Good Morning, Midnight (39 page)

Here he handed over an evidence bag with a scribbled note:

You’ll find my prints on this and one other set with, hopefully, a palm print. Check ’em out against the prints on the study door at Moscow House.

“How’s it going?” he asked the technician he spoke to.

“Very interesting. Why don’t you come up and have a word with Dr Gentry?”

Dr Gentry was the head of the lab, a man famous for many things, among which wasn’t an inclination to brevity.

“No time. Mr Dalziel’s waiting for me. And you might like to tell Gentry he’s also waiting for the results.”

There was never any harm in threatening the workforce with the bogeyman.

Not of course that it was an empty threat, as evidenced by his own unease at finding himself already ten minutes late as he entered the station. He found the way ahead blocked by Joker Jennison, which meant it was substantially blocked.

“Sir, I were looking for you,” said Jennison.

“Not now, Joker,” he said, attempting to squeeze past.

“Sir, I think I saw that Dolores.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

“You think…?” he said.

“Well, I were sure at first. It were when she bent down. I may not be too hot on faces but I never forget a nice bum.”

“That’s great, Joker,” said Pascoe. “Have you spoken to her? Is she here?”

“No, sir. Thing is, when you seemed to know her, and her with her hair all different and looking such a bonny girl, not all white like a vampire on short rations, and when I told Alan, that’s Maycock, he said I were mad, but the more I’ve thought about it…”

“What the hell are you rambling about, man?” demanded Pascoe, glancing at his watch. “Come on. Spit it out.”

“That lass you were talking to outside the church at Cothersley,” said Jennison unhappily. “I’m certain that were Dolores. Like I say, when she bent down…”

“Miss Upshott, the vicar’s sister, you mean?” said Pascoe incredulously.

“Is that who she is?” said Jennison, looking even unhappier. “Look, sir, maybe it’s mistaken identity, but I felt I had to say summat…”

“Yes, yes, quite right. Listen, Joker, we’ll talk about this later, OK?”

He was now fifteen minutes late. But at least the mind-boggling improbability of what he’d just heard squeezed the fear out of his system as he tapped lightly on the door to the monster’s lair and slipped inside.

It was not often that the atmosphere in Andy Dalziel’s office could be described as religious but this was like stepping into a Quaker meeting.

The Fat Man sat behind his desk, head bowed, eyes closed. Sitting in front of the desk were Sergeant Wield and Shirley Novello and Hat Bowler (what the hell was he doing here?) The silence was total, not just the absence of speech but the absence of any sense of relationship between these people and their physical surroundings. Their minds and spirits were focused on something within, as if no one was going to break that silence till the Inner Light guided them to utter what was in their heart.

Like a mourner arriving late at a funeral, Pascoe glided silently to an empty seat.

“He comes, he comes,” said the Fat Man suddenly. “At last he comes. I feel his presence among us, the one who started all this crap.”

Somehow Pascoe didn’t think he was referring to the Paraclete.

“Sir,” he said. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”

“On the high intellectual fast track?” said Dalziel with mock incredulity. “Is it possible? Right, recap for the DCI. Wieldy, you first. Don’t worry I’ve heard it all before. It might sound better second time round.”

The sergeant glanced at Pascoe ruefully, then with a clarity and brevity so familiar you hardly noticed them any more, gave an account of his visit to Jake Gallipot, concluding, “Confirmed DOA at the hospital. We’ll need to wait for the PM, but nothing at first glance to contradict death by electrocution. Contusion on back of skull consistent with striking head against something sharp, like the corner of a desk, after being thrown there by the shock.”

“But this isn’t how you see it?”

“Jake knew his way around computers. He wasn’t the kind of guy who goes poking about inside one with the power still on.”

“Overconfidence can kill too.”

“That’s what Jim Collaboy said. Like I say, I suggested the absence of back-up disks was suspicious, but he didn’t seem much bothered. One other thing. There was a digital camera in a desk drawer. I checked the images. Meant nothing except the last one. It was a photo of a man and woman caught with their pants down, so to speak. Didn’t recognize her, but the fellow looked a lot like our Dr Lockridge. Probably not relevant unless…”

“Ah,” said Pascoe. “You’ve not seen Mrs Maciver, have you?”

