‘It was a mistake to use Richard’s knife for the killin’s, you know,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘A big mistake. Though I’d never have believed that he was capable of carryin’ out three such well-planned murders, I might well have assumed – without the knife – that he’d been fitted up for the crimes by someone else on the outside. The forensic report made that an impossibility. The only people who had access to the knife were you an’ him – an’ if he wasn’t the killer, then it had to be you. See what I mean about bein’ too clever?’

  ‘I’m beginning to,’ Bryant admitted.

  Forty-One

  Most of the children under parental supervision had now gone home, and the bonfires had become largely the domain of the bigger kids. For some of them, slipping penny bangers into other kids’ pockets had still not lost its novelty. For others, the collapsed bonfires presented the ideal opportunity to show off their bravery and athleticism, and after taking a long run up, they would leap over the still-glowing wood. Bottles of beer and cider – bought under false pretences from the off-licence – were being opened now that the adults had cleared off, and several couples had moved away from the bonfire for a spot of slap and tickle. It was all a sight that the pious, fanatical Guy Fawkes would neither have understood nor approved of.

  Woodend did not dare to look at his watch for fear of spooking Bryant too much, but he calculated that at least thirty minutes must have passed since he entered the living room.

  ‘Why did you put your victims in the bonfires?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, a trick question – but not a very subtle one!’ Bryant said. ‘If I were to tell you about the disposal of the bodies, I’d be as good as admitting that I was the killer. Since I’m not, I’ll have to say that I have no idea where the idea of using the bonfires come into it.’

  ‘Then let me tell you what I think,’ Woodend suggested. ‘You wanted everybody to believe that there was a reason for the murders, but not a rational one. That was one of the attractions of choosin’ cancer sufferers. From then on, any little refinement you could add which suggested that a lunatic was behind the killings could only be to your advantage. I suppose you could have decapitated your victims, or covered them in yellow paint, but the bonfires were an even better idea. There’s somethin’ so fundamental an’ primeval about fire, isn’t there?’

  ‘That’s rather fancy thinking for a PC Plod, isn’t it?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘You can tell you’re gettin’ close to the truth when the man who doesn’t want to hear it starts to insult you,’ Woodend said mildly. ‘The other advantage of usin’ bonfires, of course, was that you could blame the whole thing on Richard, if you felt the need to. The idea that he might have been committin’ involuntary suttee had my boss jumpin’ through hoops with delight.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘No. Again, it seemed just a little too clever. Like somethin’ a crime novelist – or a crime reporter – might have come up with.’ Woodend lit a cigarette. ‘Well, I’ve said my piece, an’ I rather think the next move’s up to you.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got on me?’ Bryant asked, sounding slightly surprised.

  ‘Isn’t it enough?’ Woodend countered.

  Bryant yawned ostentatiously. ‘To arrest me? To put me on trial? You know it isn’t.’

  Woodend nodded. ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘So you’re just goin’ to have to give me a written confession, aren’t you?’

  ‘Why on earth should I do that?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, I won’t arrest you at all.’

  ‘And how is that a threat?’

  Woodend took a drag on his Capstan. ‘Towards the end of the war, I was seconded to an intelligence unit. Not as an intelligence officer myself, you understand. I was just in charge of the guards an’ the escorts. But I did get to see how the intelligence officers worked. An’ a terrible process it was. They didn’t just question a man, which is what I’d been expectin’ – they dismantled his mind. It still makes me break into a sweat, even thinkin’ about it. Given the choice, I’d rather have had a bayonet through the gut any day of the week.’

  ‘I assume there’s a point to this story,’ Bryant said coolly.

  ‘Oh yes. If you won’t confess then I can’t arrest you – but I can tell MI5 about you. The fellers who work there don’t need the sort of evidence a jury would demand. A hint – a suspicion – is good enough for them. Can you even imagine what they’d put you through? It’d be dyin’ by degrees!’

