'Does it? Before that mighty computer mind goes to work, I think your daughter would like her nappy changed.'
'It's your turn,' said Pascoe, rising from the floor. 'I just want to make a phone call.'
He returned a couple of minutes later and Ellie said casually, 'By the way, you'll let me know if you change your mind again, won't you?'
'About what?'
'About whether you're seriously investigating Patrick Aldermann.'
'Because of seeing his wife, you mean?'
'I suppose I mean that.'
'Yes, of course I'd tell you.'
'So that I'd stop seeing her?'
Pascoe grinned and said, 'I see tiger-traps. No, so that you'd know. Nothing more.'
'So you don't mind me seeing her again?'
'I mind your asking,' said Pascoe. 'Or rather, I'm suspicious of it, as I'm suspicious of anything that smacks of wifely dutifulness. What's it mean?'
Ellie rose from the happily re-nappied baby and went to open the cupboard of an old oak dresser from which she took a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.
'Tit for tat, I suppose,' she said. 'It struck me that not so long ago I might not even have known that Daphne was the wife of a man you were interested in. You've been a lot more forthcoming about your work since I stopped mine.'
Ellie had been, in fact still officially was, a lecturer in the social science department of the local Liberal Arts College. The period of her maternity leave was now expired but as there had not been much for her to do at this fag-end of the academic year, by mutual agreement she had merely made a token return by undertaking some examination marking. Ironically, her resumption of 'work' was in reality likely to be quickly followed by a resumption of being out of work, as the following year the college's pleasant country site was to be sold off and the staff lumped with the staff of the local town-based College of Technology in an Institute of Higher Education. Most of the courses Ellie was interested in teaching would disappear, and as it was rumoured that the local authority were offering trading stamps to staff willing to become voluntarily redundant, Ellie was contemplating perpetual retirement with whatever compensation she was entitled to, so that she could settle to finishing her second novel (the first having remained obstinately unpublished).
'So I've gone gabby?' said Pascoe. 'I'll have to watch that.'
Ellie set his whisky down beside him and sipped her own.
'Faced,' she continued, 'with a choice between regarding this new garrulity as a rather tardy recognition of my strong intellect, rational judgment and complete trustworthiness, and taking it as a condescending, sexist attempt to give the little woman a sop for having to vegetate at home all day, rooted by the brat, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.'
'You hear that, Rose?' said Pascoe, picking up the baby and holding her face up to his. 'My life has not been in vain. I may not have much, but I have the benefit of the doubt.'
'Renegotiate on a weekly basis,' added Ellie. 'This week I've taken into account that Andy Dalziel is obviously being an even bigger pain in the arse than usual.'
'Not bigger,' corrected Pascoe. 'Different. I get worried about him sometimes. At his best he's been a great cop. But times are a-changing.'
'And he's not changing with them? Well, when the dinosaurs had to go, they had to go. And there in the wings ready to take over is Homo erectus!
'You flatter yourself,' grinned Pascoe.
'But you are ready to take over, aren't you, Peter?' said Ellie thoughtfully. 'I don't mean Andy's job specifically, but you do feel the dinosaurs have been hanging on just a bit too long, don't you?'
'Do I? Mebbe so. But I also worry about them. I mean, I sometimes even suspect Fat Andy's got some powers of self-awareness, and deep down grasps what's going on. Perhaps this is why he's seemed a bit uncertain lately. Then other times I'm certain he's just making sure I look the idiot in all this daft Aldermann business. With a bit of luck, it'll all blow over before he gets back.'
'He's going away? Andy?'
'Oh yes. I forgot to tell you. Obviously the ACC thinks Andy's got to bend to the modern world too. He summoned him yesterday to say that circumstances were preventing him from attending the conference at the Yard next week, so he wanted Andy to be our representative.'
'Not this conference on community policing in mixed societies? The one the Yanks are coming to?'
'Not to mention Frogs, Krauts and Dagoes, as Dalziel puts it,' said Pascoe.
'God help us all. Dalziel will have them going home to train in the use of tactical nuclear weapons!'
The baby, annoyed at not being central to the conversation, gave a sudden struggle in Pascoe's arms.
