A clubbable woman

Chapter 7.

There were three days left till Christmas. The weather was dark, misty. The sky was low and constantly shifting as different layers of grey and black cloud were dragged around by gusty winds. Guiding stars were rarely seen. In any case, no one had much time to look. The greatest money-spending competition on earth was coming to its climax. The streets were thronged all day with compulsive shoppers, intermittently spattered with hard-driven rain and tinted by the glow of festive lighting. And a constant background to everything was the music: carols, pop, sentimental, classical; now near, now far; on tape, on record, and occasionally even issuing from a real, live, human throat. It was a strange unsettling atmosphere. No one could remain unaffected by it.

Some were hardened by it.

'I haven't given or received a Christmas present for more than a dozen years,' said Dalziel. 'Bloody idiots.'

Some were softened.

Should I have tried to go home this year? wondered Pascoe guiltily. Home meant a suburban semi, two hundred miles away, grossly overcrowded for the holiday by his grandmother, his two elder sisters, their unsympathetic husbands and their four even more unsympathetic children, in addition to the normal complement of his parents. He hadn't spent a Christmas there for three years. It was nearly time to try it again.

But not this year.

Some were worried by it. 'He's looking worse than he did when it all happened/ said Jenny. 'Perhaps it's Christmas. I think they always made a special effort at Christmas. For my sake as well, I suppose. He looks awful.'

'Is he seeing the doctor?' asked Antony.

'No. But I'm going to send for him. He had that knock on his head, I don't think he's recovered from that yet.' 'No,' said Antony staring out of the window into the front garden.

Some were made hopeful by it.

'Look, girl,' said Arthur Evans. 'I know we've had some bad times recently and a lot of it's been my fault. But let's make an effort, shan we? It's Christmas, eh? Let's see what we can make of ourselves, eh?' 'Yes,' said Gwen. But her eyes did not shift from the book she was looking at. And the atmosphere of hectic unreality made some resolute. Marcus Felstead whistled a Christmas medley to himself as he carefully packed his suitcase. But in a house in the heart of the Wood field Estate there was no whistling as a man searched the streets for the fourth time for his child, then finally, belatedly, picked up a telephone and rang the police.

'It's happened,' said Dalziel.

'What?' said Pascoe, standing at the threshold of the room. 'Mickey Annan. Aged eight. One hundred and three, Scaur Terrace, Wood field. Didn't get home from school last night. They broke up yesterday, had a bit of a party. It's the usual story. His parents thought he'd gone to a friend's house in the next street. He usually does on that night. But this time it was different, they were all going off for Christmas as soon as their kid arrived. So Mickey wasn't asked. So he wasn't missed till nearly ten.'

Pascoe raised his eyebrows. 'That's late.'

They breed 'em hard in Wood field. Anyway, they always kid themselves. Never admit that anything can be wrong until they've got to.'

'What's happening now?'

The usual. One of his mates thinks he said he might go up to the Common. Someone had told him there might be some snow there. He was mad keen on snow.'

'Oh, Christ.'

The Common was the local term used to describe an area of several acres on the western boundary of the Wood field Estate. It was unfit even for grazing purposes and its main function in human terms was that its near edges provided a useful if unofficial dumping ground for anything and everything. The Common contained a disused quarry, two ponds and a steep-sided stream, all of which had been fenced off after years of complaint. But not even a full-time repair unit could keep up with the constant breaching of the fencing. 'We've got a full-scale search going on now. County are standing by with frogmen.'

'House-to-house?'

'No point yet. We're stretched as it is talking to every kid in the school now that they're on holiday.' 'He might have just taken a walk and got lost,' said Pascoe without conviction. 'Fell asleep behind a wall or in a shed.'

'He should have woken up by now.'

'What would you like me to do?' 'Look after the walking boys. It'll take them all morning to cover the kids from the school. By then if nothing's come out of the search, it'll be time to start asking everyone questions.'

'Anyone in particular? Streets, I mean?'

Dalziel looked surprised. 'Why, you'll start by asking everyone on the Wood field Estate, and if we still haven't found him, we'll work our way through the rest of town. There's only eighty-five thousand of them.'

'Thanks,' said Pascoe.

