Dangerous Games (23 page)

‘How nice to see you again so soon, Chief Inspector Woodend,' she said. Then the smile faded, and she added, ‘Even if the reason for your visit isn't exactly a pleasant one.'

He could understand Mark Hough's infatuation with the girl, Woodend thought. Truth to tell, he wasn't really all
that
far from being infatuated with her himself.

‘Is your boss in?' he asked.

‘He's nearly
always
in,' Priscilla said, a little severely. ‘If he's not in the office, he's in his apartment, which is just above it. He works
far
too hard. I'm always telling him that. But why should he listen to me?
I'm
only his secretary.' A look of regret came to her face. ‘I'm sorry, I should never have said that.'

‘No?'

‘No! He's not doing it just for himself – he believes it's his responsibility to keep his workers in a job, and sometimes I think he finds that responsibility very heavy indeed.'

Ah, to be young and idealistic, Woodend thought. To imagine that people always do things for the best of possible motives. But maybe he was being unfair. Maybe Hough was one of those men who
did
take his responsibilities seriously.

‘And then there's all those cultural organizations that rely on him for support,' Priscilla continued. ‘He once told me that if he couldn't be like the Borgias, he could at least be like the Medicis.' She frowned prettily. ‘Do you know what that means?'

‘Aye, surprisingly enough, I do,' Woodend said. ‘I think I must've read it on the back of a Corn Flakes packet or somethin'.'

‘Then I wish you'd explain it to me,' Priscilla Charlton said.

‘The Borgias an' the Medicis were powerful families in Italy, a long time ago. The Borgias were great fighters – even though one of them was the Pope – but the Medicis put most of their efforts into encouragin' the arts.'

‘How sad,' Priscilla Charlton said.

‘Sad?'

‘That Mr Hough would so much like to be one thing, but has no choice but to be the other.'

‘At least he's doin'
somethin
',' Woodend pointed out. ‘At least he's doing what he
can
.'

Priscilla Charlton smiled gratefully at him. ‘Thank you,' she said.

It was all suddenly getting a little too heavy, Woodend thought. He cleared his throat and said, ‘So, if he's in, can I see him?'

‘I'll just buzz through and inquire,' Priscilla told him. ‘But there shouldn't be any problem, because I'm sure he wants Terry Pugh's murderer caught as soon as possible.' She smiled yet again, and the corners of her mouth dimpled. ‘Besides,' she added, ‘he
likes
you.'

An' I like him, an' all, Woodend realized.

Woodend's suspicions about the purpose of the two metal pillars connected by the steel bar, which he had noticed the last time he was there, were confirmed the moment he entered Mark Hough's office. Hough had parked the wheelchair under the bar, and, using only the power of his arms, was raising himself out of his seat and then lowering himself back into it.

‘It's a terrible nuisance, doing this,' he said, puffing a little from the exertion. ‘It gets in the way of serious work
far
too much. But my doctor says it has to be done, and I'd be a fool to pay him so much money and then not listen to his advice, wouldn't I?'

He lowered himself into the wheelchair again, and released his grip on the bar.

‘Don't stop for me,' Woodend said.

‘Glad for an excuse to give it up,' Hough told him. ‘It's harder work than it looks.' He paused for a second, then continued, ‘What can I do for you this time, Chief Inspector?'

‘Terry Pugh, Reg Lewis, Tom Bygraves, Jack Matthews, Martin Murray, an' you!' Woodend said, slowly and precisely. ‘What's the first thought that comes into your head when you hear those names?'

‘That three of them were murdered,' Mark Hough said, without any hesitation.

‘That's funny,' Woodend told him.

‘Is it? Why?'

‘Because as I was drivin' over here, I was thinkin' about what your first thought would be, an' the answer that I came up with was Matthews' Marauders.'

Hough smiled. ‘Well, you have been doing your homework, haven't you, Chief Inspector?'

‘Aye, I have,' Woodend agreed. ‘You formed your own little army within the larger army, didn't you?'

