Dying Fall (2 page)

‘What you're proposing would cost us a fortune in overtime, Chief Inspector,' he said.

‘Yes, sir, I imagine it will,' Woodend replied flatly.

‘We seem to be talking in different tenses,' Marlowe pointed out. ‘I say “would” and you say “will”.'

‘You say “tom
ar
to” an' I say “tom
ay
to”,' Woodend agreed. ‘Unfortunately, sir, this bein' a murder inquiry, we simply can't “just call the whole thing off”.'

Marlowe frowned. ‘I'm not sure I like your attitude, Chief Inspector,' he snapped.

As understatements went, it was the equivalent of saying that Genghis Khan might just possibly, on rare occasions, have been a little bit aggressive.

The truth was that the chief constable
hated
Woodend's attitude – and on numerous occasions he had done his damnedest to get rid of the bloody man.

‘You have to consider what the newspapers might say, if you're seen not to be takin' this seriously, sir,' Woodend said innocently.

Henry Marlowe shivered, as he always did at even the
thought
of getting a bad press.

‘I'm not saying that we shouldn't
investigate
the incident, Chief Inspector,' he conceded.

‘Investigate the
murder
, you mean.'

‘But I wonder, given the scale of the investigation you seem to be envisaging, if you're not perhaps attempting to crack a peanut with a sledgehammer. After all, it should be a relatively simple case to solve.'

‘Should it, sir?' Woodend asked.

‘Of course. Who could have any interest in killing a down-and-out but
another
down-and-out?'

‘So you believe that a tramp did it, do you?'

‘I should have thought that was obvious.'

‘The victim wasn't knifed, an' he wasn't beaten to death,' Woodend pointed out.

‘I can
read
, you know,' Marlowe countered. ‘I have
seen
the report. I
know
he wasn't stabbed or bludgeoned. He was burned alive.'

‘Well, there you are, then,' Woodend said.

‘
Where
am I, exactly?'

‘For a start, where would a tramp get a can of petrol from?'

‘From a garage, of course – like everybody else.'

‘So he goes to a garage to ask for it, even though he knows that will lead us straight to him?'

‘Lead us straight to him?' Marlowe repeated, mystified.

Woodend sighed. ‘The garage owner would be bound to ask himself how a man who couldn't even afford a decent jacket could possibly own a car, wouldn't he? So the transaction would stick in his mind. An' the tramp in question would have to be pretty stupid not to realize that.'

‘Tramps are stupid. They would never become tramps in the first place, if they weren't,' Marlowe said dismissively.

Woodend shook his head. Even after all his experience of dealing with Marlowe in the past, he could still be amazed by the chief constable's one-dimensional, black-and-white vision of the world.

‘There's a lot of reasons, other than stupidity, that a man might become a tramp,' he said. ‘But even allowin' that you're right, sir, an' the killer is as thick as two short planks, he'd still never have used that particular method to murder his victim.'

‘I'm afraid you've lost me again,' Marlowe said.

‘Tramps come from all kinds of backgrounds, but they nearly all have one thing in common.'

He paused, giving the chief constable the opportunity to do a little independent thinking, but rather than avail himself of the opportunity, Marlowe said, ‘And what might that one thing be?

‘They're alcoholics.'

‘So?'

‘So if the killer was a tramp, an' he did get his hands on some money, he wouldn't go wastin' it on petrol. The first thing he'd do is buy booze, because nothin' would be as important as that to him. Not hatred! Not revenge! Not anythin'!'

‘You may have a point, but I still think …'

‘He'd get blind drunk, an' it wouldn't be until he'd sobered up that he'd start thinkin' about killin' again. An' when he
did
think about it, he'd choose a knife or a blunt instrument, because they'd cost him nothin'.'

