Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (7 page)

‘Surely, there'd be friends and family who'd know who she was,' Paniatowski argued.

‘Not necessarily,' Beresford countered. ‘Agoraphobia is a mental illness, and some people are unenlightened enough to consider mental illness shameful.'

Like I did
, he thought.
When my mother's Alzheimer's got bad, I was ashamed of her – and it wasn't her fault.

‘Go on,' Paniatowski encouraged gently, sensing his pain.

‘If she was ashamed of it – or if her husband was ashamed – it's very unlikely she would have had any contact with other people. And perhaps her husband had finally had enough of the strain of it all, and decided to kill her.'

‘Another possibility is that she belonged to some strict sect or other religious group which believes that women should never be allowed to leave the house,' Crane said.

‘If that was the case, she'd at least have had contact with other members of the sect,' Paniatowski pointed out.

‘Yes, but she may have done something which so offended the other members that they were complicit in her murder,' Crane said.

But it was hard to see how a seemingly harmless old woman could have done something so offensive that it merited her death, Paniatowski thought.

‘What do you think, Kate?' she asked her sergeant.

‘The problem with those two theories is that they're both based on the assumption that no one – or at least very few people – could identify her,' Meadows said.

‘And despite the newspaper reports, the television appeals, and the door-to-door canvassing, no one
has
identified her,' Beresford said, in the aggressive–defensive tone he sometimes adopted when he suspected that Meadows was getting at him. ‘So doesn't that suggest we may be thinking along the right lines?'

‘No,' Meadows countered, ‘because if the killer thought she couldn't be identified, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to hide the body.'

Whatever direction they went in, they always came back to the same point, Paniatowski thought.

This was anything but a random killing, and it seemed as if the murderer was convinced that when the body was identified, the motive would be clear – and that once the motive was clear, the man who had that motive would find himself firmly in the spotlight.

Louisa was eating her afternoon tea at the kitchen table when she heard the key turn in the front door, and looking up at the clock was surprised to discover that it was still not quite half-past five.

‘You're home early, Mum,' she shouted.

‘It's been a quiet day at the office,' Paniatowski said from the hallway.

‘It's been a quiet day at the office?' Louisa repeated with mock-incredulity. ‘How can it have been quiet, Mum, when you're in the middle of a murder investigation?'

‘The truth is that there's not much I can do, because the case is in the doldrums for the moment,' Paniatowski admitted, entering the kitchen and sitting down opposite her daughter. ‘What's that you're eating?'

‘It's called
pan con tomate
,' Louisa said. ‘You get a piece of French bread, cut it down the middle, toast it, pour olive oil over it, and then rub it with sliced tomato. Tía Pilar showed me how to do it.'

Her Auntie Pilar seemed to have shown her quite a lot in a very short time, Paniatowski thought – and, worryingly, Louisa seemed to have embraced it all very enthusiastically.

Taking her daughter to Spain had been her idea, she reminded herself, and it had been a good thing – the
right
thing – to do.

She became aware that Louisa had said something to her, but she had no idea what it was.

‘Sorry, love,' she said. ‘Could you repeat that?'

‘I've been thinking about the sketch, Mum,' Louisa said.

‘What sketch?'

‘The one that's been in all the papers – the one of the dead woman who was fished out of the canal.'

‘You shouldn't be bothering yourself with that kind of thing at your age,' Paniatowski said, with just a hint of disapproval in her voice.

‘If I'm going to be a detective, then it's never too early to start,' Louisa countered.

If I'm going to be a detective
, Paniatowski repeated silently.

When Louisa had first mentioned the idea of joining the police force, she had thought it was no more than a whim – something that would quickly fade away when some more glamorous profession presented itself to her – but it had been over a year now, and the girl still seemed quite determined.

It's not that I don't want her to be a bobby
, Paniatowski told herself regularly.
It's flattering, in a way, that she wants to follow in my footsteps. But I could never be a brain surgeon or a famous writer – and I really do believe that Louisa could be either of those things
.

