Ruling Passion dap-3

by Reginald Hill

  'No. I don't think so.'

  They drove back slowly through the busy streets, a strong contrast with the quiet thoroughfares of Thornton Lacey.

  Ellie was waiting in Backhouse's office at the station. A constable appeared with his typewritten statement, handed it to him and murmured something in Backhouse's ear. The superintendent left the room as Pascoe quickly scanned through the statement and signed it.

  'Ready, love?' he said.

  'Ready,' said Ellie. He took her hand.

  At the door they met Backhouse looking perturbed.

  'Goodbye, sir,' said Pascoe. 'We're on our way.'

  'Inspector,' said Backhouse, 'I'm afraid I've got some rather strange and disturbing news for you. I've just been checking on a rumour which one of my sergeants had picked up. Do you know a man called Burne-Jones?'

  'I know of him,' said Pascoe.

  'Well, Mr Dalziel has been arrested for assaulting him and breaking his jaw!'

  'Poor old Dalziel,' said Ellie as they headed to the car-park. 'Do you think he's flipped at last? Oh, Peter.'

  'Yes?'

  'Something I remembered. It got submerged in all this and it's probably irrelevant anyway. You said something about a diabetic? Well, Etherege, when he came and talked to us in the Jockey that day, he was holding a bottle of tonic water specially prepared for diabetics. Could it be important?'

  Pascoe stopped and turned back to the police station.

  'It might,' he said. 'I'd better get them to pass the word. Better to be safe than sorry!'

  Chapter 6

  The first person Pascoe met on his return was Inspector Headingley who laughed heartily at his anxious inquiry.

  'No, he's not in the cells. He's upstairs. He'll be pleased to see you. We got your message about Etherege. Very grateful Mr Dalziel was!'

  He found the fat man in his office watching a couple of detective-constables unpack the contents of several cardboard boxes which had a ripe fishy smell.

  'Welcome back,' said Dalziel. 'A bit late, aren't you?'

  'Things happened,' said Pascoe.

  'And here. If you'd had your flash of insight a bit earlier, you might have saved a great deal of pain.'

  For one moment Pascoe thought that Dalziel was referring sympathetically to Burne-Jones. Then he held up a bandaged right hand.

  'I broke my bloody thumb,' he said. 'And I found out about Etherege the hard way.'

  'He's our man then?'

  'Certainly. He stuck a bloody great hypodermic needle into me to prove it. That turned out to be a mistake. Evidently a dose of insulin can make a non-diabetic irritable to the point of irrationality, particularly if he's got an empty gut. Me, I'm on a short fuse at best. And I've been starving myself for days. So when Burne-Jones grabbed me from behind, I hammered him.'

  'He's hurt?'

  'Nothing much. A cracked jaw. It was quite comic.' The fat man laughed heartily at the memory, pressing himself against a desk edge to get a free scratch on his shaking buttocks. 'There was an old couple there. They called the police and an ambulance. A right officious little snot turned up. He didn't know me and I was still far from normal! So the silly bugger arrested me! It was soon sorted out when the quack had a look at me and heard what had happened. There may still be an inquiry, but I'll survive.'

  'I'm sure,' said Pascoe looking with interest at the assortment of articles the DCs were taking out of the fishy boxes. Some of it he recognized, though seeing it for the first time.

  'You found some of the loot then?' he said. 'At Etherege's?'

  'Not on your life! He's not daft, that one. No, we had a stroke of luck. Burne-Jones was in on it too. Not actively, he claims, but we'll see about that. Anyway, my right hook softened him up a lot and when he heard his partner had got himself under a murder charge while he was on holiday, it was only his broken jaw that slowed him down to a gabble! And guess what? You remember my little idea about the kennels?'

  Suddenly everything jumped together in Pascoe's mind. He sniffed the fishy odour and nodded.

  'Jim Jones, the cat-meat man!' he said. 'Who is he? His brother?'

  'Cousin,' said Dalziel grumpily. 'It's getting to be a nasty habit, this being wise after the event. You're right, though. Burne-Jones is really just plain Jones. Jim Jones travels round a dozen or more kennels, delivering food. Plenty of chance to glance at the list of inmates. I believe a lot of the silly sods put placards with name and address of owner on the bloody animals' cages! He'd pass it on. His cousin and Etherege would pick out what they thought was worthwhile and do it. Easy.'

