The Witch Maker (23 page)

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You didn't give him any more particulars?'

‘No, definitely not, sir.'

‘An' he said?'

‘Not a sausage.'

‘Well, I'd better go straight back in there an' talk to him, hadn't I?' Woodend said.

He opened the door again, and stepped into the storeroom. He didn't invite the constable to join him, and Thwaites made no move to follow.

‘Ever been in trouble with the police before, son?' he asked the man sitting at the table.

‘I'm not entirely sure I'm in trouble with the police now,' the Irishman replied.

Woodend sat down. ‘You do know what you've been arrested for, don't you?'

‘The copper who brought me in mentioned somethin' about vandalizin' a car in the village.'

‘Not just any car. A bright-red MGA. A classic, in its way. The owner's very cut up about it.'

Calhoun nodded. ‘I can imagine. But there are worse things you can do to people than vandalize their cars.'

‘Like what?' Woodend asked, sounding genuinely interested.

‘Like ...' Calhoun began, then, realizing he was in danger of saying too much, shook his head and fell silent.

‘Like what?' Woodend persisted. ‘What's the matter, lad? Afraid to give me an example?'

The remark stung. ‘Like ... like takin' advantage of them,' Calhoun said. ‘Like really hurtin' them.'

‘So you're usin' that as an
excuse
, are you?'

‘It's no excuse.'

‘I can just see you in court, lookin' up at the bench and tellin' the Beak there's lots worse you could have done,' Woodend said. ‘“I could have broken her arm, Your Honour”,' he continued, in a deliberately bad Irish accent. ‘“I could have smashed her jaw. So why don't you let me off with a caution for just
scratchin
' her car?”'

Calhoun let another slight smile play on his lips. ‘You're very good at this, so you are,' he said.

‘Aye, I know,' Woodend agreed. ‘It's my job. I've done hundreds of interrogations in my time. But there are a couple of things which have got me puzzled about this particular one.'

‘An' what might they be?'

‘First off, you're not reactin' like the usual suspect does.'

‘Am I not?'

‘No. There's two ways he can go, you see – the loud way an' the quiet way. The loud way is he protests his innocence at the top of his voice. You've not done that, have you?'

‘No, I haven't. An' what's the quiet way?'

‘The quiet way is to mumble that yes, he did do it, he's never done anythin' like it before, he doesn't know what came over him, an' if I'm prepared to turn a blind eye to it this time, he'll never do it again. But you haven't tried
that
either. I wonder why.'

‘Maybe I think there's no point in protestin' my innocence in front of an English policeman.'

‘Oh, I get it,' Woodend said. ‘You're playin' the Irish card – all English bobbies are bastards, so they'll bang up any poor bloody Irishman whether he's guilty or not.'

‘It's been known to happen,' Calhoun pointed out.

‘You're right,' Woodend agreed. ‘But it's not happenin' here. All I want is the truth.'

‘You want to know if I did it?'

‘I want to know
why
you did it.'

‘An' if I said I'd never touched your sergeant's car? Would you believe me, an' let me go?'

Woodend shook his head, almost despairingly. ‘Grow up, lad. We both know you're guilty. So why don't we just get the formalities over as quickly an' painlessly as possible?'

Calhoun folded his arms. ‘I have nothin' more to say.'

‘Right, that's it, then,' Woodend said.

‘What's it?'

‘If you've no more to say, then I've no more time to waste buggerin' about tryin' to get you to say it. I'm investigatin' a murder, an' this is no more than a local crime. I'll get the constable to make arrangements to hand you over to the bobbies in Lancaster.'

Calhoun laughed.

‘Did I say somethin' funny?' Woodend asked.

‘You were doin' very well, but now you've reverted to type,' Pat Calhoun said.

‘Have I? In what way?'

‘In the way you make your threats.'

‘I wasn't aware I had made any threats,' Woodend said innocently.

‘Oh, but you did, an' you were. You said you weren't one of them coppers who fits up a feller just because he's Irish, an' then you tell me you're goin' to hand me over to just the sort of coppers who will. Is this the point at which I break down in gratitude at you bein' so understandin', and confess all?'

