'So what are you selling?' asked Pascoe.
'What are you paying?' replied the man.
He produced his wallet and counted out twenty-five pounds. He meant to wave it seductively in front of the man but somehow the notes were pulled from his fingers without him feeling the friction.
'Nanny Marsh left the Partridge house about twenty years ago.'
'Yes, I know. Under a cloud.'
The scarecrow laughed.
'Oh, she'd been under something right enough, but it was a bit more substantial than a cloud.'
He patted his stomach significantly.
'Good lord,' said Pascoe. 'But who . . . ?'
'Well, I wasn't actually present at the coupling, but if you put a heifer in a field with a randy old bull, you don't need to look far when she drops a calf, do you?'
'Partridge, you mean?' said Pascoe, who liked to have things clear, especially when dealing with a Celt.
'Who said that? Not me. You may be a libel lawyer for all I know. But take a stroll round the village and after a while you get used to seeing the same little round faces peering at you.'
'So what happened to Miss Marsh?'
'Off to a clinic somewhere, was the word. Quick clear-out, large severance payment so to speak, impeccable references, carries on her career elsewhere.'
It made a good old-fashioned bodice-ripping yarn. Except it was hard to imagine Mavis Marsh letting anyone rip her bodice without administering a sharp slap round the ear and a decree of banishment to bed without any supper.
‘Is that it, then?' he asked. 'Not much for twenty-five quid.'
'Depends what you do with it, I'd say. Mr Waggs seems to have done all right. When they make the film, I wonder if I'll be in it?'
'Which film?'
'Bound to be a film, isn't there, boy? Haven't you noticed? There's nothing the Yanks do, from making love to making war, that doesn't end in a film. Must be written into their constitution. Pity Burton's gone, he'd have done me nicely, I reckon. Now we've got the bribing out of the way, I can let you buy me a pint with a clear conscience.'
Pascoe looked at his watch.
'Sorry,' he said rising. 'No time. I've got to dash.'
'Another time,' said the scarecrow.
'Perhaps. One thing you could help me with before I go. Just idle curiosity, but how come you're dressed with such . . . variety?'
'Souvenirs,' said the man smiling. 'Also advertising.'
'Advertising what?'
'One of my little lines of business. I am as it were a living memento mori. I do most of the undertaking round here. And when they put on their garments of immortality, I get first choice of their garments of mortality, see? Drowning man sees his whole life pass in front of him, they say. We're a long way from the sea here, so they have to make do with me instead!'
On his way back to town, Pascoe thought of many things, of randy lords and pregnant nannies, of the way in which Welshmen were somehow normal in their eccentricities and Yorkshiremen extraordinary in their normalities, of his empty stomach, his fragile marriage, and whether Dalziel would reimburse him the twenty-five pounds he'd paid the scarecrow plus the twelve ninety-five he'd paid for the book.
He found himself whistling We're off to see the Wizard. But when he finally entered the Emerald City, he found the Wiz was still not back.
Sergeant Wield was waiting for him. There was no art to read emotion in the Sergeant's moraine of a face, but his body language was eloquent of reproach.
'I'm sorry, Wieldy. Has anything been happening?'
'Nowt I haven't been able to keep on top of with threats, promises and a few downright lies,' said Wield. 'Only good thing that's happened is Jack at the Black Bull gave me extra chips when I told him you and Mr Dalziel wouldn't be in.'
'You got some lunch, then? Lucky you,' said Pascoe.
'It were business. Your business,' said Wield producing his notebook.
'What? Oh, the Harrogate business. Did you get anything?'
The Sergeant consulted his notebook.
'I got three pints, a steak and kidney pie, and two helpings of Black Forest. Who do I claim off?'
'Don't be so mercenary,' reproved Pascoe hypocritically. 'Who was the glutton anyway?'
'Friend of mine from the town hall. He's got a friend in Harrogate.'
Wield's eyes had fallen on the copy of In A Pear Tree which Pascoe had laid on his desk. He flicked it open delicately and read the inscription.
'Mate of yours, is he? Didn't know you kept such rich company.'
There was a note of irritation in his voice and Pascoe heard himself responding in kind. 'You've got some objection?'
'It's your business.'
'But you reckon because he's a Tory lord, he's someone to be steered clear of? I'd have thought you'd be suspicious of knee-jerk prejudices like that, Wieldy.'
It was a low blow, but Wield shrugged it off with a show of indifference.
'What do I know? It's another world.'
'Come on, it's our world too, he's a public figure,' said Pascoe, finding himself forced into a defence of Partridge by his guilt at his own irritability. 'He does a lot of good.'
'Charity, you mean. Aye, I heard him making a radio appeal for them handicapped kids' homes, the Carlake Trust, is it? I even sent something. But it's not exactly Mother Teresa stuff, taping a five-minute chat, is it?'
