Child's Play

Chapter 7

Gruff-of-sodding-Greendale soared through the air, hit the wall with a dusty thump, and crashed to the flagged floor.

John Huby, the climax of his tale of woe achieved, now returned the centre of the stage to a dumbfounded Pascoe with an angry glance.

Seymour picked up the recumbent animal and said with relief, ‘It’s stuffed.’

The couple of early regulars who were standing at the bar guffawed appreciatively.

Pascoe said, ‘I’ll have that drink now, if you don’t mind.’

‘Aye. Well, come through to the kitchen then, out of the way of flapping lugs.’

With a sour glare at the two customers to make sure they didn’t miss his point, John Huby led the way into the private quarters behind the bar. As Pascoe followed he glanced at Seymour and with a flicker of his eyes gave him the probably not unwelcome command to chat up the blonde who was polishing glasses against her straining, plunging blouse.

‘I see you’re extending, Mr Huby,’ said Pascoe. ‘Business must be good.’

‘You think so? Then you don’t know much about it, do you?’

‘No, not really, but I thought …’

‘I’m extending to make business good,’ said Huby. ‘If it were good, I’d not be bothered, would I?’

Pascoe tried to work out if this interesting economic theory were Keynesian or Friedmannite, gave up and said, ‘It must be costing a packet.’

‘What if it is? What’s that to you?’

‘Nothing, it’s nothing,’ Pascoe assured him.

‘As long as that’s understood,’ said the man. ‘Ruby!’

A larger, older version of the girl behind the bar appeared.

‘Fetch us a couple of beers, will you?’ said Huby.

‘Halves?’

The man looked at Pascoe. It was a moment of significant assessment, he guessed.

‘Pints,’ said Huby.

The woman disappeared.

‘Your wife?’ suggested Pascoe.

‘Aye.’

Ruby Huby. Pascoe savoured the name. Ruby Huby.

He said, ‘I’m sorry about your disappointment, Mr Huby. But, as I said to you before, what I’m here about is this man who was murdered, the man, we believe, who interrupted your aunt’s funeral and claimed to be your missing cousin.’

‘He didn’t do that,’ objected Huby. ‘Not at the funeral.’

‘I believe he said, Mama,' Pascoe pointed out.

‘Our Lexie and Jane, they’ve got a stack of old dolls that say Mama,’ retorted Huby scornfully.

‘The implication was clear enough, I should have thought,’ murmured Pascoe.

Huby glowered at him with the expression of a man who was regretting having said ‘Pints’.

Somewhere a telephone shrilled.

‘He certainly claimed to be Alexander Huby in the presence of Eden Thackeray,’ said Pascoe.

‘Him? What’s he know. Bugger all. He didn’t even know Alex when he were a lad.’

‘But you did, of course?’

‘Aye. Not well. He were off at that fancy bloody school most of time, but I knew him. I knew him well enough to be able to say if some bugger turning up after all these years were him or not.’

‘And what was your considered verdict?’ said Pascoe, certain of his answer.

Mrs Huby came in with two pints on a tray.

‘You’re wanted on the phone,’ she said to her husband.

‘Who is it? Tell ’em to ring back. I’m busy.’

‘It’s that woman,’ she said. ‘Says it’s important.’

Grumbling, Huby rose and left the room.

‘Cheers,’ said Pascoe sipping one of the pints. ‘Good ale, this. Is that your daughter behind the bar, Mrs Huby?’

‘Aye. That’s our Jane.’

‘Yes. I’ve met your other daughter, Lexie, isn’t it? She works at Mr Thackeray’s.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Bright girl,’ said Pascoe fulsomely. ‘You must be proud of her.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the woman, with sudden enthusiasm. ‘She were always clever, our Lexie. She could’ve stayed on at school and done her Highers, you know. Teachers wanted her to. But John said no. It’d be wasted on a girl.’

‘Do you think it would’ve been?’ asked Pascoe.

The woman sat down suddenly. She must’ve been good-looking in her prime and it wasn’t long past. Pascoe guessed she was a good ten years younger than her husband.

‘Times have changed,’ she said. ‘Especially in the town. I’m glad she got a job there. She’s a good help in the pub and everyone likes her. But it isn’t for Lexie, I could always tell that.’

Pascoe tried to tune into the little girl being useful and popular in the public bar and failed to get a picture.

He persisted, ‘But do you think she should’ve stayed on and done her A-levels, Mrs Huby?’

