Deadheads

by Reginald Hill

  Pascoe said firmly, ‘About Mr Burke.’

  She said, ‘Is it the insurance company or has someone been making naughty phone calls?’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘You must have some reason for wanting to talk about poor old Chris after all this time. I was just wondering if there was any way I could get it out of you.’

  She laughed as she spoke, vodka-moist lips drawing back from good white teeth.

  ‘It’s really just routine, Mrs Burke,’ said Pascoe lamely.

  ‘Mandy,’ she said. ‘If you’re not going to be frank, you can at least be friendly. Don’t think me callous, Peter, but I’m well over it now, you see. Life goes on. I’m all for life. Not everyone is, you know. It’s a great jostling race, but all the fun’s in keeping on running. They’ll have to knock me off the track before I let anyone get past, but Chris now, he was just my age yet he acted like my father sometimes. Forty did it for him, he got to forty and somewhere in his mind a little clock went ping! like a kitchen timer, telling him he was now into middle age, and in six months that’s what he became – middle-aged!’

  ‘Yet he went running up a high ladder in the middle of the afternoon,’ observed Pascoe, glancing up at the eaves. ‘I shouldn’t have fancied it.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a mere youngster,’ she said firmly. ‘Checking up on workmen’s part of the middle-age syndrome. Value for money. He had a good head for figures, Chris, but not much for heights.’

  ‘Yes, he was an accountant, wasn’t he?’ said Pascoe, spotting the opening.

  ‘That’s right. Perfecta. They make bathroom fittings and such like,’ she said. ‘You should take a look in my bathroom, Peter, I have everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pascoe. ‘In your evidence at the inquest, you mentioned the bathroom, I believe. You said you had a shower before you went out.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she answered. ‘So I did. I recall thinking later that perhaps it happened while I was actually in the shower. You can’t hear a thing in there – telephone, doorbell, nothing. And I wouldn’t look out on to the patio before I left. Perhaps he was lying there already. Somehow that made it all seem so much worse.’

  The coroner had recorded laconically ‘break’ at this point. Presumably Mrs Burke had been overcome. Even now her handsome face was shadowed.

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Pascoe gently. ‘He died instantly, I gather.’

  ‘Yes, that was a comfort,’ she replied, dabbing at her eyes, smiling bravely, and taking a long drink. ‘Isn’t it warm today? Why don’t you take your jacket off?’

  ‘No. I must be going shortly,’ said Pascoe. ‘When you found him, was there any sign that anyone else had been with him?’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Well, a couple of glasses, for instance,’ said Pascoe holding up his own. She tried to refill it, but he moved it back hastily and she topped up her own instead.

  ‘No. Nothing like that. I recall I put the car in the garage, came out of the door straight on to the patio, and there he was. No sign that there’d been anyone else here. Why should there have been? I mean, if there had been, they would have said, surely?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Pascoe. ‘Tell me, as a matter of interest, did Mr Burke socialize much with his colleagues at Perfecta? Mr Elgood? Or Mr Eagles? Or Mr Aldermann, say?’

  ‘My, you do know a lot, don’t you?’ she said admiringly. ‘I thought, the moment I saw you, there’s a man who knows a lot. Let me see. Elgood, no. He was friendly enough but only in a boss-ish sort of way. Tim Eagles and his wife we swapped dinners with a couple of times a year. As for the other, Aldermann, the one who got his job, Chris reckoned nothing of him. There’d been talk of some trouble when he was in private practice, I believe, but it wasn’t that. Chris wasn’t a man for gossip. Very strict moralist, Chris. Old Testament judgements, but he had to see for himself, he wouldn’t condemn without he had the firm evidence before his very eyes. But he didn’t care for Mr Patrick Aldermann. He said he was superfluous to requirement, even as a part-timer. It was a fix, he said, and Chris didn’t care for fixes.’

  ‘Did he complain about Mr Aldermann?’

  ‘You mean officially? Oh, I expect so. He would hold his peace till he was certain about something, but then there was no holding him. He would make his view known even if it meant half the country knowing his business. Oh bother. The jug’s empty. It just evaporates in this heat, you know. I’m going to make myself some more. Why don’t you unbutton and have a swallow or two with me?’

