Sins of the Fathers (14 page)

‘You mustn't let yourself get upset, Mrs Hawtrey,' Beresford said, sympathetically.

But the warning had come too late, and tears were already beginning to stream down Thelma Hawtrey's face.

‘I … I could have talked him out of making the climb just as easily as Bradley Pine could,' she said, between sobs.

‘Mrs Hawtrey …' Beresford said imploringly.

‘I could have talked him out of it
more
easily. I … I … wasn't just his friend, as Bradley was, you see. I was his
wife
. And … and he was only doing it because of me.'

‘Because of you?' Woodend asked.

‘Alec was … he was older than me, and sometimes that bothered him a little. He went climbing to prove to me that he was still as strong and vigorous as when we married. But he didn't
have
to prove it. It didn't bother me that he'd become middle-aged. I loved him just the way he was.'

‘Can we go now, sir?' Beresford asked urgently.

‘Yes,' Woodend replied. ‘I think we better had.'

‘Well, apart from reducing poor Mrs Hawtrey to a flood of tears, we didn't achieve much in there, did we, sir?' Beresford asked – with just a hint of reproach in his voice – when he and Woodend were out on Lawrence Road again.

‘So that's what you think, is it?' Woodend asked, inserting his key into the door lock of the Wolseley. ‘That we didn't achieve much?'

‘Do you think we
did
?' Beresford asked, shocked.

Woodend got into the car, and reached across to open the front passenger door.

‘Mrs Hawtrey was remarkably frank an' open with us, wouldn't you say?' he asked, as Beresford climbed into the passenger seat.

‘Yes, sir, I would,' the constable replied, closing his door. ‘It must have taken real guts to admit that there are times when she blames herself for her husband's death.'

‘That could be it. Or perhaps, by doin' that, she was just tryin' to shift the spotlight,' Woodend said.

‘I'm sorry, sir?'

‘Maybe she decided that her claim that she bore Bradley Pine no ill will for what had happened simply wouldn't stand up to much more examination, so she started cryin' as a way of switchin' the focus on to herself.'

‘She did seem genuinely upset,' Beresford pointed out.

‘So would I, if I thought the police were gettin' dangerously close to suspectin' me of murder,' Woodend countered.

‘I think you're wrong, sir,' Beresford said.

‘An' I'm convinced I'm right,' Woodend said firmly, turning the key in the ignition. ‘I'm about to pull off, lad, an' when I do, I want you to turn your head quickly and take a look at Mrs Hawtrey's upstairs windows.'

‘Why would I do that?' Beresford wondered.

‘Because I'm tellin' you to.'

Woodend slid the Wolseley into gear, and pulled away from the kerb. Beresford turned quickly, as he'd been instructed.

‘Well?' Woodend said, as they left The Firs behind them.

‘I saw the bedroom curtains twitch,' Beresford admitted.

‘Did you, now?' Woodend asked. ‘So, far from lyin' on her bed wracked in sobs – as you might have expected her to be – the Widow Hawtrey was, in fact, watchin' to make sure that we were really leavin'.'

‘I don't see that proves anything,' Beresford said stubbornly.

Woodend sighed. ‘When you've been in this game as long as I have, lad, you develop an instinct for knowin' when the person you're questionin' is either lyin' or tryin' to hide somethin' from you. An' Mrs Hawtrey – for all her tears – was doin' both.'

B
ob Rutter was the first member of the team to arrive at the Drum and Monkey for the early evening drink which had become a firmly established tradition during investigations, but Woodend and Beresford were not far behind him.

‘Where's Monika?' Rutter asked, looking over Woodend's shoulder. ‘Will she be coming later?'

‘No,' the chief inspector replied. ‘I don't think she will.'

Rutter looked troubled. ‘Any reason for that?'

‘No
particular
reason, no. She's … er … well, I suppose she's feelin' a bit off-colour.'

‘She looked more than
a bit
off-colour earlier,' Rutter said. ‘Do you have any idea why—'

‘Leave it, lad,' Woodend interrupted – in a tone which made it clear that it was not so much a suggestion as an order.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—'

‘I said
leave it
!'

