Recalled to Life
Shaking the remaining dust from the case, he went quickly and quietly downstairs. Just inside the front door was a small cloakroom. He slipped the case under the hand-basin, closed the door and returned to the living-room as Maudie came out of the kitchen carrying a laden tray.
‘Find what you were looking for, Andy?’
‘No, not a sign,’ he said, removing the video from the recorder and fitting it into a capacious inner pocket. ‘I reckon you must have chucked it out without noticing. No matter. Are them your Eccles cakes I see? You must’ve known I was coming. What was it Wally used to say? Never say nowt good ever came out of Lancashire till you’ve tasted our Maudie’s Eccles cakes!’
He seized one, devoured it in a couple of bites, and was on his third when the doorbell rang.
‘Who can that be?’ said Maudie, with the ever fresh surprise of the northern housewife that someone should be at her door.
She went out into the hallway. Dalziel helped himself to another cake and moved to the lounge doorway to catch the conversation.
‘Mrs Tallantire, you may not remember me, but we have met a long time back. Geoffrey Hiller. I was a sergeant up here for a while when your husband was head of CID.’
‘Hiller? Now isn’t that odd? We were just talking about you. Won’t you step inside, Sergeant? And your friend.’
‘Thank you. Actually, it’s Deputy Chief Constable now, Mrs Tallantire. Of the South Thames force. And this is Detective-Inspector Stubbs.’
‘Ooh, you have done well. Come on through. Andy, it never rains but it pours. Here’s another old friend of Wally’s come visiting.’
Dalziel, back in his chair, looked up in polite puzzlement as the dark-suited man stopped short in the doorway, like a parson accidentally ushered into a brothel. Then the fat man’s face lit up with the joy of a father at the prodigal’s return and he said, ‘Geoff? Is that you? Geoff Hiller, by all that’s holy! How are you, lad? What fettle? By God, it’s good to see you.’
He was on his feet shaking the newcomer’s hand like a bushman killing a snake. Hiller had recovered from his shock and was now regarding Dalziel with wary neutrality.
‘How are you, er, Andy?’ he said.
‘I’m grand. And who’s your friend?’
‘This is Detective-Inspector Stubbs. Stubbs, meet Detective-Superintendent Dalziel, Head of Mid-Yorkshire CID.’
Hiller’s tone underlined the title.
Stubbs held out his hand. ‘Hi. Glad to meet you, Supe.’
‘Supe?’ echoed Dalziel. ‘Up here we drink supe. Or if it’s homemade, we chew it. Will you be staying in West Yorkshire long enough to learn our little ways?’
Stubbs glanced at Hiller, who said, ‘Actually, er, Andy, we’re on our way to your neck of the woods. This is just in nature of a courtesy call on Mrs Tallantire in passing.’
‘I see. In passing Skipton? On your way to Mid-Yorks HQ? From South Thames?’
As he spoke, Dalziel’s finger traced two sides of a rectangle in the air, and he smiled an alligator’s smile.
‘Now that’s what I call courtesy! Maudie, isn’t it nice of Geoff here to come so far out of his way just for old time’s sake? Incidentally, Geoff, I presume you’re expected at my shop? I was talking to the Chief yesterday afternoon and he said nowt.’
‘The Home Office should have phoned Mr Trimble this morning,’ said Hiller.
‘That explains it. It’s my day off, which is why I’m here. Social call on an old friend. Mebbe it’s your day off too?’
‘No,’ said Hiller. ‘Not really. I’m afraid there is a business element to my call, Mrs Tallantire. You may have heard that some question has arisen as to the safety of the verdict in the Mickledore Hall murder case. In fact, Cecily Kohler has been released and the Home Office has ordered an inquiry into the affair. Your late husband, Detective-Superintendent Tallantire, conducted the original investigation and will naturally figure in the inquiry which I have been instructed to take charge of.’
‘Now isn’t that funny? Andy and I were only just now talking –’
‘And you’ve come to warn Maudie that the Press will probably be sniffing around,’ intervened Dalziel. ‘Now that is kind. I leave you in good hands, Maudie. Me, I’d best be off. Geoff, I know it’s not a nice job you’ve got, poking around in other buggers’ rubbish bins, but where’d we be without the garbage collectors, eh? I promise you, you’ll get nowt but cooperation from my department. I’ll see you tomorrow, likely.’
Hiller tried to look suitably grateful but couldn’t get beyond the expression of a postman assured the Rottweiler is just a big softy.
