Ruling Passion

by Reginald Hill

‘Drink?’ said Davenant.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Pascoe. ‘Not in there anyway.’

  ‘No, of course not. Let’s try the other place then.’

  They made it just in time for ‘last orders’. The place was crowded and Molly Dixon was under heavy pressure. Her quality as an inn-keeper was clearly demonstrated by the way she was coping, and she acknowledged Pascoe’s arrival with a welcoming smile and a quick but genuinely concerned, ‘OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ he answered.

  ‘Mr Dixon not here?’ he asked when she’d drawn his drinks.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s the annual dinner of his bowls club. A stag do, very conveniently! Last orders, gentlemen, please! Come along now. Quickly as you can. Is there anyone without?’

  She made it sound as if she were genuinely distressed at having to stop the flow. An admirable quality, thought Pascoe. Particularly when managing alone.

  Looking round, he became aware that several eyes were focused in his direction. Reporters rather than locals, he surmised quickly. They had an air of alertness at variance with the closing-time conviviality of the rest.

  He sipped his beer pensively and looked at his companion, wondering whether he’d act as a buffer against his colleagues. More likely his company would egg them on for fear they were missing something.

  ‘How long have you been in journalism?’ he asked.

  ‘Centuries, sweetie,’ answered Davenant. ‘Don’t let my aristocratic profile deceive you. I come of a poor when honest family who thrust me out to earn a living at the earliest opportunity. But tell me, how does it feel for a policeman suddenly to have a murder investigation come so close to him? A bit like Torquemada getting accidentally trapped in the Iron Maiden, I dare say.’

  ‘You ought to know.’

  ‘Feeling and knowing are not the same.’

  Pascoe was saved from further cryptic conversation by the distant clanging of a fire-engine bell. Conversation died as it rapidly came near, so rapidly that by the time those sufficiently curious had got to the door, the tintinnabulation had soared to its climax and the fast-receding tail-lights were all there was to be seen.

  ‘A sad time for a fire,’ said Davenant.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Autumn. Hay-stacks high and granaries full. I wonder if the nice lady behind the bar is open to suggestion. For more drink, I mean.’

  ‘She’s called last orders.’

  ‘Which is what I mean to make.’

  Davenant emptied his glass and made for the bar. The moment he moved, a tall, greying man presented himself before Pascoe.

  ‘Mr Pascoe? I’m from the Echo. Could I have a quick word?’

  ‘No,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Just very quickly. Please.’

  Others were drifting in his direction, Pascoe noted with irritation.

  ‘Shove off,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, come on, Sergeant!’

  His rank was used like a threat. Pascoe quietly put down his glass on a nearby table. He felt in perfect control but did not discount the possibility of pushing in this man’s leering, insinuating face. But he didn’t want to be holding a fistful of glass when he did it. Not that he was going to do it. Of course not.

  ‘This must have been a terrible shock to you, Sergeant,’ said the reporter.

  Pascoe changed his mind, made a fist, changed his mind again and thrust it deep into his pocket.

  ‘Go away,’ he said.

  The door of the bar was pushed open. An excited-looking rustic entered and spoke to some near acquaintance. Other people looked up, listened. The words danced through the assembled drinkers like dryads in a moonlit forest. Tantalizing. Hard to grasp.

  ‘Brookside … Fire … Cottage … Fire … Brookside Cottage is on fire!’

  The reporter went away.

  By the time Pascoe reached Brookside, the fire was out. There seemed to have been some kind of explosion in the kitchen and the blast, though causing a great deal of damage, had probably almost extinguished the flame that caused it.

  A uniformed constable, left on duty to watch the property overnight, had decided it was foolish to patrol outside all the time and had entered the living-room just as the explosion occurred. He was badly cut about the face, but had managed to phone for assistance.

  Backhouse was on the scene but seemed disinclined to allow Pascoe any special privileges. Pascoe felt he could not really blame him, and hung around the fringe of the little knot of newspapermen whom Backhouse addressed in a friendly, conciliatory manner. Certainly he was a different breed from Dalziel!

