Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Later. I may be in later,’ he said.

  He heard his nephew’s feet descend the stairs. Then all was silence. He fell into a reverie which a casual observer might have mistaken for a doze.

  When he opened his eyes, it took him a few seconds to realize there actually was a casual observer to make the error.

  Seated before him where Lexie had perched a little earlier was a man. There was something familiar about him, and not very pleasantly familiar either.

  Suddenly it came to him. This was the same sunburnt intruder who had disturbed Gwendoline Huby’s funeral.

  He jumped up, alarmed.

  ‘Who are you? How did you get in? What the devil do you want?’

  The man stared at him as if looking for something in his face.

  ‘You are Eden Thackeray?’ he said.

  He spoke with a certain hesitancy, like a man reassembling old ideas, old words.

  ‘Yes, I am. And who are you?’ repeated Thackeray.

  ‘Who am I?’ said the man. ‘In my passport and in my life for the past forty years, it says that I am Alessandro Pontelli of Florence. But the truth is that I am Alexander Lomas Huby and I have come to claim my inheritance!’

  Chapter 5

  ‘What’s up with Wield?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘He’s been sort of distant these last few days, like he’s got something on his mind. Perhaps he’s decided on plastic surgery and can’t decide whether to go for the blow-lamp or the road-drill.’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Insensitivity, that’s always been your trouble,’ said Dalziel. He belched, then raised his voice and cried, ‘Hey, Wieldy, bring us another of them pies, will you? And ask Jolly Jack if it’s my turn to have the one with the meat in this month.’

  No one paid any heed. Dalziel and his CID squad were lunchtime regulars in the Black Bull and familiarity had bred discretion. A minute later Wield returned from the bar with two pints of beer.

  ‘You’ve not forgot my pie?’

  The sergeant put the glasses down and reached into his jacket pocket.

  ‘Christ,’ said Dalziel. ‘I’m glad I didn’t ask for the lasagna. Cheers.’

  Pascoe sipped his pint with a sigh. It was his second and he’d been promising both himself and Ellie to cut back on the calories for a few days. At least he’d only had one pie.

  ‘What’s up with you then, Sergeant? Not having another?’

  Dalziel had just noticed Wield had not bought himself a drink.

  ‘No, I’ll just finish this, then I’ve got to be off.’

  ‘Off? It’s your lunch hour!’ expostulated Dalziel with the same note of exasperation he sounded if any of his flock showed the slightest sign of demur when told they were working till midnight or had to get up at four A.M.

  ‘I’ve some catching up to do,’ said Wield vaguely. ‘This shoplifting. And that Kemble business.’

  ‘Anything new there, Wieldy?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘Not much. I’ve been researching back through the old information sheets. There’s this National Front spin-off group, works a lot through university students, bit different from the usual Front lot in that they keep their heads down, infiltrate Conservative student groups, that sort of thing. Not like your usual Front bully-boy who wants the world to admire his jackboots.’

  Wield was sounding quite heated for him.

  ‘What makes you think there could be a link here?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘They call themselves White Heat,’ said Wield.

  ‘White Heat. That rings a bell,’ said Dalziel.

  ‘James Cagney. Top of the world, ma!’ said Pascoe.

  The other two looked at him blankly, clearly not sharing his passion for old Warner Brothers movies.

  ‘One of the things sprayed on the Kemble was White Heat Burns Blacks,’ said Wield, glancing at his watch.

  He finished his beer, stood up and said, ‘Best be off. Cheerio.’

  Pascoe watched his departure with a feeling of faint concern. He hadn’t been lying when he told Dalziel he had noticed nothing odd in the sergeant’s behaviour recently, but now his mind had been steered in the right direction, he realized that there were a number of minor variations from the norm which, crushed together, might make a small oddity. It was annoying that Dalziel should have proved more percipient in this than himself. He wouldn’t call Wield a friend, but a bond of respect and also of affection had developed between the men, a closeness signalled perhaps by his growing irritation at Dalziel’s ‘ugly’ jokes.

