Death of Dalziel - Dalziel & Pascoe 22

by Reginald Hill

  Encouraged by the applause, Kentmore went on, 'In fact, now that hunting foxes with dogs has been banned, I reckon we could solve the problem by substituting, say, journalists - except the poor dogs might find them rather unpalatable.'

  Ellie was nodding again, but Kalim Sarhadi shook his head violently and said, 'All right for you to make jokes about journalists, Maurice, but if it weren't for them lads on the Bradford News and all their mates, I reckon I'd be chained to a wall with a hood over my head in Guantanamo Bay now.'

  Kentmore looked discomfited but Fidler rescued him by asking, 'Just in case anyone out there hasn't heard your story, Kal, could you tell us what happened to you?'

  Pascoe had heard the tale before but it still made uncomfortable hearing. Sarhadi had been walking down a street in Lahore when he spotted a familiar face. It belonged to a young man called Hasan Raza who'd gone to the same school.

  'We weren't mates or owt, but we sat down in a caff and had a coffee. He were keen for news from home. When I asked what he were doing in Lahore, he got all vague. Then this car drew up outside, two big guys got out and next thing we were in the back and being driven away.'

  What had happened now seemed to be clear. Raza was a terrorist suspect the authorities had had their eyes on for some time. The sight of him talking to a new contact from the UK provoked the security police to move in. When their fairly primitive interrogation techniques produced no results, they called in their American counterparts, who at least didn't get directly physical. Then the British interrogators arrived.

  'Was that because the Yanks were beginning to believe you?' asked Fidler.

  'Nay, I think it were 'cos they couldn't understand a word I were saying,' said Sarhadi, very broad Bradford.

  That got a big laugh, after which he finished his story, stressing his conviction that it was only the publicity pressure back home that got him released.

  'Kal, how much do you think the fact that your mother is English helped get public support for that campaign?' asked Fidler.

  Sarhadi gave him a long cool stare.

  'Me dad's English too. Might be different down south, but up here that's what we call folk who were born in England and work in England and pay their taxes in England.'

  Big cheer. Fidler grinned and said, 'Whoops.

  Sorry, Kal. Forgot you were a straight-speaking Yorkshireman. So, in the same spirit, did the fact that your mam is white make a difference to the level of public support?'

  'No idea,' said Sarhadi. ‘I were chained up in a cellar, remember?'

  'Of course. Terrible. Sir, you've got a question?'

  A fat man near the back stood up and said, 'I'm sorry for what happened to you, lad, but fair do's, you lot don't do yourself any favours, do you? Look at all these riots the papers are full of -'

  'Hold on there,' interrupted Fidler. 'Demonstrations, I think you mean.'

  'You call 'em what you will, looked like bloody riots to me. And what about yon Raza, your mate, he really is a terrorist, right? So you can't blame the cops when they saw the two of you so chummy together jumping to the wrong conclusion, right?'

  'If you'd been kicked so hard in the balls you were pissing blood into a rusty bucket for a fortnight, you'd mebbe want some bugger to blame!' declared Sarhadi. 'Just like the lads on them demos want to know who's to blame for murdering them two innocent Muslims in Manchester. As for Raz, till he's had a fair trial, he's just an ordinary British citizen like you and me, and our government should be protecting him, not apologizing for yon mad bastard George Bush and his mates.'

  'Strong words,' said Fidler. 'Just how much did your experience radicalize you?'

  'If you mean it's turned me into an extremist, you're dead wrong,' said Sarhadi. 'But it did make me see it weren't enough just to keep my nose clean and get on with my own concerns. It made me start thinking about what being a Muslim really meant.'

  'Yes, and as I understand it, this means you've become much more active in your local mosque at Marrside. The mosque your friend Raza attended, right? And isn't Sheik Ibrahim Al-Hijazi, who has been so forthright in his condemnation of the quote foot-dragging police investigation unquote into the Manchester killings, the Imam there?'

  'What are you trying to say, Joe? That we're all terrorists at Marrside?'

  'No, of course not. But Sheikh Ibrahim's views are well known, aren't they?'

  'Aye, like the Archbishop of Canterbury's. And if every churchgoer who disagreed with him walked out, where'd that leave the C of E?'

