Ruling Passion

Chapter 3

'Order! Order!' commanded Angus Pelman. 'We really must give John a hearing.'

'We give him a hearing every time,’ said the Reverend Matthias. 'I propose an amendment whereby John give us a rest.'

'That's not very Christian of you, Vicar,' said John Bell. 'I wouldn't put that in the minutes, Marianne. We don't want the vicar defrocked.'

'Order,' said Pelman. He sounded less than his usual forceful self, thought Marianne, glancing at her watch. This meeting seemed to be going on forever. As usual the main delaying factor was John Bell's anti-pollution campaign.

'Sorry, Mr Chairman,' he said. 'As you know, I've been worried for some time about the stream that runs through the village. Its course is familiar to you. It runs down from Cobbett's farm, through Angus's woods, and then follows the line of the road to the village, passing behind the small development which contains my house. We are all on main drainage, but next to this development, just fifty yards up stream, are three older cottages which aren't. Now I have a contact in the Water Board and, with his help, I've been testing the water over the past week.'

He passed out some photostatted sheets.

'Look at this. Firm evidence of pollution.'

He smiled triumphantly. The others stared at the sheets.

'I'm sorry, John,' said Pelman, 'but this doesn't mean a damn thing to me.'

'Let me explain

'No. Don't bother. I'll get someone who understands to have a look at them.'

'But the evidence is there! Or if you don't believe in science, go and sniff at that water. Since it got warm again and the brook level dropped, it's begun to stink. There must be some deficiency in the sewage systems of those three cottages.' He pounded the table in emphasis.

'Why the cottages, John?' asked Matthias. 'The stream goes back all the way to Cobbett's farm.'

'Yes. But there's only Brookside on the other side of the track up to Angus's house. And anyway, I sampled the water in the woods as well for comparison.'

'You did what?' said Pelman coldly. 'You must have been trespassing, you realize that? I don't put up those signs for nothing.'

'For God's sake!' cried Bell. 'You can't stop people going into your bloody woods, you know. The days of the lord of the bloody manor are long past, Angus, and it's time you realized it.'

A confusion of voices arose, apparently far in excess of what might reasonably be produced by the six-member Amenities Committee.

Pascoe and Hartley Culpepper, drinking scotch in the adjoining room, had till this moment not openly admitted they were listening to the discussion through the not quite closed door. But now they smiled at each other and Culpepper said, 'It's comforting to know that Westminster is not the only place where democratic debate degenerates into riotous assembly.'

'I've never been,' said Pascoe. 'To Parliament, I mean. Do you spend much time in the corridors of power?'

'Sorry?'

'In your job, I mean. I see you're pulling out of Scotland, but Nordrill must need a pretty strong lobby even to get a toe-hold on the National Parks.'

'Yes. Yes, we do. Another drink, or won't your head take it?'

'I'll manage one more, I think.'

'Here you are,' said Culpepper, handing over a well-filled tumbler. 'Nice place Pelman has got, hasn't he? He's not a collector, of course. He's far too busy planting and ploughing and breeding and killing. But if your family stop long enough in one place, you're bound to collect one or two nice things.'

'I suppose so. Have you added to your porcelain lately?'

'Not a great deal, no. I was at Sotheby's last Wednesday for the Cantley collection sale. One or two very nice pieces, but a bit beyond my price, I'm afraid. Still, it was pleasant just to look. You can't have everything.'

'I thought it was the collector's creed that you can? The kind of collectors I deal with certainly believe it!'

'Perhaps I should emulate their methods,' said Culpepper.

It suddenly struck Pascoe that though Culpepper's collecting enthusiasm might stop a long way short of theft, he had just admitted that while Rose Hopkins was being buried, he had been wandering around Sotheby's feeding his passion.

Perhaps an hour snatched out of a hard day's work, he thought, trying to be charitable.

The door of the meeting-room opened and the committee members started coming through. They all sounded amiable enough now, observed Pascoe. Sam Dixon gave him a cheerful nod.

'Sorry to keep you waiting,' said Pelman. 'But duty must be done. Alan, I don't think you've met Sergeant Pascoe. Alan Matthias, our padre.'

'Glad to meet you, Mr Pascoe. I was deeply distressed to hear of your murdered friends.'

Well, he's direct anyway, thought Pascoe. Marianne Culpepper joined them. She looked in surprise at her husband.

'Hartley, I didn't realize you were coming back from town tonight.'

'I did say I wanted to be here for the inquest tomorrow.'

'Did you? I don't recall.'

'Don't let me upset any plans you may have, my dear,' said Culpepper. 'Mother will look after me, I'm sure.'

'I'm sure she will. She looks after me very well while you're away.'

'How do you like it here?' said Pascoe to Matthias in order to fill the slight pause which followed this barely concealed gibe. 'Different from the valleys.'

'I don't know,' answered the vicar. 'There are dark tunnels beneath the surface wherever you go -'

'Alan is an allegorical moralist,' said Pelman. 'It's the Welsh disease. Hartley, you're very welcome of course, but was there something special?'

'Nothing important. I just felt like a stroll to get the London dust out of my lungs.'

'It must be tough at the top!' interjected John Bell. 'I must be off, Angus. Thanks for the drink. You'll look at that report I prepared, won't you?'

'I'll take it to bed with me,' promised Pelman. 'It may do what Hardisty's pills can't manage. Get me to sleep!'

