Dangerous Games Page 7

  Rutter checked his watch. ‘The first girl will be here in about ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Now the way I suggest we handle the interviews is …’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Elizabeth Driver interrupted him.

  ‘Can’t do what?’

  ‘Help you to interview the nannies.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Because she had no interest at all in children or in children’s nannies, Elizabeth Driver thought, and she was afraid that her lack of interest would shine through, however much she might try to disguise it. Because the only kind of interviewing she really enjoyed was aggressive interviewing – interviewing which pulled the subject apart and left him in pieces on the floor – and there was always the danger that, however much she tried to avoid it, she would get caught up in the heat of the moment and reveal her true self.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bob, I really did want to help you,’ she said, looking penitent. ‘In fact, when I talked to my editor a few minutes ago, I told him I had something really important to do, so I simply couldn’t follow up the lead he’d just been given on a hot story in Preston. I won’t tell you exactly what he said in reply,’ she smiled impishly, ‘but his language would have made a docker blush.’

  ‘But you promised,’ Rutter said, rather like a disappointed child.

  ‘I know I did,’ she replied, wondered if she should brush her finger against his cheek, then deciding that, at this stage of the game, it was a step too far. ‘And honestly, I’m really upset that I can’t do it. But my editor was most insistent that I leave right away.’

  ‘Then why did you bother to come at all?’ Rutter asked, with just a hint of petulance evident in his tone.

  ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,’ Elizabeth Driver lied. ‘It could be weeks. And I felt I just had to see you before I left.’

  ‘That was sweet of you,’ Rutter told her.

  She smiled. ‘I am sweet. Under this tough exterior, there lurks a real big softie.’

  Rutter looked at her strangely – questioningly – and she wondered if she’d been over-acting.

  ‘You haven’t asked me about the case I’m working on,’ he said. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I didn’t really think I should,’ Elizabeth Driver replied seriously. ‘After all, I am a crime reporter, and when we talk about your work, it should be on a purely official basis.’

  Rutter frowned. ‘Yes, but it does seem a great pity that, on this occasion, I can’t talk about it.’

  It seemed to Elizabeth Driver that she might not be the only one to be guilty of over-acting. And suddenly, she understood exactly what game Bob Rutter was playing.

  ‘A pity?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes, you see, I’ve never come across a case quite like this one before, but it’s just possible, given your paper’s tendency to focus on the bizarre … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘I’m not offended. I know what my paper does.’

  ‘Well, then, given that your newspaper has a propensity for the bizarre and sensational side of crime, I think it’s just possible that you might have come across a case like it.’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ Elizabeth Driver said, noncommittally.

  ‘And if you had come across a similar case, then your insights might prove to be very useful to me.’ Rutter paused. ‘But since, as you’ve just pointed out, you are a crime reporter …’

  ‘This is a ridiculous situation,’ Elizabeth Driver said, with mock exasperation. ‘I’m your friend, aren’t I?’

  ‘Well, I certainly like to think so.’

  ‘And as your friend, I’d like to help you out in any way I can. And I don’t really see why my job should get in the way of that.’

  Rutter pretended to be on the horns of a dilemma. ‘If you could give me your word that you won’t …’

  ‘Publish anything that you tell me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have it.’

  ‘In that case, there’s absolutely nothing to stop me from speaking freely to you.’

  Rutter told her all about the Terry Pugh case.

  ‘So you’re sure he was dead long before he went off the bridge?’ she asked, when he’d finished.

  ‘Dr Shastri’s convinced of it.’

  ‘But all the local press still think it was suicide?’

  ‘That’s right. If one of the reporters managed to work out the truth, he’d have a real scoop on his hands.’ Rutter paused again. ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘Does this particular case remind you of any other that you might have come across?’

  ‘Not even remotely.’ Elizabeth Driver looked at her watch. ‘I really do have to go.’

  ‘Well, if you must, you must,’ Rutter agreed.

  This time, when he kissed her, she moved her head at the last moment, so that his lips lightly brushed against hers.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can be,’ she called from the hallway. ‘After all, we really do need to get started on your book.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Rutter said, from the lounge.

  She was conscious of his eyes following her as she made her way towards her Jaguar, so she walked slowly.

  As if she were reluctant to leave.

  As if it were only with a tremendous effort on her part that she was preventing herself from turning around and rushing back to him.

  She did not allow herself to break into laugher until she was sure she was out of his range of vision, but once she gave way, she could not stop for well over a minute.

  Did Bob Rutter really think he could trick her quite so easily, she asked herself. Did he really believe that he could put her to a test without her even noticing it?

  He had offered her the bait of the suicide-that-was-really-a-murder, and the following morning he would no doubt anxiously pick up her newspaper, half-expecting to see the story under her by-line.

  And when it wasn’t there, what conclusion would he draw?

  That he could trust her!

  It would never even occur to him that she might have chosen to forgo a short-term gain in favour of a much larger long-term one. Because men like Bob Rutter simply didn’t think deviously enough.

  She’d passed an important milestone. Conquered a major peak. From now on, it was going to be easy.

