Recalled to Life

EIGHT

'What a night it has been! Almost a night… to bring the dead out of their graves.' A storm broke over the city as they drove to their rendezvous. This was the pathetic fallacy at work, thought Pascoe, a fancy compounded by his realization that they were heading for a pub called the Blind Sailor. Now was the time when a genuine golden bough would come in most useful, for weren't they going to meet the ferryman himself, whose strong muscles had floated many a poor wretch across to the further shore? It was a fancy he did not share with Dalziel. At first sight, Percy Pollock was a disappointment.

White-haired and frail, he leaned on a knotted oak stick as he rose to greet them, bowing his head gravely as he was introduced. But he did not offer his hand till Pascoe proffered his. They sat at an old cast-iron table with a raised brass rail in the shadowy snug of which they were the sole inhabitants. Dalziel ordered drinks, and even paid for them, the whiles chatting about the weather, the price of tea, and the progress of various members of the Pollock family. It still amazed Pascoe how much the Fat Man knew about everyone. Perhaps it explained his cavalier attitude to records. Pollock's replies were slow and courteous, and gradually a sense of the man's powerful presence stole over Pascoe. It derived from a kind of inner stillness, a steady undramatic self-assurance. Perhaps this is what you got from a career spent seeing men not afraid of God afraid of you. At last, the formalities finished, Dalziel bought another round, settled himself comfortably, and said, 'Now, Percy, what I'd really like is a bit of a chat about Ralph Mickledore.' 'Mad Mick? Aye, I thought it might be about him,' said Pollock. 'Why Mad Mick?' asked Pascoe. 'It's what the warders called him. Not to his face. It was always Sir Ralph to his face. Does that surprise you, Mr Pascoe? Like I say, courtesy costs nothing, and besides he were very well liked inside.' Dalziel said, 'Percy took his job very seriously. When he knew he had a client in the offing, he opened a file, talked to the fellows looking after him, found out what made him tick, isn't that right, Percy?' 'That's right,' said Pollock. 'There's more to hanging a man than knowing his build and weight. No two men will take it the same way. Be prepared was always my motto. And besides, no matter what he may have done, no man deserves to be taken off by a stranger.' 'So you'd start your homework soon as the verdict came in?' said Dalziel. 'Oh yes. No waiting for appeals or aught of that,' said Pollock. 'I never like to feel rushed. Often it meant it was wasted effort, of course. Sentence commuted. Happened more and more often after the war. Well, I never grudged the time. But with Sir Ralph, I knew it wouldn't be wasted, almost from the start I knew.' Oh aye,' said Dalziel. 'And how was that?' The old man turned his candid blue-eyed gaze on the detective and said, 'I can't rightly tell you that, Mr Dalziel. Things were said. After a while I knew. This one wasn't for reprieve. Short of a voice from Heaven, and maybe not even then, this one was for the drop.' Dalziel shot Pascoe a glance. Signifying what? 'But why did the warders call him Mad Mick?' persisted Pascoe. 'Because he made them laugh,' said Pollock unexpectedly. 'He just acted like he was at home most of the time. Mr Hawkins, the chief officer, would be walking past and Sir Ralph would bellow, "Hawkins, pop out and get me an Evening Post, there's a good chap." He called them all by their surnames, no misters, but no one took offence because he didn't do it to give offence. And he was just the same with the governor. "Nugent," he would say, "the food in here's appalling. I'm having a few brace of pheasant sent from the estate for the chaps on my wing. Hope the cook's up to it. Perhaps you'd care to join us?" And he'd mean it, you see. He wasn't taking the piss, if you'll excuse the expression.' It was at moments like this that Pascoe knew why the English had never gone in for a socialist revolution. You can't expect flagellants to throw away their whips. 'When they weren't lost in admiration, did his guards reckon he was guilty?' he asked abruptly. The old man regarded him mildly and said, 'Those of us who work for the prison service can't afford such speculations, Mr Pascoe. You can't sit with a man the night before he hangs if you think he's innocent. And you certainly can't put a rope around his neck.' 'Aye, but did he ever say owt about the murder, Percy?' said Dalziel. 'I suppose he'd talk about it to the police and his solicitor when they came a-visiting, but according to Mr Hawkins, he acted like he was innocent, or at least he acted like he didn't believe he'd hang, right up to the end. Week before, he even asked one of his guards to put a fiver on a horse for him. Said he knew the trainer and it was due a win. The man went straight to Mr Hawkins.' 'Because it was against the rules?' said Pascoe, puzzled. 'Because the race wasn't scheduled till two days after the execution date,' said Percy Pollock. This gave them all pause for a few moments. Dalziel was the first to break the silence.

'And you yourself, Percy, when you finally made direct contact, how did he strike you? What did he say?' Across Pascoe's mind flickered a black and white image of Miles Malleson in Kind Hearts and Coronets asking the condemned duke for permission to read the ode he had composed to mark the occasion. Difficult to top that, but Percy came close. 'He said goodbye to everyone. Then he cupped his ear like he was listening and said, "Hush!" We all hushed, and listened. Nothing.

Then he laughed and said, "Sorry, I thought I heard a galloping horse.