‘You've got it wrong, lad,' Woodend told him. ‘We
might
both be playin' games here – as you seem to think we are – but we're certainly not playin' the
same
game. I meant what I said about havin' no more time to waste, an' I meant what I said about handin' you over to Lancaster. You don't have to believe me – you probably don't – but in a few hours' time, when you're sittin' in a cell in Lancaster Gaol, you'll be forced to accept the fact that I was tellin' the truth.'

The Chief Inspector stood up, and walked over to the door.

‘What about the other thing?' Calhoun asked, intrigued.

‘What other thing?'

‘You said you'd done hundreds of interrogations, but a couple of things were puzzlin' you about this particular one. The first was that I was neither shoutin' my innocence nor whisperin' my guilt. What was the second?'

Woodend thought about it for a moment. ‘Oh aye,' he said finally. ‘I was wonderin' whatever possessed you to scratch the word “prostitute” across the front of my sergeant's car.'

‘It wasn't “prostitute”. It was ...'

‘“Harlot”,' Woodend completed, when it was plain that Calhoun was not about to. ‘I know. A quaint, old-fashioned term, isn't it? Do they still use it down in County Cork?'

‘I wouldn't know,' Calhoun said, doing his best to stage a recovery, but not making a very good job of it.

‘I'll just bet you wouldn't,' Woodend replied. ‘An' incidentally, Mr Calhoun, it wasn't me who first mentioned the fact that the car in question belonged to my sergeant.'

‘Wasn't it?'

‘No, it wasn't. I was very careful when I was talkin' about the owner. All I said was “she”. Yet you knew I was talkin' about Monika Paniatowski. Now where would an innocent man – who'd never set foot in the village until he was arrested – have got that particular piece of information from?'

M
onika Paniatowski was walking round and round the edge of the Green. There was no particular reason for it. She wasn't there to observe the way in which the crime scene was being destroyed in order that the festival could take place – though that process was well under way, with uniformed constables removing the official barriers and villagers replacing them with barriers of their own. Nor was she there in the hope that her proximity to the spot on which the murder took place would stimulate her mind towards new lines of investigation. She was walking because she could think of nothing else to do – because since those words had appeared on her car, her mind had been in complete turmoil and she had begun to question the whole purpose of her life.

Under normal circumstances, she would almost immediately have spotted that she was being followed. Under
these
circumstances, it was little short of a miracle that she noticed it even on her third perambulation around the Green. But spot it she did, and
when
she did, her brain shifted a gear and she became
DS
Paniatowski again.

She stopped and turned around. The woman who was on her tail was in her late-thirties to early-forties, she guessed. She was no longer the slim creature she might once have been, yet, from the way she carried herself, it was plain she had no bitter regrets about the passing of her youth. Her face, though incredibly strained at that moment, looked both kind and understanding. Paniatowski caught herself starting to think that if she were in the market for a mother, this woman would be a very good choice.

The woman stopped when Paniatowski did. For a moment she hovered uncertainly, then she took a deep breath and closed the gap between them.

‘Why were you following me?' Paniatowski demanded.

‘I suppose I was getting up the nerve to talk to you.'

‘What about?'

The woman hesitated again, then blurted out, ‘Could Pat Calhoun go to prison?'

‘It's possible,' Paniatowski replied, noncommittally.

‘Just for damaging a car.'

Not
a
car, Paniatowski though. Not
just
a car.
My
car. My precious little MGA.

‘You can go to prison for stealing a sandwich, if your attitude's wrong,' she said. ‘And his attitude is
definitely
wrong.'

‘How?'

‘We need to know why he did it, and he won't tell us.'

‘No,' the other woman agreed. ‘He wouldn't.' She paused for a moment. ‘You're the injured party here, aren't you? What would happen if you dropped the charges?'

‘He'd be released.'

‘Then couldn't you do that? Couldn't you go to your boss and say you're dropping the charges?'

