Death of Dalziel - Dalziel & Pascoe 22

by Reginald Hill

  He looked up to see that they were turning through a gateway which bore a sign reading Kewley Castle 2 miles - unfenced road - please observe 10 mph speed limit, which Rod certainly did, from a considerable distance.

  At least, thought Pascoe, it gives me time to enjoy my passenger's perk and take in the view, which was of attractive moorland, a-glow with gorse, and rising into shapely hills, good walking country.

  The castle itself, however, was as disappointing as Wield had forecast.

  Little more than a line of rubble lying behind a modest declivity which had presumably once been a moat, only the broken arch of its ruined gatehouse took the eye, but even that did not hold it long as Pascoe spotted a movement through the trees of a small copse just beyond the ruin.

  A man on a white horse emerged. When he saw the car he came to a halt framed against the broken arch. It made a lovely picture, fit for a tapestry woven with bone needles in an older age, a more innocent time.

  Then he resumed his advance at a stately canter. Only the fact that the horse had further to go allowed them to beat it to the house which stood a few hundred yards behind the ruined castle whose name it bore.

  Pascoe got out of the car with some relief. Not the kind he felt when he got out of a car driven by, say, DC Shirley Novello, who believed that time spent driving from here to there was wasted time which would have to be accounted for on Judgment Day, but a sense of pleasure at being back in the dangerous world of standing on his own two feet.

  He stood for a moment and took in the house, a severe-looking three-storied building in dark grey stone entirely without adornment, apart from a battlemented portico presumably added on to justify the appellation castle. They were in a tarmacked yard formed by a two-storey stable block and a barn converted into a triple garage.

  'An Englishman's home,' said Pascoe.

  'Probably a lot more convenient than the real thing,' said Rod.

  The door of the main house opened and a woman appeared. She was in her late forties, with short dark hair and a classically oval face. She had a full rounded figure and she held herself like a gymnast. She wore a plain grey dress which, though not positively a uniform, had something of a uniform about it. Too young to be the mother, judged Pascoe. Housekeeper maybe. Or serving wench? He flashed her his boyish smile and got no response either of expression or word. But when Rod called out, 'Hi there,' as if addressing some girl he'd bumped into in a club, he noticed an immediate thawing of her chilly expression under the warmth of the young man's grin.

  Before he could try to take advantage of this, he heard the clop of horse's hooves behind him and a voice said, 'Can I help you?'

  He turned to look up at the rider. He was a man of about thirty, his fine black hair tousled by the wind, his skin weather-beaten. Dark brown eyes regarded Pascoe unblinkingly.

  Estate manager, he guessed. Certainly a man of authority. Or maybe that's just because I'm looking up at him. Someone had said that a man astride a beast is always ridiculous, unless he's fucking it, in which case he's disgusting as well. Probably Dalziel. But Pascoe always found horsemen a bit intimidating and this one sat with a straightness of back which somehow suggested a superiority more than physical.

  'We're here to see Major Kewley-Hodge,' he said.

  'Mister Kewley-Hodge,' corrected the man. 'Is he expecting you?'

  'No,' said Pascoe.

  'So how do you know he is going to be in?'

  To say, I don't, but it's a risk I was willing to take in order to catch him unprepared, was not an answer Pascoe felt he could give.

  He said, 'Is he in?'

  'In fact he's not/ said the man. ‘I dare say you thought, being wheelchair-bound, he can't get out much.'

  'No. In fact I didn't think that,' said Pascoe evenly. ‘I understand he is suffering from paraplegia. I have heard nothing of agoraphobia.'

  The man smiled and nodded as if approving the answer.

  'So if I see him, who shall I say he wasn't expecting?'

  'I'm Chief Inspector Pascoe of Mid-Yorkshire CID, currently attached to the Combined Anti-Terrorism unit. And you, sir, are . . . ?'

  'I'm not in,' said the man. 'On, girl.'

  The grey moved forward obediently and came to a halt by one of the barns with an opening on the first floor from which protruded an iron bar, presumably intended for a hoist to raise hay into the loft.

