A Clubbable Woman

by Reginald Hill

  It had also been Marcus who had phoned Connon with the news of Arthur’s visit to the police station. And he, of course, had had it direct from Gwen the minute Arthur left the house.

  ‘We were both very worried,’ Marcus had said. ‘We’ve got a very great respect for Arthur.’

  Dalziel had laughed inwardly when he heard that. Tell that to him when the Celtic red mist’s before his eyes and he’s kicking your head in in a jealous rage, he thought.

  But he hadn’t spoken, just gone on listening.

  Marcus told everything, reluctantly at first, but more freely after a few minutes. Then when Evans went in to a selection committee meeting, the reason for Connon’s presence that night, Dalziel had had a long talk with Gwen.

  They were obviously telling the truth about themselves. Too many details fitted. The affair had been going on for nearly two years.

  ‘I bet he’s been dying for an audience,’ Dalziel said to Pascoe. ‘It must be hell having a woman like Gwen and not to be able to strut around in public possession. Mark you, it might have worked both ways. Perhaps it was the secrecy that made Marcus acceptable to Gwen, eh? Christ, Arthur was no oil-painting, but he was like the Winged Victory compared with him!

  And where does that place you in the beauty stakes? thought Pascoe. But what’s it matter? Hell, in one day I’ve been jealous of a sour-faced moron like Dave Fernie and of a little tub of lard like Marcus Felstead!

  Dalziel shook his head finally in dismissive amazement at the inscrutability of woman.

  ‘It can’t be true,’ he said. ‘It’s a bloody lie all of it. Only, Marcus wouldn’t dare to tell a lie like that unless it was true.’

  ‘Irish,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Dalziel.

  ‘More important,’ said Pascoe, ‘is, where does it leave us? Does it put us any further forward?’

  ‘It teaches us humility,’ said Dalziel pompously. ‘No other revelation in this case can possibly surprise us after this.’

  ‘Not even if it turns out to be an intruder?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘Not even if your intruder turns out to be Jack the Ripper. I’m off to my bed now. I might even go to church in the morning. Good night.’

  He lumbered away shaking his head. Pascoe watched him go with a feeling he was disgusted to find almost resembled affection.

  But as he climbed into his own bed in his little two-roomed flat half a mile from the police station his mind was occupied still with the case. He wished he had one of those ‘feelings’ which Dalziel had so efficiently mocked. But he hadn’t.

  All he had was the certainty that whatever steps had been taken that day had led them in one direction only.

  Backwards.

  He switched off the light and fell into an uneasy sleep troubled by dreams in which Gwen Evans, Sheila Lennox and Jenny Connon blended and merged into one.

  Chapter 7

  There were three days left till Christmas. The weather was dark, misty. The sky was low and constantly shifting as different layers of grey and black cloud were dragged around by gusty winds. Guiding stars were rarely seen. In any case, no one had much time to look.

  The greatest money-spending competition on earth was coming to its climax. The streets were thronged all day with compulsive shoppers, intermittently spattered with hard-driven rain and tinted by the glow of festive lighting. And a constant background to everything was the music: carols, pop, sentimental, classical; now near, now far; on tape, on record, and occasionally even issuing from a real, live, human throat.

  It was a strange unsettling atmosphere. No one could remain unaffected by it.

  Some were hardened by it.

  ‘I haven’t given or received a Christmas present for more than a dozen years,’ said Dalziel. ‘Bloody idiots.’

  Some were softened.

  Should I have tried to go home this year? wondered Pascoe guiltily.

  Home meant a suburban semi, two hundred miles away, grossly overcrowded for the holiday by his grandmother, his two elder sisters, their unsympathetic husbands and their four even more unsympathetic children, in addition to the normal complement of his parents.

  He hadn’t spent a Christmas there for three years. It was nearly time to try it again.

  But not this year.

  Some were worried by it.

  ‘He’s looking worse than he did when it all happened,’ said Jenny. ‘Perhaps it’s Christmas. I think they always made a special effort at Christmas. For my sake as well, I suppose. He looks awful.’

