D&P21 - Good Morning, Midnight

by Reginald Hill

  Pascoe drew up behind it, got out, and, not wanting to risk interrupting serious police business at a critical stage, peered through a window. His view was partially blocked by a menu promising bar meals in which goujons and rocket garnish figured largely. Beyond this he could make out a deal of tartan upholstery and walls festooned with enough horse brass to refurbish the Household Cavalry. He shifted his angle of view and finally glimpsed Mid-Yorkshire’s Finest at their dangerous and demanding work.

  Constables Jennison and Maycock were standing side by side at the bar with their heads tipped back to extract the last drop of liquid from their pint glasses, observed by a military moustached man in a blazer and regimental tie.

  The glasses were then set on the bar with something of reluctant finality and Pascoe retreated to lean against their car, facing the pub doorway.

  It was a fairly wide door but not wide enough to permit the pair to exit abreast. Maycock came first, stopping suddenly when he saw Pascoe, with the result that Jennison bumped into him.

  “What’s up, you daft sod? Good job I weren’t excited else you might have had to marry me,” cried Joker. “Oh shit.”

  The last was sotto voce, caused by glimpsing Pascoe.

  “Hello, sir,” said Maycock, recovering. “Didn’t think this would be important enough for CID.”

  “What is this?” enquired Pascoe.

  “Got a call from the Captain …”

  “Captain?”

  “Captain Inglestone, the landlord. Little bit of bother. Seems some joker circulated several care-homes in the area to say that the Dog and Duck was offering special pensioner discounts this lunchtime, eighty per cent off all drinks and meals. A lot of them made a special effort to get out here.”

  “I think I saw them leaving.”

  “Aye, we persuaded them, but it were a close-run thing,” said Jennison. “There was a popular motion to drown Captain Inglestone in his own slop tray. If he hadn’t agreed to dish out free half-pints all round, I don’t know what might have happened.”

  “And as old age pensioners, that was your free beer you were drinking just now, was it?”

  “No, sir,” said Maycock. “That was by way of experiment. Seems some joker had doctored one of his kegs so that when he put it on yesterday, the beer came out blue. Had to dump the lot and flush out his pipes and we were just making sure the new lot were fit for human consumption. Sir.”

  “Not a very popular man, this captain, by the sound of it,” said Pascoe.

  “Probably his mother loves him,” said Jennison. “Specially if she lives a long way off.”

  Pascoe turned away to hide a smile. Across the green, a dusty hatchback pulled up in front of St Cuthbert’s. The driver got out, looked across at the three policemen and gave a wave.

  It was Dolly Upshott, Pal Maciver’s assistant and the vicar’s sister.

  She’d abandoned her Archimagus outfit and looked much more at home in full country-girl kit, green Barbour sweater straining over her bosom, cord breeks doing the same over her bum, long shapely legs plunging into green wellies. The crown of unruly brown curls remained the same. Curate’s fiancée in a Wodehouse short story, thought Pascoe. Better than him at golf and her parents object.

  Though Wodehouse had never observed, to his knowledge, just how sexy green wellies could be.

  She opened the hatch. The back of the car was filled with cardboard boxes and she bent forward to lift the first of these out. The resultant seam-popping curve of cord over shapely buttock was something to make gods grow languid and mortals feel godlike.

  Now she straightened up with the box in her arms and headed into the elegant brick-built village hall which stood next to the church.

  “Right, lads,” said Pascoe. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do. By the way, Joker. Any progress in tracking down that Dolores tart?”

  “Eh?” said Jennison, who seemed completely rapt.

  “Come on, lad. Snap out of it. Dolores, the woman you say chatted you up outside Moscow House.”

  “Sorry, sir.” With a visible effort Jennison brought himself back from whatever land of sweet content his febrile imagination had conveyed him to. “No, no sign. Your lass Shirley got on to me earlier. I told her I’d checked the phone boxes and such. She’s left no cards anywhere, none of the other girls know owt about her, or else they’re keeping stumm.”

