Lambs to the Slaughter (15 page)

But how much of that noisy effort was real, and how much of it was put on? Beresford asked himself.

Was he really struggling, or was it all no more than an act designed to show that Tommy Sanders could not have been
physically
capable of killing Len Hopkins?

The front door was finally opened, and Beresford got his first look at the man he had already decided was the murderer.

Most miners in the village were as short as Tommy was, but whereas their rock-hard muscles visibly strained against the confines of their clothing, his clothes hung loose, as if they had once belonged to a much beefier man.

Tommy Sanders looked up at Beresford with a mixture of mistrust and dislike on his face.

‘You're a bobby, aren't you?' Tommy asked.

‘I am,' Beresford confirmed.

‘Well, you might have gone around the back and saved me a bit of effort,' the old man said.

‘I'll remember that the next time,' Beresford promised. ‘Can I come inside, please, Mr Sanders?'

‘Not unless you've got a warrant in your pocket,' Sanders replied. ‘And, incidentally, there won't
be
a next time – because if you come calling again, I'll bloody ignore you.'

‘Have you got something against all policemen, or just the ones trying to find Len Hopkins' murderer?' Beresford asked.

‘All policemen,' Sanders told him. ‘You've sold your souls to the bosses, lad, and in return for a colour television and few bob in the bank, you're more than willing to come and beat us shitless whenever those bosses decide that we're getting out of order.'

‘Are you being deliberately provoking?' Beresford wondered.

‘Well, of course I am,' Sanders answered. ‘And if I say so myself, I'm making a pretty good job of it.' He paused to suck in some air. ‘How did you expect me to behave anyway – like a suspect on
Columbo
?'

‘I'm not sure I know quite what you mean,' Beresford said.

‘Then you must be a bit thick, lad. In every episode of
Columbo
, there's always one character who goes out of his way to help the police, and who's always willing to explain away any questions or doubts that the lieutenant has. And that's how Columbo
knows he's the murderer!'

‘So by turning the whole thing around by a hundred and eighty degrees, you're hoping to convince me you're
not
the murderer?'

Tommy Sanders chuckled. ‘If that
was
the way my mind was working, I'd be a bloody idiot to tell you about it, wouldn't I?'

‘
Did
you kill Len Hopkins?' Beresford asked.

‘Do
you
think I killed him?' Tommy Sanders countered.

‘Well, you certainly had the means, motive and opportunity,' Beresford pointed out.

‘Yes, I did, that's certainly true,' Sanders agreed. ‘But, you see, I also have an alibi.'

It was plain that PC Mellors was already not a happy man as he stood uncertainly in the doorway of the church hall, and when Paniatowski gestured for him to join her at a desk in the corner of the room, his degree of unhappiness notably increased.

‘You sent for me, ma'am?' he asked, standing in front of the desk like an errant schoolboy.

‘When I was talking to Susan Danvers, she told me that Len Hopkins had been killed with a pickaxe,' Paniatowski said.

‘Well, he was,' Mellors replied.

‘I know that, and you know that – because we were there,' Paniatowski said. ‘But how did
she
know that?'

Mellors looked down at the floor. ‘I might have told her,' he mumbled. ‘It might just have slipped out.'

‘Might?' Paniatowski repeated.

‘It
did
slip out,' Mellors confessed.

‘Susan also had the distinct impression that the rest of the village knew as well,' Paniatowski continued. ‘Was she right about that?'

‘I . . . I didn't know it was such a big secret, ma'am,' Mellors said.

Of course he didn't, Paniatowski thought. He was a country bobby who'd probably never been involved in anything bigger than bicycle theft. He had no idea how murder investigations were run, and when he'd suddenly gained new status in Bellingsworth – as a result of the fact that he alone, of all the villagers, had been to the crime scene – he had not been able to resist revealing a few of the juicier details. In a way, she felt sorry for him, but what he had done had damaged the integrity of the investigation, and it simply couldn't be overlooked.

‘I'm going to have to file a report on you,' she said.

