A pinch of snuff

Chapter 18

'An overdose,’ he told Dalziel on the phone.

'Oh aye. Usual thing, was it? Half a dozen tablets and ring a neighbour?'

'A bit more serious than that, sir,' said Pascoe evenly. 'She's very ill indeed. And it was just chance she was spotted. The window-cleaner.'

'I dare say she knows when her window-cleaner's due,' said Dalziel cynically. 'Well, I suppose I'd better send Shorter round there, hadn't I? Stroke of luck for him.'

'Luck?'

'Aye. Can't you just see him standing up in court with a black armband and bags beneath his eyes? They'll be mopping out the jury box.'

Pascoe took a deep breath.

'You haven't charged him then?'

'No. I'll leave it now till we see which way his missus decides to fall. Any road, I said I'd let you see Sandra first. Which reminds me, Acornboar Mount's a funny road to the Westgate Estate.'

'I'll go there tonight instead,’ parried Pascoe.

'Good. But tread careful, Peter. Remember, they're nice people too. You're apt to be a bit heavy-handed on occasion. Hello! You still there?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

'You should breathe a bit louder. Take care now. Cheerio!'

The Westgate Estate was a living history of local authority domestic architecture of the twentieth century.

The first group of houses belonged to the twenties. The windows were small, but the brick was good and had weathered well, and they all had quite substantial gardens separated by privet hedges of considerable maturity. Built in blocks of three and four, they had a closer relationship with the agricultural cottage than the urban back-to-back.

Next came the thirties and now the suburban villa was the model. The roofing had changed from black slate to red tiles, the upper storeys were pebble-dashed and there had been some attempt at stylistic variation. This part of the estate had won a prize at the time, Pascoe recalled reading, and when you compared it with the immediately post-war development, you could see why; lines of barrack-like houses faced with the kind of roughcast on which new paint only looked new for a couple of months till the rain beneath the narrow eaves stained and darkened it once more.

More recent development, still continuing, was trying hard to balance speed and economy with environmental concern. It wasn't Acornboar Mount but it was good housing.

Burkill lived in the oldest part of the estate. The house was in darkness and after banging at the door for a couple of minutes, Pascoe decided he was out of luck. The Burkills were probably down at the Club and Sandra had gone out with friends.

He recollected that the Heppelwhites lived next door and recollected also that some of the pressure under which Emma Shorter had so horrifyingly cracked had come from Clint. At least he had assumed it was Clint last night, though at Shorter's insistence he had let the matter slide. Now suddenly he wanted to be certain. He wanted to be able to tell this pair, father and son, to their faces that their vicarious rage and retributive action had probably killed a woman.

No, that was too strong, far too strong. Women like Emma didn't crack overnight or even in a couple of days. There must have been longer, steadier pressures. Such as? God! he laughed grimly. You didn't have to look far. Not if Shorter was screwing his nurse and Emma knew about it. Knew the marriage was on the rocks. Money too, perhaps. OK, he lived on Acornboar Mount and everyone knows that all dentists have Swiss accounts packed with gold fillings. But Pascoe had learned by hard experience that there's no art to read a man's bank balance in his public face.

So, dilute the anger a bit. But they'd helped to put Emma Shorter in hospital or worse, no doubt about it. And with Dalziel poised to charge the man, the publicity threat no longer applied.

He went up the path.

Burkill's front garden had been neat enough, a square of rough lawn with narrow, empty borders. It was the garden of a man who had little time to care about gardens, but sufficient community pride to reject a wilderness. Heppelwhite's small rectangle was a different matter altogether. The few square yards of lawn were as lushly green and as precisely swathed as Shorter's half-acre or Blengdale's half-dozen and the scalloped borders were full of the flowers of spring, crocuses and daffodils, narcissi and tulips, in regimented profusion.

Burkill's front door had retained the original cast-iron knocker, but here there was a bell-push which filled the air with a melodious three-tone chime. A pause, then the door opened.

'Good evening, Mr Heppelwhite,' said Pascoe.

Charlie Heppelwhite didn't look as if he agreed. He also gave no sign that he was contemplating letting Pascoe into his house.

