Dangerous Games (11 page)

But he hadn't – and it was.

Turner had, in fact, asked for a dog on his first day on the job, and had gone into a second-childhood sulk when his request had been immediately – and somewhat ungraciously – turned down.

‘But I
need
a dog, if I'm to do the job properly,' he'd protested to the young site manager, who went by the name of Wickshaw.

‘It's not the crown jewels you're guarding here, you know, Harry,' the site manager had replied. ‘There's no gang of international building material thieves planning to swoop down on the site in the dead of night, and make off with a couple of thousand Accrington bricks.'

‘I know that, but …'

‘The Secret Cement Cartel isn't just waiting for our guard to be down before they have it away with a dozen bags of Portland Finest.'

The site manager was too much of a smart-alec for his own good, the night-watchman thought. He was little more than a lad, still wet behind the ears – but because he had his City and Guilds Certificate, he thought he knew everything there was to know.

‘What about the machinery?' Turner had grumbled. ‘It's very valuable, is that machinery, Mr Wickshaw.'

‘So it is,' the site manager had agreed. ‘But it's also virtually impossible to nick.'

‘I'm not so sure about that.'

‘You're not? So tell me, how's anybody going to steal a crane or a digger? Drive it away?'

‘They could.'

‘Talk sense, Harry! Heavy plant's not exactly built with a speedy getaway in mind, you know. A bobby on a push-bike could catch up with it, if he pedalled hard enough.'

‘So if there's no risk of anythin' valuable bein' stolen, what am I goin' to be doin' here, night after night?' the watchman had wondered.

‘I'll tell what you're doing here, Harry,' the site manager had said, his patience almost at an end. ‘You're here so that some chap living just down the road – who happens to be in need of a couple of concrete flag-stones – won't be tempted to just walk in and help himself.'

‘But suppose he does give way to the temptation,' the watchman argued. ‘I could be in danger.'

‘If we thought there was any danger, we wouldn't entrust the security of the place to an old feller like you,' the site manager had said, exasperatedly.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,' Turner said.

And he was thinking: I may be old, but I reckon I could still drop you if I had to, you thin streak of piss an' wind.

‘You're still looking worried,' the site manager had said, mistaking anger for fear. ‘For God's sake, Harry, nobody's going to put you in hospital for a couple of pipes or a few yards of copper wiring, now are they?'

And so it was that Turner was dog-less and alone when he discovered the breech in the chain-link fence that surrounded the site.

It was perfectly obvious what had happened, Harry Turner thought, as he examined the breech in the light of his torch. Some bastard had taken a pair of wire cutters, sliced his way through the chain link, and then peeled back a flap so he could get access. And now he was somewhere on the site, in any one of the dozen or so places he could have chosen to hide.

There should be searchlights I could switch on, Harry Turner thought.

But there were no lights, just as there was no dog.

He was not afraid, he told himself, but it would probably wise to be a little
cautious
.

He turned away from the fence, to face the site.

‘The police have been called!' he bawled out in that same loud voice that had sung a thousand dirty rugby songs. ‘There's no gettin' away, an' if you give yourself up now, they'll probably go easy on you.'

He heard a single foot-fall from somewhere to his left, and was just about to turn again when his head suddenly seemed to explode. And then everything went black.

Rutter had finally arrived at the Drum and Monkey. He was looking somewhat flustered, but also a little triumphant.

‘One of the nannies who I was supposed to be interviewing couldn't make it this afternoon,' he explained.

‘Well, that
is
a promisin' start,' Woodend said dourly.

‘It wasn't her fault,' Rutter said, completely missing the warning signal. ‘Apparently, there was some kind of domestic crisis in the place where she's currently employed. And since – on paper at least – she looked the best of the bunch, I thought I'd better allow a little leeway.'

‘Very good of you, I'm sure,' Woodend said. ‘An' since we seem to be discussin' leeway, is there any reason you couldn't have phoned to tell us you were goin' to be late?'

‘I did make a call to the station, but you'd already left, sir,' Rutter said defensively.

‘This pub has a phone,' Woodend pointed out. ‘We've all used it, often enough.'

‘I didn't want to disturb you here, especially since I knew that within half an hour or so …' Rutter trailed off. ‘You're quite right, sir,' he continued. ‘I could have phoned, and I'm sorry I didn't.'

His problem was that Bob was feeling very guilty about the way he'd behaved towards his daughter, Woodend thought. For quite a while after Maria's death, he'd not believed he was able to take care of Louisa at all, and the grandparents had been forced to bear the burden. And now he finally felt he could handle it, he was trying to compensate for that earlier neglect by giving her his total commitment.

‘Did you hire a nanny in the end?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Yes, I did,' Rutter told her. ‘I actually hired the one who I interviewed last – the one who made me late. I think she's going to be really excellent.'

‘Well, that's all right then,' Woodend said – though his tone made it clear that was far from the case.

Later, when he was talking it through with the police, Harry Turner would calculate that he could not have been unconscious for more than five minutes. But at the time, as he was slowly coming round, his thoughts were not about that at all, but instead were focused on the loud noise coming from beyond the shell of the supermarket, at the other end of the site.

‘The crane!' he gasped. ‘He's stealin' the bloody crane!'

That should certainly teach the smart-arsed site manager a lesson in humility, he thought.

But his feeling of smugness didn't last for long, because he had been brought up in an age when you were taught to take your responsibilities very seriously, and it was
his
responsibility to protect the site.

Using the chain-link fence for support, he pulled himself to his feet. His head hurt – and when he gently probed the back of his skull with his index finger, he felt something sticky, which he assumed was drying blood.

But all-in-all, he told himself, he was not in bad shape. Certainly he was steady enough on his feet, and his vision did not seem to be in the least bit blurred. In the old days, on the rugby pitch, he'd have shrugged off an injury like this one, and there was no reason he shouldn't do the same now.

