Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (10 page)

He took a packet of Ducados out of his pocket, and offered them to Paniatowski. When she declined, he lit one up himself.

‘Do you prefer black tobacco?' Paniatowski asked, reaching into her handbag for her own cigarettes.

‘Yes, I do,' Martinez replied. ‘I left Spain when I was a baby – and given my father's political background, I imagine I would be far from welcomed back – yet I smoke Spanish cigarettes, drink Spanish wine, know how to cook a very decent paella, and am an almost fanatical supporter of Valencia Club de Fútbol.' He grinned suddenly. ‘I am also, of course, a fanatical supporter of Whitebridge Rovers – it would be political suicide not to be.'

‘Yes, it most certainly would,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘Yet sometimes, I worry about being so attached to a country I left so long ago,' Martinez said, frowning slightly. ‘You know what it's like when you hear some people talking about the good old days?'

‘Yes.'

‘I think those good old days can only seem quite that good when viewed from a distance, and through rose-coloured glasses. So is my attachment to Spain – my equivalent of the good old days – more to do with the fact that I'm dissatisfied with the life I've got now? I don't think so – but how can I be sure?' He paused for a moment. ‘How do you feel about Poland?'

It was a complicated question, Paniatowski thought. To her, Poland was her father, and her father was dead – mown down in the last foolish-heroic cavalry charge against German machine guns – and she was not sure she would feel quite comfortable talking about it to a man she had only just met.

‘I like the vodka,' she said.

Martinez laughed, then seemed to sense her dilemma and said, ‘I'm sorry, I should never have put you on the spot like that.'

‘That's all right,' she told him, appreciating his sensitivity.

‘So, shall we get on to the real purpose of your visit?' Martinez suggested.

Paniatowski nodded, and took the sketch of the dead woman out of her handbag. She would have laid it down on the desk, but with all Martinez's papers, there really wasn't room, and so she just held it up for him to look at.

‘It's about this woman,' she said.

‘Ah, yes, I saw that picture in the paper,' Martinez said, ‘but she's a complete stranger to me, and I don't really see how I could help you.'

‘What we didn't know until last night is that there's a strong possibility she was Spanish,' Paniatowski told him.

‘Ah!' Martinez said.

‘And we also think that until a few days ago, she was living in Spain, and only arrived in Whitebridge shortly before she was murdered.'

‘You think she came here to visit someone?' Martinez guessed.

‘Exactly,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘And you think that person murdered her?'

‘Not necessarily,' Paniatowski said cautiously, ‘but if we could identify her, we might have a better idea of why someone would want to kill her.'

‘And you've come to see me not because I'm your MP, but because you think that since I used to run the Whitebridge Hispanic Circle, I know more about the Spaniards in Whitebridge than anyone else?'

‘Yes,' Paniatowski said.

And she was thinking,
Please give me something I can use, so I can call Charlie off the investigation before he gets himself into trouble.

‘There aren't actually that many Spaniards living here, you know,' Martinez told her. ‘I haven't done the calculation, but I doubt the number even reaches treble figures.'

‘Then it should be easy to track them down,' Paniatowski said. ‘Do you have a list?'

‘Not as such,' Martinez admitted, ‘but from the information I have collected from various sources on other matters, I'm sure I could get Marjory to compile one for you.'

The door from the outer office opened, and a man entered. He was around seventy, Paniatowski guessed, and the expression on his face could only have been described as stern.

‘They told me you were talking to a policeman,' he said to Robert Martinez, and looked sweepingly around the room as if he expected to find one lurking in a corner.

‘For “they” read “Marjory”,' Robert Martinez said to Paniatowski. ‘She'll have sent my father here to chase you out as soon as possible. She thinks I spend too long with my visitors.'

‘She is the policeman?' Javier Martinez asked, examining Paniatowski critically, as if he suspected someone was playing a trick on him.

‘She is the police officer – DCI Paniatowski,' Robert Martinez replied.

‘When you are talking to the police, it is always wise to have witnesses,' the older man said.

