Death of an Innocent (23 page)

‘And if any of my nosy neighbours find out I've got a man staying with me?'

‘They'll probably just think I'm your bit of rough trade.'

‘That wouldn't do much for my reputation, would it?' Paniatowski asked.

‘No, it wouldn't,' Woodend agreed, grinning. ‘But it would certainly do a hell of a lot for mine.'

H
e'd been a self-imposed prisoner in Paniatowski's flat near the top of Whitebridge's only tower block for less than forty-eight hours, yet the boredom was so crippling that Woodend felt as if he'd already served a long sentence with no time off for good behaviour.

He'd glanced through Paniatowski's slim library, but there was nothing there to interest him. Her record collection included none of the traditional jazz he liked to listen to. He'd tried watching television, and had found his mind wandering back to a case he could only control – completely unsatisfactorily – from a distance. And though Monika had been thoughtful enough to see the fridge was well stocked with bottles of beer, it just wasn't the same as a pint drawn straight from the wood.

Woodend walked over to the lounge window, drew back the flowery curtains, and looked down on the town spread out before him. He stood in silence as the dark clouds began to lose their blood-red edge, and the streets beneath them slowly sank into the darkness of a winter early night.

He had grown up in this town, he reminded himself. No, that wasn't strictly accurate. Better to say he'd been brought up in the same space as this town now occupied. Because the Whitebridge of his boyhood was no more. Many of the streets he'd played in had gone forever – victims of the bulldozer and the demolition ball. The old covered market, where his grandmother had taken him every Friday as regular as clockwork, had been replaced by a concrete monstrosity which was some bright spark's idea of the future. Even the buildings which had survived the relentless march of progress now seemed so oddly out of place that they could almost have been mistaken for intruders.

The abandoned mills stood forlornly against the skyline – as if harbouring the faint hope that they would eventually hear the sound of clogs again on the cobbled streets which led to them. The railway station, a confident, bustling place in the eyes of the young Charlie Woodend, had somehow acquired the same quaintness as the little old lady in whose reign it had been built.

Woodend turned around and faced the thoroughly modern room he found himself in. G-Plan furniture. The latest radiogram – which hardly looked used at all. Light wood and soft furnishings everywhere. If his granny were still alive to see this, she'd have thought she'd landed on a different planet.

He heard the key turn in the lock, and swung round expectantly – though not without a little dread.

Paniatowski entered the lounge, a thick brown envelope under her arm. ‘You're absolutely sure that the prints on that glass you gave me were Taylor's, are you?' she asked brusquely.

What did that mean? Woodend wondered.

That his mates at the Yard hadn't been able to find a match?

‘Well?' Paniatowski demanded.

‘Taylor was drinkin' out of it,' Woodend said. ‘There may be other prints on it, but some of them
had to
be his.'

‘In that case, it's just remotely possible that we may still be able to pull you out of the shit,' Paniatowski told him.

Woodend felt his heart start to beat a little faster. ‘What have you come up with?'

Paniatowski sat down on the sofa, then stood up again almost immediately, as if she were too tense to remain still for long.

‘The Yard has identified the prints on the prints on the wine glass as belonging to Thomas Arthur Tasker.'

T. A .T. – as in T. A. Taylor and Bloody-Associates!

‘What kind of form has Mr Tasker got?' Woodend asked.

‘He was born and brought up in Hove. He was a jobbing builder for a while – though not a very successful one. He turned to fraud – and he wasn't too good at that either. The first time he was caught, he was put on probation. The second time he served two years.' Paniatowski paused. ‘For his third offence, he was given a six stretch. He served his time in Durham Jail.'

Woodend was already ahead of her. ‘Who were his known associates?' he demanded.

‘He shared a cell with a man called Philip Swales. Does that name ring any bells with you?'

‘Wilfred Dugdale was in Strangeways with a man called Swales!'

‘The
same
man called Swales. I've checked. It's all starting to fit together, isn't it?'

