The Dark Lady (16 page)

“Since we didn't know when Jerry was going to be coming over, we had to be ready to be airborne for as long as the light lasted, and at that time of year that meant from four o'clock in the morning until ten thirty at night. We couldn't work a shift system – however fast they trained new pilots, we simply didn't have the manpower for that – so every flier had to be on duty at all times. It really was quite an exhausting business.”

“It must have been.”

“A lot of people have the wrong idea about our job,” the wing commander continued. “They think we were supposed to shoot down German fighter planes.”

“And weren't you?”

“No, we were supposed to knock out the bombers before they could do any damage.” He looked up at the sky, as if he could see some even at that moment. “But of course, that meant dealing with the fighters who were escorting them first. And that wasn't easy. The German fighters – the 109s – didn't fly alongside their bombers, you know. They flew above them, so that when we attacked the Ju 88s – that's the bombers – the fighters would come swooping down on us at a terrific speed. They had fuel injection, you see, so they could get away with it. If we'd tried a manoeuvre like that in any of our Hurricanes, we'd have stalled the bloody engine.”

“There must have been a tremendous spirit of camaraderie in those days,” Rutter said.

“Oh, there was,” the wing commander agreed. “And in a strange way, that feeling extended to the opposition as well. We wanted to shoot their planes out of the sky, of course, but we never meant the pilots any harm. I remember one of my young chaps – his name was Chetwynd, if my memory doesn't fail me – being quite upset because instead of shooting the wing off an enemy plane, which was what he'd intended to do, he'd sprayed the cockpit and killed the pilot.”

Which was pretty much what Simon Hailsham had said about his relationship with Schultz, Rutter thought.

“In fact,” the wing commander continued, “I, and a few of my men, used to go and visit the captured German fliers whenever we got the chance. There was an internment camp quite close to the base, you see. The Jerries always gave us a very warm welcome – no hard feelings at all.”

“Did you ever meet a German pilot called Gerhard Schultz?” Rutter asked, taking a shot in the dark.

“Schultz! How incredible you should mention him. Indeed I did know him. He was one of prisoners I got closest to. An absolutely splendid chap. An officer and a gentleman in every sense of the word. I wonder whatever happened to him.”

“You don't know?” Rutter asked. “Haven't you seen it in the papers?”

“Don't bother with the papers much any more,” the wing commander confessed. “Got better things to do with my time than read about all the disasters going on in the world. Fought a war to make things better, and there doesn't seem to have been any improvement at all. So what's Gerhard been up to?”

“He's been murdered.”

“Extraordinary thing to happen! Who on earth would want to kill a nice chap like Gerhard?”

“That's what we're trying to find out, sir,” Rutter said.

And we might just be getting somewhere, he thought excitedly. We might – possibly – at last be establishing a firm link between the past and the present.

“You said you took a group of officers with you to visit the German prisoners, didn't you?” he asked.

“That's right. Not a big one. Just three or four chaps who were interested in coming along.”

Rutter took a deep breath. “And did Simon Hailsham happen to be one of that group, sir?”

The wing commander looked blank. “Who?”

“Simon Hailsham.
Group Captain
Simon Hailsham,” Bob Rutter prodded.

“Not done your homework properly, young man,” the wing commander said severely. “That wasn't his name at all.”

As Woodend walked through Westbury Park, he was thinking about his visit to the riding school and what he had achieved there. On the whole, very little, he decided. True, he'd cleared up one little mystery, even if he hadn't had time to bring it to its final resolution yet. And true again, he'd managed to eliminate one suspect from his list of possible murderers – but that list was still depressingly long. So all in all, it could hardly have been called a productive morning's work.

Even the expedition he was embarking on at that moment was aimed more at getting the chief constable off his back than assisting him in catching his killer. But it had to be done. God, how he hated the politics involved in police work.

He entered the woods from exactly the same point at which he had entered them the night before. Once he had gone more than a few yards, however, he was no longer sure that he was still on the route he had taken the last time. Had he turned right by this bush? he asked himself. Or had he decided it would be easier to go to the left? After five minutes' walking he realised that any further speculation was pointless. If he was ever to find what he was searching for, it would have to be purely on a basis of hit and miss.

He had been walking for nearly an hour when he found an old brick building, not much bigger than a garden shed, close to the shore of the lake. An old pumping station, the chief inspector guessed, no doubt used to pump up water for the gardens and fountains of Westbury Hall when the place had been in its heyday.

The windows were all boarded up, and many of the slates on the roof were missing, but there was a shiny new hasp and padlock fixed firmly on the rotting front door.

“Did you have that idea of yours, an'
then
go lookin' for a place like this, Mr Rozpedek?” he asked, looking around the empty wood. “Or was it the other way round? Did findin' this place give you the idea?”

Whichever way it was, one of the Poles had obviously been afraid he'd find the pumping station the night before, and had attacked him to stop him searching any further.

He hadn't known for sure that he'd need a screwdriver, but he was glad he'd brought one along anyway; because it saved him a trip back to the hall. He took the implement out his pocket, and inserted it into the groove of one of the screws which held the hasp in place.

Whoever had installed the lock had done a good job, and it took five minutes' work before Woodend could push the hasp to one side and open the door.

There was a good deal of metal inside the small brick room, but it was not the original machinery which had been used to pump water. The chief inspector examined the copper tubes with admiration. The Poles had done a first-class job, but then that was only to be expected. This was not a commercial enterprise – it was a labour of love.

It also explained why Fred Foley had hung around the hall so much, he thought. And how Foley's overcoat had come to be covered with the dead man's blood. But unless the Poles were hiding him – and he didn't think they'd take that risk – it didn't explain how poor, pathetic Foley had managed to evade the local police for several days.

