A buzzer sounded on her desk. She picked up a phone, listened, said 'Right,' and put it down. 'He'll see you now,' she said to Dalziel.
'Come this way.' If the daughter's office was Regency lady's drawing-room, the father's was Victorian gentleman's study. Stamper rose from behind a huge desk and came to meet him, hand outstretched.
'Come in, Mr Dalziel. It's been a long time since we met. You were only a constable. You've come a long way since then. Congratulations.'
'You've not done so bad yourself, Sir Arthur,' said Dalziel, slightly taken aback by this easy recognition. But why not? Stamper himself was little changed except for a deeper channel in his greyer hair. And if there had been any rough edges to his social act all those years ago, they had been long since polished away. 'Drink?' he said. 'I've got a whisky I'd be glad of your opinion on…' 'Glencora, you mean? I've tried it and I'll not say no to the other half.' He sank into a leather sofa big enough for a small orgy and said, 'By gum, you've got some nice stuff in here.' It was a test. Gentlemen didn't boast about their possessions. Self-made Yorkshiremen gave you provenance and price. 'Have I? I suppose I have,' said Stamper with a faint note of surprise at finding himself judged a man of taste. He handed Dalziel a crystal tumbler full of the pale nectar and sat behind his desk. 'One tends to accumulate things,' he said. 'But I'm not what you'd call a collector. Except for the desk. I collected that. Recognize it?' 'Any reason I should?' asked Dalziel. ‘It's from the library at Mickledore Hall! They sold off some of the furniture before the National Trust got their claws on the place.' 'I see. You wanted a souvenir? Present from Blackpool sort of thing?' 'I wouldn't quite put it like that. But it was undeniably a memorable weekend. None of us came out of it unchanged.' 'Pamela Westropp didn't, that's true,' said Dalziel. 'And Westropp neither. And Partridge's career went up the spout too. But I can't see how it affected you, Sir Arthur.' 'No?' Stamper sounded faintly surprised. 'Ah well. I suppose what you're here for is to find out if I had any doubts about the verdict. Well, I can put your mind at rest. I had none, nor did I find anything reprehensible in the way that Superintendent Tallantire conducted the case.' 'But now that Kohler's been set loose…' 'Administrative incompetence,' said Stamper shortly. 'You mean, like someone left the door open and she just walked out?' said Dalziel. 'I mean that the woman should either have been paroled years ago or if, as is reported, she refused to apply for parole, this should have been judged prima facie evidence of mental derangement and she should have been returned to the psychiatric hospital she started her sentence in.' 'But if she's innocent – and that's what the Home Secretary reckons isn't it… ?' 'Yes, yes,' said Stamper testily. 'So perhaps she didn't help Mickledore directly, but at the very least she probably knew what he was up to and afterwards felt guilty enough to associate herself with the crime. Silly notions these lovesick girls get, don't they?' 'I wouldn't know, sir,' said Dalziel stolidly. 'Must have been a nasty shock for you too, being such a close friend of Sir Ralph's.' 'We weren't all that close.' 'Close enough for him to borrow money, but?'
'To borrow a tenner some degree of closeness may be necessary,' said Stamper. 'For larger sums, a commercial arrangement is enough.' 'You got your money back, did you, sir?' 'I got what I wanted. Money's not everything, Dalziel. But perhaps you find that hard to understand.'
'Job satisfaction, you mean? Oh, I think I understand that.' 'Then perhaps you'll understand what a joy it was to be a British businessman in those days. The 'fifties and early 'sixties. We'd won the war from 'thirty-nine to 'forty-five, but we nearly lost it again from 'forty-five to 'fifty- one. Cleaning up after those socialists was a frightful chore, but we did it, by God we did it! And we got our reward.' 'Oh aye. I remember. You'd never had it so good.' 'And Macmillan was right! And we'd have had it even better if it hadn't been for that stupid tart! Sixteen years we lost because of her.' 'I always heard Mr Profumo had summat to do with it as well,' said Dalziel, with a mild attack of feminism. 'Any road, the good days came round again for you and your mates.' ‘Indeed they did. But it never felt the same. In those days we were set fair to get back on top of the heap again. Now, we've got to struggle to keep up with the French, for God's sake!' He glanced at his watch. End of interview? thought Dalziel. Instead Stamper plucked the glass from his hand and said, 'Refill?' 'As much as you like. It's grand stuff.' 'I'm glad of your approval. I always take expert advice before an investment.' ‘Investment? You mean…?' Sir Arthur smiled. 'Come, come. Can't have senior police officers mixed up in insider dealing, can we?' 'I suppose not. Getting back to Sir Ralph, did he strike you as the kind of man who'd sacrifice himself for a mate?' 'What?' Stamper considered. 'Yes, it's possible. Certain kinds of breeding develop a sense of loyalty incomprehensible to outsiders.' 'Like in pedigree dogs, you mean? I've never thought of it like that,' said Dalziel, his face aglow with innocent interest. A line of loathing momentarily creased Sir Arthur's mask. A phone squeaked on the huge desk. He picked it up, listened, and said, 'No, that's fine. Send him up.'
