Exit Lines

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Your mum identified them,’ said Pascoe, spreading them out on the desk. ‘You weren’t around.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. I just wanted to take a walk by myself. It really gets me, thinking that the bastard that did that to Granda is walking around free somewhere. I’d like to get my hands on him, me and a few of my mates, just for five minutes…’

  A look of rage settled on the young man’s face, but not altogether convincingly. It was, Pascoe suspected, conventional, an expression learned to please instructors during bayonet practice or whatever aggressive equivalent the modern army went in for nowadays. Here it was a macho mask for the deeper feelings of grief and pain which had sent this likeable young man in search of solitude after yesterday’s funeral. Not that he wouldn’t be capable of taking a swing at his grandfather’s killer if confronted by him, but who wouldn’t?

  The boy examined the medals, the stage rage fading from his face as he touched the faded ribbons and ran his fingers over the embossed metal.

  ‘You didn’t get the watch, then?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Pascoe. ‘I gather that had Mr Deeks’s name on. The medals are anonymous. Your grandfather never had them engraved.’

  ‘Never saw no need to,’ said Charley. ‘He knew they were his, and he said no one else mattered ‘cos you had to win your own medals. But I’d like them, specially if his watch never turns up. He always said I was to have the watch; that was useful, he said. But I’d like the medals.’

  ‘They’ll be returned to your mother eventually,’ said Pascoe, removing the medals and putting in their place the Identikit picture made up with Mr Moody’s help. Moody had not been a good witness and the picture was even less convincingly human than usual.

  ‘This remind you of anyone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Charley.

  ‘Really. Who?’

  ‘One of the Kraut gardeners in Germany. And he’s a bit like that Scottish sweeper, him who played in the last World Cup.’

  With a sigh, Pascoe removed the useless picture and asked, ‘When do you go back?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘As soon as that?’

  Charley nodded and said, ‘To tell the truth, I could’ve stayed till Sunday, but now with the funeral over and all, well, there’s nothing to keep me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s grand seeing me mam and dad again, but you can’t be sitting around the house all the time, and I’d as lief get back to me mates.’

  ‘No mates around here any more?’

  ‘Well, yeah, I suppose so. Only it’s not the same, is it, not now I’m in the Army. I could put on my civvies, I suppose, and go round some of the old places, but it’d just be me talking big and telling them how bloody marvellous it was in the Army, and likely there’d be a bit of aggro. I could always go to the depot and see some of the boys there, but if I’m going to do that, I might as well be back with me real mates in Germany. There’s always a lot going off on Saturday night, you can have a right good time over there.’

  Pascoe smiled, liking Charley more and more and thinking he’d done well to get out of the clutches of the anorectic Andrea.

  ‘You’ll be able to chase the Fräuleins with a clear conscience now,’ he said, testing the strength of the separation.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Now you’re not engaged.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, that’s true, I suppose.’

  He didn’t sound too convinced.

  Pascoe probed further, thinking Ellie would be amused at his interest, but also just as keen to know.

  ‘Have you seen Andrea again?’

  He thought for a moment he was going to be told, quite rightly, that it was none of his sodding business, but Charley settled for shaking his head.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Pascoe, feeling it was time the interview came to an end.

  ‘She’s started her new job,’ said Charley abruptly. ‘Her mam told me.’

  ‘At Haycroft Grange?’

  ‘Yeah. She’ll like it there. Married folk. Like there was at that Paradise Hall.’

  ‘She didn’t seem to like it there much.’

  ‘I think she did till she got the sack. It was me as didn’t like her being there.’

  ‘Why? It was handy for the camp, surely.’

  ‘Yeah, there was that all right. No, it was just the idea of her sleeping there, you know. She just laughed and said there was nothing to worry about, the owner was an old poof.’

  ‘Oh? A married old poof,’ corrected Pascoe.

  ‘Yeah, I know. But she said it didn’t make any difference. She thought he was still as queer as a clockwork orange.’

  ‘And what did you think?’ inquired Pascoe, maliciously amused at these descriptions of Jeremy Abbiss.

