Child's Play

Chapter 1

‘Bear hence this body, and attend our will; Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.’

The applause was on the polite side of enthusiastic. Ellie Pascoe kept her clapping going a couple of beats after most people and several bars after her husband.

In the interval she said, ‘You’re not enjoying it?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s OK for Shakespeare, but West Side Story it’s not!’

‘Peter, stop being flip. You’re just determined not to be impressed by anything Chung does, aren’t you?’

‘On the contrary, I quite approve the slant Big Eileen’s giving the text. I feared something much more fearsomely feminist! But two kids being mucked about by the oldies is more or less what Shakespeare was on about, wasn’t it? Though probably he didn’t envisage Capulet and his wife looking quite so like Maggie and Dennis or the Prince so like Ronnie Reagan! But the production’s a bit ponderous, isn’t it? Perhaps it’ll get better now that Mercutio’s out of it. The only bit of life in him was when he died and I reckon that that was because it came so natural.’

‘Peter,’ said Ellie warningly. ‘I hope you’re not going to be the life and soul of the party afterwards.’

‘What? And risk Big Eileen’s karate chop? You must be joking!’

The second half was in Pascoe’s judgement a great improvement, though the tragic momentum was momentarily checked in the scene in which Romeo purchases poison from the apothecary.

The latter, bent and quavering to start with, seemed to lose his way after his opening line, ‘Who calls so loud?’ Prompted, he spoke the next couple of lines in a much stronger voice and was immediately detectable as the actor who had played Mercutio. In the uppermost tier where the school parties were concentrated a piercing young voice said, ‘Please, sir, I thought he were dead!’

It took a little while to repair the damage caused by the outburst of laughter, but the Gothic glooms of the closing scenes finally cast their pall and Pascoe was able to match Ellie clap for clap as the company took their calls.

Pascoe had never been to a backstage party, but he had watched many a Hollywood musical and was not surprised to be disappointed. The atmosphere though far from restrained was even further from riotous. No champagne corks popped, though Sainsbury’s hock flowed like Sainsbury’s hock. Jeans and T-shirts had it over evening gowns and tiaras. And the only truly Hollywood touches came from the mayor’s wife, who looked like Margaret Dumont and wore a rope of imitation pearls as big as her husband’s mayoral chain; and from the chairman of the Council’s Library and Arts Committee who, tuxedo’d, cigarred, and pop-eyed, was behaving like Zero Mostel in little-old-lady land.

But now came a third authenticating detail, this time sonic.

A voice cried, ‘Chung darling! We thought it was marvellous! So touching! So true!’

Pascoe turned to applaud the satirist who was producing this ghastly gush and was horrified to find himself listening to Ellie.

‘Cut the crap, honey. We nearly bombed. If any of this council lot could tell shit from Shakespeare, they’d cut us off at the subsidy tomorrow.’

Switching his gaze and his applause to the speaker of this good plain sense, he found himself looking up at Big Eileen herself. Television had certainly not exaggerated her length. What it had failed to convey, however, was her extraordinary beauty.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my husband,’ said Ellie. ‘Chung this is Peter. Peter, Chung.’

‘Chung, hello,’ said Pascoe, grinning inanely.

‘You’re the cop, honey? I’d not have known.’

‘They train us in make-up,’ he said. ‘I’m really a sniffer dog.’ He sniffed doggily. Ellie looked pained. Chung looked alarmed.

‘None of my jokers are smoking shit, are they? I warned them, not while the councillors are reassuring themselves how clever they’ve been with their money.’

‘I’m not sure about the mayor, but I think everyone else is clean,’ said Pascoe.

‘Chung! Miss Chung! Hold it.’

A flash bulb flashed. When he stopped being dazzled, Pascoe recognized the long lugubrious features of Sammy Ruddlesdin from the Evening Post.

‘That’ll be nice,’ said Ruddlesdin. ‘Beauty and the Beast. Chung, any words for the Press? The popular press, I mean. I know there’s a Guardian intellectual out there somewhere but he’s almost pissed on the free plonk already. We’re your channel to the real public. This is my colleague, Henry Vollans, by the way. Sunday Challenger. The Voice of the North.’

‘Hi!’ said Chung to the young man with Ruddlesdin. ‘Anyone ever tell you you look like Robert Redford?’

Pascoe felt a pang of something like jealousy.

Ruddlesdin said, ‘Night off, Pete? I’d have thought the mighty Buddha would have had you all working full time in the temple tonight, waiting for the call.’

‘After losing my weekend, I told him that if I missed this lot, Ellie would personally shoot either me or him, not necessarily in that order.’

‘Have there been many calls? Come on, we have cooperated, haven’t we?’

The Evening Post had printed a photograph of the dead man in the Escort that day, after the weekend had brought the police no nearer an identification. Cause of death had been established as haemorrhaging of the aorta caused by a single bullet from a 9 mm handgun, possibly an old Luger.

Pascoe hesitated. Before he left the office, there had only been one call of any weight and that had been from Eden Thackeray, insisting on talking to Dalziel, who had relayed the news with a surprising lack of surprise.

‘Says he’s certain the man is an Italian called Alessandro Pontelli who turned up at his office claiming to be Alexander Huby, the lost heir in that daft will that were in the papers the other week. I’m just off to take him round to the mortuary.’

He had looked at Pascoe speculatively, then growled, ‘All right. Don’t grit your teeth like that. I’m not going to stop you getting your dose of culture.’

‘Nothing positive, Sammy,’ he said to Ruddlesdin.

‘But something, eh?’

‘Something, maybe. I’ll let you know when it’s positive. No, that’s it. I’m here to enjoy myself, so no more pumping!’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. As long as you don’t try to pump me about our fairy phone calls,’ said Ruddlesdin provocatively.