The chief inspector picked up his freshly-pulled pint and took a healthy swig, though he did not look as if he were enjoying it much.

‘If you'd been tap-dancin' on the table when we walked in, I'd have assumed you'd found the spot where Bradley Pine was killed,' he said to Rutter. ‘But since you weren't, I'm assumin' you haven't.'

‘And you assume right,' Rutter agreed. ‘Are
you
getting anywhere from your end, sir?'

‘I think I've got a suspect,' Woodend told him, ‘though Constable Beresford here is convinced that I'm way off the mark.'

‘Thelma Hawtrey?' Rutter guessed.

‘Thelma Hawtrey,' Woodend agreed.

He glanced down at his watch, then up at the television which was mounted high on the wall – and only normally switched on when a major football match was being played.

‘The local news is just startin',' he called across to the landlord. ‘Would you mind if we watched it?'

‘Not at all, Mr Woodend.'

The television warmed up just in time to catch the start of the interview that the chief constable had given to the press earlier in the day.

‘You have to admit, he does look good in that dress uniform,' Rutter said grudgingly.

‘A tailor's dummy would look good in it,' Woodend replied sourly. ‘An', come to think of it, a tailor's dummy would probably make a much better chief constable.'

Marlowe launched himself confidently into his prepared statement, but seemed to be instantly nonplussed by the off-screen female voice demanding to know if he'd resigned.

‘It's a grand thing, is a free press,' Woodend said.

Marlowe was doing his best to cut the woman off, but was meeting with little success, and after a few more words had been exchanged, the camera swung round on to her.

‘Good God!' Rutter exclaimed. ‘That's Elizabeth Driver!'

‘I'm surprised that
you're
surprised,' Woodend told him. ‘This kind of case is meat an' drink to our Liz.'

‘
Yes, I will stake my reputation on it
,' Marlowe was saying, on screen.

Woodend shook his head.

‘Silly, silly man,' he said, though he did not look entirely distressed at having heard Marlowe make such a gaffe.

The chief constable disappeared from the screen, and was replaced by a weather man promising a fine few days ahead.

‘I wish I'd been there,' Woodend said. ‘It was entertainin' enough on the telly, but it must have been real fun in the flesh.'

Beresford drained his pint and stood up. ‘Would it be all right if I went now, sir?' he asked.

‘Aye, get yourself home, lad,' Woodend told him. ‘I'll see you first thing in the mornin'.'

The chief inspector watched the constable leave the bar, then turned to Rutter and said, ‘Given that it's a well-known fact the quickest way to promotion is to stay up drinkin' with your boss until the early hours of the mornin', you're probably wonderin' why an ambitious bobby like young Beresford hasn't availed himself of the opportunity when it was offered to him.'

Rutter nodded, but said nothing.

‘It puzzled me for a while, an' all,' Woodend continued. ‘I was on the point of askin' him about it directly, but then somethin' inside me – a vague uneasy feelin' – made me pull back at the last minute. So instead, I made a few discreet inquiries among the neighbours, an' discovered that his mam was sufferin' from Alzheimer's disease. Well, then everythin' fell into place, didn't it? The reason he's so keen to get home is that though the neighbours are more than willin' to keep an eye on her when he's not there, he feels obliged to spend as much time with her as he possibly can.'

‘Is that right?' Rutter asked abstractly, as if his mind were not really on the subject in hand.

‘It is right,' Woodend confirmed. ‘It's quite refreshin', in this day an' age, to come across a young man who's prepared to put his family obligations above his career, don't you think?'

‘Hmm,' Rutter replied.

‘You haven't heard a single word I've just said, have you, Bob?' Woodend asked.

‘What was that, sir?'

‘I thought not! What's botherin' you? Is it somethin' to do with the investigation?'

‘Not really,' Rutter admitted. ‘Did you notice that Elizabeth Driver has dyed her hair?'

‘I couldn't very well have missed it. Although, strictly speakin', it's more of a case of her goin' back to her natural colour than of her dyin' it. If you remember, she was blonde the first time we crossed swords with her, when she was tryin' to bugger up our investigation in the Westbury Manor murder.'

