Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Perhaps he’s got a lot of birthdays this month,’ said Bernadette.

  ‘Mebbe.’

  As they watched, the man set off at a brisk pace across the floor, passing two cash-and-wrap points without a glance and making towards the lifts.

  ‘Sorry about the chop, love,’ said Seymour. ‘I’ll pick you up tonight, usual time. ’Bye.’

  Bernadette watched him go. He moved well for a big man. His dancing had improved a hundredfold since she took him under her wing. Not that he’d ever be Fred Astaire, but he would do very well for her if it wasn’t that her heart sank lower than a peat bog every time she thought of telling them back home that she was wanting to marry a Protestant English policeman.

  She sighed, picked up the chops and returned to the kitchen. The old dragon blocked her way.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘He’s run off without paying,’ said Bernadette. ‘Shall I go and call a policeman?’

  Peter Pascoe was leaving his office at what he thought of as a mental tiptoe. This meant that to the casual gaze his body gave the impression of a detective-inspector whose week’s work had finished at one o’clock on Saturday and who was on his way home to spend the rest of the weekend relaxing in the bosom of his family. But his soul, or whatever that part of being is which contains our individual essence, was not striding out confidently. It was sneaking out furtively with many a backward glance, hearing a voice in every wind, and the voice was Dalziel’s.

  The fat man’s timing was usually deadly. There would be a matter of unpostponable import to discuss; the Black Bull would be the place to discuss it; and the weekend which should have started with a light lunch with Ellie and Rose about one-thirty would instead kick off with a beery row about three.

  Pascoe had just made it to the bottom of the stairs. The door to the car park and freedom was in view. Then the voice spoke.

  ‘Any chance of a quick word?’

  He turned his head reluctantly, summoning up his nerve this time for the great refusal. Then relief washed over him like rain in a heat wave. It was only Wield.

  ‘Yes, sure, if you can walk and talk,’ he said, resuming his progress into the car park.

  Wield followed. His craggy features showed as little of his inner turmoil as Pascoe’s had shown of his inner stealth. He had woken up that morning to find that Cliff had already breakfasted and gone out. As the day wore on, he had found himself beset by a need repressed for years, the need to talk about himself, not necessarily in a soul-searching, dial-Samaritans kind of way, but with an openness which a lifetime of disguise made difficult. But to whom? And the election had fallen on Pascoe, colleague, superior, and if not precisely a friend, at least the nearest thing to one he had in the ‘normal’ world.

  ‘I thought, mebbe a quick half … not the Black Bull … if you’ve got the time … it’s personal …’

  Oh shit! thought Pascoe. One half of his mind was doubting if Ellie would be much impressed by the fact that it was Wield not Dalziel and some pub other than the Black Bull which made him late for his lunch. And the other half was trying to cope with the horrid suspicion that the rock-like Wield was about to turn to shifting sand. Wield with personal problems? It was a contradiction in terms! Jesus wept, the man had no right to be anything but a Victorian Gothic tower of strength!

  Surprised and ashamed at the depth of his instinctive resentment, Pascoe said, ‘I can’t manage too long …’

  But he was saved from further ungraciousness by another voice calling his name.

  Once again it wasn’t Dalziel but Sergeant Broomfield, maker of illicit books and one of the central pivots of uniformed life in the Station.

  ‘Sorry to butt in, but I just wondered, that car in the corner, is it something to do with your lads?’

  Pascoe looked. The car in question was a battered green Escort, parked tight against the wall in the most unpopular corner of the yard where a branch of the large chestnut tree on the neighbouring premises shed its stickiness, and gave the birds a good perch from which to shed theirs, on whatever stood below.

  ‘Not that I know of. Why?’

  ‘Just wondered. It was there first thing, that’s all.’

  The two men stood and regarded the vehicle, thoughts of terrorist car bombs unspoken in their minds.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ said Pascoe.

  Glancing apologetically at Wield, he headed for the Escort with Broomfield reluctantly in pursuit.

