A pinch of snuff

Chapter 14

They caught up with Johnny Hope at the Branderdyke Variety and Social Club. This was a bit larger than most of the local clubs and somewhat different in character. It had a real stage with a proscenium arch and though in origin it was, like the rest, a meeting and drinking place for locals, it had taken a larger step than most towards the status and dimensions of Wakefield or Batley.

Top of the bill that night was a singer who was either on his way up to, or down from, the Top Thirty. But it was in the communal changing room shared by the lesser artistes that they found Johnny Hope.

He was talking to a young sullen-faced girl, so slim and slight that it was difficult to gauge her age. She wasn't answering, however. Every time Hope asked a question, a suspicious-eyed matron with a mouth like a sabre-cut replied, draping one arm protectively over the girl who was wearing a cream and lavender Bo-Peep costume.

'How old are you, Estelle?' Hope asked as if sensing Pascoe's problem.

'Seventeen,' said the matron.

'When did you first get interested in the trampoline, Estelle?' asked Hope.

'She saw Olga Korbut on the telly at the Olympics in 1972 and she thought she'd like to start doing the gymnastics,' said the matron. 'One thing led to another.'

'One more thing,' said Hope, but he was interrupted by the entry of an elderly man eating a frankfurter with onions.

'Your girl's got two minutes, missus,' he said splodgily.

'Come on, luv,' said the matron.

She led her daughter out, glaring ferociously at Pascoe as if he had an indecent thought written in a balloon above his head.

'Isn't she,' enquired Pascoe, 'a trifle overdressed for trampolining?'

'Johnny,' said Wield.

'Hello, Edgar!' said Hope.

Edgar, thought Pascoe.

'This is my Inspector, Peter Pascoe.'

'Glad to meet you, Peter,' said Hope, shaking his hand vigorously. 'Any mate of Edgar's a mate of mine.'

Now the women had disappeared, Pascoe took a closer look at the man. He was small, ruddy-faced, his bright blue eyes ringed with crows-feet from (perhaps) too much time in too many dimly lit rooms, his cheeks crazed with broken blood vessels from the same cause. He was about fifty, wore a bright green and yellow checked jacket, and gave off what seemed a totally spontaneous affability.

'We wanted to chat about Maurice Arany,' said Wield.

'Maurice, eh? Well, not now, not now. I missed Estelle last night, got mixed up in a barney at the Turtle. Can't afford that again. Come on, we'll just get a pint afore she starts.'

They did but only because Hope's waved hand won them instant attention at the crowded bar at the back of the hall.

On stage was a trampoline. Music started, loud enough and poured from amplifiers enough to drown the chatter and clinking and other noises attendant on the drinking of pints and devouring of scampi and chips.

It was a nice, bouncy tune and when Estelle strolled on and clambered on to the trampoline, Pascoe settled back for a pleasant athletic balletic routine, thinking how easily pleased these Yorkshiremen were. The girl looked quite good, though her full skirt and frilly blouse obviously hampered her.

'I wonder,' said Pascoe, then said no more.

The girl was taking them off.

To cries of encouragement which penetrated even the ten-decibel music, she jumped right out of her skirt, shed her blouse sleeves like duck-down, took four somersaults to get out of her lacy stockings, and with a mid-air spin twisted out of what was left of her blouse. Now in pants and bra she did a series of manoeuvres which to Pascoe's untutored eye looked first class. Higher and higher she leapt and it was hard to spot the moment when she took off her bra.

She was so slender that as a conventional stripper she would probably have been mocked off the stage, but her grace and strength of movement filled the act with erotic promise.

'You don't get this in the Olympics,' bellowed Hope in his ear.

'No,' agreed Pascoe. One thing had certainly led to another.

But how was she going to get off? he wondered. Movement was of the essence. Once let her stand still and she would be but a seventeen-year-old looking like twelve.

The answer was simple. The highest bounce yet; she reached up her arms, caught at a bar or rope behind the drop curtain and swung her legs up out of sight. A moment later a pair of pants fluttered gently down to land on the trampoline.