'Come here, darling,' said Ellie taking her. 'Time for you to be nodding off, I think. How about a drop of Scotch to see you through the night?'
As she went up the stairs the telephone rang.
Pascoe said, 'I'll get it.'
He picked up the receiver, spoke briefly, listened rather longer and was back in the lounge by the time Ellie returned.
'Anything important?' she asked, retrieving her whisky.
'Probably not. Just sheer curiosity on my part. Though on the other hand it is rather odd.'
'Do I get three guesses?' enquired Ellie after a moment.
'Sorry,' said Pascoe. 'I was just thinking deep thoughts, that's all. No, it was your mentioning that chap Burke. I knew it rang a bell. I rang the station and asked them to check if they could. It didn't take long. Someone there was actually on the case.'
'Case?'
'Well, not a case, exactly. But there was an inquest. This chap Burke fell off a decorator's ladder outside his house and broke his neck. Verdict, accidental death. No suspicious circumstances.'
'So?'
'Well, as you said, it's a bit odd, coming on top of what Elgood's been saying. Particularly as it seems that Mr Burke was assistant to Mr Eagles, the Chief Accountant.'
'And Aldermann got that job?'
'That's right,' said Pascoe. 'Of course, it doesn't mean anything.'
'No, it probably doesn't,' said Ellie. 'Elgood didn't even mention it, did he?'
'No. That's true. I'll mention it to him though,' said Pascoe. 'By the way, as a matter of interest, when are you seeing this Aldermann woman again.'
'Daphne? We're having coffee together tomorrow. Why?'
'Nothing. What was your impression, by the way.'
'I told you. I liked her. Lively and bright, blinkered of course, but far from stupid. Why do you ask?'
'It's just that Wield described her as a very pleasant, ordinary, upper-middle-class wife, almost a stereotype. She didn't sound your cup of tea, that's all.'
'Wield said that? Well, I suppose the presence of the fuzz is always inhibiting. Did he tell you how sexy she was?'
'Sexy?' said Pascoe, surprised. 'No, there wasn't the slightest suggestion ... in fact, he seemed to think she was rather plain and homely. You thought her sexy?'
'Oh yes. Not in a moist-mouth-look-at-me-shaking-my-great-tits way, but definitely sexy. Of course, Wield might well not notice.'
'Why not?'
But Ellie only smiled and rose to pour some more whisky into her glass.
8
BLUE MOON
(Hybrid tea. Richly-scented, lilac-blue blossoms, perhaps an acquired taste.)
When Pascoe arrived at the Perfecta plant early the following afternoon, he found it as silent as a Welsh Sunday.
He hung around a small foyer for a few minutes, coughing loudly as he pretended to examine a small display of lavatorial artefacts, many of them with the Elgoodware insignium. Finally an early-middle-aged woman in a severe black and white outfit arrived and said in a matching voice. 'Mr Pascoe? I'm Bridget Dominic, Mr Elgood's secretary. Would you follow me, please?'
Pascoe obeyed, feeling like a hen-pecked husband as he lengthened his stride to keep up with the swift-walking woman, a picture reinforced by the large plastic carrier bag he was carrying. After Dal
ziel's hints of Dandy Dick's sultanic habits, he found Miss Dominic a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps advancing age had brought Elgood into the realm of erotic discipline. Miss Dominic wasn't a bad name for a good whipper.
They went up several flights of stairs (didn't they have lifts?) and arrived at a door with Elgood's name writ large on the frosted glass. This opened on to what was clearly Miss Dominic's own office. Pascoe was surprised at its dinginess. He'd have expected Dandy Dick to put on a bit more of a display. Or perhaps it was simply a delayer, like a landscape gardener's tortuous and narrow path before the trees open wide for the surprise view. Miss Dominic knocked. The door was flung open. The view was a surprise.
Elgood, looking most undandified, stood there jacketless, with his waistcoat undone, his tie awry, his hair ruffled, and an amber-liquored glass in his hand.
For one moment Pascoe thought they must have caught him - how had Dalziel put it? - tupping a typist in his in-tray.
'Come in, come in,' said Elgood irritably. 'Thank you, Miss Dominic.'
The secretary retreated. Elgood closed the door behind her and said, 'Have a chair. Have a drink. And don't say "not on duty". It's Lucozade. I like to keep my energy up. Sit down. Sit down.'