It was! Woodend thought. It really bloody was!

‘What kind of form has Swales got?' he asked.

‘He's a thoroughly nasty piece of work. He's been involved in extortion, pimping and blackmail. And he's violent. He's got a string of convictions going back to childhood. But he's had no convictions for the last
sixteen
years. Don't you think that's significant, sir?'

‘You're not sayin' that he's been clean all that time, are you?' Woodend asked.

‘No, I'm not.'

‘But you
are
sayin' that a habitual criminal like him has somehow managed to stay out of trouble since shortly after Taylor moved to Whitebridge?'

‘Exactly.' Paniatowski opened the envelope and passed a photograph across to him. ‘That's Swales.'

Woodend looked down at the face which was staring aggressively into the camera. Swales had tight, pinched features and hard eyes.

‘I know this bugger,' he said.

‘The picture's over twenty years old,' Paniatowski cautioned him.

‘Doesn't matter,' Woodend said firmly. ‘I saw him just the other night. In the Vic – my local. He was drinkin' with Terry Taylor. He reminded me of one of those spivs we used to see just after the war – long before your time – an' I thought then that they made an odd couple.'

‘What were they talking about?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I don't know, but it got very heated. Terry Taylor eventually stormed out of the pub – but not before he told this Philip Swales feller that he didn't like bein' threatened.'

Woodend walked over to the lounge window. With the onset of another chilling night, condensation had formed on the glass.

‘Here we've got Dugdale,' he said, making a large ‘D' with his finger, ‘an' here –' making a ‘T' several inches away from it – ‘we've got Taylor. An' right in the middle we've got Philip Swales, who served time inside with both of them. What we
still
haven't got is any explanation of what actually went on that mornin' at Dugdale's Farm. An' that's not our only problem. We still don't know who the victims were, either.'

‘Don't we?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Are you sayin' you do?'

Paniatowski nodded. ‘The second set of prints you asked me to take – the ones from the corpse – have come up trumps as well. They belong to a man called Harry Judd.'

‘An' he's done time an' all?'

‘Oh yes, he has.'

‘With Taylor, Swales or Dugdale?'

Paniatowski shook her head regretfully. ‘He was nothing but a petty criminal – not in their class at all. He's served several stretches over the years, but none of them in the same place or at the same time as the others.'

Woodend looked at the initials he'd made in the condensation on the window-pane again. They were already starting to dribble away and lose their distinctiveness.

‘So there's nothin' to connect Judd with the other three?' he said despondently.

‘Not a bloody thing,' Paniatowski confirmed.

T
here had only been a light drizzle when Woodend and Paniatowski had left Whitebridge at just after six in the evening, but by the time they had reached the main road into Manchester the skies had opened, the windscreen wipers on the MGA were swishing back and forth dementedly, and the traffic had slowed down to a crawl.

‘I suppose it could be worse,' the sergeant said gloomily. ‘At least it's not snowing.'

But the weather was the least of their problems at that moment, Woodend thought.

He lit up a cigarette. ‘You're absolutely sure there's no connection between the dead man, Harry Judd, an' the others involved in this case?' he asked, more out of hope than expectation.

‘None that I could find,' Paniatowski said, as she signalled to overtake a lorry. ‘And believe me, knowing how much we needed some sort of link, I looked hard enough.'

‘Harry Judd comes from Manchester, an' so does Philip Swales,' Woodend pointed out.

‘That's true enough, sir. But, like I said, they're different kinds of villains completely. Swales is a really vicious bastard – they used to call him “Razor” Swales in the old days.'

‘An' Judd's just a petty criminal.'

‘His crimes never amounted to anything more serious than cat burglary. So whatever kind of racket Terry Taylor's involved in, I can't see him finding a place in it for Judd.'

She was probably right, Woodend thought. But
something
had to explain Judd's presence at Dugdale's Farm.