When she appeared to take her bow she wore an old woollen dressing-gown and it was a measure of her act's success that even the loudest of club wits were applauding too hard to invite her to take it off.

Pascoe felt ashamed when he realized he'd clapped till his hands were sore. Ms Lacewing would elevate him several places on her death list if she could see him now, which, thank God, was not likely.

'Good evening, Inspector,' said Ms Lacewing.

It was her. She looked ravishing in a long white gown. Her appearance had been changed by the wearing of a Grecian-style hair piece pulled round over her bare left shoulder, but he would have recognized those sharp little teeth anywhere.

'Don't look so amazed,' she said. 'I'm on a recce tonight. You've got to spy out the land before you attack, haven't you? Policemen know that, surely?'

Pascoe realized she was rather tipsy. 'Drunk' seemed too coarse a word.

'Are you by yourself?' he asked.

'What do you think I am?' she asked in mock indignation. 'Uncle Godfrey! Come here!'

Pascoe turned. Sure enough it was Blengdale who approached, leaving behind a bunch of smiling cronies.

'He doesn't like me calling him uncle,' said Ms Lacewing. 'But Gwen is Mummy's sister, so you really are my uncle, aren't you, Uncle? Though,’ she added, stretching up to whisper none too quietly in Pascoe's ear, 'it doesn't stop him wanting to screw me.'

'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Nice to see you again, Mr Blengdale.'

'You here on business or pleasure, Pascoe?' said Blengdale.

'Bit of both,' said Pascoe vaguely.

Blengdale nodded as though he knew what that meant.

'Uncle Godfrey, I think our steaks have arrived,' said Ms Lacewing. 'Shall I help you back to the table, Uncle?'

For a moment Pascoe felt sympathy for Blengdale. Then the girl turned to him and he decided to reserve all his sympathy for his own defence.

'You look as if you might be quite a ram, Inspector,' she said. 'I must ask your wife when I meet her. She sounds as if she might be sympathetic to my plans.'

'What are your plans?' he asked.

'See you in court,' she giggled. 'Perhaps they'll put me up on the same day as Jack Shorter.'

Pascoe turned away to meet another pint being thrust his way by Wield.

'Drink up,' said the sergeant. 'Then we're off to the Westgate Social. There's a singer there that Johnny wants to catch. I said we'd go in his car and make our own way back here later.'

The night was slipping out of his control, thought Pascoe a couple of minutes later as he and Wield clung together in the back of an old Morris Minor which smelt as if it had lately been used for transporting sheep. The passenger seat had been removed entirely and replaced by a crate of brown ale, and Hope's hand, through instinct or inaccuracy, frequently rattled among the bottles as he groped for the gear lever.

'Now, about Maurice Arany,' yelled Wield.

'Well I don't know,’ replied Hope dubiously.

'It'll be all right, Johnny,' said Wield.

Pascoe had a sense of a bargain being struck, or a promise made.

'What do you want to know?' asked Hope.

'Nothing much,' said Wield. 'Just anything you wouldn't expect us to find out any other way.'

This seemed a pretty broad demand, thought Pascoe modestly, and when Hope replied 'He's a Hungarian' he thought at first he was taking the piss. Wield seemed prepared to accept this as a serious contribution, however.

'Yes?' he urged.

'And there was some bother there in 1956,’ Hope went on slowly as though divulging state secrets.

'So there was,' said Pascoe.

Hope heaved a sigh which might have been relief at this acceptance of his assertion, or exasperation that he had to say any more.

'This fellow Haggard, now, that got killed, he was something or other in the British Embassy in Vienna. That's in Austria.'

Suddenly Pascoe was no longer amused by this parade of the obvious.

'Hang on,' he said. 'You're not saying that…'

'I'm saying nothing,' said Hope heavily. 'I'm just saying what I've heard others say. Arany either knew, or knew of Haggard before he came here.'

'But he'd just be a boy in 1956,' said Wield.

'Quite fond of boys, so they say,' said Hope. 'Me, I hate owt like that. Anything a bit perverted, I won't touch. You'll never see me mention a drag act in my column, Pete. Edgar'll back me up there.'

