Lambs to the Slaughter (19 page)

‘Sorry, sir, I didn't mean it to sound like that, but it just took me by surprise, coming out of the blue,' Crane said.

But he was thinking to himself, Well, shit! That's the last thing this investigation needs.

It only took him a moment to realize that if he was stuck with working for Colin Beresford, then he'd better make the best of it – and part of making the best of it involved clearing the air.

‘I'm sorry about last night, sir,' he said.

‘Last night?' Beresford repeated vaguely, as if he had no idea what the detective constable was talking about.

He wants his pound of flesh, Crane thought, and to
get
his pound of flesh, he's going to make me spell it out.

‘I was a bit sarcastic to you in the Green Dragon, sir,' he said.

‘It was rather more than
a bit
, don't you think?' Beresford asked.

No, it bloody wasn't! Crane thought. Given what you were like last night, it was a model of restraint.

‘I went too far,' he said.

‘Forget it, Jack,' Beresford said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘As your new boss, I'm sure that I can overlook one minor indiscretion.' He made great show of checking his watch. ‘Aren't you supposed to be over in Brigden this morning, having a little talk with Len Hopkins' vicar?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Well, half the morning's gone already, so you'd better get moving, hadn't you, lad?'

‘I'm on my way,' Crane said.

The new boss was trying to act like a patrician, he thought, as he walked over to his car, but he couldn't carry it off, and instead he was coming across as just bloody
patronizing
!

The phone was ringing when Beresford entered the church hall.

‘Taylor the Cutter here,' said the unreasonably cheerful voice of the caller. ‘Have scalpel, will slash.'

‘Do you have some information for us on the cadaver, Dr Taylor?' Beresford asked.

‘I do indeed, young man. Your stiff died sometime between ten o'clock at night and two o'clock in the morning, as near as I can tell. Death was, as you've no doubt already concluded yourselves, the result of being smote on the noggin with the sharp end of a pickaxe. There wasn't
that
much force behind the blow, and a younger and fitter man might well have survived it. Your chap wasn't so lucky. He died instantly.'

‘Thank you, Doctor,' Beresford said.

‘There's something else,' Taylor told him. ‘I don't know if you wondered what would drive a man to visit an outside shithouse on a cold winter's night, but I certainly did.'

‘Yes, we were puzzled by that,' Beresford said, ‘especially as we know he had a chamber pot under his bed.'

‘Unless it was as big as a bath tub, the chamber pot simply wouldn't have been up to the job,' Taylor said. ‘He'd have filled it in two minutes.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘The man had enough laxative inside him to have given a bull elephant Montezuma's Revenge. Now I'm not in a position yet to say exactly what laxative it was, you understand . . .'

‘Could it have been self-administered?'

‘It could, I suppose, but the man would have had to be a complete idiot to have exceeded the instructions on the bottle by the amount that's banging around in his system now.'

‘Thanks a lot, Doc,' Beresford said.

‘I'll get back to you when I have more,' the doctor promised.

When Beresford hung up the phone, there was a puzzled expression on his face.

If Len Hopkins hadn't administered the laxative himself – and according to the doctor, he'd have to have been insane to take such a large dose voluntarily – then somebody else had been responsible.

And that somebody else had done it to make sure that Len would visit his outside lavatory in the middle of the night – which turned everything they'd thought about the crime so far completely on its head!

The assumption had been that the killer had planned to murder Len in the house, but finding him on the toilet, had realized that made him an easier target. But that assumption had been wrong. It must always have been his intention to do it while his victim was sitting on the bog, weakened by an attack of diarrhoea.

In other words, he hadn't
taken
the opportunity at all – he had
created
the opportunity.

And just
how
could their prime suspect have managed that?

How could a man who had come to blows with his victim just a few hours earlier ever get close enough to him to administer the laxative?