'Who's there, Charlie?' demanded his wife from an inner room, her voice easily drowning the manic chatter of some television compere.

Heppelwhite called back, 'It's all right, Mother, ‘and now motioned Pascoe to enter, having decided that this was the lesser of two evils. He didn't quite put his finger to his lips and make shushing noises, but Pascoe found himself almost tiptoeing as he followed the long gangling figure into the cold front room. Here again was all the evidence needed to indicate a proud do-it-yourselfer. The paint and paper looked as though they had been put on yesterday and the light which revealed all this splendour came from a pseudo-crystal chandelier suspended on a gleaming brass chain. Pascoe knew the crystals were pseudo because they did not tinkle when he walked into them.

'Sorry,' said Heppelwhite. 'The ceiling's not high enough.'

'That's one way of looking at it,' agreed Pascoe. 'I wonder if your son's in, Mr Heppelwhite.'

'Oh, Clint. You want to see him?' Heppelwhite sounded amazed.

'If he's at home,' answered Pascoe.

'Yes, sure. Well, he's down the garden,' amended Heppelwhite. 'He's doing something with his bike. He keeps it in the shed down the garden. Shall I give him a call?'

'No, that's all right,' said Pascoe, thinking it would be useful both to see the bike close up and also to interview the youth away from his parents. 'I'll just chat to him in the shed.'

'Right,' said Heppelwhite. 'I'll show you.'

He led the way out and as they passed the open door of the rear living-room, he stuck his head in and said, 'Betsy, it's Mr Pascoe come to see our Clint.'

Pascoe tried to keep going. He suspected that Heppelwhite's apparent indifference to his reason for wanting to interview the boy would be more than compensated for by his wife. Ahead was a door which opened to reveal a kitchen and, beyond, the back door of the house. But he was not to escape.

'Pascoe? That Inspector? What's he want? Fetch him in here, Charlie,' commanded the voice. And to reinforce the seriousness of the order, the television sound was turned down.

Down, but not off. 'Off' was for deaths in the family, recalled Pascoe from memories of his own family on his father's side (not much referred to by his own family on his mother's side). There was a range of permitted sound level for other events and visitors ranging from almost inaudible for the vicar, non-family deaths, and juicy scandal, to full blast for the insurance man, the rent man, and anything political.

'Police' obviously came almost alongside non-family deaths, and on the twenty-six-inch colour screen a man with the face of a dissipated gnome whispered in manic glee as an old woman tried to jump through a hoop.

Mrs Heppelwhite was not alone. Seated alongside her on the calf-hide sofa was another woman, of an age but not yet thickened into monolith. Pascoe had often remarked the strange process by which northern women of a certain age became their own statues, solid, monumental, larger than lifesize. This one had missed it and, though far from slim, was well proportioned, had shining black, elegantly styled hair and a round, attractive, vaguely oriental face.

'What's our Colin done?' demanded Betsy Heppelwhite, rising menacingly as the reluctant Pascoe was ushered in.

'I just want to talk to him, that's all,' said Pascoe. 'A few questions.'

'What about?' demanded the woman. 'Is it still this business with Sandra?'

The other woman started and Pascoe guessed who she was before Heppelwhite intervened to say, 'Inspector, have you met Mrs Burkill, Sandra's mam?'

'No, I haven't,' said Pascoe. 'How do you do? I just called at your house, Mrs Burkill. I thought I might have a chat with Sandra, if that's all right. But she wasn't in.'

The woman looked surprised.

'She was in when I came round here,' she said.

'Oh, she'll have gone down the chippie,' said Mrs Heppelwhite. 'You still haven't said what you want with our Colin, Inspector.'

'Just to talk,' said Pascoe blandly, though he knew that more than blandness was going to be needed here.

'Right,' she said. 'You can talk. But I'll be there when you do.'

'Really, there's no need,' said Pascoe. 'I was just going to pop into the shed and have a few words while he's cleaning his bike.'

'Come on then,' said Mrs Heppelwhite. 'I'll show you. Charlie, make a cup of tea.'

