Dying in the Dark (23 page)

Paniatowski flicked through to the end of the journal – to the last few entries Pamela made before she died.

7
^th
October, 1964. Lulu's the one! I'm sure of it. I want her with me always. I'll never grow tired of her.

9
^th
October, 1964. I told Lulu how I felt. I expected her to be deliriously happy, but she wasn't. When I talked about the two of us going away together, a blank look came into her eyes. She said there were other people involved, not just us and we had to think about them. I told her she'd
better
think about them. She asked me what I meant by that, and I said that I wondered how these
other people
would feel if they found out what she was really like. That set her thinking!

19
^th
October, 1964. Lulu's given in! She says she'll do whatever I want! She's asked me to meet her by the canal, after work, tomorrow. I said, ‘Why the canal?' and she said she had something special planned. I can hardly wait.

Paniatowski closed the journal.

You went too far in the end, Pamela Rainsford, she thought. You should never have tried to blackmail Lulu in the way that you did, because that's what cost you your life.

Constable Fletcher was sitting in his chair, pleasantly dozing, when he felt the finger prodding into his arm. At first he tried to ignore it, but when it persisted he opened his eyes and saw the big man in the hairy tweed sports coat standing over him.

‘Oh, hello there, Mr Woodend, sir,' he said. ‘Is there somethin' I can do for you?'

‘Yes, there is, Fletch,' Woodend told him. ‘I need to have a talk with Bob Rutter.'

‘At this time of night?'

‘We can't all sleep on the job, you know,' Woodend said. ‘Some of us have
real
work to do.'

‘Are you sayin' I was asleep, sir?'

‘Weren't you?'

‘No, I most certainly was not,' Fletcher said, looking as dignified as his podgy frame allowed. ‘I was just thinkin'. An' I find I always think better when I've got my eyes closed.'

‘Then no doubt it wasn't really snorin' that I heard comin' from that mouth of yours,' Woodend said. ‘Can I see Mr Rutter now?'

‘Inspector Rutter's Mr Evans's prisoner,' Fletcher said. ‘Have you got his authorization to make the visit?'

‘Do I need it?'

‘I'm not sure.'

‘Then let's assume that I don't.'

‘Strictly speakin' I'm not certain I can do that, sir.'

‘An' strictly speakin', I suppose I should report you for
thinkin'
on the job,' Woodend countered.

Fletcher winced. ‘Old hands like us don't always stick to the book, do we?' he asked, struggling to his feet and reaching for his keys. ‘You won't want long with Mr Rutter, will you?'

No, Woodend thought. Just long enough to have Bob confirm that he didn't pick up his new car until eight thirty, thus making it impossible for it to be the
same
car that Bascombe had seen. And once that had been established – once he was
really
sure of his ground – he would go after that bastard Evans.

‘I'll only need about five minutes,' he told Constable Fletcher. ‘Will that be all right?'

‘Five minutes isn't long,' the fat constable agreed. ‘It's hardly worth botherin' notin'
five minutes
down in the record book.'

‘No, it isn't, is it?' Woodend agreed.

Constable Fletcher headed for the holding cells, with Woodend close on his heel.

The fact that Bob's car hadn't been the one on Bascombe's street did not prove that Rutter couldn't have killed his wife, Woodend cautioned himself. But it did raise serious questions about the way DCI Evans had been conducting his case. And it was certainly enough of a mistake on Evans's part to give him grounds for demanding that all the other evidence the chief inspector from Preston had collected should be gone over again with a fine-toothed comb.

‘Here we are, sir,' Fletcher said, stopping in front of one the metal doors. ‘Holdin' Cell Number Three. The best room in the house.'

‘Do you think it's funny that one of your colleagues may be facin' a murder charge?' Woodend growled.

‘Well, no, not exactly,' Fletcher said, surprised by Woodend's change of mood. ‘But you can't always treat life as if it was deadly serious, can you?' he asked hopefully.

‘Probably not,' Woodend agreed. ‘And I hope you won't mind if
I
don't treat it seriously the next time
you're
up shit creek.'