  She stood up, swayed, placed a hand on Pascoe’s shoulder to steady herself and let gravity direct the heavy bombs of her breasts towards his upturned face. Alarmed, he slipped sideways out of the deckchair, going down on one knee in the process.

  ‘Careful!’ she said anxiously. ‘You haven’t torn your trousers, have you? Never mind if you have. I’m a demon with a needle. I can stitch you up and send you home so your wife wouldn’t notice you’d been mended.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Pascoe assured her. ‘I’ll have to be on my way. Many thanks, Mrs Burke.’

  ‘Mandy,’ she said. ‘Call again. Or drop by my little boutique in the market. Mandy’s Knick-Knacks. I can always find something interesting for a friend.’

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ he said. ‘Isn’t the market open today?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘But I roasted there all morning and decided my assistant could manage by herself this afternoon. It’s all right when you’re young and skinny, but when there’s a bit more upholstering, the sweat just runs off you.’

  She shook herself gently as if to demonstrate the phenomenon.

  Pascoe smiled and retreated, not without relief. But as he drove away he was surprised by an uneasy feeling that, drunk and gamesome though she had been, and though he had resisted all her offers, even of running repairs with needle and thread, yet she had somehow managed to stitch him up in some not yet definable way.

  7

  EMOTION

  (Hybrid perpetual. Beautifully formed flowers, opening from tight buds, pale foliage.)

  Sergeant Wield was privately convinced that the whole Aldermann business was a load of time-wasting crap, and a morning spent catching up on CID paperwork followed by a hasty lunch in an overcrowded, overheated pub, had sent him to his interview with Mr Wellington, the coroner on the Burke inquest, in a far from happy mood.

  Wellington was now retired, a dried-up stick of a man with a strong belief in all those virtues, such as temperance, chastity and respect for authority, which time recommends to the old. But if the years had blunted his appetite, they had done little for his temper.

  ‘Wield? Wield? I remember you. You were saucy with me once, young man. In my own court! I reprimanded you. Severely.’

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ said Wield and pressed on to the matter of Burke. There was no joy here either. Wellington was indecisive only about whether to be more offended by the suggestion that Burke, a man of notorious sobriety, might have been drinking, or that he himself, a man of notorious probity, might have played down such a fact. A lecture followed on the inadequacies of modern policemen, the immorality of modern youth, and the immaturity of modern coroners.

  Musing on the delights of giving evidence at an inquest on Mr Wellington himself, Wield was almost past the station desk when the duty sergeant’s call brought him to a halt.

  ‘Young Singh was asking after you,’ he said. ‘Seemed to think it was urgent.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Wield sourly. ‘Where’s he at?’

  ‘I think he’s down in the canteen,’ said the sergeant. ‘Said he was hot. You wouldn’t think these darkies would feel it like us, would you?’

  Wield grunted, and thought that perhaps a cup of tea would cool his own fevered brow, not to mention his simmering temper. He went down to the canteen. It was almost empty, with no sign of Singh. A DC on his way out said he thought the cadet had gone further down the corr
idor to the locker-room.

  His irritation resurfacing, Wield walked the extra twenty yards and pushed open the door. But he didn’t go in.

  At the far end of the room, naked to the waist, Singh was bent over a washbasin, splashing the running water on to his chest and arms and gently crooning the latest sentimental hit.

  The muscles of his slight, flawless torso moved like light on a pool under a wintry sky. Wield caught his breath, holding perfectly still against the door-frame, but the boy sensed there was someone there and turned.

  ‘Hey, Sarge,’ he said cheerily. ‘I was looking for you.’

  ‘Were you? What the hell are you doing?’ demanded Wield roughly.

  ‘Just having a wash down. Who decides when you can go in shirt-sleeves? These tunics are not what you’d call lightweight, are they?’

  His attempt to sound friendly touched Wield’s heart, but when the boy started moving towards him, drying himself off with a handful of paper towels, Wield said, ‘I’ll be in the canteen for two minutes. No more,’ and left.

