The Red Herring (16 page)

Woodend shivered. The man hadn't just driven by and seen his car, then – he'd been inside the pub. Or, at least,
watching
the pub!

‘What makes you think Rutter and Paniatowski are here?' he asked, just to confirm his suspicions.

‘Rutter's wearing a blue suit that makes him look more like a stockbroker than a policeman,' the caller said. ‘Paniatowski's wearing a green dress which shows off quite a lot of her legs. Very tasty! If she was fifteen years younger, I might fancy her myself.'

‘Would you have fancied Verity Beale if she'd been fifteen years younger?' Woodend asked.

The other man chuckled. ‘So you've got there at last, have you?' he asked.

‘Is that an admission that you killed her?'

‘It might be.'

‘Then maybe you could answer me this – why dump her body in the pigsty?'

‘I don't want to talk about her any more,' the rasper said. ‘Let's get back to your team. What were you talking about?'

‘What did you think? We were talkin' about
you
. We were sayin' that the smartest thing you could do – from your own point of view as well as everybody else's – is to let Helen go.'

‘Liar!' the rasper said disgustedly. ‘What you were really doing was trying to decide whether I was just a crank – or if I really did have the girl.'

‘There was that, as well,' Woodend admitted.

‘Go out to your car,' the rasper said.

‘Why should I do that?'

‘Go out to your car, and see what's hidden underneath it.'

‘You'll like that, won't you?' Woodend demanded. ‘You'll like to see me crawlin' on my hands and knees, like a dog?'

The caller laughed contemptuously. ‘Considering you're an experienced policeman, you're really not very good at this, are you?'

‘Not very good at what?'

‘At laying verbal traps for me to fall into.'

‘I'm not sure I know what you mean.'

‘Yes, you do. You think that between the last call and this one, I've driven to the pub, and that when you go outside I'll be somewhere in the shadows, watching and waiting. That's why you asked if I'll enjoy it – to make sure I'll be there. But I won't be. I have been to the pub – if you'd had the sense to post men in the car park, they'd have caught me – but I'm miles away now.'

‘Are you doin' this on your own?' Woodend asked. ‘Or have you got helpers?'

The caller laughed again. ‘Do you really think I'd share this experience with anybody else?'

‘I don't know,' Woodend said.

And he didn't. Experience taught him that men like the rasper often acted alone, yet he got the distinct impression that wherever the man was calling from, there was someone else there with him.

‘Perhaps you're right,' the rasper said. ‘Perhaps there
are
two of us. Or even three or four. That should make things easier for you, shouldn't it Mr Woodend? If four men are involved – or maybe it's even five – then it's four or five times more likely that somebody will make a mistake and drop the vital clue which will lead you to the girl.'

‘I don't want to play games any more,' Woodend said.

‘But I do,' the rasper said. ‘And I'm the one who's calling the tune that we both dance to. Go out to your car, Mr Woodend. Go now – before somebody else finds what I've left there for you.'

The phone went dead. Woodend made his way quickly out to the car park. His Wolseley was standing just where he had left it.

For a moment he paused to wonder if it had been booby-trapped, but then he quickly dismissed the idea. Whether the rasper was genuine or not, killing policemen was not how he got his kicks.

Woodend knelt down by the Wolseley, and ran his hand slowly under the car's chassis. Halfway between the back and front wheels, he felt his fingers brush against something. Gingerly, he explored the shape of it with the nail of his index finger. As far as he could tell, the object was a long, thin, rectangular shape.

He should call in the lads from the lab to handle the situation from there on in, he thought. But what would be the point of that? The rasper was a clever man, who had considered all the angles. Whatever he had left under the car, he would have taken great pains to ensure that there was nothing about it to connect it with him.

Taking hold of the rectangular box by one corner, Woodend lifted if from the ground, and out from under the car. He held his prize up towards the streetlight, so he could examine it better. The box was covered in a green tartan material, and a zip ran around most of the top.

