Dying Fall (13 page)

As Bob Rutter left the doctor's surgery, he checked his watch. It had been a very detailed medical examination – which was a good thing when you were considering taking an import­ant step in your life – but it did mean that he had spent longer in the surgery than he'd planned to. Still, if he broke a few speed regulations on the journey between Whitebridge and Manchester, he should be able to make up at least some of the time he had lost.

He didn't quite understand what was happening to him, he thought, as he turned the ignition of his car.

If he'd come up with the plan of marrying Liz Driver two years earlier, he'd have approached things much more slowly, taking his time to consider all the angles and weigh all the implications. Now he was rushing into it like a callow youth, waving all objections aside with a casual flick of the wrist. And while he was well aware of the fact that he was letting down Charlie Woodend – a man he respected and admired like none other – he simply couldn't bring himself to care
enough
about it to throw himself into reverse.

‘Yes, you'd have approached it differently a couple of years ago, wouldn't you?' asked a voice in his head, as he slid the car into gear. ‘A couple of years ago, you'd never have thought about marrying Liz
at all
. A couple of years ago, you were still married to
Maria
.'

And maybe that was the answer to why he was acting in the way that he was, he told himself. He'd been through hell since Maria's murder. Now he wanted something better. He was choosing the soft option not just for its own sake – but also because the
hard
one had become crushingly intolerable.

Rutter had been gone for over an hour, Beresford had recently left, and now the only two people in Woodend's office were himself and Paniatowski – and it was Paniatowski who was doing the talking.

‘So that's all I've got for you, sir,' she said, reaching the end of her account of her investigation into Councillor Lowry. ‘He's not a bad employer by all accounts, and while he might include promiscuity and ruthless political ambition amongst his weaknesses, I doubt you can use either of those things to put pressure on him.'

‘Then find me something else that I
can
use,' Woodend said flatly.

‘But I don't even know where to start looking,' Paniatowski confessed.

‘Start right at the beginnin' – from the moment that the midwife slapped his bare arse,' Woodend told her. ‘That's the way we've always conducted our criminal investigations in this team.'

‘But Lowry's
not
a criminal,' Paniatowski protested.

‘You don't know that for certain,' Woodend said. ‘You
can't
know it for certain, until you've completed your investigation.'

And I don't know
you
, any longer, Charlie, Paniatowski thought.

Because this wasn't the mentor she'd worked with since he'd been transferred to Mid-Lancs. This wasn't the even-handed Charlie Woodend who she'd wanted to
be
like. Getting dirt on Lowry had ceased to be a means to an end, and had become an end in itself.

And then, in a sudden flash of insight, she realized that this whole thing wasn't about
Lowry
at all – it was about Bob!

Woodend was furious with his protégé, but not quite furious enough yet to lash out at him. So somebody else had to be made to suffer. And the target Woodend had selected for his venom was Councillor Tel Lowry.

‘I'm not comfortable about carrying on with this investigation, sir,' she said. ‘If you insist on it going ahead …'

‘An' I do!'

‘… then I'd prefer it if you assigned it to someone else.'

‘There
is
nobody else. You're the only one I trust.'

Trust!

The word stabbed at Paniatowski's heart with all the force of a sharp dagger. It was one of those words like love, admir­ation and gratitude – all of which she felt for Woodend – which she was powerless to resist.

And she knew at that moment that even if she thought he was wrong – and she was
certain
he was wrong – she would go along with what he wanted.

She made one last effort to extricate herself. ‘The thing is, sir,' she said, ‘I think there are more valuable things I could be doing with my time.'

‘Like what, for instance?'

‘Like looking into Councillor Scranton's background.'

Woodend nodded. ‘Then why don't you look into that
as well
?' he suggested, throwing her a bone.

Henry Marlowe should have been out on the golf course that morning – his game with a local bigwig had been down in his diary for weeks – but instead of artfully and skilfully losing a match to someone who mattered politically, he was stuck in his office, talking to Councillor Lowry on the phone.

‘So it looks as if Woodend was right,' he was saying, though he found the words almost sticking in his throat.

‘Right?' Lowry repeated.

‘About the foot patrols.'

‘That's one way of looking at it,' Lowry said ominously.

‘And is there another way?' Marlowe wondered.

‘There is indeed,' Lowry conceded. ‘From what you've just told me, it's clear that if Chief Inspector Woodend had arrived five minutes later, the tramp would have been dead.'

‘That's true,' Marlowe agreed. ‘But—'

‘And how would your Force have looked then? Much worse than if there'd been no policemen on patrol
at all
! Isn't that right?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘What the ratepayers would be saying is, “You've spent a great deal of our money on this extra police presence, and you might as well not have bothered, because the result has been exactly the same.”'

‘They
might
say that,' Marlowe agreed.

‘And what about the
next
time, when the patrol doesn't manage to get there in the nick of time?' Lowry asked.

‘I don't know,' Marlowe said miserably.

‘I'm sorry for these tramps. I really am,' Lowry said. ‘But it
will
happen again – I see now that DCI Woodend was right about that, at least. Where I disagree with the chief inspector is that I don't think we'll catch him in the act, however many patrols we have on duty.'

‘Woodend almost caught him last night,' Marlowe pointed out.

‘So next time the killer will be more careful,' Lowry countered. He sighed. ‘I hate to say this, Henry, but the resolution to the situation will only come when there
is
a second victim.'

‘Are you saying that once the killer has struck twice, he'll give up?' Marlowe asked, mystified.

‘I'm saying that once he's struck twice, there won't be any tramps around as fodder for a third murder.'

‘But there are dozens of them …' Marlowe began.

‘
Now
there are,' Lowry agreed. ‘But when another of their number dies, even the stupidest and most lethargic of them will feel this isn't a safe place to be, and get out of town as quickly as possible.'

