Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (21 page)

Paco shrugged – and even that slight gesture seemed to shake the little car.

‘Not for a while,' he said.

‘Six o'clock?' Woodend suggested. ‘Seven o'clock?'

‘Not quite so soon,' Paco said evasively.

‘Eight o'clock? Nine o'clock?' Woodend asked.

‘It will be some time tomorrow,' Paco replied.

‘Until he was elected to parliament, Mr Robert was in charge of the day-to-day running of the business,' said Lewis Mitchell, who, according to the brass plate on his desk, was the managing director of Sunshine Holidays. ‘And since I've only been in this job for a few months, I'm not sure how much of a help I can be to you.'

She'd got his number, Meadows thought. He was one of those bland men who never want to commit themselves to anything, and who believe that if they can just manage to go through life wearing their amiability on their sleeves, no one will ever have the heart to challenge them.

‘Well, I suppose you could start by telling us everything you know about the stiff,' she suggested.

‘The … er … stiff,' Mitchell repeated, uneasily.

‘Javier Martinez,' Meadows said. ‘He's the stiff that I was referring to – unless you can think of any others.'

‘No … er … as far as I know, there's only Mr Javier,' Mitchell replied.

‘So what was he like?'

‘I didn't really have much to do with him. He was mainly concerned with accounts and purchasing, and he did most of that from his home. He left the actual business of running the coaches to me. If anybody checked up on how things were going on this side of the operation, it was Mr Robert.'

‘But you must have seen Mr Javier from time to time, didn't you?' Meadows persisted.

‘Yes, I suppose I must.'

‘So what did you think of him?'

‘He … er … wasn't an easy man to get to know.'

‘So you didn't like him,' Meadows said. ‘And is your view shared by the majority of the people who worked for him?'

‘I never said I didn't like him,' Mitchell replied, flustered, ‘and if you want to know what other people thought about him, I suggest you ask them.'

‘My, my, my, you
really
didn't like him,' Meadows said, grinning.

Despite his concern that Meadows might decide to have a little too much fun, Crane couldn't help smiling inwardly. This direct approach, which he had privately named the ‘Jab the Subject with a Pointy Stick and See How Much He Squeals', was not unique to Sergeant Kate Meadows – but she certainly used it more than most other officers did.

‘You really didn't like him, but I don't think you disliked him enough to kill him,' Meadows continued.

‘I strongly resent that!' Mitchell told her.

‘Oh,' Meadows said, sounding surprised. ‘Have I got it wrong?'

‘You most certainly have.'

‘So you did dislike him enough to kill him?'

‘No, I … what I meant was …'

‘Look, Mr Mitchell, all we want is for you to be honest with us,' Meadows said, switching to a soft, persuasive tone. ‘I can assure you that anything you tell us will never leave this office.'

Mitchell took out his handkerchief, and mopped his brow.

‘I didn't warm to Mr Javier,' he confessed. ‘But that's mainly due to his reputation, because, as I said, I've had little personal experience.'

‘And what is his reputation?' Meadows wondered.

‘They say he was a socialist when he lived in Spain – that he really cared for other people – but having this business seemed to have changed him. In his last few years running the company, he could have given General Franco lessons in authoritarianism.'

‘Really?' Meadows said.

‘Really,' Mitchell confirmed. ‘There were no second chances with him. If you were late for work a couple of times, you were gone, and never mind the fact that the reason you were late was because you'd been visiting your sick wife in hospital or attending your mother's funeral. Of course, things changed when Mr Robert took over. Everybody liked him – and he seemed to like everybody.'

‘Which of the staff has worked for Sunshine Holidays the longest?' Meadows asked.

‘That would be Fred Sidebotham,' Mitchell said. ‘I believe he's been here right from the time the company started.'

‘Then given Javier's general attitude, he must have been an exemplary employee to have survived so long.'

‘I wouldn't put it quite like that.'

