Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (5 page)

‘Out on the street, it looked as if everyone was in a state of shock,' Woodend said.

‘There are many Spaniards – I think easily the majority – who are glad he is dead,' Paco said reflectively. ‘The shops all ran out of
cava
days ago …'

‘
Cava
? What's that?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Spanish champagne,' Woodend explained.

‘… because people have been stockpiling it for just this moment,' Paco continued. ‘Yet,' he added, in a slightly bemused voice, ‘it still feels strange that the old man is gone, and even I – who hated him more than most – am a little unnerved.'

‘What will happen now?' Woodend asked.

‘Initially, on the grand scale of things, very little,' Paco said. ‘Prince Juan Carlos will be sworn in as king and caudillo, and then everybody will wait to see what he does next. The army will not attempt to take over unless they consider it is absolutely necessary. The communist party and socialist party will remain hidden until they are sure they can emerge without being immediately crushed. It will be months – perhaps even years – before it becomes clear what direction Spain will take.'

‘So that's the grand scale,' Woodend said. ‘What will happen on the small scale?'

‘On the small scale, there are people who will take advantage of the uncertainty to settle old scores,' Paco told him.

‘And will they try to settle them violently?' Woodend asked.

‘Oh yes, people who have been subject to state violence for thirty-six years might well decide it is time to exercise a little of their own,' Paco said.

T
he hawthorn bushes had been unusually heavy with berries that autumn, and though most people dismissed, as an old wives' tale, the belief that it signalled a hard winter ahead, the old wives had been proved right, and by the middle of November, the cold had begun to set in.

The canal which ran through the centre of the old industrial part of Whitebridge had started the freeze several days earlier – the water closest to the bank icing over first. Now, on the last Saturday in November, it was entirely covered with a thin sheet of ice, and was the focus of attention of the five boys standing on the towpath.

‘I bet you could skate on that,' said Tommy Maddox, who was twelve, and, by unspoken agreement, the leader of the gang.

‘I bet you couldn't,' said Robbie Nelson.

This had been happening a lot recently, Tommy thought – he'd say something, and Robbie would automatically say the opposite. Maybe it had something to do with Robbie being almost three months older than he was. Maybe Robbie thought, by virtue of his age, he should be the one who was leading the gang.

‘You know nothing, you, Robbie Nelson,' Tommy said. ‘That ice has been freezing over for three days. You could drive a car on to it now – and that's a scientific fact!'

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized that he had gone too far – that he had turned his earlier tentative statement into a strong assertion – but it was too late to back down.

‘I'll bet you fifty pee it isn't strong enough to skate on – never mind holding the weight of a car,' Robbie said.

‘You haven't got fifty pee!' Tommy jeered – and felt his heart sink when Robbie reached into his pocket and produced the coin.

‘Well?' Robbie asked.

‘I'm a bit short of money, just at the moment,' Tommy said weakly. ‘If I lost the bet – and I'm sure I wouldn't – I couldn't pay you till the end of next week, at the earliest.'

That should have been enough to settle matters, because although all the members of the gang had become blood brothers in a ceremony of Tommy's own devising – a ceremony in which each had sworn to give up his own life to save the others – that sacred oath had not gone quite so far as to oblige them to grant each other credit.

Robbie Nelson smirked. ‘Let's not call it a bet at all, then, Tommy,' he suggested. ‘If you can skate across the ice – which you say is no problem – I'll
give
you the fifty pee.'

It was a clear challenge to his leadership, and he should have seen it coming, Tommy thought.

But he hadn't seen it coming – and now he had no choice but to do what Robbie asked.

‘I will skate across the ice,' he said, sounding as resolute as he could manage. ‘But I don't want your money – I'll do it just to show everybody how bloody thick you are!'

He placed one foot on the ice. It held – but he was still not happy about testing it with his entire weight.

‘Not so sure of yourself now, are you?' Robbie mocked.

Tommy put his second foot on the ice. There was no cracking sound.

