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Chapter 17

'God bless… God damn!'

Perhaps fortunately for Andrew Dalziel, the Deputy Chief Constable was neither a vindictive nor a naturally suspicious man. There was no denying that the Head of CID had long been a thorn in his side, if one so broad and solid could be thus described. The Superintendent had made small effort in the past to conceal his contempt for the DCC's intellect, outlook and abilities. The DCC found this a considerable but bearable irritation. He knew his own worth and he had a pretty fair idea of Dalziel's too. It was this ability to separate the Superintendent's manners from his morals that had caused him to pitch the investigation in such a low key. He found it hard to believe that Dalziel, even in panic, would attempt to duck responsibility for any action of his own. So he had set George Headingley to take a close but discreet look at things.

But now there were faint whiffs of something more corrupt than an accident cover-up coming his way. Typically, the DCC's method was to proceed with even greater discretion. Down in the Met they may have lived so long in an atmosphere of suspected corruption that it was probably suspicious for a senior police officer not to be suspected! But up here in the clearer, fresher air of Yorkshire, where the blunt honest burghers knew for certain that there was no smoke without fire, it was still possible for a man's career to be indelibly darkened by suspicion. So on Monday morning at ten o'clock he found occasion to telephone the regional office of HM Customs and Excise on a question of some necessary statistics for the Chief Constable's annual report, and when this had been sorted out to everyone's satisfaction, he made casual inquiry into the state of the investigation into alleged irregularities in the conduct of A. Charlesworth, Turf Accountant, Ltd.

The investigation had been conducted, he was told.

There would be no proceedings.

Did this mean that there had been no irregularities?

'It means,' said his informant, not without a touch of acidity, 'that there has been no evidence. Mr Charlesworth's records are so clean you'd think they'd been done only yesterday.'

This sounded like good news to the DCC till he incautiously requested complete assurance.

'You mean that Mr Charlesworth has committed no crime.'

There was a pause before the acid voice said carefully, 'I mean that Mr Charlesworth is either the single most conscientious bookmaker we have ever dealt with or that he knew we were coming.'

It emerged that the investigation had been timed to coincide with the final meet of the flat racing season, at Doncaster the weekend before last. Charlesworth's was very much a Yorkshire firm with betting shops all over the county and a large presence at all northern race meetings, so Charlesworth himself would be down at Doncaster on this day and his head office ought to have been particularly vulnerable. Instead they found things here and in all the shops raided in perfect order. Even those natural daily errors caused by human fallibility under pressure were absent. And the painstaking examination, point by decimal point, of his records which had just been concluded the previous week had produced nothing further.

'And when did Mr Charlesworth get the good news?' asked the DCC.

'Oh, he'll just get his records returned some time this week. When we don't slap him in irons, he'll know he's all right.'

'And us: have we been officially informed?'

'I don't think we'd bother unless there were some irregularities,' said the voice.

At least it wasn't a celebration dinner! thought the DCC with relief.

'Though we liaise very closely, of course,' resumed the voice as if sensing a criticism. 'CID knows what we're up to. Your Mr Dalziel insists on that.'

The DCC's heart slipped a notch.

'So we'd probably know sort of casually that the Charlesworth books were in order?'

'Oh certainly. Mr Dalziel was very interested in the whole business from the start. In fact, now I think of it, when we were talking last week on another matter, this investigation came up and he was most sympathetic when he learned that we'd been wasting our time.'

The voice was quite triumphant as if saying There! you knew all the time!

The DCC's heart was beginning to pick up speed in its descent.

He said, 'Of course. Mr Dalziel would have been talking with you about your airport check on Saturday morning.'

'That's right. We've got full powers, of course, but we like to make it a joint venture when it's something like this. So I'm afraid we wasted your time as well as ours on this occasion.'

The apology sounded rather like a compliment, but the DCC wasn't concerned with nuances.

He said, 'This was a routine check, was it?'

'No,' said the voice, hardly bothering to conceal its irritation now. 'It wasn't routine, as I'm sure Mr Dalziel's files will tell you. We are not so foolish as to risk irritating William Pledger just for the sake of routine, and very irritated he has been! There'd been a tip-off that the Van Bellen plane was bringing in a load of heroin.'

'Heroin?' said the DCC faintly.

'Yes,' said the voice. 'But it was clean as a whistle. Clean as a whistle.'

