REGINALD HILL
GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel

Copyright

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by HarperCollins

This edition published in 2010.

Copyright © Reginald Hill 2004

Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007123438

Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007370306

Version 2015-06-22

Dedication

For Max and Mattie

and in memory of Pip

and all those other

companions of creation

right back to Pangur Ban

messe ocus Pangur Bancechtar nathar fira saindan:bith a menmasam fri seilgg,mu memna cein im saincheirdd.

Epigraph

Good Morning – Midnight –

I’m coming Home –

Day – got tired of Me –

How could I – of Him?

Sunshine was a sweet place –

I liked to stay –

But Morn – didn’t want me – now –

So – Goodnight – Day!

EMILY DICKINSON (1830 – 86)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

March 1991

1 By the Waters of Babylon

March 20th, 2002

1 Dropping the Loop

2 Bedside Manner

3 Signora Borgia’s Guest List

4 An Open Door

5 A Tight Cork

6 A Fishy Smell

7 A British Euro

8 Another Fine Mess

9 The Battle of Moscow

10 A Shark in the Pool

11 SD+SS=PS

12 Cold, Strange World

March 21st, 2002

1 The Crunch Witch

2 The Kafkas at Home

3 A Nice Vase

4 Like Father, Like Son

5 Load of Bollocks

6 Pal

7 Amnesia

8 Assignation

9 Special Filling

10 Green Peckers

11 Cressida

12 Lunch at the Mastaba (1)

13 Hairy Chests

14 See Me!

15 Two-Mile Jigsaw

March 22nd, 2002

1 870

2 Flying With the Cormorants

3 Going With the Flow

4 The Lily and the Rose

5 Helen

6 Big Maggie and Crazy Jane

7 A Tool of the Devil

8 A Bloody Great Splash

9 Blue Beer

10 Kay (1)

11 A Feminist Hook

12 Kay (2)

13 Not the Beverley Sisters

14 Mohawks

15 Our Lady of Pain

16 Jason

17 Lunch at the Mastaba (2)

18 In the Parlour

19 Confessional

20 Dalziel

21 The Voice of Death

22 Walking on Water

March 23rd, 2002

1 A Lady Calls

2 Dolly

3 Middle Name

4 A Bucket of Cold Water

5 A Lovely Cup of Tea

6 An Irish Joke

7 A Load of Bullshit

8 Birdland

9 Mr Waverley

10 And Having Done all, to Stand

11 Midnight

April 2003

1 By the Waters of Babylon

Keep Reading

About the Author

Praise

By Reginald Hill

About the Publisher

March 1991

1
by the waters of Babylon

The war had been over for three weeks. Eventually the process of reconstruction would begin, but for the time being the ruins of the plant remained as they had been twenty-four hours after the missiles struck. By then the survivors had been hospitalized and the accessible dead removed. The smell of death rising from the inaccessible soon became intolerable but it didn’t last long as the heat of the approaching summer accelerated decay and nature’s cleansers, the flies and small rodents, went about their work.

Dust settled, sun and wind airbrushed the exposed rawness of cracked concrete till it was hardly distinguishable from the baked earth surrounding it, and a traveller in this antique land might have been forgiven for thinking that these relicts were as ancient as those of the great city of Babylon only a few miles away.

Finally, with the smells reduced to a bearable level and the dogs picking over the ruins showing no signs of turning even mangier than usual, some bold spirits living in the vicinity began to make their own exploratory forays.

The new scavengers found a degree of devastation so extensive that even the most technically minded of them couldn’t work out the possible function of the plant’s wrecked machinery. They gathered up whatever might be sellable or tradable or adaptable to some domestic purpose and left.

But not all of them. Khalid Kassem, at thirteen counting himself a man and certainly imbued with a sense of adventure and ambition which was adult in its scope, hung back when his father and brothers departed. He was small for his age and slightly built, factors usually militating against his efforts to be taken seriously. In this case, however, he felt they could work to his advantage. He’d noticed a crack in a collapsed wall which he felt he might be able to squeeze through. Earlier while scavenging in the ruins of an office building he had come across a small torch, its bulb miraculously unbroken and its battery retaining enough juice to produce a faint beam. Instead of flaunting his find, he had concealed it, and when he spotted the crack and shone the light through it to reveal a chamber within, he began to feel divinely encouraged in his enterprise.

It was a tight squeeze even for one of his build, but eventually he got through and found himself in what looked to have been a basement storage area. There was blast damage here as there was everywhere and much of the ceiling had been shattered when the floors above had come crashing down, but no actual explosion seemed to have occurred in this space. Among the debris lay a scatter of metal crates, some intact, one or two broken open to reveal cuboids of some kind of lightweight foam cladding. Where this had split, Khalid’s faint beam of light glanced back off dully gleaming machines. He broke some of the cladding away to get a better look and discovered the machine was further wrapped in a close-clinging transparent plastic sheet. Recently on a visit to relatives in Baghdad, he had seen a refrigerator stacked with packets of food wrapped like this. It was explained to him that all the air had been sucked out so that as long as the package remained unopened the food inside would remain fresh. These machines too, he guessed, were being kept fresh. It did not surprise him. Metal he knew was capable of decay, and machinery was, in his limited experience, even harder to keep in good condition than livestock.

There was unfortunately no way to profit from his discovery. Even if it had been possible to recover one of these machines, what would he and his family do with it?

He turned to go, and the faint beam of his torch touched a crate rather smaller than the rest. A long metal cylinder had fallen across it, splitting it completely open, like a knife slicing a melon. It was the shape of its contents that caught his eye. Obscured by the cylinder resting on the broken crate, this lacked the angularity of the vacuum-packed machines. It was more like some kind of cocoon.

He put his torch down and, by using both hands and all his slight body weight, he managed to roll the cylinder to one side. It hit the floor with a crash that raised enough dust to set him coughing.

When he recovered, he picked up his torch and directed the ever fainter beam downward, praying it might reveal some treasure he could bear back proudly to his family.

The light glanced back from a pair of staring eyes.

He screamed in terror and dropped the torch, which went out.

That might have been the end for Khalid, but Allah is merciful and bountiful and permitted two of his miracles together.

The first was that as his scream died away (for want of breath not want of terror) he heard a voice calling his name.

‘Khalid, where the hell are you? Come on, or you’re in big trouble.’

It was his favourite brother, Ahmed.

The second miracle was that another light came on in the storeroom to replace his broken torch. This light was red and intermittent. In the brightness of its flashes he looked again at the vacuum-packed cocoon.

It was a woman in there. She was young and black and beautiful. And of course she was dead.

His brother shouted his name again, sounding both anxious and angry.

‘I’m all right,’ he called back impatiently, his fear fading with Ahmed’s proximity and of course the light.

Which came from … where?

He checked and his fear came back with advantages.

The light was coming from the end of the metal cylinder he had so casually sent crashing to the floor. There were Western letters on the metal which made no sense to him. But one thing he did recognize: the emblem of the great shaitan who was the nation’s bitterest foe.

Now he knew what had come crashing through the roof but had not exploded.

Yet.

He scrambled towards the fissure through which he’d entered. It seemed to have constricted even further, or fear was making him fat, and for a moment he thought he was caught fast. He had one arm through and was desperately trying to get a purchase on the ruined outer wall when his hand was grasped tight and next moment he was being dragged painfully through the gap into Ahmed’s arms.

His brother opened his mouth to remonstrate with him, saw the look on his face and needed no further persuasion to obey when Khalid screamed. ‘Run!’

They ran together, the two brothers, straining every sinew forward, like two champions contesting the final lap in an Olympic race, except that in this competition whenever one stumbled, the other reached out a steadying hand.

The tape they were running to was the Euphrates whose blessed waters had provided fertility and sustenance to their ancestors for centuries.

Time meant nothing, distance was everything.

The only sound was their laboured breathing and the swish of their limbs through the waist-high rushes.

Their eyes stared ahead, to safety, to their future, so they did not see behind them the ruins begin to rise into the air and be themselves ruined.

But they knew instantly there were now other faster competitors in the race.

The sound overtook them first, rolling by in dull thunder.

And then the blast was at their heels, at their shoulders, picking them up and hurling them forward as it raced triumphantly on.

Down they crashed, down they splashed. They were at the river. They felt its blessed coldness sweep over them. They let the current roll them at its own sweet will. Then they rose together, coughing and spluttering, and looked at each other, brother checking brother for damage at the same time as the impulses signalling the state of his own bone and muscle came pulsing along the nerves.

‘You OK, little one?’ said Ahmed after a while.

‘Fine. You?’

‘I’m OK. Hey, you run well for a tadpole.’

‘You too, for a frog.’

They pulled themselves on to the bank and sat looking back at the column of dust and fine debris hanging in the air.

‘So what did you find in there?’ asked Ahmed.

Khalid hardly paused for thought. He had no explanation for what he’d seen, but he was old enough to know he lived in a world where knowledge could be dangerous.

Later he would say a prayer for the dead woman in case she was of the faith.

Or even if she wasn’t.

And then a prayer for himself for lying to his brother.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just the rocket. Otherwise nothing at all.’

March 20th, 2002

1
dropping the loop

It was the last day of winter and the last night of Pal Maciver’s life.

With only fifteen minutes to go, he was discovering that death was even stranger than he’d imagined.

Until the woman left, he’d been fine. From the first-floor landing he had watched her come through the open front door, trailing mist. She tried the light switch. Nothing happened. Standing in the dark she called his name. After all these years she still almost had the power to make him answer. Now was a critical moment. Not make-or-break critical. If she simply turned on her heel and walked away, it wasn’t disastrous. Getting her there could still be made enough.

But he felt God owed him more.

She turned back to the open door. Winter, determined to show he didn’t give a toss for calendars, had rallied his declining forces. There had been flurries of snow on the high moors but here in the city the best he could manage was a denial of light, at first with low cloud, then as the day wore on with mist rolling in from the surrounding countryside. But still enough light seeped in through the narrow window by the door for her to see the stub of candle and book of matches lying on the sill.

His fingers touched the microcassette in his pocket. Without taking it out he pressed the ‘play’ button. Two or three bars of piano music tinkled out, then he switched off.

Below in the hall it must have sounded so distant she was probably already doubting she’d heard it at all. Perhaps indeed he’d overdone the muffling and she really hadn’t heard it.

Then came the sputter of a match and a moment later he saw the amber glow of the candle.

God might not pay all his debts, but he kept up the interest.

Now the candle’s glow moved beyond his range of vision but his ears kept track of her.

Ever a practical woman, she went straight down the passage leading to the kitchen where the electricity mains box was situated high on the wall. He pictured her reaching up to it. He heard her exclamation as the door swung open, releasing a shower of dust and debris. She hated being mussed. He heard the mains switch click down, could imagine her growing frustration as nothing happened.

The glow returned to the entrance hall. Lots of choice here. The two big-bayed reception rooms, the dining room, the music room. But her choice had been preordained. She headed for the music room. The door was locked but the key was in the lock. She tried it. It wouldn’t turn. She tried to force it but she couldn’t make it move.

She called his name once more, nothing uneasy in her voice and certainly nothing of panic, but with the calm clarity of a summons to supper.

She waited for a reply that by now she must have guessed wasn’t coming.

He would have bet her next move would be to cut her losses and walk away. Even if she had the balls for it, he doubted she’d find any reason to come up the gloomy staircase with an uncertain light to confront the memories awaiting her there.

Wrong!

That was exactly what she was doing.

He almost admired her.

As she advanced, he retreated to the upper landing, matching his steps to hers. Would she want to visit the master bedroom? He guessed not and he was right. She went straight to the study door and tried to open it. Oh, this was good. When it didn’t budge, she stood still for a moment before stooping like a comic-book gumshoe to apply her eye to the keyhole. By the vinegary light of the candle, he saw her steady herself with her left hand against the central oak panel.

This was better still! God was truly in a giving vein today.

Suddenly she straightened up and he took a step back into the protection of the black shadows of the upper landing. Now she was nothing to him but the outermost edge of the candle’s faint aureole on the landing below. But the way she’d stood up had been enough. So had she always signalled by some undramatic but nonetheless emphatic movement – a twist of the hand, a turn of the head, a straightening of the shoulders – that a decision had been reached and would be acted on.

He saw the glow float down the stairs, wavering now as she moved with the swiftness of decision. He heard her firm step across the tiled entrance hall, then out on to the gravelled drive. She didn’t close the door behind her. She would leave it as she found it. That too was typical of her.

He waited for half a minute then descended to the hallway. She’d blown the candle out and left it where she’d found it. He pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves and relit the stump, slipping the book of matches into his pocket. He went to the music-room door, removed the key and carefully folded it in a fresh white handkerchief. From the top pocket of his jacket he took an almost identical key, unlocked the door and replaced the key in the same pocket before moving into the kitchen. Here he opened the electricity supply box and reset the mains switch to off. Then he levered off the cover of the fuse box. From his pocket he took the household fuses and replaced them and clicked the mains switch on.

Immediately below the electricity box was a narrow glass-fronted key cupboard, each hook neatly labelled. He opened it, removed the key from his top pocket and hung it on the empty hook marked Music Room.

Some of the dust and debris she’d disturbed from the supply box had landed on top of the key cupboard, some had drifted down to the tiled floor. He took a dustpan and brush from under the sink and carefully swept the tiles but the cupboard top he ignored. He tipped the sweepings into the sink and turned on the tap, letting it run while he opened a wall unit and took out two cut-glass tumblers. From his hip pocket he took a silver flask and a small prescription bottle. From the former he poured whisky into both tumblers into one of which he broke two capsules removed from the latter. He shook the mixture up before tossing it down his throat. He downed the other whisky too before lightly splashing water inside the tumblers, which he then shook and replaced upside down on the cupboard shelf.

Now he made his way back to the entrance hall and mounted the stairs. He inserted the key he had wrapped in his handkerchief into the study door. It turned with well-oiled ease. He wiped the handle clean with his glove and pushed open the door.

For a moment he stood there looking in, like an archaeologist who has broken into a tomb and hesitates to confront what he has been so energetic to discover.

And indeed there was something tomb-like about the room. The old oak panelling had darkened to a slatey blackness, heavily shuttered windows kept light and fresh air at bay and the atmosphere was dank and musty with the smell of old books emanating from two massive mahogany bookcases towering against the end walls. On the wall facing the door hung a half-length portrait of a man in rock-climbing gear with a triple-peaked mountain in the background. On one side of the portrait a coil of rope was mounted on the wall, on the other an ice axe. The painted face was severe and unsmiling as it glared down at the huge Victorian desk that loomed like an ancient sarcophagus in the centre of the floor.

Pal Maciver looked up at the man in the portrait and saw his own face there. He drew a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

It was now that the strangeness started. Hitherto he had been the complete man of action, his whole being concentrated on the working out of his well-laid plans. But as he stepped through the doorway, awareness of that other darker threshold which was getting closer by the minute swept over him like the mist outside, leaving him helpless and floundering.

Then his strong will took command. There was still much work to do. He summoned Action Man back into control, and Action Man returned, but only at the price of a weird fragmentation of sensibility. Far from finding his mind wonderfully concentrated by the imminence of death, he discovered he was split in two, man of action and man of feeling, or rather in three, for here was the strangest thing of all, he found that, as well as the cast in this two-parter, he was audience too, an independent and almost disinterested observer, floating somewhere near the portrait, looking down with pity on that part of him drifting wraithlike in a shapeless swirl of fear and loss and bewilderment and despair while at the same time noting with admiration the way that Action Man was going about his preparations with the dextrous precision of a maid laying a supper table.

Action Man moved across the study floor, placed the candle on the desk, checked that the heavy curtains were tightly drawn across the shuttered windows and switched on the bright central light. Across the desk lay a six-foot length of thread. He picked it up, took out a cigarette lighter, gently pressed the thumb switch to release gas without giving a spark, and ran the thread through the jet. Then he fed the thread through the keyhole, put the key into the lock on the inside of the door, twisted the internal end of the thread round the head of the key so that about three feet hung down, went out on to the landing, once more clicked on his lighter and put the flame to the dangling end. The flame ran up the thread, vanished into the keyhole, emerged on the inside, and ran round the loops on the key. He let it get within a couple of feet of the end then snuffed it out.

With his gloved hand he cleaned off all traces of the burnt thread from the outside of the door, then he closed it and with great care turned the key in the lock.

Against the wall about two feet from the door stood a tall Victorian whatnot. On the shelf at the same level as the door lock rested a portable record player. Its retaining screws had been slackened so that he could lift out the turntable. He made a running loop at the unburnt end of the thread, dropped it over the drive spindle and pulled it tight. Then he fed the burnt end out through the power cable aperture, replaced the turntable and tightened the restraining screws. He picked up a record leaning against the table leg and placed it on the turntable. He plugged the power cable into a socket in the skirting board, set the control switch to ‘play’ and turned on the power. The arm swung out and descended, setting the stylus in the groove. For the second time that evening the opening bars of that gentlest of tunes, the opening piece ‘Of Foreign Lands and People’ from Schumann’s Childhood Scenes, sounded in the house.

He stood and watched as the rotations of the spindle wound the thread into the depths of the machine. Just before it vanished he pinched the end between his thumb and finger, held it, pausing the music momentarily, then let it go.

He switched off the light. Darkness surged back, almost tangible, as if it longed to snuff out the candle. But the tiny flame burnt on, filling the hollows of his face with shadow and turning the peaks to parchment as he went behind the desk and sat down in the ornately carved mahogany elbow chair.

He opened a drawer and from it he took a book, which he set on the desk, a legal envelope and a fountain pen. Out of the envelope he took several sheets of heavy bond paper. He held a single sheet over the candle till it began to burn. He let it fall into a metal wastepaper bin by the chair. He lit a second sheet, did the same, then the others one by one. Tongues of fire showed at the bin’s mouth, licking the darkness out of the study’s gloomy corners before they shrank and died. The record was still playing. He listened and recognized the fourth of the Childhood Scenes. With an effort he summoned up its title. ‘A Pleading Child’.

He shook the bin to make sure all the paper was consumed and stirred up the ashes with an ebony ruler, reducing them to a fine powder, some of which drifted up on the residual heat and hung in the air.

Now he rose again and went to the left-hand wall where alongside one of the bookcases a glass-fronted, metal-framed gun case was bolted on to the oak panelling. It was empty, covered with a soft pall of dust which he was careful not to disturb as he opened the door. He reached in, took hold of the gun-retaining clip, twisted it anticlockwise through ninety degrees, then pulled sharply. A section of panelling came away revealing a recess mirroring the cabinet in size and in function too. Here stood a shotgun, which unlike most other things in that room showed no sign of dusty neglect. It gleamed with a menacing beauty. Alongside it, on a leather-bound diary embossed with the year 1992, rested a pack of cartridges.

He took the gun and cartridges and returned to the desk. The music had reached piece number seven: ‘Dreaming’. He sat down with the weapon across his lap, broke it and loaded it. From his pocket he took a piece of string about a foot long with a loop at either end. He slipped one of the loops over the trigger, and leaned the weapon against the desk.