  His mind was diverted from the problem, if problem there was, by the landlord’s voice from the bar.

  ‘Sorry, love, but you don’t look eighteen to me, and it’s more than me licence is worth to sell you alcohol. You can have a fruit juice, but.’

  It was, of course, a stage-loudness for their benefit, thought Pascoe. Though indeed Jolly Jack Mahoney, the licensee, might well have objected even without a police presence to serving this customer, a small bespectacled girl who didn’t look much above thirteen.

  Mahoney leaned over the bar and said in a quieter voice, ‘If it’s grub you’re after, love, go through that door, there’s a bit of a dining-room, the girl’ll slip you a glass of wine with your meal, no bother. Them gents over there are the police, so you see my trouble.’

  The girl did not move, except to turn her head so that the owl-eye spectacles ringed Dalziel and Pascoe.

  Her voice when she spoke was nervous but determined.

  ‘I thought you boasted at the Licensed Victuallers Association that the police never bothered you as long as the CID could get drinks at all hours, Mr Mahoney.’

  The publican’s jaw dropped through shock into dismay.

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ he said, glancing anxiously towards Dalziel who was viewing him malevolently. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, lass. Do I know you?’

  ‘You know my father, John Huby, I think.’

  ‘Up at the Old Mill Inn? By God, is it little Lexie? Why didn’t you say, lass! You must be near on twenty now. I know her, she’s near on twenty!’

  These last affirmations were directed towards Dalziel who finished his pint, placed the glass on the table and pointed menacingly into it, like Jahweh setting up a widow’s cruse.

  A young man had come into the bar, of medium height, elegantly coiffured and dressed in a black and yellow striped blazer, cheesecloth shirt and cream-coloured slacks. His regularly handsome features broke into a gleaming smile as he spotted the girl and bore down on her, arms outstretched.

  ‘Dear Lexie,’ he cried. ‘I am late. Forgive me. Purge me with a kiss.’

  Pascoe was amused to see that the girl ducked at the last second from his questing lips and got him in the eye with her big spectacles. Then the newcomer obtained two glasses of white wine and a plateful of sandwiches from Mahoney and he and the small girl sat down at the far side of the room, still within sight but now out of earshot.

  He returned his attention to Dalziel who was saying, ‘That Mahoney, I’ll need to have a quiet word about going around slandering the police.’

  ‘Now?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Don’t be daft! When he’s shut and we can get down to some serious drinking.’

  And he bellowed with laughter at the sight of the pained expression on Pascoe’s face.

  At their distant table, Lexie and Rod Lomas heard the laugh, but only Lexie registered the source.

  ‘I really am sorry I’m late,’ Lomas was saying. ‘But I’m afraid I still tend to think of all urban distances as minute outside of London. To compensate, I tend to treat all country distances as vast. Had we been meeting at your father’s pub, say, I dare say I’d have been there an hour ago.’

  Lexie did not reply but bit into a sandwich.

  Lomas said with a smile, ‘You don’t say a great deal, do you, dear coz?’

  ‘I were waiting for you to finish putting me at ease,’ sa
id Lexie.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Lomas. ‘I see I shall have to watch you, little Lexie.’

  ‘I’m not your cousin, and I’m five feet two inches barefoot,’ said Lexie.

  ‘Oh dear,’ repeated Lomas. ‘Are there any other sensitive areas we ought to check out straightaway?’

  ‘Why do you call yourself Lomas?’ said Lexie. ‘Your name is Windibanks, isn’t it?’

  He grinned and said, ‘There you’re wrong. It was changed quite legally by deed poll. Rod Lomas is in fact and law my name.’

  ‘Why’d you change it?’

  ‘As I launched myself on what I hoped would be a meteoric theatrical career, but what now looks like being a long steady haul to the top, it occurred to me that Rodney Windibanks was not a name to fit easily into lights. Rod Lomas on the other hand is short, punchy, memorable. Satisfied?’