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ Bryant said, sounding genuinely intrigued. ‘You think I’m a spy, but you’ll only hand me over to MI5 if I refuse to confess to the murders. In other words, you’re quite willing to put the interests of the criminal justice system ahead of the interests of national security. Don’t you think that’s a little parochial?’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t think I have any choice,’ Woodend replied. ‘As you’ve already pointed out, I’m just a PC Plod – a simple bobby. It’s my job to arrest criminals. It’s some other bugger’s job to worry about the Russians.’

  ‘I’d almost be inclined to accept your deal if I thought it might work,’ Bryant told him.

  ‘Does that mean you admit to killin’ Elizabeth Stubbs, Lucy Tonge an’ Constance Bryant?’ Woodend asked.

  He was trying to say the words casually, but there was a certain tightness – a certain constriction – in his voice which made Paniatowski wonder what the hell was going on.

  Bryant noticed the change of tone, too. ‘You’re very formal all of a sudden, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just answer the question, if you don’t mind,’ Woodend said, the tightness still there.

  ‘Yes, I killed them. There’s not much point in denying it now, is there? But what I wanted to talk about was the deal you’ve just offered me.’

  ‘Then by all means talk about it,’ Woodend said, his voice sounding more normal again.

  ‘If it were a choice between a long prison sentence and being handed over to the interrogators, then of course I’d choose the prison sentence,’ Bryant said. ‘But it wouldn’t be as simple as that. MI5 might agree to let me stand trial, but they’d never consent to me going to prison. The moment sentence had been passed, they’d insist I was handed over to them, and that, as you so rightly pointed out, is death by degree. And now, I really think I need a drink.’

  Bryant walked over to the drinks’ cabinet and opened the door. When he turned around again, there was a pistol in his hand.

  ‘The gun doesn’t change anythin’, you know,’ Woodend said. ‘You’re caught up in too big a web to be able to shoot your way out.’

  ‘I take it you’ve got men posted outside.’

  ‘Aye, a dozen of them,’ Woodend lied. ‘Isn’t that right, Monika?’

  ‘No,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘There were a dozen of them. By now, there’ll be twice as many.’

  ‘In that case, when I leave here, I’ll be taking Sergeant Paniatowski with me as a hostage,’ Bryant said.

  ‘I can’t allow you to do that,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘If you do, I’ll shoot you.’

  ‘What would be the point of that?’ Woodend asked. ‘You know you’re not goin’ to escape. An’ anyway, you’re not really the hardened revolutionary you seem to think you are.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’ Bryant demanded, clearly stung.

  ‘No, you’re not. Because you’ve got an aversion to killin’ needlessly.’

  Bryant laughed. ‘You truly are amazing, Chief Inspector. You know that I’ve slit three women’s throats – including my wife’s. How can you say I’ve an aversion to killing?’

  ‘Because it was only three.’

  ‘One of us is mad,’ Bryant said. ‘And I’d be willing to put my money on you.’

  ‘Maybe we’re both a bit mad,’ Woodend said. ‘But my point’s still valid. You didn’t want to kill your wife, but you had to in order to protect your cover. An’ once you’d decided to do that, you realized you’d have to kill other women if you were to create the necessary smokescreen for your motives. But why only two? Why not three or four? That would have been even more convincin’.’

  ‘The more I killed, the bigger the risk of getting caught.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Woodend said. ‘Your plannin’ was so meticulous that there was very little chance of you bein’ apprehended. The fact is, you’d rather not have killed any of them, but if you had to kill, you calculated that two was the minimum number you could get away with. Then there’s the bobbies I left guardin’ the bonfire. You could have killed them, too, but you didn’t. You haven’t got the stomach to be a truly effective member of the KGB. You can’t even stand to see ducks gettin’ stoned in the park!’

  ‘There may be a grain of truth in what you say,’ Bryant agreed, ‘but, as you’ve already pointed out, I will kill if I have to.’

