Good Morning, Midnight (13 page)

Look after people, that was the message drummed into him by his father. Look after people, especially if they’re kids. How many times had he heard his father tell the tale of how he’d been found wandering lost, not even speaking the language, and this great country had taken him in, and found him a home, and given him a flag and an education? As a kid he’d never tired of hearing the story. Later, growing up and feeling rebellious, he’d dared to question it, not directly but by implication, saying, “Yeah, you owe them, I see that, but you’ve paid back, you gave them a couple of years of your life in the war. In fact you almost gave them all of your goddam life.”

And his father had said, “You know why I didn’t? I was lying there, bleeding to death, and this sergeant, he was an Arkansas redneck, never said a good word to me before this, but he never said a good word to anyone so that was no special treatment, he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder and carried me out of there. I was dangling over his shoulder so I saw the bullet that hit him, smelt the burnt cloth where it went through his tunic, saw the blood spurt out and stream down his back. He walked another fifty yards after that, laid me down as gentle as if I’d been a hatful of eggs. Then he sat down and died. A redneck from Arkansas did that. Because I was a soldier. Because I was an American. Because I needed help. So don’t talk to me about paying back. I’ll never pay back, not if I live for ever.”

Kay had needed help. Once, twice, three, four times. And he’d learned what his father knew, that each time you gave just put you deeper in debt.

But debts personal and debts patriotic were not always the same thing. Last September the world had changed. He’d found himself looking at where he was. In every sense. And wondering if he should be there. In every sense.

An announcement came over the PA. Jesus, they were actually running ahead of time! No wonder the guy sounded smug.

He looked down at his laptop screen, which had gone to sleep. There was stuff he’d planned to bone up on before his meeting, but there was no rush. He was going to have plenty of time to kill. In any case what he wanted to say didn’t need facts and figures to back it up.

He stared at the blank screen and with his mind’s eye conjured up the Junius article he’d read that morning.

He was pretty certain he knew who Junius was. He’d never hinted his suspicion, to Kay or anyone else. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kay had got there before him a long time ago. As to saying anything to anyone else, the likely consequence wasn’t something he wanted to have on his already overloaded conscience.

He suddenly found himself thinking of that poor bastard Maciver. Of both poor bastards Maciver. Both ending up sitting at a desk with a shotgun under their chin.

Like father, like son.

Him too. Like his father. If serving your country meant getting wounded, then that was the price you had to pay.

And it still left you in debt.

The first person Pascoe ran into when he entered the station was DC Shirley Novello. He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. She rarely did, and never automatically.

He had long since decided that here was a young officer worth taking notice of. She was sharp, direct, a quick study, could take orders, think for herself, kept in good trim and when put to the test had proved she was physically brave.

All this was on her record. Not on her record, because the modern politically correct police force eschewed such inconsequential trivia, was any comment on her appearance. This erred on the plain side of unremarkable. A strong face untouched by make-up, short mousy brown hair showing no sign of recent acquaintance with coiffeur or coiffeuse, clothes which were usually some variety of loose-fitting combats in colour ranging from drab grey to drab olive.

Pascoe, however, had seen her dressed for action and knew that the way she looked at work was a deliberate choice. His guess was that here was an officer in a hurry who didn’t want to waste time or energy dealing with the Neanderthal dickheads who clutter up every police force. Early in his own career he had let his admiration for the physical attributes of a female colleague show too clearly and he still winced with embarrassment when he recalled how before a raid she had taken him aside and said seriously, “Peter, your wet dreams are your own affair, but tonight I’d like to be sure you’ll be watching my back and not my backside.”

So, though regrettable, there was no escaping the fact that the initial strategies of a young man and a young woman in a hurry must diverge. Perhaps equally regrettable was the fact that there comes a point when they must rejoin. This was the age of the image, of sharp suits as well as sharp minds. For a man just as much as for a woman it was hard to win the hearts and minds of a promotion board if you went around looking like a loosely tied sack of potatoes.