  ‘Is he seeing the doctor?’ asked Antony.

  ‘No. But I’m going to send for him. He had that knock on his head, I don’t think he’s recovered from that yet.’

  ‘No,’ said Antony staring out of the window into the front garden.

  Some were made hopeful by it.

  ‘Look, girl,’ said Arthur Evans. ‘I know we’ve had some bad times recently and a lot of it’s been my fault. But let’s make an effort, shall we? It’s Christmas, eh? Let’s see what we can make of ourselves, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gwen. But her eyes did not shift from the book she was looking at.

  And the atmosphere of hectic unreality made some resolute. Marcus Felstead whistled a Christmas medley to himself as he carefully packed his suitcase.

  But in a house in the heart of the Woodfield Estate there was no whistling as a man searched the streets for the fourth time for his child, then finally, belatedly, picked up a telephone and rang the police.

  ‘It’s happened,’ said Dalziel.

  ‘What?’ said Pascoe, standing at the threshold of the room.

  ‘Mickey Annan. Aged eight. One hundred and three, Scaur Terrace, Woodfield. Didn’t get home from school last night. They broke up yesterday, had a bit of a party. It’s the usual story. His parents thought he’d gone to a friend’s house in the next street. He usually does on that night. But this time it was different, they were all going off for Christmas as soon as their kid arrived. So Mickey wasn’t asked. So he wasn’t missed till nearly ten.’

  Pascoe raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s late.’

  ‘They breed ‘em hard in Woodfield. Anyway, they always kid themselves. Never admit that anything can be wrong until they’ve got to.’

  ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘The usual. One of his mates thinks he said he might go up to the Common. Someone had told him there might be some snow there. He was mad keen on snow.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’

  The Common was the local term used to describe an area of several acres on the western boundary of the Woodfield Estate. It was unfit even for grazing purposes and its main function in human terms was that its near edges provided a useful if unofficial dumping ground for anything and everything. The Common contained a disused quarry, two ponds and a steep-sided stream, all of which had been fenced off after years of complaint. But not even a full-time repair unit could keep up with the constant breaching of the fencing.

  ‘We’ve got a full-scale search going on now. County are standing by with frogmen.’

  ‘House-to-house?’

  ‘No point yet. We’re stretched as it is talking to every kid in the school now that they’re on holiday.’

  ‘He might have just taken a walk and got lost,’ said Pascoe without conviction. ‘Fell asleep behind a wall or in a shed.’

  ‘He should have woken up by now.’

  ‘What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Look after the walking boys. It’ll take them all morning to cover the kids from the school. By then if nothing’s come out of the search, it’ll be time to start asking everyone questions.’

  ‘Anyone in particular? Streets, I mean?’

  Dalziel looked surprised.

  ‘Why, you’ll start by asking everyone on the Woodfield Estate, and if we still haven’t found him, we’ll work our way through the rest of town. There’s only eighty-five thousand of them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Pascoe.

&
nbsp; ‘Think yourself lucky,’ replied Dalziel, shaking a newspaper on his desk. ‘At least they had the plane crash in North Africa this year.’

  Funny man, thought Pascoe as he went swiftly and efficiently to work. Is it just a cover like we all put up? Or does he really not feel these things? What a man to spend Christmas with! I’d be better off at home with all those kids!

  By midday the Common had been turned over with meticulous care, the pools dragged and the frogmen sent down. As far as Mickey Annan was concerned, the result was absolutely negative. But lots of other things were brought up. A list was always made on these occasions and Pascoe glanced quickly down it. A small part of his mind was still on the unidentified weapon in the Connon case. But there was nothing here which rang a bell. The usual household expendables, a suitcase containing some fairly valuable pieces of pewter (dumped by mistake? or stolen and dumped in fear?) and, an item which made Pascoe whistle slightly, two guns. But he had no time for idle speculation. A large-scale map of the Woodfield Estate lay before him. He still had to complete his detectives’ schedules.