  From his leather jerkin the man took what looked like a TV remote control and pressed a button. Out of the loft along the metal bar ran a square metal box from which depended what looked like a pair of nooses for a double hanging.

  Another touch on the remote brought the nooses down a foot or two. The man eased his arms through the loops, which Pascoe now saw were part of a harness. The rider fastened a retaining belt across his chest, used the remote to lift himself a fraction and take the weight off the saddle, then spoke to the horse, which moved forward, leaving the rider dangling in air.

  He must have used the control again for out of the open barn door rolled a wheelchair. It came to a halt directly beneath him and he lowered himself into it, released the harness and sent it back up into the loft.

  Then he turned the chair to face Pascoe.

  'Now I'm in,' he said. 'Good day. Chief Inspector. Luke Kewley-Hodge at your service. Shall we go inside?'

  9

  armour

  As they advanced towards the front door, Pascoe was wondering how to indicate to Rod that he should stay outside and see what his charms could winkle out of the woman.

  He needn't have worried.

  The woman came forward to take the horse's reins. Rod moved quickly towards the stable door saying, 'Let me give you a hand there.'

  'You any good at rubbing down horses?' asked the woman in an upper-class voice.

  'No, but I'm a terribly quick learner,' said Rod with a grin.

  You are indeed, thought Pascoe as he followed the man in the chair through the main entrance.

  'That's a clever bit of kit you've got back there,' he said.

  'Yes, I'm quite pleased with it,' answered Kewley-Hodge. ‘I got the technology from our bomb-squad remote-control units, but the original idea came from the Middle Ages. Knights' armour

  became so heavy that they had to use hoists to get them into the saddle, and of course their mounts were very like our shire horses, chosen for strength rather than speed. Modern movies which show knights charging at each other as if they were in a two-furlong race at Kempton are quite misleading. To the modern eye, a real joust would probably look as if it had been filmed in slow motion. But I mustn't knock Hollywood, not when I go jogging around like Charlton Heston at the end of El Cid;

  He glanced up at Pascoe and smiled, as though inviting him to share a joke. The hall they were in was well this side of baronial, but it was large enough to accommodate two suits of armour which stood in opposing corners.

  'The proof of the pudding,' murmured Pascoe.

  'In two ways,' said Kewley-Hodge. 'The one on the left is twelfth-century European and weighs about fifty pounds. The one on the right, if you look closely, has a great deal more leather about it, and the metal is much thinner. It weighs less than half as much. That was brought back from the Second Crusade by one of my ancestors. The crusaders found out the hard way that heavy armour and slow horses were no competition for smaller, faster Saracen mounts ridden by men carrying so much less weight in metal, especially in the desert heat. The smarter ones adapted. The slower ones died.'

  'Fascinating,' said Pascoe. 'You are a military historian, are you, sir?'

  'A historian of survival, perhaps,' said Kewley-Hodge. 'Through here.'

  He sent his chair towards an inner door that opened ahead of him, presumably at the breaking of a magic eye. Pascoe followed him into a medium-sized sitting room, sparsely furnished, with no pictures on the wall and a fireplace in black slate, which gaped like a back door to hell. On the broad mantel-shelf rested a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and an ashtray. Pascoe ca
lculated the height and worked out that, if the fags belonged to his host, the man would need to summon a servant every time he wanted a smoke. Perhaps he was trying to give it up.

  'Coffee, Mr Pascoe? Or something stronger?'

  He looked down at the man in the wheelchair and recalled his feelings when he'd looked up at the man on horseback. Was that the way Kewley-Hodge felt a dozen times a day as people loomed over him?

  And was his reference to El Cid a reminder that, even dead, the body of the Spaniard bound to his saddle had power to strike terror into the hearts of the Moors?

  'No thanks,' said Pascoe, lowering himself gingerly into a leather armchair which turned out to be more yielding than its appearance promised. ‘I don't want to take up more of your time than necessary.'

  'Be my guest. Time is a commodity I'm not short of. So how can I help you?'

  ‘I believe that during your military service you knew a man called Young. Sergeant John Young, known as Jonty.'

  'Now, like me, a plain mister, and making a name as a popular author: John ‘I. Youngman. Yes, I remember him.'

