Good Morning, Midnight (36 page)

The super himself seemed to have gone into some kind of trance. Perhaps his astral body was floating somewhere near the ceiling looking down on the chaos and detecting patterns not visible to mere mortal eyes.

Well, two could play the absence game, thought Hat. Officially he himself wasn’t there at all, so none of this could be his responsibility.

He returned his attention to the telephone numbers. So far they’d revealed nothing of interest, though there was one number, a pay-as-you-go mobile, no subscriber name and address attached, which occurred a few times, both in and out, and most significantly on the evening of Pal Maciver’s death.

He took out his own mobile, entered the number, got a message.

When he’d listened to it he switched off and checked the number on the sheet. Then he entered it again, very carefully, and listened to the message once more.

“Sir,” he said.

It took three more sirs crescendo before Dalziel descended to the terrestrial plane.

“Eh? What? You got something, lad?”

“This number, sir. Round about the likely time of Mr Maciver’s death, someone rang his mobile, then his shop, and then his home, in that order.”

“Let’s have a look. Oh aye,” said Dalziel, plucking a sheet of paper apparently at random from the scatter. “That ’ud be Jason Dunn, the brother-in-law he were supposed to be playing squash with. So?”

“Think you should listen to this, sir.”

He pressed redial on his mobile and handed the phone to the Fat Man, who listened.

“Well, well,” he said. “Well, bloody well.”

He switched off, and studied the list of telephone numbers. Finally he nodded, smiled the smile of a cannibal who sees several courses of lunch rowing towards his beach, and stood up.

“Nice one, Hat. That little holiday of thine’s clearly sharpened you up. I’m off out. You hold the fort here, in case any other bugger condescends to show his face. Keep sorting through this stuff, but try to be a bit tidier. You’ve got in a right scrow.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hat. “Sir, if anyone asks, where shall I say you’ve gone?”

“I’ll be down at the sports centre for starters. You play squash, lad?”

“No, sir.”

“Very wise. I once gave it a try but there weren’t room to swing a cat and the other bugger kept bouncing off me and claiming the point. Told everyone later he’d whupped me, but he were the one had to be helped into Casualty, so it were one of them lyric victories Mr Pascoe keeps talking about.”

“Think maybe that would be Pyrrhic,” said Hat boldly.

“Correcting me as well? You must be good and ready to be signed off, lad.”

And whistling a tune which Hat, if he’d been a musical comedy fan, might have recognized as “Goodbye” from The White Horse Inn, the Fat Man strode out of the office.

The young man on reception at the sports complex was a walking piece of physical geography, his biceps and triceps swelling like the Cotswolds and his tight-fitting gold singlet displaying a finely detailed relief map of his pectorals.

Unfortunately his devotion to muscular development seemed to have extended to his brain and neither the flashing of Dalziel’s warrant card nor the baring of Dalziel’s teeth could persuade him to co-operate with the superintendent’s request.

Magnanimously putting this down to natural stupidity rather than wilful obduracy, Dalziel leaned over the counter and said very slowly, Take-me-to-your-leader.”

He also said it very loudly and the leader in question, the complex manager, emerged from his office. Name of George Manson, a native of the town and a long-time supporter of the rugby club bar, he recognized Dalziel immediately and two minutes later the Fat Man was sitting at a desk with a glass of scotch at his elbow and the squash court booking ledger open before him at the current page.

He went slowly back through it, making the occasional note, till he reached a point in December of the previous year. Then he reversed the process till he was back at today’s date. Then he went back again, further this time, before returning once more to the present. In a rhythm approximately matching his temporal progress, the level of his scotch sank only to rise again as Manson kept a waiter’s eye on his unexpected guest.

“Crossing out and another name being put in means a cancellation, right?” said Dalziel.

“Right.”

“And all the courts are here? I mean, there’s not another court put aside for folk who just turn up?”

“No way. Most of the time, evenings and weekends anyway, we’re fully booked.”

“Oh aye? No wonder the intensive care units are overstretched,” said Dalziel. “Thanks a lot.”

“My pleasure. Owt else I can help you with, Andy?” said Manson, curious as to what it was his visitor was looking for.

