A Killing kindness

Chapter 17

This Friday seemed to have stretched out long enough to end the world, let alone the week. And it was still a long way from being over.

Dalziel set off for the lab. He liked to see people face to face when they were telling him something important and the report on the money he regarded as being of the essence. Not even Pascoe's awkwardly expressed opinion that the notes' erstwhile wetness was more likely to prove Lee's innocence than his guilt could deter the fat man.

'The girl was drowned, wasn't she? Near the fairground. Where the Stanhope girl was murdered. Your idea about the missing clothes is all right, Peter. But it's only a theory. Lee's mixed up in it somewhere. There's too many close connections for coincidence.'

'Close?' said Pascoe.

'Like I said, there's the fairground. And don’t forget, Lee and the Stanhope girl were related,' said Dalziel triumphantly.

'By marriage. And very distantly!' protested Pascoe.

'There's no such thing as a distant relation by marriage,' said Dalziel coldly. 'If you don't know 'em, they're close. And if you do know 'em, they're here.'

And off he went, leaving Pascoe to meditate on the Wildgoose connection. When he found himself hypothesizing that the whole of the Linden Garden Centre had been given over to the growth of cannabis and that the murders were in reality a series of gangland killings triggered off by the Mafia's attempt to muscle in on the Mid-Yorkshire rackets, he shook his head, drank a cup of canteen coffee (the strongest anti-hallucinogen known to science) and got Control to raise DC Preece's car for him.

'Report,' he said.

Wildgoose had left the house shortly after Pascoe, Preece told him. He had walked about a quarter of a mile to Danby Row, a street of substantial Edwardian semis not yet overtaken by the spread of multiple occupation though on the fringe of the bed-sit area where Wildgoose's flat was situated. Here he had gone into No 73, where he had remained for forty-five minutes before returning to his flat.

'Was he carrying anything?' asked Pascoe.

A plastic carrier bag. Yes, he'd still got it when he left the house on Danby Row. On the way back he had gone into a bread shop and bought a loaf.

Pascoe said, 'All right, Preece. We can't tie up your valuable body like this for ever. Jack it in now. But on your way back here, find out what you can about who lives at 73 Danby Row. Pretend to be a Mormon missionary or something. On second thoughts, the way you look, a trainee window-cleaner touting for business would be more convincing. See me when you come in.'

Covering up for my superiors, putting down my subordinates, have I finally joined the establishment? wondered Pascoe uneasily.

He picked up his phone again and got through to the hospital to talk to Wield.

'Any word on Lee yet?' he asked.

'They reckon it's a perforated ulcer,' said Wield. 'His wife says he's been suffering with his guts for months. They're going to cut him open and take a look, but not till this evening. The silly sod grabbed a jugful of water and drank about half a gallon while he was lying around, so they won't touch him till that's safely out of the way.'

'Is he still going on about being assaulted?' asked Pascoe.

'I don't know. They won't let me near him. Do you want me to stay?'

'I think so,' said Pascoe after a moment's thought. 'I know it's a bore, but in the circumstances…

And see if you can squeeze anything but abuse out of the wife.'

He told Wield about the lab report.

'Soaked? But why should the money have got wet?'

'Search me. It may not even be the same money, of course.'

'Perhaps not, sir. But I did have a thought about the other things. The ring and the watch. There's a jeweller's near the bank. Conrad's, I think. Locked up for the holidays, but he'd have been there on that Thursday.'

'Nice thinking,' complimented Pascoe. 'Let me know how things go. By the way, if a female solicitor called Pritchard shows up, be polite but firm. She's got no official standing. All right?'

'None politer, none firmer,' said Wield.

Next Pascoe got through to the Department of Education and Science in London, where after various delays and changes of personnel he was told that yes there was a Forces' school called Devon School near Linden, but for details of personnel he would need to get in touch with the Service Children's Education Authority at the Institute of Army Education. With a sigh Pascoe obeyed.

Things were no better here. Pascoe had to repeat himself several times and wonder audibly if there were some clause in the Official Secrets Act which covered Army education before he finally got someone who preferred to remain anonymous but who sounded sympathetic to promise to get back to him as soon as possible.

'Though it may be Monday morning,’ concluded the voice, somewhat spoiling the good impression.

'I didn't think the Army recognized weekends,' said Pascoe.

'Things have changed. They run a course in weekend recognition at Sandhurst now,' said the voice. 'Bye.'

As Pascoe replaced the receiver, there was a perfunctory knock and Dicky Gladmann came in. 'They seemed pretty busy downstairs, so I just came on up,' he said, mouth a-beam above his spotted bow tie, and brightly bloodshot eyes flickering inquisitively round the room.

'So much for security,' said Pascoe.

'Should I have been announced? I'm sorry,' said Gladmann with cheerful insincerity. 'But I carry my credentials with me.'

He held up a Sainsbury's carrier bag.

'The tapes? Oh good. So Mr Urquart is going to materialize also?'

