There is a tide in the affairs of journalists, thought Monty Boyle, or something like that.
‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘Excuse me.’
And he sent his car in pursuit of the speeding bike.
It was a vain effort. Fifty yards and the potholes were beginning to claim him. He stopped the car, switched off the engine, reached into the glove compartment and came out with a torch and a pair of field glasses. Far ahead through the trees he glimpsed the bike’s permanently lit head-lamp flickering still at great speed. But there was a limit to the places that its rider could be going. The hunt was far from dead.
Already dying for a cigarette, Monty Boyle set out along the track. Up here the answer lay. Up here Billy Farr had come with Tracey Pedley. And back up here little Tracey had come alone, after being left alone.
If she had been left alone.
‘No,’ screamed Colin Farr into the windy air.
It was a dank October evening with low clouds, bringing an early dusk. Autumn it had been when Billy Farr and Tracey went brambling, but by all accounts a balmy Indian Summer day with Gratterley Wood still in rich leaf and the air still warm enough for bees to buzz in and lovers to lie in. And hard winter it had been when Billy Farr had come up here for the last time to this same spot his son reached now. It was an area of scrubby common once scarred by spoil and diggings, but now with its wounds mostly healed over with coarse grass and undergrowth. Here and there, like druids’ circles erected by some prehistoric botcher, stood rings of palings, laced with rusty barbed wire and adorned with ivy and bindweed and fringed with nettle and burdock. More than the stone which marked his grave, these were monuments to Billy Farr’s death. Here the council workmen had come to seal off all known entrances to the old workings like pharaohs’ tombs, no doubt presenting some distant generation of archaeologists with an interesting problem.
Meanwhile the tomb-robbers were not to be denied.
Colin Farr let his bike freewheel down a diagonal of the ridge till the undergrowth and saplings at the fringe of the wood brought him to a halt. Laying the bike on its side, he took a torch from the pannier and went forward on foot. Suddenly he stopped and spun round. There was nothing to see except a graceful scatter of silver birch, their trunks scarcely thick enough to hide a man. He pressed on, finally halting by a bank of dusty gorse bushes. Once more he looked round. Once more his eyes failed to back his instinct.
Watched or not, he knew there was no turning back. He was in the grip of a compulsion as strong and undeniable as sex. It might take him into the dark places he feared, but sometimes they seemed light enough beside the darkness he found inside of him.
He pulled at the gorse bushes, ignoring the pricking of his hands. They parted to reveal a narrow deep fissure. Out of this those early rustic miners had hewed their first black harvest home.
Colin Farr switched on his torch and, stooping almost to his knees, wriggled inside.
An hour later as darkness fell on Gratterley Wood, a dog fox sniffing the air to see what kind of night it was likely to be was disturbed by a thin wailing cry. Above, he’d have put it down to an owl. But this hadn’t come from above, it had seemed to emerge from the ground itself. The fox listened carefully but there was no repetition. So, deciding the noise was irrelevant to his purposes that night, he turned and went on his way.
It was late when Colin Farr got home.
‘Col, is that you? Where’ve you been?’ called his mother from the kitchen. ‘Your supper’s ruined. Col!’
She’d come to the kitchen door and seen her son. He was dirt-stained and scratched, but it was the look on his face not his physical condition which disturbed her.
‘What’s happened?’ she demanded. ‘Have you been fighting? It’s not Harold Satterthwaite, is it?’
‘No! It’s nowt to do with him,’ exclaimed Farr. ‘I’ve been down the old workings, Mam. Down where Dad died.’
‘Oh God,’ said May Farr, collapsing against the doorpost as the strength ebbed from her legs. ‘What have you done that for, Colin? What took you down there? Was it that bloody paper? I hid it so you’d not see it, but there’s no way to keep anything quiet in this place!’
‘No, Mam, it weren’t the paper. I’ve been down the workings a dozen times before.’
‘But why?’
‘I had to know if Dad … I had to know, and where else was there to look?’
He stared at her with a defiance which was more heartrending than a direct appeal for help.
