Under World

Chapter 6

Pascoe was amazed to find himself under violent attack the moment he got home on Monday evening. It took him some little time to work out the angle of assault and the nature of the armament, and when he did he had to double-check.

‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You’re blaming me for what Neville Watmough’s writing in the Challenger? Is that it?’

‘No. Yes. In a manner of speaking, you are responsible, aren’t you?’

‘Speak to me in that manner, that I may hear and be instructed,’ said Pascoe gravely.

Ellie was not to be mocked into truce.

‘It’s you, it’s Dalziel, it’s the whole bloody way the police function, isn’t it? You don’t think of people as people, they’re statistics, so many crooks and potential crooks. So many victims and potential victims. You don’t care about feelings, not till someone starts knocking you in the media and then you come all over hurt. Look, you cry, we’re giving you protection, aren’t we? And it’s our lives, not yours, that are at risk out there on the front line, so you should just sit quiet at home and thank your lucky stars that you’ve got the best police force in the world to go along with the best TV, the best Royal Family, and the best Health Service, look at all the frogs and wogs who come here for freebies …’

‘Hang on!’ said Pascoe. ‘Aren’t we getting just a little incoherent? What about some of that fine old academic discipline we used to get before the war? If you want to bitch about the Challenger, bitch away and I’ll bitch with you …’

‘Bitch? Bitch? What’s with this sexist language? You give yourself away every time you open your mouth. Peter, you’re in quicksand and you can’t see it. You’re sinking. Every day you’re becoming a bit more of a Dalziel clone. No, all right, I take that back, he is absolutely unique! But you could be a Watmough clone, respectable, polite, self-important, thinking that a life spent shovelling manure qualifies you to pontificate on agricultural policy and technique.’

‘I thought you said it was quicksand I was sinking in,’ said Pascoe. ‘Whoops, before you tell me that I always flee to frivolity in the face of defeat, let me quickly slip in that I’ve asked Wield for supper tomorrow night. Perhaps you can serve him the food we’re quite clearly not going to get tonight.’

‘Wield? Why? I knew you were friends — well, friendly — but you’ve never asked him for a meal before.’

‘I’ve asked him now. OK? I thought you liked him.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. How’s he been? I haven’t seen much of him since he came out.’

‘He seems OK. As for coming out, I can’t say I’ve noticed very much change.’

‘As you never noticed anything in the first place, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Ellie acidly.

This reference to the fact that he had been amazed at the revelation of Wield’s homosexuality while both Ellie and Dalziel found it completely unsurprising was a low blow. She knew how much he blamed himself for his insensitivity. Well, in this age of equality, both sides can fight dirty.

He said, ‘To get back to Watmough and the Challenger, would I be right in saying what all this is really about isn’t human rights but the Marvellous Boy of Burrthorpe? Has he been weeping dusty tears on your shoulder all afternoon?’

It was a savage blow. Ellie momentarily reeled but, like the fighter she was, rallied magnificently. All night long the noise of battle rolled, with pause only for hasty mouthfuls of a scratch supper and a couple of hours’ necessary sleep. Breakfast was a cross-table bombardment and hostilities would certainly have been resumed in the evening by the fireside’s glow if it hadn’t been that Wield was coming to supper.

He arrived dead on time, clutching a bunch of red roses and a bottle of white wine. He was casually dressed in a pair of elegant light blue slacks, a pale lemon open-necked sports shirt and a diamond patterned lambswool sweater.

He said, ‘I’ve left my leathers in the garage. I hope that’s OK.’

Pascoe and Ellie avoided exchanging glances.

‘Leathers?’ said Pascoe faintly.

‘Yes. I came on the bike,’ said Wield.

‘Of course,’ said Pascoe. ‘The famous motorbike. Darling, you must have heard me mention the famous motorbike.’

He did glance at Ellie this time and saw he was overdoing it.

‘Come in,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘It’s great to see you again. Can I …’

She looked at his burdens.

‘Oh yes,’ said Wield. ‘I brought you these. I hope they’re what you like.’

Carefully he handed Ellie the bottle of wine and Pascoe the bunch of roses. They both looked at him for some signal that the distribution had been an error, but that gnarled and knotted face gave no more away than the bark of an old elm tree.

Then he smiled and said, ‘You can swap if you think I’m being sexist.’

Ellie began to laugh a fraction before Pascoe.

‘I really am glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a drink while Peter’s putting his flowers in water!’

It was a delightful relaxed evening. Wield let down three or four of his outer defence barriers, and though Pascoe got a sense of plenty of layers in reserve, the shrewd and humorous man revealed was a pleasant guest to have at anyone’s table. Ellie demurred at calling him Wieldy but the sergeant refused to reveal his Christian names on the grounds that they might discriminate him.

‘Wieldy’s fine,’ he said. ‘As long as you make no cracks about “unwieldy”. I had enough of that in training.’

