Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire Page 6

  ‘I did warn you it wouldn’t be pleasant,’ Paniatowski said. ‘So if you’re upset now, you’ve only yourself to blame.’

  But Louisa didn’t actually seem as if she was upset – in fact, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself.

  ‘Yes, she doesn’t look quite right, but I’m certain it’s Doña Elena,’ the girl said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doña Elena. I don’t know her other name. I met her at Tía Pilar’s lunch party.’

  ‘Remind me when that party was,’ Paniatowski said.

  Louisa counted back on her fingers. ‘It was eleven days ago.’

  ‘And so you’re asking me to believe that seven days after you see this woman at a party on the Costa Blanca, she turns up dead – under the ice – in a Whitebridge canal?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Louisa admitted.

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘But it’s her. I know it’s her. I paid special attention to her at the party, because Tía Pilar said she was a true heroine.’

  Dr Shastri had said the dead woman hadn’t been living on a typical northern diet – no chip butties or steak and kidney pies. In fact, she’d gone so far as to suggest that the woman might have been following a ‘Mediterranean diet’, Paniatowski thought. And Shastri had also said that she appeared to have had more exposure to the sun than most people in Lancashire would have.

  So maybe it was just possible that …

  ‘You’re starting to think that I just might be right, aren’t you?’ Louisa asked gleefully.

  ‘We’re trained not to overlook any possibility, however unlikely it might seem,’ Paniatowski replied.

  Louisa grinned. ‘And now you’re going to ring Uncle Colin and ask him to check it out,’ she said.

  Paniatowski stood up. ‘Smart arse!’ she said.

  And then she walked into the hallway, dialled the number of Whitebridge CID, and asked to be put through to DCI Beresford.

  ‘I thought you were making an early night of it, boss,’ Beresford said, when he came on the line.

  ‘I was,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Have you checked the railway station and bus station?’

  ‘I’m sorry, boss?’

  ‘Have you shown the sketch to everyone who works at the railway station and the bus station?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Beresford admitted. ‘There didn’t seem much point in that, since we’d established that our victim lived in Whitebridge.’

  But they hadn’t established that at all, Paniatowski now realized.

  What they had established was that she probably knew her murderer, and that he probably had reasons for not wanting her to be identified – and that wasn’t the same thing at all.

  ‘We’ve probably spoken to some of the railway and bus staff in the course of the door-to-door inquiries,’ Beresford continued. ‘I can check through the records, if you like.’

  ‘Bugger that for a game of soldiers,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I want your lads to interview all railway and bus station employees – and I want it done now! Have you got that?’

  ‘Got it,’ Beresford agreed.

  The row of cottages behind the railway station was – accurately, if a little prosaically – called Railway Row. They were solid, two-up, two-down houses, and each one had a small garden at the front, and backed on to an alley at the rear.

  The gardens of the houses were neat and tidy, the paintwork on the windows and doors bright and fresh, Beresford noted, as he walked along the row. If he had to guess, he would say that most of the people who lived there were young couples who planned eventually to move up the housing ladder, but in the meantime were determined to show pride in their modest little homes.

  Number Eleven, Railway Row, was a marked contrast to the other houses – the garden overgrown, the dark brown paintwork cracked and peeling, and when Beresford opened the gate, it squeaked an exhausted protest.

  The man who answered his knock was in his mid-fifties, and had a pencil-thin moustache, a weak jaw and resentful eyes.

  ‘Mr Higgins?’ Beresford asked. ‘Mr Ben Higgins?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ the other man replied.

  Beresford produced his warrant card. ‘Are you Ben Higgins?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’d like to ask you a few questions, sir, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘All right,’ Higgins agreed, though his tone said that he certainly did mind.

  ‘You’re a baggage porter on Whitebridge Railway Station, aren’t you?’ Beresford said.

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘We’re trying to trace the movements of a woman who may have arrived here by train,’ Beresford said, unfolding the sketch. ‘This woman, to be precise.’

  ‘Never seen her,’ Higgins replied, barely glancing at the sketch.

  ‘I’d like you to take a closer look,’ Beresford said firmly.

  The second glance was longer than the first – though not by much.

  ‘Don’t know her,’ Higgins said dismissively.

  Behind him, the gate creaked again, and Beresford turned to see a middle-aged woman struggling with three heavy carrier bags full of groceries. Higgins had seen her too, but it was plain from his unaltered stance that he had no intention of abandoning his position on the doorstep.

  Beresford turned around, met the woman halfway up the path, and relieved her of two of the bags.

  ‘Well, that is kind of you, young man,’ the woman said, ‘but if you’re hoping that by helping me you’ll persuade that miserable old bugger to buy whatever it is you’re selling, you’re due for a disappointment.’

  ‘I’m not selling anything,’ Beresford said, as they reached the front door. ‘I’m a police officer, conducting inquiries.’

  ‘Well, I have to say, you certainly took your time getting here,’ the woman said. She looked up at her husband. ‘When was it exactly that you called the police station, Ben?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Higgins said, looking distinctly unhappy.

