Dalziel 09 Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  'I tried to be friendly,' Keech protested. 'I wanted you children to call me Auntie Ella, remember? But you wouldn't.'

  'You should've refused to answer to anything else,' said Lexie.

  'Like you when you stopped being Alexandra? Oh, there was a difference, Lexie. All that would have happened with me was you'd not have spoken to me at all. I'd no illusions, Lexie, allow me that at least.'

  'Miss Keech, I think you ought to rest...'

  'No! Pour me a glass of my tonic, there's a love.'

  Lexie looked doubtfully at the bottle. It was almost empty.

  She said, 'Does the doctor say . . .'

  'Damn the doctor!'

  Lexie shrugged and filled a glass. The old woman drank it greedily.

  'That's better. You're a good girl, Lexie. Strange but good. Did you go home last night?'

  'No. I stayed here.'

  'Here? You didn't let him touch you, did you? He's a nice boy, Rod, but they're all the same when it's dark. All grey in the dark, aren't they?'

  This seemed to amuse her disproportionately and she laughed till she coughed, and had to finish her wine. This seemed to quieten her, and she closed her eyes, and after a while looked to have fallen asleep. But when Lexie rose quietly to go, a thin hand reached out and seized her wrist.

  'Don't leave me, not in the dark, there are devils in the dark.'

  With a suddenness that made Lexie startle, she sat bolt upright.

  'That's what nearly killed the old girl, you know. A devil in the dark. That's what she used to say, remember?'

  This she cried out loudly, and then settled back against her pillow and said, 'Stay with me, stay with me.'

  'Yes, I will.'

  'No, you'll go soon as I close my eyes! I know you will . . .'

  Her face became cunning and she said slyly, 'I'll tell you something if you'll stay.'

  'I said I'll stay, Miss Keech. Try to rest.'

  The woman's mood changed direction once more.

  'You're a good girl, I've always known it. You won't leave me alone, I've been alone too much, I've lived alone . . .'

  'No. You've lived with Great Aunt Gwen . . .'

  'That was like being alone!' she cried. 'A loonie and a ghost, they're no company! But I won't die alone, I won't, I won't!'

  Lexie was growing increasingly alarmed. In an effort to divert the old woman she said, 'You were going to tell me something interesting.'

  For a second there was blankness, then the sly smile returned.

  'Interesting? No; more than interesting. Something strange and terrible and sad . . . oh Lexie . . .'

  She trembled on the edge of tears, then went very still as if in the effort of containing them.

  'Come close, Lexie,' she whispered. 'I don't want her to hear . . . Come close . . .'

  It was more than an hour before one of the silences which punctuated the sick woman's ramblings stretched far enough for Lexie to relax her strained hearing and bring her mind to bear on what she had heard.

  Downstairs the phone rang.

  At the first note, Miss Keech sat upright.

  Oh, damn! thought Lexie.

  She opened her mouth to offer reassurance, but before she could speak, the woman said briskly, 'Of course, you and Jane may play down there as much as you like, Lexie. And of course you may have the key to the door. But remember what I told you, Lexie.'

  She smiled; a curve of the lips as jolly as a sickle moon on a stormy night. Then her eyes focused at a point near the door with an intensity which made Lexie want to turn and look too. The old woman shook her head as though in denial, then her eyes closed and she sank back down into her pillow.

  The phone was still ringing.

  Swiftly Lexie descended into the hall and picked up the receiver.

  'Lexie, it's Rod.'

  'Hello.'

  'Everything all right?'

  She hesitated enough before replying to be noticeable by a man less absorbed in his own cares.

  'Fine,' she said. 'And how are you? You still sound worried.'

  'I should be. Pascoe was here before the play tonight, rabbiting on about Pontelli. It didn't do my performance much good, I tell you. Has he tried to see you at all?'

  'Not that I know of.'

  'Good. I just thought he might try something clever like saying I'd caved in, so I thought I'd better ring to say I've stuck to the story. Anyway, enough of selfish me. How's Keechie?'

