Good Morning, Midnight dap-21

by Reginald Hill

“God, you’re a bigger liar than I am,” complimented the Fat Man. “This turns into a murder case, how’re you going to keep Dolores out of it?”

  “Yes, but if it stays as a suicide case, there’s no reason to involve her.”

  Dalziel did his gobsmacked face.

  “Am I hearing right? After running around squawking like a headless chicken these past days, you’re saying you think this might be suicide after all?”

  “I never said it couldn’t be,” protested Pascoe, slightly indignant at the characterization. “All I know is there’s a lot of oddities, and a few pointers to suggest that Mrs Kafka might have been involved in some way. There’s a history of bad blood between her and Maciver, and now Miss Upshott’s statement suggests she might have had a more immediate motive for wanting rid of him.”

  “Which is?”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, Kay Kafka seems to make a hobby out of putting young men through the ringer. I’m sorry, sir, but it seems there’s been quite a stream of them.”

  He paused to make room for a Dalzielesque explosion, but none came. Why should it? If the Fat Man was interested in you, it was hard to do a lot in Mid-Yorkshire that sooner or later wouldn’t come to his notice.

  He went on, “It’s not hard to understand her motivation after listening to that tape you gave me…”

  “Spare me the psycho-crap, lad,” growled Dalziel. “Just give me the gist of your so-called argument.”

  “All right. She’d shagged Jason then given him his marching orders like the rest. Then a couple of years later she discovers Helen is crazy for him. She thinks she can frighten the guy off, but to her surprise he stands up to her. Now she has a real problem. If she pulls the whole shebang down around their ears it could end with them taking off together anyway, leaving her without what seems to be the most important person in her life. So she takes a long hard look at the alternative. And she gets to thinking, is this really such a bad thing anyway? Helen’s going to marry some day anyway, and here we have a handsome lad, a really hot lover, good breeding stock, in a good secure profession, not too bright, but bright enough not to want to risk his job by amatory adventures. Plus, and I’m certain this was of the essence, she believed he was really deeply in love with the girl. So she gives the thumbs up, but only after making sure Jason is fully apprised of the rules.”

  “Pity the stupid bastard didn’t stick to them,” grunted Dalziel.

  “As I’ve often heard you say, sir, a man can’t turn aside from his cock. And he had Pal Maciver on his case. If Kay wanted the Dunn household to be a little paradise, Pal was the serpent, only this time he went for the fellow.”

  “And why’d he do that?”

  “Malice. Long-standing hate of his stepmother. At first he probably just thought it amusing to know that any time he wanted he could distress Kay by sowing a little discord in his sister’s marriage. But infidelities are forgivable. Chances were that Jason would be taken back into the fold and wicked old Pal hurled into the outer darkness forever. But once Jason let slip that he’d screwed Kay, Pal had a weapon of mass destruction. This wouldn’t just rock the marital boat. This could destroy Kay’s relationship with Helen forever.”

  Dalziel shook his great head, whether to express disenchantment with his fellow man or disagreement with Pascoe’s theory wasn’t apparent.

  “So why’d he not just blow the gaff?”

  “And miss out on the fun? No, he’d let Kay know that he knew. He probably set it up as a blackmail operation, which would explain those payments into his account. But that was never the real object. That was just a way of keeping Kay dangling. He could jerk the cord from time to time, by asking for more money, say. Or by pretending a crisis of conscience and suggesting to her it might be best to let it all come out in the open. Making Kay pay, that was the name of the game.”

  “Pay for what?”

  “For whatever he believed she’d done to him and his family. We may never know the truth of that.”

  Dalziel said with a force no less strong because his voice was unusually quiet, “I know the truth, lad, never doubt that. Get on with your fairy tale.”