He checked his watch. Waited another thirty seconds. Picked up the fountain pen. Wrote in bold capitals on the envelope FOR SUE-LYNN. Set the pen down on the desktop. Checked his watch again. Stood up and went back to the gun case.

Up to this point he had done everything with steady purpose. Now he seemed touched by a sense of urgency.

He peeled off the gloves and tossed them into the secret recess, followed by his lighter, the matchbook, the microcassette, the hip flask and the prescription bottle. Next he replaced the panel, twisted the gun clip, shut the cabinet door, and went back to the chair into which he slumped with a finality which suggested he did not purpose rising again. He let the music back into his ears. Piece eleven was finishing. ‘Something Frightening’. Then piece twelve began. ‘Child Falling Asleep’.

He listened to it all the way through, asking himself, where had they gone, those thirty years?

As the music faded, he drew the book on the desktop towards him.

The final piece began. ‘The Poet Speaks’.

He opened the book. He did not need to look for his place. It fell open with an ease that suggested that this was a page frequently visited.

And now the observer saw that other part of himself, that disembodied swirl of feeling, start to drift back into the corporeal chamber from which it had been temporarily expelled. Like Action Man, it had its calmness too, but this was the calm of despair, the acknowledgement that the end was near, a process perfectly captured by the words the eyes stared at but did not need to see.

He scanned it – staggered –

Dropped the Loop

To Past or Period –

Caught helpless at a sense as if

His Mind were going blind –

Feeling Man, the observer saw, was absolute for death, so completely separated from hope and time and sense and feeling and all the threads of experience which tie us lightly to life that he was far ahead of the meticulous preparation of Action Man for that journey from the familiarity of now into the mystery of next …

The music was coming to an end. The observer could hear it but Feeling Man had ears for nothing but the words of the poem as if they were being read aloud by the soft American voice of their creator …

Groped up, to see if God was there –

Groped backward at Himself

… while Action Man still went quietly about his business, removing his left shoe and sock, bringing the gun between his legs with the stock firmly on the floor, slipping the loop of string over his big toe, grasping the barrel with both hands and holding it steady against the edge of the desk, then leaning forward and pressing the soft underpart of his chin hard against the muzzle.

Now the quiet voice in Feeling Man’s mind speaks the final words

Caressed a Trigger absently

and wandered out of Life

while Action Man lowers his left foot, and Observing Man, rather to his surprise, has time to see the ball of shot burn its way up through jaw and palate, squirting blood from mouth and nostrils and punching out the eyes before emerging through the top of his skull in a fountain of bone and brain which spatters floor and desk and open book.

For a millisec reason and sensation and observation are reunited in one consciousness.

Then the empty body slumps to one side, the record dies away, the fine ash from the wastepaper bin slowly settles, the candle gutters.

Pal Maciver exists no longer.

Except in the hearts and minds and lives of those he leaves behind.

2
bedside manner

Sue-Lynn Maciver stretched her naked body languorously against her lover’s hand and laughed.

‘What?’ said Tom Lockridge.

‘I was thinking, first time I felt you inside me, it cost me a hundred quid.’

‘Wait till you get my bill for this.’

He spoke lightly but she knew he didn’t like being reminded he was still her doctor. When Pal had dropped him, his first reaction had been that her husband suspected something. Once reassured, his second reaction had been that this was a good opportunity for her to come off his list too.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she’d said. ‘Why give up the perfect cover for me visiting your surgery, you coming to the house?’

‘It’s just that, if it ever came out, the GMC don’t take kindly to doctors screwing their patients.’

‘Really? How else do they expect you to become stinking rich?’

When he didn’t laugh, she said, ‘Relax, Tom. It’s not going to come out, not from me, anyway. I’ve got even more reason to keep it from Pal than you have from your precious Council. Or your precious wife for that matter.’

She’d meant it. But nonetheless it wasn’t altogether displeasing to feel she had a hold over her lover that went beyond his desire.

He removed his hand from between her legs and pushed back the duvet.

She glanced at her watch and said, ‘What’s the hurry? We’ve got another hour at least.’

‘Just going to the loo,’ he said, rolling out of bed.

‘Why do men always have to pee after sex?’ she called after him.

He paused in the doorway and said, ‘I’ll draw you a diagram when I get back.’

She made a face at the prospect. Sometimes it wasn’t altogether comfortable screwing a man who knew so much about the internal workings of the human body. She reached out to the cigarette packet lying by the phone on the bedside table and lit one. He’d probably give her the antismoking lecture, but it was better than a conducted tour of his innards.

The phone rang.

She picked it up and said, ‘Hi.’

‘Sue-Lynn, it’s Jason.’

She stiffened then forced herself to relax.

‘Jase, shouldn’t you be chasing a little ball around a squash court with my husband?’

‘That’s why I’m ringing. He hasn’t turned up. My mobile’s on the blink and I thought he might have left a message with you.’

She stubbed her cigarette out, swung her legs off the bed, found her panties on the floor and started tugging them on one-handed as she replied, ‘Sorry, Jase. Not a word. But I shouldn’t worry. Probably a customer showed up as he was on his way out. You know Pal. He’d miss his own funeral if he thought there was a deal to be done. How’s Helen? Must be close now. Give her my best. Look, got to go. ’Bye.’

She put down the phone and was crouching on the floor searching for her bra when she heard the toilet flush. A moment later, Lockridge came through the door. He was smiling and there was evidence he was having serious thoughts about how to spend the next hour. The smile faded as he saw her rise on the far side of the bed with her bra in her hand.

‘Pal’s loose,’ she said before he could speak. ‘Get dressed.’

‘Shit. You don’t think he’s on to us? Jesus wept!’

He’d started dragging on his trousers with more haste than care and done something she didn’t care to think about with the zip.

‘Shouldn’t think so, but better safe than sorry … oh hell. Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. A noise. Downstairs. No … on the stairs.’

They both froze, mouths agape, eyes staring, she with her bra round her neck, he with his hand on his fly zipper, like a tableau vivant of Guilt Surprised, and were both in a state to take the flash of light that came through the open door as the harbinger of one of heaven’s avenging angels.

3
Signora Borgia ’s guest list

The mist was definitely getting thicker. Much more and they’d be calling it fog, which was bad news. There were enough idiots out there who couldn’t drive properly in broad daylight without making things even more problematic for them.

Ignoring the obvious impatience of the cars behind her, Kay Kafka drove her Mercedes E-Class down the quiet suburban roads at five mph under the permitted speed limit and signalled a good hundred yards before she turned into the driveway of Linden Bank.

With the mist and encroaching darkness toning down the unfortunate shade of lavender the Dunns had chosen for their outside woodwork, she was able to re-experience her feelings on first seeing the house. Helen had rung full of excitement to tell her that she and Jason had found a place they both liked but she wanted Kay’s approval before committing. Kay had gone along prepared to lie, and had instead been delighted. She’d liked the clean modern lines, the harmonious proportions, the use of rosy brick under a shallow-pitched roof of olive tiles. The prepared lies had come in useful later, however, once the newlyweds had moved in.

At the door Kay only had to ring once before it was flung open by a young woman hugely pregnant.

‘You’re late,’ she said accusingly.

‘You too by the look of you.’

The young woman grimaced and said, ‘Still a couple of days to go – Kay, it’s lovely to see you.’

The two women embraced, not without difficulty.

‘Jesus, Helen, you sure it’s only twins you’ve got in there?’

‘I know – it’s terrible – I may have to let out my smocks.’

They went into the house. Outside the evening temperature was dropping fast. In here as usual the central heating was set a couple of degrees above Kay’s comfort level. In anticipation she was wearing only a sleeveless silk blouse beneath her chic sheepskin jacket.

As Helen hung it up she brushed her hand over the fleecy collar and said, ‘Hey, have you been on a building site? This is a bit dusty.’

‘Is it? You know these old houses. I wish Tony had bought somewhere modern like this,’ said Kay removing the silk square with which she’d protected her short black hair from the mist and shaking it gently. ‘He sends his love.’

‘Give him mine. I really love that blouse,’ said Helen enviously. ‘Wish I dared let people see the tops of my arms.’

In fact pregnancy became her. Big she was, but with the roseate carnality of a Renoir bather. In the glow of that aura many other women would have been reduced to attendant shadows, but Kay Kafka, pale faced and pencil slim, was not diminished.

They went into the lounge. The first time Kay had come into this room and found it full of light from the huge picture window overlooking the long rear lawn, she had known exactly how she would furnish and decorate it. Now, even after many visits, she had to make an effort not to react to the heavy furnishings, the fitted pink carpet, the gilt-framed Canaletto reproductions and the Regency striped curtains which, closed, at least concealed the Yorkstone patio running down to a solar-powered fountain in red-veined marble with which the Dunns had replaced half of the lawn. The only thing that won her approval was the Steinway upright occupying one corner, which, if Jason had had his way, would probably have been replaced by an electronic keyboard in dazzling silver. Strange, she thought, how people could be so beautiful without having any inner sense of beauty.

Tony, when she had told him about this, had asked, ‘So if she bought the right kind of house, how come she put the wrong sort of stuff in it with you looking over her shoulder?’

‘Because I wasn’t looking over her shoulder, not even when she asked me to,’ said Kay. ‘It’s not my place.’

‘Come on. The kid worships you and you’re the nearest thing to a mother she ever had.’

‘But I’m not her mother and I never want to give her occasion to remind me. In fact, looking back, I suspect she chose the house because she knew in advance I’d like the look of it, which I did. Inside’s different. They’re the ones who’ve got to live in it.’

‘You’re all heart, baby,’ said Tony, smiling. He was a man of many contradictions and this capacity to be cynical and affectionate at the same time was one of them.

Now she seated herself gingerly at one end of a long sofa. This was great furniture for lounging in. Helen in her pre-pregnancy days would usually curl up in one of the huge chairs with her legs tucked up beneath her and Kay had had to admit that the setting suited her marvellously well. Herself, even in Helen’s company, she liked to stay in control, and felt taken over by the soft cushions and yielding upholstery. Tony had called it a great shagging sofa, and thereafter whenever she sat on it she got a mental flash of Jason and Helen intimately intertwined in its depths.

Now Helen was long past the curling up stage and presumably the intimate intertwining stage too. She’d brought one of the broad high elbow chairs from the dining room to sit upon, though even this was becoming a tight fit.

‘Hope you don’t mind – got pizzas coming – cooking’s getting hard without doing myself or the Aga serious damage – sorry.’

There’d been a time when Kay had tried to amend Helen’s rather breathlessly unpunctuated way of speaking but she’d given up when she saw she was merely creating tension. The same with the girl’s taste in interior decoration. This was how she was, and you didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth especially when God was the giver.

‘Pizza’s fine,’ she said with a smile. ‘Though I hope Jase is making sure you get a slightly more varied diet.’

‘Don’t worry – I’m sticking to the menu I got from the clinic – more or less – tonight’s a treat – triple anchovies – damn! Just when I’d got comfortable.’

The phone in the entrance hall was ringing.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Kay.

She rose elegantly, not an easy feat from the absorbent upholstery, and went into the hall.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Kay, is that you? It’s Jason. Look, Pal hasn’t turned up for squash and I wondered if maybe he’d tried to ring me at home. Could you ask Helen?’

‘Sure.’

She called, ‘It’s Jase. Pal’s stood him up. He wants to know if he’s left a message here.’

‘No, nothing – tell Jase to get himself something at the Club like he usually does – don’t want him spoiling our evening just because Pal’s spoilt his.’

‘Jase, did you get that?’

‘Yes. Who needs phones when you’ve got a wife who could yodel for Switzerland? OK, tell her I’ll get myself a pasty, then go up on the balcony and see if I can find a couple of sweaty girls to watch. How are you keeping, Kay?’

‘Mustn’t complain.’

‘Why not? Everyone else does. Probably catch you before you leave. Bye.’

Kay put down the receiver and stood looking at her reflection in the gilt mirror on the wall behind the phone table. Her face wore the contemplative almost frowning expression which Tony had once caught in a snap which he labelled La Signora Borgia checks her guest list. She relaxed her features into their normal edge-of-a-smile configuration and went back into the lounge.

4
an open door

‘There we go,’ said PC Jack ‘Joker’ Jennison, placing the two newspaper-wrapped bundles on the dashboard. ‘One haddock, one cod.’

‘Which is which?’

‘Mail’s haddock, Guardian’s cod.’

‘That figures. What do I owe you?’

‘Don’t be daft. Chinese chippie two doors up from the National Party offices, they’d pay good money to have us park outside till closing time.’

‘Then they’ll be getting a refund,’ said PC Alan Maycock. ‘We’re out of here.’

He gunned the engine and set the car accelerating forward.

‘What’s your hurry?’ asked Jennison.

‘Just got a tip from CAD that Bonkers is on the prowl. Don’t think he’d be too chuffed to find us troughing outside a chippie, so let’s find somewhere nice and quiet.’

Bonkers was Sergeant Bonnick, a new broom at Mid-Yorkshire HQ who was hell bent on clearing out its dustiest corners. Also he was big on physical fitness and had already been mildly sarcastic about the embonpoint of the two constables, saying that watching them getting into their car was like seeing a pair of 42s trying to squeeze into a 36 cup.

‘Not too far, eh? I hate cold chips,’ said Jennison, pressing the warm packets to his cheeks.

‘Don’t fret. Nearly there.’

They’d turned off the main road with its parade of shops and were speeding into the area of the city known as Greenhill.

Once a hamlet without the city wall, Greenhill had been absorbed into the urban mass during the great industrial expansion of the nineteenth century. The old squires who bred their beasts, raised their crops, and hunted their prey across this land were replaced by the new squires of coal and steel and commerce who wanted houses to live in that had land enough to give the impression of countryside but without any of the attendant inconveniences of remoteness, agricultural smells or peasant society. So the hamlet of Greenhill became the suburb of Greenhill, in which farms and cotts and muddy lanes were replaced by urban mansions and tarmacked roads.

From the naughty nineties to the fighting forties, many of the great and the good of Mid-Yorkshire paraded their pomp in Greenhill. But after the war, the rot set in. Old ways and old fortunes faded, and though for a while the makers of new fortunes still turned their thoughts to what had once been the arriviste’s dream, a Greenhill mansion, there rapidly developed an awareness of their inconvenience and a sense that they were at best démodé, at worst crassly kitsch, and by the seventies Greenhill was in steep decline. Many of the mansions were converted into flats, or small commercial hotels, or corporate offices, or simply knocked down to make room for speculative development.

Some areas hung on longer than others, or at least by sheer weight of presence managed to preserve the illusion that little had changed from the glory days. Chief among these was The Avenue, which, if it ever had a praenomen, had long ago shed it as superfluous to general recognition. Here on nights like the present one, with mist seeping in from the already shrouded countryside to blur the big houses behind their screening arbours into vague shapes, still and awe-inspiring as sleeping pachyderms, it was possible to drive slowly down the broad street between the ranks of leafy plane trees and imagine that the great days of Empire were with us yet.

In fact, driving slowly down the Avenue was still a popular pursuit among a certain section of Mid-Yorkshire society, but they weren’t thinking of Empire, except perhaps metaphorically. The shade against the elements provided by the trees, the privacy afforded by many of the dark and winding driveways, plus the thinness on the ground of complaining residents, made this a favourite parade ground for prostitutes and kerb crawlers. In the misty aureoles of the elegantly curved Greenhill lampposts, the Avenue might look deserted. But set your car crawling sedately along the kerbside and, like dryads materializing from their trees at the summons of the great god Pan, the ladies of the night would appear.

Except if the car had POLICE written all over it, when the effect was quite other.

Jennison hadn’t been able to last out and was already unfolding his parcel, releasing the pungent smell of hot battered fish and vinegary chips.

‘Can’t you bloody wait till I get parked?’

‘No, me belly thinks me throat’s cut. This’ll do. Pull over here.’

‘Don’t be daft. We’d have the girls throwing bricks at us for frightening off the punters. I know just the spot. Bonkers’ll never find us here.’

He swung the wheel over and ran the car under the plane trees into a gravelled driveway between two stone pillars. Stumps of concrete at their tops suggested that they had once been crowned with some ornamental or heraldic device but this had long since vanished, probably at the same time as the ornate metal gate. Its massy hinges were still visible on the right-hand pillar, however, while on the left, graven deep enough in the stonework to be still readable though heavily lichened, was the name MASCOW HOUSE.

Leaning over the high ivied garden wall was an estate agent’s board reading FOR SALE WITH VACANT POSSESSION.

Maycock drove up the length of the drive till he could see the house. Its complete darkness and shuttered windows confirmed the promise of the sign that there was no one here to disturb or be disturbed by.

‘That’s funny,’ he said as he brought the car to a halt.

‘What?’

‘Isn’t that door open?’

‘Which door?’

‘The house door, what do you fucking think?’

The two men strained their eyes through the swirling mist.

‘It is, tha knows,’ said Maycock. ‘It’s definitely open.’

Jennison leaned across, dropped the warm newspaper packet on to his colleague’s lap and switched off the headlights.

‘Can’t see it myself,’ he said. ‘Now shut up and eat your haddock afore it gets cold.’

They munched in silence for a while. Then the radio crackled out their call sign and a voice they recognized as Bonnick’s said, ‘Report your position.’

‘Shit,’ said Maycock.

‘No sweat,’ said Jennison.

He switched on his transmitter and said, ‘We’re in the Avenue, Sarge. Checking out an unsecured property.’

‘The Avenue? Which Avenue?’ demanded Bonnick, sounding irritated. ‘Use proper procedure, full details when reporting location.’

Jennison grinned at his partner and replied mildly, ‘Just the Avenue, Sarge. In Greenhill. Thought everyone knew that. The property’s called Moscow House. It’s on the left-hand side as you’re heading east, about one hundred and five metres from the junction with Balmoral Terrace. There’s a name on the gate pillar. Moscow House. That’s M, O, S, C, O, W. Moscow. H, O, U, S, E. House. Bit misty out here but if you get lost, there’s one or two helpful young ladies around who’ll be glad to show you the way. Over.’

There was silence, though in his mind Maycock could hear police constables pissing themselves laughing all over Mid-Yorkshire.

‘Report back to me as soon as your check’s finished. Out,’ said the sergeant in a quiet controlled voice.

‘Think you’ve made a friend there,’ said Maycock.

‘He can please his bloody self.’

‘Aye, but we’d best do what you’ve told him we’re doing,’ said Maycock, getting out of the car. ‘Come on. Let’s take a look.’

‘I’ve not finished me cod yet!’ protested Jennison.