Marlowe smirked. ‘I would not wish to question your expertise on drink-dependency, Chief Inspector, since from what I have observed of your own habits, you seem to have a great deal of personal experience,' he said. ‘However, I am responsible for overseeing a great deal more than one simple little murder. Traffic has to be regulated, football matches have to be policed … I could go on, but I see no need to. The simple truth is that there are a thousand tasks which must be accomplished within my budget, and I am reluctant to commit as many resources as you seem to be demanding to your investigation.'

‘The press …' Woodend began.

‘You have already used that particular threat once today,' Marlowe pointed out. ‘For a moment, I freely admit, you unbalanced me, but thinking about it, I can't really see why the newspapers should be the least bit interested in this sordid little killing.'

‘Maybe the newspapers in general
wouldn't
be interested,' Woodend conceded. ‘But I'm a little concerned – lookin' at it from your point of view, as the man in charge of this police force – that Elizabeth Driver
would
.'

The remark hit home, just as Woodend had known it would.

Elizabeth Driver, a tabloid journalist with the moral compunctions of an earthworm, had been a thorn in Woodend's side since his days in Scotland Yard, but recently – since she had embarked on a so-called
secret
affair with Bob Rutter – the chief constable had been her main target. In fact, it was only due to one of her articles in support of Woodend that Marlowe had back-pedalled on his intention to get rid of his least-favourite chief inspector. Woodend still worried about
why
she had done it – nasty motives being the only ones she had – but he saw no reason not to turn it to his advantage now.

Marlowe had started to sweat. ‘You think she might take an interest in this case?' he asked.

‘I wouldn't know, sir,' Woodend said. ‘But it's always better to be safe than sorry.'

Marlowe nodded resignedly. ‘Very well, Chief Inspector, I will give you free rein for your investigation for the moment. But I will expect – no, I will
demand
– a very rapid result on this case.'

Demand what you like, Woodend thought. It won't influence the way I investigate the case one way or the other.

But aloud, all he said was, ‘I'll do what I can, sir.'

He was almost at the door when Marlowe said harshly, ‘One day, you will dig yourself so deeply into a hole that you'll not be able to get out again, you know. And when that happens, I'll be right at the side of that hole, filling it in.'

Woodend turned and smiled at him. ‘We all have our little hopes an' dreams, sir,' he said. ‘It's what keeps us goin'.'

P
ogo, sitting in the bedroom of the decayed terraced house where he usually stayed when he was passing through Whitebridge, had been watching the woman ever since she had parked her car – a flashy red MGA – at the corner of the street.

He was intrigued by the fact that she hadn't locked her vehicle, which argued either confidence or stupidity, and for the moment he had not decided which of the two it was.

The woman had headed straight for the house closest to her car. The place was empty and boarded up, but then
all
the houses in this street, being ex-mill-workers' cottages, were empty and boarded up. She had first tried the front door, then, when it wouldn't open, had walked over to the window and tested the boarding to see if it was really as fixed as it appeared to be. Satisfied it was, she had moved along to the next house, and repeated the procedure. Within a few minutes, she had checked half the other side of the street, in the same slow, methodical way.

Pogo didn't ask himself
why
she was doing it. He had long ago stopped asking himself why people in the ‘normal' world did things. They had their rules, and he had his, and the two rarely crossed.

But though he did not wonder about her motives, he did find himself wondering about
her
.

She was somewhere around twenty-nine or thirty, he guessed. She was wearing a red sweater which hugged her rounded breasts and a black-and-white check skirt which was short enough to reveal a pair of very good legs. Her nose was a little larger than those normally issued locally, but it was still an attractive one, and it reminded him of a Ukrainian girl he had known in Berlin, shortly after the War. The woman's hair was blonde and wavy, and looked like it might feel silky to the touch. Pogo did not ‘fancy' her – it was years since he had felt emotional desire for a woman, and doubted that, even if he ever did again, his equipment would be up to the job – but looking at her still left him with a slight tinge of regret that he had fallen through a crack in society's floor and now floated in the sewer of its – and his own – disgust.

As the woman moved further up the street, she went out of his range of vision, and with nothing left to watch, he decided he might as well close his eyes for a moment.

