Lambs to the Slaughter (10 page)

‘What happened next?'

‘I went through to the kitchen. Len's cocoa mug was there on the table – he always made himself a cup of cocoa before he went to bed – so I boiled up a kettle and made a pot of tea, and while I was waiting for it to brew, I washed out the mug with the hot water that was left.'

‘Go on.'

‘There was still no sign of Len, and I didn't want the tea stewing, so I went to the foot of the stairs, and called out, “Your tea's ready!” And when he didn't answer, I started to get worried, because he's normally such a light sleeper.'

‘So you went upstairs?'

‘Yes, I did. And that's when I really started to get worried.'

‘Why?'

‘His bed didn't look slept in, and he hadn't touched his water jug. But it was the fact that his clothes weren't there that really scared me.'

‘Where should they have been?'

‘On the chair. When he got undressed at night, he always folded his clothes – well, sort of folded them, anyway – and left them on one of the bedroom chairs. Then, in the morning, I'd decide what needed washing, and what could be hung back up in the wardrobe. But, you see, the clothes weren't on the chair.'

‘You didn't think he might simply have put them on again when he got up?'

‘No, because I always laid out a fresh set of clothes on the second chair before I went home, and those were the ones he put on in the morning.' Susan smiled sadly. ‘He always used to say I bullied him, but I think he rather liked it.'

‘The fresh set of clothes were still on the second chair, were they?'

‘Yes, and that had to mean that he'd never been to bed. So I rushed downstairs again, and went straight down to the lavvy – because that was the only place he could have been.'

‘If you thought that was where he was, why didn't you just wait until he came back into the house?'

‘Because I knew by then that something was wrong.' Susan paused. ‘I screamed when I found him in the lavvy – with his trousers round his ankles – but there was part of me that was already expecting it.'

And then, as Paniatowski had been anticipating for some time, she burst into tears.

T
he van from Whitebridge had arrived ten minutes earlier. It had already been unloaded, and now the driver and his mate were positioning the desks in the approved horseshoe pattern, while two engineers from the Post Office were laying the cabling necessary to ensure that each desk had a phone. The room still looked more like a church hall than an incident centre – but it was getting there.

‘You've done well to talk the vicar round so quickly,' Beresford told Crane, and then added candidly, ‘I left you with a bit of a bloody mess to deal with, didn't I, Jack?'

‘Yes, that was a clever move on your part, sir.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, what you pulled was the classic good-cop bad-cop routine, wasn't it? The vicar was so pleased you'd gone that he'd have been prepared to give me pretty much anything I wanted.'

‘I don't need you finding ways to excuse my screw-ups, Jack,' Beresford said sternly.

‘Sorry, sir.' Crane replied contritely.

Beresford smiled. ‘But thanks for trying, anyway.' He checked his watch. ‘Can I leave you in charge here?'

‘I should think so.'

‘Then I'll go and see about fixing us up with some lunch,' Beresford said.

He had done no more than glance at the village's only pub when he and Crane had made their tour of the High Street, but now Beresford gave it a more leisurely examination.

It was not the sort of pub you would ever expect to find in a mining village, he thought.

For a start, it should have been called something like the Pit Pony or the Miners' Rest, instead of the Green Dragon. And the incongruity continued inside. The walls were covered with rich flock wallpaper, the fitted carpet had a thick pile and a subdued pattern, and there were even horse brasses on the wall. The whole pub looked as if it belonged in one of those pleasant, shady villages, so beloved by the moderately prosperous, chunky-sweater-wearing middle class, and the fact that it existed in this grimy industrial setting was distinctly odd.

A man appeared behind the bar. He was wearing cavalry twill trousers, a check shirt and a cravat, and looked as if he, too, would have been comfortable in the company of country doctors, senior clerks and teachers with posts of responsibility.

‘What can I get you, sir?' he asked, with the assumed joviality that some landlords – and dressed like this, he could
only
be a landlord – have turned into an art form.