Pascoe was now so interested that he was able to forget the erratic progress of the Morris, exacerbated by Hope's habit of turning round to face his auditors every time he spoke.

'So the theory is that Arany had got something on Haggard?' he said.

'It's a strange mix else,' said Hope. 'I mean, it stands out a mile if you look at the facts. You don't have to be a detective!'

'You do if you want to be sure,' said Pascoe reprovingly.

What after all did they have? Arany's family come out of Hungary in 1956 and are transported, very probably via Vienna, to England. Haggard is in Vienna as a British Embassy official in 1956. The following year he leaves the service, possibly under a cloud, and comes home with a bit of money to invest. The inference in the rugby club think-tank was that the cloud was sexual, but rugby club philosophers see everything in physical terms. Suppose there'd been a bit of graft, queue-jumping, buy yourself a trip to sunny Britain? Arany, or his family, is involved. In 1962, Haggard's northward progress brings him to Yorkshire and their paths cross again. But when?

'When did they start to associate, Johnny?' he asked.

'Six, seven years ago, I don't know. One or two reckon Haggard was a sleeping partner in Maurice's agency. You know, put the money up. It'd take a bit of financing and one thing's for sure, he didn't make it doing his turn round the clubs.'

Johnny Hope laughed so violently at the thought that the car came near to making a dramatic entry through the side wall of the Westgate Social Club. When it finally came to rest mostly inside the car-park and with hardly more than two wheels overspilling on to the pavement, a fast-approaching constable sheered off in some confusion as Wield and Pascoe staggered gratefully into the cold night air.

They were inside and drinking another pint before Pascoe had time to think better of it. An acned youth was just finishing a spirited version of 'Young at Heart' which a benevolently drunk Sinatra might have accepted as a tribute. Johnny Hope applauded with more enthusiasm than the rest of the fairly sparse audience put together.

'He's the wife's cousin's lad,' he explained.

'Does your wife ever come with you?' asked Pascoe.

'No. She can't stand the clubs. Doesn't drink either. She's not religious, mind, just prefers the telly and a cup of tea. But she likes the family to stick together. Hello, Bri! Not a bad turn, young Sammy, is he?'

'He'll get paid,' said Brian Burkill ungraciously. 'Friends of yours, Johnny?'

He looked without much favour on Pascoe and Wield.

'Evening, Bri,' said the sergeant. 'Don't crack your face, will you? You know Mr Pascoe.'

'I know him.'

'Evening, Mr Burkill,' said Pascoe. 'You haven't got a motor-bike by any chance?'

'No. Why?'

'No reason. What time does your show start?'

'Eight o'clock, after the bingo.'

'Who runs that?'

'Whoever's handy.'

'And tonight?'

'I did the calling tonight. What's up, Inspector? Someone robbed a train?'

'I'm just interested in how these places run, that's all.'

'Ah. Slumming, is it?' said Burkill.

Pascoe ignored him, though he recognized a trace of truth in the sneer. Like all detectives he had a pool of more or less useful informants, but the small club circuit was very much the prerogative of Dalziel himself, and, of course, the indispensable Wield. 'You're a saloon bar man,' Dalziel had told him early in their association. 'It's them trendy shirts and the way you turn your head away when you pick your nose. Stick to your last, lad. The low life's not for you.'

It had been a joke, another Dalziel story to tell old friends, but Pascoe had since realized what he recognized once more now as he looked around this smoke-filled room with its gaudy vinyl wallpaper, its Formica tables and stackable chairs, its shouted conversations and screeched amusement, its pints of bitter and port and lemons – that some catch of self-awareness in him could never be released sufficiently to let him plunge without restraint into these less than Byzantine pleasures. It wasn't just the natural watchfulness which becomes second nature to most detectives. It was a need to assess before experiencing. It was a distrust of the commonalty of pleasure. It was a sense of the cry of bewilderment in human laughter. Above all, it was a longing for joy and a fear of being duped and debased by some shoddy substitute.

