Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Oh no,’ said Dalziel, shocked. ‘I mean, chivalry apart, a Scottish Presbyterian with a wife and two children’s not going to admit he let himself be screwed by a woman nearly twenty years older than him, is he? Well, not right off anyway.’

  She glared at him with a cold fury which touched him only as a light frost touches a polar bear. Finally she thawed into a smile and then dissolved into laughter.

  ‘I’ll treasure these memories, Mr Dalziel,’ she said. ‘Whenever I feel that London’s a noisy, nasty place, I’ll think of you. All right, yes, I did wander along to Mr Goodenough’s room that night. There were one or two points of our agreement I wanted to get clear in my mind. We had a talk and a drink, nothing more.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad that’s sorted,’ said Dalziel genially. ‘So it’s back to London, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then mebbe a holiday? A few days in the sun?’

  ‘Perhaps. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason. I just wondered if mebbe you were planning a trip to Tuscany, a little sojourn in the Villa Boethius perhaps.’

  There was a rap at the door and a voice called, ‘Porter, madame.’

  ‘Go away,’ said Stephanie Windibanks, her gaze fixed speculatively on Dalziel. ‘I’ll let you know when I need you.’

  ‘I could have had her, I reckon,’ said Dalziel complacently. ‘She just about spelled it out.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘What do you take me for, lad?’ said the fat man indignantly. ‘Do you think I’d screw up a case just to screw up a woman?’

  ‘No, but it’d not surprise me to find you’d managed to have your cake and halfpenny,’ retorted Pascoe, who was still smarting under Dalziel’s smug reproaches about the inadequacy of his telephone calls to Florence.

  ‘You missed the point, lad,’ the fat man had said. ‘All you were interested in was, could Pontelli be Alexander Huby? Well, mebbe not all, but mainly. I asked ’em to go back a bit, find out who he worked for, what he was doing. All that stuff about background, date of birth, family, and so on that you were interested in, that was getting you nowhere. I got a list of properties and agencies. And then I got them to look up the official records of each one till I heard a name that clicked. It’s connections that matter in this business, lad. Only connect, then you’ve got ’em by the short and hairies!’

  ‘And who do we have in that interesting grip?’ inquired Pascoe.

  ‘Windibanks and her precious son,’ said Dalziel gleefully.

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Fraud, theft, how should I know? I just catch the buggers,’ protested Dalziel. ‘She’s been getting rental from a property that’s not hers these past three years, that’s something. And it’s as plain as the nose on your face that they put Pontelli up to claiming he was Huby.’

  ‘That’ll be hard to prove with Pontelli dead,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘At least I’ll give ’em a nasty time proving they had nowt to do with killing him! Now, what’ve you been up to in Nottingham?’

  Pascoe told him and finished by saying, ‘But I expect I didn’t ask the right questions there either!’

  Dalziel looked at him narrowly.

  ‘Peter,’ he said carefully, ‘at that college of yours, did they never teach you, when a man’s too old to learn, he’s likely too bloody old to promote?’

  Pascoe actually felt himself blushing. Petulance was not large among his vices.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘What should I have asked?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ replied Dalziel. ‘Connections, lad. You just keep on asking everyone everything till you make a connection. You think Sharman’s dad’s important?’

  ‘No, well, maybe. I don’t know. It may turn out it’s like what you said about Pontelli being Huby, irrelevant to the main line, but I can’t see any other direction just now.’

  ‘Then let’s chase along this one with all possible speed!’ proclaimed Dalziel, reaching for his telephone.

  ‘What about the expense?’ said Pascoe slyly.

  ‘Expense? What’re you on about, lad? These buggers out there are paying for protection, and we’d come cheap at twice the price!’

  He dialled. After two rings a bright young voice said, ‘New Scotland Yard, can I help you?’

  ‘Commander Sanderson, please. Detective-Superintendent Dalziel, Mid-Yorkshire here.’

  A few moments later a voice growled, ‘Sanderson here.’

