‘The question is,’ said Balderstone, ‘did she mean to head south? And if she did, did she know who she was going with or did she just get herself picked up and come unstuck?’
‘You mean some fellow who had his fun and then started arguing about the price? Possible,’ said Dalziel, adding diffidently, ‘You’ll be covering transport cafés, that kind of thing? And local taxi services.’
‘Yes, sir, thank you,’ said Balderstone politely. ‘Er, look, sir, what do you think? Could this have anything to do with what’s going on in Lake House?’
‘You tell me,’ said Dalziel. ‘What is going on in Lake House?’
‘Well, those points you asked us to check. You were right in just about every respect.’
Dalziel showed no surprise, but sipped his beer cautiously to see if it had reached a drinkable temperature.
‘First we checked on Henry Uniff. Liverpool fire service had a record of his fire and someone had made a note of his insurers. A company called Royal Oak.’
‘Oh,’ said Dalziel, disappointed.
‘Who are a subsidiary of Provincial Traders.’
‘Ah,’ said Dalziel. ‘Get on with it, man. It’s not a Book at sodding Bedtime.’
‘Who,’ continued Balderstone, unperturbed, ‘as you know, were for a time Mr Bertie Fielding’s employers. His ambitions, it seems, were managerial to start with, but the parent company found him unsatisfactory. It was thought his peculiar talents might be better suited to the more outward-going atmosphere of an insurance office and he was offered a transfer to Royal Oak. He dealt personally with the Uniff fire. There was a medium-sized amount involved. A few thousand all told, most of it on film equipment. They dictated us a list. Not much help except that this item, the rostrum camera, has a serial number.’
‘Useful,’ said Dalziel. ‘I’ll take that. Thanks.’
‘Lastly, we’ve contacted Anchor Insurance. It seems that Mrs Fielding has already been on to them, expressing sympathy for Spinx’s accident but great indignation that it should have taken place while he was unlawfully trespassing on her property – especially as it seems likely that he was there on Anchor’s behalf. I think she’s got them worried. It could be a bit embarrassing. As for what you asked, yes, there’s a whacking great fire insurance. The building, I mean the restaurant and kitchens not the main house, plus contents is covered for fifty thousand pounds.’
‘Jesus wept!’ said Dalziel. ‘It’s nowt but a ruined stables!’
‘Yes indeed. The thing is, it’s not just intrinsic value that’s covered, but potential loss of revenue, you follow? But there’s no theft insurance at all. They felt that until the place was completed and properly covered by alarms, it was too easy a target. Premiums would have been very high, so the Fieldings put all their eggs in one basket.’
‘Big bloody basket,’ said Dalziel. ‘And the rat?’
‘Just as you thought, sir,’ said Balderstone. ‘I had to pass all this on to my superiors, you understand, sir.’
‘I wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t,’ answered Dalziel. ‘What do they say?’
‘Well, the way things stand, we’ve got no kind of case at all. In fact, we’ve not really got any crime. This woman’s death belongs to the Met, the man Spinx will almost certainly get a verdict of accident, and that just leaves the theft …’
‘Which I lay odds you won’t have for long.’
‘No, sir. And that’s all. Isn’t it, sir?’
‘As far as I know,’ said Dalziel, looking him straight in the eyes.
‘Good. Well, sir, we’ll be asking more questions up at Lake House, of course. And we’re keener than ever to get hold of this man Papworth. But I can see us coming out of the other end of all this with nothing but a lot of time wasted. I just wondered, well, my super wondered, how long you intend staying at the house.’
‘Why?’ asked Dalziel.
‘Well, it might be useful having someone on the inside, so to speak. Till we see how things go.’
‘Jesus wept!’ said Dalziel. ‘I bet he didn’t mention expenses! And I’m supposed to be on holiday.’
It didn’t sound very convincing. He didn’t even really try.
‘All right, I can spare another day or so,’ he said finally. ‘But I’ll have to tell them what I think. It’s got to be stopped. I think it has been, but they’ve got to know we know, just in case.’
Balderstone looked dubious.
‘I’m not sure, sir …’ he began.
