'Good God. I thought Sempernel's toy boy were the lowest a man could get, but Adolf's chauffeur! Well, thank God we've seen the back of him.'
'You're not being fair!' protested Pascoe. 'What he's done took guts. And probity.'
'Oh aye? Had a heart-to-heart about his motives as you drove down, did you?'
'As a matter of fact, we didn't. Mr Hiller made it quite clear he didn't want to talk about the affair. For my sake, I suspect.'
'Christ, he's got you feeling grateful too! So what did you talk about?'
Pascoe hesitated, then said, 'Well, you were mentioned, actually. In fact, Mr Hiller asked me to give you a message.'
'What's that, then? Love and kisses? Or a bit of pious moralizing?'
'No. More like advice, sort of.' Pascoe took a deep breath. 'He said to ask Andy Dalziel if he'd ever thought of sticking his head up his arse and shitting some sense into it. End of message.'
Dalziel looked at him in astonishment. Then he began to laugh.
'He said that? Well, mebbe I have misjudged him after all and there's summat more than cold tea trickling through his veins. Talking of which . . .'
He examined the bottles, selected the Highland Park and poured a Trinitarian measure.
'So how have things turned out up there?' he asked.
‘I‘m not sure. I get a sense of everything being wound down. The inquest on Marsh passed without any fuss. Natural causes. I don't think anyone will be sent to replace Hiller. Stubbs says that there'll probably be an inconclusive report along the lines of administrative errors compounded by Kohler's own emotional trauma. She knew what Mickledore had done but wasn't actively involved, sort of thing. So he stays guilty and she gets pardoned, but there's not enough public sympathy to keep the story running as she did let the little girl drown and she definitely killed Daphne Bush. So that looks like that, all neat and tidy. Except for you . . .'
He looked at the Fat Man expectantly.
'Me? Aye, I could still rock the boat if I took a fancy.'
'But you don't?' said Pascoe doubtingly.
'As long as no one chucks dirt at Wally Tallantire, I'll be happy,' said Dalziel. 'Something bothering you, lad? You look like you've found a spider in your glass.'
'You mean you're willing to let things slide? After all you said about Geoff Hiller?' Pascoe shook his head in bewilderment. 'Didn't you find out anything in the States? From what you said . . . Didn't you even catch up with Kohler?'
'Oh aye, I managed that. She were pretty elusive but in the end we were able to sit down and have a nice quiet chat. Well, at least it started quiet.'
Dalziel smiled reminiscently. He had seen Kohler once more after he left the Bellmain house.
Waggs had taken her back to the hotel and that was where he found them, sitting on the bar terrace overlooking the car park. He sat beside them. The waiter came. That's one thing he liked about America. You could often get a waiter without recourse to threat or bribe.
He ordered Scotch for himself, pointed at the others' almost empty glasses and said, 'Again.'
'So what's the word, Dalziel?' said Waggs. 'Stiff upper lips and imperial solidarity?'
'Stiff? Aye, that's the word. Stiff,' said Dalziel.
'As in stiff?'
‘I doubt he'll see the day out. It's been a strain.’
'Is that a medical opinion? Or a police opinion?' said Waggs.
‘It's an opinion. How're you feeling, lass?'
Cissy Kohler said quietly, 'I stopped feeling long ago. It's not a habit I want to get back into. Not after today.'
'So why'd you come? What's it all been about?'
'Jay told me he was dying. I thought: Sooner or later I'll get out of here and if he's dead, I'll never understand anything. No, that's not quite true. I thought, this is maybe my last chance to want to get out of here. It's wanting that's important. I'd been inside all those years. I felt I ought to have a last try at making sense of it. I think I may have been wrong.'
'Shouldn't let it worry you, luv,' said Dalziel comfortably. 'I've been on the outside all that time and it doesn't make much sense to me either.'
'Jesus! You do counselling too, do you?' sneered Waggs.
'Sort of. So the two of you set out to get back here before Westropp died in the hope of . . . what? Hearing some truth that'd set you free? So how's it worked out?'
'I'll maybe tell you that when I hear the truth,' said Waggs.
'I'll give you it,' said Dalziel. 'Only it's not clear-cut. Pam Westropp died. Who killed her? Everybody, including herself. It was an accident, it was suicide, and likely there was a bit of murder in there too. Mickledore tried to tidy things up. Altruistic? Mebbe. But there's a lot of self-interest there too. It's his house. He's been banging the dead woman and if that gets out, his rich dad-in-law-to-be will definitely scupper his wedding plans. Only his tidying-up's too good, especially when he gets help from someone willing to take the whole thing on herself. But just how far would you have gone, Miss Kohler, if Emily hadn't drowned? Even your motive's not clear-cut, is it?'
'Come on, Dalziel!' said Waggs. 'You're just making smoke for the Brit Establishment. We're going to get this thing out in the open . . .'
