Death Watch (11 page)

‘Why are you always so bloody wet, Martin?' she asked exasperatedly. ‘Why must you always lie down and take whatever I decide to throw at you? Why don't you ever fight back?'

Stevenson smiled soothingly. ‘In many ways, my work is concerned with producing harmony out of conflict. I help people to see life how it is, and teach them how to learn to be happy with it. So I'm not so much “lying down and taking it” as following my own advice.'

Rosemary looked at him strangely. ‘I sometimes wonder why I married you,' she said.

‘We married
each other
for the same reason that most other couples marry,' Stevenson said. ‘We had an emptiness inside ourselves, and we both hoped the other would be able to fill it.'

‘And do I fill your emptiness?'

‘Oh, yes.'

Rosemary softened a little, and even smiled as much as the cigarette in the corner of her mouth would allow her to. ‘You still haven't answered my question,' she said. ‘Did you see Cloggin'-it Charlie?'

‘I saw him.'

‘And did he know that you were there because of me?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's good. Were you able to help him?'

‘Not a great deal …'

‘No?'

‘… but as much as I could have reasonably expected at this stage of the investigation. As things develop, I think I'll be of much more use to him.'

‘It might even be because of you that he catches the kidnapper?'

‘That's certainly possible.'

‘It would mean a lot to me if you
could
really help him, you know.'

‘Of course I know. That's why I'm here.'

Rosemary took the cigarette out of her mouth, and the smile which followed benefited from the greater flexibility it gave her.

‘Unless there's a sudden development in the case, I come off duty in four hours,' she said.

‘Oh?'

‘I thought we might take the opportunity to go out for a meal. Somewhere really nice. Just the two of us.'

‘I'd like that.'

‘And then, when we get home, we might decide to go to bed a little earlier than we usually do?'

‘I'd
really
like that,' Martin Stevenson said.

Dr Shastri, the police surgeon, greeted Woodend at the door of her laboratory with a broad smile, as she invariably did. ‘And how is my favourite policeman today?' she asked.

Woodend, as always, felt an almost juvenile glow at being addressed in such a warm way. Well, who wouldn't? he asked himself silently.

Given that Shastri was undoubtedly a beautiful woman, a man would have to be made of stone not to be gratified at being offered even a few crumbs from the table of her favour.

‘Your favourite policeman is hopin' that you'll have identified the drug that was used to dope Angela Jackson,' he said, a little gruffly.

‘Then he will not be disappointed,' Dr Shastri told him.

‘What was it? Chloroform?'

Dr Shastri laughed, and it was like the tinkling of dozens of tiny delicate bells. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Chief Inspector,' she said.

‘Should I? Why?'

‘Because you have allowed yourself to be just as duped by American detective films as any member of the general public would be – and I would have expected better from you.'

‘Would you mind explainin' that?' Woodend asked, trying not to feel too hurt.

‘Gladly. In the films, the abductor sprinkles a few drops of chloroform on a piece of cotton and holds it over his victim's mouth for a second or two, until the victim goes quite limp. Isn't that right?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘In the real world, those few drops would have very little effect at all. And should the kidnapper choose to administer a much larger dose, he would run quite a large risk of actually
killing
his victim.'

‘So what was used in this case?' Woodend wondered.

‘A drug called halothane. It was first synthesized about fifteen years ago, and has been used as a clinical anaesthetic for the last ten. It is not recommended for older patients because it can cause cardiac depression – but it is ideal for younger patients, because it does not irritate the airways.'

‘And are these properties of the drug common knowledge?' Woodend asked.

‘They are not treated as a closely guarded secret by the medical profession, if that is what you are asking. But I would be surprised if the average layman had ever even heard of halothane.'

‘Well, then …'

‘Still, that is no real obstacle to a determined man. After half an hour in the reference section of the library, he would have learned all he needed to know.'

Woodend nodded gravely. Dr Stevenson had told him that the kidnapper would be both intelligent and careful, and it appeared that was exactly what he was turning out to be.

‘How easy would it be to get hold of the stuff?' he asked.

‘Not easy at all,' Dr Shastri replied.

‘Then why would he …?'

‘But neither would it be easy for him to lay his hands on any of the other drugs he might have used as a substitute.'

‘But he clearly
did
get his hands on it, didn't he?' Woodend asked. ‘How would he have gone about it?'

Dr Shastri smiled. ‘I like to think I do not have a naturally criminal mind, which makes that rather a difficult question for me to answer, Chief Inspector. But let me consider the problem.' She frowned with concentration. ‘I suppose one way might be to steal it from a hospital – or perhaps bribe someone working in the pharmacology department to give you some. Another way might be to fool a drug company into thinking you represented a hospital, and get them to send it to you. I suppose, if you were a chemist, you could even attempt to manufacture it yourself.'

I could check up on all those things, Woodend thought – and I will.

But the problem was that it would take time – and time was the one thing he didn't have much of.

‘Thank you, Doc, you've been very helpful,' he said.

He had almost reached the door when Dr Shastri said, ‘Charlie?'

The single word stopped him in his tracks. She had
never
used his first name before. He was surprised that she even knew it.

He turned round. ‘Yes?'

The customary glow had quite deserted Dr Shastri's face, and in its place was a look which could almost have been anguished.

‘Find this evil man, Charlie,' the doctor said. ‘Find him before it's too late.'

‘I'm doin' my best,' Woodend told her.

But then, all those years ago in London, he had said exactly the same thing to old George Taylor, too, hadn't he?

T
he row of three-storeyed terraced houses on Kings Street had been built for professional men and their families in the Edwardian era, but since the Second World War it had been a street on which professional men worked, rather than lived. Doctors had their offices there now, as did chartered surveyors, accountants, and stockbrokers. And so it was that Kings Street became the place that the people of Whitebridge went to when they were sick, had fallen foul of the Inland Revenue, needed a mortgage, or wanted to draw up their wills.