Think yourself lucky,' replied Dalziel, shaking a newspaper on his desk. 'At least they had the plane crash in North Africa this year.' Funny man, thought Pascoe as he went swiftly and efficiently to work. Is it just a cover like we all put up? Or does he really not feel these things? What a man to spend Christmas with! I'd be better off at home with all those kids! By midday the Common had been turned over with meticulous care, the pools dragged and the frogmen sent down. As far as Mickey Annan was concerned, the result was absolutely negative. But lots of other things were brought up. A list was always made on these occasions and Pascoe glanced quickly down it. A small part of his mind was still on the unidentified weapon in the Connon case. But there was nothing here which rang a bell. The usual household expendables, a suitcase containing some fairly valuable pieces of pewter (dumped by mistake? or stolen and dumped in fear?) and, an item which made Pascoe whistle slightly, two guns. But he had no time for idle speculation. A large-scale map of the Wood field Estate lay before him. He still had to complete his detectives' schedules. It was one-thirty before he had any lunch. He ate it alone in the police canteen. Mickey Annan now went to the back of his mind. He had taken part in the search that morning for a while, talked to some of the children from the school, as well as helping to organize the house-to-house. But he knew it was a routine, automatic business, none the less essential for all that, and nine times out of ten effective. Mickey Annan would probably be found very soon. It was after the finding that the real work began, and Pascoe was not a man given to anticipating events. Except in the line of business. His thoughts drifted back to the Connons. The missing boy wasn't really interfering with the progress of the Connon case, because the progress only existed in theory. Investigations were still proceeding, but unless Dalziel had some private little line well hidden from everyone else, the phrase was as empty as it sounded. The only thing that was any clearer to him now than it had been when he started was his picture of the murdered woman. It wasn't a very complete one. She seemed to have been a reasonable kind of mother to Jenny; at least she hadn't stimulated any of the strong resentments which seemed to lie uneasily dormant in most daughters, especially those very fond of their fathers. And she seemed to have made Connon a bearable kind of wife. But she had told him his daughter had been fathered by another man and she had tried to separate him from his main interest in life, the Club. Add to this that she was a vain woman with a streak of snobbery, but one who had made a friend of Alice Fernie (who herself was unlikely to pick her friends haphazardly); that she was a manhunting, high-life-loving girl who had shown no desire to keep up her connection with her old stamping-grounds; and finally, that she apparently received obscene letters with equanimity, merely folding them up and putting them away like love-letters sentimentally preserved; add all these things together and you had a woman who was as incomprehensible as women traditionally are. Over his coffee, Pascoe toyed with permutations of possibilities in which Felstead or Evans had written the letter (all the letters?), in which Mary Connon had a lover (someone at the Club? Noolan? Jesus! Or what about Bruiser Dalziel? Joke); in which Connon swung a metal bar held like a spear into his wife's forehead (jealous rage? didn't fit. Careful plan? but was he so cold-blooded a man as that'?). He'd been along all these paths before. They led nowhere yet, except to fantasy in which Gwen Evans held a crow-bar to Mary's head and Alice Fernie struck it home with a sledge-hammer while Mary, unheeding, watched the television. He sighed and returned mentally to the canteen. There was other work to be done. Connon would have to wait. Mary was dead. There was still the faintest of chances that Mickey Annan might still be among the living. Connon was angry when the doctor arrived, but even in anger he didn't lose the moderation of speech or manner which Antony now recognized as his main characteristic.

'I didn't send for you, Doctor,' he said.

'Just a checking-up call,' replied McManus cheerily. 'Just because you don't send for me doesn't mean you don't need me any more.'

'I'm fine,' said Connon. 'You've had a wasted journey.'

'It's a good way to waste it, then. But I'll be the judge of how fine you are. You don't look so hot to me.' Connon did not look well. He seemed to be visibly losing weight. His cheek-bones were prominent and the paleness of the skin stretched over them was accentuated by the darkness which ran like a stain round his eyes. 'Come along, then, and let's take a look at you,' said McManus. Connon had enough of himself left to give Jenny a sardonically accusing glance as he left the room with the doctor.

'He knows it was you,' said Antony.

That doesn't matter. As long as Doctor Mac can do something for him.' 'I'm sure he can,' said Antony cheerfully. 'He'll come up with some witches' brew.' But he could not feel so certain inside that Connon's malady would respond to physical treatment.

'Do you think the police have given up?' asked Jenny.

'I don't know. Do you want them to?' 'I'm not sure. I don't much care now whether they catch someone or not. But I'd just like everyone to know for Daddy's sake that he had nothing to do with it. Do you think they took any notice of what you said about the telephone-box?' 'They must have done. There's a new directory there now. I had a look. But I don't think my amorous rival Pascoe was too delighted to receive advice and assistance from me. As far as the police are concerned I suspect there's a very thin line between public support and amateur interference.' 'As if you would interfere in what wasn't your business!' said Jenny with mock indignation. 'I see you've come to know me well,' responded Antony. 'Come and sit on my knee.'

His hand stroked her leg as he kissed her.

I've been here before, thought Jenny. But she was very glad to be there again. Talking of interference,' said Antony a little while later, removing his lips from the side of her neck.

'Don't be disgusting,' she said.

'I think I shan interfere once more. There's something else which keeps on coming back to me which they might possibly be interested in.'

Jenny sat upright. 'What's that, Sherlock?'

But they heard a footstep on the stairs and Jenny rose swiftly, smoothing down her dress.

The door opened and McManus came in.

'How is he, Doctor?' asked Jenny anxiously.

The old man carefully closed the door behind him.

'He's just putting his shirt on. He'll be down in a minute.'

He looked enquiringly at Antony.

'It's OK, Doctor,' said Jenny. 'How is he?' 'Well, physically there's nothing I can put my finger on. He complains of being listless, loss of appetite, that kind of thing. But this we might expect. Also his head still pains him from time to time where he got that knock. But I think this is like his other symptoms. There's nothing wrong. It's purely nervous in origin.' 'But he seems to be getting worse, not better,' protested Jenny. Antony put his arm comfortingly round her waist. 'Yes. That's true. It's a delayed reaction, not uncommon. A kind of shock. He's been living on his reserves of nervous energy for the past couple of weeks. It can't go on for ever.' He struggled into his overcoat which Antony brought him from the hall. 'But don't worry. I've been his doctor for many years, nearly all his life, I suppose. I've seen him like this before, before you were born, when he cracked his ankle the week before the final trial. He went as thin as a rake, and deathly pale then for a couple of weeks. You'd have thought the end had come. But it hadn't. He got back to normal in no time. No, no, it hadn't. It hadn't.' He shook his head and laughed softly to himself at the memory. Hadn't it? wondered Antony. And in what way could the end come twice? 'Well, I suppose you've told them three times as much as you've told me,' said Connon from the door. 'I long ago noted that to a doctor keeping confidences meant telling your patient nothing and his relatives everything. You should all be struck off.'

McManus laughed as he picked up his bag.

