A Death Left Hanging Read online

  They had left Manchester far behind, and she turned towards the window in order to watch the once-familiar countryside sweep past. The first time she had gone after Sharpe, it had been with all the haste and inexperience of a young barrister whose mind was already fully occupied with her work and her forthcoming marriage. This time, she had planned it all out carefully in advance – marshalling all her evidence, working out all the possible directions that her enemy’s counterattack might come from. This time, she would not fail.

  The moorland had disappeared, and she was once more gazing at the backs of terraced houses. The train was starting to slow, and she knew that it must already be approaching Whitebridge Station. Despite her previous resolve, she felt a sudden urge to sink down into her seat and not to move so much as an inch until the train had pulled out of Whitebridge again and was heading for Preston.

  And why not? she asked herself. Why put yourself through all that suffering again? It can’t change anything, you know. The past is dead and buried.

  But she knew that was not true – knew that the past that she held in her head was as real and vivid as it had ever been. Even if that were not so – even if she could find a way to numb the pain that had been eating away at her for nearly thirty years – there were other factors to be taken into consideration.

  Debts had to be paid, whatever it cost her. She owed a debt to the even-handed justice that she had sworn to uphold when she had been admitted to the bar. And she owed a debt to her mother – a debt that, however successful she was, she could only begin to repay.

  The train juddered to a halt. Through the window she could see the chipped enamel sign which announced that she had arrived at Whitebridge. Other passengers had already started to disembark and were signalling for porters. The guard, walking up and down the platform, would soon be waving his flag and blowing his whistle. She had only to sit there for a little while longer and the matter would be taken out of her hands.

  She climbed to her feet and reached shakily for the door handle.

  Two

  The room he was sitting in reminded Charlie Woodend of the one in Great Expectations where Pip first meets Miss Haversham. It wasn’t an analogy that would have occurred to most people, he supposed. For a start, there was no crumbling three-tiered cake and no decayed wedding breakfast laid out for guests who had never arrived. Nor was there any evidence of a mad old bat parading around in a tattered lace dress. In fact, with its conference table and desk lamps, the place did not look the least Dickensian. But it felt it – at least to Woodend.

  He glanced quickly around the table at the other five members of the committee he had been unwillingly co-opted on to. Like Miss Haversham, they had all refused to accept that time had moved on. Like her, they blamed their present misery on the past misdemeanours of others. He heard them complaining constantly during the committee’s numerous tea breaks:

  ‘If Shithouse Radcliffe hadn’t blocked my promotion that time, I could have been Chief Constable by now . . .’

  ‘If I’d have got the credit for the Simpson Murder Case that I really deserved . . .’

  No modern bobby was as tough as they’d been. There wasn’t an inspector in Mid Lancashire who showed half the initiative they’d displayed when they’d held that rank. If they were only twenty years younger, they’d show the lot of them.

  ‘Any comment to make on that, Charlie?’ asked the chief superintendent who was serving as chairman of the committee.

  ‘I think the rest of you have already summed it up nicely, sir,’ Woodend replied, wondering – but only briefly – what the topic under discussion that morning actually was.

  Didn’t they realize that nobody would ever read this report they were putting together? he asked himself. And even if they did realize, did they actually care? Probably not. It was a cushy life, sitting on your arse all day and swilling back tea. And it was a hell of a sight easier to criticize other working bobbies than to get off that arse and do some of the work yourself.

  How on earth had he landed up in this asylum for the terminally incompetent? the Chief Inspector wondered.

  But he already knew the answer to that. He was there because – during the course of an investigation the previous winter – he’d uncovered evidence of corruption on the part of several town councillors, more than one successful local businessman and – most importantly – a very senior police officer.

  He was there because he had neither accepted the bribe that had been offered him, nor given the guilty parties time to cover their tracks. Instead, he had brought the whole rotten structure of deceit and dishonesty crashing down around their heads.

  And though his bosses had agreed that what he had done had needed to be done, they still didn’t like the fact that he had done it. He was there, in other words, because they didn’t want him upsetting any more apple carts.

  ‘It’s twenty-five to twelve,’ the chairman said, glancing at his watch. ‘Doesn’t seem much point in starting any new business before lunch. If it’s all right with the rest of you chaps, I suggest we break now and resume again at, say, half-past two.’

  The other men around the table nodded. Of course it was all right with them, Woodend thought. Why wouldn’t it be all right with them? They’d all forgotten what it was like to be a real policeman.

  But he bloody hadn’t!

  As she sat looking at Chief Constable Henry Marlowe across his impressive teak desk, Jane Hartley found herself unable to decide whether he was sneakier than he was slimy – or slimier than he was sneaky. Whichever he turned out to be, she would be glad when the interview was over.

  ‘I don’t often get the chance to see ordinary members of the general public, Miss Hartley,’ Marlowe said condescendingly.

  ‘I’m sure you virtually never get to see them,’ Jane Hartley replied. ‘But then I’m not an ordinary member of the general public, am I? Because if I was, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.’

