Exit Lines (22 page)

'Such as?'

'Perhaps someone persuaded her to change her mind.'

'Good lord. You mean the portly gent bribed her?' said Abbiss in mock amazement.

'I doubt it,' said Pascoe.

'Because he's a policeman and water doesn't flow uphill?'

'Because Mr Dalziel is not by nature a briber,' said Pascoe calmly. 'As for Mrs Warsop, she doesn't look like a lady who's short of money. Eating here twice in five days, for instance. It is only twice, is it?'

The door from the dining-room opened and Stella Abbiss came in. She had a trayful of plates in her hands. She set it down by the sink and made no move to go out again.

'Precisely what are you trying to say, Inspector?' asked Abbiss. His face had lost a bit of colour. Another half-hour teasing this man and I could make them a matching pair, thought Pascoe. But now he was convinced of the truth, he was tired of the game. There would be specialists to work through records and accounts and unravel the woof and warp of the fraud. He felt almost sorry for Abbiss. It probably didn't amount to all that much, though any saving must be tempting when margins were narrow.

On the other hand, it was his sad experience that fiddling was zymotic; it would be no surprise to learn that every area of Abbiss's business dealings had been tainted.

'It is my considered opinion,' said Pascoe carefully, 'that you suggested to Mrs Warsop that it might not be a very clever idea for her to get in bad with the police by pursuing her claim that Superintendent Dalziel was driving the car. She admits she did not know that Mr Dalziel was a policeman until after she had spoken to the Press. Suddenly your hotel must have seemed very full of the Law, Mr Abbiss. The quickest way to get rid of them must have seemed to be to get Mr Dalziel off the hook. Hence your advice. But why should you be worried and why should Mrs Warsop be advised by you? Could it be that the pair of you have a business relationship you would prefer not to come under the risk of scrutiny? Could this be why she gets to eat here so regularly and is able to sign her bill?'

'She gets an account like anybody else,' protested Abbiss.

'In which case your records will show this, as will her own cheque-stubs and bank statement.'

'But often she pays by cash anyway,' tried Abbiss desperately.

'You mean she often pays her restaurant bill by cash? How often?'

'For Christ's sake, how am I expected to remember something like that?'

'Well, we'll just have to consult your staff about that, shan't we?' said Pascoe. 'See what
their
memories are like!'

Suddenly Abbiss's expression changed to one of shocked enlightenment, his chopping knife rose in the air and came hissing down on a capsicum which it clove apart with such violence that the halves shot off the table. One hit the floor. The other, Pascoe caught in an instinctive reaction.

'It's that little cow, isn't it? That's why you were so bloody interested in talking about her! It's really coming to something when a slut like that who gets the push for dishonesty should be allowed to blacken other people's names! The poxy little whore, if I ever get my hands on her . . .'

It was interesting to detect a definite strain of Merseyside emerging in Abbiss's speech under emotional pressure.

Pascoe put the capsicum half on the table.

'Good night, Mr Abbiss,' he said courteously.

He went to the dining-room door and peered out. He was uncertain yet whether he ought to talk to Mrs Warsop too at this juncture. As he looked, the frizzy-haired girl who was listening with a bored expression to what looked like a lengthy remonstration from her companion suddenly stubbed her cigarette out in the other's pheasant, rose and left the dining-room. After an agitated moment, Mrs Warsop followed her.

That made up Pascoe's mind. A wise cop didn't get involved in domestics if he could help it.

Stella Abbiss followed him to the front door.

'What happens?' she asked.

He looked at her and shrugged.

'Out of my hands,' he said.

'Does it have to be?'

She spoke flatly but there was no possibility of ambiguity.

Pascoe looked sadly at this pale, shining woman with her cloud of black hair and her dark tragic eyes which were yet sharp enough to have penetrated his fantasies. Did she honestly believe they were realizable? His gaze moved behind her to the reception desk against which Abbiss had discovered Charley Frostick socking it to Andrea. He nodded. It occurred to him that this was certainly ambiguous. He said firmly, 'Yes, it has to be,' and went out into the car park.

Chapter 24

'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and do not be afraid to do thine office.'