But to tell the truth his appetite was fading. For Joker Jennison had a secret. He was scared of the dark, and particularly scared of old dark houses. His fear was metaphysical rather than physical. Muscular muggers and crazy crack-heads he took in his stride. But in his infancy he couldn’t sleep without a night-light and as a teenager he’d fainted while watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. On reviving and realizing the damage this was likely to do to his street cred, he had faked every symptom of every illness he could think of, causing a meningitis scare in his school and getting him confined to an isolation ward in the infirmary while they did tests. It had worked as far as his mates were concerned, but on joining the police force (which itself had been an act of denial), he had soon realized that if he fainted every time he had to enter a deserted property with only his torch for light, pretence of illness would get him thrown out as quickly as admission of terror. So he had learned to grit his teeth and keep his true feelings hidden behind the screen of pleasantries that got him his nickname.

Now he remained stubbornly in his seat as his partner mounted the steps to the open door. Moscow House seemed to grow in bulk as he watched, towering high into the swirling mist where it wasn’t hard for his straining eyes to detect ruined battlements around which flitted squeaking bats.

Then the mist came rolling down the dark façade as if bent on putting a curtain between himself and Alan Maycock.

‘Oh shit,’ said Jennison again. What was worse, out here alone or in there with his partner?

That part of his mind still in touch with reason told him that if anything happened to Maycock he’d have to go into the house anyway.

With a sigh of desperation, he rolled his bulk out of the car, crushed the remnants of his fish supper into a ball and hurled it into the darkness, then jogged towards the house shouting, ‘Hang about, you daft bugger. I’m coming!’

5
a tight cork

‘What do they put these things in with? Sledgehammers?’ snarled Cressida Maciver, gripping the bottle between her knees and hauling at the corkscrew with both hands.

Ellie Pascoe smiled uneasily and glanced at her watch. Half eight, two empty bottles lying on the floor, and they hadn’t even eaten yet. Nor could her sensitive nose detect any evidence of food in preparation wafting from the kitchen, and Cress was one of those cooks who couldn’t scramble an egg without sprinkling it with spices.

But it wasn’t the thought of going hungry that caused her unease. It was the fact that on a couple of previous occasions, even with food, the opening of a third bottle had been closely followed by an attempt at seduction which came close to sexual assault. After the second time, Ellie had been ready with various stratagems to pre-empt the well-signalled pounce, and though their farewell hug sometimes came close to frottage, she had managed to escape without damage. Sober, next time they met, Cress seemed to have forgotten everything in the same way that, drunk, she clearly had no recollection of Ellie’s having confided in her that once, at university, curiosity and a determination not to appear repressed or naive had got her into a female lecturer’s bed, but the experience had done nothing for her and wasn’t one she had any desire to repeat.

Usually she got a taxi home, but when her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe had announced they’d need a baby-sitter as piles of neglected paperwork were going to keep him at his desk deep into the evening, she’d declared that what they lost on the sitter they could gain on the taxi and arranged for him to pick her up about ten thirty, which was the usual danger time. Now the schedule was blown to hell, and as well as uneasy, Ellie felt cheated. She was very fond of Cress, and in matters of taste generally, politics sufficiently, and humour absolutely, they shared so much that their evenings together before the hormones took over were a delight which tonight looked like being cut well short.

The assaults always occurred when Cressida was between men, which was pretty frequently. The intensity of her commitment was more than most could abide for long. The journey from feeling adored and cosseted to feeling cribbed, cabined and confined was a short one, in some cases taking only a matter of days. In the aftermath of break-up, Cressida always turned to her female friends for comfort. Men were only good for one thing, and that was overrated. Passion was for pubescents. Female friendship was the thing. Which sensible life-view ruled her mind until the opening of the third bottle, when a meeting of mature female minds was suddenly discarded in favour of a close encounter of mature female flesh.

The last break-up seemed to have been even more than usually traumatic.

‘I really liked the guy,’ she bewailed. ‘He had everything. And I mean everything. Including a Maserati. Have you ever had sex in a Maserati, Ellie?’

Ellie pursed her lips as if running though a check list of top cars, then admitted she’d missed out.

‘Never mind,’ said her friend consolingly. ‘The driving position’s fabulous but the shagging position’s absolute agony. But you wouldn’t believe a guy driving a car like that would turn out to have five kids and a religion that won’t let his wife entertain the idea of divorce.’

Her eyes glinted malevolently.

‘Maybe if I had a word with his wife that would change her religion,’ she added.

‘Cress, you wouldn’t.’

‘Of course I wouldn’t. Not unless provoked. And why the hell am I wasting quality time with my dearest friend talking about that sunburnt shit of a witch doctor?’

She gave a mighty heave at the corkscrew and succeeded in hauling it out of the bottle, but only at the expense of leaving half the cork in the neck.

Oh well, that should delay matters a little, thought Ellie, offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever it was that almost certainly wasn’t there.

As if to reproach her for this qualification in her devotion, the phone rang.

‘Shit,’ said Cressida. ‘See what you can do with this sodding thing, will you?’

As soon as she left the room, Ellie pulled out her mobile and pressed her husband’s speed-dial key. He answered almost immediately.

‘Peter,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me.’

‘What? It’s a lousy line.’

‘Just listen. I need you earlier.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Second bottle time already, eh?’

He was quick. That was one of the good things about him. One of many good things.

‘Third,’ she said. ‘No sign of food and she’s been dumped again. Some medic. She’s started on about the problems of sex in a Maserati.’

‘Poor thing. Can’t you tell her you’ve got a headache? Always works with me.’

‘Ha ha. Can you get here soon? Say it’s some problem with the sitter.’

‘I’m on my way. Fifteen minutes tops. Hang in there, girl.’

She’d just got the phone into her bag when Cressida came back into the room.

‘Sue-Lynn,’ she said. ‘My sister-in-law. Wants to know if I’ve heard from Pal. Seems he didn’t turn up for his squash with Jase and nobody knows where he is. Silly bitch.’

In the five years of their friendship, she’d never talked in any detail about her family, not even her brother Pal with whom she was close and who’d been indirectly responsible for bringing Ellie and Cress together. He ran an antique shop called Archimagus in the town’s medieval area near the cathedral. Ellie had been in a couple of times without buying anything and without registering more about the proprietor than that he was a good-looking young man who after a token offer of help became a non-hassling background presence. On the third occasion when she expressed interest in a seventeenth-century knife box in walnut with a beautiful mother-of-pearl butterfly inlay on the lid, he’d answered her questions with an eloquent expertise that very subtly implied that only a person of the most sensitive taste would have selected this item above all the rest of his stock. Finally he suggested she took it home to see how it looked in situ, no obligation, which had made a young woman who’d just come into the shop roar with laughter.

‘I bet he hasn’t mentioned the price yet,’ she said.

On reflection, Ellie had to admit this was true.

A price was mentioned. Ellie looked at the newcomer and raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

She pursed her lips, shook her head and said, ‘That the best you can do for a friend of your sister?’

‘You two are friends?’ said Pal.

Cressida had looked at Ellie, grinned and said, ‘No, but I think we could be.’

To which Pal had replied, ‘So let me know how it works out, then we can discuss a possible price cut.’

It had worked out well and the knife box now adorned the Pascoe dining room. But though her friendship with Cressida burgeoned, the brother never became anything more than an antiques dealer with whom she was on first-name terms. As for the rest of the family, Ellie had picked up that there was a younger sister, and also that they’d lost their parents some time in childhood, but she’d made no attempt to pry into the exact nature of the evident tensions and problems Cress’s upbringing had left her with. This didn’t mean she wasn’t curious – hell, they were friends, weren’t they? And knowing your friends was even more important than knowing your enemies – but in Ellie’s book though mere curiosity might get you nebbing into the life of a stranger, it was never enough to justify sticking your nose into the affairs of a friend.

But if the confidences came unasked, she was not about to discourage them, particularly in a situation where they also served the useful function of postponing the threatened pounce.

‘You’re not worried?’ she said.

‘No. He’s probably still at work, giving discount.’

‘Sorry?’

Cressida grinned.

‘Well-heeled ladies love their objets d’art but love their money even more. Pal says I’d be amazed how many of them after a bout of haggling will say, “Do you give a discount for cash, Mr Maciver? Or something …?”’

‘I presume you didn’t say this to your sister-in-law?’

‘Thought about it, but in the end I just said if she was really worried she should ring the police and the hospitals.’

‘Decided to go for reassurance then.’

‘You needn’t concern yourself about Sue-Lynn. Self-centred cow. Any worries she’s got will be about herself, not Pal.’

‘But his squash partner is worried too … Jase, you said?’

‘Jason Dunn. My brother-in-law,’ said Cressida, sounding rather surprised, as if she’d just worked out the relationship.

‘So, married to your sister?’

‘Yeah, Helen the child bride.’

‘Lot younger than you then?’ said Ellie.

‘She’s younger than everyone,’ said Cress dismissively. ‘Like Snow White. Doesn’t get any older no matter how often you see the picture. Only this one still adores the wicked stepmother.’

‘Stepmother?’ This was completely new. ‘I didn’t know you had a stepmother.’

‘Not something I boast about. You don’t want to hear all this crap. Haven’t you got that bottle open yet?’

‘Sorry. It’s this broken cork. This stepmother, is she really wicked?’

‘Goes with the job, doesn’t it? She’s a pain in the arse anyway. You’ve probably seen her name in the papers. You wouldn’t forget it. Kay Kafka, would you believe? Why do Yanks always have these crazy fucking names? Here, let me try.’

She grabbed the bottle from Ellie and began poking at the broken cork.

Ellie, feeling that a gibe about names didn’t come well from someone called Cressida who had a brother called Palinurus, was by now sufficiently interested in the family background to have pursued it even without its pounce-postponing potential.

‘So you don’t care for your stepmother? And Pal?’

‘Hates her guts.’

‘But Helen took to her?’

‘She was only a kid when Dad remarried. It was easy for Kay to sink her talons in. Me and Pal were older, our shells had toughened up.’

‘And when your father died … when was that?’

‘Ten years ago. Pal was of age so out of it. I was seventeen so officially still in need of a responsible adult to care over me. I was determined it wasn’t going to be Kay even if it meant signing up with dotty old Vinnie till I made eighteen.’

‘Vinnie?’

‘My aunt Lavinia. Dad’s only sister. Mad as a hatter; you need feathers and a beak before she’ll even speak to you. But being a blood relative did the trick and I was able to give Kay the finger.’

‘But Helen thought different?’

‘Don’t think thought entered into it. She was only nine. Pal and I tried to get her out of the clutches, but she went all hysterical at the idea of being separated from Kay. Poor little cow. Not much upstairs, and I’m sure Kay preferred it that way. She’s a real control freak. Probably handpicked Helen’s husband with that in mind too.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Jason. He’s a PE teacher at Weavers, so not what you’d call an intellectual giant. But a real hunk. And hung. Known as a bit of a stud before Helen hooked him. They say he fucks like a Rossini overture.’

This was an interesting concept but not one that Ellie, in her present antaphrodisiac mode, felt it wise to pursue.

‘So Helen’s stayed close to her stepmother? Which means you and Pal aren’t all that close to Helen?’

Cressida shrugged.

‘She made her choice.’

‘But Pal plays squash with Jason?’

‘Yes, he does,’ said Cressida. ‘Can’t think why, especially as I’m sure Jase must whup the shit out of him and Pal’s not a good loser. Still there’s nowt so queer as folks, is there? And most of us are even queerer than we think.’

She gave Ellie what could only be described as a suggestive leer, then said, ‘Fuck this,’ and drove the broken segment of cork down into the bottle, squirting wine over her hand and forearm.

She raised her fingers to her mouth and licked the red drops off, her eyes fixed on Ellie and a tiny smile twitching her lips.

‘More ways of popping a reluctant cork than one, eh?’ she said. ‘Pass your glass.’

6
a fishy smell

Moscow House was full of light, which the shuttered and curtained windows kept penned within. Only through the open front door did any escape to offer a weak challenge to the besieging fog.

Finding the electricity switched on had been a big bonus, particularly for Jennison, but he still stuck close to his partner as they went methodically through the downstairs rooms, then headed upstairs.

‘Hello hello hello,’ said Maycock as he pushed open a bedroom door to reveal a double bed, neatly made up, though not with fresh linen. ‘This looks like it’s still in use.’

‘Yeah. Hey, do you think some of the girls might have been using this place to bring their punters?’

‘Could be.’ Maycock sniffed the air. ‘Smell a bit sexy to you?’

Jennison sniffed.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Think it’s thy haddock.’

There was only one door they couldn’t open.

Some of Jennison’s uneasiness returned. In haunted houses there was always one door that was locked, and when you opened it …

Maycock was kneeling down.

‘Key’s in the lock on the inside,’ he said.

Jennison said hopefully, ‘Maybe one of the girls heard us come in and she’s locked herself in here.’

‘Could be.’

Maycock banged his fist against the solid oak panel and called, ‘It’s the police. If there’s anyone in there, come on out.’

Jennison stepped back in alarm, recalling tales of vampires and such creatures who could only join humankind if invited.

Nothing happened.

Maycock stooped to the keyhole again. Once more he sniffed.

‘More sex?’ said Jennison.

‘Bit of a burnt smell.’

‘You think there’s a fire in there?’

‘No. Not strong enough. Listen.’

He pressed his ear to the door.

‘Can you hear something?’

‘What?’

‘Sort of whirring, scratching noise.’

‘Scratching?’ said Jennison unhappily, his imagination reviewing a range of possibilities, none of them comforting.

‘Yeah. Here, give it a try with your shoulder.’

Obediently, Jennison leaned against the door and heaved.

‘Jesus, you couldn’t open a paper bag like that.’

‘You try then. Didn’t I hear you once had a trial for Bradford? Or were that a trial at Bradford for masquerading as a rugby player?’

Provoked, Maycock hit the door with all his strength and bounced back nursing his shoulder.

‘No go,’ he said. ‘Bolted as well as locked, I’d say.’

‘Better call this in,’ said Jennison.

He spoke into his personal radio, gave details of the situation, was told to wait.

They went to the head of the stairs and sat down.

‘Not one of my best ideas, this,’ admitted Maycock. ‘We’d have been better off eating our nosh outside the chippie, and bugger Bonkers.’

Jennison surreptitiously crossed himself and wished he had some garlic. He knew that at times of psychic stress it was a dangerous thing to name evil spirits as that could easily summon them up. So it came as a shock but no surprise when out of the air came a familiar voice, saying, ‘So there you are, making yourselves comfortable. OK, what’s going off here? And why does your car smell like a chip-shop?’

They peered into the hallway and found themselves gazing down at the slim athletic figure of Sergeant Bonnick who’d just come through the open door.

They scrambled to their feet but were saved from having to answer by the radio.

‘Keyholder to Moscow House is a Mr Maciver, first name Palinurus. Just say if you need that spelt, Joker. We’ve rung the number given and got hold of Mrs Maciver. She got a bit agitated when we told her we wanted to talk to her husband about Moscow House. She says she doesn’t know where he is, in fact nobody seems to know where he is, and he’s missed some kind of appointment this evening. I’ve passed this on to Mr Ireland. Hold on. He’s here.’

Ireland was the duty inspector.

‘Alan, you’re sure there’s a key on the inside of that locked door?’

‘Certain, sir.’

‘Then I think from the sound of it you ought to take a look inside. You need assistance to break in?’

Bonnick spoke into his radio.

‘Sergeant Bonnick here, sir. No need. I’ve got a ram in my boot. I’ll get back to you soon as we’re in.’

He tossed his keys to Jennison, who set off down the stairs.

‘Be prepared, eh, Sarge?’ said Maycock. ‘Good idea carrying everything you might need around with you.’

‘Not always, else you’d be towing a mobile chippie,’ said Bonnick. ‘Show me this locked room.’

He examined the door carefully and stooped to check through the keyhole.

‘Key’s still there,’ he said.

‘Well, it would be,’ said Maycock. ‘Seeing as I just saw it.’

‘Not necessarily. Not if there’s someone in there to take it out,’ said Bonnick.

‘We did shout.’

‘Oh well then, they were bound to answer,’ said the sergeant. ‘God, when did you last take some serious exercise?’

Jennison had returned, carrying the ram. He was slightly out of breath. Outside, with the mist turning even the short journey from front door to car into a ghostly gauntlet run, he hadn’t been tempted to hang about.

‘All right, which of you two still has something resembling muscle under the flab?’

‘Al had a trial for the Bulls,’ said Jennison.

‘That right, Alan? Let’s see you in action then.’

The constable hit the woodwork four or five times with the ram with no visible effect except on himself.

‘They knew how to make doors in them days,’ he gasped.

‘They knew how to make policemen too,’ growled Bonnick. ‘Give it here.’

He swung it twice. There was a loud splintering. He gave Maycock a told-you-so look.

‘Yeah, but I weakened it,’ protested the constable.

‘Let’s see what’s inside, shall we?’ said Bonnick.

He raised his right foot and drove it against the door. It flew open. Light from the landing spilled into the room.

‘Oh Jesus,’ said Bonnick.

But Jennison, whose fear of the supernatural was compensated for by a very relaxed attitude to real-life horror, exclaimed, ‘Ee bah gum, he’s made a reet mess of himself, hasn’t he, Sarge!’

7
a British Euro

The company of her stepdaughter was always a delight to Kay Kafka. They shared an affection which went all the deeper because it involved neither the constraints of blood nor the coincidence of taste and opinion. Indeed, during these regular Wednesday evening encounters, they rarely strayed nearer the harsh realities of existence than a discussion of films and fashions and local gossip, but what might (in Kay’s case at least) have been tedious in the company of another was here rendered delightful by the certainty of love.

In recent months, however, the approach of harsh reality in the form of the soon-to-be-born children had provided another topic, which could have kept them going for the whole visit if they’d let it. Even here, there wasn’t much harshness in evidence. It had been so far a comparatively easy pregnancy, and, bulk apart, Helen seemed to be enjoying her role as serenely glowing mother-in-waiting. So they would move easily over the wide range of pleasurable preparations for the great day – baby clothes, pushchairs, nursery decoration and, of course, names. Here Helen was adamant. Superstitiously she’d refused all offers to identify the gender of the twins, but if one were a girl, she was going to be called Kay.

‘And I don’t care what you say,’ she went on, ‘they’re both going to call you grandma.’

Which had brought Kay as close to tears as she’d been for a long while. She’d told the children to call her Kay when she married their father. The two elder ones did their best to avoid calling her anything polite, but Helen was young enough to want, eventually, to call her mum. Realizing the problem this would give the girl with her brother and sister, Kay had resisted.

‘I want to be her friend,’ she explained to her husband. ‘The lady’s not for mummification.’

But she never explained to him just how very hard it was for her to resist.

Grandma was different. She had no resistance to offer here. And even if she had, she doubted if it would have made a difference. Helen had powers of obduracy which could sometimes surprise. In this at least she resembled her dead father.

So she’d smiled and embraced the girl and said, ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll be. Thank you.’

It had been a good moment. One of many on these Wednesday evenings. But tonight seemed unlikely to contribute more. Somehow Jason’s phone call had disturbed the even flow, then the fog delayed the pizza delivery and when they finally turned up, they were what Kay called upper-class anglicized – pale, lukewarm and flaccid with not much on top. But the real downer was the fact that, as she entered the finishing straight of her pregnancy, it seemed finally to be dawning on Helen that the birth of the twins wasn’t just going to be a triumphal one-off champagne-popping occasion for celebration, it was going to change the whole of her life, for ever.

