Exit Lines

by Reginald Hill

  She laughed as she spoke. Pascoe grinned back at her.

  ‘How many do you have at a time?’ he inquired.

  ‘Oh, we can take up to eighty and we’ve squeezed a few more in from time to time, especially during the summer.’

  ‘That’ll be when the big demand from families comes, is it? Wanting to get away to the Costa Brava without gran?’ said Headingley.

  ‘Partly,’ she replied. ‘Though there’s a constant demand for that kind of accommodation all the year round. It’s not just people wanting to get away on their own summer holidays, you know. It’s people who need a break in their own homes without having the old person on their backs twenty-four hours a day. You’ve no idea what it can do to people. And it can be very awkward for us at times.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Oh, when it comes to going home time. Sometimes the family ring up and say it’s not convenient, could the old person stay here another day or two? Or very occasionally they just don’t turn up at all to collect them and when they’re contacted, they say that’s it, they’ve had enough, the State can look after them now! But worst of all is the old folk who don’t want to go back themselves. That’s really heartbreaking.’

  She ushered them to the front door and waved them off with the same geniality Pascoe was sure she bestowed on her elderly residents.

  As they drove off, Pascoe asked Headingley, ‘How was the bike, by the way?’

  ‘Sound as a bell, which it had,’ answered Headingley. ‘It was the old boy’s own, he rode it round town regularly, always insisted on bringing it down here so’s he could get to the pub. Good lights, back and front. Good tyres. Steady hand-brakes.’

  They continued in silence till they saw the sign Paradise Hall Country House Hotel and Restaurant. A smaller notice attached to the ornately scrolled board announced that the hotel was closed until Easter, but the restaurant was open as usual.

  The drive wound its way through fields filled with sheep and cattle rather than the lunatics hoped for by the owner of The Towers. Of the original extensive grounds only the neglected formal garden immediately surrounding the house had been retained. The Hall itself was an undistinguished but not unpleasant building, slightly in need of a lick of paint and a spot of pointing. Pascoe had never eaten in the restaurant but had heard mixed reports. Detractors and enthusiasts alike were agreed upon the impudence of its prices and when Pascoe glanced at the luncheon menu standing on the unattended bar, he said in amazement, ‘Pissed or sober, there’s no way Andy Dalziel’d pay that for a bowl of soup!’

  ‘Doesn’t seem likely he was paying, does it?’ said Headingley, helping himself to a handful of peanuts.

  ‘Charlesworth, you mean? Or Kassell? I can’t see where this guy fits in, can you? Estate manager at Haycroft Grange. William Pledger’s shooting parties. It doesn’t sound like fat Andy’s scene.’

  ‘He’s very respectable, that’s the main thing,’ said Headingley, who wasn’t looking for aggro.

  ‘Maybe. But his story doesn’t gell with Warsop’s, so who’s making mistakes? What was he a major in, by the way?’

  ‘The Mid-Yorkies,’ said Headingley. ‘I looked him up. Got out in 1975. He’d been out in Hong Kong, made some contact with Pledger out there, followed it up, and landed this job.’

  ‘You’ve been working fast,’ admired Pascoe.

  ‘No sweat,’ said Headingley complacently. ‘There’s this lass works on the Council switchboard. She knows everything.’

  Pascoe laughed and then said seriously, ‘George, what precisely is it you’re doing? I mean, how do you see your function?’

  ‘I wish I could be precise, Peter,’ said Headingley. ‘I’m going through the motions without going through the motions, so to speak. Which is to say, I’m doing a proper job, but mainly, I reckon, so the DCC can say, if he’s asked, which he’s still hoping he won’t be, that yes, of course we’ve done a proper job of looking into this accident, and here’s George Headingley to prove it!’

  ‘Sam Ruddlesdin’ll ask,’ forecast Pascoe.

  ‘Sam Ruddlesdin’s got a boss who might take a wider view,’ said Headingley. ‘But it’s nothing to do with me. I’m just poor bloody infantry. Good day. Would Mr Abbiss be in, please?’

  A woman had come into the bar. She was very striking, with jet black hair tumbling over her shoulders and a pale, consumptive pre-Raphaelite face from which huge dark eyes stared like visitors from another world.

