Dalziel 05 A Pinch of Snuff

by Reginald Hill

  Crabtree led him across the hall into the room in which he had first met Toms on his last visit here. The room was empty now, though the atmosphere was heavy with cigarette smoke and the smell of human beings.

  'Penny'll be along shortly, I should think,' said Crabtree. 'She's a good provider, that one. Look, Peter, you weren't very clear on the phone. Do you reckon that Homeric have really been up to something nasty? And I mean, nowadays nasty has really got to be nasty, right? I mean, we all like it! It's just a matter of degree.'

  'I've told you everything I know,' said Pascoe.

  'Which brings it down to the girl. Couldn't this fellow Arany just have some private thing going? Dirty photos to sell round the clubs. I mean, you don't know for sure there was a film, and even if there is, you don't know that Homeric have got anything to do with it.'

  'You seem pretty reluctant to tie in Homeric,' said Pascoe. 'For God's sake, pornography's their business!'

  'Even the law recognizes degrees, Peter,' said Crabtree seriously. 'Toms I don't know well enough to judge, but I can't see Penny Latimer being mixed up with anything really harmful.'

  'What's this? What's this? Unsolicited testimonials?' said the woman coming through the door carrying a tray with some paper cups, a Thermos flask and a half of Scotch on it.

  The men didn't answer, so she put the tray down and poured tea from the flask into the paper cups.

  'Milk or Scotch?' she said to Pascoe. 'Oh, and we've got no milk.'

  'I'd better stick to Scotch then,' said Pascoe. 'Thank you. Cheers.'

  'Cheers,' said Penny. 'And now, my boys, why don't you come clean and tell old Penny the truth, or the time, or whatever policemen are best at telling?'

  Pascoe considered the question carefully while he enjoyed the double warmth of the tea.

  'All right,' he said.

  'Oh good,' said the woman. 'Telling the truth. Take one. Action.'

  'Not the truth,' corrected Pascoe. 'Just the time. You did give me the alternative. And I'll gladly tell you what time it is. It's time you and Mr Toms and all your associates packed up your bags and crawled out of this county, and out of this country, until you got back under whatever stone you crawled out from in the first place.'

  He spoke far more emphatically than he had intended. Interestingly, Crabtree reacted more strongly than the woman.

  'Hang about, Peter,' he said. 'You can't talk . . .'

  'Hold it, Ray,' said Penny Latimer quietly. 'I'm not a bad judge of character and Peter here doesn't strike me as being one of the Mrs Grundy brigade. In fact, if he can be as rude as that while he's drinking my whisky, he must reckon he's got something to be rude about. You're not still on this snuff-film tack, are you?'

  'I haven't put it out of my mind,' said Pascoe. He might as well have said he couldn't, and never would. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the envelope which contained the photos of Sandra Burkill.

  Selecting one, he passed it over to the woman.

  She glanced at it without curiosity or revulsion.

  'It's further than we go,' she said. 'But it's up to the lawyers to draw lines.'

  'The girl is twelve years old,' said Pascoe.

  Now she made a moue of distaste.

  Pascoe continued, 'And that's a line the lawyers have drawn even if your spastic conscience can't quite manage it.'

  'What the hell do you mean, my conscience?' demanded the woman.

  'Oh, have a look at the picture, dearie,' said Pascoe. 'I've got a good memory for details. I reckon it'll be easy to prove that that was taken in your shooting room in Hay Hall.'

  She looked again and her face blanked over.

  'I know nothing about this,' she said.

  'Really? Don't tell me; it's the corrupt fuzz fitting you up, right? That's one of our policewomen and the fellow on the left's the Chief Constable.'

  'Don't get too indignant, sweetie,' she replied. 'It'll give you crows-feet round the eyes.'

  She was right, thought Pascoe. This indignation might be ageing; it was certainly addictive. And it would get him nowhere.

  'Let's go see Mr Toms,' he said.

  Retrieving the picture from Penny, he strode out of the room and across the vestibule, following the power cables which snaked from the generator truck via some side window across the scarred oak floor.

  The cameras were rolling, as were the actors. Toms stood looking down on the tangle of limbs with the worried frown of a Senior English Master considering whether he ought not to expunge the word 'bastard' from the school production of King Lear.

  'Cut,' said Pascoe.

