Murder at Swann's Lake (28 page)

Terry Clough jerked as if he'd been given an electric shock. “I could have taken her places,” he said. “Maybe even abroad. We could have had the best of everythin'.”

Woodend shook his head sadly. “You really don't know Jenny at all, do you? Or maybe it's a case of thinkin' the way you do because it's too unpleasant to think any other way. But let's get back to the envelope.”

“What about it?”

“I'll tell you what I think happened,” Woodend said. “You were sittin' in this office and the phone rang. You picked it up and it was one of your mates from across the Pennines wantin' to fix up another drop. Only it was to be at a different place this time, and he needed to explain how to get there. You picked up the first piece of paper which came to hand, which happened to be this envelope. Careless of Robbie to leave it around, wasn't it?”

“I don't see why,” Clough said sullenly. “It was only a used envelope. It wasn't even addressed to him.”

“No,” Woodend agreed. “It was addressed to Alex Conway. That's why the name sounded familiar when I mentioned it to you. Anyway, you drew the map – the police boffins should have no difficulty provin' it's your handwriting – but then you were careless, too. You lost the envelope. Have you any idea
where
you lost it?”

“No,” Clough admitted. “It was just that when I came to look for it, I couldn't find it.”

“Well, wherever it was,
Robbie
finds it,” Woodend continued. “And given his dodgy background, he knows immediately what it's for. I imagine all this happens last Friday night, just before he's due to do his act in the club. So what does he do with the envelope? He sticks it in the back of the filing cabinet, intendin' to confront you with it later. But that never happens, does it? Because an hour later, he's dead.”

Terry Clough jumped to his feet. “You're accusin' me of killin' him, aren't you?” he screamed.

Woodend shook his head. “No, I'm not accusin' you, so why don't you just calm down? You couldn't have murdered Robbie. You an' your brother were down by the lake at the time, havin' an argument over women. But even without a murder charge, you're in plenty of trouble, lad.”

Terry Clough looked down the floor. “So what happens now?” he mumbled, almost to himself.

“Now you join your friends the Green brothers in Maltham nick,” Woodend told him.

T
he police car which brought Michael Clough to The Hideaway arrived only ten minutes after the one taking his brother into custody had left. The two detectives watched through the window as Clough got out of the car and, taking his time, walked towards the office.

“He doesn't seem very concerned that we've called him in,” Rutter commented.

“Aye, there's nothin' defensive about yon bugger,” Woodend agreed. “But that's the big difference between him an' his brother. Terry's quite rightly suspicious of authority, but Michael
likes
it – because it gives him somethin' to rail against. If we weren't what we are – the establishment – he couldn't be what he is – the rebel.”

When he reached the open doorway, Clough stopped and knocked on the jamb, but the mocking expression on his face showed he was doing it more out of irony that politeness.

“Come in an' take a seat, Mr Clough,” Woodend said. “We've got a fair bit to get through.”

As soon as the young teacher had sat down, Woodend slid the passport application form across the desk to him. “You'll not deny that's your signature, will you?” he asked, jabbing with his finger at a point halfway down the form.

“No, it's mine all right,” Clough agreed.

“An' you knew when you were fillin' it in that the person who was applyin' for the passport wasn't really Alex Conway?”

Michael Clough laughed. “Of course I did.”

Woodend turned the form around and examined the photograph which was stapled to it. “That wig and false moustache aren't bad,” he admitted. “The heavy glasses probably helped as well. They certainly fooled us for a while. But then neither of us had ever met Robbie Peterson in the flesh. If we had, I expect we'd have seen the resemblance right away.”

“It wasn't meant to fool anyone who knew him,” Clough said haughtily. “It wasn't a disguise.”

“I
know
it wasn't a disguise,” Woodend replied. “The wig an' the glasses were more like actors' props – they were helpin' him to become a different person.”

“I'm underrating you again,” Michael Clough said apologetically.

