Death Watch (26 page)

‘Well, look who it is!' Stevenson said, seeing Paniatowski's reflection behind her own. ‘It's my old mate Sergeant Monika Pania … Pania …' She turned around with some difficulty, and grabbed onto the washbasin for support. ‘What are you doing here, Monika? Come to spy on me?'

Yes, that's precisely why I'm here, Paniatowski thought.

She forced a smile to her lips and said, ‘Spy on you? Why ever would I want to do that. I've come for a pee.' She paused. ‘But if you want to talk, I can hold off for a little bit longer.'

‘Why should I … why should I want to talk?' Stevenson asked, slurring her words.

‘I just thought you might,' Paniatowski said lightly. ‘But if you don't, that's fine with me, too. And even finer with my bladder!'

‘You used to think you were somebody, didn't you?' Rosemary Stevenson demanded aggressively. ‘Well, look at you now. And look at
me
, now? Don't you just
wish
you were me, Monika?'

‘Not really,' Paniatowski said. ‘It's been rough being me now and again, but I've never wanted to be anybody else.'

Stevenson nodded drunkenly. ‘No, no, you prob'bly haven't,' she agreed. She sniffed. ‘Where do you find the strength from, Monika?'

‘From inside myself, I suppose,' Paniatowski said. ‘You'll find it inside
yourself
, too, if you bother to look.'

‘Tha's … tha's the best advice I've ever been given,' Stevenson said, swaying slightly again. ‘You're my best mate, Monika. My very best mate in the whole wide world.'

‘What's been upsetting you so much?' Paniatowski asked. ‘Is it the investigation?'

‘The investigation?' Stevenson repeated. ‘What investigation? They say the first twenty-four hours are crucial, don't they? They say that if you don't get anywhere in the first twenty-four hours, you'll never get anywhere ever.'

‘That's not a hard and fast rule, you know,' Paniatowski cautioned. ‘Every investigation is different, and it's always possible to pull back from a slow start if you really …'

‘See, if Rodney … if DCI Mortlake … wanted to catch mice, he'd just put the traps in the middle of the floor, then expect the mice to set them themselves,' Stevenson interrupted. She giggled. ‘No, it's even worse than that. He'd … he'd expect them to bring their own cheese.'

‘So you've got no leads, then?' Paniatowski asked – and her sympathy was only half feigned.

‘An' that's how he is with this case, you see,' said Stevenson, who had probably never even heard the question. ‘It's almost as if he just expects the kidnapper to walk in and give himself up.' She paused. The aggressive phase of her drunkenness was well passed, and she was now entering the wallowing in self-pity phase. ‘Isn't life a load of shit, Monika?' she asked. ‘You always think it's going to be better this time – but it never is.'

‘There's a coffee bar round the corner that I think will still be open,' Paniatowski said. ‘Why don't we go there now? Once you've got a few black coffees down you, the world will start to seem like a much better place.'

‘They always let you down in the end, don't they?' Rosemary Stevenson wailed.

‘Who are you talking about?' Paniatowski wondered.

‘Men! They promise you the world – they promise to protect you from every little thing that might go wrong – but they never do.'

‘Nobody can protect you from everything,' Paniatowski said. ‘And if you thought about it, you'd come to accept that you wouldn't want them to.'

‘Wouldn't I?' Stevenson asked.

‘No, I don't think you would. Because if you don't have to live with your own choices, where's your self-respect going to come from?'

‘Don't know what you mean,' Rosemary Stevenson said, and Paniatowski realized that she'd lost her. ‘Not making any sense at all.'

‘Let's go and get that coffee now,' Paniatowski suggested.

‘First it was my father, then it was Martin, and now it's Rodney!' Rosemary Stevenson wailed. ‘I've let them have me, but they've never given me what
I
want – what
I
really need.'

Her father, her husband, and Mortlake!

‘Have you been sleeping with DCI Mortlake?' Paniatowski asked.

‘What if I have?' Stevenson asked, and the aggression was suddenly back in force.

‘It's a very bad idea to sleep with your boss,' Paniatowski told her. ‘A very bad idea indeed.'

