A pinch of snuff

Chapter 2

Pascoe was surprised at the range of feelings his visit to the Calliope Kinema Club put him through.

He felt furtive, angry, embarrassed, outraged, and, he had to confess, titillated. He was so immersed in self-analysis that he almost missed the teeth scene. It was the full frontal of a pot-bellied man wearing only a helmet and gauntlets that triggered his attention. There was a lot of screaming and scrabbling, all rather jolly in a ghastly kind of way, then suddenly there it was; the mailed fist slamming into the screaming mouth, the girl's face momentarily folding like an empty paper bag, then her naked body falling away from the camera with the slackness of a heavyweight who has run into one punch too many. Cut to the villain, towering in every sense, with sword raised for the coup de grace, then the door bursts open and enter the hero, by some strange quirk also naked and clearly a match for tin-head. The girl, very bloody but no longer bowed, rises to greet him, and the rest is retribution.

When the lights were switched on Pascoe, who had arrived in the dark, looked around and was relieved to see not a single large hat. The audience numbered about fifty, almost filling the room, and were of all ages and both sexes, though men predominated. He recognized several faces and was in turn recognized. There would be some speculation whether his visit was official or personal, he guessed, and he did not follow the others out of the viewing room but sat and waited till word should reach Dr Haggard.

It didn't take long.

'Inspector Pascoe! I didn't realize you were a member.'

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a powerful head. His hair was touched with grey, his eyes deep set in a noble forehead, his rather overfull lips arranged in an ironic smile. Only a pugilist twist of the nose broke the fine Roman symmetry of that face. In short, it seemed to Pascoe to display those qualities of authoritarian, intellectual, sensuous brutality which were once universally acknowledged as the cardinal humours of a good headmaster.

'Dr Haggard? I didn't realize we were acquainted.'

'Nor I. Did you enjoy the show?'

'In parts.'

'Parts are what it's all about,' murmured Haggard.

'Tell me, are you here in any kind of official capacity?'

'Why do you ask?' said Pascoe.

'Simply to help me decide where to offer you a drink. Our members usually foregather in what used to be the staff room to discuss the evening's entertainment.'

'I think I'd rather talk in private,' said Pascoe.

'So it is official.'

'In part,' said Pascoe, conscious that this was indeed only a very small part of the truth. Shorter's story had interested him, Dalziel's lack of interest the previous day had piqued him, Ellie was representing her union at a meeting that night, television was lousy on Thursdays, and Sergeant Wield had been very happy to supply him with a membership card.

'Then let us drink in my quarters.'

They went out of the viewing room, which Pascoe guessed had once been two rooms joined together to make a small school assembly hall, and climbed the stairs. Sounds of conversation and glasses as from a saloon bar followed them upstairs from one of the ground-floor rooms. The Wilkinson Square vigilantes had made great play of drunkards falling noisily out of the Club late at night and then falling noisily into their cars, which were parked in a most inconsiderate manner all round the Square. Wield had found no evidence to support these assertions.

Haggard did not pause on the first-floor landing but proceeded up the now somewhat narrower staircase. Observing Pascoe hesitate, he explained, 'Mainly classrooms here. Used for storage now. I suppose I could domesticate them again but I've got so comfortably settled aloft that it doesn't seem worth it. Do come in. Have a seat while I pour you something. Scotch all right?'

'Great,' said Pascoe. He didn't sit down immediately but strolled around the room, hoping he didn't look too like a policeman but not caring all that much if he did. Haggard was right. He was very comfortable. Was the room rather too self-consciously a gentleman's study? The rows of leather-bound volumes, the huge Victorian desk, the miniatures on the wall, the elegant chesterfield, the display cabinet full of snuff-boxes, these things must have impressed socially aspiring parents.

I wonder, mused Pascoe, pausing before the cabinet, how they impress the paying customer now.

'Are you a collector?' asked Haggard, handing him a glass.

'Just an admirer of other people's collections,' said Pascoe.

'An essential part of the cycle,' said Haggard. 'This might interest you.'

He reached in and picked up a hexagonal enamelled box with the design of a hanging man on the lid.

'One of your illustrious predecessors. Jonathan Wild, Thief-taker, himself taken and hanged in1725. Such commemorative design is quite common-place on snuffboxes.'

'Like ashtrays from Blackpool,’ said Pascoe.