'Goodbye, Jenny; and you, young man. I'll call in again, Connie, if you don't call to see me. Take your medicine now and stop worrying your friends.' They watched him get into his car, then returned to the lounge. 'Well,' said Jenny, 'time for lunch, I think. Antony, make yourself useful for once, love. You'll find a tablecloth in the top drawer of the sideboard. Set the table, if it's not beneath your dignity.' She went out into the kitchen. Antony grinned in resignation at Connon and began searching for the tablecloth. 'It's good of you to stay on with us, Antony,' said Connon. 'I hope your parents are not too disappointed.' 'It would be foolishly modest of me to say they will not be disappointed at all,' said Antony, 'but they are both very understanding. I hope to introduce Jenny to them very soon, when I think they'll be more understanding still.' 'Oh,' said Connon. 'Do I detect a note of serious intent creeping in?' Antony pulled out a table-cloth and shook it open with a fine flourish like a bull-fighter showing his cape. Something fluttered to the floor. 'I think it highly probable,' he said seriously, 'that I shan marry Jenny eventually, with, of course, her consent and your permission.' He bent down to pick up the photograph which was what had fallen. 'In that case,' said Connon with equal seriousness, 'we must take an early opportunity of reviewing your prospects.' Antony didn't reply. He was looking closely at the picture in his hand. For one brief moment he had thought it was Jenny, absurdly garbed and with a ridiculously short haircut. Then he realized that the only thing of Jenny's which was there was the familiar, wide, allilluminating grin on the face of the young man in muddy rugby kit who was walking alone in the picture.

Connon took the photograph from him.

'That's the only picture of me playing rugby I ever kept,' he said.

'Why this one?' asked Antony.

Connon stared down at the young man in the picture as if he was looking at a stranger and trying to analyse what made him seem vaguely familiar. 'It was the first time I played for the County. I was nineteen. Still in the army, on a weekend pass. But nearly finished. There was a five-yard scrum. I was standing square over our own line ready for the pass back and the kick to touch. The pass came, I had plenty of time and shaped to kick to the near touch-line. Then I changed my mind. All their backs were coming up like the clappers. So I chipped it into a little space over the scrum, ran round, picked it up and went up the middle of the field. I don't recall beating the full-back. They told me after I ran through him as if he wasn't there. All I could see was the posts and the exact spot centrally between them where I was going to touch down. Nothing else was real till I grounded the ball. Then I started walking back up the field. No one runs up and kisses you in a rugby match. In those days it was considered bad form even to slap you on the back. You just walked back to your position trying to look unconcerned and got your clap from the crowd. I could feel this smile on my face, feel it spreading out to a grin. The crowd all roared like mad. It was the biggest crowd I'd ever played in front of. I bent my head a bit, look, you can see on the picture, but I couldn't stop grinning. It was a grin of pure happiness. It felt as if it was fixed on my face for ever. I think I believed it was.' He stopped talking. Antony for once was stuck for words. He's in the past, he thought, the poor devil's anchored there beyond hope of release. What a state to get into. A wave of sympathy swept over him, some of which must have shown on his face, for Connon now smiled at him ironically. 'I think you may be misunderstanding me, Antony,' he said. 'I don't live down memory lane. What this photograph says to me is not that happiness is gone for ever, but that it's repeatable. I've often felt like this since, mostly on occasions connected with Jenny. The picture reminds me of what's possible again, that's all, not of what's gone for ever.' 'I'm sorry,' said Antony, rather shame-faced. 'I didn't mean to… you're very lucky. I'll go and set the table.' He left the room with the cloth cast loosely over his shoulder like the end of a toga. It suits him, thought Connon. Then he returned his attention to the photograph. Repeatable? he asked himself. I wonder. Will it ever be possible again? From the kitchen Jenny's portable radio began to play a selection of brass-band music. This faded almost at once, but then returned louder than before as though the set had been returned. Connie listened, then a smile moved slowly across his face.

I believe she's leaving it on for me.

It was five o'clock and dark and cold and wet. The shops were still crowded. Inside them it was bright and warm. Too warm. The crowds who had jostled close to each other all day, shoulder to ruthless shoulder, thigh to strange thigh, had left their unexpungeable smell. Sweat, scent, tobacco and damp clothing all mistily merged into an observable haze. The best shop-assistants were growing irritable, the worst had long been downright rude. But the artefacts of good cheer had not yet lost their power, the music was as merry as ever, the colours as gay, and nearly everyone was going home. The festive spirit stalked abroad, reaching out to seize backsliders.

Mickey Annan had still not been found.

And Jacko Roberts was talking on the telephone to Dalziel.

'What the hell do you want, Jacko? I'm busy.'

'I wish I was. This weather's no good for my business.' 'It doesn't help mine much either. Come on now. Is this social? If it is, piss off. If not, get your finger out.' One day, Jacko promised himself, one day I'll tap him on the head and wall him up in a brick kiln.

It was his perennial New Year resolution.

'A bit of both,' he said. 'I'm having a little party for a few select friends, tomorrow night. Christmas Eve. I'd like you to come.' Dalziel hesitated. Jacko Roberts rarely entertained but when he did, it was usually lavish. He regarded it as an investment. Dalziel didn't mind being invested in as long as it was done the right way. A couple of years earlier, Jacko's investment had consisted of the introduction of a group of very willing young ladies to his previously well liquored stag party of civic and other dignitaries. Dalziel had been sober enough to leave early. He had noticed that the Roberts Building Company got a large share of municipal contracts the following year and had had words with Jacko.

Now he wondered if he had forgotten.

'Don't worry yourself,' snarled his prospective host. 'It's all respectable. They'll all be there, from Noolan to the Town Clerk. With their wives.'

'What time?'

'Any time after eight.'

'I can't promise. I'll try to make it.'

