Echoes of the Dead (18 page)

‘It's time to come clean, Fred,' Woodend says, and is pleased to note that he
almost
sounds sympathetic.

‘Are you sayin' that you
didn't
know Lilly?'

‘So you really
don't
know her?'

‘There's nothin' wrong with that, is there?' Woodend asked. ‘Yes, I shifted ground occasionally, to keep him on his toes, an', yes, I slapped him down once or twice. But it was all well within the guidelines – all standard procedure.'

Paniatowski looked distinctly uncomfortable.

‘Am I right about that, or not?' Woodend asked.

‘You're right,' Paniatowski admitted.

‘Well, there you are then.'

‘But . . .'

‘But what?'

‘I must have sat there and listened to you interviewing dozens of suspects over the years—'

‘Scores of suspects,' Woodend interrupted.

‘. . . and none of those interviews sounded even vaguely like the one you've just described.'

‘Well, of course they didn't. By the time you started working with me, I'd developed my own style. But you have to remember, back then I was just startin' out, an' feelin' my way as I went.'

‘I know, Charlie,' Paniatowski said. ‘That's exactly the point
I
was trying to make earlier.'

‘What do you think, Paco?' Woodend asked, appealing to his old friend.

‘If what you have given us is an accurate description of what actually occurred, Charlie . . .' Ruiz began cautiously.

‘It is accurate! It's bloody spot on!'

‘. . . then I would have to say that, from what we've heard so far, I can detect nothing that would have made Howerd afraid to produce his alibi.'

Well, that wasn't exactly a
ringing
endorsement, was it, Woodend thought gloomily.

‘Carry on, Charlie,' Paniatowski said.

‘Did you
know
that?'

Of course he doesn't know it, because no such technique exists – but Howerd doesn't know
that,
either.

‘So there you have it!' Woodend said. ‘The questioning had hardly begun, and Howerd had already as good as admitted that he took Lilly Dawson to his loft the night before she was abducted.'

On the face of it, he sounded confident – almost
triumphant
– Paniatowski thought.

But she'd known him a long time – had
worked
with him a long time – and she could see below the surface.

Whatever he might say, he was worrying about the alibi Terry Clegg had provided.

And he had other concerns, too. He was starting to question why – at the time – he had been so confident that Howerd was the right man.

‘
I was confident because I had an airtight case
,' he would be arguing to himself.

But somewhere, at the back of his mind, there must be a nagging doubt. He had
needed
a result from that investigation, because it was his first major case and because his home town seemed to demand one. And perhaps it was that – rather than the facts – which had fuelled his conviction.

‘
You
see what I'm gettin' at, don't you, Paco?' Woodend asked Ruiz, pleadingly.

‘It may have been established that Howerd did take Lilly to his pigeon loft the night before she disappeared . . .' Ruiz said sombrely.

‘That's what I'm sayin'!'

‘. . . but that is still no proof that he killed her, is it?'

‘There's more,' Woodend said, with just a hint of desperation in his voice.

‘Then let's hear it,' Paniatowski said.

FIFTEEN

‘The answer is – you
can't.
The kid will scream and kick and bite, because she knows you're up to no good, and the last thing she wants is to get into your car.' He pauses again. ‘Oh, I'm sorry, you don't have a car, do you? You run a stall on the market, so you have a van. And, at this very moment, the forensics team are scrupulously examining that van for traces of Lilly Dawson.'

‘Didn't it bother you that Howerd seemed so confident you would find no evidence that Lilly had been in the van?' Paniatowski asked.

‘No,' Woodend said firmly.

‘Not even for an instant?' Paniatowski persisted.

‘I said no!' Woodend replied, with a trace of anger in his voice. ‘Look,' he continued, in a more reasonable tone, ‘we all know that civilians have no real idea of just how good the forensic boys can be, so what I told myself at the time was that what Howerd was displayin' was not
innocence
but
arrogance
. He'd probably done a thorough job of cleanin' out the van, an' so he thought he was safe.'

‘And how did you square that idea with the fact that he'd been sloppy about concealing the other evidence?' Paniatowski asked.

‘What other evidence?'

‘The evidence you found in the pigeon loft – the lemonade bottle with Lilly's fingerprints on it. Why hadn't he got rid of
that
?'

‘At that point, we didn't know that Lilly's fingerprints
were
on the lemonade bottle, because the lab hadn't finished checking it.' Woodend said. ‘But you're right, Monika,' he conceded, ‘it's certainly something I should have taken into consideration.'

‘
Did
the lab find traces of Lilly's presence in the van?' Paco Ruiz asked.

‘No,' Woodend admitted, ‘they didn't.'

‘I see,' Paco mused.

‘So maybe Howerd was right about that, and I was wrong – maybe he
had
done a good enough job to remove all the evidence,' Woodend said heatedly. ‘Then again, maybe he'd used some other vehicle for the abduction.'

Or maybe it
wasn't
Fred Howerd who abducted Lilly, they all thought – though nobody actually said it.

‘So, we've established that if Lilly had put up a struggle, somebody would have noticed,' Woodend presses on, seemingly impervious to Howerd's confidence about his van. ‘That means she
didn't
struggle, doesn't it? And why was that? It was because she wasn't being picked up by a complete stranger at all, but by someone who she regarded as a friend.' He counts slowly up to five.
‘You
were one of her friends, weren't you. Fred?'

‘Then what
would
you say?'

‘A few years,' Woodend repeats. ‘So that would make her seventeen or eighteen.
Now
I understand!'