Final Beat of the Drum, page 20
It was too much to expect the commander to say yes, but he did give a slight nod which she could interpret as agreement if she chose to.
‘I’d like you to step outside now, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of the house until we’ve finished in there.’
Paniatowski did as she’d been instructed, and was shocked to discover that her legs had turned to jelly.
She wanted to help Kate, she thought – she really did – but the only really important thing at that moment was to find Philip before the police did.
Lizzie Grimshaw sat in her armchair, hugging herself and moaning softly.
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ the midwife cooed. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘I’m frightened,’ Lizzie told her.
‘You shouldn’t be. Everything’s right on schedule, and in a few hours you’ll be lying in your bed, cuddling your little baby.’
‘I don’t want to lose her,’ Lizzie sobbed. ‘I don’t want it to be like last time.’
The midwife gave Kate Meadows a worried look, but when she turned back to Lizzie, she had forced a gentle smile to replace it.
‘Are you saying that you had a miscarriage?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last year.’
‘Did you see a doctor after it had happened?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did he suggest that you might have a specific problem?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Did he say there might be a reason you lost the baby?’
‘Yes. When I told him I fell down the stairs, he said that explained it.’
There was something in Lizzie’s tone which alerted Meadows’ old bobby instinct.
‘And did you fall down the stairs?’ she asked.
Lizzie looked down at her knees.
‘No,’ she said in a voice so quiet the other two barely heard it.
‘So what did happen?’
‘When I told Gary I was going to have a baby, he threw me down the stairs.’
‘So why did you lie about it?’ the midwife asked, in a voice that lay somewhere between amazed and outraged.
‘Leave it,’ Meadows said.
But there was no stopping the angry midwife now.
‘Why didn’t you tell the doctor exactly what had happened?’ she demanded.
‘Because … because he’d have told the police,’ Lizzie said.
‘Quite rightly, too! And they would have arrested this so-called boyfriend of yours, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, but they’d have let him go – they always let him go.’
The midwife looked at Meadows for confirmation.
‘Unless things have changed dramatically since my day, it’s very likely that’s exactly what would have happened,’ Kate said. ‘Only a small percentage of wife beaters ever end up in gaol, because without witnesses, it’s very difficult to put a case together.’
‘That’s disgraceful,’ the midwife said.
‘It’s the way of the world,’ Meadows told her.
‘They would have let him out, and … and this time, he would have killed me,’ Lizzie said.
‘Where is he now?’ the midwife asked. ‘Is he still a danger to you?’
Lizzie looked across at her wardrobe, as if she hoped to find her answer in its old-fashioned fake hardwood doors.
‘No,’ she said finally. ‘He had a nasty accident, and I don’t think he’s properly recovered yet.’
‘It’s a pity this nasty accident of his didn’t kill him,’ the midwife said, with some venom. ‘But if you know you’re safe, you should stop thinking about him and concentrate on having happy thoughts. That’s what your baby needs – to be born to someone with happy thoughts. Can you do that for me?’
Lizzie smiled.
‘I’ll try,’ she promised.
‘Good girl,’ the midwife said.
It was just after noon, and Jack Crane was sitting at a table under the window in the Prince Albert bar of the Royal Victoria Hotel. It was here that the crème de la crème of Whitebridge society met to swap stock market (and racing) tips, hold business meetings, and exchange salacious gossip about their friends. The place was plush and expensive and guaranteed to impress people not used to such opulence, which was precisely why Crane had chosen it for his encounter with the woman.
The woman in question appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a blue and white check business suit. It probably hadn’t been that expensive, but it was doing its best to look as if it came from a pricy range.
The woman’s gaze swept the room, then settled quickly on him. He would have liked to think that was because he exuded the air of being a high-powered academic, but he knew that the more likely explanation was that he’d told her over the phone that he wore an eye patch.
She walked over to him.
‘Professor Crane?’
‘Yes. And you are Miss Helen Cosgrove, PA to late Mr Hadley, of Hadley Security Systems?’
‘I am.’
‘Then please sit down, Miss Cosgrove, and I’ll order you a drink.’
She chose a vodka martini, which she probably thought showed how sophisticated she was. Crane put her age at around thirty. She was not unattractive, though she probably wouldn’t turn heads in the street.
‘Now, as I explained over the phone, I’m writing a book,’ he said.
Miss Cosgrove’s drink had arrived, and she took a dainty sip. ‘I’ve already told the police all I know.’
‘They probably weren’t interested in the same things I’m interested in,’ Crane lied. ‘The idea behind the book is to compare and contrast real murders with murders in literature. For instance, we might take the case of Alyona Ivanovna – who, as I’m sure you know, is the pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment – and Margaret Grayland, the sub-post mistress who was the first victim of the post office bandit known as the Black Panther. In what ways were they different, and in what ways were they similar? Was there anything about them that marked them as victims? How did the people around them react to their deaths?’
