Pascoe's Ghost

by Hill, Reginald;

  I laid my plans within a couple of days—so far as I can gauge—of arriving here. I knew I had to. It’s all a question of taking the initiative. Sit and wait, and very soon you are totally under control. This business of autobiography is very seductive. By the time I came to the politically significant period in my life I’ve no doubt I would have been providing you with dense detail just to convince you of my accuracy! So against your routine I had to set a counter-routine. But I am not so stupid as to imagine you are so stupid as not to look for this. So I worked out a double routine, the top layer of which you could penetrate easily enough. All those little notes of mine with their hints of breakdown, their wild hopes, their repetitions, did you imagine I would not guess that you would read them? More! I have lain there and felt your hands remove them from under my smock, then replace them after they’d been copied. That surprises you? There is much to surprise you!

  I let all my hopes for escaping from here seem to centre, on the door. But within a very short while I’d worked out that the door was a dummy. A little piece of hair stuck across the wood and the wall confirmed that it never opened or shut. I then set about discovering the real door. My exercises enabled me to examine most of the floor area without being too obvious and my “shrinking cell” fears allowed me to pace slowly right into the corners and stand there, as if making sure that the walls weren’t moving. Really, of course, what I wanted to discover was that the walls did move! But your interior decorator is pretty good and it took another hair in the corner to convince me that the section of wall behind my bed must slide or swing open.

  The next thing was to confirm this. I’d worked out that I was certainly being drugged to put me to sleep so soundly that your visits did not disturb me. This meant the food or the water had been tampered with, probably both. Not to eat would draw too much attention, I thought, but you co-operated to the extent of withdrawing my food if I did not write. So I deliberately did not write one day and this just left me with the problem of the water. I had noticed the calibrations on the inside of the jug and I knew it was not enough merely to pretend to drink—this was not just a one-off thing. I would need to repeat it at least once, probably twice, till all my theories were checked. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and see if I could put the light out of action.

  It worked beautifully. When the cold water cracked the hot bulb I crouched in the darkness as though waiting to attack the first man through that dummy door. Gradually, as you would expect having seen me apparently drink quite a lot of water before my experiment, I pretended to grow drowsy. Finally I flopped over as if asleep. I could have embraced the man who came through the wall and picked me up, even when he stuck a pin in me to check the depth of my sleep! Fortunately I had already worked out what this rash of punctures meant and I was ready for it. I hope my fears of being turned into a junkie entertained you. Fear and the human imagination are all the drugs the expert interrogator needs.

  Now I needed to do this once more to establish the routine. I hope I kept you amused with my attempts to break down the door and set fire to it! How natural that at last full of despair I should turn to thoughts of suicide. And how equally natural, I hope, that in my search for a weapon I should attempt to shatter my jug and thus spill all the water again—on a day, of course, when I was foodless for being naughty.

  Again I had to go through the motions of drowsiness and finally sleep. I hope I got the timing right, but as this must be uncertain in any case as it’s related to the amount of water I drink, perhaps it didn’t matter. But it mattered thereafter.

  Counting seconds, I reached eighty minutes before the wall slid open. I have had to take what happened then as the routine sequence for I do not dare risk another trial run.

  The light went on as the wall slid open (I’m writing this for my benefit, dear friends, not yours!), a single figure entered, stuck a pin into me as before. Ready though I was I twitched slightly and he tried again. This time I showed no reaction and this satisfied him. That must be some drug you’re using!

  His job seemed to be pretty menial so far as I could make it out. He simply removed the jug and the toilet bucket. As he left, another two men arrived. They removed my notes from their hiding-place and photographed the latest one before returning them. Then they photographed what I had written during the day. (The original I found on the table still when I got up, so clearly rejection has nothing to do with content. It is merely aimed at setting up doubts and anxieties in the writer so that the search for detail is pursued with greater vigour each time. What clever men you must be!)

