A Death Left Hanging (28 page)

‘Did any of the servants see her?'

Earnshaw gave a dry laugh. ‘We're not talking about the days before the First World War, Charlie. This was the thirties, and while you still could
get
servants, it was rare to find one willing to live in. By the time I got back here with Jane, all my servants had gone home.'

‘So you waited until the dinner-dance was over, then you took Jane to her aunt's. What did you tell Helen?'

‘I told her exactly what Margaret had instructed me to tell her. That whatever she heard about the events of that night, it was vital she never reveal the fact that she'd taken Jane to Hebden Brow – or that I'd brought her back.'

It wouldn't have taken any bobby worth his salt long to uncover the truth, Woodend thought. Even a simple check on alibis would have revealed that Helen couldn't have been taking care of Jane and also been at a dinner-dance. But Eric Sharpe had not bothered to follow even such rudimentary procedure. He had someone who he could make a case against – and that was good enough for him.

‘I felt so helpless,' Earnshaw said. ‘If Margaret had ever told me anything about what had happened between her and Fred Dodds before that fatal night – if she'd said that he'd beaten her up or something of that nature – then I'd have gone to the police. And I'd have testified at her trial, even if that had meant ruining both my marriage and my career. But she'd told me
nothing
– and I'd been so worried about holding on to the happiness she brought me that I'd never bothered to ask. So all I could do was let justice follow its natural course.'

But
had
justice taken its natural course? Woodend wondered.

Suppose Margaret really
had
killed Fred. Why should she have denied it? Why not tell the court the
reason
she'd committed the murder? And if she didn't want to do that – if she wished to keep Jane's name out of it – why not agree with the prosecution that she'd done it for the money? Yet despite the other options open to her, she'd steadfastly maintained throughout the investigation and trial that she was not guilty.

There had to be some logic behind the way this highly intelligent woman had acted, Woodend told himself. All he had to do was find it.

‘Is there anythin' else you can tell me about that night?' he asked Earnshaw. ‘Anythin' that Margaret said – or Jane did.'

‘Jane was very restless while she was lying on my sofa. She kept mumbling something like, “Bad man! Very bad man!” I expect that's what her mother had told her – that Fred Dodds was a very bad man.'

‘Anythin' else? Any little detail? It doesn't matter how insignificant it seems to you.'

‘I don't think so,' Earnshaw said. ‘No! Wait! There
is
something. I'd forgotten all about it until this very moment, and I still don't see how it could help you. But since you did say
anything
I could remember . . .'

‘Go on,' Woodend encouraged.

‘Margaret gave me something she'd brought with her from the lounge, and asked me to destroy it. It seemed a strange request to me, but everything about that night was strange, so I did as she'd asked.'

An image of the inventory which one of Sharpe's men had so painstakingly constructed flashed through Woodend's mind.

‘What
was
this thing that Margaret asked you to get rid of?' he asked. ‘Something valuable? Something personal?'

‘No, it was neither of those things. That was what made the request seem so strange. Why on earth did Margaret want me to destroy a common-or-garden knitting needle?'

A knitting needle! Woodend thought. A simple bloody knitting needle, which you could buy from any wool shop and couldn't have cost more than fourpence or fivepence at the most. Yet as simple as it was, it provided an answer to those aspects of the case that had been giving him the biggest headaches.

He knew now why Fred Dodds had died that night. He knew now how Margaret Dodds could first pulverize his head with a hammer – until nothing was left but powder and bone splinters – and then stand up in court and say that she had not killed her husband!

He had all the answers – and there was at least a part of him that wished that he hadn't!

W
oodend sat behind his desk. Gazing at the wall. Gazing at the
clock
on that wall. Listening to the ticking of the clock. Believing – though his mind told him it could not possibly be true – that the ticking was growing louder every time that the big hand jumped.

He would have to go back as far as the war in order to remember a time in which he felt so unsure of himself, he thought. No, even that wasn't true. In the war, he'd not liked what he'd had to do, but he'd known that it was right that he do it. To come anywhere close to his present state of uncertainty, he would probably have to travel as far back in time as Miss Scoggins' Standard One class.

‘It's five past four,' Monika Paniatowski said impatiently. ‘The board of inquiry is due to meet in less than two hours.'

‘I know,' Woodend said, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from adding ‘Miss' to the end of his sentence.

‘But it doesn't
have
to meet at all, does it?' Bob Rutter asked, his voice more angry than impatient. ‘You could stop it, if you wanted to.'

Why had this reversion to childhood happened? Woodend wondered. By what psychological mechanism had he ceased to be the head of the family and instead become the recalcitrant child to Rutter and Paniatowski's firm parents? Had he lost his power because he was merely being stubborn? Or was it because the other two had grown so jaded and cynical that they could no longer understand the innocent simplicity of his argument?

‘You
have
to ring Lord Sharpe, sir,' Bob Rutter said.

‘An' what do I do when I've got him on the phone?' Woodend demanded, aware that, to the others, he might well be sounding petulant. ‘Do you want me to lie to him?'

‘No!' Paniatowski said. ‘Not lie to him. There's no need for you to go that far.'

Who would ever have imagined that Rutter and Paniatowski could have found it in themselves to put aside their differences and form a united front? Woodend thought. And did the fact that they'd been able to achieve the almost impossible automatically make them right?

‘So there isn't any need to go that far, isn't there, Monika?' he said. ‘Then would you mind tellin' me just
how
far you do want me to go?'

‘Tell him the truth – but not all of it,' Paniatowski said.