Kay tried to be light and reassuring but the young woman was not to be jollied.

‘Now I know why you would never let me call you mum,’ she said. ‘Because it would have made you my prisoner.’

‘Jesus, Helen,’ exclaimed Kay. ‘What a weird thing to say.’

‘I come from a weird family,’ said Helen. ‘You must have noticed. Talking of which, I wonder if Pal turned up.’

On cue the answer came with the sound of the front door opening. A moment later Jason looked into the room. In his mid twenties, six foot plus, blond, beautifully muscled and with looks to swoon for, he could have modelled for Praxiteles. Or Leni Riefenstahl. If his genes and Helen’s melded right, these twins should be a new wonder of the world, thought Kay, smiling a welcome.

‘Hi, Kay,’ he said. ‘It’s all right, sweetie, I’m not going to disturb you. Any word from Pal?’

‘No, nothing. He didn’t show at the club then?’

‘No. What the hell’s he playing at? I hope nothing’s wrong.’

The phone rang.

He said, ‘I’ll get it,’ and retreated to the hall, closing the door firmly behind him.

‘Why’s he so worried?’ said Helen irritably. ‘It’s not as if Pal was ever the most reliable of people.’

‘Oh, I always found him pretty reliable,’ said Kay sardonically.

She regretted it as soon as she said it. Family relationships were a no-go area, again one of her own choosing. Many times in the past it would have been easy to swing along with Helen as she took off in a cadenza of indignation at the attitude and behaviour of her siblings, but, as she’d explained to Tony, ‘In the end, they’re blood family, I’m not, and nothing’s going to change that.’ To which he’d replied in his mafiosa voice, ‘Yeah, family matters. You may have to kill ’em, but you should always send a big wreath to the funeral. It’s the American way. That’s one of the things I miss, being so far from home.’

She sometimes thought Tony made a joke of things to hide the fact he really believed them.

Helen gave her a sharp look and said, ‘OK, I know he’s been an absolute bastard with you – me too – but things change and lately you’ve got to admit he’s been trying. These games of squash with Jase, a year ago that wouldn’t have been possible, but it’s a kind of rapprochement, isn’t it? You know Pal, he would never just come straight out and say, “Let’s forget everything and start over,” he’d have to come at you sideways.’

Sideways. From above, beneath, behind. Oh yes, she knew Pal.

She smiled and said, ‘Yes, the games obviously mean a lot to Jason. And no one likes being stood up.’

Through the closed door they heard the young man’s voice rise. They couldn’t make out the words but his intonation had alarm in it.

He came back into the room.

‘I’ve got to go out again,’ he said.

He was making an effort to sound casual but his fresh open face gave the game away.

‘Why? What’s happened?’ demanded Helen.

‘Nothing,’ he said. Then, seeing this wasn’t a sufficient answer, he went on, ‘It was Sue-Lynn wanting to know if I’d heard anything yet. The police just rang her. They wanted to contact Pal as the keyholder of Moscow House. They wouldn’t give any details, but it’s probably just a break-in, or vandalism. You know what kids are like. I blame the teachers.’

His attempt at lightness fell flat as an English comic telling a kilt joke at the Glasgow Empire.

‘So where are you going?’ asked Helen.

‘Sue-Lynn said she’s going down to Moscow House. I thought maybe I should go too. She sounded upset.’

‘Since when did you give a damn how Sue-Lynn sounded?’ demanded his wife.

Kay said, ‘No, you’re quite right, Jase. It’s probably nothing, but just in case … Hang on, I’ll come with you.’

She stood up. Helen rose too, rather more slowly.

‘All right, we’ll all go,’ she said.

‘Helen, love, don’t be silly,’ protested Jason. ‘In your condition …’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she snapped, ‘not a bloody invalid. And Pal’s my brother.’

There we go, thought Kay. Blood.

She said brightly, ‘This can hardly have anything to do with Pal if the police are trying to get hold of him as the keyholder, can it?’

It rang as true as a British Euro.

‘All right. Come on,’ said Jason, who knew when argument was useless.

They got their coats and went out. It took some time to ease Helen into the car, even though it was a big Volvo estate. Jason’s beloved MR2 had gone in the fourth month of pregnancy when he’d had to admit its impracticality as a vehicle for his expanding wife and his imminently expanding family.

Finally they were on their way.

Kay looked back at the house as they passed through the gateway. Even at this short distance the mist made it look different, strange, unattainable.

For whatever reason, she found herself thinking that these cosy Wednesday evenings were over for ever.

8
another fine mess

What’s keeping the useless bastard? Ellie Pascoe asked herself.

Anything less serious than a terrorist attack necessitating the sealing off of the city centre would be paid for with bitter rue.

She glanced surreptitiously at her watch.

It was a mistake.

The thing about Cressida’s pounce was that, though you knew it was coming, it always took you by surprise.

One moment she was sitting opposite, attempting to squeeze a final drop out of the now empty bottle, the next she was on the arm of Ellie’s chair, pinning her down with the expertise of a pro wrestler and trying to thrust her tongue down Ellie’s throat.

Unable to move and unable to speak, Ellie did the only thing left to her. She bit.

‘Christ Almighty!’ exclaimed Cress, jerking her head back. ‘So you like it rough? Suits me.’

The door bell rang.

And kept on ringing.

One thing about a cop, he might come late, but when he arrived you knew he was there.

‘Who the hell is that?’ said Cressida angrily.

Her body-lock grip relaxed sufficiently for Ellie to counterattack. She rolled Cressida off the arm of the chair and rose to her feet.

‘Don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think he’s going to go away.’

She headed for the door and opened it. Her husband stood there, framed in thick mist, like a visitor from another world.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said, her voice bright, her eyes brighter as they flashed Where the hell have you been? ‘You’re a bit early. We haven’t even eaten yet.’

‘Sorry, bit of an emergency. I rang home to check things, and the sitter’s not feeling too well. Unfortunately something’s come up at work and I’m going to be a bit tied up myself, so I thought I’d better get you there.’

He sounded like a second-rate actor in a third rate soap.

‘Oh dear. What a pity. Cress, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. Perils of domesticity, eh?’

Cressida was standing behind her, looking like she didn’t believe a word of it. Don’t blame her, thought Ellie. If Peter had sounded stilted, she sounded like a parody of provincial rep. All she lacked was a French window and a tennis racket.

But no time to hang about for the reviews.

She grabbed her coat, gave her friend a quick hug and followed Peter down the steps of the narrow Edwardian terrace house to his car.

The police radio crackled into life as he opened the door.

Ellie, used to the background when she travelled with her husband, didn’t pay any attention till he grabbed the mike, identified himself and asked for details.

Shit, thought Ellie. How often did it happen that your lying excuses turned true? He’d said he was tied up with something and now God was making sure he was, which was a shame as, whether in reaction from or reaction to her friend’s probing tongue she didn’t care to know, she wouldn’t have minded getting home full of wine for an early night …

She felt herself pushed aside as Cressida came bounding down the steps and thrust her head into the car.

‘What was that about Moscow House?’ she demanded.

Pascoe looked at her in amazement then tried to ease her backwards.

‘Nothing to bother yourself with, just a routine call …’

‘They’re talking about ambulances, aren’t they? That’s Moscow House in the Avenue, right? Jesus! Ask them what the hell’s going on. Ellie, that’s our house. Don’t you understand – that’s our house!’

And as she looked appealingly at her friend, her name Maciver was spoken quite distinctly on the radio.

Pascoe switched it off.

‘Your house …?’ he said.

‘It’s the family house, where I grew up … It belongs to us now, the three of us, only … What’s going on there? Has this got anything to do with Pal going missing?’

Pascoe looked at Ellie, who said, ‘Pal’s Cress’s brother. He didn’t turn up for a squash match this evening and no one knows where he is …’

Pascoe said, ‘Probably some simple explanation. Ellie, I’ll have to call by there, check what’s going off. Maybe it’s best if you hang on here till I see how long I’m going to be. You can always get a taxi.’

He sounded very relaxed about things and it all came over much more convincing than before, but Ellie got the real message. He’d heard something that suggested to him it might be a good idea if she stuck with Cressida for a while longer.

But that wasn’t an option.

Cressida said, ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ said Pascoe firmly. ‘Against regulations, you see …’

‘Sod regulations. OK, if you won’t take me, I’ll drive myself.’

‘Pete,’ said Ellie urgently. ‘I don’t think that would be wise … we’ve drunk quite a bit of wine, and with this mist …’

Pascoe shook his head and gave her his another-fine-mess-you’ve-got-me-into look, then said, ‘All right, Cress, get in. But when we get there, you stay inside the car till I check what’s happening, OK?’

‘Yeah yeah, anything,’ said Cressida, tumbling into the back seat.

Fat chance, thought Ellie.

She went back up the steps and closed the door, wondered too late if Cress had her keys with her, thought That’s her problem! and got into the other rear seat.

Cressida was looking at her suspiciously. She might be tipsy and she might be worried but her brain was still working.

She said, ‘So what’s happening about your baby-sitter emergency?’

Oh hell, thought Ellie. In her experience lies always got you into trouble.

She said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Cressida.

9
the battle of Moscow

It was almost a dead heat at Moscow House with Pascoe’s ancient Golf just pipping Sue-Lynn’s Alfa Romeo Spider, closely followed by Jason Dunn’s Volvo estate.

PC Jennison had been stationed as custodian of the gate by Sergeant Bonnick with the uncalled-for comment that here at last was a task suited to his excessive girth.

‘No one gets past, right?’

‘Not even Mr Dalziel, say?’ said Jennison uneasily. Or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? his restless imagination added.

‘No one unofficial, idiot! Do I have to spell it out? Our lot you wave through. Anyone else, you block their passage, which shouldn’t be difficult with your gut, then you contact me in the house. And keep a log of names and times in your notebook. You got that?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ said Jennison.

So far all that had turned up had been Inspector Ireland, an ambulance and the duty Medical Examiner, plus one of the working girls whose curiosity had been strong enough to keep her from joining the general migration to other beats once the flashing blue lights had signalled the end of trade in the Avenue for the night. When first she appeared, Jennison had experienced a pang of bowel-loosening terror. With long black hair and a face as pale as death, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a Transylvanian tomb. But when she smiled at him without revealing fangs and spoke to him in a friendly and indeed rather flattering way, he quickly relaxed. Any remaining suspicion that she might be one of the Undead faded when his expert gaze took in the substantial and shapely body beneath the short leather dress, a judgment he was able to confirm tactilely when he put his hands on her buttocks and pushed her out of sight behind the gate column when a car approached.

This turned out to be Pascoe. On recognizing the DCI, Jennison stood aside and waved him through, only realizing as the car went by that there were two women in the back.

So what? he thought. Bonkers could hardly blame him if the DCI brought his friends and family along. But even as the disclaimer formed in his mind, the Volvo and the Spider loomed out of the mist and went sweeping by before he could re-interpose his large frame.

He took out his radio, weighed the pros and cons of contacting the sergeant, decided that a plea of misunderstanding was better than a confession of inefficiency, and put it away again.

In his notebook he noted the time, then added, in his old-fashioned round schoolboy’s hand, Mr Pascoe and party.

‘OK, Dolores,’ he said, and watched with a classical appreciation as the young tart slipped like a shy nymph from behind the sheltering column.

Heading up the drive, Pascoe was aware of headlights blooming behind, but thought nothing of it. As some of his civilian acquaintance liked to point out, if you got burgled and wanted a cop while the clues were still hot, it could be twenty-four hours before you saw one; but if you moved beyond the reach of human help by getting yourself killed, then every police vehicle in the county would be rushing to your door.

He saw an ambulance parked before the house alongside an Audi A6 Avant. In the passenger seat of the ambulance a paramedic was carefully puffing cigarette smoke out of his open window. By his side, the driver was talking into his radio mike.

Pascoe read the scene clearly. It wasn’t good news. Their disposition meant there was nothing for them here except body recovery. The driver would be talking to his Control, asking for instructions. Which were most likely to be, don’t hang around waiting for the cops to tell you they’ve finished with the corpse, which could take forever. Get back here, plenty of other work to do.

He applied the handbrake, turned to the women in the rear and said, ‘Stay in the car, please, until I’ve checked things out.’

Perhaps he should have applied the rear-door child-locks, but locking Ellie in wasn’t something a man did lightly. Anyway he couldn’t see how this situation could prove more problematic than many others he’d dealt with over the years.

He soon found out.

Alongside them the ambulance had started up and begun to move away. Cressida flung her door open and ran after it, beating her fist against its rear doors. An Alfa Spider slewed to a halt across the drive, forcing the ambulance to stop, and another woman half fell out and began shouting at the paramedic through his open window. Behind the Spider, a Volvo estate came to rest rather more sedately. Its male driver emerged with athletic grace, a blond young man, lovely to look at, the perfect type of the Handsome Sailor. He looked ready to join the assault on the emergency vehicle but was called to order by a scream from the rear of his car and, with evident reluctance, turned to assist a pregnant woman out of the back seat.

From the opposite door a tall slim woman slipped out and stood assessing the scene with a calm unblinking gaze. The woman from the Spider was demanding to know who was being taken to hospital and insisting if it was her husband that she should be admitted to ride with him. The paramedic was trying without much success to convince her the vehicle was empty and they’d been called away on another emergency. Cressida was wrestling with the rear door handle. The pregnant woman, magnified by a trick of the headlights and mist so that she could have modelled for Gaea, heavy with Titans, was now advancing with majestic instancy. By her side the Handsome Sailor seemed divided between wanting to guide her ponderous steps and wanting to get to the ambulance, presumably to add his vote to the demand for information. The driver out of frustration leaned on his horn. Sergeant Bonnick, attracted by the noise, appeared in the open doorway of Moscow House. The paramedic, realizing that nothing but proof ocular was going to convince the women that the ambulance was empty, climbed out of the cab and went round to the rear doors. Another set of headlights came swimming up the drive.

‘Peter,’ said Ellie, who was standing alongside her husband viewing the activity, ‘I think it’s time to exercise your authority.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Pascoe with the calmness of one in no hurry to confront a belligerent drunk, a hysterical wife (widow?), and a woman who looked as if a good sneeze could send her into epeirogenic contractions. ‘When they realize the cupboard’s bare, they’ll settle down.’

‘Wimp,’ said Ellie.

The paramedic pushed Cressida to one side and pulled open the doors.

Everyone, including the trio from the Volvo, peered inside.

For a moment it looked as if Pascoe was right.

There was a moment of complete and blessed silence.

Then it was broken by the slamming of a car door, presumably belonging to the newly arrived vehicle invisible behind the Volvo’s dazzling headlights.

The noise cracked through the stillness like a starting gun and had much the same effect.

Cressida turned her attention from the ambulance’s emptiness to the others around her, seeming to register them for the first time. Her attention focused on the tall slim woman.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she demanded.

‘Hello, Cressida,’ said the woman mildly. ‘I think we ought to ask someone in authority just what’s happened here, don’t you?’

‘Oh, you do, do you? Well, any interest you might have had in what happens here ended ten fucking years ago. Now all you’re doing is trespassing. Get off my property before I throw you off,’ snarled Cressida, taking an aggressive step towards the tall woman.

‘Your property, Cress? What do you mean, your property? It’s as much mine as yours, and Kay’s here with me, so just shut up!’

This was Gaea, her voice shrill, her pretty face contorted.

‘Jesus Christ, can’t you two just grow up and stop acting like a pair of sodding schoolgirls! It’s Pal, my husband, your brother, we should be worried about here, not who owns what, right?’

This was the Spider Woman. Her reproaches, far from calming things down, merely drew the fire of both the sisters, who seemed united in dislike of their sister-in-law if nothing else.

The Handsome Sailor meanwhile was heading towards the house. He looked in superb shape but Bonnick, who made such a big thing of physical fitness, ought to be able to take care of him, thought Pascoe. On the other hand once the trio of quarrelling women diverted their attention from the ambulance and each other to what lay inside the house, even the redoubtable Bonnick could be in bother.

The blond reached the doorway, the sergeant spoke to him, the young man began to push past, Bonnick tried to apply a basic armlock which the other evaded with practised ease. Realizing he was dealing with someone who’d done the same unarmed-combat courses as himself, the sergeant threw restraint to the winds and the young man to the ground, only to have his legs swept from under him. Next moment, the two were grappling on the doorstep, while the angry voices of the three women rose in volume and intensity.

Definitely time to assert his authority, thought Pascoe, taking a deep breath. At least things couldn’t get any worse.

He was of course wrong.

As he moved unhappily towards the ambulance, he heard a great voice as of a trumpet speak to him from the darkness behind the headlights.

‘Evening, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to see you’ve got everything here under control.’

And out of the mist into the light stepped the bulky figure of Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.

10
a shark in the pool

It would be hard to describe Andy Dalziel as a soothing presence, but like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, he provided a new and unignorable focus of attention.

Reactions to his arrival were various.

Pascoe said, ‘What the fuck’s he doing here?’

Ellie said, ‘God alone knows, but I’m sure if we wait he’ll tell us.’

The wrestlers carried on wrestling.

Cressida, Spider Woman and Earth Mother regarded him with wary neutrality.

Only the tall slim woman looked pleased to see him.

‘Andy, it’s so good to see you again,’ she said, smiling as if she meant it.

She stepped forward to meet him, holding out her hand.

‘You too, Kay,’ said Dalziel, taking the hand. ‘Though mebbe not here.’

‘On the contrary,’ said the woman, who had a soft unobtrusive American accent. ‘Here is perfect. We need to know what’s going on, and I’m sure if anyone can tell us, you can.’

‘I’d best find out then,’ he said, releasing the hand, which he’d been holding in a kissing rather than a shaking grip. ‘Ladies, if you’d just be patient a bit longer …’

Cressida looked as if she might be about to assert that in her view patience was for monuments but subsided as his gaze locked with hers for a second before passing on to the ambulance crew.

‘Detective Superintendent Dalziel,’ he said. ‘What’s going off, lads?’

‘Nothing for us here.’ The driver glanced towards the women and lowered his voice. ‘Just body removal, and your lot don’t know when that will be authorized.’

‘So you thought you’d shog off home?’

‘No! We got an all-units call. Big pile-up in fog on the bypass.’

‘Oh aye? Then what are you still skiving round here for?’ demanded Dalziel.

Indignation at the injustice of this rose in the ambulance men’s eyes, decided it didn’t care for the view, and dived back under.

‘Right, we’ll be off then,’ said the driver.

The ambulance pulled away. Kay Kafka put her arm as far round the Earth Mother as it would go. The other two women exchanged a glower then concentrated on the Fat Man’s retreating figure. On the doorstep the Handsome Sailor had been subdued, but only after Bonnick had been reinforced by the arrival of PC Maycock. For the moment peace was restored.

‘Right, sunshine,’ said Dalziel. ‘What’s going off then, apart from bloody chaos?’

