The Dark Lady (12 page)

“But I
am
a policeman. Can I come inside, please, Mr Rozpedek?”

“I do not want you in my house.”

The chief inspector shrugged. “In that case, it looks like we'll be havin' our conversation down at Maltham police station.”

“You can do that?”

“Oh yes. Even in England, the police still have some powers.”

The Pole took an angry step back. “Then it would seem that I have no choice but to let you come in,” he said.

Woodend followed the other man into his living room. Rozpedek did not invite him to sit down, and when he poured himself a vodka from the unlabelled bottle, he did not ask Woodend if he would like one too.

“You were seen the other night. Did you know that?” the chief inspector asked.

“Seen?” Rozpedek repeated. “Seen where?”

Woodend sighed deeply. “You're not goin' to make this easy for me, are you? All right. We'll play it your way, if that'll make you any happier. On the night Gerhard Schultz was murdered . . .” He paused. “You do remember that night, don't you?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“On the night Gerhard Schultz was murdered, you an' your mates were seen comin' out of the woods.”

Rozpedek knocked back his shot of vodka. “Who is making these accusations against me?” he demanded.

“It doesn't really matter who the people are, does it?” Woodend countered. “The fact is, that you were seen.”

A sudden smile came to the Pole's face, as if he had just worked something out.

“Who the
people
are?” he repeated. “I do not think we are talking about
people
here. If you had more than one witness, you would not be playing this so close to your chest. And what is the value of only one witness. He says that he saw us coming out of the woods, and we say we were not there. It's one man's word against four.”

“Four?” Woodend said. “I told you the witness had seen you an' your mates. I don't remember sayin' how many mates.”

“There were four of us playing cards. However many of us he claims to have seen, it is his word against ours,” Rozpedek explained. “This witness of yours? Is he someone who works at the plant?”

“I'm not at liberty to reveal that information at the moment,” Woodend told him.

“Of course he is from the plant,” the Pole said contemptuously. “The only people who would be around the park at that time of night are those who live here. And that means he has to work for BCI. In which case, his word counts for absolutely nothing.”

“Would you mind explainin' that?” Woodend asked.

“Certainly I will explain it. Mr Hailsham, the son-of-a-bitch who calls himself our personnel manager, had notices put up all over the plant asking for information about the night of the murder.”

“I know that.”

“Did you also know that he offered a month's wages to anybody who supplied that information?”

“He did
what
?”

Rozpedek smiled again. “A month's pay is a lot of money,” he said. “I was tempted to go and see him myself, and tell him I'd seen the Germans coming out of the woods.”

Fulton Crescent, which was where, according to BCI company records, Gerhard Schultz had lived for most of his time in Hereford, was a pleasant, tree-lined street of neat semi-detached houses. Bob Rutter walked up the path of the one next door to Schultz's old home and rang the bell.

The man who opened the door was around sixty-five, and was wearing carpet slippers and an old, ragged cardigan. A chap who didn't leave the house much by the look of him, Rutter thought – and therefore a good chap to talk to if you wanted information about the neighbours.

He produced his warrant card, and said that he'd like to ask a few questions about Gerhard Schultz.

“Oh him,” the man said indifferently. “Got himself killed somewhere up north, didn't he? I read about it in the papers.”

“How well did you know him, Mr . . .?”

“Dobson,” the man supplied. “Edgar Dobson. How well did I know him? Hardly at all. We lived next door to each other for thirteen years, but we were never close. We exchanged a few words over the garden fence now and again, and that was about it.”

“But you must have formed some impression of him in all that time,” Rutter coaxed. “There must be something you can tell me that will help me to build up a picture of the man.”

“How do you mean?” Dobson asked.

Rutter sighed. From his experience, there were only two kinds of witness – the ones who would talk to you for ever if you let them; and the ones you had to play dentist with, dragging each word out of them like a troublesome wisdom tooth. Dobson plainly belonged to the latter category.

