Death of an Innocent (25 page)

‘He . . . he took her away,' Mrs Hargreaves stammered. ‘He said he was goin' to set her up in a nice flat somewhere.'

‘An' you didn't try to stop him?'

‘What could
I
have done?'

‘You could have gone to the police.'

Mrs Hargreaves gave a hollow laugh, which rapidly turned into a heavy smoker's cough.

‘Do you really think the police would be interested?' she asked. ‘Dozens of girls go the same way as our Enid did every year – an' the bobbies don't give a toss. Besides . . .'

‘Besides what?'

‘You don't know Phil Swales like I do. He can turn real nasty when he wants to. I'd have been a bloody fool to have got on the wrong side of him.'

‘Plus, you'd have lost your finder's fee,' Woodend said harshly.

‘My what?'

‘He gave you money, didn't he?'

‘He might have slipped me a few quid – but it was nothin' like what Enid will be earnin'.'

‘Let's get back to your brother,' Woodend said. ‘What did you tell him when he came lookin' for Enid, an' found she wasn't here?'

‘I told him she'd run away.'

‘But he didn't believe you, did he?'

Mrs Hargreaves shook her head.

‘Was he the one who gave you the bruises?'

‘Yeah, it was him.'

‘An' after he'd knocked you about for a bit, you told him all about what Swales had done?'

‘I didn't have no choice, did I? I mean, it's not as if any of this is my fault, you know.'

‘How did your brother get here?'

‘I'm not followin' yer?'

‘Did he walk? Did he come by bus? Did he arrive in the Lord Mayor's Coach?'

‘No, he came in the old jalopy of his that one of his pals looks after while he's inside.'

‘You don't happen to know the make an' model, do you?'

‘Of course I know. I'm not stupid. It's a yeller Austin A40.'

He had the whole story now, Woodend thought – or most of it, anyway.

Judd had learned from his sister that Philip Swales had taken his beloved daughter away, and he had probably spent the rest of the day trying to find Swales. Then, late on Saturday night – or perhaps even early on Sunday morning – someone must have told him about Dugdale's Farm.

He'd got into his battered A40 and headed for Whitebridge. And while he was on the road, he must have been turning the whole terrible situation over in his mind. At first, his only thought had been to rescue his Enid. But as he got closer to the farm, he would have begun to realize that simply getting her back was not enough for him – and that what he really wanted was to take revenge on Swales and all the other men who had wronged his daughter.

But then he would have seen his problem. He was afraid of Swales. And he was afraid of the men Swales would be working for – rich, powerful men who would view him as no more than a troublesome insect. And they were right about him, he would have admitted to himself. He was strictly small fry. He could never bring them to justice on his own.

So he had pulled the A40 over by a public phone box, and called the most important man his limited experience and imagination could comprehend – a reporter from BBC Radio Manchester, who he had no doubt listened to from the narrow confines of his cell.

When Bennett had picked up his phone, Judd had told him that there was a big story waiting for him out at the farm. But the story he'd expected Bennett to cover hadn't been murder – it had been child prostitution.

‘Have you heard enough, sir?' Paniatowski asked.

‘More than enough.'

‘Just a minute,' Mrs Hargreaves said. ‘I've been sittin' here answerin' your questions for you, an' now I want to know what this is all about.'

‘It's a little late for you to start takin' an interest, isn't it?' Woodend asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Your niece won't be botherin' you any more.'

‘Won't she?'

‘No. Nor your brother, either. They're both dead. They've been murdered,' Woodend said, as brutally as he could. ‘But I wouldn't worry about it too much if I was you, Mrs Hargreaves. After all, it's not
your
fault, is it?'

T
he rain was hammering mercilessly against the windscreen of the MGA, with a fury that was making Woodend and Paniatowski's journey back to Whitebridge almost painfully slow.