‘There's no need for you to take offence, sir,' Fletcher said huffily, as he slid back the eye hole. ‘I was only tryin' to … Oh, my God!'

Woodend pushed the fat constable roughly to one side, and peered through the spy-hole himself. What he should have seen was a bed and a small table. But he didn't. He couldn't – because his view was blocked by a pair of hanging legs.

F
rom his vantage point inside the Chief Constable's office, Woodend had a perfect view of the early morning sky. He watched as the heavy grey clouds massed as a prelude to launching their first angry attack of the day on the ground below. It was going to be one hell of a storm when it got started.

A single drop of rain – an advance guard – hit the Chief Constable's window with all the force and determination it could muster, but to no avail. The glass remained totally unmoved by the encounter. The raindrop itself spattered on impact, then slowly and brokenly trickled downwards.

It never had a chance
, Woodend thought, watching its progress with morbid fascination.
It never had a bloody chance
.

The Chief Constable – who had spent the previous five minutes on the phone, firming up the arrangements to meet a friend of his at some conference or other – finally said goodbye and placed the receiver back on its rest.

‘Well, you were the one who requested this meeting, Mr Woodend,' he said. ‘And as I'm only here to adjudicate, I suppose that you're the one should get us started.'

Only there to adjudicate! Woodend thought with disgust. The Chief Constable was only there to
adjudicate
– only to see that there was fair play between him and DCI Evans. So why were Marlowe and Evans both sitting on the same side of the Chief Constable's bloody desk?

Woodend cleared his throat. ‘I'm unhappy with the way that DCI Evans is conductin' the Maria Rutter murder investigation,' he said.

‘From what I can recall of your previous escapades, the only officer who you're
ever
happy to see conducting a case is
yourself
,' Marlowe said, showing right from the start just how even-handed he actually intended to be. ‘But we'll leave that aside for the moment. What, specifically, is the nature of your complaint against Mr Evans?'

‘He's not gone into the investigation with an open mind. He's lettin' his pre-existin' prejudices determine the way the case develops.'

‘Interesting,' Marlowe said. ‘And I trust you have some examples to back this up.'

‘Yes, I do. He set his forensic team to work on Bob Rutter's Cortina GT without even botherin' to establish whether or not it was that car which was seen on Ash Croft on the night of the murder. He probably
still
doesn't know whether they were examinin' the right car or not, do you, Evans?'

‘As a matter of fact, I do know,' DCI Evans said. ‘The Cortina on Ash Croft couldn't have been Rutter's, because Rutter's car was at Melton's Garage at the time, undergoing some minor adjustments.'

‘An' how long have you known that?' Woodend asked, feeling as if the ground he'd been so sure of was slipping away beneath him.

‘I've known since yesterday afternoon.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘You may believe – or disbelieve – whatever you choose, Mr Woodend,' Evans said calmly.

‘If he – or any of his team – had actually been to Melton's Garage, Paul Melton would have mentioned it to me when I was there myself,' Woodend told Marlowe.

‘Well, Mr Evans?' Marlowe asked.

‘We didn't need to waste valuable police time going to the garage,' Evans said. ‘We found the documentation for the adjustment work in the glove compartment of the Cortina.'

Overhead, there was a crash of thunder, followed rapidly by a searing bolt of lightning. And then it began to rain in earnest.

‘Any comment you'd care to make at this juncture, Mr Woodend?' the Chief Constable asked.

‘It's sloppy police work,' Woodend said.

‘What is?'

‘If Bob Rutter had put the documentation anywhere other than in the car, DCI Evans's team wouldn't have found it.'

‘Yes, I should have thought that was obvious.'

‘An' they'd have gone on treatin' Rutter's car as if it was the one which was spotted on Ash Croft. Which would have meant they wouldn't be lookin' for the Cortina that really
was
there.'

‘Nobody can actually say that this other Cortina
did
have anything to do with the murder,' the Chief Constable pointed out.