Pascoe hoped that Novello would suss this out. He balked at the idea of dropping a hint himself, partly because such a comment, however kindly meant, was very much against the spirit of the age, but mainly because he sensed that, despite all his efforts to be approachable, Novello didn’t much care for him.

In this he was right, but for the wrong reasons.

What she didn’t care for was slim clean-cut men full of boyish charm. What turned her on was a chunky build, good muscular definition and an abundance of body hair. Whenever Pascoe flashed the smile and said something nice to her, he lost all individuality and became a type. But in detective mode, with his mind focused firmly on the task in hand and herself being treated as no more than one of the tools of his job, she admired him greatly. A good-when-she-remembered Catholic girl, she found it easy to think in religious imagery.

There abideth these three, Dalziel, Wield and Pascoe; but the greatest of these (promotion prospects and the present state of the Service being tossed into the pot) had to be Pascoe.

Now the Greatest was asking if the Scariest was in.

“No sign yet, sir,” she said. “And Sergeant Wield’s got the morning off too.”

“So it’s only thee and me,” said Pascoe. “Here’s what I’d like you to do.”

Quickly he brought her up to speed on the events of the previous night.

“And, just to be thorough, and in order to see exactly how much of a copycat it is, I’d like you to dive into the evidence store and see what you can find relating to the suicide of Palinurus Maciver Senior. Discreetly. You know how leaky this place is, and I shouldn’t like the press making a thing about the copycat element.”

In fact he didn’t give a toss about the press, it was Andy Dalziel whose antennae he didn’t want to alert.

With only a sigh too light to shake a rose leaf down to indicate she thought this was a more than usually sad waste of her valuable time, Novello strode off.

Pascoe watched her go. Nice buttocks, shame about the combat trousers. Then mentally slapped his wrist.

Seated at his desk, he rang Forensic, to be told with some acidity that they too required sleep like normal human beings. So far there was nothing to suggest that Pal Maciver’s death had been anything but what it seemed, a suicide bizarrely configured to reproduce an exact imitation of his father’s ten years earlier.

Next, witnesses. The circumstances of the previous night hadn’t been conducive to getting formal statements from those attending the scene of the death, and the birth. The coroner would certainly want to hear from some of them.

Definitely a job for Uniformed, he could hear Dalziel say. But when Fat Men are away, Thin Men can play, and approaching a newly bereaved wife was surely a task more suited to the diplomatic skills of CID than the Blitzkrieg of the plods.

He dialled the Casa Alba number.

A man’s voice said, “Yes?”

He said, “Could I speak to Mrs Maciver, please?”

“I don’t know,” said the voice cautiously. “Who’s calling?”

He identified himself.

“Sorry, thought you might be press,” said the voice. “I’m David Upshott, the Vicar of Cothersley. I’ve just been in to see Mrs Maciver, trying to offer what comfort I could at this terrible time, but I’m afraid she’s not in a very receptive mood. The doctor’s with her now. I’ll just let them know who’s calling.”

There was a pause of a couple of minutes then a new male voice spoke.

“Tom Lockridge here. That you, Pascoe?”

“Indeed. Any chance of a word with Mrs Maciver, do you think? Either on the phone or, preferably, I could call out there to talk with her…”

“Not a good idea,” said Lockridge brusquely. “I’ve got her under sedation. I doubt very much she’ll be fit to talk to you today.”

“Oh dear. That’s a pity.”

“Yes, isn’t it? But in the circumstances, Pascoe, I can’t imagine what on earth you might want to ask that can’t wait. Goodbye.”

Next he rang the hospital where he learned that Mrs Dunn and her twins were doing as well as could be expected and Mr Dunn, after hanging around most of the night, had finally been persuaded to go home and get some rest.

Pascoe started to dial the Dunns’ home number, recalled the state he’d been in the day Rosie was born, and replaced the receiver. Give the poor devil a couple of hours’ sleep at least.

Finally he tried Cressida’s number and got the answer machine. This was frustrating. If Thin Men were to play, they had to find someone to play with.