  She continued to chew without replying. Her silence somehow declared its source as disbelief rather than good manners.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s a fair cop! Why Lomas? It was Mummy’s idea. Butter up Auntie Gwen - yes, I know she wasn’t my auntie but that’s how I thought of her. Mummy made a big deal of it, of course, writing and asking permission to resurrect the family name, promising that I would never bring anything but fame and good report on it. Auntie Gwen replied that I must call myself what I wished. Left to myself, I might have chosen something a little more evocative, like Garrick or Irving, but Mummy is very strong-willed in the pursuit of fortune. Do I shock you?’

  She swallowed, opened the half-eaten sandwich, said disgustedly, ‘Brisket. And more gristle than brisket.’

  Lomas looked nonplussed for a moment, then he said with an edge of malice, ‘Not that it should shock you, of course. You are a fellow-initiate in the great sucking-up-to-auntie club, aren’t you? Indeed, almost a founder member, since you joined shortly after birth. Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely Lexie is short for Alexandra, and I doubt if that was a simple coincidence!’

  Lexie said abruptly, ‘What do you want? What are you doing here?’

  Lomas looked at her as if considering taking up the challenge. Then he grinned boyishly and said, ‘Believe it or not, dear coz, I came back north in response to a cry for help. When I was up for the funeral, I popped into the Kemble to see some old chums. I’m sure a cultured young person like yourself will be aware that the Kemble has as its artistic director Ms Eileen Chung. Chung and I are long acquainted and I know all her ways, which include a rather distorting tendency to socialize or, worse still, feminize all material that she turns her big doe eyes on. She is not strong enough to resist the demands of the English set-book, however, and next week as you must know her very first production is Romeo and Juliet. At Salisbury we did it for art, in Yorkshire they do it for O-level! But disaster struck. Night before last, Chung’s Mercutio got beaten up and is hors de combat. Desperate for a top-class replacement well-schooled in the part, her thoughts naturally turned to me. By chance I was free. Or rather I was just on the point of signing a big Hollywood contract, but who can resist a friend’s cry for help? I dropped everything and came up last night. The show is saved!’

  Lexie said, ‘I read in the Post the chap who got beaten up was black.’

  ‘Indeed yes. A little surprise for the good burghers, a black Mercutio. But Chung says it was not of the essence. She thinks his obvious homosexual passion for Romeo will be quite enough for the city council to bear. But enough of me, fascinating though I am. What of you? How goes the Law?’

  ‘All right,’ said Lexie, discarding another sandwich.

  ‘Any news on the will front?’ he asked casually.

  ‘How should I know?’ she said, alert.

  ‘Well, you are acting as old Thackeray’s secretary, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Keechie, I suppose.’

  He laughed at her surprise.

  ‘Didn’t I say? I’m staying out at Troy House. Well, I needed digs. I can only afford the Howard Arms Hotel when Mummy’s with me, picking up the tab. Dear Mummy. It doesn’t matter how strapped she is for cash, she never settles for less than the best.’

  ‘She’s hard up, is she? Your dad didn’t leave her anything, then?’

  Lomas stiffened.

  ‘Not much,’ he said, charm subsumed by some genuine emotion. ‘Why do you mention my father?’

  ‘No reason,’ said the girl.

  He glowered at her, then burst out, ‘People said he was a crook, but if he was, he’d have left us stinking rich, wouldn’t he?’

  She said, ‘You were telling me about staying at Troy House.’

  Lomas visibly pulled the charm back over him like a bright-patterned slipover.

  ‘So I was,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t afford decent digs let alone the Howard Arms so I thought: What about old Keechie? We’d always got on well, so I gave her a ring. She was delighted. It must be lonely for her with nothing but those animals for company. What a nuisance they are. After the funeral feast, Mummy trod in something quite disgusting in the drive! Keechie, I’m glad to say, runs a rather tighter ship than old Gwen and apart from the odd moggie on my pillow, I’ve been unmolested. But it is, of course, early days. I only got here yesterday.’

  He regarded her speculatively.