  ‘Sandy!’ said Dalziel. ‘Andy Dalziel. That’s right. I knew you’d be glad to hear from me. What I like is a man who doesn’t need to be reminded when he owes a favour. Now here’s what else I’d like …’

  Stephanie Windibanks rang her son at the Kemble and within seconds of the phone being put down, Rod Lomas was ringing Lexie Huby at Messrs Thackeray etcetera.

  ‘Lexie; Rod. Listen, I’ve just had Mummy on to me. That fat copper’s been round. He knows about the Villa Boethius.’

  Lexie did not respond to his agitation.

  ‘Well, they were bound to find out, weren’t they?’

  ‘Were they? Oh God, what’ll happen now?’

  ‘I’ve been checking on that,’ said Lexie. ‘Nothing much, as far as I can see. The villa will go into Aunt Gwen’s estate, of course. As for the rent, say nothing. If they make a fuss, say there was a verbal agreement and let them prove different.’

  ‘Should we offer to pay back the money?’

  ‘In law, that’s almost as good as a confession,’ said Lexie.

  ‘And what about Pontelli?’

  ‘Deny everything. He’s dead. He won’t contradict you.’

  ‘But the connection’s so obvious …’

  ‘It always was,’ said Lexie sharply. ‘You should have thought of that when you started this business. If the worst gets to the worst, you can always blame your dad.’

  ‘Lexie!’

  ‘Why not. (a) he’s dead as well, and (b) it’s true.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘You’re taking this very coolly,’ said Lomas. ‘What if they question you again about Friday night?’

  ‘I’ll stick to my story,’ said Lexie. ‘You and I were at the opera. Only, I’ve got a season ticket, so you’d better have had a return, in the gallery. All right?’

  ‘Oh, Lexie.’

  ‘Rod, are you all right?’ There was concern in her voice contrasting with her previous brusque matter-of-factness.

  ‘Oh yes. Ask for me tomorrow and you may well find me a grave man, but I reckon I’ll get through the night. With help. You’ll be there when I get back again, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got a class first, but I’ll be there to relieve the nurse, like I promised.’

  ‘Don’t let me down, Lexie, I’m relying on you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Lexie.

  Eden Thackeray came into the room as she replaced the receiver.

  ‘Anything important?’ he asked.

  ‘It was personal,’ said Lexie. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. Lexie, I think it’s about time we had a little chat about your future, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Eden,’ said Lexie Huby.

  Henry Vollans arrived at Maldive Cottage shortly after six o’clock that evening. Mrs Falkingham greeted him with delight.

  ‘How nice to see you again, Mr Vollans,’ she said.

  ‘Henry,’ he replied, smiling Redfordly. ‘Is Miss Brodsworth here?’

  ‘Ah, I might have known it wasn’t an old woman you’d come to see,’ said Mrs Falkingham knowingly. ‘She’s in the office, tidying up some papers. You will take tea?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  In the tiny box-room which a card table bearing an ancient typewriter and a cupboard containing files and stationery elevated to the status of office, Sarah Brodsworth was sorting out the week’s mail.

  She looked at him with that hard unblinking gaze which gave the lie to her sensuous curves and blonde curls.

/>   ‘It’s you,’ she said without enthusiasm.

  ‘You don’t sound pleased.’

  ‘I wasn’t pleased not to see you when I expected to,’ she said. ‘Why should I be pleased to see you now?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. But in my line of work, if something comes up, you’ve got to drop everything and follow it. If there’d been any way to let you know, I’d have done it. I did leave a message at the restaurant. But I really am sorry. Did you have to come far?’

  He spoke casually. When she didn’t reply, he grinned and said, ‘My, you are a cagey one! Real woman of mystery! You must be a member of the royal family at the very least.’

  ‘I’m just particular on who I get familiar with,’ said Sarah Brodsworth. ‘Especially journalists.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘You put a story before everything. I saw that last week.’

  ‘Not quite everything,’ said Vollans softly.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure, but we may have more in common than you think.’

