Lambs to the Slaughter (12 page)

‘She's not
that
old.'

‘She's old enough to have forgotten the door wasn't locked when she got there this morning.'

Why was Colin so keen to establish that the front door was unlocked when the evidence clearly suggested that it wasn't? Paniatowski wondered. Did he have his own agenda that he wasn't telling anyone else about?

‘But while it's highly unlikely that his entry point was through the front door, we can be almost certain that he did go into the house after he'd killed Len,' she said, moving on, and leaving the bone of contention behind her. ‘And how do we know that, DC Crane?'

‘He was on his way to the house when he threw the pickaxe away,' Crane replied.

‘Exactly,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘Now it's possible he went into the house because he was planning to make his escape down the street – though why he should decide to do that, when the alley was much safer, I've no idea – but it's much more plausible that there was something inside the house that he needed to take away. The only question is – what could it be?'

‘Something that could connect him with Len in some way – something that would point us in his direction, when we were looking for the killer,' Meadows suggested.

‘Like what, for example?'

‘I haven't a clue.'

‘Then let's try thinking about something else – let's consider motive,' Paniatowski suggested.

‘What's to consider?' Beresford asked. ‘Hopkins was killed because of his opposition to the strike. That's what everybody in this village probably thinks – and that's what I think too.'

‘It's a bit early in the investigation to be making that sort of judgement,' Paniatowski said mildly.

She was slapping him down, Beresford realized. She was doing it gently – for the moment – but she was definitely slapping him down. And she had every right to, because she was the boss, so his best plan – by far – would be just to sit back and take it.

‘I disagree,' he heard himself say. ‘There's an obvious motive for the murder of Len Hopkins, and given that obvious motive, Tommy Sanders has to be the prime suspect.'

That
was why he'd been so keen to discount the idea that the front door had been locked, Paniatowski thought – because an
unlocked
door would explain away the problem of how Tommy Sanders could have known Len would be in the lavatory, and make it easier for Beresford to paint a picture of him as the guilty man.

If she'd been dealing with any other inspector but Colin Beresford, she'd have cut him off long before that point, she thought. But it
was
Colin – her friend and loyal lieutenant – and she didn't want to do that to him, especially in front of the rest of the team.

‘This isn't America, Colin,' she argued. ‘I can't think of a single recorded case in this country of anyone being murdered for their political views.'

‘Can't you?' Beresford fired back. ‘Try telling that to all the people who've been killed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland!'

‘That's a different matter altogether,' Paniatowski said. ‘The IRA and the Protestant paramilitary groups see themselves as at war.'

‘And how do you think the miners see themselves? Passions are running very deep about this strike – and they're running in both directions.'

Paniatowski sighed. ‘You may be right,' she said, ‘but when I was at Len's house – which, incidentally, you've still to see for yourself – my gut was telling me, very strongly, that this particular murder was personal. I'm almost certain that the killer was feeling a real rage against his victim
as Len Hopkins
, rather than just as somebody on the other side of the argument.'

‘Imagine you were a miner,' Beresford suggested. ‘You see this strike as vital for ensuring the future of your family. And this one feller – Len Hopkins – is threatening that future. As far as you're concerned, he's a traitor to his class. Wouldn't you feel a real rage towards
him
?'

‘Yes, if he
was
the one feller,' Paniatowski said. ‘But he wasn't, was he? There are plenty of other people who oppose the strike.'

‘And Martin Luther King wasn't the only black man in the Civil Rights Movement,' Beresford said. ‘But King was the symbol of that movement – he inspired others to follow him.'

‘I think you're stretching the analogy a bit, Colin,' Paniatowski said.

‘And
I
think . . .' Beresford said hotly; then checking himself he continued, in a much calmer voice, ‘I think that whoever chose the pickaxe as a murder weapon didn't choose it because it was a weapon of opportunity, or because he was in a rage and wanted to make a real mess of Hopkins. I think he chose it because it was symbolic of the struggle.'