‘Look,’ said Dalziel. ‘What’re you hoping for? Conspiracy? Christ, there’s no hope. I know ’em. No. Frighten the bastards, that’s what. I’ll do that, but I’ll leave it to you to tell them about Open Annie. I’ll have another chat with ’em first. Once they know she’s dead, they’ll clam up. Form a defensive ring! But I’ll be inside and if anyone knows more than they should, I’ll see they get an arrow up the arse!’
Feeling very pleased with his metaphor, Dalziel tipped the remnants of his beer into a pot holding a tired-looking rubber plant. The assistant manager stood in the doorway, looking disapproving. Dalziel addressed him as they passed.
‘The reason the best barmaids have big tits,’ he said, ‘is for warming up pots of cold tasteless beer.’
The man’s expression did not alter but Dalziel was entertained to notice that Balderstone looked distinctly embarrassed.
Hereward Fielding had slumped across the driving seat in their absence so Dalziel pulled him upright and wound the seat-belt round him with all the ferocity of a devout executioner strapping a heretic to the stake.
‘That should hold the old sod,’ he grunted to Balderstone through the open window. ‘Oh, by the way. You won’t forget there were six, no five, other people who left Lake House last night, probably heading for London. All pissed and two at least horny with it.’
Balderstone looked nonplussed. Dalziel hoped he was pretending.
‘Butt, the feature writer and his dolly photographer, Penitent the BBC man, and the two Yanks. I’d try Penitent first, he had a car to himself. His side-kick was too stoned to travel. Which, as it turns out, may have been lucky for someone.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, someone tried to get into bed with him, thinking he was Annie. Which means that whoever it was thought that Annie was alive and well and ready for fun.’
The thought of Arkwright’s black face rising from the pillow made Dalziel laugh again and it kept him amused all the way home. Or rather all the way to Lake House, which is not my home, he reminded himself. Though the sight of his own car parked at the head of the drive made him feel pleasantly lord-of-the-manorish as he halted the Rover alongside.
The garage had delivered it at lunch-time, Tillotson informed him. Bonnie had paid the bill, so would he please settle up with her?
Dalziel nodded his approval of this young gentleman’s protection of a lady’s interests. It was good to know that there were still young men who recognized that a lady of breeding should find it impossible to ask for money. Not that he approved of the elitism implicit in the recognition (as an elite of one, he felt that most other elites were puffed-up crap) but he disapproved even more of women being like men.
‘I hope the sods haven’t charged for cleaning it,’ he said, looking disapprovingly at the tide-mark left round the paintwork by its recent immersion.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ said Tillotson cheerfully. ‘Still, drop Pappy fifty pence and he’ll give it a polish for you. Does it quite nicely too.’
‘If he was here, I might do that,’ said Dalziel.
‘Oh, he’s here,’ said Tillotson casually. ‘Turned up shortly after you left.’
‘What!’ bellowed Dalziel. ‘Has anyone told Sergeant Cross?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Should they have done?’
Could he really be so thick? wondered Dalziel, looking darkly at Tillotson across whose face signs of uneasiness were passing like the movement of a field of wheat at the first breath of the approach
ing storm.
‘Would you like to see him? Shall I fetch him?’ offered Tillotson, eager to be somewhere else.
‘No,’ growled Dalziel who had paused in his efforts to ease the still-sleeping Fielding out of the car. ‘You look after the old man.’
‘Oh. Is he ill?’ said Tillotson, concerned.
‘No,’ said Dalziel. ‘He’s unconscious. Which means he doesn’t know he’s back in this bloody nut house. Which means, for my money, he’s very well indeed. Here, get hold.’
He found Papworth in his room, stretched out on his bed apparently asleep. He was fully clothed except for his boots which lay on the floor as though they had been kicked off and dropped over the bed end. The room smelled of tobacco, sweat and something else rather unpleasant which Dalziel couldn’t place.
‘On your feet, Papworth,’ commanded Dalziel.
The man didn’t move, but Dalziel sensed that he was awake. He lifted his right foot, placed it against the bed end and thrust with all his weight. The bed moved a couple of inches and crashed against the wall.