‘He
wasn't
my boss when I started sleeping with him.'

Oh God, it was getting worse and worse, Paniatowski thought.

‘How many people have you told about the affair?' she asked.

‘Does it matter?'

‘Of course it matters, because if it becomes common knowledge, people will start to think that was why you got your promotion.'

‘Well, how
else
would I have got it?' Rosemary Stevenson moaned. ‘He promised to look after me, but now he can't catch the murderer, and everybody will think it's my fault.'

‘I think we should go back to my flat,' Paniatowski said. ‘You can stay there overnight, and maybe tomorrow you'll see things differently.'

‘Go back to your flat?' Rosemary Stevenson repeated. ‘Are you a lesbian or something?'

‘No, I …'

‘Because it's all right with me if you are. I'll give you what you want – as long as you'll protect me.'

‘I'm not a lesbian,' Paniatowski said. ‘But I will be your friend – if you'll only give me half a chance.'

‘Lady Muck,' Rosemary Stevenson said, afflicted by another mood swing. ‘Lady Muck being condescending to poor pissed little Rosemary! Well, it won't work, because I'm better than you any day of the week.'

‘Rosemary, please try and get a grip on yourself,' Paniatowski pleaded.

‘Bugger off!' Stevenson said. ‘Bugger off before I rip my blouse and start screaming that you've assaulted me, you dirty lesbian, you.'

In her present mood, she'd do it, Paniatowski thought. Even if it ruined both their careers. Even if ruined both their lives.

‘If you want my help, you know where to find me,' she said.

And then, before Stevenson had time to reply, she turned and walked quickly out of the toilet.

It was the pain that Peter Mainwearing became aware of initially – a dull throbbing ache in his jaw, a series of short stabbing attacks to his ribs.

Then he heard the voices.

‘He's coming round,' said the first, a woman's.

‘Yes, I believe he is,' replied the second, a man's.

Mainwearing opened his eyes, and discovered that he was staring up at the owners of the voices.

‘Where am I?' he groaned.

‘In hospital,' the man said. ‘Well, you've certainly been in the wars, haven't you, old chap? Though I can assure you that your injuries are not half as bad as they're probably feeling at the moment.'

It was all coming back to him now. Mainwearing told himself – the pub, the big man with the scarred cheek who had lashed out at him …

‘Had bad
is
it?' he asked.

‘You have a couple of broken ribs, and several others are quite badly bruised. You also have contusions to the jaw and stomach. You're rather black and blue all over, as a matter of fact, but as I said, it feels worse than it actually is.'

‘And will I … do I need …?'

‘You'll certainly have to take things very easy for quite a while, but there's no reason why, after a good night's rest, we shouldn't be able to let you go home in the morning.'

‘The garage!' Mainwearing gasped. ‘I have to get back to the garage right away.'

‘Whatever do you mean, old chap?' the man asked.

‘He's a mechanic, doctor,' the woman – his nurse – explained. ‘He's got a small garage about half a mile from Stainsworth. My neighbour says that he does a good job.'

The doctor chuckled. ‘So you're a grease-monkey, are you, old man? Well, there's absolutely no point in going to your garage now. As I think I hinted earlier, it'll be quite a while before you're changing tyres, tuning engines, and … er … whatever else it is that you chaps do.'

‘Have to go there now,' Mainwearing said.

‘I've told you that's quite impossible,' the doctor said sternly. ‘There's simply no way I'm going to allow you to be discharged before the morning.'

‘Then get me a phone,' Mainwearing said. ‘I need a phone.'

‘If there's anyone you need to call urgently, just give us their name and we'll call them for you,' the doctor said. ‘But what you require now – above all else – is a good night's rest.'

‘A phone!' Mainwearing said. ‘Get me a phone!'

And in the end, because he was growing increasingly agitated, that was what they did.

Woodend's feet and back ached from all the walking he'd done, and for a while he'd seriously considered going home and soaking his body in a hot bath. Then he'd decided that an
internal
soaking would probably do him more good, and he was already on his third pint of medicine when Monika Paniatowski walked into the public bar of the Drum and Monkey, and joined him at their table.