Such were Pascoe's extrapolations in his more self-analytical moments. He sometimes thought he was going quietly mad.

On the other hand, he had been totally immersed in the delight offered him by Estelle, the teenage trampolinist. Perhaps there would be something else tonight which would engage his whole attention, though the standard of the group presently offering harmonic near-misses in a nasal falsetto did not bode well. The audience seemed indifferent, too, drinking and talking as though they weren't being told by four epicene young men that angel face with wings of lace had taken off to another place. At a table quite close Pascoe recognized the Heppelwhites, Burkill's associates in the great assault. With them was a portly woman, in cast of feature not dissimilar from Estelle's mother.

Presumably this was Mrs Heppelwhite joining her men for a jolly family outing. Clint caught his eye and nudged his father who looked up and then looked quickly away. The youth picked up his pint and took a long draught. There was a fresh white bandage around his palm.

'Back in a minute,' said Pascoe to Wield. 'An old friend. Look, before William Hickey here gets totally insensible, see if he can give us anything more. Ask him about Haggard in particular.'

As he approached the Heppelwhites' table, the older man developed an intense interest in the group while his son spoke animatedly to his mother.

'Evening, Mr Heppelwhite, Clint,' said Pascoe. 'Enjoying the show?'

'We were,' said Charlie.

'Shut up,' said the woman. 'Our Colin says you're a copper, mister. Well, sit down then before you have the whole room looking.'

Pascoe sat.

'I suppose it's about what these two silly buggers got up to with that Brian Burkill? He's a menace, that one. It's always been Brian-this, Brian-that. You'd think he'd built this place brick by brick with no help! Concert secretary, that's what he is, and bedlam like this, that's what we've got to suffer. I've got a cat sounds better on the prowl!'

'Oh, Mother,' protested Charlie.

'Shut up,' she said. 'They're easy led, these two, Mister Whatever-your-name-is. I wouldn't get to see their wage packets if Bri Burkill wanted first dip.'

'That's daft talk, Betsy, love,' said Charlie.

'I thought I told you to shut up. And my glass is empty. I'll have a lager and lime this time. And don't forget to bring one for the sergeant. Keep in with the fuzz, my dad taught me.'

'I'm an Inspector,' corrected Pascoe.

'You're still only getting the one,' said Betsy Heppelwhite. Pascoe found himself warming to this formidable lady.

He waited till her husband had reluctantly gathered their glasses together and set off to the bar, then asked, 'You agree that it was a daft thing to do, then?'

'You've enough to do to fight your own battles, mister,' she said. 'That Brian Burkill always goes on like Cassius Clay, he's big enough to fight his own fights. Always has been.'

'You've known him a long time?'

'Longer than I care to remember. I was at school with Deirdre, that's Mrs Burkill. A nice lass, but soft, always soft. Well, she paid for it.'

'What do you mean?'

'Him, that's what I mean. They've been married best part of twenty years and I doubt if he's spent more than two evenings in that house.'

'Mam, you shouldn't be talking like this,' said Clint suddenly.

'Don't you tell me how I should or shouldn't talk or I'll take the back of my hand to you, big as you are!' snapped his mother. 'I'm not saying owt I haven't said a thousand times before.'

'That's the trouble,’ muttered Clint almost inaudibly, then gave a sharp cry of pain, from which Pascoe surmised that Mrs Heppelwhite had substituted the point of her shoe for the back of her hand. Angrily the boy stood up, shoving his chair back into the neighbouring table, and shambled out of the room. His mother watched him go indifferently.

'I've told him, while he lives in my house, he behaves like I want him. He's got the choice.'

'He seems to have hurt his hand,' said Pascoe.

'Aye. Came off his bike tonight. That's another thing I don't like, that bike. He'll kill himself one of these days. I don't know what these lads are coming to these days. It's the police I blame.'

With difficulty Pascoe resisted the lure of this fascinating by-road and brought her back to the main track.

'Burkill mistreats his wife, you say?'

'He doesn't thump her, if that's what you're getting at. Not enough to bother her, any road. It's just that he spends every night here. Always has.'

