The Dead Hand of History (2 page)

Crane followed Paniatowski's progress with interest, though with entirely different motives to those of his sergeant. Her blonde hair was just lovely, he decided. And though her nose was on the large side for Lancashire taste – that would be the Polish influence, wouldn't it? –
that
was quite nice, too. But it was her figure that really got his approval.
It
certainly didn't look thirty-nine – and though Paniatowski was an old woman by Crane's standards, he had to admit, somewhat guiltily, that he really quite fancied her.

As the DCI drew almost level with them, Crane was surprised to note that, despite his earlier derogatory comments about her, Walker snapped smartly to attention. And not wishing to be left out, the young detective constable decided he'd better do the same.

‘It's certainly a privilege to be working with you, ma'am,' Walker said.

‘Thank you, Sergeant,' Paniatowski replied.

‘It's bad luck to be landed with a case like this on your first day in the job, but then there's nothing like a baptism by fire for showing what you're really made of, is there?' Walker continued.

‘Probably not,' Paniatowski said, with less conviction than she might have wished.

‘And there's no doubt in my mind that with your brilliant track record, you'll have a result in no time,' Walker said.

Professional pleasantries were all very well in their place, Paniatowski thought, but really, enough was enough.

‘
We'll
get a result, Sergeant,' she corrected her new bagman. ‘As a
team
. Because that's what good policing is – teamwork.'

‘You're quite right there, ma'am,' Walker agreed.

‘So what can you tell me about the investigation so far?' Paniatowski asked crisply.

‘The object in question was discovered by a man called Edgar Harper, about an hour ago,' Walker said, in his best policeman-in-the-witness-box voice. ‘Mr Harper was out walking his dog when—'

‘Strictly speaking, ma'am, it was the dog which did the finding,' Crane interrupted.

Walker gave him a look which could have frozen blood and then continued, ‘. . . when the dog disappeared into those bushes over there, and reappeared again with the plastic bag in its mouth.'

The bushes were not tall, but they were quite thick, Paniatowski noted, and if the dog hadn't found it, the plastic bag could have lain hidden there for days.

So what had been the point of putting it there at all?

‘Where's this bag now?' she asked.

Walker took his cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one up and blew smoke down his nose.

‘I had it sent over to the mortuary, so that that Paki doc . . . so that Dr Shastri could have a look at it.'

Paniatowski's eyes hardened, and for a moment it looked as if she was about to deliver some kind of rebuke. Then she nodded again and said, ‘Good, that was the right thing to do. And what
else
have you done?'

‘Nothing, ma'am.'

‘Nothing?'

‘Every boss that I've ever worked for has his own particular way of doing things, ma'am,' Walker said. ‘And until we'd found out what the
right
way was for you, we thought it best not to go barging around doing the
wrong
thing. Isn't that right, DC Crane?'

‘Er . . . yes,' Crane said.

What the sergeant had just said made good sense, Paniatowski thought. A wise bobby always modified his own style – to a
certain
extent – to fit his boss's. That was one of the many lessons she'd learned from working with Charlie Woodend.

‘I want the river bank searched for half a mile in either direction,' she said. ‘
Carefully
searched.'

‘I'll see to it right away, ma'am,' Walker promised.

Paniatowski turned to face the grassy slope she'd so recently descended. Its incline meant she could not see much beyond it. But she didn't need to, because this was her old stamping ground – the backcloth of an unhappy childhood – and she was only too aware that on the other side of the road lay a patch of waste ground, and beyond that the edge of a housing estate – red brick, featureless and laid out on a strict grid pattern.

‘I also want a door-to-door inquiry conducted,' she continued. ‘It should take in
any
houses with easy access to the river along a two-mile stretch, but I'd like you to
start
with the Pinchbeck Estate.'

‘The Pinchbeck Estate?' Walker repeated, sounding slightly surprised. ‘You do
know
it's a council estate, don't you, ma'am?'

‘Yes?'

‘Which means, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, that the people who live on it are the scum of the earth. Skivers and layabouts to a man. Or to a woman, for that matter.'

Paniatowski hesitated for the briefest of moments, then she said, ‘And apart from those obvious virtues you've just so clearly described, are they also all
blind
, as well?'

Walker seemed puzzled by the comment. ‘A few of them may be – or at least
claim
to be, so they can scrounge even more disability benefits off the government – but, as far as I know—'

‘Then if they've got eyes,' Paniatowski interrupted, ‘they might – just possibly – have
seen
something.'

‘With respect, ma'am, you're missing the point.'

‘Am I?'

‘Yes, I rather think you are. The people who live on that estate are such idle bastards that they don't
get out of bed
until the pubs open. Which means, in my humble opinion, that conducting an inquiry on the Pinchbeck Estate would be a complete waste of police resources.'

Paniatowski forced a smile to her lips. ‘Every boss has their own way of doing things, Sergeant, as you've just pointed out yourself,' she said. ‘And my way, in this particular instance, is to conduct a door-to-door on the estate, whatever you might think.'

‘I stand corrected, ma'am,' Walker said, as he too commanded a reluctant smile to appear on his face.

‘Right, that's it,' Paniatowski said. ‘If you've got something to report before twelve-thirty, you'll find me in my office.'

‘And after twelve-thirty?'

‘The chances are that I'll be found in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey.'

‘Ah,' Walker said, as if enlightenment had suddenly dawned. ‘
Mr Woodend
's old haunt.'

‘That's right,' Paniatowski agreed evenly. ‘And not just Mr Woodend's –
my
old haunt, as well.'

She turned and began to climb the bank again. Walker and Crane watched her until she reached the top.

Only when she had finally disappeared from view did Walker allow himself to chuckle.

