A Killing kindness

Chapter 16

Sergeant Wield was an expert typist, a skill he kept well concealed from less dextrous colleagues who would have been quick to attempt to abuse it. Alone in the CID room, he was able to finish his reports on his morning visits to the bank and the Pickersgill household in record time. Now his thoughts turned to Newcastle and Maurice. There was someone else, he was certain. Brief encounters he had suspected before. He avoided them himself, but was willing to tolerate them in Maurice, recognizing that the other lacked his own almost monastic self-discipline. But what he had felt last night was the imminence of someone more dangerous, more permanent.

He sipped at a cold cup of coffee and wondered what he would do. Something. He was not a man to sit back and do nothing.

'Penny for 'em,' said Dalziel who had entered the room unobserved. 'You must be solving at least six of the ten great mysteries of the century, the way you look. What've you decided – Jack the Ripper escaped on the Mary Celeste?'

The telephone rang. Wield raised it off the rest.

'Anything interesting?' said Dalziel.

'Not really, sir. Lee created merry hell for a bit after he was brought in. They could hear him at the desk. He was claiming assault. By you.'

'Oh aye. You didn't go near him, did you?'

'No, sir. The lad who brought him in was very clear about your instructions. He shut up after a bit.'

'Good. I'll get on to him by and by.' Dalziel belched generously. 'Answer your phone, lad. Don't keep the public waiting.'

It was Mulgan from the Northern Bank.

'Sergeant Wield? I got authority to do that check you asked for.'

'Oh good. I was going to call later, sir,' reminded Wield.

'Yes, I know. But something emerged which I thought you might like to know instantly. Did you find any money on Brenda's body?'

'Hang on,' said Wield. He left his desk and went to a filing cabinet. Dalziel raised his eyebrows but the sergeant ignored him.

'A little in her purse,' said Wield. 'Three pound notes, some coppers. Why do you ask?'

'It's just that among her other transactions, she drew a cheque for cash against her own account.'

'Oh,' said Wield. 'Is that normal?'

'It's not against the rules, if that's what you mean, as long as there are funds to cover it. But normally I would expect one of my staff to cash their own cheques at someone else's till. Safer, if you follow me.'

'I think so. But there were funds to cover Brenda Sorby's cheque?'

'Oh yes. She was a very provident girl. No, it was just the amount that interested me, particularly as I saw no reference to cash in any of the newspaper reports. That morning she drew out two hundred pounds. In five pound notes.'

Wield passed on the news to Dalziel who took the phone from him.

'Mr Mulgan, Superintendent Dalziel here. Listen, you wouldn't have the numbers of the notes that Miss Sorby received, would you?'

'I'm sorry, no. It's impossible to…'

'Yes, yes, I understand. But there might be some marks? I mean, often the things I get from my bank look as if they'd been left lying around in a kindergarten!'

'There might be the odd pencil mark left by a teller when counting them into bundles,' said Mulgan acidly.

'And these marks would be identifiable as coming from someone at your bank?'

'Possibly, but not necessarily,' said the manager.

'Right. Thanks a lot, Mr Mulgan. We'll get back to you.'

He replaced the receiver forcibly.

'Creepy sod,' he said.

'You know him, sir?'

'Hardly. He just sounds a creepy sod. Like he was chewing a ball-bearing to make himself sound like a chinless wonder. Two hundred pounds, Sergeant! We should have known about this sooner. Good job I sent you this morning.'

'Yes, sir,' said Wield. 'It was a good idea of yours to check through the girl's transactions.'

'All right, save the satire,' said Dalziel. 'You'll get the credit. Question is, who got the money?'

'You think this could have just been straight theft after all?' asked Wield.

'I think nowt,' said Dalziel. 'All I know is that this morning I found one hundred and five pounds hidden away in Dave Lee's caravan that he can't account for.'

He smacked a huge fist into a huge palm making a crack like a breaking bone.

'Let's go and have a chat with Mr Lee, shall we,' he said.

It was the penultimate day of the High Fair and Pascoe found things booming everywhere at Charter Park except in the police caravan where Sergeant Brady, attempting to conceal his copy of Penthouse, confirmed that the public seemed to have run out of even the most useless and irrelevant bits of information.

'Dead as a doornail since I came on after lunch,' he said. 'Nothing at all.'

'Well, don't let it get you down,' said Pascoe.

He went into the fairground to talk with Ena Cooper. As he approached the penny-roll stall he had a sense of something not quite right. It took him a second or two to spot what was wrong. The fortune-teller's tent had disappeared!

'They came and took it down this morning,' said Mrs Cooper. 'Three or four gyppos. Didn't you know?'

Pascoe was non-committal and Mrs Cooper smiled maliciously. But the smile disappeared when she was questioned about Pauline Stanhope again.