‘A pint,' Beresford told him. ‘No, better make it a half for now.'

‘Ah, a wise man to hold himself in reserve, especially when you're probably due for a heavy session later with your boss, DCI Paniatowski,' the landlord said.

‘What!' Beresford said.

The other man laughed. ‘Most people think that landlords are a bit like their beer pumps – permanently stuck behind the bar,' he said. ‘But the fact is that we have a life of our own outside these four walls, though when we
do
go outside, we tend not to mix with civilians.'

‘You're a member of the Licensed Victuallers' Association,' Beresford guessed.

‘Just so,' the landlord agreed. ‘We like to get together now and again – us landlords – and when we do, we swap stories about what goes on in our establishments. Not that we reveal anything confidential,' he added hastily, ‘we're a bit like doctors and lawyers in that way. But we do allow ourselves the luxury of painting affectionate word portraits of some of our more colourful customers.'

‘Or to put it another way, you've been gossiping with the landlord of the Drum and Monkey in Whitebridge,' Beresford said.

‘Exactly,' the landlord replied. ‘He's very proud – some might say overly proud – of the fact that what he calls one of the finest teams of detectives in the whole of Lancashire uses his pub as a base.'

What he
calls
one of the finest teams of detectives in the whole of Lancashire? Beresford thought, feeling a prickle of irritation. We
are
one of the finest teams of detectives in the whole of Lancashire.

‘Anyway,' the landlord continued, ‘when I learned that the bobby leading this investigation had lovely blonde hair and a big conk, I knew it had to be DCI Paniatowski.'

Beresford's feeling of irritation cranked up a notch or two. It was true that Monika's nose was larger than the average Lancashire issue – she was Polish, for God's sake! – but she was still one of the most attractive women he had ever met.

‘Is it always as quiet as this?' he asked, looking around the empty bar.

‘At this time of day, yes,' the landlord replied.

‘Yes, I imagine it must be tough, competing with the Miners' Institute,' Beresford said, and realized – as soon as the words were out of his mouth – that he was punishing the landlord for his comment about Monika.

What was it with him? he wondered. One moment he was resenting the fact that it was Monika – and not himself – who was leading the investigation, and the next he was leaping to her defence.

Maybe it wasn't Alzheimer's he was suffering from at all – maybe he was developing schizophrenia!

‘I'm not in competition with the Miners' Institute,' the landlord said, stung by the comment. ‘The Institute is a bit rough and ready, so that's where most of the coalface workers go when they're out with their mates. But when they take their wives or girlfriends out, this is where they come. We also cater for the pit managers and the clerks,' he continued, counting them off on his fingers and watching Beresford's reaction closely, ‘the commercial travellers . . . and then, of course, we've started getting a lot of the miners who are opposed to the strike.'

‘And why's that?' Beresford asked.

‘They come here because they don't feel welcome in the Miners' Institute any more.'

It was the perfect opportunity to ‘discover' the information which Kate Meadows had given him and which he needed to pass on to Paniatowski, Beresford thought.

‘I hear there was a bit of trouble in the Institute only last night,' he said casually.

‘You are well informed,' the landlord said, impressed.

‘I'm part of what some people think is one of the finest teams of detectives in the whole of Lancashire,' Beresford said. ‘You wouldn't like to give me a few details of the trouble, would you?'

‘There was a punch-up between two retired miners who are on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to the strike,' the landlord said.

That was good enough, Beresford decided.

‘We'll be needing food while we're here in Bellingsworth – hot lunches if possible, and sandwiches otherwise,' he said. ‘Can you handle that?'

‘I most certainly can,' the man behind the bar confirmed. He paused for a moment. ‘Does the landlord of the Drum and Monkey lay on hot meals and sandwiches?'

‘No,' Beresford replied.

The landlord rubbed his hands together.

‘Excellent!' he said.

It had taken some time to calm Susan Danvers down, but now she looked just about ready to start talking again.