'He does rather more than that,' said Pascoe with dust jacket expertise. 'He's co-director. And the royalties from his book go to the Trust.'
'Likely he can afford it,' said Wield. 'I mean, a man who can hand out leases on two-fifty quid a week flats can't be short of a bob or two.'
Suddenly Pascoe was diverted from seeking the cause of his own irritation to understanding Wield's.
'What's that you say?'
'That flat you asked about. There's a management company runs the house, and behind them there's a property company called Millgarth Estates. And you know who the principal shareholder is? That's right. Your favourite author. Lord Partridge.'
'You said, hand out leases . . . ?'
'Aye. This woman lives there, free and clear of all rent, ground rent, management charges, the lot. Who is she, anyway? His bit of stuff?'
It dawned on Pascoe that they had a common source of irritation. Wield's was at being kept in the dark, his was at having to work in the dark.
He said, 'No, she is his old family nanny.'
Wield whistled and said, 'Nice work if you can get it. What's it got to do with us?'
It was a good question. Better perhaps was, what's it got to do with Ralph Mickledore? With Pam Westropp? With Cissy Kohler?
He said wearily, 'God knows, Wieldy. And He's not in today.'
Sometimes the dark was the safest place to be.
SIX
'For gracious sake, don't talk about Liberty; we have
quite enough of that!'
It wasn't till she stepped aboard the Boeing 747 at Heathrow that Cissy Kohler realized she had missed the space age.
Television, books, newspapers, they all fed you information fricasseed with fiction, so that Apollo 11 became indistinguishable from Star Wars. Prison was a time capsule. The events in the brief period since her release had passed in a kind of decelerating blur. It was as if she'd stepped straight out of Mickledore Hall into this huge machine with stairs to an upper deck and more seats than a cinema.
They were in first class. She relaxed in her broad and comfortable seat and peered out of the window. A memory stirred of the first time she had seen this airport thirty years ago. Then a voice said, 'Mr Waggs.' And she looked up to see Osbert Sempernel's distinguished grey head stooping over Jay.
He wore the same or an identical Savile Row suit, the same or an identical discoloured tie, and definitely the same expression of superior unconcern.
Jay Waggs said, 'Hi.'
'I wonder if I could have a word.'
'As many as you like. If you've got a ticket, you can have a whole boo
kful.'
‘It would be better back in the terminal,' murmured Sempernel. 'More private.'
'Hell, we couldn't hold up all the other good people on this plane.'
'There are plenty of other flights. It would just be a matter of tying up a few loose ends.'
Waggs glanced at his watch and said, 'I make it you've got seven minutes to do the tying, Mr Sempernel.'
‘I could have you both taken off,' said Sempernel mildly.
'Well, you could, but I'd make a lot of noise, believe me. And our solicitor's back there in the terminal and he'd make a lot of noise too. And just imagine the noise the media would make if this little lady you've had illegally locked up for half her lifetime was dragged screaming from the plane that was taking her home. Papers are all in order too. Mr Jacklin saw to that.'
'A very thorough man, your Mr Jacklin,' said Sempernel.
'That's right, but he's not perfect,' said Jay Waggs. 'I reckon he forgot to mention that little gate in the wall and the key he had to the lock.'
'We had an agreement, Mr Waggs,' said Sempernel.
'Still have,' reassured the American. 'All that's changed is that Cissy here couldn't wait to get home.'
Sempernel stood in silence for a moment. Then he said, in that case all that remains is to wish you bon voyage.'
'And you too, Mr Sempernel, wherever you're going.'
He straightened up and left.
Cissy said, 'Is there a problem, Jay?'
'No problem, Ciss.' He smiled.
'Good.' She knew there was a problem, would be many more. But for the moment she wanted to surrender herself to her sense of wonder at being in the bowels of this huge machine. She felt an almost sexual shudder run through her body as the jets began to roar, and the climax came when the monster did the impossible and lifted itself clear of the speeding runway into the skies. She watched the ragged coastline fall away, then they were above the clouds, and all sense of movement faded, and with it her sense of wonder too. Now they were simply sealed tight in a narrow metal-lined room. This was familiar territory.
Food was served. It was good. She refused wine. She'd had a glass of champagne her first night in the cottage. It made her head swim. There were plenty of sources of confusion in this brash new world without admitting more through her mouth.
OK, Cissy?'
'Fine, Jay.'
She gave him the half-smile which was still the best her face muscles could manage. Men were like alcohol, to be treated with caution till you were sure that you'd got their measure. You thought you could use people, then you found they were using you. Like Daphne Bush. She saw her stretched out on the cell floor, eyes wide, seeing nothing .. . or seeing everything . . . She forced her thoughts back to Jay. For twenty-seven years the men she saw had all been defined purely in terms of function . . . chaplain, doctor, solicitor . . . Then came Jay. He said he was kin, but that wasn't a function. Finally she had got a label on his cell. He was some kind of crusader. She knew a bit about the crusades. Alfred Duggan's novels in the prison library had stimulated an interest, and in the time capsule, an interest was something you nursed tenderly.