No, she hadn't mentioned what she'd been wearing when she left the tent just before mid-day. Why should she? – nobody had asked. Yes, 'Pauline' had been wearing the headscarf, the shawl, and the full-length skirt which were the tools of her trade. No, there'd been nothing funny about the way she walked.

As for seeing anyone go into the tent before the 'girl' left, yes, like she'd said already, there'd been a few that morning, she couldn't say how many.

Pascoe knew there'd been four at least, two pairs of women who had come forward instantly to compete for the honour of a 'last sighting'. The winners, a pair of teenage girls, had attended at eleven-fifteen A.M. and had been very impressed by Madame Rashid's accuracy and optimism.

Pascoe thanked Mrs Cooper and turned away, taking one last look at the circle of anaemic grass which marked where the tent had been. His romantic imagination would have liked to see it as some kind of enchanted ring, haunted by a ghost pleading for the rest that only revenge could give her. But if anything it looked like a green on a miniature golf-course. People strolled across it, uncaring or unaware that their substance was intersecting whatever insubstantial re-run of a murdered girl's last moments might be taking place there. Perhaps one of them would have a vision like those women at Versailles. Certainly it was beginning to feel as if only some supernatural intervention could carry them any further forward. Could Dalziel be persuaded to cross Rosetta Stanhope's palm with silver?

Back at the caravan he dented Brady's phlegm by asking if he'd noticed the scene of the crime being removed. He then left the sergeant With the task of getting together some men to search the fairground for the missing clothes. Not that he had much hope. The Choker would have needed only a second to step out of the dress in the lee of one of the sideshows and the thin cotton fabric would have rolled up to almost nothing. Then, if he had his wits about him which in one sense at least he clearly did, he would have taken the dress far away from the park before dumping it, or even burning it.

And Brady made the prospect even less hopeful by telling him that the rubbish skips had been emptied the previous day by the cleansing department.

'After you've looked round here, you'd better get down to the dump, hadn't you?' suggested Pascoe amiably. 'Just the job for a hot day!'

On his return to the station he was held up at the entrance to the car park by the emergence of an ambulance. He watched it move quietly down the service road, turn into the main traffic stream and was interested to note that only then did its lights start flashing and bells clanging.

Entering, he went straight up to Dalziel's room.

'Where the hell have you been hiding?' demanded the fat man.

'What's up? I saw an ambulance.'

'You don't know? God, you'll go far. Lily-white hands,' sneered Dalziel. 'They've just carted Lee off to hospital, all right?'

Pascoe was not offended by his superior's tone. He'd grown accustomed to his style and besides, he could see the fat man was worried.

'What happened?'

'Nothing. I had a few words with him. He just kept on moaning about this pain. I thought he was shooting the shit so I…'

'Yes, sir,' prompted Pascoe.

'I just yelled at him,' said Dalziel. 'What do you think I did? Next thing, he's lying on the floor. Well, then I called the quack. He says it could be appendix, he's not sure. Those bastards never are! So we got an ambulance.'

'You were alone when you questioned him, sir?'

'Yes,' said Dalziel.

Pascoe thought for a moment. He'd never seen his superior quite so ill at ease before.

'You'll have called the ACC, sir?' he said.

'That twat! Why should I want to call him?'

'Before someone else does,' said Pascoe. 'Excuse me.'

He went downstairs. Wield was ahead of him, studying the logged entries of the Lees' admission.

'Trouble?' said the sergeant.

'If we all do our duty, we'll come to no harm,' said Pascoe. 'Let's have a look at the chimney.'

He whistled when he saw the book.

'That's a long time.'

'And he was complaining from when he arrived. Said he'd been punched,' said Wield.

'The woman, she's still here?' asked Pascoe. 'Jesus! Get her out, get her down to the hospital, you go with her. And hang about there. Take a WPC to keep an eye on her, you watch him. They're both in police custody still, right?'

Back in Dalziel's office he found the fat man talking on the phone.

'Yes, sir,' he was saying. 'Both of them. She may be an accomplice.'

Pascoe scribbled on a bit of paper and passed it over. Dalziel glanced at it. His tone became injured.

'Of course, sir,' he said. 'She's at the hospital now. With one of my sergeants and a WPC. We're not without feelings, sir.'

He winked conspiratorially at Pascoe who felt at the same time relieved and uneasy. He was willing to close ranks a bit, but he had no intention of letting loyalty loom larger than legality. That was all right for the public schools, not so hot for the public service.

'That's all right then,' said Dalziel, replacing the receiver. 'Thanks, Peter.'

'For what? I was just tidying up,' said Pascoe.

He must have stressed the particle more than he intended.

'As opposed to covering up?' said Dalziel. 'Not to worry, lad. I won't drag you to the scaffold with me! Or mebbe that bugger Lee won't come out of the anaesthetic eh? They're mostly black buggers down there, operate with assegais!'