  “All right,” said Pascoe, pleased to hear that Novello was on the ball. “Keep trying. Now off you go.”

  Dolly Upshott came out of the hall, returned to the car and stooped to pick up another box. Jennison looked as if he wanted to stay and see the view again but Maycock drew him away by main force. Pascoe set out across the green towards the hatchback.

  “Hi, there. Need a hand?” he said.

  “Hello, it’s Mr Pascoe, isn’t it? Yes, that would be awfully kind. It’s stuff for our bring-and-buy sale. Trouble is, most people just bring it to the vicarage and leave it for me to sort out then ferry it down here.”

  “All by yourself? I always thought our village churches were brimming over with helping hands.”

  “Most of ours are pretty good at dipping into their pockets but not so hot when it comes to flexing their muscles. Anyway it’s my own fault. I’ve been neglecting parish stuff a bit lately, particularly these past couple of days, since …”

  “In the circumstances, very understandable,” said Pascoe, picking up a box which turned out to be a lot heavier than it looked and trying with a machismo Ellie would have mocked not to stagger as he followed her up the path to the hall. “You said that the Macivers were rather more generous with their money than their time, I recall.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Just put it down here, will you? David, that’s my brother, he says he’d rather have bums on pews than cheques in the post, but he doesn’t pay much attention to the accounts, that’s my job. I don’t know where we’d be, the parish I mean, without people like Pal to turn to when we need them. Even with something like this sale. It was only last weekend he turned up with a whole carload of stuff. I thought some of it looked good enough to put in the shop but he said no, he wanted it to go on our stalls, picking up bargains was part of the joy of being in the antique business and he’d be delighted to think some of his fellow villagers were getting a chance to share his pleasure. Only last weekend …”

  Her voice broke slightly.

  Pascoe said briskly, “And how about the Kafkas at Cothersley Hall? Mrs Kafka is, or was, Mr Maciver’s stepmother, I believe. But I daresay you knew that. How do they rate as churchgoers?”

  “Mrs Kafka attends services sometimes, and I’ve often seen her in the church at other times, just sitting there peacefully. Mr Kafka hardly appears in the village at all. But, like Pal, he’s very generous when it comes to appeals.”

  They were walking back to the hatchback now. To his irritation he saw the police car was still parked outside the pub with Jennison’s broad face at the open passenger window, as if hungry for another helping of curvaceous corduroy. He glowered towards him and a moment later Maycock started the engine and the vehicle drew away.

  “Something happening at the pub?” enquired Dolly.

  Pascoe told her and she laughed so joyously it was impossible not to join in.

  “Pal would have loved that,” she said. “He hated Captain Inglestone. Always called him corporal.”

  “Why didn’t they get on?”

  “Mutual antipathy, I think. Also the Captain let Sue-Lynn run up a pretty hefty slate then had the cheek to present it to Pal for payment when he was in there with some friends one night. I gather the air was pretty blue by the time they finished.”

  “Like his beer,” said Pascoe, and was rewarded with another infectious laugh.

  “Did Pal and the Kafkas socialize much, do you know?” he asked as they made their way back into the hall with two more boxes.

  “Oh no,” she said, then qualified, “Not to my knowledge, I mean.”

  “No?
Bit odd, given the relationship,” he probed, curious to know how current rumours of bad blood between stepmother and stepson were. In his experience there was no such thing as private business outside city limits.

  “What people do in their personal lives is no affair of anyone else’s,” she said rather brusquely.

  “Really? I think your brother might give you an argument there,” he said pleasantly.

  He set his box down. It contained books. One of them slipped off the top of the pile and fell to the floor. He stooped to pick it up. It was a tiny volume in a marbled binding. He opened it at the title page and read Death’s Jest-Book or The Fool’s Tragedy, London: William Pickering, 1850. There was no author’s name but he didn’t need one.

  “Are you all right, Mr Pascoe?” asked Dolly anxiously.

