Hill, Reginald - Dalziel and Pascoe 14 - Asking For The Moon (HTML)

by Reginald Hill

  She didn't seem to feel this required any answer. She was probably right, he thought. He was beginning to see possibili­ties but the problem was like one of those trick drawings beloved of psychologists — sometimes he saw a rabbit and sometimes he saw a goose. A frightened rabbit that had noth­ing to do with the missing woman, or a Christmas goose being led to an early slaughter.

  'Why do you think he married her?'

  'She wanted him to.'

  She spoke as if this should have been obvious. Was it an. answer? There were women, and men, too, in whom volition and achievement appeared contiguous. This Kate Lightfoot was emerging as a formidable woman.

  'And Kate, why should she wish to marry a man she didn't love, perhaps even like?'

  Ursula leaned forward and opened her arms and knees to the electric fire. Pascoe shuddered but not from the cold.

  'John offered her an escape route from Wearton.'

  'Why should she need that?' he asked. 'No one was keeping her prisoner.'

  'Strictly speaking, no. But she had no training, no employ­ment. She left school and looked after Arthur's cottage, that was all. She'd been doing it for years, and taking care of the business paperwork, too. She was surprisingly ignorant of the world in many ways. She asked my advice once . . .'

  'About what?' interrupted Pascoe.

  'Getting away, of course. She wanted to go to London. I told her there were two ways for a country girl to go to London, as a typist or as a tart. Unless, that is, she could

  find some nice well-heeled fellow and marry him! Next thing she and John were engaged.'

  Ursula laughed ruefully and rubbed her hands together, then crossed her arms and rubbed her bare shoulders, making a sound which Pascoe found very disturbing.

  'That was, what? Nine, ten years ago?'

  'Something of the sort.'

  'And.since their marriage, what have your relations with her been?'

  'Excellent,' she said promptly. 'Why? You don't really think I killed her, do you? I used to see her a couple of times a year in Wearton, and on the odd occasion I saw her in London. She was always the same, me too, I hope. I enjoyed her company and she never had occasion to push me around. No, that's the wrong phrase. There was never anything Kate wanted me to do except be myself, so I never got taken over.'

  'And your feelings for Mr Swithenbank?'

  'I'm very fond of John,' she said. 'I might have had an affair with him if he'd suggested it, but he never did. And Kate never showed the slightest interest in Peter.'

  'What about your brother?' enquired Pascoe. 'Did she ever show any interest there?'

  Now her expression turned cold as though the electric fire had been switched off.

  'I'm sure you've discovered they were once very close, Inspector,' she said. 'But I'm equally sure you know that Geoff has the perfect alibi for that weekend. He was lying in hospital half dead.'

  'Yes. Did you notice anything odd in his behaviour before the accident?'

  'Odd? No. Why do you ask?'

  'Just that Mr Kingsley said he was rather moody at that time. That's all.'

  She laughed.

  'Boris! The great psychologist now! It must do dreadful things to your ears, having to admit so much rubbish.'

  Pascoe decided the time was ripe for a hard push.

  'I think you're being rather unkind to Mr Kingsley,' he said. 'After all, it was he who took care of your husband tonight.'

  'What's that mean?' she asked fiercely.

  'Nothing, except that he got him out of the way when he started drawing attention to himself. He brought him to talk to me. Mr Kingsley seemed to feel your husband wanted to get something off his chest."

  That was stretching things a bit but Boris was big enough to look after himself.

  'He said what? Then obviously Boris was talking even more stupidly than he usually does.' She stood up abruptly. 'I'll go and have a word with him and with Peter. That is, if you're finished with me, Inspector?'

  There was clearly no way that he was going to get her to stay - the words were a challenge, not a request for per­mission to leave - so Pascoe shrugged philosophically.

  At the door she paused.

  'One thing I will tell you about Kate. She was the same in London as she was in Wearton. If she wanted out and I think she did, she wasn't just going to walk off alone into the great unknown. There'd have to be someone to go with or go to.'

  'From what I've heard of her, I agree,' said Pascoe. 'Which means, if she came to Wearton . . .'

