Backlash (19 page)

The blue Vauxhall Victor screeched to a halt in front of the morgue just as Paniatowski and Shastri were standing on the steps, saying their farewells.

If he goes on driving like that, he'll end up wrecking another bloody car, Paniatowski thought.

She turned to Shastri. ‘This isn't good,' she said, as she watched Chief Superintendent Kershaw climbing out of the car and sprinting towards them. ‘This isn't good at all.'

‘I think I could have worked that out for myself,' Shastri replied.

For a moment, it looked as if Kershaw would completely ignore the two women and storm straight into the morgue, then he seemed to have second thoughts and came to a halt directly in front of Shastri.

‘They told me at headquarters that a woman's body has been discovered,' he said to the doctor.

‘That's true,' Shastri agreed.

‘I want to see her,' Kershaw said.

‘It isn't Elaine,' Paniatowski told him.

‘How would
you
know whether it's Elaine or not?' Kershaw demanded angrily. ‘You've never even met her – I made sure of that!'

‘It's a much younger woman,' Paniatowski said.

The anger drained from Kershaw's face, and was replaced by a strange mixture of hope and fear.

‘I need to see her,' he said. ‘I need to be sure.'

‘She's already been identified,' Paniatowski said. ‘She was a prostitute called Grace Meade.'

‘I'd like you to give me your permission to look at her, Dr Shastri,' Kershaw said, ignoring Paniatowski now, ‘but if you won't give it, I'm going to see her anyway – and to hell with the consequences.'

‘You may see her,' Shastri said, ‘but as DCI Paniatowski has already informed you, it is not your wife.'

Shastri peeled back the sheet to reveal the dead girl's head.

‘It isn't her,' Kershaw gasped. ‘Thank God – it isn't her!'

‘Perhaps you would like to leave now,' Shastri suggested.

But Kershaw didn't move. Instead, he just stood there, deep in thought.

‘Mr Kershaw . . .' Shastri said tentatively.

‘What are you doing here, DCI Paniatowski?' Kershaw demanded. ‘You're supposed to be looking for Elaine.'

‘We
are
looking for Elaine,' Paniatowski promised him. ‘We're doing everything we can.'

But even as she was speaking, she could almost hear the wheels turning in the chief superintendent's head.

‘How did this girl die?' he asked.

‘She was murdered,' Shastri said.

‘You think her death has something to do with Elaine's disappearance, don't you, Monika?' Kershaw said.

She was almost
certain
that it had, Paniatowski thought.

‘I can't reveal the details of an investigation to anyone not directly involved in it, Tom,' she told Kershaw. ‘You should know that better than anyone.'

‘Was it a surprise to you when this girl's body happened to turn up?'

‘I can't discuss it.'

‘It wasn't, was it? Or, at least, not much of one – because you'd been
half-expecting
it to happen.'

Paniatowski said nothing – because there was nothing she could say.

‘How long have you been looking for this girl?' Kershaw asked.

‘Why don't you make an appointment to see the chief constable?' Paniatowski suggested. ‘He can probably tell you more than I'm allowed to.'

‘
When
did you start looking for her?' Kershaw asked, his rage growing by the second. ‘Was it
before
Elaine disappeared? Or was it
after
?'

‘This is pointless,' Paniatowski said.

‘It was
after
, wasn't it?'

He took two steps closer, and towered over her. His fists were clenched into tight balls, and a vein on his forehead was throbbing madly.

He's going to take a swing at me, Paniatowski thought, preparing herself to meet the attack.

‘
Wasn't
it?' Kershaw screamed.

Paniatowski sighed.

‘Yes, it was after Elaine disappeared,' she admitted, because there was no point in denying it when he'd so obviously worked everything out for himself.

The admission seemed to relax the chief superintendent a little, and his hands unclenched.

‘It was your job to find my wonderful, beautiful wife – and that was your
only
job,' he said, and now there was a coldness to his voice which would have frozen blood. ‘I want her back. That's all that matters to me. And if a dozen worthless whores – or a hundred, for that matter – die in the process, I won't lose a minute's sleep over it.'

‘You're a good policeman, Tom, – a caring policeman – so I know you don't really mean that,' Paniatowski said.

‘But I do,' Kershaw replied. ‘And I'll tell you something else,
Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski
. If I don't get my Elaine safely back home – and if I find out the reason for that is you've been wasting your time protecting prostitutes – then I'll . . . then I'll . . .'

‘Then you'll what?' Paniatowski asked, her own temper finally snapping. ‘Go on! Say it! Let's get it out into the open.'

‘If I find it's your fault, then I'll kill you,' Kershaw said.

FIFTEEN

‘
I
feel like I'm letting you down,' Kate Meadows said, as she watched Bill Lee place one file on the desk and immediately reach for another one from the stack.

‘Letting me down?' Lee replied. ‘In what way?'

‘We're supposed to be working together on these reports,' Meadows said, ‘but I've been missing for most of the morning, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave again soon.'

‘I see what you mean,' Lee said seriously. ‘Here I am, working my arse off reading all these files, and what are
you
doing?' He grinned. ‘You're nipping out every five minutes to attend cocktail parties or have dress fittings!'

Meadows laughed. ‘If only I was,' she said.

‘You're DCI Paniatowski's bagman,' Lee reminded her. ‘Your most important function is to be there when your boss needs you.'

‘You're a good friend,' Meadows said gratefully. She shook her head in irritation at herself. ‘I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It was very presumptuous of me, considering we hardly know each other.'

‘If you're looking for a friend, you've got one,' Lee said. ‘And you shouldn't feel guilty about not being here to help me, because there's no point in both of us wasting our time.'

