A Killing Kindness (34 page)

Suddenly he knew what was happening.

By the time Dalziel and Pascoe reached the airfield, the ambulance had gone and the excited and horror-struck members were busy exchanging  notes in the club house. Preece who met them in the car park was equally excited and eager for an  audience.

'I saw it,’ he said. 'I was just sitting in my car, waiting. I saw him coming in to land. It looked  fine, but he just kept on going and going, made  no attempt to touch down or lose speed. Just  going and going. Right into the boundary fence. I couldn't believe it. I was watching and I couldn't  believe it!'

'Dead?' said Dalziel.

'Oh yes. I was first across there. It was a mess.  Broken neck, it looked like. I called an ambulance,  but I might as well have called a dust-cart.'

'Let's take a look,' said Dalziel.

The three policemen walked across to the wreckage. The glider had hit the wire mesh of the boundary fence, flipped over and landed upside down with considerable fracturing of metal and  fibreglass.

And bone.

'What do you think?' asked Dalziel. 'Suicide?'

'He just flew straight into it,' repeated Preece. 'He made no attempt to avoid it.'

'OK, lad,' said Dalziel. 'Peter, what do you  think?'

'Guilty conscience, you mean? It'll be a popular  theory with half the Great British Public.'

'And the other half?'

'Innocent man driven to extremes by false accusation and police harassment.'

'Yes, but what do
you
think?'

Pascoe walked a little further along the boundary fence till through the dusk he could see the line of picket-stakes which marched at right angles to  it.

'The gypsies have gone,' he said, looking over  the empty patch of land beyond.

'Oh aye. We're shot of them buggers till next  year, thank God,' said Dalziel. 'How many times  do I have to ask.
What do you think?'

'I think it's mysterious and sad,' said Pascoe.  'That's it. A sorrow and a mystery. Like life.'

'Jesus bloody wept,' said Dalziel.