The Dark Lady (11 page)

The sergeant frowned. “But you just said he could have been half-cut when he hired Gerhard Schultz. Now you're telling me he never drank on the job. The two things don't add up.”

Quist laughed. “Oh, I see what you're getting at. Gerhard was never actually interviewed in the office.”

“He wasn't?”

“No. Arthur went down to London for some sort of conference. As soon as it was over, he headed for the nearest pub – which was just like him. That's where he met Gerhard, who was working behind the bar at the time – as a purely temporary measure, of course. Anyway, they got talking, Arthur liked the cut of Gerhard's jib, and the next morning he came into work and announced that he'd filled the vacancy for a time-and-motion man. That was the kind of chap he was – a real buccaneer. He'd never have got away with that kind of behaviour today, of course, but like I said, those were very different times.”

“When did you take over from him?” Rutter asked.

“I was acting head of department when Gerhard arrived,” Quist said, dipping a bread roll into his soup. “Far too young for the position, of course, but they needed someone to take over in a hurry, and I was on the spot. I've been lucky really. By the time the company got around to looking for a permanent replacement for Arthur, I'd already been doing the job – with a fair degree of success, I might say – for eighteen months, so the powers that be decided they need search no further.”

“Wait a minute. What exactly happened to Arthur Fanshaw? Was he sacked? Did he resign suddenly or something?”

“Oh, didn't I mention that? A few days after he'd hired Gerhard, he was out on the razzle again, and he must have had too much, even by his standards. He staggered out of the pub, and straight under the wheels of a passing car. The driver of the car didn't stop. Well, you couldn't blame him really. I mean, it was Arthur's own fault.”

“How do you know that?” Rutter asked. “Is that what the witnesses told the police?”

“There weren't any witnesses to the actual accident. It was getting late and the streets were practically deserted. But there were plenty of people who'd seen him leave the pub and were willing to swear he could hardly walk, so what other explanation is there?”

I can think of about a hundred straight off the cuff, Rutter thought, but then a bobby's always suspicious if everything isn't as clear as crystal.

“How long was there between Arthur Fanshaw getting killed and Gerhard Schultz joining the firm?” he asked.

“About a week,” Quist said. “Gerhard was down in London winding up his affairs, so he didn't actually know that Arthur was dead until I told him the morning he arrived. Of course, he'd only met Arthur once, so it wasn't as much of a shock to him as it was to the rest of us. On the other hand, Arthur
had
given him his big chance, and he did seem genuinely upset to hear the news.”

“Would you describe yourself as a friend of Schultz's, Mr Quist?” the sergeant asked.

The personnel manager weighed up his response for a few seconds. “I wouldn't really call us friends,” he confessed. “I suppose the best you could say of our relationship is that we were amiable colleagues.”

“In that case, if you could arrange it, I'd like to talk to some of the people who were his friends.”

“Do you know, I've never really thought about it before, but now I put my mind to it, I'm not sure he had any real friends at work,” Quist said, frowning again. “But if you like, I can ask around once we've polished off our meal. Apart from that, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Do you happen to have Schultz's address from the time before he moved here?”

“Must be on the files somewhere. I'll get my Girl Friday to look it up for you. Very efficient young lady. Won't take her a minute.”

“I'd appreciate it,” Rutter told him.

Simon Hailsham marched into the bar of the Westbury Social Club with a look on his face which Woodend couldn't label at first. Then the chief inspector did find a name for it – the expression was one of triumphant malice.

“Thought I'd find you in here,” the personnel officer said, making his words sound more like an accusation than a statement of fact.

“Can I do somethin' for you, Mr Hailsham?” Woodend asked, swivelling round on his barstool so he could look the other man squarely in the eye.

“It's more what I can do for you,” Hailsham said crisply. “You see, while you've been sitting on your backside, drinking subsidised beer, I've been out solving your murder for you.”

“Is that a fact?” Woodend asked.

“It most certainly is. I posted notices all over the plant, asking anyone who'd seen anything suspicious on the night poor Gerhard was killed to report it to me. And someone has. A man called Ted Robinson came to see me this morning. What he had to say was very interesting indeed.”

“Which was?”

“Far better you should hear it from the horse's mouth. He should be here any minute now.”

As if he'd been waiting outside for his cue, the door opened and an overalled man who was close to sixty walked into the room.

“I'm here, Mr Hailsham, sir,” he said, unnecessarily.

“I think we'd better move to one of the tables,” Hailsham said, shooting a hostile look at Tony.

“We?” Woodend repeated incredulously. “There is no ‘we' in this matter, Mr Hailsham.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Let's get this straight right from the start,” Woodend told the personnel manager. “I don't let civilians sit in on my investigations.”

“But if it hadn't been for me, you'd never have got to talk to him,” Hailsham protested.

“An' if he turns out to be any use, I'll see you get full credit for findin' him,” Woodend told him. “But, at the moment, what me an' Mr Robinson need is a bit of privacy.”

“I see,” Hailsham said. He turned and marched to the door, stopping only when he'd turned the handle, to add, “But be absolutely sure of one thing – you've not heard the last of this.”

From behind the bar, Tony chuckled. “That's another pint I owe you,” he told Woodend.

The chief inspector took a closer look at the man Simon Hailsham had brought to him. Ted Robinson's face was marked with the sort of lines which a man acquires only after a lifetime of feeling he's been badly done to by the world in general, and his eyes showed the cunning of someone who always knows where he can buy goods which have fallen off the back of a lorry.

The shift man licked his lips, almost like a dog does when it smells food. “I'm right parched,” he said. “I could really use a drink.”

“You amaze me,” Woodend told him. “What'll it be? A pint of bitter? Or would you prefer a double whisky?”

