Backlash (2 page)

There were new sounds now – the demanding scream of several police sirens, the wail of at least one ambulance.

Moore straightened up.

‘Let's take a look at him,' he suggested. ‘Got your torch?'

Bates nodded, and shone the beam on the injured man's face.

‘Bloody hell, it's . . . it's . . .' he stuttered.

‘It's Chief Superintendent Kershaw – that's who it bloody is,' Moore said.

He knelt down again, and put his mouth close to the injured man's ear. ‘Can you hear me, sir?' he asked softly.

The chief superintendent opened his eyes.

‘Where's Elaine?' he groaned.

‘What was that, sir?' Moore asked.

‘Elaine,' Kershaw repeated, making an effort to sit up, and then falling back again.

‘Who's Elaine?' Moore asked.

‘My wife,' Kershaw groaned. ‘I don't know where she is. I can't find her anywhere.'

TWO

D
etective Inspector Colin Beresford – early thirties, good-looking, muscular, and a guiltily secret virgin – gazed up at the house from his vantage point at the end of the front garden.

It was a three-storey Victorian dwelling, which had probably once – long ago now – belonged to the manager of a small cotton mill. There were still a good number of such houses to be found in Whitebridge – though most of them, admittedly, were living in the shadow of the demolition ball – but Beresford couldn't think of a single example of another which was still a one-family residence.

The fact was, he reflected, the moderately prosperous had long since moved out of the centre of Whitebridge, and re-established themselves on executive estates, where it was almost possible for them to forget that they had any connection with a grimy, declining mill town. But Chief Superintendent Kershaw had stuck it out, and still lived in the house he had bought probably twenty years earlier, even though it was now in an area which catered for the transient bedsitter.

Beresford turned his attention to the garden. Unlike most of those in this street, it had not been paved over to accommodate off-the-road parking. It was, he decided, studying it more closely, a garden which had not so much been planned as just allowed to happen.

There was a wishing well, squarely in the centre of it – and what a lot of stick Mr Kershaw must have got for that when he had his ‘hard-man' colleagues round for dinner! There was a fish pond, with a delicate waterfall which was topped with a painstakingly constructed watermill. There was even a palm tree in one sheltered corner, and though it was well known that you simply couldn't grow palms in Whitebridge, it seemed, through infinite care and attention, to at least be surviving.

The whole garden, Beresford thought, was as individual, original and idiosyncratic as the man who had created it.

The roar of a sports car engine alerted him to the fact that his boss was about to arrive, and turning round he saw that DCI Paniatowski's red MGA was just pulling up behind the row of police vehicles already parked in front of the house.

And Monika was not alone, he noted. There was another woman in the passenger seat.

He watched the two women emerge from the car, and told himself that they could not have looked much less alike, even if they'd really worked at it.

Paniatowski was in her late thirties. She had soft, wavy blonde hair, and a largish central European nose that could have made her less attractive – but didn't. She also had a sensational figure which, most of the time, Beresford did his best to ignore.

The other woman was a complete stranger to him. She was probably in her late twenties, he guessed. She had a slim – almost pixie-like – figure, short cropped brown hair and big oval eyes. Very, very different to Monika, Beresford thought – but equally as fanciable.

Paniatowski stopped in the gateway to light a cigarette, then said, ‘Why are we here, Colin?'

What, no cheery greeting? Beresford thought. No, ‘How are you, Colin?'

‘Mrs Kershaw's gone missing, boss,' he said aloud.

‘I know that,' Paniatowski replied, with a hint of exasperation in her voice. ‘What I asked was, why
we
are here.'

Beresford smiled. ‘Ah, you mean why is a crack team like ours – the finest investigative force in the whole of Central Lancashire – being handed such a mundane job?' he said.

‘That's right,' Paniatowski replied, either completely missing his humorous intent or choosing to ignore it.

‘Everybody's short-handed,' Beresford said. ‘With the flu epidemic, we're all expected to fill in wherever we're needed.'

Paniatowski sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose we are,' she said reluctantly. ‘And how long has Mrs Kershaw been missing?'

‘Hard to say,' Beresford admitted. ‘It could be as little as two hours, or it might be as much as eight.'

‘What!' Paniatowski exploded. ‘Eight hours at the most – and there's a full-scale manhunt!'

‘Mr Kershaw
is
one of our own,' Beresford pointed out.

Monika Paniatowski scowled. ‘Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it,' she said.

The younger woman – the pixie – had been standing perfectly still at Paniatowski's heel, and somehow managing to give the clear impression that she was the sort of person who knew enough to hear just what she was intended to hear, and no more.

Now, however, she coughed discreetly, and said, ‘What would you like me to do, ma'am?'

Paniatowski turned to face her. At first, she seemed almost surprised to find the woman there. Then she smiled and said, ‘Well, you can start by not calling me “ma'am”, Kate.'

‘Sorry, I . . .' the pixie began.

‘Don't worry about it,' Paniatowski told her airily. ‘And excuse my lack of manners for not introducing you to this handsome devil straight away. This is Detective Inspector Beresford, the rock I cling to when the storm breaks. Colin, this is DS Katherine Meadows, my new bagman.'

Meadows held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,' she said. Then she added, slightly uncertainly, ‘It is all right to call you “sir”, isn't it, sir?'

‘It's more than all right,' Paniatowski told her, before Beresford had time to answer for himself. ‘Not only will it make him
feel
important, but it might even remind him that he
is
important.'

That was better, Beresford thought, with some relief. The bad-tempered shrew who'd been standing there only moments earlier was quite gone, and the Monika he knew was back.

‘I think I'd better talk to Mr Kershaw first,' Paniatowski said. ‘So while I'm down at HQ, I'd like you, Colin, to supervise the team in the house.'

