A pinch of snuff

Chapter 17

Back in the office he tried to see Dalziel but the fat man was still busy with Shorter. Pascoe knew his technique well; periods of intensive questioning building up to a climax, then a break, then a recommencement of the questioning as though the previous bout had not taken place, then another break, then the questioning again.

Pascoe did not doubt that Shorter could stand up to all this, or rather that the man would imagine he had stood up to it all. But Dalziel would know this too. He would merely be probing for weaknesses at this stage, not expecting a quick breach.

Why the Superintendent was interesting himself so closely in this relatively minor case when there were more important matters, including a murder, on hand, Pascoe did not know. Perhaps he owed Burkill a favour. He seemed to think highly of the man. One thing was certain – he'd have a good reason.

At three o'clock, Colbridge rang back.

Pascoe had not expected a reply till the following morning at the earliest, but Colbridge obviously saw this as a chance to keep his provincial friends in due awe of metropolitan efficiency.

'Haggard was dead easy. The pubs round Whitehall are full of gossipy, old, disappointed civil servants who'd tell you anything for a sympathetic ear and a gin and tonic.'

'I'm sure,' said Pascoe.

'According to my source, Haggard was bent in every sense. Little black boys were his downfall in the West Indies, so they shipped him out. They don't object to that kind of thing in the Diplomatic as long as you don't do it on the Queen's Birthday. But Austria was different. When the Hungarians started coming across the border in 'fifty-six, Haggard seems to have set himself up as a private travel agency. It's pretty clear he'd been in a lot of fiddles before this – Vienna was still a pretty hairy place in those days – but he went too far this time. Again, no drama. They know how to look after their own! Just the invitation to resign. That any good to you?'

'Thank you,' said Pascoe. 'It's confirmation. What about the other business?'

'Hang on. I got one of my lads to check that. Here we are. Yes, a fellow called Toms was a guest at the Candida that Friday night. Yes, he rang Harrogate. You want details?'

'If you've got them.'

Evidently the number called plus time and duration of the call were all on the bill. Pascoe noted them down, listened to a short digression on the extortionate charges these hotels made for phone calls and was about to give his thanks and ring off when Colbridge said, 'Are you interested in his other calls?'

'Other?'

'Yes. You just asked about the one to Harrogate, but after that he made three other calls, all to your part of the world.'

'Might as well have them,' said Pascoe with affected indifference.

They were all local numbers. None of them meant anything to Pascoe but he suspected they were going to. And with the second of these there came an extra bit of information, coaxed from the hotel switchboard girl (besides being efficient, the bastards want us to know they're sexy too! thought Pascoe). The call had been put through, the telephone lifted at the other end, then everything had gone dead and subsequent enquiries through the exchange had merely produced the reply that the line was out of order.

'Toms made a lot of fuss, that's why they remembered. Probably that's why they charged the poor sod for it too. One second, no conversation, you know what they charged? Go on. Guess.'

Pascoe guessed and finally, full of excitement, got the phone down. Quickly he checked the numbers with the local exchange.

The Harrogate one was Penelope Latimer's. The other three in order of phoning belonged to Godfrey Blengdale, Gilbert Haggard and Maurice Arany.

'Well, well, well,' said Pascoe.

When Dalziel walked into his office ten minutes later, he was still examining the implications of what he'd got.

'Nice of you to drop in,' said Dalziel. 'Thought you might spend the day wandering round on other people's patches.'

So there'd been something in Crabtree's warning.

'I've been back since the middle of the morning,' protested Pascoe.

'Have you now? If I'd known, you could have helped me with this mate of yours. God, he's a hard nut.'

'Have you charged him?' asked Pascoe.

'Not yet. I just thought the time was ripe to have him in.'

'Ripe?'

'Well, first the bugger went back to work, so he couldn't play sick any more. And I didn't have that wife of his on my back when I picked him up at the surgery. Though she found out quick enough.'

'Has Mrs Shorter been here?' asked Pascoe.

'Too bloody true,' said Dalziel. 'I can't abide hysterical women. Wanted to know what right I had to arrest her man. I told her I had more than a right, I had a duty. That shut her up.'

'Duty?' said Pascoe.

'Like any right-thinking man,' said Dalziel ponderously. 'These buggers need sorting out.'

'But you said you hadn't charged him.'

'Not yet, but I will. I reckon we've got enough now, though,' he added wistfully, 'an admission's always nice for tying things up.'

'Enough?'