But at least the rain was holding up work on the Moorland Village site, Woodend thought – at least it was preventing Taylor from tampering with the evidence. And then a sudden sickening insight flashed across his brain, and he felt his earlier optimism melt away as he realized that Taylor did not
have
to tamper with the evidence at all – that he only needed to sit and wait.

‘We're buggered,' he groaned.

‘What do you mean, sir?' Monika asked.

‘I mean exactly what I say. We're buggered. We've got nothin' we can use. Not a bloody sausage.'

‘We've learned a hell of a lot today.'

‘We've learned almost the
whole story
today. The problem is, we can't actually prove
any
of it.'

‘That's not true. We can prove that Taylor's been to prison twice and that he shared a cell with Swales, who also shared a cell, in another prison, with Dugdale. When we make that public knowledge⎯'

‘We'll damage Terry Taylor's social standin' in the community, for at least a week. An' then what will happen?'

‘I don't know.'

‘After a while, a lot of people will start to form a different opinion of him entirely. So he's an ex-con, they'll say. So what? He's managed to find the strength of character to put his past behind him, an' make good. He should be admired, not condemned.'

‘Then there's the question of tampering with the evidence,' Paniatowski argued.

‘What tamperin' with the evidence? The wrong fingerprints got submitted for examination. That was a mistake, an' mistakes do happen. An' even if we could prove it wasn't a mistake at all, the only man we can link it to is DC Battersby – an' he's dead.'

‘The medical evidence, then,' Paniatowski said, a hint of desperation creeping into her voice. ‘A fresh autopsy on Enid Judd would soon reveal⎯'

‘I know what it would reveal,' Woodend interrupted. ‘But how do we get a fresh autopsy carried out? Doc Pierson's highly respected in Whitebridge – an' if he says the girl was a virgin when she died, who's goin' to doubt him? We didn't even start to doubt it ourselves until half an hour ago. Even if we could persuade another doctor to check on Pierson's findin's, Ainsworth would be bound to oppose it – an' Ainsworth's the boss.'

‘We could go over his head.'

‘With what? Bloody hell, Monika, we can't even prove the dead girl's
Enid Judd
– an' we're as sure of that as we are of our own names. So what would come of us tryin' to stir things up by goin' over Ainsworth's head? The entire force would think we'd gone doolally with desperation. That wouldn't really hurt me. Well, what
could
hurt me now, more than I'm hurt already? I'm that close to jail I can already smell the boiled cabbage. But it could hurt you – an' I'm not prepared to see you thrown on the scrap heap for no good reason.'

They had already passed the sign for Whitebridge, and in another five minutes they would reach the city centre. After what they'd learned that evening, it should have been a triumphant homecoming. Instead they felt like two dogs slinking back with their tails between their legs.

‘If only we could dig up that bloody Austin A40 . . .' Paniatowski said despondently.

‘But we can't, can we? We've no grounds whatsoever for invadin' a private buildin' site.'

‘But when Terry Taylor digs it up – when one of our lads spots it on public view . . .'

‘Then, based on the reports of a similar car bein' seen near the scene of the crime, we could do somethin'. But it might be months before he digs it up. Or he might
never
dig it up at all.'

‘Never dig it up!' Paniatowski gasped. ‘But he has to!'

‘No, he doesn't,' Woodend said. ‘An' it was when I realized that depressin' bloody fact myself that I knew we were well an' truly buggered.'

‘It's a building site. There's bound to be excavations.'

‘What do you think made Taylor choose to bury the A40 exactly where he did?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, I think I do. I haven't seen the plans for Moorland Village, but I'm willin' to bet that he didn't bury it where there's goin' to be houses. He'll have chosen a spot where he's goin' to put in a car park. Or a tennis court. Or some other bloody thing where they don't have to dig down far before they start layin' concrete. You see where I'm leadin' with this, lass?'

Paniatowski nodded. ‘As soon as the weather clears up a little, he'll have obliterated all signs that there ever was a hole there.'