  “Yes, fine. It’s just this book, the man who wrote it, I’ve a … friend who’s very interested in him and he’s rather ill at the moment …”

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “Look, if you’d like to buy it for him, it’s only a pound …”

  “A pound?”

  “Yes. All hardbacks are a pound, paperbacks twenty pee. It makes things so much simpler. That’s one of the ones Pal donated, probably worth a bit more but he was so insistent. A pound each, he said. So, give me a pound and it’s yours.”

  Pascoe produced the coin and slipped the book into his pocket.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now, let’s get on. Can’t be much more.”

  “No, there’s not and I can manage,” said Dolly smiling. “I’m sure you haven’t come out to Cothersley just to act as a beast of burden.”

  He noted the implied question and saw no reason not to answer it.

  “That’s true. In fact, I’d be grateful if you could help me with some directions. I’m on my way to see

  Mrs Maciver at Casa Alba. How’s she bearing up, by the way?”

  Dolly made a wry face and said, “Not very well, I gather. I haven’t seen her myself. She’s not very keen to have company. Almost chucked David out of the house.”

  “Let’s hope I have better luck,” said Pascoe. “Now if you could point me in the right direction …”

  She led him outside and gave him his directions with an admirable succinctness, then, as he thanked her and made to leave, she said, “Yesterday you sounded pretty certain Pal shot himself. Is there some doubt now? I mean, with you coming here and asking questions … I only ask because, naturally, there’s all kinds of rumours flying round the village and I know my brother would be grateful if he could scotch the wilder ones with a bit of authority.”

  “Yes, I can see that. But my job’s just to get information to pass on to the coroner and to do that I’ve got to ask questions,” Pascoe prevaricated. “Best way to deal with rumours is to ignore them and wait for the inquest.”

  “But what do you think, Mr Pascoe? I mean, do locked-room mysteries really happen outside detective novels?”

  “Believe me, real life is infinitely more incredible and unpredictable,” said Pascoe. “Good day, Miss Upshott.”

  As he drove away, he could see her in his mirror still standing by the church gate, looking after him.

  Nice woman, he thought.

  And she gave good directions too, he acknowledged as after a pleasant two-mile drive through rolling English countryside, liberally wooded with oak and elm and lightly dotted with properties, some old, some new, all substantial, he spotted what had to be Casa Alba.

  The name had conjured up a picture of some version of Costa del Holiday villa, but its style, though distinctly Spanish, was the kind of Spanish that acknowledges winter and rough weather. It was a solid-looking two-storey building, burnt umber in colour, with balconied bedrooms and what looked like serviceable shutters, and a shallow pitched hip-roof of richly ochrous tiles. In front of it was parked a car.

  Gotcha! thought Pascoe.

  As he drove slowly up the long gravelled drive, it occurred to him that a good socialist should be feeling the odd pang of indignation that such a deal of space and building was squandered on two people, but all he could manage was a twinge of old-fashioned covetousness. Ellie would have done better, but then Ellie wouldn’t have liked the house anyway. Surprisingly for one so determinedly contemporary in outlook, her architectural tastes ran to ivied brick and ancient beams. She would have thought Casa Alba with its green shutters, its curved balconies, its blue tennis court and its kidney-shaped swimming pool, was discordant here and vulgar anywhere.

  To Pascoe however it looked just the job. Ivied brick and ancient beams in his experience usually went hand in hand with icy draughts, uneven floors, deficient damp courses, smoking fireplaces, and an ambience more suited to rodent than human life. Happily, unless he won the lottery, this division of taste was unlikely to put much of a strain on his marriage.

  The parked car, he saw as he got nearer, was a BMW 3 Series hatchback, and there was someone sitting in it, a woman he didn’t recognize. He drew up behind her, got out and stooped to her window, smiling.

  She didn’t smile back. She didn’t do anything.

  After a moment he tapped gently on the window.

  The woman lowered it an eighth of an inch.

  “What?”

  “Mrs Maciver’s out, is she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea when she’ll be getting back?”

