Exit lines dap-8

by Reginald Hill

  The investigation had been conducted, he was told.

  There would be no proceedings.

  Did this mean that there had been no irregularities?

  'It means,' said his informant, not without a touch of acidity, 'that there has been no evidence. Mr Charlesworth's records are so clean you'd think they'd been done only yesterday.'

  This sounded like good news to the DCC till he incautiously requested complete assurance.

  'You mean that Mr Charlesworth has committed no crime.'

  There was a pause before the acid voice said carefully, 'I mean that Mr Charlesworth is either the single most conscientious bookmaker we have ever dealt with or that he knew we were coming.'

  It emerged that the investigation had been timed to coincide with the final meet of the flat racing season, at Doncaster the weekend before last. Charlesworth's was very much a Yorkshire firm with betting shops all over the county and a large presence at all northern race meetings, so Charlesworth himself would be down at Doncaster on this day and his head office ought to have been particularly vulnerable. Instead they found things here and in all the shops raided in perfect order. Even those natural daily errors caused by human fallibility under pressure were absent. And the painstaking examination, point by decimal point, of his records which had just been concluded the previous week had produced nothing further.

  'And when did Mr Charlesworth get the good news?' asked the DCC.

  'Oh, he'll just get his records returned some time this week. When we don't slap him in irons, he'll know he's all right.'

  'And us: have we been officially informed?'

  'I don't think we'd bother unless there were some irregularities,' said the voice.

  At least it wasn't a celebration dinner! thought the DCC with relief.

  'Though we liaise very closely, of course,' resumed the voice as if sensing a criticism. 'CID knows what we're up to. Your Mr Dalziel insists on that.'

  The DCC's heart slipped a notch.

  'So we'd probably know sort of casually that the Charlesworth books were in order?'

  'Oh certainly. Mr Dalziel was very interested in the whole business from the start. In fact, now I think of it, when we were talking last week on another matter, this investigation came up and he was most sympathetic when he learned that we'd been wasting our time.'

  The voice was quite triumphant as if saying There! you knew all the time!

  The DCC's heart was beginning to pick up speed in its descent.

  He said, 'Of course. Mr Dalziel would have been talking with you about your airport check on Saturday morning.'

  'That's right. We've got full powers, of course, but we like to make it a joint venture when it's something like this. So I'm afraid we wasted your time as well as ours on this occasion.'

  The apology sounded rather like a compliment, but the DCC wasn't concerned with nuances.

  He said, 'This was a routine check, was it?'

  'No,' said the voice, hardly bothering to conceal its irritation now. 'It wasn't routine, as I'm sure Mr Dalziel's files will tell you. We are not so foolish as to risk irritating William Pledger just for the sake of routine, and very irritated he has been! There'd been a tip-off that the Van Bellen plane was bringing in a load of heroin.'

  'Heroin?' said the DCC faintly.

  'Yes,' said the voice. 'But it was clean as a whistle. Clean as a whistle.'

  The tone was one of savage disappointment, inviting deep condolence, but the DCC's only response was a subdued farewell as he quietly replaced the phone and sat contemplating the new deeps into which his heart was plummeting.

  That Dalziel should have been dining with Charlesworth, whose books had proved clean, and Major Kassell, whose employer's aeroplane had proved clean, was surely not so outrageous a coincidence?

  He picked up his phone and dialled Dalziel's number. He whistled quietly to himself as it rang for the usual preliminary minute. But still no one replied. Suddenly he felt the beginnings of anger. Slowly its mists rose, obscuring the idea of coincidence, turning it into a shape, vague and absurd and not to be taken seriously. The phone kept on ringing. Why didn't he answer? He sat back in his chair, listening to the tinny double-noted summons and, quite forgetting that only twenty-four hours before he had been urging Dalziel to make himself scarce, he demanded angrily of the unresponsive air, 'Where, where, where has the bloody man got to?'

  But, had the air miraculously responded, it would not have helped the DCC's temper one bit.

  'Mr Dalziel, Andy, glad to see you. Barney said you might be turning up and I said, just the job, another English speaker, great. How's your Frog? Never mind. Mostly they speak better English than me, only they don’t think in English, that's where it shows. I must've met a million foreigners, it's my work, I get on well with 'em, that's my work too, but I've never met one I could make a real pal of, know what I mean? And that's because they don't think in English, leastways that's what I put it down to.'

