Lambs to the Slaughter Page 4

  ‘He always expects us to work miracles,’ Beresford said.

  ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ Crane muttered, before he could stop himself.

  ‘That’s French, isn’t it?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Crane replied, cursing himself for revealing a hint of the education that the others – with the exception of Meadows – didn’t even know he had.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Roughly speaking, it means, “The more things change, the more they remain the same”.’

  ‘Nice,’ Paniatowski said appreciatively. ‘Maybe I could talk Mr Baxter into making that the motto of the Mid Lancs CID.’ She walked towards the door. ‘I should be about half an hour, Kate,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Once she’d gone, Meadows turned to Beresford and said, ‘Could you spare me a few minutes, sir?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Beresford replied. ‘What is it that you want to get off your chest?’

  ‘I rather thought we could talk about it over a cup of tea in the canteen,’ Meadows said, flicking her eyes in Crane’s direction.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Beresford said. ‘Let’s go then.’

  Tom Mellors had been born and brought up in Bellingsworth, and if his dad had been a miner, it would have been almost inevitable that he would have become a miner too. But Mellors’ father – ‘Old Tom’ as he was known locally – had been the village policeman, and the younger Tom had followed in his footsteps without a second’s thought.

  ‘Back when I first got this posting, I was the obvious choice for the job,’ PC Mellors told Cadet Officer Briggs, as they stood on guard in front of Len Hopkins’ house. ‘It wouldn’t happen now – not with modern police thinking. Today, they’d look at my record and say, “Hello, this feller knows the area like the back of his hand, so let’s post him to somewhere else – a place he knows bugger all about. And while we’re at it, we’ll send somebody to Bellingsworth who’s so pig-ignorant about collieries that if you showed him one picture of a mine shaft, and another one of his own arsehole, he wouldn’t know which was which.’’’

  Briggs laughed – because it was always wise to laugh at your instructor’s jokes.

  ‘You have a pretty low opinion of headquarters, then,’ he said.

  ‘Low is overstating it,’ Mellors told him. ‘It used to be that if you knew who to arrest and who to just give a clip round the ear and send on his way, you were considered a pretty good bobby. Now it’s how neatly you can fill in all the forms that counts. You’ll see that for yourself, as soon the hotshot team from Whitebridge gets here.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Briggs asked neutrally.

  ‘Yes, it is right,’ Mellors replied with conviction. ‘You just watch them at work. I’ll guarantee you that they’ll come up with all kinds of fancy theories – most of which they will have learned from books – when all they really need to do is ask me who the murderer is.’

  ‘You know who the murderer is, do you?’

  ‘I do,’ Mellors said. ‘And so do you, if you stop to think about it.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I . . .’ Briggs began.

  ‘You’ve been with me for over a month now, haven’t you?’ Mellors asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Briggs confirmed.

  ‘And so, though you don’t know the village anything like as well as I do, you’ve a pretty fair idea of how it ticks. So let me ask you this – what’s the main topic of discussion in Bellingsworth at the moment?’

  ‘The strike ballot,’ Briggs said.

  ‘And who is – or was – most strongly opposed to a strike?’

  ‘The dead man.’

  ‘And who is most strongly in favour of it?’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Briggs said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Mellors replied. ‘But them buggers from Whitebridge won’t.’

  The Whitebridge police canteen was where officers went at the beginning of shifts, at the end of shifts, and sometimes – if they thought they could get away with it – in the middle of shifts. Over its fried breakfasts – each one a heart attack in the making – case strategies were discussed, and adulterous assignations planned. If it was not quite the heart of police headquarters, it was definitely the stomach, and when Beresford and Meadows arrived there that morning, it was already doing a thriving business.

  ‘You get the table, and I’ll buy the brew,’ Beresford said.

  He went over to the counter and ordered the teas. When he turned around again – a thick pottery mug of industrial-strength tea in each hand – he noted that the table Meadows had chosen was as far away from any other officers as conditions allowed, which definitely seemed ominous.

  ‘So what’s all the mystery about?’ he asked, as he sat down. ‘And why did you keep signalling that we needed to get away from young Crane?’

  ‘I thought it better not to get Jack involved,’ Meadows replied.

  ‘Involved in what?’

  Meadows hesitated for no more than a split second, then said, ‘I’d rather the boss didn’t know this, but I saw the victim last night.’

  ‘You saw what?’ Beresford exploded.

  ‘I was in the Bellingsworth Miner’s Institute, and I saw the victim,’ Meadows said.

  ‘And what exactly were you doing there?’

  ‘I was out on a date.’

  ‘A date!’ Beresford snorted. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ Meadows said coldly.

  ‘And how did you meet this date of yours?’

  ‘I met him through an advertisement that he’d placed in one of the contact magazines.’

  ‘“Man with whip wants to meet woman with back that needs whipping. Handcuffs optional”?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘If you go on like this, you’ll make me sorry I ever came to you,’ Meadows told him.

  ‘And why did you come to me?’ Beresford asked aggressively. ‘Is it because you want me to pull you out of the shit?’