  “Kay is a clever lady. She knows what Pal’s playing at. She knows her own little bit of heaven on earth is at serious risk. She guesses that Pal may think the perfect time to strike is shortly after the birth of the twins when her paradise will seem complete. So she decides to get in first. She arranges to meet him at Moscow House. Perhaps she hints that sex might be on offer rather than money. What more fitting rendezvous in view of all that had happened or almost happened there? She gets there in advance to get things ready. When he comes, they have a drink together. When he starts feeling woozy, she says she’d like to look in the study. He sits down in his father’s chair. She puts the shotgun under his chin and blows his head off. She’s shown us she knew where the second gun was hidden.”

  Dalziel said, “Do you really believe any of this, Peter?”

  “I believe it’s possible, sir. And I believe we’ve got to proceed on the lines of that possibility.”

  “Then let’s proceed,” said the Fat Man, standing up. “But remember, Pete. She’s worried about Kafka. OK, I know you think mebbe she knows what he’s up to, but you can’t be sure. So I don’t want you going in there clogs flying.”

  “No, sir. I’ll just get Novello, shall I?”

  “Ivor? What do you want her for?”

  Because I want an independent witness to this interview, thought Pascoe.

  He said, “If Mrs Kafka is really upset, sir, it’s good procedure to have a woman officer in attendance. Is that all right, sir?”

  “You know me, lad. Good procedure’s my middle name,” said Dalziel.

  No it’s not, it’s Hamish, thought Pascoe.

  But this was one piece of arcane knowledge he thought it wise to keep to himself.

  4 A BUCKET OF COLD WATER

  Edgar Wield’s fist was beginning to hurt from hammering at the door.

  A man passing by said, “Surgery’s shut on a Saturday. Hurt your face, have you, mate? You’d best head down to Casualty.”

  Wield carried on knocking. Finally after several minutes more the door opened.

  “What?” snarled Tom Lockridge.

  Haggard, unshaven, with the reek of whisky on his breath, he looked like an illustration for a Graham Greene novel.

  “Your wife said I’d likely find you here,” said Wield.

  What Mary Lockridge had actually said was, “I’d try that whore’s gin-palace at Cothersley. Failing that he could be dossing down at his surgery. And failing that, I don’t give a damn.”

  The surgery being closer than Cothersley, Wield had come here first and his persistence was due to the presence of Lockridge’s Audi badly parked in the street.

  “Oh yes. Any message?” said the doctor with heavy sarcasm.

  “No. Can I come in?”

  “You got an appointment? Yes, why not. Better than performing out here.”

  They went inside. Lockridge sat down in the waiting room and said, “So what brings you into town on a fine Saturday morning, Sergeant, when you could be tiptoeing through the tulips with your mate out at Enscombe?”

  It was an undisguised gibe, and it brought home to Wield just how unprivate a man’s private life could be. Also, up to now uncertain whether to go in hard or soft, it provoked him into a choice.

  “I’m here to ask why, once you had identified the corpse of Pal Maciver, you subsequently failed to disclose your connection with his wife,” he said harshly.

  “I told your boss she was my patient,” protested Lockridge.

  “You didn’t tell us you were shagging her,” said Wield, who when he opted for hard could come close to the Fat Man’s high standards.

  “I didn’t see what my personal relationship with Mrs Maciver had to do with anything,” the doctor blustered.

  “Come off it, Doc! You don’t need me to spell it out, do you? If it was suicide, keeping qui
et was bad enough. But if it wasn’t…”

  Suddenly the bleary eyes were alert.

  “Not suicide? Why? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing,” said Wield, backing off. “I’m just saying that when you examined the body you didn’t know anything for certain about the circumstances of death except that it had been violent.”

  “And certainly not an accident! So if it wasn’t suicide…”

  “That would leave murder, in which case you and Mrs Maciver might look like pretty good suspects. Except you seem to have an alibi.”

  “Eh?”

  Wield showed him the date-inscribed photograph.

  “Did she give you that? The cow. Well, at least it gets me off that hook.”

  “Mebbe. Puts you on another with the Medical Council.”

  “You reckon? I doubt it. She knows if she makes a fuss there, I could get struck off, and she’s probably already calculated what that would do to the alimony.”

  “You could be right about your wife’s reaction,” said Wield. “But she’s not the only one who knows, and I’m not sure I can see any incentive for us to keep our mouths shut.”

