A Walk With the Dead (2 page)

‘I'll need the weekend to travel over to Yorkshire and settle in,' Baxter said, a little uncomfortably.

‘Yes, I can quite see how you'll need time to “settle in”,' Paniatowski agreed, ‘because Yorkshire's completely unfamiliar territory to you, isn't it?' She paused. ‘Well, not
completely
unfamiliar,' she amended, ‘because you did spend over
twenty years
working for the Yorkshire Constabulary.'

‘You're never
quite
insubordinate, are you, Monika?' Baxter asked.

‘No, sir,' Paniatowski agreed sweetly. ‘Never
quite
.'

And so it had been agreed – or, at least, settled – that she would go to the wedding, as a representative of the Mid Lancs Police, but right up until the last minute, she'd been hoping that work – in the form of a murder – would get in the way of it. Not that she wanted anyone to be murdered, she would mentally add whenever the thought came into her mind, but there would
be
a murder eventually – that was inevitable – and it would suit her if it happened on the morning of the wedding, rather than a couple of days after it.

But there had been no murder, and so here she was – dressed in an appropriate wedding outfit – at the nuptials of two perfectly nice people who she was not particularly interested in.

Still, she told herself as she sipped on her Polish vodka (it had been thoughtful of them, by the way, to have ordered that vodka in especially for her) the whole ritual could have been worse. The church service had been as short as it decently could be, the best man's speech had not been as buttock-clenchingly embarrassing as it might easily have been, the dancing was about to begin, and soon she would be able to slip inconspicuously away.

‘You look like you're waiting for a chance to make a bolt for the door,' said a voice.

Paniatowski jumped slightly, startled by the fact that the speaker had found it so easy to read her mind – or, at least, her body language.

‘Don't worry, I won't sneak on you to the alderman – because I'm planning on making a similar escape myself,' the voice continued.

The woman responsible for these remarks was probably in her middle twenties, Paniatowski guessed. She had brown curly hair, intelligent green eyes, a nose with a slight – though attractive – tilt, and a wide generous mouth which was now set in a good-natured smile.

‘How dare you even suggest that I'm planning to leave soon?' Paniatowski asked, grinning back at her. ‘I fully intend to stick with this reception until the bloody bitter end.'

‘Liar,' the other woman said. She held out her hand. ‘I'm Liz Duffy.'

The chief inspector took the hand. ‘Monika Paniatowski,' she said. ‘So what makes you one of the privileged few invited to attend the joining together of these two wholesome young people?'

‘I'm a quack,' Liz said. ‘A junior partner – a
very
junior partner – at the practice where Robert also works. And you?'

Paniatowski's grin widened. ‘I'm a civic dignitary.'

‘Ah! And what part of civic society are you dignified in?'

‘I'm a—'

Liz held up her hand to stop Paniatowski speaking. ‘Don't tell me – it'll be much more fun for me to guess. Are you some sort of big wheel in social services department?'

‘No.'

‘Of course you're not. You're nowhere near self-righteous enough to be working there. Are you a mandarin in the town-planning department, then? No, you don't have the necessary arrogance.' Liz clicked her fingers. ‘I've got it – you're a member of the constabulary. I'm right, aren't I?'

‘Yes, I'm a bobby,' Paniatowski admitted.

‘And since you're important enough to have been invited to this posh do, you must be at least a chief inspector,' Liz speculated.

Paniatowski laughed. ‘Right again,' she agreed.

‘Which makes you living proof that meritocracy exists – even in darkest Lancashire,' Liz said. ‘Though I don't suppose you got where you are now without
something
of a struggle.' She paused. ‘What branch are you in?'

‘CID.'

‘Then we may end up working together, because I've just been appointed assistant to Dr Taylor, the police surgeon.'

‘The
acting
police surgeon,' Paniatowski said, more sharply than she'd intended, because although she liked Dr Taylor, she missed her old friend Dr Shastri, who was on an extended sabbatical in India.

