The Enemy Within (4 page)

And change it had. In the first few months of Bryant's editorship, a number of the older reporters had resigned. There'd been no point in staying on, they'd told anyone who'd listen to them. Bryant was heading for disaster. He'd taken over a perfectly manageable tramp steamer of a newspaper and was trying to turn it into an ocean liner. Well, he'd soon learn. The
Titanic
had gone down, and so would the
Courier
.

But the
Courier
hadn't sunk, taking with it all remaining hands. Instead, it had sailed from triumph to triumph. Circulation was rising. The paper was being talked about, instead of merely skimmed and forgotten. And best of all – from Jamie's point of view – the national dailies, always on the lookout for fresh talent, were starting to take a real interest in the men who put the
Courier
together.

Jamie was vaguely aware of the phone ringing in his boss's office, but since the Editor seemed to get calls at all hours of the day and night, he paid no particular attention to it. So it was not until Dexter Bryant flung open his office door and looked around expectantly that the young reporter felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise.

‘Can you come in here for a second, Jamie?' Bryant asked.

Of course he could, Jamie Clegg thought. He would follow this Editor through fire and water.

By the time Clegg entered the office, Bryant was already back behind his desk. ‘Ever heard of a place called Mad Jack's Field?' he asked.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Then get over there as sharp as you can. With any luck, we might be the first paper on the story.'

‘What story?' Jamie asked, almost choking with excitement.

‘I'm not quite sure, to be honest,' Bryant admitted. ‘But my contact at the fire station's just told me that two tenders have set out – going hell for leather – for this field of yours.'

How casually Bryant used the words ‘my contact', Jamie thought.

If
he'd
had ‘contacts' he'd have put real weight behind the words.

‘
My contact
says there's a big scandal brewing in the town hall,' he'd have told his mates in the pub.

‘
My contact
says they're going to build a new by-pass on the north edge of town,' he'd have announced to his mother as she made his supper.

Yet it was plain from the way he used the words that ‘my contact' held no magic for Bryant – that he regarded his contact as no more than a tool of his trade.

A sudden thought floated into Jamie's mind like a black cloud, and he felt his burning enthusiasm begin to dim.

‘Mad Jack's is one of the fields that the kids use on Bonfire Night,' he said, disappointedly.

‘So?' Bryant countered.

‘So the brigade's probably been called out for no other reason than that somebody's set that particular bonfire alight.'

A look which Jamie had begun to think of as Bryant's ‘teaching smile' came to the Editor's face. ‘Who do you think would have been likely to call the fire brigade out?' he asked.

‘Somebody who lives near the field?' Jamie hazarded, and when that seemed to fail to satisfy Bryant, he added, ‘A passer-by? A policeman?'

‘Say it was a policeman. What kind of policeman would it be?'

‘A constable. Or the desk sergeant.'

‘Not a detective inspector?'

‘No.'

‘The call to the fire station was made by a Detective Inspector Rutter. Now why would that be?'

‘I don't know,' Jamie Clegg confessed.

Bryant quickly dialled a number, then indicated that Jamie should pick up the other phone on his desk in order to be able to listen in on the conversation.

‘Whitebridge Police Headquarters,' said the voice on the other end of the line.

‘Who am I speaking to, please?'

‘Constable Danby.'

‘Well, Constable Danby, this is the Mid Lancs
Courier
,' Bryant said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘We're in luck,' he told Jamie Clegg.

‘Are we?'

‘Almost certainly. From the sound of his voice, I'd say Constable Danby sounds just the kind of man we can have jumping through hoops if we handle him properly.'

‘Are you still there?' the policeman asked.

Bryant took his hand off the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, I'm still here,' he confirmed. ‘Tell me, Constable Danby, is Detective Inspector Rutter in the building?'

‘Yes, he is.'

‘Then I wonder if I might speak to him.'

There was a pause from the other end. ‘What's this about, exactly?' Danby asked.

