Dying in the Dark (2 page)

He paused, and examined the faces of the two people sharing the table with him. Monika Paniatowski – blonde hair and a figure to die for, even if her nose was a little too large for Lancashire tastes – had a glazed look in her normally vivacious eyes. Bob Rutter – sharp suit, looking more like a rising young executive than a rising young police inspector – seemed equally far away.

‘He could have cracked Kennedy's assassination, could Paco,' Woodend continued.

Still no response.

‘In fact, that's just what I was tellin' President Johnson the other day,' Woodend said. ‘I went over to see him, you know. Me an' the Beatles together. I suppose we could have flown on a plane, like everybody else, but John Lennon thought it'd be much more fun if we went by hot-air balloon.'

‘What?' Bob Rutter asked.

‘I said that me an' the Beatles went over to the United States by hot-air balloon.'

‘That's what I thought,' Rutter replied, puzzled.

‘I'm sorry if I've been borin' you with my tale of how I cracked open a complicated murder case on my holidays, an' still found time to get a nasty case of sun-burn,' Woodend said tartly.

‘The Beatles went to America by
hot-air balloon
?' Monika Paniatowski asked, as if his previous remark had only now penetrated her brain.

What was the matter with the two of them? Woodend wondered.

They couldn't have restarted their affair, because, even if they'd tried to hide it from him, he would have known.

Perhaps it was simply the lack of serious activity which had dulled their edges. Both of them worked at their best under pressure, and since he'd returned from Spain there'd been no major crime to speak of in the whole of the Whitebridge area. So maybe that
was
it. Maybe they'd let their brains go into hibernation, in order to build up strength for their next serious challenge.

Or maybe the answer was even simpler, he told himself with a sudden shudder.

Maybe the reason they hadn't been listening was because it hadn't been worth listening
to
– because, even without realizing it, he was turning into a boring old fart.

‘Sorry, sir, I was miles away,' Monika Paniatowski said. ‘You were telling us about Inspector Ruiz.'

‘Forget it, lass,' Woodend said, feeling both more self-conscious
and
more self-critical by the minute. ‘Let's talk about somethin'
you
want to talk about, shall we?'

But from the look on her face, it was plain that there was nothing she
did
want to talk about – at least, not to him.

‘Mr Woodend!' called the landlord, from behind the bar.

‘What is it now, Jack?'

‘The station is on the phone for you.'

Woodend gave a sigh which he meant to sound like exasperation – but came closer to relief – stood up, and headed for the bar.

The moment he'd gone, Rutter said, ‘If she does divorce me, she'll want custody of the baby. And there's no guarantee she'll stay here in Whitebridge if she gets it. Why should she? All her family live in London.'

‘She won't get custody,' Paniatowski said in a whisper. ‘She's blind, for God's sake!'

‘And I'm a proven adulterer, with a job which hardly ever allows me to get home,' Rutter said mournfully. ‘If you were the judge, which one of us would you consider the better bet?'

‘It won't come to that,' Monika said earnestly.

‘It'd better not,' Rutter told her. ‘Because if it does – if she takes the baby away – I don't think I could go on. I think I'd probably kill myself.'

‘Don't talk like that,' Monika hissed. Then, in a louder voice, she said, ‘But you don't always get that kind of lucky break on a murder investigation, you know, Bob.'

‘What are you talking about?' Rutter asked.

‘The boss, you bloody fool,' Monika said, her voice lower again. ‘He's coming back.'

He was indeed. And there was a look as grim as a granite tombstone on his face.

‘Finish your drinks, an' then grab your coats,' the Chief Inspector said. ‘We've copped a particularly nasty one this time.'

Woodend and Paniatowski stood on the bridge, looking down at the dark water in the canal below.

The canal cut straight through the centre of old Whitebridge, passing all the dark satanic mills which had once thrived there. In its heyday, Woodend thought, countless stolid, plodding bargees had walked along the towpath, leading their equally stolid and plodding horses. Sometimes they'd even allowed the local kids – little Charlie Woodend among them – to hop on to the cotton-cloth-laden barge which the horse was towing behind it.