‘So since I've only been in the area for a while – and you seem positively crammed with local knowledge – why don't you fill me in on who's here?' Liz suggested.

Paniatowski gave her a quick rundown on the assembled guests – the local solicitors and businessmen, the owners of fancy hairdressing salons and assistant town clerks . . .

‘So, as you'll appreciate, the
crème de la crème
of Whitebridge society are all gathered together,' she concluded.

‘Or perhaps, since this
is
Whitebridge, it might be more accurate to call them the top of the milk?' Liz suggested.

Paniatowski laughed again. She really did like this young doctor, she thought, and talking to Liz was certainly helping to while away the time before she could decently exit.

‘Who's the sad-looking girl in the corner?' Liz asked.

Paniatowski followed the direction of her eyes. The girl was indeed in the corner – as far away from the festivities as it was possible to be. She was around thirteen or fourteen, Paniatowski guessed, which made her about as old as her own adopted daughter, Louisa. And Liz was right – she looked thoroughly miserable.

Paniatowski felt a sudden shiver run through her. Ever since the day two months earlier when Louisa had been kidnapped and missing for a few hours, Monika had not been able to look at a girl of her daughter's age without bringing the terrifying experience vividly into the forefront of her mind.

And that was just plain stupid, she told herself every time it happened, because no real harm had been done, and Louisa seemed to have quite got over it.

But even so . . .

‘Are you all right?' she heard Liz's voice ask.

‘I'm fine,' Paniatowski said. ‘I don't know the girl. Why don't we talk about someone else?'

J
ill Harris was sitting in the corner of the banqueting room of the Royal Victoria, feeling thoroughly miserable and angry – though she was not quite sure which of the emotions had the upper hand.

She hated the flounced pink dress her mother had forced her to wear for the occasion.

She hated the fact that being at this stupid wedding meant she was missing out on a Very Important Date.

And worst of all, it broke her heart to see her lovely Auntie Vanessa being dragged through this travesty of a wedding.

Nor were things about to get any better, she realized, as she saw her mother making a beeline for her.

‘What's the matter with you
now
?' Mary Harris asked, in a tone which was part concerned, part accusatory. ‘Why are you over here in the corner, love, all by yourself?'

‘I just felt like being on my own for a bit,' Jill said.

‘People will be looking at you,' her mother informed her. ‘People will be wondering.'

And that was the trouble with her mum, Jill thought – she spent most of her life worrying about what other people would think.

‘These curtains are getting a bit shabby. We'd better buy some new ones, before the neighbours notice.'

‘You can't go out dressed like that, Jill. Everybody will think I'm not looking after you properly.'

‘Did you hear what I said?' Mary Harris asked sharply.

‘Let them wonder,' Jill said.

Mary clicked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘You can't go doing that,' she said. ‘Look, the bride and groom are having the first dance.'

And so they were, Jill saw. The Mac Williams Quartet, who had been setting up their instruments for the previous fifteen minutes, had finally got their act together, and were playing a sickly sweet tune, to which Vanessa and Robert were gliding smoothly across the floor.

‘Don't they look lovely?' Mary asked.

‘
She
does,' Jill said, with emphasis.

The dance finished, and, to the sound of thunderous applause, the happy couple returned to their seats at the top table and disappeared behind the three-tiered wedding cake.

Now, as the band struck up its second song, a number of other couples were drifting onto the floor.

‘Do you know what would be nice?' Mary asked.

Jill said nothing.

‘I asked you if you knew what would be nice!' Mary said.

‘How can I?' Jill demanded. ‘I'm not a mind reader, Mum – I leave that sort of thing to you.'

‘I'm no mind reader – I just know what's right and proper,' Mary Harris said. ‘And what would be right and proper at this moment would be you going over to your Uncle Robert and asking him for a dance.'

‘I don't have an Uncle Robert,' Jill said stubbornly.

‘Yes, you do,' her mother persisted. ‘Since half-past eleven this morning, that man at the top table has been your uncle.'

