A Death Left Hanging (20 page)

‘You have to have a grudging admiration for the cunning way Sharpe handled it,' Rutter said. ‘He never had to defend his theory that Marcus Dodds' murder was irrelevant to this case, because he never even admitted it
was
a theory. The way he talked, it was if he were stating no more than the plain, unvarnished truth. And he obviously swung the jury round to his viewpoint.'

‘Maybe Marcus Dodds' murder
was
an irrelevance, just as Sharpe claimed,' Woodend said. ‘Even if we rule out Margaret Dodds as the murderer, it's possible that the real killer
did
copy the method used by Marcus Dodds' murderer.'

‘Why should he have done that?' Paniatowski asked.

‘For the reason Sharpe gave – to confuse the issue. An' while I have nothin' but contempt for the way Sharpe did his job, it
is
still possible that he only played down the first murder because he really did believe Margaret Dodds was guilty of the second.'

‘There's a “but” isn't there?' Rutter said.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘When you've got that look on your face, there's always a “but”.'

Woodend grinned, but Paniatowski did not. Instead, she let her hand hover over Rutter's head, as if she were about to pat him for being such a clever boy. Rutter, who was looking at Woodend, did not notice the gesture. Woodend, who could see both his sergeant and inspector, did notice, but decided – for the moment at least – to ignore it.

‘I'll tell you what the “but” is,' the Chief Inspector said. ‘There was a dark shadow hangin' over Fred Dodds long before he was killed. His father was murdered. His best friend – his only friend, by all accounts – committed suicide. His partner sold up – for no apparent reason – an' put thousands of miles between himself an' Whitebridge. Any
one
of those things could have happened to one of us. But all three of them together? I don't really think so!'

‘Then there's the fact that his wife's first husband died as a result of an accident,' Rutter pointed out.

Paniatowski sighed loudly.

‘Is something the matter, Sergeant?' Rutter asked.

‘If it's left up to you, we'll be like a dog forever chasing round after its own tail,' Paniatowski said. ‘I see no reason at all why we even need to consider Robert Hartley's death.'

‘Don't you?' Rutter asked. ‘Then perhaps I'd better explain it to you. We know that Margaret was having an affair with Fred Dodds before her first husband died and––'

‘We know there are people who
think
they were having an affair,' Paniatowski interrupted. ‘But if there were any actual proof, Sharpe would have produced it at the trial.'

‘I thought you said he didn't like distractions,' Rutter responded cuttingly. ‘I thought your theory was that he'd pare away everything except for the evidence which supported his own simplistic view of the case.'

‘But that
would
have helped his simplistic view of the case,' Paniatowski countered, raising her voice to such a level that customers at other tables turned round to look at her. ‘He'd probably have argued – and you'd probably have agreed with him all the way – that a woman who was capable of adultery was equally capable of the brutal and bloody murder of her husband.'

‘I never said anything like that!' Rutter retorted. He was furious, but still enough in control of himself to keep
his
voice down. ‘I never even went so far as to suggest––'

‘Enough!' Woodend ordered. ‘There's plenty of people already tryin' to shaft us, without us makin' things any worse by fightin' amongst ourselves.'

‘Sorry, sir,' Paniatowski muttered sheepishly.

‘I don't think I'm the one you should be apologizin' to, Monika,' Woodend told her.

Paniatowski glared defiantly at Woodend for a second, then slowly turned towards Rutter.

‘Sorry, Inspector,' she said, dragging the words up from somewhere deep inside her, then forcing them out of her mouth.

‘It's all right,' Rutter replied. ‘I was probably as much to blame as you were.'

She didn't like him saying that, Woodend thought. She didn't like it at all. She'd have been so much happier if Rutter had thrown her apology back in her face, because the last thing she wanted was peace and harmony. He wondered what the hell was
happening
to his sergeant.

‘Let's get back to Robert Hartley's death, shall we?' he said. ‘You're right, Bob, when you say we should consider it – because we can't afford to overlook any possibilities. An'
you're
right, Monika, when you say that such considerations don't seem to be leadin' us anywhere.'