  'What about disposal?' asked Pascoe.

  'Etherege and Burne-Jones probably did quite a bit themselves through the trade. But we reckon the really hot stuff was moved through a third man. Burne-Jones clammed up here. I think he was regretting talking so much and his jaw was beginning to hurt. But he said enough. Jones- the-cat-meat claims to know nothing about him except that he exists. He sounds to me like a middle-man who knows interested and not too curious purchasers for a certain kind of item. At a signal from Etherege he comes along and pokes around in the latest haul.'

  'Any chance of getting on to him?' asked Pascoe, looking sadly at the little array of items which seemed to match stuff stolen from Sturgeon's house. There was little of real worth there. And no sign of the most valuable article, the old man's stamp-album.

  'A good one, I reckon,' said Dalziel gleefully. He picked up a small diary from a desk top.

  'As you'd expect, there was precious little at Etherege's shop, but this we did find. His diary. Nothing incriminating, but look at this.'

  He jabbed his forefinger at the page for February 8th. All that was written there was a time. 11 a.m. He flicked over the pages. March 1st 6 p.m. March 23rd 1 p.m. April 20th 9.30 a.m.

  'And so it goes on,' he said.

  'So?' asked Pascoe.

  'So all these dates fall around the periods during which we know the break-ins happened. On the couple of the occasions when we know the exact date, these dates in the diary come three days later. Now I reckon these are appointments with his distributor, someone who would take the more valuable and identifiable stuff away. It's clever, really. You see, generally the stuff would be moved before the house-owners came back from holiday and even discovered they'd been robbed. No risk!'

  'I see,' said Pascoe thoughtfully. 'Now Lewis's house was done last Monday, which would mean there should have been a meeting last Wednesday or Thursday.'

  'Well done!' said Dalziel condescendingly. 'One was made for Wednesday, it's been crossed out. See. Now it seems it was remade for this morning, but see, it's been crossed out again.'

  'They were having difficulties. Perhaps it was just as well, sir. Even with insulin, you might have found it hard to take on three of them.'

  'Very funny,' said Dalziel. 'Tomorrow morning I'm going to be alone though. And there'll only be one.'

  'Sorry?' said Pascoe. Then it dawned on him. 'You mean that… ?'

  'That's right, Inspector. 10 a.m. Tomorrow. Care to come along?'

  'Excuse me, sir,' said one of the detective-constables.

  'Yes, Ferguson?'

  The youngster pointed at by far the largest group of articles.

  'This lot seems to have come from the Lewis house, sir. It's almost all there. They can't have had time to dispose of it.'

  Dalziel gave Pascoe his mock awe-stricken look.

  'The future's safe, Inspector!' he said.

  The young man was unperturbed. He picked up an ornately inlaid cedarwood box of Oriental origin.

  'There's some papers in here, sir. They look interesting.'

  They were. Matthew Lewis had felt the need to keep a detailed financial record of his Scottish transactions. It was all here. The amount paid for the Callander land by the mysterious Archie Selkirk, the sum (more than twenty times larger) paid by Sturgeon for the same land, details of solicitor's fees, hotel and other expenses for 'A' ('Atkinson,' said Dalziel) and, most interestingly of
all, expenses to be set against gross profit by 'C'.

  'Well now. This could be useful to the fraud boys,' said Dalziel, rubbing his hands. 'Certainly it should stand up nicely in court.'

  'Court?' said Pascoe, puzzled.

  'Yes. When Sturgeon sues Lewis's estate, as I presume he's going to. There wasn't much before, you know.'

  'It might establish something else as well,' said Pascoe, pointing at the 'C'.

  Dalziel shrugged.

  'I doubt it. There's precious little in a name, and there's bugger all in an initial. No. If Cowley was in on this deal, it's going to take more than this to trip him up. There's been a lot of quiet checking going on and there's nowhere obvious that he's got forty thousand stacked away. Anyway, what the hell would his job have been? I can't imagine Lewis cutting him in for love.'

  Pascoe was reluctant to give up. He studied the papers again.

  'There's something else here,' he said. 'Or something not here. Look, sir. At "C"'s expenses. Right? Now what's missing?'

