Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  ‘In a sense,’ said Lexie, taking a deep breath. ‘But not directly. In the first place she’s left everything to …’

  ‘To who?’ thundered John Huby as she hesitated.

  And Lexie recalled Eden Thackeray’s quiet, dry voice … ‘the rest residue and remainder of my estate whatsoever whether real or personal I give unto my only son Second Lieutenant Alexander Lomas Huby present address unknown …

  ‘She’s done what? Nay! I’ll not credit it! She’s done what? It’ll not stand up! It’s that slimy bloody lawyer that’s behind it, I’ll warrant! I’ll not sit down under this! I’ll not!’

  It had been an irony unappreciated by John Huby that in the old church of St Wilfrid, what he had sat down under was a brass wall plaque reading In Loving Memory of Second Lieutenant Alexander Lomas Huby, missing in action in Italy, May 1944.

  It was Sam Huby, the boy’s father, who had caused the plaque to be erected in 1947. For two years he had tolerated his wife’s refusal to believe her son was dead, but there had to be an end. For him the installation of the plaque marked it. But not for Gwendoline Huby. Her conviction of Alexander’s survival had gone underground for a decade and then re-emerged, bright-eyed and vigorous as ever, on her husband’s death. She made no secret of her belief, and over the years in the eyes of most of her family and close acquaintances, this dottiness had become as unremarkable as, say, a wart on the chin, or a stutter.

  To find at last that it was this disregarded eccentricity which had robbed him of his merited inheritance was almost more than John Huby could bear.

  Lexie had continued, ‘If he doesn’t claim it by April 4th in the year 2015, which would be his ninetieth birthday, that’s when it goes to charity. There’s three of them, by the way …’

  But John Huby was not in the mood for charity.

  ‘2015?’ he groaned. ‘I’ll be ninety then too, if I’m spared, which doesn’t seem likely. I’ll fight the will! She must’ve been crazy, that’s plain as the nose on your face. All that money … How much is it, Lexie? Did Mr sodding Thackeray tell you that?’

  Lexie said, ‘It’s hard to be exact, Dad, what with share prices going up and down and all that …’

  ‘Don’t try to blind me with science, girl. Just because I let you go and work in that bugger’s office instead of stopping at home and helping your mam in the pub doesn’t make you cleverer than the rest of us, you’d do well to remember that! So none of your airs, you don’t understand all that stuff anyway! Just give us a figure.’

  ‘All right, Dad,’ said Lexie Huby meekly. ‘Mr Thackeray reckons that all told it should come to the best part of a million and a half pounds.’

  And for the first and perhaps the last time in her life, she had the satisfaction of reducing her father to silence.

  ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ …’

  Ella Keech’s gaze was not in fact focused on some beatific vision of an ascending soul, as Mrs Windibanks had theorized. Myopic she was, it was true, but her long sight was perfectly sound and she was staring over the clerical shoulder into the green shades of the churchyard beyond. Money and descendants being alike in short supply, most of the old graves were sadly neglected, though in the eyes of many, long grass and wild flowers became the lichened headstones rather more than razed turf and cellophaned wreaths could hope to. But it was no such elegiac meditation which occupied Miss Keech’s mind.

  She was looking to where a pair of elderly yews met over the old lychgate forming a tunnel of almost utter blackness in the bright sun. For several minutes past she had been aware of a vague lightness in that black tunnel. And now it was moving; now it was taking shape; now it was stepping out like an actor into the glare of the footlights.

  It was a man. He advanced hesitantly, awkwardly, between the gravestones. He wore a crumpled, sky-blue, lightweight suit and he carried a straw hat before him in both hands, twisting it nervously. Around his left sleeve ran a crepe mourning band.

  Miss Keech found that he became less clear the closer he got. He had thick grey hair, she could see that, and its lightness formed a striking contrast with his suntanned face. He was about the same age as John Huby, she guessed.

  And now it occurred to her that the resemblance did not end there.

  And it also occurred to her that perhaps she was the only one present who could see this approaching man…

  ‘… the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore. Amen.’

