Dalziel 05 A Pinch of Snuff

by Reginald Hill

  'Bloody Keats.'

  'Same thing,' she said. 'You're a pure ablutionist. And like most priests, you're obsessed with sex, when it's sexism you should be after. That's the disease.'

  He pushed back his chair and stood up.

  'You should have a word with Ms Lacewing,’ he said. 'She's got plans.'

  'I intend to,’ she said. 'Didn't I tell you she rang? We're meeting for lunch today?'

  'Oh God. Liberated gossip!' he said. 'My raincoat, please.'

  'But you hardly ever wear this raincoat,' grumbled Ellie as she removed it.

  'Nor,' he said looking at her appreciatively, 'do you.'

  As he backed out of the gate, she was standing naked on the doorstep, waving everything at him. He peeped his horn and drove away.

  Hay Hall would have been totally unfindable without the help of what he took to be a ploughman workward plodding his weary way and even then it was only because he had the wit to follow the man's gestures rather than his words (right arm shooting out as he said 'sharp left at Five Lanes End') that Pascoe found himself turning through an unmarked and uninviting gateway in a crumbling lichen-pocked wall. The drive was pot-holed worse than Acornboar Mount, the vegetation consisted mainly of dark and dripping conifers and yew, and the whole atmosphere seemed more conducive to the chilly thrills of horror than the slippery blisses of pornography. This supernatural ambience was reinforced when the house itself came into view for now he got a tremendous sense of deja vu. It was a two-storeyed building which not even time and neglect could make beautiful. The ground floor looked as if it had been designed by someone who had a distant acquaintance with Georgian proportion and style, but the first floor, with its lancet windows and Gothic cornices, seemed to have been sliced off some romantic folly and dropped, not very accurately, on to its ill-matched base. Even the unkempt festoons of ivy couldn't hide the join.

  Parked in front of the house were two cars and a large van. Pascoe slid his Riley alongside them, still wrestling with this sense of having been here before. It was something he had heard of, but never experienced, and he was surprised at the uneasiness with which it filled him.

  'Oh it's you,' said Penelope Latimer from the portico. She came towards him, huge in a white silk trouser suit, and added apologetically, 'Sorry to sound so unwelcoming but I thought it might be the generator truck.'

  'I need my exhaust fixed,' said Pascoe.

  'Don't we all. Come inside, Peter, isn't it? We can't start anything till the power arrives, so you may detect away, darling, detect away. Anything wrong?'

  'It's just this house,' said Pascoe slowly, peering up at the facade.

  'Hideous, ain't it? But very useful. No one else will look at it, so we rent it for a song.'

  'I've a peculiar notion that I've seen it before,' said Pascoe.

  Penelope Latimer laughed beautifully, the kind of spontaneous silvery gurgle that film stars paid thousands to voice coaches for, and her soft frame shook like a snow-filled col touched by the warmth of spring.

  'Of course you have, darling. Everyone who's seen a Homeric film has seen Hay Hall. Do step in out of the raw.'

  Pascoe felt as relieved and disappointed as most people feel when the apparently supernatural is explained. Droit de Seigneur was the answer. This was the manor to which the lecherous lord had abducted the blushing bride. Which also made it the manor in which the blushing bride had been, perhaps, assaulted.

  They passed through an entrance hall with no furniture, tattered wallhangings, a rather elegant curved stairway and creaking floorboards, into an equally dilapidated drawing-room which was occupied by half a dozen people standing around a Calor gas heater drinking coffee from flasks.

  'Relax, folks,' said Penny. 'It's only the fuzz. Gerry, my dear, come and be fingerprinted.'

  A tall thin man with a scholarly stoop detached himself from the coffee-drinkers and joined Pascoe and the woman. It wasn't just the stoop that was scholarly. He had a thin-featured face, at once vague and ascetic, that would have looked at home at an Oxbridge high table; wire-rimmed spectacles pinched his long nose, and he even wore the baggy grey flannels and ancient sports coat with leather elbows which are the academic's uniform in the popular imagination. His age was about thirty.

  'Gerry Toms, Peter Pascoe. Coffee, Peter?'

  'No, thanks. Is there anywhere we could talk privately, Mr Toms?'

