Stone Killer (26 page)

Molly Ryder shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. There weren't any other vehicles involved.'

‘So what
did
happen?'

‘Her brakes failed. I still don't see how it could have come about, because if there's one thing Mr Keene and Mrs Maitland always insisted on, it was that all vans went through regular safety checks.'

Chief Constable Henry Marlowe stood at the corner of the High Street, flanked by Slater-Burnes and Colonel Danvers. Overnight, two military armoured cars had been moved into position to replace the police vehicles which had previously been parked near the bank, but other than that very little about the scene had changed since the first morning of the siege.

‘The longer this situation continues, the less the chances of bringing it to a safe conclusion,' Colonel Danvers said ominously.

‘Surely, that can't be right, can it?' Slater-Burnes asked.

‘Why can't it?' Danvers wondered.

‘Well, it seems to me that the longer it lasts, the more exhausted the hostage-takers become, and thus, the easier it is for a well-rested squad of men to catch them with their guard down.'

‘Exhaustion can make men careless,' Danvers agreed, ‘but it can also make them more nervous and more irrational. Once they're in that state, even a slight noise outside could make them think they're under attack, whether they are or not. What's even worse is that some word or action from one of the hostages – however innocuous – could drive them into an irrational rage. And if either of those things does happen, they may well start killing their captives.'

‘But what can we do about it?' Slater-Burnes asked. ‘As long as they've got the hostages wired up to explosives, we're helpless.'

‘I'm not sure I still believe they
are
wired up,' Danvers said.

‘You're not? What's changed your mind?'

‘I've been going through Maitland's service record. He's tough. There's absolutely no doubt about that. But he's not one of the more … er …'

‘More
what
?'

‘Shall we just say that he doesn't strike me as one of the more “irresponsible” of our combat officers.'

‘And what conclusions do you draw from that?'

‘That I don't believe he's ever put civilians any more at risk than he needed to. That he just doesn't seem to me like the kind of man who would turn non-combatants into human bombs.'

‘I want to be sure that I understand this properly,' Slater-Burnes said. ‘You think he had no intention, at the beginning of the siege, of harming any of his hostages?'

‘Correct.'

‘But you believe that as time goes by – as he grows more tired and more irrational – his attitude to them may change, and he may positively
want
to hurt them. Have I got that right?'

‘Essentially, yes, you have.'

‘In that case, I think that we should storm the building as soon as we possibly can,' Slater-Burnes said. He turned his attention to Marlowe. ‘What do you think, Chief Constable?'

‘Me?' Marlowe asked, as if surprised to be finally consulted. ‘Listening to the two of you discussing the situation,
I
think you both seem to have forgotten that you are here merely as advisors, and that I am still the man in charge.'

‘Neither of us was trying to suggest—' Danvers began.

‘And unlike you, I still have confidence in the men working under me,' Marlowe continued. ‘Chief Inspector Woodend is a fine officer – a credit to his rank – and as long as he is of the opinion that the best way to proceed is as we have been doing so far, I am prepared to back him to the hilt.'

‘I'm … er … surprised you place
so much
confidence in Mr Woodend,' Slater-Burnes said.

‘Are you? And why might that be?'

‘Well, to be perfectly honest with you—'

‘Oh, by all means,
do
be perfectly honest with me,' Marlowe told the man from the Home Office. ‘Honesty, as we all know, is a pearl beyond price.'

‘Very well, since you now seem finally able to cope with an
honest
response, it is this,' Slater-Burnes said angrily. ‘At the start of the crisis, I got the distinct impression that you had little idea what to do yourself, and no faith in Chief Inspector Woodend at all.'

Ah, but at the start of the crisis, I didn't see any way to turn things to my advantage, Marlowe thought. I was so busy trying to protect my own back, in case anything went wrong, that I didn't see how I could emerge with credit if everything went
right
. But I do now. And better yet, if things still
do
go wrong, the two people who'll find themselves up to their necks in shit are the Home Secretary and Charlie-bloody-Woodend.