'I think not,' said Gladmann, sitting down. 'We popped across to the University at lunch-time…'

'The University? I thought you said you had all you needed out at the College.'

'Not so. As you must know, being a sort of in-law of the place, the College is very small beer academically speaking, soon to evaporate completely. Our language lab is pretty OK but we felt we would really like to make sonograms of the tapes…'

To make what?' interrupted Pascoe once more.

'Sonograms. Oh sorry. I thought the police were so technical these days. A sonogram is an analysis printed out by a machine called a sonograph and it displays the various distributions of energy across the frequency spectrum that occur for different sounds. OK?'

'If you say so. And there's one of these machines at the University?'

'Plus a rather delectable assistant professor who finds Drew's intellectual arrogance, social gaucheess and undamped body odour irresistible. God knows what noises they analyse together, but it's a wonder the machine hasn't exploded. So, while I have returned post-haste, he has remained. In the interests of science, naturally.'

'Naturally. Is there anything useful you can tell us, Mr Gladmann?' asked Pascoe.

'Well now. Here we go,' replied the linguist, upending the carrier bag so that the tapes and various bits and pieces of paper fell on to Pascoe's desk.

'This is our report,' said Gladmann, holding up a handful of sheets stapled together. 'It's pretty clear, I would say. I could take you through it if you like.'

'I'd be grateful.'

'OK. First, we're pretty well agreed there are four speakers involved here – or a very high degree of mimicking. There was some resemblance in tempo and pitch range between (A) and (D), that is to say, now get you to my lady's chamber etc., and the time is out of joint etc. But there are several significant differences. They both use RP, Received Pronunciation, but it's fairly clear it's been received in rather different ways, ha ha.'

'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Explain.'

'Well, if we look at the phonetic realization of those phonemes we find in both utterances, we can spot the following. In the word to, (A) uses a central vowel while (D) has a close back vowel. Like this.'

Gladmann demonstrated, Pascoe looked doubtful, Gladmann repeated the demonstration, Pascoe echoed the sounds, hesitantly at first, then with more certainty.

'By George, you've got it. I think you've got it,' said Gladmann.

'I could have danced all night,' rejoined Pascoe. 'Go on.'

'Next take (A)'s now and (D)'s out. (D) has the usual RP diphthong in which the glide begins with an unrounded open back vowel, whereas (A) has a diphthong in which the glide begins from much further forward and nearer a half open position.'

Again the demonstration.

'Note also,' continued Gladmann, the bit between his teeth now, 'that where (D)'s stressed-syllable-initial voiceless plosives (as in time and cursed) are aspirated, in (A) they are not.'

'Hang on. What does that mean?'

'Well, when they're aspirated, they're said with a little puff of air accompanying the release…'

'I know what aspirated means, also exasperated,' said Pascoe. 'But what does it signify?'

'Ah, always the policeman,' said Gladmann sadly. 'You could say that the aspiration is normal in RP, and its absence often occurs in Northern regional accents. Similarly, while the one final voiceless plosive we find in (D), that is, in spite, is unreleased, in (A) all the final voiceless plosives are globalized.'

'You mean, spat out?'

'If you like,' said Gladmann, as if disheartened.

'So, conclusions please.'

'If you must,' said Gladmann, '(D) is fairly simple. He speaks RP of a kind he probably learned in a middle-class home and during the course of an education, not necessarily private, but certainly grammar school and probably in the Home Counties. There are a couple of relatively conservative features of his version of RP which underline these conclusions. When he says 0, the glide of the diphthong begins with a centralized back vowel quality and in born his pronunciation of the vowel is diphthongal rather than the monophthongal one common among younger RP speakers.'

'Yes, yes,' said Pascoe impatiently. 'And (A)?'

'Here we would say there has been a fairly marked regional accent which has been changed, for whatever reason, towards a modified RP. Some regional features remain. Northern, certainly. Drew Urquhart did some field work in dialectology in north Derbyshire last summer and he claims he got an odd echo from those parts, but he tends to be a bit obsessive about his own interests.'

'OK,' said Pascoe. 'What about the others.'

'Well, they say rather less, but fortunately say it rather more revealingly in regional terms. One may smile and smile, and be a villain. Note the giveaway one, the diphthongal pronunciation of the vowel in be and the very close articulation of the first vowel in villain. West Midlands, certainly. Birmingham, very likely. And even you, I'm sure, Inspector, spotted that (C) was a Scot. The final 'r' in or tells all, though if you want further evidence, you could point to the use of a closer back vowel for not than an educated Englishman would employ.'

'That's excellent,' said Pascoe, not sure if it was or not. 'And these are the sonograms I suppose. What do they tell us?'

He picked up some lengths of thin paper printed with wavy varying vibration patterns above a scale.

'They help to confirm that four different speakers are involved,' said Gladmann. 'And if you're fortunate enough, or perhaps unfortunate enough, to get another message on tape, they'd help us work out which of these four it might have come from. Do you think that one of these is definitely this Choker chappie?'