  ‘I’m Stella Abbiss,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

  Stella and Jeremy Abbiss wish you bon appétit it said at the foot of the menu. Husband and wife, Pascoe assumed. Partners anyway. He settled back to see if nice old-fashioned George Headingley would press for the man.

  But Headingley had suffered enough from antagonistic mine hosts that day and he smiled sweetly and flashed his warrant card and said in his best, hushed we-don’t-want-to-embarrass-the-customers voice, ‘It’s just a small matter of clearing up a couple of points regarding the accident last night. You’ve probably heard about it?’

  ‘The old man near The Duke of York?’ she said in a low voice which throbbed like a ‘cello string.

  She was la belle dame sans merci, Pascoe thought with delight. I shall become obsessed with her. But first I must bring Ellie here to approve. She deserves a good meal. He glanced again at the prices and changed his thought to: She deserves a nice drink. Could that delicious shadow round the eyes be real, or did she put it on with a feather?

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘We had some reporter round this morning asking questions,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry to inconvenience you again,’ said Headingley. ‘It’s just a matter of getting the picture clear.’

  ‘You want to know how drunk the fat man was, is that it?’

  Such directness allied to such feyness! It was a dizzying concoction. Were their sauces like this? If so, well worth the money!

  ‘Well, yes, for a start,’ said Headingley manfully.

  ‘Depends how drunk five large Scotches, a bottle and a half of Burgundy and three balloons of cognac would make him,’ she said.

  ‘And in your estimation, how drunk would that be?’ asked Pascoe, just for the privilege of engaging in commerce with this creature.

  Those strange compelling eyes joined his for a lovely moment. This was true Paradise, this was the primal idyll with everything possible and no sin, no shame. Then her gaze slipped his and moved to a point just above his right shoulder.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ she said.

  ‘Beer!’ boomed a familiar voice. ‘A pint of your best for me, lass, and pints of your second best for this pair of trainees who ought to be too bloody busy to drink it!’

  Pascoe turned. The primal idyll was over. Approaching with the weary wayworn smile of a fallen archangel whose heavy pinions have at last deposited him safe on Eden was Andrew Dalziel.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Et tu, Brute?’

  Dalziel’s arrival produced at least one bonus. To the three pints of beer which she drew for them, Stella Abbiss, without any direct request being made, added three portions of cold game pie.

  ‘Delicious,’ approved Dalziel. ‘I tried it last night. The fruits of your own gun, if I remember right, love?’

  She nodded slightly. To Pascoe’s mental video library was added the slow-motion sequence of this frail, pale beauty clad only in gumboots tracking a low-flying pheasant across a frost-laced stubble field with her hot, smoking barrel.

  He was jerked rudely out of his reverie by Dalziel, who said, ‘Now, Peter, what are you doing here? I knew old George had been set to sniff around after me, but I thought you had other things on your plate. Just along to see the fun, is that it? Heard the fire engine and couldn’t resist chasing along to see the fire?’

  The sheer unjustness of the imputation made Pascoe speechless for a moment and Headingley said, ‘He’s along because of me, sir. We were meeting for a spot of lunch at The
Duke of York and I asked him to give me a lift up here.’

  ‘Oh aye? Carless, are you? Do a lot of drinking in The Duke of York, do you?’

  Pascoe had recovered now and said coldly, ‘More to the point maybe, what are you doing here, sir?’

  ‘Me? I’m on holiday,’ said Dalziel. He supped his beer and regarded Pascoe thoughtfully over the glass. When he put it down, it was empty. He said, ‘Young cop, frequenting expensive places like this, doesn’t look good, Peter.’

  ‘It’s even more expensive at night, they tell me.’

  ‘And they tell you right. Difference is, I wasn’t paying.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Pascoe, glancing significantly at Headingley. ‘But it does make a difference who’s paying, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Like Arnie Charlesworth? Didn’t give me a chance. I was still reaching for my wallet when he signed the bill. That’s the way to be, my lads. So rich you don’t bother about real money. Hey, lass, another three of the same.’

  ‘Not for me,’ said Pascoe, covering his glass in alarm. ‘I’m not well into this one yet.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Headingley, though with less conviction.

  The woman approached with another pint which she put firmly in front of Dalziel. Pascoe smiled his thanks and something which might have been a responsive humour touched her pale narrow lips.