‘There you are,' he said.

‘That's not skating,' Robbie said. ‘That's just standing there.'

‘Yeah, that's just standing there,' echoed Jed Rawlings, who seemed to have decided to give his backing to Robbie's tentative
coup d'état
.

There really was no choice, Tommy told himself. He put his left foot in front of him, kicked off with his right, and began to glide slowly towards the centre of the canal.

It was working! The ice held, and he was starting to feel just like one of them skaters he'd seen on the telly. He gave another push – harder this time – and reached the middle.

‘You're bloody brilliant, Tommy!' shouted Jed Rawlings, already starting to compensate for having backed the wrong horse.

Yes, he was brilliant, wasn't he, Tommy thought.

A twirl would really impress them, he decided. A twirl would be the cherry on the cake.

But as he twirled, the ice began to crack beneath him, and though he stopped moving immediately, the crack got wider, until it became a hole and he sank into the chilly water.

There was panic on the towpath, rapidly followed by recrimination.

‘This is all your fault,' screamed Jed Rawlings at Robbie Nelson, as both gazed in horror at the hole in the ice. ‘You'll have to go in and get him.'

‘I can't swim,' Robbie moaned. ‘You know I can't swim.'

Bubbles were rising from the spot where Tommy had disappeared, but whether these were caused by his immersion or were being pumped out from his lungs, none of them were sure.

It was then that Harry Dobson – a fourth, hitherto silent, member of the gang – proved his mettle. Turning from the canal, he looked around for something that could be used as part of a rescue, and his eyes fixed on a dead hawthorn bush just a little further down the bank.

Tommy's head appeared in the hole in the ice. His eyes were wide with terror, his mouth gasping for air like a landed fish's.

‘Swim, Tommy,' Jed screamed. ‘Swim for the side.'

But all Tommy did in response was to sink again.

Harry tugged at a branch of the hawthorn, and heard it crack. He twisted, and it came away in his hand.

He had just had time to return to the bank when Tommy came up for a third time.

‘Grab this, Tommy!' he shouted, laying the branch across the ice.

Tommy managed to get a grip with one hand, and then with the other. The boys on towpath pulled the branch slowly back towards them, and Tommy ploughed a path through the thin ice.

Once he was close enough, the other boys reached out and pulled him on to the bank. His skin was as pale as a ghost's, his teeth were chattering, and his eyes – not yet registering the fact that he had been saved – were still full of fear.

‘You'll be all right,' Robbie gabbled, almost hysterically. ‘You'll be all right. No harm done at all. And even though I won the bet, you can still have the fifty pee, my old mate.'

Tommy was trying to speak, though with his teeth chattering so much, and the cold still squeezing his lungs, it was hard for him to get the words out.

‘Deba boduy dun dare,' he said finally.

‘What was that, my old mate? What were you trying to say?' Robbie Nelson coaxed.

Tommy made another attempt.

‘There's a body down there,' he gasped.

The road which led to the canal bridge had been closed in both directions, but the constables manning the road block recognized the bright red MGA, and waved it through.

Paniatowski parked on the bridge itself, next to the other official vehicles, and realized that, despite a week in the sun, it felt as if she had never been away.

The fierce wind hit her the second she stepped out of the car. It was one of those winds which were not content merely to rattle hanging pub signs and swirl abandoned sheets of newspaper crazily through the air. No, this wind – this bloody-minded wind – had insisted on first sweeping across the moors, where it had acquired an extra level of cold from the newly fallen snow.

Paniatowski shivered, turned up the collar of her coat, and walked over to the parapet.

The scene which greeted her on the canal towpath was pretty much what she might have expected. Several uniformed constables were already on the scene, two police divers were leaning against the wall of the disused factory on the other side of the canal, smoking cigarettes, and Colin Beresford, her right-hand man, was staring down into the icy water. There was no sign of the ambulance men or the police doctor yet, but they would be arriving soon.

Beresford turned, saw her, and waved. She waved back.

