Death Watch (20 page)

‘I'm listening,' Stevenson told him.

‘Contact DCI Mortlake. Use all your powers of persuasion to convince him that you have somethin' of value to offer.'

Stevenson nodded. ‘I'll do that.'

‘An' just so you'll be prepared for anythin' he might throw at you, I suppose I'd better fill you in on the details of what we found on the waste ground.'

‘Yes,' the doctor said. ‘That might be a good idea.'

Woodend told Stevenson about the condition the body had been discovered in, and the note that had been found nailed to her leg.

‘If we don't catch him, do you think he'll kill again?' the chief inspector asked, when he'd finished.

Stevenson nodded sombrely. ‘I'm almost certain that he will.'

‘Soon?'

This time, Stevenson shook his head firmly. ‘No, not soon.'

‘How can you be sure of that?'

‘From the very nature of the note, which almost seems like an announcement of his arrival on the scene, I would guess that this is his first killing.'

‘That was my thought, too,' Woodend said.

‘And in virtually all cases, there's quite a long gap before the killer decides to strike for a second time.'

‘What do you mean by “long”?'

‘Normally, it will be between six months and a year. But remember, that's the gap between the first and the second killing. As his obsession expands and develops, the space between the killings will grow shorter and shorter, until it finally reaches the point at which the urge is so overpowering that he will kill every single time he has an opportunity.'

So DCI Mortlake and Superintendent Crawley had around six months to get a result, Woodend thought.

And would they be able to?

He wanted to say that they would – wanted to convince himself that, with the entire resources of the Central Lancs Police Force behind them, even a couple of incompetents like Crawley and Mortlake were bound to catch the man before he struck again.

He
wanted
to say it – but, looking at the situation objectively, he very much doubted whether it would be true.

The Invisible Man sat at the table, with the morning's national and local newspapers spread out in front of him.

Most men in his position would have bought all the papers from the same place, he thought with smug satisfaction, but then he was
not
most men.

He was far too canny to have made that kind of elementary mistake. He had realized – as the average killer would not have done – that such an action would have left a clear trail. And it only needed one policeman to be clever enough to go around the newsagents, asking if any customer had shown undue interest in the news, for the whole game to be up. So, bearing that in mind, he had driven all over town, buying two newspapers here and one newspaper there, until he had the complete collection.

In many ways, he was most gratified by the coverage that the killing had received, though it annoyed him that there was no mention of the note left with the body, nor of the name he was using.

The police were probably holding back some of the information deliberately, he thought. He had read they often did that, so that when they made an arrest they could trick the suspect into revealing himself through the fact that he had information which the general public didn't.

As if that kind of cheap trickery would work on him!

As if
any
of their clumsy ruses would work on
him
!

Even so, it was still a disappointment that his message to the world – to all the
men
in the world – had been suppressed.

But it didn't really matter, he told himself. Not when you took a long-term view of things. The police would have to release his name eventually – if not after the next killing then at least after the one which followed it.

He was not yet sure when the next killing
would
take place. He felt, in many ways, like a painter or sculptor who has just finished his masterpiece, and is quite content, for the moment, to simply rest on his laurels.

But this feeling would not last forever. He was certain of that. Eventually he would feel the urge begin again. At first, it would be no more than a minor irritation, a little like an annoying itch. But slowly it would grow, until it built up into a great surging river which would burst its banks if he failed to satisfy it.

Yes, the urge would most certainly return. It might not be for as long as a year. It might be considerably less than that.

But it
would
return.

W
oodend was lying on his back, a few yards below the crown of a gently sloping Yorkshire hill. A soft spring breeze was blowing softly around him, and as he gazed idly up at an almost cloudless sky, he gave his thoughts free rein to wander wherever they wished.

‘Are you asleep, Charlie?' asked a woman's voice, half accusatory and half amused.

He raised himself on one elbow. ‘Asleep? Me? Certainly not!'

‘Well, you
looked like
you were asleep.'

‘I was doin' no more than absorbin' the peace an' tranquillity that we're surrounded by,' Woodend said, with as much injured dignity as he could muster – but even as he spoke the words he was already beginning to admit to himself that perhaps he had dozed off for a
few
minutes.

He looked down the hill. In the near distance, a small flock of sheep were munching contentedly at the lush grass. Beyond them, he spied several baby rabbits running around – revelling in the new freedom that emergence from their dark burrows had given them. There were daffodils swaying sedately in the soft spring breeze, and deep-blue bugle flowers resting regally on top of their large spikes.

At this time of year, there was nowhere better on God's green earth than the Yorkshire Dales, he told himself.

‘By, but this has been a really grand day out, hasn't it, love?' he asked the woman.

‘Perfect in every way,' Monika Paniatowski agreed contentedly.

Woodend reached into the pocket of his hairy sports jacket, and extracted his packet of Capstan Full Strength. But even before he opened it, he could tell by the feel of the packet that it was empty.

‘Damn it, I seem to have run out of fags, Monika,' he said. ‘Can I borrow one of yours?'

‘They're filter tips, Charlie,' Paniatowski said.

Of course they were! He should have remembered that she smoked the same kind of poncey cigarettes as Bob Rutter did.

He sighed theatrically and said, ‘Well, I suppose I'll just have to lower my standards for once.'

Paniatowski laughed. Then she took two cigarettes out of her packet, put both of them in her mouth, lit them, and handed one to Woodend.

His relationship with Monika had changed so much since their failure in the Angela Jackson case had resulted in them no longer working together, Woodend thought.

He'd worried, when they'd first been split up as a team, that they'd also grow apart as people, but the reverse had proved to be true. They were closer now than they'd ever been. He was grateful for that, and tried to avoid remembering,
too
often, that their increased intimacy was due, in no small part, to the way that Bob Rutter had behaved.