“Did Mr Schultz, for instance, spend a lot of time at home?” the sergeant asked.

“Not during the day.”

“Of course not. He had his job at BCI. But what about the evenings and at weekends?”

“Yes, he was at home then,” Dobson said. “He wasn't a great one for going out.”

“What about his holidays? Do you know if he ever used them to travel back to Germany?” Rutter asked, remembering that all the guidebooks back in Schultz's room at Westbury Hall had been on places in Great Britain.

“I asked him once if he ever went home,” Dobson replied. “He said he didn't. Said he'd had just about enough of Germany. Said he was perfectly happy to stay here in England. Can't say I blame him. After all, it is the greatest country in the world, isn't it?”

“What about Mr Schultz's friends, then? Did any of them come round to visit him?”

“Not male friends,” Dobson said, his upper lip twisting with contempt as he spoke. “Not couples, either. He wasn't one for throwing noisy parties, I'll say that much for him.”

“But he did have lady friends?” Rutter asked, picking up on Dobson's obvious disgust.

The other men snorted loudly. “If that's what you want to call them, then yes, he did.”

“What would
you
call them?”

“I'd call them tarts,” Dobson said. “There was a whole stream of them. Some would only be there for a couple of hours, some would stay all night. But however long they stayed, I knew what they were doing once that front door was closed. I complained to him about it once. Told him he was bringing down the tone of the neighbourhood.”

“And how did he reply?”

“He told me to mind my own bloody business.”

I'm not surprised, Rutter thought. “How long did these girlfriends of his usually last?” he asked.

“I told you already, they weren't his girlfriends, they were nothing but common tarts.”

Perhaps there was more to this than simple blind prejudice or sour grapes. “How can you be so sure they were prostitutes?” Rutter asked.

“Because I've seen a couple of them plying their filthy trade in the town centre. There was one I remember in particular – a big blonde woman who was almost as tall as Schultz was. Every time you go past Woolworths at night you'll see her – standing there in the doorway and waiting for her next customer to come along.”

When Woodend entered the Westbury Social Club at just after seven o'clock, the first person he noticed was Elizabeth Driver. The journalist was sitting at the bar. She couldn't have been a member of the club, but she seemed to have persuaded Tony into serving her a gin and tonic. The chief inspector got the impression that when she really put her mind to it, she could persuade most men to give her anything she wanted.

Miss Driver smiled at him. “She was seen again last night. And not just by one person either – there were several sightings.”

“I assume that you're talkin' about the so-called Dark Lady of Westbury Hall,” Woodend said.

“Well, of course I am. She rode up Westbury Lane towards the canal, then vanished into thin air.”

“Maybe,” Woodend agreed.

Elizabeth Driver took a sip of her drink. “How's the investigation going?” she asked.

“So far I've managed to narrow it down to the murderer bein' either a man or a woman, who could be young or old – or very possibly middle-aged,” Woodend told her.

“You're making fun of me, aren't you, chief inspector?” Elizabeth Driver said, accusingly.

“No, lass, I'm just bein' honest with you. I have no idea who killed Gerhard Schultz.”

Elizabeth Driver glanced at her watch. “Well, I must go,” she said. “I've got deadlines to meet.”

“A word of warnin', Miss Driver,” Woodend said. “You should never forget that your job is to
report
the news.”

The journalist smiled at him. “You mean, report the
news
,” she suggested.

“I know what I mean,” Woodend told her.

Gerhard Schultz's nosy ex-neighbour had certainly been right about one thing, Rutter thought as he gazed from the other side of the road at Woolworths' doorway – the blonde woman certainly was tall. And since even at a distance he could see that she was wearing far too much make-up and had a slit up the side of her skirt which almost reached the top of her stocking, it looked as if Edgar Dobson had been right about the other thing, too.

Rutter crossed the road and walked past the woman, making a deliberately clumsy pretence of not noticing her. He carried on for a few yards, hesitated, then turned around and repeated the process in reverse.