  He bought himself a cup of tea, then added a glass of orange squash. There was no need to take brusqueness to the point of boorishness, he felt. And Singh’s attachment was almost up.

  But how long will my attachment continue? he asked himself ironically.

  The cadet appeared half a minute later. His apprehensive expression relaxed slightly when Wield pushed the squash towards him.

  ‘That’ll cool you down,’ he said. ‘Now, what’s so urgent?’

  ‘Well, I saw Mick Feaver this morning,’ began Singh. ‘You know, him that we had in because of vandalizing them cars.’

  As he unfolded his story, Wield’s professional instincts became involved above the personal.

  ‘You’re sure he said Rosemont?’ he demanded.

  ‘Certain,’ protested Singh. ‘And he was sure that’s what Jonty had said because that’s how he could prove he wasn’t lying, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Wield, unsure of the pronouns.

  ‘Anyone could say he was going to do a house next week, couldn’t they?’ explained Singh. ‘There’s always plenty of houses get done. Then he could just pick one and say that was it! Anyway, I thought I’d best tell somebody.’

  ‘You took your time, didn’t you?’ said Wield. ‘You talked to this lad this morning, you say, and now it’s the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘I couldn’t find anyone, and I was kept pretty busy,’ said Singh defensively.

  ‘Oh aye. I forgot how busy they keep you,’ said Wield gently, realizing that the probable truth was the boy had agonized for hours before taking this further and decisive step in his relationship with Jonty Marsh and Mick Feaver. From old mates to villain and ‘grass’ in three days, it was a turn-around rapid enough to bring on a nasty bout of nausea.

  Fortunately, or unfortunately, youth is resilient even in its betrayals, and now Singh proceeded, ‘This Rosemont, Sarge, could it be that place we went out to, with the woman whose Polo got damaged, and the little girl?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Wield. ‘But likely there’s other houses called Rosemont, so don’t be putting in for the police medal yet.’

  ‘But if it is,’ insisted Singh, excitement glowing in his dark, handsome face, ‘will there be a stakeout? Will I be able to come on it?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be so keen,’ said Wield. ‘Even if this lad is talking about the same house, there’s still a lot can happen. Most stake-outs I’ve been on, you just sit around all night, and it’s cold, and it’s dark, and it’s uncomfortable, and nothing ever happens. Come the dawn, you’re red-eyed and stiff and knackered and all you’ve got the energy to do is strangle the silly bugger who put you there in the first place, if you can get your hands on him. So I wouldn’t be so keen to get on the job!’

  He finished his tea and pushed back his chair.

  ‘But we’d better let Mr Pascoe know when he gets back,’ he said. ‘He’s got more artistic hands than me, so the strangulation process shouldn’t be so nasty. On the other hand, he’ll probably pass it on to Mr Dalziel when he comes back from London at the weekend. Have you ever had a good look at Mr Dalziel’s hands?’

  Shaking his head, he stood up and slowly made for the door.

  Peter Pascoe didn’t know whether to be delighted or not with Shaheed Singh’s news. He distrusted simple coincidence. By the time he’d finished questioning the young cadet, Singh felt glad that he wasn’t a criminal and not all that pleased to be a policeman.

  ‘What do you think?’ Pascoe asked Wield after the door had closed behind the relieved youth.

  ‘Rosemont fits the picture,’ said Wield. ‘Big, but not big enough to have a living-in staff. Nicely isolated without being buried in the countryside. And probably with enough good stuff lying around to be worth nicking without being so good that it’s all carefully catalogued and put in a bank vault when the house is empty.’

  ‘That’s the first thing to check, whether the house is going to be empty in the next couple of weeks,’ said Pascoe. ‘It’s a bastard. If the Aldermanns are going away for a week, say, we can’t afford to stake the place out for seven nights.’

  ‘Might be a fortnight,’ said Wield helpfully.

  ‘Thanks! And I don’t see much percentage in young Singh chatting to his mate again. He’s probably terrified already at what he’s done! Still, we can’t ignore it. You check with the Aldermanns – no, on second thoughts, I’ll do that. It’s about time we met formally, I think. You get hold of Arthur Marsh’s file again and see if there’s anything useful there. And let all ears start flapping for any sound of a link-up between Marsh and these jobs. Mr Dalziel said he’d ring late this afternoon, so I’ll fill him in then. He’ll be thinking that, one way and another, Aldermann’s really managing to hog the limelight! Which reminds me, how’d you get on with Mr Wellington?’