'Oh, and Bruiser. As you're short of a partner, why not bring that nice sergeant along? Whatsisname?' 'Watch it, Jacko,' said Dalziel softly. 'There's a notice on my overcoat which says, this is where Christmas stops.' 'All right. But I meant it. Ask him anyway. It pleases these old cows to have a virile young man about the place.' Dalziel grunted and thought that Jacko must be doing well at the moment to be in, for him, so light-hearted a mood. He made a mental note to check on what the builder had been up to. 'Right,' he said. 'You said there was some business. Or is that what we've just been talking about?' 'That's an odd thing to say, super. No, but are you still interested in this Connon business or is it all neatly tied up?' 'Don't play clever buggers with me, Jacko. What have you got? Anything or nothing?' 'I don't know. It's just that Mary Connon and Arthur Evans were seen in close confabulation over a drink the Friday before she died.'

Dalziel digested the information for a moment.

'Where?' he asked.

'The Bull, on the coast road.'

'Anything else on a connection between them?'

'Not that I've heard.'

'It's probably nothing. That all?'

'Unless you're going to thank me.'

Dalziel put the phone down hard and sat looking at it. Then he picked up the internal phone and pressed a button.

'Sergeant Pascoe here.'

'Dalziel. Busy?'

'Well yes. I've just got in.'

'Had your tea?'

'Not yet. I was just going to…'

Then you can't be all that busy. Step along here for a minute, will you. Bring your coat. I'll probably want you to go out.' Pascoe sighed as he took his sodden riding mac off the radiator. A minute earlier he had been feeling sorry for the men who were still out on house-to-house questioning. Now he began to wonder if his sympathy was misplaced. Back in Dalziel's office the phone rang again. He picked it up crossly, but after listening for a few moments, his expression softened and he nodded twice.

'Yes, yes. That's good. I'm glad, very very glad.'

Pascoe was surprised to find him looking almost happy when he came through the door. 'Jesus H. Christ,' muttered Detective-Constable Edwards. It was his private theory that Wood field Council estate had been built as a series of experiments in wind-tunnelling. Behind him the door of the house whose occupant he had just been interviewing had been closed with considerable firmness. Some attempt had been made to turn the area immediately in front of the door into a rose-arbour by the erection of a bit of trellis work at right angles to the wall, and he crouched behind the little protection this afforded. The wind came howling down the street full of rain and incipient snow. A shoot of the rambler clinging precariously to the trellis whipped round and slashed against his face. 'Jesus,' he repeated and turned up his collar and went up the path. As he closed the gate he saw the curtain drop into position in the front window. 'All right. I'm off the premises,' he said aloud. What a thing it was to be loved. Not that we deserve it anyway. Bloody half-wits. God, to think how chuffed I was to get out of uniform. Detective! All I've done since seems to be walk around and knock on doors. First Connon. Now this. Poor little bugger. I wonder where he is? He turned his mind away from the private conviction that little Mickey Annan was somewhere lying dead; deep beneath bracken on the moors; under an old sack in some outhouse; it didn't matter where. His job at the moment was to ask questions.

Someone must have seen the boy that night.

His heart sank when he saw where his questionings would take him next. It was a little cul-de-sac of some two dozen semi-detached bungalows. Pensioners. Old Women. Mostly alone, often lonely. Welcoming, garrulous. He would be pressed to cups of tea, cocoa, Bovril, Horlicks. He tried to harden his heart in advance, but knew it was just a front. I'm your friendly village-bobby-type, he thought, not your hard-as-nails CID boy. This is going to take hours. 'Mrs Williams? Mrs Ivy Williams?' he said to the large heavily-made-up woman who answered his ring.

'No, that's my mam. What are you after, then?'

'I'm from the police. We're checking on the movements of people in this area last night, Mrs…?' 'My name's Girton. Is it about that lad then what's missing? Well, mam can't help you. Never gets out at night, do you, mam?' An elderly woman had appeared out of the kitchen which Edwards could see through the half-opened door at the end of the small hallway.

'What's that? What's up?'

'It's a policeman, mam. You weren't out last night, were you, mam?'

'No, I wasn't. Where'd I go?'

'That's right,' said Mrs Girton to Edwards. 'Where'd she go?' 'Well, thank you. You weren't here yourself last night, were you?' 'No, not me. Mondays and Thursdays are my regular nights. Sorry.' 'Will you have a cup of tea, eh?' Mrs Williams was; already turning into the kitchen. Her daughter caught the: look on Edwards's face and grinned sympathetically. 'Don't be daft, mam. He's got a lot of work to do,, haven't you? Got to visit everyone in the road?'

'That's right. Thanks all the same. Good night.'

He turned to go. 'Everyone in the road, eh?' shrilled the old woman. 'Well, make sure you talk to Mrs Grogan next door, then. She knows something, eh? She'll be able to tell you something if you're from the police.'

She disappeared back into the kitchen.

Edwards raised his eyebrows quizzically at Mrs Girton, who shrugged. 'You never know. She's getting on now, but she takes good notice of whatever anyone says. I wouldn't pay too much heed myself, though.'

'Well, thanks anyway. Good night.'

'Good night.' It was raining in earnest. He glanced at his sodden list under the street-lamp. Mrs Kathleen Grogan, No 2. There was a sharp double blast from a horn. Turning, he saw at the end of the cul-de-sac a police-car. He went towards it. 'Hello, Brian,' said the uniformed constable cheerily. 'Enjoying yourself?'

'Great. What are you doing here?'

