The Dark Lady (7 page)

But would they have stayed lucky if Gerhard Schultz had had his way? Woodend wondered. Or was Luigi Bernadelli one of those unfortunate workers with the German's black spot already against his name?

“I expect you have a lot of friends in the park, haven't you, Mrs Bernadelli?” he said.

“Oh yes, quite a number.”

“Mostly English, would you say?”

“Well, yes, most of my friends
are
English.”

“An' you probably see quite a lot of each other.”

“A fair amount, I suppose. We all meet in the laundrette for a good natter, an' we sometimes go round to each other's houses for tea. Then there's the knittin' circle—”

“Don't you talk to any of the Germans or Poles in the laundrette?” Woodend asked innocently.

“Oh, they don't go on a Monday like we do,” Mrs Bernadelli said. “The way it works is, it's the Germans on Tuesday, the Poles on Wednesday an' the Italians on Thursday.”

“Is that a park rule?”

Mrs Bernadelli laughed. “Goodness me, no. It's just how things have worked out, that's all.”

“And what about your husband's friends?”

“Well, let's see. He's got three really big mates. There's Mario and Giuseppe, then there's Leo an—”

The door from the corridor opened, and Luigi Bernadelli entered the room. If he was at all surprised to see the two detectives standing there, he certainly didn't let it show.

“Please take a seat,” he said, in an accent which was a comical mixture of Italian and northern English. He turned to his wife. “Make us a cup of tea, will you, love.”

He sat down himself, facing the Scotland Yard men. “I expect you are going to ask me if I have an alibi for the time at which Gerhard Schultz was murdered,” he said.

“Well, that's as good a point as any to start from,” the chief inspector agreed.

“Schultz left the club just before closing time,” Bernadelli said, “so naturally it was not long before the rest of us left too. I walked part of the way back with some of the other men—”

“Mario, Giuseppe and Leo?” Woodend guessed.

Bernadelli's eyes narrowed. “That's right.”

“Your wife was tellin' us about them. But I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Carry on with what you were sayin'.”

“Mario lives closest to the club, so he left us first. Leo was next, and Giuseppe and me parted company at the corner. I must have got home at about twenty past eleven.”

“Can your wife confirm that?”

Bernadelli shook his head. “She wasn't here.”

“Why was that?”

“She was staying with her mother. The old lady had gone down with the flu. So no, to answer your question, I do not have an alibi. But I had no reason in the world to kill the German.”

“The German,” Woodend mused. “Now that's what I call a very interestin' label to give the man. Not ‘Mr Schultz', or even ‘that bastard of a manager', but
the German
.”

“What's your point?” Bernadelli asked.

“I couldn't help noticin', back in the club, that the Italians and the Germans don't mix,” Woodend said.

“That's quite true,” Bernadelli admitted. “But it is more of their choosing than it is of ours.”

“Is that because they feel that your lot let their lot down in the war?”

“Let them down?”

“You know what I mean. They probably think that you surrendered to the Allies too easily.”

Bernadelli smiled. “Yes, I do know what you mean. I know all the old jokes as well,” he said. “Have you heard this one? How many gears does an Italian tank have?”

“I don't know.”

“Five – one to go forward and four for reverse.” He laughed defensively. “Perhaps you are right when you say that the Germans do not think we were very good soldiers to have on their side. But it was once we were taken prisoner that the real resentment started.”

“Why should that be?”

“Because we were treated very differently. We Italians were put to work on the farms. It was no hardship for me. You have to understand, I was a slum boy from Naples. I had never even
seen
a farm before.” Bernadelli smiled again. “I thought it was wonderful to be allowed to work on such a place. That was when I learned to love horses. I still work in a stable in my free time. Not because of the money, but so I can be close to those beautiful animals.”

“You were tellin' us about how you were treated differently from the Germans,” Woodend pointed out.