But at least there was some consolation to be drawn from the fact that if Louisa became a police officer, she'd stay in England, rather than following a completely new life in a foreign country.

Paniatowski felt a wave of shame wash over her. She had always said that all she ever wanted was for Louisa to be happy – and if Louisa could be happier in Spain than she was in England, then that was just fine.

Honestly it was.

‘You're off picking daisies again, Mum,' Louisa said.

‘You're right, I was,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘You're determined to talk about the sketch whatever I say, aren't you?'

‘Well, I do think it's quite important,' Louisa said seriously.

‘All right, let's have it,' Paniatowski said, lighting up a cigarette and giving in to the inevitable.

‘I'm not absolutely sure about it, but I think that I may have met her,' Louisa said.

‘It is only a sketch, you know, Louisa,' Paniatowski pointed out. ‘It's meant to be a memory jogger, rather than an accurate portrait.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘What normally happens is that people look at the picture and say to themselves, “That's a bit like Mrs Smith.” And then they think, “Where is Mrs Smith? I haven't seen her around recently.” And that's when they contact us. Sometimes it
is
Mrs Smith, and sometimes it turns out to be someone quite different. As I said, it's only a sketch.'

‘Could I see the photograph of her?' Louisa asked.

‘I don't have a photograph of her,' Paniatowski replied. ‘She didn't have a handbag, and since we have no idea where she lives …'

‘Ah!' Louisa interrupted – and it was a very significant ‘ah' – ‘you don't know where she lives.'

‘And what's that supposed to mean?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I really would like to see the photograph, Mum,' Louisa said insistently.

‘I've told you, we haven't got one.'

‘Not one of her alive, no,' Louisa agreed. ‘But you'll have one – probably several – of her dead.'

‘Yes, I do have photographs of the body – but I've no intention of showing it to you.'

‘You let me see Grandad and Granny, when they died,' Louisa pointed out. ‘You let me look right down into their coffins – and I was much younger then than I am now.'

‘That was entirely different,' Paniatowski countered. ‘They were your Spanish family, and it was the proper thing to do. You were paying them your respects. This woman, on the other hand, is a murder victim who was in the water for at least three days …'

‘Don't you harbour a secret ambition that I might eventually decide to become a doctor?' Louisa asked cunningly.

‘What makes you think that?' asked Paniatowski, who thought she'd been very discreet about her flights of fancy.

‘Don't you?' Louisa persisted.

‘I've considered the possibility that your thoughts might turn in that direction eventually,' Paniatowski said, suddenly on the defensive.

‘So if I do decide to become a doctor, you'll have no objection to me cutting up bodies in three years' time – but you won't even show me a picture of a dead woman now,' Louisa said.

Paniatowski sighed and opened her briefcase. ‘Here you are,' she said, laying the photograph on the table. ‘And I hope that makes you happy!'

Louisa examined the picture from one angle, and then from another.

‘She's rather puffed up,' she said.

‘I did warn you it wouldn't be pleasant,' Paniatowski said. ‘So if you're upset now, you've only yourself to blame.'

But Louisa didn't actually seem as if she was upset – in fact, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself.

‘Yes, she doesn't look quite right, but I'm certain it's Doña Elena,' the girl said.

‘Who?'

‘Doña Elena. I don't know her other name. I met her at Tía Pilar's lunch party.'

‘Remind me when that party was,' Paniatowski said.

Louisa counted back on her fingers. ‘It was eleven days ago.'

‘And so you're asking me to believe that seven days after you see this woman at a party on the Costa Blanca, she turns up dead – under the ice – in a Whitebridge canal?' Paniatowski asked.

‘It doesn't seem likely,' Louisa admitted.

‘No, it doesn't.'

‘But it's her. I know it's her. I paid special attention to her at the party, because Tía Pilar said she was a true heroine.'