He roared with laughter.

'Or mebbe he'll be too busy answering charges to make them,' he continued.

'I hope you haven't got him lined up for the Stanhope killing, sir,' said Pascoe, glad to be back at the job in hand. 'I think you'll find he's about nine inches too tall.'

'Eh?'

Briefly Pascoe sketched his interview with Rosetta Stanhope.

'Christ, this should have been spotted earlier,' said Dalziel angrily. 'This has been bloody sloppy. And it's not the only thing either.'

In his turn he related the news about Brenda Sorby's money and the suspected tie-up with the notes found in Lee's caravan.

'What made you look in the flour jar, sir?'

'It was out of place up there with his valuables,' said Dalziel. 'Silly bugger probably didn't like to leave it in the kitchen where it'd have been inconspicuous but might have tempted his missus!'

'You don't think she knew about it?'

'Who knows?' said Dalziel. 'It'll be interesting to see whose prints are on the notes, if those idle buggers at the lab ever get round to looking at them! Whether she knows or not, Lee's got his own subtle methods to keep her mouth shut. Have you seen her face? By the way, talking of battered wives, I had lunch with yours today. Funny company she keeps.'

'It would seem so,' so Pascoe.

'Aye. That Lacewing. At the Aero Club. The fellow who runs it. Greenall, his name is, do you know owt about him?'

'Never heard of him,' said Pascoe. 'Why?'

'Nothing really. Just that while every other sod was saying how strange it was for an important fellow like me to be wasting his time on a tuppenny-halfpenny break-in, he just seemed to take it for granted. Still, the world's full of funny buggers and he pours a liberal Scotch. What else have you been up to that I ought to know about, Peter?'

Pascoe told him about Wildgoose and his visit to the Linden Garden Centre.

'Odd sod, is he?' said Dalziel.

'Not by contemporary standards,' protested Pascoe. 'In fact, of his type, almost conventional.'

'Abandons his family, screws young girls, dresses like a teenager, and spends his holidays on the golden fucking road to Samarkand? That's conventional, is it?' snarled Dalziel. 'God, give me the Dave Lees any time. At least he was born a bloody gyppo.'

This interesting sociological discussion was interrupted by a tap on the door. It was the desk sergeant.

'Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there's a young lady downstairs. Name of Pritchard. She's a solicitor, sir. Says she's come about Mr and Mrs Lee.'

'That Lacewing bitch!' roared Dalziel. 'Tell her to… no, just tell her the Lees are no longer being held here. If she doesn't go quietly, ask to see her authorization to represent them. And if she can't show you that, which she can't, boot her out.'

'I'm not to mention the hospital then, sir?' said the sergeant.

Dalziel clasped his huge grizzled head in his large spatulate hands.

'Oh God,' he said. 'No wonder murders get done! You mention the hospital, Sergeant, and you're likely to end in it. Get out!'

His bellow almost drowned the telephone bell. Pascoe picked up the receiver. It was Harry Hopper at the lab.

'That fertilizer you sent us. Well, that's what it is. Fertilizer. Proprietary brand, just like it says on the bag. No usable prints on the bag. Yes, the same stuff as they found on McCarthy's clothes. But as we know, that doesn't signify as there were bags of the same stuff in Mr Ribble's shed.'

'Thanks, Harry,' said Pascoe. 'I didn't expect any more.'

'Is that Hopper?' demanded Dalziel. 'Ask him if he's got owt for me yet.'

'I heard,' said Hopper before Pascoe could relay the message. 'There's a report on the way. Nothing startling, except that the money had been sodden wet, then dried out.'

'Wet?' echoed Dalziel who had brought his right ear close to the receiver. 'How wet?'

'The notes had been totally immersed in water and then dried out. Simple as that,' said Hopper. 'It's in the report.'

Pascoe and Dalziel looked at each other speculatively, then the fat man made a dismissive gesture towards the phone.

'Thanks, Harry,' said Pascoe.

'Hang about,' said Hopper. 'I hadn't finished with you when we were so rudely interrupted. We also had a look at the sack.'

'The sack?'

'The one you'd put the fertilizer bag in. We're very thorough despite the lack of proper appreciation.'

'And?' said Pascoe, aware of Dalziel's imminent impatience.

'Much more interesting. Dust, earth, the expectable stuff. Plus a few soft fibres. And a scattering of small globular achenes. He doesn't keep canaries, your man, does he?'

'What do you mean? And what's an achene?'

'A small hard plant-seed. In this case the plant is cannabis sativa. You'll often find its achenes in bird-food. But if you're not dealing with a bird-fancier, my boy, you're probably dealing with a hash-fancier. Someone's been growing Indian hemp on your patch!'