  ‘One thing I have realized already is how far it is out of town if you haven’t a car. The buses seem to be as rare as virtuous women and go all around the houses, if that’s not a contradiction. Keechie tells me you run a car.’

  ‘You’ve done a bit of talking about me, haven’t you?’ said Lexie. ‘Yes. I’ve got an old Mini. The Old Mill’s out of the way too.’

  ‘Precisely. And rather out of the same way, isn’t it? What I mean is, you must pass within a few yards, barely two miles anyway, of Greendale village. Perhaps I could persuade you to make a diversion some morning?’

  She said, ‘I thought actors slept mornings.’

  ‘Art never sleeps. Are you game?’

  ‘I’ll not wait around.’

  ‘I shall be ready and waiting before the bawdy hand of the clock has reached the prick of eight. It’s all right. That’s not rude, it’s Shakespeare. You shall hear for yourself. As reward for your kindness, you shall have a complimentary ticket for our first night next Monday, and an invitation to the party afterwards. Then you can run me home too! Talking of which, how about running me home tonight? I work office hours till we open.’

  ‘I’m not a taxi-service,’ said Lexie, standing up. ‘Besides, I’ve got an evening class so I’ll not be going straight back. Thanks for the wine. I’d not pay for them sandwiches if I were you. I’d best get back.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ said Lomas. ‘You won’t forget to call?’

  ‘I said so,’ replied Lexie. ‘Cheerio.’

  She left, passing quite close to Pascoe and Dalziel, who was on his fourth pint and third pie. Neither man paid her much attention. She wasn’t the kind of woman to catch a man’s eye. Indeed, with her close-cropped hair, big spectacles, un-made-up face and big leather handbag slung over her shoulder like a satchel, she looked for all the world like a schoolgirl returning to the classroom.

  But Rod Lomas watched her out of sight.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Maurice? It’s Mac. Mac Wield.’

  ‘Good Lord! Mac? Is that really you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘Well, how’ve you been? How are you?’ With a sudden injection of sharpness. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘It’s all right, Maurice. I’m safely up here in Yorkshire.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … My dear chap, you’d be more than welcome to come and visit …’

  ‘Except you’ve got someone staying and you haven’t forgotten last time, in Newcastle.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You were upset. Naturally. How do you know I’ve got someone staying?’

  ‘I rang your flat last night. He answered. I rang off. I didn’t want to risk c
ausing embarrassment. Also I wanted a private chat.’

  ‘So you ring me at the office? Not very good police work that, Mac.’

  ‘It’s lunchtime. You’re by yourself, else you’d not be talking like this,’ said Wield confidently.

  ‘True. You just caught me. I was on my way - and I must get back on it pretty soon. Mac, can I ring you this evening? Is it the same number?’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Wield.

  ‘Oh. Same reason?’

  ‘In a way. I’m ringing from work too,’ said Wield.

  ‘My, we are getting bold,’ said Maurice Eaton.

  Wield heard the savagely scornful irony with sadness, but it stiffened his resolve.

  ‘Mebbe we are,’ he said. ‘I’ll not keep you. There were just a couple of questions I wanted to ask.’

  ‘Really? Don’t tell me I’m helping with inquiries at last!’

  The voice had changed a lot. It was lighter and slipped more easily into an archness of delivery which Eaton had once been at great pains to avoid.

  ‘You’re getting bold too, Maurice,’ said Wield.

  ‘Sorry? Don’t get you.’

  ‘You used to be so scared of anyone spotting you were gay, you’d even say your prayers in a basso profundo,’ said Wield, savage in his turn.

  ‘Have you rung me to quarrel, Mac?’ asked Eaton softly.

  ‘No. Not at all. I’m sorry,’ said Wield, fearful the connection would be broken before he got answers.

  ‘Very well. Then what do you want?’

  ‘Do you know a lad, name of Sharman? Cliff Sharman?’

  There was a silence which was in itself an answer, and more than just a simple affirmative.

  ‘What about him?’ said Eaton finally.

  ‘He’s here.’

  ‘You mean up there, in Yorkshire?’