Papworth jerked upright, his face taut with anger.
‘You stupid fat bastard!’ he said.
‘Temper,’ said Dalziel mildly. ‘You look as if you’d like to kill me.’
‘Don’t give me ideas,’ said Papworth, swinging his legs off the bed.
‘You think you could kill a man just because he woke you up?’ asked Dalziel. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Your words, not mine. Why don’t you sod off?’
Dalziel grinned horribly.
‘I ought to warn you, Mr Papworth, that I am a police officer.’
‘Don’t bother. I know,’ said Papworth. ‘It’s not hard to smell ’em out.’
‘In here it would be bloody miraculous,’ said Dalziel, sniffing. ‘What else do you know, Mr Papworth?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on!’ snapped Dalziel. ‘Don’t play the thick ploughboy with me. That tube of tool-grease you’ve been passing off as your daughter, she took off last night. Where’d she go?’
‘Mrs Greave? I don’t know. She’s a free agent. What’s up? Didn’t she give her notice?’
‘It’s not what she gave. It’s what she took.’
Briefly Dalziel listed the missing items. Papworth, fully in control of himself now, was unimpressed.
‘All that? She must have had a big bag.’
‘Oh no,’ said Dalziel who had also settled down. ‘This lot’s been going for a long while. And you never noticed?’
‘I’m the outdoor man,’ said Papworth. ‘If she’d taken any trees, I’d have noticed.’
Dalziel smiled inwardly. There was nothing he loved better than a joker. In his experience of interrogation, wit was the last defence of the guilty and generally it sprang from deep uncertainties rather than the confidence it claimed to demonstrate.
‘Look,’ he said in a voice unctuous with reasonableness. ‘Look. There’s nothing for you to worry about. Don’t take any notice of me if I shout a bit. It’s my upbringing. I’m like you. Good solid working-class stock. I’ve no time for these fancy fal-da-rils. Look. This woman, Annie Greave, now we know what she’s not. She’s not your daughter. And we know what she is. She’s a Liverpool whore. What we don’t know is where she is. And it might help us to find her if you told us how you came to meet her in the first place.’
‘If she’s a pro,’ said Papworth, ‘I’d have thought that were obvious.’
‘True,’ said Dalziel, looking pleasantly surprised as though the thought hadn’t struck him. ‘So you picked her up. Where was this – Liverpool?’
‘That’s it,’ said Papworth.
‘I thought so. What were you doing in Liverpool? It’s a good way. Not the kind of place you go for a holiday.’ Dalziel laughed as he spoke, inviting Papworth to share the absurdity of the thought.
‘I went there a few times with young Master Bertie,’ said Papworth. The feudal phrase came awkwardly from his lips.
‘Did you? As his valet?’ said Dalziel, unable to restrain the sarcasm. But it appeared to pass unnoticed.
‘He worked up there. Didn’t have a car, so when he was going back after a stay at Lake House, I’d sometimes drive him in the Rover and bring it back the next day.’
‘And spend the night screwing Annie,’ said Dalziel with a wink.
‘That’s it.’
‘And you got to enjoy this so much that when the chance came to install her here in Lake House, you thought, why not? But for decency’s sake, and to save the bother of testimonials, you said she was your daughter?’
‘Right again,’ said Papworth. ‘You needn’t have woken me up, seeing you’ve managed to work it all out by yourself.’
‘I like a nice chat,’ said Dalziel genially. ‘So. Let me see. Bertie was how long in Liverpool? Just over a year, I think. Fifteen months, say. And he came back here to start the restaurant project early this year. How often did he come home while he was away? Every weekend? Once a month? Twice a year?’
‘Once a month, six weeks at the outside,’ said Papworth cautiously.
‘And you drove him back and screwed Mrs Greave. That’d make between eight and twelve jumps you had with her last year. Enough to give you a taste for it?’
‘I didn’t count,’ said Papworth. ‘Does it give you a thrill, these questions?’
