Deadheads

9

Penny Highsmith was a good drinker but she was no match for Dalziel in whom ancestry, employment and inclination had combined to form a true professional, who never acknowledged a master and rarely a peer. Prolonged bouts of reunion drinking had taken a toll, however, and Dalziel was getting most of his sleep by cat-napping blatantly through the conference sessions. He had borne a distant headache with him, like a thunderstorm in the next valley, to his rendezvous with Penny. But a couple of pints of watery London beer at the simple steak house she suggested they visited had washed his mental heavens clear and he had kept the carafes of red wine coming at a rate which had the Maltese waiters exchanging suggestive grimaces.

They were wrong, of course. Dalziel did not rate wine as a drink in the drinker's sense of the word, and his purpose was simply hospitable rather than amatory or even interrogative. Also he was enjoying himself, just sitting here, eating the biggest steak they had been able to produce and talking to a lively, intelligent and attractive woman.

He said as much to Penny, who had by this time wisely asked for a bottle of mineral water to cut the wine. ‘I’m glad you're having a good time, Andy,' she said. 'You know, after you left the other night, I got to thinking how strange it was that you should just be happening to stroll by my place as I came home. And I began to wonder if there might be more in it than mere coincidence.'

'Fate, you mean?' said Dalziel. 'Written in the stars? That sort of stuff?'

'Not exactly,' said Penny. 'More like, ambush. Written in the CID notebook.That sort of stuff. But now I see how much you're enjoying yourself, I think, no, he couldn't be putting this on. Could you?'

'Don't be daft,' said Dalziel. 'This is the best time I've had since they banned hanging.'

'I'm pleased,' she said. 'Mind you, I did check on you when I spoke to Patrick yesterday.'

She was watching him carefully over her wineglass.

'Yesterday? Rang him, did you?' said Dalziel, somewhat taken aback.

'No. He dropped in. Just here on a quick trip. Like you. Made his duty call.'

'Unlike me,' said Dalziel gallantly. 'No duty, just pleasure.'

'Well, I half believe you,' said Penny. 'But only because Patrick says he's never heard of you.'

'You asked him?'

'Oh, just in passing. Checking through old acquaintance. You must be slipping, Andy. There was a time when you made enough noise to be heard all the way to the Scottish border.'

'I've quietened down,' said Dalziel. 'Stay long, did he?'

'Not long. He never does. We've never been terribly close.'

'Funny that, with you bringing him up all by yourself. Did you ever think of marrying his dad? Or was he married already?'

'None of your damned business,' said Penny.

'Sorry,' said Dalziel, emptying the carafe into her glass.

Another was delivered almost before he could nod his huge grizzled head at the waiter. 'But it can't have been any joke bringing up a lad by yourself. The money side must have been hard enough. And in them days, they didn't have one-parent families, they had tarts and bastards.'

She gave out her splendid laugh.

'You really know how to talk to a girl, Andy! But it wasn't so bad. There were some nasty sods around, there still are for that matter, but most people weren't much bothered, particularly down here. As for money, I got by with a little help from my friends.'

'Including Aunt Flo?' prompted Dalziel.

'Aunt Flo and Uncle Eddie were very generous,' she said tightly.

'Yes, the old girl left you nice and comfortable,' agreed Dalziel. 'Were you surprised when you heard the will?'

He watched her closely as she replied. Pascoe had reported on his visit to Masson and Dalziel had worked out some conclusions of his own, but whether they would prove helpful or not remained to be seen.

'There wasn't a will,' Penny replied, sipping her wine. 'I inherited because I was the only living relative.'

'And Patrick.'

'Oh yes. And Patrick.'

'He seems to have taken a real shine to Rosemont. Was that just since you started living there after your aunt's death?' asked Dalziel.

She shook her head. Her rich dark curls danced, casting back sparks from the imitation coach-lamps which lit the restaurant.

'No. Patrick always loved Rosemont. We used to visit on odd occasions right from the time he was a baby. I'd been going much longer, of course, with my mother while she was alive. It amused me sometimes to think that Aunt Flo, after doing her duty by her errant sister, found herself having to do the same duty for her errant niece!'

She laughed, but without much humour this time.

'At least she did it,' proclaimed Dalziel.

'With a bit of arm-twisting,' said Penny grimly.

'From your uncle, you mean? What was he like?'

Her expression softened.