  ‘That’s a good line, Mr Vollans.’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘Mr Vollans.’

  ‘What about a meal tonight?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Why not? You agreed last time I asked.’

  ‘And got stood up. I don’t make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘No?’

  Mrs Falkingham’s voice quavered distantly, ‘Tea’s ready.’

  Neither of the young people moved.

  ‘What are you really doing here, Miss Brodsworth?’ wondered Vollans.

  ‘You think there’s a story in it?’ she mocked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But would you print it?’

  ‘Maybe. I’d need a taster before I could give you a firm opinion.’

  She regarded him thoughtfully.

  ‘Suppose I were to tell you that it’s my intention before I’m finished to see that WFE carries out its original function.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To establish a proper relationship between whites and blacks.’

  ‘By what means?’

  Miss Brodsworth smiled, showing even white teeth.

  ‘Ends justify means, I thought all journalists understood that, Mr Vollans.’

  ‘Tea!’ called Mrs Falkingham, her quaver imperious now.

  ‘I’ll fetch it in here, shall I?’ said Vollans. ‘It’d be a shame to interrupt our little chat, just when it’s getting so interesting.’

  Wield went into the bus station café and felt a disjunctive shock as Charley greeted him with a cheery good evening, just as if the world hadn’t turned upside down in the last few days.

  He said, ‘Hello, Charley. All right?’

  ‘Grand, thanks. You’re looking well, Mr Wield.’

  ‘Am I?’

  He sipped the cup of coffee which had been drawn as soon as he was spotted. He said, ‘Remember I was in the week before last? Chatted to a lad in the back room?’

  ‘Oh aye. Darkie, wasn’t he? Well, nicely toasted, any road.’

  ‘That’s him,’ said Wield. ‘You ever see him around again?’

  Charley thought visibly, then said, ‘Yes, come to think of it, I did. Couple of nights ago, it’d be. He had a Coke and a cheese toastie, I remember. Sat by the door there. Yes, that’d be Wednesday. Or was it Tuesday? No, it was definitely Wednesday.’

  ‘Was he by himself?’

  ‘Yeah, far as I recall.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Lateish. Nine, nine-thirty. We shut at ten. He was gone before then, though.’

  ‘Did you see him go?’

  ‘Yes, I did, now you mention it. Hold on. I think he went off with someone. Leastways someone came in, but didn’t sit down and next thing, the darkie got up and left.’

  Suddenly Charley’s face went pink with surmise.

  ‘Here, has this got owt to do with that killing I read about? He were a dark lad, weren’t he? Is this what it’s all about?’

  ‘Mebbe,’ said Wield. There had been no photograph in the papers. Cliff’s grandmother hadn’t brought one and the injuries to his face had made a death-mask picture difficult. It was a pity. A photograph would probably have jogged Charley’s memory twenty-four hours earlier.

  On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t a pity at all.

  Wield said, ‘This person who went out with the boy, Charley, I want you to tell me everything you remember. Everything.’

  Dalziel was working late. Or rather he was sitting in his office with a large glass of single malt waiting for the phone to ring. He knew Sandy Sanderson of old. As soon as the sod got the info Dalziel had requested, he’d ring back and take great delight in having Dalziel dragged back from whatever he was doing in order to receive it, with the justification, ‘You said it was urgent, sunshine.’

  Dalziel savoured his drink and thought with some satisfaction: I’ll be ready for you, you bugger! Then he thought with less satisfaction that he hadn’t really got anything he would have objected to being dragged back from. Pascoe moaned about having his home life disrupted. Young sod didn’t know how lucky he was to have something to moan about. Mind you, domestic distractions could take the sharpness off a man’s work. He’d now retraced all of Pascoe’s phone calls - Florence, Army Records, Nottingham - and asked other questions with other emphasis. The answers he’d got had filled him with self-congratulatory delight. Now he just needed Sanderson to set the seal on them.

  The phone rang.

  He snatched it up.

  A hoarse, muffled voice said, ‘I know someone who’s a member of a group called White Heat. Interested?’