“A double whisky.”

Yes, Woodend thought, it'll always be double whiskies for you – as long as some other bugger is payin' for them.

They took the drinks over to a table in the corner of the room. By the time they reached it, the shift worker had already drunk half his whisky.

“Now what's this valuable piece of information you have for me, Mr Robinson?” the chief inspector asked, when they'd sat down.

“The night that German feller was killed, I went to a pigeon-fanciers' do at the Golden Cock in Maltham,” Robinson said. “The pub'd got an extension on the licensin' hours, so the barman didn't stop servin' till midnight.”

“Which means you'd probably had quite a lot to drink by the time they called last orders,” Woodend said.

“I only had a couple of pints,” Robinson answered, unconvincingly. “Anyroad, when I got out of the pub, I discovered my bike had got a flat front tyre. If you ask me, somebody had done it deliberate. Well, I couldn't ride it like that, could I? So I had to push it all the way home.”

“Is this fascinatin' little tale of yours actually leadin' us anywhere?” Woodend asked.

“The point is, it must have been around half-past two when I finally got back here. My house is on the edge of the park, an' I was just openin' my front door when I saw them.”

“Saw who?”

“Them Poles. Four of 'em.”

“Which Poles?”

“I don't know all their names, but I do know that one of 'em was that Rozpedek feller.”

Woodend took out his Capstan Full Strength. Ted Robinson looked hopefully at them, but after extracting one for himself, the chief inspector put the packet straight back in his pocket.

“So what were these four Polish fellers doin' when you saw them?” the policeman asked.

Robinson's cunning eyes sank to fresh levels of deviousness. “They were comin' out of the woods,” he said. “All furtive-like, as if they'd been up to no good.”

“From which direction were they comin'? Along the path that runs down to the lake?”

For a moment it looked as if Robinson were about to say, yes, that was exactly where they were comin' from. Then, with evident regret, he shook his head and said, “No, they were comin' out at the other end of the park.”

“Did you speak to them?”

“I did not,” Robinson said emphatically. “I like to keep away from the likes of them as much as possible, thank you very much.”

“Did they see you?”

“No, I don't think they did.”

“So you saw them, but they didn't see you. Now that is what I call convenient.”

“It's the plain truth I'm tellin' you,” Robinson said. “They were out in the open, under the moon, so they were easy enough to spot, but me, I was standin' in a dark doorway.”

“So what happened after they came out of the woods?”

“They stood whisperin' together for a couple of minutes, an' then they went their separate ways.”

Woodend leaned back in his chair. “There's one thing that's been puzzlin' me right from the start of your story, Mr Robinson,” he said.

“An' what's that?”

“Why did you wait until now to come forward with this valuable information of yours?”

The shift worker looked lost for an answer. “I didn't think it had anythin' to do with the murder,” he said finally.

“You saw four men comin' out of the woods where the body was found the next mornin', and you didn't think it had anythin' to do with the murder?”

“Like I told you, they came from a different part of the woods,” Robinson said sulkily.

“All right, let's say I accept that,” Woodend said. “What's made you change your mind now?”

Robinson licked his lips again, though this time, Woodend suspected, it was more through worry than anticipation.

“I saw the notice Mr Hailsham had put up all over the works,” the shift man said, “an' I thought to myself that maybe what I saw might turn out to be important after all.”

“An' when you talked to Mr Hailsham, did you tell him the same story that you've just told me?”

“Yes.”

“
Exactly
the same story?” Woodend persisted “He didn't ask you to change it at all?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, for example, you could have said you'd seen four figures comin' out of the woods, but that you didn't recognise them, an' he could have persuaded you that they were probably the Poles.”

“No, there was none of that. I know what I saw, an' I don't care whether you believe me or not, because I've already got the . . .”

“Got the what?”

“Nothin',” Robinson said sullenly.

“You can go now,” Woodend said.

“That's it?” the shift man asked.

“You were expectin' somethin' else?”

“Well, I rather thought you might thank me for my help.”

Woodend sighed. “On behalf of both Scotland Yard an' the Mid-Cheshire police force, not to mention the friends an' relatives of the victim of the crime, I would like to express our appreciation for your help in this matter.”

“Yes, well, that's all right then,” Robinson said, standing up and walking to the door.

Woodend watched him go. Even if the man had, in fact, seen what he claimed to have seen, it wouldn't take a halfway decent lawyer more than a couple of minutes of questioning him on the witness stand to destroy whatever dubious value his testimony might have.

I
t was a warm, sunny afternoon, and there was that special summer softness in the air which seemed to make living through the rest of the year of English weather all worthwhile.

Woodend walked down Elm Street, oblivious to the watching eyes from behind the curtains. He was wondering what it would be like to be a shift man – to start work at around dawn one week, in the early afternoon the next, and just before it was most people's bedtime the week after that.

He himself had sometimes worked through the night on investigations, but always with the knowledge that once the case was cracked, once the murderer was arrested, his body would be allowed to return to its natural rhythms. For the shift men, that was true only briefly – when they got their days off in lieu. For the rest of time, they lived in a strange world out of step with the rest of humanity. And the chief inspector couldn't help thinking that, in the end, it was bound to turn them all a little peculiar.

Just ahead of him lay Zbigniew Rozpedek's house. Woodend knocked on the door. The Pole answered almost immediately, but when he saw who had come calling, his face went red with rage.

“I would expect this kind of harassment from the authorities if I was living under the jackboot of those communist bastards who run Poland nowadays, but I do not expect it in England,” he said.

“When in doubt, go on the attack, eh?” Woodend said dryly. “That tactic didn't do the Polish cavalry a lot of good, did it?”

Rozpedek made tight balls of his fists. “If you weren't a policeman . . .” he growled.