Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  Not the cleverest of moves to be a woman trailing in the wake of Pious Aeneas!

  Dido, of course, came later, which was a pity. Would have been nice to take a look at him with that on his conscience! Ah well, nothing’s easy, pity then the writer more than other women when she’s got to stick to the facts, even though the facts are pure fiction. As she’d once heard a Booker winner say at a signing, pour out your soul and the world will probably react with silence; get something wrong and smartasses from five continents will e-mail you to tell you about it. Though why this should bother her when she had no intention of letting anyone else see her Comfort Blanket she didn’t know.

  Back to Pious Aeneas.

  He regarded the stranger’s face earnestly for a moment then went on, ‘You don’t look alarmed.’

  ‘Why should I? I mean, you’re not cannibals or owt like that, are you?’

  ‘No, nor owt like that, as you say. But I did think it might have come to your notice that forces representing just about every corner of Greek territory, under King Agamemnon of Mycenae, were at war with Troy, a war which lasted ten years, time enough for news to spread to most places, I should have thought?’

  The Greek’s face screwed up in the effort of recollection.

  ‘Now you mention it, it does ring a bell. Yes, I’m pretty sure someone did say something about it in the taverna one night. Something about a tart, was it? Aye, that’s it, I recall now. We couldn’t credit it. I mean, fighting over land, or fish, or cattle, that I can understand. But grown men fighting a war over a flighty tart, that’s plain daft. You’re not telling me it’s right, are you? Bloody hell, I do believe you are. Well, well. Nowt so queer as folk, eh? So, this war, which of you won it then?’

  Prince Aeneas regarded him quizzically.

  ‘Your compatriots. Not by force of arms, where we matched them; nor by nobility of action and moral desert, where we excelled them; but by low trickery and animal cunning, in which areas they predominated, one man above all others being a master of lies, deceits and treachery. The wily serpent Odysseus.’

  Odysseus, gross, untrustworthy, wheeling, dealing Odysseus, always ready with a fluent lie, often complicated beyond the needs of plausibility out of simple delight in the very act of invention. At least it wasn’t any highfaluting sense of duty or destiny which drove him on. In the end what made him give up a life of endless bliss on Calypso’s enchanted island was simply his unquenchable longing to get back home to his wife and family.

  She and Peter had both been pious Aeneas’s in their way. It had taken Rosie’s skirmish with death to bring their questing ships together. Which, time and tide being what they are, didn’t mean they would sail in convoy for evermore, but now they both knew up front what before they had only assumed subliminally, that no matter what wild waters might seem to separate them, they were bound together as intrinsically as the hulls on a catamaran.

  Jesus, all this nautical metaphor from someone whose longest voyage had been on the old ferry to Skye!

  Where was I? Oh yes.

  Odysseus.

  At the name, a groan of mingled pain and hatred went up from the watching men and they rattled their weapons in anger.

  The stranger, who was listening with the rapt expression of a child hearing a fascinating adult tale which he only half understands, shook his head and said, ‘Odysseus, you say? Now him I have heard of. Right slippery customer from all accounts. Buy a used boat off him and you’d soon have a wet arse. Well, it takes all sorts to

  Was that a noise outside?

  She rose and went to the window, the same window she’d leaned out of twice in her dream. It was a fine moonlit night, just like the one she’d described in her story. No camp fires here, though. Just an empty driveway. Gate slightly ajar; Peter must have forgotten to close it. Deserted street. Some parked cars, but there always were, the overspill of neighbours whose kids had gone through this western rite of passage but couldn’t leave the evidence on the drive as Dad’s chariot still had pride of place in the garage and he needed to be out first in the morning. Nothing moved, not even a cat.

  Then a little way up the street a car began to move forward, sidelights on, at kerb-crawling pace. Short-sighted punter perhaps? It was going left to right so she could see the driver, or at least the oval of a face as he looked towards the Pascoe house, a thin sallow face with a pencil moustache and staring eyes whose gaze locked momentarily with hers in the brief moment of passage.

  Or was she imagining it, deceived by moonlight and shadows, and seeing darkly through the glass of the window, and the distorting glass of her own imagination?

