Arms and the Women
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Minutes passed. The watchers didn’t move. They had had years to learn that patience too is one of the great military arts.
Finally the sentry’s face began to show his suspicion that the sea must after all have won its battle against the climbing Greek. He glanced at the guard commander. But his was a face as jagged and pocked as a city wall after long siege, and quite unreadable at the best of times, so the sentry didn’t risk speaking and returned to his watch.
A few moments later he was glad of his self-restraint. A new sound drifted up the cliff face amidst the lash of water and howl of wind. It was the noise of laboured breathing, getting closer.
The sentry began to smile in happy anticipation. He decided not just to slit the throat but to have a go at taking the whole head off. It would be fun to go back into the camp and toss it down among his half-waking comrades and say negligently, ‘Got myself another Greek while you idle sods were sleeping.’
The breathing was loud now. The sentry moved his position so that he was right above it. An arm like a small tree trunk was swung up to rest on the edge of the cliff, and then a shag of salt-caked hair appeared, and finally the man’s head came fully into view and a pair of deep-sunk, intensely blue eyes took in the waiting men.
‘How do, chuck,’ said the Greek.
The sentry rocked forward on his toes and shot out his left hand to grab the grizzled hair. But quick as he moved, the Greek was quicker. His other hand came into view, grasping a large jagged clamshell. It snaked out almost faster than the eye could follow, and the next moment the sentry’s left wrist was slit through to the bone.
He fell backward, shrieking. His right hand released his sword as he grasped the gaping wound to staunch the spurting blood. The Greek dropped the shell and reached out to pick up the fallen weapon. Then a heavy-shod foot crashed down on his forearm and pinned it to the ground.
He looked up at the unreadably rugged face of the guard commander and smiled through his tangle of beard.
‘Thanks, chuck,’ he said. ‘Saved me from a nasty fall.’
‘Kill the bastard, Commander,’ urged the ashen-faced sentry. ‘Chop his fucking arm right off!’
The commander was aware of the blue eyes fixed quizzically on his face as he debated the matter.
‘Not yet,’ he said finally. ‘Not till we know if there are any more of his kind about. Besides, the men need cheering up after what’s happened recently, and I reckon a clever old Greek like this will take a long time dying.’
‘Long as you like, Captain,’ said the Greek. ‘I’m in no hurry whatsoever. I’ll
‘Shit,’ said Ellie Pascoe.
Through the open window of the boxroom which she refused to dignify with the name study she had heard a car turning into their short drive.
She finished reading, take as long as ever you like.’, pressed Save to preserve her corrections and went to the window.
A man and a woman were getting out of the car and heading for the front door.
‘Hello,’ called Ellie.
This voice from above made them start like guilty things surprised, and the woman dropped her car keys.
Perhaps they think it’s the voice of God, thought Ellie.
Or perhaps (one thought leading to another) they think they are the voice of God.
‘If you’re Witnesses,’ she called, ‘I think I should tell you we’re all communist satanists here. I’ll be happy to send you some of our literature.’
‘Mrs Pascoe?’ said the woman. ‘Mrs Ellie Pascoe?’
She didn’t look like a Witness. And Witnesses didn’t drive big BMWs.
A pair of assertions as unsupported as a Hottentot’s tits (she plucked the phrase from her collection of Andy Dalziel memorabilia), but evidence is what we look for when intuition fails (one of her constabulary-baiting own).
‘Hang on. I’ll come down,’ she said.
By the time she got downstairs and opened the front door, the couple had recovered their composure. Now they just looked concerned.
‘Mrs Pascoe?’ said the man, who was slim, thirtyish, not bad-looking and wearing a rather nice Prince of Wales check suit which looked like it had been cut in Savile Row. Would look even nicer on Peter. ‘You are Mrs Pascoe?’
‘I thought we’d established that.’
‘My name’s Jim Westcombe. I’m with the council’s Education Welfare Department. It’s about your daughter, Rose. She’s at Edengrove Junior, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but not today. I mean, it’s their end-of-term trip to Tegley Hall Theme Park… look, what’s this about?’ Ellie demanded.
The man and woman looked at each other, then the man went on, ‘Honestly, there’s nothing to worry about, she’s fine, you’re not to worry, really…’
‘What?’
There are few things more worrying to a mother than being told not to worry, especially a mother who a few short weeks ago was sitting by a hospital bed, not knowing if her child was going to recover from meningitis or not.