Dr Shastri had said the dead woman hadn't been living on a typical northern diet – no chip butties or steak and kidney pies. In fact, she'd gone so far as to suggest that the woman might have been following a ‘Mediterranean diet', Paniatowski thought. And Shastri had also said that she appeared to have had more exposure to the sun than most people in Lancashire would have.

So maybe it was just possible that …

‘You're starting to think that I just might be right, aren't you?' Louisa asked gleefully.

‘We're trained not to overlook any possibility, however unlikely it might seem,' Paniatowski replied.

Louisa grinned. ‘And now you're going to ring Uncle Colin and ask him to check it out,' she said.

Paniatowski stood up. ‘Smart arse!' she said.

And then she walked into the hallway, dialled the number of Whitebridge CID, and asked to be put through to DCI Beresford.

‘I thought you were making an early night of it, boss,' Beresford said, when he came on the line.

‘I was,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘Have you checked the railway station and bus station?'

‘I'm sorry, boss?'

‘Have you shown the sketch to everyone who works at the railway station and the bus station?'

‘Well, no,' Beresford admitted. ‘There didn't seem much point in that, since we'd established that our victim lived in Whitebridge.'

But they hadn't established that at all, Paniatowski now realized.

What they had established was that she probably knew her murderer, and that he probably had reasons for not wanting her to be identified – and that wasn't the same thing at all.

‘We've probably spoken to some of the railway and bus staff in the course of the door-to-door inquiries,' Beresford continued. ‘I can check through the records, if you like.'

‘Bugger that for a game of soldiers,' Paniatowski said. ‘I want your lads to interview all railway and bus station employees – and I want it done now! Have you got that?'

‘Got it,' Beresford agreed.

The row of cottages behind the railway station was – accurately, if a little prosaically – called Railway Row. They were solid, two-up, two-down houses, and each one had a small garden at the front, and backed on to an alley at the rear.

The gardens of the houses were neat and tidy, the paintwork on the windows and doors bright and fresh, Beresford noted, as he walked along the row. If he had to guess, he would say that most of the people who lived there were young couples who planned eventually to move up the housing ladder, but in the meantime were determined to show pride in their modest little homes.

Number Eleven, Railway Row, was a marked contrast to the other houses – the garden overgrown, the dark brown paintwork cracked and peeling, and when Beresford opened the gate, it squeaked an exhausted protest.

The man who answered his knock was in his mid-fifties, and had a pencil-thin moustache, a weak jaw and resentful eyes.

‘Mr Higgins?' Beresford asked. ‘Mr Ben Higgins?'

‘Who's asking?' the other man replied.

Beresford produced his warrant card. ‘Are you Ben Higgins?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then I'd like to ask you a few questions, sir, if you wouldn't mind.'

‘All right,' Higgins agreed, though his tone said that he certainly did mind.

‘You're a baggage porter on Whitebridge Railway Station, aren't you?' Beresford said.

‘What if I am?'

‘We're trying to trace the movements of a woman who may have arrived here by train,' Beresford said, unfolding the sketch. ‘This woman, to be precise.'

‘Never seen her,' Higgins replied, barely glancing at the sketch.

‘I'd like you to take a closer look,' Beresford said firmly.

The second glance was longer than the first – though not by much.

‘Don't know her,' Higgins said dismissively.

Behind him, the gate creaked again, and Beresford turned to see a middle-aged woman struggling with three heavy carrier bags full of groceries. Higgins had seen her too, but it was plain from his unaltered stance that he had no intention of abandoning his position on the doorstep.

Beresford turned around, met the woman halfway up the path, and relieved her of two of the bags.

‘Well, that is kind of you, young man,' the woman said, ‘but if you're hoping that by helping me you'll persuade that miserable old bugger to buy whatever it is you're selling, you're due for a disappointment.'

‘I'm not selling anything,' Beresford said, as they reached the front door. ‘I'm a police officer, conducting inquiries.'