‘I didn't know you thought it was a waste of time.'

‘I
didn't
when I started – I wouldn't have given up my holiday in Spain if I'd thought it would be a waste of time – but the more I consider the matter, the more it seems to me to be exactly that. You see, Kate, most of the men in these files are career criminals.'

‘Yes, I know that, but what—'

‘And a career criminal is a professional, just as much as we are. He knows the rules. His job is to break the law, and our job is to catch him. And if we do catch him, he accepts it. He doesn't think about taking revenge on the feller who caught him, because he knows it's not personal. But if the reason Elaine was kidnapped was to get at my boss – and it is still an “if” – then it
is
personal.'

‘Then why haven't you given up already?' Meadows wondered.

‘I daren't.'

‘Daren't?'

‘That's right. There's just a very small chance that one of these fellers
did
take it personally, you see. And if his name
is
in these files, and I don't find it because I couldn't be bothered to go on looking, I don't think I'd ever be able to forgive myself.'

Meadows was silent for perhaps a minute, then she said, ‘I'd like to ask your advice, if you don't mind, Bill.'

‘Go on,' Lee encouraged.

‘I've got a secret, and I've been wondering whether or not to tell my boss about it.'

‘What kind of secret?'

‘I'd rather not go into details.'

‘Then you're making it very difficult for me to give you advice,' Lee pointed out.

Meadows waved her hands helplessly in the air. ‘Let's just say it's a secret about something I do.'

Lee nodded. ‘Something you do,' he repeated.

‘It doesn't hurt anybody else, and as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with it and so I've nothing to be ashamed of. But my boss may not take the same view, and if I tell her, she might start looking at me differently. She might not even like the idea of me working as her bagman any more – and I want that job, Bill, I really do.'

Lee sat deep in thought for a while. ‘Say you were a compulsive gambler,' he said, finally.

‘That's not it. That isn't it at all.'

‘I'm just giving an example.'

‘All right.'

‘You're a gambler. You know it's stupid, because you never have any money to spend –
and
because you know your boss would disapprove – but you just can't stop. But when you're at work, you put all that behind you. You don't slip off to place bets when you should be questioning witnesses. You don't fiddle money from the petty cash to cover your debts. You see what I'm saying – as long as whatever your weakness is—'

‘I never said it was a weakness,' Meadows interrupted fiercely.

‘All right, then, what shall we call it?' Lee asked. ‘Your foible?'

‘Foible is fine.'

‘As long as your
foible
doesn't affect the way you do the job, it's nobody's business but your own.'

‘And it
hasn't
affected the way I do the job,' Meadows said.

‘Well, there you are then.'

‘But I think it may be affecting this particular case.'

‘This particular case? You're talking about Mrs Kershaw's disappearance, are you?'

‘No, not at all. I'm talking about Grace Meade's murder. I think I know something that Monika Paniatowski doesn't, but I can't tell her
what
I know without telling her
how
I know it. And I don't want to do that.'

‘If it's a vital piece of information that you're holding, then I think you really have to—' Lee began.

‘It's not as clear-cut as that,' Meadows interrupted again. ‘It's more of a vague feeling – a hunch based on my own experience. But it could be wide of the mark – and I might be wrecking my career for nothing.'

‘Hold off for a while, then,' Lee said. ‘But if the feeling gets any stronger, you simply have to tell your boss.'

‘I know I do,' Meadows said miserably.

When people asked Roger Hardcastle what it was like to run the local news programmes on Northern TV, he would inevitably say it was a grand life, and the odd thing was that though he would almost invariably twist his lips into a sneer around the word ‘grand', he really
did
enjoy it.

What he
didn't
like – as a veteran producer who had been with Northern TV since its early days – was having to work with some of the idiots that the company's management were always foisting on him.

The anchorman, Gary Pound – who he was watching through the control room window at that very moment – was a prime example of what he was talking about.

‘Gary! What kind of a name is that for an Englishman?' Hardcastle muttered grumpily to himself.

And
Pound
wasn't much better!

Why couldn't he have had a decent, honest surname like Hebden or Ramsbottom?

Pound began looking down into the small mirror he always carried with him, and, with a snort of disgust, Hardcastle swung round in his chair so that he was facing Ted, his assistant, who was a bit gormless, but at least had the
makings
of a newsman.

‘Just look at yon Gary – preening himself,' he said. ‘He's a bloody man, not a budgerigar, though, come to think of it, a budgie would probably make a better job of reading the news.'

‘Do you want one of your pills, Mr Hardcastle?' Ted asked helpfully.

‘No, I don't want one of my bloody pills,' Hardcastle replied. ‘Do you know what the managing director told me when he first hired Pound?'

‘No, I don't,' Ted replied dutifully.

‘He said that Gary had the kind of contemporary face that our viewers would love, which, as far as I'm concerned, just means that he's got poncy hair that drives the make-up girl to distraction, and teeth that look like they've been coated with fluorescent white paint!'

‘I really do think a pill might help,' Ted said tentatively.

‘Bugger that!' Hardcastle replied. He swung his chair round again, so he was over the microphone. ‘We're on the air in one minute, Gary,' he told the anchorman. ‘As you can see from your running order, we've got the murder as the lead story, so you do the introduction, and then—'

‘There's not much meat on the story, is there?' Pound interrupted.

‘No, there isn't,' Hardcastle agreed. ‘You'll just have to make up for the lack of detail by looking
contemporary
.'

Pound slipped the mirror back into its case, and the case back into his jacket pocket.

‘Why can't we use all that detail that the police have given us?' he asked.

Hardcastle sighed. ‘Because, in case you've forgotten, most of the briefing was off the record.'