Who would ever have seen me as a diplomat? Woodend asked himself silently. An' what a diplomat! People had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for less than this.

‘Maybe Margaret was havin' an affair with Dodds before her first husband died,' he continued. ‘An' maybe it was convenient for Dodds that Hartley had his accident. But it
was
an accident. There were too many witnesses for it to have been anythin' else. Can we all agree on that?'

Paniatowski smiled triumphantly, and nodded.

Rutter said, ‘Yes, I suppose so.'

‘So we're left with the other things – Marcus Dodds' murder, Sidney Hill's suicide an' Cuthburtson's sudden departure for Canada. It seems to me there's a thread runnin' through them.'

‘A thread?' Rutter said. ‘What kind of thread?'

‘Ah, now there you've got me,' Woodend conceded. ‘I don't know. But I can sense that it's there! An' that once we've found one end of it, we should be able to untangle the whole bloody mess.'

‘Where do you want us to start looking for the ends of this thread?' Rutter asked.

‘I want
you
to start with the Marcus Dodds case,' Woodend told him. ‘Did Fred kill him, an' if he did,
why
did he kill him? Were there any other serious suspects? Is it even remotely possible that whoever killed Marcus also killed his son? Got that?'

‘Got it,' Rutter agreed.

‘An' I want you to look into Sidney Hill's suicide, Monika,' Woodend continued. ‘Did he an' Fred really have a secret shared interest, as the people they went to school with seem to think? An' does that interest – if it exists – have anythin' to do with Sidney throwin' himself in front of a train?'

‘And what if we can't pick up the thread? Or we do pick it up and it leads nowhere?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Well, if that
is
the case, then I'd have to say that, in my professional opinion, we're well an' truly buggered,' Woodend told her.

T
he layer of black dust covered both the floor of the yard and the storage sheds that ran around its perimeter. It clung to the windows of the office, and the chassis of the lorries. It insinuated itself into the creases on the coalmen's faces. And though he had only been in the yard for a couple of minutes, Rutter could already feel the dust beginning to tickle the back of his throat.

The office door opened, and a middle-aged man emerged. Perhaps to distinguish himself from his workers, he wore a dark-blue suit rather than an overall, but it was a suit that must already have been looking back nostalgically to a time when it could have been described as having seen ‘better days'.

‘Inspector Rutter?' the man in the blue suit asked. ‘I'm Horace Saddleworth, the owner.'

Saddleworth held out his hand for the inspector to shake. It had been well scrubbed, but even so, the traces of coal dust were still evident.

Rutter remembered that Mr Bithwaite had commented on the fact that when they were both working in the Peninsula Trading Company, Fred Dodds had constantly been examining his own hands.

‘When did you buy this coal yard?' the inspector asked.

‘Coal yard?' Saddleworth repeated with mock horror. ‘This isn't a
coal yard
.'

‘What is it, then?'

Saddleworth grinned. ‘It's a solid fuel distribution centre.'

Rutter returned his grin. ‘Sorry! When did you buy this solid fuel distribution centre?'

‘Back in 1955. It looked like a real good prospect then. How was I to know that central heating and poncy coal-glow electric fires would ever catch on? Did it ever cross my mind that the government would go all namby-pamby on me and start passing clean air acts? It did not!'

‘So you never knew the Dodds family?'

‘No, they were well before my time.'

‘Is there anybody still working here who might have?'

‘I couldn't say with any degree of certainty, but you might try talking to old Clem there,' Saddleworth said, indicated an elderly man who was slowly filling a coal sack from a huge mound of loose slack. ‘I know for a fact that he's been in the business since Moses was a coalman.'

‘Thanks,' Rutter said.

‘My pleasure. And if you ever decide you've had enough of the clean-living bobbies' work, and want to buy yourself a real man's business, I'd be willing to let this place go at a very good price.'

Rutter grinned again. ‘When I start to see my future as a solid fuel distribution merchant, you'll be the first one I'll come to,' he promised.