The nameplate on his desk announced that the managing director of Brough's Premium Brewery (Accrington) was called William Radcliffe, and the letters which followed the name – OBE – provided the additional information that he had been awarded the Order of the British Empire in recognition of some unspecified service he had done for the nation.

Radcliffe was a bald man, with a broad walrus moustache which seemed to belong to another era, and when his secretary showed Kate Meadows into his office, he greeted the visitor with a broad walrus smile.

‘Ah, Lady Katherine,' he said, gesturing that she should take a seat, ‘what an absolute delight to see you again.'

Meadows groaned inwardly, as she always did when her past managed to catch up with her.

‘As far as I'm concerned, Lady Katherine's dead and buried,' she said. ‘My name's just Kate Meadows now, or, when I'm working,
Detective Sergeant
Kate Meadows.'

‘Ah, yes, of course,' Radcliffe said awkwardly. ‘I
did
hear that after you . . . I mean, I should have
realized
that you wouldn't want to be—'

‘I appear to be at something of a disadvantage here, since you seem to know who I used to be, but I have no idea who you are,' Meadows interrupted him. A half-amused, half-embarrassed smile came to her face. ‘God, that's awful, isn't it? “I appear to be at something of a disadvantage here.” I must sound to you like a real toffee-nosed bitch.'

‘No, no, not at all,' Radcliffe protested.

‘Let's start again, shall we?' Meadows suggested. ‘From your reaction to me, we've clearly met before, but being the flighty, scatterbrained sort of person I am, I'm rather ashamed to admit that I can't remember it. So would you be so kind as to enlighten me?'

‘It was at one of your husband's famous weekend house parties,' Radcliffe said. ‘He was thinking of expanding his business interests at the time, and I was invited down there in order to—'

‘Of course, that was it! I remember you perfectly now, Mr Radcliffe,' Meadows lied. ‘So now that we've established that we're old friends, do you think it would be possible to get down to the business which has brought me here?'

‘Certainly, Lady Kath . . . Sergeant,' Radcliffe said.

‘I'm investigating the murder of Len Hopkins,' Meadows said. ‘No doubt you'll have read about it in the papers.'

‘The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't say I've exactly got the details at my fingertips,' Radcliffe admitted.

‘Hopkins attended the brass band competition which you sponsored last Sunday. In fact, it was his local band which won.'

‘Yes, the . . . err . . . Bellingsworth Colliery Band,' Radcliffe said, with a sudden hint of caution in his voice which took Meadows by surprise.

‘We're interested in any incidents which occurred during the competition,' Meadows told him.

‘And . . . err . . . what exactly do you mean when you say “incidents”?' Radcliffe asked.

‘Did any serious fights break out? Were there disturbances of some other kind? You know the sort of thing.'

‘Ah, if that's what you need information on, then you'll have to speak to our security people,' Radcliffe told her, picking up the phone. ‘Ask John Tweed to pop upstairs, will you, Marjorie,' he said. He replaced the phone on its cradle. ‘John's our head of security. Very sound chap. He should be here in five minutes.'

‘You're being most helpful,' Meadows said sweetly.

‘Always pleased to assist the forces of law and order,' Radcliffe said. ‘Now about the other matter – there's no need for the police to get involved in it, is there? I mean, strictly speaking, no crime has actually been committed.'

‘What other matter are you referring to?' Meadows asked, puzzled.

‘Ah, you haven't heard!' Radcliffe said. ‘I thought you must have done. To be perfectly honest with you, my first thought, when I heard you'd asked for an appointment, was that that was what you wanted to know about.'

‘You talk in riddles, o wise one, and I, a humble disciple at your feet, have no idea about that of which you speak,' Meadows said.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I still haven't got a clue what you're talking about.'

‘Oh, I see,' Radcliffe said. ‘Well, Sergeant, this company has invested a great deal of money in the brass band competition. We advertise it extensively on television and in the newspapers, and on the actual day of the competition, we hire four large marquees and a number of smaller tents in which to stage it. But what's more important than the cost is that the company's also investing its prestige—'

‘Forgive me, but I don't quite see where you're going with all this,' Meadows interrupted.