  ‘It seems there was an escape of gas in the kitchen probably ignited by a pilot-light in the cooker. The kitchen itself has been extensively damaged, but only superficial damage has been done to the other rooms.’

  ‘An accident you would say, Superintendent?’

  ‘What else?’ asked Backhouse blandly.

  What indeed? wondered Pascoe. He did not trust coincidences.

  The firemen began to pack up their gear. A Gas Board van arrived and a couple of men went into the cottage to deal with the fractured pipes.

  The group of onlookers broke up and began to drift away. Pascoe watched them go. When most of them had got into their cars, he noticed a vaguely familiar figure step out of the shadows on the other side of the road and make his way briskly along the road away from the village. Pascoe had to puzzle at his memory to work out who it was.

  Sam Dixon, he realized suddenly. He must be on his way back from the bowls club dinner.

  It wasn’t till he was making his way up the lane towards Culpepper’s house that another thought struck him. Dixon had been out of the pub the previous night too.

  But it did not seem a very important thought, not as important at this moment as his concern about who was following him through the trees which stretched out on either side of the lane.

  ‘Nerves,’ suggested Ellie. ‘Or that thing that Davenant claimed to have seen, Anus mirabilis.’

  ‘Asio otus. No, this was no owl. More like a Hammer Films sound effect. Cracking twigs and rustling undergrowth. I was glad to get back.’

  The party had broken up when he returned. Culpepper let him in, explained that the guests had gone and offered him a nightcap.

  ‘Marianne has gone to bed,’ he added. ‘I hope you will forgive her, but we had no idea how long you would be in returning and she’s had a tiring day.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t kept you up,’ apologized Pascoe.

  ‘Not at all. I need very little sleep. It will be three or four hours before I go up. Sometimes I don’t bother at all, just take a cat-nap in my chair.’

  He did not press when Pascoe turned down a second drink, and they said good night. Pascoe heard the grille-door of the porcelain room opening as he went up the stairs.

  He thought of looking into Ellie’s room, decided not to risk disturbing her, and found her sitting by the window in his own room when he put the light on.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘This is doing my nerves no good.’

  ‘What’s new?’ she said.

  Briefly he filled her in on events since he had left the house.

  ‘I heard the fire-engine,’ said Ellie. ‘I wondered what was going on.’

  ‘Of course you would hear it up here,’ said Pascoe. ‘Curious. Culpepper never mentioned it.’

  ‘He’s probably got other things to worry about. Maid Marianne, for instance.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Ellie pointed at the window.

  ‘I haven’t been sitting here like stout Cortez for nothing. If he thinks Marianne’s in bed, he’s sadly mistaken. Fifteen minutes after the last guest went, she tripped smartly across the drive and disappeared into the trees.’

  Pascoe whistled.

  ‘Risky.’

  ‘Not as much as you’d think. They don’t share a bedroom.’

  ‘Nosey old you! Who was the last guest?’

  ‘You’ve guessed.’

  ‘Pel
man. That figures.’

  ‘If you put out the light, we could watch for her coming back.’

  Pascoe switched off and joined Ellie at the window.

  ‘Perhaps it was Marianne I heard as I came up the drive,’ he mused.

  Ellie leaned back against him, soft and warm in her nightdress.

  ‘Not the last of the Zombies?’ she said sleepily. ‘A pity.’

  They watched in silence for a few moments.

  ‘I’ve had it,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m off; to bed. All this watching.’

  She turned away from him and climbed into bed.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘That’s my bed.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m going back to mine with things rustling through the undergrowth, do you?’

  She spoke lightly, but Pascoe knew better than to take her lightly. The day’s events were waiting patiently for darkness and loneliness to let them take shape and substance in their minds. He realized that to be alone tonight would have been unbearable.

  Quickly he undressed and joined Ellie in the narrow bed.

  ‘Peter,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go home in the morning. Straightaway. As early as we can.’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Sleep now. We’ll go home in the morning.’