On the other hand, perhaps this was the act of some tutelary spirit to save him from his own impetuosity. Disobeying Dalziel was not a path to peace.

He opened a file marked “Quarterly Crime Statistics” and applied himself to the honing of a report he was preparing thereon.

After half an hour or so of this stimulating activity, he closed his eyes the better to contemplate the rhetorical structure of his peroration.

He was aroused from this creative trance by a cough. Not a Dalzielesque cough, nevertheless a good, firm, I’m-here-and-why-are-you-asleep? kind of cough.

He opened his eyes and saw Novello standing in the doorway, clutching a plastic bin liner. She looked rather dusty.

He yawned and said, “Shirley, you come bearing gifts but not as a Greek, I hope.”

She had learned to ignore Pascoe’s prattery as easily as she did Dalziel’s provocations. She advanced to the desk and deposited the bin liner before him.

“I dug up this lot, sir,” she said. “One file, some bits and bobs. There’s a gun down there, but I didn’t bring it, seeing as you didn’t want to attract attention.”

“A gun? You mean…?”

“The shotgun he used. Yes.”

“Why do we still have that? We said goodbye to deodands a long time ago.”

“Suppose the family could have had it back if they’d wanted, but you wouldn’t, would you? I mean, every time you blew a rabbit’s head off you’d be thinking… well, you’d have to be a bit insensitive.”

“So it wasn’t the same gun last night. Bang goes one bit of the copycat.”

“But it still stays close,” said Novello. “I checked the details of last night’s gun. Practically identical. Had to be the other half of a matching pair. And the original permit was for two shotguns. No one seems to have picked up on that at the time.”

“Why should they? It can hardly have been relevant. But hang about-has the permit ever been renewed for the remaining gun?”

“No, sir. Presumably it just stayed in its cabinet in Moscow House.”

“No,” said Pascoe. “It’s a single-gun cabinet and, from the look of it, there hasn’t been a gun kept in there since Pal Senior took his out to do the deed. So the other gun must have been kept somewhere else. Interesting, but as I doubt if we can pursue Pal Junior for shooting himself without a permit, not important. Worth mentioning, though. Very conscientious of you. And this stuff you did think worth lugging from the store, anything there you found significant?”

“Significant? Don’t know, sir, as I’m not sure what you’re trying to signify. But there were a couple of things struck me as a bit odd.”

“Suicides usually are a bit odd, aren’t they? I mean, even in our neurotic society, it’s a slightly offbeat thing to do.”

“You reckon, sir? Seems to me, a guy gets depressed, waits till his family are out of the way, locks himself in his room, blows his head off, that’s pretty conventional stuff.”

“Really? Didn’t realize that Vatican thinking was so laid back these days.”

Novello was surprised. Heavy-footed religious trampling from the Fat Man, who numbered Joe Kerrigan, her parish priest, among his drinking mates, she’d come to expect, but Pascoe generally tiptoed through the tulips of personal belief.

She said dismissively, “I’m talking as a cop, sir, not a Catholic.”

“Which are, I trust, both permanent conditions, having in common the ability to believe several impossible things at the same time and before breakfast. So, on the one hand, a straightforward act of self-slaughter. On the other, an instance of that denial of God which is the unforgivable sin for which Judas stood condemned in the eyes of some theologians far more than for his act of betrayal. The black midnight of the soul which holds no hope of dawn. Strong stuff. Can you really keep it out of your cop-think in a case like this?”

“As easy as calling a doctor and saying a prayer if someone falls ill,” she said with spirit. “You’re mixing up depression and despair, sir. One’s a condition of the mind, the other of the soul.”

“And nowadays the Church can tell the difference?” he said smiling.

“Sometimes,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. God always can.”

There’s a conversation killer, he thought.

“OK,” he said. “So let’s get back to the oddities.”

“Maybe I’m overstating it,” she said, starting to empty the bag. “As you can see, it’s a very full file, chaotic, but with all kinds of stuff bundled in that you’d not expect to find when it’s not a criminal case. Looks like Mr Dalziel caught the call and stayed in charge.”