Death Watch (5 page)

It wasn't enough for them. He knew it wasn't enough. But what else could he say?

T
he basement of Whitebridge Police Headquarters had a dual role. For most of the time it was a dumping place for unwanted or redundant equipment – traffic signs, police barriers, and the like – but when there was a serious crime it came into its own as the only room in the entire building which was big enough to accommodate a large team of investigators. A couple of hours earlier, it had still been in its dumping-ground phase, but by the time Woodend reached it to address his new team, its transformation had been completed.

The chief inspector looked around him – at the desks laid out in a horseshoe, at the eager faces of the detective constables, pulled in from all over Central Lancs to work on the case.

By Christ, they all looked so young, Woodend thought. In fact, each new team seemed to be younger than the last. Give it a couple of years, and he'd find himself addressing babies.

He cleared his throat. ‘We don't
know
, for certain, that this poor kid's been grabbed by a pervert,' he said, ‘but given that she seems a steady, responsible lass, an' that her parents are nowhere near rich enough to pay a sizeable ransom, it seems more than likely that that's exactly what happened. Which means that speed is of the essence. Or to put it another way, we have to collar this bastard before he's had time to do his victim too much damage.'

The detective constables all nodded sombrely – but also hopefully.

They didn't question for a moment the idea that the abductor
could
be caught before he'd done too much damage, Woodend thought. They were still labouring under the illusion that right and justice always triumph. Well, there was nothing wrong with hope – when that was all you had. And in many ways, it was a pity that after a couple of years at the sharp end – after they'd seen for themselves just what one human being can do to another – they'd discover that hope was being elbowed out of the way by disillusionment and cynicism.

‘We haven't yet got any leads as such,' the chief inspector continued, ‘but there are areas of possible investigation which might
give
us leads. For a start, there's the park itself. Everyone who was there has already been interviewed by the uniformed branch, but they're not trained detectives like you are, and they may have missed something.' He paused, noticing the new arrival in the doorway, then continued, ‘Isn't that right, Inspector Rutter?'

Bob Rutter nodded. ‘In this job, you soon learn that you never cover the ground just once,' he said. ‘You go over it again and again, until you're absolutely certain there's nothing more to be extracted from it.'

‘Which means that all those people will be re-interviewed by you lads,' Woodend said. ‘Next there's the car park to look at. It's more than likely that the kidnapper left his vehicle there – which is why he chose to attack the girl where he did – so we need to find out which cars
were
parked there at the time, an' follow them up. Detective Constable Beresford will be supervisin' both those operations. We'll also have a team, led by Inspector Rutter, goin' over every inch of the area around the bushes, to make sure the kidnapper didn't leave any clues behind.' He lit up a Capstan Full Strength, and took a deep drag. ‘Any questions so far?'

The detective constables looked at each other, and then back at the chief inspector. None of them said a word.

‘That's the
chasin
' part of the investigation,' Woodend continued, ‘but we're also goin' to be doin' what in Western films they call “headin' the bloody bastard off at the pass”. A team led by Sergeant Paniatowski an' me will be pullin' in any known deviants in the area.' He paused again, and looked across at Rutter. ‘Any idea where Monika is at this moment, Bob?'

Rutter look distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I believe she's sifting through all the information we've collected so far, sir,' he said.

‘Siftin', is she?' Woodend asked dubiously. ‘Anyway, as I was sayin', me an' Sergeant Paniatowski will be talkin' to all these perverts, an' the grillin' we intend to give them will make any other police interview they've ever had seem like a Sunday School outin'. Because believe me, lads, the gloves are off this time, an' if you have to step over the line to help get a result, step over it without a second's thought, an' we'll worry about the consequences later. Any questions
now
?'

One of the bolder detective constables raised his hand. ‘What exactly did you mean by the last remark, sir?' he wondered.

‘I meant that if you don't exactly stick to what's laid down in the Police Handbook, I'll protect you in any way I can,' Woodend said. ‘An' if you take a fall for what you've done, you won't be doin' it alone – because I'll be fallin' with you.'

There'd been a time when, on entering a pub with his boss, Rutter would have ordered a pint of best bitter for Woodend and only a half for himself. But that had been in the south. Now they were up north, where a half pint was a ladies' drink, served in a straight glass, and men – who took their drinking seriously – supped their ale from a heavy mug. And so it was that as the two men approached the bar counter of the Drum and Monkey, Rutter held up two fingers to the barman, and the barman reached up to the shelf for two pint pots.

‘I think you might have been a little unwise in what you said back in the briefing, sir,' Rutter told the chief inspector, while they were waiting for their pints to be pulled.

‘Oh aye?' Woodend replied. ‘Are you referrin' to anythin' in particular that I might have said?'

‘The comments you made about supporting anyone who stepped over the line.'

The barman placed their pints in front of them, and Woodend took a large swig of his. ‘That was a mistake, was it?'

‘I think so,' Rutter told him seriously. ‘There are plenty of bobbies serving on this force who'd be more than ready to go right over the top, in a behavioural sense, if there were no restraints on them. That's why the Police Handbook's there – to put that restraint in place – and what you've just done, if you'll forgive me for saying so, sir, is give the rogue element virtual licence to act in any way it wants to.'

‘What I've just done is increase the chances of gettin' that little girl back alive,' Woodend told him. ‘An' however slim that chance may be, I still think it's one worth takin'.' He looked around the bar, to see if they could be overheard, then continued, ‘Movin' on. What was all that bollocks you gave me in the briefin' about Monika siftin' through the information we've got so far. There's bugger all information
to
sift through.'