‘Not just A-levels,’ said the woman. ‘College. They reckoned she could’ve gone to college. Not just nights, like she does now. But proper college.’

‘She goes to night classes, does she? What in?’ wondered Pascoe.

‘At the Institute. Something to help in her job, I think,’ said the woman, whose pride clearly did not extend to the particular. ‘And she drives her own car, you know. And listens to that fancy music. I wish she could get herself a nice boy, though. But she doesn’t seem much interested.’

The door opened and Huby returned. His wife stood up, nodded pleasantly at Pascoe and left.

‘Nice woman,’ said Pascoe.

Huby regarded him with deep suspicion.

‘You’ve not come here to pass compliments at my wife,’ he said, making it sound like technical rape. ‘I thought you wanted to ask me about this Italian fellow.’

‘That’s right. But not much point really as you only glimpsed him the once,’ said Pascoe negligently.

‘Who said I only saw him the once?’ demanded Huby. ‘That were you, not me!’

‘You mean you saw him again?’ asked Pascoe, amazed at the admission rather than the fact.

‘Aye, did I. He came here last Friday.’

‘Friday night, you mean?’

‘No, I bloody well don’t! If you want to answer the questions as well as ask ’em, why don’t you sod off and talk to yourself!’

It occurred to Pascoe to wonder if some distant consanguinity existed between the Hubys and the Dalziels.

‘Tell me about it,’ he said politely.

‘It were Friday afternoon. I’d been in town. I got back here just on closing time and he were sitting out there in the bar, by the window. Not that I paid any heed at first. I didn’t really notice him till Ruby called time. Well, after a while most of the buggers moved off, but he sat fast. I were helping clear up and I went over to him and said, time to trot, sunshine, or some such thing. He didn’t budge, but just looked up at me and said, Hello, John.'

‘And did you recognize him?’ asked Pascoe.

‘I saw he were the fellow who’d caused the fuss at the funeral,’ said Huby.

‘I see. Go on.’

‘I said, what’s your game then? He said, I’m your cousin Alex. Do you not remember me? I said, I remember you made a farce out of my auntie’s funeral. He said, I didn’t mean it, but I had to pay my respects to Mama. I said mama be damned! I’m not standing here listening to this twaddle! I said, if you’re my cousin, then I’m Lord Lucan, and I told him if he wanted to bother old Thackeray or hang around Troy House, that were his business. Happen he’d not be out of place there, I said, as Keech’d already got one third-rate actor staying with her. But if I caught him hanging round the Old Mill again, I’d give him a good kicking. He didn’t like the sound of that much, so he up and left.’

‘You know how to make your guests feel welcome, Mr Huby,’ murmured Pascoe.

To his surprise the man looked rather shamefaced.

‘Well, I did go over the top a bit, I suppose, but me rag had been up ever since I heard about him calling on old Thackeray …’

‘And how did you hear that?’ asked Pascoe, annoyed with himself for not having picked up the reference first time.

‘I’d been in town that day seeing Goodenough, the animals fellow. He told me.’

‘Goodenough?’ Pascoe recalled Dalziel’s mention of the PAWS man. ‘What were you talking to him about, may I ask?’

‘You can ask,’ rasped Huby. ‘But it’ll still be none of your sodding business!’

Suddenly Pascoe had had enough of Yorkshire mœurs.

‘Listen, Huby,’ he rasped. ‘You’d best get it into your head that I’m not one of your bloody customers to be pushed around. This is a murder inquiry and if I don’t get answers here, I’ll get ’em down town at the station. Right?’

‘Keep your hair on,’ said the publican. ‘If you must know, we were talking about the will. What else? This Goodenough fellow don’t want to wait till next bloody century for his money, so he’s going to court. Only, he wants to be sure me and old Windypants aren’t going to make a fuss …’

‘Windypants?’

‘Aunt Gwen’s cousin on the Lomas side. Windibanks is her name from that crooked husband of hers, but she were Stephanie Lomas when she were a lass.’

Pascoe noted but resisted the tempting sidetrack of ‘crooked husband’ and pressed straight on.

‘So Goodenough was buying you off?’ he said. ‘I hope you didn’t come cheap.’

‘Cheap enough unless he wins the case,’ grunted Huby. ‘Then we get a bit more. But I’ll believe that when it happens.’