‘Actually, er, Andy, we hope to be in situ later today.’
‘You can be up to your necks in situ for me, Geoff, but it’s my day off, remember? What did you think I was going to do? Head straight back and start shredding the files?’
He laughed, kissed Maudie on the cheek and said, ‘Take care, luv. I’ll see myself out. See you soon.’
He went out, closing the lounge door firmly behind him. As he opened the front door noisily, he reached into the cloakroom, picked up the suitcase and exited with a slam that shook the stained glass panel.
Separating Maudie’s driveway from her neighbour’s was a low brick wall. He leaned over and placed the case behind it. As he reached the gate, he heard the front door open behind him. He turned to see Stubbs coming out. He’d always been a distrustful bastard, that Hiller. It was good to know some things didn’t change.
‘Need something from the car,’ said Stubbs as he joined him.
‘Oh aye? Hair curlers, is it?’ said Dalziel.
As he drove away he saw the inspector return to the house without opening his car. He drove slowly round the block, parked outside Maudie’s neighbour’s and walked briskly up the drive. A window opened as he retrieved the suitcase and he looked up to see a woman viewing him with grave suspicion.
‘Yes?’ she called sharply.
Dalziel pulled the video out of his pocket, and held it up like a votive offering.
‘Are you on line with the Almighty, sister?’ he intoned. ‘Are you plugged in to the Lord? I’ve got a video here that’ll turn your telly into the Ark of the Covenant!’
‘No, thank you!’ she cried in alarm and slammed the window shut.
Shaking his head, he returned to the car.
It was like he’d always thought.
There was no love of religion in West Yorkshire.
FOUR
‘I am not surprised; I knew you were here … if you really don’t want to endanger my existence – go your way as soon as possible and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official.’
‘An habitual criminal is easy to spot. Ask him, “Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?” and he’ll say, “I was at home in bed reading a book. I can bring six witnesses to prove it.”’
There was a dutiful titter. Perhaps it’s the way I tell them, thought Peter Pascoe.
He looked at the twenty young faces before him. Children of the ’seventies. Adolescents of the ’eighties. Lawmen of the ’nineties. God help them.
He said gently, ‘Who was President Kennedy?’ Pause. A lowering of eyes to avoid catching his. Make the question easier. ‘What country was he president of?’
An uncertain hand crept up.
‘America, sir?’
‘That’s right. Would that be North or South America?’
The irony of superiors is unfair because it forces you to take it literally.
He went on quickly before anyone could try an answer, ‘What happened to him? Well, I told you that. He got shot. Does anyone know the year?’
They probably didn’t know this year! No. That was unfair. He was confusing truth and truism. Everyone remembers what they were doing when Kennedy died. Everyone except a few billion who weren’t born; or didn’t know of his existence, or didn’t give a toss that it was over. Everyone in America, then? Maybe. Probably their kids had the date and data drummed into them with the Pledge of Allegiance. But this lot, why should they be expected to know anything about other people’s myths?
‘Was it nineteen sixty-three, sir?’
‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
He looked at the speaker with disproportionate pleasure. Another hand was waving urgently. Perhaps the floodgates had opened and all his cynical doubts about the ignorance of this generation were going to be washed away. He pointed at the hand-waver, nodded, waited to be amazed.
‘Sir, it’s half past. We’re due in the gym with Sergeant Rigg.’
He knew Sergeant Rigg. A no-neck Welshman with a black belt and a short way with latecomers.
‘You’d better go, then.’
He looked at his notes. He still had three sides to go. Before she left, Ellie had warned him to go easy on the midnight oil. (Trying to offer a pastoral substitute for scarcer emotional goods?) He pushed the distasteful thought away and concentrated on her words.
‘You start by thinking if you speak very slowly you might spin it out for five minutes. You end by gabbling so fast you’re incomprehensible, and even then you’ve still got bucketfuls of pearls left uncast.’
He poured them back into his briefcase and followed the cadets from the room.
‘Pete, how’d it go?’
It was Jack Bridger, the grizzled Chief Inspector in charge of Mid-Yorkshire cadet training programme.
‘So-so. I didn’t find them very responsive.’
Bridger regarded him shrewdly and said, ‘They’re just ordinary lads, not post-grad students. At that age all you think about is fucking and football. Secret is to ask the right questions. Talking of which, sounds like they’re going to be asking some funny questions about this Mickledore Hall business.’