  I knew that these two were not you, my dear friends, for they talked like underlings. Not indiscreetly, of course, for they, too, would be on your video screen, but of ordinary things like the foulness of the weather and the approach of Christmas.

  As they finished, the first man (I assume) returned with my bucket and my next day’s rations. I had written that day, so my food was restored.

  Now I had all the information I needed or at least was likely to get to enable me to escape. So now the plan could really get under way.

  I wrote more and more of suicide. I made a noose. I was interested to observe that although you knew I had a noose, you didn’t take it off me. So I wondered if you could be provoked into giving me a weapon, that is the bone dagger.

  I bet this caused some debate between the two of you. Yes, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are probably two of you sitting up there like gods watching my behaviour on a flickering grey screen. One of you will be a military man, concerned with security, duty, following orders, protecting the state. He wouldn’t be very happy at the thought of my having anything which could be called a weapon.

  The other must be a scientist, fascinated by the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and to test old. This is no weapon, but a token, he would say. The prisoner has no real intention of committing suicide. To give the possibility of death is to give the hope of life and it is from this that true confessions will spring. Besides what if I did die? Even failed experiments are useful. The unexpected becomes expected once it has happened.

  So I got my weapon. A bonus of bone! See, I can still make jokes, scientist. What does that prove of the human spirit? But it really was a bonus. The main function of my suicide pretensions has been to permit me to play around with the light again. You’ve seen me examine it, ostensibly as a hook to hang myself on. Shortly you shall see me get back up there once again, and I doubt if you’ll be surprised. I must look as if I’m building up to some climax of action, which indeed I am. Yesterday I sat as if in a coma, staring into space. Today I have been scribbling in an agitated, fashion. I bet you can hardly wait to see what I’ve been writing, scientist!

  Very shortly I shall jump up and begin to pace around the room looking as if I’m breaking up. Then suddenly I will push the chair under the light. Next I shall unwind my noose of blanket from my waist and examine it as though both fascinated and horrified. I shall put my hand to my throat, have a bout of coughing as though the very thought of hanging restricts my breathing. (I bet you make a note of that!) Picking up my jug, I shall take a draught of water to stop the coughing. And finally I shall climb on the chair and loop the noose over the light fitment.

  This is the big moment. The soldier may want to interfere (they can be very humane, soldiers. They like to kill to timetables). The scientist will say wait. The struggle will show itself in every angle of my body.

  And life will win. I will relax, sob convulsively, almost be sick. The scientist will preen himself.

  And I shall be squirting the water held in my mouth into the little cockleshell of paper I have tied into the noose. The keel of this paper boat, of a kind you’ve grown very used to seeing over the past few weeks, has a tiny hole in it. As I clamber off the chair, the water will already begin to seep through. I shall look exhausted. Who wouldn’t be in my circumstances, drained of emotion and topped up with drugged water?

  I shall stagger across the r
oom and fall on the bed. The light will go out. (Is it economy or convention that makes you switch off when I go to bed?) And a moment or so later, if all goes well and the fates who have so maligned me these past months decide to wink, while the bulb is still red hot the water will drip through and crack the glass and you up aloft in your God-like observation post will not be aware of it.

  So in one hour and twenty minutes (if he is as punctilious as my military friend must surely require) the man with the pin will open the door. Only this time no light will go on and I shall be waiting with my pin also.

  After that, who knows? If once I get outside, I’m sure that I shall find myself in remote enough terrain to make escape possible. The way my photographer friends talked about the rough winds and snow on the hills gives me a picture of a countryside with plenty of undulations to hide in, lots of flowing water to shake off dogs, lots of trees (pine forests, perhaps?) to ward off helicopters.

  We shall see. You, my friends, I should have liked to meet. But I shall not be able to arrange it, I fear. If I escape, distance—and if I don’t, death—will separate us beyond hope of encounter. Either way, you my soldier with all your schemes of security, and you my scientist with all your charts of the human mind, you both will have been defeated. You deserve death also, but perhaps defeat will serve as well for your puffed-up egos. Let the curtain rise.