Robert Martinez laughed uncomfortably. ‘My father has lived in this country for nearly forty years,' he said to Paniatowski. ‘He has run a successful business, and has dined at the mayor's table at official banquets on numerous occasions.' He turned to the older man again. ‘How are Valencia CF doing this season?' he asked.

‘How would I know that?' Javier Martinez replied indifferently.

‘Then let me ask you another question, Father,' Robert suggested. ‘Do you agree with me that Whitebridge Rovers are likely to be relegated at the end of this season?'

The older man snorted with contempt at the very idea.

‘Of course not!' he said. ‘We have had a few poor results – that is true – but the team is coming together, and the new centre forward has not yet shown half his talent.'

‘You see?' Robert Martinez asked, smiling at Paniatowski. ‘My father is, in many ways, as English as the people who were born here. He likes warm beer, and adores steak and kidney pie. Yet a police officer – any police officer – is always, to him, just a member of the Cuerpo de Policía Armada in disguise.'

Robert had delivered the whole argument light-heartedly, and most people in Javier Martinez's situation would have laughed – perhaps a little embarrassedly – at the way his son had exposed his inconsistencies. But Javier did not laugh – he didn't even betray the slightest flicker of amusement.

Unlike his son, he seemed a very cold man, Paniatowski thought.

‘You did not know the Policía Armada as I did,' the old man said. ‘If you had known them, you would never again …' He stopped suddenly, and squared his shoulders. ‘You are right, Roberto,' he continued. ‘Wariness of the police is no excuse for being discourteous to a lady.' He bowed to Paniatowski. ‘I apologize, madam, for ever seeming to question your integrity.'

‘Apology accepted,' Paniatowski said.

‘DCI Paniatowski would like to know if we recognize this woman,' Robert Martinez said, holding up the sketch.

‘When I saw that in the newspaper, I thought, for a second, that I might possibly recognize her,' Javier Martinez said. ‘But when I looked closer, I saw that she was just like the old women I pass on the street every day.'

Paniatowski checked her watch.

‘I have to go,' she said. ‘Could you get that list to me as soon as possible, Mr Martinez?'

‘Marjory will probably demand her pound of flesh for it, but I'll see you get it within the hour,' Robert Martinez promised.

The front parlour of Doña Pilar Crespo Torres' farmhouse had exposed roof beams made of olive wood, and a floor paved with heavy stone slabs. The furniture was handmade, rustic, and smelled of beeswax, and the room was dominated by a huge stone fireplace – on which there was a spit for roasting meat – and the large wooden crucifix that hung to the left of it.

It was in this parlour that Doña Pilar had chosen to receive Woodend and Ruiz. And receive was the right word to describe it, Woodend thought, because sitting there, bolt upright, dressed entirely in black, and resting her old hands on her carved walking stick, she made it seem as if, after this experience, an audience with the pope would be an absolute doddle.

The old woman scrutinized the two men thoroughly, and then spoke to Paco in rapid Spanish.

‘Doña Pilar says she has seen you before,' Paco translated.

‘That's right,' Woodend agreed. ‘I was the one who brought Louisa here for the party.'

More rapid Spanish followed, of which the only words Woodend could catch sounded like tío Echarlee.

‘She didn't know who you were at the time, but she realizes now that you must be the Uncle Charlie who Louisa spoke of,' Paco explained. ‘She says she is pleased to discover that Louisa had such a manly man in her adopted family.'

‘Ask her about this Elena woman,' Woodend said, starting to feel a little hot under the collar.

Paco did.

‘She says the woman's full name is Elena Vargas Morales,' he told Woodend, when the old woman had finished speaking. ‘She comes from a village in the mountains called Val de Montaña, and until a few years ago, she worked in Melly's Hotel, which is on the seafront.'

‘I know it,' Woodend said. ‘Ask her if Elena seemed in any way strange at the lunch that she and Louisa went to.'

Another conversation followed, in which Doña Pilar lifted one of her hands from her stick in order to make extravagant gestures with it.

‘She says that Elena was behaving perfectly normally at first, but when she saw the photographs, a sudden change came over her.'

‘What photographs?'