And something had to explain his phone call which had promised that reporter, Bennett, the biggest story of his life – because from what BBC man had said of his caller's voice, that had almost certainly been Judd, too.

They turned off the arterial road and plunged deep into the suburbs. On either side of them were well-maintained semi-detached homes.

‘How much further?' Woodend asked impatiently.

‘It'll be a while yet.'

‘You said Judd lived with his sister?'

‘Not exactly. For most of the time over the last twenty years, his address has been some jail or another. But for the brief periods he's been on the outside, he's
stayed
with his sister, Mrs Doris Hargreaves.'

‘Has she got any form?'

‘Yes, but just like her brother, it's only for small-time stuff. Petty crime seems to be the family speciality.'

‘So what's she been nicked for? Shop-liftin'?'

‘And street-walking – though that was a number of years ago, when she was much younger.'

‘So she was on the game, was she?' Woodend said – and wondered, though he couldn't quite say why, if that could possibly have any significance.

They had left the suburban roads behind them. The streets were narrower now, and the neat semis had been replaced by row upon row of crumbling terraced houses. Few of the street lamps in this area seemed to work, and the pavements were deserted. It was only in the obviously run-down pubs – of which there appeared to be one on every corner – that there were any signs of life.

This was not a district to be out alone in after dark, Woodend thought. If Moorland Village was some people's idea of heaven, then this could only be an image of the other place.

Paniatowski pulled the MGA up to the kerb. ‘That's it,' she said. ‘Number Thirty-six, Tufton Road.'

They got out of the car, and walked up to the house. The dark-brown paint on the front door was peeling. The window to the left of it was covered with ragged net curtains, and the light inside shone only dimly through the thick layers of dirt that clung to the glass.

‘Given the choice of stayin' in prison or comin' home to this, I think I'd have stayed banged up,' Woodend said.

‘Perhaps it might be better if you didn't come in with me, sir,' Monika Paniatowski suggested.

‘Not come in with you? Why?'

‘Because this isn't our patch, and while my right to be conducting an investigation in Manchester's jurisdiction is questionable at best, you shouldn't be here at all. If it ever got back to the brass in Whitebridge that⎯'

‘It won't. I've never met this Mrs Hargreaves, but I can tell just from the state of the place she calls home that she's not one to say anythin' to
any
bobby when she doesn't absolutely have to.'

‘Perhaps you're right,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But at least leave the talking up to me.'

‘I'll do my best to,' Woodend promised.

Paniatowski rapped on the front door with her knuckles. From the corner of his eye Woodend saw the shabby net curtains flicker for a second, but no one came to answer the knock.

The sergeant knocked again – even more insistently this time. There was the sound of shuffling feet in the hallway, then the letter-box opened and someone called through it, ‘What do you want?'

‘Police,' Paniatowski said.

‘Have you got any sort of identification on yer?'

‘Yes, we've got identification,' Paniatowski answered. ‘If you'll just open the door, I'll show it to you.'

There was a longish pause, then the woman said, ‘Shove it through the letter-box.'

Paniatowski looked at Woodend for guidance, and when the Chief Inspector nodded, she slid her warrant card through the box.

Another pause. ‘It says here you're from Whitebridge,' Mrs Hargreaves shouted through the door.

‘So we are,' Monika Paniatowski replied. ‘But we're working with the local bobbies.'

‘Why haven't they come round themselves?'

Paniatowski gave the kind of heavy theatrical sigh that would have made even a bad ham actor blush. ‘I suppose I could go back to the station and pick up a couple of the local lads, if that would make you any happier . . .'

‘Yeah, do that.'

‘But if you think they're going to feel exactly chuffed about being dragged out of their nice warm canteen on a filthy night like this, then you've got another thing coming. If they haven't got anything against you when they arrive, I expect they'll manage to think of some sort of charge while they're here.' She paused, to let the idea sink in. ‘So why not be sensible and open the door, Mrs Hargreaves?' she continued. ‘We won't keep you for more than a few minutes.'