It was the third time he passed her that she spoke.

“Are you lookin' for company, darlin'?” she asked, in throaty, seductive voice.

Rutter froze. “I'm . . . I'm a married man,” he stuttered.

The woman laughed. “You'd be surprised just how many of the men you see wanderin' around the town centre at night have a little wife waitin' for them at home,” she said. “What they're doin', you see is lookin' for somethin' they can't get from 'er.”

“And what might that be?” Rutter asked.

The woman licked her lips. “You know? A little bit of this an' a little bit of that.”

“And . . . er . . . how much would a little bit of this and a little bit of that cost me?” Rutter mumbled.

“Two quid if you want it straight, an extra ten bob for anythin' special. Payable in advance.”

Rutter put his hand in his jacket pocket. When he took it out again, it was holding not his wallet but his warrant card.

“Detective Sergeant Rutter,” he said. “I am arresting you under the Street Offences Act of 1959. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”

“'Ere, what is this?” the prostitute demanded. “Are you really a copper?”

“Yes, indeed,” Rutter assured her.

“Well, you're not one of the ones from the local nick. I'd've recognised you if you was.”

“I'm part of a special task force drafted in to stamp out prostitution,” Rutter lied. “Have you been pulled in before?”

“Yeah,” the woman said gloomily.

“How did it go? Did the magistrate just give you a fine, or did you serve any time?”

“The beak gave me three months last time.”

Rutter nodded sagely. “In that case it could easily be six months this time. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” the woman asked. She stamped her foot. “Oh, I see what this is all about now. You never intended to take me in. You just want a free shake, don't you?”

“No,” Rutter said. “All I want some information. Is there a café near here that's still open?”

“There's a Wimpy bar just up the road.”

“Good,” Bob Rutter said. “Show me where it is, and I'll buy you a frothy coffee.”

I
t was ten fifty-three, which meant that the shift workers in the bar of the Westbury Social Club, had just seven minutes in which to order their last drink of the day. Woodend took a sip of his pint and looked around the bar. There was a fair crowd in the club that evening. Some of the faces were new to him, but there were others which were rapidly becoming as familiar as his own.

The Poles, for example. Despite the heated confrontation he'd had with Zbigniew Rozpedek earlier that day, they were all sitting at their usual table. Or perhaps it was
because
of the confrontation, he thought. Perhaps they were deliberately going out of their way to show him that they were not about to be intimidated – to demonstrate by their physical presence that as long as they all stuck to their story, there was nothing he could do to them. And they were right; it was the word of four men against one witness. And it certainly didn't help that that one witness was a slimy character like Ted Robinson.

There were still many questions left unanswered in the chief inspector's mind. Assuming for the moment that it
was
the Poles who had killed Gerhard Schultz, why had all four of them gone into the woods after him? Surely two would have been enough? If they'd done it that way, the pair who were not involved in the killing could have stayed in Rozpedek's house, making a noise and moving about in front of the window to help establish their alibi. And even if they had decided it had to be the four of them – perhaps because they wanted to share the responsibility for the murder – why had they re-entered the park from a different side of the woods to where the body was found? Once they had done the deed, wouldn't they have wanted to get out of the woods as soon as possible, and taken the path, which was undoubtedly the shortest route? So . . . still assuming that they were the killers, what had made them go blundering through the trees with the blood of Gerhard Schultz still on their hands?

Woodend shifted his gaze to one of the other tables. Kurt Müller was presiding over the German table with quiet authority. The man was still a bit of an enigma, the chief inspector thought. He was deeply religious, but it didn't stop him having a drink. He was a qualified engineer, but preferred to spend his time on a boring, repetitive production line. And he seemed strangely detached from what went on around him – as if he'd learnt that the petty worries and cares which weigh down most people were of no real significance. Perhaps his sense of detachment stemmed from his religion, Woodend thought. When you were grappling with the complexities of the nature of God, you had little time left over to worry about pay rises and hire-purchase payments.