He replaced the receiver, grinning ferociously.
‘Rover had a whistle from the Challenger about half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘I reckon it’s find-the-fairy time. It’s his interview next Wednesday and he’ll be crapping himself in case something comes up to upset the apple-cart. All right, Peter, I can see you’re eager to be off. I’ll grapple with Grannie when she turns up, but I’ll not forget you owe me one. Meanwhile, I’d best not keep laughing boy waiting else his tiny mind’ll forget what he wants to see me about!’
Chapter 2
Neville Watmough banged the receiver down, not displeased that the fat superintendent had already contrived to anger him. A good head of fury was the best preparation he knew for an interview with Dalziel.
So far it hadn’t been a happy morning. The news of Sharman’s murder had caused deep personal distress. The Selection Committee weren’t going to be impressed by two unsolved killings on his patch at the same time. He had worked out a strategy which would involve discovering from Dalziel where the greatest progress had been made, then taking over the investigation himself with a public statement including a modest passing reference to the Pickford case.
Then Ike Ogilby had rung.
‘Just to keep you in the picture, Nev,’ he said. ‘This chap rang again last evening. Same business. Henry Vollans, that’s the young chap you met at the Gents, set up a meeting with him for first thing this morning, but he didn’t turn up. Must’ve got cold feet, but he’s obviously working up to it. Or maybe he got a better offer.’
‘Offer?’
‘Oh yes. Money was mentioned. He said he could tell us things which would tear Mid-Yorkshire CID apart, but he wanted well paid. Well, maybe he’s just trying it on, Nev, but I promised I’d keep you in the picture.’
‘Bastard!’ said Watmough as he put the receiver down. ‘Thanks for nothing!’
He had no doubt that if Ogilby had got a story and it was a good one, he’d have planned to run it with little reference to himself. This way, the smart bastard was able to put Watmough under an obligation without really doing anything.
It was time that he, Neville Watmough, took control of the situation and became once more master of his own fate.
There was a gentle tap on the door.
‘Enter,’ he called.
Another tap. Again he called, ‘Enter!’ but all he got was another tap.
Sighing, he rose and opened the door. Dalziel stood there, smiling nervously in a grotesque parody of the naughty schoolboy summoned to see the headmaster.
‘For Christ’s sake, come in and sit down!’ snarled Watmough.
Dalziel advanced and sat. The chair creaked like an old ship in high seas. Watmough sought for the best approach and opted for man-of-the-world directness.
‘OK, Andy,’ he said crisply. ‘It’s been brought to my notice there may be a practising homosexual in the CID. I want to know who it is.’
Dalziel looked unhappy rather than shocked. He glanced around the room, then leaned forward across the desk and said confidentially. ‘You really want to find out, do you, Neville?’
Watmough found himself drawn forward irresistibly until their heads were almost meeting.
‘Yes, I do, Andy,’ he said.
‘Then give us a kiss and I’ll tell you!’
Dalziel rocked back in his chair, roaring with laughter. Watmough remained leaning forward, every muscle spanned to breaking-point, knowing that the slightest relaxation might send him hurtling across the desk to strangle the fat man.
Dalziel’s laughter finally subsided, then faded away completely.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You’re not serious, are you?’
‘Deadly serious,’ said Watmough, slowly straightening up.
‘Well, bugger me. What do you want me to do?’
‘Track him down. Surely I don’t need to spell out the implications?’
Dalziel said, ‘I think that mebbe you do, sir.’
‘Very well. Perhaps you’re right. I’d like us both to be quite clear what’s involved. If there is a gay in CID and you don’t know about him, Andy, presumably he reckons it’s best that you remain ignorant. Now in my book, that makes him a security risk, right off. Gays, by the very nature of their needs, can find themselves moving in pretty shady areas. Even those who are most open can find themselves mixed up with some pretty dicey characters. As for the ones who try to keep up the pretence of being straight, they are natural blackmail victims. You follow me?’
Dalziel said, puzzled, ‘What would you threaten a gay cop with?’