‘Louisa brought some photographs with her, to show her Spanish family what her life was like in Whitebridge. The photographs were passed around the table. When they reached Elena, she seemed very shocked by them.'

‘Shocked? How?'

‘She went pale, and there was one particular picture that she appeared to be unable to tear her eyes away from.'

‘Who was in the picture?'

‘Doña Pilar does not know that, because Elena was right at the other end of the table from her. But she has absolutely no doubt in her mind that Elena was very upset by them.'

‘What happened next?'

‘Doña Pilar determined to have a quiet word with her friend – to find out what had upset her – but she did not want to appear rude to her other guests by ignoring them, and she decided to wait until lunch was over.'

‘But by then, Elena had gone,' Woodend guessed.

‘Yes, that's just what happened. Elena left without even thanking her hostess, which is both very discourteous in Spain, and very unlike Elena, who has impeccable manners. Doña Pilar sent her son – Don Jaime – round to Elena's cottage the next morning, but she wasn't there, and no one has seen her since.'

‘Ask Doña Pilar if she knows if Elena has done much travelling,' Woodend told Paco.

The old woman laughed at the apparent absurdity of the question that
tío Echarlee
had put to her.

‘She says that women from Elena's background don't travel,' Paco translated. ‘The men sometimes travel – to find work, or because they have been called up to serve in the army – but the women live their whole lives within a few miles of where they were born. They might perhaps visit Alicante, or even Valencia, once or twice, but for most of them, even that is too great an adventure.'

The old woman spoke again.

‘Besides,' Paco continued, ‘she couldn't leave the country without the permission of a male relative. And even if a male relative could have been produced from somewhere, the authorities would never have issued a passport to someone with her political background.'

If it had been anybody but Louisa who had made the identification, Woodend would already have started thinking that she must have been mistaken. But Louisa had been playing observation games with her Uncle Charlie since she started primary school, and she had one of the sharpest pairs of eyes – and best recalls – of anyone he had ever come across.

‘Thank Doña Pilar for seeing us, and tell her that she's been very helpful,' Woodend said to Paco.

‘
De nada
!' said Doña Pilar, who clearly understood his tone.

‘She says it's nothing,' Paco translated.

‘I know,' said Woodend, who understood hers.

‘If Louisa is right about it being Elena who was found dead in Whitebridge – and I'm sure she is – then it must have been her photographs that were the catalyst,' Woodend said to Ruiz, as they walked back to Paco's car. ‘But that doesn't make any kind of sense, does it?'

‘Not a great deal,' Paco admitted. ‘Perhaps we would be able to make the connection if we saw the photographs ourselves.'

‘I'll ask Monika to post them to us,' Woodend said. ‘But what are we going to do in the meantime?'

‘It might be useful if we found out more about Elena's background,' Paco suggested.

‘Just what I was thinking,' Woodend agreed. ‘So first we'll go to the village she came from, and then the hotel where she worked.'

‘That's not a good idea,' Paco said. ‘They would not trust you – a foreigner – in the village, and the owner of Melly's Hotel would probably be much more comfortable talking to a fellow Englishman than to the Englishman and his Spanish associate.'

‘So you take the village, and I take the hotel?'

‘Yes, I think that would work best.'

They were dealing with the case of a woman who had never travelled before in her life, but had gone to England on the basis of a photograph shown to her by a girl she had only just met, Woodend thought, as he squeezed his large body into the passenger seat of Ruiz's small car.

That same woman had been murdered in Whitebridge for reasons completely unknown, and her killer had attempted to hide her body, even though it was unlikely that anyone but he would recognize her.

If there was ever a case that was head-bangingly complicated, it was this one.

His knees jammed hard against the dashboard of Paco's car, Woodend sighed contentedly.

It was starting to feel just like old times!

P
aco hit the roadblock just after he turned off the N332. It was manned by young soldiers – probably conscripts – who were all attempting, with various degrees of success, to grow their first moustaches. The sergeant in charge of them was a middle-aged man with a hard, square body. He had no moustache – but then he had nothing to prove about his masculinity, either.