‘You're being overcautious again,' Meadows said, with a gentle hint of warning in her voice.

‘By all accounts, Fred used to be a very good worker, but some years ago, he started to develop a weakness for the drink,' Mitchell explained.

‘And Javier didn't sack him?'

‘From what I've heard, he did want to get rid of him, but Mr Robert wouldn't have it. They had a blazing row about it – the only one anyone can remember them having. Mr Javier said that Fred was useless, and had to go. And Mr Robert said that he'd served the company loyally for a good many years, and if that meant the company had to carry him until he retired, then that was exactly what the company would bloody well do.'

‘Where can I find this Fred Sidebotham?' Meadows asked.

‘He'll probably be behind the south side garage, sitting on an oil drum and reading the newspaper. Chances are, he'll have a bottle of brown ale hidden behind the drum, but if I were you, I'd pretend not to notice it. I always do.'

Meadows stood up and held out her hand. ‘Thank you, Mr Mitchell, you've been very helpful,' she said.

It was early afternoon when Paniatowski and Robert Martinez paid their call on Doña Rosa. Martinez had been expecting the interview to take place in the cosy atmosphere of the kitchen, but the old woman had other ideas, and ushered her guests into the formality of her small front parlour. Once inside, Doña Rosa gestured that they should sit on the sofa, while she herself took the straight-backed chair which she had placed facing it.

‘Wouldn't you be more comfortable on a padded chair, Doña Rosa?' Martinez asked solicitously.

‘My grandmother never sat on a padded chair in her life – and she lived to be ninety-four,' the old woman replied.

‘Yes, of course,' Martinez said, giving into the inevitable. ‘You know why we're here, don't you, Doña Rosa?' he continued, in a soothing tone. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Paniatowski would like you to tell her what you told me this morning, and she's given me her word that you won't get into any trouble for it.'

The old woman nodded.

‘I will trust you because Don Roberto trusts you,' she told Paniatowski. ‘He is a good man.'

‘Yes, I know he is,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘And the Hispanic Circle – which he, and he alone, created – is a wonderful thing,' the old woman continued. ‘It has brought Spain back to those of us who missed it so much that it was breaking our hearts. It has given us a reason to carry on living.' She sighed. ‘Of course, it is not quite the same now that he has deserted us.' Then she smiled, to take the edge off her words. ‘But I cannot blame him for that – he is still a young man, and he has more important things to do with his time than spend it with people like us, who already have one foot in the grave.'

Robert Martinez laughed awkwardly, then said, ‘Tell Monika how you met Elena, Doña Rosa.'

‘I was walking past the bus station on last Tuesday evening when I saw a woman sitting on a bench,' she said. ‘She was shivering with the cold, and she was singing to herself to keep her spirits up.' She looked Paniatowski straight in the eye. ‘People like us know a lot about singing to keep our spirits up.'

‘I can understand that,' Paniatowski said sympathetically. ‘Are you sure it was on Tuesday that you saw her?'

‘Yes,' Doña Rosa said firmly. ‘Tuesday is my day for visiting Doña Antonia, a poor old soul who is bedridden. Once, when I had a bad cold, I did not visit her until Wednesday, and she was most upset.' She shrugged. ‘The old have strange notions of how they want things to run – and I should know, because I am old myself – but it is not for anyone else to question those notions, and so I have visited her every Tuesday for nearly ten years.'

The porter at the railway station had said in his statement that Elena had arrived on Wednesday, Paniatowski thought, and Dr Shastri was almost certain that it had been on Wednesday evening when her body had been dumped into the canal. Yet here was Doña Rosa claiming that it was definitely Tuesday when she had seen the woman.

‘Please go on,' she said.

‘To my eternal shame, I think I would have walked right past her if I hadn't heard the words of the song she was singing,' Doña Rosa said. ‘But I did hear the words. The song was “
Ay Carmela
”.'