‘How should I know?’ retorted Pascoe. ‘I just got here myself. I’m not psychic.’

‘Hoity-toity,’ said Dalziel. ‘See you brought the family. Little Rosie’s in the back of the car, is she?’

‘No, she isn’t. I just happened to be picking up Ellie when I heard the call.’

‘So none of that lot’s with you?’

‘Well actually, Cressida – she’s the one with the hair – it was her house I was picking up Ellie from …’

‘So you said, “Fancy a lift, luv?” Kind of you, Peter. Gets the Force a good name. Did you pick up the others en route?’

‘Of course not,’ said Pascoe indignantly. ‘They all turned up after I got here, which was when the trouble started. How the hell did they get past Jennison on the gate anyway?

‘How owt gets past yon bugger, I don’t know. Man can’t have any self-respect to let himself get in that shape,’ said Dalziel sanctimoniously. Perhaps, thought Pascoe incredulously, he sees himself as slim!

‘Any road,’ he went on, ‘I gather there’s a body in here and I’d say this gang have all turned up ’cos they’re worried it’s Pal Maciver. So let’s go in and see if we can put them out of their misery. Or do I mean into it?’

He strode towards the front door. As he passed Ellie he said, ‘What fettle, luv? Enjoying your night out?’

‘Always a pleasure watching professionals at their work, Andy,’ she replied.

Pascoe said to her, ‘Look, I’m going to be tied up here for a while. Why don’t you take the car and head off home?’

‘Before I find out what’s happened? You’re joking. Besides, Cress might need me.’

‘I thought that was why I had to pick you up early,’ said Pascoe.

He caught up with Dalziel at the door.

‘You all right, Sergeant?’ the Fat Man said to Bonnick.

‘Fine, sir.’

‘Good. And how about you, son?’

Dunn said, ‘Look, I’m sorry – I was out of … but I was worried – we’d heard that … and he didn’t show, so I thought that … that … that …’

He stammered to a halt. He really was Billy Budd, thought Pascoe.

‘What’s your problem, lad?’ enquired Dalziel. ‘Apart from not being able to finish sentences? Here, don’t I know you?’

‘I don’t think so – please, I didn’t realize …’

‘Yes I do. Rugby club. You sometimes turn out for the seconds, right? Open side? But you can’t play regular because of your work, or summat?’

‘That’s right. I teach PE at Weavers and that means my Saturdays are pretty well spoken for.’

‘PE, eh? That explains about the sentences. Pity, but. You looked a lot better prospect than yon neanderthal that plays for the firsts. No finesse. Kicks folk right in front of the ref. Any of them ladies back there belong to you?’

‘That’s my wife, Helen … the pregnant one.’

‘That right? Planning to get all your family over at once, are you? So she’d be Helen Maciver as was, right? Now Mrs Dunn as is. I’m getting there. Mrs Kafka I know. And yon Cressida, I remember her. The other is …?’

‘Sue-Lynn, Pal’s wife.’

‘Oh aye. All here then. Some bugger must’ve sent invitations.’

‘Is Pal in there?’ said Dunn pleadingly. ‘Has something happened to him?’

‘I’ve no idea. Any reason to think it might have done?’

‘No. I mean, he didn’t turn up … we play squash on Wednesday evenings and when he didn’t show …’

‘Stood you up, did he? And that makes you worry something’s happened to him? I see. People stand me up, it’s when they do appear that something’s likely to happen to them. Maycock, you reckon you can keep this mob at bay?’

‘No problem, sir.’

‘Good lad. Sergeant, lead on. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.’

‘Please, can’t I come with you?’ pleaded Dunn.

‘Nay lad,’ said Dalziel kindly. ‘I think most likely you’re under arrest. Often happens when you assault a police officer. That right, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Bonnick.

‘Don’t worry too much, but. It probably won’t delight the governors at Weavers but it will really impress the kids. Now I’m going to give you a choice. You can either sit in a car handcuffed to the wheel till we’re ready to deal with you, which could be hours. Or you can promise to be a good boy and go and take care of that poor wife of thine before she explodes. Which is it?’

‘No more trouble, really. I’m very sorry,’ said Dunn.

‘Good lad. Off you go. Now, Sergeant, fill me in.’

He listened carefully to Bonnick’s digest of events as they entered the house and climbed the stairs, only interrupting to ask, ‘What made Tweedledum and Tweedledee come up the drive in the first place?’

There was a slight hesitation before Bonnick said, ‘Just a random check, I think, sir. Also some of the girls bring their punters up these driveways, I believe, and we’ve been doing a bit of a blitz on kerb crawlers recently.’

‘Very conscientious pair of officers, then,’ said Dalziel. ‘You’re lucky to have them.’

The old sod knows that most likely they were skiving, thought Pascoe, but he wouldn’t have rated Bonnick if he’d said so.

When they reached the landing, he saw a uniformed inspector standing by a door with a splintered frame. This was Paddy Ireland, a small, rather self-important man, whose trousers always looked as if they’d been re-pressed after he put them on. He turned and acknowledged Dalziel with a parade-ground salute. Behind him through the doorway Pascoe could see a man in a white coverall whom he recognized as Tom Lockridge, one of a small group of local doctors registered as police medical examiners. He was looking down at a man slumped at a desk. At least Pascoe assumed it was a man. Too little of the head remained to make confirmation certain at this distance.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Dalziel. ‘Any ID?’

‘Haven’t been able to check, sir,’ said Ireland. ‘Thought it best to disturb things as little as possible till SOCO had got their photos.’

‘There’s a car parked round the back of the house,’ said Bonnick. ‘Blue Laguna estate, registered owner Mr Palinurus Maciver, who’s also the designated keyholder of the property, so it seems likely …’

‘Let’s not jump the gun, if you’ll pardon the expression,’ said Dalziel. ‘Dr Lockridge, how do? What can you tell us?’

Tom Lockridge had emerged from the room. He didn’t look well.

‘He’s dead,’ said Lockridge.

‘Don’t reckon you’re going to get any argument there,’ said Dalziel, peering towards the shattered figure. ‘But it’s always good to have these things confirmed by an expert. Saves us laymen wasting time with the kiss of life. You wouldn’t like to give us just a bit of detail, but, Doc?’

‘Not long dead,’ intoned Lockridge dully. ‘Two to four hours, maybe. Cause of death, probably self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head …’

‘Probably?’

‘You won’t know for certain till the pathologist has taken a look, will you?’ said Lockridge, sparking slightly.

‘Won’t know what? That they killed him or that they were self-inflicted?’

‘What? Both. Either. They look to be self-inflicted. He took his shoe and sock off …’

‘Why do you think that was?’

‘I presume so he could pull the shotgun trigger with his toe.’

‘You’re a bugger for presumptions, Doc. Mebbe he were a freemason. Didn’t notice an apron, did you?’

This was a facetious callosity too far, thought Pascoe.

Lockridge evidently thought so too.

‘Mr Dalziel,’ he said very formally, ‘as a doctor, I know the therapeutic value of gallows humour, but I still find your tone offensive. I hope you will take pains to control it before you break the sad news to Mr Maciver’s relations.’

‘Mr Maciver? That’s Mr Maciver, is it? How can you tell?’

They all stared towards the shattered head.

‘I don’t know … I just assumed, with him going missing … Yes, I’m sure it’s Pal … I used to be his doctor, you see.’

‘Is that right? So how about distinguishing marks? Something that ’ud spare us having to give his nearest and dearest a close-up of that?’

‘He does … did … does have a distinct naevus at the base of his spine.’

‘Naevus? Like in Ben Naevus, you mean?’

‘Birthmark,’ explained Pascoe, he knew unnecessarily.

‘Oh aye. But you’ve not taken a look?’

‘No. I assumed you’d want the body left as undisturbed as possible till your SOCO people had finished in there.’

‘SOCO? You think there’s been a crime then, Doc?’

‘I know there’s been a suspicious death. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way. You’ll have my report as soon as possible.’

He started to peel off the protective overall but Dalziel said, ‘Hang about, Doc. Do us a favour. Just pop back in there and check out yon naevus thing, just so’s we can be sure.’

For a moment Lockridge looked as though he might refuse, then he turned, went back into the room, pulled the dead man’s shirt-tail out of his trousers, peered down for a moment, then returned.

‘It’s him,’ he said shortly. ‘Can I go now?’

He didn’t wait for an answer but removed his overall and hurried away down the stairs.

‘Bit pale round the gills, weren’t he?’ said Dalziel. ‘And he didn’t even tuck the poor sod’s shirt back in.’

‘He knew the guy. Bound to be a bit of a shock, seeing him dead,’ said Pascoe.

‘Don’t be daft. He’s a doctor. Spends his life looking at dead folk that were alive on his last visit. Show me a quack who’s not used to it and I’ll pay hard cash to get on his panel.’

‘Perhaps he was a friend as well as a patient.’

‘Former patient. Aye, that might do it. Someone you think you know tops himself, it makes you wonder about all the other buggers you think you know.’

‘Tops himself? Getting a bit ahead of the game, aren’t you, sir?’ said Pascoe.

‘That’s how you win matches, lad. Any road, door locked and bolted on the inside. Windows with the kind of shutters that ’ud keep a tax inspector out. Gun between his legs, shoe and sock off. Lots of little hints there, I’d say.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Pascoe obstinately.

‘Oh God, you been at the John Dickson Carr again? What more do you want?’

‘A note would be nice, for a start.’

‘A note, eh? Any sign of a note, Paddy?’

Inspector Ireland let out a long-suffering sigh. The fact that he was a teetotal Baptist born in Heckmondwyke and able to trace his ancestry back a hundred and fifty years without any sign of Irish blood hadn’t saved him from being nicknamed Paddy, and the more he protested, the more he found himself treated as a fount of knowledge on all matters Eireann.

‘Name’s Cedric,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t say. I followed procedure and kept out to minimize the risk of contamination.’

‘But you’ve been inside, Sergeant, and I’ve no doubt Tweedledum and Tweedledee went clumping all over the place.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Bonnick. ‘Didn’t see a note though.’

‘Pity,’ said Dalziel. ‘There ought to be something …’

‘To confirm it’s suicide, you mean?’ said Pascoe triumphantly.

‘No,’ said the Fat Man irritably. ‘In fact, if you studied your statistics you’d know that seventy per cent of genuine suicides don’t leave a note, while ninety-seven per cent of fakes do … Hang about. Not a note. A book! Now I recall. There ought to be a book. Isn’t that a book on the desk, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Bonnick, surprised. ‘There is a book.’

‘Didn’t notice what it was, did you?’

‘No, sir. Got a bit splattered with blood and stuff. You’d need to scrape it off first.’

‘Not squeamish, are you? Doesn’t come well from a sergeant, squeaming.’

‘Just following procedure, sir, touching as little as possible till the scene’s been examined.’

‘Which will be when? You did give SOCO the right address, didn’t you, Paddy?’

‘Of course I did,’ Ireland assured him, looking offended.

Three things were troubling Pascoe. One was the suspicion that the Fat Man had just invented the suicide note statistics. The second was his apparent power of precognition. There ought to be a book. And lo! there was a book!

The third was the still unanswered question of why the hell he was here at all. Off duty, what had there been in a shout to a possible suicide to bring him hurrying from the comfort of his fireside? Even the fact that his inamorata, Cap Marvell, was away at present didn’t explain that.

His speculations were interrupted by noises below. Fearful that Cressida had led an assault, he peered over the balustrade and saw to his relief that the SOCO team had finally arrived. They paused to pull on their white coveralls and then came up the stairway.

‘About bloody time,’ said Dalziel. ‘Don’t be all night at it, will you? And try not to leave a mess.’

He set off down the stairs. Pascoe hurried to catch up with him.

‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Do I take it you’re assuming control of this case?’

‘Me? Simple suicide? Nay, lad, you got here first, you’re the man in charge.’

‘In that case, there’s a couple of questions I’d like to ask you …’

‘Not now, lad, not when there’s a poor woman out there waiting to be told she’s a widow,’ reproved the Fat Man.

So saying, he pulled open the front door, bounced Maycock aside with his belly and stepped out into the night.

11
SD+SS=PS

Out here, the mist was in total control. It gave bulk while it removed substance. Somewhere in the wooded garden, an owl uttered a long wavering screech that made Pascoe’s nape hair prickle.

Helen and Jason had got back into the Volvo, Ellie was talking to Cressida alongside the Spider, and Kay Kafka was standing to one side with a mobile to her ear.

‘Where’s the wife gone?’ said Dalziel.

‘I don’t know,’ said Pascoe. ‘But as I’m in charge, I think I ought to be the one who breaks the news.’

Meaning, until he knew different, this was a suspicious death and everyone connected with the dead man was a suspect.

‘You reckon? Sometimes these things are better coming from a more sensitive and mature figure,’ said Dalziel. ‘Where the hell’s the daft tart got to anyway?’

Pascoe spotted a movement in the front seat of the Audi that had been parked outside the house when he first arrived. Its headlights came on and the engine started as he peered towards it. The front passenger door opened and Sue-Lynn got out. The car pulled away and he recognized Tom Lockridge’s profile as it went past.

‘I think the doctor may have saved us the bother,’ he said. ‘He can’t have heard of your sensitive bedside manner.’

‘Don’t know how. It’s famous in three counties …’

‘… the county court, the county jail and the County Hotel,’ Pascoe concluded the old joke. He watched as the Fat Man advanced to meet the approaching woman and heard him say in a gently melancholy voice, ‘Mrs Maciver, Tom Lockridge has told you the dreadful news, has he? I’m so sorry.’

She looked as if she didn’t believe him and said, ‘Can I see my husband now?’

‘Soon,’ said Dalziel. ‘Come on inside and let’s find you somewhere to sit for a bit …’

He started leading her towards the house.

Pascoe said, ‘Sir, a quick word.’

‘Excuse me, luv,’ said Dalziel.

He stepped aside with Pascoe and said in an irritated tone, ‘What?’

‘You can’t take her inside, sir.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Until we can confirm suicide, the whole house is a crime scene, and you don’t escort a principal suspect on to a crime scene.’

‘Principal suspect? You crazy or what, lad?’

‘Just quoting you, sir. SD+SS=PS, that’s what you’re always drumming into the DCs, isn’t it? Suspicious death + surviving spouse = prime suspect. Sir.’

‘Keep your voice down! You’ll be getting us all sued. What did you have in mind then? Take her down the nick and shine a bright light into her eyes?’

Over Dalziel’s huge shoulder Pascoe saw that Cressida and Kay had advanced to confront Sue-Lynn with Ellie not far behind.

‘What’s happening?’ Cressida demanded. ‘What have they told you?’

Sue-Lynn said, ‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh Jesus. What happened? How …?’

‘He shot himself. Just like your pa.’

‘Shot himself? In there? When?’ cried Kay.

‘What the hell does it matter when?’ exploded Cressida. ‘Just now. Ten years ago. That’s two down. Are you done now, bitch?’

‘Cressida, I’m so sorry, I’m truly deeply sorry … this is dreadful, dreadful …’

Of the three women, it was Kay Kafka who looked the most genuinely distressed, observed Pascoe. The emotion that twisted Cressida’s face was anger, while Sue-Lynn’s features were mask-like which might be the result of shock or just the glazing effect of her complex make-up.

Jason Dunn was out of his car now, once more torn between his eagerness to join the group and find out what was going on and his desire to help his wife, who was also trying to re-emerge from the Volvo.

Sue-Lynn said, ‘You two want to stay out here and fight, that’s your business. I want to see him. Superintendent, I insist you take me to see him. Right now!’

She spoke in the voice that got waiters and shop assistants jumping.

Dalziel scratched his crotch reflectively, then replied in a fawning Heepish tone, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Maciver, I know what you must be feeling, but it’s not my decision. Chief Inspector Pascoe’s in charge here. It’s him who’s calling the shots.’

Not the most diplomatic of phrases in the circumstances, thought Pascoe as he sought for the right words to pour oil on these turbulent waters.

But he was saved from proving his diplomatic skills by a long, wavering cry, which for a second he thought was the owl again.

Then it was joined by a male voice raised in alarm and, looking towards the Volvo, he saw that Helen Dunn had sunk back into the car.

‘Help me!’ cried Jason. ‘Please someone, help me! The baby’s coming!’

Kay set off at a run with the other women close behind.

‘I’ve seen your bedside manner,’ said Pascoe to Dalziel. ‘So, how’s your obstetrics?’

He didn’t wait for an answer but went to his car and said tersely into his radio, ‘DCI Pascoe at Moscow House in the Avenue, Greenhill. Get an ambulance down here fast as you can. Woman in labour.’

‘By God,’ said Dalziel behind him. ‘This is one up for community policing. Don’t worry if your loved one snuffs it. Your modern caring force comes fully equipped with a replacement.’

‘Better than that, Andy,’ said Ellie who’d come running back from the Volvo. ‘Two for the price of one. They say she’s having twins.’

‘Size of her, I’m surprised it’s not a football team,’ said Dalziel. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Her waters have broken. You’ve got an ambulance coming, I take it?’

The radio crackled and a voice said, ‘Control to Mr Pascoe. Re that ambulance for Moscow House, could be a delay. There’s been a pile-up in fog on the bypass and they’re a bit stretched.’

‘So’s that poor girl,’ said Ellie. ‘Look, if it’s going to take that long, I think we ought to get her into the house.’

Dalziel looked at Pascoe and raised his eyebrows.

Pascoe said, ‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to drive her direct to hospital?’

‘If things happen as quickly as I think they might, she doesn’t want to be bouncing around in the back of a car,’ retorted Ellie. ‘There’s light in there, isn’t there? And I’m sure it’s a damn sight warmer than out here. I’ll get it organized.’

She didn’t wait for an answer but returned to the Volvo.

‘Shit,’ said Pascoe.

‘Best-laid plans, eh?’ said Dalziel. ‘Not to worry. Thank your lucky stars it’s only a suicide, not a real crime scene.’

Again that certainty. But no time now for deep questioning. Pascoe headed for the house to reorganize his defences.

Maycock he relocated at the foot of the stairs.

No civilian goes up there,’ he commanded. ‘And I mean no one. Anyone tries, stop ’em. Anyone persists, arrest ’em. Anyone resists arrest, cuff ’em. Is there any other way up there?’

‘There’s a back stair,’ said Sergeant Bonnick, coming down from the landing, followed by Inspector Ireland. ‘What’s going on, sir?’

Pascoe explained.

‘You cover that back stair, Sergeant. Same as here. No one goes up it, OK? Paddy, how are they doing up there?’

‘You know SOCO. Slow but sure,’ said Ireland, for once not reacting to his sobriquet. ‘When they’ve finished the study, they want to know how much of the rest of the house you want done.’

‘Tell them to have a look round upstairs,’ said Pascoe. ‘Doubt if there’ll be much point down here once this mob start milling around, but let’s try to keep their movements as confined as possible.’

He went across the hall and flung open a door that led into a large bay-windowed drawing room full of bulky pieces of furniture shrouded in dust sheets.