‘Did you manage to have a word with DS Stevenson?' Woodend asked his sergeant.

Paniatowski nodded. ‘Yes, I did.'

‘An' did she happen to tell you anythin' useful?'

‘No, but that's because there was nothing useful to tell. The way DCI Mortlake is running his investigation makes a headless chicken look like a potential Nobel Prize winner.'

‘You're sure that's true?' Woodend asked suspiciously. ‘You're convinced she wasn't just feeding you a line?'

‘I'm sure,' Paniatowski confirmed. ‘She wasn't in any state to be playing mind games with anyone.'

‘Are you saying she was drunk?'

‘Pissed as a rat. Pissed enough to tell me that she's been having an affair with DCI Mortlake – an affair which began even before she was promoted to his team.'

‘Good God!' Woodend said. ‘That could ruin them both.'

As it almost once ruined you and Bob, he added silently.

‘Anyhow, the point is that they're making no headway at all in their investigation,' Paniatowski said.

Woodend sighed. ‘There are some bobbies I've known in my time who've taken great delight in watchin' other bobbies fail – but I've never been one of that breed, Monika,' he said.

‘I know you haven't, sir.'

‘I really want Mortlake to get a result on this one. I don't even care if he gets promoted over my head because of it, as long as he finds the girl. But he's not
goin' to
find her, is he?'

‘Certainly doesn't look that way,' Paniatowski agreed glumly.

‘So it's up to us – an' we don't have any more of an idea of how to go about it than he does.' He paused. ‘Unless, of course, you've managed to—'

‘I haven't,' Paniatowski interrupted, dousing any flicker of hope her boss might have had. ‘For one brief moment, this afternoon, I thought I might have found a lead – but it came to nothing.'

‘Tell me about it, anyway,' Woodend suggested.

‘There was this single-storeyed building, just on the edge of the area that you'd asked me to search. What got me excited about it was that though there had been windows in that back wall, they'd all been bricked in – and, from the state of the brickwork, it was obvious the job had been done quite recently. Anyway, I went round to the front of the place, which was on Gladstone Street …'

‘An' that was when you saw that it was Mainwearin''s garage,' Woodend supplied.

‘Exactly. Mainwearing's bloody garage. And not only does Mainwearing have a solid alibi for the time when Angela Jackson was snatched, but – from what I've heard in the canteen – he also appears to have one for when Mary Thomas went missing.'

‘It's a right proper bugger, isn't it?' Woodend said.

‘A right proper bugger,' Paniatowski echoed.

They heard the sound of the street door open, and then a familiar – and surprisingly optimistic – voice call out, ‘Send us another round of drinks, will you, Jack?'

The explanation for Rutter's high spirits was not long in coming. ‘I'm almost certain I know who sold the drug to the killer,' he told Woodend and Paniatowski, the moment he'd reached the table. ‘His name's Norman Willis, and he used to work at the Pendleton Clinic.'

‘Do we know where can find him?' Woodend asked.

‘He lives in a flat on Crimea Road, but he's not there.'

‘Then do we have any idea …'

‘Every night, he makes a tour of half the pubs in town – and tonight was no exception. I know that because, in a couple of the boozers I visited, I only missed him by a few minutes. The problem is, I don't know what order he makes his calls in.'

‘Tours half the pubs in town,' Woodend mused. ‘He's a heavy drinker, is he?'

‘No! Far from it, in fact. He usually sticks to lemonade.'

‘So what's his game?'

‘What I suspect has happened is that since he's lost his job at the Pendleton Clinic, drug-pushing has ceased to be a nice little earner on the side, and is now his full-time occupation.'

‘That sounds more than likely,' Woodend agreed.

‘Anyway, the fact that I haven't found him yet doesn't really matter,' Rutter continued. ‘He'll have to go home sometime, and when he does, he'll find Detective Constable Beresford waiting for him.'

‘An' you think he'll be willing to tell us the name of the man he sold the drug to?' Woodend asked.

‘Yes, after I've told him what that man used the drug for,' Rutter said. ‘And if he doesn't want to tell me, I'll arrange for him to fall down the stairs a few times, to see if that makes him more cooperative.'