  It was one-thirty before he had any lunch. He ate it alone in the police canteen.

  Mickey Annan now went to the back of his mind. He had taken part in the search that morning for a while, talked to some of the children from the school, as well as helping to organize the house-to-house. But he knew it was a routine, automatic business, none the less essential for all that, and nine times out of ten effective. Mickey Annan would probably be found very soon. It was after the finding that the real work began, and Pascoe was not a man given to anticipating events. Except in the line of business.

  His thoughts drifted back to the Connons. The missing boy wasn’t really interfering with the progress of the Connon case, because the progress only existed in theory. Investigations were still proceeding, but unless Dalziel had some private little line well hidden from everyone else, the phrase was as empty as it sounded.

  The only thing that was any clearer to him now than it had been when he started was his picture of the murdered woman. It wasn’t a very complete one. She seemed to have been a reasonable kind of mother to Jenny; at least she hadn’t stimulated any of the strong resentments which seemed to lie uneasily dormant in most daughters, especially those very fond of their fathers. And she seemed to have made Connon a bearable kind of wife. But she had told him his daughter had been fathered by another man and she had tried to separate him from his main interest in life, the Club. Add to this that she was a vain woman with a streak of snobbery, but one who had made a friend of Alice Fernie (who herself was unlikely to pick her friends haphazardly); that she was a man-hunting, high-life-loving girl who had shown no desire to keep up her connection with her old stamping-grounds; and finally, that she apparently received obscene letters with equanimity, merely folding them up and putting them away like love-letters sentimentally preserved; add all these things together and you had a woman who was as incomprehensible as women traditionally are.

  Over his coffee, Pascoe toyed with permutations of possibilities in which Felstead or Evans had written the letter (all the letters?), in which Mary Connon had a lover (someone at the Club? Noolan? Jesus! Or what about Bruiser Dalziel? Joke); in which Connon swung a metal bar held like a spear into his wife’s forehead (jealous rage? didn’t fit. Careful plan? but was he so cold-blooded a man as that?).

  He’d been along all these paths before. They led nowhere yet, except to fantasy in which Gwen Evans held a crow-bar to Mary’s head and Alice Fernie struck it home with a sledge-hammer while Mary, unheeding, watched the television.

  He sighed and returned mentally to the canteen. There was other work to be done. Connon would have to wait. Mary was dead. There was still the faintest of chances that Mickey Annan might still be among the living.

  Connon was angry when the doctor arrived, but even in anger he didn’t lose the moderation of speech or manner which Antony now recognized as his main characteristic.

  ‘I didn’t send for you, Doctor,’ he said.

  ‘Just a checking-up call,’ replied McManus cheerily. ‘Just because you don’t send for me doesn’t mean you don’t need me any more.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Connon. ‘You’ve had a wasted journey.’

  ‘It’s a good way to waste it, then. But I’ll be the judge of how fine you are. You don’t look so hot to me.’

  Connon did not look well. He seemed to be visibly losing weight. His cheek-bones were prominent and the paleness of the skin stretched over them was accentuated by the darkness which ran like a stain round his eyes.

  ‘Come along, then, and let’s take a look at you,’ said McManus.

  Connon had enough of himself left to give Jenny a sardonically accusing glance as he left the room with the doctor.

  ‘He knows it was you,’ said Antony.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. As long as Doctor Mac can do something for him.’

  ‘I’m sure he can,’ said Antony cheerfully. ‘He’ll come up with some witches’ brew.’

  But he could not feel so certain inside that Connon’s malady would respond to physical treatment.

  ‘Do you think the police have given up?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘I don’t know. Do you want them to?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t much care now whether they catch someone or not. But I’d just like everyone to know for Daddy’s sake that he had nothing to do with it. Do you think they took any notice of what you said about the telephone-box?’

  ‘They must have done. There’s a new directory there now. I had a look. But I don’t think my amorous rival Pascoe was too delighted to receive advice and assistance from me. As far as the police are concerned I suspect there’s a very thin line between public support and amateur interference.’