They've found him. Mickey Annan.' Edwards nodded and said, more as assertion than question, 'Dead?' 'No. Alive and well. We've come to tell you to jack it in. Hop in and we'll give you a lift back.' Edwards was half into the back seat before he remembered Mrs Grogan. He hesitated. 'Come on, then.' 'Look, John. Could you hang on just a couple of minutes? There's just one more call I'd like to make.' 'What're you on about? Playing detectives? I told you, the house-to-house is off..

'Yes but…'

'Sorry, Brian. I've got to get on. There's at least two other poor sods trudging around in the wet when they could be clocking off and going home. Now hop in and let's go.'

Edwards got back out of the car.

'OK, John. You shove off. I'll make my own way back.' 'Have it your own way. But you're a silly bugger. Cheers.' Yes, I'm a silly bugger. The silly bugger to end all silly buggers. 'Bugger!' he said aloud as he watched the car's taillights disappear into the driving rain. 'I must be mad.' He made his way back along the pavement and turned up the narrow path. Pascoe had sat in silence as his superior swiftly and efficiently did his part in calling off the search for Mickey Annan. This was the first rule when an operation was over. Get your men back. There were too many working hours for too few police as it was without letting any be wasted unnecessarily.

Finally Dalziel was done.

'What happened?' Pascoe had asked.

'He was out looking for Jesus.'

'What?' 'It's these bloody schools. When I was a kid it was twotimes table and the sharp edge of a ruler along your arse if you didn't know them. Now it's all stimulating the imagination. Christ! Show me a kid who ever needed his imagination stimulated! Anyway, little Mickey Annan was a wise man in the school Nativity play and got very interested in guiding stars in the East, and all. Especially when his teacher explained that Jesus was born again for everyone every Christmas and Bethlehem was never far away. How many bloody miles to Bethlehem! His favourite poem! Anyway, to Mickey the East was where his Uncle Dick and Aunt Mavis live at High Burnton out towards the coast.'

'How did he get there? He did get there, I take it?'

'Oh yes. Sat on a bus. Told the women he was sharing a seat with that he'd lost his money. He reckons wise men don't need to bother much with the truth as far as ordinary mortals are concerned. Anyway his uncle had gone off for Christmas with his family, the house was empty. He got in through a half-closed larder window. Very small evidently. Then he bedded down.'

'But what's he been doing today, then?'

Dalziel had looked pityingly at the sergeant. 'Wise men don't travel by day,' he said. 'You can't see any stars by day. You've got to wait till it's night.'

'Oh? I suppose you would, really.'

'Anyway the woman in the bus saw his picture in this evening's paper, told the local bobby and gave him the boy's uncle's address which the lad had passed on to her the previous evening. He was very chatty, evidently, not a care in the world when she was with him. She never associated him with the missing lad till she saw the picture. Off they went to Uncle Dick's just in time to meet Belshazzar taking off in search of a clear patch of sky. Kids! I hope his father whacks him till he's a confirmed atheist.' Pascoe was still grinning at the story as he rang the doorbell of Arthur Evans's house. There were lights on all over the house but no one seemed in a hurry to answer the door. He hoped it would be Gwen Evans who came, though his business was with her husband. Analysing his emotions, he came to the conclusion that Owen's affair with Marcus, far from making her more inaccessible, had merely confirmed her accessibility.

He rang the bell once more.

Almost instantly this time the door was flung open. Arthur Evans stood there. He looked distraught, his tie was pulled down and his collar open, his hair was ruffled, but even if he had been neatly dressed and groomed, the bright staring eyes and hectic cheeks would have warned Pascoe that something was amiss. And the smell of whisky. 'What the hell do you want?' demanded Evans, then with a sudden change of tone. 'Is anything wrong? Have you found them?'

'Found who?' enquired Pascoe politely.

'Oh, Christ,' said Evans, letting his shoulders sag as he turned and walked away from the open door. Pascoe hesitated a moment then followed him, closing the door quietly behind him. Evans had gone through into the lounge and was standing leaning against the mantelpiece in the classic pose of grief.

But this was no mere pose, Pascoe decided.

'Mr Evans,' he said softly, 'what has happened?'

Evans looked at him wretchedly.

'What am I to do without her?' he groaned. 'Without Mrs Evans, you mean?' asked Pascoe. 'Why, where is she, Mr Evans. What's happened to her?' He did not go any further into the room but stood in the door keeping a watchful eye on Evans. For all he knew, Gwen was lying upstairs dead and the man in front of him was building up to another outburst. 'She's left me,' said Evans with difficulty, mouthing the words in an exaggerated way as if examining them in disbelief as they came out.

'Left you? How do you know she's left you?' asked

Pascoe, still suspicious that he might be listening to the self-deceiving euphemism of murder. Evans reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, crumpled as though it had been thrust deeply and desperately out of sight.

Pascoe came carefully forward and took it.

'Dear Arthur,' he read, 'I am leaving you. Our marriage has been at an end for some time as far as I am concerned. I am sorry, but there's nothing else to be done. Please forgive me. Gwen.' What the hell do I say? Pascoe asked himself. Oh, Bruiser, I wish you were here. Evans sobbed drily, gulping in great mouthfuls of air, and rocked back and forward against the mantelpiece which was lined with Christmas cards. One rocked and fell. He looked up then and became aware of the others. Soundlessly, he swept his forearm down the whole length of the mantelpiece, scattering cards and ornaments alike.

Pascoe touched his arm.