  'Are you claiming to be a force for moderation then, Kal?'

  'No. I'm just like most other young Muslims in Marrside: a British citizen trying to live his life by following the laws of his country and the laws of his religion.'

  'And if they clash?'

  'Properly interpreted, they don't clash.'

  ‘I think Sheikh Ibrahim might give you an argument there. Incidentally, is he going to your wedding?'

  He was a clever bastard, thought Pascoe with reluctant admiration. He was managing to use Sarhadi to represent the Muslim both as victim and villain.

  'Why shouldn't he be?' said Sarhadi angrily. 'Look, Joe, you want to have a barney with Sheikh Ibrahim, mebbe it's him you should have invited on to the show.'

  'Funny you should say that, Kal,' said Fidler with the self-satisfied smirk of the chat-show host who has got his guest to provide a desired cue. 'We did invite the Sheikh, but after the report of the alleged attempt on his life earlier this week, his people came back to us with questions about security. Naturally we gave the assurances we offer all our guests, but it seems they weren't enough for the Sheikh and he withdrew.'

  Not having much luck with your guest list this week, thought Pascoe. Presumably Fidler had hoped to engineer a public confrontation between Sarhadi and the Sheikh.

  'Perhaps,' continued Fidler, 'what he was really worried about was whether he could get away without falling into the cliche trap. So far we've done rather well, but you've all got your weapons of mass destruction ready, just in case?'

  The audience laughed and waved the plastic bags full of coloured ping-pong balls which they received as they entered the broadcast hall.

  Ellie tried to speak but Fidler ignored her. Saving her for something else? wondered Pascoe uneasily, as the halogen smile beamed on Kentmore again.

  'Maurice, you've had your problems with the Law,' said the presenter. 'Do you think we have strong enough laws to control extreme political agitation?'

  'We elect people to make our laws,' said the farmer shortly. 'If we don't like them, then we should elect somebody else.'

  'That's pretty reasonable of you, Maurice, considering what happened in your own family,' said Fidler.

  Turning to speak directly to the camera with the serious sympathetic face of a man offering condolence to a bereaved neighbour, he went on, 'Some of you may recall that Maurice's younger brother, Flight Lieutenant Christopher Kentmore, was one of the earliest British casualties during the invasion of Iraq.'

  Kentmore turned pale with shock, then fury. He hadn't been expecting this. Suddenly the true reason why he'd been invited to join the panel was obvious. Which left . . .

  Ellie beware! Pascoe tried to telepath.

  Fidler, leaving Kentmore to simmer, was already turning to her.

  'Nowadays nearly everyone has some link, close or distant, to the modern terrorist threat. Ell, I know you use your maiden name on your book jackets, but wasn't your husband, DCI Pascoe, one of the victims of the recent terrorist explosion in Mid-Yorkshire? Happily not the most seriously injured. In fact, I believe he's back at work. But are his hands too tightly tied by the very laws he upholds? And what about you, Ell? How do you feel about the kind of people who nearly made you a widow?'

  It was blindingly obvious now how Ffion had managed to get unknown Ellie with her unimpressive literary track record on to the show.

  You treacherous cow! thought Pascoe. You with your double effs!

  At least now i
t shouldn't take a Dalziel to tell Ellie what the other one stood for.

  He waited anxiously for her response. A blank no comment was probably safest, but Ellie wasn't the no comment type. He gritted his teeth and waited for the explosion.

  But despite his great love and admiration, he could still underestimate his wife.

  She leaned forward, very serious and said, 'Well, all other things being equal, Joe, at the end of the day, all the police want is a level playing field . . .'

  Chaos erupted. The speakers blasted out a chorus of zoo screeches over which a parliamentary voice bellowed, 'Order! Order!' Klaxons blared, lights flashed, audience members screamed, 'Cliche! Cliche!' and stood up to hurl their multi-coloured ping-pong balls at Ellie, who sat unflinching beneath the barrage.

  'Oh Ell, Ell!' cried Fidler. 'This is serious money time! OK, folks, settle down, thank you, I think we've shown the dreaded cliches exactly what we think of them . . .'

