The Red Herring Read online

  ‘No, sir,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Dr Pierson studied medicine at Manchester University.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Horrocks agreed. He swung his gaze back on Tooley. ‘I like you Americans. I really do. But it does annoy me a little when you seem to assume that we’re all straw-sucking yokels over here on this side of the pond. The police doctor – who studied medicine at the University of Manchester – tells me in his report that Miss Beale had sexual intercourse, and I’m inclined to believe him. Now – and I hope you can follow this argument – since she was with you for most of the evening, I’ve drawn the conclusion that you were her partner in this little diversion. Are you telling me that you weren’t?’

  Tooley’s skin had started to turn crimson. He glanced – but only briefly – at Paniatowski, then said, ‘Does she have to be here?’

  ‘Captain Tooley, like the true Southern gentleman he is, wants to save you from any embarrassment,’ Horrocks told Paniatowski. ‘Are you embarrassed, Sergeant?’

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ Paniatowski replied.

  ‘Then I think you may as well stay.’

  ‘If she doesn’t leave right now, I’m not saying any more,’ Tooley said defiantly.

  ‘That’s entirely your choice, Captain Tooley,’ Horrocks said easily. ‘By the way, where is your car – or perhaps I should say where is your automobile, since you’re one of our colonial cousins?’

  ‘It’s parked outside my house,’ Tooley replied, puzzled. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘Just so the boffins I bring down here from the forensic lab will know where to find it.’

  Tooley’s Adam’s apple went completely out of control. ‘You’re . . . you’re going to . . .’ he gasped.

  ‘It’s a messy, sticky job, sexual intercourse,’ Horrocks said. ‘Without going into the unpleasant biological details, it shouldn’t take us long to establish whether or not anything happened in your vehicle the night before last.’

  ‘I . . . I . . . never meant to do it that night,’ Tooley said. ‘I only agreed to go out with her one last time so that I could tell her I was never going to see her again. But then the Devil entered my loins and I . . .’

  ‘And you screwed her something rotten on the back seat of your car,’ Horrocks said, signs of his earlier bonhomie now completely absent. ‘Tell me, do you make something of a habit of slaking your lust on unmarried foreign females, Captain Tooley?’

  ‘No,’ the airman said shakily. ‘She . . . she was the only one I’ve ever been unfaithful with. But it wasn’t all my fault. She led me on.’

  ‘She led him on!’ Horrocks said disbelievingly to Monika Paniatowski. ‘She caught one glimpse of his magnificent masculine body,’ he continued, running his eyes up and down Tooley’s thin frame, ‘and somehow she just couldn’t control herself.’

  ‘It’s true!’ Tooley protested. ‘She made all the running . . . and . . . and I wasn’t the only one who––’

  ‘You’re saying she had other lovers?’ Horrocks demanded, swooping in like a hawk on its prey.

  Tooley nodded. ‘That’s why I was going to break it off. As long as I thought she really loved me, I could just about bear the guilt, but when I started hearing the stories about her . . .’

  ‘Let’s get back to you, shall we?’ Horrocks suggested, as if the subject of Verity Beale’s sexual activities had already started to bore him. ‘In September 1954, while on leave from the Air Force in your home state of Mississippi, you were arrested by Jackson City Police. Isn’t that right?’

  Now where the bloody hell did that piece of obscure information come from? Paniatowski wondered.

  Tooley looked as amazed as Paniatowski did. ‘How did you know––?’ he began.

  ‘It is true, isn’t it?’

  ‘I was arrested, but I was never charged.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ Horrocks agreed. ‘If you’d been charged, the incident would have found its way on to your service record. And it hasn’t. So none of your superiors know about it – yet!’

  ‘I demand to know––’

  ‘In your position, I don’t think I’d try demanding anything,’ Horrocks said harshly. ‘In your position, I think I’d simply tell the nice British policeman everything he wants to know, and pray that he decided to keep his mouth shut about my dubious past.’

  ‘I . . . what do you want me to say?’

