The Enemy Within (19 page)

‘And perhaps I'm wrong,' Rutter admitted. ‘But Monika and I will both try harder from now on.'

Woodend nodded. ‘There are other potential victims out there who need to be warned,' he said crisply. ‘Women who attend the Whitebridge cancer wing an' have suddenly found they've got a new friend who seems too good to be true – because he bloody well is! I'll get on to the BBC local news an' the
Courier
. We can rely on both of 'em to get the message across without creatin' a panic. As for you two . . .' he paused, undecidedly, ‘. . . do you think you can work together without your private affairs gettin' in the way?'

‘Yes,' Paniatowski said.

‘No question,' Rutter agreed.

‘Then get down to the hospital with all the manpower you can muster. I want everybody who works there interviewed, and all the interviews cross-checkin'. I want a list of all the patients who've been admitted in the last six months, so we can question their male visitors. An' if anybody has noticed a man on his own loiterin' outside – even just the once – then I want to know about that, too. Understood?'

‘Understood,' Rutter and Paniatowski said in unison.

‘Then bloody get on with it before we have another stiff to explain away,' Woodend told them.

LH had had his first nervous breakdown only days after coming out of the jungle. He'd been pronounced completely cured a year later. Three months after that, he'd tried to hang himself.

It had been during his second stretch in the mental institution that he'd begun to fumble in the darkness of his own insanity for a strategy which might help him to survive. And he'd found it.
He
had found it! Not the doctors who claimed to be curing him – but he himself!

Everyone had said that what he had done in the jungle had not been his fault, he'd argued. So whose fault was it?

Not the fault of war! Such abstract concepts were of no value to a man who had spilled hot blood.

Then on whom
could
he lay the blame? On the woman he had killed, of course! If she hadn't have been there that night, he couldn't have slit her throat. And it was her choice that she had been there – not his!

War was men's business. That had been accepted throughout the ages. The woman should have known this. It was her job to stay at home – to be ready to minister to her husband when
he
returned from the fighting.

From there it had been just a small step to seeing all women as traitors – traitors to the role they had been given in life, traitors to the men they had married. The enemy was not the foreigners with guns lurking outside the camp, but the women within it.

Women had a sacred duty to their men. And even if the men died, the obligation was not at an end, for now the duty was transferred to preserving the dead men's memory. Yet how many women took these duties to heart? Virtually none!

It was a crime. It was a sin. And these women – these betrayers – should not go unpunished.

R
utter and Paniatowski sat opposite each other in the main office of the cancer wing of Whitebridge General. It had taken a court order to get their hands of the mountains of files which they both had piled up beside them – and it would take a miracle to work their way through them in less than a week.

In other parts of the hospital wing, detective constables were questioning the staff.

– Do you remember either of these two women? Did you contact them outside the hospital?

– Did you notice any male visitors who paid particular attention to any patient other than the one he was visiting?

– Did you see anyone suspicious hanging about the grounds?

It was a procedure which had to be followed, and it was always possible that it would get results, but neither Paniatowski nor Rutter had any faith in it.

Mr X had been seeing both Betty Stubbs and Lucy Tonge, yet the investigation so far had not been able to turn up a single witness who had noticed him with either of the women. How likely was it then that, having walked the subtle tightrope with his victims, he would allow a casual encounter with a hospital worker to bring him crashing down?

The phone on the desk rang, and Rutter picked it up. Paniatowski heard him say, ‘Hello? Oh, it's you, my darling,' and developed a sudden interest in the file in front of her.

‘Yes?' Rutter said. ‘What! . . . You're sure about that? . . . Why didn't you tell me last night? . . . You thought I looked too tired to bother me with it . . . Yes, you were probably right . . . You're sure that's the name she gave you? . . . First she said she'd arranged an interview with me and then she admitted she hadn't . . . No, don't worry, I'll take care of it . . . . Me, too.'

Me, too, Paniatowski thought.

I love you, darling.

Me, too!

Rutter slammed the phone down on the cradle. ‘I have to go out for a while,' he said, his voice thick with anger. ‘You can hold the fort, can't you?'

‘I suppose so,' Paniatowski said, wondering if Bob would ever run so fast to protect her. ‘Where are you going? Is it personal business?'

‘Why should you even need to ask that?' Rutter said. ‘Didn't you hear who I was talking to?'

‘No,' Paniatowski lied.

‘So let me be sure I've got this completely clear,' Dexter Bryant said. ‘You think that their having cancer was not the main factor which contributed to their deaths. Is that right?'

‘The murderer could have chosen some other group to draw his victims from,' Woodend said. ‘Women who'd recently been deserted by their husbands, for example. Or women who'd lost their jobs, and were facin' financial hardship. The determinin' factor, we believe, was that they should be feelin' especially vulnerable, an' have nobody they could turn to.'

‘So why didn't he consider one of these other groups you mentioned?'

Woodend sighed. For an intelligent man, Bryant was taking a long time to understand this simple point.

‘He probably
did
consider them,' the Chief Inspector said. ‘But in the end, he must have decided that nothin' is as likely to make a woman as vulnerable as the thought of her imminent death.'

‘Let me ask you another question,' Bryant said. ‘Is it your opinion that if there is another death, the victim will be one of the women who attended the outpatient department of the casualty ward?'

‘We're hopin' there
won't
be another murder. That's why we're havin' this conversation now.'

‘But if there
were
another murder?' Bryant insisted.

‘If there was another murder, then yes, I would expect the victims to be one of the outpatients.'

Bryant finally seemed satisfied. ‘Right, then. I'll run a competition with a big prize. A holiday would probably be the best idea.'

‘You'll do
what
?' Woodend asked. ‘Have you lost your mind?'

For a moment it seemed as if Bryant couldn't understand why Woodend looked so outraged. Then comprehension dawned.