She had very quickly become bored with this monologue, which had been just what he intended to happen, because the last thing he wanted was for her to have any interest in him.
He droned on for another couple of minutes, then, estimating she was just this side of being comatose, he said, ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask me?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Over the phone, you said something about a fee.’
‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘I’m willing to pay fifty pounds,’ he caught the look of disappointment in her eyes, and added quickly, ‘but that, of course, is only an advance. Once the book is published and starts to sell, you’ll get a share of the royalties.’
‘Will they be much?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Who can tell? It all depends on the great book-buying public. But books like this do have a tendency to become bestsellers, and if we also sell the film rights …’ He left it there, gave her imagination a little time to fill in the gaps, then said, ‘Shall we begin?’
‘What about the contract?’ Helen Cosgrove asked.
‘It’s being drawn up even as we speak. But, of course, if you’d like the advance now …’
‘I would.’
Crane took five ten-pound notes out of his wallet, and laid them on the table. Helen Cosgrove swept them up in much the same way as an eagle might sweep up an unsuspecting lamb.
‘There’s one thing I’d like to make clear before we start,’ she said. ‘I’d never be doing this if I’d been treated better.’
‘You’ve been treated badly?’ Crane asked, because he was expected to.
‘You could say that. Mr Hadley had promised me that next month he’d upgrade my job to executive assistant, which, apart from anything else, would have meant I had a key to the executive toilet. Now Mr Hadley’s dead, and Mr Dalton – who, I, personally, wouldn’t put in charge of a fish and chip van – is the boss,’ Helen Cosgrove moaned.
‘And he’s blocked your promotion,’ Crane guessed.
‘This morning he informed me by memo – by memo! – that I’d been reassigned, and was now PA to some spotty youth who has only just been made up to under-manager. Yesterday I was reaching for the top of the ladder, and now I’m back down at the lowest rung – so why shouldn’t I make a bit of money on the side, when it’s offered to me?’
‘Yes, why shouldn’t you?’ Crane agreed. ‘So how long have you worked for Mr Hadley?’
‘Five years.’
‘So you must know him well.’
Miss Cosgrove frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly.’
‘I mean, of course, as well as an employee can be expected to know an employer.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘What kind of man was he?’
Her frown deepened.
‘Did you ever see any of those films about inventors?’ she asked. ‘You know the sort of thing – they’ve got brilliant minds, but they’re forever forgetting where they’ve left the car, or accidently eating the dog’s biscuits, because their thoughts are somewhere else?’
‘Yes, I do know what you mean,’ Crane replied. ‘So are you saying Mr Hadley was absent-minded?’
‘Well, not exactly absent-minded, but he tended not to notice things that didn’t concern work. He was a bit of a scruffy dresser, and he didn’t really know how to talk to people – especially women – unless it was about security systems. I suppose you could say he just wasn’t sociable.’
‘Wasn’t he a member of the golf club?’ Crane said. ‘I would have thought that was sociable enough.’
Miss Cosgrove giggled. ‘A member of the golf club? Whatever makes you think that?’
Yes, whatever did make him think that? Crane wondered. Somebody must have told him, but the only person he had discussed Hadley with had been Kate Meadows.
‘I take it from your response that he wasn’t a member,’ he said aloud.
‘He wasn’t. If he had been, I’d have known about it, because I paid all his bills. He really wouldn’t have fitted in, you know. He could have afforded a flashy car, but he always drove around in one of the company’s vans. They wouldn’t have liked that up there.’
Crane grinned. ‘Yes, I can see how that might offend “our betters”.’
‘Mind you, considering how much he’d changed over the last couple of months, I suppose it’s just possible he might have ended up at the golf club eventually,’ Miss Cosgrove said.
Like soldiers noticing the sudden unexpected presence of an officer, the hairs on the back of Crane’s neck sprang to attention.
‘How had he changed?’ Crane asked.
‘He started dressing better for one thing – sometimes he’d come to work looking quite smart – but I’m sure he didn’t buy his new clothes himself.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He had absolutely no sense of style – and at his age, style isn’t something you just pick up on your own.’
‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Crane said.
‘And there was more of a spring in his step.’ Miss Cosgrove giggled again. ‘It’s always seemed a bit of a cliché to me – a spring in his step – but there really was one in his case.’
‘And how do you explain that?’
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He’d got himself a girlfriend – or maybe a boyfriend. I couldn’t say which, because I find it impossible to imagine him in bed with a woman, but equally impossible to picture him with a man.’
‘So maybe you’re wrong about him having found somebody.’
‘I’m not wrong. I can tell when a man’s besotted – and he was.’
‘You didn’t see anybody who could have been this mysterious partner, did you?’ Crane asked.
‘No.’
‘Because somebody killed him, didn’t they, and I’m thinking that maybe it was his lover’s ex-partner who did it.’
