Recalled to Life

by Reginald Hill

  He banged his fist in frustration on the keyboard of one of the computers. Pascoe winced.

  'You know all about these things, don't you? You went on that course and you're always shooting your mouth off about us not using them enough. Right, here's your chance to give me a practical demo of how useful they'd be.'

  'At the right time in the right place, I'll be glad to,' said Pascoe. 'At this time the right place for me is bed. Good night, sir.'

  He turned towards the door. And froze.

  He could hear footsteps in the corridor. They reached the door. And passed on.

  Dalziel, as if he'd heard nothing, said, 'All right, lad, I'll not beg. You bugger off home and I'll see what I can do meself. Man who can play the bagpipes shouldn't have much trouble with one of these jobs.'

  He flexed his huge fingers over a keyboard, like a plumber about to start an eye operation with a wrench. Pascoe groaned, knowing, and knowing that Dalziel knew too, that any attempt at interference by a non-initiate would be unconcealable.

  'Move over,' he said.

  Hope that Hiller might have made access difficult was soon dashed. The man obviously believed that a good lock and his name on a door were security enough. The poor sod had been away from Dalziel too long.

  'What do you want to know?' asked Pascoe.

  'Everything yon bugger knows.'

  Pascoe sighed and said, 'This isn't an old-fashioned interrogation. I can't just thump it and ask it to cough up the lot. And even if I could, God knows how long it'd take to spew it all out, and you've only got me for five minutes, and that's not negotiable.'

  'All right,' said Dalziel. 'Main thing I'd like to know is where Kohler's shacked up now.'

  The implications of this were too frightening for discussion. Pascoe hit the keys, half hoping it might prove impossible to access Hiller's program, but addresses were clearly not classified as restricted information.

  'There you are,' he said tearing off the print-out. 'Now let's go.'

  'You said five minutes,' objected Dalziel. 'Let's have every bugger's address, all them as were at Mickledore Hall that weekend.'

  'Why should they be in here?'

  'I know Adolf.'

  He was right. The printer spewed out address after address, balking only at James Westropp.

  'This is grand,' said Dalziel, watching the print-outs roll off. 'Fit one of these in the station bog and think of the saving. Now what about . . . ?'

  'What about nothing. This is the end.'

  Pascoe set about tidying up. There was a chance this illicit access might go unnoticed and he wanted to maximize it.

  'Stick that stuff under your jacket, for God's sake!' he told Dalziel, who was clearly prepared to wander round the station trailing clouds of print-out paper.

  Their roles were now reversed. It was Pascoe, made furtive by fear, who checked the corridor was empty.

  'Right, let's go,' he said.

  Dalziel seemed to take forever locking the door and Pascoe was in an agony of impatience lest they should be discovered at this final moment.

  'Right,' said the Fat Man finally. 'Let's get out of here before you faint. You're as nervous as a curate on his first choirboy.'

  Pascoe didn't reply. He was looking aghast at the mahogany plaque. Through the first ‘l’ of Hiller's name ran a cross-bar turning it to Hitler.

  'I might have known!' he cried. 'It was you!'

  He licked his finger and rubbed at the bar but the ink was indelible.

  Dalziel drew him gently away, saying, 'Can't have Adolf thinking we'd lost our sense of humour. You eaten tonight? You've got to look after yourself even though the cook's away. Tell you what. I'll treat you to a fish supper and we can eat it at my place while we talk about what to do next. We'll go in your car. I didn't bring mine. Less evidence I've been here tonight, the better.'

  'Whereas I don't count?'

  'Nay, lad. Your great advantage is, you're beneath suspicion!'

  They stopped at a chippie a few streets from Dalziel's house. He was obviously well known here, raising two fingers as he went through the door and being served immediately over the head of a thickset youth who said, more in puzzlement than complaint, 'Who the hell are you?'

  'Doctor,' said Dalziel, it's an emergency. I've got a fish diabetic in the car.'

  When they got to Dalziel's house they found it had been burgled.

  It was the usual job. Kitchen window smashed, drawers ransacked.

  'Portable radio, brass carriage clock, gold cufflinks, ten quid in loose change,' said Dalziel after a quick scout round. 'Draw that curtain to keep out the draught and let's get stuck into our haddock afore it gets cold.'

  He deposited a ketchup bottle and two cans of beer on the kitchen table, sat down and began to unwrap his fish and chips.

  'Aren't you going to . . . ?'

  'What? Ring the station and drag half the squad round here to scatter dust over me haddock and chips? You know the score, lad. Five per cent clear-up on your normal opportunist break-ins, so what's the odds on this?'

  Pascoe slowly unwrapped the newspaper round his fish. It was the local Evening Post and he found himself looking at the weekly Crime Round-up column where the trivia of brawls and burglaries enjoyed a mayfly's exposure. Here was an explanation of Dalziel's cynicism. But not of its phrasing.

  He chewed a chip and said, 'Why should the odds be any worse on clearing up this job?'

