The Red Herring Read online

  ‘Yes, sir, I did.’

  ‘Then why the bloody hell haven’t you found out who it belongs to?’

  ‘I’m workin’ my way down the list as fast as I can, sir,’ Cowgill said defensively.

  ‘Working your way down the list! It should have been the first bloody vehicle you checked on. It was spotted outside the Spinner, for Christ’s sake. Verity Beale’s landlady saw––’

  He stopped, suddenly. He and Woodend had discussed the possibility of the murder and the kidnapping being connected, but as far as all the men in this room were concerned, they were two completely separate cases.

  Of course Cowgill would have attached no special significance to the Armstrong Siddeley. Knowing as little as he did about the Verity Beale case, why should he have?

  Rutter took a deep breath. ‘Sorry about that outburst, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Would you do me a big favour and move the Armstrong Siddeley to the top of your list? I’d like to know who it belongs to as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it right away, sir,’ Cowgill promised.

  If she’d been out drinking with Woodend, Monika Paniatowski would probably have ordered a vodka. But she wasn’t with Woodend in this country pub a few miles outside Lancaster – she was with Detective Chief Inspector Jack Horrocks of Scotland Yard. And caution told her to stick to fruit juice.

  Horrocks took a sip of the gin and tonic he’d ordered for himself, then said, ‘You’ve got to learn to play the game, Monika.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘The game – you’ve got to learn how to play it properly, or you’ll end up like your boss, Cloggin’-it Charlie.’

  ‘There are a lot of worse ways that I could end up,’ Monika Paniatowski said tartly.

  Horrocks shook his head. ‘No, there aren’t – as you’d soon realise if you really thought about it. Charlie Woodend’s got as far as he’s ever going to go. He’s a dinosaur. A throwback. But you, Monika – you could be the first female chief constable in the country.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but as I said, you’ll have to learn how to play it skilfully – learn how to create the right impression. You think we’ve wasted our time this morning, now don’t you?’

  ‘Honestly, yes,’ Paniatowski replied.

  ‘I admire honesty in a person – as long as it’s used in moderation,’ Horrocks said. ‘But the fact is, we haven’t been wasting time at all. We’ve merely been letting it pass by. And do you know why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because if we’d solved the case immediately, our superiors would have assumed it must have been open and shut from the start. Whereas, if we wait a while, they’ll draw the conclusion that it was probably quite complicated and, but for our brilliant detective work, it might have gone unsolved for ever.’

  ‘But by letting the trail go cold, aren’t we running the risk that we won’t get a result?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You sound as if you know something that I don’t know.’

  ‘I probably know a great many things you don’t know.’

  ‘I meant about this case.’

  ‘Yes, I know you did,’ Horrocks admitted. ‘And you’re quite right, I do know things you don’t.’

  ‘How can you, when I’ve been working on it for longer than you have, and you haven’t seen anything that I haven’t seen myself?’

  Horrocks tapped the side of his nose with his index finger. ‘Ways and means, Monika,’ he said. ‘Ways and means.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘And sometimes it’s better not to understand. Let me just assure you that the case will be solved, and though you might not see exactly how it’s done, I’ll make sure that you get most of the credit for it.’

  ‘Why should you do that?’

  ‘Because I don’t want the credit for myself – and even if I did, my superiors would not be very pleased if I accepted it.’

  ‘You’re not making a lot of sense,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘I’m sure I’m not, but if you want this investigation to be a real step up for you, that’s something you’re just going to have to get used to. And there’s one other thing I should probably make clear, while I’m about it.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Once this case is over, and I’m back in London, I’ll want you to continue to work for me. The work won’t be acknowledged directly. Your chief constable will probably pretend he knows nothing about it – but it will only be a pretence, and if you carry out the tasks I set you satisfactorily, you could find yourself promoted to inspector before very much longer.’

  ‘I don’t see why you should need me to continue to work for you once this case is over,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ Horrocks agreed. ‘But, in time, you will. And if you’re anything like as ambitious as I think you are, you’ll be very glad I picked you rather than Inspector Rutter.’

  ‘So you know about Mr Rutter as well as Mr Woodend, do you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  Horrocks smiled. ‘As I said earlier, I know about a lot of things.’

  Twenty-Two

  Walter Hargreaves did not look a happy man, Woodend thought. The deputy head’s hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own, and fiddled relentlessly with the paper clips on his desk. His moustache, always pencil-thin, seemed to have shrunk even further since the last time they had met. All the confidence and competence the man had exuded at their previous meeting – and which Woodend was sure had been developed through a lifetime of achievement – seemed to have evaporated. If ever a man could truly be called a shadow of his former self, then that man was Walter Hargreaves.

  ‘This is a very difficult time for all of us at King Edward’s,’ the deputy head lamented.

  ‘I imagine it is,’ the chief inspector agreed. ‘But you’d be wrong to blame yourselves for that poor little lass’s disappearance, you know. It could have happened in any school.’