  'We could step into the shooting-room, if you don't mind the cold,' said Toms. He spoke hesitantly with a touch of East Anglia in his voice.

  'It shouldn't take long,' said Pascoe.

  The director led him via the hall into another, larger room. This one was furnished after a fashion. Drapes had been hung over the windows, a square of carpet laid on the floor in front of the almost Adam fireplace, and on this stood a chaise-longue and a small table set for tea. The final touch was a huge tiger skin rug.

  The other end of the room was full of equipment - cameras, some sound recorders and a variety of lights.

  'There's no power here, of course,' said Toms. 'That's why we need the generator. It isn't really enough, but a bit of gloom suits most of our scenes and hides the cracks in the plaster.'

  'Why do you use the place if it's so inconvenient?' asked Pascoe.

  'I didn't say it was inconvenient,' said Toms. 'On balance, it's great. First, we've got the whole house for interiors. Give us an hour and we can have any room looking habitable - on film anyway. And any period. Second, we've got nice private grounds for exteriors. You can't shoot our kind of footage in a public park. Third, it's cheap. Fourth, it's bloody cold, so we get things done quickly. What is it you want to talk to me about, Inspector?'

  'A film you made, Droit de Seigneur.'

  'Ah yes. A masterpiece of my social commentary period,' said Toms blandly.

  'Your what?'

  'I was trying to say something about the repression of woman.'

  'She didn't look very repressed to me,' said Pascoe, ninety-nine per cent sure that he was being sent up.

  'Of course not. The whole thing is a male fantasy, you noticed that, surely? The young husband and the wicked lord are, in fact, the same person. The husband in the end does not rescue the girl; he merely offers her a different form of victimization.'

  'That's a fairly cynical view of human relationships,' said Pascoe.

  'Then it's one that should recommend itself to you,' answered Toms. 'Cynicism is the basis of law, otherwise why should compassion need to be the better part of justice?'

  'Gobbledegook,' said Pascoe with some force.

  'Come now. Let us restrict ourselves to matters sexual. A woman comes to your station saying she has been attacked by a man. How do you and your colleagues react? You investigate the man because you believe any man capable of sexually assaulting a woman. You investigate the woman because you believe any woman capable of sexually provoking a man. At the conclusion of your investigations you apportion blame, you don't establish innocence. Am I right? Or am I right?'

  Pascoe found himself taking a hearty dislike to Gerry Toms, not so much because of his undergraduate debating manner as because of the impression he gave of intellectual condescension. He quite clearly believed that it needed very little effort on his part to leave a poor policeman floundering in his wake.

  'All that's as may be, sir,' he said heavily. 'I can't say I agree with what you say, though I'm not sure I've picked you up right. Any road, what I want to ask you now is about that scene in the film where the young lady gets beaten up.'

  'Yes?'

  'It's been suggested that at one point in that scene, the young lady really is being beaten up. What do you say to that?'

  'I say, how incredible! At which point?'

  'When the gent with the metal boxing gloves clips her jaw, sir.' Pascoe watched Toms closely. Having opted to play out the role of dull policeman, he hoped that Toms might be tempted to overact in his desire to impress his stolid audience, but the man merely shook his head.

  'And at t
hat point only?' he said. 'But why? Our actresses may not be Royal Shakespeare stuff, but they bleed and bruise just as easily and like it just as little. It's all done with tomato ketchup, Inspector, didn't you know?'

  'The suggestion was made, sir, and by someone with claims to expertise,' said Pascoe steadfastly.

  'A wife-beater, perhaps? Have you not seen the actress concerned? Linda Abbott, I think it was. Did she have any complaints? Or bruises?'

  'None.'

  'So what is this all about?' cried Toms, moving now across the thin line which divides the academic from the histrionic.

  'It's also been suggested that for this scene there was another actress in the role,' said Pascoe.

  'What? By another expert?'

  'In a manner of speaking,' said Pascoe, thinking of Ellie standing on the doorstep that morning.

  'You'd better change your experts, Inspector,' said Toms, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose with a nicotine-stained forefinger. 'There was only one woman in that part. Ask anyone who worked on the film.'

  'I notice you don't suggest looking at the film itself,' said Pascoe.

  'Why not? Look away!' said Toms. 'I'll sit and look with you.'