“That's right. As I said, we worked on the farms. And we were paid for it – five shillings a week. It wasn't a great deal of money, even back then, but it allowed us to buy the little luxuries which made our lives bearable. I saved up enough money to buy a second-hand bicycle. And at the weekends, we were allowed to go into the town. We were not permitted to use public transport or enter any of the pubs, but other than that there were no restrictions on us. Many of us made friends with the local people, even before the war was over. I met my wife just after the Allied Forces crossed the Rhine.”

“You were better off than me!” Woodend said.

Bernadelli smiled again. “We were better off than most men in Europe at the time,” he said. “But life as a POW was not the same for the Germans. People around here remembered the times when their planes went over every night, on their way to bomb Manchester and Liverpool. They remembered all those hours spent huddled in shelters, where they prayed that one of those planes wouldn't decide to drop its bombs on top of them. As far as they were concerned, we Italians were just likeable clowns, and the real enemy was the Germans.”

“So they didn't get the same freedoms you did?”

“They were wired off in their own special section of the camp. When we went out in the morning to work in the fields, we could see them standing close to the fence and watching us. And we could feel their hatred, even from a distance. Now that the war is over, they have managed to forgive the British – but they have never forgiven us.”

“Gerhard Schultz was a prisoner of war, wasn't he?” Woodend said reflectively.

“That is what I've been told. But he certainly wasn't a prisoner here,” Bernadelli said.

“No, but he was a prisoner nonetheless. An' possibly he had exactly the same experience of Italians as the Germans incarcerated here did.”

“Possibly,” Bernadelli agreed cautiously.

“An' now, finally, he was in a position to pay you back, wasn't he?” Woodend said.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Come on, Mr Bernadelli, you're far too intelligent a man not to have followed my line of logic. You did hear him tell Mr Hailsham that there were goin' to be job losses, didn't you?”

“Yes,” the Italian admitted. “I did.”

“An' where would those cuts fall? Why, as far as Schultz was concerned, they should probably fall on the Italians, who had had such an easy time of it durin' the war. Perhaps one of your lot figured that if it was someone other than Schultz who made the decision – someone who hadn't got anythin' against Italians – you wouldn't come off quite so badly.”

“You're saying that he could have been killed to protect jobs?” Bernadelli asked, giving a fair impression of incredulity.

“An' homes,” Woodend said. “You've got a nice house here. Lose your job an' you'd lose that as well.”

The Italian nodded thoughtfully. “Do I need to ask to see my lawyer?” he asked.

“No, Mr Bernadelli. I'd have to have a lot more on you than no alibi before you'd need that.”

Woodend and Rutter stood watching a colony of bats glide around in the gathering twilight.

“A nice woman, that Mrs Bernadelli,” Woodend said. “Makes a good northern cup of tea, an' has plenty to say for herself once you've got her to open up a little.”

Rutter smiled. The conversation over tea had been about the old days and the similar experiences they'd had. Coming from a comfortable suburban home as he did, it had all seemed as alien as if he'd been overhearing a conversation between a couple of Eskimos.

“What did you make of the husband?” Rutter asked.

“I think he's hidin' somethin',” Woodend replied. “But let's face it, which of us hasn't got somethin' to hide?”

“And what do you think his secret might be?”

“Ee, lad, I haven't got a clue.” Woodend checked his watch. “There's just time to make one more visit before we call it a day an' have the last couple of pints of the evenin'.”

“And who will it be this time?”

“The Pole,” Woodend said. “The one who fancies himself as a bit of a translator.”

Zbigniew Rozpedek did not look pleased to see Woodend and Rutter, but after the man's hostile attitude during the meeting in the bar, the chief inspector had hardly expected to be welcomed with open arms.

The Pole led them into his living room, which was not as cosy as the one they'd just left, but was pleasant enough in its own way.

“I am having a vodka,” Rozpedek said, walking over to his veneered teak cocktail cabinet which played a tinny tune when he opened it. “You may have one too, if you wish.”

Don't offer us one, make us ask for it, the chief inspector thought. A very nice touch. But I've always been able to give back as good as I get.