She strode out of the living-room and the others followed, like tugs behind a liner. Heppelwhite and Deirdre Burkill stopped at the kitchen door while Pascoe and Mrs Heppelwhite moved in silence over the springy lawn towards a substantial shed at the bottom of the garden. A light showed through the single-paned window, but there was no sound of tinkering within and Pascoe had a premonition that Clint had somehow become aware of his presence and made off.

But when Mrs Heppelwhite flung open the shed door, he realized he couldn't have been more wrong.

Clint Heppelwhite was there all right, but not tinkering with his bike.

He lay on the floor on some old sacking, his jeans unbelted and pushed down over his buttocks. Alongside him lay a girl with her blouse opened and her bra pushed up over her breasts. She was holding the youth's penis in her left hand while his right hand lay between her legs. She turned her round attractive face towards the door and for a brief moment regarded the intruders with Chinese inscrutability. Pascoe saw the family resemblance instantly.

Then she started screaming. Clint pushed himself to his feet, his face slack with shock. His mother, after a moment of utter stillness, advanced swinging her fists like a fairground boxer and shouting, 'You stupid sod… you little cow… bitch… thick… I'll kill you, I'll murder you.'

Her blows were being aimed as indiscriminately as her abuse. Pascoe advanced, recognizing a duty to interpose his own body, and discovered that her indiscrimination included him. The two youngsters were attempting to take evasive action, the shed shook and the gleaming motor-bike, with its front wheel removed and surrounded by oil cans and spanners, toppled slowly off its stand.

Clint let out a cry of agony and wrath and for a second looked as if he might be going to attack his mother.

Then from the doorway came an outraged cry of 'Sandra' and everything stopped. Everything except Clint's attempts to right his motor-bike and pull up his jeans at the same time. Sandra Burkill made no attempt to adjust her disordered clothing but stood against the furthermost wall, breathing hard, and regarding her mother with calm indifference.

'Get yourself fastened up,' grated Deirdre Burkill. Her voice was low with repressed anger. Behind her Charlie Heppelwhite's long anxious face moved from side to side to get a better view into the crowded shed. He had one hand on Deirdre's shoulder, though whether in comfort or restraint Pascoe could not decide. If restraint, it wasn't very successful as the next moment proved.

Sandra said, 'Keep your sodding hair on,' and started to pull down her bra in a manner which may or may not have been deliberately provocative. Pascoe didn't think there was enough space left in the crowded shed for speedy movement but he was wrong. With a cry of 'You stupid little cow!' Deirdre Burkill shouldered aside all intervening bodies as she flung herself forward and delivered a full-blooded slap across her daughter's face.

'Bloody-little-tart,' she went on, punctuating each word with another blow. Sandra crouched low in the face of this onslaught, covering up with her arms, and Mrs Heppelwhite having had her role as assailant taken away from her now assumed that of defender.

'Stop that, Deirdre!' she commanded, grappling with her friend from behind, and Sandra, seeing her chance, scrambled along the floor and towards the doorway. Here she paused to yell over her shoulder, 'You can fucking talk!' Then as her mother threatened a renewed onslaught, she pushed past Heppelwhite and disappeared into the darkness.

'Don't just stand there looking stupid!' commanded the thin man's wife. 'See where the lass goes!'

Charlie nodded but didn't move immediately. Then with a despairing shake of his head, he turned and went in pursuit.

Pascoe's mind was working furiously. Ideally he would have liked to talk to almost everybody, alone, immediately, while their pulses were still racing. Failing that, Clint was as good a place to start as any.

'Mrs Heppelwhite,' he said. 'Mrs Burkill's upset. Why don't you take her up to the house and get her a cup of tea? Make one for us all, eh?'

To his surprise she made no demur, but put her arm round her friend's shoulders and led her out. Pascoe suspected the respite would not be long, so he turned immediately to the youth who had now righted both his motor-bike and his trousers and said, 'So it was you, was it? All the time.'

'What?'

'Screwing the Burkill kid. Whose idea was it to blame the dentist?'

'What d'you mean?' demanded Clint.

'Oh come on, Heppelwhite! You were caught at it! With my own eyes, I saw it! Is this where you always met? Handy, eh? Just over the garden hedge!'

'Don't be bloody stupid! You're bloody daft, you are!'