  ‘I’m not in the shit,’ Meadows said.

  ‘Of course you’re not! Why would I ever think you were? Why would I even imagine there was a problem about you going into a village as a detective sergeant that you’d visited as a masochist only a few hours earlier?’

  ‘A fetishist,’ Meadows said firmly. ‘I’m not a masochist, I’m a fetishist.’

  ‘All right, why would I even imagine there was a problem about you going into a village as a detective sergeant that you’d visited as a fetishist only a few hours earlier?

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ Meadows said.

  ‘But I thought you just said—’

  ‘Zelda was.’

  ‘And who the bloody hell is Zelda, when she’s at home?’

  ‘She’s the person I become when I’m out having fun – and don’t you dare sneer at me for calling it “fun”.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ Beresford lied. ‘But surely, even you must see that just changing your name—’

  ‘I don’t just change my name. I’m a completely different person. When I’m Zelda, even you wouldn’t recognize me. Now can we get back to the point?’

  ‘What is the point?’

  ‘I saw Len Hopkins get into a fight with another old miner called Tommy Sanders – quite a violent one, given their age – and, a few hours later, Hopkins was dead.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Beresford said.

  ‘I think the boss needs to know about it,’ Meadows told him.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘But given how I acquired the information, it can’t come from me, so you need to discover it yourself, and pass it on to her.’

  ‘And how do I discover it?’

  ‘You’ll find a way.’

  ‘Yes,’ Beresford agreed, ‘I probably will.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You really need to get a grip on yourself, you know, Kate.’

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

  ‘All this meeting men through contact magazines
– having one-night stands all over the place – it’s not good.’

  ‘From what I’ve been hearing around headquarters, you’ve been doing exactly the same thing,’ Meadows countered.

  Beresford looked uncomfortable.

  ‘That’s different,’ he said.

  ‘How is it different?’

  ‘Well, what I do is normal.’

  ‘I like you, Colin, I really do,’ Meadows said. ‘But sometimes you make me want to throw up.’

  Becky Sanders had had the whole weekend to prepare for the Monday morning history test, but when she left school on Friday afternoon, she’d decided that, rather than leave it to the last minute, she’d get stuck in as soon as she’d eaten her tea. Then television had got in the way – as television sometimes does – and before she knew it, it was time for bed. Saturday had somehow slipped by unnoticed, and Sunday had been the day of the brass band competition.

  Now, on Monday morning, as she sat on the bouncing bus which was taking her on the six-mile journey to school, she was desperately trying to make up for her earlier lack of self-discipline.

  But it was no good – with all that had been happening in the village, she found it impossible to commit to memory why Henry VII had a claim to the throne of England, and why Richard III had lost the Battle of Bosworth Field.

  The bus pulled up in front of the school, and Becky felt her sense of dread – which was not only connected with the history test – increasing by the second.

  And then she saw him!

  He was leaning against the railings, with an unlit cigarette in his hand. He didn’t wave at her when she got off the bus. He didn’t even seem to look at her as she walked towards him. But she didn’t mind. She knew as well as he did how tongues wagged – how gossip spread – and understood that it was far too soon for word of what was going on between them to get back to her family and everyone else in the village.

  So it didn’t matter that he probably wouldn’t speak to her – it mattered that he was there, giving her his silent support.

  And then, as she drew level with him, he did speak.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss, have you got a light?’ he asked.

  She stopped and looked at him.

  ‘Of course I haven’t got a light,’ she said, trying to sound offended. ‘Can’t you see I’m only a schoolgirl?’

  ‘Sorry, Miss, my mistake,’ he replied.

  And somehow, without anyone else noticing, he managed to slip a folded piece of paper into her hand.

  She walked on, feeling the paper pressing against her skin, bursting to read it. They played these games through necessity, she thought – but there was no disputing that they were also quite thrilling.

  And suddenly, she felt all her worries melt away, and she could see quite clearly how Henry Tudor – who was not, strictly speaking, even of royal blood – should have had the right to wear the crown.

  FIVE

  It was an ancient highway, connecting towns and villages which had once been a day’s journey apart, but now, because of the internal combustion engine, were practically sitting in each other’s laps. On the maps, it was listed as the B something-or-other, but the people who used the road which ran across the high moors simply referred to it as the ‘Top Road’.

  There was little traffic on the Top Road that morning – there was little traffic anywhere, thanks to the three-day week – but Paniatowski restrained herself, and pushed her small red MGA only slightly over the speed that most people would consider prudent.

  ‘I adore these moors,’ she said to her passenger, DS Meadows.

  Meadows looked out of the side window at the object of this adoration. The moors, it seemed to her, were always harsh and always unforgiving, though they could, when the heather was in bloom, at least give the impression of being welcoming. But there was no welcome now – not in the dead of winter. Now, they were hard and cracked and frozen.

  ‘What is it, exactly, that you like about them?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Paniatowski replied.

  But she did. It was on the moors that she and Bob Rutter – Louisa’s father – had conducted their adulterous affair. It was there that she had experienced true love for a man for the first and last time. The moors always reminded her of Bob, and it was only rarely that she wished they didn’t.

