A Killing Kindness (33 page)

'You don't see many young girls with engagement rings in the nick,' said Dalziel.

'If he does that, perhaps it'll get to his conscience and he'll be ready to confess again,' said Wield.

'Pottle thinks not,' said Pascoe. 'He wanted to  confess in the first place because of the unnecessary killings - that is, those that were motivated  by simple self-preservation. It was a confession  in the religious sense. He's a Catholic, remember.  Pottle says I was the priest, but I turned out to  be fraudulent. Real priests don't duck out of the confessional and send a curate in to finish things off. So, end of confession.'

'Fuck Pottle,' said Dalziel. ‘I’ll tell you one thing.  That bugger won't pick his nose without me knowing about it from now on.'

'What?'

'Aye. Young Preece is on him now.'

'But he knows Preece,' said Pascoe.

'He'll know a lot of us before we're done,' said  Dalziel. 'Day and night. ‘He’ll be after us for harassment,' protested  Pascoe.

'You reckon?' Dalziel looked at Pascoe curiously.  'Bothers you, does it?'

'A lot of things bother me, sir,' said Pascoe.

'I'll tell you something, Peter,' said Dalziel seriously. 'When I started this job, there was
us
and 
them
and
their
weapons were brutality and deceit  and not-giving-a-sod and
our
weapon was the law.  Now the law's their weapon too, or haven't you  noticed? So me, I'll use whatever I can lay my  hands on.'

'Even if it's something
they
have discarded?'  wondered Pascoe.

'Dog turds, if necessary,' said Dalziel. 'I'm off. If I see them lawyers coming out, all arm in arm and  friendly, I may thump their bloody wigs together.'

Pascoe and Sergeant Wield watched as the fat man stumped down the steps.

'He's not happy,' said Wield.

'I'm not happy,' said Pascoe. 'But what the  hell?'

'Mr Pascoe,' said a woman's voice.

They turned. Rosetta Stanhope was standing on the step above them.

'Hello,' said Pascoe. 'I noticed you in court. You  know Sergeant Wield, I think.'

'Yes,' said the woman. 'We were talking  earlier.'

'I'd best be off,' said Wield. 'See you later, sir. Goodbye, Mrs Stanhope.'

They watched him go.

'Nice man,’ said the woman. 'He's been very  unhappy lately, I think.'

'Has he?' said Pascoe. Somehow the states of  happiness and unhappiness did not seem to relate  to Wield.

'You haven't noticed? No, he wouldn't show much. He'll be happy again, eventually, I think.  But you've got a lot to be happy about now, so  he was telling me, Inspector. Congratulations.'

Pascoe returned the woman's warm smile and suddenly felt a surge of delight rising in him which drove out all the post-trial despondency.

'Yes,' he said. 'Thank you. Last week. It's been  very worrying. Ellie, that's my wife, was ill for a  long time. We thought she was going to lose it.  She spent weeks in hospital. And it came a couple  of weeks early.'

'It?'

'She,'
said Pascoe. 'I haven't got used yet. She wasn't very heavy, but she's fine. She's OK. Perfect, I mean.'

'And your wife?'

'Fine too. She'll be all right soon. It's been very  hard for her. Very hard.'

Pascoe frowned as he spoke and Rosetta Stanhope put a thin brown hand on his arm.

'Don't worry,' she said. 'It'll be all right. I feel it.'

'Yes. Well, thanks,' said Pascoe. 'And you? How  are you? Look, I'm sorry. About all this, all being  for nothing, I mean.'

'Don't worry,' she repeated, smiling. 'That will  be all right too. I feel it. It will be as Pauline would  have wanted it. I visited Dave the other day.'

'Lee? How is he? He should be out early next  year if he's been behaving himself. He might even  have got away with probation if it hadn't been for  his record.'

'Yes, you were very gentle with him in the end.  Perhaps the fat man has a bit of a conscience, eh?  I explained this to Dave when he asked me to  curse him.'

'Curse Mr Dalziel?' said Pascoe, amused.

'All of you, but especially Mr Dalziel,' said Rosetta Stanhope without amusement.

'But you wouldn't do it?'

'With your troubles, who needs curses?'

'Thanks anyway,' grinned Pascoe.