'Come and sit down,' he said. For a moment it looked as if Evans might resist, then he let himself be led to the sofa where he sat down quietly with his head between his hands and began to cry. Pascoe left him and ran lightly upstairs. It was his business to make sure that Gwen Evans was not still here. Arthur had obviously had the same idea. Every door was open, even wardrobes and cupboards, and all the lights were on. He looked into the wardrobes and through the drawers in the dressing-table and tallboy. She had packed well. Hardly a feminine article remained. The same in the bathroom. Only, there on its side on top of the medicine chest was an unstoppered bottle. He picked it up. It was empty. He read the label, then turned and ran downstairs three at a time. Arthur Evans was still on the sofa, only now he was sitting limp with his head resting against the arm. His eyes were closed and his breathing noisy. Pascoe turned back to the hall, picked up the telephone and dialled.

'Ambulance,' he said. 'Quick.'

'How was I to know,' said Pascoe defensively, 'that there were only two tablets in the bottle? Anyway he must have had about half a bottle of whisky.' 'You do not pump out a man's stomach because he's drunk half a bottle of scotch,' said Dalziel. 'If you did, half the top men in this town would be swallowing rubber tubes every weekend. Christ, your common sense should have told you. Evans isn't your romantic suicide type, he's your find-'em-and-mash-'em type. He'll have you on his list now.' 'I hope they've gone a long way,' said Pascoe. 'They seem to have taken everything. Felstead's landlady says he told her that he definitely wouldn't be coming back. They're almost certainly in his car. Is it worth sending out a call?'

Dalziel shook his head emphatically.

'Nothing whatsoever to do with us, Sergeant. If a woman runs away from her husband that's their business. Our only concern is if and when Arthur catches up with them. I can't see him sitting down for a quiet civilized three-cornered discussion.' Like you did? wondered Pascoe. Some hope! You and Evans are brothers under the thick skin. 'What did he say about meeting Mary Connon, that's the important thing,' went on Dalziel. Pascoe tried to stop himself stiffening to a seated attention position and couldn't quite manage it. 'Nothing,' he said. That is, I didn't actually ask him. I mean, how could I? The occasion didn't arise.' He wished his voice didn't sound quite so childishly defensive in his own ears, but Dalziel seemed happy enough with his explanation. 'It'll keep,' he said. 'Nothing's so important that it won't keep. Or if it is, and you keep it too long, it stops being important, and that's much the same thing. Look at the time! There's nothing more for us here. Come on!' He stood up and took his coat from the chair over which it had been casually thrown. 'Well, help me on with it, lad,' he said to Pascoe. 'And hurry up. The most dangerous moment of a policeman's life is the time between getting his coat on and getting out of the station. You never know what's just coming in through the door.' Just coming in through the door at that very minute was Detective-Constable Edwards. He was very wet. 'Where've you been, then?' asked the desk-sergeant aggressively. 'Out,' said Edwards with a nerve sharpened by cold and more than an hour in the company of Mrs Kathy Grogan. 'Is the super still in?' Entry to the Grogan household had not been easy. Mrs Grogan had wisely taken note of the many warnings issued to householders, especially the elderly living on their own, to examine carefully the credentials of all callers before admitting them. It took Edwards's warrant card, two library tickets, a pay-slip and a snapshot of himself and his fiancee on the beach at Scarborough to win him admittance. The snapshot was the clincher. The girl, Mrs Grogan told him, had the look of her late sister. Once her doubts had been satisfied and the door unchained and unbolted, her attitude was one of reproachful expectancy. 'So you've come at last,' she said. 'You take your time don't you?'

'Pardon?' he said.

'Come along in, then. It's draughty out here. Gets right under my skirts if you'll excuse the expression. If I've written to the Council once about that front door, I've written fifty times. I told her next door you'd be coming, but I didn't think you'd be so long about it. If this is what you're like when you are anxious I wouldn't like to wait for you when you're not.' The small living-room she took him into was made even smaller by the amount of stuff she had in there. Every ledge and shelf was crowded with ornaments of one kind or another, most of them bearing some civic inscription ranging geographically from 'A gift from Peebles' to 'A souvenir of Ilfracombe'. Mrs Grogan, Edwards decided, was strongly attached to the past. He knew very well the dangers of any allusions to any of these articles, but the mere unavoidable act of looking at them was more than enough for his hostess. He reckoned he had done well to get away with two cups of tea and forty minutes of reminiscence before an opening arose to thrust in a question. 'Mrs Grogan,' he said, 'you said before that you thought we were anxious to see you…'

'No,' she said. 'You said that.'

'Did I?' he asked, half ready to believe anything.

'Yes. Here. Look, I'll show you.'

She dived into a pile of newspapers which lay in an untidy stack beneath her chair and after a short search, triumphantly produced a neatly folded paper which she handed to Edwards. He looked down at it and found himself reading an account of Mary Connon's death. Mrs Grogan's gnarled and knuckle-swollen finger was interposed between his eyes and the paper. The meticulously clear and polished nail came to rest on a line near the end of the story. The police are anxious to interview anyone who may have walked or driven along Boundary Drive between seven and nine on the night in question.' 'But that means,' Edwards began to explain, then pulled himself up with a smile. 'I'm sorry we've taken so long to get round to you, Mrs Grogan, but we've been very busy. Now, I understand then that you did take a walk down Boundary Drive on that night?' 'Oh yes. Of course I did. I always do. I go to my nephew's for tea on Saturday afternoons and if the weather's not too bad I get off the bus in Glenfair Road and walk down the Drive. It saves me threepence on the fare that way. My nephew thinks I stay on the bus right into the estate, but I don't always. It would worry him if he knew. This won't have to come out in court, will it?'

'We'll try to keep it quiet,' Edwards assured her.

'Well, I'd just got opposite that poor woman's house, and I glanced up at it. I always look at the houses as I walk by them. It's really interesting. And then I saw the man.'

'The man.'

'Yes. I saw him quite clearly. A man.'