  'She's been a bit incoherent, almost non-stop rambling. Mainly about Gwen and black devils. All kinds of odd stuff. She kept on getting to a certain point, then breaking off. I got the impression that . . .'

  'What?'

  'Nothing, I'll tell you when I see you. Will you be long?'

  At last her unease got through to Lomas.

  He said, 'Look, I've got to hang on for the curtain calls. After my showing tonight, I daren't get Chung's back up! But I won't wait for that bloody bus. I'll grab a taxi again and blow the expense.'

  'It'll cost a fortune.'

  'Worth it. Lexie, I think I love you.'

  'Yes,' said Lexie quietly and put down the receiver.

  She stood in the hall for a while. This was the first declaration of love any man had made to her, but it did not occupy her mind for long. There would be another time to contemplate that in. Meanwhile there were other kinds of love to ponder here and now.

  Above nothing stirred.

  She went through into the kitchen. Its new brightness was a comfort and she told herself she had come through here to make herself a coffee and sit quietly and wait for Rod.

  Something moved behind her and she spun round to see the door slowly opening. Before she could cry out, she saw what it was, and a muted sob of relief, like a soft cough in a concert hall, was all she released as Bob, the big black labrador, paddled into the room.

  But the stimulus was enough. Fear had never frozen her but always spurred her to action. It was a version she guessed of her father's bloody-minded stubbornness in the face of opposition. Now she went to the keyboard on the wall above the refrigerator. The key she wanted wasn't there. With a sigh, she went back upstairs into Miss Keech's room and gently removed the bunch of keys from the dressing table top. The woman did not move or open her eyes, but Lexie had a sense of mocking observation.

  Downstairs again, she checked the keys. They duplicated those on the keyboard in the kitchen with a single exception. Both copies of the key Lexie was looking for were on Miss Keech's personal ring.

  As she descended into the cellar, she recalled that Sunday afternoon more than ten years earlier when she had come with simulated boldness down these same steps, determined to disperse the aura of horror Miss Keech had wantonly conjured up in this place. She knew now of course what she had not known then, that truth is not always triumphant over dark imaginings, that an idea, however outrageous, can often be stronger than a fact, however firm. Jane had never played in the cellar again and even her own penetration of the empty inner chamber had not restored the old innocence to the outer room.

  The dumped furniture looked much the same. She let her mind drift into the pleasant margins of nostalgia for a moment. That sofa had been an elfin ship; that tallboy had been a tyrant's tower ... But rapidly she steered herself back from such weakening distractions.

  Against the door of the small wine-cellar stood an old linen chest. Packed full of God knew what, it felt heavy and immovable to the thrust of her skinny arms. But when she looked more closely, she discovered some pieces of wood wedged underneath and once she removed these, the chest slid easily aside on silent castors.

  And now the door.

  The key slipped into the keyhole with no difficulty. Deftly she turned it in the oiled wards and pushed the door open with a quiet ease more sinister far than any Gothic screeching. The light from the main cellar seemed to trickle in like water, slowly filling the inner chamber so that there was no sudden shock, only a gradual awareness of horror, the more intense because her mind f
urther delayed it with the assurance that what she saw must exist only in her fevered imaginings.

  The wine-racks had been pulled together to form a bier (Lomas's bitter bier, her mind punned desperately in another effort to distance the horror) and on it lay, head turned towards her so that absent eyes seemed to watch her entrance from empty sockets, a body.

  Fear urged her backwards to escape it; fear of fear urged her forwards to examine it. For once in her short life she was uncertain which impulse would win. Then both died and in the same instant were reincarnated, as she heard behind her careful footsteps descending the cellar stairs.

  Chapter 11

  The girl on the switchboard at the Challenger offices insisted on seeing Pascoe's warrant card.

  Satisfied, she said, 'He's popular with you lot tonight, isn't he? Hang on, I'll just jot down his address.'

  'Popular? Why do you say that?'

  'Well, there was the other chap, wasn't there?'

  'Which other chap? What did he look like?'

  The girl laughed.

  'He was no beauty, I can tell you that! I could hardly believe it when he said he was a copper. That's why I asked to see his card and, fair do's, I thought I'd better see yours too. A sergeant he was. Field or something like that.'

