him puke up the first time he read it, but which he kept
re-readinâ
â as if he couldnât help himself â even when he was at work. Now, what could have been in that letter?â
âI think his sister-in-law could be right about the gambling debts,â Paniatowski said.
âSo what are you suggestinâ? That the bookies have decided that breakinâ legs isnât a sufficient incentive to make their clients pay up any more, anâ have moved their persuasion techniques up a notch?â
âOf course not,â Paniatowski said. âBut it canât do any harm to have the bookies checked out, can it?â
Woodend nodded. âNo, it canât do any harm at all,â he agreed. âWhen it comes to secret vices, itâs often the quiet ones you have to watch, because theyâre always the best at keeping it to themselves.â
âSo weâll have the bookies checked out?â
âWhy not? What have we got to lose? And while theyâre beinâ questioned about Pughâs possible gamblinâ habits, they can also have a look at the sketch of the Unknown Greek.â
âWhat I donât understand is why Terry Pugh left the pub with this Greek feller in the first place,â Beresford said, sounding troubled.
âGo on,â Woodend said encouragingly â because a troubled thought could often turn out to be a fruitful one.
âThe meeting heâd arranged to have with Mr Hough was important to him, wasnât it?â Beresford asked.
âVery important. Hough was about to offer him a much better job than the one he had at the time â anâ he could have used the extra money, what with the baby beinâ on the way.â
âAnd from what youâve said about him expanding his factory, Mr Hough must be a very busy man.â
âI imagine he is.â
âSo, since his time is valuable, he wonât have taken kindly to being stood up, will he? He might even have withdrawn the job offer, for all Pugh knew. Yet despite that, he decides to leave the pub with the Unknown Greek â a stranger, who heâs only been talking to for a couple of minutes.â
âYouâre right, that doesnât make sense,â Paniatowski agreed. âThe Greek canât have been a stranger to him at all.â
âOn the other hand, theyâre unlikely to have met in Whitebridge, because weâve already established that if the Greek had been here for any length of time, one of our lads would have been bound to notice him,â Woodend said thoughtfully. He nodded at Beresford. âWell done, lad. Youâve not only raised some interestinâ questions, but youâve landed yourself a job for the morninâ.â
âWhat jobâs that, sir?â
âI want you to find out if Terry Pughâs done much travellinâ, and especially if heâs ever been to Greece.â
âOr Turkey. Or Yugoslavia. Or Romania,â Paniatowski said.
And then she grinned, just in case Woodend had missed the point that what she was doing was mocking him for his earlier pessimism.
âAye, or any of them other strange weird anâ wonderful foreign places as well,â Woodend agreed, grinning back at her.
He suddenly realized he was feeling much better than he had earlier. The black mood that this investigation had induced in him â and which had coloured his view of life in general, and Bob Rutterâs absence in particular â had been somewhat lifted by talking through the case with Paniatowski and Beresford.
Of course, he understood that they still had a long way to go before they were in a position to make an arrest. And, of course, it didnât help that the Chief Constable was still insisting that they pretend Terry Pughâs murder was a suicide. But these were no more than occupational hazards.
He took another sip of his pint, and decided that letting the beer settle
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