‘An' nobody can say for certain that it
didn't
,' Woodend countered. ‘Nor
will
they be able to, until they've conducted the kind of investigation which should have been conducted in the first bloody place.'

‘Mr Woodend does have a point, you know,' Marlowe said to Evans. ‘It could be claimed, if one were feeling uncharitable, that you had in fact made a mistake there.'

‘Yes, sir,' Evans agreed. ‘It's noted, and I'll see it doesn't happen again. And I've already sent a man up to the garage to get a list of all the other Cortina GTs which were
not
there are the time.'

‘Good. Well, that seems to settle the matter, then.'

‘Is that it?' Woodend demanded incredulously. ‘Is that all you're goin' to say to him?
“Good. Well, that seems to settle the matter, then
”?'

‘It's all I'm going to say to
Mr Evans,
certainly,' Marlowe told him. ‘But I still have a few words I'd like to direct at you.'

‘You've got
what
?' Woodend asked.

‘It is no doubt useful to DCI Evans's investigation that you've raised the question of the car on Ash Croft,' the Chief Constable said. ‘But the fact of the matter is, you should never have put yourself in a position to ask the question in the first place.'

‘I don't believe this!' Woodend said.

‘You're supposed to be investigating the Pamela Rainsford murder, not the Maria Rutter murder,' the Chief Constable reminded him. ‘And then there's the question of what happened last night.'

‘Last night!'

‘You had no business to be visiting DCI Evans's suspect without clear permission from DCI Evans himself.'

‘You do realize that if I
hadn't
gone – or even if I'd gone and arrived a couple of minutes later – Bob Rutter would be dead now?' Woodend exploded. ‘You do
understand
that, don't you?'

‘It was certainly very fortunate that you arrived at Rutter's cell when you did,' Marlowe said. ‘I'm delighted that you were able to save his life.'

‘Delighted!' Woodend said, disgustedly.

‘Nevertheless, that is an entirely separate issue from the one we're discussing. You had no business being there, and I am contemplating beginning a disciplinary procedure.'

‘Would you like my bloody resignation?' Woodend shouted.

‘Are you
offering
it?' Marlowe asked.

Was he? Woodend wondered. No, he bloody wasn't! How could he, at this crucial stage of the game?

‘No, I'm not offerin' to resign,' Woodend said. ‘I'll take my chances with the discipline board –
if
an'
when
you convene it.'

‘Oh, it will be convened. You can be assured of that,' Marlowe said.

‘So what happens now?' Woodend asked.

‘What I'm tempted to do is suspend you,' the Chief Constable admitted. ‘Unfortunately, I happen to have two murders on my hands at the same time as I'm battling against serious staff shortages. So what I'd like you to do, Mr Woodend – what I'm forced to
allow
you to do – is to continue with the Pamela Rainsford investigation. But if you go beyond your remit again, I
will
suspend you, even if it means taking over the investigation myself.'

‘Now that I
would
like to see,' Woodend said.

Marlowe scowled. ‘You're being insolent, Chief Inspector,' he said.

‘I'm not followin' you, sir,' Woodend said innocently. ‘How can it be insolence to say I'd like to sit back myself an' watch a real professional tacklin' the job?'

‘Get out!' Marlowe said.

‘On my way, sir,' Woodend replied.

I shouldn't have done that, he told himself as he was reaching for the door handle. I shouldn't have done it – but, by God, it felt good.

The Duty Sergeant told Woodend that Constable Beresford was on his tea break and would very likely be in the canteen. And so he proved to be, playing cards with a couple of his mates.

Woodend slid into a free chair at their table. ‘If you wouldn't mind, lads, I'd like a few words with Beresford in private,' he said.

The other constables looked at each other, then at Beresford, then stood up and left.

Woodend waited until they were well clear of the table before he said, ‘I've just been to see the Chief Constable about the Cortina.'

Most constables would have directed their gaze at the table, but Beresford looked him straight in the eyes.

‘I told you I'd have to report our conversation, and that's just what I did, sir,' he said. ‘I wasn't doin' anything behind your back.'