Death of an Innocent (3 page)

‘How old was she?' he asked, feeling a lump in his throat.

‘Difficult to say exactly, without a closer examination. Kids grow at different rates. But if I had to make a guess, I'd say she was around fifteen.'

Fifteen! Jesus Christ! Less than two years younger than his beloved Annie, the apple of his eye who had just begun a nursing course in Manchester.

‘She's a child!' he said. ‘She'd hardly started livin'!'

‘I know,' Pierson agreed, sombrely.

Paniatowski came in from the yard. ‘The roadblocks should be in place within the next few minutes, sir,' she said. Then she noticed the expression on Woodend's face. ‘Are you all right, sir?'

‘I'm . . . I'm fine.'

‘Do you want me for anything else at the moment, Charlie?' Dr Pierson asked.

‘What? Do I . . .? No, I don't think so.'

‘In that case I think I'll go home. Have a few black coffees – and maybe a hair of the dog – before I begin the PMs.'

‘Yes, that's a good idea,' Woodend said abstractly.

A kid! he was thinking. A child! Only a few years beyond the dolls and teddy bear stages – yet lying there with her face spattered all over a cold flagstone floor. She would never feel butterflies in her stomach when the boy she'd been mooning after for weeks finally invited her out on a date. She'd never know what it was like to get married and have kids of her own. It was all wrong!

‘You're sure you're OK, sir?' Paniatowski asked.

Woodend took a deep breath. ‘I told you, I'm fine. Let's see what else we've got here.'

His attention had been focused entirely on the victims before, but now that he had seen enough of them – perhaps more than enough, in the case of the girl – he took in the room. Structurally, it had been probably been unchanged since the day it was built, a couple of hundred years earlier. The walls were dressed stone, the beams of blackened oak. There was the large fireplace in the middle of the side wall, and narrow mullion windows which looked out on to the moor in the front wall.

All perfectly normal – all just as he might have expected.

The furniture – on the other hand – took him completely by surprise.

Harris came back into the room. ‘I've just checked with headquarters. The only vehicle registered to Wilfred Dugdale is the Land Rover, sir.'

‘So assumin' he was here when the murders were committed – an' it's more than likely that he was – how did he get away?'

‘He could have walked, couldn't he?'

‘If he'd gone off on foot along the road he'd have been spotted by one of our cars.'

‘Perhaps he cut across the moors, then.'

Woodend went over to the window. It was snowing harder out there on the tops than it had been in his village. The snow would be probably at least two feet thick in most places. And where it had drifted, it would be even deeper. Walking across the moors would be very arduous work, even for a man much younger and fitter than Dugdale. Probably dangerous, too. And an old farmer, brought up on the moors, would be bound to know that.

‘Wherever he is, I want him found,' Woodend told Harris. ‘See to it, will you, Inspector?'

‘Yes, sir.'

Woodend turned his attention back to Paniatowski. ‘Does anythin' strike you as odd about the furniture in this place, Monika?'

Paniatowski looked around her. The dining table and chairs were polished hardwood, as was the sideboard and corner unit. There were two sofas and three easy chairs, all in soft white leather. And a rocking chair which looked as if it had been expensive.

‘Too much – and too posh,' she said.

Which was just what Woodend had been thinking. ‘Talk me through it,' he suggested.

‘I've been to three or four of these farms during my time on the force,' Paniatowski said. ‘There's not much of a living to be made out here any more, and anyway, most of these old farmers are too canny to go spending their cash when there's no need to.'

‘So?'

‘So the typical farmhouse is furnished with the heavy old furniture – Victorian mostly – which the farmer's parents or grandparents bought. It might be ugly, but I doubt if they even notice that, and they see no point in throwing out things that are still perfectly serviceable. And even if they do replace it, it's normally with modern, factory-made tat, whereas there's real craftsmanship in the stuff Dugdale's bought.'

‘You said “too much” as well as “too posh”. Why's that? The room doesn't feel cramped, does it?'

