Death of an Innocent (21 page)

‘And
was
there anything?'

Woodend suppressed an almost overpowering urge to look across at the coat rack, where his overcoat – the pocket of which contained the fleck of yellow paint – was hanging.

‘Until the jigsaw puzzle's complete, you never know how vital any particular piece of it is goin' to be,' he said.

‘You didn't answer my question,' Taylor pointed out.

‘I know I didn't,' Woodend countered.

Taylor sighed. ‘I told Dick Ainsworth . . . You do know about Dick Ainsworth's involvement in all this, too, I take it?'

‘I'd have to be pretty thick not to, now wouldn't I?'

‘Yes – and you're certainly not that. As I was saying, I told Dick Ainsworth it was the wrong move to go after a man like you with a big stick. But he simply wouldn't listen.'

‘So what alternative are you proposin'?'

‘The carrot, of course. As things stand, you could go to prison for a long time.'

‘You're not tellin' me anythin' that I don't already know.'

‘Perhaps not, but that outcome – a long prison sentence – is still by no means inevitable. If you were to consider⎯'

The waitress returned with the bottle of wine Taylor had ordered. The builder went through the ritual of sniffing the wine before taking an exploratory sip. Watching him, Woodend gained the distinct impression that this particular activity – like so much else of the man's behaviour – had been meticulously learned in later life, rather than naturally acquired when he was growing up.

‘Excellent,' Taylor pronounced, smacking his lips. ‘I think you'll rather enjoy this particular little wine, Mr Woodend,' he continued, gesturing, with a nod of his head, that the waitress should fill the Chief Inspector's glass.

Woodend raised his arm and put his right palm across the top of the glass. ‘Bring me a pint of your best bitter with my mixed grill, would you, love?' he said to the waitress.

Taylor shot him a hostile look, and when the waitress had left again he said, ‘Are you deliberately trying to annoy me, Chief Inspector?'

‘Aye, I certainly am,' Woodend agreed. ‘An' if I say so myself as shouldn't, I think I'm makin' a pretty good job of it. But let's get back to what you were sayin' before we were interrupted.'

‘If you were to stop trying to nail me, I wouldn't have to keep on trying to nail you,' Taylor told him.

‘It's a bit late for that kind of speech, isn't it? Aren't I well an' truly nailed already?'

‘Not necessarily.'

The waitress returned with their plates – and Woodend's pint.

Taylor attacked his steak with gusto. ‘Most things in this life can be reversed if you know the right way to go about it,' he said, after he had chewed and swallowed the first chunk. ‘The evidence against you at the moment looks as solid and substantial as the police station where you spend most of your underpaid working life. Yet if it's handled in the right way, it could all collapse as suddenly as a house of cards.'

‘The law doesn't work that way,' Woodend told him, pushing his various pieces of meat unenthusiastically around his plate.

‘There's no reason why the law shouldn't work in any way
we
wanted it to. Say, for example, that Dick Ainsworth was to uncover fresh evidence that showed conclusively that you'd been fitted up.'

‘For that to be at all convincin', somebody else would have to go to jail instead of me.'

‘But of course.'

‘Who? You?'

Taylor chuckled. ‘You really can have a delightful sense of humour on occasion, Mr Woodend. No, I would not be the one to do time.'

‘Then who would?'

Taylor speared another piece of steak. ‘The exact details are really of secondary importance,' he said. ‘But, believe me, finding a replacement for you is absolutely no problem for me at all. There are any number of men I'm acquainted with who regard prison as their second home – and would see it as a bonus if they were actually
paid
for going inside.'

‘So you get some poor toe-rag to give evidence in court that he tried to fit me up . . .?'

‘Exactly.'

‘An' that he was doin' it on the instructions of some mysterious Mr Big – who the police will look for, but never actually find?'

‘It would be regrettable, but the big fish often do slip out of the net that catches all the minnows.'

‘An' what happens to me?'

Taylor sliced off another piece of steak, and Woodend found himself wondering if the builder always enjoyed his food so much.