  “Oh shit. You wouldn’t? Why? I’ve always got on well with you lot, haven’t I?”

  He looked appealingly at Wield, who returned his gaze impassively. Dalziel might have the edge on him when it came to hard but in the field of impassive he yielded the palm to no man.

  Then, when he saw the man was looking into the pit and seeing nothing but darkness, he relaxed, and said in a milder tone, “Best tell me all about it, Doc, and we’ll see if we can find a way through this crap, eh?”

  The soft approach did the trick.

  Lockridge launched into an account of his affair, self-justifying and defensive, but falling on Wield’s finely attuned ear as pretty comprehensive and accurate.

  “I often wondered if Pal knew and just didn’t care,” said Lockridge. “He dropped me as his doctor, you know. No reason. Just felt like a change. That made me wonder, but he went on being as friendly as ever. But since he killed himself, I’ve been wondering if there mightn’t have been another reason…”

  “Such as?” encouraged Wield.

  “Well, I do a bit of work down at the hospital. To be honest, I’d like to get out of general practice and specialize. Anyway, to cut a story short, a couple of months ago, I spotted Pal coming out of Vic Chakravarty’s consulting room. Thought nothing of it, I knew they sometimes played squash together, but when Sue-Lynn rang the other night and told me about the will, I got to thinking…”

  “Sorry, Tom, you’re losing me,” said Wield.

  “You know the bastard changed his will, cut her off with hardly a penny? It all goes to his sister, the older one, and some dotty aunt. I told Sue-Lynn it would never stand up in court. I mean, the very fact that he made such changes then topped himself is sufficient to suggest he wasn’t in his right mind, isn’t it?”

  “Some folk might think that cutting your adulterous wife out of your will was a pretty rational thing to do,” said Wield. “What’s this got to do with Chakravarty?”

  “He’s the neurological consultant. If it wasn’t a social call but a medical one, then this could be the evidence we need that Pal was mentally unstable…”

  “We? You said ‘we’?”

  “Did I? Yes, I did. And I meant it. I’m in it too, aren’t I? I mean, things are definitely over between me and Mary, our marriage had been on the rocks for a long time and this has just pushed it off the reef so that it can slide gently into the sea. I love Sue-Lynn and she loves me, but love’s not enough, is it? You need bread as well as roses. To be quite honest, by the time Mary is finished with me, I expect I’ll be a bit strapped. Sue-Lynn should have been sitting pretty, and as long as she’s got enough for herself, she’s the soul of generosity with those around her. Neither of us is really mercenary, you understand, but I can’t see any future for us unless we can get the will overturned. Which is why I need to get Chakravarty to come clean. I’m sure there’s something there. I thought I was getting somewhere with him, I laid all my cards on the table, then suddenly he went all coy on me, said he hadn’t got anything to tell me and, even if he had, patient confidentiality would be his watchword. That was the giveaway, I thought. Why say that unless there really was something?”

  “So what you’re saying is that you think this Chakravarty guy might know something about Pal Maciver’s health which could support the widow’s assertion that he was off his head when he changed the will?”

  “You’ve got it! Look, could you lean on Chakravarty? Don’t mention you’ve been talking to me, though. That bastard wields a lot of power, he could scupper my chances of getting established in the hospital if he set his mind to it. Could you do that for me?”

  “I’m not sure I could,” said Wield. “And I’m not sure I should. I mean, what would my reason be?”

  “Because you want to know why he topped himself, don’t you? What if he had an inoperable brain tumour? That’s the beauty of it, you see. You get your motive for suicide. Sue-Lynn gets her case for contesting the will. It’s perfect!”

  “We’re talking about a dead man here,” said Wield coldly. “Not only that but I’ve seen the post-mortem report. No mention of a tumour.”

  “There wouldn’t be. No one would be looking for it and, if they did, where would they look? Did you see the state of the poor bastard’s head? I did, close up. It was fragmented. There was more brain on the desk and floor than there was left in his skull, and I can’t see you lot sweeping it all up and putting it back in a plastic bag like chicken giblets.”

