"You got bored with waiting for Col to make up his mind, did you?"
"No," said Stella, unperturbed. "I"m a good waiter. But I"m not an Arthur Downey. I won"t dance around and look ridiculous. I should have known when Col left in the first place how little I figured in his decisions. But I gave him the benefit and waited. Oh, I didn"t languish but inside I was waiting. But when he finally came back and I realized that had nowt to do with me either, I said, Sod it! and six months later I married Gavin. Rebound? Mebbe. But you do rebound off a stone wall, don"t you, Mrs Pascoe?"
"I see you know my name, Stella," said Ellie in her best garden-party voice. She felt she was losing on points and needed a s.p.a.ce to review tactics.
"Everyone round here knows your name and your husband"s name and number too by now," said Stella viciously, as if suddenly tired of this game. "And most on "em can"t understand why you don"t just b.u.g.g.e.r off out of it and leave us to look after our own affairs!"
"I"ll go when I know whether or not Colin killed that man," said Ellie spiritedly. "You"ve told me what "folk" are saying. What do you say?"
The answer she got was totally unexpected.
"Of course, he b.l.o.o.d.y killed him!" exploded Stella. "You may not have known Colin long, but long enough surely to know that one day sooner or later he was bound to kill someone. It"s there inside him, have you never felt it? Mebbe it"s in his blood, I don"t know. But he was bound to kill someone some day, and now it"s happened and his only hope is that your man and the other pigs will be too thick to pin it on him. They got so used to fitting up lads who"d done nowt during the Strike, that mebbe they"ve forgotten how to deal with someone who"s so obviously guilty!"
"How can you be so sure?" demanded Ellie. "I thought you were supposed to be his friend."
"That"s right," said Stella Mycroft, regarding her with an expression of mocking triumph. "I"m his friend. And you run to your friends before you run to your teachers. It was me he rang up first last night, me! That"s how I know he"s guilty. Because he b.l.o.o.d.y well told me so!"
From the doorway there came a crash. Ellie turned. May Farr stood there, her face grey as morning, at her feet the shards of a china cup lying in a pool of amber tea.
Chapter 12.
Neville Watmough looked drawn and strained, but it was, when he greeted Pascoe like an old friend, that the detective knew the man was in trouble.
"Peter, come in, how are you?" The use of his first name was a giveaway in itself. The ex-DCC had never felt able to go beyond the formal courtesy of "Mr Pascoe" in office.
"Let"s go into the study, shall we? What about a drink?"
Pascoe couldn"t hold back a glance at the mantelshelf where the presentation clock showed it was only twenty to eleven.
"Too early?" laughed Watmough. Time has less significance when you"re retired. Coffee, then?"
"No, thank you, sir," said Pascoe, distrusting all this cosiness.
"Well, sit down anyway. How"s everything back at the works? I must drop in sometime soon and have a chat before everyone forgets who I am."
"I don"t think there"s much chance of that," said Pascoe, only conscious of the sarcastic vibrations as he finished the sentence.
"I should explain," he went on quickly, "that I"m here on duty."
"Not a social call, then?" said Watmough, not sounding very surprised.
"No, sir. The point is this. You probably heard on the news about this killing at Burrthorpe Main Colliery last night?"
"Yes. And that you had a man helping with inquiries."
"That covers a mult.i.tude of possibilities as you know, sir. The thing is, there"s a chance that there might be a tie-up here with the Tracey Pedley disappearance."
"Yes, but that . . . ah."
Watmough fell silent. It must be hard, after so long responding to any mention of Tracey Pedley with the confident a.s.sertion that she was almost certainly one of Donald Pickford"s victims, to admit now that the case was still open. Even when you yourself were responsible for undermining your own theory. Or at least publicly responsible.
Pascoe said, "Incidentally, sir, when did you realize that it was almost impossible for Pickford to have abducted the Pedley girl?"
Watmough said, "Not while I was still in the Force, if that"s what you"re thinking. What are they saying down there? That when I realized Pickford actually had made his call that afternoon I hushed it up for fear of looking silly?"
"No, sir," said Pascoe. "No one would believe you"d ever shirk your duty."
Watmough looked taken aback at this a.s.surance.
"No, of course not. I"m glad to hear it. Look, are you sure you won"t have that drink? Sorry, you"re on duty, aren"t you? Well, I"m not any more, so if you don"t mind . ."
He went to a bureau and took out a bottle and a gla.s.s. It was scotch, Pascoe was interested to note, not the goat-p.i.s.s sherry for which he was justly infamous. And he didn"t have to remove the stopper.
He poured himself a modest measure and returned to his chair.
"No," he said, "it wasn"t till I started on my articles that I realized that Pickford wouldn"t have had the time to . . .no, that sounds as if I had a sudden inspiration, like Sherlock Holmes, doesn"t it? It wasn"t me at all. It was Monty Boyle who got on to it. He"s very impressive in his own way. Very professional."
"Very elusive," said Pascoe, "I"ve been trying to get hold of him for a couple of days. Of course, his office would cover for him if he didn"t want to see me. But when I rang this morning I got the impression they genuinely didn"t know where he was . . ."
He looked at Watmough hopefully.
"Sorry. Can"t help. I haven"t seen or heard from him since our last so-called creative session last week."
"No? Tell me, sir, how does it work, this partnership? Boyle updates your stuff with his own research, then knocks it all into Challenger shape?"