‘They’ve started. Full inquiry. Fellow called Hiller, Deputy Chief from South Thames, is leading it. Turned up yesterday even though the official announcement of the inquiry hasn’t been made yet.’
‘Hiller? That wouldn’t be Adolf Hiller, would it?’
He pronounced the name with a long A.
‘This one’s called Geoffrey, I think. Smallish fellow with crooked teeth. Looks as if he’s stolen his suit.’
‘That’s him! Adolf was just his nickname. He were a sergeant here way back, but not for long. Too regimental for old Wally Tallantire. That’s how he got his nickname. Some joker started changing his name on notices and lists to Hitler, and it soon caught on.’
‘But he couldn’t have been here during the Mickledore Hall case, surely, or he’d not have got this job?’
‘No, it was after that. He got moved around like pass the parcel. He were one of those fellows, you couldn’t fault his work, but you couldn’t thole his company.’
Pascoe said, ‘I never knew Tallantire. What was he like? Cut a few corners, would he?’
‘That’s the way the wind blows, is it? Well, it figures. Scapegoats are like lawyers. The best ’uns is dead ’uns. As for cutting corners, well, Wally would certainly go the shortest way, once he got a target in his sights. And the Mickledore Hall case was his golden hour by all accounts, the one he reckoned he’d be remembered for. But there’s a difference between cutting corners and carving people up.’
‘So you reckon he was straight?’
‘On the whole, I’d say so. I’ll tell you one thing, but. Fat Andy won’t take kindly to anyone casting aspersions. Wally was his big hero, he took Andy under his wing, and it needed a pretty broad wing, believe me!’
Pascoe grinned and said, ‘A bit wild, was he?’
‘Wild? He’s a dormouse to what he were! He’d still be pounding a beat if it weren’t for Wally. But Wally was flying high after the Mickledore case, and Andy flew with him.’
Pascoe mused on these things as he headed back to Headquarters. He tried to imagine Dalziel as a wild young thing in need of protection but all he could get was Genghis Khan in short pants. The image made him smile. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, he felt good.
He turned a corner. Ahead, rearing out of a rough sea of rooftops, he glimpsed the huge grey front of the cathedral tower. His mouth felt dry. He tried to make spittle and swallow but couldn’t. The palms of his hands were sweating so that the wheel felt slimy against them. The tower seemed to be swelling to fill the sky, while the car shrank around him to a biscuit tin. He braked hard, pulled in to the side, felt the wheels hit the kerb. His heart was racing like an engine with a stripped gear. His left hand fumbled for the seat-belt release, his right for the door handle. His fingers felt weak and unconnected with his mind, more vegetable than flesh, but somehow the door was open, the belt released and he swung his legs out of the car. An overtaking cyclist had to swerve sharply to avoid collision. She went on her way, swearing over her shoulder. Pascoe paid no heed. He forced his head between his knees and drew in great ragged breaths. After a while he managed to get some rhythm into his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, long, slow inhalations and exhalations. His heart too was slowing, his salivary glands resumed a limited service, and his hands began to feel less like a bunch of radishes bound loosely to his wrists.
When strength returned to his legs, he stood up and walked unsteadily around the car. He forced himself to think about his lecture to the cadets, what he should have told them about criminal investigation, what he shouldn’t have wasted time telling them. The sun was pleasantly warm on his skin, the air tasted good. At last he felt able to get back in and drive away. But he didn’t let his gaze drift up to the skyline again.
A mile away, a van was backing into Pascoe’s spot in the HQ car park. The driver got out and went into the building. Sergeant George Broomfield on the desk said, ‘Can I help you?’
‘Why not? Sergeant Proctor, South Thames. I’m with Mr Hiller’s mob. Got some gear outside in the van. Any chance of a lift?’
His cockney chirpiness grated on Broomfield’s ear, which would have surprised Proctor who came from Ruislip.
‘Doubt it,’ he said. ‘Not for a while, any road. I don’t think I’ve got a body free.’
Suddenly Dalziel was there. How a man of his girth could be sudden, Broomfield never knew, but when he wanted he could lurk like a Brazilian striker.
‘George, what are you saying? Cooperation’s the key word here. Isn’t that young Hector I see through there playing with himself? Send him out to help. Fragile stuff, is it, Sergeant?’
Proctor, recognizing the weight of authority, said, ‘Yes, sir. Couple of computers, software, hardware, that sort of thing.’
Broomfield was looking alarmed. Not even a cockney deserved PC Hector, who didn’t break cups when he washed up, he broke sinks.