‘I'm sorry, that must have sounded awful, the way I put it,' he said. ‘Here you are, talking about life and death, and here's me coming up with the idea of a competition. But the two
are
connected – it's just that my mind was running ahead of my words, and so you couldn't see what the connection was. Shall I explain?'

‘I think you'd better,' Woodend said.

‘If we want to see newspaper sales jump by ten or fifteen per cent, we announce a competition with a wonderful prize. We can't do it too often, of course, because it's so damn expensive, but it's never been known to fail.'

‘I'm still not with you.'

‘You've seen the placards that newspaper sellers have in front of them, haven't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘If the one this evening reads, “Police issue warning to single women”, we'll probably sell a few more papers than usual, but we can't guarantee we'll reach all the people we'll need to. If, on the other hand, the placard reads, “Win a fabulous two-week holiday in sunny Spain”, we'll sell as many papers as we can print. And before the readers ever get to the bit of the paper about the holiday, they'll see your warning on the front page.
Now
do you see?'

‘Yes,' Woodend said. ‘The problem is, the Force is clogged with red tape, an' to get permission to finance a holiday like that would take me two or three days at least. Even then, I can't say for sure that I'd be successful.'

Bryant laughed. ‘There's red tape in the newspaper world, too, but not when the Editor's wife owns the newspaper in question. The
Courier
will cover the cost of the holiday. We're the local newspaper. It's the least we can do for the community we serve.'

‘I owe you for this,' Woodend said.

‘No, you don't.' Bryant checked his watch. ‘It's going to be a push to get it organized in time,' he said, ‘but I think I should just about be able to manage it if I get started now.'

Elizabeth Driver was sitting in the bar of her hotel. She didn't particularly want to be there, but if anyone were looking for her it would be one of the first places they'd try. And after all the groundwork she'd done, somebody – a very special somebody – certainly
should
be looking by now.

The door of the bar suddenly burst open, and an obviously furious Bob Rutter swept into the room.

‘What the hell did you think you were playing at?' he demanded.

‘Why don't you take a seat?' Elizabeth Driver suggested sweetly.

Rutter treated the invitation with the contempt he felt it deserved. ‘How dare you call at my home like that?' he asked. ‘I could probably have you prosecuted for telling my wife we'd arranged to meet there. And apart from the legal consequences, it's a gross breach of professional ethics. It could well cost you your job on the
Daily Globe
.'

Driver laughed. ‘Do you really think the
Globe
is as namby-pamby as that?' she asked. ‘If you told my Editor what I'd done, he probably give me a rise for showing initiative.'

‘Why
did
you do it?' Rutter asked.

‘Ah, I was wondering when you'd cool down enough to start worrying about that,' Elizabeth Driver said.

‘Worrying? I'm not worried.'

‘Well, you should be. I didn't go to your house as a reporter, I went as a
woman
. It was only when I decided not to say what I'd been intending to that I put my reporter's hat on again.'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about,' Rutter told her.

‘It seemed to me, as a
woman
, that your wife had the right to know what was going on between you and Monika Paniatowski.'

Rutter looked pole-axed. ‘I . . . I haven't . . .' he spluttered, and, though he was probably not aware of doing so, he sank heavily into the seat that Elizabeth Driver had offered him earlier.

‘Don't try to deny you're having an affair,' Elizabeth Driver said. ‘I've made a couple of phone calls, visited one or two discreet country hotels within easy driving distance of Whitebridge, and I've already dug enough to more than prove my case.'

Rutter willed his heart to slow down. ‘So why
didn't
you tell Maria?' he forced himself to ask.

‘Like I said, I had second thoughts. I felt a certain duty to your wife, but I also felt a duty to you.'

‘To
me
?'

‘Yes. After all, Bob, we both make our living out of crime, don't we?'

‘You're attempting to blackmail a police officer!' Rutter said, with growing incredulity.

‘Of course I'm not. That wouldn't only be wrong, it would be stupid. But if you wanted to slip me the odd tit-bit of information, as a way of showing your gratitude, then I certainly wouldn't complain about it. And who knows, it might just tip the balance in your favour the next time I have another crisis of conscience about telling Maria the truth.'

‘I won't do it,' Rutter said.

‘I don't think you quite appreciate what I'm willing to give up here,' Elizabeth Driver told him. ‘You're not exactly important enough to be front page news, but the fact that the person you're committing adultery with is another police officer should be enough to persuade my Editor to run it as an inside story – especially considering your wife is blind! Human interest, you see. My readers are bound to wonder what kind of man it is who'll betray his blind wife, don't you think?'

‘Yes,' Rutter agreed. ‘It's something I've been wondering about myself.'

D
uring the course of the day, the autumn sun had managed to gather enough strength to temporarily vanquish the fog. Now, as darkness fell, that fog was back, more virulent – more malevolent – than ever.

Looking out of his office window at the swirling menace below, Woodend found himself wondering if there had been a fog like this on the night of 4th November 1605.

He pictured Guy Fawkes, hiding in the cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament.

Had he been afraid, as he crouched there behind his barrels of gunpowder? Probably!

But had he been beset by doubts? Definitely not!

Fawkes had not needed to search for any justification for his actions. The king was suppressing the True Faith; therefore the king must be removed. Small wonder, then, that with right, justice and the Lord on his side, he had been willing to commit murder – even though, in the process, many innocent people would die. Small wonder that he had elected to become the enemy within, a human bomb at the heart of England's centre of government.

Woodend turned his mind from thoughts of the past to the enigma of the man who had so recently become the centre of his own existence. What motivated this particular killer? Did he, like Fawkes, see some justification for what he was doing? Did he, too, see the loss of innocent lives as a necessary price to be paid? And if so, as a price for
what
?