“Aye,” said Dalziel. “A wee deoch an doris wouldn’t go amiss. Good stuff this, George. Long time since I had a malt at export strength. Thought it all went to the States. Not been buying off the back of a lorry, I hope?”

“Cousin in the trade,” said Manson blandly. “Get you a box, if you like. Trade price.”

“You’re a kind man, George,” said Dalziel, drinking up. “But no thanks. Small gifts I can accept, but owt that smacks of commercial advantage is right against the rules.”

The manager sighed and said, “Remind me, when’s your birthday?”

Half an hour later Dalziel was standing on the touchline of Weavers School rugby pitch on which thirty boys reduced to anonymity by several layers of mud were trying to prove their aptitude for the professional game by knocking hell out of each other. On either side of him stood parents, exhorting their offspring to greater excesses of brutality.

“Ever think of just teaching the lad to run with the ball and pass it?” he observed to the particularly vociferous father next to him.

“What the hell do you know about it, fatso?” came the snarled reply.

Dalziel turned his great head and looked directly into the man’s eyes.

The man fell silent and after a moment moved away.

A few minutes later the whistle blew for no side.

As Jason Dunn trudged off the field with the match ball tucked underneath his arm, he found his way blocked.

“In my day, lad, a ref were supposed to control the game,” said Dalziel.

Whatever retort was forming on Dunn’s lips died as he identified the obstacle.

“These days it’s a hard game,” he said.

“Always were. Ref needs eyes in the back of his head. You weren’t even seeing what you were looking at. They could’ve started gang-banging each other in the scrum and you’d not have noticed. Summat on your mind, Jason?”

He stood aside and fell into step beside the young man as he made his way towards the changing rooms.

“I’ve just become the father of twins, Mr Dalziel, or have you forgotten?”

“Nay, I recall. And mother and babbies doing fine they said when I rang the hospital just now. I’d tried your house first. Thought the family might be home by now, the way they like to clear hospital beds these days. But she’s private, isn’t she? Nice. Might as well enjoy the benefit while you can, eh? Did think you might be there by her side, getting used to the idea of being a dad.”

“I’ll be along later,” said Dunn. “I had this match to see to. Hard to get cover these days.”

“So I understand. Back in my day every poor sod of a young teacher who could summon up enough breath to blow a whistle were expected to run around a playing field at least once a week. But you’re not like that, Jason. You’re a pro. And you know the game, I’ve seen you play, remember? But your mind weren’t on it today. Just the responsibility of fatherhood is it, lad? Or is there summat else?”

“I don’t know what you mean. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get showered. And we don’t allow strangers in here, for obvious reasons.”

They had reached the changing-room building. Dalziel pushed open the door saying, “Nay, lad, no need to worry on my account. I’ve seen bums and cocks, all ages and all sizes, and they do nowt for me. You go ahead. I’ll just sit around and wait till you’re ready to talk.”

“I don’t understand. What is it you want to talk to me about?”

“About sport, what else? Specifically about squash. Now I don’t play myself, but I always understood it were a game for two people, played in a court like a glass coffin?”

“That’s just about right.”

“So there isn’t another more advanced version that’s played in a double bed with three players, one lass, two lads, all bollock naked? Let’s help remind you.”

He took out his mobile, dialled a number and held it up so that the recorded message could be heard by both of them.

It was a woman’s voice, husky, sexy, foreign.

“’Allo, ’ere is Dolores, your Lady of Pain. Sorry, got my ’ands and maybe my mouth full at the moment, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon as I am free and rested. And remember-anticipation can be part of the pleasure also.”

Dalziel switched off and said, “Is she right, do you think, Jase? Me, I never cared to be kept waiting.”

“I don’t know,” blustered Dunn. “What’s this got to do with me anyway?”

“That’s what I want to know. You told Mr Pascoe that when Maciver didn’t turn up, you tried ringing him on his mobile, at his shop and at home. This is the only number which is recorded on those three phones at that time.”

It is a cliche of the horror movie that at some point the hero sees his worst nightmare take shape before him and realizes that this time he isn’t going to wake up. Getting actors to produce the right reactive expression can be a real problem. Too little and you lose the moment. Too much and it’s ham.