"More or less," said Watmough without enthusiasm. "It was fun at first. Boyle and I got on well. I"d go over my notes with him, then we"d sit and have a drink and chat about old times. He had a tape-recorder so he wouldn"t miss anything. He"d obviously done a lot of background research before ever I signed up with the Challenger. Almost as if they knew . . . never mind ... but he was thorough. I"ll give him that. A d.a.m.n sight more thorough than your precious Sergeant Wield had been."
He glared at Pascoe accusingly.
"He carried out his instructions to the letter," said Pascoe carefully.
"Very loyal of you, Peter. There"s a lot of loyalty in Mid-Yorks CID. Perhaps a bit too much on occasion."
"And what occasion would that be, sir?"
"Nothing. I speak generally. Perhaps bitterly. I"m sorry. But when Boyle told me that Pickford had kept his appointment on the Avro Estate, I felt stupid. I"d been so definite about him being responsible for the Burrthorpe girl"s disappearance. Boyle said it didn"t matter. The Pickford case would still be presented as my personal triumph. But here we had yet another unsolved case and it was our duty to let the public know. I still wasn"t happy. I said that new evidence should be handed over to the police at once. I saw Ogilby. He said the evidence would be handed over simultaneously with its publication in the Challenger. That was to be this coming Sunday."
"Was to be?"
"Things may have changed with last night"s news," said Watmough.
Pascoe said, "These allegations that there was some kind of vigilante group in Burrthorpe after the girl disappeared, how much truth is there in them?"
"I don"t know. Who"s making them?" said Watmough.
Pascoe was taken aback by this superficially disingenuous answer. Was Watmough trying to force from him an admission that he knew the content of the next article? If so, he could have it!
"You are, sir," he said. "In the Challenger next Sunday."
For a second Watmough looked blank. Then he smiled wanly and said, "This sounds like Dalziel." And then all trace of the smile faded and he looked very old and tired.
"You must think me a very foolish man, Inspector, not to know what"s appearing under my name in a Sunday paper," he said.
"I a.s.sume they wouldn"t print anything with no grounds at all," said Pascoe.
"Grounds? If you call idle speculation, airy rumour, retailed over a gla.s.s of brandy after a lunch with Monty Boyle, grounds, then grounds there may be. It had never occurred to me that such things plus personal anecdote and even private animosity should provide the main colouring of my memoirs."
He stood up. It was an effort. Pascoe glanced at the clock. It was just gone eleven. The chimes had not been triggered, he noticed.
"I have got one or two other things . . ." he began.
"I"m sure. Can we make it later? I"ve got a few things to take care of myself. I"m not being evasive, I a.s.sure you. I will be delighted to cooperate fully in helping with your inquiries."
The wan smile returned as he uttered the ritual phrase.
Pascoe let himself be ushered to the door. Dalziel wouldn"t like it, but for once he"d have to lump it.
"Are you just helping out with South"s investigation again?" asked Watmough at the door.
"Rather more than that, sir." Pascoe explained the position.
"So Mr Dalziel is in charge? Well, well. He"s by way of being a friend of yours, I believe?"
He couldn"t keep the note of interrogation, or perhaps rather of incredulity out of his voice.
"Yes, sir," said Pascoe simply, not having the two or three hours necessary for an in-depth a.n.a.lysis of the relationship.
"Well, a man must be allowed to make his own friends," said Watmough. "As long as he is careful to make his own enemies too."
How wise, thought Pascoe. If I found that in a Christmas cracker, I"d ask for my money back!
That was a Dalziel type joke, he realized even as it popped into his mind.
And he realized then what Watmough was saying to him.
Chapter 13.
"This your missus?" said Detective-Superintendent Dalziel.
"Yes," said Gavin Mycroft.
"Bonny la.s.s," said Dalziel, putting the wedding photograph down. "Suits white. Nice room this, Mr Mycroft. Nice things. Someone"s got taste."
"We don"t all keep coal in the bath," said Mycroft.
His dark good-looking face was watchful, almost sullenly so. He was, Dalziel guessed, about thirty. He had already been interviewed about his encounter with Colin Farr in the pit the previous day. Dalziel had a copy of his statement in his hand.
"Load of rubbish," he said, waving it.
"What?"
"A lot of the coal we get nowadays. Now, I can remember when I were a lad, a couple of bags of Shillbottle would keep you going nicely for a week in winter, burning hot and steady all the time and going down to nowt more than a fine brown ash. No clinker, or if there were, you"d put it in a box and ask the coalie next time he came if he"d changed his trade and gone into selling hardcore for road-making! Why is it things have got so bad, Mr Mycroft?"
"I don"t know. Seems all right to me."
"You say so? But no! I mean, look at that mucky mark up your chimneybreast. You"d not have got that with the old Shillbottle we used to get before the war."
He shook his head as he examined the discoloration left by the washing off of Colin Farr"s handprints above the fireplace.
Mycroft said, "We had an accident."
"An accident? No one hurt, I hope?"
"No. It were nowt. Look, what can I do for you, mister?"
"You can help me," said Dalziel with a broad beam. This lad, Farr, you know him well?"
"Well enough."
"And the dead man, Satterthwaite. You"d know him well enough too?"
"Aye."
"But not well enough to like either of "em? Or mebbe too well."
"Hold on? Why d"you say that?"
"Well, one of "em"s dead and the other"s suspected of killing him and you don"t seem much bothered either way."
"All right, so we weren"t that close. So what?"
"Nothing. I"m glad. It makes you a good witness, unbiased. So I can look for the truth when I ask you this. When you saw Farr on his way out, did he look to you like a man who"d just bashed someone"s head in with an iron bar?"
"I didn"t notice any blood if that"s what you mean."
"No, I mean his expression, his manner, how did they strike you?"