  “The thing about the human mind,” said the scientist with great satisfaction, “is that even its deceits are forecastable. A lie is as good as the truth to the discerning eye.”

  “If you were so sure 128 was going, I wouldn’t have a man in hospital with a punctured lung,” growled the soldier.

  “I’m sorry about that,” said the scientist. “But I had to let things run their course. All those notes! What ingenuity. I look forward to observing the reaction to recapture.”

  “If there is a recapture,” said the soldier.

  “What on earth do you mean? You assured me security was complete!” said the scientist.

  “It is,” said the soldier. “Look at the map on the screen. That bleep and flashing light comes from the bugs. Every item of 128’s clothing has got one attached. Lose a sandal, it makes no difference. My men can track every movement. Only …”

  “Only what?”

  “Only there’s nothing but your fancy theories to say that it won’t be a corpse they bring back!”

  “I’ve told you,” said the scientist. “128’s not suicidal. All this talk of death or escape is self-deceit. That light seems to be following the line of the stream, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. The usual pattern. We could have worked it out even without the bugs. The letter told us, though we hardly needed that either. A valley for concealment, running water to throw the dogs off the scent. Dogs! They must think we live in the dark ages.”

  “The light’s moving pretty fast.”

  “It’s a fast-moving stream.”

  “You don’t mean 128’s actually in the water?” said the scientist, suddenly alarmed.

  “Why not? Swimming, floating, it’s the fastest way down to the sea.”

  “Let’s have a look at the file,” said the scientist. “Nothing here about being a strong swimmer.”

  “You don’t have to be,” said the soldier with grim satisfaction. “Dead or alive, that water’ll move you fast. Don’t look so worried! There’s a net across the mouth of the stream and my men are waiting there.”

  “I hope so. I hope so,” said the scientist. “But nets are more holes than string.”

  “There’s no way through. And even if there were, no one’s going to stay alive for long in the Irish Sea on a winter’s day. Poor sod. The things I do for England. Look, there you are! Like I said, in the net.”

  The light had halted where the line of the stream intersected the line of the shore.

  A telephone rang.

  “Back in the fold,” said the soldier, picking it up.

  He listened for a few moments and then said, “Good God!”

  “What’s up?” demanded the scientist. “Not dead?”

  “No,” said the soldier. “All they found was a bundle of clothes tied to a log.”

  “Maximum security screen!” he barked into the mouthpiece. “Then start searching. I’m coming down.”

  He replaced the receiver.

  “Maximum security?” sneered the scientist.

  The soldier paused at the door.

  “Has it struck you yet that the letter was probably just as big a smoke-screen as the notes?” he asked coldly. “So much for psychology.”

  “Rubbish,” said the scientist, peering into the thick file before him. “No one’s that controlled. Show ’em freedom or vengeance, every time they’ll run.”

  The soldier said nothing but gave a little gasp and stepped back a pace from the open doorway.

  The scientist looked up from the file.

  “You OK?” he asked.

  The soldier turned. His hands clutched his belly. About his tight-laced fingers was coiled a thread of blood. “Psychology!” he whispered scornfully.

  Then he fell.

  Behind him in the doorway stood a naked woman. She stepped into the room.

  In her hand was a dagger of bone.

  Dalziel’s Ghost

  “Well, this is very cosy,” said Detective-Superintendent Dalziel, scratching his buttocks sensuously before the huge log fire.

  “It is for some,” said Pascoe, shivering still from the frosty November night.

  But Dalziel was right, he thought as he looked round the room. It was cosy, probably as cosy as it had been in the three hundred years since it was built. It was doubtful if any previous owner, even the most recent, would have recognized the old living-room of Stanstone Rigg farm-house.. Eliot had done a good job, stripping the beams, opening up the mean little fireplace and replacing the splintered uneven floorboards with smooth dark oak; and Giselle had broken the plain white walls with richly coloured, voluminous curtaining and substituted everywhere the ornaments of art for the detritus of utility.