‘That’s possible,’ Miss Cosgrove conceded. ‘Or maybe it was an accident – just a game that went …’ An expression of sheer horror came to her face. ‘I mean … I didn’t … I don’t know what I mean,’ she garbled.
‘Maybe it was just a game that went wrong,’ Crane mused. ‘What could have led you to that particular conclusion?’
‘I don’t know. I was just being stupid.’
‘You are aware, aren’t you, Miss Cosgrove, that your future royalties are conditional on your being completely open and frank with us,’ Crane said severely. ‘If we find out you’ve been holding back anything, the whole contract is null and void.’
Helen Cosgrove hesitated for perhaps half a minute, then she said, ‘Look, I’m not exactly proud of this, so you must promise never to tell anyone else what I’m telling you now.’
‘I promise,’ said Crane, and as the author of the book that would never be written he meant it sincerely – it was only the ex-policeman, out to help his friend, who held such promises worthless.
‘Well, Mr Hadley had a drawer in his desk that he kept locked, you see, but what he didn’t know was that I had a key,’ Miss Cosgrove said.
‘And you used to look at what he put in there?’
‘I did check on it now and again, yes. I considered it part of my job as his PA to know what he was thinking. It helped me to prepare in advance to meet his needs.’
‘I’m sure any good PA would have done the same,’ Crane said. ‘So what was it that you found?’
‘Once, there was this glossy magazine …’ Helen Cosgrove lowered her voice, ‘and it wasn’t the kind of magazine you see in newsagents, if you know what I mean.’
‘Are you saying it was a pornographic magazine?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes, but I’ve always thought porn was meant to turn you on, and this definitely didn’t turn me on.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Well, it was pictures of people being hurt, and hurting other people. It was … what do you call it?’
‘Sadomasochism?’
‘That’s right. And there was one particular section – it makes me shudder just to think about it – of people hanging. Well, that’s what Mr Hadley died from, isn’t it – hanging? So like I said, I just wondered if it was part of a game gone wrong.’
‘Did you tell the police this?’ Crane asked.
Miss Cosgrove looked down at the table. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she admitted.
‘Why didn’t you tell them?’
‘Because I didn’t want them thinking that I was the kind of person who snooped into things that didn’t concern them.’
The police would know dozens of things that the team didn’t know, Crane thought, but in this matter at least, the team had the advantage.
When Paniatowski found Thomas, he was on his hands and knees in the vestry, scrubbing the floor.
‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ she asked, before she could stop herself.
‘In God’s name, I’m cleaning His house,’ Thomas said.
‘Yes, but what I meant was, why are you doing it?’ Paniatowski said. ‘I thought the church employed a cleaner.’
‘And so it does, but I gave her the morning off.’
‘And if you must do this instead of parochial work – which I think you’ll have to agree would be a much more valuable use of your time – then why must you use a hand scrubbing brush? Haven’t you got a brush with a long handle, so you could do the job standing up?’
Thomas climbed to his feet and put a hand on his mother’s shoulder. ‘This is different to parochial work, but it, too, is worthy of my effort,’ he said. ‘And using the hand brush reminds me of what a humble, insignificant person I am, which, I hope, serves to make me a much better priest.’
Paniatowski felt a wave of shame wash over her. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. But I’m very nervous today – very worried.’
‘Of course you’re worried – Philip is your beloved son,’ Thomas said.
‘So you know about Philip?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then how can you be so calm yourself? There are groups of men armed with guns out hunting him.’
‘I know there are,’ Thomas said. ‘They have been to this church. They wanted to search it, to make sure I hadn’t hidden my brother here.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said the only way they could defile the sanctity of the church was by killing me first.’
‘So they just went away?’
‘Yes, I think they didn’t see any point in making a scene when it was obvious that I was telling the truth.’
‘So I repeat what I said before – how can you be so calm?’
‘The police won’t find him, and when he is ready to give himself up, he will ring me, and I will collect him myself.’
‘You think he’ll do that? Give himself up?’
‘I know he will. He’s on a mission, and when that mission is completed, he will surrender to the police and take his punishment like a man.’
‘You know where he is, don’t you?’ Paniatowski said, with sudden realization.
‘Ask me something else,’ Thomas said.
‘How did he get from the remand centre to wherever he is now? Did you drive him there?’
Thomas smiled. ‘No comment.’
‘I’m not a bobby, and you’re not a suspect,’ Paniatowski said angrily. ‘I’m your bloody mother. I’m his mother, too, and I demand to know where he is.’
‘Philip asked you to do something for him, and you refused,’ Thomas said. ‘He feels you have let him down, and he doesn’t want to have anything more to do with you.’
‘Do you know what it was he asked me to do?’
‘Yes, he asked you to get him out on parole.’
‘That was an impossibility – it would never have happened, however hard I’d tried.’
‘I know that,’ Thomas said. ‘And I have explained it to him. But that is not how he sees it.’
