Dangerous Games (14 page)

Williams did not smile back.

‘So what's changed in a couple of hours?' he asked.

‘I'm afraid I'm not prepared to go into that.'

‘Operational reasons again?'

‘Just so.'

Now Williams
did
smile.

‘Or could it be that you didn't
know
his name then, but now that you do you want to release it before we find it out ourselves, and make you look a complete prat?' he wondered.

Yes, that was exactly it, Marlowe thought, wishing that the bastard wasn't quite so sharp.

‘It has always been my policy to keep the local press abreast of developments as far as possible, Mr Williams,' he said coldly. ‘That is, of course, as long as the press in general – and specific reporters in particular – behave in a responsible manner.'

‘Is that a threat, Mr Marlowe?' Williams asked, suddenly looking a little concerned.

Marlowe grinned at him. ‘Of course not, Arthur. It's no more than a policy statement.'

‘Why isn't Chief Inspector Woodend here with you?' one of the other reporters asked.

Now
that
was the kind of question he liked, Marlowe told himself – the kind of question he could turn to his own advantage.

‘Based on information received, I have suggested some possible lines of inquiry in the case,' he said, ‘and Mr Woodend, who always looks to me for guidance, is out pursuing them.'

‘I wouldn't keep a dog in a place like this,' Woodend said, looking around Reg Lewis' bedsit in Balaclava Street.

He had a point, Paniatowski thought.

The fixtures and furnishings of the room consisted of no more than a narrow single bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, a sink and an old kitchen unit. The sheets on the bed were torn and grey with filth; the table was scarred with cigarette burns, and there was something nasty growing out of the plughole in the sink. There was a window over the sink, but it was so encrusted with grime that even when the sun was on it – as it was now – very little light was allowed to enter the dreary space in which Lewis could have done no more than just exist.

‘I'll bet there's some germ-warfare scientists somewhere who'd pay a fortune to be left alone in here for an hour or so,' Woodend commented. ‘That said, I'm afraid we're still goin' to have to search it.'

Not that there was much to search. The chest of drawers was virtually empty, and most of Lewis' discarded clothes had been flung carelessly onto the filthy floor, where they competed for space with empty whisky bottles and crumpled cigarette packets.

‘Aside from the fact that they were around the same age, and lived in the same town, the two victims seemed to have had absolutely nothing in common,' Monika Paniatowski said, as she gingerly poked at a rotting grey sock with the toe of her shoe.

‘You're right about that,' Woodend agreed. ‘Terry Pugh was a reliable man with a steady job – the kind of man that most fathers hope an' pray their daughters will end up marryin' – while Reg Lewis was the sort of feller who gives even toe-rags a bad name.'

‘So what is the link?' Paniatowski asked.

‘I'm buggered if I know,' Woodend admitted.

Paniatowski's radio crackled, and then a metallic – and virtually inaudible – voice began to speak.

‘I'll just slip outside, sir, where there's probably better reception,' the sergeant said.

‘Good idea,' Woodend agreed.

Left alone, he looked around the thoroughly depressing room again. He supposed he'd better continue the search, he told himself, though it was almost certain to lead nowhere.

He opened the drawer next to the sink. It contained several mis-matched knives and forks, which had clearly not been used for some considerable time, and a bottle opener which undoubtedly had. But then he saw what was at the back of the drawer, and felt his pulse start to quicken.

Paniatowski re-entered the room.

‘Message from the station, sir,' she said. ‘Mark Hough called. He said he'd heard the name of the second victim on the local radio news …'

‘Bloody Marlowe!' Woodend said in disgust. ‘I asked him to keep quiet, but he just couldn't wait to get his name back in the papers, could he?' He paused. ‘Sorry, what was that you were sayin', Monika?'

‘Mr Hough said that the second he'd heard Reg Lewis' name, he realized he had something very important to tell you. He also said that he's willing to come down to headquarters to talk to you at any time it's convenient for you.'

