The Dead Hand of History (9 page)

‘My pleasure,' Paniatowski told him.

She turned and walked back to the dustbins, where Traynor was waiting for her.

The journalist sniggered. ‘What was that I just witnessed?' he asked. ‘A pep talk to one of the poor bloody infantry?'

‘You're smarter than you look,' Paniatowski told him. ‘But then, you'd have to be, wouldn't you?'

‘And what's that supposed to mean?' Traynor demanded.

‘Which one of these bins was the hand in?' Paniatowski asked, ignoring the question.

‘This one,' Traynor said, tapping the one on the end of the row with his knuckles. ‘Did you notice that?'

‘Did I notice
what
?'

‘That I only touched it with my knuckles. I did it that way to make your job easier for you. No fingerprints, you see.'

‘So when you opened it the last time, you were wearing gloves, were you?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Ah, I see what you mean,' the journalist exclaimed. ‘It would have been better if I
had
been wearing gloves, wouldn't it?'

Paniatowski sighed. ‘You could say that,' she agreed. ‘So tell me exactly what you did?'

‘Well, I took the lid off, and rummaged about inside.'

‘And where was the hand?'

‘Just below the surface.'

Yes, it would have been. The killer wouldn't have wanted to spend too long at the bin, in case he was spotted.

‘Was it wrapped in anything?' she asked.

‘It was in a blue plastic freezer bag. I could see immediately that it wasn't like the other one – because it was far too big to be a woman's hand.'

‘You should be a detective,' Paniatowski said drily.

And it was not until Traynor said, ‘So the other hand
was
a woman's,' that she realized she'd made a mistake.

‘I'll send one of my lads round with a van to pick up this bin,' Paniatowski told him.

‘I said, so the first one – the one on the river bank –
was
a woman's hand,' Traynor repeated.

‘He should be here to collect it within the half-hour,' Paniatowski replied, stonily.

‘If you're taking the bin away, I'll need a receipt,' Traynor said, giving up on the confirmation, and shifting to a different tack.

‘A receipt?' Paniatowski repeated.

‘Yes.'

‘For a
dustbin
?'

‘Well, when all's said and done, it
is
Lancashire
Evening Chronicle
property,' Traynor said.

‘It's Whitebridge Council property,' Paniatowski countered. ‘And if you think I'm going to give you a receipt so that you can publish it on the front page under the headline, “The
Chronicle
finds the hand of horror”, then you've got another think coming.'

‘Hand of horror,' Traynor mused. ‘Do you know, Chief Inspector, that's really not bad at all. Maybe, just as I should have been a detective,
you
should have been a journalist.'

‘No receipt,' Paniatowski said firmly.

‘Fair enough,' agreed Traynor, who'd already got more out of this meeting than he'd ever expected to.

The lounge bar of the Drum and Monkey was populated in roughly even numbers by a small group of travelling salesmen drinking gin and tonics and a few office workers who restricted themselves to halves of bitter – but would still manfully suck their way through several strong peppermints before they returned to their places of business.

The public bar, in complete contrast, was doing a roaring trade. Irish navvies knocked back pints of draught Guinness like there was no tomorrow. Bookies' runners exchanged notes and smoked small cigars, while waiting for their punters to make up their minds on whether or not to place one more bet. And old men in cloth caps clacked both their false teeth and their dominoes, as a furious game of fives and threes was fought out.

In the corner of the public bar, there was the
special
table. Locals knew better than to sit at it, and visitors were advised by the landlord that even though it was unheard of to reserve tables in a pub, reserved was definitely what it was. It was the table Charlie Woodend had used for brainstorming with his team for the ten or more years he had held the post of DCI – and Monika Paniatowski, on her first day in the job, saw no reason to go anywhere else.

Paniatowski took a sip of her vodka, then turned to DS Walker, one of the two men at the table.

‘Anything to report?' she asked.

Walker shook his head. ‘If you were hoping for any clues from along the river bank, you're out of luck, ma'am,' he said. ‘And as for the feller who phoned us – Harper – he saw nobody when he was making his call.' He grinned. ‘Just to make sure, I put his dog through the third degree, but he wouldn't admit to having seen anything, either.'

‘How about the door-to-door inquiries?'

‘Nothing, ma'am.' Walker hesitated for a second, then continued, ‘But I did warn you that would be the case, didn't I?'

‘It's far too early in the investigation to give up on that particular line of approach,' Paniatowski told him.

And Walker smiled, and replied, ‘If you say so, ma'am.'

‘How are things going back at headquarters, Colin?' Paniatowski asked Beresford.

‘The team's in place, and raring to go,' the inspector said, ‘but until you throw it something it can really get its teeth sunk into, there's not much for it to do.'

But I haven't
got
anything to throw it yet, Paniatowski thought. I've not even got much to chew on
myself
.

‘What I don't understand is why the killer changed his modus operandi when it came to disposing of the second hand,' she said aloud.

‘Why decide to dump it in the centre of town, instead of leaving it in the countryside?' Beresford asked. ‘It can't have been that he thought that we'd have all likely sites in the countryside under observation – because even someone who knew virtually nothing about the Force would surely have realized that we don't have
that much
manpower available to us.'