  'Selkirk's expenses,' interrupted Ferguson brightly. 'Which could mean "C" and Selkirk are the same person.'

  'And I used to think you were bright, young and horrid,' said Dalziel to Pascoe. 'All right. But you realize this cuts out Cowley altogether?'

  'Why, sir?' asked Ferguson. Pascoe did not need to ask. In fact he answered.

  'Because not only does Cowley deny he's ever been anywhere near Lochart, on the week-end Sturgeon actually met Selkirk he's got a nice alibi.'

  'Nor does he fit Sturgeon's description,' said Dalziel.

  'Still, we never showed him a picture of Cowley, did we? Wasn't there once in the Evening News bit on Lewis's murder? Ferguson, cut along and see if you can dig a copy up. Has Sturgeon been moved up from Doncaster yet?'

  'Yes, they reckoned he was up to being transferred to the General today,' said Dalziel.

  'Good. Then we'll go and see him.'

  'Will we?' asked Dalziel. 'I suppose we will. Do you know, I think that injection of insulin did me good. I used to have these delusions that I was a detective-superintendent in authority over all kinds of people. Strange, wasn't it?'

  He left the room, shaking his great bull-head.

  'What are you grinning at?' said Pascoe to Ferguson. 'Go and find that newspaper and be quick about it!'

  Sturgeon, having decided to recover, was recovering apace. He was sitting up in bed, surrounded by flowers and fruit, and there were the beginnings of a healthy colour in his cheeks. He greeted them warmly, like old friends.

  'Everyone's been very good. To Mavis too. That's what's best,' he said when they'd settled down, Dalziel in the bedside armchair and Pascoe on the edge of the bed.

  'We've brought you something too,' said Pascoe. He began to exhibit the contents of the box.

  'Aye, that's mine. That too. And that. Aye, it's all ours. What about the stamps?'

  'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe gently. 'No stamps.'

  'No? Well, I reckon they'd get rid of 'em quick because they were valuable, eh? Not to worry. Does this mean you've got him as done it, then?'

  'We think so, Mr Sturgeon. Now I'd like you to look carefully at this picture.'

  Pascoe produced an envelope and from it took a piece of newspaper which he passed over.

  'No,' said Sturgeon. 'Vaguely familiar. You know. Like I might have passed him in the street or something.'

  'Try this,' said Pascoe. He took out a ball-point and sketched in the spectacles and shaggy moustache Sturgeon had mentioned in his description of Archie Selkirk.

  Sturgeon looked at it puzzled.

  'It's his hobby,' said Dalziel kindly.

  'Does that look anything like the man Selkirk? ‘asked Pascoe desperately. Dalziel groaned at the leading question.

  'Aye. A bit,' said Sturgeon cautiously. 'But if you did the same to yourself, lad, you'd look like him too, I reckon!'

  In the hospital lift, Dalziel looked at Pascoe assessively.

  'You've been hit on the head twice,' he stated, referring for the first time to the twin stripes of plaster adorning Pascoe's head.

  He began to tell the superintendent what had happened, but Dalziel stopped him.

  'I rang Mr Backhouse after your interesting message about Etherege's drinking habits came through. He seemed disappointed I wasn't in the Tower of London. But he told me all about your day.'

  Pascoe was touched by the fat man's solicitude for a moment.

  'If I'd been Backhouse, I'd have torn you to shreds,' he went on. 'You think this chap Pelman's your man?'

  'He could be,' said Pascoe, not wanting to sound too certain of himself.

  'Aye. Backhouse seemed none too happy either,' said Dalziel to his surprise. 'Anyway, you've had a hard day. Don't start cutting corners by trying to force everything to fit your own notions. Forget Cowley. Have an early night.'

  'I think I might do,' agreed Pascoe.

  'You do. You need your rest, sergeant. Sorry, Inspector. Now you've been promoted I suppose I should call you by your first name. The accolade, eh?'

  They had come in their own cars. In the car-park Dalziel clapped him on the shoulder.

  'Get yourself off home now,' he said. 'Straight to kip. Good night, Paul.'

  He strode away powerfully.

  'My name's Peter,' called Pascoe after him, but he didn't think he heard.

  His plans for an early night did not last long. The phone was ringing when he entered his flat. It was Ellie, who was reacting very differently to the trying events of the day.