  'What?'

  'Well, the Wearton men seem to be all alive and well and still living in Wearton. So, unless she's locked in an attic somewhere . . .'

  The anger left her face.

  'Yes, I see that,' she said softly. 'I don't think ... no, not that.'

  The door closed quietly behind her.

  Pascoe studied his notes for ten minutes. They were sketchy. He tended to use his book as some men use a pipe - to occupy the hands, permit significant pause and accentuate dramatic

  gesture. Much of his scrawl meant nothing. But as he jumped from one page to the next, his mind traced a line between the points where his scrawls quavered into sense and a shape began to form. But he still couldn't see if it were a goose or a rabbit.

  He was interrupted by a discreet tap on the door.

  'Come in, Miss Starkey,' he called.

  She entered, smiling and saying, 'Wow, that was clever. Wasn't that clever, John?'

  Swithenbank, close behind, agreed.

  'I knew he was clever the first time I laid eyes on him,' he said.

  'You two seem very pleased with yourselves,' said Pascoe.

  'We've been watching their faces after you'd finished with them,' said Swithenbank, 'and they've all looked so wrought up, I've been certain you've got something out of them.'

  'And that's what you've come to tell me?'

  'No,' said the woman. 'Boris says supper will soon be ready. A trifling foolish banquet which some ancient crone is slowly hauling up from the kitchen. I think he's hoping that between the hors-d'oeuvre and the cheese you will reveal all and send the guilty party screaming out of the window into the police net you've doubtless cast around the house.'

  'It's no joking matter, Jean,' said Swithenbank, frowning.

  She made a mock penitential face but slipped her hand into his and gave it an affectionate squeeze as though to express real apology.

  Pascoe sighed and wondered what to do. It was like being a blacksmith surrounded by hot irons. Which should he strike first?

  'I think I'd like another word with Mr Davenport before supper,' he said finally.

  With a bit of luck the alcoholic reverend would once more be ripe for the confessional. Pascoe was ready to make a fair guess at what he would say, but like all good detectives he basically distrusted deduction. Evidence without admission was of as doubtful efficacy as works without faith. To hypoth-

  esize from clues was fine so long as you remembered the basic paradox that the realities of human behaviour went far beyond the limits of human imagination. Intuition was something else, but you kept it well in check if you worked for Dalziel!

  Swithenbank said, Til fetch him, shall I? You will be fairly quick, though, else Boris's goodies will get cold.'

  Pascoe said, 'As quick as I can, but do start without me.'

  Swithenbank left but Jean Starkey hesitated at the door.

  'Yes?' said Pascoe, shuffling his notes.

  Suddenly he knew what was coming and would have pre­ferred not to receive it at this juncture. But there's no evading a woman determined to make a clean breast of things.

  'You know that I'm Jake Starr, don't you?' she said.

  He looked up now. 'Clean breast' had been the right image. She was leaning back against the jamb, one knee slightly raised and the foot planted against the woodwork behind her in the traditional street walkers' pose. The red dress seemed to cling more tightly than ever and her nipples, tumescent from the room's co
ldness or (could it be?) some more personal sensation, were blatant beneath the taut material.

  He wondered if she was about to make him an offer he would have to refuse and he wondered why the certainty of his refusal didn't prevent his mouth from going dry and his leg muscles from trembling.

  'Yes, I know it,' he managed to reply.

  She laughed and came and sat down on the chesterfield, but her approach diminished rather than intensified the sexu­ality of the moment.

  'I told John you'd found out,' she said triumphantly. 'He wouldn't believe me, but I could tell. You were puzzled by me yesterday, but not tonight.'

  He realized now, not without disappointment, that he'd been mistaken and no offer for his silence was going to be made. She was grinning at him slyly as if she could read his thoughts and he said coldly, 'You didn't imagine you could get away with it for ever, did you?'

  'I didn't imagine I could get away with it at all!' she replied. 'It's no secret. I mean, you get lists of pseudonyms in half a dozen reference books. I even got mentioned in a colour supplement article last May - don't policemen read the Sunday papers?'

