The Ring of Death (2 page)

‘Good,' the Enemy said approvingly, as if, despite his initial reservations, he was now starting to consider Adair a promising pupil after all. ‘Next name?'

‘John Bygraves.'

‘John Bygraves of Waverley Avenue?'

‘I don't know,' Adair sobbed. ‘It might be Waverley Avenue, but I just don't know.'

‘It's Waverley Avenue,' the Enemy said. ‘Next?'

Adair spilled out another twenty names before he finally said, ‘That's it. I swear to you, that's all of them.'

And even then, the Enemy was not satisfied.

‘Describe exactly what went on,' he said. ‘Paint a picture for me.'

‘Paint a . . . paint a picture?'

‘That's what I said.'

Adair did his best. As the details – some he had all but forgotten – spilled out of his mouth, there was a corner of his brain which was reciting a babbled prayer that this might be enough – that despite what he had said earlier, the Enemy might find it in his heart to show a little mercy.

‘Is that all?' the other man asked, when the chronicle came to end.

‘That's all,' Adair promised.

A slight pause.

‘Are you sure?' the Enemy asked. ‘Because if you
can
remember something more, it
will
keep you alive just a little while longer.'

‘Look, you don't have to . . .' Adair began.

And then, as the metal claw ripped across his throat, tearing away the flesh and lacerating his windpipe, he said no more.

ONE

T
he pub landlords of Whitebridge feared the clever young men from the brewery's planning and design department in much the same way as landlords in former times must have feared a visitation by the plague. Daily, they lived in trepidation of the knock on the door which would announce the arrival of these callow youths, whose eyes gleamed – like vultures swooping down on a particularly juicy prey – and whose imaginations were positively exploding with exciting ideas for improving the place. For the landlords knew – as did their customers – that once these fashionably suited vandals had crossed the threshold, the boozer they had known and loved was all but doomed.

Walls would be torn down, in order to open the place up. Windows would be enlarged, letting in more of the outside world which the drinkers had come to the pub precisely to forget. But worse, even, than this destruction, was the
reconstruction
which followed it.

The pub needed a
theme
, explained these smart-arsed designers who did most of their own drinking in cocktail bars. It needed an
image
. And so it was that pubs built in the age of Victoria suddenly found themselves lumbered (and that was the
right
word, in every sense) with mock – and totally structurally unnecessary – seventeenth-century oak beams. So it was that pubs which had never had any connection with the coaching inns of earlier times had their walls festooned with horse brasses, harnesses, and long thin coaching horns.

The Drum and Monkey, having so far been spared this fate, was, to its regular customers, an island of placid stability in a world of frantic change. They
liked
the idea that the landlord felt that his main task in life was to sell beer. They felt comfortable with the fact that there was a best room there for those who wanted it, and a public bar for those who didn't. And some of them took an almost guilty pleasure in knowing that when a serious crime had occurred, the corner table in that public bar would invariably be occupied by a team of detectives which had once been led by DCI Charlie Woodend and was now headed by DCI Monika Paniatowski.

Though no serious crime was yet known to have occurred, two of Paniatowski's team were sitting at their customary table that lunchtime.

The elder of the pair, Detective Inspector Colin Beresford, was in his early thirties. From a distance, he managed to maintain the fresh-faced appearance of a much younger man. Closer up, it was his eyes you noticed – eyes which showed the strain of having carried a heavy responsibility, and a concern that he had somehow failed to carry it as well as he might have done. The eyes did not actually
tell
an observer that after years of struggling to take care of a mother suffering from Alzheimer's disease he had reluctantly decided to put her in a nursing home, but the observer would not have been the least surprised to learn that this was, in fact, the case.

The younger man was in his early twenties. His slim aesthetic features seemed as if they should belong to a high-flying college lecturer rather than a detective constable, and, in fact, Jack Crane, with his 1st Class Honours degree in English Literature, could easily have been a university lecturer had he decided to follow that particular path. But he had instead chosen the grimy streets over the dreaming spires – and it was a rare day on which he regretted his choice more than once.

The third member of the team was in the ladies' toilets, examining herself in the mirror. What she saw reflected back at her was a face which it would have pleased most women to possess, and which – on a good day – she even found perfectly acceptable herself.

Her hair was blonde and silky, her eyes blue, intelligent and penetrating. Her nose, reflecting her Central European background, was a little larger than those normally handed out in Lancashire, but it was strong rather than dominating, and the men in her life – not that there had been any of
them
recently – had often admitted to finding it very sexy. Her lips were wide and inviting, her chin was resolute without being square.

She stepped back from the mirror, lit up a cigarette, and stood perfectly still as the acrid smoke curled its way around her lungs.

‘Yes, not bad,' she told the reflection in the mirror. ‘Not bad at all.'

And then – realizing she'd actually spoken the words
out loud
– she quickly glanced around to see if there was anybody there to hear her.

Colin Beresford watched his old colleague (and new boss) emerge from the toilets and walk towards him.

It hadn't been easy for Monika, taking over from the legendary Charlie Woodend, he thought. In fact, he amended mentally, it had been bloody
hard
.

Stepping into Charlie's shoes would have been a formidable task for any
man
. For a woman – the very
first
woman DCI in the division – it had been an ever greater obstacle. And the transition hadn't exactly been helped by the rumours buzzing around Whitebridge Police HQ that Paniatowski owed her promotion less to her own ability than to her previous relationship with the chief constable.

All of which meant that, even though Paniatowski had handled her first major investigation with a flair and intuition which would have made Charlie Woodend proud of her, most of the bobbies in Whitebridge HQ were still unconvinced she'd been the right choice for the job.

