The Enemy Within (20 page)

He did not recall asking himself this sort of question about any of the other cases he had investigated. But then no other case had
been
like this one. The killings were not random or spontaneous – they were carefully planned in advance. And though he could not produce a shred of evidence to back up his theory, Woodend was becoming convinced that the murderer was on a mission – that he saw himself as killing for something greater than himself.

Elizabeth Driver was feeling very pleased with herself. And why shouldn't she? It wasn't every day that she got to put the squeeze on a police inspector, especially a police inspector who was so much in his boss's confidence.

Yes, Rutter was a rare prize, she thought, but life would be even better if she could also get a handle on Dexter Bryant.

She picked up the phone and dialled her reluctant helper in London. For once, he did not seem to resent her calling. In fact, he seemed almost eager to speak to her.

‘I've found out something juicy,' he said.

‘On Bryant?'

‘No, not on Bryant. He's clean as a whistle. There are even some people on the Street who call him
Saint
Dexter.'

‘Then if you've nothing on him, I don't see how you can say––'

‘It's not him – it's about a member of his family. And once I've told you, you'll be able to make him dance to whatever tune you want to play.'

Elizabeth Driver felt a churning in the pit of her stomach. This was going to be
great
!

‘Now I've taken the trouble of ringing you up, I suppose I might as well hear what you've got to tell me,' she said casually.

‘You don't fool me,' her informant told her. ‘You're excited. I can sense it, even at this distance.'

Damn! She should have been able to hide it better than that.

‘So I'm
interested
,' she conceded.

‘If I tell you, does that wipe out my debt? Does it mean I don't owe you anything any more?'

‘That all depends how good it is.'

‘Oh, it's good.'

‘Then let's hear it.'

He gave her all the details.

‘Well?' he said when he'd finished.

‘You've cleared your debt,' she told him, and hung up.

What a bloody fool the man was, she thought. No wonder he'd never amounted to anything. How could he uncover such invaluable information – and still not see how to use it properly?

She could make Dexter Bryant dance to her tune, he'd said.

What a waste that would be! Like using a precious silver spoon to eat cabbage soup! Like squandering precious jewels in order to buy worthless trinkets!

With what she knew now, she could gain huge influence within the police force. And not just at the level of detective inspector. Not even at the level of detective
chief
inspector. No, armed with the bombshell her unwilling helper had given her, she was going right to the top.

It was as she was closing one of the Whitebridge General files and reaching across for another that Monika Paniatowski noticed the expression on Bob Rutter's face. The anger it had been displaying when he returned to the hospital had all but gone, to be replaced by a look of anguish and hopelessness which quite shocked her.

She wanted to comfort him, but didn't dare. She wondered what could possibly have happened to him, but didn't feel she had the right to ask.

Rutter closed the file he had been attempting to study, and pushed it to one side.

‘What time are we meeting the boss?' he asked.

‘Eight thirty.'

‘Do you think there's any chance he'll be in the Drum before that?'

‘He could be.'

‘Then I think I'll go and see if he's there now.'

‘Any particular reason?' Paniatowski wondered aloud.

‘There's something I want to talk to him about.'

‘And does it have anything to do with us?'

‘No, not directly.'

‘But
indirectly
?'

‘I suppose so.'

Paniatowski stood up. ‘In that case, I'm coming with you.'

‘I'd rather you didn't.'

‘I don't care what you'd “rather”!'

A freshly agonized look crossed Rutter's face. ‘I just need half an hour in private with Charlie. It
does
concern you in some ways, but I promise you I won't say anything to harm you. In fact, it's partly for you I'm doing it.'

‘Then tell me what it's about.'

Rutter shook his head. ‘I can't. Trust me, Monika. Just this one more time.'

A frown of indecision appeared on Paniatowski's brow.

‘Please!' Rutter said.

‘Half an hour,' Paniatowski told him. ‘You've got half an hour, then I'll be joining you whether you've finished what you want to say or not.'