‘A percentage is it? I see. Then you’d not be all that happy to see someone turning up and claiming he was your dead cousin so he could sweep the pool?’

‘Just hold your horses!’ said Huby. ‘All right, I weren’t best pleased when I saw this bugger sitting in my pub. And mebbe I were a bit sharper than I should’ve been. But if any bugger goes around saying I’d kill someone for a bit of brass, I’ll knock his bloody head off!’

This seemed a curious way for a man to deny his potential for violence, and it was followed up by a piece of reasoned argument perhaps even more curious for such a source.

‘Any road,’ said Huby, ‘if he were a fraud, the law’d never give him the money, and if he were genuine, it were his to have anyway.’

‘"If he were genuine"?’ said Pascoe. ‘I thought you were absolutely certain he was an impostor?’

‘Nay, that was you again, answering your own questions,’ said Huby. ‘I thought that at first, fair enough. And second time we met, I weren’t in the mood to look favourably at him. But thinking about it later, I got to wondering if mebbe I’d been too hasty. Mebbe I should’ve given him a hearing at least. He went meek as a lamb when I told him to get out, and that was just like Alexander. Never a lad to stand up to rough handling.’

Pascoe digested this.

‘You’re talking about the boy you remember,’ he said. ‘But that boy became an officer, he did commando training. If Pontelli was by some remote chance your cousin, he’d been shot up pretty badly, and he’d made a life for himself in a strange country and cut himself off from everything familiar and comfortable back here. That sounds pretty tough to me.’

‘Mebbe,’ said Huby. ‘Except mebbe it were easier to stay away than come home. Mebbe he found himself out of the war and didn’t fancy getting back into it. What was to come back to in Greendale, any road? They pushed him round, his mam and dad, and it didn’t help that they pushed in opposite directions. No, happen he got a bang on the head, and when he started recalling his happy childhood days, he thought he’d be better off staying put where he was.’

Pascoe was taken aback by this analysis. Not that he doubted Huby’s intelligence, but to date his impression had been that the man only regarded other people as potential obstacles to be walked through.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t take this sympathetic view while you had the chance,’ said Pascoe. ‘You might have been able to ask some useful questions.’

‘Aye, you’re right,’ said Huby. ‘But I weren’t to know silly bugger were about to get himself killed, were I?’

Pascoe glanced at his watch and groaned inwardly. Another late return to the steadily hardening bosom of his family.

‘Can I use your phone?’ he asked.

‘All we’ve got’s the pay-phone near the front door,’ said Huby. ‘Use it as much as you like, long as you keep feeding it money.’

‘Thanks,’ said Pascoe, rising.

As he reached the door, Huby said, ‘Hang on. There were one thing. I recall some mention of a birthmark or summat young Alex had. On his bum, so it would only be referred to all delicate like, the Lomases being so genteel.’

‘A birthmark. On his bum, you say!’ said Pascoe, keeping his face blank.

‘Aye. Not that I ever saw it myself, we weren’t that close. Perhaps me dad mentioned it, I don’t know. A sort of mole, or something. Shaped like a leaf. Aye, he’d still have that there, wouldn’t he, Mr Inspector?’

Business looked fairly good as Pascoe made his way through the now-crowded bar. It was a fine warm evening, of course, good drinking weather.

Seymour was leaning on the bar, engaged in what seemed like a very humorous conversation with Jane Huby. He caught Pascoe’s eye and Pascoe signalled two minutes as he passed. The phone was on the wall quite near the entrance and as he reached it, the door opened to admit the slight figure of Lexie Huby.

She stopped short when she saw him.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hello. There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

‘What am I doing here, you mean?’ he laughed. ‘No. Just routine, as we say. I’m just going to ring my wife to tell her I’m late, which is what she knows already.’

This bit of domestic tittle-tattle seemed to reassure the girl and she managed a smile.

‘Just back from work?’ he asked. ‘They must put you through it at Thackeray’s!’

‘No. I had to go to the library to pick up some books I’d ordered.’

He’d noticed she was carrying a battered old briefcase which looked packed to bursting point. Pascoe had a picture of this quiet little girl curling up in her room with a stack of highly coloured extremely romantic historical novels, bodice-rippers even, shutting out the noise and bustle and masculine heartiness of the pub below. But her mother said she was useful and popular! Well, what were mothers for if not to be partial on their children’s behalf?

