'Though it may be Monday morning,’ concluded the voice, somewhat spoiling the good impression.
'I didn't think the Army recognized weekends,' said Pascoe.
'Things have changed. They run a course in weekend recognition at Sandhurst now,' said the voice. 'Bye.'
As Pascoe replaced the receiver, there was a perfunctory knock and Dicky Gladmann came in. 'They seemed pretty busy downstairs, so I just came on up,' he said, mouth a-beam above his spotted bow tie, and brightly bloodshot eyes flickering inquisitively round the room.
'So much for security,' said Pascoe.
'Should I have been announced? I'm sorry,' said Gladmann with cheerful insincerity. 'But I carry my credentials with me.'
He held up a Sainsbury's carrier bag.
'The tapes? Oh good. So Mr Urquart is going to materialize also?'
'I think not,' said Gladmann, sitting down. 'We popped across to the University at lunch-time . . .'
'The University? I thought you said you had all you needed out at the College.'
'Not so. As you must know, being a sort of in-law of the place, the College is very small beer academically speaking, soon to evaporate completely. Our language lab is pretty OK but we felt we would really like to make sonograms of the tapes . . .'
To make what?' interrupted Pascoe once more.
'Sonograms. Oh sorry. I thought the police were so technical these days. A sonogram is an analysis printed out by a machine called a sonograph and it displays the various distributions of energy across the frequency spectrum that occur for different sounds. OK?'
'If you say so. And there's one of these machines at the University?'
'Plus a rather delectable assistant professor who finds Drew's intellectual arrogance, social gaucheess and undamped body odour irresistible. God knows what noises they analyse together, but it's a wonder the machine hasn't exploded. So, while I have returned post-haste, he has remained. In the interests of science, naturally.'
'Naturally. Is there anything useful you can tell us, Mr Gladmann?' asked Pascoe.
'Well now. Here we go,' replied the linguist, upending the carrier bag so that the tapes and various bits and pieces of paper fell on to Pascoe's desk.
'This is our report,' said Gladmann, holding up a handful of sheets stapled together. 'It's pretty clear, I would say. I could take you through it if you like.'
'I'd be grateful.'
'OK. First, we're pretty well agreed there are four speakers involved here - or a very high degree of mimicking. There was some resemblance in tempo and pitch range between (A) and (D), that is to say, now get you to my lady's chamber etc., and the time is out of joint etc. But there are several significant differences. They both use RP, Received Pronunciation, but it's fairly clear it's been received in rather different ways, ha ha.'
'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Explain.'
'Well, if we look at the phonetic realization of those phonemes we find in both utterances, we can spot the following. In the word to, (A) uses a central vowel while (D) has a close back vowel. Like this.'
Gladmann demonstrated, Pascoe looked doubtful, Gladmann repeated the demonstration, Pascoe echoed the sounds, hesitantly at first, then with more certainty.
'By George, you've got it. I think you've got it,' said Gladmann.
'I could have danced all night,' rejoined Pascoe. 'Go on.'
'Next take (A)'s now and (D)'s out. (D) has the usual RP diphthong in which the glide begins with an unrounded open back vowel, whereas (A) has a diphthong in which the glide begins from much further forward and nearer a half open position.'
Again the demonstration.
'Note also,' continued Gladmann, the bit between his teeth now, 'that where (D)'s stressed-syllable-initial voiceless plosives (as in time and cursed) are aspirated, in (A) they are not.'
'Hang on. What does that mean?'
'Well, when they're aspirated, they're said with a little puff of air accompanying the release . . .'
'I know what aspirated means, also exasperated,' said Pascoe. 'But what does it signify?'
'Ah, always the policeman,' said Gladmann sadly. 'You could say that the aspiration is normal in RP, and its absence often occurs in Northern regional accents. Similarly, while the one final voiceless plosive we find in (D), that is, in spite, is unreleased, in (A) all the final voiceless plosives are globalized.'
'You mean, spat out?'
'If you like,' said Gladmann, as if disheartened.
'So, conclusions please.'
