The Ring of Death (5 page)

‘Yes, ma'am. Harold Toynbee.'

‘So until Inspector Beresford turns up, you'll be in charge here, Sergeant. All right?'

‘Fine with me, ma'am,' Cousins said.

The kennels were surrounded by a high wire-mesh fence, and when Paniatowski rang the bell at the gate, the sound was greeted by a series of barks and howls. A man, wearing cord trousers and a rough tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows, emerged from a square single-storey brick building, quite close to the entrance, and Paniatowski held up her warrant card for him to see.

‘DCI Paniatowski,' she said. ‘Are you Mr Toynbee?'

‘That's me,' the man admitted.

He was around forty-five years old, Paniatowski guessed. He was a hale and hearty man, with the kind of ruddy complexion which indicated a clear preference for the outdoor life – though on that particular morning the ruddiness was somewhat tinged with grey.

Toynbee unlocked the gate. ‘You'd better come into the office, Chief Inspector.'

He led Paniatowski across the yard to the brick building, while all the time the dogs continued their howl of disapproval.

The office itself was divided into two halves. In one half – the business part – there was a desk and a bank of filing cabinets. In the other half – the showroom part – there were two display cabinets filled with winners' cups of various sizes, and whatever wall space was available had been covered with framed certificates.

‘That was awarded for Best in Breed at Crufts, three years ago,' Toynbee said, pointing automatically at one of the larger cups in the display cabinet.

‘Very impressive,' Paniatowski said.

‘We'd have come away with Best in Show, too, if the judges hadn't already decided, before the show even opened, to give the cup to one of the bigger breeds that year,' Toynbee added sourly. ‘Course, they
say
they hadn't decided at all. They
say
they always go into it with an open mind. But everybody knows that . . .' He pulled himself up short. ‘I'm sorry, I'm babbling. But when I got up this morning, I never expected I'd find a . . . find a . . .'

‘Why don't we sit down?' Paniatowski suggested.

‘Sit down?' Toynbee repeated. ‘Good idea.'

He walked around his desk and plopped down into his chair. He was still in a state of shock, Paniatowski thought, as she took the seat opposite him, but that was more than understandable.

‘I've seen dead bodies before,' Toynbee said, as if he felt the need to defend himself. ‘Course I have. I helped lay out my own granny. But this was . . . this was something else.'

‘Did you get a look at his face?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I did,' Toynbee said, almost guiltily. ‘I . . . I actually knelt down so I could see it more clearly. I don't know
why
I did that. Do
you
know why I did that?'

‘I take it you didn't recognize him,' Paniatowski said.

‘God, no! If I'm this cut up over a complete stranger, imagine how I'd have been if it had turned out to be a mate.'

‘So you've never heard of Andrew Adair?'

‘Don't think so.'

‘What time did you find the body?'

‘Must have been half-past five. Something like that, anyway. That's when I normally walk the older cockers. No traffic around at that time, you see. Means they can have a good run off the leash.'

‘So you arrived here at the kennels at what time, exactly?'

‘Didn't
arrive
at all. Never left.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘They're valuable dogs, are my cockers. Leave them unguarded, and you could guarantee some thieving bastard would have them away. So somebody always stays here overnight – either me or one of my kennel lads.' He jabbed his thumb in the general direction of the door opposite the office entrance. ‘There's a bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen in there. It's comfortable enough.'

‘Then you were here all night?'

‘That's right. Why?'

‘I noticed that when I arrived, the dogs kicked up a hell of a fuss,' Paniatowski said. ‘They didn't happen to do the same thing sometime in the night, did they?'

‘As a matter of fact, they did,' Harold Toynbee said. ‘They had a real howling fit on them at around two o'clock and . . .' He caught his breath, as if he had just realized something that he should have understood a long time ago. ‘That'll be when it happened, won't it? That'll be when the bastard dumped the body?'

‘How long did this howling fit of theirs last?'

‘Twenty or maybe twenty-five minutes.'

‘But you didn't get up to investigate whatever it was that was making them so upset?'

‘No, I didn't.'

‘Why not?'

Toynbee shrugged. ‘Last night was a bit extreme, but they often get worked up like that. If there's a fox on the prowl – or even a hedgehog – they can go bloody mad. That's why I had to move the kennels out of town. People were complaining about the racket, you see.'

‘Do you always take the dogs into the woods?' Paniatowski asked.

‘As a general rule, yes. They like to have a bit of a root around under the trees.'

‘And you said the reason you take them out at that time of day is that there's very little traffic around?'

‘That's right. On that walk, I can go for days without seeing a single car. Although . . .'

‘Although . . .' Paniatowski encouraged.

‘Although, a couple of times this week, I have seen a blue Bedford six-hundredweight van driving along the road.'

‘
The killer will have needed at least a small van to shift him
,' Cousins had said.

‘You think that might be what the killer used to move the body?' Toynbee said.

‘It's a possibility,' Paniatowski admitted. ‘Which direction was he travelling in?'

‘From Whitebridge to Whalley.'

‘Did you get a look at the driver's face?'

‘I'm afraid not. On both occasions, I'd gone into the woods by the time the van drew level with me.'

‘So you didn't get the number, either?'

‘No, he was too far away. And anyway, why would I have bothered to take the number? As far as I was concerned, it was just an ordinary vehicle going about its business.'

‘So there was nothing unusual about the van at all?' Paniatowski asked hopefully.

‘Well, the driver did seem to be going rather slowly, considering there was a clear road ahead of him,' Toynbee mused.

‘Any minute now, it's going to start making sense to him,' Paniatowski thought.

‘He was driving slowly so he
wouldn't
draw level with me until I'd gone into the woods, wasn't he?' Toynbee asked.