Replacing the receiver and his good-natured smile, he said, 'How's your drink, Mr Dalziel?' So once again, all was made clear. It was Hiller who'd arrived, Dalziel had little doubt of that, and even less that this clever bastard had known all along his own visit was unofficial, keeping him talking to engineer a head-on collision with Adolf. Sooner or later such a confrontation was inevitable. Dalziel wasn't frightened of it, but he'd rather it had been later, and he didn't care at all to be manoeuvred into it. He could lie about their discussion, of course, but it occurred to him that the sly bastard probably had a tape running in his desk. On the other hand, it had been Stamper who set the reminiscence ball rolling by recognizing him … He said, 'Well, it's been nice talking about old times. Sir Arthur, but I really must get down to business. Private security forces. There's been a lot of concern expressed lately about the use of private security groups, the way they're recruited and trained, and the limits of their authority. We've got an inquiry team operating in Mid-Yorkshire and I'm going round neighbouring police authorities gathering facts. Now, here at Inkerstamm you've got your own organization and there's been some disquiet expressed about it…'
Stamper was looking surprised, a genuine dropped jaw surprise, not an upper class raised eyebrow imitation. But the voice was holding out.
'I'm sorry? What on earth are you talking about?' Suddenly Dalziel was on his feet, leaning over the desk, his mouth almost touching Stamper's face so that though his whispered words would be beyond reach of even a sensitive microphone, they would reverberate thunderously in the man's ear. 'I'm talking about puffed-up noddy merchants who keep private armies so no one can get close enough to tell 'em what pathetic little pricks they really are.' 'Now just tha' hold on, Dalziel! No bugger talks to me that way!' It was there, the old Yorkshire accent, loud and sweet. Dalziel stood back and said, 'Ee bah gum, Art. It's grand to have thee back wi' real folk again.' There was a tap at the door which opened almost simultaneously to reveal Deputy Chief Constable Hiller. 'What fettle, Geoff – sorry – sir?' cried Dalziel. 'Sir Arthur and I are just this moment finished. Thanks for your cooperation. I'll see myself out.' Pausing only to make sure his glass was empty, he pushed between the lowering-faced Hiller and the puzzled-faced Wendy Stamper, and went quickly across the hallway into the woman's office. There was an outside phone on the desk. He picked it up, dialled. A voice said, 'South Yorkshire police, can I help you?' 'CID. Mr Monkhouse, please. That you, Des? Andy Dalziel here… I'm grand. Listen, you know that private security review we set up in the county? Well, I'm taking a personal interest and I'd like your OK to me asking a few questions round your patch…
Thanks. Oh, and I'd like it yesterday, if that's OK… Aye, I'll tell you about it some time. Thanks a lot. I owe you a pint. All right, two. Cheers.' He put the phone down as Wendy Stamper came back into the room. 'Just checking the time,' he said. She said, 'That man Hiller seemed surprised to find you were here.' 'Adolf? I shouldn't worry. His short-term memory's going. Anything surprises
him that happened later than nineteen sixty-three. That's why he's on this inquiry.' 'And why are you on it, Mr Dalziel?' She hadn't, he decided, been in on her father's little trick, but she had worked out for herself that something fishy was going on. 'Justice,' he said sternly.
'Justice? You mean that because the innocent have suffered once, you want to make them suffer again?' He didn't think she was talking about Mickledore and Kohler. He said, 'See much of your mother, do you, Miss Stamper?' 'No.' 'Because she's in America, you mean?' probed Dalziel.
'Jet-setter like you, that should be no problem.' 'I don't see that this is any of your business. Can I have your pass, please?' He handed it over, she filled in a time, signed it and handed it back. 'That'll get you through the gate if you show it in the next fifteen minutes.'