He smiled and said, ‘Well, nice to see you again,’ and picked up the phone. The door opened again to admit a large rubicund man who looked like a children’s book illustration of a farmer, an impression confirmed by a pair of well-manured Wellingtons.

‘Ee, Lexie, luv, is that you?’ he said with evident delight. ‘I hoped we might be in luck tonight.’

‘I’m just back from work, Mr Earnshaw,’ said the girl. ‘I’ve not had me tea yet and I’ll be busy later on.’

‘Date, is it?’ said the farmer.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve found yourself a young man at last,’ said Earnshaw with that hearty insensitivity which is the hallmark of the northern rustic. ‘But surely you could spare us a couple of minutes? I’ll tell that miserable old dad of thine I’m off to the Crown else!’

The girl, who had been standing with her hand on the handle of the door marked Private which presumably led directly into the Huby’s living quarters, glanced at Pascoe who had been eavesdropping unashamedly. He grinned and shrugged slightly in what was intended as a gesture of young person’s solidarity but which quite clearly came across as old person’s patronization.

‘All right,’ the girl said, dropping her briefcase with a dusty thud. ‘A couple of minutes won’t harm.’

Earnshaw ushered her into the bar and Pascoe, irritated once more at the ageing process the girl seemed to provoke in him, completed his dialling.

As expected, Ellie was not pleased. Her displeasure prompted him to lie when she asked where he was ringing from. A kiosk in the middle of nowhere seemed less provocative than a pub. Unfortunately just then the bar room door opened letting out the sound of animated chatter, clinking glasses and, most damning of all, the merry tumult of an old piano on which Happy Days Are Here Again was being played with great vigour.

‘And that’s a passing hurdy-gurdy man, I suppose?’ said Ellie icily. ‘How long do you expect to be?’

He said, ‘I’ve got to get back to town and collect my car. Oh, and I really ought to look in and say hello to Wieldy. He’s off sick. I won’t stay long, especially if he looks infectious.’

He would have postponed the visit altogether, except that he remembered guiltily his efforts to choke Wield off on Saturday when he’d been so keen for a private chat. The opportunity to talk hadn’t arisen since and he felt somehow he’d let the man down.

‘Be back by eight, or you’ll find your dinner coming to meet you,’ ordered Ellie. ‘Ciao!’

Pascoe opened the bar door to summon Seymour but the redhead was not inclined to have his eye caught. Interestingly, it wasn’t the busty blonde who was holding his attention but the piano-player in the corner who also made a verbal summons impossible. Irritated, Pascoe went across the room and grasped Seymour’s elbow.

‘Sorry, sir. Didn’t see you were ready. Hey, but she can really swing that old Joanna, can’t she? You’d not think she’d have the strength to hit the keys like she does.’

Pascoe looked to see who the object of this encomium was. There on the piano stool, doll-like in stature but electric with pent-up energy in every curve of her slight body, Lexie Huby was launching herself into the grand climax of what had turned into something like symphonic variations on Happy Days Are Here Again. With a series of accelerating arpeggios she brought these musical pyrotechnics to an end and the red-faced farmer led the rest of the listeners in enthusiastic applause.

‘More, more!’ he cried as the girl, slightly flushed with either exertion or pleasure, made to rise from the stool.

She shook her head, caught Pascoe’s eye, hesitated, and sat down again. Her fingers moved, the music started again; Pascoe recognized the tune instantly. It was The Bold Gendarmes.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Seymour.

As he opened the front door of the pub, he noticed the girl’s case still lying by the Private door. Ignoring Seymour’s curious gaze, he stooped and opened it.

He would have been disappointed now to find it full of bodice-rippers, but he whistled in surprise when he found himself looking at Milton’s God by William Empson, The King’s War by C.V. Wedgwood and The English Legal System by R.J. Walker.

‘Anything up?’ asked Seymour.

‘No,’ said Pascoe, refastening the case. ‘Just a simple lesson in not judging the goods by the packaging, my boy. You’d do well to remember it.’

‘You mean the little lass playing the piano?’ said Seymour astutely. ‘I see what you mean, sir. On the other hand, that was her sister I was talking to behind the bar, and did you see the packaging there!’

‘You lecherous young sod,’ said Pascoe. ‘And you almost an engaged man! Mind you, it could all be done with fibre glass and Bostik, couldn’t it?’

‘Mebbe. But it’d be fun finding out,’ said Seymour dreamily. ‘It’d be fun finding out.’