‘HQ?' Beresford repeated.

‘HQ,' Paniatowski confirmed.

‘But Mr Kershaw isn't down at HQ.'

Paniatowski looked puzzled. ‘Have they taken him to hospital, then? From what I heard, he only got a few cuts and bruises in the crash.'

‘He isn't in hospital, either,' Beresford said, with a sudden sinking feeling.

‘Then where the hell
is
he?'

Beresford gestured towards the house. ‘In there.'

The shrew was back with a vengeance. ‘Let me see if I've got this straight,' Paniatowski said. ‘Kershaw was driving down the dual carriageway at such a speed that it's a wonder he didn't kill anybody. Right?'

‘Right,' Beresford agreed.

‘And the only thing that stopped him doing more damage was that he crashed into the oak tree on the roundabout?'

‘Yes.'

‘If anybody else had done that, they'd have been in the cells by now, wouldn't they?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘But he's in his own house! Now why is that?'

‘Like I said, boss . . .' Beresford began.

‘I know,' Paniatowski interrupted. ‘He's one of our own.'

Kershaw was in his study, sitting at the desk with his large head held in his powerful hands. When Paniatowski and Beresford entered, he looked up, and it was obvious to both of them that he'd been crying.

Poor bastard! Beresford thought.

Because even if everything turned out all right in the end – even if it eventually emerged that there'd
never
been anything to worry about – it was clear that Kershaw was suffering now.

‘We'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind, sir,' Paniatowski said.

Her voice was cold, Beresford thought – so unlike the one she normally used when she was talking to victims.

Kershaw nodded. ‘Of course I don't mind, Chief Inspector,' he said miserably. ‘I want to do anything I can to help.'

‘The first thing I'd like to know is why you're so
worried
about your wife, when she's only been missing for a few hours.'

‘Her name's Elaine,' Kershaw said. ‘I'd like it if you could call her that when you refer to her.'

‘Why are you so worried when
Elaine's
only been missing for a few hours?' Paniatowski said, her tone still unyielding.

‘She was in no fit state to leave the house,' Kershaw explained. ‘She's had a very bad attack of flu. She's been in bed for the last four days. She was getting a little better, but she certainly was not well enough to . . .' He waved his hands helplessly in the air. ‘. . . to even contemplate . . .'

‘So what's
your
theory?'

Kershaw glared at her. ‘Isn't it obvious? She's been kidnapped!'

‘Who by?'

‘I don't bloody know! If I
did
know, I would not be sitting here now – I'd already have my hands round the bastard's throat!'

‘Why would anyone kidnap her? For ransom?'

Kershaw shook his head. ‘I'm not well off. I earn a decent screw – you know that yourself – but I've never been one for saving. I live from pay packet to pay packet, like most bobbies, and anybody who'd done even a bit of research on me would know that.'

‘Let's take a couple of steps backwards,' Paniatowski suggested. ‘When did you discover she was missing?'

‘When I got home from work.'

‘Did you inform headquarters that you thought she'd been kidnapped?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because, at that point, I didn't think that she
had
been kidnapped. It's not the sort of thing you
do
think, is it? Kidnapping's something that only happens to
other
people.'

‘That's right,' Beresford murmured softly. ‘That's exactly what it is.'

‘So if you didn't call headquarters, what did you do?' Paniatowski asked Kershaw.

‘I rang up all her friends, to see if she might be with them.'

‘I thought you said she was too ill to leave the house.'

‘She was, but I could see she wasn't here, so she had to be
somewhere
, didn't she?' Kershaw took a deep breath. ‘Look, Chief Inspector, I wasn't thinking straight. If the truth be told, I think I'm coming down with the flu myself.'

‘None of her friends had heard from her?' Paniatowski asked.

‘That's right.'

‘So what did you do next?'

‘I went to see Elaine's mother.'

‘Why didn't you just ring her?'

‘I couldn't, because she isn't on the phone. And when I got there, and Mum told me she hadn't seen Elaine since last week, that's when I really started getting frantic.'

‘But you still didn't think to call it in?'

‘No, I . . .'

‘So what
did
you do?'

‘I decided to see if she was at her sister Mary's house. She lives at the other side of Whitebridge – almost the opposite end of the dual carriageway from their mother. I was driving normally at first, and then I thought, “What if Elaine isn't at Mary's either?” That's when I think I must have lost my head. I had to know for certain whether she was there or not, you see, and I started driving like a madman.'

‘And crashed,' Paniatowski said.

‘And crashed,' Kershaw agreed.

‘Have you and your wife – you and Elaine – been having any marital difficulties recently?' Paniatowski asked.

‘What kind of question is that?' Kershaw demanded.

‘I should have thought it was obvious what kind of question it was – and why I was asking it,' Paniatowski told him. ‘We've got at least twenty officers on this case, and before I use up any more of their valuable time, I want to be certain that your wife's not simply done a bunk.'

Kershaw nodded slowly. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘You do have to ask that question. I would have done the same, in your place. But I like to think I would have phrased it differently – with a little more compassion.'

Yes, for God's sake, why
don't
you show a little compassion, Monika? Beresford thought.

‘You still haven't answered the question, sir,' Paniatowski pointed out, in a flat voice.

‘Elaine and I are not having any marital difficulties,' Kershaw said. ‘We have the occasional tiff – what married couple doesn't? – but we're as much in love now as we were when we first tied the knot.'

Paniatowski nodded, as if finally satisfied.

‘Do you know of anyone who might have some sort of grudge against Elaine?' she asked.

‘At last!' Kershaw said, with evident relief. ‘Finally, you're taking this seriously.'