  ‘Well, I do. It was Sunday morning, on your way to the pub,’ Mrs Higgins said.

  ‘I … er … might have forgotten to ring,’ Higgins said.

  ‘That’s not what you told me when you got back from the boozer, smelling of beer and expecting your Sunday dinner to be waiting for you on the table,’ his wife countered.

  ‘What was the call about?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Why, that woman whose picture was in the paper, of course,’ Mrs Higgins said. ‘He was looking through the Whitebridge Sunday Post, and he said to me, “I’ve seen that woman,” and I said, “Have you? Then you’d better report it,” and he said, “I will.”’

  ‘Look …’ Higgins began.

  ‘So why didn’t you report it?’ Beresford interrupted him.

  ‘Like I said, I forgot.’

  ‘And why did you tell me just now that you didn’t recognize her?’

  ‘You never could keep your mouth shut, could you?’ Higgins said, glaring at his wife. ‘It’s like this,’ he continued, turning back to Beresford, ‘I’m a busy man, and I knew if I reported it, I’d have to go down to the station and you’d keep me there for hours.’

  ‘A busy man!’ his wife said, with obvious contempt. ‘The only thing you’re ever busy doing is sitting on your big fat backside.’

  ‘Besides, I knew I couldn’t be the only one who’d seen her, so I didn’t think there was any point in bothering you,’ Higgins continued.

  But no one else had seen her, Beresford thought – and why was that?

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ Higgins asked, sounding rather worried now.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Beresford lied, ‘but things might go a little easier on you if you were to tell me exactly what you saw.’

  The first words that Beresford said when Paniatowski answered the phone were, ‘How the bloody hell did you know, Monika?’

  ‘I take it that means that somebody recognized her,’ Paniatowski replied.

  ‘A railway p
orter called Higgins. He says he saw her get off the train from Manchester last Wednesday.’

  ‘That was the day on which we think she died!’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Why didn’t he contact us before?’

  ‘Because he’s an idle bastard?’ Beresford speculated, his voice tinged with anger. ‘Because he’s got about as much a sense of civic responsibility as a corporation lamp-post has?’

  ‘Was there anything else that he could tell you, apart from when she arrived in Whitebridge?’

  ‘He thinks he remembers that she was carrying a small bag or suitcase, but he can’t remember what colour it was.’

  ‘And we still haven’t found that, have we?’

  ‘No. We haven’t found the coat she was wearing, either.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at headquarters in half an hour, Colin,’ Paniatowski said, and hung up.

  When she returned to the living room, she saw that her daughter was grinning again.

  ‘Well?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Thank you for your help, darling, I really appreciate it,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But do you have to look so bloody smug?’

  Louisa gazed down at the table. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said, in a little girl voice.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Paniatowski said.

  Louisa raised her head again, and the grin was still in place. ‘No, I’m not,’ she agreed. ‘Is there a reward?’

  ‘Indeed there is,’ Paniatowski told her, ‘the reward of knowing that you’ve done your duty as a responsible citizen.’

  ‘I’m not old enough to be a citizen,’ Louisa pointed out. ‘But I am old enough to be given a record voucher.’

  ‘Well, you’ve earned it,’ Paniatowski conceded. ‘In fact, if I’m honest, you’ve more than earned it.’

  ‘Glad to oblige,’ Louisa said.

  It was relatively easy for the switchboard in Whitebridge police headquarters to make contact with the headquarters of the Cuerpo de Policía Armada in Madrid, but rerouting the call to their office in Alicante took over half an hour, and it was another twenty minutes before anyone who spoke English could be found to deal with the inquiry.

  The man who eventually came on the line said that his name was Captain Muñoz.

  ‘Never been to Britain, but I spent a few years in the States,’ he told Paniatowski. ‘So what can I do for ya, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘We have a murder victim – a woman – here in Whitebridge who we believe may recently have come here from Calpe, or one of the outlying villages,’ Paniatowski explained.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Captain Muñoz replied, but there was no real interest behind the question.

  ‘We were wondering if you could find out something about her background for us,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘We can look through the files and see what we’ve got on her,’ Muñoz suggested.

  ‘Is she likely to be on your files?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Sure, if she was a subversive,’ the captain replied, ‘and since she was in England when she got hit, I’d guess there’s a pretty good chance that’s exactly what she was.’

  ‘Would you care to explain the reasoning behind that?’ Paniatowski asked cautiously.

  Muñoz sighed at her obvious stupidity.

  ‘Most Spanish women would never even think of leaving Spain unless they’d got something to hide,’ he explained.

  She and the captain clearly had very different ways of looking at the world, Paniatowski decided.

  ‘The victim in the case was quite an old woman,’ she said, hoping the information would make a difference to his attitude.

  ‘There’s no age limit for people who are intent on destroying the fatherland, lady,’ the captain said.

  ‘Maybe there is a file on her,’ Paniatowski conceded in an attempt to meet him halfway, ‘but since I don’t even know her surname …’

  ‘Jeez, if you don’t know her name, then how do you expect us to look her up?’ Muñoz interrupted.