The woman gave her a look which combined empathy of her feelings and exasperation at her companion’s heavy-handedness.
‘Jim, shut up,’ she said. ‘Mrs Pascoe, the coach taking the children to Tegley has broken down. There’s a replacement coach on the way, but it seems your little girl wasn’t feeling too well and the head teacher thought it best to make arrangements to get her home, only when he tried to ring you he couldn’t get through…’
Ellie turned and grabbed the hall phone. It was dead. In the mirror hanging above the phone, she saw an unrecognizably pale face whose pallor shone through her summer tan like a corpse-light through muslin. This was it. This was the punishment she deserved. She had brought it on herself… worse… on Rosie… on Peter…
‘… so he tried your husband but he wasn’t available, so then he rang into the Education office and as Jim and I were coming out this way and would be passing your road end, we said we’d call and check if you were in.’
‘Oh God,’ said Ellie.
I’m confused, she thought. I’m not hearing properly.
She leaned against the door frame to steady herself and the woman reached forward to rest her hand on Ellie’s arm and said, ‘Really, it’s OK, Mrs Pascoe. You know how it is, end of term, kids getting excited, rushing around like mad. I’ve got two myself, I know how they can keep us frightened, believe me. It’s just a matter of getting out there to pick the little girl up. Have you got your car here? Jim can go with you, he knows where the breakdown happened. I can’t come myself, I’m afraid. I’ve got an urgent appointment, but Jim can spare a couple of hours, can’t you, Jim? He’ll even drive if you don’t feel up to it.’
‘Surely,’ said the man. ‘No problem at all. Let’s get started, shall we? Sooner we’re on the way, sooner you can get your little girl home.’
Ellie took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough. She took another. It was like squirting oil onto a piece of rusty machinery. She could almost hear the gears of her mind starting to grate against each other as she reviewed everything that had been said to her.
She said, ‘Sorry. This has knocked me out. I’m not usually so slow. It was just a bit of a shock. I thought you were trying to tell me there’s been an accident…’
‘Nothing like that,’ said the woman. ‘Really.’
‘And did you talk to Mr Johnson, the head, yourself? You’re sure he said it was nothing to worry about?’
‘Yes, I spoke direct with Mr Johnson,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Just a tummy bug, he reckoned. But she really wants to be home rather than bumping around on a bus all day.’
‘And if it was anything more serious, the sooner we get out there, the better, eh?’ said the man heartily.
‘Jim, please!’ said the woman reprimandingly.
‘No, it’s OK,’ said Ellie, stepping forward and smiling at the man. ‘It’s always best to be ready for the worst. Are you ready, Mr Westcombe?’
Then she brought her knee up as hard as she could between his legs.
It was good to see his face drain pale as her own.
Now she swung her right arm round hard at the woman’s neck. The blow would probably have felled her, but she was quick and ducked low, though not low enough to avoid all contact. Ellie’s hand caught her on the temple just above the right eye with enough force to send her reeling back into the Climbing Pompon de Paris growing up the pillar to the left of the front porch.
When Ellie had bought it, Peter had grumbled that nowadays it was surely possible to get a less prickly, more user-friendly rose, but she’d been unrepentant. The tiny pink pompom blossoms had been her father’s favourite before Alzheimer’s robbed him of even that. And now, as she heard the woman scream, Ellie knew she’d always love the thorns too.
She retreated over her threshold and slammed the door shut. Ramming the bolts home, she became aware of pain in her right wrist, and as she slid to the floor with her back against the door, in her right knee too. She sat there, breathing deep, as if she’d just run a hundred metres up a steep hill. Outside she heard car doors shut and an engine start up and reverse away.
She sat there till there was nothing to hear but her own harsh breathing, and when that too finally faded, she rose and went to an upstairs window and looked down at the empty driveway.
Whatever had happened was over. So why did she feel it had just begun?
iii
memories are made of this
‘And you kneed him in the balls?’ said Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel gleefully. ‘Well done, lass.’
‘Sure. Except they must have been made of brass,’ said Ellie, who was sitting sideways on a sofa with a large pack of frozen oven chips draped over her knee and a smaller pack of fish fingers pressed against her wrist. Having a non-gourmet kid sometimes came in useful. ‘Have they got hold of Peter yet?’