“It was my sergeant who came up with the original idea. All I did was think it through to its logical conclusion,” Woodend told him. “The way I see it, when Robbie was in Liverpool, he thought all he had to do to start a new life was get out of the rackets an' move somewhere else. Am I right?”

“You know you are.”

“But it didn't work out like that, did it? It wasn't just that he brought his family with him – he brought his reputation as well. The villains in this area knew all about him – so did the police. And though the vicar an' the ‘decent' families around Swann's Lake might not have known about his criminal activities, they could see immediately that he was not their sort of person. So there was no seat on the parish council for Robbie, an' no invitations to genteel tea parties for him and Doris.”

“I told him it wouldn't work,” Michael Clough said, “but he just wouldn't listen.”

“No, he had to find out the hard way,” Woodend agreed. “And he learned a valuable lesson from it. Robbie Peterson would always be constrained by the past, but Alex Conway, because he
had
no past, could be whatever he wanted to be.”

“How did you find out about it?” Michael Clough asked.

“We compared his handwriting from one of the invoices with the handwriting on the passport application form,” Rutter said. “We're neither of us experts, but it's a close enough match.”

“We'd have found out before if Robbie hadn't been wearing shoes with elevator heels,” Woodend said.

Clough looked perplexed. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“No, you wouldn't, not havin' been in on the investigation,” Woodend said dryly. “ ‘Conway's' neighbour, a sweet old bird called Miss Tufton, told my sergeant that she saw Robbie Peterson enterin' ‘Conway's' flat once. She only got a brief glimpse of him, but it was enough for to her to identify him from a photograph. The conclusion we drew from that was that Robbie and ‘Conway' were in some sort of racket together. If it hadn't been for the differences in their heights, we might have come to another conclusion – that what Miss Tufton had, in fact, seen was ‘Conway' without his disguise.”

“Will I face charges?” Michael Clough asked.

“For makin' a false declaration on the passport form? No, there doesn't seem to be a lot of point now that Robbie's dead.” Ignoring Clough's reproaching glances, Woodend lit up a Capstan Full Strength. “So you're still goin' to marry Annie, are you?” he asked.

Clough nodded. “Yes I am.”

“How long have you known about her dealin' in illegal drugs?”

“Not long,” Clough admitted. “I learned about it from one of the boys at my school. His older brother had friends who were Annie's customers. He was worried his brother might become an addict, and so he came to me.”

“Sensible lad,” Woodend said.

“I'd talked her out of it, you know. Actually, it wasn't too hard – she'd already half-decided to give it up herself. The night she was arrested was going to be her last time.”

Woodend looked him straight in the eye. “Do you love Annie, Mr Clough?” he asked.

Michael Clough seemed embarrassed by the question. “I think she loves me,” he said. “I'm the only man who's treated her decently in years.”

“That wasn't what I asked, an' you know it,” Woodend said.

“She's got a lot of fine qualities,” Clough replied. “I'm sure I'll
learn
to love her in time.”

“And what about Jenny? Where does that leave her?”

“So you knew about that?”

“Not at first,” Woodend admitted, “but there were so many little things which only made sense if that was the case. Like the night Robbie was killed, for example. You and your brother were down at the lake, talkin'. And what exactly were you talkin'
about
? It was about Jenny, wasn't it?”

“That's right,” Clough admitted. “Terry had suspected something was going on between us for quite some time, but on Friday night he asked me straight out if it was true.”

“An' what did you tell him?”

“That Jenny was going to divorce him and marry me.”

“And that's when he hit you?”

“Yes. I didn't fight back. I felt I owed him at least one swing at me.”

“There were other things that put me on the right track as well,” Woodend continued. “Do you remember when I was interviewin' you about your movements on Friday night?”

“Of course I do.”

“I couldn't see why you'd abandoned your committee meetin' to come to The Hideaway. You didn't seem like that kind of man. So what I suggested was that you'd come to meet the Peterson girl – and you reacted like I'd hit you in the face with a wet fish.”