He was awoken from his unintended sleep by a crashing sound. He was not instantly alert, as he would have been in the old days, but within a few seconds he was ready for whatever piece of shit fate had decided to throw at him now, and as he rose – a little creakily – to his feet, he was already reaching into his pocket for his knife.

There was the sound of footsteps downstairs – the clicking of a woman's high heels – and then the sound got closer and he realized that she was climbing the stairs. He slipped the knife back in his pocket – even in the state he was in, he didn't need a weapon to handle a woman! – and patiently awaited her inevitable arrival.

He did not have to wait long. Just a few seconds passed before she pushed open the door and saw him. He was expecting her to be scared – the sight that he caught of himself, on the rare occasions he glanced at his reflection in a shop window, was enough to scare any woman – but if she felt any fear, she didn't show it. Instead, she reached into her pocket, produced a small leather-bound document, and held it out for him to see.

‘Detective Sergeant Monika Paniatowski,' she announced.

At the sound of a rank, Pogo found himself stiffening. ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?' he asked.

‘If you don't mind, sir, we'd like you to come down to police headquarters for a while,' Paniatowski said.

‘What is it I'm supposed to have done?' Pogo demanded.

‘Nothing at all, sir. We'd just like you to help us with our inquiries.'

‘And what could I possibly know that might be of any use to you?'

‘You may not have heard about it yet, but a tramp was murdered last night,' Paniatowski explained.

‘Didn't know the man,' Pogo shot back at her.

‘How can you be so sure of that, before I've given you any of the details?' Paniatowski wondered.

‘Don't know
any
tramps,' Pogo told her. ‘Why would I?'

‘Well, because you're a …' Paniatowski began.

‘I'm a what? A tramp myself?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘I'll have you know, madam, that I am in fact a highly respected City stockbroker, midway through what is turning out to be a very unconventional adventure holiday,' Pogo said sternly.

Paniatowski grinned. ‘You're pulling my chain,' she said.

‘Well, obviously,' Pogo agreed, grinning back.

‘We really would like you to come down to the station,' Paniatowski told him. ‘It's a very serious case we have on our hands.'

‘The murder of a tramp!' Pogo said dismissively.

‘A tramp who was drenched in petrol and then set on fire,' Paniatowski told him.

Pogo rocked on his heels and said, ‘Jesus!'

‘So you'll come voluntarily?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Meaning if I won't, I'll be coming
involuntarily
?' Pogo asked.

‘It should be easy enough to find an excuse to pull you,' Paniatowski said, matter-of-factly. Then she grinned again, and added, ‘After all, you know what bastards the police are.'

Pogo nodded. ‘I'll have to collect my stuff together first.'

‘Fair enough.'

His ‘stuff' consisted of a sleeping bag, a small knapsack, a tin plate, a mug, a knife, fork and spoon, a Primus stove and small metal pan and a cigarette-rolling machine.

Most tramps probably had some, or all, of those things, Paniatowski thought. But she doubted that most tramps would have arranged them in the way that this one had. The art­icles were laid out in two straight lines, the first line being roughly a foot from the second.

Or was there anything
roughly
about it? Paniatowski found herself wondering, and decided that if she'd had to make a bet on the distance between the lines, she'd have to put her money on them being
exactly
twelve inches apart.

The tramp collected up his possessions methodically and fitted them into the knapsack. When he'd done that, he rolled up the sleeping bag with practised ease, wrapped it in a piece of cord, and tied the cord with an elaborate knot.

Only when he'd finished his work did he look at Paniatowski and say, ‘The threat of being arrested isn't enough.'

‘Enough for what?'

‘Enough to make me cooperate with you. If you want me to come to the cop shop voluntarily, you'll have to persuade me that there's something in it for me.'

‘How about the promise of unlimited cups of tea?' Paniatowski suggested.

Pogo nodded. ‘That'll do it,' he agreed.