“No,” said Wield.

“Let me introduce you.”

Pascoe produced the evidence bag in which he’d put the ripped photograph.

“Ooh,” said Novello over his shoulder. “Bet that hurt.”

Dalziel, who’d been quieter longer than anyone could remember, grabbed the picture and said, “Soft porn, is it now? Right, Pete, fill us in, unless it’s a secret.”

“You know me, sir, I don’t believe in secrets,” said Pascoe, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “A woman, Mary Lockridge, I believe, delivered this to Sue-Lynn Maciver this morning. Along with a good right hook. It’s very interesting, but I don’t see where it gets us. Now we probably know why Maciver really hired Gallipot. To check his wife out. Not without reason.”

“Found out she were playing away, balance of mind upset, tops himself,” said Dalziel hopefully.

“Don’t think so, sir,” said Pascoe. “Maciver doesn’t strike me as that type. No, I see it as a contraindication. The time and date indicate this was taken ’round about the very time Maciver was dying. Frankly I wouldn’t imagine a man contemplating suicide would give much of a damn what his wife’s getting up to. I can’t really see what it can have to do with our case.”

“But it might help in looking for someone with a motive for killing Gallipot,” said Novello. “Sarge, this guy you said was seen leaving the building, could it have been Lockridge?”

“Which guy was this?” demanded Pascoe. “You’ve been doing house-to-house as well, have you, Wieldy?”

“No,” denied Wield. “Jim Collaboy put one of his lads on to asking questions round the other offices. He reported in when I was at the station. Someone looking out of the window spotted someone leaving the building, description, male, wearing a hat-a trilby, she thought. Didn’t pay much heed and looking down from the first floor doesn’t give the best view anyway. But no one in any of the offices recalled having dealings with a guy in a trilby that morning.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen Dr Lockridge in a trilby,” said Novello. “So maybe…”

“Forget Lockridge,” interrupted Pascoe. “I was talking to him at the hospital this morning, so unless he’s got wings…”

Novello subsided, looking crestfallen at having her theory shot down so comprehensively.

“Mr Waverley wears a trilby,” said a low and hesitant voice.

It was Hat Bowler. When all eyes turned his way, he looked like he wished he’d kept it a bit lower and hesitated a bit longer.

“Is that a riddle, lad? Or a message from the other side?” asked Dalziel long-sufferingly. “Who the fuck is Mr Waverley?”

Bowler looked so unhappy that Pascoe took pity.

“He’s a friend of Miss Lavinia Maciver,” he said. “But how do you know him, Hat?”

Dalziel shot Bowler a glance like an Olympic shot-putt and said, “Well, tell the DCI, lad.”

Hesitantly and ignoring a bit of eye-rolling from Novello, Hat gave an account of his acquaintance with Lavinia. Her he spoke of with undisguised enthusiasm.

“But all I know about Mr Waverley is that he’s an old friend. He came to tell her about her nephew’s death. Oh, and he’s a retired VAT inspector.”

“That’s definitely a strike against him,” said Dalziel. “But we’ll need a bit more if we’re going to fit him up for murder. Is there more?”

“He got a phone call when I was there this morning, and he left straight after,” persisted Hat.

“Oh aye? And you managed to hear this call, did you?”

“Not really. You see, he was out in the garden and I was eating a bit of toast and Scuttle was chattering away on my shoulder ‘cos he wanted a bit…”

“Scuttle?”

“He’s a coal-tit…”

Dalziel hid his face behind his hand and rubbed it as if trying to raze his nose.

“A coal-tit,” he syllabled softly. “Did you get its address?”

“It lives at Miss Mac’s…” began Bowler, then let his voice fade away.

“Of course it does. With Noddy and Big Ears. That it, lad? Or do you have owt that comes within pissing distance of suspicious?”

Bowler racked his brain. All the brownie points he’d won with Dalziel by his discovery of the Dolores recording seemed to be sliding away.

“There was something…” he said. “But it’s probably nothing really

… It’s just that Mr Waverley sounds ever so faintly Scottish, only when he started talking just for a second he sounded, I don’t know, Australian…”

“Australian?” said Dalziel, fanning himself with a file as if all this was bit too much for his delicate constitution. “Having a conversation with a kookaburra, were he?”

