The Butcher Beyond (14 page)

Peter's house was large and detached, with a view of the golf course and the rolling countryside beyond it. Reginald's home was a grimy pit village, in which streets of squat terraced houses clung desperately to steep hillsides and the cobbled streets proved themselves booby traps for old ladies' ankles.

The man who answered the door was perhaps a couple of years older than the murder victim, but was about the same height, the same build and had the same shiny bald head.

‘Mr Medwin?' Rutter asked. ‘Mr Reginald Medwin?'

‘That's right.'

‘We're detectives from Whitebridge. I'm DI Rutter and this is DS Paniatowski. We're investigating your brother's death.'

‘I talked to Jessica on the phone not twenty minutes past, so I was expectin' you,' Medwin said. ‘I suppose you'd better come inside.'

He led them into the front parlour which, despite the smallness of the house, was probably reserved for christenings, weddings – and funerals. It was a neat, cheerful place. The brass ornaments around the fireplace were all polished to a dazzling shine. The windows gleamed, despite the dust in the air outside. The walls looked as if they were stripped and re-papered every second year – whether they needed it or not.

Medwin invited the two detectives to sit down. ‘I'd offer you a cup of tea,' he said, ‘only the missus is out shoppin', you see, an' I'm not entirely sure where she keeps everythin'.'

‘Don't worry about it, Mr Medwin, we've only just had a cup,' Monika Paniatowski lied.

Medwin did not sit down himself. Instead, he remained standing, with his backside to the empty fireplace.

‘How can I help you?' he asked.

‘We'd like to know everything that you can tell us about your brother,' Rutter said.

Medwin looked confused. ‘I don't rightly know where I should start,' he confessed.

‘Just say whatever comes into your mind first,' Paniatowski advised.

Medwin nodded gratefully. ‘He were always different, our Pete,' he said. ‘There seemed to be a lot more goin' on in that head of his than there was in the heads of the rest of us – though, to be honest with you, none of us had any idea quite what it was.'

‘So he was secretive?' Rutter asked.

‘Private, more than secretive,' Medwin told him. ‘I mean, he never told any of us that he wanted to win a scholarship to the grammar school, but he didn't exactly hide it from us, either. Still, I'd never have known just how much it mattered to him if I hadn't caught him in tears the day our dad got the letter to say he hadn't been accepted.'

‘He was very upset, was he?' asked Rutter, who was a grammar-school boy himself.

For a moment it looked as if Medwin didn't understand him. Then the miner said, ‘I wouldn't call it “upset”. He wasn't cryin' like a girl, if that's what you're thinkin'.'

‘I'm sorry, I thought you said—'

‘Them were tears of
anger
in his eyes. He said to me, “I were good enough to get in, our Reg. I were more than good enough. The only reason I've not got accepted is 'cos they've given it to some toffee-nosed lad who speaks as if he's got a plum in his mouth.” An' he were right. The powers that be didn't want folk from here educated. They wanted to keep us in our place, so they'd have enough poor buggers to send down the pit.'

‘Which is where Pete went,' Paniatowski said.

‘Which is where Pete went,' Reginald Medwin agreed. ‘The day he left school, our dad signed the agreement bindin' him to be an apprentice mechanical engineer. Fancy title, isn't it?
Mechanical engineer!
But the mechanical engineers still ended up down the bloody pit, bent double or else up to their knees in water, just like the rest of us.'

‘But Peter didn't stay down the pit, did he?' Rutter asked.

‘Depends what you mean by that,' Medwin said. ‘If you mean that he found a magic carpet to waft into a management position, then you've got it all wrong. It took years of hard graft at night school before he was ready to make the leap. He was twenty-four when he come out of his apprenticeship, an' nearly thirty before he got to wear a collar an' tie at work. So don't go thinkin' our Pete didn't know what it was like to get his hands dirty.'

Rutter knew too little about industrial life to see the need to do any calculations. He'd been brought up in a leafy London suburb where apprenticeships were not something anyone ever went into. Paniatowski, on the other hand, had been raised in the shadow of the Whitebridge mills and engineering works, and she latched on to the discrepancy immediately.