‘I'm not talking about
where
he dumped it,' Paniatowski said. ‘What's important is how he chose to
announce
the fact that he'd done it. He left the woman's hand by the river bank, and then called up every local reporter he could think of. But when it came to the man's hand, he sent an anonymous note to just
one
reporter – the revolting Traynor.'

‘He could have suddenly decided that by using the telephone he was running the risk of someone recognizing his voice,' Walker suggested.

‘There was nothing
sudden
about it,' Paniatowski told him. She took the note Traynor had given her out of her pocket, and laid it flat on the table. ‘Read that, Sergeant.'

‘I've
already
read it.'

‘Then read it again.'

‘If you want a real scoop, here's one, Mr Traynor,' Walker read. ‘Go and take a look at the dustbin behind your office. There's a human hand in it.' He nodded. ‘Nice touch, using Traynor's name like that. Makes it sound more authentic, somehow.'

‘And makes it all the more difficult to put the note together,' Paniatowski said. ‘That's why I said there was nothing
sudden
about it. I think this note was pasted together sometime yesterday – and that's at the
latest
.'

‘Sorry, ma'am, I don't think I'm quite following you,' Sergeant Walker admitted.

‘Searching for the right words, even for a relatively simple note, can take time,' Paniatowski explained. ‘If, on the other hand, you decide to make life more complicated by using a word like “scoop” – and that's just what the killer
did
want to do, because he knew that was
just
the word to get Traynor excited – you have to allow more time to find it. And if you want to use somebody's actual name – and the killer wanted to do that, too – you have to be prepared to trawl your way through a fair number of magazines.'

‘So what you're saying is the killer
always
planned to tip us off about the second hand with a note?' Walker asked.

‘No, I'm saying he always planned to tip
Traynor
off,' Paniatowski corrected him.

She was right, Walker thought. Bang on the button.

And while he told himself he could probably have worked all that out for himself – given time – the simple fact was that DCI Paniatowski had
already
worked it out.

‘What I still don't know is what he wants
us
to do,' Paniatowski continued. ‘But whatever it is, he's using the press as a way of making sure that we do it.'

‘So if he'd already decided to use an anonymous note to reveal the location of the second hand, why didn't he do the same thing for the first?' Beresford asked. ‘What's the point of changing horses midstream?'

Paniatowski gave him a thin smile. ‘If you remember, Colin,' she said, ‘that's the question
I
asked
you
.'

SEVEN

M
ike Traynor read through his article in the first edition of the
Evening Chronicle
with no small degree of satisfaction.

He was guessing about the freezer bag, but it was a pretty good guess, because the second hand had been in such a bag, and so there was no reason why the first one shouldn't have been.

And that was no lie, Traynor thought – it
had
been confirmed, though it was certainly true that DCI Paniatowski had never
intended
to give him any such confirmation.

Well, that should definitely put the cat right among the pigeons, Traynor told himself.

Of all the reporters covering the case, only
he
was in a position to state that the hand was definitely a woman's – and only
he
had any basis for hinting that more was to follow.

He had been tempted to tell his readers that they could find the ‘more' that he had alluded to in the following morning's
Daily Globe
. But he had quickly decided that his editor – who (totally unreasonably) cared more about the
Chronicle
's success than he did about his reporters getting on in the world – would never have stood for that.

He wondered how his editor would react when he
did
read the
Globe
. Probably go ballistic, he thought. He'd probably claim that since the
Chronicle
was paying his salary, the
Chronicle
should have the first bite at any stories he'd uncovered.

Well, sod that! This story was too
big
for a provincial rag. This story was
national
.

The administrative area in Whitebridge Police Headquarters was the part of the building which was least likely to be visited by street-level bobbies. It occupied much of the second floor, and consisted of a warren of small offices, linked by a long corridor which was painted battleship grey and had a lovely view of the car park. It was here that overtime payments were calculated, maintenance work was approved and officers' leave time was registered. But it was also here that the Criminal Records Department had its slightly fusty home, and it was that particular office that Sergeant Walker had been very eager to visit.

Standing in the corridor outside the CRD, DC Crane at first kept himself occupied by counting the cars parked below, but that task was soon completed, and he found himself at a loose end.

What was Walker doing in there, he wondered.

And wonder was all he
could
do – because, despite the fact that the sergeant was clearly excited, he'd shown no signs of wishing to share the source of that excitement with his partner.

The door swung open, and Walker stepped jubilantly into the corridor, clutching a piece of paper in his hand.

‘We've got a lead,' he said. ‘And not just any old lead, but a bloody
good
one.'

‘What kind of lead, Sarge?' Crane asked.

‘Nothing you should worry your little head about,' Walker replied, clearly enjoying himself. ‘Only the name of the second victim!'

‘That's great!' Crane exclaimed. ‘We'd better find the boss right away, and tell her.'

Walker scowled. ‘Tell
her
?' he said. ‘Why should we want to go and do something like that?'

‘Well, you know, she is supposed to be the one in charge of the investigation,' Crane pointed out.

‘And so we have to go running to her with every little thing that we find, do we?'

‘No, not
every
little thing,' Crane conceded. ‘But as you said yourself, Sarge, this is a major lead.'

‘And it's also something we're perfectly capable of handling by ourselves,' Walker said.

He marched off down the corridor, and had covered half the distance to the fire door when he realized Crane wasn't with him. He stopped, spun round and saw that the detective constable was loitering uncertainly by the Criminal Records Department.