‘You're mistaken about my attitude to Chief Inspector Woodend, Mr Slater-Burnes,' he rebuked. ‘I always have – and always will – support my men. I'm well known for it.'

Woodend and Beresford sat in the police canteen, mugs of steaming tea sitting in front of them, and cigarettes burning away in the ashtray. The woman behind the counter, who had been half-watching them since they first came in, thought the Chief Inspector looked deeply troubled – and she was right.

‘Let me see if I've got this absolutely straight,' Woodend said, taking a sip of the tannin-drenched solution he'd just been served. ‘You think there was an attempt to kill Judith Maitland just a few days before she was arrested for killing Clive Burroughs, do you?'

‘I think there
may have
been an attempt,' Beresford said cautiously. ‘The results of the tests carried out at the police garage are inconclusive. It's certainly
possible
that the braking system of the van was tampered with, but no one I talked to was prepared to rule out a mechanical failure, either.'

‘But the vans
were
checked regularly?'

‘Yes. That's what Molly Ryder told me, and when I asked Mr Keene, he confirmed it. In fact, the actual van that Mrs Maitland crashed had been in for a full service only a few days earlier.'

‘So, given that the matter was never fully resolved, why wasn't there a follow-up investigation?'

Beresford shrugged. ‘There probably would have been if Mrs Maitland hadn't then been arrested for murder, but once the supposed victim was out of the way – and likely to
stay
out of the way for a very long time – the investigation seemed to lose momentum. Besides …'

‘What?'

‘There's nothing about this in writing, you understand, sir, but I got the distinct impression that the experts had decided that if the brakes
had
been tampered with, they'd probably been tampered with by Mrs Maitland herself.'

‘In other words, she tries to commit suicide, an' when that fails she thinks she might as well commit a murder instead?' Woodend asked sceptically.

‘That's about the long and short of it,' Beresford admitted. ‘There seems to be a general assumption at the police garage that there's no telling which way a disturbed mind will jump next.'

‘So the glorified mechanics who call themselves forensic experts think they can do the psychologist's job as well, do they?' Woodend said. ‘What's next? Will we be havin' the shrinks changin' wheels, and the CID washin' the windows?' He paused to light a fresh cigarette from the smouldering butt of his old one. ‘What do you think yourself, lad?'

‘I wouldn't care to speculate, sir.'

‘Then you're in the wrong job, son. Speculation is our stock in trade.'

‘I
do
have an idea,' Beresford admitted. ‘But it seems very far-fetched.'

‘Let's hear it, anyway.'

‘I think it's possible that Mr Burroughs tried to kill Mrs Maitland, and she just sort of … well … retaliated.'

‘Or someone who had her best interests at heart – someone who'd worked out for himself what Burroughs had probably done – decided to retaliate
for
her?'

‘That's possible, too,' Beresford agreed, relieved that Woodend had not dismissed his idea out of hand.

‘How easy would it have been for Burroughs to tinker with the van, if he'd wanted to?' Woodend asked.

‘As far as I can tell, there'd have been no problem at all. There are several vans in the fleet, and they were left on an unsupervised car park next to the catering company offices. On the morning of the crash, Mrs Maitland drove her own car to work, then transferred to the van. The accident – if that's what it was – happened a couple of minutes after she set off.'

‘In other words, Burroughs could have doctored the van overnight, without anybody seeing him?'

‘Yes.'

‘But why the bloody hell would he?' Woodend asked, exasperatedly. ‘What possible motive could he have had?'

‘I don't know.'

‘The problem is – an' always has been – that we don't understand anythin' like enough about the Maitland–Burroughs relationship,' Woodend said exasperatedly. ‘Accordin' to his wife, they were lovers, but according to Judith, they weren't. The landlord of the Philosophers' Arms told Sergeant Paniatowski that a woman who he thought was Judith was about to bail Burroughs out of the hole he'd dug himself into. But we've no bloody idea why she should ever want to do that. We need answers, an' we're not getting' them – because Judith
won't
tell us, and Burroughs
can't
.'