‘Did you say he was twenty-four when he finished serving his time?' she asked.

‘Aye, that's right,' Medwin agreed.

‘Why so late? He started work when he was fourteen, so he should have been a craftsman by the time he was twenty-one.'

‘Normally, yes,' Medwin said, with some reluctance.

‘Then why wasn't it true in Pete's case?' Paniatowski continued.

Medwin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘We've never been ones for washin' the family's dirty linen in public,' he said.

‘He didn't go to prison, did he?' Rutter asked.

Medwin flushed angrily. ‘Go to prison! No!' he said. ‘It was nothin' like that.'

‘Of course it wasn't,' Paniatowski said hastily. She turned to Rutter. ‘There's times when you can make even a Tory member of parliament seem almost intelligent, you know.'

Medwin laughed, and Rutter tried not to resent Paniatowski for pulling him out of a sticky situation.

‘He went away, did he?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Aye, that's right,' Medwin agreed. ‘One day he come home from work an' when he'd had his bath he told our dad that he was goin' to go south an' seek his fortune. Well, our dad was furious, just as you might expect, considerin' how it was goin' to reflect on him.'

Rutter looked blank.

‘Mr Medwin had signed Pete's indenture documents,' Paniatowski explained. ‘He'd given his word that Pete would serve his full apprenticeship. He lost a lot of face by Pete backing out like that.'

‘You're right there,' Medwin agreed. ‘They had a blazin' row, the two of 'em. Dad even hit Pete a couple of times, an' he'd never raised his hand to any of us before. I couldn't understand why Pete was doin' it to him. I had a go at Pete myself. Asked him what it was he wanted to do that was so important he'd make a liar of our dad.'

‘And what did he say?'

‘He said he was sorry, but he just had to go. An' he went. I spent three years hatin' him. I thought I'd never forgive him. But when he did come back, an' I saw the state he was in, I just had to.'

‘What was wrong with him?'

‘Nothin' you could put your finger on, but he looked like a complete wreck – as if he'd been to hell an' back. Even our dad couldn't stay angry at him, an' he wasn't a man who found it easy to forgive an' forget.'

‘Do you have any idea what had happened to him while he was away – what
made
him look like he'd been to hell and back?'

‘I didn't at the time, but I think I do now. We know more than we used to, you see. We've got a television set nowadays, an' we can see what's goin' on in the rest of the world.'

‘How do you mean?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I saw this documentary on the down-an'-outs in London. A terrible life they lead. Worse than bein' a miner. Anyway, it was the look in their eyes that got to me. They were full of despair. That's how Pete's eyes looked when he come back home. Full of despair.'

‘So you think he was a down-and-out himself?'

‘I do. The way I see it, he went off to London thinkin' the streets were paved with gold, but soon found out that it wasn't like that at all. He'd have been too proud to come back home at first, you see, but in the end he must have realized he didn't have any choice. An' credit where credit's due, once he had decided to pull himself together again, he made a bloody good job of it. Within a week he was up at the pit office, askin' if they'd take him on again. I wouldn't have said he'd have a cat in hell's chance myself, but somehow he managed to talk them into it. An' he's never looked back from that day to this.' Medwin's jaw quivered a little. ‘At least, not until … not until …'

Paniatowski stood up. ‘We'd better go,' she said.

‘Our Pete was a wonderful feller,' Reginald Medwin said. ‘He never forgot where he come from, an' he'd time for anybody who needed it. He's helped half this village, in one way or another. Only last year, he offered to buy me a bigger house in a nice area – out of his own pocket, mind – but I'm too set in my ways to think of movin' now.'

There were tears forming in the corners of his eyes – the tears of grief that he probably thought no man should ever display.

Paniatowski urged Rutter to his feet. ‘We really do have to go,' she said. ‘We're running very late.'

‘Catch him, will you?' Medwin pleaded. ‘Catch the bastard who did that to our Pete.'

