Death of a Cave Dweller Read online

  Jack Towers was sitting up in bed, and – from the ample evidence in his ashtray – chain-smoking. His right eye was discoloured, and there was a dark bruise on his jaw. Beneath his open pyjama jacket, Woodend could see the bandages wrapped tightly around his chest.

  The chief inspector glanced quickly around the room. In comparison to the ward which his Joan had been in when she’d been operated on for her ‘woman’s problems’, it was an absolute palace. For a start there was so much space – in Joan’s ward the patients in adjacent beds could have held hands with no problem, whereas if Towers had been feeling up to it, he could have done gymnastics in this room. Then there was the decoration – the walls were not painted in the usual depressing institutional cream, but in a pleasant, soothing pastel blue. There was a bowl of cut flowers on the table, and – bloody hell! – the man even had his own fourteen-inch television set.

  Maybe if I was workin’ in private security, I could afford this kind of luxury for my family, Woodend thought.

  He turned his attention to Jack Towers. “Well, you’ve certainly been in the wars, haven’t you?” he said.

  “I suppose you could say that, Mr Woodend,” the Seagulls’ manager agreed weakly.

  Woodend pulled up a chair, placed it next to the bed, and straddled it. “Do you want to tell me what you were doin’ down at the docks at well past midnight?” he asked.

  Towers frowned. “If it’s really necessary, I will. But I’ve already given all the details to that other policeman.”

  “What other policeman?”

  “Quite a short, thin man. I think he said that his name was Inspector Hopgood.”

  “Oh aye,” Woodend said. “An’ just when exactly did you have this cosy little chat of yours with the good inspector?”

  “I haven’t exactly been keeping track of time, but I think it must have been about an hour ago.”

  Or to put it another way, a good half an hour before Hopgood phoned me at the hotel, Woodend thought – and found himself wondering just what the little shit of an inspector was up to.

  “Maybe you have given all the details to Inspector Hopgood,” he said to the Seagulls’ manager, “but you should have seen enough of the way I work by now to know that I never like to hear things second hand. So why don’t you go through your story again, tellin’ me exactly what you told him?”

  “I was at home,” Towers said.

  “Alone?”

  “Yes,Iwasalone.Mywife . . . mywife . . .”

  Your wife ran off with the coal man, Woodend thought, but aloud, to save Towers any further embarrassment, he said, “The details don’t matter. We’ve established that you were on your own. What happened next?”

  “I was just making a hot cocoa to take to bed with me, when I got this phone call.”

  “Oh, you’ve got a private phone, have you?” Woodend asked. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’m the Seagulls’ manager, don’t forget,” Towers said. “I need it for business.”

  Woodend suppressed a smile. Needed it for business! Well, he supposed there was no harm in being optimistic – and if the Seagulls did get their recording contract, he probably really would need it.

  “Who was the caller?” he asked.

  “He wouldn’t give his name, even though I asked several times, but he said that he knew who’d killed Eddie, and if I’d agree to meet him, he’d give me all the evidence I needed.”

  “You should have told him to call the police,” Woodend said sternly. “It’s our job to handle things like that.”

  “I would have done, but for the fact that he sounded so frightened,” Towers told him. “You see, I was worried that if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted, he’d hang up and never ring again.”

  “You might have been right about that,” Woodend agreed. “Carry on with your story, lad.”

  “He said we had to meet somewhere private – somewhere there would be absolutely no chance that anyone else would see us. As I told you, he seemed scared out of his wits.”

  “Who suggested meeting down by docks? You?”

  Towers shook his head, then winced at the pain it caused him. “He was the one who suggested it. But I saw no reason to object. It’s almost home ground to me, because that’s where my office is.”

  Woodend nodded. “So you arranged to meet each other. How did you get there?”

  “I was just in time to catch the last bus. I was going to take a taxi back. It never occurred to me I’d be making my next journey in an ambulance. Anyway, the place we’d agreed to meet was an alley near the dock – he said it would be safer for him that way.”