“Personally, I never touch anythin' that's Russian as a matter of principle,” he said aloud.

Rozpedek's eyes blazed with indignation. “This is f
Polish
vodka,” he said, as he poured out three glasses from a bottle with no label on it. He walked over to the two policemen and handed them a glass each. “Try it.”

Woodend took a sip. It was perhaps a second before the incendiary device was set off in his stomach and someone hit him very hard over the back of the head with a hammer.

Rozpedek gave him a superior smile, and knocked back his own glass in one gulp. As he sat down, it was clear that he considered he had won a victory of some sort.

Woodend wondered whether lighting a cigarette would turn him into a fire-eater, and decided to err on the side of caution.

“What did you do after you left the club on the night of Gerhard Schultz's death?” he asked.

“None of us were feeling tired, so we came back here to play cards and drink vodka,” Rozpedek said.

“The ‘we' in this case would be . . .?”

“Me and the three friends I was drinking with.”

“All of them Poles?”

“Yes.”

“Your wife didn't mind.”

“It is not her place to mind,” Rozpedek said. “I am the man of the house. Besides, she had already gone to bed,” he admitted, “and once she is asleep, there is no waking her until morning.”

“Did you fight in the war?”

“Yes.”

“An' where was it exactly you served?”

“I was with the Free Poles who made up part of the force which occupied the bridge at Arnhem.”

“That must have been hairy,” Woodend said.

“Hairy?” Rozpedek repeated, mystified.

“Difficult. Dangerous,” Woodend elucidated.

The Pole nodded. “Later, they called it ‘a bridge too far'. We were completely cut off from the rest of the Allied Army by the Germans. I lost a lot of my comrades that day.”

“Who do you blame?”

“I don't understand.”

“Who do you blame for the deaths of your comrades? The Allied High Command for makin' a cock-up of organisin' the whole thing – or the Germans who actually pulled the triggers?”

Rozpedek shrugged. “I blame no one. Mistakes were made, but mistakes always happen in war.”

Noticing that Rutter's glass was still as full as when it had been handed to him, Woodend took a second sip of his vodka. It did not have quite so devastating an effect this time.

“How do you feel about the Germans now that the war's over?” he asked.

Another shrug. “They are just people, like we are.”

He was being about as genuine as a nine-bob note, Woodend thought. It was time to start stirring things up.

“I remember the day the Germans invaded Poland,” he said. “We all expected the Polish Army to put up some strong resistance – to buy us time to get organised ourselves – but they turned out to be a completely bloody useless shower, didn't they? How long did it take the Germans to conquer the country? Ten days? It was a real walkover for them, wasn't it?”

The anger flashed in Rozpedek's eyes again. “We had cavalry, and they had tanks,” he said. “Our soldiers fought incredibly bravely, but they were doomed from the start.”

“And, of course, the Krauts had control of the skies,” Woodend pointed out. “They'd never have done so well without that.”

“That is true,” Rozpedek agreed hotly. “Our army were sitting targets for the Boche fliers.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that one of the pilots who took such unfair advantage of the Polish Army's weakness might have been a young flight lieutenant called Gerhard Schultz?”

“No,” Rozpedek said – and Woodend could tell he was lying.

“The Germans weren't exactly what you might call benevolent conquerors, were they?”

“They thought of the Poles in the same way they thought of the gypsies,” Rozpedek told him, his voice so loud now that he was almost shouting. “In their eyes, we were less than human. They closed down all the universities – even the medical schools – because you do not bother to educate animals. They sent thousands of us to the concentration camps. Their last act, when they retreated from Warsaw, was to blow up the old town.”

“And you still hate them for it, even now, don't you?” the chief inspector asked quietly.

“Yes, I hate them!” the Pole screamed. “With every ounce of my being, I hate them.”

Could it really be this easy? Woodend wondered. Would it only take a little more pressure to make Rozpedek crack and confess to the bloody murder of Gerhard Schultz?