'Oh aye. There's the girl. She'll not be budged. Then there's her friend, Marilyn. Detailed observation there, and when it comes to sex, she knows what she's talking about. Then there's that lot at the surgery.'

'Who do you mean?'

Dalziel laughed meaningfully.

'His friends and colleagues, people he'd expect to rely on as character witnesses. Some help they'll give! Old MacCrystal doesn't want to know. Washes. his hands of the fellow. La Lacewing reckons he's capable of anything. I think he probably tried his charms on her when she arrived. Well, she's a good-looking lass, that's what's behind these half-baked ideas of hers. What she wants is a month with a squint and buck-teeth, that'd soon put her right. Any road, put either of these in the box, and he'd be lucky to escape lynching.'

'But his nurse. Alison Parfitt.'

'Oh yes. I read that statement carefully. Then when I went to the surgery this morning, I had a chat with her myself. That's what made me decide I was right to bring him in.'

'But surely her testimony will favour Shorter. A bit biased, perhaps…'

'Biased! Bloody right it's biased! All the weight on one side and that's her backside. He's been screwing the arse off her this twelvemonth, you knew that?'

'You're sure?' said Pascoe, knowing full well Dalziel must be sure. Bitterly he recalled Shorter's man-to-man totally convincing denial. 'I did wonder, but…'

'I did more than wonder, I found out. You know what it's like round here. If you do it in ditches wearing a hood, you might just about keep it quiet for a week. But once you start having the cocktails before or the little dinner afterwards, you soon get spotted. She didn't deny it long, they never do if you press 'em. That's what they all want, these fancy women. To be found out. Get it in the open. It's their only hope if you look at it right. So no one'll pay much heed to any testimonial she gives.'

'But her evidence about time?'

'Vague,' said Dalziel. 'Only significant date is the day Sandra says the deed took place. Remember, Alison went off to pick up some X-ray plates? Well, she had to sign for them, with a note of the time. Twelve-fifteen she got 'em, and it's a good quarter of an hour from the surgery. Sandra had a double appointment that day. Tricky job, said Shorter. No doubt, said I. So tricky you send your nurse off. That shut him up. Well, I suppose I'd best go and finish him off. I've wasted too much time on this as it is. What about you? What have you been wasting your time on?'

Quickly Pascoe gave an outline of his own investigations.

'If I take you right, lad, you're now thinking there's a link between Homeric and this affair at the Calli?'

'There's certainly a link,' said Pascoe. 'The phone calls did take place. It's whether it's a significant or coincidental link that needs to be decided.'

Dalziel looked at him in mock surprise at this bold affirmation.

'All right. Let's take it step by step. Toms rings Latimer to explain why he's not back in Yorkshire as promised. You reckon she mentioned your interest in that film, right? He rings off, then gets on to Blengdale. Why?'

'No idea,' said Pascoe, who knew just how far you dared go when presenting hypotheses to Dalziel.

'Then he rings Haggard. Why?'

'To say get rid of the film.'

'But he can't get through because the phone goes dead. So presumably whoever was doing up the house, picked up the receiver and then cut the wire? That what you think?'

'Possibly.'

'OK. So why does Toms ring Arany?'

'To say he can't get hold of Haggard and it's urgent that they get rid of that film.'

'So what would Arany do?'

Pascoe knew exactly where he was being led to. He had explored the winding track too thoroughly already not to know each curve along the way. But he knew also that there are times to resist and times to go quietly.

'He would slip out of his flat, walk the quarter mile to the Calli and let himself in.'

'Then he and Haggard would burn the film and mess the place up to make it look like vandals?'

Pascoe said nothing.

'Then Arany would beat Haggard up to add to the verisimilitude? Jesus, I mean, how far does anyone go in pursuit of realism! And what about whoever it was that cut off the phone? Where were they? What were they doing while all this was going on? Just how many people were wandering around the Calb that night? Perhaps Ms Lacewing and her gang of demonstrators were there too? And the Wilkinson Square Protection Society?'

Against his judgement, Pascoe was stung to speech.

'Look, sir, all I'm doing is trying to fit a theory round the evidence…'

'Evidence!' bellowed Dalziel. 'Evidence's what I've given you to show that your mate, Shorter, assaulted one of his patients. Not that you believe it. Oh no, that evidence is nowt to you! Then, next breath, you expect me to believe some fairy story which has got less hard evidence than meat in a poorhouse stew. Come on, lad, don't choke on it, spit it out, what do you really think's behind all this? I've been amazed, now astound me.'