‘When you've got a killer on the loose an' somebody thinks they have important information that might help catch him, you don't make appointments at “convenient times”,' Woodend said. ‘That's altogether far too cosy.'

‘Meaning that we'll go and see him – and we'll do it right away?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Exactly,' Woodend agreed. ‘Mind you,' he cautioned, ‘I wouldn't go gettin' yourself too het up thinkin' about what it might be he wants to tell us, because I've got a sneakin' suspicion that I already know.'

‘Since when?' Paniatowski asked sceptically.

‘Since I found this,' Woodend told her, holding out a Royal Lancashire Fusiliers cap badge for her inspection.

Tom Bygraves had not chosen to take the dual carriageway to Accrington because he wished to go in that particular direction – he had simply selected it as the quickest way to leave Whitebridge behind him. But now, once the dual carriageway had come to an end, and he was back in the much slower two-way traffic, he was starting to realize that he couldn't continue running blind forever, and that what he needed to come up with was a plan.

But what kind of plan could a man like him possibly produce, he found himself asking.

Apart from the time he was away in the army, he had lived in Whitebridge and district for his whole life, which meant, in effect, that the area beyond the Mid Lancs cotton towns was almost like a foreign country to him.

He had no friends outside Lancashire who could offer him the refuge that he needed, so if he wanted to have a roof over his head, he would have to pay for it. But he had no money, either, apart from the normal walking-around money which he always kept in his wallet.

He'd read in American true crime magazines about men who'd lived as fugitives for years, but he hadn't a clue how to go about becoming one of them himself. He was an assistant manager in the soft furnishings department of a furniture store, a man who knew how to obey instructions from his superiors and do his job reasonably well. But that was about it. That was about all it had
ever
been, even when he was in the army. And the simple truth was that he had neither the courage nor the wit for a life constantly on the run.

He was already approaching Clitheroe, and soon he would see a sign which would tell him that he was entering Yorkshire.

But he didn't
want
to go to Yorkshire!

He
wanted
to go
home
!

But if he did go home, what then?

He could carry on with his normal routine of work and leisure, as if nothing had happened. But something
had
happened, and how was it possible to act normally when you knew that sooner or later you would end up swinging from the end of a rope?

He could do as the letter had suggested – had
ordered
– and go to the police, but then the life that he had known would be just as much over as if he were already dead.

He saw a roadside pub looming up ahead. He knew – with absolute conviction – that it would be a big mistake to stop there, but with equal conviction he knew that that was exactly what he was going
to
do. He signalled, checked his rear-view mirror, then pulled onto the pub car park.

He did not open his wallet until he was walking across the tarmac to the pub's main entrance, but when he did, he saw that all it contained was two pound notes and a ten shilling note.

Two pounds ten! He wouldn't get far on that! A few pints with whisky chasers and almost half of it would be gone.

His brain told him to conserve what few resources he had, but his legs were already taking him into the pub.

He did not look back, but if he had, he would have seen the black van pulling into the parking space next to his car.

H
ough Engineering, like all the other old mills which surrounded it, had a grim, forbidding red-brick exterior, and, but for the fact that thick black smoke no longer belched out of its tall chimney, it would have been possible to believe – from a distance – that there had been no change in its
raison d'être
since it had first opened its doors over a century earlier.

Closer to, there was clear evidence that it had, in fact, moved with the times. The main entrance had a frontage which was both modern and aggressive, and seemed to exemplify an embracing of ‘the white heat of technology', which the Prime Minister was currently setting so much store by.

Once through the doors, Woodend and Paniatowski found themselves in a high-ceilinged foyer which seemed to be constructed entirely out of smoked glass and chrome – and made the chief inspector grimace.

There was a reception desk at the end of the foyer, but before they could reach it, their path was blocked by a young woman with honey-blonde hair, deep blue eyes and white regular teeth.

