Ruling Passion

by Reginald Hill

  Besides, he had no idea where they were.

  Chapter 7

  Pascoe was breakfasting on the run when the morning paper arrived. Ellie who had farther to go but was a much later starter wandered in from the kitchen from time to time, placing cups of coffee and slices of toast at strategic points along his route.

  ‘Why don’t you set your alarm earlier?’ she asked.

  ‘When I’m sleeping by myself, it’s early enough.’

  ‘It’s my fault, is it?’

  He didn’t answer, but went out into the small, dark hallway of his flat and picked up his mail and the newspaper.

  ‘Catch,’ he said, throwing it at Ellie who settled down on the rug in front of the gas-fire to drink her own coffee and read the headlines.

  He was in the bathroom when she called his name. He came instantly, recognizing a note in her voice which told him something serious had happened.

  ‘They’ve found him,’ she said.

  ‘What? Let me see.’

  He took the paper and read the report. It told of the discovery of the car, mentioned that a note had been found in it, and gave the gist of an obviously non-committal interview with Backhouse. He refused to comment on the suggestion that his murder investigation was now completed, and when asked about the clay-pit merely said that a thorough search would take place. The report ended with a reference to the other lives lost in the pool.

  ‘You said they’d found him,’ said Pascoe accusingly.

  ‘It’s as good as,’ said Ellie, white-faced.

  ‘No such thing. Can you see Colin killing himself?’

  ‘It would depend on what he had done.’

  Pascoe held his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes tightly. Night. Wind in the trees. Moonlight through the driven clouds touching the ruffled water far below. A step forward. It was all too Gothic.

  And then, not to struggle! Colin had been a fine swimmer. It could not be true!

  But the rest was true. He had seen that himself; Carlo and Tim lying dead, and above all, Rose bleeding her life away at the foot of the sundial. If that was true, then anything could be.

  ‘Come on,’ he said suddenly. ‘Let’s move. I’ll find out what’s really going on from Dalziel.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ said Ellie dully. ‘I’ll stay here, Peter. You go.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not coming with me, love. You’re going into college like a good little lecturer. That’s what you’re overpaid for. So let’s get a move on, shall we?’

  It was important to be busy. Action impeded reflection. Action would keep them for a while at least from visualizing the policeman, awkward in his stiff blue raincoat, probing the pool depths with a boat-hook as the leaky, creaking cockleshell wove a careful searcher’s pattern across the dark water. Back and forth, back and forth, till the hook snagged … thank God there was lots of work to do.

  It was not quite as Pascoe visualized it. The boat was there, picking up the search where darkness had halted it the previous evening. But the warm weather of the previous weekend had returned and the quarry pool reflected blue sky and morning sunlight. It would have been idyllic, had it not been for the evil smell stirred up by the probings below. Still, it would be shirt-sleeve order before the day was out, thought Backhouse. Of all the seasons of the year, he loved an Indian summer best. It was a comforting allegory of middle age; a golden time of warmth and maturity, with just enough of the elegiacs to be piquant without being depressing.

  It would be pleasant to slip away for a few days and enjoy the company of Proust in the small walled Dorsetshire orchard which lay behind his brother’s farm like an earnest of Eden. It would be very pleasant. The price was simple. A water-puffed, rotting corpse, dragged reluctantly to the sun-polished surface of the waters he looked down on. He had seen it before. No other form of death seemed to write such despair on a man’s face. It was a matter of time, he supposed. Other deaths had to be satisfied with what they could set in a man’s features in the actual moment of dying. Only water kept on working, smoothing, shaping, after life had fled.

  A few days in the orchard would be dearly bought at that price.

  ‘Hello, Superintendent!’

  It was French, the coroner, sensibly clad in gum-boots which would probably spoil the crease of his well-cut country solicitor’s suit.

  ‘Anything yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It’s a nasty place, this,’ said French. ‘I’ve been in charge of too many inquests connected with this water already.’

  ‘We don’t know for certain yet there’ll be another.’