‘What happens to you?' Taylor asked. ‘You'll be a hero. You'll return to your duties in the Central Lancs Police with a totally unblemished record. Or, if you would prefer it, you could come and work for me.'

‘For you?'

‘I have extensive business interests, Mr Woodend, and I need – or could decide I needed – a new head of security. It would be an interesting, fulfilling job – and I could certainly afford to pay you a lot more than you're earning as a chief inspector. So what do you say to my offer?'

‘I say that you can take your offer an' stuff it up your backside, you crooked bastard!'

Taylor did not seem to take any offence. Instead, he looked down at Woodend's plate.

‘I thought, for all your talk about black pudding and boxing, you wouldn't be able to manage to eat much,' he said, ‘but even so, I'd imagined you'd have made a more valiant stab at it than you have.'

‘The Frenchies never could cook,' Woodend said defensively. ‘They can bugger up anythin' – even decent English grub.'

‘You're like a bad poker player who knows he should act as if he's got a good hand, but just can't seem to make the effort. You know you'll hate yourself if you accept my offer, but you also know – deep inside yourself – that that's exactly what you
are
going to do.'

‘I'd rather go to jail for the rest of my life than make a deal with you,' Woodend said.

But he didn't sound convincing – even to himself.

‘Have you ever actually been to jail?' Taylor asked. ‘I don't mean as a visitor – I mean as an inmate.'

‘No, I haven't. Have you?' Woodend replied, showing just a little of his old spirit.

‘You'll never come out again, you know,' Taylor said, ignoring his question. ‘Not an ex-policeman like you. However short your sentence is, you'll never live to see the end of it.'

‘Shut up!' Woodend said weakly.

‘But you won't mind the thought of dying – at least, you won't towards the end,' Taylor continued relentlessly. ‘In fact, it will seem like a blessed release after all you've endured.'

Woodend stood up, and clamped his hand over his mouth. ‘I have to go to the bog,' he muttered through his fingers.

‘Yes, that does seem like a good idea,' Taylor agreed. ‘And while you're there – bent double over the toilet bowl and puking up all your fear – you should give some serious thought to what we've just been discussing.'

Woodend lurched towards the exit, but before he finally left the room, he glanced quickly over his shoulder. Taylor was no longer eating. Instead, he had laid his knife and fork down, and was gazing intently at the wall.

Woodend made his way into the corridor. The waitress who had served them their meal was leaning against the door, seizing the opportunity for a quick, illicit smoke. When she saw a customer approaching, she cupped her hand to hide the cigarette.

‘Where's the phone?' Woodend demanded.

‘Beg pardon, sir?'

‘The phone. The bloody public phone.'

‘It's over there. In the bar.'

Woodend pushed the bar door open, and stepped inside. There were a number of customers spread around the room, but the phone – thank God – was unoccupied. He reached in his pocket for change, lifted the receiver, and dialled a Whitebridge number.

‘Police headquarters,' said a starchy female voice on the other end of the line.

‘Put me through to Sergeant Paniatowski.'

‘Who shall I say is calling?'

‘Mr Blenkinsop.'

‘And what is the nature of your call, Mr Blenkinsop?'

‘Sergeant Paniatowski knows all about it. She's been expectin' to hear from me.'

‘If you could just give me a few details⎯'

‘I've got some information that could crack this Dugdale's Farm murder case wide open for you, but if I'm not talkin' directly to Sergeant Paniatowski herself in the next half minute, I'm goin' to hang up. An' who'll get the blame for that? You bloody will!'

‘Just hold on for a moment, sir,' the woman said hastily, and a few seconds later a new voice said, ‘Paniatowski.'

‘It's me. Can you talk?'

‘If I keep my voice down. What's this about?'

‘I'm at the Last Chance Inn in Hoddlesworth. I've been havin' lunch with Terry Taylor.'

‘You've what!'

‘You heard. Half an hour ago, on the way over, he threatened me with violence. He didn't mean it at the time, but now that his other plans aren't goin' to work out as he expected them to, it might have started to look like a very attractive prospect. So I need somebody to get me out of here in a hurry.'

