The Red Herring Read online

  ‘This school is very highly thought of in the area, and that means that the teachers who work here tend to be highly thought of, too. So when any organisation such as the technical college needs part-time lecturers in the evening, they contact us first, to see if any of our staff are willing to take on the work.’

  ‘So Miss Beale was workin’ at the tech?’

  ‘No, I merely mentioned the technical college as an example. Miss Beale gave some classes at the Blackhill Air Force base.’

  ‘I thought she was a history teacher,’ Woodend said.

  ‘She was.’

  ‘So why would any of our lads, who we’re relying on to bomb the hell out of the civilised world, need to know about Henry VIII an’ his six wives?’

  Hargreaves laughed, though it sounded as if he were unsure whether Woodend was joking or not. ‘She wasn’t teaching “our lads”,’ he said. ‘She was giving a general cultural orientation course to some of the officers in the USAF who share the base with them.’

  ‘I see,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ how often did she give these cultural courses of hers?’

  ‘Two or three nights of the week, I believe.’

  ‘Now that is interestin’,’ Woodend said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, Miss Beale was missin’ school because she kept gettin’ ill, which, as the man who runs things, must have made life a bit difficult for you.’

  ‘It’s always a little awkward when a member of staff is away,’ the deputy head admitted. ‘It means asking other teachers to take her place, and they work quite enough hours as it is.’

  ‘An’ if I remember rightly, you said the reason young teachers get ill is often because they’re exhausted.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So why didn’t you take it on yourself to have a fatherly word with Miss Beale?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She was obviously findin’ it a strain, which meant that she was also puttin’ a strain on you an’ your staff. Why didn’t you have a word with her – suggest that she cut down on her outside commitments?’

  Hargreaves looked a little uncomfortable. ‘It’s not very easy to tell other people how to run their lives.’

  ‘Even if the way she ran hers was damagin’ the efficiency of the school you’re responsible for?’

  The deputy head shrugged. ‘I probably would have had a word with her if it had gone on for much longer,’ he said, ‘but I wanted to give her a chance to find her feet.’

  ‘What about her social life?’ Woodend asked. ‘How did she get on with the rest of the staff?’

  ‘You could ask them,’ Hargreaves said.

  ‘I will,’ Woodend replied. ‘But first, I’m askin’ you.’

  ‘This is a very traditional school,’ Hargeaves told him. ‘Quite a number of the teachers were pupils here themselves. Most of those went to single-sex Oxford or Cambridge colleges to earn their degrees, and then came straight back to King Edward’s to teach.’

  ‘Strange,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Hargreaves countered. ‘They – and I myself am one of them – consider this a very special institution, a place where excellence is encouraged, a shining beacon which––’

  ‘You’re startin’ to talk just like a school prospectus now,’ Woodend interrupted.

  The deputy head grinned abashedly. ‘I suppose I am,’ he agreed.

  ‘Anyway, the main point you were makin’ is that a lot of your staff don’t like women,’ Woodend continued.

  ‘No, I wasn’t saying that at all,’ the deputy head protested. ‘Most of them are married and have children of their own. All I meant was that they’re not used to dealing with women within their working environment.’

  ‘So how are they gettin’ on with the girls from the base that you’ve taken in?’

  Hargreaves smiled. ‘It’s not always easy for them. Some of the comments they’ve got used to making in front of a class of boys are, shall we say, inappropriate, now that there are a couple of girls in the room. But they’re learning to adjust to the situation. This school has survived for so long mainly because it’s learned to adjust to changing times.’

  ‘Let’s get back to Miss Beale,’ Woodend suggested. ‘You were sayin’ that she wasn’t very welcome in the staff room.’

  ‘I was saying that some of the old boys here were slightly uncomfortable in her presence. But not all the staff, by any means. Some of them got on very well with her.’

  ‘Could you give me an example?’

  ‘Simon Barnes, one of her fellow historians. I believe they went to the same church, every Sunday.’

  ‘Oh, she was a God-botherer, was she?’ Woodend asked.

  The deputy head gave Woodend a long, speculative look. ‘I wonder how much of this crass, blunt Northern image you project is the real you, Mr Woodend,’ he said.

  Woodend smiled. ‘More of it than you might think,’ he replied.

  Roger Cray sat in his office at the British Aircraft Industries’ Blackhill plant, staring at the reports which lay on his desk in front of him. But though his eyes moved along the lines of words, and up and down the columns of figures, he was taking none of it in – and when his phone rang, he jumped like a startled rabbit.

  With a slightly shaking hand, he picked up the receiver, and said, ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said a voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘What the hell are you doing ringing now?’ Cray demanded.

  ‘I’m ringing now because it’s when I can ring,’ Martin Dove said. ‘I’m not an executive like you, able to pick my own time. I was in the classroom until ten minutes ago – and I’ll be back there in another ten.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry,’ Cray mumbled.

  ‘I was just calling to make sure we’re still going ahead as planned,’ Dove told him.

  ‘Going ahead as planned!’ Cray repeated. ‘After last night!’

  ‘Last night was unfortunate,’ Dove conceded.