'Not with Cissy's help, you're not,' said Dalziel glancing at the woman whose blank face confirmed his assertion, ‘I doubt if you really want to, anyway. Man'ud need to be a real shit to want to make a blockbuster movie out of his ma's murder. Particularly if he weren't all that sure how he really felt about her anyway. I mean, she did dump you so's she could take off with her new family - '
Waggs was on his feet, his face flushed.
'I don't have to listen to this crap - '
'That's right, lad,' agreed Dalziel. 'In your situation I'd be much keener to spend time thinking up my next story for your mates in LA. Like the Arabian Nights, isn't it? A story a day keeps the heavy mob away. In fact, I hope the golden tongue's well oiled just now. There's two burly gents just got out of a car and it's either love at first sight or they're looking for someone.'
Waggs peered over the terrace rail. At the far side of the car park two men were standing, one pointing towards their table. Now they began to move purposefully forward.
'Ciss, I'll be in touch,' said Waggs.
Dalziel watched him hurry away and said, 'He's not a bad lad, but not really cut out for this avenging angel stuff.'
'Is he really in trouble?' asked Kohler anxiously.
'From the minute he was born. Don't worry too much. He's had the practice dodging it. What'll you do now?'
'Concerned, are you?' She laughed shortly. 'I got the impression you fancied yourself as a bit of an avenging angel too, Mr Dalziel.'
'Like I say, nowt's clear-cut. We all got conned a bit that weekend, but it was you who got stuck with the bill.'
'You're forgetting Mick. And Pam. And little Em. I'm still alive. At least I think I am.'
'So what'll you do?'
'Who knows? Collect my compensation, settle down somewhere, grow a tree, hang myself from it.'
For a second Dalziel was alarmed. He examined her closely, this woman he had chased across an ocean in the certainty of her guilt. He knew there was no way he could have tholed what she'd put up with these long years. He'd have either broken the cell door to get out or broken his neck in his efforts to do so.
That thought reassured him almost as much as the level unblinking way in which her gaze held his. There was a strength here which his own strength, though so different, responded to.
He said, 'Make it an oak, luv. Give yourself a bit of time to think.'
A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up and realized he'd frightened Waggs unnecessarily. The two men from the car park had arrived and, close up, his newly educated eye fixed them as more likely to be Rampling's 'guys' than Hesperides heavies.
'You Dalziel?' said the taller of the two, not discourteously.
'I'm not sure, not till I know who you are, sonny.'
'Come on,' said the shor
ter man aggressively. 'Of course it's Dalziel. Do you see any other fat ugly slobs out here?'
'Now, where'd you get a description like that, I wonder?' said Dalziel reflectively.
"Pardon me, sir,' said the courteous one, 'but Mr Rampling would like a word.'
'He can have two if he likes. Can't you see I'm busy?'
'Jesus Christ. These Anglos really piss me off,' said the short man. 'Listen, fella, just move your big fat butt off that chair and come with us, OK?'
'You really sure you want me to stand up?' asked Dalziel.
'What's that? A threat?' sneered the man.
'Please, Harry,' said his friend.
'Fuck please. This guy's beginning to believe his own publicity. What are you going to do, friend? Roll over me with your belly? Or maybe you've got a concealed weapon in there?'
'Nay, lad,' said Dalziel, smiling as he rose. 'The only hidden weapons I've got are these.'
And thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, he brought them out with a gun clasped in each.
'You should've been there,' said Dalziel reminiscently. 'I felt like John Wayne. Them two buggers went diving for cover just like you see in the movies! There was chairs and tables scattering everywhere! One of them, the hard case, he vaulted clear over the terrace rail and landed on top of a car. Broke his arm in two places. Didn't do the car much good either. And the other was trying to pull a gun out, only it got snagged on his jacket and he couldn't get it loose. I thought he was going to end up shooting himself in the balls!'
'You could have got killed,' protested Pascoe. 'What were you doing all this while?'
'Doing? Nowt. Except laugh. I near on fell out of my chair laughing. And after a bit, I realized she were laughing too. Not just a smile or a giggle, but a real good laugh, the kind you just can't stop. She got serious again before we parted, but. She said, I don't blame him for getting married. Outside, you've got to forget or you go mad, I'm getting to see that now. But was he worth it, Mr Dalziel? Did he ever feel enough for me to make it even for one moment worth it? And I told her, yes, he was worth it. I told her he'd asked me to give her his pillbox because the coat of arms on it was his only excuse for the lousy way he'd acted. I told her how after he got his skull together again, he'd wanted to come forward and put everything straight, only because of who he was, his family connections and such, they pressured him and persuaded him and threatened him till he didn't know what to do. So he did nothing, and he regretted it for the rest of his days, which was why he was so cold-seeming towards her when she got in touch. It was pure guilt.'
'And you think that's the truth?'
'No,' said Dalziel. 'Load of bollocks. I think he were a right shit. Like all on 'em. Right shits. Talking of which, where's Pimpernel? I bet the bugger's going through my case! I hope he doesn't crease my shirts. I spent a long time packing them shirts.'
He poured himself another drink and was half way through it when the door opened and a tall grey-haired man came in with an apologetic smile creasing his canine features.