'If you must,' said Gladmann, '(D) is fairly simple. He speaks RP of a kind he probably learned in a middle-class home and during the course of an education, not necessarily private, but certainly grammar school and probably in the Home Counties. There are a couple of relatively conservative features of his version of RP which underline these conclusions. When he says 0, the glide of the diphthong begins with a centralized back vowel quality and in born his pronunciation of the vowel is diphthongal rather than the monophthongal one common among younger RP speakers.'
'Yes, yes,' said Pascoe impatiently. 'And (A)?'
'Here we would say there has been a fairly marked regional accent which has been changed, for whatever reason, towards a modified RP. Some regional features remain. Northern, certainly. Drew Urquhart did some field work in dialectology in north Derbyshire last summer and he claims he got an odd echo from those parts, but he tends to be a bit obsessive about his own interests.'
'OK,' said Pascoe. 'What about the others.'
'Well, they say rather less, but fortunately say it rather more revealingly in regional terms. One may smile and smile, and be a villain. Note the giveaway one, the diphthongal pronunciation of the vowel in be and the very close articulation of the first vowel in villain. West Midlands, certainly. Birmingham, very likely. And even you, I'm sure, Inspector, spotted that (C) was a Scot. The final 'r' in or tells all, though if you want further evidence, you could point to the use of a closer back vowel for not than an educated Englishman would employ.'
'That's excellent,' said Pascoe, not sure if it was or not. 'And these are the sonograms I suppose. What do they tell us?'
He picked up some lengths of thin paper printed with wavy varying vibration patterns above a scale.
'They help to confirm that four different speakers are involved,' said Gladmann. 'And if you're fortunate enough, or perhaps unfortunate enough, to get another message on tape, they'd help us work out which of these four it might have come from. Do you think that one of these is definitely this Choker chappie?'
'It's very likely,' said Pascoe.
'Well, I hope you get him. Though incidentally, young Drew asked me to be certain to reiterate his objection to the use of our findings in any but the most peripheral supportive role.'
'Did he?' said Pascoe. 'Well, thank him, and tell him we won't rush into anything, though over the next month we hope to arrest the entire population of Scotland and the West Midlands on suspicion.'
He stood up and held out his hand.
Gladmann took it and held it a little longer than convention required. Not all the spots on his bow tie were in the original pattern, Pascoe noticed. He got a sense that the man was rather lonely and glad of the contact involved in helping the police with their enquiries.
'Which part of the world are you from, Mr Gladmann?' he heard himself asking. It was not the most diplomatic of questions even to a duller mind than the linguist's.
'Surrey,' he answered with a half smile. 'Good solid bourgeois background. Old grammar school, nice class of kid. And I got my first degree in Eng. Lit., Renaissance drama a speciality. Good day to you, now, Inspector. Don't forget. Call on me at any time.'
Pascoe sat and ruminated on what Gladmann had told him for a few minutes, but then he put the report and the tapes away in a filing cabinet and got down to some overdue paperwork. Tomorrow, Saturday, should be his day off and he wanted to be as up to date as possible.
After half an hour he was interrupted by the return of DC Preece.
No 73 Danby Row, he reported, was the property of one Hubert Valentine, who worked in the Rates and Valuation department of the local council and who was presently on holiday in Minorca with his wife. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Andrea, was alone in the house.
'Very tasty,' said Preece, grinning salaciously. 'I told her I was on a consumer research survey for a big record company. What did she buy, what did her parents buy? It all came out. Very friendly girl.'
What had also come out was that Andrea was a sixth-form pupil at the Bishop Crump Comprehensive School. Preece's description fitted the girl Pascoe had seen leaving Wildgoose's flat that morning.
He dismissed Preece and got back to work, but a few minutes later, Dalziel burst in.
'Bloody lab,' he said. 'A few residuals, nothing. The watch is one of them digital things, new. Waterproof so they can't say if it's been in the water or not. No way of tracing where it was bought. The ring's nine carat gold. There's an inscription inside. All my love all my life. And there's a monogram on the signet. Too fancy to be clear with all them curlicues and things but it could be MLA or WTA. Neither of the things has been reported missing.'
