Death of Dalziel - Dalziel & Pascoe 22

by Reginald Hill

  'Funny no one mentioned Hector,' she said.

  ‘I was hardly there a moment,' he said. ‘I was in a hurry to get home, remember?'

  Oh, you'll pay for this in the next life, he thought. In fact, as the door bell rang, he acknowledged he was paying for it now.

  'That will be my taxi,' said Ellie. 'Just think what that's going to cost the bastards. They must really want me! Listen, Pete, it's just struck me, why not come along? I'm sure they can find you a seat in the audience.'

  Pascoe thought about it then shook his head.

  'No,' he said. 'I've done enough travelling for one day and I'm pretty bushed. I'll just sit here and watch a bit of telly. I expect I'll fall asleep. There's never anything interesting to see on a Friday night, is there?'

  She gave him a hard jab in the ribs.

  'Don't wait up,' she said. ‘I can always wake you if I want anything. Which I wouldn't be surprised if I do.'

  'I'll take that as a promise,' he said.

  They smiled at each other lovingly. Then Pascoe spoiled it by saying, 'Ellie, be careful if Fidler tries to get you talking about the terrorist threat, that kind of thing . . .'

  'Because of my connection with you, you mean?' said Ellie. 'Pete, why can't you get it into your head that in most people's eyes I'm not defined by the fact that I'm married to a cop? They value me for what I am, what I do. And I made it quite clear to Ffion when my novel came out that I didn't want any reference to the fact that you were a cop. OK, she may have hyped me up a bit to get me on the show, but it's Eleanor Soper the novelist they're interested in, not Ellie Pascoe the demure little policeman's wife!'

  'Hey, when do I get to meet her?' said Pascoe. 'Sorry. You're dead right, of course. It was a silly thing to say. Put it down to resentment at not being able to get any closer to you than ten million other people this evening.'

  'Ten million? Is that all?' said Ellie. 'Ciao!’

  She was smiling again, so that was all right.

  And he'd deserved the reproach, thought Pascoe as he watched the taxi pull away. He was just going to have to get used to having a celebrity wife. Eventually.

  Back in the house, Pascoe made himself a sandwich, opened a can of lager and sat down in front of the telly. There was still an hour and a half to go before Fidler's Three.

  He picked up the phone and rang Wield.

  'Hi, it's me,' he said. 'I'm home.'

  Briefly he explained, then said, 'Ellie told me about Hector. What happened?'

  'Sounds like he did his usual trick of stepping off a pavement without looking.'

  'Yes. Hard to blame the driver.'

  'You can blame the bastard for not stopping,' said Wield. 'A milkman found Hector unconscious.'

  'How did he know? Sorry. Ellie says he's OK though.'

  'Yes. If it had been serious I'd have rung you. He's bruised and battered but mostly unbroken. They were worried about brain damage - don't say a thing - but eventually they realized that what they'd got was normal and unhooked him from all the life-support stuff. Can't recall a thing, of course. The milkman saw a car pulling away, black he thinks, powerful, maybe a Jag. Paddy's had his boys doing house-to-house in case anyone heard or saw owt. Anyway, are you back with us for good, do you think, or have you made yourself indispensable in Manchester?'

  'Who knows?' said Pascoe. He would have liked to talk things over with Wield, but he found he was too paranoiac to trust his own home phone.

  He said, 'Let's meet for a jar tomorrow, Wieldy. The Feathers, early evening, suit you? Meanwhile, don't forget to tune in to Fidler's Three.'

  'Wouldn't miss Ellie for worlds,' said Wield.

  If I'd got home an hour earlier, there wouldn't have been anything to miss, thought Pascoe glumly.

  He opened his briefcase and took out the slim file in which he was recording his very unofficial investigation into the Mill Street explosion. He started making notes of his afternoon's work in an effort to assess whether it got anywhere close to being worth the loss of his wife's company.

  He wasn't betting on it.