  Wield had heard enough. He stood up.

  “Dr Lockridge,” he said, “I have been asked to tell you that until such time as your behaviour and involvement, direct and indirect, in this case has been carefully considered, you are suspended from the official police list of attending physicians. You may be formally interviewed at a later date. In any event you will certainly be hearing from the Police Authority at some time in the future. Thank you for your co-operation.”

  It was like dumping a bucket of cold water over the man.

  And as he drove away, Wield admitted to himself with some surprise that the only thing he’d have enjoyed more was actually dumping a bucket of cold water over him.

  5 A LOVELY CUP OF TEA

  No one spoke in the car on the journey to Cothersley Hall, but Shirley Novello’s head was abuzz with excitement. She knew it was only her gender that had placed her here, but for once it didn’t matter. When the brass invite a WDC to join them in talking to a woman, it means that things are getting serious, and even if her main function turned out to be escorting Mrs Kafka to the bog or standing over her as she changed her clothes, Novello knew that involvement in the serious was the way to the stars.

  She also knew that there was something more personal at issue here between Dalziel and Pascoe and felt a natural curiosity to find out the truth of it.

  In response to Dalziel’s warning that he was coming, the gates of Cothersley Hall stood open. Novello drank it all in, the imposing entrance, the tree-lined drive, the extensive grounds whose dewy grass was still chiffoned with mist as the spring sun’s weak warmth got to work, and finally the house itself, the kind of place she only knew through the kind of heritage movie she hated. Moscow House had been bad enough, but at least there were other buildings within screaming distance and five minutes’ brisk walk would bring you in sight of some shops. What kind of woman would choose to live out here by herself, or even with a fellow, which, bed apart, Novello regarded as being to all other intents and purposes, alone?

  The door of the house opened as they got out of the car and Kay appeared at the top of the steps in a bathrobe. Her hair was just a touch dishevelled. The distraught wife, thought Pascoe. But not overplayed.

  She came down the steps to greet them.

  “Andy, thank you for coming. And you, Mr Pascoe.”

  She expressed no curiosity about n
or interest in Novello.

  Dalziel put his arm around Kay’s shoulders and urged her back up the steps into the house. Pascoe and Novello read the legend on the back of the robe, then exchanged glances, like Sweden and Switzerland, each vying for the greater neutrality.

  Novello thought, Is he going to suggest a tour of the grounds while that pair cosy up to each other inside?

  Pascoe thought, Two seconds here and she’s got him performing like a dancing bear!

  He said, “Let’s get inside.”

  They caught up with the odd couple in the spacious room he’d sat in the previous day.

  Kay Kafka was apologizing for her dishabille, occasioned, she explained, by the fact that since waking this morning she’d been attempting with increasing concern to contact her husband. It occurred to Pascoe that she might have thought Dalziel would turn up alone, in which case the loosely tied bathrobe could have been intended as a useful distraction. The impression he got of there being nothing beneath it certainly distracted him. Then he dismissed the suspicion. Anyone as bright as Kay Kafka would long since have sussed out that she had more chance of diverting a charging rhino with an amusing anecdote than taking the Fat Man’s eye off the ball with a glimpse of groin.

  “I’m sorry to have troubled you with this, Andy,” she concluded. “I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  “You did right, luv. Look, there’s probably nowt to worry about, simple explanation. I’ve set the wheels in motion. Why don’t you go and get yourself dressed while I check if there’s any news. Young Ivor here can make us all a nice cup of tea.”

  Fuck that! thought Novello angrily. But when Kay Kafka made for the door she found herself meekly following and saying, “Where’s the kitchen, Mrs Kafka?”

  By the time the two women dead-heated back into the room-Kay Kafka immaculate and composed in slacks and sweater, Novello, bearing a tray laden with mugs and teapot, plus a jug of cranberry juice and a plateful of buttered scones-the last two items her own choice; if she was going to be a skivvy, she might as well be a well-fed skivvy-Dalziel had checked that there was nothing new.