‘You reckon there’s something dodgy about this suicide, Pete?’ said Ireland, curious why Pascoe should have any concern about the ground floor.

‘I hope not,’ said Pascoe. ‘But if there is, I don’t want things muddied by having the whole place turned into a maternity hospital. We’ll put Mrs Dunn and the others in here till the ambulance comes, and we’ll try to keep them in here.’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ said Ireland with the cynicism of a father of five, four of whom had been born at home. ‘Woman in labour, every female within half a mile becomes Queen of the Universe.’

‘We’ll just have to do our best, but if any of them do have to come out, I want to know the reason why and I want a record kept of exactly where they go. And I mean exactly. Got that, Paddy?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ireland placatingly. ‘I’ve got it.’

He’s wondering why I’m being so neurotic, thought Pascoe.

Maybe I should wonder the same.

Does my sensitive nose really scent something untoward about this business, or am I merely reacting to Fat Andy’s ready acceptance of suicide and mysterious hints of preknowledge?

He heard voices in the hallway and went out. The birthing party had arrived, with Helen supported by her husband and Dalziel, Ellie and Kay Kafka in close attendance, and Cressida and Sue-Lynn bringing up the rear. The last two both looked pretty subdued. Not surprising. Husband and brother lying dead upstairs, sister and sister-in-law giving birth below. It was a situation to subdue a Tartar.

‘In here,’ said Pascoe.

‘Couldn’t we get her to a bedroom?’ said Dunn.

‘Don’t be daft, we’d need a sodding crane,’ said Dalziel.

And a cry of pain from Helen persuaded her husband.

Ellie said, ‘Is the water supply turned on?’

Pascoe looked at Ireland, who said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Heaters too?’

‘I’ll check.’

‘Thank you.’

Pascoe looked at Ellie curiously. Those scenes in old movies where birth was accompanied by the boiling up of untold and unused gallons of water had always amused her greatly.

She said, ‘What?’

He said, ‘Nothing.’

There was a shriek from the lounge.

‘I’d better get in there,’ said Ellie.

As she went in, Dalziel came out.

‘No place for a sensitive soul,’ he said. ‘Out in the desert they say Bedouin lasses just drop their kids on the march, hardly break step. Don’t need fifty other women all running around like blue-arsed fleas. No word on that ambulance? Mebbe I should talk to the buggers.’

‘I don’t think that would help,’ said Pascoe sharply. ‘It will get here as soon as possible, and it will either be in time or it won’t, and all the shouting in the world won’t make any difference.’

‘Don’t take it out on me, Pete.’

‘Take what out?’

‘Come on! Woman so pregnant she can hardly walk, shocked by news that her brother’s topped himself. Doctor and ambulance already at scene. And you let ’em both go! Not the best career move you ever made, lad.’

Pascoe reached forward and seized the Fat Man’s arm.

‘You reckon?’ he grated into his superior’s smiling face. ‘Well, here’s what I suggest we do during the few remaining moments of my beautiful career. Let’s find somewhere quiet where you can bring me up to speed on exactly what it is you know about this place and these people that I don’t, OK?’

‘Thought you’d never ask,’ said Andy Dalziel.

12
cold, strange world

Dalziel and Pascoe sat side by side at the head of the staircase.

‘Can’t credit you know nowt,’ said Dalziel. ‘Where were you ten years back?’

‘I don’t know. Where were you a week last Tuesday?’

‘Not the same thing,’ said Dalziel. ‘Anyone can lose a day, but I can tell you exactly where I was ten years ago.’

‘Bully for you. But hang about … Ten years … March … I remember! I was on my back in bed.’

‘Oh aye? Dirty weekend?’

‘No. Ellie and I had been away to Marrakesh and I picked up hepatitis.’

‘Like I said, dirty weekend.’

‘Ha. Anyway, that accounts for me for a month or more. So, where were you that you can be so exact about?’

‘Me?’ said Dalziel. ‘Easy. I were here.’

‘Here?’

‘Aye, lad. Don’t recollect sitting on the stairs, but I was certainly in this house. And for much the same reason. It’s ten years ago to this very day that Pal Maciver Senior, that’s the dad of this lot, him on the wall in the breeks and woolly hat, locked himself in his study, tied a bit of string round the trigger of a Purdy shotgun, looped the other end round his big toe, and blew his head to pieces.’

‘Ah,’ said Pascoe.

For a moment there didn’t seem anything else to say. Then there seemed to be so much that he took another moment to marshal his words.

‘In his study … that’s the same room … and he had an open book on his desk?’

‘That’s right. But as I’ve not seen it yet and Bonnick says it were too covered with blood and brain for him to read the title, I can’t say if it’s the same book.’

‘But if it were, by which I presume you’d mean the same title not necessarily the same volume, what would that be?’

‘Book of poems. Funny little things. Some Yankee bint. Eleanor Dickson, summat like that.’

‘Emily Dickinson?’

‘That’s the one. Bit weird. Might have guessed you’d know her.’

Ignoring this aspersion on his literary taste, Pascoe was running through what little he knew about the Maciver family history already. He’d met Cressida a couple of times, found her somewhat over intense, and when foolishly he’d wondered aloud how Ellie had come to make a friend out of an aggressive man-basher who, every time she got drunk, attempted to rape her, he’d been lectured on not judging by surfaces. Underneath it all, he was told, Cress was really dreadfully in need of reassurance, and love, probably due to childhood trauma caused by the early death of her parents, which she never talked about.

‘I think she was heavily dependent on her brother and they’re still very close, but when he got married, that left a gap in her life. She’s always looking for a strong man to lean on. Trouble is, the bastards always keel over!’

None of this seemed relevant, so he said to Dalziel, ‘This is a copycat suicide then? That’s what brought you running?’

‘Strolling,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Aye, you’re right. Lightning striking twice and all that. Idle curiosity.’

Liar, thought Pascoe, not knowing why he thought it, but knowing he was right.

‘But it can’t be exactly copycat, can it?’ he said. ‘This Pal Maciver, the father, I mean, must have been a good bit older – family established, second wife.’

‘Mid forties,’ agreed Dalziel. ‘His lad must be – must have been – barely thirty. At university when it happened, I recall.’

‘And Cressida?’

‘Boarding school. Final year. She were head girl.’

‘That figures. And the younger daughter, Helen?’

‘The mobile incubator? She’d have been about nine. She were away in the States with her stepmother. That’s her you saw out there, the classy one.’

Pascoe noted the epithet. In Dalziel’s word-hoard, it usually signified approbation. ‘She still lives round here?’

‘Aye.’

‘Kay Kafka, wasn’t it? That her own name?’

‘No. She got married again.’

‘To someone called Kafka? That would be one of the Mid-Yorkshire Kafkas?’

‘Don’t be racist,’ reproved Dalziel. ‘I once knew a family of Chekhovs, had a farm near Hebden Bridge. Mind you, owt’s possible near Hebden Bridge.’

‘This Kafka, was he from Hebden Bridge then?’ pressed Pascoe.

‘No. A Yank. Her boss,’ was the short reply.

There was definitely something here, thought Pascoe. Something not said. He recalled seeing the pair of them meeting beside the ambulance. If she weren’t so slim, he’d have guessed that Dalziel fancied her. But it had long since been established that Mid-Yorkshire CID’s answer to God liked women in his own image, which was to say, with more meat on them than a Barnsley chop.

He said, ‘So what was the verdict?’

‘Suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed.’

‘Disturbed by what?’

‘Summat at work they reckoned.’

‘And work was …?’

‘Ash-Mac’s, machine-tool factory on the Blesshouse Industrial Estate. Used to be Maciver’s. Pal Maciver’s dad, that’s our corpse’s granddad, founded it before the last war.’

‘Was he called Palinurus too?’

‘Liam. Came across from Ireland to make his fortune and didn’t do so badly.’

‘Why’d he stick his son with a name like Palinurus?’

‘Story is, back home Liam was a blacksmith, no education, but a lot of business sense. Made money some dodgy folk considered was rightly theirs, which was why he left. Came here, used his money to set up in business …’

‘As a blacksmith?’

‘Blacksmith makes things out of metal. Machine-tool business is just the posh end of blacksmithery. Any road, soon he were doing well, married a local lass, and decided he really ought to get himself an education. Got talking to some schoolteacher over a drink one night who told him the greatest literary work of the century had come out of Ireland and it were called Ulysses. You heard of it?’

‘Of course. Joyce.’

‘Aye, her. So Liam went off, determined to read all he could about this Ulysses, only when he asked at the library they got the wrong end of the stick and provided him with lots of stuff about myths and legends and the Trojan War and such, all of which he downed like a gallon of Guinness, and when his missus dropped a sprog, he looked for a name in this lot, and came up with Palinurus.’

‘Strange choice.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He was Aeneas’s helmsman who dozed off at the helm and fell overboard.’

‘Oh aye. Drowned, did he?’

‘No, actually. He made it to the shore, the first of the Trojans to reach Italy. Only the natives didn’t like the look of him so they beat him to death and chucked him back in the sea.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Dalziel. ‘Could be Liam thought it ’ud be a useful reminder to his lad every time he heard his name that, if he didn’t keep his eyes open, he could end up in a foreign land being shit upon by strangers.’

Pascoe said, ‘A little career advice with the paternal sex talk would have been more direct.’

‘He was Irish, remember. They don’t do direct. And back then I don’t suppose they did sex talks. But old Liam was right up to date when it came to making money. Lots of demand for machine tools during the war and in the post-war years. Everything seemed to be going his way. You’ll recall the other Mac? Mungo Macallum?’

‘The armaments man? Before my time, but I met his daughter, the pacifist.’

‘Old Serafina. Aye, I remember that. When Ellie got herself into bother with the funny buggers. Well, Mungo and Liam were sort of rivals for a bit, each looking for skilled men and cheap labour. Scotch Mac and Irish Mac they called them. But when Mungo died in the fifties and Serafina set about turning his business into money to finance her causes, Liam filled his boots. Plant, orders, workers, the lot. By the time his boy – let’s call him Pal Senior and the headless wonder back there Pal Junior, wouldn’t want your brain to overheat – when Pal Senior took over, the business were booming. Pal Senior had an education, nowt special but enough to set him up as an English gent. Did all the things gents are supposed to do, like tearing foxes into shreds and blowing small birds to smithereens.’

‘Which is how he had the shotgun to blow himself to pieces?’

‘Aye. Could’ve been one of the birds fought back, of course. No, we’d have noticed the birdshit. Gave all that up in his thirties when he had his accident.’

‘Shooting accident?’

‘No. As well as huntin’ and shootin’, he were a bit of a climber in every sense. Yon painting in there shows him at his peak – that’s a joke. You know how those mad buggers like to make life difficult for themselves. Well, he were the first to climb some Scottish cliff, solo, at midnight, on Christmas Day, bollock naked, or summat like that. It were on that mountain in the background. As you can see, him having his picture painted, he were chuffed to buggery. Ironic really.’

‘Why so?’

‘He went back next year and fell off. Broke this and that. Most of it mended, except his left leg. Couldn’t bend it after that. Not many mountains you can hop up, so it were goodbye to all that. Old Liam was failing, so Pal threw himself into the business, heart and soul. It was his pride and joy, and he was coining so much he were able to put a few down payments on a peerage with the Tories. But all that changed, both the coining and the payments, after seventy-nine when old whatsername started running around like a headless chicken, putting folk out of work. Suddenly it were like Maciver’s was falling off a mountain too. Order book empty, men laid off. Terrible times.’

‘Terrible,’ agreed Pascoe. ‘And this is when the takeover happened?’

‘Aye. It were looking like rags-to-rags in three generations when this Yank outfit, Ashur-Proffitt Inc, came sniffing round. Pal Senior had a choice between accepting their offer or seeing the rest of his workers laid off. So, no choice. Maciver’s became Ashur-Proffitt-Maciver’s, a.k.a. Ash-Mac’s, and Pal Senior got a fistful of dollars and a seat on the Board, executive director or some such thing. More of a face-saver than a real job, from the sound of it.’

‘And that got to him?’

‘So they reckoned,’ said Dalziel, yawning. ‘Lots of lolly and nowt to do, sounds like heaven to me, but.’

‘So what did you reckon?’ asked Pascoe.

‘Me? I reckoned he killed himself and that’s all I needed to know. He did it by himself, no one helped him. He weren’t hypnotized or under a spell or owt like that. Simple suicide.’

‘Oxymoron,’ said Pascoe. ‘Suicide’s never simple.’

‘Oxymoron yourself,’ retorted Dalziel. ‘From our point of view, it’s always simple. Forget the wherefores. The only question is, was it or wasn’t it unassisted suicide? If it was, no crime, so no investigation necessary. End of story.’

‘Except that Pal Junior back there’s written another chapter.’

‘Sequel, more like. Never as good as the original. I mean from the look of it, he couldn’t even be bothered to write himself new lines, just used his dad’s.’

‘What about old Liam? How did he die?’

‘Natural causes. Got his three score and ten in, so nowt to concern us there. All you need to do, Pete, is get this wrapped up with minimum pain to the living.’

‘One way or another, they seem quite capable of inflicting enough pain on each other,’ said Pascoe. ‘This Mrs Kafka, if she married a Yank, how come she’s still living round here? He doesn’t happen to work at Ash-Mac’s, does he?’

It was a shot in the dark, or rather in the twilight when you see things dimly without always being certain what it is you’re looking at.

‘Aye. Boss man. Here, isn’t that the ambulance?’ Dalziel said, cupping his ear.

It was, thought Pascoe, one of his more pathetic attempts at diversion.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

‘No? It’s old age. Plays tricks on the senses,’ said the Fat Man sadly.

Pascoe smiled. When Dalziel played the ageing card, a wise man hoarded his trumps. Then all at once his own ear caught the wail of a siren drawing closer.

‘Thought I heard it,’ said Dalziel complacently. ‘Nice to know the cavalry sometimes does turn up in time.’

Then came another sound which had both men jumping to their feet.

The piercing yell of a baby, indignant at being launched from its warm safe haven into a strange, cold world.

Now it became a duet.

‘So much for the cavalry,’ said Pascoe as they hurried down the stairs.

The front door opened to admit two paramedics at the same time as Ellie appeared in the doorway of the lounge. Her hands were bloody, her expression exultant. She could have posed for the Triumph of Motherhood, thought Pascoe. Or Clytemnestra on bath-night.

‘Twins,’ she declared. ‘Boy and a girl.’

‘Excuse us, luv,’ said one of the paramedics, pushing past.

‘Everything OK in there?’ said Dalziel.

‘Mother and babies doing fine,’ said Ellie. ‘I think they might want to take a look at poor Jason though.’

‘The dad? He ought to be out here flashing the cigars,’ said Dalziel. ‘Let’s have a look in the kitchen, see if there’s owt to wet the babies’ heads with.’

‘Sir,’ said Pascoe warningly.

‘Oh aye. Crime scene. Not to worry. I always carry emergency rations.’

He went out into the fog.

Ellie said, ‘Crime scene?’

‘Just a form of speaking. You OK, Mother Teresa?’

‘I’m fine. You look tired.’

‘It’s been a long day,’ he said.

Somewhere distantly a church clock began to strike midnight. In the muffling fog it sounded both familiar and threatening, like the bell on a warning buoy tolled by the ocean’s rhythmic swell.

‘And here’s another one starting,’ said Ellie.

March 21st, 2002

1
the Crunch Witch

It was the first day of spring and Detective Constable Hat Bowler was lost in a forest.

It wasn’t an uncommon experience. He slept as little as possible these days, knowing that as soon as he closed his eyes he would reawaken among trees crowding so close they admitted only enough light to show him there was no way out.

Dr Pottle had nodded, unsurprised, and said, ‘Ah yes. The primal forest.’

It was Peter Pascoe who’d taken him to meet the psychiatrist.

Not that there was anything wrong with him.

After the death of … after her death … after …

After the woman he loved more than life itself had died in a car accident …

That had been on a Saturday in late January. He had turned up for work on Monday morning, no bother. Pascoe had taken one look at him and insisted he went to see his GP. The idiot recommended complete rest and psychotherapy. Hat passed this on to Pascoe, expecting him to share his exasperation. Instead the DCI had gone all po-faced and said if he didn’t follow his GP’s advice voluntarily, it would be made official and entered on his record, to be read by every member of every promotion board Hat ever applied to.

This was an empty threat to a man with no future. But he had neither the energy nor the will to resist, so he went to see Dr Pottle and answered questions about his dreams for much the same reasons.

The chain-smoking Pottle listened, his head shrouded like Kilimanjaro, then said, ‘If you ever did manage to get out of the forest, what is it you would hope to find?’

He couldn’t even bring himself to say her name which was a mark of how delusional he knew all hope to be.

‘Yes,’ said Pottle as if he had answered. ‘It can be a terrible thing, hope.’

‘Thought that was what you tried to give people,’ said Hat.

‘Oh no. Change is my game. But I never guarantee it will be for the better.’

Today – this morning, this evening, whatever time of dream it was – for the first time there was change. The trees stood far apart, a broad track wound between them and eventually he found himself walking through beams of hazy sunlight laced with birdsong which his ornithologist’s ear told him signalled morning.

At first he advanced rapidly, but soon began to slow, not because of any obstacle in his path but because he was finding out just how terrible hope could be.

So it was at the same time both huge disappointment and huge relief when he emerged from the trees into a sunlit clearing and found the path had led him to …

A gingerbread house!

He knew where he was. And he knew why his poor beleaguered mind had chosen to escape here. This was the land of childhood, a time before love and pain and loss.

Except of course in stories. It was Hansel and Gretel who got lost in the forest and found the gingerbread house. Only it wasn’t just a house, it was a trap, set by the dreaded Crunch Witch. You nibbled away at the gingerbread and she caught you and then you too got turned into gingerbread, ready to be nibbled at.

Well, tough tittie, Witch! He wasn’t hungry. And he didn’t like gingerbread.

With a heart almost as light as his head, he moved forward. Immediately a blackbird skulking under a blackcurrant bush stuttered its alarm call and Hat came to a halt as the Crunch Witch appeared in the house’s open doorway.

She was tall and square-faced with vigorous grey hair neatly coiled in a bun beneath some kind of small feathery hat. A pair of round spectacles, one arm of which had been repaired with sticking plaster, perched on the end of her slightly upturned nose. She was dressed in a sky-blue T-shirt and olive-green slacks tucked into black Wellington boots. No broomstick, though she did carry a rough-hewn walking stick which might serve in an emergency. This apart, she looked most unwitch-like. Indeed, there was something slightly familiar about her appearance …

Then the blackbird flew up and settled on her shoulder, and the little hat stood up on her hair bun and stretched its wings and he saw it was a great tit.

Dreams are like mad people – in the end they always give themselves away.

Reassured, and curious as to where this might lead, he moved forward again.

‘Good morning to you,’ said the Crunch Witch.

‘And to you,’ said Hat. ‘Lovely day.’