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  ‘You look as if you’ve been shagging a sheep,’ said Dalziel with distaste.

  Thus spoke the last of the dandies, thought Pascoe, glancing at his superior’s shapeless trousers and the military-issue braces, strained dangerously taut over a parabolic waist. But he had to admit that he had brought back with him a lot of white hairs.

  ‘Funny how some dogs lose them but never go bald,’ he said brushing ineffectually at his trouser legs.

  Dalziel grinned humourlessly and scratched one of the shining deltas on his grey, stubbly pate.

  ‘Not much of a guard-dog,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a pom,’ Pascoe said patiently. ‘And they don’t leave it in the house when they’re on holiday. Not for a fortnight. The RSPCA object.’

  ‘Silly twats,’ said Dalziel. ‘He’d be two thousand quid better off if there’d been a hungry dog in the house.’

  ‘The insurance will pay,’ said Pascoe indifferently.

  ‘You’re not suggesting anything?’

  ‘What? No. Christ, why would he want to try a fiddle like this? Twenty thousand, yes. But this is pin money. You’ve seen the house?’

  ‘No. But you can’t always tell. Still, you’re right. It’s almost certainly our lad, your lad. I can’t see Mr Stan Cottingley piddling in his own kettle.’

  The thought amused him and he laughed himself into a fit of coughing into his outsize khaki handkerchief.

  He’s not well, thought Pascoe suddenly.

  I’m not well, thought Dalziel for the tenth time that morning. There was a pain across his chest. It was a broad chest, so it was a broad pain. If there had been anyone to mop his fevered brow and ladle out the nourishing broth, he might have stayed in bed that Monday morning. More probably he would have dismissed such solicitude with his customary brusqueness and come in to work anyway.

  He looked at Pascoe gloomily and wondered if he should tell him that his promotion was as good as confirmed. Once again he decided against it. Promotion should mean something, be marked by a drink and a bit of jollity. In present circumstances he doubted if Pascoe would react at all. It would be a pity to waste what was a minor triumph. Pascoe could have achieved inspector status at least twelve months earlier if he had stayed in, or been willing to return to, uniformed duties. But the lad had been adamant. The career of administrator and ideas-man his background seemed to equip him for had not appealed. He wanted to be a detective.

  And he wasn’t making a bad job of it, thought Dalziel with a creator’s pride, as he examined again the meticulously prepared file on the string of burglaries which was the sergeant’s main case at present. His own interest was twofold. A single break-in at a private house was rarely enough to involve the majesty of a detective-superintendent. But a long sequence – eleven now, almost certainly all by the same man – began to achieve the status of a major crime. Especially when there was reason to believe the perpetrator would resort to extreme violence if interrupted. At the fifth house a pensioner who did odd-jobs in the neighbourhood had been contracted by the owner to keep an eye on the garden while the family were away. Conscientiously, the old man had turned up late one summer evening to water the borders out of the heat of the sun. A man had emerged from the kitchen door as he passed, almost bumping into him. Without hesitation, the intruder had launched into a violent attack. Only the fact that the old man rode a moped and had not yet removed the crash-helmet he always wore saved him from serious damage. But the force of the blow from what was probably a crowbar left deep indentations in the helmet and was sufficient to stun the wearer.

  This was the only sighting of the man there had been and the description was almost useless. But the incident was deeply worrying. All the break-ins had taken place when the houses were empty, usually when the owners were on holiday. If this pattern continued, interruption was unlikely. But if it did happen again, there might be no protective headgear next time.

  He tossed aside the file with another string of coughs. Meticulousness was not enough. There was nothing there which turned him in any particular direction. Perhaps Pascoe’s mind would be programmed by it to some effect. Himself, he needed something more animal; a scent. He sniffed in unconscious acknowledgement of the thought.

  Pascoe, he decided, needed chivvying. It would take his mind off things.

  ‘It’s more than twelve thousand now with Cottingley’s bits and pieces.’