The firm of Brunton, Wallace, and Gough (Solicitors) was located roughly in the middle of Kings Street, and when Monika Paniatowski walked in through the main entrance she found herself in a reception area which was guarded by a severe middle-aged woman who looked the kind of person who got her fun by drilling holes in lifeboats.

‘I'd like to see Mr Brunton,' Paniatowski said. ‘Is he in?'

‘Do you have an appointment, madam?' the receptionist asked, barely looking up at her.

‘No.'

‘I thought not. I'm afraid you simply cannot be seen without an appointment, and even
with
an appointment, you would not be dealt with by Mr Brunton, but by one of the junior partners.'

Paniatowski held out her warrant card. ‘I'd like to see Mr Brunton,' she repeated. ‘Is he in?'

The receptionist opened her mouth as if ready to deliver a stinging reply, then thought better of it. Instead, she pressed a button on the intercom in front of her, and said, ‘I'm awfully sorry to disturb you, Mr Brunton, but there's a police woman here, and she says she'd like to see you.'

‘What's it about?' asked a metallic voice through the speaker.

‘It's about your wallet,' Paniatowski replied.

‘His
wallet
?' said the secretary, who was clearly furious that Paniatowski had chosen to speak to Brunton directly, instead of going through her.

‘Send her in,' the metallic voice said.

The Invisible Man took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and carefully dusted the chair next to his spyhole. He smiled as he laboured, recognizing the fact that though cleanliness was very important to him, his main reason for wiping down the chair was that it allowed him to postpone the moment when he would open the spyhole and peer through it into the other room.

Anticipation!

That was the name of the game!

Savouring what was to come.

Doubling, or even tripling, your pleasure by putting it off.

Most of life was fantasy – even the parts of it that weren't. Because what you saw, he had come to realize, was not what was actually there, but what you
wanted
to see – a vision of how you
needed
the world to be.

The chair was clean – or at least, as clean as it was ever likely to be in this derelict building.

The Invisible Man laid the handkerchief on the seat – dusty side down – and slowly lowered himself into position. He would not touch himself this time, he decided. He would force himself to be restrained – would experience his excitement only with his brain and his emotions.

He slid back the cover to the spyhole – and discovered that he could not see the girl.

She's escaped, he told himself, almost choking on the panic which engulfed his whole body. She's somehow managed to get away!

The panic drained away almost as quickly as it had appeared. She couldn't have escaped, he told himself. Given the thick walls and the steel door, that was simply impossible.

Nor could she have been rescued, because if she had been, her rescuers would have been waiting for him, and he'd be wearing handcuffs by now.

What must have happened was that she'd managed to drag herself to one of the few spots in the room where she could not be seen through the spyhole.

The little bitch!

She should be punished for that. She
would
be punished for it.

Though it had not been part of his plan to do so, he would go to her right away, and teach her what real pain – the truly
agonizing
pain, which until that point she had only had a mere taste of – actually felt like.

He realized he had lost control of himself. And that would never do, because control was the whole point of this experience. He forced himself to take slower breaths, and willed the red mist which had filled his brain to dissipate.

It began to work. His heart had slowed down, his pulse was no longer galloping.

Perhaps the girl had done him a favour by moving out of view, he told himself, because it gave him the opportunity to use his imagination again – to
picture
her desperation in ways she could never possibly live up to in the flesh.

Yes, it was definitely better the way it was.

Despite his earlier resolve, he saw that his hand was stroking his groin.

‘Nothing wrong with that, is there?' he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Nothing at all wrong with spoiling yourself for once.'

The solicitor had been sitting at his desk – antique rosewood and very expensive – but he quickly rose to his feet when Paniatowski entered the room.

Edgar Brunton was in his late thirties, the sergeant guessed, and had the healthy glow of someone who took regular exercise. He had finely chiselled features which, at his current age, qualified him as handsome, but with the passing of time would grow to be distinguished.

Objectively, Paniatowski thought, she should have fancied the hell out of him, but the plain fact was that she didn't. Perhaps the reason he didn't appeal to her, she decided, was that he was a little
too
perfect for her taste – a shade too much like the leading man in a Hollywood picture.

Though he'd been expecting a policewoman of some sort to walk into the room, Brunton was clearly surprised at the one who actually did.

‘Are you off duty, Constable?' he asked.

‘It's sergeant,' Paniatowski told him. ‘And no, I'm not.'

‘Then why aren't you in uniform?'

‘Because I'm in the CID.'

Brunton shook his head wonderingly. ‘I really wouldn't have thought the theft of my wallet merited the attention of someone from the Criminal Investigation Department,' he said.

‘It was stolen?'

‘Didn't you know that?' Brunton asked. ‘And if you
didn't
know, why are you here?' The expression which suddenly crossed his face said he realized he'd been rude – and in more than one way. ‘Where are my manners?' he continued. ‘Do please take a seat, Sergeant.'

Monika sat down opposite him. ‘When was your wallet stolen?'

‘Yesterday afternoon.'

‘In the corporation park?'

The question seemed to puzzle Brunton. ‘No. It was stolen in the Daresbury Arcade. Might I ask what this is all about?'

‘It was recovered in the park,' Paniatowski explained. ‘Close to the spot from which Angela Jackson was abducted.'

Brunton rocked back in his leather chair. ‘Good God!' he said.

‘At what time was the wallet stolen?'

‘Am I a suspect?' Brunton demanded. Then a smile came to his face, and he said, ‘Of course I am. It's only natural that I should be. Only right and proper, too. And in answer to your question, Sergeant …?'