  "Cos it weren't opportunist and it weren't a break-in,' said Dalziel promptly. 'Probably came in through the front door, smashed that window as an afterthought on the way out.'

  Pascoe went to the window and examined it, went through into the entrance hall and looked at the front door.

  'What makes you say that?' he asked, returning to his seat in the kitchen. 'I can't see anything.'

  'Me neither. You've got to give credit where it's due. Are you not going to eat that haddock?'

  'If it wasn't just a straight break-in, what were they after?' insisted Pascoe.

  Dalziel, who had rapidly devoured his own fish, broke a bit off Pascoe's and put it in his mouth.

  'Wally Tallantire's papers, I'd guess,' he said chewily.

  'What? But Mrs Tallantire said there weren't any. Didn't she?'

  'Adolf's not the trusting type,' said Dalziel sadly.

  'But I don't believe he's the burgling type either.'

  'No, he'd not do owt as chancy as that. But he'd mebbe pass on his thoughts to them as would.'

  'You mean this security connection you've dreamt up?' Pascoe laughed incredulously. 'You're telling me they'd set up a break-in just to have a look for some non-existent papers?'

  'Who said they were non-existent?'

  'You mean you have got them? This gets worse. Just what the hell are you playing at?'

  'Playing at? Don't know what you mean,' said Dalziel, helping himself to more fish.

  'Concealing evidence. Stealing computer files. For Christ's sake, what are you dragging me into?'

  'You make everything sound so sodding sinister! All I'm trying to do is protect a mate's reputation. You'd do the same, wouldn't you?'

  ‘If it was worth protecting, maybe,' said Pascoe savagely.

  'Oh aye? How about if I said your Ellie's a mixed-up cow who's finally found an excuse to run off to her mam? Whoops, watch it, lad. You wouldn't hit a man who's left you some haddock, would you?'

  Pascoe found he was standing with his fists balled. He tried to unclench them, found he couldn't.

  'What was that in aid of?' he said softly.

  'Just showing that sticking up for a mate's got nowt to do with truth. Even if Wally turned out as guilty as hell, I'll still smack any bugger that says so.'

  Pascoe's hands relaxed.

  'All right, Socrates,' he said. 'But it's not as simple as that.'

  'Never is, not in life, but law's different. "Guilty or not guilty?" - "Please, m'lud, it's not as simple as that." Christ, the judge would hit the ceiling, then cling on up t
here so he could shit on you from a great height! No, our Adolf won't be perhapsing around with this one, not when there's no bugger to answer back.'

  'There's you.'

  'Aye, there is, isn't there? Story of my life, answering back.'

  'Perhaps you'd better start answering me,' said Pascoe, resuming his seat.

  'Sure you want to know? Ignorance might be your best defence.'

  'It never has been with you,' said Pascoe.

  'True. You're much better off knowing and lying,' said Dalziel. 'So ask away.'

  Pascoe chewed on a cold chip. Dalziel had lied about leaving him some haddock. And what else?

  He said, 'It's back to basics. That tape's filled me in on the authorized version, but I need to be brought up to date on the revised version too. I missed the telly programme and didn't pay much heed to the newspaper reports. So what happened to make the powers-that-be admit an error?'

  'Jay Waggs happened for starters. He's a bit of a chancer by the sound of it. Media man, try his hand at anything, but always on the lookout for the shortcut to the big time. He claims to be a distant relative of Kohler's and says he was brought up on these stories of Cousin Cissy who disgraced the family and was locked up in the Tower of London. He researched the case, came over here, got permission to visit her, and, according to him, became convinced there'd been a miscarriage of justice. He got some backing from Ebor television because of the Yorkshire connection and made a programme about the case. I've got it on video.'

  Dalziel rose and put a cassette into his video machine.

  'Dead giveaway, that,' he said as he pressed the start button. 'First thing any self-respecting burglar nicks nowadays is your VTR. Another beer?'

  'Why not?' said Pascoe resignedly.

  He caught the can Dalziel tossed him and pulled the ring opener as the screen bloomed into colour.

  It was a slick, well made programme. Its pluses were Mickledore Hall, now a National Trust property with its decoration and furnishing virtually unchanged from '63, and Waggs himself, who came across with a uniquely American combination of brashness, sincerity and charm. Its big minus was the almost total absence of direct contribution from those present during the fatal weekend. To compensate, Lord Partridge's memoirs were extensively quoted; there was a distant glimpse of Elsbeth Lowrie, now a buxom farmer's wife, feeding hens; and in a rather grisly interview, Percy Pollock, the public hangman, now a frail white-haired septuagenarian, testified that Ralph Mickledore had gone to the scaffold protesting his innocence.

  'He would, wouldn't he? interposed Dalziel.

  'Shh,' said Pascoe, for at last, after assertion and argument, it looked as if they were getting down to evidence.