She was not beautiful in any classic sense of the word, Woodend thought, but she was rather pretty. He put her age at around twenty-four, and guessed that she was unmarried.

The young woman smiled and said, ‘Are you the detectives? Because, if you are, I'm Priscilla Charlton, Mr Hough's secretary.'

Woodend smiled back. ‘An' if we're
not
the detectives, who are you then?' he asked.

Good God, he was almost
flirting
, he told himself – and with a woman not much older than his own daughter.

‘Sorry about that,' he said, before Priscilla Charlton had had time to answer. ‘Yes, we're the detectives – DCI Woodend and Sergeant Paniatowski.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' Priscilla Charlton said, offering them both her hand. And as she led them across to the lift, she added, ‘Mr Hough's cancelled all his other appointments. He's just
bursting
to see you.'

‘Is he now?' Woodend asked. ‘Bursting, you say?'

‘Bursting,' Priscilla Charlton repeated. ‘He'd never admit it – even to me – but I think he's really rather intrigued by the idea of helping the police in a
murder
inquiry.'

They took the lift up to the first floor. When the doors slid open, they found they were looking at a small outer office, at the end of which there was an imposing teak door.

‘The inner sanctum,' Priscilla Charlton said, and giggled.

She knocked on the teak door, but did not wait for her boss to say anything before opening it, stepping inside, and gesturing to Woodend and Paniatowski that they should follow her.

Woodend took a quick but all-encompassing look around him. The office was furnished in minimalist good taste, the only furniture being a large mahogany desk in the centre of the room, and the two chairs in front of it.

The walls were painted in a soft pastel shade. A number of framed posters hung from them, all of which advertised exhibitions and cultural events, and were linked by the fact that the words ‘Sponsored by Hough Engineering' appeared on all of them. The chief inspector noted that one of the events Hough had sponsored was the Dunethorpe Festival, and hoped that Monika hadn't noticed it too – because Dunethorpe would remind her of her post-Rutter affair with Chief Inspector Baxter of Dunethorpe CID, and though he himself didn't know what had gone wrong between the two of them, he suspected it had been painful.

At the far end of the room, close to the window, were two thin metal pillars, about four and half feet high, which had been fixed to the floor. They were roughly three feet apart, and were joined by a steel rod. Woodend wasn't quite sure what they for – but thought he could make a pretty good guess.

Hough himself was sitting in his wheelchair behind the desk. He seemed genuinely pleased to see the new arrivals.

‘Take a seat,' he said expansively, then turned to his secretary and said, ‘Thank you, Miss Charlton, that will be all.'

Priscilla Charlton did not move. ‘Don't forget that you have your water therapy session booked for three o'clock, Mr Hough,' she said.

Hough looked bemused. ‘Water therapy? I have no idea what you're talking about.'

Priscilla Charlton shook her head in a gesture of disbelief. ‘Of course you have.'

‘Ah, you mean I'm planning to have a swim at around that time,' Hough said, as if enlightenment had finally dawned.

‘You can call it what you like, but I make out the cheques, and I know that what you're paying for is water therapy,' the girl said. ‘And you've missed the last two sessions, because –
you say
– you have too much work on. Well, I'm not going to allow you to get away with it today.'

Hough grinned. ‘You're a hard task master,' he said.

‘And
you
are a fool to yourself,' Priscilla Carlton said severely. Then she smiled, to take the edge off her words, and continued, ‘Will there be anything else you'll require, sir?'

‘A cup of coffee might be nice,' Hough said, almost diffidently. ‘Or perhaps our guests would prefer tea?'

‘Coffee's fine,' Woodend told the girl.

‘For me, too,' Paniatowski added.

Hough watched his secretary intently, until she had finally left the room, then turned to Woodend and said, ‘I think I may have found something to connect your two dead men for you.'

‘The Royal Lancashire Fusiliers?' Woodend asked.

Hough looked slightly disappointed. ‘How long have you known?'