The closer he got, the more he realized that he was going to have to watch his step with this one. Spotting he wasn’t mad about gingerbread but loved birds, she’d changed the house into a simple thatched cottage, constructed of a dark orange brick with gingery tiles and birds flying in and out of the windows.

And there was more. Closer, he could identify the source of his feeling of familiarity. It lay in her sky-blue T-shirt, which bore an image of a small soaring bird and the legend Save the Skylark.

She said, ‘Snap,’ looking smilingly at his chest.

He glanced down to confirm that he was wearing exactly the same T-shirt.

‘Oh yes,’ he said.

He focused on the blackbird on her shoulder. It returned his gaze assessingly.

‘Does he talk?’ he asked.

‘Talk?’ she frowned. ‘He’s a blackbird not a bloody parrot.’

As if it too had been offended, the bird spread its wings and sprang straight at Hat’s head. He ducked, felt its beak tug through his hair and then it was gone.

‘Jesus,’ he gasped.

‘Shouldn’t walk around with twigs in your hair,’ said the witch. ‘Crackpot probably thinks you’ve been out scavenging nest materials for him.’

Hat put his hand to his head and realized she was right. There was quite a bit of undergrowth adhering to his hair, but at least he didn’t have a tit nesting there.

‘Crackpot?’ he said.

‘First time he came into the house he tried to perch on the handle of a cream jug. Over it went and broke. So, Crackpot. Now, how can I help you?’

He said, ‘I got a bit lost in the forest …’

‘Forest!’ This seemed to amuse her. ‘Well, if you’d kept on the track which goes around my garden, you’d have arrived at the road in a couple of minutes.’

‘Your garden?’ he said, looking round.

More magic. The clearing was now enclosed by a ragged thorn hedge with a ramshackle osier gate. Most of the ground was covered with rough grass, aglow with tiny daffodils, but alongside a lean-to greenhouse on one side of the cottage were the regular furrows of a small kitchen garden in need of work after the depredations of winter.

The witch said, ‘You don’t look too well, young man. Not had your breakfast, I bet. I’m just having mine. Step inside and let’s see if there’s anything to spare.’

Very cool! Disorientate him with the garden then lure him inside with food.

He said, ‘That would be nice, long as it’s not gingerbread.’

Show her he was on to her game!

She said, ‘Fortunately it’s not my first choice for breakfast either, but if you want a menu, you’d better find yourself another restaurant.’

She turned and went inside, walking rather stiffly and leaning on her stick.

Hat, feeling himself reproved, followed.

He found himself in a shady old-fashioned kitchen entirely free of anachronistic technology. His nose, sensitized by the chill morning air, caught a whiff of something vaguely familiar from his old life, quickly swamped by the delicious odour of new baked bread traceable to a rough-hewn oak table on which three tits were assaulting the dome of a cob loaf while a robin was doing its best to open a marmalade pot.

‘Samson, you little sod, leave that be!’ roared the witch. ‘Impy, Lopside, Scuttle, what do you think you’re playing at?’

The birds fluttered off the table but with little sign of panic. The tits settled on a low beam, the robin perched on the edge of an old pot sink, all casting greedy eyes back at their interrupted feast.

The witch picked up a long thin knife and Hat took a step back. But all she did was trim the pecked dome off the loaf then carve a thick slice from the remainder.

‘Help yourself to butter and marmalade while I mash a new pot of tea,’ she said.

She turned away to place a big blackened kettle on the hotplate of a wood-burning stove. Hat spread the bread thickly with butter and marmalade and sank his teeth into it. God, it was delicious! The best food he’d tasted in weeks. In fact the only food whose taste he’d noticed in weeks. This was a good dream.

One of the tits fluttered down on to the table and eyed him boldly.

‘Sorry, Scuttle,’ he said. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this.’

The witch glanced round at him curiously.

‘How did you know that one was Scuttle?’ she asked.

‘Two blue tits and a coal tit, not hard to guess which one’s Scuttle,’ he said.

‘So, apart from your problem with blackbirds and parrots, you do know something about birds. That what you’re doing out so early? Bird-watching?’

‘Not really,’ said Hat, thinking, You know exactly what I’m doing!

She turned to face him across the table.

‘You’re not an egg collector, are you?’ she demanded.

‘No way!’ he replied indignantly. ‘I’d lock those sods up and throw away the key.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘So if you’re not twitching and you’re not thieving, just what are you doing wandering round my garden so early in the morning? You don’t have to tell me, but unsatisfied curiosity only gets you one slice of bread and marmalade.’

She smiled at him as she spoke and he found himself returning the smile.

He certainly wanted some more bread, but what answer could he give?

He was saved from decision by the sound of a cracked bell.

‘Clearly my morning for dawn raids,’ she said.

The bell rang again.

‘Coming, coming,’ she cried, turning to open a door into a shady corridor that ended at another door, this one with a letter box and an upper panel of frosted glass against which pressed a face.

Hat sliced himself some more bread as she moved away. Even in dreams, a young cop had to take his chances. As he sank his teeth into it, he kept a careful eye on the Crunch Witch to see what reinforcements she may have conjured up.

She opened the front door.

A man stood there. He too carried a walking stick, this one ebony with a silver top in the shape of a hawk’s head, and he wore a black trilby which he removed as he said, ‘Good morning to you, Miss Mac.’

‘And to you, Mr W,’ said the witch. ‘Why so formal? You should just have come round the back.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s so early, I thought I’d better be sure …’

‘That I was decent? How thoughtful. But you know what it’s like at Blacklow Cottage: up with the birds, no choice about it. Come on in, do.’

She led the newcomer into the kitchen. He moved easily enough though with a just perceptible drag of the left leg suggesting that, like the woman’s, his stick was not simply for ornament. He stopped short when he saw Hat.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t realize you had a guest.’

‘Me neither till five minutes back,’ said the witch. ‘Mr Waverley, meet … sorry, I don’t think I got your name?’

‘Hat,’ said Hat. This little rush of names made him uneasy. Not Waverley, that had no resonance. But Blacklow Cottage set up some kind of vibration …

‘Mr Hat,’ said the witch. ‘Sit yourself down, Mr W. I’m just making a fresh pot of tea.’

She turned back to the stove. Hat studied Waverley openly and without embarrassment. (Pointless letting yourself be embarrassed in a dream.) Waverley returned the gaze with equal composure. He was in his early sixties, medium height, slim build, with a long narrow face, well-groomed hair, still vigorous though silvery, alert bluey-green eyes, and the sympathetic expression of a worldly priest who has seen everything and knows to the nearest farthing the price of forgiveness. He was wearing a beautifully cut grey mohair topcoat, which reminded Hat that despite the sunshine this was a pretty nippy morning.

He shivered, and this intrusion of meteorology bothered him like the name of the cottage. First the taste of food, now weather …

‘Do you live locally, Mr Hat?’ asked Waverley.

He had a gentle well-modulated voice with perhaps a faint Scots accent.

‘No,’ said Hat. ‘I got lost in the forest.’

‘The forest?’ echoed the man in a faintly puzzled tone.

‘I think Mr Hat means Blacklow Wood,’ said the witch with that nice smile.

‘Of course. And you’re quite right, Mr Hat. As you clearly know, this and one or two other little patches of woodland scattered around the area are all that remain of what used to be the great Blacklow Forest when the Plantagenets hunted here.’

Blacklow again. This time the vibration was strong enough to break the film of ice through which he viewed dreams and reality alike.

Now he remembered.

A dank autumn day … but his MG had been full of brightness as he drove deep into the heart of the Yorkshire countryside with the woman he loved by his side.

One of those small surviving patches of Blacklow Forest had been the copse out of which a deer had leapt, forcing him to bring his car to a skidding halt. Then he and she had pushed through the hedge and sat beneath a beech tree and drunk coffee and talked more freely and intimately than ever before. It had been a milestone in what had turned out to be far too short a journey.

Yesterday he’d driven out to the same spot and sat beneath the same tree, indifferent to the fall of darkness and the thickening mist. Nor when finally he rose and set off back to the car did he much care when he realized he’d missed his way. For an indeterminate period of time he’d wandered aimlessly, over rough grass and boggy fields, till he’d flopped down exhausted beneath another tree and slept.

The fog had cleared, the night had passed, the sun had risen, and he, waking under branches, imagined himself still sleeping and dreaming …

The woman placed the teapot on the table and said, ‘So what brings you out so early, Mr W?’

The man glanced at Hat, decided he was out of it for the moment, then said, ‘I’m afraid I’m the bearer of ill news, Miss Mac. I take it you’ve heard nothing?’

‘Heard what? You know I don’t have any truck with phones or wireless.’

‘Yes, I know. But I thought they might have … no, perhaps not … I’m sure that eventually someone will think …’

‘What, for heaven’s sake? Spit it out, man,’ said the woman in exasperation.

‘Perhaps you should sit down … As you will,’ said Waverley as the woman responded with a steely stare that wouldn’t have been out of place on a peregrine. ‘I heard it on the radio this morning, then rang to check details. It’s your nephew, Pal. It’s very bad, I’m afraid. The worst. He’s dead. Like your brother.’

‘Like …? You mean he …?’

‘Yes, I’m truly sorry. He killed himself last night. In Moscow House.’

‘Oh God,’ said the woman. ‘Laurence, you are again my bird of ill omen.’

Now she sat down.

It seemed to Hat, who had emerged from the depths of his introspection just in time to take in the final part of this exchange, that the soft chirruping of the birds, a constant burden since he entered the kitchen, now all at once fell still.

The woman too sat in complete silence for almost a minute.

Finally she said, ‘This is a shock, Laurence. I’m prepared for the shocks of my world, but not for this. Am I needed? Will anyone need me? Please advise me.’

‘I think you should come with me, Lavinia,’ said the man. ‘When you have spoken to people and found out what there is to find out, then you will know if you’re needed.’

The shock of the news had put them on first-name terms, observed Hat. It also underlined his obtrusive presence.

He stood up and said, ‘I think I should be on my way.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said the woman. ‘Carry on with your breakfast. I think you need it. Laurence, give me five minutes.’

She stood up and went out. The birds resumed their chirruping.

Hat looked at Waverley and said uncertainly, ‘I really think I ought to go.’

‘No need to rush,’ said Waverley. ‘Miss Mac never speaks out of mere politeness. And you do look as if a little nourishment wouldn’t come amiss.’

No argument there, thought Hat.

He sat down and resumed eating his second slice of bread on which he’d spread butter and marmalade to a depth that had the robin tic-ticking in admiration and envy.

Waverley took two mugs from a shelf, and poured the tea.

‘Is there anywhere I can give you a lift to when we go?’ he said.

‘Thank you, I don’t know …’

It occurred to Hat he had no idea where he was in relation to his own vehicle.

To cover his uncertainty, he said, ‘Did you come by car? I didn’t hear it.’

‘I leave it by the roadside. You’ll understand why when you see the state of the track up to the cottage. Miss Mac doesn’t encourage callers.’

Was he being warned off?

Hat said, ‘But she makes them very welcome,’ with just enough stress on she for it to be a counter-blow if the man wanted to take it that way.

Waverley smiled faintly and said, ‘Yes, she has a soft spot for lame ducks, whatever the genus. There you are, my dear.’

Miss Mac had reappeared, having prepared for her outing by pulling a cracked Barbour over her T-shirt and changing her wellies for a pair of stout walking shoes.

‘Shall we be off? Mr Hat, you haven’t finished your tea. No need to rush. Just close the door when you leave.’

Hat caught Waverley’s eye and read nothing there except mild curiosity.

He said, ‘No, I’d better be on my way too. But I’d like to come again some time, if you don’t mind … Sorry, that sounds cheeky, I don’t want to be …’

‘Of course you’ll come again,’ she interrupted as if surprised. ‘Good-looking young man who knows about birds, how should you not be welcome?’

‘Thank you,’ said Hat. ‘Thank you very much.’

He meant it. While he couldn’t say he was feeling well, he was certainly feeling better than he had done for weeks.

They went out of the door he’d come in by. She didn’t bother to lock it. Waste of time anyway with the window left open for the birds.

They went down the side of the cottage, Miss Mac leaning on the stick in her right hand and hanging on to Waverley’s arm with the other as they headed up a rutted track towards a car parked on a narrow country road about fifty yards away.

If Hat had thought of guessing what sort of car Waverley drove, he would probably have opted for something small and reliable, a Peugeot 307 for instance, or maybe a Golf. His enforced absence from work must have dulled his detective powers. Gleaming in the morning sunlight stood a maroon coloured Jaguar S-type.

He said, ‘That lift you offered me, my car’s on the old Stangdale road, if that’s not out of your way.’

‘My pleasure, Mr Hat,’ said Waverley. ‘My pleasure.’

2
the Kafkas at home

Some miles to the south, close to the picturesque little village of Cothersley, dawn gave the mist still shrouding Cothersley Hall the kind of fuzzy golden glow with which unoriginal historical documentary makers signal their next inaccurate reconstruction. For a moment an observer viewing the western elevation of the building might almost believe he was back in the late seventeenth century just long enough after the construction of the handsome manor house for the ivy to have got established. But a short stroll round to the southern front of the house bringing into view the long and mainly glass-sided eastern extension would give him pause. And when further progress allowed him to look through the glass and see a table bearing a glowing computer screen standing alongside an indoor swimming pool, unless possessed of a politician’s capacity to ignore contradictory evidence, he must then admit the sad truth that he was still in the twenty-first century.

A man in a black silk robe sat by the table staring at the screen. He didn’t look up as the door leading into the main house opened and Kay Kafka appeared, clad in a white towelling robe on the back of which was printed IF YOU TAKE ME HOME YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CHARGED. She was carrying a tray set with a basket of croissants, a butter dish, two china mugs and an insulated coffee-pot.

Putting the tray on the table she said, ‘Good morning, Tony.’

‘He’s back.’

‘Junius?’ That was the great thing about Kay. You could talk shorthand with her. ‘Same stuff as before?’

‘More or less. Calls himself NewJunius now. Broke in again, left messages and a hyperlink.’

‘I thought they said that was impossible.’

‘They said boil-in-the-bag rice was impossible. His style doesn’t improve.’

‘You seem pretty laid-back about it.’

‘Why not? Some bits I even find myself agreeing with these days.’

‘What bits would they be?’

‘The bits where he suggests there’s more to being a good American than making money.’

‘You tried that one out on Joe lately?’ she asked casually.

‘You know I did, end of last year when the dust had started to settle after 9/11. There were no certainties any more. We talked about everything.’

‘Then after that Joe said it was business as usual, right?’

‘Not so. You’ve got Joe wrong. He feels things as strongly as me. I don’t see him face to face enough, that’s all.’

‘He’s only a flight away,’ she said gently.

It wasn’t a discussion she wanted to get into. Joe Proffitt, head of the Ashur-Proffitt Corporation, wasn’t a man she liked very much, but she didn’t feel able to speak out too strongly against him. Last September she knew that every instinct in Tony Kafka’s body had told him to head for home, permanently. But with Helen three months pregnant, he’d known how his wife would feel about that. So Tony was still here and, as far as she could detect, Joe Proffitt’s business certainties had hardly been dented at all.

‘Yeah, I ought to go more often. It’s as quick going to the States as it is getting to London with these goddam trains,’ he grumbled. ‘Look at me, up with the dawn so I can be sure to be in time for lunch barely a couple of hundred miles away.’

‘You’ll have time for some breakfast?’ she said.

‘No thanks. I’ll get some on the train. What time you get back last night?’

‘Late. Two o’clock maybe, I don’t know. You didn’t wait up.’

‘What for? You may not need sleep but I do, specially with an early start and a long hard day ahead speaking a foreign language.’

‘I thought it was just Warlove you were meeting?’

‘That’s the foreign language I mean.’ They smiled at each other. ‘Anyway, last night when you rang, you didn’t think there was anything there to lose sleep over. Has anything changed? I’ll get asked.’

‘You think they’ll know already?’

‘I’d put money on it,’ he said.

‘It’s cool,’ she said pouring herself some coffee. ‘Domestic drama, that’s all. Main thing is Helen’s fine and the twins don’t seem any the worse for being a tad early.’

‘Good. Born in Moscow House, eh? There’s a turn-up.’

‘Like their mother. Nature likes a pattern. She wants to call the girl Kay.’

‘Yeah, you said. And the boy?’

‘Last night she was talking about Palinurus. Of course she’s very upset over what happened and later she might get to thinking …’

‘A bit ill-omened? Right. And your fat friend is quite happy, is he?’

‘Copycat suicide, no problems.’

‘Copycat suicide? He doesn’t find that a bit weird?’

‘I think in his line of business he takes weird in his stride. I’m having a drink with him later, so I’ll get an update.’

‘Who was it said an update was having sex the first time you went out?’

‘You, I’d guess. No passes from Andy. He is, despite appearances, a kind man.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, as if unconvinced.

Silence fell between them broken by the distant chime of the old long-case clock standing in the main entrance hall. Though it looked as if it had been there almost as long as the house, in fact it had come later than its owners. Kay had spotted it in an antique shop in York. When she’d pointed out the inscription carved on the brass dial – Hartford Connecticut 1846 – Tony had laughed and said, ‘Real American time at last!’ She’d gone back later and bought it for his birthday. He’d been really touched. It turned out to have a rather loud chime which she’d wanted to muffle, but he’d refused, saying, ‘We need to make ourselves heard over here!’ In return, however, he’d conceded when she resisted his proposal to set it five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.

Now its brassy note rang out eight times.

‘Gotta go,’ said Kafka. ‘Let me know how you get on with Mr Blobby, if you’ve a moment.’

‘Sure. Tony, you’re not worried?’

‘No. Just like to show those bastards I’m on top of things.’

‘You’re sure they’re not getting on top of you?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I don’t know … sometimes you get so restless … last night when I got in you were tossing and turning like you were at sea.’

For a moment he seemed about to dismiss her worries, then he shrugged and said, ‘Just the old thing. I dream I hear the fire bells and I know I’ve got to get home but I can’t find the way …’

‘Then you wake up and you’re home and everything’s fine, Right, Tony? This is our home.’

‘Yeah, sure. Only sometimes I think I feel more foreign here than anywhere. Sorry, no. I don’t mean right here with you. That’s great. I mean this fucking country. Maybe all I mean is that America’s where all good Americans ought to be right now. We are good Americans, aren’t we, Kay?’

‘As good as we can be, Tony. That’s all anyone can ask.’

‘I think a time’s coming when they can ask a fucking sight more,’ he said.

Abruptly he stood up, removed his black robe and stood naked before her except for the thin gold chain he always wore round his neck. On it was his father’s World War Two Purple Heart, which he wore as a good-luck charm.

‘Pay me no heed,’ he said. ‘Male menopause. I could pay a shrink five hundred dollars a session to tell me the same. Give my best to Helen.’

He turned away and dived into the swimming pool.

He was in his late forties, but his stocky body, its muscles sculpted into high definition by years of devoted weight training, showed little sign yet of paying its debt to age.