‘It's a matter of a somewhat delicate nature which I am only willing to discuss with Mr Rutter,' Bryant said, winking broadly at Jamie Clegg.

‘Is it urgent?'

‘Does it matter to you whether it is or not?'

Another pause. ‘The thing is, Inspector Rutter's left instructions he's not to be disturbed unless it's urgent.'

‘Why is that? Is he working on an important case?'

‘I'm afraid I couldn't say, sir.'

‘Well, never mind then, I'll catch him in the morning,' Bryant said. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.'

‘That's quite all right, sir,' the policeman assured him. ‘That's what we're here for.'

Bryant spread his hands like a conjurer who has just completed a successful trick. ‘There you are,' he said.

‘Am I?' Jamie Clegg asked.

‘Of course. Let's consider the evidence. One: Inspector Rutter is working on an important case, which, since we know nothing about it, could only recently have come to light. Two: despite the fact that he's too busy to come to the phone to talk to me, he does find time to ring the fire brigade. But how did he even know there
was
a fire?'

‘Somebody rang him up and told him about it?' Jamie Clegg said, feeling incredibly stupid.

‘Why didn't this
somebody
call the fire brigade first?'

Jamie Clegg pursed his brow. ‘I don't know.'

‘Because the person who called him didn't have access to a phone. He was using his
police radio
. That's why it was left to DI Rutter to actually call the fire brigade.'

‘Of course.'

‘Next question. Why contact Rutter at all? Why not leave it to the duty officer?'

‘Because the fire has something to do with the important case that Rutter's been called in to investigate!' Jamie Clegg said excitedly.

Bryant positively beamed at his young protégé.

‘I knew you'd get there in the end,' he said. ‘Well? Don't just stand there. Go and cover your story.'

‘Yes, sir! Right away, sir!' Jamie said. ‘Thank you for giving me the chance, sir.'

‘There's no need to thank me,' Dexter Bryant said. ‘You've done me the odd favour in the past, and that's all the thanks I need. We're a team, Jamie. Now take yourself off to Mad Jack's Field while the story's still hot!'

‘Yes, sir. I'm on it, sir,' Jamie Clegg said, thinking – as he rushed towards the door – that you couldn't
buy
the kind of training he was getting for free from his new boss.

T
here had not been that much of the conflagration left when the fire engines arrived, but the crews had, nonetheless, dutifully drenched what there was before winding up their hoses again and returning to their station. The next emergency service unit to arrive was the ambulance. The driver and his mate handled the corpse in much the same way as they would probably, had they been in a different line of work, have handled a particularly delicate piece of furniture – with a great deal of care and absolutely no emotion.

Woodend waited until the ambulance had set off for the morgue, then turned to the uniformed sergeant who was standing next to him.

‘How many lads have you got on this job, Wally?' the Chief Inspector asked.

‘Fourteen, sir.'

‘Which is probably what we would need if we were guardin' the Bank of England. But since we aren't, we can probably make do with a lot less, don't you think?'

‘Shouldn't take more than three to patrol the perimeter, if that's all you want doin',' the sergeant said.

‘That's all I want,' Woodend agreed. ‘Pick me out a reliable trio, then send the rest back to their regular duties. What about yourself? Are you still on duty?'

The sergeant shook his head. ‘I was just on my way home when the call came through.'

‘Then bugger off before somethin' else turns up,' Woodend advised him. ‘An' make sure your Elaine knows that it's only through my kindness an' consideration that you've been returned to the bosom of your family before they've all gone to bed.'

The sergeant grinned. ‘I'll do that, sir.'

As the patrol cars pulled away, the field grew darker and darker. For perhaps an hour, the formerly undistinguished strip of wasteland had basked in the glow of a dozen sets of headlights. Now its moment of glory was gone.

Woodend looked through the increasing gloom at the sodden pile of wood and paper which had once been a bonfire, and wondered just how much valuable evidence had either been burned up or washed away.