At seven o'clock the following morning Pascoe was roused by the telephone. When he answered it, the familiar foghorn at the other end made him think for a moment that all was as it had been and he was merely receiving another urgent summons to another urgent case. 'Peter,' said Dalziel. 'You still in bed, you lazy bugger?' 'Where else?' he yawned.

'You alone?'

'Ellie's still not back,' he answered regretfully.

'Oh aye. But are you alone?'

'Ha ha,' said Pascoe, waking up now. 'Sir, to what do I owe the . . .'

'Peter, I hear you're piling a bit of trouble on Paradise Hall.'

'Do you? Now, how on earth . . .'

'Forget it, Peter.'

'What?'

 
'Forget it.'

'But . . .'

'Peter, I'm still in charge, aren't I? I mean, they haven't made you commissioner and me the tea-boy, have they?'

'No, of course . . .'

'Then forget it. That's an order. All right?' Pascoe was amazed. He said, 'As a subordinate, I suppose it's all right though I'll need to think about it. As a friend..’

‘A friend. You want for us to talk as friends?' said Dalziel.

' Yes, sir. If you'll make the effort, then I will.'

'All right,' said Dalziel. 'Then
please
forget it.'

The phone went dead.

It rang an hour later just as he was getting ready to leave. This time it was Ellie.

'I rang last night,' she said.

'I'm sorry. I was a bit late.'

'Too late to ring me?'

'No. Well, yes. I didn't want to disturb you.'

The truth was he'd had a drink when he got home, switched on the ten o'clock news and awakened in the armchair with a crick in his neck, a nasty taste in his mouth and the TV switch-off tone in his ears.

'How is everything?' he asked.

'Pretty bloody,' she said in a worryingly flat voice. 'He went off last evening, just disappeared. I found him outside the library. It was quarter to nine. He said he was waiting for it to open at nine.'

'Poor old devil,' said Pascoe, genuinely distressed at his father-in-law's confusion, but also with a slight sense of comedy. This vanished rapidly with Ellie's next remark.

'Peter,' she said hopelessly. 'I don't know what to do.'

This was truly horrifying, more shocking far than the vagaries of senility. With a sudden flash of insight, he appreciated that Ellie was to his personal life what Dalziel was to his professional, a bulwark of certainty, often wrong, it was true, and frequently in need of diplomatic redirection, but always high on self-assurance and low on self-doubt.

She went on, 'He's not going to get any better, I can see that now. And as he gets worse, he's going to need more and more looking after and I'm not sure Mum can cope. She just seems to want to sit and play with Rose all day and pretend that nothing's happening. Peter, what am I going to do?'

Well, here's your chance, boy, here's your big moment, thought Pascoe. The perfect soap-opera situation: the modern, independent, feminist wife is at last forced to appeal to the big strong man in her life for strength and guidance; he is silent, but even his silence is reassuring; the hunter-provider, fleet of foot and rational of thought, is about to pronounce.

He said, 'Christ knows. I mean, it's pretty much of a mess, isn't it? I mean, I can see what . . .'

He took a deep breath, exhaled, blowing the remnants of hunter-provider out of his system, and said, 'Why don't I pop down and suss things out on the spot, so to speak?'

'Peter, could you? That'd be bloody marvellous! When?'

Heady with rapturously-applauded decision and suddenly filled with a huge need to see Ellie again, he said carelessly, 'This afternoon? Why not? I'll stay overnight, but I'll have to be up at the crack to get back here for slopping-out time.'

They spent a few more minutes promising an exchange of delights which left Pascoe feeling weak with desire and he needed another two cups of caponizing coffee before he felt able to go to work.

Getting away after lunch proved easier than mature reflection on the way to the station had suggested it might be. Like nearly all working detectives, he had no shortage of back-time; what was rare was the front-time to take it up in. Today, despite his two murders (the death of 'Tap' Parrinder now being acknowledged officially as a likely unlawful killing) there occurred one of those lulls in which everything possible to do was being, or had been, done and nothing remained but to wait hopefully for a break and catch up with the paperwork.

