A Fall from Grace (16 page)

No. Not necessarily. He was forgetting that they were, after all, children, the actors in that oddly named play, and therefore would not think in the same way as adults, did not have the same self-protective shell which they could draw up to shield themselves in moments of danger. One of the children might have thought of it in some such terms as: it worked in the play so it might work in real life.

All this he chewed over with Felicity, when she got back from Leeds and teaching.

“I just can't work out whether it's a false trail, or something of real importance,” said Charlie, his face twisted with thought. “And it may be connected to another thing that Costello brought up that I kick myself for not having thought of before.”

“What's that?”

“How did your father and Anne Michaels come together?”

“How does anyone?” said Felicity.

“Well, where? In the pubs, when she would have been with her parents? In one of the shops? At school? Was Rupert asked to give a talk about his writing there? Did they get chatting on a walk? Has Anne Michaels got a dog, perhaps? Did she and her little gang target Rupert as an incomer? It seems an unlikely way of getting acquainted.”

Felicity nodded, and went off to bathe Carola, remaining thoughtful throughout the whole wet and noisy process. When she had got her to bed and to something approaching sleep, she came back into the big room in the house and said to Charlie, “I've had an idea about my dad and Anne Michaels.”

“Good, because I haven't. I can't even guess how they met.”

“Do you remember you came home during the evening one day, while you were busy with that copper's shooting? You went straight to bed, but you told me the next day that as you were coming in from the car you thought you heard the singing of the children's gang, and that it came roughly from the direction of Dad's bungalow?”

“That's right. Or rather the direction of Forsythia Avenue. Could have been anyone up there. Even Ben Costello lives somewhere near your dad, and they might have fingered him for an Italian immigrant.”

“I doubt it. People don't think about unusual names in Britain unless they're really unpronounceable, and Abbott and Costello have made it seem perfectly usual instead of Italian or Irish, or whatever it is. If he was fingered it was as a newcomer to the village. But say it was my dad, and they were up there singing their song, ‘'Ban, 'ban, Ca-Caliban,' and maybe others too. What might my dad have thought?”

“That he was being serenaded as one of the country's foremost writers?”

“That they were carol singers.”

“ ‘'Ban, 'ban Ca-Caliban' doesn't sound much like a carol,
especially the way they sing it.”

“My dad was tone deaf. I've often told you. He could barely distinguish the National Anthem from ‘Happy Birthday to You.' ”

Charlie pondered.

“So he goes to the door, the smaller children scatter, Anne stays there—pert little piece as she is—and she goes along with the carol singers idea, says the younger ones have gone home to bed, maybe gets invited in . . .”

“Yeah, well, the detail isn't important. But I do think that, or something very like it, could have been how it all started.”

And the more Charlie considered it, the more he liked it. And the more he thought, the more he saw how Anne Michaels could have acted up to the role that Rupert Coggenhoe would have cast her in: that of the acolyte, the admirer, the breathless fan. Maybe at first she genuinely thought Rupert was a well-known writer who could be useful to her when she became a real actress. But perhaps always in the back of her mind there was the possibility of making real mischief for him, or using the threat of it as blackmail.

* * *

The next morning, Tuesday, Charlie was not on duty till eleven. Over coffee and toast he took up the Bradford telephone directory and looked up Vickery. There was only one in the Halifax area, and it was, he felt pretty sure, in the Slepton Edge district—a street five minutes from the center. As Felicity was setting off for nursery school he got in the car, drove through
the village, then left the car at the nearest wide road. He idled away a few minutes in a newsagent-cum-anything-with-a-better-profit-margin on the corner of Mitching Lane, where he felt sure the Vickerys would live. He was rewarded first by seeing Dwayne barge out of the front door and go off joyfully to school; then, a few minutes later, by seeing a substantial black lady who reminded him of photographs of his mother when younger, leading a small girl. He paid for his
Times,
then drove his car to the nursery school, passing Felicity on her way home with a gaggle of young and youngish mothers.