W
oodend looked across the table in the Drum and Monkey at the man who had once been his protégé.

‘So Elizabeth Driver knows all about it,' the Chief Inspector groaned. ‘Whatever were you thinkin' of when you started this affair?'

‘I'm not sure I was even
thinking
at all,' Rutter confessed. ‘It was almost as if there was an evil angel deep inside me, whispering that it would be all right.'

Woodend raised his hands to his forehead, but said nothing.

‘I knew I shouldn't listen,' Rutter continued. ‘I understood that the angel's main aim was to destroy me – but I did what it wanted me to do anyway.' He paused, and looked appealingly at his boss. ‘Do you know what I mean, sir?'

Woodend maintained his silence.

‘
Do you know
?' Rutter persisted.

‘Aye, I know,' Woodend said heavily. ‘How could I not? We've
all
got our evil angel.'

‘That's what I'm saying.'

‘It can spread like a cancer, until it's taken over us completely.'

‘Exactly.'

‘But unlike a real cancer, there's always somethin' we can do about it. We can fight back – an' if we're strong enough, we can defeat it.'

‘It's not as simple as that,' Rutter said defensively.

‘Yes, it is,' Woodend argued.

‘That's easy for you to say.'

‘Easy!' Woodend repeated. ‘Don't you think I've ever been tempted? Have you forgotten Liz Poole?'

She'd been involved in the first case they'd ever worked on together, Rutter reminded himself – and she'd made it plain to Woodend that if he wanted her, he only had to ask.

‘No, I've not forgotten her,' the inspector said.

‘An' neither have I,' Woodend said. ‘I don't think I ever will. But if I've got regrets, then they're regrets I can live with.'

‘What's your point?' Rutter asked snappishly.

‘You think it's Elizabeth Driver whose holdin' a gun against your head, but you're wrong.'

‘I never said––'

‘She may actually have it in her hand, but you're the one who put it there in the first place.'

The few creaking props by which Rutter had been holding up his sense of self-justification finally buckled and collapsed, almost burying him in the process.

‘You're right, of course,' he confessed. ‘I'm the one who put it there.'

‘An' how are you goin' to deal with the situation?'

‘Not in the way Elizabeth Driver wants me to!'

‘Aye, I gathered that, or we wouldn't be sittin' here talkin' about it now,' Woodend said. ‘So what
are
you goin' to do?'

‘As soon as this case is over, I'm going to tell Maria about the affair. What she does then is up to her. I wouldn't blame her if she kicked me out.'

‘Neither would I,' Woodend agreed. ‘But that's only one part of your problem, isn't it?'

Rutter nodded. ‘When Driver realizes I'm not going to co-operate with her, her first thought will be to run the story of Monika and me as a sort of consolation prize for herself. I'm going to try and pre-empt that.'

‘How?'

‘By resigning. The story will lose most of its appeal if one of us is no longer on the Force – so maybe it won't be worth printing after all.'

‘I hope you're not expectin' me to try an' talk you out of handin' in your resignation,' Woodend said.

‘No, I'm not. But even if you did try, it wouldn't do any good. Now that Driver's got the story, I'm finished whatever happens. Even if they don't dismiss me, they'll shunt me into some kind of job in which I'll never see real policing again. But if I go now – and go voluntarily – there's just a chance I'll be able to save Monika's career.'

A half-wistful smile came to Woodend's face. ‘I used to take pride in you, Bob,' he said. ‘Then all I felt was disappointment.' He held his hand out across the table. ‘After what you've just told me, I think I may be able to start admirin' you again.'

Rutter shook the hand. ‘Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.'

‘I'm goin' to miss you when you've gone, lad,' Woodend said.

‘I'm going to miss you, too, sir,' Rutter told him.