He checked his watch. ‘Joan and Louisa seem to have been gone quite a long time,' he said, slightly concerned.

Paniatowski laughed again. ‘You worry far too much,' she said. ‘The way you fret over that child, you'd think you'd never brought up one of your own.'

But he had fretted over Annie, too, when she was growing up, he thought. He
still
fretted over her. It was just a thing that men with daughters did.

Besides, it was not really Louisa he was worried about at that moment – it was Joan. Ever since she'd had her mild heart attack in Spain, two years earlier, he simply hadn't been able to stop himself from thinking of that heart of hers as little more than a ticking time bomb.

‘When's Bob back?' he asked, to take his mind off his wife's condition.

‘Tomorrow,' Paniatowski replied.

‘It's really very good of you to look after little Louisa while he's away,' Woodend said.

Especially, he added silently, when we both know – though neither of us would ever admit it to the other – that Bob's spending his time with that bloody Driver woman.

‘It gives the nanny a break from her duties,' Paniatowski said. ‘Besides it's no hardship at all for me to take care of Louisa. She's a lovely little kid.' She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘How's work?'

‘Bloody,' Woodend admitted. ‘I didn't join the police force to spend my days pushin' paper around. I don't like it – an' I'm not very good at it.'

‘Perhaps they'll move you into something more interesting soon,' Paniatowski said.

But they both knew that was not going to happen.

‘I've been thinkin' of takin' early retirement,' Woodend said.

‘Seriously?' Paniatowski asked, alarmed.

‘Seriously,' Woodend agreed. But then he chuckled and continued, ‘The only problem with doin' that is, it would give Henry Marlowe more satisfaction to see me go than any man's entitled to in one lifetime.' He took another drag on the filter-tip cigarette, and decided he would never get used to them. ‘How's your new job goin'?' he asked.

‘Quite well,' Paniatowski told him.

‘Really?'

‘Really. The Domestic Violence Unit's doing pioneering work, and I think I'm making a valuable contribution to it.' She paused. ‘Only …'

‘Only, it's not the job you were born to do?' Woodend suggested.

‘Only, it's not the job I was born to do,' Paniatowski agreed.

They heard the sound of a little girl giggling loudly, and turned to see Joan and Louisa coming slowly over the crest of the hill.

‘My Joan really shouldn't be pushin' herself like that,' Woodend said.

‘Stuff and nonsense,' Paniatowski told him. ‘She's having the time of her life. Louisa's like a granddaughter to her, and the longer she's with her, the younger she looks herself.'

And there was some truth in that, Woodend conceded – but he still didn't want to be the widower of a young-looking corpse.

Joan and Louisa drew level with them.

‘You should have come with us, Uncle Charlie,' the little girl said excitedly. ‘We saw an elephant's footprint. Didn't we, Auntie Joan?'

‘We saw somethin' that I said certainly
looked
like an elephant's footprint,' Joan replied cautiously. ‘But I'm not too sure there
are
any wild elephants in Yorkshire.'

She was short of breath, Woodend thought. She was trying to hide it from him, but she was definitely short of breath.

‘So what have you two been talkin' about while we were off explorin'?' Joan asked Woodend and Paniatowski. ‘Old times, I'll bet.'

‘Not really,' Woodend said.

‘Well, I am surprised.'

And so, in a way, was Woodend. There'd been a time when he and Paniatowski couldn't have been together for more than five minutes without talking shop, but he supposed that now those days were gone – and never coming back – they'd both decided to almost pretend that they'd never existed.

‘We should be setting off for home, or we'll be missing Louisa's bedtime,' Paniatowski said.

‘You're probably right,' Woodend agreed.

And he was thinking to himself that it was almost heart-breaking to see how attached Monika had become to the little girl.

Because – sooner or later – it was bound to end in tears.

Mary Thomas had lived in Whitebridge for a little more than two months, and though it had initially been a big wrench to leave all her old school friends behind in the Valleys, she had quickly decided that there had also been quite a lot of advantages to the move.

For a start, since this town was much bigger than the one they'd come from, she no longer had to attend the same school as her dad taught in. And in Whitebridge, there was so much more to do with your free time than there ever had been at home in Wales – more church youth clubs to attend, more flashy big stores to go window-shopping in front of, more municipal parks to walk in, and more good-looking boys – also walking in the parks – to conduct a mild flirtation with.

There were many more opportunities to make a bit of extra pocket money for herself, too. That very morning, for example – the third day of the half-term holiday – she'd been babysitting for one of her teachers, who had gone off to play in a hockey match. It was easy work, looking after kids, and she'd enjoyed it. And as she walked home for her lunch, jingling the money the teacher had paid her in her pocket, she was more than happy with the way her life was going.

She was passing one of the old derelict mills, a short distance from the new estate where she now lived, when she noticed the man. He was old – about her father's age – and rather smartly dressed. He was standing by his car, with a large map opened in front of him, and he looked very perplexed.

When he saw her approaching, he smiled and said, ‘Excuse me, miss, but could you tell me the way to Buckley Street?'

Mary smiled back, and shook her head. ‘I'm a bit of a stranger to Whitebridge myself,' she said. ‘There's a lot of the town I haven't even got around to seeing yet.' Then she noticed the look of disappointment come to the man's face, and she added, ‘But you've got a map, haven't you?'

The man grinned lopsidedly. ‘Yes, I have,' he agreed. ‘The problem is, I can't seem to make much sense of it. I was never very good at reading maps, even at school. I expect you're much the same way yourself.'

‘You're wrong about that,' Mary said. ‘I'm absolutely brilliant with them!'