Backlash (33 page)

‘We're getting ahead of ourselves,' Beresford said. ‘He decided to kill her – for reasons we don't know, and may never know – but he was well aware, as a policeman, that the husband is automatically a suspect. So he had to do something to distract attention away from him – and what better way than to create the impression that it was the work of some psychopath. But for that to fly, there had to be a minimum of two deaths – and that was why he had to kill Grace.'

‘But why did he fake his own wife's kidnapping?' Meadows asked. ‘Wasn't that an unnecessary risk? Wouldn't it just have been easier to pretend to Elaine that everything was normal, and keep her at home until the time came to kill her?'

‘Unless she
already
suspected that he wanted to get rid of her,' Crane said. ‘If she did, then he had to lock her away somewhere safe before he killed Grace – because, given her suspicions, Grace's death would have really put the wind up her.'

‘Especially if she found out that Grace was wearing a pair of her shoes,' Paniatowski said. ‘And Grace
had to
be wearing those shoes, in order to tie the two murders together.'

‘Where did he take Elaine, once he'd faked the kidnapping?' Meadows wondered.

‘Could have been anywhere,' Beresford said. ‘A lock-up garage. An abandoned house on the moors. He'd have had hundreds of choices. And it doesn't really matter, anyway, because now she's no longer there, we have no proof that she ever was.' He lit up a cigarette. ‘When you think about it, we don't have proof of
anything
– at least, anything that will stand up in court.'

‘Maybe you'll find some kind of evidence in his punishment room,' Meadows suggested.

‘In his
what
?' Paniatowski asked.

‘His punishment room. His torture chamber. His pleasure palace. Whatever it was he decided to call it.'

‘Will he have one?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Oh yes.'

‘And do you have any idea where it might be?'

‘It'll be in his house.'

‘But we searched the house from top to bottom when Elaine supposedly went missing,' Beresford pointed out. ‘There was no sign of anything like that.'

‘It'll be there,' Meadows said confidently.

There were lights on in every room of George Baxter's house, and as she walked up the path to the front door, Paniatowski could hear the sounds of a party going on inside.

She could have married George, she thought, and if she had, this house and this party would have been hers. And even though she hadn't wanted to marry him – and knew she wouldn't have been happy if she had – she couldn't help feeling a little jealous, and a little resentful, of the woman who had taken her place in his life.

She rang the door bell, and it was Baxter himself who answered.

‘Oh, for God's sake, Monika, can't you see I'm entertaining?' he said exasperatedly.

‘Sorry, sir, I'll arrange my next murder investigation at a time which is more convenient for you,' Paniatowski said.

Baxter bowed his head slightly. ‘I suppose I asked for that,' he admitted. He looked back over his shoulder into the hallway. ‘I wanted to call the damn party off when they found Elaine's body, you know, but my wife pointed out – quite rightly – that none of the guests have any connections with either the police or the Kershaws, so it wouldn't have been fair to them.'

‘Can I come in?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Yes,' Baxter said. ‘I mean, no,' he quickly amended. ‘It would just annoy Jo. She thinks I spend far too much of my time on police business as it is.'

Besides which, she doesn't like me, Paniatowski thought. And I certainly can't blame her for that.

Baxter stepped back into the hallway, and picked up a set of keys from the hall table.

‘We'll go out to the garage,' he said. ‘That way, we won't disturb anybody else.'

He led her around the front of the house, and glancing through the window, Paniatowski saw that the party was in full swing.

Well, jolly good – and jolly nice! she thought sarcastically.

It was a big garage, and Baxter's and his wife's cars only occupied the front half of it. The rest of the space had become a combination workshop and storeroom. There was a carpenter's bench in one corner – saws and chisels hanging neatly above – and a large chest freezer in the other. Between the two were shelves, some containing canned vegetables, and others pots of paint and brushes. Three of the shelves in the centre were devoted exclusively to Baxter's fishing gear.

‘It's a bit nippy at the moment, but once the heating kicks in, it'll soon warm up,' the chief constable said, clicking a switch on the wall. ‘Now what can I do for you, DCI Paniatowski?'

‘I'd like your permission to apply for a search warrant for Chief Superintendent Kershaw's house, sir,' Paniatowski said.

Baxter looked as if he'd just been hit with a shovel.

‘Dear God, is there no end to your vindictiveness?' he asked. ‘And hasn't Tom Kershaw already suffered enough?'

‘Nowhere near as much as Grace Meade,' Paniatowski countered.

She told him about the shoes, and the corset, and how Kershaw had denied any knowledge of either.

‘So why did he want to kill Elaine?' Baxter asked, with a chilling calm.

She would have preferred anger, she thought. Anger would have been easier to deal with. But this calm – as sharp as a surgeon's knife – was something else. With this calm, he would shred all her arguments and leave them in pieces at her feet.

‘Well?' Baxter repeated. ‘Why did he want to kill Elaine?'

‘We don't know,' she admitted. ‘We can only speculate.'

‘So speculate.'

‘He didn't want anyone to know about his fetish. It would have destroyed the image that everyone has of him. And that image – his reputation – is very important to him. That's why he was never at the house when the salesman called. That's why he shredded the skin on her back when she was dead – because he wanted to remove all traces of the minor scars she'd acquired from her beatings over the years.'

‘I still haven't heard a motive,' Baxter said.

‘Perhaps Elaine was tired of keeping it a secret. Perhaps she was ashamed and wanted to confess. Or perhaps she felt no shame at all, and wanted everyone to know
that
.'

‘Interesting,' Baxter said, in a tone that really meant ‘fanciful'. ‘Let's move on to the fact that he kidnapped his own wife.'

‘All right,' she agreed, knowing this was the weakest point of her whole argument.

‘You don't know where he kept her, do you?'