  ‘No. Of course not. Still, it looks odds on. The first one was my first inquest ever. Poor Pelman’s wife – you must recall it?’

  ‘Only from the papers, sir.’

  ‘And then there was that boy. It was after that they put this wire round the place. Totally inadequate.’

  ‘Especially if someone cuts a hole through it with wirecutters,’ said Backhouse grimly.

  ‘Really? How odd. You need to be a pretty determined sort of suicide to go to those lengths.’

  ‘You would be. But this was done before last weekend. We have an expert witness. Master Eric Bell with whom I made a deal. He told me everything he knew, in return for which I only told his parents what they needed to know.’

  French laughed.

  ‘I see. But why should anyone …?’

  ‘I have an idea, sir. We’d better leave it at that for the moment.’

  By mutual accord, they turned from the quarry and walked towards the tangle of bushes in which the Mini had been found.

  ‘The ground’s very churned up,’ observed French.

  ‘Yes,’ said Backhouse. ‘Was there something special you wanted to discuss with me, Mr French?’

  The coroner looked at him assessingly.

  ‘What do you think you’re going to find in the pool, Superintendent? Be frank.’

  ‘I can just tell you what the evidence so far suggests. It suggests that we should find the body of Colin Hopkins.’

  ‘Part of this evidence being a note left in the car, I believe?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. A note which will, of course, be put into your hands as soon as a body is found and an inquest required.’

  ‘And till then …?’

  ‘Till then it’s just police evidence. Like anything else we find in the car.’

  French sighed deeply.

  ‘From that I take it that I may not see it?’

  It is foolish to fall out with your coroner, thought Backhouse. But for some reason he felt like digging his heels in. He had never taken kindly to any feeling of pressure.

  ‘I didn’t say that, sir,’ he said cautiously. ‘The note is at present undergoing examination in our labs. It is, I hasten to add, an extremely incoherent note, not one that I would care to repeat from memory. Of course, we shall also be getting an expert psychiatric assessment of the writer’s state of mind.’

  French nodded as though satisfied.

  ‘There is, as you must know, a great deal of unease in the village,’ he said. ‘Everyone is very keen for this unfortunate business to be laid to rest. This unease is likely to continue until there’s been an arrest, or something else.’

  He made an uncertain gesture back towards the quarry.

  ‘I think, not to put too fine a point on it, that the sooner someone can say officially what everyone seems to be saying privately, the better it will be.’

  ‘It’s just my duty to investigate crime, sir, and publish to my superiors the results of my investigations,’ said Backhouse coldly.

  ‘I know that, Superintendent. My duty is not dissimiliar. Only my duty is to publish to everybody the results of my investigation. I hope you find what you’re looking for here. You may recall it took over three weeks to find the body of Robert Hand. It’s a great deal of time.’

  ‘Hand?’

  ‘Mrs Pelman’s lover.’

  ‘Yes,
I do recall that. As I said, I read the reports. I also recall a police frogman almost lost his life in the search. It’s a nasty piece of water this, sir. It’s filthy black and there are all kinds of hollows and tunnels into the sides of the pit. I shall do everything I can to ensure a thorough search, but if it takes three weeks, it takes three weeks. It may even take longer. But I will not risk lives. Nor will I anticipate results.’

  ‘Of course not, Superintendent,’ said French, suddenly smiling. ‘It would be wrong of you to do that. Good day to you.’

  ‘Good day,’ answered Backhouse. He felt unhappy for some reason. The sun-filled orchard suddenly seemed like a completely substanceless dream.

  Dalziel had arrived in his office that morning to find a most unwelcome note inviting him to call on Dr Grainger at midday if it were convenient. He called Grainger’s surgery straightaway but no further than a sweet-tongued receptionist who seemed to his sensitive ear to become suspiciously sympathetic when she learned his name. But Grainger was very busy, she insisted, and a couple of hours wasn’t too long to wait, was it? Again Dalziel felt he caught a suggestion that he might well be wishing at noon that the waiting had been even longer.

  Like Pascoe, he seized upon the anodyne of work and began busily examining the results of various inquiries his minions had undertaken.