  ‘King Edward’s has always had its enemies,’ Hargreaves continued, talking more to himself than to Woodend. ‘Centres of excellence will always draw the envy of those who are excluded from them. And, over the years, it has had its share of crises, too. In the late eighteenth century, things were so bad that the school shrunk in size to no more than one teacher and a single room in the back of a church. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Yet it survived, because, whatever else happened to it, it managed to keep its shining reputation intact. Now, in the course of a single day, we have received two blows which threaten to destroy several centuries of work by hundreds of dedicated men like myself. There are journalists at our very gate, you know.’

  ‘Well, one journalist, anyway,’ Woodend amended.

  ‘Leeches – that’s what they are. They sense our temporary weakness and are just waiting for their opportunity to fasten themselves on the body of the school and suck the precious life-blood out of it.’ He sighed. ‘If only the board of governors, in its wisdom, had appointed one of our own to guide the progress of the school. If only they had seen that it needed someone at the helm who loved the school – and who would put its interests first.’

  ‘An’ you’re sayin’ that this headmaster you’ve got now doesn’t do that?’ Woodend asked, his curiosity aroused.

  ‘What?’ Hargreaves asked, as if he had only just remembered that there was someone else in the room.

  ‘You were sayin’ that this headmaster seems not to be puttin’ the interests of the school first,’ Woodend prompted.

  ‘If that’s the impression you gained from what I’ve said, then I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me,’ Hargreaves said hastily. ‘The headmaster is doing an excellent job – a really excellent job.’

  ‘What did he do in the war?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Why does anybody ask anythin’? I asked because I’m interested in the answer.�
�

  ‘The headmaster was with General Wingate in Burma – organising the Chindits in their guerrilla war against the Japanese in the jungle. He was decorated for bravery in the field. Several times, in fact. Perhaps that was the deciding factor when the governors were making their decision on who to appoint.’

  ‘You were a candidate for the job yourself?’ Woodend guessed.

  ‘I applied,’ Hargreaves admitted.

  ‘An’ what did you do durin’ the war? Did you see action?’

  Hargreaves shook his head regretfully. ‘I had flat feet. They wouldn’t take me. I spent my war in England – working for the Pay Corps. I was never given the chance to be a hero.’ He paused, as if he had suddenly realised that Woodend was leading him somewhere he would rather not go. ‘What has any of this got to do with Helen Dunn’s disappearance?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Woodend admitted. ‘So let’s get back to Helen, shall we? What’s she like as a pupil?’

  ‘Academically, very successful. Athletically, more than adequate,’ Hargeaves said evasively.

  ‘But she doesn’t seem to have many friends in the school?’

  ‘None at all. She was by nature a rather solitary individual. Some children are.’

  ‘You do know you’re talkin’ about her in the past tense, don’t you?’ Woodend asked. ‘Does that mean you think she’s already dead?’

  Hargreaves ran his hand agitatedly through his silver-grey hair. ‘No . . . I . . . No, of course not. It was a slip of the tongue, that’s all.’

  ‘If we are to have any chance of findin’ her alive, we need everybody who knew her to be open an’ frank with us,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘Naturally,’ Hargreaves agreed.

  ‘Which means you need to tell me a hell of a lot more about her than I could have read off her report card. Is she a disruptive kid?’

  ‘Not in school, no.’

  ‘But outside it?’

  One of the paper clips Hargreaves had been fiddling compulsively with snapped in two. The deputy headmaster looked down at it, as if surprised that his hands were capable of even such minor destruction. ‘This is all very difficult,’ he said.

  ‘A girl’s life is at stake!’ Woodend reminded him.

  The deputy head sighed. ‘One of the staff took Helen’s class into Whitebridge to see an exhibition in the Town Hall,’ he said reluctantly. ‘When it was over, the teacher gave the class permission to go to a nearby tea shop. Helen slipped away from the group. She went into Wilkinson’s Department Store. Just as she was leaving, the store detective challenged her, and asked her to open her briefcase. Inside were several things that – not to put too fine a point on it – she’d been attempting to steal.’

  ‘What kinds of things?’

  ‘I forget the details now, but they were all trivial items which she could have bought out of her pocket money if she’d wanted to.’

  ‘Did the store call in the police?’

  Hargreaves shook his head. ‘Helen was in uniform.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  The deputy head looked at him, almost pityingly. ‘The King Edward’s school uniform,’ he amplified.

  ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘Both David Wilkinson, who manages the shop, and his father, who is chairman, are old boys of the school. They would never have done anything to damage King Edward’s reputation.’

  ‘So nobody called the police. What did Helen’s father have to say about the incident?’

  ‘He . . . er . . . wasn’t told.’

  ‘Why the hell not? Didn’t he have a right to know? Wouldn’t you normally have informed the parents?’

  ‘Normally, yes,’ Hargreaves agreed.

  ‘So what was different about this particular case?’

  ‘The teacher who was tutoring Helen privately after school interceded on her behalf and promised there would be no repetition of the incident.’

  ‘I’ll need to speak to this teacher. What’s his name?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it was Miss Beale.’