There was also a pleasing absence of brass about the place, and with Sergeant Wield and George Headingley happy to watch the shop for him, Pascoe felt no pangs of conscience at baling out after lunch in the CID's usual city haunt, The Black Bull.

He bought Wield and Headingley a third pint, contenting himself with a pre-driving tomato juice, and told them of his visit to The Towers and Paradise Hall the previous evening. He also told them of Dalziel's injunction, which he had obeyed though not without misgivings.

Wield interrupted his story during his description of Doreen Warsop and her companion at the restaurant.

'You're not saying that being lesbian means she's more likely to be a crook?' he said mildly.

'Well, no,' said Pascoe. 'I didn't mean to imply that.'

'It sounded like you were offering it as supportive evidence, that was all,' said Wield.

'Not intended, except in so far as treating her friends to expensive meals for which she didn't have to pay is supportive,' said Pascoe, rather irritated by what felt like an attack on his liberal convictions.

Wield nodded his acceptance. Such gentle forays as this were the nearest he ever came in his professional life to declaring his own homosexuality. When he first joined the Force, there had been no debate about concealment. But time and times had changed things, and now, though he did not delude himself that coming out would not still harm his own career, he felt a growing dissatisfaction with the path of secrecy he had chosen, and now these minor skirmishes tended to feel like acts of cowardice rather than courage.

When Pascoe finished his account, there was silence. He neither invited nor desired them to comment on Dalziel's intervention. His reasons for telling them he freely acknowledged; should it ever come to an inquiry, it might stand him in good stead to produce albeit second-hand support for his contention that he was obeying legitimate orders. He felt something of the same kind of self-revulsion in this as Wield was feeling after his little defence of Mrs Warsop. But he also had a career to consider and a wife and family to provide for. His loyalty to Dalziel was strong but there were loyalties which had to be stronger.

Seymour came into the pub as he was leaving. Rather to Pascoe's surprise, he said he had just come from the hospital.

'I don't think Mrs Escott can really have anything useful to tell us,' Pascoe said gently.

The young constable flushed and said, 'I just wanted to see how she was, sir.'

Pascoe thought: Of course, he talked to her first, and he found her. He feels guilty.

His own guilt had rapidly been overtaken by a tide of other emotions closer to home. Compassion was a small flame, needing care and attention and protection from the wind. Perhaps the professional carers' first object was to preserve what they sensed as precious in themselves.

What should a policeman's first object be, then? To remain honest, perhaps. But being compassionate helped.

He said, 'Quite right, Dennis. Well done. How is the old lady?'

Seymour said, 'Just the same. Out of danger from the pills she took, but still in shock from the experience and Dr Sowden says that can be just as dangerous.'

'Sowden?' Pascoe smiled. 'Well, she's in good hands. Keep me posted, lad.'

Lad!
he thought as he left. I'm beginning to talk to them as if I were Dalziel!

Seymour bought himself a pint and a pie and sat some distance from Wield and Headingley. Relations in the CID under Dalziel were easy and open, which meant that detective-constables could with no offence given or taken be told to sod off if their company was not desired. At the present moment, the Sergeant and Inspector were cautiously analysing what Pascoe had just told them about Dalziel's intervention, a conversation they would certainly not have continued in Seymour's presence. But it was his own depression as much as his diplomatic sensors that made the young detective sit apart.

His previous night's date had not gone well. The gloom of discovering Mrs Escott and getting her to the hospital and hanging around till she had been pumped out was still on him. He had begged off going dancing, attempting an explanation which sounded self-indulgently prima-donna-ish even to his own ears. Bernadette had been sympathetic enough but made it quite clear as she brought the evening to an early though friendly close that their short acquaintance did not include access to her shoulders for crying on, still less any other part of her anatomy for any other purpose.

He couldn't blame her. He knew what a dull companion he had been and he hadn't even bothered to suggest another date, being so certain of her negative response. Today he should have been off duty but he had gloomed around all morning, visited the hospital when he might simply have phoned, and drifted by instinct into The Black Bull, where he felt quite unable now to distinguish between feeling sorry for Mrs Escott and feeling sorry for himself.