  Sir William Pledger was a surprise even for one of Harold Wilson's knights. Short, stout, round and red-faced with huge thick-lensed glasses that magnified his slightly pop eyes, bald except for a few long, ginger hairs which trailed over and indeed out of his jug-ears, he talked in a high-pitched rush, slowed only by his long native Oxfordshire vowel sounds and accompanied by a wild semaphore of both his upper and nether limbs, none of which fortunately was long enough to imperil more than his immediate neighbourhood.

  If Dalziel, who had been met at Haycroft Grange by Barney Kassell and driven out in a Range Rover to join the party for lunch, had been self-conscious about his balding corduroy trousers and scene-of-the-crime gum-boots, he might have been put at ease by Sir William's overlarge camouflage jacket and paint-stained grey flannels tucked into a pair of old wellies, which contrasted strangely with the elegant plus-foured tweediness of everyone else.

  As it was, Dalziel observed and approved the difference. The top man was the one who didn't need to give a fuck about the niceties.

  An early lunch was being taken among the ruins of a building too tumbledown to be identifiable but with sections of irregular stone wall high enough to break the keen north wind. The views were spectacular, the cold collation excellent. Dalziel was introduced vaguely and generally to the six or seven shooters present, most of whom seemed to be foreign.

  There was wine to be drunk, but Dalziel gratefully accepted the alternative of coffee with a shot of Scotch.

  'Keeps the cold out,' said Sir William. 'Let that lot swill back the vino, mother's milk to most of them, so that's all right, Barney keeps it in bounds, don't you, Barney?'

  'That's right,' said Kassell. 'I've developed an eye for that if nothing else. Too much booze and shotguns don't mix. The biggest proportion of accidents happen during the after-lunch drives.'

  Kassell looked very much at home in this environment, his face healthily flushed by the boisterous wind which winnowed his hair as though to show how thick it still was. His clothing, though it lacked the evident newness of the guests', gave away nothing in terms of cut and fit.

  'Do you get a lot of accidents, then?' asked Dalziel, chewing voraciously at a cold leg of something.

  'Not here we don't,' said Kassell. 'But on some of the estates where they let out shooting to syndicates, you can get too many clowns and not enough ringmasters. Result is, often they shoot more dogs than birds.'

  'This your first time, Andy?' said Pledger.

  'That's right. I said to Barney I fancied giving it a go and he said I should try half a day to see how I liked it. It's good of you to let me come.'

  'Always happy to have the law along,' said Pledger. 'Old Tommy Winter's a fair shot, as you probably know. I bet he'd rather be here than burning up on some Caribbean beach. And we usually have one or two of the boys in blue at the other end of the stick too.'

  'Sorry?' said Dalziel.

  'The beaters,' explained Kassell. 'Of course we can get any amount of casual labour these days, but we like to stick wi
th what we know and can rely on. We get a lot of bobbies using their day off to earn a bit extra. I suppose it's against regulations, is it?'

  He smiled faintly as he asked the question.

  Dalziel said, 'If it doesn't bother Old Tommy, it don't bother me.'

  'Old Tommy' was of course the Chief Constable, who was as unlikely to be addressed to his face in this fashion by Dalziel as he was to address Dalziel as 'Young Andy'.

  'Well, I'd better make with the Euro-talk,' said Pledger cheerfully. 'Good shooting, Andy. Barney will keep an eye on you, I've no doubt. Shall we see you at dinner tonight?'

  'I don't think so, Sir William,' said Dalziel. 'I've just come as I am.'

  'Pity,' said Pledger. 'Look, if you take to it, you really ought to come again soon, but kitted out for a meal too. I mean, that's the fun of it, isn't it? Not standing around here with the wind whistling among the family jewels, but yakking about it later with your belly full and a noggin in your hand. Barney, you're the only sod who knows what's what. When would be best?'

  'Next Friday would suit very well. We're usually a gun or two short on the first afternoon. This lot go back tomorrow. Next bunch arrives on Friday morning, and there's always at least one of the Euros who just wants to lie around after his flight.'