‘Exposure, of course. It would ruin his career.’
‘Being gay would?’
‘Not having admitted it might,’ said Watmough confidently.
‘But if he did admit it, would that ruin his career too?’
Watmough turned aside from this line of argument.
‘It’s not just the job, though it would make things hellish difficult. A gay is susceptible in so many ways. Suppose he’s married and his wife and family don’t know …’
‘A married gay?’ said Dalziel.
‘Oh yes,’ said Watmough, safe with the support of Sexual Deviancy on the shelf behind his head. ‘Didn’t you know that Oscar Wilde, for instance, was married with two children?’
‘No. I didn’t know that,’ said Dalziel. ‘Would that be Chief Inspector Wilde at Scarborough?’
Watmough said in the very quiet voice of a man who knows there is nothing on his diapason between softness and uncontrolled explosion, ‘Just do as I ask, Mr Dalziel. Just do as I ask.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Dalziel formally. ‘But just so I know for sure what that is, could you mebbe put it down on paper?’
Watmough regarded him speculatively for a moment, then he smiled. Dalziel thought he was being clever asking for a written instruction, but written instructions worked both ways.
He pulled an internal memo pad towards him, inserted a carbon and began to write rapidly.
To: Detective-Superintendent Dalziel A.
Further to our discussion of today’s date concerning allegations of sexual deviancy against an unnamed CID officer, you are instructed to investigate same allegation and report with all reasonable speed.
He read it through. It was direct without being over-detailed; firm evidence, if the worst happened and there was any kind of scandal, that he had been on top of his job. Dalziel, he was pretty certain, would do nothing. Well, that was his lookout. It would be his failure, either through negligence, incompetence, or a cover-up!
He signed the memorandum and passed it over.
‘I think that ends all ambiguity,’ he said.
Dalziel read the sheet of paper carefully, folded it once and put it in his wallet.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure, though, how I should go about this. I’d be grateful for any ideas.’
Watmough smiled. He knew that Dalziel distrusted above all things psychiatrists, particularly when they affected to be helping in police affairs.
‘Why not have a word with that chap Pottle from the Central’s Psychiatric Unit? He’s helped us in the past. Maybe he can give you a few pointers what to look for.’
Dalziel considered, then grunted noncommittally. He did not look happy. It was rare to have the fat man at a disadvantage and Watmough decided to ride his luck.
‘Now, Andy,’ he said. ‘Back to real policing. I’d like a full rundown on progress in these murder investigations. Two in less than a week. It’s not good, not good at all.’
He made it sound like Dalziel’s personal fault and to his delight the Superintendent rose to the bait.
‘That’s nowt to do with me,’ he growled. ‘The buggers don’t consult us when they’re going to do a killing, do they?’
‘No, Andy,’ said Watmough silkily. ‘They don’t. But the Police Committee consults us when they want to know what we’re doing about it. People get worried, Andy. The public voice. We must liaise closely with them. Public
relations is the name of the game nowadays. You’ll have studied my directives on this matter?’
‘Oh aye,’ said Dalziel unconvincingly.
‘Good. Then you’ll know that information and consultation are what the Committee require and what it’s our duty to give them. I can’t perform my part in that duty unless you consult and inform me too, Andy. You’d do well to remember that.’
‘Consult and inform,’ repeated Dalziel as if committing two important phrases in some strange language to heart.
‘That’s it. All right. What’s the latest on your investigations? How can I help, Andy. That’s all I want to know. How can I help?’
Chapter 3
OPEN ALL HOURS! announced the placard. TRY A BIT OF CULTURE WITH YOUR BAR SNACK!
Pascoe recalled Chung on local radio declaring her hatred of theatres that were locked and barred most of the time.
‘The Kemble belongs to the people, honey,’ she’d told the bemused interviewer. ‘I don’t want to run a place that’s barred and bolted like Fort Knox most of the time, with actors slipping in through a side door like bishops visiting a brothel. You can’t sell culture if there’s no one minding the store!’