‘There’ve been more?’

‘One. Saturday morning. It was directed to Robert Redford there in Leeds. Like I told you, the chief reckons it’s Challenger stuff if it’s anything. I gather it was much the same as before. No names, talked about money, then said he’d be in touch again maybe, and cut off.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes, Peter, that’s all. And don’t go asking young Vollans about it either. Remember you’re not supposed to know owt. I don’t want it generally known I’m a grass! Though …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, Henry came across last week to sniff around. His editor, Ike Ogilby, was in town too, lunching at the Gents with — guess who? Mr Wonderful himself, your beloved DCC. So perhaps the grass grows taller than you think.’

‘Sammy!’ It was Chung. ‘I was just telling your friend here that I’ve got a bottle set aside in my office for the gentlemen of the Press, but you can come too. Half an hour’s time, shall we say? Round up the other piss-artists for me, would you, honey? Now I’ve got to socialize!’

Ruddlesdin and Vollans moved away, and Chung began to say something to Ellie, but before she’d got more than a couple of words out, she was interrupted by a newcomer whom Pascoe recognized as Mercutio and the apothecary compressed into one palely handsome young face that looked familiar beyond the context of the play.

‘Chung, I’m sorry. I was awful,’ he said bluntly.

‘You’ll get no argument from me, honey,’ said Chung.

There was a hard edge to her voice. Words too can deliver a karate chop, thought Pascoe. Oh beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! He sighed lustfully and converted it into a cough.

‘Pete! Ell! I’m being a bad hostess. Meet Rod Lomas. Ell and Pete Pascoe.’

‘Hello,’ said Ellie. ‘We were just saying how much we enjoyed the play, weren’t we, Peter?’

‘Oh yes. It was so touching, so true,’ said Pascoe.

‘Well, don’t scrape around for nice things to say about me,’ said Lomas with a wan smile.

‘You died well,’ said Pascoe judiciously.

‘Oh yes. I did that all right.’

‘Rod.’

It was a little voice and to find its source, Pascoe had to lower his gaze from Chung’s Himalayan splendours to the drab foothills where a small girl stood. A fanzine? Pascoe wondered. She looked familiar. Then he took in Lomas and the child as a pair and recalled the Black Bull. It didn’t make her look older.

‘Lexie. I’m sorry. I forgot. Have you got a drink?’

‘Not when I’m driving,’ she answered, shaking her head so firmly she almost dislodged her huge round spectacles.

‘I won’t ask if you enjoyed the show,’ said Lomas.

‘It was all right. I don’t go to plays much,’ she added, glancing apologetically up at Chung.

‘Lexie prefers opera,’ said Lomas, rather defensively.

‘Oh?’ said Chung. ‘It’s the élitist, escapist and totally unreal that turns you on, is it, hon?’

She does pick on people not her own size! There’s hope for me yet, thought Pascoe admiringly.

‘It’s not all like that,’ said the girl. ‘Some of it’s quite real; well, at least as real as waking up in a tomb and finding your dead lover beside you.’

Chung looked taken aback, like a giraffe threatened by a mouse. Then she laughed heartily and said, ‘Who’s your friend, Rod?’

‘Sorry. This is my cousin, sort of. Lexie Huby. Lexie, Chung. I’ve forgotten your names already. Can hardly remember my part today. Sorry.’

‘Pascoe. Ell and Pete,’ said Pascoe, thinking that Huby also meant something. Of course, the Italian who might be their corpse. It was a Mrs Huby’s will he’d been trying to claim on, wasn’t it?’

Then his mind was diverted by Ellie saying, ‘Hello, Lexie. How are you?’

‘Fine thanks, Mrs Pascoe,’ said the girl.

‘Hey, listen,’ said Chung. ‘I must go and be nice to the mayor and his wife. With those things round their necks, they look like they could both have slipped anchor and be on the point of drifting out to sea. Pete, honey, I’m thinking of doing something on the fuzz once I’ve lulled the council into a false sense of security. Maybe we could talk some time to make sure I get it right. OK?’

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ said Pascoe. ‘OK. Right on.’

‘Great. I’ll be in touch. Ell, Lex, see you.’

She glided away, tall and graceful as a swan through ducklings, towards the mayor.

Rod Lomas said, ‘Fuzz?’

‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’m your friendly neighbourhood bobby.’

He was used to being a conversational hiccough but this was more like a hiatus hernia.

Lomas tried to speak, coughed and finally got out, ‘Yes, well, nice to meet you. Lexie, that lift … I’m a bit knackered.’

‘I’m ready,’ said the girl. ‘'Bye. 'Bye, Mrs Pascoe.’

‘'Bye, Lexie,’ said Ellie.

‘Ciao, Rod, Lex,’ Pascoe called after them. ‘Odd little thing. How do you know her?’

‘Oh, I’ve met her at meetings,’ said Ellie vaguely.

‘That’s what meetings are for. You don’t mean she’s a WRAG activist?’

‘Why shouldn’t she be?’ demanded Ellie. ‘Though she’s not, actually. It’s appeal work mainly. She delivers pamphlets, goes out collecting for Oxfam, Save the Children, that sort of thing. Quiet but willing.’

‘That’s how I like ’em,’ said Pascoe wistfully. ‘Well, Ell. What’s next on the programme? Hurry on down to Sardi’s and wait for the first reviews?’

‘Shut up, creep,’ said Ellie. ‘What happened to all that Big Eileen satirical stuff?’

‘I told you, I was afraid of her.’

‘You fancied her, you mean! One smile and you were grovelling at her feet.’

‘That’s all I could reach,’ said Pascoe.

‘Bastard!’

‘So true,’ said Pascoe. ‘So very, very touching and so very, very true!’