  ‘Thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-five,’ said Pascoe. ‘According to the insurance count, that is.’

  He glanced at his watch. He had promised to phone Ellie at lunch-time. It was a necessary contact. It might not prove possible to meet at night. Too often in the past he had had to cancel engagements at the last moment. Last Friday, for instance.

  ‘He must be getting rid of the stuff somewhere.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind,’ sneered Pascoe.

  Dalziel rose and stared down at him, removing the thick-rimmed spectacles he wore for reading. It was a menacing gesture.

  ‘That’s far enough, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘It’s been a bad week-end for you. But there hasn’t been a civil word from you since you came in this morning. I hope to God you spoke to Cottingley a bit fairer.’

  By Dalziel’s standards, it was a mildly expressed rebuke, but Pascoe felt a touch of shame.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sir. I have this feeling of – well – frustration … as if …’

  But Dalziel had no desire for a heart-to-heart talk. His pain was worse. Indigestion, he decided with desperate optimism. Too much stodge, not enough exercise. A brisk walk to the chemist’s would do him good.

  ‘Get your finger out, Sergeant,’ he said wearily. ‘There’s some good descriptions there. He can’t just be filling his bottom drawer with what he takes. It must turn up somewhere.’

  He left. Pascoe should have felt indignant, hurt even. But oddly enough he felt almost affectionate as the sound of coughing receded down the corridor.

  ‘Hello, love. You all right?’

  ‘Fine. Lots of sympathy concealing academic ghoulishness. No reaction from my students, though. They don’t believe we have lives separate from them. How was the Fat Man?’

  ‘A bit under the weather, I think. But pretty considerate for him. We’re very busy.’

  ‘That’s good. At the moment anyway. But is it late-busy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll ring when I do.’

  ‘Please. Peter, I dreamt about them last night.’

  ‘Oh, love.’

  ‘We were back in Eskdale. Remember? Only it was Brookside Cottage, not that old grey farmhouse. A thought struck me. Colin might have gone bac
k there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a thought. It was where my mind took me to get away from them being dead. Understand?’

  ‘I think so.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Look, I’ve got to go now. Sooner I get started, more chance of seeing you tonight.’

  ‘Right. I’ll hear from you later. ’Bye.’

  ‘’Bye.’

  The trouble with most of the stuff Pascoe’s burglar got hold of was that it was valuable without being unique. The kind of houses he chose had enough good china, brass, bronze, silver and, occasionally, gold, lying around in one form or another to make his visit worthwhile. Bits of jewellery, cash even, generally quite inadequately locked away, were a frequent perk.

  His technique as reconstructed by Pascoe was simple. He chose houses with gardens large enough to provide some kind of seclusion; drove up in his car (they had some completely unhelpful tyre marks); parked out of sight of the road, in the garage sometimes; smashed a window to get in (noise was no object where there was seclusion; on one occasion he had simply chopped down a kitchen door); examined the interior at leisure; filled a suitcase or two with whatever he evaluated highest; and left.

  At first the break-ins had been straightforward. The first couple of houses looked as if they hadn’t been touched. But an element of despoilation had crept in. Walls were defaced, carpets stained, furniture scarred. At Cottingley’s house, the latest in the series, perhaps in acknowledgement of the value of his haul, he had merely left a kettle full of urine. Or perhaps, thought Pascoe, this marked a new direction. Defacation, masturbation even, during thefts of this kind were not uncommon elements in a certain criminal syndrome, frequently associated with great mental and emotional instability. He recalled uneasily the attack on the old man.

  None of the stuff had turned up, not locally anyway, so there must be an efficient distribution system. Not that a great deal of it would be clearly identifiable in any case. The latest haul had been typical. A small amount of silver, as valuable melted down as in its present form. Some valuable but not unique glass. Ornaments. Some jewellery. An old clock. And Mrs Cottingley’s collection of stones and pebbles, picked up all over the world, as she accompanied her husband on his frequent business trips. Only the clock offered them any real chance.