'It's very likely,' said Pascoe.

'Well, I hope you get him. Though incidentally, young Drew asked me to be certain to reiterate his objection to the use of our findings in any but the most peripheral supportive role.'

'Did he?' said Pascoe. 'Well, thank him, and tell him we won't rush into anything, though over the next month we hope to arrest the entire population of Scotland and the West Midlands on suspicion.'

He stood up and held out his hand.

Gladmann took it and held it a little longer than convention required. Not all the spots on his bow tie were in the original pattern, Pascoe noticed. He got a sense that the man was rather lonely and glad of the contact involved in helping the police with their enquiries.

'Which part of the world are you from, Mr Gladmann?' he heard himself asking. It was not the most diplomatic of questions even to a duller mind than the linguist's.

'Surrey,' he answered with a half smile. 'Good solid bourgeois background. Old grammar school, nice class of kid. And I got my first degree in Eng. Lit., Renaissance drama a speciality. Good day to you, now, Inspector. Don't forget. Call on me at any time.'

Pascoe sat and ruminated on what Gladmann had told him for a few minutes, but then he put the report and the tapes away in a filing cabinet and got down to some overdue paperwork. Tomorrow, Saturday, should be his day off and he wanted to be as up to date as possible.

After half an hour he was interrupted by the return of DC Preece.

No 73 Danby Row, he reported, was the property of one Hubert Valentine, who worked in the Rates and Valuation department of the local council and who was presently on holiday in Minorca with his wife. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Andrea, was alone in the house.

'Very tasty,' said Preece, grinning salaciously. 'I told her I was on a consumer research survey for a big record company. What did she buy, what did her parents buy? It all came out. Very friendly girl.'

What had also come out was that Andrea was a sixth-form pupil at the Bishop Crump Comprehensive School. Preece's description fitted the girl Pascoe had seen leaving Wildgoose's flat that morning.

He dismissed Preece and got back to work, but a few minutes later, Dalziel burst in.

'Bloody lab,' he said. 'A few residuals, nothing. The watch is one of them digital things, new. Waterproof so they can't say if it's been in the water or not. No way of tracing where it was bought. The ring's nine carat gold. There's an inscription inside. All my love all my life. And there's a monogram on the signet. Too fancy to be clear with all them curlicues and things but it could be MLA or WTA. Neither of the things has been reported missing.'

Pascoe rose and went to his filing cabinet.

'What about TAM?' he said.

'What about it?'

'Tommy Maggs's middle name is Arthur.'

He passed on Wield's thought about the holiday-making jeweller.

'That's possible. That'd explain a lot,' said Dalziel. 'There's a brain behind that ugly mask. When's this jeweller expected back?'

'Tomorrow, the notice on his door said, according to Wield.'

'Right. We'll be waiting for him. Meanwhile, let's assume that he did provide the ring and the watch. So, Brenda draws out the cash, spends some of it on the watch and the ring – which must have been ordered in advance, obviously, to get the inscription done. And somehow the whole bloody lot ends up in Lee's caravan. That bugger's got some explaining to do!'

'Not for a while yet,' said Pascoe, telling him about the operation.

'At least we know where he is. Do you know what time it is, lad?'

'Late,' said Pascoe.

'Nigh on opening time. Let's wash the day away.'

Pascoe demurred, but Dalziel was not in a mood to be denied.

'It's your day off tomorrow, isn't it? Ellie will see quite enough of you then. It's being scarce that makes a thing valuable.'

A quick one, then,' conceded Pascoe.

As he tidied up his desk, he told the fat man about Gladmann's findings. Dalziel was unimpressed.

'Linguists, psychiatrists, crap-merchants the lot of them.'

'Maybe,' said Pascoe. 'But Dave Lee doesn't fit into this phone-call pattern at all.'

'So mebbe it means nothing.'

'And Pottle's reading of the Choker doesn't fit Lee either.'

'Pottle! What's he know?'

'He's been right before.'

'So had Pontius Pilate. Are you going to be all night?'

He clattered down the stairs ahead of Pascoe, but pulled up sharp at the swing-doors which opened into the main foyer of the station and peered cautiously through the central crack. When Pascoe joined him the fat man put a huge finger cautiously to his lips and motioned his subordinate to peep through.

At the desk a youngish woman in a grey dress was talking to the sergeant.

'If I am not to be allowed access to Mr and Mrs Lee wherever they are, then I insist on talking to the officer in charge of the case,' she said in a clear, angry voice.

'I'm not sure if he's in, Miss Pritchard,' said the sergeant.

'Then you'd better find out,' insisted the woman.

Reluctantly the sergeant picked up his telephone.

'Lacewing's solicitor?' whispered Pascoe. 'Aye. Come on, lad, before she starts searching the building.'

And chortling gleefully, Dalziel led the way to the rear exit.