He stopped his car when he saw Mrs. Vickery on the way back from dropping off her daughter. Charlie got out and strolled up to her with a casual air.

“Do you think I could have a word with you?”

She looked at him, definitely flirtatious.

“If you care to walk with me to the bus stop round the corner, I'm on duty in half an hour.” She was a deep contralto, and spoke with a precise, almost prissy accent.

“On duty?”

“At Halifax General Hospital.”

“Ah. This isn't professional. It was more in your capacity as a mother I wanted to talk.”

“Well, I have that capacity as well as that of senior nurse.” Suddenly the accent changed, though not the element of flirtation. “If yo' ain't embarrassed to go talkin' to a black person who's gone up in de world, then I ain't de same. Even if yo' is a p'liceman.”

“Policeman and senior nurse,” said Charlie, smiling
broadly back. “Pretty similar jobs.”

“We in the nursing profession have to be much more tough.” The accent had become prissy again. “Now, I don't know your name, but you sat in on the drama classes a while back, and gave them a talking-to afterward. And you spoke to my boy Dwayne yesterday.”

“Right. And you kept him off school yesterday because you realized that questions might be asked about a death that resembled the one in
Unman, Whatsit and Whosit.
”

“I did.” She sighed. “Oh, I knew I couldn't keep him home for long. For a start he'd sneak out, and I've a reputation for firmness to keep up. I just wanted to spare him getting involved in all the gossip and rumor that will be going round. He was one of the main boys in the play.”

“And do you think there's a connection?”

“Yo' is de copper, boy. But it's a hell of a coincidence, isn't it?”

“You're assuming it was murder, aren't you?”

This caused her to think long and hard.

“Well, yes, I am. If it wasn't a murder, or not a premeditated one, it doesn't seem so much of a coincidence.”

“Are you a bit suspicious of the drama stream for your boy? You wouldn't be the only one if you were.”

They came up to the bus stop and again she considered long before replying.

“I
wasn't
suspicious. Dwayne seemed so happy . . . so
bright
. And he didn't fall behind in the other subjects either—got better at them, in fact. But I heard from
some of the other mothers that kids from the other streams were jealous, that there was a lot of bad blood, a feeling that the drama stream was getting way above themselves. I didn't want that for Dwayne. And then there was this nasty little gang. They could have picked on me next, and
wouldn't
I have given them hell, and Dwayne too.”

“I think they'd have thought twice before they picked on you,” said Charlie.

“Maybe. But children aren't as wise and cautious as adults. And then came this death. Maybe I'm being silly, but it made me think. And I'm not daft enough to think that all the children in the stream are going to end up with a career onstage or on telly, or directing or designing or whatever. Most of them will end up loading shelves in Marks & Spencer's, just like the other kids. It doesn't do to burn your bridges with most of the other pupils in the school.”

Charlie nodded. She was a feet-on-the-ground lady.

“This little gang—it's been active round our way.”

“Have they? Didn't pick on you, then, with your Brixton accent? You'd give them a hefty wallop if they did, I bet you.”

“Policemen are the last people who can go around giving kids a hefty wallop. Now, the gang is led by Anne Michaels, I know.”

“Oh, there's no doubt about that. Stuck-up little miss. And dangerous, I'd guess.”

“You're not far out there. I'll maybe talk to her later. I'd like to talk to one of the younger children first. Know any of them?”

“One or two. I guess they'll be frightened of talking. Not of you so much as of her. She'll have put the fear of God into them, if I know her.”

“Who would you recommend I talk to?”

She ran through the children in her head.

“I've seen them hanging around together, so I know most of them by sight. One I do know better than that is Carmel Postgate. She's about eleven or twelve and was in hospital for a couple of weeks with pneumonia earlier this year. The pneumonia didn't stop her chattering away nineteen to the dozen every minute the day held.” She looked at Charlie. “That could be useful, I guess. Right. This is my bus.”

“One more thing,” said Charlie quickly. “Could you forget we've had this conversation? Pretend it's never happened?”