  ‘Say you did kill a couple of my lads an’ made your escape. What good would it do you? Where would you run to?’

  ‘Russia.’

  ‘An’ do you really think you’d be welcome there?’

  ‘Why not? Burgess, MacLean and Philby all were.’

  ‘Ah, but you see, they didn’t escape – they defected.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to ask me that. You know the way spies’ minds work. The Russians would never believe you’d managed anythin’ as dramatic as an escape. They’d think that we’d let you get away, because we’d turned you. An’ by the time they were convinced otherwise, you wouldn’t have enough of your brain left to stuff a turkey with. That’s what I meant earlier, when I said you were caught in too big a web to shoot your way out. I wasn’t just talkin’ about the men surroundin’ this house. I was talkin’ about the others – the men who’ll never stop watchin’ you, an’ will never trust you again, whatever you do!’

  Bryant raised the pistol, so that now it was pointing directly at Woodend’s forehead.

  ‘You can put up a very convincing argument when you want to,’ he said. ‘That line about me not wanting to kill needlessly was very impressive. But saying I hadn’t got the stomach for it was a bit of a gamble. Are you really as confident as you sound, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, of course I’m bloody not,’ Woodend said, as a drop of sweat fell from his brow and rolled slowly down his cheek.

  The explosions had abated a little, but they had not ceased, and every time a penny banger went off somewhere in the distance, Rutter felt himself jump slightly.

  He checked his watch again. It was forty-two minutes since he’d last spoken to Woodend and Paniatowski, three minutes before he was supposed to radio through to the station to say that something had gone seriously wrong.

  He wondered if he should have done something before now – if he should have already disobeyed Woodend’s orders and gone into the house. He was almost certain that if Paniatowski had been in his place, that was exactly what she would have done.

  Another minute ticked by, and Rutter came to a decision. He would not call in re-enforcements from the station. He would go into the house alone – because if Woodend and Paniatowski were in trouble, he should be the one who got them out of it.

  It was then that he heard another explosion. It was not a banger this time. It was too loud for that – too ominous and final.

  He was only yards from the house, but he broke into a sprint anyway. He tried the front door, and was not surprised to find it locked.

  The door, like the rest of the house, was good and solid, and it took three kicks before the lock groaned and the wood around it splintered. Panting for breath, Rutter entered the hallway. There had only been one shot – he was fairly sure about that – but the air was thick with the stink of cordite.

  The lounge door lay ahead of him. The sensible course – the one he had been trained to follow – was to call for back-up and not to do anything until it arrived. Instead, he opened the door, fully expecting a bullet to slam into him at any moment.

  It was Paniatowski he saw first. She was sitting on the sofa, hugging herself tightly. And then he saw the body lying on the floor, with half its brain spread over the expensive carpet. He felt a shooting pain in his stomach, and knew he was about to be sick.

  As he doubled over, he heard a voice from somewhere to his left say, ‘That’s the trouble with you lads who were never in the war – a bit of blood an’ guts an’ you turn all girly on me.’

  Forty-Two

  Woodend and Rutter were sitting opposite each other in Woodend’s office. The Chief Inspector was talking on the phone to his boss, the inspector was examining the glowing end of his cigarette as if he thought it held the meaning to life.

  Woodend replaced the receiver on its cradle. ‘I look forward to the day when we get a result that will actually please Mr Marlowe,’ he said. ‘I look forward to it – but I’m not holdin’ my breath waitin’ for it to arrive.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to arrest Richard Quinn,’ Rutter said.

  ‘He knows that – an’ he knows that we know it – an’ that only makes it worse. No organ grinder likes to admit it’s really the monkey that’s runnin’ the show.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure you deserve it, Bob, but I’ve got Elizabeth Driver off your back.’

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Read tomorrow’s Globe. The answer should be obvious.’

  ‘You gave her an exclusive, didn’t you?’