This time she smiled back. She was very smart in a tweed coat and elegant brogues.

'You're right not to be frightened of an ordinary  old woman like me,' she said. 'But don't forget I'm pure-bred Romany under this outfit. I've been  away a long time but you can't be away for ever.'

'You're not really thinking of going back?'

'To end my days sitting on the
vardo
steps puffing away at an old pipe to keep off the flies, you mean?  Well, it may not seem a bad option when the  spring's back in the air and the green's among the  trees. I'd be someone there, at least. Here . . . well,  I miss her, Mr Pascoe. She stopped me missing him  and now she's gone, I miss them both.'

'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe helplessly. 'About everything.'

'It's going to be all right,' said Rosetta Stanhope.  'It's taken care of. Let me have your little girl's date  and time of birth, if you like. I'll cast her horoscope.  It'll be a fortunate one, I feel it. Everything's going  to be all right. Everything.' 

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

Chapter 27

Austin Greenall went straight to the Aero Club from the courtroom, but news of his acquittal had preceded him. Bernard Middlefield had been in court too and had had no lawyers and journalists  to delay his departure.

It was late afternoon and the shadows were long. The only glider in the sky was making its approach, but in the club house were a dozen or so members who had presumably managed to organize their  work so that they could enjoy their flight earlier  in the afternoon. Perhaps not coincidentally they  included three other committee members besides  Middlefield. A quorum.

There was silence as he entered, then someone  said, 'Congratulations, Austin.' This started a small spatter of
yes, well done, never doubted for a minute, 
hardly felt before quickly drying up.

Middlefield said, 'Can we go into the office?'

'By all means,' said Greenall. 'Go ahead.’

‘No; with you, I mean,' said Middlefield exasperatedly. 'There's business to do. We've had a  committee meeting...’

'A very brief one, surely?'

'Not just now. Earlier this week. We had to make  decisions.'

'Contingency plans? In case I got acquitted?'

'All we want is to find out what you plan to  do.'

'I thought, first, a little flight. Just to clear the  mind, stretch the muscles. Roger. Peter. Would  you give me a hand?'

'It's a bit late, Austin,' protested the first man  addressed, Roger Minstrel, his assistant, who had been running the Club single-handed for the past  few months.

'I'll give you a hand,' said Thelma Lacewing from  the doorway. She looked very fetching in boots, pink cords and a light blue anorak. 'Assistance is  getting hard to find round here. I thought I'd hit  the deserted village when I came down just now.'

'Thelma, I'm sorry,' apologized Minstrel. 'Honestly, I was out there watching you, but...’

He tailed off.

'You came inside for the welcome home party,' concluded Lacewing. 'You'd better get a move on,  Austin. The lights are going out all over Yorkshire.  Starting here, as usual.'

'Yes,' said Greenall making for the door.  'Roger?'

'All right, but it
is
late,' said Minstrel.

'We'll talk later,' called Middlefield after them in an attempt to re-affirm his authority.

By the time Greenall had got himself ready. Minstrel and Lacewing had manoeuvred the glider into position and the man went off to the towing  winch.

Greenall climbed into the cockpit and strapped  himself in.

'I gather you were acquitted,' said the woman.

He nodded.

'How do you feel about it?' she asked.

'I'm not sure,' he said.

'Do the police still think you're guilty?'

'I don't know. You'd better ask your friend.'

'Ellie Pascoe?' said Lacewing, frowning. 'She's  had - still has - other things to worry her apart  from whether you're guilty or not. What about  you? What do you think?'

'About being guilty?' he said with a faint smile. 'I'm not very clear yet.'

'I should try to be clear before you land,' she said. 'For everyone's sake.'

She turned away and retreated to the wing tip which she grasped and raised. The signal was given  to Minstrel. The winch engine bellowed into life.  The glider began to move.

It was a perfect launch. The skills were too  deeply grafted into Greenall's sinews and nerves for his enforced lay-off to have damaged them.  Released from the towline, the glider soared as  he expertly used the wind to carry him over the industrial estate where there was a complex of  thermal activity he could read like a contour map.