  'How well did you know him, may I ask?'

  'Very well indeed. I'd say we were as close as you can get without being bent.'

  Pascoe let his surprise show.

  'Despite the fact that you were an officer and he was an NCO?'

  ‘I think you're confusing class and rank, Mr Pascoe. David Stirling, the Regiment's founder, stated categorically that in the SAS there should be no distinction of class. All ranks belong to one company. Il makes good sense because it means good soldiering. I leaned heavily on Jonty, and I like to be sure that what I'm leaning on isn't going to give.'

  ‘I see. And he was clearly dedicated to you. In every sense.'

  Kewley-Hodge smiled appreciatively and said, 'Yes, that tickled me somewhat. So what has Jonty done to arouse your interest, Mr Pascoe? Inciting racial hatred, is it?'

  'What makes you say that, sir?'

  'Well, I don't imagine they send chief inspectors to deal with a traffic offence.'

  1 meant, do you have any reason for thinking that inciting racial hatred is a crime more likely to be committed by Youngman than, say, burglary? Or rape? Or peculation?'

  'Now let me see . . . Burglary? No that wouldn't be Jonty's cup of tea. I could see him as a pirate or a highwayman, maybe, but crawling in through a kitchen window to steal the candlesticks? No way. Rape? He always seemed to be able to get his wicked way with the ladies without needing to resort either to violence or indeed to paying hard cash. I once asked him his secret. He said, letting them see you want them more than anyone's ever wanted them before, and making no promises. I tried it and got my face slapped, so there has to be something else. As for peculation, what the hell's that?'

  'Embezzlement,' said Pascoe.

  'Is that so? Interesting. Add an "s" and it becomes the legal and acceptable basis of most activity in the City. What a flimsy divide there is between crime and respectability, Chief Inspector.'

  'So, not Youngman's bag then? But incitement to racial hatred might be?'

  'Sometimes it's possible for a soldier to develop some kind of respect for the people he's fighting against. And of course it helps a great deal if he's got a great deal of respect for the people he's defending. Out in the Gulf, Sergeant Young, I fear, had neither. He hated the enemy with an absolute hatred which permitted no quarter. And he despised the local citizenry that we were supposed to be there to protect. I have heard him say that there was nothing in the whole Arab world worth shedding one drop of a British soldier's blood to preserve. So, yes, I imagine, if he still holds this point of view, and if he were foolish enough to promulgate it in the wrong company, he could well lay himself open to the charge of inciting racial hatred.'

  Pascoe shifted on his chair. The cushion had flattened to deceive, drawing him down through its yielding softness to a bed of sharp-edged rocks.

  He said, 'If he still holds this point of view...? You haven't seen him then since he left the Service and started writing?'

  'Good Lord, yes, several times,' said Kewley-Hodge. 'Whenever he's in these parts, he drops in. We chat about old times. But either he's mellowed or he doesn't feel it necessary to trot out his old views, perhaps because he assumes that my present condition means I must automatically share them.'

  'And do you?' asked Pascoe softly.

  'Is that a trick question?' asked Kewley-Hodge, smiling. 'Have you got a blank space on your warrant waiting to slip my name in?'

  'Hardly, sir. And I have no witness anyway.' Pascoe smiled back.

  'That's true. Wonder what's become of your sidekick. Working his charms on Mama, I would guess.'

  'That was your mother?' said Pascoe, unable to conceal his surprise.

  'Yes’ said Kewley-Hodge, amused. 'Sorry, I didn't introduce you, did I? But she likes to keep her roles separate, the chatelaine and the maternal. I'm sure your young man will bring out the motherly side. She bakes a mean seed cake. I hope he gets a slice for his trouble.'

  'I hope so too.'

  So the woman was that Edith Hodge whose money had kept the Kewleys solvent. She must have given birth young. Even making allowances for the ageing effect of pain, there couldn't be more than twenty years at the very most between them.

  He said, 'Now, you were going to explain your views on Muslim extremists, sir?'