‘Far from it,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But another thing about these old farmers is that they tend to keep pretty much to themselves. If they come into town once a week to do their shopping, it's a social event. So why does he need all these easy chairs?'

‘True,' Woodend agreed. ‘Unless he's the exception which proves the rule, there's no need for it at all.' He checked his watch. ‘I have to pop back to take Joan to the station. Can I borrow your car?'

Paniatowski smiled. ‘Think you can handle it, sir?'

‘Yes, I can handle it, you cheeky young madam,' Woodend said.

Paniatowski handed him the keys. ‘Are you leaving right now?'

‘No,' Woodend decided. ‘I've still got a few minutes to spare. I think I'll go an' have a talk with this journalist feller, to see if I can find out just what he was doin' out at a desolate place like this so early on a Sunday mornin'.'

W
oodend gazed pensively across the moors towards Whitebridge. The sun had reluctantly emerged from behind the heavy banks of clouds, and the snow glistened under its pale light as if it were made up of a million tiny diamonds. The view could almost have come off a Christmas card – except that the backs of Christmas cards did not contain grisly scenes like the one he would see if he turned around again and re-entered the farmhouse.

A detective constable approached him. ‘Hardcastle was in a bit of a state, so I've told him to go an' sit in the car for a while, sir,' he said. ‘I hope that's all right with you.'

Woodend nodded. A good bobby should always look after his partner, and Woodend thought that DC Barney Duxbury was a
very
good bobby. He'd put Duxbury's name forward for promotion a few months earlier. And he'd been surprised that the promotion had been turned down, until, that was, he'd learned that Duxbury's son had been made his school's Sportsman of the Year, and that his only serious competition for the title had been Peter Ainsworth – DCC Ainsworth's son and heir.

‘I'm goin' to have a word with this reporter feller,' Woodend said. ‘Where will I find him?'

‘Over there,' Duxbury said, pointing to the sleek, new Triumph Spitfire which was parked close to the barn.

‘Nice set of wheels,' Woodend said. ‘Very nice. Obviously, workin' for the BBC pays better than I'd thought it did.'

The Chief Inspector made his way over to the Spitfire. The man sitting behind the wheel could not have more than twenty-five or twenty-six, he noted, as he got closer. The reporter had taken off his overcoat and – apparently unconcerned about the price of petrol – had left the engine running in order to heat the car. He was wearing a suede jacket with knitted sleeves and pockets, which Woodend assumed was fashionable, and probably hadn't been bought locally.

The Chief Inspector tapped on the side window. As the reporter wound the window down, a blast of hot air rushed from the car into the chilled atmosphere which surrounded it.

‘Mr Bennett?' Woodend asked.

‘That's right.'

‘If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to ask you some questions.'

Bennett ran his eyes quickly over Woodend's shabby overcoat. ‘And if
you
don't mind, I'd prefer to wait until your boss gets here, Sergeant.'

‘Chief Inspector.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I'm Chief Inspector Woodend. An' the last time I checked on it, I
was
the boss.'

Bennett grinned. ‘My mistake,' he said easily, and without any hint of apology. ‘Would you like to get into the car?'

Woodend shook his head. ‘Nay, lad. It looks a bit too cramped for my legs. Why don't you get out?'

Bennett sighed, as if he considered that an unreasonable imposition, but then he reached for his overcoat and stepped out of the Spitfire.

‘The first thing I'd like to know is how you came to be here at this godawful time on a Sunday morning,' Woodend said, as the reporter slipped into his expensive camelhair coat.

‘I got a phone call at about half past seven suggesting that I should come up here.'

‘Who was this phone call from?'

‘He didn't give his name.'

‘Do you often get anonymous phone calls?'

‘They're not uncommon. I work for both regional radio
and
regional television.
Bennett's Beat
, my television programme's called. If anybody thinks they've been badly done by, they call me to investigate. I create quite a stir sometimes – uncovering wrongs which would probably have gone totally unnoticed otherwise. But surely, I don't need to tell you that. You must have seen the programme yourself, mustn't you?'