  The Nordrill Mining Company, he was intrigued to discover, did not employ (and, to the best of their knowledge, never employed) a John Atkinson. He thought about this a while, then reached for his phone and dialled a local number.

  ‘Superintendent Dalziel here,’ he said to the girl who answered. ‘I’d like a word with Mr Noolan please.’

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘Hello Andy,’ said a lively Yorkshire voice after a few moments. ‘Are we going to be robbed?’

  ‘No. But you might have been. Have you checked your vaults yet?’

  ‘What!’ said Noolan in alarm.

  ‘Joke, Willie,’ said Dalziel. ‘Just checking to see if you’re wide awake like a good little bank-manager should be.’

  ‘Some joke! I nearly wet my pants. What is it you want, Andy? I have work to do.’

  These two had known each other for a long time and had built up a mutually advantageous system of favour-exchanging over the years. It was based on a form of oblique questioning which allowed both to avoid too much damage to their professional consciences.

  ‘If I was wanting to buy a house, who would you advise to use as an agent?’

  ‘That would depend on what you had in mind.’

  ‘Something pretty high-class, I think. You know me. Nowt squalid. What do you reckon to Lewis and Cowley?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I was sorry to hear what happened to Lewis,’ said Noolan finally.

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes. Nice family. They’ll be hard pressed now.’

  ‘There must be a good lot coming to them, surely,’ said Dalziel, infusing surprise into his voice.

  ‘They could be in trouble if they’re relying on money from the firm,’ said Noolan.

  ‘Really? But there must be other things. That’s a nice house. And there’s their cottage in Scotland. Oh, she’ll be all right, never fear, Willie. A businessman like Lewis looks after his dependants.’

  ‘You may be right, Andy. Perhaps his assets are looked after somewhere else.’

  ‘I see. Well, perhaps I’ll stick in my own place for a bit. Cheers, Willie. See you at the club some night.’

  So. As far as Willie Noolan knew (and on matters financial there was little that happened locally without Willie getting a sniff of it) Lewis and Cowley were in a bad way, a business crisis which overspilled into Lewis’s private life. It would be easy to check Noolan’s hints, but hardly necessary, he felt. The house must be heavily mortgaged, the cottage too, and from the sound of it, there might not be a lot of insurance cover there.

  All in all, one ought to feel very sorry about Matthew Lewis. But there was something in all this which bothered him. Perhaps it was time James Cowley was confronted with the full majesty of a detective-superintendent instead of the lightweight threat of a sergeant.

  Which reminded him of Pascoe whom he had not yet seen. He felt slightly guilty. The lad would probably have read about it in the newspapers now. Still, that was what life was all about. You opened a paper and read that someone you knew had died. Or was dying. Or was going to be killed.

  And one day the name you read was your own.

  There was a knock at the door and it was no surprise when Pascoe walked in.

  ‘You’ve seen the papers, Sergeant?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry. If I’d known where you were last night, I’d have told you. But there’s still no body been found.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Tell me, Sergeant, this friend of yours, would he write a suicide note in poetry?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Poetry.’

  ‘The note was in poetry?’ Pascoe thought hard. ‘I doubt it … well, no one would … but he might quote somebody else’s. He was – is – a great lover of the apt quotation. You don’t happen to know what the note said?’

  ‘No, lad. Such things are not revealed lightly, even among policemen. Anyway, put it out of your mind. There’s other work to be done. This Lewis business.’

  Quickly he filled Pascoe in on the new information they had.

  ‘Nothing gels,’ he said in conclusion. ‘It’s all scrappy. I think you’ll have to go and talk with Sturgeon if you can.’

  ‘To Doncaster?’

  ‘If it’s inconvenient,’ said Dalziel wearily, ‘we could ask him to meet you half-way. He is after all merely a sixty-eight-year-old man, half dead after a car crash. He is also the only person who can confirm or deny what seems to be a nutty idea on the face of it – i.e. that he killed Lewis. If he did, I’d like his word on it before he snuffs it. So hurry.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Pascoe without enthusiasm.