‘Exactly. An' with that, our last chance will have gone. A yellow Austin A40 was seen near Dugdale's Farm. So what? Dugdale has disappeared, as well as a little lass from Manchester called Enid Judd. Again, so what? These things happen. Judd an' an unknown female were killed by an old farmer who had a history of violence, an' had probably gone round the twist through livin' out on the moors all by himself. End of story. Taylor gets away with it. DCS Ainsworth an' Doc Pierson get away with
helpin'
him to get away with it . . .'

‘And you're ruined,' Paniatowski said quietly. ‘You're ruined, and I have to continue working in a police force which I know is rotten to the core.'

‘Aye, that's a pretty fair summary,' Woodend agreed.

‘We've just got time for a quick one in the Royal Oak, if you fancy it,' Paniatowski said, without much enthusiasm.

But failure was not something Woodend felt inclined to share at that moment.

‘No, if you don't mind, I think I'll go straight home,' he said.

‘Is that wise?' Paniatowski asked anxiously.

‘Why wouldn't it be?'

‘You've been living in my flat for the last two days because you were worried about what Taylor might do to you.'

‘If he saw me as a threat, he'd do whatever was necessary to get rid of me,' Woodend said. ‘But he'll only have to look at my face to see I'm no danger to anybody any more. Besides . . .'

‘Besides what?'

‘Nothin', lass.'

‘Besides what?' Paniatowski insisted.

‘You can't pin the two murders he's already involved in on him, but if he killed again, it'd give you another shot at puttin' the rope round his neck.'

‘Jesus, I don't like hearing you talk like that.'

‘I'm not exactly thrilled to hear it myself. But, let's face it, lass, I've got so little to look forward to that I might as well be dead.'

‘Why . . . why don't you come back to my flat, and we can . . .' Paniatowski began, before suddenly trailing off.

‘An' we can what?' Woodend asked.

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothin'?'

‘Have a drink. Watch a bit of television together.'

‘No thanks,' Woodend said. ‘I'd be better off in my own house.'

They were passing the police headquarters. Lights were blazing from the basement windows, and under their harsh glare were perhaps a dozen officers, labouring hard at tasks which one of the highest-ranking police officers in Whitebridge was determined to see would lead them absolutely nowhere.

They're goin' to get away with it, Woodend thought.

And Paniatowski's windscreen wipers, swishing back and forth in their battle against the rain, seemed to echo his words and add a little touch of mockery of their own.

Goin' to get away with it . . . goin' to get away with it
. . .
goin' to get away with it . . .

‘Unless . . .' Woodend said suddenly.

‘Unless what, sir?'

‘Unless we can
panic
them. Unless we can persuade Terry Taylor or DCS Ainsworth – or preferably both of them – that they're not quite as secure as they thought they were.'

‘And how the hell are we going to do that?'

‘By hittin' them when they least expect it. By gettin' them to
act
before they've really had time to
think
.'

Monika Paniatowski chuckled. ‘I knew if you thought about it for a while, you'd come up with a clever plan.'

‘Sorry to disappoint you, lass, but it's not a
clever
plan,' Woodend said. ‘With clever plans, the people behind them have some control over what's goin' on. What we'll be doin' is makin' a big hole in the dam an' hopin' the water comes pourin' out in just the way that we want it to. But there's absolutely no guarantee that it will.'

T
hey had learned so much the previous evening that it seemed an age since he had last stood in Monika's living room – watching the sun set and seeing his own career sinking with it. It
seemed
an age, but it was no more than a few hours, and soon the sun would rise again, edging the dark clouds which were now drifting across the moon with a golden edge of hope. He wished he could share that hope, but his own dark clouds of doubt made it almost impossible for him to believe that a new day really was dawning in the investigation into the murders at Dugdale's Farm.

Woodend turned away from the window. Monika Paniatowski was stretched out on the sofa, in a deep sleep. She was a very attractive woman, he thought. Perhaps even a beautiful one. Yet at that moment he found it hard to think of her as anything but an innocent, trusting child.