  Marlowe shifted uncomfortably in his padded seat. ‘I’m not sure I see your point, Miss Hartley.’

  ‘The matter I’m about to bring to your attention is one that I first raised nearly twenty years ago,’ Jane Hartley said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Indeed. Then, my complaint didn’t even go beyond the duty inspector, whereas now, I’m talking to the chief constable. And why is that, do you think? Because the case has become more important over time? Highly unlikely. In fact, the reverse is normally true – the more a case moves towards being ancient history, the less interest there is in it. So what has changed?’

  She fell silent and leant back in her chair. Marlowe waited for her to speak again, and, when it was plain she wasn’t going to, he sighed and said, ‘What do you think has changed?’

  Jane Hartley affected a puzzled look, which slowly melted into one of surprised revelation.

  ‘Why, if anything’s changed, it must be me!’ she said, with mock incredulity. ‘I was a nobody then – and I’m a famous lawyer now.’

  ‘I don’t like being threatened, Miss Hartley – not even by famous lawyers,’ Marlowe said in a voice that was almost a growl.

  Jane Hartley’s answering laugh was as light as the gentle clink of a pair of cyanide bottles.

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ she said.

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Of course. If I were threatening you, I’d have pointed out that I have some very influential contacts in the world of politics – especially at the Home Office. Or I might have mentioned that I have powerful friends in the national press – friends who, if I asked them to, would launch a campaign to crucify you. I might even have said it would be unwise of you to displease someone who has a very good chance of becoming the first female high court judge. But I really don’t want to give the impression that I’ve done any of that, Chief Constable.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘I want you to investigate a miscarriage of justice which has been a blot on the record of this police force for over a quarter
of a century.’

  ‘I assume that you’re acting on behalf of some client with a personal interest in this case,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Then you assume wrongly,’ Jane Harley replied.

  ‘So who are you representing? Surely not one of those bleeding-heart liberal organizations that have nothing better to do with their time than cause trouble for hard-working police officers?’

  ‘Not them, either. I’m representing myself and my own interests.’

  ‘Are you indeed? And just who’s supposed to have suffered as a result of this miscarriage of justice, then?’

  Jane Hartley gave him a look that would have melted steel. ‘My mother!’ she said.

  The attractive blonde woman, with the nose that was just a little bit too big to have been home-grown Lancashire, had been standing at the bar of the Drum and Monkey for more than five minutes. If no one came to join her soon, the travelling salesman (surgical supports) at the other end of the bar decided, he might just chance his arm and see if he could pick her up.

  The entry of the big man in the hairy sports jacket and cavalry-twill trousers put a sudden end to any hopes that the salesman had been nurturing. It was obvious that the blonde had been waiting for him, and that – though he was considerably older than she was – there was a very definite familiarity and intimacy between them. The surgical supports salesman quickly turned away before the new arrival – whom he thought seemed very big indeed – noticed that he was staring and offered to rearrange his face with a ham-like fist.

  Unaware of the salesman’s disappointment, Woodend bought a pint for himself and a vodka for Monika Paniatowski, then led his sergeant over to a corner table.

  ‘What are you workin’ on at the moment, Monika?’ he asked, trying his best to sound interested.

  Paniatowski shrugged. ‘Breaking and entering cases mostly. I suppose somebody’s got to do it, but it’s no more than PC Plod stuff really. How much longer will you be serving on this committee? I’m bursting to get back to doing some real police work.’

  Woodend sighed. ‘In that case, you’d better see Mr Hoskins about bein’ reassigned.’

  ‘And just what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means that when this committee’s finished its so-called task, there’ll be another one formed that I’ll be expected to serve on. And another one after that. And so on – all the way to retirement. I warned you this might happen, Monika. As far as the brass in the Mid Lancs force is concerned, I’m a leper. An’ the longer you hang around with me, the more chance there is you’ll catch the disease yourself. So get out from under. Do it while you still can.’

  ‘And leave you to your fate?’

  ‘You can’t help me, Monika, however much you might want to,’ Woodend said sadly. ‘Nobody can.’

  ‘So you’re perfectly content to be a committee man for the rest of your career?’

  ‘No,’ Woodend said. ‘I’m not content at all. That’s why I’m goin’ to put my papers in.’

  ‘You’re resigning? And what will you do instead?’

  ‘Buggered if I know,’ Woodend admitted. ‘But it can’t be any worse than this.’

  A uniformed constable came in through the main door, looked around him, then walked over to the table where Woodend and Monika were sitting.

  ‘Mr Marlowe would like to see you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Woodend replied. ‘An’ did he give you sort of any idea of when he’d like this rare an’ historic encounter to take place?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He said you should come right away.’

  Unlike Jane Hartley, Woodend had already made up his mind about the Chief Constable. Marlowe might do a pretty good slimy, he had decided long ago, but the Chief Constable’s sneakiness had attained such heights that it would put the wisest, most cunning old fox to shame. None of which explained why – after months of pretending that his chief inspector simply didn’t exist – Marlowe felt such an urgent need to talk to him now. Nor did it explain why he looked genuinely frightened.