It had been nice being in Spain, she thought, as she made her way carefully down the steep and slippery path which led to the canal. The air had been caressingly warm, the sky had been brilliantly blue, and the fresh local food had been truly delicious. But this was where she really belonged – under grey skies, on a dilapidated canal bank, investigating a murder.

‘When did you get back, boss?' Colin Beresford asked, as she drew level with him.

‘The night before last,' Paniatowski replied. ‘Officially, I'm still supposed to be on leave until Monday, but …'

‘But you were already starting to get bored,' Beresford said, completing the sentence for her. ‘How's Mr Woodend?'

‘He's on great form.'

‘And did Louisa like Spain?' Beresford asked.

‘She did,' Paniatowski replied. And she thought,
Perhaps she liked it just a little too much.

Beresford nodded sombrely, as if, instead of just thinking the words, she'd actually said them out loud.

‘When it came on the news that Franco had died, we were a bit worried about you,' he said. ‘Was there any trouble?'

‘Not really,' Paniatowski replied.

True, there seemed to have been more policemen on the streets of Calpe after Franco's death than there had been before it, and true, there had been a military checkpoint on the road to the airport, but other than that, it seemed as if Paco had been right, and everybody was just watching and waiting.

Beresford looked down at the canal again.

‘Well, another day, another body,' he said.

‘There actually
is
a body down there, I take it,' Paniatowski said. ‘It's not just some old fridge or a battered pram?'

‘Oh, there's a body all right,' Beresford confirmed. ‘The divers say it's a woman, but they'll not be bringing her up until Dr Shastri arrives.'

Paniatowski allowed herself a small sigh of contentment. It was good that Shastri was back from her sabbatical in India – the mortuary had seemed a much less cheerful place without her!

‘We're not likely to find much evidence on the ground,' Beresford said. ‘It's been frozen for the last few days.'

‘Well, we never like it when our job's made too easy, do we?' Paniatowski asked.

And she was surprised to discover that what had been meant as a joke was, in fact, true. Of course, murder was a terrible thing, and her job was to get the murderer off the streets as quickly as possible, but a straightforward case simply didn't give her the rush that the more complex ones did.

‘The doc's coming now,' Beresford said.

And so she was. Wearing her heavy sheepskin jacket over her gossamer-light sari, Dr Shastri was just approaching them.

‘I would appreciate it if you could arrange that the next victim I am called out to examine has been murdered somewhere with central heating,' the doctor said. ‘Of course, that has its drawbacks, too. The heat makes the body decompose much more quickly, and often I find that the moment I make an incision …'

‘Would it be all right if we got the body out of the water now?' Paniatowski interrupted, before Shastri had time to reveal some of the more gory details of her trade.

‘But of course,' Shastri said, and once Beresford had waved the instruction to the divers, she continued. ‘So how did Louisa like Spain, Monika?'

‘She thoroughly enjoyed herself,' Paniatowski said.

‘Ah!' Shastri said, reflectively.

Could everyone read her mind? Paniatowski wondered.

No, of course they couldn't. Shastri could read it, and Woodend, and Beresford, and possibly Sergeant Meadows …

The divers emerged from the water, towing the body between them. Once they reached the edge of the canal, they stood on the narrow shelf which ran along it, and gently lifted the corpse on to the side.

The dead woman was somewhat bloated, but otherwise, decay seemed hardly to have set in at all. She was of late middle age, and was wearing a long skirt, blouse and heavy cardigan. Her body was criss-crossed with cords, which, at their ends, had bricks tied to them.

Shastri knelt down and took the woman's head in her hands.

‘Could be a suicide, I suppose,' Beresford said. ‘A very determined suicide, I'll grant you, but we've come across them before.'

Shastri looked up. ‘Unless you can explain to me how she smashed in the back of her own head with a blunt object, Inspector Beresford, I think we can safely rule suicide out,' she said.

The divers, who seemed impervious to the cold, were still standing on the ledge.