Good Morning, Midnight

March 23rd, 2002
1

Peter Pascoe awoke on Saturday morning feeling good. Drowsily he tried to give shape to the as-yet amorphous causes of this pleasant state. It was the beginning of a free weekend; last night’s concert had been close to a triumph, Rosie playing with a brio which visually more than compensated for her somewhat cavalier attitude to musical notation; he and Ellie had put her to bed with love and kisses, and not long after put themselves to bed with even more; and one of the shapes which was contributing largely to his euphoria, or perhaps one should more accurately say two of them, was, or were, pressed invitingly close against his belly at this moment.

Then a thin wail from his mobile phone brought him out of his dream.

He grabbed it from the bedside table, switched off the sound, checked the display. It was Wield. What the hell did he want at ten to eight on a Saturday morning?

As he staggered out of the room to find out, it occurred to him that his irritation was misdirected. His long lie-in was already spoken for. He had a date with Dalziel to pay a visit to Cothersley Hall. Plus, and even more imperatively, he had an agreement with Rosie to drop her off for her nine a.m. clarinet lesson on the way in to the station. After last night she would have the Royal Festival Hall in her sights, or at least the Wigmore. Indeed, as he settled on the loo seat to answer his phone, he could already hear her running up a scale whose atonality would have left Schoenberg gasping.

“Yes?” he yawned.

“Morning, Pete,” said Wield, sounding disgustingly wide awake. “Wanted to catch you before you set out.”

Briefly he described the events at Moscow House the previous night.

“You didn’t bring her in for questioning then?” said Pascoe.

“No point. Would have meant rousting you and Andy out of bed, and for what? She had her story ready anyway.”

“Which you believed?”

“No way. I reckon she wanted to check what might be in there. Anything she didn’t fancy us finding, she’d have removed. Then some time today she’d have ‘remembered’ about the hidden cabinet and passed on the info like a good citizen.”

“Tell me again what you found.”

“A silver whisky flask, initials P.M. A silver cigarette lighter, same initials. A medicine bottle, empty, but the label says it contained Valium capsules prescribed to Mr P. Maciver. A microcassette. And a diary, stamped with the year 1992. I’ve not done anything with them yet other than photo them in situ and bag them. I’m at the lab now. I rang Dr Death and told him I needed some bodies down here a.s.a.p. Soon as they show, I’ll get this stuff tested and printed. Of course it may turn out it’s all covered with Mrs Kafka’s prints, and she was in the study to recover the evidence. But if that’s the case, why’d she leave it there in the first place?”

“Good question. I wish you’d got in touch to ask it last night.”

“For what? To spoil your sleep? There was nowt to be done till this morning, at least nowt I could think of,” said the sergeant, sounding slightly aggrieved at the DCI’s reproachful tone.

He was quite right, thought Pascoe. Dalziel might have said, read the diary, play the tape, bugger the risk of cross-contamination! But he knew he would have contained his impatience till the lab did its work.

Also there was the memory of what Wield would have disturbed if he had rung…

He said, “Sorry, Wieldy, you were quite right. Listen, there’s something else you can do for me now that you’re out and about so bright and early. Once you’ve got those idle sods at the lab working, could you give Tom Lockridge an early call before he makes for the golf course or whatever it is he does on a Saturday morning? Shake him up a bit. Tell him he’ll have to be suspended from our medical examiner list for concealing his intimate connection with a key witness in a case he was advising on.”

“OK. Anything special you want me to shake out of him?”

“It’s clear Sue-Lynn imagined she was going to benefit substantially when her husband died…”

“But the photo gives them an alibi,” interrupted Wield.

“I know. But it’s more her reaction now that she knows Pal changed his will… and Pal’s reasons for changing his will… and one or two other things…”

“Sounds to me like you’re coming round to Andy’s point of view, Pete.”

“Yes. Ironic, isn’t it? Just when I feel I’m making headway getting him round to mine! Anyway, my point is, while I can still see lots of motives for murder, I can’t yet see any for suicide. But Sue-Lynn will clearly be desperate to prove he was going doolally. And I’ve got a feeling Tom Lockridge is on the case too. So shake away. Keep in touch, will you? I’ll be out at Cothersley.”