‘If he killed himself, you mean? Is that it? Why’d you need to look, Col? You could’ve just asked me. You should’ve been able just to ask yourself! Instead you go risking life and limb … It were an accident, Colin. Likely Jacko got lost and he were looking for him and some idiot had taken the cover off … it were an accident, nothing to do with … anything.’
‘Nothing to do with Tracey, you mean? Just coincidence? Up there where he’d last been with her, Jacko goes missing and Dad goes looking for him? It’s a nice story, Mam, but if it’s true, then how do you explain this?’
He held out a circle of imprinted metal.
She took it and looked at it, bewildered but fearful.
Then slowly he unzipped his leather jacket, and she screamed inaudibly and slid all the way to the floor as out of it spilled a confusion of delicate ivory bones.
Chapter 6
Pascoe was amazed to find himself under violent attack the moment he got home on Monday evening. It took him some little time to work out the angle of assault and the nature of the armament, and when he did he had to double-check.
‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You’re blaming me for what Neville Watmough’s writing in the Challenger? Is that it?’
‘No. Yes. In a manner of speaking, you are responsible, aren’t you?’
‘Speak to me in that manner, that I may hear and be instructed,’ said Pascoe gravely.
Ellie was not to be mocked into truce.
‘It’s you, it’s Dalziel, it’s the whole bloody way the police function, isn’t it? You don’t think of people as people, they’re statistics, so many crooks and potential crooks. So many victims and potential victims. You don’t care about feelings, not till someone starts knocking you in the media and then you come all over hurt. Look, you cry, we’re giving you protection, aren’t we? And it’s our lives, not yours, that are at risk out there on the front line, so you should just sit quiet at home and thank your lucky stars that you’ve got the best police force in the world to go along with the best TV, the best Royal Family, and the best Health Service, look at all the frogs and wogs who come here for freebies …’
‘Hang on!’ said Pascoe. ‘Aren’t we getting just a little incoherent? What about some of that fine old academic discipline we used to get before the war? If you want to bitch about the Challenger, bitch away and I’ll bitch with you …’
‘Bitch? Bitch? What’s with this sexist language? You give yourself away every time you open your mouth. Peter, you’re in quicksand and you can’t see it. You’re sinking. Every day you’re becoming a bit more of a Dalziel clone. No, all right, I take that back, he is absolutely unique! But you could be a Watmough clone, respectable, polite, self-important, thinking that a life spent shovelling manure qualifies you to pontificate on agricultural policy and technique.’
‘I thought you said it was quicksand I was sinking in,’ said Pascoe. ‘Whoops, before you tell me that I always flee to frivolity in the face of defeat, let me quickly slip in that I’ve asked Wield for supper tomorrow night. Perhaps you can serve him the food we’re quite clearly not going to get tonight.’
‘Wield? Why? I knew you were friends – well, friendly – but you’ve never asked him for a meal before.’
‘I’ve asked him now. OK? I thought you liked him.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do. How’s he been? I haven’t seen much of him since he came out.’
‘He seems OK. As for coming out, I can’t say I’ve noticed very much change.’
> ‘As you never noticed anything in the first place, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Ellie acidly.
This reference to the fact that he had been amazed at the revelation of Wield’s homosexuality while both Ellie and Dalziel found it completely unsurprising was a low blow. She knew how much he blamed himself for his insensitivity. Well, in this age of equality, both sides can fight dirty.
He said, ‘To get back to Watmough and the Challenger, would I be right in saying what all this is really about isn’t human rights but the Marvellous Boy of Burrthorpe? Has he been weeping dusty tears on your shoulder all afternoon?’
It was a savage blow. Ellie momentarily reeled but, like the fighter she was, rallied magnificently. All night long the noise of battle rolled, with pause only for hasty mouthfuls of a scratch supper and a couple of hours’ necessary sleep. Breakfast was a cross-table bombardment and hostilities would certainly have been resumed in the evening by the fireside’s glow if it hadn’t been that Wield was coming to supper.