'And you're bloody insane if you think you can get away with talking to me like that!' snapped Pascoe, taking a menacing step towards the youth who retreated behind his bike in alarm.

'You've got it all wrong,' he said in a more moderate tone. 'Tonight was the first time I'd touched her. Honest. I was just working on the bike and she came in, dead casual like. Well, she sometimes did. You know how kids are, hanging around. She was just a kid, I'd never thought of her as owt but just a kid.'

'Don't give me that! Are you blind? I bet you've mangled your meat many a time over pictures of skinnier lasses than Sandra!' said Pascoe coarsely.

'I never thought of her as owt else but a kid!' insisted Clint. 'Not till tonight. But it was different, now I knew…'

'What?'

'That she were in the club. Someone had poked her. I knew that and it made a difference.'

The boy spoke defiantly and convincingly, but Pascoe was a long way from being ready to be convinced.

'So you just grabbed her!' he sneered. 'And she said OK. Just like that!'

'Just about,' said Clint. 'We sort of bumped into each other. It's not very big this place. That's how it got started.'

Pascoe changed his tack.

'Listen, lad,' he said confidentially. 'There's nothing to be ashamed of, really. No one'll blame you. Don't get me wrong. You're not going to get away with anything, but we've got you now anyway. So why not give us it straight.'

'What d'you mean, got me?' demanded Clint.

Pascoe shook his head in mock bewilderment.

'What's this all about, lad, but illegal carnal knowledge of a girl under age? I mean, you’re not going to deny that, are you? I was here. Your mother was here. Your father was here. Her mother was here. We all saw it. It won't help saying you were the second or even the fifty-second. You're the one who's been caught on the job. So why muck up that dentist's life? What've you got against the poor bastard?'

'Nothing. I've got nothing against him!' denied Clint.

'Oh? Is that why you were squirting weed-killer over his lawn last night?' asked Pascoe.

'That was because he'd been playing around with Sandra,' insisted the youth. 'These sods think they can…'

He tailed off as he became aware of his admission.

'Come on,' said Pascoe abruptly.

'Where?'

'Up to the house first. Then down to the station. What did you think? I was going to smack your wrist and send you off to bed without any supper?'

Back in the house, he found the two women sitting in the living-room drinking tea. The telly had been switched off.

'What's he been saying to you?' demanded Mrs Heppelwhite of her son.

Pascoe answered.

'I've been questioning your boy about two offences, Mrs Heppelwhite. One involves an assault on a girl under the age of consent. The other involves trespass and wilful damage, to wit, entering upon the property of Mr Jack Shorter and applying weed-killer to his lawn. This offence he has admitted, the other he can hardly deny.'

This reduced Mrs Heppelwhite to silence momentarily and during the moment, her husband came in.

'Where's Sandra?' asked Deirdre Burkill.

'At home,' said Charlie. 'It's all right. I made her a cup of tea.'

'I'd better go,' said the woman.

'Hold on just a second,' said Pascoe. 'I'll come with you. I'd like a quick word with the girl, if you don't mind.'

'I wanted to send for Bri,' said Mrs Heppelwhite to her husband. 'But Deirdre wouldn't let me.'

'Probably best,' said Charlie. 'Let things settle first.'

'They'll be a while settling,' said Pascoe. 'I'm taking your son down to the station with me to make a statement.'

'You're what?'

'He says something about Colin putting weed-killer on that dentist's garden,' said Mrs Heppelwhite.

'Is that right, Clint?'

To Pascoe's relief the boy nodded miserably. If he had started denying it now, it could have made things difficult.

'The dirty bugger had it coming to him,' said Deirdre Burkill savagely. 'And worse.'

'He's got worse,' said Pascoe. 'His wife could be dead by this time. She took an overdose.'

His words turned off all sound as firmly as the television switch.

'Oh God,' said Charlie Heppelwhite finally.

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Remember that. There's no way of getting at just one person. Others have to suffer too. Mr Heppelwhite, I'll leave Clint here with you for a couple of minutes. I'm sure you'll be able to persuade him it'd be pointless and futile to take off. Mrs Burkill, ready?'

'For what?' said the woman, but she accompanied him out of the house without protest.