  ‘Fancy a slice of that, do you?’ said Dalziel. ‘She’s not your speed, lad. Burn you up with her exhaust while you’re still looking for first gear. Any road, you should be ashamed of yourself, you with a fine wife to wash your linen and a bonny babbie to dandle on your knee.’

  It was an interesting picture. Even Headingley grinned and said, ‘It must be a comfort, all that clean linen, if you ever get knocked down by a getaway car.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pascoe. ‘Though Ellie does complain about skinning her elbows on the edge of the wash-tub. But to get back to what we were talking about, don’t you think you should tell Inspector Headingley exactly what you are doing here?’

  Headingley stopped grinning and hid his face in his beer glass. Even with the semi-official investigative authority he had received from the DCC, he wouldn’t have dared essay so direct an approach to Dalziel. But it might be interesting to see how far the fat man would let his golden lad go before he came to a dusty answer.

  ‘What do you think, Peter?’ asked Dalziel through a mouthful of pie. ‘Cover up my tracks? Cut out a few tongues? Any road, what’s it to you? If it’s jolly George here I should be pouring out my soul to, how come you’re asking the questions? I don’t see his hand up the back of your jacket!’

  Pascoe said carefully, ‘Just call it mere vulgar curiosity, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Dalziel, suddenly relaxing. ‘Mrs Abbiss!’

  ‘Yes?’ came the low, musical voice.

  ‘You didn’t find a spare hat when you tidied up last night, did you? Trilby, I suppose you’d call it. Grey wool, with a black band, size 73/4, manufactured by Usher and Sons of Leeds?’

  Silence, and then she materialized behind Pascoe, reached over him and placed a grey trilby in Dalziel’s hands.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ he said. He placed it carefully on his head.

  ‘Fits, you see,’ he said, eyeing Pascoe steadily. ‘If it fits, wear it, that’s what they say, isn’t it? This kind of weather, fifty per cent of heat loss is through the top of your head, did you know that? Like walking around with a fucking chimney! Well, what’ve you got so far, Sherlock?’

  The sudden switch away from Pascoe took Headingley by surprise and he choked on his beer. This occasioned a usefully cunctatory bout of coughing, but the therapeutic blow Dalziel administered between his shoulder-blades extended this to the nearer shores of death.

  Pascoe answered.

  ‘One of your fellow diners here saw you driving away in your car.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ said Dalziel without interest. ‘So the DCC said.’

  ‘By chance she worked at The Towers where the man that got knocked over was staying at the moment.’

  ‘Emotionally involved then? Not the best kind of witness,’ pronounced Dalziel with Denning-like authority. ‘Any road, she looks like a troublemaker.’

  He drained a good two-thirds of his second pint and smacked his heavy lips.

  ‘You’ve seen her then?’ asked Pascoe in alarm, thinking this could only mean Dalziel had paid a visit to The Towers.

  ‘Only last night, lad,’ said Dalziel, grinning as he read Pascoe’s face. ‘Leastways if she’s the one I’m thinking of. She was hanging round the hallway waiting for her mate to finish tarting herself up when I came out. Late thirties, black hair, puckers her mouth up like a cat’s arsehole when she’s thinking? I noticed her earlier looking over at our table like she’d have been glad to chuck us out. Works at The Towers, does she? The way she ordered her grub and signed her bill, I’d have thought she were a princess of the blood at least.’

  ‘Unfortunately your impressions are not evidence, sir,’ said Pascoe. ‘Either she’s right or she’s mistaken. Which?’

  There’s blunt for you, he thought. There’s bold! There’s bloody crazy!

  But Dalziel seemed unoffended.

  ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Mebbe she’s right. Mebbe we stopped along the road a ways and changed over. Or mebbe she’s mistaken. It was a nasty night, rain and sleet, lousy visibility. Easy to get things wrong.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Pascoe, rising. He was so angry that he didn’t trust himself to say anything further at this point. He left the bar, went into the toilet and relieved himself. What the hell was Dalziel playing at? Keeping his options open till he’d checked with the other witnesses? It was time he got back to town.

  When he came out of the toilet he almost bumped into Stella Abbiss coming out of the bar with a tray on which were two glasses of brandy.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Could I have a word?’

  ‘About last night? You’d better talk to my husband. He’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘I’d rather talk to you,’ said Pascoe, smiling.