‘The Chief Constable will want my balls on a plate for this, Monika,' he said to Paniatowski.

‘I suppose he will – since misery seeks company,' his sergeant replied. ‘But it really wasn't your fault, you know, sir.'

Woodend shrugged. ‘Maybe it wasn't, but lack of culpability's never been much of a barrier to Mr Marlowe havin' a go at me in the past.' He laughed. ‘Still, I suppose I should be grateful.'

‘Grateful?'

‘Aye. The only alternative to his tryin' to roast me over a slow spit is to have him bein' nice to me – and I don't think I could stand that.' Woodend paused to light up a Capstan. ‘What's the thing that most strikes you about this case, Monika? The way he killed her?'

‘No,' Paniatowski said. ‘The way he decided to dispose of the body.'

‘Aye, that is odd,' Woodend agreed. ‘He could have buried her somewhere out on the moors. We'd have searched there, of course, once she was reported missin'. That's standard procedure, and everybody in Whitebridge knows it. But that would have at least bought him time. It could have been weeks – perhaps even months – before we found the body.'

‘We might
never
have found it,' Paniatowski pointed out.

‘But he
didn't
bury her on the moors, did he? Instead, he plumped for stickin' her in the middle of a bonfire. Why? Because it's only four days away from Bonfire Night, an' he was hopin' that the kids would burn the evidence?'

‘No,' Paniatowski said with conviction.

‘Why not?'

‘Firstly, because he didn't bother to hide her properly. Those two little kids found her easily enough – and they weren't even looking.'

‘An' secondly? There is a secondly, isn't there?'

‘Yes. Secondly, there's the alarm clock we heard ringing just before the fire broke out.'

‘What about it?'

‘I'm willing to bet that it was the timer on some kind of home-made incendiary device.'

Woodend nodded. ‘So am I. You think he wanted his victim cremated, then, do you?'

‘Not necessarily. If that had been his intention, he'd have soaked the bonfire with petrol, like the kids did.'

‘So what
did
he want?'

Paniatowski hesitated. ‘I've got a theory,' she admitted. ‘But it's based on the belief that this isn't a domestic murder. So before we go any further, can we rule domestic murders out?'

‘We can never rule out
anythin'
in this game,' Woodend reminded her. ‘But I have to say, it doesn't bear any of the hallmarks of a family killin'. An' it's not just the way the murderer chose to dispose of the body that makes me think that. When husbands kill their wives, they usually do it with their bare hands, or with a blunt instrument like a hammer. Knives are very uncommon, an' even if they are used, they're used messily. I've seen a couple of murdered wives with dozens of stab wounds on their bodies. I've never seen one who's had her throat slit. Does that answer your question?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then let's get back to the one I asked you. You don't think he wanted to cremate his victim, so why did he light the bonfire?'

‘I think he did it because he wanted to create a stir.'

Woodend nodded again. ‘He'd have managed that, all right. A burnin' bonfire would have brought people runnin' from streets away.'

‘Exactly. So by the time someone discovered the body, there'd have been quite a crowd gathered around the fire.'

‘An' you think that's what he
wanted
to happen?'

‘I can't come up with any other explanation for his actions. The way I see it, he probably thinks of himself as something of an artist. That makes the victim his canvas, and her murder the act of creation. And in order to feel that his handiwork is fully appreciated, he needs to be sure he has an audience.'

Woodend shook his head dolefully. ‘I wish you'd never said that.'

‘Why? Because you think it's completely off the wall?'

‘Far from it, I've been havin' similar thoughts myself – an' I was rather hopin' that you'd be able to talk me out of them. I don't
want
it to be that kind of case, Monika. It's hard enough work catchin' honest, straightforward murderers, without comin' up against one who likes to turn the whole bloody thing into some kind of sick game.'

When the headlights of his Ford Pop picked out the blue-uniformed figure patrolling the edge of Mad Jack's Field, Jamie Clegg felt his stomach perform the minor somersault it always did when he spotted an officer of the law.