Woodend ran his hand across his forehead, and was not surprised to discover that it was damp.

‘I've been a bobby for a long time,' he said. ‘Durin' the course of my career, I've been offered all kinds of bribes. Money, cellars full of booze, holidays, holiday
homes
, every variety of sex you could imagine – an' some you probably couldn't. An' do you know what? I've turned them all down without a second's hesitation.'

‘This is different,' Rutter argued.

‘I've met plenty of bobbies who thought what
they
were doin' was different,' Woodend countered. ‘It was different because the only reason they took a bribe was to get their children's teeth fixed. It was different when they accepted a free night with a high-class prostitute, because if they didn't sleep with the girl, then somebody else would.'

‘We're not asking you to take any money or––' Rutter began.

‘It's
always
different,' Woodend interrupted. ‘Each an' every time you can find a reason which makes it different. An' that's why you have to steer clear of it – because it always leads down the slippery path to hell.'

‘If you don't make the call, then what happens to us?' Rutter asked. ‘Who'll protect us when you're gone? Or are you going to try and pretend that we won't need any protection?'

Woodend shook his head. No, he couldn't pretend that.

Maybe they did have a right to demand that he compromise himself, he thought. They had followed him willingly into shark-filled waters often enough. Could he now leave them to the mercy of those sharks while he was airlifted out into the rescuing arms of retirement or another meaningless committee?

He would do it! He would make the phone call for
them
. Yet he still wished that one of them could say something that would make him despise himself a little less – that would tip the balance just far enough for him to believe that he still had a little integrity left. But there was nothing either of them
could
say, was there?

And then Monika Paniatowski said it.

‘Don't do it for yourself,' she told him. ‘Don't even do it for us. Do it for Jane Hartley.'

U
ntil around an hour earlier, there had been at least a dozen other drinkers in the hotel bar. Though Jane Hartley had made no attempt to talk to any of them, they had provided a pleasant background noise to accompany her drinking. They had been – somehow – reassuring. Then the barman had rung the bell to announce that the bar was now closed except to residents of the hotel, and the other drinkers had all drifted away. Suddenly, she was surrounded by emptiness. But she did not really mind that, she told herself. She was perfectly capable of drinking alone.

Jane placed her glass as far along the bar as her arm could stretch, then focussed her eyes on it. The rim of the glass did not undulate. The surface of the double whisky inside it appeared not to have been struck by any sudden, unexpected tempest.

Good, she was still relatively sober. She did not need to wrestle with the question of whether or not she should walk away from the bar – a battle she already knew the sensible side of her would lose – until she'd at least drained this dose of anaesthetic.

‘I'm sorry, sir,' the barman said, looking at someone behind her. ‘We're closed.'

‘That's all right,' answered the man. ‘I don't want a drink. I'm here to talk to the lady.'

Jane Hartley turned cautiously on her bar stool, and found herself looking at a rather attractive younger man in a smart suit. She was almost sure that she'd seen him before, though the alcohol was making it slightly difficult for her to recall quite when.

‘DI Rutter,' the man said.

‘I know,' Jane replied, remembering now. ‘You're Mr Woodend's little friend.'

If he registered the insult, he certainly didn't let it show. ‘Mr Woodend was wondering if you could spare the time to come to police headquarters,' he said.

‘What's it about?' she asked, being careful not to slur her words.

‘I imagine it's about the matter you wished him to investigate.'

‘I see. And has he come up with any startling new relav–– . . . revelations?'

‘I'm afraid I couldn't say.'

He was a liar, she thought. But then all men were liars.

Liars
and
cheats!

Insects!

Scum!

Vermin who must be continually slapped down – because if they were not kept in their place there was no telling what they might do.

‘You didn't say
when
your chief inspector would like me to come down to your headquarters,' Jane Hartley said.

‘I mustn't have made myself clear,' Rutter said pleasantly. ‘He'd like you to come now.'

‘Now?'

‘Now. With me.'

‘I'll just go upstairs to my room and change,' Jane Hartley said.

‘That won't be necessary, madam,' Rutter assured her. ‘You're fine as you are.'

‘It won't take a minute,' Jane Hartley insisted. ‘You can wait here.'

She made her way to the foyer, concentrating her efforts on walking in a straight line. Woodend wanted to see her. That was good, because it must mean that he had uncovered some new evidence. For years she had been hoping for this moment.
Praying
for it. And now it had finally arrived. She would get changed and return to the bar, just as she'd promised she would – but what she really wanted to do was run away!

Woodend had told the switchboard operator at the Houses of Parliament who he was. She had promised to ring the appropriate extension. Now it was up to Lord Sharpe to decide whether or not the conversation took place.

‘Woodend? Is that you?' asked a growling voice from the other end of the line.

‘It's me,' the Chief Inspector confirmed.

‘Why are you calling me? To make threats?'

‘From what I can remember of our one an' only meetin', it's you, not me, that's a dab hand at makin' threats,' Woodend said.

‘You've got a bloody nerve!' Sharpe exploded.

‘Maybe I have,' Woodend agreed. ‘But I've also got somethin' very interestin' to say. If you want to hear it, you're goin' to have to climb down off your high horse and listen without interruptin'. If you don't want to hear it, you can hang up now. Which is it to be?'

A pause.

‘Is it good news or bad news?' Sharpe asked suspiciously.

‘Who for?'

‘For
me
, of course.'

‘Of course for you,' Woodend said. ‘I really can't think why I even bothered to ask. Because as far as you're concerned, it's not really news at all unless it affects you.'