  ‘I don’t know her surname, but I have the name and address of someone who I think will know it,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ the captain said. ‘If you’ve got a murder on your hands, why don’t you just pull in the usual suspects and give them the third degree until one of them either confesses or rats out one of the others.’

  ‘It doesn’t quite work like that over here,’ Paniatowski said patiently. ‘What we like to do during an investigation is build up a profile of the victim, and see where that leads us.’

  ‘Weird,’ the captain said. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you my problem, lady. The Generalissimo has just died, and now that he’s gone, all kinds of low-life have taken their opportunity to come creeping out of the woodwork. There’s murderers, rapists, child molesters, homosexuals, communists – you name it, we’ve got it – all trying to get their dirty business done before we’re organized enough to clamp down on them again. And you want me to waste my men’s time chasing up the details on some old broad who may not even have been a subversive?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘No can do,’ Muñoz said – and hung up.

  SIX

  The Spanish Consulate in Manchester was located midway between the Central Reference Library on Albert Square and the Piccadilly bus station, and when it opened its doors for business that Monday morning, Paniatowski was already waiting outside.

  Establishing her credentials with her warrant card was enough to get her inside without a prior appointment, and ten minutes later she found herself sitting across a desk from the deputy vice consul, a man in his middle-thirties who looked as if he regarded his present position as no more than a step on the ladder to future diplomatic eminence.

  ‘We are always willing to cooperate with the English police, Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski,’ he said, ‘but I am still unclear how we can help you.’

  ‘I have some questions I need answering about a woman who was found dead in Whitebridge, but who we suspect may have come from the Costa Blanca,’ Paniatowski told him.

  ‘Then I would suggest that you contact the Cuerpo de Policía Armada in Alicante.’

  ‘I’ve already done that. They say they haven’t got the available manpower to make any inquiries.’

  The deputy vice consul nodded. ‘Yes, it’s probably true that they haven’t,’ he said.

  It was time to turn up the bullshit meter, Paniatowski decided.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s a police force in the world that doesn’t feel it’s short of manpower,’ she said, ‘so it’s usually a case of setting out your priorities. Now you can’t expect the local police on the Costa Blanca to see my investigation as important. Their work, by its very nature, is bound to be parochial. But surely someone with a much wider view of the world – like yourself, for instance – can see the benefits of international cooperation, and could suggest, through the proper channels, that it might be to their long-term advantage to assist us.’

  Not bad, she thought, awarding herself a mental pat on the shoulder. Not bad at all!

  And then she saw the sanctimonious look which had appeared on the deputy vice consul’s face, and realized it had been a waste of effort.

  ‘You have heard, have you not, that our great leader – the man who has steered Spain through stormy waters of both national and international affairs for almost forty years – passed away last week?’ the man asked.

  The conversation was probably being taped, Paniatowski thought, and when it was over, the deputy vice consul would play it back to his superiors, to prove what a good boy he’d been.

  ‘Yes, I have heard that,’ she agreed.

  ‘Well, there you have it,’ the deputy vice consul said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘There I have what?’ Paniatowski wondered.

  ‘The Spanish people are in a very disturbed and distressed state. Cruelly robbed of their leader, they are wandering around like lost sheep. They need the police to guide
them.’

  The game was lost, and she should leave it right there, Paniatowski told herself.

  And then she thought about what Paco had told her of his own experiences – and those of his comrades – after the war had ended, and she heard herself say, ‘So it’s because the people are all so upset over Franco’s death that the police have their hands full, is it?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Not because they’re expecting any kind of trouble?’

  ‘Why would there be any trouble? The whole nation admired and respected the Caudillo.’

  ‘I got a very different impression when I was over in Spain recently,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘You must have been talking to some of the very few malcontents who live in my country, then,’ the deputy vice consul said. He paused for a moment, before continuing with fake casualness, ‘Who were these people who gave you such a distorted view of Spain?’

  ‘Why would you want to know that?’

  ‘Is it not obvious?’

  ‘No, not to me.’

  ‘If they are unhappy, it is either because they have a genuine grievance or because they have been misinformed about the true state of affairs. Whichever the case, they must be contacted, so that their grievances can be addressed and their misconceptions corrected.’

  ‘I must say, you take your job very seriously,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Thank you. I certainly like to think that is the case.’

  ‘I can’t imagine an English deputy vice consul in Spain having so much concern for the people back home.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but we Spaniards are very much one big family,’ the deputy vice consul replied. ‘Now, if you could just give me the names …’ he pressed her.

  Paniatowski frowned. ‘Let me see … one of the people who seemed particularly unhappy was called Miguel.’

  ‘Do you happen to know what his second name is?’ the deputy vice consul asked.

  ‘I think his second name was El Raton,’ she said.

  ‘Miguel el Raton,’ repeated the deputy vice consul, glaring at her. ‘That is what we call Mickey Mouse in Spanish. Do you think that is amusing?’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski said, ‘but I don’t think it’s particularly funny, either, that you’re trying to pump me for the names of people who are not happy with your government.’