Woodend closed the door again, and painstakingly replaced the screws. Then, whistling slightly off-tune to himself, he made his way back to Westbury Hall.

Commander Hartley Greaves of New Scotland Yard sat back in the leather armchair, took a puff on his expensive cigar, then reached for his balloon glass of very old French brandy. This club was something else, he thought – exclusive, expensive and downright classy.

He looked across at the man who was sitting opposite him and indulging in all this luxury as if it were no more than his natural right. Sir Roger Ives was around fifty. He had slim features and pale silky hair. At first glance, he looked mild and inoffensive, but his eyes, Commander Greaves had noticed right away, were as hard as diamonds.

Greaves took another puff of his cigar. He had been delighted to get the call from Ives – whom he had never met before – and had readily accepted the invitation to lunch, because when a man is approaching retirement age, it's always useful to start making contact with people who are in a position to find him a job which calls for very little work and a large pay packet. Yes, he'd been delighted – but he hadn't been at all surprised. Though no mention had been made of it yet, he was sure that the name of Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend would soon come up.

Even the thought of Woodend brought a bad taste to his mouth. The man was totally undisciplined. He dressed like a door-to-door brush salesman. He had absolutely no respect for people in authority – especially his own commander. He had developed sarcasm into an art form. And worst of all, he had the luck of the devil, so that while his approach to the cases to which he was assigned was all wrong, the bastard usually ended up solving them.

Sir Roger Ives flicked the ash on the end of his cigar vaguely in the direction of the ashtray. “We're experiencing a little local difficulty in one of our Cheshire plants,” he said.

“Oh yes?” Greaves replied noncommittally.

“Yes. One of our chaps got himself murdered, and frankly, the senior officer you've sent up to deal with it seems to be making a hash of the job. There are some obvious suspects, but he seems quite content to let them remain at liberty. Not only that, but he practically accused one of our senior staff up there of committing the murder himself. Now we've tried to sort it out on the spot – the chief constable kindly agreed to go and see your man this morning – but it doesn't seem to have done any good.”

Bloody right it hadn't, thought Greaves, who had wasted at least three quarters of an hour that very morning talking to Chief Constable Blake on the telephone.

“It's plainly impossible for us to deal with this man of yours ourselves,” Ives continued. “That's why I was wondering if you might be in a position to help us.”

Greaves took another deep, appreciative puff of his cigar. “You want me to take Charlie Woodend off the case?” he said.

Ives ran his right hand through his silky hair. “I would like you to do whatever is necessary to ensure there is a resolution to the case as soon as possible,” he said. “If you decide that means removing the chief inspector, then so be it. It's a decision that only you can make, and I wouldn't dream of trying to influence you one way or the other.” He smiled, but not with his eyes. “I hope that I've made myself clear, Commander.”

“Very clear,” Greaves said.

He paused. Make a favour seem too easy, he told himself, and it hardly seems like a favour at all.

“If it was left entirely up to me, I'd have Cloggin'-it Charlie on the next train back to London,” the commander continued. “But if I pull him off the case after only a couple of days, there'll be questions, both from my bosses—” he pointed upwards; “and from the Police Federation—” he indicated the floor.

“I see,” Ives said coldly.

“On the other hand, he has managed to get up the noses of some pretty important people,” Greaves added, “and I don't see it will do anyone a lot of good to leave him up there
much
longer.”

“What time scale are we talking about here?”

“If he doesn't come up with the murderer within the next forty-eight hours, I think I can put up a good case for having him replaced. Is that satisfactory?”

Ives nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “Yes, I think we could safely say that would be satisfactory.”

And then, when I've got Cloggin'-it-bloody-Charlie back in London, I'll do my level best to get the bastard kicked off the force, Commander Greaves promised himself.

When Woodend entered the Westbury Social Club just after two o'clock in the afternoon, it was to find a grim-faced Inspector Chatterton waiting for him.

“You've really upset the chief constable, sir,” the inspector said.

“Do you know, I rather thought he might be a bit annoyed when he stormed out of the breakfast room this mornin',” Woodend said.

“According to his secretary, he's been on the phone to your bosses in London all morning. To say he wants your head served to him on a platter would be understating the case. He wants your balls cutting off with a rusty knife. He wants you roasted over an extremely slow spit. He wants—”

“I think I'm gettin' the picture,” Woodend interrupted. “Anyroad, he's been on at me to get them four Poles locked up, an' that's just what I'm about to arrange now.”

“So they did kill Gerhard Schultz?”

Woodend shook his head firmly. “No, they had absolutely nothin' to do with that.”

“Then what
did
they do?”

Woodend told Chatterton what he'd found down by the lake. “That's how I know the Poles didn't kill Schultz,” he said, when he'd finished.

Chatterton frowned. “Sorry if I'm being thick, sir, but I'm afraid I don't quite follow your reasoning on that one.”

“If they'd killed him, they'd never have done it in the woods, because the last thing they wanted was a load of bobbies swarmin' all over the area – bobbies who might have found out just what's been goin' on at the pumpin' station.” His face adopted an unusually stern expression. “An' you should have found out, you know, Tim.”

Chatterton bent his head slightly. “We didn't think to extend our search so far beyond the scene of the crime. But you're right, sir – it was incredibly sloppy work.”

“Well, that's all behind us now,” Woodend said, with characteristic generosity. “What have you been able to find out for me about Simon Hailsham and Mike Partridge?”

“What I've turned up on old Simon is pretty much what I expected to turn up. He's a Mason, as you know, and a member of the Rotary Club. He lives pretty much as you would imagine a man in his position would live – he's got a nice detached house in a good area, he goes to his local church nearly every Sunday, and plays a round of golf straight after it. I've got a lot more stuff along the same lines, but I don't suppose you'd be interested.”