  The road began its descent into the valley, and down below, Bellingsworth was suddenly spread out before them.

  The village consisted of no more than eight or nine streets, some running north–south parallel to each other, the others running east–west and intersecting the north–south streets at right angles. All the houses were in squat stone terraces, and the only building which stood out from them was the church. A railway line bounded one side of Bellingsworth, and this came to an abrupt halt half a mile beyond the village, when it reached the colliery. The colliery itself – with its skeletal winding gear and smoking chimneys – was stark enough to make even the village which serviced it look attractive.

  ‘Is this your first visit to a mining village, Kate?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Sort of,’ Meadows replied, ambiguously.

  ‘It’s only there at all because of the coal,’ Paniatowski said. ‘It’s not exactly ugly by design, it’s just that the men who planned it never bothered to make it anything else.’

  It couldn’t have been called a shock to find that Dr Shastri’s Land Rover was not parked outside Len Hopkins’ house – Paniatowski had known, on a conscious level, that it wouldn’t be there – but it was still, nevertheless, a disappointment.

  Shastri had been the police surgeon for years, and Paniatowski had pretty much taken it for granted that, just as winter always followed autumn, she herself would always arrive at a crime scene to find the doctor – her delicate sari just peeping out from under the heavy sheepskin jacket she wore for most of the year – bending over the deceased.

  But Shastri had gone – at least for a while.

  ‘I am taking a sabbatical and returning to my native India, my dear Monika,’ she had said before she left. ‘I am looking forward to it immensely, but I shall certainly miss my favourite chief inspector and her almost-daily demands that I perform the impossible.’

  And I miss you, Doctor, Paniatowski thought, looking at the Jaguar XJ6 – parked between an ambulance and patrol car – which had usurped the space that rightfully belonged to Shastri’s vehicle.

  A uniformed constable, heavy-set and middle-aged, strode over to the MGA and said, with some gravity and self-importance, ‘You can’t park here, love – and if you had any sense, you’d already have worked that out for yourself.’

  ‘Worked it out for myself?’ Paniatowski asked innocently. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It must be true what they say about blondes,’ the constable told her. ‘Do you see that police car and that ambulance?’

  ‘Yes. Has somebody been taken ill?’

  The constable shook his head, as if finding it hard to believe that even a dizzy blonde could be quite so stupid.

  ‘No, love,’ he said indulgently. ‘Nobody’s been taken ill – there’s been a murder.’

  ‘Now that is a happy coincidence,’ Paniatowski replied, pulling out her warrant card and showing it to him. ‘Because, you see, investigating murders is what I do for a living.’

  The constable’s mouth dropped open, then he pulled himself together and saluted.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘You must be DCI Pany . . . Pany . . .’

  ‘Paniatowski?’ Monika suggested.

  ‘That’s right,’ the constable confirmed. ‘I’ve seen your picture in the paper dozens of times, but you look different in the flesh.’

  A mistake, his expression said. A big mistake! You’re only making matters worse.

  ‘I’m PC Mellors, ma’am, the local bobby,’ he said hastily, ‘and that lad over there is PC Briggs, my trainee.’

  ‘I imagine that PC Mellors is teaching you quite a lot, PC Briggs,�
� Paniatowski said. ‘Particularly in the area of how to deal diplomatically with members of the general public.’

  Briggs grinned, then wondered if that was appropriate, and instantly assumed a bland expression.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said.

  Paniatowski turned her attention back to Mellors. ‘We’d like to see the body now,’ she said. ‘That is, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘No trouble at all, ma’am,’ Mellors said, completely missing the irony.

  He led Paniatowski and Meadows through the front parlour of the house – a room that, as in most of the terraced dwellings, was only used on special occasions – and into the only other room on the ground floor, the kitchen, which had a coal-fired range on which the cooking was done, and was where the people who lived in these houses spent most of their time.

  ‘Mr Hopkins is in the lavvy, at the bottom of the yard, ma’am,’ Mellors said, opening the back door.

  The yard was perhaps twenty feet long. It was bounded by party walls with the neighbours on each side, and a back wall which separated it from the alley. The wash house, containing a coal-fired boiler, a mangle, and the house’s only tap, was close to the back door, and the toilet – as Mellors had promised – was at the far end of the yard.

  The ‘outside lavvy’ was a small windowless brick shed. It was around eight feet tall at the front, three feet wide and five feet deep. It had a sloping roof, and was whitewashed. The door was open, but their view of what was inside was blocked by a large grey-haired man.

  The man turned.

  ‘Ah, the constabulary have arrived,’ he said. ‘You’re DCI Paniatowski, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Thought you were. I’m Taylor, Dr Shastri’s temporary replacement. Taylor’s the name, and cutting’s the game.’ He stepped to one side. ‘Behold, Chief Inspector – the stiff!’

  The victim was sitting on the toilet at the back of the lavatory, his head slumped forward. His trousers and underpants had been pulled down to his knees, and the naked legs above them were pale, veined and mottled. The legs, trousers, and much of the floor, were stained with blood.