Death Watch Page 14

  The ambulance men lifted the corpse onto a stretcher, and when they’d removed it, the constable shepherded the two boys forward.

  One of the boys was around nine years old, the other one closer to eleven, Woodend guessed. They had thin pale faces, and runny noses. It was a long time since the clothes they were wearing had been new, and now they were almost threadbare. Both boys were shivering, but the chief inspector soon decided that it was not the cold which was having such an effect on them – though the cold was certainly bad enough – it was being ushered into the frightening presence of the big stranger in the hairy sports jacket.

  Woodend forced a smile to his lips. ‘You look as though you think you might be in some kind of trouble,’ he said. ‘Well, you’re not. It’s not every lad who would have reported what he’d found, like you two did. There’s many that would have just run away an’ tried to forget it. So you’ve been very brave. In fact, I think both of you deserve a medal for what you’ve done.’

  The boys nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you, mister,’ the older one said.

  ‘What’s your names?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I’m Pete, an’ this is Brian,’ the bigger boy said.

  ‘An’ what were you doin’ here, on this path?’

  ‘Dad said he’d had a bit of luck on the horses today, an’ he was goin’ to treat us to fish an’ chips,’ Pete told him. ‘This is the quickest way to the chip shop from our house.’

  That would certainly explain the flattened chips on the ground around the body, Woodend thought.

  ‘And how did you happen to find the … the girl?’

  ‘Brian … Brian fell over her,’ Pete mumbled.

  ‘It was dark!’ his brother said, as if he still felt he needed to find an excuse for making the discovery. ‘I didn’t see her.’

  ‘Was it dark when you went to the chip shop?’ Woodend asked.

  Pete shook his head. ‘No, but it was startin’ to go dark.’

  ‘If she’d been here on your way there, you’d have seen her, wouldn’t you?’ Woodend said.

  ‘Couldn’t have missed her,’ Pete replied.

  ‘An’ how much later was it that you came back?’

  ‘Hours,’ Brian said. ‘Hours an’ hours.’

  His brother grinned. ‘About fifteen minutes,’ he told Woodend.

  Not long, the chief inspector thought. But long enough.

  ‘Did you notice anybody strange hangin’ about when you were on your way to the chip shop?’ he asked.

  The boys thought about it.

  ‘No people,’ Pete said finally.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘There was a car parked over there,’ Pete said, pointing towards the kerb at the edge of waste land.

  ‘An’ was anyone inside it?’

  ‘Yes, there was a man inside. He was smokin’ a cigarette. You could see it glowin’.’

  ‘What did he look like, this man?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was he as old as me, do you think? Or was he younger, a bit closer in age to the gentleman standing next to me,’ Woodend said, pointing to Bob Rutter.

  Pete shrugged his thin shoulders helplessly. ‘Like I said, it was nearly dark, mister. I couldn’t really see.’

  ‘Do you know what kind of car it was? Was it like the one that your dad drives?’

  Pete giggled. ‘Dad doesn’t have a car. He says that honest workin’ men like him—’

  ‘Our dad doesn’t work,’ Brian interrupted.

  ‘… that honest workin’ men like him can’t afford such a grand luxury,’ Pete continued, ignoring his younger brother’s naive honesty. ‘He says we’ll all have to wait till the revolution comes before we get to drive around in big cars like the bloated boor … bour …’

  ‘Bourgeoisie?’ Rutter supplied.

  ‘That’s right,’ Pete agreed. ‘Boor-jw-zee.’

  If Pete had been a doctor’s or a dentist’s son, he’d have known about cars, right enough, Woodend thought – would have been counting down the years before he was behind the wheel of one himself. But why should these kids take an interest in something they’d been told by their own father that they’d never have any chance of owning themselves?

  ‘What colour was this car?’ he asked.

  ‘I think it was brown,’ Pete said dubiously. ‘Or it might have been black. Or dark blue.’

  ‘How big was it?’