  Reg Lewis stood in a back alley, sobbing like a baby. It had been the empty cigarette packet he held in his hand which had opened the floodgates to his tears. He’d been so sure there’d be at least one more cigarette inside it – and there hadn’t been. Yet even as he wept, he knew the cigarette wasn’t the real problem – that the absence of it had been no more than the final straw.

  The real cause of his anguish was his fear – a fear that had been gnawing away at his insides like a hungry rat ever since he received the letter, but now threatened to swallow him whole.

  Terry Pugh was dead! Hanged! Decapitated!

  And that was only the start!

  ‘They used to say that if a bullet had your name on it, there was nothing you could do,’ Tom Bygraves had told him. ‘All that any of us can do is pray we’re not the next one on his list. The only hope we have is that he’ll be caught before he works his way round to us.’

  He needed a smoke. Just a few puffs of blessed nicotine would make all the difference. He got down on his hands and knees, and started rummaging through the rubbish on the floor of the alley.

  He found a flattened half-smoked cigarette lying close to a pile of dog shit. For a moment, he thought this was too low to go – even for him. Then, carefully avoiding the canine droppings, he picked up the discarded cigarette and rolled it around between his fingers until it was more or less cylindrical again.

  With trembling hands, he stuck a match, lit up the cigarette, and took in a deep drag.

  What was he to do, he wondered.

  What the bloody hell was he to do?

  He needed to get away from Whitebridge, change his name, and start a new life. But that require
d money. And he didn’t have any. Not even enough to buy himself another packet of fags.

  In a couple of days’ time, he would be able to pick up his unemployment benefit at the dole office. It wouldn’t be much money, but it should just about cover a train ticket to London, and London was a big city where any man could hide if he really wanted to.

  Yes, that was what he would do, he decided. He would go to London. And so what if, once he was there, he had to live on the streets and could eat only what he found in rubbish bins?

  At least he would be alive! At least he wouldn’t end up hanging from the end of a rope on some bridge!

  He felt better for having made the decision, but the feeling didn’t last. Because two days was a long time to wait for his money. And what was he going to do – where was he going to be – while he was waiting?

  He couldn’t go back to his grotty little bedsit – with the leaking tap and the only toilet in the house down the other end of the hallway – because he would be a sitting target there.

  But he couldn’t stay out on the streets, either.

  Perhaps he could hitch-hike to London. But who would ever pick up a man who had long scraggly hair and was dressed almost like a tramp?

  Perhaps he could walk to London.

  Or Birmingham.

  Or Manchester.

  But he knew himself well enough to understand that he was already too beaten down by life to ever make that kind of effort.

  So maybe the only real choice he was left with was to give himself up to the police – to walk into Whitebridge Police Headquarters, and explain to the sergeant behind the desk why he should lock him up.

  And then, like the sun emerging from behind a very dark cloud, a bright shining new idea suddenly came into his head.

  There was still one man in Whitebridge who would help him – who would really have no choice but to help him.

  Reg Lewis took another drag on the rescued cigarette, and found that it tasted better than his previous ones – found that it tasted wonderful.

  It was all going to be all right, he told himself. He would not only have a new life, he would have a better one.

  Despite the fact there was at least one more puff left in the cigarette, he threw it carelessly away. And when he walked back up the alley, there was a definite spring in his step.

  Nine

  The assistant manager and the waiter in the Tanners’ Arms had both given the police artist a description of the suspect who had left the pub with Terry Pugh, and the resulting black-and-white sketch was of a man with greased-back hair, a largish nose, and a dimple in his chin. What was missing was any expression in the eyes. They were neutral, which was the fault neither of the witnesses (who had never got close enough to him to really see them), nor of the police artist (who had consequently had nothing to work towards). Nobody’s fault then, but the simple truth was that without a clear impression of the eyes, the sketch did not really come alive – without the eyes, Woodend and Paniatowski had no real idea of the kind of man they were dealing with.

  Monika Paniatowski picked the sketch up from where it was lying on Woodend’s desk, looked at it first from one angle and then another, and finally placed it back where she’d found it.

  ‘It’s not just the eyes that are the problem,’ she said. ‘It’s the lack of a complexion as well. We’ve no idea of his actual colouring from this. Even so, I’d have to say that he definitely looks foreign, and he could well be Greek.’

  ‘Or Turkish,’ Woodend said gloomily, dragging on his Capstan Full Strength. ‘Or Yugoslav, or Albanian or Romanian. Or perhaps he’s not European at all. Maybe he’s Anglo-Indian.’

  Paniatowski laughed uncertainly. ‘That’s not a very positive attitude to take, is it, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I can’t help that,’ Woodend told her. ‘This is a very nasty case – an’ I’ve got a feelin’ in my water that it’s goin’ to get even nastier.’

  ‘How could it possibly get any nastier than decapitation?’ Paniatowski wondered.

