Stone Killer (32 page)

‘I don't seem to have much choice, do I?' Keene asked miserably.

‘No, you don't,' Woodend agreed. He lifted his brandy glass, held it up to the light, then took another drink. ‘Do you know, I thought this stuff was perfect when I had my first sip,' he said. ‘But it tastes even better now.'

‘T
here are some cases that are mainly down to the work done by one member of the team, an' when it's solved it's he or she who deserves most of the credit,' Woodend said, reaching for his freshly arrived pint. ‘But I can honestly say that in this particular investigation, that's not true at all. If you, Monika, hadn't found out about Judith's baby, we'd have been stymied. An' if you, Beresford – Colin, I should say – hadn't come up with the information on Keene's attempt to kill her, we'd never have had the glue we needed to stick all the other pieces we'd collected together.' He raised his glass. ‘So here's to us – a bloody good team.'

The others raised their drinks and clinked them against his pint pot, but not with the full enthusiasm he would have liked to see. Monika Paniatowski seemed strangely distracted. And young Beresford – who should have been over the moon that his first case had reached a successful conclusion – looked positively depressed.

Monika stood up. ‘If you'll excuse me for a minute, I have to make a phone call,' she said.

‘Just make sure you're not away too long,' Woodend told her. ‘Because we've got some serious drinkin' to do tonight.'

Paniatowski dialled the Dunethorpe number, and the man at the other end picked up immediately, almost as if he'd been waiting for the call.

‘It's me,' she said.

‘I thought it might be,' Baxter replied. ‘I've just seen the news on the television. Congratulations.'

‘It was a team effort,' Monika said.

‘And it certainly leaves me with a good deal of egg on my face, doesn't it?' Baxter asked.

‘You were
part
of the team,' Monika told him. ‘If you hadn't collected all that evidence, we'd never have got anywhere.'

‘I might have collected it, but I certainly don't seem to have known what to do with it.'

‘You just had a blind spot,' Monika said. ‘Your gut was telling you all the right things, but you chose – on this occasion – not to listen to it. We're all guilty of that, from time to time.'

‘That's more than generous of you,' Baxter told her.

‘Bollocks!' Monika replied. ‘Listen, I've a few loose ends still to tie up in Dunethorpe tomorrow, so maybe we'll finally get the lunch we've been promising ourselves.'

‘That would be delightful,' Baxter said.

Constable Beresford had not said a word since Paniatowski had left the table to make her call. In fact, he was doing a fair impersonation of a man who'd rather not be there in the pub at all.

‘Are you goin' to sulk all evenin', lad?' Woodend asked. ‘Or would you rather tell me what's on your mind?'

‘I don't see why you let Stanley Keene off so easily, sir,' the constable said, the words bursting from his mouth as if he'd only been containing them with great effort.

‘When I'd spelled out the alternatives to Keene, he was just about willin' to sign a confession which would earn him a ten- or twelve-year stretch,' Woodend said. ‘But he'd never have signed one which would have put him away for a quarter of a century.'

‘I know that, but—'

‘An' while I managed to convince him that we could put together a case which we were bound to win, the truth is that it was a long way from a racin' certainty that we would. There was always the distinct possibility he might have been found not guilty.'

‘It still doesn't seem right,' Beresford said. ‘He didn't just murder Burroughs, did he? He destroyed other lives as well.'

‘Aye, he did,' Woodend agreed. ‘Major Maitland's for a start. Even though the guns he used in the siege weren't loaded, he'll still be goin' to gaol for a long, long time. An' then there's the rest of them. Judith – who's had enough tough times in her life already – has all but lost her husband. Timothy an' his sister, who
have
lost their father. It's a complete bloody mess, an' it's all Keene's doin'.'

‘Then how could you even consider offering him the soft option?' Beresford asked, almost in anguish.

‘Is that what you think it is? A soft option?'

‘Don't you?'

‘I had quite a little talk with Major Maitland before he finally gave himself up,' Woodend said. ‘I asked him how he thought he'd get on in prison. He said that a hard man like him will be virtually runnin' the gaol within a year. An' I think he's probably right.'

‘I don't see what that's got to do with Keene.'

‘Then I'll explain it to you. Keene's
not
a hard man. He's cunnin' an' he's vicious, but he's not hard. I don't particularly want to go into the details of what the other prisoners will do to him once he's inside – it'd give a lad like you nightmares just to think about it – but trust me, gaol will be hell on earth for him.'

‘He'll be able to stand it though – because however bad it is, he'll know it won't be for ever,' Beresford said.

‘That's where you're wrong,' Woodend contradicted him. ‘He won't be able to stand it. I agreed to a short sentence because I knew it would have exactly the same effect as a long one.'

‘How's that possible?'

‘Because whether he's servin' ten years or twenty-five years, the only way he'll ever come out of that prison will be in a box,' Woodend said.