  ‘I want you to tell me, in your own words, what you did to get yourself arrested.’

  ‘Back in ’54, the US Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional,’ Tooley said resignedly. ‘The voters of Mississippi decided that if there was no other way to keep the negroes out of white state schools, they’d abolish the school system altogether. Don’t you think that’s insane?’

  ‘Insanity is sometimes a very difficult thing to define precisely,’ Horrocks said.

  ‘Well, it certainly seemed crazy to me. Not only were they going to deny the negro kids the chance they deserved, but they were going to take the opportunity away from the poor white kids, as well,’ Tooley said passionately. ‘It was wrong, so very, very wrong.’

  ‘So you decided to picket the state capital,’ Horrocks said, unmoved. ‘Not on your own, of course.’ He laughed, dryly. ‘No, you were just a small part of quite a large group of troublemakers.’

  ‘Troublemakers!’ Tooley repeated incredulously. ‘We weren’t troublemakers! We were just ordinary folks protesting over something we thought was unchristian.’

  ‘Who organised you?’

  ‘It was mainly people from my local church.’

  Horrocks laughed dismissively. ‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ he agreed. ‘On the surface! But who was really behind it? Who was pulling the strings? Was it, by any quirk of fate, the Communist Party?’

  ‘This is crazy!’ Tooley said.

  ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party yourself, Captain Tooley?’ Horrocks asked.

  ‘No, I––’

  ‘So you’re just what they call a “fellow traveller”, are you?’

  ‘Not even that. Like I said, we were only––’

  ‘You look like you’re wilting a bit, Monika,’ Horrocks said suddenly to Paniatowski. ‘Go and find the American equivalent of the NAAFI, and get yourself a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea?’ Paniatowski repeated.

  ‘That’s right. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Brown leaves. Come from India. Just add hot water and they turn into a refreshing drink.’

  ‘But I thought . . .’

  ‘Don’t think, there’s a good girl – just see if you can find us some tea,’ Horrocks said pleasantly.

  Nineteen

  Making their way up the path which led to Squadron Leader Dunn’s door, Woodend and Rutter looked rough – looked, in fact, like two men who had spent most of the night involved in a heated argument. Which they had.

  ‘Whoever took Helen’s pencil case must have had access to her classroom,’ Woodend had said. ‘That means the kidnapper has to be one of the staff. And whoever he is, I want to be alone in an interrogation room with him. Now!’

  ‘There must be sixty teachers at Eddie’s,’ Rutter protested. ‘Maybe even more!’

  ‘It won’t take me more than a couple of minutes with most of them to work out whether or not they have anything to do with it,’ Woodend had argued. ‘That’ll leave only three or four with question marks over them. An’ after half an hour with each of them, I’ll know which one it is who took the poor little kiddie.’

  ‘So you’re seriously expecting over sixty teachers – professional men who’ve never had any trouble with the law before, and can probably be really bloody-minded about their rights when they want to be – to voluntarily agree to come to the station in the middle of the night and submit to an interrogation?’ Rutter had asked.

  ‘If they won’t come voluntarily, we’ll arrest the buggers. Christ, they should be glad enough to be put to a little inconvenience if it means that we catc
h the kill–– . . . the kidnapper.’

  ‘You almost said killer,’ Rutter pointed out.

  ‘It was a slip of the tongue,’ Woodend countered.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Rutter said firmly.

  ‘All right, whatever that nutter said to me on the phone tonight, it’s more than likely she’s already dead,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But there’s just a chance she isn’t, an’ I can’t let that chance slip by.’

  ‘Even if it means dozens of complaints on Ainsworth’s desk in the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even if it costs you your job?’

  ‘Even then.’

  ‘And what if it wasn’t one of the teachers who took the pencil case at all?’ Rutter had argued desperately. ‘What if it was one of the cleaners? What if it was one of the lads, doing it on the instructions of an older brother? Do you know if there were any problems with the plumbing at the school that morning? I don’t. But maybe there were – and maybe one of the plumbers took the pencil case!’