  'Not in Enfield it seems. OK, so you fooled us. Why?'

  She looked at him closely and shook her head in reproach.

  'Nothing sinister,' she said. 'It's just that ever since I started using a male pseudonym, I've found it very useful to pretend to be my own secretary. When people ring who don't know me, it's useful to be able to say Mr Starr's not available, can I take a message? That way I get time to think about offers, check up on things generally; as myself I'm a lousy negotiator, always say yes too quickly, never dream of trying to up the price of a story or an article. As Mr Starr's secretary, I pass on the most devastating messages without turning a hair. So when the police contacted me I automatically responded in the same way. Even when I realized it wasn't about not paying a parking fine, I didn't let on. I was due in New York the following day and I'd no intention of letting a bumbling bobby delay me. So I made a statement as Jake Starr's secretary, rang John to find out what the hell was going on, told him what I'd done, and sent another statement as Jake Starr from America. It all seemed a bit of a laugh, really.'

  'A woman goes missing and you're amused?' said Pascoe.

  'Hold on! I thought she'd merely taken off with some boy­friend. And I was glad. John had seemed to be hedging his bets a bit, I thought. Always on about his marriage being on the rocks but never getting close to doing anything about it. So if she'd made the break, what do you expect from me but a big whoopee!'

  'And later? When she didn't show up?'

  She shrugged expressively.

  'We got worried, naturally. I couldn't understand why the police weren't on to the Jake Starr thing, you really have been pretty inefficient, Inspector. But I could see no profit

  in doing your work for you. John was being given a rough enough time. So I lay low and hoped that Kate would turn up again. Funny that, isn't it? I was delighted to learn she'd gone. Now here I was desperate to have her come back.'

  Pascoe nodded approvingly. It was a good story. He had no idea whether he believed it or not, but in the circum­stances it was a very good story. He must try some of her books.

  'One more thing,' he said. 'Why have you come to Wearton?'

  She warmed herself at the fire, reminding him of Ursula. Two women; similar problems? Then she smiled widely and the problems whatever they were seemed defeated.

  'I changed my mind about doing the police's job for them,' she said. 'Come with me.'

  She rose and took him by the hand like a small child, or a lover, and led him out of the library, across the hall, up the stairs and into a bedroom.

  'Am I to go to bed without any supper?' he asked.

  She laughed and taking up a nail file from a huge mahog­any dressing-table, she approached a small oak wardrobe which didn't match anything else in the room. Sliding the file into the crack between the door and the jamb, she forced it upwards till it met the lug of the lock and made half a dozen sideways twisting movements.

  'Viola! she said triumphantly and opened the door.

  'Why did you bother to lock it after you last time?' enquired Pascoe, regarding the scarred woodwork which advertised forced entry like a neon sign.

  She looked hurt.

  'I didn't want Boris to know I'd been in here,' she said. 'But look inside.'

  With a sigh, Pascoe obeyed.

  And the sigh turned into a whistle of appreciation as he spotted the white muslin dress with blue ribbons and the floppy white hat trimmed with cotton roses. In his mind's

  eye he saw again the half-photograph he had examined in Arthur Lightfoot's cottage just a few hours ago.

  'You've broken the law, you realize,' he said casually to Jean Starkey, who was standing beside him with the repressed smugness of one who anticipates congratulation.

  'I've broken the law?' she began indignantly, but stopped as she heard rapid footsteps on the stairs and a man's voice calling, 'Pascoe! Pascoe!'

  A moment later Swithenbank appeared at the door, his customary calm surface considerably ruffled.

  'Pascoe, you'd better come,' he said urgently. 'It's Peter Davenport. I don't know what the hell's going on but he's been having the most tremendous scene with Ursula and now he's taken off back towards the church. He seems quite hysterical.

  'Ursula thinks he's going to kill himself!'