'Droll,' said Haggard, replacing the box and taking out another, an ornate silver affair heavily embossed with a coat of arms.

'Mid-European,' said Haggard. 'And beautifully airtight. This is the one I actually keep snuff in. Do you take it?'

'Not if I can help it.'

'Perhaps you're wise. In the Middle Ages they thought that sneezing could put your soul within reach of the devil. I should hate you to lose your soul for a pinch of snuff, Inspector.'

'You seem willing to take the risk.'

'I take it to clear my head,' smiled Haggard. 'Perhaps I should take some now before you start asking your questions. I presume you have some query concerning the Club?'

'In a way. It's a bit different from teaching, isn't it?' said Pascoe, sitting down.

'Is it? Oh, I don't know. It's all educational, don't you think?'

'Not a word some people would find it easy to apply to what goes on here, Dr Haggard,' said Pascoe.

'Not a word many people find it easy to apply to much of what goes on in schools today, Inspector.'

'Still, for all that…' tempted Pascoe.

Haggard regarded him very magisterially.

'My dear fellow,' he said. 'When we're much better acquainted, and you have proved to have a more than professionally sympathetic ear, and I have been mellowed by food, wine and a good cigar, then perhaps I may invite you to contemplate the strange flutterings of my psyche from one human vanity to another. Should the time arrive, I shall let you know. Meanwhile, let's stick with your presence here tonight. Have my neighbours undergone a new bout of hysteria?'

'Not that I know of,' said Pascoe. 'No, it's about one of your films. One I saw tonight. Droit de Seigneur.'

'Ah yes. The costume drama.'

'Costume!' said Pascoe.

'Did the nudity bother you?' said Haggard anxiously.

'I don't think so. Anyway it was the assault scene I wanted to talk about, where the girl gets beaten up.'

'You found it too violent? I'm astounded.'

'The scene was brought to my attention…'

'By whom?' interrupted Haggard. 'Has he not seen A Clockwork Orange? The Exorcist? Match of the Day?'

'I would like you to be serious, Dr Haggard,' said Pascoe reprovingly. 'What do you know about the making of these films?'

'In general terms, very little. You probably know more yourself. I'm sure the diligent Sergeant Wield does. I am merely a showman.'

'Of course. Look, Dr Haggard, I wonder if it would be possible to see part of that film again. It'll help me explain what I'm doing here.'

Haggard finished his drink, then nodded.

'Why not? I'm intrigued. You could always gatecrash again, of course, but I suppose that might compromise your reputation. Besides, we only have that film until the weekend, so let's see what we can do.'

Downstairs again, Haggard left Pascoe in the viewing room and disappeared for a few moments, returning with a small triangular-faced man with large hairy-knuckled hands, one of which was wrapped round a pint tankard.

'Maurice, this is Inspector Pascoe. Maurice Arany, my partner and also, thank God, my projectionist. I am mechanically illiterate.'

They shook hands. It would have been easy, thought Pascoe, to develop it into a test of strength, but such games were not yet necessary.

As well as he could he described the sequence he wished to see, and Arany went out. Haggard switched off the lights and they sat together in the darkness till the screen lit up. Arany hit the spot with great precision and Pascoe let it run until the entry of the vengeful husband.

'That's fine,' he said and Haggard interposed his arm into the beam of light and the picture flickered and died.

'Well, Inspector?' said Haggard after he had switched on the lights.

'My informant reckons that was for real,’ said Pascoe diffidently.

'All of it?' said Haggard.

'The punch that knocks the girl down.'

'How extraordinary. Shall we look again? Maurice!'

They sat through the sequence once more.

'It's quite effective, though I've seen better,' said Haggard. 'But on what grounds would you claim it was real, if by real you mean that some unfortunate girl really did get punched?'

'I don't know,' admitted Pascoe. 'It has a quality… I've seen a few fights, and that kind of…'

He tailed off, uncertain if he was speaking from even the narrowest basis of conviction. If he had seen the film without Shorter's comments in his mind, would he have paid any special attention to the sequence? Presumably hundreds of people (thousands?) had sat through it without unsuspending their disbelief.

'I've seen people burnt alive, decapitated, disembowelled and operated on for appendicitis, all I hasten to add in the commercial cinema,' said Haggard. 'So far as my own limited experience of such matters permitted me to judge, I was completely convinced of the verisimilitude of these scenes. I shouldn't have thought dislodging a few teeth was going to present the modern director with many problems.'