Culture today seemed to consist of a pair of adenoidal folk singers in the foyer who were bewailing the miseries of the weaver’s life. Perhaps, as the weaver in question seemed to be a Lancastrian, this catalogue of woes was aimed at raising Yorkist spirits.
On achieving the bar, Pascoe was gratified to be received like a Butcher of Broadway.
‘Pete, honey!’ cried Chung, heading towards him with lesser beings bobbing in her wake like the Blefuscudian navy behind Gulliver. ‘I was just talking about you. Could you lay your hands on a dozen riot shields? We’re thinking of making our police thing a musical and I can just see this chorus line doing a great rhythmic number with stomping boots and truncheons rattling on the shields.’
Seymour dropped back in alarm. Inspectors with degrees might be able to survive this kind of thing on their files, but not constables with ambition. Chung, sensitive to stage movement, lowered her voice and said, ‘Shit, listen to my big mouth. Pete, honey, I don’t mean to be embarrassing, I just come out that way sometimes. Forgive me?’
She had lowered her face with her voice so that her breath zephyr’d sweetly on his cheek.
Pascoe said, ‘Some shall be pardon’d and some punished. State the alternatives preferred.’
Chung laughed like Kipling’s temple bells.
‘Is your visit social or are you raiding the joint?’ she asked.
‘I wanted a word with Mercutio.’
‘Rod? He’s over there in the corner with his cousin.’
She gave an actressy inflection to the last word which puzzled Pascoe till he caught sight of Lomas in a distant corner of the long bar, seated next to Lexie Huby, their heads so close together they were almost touching. Could there be something going on there? The idea surprised him. There seemed little love lost between the Hubys and the Lomases in general, and these two in particular didn’t look cut out to be Romeo and Juliet.
He excused himself from Chung and went to join the couple. When they spotted his approach they stopped talking. He stood over them.
‘Mr Lomas, Miss Huby,’ he said.
‘It was Rod and Lex last time. This must be official,’ said Lomas.
‘Can we speak privately, Mr Lomas?’
‘Won’t this do?’
It was true that the noise level of the bar, as conversation within vied with music without, made eavesdropping unlikely.
He looked at the girl.
She said, ‘I’ll go.’
‘No need,’ said Pascoe. ‘My constable will buy you a drink at the bar, Seymour.’
The girl rose and went barwards with the slightly bewildered detective.
Pascoe slipped into the vacated chair and said, ‘Just a couple of questions, Mr Lomas. First, why did you break into the filing cabinet?’
‘What? I didn’t! That’s absurd!’ he protested, emoting surprise and shock in a sub-Stanislavskian style.
‘Missed your line,’ reproved Pascoe. ‘First comes, what filing cabinet? After I’ve told you, then the indignation.’
‘You’re quite a clown,’ said Lomas thickly.
‘Thank you. Look, there are fingerprints outside and inside. They match those on the tumbler by your bed …’
Pascoe was lying about the internal prints. There had been a confusion of overlaps, nothing positive.
‘You’ve been poking around my bedroom!’ said Lomas, genuinely indignant this time.
‘No,’ said Pascoe gently. ‘We had a look in the late Alexander Huby’s bedroom, with Miss Keech’s permission. But we’re wandering. To return to the cabinet …’
Lomas thought a moment, then gave a frank, open, rather rueful smile.
‘Yes, all right, I did look in the cabinet. But I didn’t break in. The lock had been forced already. I was just poking around.’
‘With what end in view?’
‘Nothing, really. No, that’s silly. Look, to tell the truth, I just had this daft idea there might be another will, one that old Thackeray didn’t know about. Well, it was a possibility, wasn’t it? I couldn’t really believe the old girl kept on believing her precious boy was still alive right up to the end.’
‘I see,’ said Pascoe. ‘What you hoped for, I presume, was a will leaving everything to the family?’
‘I was born on St Jude’s day,’ said Lomas. ‘Only congenital optimists become actors.’
‘And did you find anything?’
‘Nothing. Just a lot of stuff confirming dear old Gwen was dotty.’