This was aimed at Detective Sergeant Edgar Wield who’d just entered the room, carrying a mobile phone.
‘No, but they’re still there, they’ve located the coach. I’ve sent Seymour down there. He’ll spot them eventually, but Tegley Hall Theme Park’s a big place. And you said you didn’t want him paged over the speakers.’
‘No,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘Softly, softly. I don’t want him getting the kind of shock I had.’
The two detectives exchanged glances, then Dalziel said, ‘Talking of which, lass, as you won’t let us take you to the quackery, I’ve got Wieldy here to organize the quack to come to you. And afore you start sounding off again, I reckon you could do with a bit more than fish and chips for them joints of yours. Also, I don’t like your colour.’
‘And I bet you’ve arrested people for less than that. Sorry, Andy. That was stupid. I’m still feeling so angry. As for my colour, you should have seen me half an hour ago. I was grey. Not as grey as that bastard, though, after I’d kneed him.’
‘Aye, that’s where we’d got to, wasn’t it?’
‘Second time round!’
‘Aye, well. You were a bit excitable, first time.’
‘Hysterical, you mean?’
‘Nay, lass. You know me, if I’d meant hysterical, I’d have said it. Wieldy, you’re lurking. Summat else?’
‘Checked with the Education Department. No one there called Westcombe or fitting the descriptions.’
‘Christ, you’re checking up on me!’ exclaimed Ellie angrily. ‘You think maybe I just lose it when I’m confronted by stupid officials? Well, you could be about to find out you’re right.’
Wield went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The car’s number. How sure are you you got it right?’
‘As sure as I could be considering it was going through my mind these two wanted to abduct me in order to do God knows what to me. So if I got a figure wrong, it wouldn’t be surprising, would it? But it was definitely a dark-blue BMW, one of the big ones. Look, why’re you wasting time grilling me like this? I scribbled everything I could remember down soon as I could. Christ, I haven’t been married to the Force all these years without picking up some of your nasty habits. Why aren’t you out there looking for these people?’
‘You’d be surprised how often I get asked that question and I’ve not worked out a smart answer yet,’ said Dalziel. ‘Can’t even say it’s raining. Why’re you asking about the car, Wieldy?’
‘Did a check, sir. And according to Swansea, what Ellie gave us isn’t a number in use.’
‘False plates then,’ said Dalziel. ‘But try the obvious variations just in case.’
‘Yes, sir. By the way, phone wire was shorted with a pin where it goes into the hall window. Pull it out, it should be OK, but we won’t touch it till Forensic’s finished out there. Oh, and Novello’s here.’
‘Ivor? Good. Send her in.’
‘Hang about,’ said Ellie. ‘If you’re thinking I need a friendly female copper to unburden my heart to…’
‘Nay. I brought her for the strip search but I’ll do it if you like,’ said Dalziel.
Wield made for the door.
Ellie said, ‘Wieldy, sorry I snapped at you. I think I may still be a bit… excitable.’
The sergeant’s generally inscrutable features which, in Dalziel’s words, were knobbly enough to make a pineapple look like a pippin, smoothed momentarily into a warm smile, and he said, ‘I’ll let you know soon as we get a hold of Pete.’
‘By God,’ said Dalziel after the sergeant had gone. ‘Was that a smile, or has he got toothache? Nearest yon bugger ever came to cracking his face at me was the time I fell into the swimming pool at the mayor’s reception. Oh aye. I see you remember that too.’
A smile had touched Ellie’s lips, and she forced it to broaden as she saw the Fat Man observing her closely. Anything was better than having a womanly weep in front of Andy Dalziel. And even more, in front of Detective Constable Shirley Novello, who had just slipped into the room. Five-four, sturdy frame, minimum make-up, dark-brown hair neat but nothing fancy, baggy sweatshirt and matching slacks, she should have been two steps from invisible, which was presumably her intention. Down-dressing did not deceive Ellie Pascoe’s expert eye, however. She’d heard her husband talk a little too appreciatively of the girl’s professional qualities, and she saw the way even Fat Andy’s spirits perked up a notch or two at her entry. This was definitely one to watch.
‘You going to make an old man happy, lass?’ said Dalziel.
‘Don’t think so, sir. Just a first take on house-to-house. We’ve got two people who noticed the BMW. Confirmation of colour, but nothing extra on the numberplate. One of them thought it had an unusually long aerial compared with her husband’s car, which is the same model.’