  'Splendid,' said Pledger. 'Isn't de Witt coming? He's a Dutch judge, Andy, fascinated by crime. He'd love to meet an English bobby, I know. So that's fixed. Good. Always supposing you don't blow someone's head off this afternoon!'

  'Thank you very much,' said Dalziel.

  Pledger moved away and Kassell said with the same faint smile as before, 'You've made a hit.'

  'You think so? I wouldn't know. Not much to hit by the looks of it,' said Dalziel with the amiable condescension of the large.

  'Half of his success derives from no one being able to believe in him, till it's too late,' said Kassell. 'He could gobble most of this lot up for afternoon tea.'

  'And judges? Does he gobble up judges too?'

  'The Dutchman, you mean? Rest easy. It's just a question of a patent that's being sorted out in a civil court, that's all. Let's take a stroll, shall we? I have to talk to the beaters.'

  They set off together out of the ruins. It was a fine landscape of lightly wooded moorlands rolling like the sea under the boisterous wind which trailed lines of white clouds across a huge sky.

  'How was it at the airport?' asked Dalziel.

  'All right,' said Kassell. 'How's your bit of bother?'

  'Oh, it'll be all right,' said Dalziel. 'Especially now I've got respectable military gents speaking up for me. Thanks for telling Headingley you saw me and Arnie driving off, by the way.'

  'I'd hate to see your career messed up unnecessarily,' said Kassell sincerely. 'Now, next Friday, how will it be?'

  'You mean, my visit to the Grange?' asked Dalziel innocently.

  'Partly. I hope it goes well. I hope our other visitors enjoy themselves too and aren't inconvenienced by any delays on arrival. This holiday of yours, will it keep you out of contact with things?'

  'No,' said Dalziel. 'I'll drift in from time to time and suss out what's what. Thursday do you?'

  'Fine,' said Kassell. 'Ah, here we are. The workers.'

  In a fold of land, out of view of the ruin, the beaters were enjoying their lunch. Their leader approached touching his cap and saying, "Afternoon, Major.'

  Dalziel strolled aside to let the consultation take its course. Strange world, he thought. This lot and the tweedy set back there would spend their day under the same sky, tramping across the same bit of ground. But it was us and them; this lot working, that lot playing; this lot at the end of the day going home with a few quid in their pockets, that lot going home with twenty times as much out of their bank balance – or someone's bank balance. What did it all signify?

  Suddenly his mind was directed from long-term speculation to short-term bewilderment. There were several large stones scattered around this hollow which some of the men used as seats, some as tables. Behind one of these stones some odd life-form was crouching in a vain effort at concealment. His first thought was that someone had brought a pet orang-outang along. But then he realized that the apparently squat and shambling outline was delusory, and recognition came.

  'Hector!' he said. 'It's never you?'

  Slowly the figure unfolded itself, stretching to its full length: Constable Hector in a lumberjack's jacket, blue jeans and constabulary boots.

  'It's my day off, sir,' he said with tremulous bravado.

  'The Force's loss is Sir William's gain,' said Dalziel. 'I've no doubt you're doing a grand job. You've got just the right figure for frightening birds.'

  'You mean it's all right, sir?' said Hector hopefully.

  'Never quote me on it, lad,' said Dalziel. 'But I suppose it's a form of good police training; advancing courageously on a line of armed men intent on shooting you down.'

  He turned away, but Hector, slightly puzzled, said, 'Sir, it's the birds the gentlemen shoot down, not us.'

  And Dalziel turned back with an expression of ferocious glee.

  'I shouldn't bet on it, lad. Not today, I shouldn't bet on it!'

  Chapter 18

  'Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.'

  'That's right. That's right,' said Provost Sergeant Myers. 'Old ammunition boot went out in the early 'sixties. It's all the one-piece moulded now. Only sods who still use studs are those poncy Guards who like to do a lot of stamping around.'

  'So this could be a print from a modern Army boot?' asked Pascoe, hot for certainties.

  'Could be a print from a modern fucking art exhibition,' said Myers, looking at the smudgy pattern. 'Here. Take a look at mine, take a look at mine.'