  He didn’t touch the car but peered in from a couple of feet. The windows were so begrimed as to make it very difficult to see much more than the steering wheel.

  A car swung into the yard and its horn blasted, making Pascoe and Broomfield jump nervously. Pascoe looked round and glimpsed Seymour’s grinning face.

  ‘Silly bastard,’ he muttered and returned his attention to the Escort.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’ said Broomfield.

  What Pascoe thought was if he didn’t do something now, he’d have to hang around while somebody was fetched who would do something and that might take hours.

  He took a deep breath, reached forward to the handle of the passenger door and tried to open it. It seemed to be jammed rather than locked. He gave a sudden violent tug and it flew open.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ said Broomfield. ‘They’ve started a delivery service.’

  It was a comment to treasure later, but not then.

  Pascoe was too busy being amazed as he looked down at the body which slowly slid out of the car door.

  It was a man and he was certainly dead; no living eyes could stare so sightlessly or living limbs be locked in so cramped a pose.

  He peered closer. There was blood on the man’s shirt, though from what kind of wound he could not see.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said to Broomfield with what he hoped was unnecessary pedantry. ‘Sergeant Wield.’

  To his surprise, the discovery of the body seemed to have startled Wield even more than the two closer men. His rugged features had gone quite pale and there was a smear of perspiration on his lips.

  What’s up with the bloody man? wondered Pascoe.

  ‘Come on, Wieldy,’ he urged. ‘Bang goes Saturday, eh?’

  But the sergeant did not answer. His eyes were still fixed on the entrance to the Station through which he had just seen Detective-Constable Seymour, after giving him a triumphant thumbs-up sign, escort Cliff Sharman.

  THIRD ACT

  Voices from the Gallery

  Whatever in those climes he found

  Irregular in sight or sound

  Did to his mind impart

  A kindred impulse, seem’d allied

  To his own powers, and justified

  The workings of his heart.

  Wordsworth: Ruth

  Chapter 1

  ‘Bear hence this body, and attend our will; Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.’

  The applause was on the polite side of enthusiastic. Ellie Pascoe kept her clapping going a couple of beats after most people and several bars after her husband.

  In the interval she said, ‘You’re not enjoying it?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s OK for Shakespeare, but West Side Story it’s not!’

  ‘Peter, stop being flip. You’re just determined not to be impressed by anything Chung does, aren’t you?’

  ‘On the contrary, I quite approve the slant Big Eileen’s giving the text. I feared something much more fearsomely feminist! But two kids being mucked about by the oldies is more or less what Shakespeare was on about, wasn’t it? Though probably he didn’t envisage Capulet and his wife looking quite so like Maggie and Dennis or the Prince so like Ronnie Reagan! But the production’s a bit ponderous, isn’t it? Perhaps it’ll get better now that Mercutio’s out of it. The only bit of life in him was when he died and I reckon that that was because it came so natural.’

  ‘Peter,’ said Ellie warningly. ‘I hope you’re not going to be the life and soul of the party afterwards.’r />
  ‘What? And risk Big Eileen’s karate chop? You must be joking!’

  The second half was in Pascoe’s judgement a great improvement, though the tragic momentum was momentarily checked in the scene in which Romeo purchases poison from the apothecary.

  The latter, bent and quavering to start with, seemed to lose his way after his opening line, ‘Who calls so loud?’ Prompted, he spoke the next couple of lines in a much stronger voice and was immediately detectable as the actor who had played Mercutio. In the uppermost tier where the school parties were concentrated a piercing young voice said, ‘Please, sir, I thought he were dead!’

  It took a little while to repair the damage caused by the outburst of laughter, but the Gothic glooms of the closing scenes finally cast their pall and Pascoe was able to match Ellie clap for clap as the company took their calls.

  Pascoe had never been to a backstage party, but he had watched many a Hollywood musical and was not surprised to be disappointed. The atmosphere though far from restrained was even further from riotous. No champagne corks popped, though Sainsbury’s hock flowed like Sainsbury’s hock. Jeans and T-shirts had it over evening gowns and tiaras. And the only truly Hollywood touches came from the mayor’s wife, who looked like Margaret Dumont and wore a rope of imitation pearls as big as her husband’s mayoral chain; and from the chairman of the Council’s Library and Arts Committee who, tuxedo’d, cigarred, and pop-eyed, was behaving like Zero Mostel in little-old-lady land.