  Toms turned round.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he demanded.

  Pascoe approached and spoke softly in his ear.

  'I've come for an audition,' he said. 'I'm going to screw you up.'

  The actors had disentangled themselves and were rising to their feet. There was not, Pascoe observed, an erection in sight.

  'You can bugger off out of here,' instructed Toms. 'I've got work to do. You've ruined this shot already. That costs money.'

  'Gerry, I think you should listen to the Inspector,' said Penelope Latimer.

  'You do? Oh all right. We might as well take a break. Five minutes, boys and girls. And try to come back looking a bit less like evacuees from the geriatric ward!'

  The cast left, pulling on an assortment of dressing-gowns and bath-robes.

  'Now, Inspector, perhaps you'll start explaining.'

  'Perhaps you will,' said Pascoe. 'The girl in this picture. When did you last see her?'

  Toms glanced at the photo.

  'That's easy. I've never seen her in my life,' he said confidently.

  'Never? How odd. It looks to me as if this very room is the setting for this picture. Wouldn't you agree?'

  Toms examined the photograph once more, pursing his lips as he ostentatiously switched his gaze from the picture to the fireplace.

  'It's certainly a similar fireplace,' he said. 'But the design is not uncommon and I dare say you can buy something very like that in marbled plastic at any DIY shop. But tell me, Inspector: what does the girl say?'

  Pascoe's first reaction was that Toms was mocking him, safe in the knowledge that the girl had been spirited away, God knows where, by Arany. But there was something in the man's intonation, a sense of effort to remain casual, that made him decide to treat the question as genuine.

  'When I spoke to her last night,' he said carefully, 'she seemed ready to change her story.'

  This non-committal answer seemed to give Toms new confidence.

  'It seems an extraordinary thing, Inspector, that you should feel able to come here with your slanderous accusations based on no more than a rather poorly defined film still!'

  'Slanderous?' said Pascoe. 'How have I slandered you? You do take pictures, don't you? Nude picture, pornographic pictures?'

  'Within the law,' said Toms, very morally superior. 'When you start accusing me of conniving at the sexual molestation of a twelve-year-old, you're saying I've committed a crime. And that's slanderous.'

  'You're right,' said Pascoe. 'You're so right. Now I wonder how you manage to be so right?'

  'What?'

  'What I mean is, how do you happen to know that the girl in the picture, whom you have never seen before, is only twelve years old?'

  Toms looked blank for a second, then slowly smiled and ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

  'Did I say twelve years old? Well, so what? I used the term generally, not particularly. She's obviously a kid, else why all the fuss? I really am sorry to spoil your Perry Mason moment, Inspector, but I'm not about to be tricked into one of your nasty cells just to please your Puritan conscience. I see your game. You don't like the modern liberating spirit abroad in the arts, no policeman does, so you desperately look around for some method of getting at the artist.'

  'Save it,' said Pascoe wearily. 'I've seen the film of the matchbox cover. Let's stop mucking about.' />
  'Yes, let's,' interrupted Penny Latimer. 'You've been all round the houses. Now it's time to spell it out, baby.'

  Pascoe looked at the other three people in the room. Curiously, of them all, Ray Crabtree was the only one who looked at all ill at ease. Understandably so in a way. No policeman likes to have another pointing out what's been going on under his nose. Toms was affecting boredom fairly successfully, while the woman looked alert and interested which might not be the worst way of concealing guilt.

  Where the hell was Dalziel? wondered Pascoe. How would he want this played?

  Carefully, was the only answer.

  'Let's sit down, Mr Toms, shall we? There are one or two more questions I want to ask.'

  'Oh God! Ask if you must. I need a drink.'

  So saying, Toms headed out into the hallway, presumably in search of Penny's bottle. Pascoe followed, still talking because he was beginning to feel that if he stopped talking, he might thump somebody.

  'You made several telephone calls from the Candida Hotel last Friday night,' he said.

  'Yes. I told you. I rang Penny to say I was stranded.'

  'I know that, Mr Toms,' said Pascoe. 'It's the other calls I'm interested in.'

  'Other calls?' said Toms, halting. 'What others?'

  'To Mr Godfrey Blengdale, for a start,' said Pascoe.

  'Blengdale?' said Toms. 'I don't recollect the name.'