‘Yes, I rather think so.'

‘He didn't want me to see his face or be able to take his number.'

‘Correct.'

‘What he
did
want to do was to make sure that I went into the woods every day.'

‘It's certainly looking that way,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘Because the bloody swine had me marked down to find the body from the start!' Toynbee exploded.

‘Yes,' Paniatowski said softly. ‘I rather think he had.'

FIVE

W
hen Monika Paniatowski returned to the scene of the crime, she found it transformed.

An ambulance had arrived, and the two-man crew, having nothing else to do for the moment, were leaning against the side of their vehicle, smoking No. 6 Tipped cigarettes and drinking vacuum-flask-coffee from plastic cups.

Three more patrol cars had appeared, and the uniformed officers who'd been disgorged from them now formed a ragged – though undoubtedly effective – cordon around the edge of the woods.

A battered Land Rover, belonging to Dr Shastri, was parked next to the ambulance, but there was no sign of the good doctor herself, which meant she was probably already in the woods, examining the body.

And finally, there was DI Colin Beresford, standing and watching the whole operation like the conscientious bobby that he was – ensuring that even though there was only the slightest chance that anything
could
possibly go wrong, nothing actually
did
.

‘I think the killer may have used a blue Bedford six-hundredweight van to transport the body,' Paniatowski told her inspector.

Beresford whistled softly. ‘Christ, if you're right about that, boss, it's a real break at this early stage of the investigation,' he said. ‘But what's led you to that conclu—'

‘I'll explain later,' Paniatowski said briskly. ‘What I want
you
to do, straight away, is to get back to headquarters, assemble your team, and put them right on it.'

Beresford nodded. ‘Got it, boss.'

‘I need to know who in the Whitebridge area owns a van like that,' Paniatowski continued. ‘I want all the owners checked out, and I also need to know if any vans matching that description have been stolen in the last few days.'

‘Right,' Beresford agreed.

‘I also want the whole of the Whalley road, from Whitebridge to Whalley, thoroughly canvassed. Because though it's highly unlikely that anybody was out and about on it at the ungodly hour of five-thirty in the morning, it's just
possible
they were. And
if
they were, I want to know if they've seen the blue van or its driver any morning this week.'

‘But if he only dumped the body this morning . . .'

‘I'll explain that later, as well,' Paniatowski said. She looked around her. ‘Where's DS Cousins?'

‘Gone,' Beresford said.

‘Gone?' Paniatowski repeated.

‘He said he had a lead that he had to chase up. I thought he must have been acting on your instructions.'

‘Well, he bloody well wasn't!' Paniatowski said.

So, despite initial appearances, it was going to be just like Walker all over again, she thought bitterly – another sergeant who resented the fact he had to work for a female DCI, and was already doing all he could to kick her legs from underneath her!

‘I'm sorry, boss, I didn't know,' Beresford said. ‘He seemed so sure of himself.'

‘Yes, his sort always did,' Paniatowski thought.

‘It doesn't matter,' she said. ‘I'll take charge here. You get back to HQ and start looking for that blue van.'

She turned, and walked into the woods, to be confronted, once she'd reached the clearing, with a sight which almost made her think she was hallucinating.

The corpse was where she had left it, still on its hands and knees, still in the grip of rigor. But projecting from under it were a pair of coffee-brown feet clad in golden sandals, which were in turn attached to a pair of legs wrapped chastely in a flowery sari.

‘Ah, so you have arrived, my dear Chief Inspector,' said a voice from somewhere beyond the legs.

Paniatowski walked over to the corpse, and crouched down next to it.

‘You look just like a mechanic, examining the underside of a car, Doc,' she said.

‘Indeed I do,' Dr Shastri agreed. ‘But, of course, a good car mechanic is more much skilled than a simple Indian doctor.'

Shastri extricated herself from the awkward position with the grace and smoothness of a dancer. And when she stood up, her sari fell back into its natural folds and looked as fresh as if she had just put it on.

‘This is a most interesting case you have brought me, Monika,' she said. ‘The death is easily explained. The poor man had his throat slashed with what I would guess was some kind of metal hook. It is what happened to him
after
death which really fascinates me. He was immediately draped over some kind of object, in order to mould him into the shape he is currently assuming.'

‘And you're sure this was done
immediately
, are you?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Perhaps not,' Shastri conceded. ‘But it was certainly done within half an hour of death, or there would be clear signs of livor mortis in the lower extremities.'

‘I see,' Paniatowski said thoughtfully. ‘So the victim was draped over this object . . .'

‘I would guess it was a packing case of some kind, though I cannot be definite about that. But what I strongly believe is that it was neither a random action nor a random object. I think the killer chose a box – or whatever it was – of just the right height, in order to produce this pretty little human statue of his.'

‘Why?' Paniatowski asked.

Shastri laughed, and it was like the gentle ringing of golden temple bells. ‘There you go again,' she said.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You're asking me to play the detective for you. But I can't. I do not
know
why the killer did it – unless, perhaps, he is addicted to the game of necrophilia leapfrog. All I can tell you is
what
happened.'

Paniatowski grinned. ‘I've known you too long to fall for that line,' she said. ‘You've got your own theories. I'm sure of it.'

‘Actually, on this occasion, you are only half-right at best,' Shastri said. ‘I did think, at first, that it may have been done to humiliate the dead man . . .'

‘That's what my sergeant and I thought,' Paniatowski said.

And just where
was
her bloody sergeant? And just what was he bloody well
doing
?

‘Certainly stripping him naked could be seen as wishing to humiliate him,' Shastri continued, ‘but why stop there? Why not then subject him to what most men would call the
ultimate
humiliation?'