A pencil case!

Woodend took the zip fastener between two fingers, carefully pulled it round, and flipped the pencil case open. Inside were all the things he expected to find – ordinary pencils and coloured pencils, a sharpener, a protractor and a set of compasses. In the lid itself, someone had written a name in a careful, childlike hand. It came as no surprise to him that that name was Helen Dunn.

‘
I
t is exactly eight forty-eight on the morning of Wednesday October 24th, and here are the news headlines
,' said the voice of the newsreader from the radio in Paniatowski's MGA. ‘
As the crisis over Cuba deepens, both the USSR and President Castro have called the American low-level flight over the island an unwarranted breach of Cuban air space. In further developments, the USA has announced the quarantine of Cuba will begin at ten o'clock Eastern Standard Time, though, for practical purposes, it is already in place
.'

Paniatowski switched the radio off, and reached, with her free hand, for the packet of cigarettes which was resting on the dashboard.

‘The situation's not getting any better, is it?' DCI Horrocks asked from the passenger seat.

‘No,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘How do you want to handle this session with Captain Tooley?'

Horrocks grinned. ‘You're a very single-minded young woman, aren't you, Monika?' he asked.

‘It's the only way to do the job.'

‘Did you learn that from Cloggin'-it Charlie?'

‘I think I already knew it before I started working with Mr Woodend, but he's done nothing to convince me that I was wrong.'

‘Do you wish you were working with him on this case, rather than with me?' Horrocks asked.

Alarm bells started to ring in Paniatowski's head.

What is this? she wondered. Some kind of test?

‘I don't know enough about you yet to make that kind of judgement,' she said cautiously.

Horrocks chuckled. ‘Not much of a one for flattering your superiors, are you, Monika?'

‘Now that's one thing that Mr Woodend
did
teach me,' Paniatowski replied. ‘You never did tell me how we're going to handle this session with Captain Wilbur Tooley.'

‘I don't know yet. But you're a bright girl. You should be able to see where I'm going and follow my lead quickly enough.'

There were times when Horrocks sounded
just
like Charlie Woodend, Paniatowski thought. And there were times when it seemed as if he was from a completely different planet.

They got on to the base with the minimum of formalities. There was no sign of Major Dole in the office block, but the military policeman on duty knew why they were there, and took them straight to the office where Captain Tooley was already waiting for them.

Monika had never met an air-force pilot before, and – without really thinking about it – had assumed that they were all blue-eyed gods like Paul Newman. Tooley, by Newman standards, was a definite disappointment. He was tall and gangly, with floppy brown hair, earnest, bulging eyes and a highly prominent Adam's apple which bobbed up and down every time he spoke. Sitting in the chair opposite the two British police officers, he seemed more like a boy who'd been caught abusing himself behind the woodshed than a man who anyone would be happy to entrust with the control of a lethal killing machine.

‘Let's get a couple of things clear before we start talking, shall we?' Horrocks said jovially to the young officer. ‘This is not a formal interview in any sense of the word – though that's not to promise there won't
be
a formal interview later. Understood?'

‘Understood.'

‘And, that being the case, you are not actually obliged even to be here, or to answer any questions which you would prefer not to answer. Is that clear, Captain Tooley?'

‘Yes, sir,' Tooley said, his Adam's apple jumping like a pea which been sucked up a straw.

Horrocks smiled. ‘Well, that's got the very stuffy, oh so very British, bit out the way, Wilbur. Now we can relax a little.' He glanced down at the sheet of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. ‘Your full name is Wilbur Lee Tooley. You were born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1935, which makes you twenty-seven years old now, are married with two children, and have been in the US Air Force for eight years. Have I got anything wrong so far?'

‘No, sir. That's all quite correct.'

‘Now, as you know, we're here to investigate the death of Verity Beale. What exactly was your relationship with her?'

Tooley fixed his eyes on the corner of the room. ‘She . . . she was a friend,' he said.