‘Well-heeled neighbours you’ve got, Ellie,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Mebbe we’re paying Pete too much. That it, Ivor?’
‘Except for an old lady lives at the corner, towards town, that is, says she looked out to see what all the fuss was when she heard the sirens and saw a car doing a three-point turn and going back the way it came. Metallic-blue, sounds like a Golf. Driver looked swarthy and sinister, she says.’
‘Watch a lot of telly, does she? Ivor, it’s what happened before we came that I’m interested in. Afterwards, any poor sod driving along and seeing the street full of flashing fuzz is going to find another route, specially if he’s had a swift snort or two at a business meeting.’
The notion was suggestive. Ellie looked longingly at the bottle of Scotch which the Fat Man had dug out as soon as he arrived. At the time it had seemed virtuously sensible to quote what her first aid course said about avoiding alcohol in cases of shock, but now it seemed merely priggish.
She said, ‘OK, Andy. Let’s do it one more time. Then I don’t care if it brings on complete amnesia, I’m going to have that drink you prescribed.’
‘I’m feeling better already,’ said Dalziel. ‘No, Ivor, don’t sneak off. Got your short stubby pencil ready? I want you taking notes. Everything, not just what you think’s important, OK?’
‘Sir,’ said Novello.
Her eyes met Ellie Pascoe’s and she gave a little smile. All she got in return was a small frown. Confirming what she’d felt on their previous few meetings, that La Pascoe didn’t much like her. Couldn’t blame her, the WDC thought complacently. When I’m her age, I’ve no intention of liking good-looking women ten years my junior who work with my husband. Not that her own husband, if she ever bothered, would be anything like Chief Inspector Pascoe. It would probably be a comfort to Ellie Pascoe to know that her fantasies featured chunky, hairy men on surf-pounded beaches, not slim, nice-mannered introverts who would feel it necessary to buy you a decent French meal before checking into a good four-star hotel. But it was not a comfort she was about to offer.
The Great God Dalziel was speaking.
‘Right, lass. One more time. You were really taken in at first?’
‘Damn right I was. All I could think was, not again, oh God, it’s not all happening again. You know, Rosie in hospital, me camping out there, all the fears…’
The memory of that time was still so powerful, it had the therapeutic effect of reducing her present aftershock to manageable size, and she went on more strongly, ‘She’d only gone back to school for this final week before the summer hols… she insisted, and you know Rosie, when she makes up her mind…’
‘Can’t think who she takes after,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wanted to see all her mates, did she? And not miss this end-of-term outing.’
‘Both of those. Also to get out from under me, I suspect.’
‘Eh?’
Ellie said, ‘Andy, I’m ready for that drink now. Please.’
She took the proffered tumbler and said scornfully, ‘That wouldn’t drown a tall gnat. Cheers.’
It went down in one. Dalziel, who’d poured himself a good three inches, poured her another millimetre.
‘God Almighty, man! And it’s not even your whisky,’ she said.
‘Not my stomach either,’ said Dalziel. ‘You said something about Rosie getting out from under you. Never had you down as the clinging-mother type.’
‘No? Perhaps not.’
She brooded on this for a moment, glanced at Novello, then, with an effort at matter-of-factness, went on, ‘Since we got her back, after the meningitis, I’ve hardly been able to bear letting her out of my sight. She goes in the garden to play and two minutes later I have a panic attack. I think in the end I just began to get on her nerves, so school seemed a desirable alternative.’
‘Nay, you know what kids are like about missing things…’
‘The trip to Tegley Hall, you mean? Well, there’s another thing. They invite any parents who feel like giving a hand to go along. It’s a big responsibility, ferrying that number of kids around somewhere like that. I was going to go, but last night Rosie suddenly said, “Why can’t Daddy go? Miss Martindale says it doesn’t just have to be mummies.” Peter, bless his heart, said, why not? He’d like nothing better than a day in the company of his daughter and a hundred other kids. And he rang you and you kindly said that considering how hard you’d been working him for the past hundred years or so, he was long overdue a bit of time off…’
‘Don’t recollect them as my exact words,’ said Dalziel.
‘Peter is one of nature’s paraphrasers. So, nothing for me to do but say, “Great. It’ll give me the chance to get on with some work,” and smile through my tears.’