  'You have a print of the film, sir?' asked Pascoe.

  'I think not. They'll all be out, I expect.'

  'All?'

  'We usually make a couple of prints, sometimes three. It depends on the kind of demand we envisage.'

  'And in this case?'

  For the first time the shadow of a smile appeared on Gerry Toms's face.

  'Two only, I think. You see, I'm realistic. This kind of social allegory isn't altogether what the modern cineaste is looking for. Yes, there were two, I now recall. But only one survives. I remember there was some trouble, a consignment went astray at our distributors. It sank without a trace. It's the kind of people one has to employ these days. So the only surviving print is the one you must have seen. Presumably it's moved on elsewhere now. Never fear. It will be easy to catch it up.'

  'Not too easy, sir,' said Pascoe. 'I'm afraid that's gone too. There was a fire at the Calliope Kinema Club where it was showing. Perhaps you heard about it?'

  'No, I didn't. Good lord, that means, unless the last copy surfaces, it's goodbye Droit de Seigneur. Or perhaps I should say Adieu.'

  'You don't seem worried,' said Pascoe.

  'Why should I be? A film director writes on water, Inspector. And besides, that period of my life is dead. Now I'm into escapism. Symbolic romance.'

  'Elinor Glyn?' enquired Pascoe.

  'What? Oh, I see,' said Toms glancing at the tiger skin rug and nodding approvingly, as at a sharp pupil. 'No, but nearly right. We're doing a little squib loosely based on the tales of Baroness Orczy. It's about a group of noble ladies who are smuggled out of the shadow of the guillotine disguised as filles de joie in a travelling brothel. We're calling it The Scarlet Pimp.'

  'Oh God,' said Pascoe.

  'Oh Montreal,' said Toms. 'Is that all, Inspector?'

  'Just a couple of other points. What time did you get back on Friday?'

  'Oh, I don't know. Ten, eleven p.m.'

  Pascoe did a couple of quick calculations.

  'Did anyone see you when you arrived, sir?'

  'What? Of course they did. I'm not invisible, you know. Customs men, taxi-driver, hotel receptionist. Am I establishing some kind of alibi?'

  'I meant, did anyone see you when you got back to Harrogate?'

  Toms began to smile.

  'I'm with you, I think. You've misunderstood me, Inspector. It's true I should have been back in Harrogate early Friday evening. But we got held up. Barcelona was absolutely fog-bound. It was London I reached on Friday night. I didn't get back to Harrogate till Saturday lunchtime.'

  The door opened and Penelope Latimer came in.

  'Generator's arrived, darling.'

  'Great,' said Toms. 'Any way I can help, Inspector, you've just got to ask. Will you excuse me?'

  He left. Pascoe smiled to the woman and said casually, 'Mr Toms was telling me he got held up in Spain.'

  'Yes. Bloody nuisance. We lost a day. Should have started this lot on Saturday, you know.'

  'Where is it he stays in London? I meant to ask.'

  'The Candida,' she said. 'I think he'd be there. Yes, he definitely was. Their switchboard girl put him through to me when he rang.'

  'He rang? Why?'

  'To say he was delayed, of course. What's all this about, Peter?'

  'Nothing. Nothing,' said Pascoe. 'Interesting ideas your partner has, though.'

  'You think so? He sees himself as the poor man's Warhol. Or do I mean the rich man's Warhol? But he's certainly got what it takes for this business.'

  'Talent, you mean?' said Pascoe.

  Penelope laughed her joyous laugh.

  'Talent! Gerry could stick his talent between the cheeks of his tight little arse and it would fall out when he stood up. No. He knows which way to point a camera, and up from down, but his real asset is face. Sheer bloody effrontery. He got this place for us from old Lady Campsall. There was a bit of bother when her agent latched on to what kind of outfit we were, so Gerry went along and saw her. "Ma'am," he said. "What we are making are vulgar films for vulgar people. It's a new form of peasant taxation, and as such, you owe it your keenest support." She bought it. That's Gerry's real talent. Not film-making, but getting out of jams when they occur, which in this business is every two minutes. I know a dozen guys could make a better film than Gerry with one eye closed, but they couldn't get it put together within a time limit if the leading actor had a hernia, the banks foreclosed and a drunken lab-assistant peed in the hypo tank. Gerry could, would, and has done.'