A good area for insomniacs, thought Pascoe. He himself felt there would be little difficulty in getting to sleep. A cloud no bigger than a thumbnail seemed to be floating in his mind. Another drink, and great billows of cumulus would obscure things completely. And if he hung around too long, they might be torn apart by jags of lightning and made terrible by the noise of thunder.

'Would you excuse me too?' he said to Pelman.

'But the night's young. You've only just arrived.'

'Hush, Angus,' reproved Marianne. 'Mr Pascoe's had a nasty bang on the head today. It must have been a great shock for you. I hope they catch whoever did it.'

'So do I,’ said Pascoe. 'Yes, I think I've overestimated my powers of recovery. Do forgive me. Good night. Good night.'

He left quickly, feeling very faint. It passed off in the evening air and he drove down the long track to the road following the tail-lights of Bell's car. Culpepper had at least turned the immediate approach to his house into a proper drive, but Pelman as a working land-owner obviously accepted bumps, ruts and puddles as part of the facts of existence. He drove carefully to preserve his car-springs, but the lining of his head proved much more sensitive to the lurchings of the vehicle and he had to stop before he reached the road.

Pelman's woods stretched darkly to his right, and to the left about fifty yards away he could see the lights of the group of cottages whose owners were so suspect in John Bell's eyes. Faintly among all the other night sounds he could hear the murmur of water. It must be the contentious stream. Presumably a culvert of some kind carried it beneath the ridge of land bearing the lane to Pelman's house.

He opened the car door and stepped out for a breath of fresh air. It was a disappointment, smelling none too fresh. But he did not feel like resuming his journey straightaway. He leaned back against the car-bonnet and let images crowd uncensored into his mind.

Places – Thornton Lacey, Birkham, Lochart. The dead – Rose, Timmy and Carlo, Matthew Lewis, Sturgeon almost. The missing – Colin, Archie Selkirk, Atkinson. The betrayed – Mrs Lewis, Culpepper. The enigmatic – Davenant, Etherege.

Etherege. Why did he think of Etherege? Because of Birkham. Too much was happening around Birkham. Too much? An antique shop which had sold a few quids' worth of stolen stamps. That wasn't much. What else? The Jockey, of course. Ellie had been attacked. Connection? Ellie was known to be connected with one fairly minor policeman, himself. Then she turns up with the big fish, Dalziel. Touching pitch and being defiled.

The image amused. He climbed back into his car, his mind working too hard now to be affected by Pelman's lane, and drove rapidly to Crowther's telephone.

'Why aren't you in bed?' demanded Ellie.

'I've just got up for a moment,' lied Pascoe. 'Listen, love. Dalziel said that one of the things you lost tonight was a pendant. Would that be the one I bought in Birkham?'

'Yes, I'm afraid it was,' said Ellie. 'Why do you ask?'

'I'm not sure,' said Pascoe.

'There's something rattling round your nasty suspicious mind,' said Ellie – 'Hang on. There's something I can tell you about it which might or might not help. That bit of rock certainly wasn't a local pebble like the chubby fellow in the shop said. One of the geologists at college was admiring it. I think he fancies me. Anyway he said it was some kind of bloodstone probably originating from South America. Which makes the local craftsman angle a bit fishy! They probably came in a job lot from Buenos Aires!'

'You are beautiful,' said Pascoe. 'Beautiful! I love you!'

'You must have been hit harder than you think,' said Dalziel. 'Let's get this straight. You reckon that Mrs Cottingley's collection of bits of stone has been passed to Etherege who polishes 'em, sticks 'em in a bracelet or whatever, and flogs them in his shop?'

'Why not? It'd make a perfect outlet for unidentifiable stuff. Or nearly unidentifiable.'

'Unidentifiable,' grunted Dalziel. 'You can't identify a lump of rock.'

'You can say wherever else it was picked up, it wasn't Yorkshire!'

'You might be able to, if you had it! And this is why you think your lass was attacked? For the pendant?'

'It's possible.'

'You've been watching too much telly,' said Dalziel. In the background, Pascoe could hear Dalziel's own television set blaring away, but diplomatically he said nothing.

'Well,' resumed Dalziel. 'If you're thinking it was Etherege as robbed your girl, you'd better think again.'

'I never said

'Because I called at his shop when I was on my way to meet Miss Soper. I had those stamps. Sturgeon wasn't able to say yea or nay about them, so I thought as I was passing I'd have a look in. Anyway, he wasn't there, but an old bird who looks after his house for him told me he was at a sale in Durham somewhere, not expected back till late.'

'It was just an idea,' said Pascoe dispiritedly. All their bright ideas seemed to be leading nowhere in this case. Dalziel's suggestion about a kennels being the source of information about empty houses had proved fruitless too. It was in fact true that all the people robbed had owned animals, but a variety of kennels were used and in at least one case, Lewis's, the dog had been away on holiday with the family.

'Get some sleep,' advised Dalziel. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

He replaced the receiver and stood in thought for a moment. The television raged in the neighbouring room, but the house still sounded empty. His stomach rumbled, reminding him of the inroads Grainger's diet was making on his flesh.

Pascoe's a good lad, he thought. He has his daft moments, but who doesn't? Most of what he said was worth thinking about. He looked at his watch. It was only quarter to ten. Worth a call.