  But now came a third authenticating detail, this time sonic.

  A voice cried, ‘Chung darling! We thought it was marvellous! So touching! So true!’

  Pascoe turned to applaud the satirist who was producing this ghastly gush and was horrified to find himself listening to Ellie.

  ‘Cut the crap, honey. We nearly bombed. If any of this council lot could tell shit from Shakespeare, they’d cut us off at the subsidy tomorrow.’

  Switching his gaze and his applause to the speaker of this good plain sense, he found himself looking up at Big Eileen herself. Television had certainly not exaggerated her length. What it had failed to convey, however, was her extraordinary beauty.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve met my husband,’ said Ellie. ‘Chung this is Peter. Peter, Chung.’

  ‘Chung, hello,’ said Pascoe, grinning inanely.

  ‘You’re the cop, honey? I’d not have known.’

  ‘They train us in make-up,’ he said. ‘I’m really a sniffer dog.’ He sniffed doggily. Ellie looked pained. Chung looked alarmed.

  ‘None of my jokers are smoking shit, are they? I warned them, not while the councillors are reassuring themselves how clever they’ve been with their money.’

  ‘I’m not sure about the mayor, but I think everyone else is clean,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Chung! Miss Chung! Hold it.’

  A flash bulb flashed. When he stopped being dazzled, Pascoe recognized the long lugubrious features of Sammy Ruddlesdin from the Evening Post.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said Ruddlesdin. ‘Beauty and the Beast. Chung, any words for the Press? The popular press, I mean. I know there’s a Guardian intellectual out there somewhere but he’s almost pissed on the free plonk already. We’re your channel to the real public. This is my colleague, Henry Vollans, by the way. Sunday Challenger. The Voice of the North.’

  ‘Hi!’ said Chung to the young man with Ruddlesdin. ‘Anyone ever tell you you look like Robert Redford?’

  Pascoe felt a pang of something like jealousy.

  Ruddlesdin said, ‘Night off, Pete? I’d have thought the mighty Buddha would have had you all working full time in the temple tonight, waiting for the call.’

  ‘After losing my weekend, I told him that if I missed this lot, Ellie would personally shoot either me or him, not necessarily in that order.’

  ‘Have there been many calls? Come on, we have cooperated, haven’t we?’

  The Evening Post had printed a photograph of the dead man in the Escort that day, after the weekend had brought the police no nearer an identification. Cause of death had been established as haemorrhaging of the aorta caused by a single bullet from a 9 mm handgun, possibly an old Luger.

  Pascoe hesitated. Before he left the office, there had only been one call of any weight and that had been from Eden Thackeray, insisting on talking to Dalziel, who had relayed the news with a surprising lack of surprise.

  ‘Says he’s certain the man is an Italian called Alessandro Pontelli who turned up at his office claiming to be Alexander Huby, the lost heir in that daft will that were in the papers the other week. I’m just off to take him round to the mortuary.’

  He had looked at Pascoe speculatively, then growled, ‘All right. Don’t grit your teeth like that. I’m not going to stop you getting your dose of culture.’

  ‘Nothing positive, Sammy,’ he said to Ruddlesdin.

  ‘But something, eh?’

  ‘Something, maybe. I’ll let you know when it’s positive. No, that’s it. I’m here to enjoy myself, so no more pumping!’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. As long as you don’t try to pump me about our fairy phone calls,’ said Ruddlesdin provocatively.

  ‘There’ve been more?’

