Under World

Chapter 18

When Dalziel finally left the Welfare the first thing he saw across the road was Tommy Dickinson, sitting on the lowest step of the village War Memorial, his head resting on a bronze boot. Beside him sat Wardle.

‘Not waiting for me?’ asked Dalziel genially.

‘You must be joking,’ said Wardle. ‘Waiting for him. I’m not doing my back lifting him.’

‘Very wise.’ Dalziel signalled to his car. As it approached his gaze drifted down the list of names on the Memorial.

‘I thought mining were a reserved occupation,’ he said.

‘There were always plenty who thought the Germans gave you a better chance than the bosses,’ said Wardle.

‘Aye, it helps to know your enemies. Let’s get him in, then.’

‘What? No, it’s all right. Thanks, but I’ll manage him.’

‘Oh aye? Next copper who comes along will likely arrest him for causing an obstruction. Come on, sunshine.’

He reached down and seized Dickinson’s shirt at the neck, giving him the option of rising or being strangled.

‘You coming too?’ he said to Wardle after Tommy had opted for life and allowed himself to be bundled into the back seat.

‘I best had. He lives with his mam and she might be upset.’

‘To see Tommy pissed?’ said Dalziel increduously.

‘To see the company he got pissed in,’ said Wardle.

‘You’re a puzzle to me, Mr Wardle,’ said Dalziel. ‘I mean, you try to be like the rest of ’em, knee-jerk reaction to the sodding pigs, that sort of thing. But that’s not you really, is it?’

‘You’d better not start thinking I love you buggers, mister,’ said Wardle.

‘No. But you love order, I’d say. I bet you ran around during the Strike kicking people into line, making sure things were done according to the book.’

‘You lot could have done with some of that.’

‘I dare say. They brought a lot of cockneys up from the Stink, but, Bloody Cossacks, them lot. All they know is pillage and rape. Well, they’re back in the compound now and it’s sweetness and light time again.’

‘You’re a fucking optimist,’ said Wardle.

‘Not me, friend. But I’d say that you were, Neil, lad. Which makes your attitude … disappointing.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll try to be nicer. Here we are. Next to the street lamp. Thanks a lot. We’ll be OK now.’

‘No. No. We’ll see him safe inside. Hello, lass. Here’s your wandering boy come home.’

He helped the semi-conscious miner past the diminutive woman who’d appeared on the front step, and laid him on a sofa in the tiny living-room.

‘My advice is leave him here with a bucket by his head. Once he’s spewed, kick him up to bed. Lovely place you’ve got here, lass. And you keep it real nice. I’ll just get myself a glass of water from the kitchen then I’ll be on my way.’

He went through to the kitchen. Behind him he heard the woman say, ‘Who’s that daft bugger?’ but Wardle was too keen to come after him to reply.

He found Dalziel standing looking out on to the long narrow back garden. A stretch of lawn petered out into a rectangle of vegetables. At the juncture of grass and earth stood the grey remains of a small bonfire.

‘Good for your greens, a bit of ash,’ said Dalziel.

‘I’d not know, I’m not a gardener,’ said Wardle.

‘No? People’s more your line, eh? Planting them, feeding them, helping them to grow. But you ought to know, Neil, you can’t make a carnation out of a carrot.’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘I’m on about doing the important things yourself. Or was there a committee meeting more important than covering up for a friend? Or was it mebbe less of a cover-up and more of a finger-pointing?’

‘You slab-faced bastard!’

‘Thank Christ for a heartfelt insult from you at last,’ said Dalziel. ‘Now let’s go and scatter the ashes, shall we?’

As Wield’s motorbike coasted down into Burrthorpe, Peter Pascoe looked at his watch and groaned.

They’d gone far afield in search of a pub out of sight of a pit-head, and drunk too much of the landlord’s excellent beer, then had to spoil the taste with pints of his awful coffee. For a while the return journey, with the rain-spotted wind cold on their beer-flushed cheeks, had been exhilarating. He and Wield had opened their hearts to each other in the pub, or at least as much of their hearts as men in their kind of situation, in that kind of place, in those sort of circumstances, are able to open; but by the time the winding gear of Burrthorpe Main came into sight, Pascoe was already beginning to regret the immediate past and fear the immediate future.

For a while after they re-entered Burrthorpe police station they felt themselves lucky. Dalziel had not yet returned. That was the good news. But Chief Inspector Wishart wanted to see them urgently.

‘Where the hell have you two been?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Three-hour lunches might be OK in never-never land, I bet you have picnics and hay-rides up there. Down here life is getting to be so fucking real we don’t even have time to be earnest.’

‘Sorry, Alex,’ said Pascoe. ‘Trouble with the bike. Sorry. Any developments?’

‘No. The mastermind of Mid-Yorks isn’t back from his lunch either, so I don’t suppose I can blame you two skivers too much. To tell the truth, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I’ve got all the men I can spare taking statements from every bugger they can lay hands on. And them as can’t do that are combing the ditches between here and the Pendragon Arms in search of Farr’s pit-black. No sign so far, no weapon, nothing. It’s going to be all down to hard graft, this one, and that’s what I want from you two. None of your pastoral fancies, just some honest to goodness police work.’

‘At your service,’ said Pascoe. ‘Have you had another go at Farr?’

‘Not yet. Thought I’d let him relax a bit. I want him somewhere where there’s no bloody doctor rushing in every two minutes to say I’m being too rough. His mother’s up at the hospital seeing him. And here’s an interesting thing, Mycroft’s turned up too.’