'You count 'em in and you count 'em out? That's tight security.' 'You object?' He smiled and fixed the label back in his lapel. 'Of course not. How come your brother blames your dad while you lay it all on your mam? She stuck around till you were old enough to look after yourselves, didn't she?' 'I was old enough to see what was going on a long time before that,' she said. 'Girls mature a lot earlier than boys.' 'Is that right? My experience is, kids see a lot but don't understand the half of it, not even lasses.' 'Then you must have had a very easy time of it,' she flared. He scratched his chin reflectively and said, 'Didn't have to suffer a lot of country house weekends, that's for sure.' 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't make comments about other people's lives. What do any of us know about each other?' She was back in control. 'Look, you'd better be on your way. Superintendent, or I'll have to do your pass again.' 'Right. Mebbe we'll meet again.
Thanks for the drink. Nice drop of pop, that Glencora. Could do really well with the right management, don't you think?' Her face smoothed into an android blank as she answered, 'I wouldn't know about that, Mr Dalziel. Goodbye.' He pondered on this and other matters as he drove back to the gate. The barrier was down, the jovial giant was leaning against its centre, one huge hand negligently raised. Dalziel slowed to a crawl but he kept going. The giant's complacent smile remained till the car got within a couple of feet. Now he frowned his disapproval and leaned forward to slap the bonnet commandingly.
Dalziel looked puzzled and kept on coming. The bumper made contact with the guard's shins, nudging them back till they could go no further and he came sprawling across the bonnet, his buttocks wedged tight against the barrier and his eyes popping with anger and shock.
Now Dalziel put the brake on, climbed out of his seat, walked slowly forward and unhooked the man's long truncheon from his belt. Holding it vertically, he said softly, 'Some people might say this was an offensive weapon, friend. Me, I reckon it's just a spare backbone. And unless you'd like me to fit it personally, I suggest you raise that barrier without opening your mouth. Not even to smile. Especially not to smile.' He strolled to the rear of the car, laid the golden truncheon under the back wheel across a slight unevenness in the surface, climbed into his seat and reversed slowly. There was a satisfying crunch. The giant straightened up. Dalziel smiled at him through the wind-screen and laid a finger across his lips. The man turned away and raised the barrier. It seemed to take more effort than it had before. Dalziel drove away. There was another nice crunch which he enjoyed. Not a bad morning's work, he thought. But he did not deceive himself. There was trouble approaching. But so what? It was going one way, he was going the other, and soon it'd be behind him with all the other trouble that littered his past. Clear horizons were for boring holidays on the Costa Brava. Hell, which he didn't believe in, would be sun, sand, and a tideless sea. And heaven? (Which he didn't believe in either.) Good whisky in your belly. Satisfaction in a job well done. Anticipation of a struggle ahead. And a mate or two you could rely on. In fact, the status quo. The conclusion took him by surprise. Was he really in heaven after all, sitting in a stuffy car on a crowded motorway? Perhaps he was. And perhaps knowing it made it hell after all. He shook his head in irritation. He was thinking too much, like the boy, Pascoe, and look how miserable it made that poor sod. He leaned all his considerable weight on to the accelerator and slipped into the endless line of cars doing no more than 20 m.p.h. over the legal limit heading north in the outside lane.
ELEVEN
'My way out of this is to put you all in the wrong.' The explosion came at two o'clock that afternoon. There was still no sign of Dalziel when Pascoe returned from lunch but there was an urgent message requesting their immediate attendance upon the Chief Constable. The atmosphere in the Chief's office was like a First World War court martial. Trimble's face was stern though relatively neutral, but Hiller, occupying a chair ambiguously placed to one side of the Chief's desk as though to give him a buttock on both the seat of judgement and the prosecution bench, wore the expression of a vengeful hamster. 'Mr Dalziel?' said Trimble. 'Not back yet, sir.' 'Back from where?' demanded Hiller. It was a wife-beating question, inviting him to admit complicity, claim ignorance, or essay deceit. He said, 'From lunch, sir.' Hiller looked ready to assault him but Trimble intervened. 'I think we can leave Mr Dalziel to answer for himself. Mr Pascoe, I understand you have been detailed to act as liaison officer between Mr Hiller's inquiry team and CID.' 'Yes, sir.' 'I ask because it may be that it was some rather broad interpretation of this duty that took you to Haysgarth to interview Lord Partridge about the Mickledore Hall case yesterday morning.' It was a tenuous line of defence but probably the only one possible that Trimble was offering him. Yet all that Pascoe could think was how wrong he'd been to even dream that he could trust a lord. 'Yes, Mr Pascoe?' prompted Trimble.