  ‘It was more than that, it was––’

  ‘But we’ve got things timed too tightly to let that upset us. If we don’t do it now, there’s no telling when we might get another chance.’

  He was right, Cray thought, as he felt his hands start to sweat. Damn him, he was right!

  ‘If we do go ahead with it, we’re going to have to be careful,’ he said.

  ‘We were always going to have to be careful,’ the caller replied. ‘Let’s make sure we’ve got the details straight, shall we?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll be standing by the statue of William Gladstone, halfway up the park, at exactly twenty minutes to one. I’ve deliberately taken to going there most lunchtimes, so if some of the other teachers notice me going, they won’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary. As for people in the park – in this weather, there shouldn’t be any. But it’s better to be safe than sorry, so you just walk past me without looking at me. Then, when you get to the top of the path, turn around as if you’ve walked far enough and decided to go back to your Sapphire. If there’s still nobody around, keep your hand by your side but waggle your fingers. That’ll be the signal for us to meet in the bushes. Have you got that?’

  ‘Of course I’ve got it! I’m not an idiot, and we’ve been through it half a dozen times.’

  ‘It’s very important you do it exactly as I’ve outlined it,’ Dove said, as if Cray had never spoken. ‘Very important – because later, when it’s all over the papers, anybody who’s seen us together might remember and start to put two and two together.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We can do this,’ the caller said. ‘We have to do it. We need to do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cray admitted dully. ‘We need to.’

  ‘I’m standing on the dockside of the American military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,’ said the voice of the reporter from the wireless in the police canteen. ‘It is still night here on
the other side of the ocean, and under the floodlights I can see groups of women and children, holding a few hastily packed belongings and waiting for the ship which will take them away from what could, potentially, become a very dangerous place indeed to be.’

  Bob Rutter lit up a Tareton cork-tipped cigarette, and looked around him. The normally noisy canteen had fallen silent, and all the officers there were staring up at the wireless as if that were, in itself, an aid to them hearing better.

  ‘Simultaneous with the departure of these military dependants, the base is awaiting the arrival of three battalions of US Marine reinforcements,’ the reporter continued. ‘Out at sea, eight hundred miles from the island of Cuba, the American Fleet is preparing to establish what it says is a “quarantine line”, but which the USSR claims is a military blockade and tantamount to an act of war. As Russian ships steam steadily on towards this quarantine line, the governments in Washington and Moscow hold their breaths – and in this, they have much in common with their own people, and with the peoples of the world. This is Paul Townshend, handing you back to the studio.’

  ‘Why the bloody hell can’t the Reds stay where they belong?’ demanded a middle-aged uniformed constable on the next table to Rutter’s. ‘Because they’re out to conquer the whole bloody world, that’s why,’ he continued, answering his own question.

  ‘I don’t see why the Russians can’t have missiles on Cuba if they want to,’ his companion replied. ‘After all, the Americans have got missiles in Turkey, haven’t they?’

  ‘That’s different,’ the first constable said. ‘The Yanks haven’t put them in Turkey just to protect themselves – they’ve done it to protect us as well.’

  ‘Protect us? The Russians haven’t got any interest in little England,’ the second constable scoffed.

  ‘That kind of remark shows just what an ignorant, uninformed bugger you really are,’ his partner countered. ‘Have you ever heard of a feller called William Vassall?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I have,’ the second constable admitted.

  ‘I thought as much. Well, for your information Vassall used to be a clerk at the Admiralty. An’ I say used to be, because yesterday he was sentenced to eighteen years behind bars for spyin’ for just them people that you claim don’t have any interest in little England. An’ he’s not the only one, not by a long chalk. There’s Reds in the trade unions, an’ Reds in the government. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were Reds in this very station – and pretty near the top, as well.’ The constable suddenly noticed who was sitting at the next table, and began to look distinctly uncomfortable. ‘No, I take that back. That’s probably goin’ too far,’ he added lamely.

  Rutter stood up. ‘If you’re wondering if I overheard your conversation, constable, then I have to tell you that I did,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I got a bit carried away,’ the constable mumbled.

  ‘There’s no need to be sorry for your views, because, unlike the Russians, you’ve got a perfect right to express them,’ Rutter told him. ‘If anyone should apologise, it’s me – for eavesdropping on your conversation.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked towards the exit. The average bobbie in Whitebridge was not known for his interest in current events, he thought. But then they didn’t see this particular crisis as something that was happening far away from themselves and their interests – they saw it as a possible lead-up to World War Three! With strategic military targets like the Blackhill aircraft factory and British-American air-force base only a few miles from Whitebridge, they were worried for the safety of their families.

  And they had every right to be – he was bloody worried himself!

  Eight

  Verity Beale’s naked body was stretched out on the table, with several of her vital organs lying in stainless-steel dishes beside it. Monika Paniatowski braced herself as she looked down at it, conscious that the uniformed constable in the corner – who was only there because the law required an officer to be present at every autopsy – was watching her closely.