‘Computers, eh?’ said Dalziel. ‘Then Hector’s your man. Strong as an ox. Hector! Come on out here!’
He stood by the desk till Proctor and the bewildered-looking constable had gone into the car park. Then he said very seriously to Broomfield, ‘These people are our guests, George. We’ve got to take care of them,’ and set off up the stairs.
He’d reached the first landing when he heard the first crash, and its accompanying cry of anguish followed him all the way up to the second.
He smiled and went on his way to Sergeant Wield’s room.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said to the Sergeant who hadn’t moved. ‘The lad not back yet?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Bloody nuisance. I wish he’d not volunteer all the time for these skives.’
Wield, who knew very well that it was Dalziel who had volunteered Pascoe for the cadet lecture (‘right up your street, being a Master of Ceremonies or whatever it is you are’), said nothing.
‘Tell him to drop in when he gets back, will you?’ Dalziel hesitated at the door, then went on, ‘Matter of no importance, but how’s he been looking to you lately?’
‘Bit rough,’ said Wield. ‘He’s not really been himself since that lass jumped off the cathedral tower. It seemed to knock all the stuffing out of him, somehow.’
‘Certainly knocked the stuffing out of her,’ said Dalziel.
He stared hard at Wield’s inscrutably craggy features as though challenging him to reprove his callousness, but the Sergeant just held his gaze unflinchingly.
‘Right,’ said Dalziel. ‘Well, keep an eye on him, eh? I know I can rely on your feminine intuition.’
He went on to his own office, opened a drawer, and took out the glass of Scotch he’d been drinking when he’d noticed the South Thames van pulling into the car park below his window. He was just finishing it when the door burst open and Hiller came in.
‘Well, come on in, Geoff,’ said Dalziel pleasantly. ‘Have a seat. Getting settled in, are you?’
Hiller remained standing.
‘I think it’s time to lay a few ground rules,’ he said. ‘First, in front of other officers, I think we should observe protocol. That means “sir” not “Geoff”, OK?’
‘Fair enough. No Geoffing around,’ said Dalziel.
‘Secondly, Inspector Stubbs tells me he found you in the room allocated to us by your man Pascoe.’
‘Just checking you had everything you need, Geoff. Pascoe’s a good lad but a bit rough at the edges. He might have overlooked a few of the refinements.’
‘I found Mr Pascoe very helpful and obliging,’ said Hiller. ‘But I want to make it clear that my inquiry room, especially now I’ve got my equipment here, is off-limits to all Mid-Yorkshire staff. That includes you, Andy. And especially it includes that moron, Hector. Is he brain-damaged or what?’
‘Hector? He’s reckoned to be one of our high fliers.’
‘He’ll fly high if he comes within kicking distance of my boot,’ said Hiller.
A joke, thought Dalziel. Adolf had really come a long way.
‘That all, is it?’ he inquired politely.
‘Just one more thing. While I was talking to Mrs Tallantire yesterday, she let slip that you’d been asking her about Wally’s personal papers.’
‘Oh aye? Then she’ll have told you that there weren’t any,’ said Dalziel.
‘Yes, that’s what she said you said,’ replied Hiller.
‘You’re not implying I’d try to hide summat as important as that?’ said Dalziel indignantly.
‘I’m implying nothing. I’m saying loud and clear that if I get any proof that you’re attempting to interfere with or obstruct my inquiry in any way, I’ll bury you, Andy.’
‘You’d need to scratch a big hole, Geoff,’ said Dalziel, his fingers mining his groin as if in illustration.
Hiller smiled thinly.
‘I don’t do my own digging any more,’ he said. ‘By the way, I’ve asked Mr Trimble if your DCI Pascoe can act as liaison between us. Like I said before, he seems a sensible sort of fellow, and I think it’s in all our interests to keep things on an even keel.’
‘Right,’ said Dalziel. ‘Pascoe’s your man for even keels. Full of ballast. It’ll be plain sailing with him.’
‘Plain sailing’s what we all want, isn’t it?’ said Hiller.
Dalziel showed him out with all the surface regret of a society host losing a favourite guest. He watched him out of sight along the corridor then he said, ‘You can come out now.’
The door to the storeroom opposite opened and Pascoe emerged.
‘Saw you lurking a few minutes back,’ said Dalziel. ‘Hear all that, did you?’
‘The door was open,’ said Pascoe defensively.
‘Don’t apologize. There’s three things a good copper never passes up on, and one of ’em’s a chance to eavesdrop.’