‘I've just a couple more questions, and then we'll be done,' Paniatowski said. ‘All right?'

Susan nodded. ‘All right.'

‘As far as you know, did Len Hopkins have any enemies?'

‘Do you mind if I tell you a bit more about Len as a person?' Susan Danvers asked.

‘Not at all,' Paniatowski said – although she could spot an evasion when she heard one.

‘Len got religion after his family died. Well, nobody can blame him for that, can they? He grew very serious about this religion of his, but he never let that spill over into his normal life,' Susan paused, ‘at least, not until recently.'

‘Not until recently?' Paniatowski repeated.

‘Anyway, he was a very well-read and a very thoughtful man,' Susan said, hastily, as if she was now regretting that last qualification. ‘All sorts of people would ask him for advice on all sorts of subjects. They'd just turn up at his door, and whatever the hour of day or night, he'd never turn them away.'

‘So he was a sort of village wise man?' Paniatowski suggested.

‘That's exactly what he was,' Susan agreed. ‘There was nobody in this village who was treated with more respect – and nobody who had more right to it.'

‘So you're saying that he
didn't
have any enemies?' Paniatowski asked innocently.

Susan paused again. ‘He didn't have any enemies
as such
,' she said finally.

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘He got into quite a lot of arguments recently over whether or not there should be a strike,' Susan admitted.

‘Did he argue with anyone in particular?'

‘I'd rather not say.'

‘If you don't tell me, someone else will,' Paniatowski pointed out.

Susan sighed. ‘I suppose you're right. The man he argued with the most was another old miner called Tommy Sanders – but Tommy would never have harmed him.'

‘How can you be so sure of that?'

‘Tommy's a man of principle, just like Len.' Susan paused again. ‘And I wouldn't like you to get the wrong impression about those arguments. They were passionate – because they both cared about the issues – but they never got personal.'

‘Never got personal,' Paniatowski repeated sceptically. ‘I find that very surprising, considering the importance of the issues they were arguing about.'

‘You wouldn't find it the least surprising if you'd known Len,' Susan Danvers said. ‘
I've
known him all my life – and been looking after him for nearly twenty years – and I've never once seen him really lose his temper.' She suddenly fell silent, and a deep frown came to her brow. ‘I'm making a liar of myself,' she said, after a few seconds had passed. ‘I did hear him really lose his temper once – and there's no excuse for me forgetting that, because it was only last week.'

‘Tell me about it,' Paniatowski suggested.

‘Len's been doing a bit of what you might call research into his family history, and he asked me to help him with it.'

‘He asked you to help him with it, did he? So I'm not the only one who thinks you're clever,' Paniatowski said.

‘Get on with you,' Susan told her, blushing. ‘Anyway, checking back on the last four generations of the Hopkins' family was easy, because they'd all lived in this village. But then we hit a snag. Len's great-great-great-great grandfather . . .' She paused. ‘If it's four generations, have I got that right?'

‘Close enough,' Paniatowski told her.

‘Anyway, he was apparently working on one of the ships that took coal from here to London when he met Len's great-great . . . whatever . . . grandmother, and after they got married, he moved up here – which meant that in order to take the research any further back, Len would have to go down to London. And he couldn't do that, could he?'

‘Why not? Wasn't he well enough to travel?'

‘Oh, he was well enough – he was very fit for a man of his age – but he couldn't afford it. He was never a big saver, you see – if he had any money in his pocket, and somebody came to him with a sob story, that money would be gone in the blink of an eye. And on a miner's pension, you can't go very far. Then I had an idea.' Susan smiled. ‘A
clever
idea, if you like.'

Paniatowski returned the smile. ‘And what was this clever idea of yours?'

‘I said, “Why don't you apply for one of them grants?” “They'll never give a grant to somebody like me, lass – I've had no proper education,” he said. “Well, they certainly won't give you one if you don't apply for it,” I told him. And I went to the library and copied down the addresses of some government bodies that might be willing to give him a few pounds . . .'