  ‘Not too big, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do.’

  ‘But not too small, neither. To tell you the truth, mister, I didn’t really notice.’

  It was hopeless, Woodend thought. He was never going to get a decent description out of these kids.

  He closed his eyes and pictured the scene as it must have been an hour earlier.

  The boys cross the waste land. They are hurrying – because fish and chips is such a feast to them that they can already taste it.

  In the car – which may be brown, black, or blue – the man sits, smoking a cigarette and watching them. He waits a while once they’ve gone – to give the boys plenty of time to get away from the area, and to allow darkness to fall – then gets out of his vehicle and walks around to the boot. He does it in leisurely manner, as if he hasn’t got a care in the world, because it is always possible that someone is watching him, and he doesn’t want to raise their suspicions.

  Once he is at the back of the car, he removes his key from his pocket, and looks carefully around him. There is nobody there. He’s not really surprised at this. In the houses which surround the waste land, the television will be churning out its usual mindless pap, so why should anybody be out on the street?

  He knows that the next part of his plan must be carried out quickly, so he takes a deep breath before opening the boot.

  The dead girl is inside it. Perhaps he has wrapped her in a carpet or tarpaulin, on the off-chance that he will encounter someone before he has time to dump the body. Or perhaps she is as naked and vulnerable as she was when Pete and Brian found her.

  He picks her up and throws her over this shoulder, then walks quickly towards the rough path. Ten or twelve steps, and he is halfway across the waste land. He drops the girl unceremoniously – for why should he be gentle with her now, after all that he has done to her in the previous few hours? – turns, and trots back to his vehicle. Once inside the car, the man inserts his key in the ignition, fires up the engine, and drives away.

  The whole operation has taken just a couple of minutes.

  Why do you keep calling him ‘the man’, Charlie? Woodend found he was asking himself, as he lit up a cigarette with shaking hands. Because he wasn’t just ‘the man’, was he? He was the killer!

  Which meant – because it simply had to mean – that the other man, the man he’d got locked up in a cell at headquarters and who he’d been convinced was responsible for all this, couldn’t be the killer at all!

  Fifteen

  There was a layer of ice on the puddles in front of the morgue, and several sets of tyre-skid marks were clearly visible in the thick frost which had settled overnight.

  Woodend had woken up shivering, that first morning after the discovery of the body, but – as in the case of the boys the previous night – he doubted it had much to do with the external temperature.

  His coldness was deep, deep inside him.

  Cold anger.

  Or perhaps cold sorrow.

  Dr Shastri was waiting for him in her lab. She looked totally exhausted, and did not even attempt to summon up one of her customary cheery greetings.

  ‘This is a very bad business, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘A very bad business indeed.’

  ‘It is,’ Woodend agreed. ‘What can you tell me about the body?’

  ‘The direct cause of death was suffocation,’ the doctor said flatly. ‘But before she died, the poor child was tortured in a most horrible and merciless manner. I counted a hundred and twenty-seven wounds on her broken body, and most of them
were inflicted pre-mortem.’

  ‘When did she die?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Since she was abandoned naked, on cold ground, and while the temperature was dropping, it is difficult to pinpoint the time with any great deal of accuracy,’ the doctor said.

  ‘So what’s your best guess?’

  ‘Some time between four and six o’clock yesterday afternoon.’

  In other words, somewhere between half an hour and two and a half hours before her body was dumped, Woodend calculated.

  ‘I’m surprised the killer suffocated her,’ he said.

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Because suffocation’s a relatively painless death, an’ this whole thing was about makin’ her suffer.’

  ‘You have a point,’ Dr Shastri agreed.

  ‘How many of the wounds were made post-mortem?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘As nearly as I can tell, around thirty of them.’

  ‘An’ that puzzles me too,’ Woodend admitted. ‘Surely he would have got more pleasure out of inflictin’ them while she was still alive.’

