said cautiously.
âBut whatâs your gut instinct, sir?â
âI donât know if I have one,â Woodend admitted. âDouglas Coutes was a real nasty piece of work when I knew him â but the world is full of nasty pieces of work, anâ not all of them turn into killers.â
âSo itâs possible he
was
framed, as he claims?â
âYes.â
âBut unlikely?â
âThe only thing that Coutes has got goinâ for him is that heâs not a
stupid
man by any means,â Woodend mused. âAnâ if he
is
guilty, he made not one, but two, incredibly stupid mistakes â the first at the time of the murder, anâ the second much later.â
âThe one at the time would have been using his own knife to kill the American?â Paniatowski suggested.
âYes, thatâs right,â Woodend agreed. âI saw him with that knife myself, anâ there must have been dozens of other people in Haverton Camp whoâd done the same. So why not use some other weapon instead? Why not a bayonet, for example? That would have done the job â anâ he could certainly have got his hands on one, easily enough.â
âYes, I imagine he could,â Paniatowski said.
âAnâ even if he
did
use his own knife,â Woodend continued, âwhatever would have possessed him to leave it in the grave with his victim?â
âHe could have panicked,â Paniatowski suggested. âKillers do make incredible mistakes when they lose their nerve.â
âTrue enough,â Woodend agreed. âBut Coutes never struck me as the panicking sort.â
âWhat about the second mistake he might have made?â Monika Paniatowski asked.
âThat was very recent. In his position as Minister of Defence, he must have been consulted on the matter of selling Haverton Camp to a firm of property developers.â
âAnd if heâd known that Kineallyâs body was buried there, heâd have done all he could to block the sale?â
âExactly. But accordinâ to what Forsythâs told me, Coutes showed very little interest in the sale at all. So either he
is
innocent or heâs
so
arrogant that he thought that even if the body was discovered, heâd get away with it.â
âWhich is highly unlikely, because of the knife,â Monika Paniatowski pointed out.
âWhich is highly unlikely because of the knife,â Woodend agreed. âSo what weâre left with, Sergeant, is a situation which doesnât add up
however
you rearrange the clues.â
âYou mentioned a girl,â Paniatowski said.
âDid I?â Woodend asked, sounding suddenly troubled.
âI think you said that her name was Mary Parkinson.â
âI should never have brought that name up.â
âWhy?â
âBecause Iâd like you to keep an open mind about this case, Monika, anâ if I start tellinâ you all about Mary Parkinson, itâll slam at least a couple of your mental doors tight shut.â
âWhat does that mean, exactly?â Paniatowski wondered. âThat once youâve told me all about her â and how she fits into this case â Iâll feel inclined to think that Coutes is guilty?â
âMore or less.â
âI still think I should know.â
âAnâ I donât,â Woodend said firmly. âItâs bad enough that I should be prejudiced against the bastard right from the start, without you gettinâ in on the act as well.â
âBut if I donât have the full pictureââ
âTalk about somethinâ else,â Woodend said, in a tone which was not quite an order â but came perilously close to it.
âThey want me to back off!â Senator Eugene Kineally told his Chief of Staff, that crisp Washington DC morning which was to see the first of the cherry blossom come into bloom. âThose sons-of-bitches at