The Dark Lady (18 page)

Left alone, Rutter sifted the information he had collected so far. From what the landlord had said, it sounded like Schultz had been a nice man but becoming a manager at BCI had changed all that. The sympathetic barman who remembered what everybody drank had turned into the ruthless efficiency expert who could talk with relish about cutting other people's jobs. The sergeant supposed it was just the way things were in this life. Those stern, humourless commanders back at the Yard must once – surely – have been eager fresh-faced young constables, patting little kids on the head and helping old ladies across the street.

Having served a pint to the man with the greyhound, Wally Stubbs returned to his former position opposite Rutter. “What else would you like to know about Gerhard?” he asked.

“Did he ever tell you anything about his personal life?”

“Not really.”

“Not even a hint?”

The landlord scratched his head. “Well, there was that one time, when I was telling him about this friend of mine.”

“Carry on,” Rutter said encouragingly.

“Jackie Philips, his name was. We'd been in the North African campaign together. Right through from the beginning to the end. Well, he was living in Leeds at the time, but he wanted to come down to London so he wrote to me and asked if I could put him for a couple of nights. Of course, I was delighted, and wrote back at once to say yes.”

“Excuse me, sir, but what's any of this got to do with Gerhard Schultz?” Rutter interrupted.

“Sorry, I do go on a bit, don't I?” Stubbs said, apologetically. “The point is, I was telling Gerhard about Jackie's letter, and he said, ‘I once had a good friend, too.' That was all. But the way he said it, it aroused my curiosity, you see. So I said, ‘What happened to him? Was he killed in the war?' And he said, ‘It would have been far better for him if he had been.' Then he wandered off to the other end of the bar and started polishing glasses.”

“And that was it?”

“Not quite. He was very moody for the rest of the night, not himself at all. Then, just as he was leaving, about half an hour after closing time, he came up to the bar. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question, Wally?' he asked. I said, of course I didn't. Then his eyes came over all strange, almost as if he was going into a trance. ‘Do you think that we have a sacred duty to our friends?' he asked, and he was speaking so softly it was almost a whisper. ‘Do you think we have the right to seek out justice for them, even if it means breaking man's laws – even if it means breaking
God's
laws?'”

“What did you tell him?”

“Well, at first I was so taken aback that I couldn't think of what to say to him. But finally I came up with something like, that kind of question was a bit deep for me, especially so late at night. But I don't think he was listening, anyway. He wasn't so much talking to me, you see, as talking it through with himself. But what he said must have had some impact mustn't it, or I wouldn't still remember it after all these years?”

“Did you ever try to talk to Schultz about the subject again?” Bob Rutter asked.

The landlord shook his head. “Never really got the chance. A couple of days later, he handed in his notice. Seemed he'd been offered a better job – in a big chemical factory somewhere.”

“You've been a great help, Mr Stubbs,” Rutter said, but he was thinking that, like so many great helps, the pub landlord had raised more questions than he'd answered.

It was good to have her Bob arrive home unexpectedly, Maria Rutter thought, but at the same time she had to be very careful not to show how much of a relief it was as well. It was the pregnancy which was the real problem. She'd learned how to cope quite well with being blind, but having the responsibility for another, tiny human life on top of that felt such a burden that she was sure it was about to crush her.

“You'll manage, Maria,” she told herself fiercely. “You'll
have to
manage – because there's no other choice.”

She turned her head in the direction of the hallway, and wondered how much longer Bob would be on the phone to Charlie Woodend.

Woodend stood at the bar of the Westbury Social Club, a pint in one hand, the phone in the other, and a Capstan Full Strength hanging from the corner of his mouth. As he listened to Rutter's report on Mike Partridge, Simon Hailsham and Gerhard Schultz, he was aware that the sole occupant of the Polish table was watching him with a mixture of suspicion and hostility. And why weren't the rest of Poles there? Because they'd be getting their tools together, ready to slip into the woods and do a bit of dismantling.

“I think this letter that Schultz received from Germany, just before he moved to Hereford, could be very significant,” Rutter was saying.

“So do I,” Woodend agreed. “In fact, even without the letter, I'd already made the decision that we'd never get to the bottom of this without takin' the German end of things firmly by the horns. I was on the phone earlier this evenin', gettin' the authorisation from the commander.”

“Authorisation for what?” Rutter asked, and Woodend thought he could detect a note of concern creeping into his sergeant's voice – as if he already suspected what was coming, and didn't like it one bit.

“The authorisation for you to fly to Bavaria an' interview Schultz's family and friends,” the chief inspector said.

“Couldn't the German police do that?”

“I suppose they
could
do the job . . .” the chief inspector admitted.

“Well, then . . .”

“But I'd be much happier with you on the scene. An' take my word for it, you'd not be much use up here. The trail's gone so cold that all I can do is wait for a lucky break.”

“Why don't you go to Germany, and I'll handle things in Cheshire?” Rutter suggested.

“Because I'm already on the scene,” Woodend reminded him. “Besides, I've done my share of chasing Krauts around Germany. An' anyway, the ticket's already booked in your name. You take off at ten thirty tomorrow mornin'. You have to check in about an hour an' a half earlier. Make sure you're on time. They probably had to bump some other poor bugger off the flight to make room for you, so they're not goin' to be too pleased if you miss it.”

“I won't miss it,” Rutter promised.

“Then I'll see you when you get back,” Woodend said. “Good luck, an' watch yourself on that strong German ale – it can creep up on you better than any Panzer Division.”

He handed the phone back to Tony the bar steward, and turned to face the Polish table again. Still just one man – still watching him.

You'd do better to worry about what's goin' on in the woods right now, lad, he thought as he ordered himself another pint.

