Free Death of an Innocent by Sally Spencer Page A

which probably means
after
Bennett got his mysterious phone call.’
    â€˜No other findin’s? Was there any evidence that the girl had been interfered with?’
    â€˜Sexually, you mean?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Not even a hint of it.’ Paniatowski looked around her and, as if gaining inspiration from her surroundings, she added, ‘Dr Pierson said she was as pure as the driven snow.’
    Doc Pierson was not a man to make mistakes, Woodend thought. True, he’d slipped up on the time of death at the farmhouse, but as he pointed out at the time, he was feeling rough. And even if there hadn’t been the evidence of the broken wristwatch to make him question his initial estimate, he’d probably have amended it anyway, once he’d had the victims on the table.
    â€˜I’d better be getting back before I’m missed,’ Paniatowski said.
    â€˜As bad as that, is it?’
    â€˜Worse. DI Harris doesn’t work like you, sir. He’s not content to let his team follow their instincts and report back to him when they’ve got something solid to contribute. He wants to know where we are every hour of the day.’
    A real paper-pusher and rubber-band counter, Woodend thought. Just like dear old Deputy Chief Constable Ainsworth. But it wasn’t the Harrises and Ainsworths of this world who came up with the solutions to serious crimes – it was the men like him, men who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty when the situation called for it.
    â€˜When can we meet again?’ he asked.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Paniatowski said awkwardly. ‘It’s difficult to fix a definite time.’
    Was that another way of saying that she’d rather they
didn’t
meet again? Woodend wondered – a gentle way of breaking it to him that things were getting too hot for her, and she’d rather pull out while she had the chance?
    â€˜Let’s make some kind of arrangement,’ he suggested. ‘If it doesn’t work out, you can always cancel or simply not turn up.’
    â€˜I don’t want to waste your time,’ Paniatowski said.
    â€˜Time seems to be all I’ve got plenty of at the moment. I can afford to waste hours of it.’
    â€˜The best thing you could do would be to go home and wait for me to ring you,’ Paniatowski said.
    Or to put it another way, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you,’ Woodend thought.
    He didn’t
want
to go home. He dreaded the idea of sitting around in an empty house, twiddling his thumbs while others did the work. But what other choice did he have?
    â€˜You
will
ring me, won’t you?’ he said.
    â€˜When I can,’ Paniatowski replied evasively.
    She got back into her MGA and fired up the engine. The dogs behind the chain-linked fence had been relatively quiet for a while, but now, with these new signs of activity, they pressed their muzzles fiercely through the wire.
    Woodend watched Paniatowski’s MGA disappear down the road – and tried to tell himself that his hopes were not disappearing with it. Then, when the MGA was finally out of sight, he turned back to contemplate the moors.
    In the distance, well beyond the other side of the road, he saw two small brown shapes scurrying across the snow.
    Rabbits!
    He wondered what it would be like to have a life as simple as theirs – a life driven only by the primeval desires for food, sex and shelter.
    An ominous black shadow glided across the snow and, looking up, he saw a large kestrel hawk. He had been wrong about the rabbits, he decided. Their lives weren’t so simple after all – other creatures, with different needs to their own, had ensured that.
    He thought about his own, personal predator, DCI Stanley Evans, who had swooped down from Preston that morning, and was already hovering over his career, waiting to strike.
    â€˜You won’t get
me
, Evans,’ he said loudly, to the empty moors.