Oh, sod it, thought Pascoe. What was the point of all this boxing clever when down the road they were already drawing lots to see who got the firing squad detail? 'No, sir,' he said. 'No, what?' 'No, it wasn't any such misinterpretation of my liaison role that took me to Haysgarth.' 'All right,' said Trimble, patience at end. 'Then what?'
Pascoe drew in a deep breath and with it, or so it seemed, the office door, which swung slowly open to reveal Dalziel. 'Got a message asking me to drop by, sir,' he said, making it sound like an invitation to afternoon tea. Had he been listening at the door? wondered Pascoe, as perhaps did Trimble for he said, 'Excellent timing, Andy. As always. I was just asking Mr Pascoe here why he interviewed Lord Partridge yesterday.' 'Oh, that. Don't be too hard on the lad, sir. I admit I were a bit narked myself when I heard what a cock-up he made, but after my experience this morning, I've got a lot more sympathy.' He shook his head ruefully. Pascoe groaned inwardly, Hiller's lips, already tight, faded to a pale line, and Trimble sat back in his chair and looked as if he were trying to think of England. 'Explain,' he said gently. 'It's this private security firm inquiry you're so keen on, sir. Lord Partridge since he came out of politics doesn't get any official protection but he does have a firm called SecTec who keep an eye on things. So I thought his lordship would be just the man to give us a customer's eye view of the private sector. Only it seems Peter, Chief Inspector Pascoe that is, let himself be lured into some idle-chit-chat about the Mickledore business. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if his lordship weren't trying to pump the lad, you know how these politicians' minds work. Any road, her ladyship came in, got her knickers in a twist, and Mr Pascoe, being a well bred sort of chap, thought it best to beat a retreat.' Hiller could contain himself no longer. 'And I suppose coincidentally that's what happened to you this morning when you spoke with Sir Arthur Stamper?' 'Aye, that's right,' said Dalziel, beaming with pleasure at Hiller's perspicuity.
'Perhaps I should warn you that Sir Arthur taped your conversation.'
'Grand! Then if you listen to it, you'll hear it was him that recognized me from way back and set off talking about Mickledore. I had a hell of a job getting him back on course. Then you turned up, Geoff, and steam had to give way to sail.' If Hiller had grown a Hitler moustache, he would have swallowed it by now. Trimble said almost indifferently, 'I suppose you had cleared yourself with South before going to Sheffield?' 'Oh yes. Des
Monkhouse'll have it on record.' 'I don't doubt it,' snarled Hiller. 'Called in one of the famous Dalziel favours, did you? And what about your lad here visiting Mavis Marsh? I suppose that was about private security firms as well? I warned you what would happen if you got in my way, Dalziel – ' 'Mr Hiller.' Trimble spoke quietly but his voice was like a gunshot across a saloon brawl. He let the ensuing silence confirm itself, then went on, 'I think I'd like a private word with Mr Dalziel now. I'm sure you have a great deal of work on your plate, and I assure you it will proceed without any impediment. Mr Pascoe, thank you for… coming,' he concluded. As they descended the stairs together, Hiller said without looking at him, 'I'm disappointed in you, Mr Pascoe. I'd heard good things, but I see now that bad habits are not easily avoided if you keep bad company.' 'I'm sorry, sir. But if loyalty's a bad habit, then you're right. That's all that's motivating Mr Dalziel, loyalty to his old boss. OK, so he acts… erratically sometimes, but the only thing personal in it is that sense of loyalty. That can't be altogether bad, can it?' He spoke with a passion born more of uncertainty than conviction and now Hiller looked at him. 'I believe in loyalty too, Mr Pascoe,' he said, with something not unlike sympathy in his thin voice. 'Loyalty to a common cause.
Anything else is just personality cult. But there are other habits you might care to pick up from Andy Dalziel. For instance, he prides himself on not letting himself be used. Now there's a quality worthy of emulation by all of us, wouldn't you say?' They parted. Pascoe went back to his office and tried to settle to some work but his head was overcrowded with Hiller's words and speculation about what was being said up in the Chief Constable's office. At last he heard the approaching beat of Dalziel's step accompanied by a bravura humming of Colonel Bogey. Sometimes he came at you like Queen Mab and sometimes like the band of the Coldstream Guards. 'There you are, then,' cried the Fat Man as he came through the door. 'Come on. I'll need you around when I clear up so you can see where things are.' 'Clear up..
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