‘No, he hasn't!' a voice screamed in Jill's head.

He could
never
be her Uncle Robert, whatever the law and the church said. She positively refused to acknowledge that this man – this
thief
– could ever be part of her family.

And he
was
a thief – he had stolen her lovely Auntie Vanessa right away from her.

Because the simple fact was that before he had appeared on the scene, everything had been going beautifully. Auntie Vanessa had been more like an older sister than an aunt, and looking back on the time they'd spent together, it seemed like a golden age.

She had worshipped Vanessa. She had trusted her. She had even been going to tell Vanessa her Big Secret, because she had known that her auntie would be both sympathetic and supportive.

But she couldn't tell her that secret now.

Not after she had been stolen away.

‘If you don't ask him to dance, people will wonder what's the matter with you,' Mary Harris said.

‘If
he
wants to dance with
me
, then why doesn't he come across and ask me?' Jill countered.

‘You know he won't do that – and you also know why,' Mary said, with an edge to her voice.

‘Do I?'

‘Yes, you damn well do. He won't ask you because he doesn't know what you'll say. And after the way you've treated him all the while he's been courting your Auntie Vanessa, who can blame him for being cautious?'

‘Well, if he won't ask me, and I won't ask him . . .' Jill began.

‘It's up to you to make the first move,' Mary interrupted.

‘Why is it up to me?'

‘Because he's always been perfectly nice to you, and you've always been perfectly horrid to him in return. So if anybody's going to hold out the olive branch, it should be you.'

‘And if I don't?' Jill asked.

‘If you don't, he'll want nothing more to do with you.'

‘Good.'

‘And if he doesn't want anything to do with you, Vanessa won't have much to do with you, either.'

‘That's not true!' Jill said, agonizingly.

But deep down inside her, she knew it was. Deep down inside, she recognized that Vanessa's first loyalty – for some perverse, twisted reason – now lay with her new husband.

‘Go on – ask your Uncle Robert for a dance,' said her mother, sensing that she was faltering.

Jill glanced down at the watch which Vanessa had given her for her twelfth birthday, and realized that, for the moment, at least, she was in a strong negotiating position, and that if she played her cards right, she might just make her Very Important Date after all.

‘If I dance with him, can I go home?' she asked.

‘Of course you can. We'll all be going home in two or three hours' time,' her mother said, mystified.

‘I mean, can I go home straight after the dance?'

‘You most certainly can not. Whatever will people think?'

‘You can tell them I wasn't feeling well.'

‘Then they'll expect me to go home with you and look after you, won't they? And I want to stay.'

‘Say Dad's picking me up.'

‘Everybody knows that the only reason your dad's not at the wedding is that he's working in Saudi Arabia.'

‘Then tell everybody I'm being picked up by a friend of yours.'

‘What friend?' Mary Harris asked.

‘I don't know,' Jill said, exasperatedly. ‘Just invent somebody.'

‘And what if people find out?'

Jill sighed. ‘Other people aren't half as interested in what we get up to as you seem to think, Mum.'

Mary wavered. ‘If I tell a white lie for you, will you promise me you'll be very nice when you're dancing with your Uncle Robert?' she asked.

‘I promise you I'll be very nice when I'm dancing with my Uncle Robert,' Jill said earnestly, though she very nearly choked on the penultimate word.

‘All right,' her mother agreed reluctantly. ‘But I'll be watching you while you're dancing.'

‘I'll be the perfect picture of a loving niece,' Jill said.

‘But I'll hate it,' she added silently. ‘I'll loathe every minute of it.'

Chief Constable George Baxter was in the marital bedroom, packing his small suitcase with the same meticulous attention to detail that he gave to every task which came his way.

Watching him from the fluffy stool at her dressing table, Jo Baxter, his wife, said, ‘I thought you told me that you'd be leaving earlier than this.'

‘That's what I intended, but I had some paperwork to catch up on at the office,' Baxter replied, folding a pair of underpants and sliding them neatly into a corner of the suitcase.