  As the respondent amens were returned (with the London Lomas party favouring a as in ‘play’ and the Old Mill Huby set preferring ah as in ‘father’) it became clear that the fellowship of the newcomer was not so ghostly as to be visible only to Miss Keech. Others were looking at him with expressions ranging from open curiosity in the face of Eden Thackeray to vacuous benevolence on the face of the vicar.

  But it took John Huby to voice the general puzzlement.

  ‘Wha’s yon bugger?’ he asked no one in particular.

  The newcomer responded instantly and amazingly.

  Sinking on his knees, he seized two handfuls of earth and, hurling them dramatically into the grave, threw back his head and cried, ‘Mama!’

  There were several cries of astonishment and indignation; Mrs Windibanks looked at the newcomer as if he’d whispered a vile suggestion in her ear, Miss Keech fainted slowly into the reluctant arms of Eden Thackeray, and John Huby, perhaps viewing this as a Judas kiss, cried, ‘Nah then! Nah then! What’s all this? What’s all this? Is this another one of thy fancy tricks, lawyer? Is that what it is, eh? By God, it’s time someone gave thee a lesson in how decent folks behave at a funeral!’

  So saying, and full of selfless eagerness to administer this lesson, he began to advance on Eden Thackeray. The lawyer, finding himself in the Court of Last Resources, attempted to ward him off with the person of Miss Keech. Sidestepping to get at his proper prey, John Huby’s foot found space where it looked for terra firma. For a second he teetered on one leg; then with a cry in which fear was now indistinguishable from rage, he plunged headlong into the open grave.

  Everyone froze, then everyone moved. Some pressed forward to offer assistance, some pressed back to summon it. Ruby Huby leapt into the grave to succour her husband and landed with both knees in his kidneys. Eden Thackeray, no longer needing Miss Keech for aegis, released her and was then constrained to grab her again as she too started the easy descent into the pit. The vicar stopped smiling comfortingly and Rod Lomas looked across the grave, caught Lexie Huby’s eye, and laughed aloud.

  Gradually order was restored and the unquiet grave emptied of all but its proper inmate. It was only now that most of those present realized that at some point in the confusion the catalystic stranger had vanished. Once it was ascertained that the only permanent damage was to John Huby’s blue serge, Miss Keech, still leaning heavily on the arm of Eden Thackeray, signalled that the obsequies were back on course by announcing that a cold collation awaited those who cared to return with her to Troy House.

  Walking away from the graveside, Rod Lomas found himself alongside Lexie Huby. Stooping to her ear, he murmured, ‘Nothing in Aunt Gwen’s life, or her fortune for that matter, became her like the leaving of it, wouldn’t you say?’

  She looked at him in alarmed bewilderment. He smiled. She frowned and hurried on to join her sister who glanced back, caught the young man’s eye, and blushed beneath her blusher at his merry respondent wink.

  Chapter 2

  The façade of the Kemble was a mess. To rescue the old theatre from bingo in these hard times; to renovate, refurbish and restore it; to divert public money and extort private sponsorship to finance it; these had been acts of faith or of lunacy depending on where you stood, and the division in the local council had not been on straight party lines.

  But the will had been great and the work had been done. Creamy grey stone had emerged from beneath a century of grime and Shakespeare’s numbers had triumphed over the bingo-caller’s.

  But n
ow the huge eye catching posters which advertised the Grand Opening Production of Romeo and Juliet had been ripped down, and what caught the eye now were aerosoled letters in primary colours taking stone, glass and woodwork in their obscene stride.

  GO HOME NIGGER! CHUNG = DUNG! WHITE

  HEAT BURNS BLACK BASTARDS!

  Sergeant Wield took a last look as he left the theatre. Council workers were already at their priest-like task of ablution, but it was going to be a long job.

  When he got back to the station, he went to see if his immediate superior, Detective-Inspector Peter Pascoe, was back from the hospital. Long before he reached the inspector’s door, a dull vibration of the air like thunder in the next valley suggested that Pascoe was indeed back and was being lectured, doubtless on some essential constabulary matter, by Superintendent Andrew Dalziel Head of Mid-Yorkshire CID.