‘Don't you think she looks a bit like Monika now?' Rutter asked, and once again, it was clear he hadn't been listening.

‘I can't say I noticed the resemblance myself,' Woodend confessed, ‘but then
I
wasn't really lookin' for it.'

‘I think she does,' Rutter mused. ‘In fact, I think she looks a
lot
like Monika.'

It was already dark when Monika Paniatowski reached St Mary's Church, and she found herself wondering if she hadn't – perhaps unconsciously – been waiting for just this cover of darkness before she made her move.

‘You can analyse yourself too much,' she thought. ‘You can analyse yourself to the point of madness.'

She checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching her, then pushed the door open and entered the church.

Once inside, confronted by the vastness of the holy cavern, she was suddenly unsure what to do next.

Perhaps she should just stay where she was, at the back of the church, and wait for something – anything – to happen. But was anything
likely
to happen?

Perhaps she should go and sit down in one of the pews. But what would be the point of that? It wasn't as if she was there to
pray
!

‘Hello,' said a soft, welcoming voice.

She turned. ‘Hello, Fred,' she said.

‘What can we do for you this time?' Father Taylor asked. ‘Do you want to interrogate us about poor Mr Pine again?'

She hadn't been thinking about the investigation at all, and so the question knocked her completely off-balance.

‘No, I … I …' she began uncertainly. ‘I'm off-duty.'

‘Ah, so it's not Sergeant Paniatowski I'm speaking to at the moment, but only Monika,' the priest said. ‘Am I right?'

‘Yes, I suppose you are.'

‘And why is Monika here? Has she, perhaps, dropped in for no more than a nice friendly chat?'

‘A friendly chat would be nice, Father Fred,' Paniatowski heard herself admitting.

‘Here? Or would you be more comfortable in the vestry?'

‘I think I'd be more comfortable in the vestry.'

‘Then the vestry it shall be.'

They sat facing each other on two rickety chairs, in a room where the walls were draped with choirboys' cassocks which smelled vaguely of adolescent uncertainty.

‘What's the secret of happiness?' Paniatowski asked.

Father Taylor smiled. ‘I know just what you're expecting me to say,' he told her.

‘Do you?'

‘You're expecting me to say that the key to true happiness is the love of God.'

‘And isn't it – at least as far as you're concerned?'

‘Of course it is. In the long term. Looking at the big picture. But we're only human, Monika, and even though we know that God loves us as we should try to love Him, we still have our own little crises to deal with. And as much as we know that they are of no real significance at all, they can still hurt – they can still cause us to behave badly.'

‘Tell me about your crises,' Paniatowski said.

Father Taylor smiled again. ‘Is this some kind of test that you're putting me through?' he asked.

‘I don't honestly know,' Paniatowski admitted. ‘Does it matter if it is?'

‘Not really.' The priest cupped both his hands tightly around his left knee. ‘I sometimes find it hard to love other people as I know God loves them,' he said. ‘Unworthy as I am, in my own self, I still find myself sitting in judgement on them. And though God has forgiven them, I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to do the same. Do you understand that?'

Oh yes, she understood that all right. Understood that she would never forgive her stepfather and the priest who went drinking with him – and that Bob Rutter would never forgive
her
.

‘But these feelings do eventually pass,' Father Taylor continued. ‘Over time, I come to understand that I have no right to judge, and eventually I find myself seeing these fellow sinners of mine just a little as they must appear in the light of God's all-forgiving eyes.'

‘Is there anything else you sometimes have a crisis about?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I have just confessed to you the depths of my own unworthiness. Isn't that enough for you?'

‘No, it isn't,' Paniatowski said. ‘I don't know why it shouldn't be, but it just isn't.'

The priest released his grip on his left knee, and cupped his right one just as tightly.

‘Very well,' he said, ‘I'll tell you more. Though I believe that my role in life has been chosen for me by God, and though I am usually grateful beyond words that He has selected me, there are times when I'm angry about it, too – when I feel not so much picked
out
as picked
on
.'