‘Yes, I suppose we did. In fact, though I may not have used those exact words to you the last time you visited me, I certainly described us in somewhat similar terms.'

‘That's true, you did,' Woodend agreed. ‘Did you know that Tom Bygraves had gone missin'?'

‘No, I didn't.'

‘But you don't sound at all surprised that he has.'

Hough smiled again, perhaps a little sadly this time. ‘Don't I?'

‘What happened in Cyprus, seven years ago?'

‘A lot of things happened, Chief Inspector, including my losing the use of my legs.'

‘You got one of the letters yourself, didn't you?' Woodend asked.

‘No,' Hough said.

‘Wrong answer!' Woodend told him.

‘Then what's the right one?'

‘The right answer is, “What letters are you talking about, Chief Inspector Woodend?”'

Hough sighed. ‘All right, if that will make you happy,' he said. ‘What letters are you talking about, Chief Inspector Woodend?'

‘The letters which reminded you of what you'd done in Cyprus, and advised you to give yourselves up to the police.'

‘You've lost me,' Hough said.

‘No, I haven't,' Woodend contradicted him. ‘Have you thought through the implications of what's in those letters, Mr Hough? Terry Pugh and Reg Lewis are already dead, Tom Bygraves might be, an' you – a man in a wheelchair – could well be the next man on the list.'

‘That
is
a disturbing thought,' Hough said.

‘Then why don't you
sound
disturbed?'

‘Possibly because I am better able to take care of myself than you seem to think.'

‘Indeed?' Woodend asked.

‘Indeed!' Hough agreed.

‘Would you mind tellin' me how?'

‘One of the few sports still left open for me to compete in is competitive pistol shooting. And I'm really rather good at it.'

‘What you're tellin' me, in a roundabout way, is that you have a gun?' Woodend asked.

‘Exactly. A fully-licensed, perfectly legal, gun.'

‘An' that you're more than willin' to use it to protect yourself?'

‘As I understand it – and I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong – the only justification for killing someone, under English law, is that your own life is threatened and flight is not an option.'

‘Yes, that's more or less it,' Woodend agreed.

‘Well, flight
isn't
an option for me, is it? I can move quite quickly in this chariot of mine, but nowhere near as quickly as most men can run.'

‘Do you know what I think?' Woodend asked.

‘How could I?'

‘I think you don't
want
us to catch the man who murdered two – or possibly three – of your old comrades.'

‘Then if that's true, I must be a very heartless creature, mustn't I, Chief Inspector?'

‘An' the
reason
you don't want us to catch him is that you'd like him to come after you, so that you can shoot him.'

‘There's a bill going through the Houses of Parliament at this very moment to abolish the death penalty for capital crimes,' Hough said. ‘It is almost certain to become law by the end of the year. There will be no more hangings in England – at least, not judicial ones.'

‘An' your point is that whoever killed your mates
deserves
to be executed,' Woodend said.

‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' Hough said. ‘I've never had a great interest in the Bible, but it does seem to me that that particular statement makes a great deal of sense.'

‘You can't simply ignore the law, an' go huntin' down killers yourself,' Woodend pointed out.

‘Indeed I can't,' Hough agreed. ‘I'd need legs to do that, wouldn't I? So the killer is in absolutely no danger from me – unless he seeks to make me his next victim.'

‘What
did
happen in Cyprus?' Woodend asked.

Hough smiled again. ‘Why are you so interested?' he wondered.

‘Partly because you seem so reluctant to tell me about it,' Woodend countered.

‘I assume that since you've come up with the names of what it pleases you to call “an army within an army”, you have someone already in Cyprus making inquiries,' Hough said.

‘That's right, I have.'

‘Who?'

‘Sergeant Paniatowski.'

Hough nodded. ‘A good choice. She's a bright girl, and I'm sure she'll find out all you need to know.'

‘You don't seem particularly bothered by
that
, either,' Woodend said.