  Postponing his contemplation of the implied proposition that beauty was a prerequisite of the police, Pascoe took the address and hurried away. What the hell was Wield doing here? he asked himself. The only answers he could give were not reassuring and he drove through the Friday-night busy streets of Leeds at a speed which won him no friends. Twice he lost his way in a maze of suburban terraces before he pulled up outside the tall narrow house he was looking for.

  There was a list of names by the door, most of them illegible. He didn't waste time. The door was open and he went straight in, planning to knock and inquire at the first door he came to, but this proved unnecessary. From the floor above he heard a muffled cry and a thud. Up to the landing. A door stood ajar. He pushed it fully open and went in.

  'Jesus Christ!' said Pascoe.

  On the floor lay Henry Vollans. He was wearing nothing but a bathrobe open wide to reveal his naked body. Between his splayed legs stood Sergeant Wield and for a second Pascoe thought he was interrupting some homosexual love-play. Then he saw the length of shining metal in Wield's upraised hand and the expression of sheer terror on Vollan's face and decided that this went beyond the bounds of nice, straightforward sado-masochism.

  'Wield!' he said. 'For God's sake!'

  The sergeant turned on him with a snarl, as if prepared to treat him as an aggressor. Then he recognized the newcomer and the out-thrust blade, which Pascoe now saw was some kind of bayonet, was lowered.

  'What are you doing here?' demanded Pascoe.

  'Same as you, I hope,' said Wield.

  The reporter, seizing the chance offered by this distraction, scrabbled his way across the floor and pulled himself up on a sofa, covering his body with the robe.

  Pascoe, lowering his voice, said, 'Dalziel got a phone call saying Vollans was a member of that White Heat group and suggesting we ask where he was on Wednesday night.'

  'He was just about to tell me that,' said Wield, turning back to the terrified reporter.

  Pascoe seized the sergeant's arm.

  'For fuck's sake, Wieldy, put that thing down. Where'd you get it anyway?'

  'One of our friend's little war souvenirs,' said Wield. 'Take a look in that cupboard.'

  Pascoe looked and turned away, sickened. He led the sergeant to the doorway out of earshot of the man on the couch.

  'OK, Wieldy,' he murmured. 'So he admires Hitler and loves the Ku Klux Klan, but that doesn't make him a killer.'

  'He lied about his appointment with Cliff,' said Wield. 'I knew there was something wrong. Why the railway buffet? The bus station cafe would be the obvious place to come to his mind. And why first thing in the morning? What was he going to do that night? Come back to my place where he'd left all his stuff? No. I reckoned he'd be in such a rage that he'd want to get back at me straightaway.'

  'Mebbe. But . . .'

  'I talked to Charley. He remembers Cliff being there that night. And he remembers he went out with a young fair-haired chap. I thought of Vollans. I couldn't see what it meant, but I thought it'd be worthwhile having a little chat.'

  'Some chat!'

  'He tried to give me the runaround. I'd come too far to be turned off with a smooth answer, so I belted him in the gut and had a look around. When I opened that cupboard, I had a good idea I was in the right spot.'

  There was a movement by the sofa. Vollans was on his feet. He was clearly regaining control of himself though he still looked more like a frightened fox than Robert Redford.

  'You can't do this,' he said in a high voice. 'I'm Press. This'll be all over the front page of every paper in the country!'

  Pascoe ignored him.

  'What's he said to you, Wieldy?' he asked quietly.

  'Nothing yet. You came in just when it were getting interesting.'

  'All right. Now I'll handle it, understand?'

  The sergeant obviously understood, but equally obviously didn't agree.

  Pascoe sighed and stepped towards Vollans.

  'Henry Vollans,' he said. 'First let me caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Next I'd be grateful if you would get dressed and accompany me to the nearest police station for further interrogation. Oh, and can you give me your car keys, please, as your vehicle will be required for forensic examination?'

  'I don't have to do any of this,' protested the reporter. 'I want to ring my office. I want to contact a solicitor.'