  ‘Aye. While other newspapers are runnin’ the story about Richard Quinn, the Globe will be leadin’ with the real story – or at least, part of it.’

  ‘I know how much that must have cost you,’ Rutter said, feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself. ‘I never meant to put you in that position, sir.’

  ‘You didn’t put me in it. I could have let you sink if I’d wanted to, but I chose to throw you a lifebelt instead.’ Woodend lit up a Capstan. ‘You’ll be breakin’ it off with Monika now, will you?’

  ‘It’s as good as done,’ Rutter said, wondering if he really had the strength to see that particular promise through.

  ‘An’ have you told Maria about it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then don’t! You’ve already been your own worst enemy. Don’t turn yourself in to Maria’s as well.’

  ‘I want to be honest with her,’ Rutter protested.

  ‘What you mean is, you want to assuage your guilt by confessin’ your sins.’

  ‘Yes, there’s that as well.’

  Woodend clapped his inspector on the shoulder. ‘Suffer for your sins, lad,’ he advised. ‘It’s character buildin’.’

  There was the sound of footsteps in the corridor, then the door swung open to reveal a dapper – and very angry – man with a silver moustache.

  ‘I’ve been away from London far too long to remember how people behave down there,’ Woodend said, ‘but here in Lancashire it’s considered polite to knock before you enter anybody’s office.’

  Perkins glared at him. ‘I’d like a word with you in private.’

  Rutter started to rise to his feet.

  ‘Stay where you are, Bob,’ Woodend told him. ‘Anythin’ you’ve got to say, Mr Perkins, you can say in front of my inspector.’

  ‘It’s about the matter we discussed the other night,’ Perkins said, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Aye, I thought it might be,’ Woodend said, ‘but you can still speak freely. Inspector Rutter knows all about Constance Bryant’s double life.’

  Perkins scowl widened into outrage. ‘You said you’d keep that information strictly to yourself.’

  ‘I know I did, but I had my fingers crossed when I was sayin’ it.’

  ‘This isn’t a game!’ Perkins exploded.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Woodend told him. ‘However you choose to see yourselves, the truth is that all you spies are nothin’ more than big kids. What was it you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘I want to know if it’s true that Dexter Bryant was a Russian agent.’

  ‘Yes, it is. He confessed as much himself, just before he killed himself.’

  ‘We should have been told.’

  ‘I’m tellin’ you now.’

  ‘And what good is that – once he’s dead?’

  ‘I think you’re contradictin’ yourself a bit there,’ Woodend replied. ‘You told me that if the opposition knew Constance Bryant had been a spy, the KGB would be able to track down the others in her network easy enough. Well, surely, you’re in the same position with Dexter. Now you know he was a spy, you should be able to start roundin’ up all his little mates.’

  ‘We’d rather have had him! Once you suspected him, you should have contacted us immediately.’

  ‘I lost your telephone number,’ Woodend said, making no attempt to sound convincing. ‘As Bob here will tell you, I’m very careless with things like that.’

  ‘This will reflect very badly on your record,’ Perkins said. ‘Very badly indeed.’

  Then he swivelled on his heel and marched off furiously down the corridor.

  They were sitting at their table in the Drum and Monkey. The waiter had just served them their drinks – a pint of bitter, a half of bitter and a double vodka – and now they were free to talk.

  Yet Woodend didn’t seem as willing as usual to open up, Paniatowski thought. It was almost as if he had a burden on his mind which he was not quite ready to shed.

  ‘I’ve just been on to the psychiatric ward of Whitebridge General,’ she said, to fill in the silence. ‘They’re keeping Richard Quinn in for observation tonight, but they think he should be fit to be discharged in the morning.’

  Rutter nodded. Woodend didn’t even seem to have heard her.

  ‘I’ve called Dr Shastri as well,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘She’s cutting up what’s left of Dexter Bryant’s skull, as per regulations, but she’s got a sneaking suspicion that it was the bullet which killed him.’