Pascoe didn’t care to inquire as to the other two. He followed Dalziel into his room and said, ‘In this case, eavesdropping hasn’t left me much the wiser. I’d appreciate being told what’s really going off here.’
‘You’ve stopped reading the papers and watching the telly, have you?’
‘I’ve not had much time recently.’
‘Oh aye? Family all right, are they?’
Why was it so hard to tell Dalziel anything without getting the sense he knew it already? Pascoe said as casually as he could, ‘Fine. Well, in fact, Ellie’s away visiting her mother for a couple of days. And Rosie too, of course. The old girl’s been a bit under the weather. The strain of looking after Ellie’s father. He’s got Alzheimer’s, remember? He’s gone totally now, no memory, never speaks, incontinent, the works. So they got him into a home last month and now Ellie’s gone down just to check her mum’s coping …’
He was talking too much.
Dalziel said, ‘OK, is she?’
‘Yes. I think so. I mean, Ellie rang just to say they’d got there OK …’
A message on his answering machine. ‘Peter, we’ve arrived safely. Rosie sends her love. I’ll ring again tomorrow.’ He hadn’t tried to ring back.
‘Well, it’s an ill wind,’ said Dalziel. ‘Lots of time on your hands now to catch up with what’s going off. You must’ve seen that telly programme yon Yank, Waggs, made, a while back? The one that caused the big stink?’
Pascoe shook his head.
‘Well, no great loss. Them TV twats get carried away. Funny angles, fancy music, all film festival stuff without the titties in the sand. I’ve got a video of it I’ll show you some time, but best for background is this radio thing they did a couple of years back before they started this miscarriage of justice crap. I don’t suppose you heard that either?’
He rummaged in a drawer, brought out an audio cassette.
‘You listen to that. That was the truth for twenty-five years. Now they’re telling us it’s a load of lies.’
Pascoe took the cassette and said, ‘I gather you know Mr Hiller from way back.’
‘Oh aye. He got dumped on us but Wally soon saw him off. I reckon that’s how he’s got on so well. Everyone he worked for’d be so keen to get shot of the bugger, they’d give him a glowing testimonial to get him on his way! Big mistake. You don’t get rid of a snake by pushing it into someone else’s garden. You keep it close where you can stamp on it.’
‘It’s a nice theory,’ said Pascoe. ‘But he must have some ability.’
‘Too true. The ability to dig up whatever bones the Emmies have buried for him and come running back with them, wagging his tiny tail behind him.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Pascoe, baffled. ‘Emmies? I don’t quite follow …’
‘Emmies!’ said Dalziel in exasperation. ‘MI this, MI that. The funny buggers.’
‘The Security Services, you mean? Come on, sir! Why the hell should Security be interested in Mickledore Hall?’
Dalziel shook his head. ‘You’d be better off sniffing glue than going to them colleges. Do they teach you nowt? Think about it! There was a government minister there that weekend, Partridge, Lord Partridge now. And the dead woman’s husband was one of their own. And there was a Yank, Rampling, he’s something important over in the States, and getting more important, by the sound of it. And there was Noddy Stamper, top industrialist, Sir Noddy now, Maggie gave him a knighthood soon as she got in, so you can see what he was made of. Just listen to the tape. It’s all there. Well, soon after it happened this long thin fellow, all sweet and pink, like a stick of Edinburgh Rock, turned up. Name of Sempernel, he said. Osbert Sempernel. Pimpernel, we called him, he were so hard to pin down. Said he was from the Home Office but I reckon if I could have snapped him in half, I’d have found dirty tricks printed all the way through. I saw him again this morning when I were watching the press conference on the box. Hanging around outside with Adolf. It all made sense.’
‘Not to me,’ said Pascoe, sceptically but not overly so. Dalziel’s delusions had an X-certificate habit of fleshing themselves out into reality. ‘Are you saying that Hiller will heap all the blame on Wally Tallantire just because this chap Sempernel tells him to?’
‘Certainly. He’d hang his own granny if the orders came from high enough, especially if it meant getting up another rung of the ladder.’
‘Adolf Eichmann rather than Adolf Hitler, then?’
‘Both,’ said Dalziel. ‘And the bugger’s taken a fancy to you, so mebbe you should start asking questions about yourself. Any road, you’re to act as liaison. Now, you’ll get nowt out of Adolf, but yon primped-up fancy pants might start yapping after a couple of port-and-lemons.’