'You're here,' observed Pascoe.

'Couple of nights a week maybe. And we arrive together at a decent time, have a couple of drinks, then off. Bri's first in, last out. Even if Deirdre comes, she never sees him, he's so bloody important.

‘Is she here tonight?'

'No. She usually sits with us if she does.'

'I suppose Sandra's too young to come?'

Mrs Heppelwhite's formidable lips tightened significantly.

'Aye. By her birth certificate.'

'What's that mean?'

'Haven't you seen her? She could pass for five-and-twenty, that lass. And does. I've seen her. I hardly recognized her once a few months back. She had more paint on her than our front door.'

'Does Mrs Burkill permit this?'

'Of course she doesn't, but kids these days! She'll have it in her handbag or hidden somewhere outside. Once she's away from the house, out it comes and on it goes. I'd have flayed her back for her if she'd been mine.'

'And Mrs Burkill?'

'Spoke to her. Didn't dare tell Bri. That's one thing he's some use for. He'd have knocked seven bells out of her.'

'He doesn't seem to have touched her after this recent business,' observed Pascoe.

'No. He had someone else to thump there, didn't he? And he got my two men mixed up in it too. All for that little madam. I'll tell you what,' she added emphatically. 'Mebbe I shouldn't say it, but if that poor sod of a dentist did touch her, it wouldn't be without encouragement.'

'I'm afraid that won't help him much in court, Mrs Heppelwhite,' said Pascoe.

'No. No doubt she'll turn up in her old school clothes looking the picture of innocence. Well, them's the risks these rich buggers have got to take for their money. Not that I care. But I feel sorry for his wife, that's all. It's always the woman who suffers!'

Storing this in his collection of unanswerable assertions somewhere between God is Good and There's No Place Like Home, Pascoe waited just long enough to say 'cheers' to Heppelwhite on his lager-laden return, then retreated to the bar. Wield and Hope were in close conversation with Burkill near by.

'Collecting evidence, are you?' said Burkill. 'What about Shorter? Has that bastard been arrested yet?'

'I'm not in charge of the case, Mr Burkill. Remember, you were rather insistent that I shouldn't be.'

'Mr Dalziel will see me right, Inspector,' averred Burkill. 'He doesn't much care for this kind of thing.'

'I think we may all trust Mr Dalziel. What about your lass?'

'What the hell do you mean?'

Pascoe realized that his sentence juxtaposition had led him into trouble. He made haste to pour oil, knowing it would do no one any good if he had to arrest Burkill for assault.

'I meant, what happens to her now. Is she going to have the baby or…'

'Abortion, you mean,' said Burkill, subsiding. 'I don’t know. We haven't really talked about it. You can get that done, can you? I mean, officially?'

'Oh yes. In a case like this, young girl and everything, there's no problem. Look, would you like someone to come round to talk it over with you and your wife, and Sandra too, of course.'

'Police, you mean.'

'No, I don't mean police. Someone from the social services. I know the man in charge there. Of course, you could ring him yourself, I just thought it might be easier if I put you in contact.'

'Another of your mates,' sneered Burkill. 'Official snouts.'

'Oh go and get fucked,' said Pascoe wearily and turned away. Wield was at his elbow.

'You ready for off, Sergeant?'

'Yes, sir. You haven't forgotten our car's back at the Branderdyke?'

'Oh Christ. Well, I'm certainly not asking Johnny Hope for a lift back!' said Pascoe. 'I'll treat us to a taxi.'

As they made for the door, Burkill grasped his arm.

'Look, I'm sorry,' he said. 'We need to talk to someone about Sandra. Could you get in touch with this chap for us?'

'All right,' said Pascoe. 'I'll ring him tomorrow.'

Outside as they walked through driving rain not even Wield's news that according to Johnny Hope Haggard had been promised the running of Godfrey Blengdale's new Country Club at Holm Coultram College could dislodge from Pascoe's mind the hopeless longing to be in a job, and in a part of the world, where kindness was not met with suspicion, and love and taxis filled the sunlit streets.