‘I'm not.'

‘May I ask why?'

‘Because by the
time
she finds out, I'll most probably have done what I need to do.'

T
here was an air-conditioning unit in Captain Howerd's office – Monika Paniatowski could see it, clearly projecting out of the wall – but instead of the happy humming and a cooling chill it should have been producing, there was only silence and stickiness in the room.

Maybe Howerd left it switched off because he liked to see the people who were sitting at the other side of his desk begin to sweat, she thought. Maybe he did it to show that a ‘real' man like him could stand any amount of heat and discomfort. Maybe, even, it was not working simply because it had broken down. Whatever the reason, there was no escaping the fact that the office was an extremely unpleasant place to be.

Captain Howerd did not look exactly pleasant, either. Paniatowski searched her brain for the best word to describe the expression of his face, and finally settled on ‘glowering'.

‘You have only been on the island for a few hours, yet you are already putting in a request for access to our confidential files,' the captain said.

Paniatowski tried to ignore the beads of sweat which were already running down her brow.

‘You're quite right, I am putting in a request,' she agreed. Then, after a pause in which Howerd had said nothing, she added, ‘And am
I
right that you are refusing to grant that request, Captain?'

‘No, you are not,' Howerd countered. ‘At least, I'm not refusing
yet
. It is still conceivable that you can persuade me you have good reasons for wishing to see the files.'

‘Still conceivable, is it?' Paniatowski asked, deadpan.

‘But my problem with processing it, Sergeant Paniatowski, is that, try as hard as I might, I still fail to understand how you could possibly have amassed enough information, in such a short space of time, to merit such a request.'

He was using convolution and verbiage as a barricade, Paniatowski thought – which was just what men who found themselves in difficult situations often did. But he still did not
look
concerned.

‘So that's your problem, is it?' she asked.

‘That is correct.'

‘Well,
my
problem
is that, try as hard as
I
might, I fail to understand what would have prompted the army to ship four men out of here at extremely short notice, just a few hours after they had taken a vehicle without permission, and been involved in an accident in which the fifth member of their little group was seriously – and permanently – injured.'

Howerd frowned, but there was no sign of moisture in the furrows that created on his brow, and Paniatowski found herself speculating that perhaps, instead of blood, he had ice water running through his veins.

‘Shipped out at short notice?' Howerd repeated musingly. ‘I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Of course you haven't,' Paniatowski said, as a drop of sweat fell from her face and landed with a plop on the desk. ‘I wouldn't expect you to. You weren't here at the time that I'm referring to, Captain. Probably nobody who's currently serving in this camp …'

‘In this Sovereign Base Area,' Howerd interrupted disapprovingly.

‘… nobody who's currently serving in this Sovereign Base Area,' Paniatowski corrected herself, ‘was here back then. But there will be records, compiled by people who
were
here then, won't there? The army prides itself on its records.'

Howerd sighed. ‘Which particular records do you wish to see?'

‘The service records of five private soldiers – Privates Pugh, Murray, Hough, Bygraves and Lewis.'

‘Those records may no longer be lodged in the Sovereign Base Area,' Howerd said.

‘Possibly not. But you won't know until you've looked for them, will you, Captain?'

‘Anything else you'd like to get your eager little hands on, Sergeant Paniatowski?' Howerd asked, cranking up his already obvious contempt a notch further.

‘Yes,' Paniatowski said, ignoring his tone. ‘I'd like to see the report filed by the MPs who arrested the men I've just mentioned.'

‘Do you know for certain that they
were
arrested?'

‘No.'

‘Well, then …

‘But it would be strange if they
weren't
arrested, after stealing army property, wouldn't it?'

‘I have only your word for it that any army vehicle was actually stolen,' Howerd said.

‘And my
source's
word.'

‘Who exactly is this “source” of yours?'

‘An English soldier, who was here – in this
Sovereign Base Area
– at the time I'm referring to.'