'Mr Dalziel, so sorry you've been kept waiting. It's just that when I heard you were coming back after seeing poor dear James Westropp, I just had to take this chance of talking with you. He was a dear friend, a dear old friend, and I've been meaning to visit him for ages but kept on putting it off, you know how it is, pressure of work. And now he's gone. Sit down, let me fill your glass. Tell me all about him, poor dear James. Did he mention me at all?'
'As a matter of fact he did, sir,' said Dalziel. 'He sent you a message.'
Pascoe, recalling the message he'd just passed on from Hiller, closed his eyes and inwardly groaned.
'What did he say?'
'He said if I ever saw you to say he'd kept the faith to the end, and he'd left things tidy. He wanted you to know that, sir. I thought it must be something to do with his old school song or something.'
'That's right, Mr Dalziel. His old school. Our old school. I'm touched, deeply touched. I thank you with all my heart.'
'My pleasure, sir,' said Dalziel, in tones vibrant with sincerity. 'My very real pleasure.'
Sempernel regarded him speculatively for a long moment, then visibly relaxed.
'So tell me. Superintendent,' he said in a voice which stayed just this side of patronizing. 'This was your first trip to America? What do you think of it?'
Dalziel thought for a while, then said with saloon bar judiciousness, 'Well, what I think is, it'll be right lovely when they finish it.'
TWO
'But it's not my business. My work is my business.
See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la;
La, la, la! And off his head comes!'
They drove up the A1 in silence, if Dalziel's snoring could be called silence. This was the Great North Road, or had been before modern traffic made it necessary for roads to miss the townships they once had joined. Hatfield they passed, where Elizabeth the First heard of her accession, and Hitchin, where George Chapman translated Homer into English and John Keats into the realms of gold; Biggleswade, where the Romans, driving their own road north, forded a river and founded a town; Norman Cross, near which a bronze eagle broods over the memory of eighteen hundred of Napoleon's dead, not on a field of battle but in a British prison camp; then into what had been Rutland before it was destroyed by little men whose power outstripped their vision by a Scotch mile: and now began the long flat acres of Lincolnshire, and the road ran by Stamford, once the busy capital of the Fens and later badly damaged during the Wars of the Roses; and Grantham, where God said, 'Let Newton be,' and there was light, though in a later century the same town ushered in some of the country's most twilit years . . .
All this and more Pascoe mused upon, uncertain whether such cycles of human grossness and greatness should be a cause of hope or of despair, till the road began to drift westward towards Newark in whose castle, King John, the reluctant signator of that first faint assertion of civil liberties, Magna Carta, died.
Pascoe slowed down. Instantly the Fat Man was awake.
'We stopping? Grand. I could murder a pint.'
'Actually I was wondering if you'd mind a short diversion. It's Ellie. She got so worried about her mother, she booked her into the Lincolnshire Hospital for some tests. She went in yesterday and I know Ellie's going to be down there today, and as it's only a dozen or so miles out of our way, I wondered . . .'
‘It's your car, lad. The Lincolnshire? That wouldn't be the Lincolnshire Independent Hospital, would it? By gum, that'll mean a knee-capping at least when they get to hear about it back at the Trotsky Fan Club!'
Pascoe smiled wanly and wondered if this were such a good idea.
The diversion east proved to be rather further than twelve miles but Dalziel offered no comment. In the hospital car park he scratched himself comprehensively, yawned and said, 'They'll have a bar here, I expect.'
'I very much doubt it,' said Pascoe.
'You're joking! What's the point of being independent?'
'I'm sure you'll get a coffee.'
'Nay, I'll drink nowt in these places unless it's been brewed or distilled. More germs than a midden.'
They walked together through the serried ranks of cars.
Pascoe said, 'Look, sir, I still don't get it. You and Sempernel cooing at each other like a pair of randy turtle doves, what the hell was that really about? And don't give me that crap about searching your case. They could have done that easy enough without letting you loose on the Highland Park!'
'So your brain's not gone altogether maggoty since I left you? Good,' approved Dalziel. 'So what did they get that they couldn't have got any other way?'
Pascoe thought, then said, 'Nothing, except you and me together talking . . . Good God, are you saying that Sempernel was listening to us?'
'Aye, lad. And he'll likely carry on listening for a bit, which is the reason I'm talking to you now. I can't be falling asleep all the time to make sure you don't start asking daft questions.'
&nb
sp; This was even harder to take in.
'The car? You think they've bugged my car? Come on!'
'Why not? Whose idea was it for you to drive down to the Smoke with Adolf and back with me?'
'Mr Trimble's.'
'But where did he get it from? Who was it told him which plane I was flying on, for instance?'
'But what the hell did they want to hear?' demanded Pascoe.
Dalziel grinned lupinely.
'Exactly what they heard was what they wanted to hear.'
'You mean . . .' Pascoe's mind raced round a maze of meanings but always found himself forced back to its centre. Dalziel was watching him impatiently like an old- fashioned pedagogue. If he'd had a cane, he would have been swishing it encouragingly against his calf.
Recalled to Life Page 33