  ‘He didn’t take kindly to the suggestion that an eminent, worthy and respected churchgoer like Burke might have been pissed out of his mind,’ said Wield. ‘He was even less happy at the hint that he might have played down such information.’

  ‘So Burke is stone cold sober,’ said Pascoe. ‘Which was more than you could say for his widow.’

  ‘How did you find her?’

  ‘Available,’ said Pascoe. ‘But evasive too. I had the feeling that I could put my finger on anything but the complete truth.’

  At half past five the phone rang and next moment Dalziel’s stentorian voice was sounding in Pascoe’s ear. After listening to a succinct, pungent, and actionably obscene analysis of the conference so far, Pascoe gave his equally succinct but metaphorically more restrained account of his interviews with Masson and Mrs Burke.

  Dalziel asked several questions, then said, ‘Right, so you think Masson was up to something and Burke’s widow was hiding something?’

  ‘I suppose I do,’ said Pascoe cautiously.

  ‘I’ll think on it,’ said Dalziel heavily. ‘You carry on talking while I’m thinking.’

  Pascoe now told him about Singh’s tip.

  ‘Grand,’ said Dalziel. ‘The lad’s done well. Tell him I’m pleased.’

  ‘But it may be nothing,’ said Pascoe, surprised by the fat man’s enthusiasm. ‘It’s so vague.’

  ‘Vague or not, next time the Aldermanns are out of that house, you’ve got the perfect excuse to be in. You’ll be able to go over the place with a fine-tooth comb. Never know what you’ll pick up!’

  ‘I thought the idea would be to prevent illegal access,’ said Pascoe, faintly scandalized.

  ‘You’re not taking a high moral tone with me, are you, lad?’ said Dalziel threateningly. ‘Listen, we’ve got that mad Welsh bugger here, the one who’s always shooting his mouth off on television. What he wants, apart from hanging, flogging, and machine-guns, is for cops to have right of access without warrant, day or night, to any premises anywhere, and all householders to deposit duplicate keys at their local station! He thinks I’m a wet pinko, so you just c
ount your lucky stars.’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’m counting. It’s all right. Now I’ve finished.’

  ‘You’re a telephone hero,’ said Dalziel with scorn. ‘Listen, getting back to Masson, do you think he mebbe reckoned Penny Highsmith destroyed Aunt Flo’s will herself?’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ admitted Pascoe. ‘There was certainly something there, I felt.’

  ‘I’m seeing her on Friday night, I’ll put out some feelers,’ said Dalziel. It was an image which set Pascoe’s mouth twisting in a silent rictus.

  ‘Talking of wills, this Burke woman looked comfortable, did she?’

  ‘Very,’ said Pascoe. ‘And financially too.’

  ‘You dirty young sod,’ said Dalziel. ‘Does she make money out of her market stall, do you think?’

  ‘Maybe. But I get the impression she probably just likes the hustle and bustle and the company, preferably male. She’s pretty flamboyant.’

  ‘That’s a new name for it,’ said Dalziel. ‘It’s probably worth checking on her money, what Burke left her, what her income is now. She’s in the covered market, isn’t she? How did she get a pitch there? They’re not easy to come by, inside or out. One comes vacant, the market traders usually have it sewn up in advance. It’s notorious, any councillor on the market committee is kept in King Edwards for life.’

  Pascoe made a note and said, ‘Any special reason you’re so suspicious, sir?’

  ‘Who’s suspicious? Just curious. Another thing. You say she drove down to the shops at two-thirty, came back at three-thirty, walked out of the garage straight on to the patio, and there he was, dead?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’ve got all the reports here. Inquest, police, medical. It all tallies.’

  ‘Have a look at the list of possessions,’ said Dalziel.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When they took Burke in for cutting up, they’d empty his pockets and itemize the contents,’ explained Dalziel with violent patience. ‘Find the list and read it out.’