‘So all we have to do is wait until there's a second murder?' Marlowe asked hopefully.

‘No, what we have to do – what
you
have to do – is find a way to stop the night-time patrols before these ruinous overtime payments bankrupt the council,' Lowry said forcefully.

‘But I don't see what I
can
do,' Marlowe whined.

‘Can I be frank?' Lowry asked.

You're going to be, whether I want it or not, Marlowe thought. ‘Yes, you can be frank,' he told Lowry.

‘As I think I've said before, you're not the most effective chief constable around, Henry, but at least you've always been amenable to the council's wishes – and that has made you useful. But if you can't deliver on this, then you're neither use nor ornament. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

‘Yes,' Marlowe said, almost in tears by now. ‘Yes, I understand.'

W
arner and Crabtree had signed off duty at eight o'clock, and by ten past eight were sitting in the police canteen, munching their way through sausage sandwiches doused in a layer of thick brown sauce.

‘Food fit for heroes,' Crabtree announced between mouthfuls.

And though Warner laughed at the comment – as he was expected to – that was how they both secretly saw themselves.

They'd finished their sandwiches, swallowed the remains of their industrial-strength tea, and were walking across the car park when they saw the man standing awkwardly next to Warner's Ford Popular.

‘It looks like Mr Marlowe,' Crabtree said.

‘It can't be,' Warner scoffed. ‘He doesn't really exist.'

‘He does, too,' Crabtree countered, falling in with the game. ‘I've seen him on the telly, talking to the press.'

‘But have you ever seen him in
real life
?' Warner wondered.

‘I thought I got a glimpse of him once, but I may have been mistaken,' Crabtree conceded.

‘Anyway, even if he
does
exist, he only exists in his office,' Warner said. ‘He doesn't go out into the real world, like ordinary mortals.'

But the closer they got to Warner's car, the more they were forced to admit to themselves it did
look
like the chief constable, and that he was not only loitering, but loitering
uneasily
.

They were almost level with the car when the apparition spoke.

‘I just thought I'd come out and congratulate you on the splendid job you did last night, lads,' it said.

The words were yet another hammer blow to Crabtree's and Warner's already weak grip on reality.

It was surreal.

It was bizarre.

Marlowe had called them ‘lads', and whilst the word would have sounded fine coming from Cloggin'-it Charlie's lips, to hear Marlowe using it was a bit like hearing the Pope advise you to always use rubber johnnies when having it off with a stranger.

‘Yes, a splendid job,' Marlowe repeated. ‘And it's because of the way you've performed that I've decided to entrust you with another small task, which I'd like you to complete before you finally turn in for a well-earned rest.'

‘Another small task, sir?' Crabtree repeated, cautiously.

‘That's right. In a way, I suppose it's almost a
private
task – a sort of personal favour to me. In other words, it wouldn't be part of your normal police duties
as such
, though I think it would certainly be a service to policing in Whitebridge.'

‘I don't quite see what you're getting at, sir,' Warner admitted.

‘Then I'd better explain more fully,' Marlowe said indulgently, as if he was doing them
a favour
.

He delivered his explanation, and when he'd finished, Crabtree said, ‘We won't get into trouble for this, will we, sir?'

‘Get into trouble!' Marlowe repeated, with an irritated edge creeping into his voice. ‘How the bloody hell could you get into trouble? I'm the one asking you to do it, aren't I?'

‘Well, yes, sir, but …'

‘And
I'm
the bloody chief constable.'

‘Well, if you're sure it will be all right …'

‘I want you to know that I won't forget this,' Marlowe said, as though it were already a done deal. ‘And just bear this in mind – it can't do you any harm to have your boss on your side, now can it, lads?'

Marlowe had used that word ‘lads' again, Crabtree thought. He wished he wouldn't do that.

The concrete pipe was twenty feet long and had an internal radius of forty-six inches. It had once been intended to form part of an ambitious new sewage system, but then council cutbacks had meant that the project was abandoned. Now it stood on a piece of waste ground, waiting for the next time that local government felt rich again – and slowly crumbling away.

Pogo approached the front end of the pipe slowly, walking in a straight line. He made enough noise for the man inside to be aware of his presence, yet not so much that the other tramp was likely to be alarmed. When he was a few feet from the pipe, he came to a halt, and said, ‘Mind if I join you?'

The tramp inside the pipe considered the matter. ‘Why would you want to?' he asked.

Pogo shrugged. ‘I feel like a bit of company,' he said. ‘And I've got some cigarettes.'

‘I don't have anything worth stealing, you know,' the other tramp said.

‘I don't steal,' Pogo said angrily. ‘However low I've sunk, I've never stolen anything.' And then, realizing he'd just undone all the good work of his careful approach by his show of temper, he continued, in a much quieter voice, ‘I don't blame you for being suspicious. There are a lot of bad people about.'

‘Have you got a knife?' the other tramp asked.

For a moment, Pogo was tempted to lie, but then he said, ‘Yes, I have – but if you let me into the pipe, I'll leave it outside.'

‘You do that,' the other tramp said. ‘But even without the knife, there's still an entrance fee of three cigarettes for coming in.'

Pogo grinned. ‘Three cigarettes?' he repeated. ‘To enter a palatial pipe like this one? It's cheap at twice the price.'

The other man returned his grin. ‘But you'll leave your knife outside, like you promised?' he said.

Pogo pulled his weapon out of his belt, and placed it on the ground. Then he squatted down and entered the pipe. Once inside, it seemed remarkably easy to get comfortable.

He handed over his entrance fee, then said, ‘My name's Percy, but when I was serving in the army everybody called me Pogo, and the name stuck. What's your name?'

‘Did you fight in the War?' the other tramp asked, perhaps as a way of avoiding answering Pogo's question.