  Woodend had finally bowed his head in defeat. ‘All right, how do you want to handle it?’ he asked.

  ‘We go and see the Dunns tomorrow morning and ask them if there was any teacher who showed a special interest in Helen. Or if there was any teacher she talked about more than she talked about the others. Then we get them alone, produce the pencil case, and see how they react.’

  ‘It’s not a great plan, is it?’ Woodend had asked.

  ‘No, but it’s a lot less insane than yours,’ Rutter had countered.

  They reached the front door, and Bob Rutter knocked. It was Dunn himself who answered. His appearance shocked them both – but not for the reasons that either of them might have anticipated.

  They looked like wrecks. He did not.

  There was no evidence written on Dunn’s face that the man had started to go to pieces, as most fathers would have in his situation. His eyes were not red through lack of sleep or excess of alcohol. He had shaved – probably no more than an hour earlier. And his shoulders had not acquired the slump of defeat which the shoulders of so many men who had lost their children naturally adopted.

  It was probably his military training which was carrying him through the dreadful experience, Woodend thought. The squadron leader was maintaining a stiff upper lip on the surface, but underneath the poor bugger was probably all churned up.

  ‘Has there been a development in the investigation?’ Dunn asked abruptly.

  ‘We’re not sure, sir,’ Woodend admitted. ‘Would you mind if we came inside for a couple of minutes?’

  Dunn shifted his weight slightly, effectively blocking the doorway to the two policemen.

  ‘Can’t you say what you have to say out here?’ he asked.

  ‘It might be easier if––’

  ‘I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but my wife’s inside, and I don’t want her any more upset than she already is.’

  ‘We have something that we think you’d both better look at,’ Bob Rutter said.

  ‘Whatever it is, there’s probably no need for Margaret to see it as well as me, and I’m perfectly capable of examining it here,’ Dunn replied firmly.

  Rutter looked at Woodend for guidance, and when the chief inspector nodded he reached into the evidence bag he was carrying, and produced the green tartan pencil case.

  ‘Yes, that’s Helen’s,’ Dunn said dully. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘You’re sure it’s hers?’ Woodend asked. ‘You haven’t even looked inside it yet.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know my own daughter’s equipment when I see it?’ Dunn snapped.

  ‘Hand it over to the squadron leader, anyway,’ Woodend told Rutter. ‘It won’t do any harm for him to give it a closer inspection.’

  Rutter passed the pencil case to Dunn. The squadron leader flipped it open, and gave the inside a cursory glance.

  ‘As I said, it’s Helen’s,’ he said. ‘I should have thought that would have been obvious to you, since her name’s written inside it. Are you going to tell me how it came into your hands?’

  ‘We believe the kidnapper left it for us to find,’ Woodend said. ‘What I don’t quite understand is how he got hold of it in the first place – and we think that’s where you might be able to help us.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not following you,’ the squadron leader said, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  ‘We know from the people we’ve talked to at the school that the last place Helen was seen was in the playground,’ Woodend explained. ‘Now since the pencil case was, presumably, in her desk––’

  ‘Why should you presume that?’ Dunn demanded.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I presume it?’

  ‘I’ve always taught my daughters . . . I’ve always taught Helen . . . to take care of her own property. I’ve always made it clear to her that if she lost something, I would consider it to be more a result of her own carelessness than the dishonesty of others – because others simply can’t be dishonest if you don’t give them the chance to be.’

  ‘That seems rather harsh,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Life is harsh,’ Dunn told him. ‘Most of Helen’s education has been at service schools – I wanted to send her away to a private school as a boarder, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it – and many of the children she’s been forced to rub shoulders with have not always been the most trustworthy.’

  ‘You mean, a lot of them were the children of “other ranks”,’ Woodend said, disapprovingly.

