Lambs to the Slaughter (31 page)

‘Yes.'

‘Gary is one of our less experienced operatives, and the only result of the conversation was that Hopkins was left with the unfortunate idea that we were trying to recruit him as a secret agent.'

‘Which you were.'

‘Of course.'

‘Was that when you decided to kill him?' Paniatowski asked.

A single snowflake fluttered gently through the air, and landed on Meadows' sleeve. She looked down at it, and shivered. The snowflake melted, but another quickly took its place. And then another. The snow storm, which had been threatened for so long, had finally arrived.

Meadows stamped her feet, rubbed her hands together, and looked up at the suite on the top floor of the Royal Victoria.

‘How long has the boss been in there now?' asked a voice to her left.

‘About half an hour, sir,' Meadows replied, keeping her gaze fixed on the window.

‘I'm sorry,' Beresford said.

‘Forget it,' Meadows replied.

‘No, I can't do that,' Beresford told her. ‘I've been an arsehole to you and everybody connected with this investigation.'

‘Especially the boss,' Meadows said.

‘Especially the boss,' Beresford agreed. ‘She says things are fine between us again, but I don't know if she'll ever
really
forgive me.'

‘She'll forgive you,' Meadows said confidently.

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘She'll forgive you because she loves you,' Meadows said. She paused. ‘Don't get me wrong – I don't mean she loves Rock-hard Colin, the Ram of Whitebridge. He's a bit crude for her taste.'

‘I'm starting to think he's a bit crude for mine,' Beresford said.

‘But you are a big part of her life, and she doesn't want to lose you,' Meadows continued.

‘What about you?' Beresford asked. ‘How do you feel?'

‘Well, for a start, I
don't
love you.'

‘I know that,' Beresford said. ‘But do you forgive me?'

Meadows turned to face him. ‘If I was the inspector and you were the sergeant, I'd tell you that I might eventually forgive you, but that for the moment, you were on probation.'

‘Tell me anyway,' Beresford said.

‘You're on probation,' Meadows said.

Beresford grinned. ‘So I'll have to watch my step, won't I?'

‘It would seem like a good idea.'

The snow was more heavy now, landing on their hair, melting on the sleeves of their coats.

‘How long are you going to stay here?' Beresford asked.

‘Until she comes out again,' Meadows told him. ‘You, too?'

‘Me, too,' Beresford agreed.

He looked up at the suite on the top of floor of the Royal Victoria, and wondered just how well – or how badly – things were going up there.

‘Do you think Monika will get her deal?' he asked.

‘I don't know,' Meadows admitted. ‘It depends on how much Forsyth wants to guard his secret.'

‘Assuming he
has got
a secret to hide,' Beresford pointed out.

‘Yes, assuming that,' Meadows agreed.

‘W
e did
not
kill Len Hopkins,' Forsyth told Paniatowski firmly. ‘I want to be quite clear on that point. We are strictly prohibited, within our remit, from taking life unless it is a case of self-protection.'

‘So you used poor little Becky Sanders to do your killing, instead,' Paniatowski said in disgust. ‘You scrambled her brain up so much that on Monday morning, her main concern was not that she had taken a life but that she had a history test.'

‘She places great importance on her education – and that is just as it should be,' Forsyth said.

‘So if you didn't have Len killed because he refused to handle your bribes for you, why did you have him killed? Even without working for you directly, he was still an asset, wasn't he?'

‘Yes, but he was a greater asset dead than alive.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘If you kill a man, you make him a martyr. The death of Thomas à Becket meant that it was nearly four hundred years before the English crown felt really confident about clashing with the Catholic Church again. John F. Kennedy's legislative programme would never have been passed by Congress while he was alive, but in the wake of his assassination, it was swept through. Those are only two cases, but I could provide you with countless other examples of men who did more for their causes by dying than they could ever have done by continuing to live.'

‘So if Tommy Sanders had died, it would have strengthened the will to strike, but Len Hopkins' death turned the wavering miners against it?'

‘Exactly.'

‘You wanted the right kind of reporter covering the story for Northern Television – one who would really stir things up – and that's why you put pressure on the management to assign it to Lynda Jenkins.'

‘Ah, yes, dear Lynda. The woman may have impressively large breasts, but their size is as nothing when compared to the size of her mouth and her willingness to do whatever it takes to get on.'

‘And, of course, things were only made worse by what Ed Thomas said at the meeting on Monday night.'

‘Who?'

‘Ed Thomas. He brought fraternal greetings from the Kent branch of the National Union of Mineworkers. Then he gave a speech in which he said that Len was a traitor to his class who had deserved to be killed, and that if a hundred more traitors were murdered, that could only be a good thing. By the time those Special Branch officers – who you'd conveniently arranged to be there – hustled him out of the building, the pro-strike and anti-strike miners were at each others' throats, and those men who were undecided were tilting towards the anti-strike side.'

‘From which it would appear that if he really did want a strike, he should have moderated his words a little,' Forsyth said.

‘He was a plant.'

‘Are you sure of that?'

‘I rang the Kent NUM.'

‘And they said they'd never heard of him, I suppose.'

‘Oh no, they'd heard of him. They even put him on the phone to me. He's a real firebrand.'

‘Well, there you are, then.'

‘He's also sixty-two years old, and lost his right arm in a mining accident twenty years ago. The “other” Ed Thomas was one of your people, wasn't he?'

‘There'd be no point in denying it, because you simply wouldn't believe me,' Forsyth said.

‘And anyway, it's true,' Paniatowski countered.

‘And anyway, it's true,' Forsyth agreed. ‘Have you worked out yet why, with great regret, I considered it necessary to abduct your daughter?'

‘It was a way of removing me from the investigation.'