  ‘As if you would interfere in what wasn’t your business!’ said Jenny with mock indignation.

  ‘I see you’ve come to know me well,’ responded Antony. ‘Come and sit on my knee.’

  His hand stroked her leg as he kissed her.

  I’ve been here before, thought Jenny. But she was very glad to be there again.

  ‘Talking of interference,’ said Antony a little while later, removing his lips from the side of her neck.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting,’ she said.

  ‘I think I shall interfere once more. There’s something else which keeps on coming back to me which they might possibly be interested in.’

  Jenny sat upright. ‘What’s that, Sherlock?’

  But they heard a footstep on the stairs and Jenny rose swiftly, smoothing down her dress.

  The door opened and McManus came in.

  ‘How is he, Doctor?’ asked Jenny anxiously.

  The old man carefully closed the door behind him.

  ‘He’s just putting his shirt on. He’ll be down in a minute.’

  He looked enquiringly at Antony.

  ‘It’s OK, Doctor,’ said Jenny. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Well, physically there’s nothing I can put my finger on. He complains of being listless, loss of appetite, that kind of thing. But this we might expect. Also his head still pains him from time to time where he got that knock. But I think this is like his other symptoms. There’s nothing wrong. It’s purely nervous in origin.’

  ‘But he seems to be getting worse, not better,’ protested Jenny. Antony put his arm comfortingly round her waist.

  ‘Yes. That’s true. It’s a delayed reaction, not uncommon. A kind of shock. He’s been living on his reserves of nervous energy for the past couple of weeks. It can’t go on for ever.’

  He struggled into his overcoat which Antony brought him from the hall.

  ‘But don’t worry. I’ve been his doctor for many years, nearly all his life, I suppose. I’ve seen him like this before, before you were born, when he cracked his ankle the week before the final trial. He went as thin as a rake, and deathly pale then for a couple of weeks. You’d have thought the end had come. But it hadn’t. He got back to normal in no
time. No, no, it hadn’t. It hadn’t.’

  He shook his head and laughed softly to himself at the memory.

  Hadn’t it? wondered Antony. And in what way could the end come twice?

  ‘Well, I suppose you’ve told them three times as much as you’ve told me,’ said Connon from the door. ‘I long ago noted that to a doctor keeping confidences meant telling your patient nothing and his relatives everything. You should all be struck off.’

  McManus laughed as he picked up his bag.

  ‘Goodbye, Jenny; and you, young man. I’ll call in again, Connie, if you don’t call to see me. Take your medicine now and stop worrying your friends.’

  They watched him get into his car, then returned to the lounge.

  ‘Well,’ said Jenny, ‘time for lunch, I think. Antony, make yourself useful for once, love. You’ll find a tablecloth in the top drawer of the sideboard. Set the table, if it’s not beneath your dignity.’

  She went out into the kitchen. Antony grinned in resignation at Connon and began searching for the tablecloth.

  ‘It’s good of you to stay on with us, Antony,’ said Connon. ‘I hope your parents are not too disappointed.’

  ‘It would be foolishly modest of me to say they will not be disappointed at all,’ said Antony, ‘but they are both very understanding. I hope to introduce Jenny to them very soon, when I think they’ll be more understanding still.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Connon. ‘Do I detect a note of serious intent creeping in?’

  Antony pulled out a table-cloth and shook it open with a fine flourish like a bull-fighter showing his cape. Something fluttered to the floor.

  ‘I think it highly probable,’ he said seriously, ‘that I shall marry Jenny eventually, with, of course, her consent and your permission.’

  He bent down to pick up the photograph which was what had fallen.

  ‘In that case,’ said Connon with equal seriousness, ‘we must take an early opportunity of reviewing your prospects.’

  Antony didn’t reply. He was looking closely at the picture in his hand. For one brief moment he had thought it was Jenny, absurdly garbed and with a ridiculously short haircut. Then he realized that the only thing of Jenny’s which was there was the familiar, wide, all-illuminating grin on the face of the young man in muddy rugby kit who was walking alone in the picture.