Golden Mile to Murder (23 page)

The two boys suddenly froze, as if they had seen a ghost.

The tackler from Rochdale was starting to become concerned. ‘I'll just go an' see what's up wi' yon lads,' he told his wife, levering himself out of his canvas seat.

‘They're fine as they are,' Mrs Sidebotham replied. ‘Give 'em a bit of peace, for goodness sake.'

‘I'm not sure they
are
fine,' Sidebotham replied.

And events were, almost immediately, to prove him right. He had not covered even half the distance between the deckchair and the hole when his eldest son snapped out of his trance and released a blood-curdling scream.

Sergeant Paniatowski stood on the promenade at Fleetwood, watching the back entrance of the Palace Hotel. A telephone inquiry an hour earlier had elicited the information that Harry Granger – the waiter who had unwillingly provided Frank Hanson with the names of the lingering Golden Milers – was due to report for duty at half-past twelve. Since it was already twenty-five past twelve, the chances were that he should be along any minute.

It was at twelve-twenty-eight that the man finally appeared. He was walking quickly, probably to avoid clocking on late. Which was excellent – because men in a hurry were usually more than eager to get straight to the point.

Paniatowski stood perfectly still while Granger passed her, then fell in behind him. She deliberately matched her steps to his, and though she couldn't see anything other than his back, she could tell from his posture that he was starting to get worried.

He speeded up, and so did she. He slowed down, and she decreased her pace too.

He wanted to turn round, she thought, but as yet he was far from convinced that was a good idea.

Paniatowski waited until they almost reached the gate which led to the staff entrance before reaching out and tapping Granger on the shoulder. The effect was most gratifying. The waiter did not actually leap into the air – but he came fairly close to it.

He whirled round. ‘Are you followin' me?' he demanded.

Paniatowski smiled. ‘Of course I am.'

‘Why?'

Monika produced her warrant card. ‘Police. I'd like to ask you a few questions.'

‘What about?'

‘About the same thing you were discussing with Sergeant Hanson earlier this morning.'

‘But he promised me that if I answered his questions, he'd leave me alone from now on,' Granger protested.

‘He meant it,' Paniatowski replied. ‘And I promised him that if he told me what you'd told him, I'd leave you alone too. Unfortunately for you, I lied.'

Granger glanced nervously at the staff entrance. ‘If anybody sees me talkin' to you, I could be in big trouble,' he said.

‘Then we'd better move away from the hotel, hadn't we?'

‘But I'm on duty in a minute.'

‘Won't do you any harm to be late for once,' Paniatowski said indifferently. ‘Tell them your tram broke down.'

She took him by the elbow, and led him in the direction of the pier. ‘I talked to one of the men on your list this morning,' she continued. ‘Mr Lumsden – the manager at Tideswell's Bank. I tried to talk to the others, too, but they've been very difficult to contact. Now why do you think that should be?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘It couldn't be because Lumsden warned them off, could it?'

‘It might be,' Granger admitted.

‘But warned them off for what reason?' Paniatowski asked.

They had reached the sea front. She came to a halt, and released the waiter's elbow.

‘Did you see them drive off?' she asked.

‘Who?'

‘The last five of the Golden Milers to leave,' Paniatowski snapped impatiently.

‘I saw Mr Lumsden go. He was the first. But by the time the others went, I was already back in the kitchen, stackin' the dishes.'

Paniatowski sighed. It would all have been so much simpler if Granger could have narrowed it down to one or two suspects, she thought.

‘Let me ask you something else,' she said. ‘Lumsden claimed that the entertainers left straight after the show. Was that true?'

Granger's eyes widened. ‘Mr Lumsden told you about the
entertainers
?' he gasped.

Paniatowski nodded. ‘But why don't you tell me about them, too?'

‘It was a very tame show, really,' Granger said. ‘I mean, you'd never have got away with puttin' on anythin' like it on the Golden Mile, but this was a
private
function.'