Pascoe rose and went to his filing cabinet.
'What about TAM?' he said.
'What about it?'
'Tommy Maggs's middle name is Arthur.'
He passed on Wield's thought about the holiday-making jeweller.
'That's possible. That'd explain a lot,' said Dalziel. 'There's a brain behind that ugly mask. When's this jeweller expected back?'
'Tomorrow, the notice on his door said, according to Wield.'
'Right. We'll be waiting for him. Meanwhile, let's assume that he did provide the ring and the watch. So, Brenda draws out the cash, spends some of it on the watch and the ring - which must have been ordered in advance, obviously, to get the inscription done. And somehow the whole bloody lot ends up in Lee's caravan. That bugger's got some explaining to do!'
'Not for a while yet,' said Pascoe, telling him about the operation.
'At least we know where he is. Do you know what time it is, lad?'
'Late,' said Pascoe.
'Nigh on opening time. Let's wash the day away.'
Pascoe demurred, but Dalziel was not in a mood to be denied.
'It's your day off tomorrow, isn't it? Ellie will see quite enough of you then. It's being scarce that makes a thing valuable.'
A quick one, then,' conceded Pascoe.
As he tidied up his desk, he told the fat man about Gladmann's findings. Dalziel was unimpressed.
'Linguists, psychiatrists, crap-merchants the lot of them.'
'Maybe,' said Pascoe. 'But Dave Lee doesn't fit into this phone-call pattern at all.'
'So mebbe it means nothing.'
'And Pottle's reading of the Choker doesn't fit Lee either.'
'Pottle! What's he know?'
'He's been right before.'
'So had Pontius Pilate. Are you going to be all night?'
He clattered down the stairs ahead of Pascoe, but pulled up sharp at the swing-doors which opened into the main foyer of the station and peered cautiously through the central crack. When Pascoe joined him the fat man put a huge finger cautiously to his lips and motioned his subordinate to peep through.
At the desk a youngish woman in a grey dress was talking to the sergeant.
'If I am not to be allowed access to Mr and Mrs Lee wherever they are, then I insist on talking to the officer in charge of the case,' she said in a clear, angry voice.
'I'm not sure if he's in, Miss Pritchard,' said the sergeant.
'Then you'd better find out,' insisted the woman.
Reluctantly the sergeant picked up his telephone.
'Lacewing's solicitor?' whispered Pascoe. 'Aye. Come on, lad, before she starts searching the building.'
And chortling gleefully, Dalziel led the way to the rear exit.
Chapter 18
Shortly before seven P.M. Dave Lee was wheeled off to the operating theatre. Only the fact that it was Friday evening and the consultant treasured his Saturday morning golf prevented the gypsy from being put into storage overnight, or so the ward sister assured Wield. The sergeant was pleased to have the man anaesthetized so that he could relax his vigilance. He went down to the hospital canteen but changed his mind when he spotted Mrs Lee with her attendant WPC, both tucking into healthy portions of pie, peas and chips. Instead he went for a stroll outside to get the smell of medicine and illness out of his nostrils.
His perambulations took him past the entrance to CASUALTY as an ambulance drew up. He paused and watched with professional interest the unhurried efficiency with which the attendants got the incoming patient out of the vehicle and on to the trolley. As the man was wheeled by him, the sergeant looked down. There had been considerable violence here, he saw with a small shock. One eye was closed by a huge and purple swelling, the lips were cracked and bleeding, the nose looked as if it might be broken and the open mouth through which bloody spittle bubbled revealed at least two broken teeth.
The still-functioning eye touched Wield's face in passing and for a second registered something other than pain. The reaction suddenly brought the damaged individual features into a single focus and Wield felt a second shock, stronger than the first.
It was Ron Ludlam.
He followed the trolley through the automatic doors. One of the ambulance men was talking to the girl on reception.
'Excuse me,' interrupted Wield. 'What happened to him?'
When he reinforced his question with his warrant card, the ambulance man said, 'Fell down stairs.'
'Eh?'
'That's what he says, mate. And that's what his sister says. I just bring 'em in.'