No one had bothered to give a name to the piece of wasteland, though in shape, isolation and origin, it could have been a close relative of Mad Jack's Field. It was located about a mile and a half from the town centre. Minor roads bounded its north and south borders. Its east and west edges were marked by a row of houses and an old tannery respectively. In the centre stood one of the biggest bonfires in Whitebridge.

Constable Ernie Rowse looked longingly up at the stack of branches and timber, then blew into his hands for warmth.

‘How long are we goin' to be stood here?' he asked his partner, PC Ken Blake.

‘We get relieved at two in the mornin'.'

‘We could freeze our balls off by then. I'll tell you what! Why don't I light this bloody bonfire?'

‘Have you lost your mind?'

‘No, listen, it's a brilliant idea. As long as it's burnin' we'll keep warm. An' when it's finished burnin', there'll be nothin' left to guard any more.'

‘An' we'll not lack for company, either.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean that before it had even got properly goin', we'd have a couple of fire engines, half a dozen squad cars, an' an ambulance down here. Still, you wouldn't have to worry about your balls freezin' off any more – you wouldn't
have
any balls by the time Cloggin'-it Charlie had finished with you.'

‘So maybe it was a daft idea, now I think about it,' Rowse admitted grumpily, ‘but I still think it's a waste of time us bein' here.'

Blake switched on his flashlight. ‘I shouldn't be away for more than about ten minutes,' he said.

‘What are you talkin' about? Are you goin' off somewhere?'

Blake sighed. ‘Don't you
ever
listen to orders? One of us is supposed to patrol the perimeter of the site once every half hour.'

‘That's another daft idea,' Rowse said dismissively.

‘Maybe it is,' Blake agreed. ‘But if I'm questioned by the sergeant later on, I want to be able to say, hand on heart, that I did what I was supposed to do.'

Rowse watched the bobbing light in Blake's hand travel across the field to the boundary, and turn and continue along it parallel to the road. Eventually, as was bound to happen, Blake's light disappeared, hidden by the bonfire.

If he'd wanted to, Rowse could have walked around to the other side of the bonfire, and continued to follow Blake's progress with his eyes. But he didn't want to! That was the difference between him and his partner, he thought – he took a sensible approach to the job and Blakey was too keen by half!

The clock which hung over the bar – a perpetual warning to customers that even in paradise there were time limits – said that it was a quarter to nine.

‘I told you that I'd posted constables at all the bonfires in the Whitebridge area, didn't I, Monika?' Woodend asked.

‘No, sir, you didn't.'

‘Thought I had. Must just have mentioned it to Bob, shortly before you got here.'

Monika looked from Woodend to Rutter, and then back to Woodend. What else had the boss mentioned to Bob shortly before she got there? she wondered. Had they been talking about her? And if so, what had they been saying? Had the two men,
being
men, decided they would cast her in the convenient role of vamp and home-breaker?

She became aware that Woodend was looking quizzically at her – as if he expected her to ask some detective-like question.

‘What's the idea behind posting guards?' she said, when she'd worked out what he was waiting for. ‘Are you working on the assumption that the killer needs the bonfires as part of his ritual – and if he can't get at them, he won't bother to kill?'

‘More or less,' Woodend agreed. ‘An' if that it
is
the case, then we're safe after tonight's over – at least until next Bonfire Night rolls around.'

‘But you're not sure they
are
necessary to him, are you?'

‘No, I'm not. If all he's interested in is burnin' his victims in
some
way or other, then there's a hundred other methods he could use. Which means that the only thing that's goin' to stop his killin' spree is that we catch him – an' we're no closer to that than we were at the start of this bloody investigation.'

‘We must know
something
,' Rutter said. ‘It's just that we don't
know
we know it yet.'

‘I admire your optimism,' Woodend said. He glanced up at the clock. ‘Another ten minutes an' I'll be off to make my round of the bonfires.' He coughed, awkwardly. ‘An' as for you two, if I was in your shoes, I think I'd call it a night an' go your separate ways.'