He did a length of crawl, tumble turned, and came back at a powerful butterfly. Back where he started, his final stroke brought his flailing arms down on to the lip of the pool and he hauled himself out in one fluid movement.

When he stops that trick, I’ll know he’s over the hill physically, thought Kay.

But where he was mentally, even her penetrating gaze couldn’t assess.

She watched him walk away, his feet stomping down hard on the tiled floor as if he’d have liked to feel it move. When he vanished through the door, she turned the laptop towards her and began to read.

ASHUR-PROFFITT & THE CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY

A Modern Fairy Tale

Once upon a time some cool dudes in the Greatest Country on Earth decided it would be real neat to sell arms to one bunch of folk they didn’t like at all called the Iranians and give the profits from the sale to another bunch of folk they liked a lot called the Contras. At the same time across the Big Water in the Second Greatest Country on Earth some other cool dudes decided it would be real neat to sell arms to another bunch of folk called the Iraqis that nobody liked much except that they were fighting another bunch of folk called the Iranians that no one liked at all. But it didn’t bother the cool dudes in either of the two Greatest Countries on Earth to know what the other was doing because in each of the countries there were people doing that too and as Mr Alan Clark of the second G.C.O.E. (who was so cool, if he’d been any cooler he’d have frozen over) remarked later, ‘The interests of the West were best served by Iran and Iraq fighting each other, and the longer the better.’

But the really amazing thing about all these dudes on both sides of the Big Water was that they were totally invisible – which meant that, despite the fact that everything they did was directly contrary to their own laws, nobody in charge of the two Greatest Countries on Earth could see what they doing!

She scrolled to the end, which was a long way away. Tony was right about the style. Once this kind of convoluted whimsicality had probably seemed as cool as you could get without taking your clothes off. Now it was just tedious, which was good news from A-P’s point of view. Only the final paragraph held her attention.

There was a time when you could argue a patriotic case – my enemy’s enemy is my friend so treat them all the same then sit back and watch them knock hell out of each other – but no longer. Hawk or dove, republican or democrat, every good American knows there’s a line in the sand and anyone who sends weapons across this line had better be sure which way they’re going to be pointing. The Ashur-Proffitt motive is no longer enough. It’s time we asked these guys just whose side they think they’re on.

She sat back and thought of Tony, of his admission that he felt foreign here. Could it be that now that the twins were born, he thought she might be persuadable to up sticks and head west? Funny that it should come to this, that he whose own father had been born God knows where should be the one who spoke of being a good American and going home, while she whose forebears, from what she knew of them, had been good Americans for at least a couple of centuries, could not bring to mind a single place in the States – save for one tiny plot covering a very few square feet – that exerted any kind of emotional pull. OK, so she agreed, home was a holy thing, but to her this was home, all the more holy since last night. Tony would have to understand that.

The script had vanished to be replaced by a screen saver – the Stars and Stripes rippling in a strong breeze.

She switched it off, leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Tony was right. She didn’t need much sleep and she’d perfected the art of dropping off at will for a pre-programmed period. This time she gave herself forty minutes.

When she woke, the sun was up and the mist was rising. She stood up, undid her robe, let it slide to the floor, and dived into the pool. Her slim naked body entered the water with barely a splash and what trace of her entry there was had almost vanished by the time she broke the surface two-thirds of a length away.

She swam six lengths with a long graceful breast stroke. Her exit from the pool was more conventional than her husband’s but in its own way just as athletic.

She slipped into her robe. The legend on the back didn’t amuse her but it amused Tony and his bad jokes were a small price to pay for all he’d done for her. But some stuff she needed to deal with herself. Like last night. Something had happened that she didn’t understand. If she could work it out and defend herself against it, she would. But if it turned out to be part of that darkness against which there was no defence, so what? She’d dealt with darkness before.

In any case, it was trivial alongside the thing that had happened that she did understand. The birth of Helen’s twins. Most dawns were false but you enjoyed the light even if you knew it was illusory.

Whistling ‘Of Foreign Lands and People’ from Schumann’s Childhood Scenes she walked back through the door into the house.

3
a nice vase

By ten o clock that morning, with the curtaining mist raised by a triumphant sun and the brisk breeze that cued the wild daffodils to dance at Blacklow Cottage rattling the slats on his office blinds, Pascoe was far less certain about his uncertainties.

Dalziel had no doubts. His last words had been, ‘Tidy this up, Pete, then dump the lot on Paddy Ireland’s desk. Suicides are Uniformed’s business.’

He was right, of course, except that his idea of tidiness wasn’t the same as Pascoe’s, which was why on his way to work he diverted to the cathedral precinct where Archimagus Antiques was situated.

The closed sign was still displayed in the shop door, but when he peered through the window he saw someone moving within. He banged on the window. A woman appeared, mouthed ‘Closed’ and pointed at the sign. Pascoe in return pressed his warrant against the glass. She nodded instantly and opened the door.

‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she began even before he stepped inside. ‘It was on the news, you see, and I didn’t know if I should come in or not, but David said he thought I should, not to do business, but just in case someone from the police wanted to ask questions, which you clearly do, so he was right, and he’d have come with me but he felt he ought to go round to see poor Sue-Lynn, and I would have gone with him only it seemed better for me to come here.’

She paused to draw breath. She was tall, well made and attractive in a Betjeman tennis girl kind of way. As she spoke she ran her fingers through her short unruly auburn hair. Breathlessness suited her. Early twenties, Pascoe guessed, and with the kind of accent which hadn’t been picked up at the local comp. She was dressed, perhaps fittingly but not too becomingly, in a white silk blouse and a long black skirt. She looked tailor-made for jodhpurs, a silk headsquare and a Barbour.

‘I’m DCI Pascoe,’ he said. ‘And you are …?’

‘Sorry, silly of me, I’m babbling on and half of what I say can’t mean a thing. I’m Dolly Upshott. I work here. Partly shop assistant, I suppose, but I help with the accounts, that sort of thing, and I’m in charge when Pal’s off on a buying expedition. Please, can you tell me anything about what happened?’

‘And this David you mentioned is …?’ said Pascoe, who’d learned from his great master that the easiest way to avoid a question was to ask another.

‘My brother. He’s the vicar at St Cuthbert’s, that’s Cothersley parish church.’

Which was where the Macivers lived, in a house with the unpromising name of Casa Alba. Cothersley was one of Mid-Yorkshire’s more exclusive dormer villages. The Kafkas’ address was Cothersley Hall. Family togetherness? Didn’t seem likely from what he’d gathered about internal relationships last night. Also it was interesting that the brash American incomers should occupy the Hall while Maciver with his local connections and his antique-dealer background should live in a house that sounded like a rental villa on the Costa del Golf.

‘And he’s gone to comfort Mrs Maciver? Very pastoral. Were they active churchgoers then?’

‘No, not really. But they are … were … very supportive of church events, fêtes, shows, that sort of thing, and very generous when it came to appeals.’

What Ellie called the Squire Syndrome. Well-heeled townies going to live in the sticks and acting like eighteenth-century lords of the manor.

‘Miss Upshott,’ said Pascoe, cutting to the chase, ‘the reason I called was to see if you or anyone else working in the shop could throw any light on Mr Maciver’s state of mind yesterday.’

‘There’s only me,’ said the woman. ‘He seemed fine when last I saw him. I left early, middle of the afternoon. It was St Cuthbert’s feast day, you see, and David, my brother, has a special service for the kids from the village school, it’s not really a service, their teacher brings them over and David shows them our stained-glass windows and tells them some stories about St Cuthbert which are illustrated there. He’s very good, actually, the children love it. And I like to help … Sorry, you don’t want to hear this, do you? I’m rattling on. Sorry.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Pascoe with a smile. She was very easy to smile at. Or with. ‘So you don’t know when Mr Maciver left the shop?’

‘Late on, I should think. Wednesday’s his squash night, you see, and he doesn’t care to go home and have a meal before he plays so usually he’ll stay behind here and get on with some paperwork then go straight to the club … but what happened yesterday I don’t know, of course, because …’

Her voice broke. She looked rather wildly around the shop. Perhaps, thought Pascoe, she was imagining how it might have been if he’d killed himself here and she’d come in this morning and found him.

Comfort, he guessed, would be counter-productive. The English middle classes paid good money to have their daughters trained to be sensible and practical. That was their default mode. Just press the right key.

‘So you help with the accounts?’ he said. ‘How was the business doing?’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘We’ve been ticking over nicely through the winter and now with the tourist season coming on, we were looking to do very well indeed.’

‘Good. You might like to get your books in order in case we need to take a look. But I shouldn’t hang around too long. The press might come sniffing around and you don’t want to be bothered with that. Many thanks for your help.’

She said, ‘Please, Mr Pascoe. Before you go, can’t you tell me anything about … you know. Pal was well liked in the village … it would be such a help …’

Pascoe said carefully, ‘All I can say is that it appears Mr Maciver died from gunshot wounds. It’s early days, but at the moment we have no reason to believe there was anyone else involved. I’m sorry.’

She said, ‘Thank you.’

Unhappiness made her look like a forlorn teenager. Perhaps that’s what she was emotionally, a kid who’d had a crush on her charismatic boss.

He turned to the door, letting his eyes run over the stock on display. That was a nice art nouveau vase over there. Would Ellie’s discount be still in place now that Pal was dead …?

Come on! he chided himself. This was a step beyond professional objectivity into personal insensitivity.

But it was a nice vase.

4
like father, like son

Tony Kafka sat on the train and watched England roll by, mile after dull mile.

He’d been here … how long? Fifteen, sixteen years?

Too long.

He knew plenty of Americans who loved it here. Given the chance, they’d drone on for ever about the easier pace of life, the greater sense of security, the depth of history, the cultural richness, the educational values, the beautiful landscape. If you pointed out that you had as much chance of being mugged in London as New York, that back home there was some sign they were getting through the drug culture that the Brits were just beginning to get into, that you could pick up the fucking Lake District and drop it in the Grand Canyon and not notice the difference, they’d start talking about the human scale of things, small is beautiful, that kind of crap. But if you let yourself be drawn into argument and started cataloguing the strikes against the UK – the lousy transport services, the godawful hotels, the deadly food, the shitty weather – after a while one of them would be sure to say, ‘If that’s the way you feel, why not get on a plane and head west?’

And that was a killer blow. Nothing to do then but smile weakly and abandon the field. He had no answer to give, or rather no answer he cared to give.

He’d come to do a job. After five years that job had been completed, everything in place and running smooth as silk. Nothing to stop him dropping the lot into the capacious lap of his supremely efficient deputy, Tom Hoblitt.

They’d wanted him back home then. There was a great future there for the taking. And he’d been ready. Then …

‘More coffee, sir?’

The steward was there, polite and attentive. This morning the service had been excellent and the train was on schedule. Wasn’t that always the way of it? Give yourself plenty of time to take account of the usual delays and you got a straight run through. Cut things fine and you could guarantee trouble. Like life.

He drank his coffee, which wasn’t bad either, and relapsed once more into his thoughts.

Kay. That’s why he’d stayed on. But put simply like that, he’d get nothing but incomprehension. If she’d been a Brit it might have been a reason, he could hear them say. But she was American, so why on earth …?

Then he’d need to explain it wasn’t so simple. His relationship with Kay had never been simple.

Look after people, that was the message drummed into him by his father. Look after people, especially if they’re kids. How many times had he heard his father tell the tale of how he’d been found wandering lost, not even speaking the language, and this great country had taken him in, and found him a home, and given him a flag and an education? As a kid he’d never tired of hearing the story. Later, growing up and feeling rebellious, he’d dared to question it, not directly but by implication, saying, ‘Yeah, you owe them, I see that, but you’ve paid back, you gave them a couple of years of your life in the war. In fact you almost gave them all of your goddam life.’

And his father had said, ‘You know why I didn’t? I was lying there, bleeding to death, and this sergeant, he was an Arkansas redneck, never said a good word to me before this, but he never said a good word to anyone so that was no special treatment, he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder and carried me out of there. I was dangling over his shoulder so I saw the bullet that hit him, smelt the burnt cloth where it went through his tunic, saw the blood spurt out and stream down his back. He walked another fifty yards after that, laid me down as gentle as if I’d been a hatful of eggs. Then he sat down and died. A redneck from Arkansas did that. Because I was a soldier. Because I was an American. Because I needed help. So don’t talk to me about paying back. I’ll never pay back, not if I live for ever.’

Kay had needed help. Once, twice, three, four times. And he’d learned what his father knew, that each time you gave just put you deeper in debt.

But debts personal and debts patriotic were not always the same thing. Last September the world had changed. He’d found himself looking at where he was. In every sense. And wondering if he should be there. In every sense.

An announcement came over the PA. Jesus, they were actually running ahead of time! No wonder the guy sounded smug.

He looked down at his laptop screen, which had gone to sleep. There was stuff he’d planned to bone up on before his meeting, but there was no rush. He was going to have plenty of time to kill. In any case what he wanted to say didn’t need facts and figures to back it up.

He stared at the blank screen and with his mind’s eye conjured up the Junius article he’d read that morning.

He was pretty certain he knew who Junius was. He’d never hinted his suspicion, to Kay or anyone else. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kay had got there before him a long time ago. As to saying anything to anyone else, the likely consequence wasn’t something he wanted to have on his already overloaded conscience.

He suddenly found himself thinking of that poor bastard Maciver. Of both poor bastards Maciver. Both ending up sitting at a desk with a shotgun under their chin.

Like father, like son.

Him too. Like his father. If serving your country meant getting wounded, then that was the price you had to pay.

And it still left you in debt.

5
load of bollocks

The first person Pascoe ran into when he entered the station was DC Shirley Novello. He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. She rarely did, and never automatically.

He had long since decided that here was a young officer worth taking notice of. She was sharp, direct, a quick study; could take orders, think for herself, kept in good trim and when put to the test had proved she was physically brave.

All this was on her record. Not on her record, because the modern politically correct police force eschewed such inconsequential trivia, was any comment on her appearance. This erred on the plain side of unremarkable. A strong face untouched by make-up, short mousy brown hair showing no sign of recent acquaintance with coiffeur or coiffeuse, clothes which were usually some variety of loose-fitting combats in colour ranging from drab grey to drab olive.

Pascoe, however, had seen her dressed for action and knew that the way she looked at work was a deliberate choice. His guess was that here was an officer in a hurry who didn’t want to waste time or energy dealing with the Neanderthal dickheads who clutter up every police force. Early in his own career he had let his admiration for the physical attributes of a female colleague show too clearly and he still winced with embarrassment when he recalled how before a raid she had taken him aside and said seriously, ‘Peter, your wet dreams are your own affair, but tonight I’d like to be sure you’ll be watching my back and not my backside.’

So, though regrettable, there was no escaping the fact that the initial strategies of a young man and a young woman in a hurry must diverge. Perhaps equally regrettable was the fact that there comes a point when they must rejoin. This was the age of the image, of sharp suits as well as sharp minds. For a man just as much as for a woman it was hard to win the hearts and minds of a promotion board if you went around looking like a loosely tied sack of potatoes.

Pascoe hoped that Novello would suss this out. He baulked at the idea of dropping a hint himself, partly because such a comment, however kindly meant, was very much against the spirit of the age, but mainly because he sensed that, despite all his efforts to be approachable, Novello didn’t much care for him.

In this he was right, but for the wrong reasons.

What she didn’t care for was slim clean-cut men full of boyish charm. What turned her on was a chunky build, good muscular definition and an abundance of body hair. Whenever Pascoe flashed the smile and said something nice to her, he lost all individuality and became a type. But in detective mode, with his mind focused firmly on the task in hand and herself being treated as no more than one of the tools of his job, she admired him greatly. A good-when-she-remembered Catholic girl, she found it easy to think in religious imagery.

There abideth these three, Dalziel, Wield and Pascoe; but the greatest of these (promotion prospects and the present state of the Service being tossed into the pot) had to be Pascoe.

Now the Greatest was asking if the Scariest was in.

‘No sign yet, sir,’ she said. ‘And Sergeant Wield’s got the morning off too.’

‘So it’s only thee and me,’ said Pascoe. ‘Here’s what I’d like you to do.’

Quickly he brought her up to speed on the events of the previous night.

‘And, just to be thorough, and in order to see exactly how much of a copycat it is, I’d like you to dive into the evidence store and see what you can find relating to the suicide of Palinurus Maciver Senior. Discreetly. You know how leaky this place is, and I shouldn’t like the press making a thing about the copycat element.’

In fact he didn’t give a toss about the press, it was Andy Dalziel whose antennae he didn’t want to alert.

With only a sigh too light to shake a rose leaf down to indicate she thought this was a more than usually sad waste of her valuable time, Novello strode off.

Pascoe watched her go. Nice buttocks, shame about the combat trousers. Then mentally slapped his wrist.

Seated at his desk, he rang Forensic, to be told with some acidity that they too required sleep like normal human beings. So far there was nothing to suggest that Pal Maciver’s death had been anything but what it seemed, a suicide bizarrely configured to reproduce an exact imitation of his father’s ten years earlier.

Next, witnesses. The circumstances of the previous night hadn’t been conducive to getting formal statements from those attending the scene of the death, and the birth. The coroner would certainly want to hear from some of them.

Definitely a job for Uniformed, he could hear Dalziel say. But when Fat Men are away, Thin Men can play, and approaching a newly bereaved wife was surely a task more suited to the diplomatic skills of CID than the Blitzkrieg of the plods.

He dialled the Casa Alba number.

A man’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

He said, ‘Could I speak to Mrs Maciver, please?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the voice cautiously. ‘Who’s calling?’

He identified himself.

‘Sorry, thought you might be press,’ said the voice. ‘I’m David Upshott, the Vicar of Cothersley. I’ve just been in to see Mrs Maciver, trying to offer what comfort I could at this terrible time, but I’m afraid she’s not in a very receptive mood. The doctor’s with her now. I’ll just let them know who’s calling.’

There was a pause of a couple of minutes then a new male voice spoke.

‘Tom Lockridge here. That you, Pascoe?’

‘Indeed. Any chance of a word with Mrs Maciver, do you think? Either on the phone or, preferably, I could call out there to talk with her …’

‘Not a good idea,’ said Lockridge brusquely. ‘I’ve got her under sedation. I doubt very much she’ll be fit to talk to you today.’

‘Oh dear. That’s a pity.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? But in the circumstances, Pascoe, I can’t imagine what on earth you might want to ask that can’t wait. Goodbye.’

Next he rang the hospital where he learned that Mrs Dunn and her twins were doing as well as could be expected and Mr Dunn, after hanging around most of the night, had finally been persuaded to go home and get some rest.

Pascoe started to dial the Dunns’ home number, recalled the state he’d been in the day Rosie was born, and replaced the receiver. Give the poor devil a couple of hours’ sleep at least.

Finally he tried Cressida’s number and got the answer machine. This was frustrating. If Thin Men were to play, they had to find someone to play with.

On the other hand, perhaps this was the act of some tutelary spirit to save him from his own impetuosity. Disobeying Dalziel was not a path to peace.

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