  ‘Me? I never met him.’

  Ah, but he met you, thought Pascoe, recalling Abbiss’s description of catching them in flagrante across the reception desk.

  But hadn’t Abbiss said that words were exchanged?

  He said carefully, ‘You mean that when you used to visit Andrea at Paradise Hall you never encountered Mr Abbiss, the proprietor.’

  ‘No, never laid eyes on him,’ said Charley. ‘I made sure of that, didn’t I? Andrea said it was all right, she was entitled to use her room the way she liked, but I didn’t want any trouble, not with me still doing my training and all that.’

  He rose to his feet and awkwardly held out his hand.

  ‘Cheerio, Mr Pascoe,’ he said. ‘I hope you get the bastard. It’s not a right way to end up, not after living all them years, is it?’

  ‘Perhaps after all those years it doesn’t make too much difference, Charley,’ said Pascoe gently. ‘But rest assured, we’ll do our best.’

  He sat for a little while in deep thought after the boy had left, then summoned Wield.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said. ‘How do you fancy a little trip to Paradise?’

  Chapter 27

  ‘It will end as it began, it came with a lass and it will go with a lass.’

  Once more Pascoe arrived in the kitchens of Paradise Hall while a meal was in full swing.

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Abbiss. ‘Not you again. And this time you’ve brought the public hangman!’

  Wield did not change expression. Why should he, thought Pascoe, when the one he wore normally did so very well?

  It was interesting to see that Abbiss seemed to have recovered completely from the trauma of Pascoe’s last visit. He must have received promises of immunity which were very potent. Oh, Dalziel, Dalziel, what are you playing at?

  Pascoe said, ‘Last time we talked, you said that one of your complaints against your former employee, Andrea Gregory, was that she brought a soldier back to her room. You also said you caught them in flagrante delicto early one morning.’

  ‘Ah, you liked that picture, did you, Inspector?’ mocked Abbiss. ‘Want an action re-run, is that it?’

  ‘When was this, sir?’ asked Pascoe patiently.

  Perhaps it was the courtesy of the ‘sir’ that did it, but Abbiss began to take things seriously.

  ‘When? I’m not sure precisely. Last week some time.’

  ‘Last week? Not a few weeks ago?’

  ‘Oh no. Not long before I gave her the push.’

  Pascoe felt angry with himself. He had made assumptions, which as Dalziel put it, was posh for making cock-ups. The mention of a soldier had automatically made him think of Charley Frostick and he hadn’t seen any reason to check on dates.

  He said, ‘And it was definitely a soldier?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Abbiss. ‘Fully kitted out from beret to boots, with the minor modification that his pants were pushed down over his buttocks, the better to apply himself to little Miss Andrea who was wearing her nightie round her neck.’

  ‘Could this have been the man, sir?’ inquired Pascoe, handing over the Photofit picture.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Abbiss doubtfully. ‘I mean, it doesn’t really look like anybody, does it? I think he had a moustache. On the other hand if you ga
ve me a picture of his backside, I could give you a positive identification straight away! There was a rather interesting bite-mark on his left buttock, I seem to recall.’

  It conjured up for Pascoe a picture of a very unusual identity parade. But in fact he hardly had enough to go on to ask for a normal identity parade. The point was that Andrea Gregory had been putting it about a bit, and she had shown a kind of loyalty to Charley by putting it about among the large number of lonely soldiers who at any one moment were inmates of Eltervale Camp.

  Just how significant did this make the print on the vinyl floor of Bob Deeks’s bathroom which might have been from an Army boot? And could those stab marks on his neck and shoulders possibly have been made by a bayonet?

  There was little to go on, but too much to ignore. Andrea herself was the best source of information, but he could imagine those painted lips closing to a thin red line when asked to betray herself.

  ‘Come now, Inspector,’ said Abbiss. ‘Don’t look so baffled. Surely there can’t be all that many NCO’s of the British Army with teeth marks on their left buttocks. Is it yourself you want him for, or is he a present for a friend?’