‘No, we don't.'

‘But wherever she was, she must have been alone for much of time, because Tom Kershaw was very much in evidence around police headquarters.'

‘That's true.'

‘So, given that some considerable time elapsed between the kidnapping and her death, will you admit that there was at least a slight possibility of someone else finding her?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘And what would have done more damage to Tom's reputation – to be known as someone who likes to give his wife a gentle whipping, or to be known as a man who kidnapped his wife with the intention of killing her?'

‘It was a risk, but he's always been a risk taker,' Paniatowski said stubbornly.

‘You see, if Elaine had died before the prostitute—'

‘Grace!' Paniatowski said fiercely. ‘Her name was Grace.'

‘All right,' Baxter agreed. ‘If Elaine had died before Grace, you might have been able to argue the case that Tom killed the second woman in order to make it look as if he had no connection with the death of the first. But as it is, you're claiming that first he kidnapped Elaine, then abducted and killed Grace,
then
killed Elaine and . . .'

‘I've explained why he had to kidnap her when he did,' Paniatowski protested.

‘No, you haven't,' Baxter contradicted her. ‘You've raised some improbable theories and put forward some unsubstantiated speculations. And that's all. I admit that what you've told me about the shoes and the corset raises questions – but that's all it does. You simply don't have a case.'

‘So you won't allow me to search Kershaw's house again?'

‘I most certainly will not.'

Did her case make sense, or was it really no more than fancy? Paniatowski asked herself.

Was Baxter acting in the measured, statesmanlike way a chief constable should, or was he merely out to protect his friend?

She no longer knew what was reasonable and what was not.

But she
did know
that, as tired and frustrated as she was, she felt an overwhelming urge to lash out at something – and since Baxter was there, he would do just fine.

‘Well, you have to give Tom Kershaw one thing,' she said. ‘He may be a murderer, but at least he has spirit enough to organize his life for his own comfort and convenience.'

‘What do you mean by that?' Baxter asked – taking the bait, just as she'd hoped he would.

‘You could have a snooker table and a dartboard in here, just like Tom's got in his basement,' she said. ‘But you're so henpecked that all you've got is cans of vegetables and your wife's deep freeze!'

‘It's
my
deep freeze,' Baxter said, stung.

‘What?'

‘I said it's my deep freeze. It's where I keep what I catch on my fishing trips with Tom.'

‘
If Elaine had died before Grace, you might have been able to argue the case that Tom killed the second woman to make it look as if he had no connection with the death of the first
,' Baxter had said.

‘I know how he did it!' Paniatowski shouted. ‘I know how he bloody did it!'

TWENTY-FOUR

C
hief Superintendent Kershaw met them at his front door.

‘You've got a nerve coming here!' he said angrily.

‘No, sir, we've got a search warrant,' Paniatowski said, holding the document up for him to see.

‘Does the chief constable know about this?' Kershaw demanded.

‘The chief constable? Your fishing pal and fellow communicant at St Mary's Church? Yes, he knows.'

Knew, but was not happy about it.

‘
If you're wrong about this, Monika
,' he'd said at the end of their long discussion in his garage, ‘
you'll have ruined my relationship with one of the best policemen I've ever worked with. And when he sets out to destroy you – and he will – I won't lift a finger to help you.
'

‘I'm surprised to see
you
here, Colin,' Kershaw said to Beresford. ‘You used to work for me. I'm the one who guided you on to the right path. Without me, you wouldn't be where you are today.'

‘That's true,' Beresford agreed

‘And you've been a guest in this house. I've invited you here when other – higher ranking – officers would have given their eye-teeth to be in your place.'

‘I know.'

‘And don't you have
any
sense of loyalty?'

‘I have a very strong sense of loyalty,' Beresford said.

And he was thinking, that's why I'm here, putting my career on the line – yet again – for Monika.

‘It's strange you haven't asked
why
we got a search warrant sworn out,' Paniatowski said.

‘I
know
why you got it,' Kershaw said. ‘You want to try and prove that I killed my wife.'

‘
And
Grace Meade,' Paniatowski said. ‘But, of course, Grace doesn't matter. She never did. Shall we go inside?'

Kershaw stepped aside to let them enter the hallway.

‘The law requires that you do not impede our search in any way—' Beresford began.

‘Don't try to tell me what the law says,' Kershaw interrupted angrily.

‘. . . but should you wish to accompany us on that search, we have no objections.'

‘Oh, I'll accompany you, all right,' Kershaw said. ‘Have no doubts about that.'

They started in Kershaw's study. They did not expect to find anything there, but it was all part of the softening up process.

‘You handled the whole thing very cleverly,' Paniatowski said, as she opened a drawer. ‘I'm especially impressed by the way that – right from the start – you did everything you could to draw suspicion away from yourself.'

‘Is this the point at which I'm so impressed by your superior intelligence that I break down and confess?' Kershaw asked.

‘Reporting your wife missing at the same time as Grace Meade disappeared was a master stroke,' Paniatowski said. ‘We didn't see how
one
man would have the time to kidnap
two
women, so we were forced to the conclusion that the kidnapper must have a partner. It took us quite a while to work out that there only ever
had been
one kidnapping.'

‘So now you're saying that this Grace girl wasn't kidnapped after all?'

‘No, I'm saying that
your wife
was never kidnapped.'

‘You found the heel of her shoe at the bottom of the garden,' Kershaw pointed out.

‘Ah, so now you admit it was
her
shoe,' Paniatowski said.

‘You found the heel of
a
shoe at the bottom of the garden,' Kershaw amended.

‘Crashing your car into that oak tree was the second master stroke,' Paniatowski continued. ‘Who would ever have suspected a man who was so panicked by his wife's disappearance that he almost killed himself?'