It was all starting the make sense. The men out alone for the night. Lumsden reaching for his handkerchief when she'd asked him exactly what kind of entertainment it was.

‘How many girls were involved?' Monika asked.

‘There were three of them,' Granger said. ‘An' the feller. They put on a bit of an exhibition, if you know what I mean.'

‘And when the “exhibition” was over, did any of the guests take one of the girls for a tour of the hotel – a tour including the bedrooms upstairs?' Paniatowski asked speculatively.

Granger looked shocked. ‘No!' he said. ‘The management would never have allowed things to go that far.'

So that was what Lumsden had got into such a sweat about, Paniatowski thought – something which, when all was said and done, amounted to nothing more than a giggling schoolboys' outing.

‘
He
left at the same time as the girls,' Granger volunteered.

‘Who did? The man who'd been doing mucky things on stage with them?'

‘No!' Granger said dismissively. ‘The comedian.'

‘What comedian?'

‘The one who told jokes between the acts.' A look of realisation suddenly came to Granger's face. ‘You didn't know about him, did you?'

‘No,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But now that I do, you'd better give me all the details.'

Granger was looking more and more worried. ‘Listen, if it got out he was appearin' on the same stage as strippers, he wouldn't be very pleased. Wouldn't do his reputation any good, you see. I mean, he wasn't here for the money. He told me that himself.'

‘So why was he here?'

‘More as a favour than anything else. See, now that he's bought himself a bungalow in Lytham, he wants to start hobnobbin' with the people round here who matter, an' I expect he thought that puttin' on a show for the Golden Milers was a way of gettin' his foot in the door.'

‘You still haven't told me who you're talking about,' Paniatowski said.

‘Can't you guess?'

‘I'm not in a guessing business. Why don't you just tell me who he is?'

‘He's Tommy “Now Where Was I?” Bolton,' the waiter said.

Barton Lane was located right in the centre of the oldest part of Whitebridge, and had been in existence long before the first mill had appeared to scar the landscape. It was the kind of lane which twists and turns when you least expect it to. The kind of lane in which the pedestrian was always coming across strange and exotic businesses which appeared to have no place in the modern world of Whitebridge – taxidermists and chandlers, specialist tea vendors and old-fashioned bespoke tailors who filled their windows with pin-striped material which seemed to do little else but gather dust.

Lorries could not navigate their way up Barton Lane, and even the brewer's dray which delivered the barrels of beer – and was pulled by two magnificent shire horses – sometimes ran into difficulties. But however difficult it was, the dray's journey still had to be made, because halfway up the lane stood a pub which was officially known as the White Swan, but which all the locals called the Dirty Duck.

Woodend was at one of the tables in the upstairs bar, the remains of a steak and kidney pie in front of him. The man who had been until recently his trusted right hand – and was showing considerably less enthusiasm for Northern cuisine than his old boss – sat opposite him.

‘How are things progressing in Blackpool, sir?' Bob Rutter asked.

‘I wouldn't like to say,' Woodend admitted. ‘I haven't really got a handle on this case, yet.'

‘And your new sergeant?' Rutter asked – just a little too casually.

‘She's got a lot of confidence,' Woodend replied. ‘More than you had when you started workin' with me.'

The remark had not been intended to sting – but it did. ‘I had plenty of confidence!' Rutter protested.

‘You had confidence that you could handle any job I gave you,' Woodend told him. ‘Paniatowski's confidence is of a different kind entirely. She's out to make a name for herself – an' not by bein' part of my success, but through what she does on her own.'

‘Detection's a matter of team work,' Rutter said.

‘Aye, it is,' Woodend agreed. ‘But it's also a bit like football, in a way. If the team doesn't work together, they're lost. But there always comes a moment durin' the game when the individual player has to decide to take control of the ball an' run with it on his own. That's what you call star quality.'

‘You sound as if you approve of her,' Rutter said.

An' you sound as if you don't, Woodend thought.