Enough was enough! Paniatowski decided.

‘Since you feel so very strongly that this line of investigation is worth pursuing, we
will
– despite any misgivings that I might have – pursue it, Inspector Beresford,' she said.

‘Thank you, boss,' said Beresford, finally accepting that he'd gone too far.

‘What time is this meeting in the Miners' Institute?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Half past seven.'

‘I don't think the killer is likely to stand up and confess to his crime in the middle of the meeting – though it would certainly be very nice for us if he did,' Paniatowski said. ‘But if he
is
a miner, as DI Beresford is convinced he is, he'll almost definitely be there, and he may just say something – or do something – which will give him away. And in case that happens, I'd like you to be there to see it, Inspector.'

Beresford nodded. ‘Right, boss.'

‘But at the same time as we're following that line of investigation – the DI Beresford line – I'd like to find out more about Len Hopkins as a man, and the people who he interacted with,' Paniatowski continued. She looked Beresford straight in the eye. ‘Is that all right with you, Inspector?'

There was only one permissible answer, and Beresford gave it by nodding his head again.

‘Now we know that Len Hopkins was a religious man from some of the books that he had in his house,' Paniatowski continued. ‘What was it that the vicar said about him, Jack?'

‘That he belongs to some kind of wild Methodist sect in the next valley,' Crane replied.

‘Which is not exactly a very Christian attitude, and probably tells us much more about the vicar of Bellingsworth than it does about the Methodists,' Paniatowski said drily. ‘I'd like you to go and talk to this pastor of Len's first thing in the morning, Jack.'

‘Got it,' Crane said.

‘I'd like you, Kate, to find out if the fight in the Miners' Institute was the only example of violence yesterday, and, if there were others, whether or not Len Hopkins was involved – because if he spent his whole day getting into punch-ups, I need to know about it.'

‘Hopkins wasn't
in
Bellingsworth for most of yesterday,' Meadows pointed out.

‘I know that,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘He wasn't here, and neither was anyone he might have come into conflict with. That's why I want you in Accrington tomorrow, talking to the people who organized the brass band competition – and in particular to any of them who were involved in the security arrangements.'

‘Right, boss.'

‘And there's one more thing that comes to mind,' Paniatowski said. ‘Last week – on Thursday, to be precise – a young man, supposedly from the Department of Education and Science, paid Len Hopkins a visit. We don't know what he said to him, but we do know that whatever it was, it made Hopkins absolutely furious. So when you can spare the time, Inspector Beresford, I'd like you to check up on who he was, and what he said.'

‘So you think
he
might be the killer, do you?' asked Beresford, with a little aggression creeping back into his voice.

I saw enough of him to know he'd have thought it far too messy to smash in Len's head with a short-handled pickaxe,
Susan Danvers had said, sitting in the sad monument to the past that was her front parlour.

‘No, I don't believe he killed Len Hopkins,' Paniatowski told Beresford, ‘but he's a loose end in this investigation, and I don't like loose ends.'

‘I'll deal with it,' Beresford said – though the tone in his voice suggested he wouldn't exactly be making it a priority.

There was the sound of a large van pulling up outside the pub.

Meadows stood up, and looked out of the window.

‘I don't want to bother you, boss, but we've got trouble,' she said.

‘Trouble?' Paniatowski repeated.

And then she looked out of the window herself, and saw exactly what Meadows meant.

T
he trouble that Meadows had spotted through the window of the Green Dragon took the form of Lynda Jenkins, until recently a reporter for Radio Whitebridge and now elevated to regional television.

Lynda had her fans, but her producer, Roger Hardcastle, was definitely not one of them. In his opinion, her soaring career owed less to her innate abilities as a journalist than to her willingness to make the people who mattered at Northern TV aware of her large – and Hardcastle had reluctantly to admit, rather shapely – breasts.