‘Do you have to, ma'am?' Mellors asked.

‘I have to,' Paniatowski said firmly, then, as she noticed that Mellors' lower lip was quivering, she softened. ‘You're the one with the local knowledge, and if you learn to keep your mouth shut, you might still be useful to the inquiry. If you can put in a good performance from now, I'll try not to make my report too scathing.'

‘Thank you, ma'am,' Mellors said.

‘You're dismissed,' Paniatowski told him, ‘but keep yourself available, because Inspector Beresford wants you with him at the miners' meeting.'

‘I'll do that, ma'am,' Mellors promised. ‘And thank you again.'

‘Don't thank me until you know you have a reason to, PC Mellors,' Paniatowski cautioned.

It was five minutes after Paniatowski had talked to Mellors that Colin Beresford arrived back at the church hall, and the moment he walked into the room, it was obvious to everyone who saw him that he was in a very black mood.

‘He's taking the piss out of me,' he complained, the moment he reached his boss's desk.

‘Who is?' Paniatowski asked.

‘The feller who's my prime suspect – and notice I said
my
prime suspect, because I know you don't see things that way.'

‘Ah, it's Tommy Sanders that you're talking about!' Paniatowski said.

‘That's right – Tommy-bloody-Sanders. He thinks he can say what he likes to me, because he's got an alibi. But he's wrong about that – because I'll break that bloody alibi if it's the last thing I do.'

‘Who's he offering as his alibi?'

‘His granddaughter, Becky.'

‘If she's his granddaughter, she can't be much more than a kid,' Paniatowski said thoughtfully.

‘He says she's fourteen.'

Fourteen! Paniatowski thought. Louisa's age!

‘He claims that she was with him all night, does he?' she asked Beresford.

‘Yes, he does.'

‘And have her parents confirmed it?'

‘That's where our Tommy thinks he's being so bloody clever. He says her parents don't know she was there.'

‘How could they not have known?' Paniatowski asked. ‘Surely they must have been at home themselves.'

And then she thought, But
I'm
not at home, am I?

‘The parents
were
at home,' Beresford said.

‘Well, then?'

‘According to Tommy's story, Becky was upset about breaking up with her boyfriend, and needed a shoulder to cry on. So she went up to bed as usual, then climbed down the drainpipe into the backyard, and legged it over to her granddad's house. Now I don't believe that for a second, and it won't take me more than a few minutes to get the truth out of the kid.'

‘It's probably not a good idea for you to talk to Becky while you're so angry with her grandfather,' Paniatowski said. ‘In fact, it's probably not a good idea for you to talk to her at all.'

‘And why might that be?'

‘Because she's just a kid, Colin, and it might be better if she was questioned by a woman.'

Beresford nodded, reluctantly acknowledging the point, then said, ‘So you'll send Meadows to see her, will you?'

She
could
send Meadows, Paniatowski thought, but Meadows didn't have a kid of her own – a kid who was the same age as Louisa.

‘I'll go myself,' she said. ‘I'll do it while you're attending the meeting in the Miners' Institute.'

‘Make sure she tells the truth,' Beresford urged her. ‘Break Tommy Sanders' alibi, because he did it, boss – I
know
he did it.'

‘Are you sure you don't mean that you'd
like
him to have done it?' Paniatowski asked.

‘He did it,' Beresford repeated, ‘and he thinks he'll get away with it. But even if he doesn't, he's not particularly bothered, because by the time the case is due to go to trial, he'll be dead anyway.'

‘I'm not sure that's quite as strong an argument as you seem to think it is,' Paniatowski said. ‘Granted, he may not live long enough to stand trial, but he'll be on remand, and no man wants to die in—'

‘He's a man with nothing to lose, so he might as well do what he wants,' Beresford said, almost shouting now. ‘And what he wanted to do on Sunday night was to kill Len Hopkins!'

‘I hope we're not interrupting a tiff between two sweethearts,' said a voice, and turning round, they saw that a couple of strangers were standing a few feet away from them.