  “An’ you weren’t in the least bit suspicious?”

  “No. I never thought he’d turn violent. On the phone he’d seemed too scared to hurt a fly.”

  “So you walked into it like a lamb to the slaughter?”

  “He was waiting for me half-way down the alley. He was standing under a lamppost, but the light wasn’t on.”

  “No,” Woodend said dryly. “It wouldn’t have been. He’d probably taken care of that before you arrived.”

  “He had a cap pulled down over his eyes. He wasn’t much more than a black shape, really. I walked straight up to him, and I said, ‘I’m Jack Towers. Are you the man that called me?’”

  “Is that when he hit you?”

  “Yes. He punched me in the face.”

  “An’ you went down?”

  “No,” Towers said. “Not at first. I did a fair bit of boxing when I was at school, so I’m not completely useless in a fight. The moment he’d hit me, I swung back at him. I must have got a couple of good punches in myself before he knocked me to the ground.”

  “Did he say anythin’ while he was doin’ his best to kick the livin’ crap out of you?”

  Towers laughed, but there was not much amusement behind it. “Oh yes, he said something all right. He said that this was no more than a friendly warning, and that if I didn’t get the Seagulls out of Liverpool by the end of the week, he’d kill another of them.”

  “You’re sure those were his exact words,” Woodend asked. “He’d kill another of them.”

  “It’s hard to be sure of anything at all when someone’s trying to break all your ribs,” Jack Towers said bitterly. “But yes, I think that those were the exact words he used.”

  “What can you tell me about him, Mr Towers?”

  “That’s about it,” the manager said helplessly.

  “No,” Woodend said. “There has to be more. I know it’s difficult to think under these circumstances, but please try. Can you remember what his voice was like, for example?”

  Towers pursed his brow. “That’s hard to say. On the phone it sounded panicked – and a little high-pitched – but I know now that was just an act. When he was threatening me in the alley, it was much gruffer, but I think that might have been put on, too.”

  “Close your eyes an’ try to imagine the voice if it wasn’t pretendin’ to be frightened or gruff,” Woodend suggested.

  Towers did as he’d been told, but after a couple of seconds he said, “This isn’t helping.”

  “You can hear the voice in your head, can you?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “But it still doesn’t remind you of anyone you know? It doesn’t even sound vaguely familiar?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, at least you tried, lad,” Woodend said. “Let’s go on to something else. How tall was he?”

  “I couldn’t say exactly,” Towers said, opening his eyes again, “but I’d guess that he was five feet nine or five feet ten.”

  “Build?”

  Towers gave a twisted grin. “I would say he was heavily built. His fist certainly felt like it had some weight behind it.”

  Woodend looked at his watch. Bloody hell, it was already nearly three o’clock in the morning.

  “I’ll leave you in peace now, Mr Towers,” he said. “I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you again for a day or two.”

>   Towers seemed surprised by the statement. “Won’t see me for a day or two? Why?” he asked. “Are you going away, Chief Inspector? At this stage of the investigation – when the killer’s actually threatened to murder another one of the Seagulls by the end of the week?”

  “No, I’m not goin’ away,” Woodend replied. “But I would have thought that you might feel the need to take a bit of a rest.”

  “A rest!” Towers repeated. “I can’t afford a rest, Chief Inspector. It’s only ten days to the audition. The boys are going to need me.”

  Doctor Atkinson was standing in the corridor, holding a mug of coffee in his hand. He looked a little anxious, Woodend thought, then decided that the expression on Atkinson’s face was probably nothing more than exhaustion.

  “Did he say anything?” the doctor asked.

  Woodend gave him a quizzical look. “He answered my questions, if that’s what you mean,” he said. He took out his cigarettes, then noticed the large, boldly printed no-smoking sign on the wall and slipped them back into the pocket of his hairy sports jacket. “It’s a nice room you’ve put Mr Towers in,” he commented. “They reckon it’s grim up north, but I don’t think we have anythin’ as luxurious as that down in London.”