  ‘When a perfectly ordinary feller like Terry Pugh dies in the way he did, you can pretty much guarantee that he’s been killed not for somethin’ he’s done on his own, but because he’s part of somethin’ bigger,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ it’s that “somethin’ bigger” – whatever it is – that’s goin’ to get nastier.’ He picked up the police artist’s sketch, gave it a cursory glance, and listlessly dropped it back on his desk. ‘This picture, even without the eyes, should be a big breakthrough for us – but I just don’t think it’s goin’ to be.’

  ‘It’s early days yet, sir,’ Paniatowski reminded him.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But even at this stage of the investigation, a clue like that sketch should already be producin’ significant leads. An’ it hasn’t. There’s nobody filed in our records who looks even remotely like this feller. An’ none of the bobbies who’ve seen the picture so far can recall ever seein’ him in Whitebridge – despite the fact that if he was here, he should stick out like a nun in a knockin’ shop.’

  ‘So perhaps he’s new to the area,’ Paniatowski suggested.

  ‘Perhaps he is,’ Woodend countered sourly. ‘But if that’s true, it just makes things look even murkier, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Let’s follow that argument of yours through, shall we? A stranger comes into town, an’ looks around for somethin’ to amuse himself with. An’ what does he come up with? He thinks, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll find some feller who works in a ball bearin’ factory – an’ then I’ll pull his bloody head off”!’

  There was little point in arguing with Woodend when he was in this mood, Paniatowski decided.

  ‘Have you had the sketch sent down to the Central Records Office in Scotland Yard, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh aye. They should get it first thing in the mornin’.’

  ‘Then perhaps they’ll be able to give us a result. Their records are so much more extensive than ours, you know.’

  ‘Yes, strange as it might seem, I did already know that,’ Woodend said. He paused. ‘I’m sorry, Monika. That must have sounded really ratty.’

  ‘No rattier than several other things you’ve said in the last few minutes,’ Paniatowski pointed out.

  Woodend shook his head. ‘You’re right, I’m wrong, an’ again, I apologize,’ he said. ‘An’ maybe you’re right about somethin’ else, as well. Maybe, whatever my misgivings, Central Records will be able to put a name to the face. But if I was you, I wouldn’t hold my breath while I was waiting.’

  Paniatowski glanced up at the heavy old-fashioned clock which hung on the wall.

  ‘Isn’t it time that we headed out for the Drum and Monkey, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Just about,’ Woodend agreed, glancing up at the clock himself. ‘An’ I suppose it’s just possible that when we get there, we’ll find that either Constable Beresford or Inspector Rutter has come up with a brilliant lead which will crack the case wide open.’

  ‘But we shouldn’t hold our breaths while we’re waiting?’ Paniatowski suggested.

  ‘But we shouldn’t hold our breaths while we’re waitin’,’ the Chief Inspector agreed.

  Reg Lewis’ head ached, and though he was sure he had his eyes open, he couldn’t see a thing.

  He’d heard somewhere that people could go blind through drinking too much. But he hadn’t drunk that much, had he? At least, not that day.

  He’d needed to calm his nerves, so he’d knocked back five pints in quick succession at lunch time. No – five and a half. He’d managed to scrape together just enough copper from the bottom of his pocket to buy that last half. But five and a half pints wasn’t a lot. For him, it could almost be called ‘moderate’. It certainly wasn’t enough to make him go blind!

  He tried to remember what he’d done since he’d drained that last half pint, and discovered that he had no idea.

  He didn’t even know what time it was now. And how could he, when he
couldn’t even tell whether it was day or night?

  He closed his eyes – not that that made much difference – and tried to remember what he’d done after he’d left the pub.

  He’d been standing in the alley, crying like a baby.

  He’d picked up a flattened cigarette end off the ground, rolled it back into shape, and smoked it.

  And then?

  And then nothing.

  He realized that he was being bounced around, and with that realization came another – that he was not standing on his feet, but lying down.

  There had been a steady hum accompanying his thoughts, like background music. Now the hum changed briefly to a minor roar, before settling down to something much more regular again.

  A car engine, he told himself. That was what the noise was.

  No, not a car engine. From the sound of it, it was more likely to be a van or a small lorry.

  So … he was in some kind of motor vehicle, he was lying down, and his head hurt.

  He had not thought to move before, but now, when he did try, he found that he couldn’t. His hands, which were behind his back, refused to separate. And his ankles were being equally uncooperative.

  He was tied up! He was in the back of a van, and he was tied up.

  But why? Who had tied him up, and for what purpose?

  He tried to speak, but his lips seemed to be glued together. His whole face was beginning to prickle, and he guessed that was because it was in close contact with an itchy woollen fabric.

  He had a hood over his head, he decided – probably like the ones that he’d seen army interrogators slip over their suspects’ heads, before they started to question them. It had been fun watching that happen – working out from their panicked body language what their facial expressions must be under the hoods – but it wasn’t fun when it happened to you.

  And he wasn’t in the army now.

  He wasn’t … in the army … now.

  It was as if he had stumbled on the right key to open the door of his closed mind. Suddenly, all the events of the afternoon came flooding back to him with perfect clarity.