She knew that after the crusaders achieved their aim and liberated the Holy City, their minds switched from the sacred to the profane, from divine justice to plunder and fiefdoms.
Time to take a little step back to the world she'd been out of.
'Jay, who's paying for this?'
She wasn't really interested but the only other thing she wanted to talk about wasn't a subject to be aired in a crowded plane.
'No need to worry about that,' he said. 'What's mine is yours till we get the big pay-off you're due.'
The crusader's personal pennant breaking out alongside the red cross banner over the liberated city.
'You think the Brits will still pay the compensation they promised now we've skipped?'
'Sure they will. What are they going to say? We did a deal to keep her quiet? OK, they might drag their feet a bit now we've jumped the gun. But they know what this is worth on the open market. This is Prisoner of Chillon stuff, the Count of Monte Cristo, Doctor Manette. Your memoirs . . .'
'I've told you, there are no memoirs, Jay.'
'So you write them. Or get someone else to write them. One way or another you can be rich, Ciss.'
She turned her wide unblinking gaze on him. Sometimes the impression it gave was of simple candour; other times it was as blank and unrevealing as a pair of sunglasses.
‘I don't want to be rich. Jay, I've told you that all along. All I want from you is one thing. After that I'll settle for peace and quiet and no one bothering me.'
'Yeah? That's about the most expensive commodity on this planet."
'You mean, I need to sell myself publicly to afford to live privately?'
‘Something like that. You can't turn back the clock, Ciss, but with the right money, you sure as hell can slow it down.'
'Who needs money?' she said. 'Prison does that for free."
She turned away from him and out of her capacious handbag she took the old Bible. For a while she sat with it open on her lap, her lips moving soundlessly as her eyes moved over the columns of words. Finally she closed the book and her eyes together and, settling back in her seat, slipped back into the time capsule with an expertise learned over long years, stepping out instantly into the memory stirred earlier as she looked out at the airport.
She was coming down the steps from a BOAC Comet IV, a young woman in her early twenties, blooming with excitement as she set foot for the first time on European soil.
In her arms was little Pip, still sobbing from the earpopping descent. In front of her were James Westropp and his wife, Pam, who was carrying Emily, Pip's twin, also crying lustily. There'd been some debate as to whether John, Pam's son by her first marriage, should accompany them, but it had been decided that, aged six and newly started at school, it would be unfair to uproot him till James got his next foreign posting. So he'd stayed in the care of his aunt, Pam's sister, much to Cissy's relief. She got on well with the boy, but his resentment of his step-father made him a real handful and she had problems of her own which made two bawling infants quite enough to cope with in this new land.
'This is no way for English children to greet their native land,' said Westropp as they walked across the tarmac.
'English? Come on! They're at least half American,' protested Pam.
'Of course. And that's the half that's wailing. I thought I recognized the accent.'
Often they wisecracked this way like they were in a movie comedy, but Cissy's sensitive ear detected something sharper than wit in their exchanges.
In the terminal building she saw a sign dividing native sheep from alien goats and said to Pam, ‘I think I should join this line. I guess you'll be OK because you're married to an Englishman, so could you take Pip too?'
'What are you talking about, Cissy?' said her employer.
You don't think James is going to hang about while some clerk decides whether you've come to steal the Crown Jewels, do you?'
Westropp was talking to a man wearing a peaked cap white enough to serve Pam's morning croissants off.
He led them out of the main flow of arrivals into a palatial lounge where they were offered drinks while the brief formalities were gone through. As they prepared to move on, a voice cried, 'There you are! I wish they treated me like this. Pam, you look gorgeous. Jimmy, you look as if you've just been expelled for conduct unbecoming. Pip and Em, you are at last distinguishable one end from the other. And Cissy, the fairest nanny in the land!'
And Ralph Mickledore, six foot tall, broad-shouldered, tow-headed, with an infectious laugh and more energy than any other man Cissy had met, was upon them. Each greeting was punctuated with a kiss, leaving Pam smiling, Westropp grimacing, the twins bawling, and Cissie blushing.
'What on earth are you doing here, Mick?' asked Westropp.
Dark, slightly built, with a thin intelligent face and watchful eyes, he w
as as unlike his friend as possible. It must have been an attraction of opposites. And why not? Cissy knew all about such attractions.
'Welcoming my dearest friends home, of course, what else? I need to go back to Yorkshire tomorrow, so I thought this would be the best way to see you before you were hit by the dreaded jet-lag.'
'Now isn't that just too thoughtful of you,' said Pam. 'Here, you can carry your god-daughter for your pains.'
Recalled to Life Page 13