  “Yes, you do,” Doctor Atkinson countered. “As long as you’ve got the money to pay for it.”

  “So it’s a private room, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “An’ how does a shippin’ clerk manage to get enough money together to afford a private room?”

  The doctor smiled. “He doesn’t, of course. But there was one available, and I thought that, since he was only going to be here for a short time, we might as well give him all the comfort we could.”

  “If you’re like that with everybody, I must remember to come here myself the next time I’m sick,” Woodend said, then, noticing the doctor was looking a little sheepish, he added, “but it’s not like that with everybody, is it?”

  “No,” the doctor admitted. “It isn’t.”

  “So what has humble Jack Towers done to merit gettin’ such special treatment?”

  Doctor Atkinson smiled defensively. “I know all doctors are supposed to be as square as anything in their choice of music,” he said, “but the fact is, I happen to be a really big fan of the Seagulls. So, naturally, when someone told me that Mr Towers was their manager, I took that extra bit of care. It was the least I could do after all the pleasure they’ve given me. And who knows – when they finally hit the big time, Mr Towers might just remember me and send me a front-row ticket for one of their concerts.”

  “Aye, maybe he will,” Woodend agreed. “I can see why you’re so enthusiastic about them – I’ve become a bit of a fan myself over the last couple of days. I like most of the stuff they do. But do you know what my favourite song of theirs is? Would you like to have a guess?”

  The doctor smiled weakly. “I’ve worked far too many hours on this shift to have any brain left for playing guessing games,” he said.

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Woodend said genially. He took a deep breath, like a compère who is just about to announce the winner of a beauty contest. “My absolute favourite is ‘Lime Street Rock’.”

  “It’s one of my favourites, too,” the doctor agreed.

  “You’ve got to hand it to that Steve Walker, he certainly does know how to put a song together, doesn’t he?” Woodend asked.

  “Yes, he certainly does,” Atkinson agreed.

  Woodend gave the other man a second questioning look. “Well, I’ll wish you good night, then, doctor,” he said, “though I’ve no doubt we’ll be seein’ each other again.”

  Woodend gave a parting smile to the pretty sister, and stepped through the main entrance out into the night air. There was a slight chill in the atmosphere, and even though it was nearly the middle of April, he suspected that there might be a ground frost the next morning.

  The police car which had brought him to the hospital was still parked down the road where he’d left it, but now there was a uniformed officer standing beside the bonnet.

  Bloody Hopgood! Woodend thought. What’s that bugger doin’ out at this time of night?

  The chief inspector stopped to light a cigarette and collect his thoughts. Hopgood’s appearance on the scene might have brought some helpful information, but Woodend very much doubted it. What was much more likely, especially after the stroke he had pulled earlier, was that the local inspector was about to stick his nose just where it wasn’t wanted.

  Woodend took a deep drag on his Capstan Full Strength, and walked up to the car.

  “Good evenin’, Inspector Hopgood,” he said. “Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, good mornin’. What can I do for you?”

  Hopgood smirked. “I think that it’s more a case of what I can do for you, sir,” he said complacently. “While you’ve been in there talking to Jack Towers, I’ve been very busy out on the street. I’ve already cleared up the little matter of who assaulted Mr Towers, and I think it’s also highly likely that I’m about to hand you your murderer on a plate.”

  “Tell me more,” Woodend said.

  “The way I see it is this. The murder could have been carried out by anybody who knew a little about electrical wiring, so it could have been committed by a woman, or even an old-aged pensioner. But . . .” he held up his right index finger “. . . the attack on Jack Towers had to be carried out by a man – a very strong, very violent man. Are you following me?”

  “Aye,” Woodend said. “By some miracle, I do seem to be keepin’ up with you.”

  “So the question I asked myself was, ‘Who amongst Towers’ acquaintances has a reputation for violence?’”