“Sure. It'll be a secret between you and me and the twenty or thirty people who've passed us in the street.”

And she waved cheerily as she got on the bus.

Charlie walked thoughtfully back to the car. Of course he had been careless. But where could he have gone to talk to Mrs. Vickery in secret? He didn't particularly care if Costello found out he'd been talking to possible witnesses
eventually.
He could cope with that, if the information he had gathered proved relevant. He had no particular sympathy with policemen who cared about their patch and their promotion over the calls of the case and securing a just result. But he didn't want it to come out now, with all the possible repercussions, including disciplinary ones. He was going to have to be more discreet.

He drove carefully through Westowram, where parents and toddlers were still making their way to school, then out toward the M62 to Leeds and work. But he was not two minutes from the center when he thought he saw Chris Carlson. This wouldn't have been surprising if Chris were making his way to somewhere local to paint. But today he was going nowhere. He was removing rubbish from an old corner shop that looked as if it had been closed for decades and was well on the path to dereliction. As he slowed and watched, Chris and a teenage boy brought out ancient tills, bits of a counter, even groceries presumably spectacularly past their sell-by date. He was rather ashamed as he watched Chris, in his shirtsleeves on a coldish winter morning, because his mind was estimating whether he was physically capable of tipping Rupert Coggenhoe over the quarry edge. There was no question about it: he was six foot, lean, very lithe. There would be no contest if he was faced with a seventy-year-old man, gone to seed, with a stoop and a prominent tummy.

Charlie got out of his car and went over.

“Setting up shop?” he asked pleasantly.

“Charlie!” said Chris, stopping work and mopping his brow. “Wasn't expecting you. Not exactly shop, more like office. It was a shop once, but it's been closed for years. I've rented it for a couple of months, with an option. It's going to be my campaign headquarters. Alison wasn't keen on that being at home—not with her being about to produce the long-awaited offspring in four months' time.”

“I can understand that. So you've decided?”

“Yes, I have. I felt as if it decided itself, was inevitable, after my having got so close last time. I felt as if I'd be breaking faith with all those who'd supported me then. And the truth is, I enjoyed the campaigning that time, and I'm looking forward to it now. It's something worth doing.”

“I think I'd keep quiet about it for a bit,” said Charlie.

“Keep quiet? How can you keep an election campaign quiet?”

“I mean for a week or two. He's only been dead three or four days. People might see it as you jumping rather overenthusiastically into dead men's shoes.”

Chris looked gobsmacked for a moment.

“Good Lord, I hadn't thought of that. Tasteless, you feel?”

“A bit. And pushy.”

“I wouldn't want to be that. It wouldn't do me any good at all . . . Peter!” He called in the direction of the boy, who was struggling with a long plank of wood. “I think you'd better do the removal work. I'll stay inside and give the place a lick of paint.”

“It'll cost you,” said Peter stoutly. “If I'm going to do all that lifting work I'll need an increase of wages.”

“Oh, all right,” said Chris reluctantly. “I promised you eight pounds for the morning. We'll say ten.”

“Twelve.”

“Why you—Oh, all right. It's daylight robbery, though. I'm only giving it you because you've got me over a barrel.”

Chris made himself less public by slipping inside.
Charlie and Peter followed him, and watched as he took up a paint pot and brush.

“Know a girl named Carmel Postgate?” Charlie asked Chris. “Quite young—eleven, twelve maybe.”

“I don't,” said Chris, stirring the paint. “Children don't come to me with their worries.”

“Maybe they should.”

“I know her,” said Peter, glad of any excuse to put off heavy work. “Chatters like a parrot—you can't shut her up.”

“I heard that. She goes to Westowram High, I suppose. First or second year.”

“That's right. Drama stream. They make you sick, that lot. Go on as if they're God's gift to the nation. She's one of Anne Michaels's little followers. What a crew! You watch she doesn't take you on next. Incomers is what they go for, and it's often as not color they're really talking about.”