'Oh, Uncle Eddie was a lovely man. Kind and thoughtful and gentle. Flo drove him, of course. It must have been the attraction of opposites in the first place, and once she got him, she just kept on driving him. He was first class at his job, I believe, and a shrewd investor, but it was her who kept him at it hard enough to make the money that paid for Rosemont and kept her in luxury. It was marvellous really that he beat her in the end. I mean, she must have thought Rosemont was her own personal status symbol. A small country house to match her snobbish aspirations. But he turned it into a refuge for himself. He loved the house, and even more he loved the gardens, especially the roses.'

'Like Patrick, then?'

'Oh yes,' she said reflectively. 'Very like Patrick. He took to Rosemont in a big way, right from the beginning, even though we only used to get there for odd weekends and Aunt Flo would be telling him to keep quiet and watch his manners all the time. Me, I'm not one for putting down roots. I'm a city girl, too. Always will be. I don't wander as much as I used to nowadays, but I still love it here in London even though it belongs to the Arabs now. This is where the life is. Stay too long with the vegetables and you vegetate. But Patrick was different. He never complained, mind you. But two days at Rosemont obviously meant more to him than two months anywhere else. I suppose it was the only sort of permanent thing he ever came across. Me, I hate permanency, but I'm beginning to feel as if I might be permanently pissed. Listen, can we have some coffee before I fall off my chair?'

Dalziel turned his head towards the waiter who rushed forward with another carafe, a reasonable assumption on past performance and as they were only half way through their main course.

'Coffee,' said Dalziel. 'He must have been upset when your uncle died.'

'He was, I guess, though he kept it all inside, as usual. He loved Eddie, I think, more than me in many ways. I tried to explain to him that I didn't think we'd be going to Rosemont so often now. What I really meant was ever. But that didn't seem to bother him. Not, you understand me, because he wasn't bothered by not going back, but more as if he thought I was being stupid for suggesting we wouldn't. As it turned out, he was right. Aunt Flo had a heart attack while she was in London. I was with her. She'd just brought me tea in Harrods. It was a sort of annual treat! I visited her in hospital, helped her around as she recovered, and then she asked us to go up to Rosemont with her till she had thoroughly convalesced. I suppose she knew she was never going to be fully recovered, that's why she suggested I stayed on permanently. But I told you all this the other night, didn't I! Hey, how come we're talking about all this again?'

'Just passing the time. So Aunt Flo dropped dead in the rose-bushes. And fortunately for you, she'd just torn up her old will.'

He hadn't meant it to come out quite so cynically. Or, if he had, he had overestimated the degree of alcoholic intimacy between the two of them. The contented, wine-languorous expression slipped from her face.

'And what the hell does that mean?' she demanded harshly.

'Nothing. Just remarking how lucky things fell out,' said Dalziel. 'They're taking their time with this coffee.'

'Bugger the coffee,' she said dangerously. 'What are you trying to say, Andy Dalziel? That I got rid of Flo's will when I realized she was dead? Is that it?'

Her voice was raised sufficiently for some other diners to glance curiously towards their table. Dalziel wasn't bothered. In Yorkshire it was generally reckoned there was more chance of getting Dalziel pregnant than getting him embarrassed.

He did, however, regret that this discordant note had been sounded in an evening he was genuinely enjoying. But as what Penny was accusing him of meaning was precisely what he did mean, he saw no reason to evade the issue.

'Well, didn't you?' he said. 'No one would blame you if you did.'

Except perhaps the governing body of the RSPCA, not to mention the reverend gents directing the Church Missionary Society. But their hypothetical cavils were as the bleats of a sheep being sheared to Dalziel's mental ear.

His generous reassurance did not produce the desired calming effect.

'You fat bastard,' she said. 'You haven't changed, have you? They all said you were a nasty bit of work then, and you still are now. I'll leave you to finish this muck. Next time you take a lady out, probably in another fifty years, try to buy her a decent bottle of wine instead of five gallons of this sludge, will you? Give my regards to Yorkshire.'

She rose as she spoke, almost knocking her chair over, turned and strode towards the door. She was fairly steady, Dalziel noted approvingly. And he admired her steadiness too in sticking to her story. In ninety per cent of cases, whatever threats, promises or inducements had been offered, the criminal who coughed was a fool.

Not that he could think of Penny Highsmith as a criminal, he thought, as her fetchingly rounded rear elevation vanished through the door.