  “An’ the name you came up with was Steve Walker’s?”

  Inspector Hopgood’s grin broadened. “No, the name I came up with was Rick Johnson’s. In case you’ve forgotten, sir, he attacked Eddie Barnes in a pub just a few weeks before the murder.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten actually,” Woodend told him. “Even my ale-soaked brain cells are capable of retainin’ a few facts.”

  “Anyway, having worked that out, I took a couple of my lads, and we went to pay young Master Johnson a call,” Hopgood continued enthusiastically. “It was after one o’clock when we got there—”

  “Which would make it about half an hour before you got round to phonin’ me, wouldn’t it?” Woodend said pointedly.

  “Yes, sorry about that,” Hopgood replied, not meaning a word of it. “I had actually intended to ring you earlier, but with everything else which was going on, it slipped my mind.”

  “I’m sure it did,” Woodend said dryly. “So, you took a couple of your lads round Rick Johnson’s house just after one o’clock. An’ what did you find when you got there?”

  “The rest of the street was in darkness, as you might have expected, but there was still a light on in Johnson’s kitchen. I sent one of the lads round the back, in case he made a run for it when I knocked on the front door, but as it turned out there was no need. As bold as brass, Johnson answered the front door himself.”

  “Hardly the act of a guilty man.”

  “You’d never have said that if you’d seen the state of him.”

  “Why? What was the matter with him?”

  “He had a black eye, and there were a couple of bruises on his face.” Hopgood wagged his index finger again, as if he were giving Woodend a lesson in criminology. “Now this is the point. Did Jack Towers say anything to you about getting in a few punches himself before he went down?”

  “Aye,” Woodend said. “That’s another fact I amazin’ly seem to have retained in this thick skull of mine.”

  “Well, then, we’re forced to the obvious conclusion that that it was Johnson who attacked Towers.”

  “Why?” Woodend asked.

  “Why what, sir?”

  “Why on earth would Rick Johnson ever want to beat the crap out of Jack Towers?”

  For the first time, Inspect
or Hopgood looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t know that, yet,” he admitted. “But I’ve got him sweating it out in the cells even as we speak, and it can only be a matter of time before he comes clean and tells me everything I want to know.”

  “There’s lots of ways that a feller can get himself a black eye,” Woodend pointed out. “He could simply have been in a fight in a pub. As you so kindly reminded me a few minutes ago, Inspector, it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. He’s got a record of violence.”

  “That’s very true,” Hopgood agreed, the complacent smile returning to his face. “But if he’d been in a fight in a pub, he would have admitted it when I made it plain that I was arresting him for the attack down by the docks – because that would have been his alibi.”

  “An’ what did he actually say?”

  Hopgood sniggered. “He claimed that he’d walked into a door. I told him I didn’t believe him – not unless the door’s name was Jack Towers. Anyway, we’ve got him now, and I’m confident that by breakfast time he’ll have confessed to beating up Jack Towers. Then I’ll hand him over to you – and you can get him to confess to killing Eddie Barnes as well.”

  “It’s not his style,” Woodend said.

  “What isn’t?”

  “Ringin’ up somebody an’ pretendin’ to be a frightened man with some important information. Lurin’ people into dark alleys, then attackin’ them without warnin’. Rick Johnson’s the kind of feller who wants you to know exactly who it is who’s duffin’ you up. Bloody hell, he nearly took a pop at me in the Cellar Club – in front of half a dozen witnesses. I just can’t see him havin’ either the inclination or the patience to lay a trap.”

  Hopgood frowned. “I wonder if you’d be saying that if you’d been the one who arrested him,” he said, almost under his breath.

  “Just what are you suggestin’ by that remark, Inspector?” Woodend asked, lighting up another Capstan Full Strength.

  “Nothing, sir. I’m just saying.”

  “Cards on the table,” Woodend said. “Tell me what’s on your mind, an’ I promise you there’ll be no comeback.”