind of questions, exactly?’ he asked.

  ‘Routine questions,’ Paniatowski replied, deadpan.

  ‘Is this about the night of the hit-and-run accident in town?’

  ‘It might be. And what if it is?’

  ‘Well, then you’re wasting your time. We’ve already had a policeman here asking questions about that.’

  ‘Inspector Davies?’

  ‘Inspector Davies? The officer who was murdered?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t him. It was a detective sergeant. I think his name was Howarth.’

  Ah, Sergeant Howarth – Blackpool’s answer to the wet sponge! Paniatowski thought.

  ‘What exactly did the good sergeant want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘If we’d catered a function on the night of the accident.’

  ‘And had you?’

  The clerk smirked. ‘We cater functions most nights of the week. We have quite a reputation. People come from all over the North West to attend them.’

  Paniatowski slipped a cigarette into her mouth, and looked expectantly at the counter clerk. He gaped at her for a second, then produced a lighter from his pocket and flicked it open.

  ‘Thank you,’ Monika said, inhaling deeply. ‘Now what’s the answer to my question?’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Whose “do” were you catering on the night of the accident?’

  ‘I’ll have to check,’ the receptionist told her.

  He reached under the counter and produced an old, leather-bound ledger. Laying it out grandly in front of him, he opened it at the bookmark and ran his index finger down a column which had been filled in with tight handwriting.

  ‘This shouldn’t take a minute,’ he said, looking up at her.

  It shouldn’t take any time at all, Paniatowski thought. The man had already given this information to Sergeant Howarth, and that was not something he’d be likely to forget.

  ‘Ah, here it is,’ the clerk said unconvincingly. ‘Last Thursday we catered a function for the Golden Mile Association.’

  ‘And who might they be?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘People who’ve got businesses on the Golden Mile?’

  The receptionist laughed, deprecatingly. ‘Oh dear me, no. The Golden Milers – as we call them – are all very prominent figures in the community. The Mayor of Blackpool himself is their honorary president.’

  ‘And what exactly do they do?’

  ‘Exchange ideas about how Blackpool can be improved. Raise money for various charities. That kind of thing.’

  ‘I see,’ Paniatowski said thoughtfully. ‘Were you on duty that particular night?’

  ‘I was, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So you’ll know what time this “do” of theirs broke up?’

  ‘The bar was open until eleven.’

  ‘But they didn’t leave at eleven, did they?’

  ‘Some did,’ the receptionist said evasively. ‘Most of them, in fact.’

  ‘But not all?’

  ‘I’ve already told all this to Sergeant Howarth.’

  ‘So there’s no harm in telling it again – to me. You were saying that not all the guests left when the bar closed at eleven.’

  The receptionist shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like when you get a group of good friends together. It seems a pity to break up the party, and they take their time to get moving.’

  ‘So some of them could have left much closer to midnight?’

  The receptionist stuck his jaw out. ‘No, they’d all gone well before that,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘I’d like to see a guest list for the Golden Milers’ function,’ Paniatowski told him.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you one.’

  ‘Because it doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Because I’d need the manager’s permission to do that.’

  Paniatowski picked up the receiver off the telephone cradle and handed it to the receptionist. ‘Then get his permission,’ she suggested.

  With a great show of reluctance, the receptionist took the receiver from her with his left hand, and dialled a single number with his right.

  ‘We have a detective sergeant in the lobby,’ he said. ‘No, not from here. From Whitebridge. She wants to see a list of people who attended the Golden Mile Association function . . . Yes, that’s right . . . She seems adamant . . . Yes, I’ll do that.’ He placed the phone back on its cradle, and stepped from behind the counter. ‘Wait here a moment, please,’ he told Paniatowski.

  Then he scuttled off through the lounge like a man with a great deal on his mind.

  The manager of the Grand Hotel had grey hair, a large nose and horsy teeth. He could have passed – in poor light – for a diplomat or the chairman of a large company, Paniatowski thought. He had been sitting at a large mahogany table when she entered the room, an ideal position from which to spring gallantly to his feet and shake her hand.

  There were two straight-backed chairs facing the manager’s table, but instead of inviting her to sit in one of them, he waved her to the other side of the room, where two armchairs stood, one each side of a coffee table.

  Paniatowski took one of the armchairs, and the manager the other. The manager crossed his legs, and placed his clasped hands over the upper knee. Paniatowski found herself disliking the gesture almost as much as she instinctively disliked the man.

  ‘Would you care for something to drink, Sergeant?’ the manager asked. ‘A pot of tea?’ He winked. ‘Or perhaps something a little stronger?’

  Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

  The manager guffawed. ‘You’re the first detective I’ve ever met who turned down a drop of the hard stuff,’ he said. ‘Maybe tha
t’s because you’re the first lady detective I’ve ever met.’

  Paniatowski looked down at the oriental rug in front of her chair, and wondered how difficult it would be to clean if she vomited all over it.

  ‘Your receptionist tells me he needs your permission to hand over guest lists,’ she said.

  ‘Quite right,’ the manager agreed. ‘He was doing no more than his job.’

  ‘But I take it you have no objection to giving that permission.’

  The manager favoured her with what he probably considered an endearingly perplexed frown.

  ‘I gave Sergeant Howarth a list, and he has already used it to eliminate everyone who was here that night,’ he said, avoiding answering the question directly.

  ‘And how do you imagine he was able to do that?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Oh, it shouldn’t have been too difficult,’ the manager replied. ‘Given the time of the accident, anyone who left before eleven-thirty should be in the clear, shouldn’t they?’

  ‘Probably,’ Paniatowski agreed reluctantly.

  ‘And of the minority who were still here after that, most had chauffeurs to take them home.’

  ‘But some didn’t?’

  ‘There were a few who drove themselves.’

  ‘Or got their wives to do it?’

  ‘Ah . . . no. You see, this was a gentlemen-only evening – a short break from the pleasures of domestic bliss.’

  ‘So we’re still left with a few of them who could have been travelling down Blakiston Road at the time of the accident,’ Paniatowski persisted.

  ‘No. As I think Robert at the desk may already have told you, all the guests left well before midnight. Besides, they’re all respected members of the community, and if they’d seen anything, I’m sure they would have reported it.’

  Paniatowski looked the manager squarely in the eyes. ‘If Sergeant Howarth has a list, why won’t you give me one?’ she asked.

  ‘Sergeant Howarth is a local policeman, and therefore sensitive to . . . err . . . the local situation. I was sure he’d handle the information I gave him in the proper manner.’