‘Hardly worth forcing a lock for, then.’
‘Listen. It could have been anyone. Why pick on me?’
‘Hardly anyone. There’s just you and Miss Keech. And she had a key.’
‘Other people come to the house, you know.’
‘For instance.’
Lomas glanced towards the bar rather furtively and lowered his voice.
‘What about John Huby, Lexie’s father? He came round a couple of days ago to see Keechie. He was asking questions about wills and letters and things. Yes, it could’ve been him. He’s a wild sod, that one. It’s hard to believe little Lexie’s his daughter.’
Pascoe made a note.
‘Now tell me about your visit to Italy,’ he said.
Lomas frowned, then let it dissolve into his frank, open smile.
‘You saw the labels on my suitcase,’ he said. ‘Clever old detective, you! Yes, I was in Italy in the summer. I’d run around like a mad thing looking for work after the Salisbury Festival. Finally I said, for turning away, let summer bear it out, and accepted Mummy’s offer to sub me abroad.’
‘Your first visit to Italy, was it?’
‘No. I’ve been several times.’
‘Where do you go?’
Pascoe’s pen was poised.
‘Here and there.’
‘Tuscany?’
‘Yes. I’ve spent a lot of time in Tuscany. Look, what’s all this about?’
‘Did you ever come across Alessandro Pontelli?’
Lomas didn’t pretend not to know the name.
‘You mean the dead chap, the one who turned up at the funeral? What the hell are you trying to say, Inspector?’
Pascoe said gently, ‘I’m just asking a simple question, Mr Lomas.’
‘Then the simple answer is no.’
‘That’s fine. Do you still smoke marijuana, by the way?’
Lomas shook his head in slow amazement.
‘By God, once you’ve got a record, you’ve really got a record! Do you really expect me to answer that?’
‘Why not? You admitted smoking it in court. All I’m asking is if you’ve given up the habit.’
‘But why? What’s it to do with anything?’
‘Nothing that I know of. The boy who got killed near Troy House last night, he had some marijuana in his possession.�
��
‘You’re scraping the barrel, aren’t you?’ said Lomas, unconsciously echoing Dalziel’s accusation.
‘Very probably.’
He became aware of someone at his shoulder. He looked up but not very far. It was Lexie Huby.
‘Rod, I’ve got to get back. Mr Eden’s working through the lunch hour and he’s got a load of typing for me.’
‘OK,’ said Lomas. ‘But you’ll call in at Troy House tonight to check on Keechie? Mrs Brooks is very good, but she’s got her own family to look after.’
‘Yes, of course I will. My class finishes at eight.’
‘If you hang on a sec, Miss Huby, I’ll walk back with you,’ said Pascoe, trying his winning smile again. ‘I need to see Mr Thackeray. Oh, by the way, Mr Lomas, this friend you stayed with last Friday night. Did he live in Leeds by any chance?’
It was an often productive technique, the sudden probing question just when the suspect thought it was all over. This time too it looked set to enjoy success.
Lomas actually twitched and when he opened his mouth it was only to let out a dry nervous cough.
‘You were in Leeds, weren’t you?’ said Pascoe pleasantly.
‘Of course he was,’ said Lexie Huby in a tone of exasperation.
Pascoe looked at her in surprise.
‘He was at the opera with me. Madam Butterfly.’
‘Was he?’ said Pascoe.
He turned back to Lomas. All signs of discomfiture had vanished. He smiled at Pascoe and said, ‘She’s determined to convert me from the straight theatre.’
‘You rang Miss Keech. Said you wouldn’t be returning to Troy House because you were staying with a friend.’
‘And so I did,’ grinned Lomas lecherously. ‘So I did.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ said Lexie Huby. She leaned forward and pecked Lomas on the cheek. Pascoe recalled the eye-poking evasion with which she had greeted the actor’s attempt at an embrace only a week before. The girl turned away and made for the exit.
Pascoe said, ‘We’ll talk again soon, Mr Lomas,’ and went after her.
Child's Play Page 20