‘Who are you?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I ... Does it really matter?'

Paniatowski nodded. ‘You want a favour. I need to know who's asking for it.'

‘I'm ... I'm Zelda Todd. I work on the fairground. I'm in charge of the coconut shy.'

‘And what's Pat Calhoun to you?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing?'

‘I mean ... I like him a great deal. And I'd be very happy if he and my daughter ... if they ...'

‘Is that why you want me to drop the charges? Because you think he'd make you a good son-in-law?' Paniatowski asked, noting, as she spoke, that she almost sounded bitter.

‘Pat didn't mean any harm,' Zelda Todd said.

‘You try telling that to my poor little car,' Paniatowski responded.

The remark seemed to take the other woman genuinely by surprise. ‘You talk about it as if you were in love with it,' she said.

Yes, I do, don't I? Monika thought. Maria Rutter has Bob, Zelda's daughter will probably eventually have Pat Calhoun, and I have a red MGA I can scarcely afford to run.

‘Why
did
he do it?' she asked.

Zelda Todd thought for a moment. ‘Have you ever seen a magic act in one of the fairground sideshows?' she asked.

‘No, I don't think I have.'

‘You're probably too young. They don't do much of that kind of thing nowadays. But twenty years ago, there were almost as many magicians working the fairgrounds as there were in the music halls.'

‘I don't see where you're going with this.'

‘The magician usually had a girl with him. She would be young, reasonably pretty, and would wear a costume so skimpy that most girls wouldn't even think of wearing it on the beach.'

‘The beautiful assistant,' Paniatowski said, thinking of the fairground manager's words.

‘That's right,' Zelda Todd agreed. ‘The beautiful assistant. Why do you think she was there?'

‘To help the magician with his tricks?' Paniatowski guessed. ‘To add a bit of glamour to the show?'

‘To distract!' Zelda Todd said. ‘I was a beautiful assistant once – and that was my downfall.'

Zelda, only nineteen years old, and pretty as a picture, is standing on the rickety stage next to the Magnificent Antonio. Antonio – real name, Archibald Hicks – is fifty-three years old. He is long past his best as a magician, and – even more damaging – he has been drinking quite heavily before the show. He is going to fumble his tricks – she is sure of that – and if they are not to get booed off, she will have to work extra-hard tonight.

They are reaching the crucial point in the trick, the moment when Archibald-Antonio must accomplish a very complex sleight of hand, and the chances are that he'll mess it up. Zelda counts slowly to three, then takes a step forward. It is only a slight step, yet she manages to imbue it with a sexuality made all the more potent by the fact that she is still so obviously a teenage virgin. The eyes of the men in the audience are all on her, as she'd known they would be, and the eyes of the women are all fixed, resentfully, on the men. Perhaps the kids will see Archibald-Antonio fumble the trick, but kids don't matter, because nobody will listen to them anyway.

Archibald-Antonio has got through the difficult moment. Zelda gives one more little shimmer – her young breasts wobbling invitingly – then steps back to her original position. The magician bows, the hayseed audience applauds – and Zelda begins to feel a pair of eyes burning into her.

The next trick is so simple that even a drunk like Archibald can perform it without a hitch. Zelda lets her eyes wander, and locates the man who has been looking at her so intently. He is older than she is – but not that much older. He is stocky and not particularly handsome, yet there is a power emanating from him which quite overwhelms her. She already has a boyfriend – Stan Dawkins – and though they have not yet progressed beyond the slap and tickle stage, she knows that she loves him and will eventually allow him to go further. So she has no interest in any other man. No interest at all. And yet ... and yet she still feels herself irresistibly drawn to this stranger.

Archibald-Antonio produces a scabby pigeon, masquer­­ading as a pure white dove, from inside his top hat. The unsophisticated audience claps furiously.

The man looks down at his watch, flashes the fingers of his right hand three times, and then points to the area beyond the roundabout. The message is clear. She is to meet him in fifteen minutes at the edge of the fairground. She doesn't want to – she knows she shouldn't – but she finds herself nodding her head anyway.