  ‘Mummy.’

  Anyone else’s voice might have startled her but she was still too close to the time when she’d half accepted she might never hear her daughter’s voice again for joy not to swamp all other reactions.

  ‘What are you doing up, my girl?’ she said. ‘Come here.’

  Rosie came into the room and her mother swept her into her arms.

  ‘I heard a noise and I was coming to your room, then I saw the computer light. Are you working?’

  Ellie in Great English Novelist mode had once been a no-go area.

  ‘No, darling. And it wouldn’t matter anyway.’

  The girl looked at her doubtfully. Christ, I must really have hammered home that sacred muse crap, thought Ellie guiltily.

  ‘This a private party?’ yawned Pascoe from the doorway.

  ‘No. Couldn’t sleep. Didn’t mean to raise the house.’

  ‘No problem. Too hot to sleep anyway.’

  He spoke lightly but his eyes were asking questions.

  She thought of telling him about the passing car. But what was to tell? He was worried enough.

  She said, ‘That’s probably it. Here, take Rosie. I’m sure she’s putting on weight. Too much ice cream and burgers. I hope Wieldy doesn’t overdo the hospitality tomorrow.’

  The child had fallen asleep in her arms. Pascoe took her and carried her carefully back to her bed.

  When he returned, Ellie was still standing by the window.

  He said, ‘Look, if you’d rather she didn’t go to Eendale…’

  ‘No. I didn’t mean that. Let’s keep things normal as possible for her sake, right? It’s important, normality. I was just getting used to the idea of it myself when all this…’

  As she spoke, she continued to stare fixedly out of the window. Pascoe moved to her side and peered out too. Nothing. Just the garden, the drive, the road.

  He said, ‘What is it?’

  She said, ‘Something, I don’t know, maybe nothing. I kept on dreaming about seeing that woman, you know, the one who said they were from Ed Welfare, and she got out of the car and I called from the window and she was so surprised she dropped her car keys. And in my dream, I’m so surprised by this that I drop my keys too…’

  ‘Which keys?’

  ‘Don’t know. House keys, I presume. Not much of a nightmare, is it? Not when you think what the old subconscious could be having a go at. The lies about the bus breaking down, me cracking his nuts, poor Daphne getting her nose broken…’

  ‘Even your subconscious is determined not to be intimidated,’ said Pascoe. ‘Now how about we try for some sleep?’

  He drew her away from the window, but she broke free from him after a couple of steps and headed back.

  He could tell from her face that something had happened, one of those illuminations of memory which make the previous darkness seem attractive.

  ‘Oh shit, Peter. Shit,’ she said.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter?’ he demanded with the aggression of fear.

  She stared out of the window then slowly turned to face him.

  ‘That woman. She was so surprised she dropped her car keys. That’s what I told you, isn’t it? Only she wasn’t driving. She got out of the passenger door. So what was she doing with keys in her hand? Not car keys, that’s for sure. He was the driver.’

  ‘Then wh
at?’ he snapped, demanding an answer he already had. ‘What?’

  She hesitated before answering, and when she did it was in a controlled, almost resigned voice.

  ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘I think she had a key to the house. Why else would she be heading towards our front door with a bunch of keys? She was planning to unlock the front door and walk into our house. As if she owned it. And that was why I was so shocked in my dream I dropped my own keys. It was like a mirror image, Peter. When she looked up at me in my dream, I saw myself.’

  They stood stock-still, staring at each other like two actors in a freeze frame at the end of a movie. Except it wasn’t over yet, not by a long way.

  Pascoe broke the freeze, saying lightly, ‘If there’s another you wandering around, I want my money back. Listen, love, it’s probably nothing but we’ll take no chances. I’ll get the locks changed tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d like that. You did bolt up?’

  ‘Of course. But I’ll check. You get back to bed.’

  ‘I’ll just look in on Rosie.’

  This was getting to her, he thought as he went downstairs. Day out at Enscombe would do her good tomorrow, but it would be better if somehow he could contrive to spirit her and Rosie right out of town till things got sorted.