  He sounded completely confident in his ability to deny all knowledge of Blengdale. Pascoe attempted to match his confidence.

  'You mean, you don't know your own partner's name?' he asked. 'Perhaps I misunderstood Miss Latimer, but I thought she implied that Mr Blengdale owned a third of Homeric?'

  The lie sent a shiver of indignation over Penny's frame. Toms glared at her angrily. Pascoe regarded them with an expression of mock bewilderment which would have done credit to Dalziel and somewhere some god of mischief chortled in delight, flicked a few pieces hither and thither, and sat back to enjoy the perfect moment he had created.

  The front door opened. A short round figure half stepped, half fell in. One arm hung useless at his side, the other was raised in a vain effort to staunch the flow of blood from a broad gash across his brow.

  'Why, here's Mr Blengdale himself come to resolve all problems,' said Pascoe cheerfully. 'My compliments to the make-up man. That looks really convincing!'

  No one made a move towards the now recumbent figure which had slid to the floor like a medieval outlaw crossing a church threshold to sanctuary.

  But the drama was far from over.

  'Mr Toms!' called a sepulchrally deep voice from outside. 'There's someone out here would like to talk to you!'

  Slowly, ignoring Blengdale, Toms moved through the doorway.

  Pascoe followed.

  The spring sun was low in the sky now and he had to shade his eyes against it before the blur of figures at the far side of the driveway sharpened to identifiability.

  Dalziel was there, hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, bulky and menacing as an Easter Island statue. Wield was there too, his harsh and angled face set like a witch-doctor's mask. Between them, with the sergeant's broad left hand firmly grasping his right forearm, was Brian Burkill.

  Suddenly Pascoe was sure his guess about Blengdale's financial involvement with Homeric was right. Somehow Burkill had found out too. It had been Blengdale that Burkill had been in pursuit of at the yard this morning. Poor Charlie Heppelwhite had merely got in the way. And presumably after Blengdale came Toms. And then Arany. Though perhaps the Hungarian was already lying battered and bleeding somewhere on Burkill's trail.

  'Who are those men?' said Penny Latimer over Pascoe's shoulder.

  'Two of my colleagues,' said Pascoe. 'And the one in the middle's called Burkill. It was his daughter in the photograph.'

  She drew in her breath sharply and Toms reacted too with an involuntary twitch of the shoulders. But he held his ground as the trio of men slowly approached.

  'Mr Toms? It is Mr Toms?' said Dalziel in his best meet-the-nobs voice. 'I'm Detective-Superintendent Dalziel. I'd have come in with Mr Pascoe here, only I thought I recognized Mr Blengdale's car out front and I know how much he likes a breath of air, I took a chance on finding him somewhere in the grounds.'

  Burkill's clothes were in some disarray and he was flushed and perspiring as from some hard physical effort. But his unblinking gaze never left Toms's face.

  'Well, I was right. I found him,' continued Dalziel. 'Only he wasn't alone. He was with Mr Burkill here. I joined in the conversation. Some very funny things Mr Blengdale was saying about you, Mr Toms.'

  'Was he?' said Toms. 'That's odd. I don't know the man.'

  'Really? He said he was some kind of associate of yours, but then he was a bit upset and I may have picked him up wrong. So, Mr Blengdale's not known to you? Or Mr Burkill either? This is Mr Burkill here.'

  'I know nothing of these people,' said Toms.

  'Then I'm sorry we've bothered you. Must be a mistake somewhere. Sergeant, a word with you.'

  Dalziel took a few steps to one side. Wield let go his grip on Burkill and followed him, leaving Burkill and Toms about two yards apart facing each other.

  Behind him, Pascoe heard the front door slam shut. Blengdale must have been listening and decided that he'd seen enough of Brian Burkill for one day. At the sound, Toms looked quickly round, his face twisted as he saw his retreat shut off. Then Burkill moved.

  His large hands descended on the film man's shoulders and it looked as if his sheer strength would force Toms into submission at a single blow. But as the slight man went down he thrust his elbow desperately into Burkill's groin, slipped out of that terrible grasp, and set off along the front of the house, scarcely in his panic taking time to rise into an upright position.

  Burkill pursued. Pascoe glanced at Dalziel who was deep in conversation with Wield. Beside him Penny Latimer said, 'He'll kill him!'