  Outside, though, when night fell, and darkness dissolved the telephone poles, and the mist lay too thick to be pierced by the rare headlight on the distant road, then the former owners peering from their little cube of warmth and light would not have felt much difference.

  Not the kind of thoughts a ghost-hunter should have! he told himself reprovingly. Cool calm scepticism was the right state of mind.

  And his heart jumped violently as behind him the telephone rang.

  Dalziel, now pouring himself a large scotch from the goodly array of bottles on the huge sideboard, made no move toward the phone though he was the nearer. Detective-superintendents save their strength for important things and leave their underlings to deal with trivia.

  “Hello,” said Pascoe.

  “Peter, you’re there!

  “Ellie love,” he answered. “Sometimes the sharpness of your mind makes me feel unworthy to be married to you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’ve just arrived. I’m talking to you. The super’s having a drink.”

  “Oh God! You did warn the Eliots, didn’t you?”

  “Not really, dear. I felt the detailed case-history you doubtless gave to Giselle needed no embellishment.”

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

  “Me neither. On the contrary. In fact, you may recall that on several occasions in the past three days I’ve said as much to you, whose not such a good idea it was in the first place.”

  “All you’re worried about is your dignity!” said Ellie. “I’m worried about that lovely house. What’s he doing now?”

  Pascoe looked across the room to where Dalziel had bent his massive bulk so that his balding close-cropped head was on a level with a small figurine of a shepherd chastely dallying with a milkmaid. His broad right hand was on the point of picking it up.

  “He’s not touching anything,” said Pascoe hastily. “Was there an
y other reason you phoned?”

  “Other than what?”

  “Concern for the Eliots’ booze and knick-knacks.”

  “Oh, Peter, don’t be so half-witted. It seemed a laugh at The Old Mill, but now I don’t like you being there with him, and I don’t like me being here by myself. Come home and we’ll screw till someone cries Hold! Enough!”

  “You interest me strangely,” said Pascoe. “What about him and the Eliots’ house?”

  “Oh, sod him and sod the Eliots! Decent people don’t have ghosts!” exclaimed Ellie.

  “Or if they do, they call in priests, not policemen,” said Pascoe. “I quite agree. I said as much, remember … ?”

  “All right, all right. You please yourself, buster. I’m off to bed now with a hot-water bottle and a glass of milk. Clearly I must be in my dotage. Shall I ring you later?”

  “Best not,” said Pascoe. “I don’t want to step out of my pentacle after midnight. See you in the morning.”

  “Must have taken an electric drill to get through a skirt like that,” said Dalziel, replacing the figurine with a bang. “No wonder the buggers got stuck into the sheep. Your missus checking up, was she?”

  “She just wanted to see how we were getting on,” said Pascoe.

  “Probably thinks we’ve got a couple of milkmaids with us,” said Dalziel, peering out into the night. “Some hope! I can’t even see any sheep. It’s like the grave out there.”

  He was right, thought Pascoe. When Stanstone Rigg had been a working farm, there must have always been the comforting sense of animal presence, even at night. Horses in the stable, cows in the byre, chickens in the hutch, dogs before the fire. But the Eliots hadn’t bought the place because of any deep-rooted love of nature. In fact Giselle Eliot disliked animals so much she wouldn’t even have a guard dog, preferring to rely on expensive electronics. Pascoe couldn’t understand how George had got her even to consider living out here. It was nearly an hour’s run from town in good conditions and Giselle was in no way cut out for country life, either physically or mentally. Slim, vivacious, sexy, she was a star-rocket in Yorkshire’s sluggish jet-set. How she and Ellie had become friends, Pascoe couldn’t work out either.