The waiter arrived with the coffee and whisky.

'Bill,' said Dalziel tersely.

He downed the Scotch in one, studied the bill which the prescient waiter had quickly prepared as the quarrel developed, approved it, paid it and stood up.

Plucking Penny's handbag from the back of the chair where she'd hung it on arrival, he made for the door. The pavement was empty, but he stood with the bag held in the air which a passing taxi took to be a signal.

As it stopped, Penny emerged from a nearby shop doorway.

Dalziel got into the taxi, leaving the door open. After a moment, the woman joined him. He gave her address.

'Can I have my bag, please?' she said.

He handed it over and she opened it and began to look through her purse.

'It's all right. I paid out of my own pocket,' he said.

'Just checking,' she said icily.

'Look,' he said. 'I'm sorry. You got the wrong end of the stick.'

'In your case, I imagine both ends are dirty.'

They finished the journey in silence. At the door of the block of flats, Penny turned her key in the lock and tried to slip inside alone, but Dalziel's shoulder was too quick.

'Where the hell do you think you're going?' she demanded.

'Listen,' he said, his great slab of a face set with earnestness, as if a second-rate Renaissance sculptor, stuck with an angry Ajax, had smoothed down its features a bit in an effort to sell it as a St Peter in prayer. 'I just wanted to say, for me it's been a grand night, one of the best I've had in a long while. Grand. I mean that. Sincerely. Thank you.'

She regarded him with astonishment modulating to simple puzzlement.

'What are you after?' she asked. 'I mean, really?'

'Friendship,' said Dalziel promptly. 'Look, hadn't I better step inside and just check for muggers? These cockneys are all at it.'

She shook her head and laughed. He took this as an invitation, put on an alert, constabulary expression and stepped forward.

'Seems all right here,' he said. 'I'll just check the other rooms.'

With the aggressive confidence of one who has no expectation whatsoever of trouble, he opened the bedroom door. The man standing just inside struck him firmly and accurately on the nose, crashing him back against the wall. Penny screamed as he shoulder-charged her to the ground, then his footsteps were receding down the stairs.

'Jesus Christ!' groaned Dalziel, rubbing his watering eyes. They cleared enough for him to see Penelope who was struggling to her knees. The fall had dislodged her crowning glory of lustrous black curls and beneath the wig appeared a crop of tightly crushed locks, grey almost to whiteness.

'Are you all right,' asked Dalziel.

'No better for having you here,' she answered. 'God, your nose is a mess!'

He helped her up and together they went round the flat. The intruder proved to have been a neat burglar if burglar he was. He had clearly made an attempt to leave things as he found them and Penny had to admit that she might well have never noticed he'd been there.

'What the hell was he after?' she asked, having ascertained there was nothing missing.

'God knows,' said Dalziel from the bathroom where he was bathing his nose.

'What do you think I should do?' asked Penny. 'Call the police?'

'I am the police, remember?' said Dalziel, himself remembering he had sent a message saying he had a bilious attack to excuse his absence from the closing dinner. 'First thing I'd do is get your lock changed. That thing wouldn't stop a backward parrot.'

'You're bloody cool, I must say,' she protested. 'I've been burgled, and is this the best you can do?'

'You've seen nowt yet,' said Dalziel, removing his jacket and tie and sitting down on a sofa.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she asked.

He looked at her in surprise.

'You don't think I'd let you stop here by yourself tonight?' he said in a pained voice.

For a second she thought of getting angry again. Then with a sigh she removed her black wig which she had quickly rearranged and ran her fingers through her whitening hair. She aged fifteen years in a second.

'My top teeth come out too,' she said.

'Grand,' he said. 'I was getting worried I might be too old for you. Me, apart from my nose, I've got nowt that's detachable, I'm afraid.'

Now she smiled knowingly.

'We'll have to see about that,' she said.

They had Scotch, then they went to bed, and then they sat up in bed and had some more Scotch.

'Wasn't there some story, one of those old myths, where some god used to come to earth in various forms to have a bit of fun with the girls?' said Penny.

'Seems a sensible sort of thing to do,' observed Dalziel.

'Once he came as a swan, and once he came as a shower of rain, then another time he came as a bull.'

'How'd he manage it as a shower of rain?'

'I don't know. But I've a damn good idea how he managed it as a bull!'

Dalziel smirked modestly as though at a royal accolade.

'You should have had me that time fifteen years back,' he said. 'I've slowed down a lot.'