  3

  Hectoring

  Pascoe's first port of call on returning to town had been the Civic Centre. In the Housing Office there he had talked to a woman called Deirdre Naylor whom he knew from the PTA at Rosie's school. She had obtained for him details of the renting out of Number 6 Mill Street to Crofts & Wills. He had bluffed Bloomfield into an admission, but that wasn't worth the air it was spoken on without concrete evidence to back it up. Whether he'd ever reach a point where such evidence would be needed, he'd no idea, but it made sense to get it while he could, and in person, not by phone.

  The rental had begun only five weeks before the explosion. He read through the correspondence and examined the contract.

  'Didn't strike anyone as strange that a patents agency should want office space in such a locality?' he said.

  'Why?' she asked. 'Not the kind of business that has people tramping in and out all day, I shouldn't

  have thought. So they just wanted an address and somewhere cheap. Do you reckon they were up to something, Peter?' He shook his head.

  'Not really,' he said. 'Just having a bit of bother tracking them down to check a couple of things out after the explosion.'

  She looked at him doubtfully then said, 'You could just have rung us.'

  He gave her his most charming smile and said, 'Just happened to be passing so I thought I'd save the ratepayers a few bob.'

  It didn't sound all that convincing, but to his surprise she smiled back and it occurred to him that she might be imagining this was personal. A good-looking woman in her thirties, she was bringing up her boy alone and, with her extrovert manner and curvaceous figure, she was probably used to being a far from obscure object of desire.

  'Can I take copies of this stuff?' he said.

  'Of course you can. Always happy to co-operate with the Law,' she said. 'How's Ellie? Haven't run into her at the PTA for a while. We usually have such good crack.'

  Mention of Ellie was good. It told him that, while she didn't object to a bit of friendly flirtation, he'd be out of his mind to imagine she'd dream of really getting involved. Which was a relief.

  And also, just looking at things hypothetically of course, a touch disappointing.

  From the Centre he'd gone to the forensic lab where he'd talked to Tony Pollock, the technician who'd checked the Mill Street bullet. He showed him the CAT technicians' report on the round recovered from the body in Mazraani's flat. Pollock looked at it for a moment then said, 'Am I authorized to see this?'

  ‘If I'm authorized then you are too,' said Pascoe firmly.

  Pollock grinned as if he saw right through this prevarication.

  'Good enough for me,' he said. Privately he'd always regarded Pascoe as a bit of a prancing pony that it amused Dalziel to toss the odd sugar lump to. Now it was dawning on him that you didn't run in harness with the Fat Man unless you could pull your weight. And punch it too.

  Unasked, he did a quick comparison of the Manchester results with his own and confirmed that, while the same make of gun had almost certainly been used, the rounds had come from different weapons.

  'Something else I'd like you to take a look at,' said Pascoe.

  He handed over the CAT analysis of the Mill Street explosive.

  'Same authorization as before?' enquired Pollock mockingly.

  'Definitely.'

  As he read the stolen paper, the technician frowned.

  'What?' said Pascoe.

  'This stuff about the detonator, you'll have read it?'

  'I started but gave up when they abandoned standard English, which is why I'm asking you what it all means. I do know that the theory is they were preparing a detonator and they'd got the timer wrong or something and blown themselves to bits.'

  'Aye, but from what this lot says, it doesn't look like a mechanical timer device were being used here. They reckon it was a remote-control job using a telephone signal.'

 
'So?'

  'Lot harder to go wrong. Would need someone to dial the number by accident after you'd got the thing set up. Why'd they be mucking about with detonators though when they'd not even got the hole dug in the viaduct, if that was what they were after?'

  'Conclusion?'

  'They weren't thinking of blowing up the viaduct, not when they were playing around with this. That would mebbe explain why they found traces of two types of Semtex.'

  'There are different types?'

  'Same stuff, basically. Like ale. But different brewers produce different brews.'

  Pascoe digested this, then said, 'So the man working on the detonator explosive got his personal supply from a different source?'

  Pollock said, ‘I think you're getting a bit confused about detonators, if you don't mind me saying so.'

  'Not in the least. In fact, you're probably understating my condition. Words of one syllable might come in useful.'