  ‘One. Saturday morning. It was directed to Robert Redford there in Leeds. Like I told you, the chief reckons it’s Challenger stuff if it’s anything. I gather it was much the same as before. No names, talked about money, then said he’d be in touch again maybe, and cut off.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yes, Peter, that’s all. And don’t go asking young Vollans about it either. Remember you’re not supposed to know owt. I don’t want it generally known I’m a grass! Though …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, Henry came across last week to sniff around. His editor, Ike Ogilby, was in town too, lunching at the Gents with - guess who? Mr Wonderful himself, your beloved DCC. So perhaps the grass grows taller than you think.’

  ‘Sammy!’ It was Chung. ‘I was just telling your friend here that I’ve got a bottle set aside in my office for the gentlemen of the Press, but you can come too. Half an hour’s time, shall we say? Round up the other piss-artists for me, would you, honey? Now I’ve got to socialize!’

  Ruddlesdin and Vollans moved away, and Chung began to say something to Ellie, but before she’d got more than a couple of words out, she was interrupted by a newcomer whom Pascoe recognized as Mercutio and the apothecary compressed into one palely handsome young face that looked familiar beyond the context of the play.

  ‘Chung, I’m sorry. I was awful,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘You’ll get no argument from me, honey,’ said Chung.

  There was a hard edge to her voice. Words too can deliver a karate chop, thought Pascoe. Oh beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! He sighed lustfully and converted it into a cough.

  ‘Pete! Ell! I’m being a bad hostess. Meet Rod Lomas. Ell and Pete Pascoe.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Ellie. ‘We were just saying how much we enjoyed the play, weren’t we, Peter?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was so touching, so true,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Well, don’t scrape around for nice things to say about me,’ said Lomas with a wan smile.

  ‘You died well,’ said Pascoe judiciously.

  ‘Oh yes. I did that all right.’

  ‘Rod.’

  It was a little voice and to find its source, Pascoe had to lower his gaze from Chung’s Himalayan splendours to the drab foothills where a small girl stood. A fanzine? Pascoe wondered. She looked familiar. Then he took in Lomas and the child as a pair and recalled the Black Bull. It didn’t make her look older.

  ‘Lexie. I’m sorry. I forgot. Have you got a drink?’

  ‘Not when I’m driving,’ she answered, shaking her head so firmly she almost dislodged her huge round spectacles.

  ‘I won’t ask if you enjoyed the show,’ said Lomas.

  ‘It was all right. I don’t go to plays much,’ she added, glancing apologetically up at Chung.


  ‘Lexie prefers opera,’ said Lomas, rather defensively.

  ‘Oh?’ said Chung. ‘It’s the élitist, escapist and totally unreal that turns you on, is it, hon?’

  She does pick on people not her own size! There’s hope for me yet, thought Pascoe admiringly.

  ‘It’s not all like that,’ said the girl. ‘Some of it’s quite real; well, at least as real as waking up in a tomb and finding your dead lover beside you.’

  Chung looked taken aback, like a giraffe threatened by a mouse. Then she laughed heartily and said, ‘Who’s your friend, Rod?’

  ‘Sorry. This is my cousin, sort of. Lexie Huby. Lexie, Chung. I’ve forgotten your names already. Can hardly remember my part today. Sorry.’

  ‘Pascoe. Ell and Pete,’ said Pascoe, thinking that Huby also meant something. Of course, the Italian who might be their corpse. It was a Mrs Huby’s will he’d been trying to claim on, wasn’t it?’

  Then his mind was diverted by Ellie saying, ‘Hello, Lexie. How are you?’

  ‘Fine thanks, Mrs Pascoe,’ said the girl.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ said Chung. ‘I must go and be nice to the mayor and his wife. With those things round their necks, they look like they could both have slipped anchor and be on the point of drifting out to sea. Pete, honey, I’m thinking of doing something on the fuzz once I’ve lulled the council into a false sense of security. Maybe we could talk some time to make sure I get it right. OK?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed,’ said Pascoe. ‘OK. Right on.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be in touch. Ell, Lex, see you.’

  She glided away, tall and graceful as a swan through ducklings, towards the mayor.

  Rod Lomas said, ‘Fuzz?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’m your friendly neighbourhood bobby.’

  He was used to being a conversational hiccough but this was more like a hiatus hernia.