‘That's all she was? Just a friend?'

‘Yes. We met through the church.'

‘That would be the Baptist Church in Whitebridge?'

‘Yes.'

Horrocks frowned slightly. ‘What I don't quite understand is why you went all the way to Whitebridge to worship. Wouldn't it have been more convenient to use the church on the base?'

‘The Baptist Church feels more like my church back home than the base chapel does.'

Horrocks nodded. ‘Of course. It's quite obvious once you've explained it. Now, when you went to the church in Whitebridge, I expect you took your wife with you.'

‘Yes.'

‘So
she
was a friend of Miss Beale's, as well?'

Tooley shifted his attention from the corner of the room to the surface of the desk. ‘No.'

‘No?'

‘She . . . she doesn't find it easy to make friends with the Brits.'

Horrocks laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose we are a pretty odd lot when you come to think of it,' he conceded. ‘Let's get on to what happened the night before last, shall we? You went to the Spinner, which is a public house between Sladebury and Whitebridge?'

‘That's correct.'

‘But though you both went there from the base, you travelled in separate vehicles?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why was that?'

‘Because after we'd had our drink, she was going back to Whitebridge and I planned to return to the base.'

‘So Miss Beale was never actually in your car that night.'

‘No,' Tooley said. ‘No, she wasn't.'

Horrocks frowned again, more deeply this time. ‘That's funny. I would have thought it would have been much more comfortable in your big American car than it would have been in her small British one. Still, I suppose there's no accounting for taste, is there?'

‘I don't understand what you're talking about,' Tooley said – but from the troubled expression on his face, it was obvious that he was at least starting to get an inkling.

‘You don't understand, Captain Tooley? Then perhaps I'd better spell it out more clearly for you,' Horrocks said, and now a hard edge had crept into his voice. ‘I would have thought it would have been much more comfortable to have sexual intercourse in your car than it would have been to have it in hers. Unless, of course, you chose to make the beast with two backs out in the open air.' He grinned, though not pleasantly. ‘But I can't really see you jumping on her bones
al fresco
, given how chilly it can be on an English autumn evening.'

‘I never said I had sex with her!' Tooley protested.

‘Didn't you?' Horrocks turned to Paniatowski. ‘Then where on earth did I get the idea that Miss Beale had had sexual intercourse shortly before she died, Sergeant?'

‘From the police doctor, sir.'

‘The police doctor,' Horrocks repeated, as if the term were unfamiliar to him. ‘That would be some ancient British druid who prescribes herbs according to the phases of the moon, would it?'

‘No, sir,' Paniatowski said. ‘Dr Pierson studied medicine at Manchester University.'

‘Quite so,' Horrocks agreed. He swung his gaze back on Tooley. ‘I like you Americans. I really do. But it does annoy me a little when you seem to assume that we're all straw-sucking yokels over here on this side of the pond. The police doctor – who studied medicine at the University of Manchester – tells me in his report that Miss Beale had sexual intercourse, and I'm inclined to believe him. Now – and I hope you can follow this argument – since she was with you for most of the evening, I've drawn the conclusion that you were her partner in this little diversion. Are you telling me that you weren't?'

Tooley's skin had started to turn crimson. He glanced – but only briefly – at Paniatowski, then said, ‘Does she have to be here?'

‘Captain Tooley, like the true Southern gentleman he is, wants to save you from any embarrassment,' Horrocks told Paniatowski. ‘
Are
you embarrassed, Sergeant?'

‘Not in the slightest,' Paniatowski replied.

‘Then I think you may as well stay.'

‘If she doesn't leave right now, I'm not saying any more,' Tooley said defiantly.

‘That's entirely your choice, Captain Tooley,' Horrocks said easily. ‘By the way, where is your car – or perhaps I should say where is your
automobile
, since you're one of our colonial cousins?'

‘It's parked outside my house,' Tooley replied, puzzled. ‘Why are you asking me that?'