‘No, I don't suppose you do,' Radcliffe agreed. ‘Let me put it this way, then – since we are so closely associated with the brass band competition, its integrity and the integrity of our beer have become almost synonymous. So it is very important to us that the competition is seen as the embodiment of British fair play, just as Brough's Premium is the embodiment of British beer.'

‘I'm a big fan of Watney's, myself,' lied Meadows, who was teetotal.

Radcliffe looked shocked. ‘Have you never tried Brough's Premium?' he asked.

‘I can't say that I have.'

‘Would you like a crate to take away with you, Sergeant? Or perhaps even two crates?'

‘Two crates would be lovely,' Meadows said sweetly.

Crane would enjoy it, and if Beresford stopped being such a dickhead, she might even give some of it to him.

‘Two crates it will be, then,' Radcliffe said. ‘Now where was I?'

‘British fair play, Brough's Premium beer,' Meadows prompted.

‘Ah, yes. Given the importance of the competition to the brewery's image, we were not at all happy with Sunday's result. I'm no expert in brass band music myself, but according to the people who do know about these things, Bellingsworth Colliery Band, whilst more than competent, is scarcely championship material. And yet it romped to victory.'

‘Maybe it just had a good day, while some of the other bands had a bad one,' Meadows suggested. ‘That can happen.'

‘Indeed it can,' Radcliffe agreed, ‘but there are very few people who think it
did
happen at last Sunday's competition. Bellingsworth, of course, had no doubts that it should have won – the winning team never does. But I think it would be fair to say that when the results were announced, a wave of disbelief swept over a large part of the audience.'

‘So the judges were nobbled?' Meadows said.

‘I am reluctant to reach such a conclusion, but we are certainly investigating the possibility.'

‘What's the prize for winning the competition?'

‘The winners are awarded the Brough Premium Cup.'

‘Is it valuable?

‘Yes, it is. It's solid sterling silver. But it's only
awarded
to them, not
given
to them.'

‘What's the difference?'

‘They have their name engraved on the base, and they're allowed to keep it for a year, in the special security case that we provide them with. But come next year, when there's a new winner, they have to hand it back.'

‘What else do they get out of it?'

‘The brewery throws a party for them in whichever of our pubs is closest to their home base, and they are allowed to replace either three or four of their instruments – depending on the cost – at our expense.'

‘In other words, it's peanuts,' Meadows said.

‘I suppose that's one way of looking at it,' Radcliffe agreed, just slightly miffed.

‘Yet someone was prepared to bribe the judges to get the result he wanted,' Meadows said.

‘And that's what makes the whole idea so apparently inconceivable,' Radcliffe told her. ‘The judges are all respectable men – pillars of their communities. Some of them are even quite wealthy. They simply do not strike me as the kind of chaps who would be interested in taking bribes. And even if they were prepared to sacrifice their hard-won integrity for financial gain, who would be willing to pay them?'

‘Who indeed,' Meadows agreed.

‘And yet if they weren't bribed, how did Bellingsworth manage to win?' Radcliffe asked helplessly.

Louisa lay in her bed, looking pale and exhausted.

‘I'm sorry, Mum,' she said, for perhaps the hundredth time.

‘It doesn't matter, baby,' Paniatowski cooed softly, as she looked down at the child with tired, prickling eyes. ‘It doesn't matter at all.'

But it
did
matter, she thought. It mattered that someone had invited her child to a place where she would be in danger. It mattered that someone – perhaps the same someone – had dropped her off at her home in such an unsteady state that she couldn't even find her front-door key, and had only just managed to ring the doorbell before collapsing on the garden path.

‘Do you feel strong enough to tell me what happened, baby?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I think so.'

‘Then take your time. There's no need at all to rush.'

‘I was at Ellie's party – I shouldn't have gone, Mum, I shouldn't . . .'