‘We'll catch him,' Paniatowski promised. ‘And don't bother about seeing us out. We can find our own way.'

The two detectives were already by the front door when Rutter stopped and turned around again.

‘Can I ask you one more question, Mr Medwin?' he said.

The miner sniffed. ‘Aye, you might as well.'

‘Your brother Peter was away for three years. Could you tell us roughly when that was?'

‘It were a bit less than three years, actually,' Medwin said, with a choke in his voice. ‘He left the village in the autumn of 1936, an' he come back in the late spring of '39.'

I
n his time, Woodend had watched hundreds of men enter dozens of interrogation rooms, and knew that Roberts would look around him just as all the others had done. But it was
the way
he looked around which was particularly telling. He didn't look into any of the corners of the room, as if he thought he might find some clue as to what was about to happen to him hidden there. He didn't search for some unguarded exit through which it just might be possible to make a dash for freedom. Instead, he looked
coolly
around, assessing the place as if he were considering buying it.

‘Why don't you sit down?' Woodend suggested.

‘Might as well, now I'm here,' Roberts said jauntily, lowering himself into the chair opposite the English inspector and the Spanish police Captain.

‘What is it?' Woodend asked.

‘What's what?'

‘What's the question you're just burstin' to ask?'

Roberts grinned like a naughty schoolboy who's been caught out cheating in a test.

‘Oh, I was just wondering what's happened to Ham-'n'-Eggs,' he said. ‘We all saw him come in, but nobody saw him come out again. Haven't thrown him in a deep dark dungeon, have you?'

‘Ham-'n'-Eggs?' Woodend repeated.

‘Yes. You know – what's-his-name – Mitchell.'

‘Why do you call him that?'

‘Ham-'n'-Eggs? It's a nickname, isn't it?'

‘But where does it come from?'

‘From the fact that he likes eating ham and eggs so much. You see, back in the old …'

‘Go on,' Woodend said.

‘Nothing.'

‘What you were about to say was that
back in the old days
, all he ever talked about was ham-'n'-eggs. Isn't that right?'

‘Didn't know him in the “old days”, whenever they were. Only met him the night before last.'

‘I've been responsible for lumberin' a few people with nicknames in my time,' Woodend said. ‘But I don't think I've ever done it after I've known them for less than two days.'

‘You would have done if you'd been with Mitchell, like I was. He spent half the night talking about ham-'n'-eggs. You can just imagine it, can't you?'

‘Can I?'

‘Of course you can. Now what was it exactly he said?' Roberts pursed his brow for a second, and then began talking out of the corner of his mouth. ‘“I don't like this Spanish muck.” Spanish muck! He hadn't even tried it. “Wish I had some ham-'n'-eggs.” “What I wouldn't give right now for a plate of ham-'n'-eggs.” He couldn't seem to stop going on about it.'

Roberts was making a pretty poor job of trying to cover up his gaffe, Woodend thought. His American accent was unconvincing and – more importantly – his tone of his voice carried no conviction with it. Besides, Mitchell didn't look as if he had the appetite for much food any more – especially anything as rich and fatty as ham and eggs.

‘You don't seem to be overly concerned about being here, Mr Roberts,' Woodend said.

‘Why should I? The police might pull you in if they don't like the look of your face – happens all the time – but if you haven't done anything wrong they never keep you for long.'

‘You sound like you're talking from personal experience, Mr Roberts,' Woodend said. ‘What is it, exactly, that you do for a living?'

‘Me? I'm what you might call a gentleman of leisure.'

‘Which means?'

‘That I pursue the sporting life.'

‘So you're a habitual gambler?'

‘I'm certainly not averse to placing the odd bet on the gee-gees or the dogs, if that's what you're implying.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘Here and there. Hither and thither.'

‘Tell me about a few of the “thithers”.'

Roberts grinned. ‘During the flat season, you'll as like as not find me in comfortable digs near one of the major race-courses. Goodwood! Ascot! Somewhere my name counts for something. Then again, once in a while I get sick of the old English weather, and when that happens I'll slip across to Monte Carlo for a spot of roulette.'