  This took the form of an interview with the one Mickledore Hall guest willing or able to appear. It was Mavis Marsh, the Partridges' nanny. Far from the stiff and starchy figure of William Stamper's recollection, the woman who appeared on the screen was elegantly dressed and attractive, relaxing very much at her ease in a luxurious armchair in a room which looked like an illustration from an interior decorator's brochure.

  In voice-over Jay Waggs said, ‘I met Mavis Marsh in her Harrogate apartment and asked her to tell me what she recalled of that night.'

  Miss Marsh spoke in a light clear voice with a genteel Morningside accent.

  ‘I was on the second floor, and my bedroom was directly above the gunroom. I went to bed early and fell asleep almost at once. I don't know exactly how long I'd been asleep when something woke me up - '

  'What was it?' interrupted Waggs.

  'I don't know. A sort of crash - '

  'Could it have been a gunshot?'

  'Possibly, though of course I didn't think of that at the time.'

  'Was any attempt made later to reproduce the sound? I mean, for instance, did the police experiment by firing a shot in the gunroom to test your reaction?'

  'No. There was some talk of it, I recollect, but it never came to anything.'

  'Why was that?'

  'I suppose they'd got Cecily Kohler's confession by then, so thought it would be a waste of time.'

  'OK. So you heard a noise. What then?'

  'My first thought was naturally of the children, and I jumped out of bed very quickly. I suppose I forgot where I was and headed for where the door would have been in my room at home, I mean at Haysgarth, the Partridge family seat. The result was, I walked into a wardrobe and banged my nose.'

  'What did you do then?'

  She looked amused and said, 'I did what any normal person would have done. I yelled out and sat down on the bed. My nose felt as if it were broken, and it was certainly bleeding, I stanched it with some tissues from my bedside table, then I went to the door.'

  'You found it all right this time?'

  'I rarely repeat a mistake,' she said with a sudden acidity that gave a glimpse of the stern nanny beneath the sophisticated surface. 'And besides, I'd switched on the light by now. I went into the corridor and I saw Miss Kohler.'

  'Cissy? What was she doing?'

  'She was standing outside her room.'

  'As if she'd just come out, you mean? Like maybe she'd been disturbed by the same noise as you?'

  'Possibly. In fact, very probably. But when she saw me she came straight to me. I must have looked a ghastly sight. My nosebleeds always produce a disproportionate amount of blood. She made me go back to my room and lie on the bed while she cleaned me up. She was very efficient, I recollect, which is what I would expect from a trained nanny. She assured me no bones were broken and told me to lie on my back with a cold compress on my nose till the bleeding had completely stopped. Then she left me to rest.'

  'So when William Stamper saw her in the corridor with blood on her hands, it was probably your blood?'

  'It would seem very likely, yes.'

  'Did you tell this to Superintendent Tallantire?'

  'I can't honestly remember but I would assume so.'

  'It doesn't appear in your signed statement.'

  ‘I naturally left it to the police to decide what was and what was not relevant.'

  'But later, didn't you feel you ought to speak out . . . ?'

  Miss Marsh fixed Waggs with a gaze that would have stopped apples falling.

  'Speak out about what, pray? A murder had been committed. Miss Kohler had confessed to being Sir Ralph's accomplice in its commission. We were all in a state of considerable shock. I had told the police all that I knew.'

  'But when it became apparent at the trial that the prosecution were making such a lot of Miss Kohler's appearance in the corridor with blood on her hands, blood of the same group as Pamela Westropp, Group B, which is of course your group too, didn't you then feel some unease?'

  'Had I known of this, I might have done, though the fact of her confession must still have told heavily against her. But at the time of the trial I was in Antigua. Lord Partridge, Mr Partridge as he was then, took his family out there to his cousin's estate to avoid media harassment almost immediately after leaving Mickledore Hall. He had to return because of his parliamentary duties, of course, but his wife and I and the younger children remained abroad till January.'

  'Didn't you follow the trial on the radio or in the newspapers?'

  'No, we did not. What had happened at Mickledore Hall was not a topic Lady Partridge cared to discuss. Total abstention seemed the best course.'

  'And the defence made no attempt to talk with you?'

  'There was a letter from some lawyers. I took advice from my employers and replied that I was unable to add anything to my statement.'

  'But now you know all the facts of the trial, all the details of evidence, how do you feel about things, Miss Marsh?'

  The camera closed in on the nanny till her face filled the screen. Her complexion stood up very well to the close scrutiny and the eyes that focused unblinkingly on the lens were clear and hard as diamonds.

  ‘If the verdict depended at all on the evidence of the blood, then clearly it was in error
and ought to be set aside.'

  'And the confession?'

  She made an impatient gesture.

  'She was young, possibly immature. Anyone who has had to deal with children professionally will know that their propensity for denying obvious truths is matched only by their readiness to admit to obvious falsehoods. They do it out of misunderstanding sometimes, and sometimes they do it out of a desire to please. But most often they do it out of simple irrational fear.'