The tone was one of savage disappointment, inviting deep condolence, but the DCC's only response was a subdued farewell as he quietly replaced the phone and sat contemplating the new deeps into which his heart was plummeting.

That Dalziel should have been dining with Charlesworth, whose books had proved clean, and Major Kassell, whose employer's aeroplane had proved clean, was surely not so outrageous a coincidence?

He picked up his phone and dialled Dalziel's number. He whistled quietly to himself as it rang for the usual preliminary minute. But still no one replied. Suddenly he felt the beginnings of anger. Slowly its mists rose, obscuring the idea of coincidence, turning it into a shape, vague and absurd and not to be taken seriously. The phone kept on ringing. Why didn't he answer? He sat back in his chair, listening to the tinny double-noted summons and, quite forgetting that only twenty-four hours before he had been urging Dalziel to make himself scarce, he demanded angrily of the unresponsive air, 'Where, where, where has the bloody man got to?'

But, had the air miraculously responded, it would not have helped the DCC's temper one bit.

'Mr Dalziel, Andy, glad to see you. Barney said you might be turning up and I said, just the job, another English speaker, great. How's your Frog? Never mind. Mostly they speak better English than me, only they don’t think in English, that's where it shows. I must've met a million foreigners, it's my work, I get on well with 'em, that's my work too, but I've never met one I could make a real pal of, know what I mean? And that's because they don't think in English, leastways that's what I put it down to.'

Sir William Pledger was a surprise even for one of Harold Wilson's knights. Short, stout, round and red-faced with huge thick-lensed glasses that magnified his slightly pop eyes, bald except for a few long, ginger hairs which trailed over and indeed out of his jug-ears, he talked in a high-pitched rush, slowed only by his long native Oxfordshire vowel sounds and accompanied by a wild semaphore of both his upper and nether limbs, none of which fortunately was long enough to imperil more than his immediate neighbourhood.

If Dalziel, who had been met at Haycroft Grange by Barney Kassell and driven out in a Range Rover to join the party for lunch, had been self-conscious about his balding corduroy trousers and scene-of-the-crime gum-boots, he might have been put at ease by Sir William's overlarge camouflage jacket and paint-stained grey flannels tucked into a pair of old wellies, which contrasted strangely with the elegant plus-foured tweediness of everyone else.

As it was, Dalziel observed and approved the difference. The top man was the one who didn't need to give a fuck about the niceties.

An early lunch was being taken among the ruins of a building too tumbledown to be identifiable but with sections of irregular stone wall high enough to break the keen north wind. The views were spectacular, the cold collation excellent. Dalziel was introduced vaguely and generally to the six or seven shooters present, most of whom seemed to be foreign.

There was wine to be drunk, but Dalziel gratefully accepted the alternative of coffee with a shot of Scotch.

'Keeps the cold out,' said Sir William. 'Let that lot swill back the vino, mother's milk to most of them, so that's all right, Barney keeps it in bounds, don't you, Barney?'

'That's right,' said Kassell. 'I've developed an eye for that if nothing else. Too much booze and shotguns don't mix. The biggest proportion of accidents happen during the after-lunch drives.'

Kassell looked very much at home in this environment, his face healthily flushed by the boisterous wind which winnowed his hair as though to show how thick it still was. His clothing, though it lacked the evident newness of the guests', gave away nothing in terms of cut and fit.

'Do you get a lot of accidents, then?' asked Dalziel, chewing voraciously at a cold leg of something.

'Not here we don't,' said Kassell. 'But on some of the estates where they let out shooting to syndicates, you can get too many clowns and not enough ringmasters. Result is, often they shoot more dogs than birds.'

'This your first time, Andy?' said Pledger.

'That's right. I said to Barney I fancied giving it a go and he said I should try half a day to see how I liked it. It's good of you to let me come.'

'Always happy to have the law along,' said Pledger. 'Old Tommy Winter's a fair shot, as you probably know. I bet he'd rather be here than burning up on some Caribbean beach. And we usually have one or two of the boys in blue at the other end of the stick too.'

'Sorry?' said Dalziel.

'The beaters,' explained Kassell. 'Of course we can get any amount of casual labour these days, but we like to stick with what we know and can rely on. We get a lot of bobbies using their day off to earn a bit extra. I suppose it's against regulations, is it?'

He smiled faintly as he asked the question.

Dalziel said, 'If it doesn't bother Old Tommy, it don't bother me.'