‘What's that?' Paniatowski asked.

Instead of answering, the old woman began to sing in a voice that was thin and cracked, and yet held great emotion.

‘It was one of the most popular songs of the Republican forces,' Robert Martinez explained.

‘I asked her who she was, and said her name was Elena, and that she had arrived here that same day,' the old woman continued. ‘I asked her what she was doing in Whitebridge, and she said she was on unfinished business.'

‘Did you ask her what that unfinished business was?'

‘No, if she had wanted to tell me, she would have done, but she did not, and so it was none of my concern.' Doña Rosa paused. ‘Those last few years I spent in Spain, I learned it was safer for everyone not to ask questions – because the less you knew, the less you could betray.'

‘What happened next?'

‘I said I would walk with her to her lodgings, but she said that she did not have any, because she couldn't afford them. I asked her where she would spend the night, and she told me she would sleep on the bench, as she had often had to do in the old days. That was when I invited her back to my home.'

If Elena really had arrived a day earlier than the porter had said – and it was looking increasingly likely that she had – then why hadn't she gone straight to her husband's house? Why had she, instead, decided to spend the night outdoors, in the freezing cold?

‘It was very kind of you to invite her into your home, Doña Rosa,' Paniatowski said.

‘Kindness had nothing to do with it!' the old woman said fiercely. ‘I was showing solidarity with a comrade!'

‘What happened when you came back here?'

‘I made her some food – though she seemed too nervous to eat much – and then we talked.'

‘What did you talk about?'

‘About a world that that
hijo de puta
Francisco Franco has crushed beneath his heavy jackboot – a world of innocence, where the mountain air was always fresh, and people respected themselves and each other.'

‘She didn't talk about Javier Martinez?'

‘No.'

‘And you didn't mention him, either?'

‘Why should I have?' Doña Rosa asked, sounding puzzled. ‘I didn't know the man. I have never even spoken to him.'

‘Not even at meetings of the Hispanic Circle?' Paniatowski asked.

‘He never went to a meeting of the Circle,' Doña Rosa replied.

‘I thought I'd told you that my father had embraced the British way of life wholeheartedly,' Robert said to Paniatowski. ‘He wanted nothing to do with Spain, or with the Spanish community in Whitebridge.'

‘But what about the picture in the newspaper?' Paniatowski asked. ‘The one in which he's standing with you and Louisa?'

‘He's not standing with us, he's standing behind us,' Robert Martinez said. ‘It was a mistake.'

‘A mistake?'

‘Louisa and I were in my office, planning a Hispanic Circle excursion, when the newspaper photographer arrived. He was only intending to take a picture of me, but I said it would be nice if Louisa was in it, too. The photographer was new to the job, and wanted to make sure he'd get it right, so he took rather a lot of shots. My father wandered in halfway through – as he does. He knew that the photographer was taking pictures for the article, but he did not know that he would be caught in one of them. He was furious when he saw it printed in the paper.'

‘Why was that?' Paniatowski asked.

‘He didn't say, but I assume it was because he didn't want anyone thinking that he was a member of the Hispanic Circle.'

So Javier Martinez really had turned his back on Spain and all things Spanish, Paniatowski thought.

Then why had he had all those pictures of his native country on his bedroom wall?

The Manchester police force had over eight thousand officers on its rolls, while Mid-Lancs had a little over a third that number. The Manchester police had a helicopter. It had crime labs that were state-of-the-art. And though, since the moment he had walked through the door of its headquarters, Beresford had kept reminding himself that he was a good bobby, who had played a part in any number of successful investigations, he still could not help feeling like a bit of a hayseed.

The officer who'd been assigned to look after him while he was in Manchester was called DI Henry James.

‘Like the feller who wrote all those books, you know.'

Beresford didn't know, though he had no doubt that Crane would.

‘
The Wings of a Dove
,
Portrait of a Lady
,
Washington Square
?' James said helpfully.