‘She'll have to learn to bend a little to the way I work,' the chief inspector said, ‘but I'm willin' to bend a little in her direction, as well. Call it a bit of a crusade, if you want to – I'd like to see more women doin' well in the police force. An' after all, she's reached the rank of detective sergeant, so she must have somethin' about her.'

‘And I think I know what it is,' Rutter said, still sounding slightly aggrieved. ‘At least, as far as you're concerned.'

‘Do you now? An' what might that be?'

‘She reminds you of yourself when you were a young bobby.'

‘Do you know, you might be right,' Woodend said. ‘I'd never thought of it quite like that.'

‘The difference is that you were a young bobby in the forties, not the sixties,' Rutter pointed out. ‘Policing's moved on a long way in the last twenty years, and Sergeant Paniatowski should realise that.'

What had caused this sudden outburst? Woodend wondered. Jealousy? Insecurity? In a way, he supposed both those things were understandable. Bob was like a young bird who had been kicked out of the nest before he was
quite
sure he could fly under his own power. Maybe later it would be necessary to chirp a few words of encouragement, but given Rutter's present mood the best course of action was probably to change the subject.

‘Why don't you ask me what Detective Superintendent Ainsworth had to say for himself this mornin'?' Woodend asked.

‘What did Chief Superintendent Ainsworth have to say for himself this morning?' Rutter repeated dutifully.

‘That he'd expected a result by now.'

‘But you've been on the case for less than two days,' Rutter protested, falling back naturally into the familiar role of confidant and soother.

‘True,' Woodend agreed. ‘But accordin' to Mr Ainsworth, two days should have been plenty of time. He doesn't have any of the details of the murder, mind – not a blind one – but he's got enough experience to know that even a rookie detective constable could have got to the bottom of it all by now.' He took a swig of his pint. ‘What about you, lad? How are you gettin' on?'

‘I've been handed an investigation that's already in its sixth week,' Rutter said. ‘All the ground has already been covered several times, and the officers who've been working the case have come up with Sweet Fanny Adams. But that's not really their problem any more, is it? I'm in charge now, and if anybody has to bear the stigma of failure, it's going to be me.'

Woodend nodded gravely. ‘They've got it in for both of us, haven't they?' he said.

‘Ainsworth certainly does, for one,' Rutter admitted. ‘So what can we do about it? It's not going to be easy for Maria to pull her roots and move to Lancashire, you know. It's hard enough for a person who can see, but when you're blind . . . when you depend on knowing where things are, because you can't actually
see
them . . .'

And she wouldn't have had to go through any of that if it hadn't been for me, Woodend thought guiltily – because I'm the one who got Bob the promotion and the transfer.

‘Then there's the fact that the baby's on the way,' Rutter continued. ‘She'll have to learn to deal with that, too. And she's more than willing to do it. But I don't want to have to tell her she'll have to go through all the trauma of moving again in another six months.'

An' I don't want to have to tell Annie that I've made her leave all her friends behind for a new life that simply isn't goin' to happen, Woodend told himself.

‘As I see it, we've got two choices,' he said. ‘The first is that we can throw in the towel – like you've just hinted. If that's the course we take, then we either leave the force, or try to get another transfer to somewhere else. I don't fancy workin' for a private security firm, an' even a feller like me – a feller who's sabotaged his own career more times than he cares to remember – can see that it wouldn't be a good plan, prospect-wise, to move forces again so soon.'

‘So what's the second choice?' Rutter asked.

‘There've been several occasions in the past when I've asked you to do somethin' for me as part of an investigation, an' – because you're an idle young bugger by nature – you've suggested I give the job to the local police,' Woodend said. ‘Do you remember any of those cases?'

Rutter grinned. Did he remember? Of course he did! He recalled tramping the street of Leeds in search of a bootmaker who might give them the vital clue which would help them crack the Swann's Lake case; visiting half the coffee bars of Liverpool – and drinking so much cappuccino in the process that he thought it would come out of his ears – in the hope that he'd find a lead on who killed young Eddie Barnes. Yes, he remembered – and so did his feet!