  ‘How’s his wife?’ asked Dalziel.

  ‘Still in hospital, but getting better. She was worried about the cats.’

  ‘Hospitals,’ said Dalziel gloomily. ‘It’s been a good week for the doctors. Off you go then, Sergeant. We might as well keep up the illusion of motion, though it’s all running on the bloody spot. By the way, while you’re at it, find out anything you can on the circumstances of Sturgeon’s crash, will you? I’m beginning to have a feeling about this.’

  ‘Me too, sir. But I’m not sure what.’

  ‘Suicide after murder. It’s not uncommon.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Pascoe flatly.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ said Dalziel. ‘I’m sorry. I keep forgetting … look, just how concerned are you about this other business, Sergeant? How delicately do you want people to tread?’

  ‘It bothers me,’ admitted Pascoe. ‘It’s getting better but it’s always there. And sometimes I feel this anger stirring inside. Such an anger that I could …’

  He found he had clenched his fists and forced himself to relax. Why am I telling Dalziel this? he wondered. A fat old copper who thinks tears in a man are proofs incontrovertible of homosexual tendencies.

  ‘Hold it in, lad,’ advised Dalziel. ‘One of these days it’ll mebbe come in handy. By the way, I forgot. We never asked Lauder if he knew anything about Lewis. Give him a ring before you set off for sunny Doncaster.’

  He said I forgot, noted Pascoe. Coming from Dalziel this was a kind of sympathy.

  ‘You’ve been worried, have you, Andy?’ asked Dr Grainger. ‘That’s good. I hoped you might be.’

  ‘Hoped?’

  ‘That’s it. I bet your fertile imagination’s run through every disease known to man and invented a few more besides. Well, you’ll be pleased to know you’ve got none of them.’

  ‘None? You mean there’s nothing wrong with me?’ growled Dalziel, beginning to bristle with anger.

  ‘Don’t sound so disappointed. Anyway, you’r
e far from perfect, I assure you. That’s why a bit of good honest fear might be a help. Let me list your faults. You smoke too much, you drink too much and you eat too much. In addition you try to interrupt your doctor. You wanted bad news. I’ll give it to you. You follow my advice or within a twelvemonth, two years at the most, I reckon you’ll be laid low, perhaps permanently, by one or more of half a dozen complaints.’

  ‘Such as?’ said Dalziel almost humbly.

  ‘You name it. High blood pressure, bronchitis, cirrhosis, thrombosis.’

  ‘God Almighty!’ said Dalziel disbelievingly. ‘I can’t have them all!’

  ‘Believe me,’ said Grainger, ‘we all have them all. Only some people have them more than others. I’ve made out a diet sheet for you. You’ll need to drop at least a stone, to start with. It’ll be difficult for you, especially without the comfort of tobacco and alcohol, so I’m giving you a prescription for a mild tranquillizer, just so you don’t become too unbearable to yourself and others. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Dalziel helplessly. ‘You’re a bloody sadist though.’

  ‘Do as I say and you may yet live to dance lightly on my grave.’

  ‘One thing before I go,’ said Dalziel, looking with distaste and disbelief at the diet sheet he held. ‘You’re on the committee at the Liberal Club aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. You’re not going to join after all this time?’

  ‘I’m not that sick,’ grunted Dalziel scornfully. ‘No, it’s just that a couple of your members have come my way lately.’

  ‘Matt Lewis and Edgar Sturgeon, you mean? Tragic, tragic. Everyone at the club’s desolated.’

  ‘Were they very friendly? With each other, I mean.’

  ‘Not particularly. Though I’ve seen them together once or twice since Edgar retired.’

  ‘I see. Any word on either of them round the snooker table?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Come on!’ said Dalziel. ‘I know clubs. Any little titbits of gossip, scandal, you know?’

  ‘I’m your doctor, Andy, not one of your snouts!’ said Grainger indignantly.

  ‘All right. No harm in asking, I’ve got some right surely after this!’