  'Right. In Mill Street there were a big lump of explosive and a little lump. The little lump was what this remote-control detonator were stuck into. You're talking like you think the whole of the little lump were a detonator.'

  'Didn't it set the big lump off?'

  'Oh yes. But that's not to say that's what it were meant to do. We're calling it a little lump, but that's comparative. By itself it wouldn't have wrecked the whole terrace but it would certainly have wrecked any room it went off in. As it happened, the room it went off in already contained the big lump, so the little lump acted as a detonator for the big lump, but that was likely accidental.'

  Pascoe said, 'In other words, it was a separate bomb.'

  'Aye, that's probably the easiest way of thinking of it,' said Pollock.

  'Using explosive differently sourced from what was in the big lump,' mused Pascoe. 'Anything about the possible source?'

  'Which one?'

  'The little lump. From what I understand, they're pretty certain they know the original source of the big lump because they'd intercepted a consignment of exactly the same type at the start of the year.'

  Pollock sighed and said, 'Think you're getting confused again, Mr Pascoe.'

  'Am I?'

  'Aye. What you say's right enough, but it's the little lump whose provenance they know all about. They're still working on the big lump.'

  Pascoe's mind was racing. Was this significant or was he simply desperate to find significance? Wield's conversation with his 'nice lad' had been interrupted by the superintendent before he could reveal that there'd been two types of Semtex involved at Mill Street, and Glenister had not thought fit to share this information with the sergeant in their subsequent cosy co-operative chats. Arranged like that, it looked significant, but he'd spent too many hours in court to trust appearances.

  He said casually, 'If you had access to a big lump of Semtex, how easy would it be to slice off a little lump without drawing attention?'

  'Depends on how big and how little and how much attention was being paid.'

  'But the actual slicing, any problems there?'

  'No. It's pretty inert stuff.'

  Pollock was now regarding Pascoe with grave suspicion.

  In an effort to put him at ease, Pascoe said, 'So, getting back to the report, what you're saying is, the bomb that went off, the small lump with the detonator in it, was made from Semtex of exactly the same type as a shipment the security forces had intercepted a few months earlier?'

  He could tell his effort at reassurance had met with only limited success.

  Pollock chewed this over for a moment then said, 'No. I'm saying nowt.'

  ‘I mean, the report is saying it?'

  Pollock smiled. Not a friendly smile but the faintly mocking smile of a hard-nosed Yorkshire-man who's listened to your sales pitch and isn't going to buy.

  He took out a large grey handkerchief and carefully wiped round the edges of the sheets of paper. Then, still holding them in the cloth, he handed them back to Pascoe.

  'Report? What report, sir?' he said.

  Pascoe had lived in Yorkshire long enough to know the end of a lane when he saw one.

  'You must have misheard me,' he said. 'Who mentioned a report? But thanks for your help anyway.'

  'Don't follow you,' said Pollock, who'd retrieved the bullet analysis and was busy giving that the handkerchief treatment too. 'You've asked me nowt and I've told you nowt. And I'll thank you not to tell any bugger different, Mr Pascoe, else I might have to resort to words of one syllable again. Now, I've got work to do.'

  He turned and left.

  He's right, thought Pascoe, feeling reproached.

  You shouldn't get other people involved in your mess unless they knew what they were getting into. Which, as he still had little idea what he himself might be getting into, was rather hard to explain.

  It was now he rang the Central to check that Mary Goodrich was around. On reaching the hospital, he parked in space allocated to the Senior Gynaecological Consultant, who he knew would be on or about the ninth green at this time on a Friday.

  He found Goodrich in her office and was greeted by the welcoming smile which was the response of most young women to Pascoe in the boyish-charm mode which came so naturally to him. But the moment he mentioned Wield's visit, her face blanked over and she said, 'Wield? Oh yes, the ugly one. Yes, he did call, but things were so hectic ... in fact, I'm still up to my eyes, so unless it's urgent . . .'

  She was trying to usher him through the door. Not so long ago it might have worked, but now the only effect was that Pascoe felt himself inflating into Mid-Yorkshire's version of the Incredible Hulk.