  The bolts were all in place as he knew they would be. But there was something which hadn’t been there when he came to bed.

  A folded sheet of paper lay on the hall mat.

  He picked it up and opened it.

  Fair Mistress Pascoe, though thou art watched, yet am I near, unseen. Our very eyes are sometimes like our judgements blind. I am long past fearing the frown o’ the great but still must fear the tyrant’s stroke, so though faithful still, I still must take care to know you true, which if disproved, then all goodseeming shall be thought put on for villainy.

  This was the oddest stuff. It rang some bells. Elizabethan? Jacobean?

  Hadn’t Wield said that Franny Roote was writing a thesis on Revenge Drama?

  Christ! The man, or a man, had been here, tonight… up the path to the very doorway…

  Why the hell had he been so arrogant to believe that while he was at home, he didn’t need any guard on his house to protect his family?

  He checked up the stairs. Distantly he heard Ellie coming out of Rosie’s room and going into the bathroom. He went into the lounge, picked up the phone and rang South Yorkshire. Happily, despite the hour, he got hold of Stanley Rose, the CID sergeant he’d spoken to earlier when he’d called to register his proposed visit to check out Roote.

  ‘Stan,’ he said. ‘Peter Pascoe again. Listen, something’s happened.’

  He explained briefly, concluding, ‘Could you get someone to call round now, check if he’s there? If he’s not, pull him when he comes back in. If he is, get him to account for his movements earlier tonight and tell him not to go out in the morning as he’s going to have a visitor. Yes, by all means tell him who. I don’t mind if he runs. I’d be almost glad if he did.’

  He put the letter in a plastic bag and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket hanging in the cloakroom. He didn’t like keeping things from Ellie but she was stressed out enough with that crazy nightmare.

  Leaving all the lights on downstairs, he went back to bed.

  xiii

  the death of Marat

  The next morning Pascoe got up very early and phoned South Yorkshire again.

  DS Rose had called personally and found Roote in bed.

  ‘He said he was on shift at the hospital till midnight – you know he’s got a job as a porter there? – and he got home about one. Long time, I said. The hospital’s not far. It is if you don’t have a car and can’t afford taxis, he said.’

  When told of Pascoe’s proposed visit Roote had replied, ‘How kind of him to remember me. I must make sure I’ve got the place nice and tidy for him the way he’d want to find it. Didn’t I hear he’d married someone from the college staff, Miss Soper, I think it was? Tell him I look forward very much to having a chat about the good old days when we were both footloose and fancy-free.’

  ‘Didn’t show any curiosity about why I was coming then?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘No, but I told him, yes, Mr Pascoe was married, and he got seriously pissed off if he thought anyone wasn’t treating his family with respect, and so did all his friends. Seriously pissed off. I think he got the message.’

  Pascoe didn’t doubt it, though he would have preferred it hadn’t been given. From his recollection of Roote, old-fashioned threats were not a helpful option. Way back then, he’d been into mind games, and that was where you had to beat him, not in a back alley with rubber truncheons.

  He said, ‘Thanks, Stan.’

  ‘Pleasure. Give us a call if you need a hand.’

  ‘Don’t you ever go to bed?’

  ‘Of course not. Don’t have a nice old pussycat like Fat Andy to tuck us in down here. Take care now.’

  ‘You too. And thanks.’

  He put the phone down as Ellie came into the room, looking sexily sleepy in her dressing gown.

  ‘Business or pleasure?’ she said.

  ‘You inviting or asking?’

  ‘I’m too knackered even to fake it, love,’ she yawned. ‘Why so early?’

  ‘Need to be on my way soon as DC Bowler shows.’

  ‘Bowler? Oh, that good-looking new boy? Make a change from Miss World of Leather, anyway. So where are you off to?’

  Moment of truth?

  Except what was the truth? That he was going to descend on Sheffield like an avenging angel? Or that he was simply pursuing another routine enquiry?