  'I begin to see his value,' said Pascoe. 'You said he owned a third of the company.'

  'Did I?'

  'On the phone. You own another third, I presume. Who's the other lucky shareholder?'

  'No one really,' said the woman. 'It was just a manner of speaking. Gerry and me do the work. We have to twist a few arms to finance any new project, that's all I meant.'

  The room suddenly began to fill up with bodies and a tangle of cables.

  'Time to work,' said Penelope. 'Stay and enjoy the view.'

  'Some other time,' said Pascoe despondently. 'I've other bodies to see.'

  Penelope regarded him curiously.

  'Look,' she said. 'I'm not sure I know what this is all about, but don't let it get to you, darling. It's a crummy planet. Crummy things happen. We can all suffer without looking it up in the Yellow Pages. So be happy and come up and see me again some time - without those official eyes. 'Bye now.'

  As he sent the Riley down the dark tunnel of conifers and yew, Pascoe was not certain whether he had been comforted or warned. Either way it didn't matter. Or, to be less precise, they were equally irrelevant. To take warning, to take comfort: these were the prerogatives of the people. It was the duty of the priest class to give them, not to take them, especially not from fat women in the pornographic film business.

  Still, he thought, it was a terrible thing this pure abluting. Duty meant sacrifice. It might have been quite interesting to see what the Scarlet Pimp did with that tiger rug.

  On the other hand, though she did not yet know it, he had a date with a movie star.

  Chapter 16

  'One thing I'll give you lot,’ said Linda Abbott. 'You start early.'

  'But they let us finish late,' said Pascoe, glancing at his watch. It was only nine o'clock in the morning and already he'd contrived to do - he totted it up. Very little.

  Linda Abbott did not seem likely to change things. No, there definitely hadn't been another girl on the set. What would have been the point? The shooting had taken about a week, four or five days, that was. This was a lot longer than the back-street boys, three hours of an afternoon would do them, but the thing about Mr Toms was that he made real films. Some of them even had certificates and made it to Screen Three at the local Gaumont. She'd appear
ed in one of these, a small part. But hadn't she had to join Equity?

  Pascoe sat in the bright neat kitchen and talked softly over a mug of coffee for fear of disturbing the sleeping Bert.

  'How'd you get into this film business?' he asked.

  'It wasn't that hard,' she said. 'None of your struggling to stardom stuff. I used to be an exotic dancer. I still am when the kitty's low. I was asked if I'd like to make a bob or two doing a film. I was a bit dubious at first.'

  'Why?'

  'I knew right off what kind of film he meant. . .'

  'He?'

  'Chap who managed us. I was a Lulu then, part of a team, the Three Lulus. Maurice, that was the chap who ran the agency, said he could get us into films. Like I said, we knew what he meant, or thought we did. Getting humped on some flea-ridden bed for home-movies. We told him to take a jump, but he ran us out to meet Mr Toms, showed us a film he'd made. Well, it wasn't Gone With the Wind but it was a cut or two above the do-it-yourself kind. Most of the sex, he said, was put on. Them as felt like going the whole hog for a few quid more were very welcome, but there was plenty of work for well-built girls who just wanted to go through the motions. I talked it over with Bert and said all right.'

  'This Maurice,' said Pascoe casually, 'does he still manage you?'

  'Not really manage. When we were the Three Lulus, he was more our manager then. But you don't have proper managers in this game. If he knows of anything that might suit me, he gets in touch. If I'm a bit short, I might ring his agency just to see what's going.'

  'Arany, that's a funny name,' mused Pascoe. 'Doesn't sound English. Just a business name, perhaps.'

  She put her cup on the table and stared at him with blank unblinking eyes.

  'What's the game, love?' she asked.

  'Eh?'

  'I never said Maurice's second name was Arany.'

  'Didn't you? Surely you did!' said Pascoe brightly. 'Otherwise how would I know . . . ?'

  'That's the question, right enough. So what's the game?'

  Pascoe was acutely embarrassed. It had been a stupid slip. Dalziel would probably not have made it - he rarely underestimated people. But if he had, he wouldn't have been in the least embarrassed.