  ‘An NCO?’ said Pascoe. ‘You’re sure he was an NCO?’

  ‘Oh yes. There was a stripe on his arm. Just the one, that makes him a lance-corporal, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. Anything else about him? Colour of hair, build, anything at all?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Good athletic action, I’d say. Brownish hair. Like I say, I think he had a moustache. Oh, and there was one rather odd thing – those webbing belts they wear. Well, his was white.’

  Into Pascoe’s mind there leapt a picture of a ramrod-straight man with a mousy moustache and watchful eyes, whose friendship with Charley Frostick had perhaps led him to cover up the young man’s nocturnal ramblings.

  Lance Corporal Gillott of the Mid-Yorkies’ regimental police.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, turning on his heel and leaving the kitchen.

  There was a public phone in the hallway. He rang the station and got Seymour.

  ‘Pick Moody up and bring him out to Paradise Hall,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t take no for an answer.’

  He rejoined Wield.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink while we’re waiting, Sergeant,’ he said, leading him into the bar where Stella Abbiss was serving a customer. ‘And if you’re hungry, they do a nice cold game pie.’

  The woman heard him and turned her big dark eyes on him with something in them which might almost have been contempt. She thinks I’ve been fixed! thought Pascoe. And while she might have understood passion, she reckons nothing to greed.

  ‘You’re out of luck today, Inspector,’ she said in her low deep voice. ‘For you, game pie is definitely off.’

  Moody sat sulkily in the front seat of Pascoe’s car as he drove towards Eltervale Barracks. He had not been pleased, as he put it, to be dragged away from his work, but Pascoe was in no mood to be conciliatory.

  It was his intention, however, to tread carefully in his dealings with the military and not to risk provoking any of that protective closing of ranks by which army units traditionally protected their own. It was his intention to talk first with the camp CO and then to arrange for Moody to see Lance-Corporal Gillott while he himself remained unobserved.

  It didn’t work out quite like that.

  As they approached the camp gates, a trio of men in fatigues and carrying spades came doubling out. Presumably they were a work detail of men under arrest. And escorting them was the upright, poker-faced figure of Lance-Corporal Gillott.

  ‘That’s him!’ cried Moody. ‘That’s the man I bought the medals from.’

  He wound down the window in his excitement. Gillott did a classic Ealing Comedy double-take, then with a reaction speedy enough to impress the most demanding of training instructors, he grabbed a spade off one of the prisoners and hurled it at Pascoe’s car.

  The windscreen crazed. Moody shrieked, Pascoe slammed on the brake and the car, though already slowing, spun on the road surface still treacherous from the previous day’s sleet and snow, scattering the working party in panic.

  And Gillott was away down the road, head back, knees pumping high, wisely (so he must have thought) not heading back into the trap of the camp with its high soldier-proof perimeter fence.

  What he was heading towards was Seymour’s car which drew in to the side of the road. Seymour made to get out, but Wield in the passenger seat restrained him. And as the sprinting corporal drew level with the car, the sergeant leaned across and flung open the driver’s door. There was a fearsome impact and the door slammed shut with a violence that set the inmates’ eardrums vibrating.

  ‘Now you can get out and pick him up,’ said Wield. ‘Good arrest, son. It’ll look well on your record. And it’ll be something to impress that little Irish girl of yours with next time you go dancing. Might make her forget the pain.’

  Gillott was incredibly verbose for one who had appeared so taciturn. It was stopping him talking that was difficult, but with Moody’s identification and the discovery of Bob Deeks’s pocket watch hidden in his locker, he saw little hope in silence. Not even his bruised ribs inhibited the flow, the main current of which was directed at washing as much blame towards Andrea Gregory as possible.