'Haven't we all?'

'Not you,' he said. 'Must be living down here that's done it. It's all too fast for me.'

'Like Yorkshire was too slow for me,' she said. 'I really missed London, I admit it. And the funny thing was, it didn't get any better as time went by. I paid visits, mind you. I mean, it's only a couple of hours or so on the train. But it wasn't the same. I had to get back.'

'Is that why you decided to sell up?'

'That's right.'

'How did Patrick react?'

'Patrick? He didn't say much. He was never one for big dramatic scenes. But I could see he wasn't too happy. But it was my life too, and there's only one life apiece, isn't there? He'd just finished his "O" levels, it was a good time to move. And another couple of years and he'd be taking off by himself anyway. So I went ahead with the sale.'

'And Patrick!'

'He went ahead with his life as if there wasn't any question of leaving,' said Penny. 'God, that boy! He could be infuriating, he'd always been like this; anything happening or about to happen that he didn't care for, he just ignored it. I remember he came home about that time and told me he'd been discussing things with his teachers and he was going to take up accountancy. Just like that. I said he could do that just as easily in London as Yorkshire, but he didn't seem to hear me. I couldn't even see why he wanted to do accountancy. I mean, he was all right at maths, but not great. Whereas for biology, and in particular anything to do with plants, he always got top marks. He even won prizes. But no, it had to be accountancy.'

'Perhaps it was because he admired his great-uncle so much,' said Dalziel.

'I don't remember telling you Uncle Eddie was an accountant,' said Penny, frowning.

'I bet you don't remember half of what's been said since we got under these sheets,' laughed Dalziel. 'What stopped you from selling up in the end?'

'I recall telling you that,' said Penny. 'You're not only a nosey sod, you're an absent-minded one too.'

'Oh aye. The poor bugger died. Accident, was it?' said Dalziel, whose last telephone conversation with Pascoe had given him full details of the death.

'In a way. He got poisoned, something he ate,' said Penny. 'Some insecticide hadn't got washed off, or something.'

'And didn't you get anyone else interested in buying?' asked Dalziel.

'No. I sort of lost heart, I suppose,' she said. 'I took it off the market. It struck me that perhaps I really ought to consider Patrick's feelings a bit more. I mean, the house was just a white elephant to me, but clearly not to him.'

She spoke almost defiantly.

'So what did you do!' asked Dalziel, though he knew full well.

'I had a talk with him. I told him that we'd stay on at Rosemont for the time being, but as soon as he reached his majority, I was off back to London and he could make his own mind up whether he wanted, or indeed could afford, Rosemont. I was thinking of twenty-one when I said it, but the age of majority was lowered not long after to eighteen, and Patrick seemed determined that should be the decision date. It came. He wanted to stay on by himself, he said. I said, If that's what you want.'

Dalziel whistled and said, 'You must've thought a lot, or very little, of the lad to let him get stuck with a bloody great house like that when he was still only eighteen and not properly earning!'

'Oh yes, I know it seems odd,' said Penny. 'But Patrick. . well, you've got to meet him to know what I mean. When he wants something, he just sits quietly there till he gets it. He always did, from a baby. Things weren't quite as bad as they seem, mind. Aunt Flo had left me pretty well heeled. After I'd had Rosemont valued and added that to all the other assets, then divided by two, Patrick got a few thousand on top of the house and I got enough to buy the lease on this place and keep me comfortable, at least until they invented inflation. I'll probably start spending capital in the end. I made it quite clear to Patrick that this deal ended his expectations from me. In fact, whatever little there's left when I go will go to my grandchildren when they're twenty-one. But I can't see it being very much!'

'Well, you can't take it with you,' said Dalziel. 'You said he changed his name, your lad.'

'No I didn't!' said Penny, sitting upright. 'What the hell is this, Andy Dalziel?'

'What's what?' asked Dalziel, looking puzzled. 'You said before that your lad's name was Aldermann now. I can hear you saying it.'

He spoke with such authority that the woman's doubts were momentarily assuaged, but he guessed that he had gone as far as he dared without finally convincing her that his motives for the evening were interrogative rather than romantic.

Besides the sight of those still splendidly firm breasts pendant above his reclining head was enough to blunt even the sharp spur of constabulary duty.

He reached up and drew her down towards him.

'This Greek god fellow,' he said. 'What did he try his hand at after the bull?'