Underworld (24 page)

Chapter 6

As he drove back to May Farr's house, Pascoe saw Arthur Downey on an old bike making his way down the High Street. It was almost dusk and there was no sign of any light on the machine. Well, that was the locals' responsibility. Pascoe guessed it would be a brave cop round here who pulled up a miner for not having lights on his bike.

As he turned into Clay Street, to his surprise he saw Ellie's Mini. Instead of wondering why she'd returned, he found himself thinking the car was parked dangerously close to the corner. I’m beginning to think like a traffic cop, he told himself.

He parked his car with exaggerated care. As he approached the front door, he could hear two voices more familiar as solos now upraised in discordant duet. He opened the door without knocking and went in.

'Hello, hello, what seems to be the trouble?' he inquired.

Ellie and Dalziel turned to face him.

'I just came round here to tell Mrs Farr her lad's off the hook and your missus flew at me like a mad ostrich!' said Dalziel, all hurt innocence.

'All I did was tell May not to trust the fat sod!'

Pascoe moved so that he could see Mrs Farr who was sitting down, partly screened by Dalziel's bulk. She was pale and clearly distraught.

'For God's sake you two, why don't you have your squabbles somewhere else?' he said angrily. He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the woman and took her hands in his. 'It's all right, Mrs Farr,' he said.

'Is he telling the truth, this one?' she asked, looking him straight in the eyes. 'Ellie says not to trust him, he's likely just lying to find out where Colin's hiding.'

Pascoe glanced towards Dalziel, who said bluntly, 'He's off the hook.'

'He's telling the truth,' said Pascoe to Mrs Farr. 'He'd not lie about something like that, not to me anyway.'

Dalziel looked ready to dispute this assertion, then pulled on a conciliatory expression like a nylon stocking over a bandit's face.

'But Ellie's not altogether wrong,' he said, 'I do still want to find the lad. Before he comes to any harm.'

Pascoe followed his gaze to Ellie. Her cheeks were still flushed from argument and her eyes were bright. Usually he felt proud and turned on when he saw her in full Valkyrie flight, but this time he felt separated from her by Colin Farr who had occupied her mind so exclusively that she had been able to ignore May Farr's distress.

'Why did you come back, Ellie?' he asked quietly.

Still she looked defiant, then May Farr said, 'For God's sake tell him, woman. Do you not trust your own man?'

The reproof seemed to bewilder Ellie, then the tension ebbed from her body and she said, 'Oh shit. He asked me to tell May he was all right. Peter, he was hiding in my car. I dropped him off along the road that runs up to the pit. He went up into the woods on the left-hand side.'

'Gratterley Wood,' said Mrs Farr dully. 'He'll be up by the White Rock, isn't that what you said, lass?'

Ellie said, 'He asked me to get Mr Downey to bring some food up to him.'

'And have you seen this Downey fellow yet?' demanded Dalziel.

'Yes. I went to see him first, before your spies got on to me,' flashed Ellie.

'Damn.'

'It’s all right. I just saw Downey cycling down the main street,' said Pascoe.

'Good. Mebbe we can catch him.'

'You don't think Colin's going to hang around once he sees you lot, do you?' demanded May Farr.

'There'll just be the two of us,' said Dalziel. 'I don't want to scare him off, just get close enough to let him know the heat's off. Sergeant Swift, you know where this White Rock is, I dare say?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Right. Let's go.' He headed for the door, closely followed by Swift.

Pascoe looked at Ellie.

'It'll be all right, won't it?' she said.

He didn't dare to ask what she was talking about but said, 'Yes.'

Outside, Dalziel said, 'We'll take your car, Peter, in case there's any rough driving.'

They got in, Swift in the back.

He said, 'Head for the main street.'

As he drove, Pascoe's mind was filled with a nagging unease.

'Why are we still chasing around after an innocent man, sir?' he asked.

'Why's an innocent man not bother to tell us he's innocent?' said Dalziel. 'That farce with Mycroft. He hates the guy. Why not just point the finger at him instead of blackmailing him into helping him escape?'

'Perhaps he felt partly responsible for Satterthwaite's death.'

'So what? He hated him too. In fact, come to think of it, there aren't a lot of people young Mr Farr likes.'

'So what's your theory, sir?'

'No theory, lad. But a man who doesn't give a toss about being chief suspect for a murder he didn't do isn't someone I want running round loose.'