  The shower of balls diminished to a trickle and the audience began to subside. But a woman in the front row remained on her feet, her hand still in her plastic bag.

  'You don't fool me,' she was yelling. 'You deserved all you got, you murdering bastard! You're just like the rest on 'em at yon mosque, you and that Sheikh. You send other bastards out to do your dirty work, but you're just as bad. They should lock every last one of you up and throw away the key!'

  It was Sarhadi directly in front of her that she was shouting at, not Ellie.

  Her hand came out of the bag. In it was a gun.

  For a fraction of a second Pascoe thought, This is another of Fidler's plants!

  Then he saw the presenter's face. Even the make-up couldn't hide the pallor of terror. His lips moved but nothing came out. He tried to push himself backwards but only succeeded in sending his swivel chair spinning round and round till he was bound fast by his own microphone wire.

  The gun came up. It was pointed at Sarhadi, who stared at it in a disbelief which hadn't yet had time to dissolve into fear.

  Someone screamed. To the left and right of the woman the people best placed to intervene opted for self-preservation and flung themselves sideways.

  And Ellie began to rise from her seat.

  To Pascoc's sagacious eye, she didn't look like she was thinking of diving for cover or making a run for it.

  'No!' he yelled. 'Don't be stupid! No!'

  He hadn't yelled at a screen like this since he was a kid at a Saturday-morning picture club.

  And now, as if offended, the screen he was yelling at went completely blank.

  6

  Kilda

  For the next five minutes Peter Pascoe exercised the greatest degree of control he had ever called upon.

  He did nothing.

  Every instinct screamed at him to react. The loudest and most lunatic scream urged him to jump into his car and start driving north. Pointless! It would take an hour even breaking every speed limit.

  Nearly as loud and on the surface more sensible was the scream telling him to grab the phone and start ringing. Ellie's mobile first, then the TV station, then Middlesbrough police, then his own CID office, then . . .

  What stopped him was the certainty that Ellie, knowing he was watching, would ring him as soon as she could. He didn't even dare risk using his mobile in case that was the button she hit. As for ringing her mobile, she'd have it switched off because of the broadcast and, when it got switched on again, it would be to ring him.

  He knew this beyond all doubt, but it wasn't a comfort. It meant if she didn't ring, she couldn't.

  Five minutes, he told himself. He'd give her five minutes.

  He sat there staring at the screen.

  An announcer appeared. She began to apologize for the break in transmission as if it had been caused by a simple power failure. Why was she smiling faintly? he wondered. Perhaps she hated Joe Fidler and hoped he'd been shot in the mouth. Then her face became serious and she said they were going over to the newsroom for an update on the body-in-the-reservoir story that had broken earlier. The picture changed to some kind of lake with a rubber dinghy floating in it. An announcer was saying, 'Police have not yet confirmed the rumour that the body has been identified as that of. . .'

  Impatiently Pascoe switched the set off. There was only one story he wanted to hear about. Surely that was five minutes now? He checked his watch. Only four! It felt like an hour. He watched the second hand sweep round and started to count down.

  Twenty... nineteen ... eighteen ...

  Of course, if she didn't ring it meant nothing .

  ... fifteen . .. fourteen ... thirteen ... She could be simply too preoccupied taking care of someone . . .

  ... ten ... nine . .. eight...

  Or her battery could be flat. . . ... six... five... four... Or she'd left her phone in the make-up room . . .

  ... three ... two ... one... She was dead.

  He knew it with a certainty beyond the reach of logic.

  She wasn't ringing because she couldn't ring because she was lying sprawled on the floor of the TV studio with the life-blood oozing out of her body.

  The sense of loss was so huge, so stifling of all his senses, that he didn't realize for some little time that the phone was ringing.

  He snatched it up.

  'Peter?'

  'Oh Jesus. Are you all right?'

  'Yes, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about, really.'

  'You're not dead . . . sorry . . . I'm babbling . . . I thought you might be . . . you're not hurt at all, are you sure?'

  'Of course I'm sure. One of the first things they taught me at nursery school. Really, love, I'm fine.'

  'Thank God. What about the others?'

