Death Watch (31 page)

‘A very strange kind of man,' Stevenson said pensively. ‘And certainly not a kind that I've ever come across myself. I suppose there's no chance that this spyhole was there previously – that it had nothing to do with Brunton and Mainwearing's activities?'

‘You're suggestin' that a previous tenant of the house next door might have installed it to spy on a previous tenant of the garage?'

‘Yes, essentially.'

‘It's a temptin' theory. But, you see, Mainwearin' had that room completely rebuilt by a jobbin' builder called Decker, an' during that rebuild, the spyhole was bound to have been discovered.'

‘Then I can't explain it,' Stevenson said.

‘No matter, let's move on to somethin' else,' Woodend said easily. ‘There are other questions I put to Mainwearin' that he seemed unable to answer.'

‘You mean
wouldn't
answer?'

‘No, I meant exactly what I said. He should have known the answers – but he plainly didn't.'

‘For instance?'

‘He signed himself the ‘Invisible Man'. I think I must have told you that before …'

‘Yes, you did.'

‘… and there's no doubt that he was the one who left the note which was nailed to Angela Jackson, because he described the piece of cardboard on which it was written perfectly. But, you see, he can't tell me
why
he chose that name for himself. So I'm thinkin' that maybe it's buried deep in his subconscious …'

‘That's a possibility.'

‘… an' that we just might be able to unlock that subconscious mind by the use of hypnotism.' Woodend paused. ‘Do you use hypnotism yourself, Doc?'

‘I have done,' Stevenson said. ‘On occasion.'

‘An' does it work?'

‘It depends on exactly how you define the term “work”. In helping a patient to remember his childhood, for example, it can be a useful tool. But that's all it is – a tool – and one of many available. It's certainly not the miracle cure that some people believe it is.'

‘So you couldn't, for example, change somebody's personality with it?'

‘Most definitely not. All you can use it for is to build on what's already there. You're not going to change an introvert into an extrovert by a couple of sessions of hypnosis. You have to turn him around by other means – or rather, he has to turn
himself
around by other means – and, once that process is under way, you can
then
use hypnosis as a re-enforcement.'

‘Fascinatin',' Woodend said. ‘But to get back to the point. Do you think there's a chance I can use hypnosis to make Mainwearin' tell me why he calls himself the Invisible Man?'

‘As I've said, it's a possibility. But why should you even want to? You know he's guilty. Isn't that enough? Do you really need to probe every little corner of his psyche?'

‘Not really,' Woodend admitted. ‘It's just that I like to know these things. I suppose it's because when I was a kid—'

Stevenson laughed. ‘If you want to tell me about your childhood memories, you need to be lying on a couch first,' he said. ‘And you're going to have to pay me for the privilege.'

‘On
my
salary?' Woodend asked wryly. He stopped walking for a moment, to light up a cigarette. ‘The drug Mainwearin' used to dope the girls isn't well known to your average layman – an' that bothered me at first,' he continued. ‘Then Dr Shastri explained to me that anybody with a reasonable head on their shoulders could find out all there is to know about it by spendin' half an hour in the library.'

‘I expect they could.'

‘But what's still got me confused is why Brunton decided that the best place to get it was the Pendleton Clinic.'

‘
Is
that where he got it from?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I suppose it was because he was a patient there. In fact, he was
my
patient there.'

‘True enough,' Woodend agreed. ‘But he'd only be at the clinic for … what? An hour a week?'

‘Two hours a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

‘An' I wouldn't have said that was long enough for him to have learned how the hospital ticked. Certainly not long enough for him to have found out that one of the fellers workin' in the dispensary was bent.'

‘Perhaps someone else told him about the pharmacist.'

‘A doctor, you mean?'

‘I consider that particular possibility highly unlikely,' Stevenson said severely. ‘We do have certain standards in the profession, you know, and I can't see any doctor risking his reputation in that way. It's much more likely that Brunton got the information from one of the ancillary staff, who would probably be only too glad to earn some extra money by providing it.'

‘So doctors are true paragons of virtue, but wave a few quid in front of one of the members of the lower orders, an' you'll have him rollin' over like a puppy?' Woodend asked.

‘I didn't say that,' Stevenson protested.

‘No, not
quite
you didn't,' Woodend agreed.

‘I suppose it did sound rather snobbish of me to insist it couldn't have been one of the doctors,' Stevenson said, in a placatory manner. ‘After all, there are a few bad apples in every barrel.'

Woodend slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Idiot!' he said loudly.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I'm losin' my grip on my argument completely, which is hardly surprisin', considerin' I've had no sleep for last thirty-six hours an' I'm so tired that I'm almost on the point of droppin' where I stand.'

‘You
should
get some sleep, you know,' Stevenson said solicitously.

‘As soon as I've tied up a few loose ends, I will,' Woodend promised. ‘Anyway, here we are debatin' about whether it was a cleaner or a doctor that told Brunton who he should approach, when, in fact, it was
Mainwearin'
who decided to obtain the drugs from the Pendleton Clinic.'

‘And he wasn't a patient there.'

‘Well, exactly! An' not only that, but he couldn't explain to me
why
he chose the clinic – just like he couldn't explain why he decided to call himself the Invisible Man.'

‘Perhaps he was lying about choosing the clinic himself,' Stevenson suggested. ‘Perhaps it was Brunton's choice after all.'

Woodend shook his head. ‘Mainwearin' didn't lie to me durin' that interview. He might not have always known the truth – but he certainly didn't
lie
.'

‘I couldn't comment on that,' Stevenson said. ‘I wasn't there.'

‘No, you weren't,' Woodend agreed. ‘An' it wouldn't have been proper to have you there. Because not only was
Brunton
one of your patients, but
Mainwearin'
was an' all.'