  ‘It was her idea. She said he was an animal. She said all old people were animals. She said they were crazy, smelly and nasty. She said she’d want to be put down before she got like that. We’d been drinking. I’d been driving the sergeant-major to the station in town and I had his car. I thought: Sod going back straight away. No one’ll miss me. So I gave Andrea a ring. I’d been stuffing her rotten ever since that wet boyfriend of hers went to join the battalion. We went for a drive. She brought a bottle of Scotch along from the restaurant. We stopped and had a drink and a fuck and some more drink. I said if I had enough money I’d buy myself out of the Army. She said she knew where there was a few hundred lying around for the taking. I said where? She said at Charley’s grandad’s. She said that when they got engaged Charley had left her outside the back of his grandad’s. He went in and came out not long after with a century in cash. He bought her that flashy ring. She said she knew where the back key was kept hid. What she didn’t know was where the money was hid and he wouldn’t tell us. We looked everywhere. The old man just kept on looking at my uniform and saying “Charley” all the time. It got on my wick. Was there some money, eh? Was there really some money? Or was it all for nothing?’

  Pascoe had come as close as he ever had to striking a prisoner at this point.

  He said as much to Wield as they sped towards Haycroft Grange to pick up Andrea Gregory. Wield had offered to take his car as Pascoe’s was temporarily out of commission but Pascoe had said, ‘No. Full panoply of the law, I think. I don’t want the Sir William Pledgers of this world thinking that we can be relied on to be nice and discreet for their sake.’ Thus he and Wield were sitting in the comfortable back seat of a large white squad car with the Mid-Yorkshire insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides.

  ‘Christ, they took risks, didn’t they?’ said Wield.

  ‘They were both half-cut from the sound of it,’ said Pascoe. ‘But with that din coming from Mrs Spillings’s house, and the other side empty, they weren’t in much danger of being overheard. And Andrea had her wits about her enough to realize that using the outside key might be a giveaway. She spotted the duplicate key on the kitchen table. According to Gillott, it was her idea to stick one of the keys in the inside of the lock and smash the window to make it look as if someone had broken in.’

  ‘But she put the wrong key back in the shed.’

  ‘Yes. I should have spotted the implications of that sooner, but there’s been a lot of distraction these past few days.’

  The two men fell silent. Dusk was beginning to settle over the undulating landscape, flecked white with snow which the wind had blown into the folds and pleats of the heathered moor. The uniformed d
river was consulting a road map and driving with one hand.

  ‘You’re not lost, are you, Pearson?’ asked Wield.

  ‘No, sir. It’s just that we turn off somewhere along here down an unclassified road and I don’t want to miss it.’

  ‘How about up there, at the top of the rise, where the green van’s turning?’

  ‘Yes, that’ll likely be it,’ agreed the driver.

  They turned off the B-road on to a narrower but still well-metalled track which meandered down into a riverless valley. Distantly they glimpsed the chimneys of Haycroft Grange against the snowy hillside opposite. The green van ahead was either in difficulty or the driver did not trust his brakes as the road steepened.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Pascoe impatiently as their speed dropped to under twenty. ‘Can’t you get past him, Pearson?’

  Wield glanced at the Inspector, thinking he had rarely seen his temper so ragged. The Sergeant’s instinct rather than his detective powers sought out the reason. It occurred to him that Pascoe, despite his comparative youthfulness and liberal modernism of outlook, would have done very nicely as an English gent in one of Wield’s much loved Rider Haggard novels. His belief in the equality of women still turned to disappointment at the discovery that they could equal men in baseness as well as achievement. And his loyalty to Andy Dalziel must be very much at odds with his strict code of fair play and honesty.

  Plus, of course, the fact that he was clearly missing his wife and daughter.

  Pearson replied defensively. ‘The road’s a bit narrow, sir.’

  They were nearing the bottom of the valley where the road straightened out for almost a hundred yards before beginning to wind up the opposing hillside.

  ‘Give him the bell then,’ ordered Pascoe. ‘It’s like a bloody funeral procession!’

  Obediently the driver pressed a switch. Next moment the pastoral peace was fragmented by the pulsating screech of the siren, and on the roof flashing blades of light scythed the darkling air.

  The green van pulled over to the narrow verge and stopped. Pearson sent the police car accelerating by, then reached forward to switch off the lights and siren, but Pascoe stopped him.