He arrived dead on time, clutching a bunch of red roses and a bottle of white wine. He was casually dressed in a pair of elegant light blue slacks, a pale lemon open-necked sports shirt and a diamond patterned lambswool sweater.
He said, ‘I’ve left my leathers in the garage. I hope that’s OK.’
Pascoe and Ellie avoided exchanging glances.
‘Leathers?’ said Pascoe faintly.
‘Yes. I came on the bike,’ said Wield.
‘Of course,’ said Pascoe. ‘The famous motorbike. Darling, you must have heard me mention the famous motorbike.’
He did glance at Ellie this time and saw he was overdoing it.
‘Come in,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘It’s great to see you again. Can I …’
She looked at his burdens.
‘Oh yes,’ said Wield. ‘I brought you these. I hope they’re what you like.’
Carefully he handed Ellie the bottle of wine and Pascoe the bunch of roses. They both looked at him for some signal that the distribution had been an error, but that gnarled and knotted face gave no more away than the bark of an old elm tree.
Then he smiled and said, ‘You can swap if you think I’m being sexist.’
Ellie began to laugh a fraction before Pascoe.
‘I really am glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a drink while Peter’s putting his flowers in water!’
It was a delightful relaxed evening. Wield let down three or four of his outer defence barriers, and though Pascoe got a sense of plenty of layers in reserve, the shrewd and humorous man revealed was a pleasant guest to have at anyone’s table. Ellie demurred at calling him Wieldy but the sergeant refused to reveal his Christian names on the grounds that they might discriminate him.
‘Wieldy’s fine,’ he said. ‘As long as you make no cracks about “unwieldy”. I had enough of that in training.’
After supper they were sitting talking with a Glenn Miller record on low in the background when the phone rang. Pascoe answered it and a man’s voice, young and Yorkshire and not very distinct, asked if he could talk to Mrs Pascoe. Relieved that at least it wasn’t a summons to duty, he went back to the lounge and summoned Ellie. After she had gone into the hall, he offered to refill Wield’s glass.
‘Best not,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m always getting stopped. Our car lads think anyone on a bike’s a Hell’s Angel who’s probably breaking the Highway Code by eating a live chicken as he rides. One of these days I’ll get some smart kid who’ll show how impartial he is by breathalysing me.’
‘You think we should get special treatment?’ wondered Pascoe, who had not found Wield’s temperance infectious.
‘Not special. Neither specially good nor specially bad. The same. Equal.’
‘That should be easy enough to arrange,’ said Pascoe.
‘You reckon? Try being a motorcyclist. Try not being a cop,’ said Wield. Then he added in a voice a little lower but quite audible, ‘Try being gay.’
‘Thanks but no thanks!’ Pascoe heard himself say, then, ‘Oh shit, Wieldy, I’m sorry, it’s the booze.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Wield equably. ‘It’s a conditioned response. The station canteen, the Club bar, that’s the kind of thing you’ve got to say to show your credentials. I’ve done it myself in the early days.’
‘And now?’ asked Pascoe.
‘And now? I’ve been in a kind of limbo these past few weeks. I’d said to myself: No more, I’m coming out, from now on in I’ll be myself. But what’s that? I mean, for me to start going up to people who know me and saying, “Have you heard? I’m gay!” that’s so far from what I am that it’d almost be as dishonest as the way I was before. I’ve never been promiscuous, or mebbe I conditioned myself there too, and with these scare stories about AIDS around, I’m certainly not about to start. I did go into the Jolly Waggoner on Childersgate one night, you know, the one they call the Gay Galloper. I bought a drink and someone said, “My God, darling, the fuzz are really scraping the barrel for their agents provocateurs, aren’t they?” I drank up and left. I mean, what else was there to do? I couldn’t see any future, or much point, in standing on a chair and trying to persuade them all I really was gay. More to the point, I found myself thinking it was none of their bloody business. In fact it’s no one’s except mine. I am what I’ve made myself and that’s the way I’ll stay till I make myself something else. So no crap. I’ll never lie again about being gay, but I’ll not take a full-page spread in the Post to advertise it either. Does that make sense to you, Peter?’