  'Peter, if your head feels up to it, I'd like to go somewhere nice and bright and noisy, and have a big meal with a bit of music.'

  'That sounds like the Dick Turpin,' he said, referring to the biggest and brightest of the night-spots which had erupted locally in the past five or six years as sophistication crept north.

  'That'll do,' said Ellie. 'I feel like getting a little bit high.'

  The Dick Turpin was booming even this early in the week and they were lucky to get a table. A five-piece band beat its own original trail through the current hit-parade and the small dance-floor was awash with shuddering flesh.

  'Let's dance,' said Ellie as they waited for their prawn-cocktails to arrive.

  'This is a side of your character you've cleverly kept concealed,’ said Pascoe as he followed her reluctantly to the edge of the arena.

  Fortunately after a couple of minutes the musicians either relented or became exhausted and the tempo decelerated to a dreamily slow shuffle. Ellie hung close so that Pascoe was almost carrying her round.

  'What happens now, love?' she asked suddenly.

  'What do you mean?'

  'It's not really over yet, is it? You know, driving home from Thornton Lacey, I half imagined it was. But now I see it's nowhere near. I mean, there's everything still; investigation, trial, appeal; it just goes on. It's only in stories that everything stops when you get your murderer.'

  And it's only in stories you can be certain you've got him, thought Pascoe. But he didn't speak.

  'I'll never get them out of my mind,' Ellie went on. 'At one moment on that Friday night they were there, all four of them. Happy, a bit tight, certain they had each other. Then bang! it was all gone.'

  'Shall we sit down, love?' asked Pascoe.

  'No. I like this. I'm OK, I promise. Peter,' she said drawing back a little from him, 'it's made me realize how much I need the illusion of permanence. Let's get married. Or shack up together. I don't mind which, only I suppose being married wins more friends and influences more people in your business. What do you say?'

  The band had a quick recovery rate. Without warning they burst into a new chaos of sound and Pascoe would have found it difficult to make an audible reply. But in fact he made no effort to do so.

  His attention was fully concentrated on the far corner of the dance-floor. There, his face flushed with effort, eyes gleaming, mouth set in a twisted smile, body snapping back and forth like a rutting ape, was James Cowley.
/>   But it was his partner who really caught the eye, with her long red hair, large sensual mouth and deep-cut dress which concealed hardly a square inch of her breasts as they shook mightily in the exertions of the dance.

  Pascoe's first thought was that she fitted perfectly the albeit sketchy description of the woman who sometimes accompanied Lewis to Lochart.

  His second thought was that this was not the only reason for her familiarity.

  And his third thought which set the jackpot showering into his amazed mind was that beneath the fiery hair, the bright make-up and the clinging dress was the dowdy, retiring personage of the firm's senior secretary, and the better half of Cowley's Scottish alibi, Marjory Clayton.

  Pascoe played it very cunning, much to Dalziel's later approval and Ellie's present distress. He escorted her quickly back to their table, picked up their bits and pieces and dragged her away, not without protest, from their approaching prawns.

  'There's someone I don't want to meet,' he explained.

  'Why? Who? I thought criminals were supposed to hide from the law, not the other way. And what about my dinner?'

  'We'll go somewhere else. And the answer's yes.'

  'I don't want to go anywhere else. What answer?'

  'To your question. Now where shall we go?'

  'Oh. In that case, I'm not hungry.'

  They had fish and chips in the car a couple of hours later.

  Marjory Clayton, back to her Ugly Duckling plumage, was picked up the following morning as she left for work. She was more than happy to go down to the station to help with their inquiries into poor Mr Lewis's death, but shouldn't she let Mr Cowley know she was going to be late? Some of the warmth left her smile when she was assured Mr Cowley was going to be too busy to notice her absence.

  And the smile itself disappeared when Dalziel, wearing his most unsmiling expression, greeted her by slamming down a notepad on the table before her and bellowing, 'Right! Quick as you like! I want details of the account where you've got Sturgeon's forty thousand. Every second you waste now could mean a month on your sentence.'

  It took two attempts for her to write it legibly.

  Pascoe had a tougher job with Cowley who refused to be prised way from his office and very rapidly became very irate. Finally he picked up his telephone and started dialling. Solicitor? wondered Pascoe. But he was wrong.