  ‘I see,’ Woodend said heavily. ‘So Miss Beale – a new teacher to the school, a teacher who can’t have had more than a few years’ experience – asks you to go against normal practice, and you agree? Just like that!’

  ‘Not just like that,’ Hargreaves said. ‘I would have told her it wasn’t possible, but unfortunately . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Unfortunately, she had the headmaster’s backing.’

  ‘Did she? An’ why was that?’

  ‘Perhaps he was seeking to protect the school.’

  ‘An’ did nobody give any thought to protectin’ the kid?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not following you,’ Hargeaves said unconvincingly.

  ‘Well, you bloody well should be,’ Woodend told him. ‘The girl goes into a department store. In the middle of the school day! Dressed in a clearly identifiable uniform! An’ what does she do once she’s inside? She steals some things that she doesn’t even really want. Didn’t you even bother to ask yourself why?’

  ‘I know why!’ Hargreaves said. His voice sounded angry – but Woodend did not think the anger was directed against the man who had forced him to make the admission. ‘She stole with the sole intention of getting caught. She wanted to do something to make her father notice her – to see her as an individual, rather than just a project he was developing.’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I think, an’ all,’ Woodend said. ‘It was a call for help. So why did you ignore it?’

  ‘Because I had no choice in the matter. Because I was merely obeying instructions.’

  ‘That’s what all those Nazi bastards used as their defence at the Nuremberg Trials,’ Woodend said. ‘But that made no difference to the judges – they still strung the buggers up.’

  Twenty-Three

  Rutter glanced quickly up and down the neat suburban street, saw there was no sign of an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire anywhere, and signalled to the two teams of DCs in their strategically parked cars that they were to make no move unless he called for assistance. That done, he walked up the path of 33 Lime Grove.

  The woman who answered the door was in her middle thirties, he guessed, though there was still something of a childlike quality to her open, trusting face. She was wearing a floral apron and rubber kitchen gloves, and seemed quite surprised that anyone should be calling at that time of day.

  ‘Mrs Cray?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m Inspector Rutter, from the Whitebridge Police. I was wondering if I could speak to your husband.’

  ‘He’s not in,’ the woman said, starting to look a little concerned. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Nothing you should get worried over,’ Rutter said, not yet quite sure he was lying. ‘We’re just conducting a few routine inquiries, and we thought your husband might be able to help us with one of them. Where is he, by the way? At work?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And his place of work is the BAI factory?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a quality control engineer. This hasn’t got anything to do with the murder – or the missing girl – has it?’

  ‘What makes you ask that?’ Rutter said. ‘You don’t happen to know Verity Beale or Helen Dunn, do you?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ Mrs Cray said. ‘But since they’re the ones who’ve been in all the papers . . .’

  ‘Those cases are both being handled by more experienced officers than me,’ Rutter said, flashing one of his famous boyish grins. ‘I’m dealing with a much less important matter. You don’t happen to remember whether or not your husband was at home the night before last, do you?’

  ‘The night of the murder, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, it was the night of the murder, now I come to think of it. Was he at home? Or, to put it another way, were you together? Did you go out for a meal or something?’

  ‘We rarely go out as a couple. The children aren’t really
old enough to be left in the house alone, and reliable babysitters are very hard to find.’

  ‘So you both stayed in, did you?’

  ‘No, I stayed in. Roger had to attend a meeting.’

  ‘What kind of meeting?’

  Mrs Cray shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I assumed it had something to do with his work.’

  ‘You sound like you don’t get much time alone together,’ Rutter said, sympathetically.

  ‘Oh, it’s not that bad,’ Mrs Cray said. ‘With the kids at school all day, we can sometimes manage to meet for lunch in Whitebridge.’

  ‘Did you have lunch together yesterday?’

  ‘No, Roger couldn’t. He had another meeting and . . . and why are you asking me all these questions about my husband’s whereabouts?’

  Rutter turned and waved to one of parked cars, then swung round to face Mrs Cray again. ‘I’ve just called a policewoman over,’ he explained. ‘I’d like her to stay with you for a while.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘She won’t be any trouble. You can carry on with your housework. She’ll even help you with it if you want her to.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ Mrs Cray said angrily. ‘Why will she be here?’

  ‘She’ll be here to make sure that you can’t call your husband,’ Rutter admitted.

  ‘So he is in trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know. And I certainly don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.’ Rutter hesitated for a second, then added, ‘But in all fairness, I think you should be prepared for a shock.’

  Roger Cray walked through the main hangar-workshop where the fuselage of the TSR2 – the golden future of Britain’s air defences, so some thought – was being constructed.

  Everything was going wrong, he told himself worriedly. Everything was going terribly, tragically wrong.

  Martin Dove had made it all so simple when he’d explained it during their clandestine meetings.

  ‘I’m a teacher at the grammar school, for God’s sake!’ Dove had said. ‘A pillar of the local establishment! Somebody you can trust your children with. Nobody’s going to suspect me, not even for a moment.’

  ‘And what about me?’ Cray had asked worriedly.