“No,” said Bowler defiantly. “I heard him say “Good day” when he answered his phone, but it came out the way Aussies say it. Gedye.”

For a fleeting moment Pascoe saw the ghost of a reaction drift across Dalziel’s face, then it was gone.

“Well, gedonyer, cobber,” he said in a dreadful approximation of Oz-speak. “Now would you like to flap your wings and rejoin us in the real world? Ivor, your turn.”

Pascoe, taken aback by the force of Dalziel’s put-down and irritated by Novello’s ill-disguised Schadenfreude, said rather sharply, “Yes, let’s hear what entertaining discoveries you’ve made, Shirley.”

Unfazed, Novello, in a style which attempted with some success to emulate Wield’s, told the story of her adventures among the bankers, lawyers and Avenue ladies.

Impressed despite himself, Pascoe said, “Well done, Shirley. Now that is interesting,” aware that Dalziel’s eyes were watching him under a brow louring like a typhoon sky.

He’s daring me to make assumptions or even build hypotheses, thought Pascoe. Well, let the old sod wait!

He said briskly, “Now, where are we? Top-of-the-bill time. Must be your spot, sir.”

Dalziel’s gaze modified from threatening to sardonic. He picked up his phone, dialled a number and passed it to Pascoe.

“Have a listen,” he said.

He put it to his ear, heard it ring, then the answer service clicked in.

He listened.

“’Allo, ’ere is Dolores your Lady of Pain…”

“Pull your tongue back in afore someone steps on it,” said Dalziel. “It were the only number trying to make contact with Maciver’s shop, home and mobile around seven o’clock, which meant it should have been Jason Dunn. It were young Bowler here that spotted it-nice to see that once you shake the feathers out of his bonce, his brain’s as sharp as ever. We’ll make a real thief-taker of him yet…”

This was as near to fulsome praise as you were likely to get from the Fat Man and Novello once again felt the injustice of it. Those phone records had been sent at her behest, she should have been the one to analyse them, she would have spotted the number and rung it, no bother…

She was diverted from the treacherous path of might-have-been by her awareness that the DCI seemed to have gone mad.

He had pressed the redial button and this time when the message bleep sounded, he said into the phone, “Oh hello, Miss Upshott. Peter Pascoe here, DCI Pascoe. Could you drop in to see me at your earliest convenience? Alternatively, I could call round at the vicarage to speak to you there. Thank you.”

The silence that followed was religious in its intensity and breakable only by God.

“What the fuck was that all about?” demanded Dalziel.

“It’s about Joker Jennison’s highly specialized powers of perception,” said Pascoe.

When he’d completed his explanation, the Fat Man shook his head incredulously.

“And you believe him? You don’t think this could be one of Joker’s little japes?”

“I don’t know if I believe him or not,” said Pascoe. “But there’s a close connection between Miss Upshott and Maciver-the shop, the village-and if it is her, when she gets my message, she’ll be round here like a flash rather than risk me dropping in on her and her brother. And if it’s not, well, all we’ve got is one very puzzled Lady of Pain.”

Novello, feeling rather ashamed at her resentment of Hat’s small triumph, now compensated by saying, “I think Joker could be right. There’s not much I’d trust his judgment on, but when it comes to female bums, I reckon we should take it as an expert opinion.”

“You reckon?” said Dalziel. Then his face split in a salacious grin. “Here, it ’ud make a grand identity parade, but. We could sell tickets.”

No one laughed and he grunted, “Please yourselves,” and continued with the story of his interview with Dunn.

When he’d finished, Pascoe said, “Oh shit.”

“Eh? Thought you’d have been glad. I still don’t know what it adds up to, but it’s been you from the start saying there’s more going off here than meets the eye.”

“I was thinking of that poor girl in hospital. Does this have to come out, sir?”

“Only if it’s relevant to your enquiries into Maciver’s death,” said Dalziel.

In other words, if it’s suicide, we can sit on it. But if it’s murder…

There were things to be got out into the open but the open didn’t include everyone present. Not even Edgar Wield.

He sought for some courteously diplomatic way of suggesting that the meeting close and he and Dalziel be left to themselves, but before he could speak, the Castiglione of Mid-Yorkshire showed him how it should be done.