  ‘Thirty years ago there was a particularly nasty murder here in Whitebridge,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘A man called Fred Dodds, a highly thought of local businessman by all accounts – got himself battered to death. The officer in charge of the case arrested his wife, a woman called––’

  ‘Margaret Dodds,’ Woodend interrupted.

  The Chief Constable’s eyes narrowed in a way that could have been either defensive or suspicious – but was probably both.

  ‘How could you possibly know about that?’ he demanded. ‘You wouldn’t even have been on the Force then.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ Woodend agreed, wondering if the man who had instructed him to stand outside Strangeways Prison, that wet early morning, was still alive.

  ‘Anyway, Margaret Dodds had a daughter by a previous marriage, name of Jane,’ Marlowe continued. ‘Jane went to live with her aunt for a few years, then won a scholarship to Oxford, where she read law. She wasn’t called Dodds herself. She’d kept her real father’s name – which was Hartley.’

  Given the drama Marlowe had infused his last few words with, it was obvious to Woodend that the name was expected to mean something to him. He repeated it silently. Hartley . . . Jane Hartley.

  ‘The QC?’ he asked.

  ‘The very same. Jane Hartley, who gets front page headlines every time she takes on a case – and not just because she’s a woman.’

  ‘So what’s her problem?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Her problem is that she thinks her mother was framed.’

  Woodend shrugged. ‘Nobody likes to think they’ve got a murderer in the family.’

  ‘But not everybody is as determined to prove that they don’t. Jane Hartley has done some background research herself, and has also put private detectives on the job.’

  ‘An’ has she come up with any real proof that her mother was innocent of the crime?’

  ‘No, but she’s come up with enough unanswered questions to suggest that there might be proof out there, if only we’re prepared to look for it. And that’s what I want you to do.’

  ‘But the case is thirty years old,’ Woodend protested. ‘Half the witnesses are probably dead by now. Bloody hell, the officer who investigated the case is most likely kickin’ up daisies himself.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Marlowe said heavily. ‘The officer in question is very much alive.’

  ‘An’ livin’ in Whitebridge?’

  ‘I believe he’s still got a house here, but he spends most of his time in London.’

  ‘Then he can’t still be on the Force.’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘In fact, he resigned shortly after Margaret Dodds was hanged – and got himself elected to parliament.

  ‘For where?’ Woodend asked. ‘The horseshoe or the hoof?’

  ‘He won as a Conservative,’ the Chief Constable said.

  The horseshoe then. The constituency which ran round the more prosperous edges of Whitebridge, and ensured that, despite solid Labour support in the town itself, there would always be at least one Conservative Member of Parliament elected in the area.

  The current Tory MP, Archibald Heatherington, would have been no more than a lad in short trousers back then, Woodend thought. Besides, Heatherington had been a chartered accountant, not a bobby, before he was elected to parliament. So who had served as the MP for the horseshoe before him?

  ‘Sharpe!’ Woodend said. ‘Eric Sharpe!’

  The Chief Constable nodded sombrely. ‘Or Lord Sharpe of Whitebridge, as he is now,’ he agreed.

  ‘An’ Jane Hartley thinks he fitted up her mother for the murder of her stepfather?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Jane Hartley probably had some very influential friends she could call on for support if she needed to, Woodend thought. But Eric Sharpe – who was both a peer of the realm and a government minister – could do the same and, in addition, had clout in his own right. All of which me
ant that whatever way a new investigation into the Margaret Dodds murder case went, the officer in charge of it was virtually certain to make himself at least one powerful enemy.

  The case was a poisoned chalice if ever he’d seen one. Which was why, of course, it was being handed to him.

  Three

  Making a quick and accurate assessment of people she had just met for the first time was an essential basic skill in Jane Hartley’s line of work, and thus she found no difficulty at all in forming an opinion of the two police officers sitting opposite her in the interview room.

  The man, Woodend, was pushing fifty, she guessed. He was, as she would have said when she lived in Lancashire herself, ‘a big bugger’, broad as well as tall, with features that looked as if they had been chiselled out by a sculptor who had quite considerable skill but was working against the clock. In her experience, men his size either gave off an air of aggression, which came from a realization of their own power, or else a diffidence, which sprang from exactly the same source. Woodend seemed to fall into neither of these two camps, and Jane was forced into the impression that if he had been nine inches shorter, he would still have been exactly the same man.

  His assistant was more of an enigma. Monika Paniatowski must have been a pretty child, as Jane had been herself, yet the sergeant – and again she found a parallel – didn’t exude the impression of having had the easy childhood which pretty children come to expect as a right. In her own case, that was easily explained – her childhood had been destroyed by her mother’s execution – but she needed to discover what had gone wrong with Paniatowski’s.

  ‘Are you a local woman?’ she asked, embarking on what, in cross-examination at the Old Bailey, was usually called ‘a fishing expedition’.

  ‘It depends what you mean by local,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I’ve lived in Lancashire since I was nine.’