  “No.”

  The window closed.

  She was a well-made woman in her thirties, not overweight but with the athletically muscular look of a tennis or hockey player. She was probably quite good looking but unfriendliness didn’t do her any favours, emphasizing the strong jaw and shrinking the full lips to a tight line.

  He had a wander round the house, glancing through the windows. It looked cool and comfortable inside, big chairs and sofas in soft white leather, just the job for relaxing in with a chilled San Miguel when your throat felt dry as an old don’s wit. Should have taken his chance with the blue beer at the Dog and Duck.

  When he got back into his car, he was still undecided what to do.

  He would like to talk to Sue-Lynn, but he didn’t want to waste any more time hanging around waiting. The day Dalziel had given him to check things out was running away fast and he was still as far as ever from having any coherent reason for keeping this investigation going. All he’d discovered was that Maciver relationships were marked by divisions, disloyalties, dislikes and distrusts. Bit like the Balkans. Stretches of fragile peace beneath which the old hostilities and hatreds gently simmered, waiting to burst out. But was there anything unusual in this? What family didn’t have its scar tissue? His certainly did.

  With the Macivers, however, there was a focal point. Kay Kafka. You were either with her or against her. You either worshipped or reviled.

  No question which camp the Fat Man was in. The woman seemed to have him, in Pal Junior’s phrase on the tape, deeply magicked. Ten years ago it was clear he’d taken over the case of her husband’s suicide to make sure she was protected. And somehow he’d made all the venomous accusations contained in the son’s tape go away.

  But so what? Did any of this raking over of ten-year-old ashes have anything to do with today’s case? Pascoe couldn’t yet see how, hoped he never would. Perhaps the answer was in the cassette that Dalziel had given him, but he still felt reluctant to listen to it. All he wanted now, he told himself, was to be able to say, Yes, it was definitely suicide, and get back to his statistical analysis without having to follow the trail any deeper into the caverns measureless to man of Dalziel’s psyche.

  But he couldn’t deny the denizens of his own caverns, particularly that insatiable curiosity about human motives and make-up which had led him into the police force in the first place. Who really was the abuser here and who the abused? Which was the more important spoor to follow—that mesmeric quality which Kay seemed to bring to bear on most men, or the obsessional element clearly present in Pal Junior’s statement?

  Only on
e way to find out, and after all he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  He ejected Charles Trenet’s Greatest Hits from the car tape deck, took Dalziel’s cassette from his pocket, inserted it, and sat back to listen.

  10 • Kay (1)

  I was born Katherine Dickenson but I always got Kay.

  I was an only child, I think. I seem to recall a baby when I was still very small, but it went away and nothing was ever said about it.

  Maybe it was just some neighbour’s child my mother looked after for a while.

  I never dared ask in case I found myself disappearing the same way.

  My birth certificate says I was born in Milwaukee but we must have left there long before I started registering places. We seemed to move around a lot. Going where the work was, my mother told me when I was old enough to ask. But it always felt like we were leaving some place fast rather than going some place else we wanted to be.

  My father was a sudden man; not bad tempered so’s you’d notice, and not violent, at least never to me. But sudden. And unchangeable. No debating. He’d make up his mind and that was it. I think this happened at work a lot. He’d do his job well enough till one day someone would ask him to do something he didn’t care to do, and he’d say no. No reason given. And if his boss said do it or leave, he’d leave. Then he’d come home and say, “Pack your bags, we’re moving on.”

  I got to hate it if ever Pa showed up early. Ma and I would hear the door and whatever we were doing, we’d freeze.

  Place we stayed longest was Springfield, Massachusetts. We were living in a trailer park. “Just temporary,” Pa said, “till we find something better.” That was Pa. First place he called temporary was where we got closest to being permanent.

  I was fourteen when we moved to Springfield. I did well at school but always thought I’d be out of there soon as I was able and getting a job. Then one day Pa told me I was staying on and going to college. No explanation, no argument. Like I said, sudden.