They had passed down the High Street. Now at Swift's instruction, they swung left up the lane alongside the Welfare Club.

'It gets a bit rough,' said Swift, 'but if you can get round this bend we'll be out of sight of nosey eyes.'

Pascoe managed it with some slight protest from his silencer box as it grated against a stone, but it wasn't concern for his undercarriage that made him stop. Up ahead was another car blocking the way.

They got out and approached it. From the damp bloom on its paintwork and the yellow leaves clinging to the roof and bonnet, it had been there a little while, overnight at least.

'It's that reporter's,' said Swift. 'Boyle. I saw him in it the night Farr chucked him through the window.'

Dalziel swept his hand through the screening dampness on the front window and peered inside.

'Nowt,' he said. 'Except a cauliflower on the back seat.'

'The boot?' suggested Pascoe.

Dalziel came round the back, sniffed, shrugged.

'Best be sure.'

And raising his foot he drove his heel with great force against the lock.

The boot flew open. There was nothing there that didn't belong in a boot.

'I hope he's got good expenses,' said Pascoe.

'He'll need 'em if the bugger's up there, queering my Pitch,' said Dalziel.

They all looked up the track to where along the looming ridge desperate fingers of light were still scrabbling for purchase. Even here, by the car, with the Welfare's chimneys still visible, industrial South Yorkshire seemed a long way away and Pascoe thought coldly that this was a wilderness long before man had made it so and these had been hills under which a lost traveller could dream and never waken.

'You coming or not?' demanded Dalziel, who was already ten yards ahead in close pursuit of Swift.

Reluctantly Pascoe set out after them.

A few yards further on, Swift said, 'Look, sir. That'll be Downey's bike.'

Dalziel put his hand on it.

'Seat still warm,' he said in his best Sherlockian manner. 'We can't be far behind.'

Now the track became a path. Pascoe glanced back. No sign of the cars nor even of the bike, surely they couldn't have come so far so soon? He hurried on, suddenly fearful of being left behind in this frightful dark wood in which mist was beginning to drift like the fetid exhalations of some lurking troll. What was he doing here, for God's sake? It occurred to him that he had never laid eyes on Colin Farr! What a great qualification for a searcher! If someone dropped down out of a tree in front of him at this very moment, he wouldn't know if it were Farr or some passing primate.

His acceleration had brought him up against the other two. For the simple sake of hearing a voice, he said, 'Sir, I don't even know . . .'

'Shh! We're almost there,' hissed Dalziel. He was peering ahead and upwards to where the mist seemed to have concentrated at the far end of a narrow glade. Pascoe strained his eyes and became aware that in fact the area of whiteness was not all mist but a patchy overhanging outcrop of striated limestone. Presumably this was the famous White Rock, not much to write home about, not perhaps unless you spent your days digging black rock out of the earth.

A choking cry cut through his thoughts, there was a flurry of movement at the foot of the overhang, and Dalziel lumbered forward a few steps, shouting. If it was meant to be reassuring, Pascoe couldn't blame anyone for missing the point. A writhing shadow separated, became two men, one upright, one prone. The upright figure took a couple of steps towards them. One of the last drowning fingers of light caressed his face. It was so young, so defiant, so despairing. So beautiful. Here he was at last, the marvellous boy. The phrase no longer a mockery. I was fooling myself when I said I'd never recognize him. I'd have picked him out in a riot.

The prone man was pushing at the earth like an ageing athlete trying for his fiftieth press-up.

The young man stooped and ran his hands over the ground in search of something. He seemed to take the sunlight with him and the prone man was revealed as Arthur Downey. Sergeant Swift took advantage of Farr's distraction to move forward saying, 'It's all right, son. We know it wasn't you. It's all right, believe me. You know me, don't you? It's Sergeant Swift.'

He was almost on top of the crouching man. It was going to be all right, thought Pascoe. Back down the hill, apologies all round, drinks in the club, back home for supper.

'Oh yes,' said Colin Farr. 'I know you, Sergeant Swift. You're very handy with your stick.'

And in one lithe movement he uncoiled. In his hand he grasped a rubber-covered torch. Swift ducked away but his reflexes were no match for the young man's speed; and the torch crashed against the side of his neck with a noise like a mallet on meat. The sergeant staggered sideways, collided with Downey who was still trying to push himself off the ground, and the two of them went over in a blackly comic tangle of limbs.