'Mr Connon?' suggested Edwards.

'Oh no. Not him. I saw his picture in the paper. It wasn't him. Someone quite different.' 'Evans,' interjected Dalziel when Edwards reached this part of his story.

'Probably,' agreed Pascoe gloomily.

'Evans?' asked Edwards. 'Yes. Arthur Evans. He was round there that night. I've talked to him about it.' 'Oh, I see,' said Edwards disappointedly. 'I didn't know. I suppose you asked him, sir, what he was doing up the tree?' 'Up the tree? Up what tree?' said Pascoe, his interest revived. 'No. We didn't ask him that, Constable,' said Dalziel. 'Do go on.' Edwards finished his story rapidly. Mrs Grogan had seen a man half way up the sycamore tree in the Connons' front garden. Despite the darkness and the distance, she claimed she saw him quite distinctly and, taking Edwards to her own window, she gave him a convincing demonstration of the excellence of her eyesight.

'What did you do then?' asked Edwards.

'What should I do? Nothing, of course. It's none of my business. I always look at the houses as I walk past, and I see a lot of things odder than that, but it's not my business, is it? No, it wasn't until I read about the murder in the paper that I thought any more about it. And when it said you were anxious to see me, I've been waiting ever since. I've even missed going out a couple of nights.' 'I'm sorry,' said Edwards gently. 'Next time why don't you come down to see us, to hurry us along a bit? Ask for Mr Dalziel if you do.'

But he didn't put that bit in his report.

'What price my intruder now, sir?' asked Pascoe, with some slight jubilation.' 'It depends who he is,' said Dalziel thoughtfully. 'And if he is. It's late now. And dark. Sergeant, first thing in the morning, you exercise your limbs round at Connon's and see what you're like at climbing trees. And I'll do a bit of sick-visiting, and go and talk to my old mate, Arthur, again. But watch yourself. Listen to that wind.' And a few miles away Antony heard the boughs of the sycamore tree sawing together and watched the sinister patterns moved by the wind across the frosted glass of the bathroom window. He put his toothbrush down and rinsed his mouth out. Then moving quietly along the landing in his bare feet, he came to Jenny's bedroom door.

It made a small noise as he opened it and he paused.

'Jenny,' he whispered. There was a little silence, then the sound of movement in the bed as she sat up. He could see her faintly, whitely.

'Come in,' she said.

They're looking very pleased with themselves this morning, thought Pascoe. Even from this angle. 'This angle' was almost ninety degrees. He had left the comparative safety of the platform of the step-ladder and was now clinging to what felt like a dangerously pliable branch of the tree. Below him, hand in hand, staring up with lively interest, were Jenny and Antony. Looking up, it had seemed no height at all. Looking down corrected the illusion, so instead he applied his mind to the business in hand. If there had been a man up the tree on the night of Mary Connon's death – and a conversation with Kathy Grogan earlier that morning had convinced him, though her interpretation of the written word might be naively literal, there was nothing wrong with her senses, then that man could have been there for only one of three purposes. Unless he was a bird-watcher, he told himself. Joke. No, either he was up here to have a good look through one of the windows. In which case he'd be disappointed. Only if he really craned his neck sideways could he see anything of the front bedroom windows and then not enough to make the effort worthwhile. Or he wanted to get over the fence into the back garden. Which would be easy enough. Oops! Christ, nearly did it myself without trying. Or he was trying to get in through the one window in the house which was approachable from the tree side. The bathroom. Frosted glass. No good for your keen voyeur with an eye for detail, not even with the curtains open, blurred white shapes, very frustrating. So, decided Pascoe, if it was the window he was after, he was trying to get in. It was too much to hope that any sign of human presence in the tree would have survived two and a half wintry weeks. Not unless the climber had been wearing hobnailed boots. None the less Pascoe examined the likely branches conscientiously and as always in such cases, the satisfaction of expectation was a disappointment. Then he selected what looked like the safest route to the window and edged his way carefully out along the chosen branches. A sharp gust of wind set the whole tree in motion and he clung on desperately like a sailor in the rigging, remembering Dalziel's jocular injunction to 'watch himself. One thing's certain, he told himself, it wasn't fat Dalziel who climbed up this tree. Or anyone built like him. I reckon I'm about the limit. I reckon also I've reached the limit. He was as near to the window as he felt he could get without falling. There was nothing to be seen. Again he had expected nothing. One of the first things that had been done when the police arrived at the house was to examine all windows and doors for signs of forcible entry. There had been nothing. There was still nothing. The wind rose again, and again he tried to combine safety with dignity, thinking of the watchers below. And elsewhere. He had seen a few curtains moving in neighbouring houses. It was time to descend, he decided, and began to move backwards, fixing his eyes on the wall of the house in his determination not to look down. Then he stopped moving and kept on staring. At first he thought it was merely the effect of looking too hard, and he blinked his eyes twice. But it was still there. Just below the windowsill on the vertical brick there was something which looked like a footprint. Not much of a footprint, more of a toe-print. But it was there. As if someone scrabbling desperately for a hold had used even the little frictional grip pressure against the vertical could give. Wind and height forgotten, Pascoe swung down from the tree like a gymnast. Jenny's hair was blowing wildly all over her face, evading all the effort of her hand to restrain it. She was beautiful. 'Have you found anything, Sergeant?' she asked, pitching her voice high to get over the wind. 'Give us a hand with the steps,' he said to Antony. 'Over here.' Together they moved the step-ladder right up against the wall. The earth was soft here and the feet of the ladder began to sink as he ascended. 'Hang on,' he grunted to Antony and clambered quickly to the top. The bathroom windowsill was not far above his head. He stood on his toes and peered up towards it. 'Look out!' cried Antony, and the steps lurched violently sideways. But he was smiling as they helped him out of the herbaceous border. It was definitely a print, most probably made by the toe of a rubber-soled sports-shoe; a tennis-shoe, perhaps, or basket-ball boot.