Cheer up, Nugent -" the governor was looking as upset as ever I've seen him – "it looks as if it's going to be a far, far better thing after all. Thank you, Mr Pollock. At your convenience." And that was it, gentlemen. Forty-five seconds later. Sir Ralph was dead.' 'You're very precise,' said Pascoe. 'Yes, sir. This was by way of being a record. Usually I reckon on between fifty and eighty from the time I take them out of the cell, depending on how they move. But he stepped out so sprightly it was all done in forty-five. And he was my last, my very last, so it'll stand forever, I suppose.' There was a note of melancholy nostalgia in his voice that revolted Pascoe but before he could speak, Dalziel said, 'You had your contacts at the women's jail at Beddington too, I expect, Percy.' 'Oh yes. It's a long time since I had to take off a lady, a long, long time. But I had my contacts.'

'Anyone who would have been working there when Kohler topped the wardress?' Pollock thought a moment, then said, 'There's Mrs Friedman.

She retired the year after, I think. She was there.' 'And where is she now?' 'She lives locally, I believe. Would you like me to check, Mr Dalziel?' 'I'd appreciate it, Percy. Now, will you have another drink?' 'No, thank you,' he said, standing up. 'Time I was home to my supper. Goodbye, Mr Pascoe. A pleasure to meet you.' He offered his hand. Presumably his initial hesitation had been conditioned by the reluctance of some people to shake the hand that had slipped the noose over so many necks. Pascoe felt this reluctance more now than he had on first encounter, and to cover his slowness in responding, he said lightly, 'The bet Mickledore wanted placed, what happened?' 'Oh, it was put on. In fact, when word got around, so many officers not to mention the inmates and their families, backed the horse that its odds shortened from twenties to fives.' 'Oh aye?' said Dalziel. 'And did it win?' Percy Pollock smiled sadly. 'I'm afraid not. It fell at the last fence and broke its neck.' They sat in silence for a while after Pollock had left, Dalziel because he was eating a steak and kidney pie with double chips, Pascoe because he felt deeply depressed. 'Have a chip if you want,' said Dalziel. 'Not up to Black Bull standards, but they'll do.' 'No, thanks. Like I said, I'm not hungry.' 'You'll waste away to nowt. Man who doesn't take care of his belly won't take care of much else.' Pascoe felt this as a reproof and said, 'I do my job, full or empty.' 'Oh aye? Then do it. What do you make of old Percy?'

'Not a lot. If anything, I suppose he came down on the side of Mickledore being innocent.' 'What makes you say that?' asked Dalziel, studying a piece of kidney with the distrust of a police pathologist.

'That business about there being no chance of reprieve for him. That sounds like a fit-up.' 'Rumour. Ancient rumour at that,' said Dalziel, deciding to risk the kidney. 'What about Mickledore's demeanour? He acted as if he expected to be reprieved.' 'So what? He doesn't sound the type to collapse and kick his legs in the air. Stiff upper something, it's what they learn 'em at these public schools.' But if you take what he said at the end. "Looks like it's going to be a far, far better thing after all." Now the implication of that…' 'Yes, yes, I get the implication,' said Dalziel impatiently. 'I'm not totally ignorant. I go to the pictures too. And I'll tell you this for nowt, I can't see Mad Mick as Carter the martyr.' 'Carton,' said Pascoe. 'Who incidentally didn't look very likely material for Carter the martyr either. But isn't the point that Mickledore didn't want to be a martyr anyway? His kind of code says you do everything you can to cover up for a chum in trouble, no matter what he's done. Look at the way Lord Lucan's mates closed ranks when he vanished. But I doubt if any of them would have been willing to hang for him.' 'That's the choice they'd have got from me if I'd been running the case,' said Dalziel. 'So you're saying that when push came to shove, Mick said, sod this for a lark, and sent for Wally to tell him the truth, viz., that Westropp dunnit after all? So what about Westropp, then? This famous Lucan code says it's OK if you're the guilty party to let your best mate swing for you?' 'There may have been other considerations.

He more or less vanished, didn't he? Perhaps the funny buggers locked him up in a dungeon at Windsor till it was all over so he couldn't drag the family name through the mud. Perhaps he simply bottled out.

Perhaps he reckoned that if his best mate had been stuffing his wife, then hanging was what he deserved. Or perhaps he didn't do it after all, but Mickledore got the wrong end of the stick and thought he did, which would mean that Westropp could have believed Mickledore really was guilty.' Dalziel shook his head in admiration. He said, 'If ever Dan Trimble catches me banging his missus, I want you along to offer ten good reasons why he shouldn't believe his eyes. All right, you've got Mickledore sorted. He thinks he's doing a favour for a mate, then finds too late he's been thoroughly stitched up. Me, I don't believe a word of it, but just for the sake of argument, how does little Miss Kohler fit in? I mean, isn't she even less likely to let her lover hang for something he didn't do than something he did?' Pascoe thought: If Kohler got driven half mad by the death of Emily, then pushed the whole way by Tallantire browbeating a confession out of her, she doesn't need a motive. He said, 'You'll need to ask her that yourself. But I suspect it'll take more than a dead granny or a dental appointment to get you where she is." 'We'll see,' said Dalziel. 'Meanwhile here's what we do tomorrow. ..'

'I'm not doing any more interviews,' said Pascoe firmly.

'Nay, I'd not send a pup to snap at Sir Arthur Stamper, that's work for a full grown hound,' said Dalziel ungraciously. 'You just ring that publisher fellow, see what you can find about Wally's memoirs. You can manage that, can you? You've got a lovely telephone voice.'

He returned his attention to his plate and disinterred another sliver of the suspect kidney. Holding it up for inspection on the end of his fork, he said, 'You didn't notice a barber's next door, did you?'