‘I wouldn't exactly call him a patient of mine – not in the same way as Brunton was – though I did see him a few times, at the request of his probation officer. I believe that was one of the conditions of his parole.'

‘It's funny that neither of them tried to get close to the investigation, isn't it?' Woodend asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, if I'm recallin' what you told me correctly, you said that the
organized
killer takes a great interest in the investigation. He'll keep a scrapbook of the newspaper reports, an' may even try to insinuate himself onto the periphery of the investigation itself. But Brunton an' Mainwearin'
never
tried to do that. An' when we searched their properties, we found no evidence of scrapbooks.'

‘If you remember, I also used the word “likely” quite a lot,' Stevenson said. ‘The organized killer is
likely
to keep a scrapbook, and
likely
to want to get close to the investigation. But dealing with the human mind is a tricky business, and there are no hard and fast rules.'

‘On the other hand,
you
did sort of become part of the investigation,' Woodend said.

‘Only because my wife asked me to,' Stevenson pointed out. He laughed. ‘Only because she
insisted
on it.'

‘Aye, she's a very formidable woman, is Sergeant Stevenson,' Woodend agreed. ‘But even formidable women can be manipulated, if you go about it in the right way.'

‘What do you mean?' Stevenson asked.

‘I remember the first time you turned up at my office as if it was only yesterday,' Woodend mused, ignoring the question. ‘You were wearin' the same brown tweed jacket and brown trousers that you're wearin' today, an' I thought at the time that they looked rather new. Were they?'

‘I can't honestly remember.'

‘You were wearin' the same outfit when we met in the Drum, just after I'd been kicked off the case. But the
next
time I saw you – when I popped into your office unexpectedly – you were wearing a smart suit. Now you're back to the jacket an' trousers again. But then, that's understandable – because I did tell you in advance that I was comin' this time, didn't I?'

‘Are you trying to make some kind of point?'

‘I once had a mate who was a salesman, an' he said the key to successful sellin' is to do all you can to convince the customer that you're very much like him. If you go out for a meal together, eat what he eats an' drink what he drinks. If he's a follower of rugby league, find out all about it, an' pretend it's the drivin' passion of your life. An' if you seem to have the same taste in clothes, well, that can't do any harm either.'

‘But I'm not a salesman.'

‘Of course you are.'

‘And what am I supposed to be selling?'

‘Your ideas. An' even more importantly, yourself – which is what all salesmen are really sellin' anyway.'

Stevenson glanced down at his watch. ‘I have to get back to the university,' he said. ‘I'm due to give a lecture in an hour, and there's still some preparation I need to complete.'

‘See that bridge up ahead of us?' Woodend asked, pointing.

‘Yes?'

‘Just walk that far with me. It won't take more than a couple of minutes, an' if you put a spurt on when you turn round again, you'll easily make up the time. All right?'

‘All right,' Stevenson agreed, though he didn't seem entirely happy about the prospect.

‘I got on really well with my old mam,' Woodend said. ‘She was that proud of me when I became a sergeant in the army, an' she was that proud of me when I became a police inspector. But, do you know, she'd have been just as proud of me if I'd stayed in the mill all my workin' life, like my dad did.'

Stevenson sighed. ‘Look, I should never have agreed to go any further with you,' he said. ‘I really
do
have to get back.'

‘Did you disappoint your mam as much as you've obviously disappointed your wife?' Woodend wondered.

‘What!'

‘I expect you did. That's probably why you married Rosemary in the first place – because she was so much like your mam that you thought you could relive your childhood, an' get it right this time. But that kind of thing never works out, Doc. You of all people should know that.'

‘How dare you try to analyse me like that?' Stevenson demanded. ‘You've no idea what you're talking about. You haven't had the training.'

‘No, I haven't,' Woodend admitted. ‘But I've seen a great deal of life – an' that's been an education in itself. So tell me, when did you come up with the idea of turnin' Mainwearin' and Brunton into your puppets? When exactly did you decide to use them as the instruments for fulfillin' your fantasies?'

‘This is ludicrous!' Stevenson said.

‘My guess would be it was at some point in their treatments – when you realized they were both a lot like you.'

‘They're nothing like me!' Stevenson said, in a voice so loud it was almost a scream.

‘You're not bein' quite honest with yourself there, Doc,' Woodend said. ‘If they weren't like you, you'd never have been able to get them to do what you wanted them to do. If they weren't like you, you'd never have been able to hypnotize them so successfully.'

‘I never hypnotized either of them.'

‘Of course you did. That's why Mainwearin' could sign himself the Invisible Man, even though he had no idea where the name came from. That's how he could know that the pharmacist at Pendleton Clinic was bent, without ever havin' been to the place – because
you
worked there,
you
'd heard the rumours, and
you
put the idea into his head. But most important of all, there's the fact that Brunton an' Mainwearin' have no idea that the reason they got together in the first place is because you
put
them together.'

‘This is all pure speculation,' Stevenson said. ‘I was teaching a class of thirty students when the first girl was kidnapped, and I wasn't even in the country when the second one was snatched.'

‘You didn't need to be there for the thing to happen,' Woodend said. ‘All you had to do was programme Brunton an' Mainwearin' beforehand. They did the dirty work for you, didn't they?'

‘Of course not.'

‘So tell me, Doc, do you think you'd have eventually plucked up the nerve to hurt the girls yourself – or would you never have got beyond keepin' a death watch from the house next door?'

‘I had nothing to do with any of this – and you'll never be able to prove I did,' Stevenson told him, with a show of contempt.

‘Don't talk so bloody stupid!' Woodend said dismissively. ‘This is what I do for a livin'. Crime's my business, just like shrinkin' heads is yours. So of course I can bloody prove it.'