‘See the look on her face when I said the scum of the earth live on the Pinchbeck Estate?' he asked Crane.

‘Yes, she did look a bit taken aback,' Crane admitted. ‘But I thought she rallied very well.'

‘She was gutted!' Walker said firmly. ‘Because
she
knows I'm right, and she knows that
I
know that
she
's one of them.'

‘One of them?'

‘What is it they say – you can take the woman out of the council estate, but you can never take the council estate out of the woman? So don't let that smooth exterior fool you, Jack, because deep inside herself she's still wearing plastic curlers in her hair and robbing the electricity meter.'

‘If you feel like that about her, why don't you put in for a transfer?' Crane wondered.

‘Because
I
won't let her get away with things – and the feller who replaced me just
might
.'

‘I'm not sure I follow you,' Crane said.

‘Then you must be thicker than you look,' Walker told him. ‘So let me explain it to you another way. I didn't much like being at school, and I could hardly wait till I turned fifteen and could leave. And if you look through the records of any
good
bobby, you'll find pretty much the same story.'

He paused, as if waiting for Crane to challenge the statement.

‘I couldn't wait to leave either,' Crane replied.

Walker nodded approvingly. ‘Good for you. Anyway, as I was saying, most of my teachers were shit, and they'd tell you any old rubbish as long as they got paid at the end of the month. But there was one thing I
did
like – a poem about a Roman feller called Horatius.'

‘Oh, I remember that myself, Sarge,' Crane said. ‘He was a Roman warrior, and when the Etruscans tried to invade Rome—'

‘I'm telling this story, lad,' Walker said harshly.

‘Sorry, Sarge.'

‘Anyway, these other wops were attacking Rome, you see, and the Romans weren't ready for them. But in order to get into the city, the invaders had to cross this bridge. And that's where Horatius comes in. It's a narrow bridge they have to cross, and Horatius stands in the middle of it – on his own – fighting off these other wops one at a time.'

You're forgetting Lartius and Herminius, who were standing beside him, Crane thought – but it obviously suited Walker's purpose to ignore them, and he knew better than to interrupt again.

‘And while he's killing these other wops, his mates behind him are demolishing the bridge,' Walker continued. ‘In the end, the bridge collapses, Rome is saved and Horatius is a hero. Get the point
now
?'

‘I'm not sure that I do,' Crane admitted.

‘There's an army marching on this Police Force, intent on destroying it. It's being led by DCI Paniatowski, but there's a barrowful of other bloody women behind her. And not just women! There's Pakis and nignogs as well. And if she breaks through, how long do you think it will be before we have an Asian DCI?'

‘I don't know,' Crane admitted. ‘I've never really thought about it.'

‘Well, I have,' Walker told him. ‘That's why I've planted myself squarely in the middle of the bridge – to make sure she
doesn't
get through.'

TWO

T
he bakers had been hard at work since five o'clock, the van drivers had reported for duty at half-past six. By seven o'clock, the first consignments of Brunskill's Prize-Winning Bread were already sitting on the shelves of dozens of small shops in the Whitebridge area, ready to be picked up by shift men on their way home from work. And once that basic need had been met – once it was certain there would be fried bread for breakfast, and sliced bread for the kids' dinner-time sandwiches – the bakery turned its focus onto its secondary business, the production of Brunskill's Famous Meat Pies and Cornish Pasties.

The office block was single-storey and was located at the far end of the bakery. It had two entrances, one for the clerical staff at the left-hand side, and one for the management at the right – and it was through the right-hand door that Elaine Dunston walked at just after a quarter-past eight.

Once inside, she gazed around with the kind of masochistic expression on her face which said that she was hoping everything had miraculously changed overnight – but was virtually certain that it hadn't.

I'm right, she told herself, with grim satisfaction. Everything is still the bloody same!

There was her own hateful desk – right in the foyer, where she was clearly on show for anyone who happened to walk in through the door.

There was the office which Jenny Brunskill shared with her brother-in-law Stan, and which, because it had no access to outside light, had glass panels running from waist height to the ceiling.

And there was her sister Linda's office – the big chief's office – with its imposing oak door.

Jenny Brunskill was already at her desk, Elaine noted, but that was hardly surprising, either. She was always the first of the management team to arrive, and the last to leave. She just loved being a martyr to her work, and probably told herself that while Linda was undoubtedly the powerhouse who was driving the business on to bigger and better things, she was the one who did the spadework which ensured that these grand ideas actually worked out. Well, she could tell herself whatever she liked – but as far as Elaine was concerned, that didn't make her commendable, it just made her a mug.

Elaine sat down at her desk. She'd been a secretary before her marriage, but she'd hated it, and had got out of it as quickly as she could. She'd conned Eric Dunston into marrying her by telling him just one tiny little white lie about being pregnant, and once they were married she'd looked forward to never having to work again. But things had never been the same after she told Eric she'd lost the baby that she'd never actually been carrying. In the end, the bastard had run off with her hairdresser – which, since she'd been a
good
hairdresser, had been a double blow – and Elaine had found herself reluctantly back on the job market.

The loud roaring sound in the car park announced the arrival of Jenny's brother-in-law, Stan Szymborska, on his Honda CB 750. The bike was a continuing source of friction between Stan and his wife, and Linda's harangues on the subject were a continuing source of pleasure for Elaine, whenever she was lucky enough to overhear them.

‘What do you think you're doing, still riding that big bike around?' Linda would demand. ‘That's the sort of thing you'd expect a kid to do. But you're a company director, and you're nearly fifty. Don't you think it's about time you started acting your age?'

Stan would say nothing in reply, and though he was normally putty in his wife's hands, on this one matter he refused to bend.