‘What can he want? I thought they didn’t get on?’

‘So did I. But I told Vessey to let him in if Farr didn’t object, then press his ear to the keyhole.’

‘You’re letting him have visitors without supervision?’ said Pascoe doubtfully.

‘That’s right,’ said Wishart defensively. ‘Wakefield insisted Mrs Farr was entitled to some privacy. As for Mycroft, I know these miners. They’ll give nothing away if they don’t want to. Much more chance of Vessey picking something up if he keeps his ear pressed to the door.’

‘Otitis, most likely,’ murmured Pascoe.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No? Listen, you two had better bear in mind that down here, you’re on my patch and we’ll do things my way. Out there somewhere there’s a nice big clue which can tie this thing up. It’s Farr’s pit-black. I want it found if it means raking every ditch and emptying every dustbin in South Yorkshire.’

Through the air a plastic carrier bag came sailing. It landed heavily on the table, and a fine grey dust rose from it and settled on Wishart’s papers.

‘No need for these gents to dirty their lily-whites, Chief Inspector,’ boomed Dalziel from the doorway. ‘There’s Farr’s pit-black or what’s left of it.’

Wield looked sadly at the bag and recalled his own fantasy of doing just that. Not for him, it seemed, the extravagant gesture; professionally or personally.

‘There’s not a lot left except the soles of his boots,’ said Dalziel advancing. ‘Still, it’ll give the mad scientists something to play with.’

Wishart said, ‘Where’d you find it, sir?’

‘Tommy Dickinson’s back garden,’ said Dalziel. ‘He went back to the lockers and fetched it out after they found Satterthwaite’s body. Covering up for his mate.’

‘Some cover-up,’ said Pascoe. ‘Taking this stuff pointed straight at Farr. Unless …’

‘That sounds like the labour pangs of an idea,’ said Dalziel. ‘Glad to see lunch-time boozing hasn’t fuddled your brain, lad. But it’s not on. No way would Dickinson be trying to shift interest on to his mate. He’s about as devious as a backward tortoise, our Tommy. It wasn’t even his idea. Neil Wardle, branch secretary and bright enough to be a CID man, he cottoned on that Farr was likely to be Number One suspect. And before you ask, he wasn’t trying to point the finger either. If that had been his game he’d have lifted it himself as he came off shift. No, it was later when the word got round about the body that his mind got to working. He couldn’t get back himself so he asked Tommy to go. What he really wanted Tommy to do was check to see if there were owt incriminating in Col’s locker but Tommy watches a lot of Yankee crime stuff on the telly and he knows they can prove owt they like with their tests. So to be on the safe side, he took the lot home and burnt it.’

‘And did you get him to say if there were any bloodstains on the gear?’ asked Wishart.

‘Got him to say nowt,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wardle told me all this. Tommy’s flat out on his mam’s sofa and liable to stay that way till tomorrow. Weak heads, these miners have. Any road, he’s not going to incriminate his mate, so it’s down to Forensic. Not that I can see young Farr leaving the stuff if it were covered with blood. He struck me as a clever cunt, that one. So none of this seems to leave us much further on.’

‘Sir,’ said Wield, thinking that even if high drama seemed out of his reach, he might as well get credit for his bit part, ‘there is one thing. It seems likely Farr made another phone call last night, before the one he made to … Mrs Pascoe.’

‘And we’ve not had much help from that quarter, have we?’ said Dalziel genially. ‘So, Sergeant Wield, you think it might be helpful for us to talk to this person who got Farr’s first call?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, get to it, lad.’

‘But we don’t know …’

‘Mycroft, Stella Mycroft’s the name. Used to be Farr’s fiancée, but got wed to that deputy Farr talked to on the way out of the pit. Gavin Mycroft. We went down to the Welfare together today, but I noticed he didn’t stay long. Overcome by an irresistible urge to visit the sick, I gather. Unsupervised, I also gather. I hope that lad you’ve got on duty up there’s got ears like Dumbo, Chief Inspector!’

The bastard’s got us bugged, thought Pascoe. And just look at that five-acre face beaming smugly as he pulls his smart little rabbits out of his great sodding hat. Oh for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!

Sergeant Swift appeared at the door. He didn’t look happy. Wishart rose immediately and went out into the corridor with him. Dalziel moved round the desk and sank gratefully into Wishart’s chair.

‘Thought he’d never offer,’ he said. ‘Right. Here’s what we do. You two, seeing as you’re such good friends, you can stick together and get yourselves round to this fellow Mycroft’s house. Pick yourself a pretty little WPC as chaperone on your way out. I want the Mycrofts and I want them simultaneously but separately. You deal with her, Wieldy. You should be a bit less susceptible to female eye-flutter than this lecherous sod. I want to know why Mycroft went visiting at the hospital today. And just in case there’s any dispute, I’ll head back to the Infirmary and ask that young bugger, Farr, the same questions. All right?’

‘Hold it.’

It was Alex Wishart’s turn to interrupt from the doorway, but Pascoe could see that he wasn’t motivated by anything like Dalziel’s unbearably condescending oneupmanship. If any emotion showed on the Scot’s still face, it was an untypical trepidation.

‘Yes, lad. What’s up? Another body, is it?’

‘On the contrary, sir,’ said Wishart with an immediately quenched flicker of humour.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s Farr, sir. We’ve just heard from the Infirmary. He’s done a bunk. Taken off. Disappeared. Sir.’