‘We used to love ridin' on them barges,' Woodend said.

He thought he'd spoken softly enough for no one else to hear him, but he must not have done, because Monika Paniatowski said, ‘Loved riding on the barges? Why?'

‘God alone knows!' Woodend replied.

Certainly it would have been quicker to walk than ride. But perhaps the speed at which they were going had not mattered so much, because it was where they were
going
that was really important.

Those stolid men and stolid horses were leaving the grimy town of Whitebridge behind them, and heading for the port of Liverpool, which the kids were certain – though they had never seen it – was a golden and glorious place to be. Yes, maybe that was it. The barges were escaping Whitebridge. The kids knew – or at least believed – that they never could. But for just half an hour or so – until it was time to get off the barge and go for their tea – they could live under the illusion that such an escape
was
possible, even for them.

The dead woman was lying on the towpath, in the shadow of the old Empire Mill. Two uniformed officers, torches in their hands, stood on guard over her. Other officers had been posted further up and down the canal, in order to keep civilians away.

If that was where she had actually been killed, then the murderer had chosen his spot well, Woodend thought. Because since the mills had closed and the barges had stopped coming, hardly anybody – apart from the occasional angler – used the old towpath any more.

‘I suppose I'd better go an' take a look at her,' the Chief Inspector said, with a heavy sigh. ‘After all, that
is
what I get paid for.'

‘What do you want me to do?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Go back to the car, get on the radio, an' see if Bob's come up with anythin' interestin' at headquarters yet. Then, I suppose, it'd be a good idea if you had a look at the body yourself.'

Woodend made his way down the steps to the canal side. The towpath was made up of cobblestones set in clay, but he avoided that, walking instead along the thin concrete strip which topped the edge of the bank.

It was a hundred yards to where the body lay. Two uniformed constables were standing guard over the woman. But they were not looking at her. Instead, they had their eyes fixed on the darkness at the other side of the canal.

The constables heard him coming, shone their torches on him, and saluted when they saw who it was.

‘It's Beresford, isn't it?' Woodend asked the senior of the two.

‘That's right, sir.'

‘Well, Beresford, let's get on with it.'

The constables shone their torches over the body. The woman's skirt was hiked up around her waist, and her knickers had been dragged down around her ankles. From her general physical condition, it was possible to estimate that she was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. But there was no clue to her age to be gained from her face. That was just a mess!

‘Who found her?' Woodend asked.

‘A tramp,' Beresford said. ‘He's well known to most of the bobbies on the beat. Wally the Wanderer, we call him, though nobody's got any idea what his real name is.'

‘What was he doin' here?'

‘Accordin' to him, he was seein' if there was any way he could get into the mill, so he could doss down for the night. I don't blame him. It's goin' to be a cold bugger.'

It was, Woodend agreed silently. The wind was blowing in hard from over the moors, and there would be ground frost in the morning.

‘Do we know who she is?' he asked.

‘No, sir. She hasn't got a handbag – or at least we haven't found one yet – an' there's nothin' in her pockets.'

Woodend forced himself to look at the dead woman's face again. Whoever had killed her had gone to work on it with something sharp and heavy – an axe, he would guess, by the depth and width of the cuts.

‘Do we have any idea how long she's been dead?' he said.

‘Couldn't have been too long, sir. She was still warm when we arrived.'

‘How many of you were there?'

‘Three of us, sir.'

‘So where's the third now?'

‘I told him to go an' get a cup of tea, sir.'

‘Did you, now?' Woodend said. ‘How did you approach the scene of the crime?'

‘Same way you did, sir. Along the concrete strip. I didn't think there was much chance of there bein' any footprints – the ground's rock-hard tonight – but I didn't want to take any chances.'