'No,' said Pascoe. He was beginning to feel a little foolish, but under Dalziel's tutelage he had come to ignore such social warning cones.

'Can I see the titles, please?' asked Pascoe.

Haggard addressed Maurice Arany again and as the titles rolled, Pascoe made notes. There wasn't a great deal of information. It was produced by a company called Homeric Films and written and directed by one Gerry Toms.

'A name to conjure with,' said Pascoe.

'It must be his own,' agreed Haggard.

'You don't know where this company is located, do you?'

'It's a mushroom industry,' said Haggard. 'It probably no longer exists.'

'But there have been other films from the same people?'

Haggard admitted there had.

'Perhaps your distributor could help.'

'I wouldn't bank on it, but you're welcome to the address.'

Upon this co-operative note, they parted. Pascoe sat in his car in the Square for some time until other members of the audience began to leave. There were no overt signs of drunkenness, no undue noise in the way they entered and started their cars, and certainly no suggestion that anyone was about to roam around the Square all night in search of some luckless resident to assault and ravish.

When he got home, Ellie was sitting in front of the television eating a dripping sandwich.

'Good meeting?' he asked.

'Useless,’ she said. 'Why don't you declare a police state and shoot the bastards? You know what they said? Higher education might be a luxury this authority could no longer afford!'

'Quite right,’ he said, regarding her affectionately. She was worth his regard. Friends at university, they had met again during an investigation at Holm Coultram College where Ellie was a lecturer. After some preliminary skirmishing they had become lovers and then, the previous year, got married. It was not an easy marriage, but nothing worthwhile ever was, thought Pascoe with a swift descent into Reader's Digest philosophy.

'You know who they've brought in to chair our liaison committee? Godfrey bloody Blengdale, that's who.'

'Is that bad?' asked Pascoe, yawning. He sat down on the sofa next to Ellie, took a bite of her sandwich and focused on the television screen.

'It's sinister,' said Ellie, frowning. 'He's the right-wing hatchet man on that council. I've never really believed there was a chance they could seriously consider closing the college down, but now

… shall I switch this off?'

'No,' said Pascoe, watching with interest as James Cagney prepared to sort out a guy twice his size. 'I may learn something.'

'About dealing with suspects?'

'About dealing with women. Is this the one where he pushes the grapefruit in whatsername's face?'

'I don't know. I haven't really been watching. It's just been something to take my mind off those pompous bastards. Where've you been anyway? Boozing with Yorkshire's Maigret?'

'No. I've been to the pictures which is what makes this so nice.'

Briefly he explained. Ellie listened intently. He didn't often discuss the detail of his work with her but this wasn't a case, just a speculation, and Pascoe who would have welcomed her clarity of thought on many occasions was glad to invite it now.

To his surprise like Dalziel she dismissed as irrelevant the question of the broken teeth.

'It's not very likely, is it?' she said. 'It's this chap Haggard you want to be interested in. I've heard of him. Before his school folded, he was a thorn in everyone's side. No official standing, of course, and he had ideas that made the Black Papers shine at night. But he knew how to get to people, push them around.'

'He obviously hasn't lost his charming ways,' said Pascoe. 'The neighbours are almost solidly against him, but it's getting them nowhere.'

'So you have a complaint to investigate? Great! Can't you fit him up? Slip a brick in his pocket or something?'

Pascoe sighed. Ellie made police jokes like some people make Irish jokes, and at times they began to wear a bit thin.

'It's nothing to do with me. Sergeant Wield's looking after things there. I'm only here for the teeth.'

'So you say. Sounds odd to me. And this dentist of yours, he sounds a bit odd too.'

'Christ,' said Pascoe. 'You sound more like Dalziel every day.'

He bit into Ellie's dripping sandwich again and watched James Cagney bust someone right on the jaw. The recipient of the blow staggered back, shook his head admiringly, then launched a counter-attack.

This, thought Pascoe, is what fighting ought to look like. When the Gerry Toms of this world could produce stuff like this, then they might climb out of the skin-flick morass. This appealed to man's artistic sense, not his basic lusts.

Guns had appeared now. Cagney dived for cover and came up with a huge automatic in his hand.

'Great,' said Pascoe, his artistic sense thoroughly appealed to. 'Now kill the bastard!'