Pascoe found he couldn't move but Dalziel was rushing forward now yelling, 'Farr, you bastard!' For a moment the young man looked as if he might stand his ground. Then he smiled, turned, and with an easy unhurried grace which nevertheless left Dalziel lumbering like a man in a morass, he loped away into the trees.

Now Pascoe's strength returned. He rushed forward. Dalziel was stooping over Swift. 'Get after the bastard!' he shouted at Pascoe more in frustration than expectation, or so the Inspector decided as he helped Arthur Downey to sit up. The man looked at him without any recognition.

His face was bleeding and there was some bruising round the throat. A broad-bladed knife lay on the turf between his feet, but the visible damage seemed to have come from blows rather than stabs.

'It's me, Mr Downey. Inspector Pascoe. We met at Mrs Farr's. What happened here?'

'Nothing. I don't know.' He was clearly still confused. Pascoe said, 'Take it easy for a second,' and turned to Dalziel who was kneeling by Swift.

'Is he OK?' he said anxiously.

'He'll live,' said Dalziel. 'But he's going to have a stiffer neck than a fossilized giraffe!'

The sergeant tried to say something, only managed a grunt, then reached into his tunic and plucked out his personal radio.

'Good thinking, lad,' said Dalziel. 'How's your patient, Peter?'

Downey answered for himself.

'What are you lot doing here? Did that foreign woman tell you?'

Ellie. That foreign woman. Would there be a time when he could tell her this and laugh? Pascoe said, 'She had to. Colin Farr's off the hook, you see. We know he didn't kill Satterthwaite, so there's no reason for him to be running around up here.'

'Was off the hook,' Dalziel corrected grimly. 'All we had on him earlier was suspicion of topping a deputy which rates at slightly less than a misdemeanour round here. Now it's assaulting a police officer and that's really serious.'

He switched the radio to 'transmit'.

'What are you going to do?' asked Pascoe.

'What I should have done before. Whistle up some reinforcements. I've tried it soft, and even if I felt inclined to try it soft again, we can't. This time we don't know where he is.'

'I know where he'll be,' said Downey unexpectedly.

Once again Dalziel lowered the radio.

'You do?' he said.

'Pretty certain,' said Downey, 'It's the obvious place he'll hide.'

Suddenly Pascoe felt himself converted to Dalziel's previous viewpoint.

'Why'd he attack you, Mr Downey?' he said in an attempt at diversion.

'God knows,' said Downey. 'Why's that mad bugger ever do anything?'

'He likely backtracked you a bit to be on the safe side,' said Dalziel. 'When he spotted us back along the path, he must have thought you'd brought us with you. Can you take us to this hiding place, Mr Downey? I mean, are you fit enough?'

'Aye, I'm fit.'

'But what about the sergeant?' said Pascoe.

To his dismay Swift had a fit of nobility and croaked, 'OK. Go down by self.'

'No way,' said Dalziel to Pascoe's relief.

But it was short-lived. The fat man started bellowing into the radio till he got a startled response.

'Superintendent Dalziel,' he said. 'Send a bit of support up to the White Rock in Gratterley Wood, would you? Sergeant Swift's got himself slightly injured. Nothing serious but I don't want him walking around here by himself. Send a couple of strong lads to see him safely home. Inspector Pascoe and I are continuing our search for Mr Colin Farr. Chief Inspector Wishart has all details. Out.'

He returned the radio to Swift.

'There you are, lad. See if you can get Luxemburg while you're waiting. And take that knife down with you for Forensic to check out.'

'Sir,' said Pascoe. 'It's getting very dark. Shouldn't we perhaps ask for some lights and a tannoy?'

'What are you planning, lad? To hold a dance? You've got your torch, I've got mine. And Mr Downey here can probably see in the dark. Lead on, Macduff. The sooner we find this madman, the sooner we can all get home to our beds.'

Pascoe's reluctance was more than compensated by Downey's eagerness. He was away so quickly that Dalziel cried, 'Hold on!' and said to Pascoe, 'Move your arse, lad, or we're going to lose ourselves another miner!'

Pascoe whose night eyes were never particularly good soon felt himself completely out of touch with their guide, but Dalziel ploughed ahead with apparent confidence. The pale gleam from the torches showed no path beneath their feet, the trees seemed to be pressing together, and the thickening mist to have a strong odour of decay. At last Downey came to a stop and let them catch up.