‘I'll come right away,' Paniatowski said. ‘Where will I find you? In the pub?'

‘No, not there. Just drive slowly through the village, an' stop when I wave you down. An' one more thing . . .'

‘Yes.'

‘Before you leave the station, call the Last Chance. Say you're from Taylor's office, an' you need to speak to him urgently.'

‘And then?'

‘When he comes to the phone, hang up.'

‘Do you want to tell me what this is all about?'

‘Later,' Woodend promised. ‘I'll give you the whole story later. For the moment, just do what I ask.'

He replaced the phone, and made his way back to the dining room. On the threshold, he paused, took out his handkerchief, and made a great show of wiping his mouth.

‘
Have
you been sick, Mr Woodend?' Taylor asked, as the Chief Inspector resumed his seat.

‘It's none of your bloody business whether I have or I haven't,' Woodend told him.

‘Then let's get back to what
is
my business,' Taylor suggested. ‘Have you thought over my offer?'

Woodend looked down at the table. ‘I don't want to go to prison,' he mumbled.

Taylor smiled. ‘Of course you don't, Mr Woodend. What man in his right mind would?'

‘But before I agree to do what you want, I'll need some pretty solid guarantees.'

‘Tell me what they are, and I'll see if it's possible for me to accommodate them.'

The waitress re-entered the room. ‘Is one of you gentlemen a Mr Taylor?' she asked.

Taylor nodded. ‘That's me.'

‘Well, your office wants you on the phone. They say it's urgent.'

Woodend read the conflicting thoughts crossing the builder's face. On the one hand, Taylor was loath to leave the pond when his fish was hooked and almost ready to land. On the other, he didn't want to make a deal when the rules of the game might have just changed.

He stood up. ‘I won't be a minute, and when I come back we can iron out the final details,' he said. He turned to the waitress. ‘Where's the phone?'

‘In the public bar, sir.'

Taylor made his way to the bar. When he picked up the phone the line was still active, but the moment he said, ‘Terry Taylor here,' it went dead.

He slammed down the receiver and went back to the restaurant. Some new diners had arrived in his absence, but there was no sign of Woodend. He examined the table for a clue to the other man's disappearance. Woodend's food – largely untouched – was next to the empty pint pot under which Woodend had left two pound notes. Taylor's own meal and wine glass were still in place. But something was missing.

Taylor closed his eyes and tried to visualize the table as it had been before he left the room to answer the non-existent phone call. And suddenly he knew what was wrong. Woodend had refused wine, but a glass had been provided for it anyway – and now that glass was gone.

S
canning the distance for any sign of Paniatowski's MGA, Woodend found his mind drifting back to January 1945.

It had been one of those occasions when he had thought his personal war was almost over – and then suddenly discovered that it wasn't. The Germans, who had been retreating since D-Day, had unexpectedly launched the counterattack that would become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

It had been a messy, piecemeal battle – the forest so thick that only limited use could be made of heavy artillery, the weather conditions so poor that for much of the time air support had been impossible.

And it had been a desperate battle – the last major stand of an almost-defeated, under-equipped remnant of the once mighty German Army.

During the course of the fighting, Woodend had been cut off from the rest of his unit, and found himself alone in the forest. But was he really alone? he'd wondered nervously, as he'd stood there listening to the sound of distant gunfire. Or was he, even at that moment, in the gun sights of a German soldier who felt as isolated and confused as he did?

He felt those nerves return to him now, as he stood in the centre of a copse of trees only a few hundred yards from the Last Chance Inn.

What was his new enemy – Terry Taylor – doing at that moment? he asked himself.

Had Taylor assumed that the man he'd tried to bribe had dashed off on to the moors in a blue funk? Did he no longer think of Woodend as a danger? Or had he, immediately he'd seen the empty chair at the table where the Chief Inspector had been sitting, put a call through to the hard men he had threatened to use earlier? And were those same hard men even now making their way to the village?