They should have hired Andy Dalziel. He’d seen it again and again in big close-up.

“Oh Christ,” said Jason Dunn. “Oh Christ.”

“Sorry, lad. For the time being you’re going to have to make do with me,” said Dalziel kindly. “Why don’t you go ahead and get your body nice and clean. Then we can have a go at your soul.”

It wasn’t me, it was all down to Pal, you’ve got to understand that. I know it sounds like I’m blaming the guy because he can’t answer back, but it’s true. OK, it takes two to tango, but he got me at a bad time and I thought it would be just a one-off and it was just a fill-in anyway until…

But you want this laid out plain and clear. Like a lesson plan. Right?

OK. Here goes.

When I married Helen, I didn’t know Pal. I knew she had a brother, of course, and there’d been this bother between them, but I’d never laid eyes on him.

Then after we got married, things got better between them, something to do with her wanting to sell Moscow House which belonged to all three of them, her sister too who I didn’t know either. Cressida. She’s a bit weird. Tasty but weird.

Anyway.

After a while I met Pal. I quite liked him. A bit of a smoothie, knew his way around, but he came across as the kind of guy you could have a drink with, not the monster I’d been half expecting. Then I ran into him again at the sports centre. He’d been playing squash with Chak, that’s Dr, sorry, Mr Chakravarty, he’s a consultant, you know, one of them doctors who are too high-powered to call themselves doctor. He’s also greased lightning on the squash court, so I knew that if Pal had been playing with him, he had to be pretty hot stuff himself. He was really pleased to see me and we had a drink and when he suggested we might have a game some time, I said why not?

That’s how our regular Wednesday-night games started. It suited us both. Kay, Helen’s stepmother, always dropped by on Wednesday, so it gave me an excuse to leave them to themselves-they’re as thick as thieves, those two.

Then I turned up one Wednesday and I met Pal in the foyer and he said, “Major cock-up, I’m afraid. They’ve got us double-booked with someone else, and they got here first.”

Well, I was pretty disappointed and I suppose it showed. By contrast he seemed laid back about the business. I suggested we might as well have a drink, he said, thanks but no, when he realized what had happened he’d made other arrangements. Then he looked at me, hesitated, and said, “I don’t know if you’d be interested…” “In what?” I said. He said, “It’s just that I need some sort of exercise and there’s this girl I sometimes see, so I gave her a bell…” “A tart, you mean?” I said, a bit taken aback. “I suppose so,” he said. “But she’s something rather special. Rather choosy. But I know she doesn’t mind doubling up if she likes the look of a guy.”

Now I was just curious to start with. OK, and also a bit randy. Helen had gone funny about sex pretty soon after she got pregnant, and it was getting to the point where the result wasn’t worth all the hassle. I’ve always been used to… I mean, it’s been pretty regular with me… well, you get the picture.

So Pal went off to the car park to see if his woman had turned up. Then he came back in and called to me. I went out and she was sitting in the back seat of his car. She looked a bit like an advert for a vampire movie, very pale with long black hair, but she was certainly a looker. She gave me the once-over, then nodded. Pal opened the back door. I said, “Not in the car park, for God’s sake!” thinking that even though we were in the darkest corner, a steamed-up car rocking around on its springs would soon attract attention from some of the young bucks who use the centre. He said, “Don’t be silly,” and he drove us to Moscow House while Dolores-that was her name-and me started to get acquainted in the back.

Well, she really was something else. I was a bit worried at first that Pal might turn out to be AC/DC and set his sights on me too, but thank God he played it straight hetero, and though you can’t do a threesome without there being some contact with the other fellow, there was never anything kinky in it.

So it became a regular thing on Wednesdays. We’d meet in the centre car park, get into Pal’s car, keep our heads down as we reached the Avenue, enjoy ourselves in Moscow House for an hour or so, then back to the car park and home. No harm done to anyone. It kept me happy and indirectly it kept Helen happy, because I didn’t bother her anymore. Or not much. Giving up altogether might have made her suspicious. But I knew once she had the twins and things got back to normal that that was the end of this fling with Dolores.