‘I imagine there isn't,' Rutter agreed. ‘But I thought the team might take it the wrong way if they learned what she was
actually
doing.'

‘An' what
was
she actually doin'?'

‘You know, because you were the one who told her to do it. So when you asked me in the briefing what she was doing, I just assumed that because of the pressures of the moment, your instruction to her had slipped your mind.'

‘An' they still seem to be slippin' it,' Woodend said. ‘Just remind me of what them instructions were.'

‘You told her to take Louisa home.'

Woodend was silent for some time, then he said, ‘I told her to see to it that you got to headquarters as soon as possible. I never mentioned anythin' about her becomin' your personal babysitter.'

‘I hardly think that's fair,' Rutter said hotly.

‘I'm sure you don't,' Woodend agreed. ‘But it's right enough, whether or not. She wants to protect you, Bob. An' I can understand that, because I want to protect you, too. But there are limits to what we can do – an' I won't see Monika dragged under just so that you can stay afloat. So while she's lookin' after your interests, it's your job to see that you're lookin' after hers.'

‘I still thing you're being unfair,' Rutter said.

‘
Life
's unfair,' Woodend said flatly. Then he softened a little and put a sympathetic hand on Rutter's shoulder. ‘Life's
very
unfair. An' after all that you've been through yourself, I would have thought you'd have understood that long ago.'

The windows of the house were all boarded up, as was the front door. In what had once been the small front garden lay any amount of rubbish which had simply been dumped there – broken-down refrigerators and superannuated prams, glass bottles and rusting tin cans. To anyone who happened to be passing by, therefore, the house looked derelict and totally uninhabited.

The Invisible Man knew better. He knew, because he owned the house, that while most of the rooms had fallen into irredeemable decay, there was one on the ground floor which had been fitted up for his special purpose. In this room, which was illuminated by a paraffin lamp, there was a camp bed, an easy chair, and a small gas stove. But, more importantly –
much
more importantly – there was a spyhole in the wall, which was virtually undetectable from the other side.

He had begun thinking of himself as the Invisible Man while he was still at school. No one else knew then – or knew now – that he called himself by the name. It was a secret he had never revealed – and would never reveal.

Back in his school days, the name had had an almost literal meaning for him – he was the boy who other people appeared not to see, the boy whose opinions mattered for nothing, the one who was the last to be picked for the football team and was looked straight through by the girls he admired.

It didn't have that meaning now. Now he was invisible only in the sense that other people couldn't see what he was doing, couldn't even guess at his plans, and had no idea how he meant to order their lives until it was too late to stop it.

Invisibility was no longer a sign of weakness as it had once been, he told himself. It was a cloak that he used to hide his true power.

He sat down in the easy chair, pulled back the cover of the spyhole, and pressed his eye against the glass.

He could see the girl! She was huddling in the corner of the room, hugging herself tightly and sobbing. Illuminated as she was, by the flickering neon light over her head, it seemed almost as if she was on a stage, performing. And in a way, she was. Performing for her director. Performing for
him
!

He had been imagining this moment for weeks.

No, not for weeks!

For months!

For years!

For almost as long as he could remember.

Yet never had he thought it would be like this – never come anywhere close to grasping how wonderful it would actually be.

The tears were still running down the girl's cheeks. Yes, she was desperately unhappy, the Invisible Man told himself. Who wouldn't be in her situation? But if she knew – if she had even the slightest inkling – what was in store for her, she wouldn't be just unhappy. She would go quite mad.

He looked down, and was surprised to see that his right hand was steadily massaging his crotch. What an explorer that demon hand of his was, he thought. What a mind of its own it had.

He was tempted to let it continue with its busy work, yet he forced himself to resist the temptation. Half the pleasure of all this was in the anticipation, he reminded himself. Perhaps it was even
most
of the pleasure, for though he prayed and prayed that it would not be the case, he suspected that the climax would come as something of a disappointment.

He heard a car pull up in the road outside, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He pushed himself out of the chair and crossed the room, noting, as he did so, that his heart had started to pound furiously.

He was anxious, he told himself. He was perhaps even a little bit frightened. But so what? Wasn't fear also a part of the process – a part of the excitement of the game?

He reached the window. Like all the others in the house, it was boarded up, but that did not bother him because he had thought about this problem in advance, and – clever, clever man! – had installed a second spyhole in the wall which gave out onto the road.

The vehicle which had pulled up was a police car, and two uniformed officers were just getting out of it. He had anticipated this might happen, too, but he was not worried.

Honestly, he promised himself, he was not worried at all.

As the two constables stepped onto the pavement, he quickly read the language of their bodies, and decided that whilst they might be alert and ready for trouble, they were certainly not expecting any. They had no idea they were so close to the girl, which meant that they would not find her – would not
save
her.

Nobody could save her now!

T
he man sitting across the interview-room table from Woodend and Paniatowski was called Cedric Thornton. He was in his early thirties, and had greasy dark hair and very bad teeth. Patches of sweat had begun to form under the armpits of his cheap white shirt.

‘I haven't done nothin',' he whined.

Woodend took a deeply pensive drag on his cigarette. ‘I believe you,' he said finally.

Thornton looked surprised. ‘You do?'

‘Yes,' Woodend confirmed. ‘I've had a little chat with Mr Bowden, your probation officer, an' he tells me that since you've come out of prison, you've been keepin' your nose very clean.'

‘I should never have been banged up in the first place,' Thornton said.

‘Now that's not quite true, is it, Cedric?' Woodend asked mildly. ‘You did
rape
the girl, after all.'

‘She wanted it as much as I did,' Thornton said. ‘It was only later that she changed her mind and started to claim that I'd raped her.'