This was certainly the longest and most personal speech Pascoe had ever heard Wield make.
He said, ‘What do I know? But yes, it makes sense to me, for what that’s worth.’
‘A lot,’ said Wield seriously. ‘Right. That’s that. And don’t worry. If you don’t go on about your sex life, I’ll not go on about mine! Is there owt new about Mr Watmough?’
Pascoe accepted the change of direction with a relief he felt slightly ashamed of.
‘I gather there’s a lot of pressure from high up to get him to shut up, but I doubt if he’s really in control now and it takes lawyers with a good case to shut someone like Ogilby up. I’ve tried two or three times to get hold of Monty Boyle, but he’s never available and he never rings back. I think I’ll have to go out looking for him. But there’s no way next Sunday’s piece won’t be printed, I’m afraid.’
Ellie came back into the room. Pascoe knew at once that there was something bothering her. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go out.’
Pascoe said, ‘What’s up? Not your father, is it?’
Ellie’s father in Lincolnshire had for some time been drifting into the happy but hazardous land of senile dementia. He was quite capable of going for a walk on a country path which had been replaced by a four-lane highway twenty years ago.
‘Oh no,’ said Ellie. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just one of my students. He sounds a bit agitated about something so I think I ought to put in a bit of the old pastoral care.’
Wield began to rise, saying, ‘I really ought to be going …’ but Ellie put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him firmly down again.
‘No, don’t make me feel guiltier than I do,’ she said. ‘You stay, finish the bottle. Or Peter will make you some more coffee.’
‘Do you have to go?’ asked Pascoe petulantly, because petulance hid his real feelings.
Ellie smiled without much humour.
‘That’s usually my line when Dalziel rings, isn’t it? And don’t tell me that’s different. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
She left too swiftly for him to reply. He thought of going after her and continuing their discussion in the hallway but he knew that would only upgrade it to a row. A moment later they heard the sound of Ellie’s car.
‘I hope she missed your leathers,’ said Pascoe, trying for brightness.
‘I thought Mrs Pascoe – Ellie – had given up her job at the college,’ said Wield speculatively.
‘This is a University course, extra-mural,’ said Pascoe. ‘Miners.’
‘Miners?’ said Wield. His face as usual gave nothing away. Pascoe wished he could feel as sure of his own control. He’d never heard the voice on the phone before, but he’d recognized it instantly with a certainty which his conscious mind had dismissed as absurd. Colin Farr, the Marvellous Boy. Colin Farr.
Chapter 7
‘Why am I driving so fast?’ Ellie Pascoe asked herself. ‘I’m like some kid rushing out on her first date, terrified she’ll be late and he’ll have gone on without her!’
The comparison was not as amusing as it should have been. There was a light drizzle in the air, enough to smear but not to clear the screen. Wield was going to need his leathers. She pressed the cleaner button but no water squirted out. She remembered now that she’d noticed the bottle was empty last time she’d tried to use it. She slowed down, straining her eyes to see through the dirt-striated glass. Ahead a signpost pointing down a minor road said Lardley 6 miles. She turned down it. There were no cat’s-eyes and any number of ambiguous forks but finally she saw ahead of her the obscure light of a telephone box standing at a five-lane crossroads.
Anyone else would have been sheltering inside but Colin Farr was sitting on the grass verge with his back against the door and his eyes closed. Between his legs was a bottle. As she got out of the car she saw with horror that his golden curls were caked with blood, his face was bruised and his jerkin and jeans were torn.
‘Colin, what’s happened?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Are you hurt badly?’
He opened his eyes, laughed and said, ‘Why? Will you kiss it better?’
‘For God’s sake, get up and get into the car,’ she said angrily. ‘If you want to get pneumonia as well, that’s your business, but I don’t.’
She climbed back into the car and a moment later he opened the passenger door and slumped in beside her.
Under World Page 13