  CHAPTER VIII

  While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

  The night had grown wilder during the hours since their arrival. There were flurries of rain in the gusty wind which tore at the clouds and sent bunches of stars scurrying across the sky. The ancient beeches rustled and groaned and swayed like an old Disney forest, and underfoot the long grass laid ankle-twisting traps over the forgotten coach ruts.

  Here once through an alley Titanic Of cypress I roamed with my Soul -

  Pascoe found himself jogging to the contrived but con­trolled rhythm of Poe's poem. Behind him, impeded by the woman's dress and shoes, ran Swithenbank and Jean Starkey.

  Far ahead in the tunnelled darkness he caught an occasional glimpse of a swaying light as though someone were holding a torch.

  At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was bom.

  And there it was, not the pin-prick of a torch but a distinct glow hazed through the fine mist of rain. Pascoe paused and the pursuing couple came up with him.

  'Someone's switched the Christmas floodlights on,' said Swithenbank. 'God, they'll have half the village at the church!'

  As though this were a congregation devoutly to be missed, he abandoned the hard-panting woman to Pascoe's care and sprinted ahead. Hard panting became Jean Starkey, Pascoe suspected, and normally he would have accepted the charge gladly, but he wanted to be at the church on time before the voices of reason and discretion had a chance to prevail.

  'You OK?' he asked.

  A change of note in the heavy breathing and a vague move­ment of the shadowy head seemed affirmative, so abandoning chivalry and the woman together, he pressed on.

  In the darkness of the great outdoors a very few yards can make the difference between good vision and total obscurity. Suddenly what lay ahead swam into close focus — a gateway, a pair of looming evergreens immediately beyond, and fifty yards further on the bulk of the church, its grey stone silvery in the light which flooded its tower.

  The wrought metal gate hung open between its two stone posts. Pascoe leapt lightly through on to a neglected weed-snagged gravel path which curved among a forest of mossy and sometimes drunkenly angled tombstones. Leaning against one of these was a figure which might have been taken for an exuberant mason's impression of Grief had it not moved and said, 'Pascoe!'

  His recognition of Rawlinson was almost instantaneous but that 'almost' had his skin crawling chillily.

  'Give us a hand,' said Rawlinson, groaning as he pushed himself up from the headstone. 'I came out in such a hurry, 1 for
got my stick and the leg's gone.'

  'Look,' said Pascoe. 'Shouldn't you hang on here till I can rustle up a stretcher?'

  'For Christ's sake, man! Peter's up that fucking tower! I've got to get there!'

  Dalziel would not have let such an opportunity pass, but Pascoe knew he was of more tender and humane stuff than his gross superior.

  It was this knowledge that made him regard himself with some surprise and distress as he took half a step backwards from Rawlinson's grasping hand and said coldly, 'Why? Why have you got to get there?'

  'Why? Because it's my fault,' the man cried in anguish. 'I was as much to blame. And I said I forgave him, but he knew I didn't. Knowing that, where could he turn for help?'

  Pascoe nodded. He felt rather disappointed. The picture was going to show a frightened rabbit after all.

  'He didn't find you by accident,' he said. 'He was up on the tower with you. He pushed you.'

  'No, no, that was an accident,' insisted the distraught man. 'Please help me while there's still time.'

  'Come on,' said Pascoe, suddenly full of self-disgust, an emotion which won the wholehearted support of Jean Starkey, who had arrived soon enough to catch the drift of the exchange and who now said to him as she lent her strength to getting Rawlinson upright, 'That was a shitty thing to do.'

  'Don't you preach at me, lady,' he snapped back. 'Not you.'

  In silence, supporting Rawlinson between them, they made their way to the church.

  Here Kingsley came to meet them.

  'Thank God you're here,' he said to Pascoe with what

  sounded like genuine relief. 'He's on top of the tower. He's locked the stair door behind him and he won't speak to anyone.'

  'Who put that floodlight on?' demanded Pascoe.

  'I did,' said Kingsley rather proudly. 'It's just used at Christmas really but I thought . . .'

  'Switch the bloody thing off!' commanded Pascoe, easing Rawlinson against an old rugged cross. 'Leave the outer porch light on. Then see if you can break the tower door open.'