Why had he chosen the glider? he wondered. The Cub would have taken him higher and further,  given him more control. But he knew why, he realized. In the small aeroplane he was always  aware of what it had once felt like to have at  his fingertips control of such speed and power as most men could hardly dream of. A king of  infinite space. Soaring in the glider brought no  such memories. This was something different, not  mastery of a kingdom by force of conquest, but more like acceptance as a citizen by a kind of naturalization process. Citizen of infinite space. Not  quite the same ring about it but at this moment,  at this time, the experience brought a peace and  sense of belonging which he desperately needed.

‘What were his plans? Middlefield had asked.

What did he think about his guilt or innocence? Thelma Lacewing had wondered.

Stupid questions. Guilt, innocence, the future;  these were not things to be decided or even usefully contemplated. He had felt guilty, it was true, else why had he talked at such length to that fellow  Pascoe? But with the talking the guilt had lessened,  was already going as he talked to the man, and had  gone completely by the time that sergeant with a face like a hangman's labourer had come in.

Guilt might return, though it had not returned since then. And even if it did return, he now knew  from experience that innocence returned too. So the future must take care of itself, whatever it  brought. It was written. He knew it.

He hadn't told Pascoe everything, not quite everything. When he had slipped into Madame  Rashid's tent at Charter Park, he hadn't killed  the girl straightaway. He had given her his palm  to read. She had examined it, murmuring a few  well-worn platitudes, then she had gone very  quiet, and looked at his hand quite fixedly, and  slowly risen, pushing his hand away and raising her  own to her mouth. He had punched her then, very  hard, in the stomach, and killed her. She had seen he was going to kill her, he was sure of that. And  what was going to happen had to happen. Guilt  he had felt then, and again, still stronger, after the  slaying of Wildgoose. But he was an evil man, a  debaucher of youth. He saw that now. There was  no more guilt to be felt there.

The flight was doing him good. He had known  it would. He felt ready for the earth again, ready  to go back and take his place once more and do  whatever had to be done.

He looked down to get his bearings. Up here  it was still bright but the height made a lot of  difference. At ground level the sun was now dipping below the horizon, but it made no difference,  not to a citizen of infinite space. He dipped across  the airfield in a long descending run with the  light wind behind him and turned for his landing approach. To his surprise he realized he was  still rather high. Perhaps he was more out of practice than he imagined. To compensate and to reassure himself of his touch, he applied full  airbrake and side-slipped to lose height till he  was satisfied he was approaching at the optimum  angle.

He was now low enough to be out of the full  orb of the sun and the gloom of early evening  visibly thickened beneath him, but not enough to cause concern. He was coming down parallel to the  picket fence which the council had erected to keep  the gypsies away from the airfield. To his right he could see the club house quite clearly. The flagpole, brilliant white and exactly thirty feet  high, gave him a precise point of reference for  his round-out, even though the ground surface itself seemed far from clear. It was rushing beneath  him, vague and shadowy. And the shadows were  uneven too. Some seemed to be moving
across
the  line of his approach, and these had a look of shape  and substance.

'Jesus!' he muttered suddenly, realizing what  they were.

No shadows these, but ponies, a whole bloody  herd by the look of it, wheeling and swerving  beneath him as though driven in panic by the  sound of his descent.

The picket fence must be broken again. The  bloody things were everywhere. He shouted, knowing they couldn't hear and that it would make no  difference if they could; but still he shouted. And  still they thundered directly beneath him. Christ, they must be moving! He was doing almost fifty  knots and he wasn't outrunning them.

It was time for decisions. Continue the landing  as planned and hope the blasted things got out of the way. Or overshoot. He visualized what lay  behind that section of the boundary fence directly ahead. Rough ground. Some gorse bushes, very  substantial. And then the belt of trees beyond which curved the river.

Perilous country even if he could see it. But black  as it was now, certain disaster.

So it had to be the landing as planned. He  hadn't got enough speed to gain enough height for  another turn on to a different line from the stampeding herd. Only the crassest of novices would  try that, a fool, an idiot.

Yet that was what his hands and feet were  trying to do. He cursed them and fought back,  held the glider level, straight and level, the animals weren't stupid, they would get out of his  way.

And suddenly he had won. He felt relaxed,  looked out through the perspex. There seemed  to be rather more light now. Everything was quite  clear. And he could no longer see the ponies.