There was a gap in the hedge between the two back gardens and after they had pushed through it, Mrs Burkill stopped and turned to Pascoe.

'Is it right what you said about that fellow's wife?' she asked.

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

'What'd she do a thing like that for?'

'Who knows?' said Pascoe.

'It makes you bloody wonder, doesn't it?' said the woman wearily. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky and shook her head. Pascoe looked up too. The stars were at their old confidence trick. As they watched, on the western horizon one fell.

'Make a wish,' said Deirdre Burkill and opened her kitchen door.

Sandra was sitting in the living-room with the television on. The room was like Burkill's front garden, neat and tidy enough, but untouched by the hand of enthusiasm. The furniture belonged to the early fifties and a coal fire burnt in the original old black range. Only an onyx clock, presented for fifteen years as secretary at the Westgate Club, brought a touch of modernity to the decor. And it was wrong.

'You all right?' asked Deirdre.

The girl didn't answer and her mother angrily pulled the television plug from its socket.

'I were watching that!' protested Sandra.

Pascoe didn't want another domestic battle and walkout, so he intervened swiftly.

'Sandra, I'm Detective-Inspector Pascoe. I'd like a chat with you if you don't mind.'

He sat down beside her on the sofa and wished he had a WPC with him and Mrs Burkill out of the room. He studied the girl carefully. Apart from her fully developed figure, there was nothing remarkable for her age, and these days even that wasn't very remarkable. She wore no make-up; her hair was long, brown and straight, apparently untouched by rollers and setting lotions; her plain white blouse (now buttoned up) and straight grey skirt belonged in the old tradition of school uniform.

There must be thousands like her, he thought. Except that there was something else, a kind of sensuous aura, which he would have dismissed as a simple masculine response to knowledge of her experience and condition (Clint's defence, he recollected) had it not been for his strong sense of the same quality in her mother.

'I want to ask about you and Clint, Sandra,' he said gently. 'Has it been going on long?'

'Has what?' she said.

'How long's he been playing about with you?' demanded Mrs Burkill.

'He hasn't!' denied Sandra.

'What the hell was he doing tonight then? Giving you driving lessons?'

'Please, Mrs Burkill,' said Pascoe.

'Please, nothing. You want her to answer questions, don't you? There's only one way with this one. I should know. Come on, girl, or you'll get the back of my hand!'

Pascoe sat back in resignation. What am I doing here? he wondered. Looking for truth? Truth like the light from those sodding stars. By the time it reached you, it had taken so long that it lit up nothing and its source was probably an empty lifeless shell.

'Me and Clint never did anything before,' the girl was saying. 'It was just tonight, that's all. We were just mucking about.'

'Mucking about? Haven't you had enough mucking about to last you? Listen, how far's it gone with him? Has be been all the way with you, Sandra?'

'Don't be daft! I'm telling you…'

'I think it's a pack of lies you're telling me!' shouted Deirdre Burkill. 'Do you know that dentist’s wife’s killed herself? Do you know that? So I'm asking you. Was it Clint put you in the club? Was it? Was it?’

'No no no no no!' screamed the girl. 'It wasn't, it wasn't. And don't ask me any more bloody questions!'

She jumped up and rammed the television plug back in.

'You wait till your father gets home,' threatened her mother.

'Yeah,' said Sandra. 'I'll wait.'

And she made that sound like a threat too.

There was nothing more in this for him, realized Pascoe. Mrs Burkill's approach might have been outside the range of the police training manuals, but she'd put the questions he wanted putting.

He stood up.

'I'll say good night then, Sandra.'

"Night,' she said.

Deirdre Burkill went with him to the door.

'Thanks for your help,' he said, only half ironically.

'I'll get it out of her,' she said. 'If there's owt to get out.'

'Don't press her too much,' answered Pascoe. 'She must be pretty mixed up inside.'

'She'll be mixed up outside if I haven't had some sense from her by Brian gets home,' she said grimly.

The ultimate deterrent, that was our Bri, thought

Pascoe as he stood alone between the two houses and wished he was safe in his bed with a day at the office, or the shop, or the factory, or the classroom, to look forward to tomorrow, anything to justify the pain of waking up.

With a sigh, he re-entered the Heppelwhites'.