‘It's difficult,' Beresford said.

Woodend gave him the sort of look which had sent a shiver running through the veins of many an aspiring young detective before him.

‘Nay, lad, you've got it wrong,' the Chief Inspector said. ‘Walkin' a tightrope across Niagara Falls is
difficult
. The task we're facing is bloody near
impossible
!'

T
he Westside Hotel made great play in its advertisements of being convenient for both Manchester's Victoria Railway Station and the city's main shopping streets. But it was also, Paniatowski noted, discreetly located on a side street, which meant that guests who were entering or leaving it would be unlikely to accidentally run into anyone they knew. It was, in other words, the ideal sort of hotel in which to have a lovers' tryst, and if she and Bob had ever brought their affair to Manchester, it was just such a hotel they would have been looking for.

Paniatowski had been prepared to pull all kinds of psychological levers in an effort to jolt the reception clerk's memory, but none of them proved to be necessary. The moment she showed him the picture, he nodded his head knowingly.

‘Yes, I know him,' the clerk said. ‘He came here for years.'

‘You're sure it was him?' Paniatowski asked – concerned that anything could be quite as easy as that. ‘Couldn't you be confusing him with someone who just looked vaguely like him?'

‘Absolutely not. I make a point of remembering all our regular customers, because if you know their names when they first come through the door, there's a better chance of a tip when they leave. But in Mr Burroughs' case, there's also the fact that he got himself murdered and had his face splashed all over the papers. I can even recall reading the article about it in the
Evening News
, and thinking to myself: Well, you've had the last ten bob tip you'll ever get out of him, Steve.'

‘Did he come alone?'

The clerk grinned. ‘You're testing me, aren't you?'

‘Maybe,' Paniatowski conceded.

‘He always brought his wife with him.'

‘Really?'

‘Really! The only thing was, it was a different wife every time,' the clerk said, in a tone which was half-disapproving, but also half-envious. ‘I've lost count of the number of “Mrs Burroughses” who've tried out for themselves the strength of our bedsprings.'

‘How long did they normally stay here – Mr Burroughs and all the Mrs Burroughses?'

‘Only the one night. Mr Burroughs didn't need more than that. He knew what he wanted from them – and he knew where they kept it.'

‘He once paid a bill for a whole month's accommodation,' Paniatowski pointed out.

‘Yes, he did,' the clerk agreed. ‘But that was different.'

‘
How
was it different?'

‘Well, for a start, the one he brought with him that time wasn't like his other women. She was no more than a girl, really. Very young, and very frightened-looking. A bit like how you'd imagine an injured fawn to be.'

‘Very poetic,' Paniatowski said dryly. ‘With your way with words, you're wasted in the hotel business. But you said the fact that she was only a girl was just a start. What else was different about her?'

‘He normally booked a double room to entertain his lady-friends in, but this particular time he booked two single rooms with a connecting door. Of course, that wasn't really much of a surprise to me. I could see when they walked in that he hadn't brought her here for his usual purposes.'

‘Why was that? Because she was so young? Or because she looked so frightened.'

‘Neither,' the clerk said. ‘It was because she was so
pregnant
.'

‘What?'

‘Didn't I say? She was nearly full-term. She went straight from here to the maternity hospital.'

Woodend and Paniatowski arrived at the prison within minutes of each other, and were shown into the visitors' room together. Judith Maitland did not seem particularly pleased to see the addition of a new face, but there was a steely resolve in her eyes and she was clearly not to be deterred from her purpose by Monika Paniatowski's presence.

‘You're here because the Governor's told you about our interview, aren't you?' she asked.

‘I'm not sure I know what you're talkin' about, Mrs Maitland,' Woodend admitted.