‘No. No,’ said Dalziel thoughtfully. ‘I was just thinking how advanced the prison service in Liverpool must be. Nowt like it in Yorkshire, I tell you, else there’s some would be queuing up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean Annie Greave spent eight months last year in gaol, that’s what I mean. And if you were getting on board each time you drove bouncing Bertie back home, then you must have real influence. Yes indeed.’
It was, of course, a lie. Criminals lied all the time and Dalziel saw no reason why this useful privilege should be reserved for them alone.
Of course, all Papworth had to do was say you must be daft! and indeed the man was looking at him with what might be honest puzzlement as he rolled another of his revolting cigarettes.
‘Well?’ prompted Dalziel.
The door burst open and Bertie Fielding entered.
‘Hello, Pappy,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Ah, you’re here, Dalziel. That’s useful. It’ll save ringing up Cross.’
‘We’re having a private conversation,’ growled Dalziel. ‘Do you mind?’
‘In your house with your employees, you can have all the private conversations you wish,’ said Bertie. He was feeling confident enough to say it as a joke rather than make it as nasty as he was capable of, observed Dalziel.
‘Pappy, now the water’s going down, we really ought to start cleaning up the bottom bit of the lawn. The flood’s left an awful mess. I’ve got Hank out there earning his keep, but we need your expertise.’
‘Right,’ said Papworth. ‘I’ll come now.’
‘Hold on!’ said Dalziel. ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’
‘Is this some kind of official interrogation?’ enquired Bertie. ‘What’s it all about, Pappy?’
‘He’s asking me about Mrs Greave. Something about some missing stuff.’
Bertie laughed. The sight of his soft fleshiness gently shaking filled Dalziel with revulsion. At least at his age I was nothing but bone and muscle, he thought.
‘Is that it? Well, consider your constabulary duty done, Mr Dalziel, sir. That’s what I was going to ring Sergeant Cross about. It’s all been a mistake.’
‘What?’
‘A mistake. Look, it’s a bit complicated, but what it boils down to is this. There’s nothing missing.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the long and short of it, I’m afraid. I’ve done a careful check this morning and in fact all the missing stuff can be accounted for. The booze has been stored elsewhere. It’s silly, really.’
‘And you didn’t know?’ demanded Dalziel.
‘Not in the least. Not till this morning.’
‘And who was it that altered your arrangements without letting you know? And why didn’t he or she speak up last night?’
‘Well, that would have been a bit difficult,’ said Bertie, grinning broadly. ‘It was my late father, God bless him. Who else?’
‘So now you’ve tracked the drink down? And the ovens? Had he fiddled with them too?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Bertie. ‘Security. Very distrustful man was my father.’
It was of course unanswerable. And even though Dalziel had forecast this turn of events to Balderstone that morning, he felt angrily frustrated.
‘You can see for yourself if you like,’ offered Bertie.
‘No thanks,’ said Dalziel to whom another thought had occurred. Was this why he had been steered away from the house that morning?
‘So come on, Pappy,’ said Bertie. ‘Mr Dalziel doesn’t need to question you any more. Do you, Superintendent?’
Dalziel hesitated. Now would be a dramatic time to reveal that Annie Greave was dead. If he were in charge of the case and could have followed up his revelation by getting Papworth and Bertie into a nice neutral interview room for the next couple of hours, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But it wasn’t up to him. In any case, as he had stated to Balderstone, his ambiguous position in this house was a positive advantage. Once launched into a full-scale interrogation he would have stepped outside the wagon ring and joined the other redskins whooping around in the darkness.
He decided to compromise.
‘Don’t forget,’ he said to Bertie. ‘It wasn’t just a nonexistent theft we had here last night. A man got drowned.’
‘What’s that to do with me?’ demanded Papworth.
‘Depends what time you left the house last night and where you went,’ said Dalziel. ‘You might have seen him on the road.’
Papworth considered for a moment.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I saw nothing. I’ve no time to gawp at passers-by.’
‘That’s a little bit vague,’ said Dalziel. ‘Let’s see if we can help you. What time did you leave the house?’
‘Latish. I’m not a man for clocks,’ said Papworth.
‘All right,’ said Dalziel understandingly. ‘Let’s try the other end. Where’d you go and what time did you get there?’
An April Shroud Page 17