  ‘I’m serving in the dining-room,’ she said curtly.

  ‘Surely one of your minions could manage that?’

  ‘We have no minions,’ she said wearily.

  ‘No one?’ said Pascoe, amazed, and also indignant at such labour being imposed on such frailty. ‘You can’t run a hotel single-handed.’

  ‘The hotel closes down in October,’ she explained. ‘We don’t get enough off-season custom to make it worthwhile. So there’s just the restaurant. There’s a girl comes in from the village, but only at nights. And we had another girl living in, but she’s just walked out on us. Fortunately we’re having a quiet lunch-time today. Neverthless, I’ll have to go.’

  She moved swiftly away through a door which led into the dining-room, a long and airy chamber looking out on to a falling garden whose shrubs and trees, ragged and depressed in the aftermath of last night’s winter storm, must have presented a colourful prospect in spring and summer. The faded silk wall-hangings, wishy-washy watercolours, threadbare rugs and a heterogeneous collection of knick-knacks concentrated on the broad mantel above the large open fire, all contributed to the feel of the place as a room in a private house which must, Pascoe thought, be an economic ambience to opt for. There were tables for eighteen to twenty-four diners, depending on their groupings. At present there were only six people having lunch, a group of four middle-aged men and an elderly, almost mummified couple before whom Stella Abbiss set the brandy balloons. One of the men called to her ‘See how it’s coming along, love!’ as she passed on her way to a door at the far end of the room which obviously led into the kitchen.

  Pascoe walked swiftly after her and met her as she re-emerged bearing a coffee-pot. She did not look at him and he went on into the kitchen where he found a slender man of about thirty wearing stretch cords in lichen green, a lavender see-through silk shirt and an expression of great anger, standing over a stove beating som
ething in a pan.

  ‘Yes?’ he said aggressively.

  ‘Mr Abbiss?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Detective-Inspector Pascoe. I wonder if…’

  ‘In a minute!’ said Abbiss. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  The door opened and his wife came back in. She didn’t speak but stood patiently by the entrance, watching her husband who Pascoe now saw was preparing zabaglione. He tried vainly to catch the woman’s eye. Were she wearing a see-through shirt, he felt as if he might be able to see right through to the other side. She really did need care and attention, a loving man to pick her frail form up and carry it away to a cool, soft sick-bed and lay her down, and somehow at this juncture the administration of nourishing broths merged and melded into more primitive forms of healing involving the laying on of hands and of everything else the ingenious physician could possibly bring to bear on that thin white body with its…

  He pulled himself up with a start. Abbiss had completed his own nourishing broth and was spooning it into four dishes which his wife had placed on a tray. Finished, she picked up the tray and left. They had not exchanged a word.

  ‘Some pricks!’ said Abbiss savagely. ‘Some pricks!’

  For a second Pascoe thought he was being attacked for letting his recent fantasy show too clearly, but Abbiss went on, ‘He comes in here, only the third time he’s been, the other twice with a grotesque creature with tits like turnips and taste to match (darling, I drink Barsac with everything!), and here he is, entertaining his business chums and acting as if he’s bought the place! Lunch, you eat your puddings off the trolley. There’s only the two of us, what do they expect? And have you seen our sweet trolley? Trolley? the gourmets cry. No! it’s a cornucopia on wheels! But does the prick hesitate between the Clafouti à la Liqueur and the Pêches Cardinal? Does he draw his ghastly guests’ attention to the Riz à l’Impératrice? No! The tiresome turd says, “Hey, Jeremy (twice before, and it’s Jeremy already!) what we really fancy is some of that Eyetie yellow stuff you do so well.” “Zabaglione?” I say. “Aye, and up yours too,” says this Wilde of Wharfedale, this Coward of Cleckheaton. “You can whip us up a bit of that, can’t you, Jeremy?” I demur. I am camp, but firm. This liver fluke in ill-cut shoddy tipsily rears himself out of his cow-plat and gets nasty. “At these prices, you can surely do us that, Jeremy,” he says. “At these prices up here in Yorkshire, folk expect a hot meal. These aren’t cold meal prices, Jeremy.” I am torn. There is a Mousseline au Chocolat on top of the trolley which would mould itself perfectly to his mean little face. But what a waste! I think. What a waste! So I capitulate. I bow, I scrape. I come in here, and I create!’