‘I'm just getting a round in, boss,' Beresford said, as Paniatowski resumed her seat. ‘Another vodka?'

The DCI thought about it. ‘I've had two, so far, haven't I?'

‘That's right.'

‘Then I'd better pass on a third. I've got a meeting with the chief constable this afternoon.'

Beresford frowned. ‘Did he say what it was about?'

‘No, he didn't. There wasn't even a hint.'

The inspector shook his head, slightly mournfully. ‘Not good,' he pronounced.

‘Not good,' DC Crane repeated, puzzled. ‘But if you don't know what it is that the chief constable wants to talk about—'

‘If it was good, he'd have made the purpose of the meeting clear beforehand, so the boss had time to think about what she wanted to say,' Beresford interrupted. ‘Since he's playing it close to his chest, it's much more likely to be an ambush than a meeting of minds. Isn't that right, boss?'

Paniatowski looked down regretfully at her empty vodka glass. ‘That's right,' she agreed.

The sign on the office door said ‘Dr A. Beatty', and as he sat down opposite the man the sign referred to, DS Cousins found himself wondering what the ‘A' stood for.

Allen?

Ambrose?

Archibald?

Arsehole
?

It probably wasn't the last of these, Cousins decided – but it certainly
should
be!

He didn't like Dr A. Beatty. Didn't like him because he was one of those deluded men who thought that if he brushed hair over the bald spot in the middle of his head, no one would notice the baldness. Didn't like him because his lips had a habit of twitching slightly – signalling, almost – about half a second before he actually spoke. But most of all, he didn't like him because Beatty was the psychiatrist who he'd been coerced into meeting with once a week.

Beatty's lips did their slight twitch. ‘You're on time this week,' he said. ‘That's a good sign, Paul.'

‘Is it, Amadeus?' Cousins asked innocently.

The lips twitched again, as if Beatty were thinking of correcting Cousins, then the doctor glanced down at the file on his desk and said, ‘How long is it now since your wife died, Paul?'

‘It's all in that file,' Cousins told him.

‘I know it is, but I'd still like you to tell me.'

Cousins shrugged. ‘Two years, three months and six days.'

‘And how do you feel about that?'

‘How do you think I feel? I've over the bloody moon about it. I'm so happy I have to keep pinching myself to make sure I'm not just dreaming.'

Beatty shook his head, reprovingly, though not so vigorously as to disturb his carefully arranged hair.

‘You agreed to attend these sessions only when you were told they were a pre-condition to your returning to your normal duties. Isn't that correct?' he asked.

‘Too bloody right it is.'

‘But what you seem to have failed to have grasped is that that pre-condition required more than you simply turning up at my office, though, as I said earlier, the fact that you have become more punctual
is
a good sign.'

Cousins said nothing.

‘You are required not only to be here, but to make a positive effort to
work
with me,' Beatty continued. ‘And if you fail to do that, Paul . . . well, we both know what the consequences will be, don't we?'

‘You're threatening to have me sent on sick leave again.'

‘I'm not
threatening
anything. That is not my role. I will merely write an objective assessment of these meetings, and your superiors will make the decisions about your future.'

Cousins sighed. ‘All right,' he said, ‘I was totally devastated by my wife's death.'

The doctor gave him a disapproving look. ‘Too easy,' he said.

‘What do you mean – too easy?' Cousins demanded.

‘You're talking in platitudes,' the doctor replied. ‘You're using words – mere clichés – as a way of blocking out your true emotions.'

‘They might be clichés to you, but they're not to me,' Cousins said angrily. ‘I
was
devastated. She was the only woman I ever really wanted, and I'd lost her.'

‘And who did you
blame
for that?'

‘I didn't blame anybody,' Cousins said, perhaps a little too quickly.

‘Everybody blames somebody – or something – in cases like that,' the psychiatrist persisted. ‘Did you blame God, perhaps?'

‘I'm not sure I believe in God,' Cousins told him. ‘And even if I do, I don't think he's interested enough in me personally to punish me by planting cancerous cells in my wife's body.'

‘Then perhaps you blame the doctors?'

‘They did all they could.'

‘Or your wife herself? That's quite common.'

‘No,' Cousins said, with a sudden ferocity. ‘Not her!'

The doctor smiled, knowingly. ‘Then that only leaves you, doesn't it?' he asked.

‘That's right. It only leaves me.'

‘And how are
you
responsible?'

Cousins shrugged. ‘I don't know. Maybe if I'd made her go to see the doctor earlier . . .'

‘I've seen her medical record. Even if she
had
gone earlier, it would have made very little difference.'

‘Or maybe if I'd been a better person, a more considerate person . . .'

‘How would that have helped?'

‘I don't know, but maybe if I'd spent less time at work she wouldn't have got sick.'

‘Are you saying your wife was unhappy with your marriage?'

‘Not exactly unhappy – but maybe she sometimes felt a little neglected. It's an occupational hazard among bobbies' wives.'

‘So there are times when you think that your wife developed cancer through your
neglect
?'

‘Maybe.'

‘There's no scientific evidence for that ever having happened, you know.'

‘And can science prove that it
doesn't
happen?'

‘Not definitively, no, but then there is very little in this world that can be definitively . . .'

‘Well, there you are, then.'

‘You didn't have any children, did you?'

No, they didn't. She'd wanted them. And so had he, in a way. But he'd wanted to get established in the Force first, so they'd put it off and put it off until it was too late.

‘I said, you didn't have any children, did you?' the doctor repeated.

‘It's all in the file,' Cousins said morosely.

The psychiatrist raised an eyebrow.