  Pascoe agreed and took a couple of uncertain steps after the fleeing pair.

  'Peter!' said Dalziel. 'Do you have a moment?'

  He halted, turned, looked back at Burkill and Toms. Dalziel followed his gaze as if this was the first he knew of any trouble.

  'Inspector Crabtree,' he said. 'It is Inspector Crabtree, isn't it? Long time since we met. Perhaps you'd go and sort out that bit of bother.'

  Crabtree who was lurking behind one of the pillars of the portico showed no great enthusiasm for the task but obediently lumbered in pursuit.

  Burkill was not gaining on Toms, whose fitness or fear was producing a good turn of speed. He was heading across the narrow lawn now towards the concealment of the unkempt shrubbery.

  'Can't you stop them?' demanded Penny of Pascoe. 'This is monstrous! That fat man did it on purpose.'

  'Miss Latimer, isn't it?' said Dalziel genially. 'I'm just a simple bobby and when people say they don't know each other, I take them at their word. Any road, your Mr Toms will be safe in a moment.'

  But as Toms reached the sanctuary of the shrubbery, a third figure detached itself from the ragged blackness of an overgrown rhododendron clump.

  'Now who would that be?' wondered Dalziel.

  'It's Arany,' said Pascoe.

  Toms had halted before the newcomer. Presumably now with this reinforcement he would feel emboldened to turn and face his pursuer and for a moment it looked as if this was what was happening.

  Burkill arrived. Crabtree was still some way behind. The triangle of men stood quite still for a second. Burkill raised his fist. Arany reached up and laid a restraining hand on it. Then the Hungarian turned to Toms and taking him by the shoulders gave him a devastating triple-knee; first the crutch, then as he folded, the belly; and finally as he bent double, the face, which straightened him out again, and flung him full length backwards on the lawn.

  'Oh dear,' said Dalziel with something of admiration in his voice.

  The two men still standing spoke together for a moment. Then Arany turned and blended wit
h the bushes again. Crabtree who had just arrived made as if to pursue him. Burkill seized him by the collar and when the Inspector tried to struggle round to face him, he contemptuously pushed him aside so that he stumbled and fell across the recumbent Toms.

  Pascoe put on the intelligently alert look of one who doesn't understand a bloody thing and looked enquiringly at Dalziel, who smiled back at him in a condescendingly amiable manner and stepped forward to meet the returning Burkill as though he'd just arrived for a vicarage garden party.

  'Man of your age shouldn't be running around like that, Bri,' he said.

  'Man of my age can learn a lot of things, Mr Dalziel,' said Burkill grimly. 'I'm off to see our Sandra now.'

  'That'd be best. Maurice left her at Mrs Abbott's, did he?'

  'Aye.'

  'Sergeant Wield'll go with you. There may be some difficulty in getting out, else.'

  Pascoe didn't understand this either, till the sound of approaching vehicles made him turn and a stream of police cars began to emerge from the green tunnel of the driveway.

  'Now I dare say one of these gents has got a search warrant,' said Dalziel. 'Miss Latimer, perhaps as an interested party representing Homeric Films you would care to be present during this search.'

  'All I want is to contact my solicitor,' said Penny.

  'Contact away,' said Dalziel.

  'There's no phone here,' said the woman.

  'Then you'll just have to shout very loud,' answered Dalziel. 'Inspector Trumper.'

  'Sir,' said Trumper who had just emerged from the leading car.

  'You have the warrant? Good, get things organized, quickly as you like. Take your time on the search, though. We've got all week if we want.'

  'Excuse me, Mr Dalziel,' said Burkill.

  'You still here, Brian?'

  'Maurice said to look behind the chimney in the main bedroom.'

  'Did he now? You hear that, Inspector? I must thank Mr Arany when I see him, which should be shortly unless your men are sleeping.'

  'They're not sleeping, sir,' assured Trumper.

  'Good. Well, let's get to it. Sergeant Wield, before you go, give Control a shout, tell'em we need a doctor.'

  'Right, sir.'

  'And that's about it, I reckon,' said Dalziel. He went under the portico and stood by the door which was open once more, looking, thought Pascoe, like some nineteenth-century industrial parvenu who'd just built his first mansion.