‘Good lad,' Woodend said. ‘An' make sure that goes down in your report – that I said you were a good lad.' He sniffed. ‘I can smell somethin' unpleasant. Puke, at a guess. Was it her, while she was bein' attacked, do you think? Or was this bloody mess too much for even the feller who did for her to stomach?'

Beresford looked uncomfortable. ‘It … er … it was the lad I sent off for a cup of tea who vomited, sir,' he admitted. ‘He tried to restrain himself, but he just couldn't hold it in. He got as far from the crime scene as he could, before he threw up. Will he be in trouble?'

‘Not if I have anythin' to do with it,' Woodend promised.

He crouched down to examine the corpse. The woman's skirt was a brown and white check; her blouse was white cotton. She was still wearing her heavy cloth coat, but her attacker had obviously ripped it open before he began his grisly work. Both her feet were naked, but her left shoe was lying beside her body.

‘Any idea where her other shoe might be?' Woodend asked.

‘It's over there, sir,' Beresford said, redirecting the beam of his torch for a moment to a spot a couple of yards distant.

So the attack had occurred where the body was found, Woodend thought. And when morning came, and it was light enough to do a proper search, they'd no doubt find the buttons from her coat.

He stretched forward and ran the edge of the woman's skirt through his thumb and forefinger.

Acceptable quality, he decided. Not too cheap, yet not too expensive.

There was nothing flashy about the clothes, which there certainly would have been if the woman had been on the game. In fact, it was quite a tasteful – almost restrained – outfit.

You couldn't tell
everything
from clothes, but Woodend was prepared to bet that when they did eventually learn the woman's identity, she would turn out to be a secretary or a clerk in a local government office.

‘Do you think she's been raped, sir?' Beresford asked.

‘Well, he didn't drag her knickers down so he could wipe his nose on them,' Woodend snapped.

And almost immediately he felt ashamed of himself, because this constable was a good lad, eager to learn his trade, and didn't deserve to be spoken to in that manner.

‘I'd guess she's been raped, but you can never tell,' he said. ‘We'll have to wait until the medical examiner's had a look at her.'

But raped or not, what had she been doing walking along a deserted towpath on a cold autumn evening? And if her attacker had been no more than a rapist, why had he reduced her face to a pulp after he had got what he wanted?

The last thing Whitebridge needed, the Chief Inspector thought, was a nutter on the loose.

He stood up again. ‘Let me have another look at her face.'

Beresford shone his torch on the mess of blood, shattered bone and ripped flesh. ‘It is a terrible sight, though, sir, isn't it?' he said.

‘Yes, it is,' Woodend agreed.

He'd seen worse – much worse – but that still didn't make looking at this particular poor bloody woman any easier.

No one had been reported missing, Bob Rutter told Monika Paniatowski when she radioed through to headquarters. There had been the usual number of concerned citizens calling in, of course – the woman who claimed that her neighbours were sheltering Adolf Hitler, the man who swore blind that he had seen a flying saucer land behind the gas works – but none who claimed to have heard a scream coming from the direction of the canal, or who had seen a wild-looking feller carrying a blood-stained instrument.

It had, in other words, been a complete waste of time even going through the motions.

But then most police-work was a complete waste of time, Paniatowski thought – and any bobby not prepared to sift through one hell of a lot of chaff in the hope of finding one grain of wheat would be well advised to seek some other line of work.

From her vantage point on the bridge, she could just make out the shapes of the three men standing by the body. Even if the other two had not been wearing their pointed helmets, it would have been easy to pick out Woodend, because – as other officers, who were no midgets themselves, would tell you – the man was built like a brick shit-house.

Paniatowski watched Woodend lean down over the corpse. She should go and join him, she thought, but first she would have a cigarette.

As the smoke curled its way around her lungs, she found her mind returning to Bob Rutter's problems.

She should be happy about what was happening in Bob's marriage, she told herself. So why wasn't she?

Partly, she supposed, it was due to guilt. She liked Maria. She admired Maria. And what had she done? She had deliberately embarked on an affair with the woman's husband.