  ‘The very man,’ said Dalziel as the sergeant entered. ‘What odds is Broomfield giving against Dan Trimble from Cornwall?’

  ‘Three to one. Theoretical, of course, sir,’ said Wield.

  ‘Of course. Here’s five theoretical quid to put on his nose, right?’

  Wield accepted the money without comment. Dalziel was referring to the strictly illegal book Sergeant Broomfield had opened on the forthcoming appointment of a new Chief Constable. The shortlist had been announced and interviews would take place in a fortnight’s time.

  Pascoe, slightly disapproving of this frivolity when there was serious police business toward, said, ‘How was the Kemble, Wieldy?’

  ‘It’ll wash off,’ said the sergeant. ‘What about the lad in hospital?’

  Pascoe said, ‘That’ll take a bit longer to wash off. They fractured his skull.’

  ‘The two things are connected, you reckon?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘Well, he is black and he is a member of the Kemble Company.’

  The attack in question had taken place as the young actor had made his way to his digs after an evening out drinking with some friends. He’d been found badly beaten in an alleyway at six o’clock that morning. He could remember nothing after leaving the pub.

  The trouble at the Kemble had started with the controversial appointment of Eileen Chung as artistic director. Chung, a six-foot-three-inch-tall Eurasian with a talent for publicity, had gone instantly on local television to announce that under her regime, the Kemble would be an outpost of radical theatre. Alarmed, the interviewer had asked if this meant a diet of modern political plays.

  ‘Radical’s content, not form, honey,’ Chung said sweetly. ‘We’re going to open with Romeo and Juliet, is that old-fashioned enough for you?’

  Asked, why Romeo and Juliet? she had replied, ‘It’s about the abuse of authority, the psycho-battering of children, the degradation of womanhood. Also it’s on this year’s O-level syllabus. We’ll pack the kids in, honey. They’re tomorrow’s audience and they’ll melt away unless you get a hold of them today.’

  Such talk had made many of the city fathers uneasy, but it had delighted a lot of people including Ellie Pascoe who, as local membership secretary of WRAG, the Women’s Rights Action Group, had quickly got in touch with Chung. Since their first meeting, she had talked about the newcomer with such adulation that Pascoe had found himself referring to her in a reaction, which privately at least he recognized as jealous, as Big Eileen.

  It was after her television appearance that trouble had started in the form of obscene phone calls and threatening letters. But the previous night’s attack and vandalization had been the first direct interpretation of these threats.

  ‘What did Big Eileen have to say?’ inquired Pascoe.

  ‘Miss Chung, you mean?’ said Wield, correctly. ‘Well, she was angry about the paint and the beating-up, naturally. But to tell the truth, what seemed to be bothering her most was getting someone to replace the lad in hospital. He had an important part, it seems, and they’re due to open next Monday, I think it is.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ve got tickets,’ said Pascoe without enthusiasm. It was Ellie who’d got the tickets and also an invitation to the backstage party to follow the opening. His objection that there was a showing of Siegel’s The Killers on the telly that night had not been sympathetically received.

  ‘Do we count it as one case or as two, sir?’ inquired Wield, who was a stickler for orderliness.

  Pascoe frowned but Dalziel said, ‘Two. You stick with the assault, Peter, and let Wield here handle the vandals. If they tie in together, well and good, but at the moment, what’ve we got? Someone gives a lad a kicking after closing time. Happens all the time. Someone else goes daft with a spray can. Show me a wall where they haven’t! It’s like Belshazaar’s Feast down in the underpass.’

  Pascoe didn’t altogether agree but knew better than to argue. In any case, Dalziel didn’t leave a space for argument. Having disposed of this policy decision, he was keen to get back to the main business of the day.

  ‘Who’s Broomfield making favourite, Wieldy?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, there’s Mr Dodd from Durham. Two to one on. Joint.’

  ‘Joint? Who with.’

  ‘Mr Watmough,’ said Wield, his craggily ugly face even more impressive than usual. It was well known that Dalziel rated Watmough, the present Deputy Chief Constable, as a life form only slightly above amoeba.