  'All fine, no problem. It was just a sort of air pistol, one of those gas-powered things. She got one pellet off, hit Joe Fidler in that tight-stretched crotch, very poetic. He says he's OK, which is just as well as I couldn't see anyone rushing to offer first aid.'

  'And you're really all right? God, when I saw you getting up with your Superwoman look on . . .'

  'No need to have worried. Before I could get to my phone booth, Maurice had done the deed. Real action-man stuff. No, I shouldn't mock, he was very brave. Fast, too. If it hadn't been for him, Kal would have got the pellet straight in the face. Listen, love, would you ring Jane just in case she was watching, or worse still, letting Rosie watch 'cos I was on.'

  'Good thinking,' said Pascoe. ‘I take it that's the end of the show now?'

  'For me, certainly. Not before time either. Now I know exactly how Ffion got me on. I can see her on her mobile. She's probably selling my story to the tabloids. You might like to retain a good homicide brief. I'll be back soon as I can. Love you. Bye.'

  'Love you too. Bye.'

  He rang off. His mobile was ringing.

  It was Wield.

  'Pete, I were watching Fidler's Three 'Ellie's fine,' said Pascoe. 'She just rang to tell me.'

  'That's grand,' said Wield. 'I waited a few minutes before ringing 'cos I knew you'd want the lines free.'

  That was Wield, a mind for all seasons. In Pascoe's opinion he was one of the best cops in Mid-Yorkshire if not in the whole country. Sticking at sergeant had been his own choice, at first because he didn't want his gayness to become a promotion issue, and latterly, since setting up home with Edwin Digweed, because he had no desire to take any step which might disturb his domestic happiness.

  In an unprejudiced society, he'd have been Commissioner by now, thought Pascoe.

  He relayed Ellie's account of events.

  'God knows what was bugging this woman,' he concluded. 'Thank God she could only lay her hands on an air pistol.'

  'I've a mate in the Middlesborough mob,' said Wield. 'I'll give him a ring later when they've had time to get things sorted. As for the pistol, don't underestimate them. Close range, one of them gas guns can put a pellet through your eye right into your brain. In fact, if it hits soft tissue anywhere, it can do real damage.'

  ‘I kno
w,' said Pascoe. 'But I reckon Ellie would still have had a go even if it had been a Kalashnikov. Fortunately, that guy Kentmore seems to have been on the ball. I reckon I owe him a drink . . . sorry, Wieldy, got to go. The house phone's ringing.'

  It was Jane Pulman.

  'Peter, has Ellie been on the television tonight?'

  'Yes, she has, but she's OK . . .' Then with sudden alarm, 'Why are you asking? Is it Rosie?'

  He'd guessed right. The four girls were in one bedroom which had a TV set in it. They'd been allowed to watch a video, then Jane had looked in to make sure the set was off and the girls in bed.

  'But you know kids,' she said. 'They must have switched it on again, spotted Ellie, then something happened, something with a gun, right?'

  The girls had tried to convince themselves that it was just part of the show, like the ping-pong balls, but Rosie had been so agitated that in the end Mandy, Jane's daughter, had decided to put her hand up and admit to her mother they'd been watching, and ask for reassurance.

  'Let me talk to her,' said Pascoe. 'No, better still, I'll get Ellie to ring and talk to her.'

  He put the phone down, and rang Ellie's mobile.

  'Hi, Pete,' she said, sounding rather breathless. 'It's chaos here. Place is full of cops and reporters. I wish I'd twisted your arm to come. Maurice has got his sister-in-law here and Kal has got Jamila, his fiancee. Lovely girl, you probably saw her on the box. They've stuck us all together in this side room where we've got to wait till we've made our statements. Fortunately it's the same room they had the pre-show refreshments in so we're not short of booze and snacks. God knows when I'll get away . . .'

  He interrupted her to explain why he was ringing.

  'I'd better ring Jane straight away, before the battery goes in my mobile,' she said. 'See you later, love. Don't know when, but no need to worry, I'm being well looked after. Bye!'

  He switched the TV back on to catch the news and was irrationally put out to find the incident on Fidler's Three rated only third place behind the body-in-the-reservoir story and a plane crash in Canada. But as he began to take in the details of the reservoir story, his attention was fully engaged.