Pascoe sat down. The room was bigger and pleasanter than the outer office, but still no state apartment. Nice carpet; pretty curtains framing a pleasant view once the eye travelled beyond the industrialized foreground and the suburbanized middle-distance to the rich blue-green of the pastoral horizon; walls papered a bit like an Indian restaurant and hung with some rather gaudy still-lifes and a big photograph of a fiftyish-suited group formally arranged outside a works gate over which arched in letters of wrought iron the name Elgood.
Elgood poured Pascoe a Lucozade and sat himself behind an old-fashioned, very sturdy desk. There was a sheet of newspaper opened on it and on the paper a half-eaten pork pie.
'Lunch,' said Elgood, following his gaze. 'You've eaten? Lucky man. You've come at a bloody inconvenient time, I tell you. I may have to chuck you out a bit rapid. On the other hand, I may be able to sit and rabbit on with you all day. You never can tell.'
'About what?' enquired Pascoe.
'About workers' meetings. We're having to make cutbacks like everyone else. I had the shop stewards in on Wednesday to tell 'em how the Board sees things. They've spent two days deliberating and this lunch-hour they called a full-scale meeting in the works canteen. It's still going on. So that's it, plant and offices idle till they get through yakking.'
'Your office staff are involved as well?' said Pascoe, surprised.
'Most of 'em. I don't have two worlds here, Mr Pascoe, never have done. Same works, same perks, that's always been my motto, though there's a lot outside that don't like it. But I've always got on well with the men who work for me. That's why I've hung on here so long.'
Pascoe, though he had the feeling that this apparent forthrightness was just another version of Dandy Dick's circumlocution which was aimed for some reason at skirting the topic of Aldermann, was interested enough to ask, 'But I thought that would be part of the deal, when I.C.E. took you over.'
Elgood laughed.
'Oh aye, it was part of the deal. But a company bent on a take-over's a bit like a lad desperate to have it away - he'll promise owt till the deal's done, but once his wick's dipped, it takes more than a happy memory to make him keep his word. But whenever anyone's wanted shut of me, there's been enough wise heads at I.C.E. to know that peace at Perfecta means money in their pockets, so I've stayed. The lads here know me, I know them. That's why I'm here now. Instant availability, that's what I offer them. While they're down there talking, they know I'm up here waiting. But let's get you out of the way, shall we? I'm beginning to think I've been a bit headstrong, to tell you the truth. I should've thought on before coming round to see you. The last thing I need at the moment is you lot poking around and stirring things up.'
'What specific bit of poking did you have in mind?' asked Pascoe politely.
'Nothing specific,' said Elgood in irritation. 'But coming round here like this. And I bet you've been asking questions. You haven't been asking Aldermann questions, have you? I hope to God you had enough sense not to do that!'
'No, I haven't asked Mr Aldermann any questions,' said Pascoe. 'Though I did in fact send someone round to his house, but it was on another matter entirely, please believe me. But I must say he reported nothing suspicious.'
Pascoe half expected an angry outburst at this revelation of his oblique approach to Aldermann but Elgood merely responded with heavy sarcasm, 'What did he expect, bloodstains on the carpet?'
Pascoe ignored this and proceeded, 'I've also looked carefully at such reports as exist on the deaths of your Mr Eagles and Mr Bulmer. There doesn't appear to be an untoward circumstance in either case.'
'No?' Elgood sounded almost relieved. 'Well, I was mebbe a bit upset the other day. You can get things out of proportion, can't you? I've had a lot on my mind recently.'
Perversely, Elgood's apparent desire to drop the matter provoked Pascoe into pressing on. He dumped the plastic bag on the desk.
'I've got your lamp here, sir. Our technical staff checked it out. A worn connection caused the trouble.'
'Bloody lousy workmanship, as usual,' grumbled Elgood.
'It could have been worn deliberately,' said Pascoe. 'By rubbing it against the edge of a desk, for instance.'
'Was there any sign of that?'
'No,' admitted Pascoe. 'But no positive evidence it didn't happen either. Similarly with your garage door. The spring had gone and the whole counterweight system was therefore out of operation. Wear and tear, metal fatigue, or . . .'