  ‘Perhaps there is some ritual that he has convinced himself he must follow, and this ritual involves both pre-mortem and post-mortem wounding,’ Dr Shastri suggested. ‘But I am doing no more than speculating here. In truth, I can say very little on the subject, because I am far from being an expert.’

  The phone on the wall rang, and Dr Shastri answered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he is.’ She turned to Woodend. ‘It’s for you. The chief constable.’

  Woodend took the phone from her.

  ‘I’ve been ringing round everywhere, trying to find you,’ the chief constable growled. ‘What are you doing at the morgue?’

  What did he think he was doing at the morgue, Woodend wondered. Shopping for the family groceries? Trying to get a sun tan?

  ‘I’ve been talking to Dr Shastri, sir,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the dead girl.’

  ‘Forget that for now,’ Marlowe told him. ‘I want you back at police headquarters right away. You’re going to meet the press.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m prepared to give them a briefing on the investigation at the moment, sir,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Did I mention a briefing, Chief Inspector?’ Marlowe demanded. ‘Did I even mention your so-called investigation?’

  ‘No, sir, but …’

  ‘This has nothing to do with the investigation at all. You will be reading out a statement to the press that I’ve already drafted for you. You can put it in your own words, but you’ll stick to the spirit of the text or – by God – I’ll have your head on a silver platter.’

  ‘A statement?’ Woodend repeated. ‘What kind of statement?’

  ‘What kind of statement do you think?’ Marlowe asked.

  The maintenance staff at police headquarters had over-compensated for the drop in temperature by turning the heating up to maximum. Now the whole building felt uncomfortably sticky, and this feeling was at its worst in the press room, where the television crews had set up their lighting well in advance of the briefing.

  Woodend stepped onto the podium. He wanted to loosen his tie, but with all those eyes in the room clearly fixed on him – and countless more watching him through the miracle of the goggle box – he knew it would be a mistake.

  He cleared his throat, and stared into the bright lights.

  ‘I would like to make a statement which is only indirectly connected with the cowardly attack on – and subsequent murder of – Angela Jackson,’ he said, noting as he spoke how wooden and hoarse his voice sounded. ‘Some of you will no doubt be aware of the fact that for the greater part of yesterday we had a man in custody, and were questioning him about Angela’s disappearance. That man has since been released.’

  ‘Who is he?’ called out one of the faceless reporters from behind the lights.

  ‘Normally we would not give out that detail, and we are making an exception to the rule in this case only because the individual concerned has requested that we do so,’ Woodend ploughed on. ‘His name is Edgar Brunton, and many of you will know that he has practised as a solicitor in Whitebridge for a number of years.’

  He paused, and looked around the room. Standing at the back, and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of his humiliation, were the chief constable and Superintendent Crawley.

  ‘The reason Mr Brunton wanted his name released was to scotch the rumours that have been circulatin’ around Whitebridge since his arrest,’ Woodend continued. ‘I think it is a wise decision on his part, an’ I would like to make one thing clear as of this minute – I no longer believe that Mr Brunton had anythin’ to do with the dead girl’s abduction. He has assured me he is innocent, an’ I accept that assurance unreservedly.’

  And that’s the truth, the whole truth, an’ nothin’ but the bloody truth, he told himself.

  ‘I would just like to add that I offer my sincere apologies for any distress I have caused to Mr Brunton an’ his family,’ he concluded.

  ‘So who’s the real killer?’ another reporter shouted out.

  ‘I can’t comment on any other details of the investigation at the moment,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Is there still an investigation to comment on?’ a third reporter demanded. ‘Or did you drop all other lines of inquiry the moment you thought you’d caught your man?’

  ‘Of course we didn’t drop all other lines of inquiry,’ Woodend said contemptuously, moving off the prepared script. ‘Durin’ the entire time we were questionin’ Mr Brunton, we were also pursuin’ other leads. An’, in case you’ve forgotten, we were still doing all we could to try an’ return Angela to the safety of her family.’