Maria could tell from his heavy footsteps as he walked down the hall that something was wrong with Bob, and wondered what nice Charlie Woodend could have possibly said to make him so depressed.

She did not have to wait long to find out. “Cloggin'-it Charlie wants me to clog it around the Federal Republic of Germany,” Rutter said.

“Well, that's good, isn't?”

“Good?”

“Sending you off to Germany on your own just shows how much confidence he has in you.”

“Iknow, but . . .”

“But what?”

Rutter knelt down by his wife's chair, and took her hands in his. “It'll mean flying,” he said.

“But of course it will.”

“I've never flown before – and even the thought of it terrifies me.”

Maria laughed. “Why should you be worried? Flying is – what do you call it? – a piece of cake.”

“That's easy for you to say,” Rutter countered. “You've been flying since you were a baby.”

Maria broke free of his grip, and began to stroke his hair. “It will be all right,” she cooed. “I'll come with you to the airport.”

“But how will you get back?”

“By taxi, of course.”

“But you're . . .”

“I'm blind,” Marie said. “And I'm going to have a baby. If I can't manage a taxi on my own, then we really are in trouble.”

It was nearly closing time in the Westbury Social Club, but the Polish watcher was still at his post.

What would he do if I got up now an' headed for the woods? the chief inspector wondered. Attack me, like he or one of his mates did last night? Or try an' get ahead of me to warn the others?

It didn't really matter either way, because, as he'd made clear to Inspector Chatterton, he had no intention of doing the local bobbies' job for them.

It had been foolish of Rozpedek to offer him a drink of vodka from an unlabelled bottle, but no more foolish than it had been for the Polish cavalry to charge German tanks. Just being Polish seemed to carry with it an element of bravado. But that bravado would have to be paid for. Customs and Excise took a dim view of men who distilled spirits in their spare time, and the four Poles would be lucky to get away without a gaol sentence.

The chief inspector contemplated setting off up the lane in search of the Dark Lady, but as Luigi Bernadelli was sitting at his customary table, he didn't think she would be appearing that particular night. Perhaps, instead, he would go to bed with a good book.

He thought of the volumes in the dead man's room – books which had been bought for show, rather than pleasure.
A Tale of Two Cities
had been there. He wondered why it had always been one of his favourite Dickens novels. Possibly it was because of the central character, Sidney Carton, who so resembles Charles Darney that he can take his place at the guillotine. And why is he willing to sacrifice his own life? He does it for two reasons. The first is that he loves Darney's wife, Lucie, and cannot bear the thought of the unhappiness that the news of Darney's death will bring down on her. The second is that he considers his own life to be so worthless that he hopes to give it meaning by this one selfless act.

But could the act be truly selfless if he was hoping to get something out of it? Woodend asked himself, as he drained the last inch of his pint. Mike Partridge didn't think so – he'd said as much to Chatterton's sergeant, who was a fellow scoutmaster – but the chief inspector wasn't entirely convinced he was right. Maybe rereading Dickens would give him the answer. Or perhaps it would teach him that there were no answers. That was what was so good about the Great Man – he made you think until your brain hurt.

Tony called last orders and Woodend asked for a bottle of whisky to take up to his room.

As he made his way up the stairs, he reached into the pocket of his hairy sports jacket and took out the key to Gerhard Schultz's room. The German had even less use for
A Tale of Two Cities
now he was dead than he had when he was alive. No harm could come from borrowing it, just as no harm had come from Rutter borrowing
The Pickwick Papers
– not that Woodend was convinced the young bugger would ever read it.

He unlocked Schultz's door and stepped into the room. He made a move to turn on the light, then stopped himself. He stood perfectly still in the darkness, trying to absorb the atmosphere of the place.

At first, he felt nothing, just as he had done the last time he visited the room. It was almost as if the German who had lived there for almost two months had had no personality of his own – or else had kept it locked up so tightly that it was as pale as a prisoner serving a lifetime in solitary confinement.

And then, he did start to sense something. It began as the vaguest hint of a feeling, but as he waited in the darkness, it grew and grew, until it was filling the whole room and all but choking him. He could taste it in his throat, he could feel it coiling around his body. He did not know exactly what it was he had released, but he knew that it was horribly – darkly – evil.

Woodend staggered over to the wall and hit the switch. Instantly, the room was bathed in light, and equally instantly whatever ghastly apparition he had been sharing it with was gone.

The chief inspector took a deep breath. Could this be the room in which Lady Caroline Sutton had murdered her husband? Would that be enough to account for the horrendous sensation which had lasted only a few seconds, but which had shaken him to his very core?

Woodend walked over to the bookshelf and extracted
A Tale of Two Cities.
A couple of stiff Scotches and a couple of meaty chapters of Dickens should be enough to put the experience behind him, he thought. Then he would be ready for a good night's sleep.

Back in his own room, he undressed, put on the flannel pyjamas which his wife had so carefully ironed before packing, poured the first of the two Scotches he had promised himself, and climbed into bed.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he read, “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .”

Without taking his eyes off the page, Woodend took a sip of his drink. Bloody marvellous writin', he thought.

He turned the page, and something fell out of the book. It was a single sheet of paper, roughly torn from a cheap writing block. It was probably nothing of importance, he told himself, but it should have been spotted by the local flatfeet when they searched the room, and it obviously hadn't been.

He placed his drink on the bedside table, and put his book down on the counterpane next to him. It was his training, rather than any anticipation, which made him pick up the sheet carefully by the corner. And then he saw what was written on it.

“Bloody hell fire!” he said to his empty room.

The message was written in red ink, and was in large block capital letters:

THINK OF THE DARK LADY