'His sister. That'd be Mrs Pickersgill, right? Where's she?'
'Coming on later, she said. It was her that rang us. She was very upset.'
'Not upset enough to come with you, though?' said Wield.
'Mebbe she had things to do, baby to feed, old mother to look after. Like I said, I just bring 'em in.'
Wield now went after the trolley which, after a bit of trial and error, he found in one of the examination cubicles.
A nurse was talking to the second ambulance man and taking down details. It struck Wield that they seemed to spend rather a lot of time taking down details but he supposed it was necessary for them to know what they were dealing with.
Again his warrant card worked and he leaned over the recumbent figure.
'Ron,' he said.
The eye flickered recognition if not welcome.
'What happened, Ron?'
The tongue moved like a blind animal in the ruined mouth. He caught the word stairs.
'Ho ho. Come on, Ron, Frankie did this, didn't he?'
There was a vigorous shaking of the head which must have caused considerable pain and Ludlam even managed to raise himself up on his elbow and say with a hard-won clarity. 'I fell down stairs.'
'All right, take it easy. Let's have a look at you.'
The doctor had arrived. Wield found himself eased out into the corridor. Not that he resisted much. If Ron in this state was determined not to put the finger on his brother-in-law, his mind must have been very firmly made up. Presumably Janey had passed on the information Wield had left wither that morning. Presumably Frankie had blown his gasket. Presumably it was fear of more of the same that was keeping Ludlam's mouth shut.
Presumably . . . presumably . . .
He didn't like the feel of it, Wield realized. If Ron had shot his mouth off in his present state, then recanted like mad when wiser counsel returned with health, that might have made sense. This way, there had to be something else, some extra pressure. Something.
He thought of ringing George Headingley and suggesting he should send a man round to see Pickersgill. It was after all the Spinks's warehouse case that was likely to be involved here.
Instead, knowing he was ripe for an excuse to get away from the hospital but unable to resist the temptation,
he checked Dave Lee's status, which was alive and well but unconscious, and headed for the car park. As he drove out, a taxi came in. There was a woman alone in the back and he thought he recognized Janey Pickersgill. That cleared the ground nicely, he thought.
It took a lot of ringing at the doorbell to get any reply. Finally Pickersgill's face scowled out through a span about six inches wide.
'What do you want?' he demanded.
'You,' said Wield promptly. 'Better let me in, Frankie.'
Grudgingly he was admitted. Peckersgill was a long wiry man with a narrow face and restless eyes. He was wearing his working clothes - jeans and a white sweat shirt. Wield guessed that he had arrived home just as Janey was confronting her brother with the accusation that he'd fingered Frankie for the whisky job. Given time, she might have decided not to tell her husband, but she'd have been unable to miss lashing out at her brother first. Once Frankie picked up what was going on, he would have been unstoppable.
'I've just been talking to Ron,' said Wield. 'Oh yes. No need to look surprised. They called us right away when they heard what had happened to him.'
'Heard? Heard what?'
'That's right, Frankie. I said heard. He's been chatting away as fast as he can through the broken teeth.'
'What's he say, then?' asked Pickersgill defiantly-
For answer Wield grabbed his wrists, turned the hands over and struck the bruised and swelling knuckles together.
'You'll find it hard to hold a steering-wheel,' he said. 'Still, you probably won't have to for a while.'
'What the hell are you on about?' demanded Pickersgill. 'What's all this about Ron, anyway? I've just got home this minute. I had a bit of an accident with my hands, that's all.'
'Fell down stairs as well, did you? It doesn't matter anyway, Frankie. Assault and battery's the least of your troubles, son.'
Pickersgill tried to pull his hands away but Wield's grip was unbreakable.
'That's right, Frankie. Ron's gone all the way. You didn't think he wouldn't, did you? I mean, he's done it once, hasn't he, so why not again? So now there's just our Janey to alibi you and you know what her word's worth after last time.'
Pickersgill's reaction was not what he'd expected. Incredulity first, then simple bewilderment, then something not far off amusement.
Dalziel 06 A Killing Kindness Page 16