‘Precisely. Suspicion can sometimes be a much more powerful force than certainty, and is undoubtedly more effective in dividing communities. So I didn't want
anyone
arrested for Hopkins' murder – and I certainly didn't want you to arrest the person who had
actually
carried it out, because that would have defeated the whole object of the exercise.'

‘And you thought that Colin Beresford would make a worse job of handling the investigation than I would have done?'

‘Just so – which is, when you think about it, quite a compliment to you.'

‘I still don't understand why you went to such elaborate lengths to snatch Louisa,' Paniatowski confessed. ‘You could have just had her grabbed off the street.'

‘I did it the way I did to protect Louisa,' Forsyth said. ‘If Gary had grabbed her off the street, she would have struggled and might well have got hurt, whereas, arranged the way it was, she had no suspicion that anything was wrong until she was too doped to care.'

‘There's more to it than that,' Paniatowski said. ‘There has to be.'

‘It would also have been putting my operative – Gary – at more risk. There might have been witnesses. A police car might have arrived on the scene.' Forsyth paused. ‘Besides, by using Dr Sutton, I was killing two birds with one stone.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Sutton has grown into something of a force in left-wing politics in this area. He was starting to be annoying, and needed knocking off his perch. I thought that his being charged with child neglect would achieve that aim. If he'd just kept his mouth shut and taken his medicine, he would probably have got away with no more than a fine and a stern talking to, but it would have ruined his credibility in the namby-pamby left-wing circles. It never occurred to me that he would be foolish enough to break down and confess that he'd been working for me – so kudos to Sergeant Meadows for forcing that out of him.'

‘So it was a mistake to use Sutton,' Paniatowski said, almost gleefully. ‘You made a mistake!'

Forsyth bridled. ‘I'd much prefer to call it a minor misjudgement,' he said.

‘I'm sure you would – but you'd be wrong. If you hadn't used Sutton, I'd
never
have seen your hand at work in Bellingsworth,' Paniatowski insisted. ‘I would have known about Gary, of course – but I'd never have connected him to you. Let's face facts, handling things the way you did was the sort of blunder an amateur would make.'

Forsyth had begun to redden. ‘I made a hurried decision, in the early hours of the morning, and anyone else who found himself in my position would have acted in just the way I did.'

The words echoed around Paniatowski's brain.

I made a hurried decision, in the early hours of the morning.

And what was it Forsyth had said earlier?

Events have moved on since the competition, so we have no real way of assessing its impact.

She needed time to weigh those two statements – to work out exactly what they meant.

‘I will arrest Gary, you know,' she said, buying herself that time. ‘You need have no doubts about that.'

Forsyth's annoyance drained away, and was replaced by a glow of complacency.

‘He boarded a plane in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and now he's far away from here, with a new identity,' he told Paniatowski. ‘Now, no doubt when I say “far away”, you think I am referring to Australia, and that may well be the case, but it could equally be Canada, the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, or anywhere else in the English-speaking world. You'll never find him, Monika.'

‘Then let's forget him,' Paniatowski said easily. ‘Let's talk about you, instead.'

‘Me?'

‘I know you. You plan everything out long in advance – you consider every little detail – so what were you doing making a hurried decision in the early hours of Monday morning?'

‘There are many things you don't understand, my dear Monika . . .' Forsyth began.

‘And what would have been the point of fixing the brass band competition – of creating a feeling of well-being in the village – when you intended to shatter that feeling, only hours later, with a murder?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' Forsyth said.

But he did.

‘Once Len Hopkins was dead, you accepted it as a fact, and milked it for all it was worth, but it was never part of
your
plan to have him killed. That decision was Gary's – and it took you completely by surprise.'

‘Nonsense,' Forsyth said. ‘You surely know me well enough by now to realize that I keep a very tight grip on my operatives.'

‘I'm sure you do –
normally
,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But Gary's not a
normal
agent, is he?'

‘I have no idea what you mean,' Forsyth said.

‘Here are my demands,' Paniatowski told him abruptly.

‘Your
demands
!' Forsyth repeated incredulously.

‘My demands,' Paniatowski said. ‘Firstly, I want Tommy Sanders admitted to the best – and most expensive – sanatorium you can find.'

‘And who'll pay the bill?'

‘You will.'

‘That's an outlandish suggestion.'

‘Secondly, I want Becky Sanders kept out of prison until her grandfather dies, so that she can be with him to the end.'

‘But it could take him months to die – especially if he's receiving expensive care.'

‘I know.'

‘And how do you expect me to keep the entire judicial system at bay all that time?'

‘You'll find a way. Thirdly, once she's in gaol, I want her given the best psychiatric help available, and once she's stabilized, she's to be immediately released into the care of good well-trained foster parents. I also want her to be given a new identity.'

‘And would you perhaps like me to throw in the kitchen sink as well?' Forsyth asked.

‘No, that won't be necessary,' Paniatowski told him. ‘But I would like you to set up a trust fund for her, one that will ensure that she never has to worry about money again for the rest of her life.'

‘All that would cost an absolute fortune,' Forsyth said.

‘Yes, it will,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘And why would you think, even for a moment, that I'd agree to any of those demands?'

‘You've already pointed out that we'll never catch Gary, and I accept that,' Paniatowski said.

‘Good,' Forsyth replied, though he was clearly puzzled at why she was going off at such an apparent tangent.

‘But if you don't give me what I want for Becky, I'll pretend that there's a real possibility that we
could
catch him,' Paniatowski continued. ‘I'll organize a huge nationwide manhunt, and I'll have the artist's impression of him on the front page of every daily newspaper. We'll get a lot of crank calls – we always do – but eventually we'll get one from someone who really
does
know him.'

‘And a lot of good that will do you,' Forsyth said, though he was starting to sound concerned.