  ‘I could be,’ said Dalziel

  ‘Then listen.’

  He listened, opened his mouth to ask questions, heard the click of a receiver being replaced.

  He thought for a moment, drank some more whisky, then began dialling.

  ‘Ellie, luv,’ he said heartily. ‘Not interrupting your supper, am I? Well, try not to think of it as interruption. Try to think that really I’m liberating you from the drudgery of dull domestic routine.’

  Grinning, he held the phone away from his ear till the cry of the liberated woman had faded to a bearable level.

  ‘Nice of you to say them things,’ he said. ‘I really appreciated it. Now, is the lad there?’

  The lad was clearly hovering. Dalziel spoke to him for a couple of minutes.

  ‘I’d sort it myself,’ he concluded, ‘only I’m working late here and waiting for a call from London. Sorry to break up your night, but I think it’s worth looking at right away. You’ll clear it with the locals first, though? Don’t want any diplomatic incidents. And go careful, Peter. It’s an anonymous tip, that’s all. I don’t want to see your name all over the headlines!’

  He put the phone down. He felt a glow of satisfaction which was not altogether due to the ounce of scotch he now sank. It was nice to push something Pascoe’s way. If it came to owt, it’d mebbe make up for this other business, if that came to owt as well.

  Half an hour later the phone rang again.

  ‘You still there?’ said Commander Sanderson incredulously.

  ‘Never like to go to bed without some good news,’ said Dalziel cheerfully. ‘I hope you’ve got some for me.’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ growled the Commander. ‘It’s just names and dates to me. But here it is for what it’s worth.’

  When he’d finished he said, ‘That’s it. Now can you go to bed?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Dalziel. ‘Thanks a lot, Sandy. But I may stay up just a little longer.’

  Chapter 10

  It was half past eight when Lexie turned up at Troy House to find the nurse waiting impatiently in the hall.

  ‘You said eight o’clock,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lexie. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine. I’ll be back in the morning.’


  Lexie closed but didn’t lock the door behind her and then went up the stairs. As she moved silently into Miss Keech’s room, the sick woman’s voice called, ‘Lexie? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Keech,’ said Lexie, approaching the bed, dimly lit by a small table lamp.

  ‘Has that woman gone?’

  ‘The nurse? Yes?’

  ‘Calls herself a nurse, does she? She couldn’t nurse a head cold.’

  Miss Keech spoke vigorously, but it was not a reassuring vigour. Her cheeks were hectic and there was a glimmer of perspiration along her upper lip. Most striking of all, the veneer of pedantic correctness was being eroded from her speech and the rhythms and accents of her village childhood were reasserting themselves.

  Lexie said, ‘I think mebbe you ought to get some sleep now.’

  ‘Sleep? I’ll soon have more sleep than I know what to do with. I hate sleep! Old people’s sleep is full of dreams, Lexie. Like a child’s. Except that if a child’s dreams are bad, she wakes and cries a little, maybe, then shakes them off in the joy of being alive; and if they’re good she wakes and bears their joy around with her all the livelong day. But when you’re old, the bad is what stays with you, and all the good does is remind you of what is lost beyond all hope of retrieval. Sit and talk with me, Lexie.’

  It was an undeniable plea.

  Lexie sat on the hard upright chair at the bedside and said, ‘All right. I’ll sit with you for a while.’

  ‘That’s good of you,’ said Miss Keech, half sneering. ‘I know you don’t like my company much. Why is that, Lexie? I asked you last night and you wouldn’t answer. Why don’t you like me?’

  Lexie said, ‘You don’t want to talk about things like that, Miss Keech.’

  ‘You mean you don’t!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘Come on! I’ve a right to know!’

  ‘All right,’ said Lexie calmly. ‘If you must. To start with, Dad used to say things about you. When you’re little, you take notice of what your mam and dad say. If they say Conservative’s grand and Labour’s bad, that’s what you think. If they say black’s white and white’s black, that’s what you think.’