  ‘If you wish to put it like that, then yes, I suppose that is what I mean,’ Dunn said unapologetically. ‘Though the RAF fares a little better in this respect than the other services, there are still only two classes of men in the armed forces – those who give the orders and those who would be completely lost without firm discipline being imposed on them. Can you really expect the children to behave any differently to their parents?’

  ‘Nice view of human nature, you have,’ Woodend said. ‘So you’re sayin’ that Helen probably had her pencil case with her in the playground?’

  ‘I would be very surprised indeed if she hadn’t.’

  ‘Tell me about your other daughter, Squadron Leader,’ Woodend said. ‘The one who died.’

  ‘I know which one you mean without any amplification,’ Dunn said coldly. ‘And I completely fail see what her death could possibly have to do with Helen’s disappearance.’

  ‘You wouldn’t see, not bein’ a trained policeman,’ Woodend told him, equally frostily.

  ‘If you could just explain––’

  ‘All right,’ Woodend agreed. ‘I’m under no obligation to, but I will. I’m not interested in your other daughter’s death in itself, only for the effect it might have on Helen. I’m tryin’ to get inside her head, you see – tryin’ to understand what might have motivated her to act as she did.’

  ‘I don’t see why that is necessary,’ Dunn said. ‘It’s not as if Helen asked to be kidnapped, is it?’

  ‘No, but it’s highly unlikely that the kidnapper snatched her from the playground,’ Woodend said. ‘The other kids would have noticed if he had. So she played at least a small part in the process – she went to him, rather than him comin’ to her – an’ I’m tryin’ to work out what made her do that.’

  ‘And you think my elder daughter’s death––?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Woodend admitted. ‘I’m just gropin’ around here, tryin’ to find somethin’ which might help me. An’ your elder daughter’s death is as good a place to start as any. Now, normally, I wouldn’t be as blunt with people as I’m bein’ with you, but you seem to me to be the kind of feller whose shoulders are broad enough to take the pressure.’

  Dunn nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Helen was naturally shocked when Janice was drowned – more than shocked. But she pulled herself out of it very quickly – just I would have expected her to – because she saw her duty as clearly as I saw mine.’

  ‘Her duty?’

  ‘Helen’s mother h
as never been a strong woman. Normal life is hard enough for her to get through, without her burden being increased by a family tragedy. She would have gone completely to pieces after Janice died if it hadn’t been for the support that Helen and I gave her. And I have to admit that Helen has been magnificent throughout the whole affair. She has tried her utmost not only to be the best daughter she can be, but also to fill the space left by Janice as well. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Yes,’ Woodend said pensively. ‘I think it does.’

  ‘Do you have any more questions?’

  ‘Just the one,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘When you answered the door just now, the first thing I expected you to ask me was whether I’d found your daughter. But you didn’t do that – an’ I’m wonderin’ why.’

  ‘You’d have been happier if I’d chosen to behave completely irrationally, would you?’ Dunn asked.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I’m a pilot. I’m trained to assess crisis situations, and to react instantly. When I saw you at the door, I could tell immediately that you didn’t have good news to bring me – or any tragic news, either – so what would have been the point in wasting time by asking you if you did?’

  ‘No point at all,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But most men would have done, anyway.’

  ‘I’m not most men.’

  ‘No,’ Woodend said pensively. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘What was the name of that German inspector who helped us out on the Westbury Park case?’ Woodend asked Rutter as they drove back to police headquarters.

  ‘Kohl. Hans Kohl.’

  ‘You got on well with him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Very well. He’s a good bobby.’

  ‘An’ do you still keep in touch with him?’

  Rutter shrugged. ‘Sort of. We exchange Christmas cards, and he sent Maria some flowers when Lindie was born. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Get in touch with him,’ Woodend said. ‘Ask him to see what he can find out about Janice Dunn’s death.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Not that particular,’ Woodend admitted. ‘I’m just tryin’ to build a better picture of the whole situation. With any other case, I’d probably have relied on whatever the parents told me, but tryin’ to get any information out of Squadron Leader Dunn is like tryin’ to squeeze blood from a stone.’