'Old Tommy' was of course the Chief Constable, who was as unlikely to be addressed to his face in this fashion by Dalziel as he was to address Dalziel as 'Young Andy'.

'Well, I'd better make with the Euro-talk,' said Pledger cheerfully. 'Good shooting, Andy. Barney will keep an eye on you, I've no doubt. Shall we see you at dinner tonight?'

'I don't think so, Sir William,' said Dalziel. 'I've just come as I am.'

'Pity,' said Pledger. 'Look, if you take to it, you really ought to come again soon, but kitted out for a meal too. I mean, that's the fun of it, isn't it? Not standing around here with the wind whistling among the family jewels, but yakking about it later with your belly full and a noggin in your hand. Barney, you're the only sod who knows what's what. When would be best?'

'Next Friday would suit very well. We're usually a gun or two short on the first afternoon. This lot go back tomorrow. Next bunch arrives on Friday morning, and there's always at least one of the Euros who just wants to lie around after his flight.'

'Splendid,' said Pledger. 'Isn't de Witt coming? He's a Dutch judge, Andy, fascinated by crime. He'd love to meet an English bobby, I know. So that's fixed. Good. Always supposing you don't blow someone's head off this afternoon!'

'Thank you very much,' said Dalziel.

Pledger moved away and Kassell said with the same faint smile as before, 'You've made a hit.'

'You think so? I wouldn't know. Not much to hit by the looks of it,' said Dalziel with the amiable condescension of the large.

'Half of his success derives from no one being able to believe in him, till it's too late,' said Kassell. 'He could gobble most of this lot up for afternoon tea.'

'And judges? Does he gobble up judges too?'

'The Dutchman, you mean? Rest easy. It's just a question of a patent that's being sorted out in a civil court, that's all. Let's take a stroll, shall we? I have to talk to the beaters.'

They set off together out of the ruins. It was a fine landscape of lightly wooded moorlands rolling like the sea under the boisterous wind which trailed lines of white clouds across a huge sky.

'How was it at the airport?' asked Dalziel.

'All right,' said Kassell. 'How's your bit of bother?'

'Oh, it'll be all right,' said Dalziel. 'Especially now I've got respectable military gents speaking up for me. Thanks for telling Headingley you saw me and Arnie driving off, by the way.'

'I'd hate to see your career messed up unnecessarily,' said Kassell sincerely. 'Now, next Friday, how will it be?'

'You mean, my visit to the Grange?' asked Dalziel innocently.

'Partly. I hope it goes well. I hope our other visitors enjoy themselves too and aren't inconvenienced by any delays on arrival. This holiday of yours, will it keep you out of contact with things?'

'No,' said Dalziel. 'I'll drift in from time to time and suss out what's what. Thursday do you?'

'Fine,' said Kassell. 'Ah, here we are. The workers.'

In a fold of land, out of view of the ruin, the beaters were enjoying their lunch. Their leader approached touching his cap and saying, "Afternoon, Major.'

Dalziel strolled aside to let the consultation take its course. Strange world, he thought. This lot and the tweedy set back there would spend their day under the same sky, tramping across the same bit of ground. But it was us and them; this lot working, that lot playing; this lot at the end of the day going home with a few quid in their pockets, that lot going home with twenty times as much out of their bank balance – or someone's bank balance. What did it all signify?

Suddenly his mind was directed from long-term speculation to short-term bewilderment. There were several large stones scattered around this hollow which some of the men used as seats, some as tables. Behind one of these stones some odd life-form was crouching in a vain effort at concealment. His first thought was that someone had brought a pet orang-outang along. But then he realized that the apparently squat and shambling outline was delusory, and recognition came.

'Hector!' he said. 'It's never you?'

Slowly the figure unfolded itself, stretching to its full length: Constable Hector in a lumberjack's jacket, blue jeans and constabulary boots.

'It's my day off, sir,' he said with tremulous bravado.

'The Force's loss is Sir William's gain,' said Dalziel. 'I've no doubt you're doing a grand job. You've got just the right figure for frightening birds.'

'You mean it's all right, sir?' said Hector hopefully.

'Never quote me on it, lad,' said Dalziel. 'But I suppose it's a form of good police training; advancing courageously on a line of armed men intent on shooting you down.'

He turned away, but Hector, slightly puzzled, said, 'Sir, it's the birds the gentlemen shoot down, not us.'

And Dalziel turned back with an expression of ferocious glee.

'I shouldn't bet on it, lad. Not today, I shouldn't bet on it!'