  ‘In which you failed,’ the reporter countered.

  ‘Like I said, we did all we could – all that was humanly possible.’

  ‘Really?’ the reporter asked. ‘Isn’t it true that a number of officers – quite a large number of officers – were involved in building up the case you were intending to bring against Mr Brunton?’

  ‘Yes, that’s quite true.’

  ‘And wouldn’t they have been better employed in following up leads which could have helped to catch the real killer?’

  ‘You’re talkin’ with the advantage of hindsight,’ Woodend said. ‘The way it looked at the time …’

  ‘Isn’t it true?’ the reporter insisted.

  ‘Yes,’ Woodend said heavily. ‘It’s quite true.’

  Chief Constable Marlowe and Superintendent Crawley were sitting behind Marlowe’s desk, and Woodend – like an errant schoolboy – was standing in front of it.

  ‘Well, that press conference was certainly a most satisfactory exercise,’ Marlowe said. ‘It served to both clear the air and lay the blame where it should rightly have been laid.’

  ‘I told you you were making a mistake to arrest Edgar Brunton,’ Crawley said smugly.

  ‘The evidence all pointed to Brunton,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And the evidence – what little of it there was – was completely wrong,’ the chief constable pointed out. ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We go back to square one,’ Woodend said. ‘Except that now we’ve got a fresh crime scene, we just might be able to—’

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ Marlowe said harshly. He turned to Superintendent Crawley. ‘What do we do now, Stan?’

  ‘Well, sir, our first step should be to examine the area where the body was found, in the hope that will provide us with some fresh clues.’

  ‘I just said that,’ Woodend pointed out.

  ‘And who do you think should be in charge of the case, Stan?’ Henry Marlowe asked, ignoring him.

  ‘I think I should supervise the overall running of the case, although, of course Chief Inspector Mortlake would be handling things on the ground.’

  ‘Wait a minute! This is my case!’ Woodend said.

  ‘It was your case,’ the chief constable said. ‘Now it belongs to Superintendent
Crawley and DCI Mortlake.’

  It was the worst possible choice Marlowe could have made, Woodend thought. Crawley was not so much a policeman as a wheeling-dealing politician pretending to be a policeman. And as for Mortlake? The man was a joke – an over-fussy, over-complicated parody of a detective, who seemed to model his methods more on the elaborate goings-on described in 1920s country-house mysteries than on the gritty reality of modern-day police procedure.

  ‘So where does that leave me?’ he asked Marlowe.

  ‘As of this minute, you are being transferred to other duties,’ the chief constable told him.

  ‘What other duties?’

  ‘That is yet to be decided, but you will be notified in the fullness of time. And if I were you, Chief Inspector, I would keep my head down until that reassignment comes through. The reporters are baying for your blood – and I can’t say that I blame them.’

  ‘This isn’t just another stage in the runnin’ battle between you an’ me, you know,’ Woodend said. ‘This is a murder case. There’s a killer out there – an’ he might strike again, soon.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ the chief constable conceded. ‘That is why it is important that we catch him as soon as possible.’

  ‘An’ I’m the best man to do that.’

  ‘Really?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Judging by your track record on this investigation so far, I would have said you’re the very worst man to put in charge, which is why I’m placing the case in the hands of someone much more competent.’

  ‘But, sir …’

  ‘You’re dismissed, Chief Inspector Woodend,’ Marlowe said coldly.

  Sixteen

  It was lunchtime. Woodend and Paniatowski were sitting at their usual table in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey. Woodend had all the appearance of a man who has had a coal wagon dropped on him from a great height, and Paniatowski of a woman who wanted to do something to ease her boss’s distress, but had absolutely no idea what that something might be.

  ‘Any idea of what job you’re likely to be posted to next, sir?’ Paniatowski asked.

  Woodend shrugged. ‘Crawley threatened to have me transferred to Traffic yesterday, but it won’t be that.’