  He stood before her planted as firm as a full-grown tree and said heavily, 'All right, luv, so you're too busy to talk to the police about the Mill Street corpses? In that case, it'll be a doddle dealing with the gents of the press when they come looking for the medical spokesman who's the source of the information they're shortly going to get.'

  'Is that some sort of threat?' she said wonderingly.

  Pascoe held up his forefinger.

  'Is that a finger?' he replied.

  He could tell she was thrown by his manner and trying to reconcile it with the gently amiable Pascoe she'd encountered previously.

  'So what kind of information might that be?’

  'Information about the mouth-box contents and about the disposition of the corpses' limbs,' he said.

  That got her interest.

  She said, 'If you know so much, why do you need to come here bullying me?'

  Sensitive to the justified accusation, he said, 'Look, I'm sorry about that, but I've just got the outline, what I need are the details. OK, I'm pretty sure you've been advised not to discuss the matter with anyone else, but that hardly applies to me, does it?'

  He saw at once he'd made a mistake.

  When the CAT people warned her off, they'd probably been very precise. Talk to no one, and no one included everyone in Mid-Yorkshire CID. The consequence of disobedience had been made clear. She was young, her career was just taking off. Step out of line here and the whole fascinating area of Home Office-sponsored forensic pathology would be closed to her. At best she might be allowed to confirm that corpses from the geriatric ward hadn't received a helping hand in passing though death's door.

  She believed the CAT people in their threats. By relaxing his manner, all he'd done was confirm her instinct that he didn't have it in him to carry his threat through.

  He took out his mobile and dialled.

  'Give me Sammy Ruddlesdin, will you? Thanks, I'll hold.'

  He said to Goodrich, 'You know Sammy? The News's ace reporter. Loves a good story, especially one he can sell on to the nationals.'

  'So what's the story you've got for him?' she said, still unimpressed.

  'Mill Street bombings. Examination of the corpses. Findings concealed. Was there more going on here than a simple accident among some cack-handed terrorists?'

  'Sounds a good story,' she said.

  'It gets better w
hen I tell him I got the basic facts from the only person to examine the bodies before the security services whisked them away,' he said.

  'And I'll deny it,' she said spiritedly. 'Why believe you and not me?'

  He smiled a smile he'd learned from Dalziel.

  'Because I'm an honest upstanding cop that Sammy's known for a long long time and from whom he's never had an iota of dud information. Because we sometimes have a drink together and we trust each other. Because you've only been here two minutes and you're young and you're a woman. Anyway, it doesn't matter what Sammy believes, does it? Your friends in security - was it a nice young chap called Freeman, by the way? - they'll have no problem believing the story because it will give them me as well as you, and they'll be only too delighted to get me by the short and hairies. They'll just fuck your career up as an afterthought.'

  She was regarding him with bewildered loathing.

  'But if they can harm you as well, then why -?'

  'Why?' he interrupted. 'Because whatever happened in Mill Street has left someone very important to me lying in a coma and God knows if he's ever going to come out of it, and I'm not going to rest till I find out why. Not the probable story, or the official story, but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the fucking truth. Sammy, hi. Peter Pascoe here. Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, Sammy, can you hold on just a second?'

  He pressed the phone to his chest and looked at Mary Goodrich.

  She said, 'So what do you want to know?'

  Once she'd made up her mind to talk, she gave the facts in a detailed orderly manner that Edgar Wield would have approved of.

  Two of the bodies had been completely blown apart by the explosion and the fragments roasted by the fire till not much was left but bone. She reckoned it would take days of slow and detailed examination to get any meaningful results from them. The vagaries of blast are such, however, that one body had more or less held together though it had suffered equally from the heat of the fire. This was where Goodrich had concentrated her attention in the couple of hours she had before the CAT removal men arrived. In particular she'd started making notes on the jaw, because she reckoned that dental identification was going to be the best bet. All her notes had been removed, but she recalled being surprised by the amount of ash in the mouth cavity.