Both the men were tall and lean. One of them was hatchet-faced, the other had a face which looked as if a hatchet had been used on it. They were dressed in dark sober suits, and neither of them was smiling.

‘Who the hell are you?' Paniatowski demanded.

‘We're Special Branch, darlin',' the hatchet-faced one said.

‘Have you got any identification?' Paniatowski asked.

‘We have,' Hatchet-face told her, ‘but unless you've got some way to prove to us that you've got the right security clearance, we're certainly not going to show it to you.'

‘Think yourself lucky that we've even taken the trouble to tell you that we're here,' the second man said.

‘I don't
want
you here,' Paniatowski said.

‘Course you don't, darlin',' the second man said, ‘but you see, it's not really up to you, is it? You may be the law around here, but we're Special Branch – and we're the law around
everywhere.
'

‘We'll be at the meeting in the Miners' Institute, but if there's no trouble, you won't even notice us,' Hatchet-face said.

‘And if there
is
trouble, we'll neutralize it and be gone before you know it's even happened,' his partner added.

Just listening to their words, you could almost imagine they were a comic double act, Paniatowski thought, but look into their eyes and you soon realized that if they had to break bones, they would do so without a second's hesitation.

Louisa rushed through her homework – it had be done, whatever else happened, because there
was
school the next day – but once she'd finished it, she felt at such a loss that she began to wish she'd taken more time over it.

She still hadn't decided if the evening would end with the fabulous excitement of Ellie's party or the reassuring cosiness of Lily's ginger cake. Her mum had always said that she should learn to make her own decisions, but somehow this seemed just
too
big a decision to make without help.

When the phone rang in the hallway, she dashed to answer it.

‘Are you nearly ready?' Ellie Sutton asked chirpily.

‘I'm not sure I can come,' Louisa replied.

‘You're not going to let me down, are you?' Ellie said, her voice suddenly much colder. ‘Robert's already set out to pick you up. Are you saying he'll be making a wasted journey?'

‘No,' Louisa said, and then – much more firmly, ‘of course not.'

‘He'll be there in about ten minutes,' Ellie said, with some of the warmth returning to her tone. ‘When he gets there, he'll hoot his horn. And he can be very grumpy if he's kept waiting – so make sure he isn't.'

‘I won't – I mean I will,' Louisa promised. She gave a small flustered laugh. ‘I don't know what I mean.'

‘Just make sure you're ready,' Ellie said, and hung up.

Louisa ran upstairs, and threw open her wardrobe. Now that she'd made her decision – although actually, it felt as if the decision had been made
for
her – she was feeling exhilarated.

She agonized over her clothes for a couple of minutes, then selected a polka-dot dress with a slightly flared skirt.

Once she was dressed and wearing a little of the lipstick her mother allowed her to use, she sat on the bed and waited.

Exactly ten minutes after Ellie had rung off, she heard the horn sound in the street.

She ran down the stairs, then called from the hallway, ‘I'll be off now, Lily.'

‘Off?' Lily repeated.

‘The party!'

Lily appeared in the living room doorway.

‘What party?'

‘Didn't I mention it? I've been invited to a party. Mum said it would be all right.'

‘On a school night? You don't go out on a school night. That's one of the rules.'

‘Mum said we could break the rule, just this once.'

Lily looked dubious. ‘I think that maybe I'd better give your mum a quick call.'

The horn sounded in the street again, more impatiently this time.

‘Ellie's dad's getting cross – and it could take you
hours
to find Mum,' Louisa said. ‘Can I go, Lily? Please!'

‘Well, if you're sure your mum said it would be all right . . .'

‘She did.'

‘Then be sure to take your heavy coat with you. I don't want you catching cold.'

‘Thank you, Lily,' Louisa said, reaching up to the rack.

‘Put it on before you leave the house,' Lily said sternly.

Louisa struggled to put on the coat, which seemed to have developed ten arm holes.

‘What time will you be back?' Lily asked. ‘Nine o'clock?'

‘It might be closer to ten,' Louisa replied.