  More the latter, it had to be. And it was. There was nothing of substance to tie Roote into this business more than anyone else. So it really was routine. Like every cop, he knew that detection was ninety-nine parts elimination to one part inspiration, but he knew that to an outsider (meaning anyone, no matter how close, who wasn’t actually a cop) this often looked simply like an admission of defeat, activity for the sake of not looking idle.

  He imagined saying, ‘You remember Franny Roote, the young man I put away some years ago for the killing of a former principal of the college you taught at? I’m going to see him.’

  ‘Really, dear? Why?’

  ‘Because he is known to be writing a thesis on Revenge Drama. And because someone dropped you a note last night couched in a sort of Elizabethan English. I need to eliminate him.’

  ‘Kill him, you mean?’

  ‘No, just cross him off my list.’

  ‘Oh yes. And then?’

  ‘Then I’m appearing at the magistrates’ court to oppose bail in the case of Kelly Cornelius.’

  ‘Has that anything to do with protecting your family?’

  ‘Well, there’s a vague chance that some seriously nasty people would prefer her to be out on bail where they could get their hands on her.’

  ‘Perhaps the people who are threatening me and Rosie?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And you are opposing bail?’

  No, it didn’t make much sense even to an insider. So he replied vaguely, ‘Nowhere nice as you. Hope you have a great day in Arcadia.’

  ‘Yes. Though I thought I might leave Rosie in Wieldy’s tender care for a couple of hours and pop off to see how Daphne is.’

  Pascoe thought, shit! Dalziel wouldn’t like this. Pascoe had assured him that Bowler would be free after escorting Ellie and Rosie to Enscombe where protection duties would be handed over to the off-duty Edgar Wield.

  ‘Unpaid overtime,’ Fat Andy had said gleefully. ‘Owt for nowt, eh? We’ll make a Tyke of you yet.’

  But now the escort would be needed to stick with Ellie on her visit to Rosemont, stretching the CID’s currently rather thin resources and Dalziel’s always rather thin patience even more.

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Give Daphne my love. I think that’s Bowler now.’

  He went outside and told the young DC about the plan modification.<
br />
  ‘You stick with Mrs Pascoe, the sergeant will take care of Rosie.’

  ‘No sweat, sir,’ said the cheerful young man. ‘I’ll see they come back in one piece.’

  Oh, the certainties of youth, thought Pascoe.

  He went back inside. Rosie had appeared at the kitchen table.

  He gave her a kiss and said, ‘Have a nice day. And don’t get too friendly with that mad monkey of Uncle Edgar’s.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said the child, absorbed in a game of clock patience which surrounded her cereal bowl.

  ‘Never thought I’d feel nostalgic for Nina,’ he said to Ellie as he kissed her goodbye.

  Driving south, he reviewed what he’d dug up about Roote. There’d been some concern about his mental state during the early part of his sentence and for a while he’d undergone treatment at a medical secure unit. Judged fit to return to the main system, he had served thereafter as a model prisoner, and there’d been little question about releasing him as soon as he became eligible for parole. He’d observed the conditions meticulously and through one of the rehabilitation groups had obtained a job in Sheffield as a hospital porter, opting for unpopular night-shifts so that he could spend his free time in research for his postgraduate degree when the libraries were open.

  So, from the penal point of view, a success story; a boat floating peacefully in a placid sea which Roote’s Scottish parole officer hoped, rather aggressively, DCI Pascoe’s visit would not turn gurly.

  Rush-hour traffic was so heavy that what should have been a forty-five-minute run to the northern suburb where Roote had his flat turned into an hour and a quarter. If this proved a long-drawn-out interview it was going to be tight for Pascoe to get back to oppose Kelly Cornelius’s bail at midday.

  On the other hand, if the reason for delay was that he found out Roote really was the man responsible, who gave a toss about Kelly Cornelius?

  There’d been a recent photo in the material faxed through from Sheffield. Pascoe had set it alongside his own memory of Roote at twenty-three, a fair young man always dressed in white or cream, a languid cat-like mover with something of a cat’s reserve and watchfulness behind the easy smiling manner; a charmer when he wanted to be with women of all sorts and conditions, and with men too an effortless leader.