  ‘What? He wants his head looked at! Find out what he’ll give me against our DCC finding his way out of the interview room without a guide dog, Wieldy!’

  Wield smiled, though it hardly showed. He was smiling at Dalziel’s abrasive humour, at Pascoe’s faintly pained reaction, and also just for the sheer pleasure of being part of this. Even Dalziel would only speak so abusively of a superior before subordinates he liked and trusted. With a slight shock of surprise, Wield found he was happy. It was not a state he was much used to in recent years, not in fact since he had broken up with Maurice. But here it was at last, the dangerous infection breaking through, a slight but definite case of happiness!

  The phone rang. Pascoe picked it up.

  ‘Hello? Yes. Hang on.’

  He held out the phone to the sergeant.

  ‘For you, they say. Someone asking for Sergeant Mac Wield?’

  The note of interrogation came on the Mac. This was not a name he’d ever heard anyone call Wield by.

  The sergeant showed no emotion on his rugged face but his hand gripped the receiver so tightly that the tension bunched his forearm muscles against the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘Wield,’ he said.

  ‘Mac Wield? Hi. I’m a friend of Maurice’s. He said if ever I was in this neck of the woods and needed a helping hand, I should look you up.’

  Wield said, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘There’s a caff by the booking office at the bus station. You can’t miss me. I’m the suntanned one.’

  ‘Wait there,’ said Wield and put down the receiver.

  The other two were regarding him queryingly.

  ‘I’ve got to go out,’ said Wield.

  ‘Anything we should know about?’ said Dalziel.

  Mebbe the end of life as I know it, thought Wield, but all he said was, ‘Could be owt or nowt,’ before turning away abruptly and leaving.

  ‘Mac,’ said Pascoe. ‘I never knew Wield had Scottish connections.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they know either. He gives nowt much away, does he?’

  ‘It was probably a snout and we all like to keep our snouts under wraps,’ said Pascoe defensively.

  ‘If I looked like Wield, I’d put my snouts on display and keep my face under wraps,’ growled Dalziel.

  Thank you, Rupert Brooke, thought Pascoe, regarding the superintendent’s huge balding head which his wife had once likened to a dropsical turnip.

  But he was careful to sneeze the thought into his handkerchief, being much less sure than Sergeant Wield of his ability to shut his mind against Dalziel’s gaze, which could root up insubordination like a pig snuffling out truffles.

  Wield’s capa
city for concealment was far greater than anything Pascoe ever suspected.

  Mac, the voice had said. Perhaps it had served him right for relaxing his guard and letting happiness steal in like that, but such instant retribution left the courts for dead! That a voice would one day call to change his life as he had chosen to live it had always been possible, indeed likely. That it should sound so young and speak so simply he had not anticipated.

  I’m a friend of Maurice’s. That had been unnecessary. Only Maurice Eaton had ever called him Mac, their private name, short for Macumazahn, the native name of Allan Quatermain, the stocky, ill-favoured hero of the Rider Haggard novels Wield loved. It meant he-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open and Wield could remember the occasion of his christening as clearly as if … He snapped his mind hard on the nostalgia. What had existed between him and Maurice was dead, should be forgotten. This voice from the grave brought no hope of resurrection, but trouble as sure as a War Office telegram.

  When he reached the café, he had no problem in picking out the caller. Blue-streaked hair, leg-hugging green velvet slacks and a tight blue T-shirt with a pair of fluorescent lips pouting across the chest, were in this day and age not out of the ordinary even in Yorkshire. But he’d called himself the suntanned one, and though his smooth olive skin came from mixed blood rather than a Mediterranean beach, the youth would have been impossible to miss even if he hadn’t clearly recognized Wield and smiled at him welcomingly.

  Wield ignored him and went to the self-service bar.

  ‘Keeping you busy, Charley?’ he said.

  The man behind the counter answered, ‘It’s the quality of the tea, Mr Wield. They come here in buses to try it. Fancy a cup?’

  ‘No, thanks. I want a word with that lad in the corner. Can I use the office?’

  ‘Him that looks like a delphinium? Be my guest. Here’s the key. I’ll send him through.’