'Are you all right?' asked Jenny anxiously.

'He looks a bit dazed,' said Antony. 'It was the soil. One of the legs just went down as if it was on quicksand.' 'I'm all right,' said Pascoe, rather light-heartedly. Take me to my leader.'

Jenny and Antony looked at each other dubiously.

'Come inside and have a cup of tea,' suggested Jenny. 'Or a drop of Daddy's scotch.' She took him by the arm and led him unresistingly into the house. 'Hello,' said Connon, looking at the sergeant's earthstained suit. 'Had a fall?' 'Nothing to worry about, sir,' replied Pascoe. 'Winded me a bit that's all. May I use your phone?'

'Of course. Any luck with your tree?'

'Perhaps,' said Pascoe enigmatically, then seeing Jenny's look of enquiry, he relented and added, 'I think there may be a footprint.'

'On the windowsill?'

'On the wall.' 'That's absurd,' said Connon. 'No one could get in there. And the window was fastened in any case.' Pascoe didn't answer but went out to the phone. Jenny looked worriedly at her father. Today he looked paler than ever. T wish they could have left this alone till Christmas was over,' she whispered to Antony. He squeezed her shoulder and went out into the hall after Pascoe who was just replacing the receiver. 'He's out,' said Pascoe, more to himself than Antony. 'He'll ring here when he gets back.' 'Sergeant,' said Antony. 'Forgive me if I seem to be playing the amateur sleuth once again, but something else occurred to me the other day, which might or might not be of interest to you.' 'Let's have it,' said Pascoe. 'Every little helps. Shall we go into the other room?' 'Well no,' said Antony. 'It would make my explanation easier if we stepped outside.'

Two minutes later Antony returned to the lounge.

'Has he gone?' asked Jenny, who was sitting on the arm of her father's chair. 'No. He's in the garden again. But he sent me in to ask you something. You know a girl called Sheila Lennox?'

'Yes.'

'He wants to know if you know where she works.' Thirty minutes later the three of them were still sitting in the lounge. 'I hope he's going to pay for his telephone calls,' said Jenny. 'It's a little price to pay to see the great detective's great detective at work,' said Antony. Connon sat with his hand pressed to the side of his brow. 'Have you got your headache again, Daddy?' asked Jenny.

'No. Not really. Just a little. It'll pass.'

'Oh, I wish…' but the front-door bell interrupted Jenny's wish. Antony rose, but they heard the door being opened before he left the room.

'How do you do, Sergeant?' boomed a familiar voice.

'Oh God,' groaned Jenny, 'it's Fat Dalziel.'

'The gang's all here,' intoned Antony.

In the dining-room, Pascoe was speaking swiftly, persuasively to Dalziel who listened intently. 'All right,' he said when the sergeant had finished. I'll buy it. Let's ask him now, shan we? Where's he work?' 'He doesn't today. It's Christmas Eve, remember? He finished early for Christmas. That's why I left word for you to come here.'

'That makes it easier. Come on.'

Pascoe hung back, his memories of training thronging his mind.

'Shouldn't we call up a little support? Just in case.'

Dalziel laughed contemptuously.

'A strapping young lad like you? Not to mention me, the terror of seven counties. You must be joking. Anyway, it might still be a lot of hogwash. Let's ask.'

Jenny heard the front door close.

'That's bloody polite, I must say,' she said angrily. 'In and out without a by-your-leave, and they don't even say goodbye.' 'Perhaps they're not going far,' said Antony, peering through the curtains. 'In fact, they're not. They're just going across the road.' 'Where to?' demanded Jenny, jumping up and rushing to the window.

Connon stood up too and slowly followed her.

Over the road, Dalziel held his thumb down hard on the bell-push. 'Someone knows we're here,' he said laconically. 'Or there's a big draught behind the curtains.'

'Here we are,' said Pascoe.

The door opened. 'Good morning, madam,' said Dalziel with effusive politeness to the large woman who stood there, still rubbing her sleepy eyes. 'We're police officers. I wonder if I might have a word with your son.' Maisie Curtis opened her mouth to say something. From somewhere at the rear of the house came the slam of a door.

'Sergeant,' said Dalziel. The back.'

But he was speaking to an already retreating Pascoe. Stanley Curtis was young, fit, and had a good start. When Pascoe rounded the back of the house, he had already moved across the Fernies' garden and was clearing the next hedge like a trained hurdler. Pascoe made no attempt to follow him but rapidly assessed the situation. While the barriers between the Boundary Drive gardens were uniformly low, the hedges and fences which separated the bottoms of the gardens from those of the houses behind were generally much higher. Pascoe took this in, turned and ran past Dalziel again without a word. The Connons saw him leap into his car like a Le Mans driver and accelerate explosively up the street. Two hundred yards on he brought the car to an equally violent halt. Stanley Curtis, dragging in great mouthfuls of air through his hugely open mouth, was coming out of someone's gate. He stopped when he saw the car and made as if to turn back.

Pascoe leaned over and opened the passenger door.

'Come on, Stan,' he said. 'It's no weather to be out without your jacket.' His chest still rising and falling spasmodically, the youth came across the pavement and climbed into the car. 'Let's get Superintendent Dalziel,' said Pascoe, swinging the car in a turn which took him up on to the pavement. 'Then we'll go somewhere quiet and have a talk. I expect you're ready for a talk, aren't you?'