  In her early days on the force, Monika had felt it was unfair that she should come under such scrutiny; unfair that while her male colleagues were allowed to look a little queasy when observing a cadaver, she was not – because she was a woman, and even the slightest twitch on her face would be taken as proof positive that women should have nothing to do with murder investigations. Now she regarded such an attitude as merely one more in a long list of obstacles she would have to leap over in order to prove that she was not just a good detective – she was one of the best.

  Doctor Pierson, a hacksaw in his hand, looked up from his work. ‘Just you here, Monika?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Isn’t Cloggin’-it Charlie bothering with this one?’

  ‘He’s busy up at Eddie’s,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘What can you tell me about the stiff?’

  The doctor placed his bloody hacksaw on the table, and lit up a cigarette. ‘Aged about twenty-six or twenty-seven,’ he said. ‘Very fit, very strong. Almost an athlete’s physique.’

  ‘She must have put up quite a struggle when she was being strangled,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘She could have done if she’d been conscious – but she wasn’t. There’s a bump the size of a duck egg on the back of her head.’

  ‘Any idea of what was used to hit her?’

  ‘More than an idea. It was a brick. An Accrington red brick, I’d say, though that’s really up to your forensic boys to establish for certain. We found traces of it embedded in her skull.’

  A brick! Paniatowski thought in disgust. Not a Papuan headhunter’s axe or stonemason’s hammer, but a bloody brick!

  And how many of them were there lying around in Lancashire, just waiting for murderers searching for a suitable blunt instrument? Millions!

  ‘What else have you got?’ she asked.

  ‘She wasn’t killed where she was found. From the bruising which occurred after death, I’d say she’d been driven there, probably sitting in an upright position. Now that’s a grizzly thought, isn’t it?’

  Very grizzly. Paniatowski lit up one of her own cigarettes and inhaled deeply. ‘Time of death?’ she asked.

  ‘Sometime between eleven last night and one o’clock this morning. She last had something to eat at around six o’clock. A cheese sandwich liberally smeared with sweet pickle.’

  ‘Anything else in her stomach?’

  ‘She’d been drinking shortly before she died.’

  ‘To excess?’

  ‘Depends what you’d call excessive, Monika. Three or four gin and tonics, which probably wouldn’t have that much effect on somebody with her build and general fitness. What I can’t really tell you is whether she had them before –or whether she had them after!’

  ‘Before or after what?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention that?’ the doctor said, sounding surprised. ‘She had sexual intercourse sometime during the course of the evening.’

  At the mention of sex, Paniatowski noticed, the uniformed constable in the corner of the room ran his eyes quickly up and down her body, then sniggered to himself. She could easily imagine what he would tell his mates when he was back in the canteen.

  ‘An’ when the doc mentioned sex, Sergeant Panties shivered all over. You can tell she’s cryin’ out for it herself.’

  ‘Is something the matter, Monika?’ asked Pierson, who’d clearly missed the constable’s reaction. ‘You surely weren’t expecting her to still be a virgin, were you? Not in this day and age? Not now there’s the miracle birth-control pill so freely available?’

  The constable sniggered again, no doubt refining the story he would recount later. Paniatowski decided to ignore him.

  ‘No, I wasn’t expecting her to be a virgin,’ she told the doctor. ‘Not particularly, anyway. What about the sex? She wasn’t forced, was she?’

  ‘Definitely not. It was consensual, and, I would say, it was also rather energetic.’

  The smirk on the constable’s
face was widening by the second, and even when he saw that Paniatowski was looking straight at him, he made no attempt to hide it.

  ‘Would you mind coming over here for a second or two, Constable?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re the only constable I can see in this room.’

  The man stepped hesitantly forward, but stopped when he was still a fair distance from the table. He was perhaps a couple of years younger than Paniatowski, and his air of superiority – which he probably thought it was natural for a man to feel in the presence of a mere woman – was rapidly draining from his face.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant?’ he said.

  ‘Is this the first autopsy you’ve attended?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ the constable admitted.

  ‘Then come a little closer,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I don’t think you can see things clearly from where you’re standing.’

  The constable took another tentative step.

  ‘Now, as you can observe, the doctor has sliced off the top of the skull, pretty much in the way you knock off the top of your boiled egg in the morning,’ Paniatowski explained, in a dry, clinical voice. ‘That funny piece of meat he’s taken out is, in fact, the brain.’ She pointed to a spot in the centre of it. ‘If it was your brain – assuming you have one – then that’s the place where all your dirty thoughts would be born.’

  The constable’s skin was turning a light shade of green.

  ‘Now, according to regulations, what the doctor’s supposed to do before he stitches her up again is to put the brain back in,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘But that’s a bit of a fiddle, and the brain’s not going to be much use to the dead woman now, is it? So as far as Doc Pierson’s concerned, it’s much easier just to use newspaper as padding instead. You normally use the Manchester Guardian for the job, don’t you, Doctor?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Pierson said, deadpan.

  The constable’s green colour had deepened.

  ‘You’ll . . . you’ll have to excuse me,’ he gasped.

  Then he clamped his hand tightly over his mouth, and rushed in the direction of the toilets.