“And the best of luck,” said Wield. “I reckon you’ll need it.”

Pascoe switched off the phone, turned the shower on and stepped underneath.

As he towelled himself down, he heard the front door bell. Jesus, he thought. Doesn’t anyone have a long lie-in on a Saturday morning anymore? The clarinet fell silent, which suggested Rosie was taking care of things. He went back to the bedroom where he found that one person at least was set for the long lie-in. She had rolled over, throwing the duvet off her naked body and he groaned with frustrated longing as he pulled his clothes on.

He was buttoning up his shirt when the door opened and Rosie came in.

She said, “There’s a lady to see you.”

“A lady? You mean a woman,” said Pascoe, loyally adding his weight to Ellie’s attempts to purge the child of prejudice in all its forms.

Rosie thought, then said, “Yes, of course she’s a woman. But she looks like a lady and she talks like a lady.”

She turned and left with the Parthian shot, “You know I mustn’t be late.”

Behind him there was a sound as Ellie awoke.

“Was that the door bell I heard before?” she yawned.

“Yes. Rosie got it. Seems I’ve got a visitor.”

“At this time on a Saturday morning? Jesus.” Then with sudden suspicion, “It’s not that fat bastard, is it?”

“Reasonable guess,” he said. “But no. This one’s a woman. Sorry. A lady.”

“Well, if she’s here with your love-child, tell her to go and find some bulrushes,” said Ellie.

“God, you’re sexy when you yawn,” he said.

“That sounds like an argument for boring sex,” she said, sinking back on to the pillow.

On another occasion he might have read that as a hint. This morning, with Dalziel, Rosie and a lady weighing in the counterbalance, he turned and went out of the room.

As he descended the stairs he guessed that his daughter, with a sense of precedence which wouldn’t have been out of place in a Victorian society hostess, would have put her lady in the lounge rather than the kitchen.

He was right. And Rosie was right too. At least as far as she could see.

Standing by the patio window looking out into the garden was Dolly Upshott.

She looked pale, with dark shadows under her eyes. The short brown hair was even more hectic than usual. Looking at her young form clad in a Fair Isle sweater, sensible tweed skirt and flat brogues, it was still hard to believe what her presence there must surely mean was the truth.

Which with admirable directness, she now confirmed.

“Got your message,” she said. “I thought of doing a runner, but decided there was no point really. I looked you up in the phone book. I’m really sorry to be bothering you at home like this, but I thought that showing up at the cop-shop would probably remove any chance I had of keeping this thing sub rosa. I mean, I’d be straight into the torture chamber there, wouldn’t I? Tape machines, witnesses, red-hot irons, all the apparatus.”

Her attempt at humour was more revealing of her agitated state of mind than hysterical tears would have been.

He said, “Please sit down, Miss Upshott. I haven’t had any breakfast and I need at least one cup of coffee before I can function properly. Can I get you something?”

“Coffee would be nice,” she said.

He went out and ran lightly up the stairs. Ellie opened her eyes as he came into the bedroom.

“What?” she said.

“Sorry, can you take Rosie to her lesson?”

“Jesus. You mean it really is the love-child?”

“Far more serious than that,” he said. “Could even be serious enough to make me late for Fat Andy.”

“In that case, what does a little inconvenience to me matter. OK.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

“And you’ll pay,” she called after him.

He collected a microcassette recorder from his study, went into the kitchen, made a couple of mugs of instant coffee and took them through to the lounge.

“Right, Miss Upshott,” he said.

“What do you want me to do?” she said. “I want to get everything out of the way, here, now. I heard what you said in your message about coming round to the vicarage. Please, I couldn’t bear that. I’ll do anything, but David must never hear any of this, all right?”

Though he never liked doing it, Pascoe had long ago learned the detective art of making non-binding promises, unenforceable agreements.

He smiled sympathetically and said, “Your best way to ensure that, Miss Upshott, is to tell me everything, as fully and frankly as you can.”

As he spoke he set the microcassette between them on the table.

She didn’t seem to notice it but continued to examine his face closely till he felt the sympathetic smile must resemble a cynical leer.

Finally she closed her eyes as if to compare what she saw with some inner picture.

When she opened them again after nearly a minute she said in a small childlike voice, “All right, then. I will.”