Yes, now Bennett mentioned it, his face was starting to look vaguely familiar, Woodend thought. But he was buggered if he was going to give the smug young sod the satisfaction of hearing him admit it.

‘Can't say I watch much television,' he said aloud. ‘An' when I do, it's usually the national news. I find that much more professional.'

‘You'd be surprised just how professional some of us can be,' Bennett said, clearly stung. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, since I'm something of a local celebrity, it's to me that most people turn to when they have a good story to tell.'

‘So you weren't surprised to get the call. An' what did this particular caller have to say for himself?'

‘That if I didn't want to miss the biggest story of my career, I should get out to Dugdale's Farm as quickly as I could.'

‘So let me see if I've got this straight,' Woodend said sceptically. ‘It's early on Sunday mornin', an' you get this phone call which, for all you know, could be from a complete bloody nutter. Yet you still jump out of your bed an' drive twenty-odd miles to see if there's anythin' to the story.'

‘I was already up – I like to rise early. And I didn't have to drive twenty-odd miles, as you put it, because I live locally. Not more than five miles from here, as a matter of fact.'

‘Alone?'

Bennett shrugged awkwardly. ‘With my parents, actually,' he confessed. ‘But that's only a temporary measure – until the house I've bought in Moorland Village is finished.'

The BBC
did
pay well, Woodend thought. ‘Tell me about the man who called you,' he said. ‘It was a man, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, it was a man. I'd guess from his voice that he was middle-aged. And from his accent,' Bennett continued, with all the flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, ‘I'd say he was from Manchester rather than Whitebridge – and not particularly well-educated, either.'

Woodend took out his Capstan Full Strengths and offered the packet to the reporter. Bennett shook his head and produced a packet of thin, black cigarettes with a gold band round each one.

‘So you decided to follow the lead, an' drove up here,' Woodend said. ‘Did you see much traffic on the way?'

‘There was some in Whitebridge – the normal Sunday morning stuff – but it wasn't until I was up here on the moors that I saw any vehicle which I would have described as suspicious.'

The bugger was milking his story for all it was worth, Woodend thought. Maybe he
always
behaved as if the television cameras were on him. Still, in the long run the quickest thing would probably be to play along with him.

‘A vehicle which you would have described as suspicious?' the Chief Inspector said.

‘That's right. It was a rather beaten-up yellow Austin A40, and it was going hell-for-leather towards Whitebridge.' Bennett paused, and gave Woodend a Spitfire-owner's superior smile. ‘When I say hell-for-leather, of course, I mean it was going as fast as a wreck like that possibly could.'

‘So, as you say, it aroused your suspicions?'

‘Yes, in my business you soon learn to⎯'

‘An' naturally, you made a note of the number plate.'

‘Well . . . not exactly,' Bennett confessed.

‘Meanin'?'

‘Meaning, I suppose, that I didn't get the number. As I mentioned, it was travellin' rather quickly⎯'

‘For a wreck.'

‘– and by the time I'd realized there was something not quite right about it, it was gone.'

‘Did you happen to notice who was inside this suspicious vehicle?'

‘Two men. Both in the front.'

‘An' did either of these men have white hair?'

‘The driver was wearing a trilby, and the passenger had a flat cap on. I suppose one of them might have had white hair, but I certainly couldn't see it.'

Woodend shook his head despairingly. ‘The reporter's trained eye,' he said. ‘There's nothin' like it, is there?'

‘Now, hold on a minute,' Bennett protested. ‘It was snowing rather heavily and I⎯'

‘What time did you finally get to the farm?' Woodend interrupted.

‘I think it must have been at about five minutes to eight.'

‘An' what did you do once you'd parked?'

‘I couldn't see anybody around, so I knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, I tried the latch. The door wasn't locked, so I pushed it open and stepped inside. That's when I saw the bodies. I'm not a man who's easily shocked, but I have to admit I was definitely shaken at that particular moment.'