In her own assessment, she had the true reporter's instinct for a good story, which, roughly translated, meant that she considered the accuracy of what she was reporting on to be of lesser importance than the splash it would cause. And as she stepped down from the outside broadcast van in front of the Green Dragon, she was sensing a very big splash indeed.

Terry, her cameraman, followed her on to the pavement, and looked in the direction of the pub.

‘Are you going inside, Lynda?' he asked.

‘No need,' Jenkins told him. ‘Now that we're here, they'll come out.'

‘Are you sure of that?'

‘Absolutely sure – if they didn't, it would look as if they were hiding from me.'

‘Do you want me to have the camera running when they come out?' Terry asked.

It was a tempting idea, Jenkins thought. The image of two bobbies leaving a pub would be good television, especially with the scathing comment she would add during editing. But filming them at that moment might make them less willing to cooperate, and it would be much better – in splash terms – if they agreed to be interviewed live on air.

The door of the Green Dragon opened, and Paniatowski and her inspector stepped out on to the street.

‘Told you, didn't I, Terry?' Jenkins said complacently. She switched her attention to the two police officers. ‘Good afternoon to you both, Chief Inspector Paniatowski and Inspector Beresford. I'm Lynda Jenkins, and I'm here on behalf of Northern Television News.'

‘I know who you are,' Paniatowski said, flatly.

‘I've got a time-spot booked for my report on the next news bulletin, and I wondered whether you'd care to appear in it,' Jenkins said.

Paniatowski hesitated. On the one hand, appealing for information could be very helpful at this point in the investigation. On the other, the last time Jenkins had covered a serious crime – the murder of a prostitute whose body had been found in a moorland pub called the Top o' the Moors – the reporter had revealed far too much information on air.

‘I'm prepared to be interviewed, but I want something in return,' she said finally.

‘And what might that be?' Lynda Jenkins wondered.

‘For reasons I'm not at liberty to go into, I want to keep the investigation very low-key at the moment,' Paniatowski said, ‘which means that what I really don't need are any outrageous statements from you.'

‘Fair enough,' Jenkins agreed, then added hopefully, ‘We'll broadcast from here, in front of the pub, shall we?'

‘No,' Paniatowski said firmly. ‘We'll do it in front of the church hall.'

‘The thing is, the church hall isn't very visually exciting,' Lynda Jenkins said. She turned to her cameraman for support. ‘I'm right, aren't I, Terry?'

‘Quite right,' Terry agreed loyally.

‘This isn't some kind of entertainment show, it's a murder inquiry,' Paniatowski said coldly. ‘A man has died. So I don't really care how unphotogenic the church hall is – that's where we've set up our incident centre, and if we don't do the interview there, we won't be doing it anywhere.'

‘Fair enough,' Lynda Jenkins repeated, but with much less enthusiasm this time.

Was she making a mistake in agreeing to the interview at all? Paniatowski wondered.

It was possible that she was. But the interview just might produce some helpful results – and given how bloody impossible her right-hand man was being at that moment, she needed all the help she could get.

‘Well, that last half-hour has certainly been a master class in harmonious team work, hasn't it?' Meadows asked, as she looked through the pub window at Paniatowski and Beresford walking away, with Lynda Jenkins and her cameraman in their wake.

‘I have to admit, there've been times when I've felt
more
comfortable with my situation,' Crane replied.

Meadows took a sip of her tomato juice. ‘And which of our esteemed leaders do you believe is thinking along the right lines?' she asked.

‘I'm not sure, Sarge,' Crane said. ‘I haven't been with the team long, but I've come to recognize that when the boss has a gut instinct, she's usually not far from the mark.'

Meadows smiled. ‘A good answer, young Jack,' she said. ‘It really is a perfect combination of gallantry and
realpolitik
.'

Crane grinned back at her. ‘Gallantry because the boss is a woman, and
realpolitik
because she
is
the boss?'