Clem Hodnut was only too happy to stop shovelling slack and accepted one of the cork-tipped cigarettes which Rutter offered him.

‘So you were here in Mr Dodds' time?' the inspector said.

‘Both Mr Dodds. The father an' the son.'

‘What was Mr Marcus Dodds like to work for?'

‘He was a right bad bugger. He treated his horses terrible, an' his men even worse. I'd have left, but I was livin' at home at that time, an' my dad wouldn't let me.'

‘So Marcus had a few enemies?'

‘No,' Clem Hodnut said. ‘He had a few – a
very
few – friends. An' even they didn't
actually
like him.'

‘How did you get on with his son?'

‘I didn't really do what you might call “get on with him”. Nobody in the yard did. He was neither fish nor fowl, you see.'

‘I'm not sure I do.'

‘His father treated him like he treated all the other men. But he
wasn't
like us, was he? He was educated. If things had turned out as they planned, he would have gone to university.'

‘So what stopped him?'

‘Goin' to university had been his mother's idea, an' she died durin' the great influenza epidemic of 1918. She was no sooner buried than Mr Marcus yanked Fred out of school an' put him to work on the wagons.'

‘How did Fred feel about that?'

‘I couldn't say for certain, but if I'd been in his place, I wouldn't have been too thrilled.'

‘Can you remember anything about the day of the murder?' Rutter asked hopefully.

‘Of course I can. It's not every day your gaffer gets himself killed, now is it? It kind of impresses things on your mind, does somethin' like that.'

‘What do you remember specifically?'

‘Come again?'

‘What sticks in your mind most?'

‘The bobbies swarmin' all over the place.'

‘Anything before that?'

Clem Hodnut scratched his balding head. ‘Are you talkin' about the row the night before?' he asked.

‘What row?'

‘The one that Fred had with Mr Marcus.'

‘I wasn't,' Rutter admitted. ‘But I'd like to hear about it anyway.'

‘It was nearly knocking off time, an' I was in the yard loading up one of the wagons for the next mornin's delivery. Fred come rushin' out of the office with Mr Marcus right on his heels. It was obvious that they'd been arguin' an' Fred just wanted to put it behind him, if you know what I mean.'

‘Yes, I know what you mean,' Rutter assured him.

‘Anyroad, Mr Marcus grabbed Fred's shoulder and twisted him around so they was facin' each other. Mr Marcus said somethin' like, “You've been a bloody fool. You could go to jail, you know.”'

‘Go to jail? What for?'

‘I've been puzzlin' about that for over forty years, an' I still haven't got no answer,' Clem Hodnut said.

‘What happened next?'

‘Fred said somethin' like, “You're the one who should be in jail.” Then his dad said, “That's as maybe, but I won't be goin' – because I've been clever about it.” Well, Fred looked as if he was about to be sick all over the yard. “Clever!” he said, an' he was so upset that he was pretty much gaspin' his words out by this point. “Do you call what you've done
clever
?” The old man nodded, like he was really pleased with himself. “If you want to go doin' that sort of thing, why don't you get married?” he said.'

‘I suppose you don't know what he meant by “that sort of thing”, either.'

‘I haven't got a clue. But I could see that them words had driven Fred into a rage. “Get married!” he said. “Like you! Bein' married to you was what killed my mother!” I could tell Mr Marcus didn't like that. “Your mother died of the flu,” he said. “She
caught
the flu, but she
died
of a broken heart,” Fred says. An' the next second he's rollin' around on the ground, clutchin' his belly – because Mr Marcus could pack a mean punch when he wanted to. Anyroad, Mr Marcus leaves Fred lyin' there an' goes back into the office. An' the next time I saw him was the followin' mornin' when I found him lyin' on the office floor, with his head stove in.'

‘Did you tell the police back then what you're telling me now?'

‘Well, of course I did. I told it all to the first constable who turned up. That's why he arrested Fred the moment he turned up at the yard.'