The crane engine continued to roar at the other end of the site, but so far the thief had made no attempt to slam it into gear and drive away.

Harry shone his torch along the ground, searching for something he could use as a weapon. Its beam fell on a short iron bar, which should have been returned to the tool shed, but clearly had not.

He bent down and picked it up.

It would serve nicely, he decided – not too heavy, but capable of doing a good deal of damage if wielded properly. It would be a more-than-adequate tool to teach the bastard who had hit him that there was a great deal of difference between ‘old age pensioner' and ‘old and helpless'.

He walked around the edge of the construction shell, picking out his steps carefully, because there could be nothing more undignified than tripping over and twisting his ankle.

When he was no more than half way to the crane, he heard the engine judder for a few seconds, and then die away completely.

‘Idiot!' he said softly to himself. ‘Bloody incompetent idiot. What's the point in stealin' a crane if you don't even know how to operate it?'

He was expecting the thief to make another attempt to start the crane, but as he got closer, and it still remained silent, it became clear that he was going to do no such thing.

That was the trouble with young people today, he thought. No bloody resilience at all. Try something once, and if it doesn't work first time off, bloody give up.

He had reached the edge of the building, and an open space of perhaps five yards lay between him and the crane. He swept the area with his torch – because he was damned if he'd let the swine ambush him again – but there was no sign of a waiting enemy.

He took a few steps forward, and shone the torch into the cabin of the crane. It seemed to be empty.

That was it, then, was it? The thief had given up his attempt to steal the heavy machine, and had made his escape.

So, apart from the blow to his head – which had now almost completely stopped bothering him – no real damage had been done, Turner thought.

And then he looked up at the arm of the crane, and realized he couldn't have been wronger.

Beresford had gone home to look after his mum, so there were only three of them at the table in the Drum and Monkey when the landlord called across the bar that there was a phone call for Woodend.

The chief inspector climbed to his feet, and ambled over to the bar, as he had done a hundred times before.

Paniatowski waited until he was out of earshot, then said to Rutter, ‘You want to be careful.'

‘Careful about what?'

‘Careful to show that you still have an interest in doing your job.'

‘I do have an interest in my job,' Rutter said angrily. ‘I
love
my job. But I also love my daughter, and if it's a question of either her or …'

‘It isn't a question of either/or,' Paniatowski interrupted him. ‘You can have both, but you've got to learn to balance things better.'

‘Now that I've got a nanny for Louisa …'

‘You talk as if that's the answer to all your problems. But it isn't, is it? So what if you've got a nanny? She can't be there all the time. And what will you do when she isn't?'

‘Then
I'll
look after my daughter.'

‘What if we're in the middle of an important case?'

‘I don't know,' Rutter said weakly. ‘I plan to cross that bridge if, and when, I come to it.'

‘There's no “if” about,' Paniatowski said. ‘It
will
happen.' She paused for a moment. ‘Listen, I'll help out all I can. Once in a while, I'll baby-sit for you, so that you can at least give the
appearance
of being a full-time officer.'

‘You'd do that?' Rutter asked surprised.

‘I've just said I would, haven't I? Anyway, is there any reason why I wouldn't?'

Rutter shrugged, awkwardly. ‘Well, you know …'

‘Because she's Maria's baby?'

‘Yes, I suppose that is what I meant.'

‘Maria may have hated me – God knows, she had reason enough to – but I never hated her. And even if I had, what's that got to do with Louisa? She's just an innocent child.'

‘You never cease to amaze me,' Rutter said softly. ‘You never cease to
touch
me.'

‘Yes, well, let's not get all sentimental and gooey about it,' Paniatowski said brusquely. ‘Especially since the boss is coming back.'

Woodend was indeed returning to the table – and he looked grim.

‘Has something happened, sir?' Rutter asked.

The chief inspector nodded. ‘Aye, somethin' happened,' he said. ‘There's been another one.'

Temporary police spotlights had been set up on the building site, and now the whole area around the crane was drenched in a bright, harsh light.

There were no shadows at all. Small stones, embedded in the ground – and until now practically invisible – shone like gems. The crane itself stood naked and exposed, all the dents and scratches in its bodywork, which were hardly noticeable in the daylight, on display for all to see.

But nobody was looking at the ground, and nobody was looking at the cabin of the crane. Instead, all eyes were focused on the
arm
of the crane, which was thirty feet in the air.

Woodend tore his gaze away from the hanging corpse, and looked at the uniformed inspector, who had been the first ranking officer on the scene and so had taken charge of the site.

‘Do you have to leave the poor bugger hangin' there like that, Sid?' he asked. ‘Can't you get him down?'

‘Believe me, sir, I would if I could,' the inspector replied. ‘But until the fire brigade gets here, we're helpless.'

‘Am I to take it that the crane's liftin' mechanism's been nobbled, then?' Woodend said.

‘That's what we think must have happened. When the night watchman, Harry Turner, first arrived, the feller on the end of the rope was still kicking. So Turner climbed up into the cabin of the crane, to see if he could work out how to lower the arm. But he couldn't even start the engine. And neither could any of my lads, however much they tried. So my guess would be that before the killer left, he found a way to jam it.'

There was the sound of a siren in the distance.

‘That'll be the fire brigade now,' the uniformed inspector said. ‘If you don't want me for anything else, sir, I suppose I'd better go and explain to them what it is they have to do.'

‘Aye, you take yourself off,' Woodend said.

The inspector walked away, and Woodend turned to his team.

‘Comments?' he said.

‘The killer's learning from his mistakes,' Monika Paniatowski said. ‘The way he chose to do it this time, there was absolutely no chance of him decapitating his victim.'