‘So you worried?’
‘Of course I worried. I worried about what kind of mother I was. And I worried about them out there in the big wide world without me to look after them. And I worried about myself for worrying about them!’
Plus the other worries she wasn’t about to air in front of Novello. Or Dalziel either, for that matter. Or indeed herself if she could help it. Worries like damp patches on a kitchen wall, that you could stand a chair in front of, or hang a wallchart over, or even just ignore, but you knew that sometime you were going to have to deal with them.
‘So I went upstairs, switched my laptop on and started working,’ she concluded.
‘That help with worries, does it?’ He sipped his Scotch and looked at her doubtfully.
Something else she wasn’t going to lay out in present company.
‘The poet Cowper managed to keep religious mania at bay for several decades by dint of writing,’ she said spiritedly.
‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,’ said Dalziel, whose capacity to surprise should have ceased to surprise her. ‘Then the doorbell rang?’
‘No. I heard their car and spoke to them out of the window. Then I went downstairs and opened the door.’
‘Oh aye, you said. No print on the bellpush then. Pity.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have thought on.’
He smiled at her sarcasm, then said seriously, ‘When they mentioned Rosie, it must have been right bad.’
‘Bad? It felt like the bottom had fallen out of the universe. It was like getting the worst news you could imagine, and knowing it was all your own fault.’
She spoke with a vehemence which came close to being excessive.
‘All your fault? Nay, luv, can’t see how you could ever think that,’ he said, viewing her closely.
If Dalziel had been by himself, she might have stumbled into an explanation.
Maybe something like, I felt so relieved that morning not to be going with Rosie, to know she was in Peter’s care, to have a day at last when I could stop worrying about her. But not just for her sake, and not even because I could probably do with the rest myself, but because when we nearly lost her, I knew then what I must have known before but never had occasion to look straight in the eye, that my single-handed sailing days were over forever, that I’d been pressed as part of a three-man crew on a lifelong voyage over what were hopefully oceans of absolute love. Except if it’s so absolute, how come there’s a little part of me somewhere which, like Achilles’s heel, didn’t get submerged? Forgive me muddling my metaphors, it’s probably this story I’m writing. But that’s another story. No, what I’m trying to say is, no matter how I try to hide it from myself, there’s something in me that sometimes yearns to be free, that gets nostalgic for the long-lost days of free choice, that comes close to seeing this love I feel not as a gift but as a burden, not as a privilege but a responsibility. Perhaps I’m simply a selfish person who knows now she can never be selfish again. Does anyone else feel like this? Am I a monster? That’s why I was so ready to believe them, that’s why I felt so guilty. It was like God had decided I hadn’t got the message loud and clear last time and I needed another dose of the same to get me straight.
Something like that, maybe. But probably not, even if Novello and her little notebook hadn’t been there.
‘Just a figure of speech, Andy,’ she said.
‘So you’d have gone with this pair?’ asked the Fat Man.
‘Anywhere they wanted. If they’d kept it vague I’d have got in that car and…and what, Andy? What did they want with me?’
‘That’s for them to know and us to find out,’ said Dalziel. ‘So what put you onto them?’
‘I’ve told you!’
‘Aye, but telling’s like peeing to a man with a swollen prostate, you think you’ve got it all out but there’s often a bit more to come.’
‘Who speaks so well should never speak in vain,’ said Ellie. ‘OK. At first I couldn’t think of anything except Rosie being ill again. Then when they said about trying to contact Peter and being told he wasn’t available, I nearly said, of course he wasn’t available because he’s on the coach!’
‘But you didn’t? Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I reckon to start with it was just a case of being too shocked to speak, and that gave me time to think, I suppose. And suddenly it was like fireworks going off in my brain. I found myself thinking, it’s not just Jehovah’s Witnesses that don’t drive thirty thousand pound BMWs. I mean, I know the council tax has gone up, but surely the Education Department doesn’t kit its employees out like this? Sorry. It makes sense to me, I assure you. At the same time I registered that two or three times they said he when they were talking about the head at Edengrove. Now, one thing anyone in our local Ed Department will know is that the head of Edengrove is Miss Martindale. Not to know her argues yourself braindead. So I thought I’d just give them a little test. I made up a Mr Johnson as head teacher. And when they didn’t respond to that, I knew something very funny was going on.’