'Or what, Inspector?' said Elgood irritably. 'Is there owt or is there nowt?'
Pascoe shrugged and said enigmatically. 'Nowt. Either way.'
Elgood rose and wandered across the room, glancing at his watch. He came to a halt in front of the photograph of the group at the works gate.
'So I've made a bit of a charley of myself,' he said. 'Well, it happens to everyone, I suppose.'
'Not very often to you, I shouldn't have thought,' said Pascoe.
'Not often,' agreed Elgood. 'Once in a blue moon, though, a man's entitled to act a bit daft. Well, I've had my turn, and I hope it'll see me out. Thanks for calling, Inspector.'
He turned to face Pascoe, but the Inspector did not take his cue to depart.
'There was one other thing,' he said. 'Something which seemed to have a better chance of fitting in with your notion that Mr Aldermann was shoving people out of his way rather recklessly. You had a Mr Burke working here once, didn't you?'
'Chris Burke? Aye. What about him?'
Elgood's face was thrust forward attentively, bright eyes alert.
'If I understand it right, Aldermann came here in the first instance on a part-time basis?'
'Yes, that's right.'
'And would never have joined the staff full time if a vacancy hadn't occurred, the vacancy being caused by the death of Mr Burke who was assistant to Mr Eagles, your Chief Accountant?'
'So?'
'So,' said Pascoe. 'Here's another death that helped advance Mr Aldermann.'
'Don't be bloody daft! That was four years ago!' said Elgood.
'There's no time-limit on criminal inclination,' Pascoe pontificated. 'And the circumstances of Mr Burke's death look far more suspicious than either Mr Eagles's or Mr Buhner's.'
'What circumstances?'
'I understand he fell off a ladder and broke his neck.'
'And that's suspicious? Christ, you do scrape around, you lot, don't you? Look, Inspector, I'm sorry you've been bothered. I just got a daft bee in my bonnet, that's all. I'm sorry. It'll have given Andy Dalziel a good laugh, any road, so it hasn't been an entire waste. Now I really am a bit busy, so if you don't mind . . .'
Pascoe rose. He'd got what he'd hoped for, the withdrawing of the complaint if complaint there'd been, but he wasn't as happy as he'd expected.
He went to shake Elgood's proffered hand. Over the small man's shoulder, the faces in the photo grinned derisively at him. Even without the legend inscribed at the bottom, it was easy to pick out Dandy Dick. Dapper, spruce, smiling broadly he stood at the group's centre, exuding confidence.
Then another name in the legend caught Pascoe's eye.
'I see there's someone called Aldermann,' he said. 'Any connection?'
He worked out which it was. A slightly built man with a black moustache and a rather melancholy expression (even though smiling) who reminded Pascoe of Neville Chamberlain.
'With our Patrick, you mean?' said Elgood. 'Yes, that's Eddie Aldermann. He'd be, let me see, his great-uncle. A good lad was Eddie. I got into a bit of a tangle in them early days and someone put me on to Eddie and he got it sorted and after that he managed all my finance. He was a genius with figures. Could have been a millionaire, I reckon. Would have been if his missus had her way.'
'Oh. How was that?'
Elgood's desire to be rid of him seemed to have weakened now he was into the past. The only period of history which really fascinates most people, Pascoe had often remarked, is that commencing with their own childhood and ending about ten years ago.
'Flo Aldermann was a pushy woman. Eddie would have been happy enough working for a steady wage and getting home in plenty of time to look after his patch of garden, but Flo wanted more than that. And she was right, in a way. He had the talent, he made the money. A man should use his talents. The trouble was, he had more than one talent. The other was with gardens, roses in particular. And Flo over-reached herself when she pushed him into buying that house of theirs, Rosemont. It was too big for 'em and had been badly neglected, but she wanted it, so Eddie spent thousands doing it up. But the gardens needed doing up too, and that's where Flo got caught. Eddie wasn't an obstinate man except when it came to his gardening. Now instead of a quarter-acre he had four or five. He dug his heels in, and his spade too, likely. This came first from now on. Well, they were very comfortable, very comfortable indeed, but it was the gardens at Rosemont as robbed Flo of her million, I reckon.'
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