'What's up with you, then? Too much beer last night?'

It was Wield, who had sat unnoticed on the chair opposite. Headingley was disappearing through the door.

'No, not really, Sarge,' he said.

'You did well yesterday,' said Wield. 'Mr Pascoe was very pleased with you.'

'Was he?' said Seymour, brightening up a little.

'I just said so,' said Wield. 'If you want to hear it again, you should have got it on tape. Isn't this your rest day?'

'Yes, Sarge.'

'Well, at least you're getting a bit of rest,' approved Wield. 'Not like most of 'em, moonlighting away like mad. You had any more thoughts?'

'About what?'

'About why a man with three hundred quid in his pocket should suddenly decide to get out of his taxi in a sleet storm and walk the rest of the way home?'

'Well, I did think about it a bit,' said Seymour. 'I don't know. Mebbe someone was following him, someone who saw him pick up his winnings, and he was trying to shake 'em off, or something.'

Wield considered this.

'You watch a lot of television, do you, Seymour?' he inquired.

'If you can think of anything better, Sarge, I'm listening,' Seymour was stung to retort.

Wield shook his head.

'Not yet, but I'm working at it. Well, I'd best be getting back. We're checking up on everyone we can trace who was in the betting shop on Friday afternoon. It's a weary business.'

'I'll give a hand if you like, Sarge,' volunteered Seymour.

The sergeant smiled wintrily.

'I don't know what this police force is coming to,' he said. 'Mr Pascoe gives himself half a day off and you give yourself half a day on. But I'll not come between a martyr and his crown. You want to help, you'll be very welcome. On one condition.'

'What's that, Sarge?'

'Contact that girl of yours and find out whether it's still on or you've parted for ever. There's enough misery in the world without me having to look it in the face all afternoon!'

Coming from Wield, whose face even in the fullness of joy was not a sight to dwell on, this might have seemed an unjust reproach. But Seymour, whose nature was not a brooding one, took it as a spur to action.

There was a telephone in the entrance hall of the pub. He rang, asked for the restaurant, got the dragon, requested that Miss McCrystal should be brought to the phone. She demurred. He became official, told her that the case was a serious one and a piece of clarification from Miss McCrystal essential.

'Hello?' said Bernadette. 'You'll get me shot!'

'I'm sorry. Look, I just wanted to say, sorry I was such a drag last night.'

'That's true. So you were,' she said not very encouragingly. 'How's the old lady?'

'Sorry?'

'You've been to see her, I hope?' said Bernadette threateningly.

'Well, yes. I went to the hospital this morning. She's not very well, I'm afraid.'

'The poor old soul. Right, listen now,
my
old lady's glowering like the heart of a peat. Is it about tonight you're ringing?'

'Well, yes . . .'

'Then you're in luck. Wednesday's old-time night at the Eldorado. I'll see you outside at eight. Can you manage that?'

'Well, yes . .

'And you'll need a tie. You've got a tie, have you?'

'Yes, somewhere . . .'

'Then eight it is. Goodbye now, Chief Inspector.'

She put the phone down. Wield watched Seymour return into the bar and did not need more than the young man's expressive face to tell him all was well. He tested his own memory and knew that such joy as this he had never known. Love there had been, and on occasion high delight, but always qualified by the demands of secrecy and, in his conventional and restrictive youth, the taint of guilt.

'Will you have another beer, Sarge?' said Seymour, eager to spread his joy.

'Some other time, lad,' said Wield. 'There's work to be done. We'll have it later. Pleasure's best if you've had to wait, right?'

Which could be the story of my life; with a bit of luck; he thought as they left the pub together.

Pascoe and Ellie too had to wait for their pleasure. Even with the early hours kept in the Soper household, it seemed an eternity from their first embrace until they were at last alone in the narrow confines of Ellie's childhood bed. Neither of them complained about the narrowness, though Ellie was concerned for various reasons about the speed and violence of her husband's orgasm.

'Hey,' she said. 'It's a good job I caught you, wasn't it? Another day away, and God knows what you'd have been up to! Who's been tickling your fancy these past few days, then?'