'All right,' said Pascoe, roused to defiance which was probably Dalziel's intention anyway. 'This is what I think. I think there's a film, at least one, perhaps more, a snuff-film, a film in which some poor bloody whore who thought she was going to be screwed a couple of times found out too late that the real climax was her being killed. Toms might have made it, or just have got hold of it, I don't know which. Either way, it's not unlike Droit de Seigneur in some of its sequences. Perhaps Toms plagiarized. Perhaps he merely had to tone down his own idea for our nice middle-class audiences. So when an important sequence went wrong in the processing, he kept his reputation for speed and economy by merely editing in a print of the same sequence in the snuff-film. It's essential for continuity and thrills, but it's so brief and the girl's face is so badly beaten that it doesn't seem possible anyone'll notice. He reckons without my dentist on the one hand and my wife on the other.'

He paused for breath and also for thought. Now he had spoken, he could see all the huge flaws in his theory and the even huger areas of sheer vagueness. But he was glad he had spoken.

Dalziel had begun a facial scratch as he talked, taking the right-ear-to-Adam's-apple route.

'Evidence?' he said.

'You've heard it all,' said Pascoe defiantly.

'I have? I'll listen more carefully next time. So. Presumably to make it worthwhile risking either making or even possessing such a thing, you'd need an audience that was not only bloody bent but bloody rich?'

Pascoe agreed.

'Any suggestions who'd fit the bill round here?'

Pascoe hesitated.

'I don't know. The only possibility seems to be… Godfrey Blengdale.'

'Ah,' said Dalziel. 'I thought you were heading in that direction. Well, he's rich certainly. Not bloody rich, mind you. Not a millionaire, but he's worth a bob or two. But bent? Perverted? Twisted?'

'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'Who can say?'

'What about his missus? You've met her, have you? Do you reckon she's the type to put up with that kind of thing? I'd say not. Any road, what's your next move?'

Pascoe was amazed by the gentleness of the response so far. And emboldened by it. Dalziel he knew would never be kind out of mere sentiment. Something had rung a bell with him, distantly perhaps but clear enough to make him hesitate the blasting, blaspheming, coruscating scorn that was his favourite response to the vague and the absurd.

'I'm not sure. See Toms again. Ask him about the phone calls. Get to Arany and Blengdale at the same time.'

Dalziel considered, then nodded.

'That makes sense if anything in all this lemon curd makes sense. But leave it till tomorrow, eh? No one's going anywhere.'

Pascoe was surprised. Dalziel was not a man to waste a moment, particularly of his underling's time.

His surprise must have shown for Dalziel added, almost apologetically, 'I'm tied up myself today and I'd like to have a go at God Blengdale myself, if you don't mind.'

If I don't mind! thought Pascoe, convinced now there were things going on he knew nothing about. Well, Dalziel was entitled to his secrets, but he'd be stupid not to take advantage of this rare conciliatory mood.

'Of course, sir,' he said. 'There was something I'd like to do this afternoon though, if you wouldn't mind. I'd like permission to have a go at this girl, Sandra Burkill, before you charge Shorter. I've never seen her. I'd like to get a personal impression.'

'Likely that's what Shorter said,' grunted Dalziel. 'All right. If you can get past her dad, that is. Be it on your own head.'

Pascoe glanced at his watch. She'd be home from school shortly and Burkill would be still at work.

'I'll go round now,' he said.

'Aye. Get a move on. I want this bugger charged before I go off for my tea,' said Dalziel. 'I'll give you to five.'

It was hardly a vote of confidence, thought Pascoe. It looked as if nothing on earth was going to stop Dalziel going ahead.

But even Dalziel was not completely master of the universe.

On impulse Pascoe did not drive straight to the Westgate Estate but diverted to the lusher pastures of Acornboar Mount. It was a humanitarian move, he told himself. Emma Shorter might need someone to give her a bit of reassurance, tell her her husband was still only being questioned, not charged. That was what he told himself, but he knew that in fact he was just attempting to assuage his guilt feelings at ducking out of the Black Bull when the woman had appeared there at lunch-time.

This time he did not leave the car at the foot of the road, but sent it bumping up over the pot-holes and cracks. To live up here you really did need to be able to afford something with super-efficient suspension. A Range Rover, perhaps.

Or an ambulance.

There was one up ahead of him. He knew as soon as he saw it which house it was parked outside.

He arrived just as the stretcher men appeared and for the second time that day he saw Emma Shorter's pale, pale face.