The Witch Maker by Sally Spencer Page A

team?’
    â€˜I know nothin’ about Harry Dimdyke’s private life which would assist your investigation,’ Thwaites said stiffly.
    â€˜How many more years have you got to serve before you’re eligible for a pension?’
    â€˜Four an’ a half.’
    â€˜You could lose that pension, you know. If you were kicked off the Force for misconduct, your pension rights could go right down the drain. Is that what you
want
to happen?’
    Thwaites took a deep breath. ‘I
want
to live out my time in this village, sir. I’d rather do it with a pension than without one, but if it comes to a choice between one an’ the other, I’ll choose the village.’
    â€˜An’ what about justice?’ Woodend demanded. ‘Am I the only one who wants to see Harry Dimdyke’s killer arrested?’
    â€˜We
all
want to see him arrested,’ Thwaites said levelly. ‘But we know that whoever killed him, he wasn’t one of us. Can I go now, sir?’
    â€˜Aye,’ Woodend said wearily. ‘Bugger off back to your cosy little police house, an’ give a bit of thought to what it’d be like to lose it.’

Eight
    W oodend looked across the pub table at the chair in which – until a couple of minutes earlier – Constable Thwaites had been sitting so uncomfortably. It was strange, he thought, but the constable seemed to make more of an impression with his absence than he had ever managed to do with his presence.
    â€˜I didn’t handle our friend, the local bobby, very well, did I?’ he asked his sergeant.
    â€˜It’s hard to imagine how you could have handled him worse,’ Paniatowski replied.
    Plain-speaking had always played a larger part in their working relationship than social niceties, Woodend thought, and all Paniatowski was doing now was speaking plainly. So he had no right to feel offended. None at all.
    Yet he did. Worse, although he knew there was absolutely no justification for it, he felt a sudden urge to strike out.
    â€˜How long have you been an expert on human relations, Sergeant?’ he demanded, unreasonably.
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜I should have thought that after the complete bloody mess you made of things over that affair with Bob Rutter, you’d have been a little tolerant of other people’s failin’s.’
    Paniatowski said nothing. There was nothing she
could
have said. Because she recognized the underlying truth of her boss’s statement – acknowledged that she and Detective Inspector Bob Rutter had indeed made a complete bloody mess of things.
    It was Woodend who finally broke the silence which had fallen between them. ‘I’m goin’ to make a phone call,’ he said. ‘If you want another drink, order it – an’ I’ll pay for it when I get back.’
    Bob Rutter had been a stickler for tidiness even before his wife’s blindness had made it imperative that everything should always be in the right place – and his desk was a fair reflection of his overall attitude. His in-tray and out-tray were both placed precisely in parallel with the edges of the desk, and the correspondence resting in them was neatly squared-off. His pencils were all well-sharpened, his blotting paper changed every couple of days. Order reigned supreme.
    There was only one personal item in evidence. It was a photograph, in a silver frame, placed in such a position that Rutter would see it every time he reached for his phone. The woman in the photograph was smiling optimistically in the direction of a camera she was unable to see. She had dark hair and olive skin. She was unquestionably beautiful, but he would have loved her just as much even if she hadn’t been.
    There was a photograph at the other end of the desk to balance the one of Maria, Rutter thought, looking at the empty space. But this second one was invisible to everyone but him. The woman in it was blonde. Sometimes he saw