After supper they were sitting talking with a Glenn Miller record on low in the background when the phone rang. Pascoe answered it and a man’s voice, young and Yorkshire and not very distinct, asked if he could talk to Mrs Pascoe. Relieved that at least it wasn’t a summons to duty, he went back to the lounge and summoned Ellie. After she had gone into the hall, he offered to refill Wield’s glass.

‘Best not,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m always getting stopped. Our car lads think anyone on a bike’s a Hell’s Angel who’s probably breaking the Highway Code by eating a live chicken as he rides. One of these days I’ll get some smart kid who’ll show how impartial he is by breathalysing me.’

‘You think we should get special treatment?’ wondered Pascoe, who had not found Wield’s temperance infectious.

‘Not special. Neither specially good nor specially bad. The same. Equal.’

‘That should be easy enough to arrange,’ said Pascoe.

‘You reckon? Try being a motorcyclist. Try not being a cop,’ said Wield. Then he added in a voice a little lower but quite audible, ‘Try being gay.’

‘Thanks but no thanks!’ Pascoe heard himself say, then, ‘Oh shit, Wieldy, I’m sorry, it’s the booze.’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Wield equably. ‘It’s a conditioned response. The station canteen, the Club bar, that’s the kind of thing you’ve got to say to show your credentials. I’ve done it myself in the early days.’

‘And now?’ asked Pascoe.

‘And now? I’ve been in a kind of limbo these past few weeks. I’d said to myself: No more, I’m coming out, from now on in I’ll be myself. But what’s that? I mean, for me to start going up to people who know me and saying, “Have you heard? I’m gay!” that’s so far from what I am that it’d almost be as dishonest as the way I was before. I’ve never been promiscuous, or mebbe I conditioned myself there too, and with these scare stories about AIDS around, I’m certainly not about to start. I did go into the Jolly Waggoner on Childersgate one night, you know, the one they call the Gay Galloper. I bought a drink and someone said, “My God, darling, the fuzz are really scraping the barrel for their agents provocateurs, aren’t they?” I drank up and left. I mean, what else was there to do? I couldn’t see any future, or much point, in standing on a chair and trying to persuade them all I really was gay. More to the point, I found myself thinking it was none of their bloody business. In fact it’s no one’s except mine. I am what I’ve made myself and that’s the way I’ll stay till I make myself something else. So no crap. I’ll never lie again about being gay, but I’ll not take a full-page spread in the Post to advertise it either. Does that make sense to you, Peter?’

This was certainly the longest and most personal speech Pascoe had ever heard Wield make.

He said, ‘What do I know? But yes, it makes sense to me, for what that’s worth.’

‘A lot,’ said Wield seriously. ‘Right. That’s that. And don’t worry. If you don’t go on about your sex life, I’ll not go on about mine! Is there owt new about Mr Watmough?’

Pascoe accepted the change of direction with a relief he felt slightly ashamed of.

‘I gather there’s a lot of pressure from high up to get him to shut up, but I doubt if he’s really in control now and it takes lawyers with a good case to shut someone like Ogilby up. I’ve tried two or three times to get hold of Monty Boyle, but he’s never available and he never rings back. I think I’ll have to go out looking for him. But there’s no way next Sunday’s piece won’t be printed, I’m afraid.’

Ellie came back into the room. Pascoe knew at once that there was something bothering her. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go out.’

Pascoe said, ‘What’s up? Not your father, is it?’

Ellie’s father in Lincolnshire had for some time been drifting into the happy but hazardous land of senile dementia. He was quite capable of going for a walk on a country path which had been replaced by a four-lane highway twenty years ago.

‘Oh no,’ said Ellie. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just one of my students. He sounds a bit agitated about something so I think I ought to put in a bit of the old pastoral care.’

Wield began to rise, saying, ‘I really ought to be going …’ but Ellie put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him firmly down again.

‘No, don’t make me feel guiltier than I do,’ she said. ‘You stay, finish the bottle. Or Peter will make you some more coffee.’

‘Do you have to go?’ asked Pascoe petulantly, because petulance hid his real feelings.

Ellie smiled without much humour.

‘That’s usually my line when Dalziel rings, isn’t it? And don’t tell me that’s different. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

She left too swiftly for him to reply. He thought of going after her and continuing their discussion in the hallway but he knew that would only upgrade it to a row. A moment later they heard the sound of Ellie’s car.

‘I hope she missed your leathers,’ said Pascoe, trying for brightness.

‘I thought Mrs Pascoe — Ellie — had given up her job at the college,’ said Wield speculatively.

‘This is a University course, extra-mural,’ said Pascoe. ‘Miners.’

‘Miners?’ said Wield. His face as usual gave nothing away. Pascoe wished he could feel as sure of his own control. He’d never heard the voice on the phone before, but he’d recognized it instantly with a certainty which his conscious mind had dismissed as absurd. Colin Farr, the Marvellous Boy. Colin Farr.