  'Well, I go along to the village church about once a month and I try to get in the forgiving vein, sometimes I even get close, but you know, when everyone else stands up and walks out at the end of the service, somehow the forgiving vein dries up and I hate the bastards who did this to me as much as ever. We go out to these places to help, but in the end who are we helping? We talk about extremists but, given the chance, they're all bloody extremists. Look at what's happened in Iraq since we gave them back their miserable country. Where were all these brave freedom fighters, these suicide bombers, these well-armed resistance groups, when Saddam was in power? Skulking in their caves, of course, because they didn't dare take up arms against a tyrant who'd give them back ten blows for every one they struck, who'd make sure that every suicide martyr was accompanied to his reward by a couple of hundred of his friends and family. Suddenly they've found their courage, have they? The courage to murder their rescuers! I piss on such courage! The lesson of history is that people get the dictators they deserve. We should have left them to rot until they came begging for help, then left them to rot a little longer.'

  He fell silent. He was breathing hard. Had he let himself be carried away further than he intended? Somehow Pascoe doubted it. This was a man who felt so secure behind whatever armour he'd built for himself that he had no compunction about speaking his mind.

  Which might mean he had no involvement with the Templars.

  Or perhaps that he was so certain of his Tightness, he didn't give a damn about being caught. In fact he might even look forward to sitting in his wheelchair in the Old Bailey, defying a jury not to admit they felt some sympathy for him.

  Pascoe said, 'When did you last see Sergeant Young?'

  ‘I believe it was in February. He was doing a promotional tour and when he got to Sheffield, he popped along to pay me a visit.'

  'Did he stay the night?' asked Pascoe.

  'Yes, he did. I recall asking him if he wouldn't be missed. I gather these publishers like to keep their writers to a pretty tight schedule. He laughed and said his minder would cover for him, that's what she got paid for.'

  'And did he give you any hint that he might be involved in any activity which might reflect his extreme views on the Middle Eastern situation?'

  Kewley-Hodge leaned forward and said, 'Good Lord, is that what this is all about? Not just inciting racial hatred but doing something about it? You think he could be mixed up with these Templars the papers are going on about, don't you?'

  'If I did, would you be surprised, Mr Kewley-Hodge?'

  'Not in the slightest,' said the man, without pausing for thought.
'Skulking in the background urging others to act was never Jonty's way. My problem on ops was stopping him from always putting himself in the most dangerous position.'

  'Seems to me these Templars are doing a deal of skulking,' said Pascoe dryly.

  ‘I don't think so. Skulking is not the same as using local cover and subterfuge to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy.'

  'Not much chance of that when you're in the UK and murdering the enemy piecemeal,' said Pascoe.

  ‘I think you're missing the point, Mr Pascoe. The people getting killed are criminals who have been condemned to death by every court of natural justice in the land. In this case, it's people like yourself trying to interfere with the process who are the enemy these Templars need to evade.'

  'Would that mean it's OK to injure us then?'

  'Of course not. But, alas, one of the many perils of modern warfare is friendly fire. If you're in the zone, you need to be very careful indeed.'

  'I'll remember that, sir. So, to return to my question, has Youngman, that is to say, ex-Sergeant Young, ever said anything directly or indirectly that would indicate he is actively involved with the Templars?'

  This time Kewley-Hodge did give himself time to think. He pressed a button that sent his chair rolling forward till it came to a halt alongside the fireplace. Then suddenly the seat of the chair began to rise, at the same time pivoting at its front edge, while the chairback moved forward to form a vertical with it. And from being a man in a wheelchair, Kewley-Hodge became a country gent, standing against his fireplace, lighting a cigarette.

  He had his right elbow fixed firmly on the mantel, and there was, Pascoe noticed, a narrow supporting ledge that had emerged at buttock height in the wheelchair's vertical face, like a monk's misericord, but the physical effort needed to maintain the pose must have been immense. Yet as he now smiled down upon the seated Pascoe, he gave out nothing but an impression of negligent ease.

  'Can't say he did, Chief Inspector. And of course I've no idea whether or not he's involved with these people. But if it turns out he is, then I say good luck to him! And I think you'll find there are many thousands of our fellow citizens who are saying exactly the same.'