“Well, it was a bit of a shock,” Michael Clough confessed.

“Of course it was,” Woodend agreed. “And for a while, I thought it was because you were havin' a secret affair with Annie. But you weren't. What had happened was that we were talkin' about
different people
. My wife was a Howard before we got married. In London, she's called Joan Woodend, because the neighbours don't know any different. But around Preston she's Joan Howard, even now. There's only one Peterson girl to me – Annie. But to people who've been brought up around the family, there are two. For them, Jenny will be Jenny Peterson until the day she dies. And that's who you thought I meant – you thought I'd found out about your affair with Jenny.”

“And
then
you knew it all?” Michael said, with just a trace of amused irony in his voice.

But Woodend found nothing amusing in the situation, because now that he knew that Conway was really Peterson – now that the veil had been lifted from his eyes and he was no longer chasing a criminal with a grievance – he had finally pieced together what had happened the night Robbie Peterson met his death.

“No,” he said in answer to Michael's question. “Even then I didn't work it out. It was the scene between Jenny and Annie yesterday that finally did it. What could cause two sisters to fight with such ferocity? It could only be a man. An' if I needed anythin' else, there was the look on your brother's face when
he
worked out what the fight was about. Terry wanted to make a lot of money fast, so he could get Jenny away from here. Away from you! But after the fight he realised there was no longer a problem. Jenny couldn't have you because you'd chosen Annie instead.”

“You're right,” Michael Clough admitted.

“But it's still Jenny you love, isn't it?” Woodend demanded roughly.

“Oh yes,” Clough said sadly. “It's still Jenny I love.”

“Then why are you abandonin' her now?”

“Jenny's got Terry,” Michael Clough said. “He might not be the ideal husband, but he loves her and he's capable of change – especially now Robbie's gone. Annie's got nobody. She needs me.”

“You're way off the mark, lad,” Woodend said.

“You don't think Annie needs me?”

“I
know
Jenny needs you more. She won't have Terry to stand by her – Terry will be goin' down for quite some time.

“Going down?” Michael repeated, incredulously.

“The problem about always tryin' to see the good side of people is that you don't see the bad side even when it's starin' you in the face. Your brother's both brighter and a lot more crooked then you'd ever have guessed.”

“Oh God, my darling Jenny,” Clough groaned.

“Aye, your darlin' Jenny,” Woodend agreed dourly. “I think it's about time we had a word with her.”

Annie Peterson, out on police bail, began counting the flowers on the living-room wall-paper for the sixth or seventh time and – again for the sixth or seventh time – lost her concentration less than halfway up the wall.

She lit a cigarette, then shredded the empty packet it had come from. Her life was a mess, she thought bitterly. And not only hers – the lives of everybody she touched were messes, too. It was easy to blame Robbie – she'd been doing that for years – but it was time to take some responsibility herself.

She thought back to her last conversation she'd had with her sister – the conversation which had ended with them fighting like two wild cats in the yard in front of The Hideaway. The words played in her head. Harsh. Accusing.

‘Don't take Michael away from me,'
Jenny had pleaded.
‘I've suffered so much—'

‘Suffered!'
Annie had replied heatedly.
‘You don't know the meaning of the word. You got to stay at home. I was Robbie's experiment in social climbing.'
She'd laughed without humour.
‘What a joke that was! Who did he ever hope to fool?'

‘He tried to do the best for all of us. It wasn't his fault he got it wrong.'

‘Well it certainly wasn't mine,'
Annabel had retorted.
‘And now I've got the chance of being happy at last, I'm not going to let you stand in my way.'

Yes, that was what she'd said. But even at the time there'd been at least a part of her which had realised it wasn't true. Michael and Jenny belonged together, and nothing good could ever come from splitting them up. And once she had admitted that to herself, it was obvious to her what
she
had to do.