  'Mr Vollans, that's your right,' said Pascoe. 'But I'm in a bit of a hurry, so in that case, I'll leave Sergeant Wield here to bring you in when you're ready, shall I?'

  The sergeant stepped forward. He was still holding the bayonet.

  'Don't leave me with that lunatic!' screamed Vollans. 'I'll come! I'll come!'

  Chapter 12

  Lexie Huby stood very still.

  Miss Keech had sunk exhausted on to the lower cellar step, but there still looked strength enough in those gnarled and speckled fingers to raise the long-barrelled pistol which rested on her knees.

  'It was his, you know. Sam Huby's. Your father's uncle. He brought it back from the war. The First War. He kept it for security. And when he died, she kept it. I knew it was there, of course, in the bedside drawer. But I didn't think it would fire. I certainly never thought she would fire it. But she did. Just the once.'

  'She? Great Aunt Gwen?'

  Miss Keech looked at her as if surprised to find her there. Then that sly smile which Lexie had noticed earlier crept across her lips.

  'I told you, didn't I? Lexie, I said, if you open that door you must bear the consequences. But you never took any notice of me from a little girl. None at all!'

  'Tell me what happened, Miss Keech,' said Lexie peremptorily.

  Perhaps it was the tone of voice, echoing Great Aunt Gwen's when she addressed her underlings, that did the trick. Suddenly the old Keech was back, in voice at least, matter of fact, neutral of tone.

  'All right. We'd just got back from Italy, well, from London really. We broke our journey in London. Perhaps he followed us? Yes, I'm pretty certain that must be it. Our first night back. We were both very tired, but a noise awoke me. One of the animals, I thought. They were such a nuisance, but she insisted they had the run of the place. Anyway, something made me get up. I went out of my room. Her door was ajar. The glow from her night light spilled out on to the landing. I could hear her voice speaking. I went a couple of steps towards it when I heard another voice, a man's voice saying, Mother? I froze. Mrs Huby said, Who's there? Closer! Closer! Let me see! And then she shrieked and the gun went off and this figure came reeling out and down the stairs, staggering like my dad used to on a Saturday night when he came home drunk.

  'I rushed in. She was sitting up in b
ed, the gun - this gun - still smoking in her hand. She said, "It was a devil, a devil pretending to be my son!" Then her mouth went all twisted and she stiffened in the bed and no more words would come. I didn't know what to do so I rushed downstairs to the telephone to call for help. And he was still there, lying in the hallway face down! I almost fainted, but he wasn't moving, he was so, so still. I had to get by him to reach the phone. I put the light on and stooped down to look and see if he was dead or just unconscious. And then I recognized him. All those years, and I could still recognize him!'

  Lexie cast a horrified glance over her shoulder.

  'You mean it really was him? Alexander, her son, come home?'

  Now Miss Keech laughed with a mad heartiness.

  'You stupid girl!' she said. 'How could we ever, ever have thought you were clever? Oh yes, the son had come home all right. But not to her, not to that mad old woman. It was my son who'd come, Lexie, my son!'

  It was only now that Lexie began to be seriously worried for her life. A delusion as strong as this was capable of taking off in any direction.

  She said brightly, 'So Alexander was really your son? I never knew that.'

  Miss Keech looked at her in amazement.

  'Is something wrong with you, girl? Are all the Hubys mad? It was Richard, my own son, lying there. He'd got into the wrong room, poor lad. Though what I'd have done with him if he'd come to me, I don't know. You know what old Gwendoline was like about blacks. That's why I gave him up in the first place. One of the reasons, anyway. You've no idea what people were like. Not being married was bad enough, but black! You'd think I'd bedded down with a gorilla or something. I couldn't see an end to it, no money, no job. What could I do? And then I went to see her and chatted her up about Alex, and how marvellous the spoilt little brat had been, and how I was sure he were alive somewhere, and she took me on. But one sniff of my little black bastard and I'd have been out! I went to see him. I always meant one day ... at least I thought perhaps one day . . . but he grew so surly, always on about coming home with me, or not speaking at all . . . it seemed best in the long run not to upset him by . . .'