  He banged his left foot on to the low trestle-table so that Pascoe could make comparison with his sole.

  There had been a sense of deja vu when Pascoe was ushered into the guard room. The sergeant was in the same chair by the same glowing stove with Corporal Price and Lance Corporal Gillott apparently drinking the same cups of tea. Pascoe's intention had been to contact the helpful Sergeant Ludlam, but his sense of enclosure, not helped by the suspicious reluctance of the young RP on gate duty to admit him at all, had made him eager to get his business over with as quickly as possible. The trio of NCO's didn't exactly make him welcome but Myers at least seemed disposed to take a professional interest in his query.

  'Could be the same,' said Pascoe hopefully. 'Would you mind giving us a print for comparison?'Myers didn't mind and Pascoe, who'd taken the precaution of bringing along a blank sheet of card and some blacking ink, got to work. The sharp outline so produced could by a stretch, or rather by a smudge, have been the same as the pattern indented into Bob Deeks's vinyl, Corporal Price was confident it was, Sergeant Myers was sceptical and Lance-Corporal Gillott refused to be drawn. The debate, such as it was, was interrupted by the arrival of the orderly officer, a young second-lieutenant who seemed inclined to regard Pascoe as the Forlorn Hope of some terrorist raiding party. Pascoe civilly produced his credentials, but finding himself then treated with the condescension a village squire might offer a village bobby, he became Dalzielish and said, 'Look, laddie, it's getting near my lunch-time. I'd really love to stay and share your rusks, but I ought to be getting back to the grown-up world.' The officer withdrew, nonplussed and offended, and Sergeant Myers regarded Pascoe with a new respect.

  'Sorry about him,' he offered. 'He's young. Not licked into shape yet. They're not all like that, the officers.'

  'I've only met him and Captain Trott,' said Pascoe. 'Though I did come across one of your former officers recently. Major Kassell.'

  'Oh yes. The Major,' said Myers.

  There was something in the way he spoke that caught Pascoe's attention. Quickly deciding that Myers was the kind of soldier who would clam up if directly invited to gossip about the regiment with an outsider, he opted for provocation.

  'You remember him?' he said. 'He seems to have done all right for himself
. Of course, he had the sense to get out and make it in civvy street, didn't he?'

  He intended merely to be slightly rude about the Army but by chance the button he pressed won him a jackpot.

  'The sense to get out? The sense to get out?' said Myers angrily. 'Doesn't take much fucking sense when the choice is to be court-martialled, does it? At least he had the choice, which is more than others did, you want to ask Dave Ludlam about that, oh yes, you want to ask Ludlam!'

  'Yes,' said Pascoe, his mind racing. 'The other day, I got a hint; same business, was it?'

  'The very same. CSM he was then, would've been RSM by now, no doubt. Well, if you're daft enough to get caught, that's your bad luck, that's what I tell these lads with their hard luck stories, that's your bad luck. But it should be one law for all, wouldn't you say? One law for all.'

  'Indeed yes,' said Pascoe cautiously. 'I dare say there was a lot of it going on?'

  'Out in Hong Kong?' said Myers incredulously. 'Never known a place like it. Everyone had a fucking racket, from the police down. Keeping out of the rackets was harder than getting in! What's a few more Chinks, anyway? Place bursting at the seams with them, what's a few more? That's how Dave Ludlam saw it. But it's not right that the same thing as turns a CSM into a private and gets him stuck in the glasshouse should leave a major a major and get him a nice cushy billet in civvy street!'

  There was no more. Myers's indignation had taken him as far as he was going. Pascoe drove back to town so rapt in speculation that his doubtfully motivated half-plan to stop for a lunch-time drink at Paradise Hall was completely forgotten.

  Dennis Seymour was a pragmatist. An ambitious young man, if he could have impressed Pascoe by performing his appointed tasks and returning with his report in half an hour, he would have done so. But when on learning at Starbuck's restaurant where Tap Parrinder had enjoyed his last meal that the waitress who probably served him wouldn't be on duty till noon, he happily accepted this set-back as an excuse to return and eat there. Meanwhile he went down to the off-licence which was situated only a couple of hundred yards away from the store.