Well, she really was something else. I was a bit worried at first that Pal might turn out to be AC/DC and set his sights on me too, but thank God he played it straight hetero, and though you can’t do a threesome without there being some contact with the other fellow, there was never anything kinky in it.
So it became a regular thing on Wednesdays. We’d meet in the centre car park, get into Pal’s car, keep our heads down as we reached the Avenue, enjoy ourselves in Moscow House for an hour or so, then back to the car park and home. No harm done to anyone. It kept me happy and indirectly it kept Helen happy, because I didn’t bother her anymore. Or not much. Giving up altogether might have made her suspicious. But I knew once she had the twins and things got back to normal that that was the end of this fling with Dolores.
I never thought it would end like this.
You can imagine what I felt like that night. Or maybe you can’t. I sat in the car park at the centre waiting for Pal. After a while Dolores got into my car. She said something must have happened. She had her mobile with her and tried ringing Pal’s but it was switched off. Then she tried his shop. No answer. I borrowed her mobile and rang Pal’s home and spoke to his wife, who hadn’t heard from him.
Using Dolores’ mobile was stupid, I see that now. I should have gone into the centre and used the payphone there. But I never dreamt that… Oh, shit.
Finally we drove down the Avenue past Moscow House and started to get really worried when we saw a police car turning into the drive. We came back to the car park and split up. After that, well you know what happened after that. I couldn’t believe it, everything just seemed to be falling apart.
These past couple of days, I’ve just been keeping my head down and hoping nothing would come up that would lead you people to me. Does that sound selfish? I suppose it must in view of what happened to Pal, but he’s out of it now, nothing I can do to help him, is there? Honestly, I knew nothing about what he was planning. He gave no hint. The poor bastard must have had a brainstorm or something. Ask Dolores, she’ll tell you the same. We both just thought it was going to be another straightforward Wednesday-night session.
Look, Mr Dalziel, I’m being completely straight with you. Does any of this have to come out? I’ve been falling apart worrying about what it would do to me and Helen if she found out. Please, Mr Dalziel, I’ll do anything you want me to do if only you’ll help me to keep this from Helen.
17 LUNCH AT THE MASTABA
If Tony Kafka could have seen the dining room of the Mastaba Club this lunchtime, his suspicions about the unreal nature of the place would have been confirmed. The same Mastabators occupied the same places, the same waiters soft-shoed along the same routes between the same tables, and even their trays bore platefuls of the same soup. Put on a looped tape to play endlessly, it would have been a hot favourite for the Turner prize.
“I often wonder what the vintners buy,” said Warlove, pouring the wine, “one half so precious as the goods they sell.”
“So you say, Victor. So you always say,” replied Gedye in his dry lifeless voice.
“Do I? You sound a little tetchy, Timothy. Has something happened? Indeed, to have the pleasure of your company twice in two days makes me suspect that something must have happened. Not bother, I hope. I don’t have the temperament for bother.”
“There were developments. Action had to be taken.”
“Oh God. Action. I hate it more than bother. And on your lips the very word is like a knell. What happened to good old pressure? Surely the authorities up there are as susceptible to pressure as anywhere else.”
“In this case, no.”
“Come, come. Policemen are like politicians, very few of them can pass the three vee test unscathed. You recall the three vee test?”
“You have mentioned it before,” said Gedye.
“Venery, venality, vanity. If they flunk out on one you always get them on another. I cannot believe Mid-Yorkshire is any different from the rest of the world. And doesn’t a Special Relationship exist between our Yankee lady and our Yorkshire tyke?”
“Yes, but it’s special in a special way. It involves trust. Also this fellow’s outward semblance, which is overweight bumpkin, apparently belies his inner nous. You recall Gaw Sempernel? Retired early, ended up as Hon Consul in Thessaloniki? It seems our Northern friend contributed in no small part to his downfall. In addition there is another officer in that northern wilderness who is so sea-green incorruptible, they’ll probably dig him up a hundred years from now and make a saint out of him. Action had to be taken, and I fear there is more to come.”
“More action? Oh dear. Oh dear. Tell me then. I cannot contemplate a mouthful of lunch before I hear the worst, so delicate is my digestion.”
“I have it on good authority that the Securities and Exchange Commission will be launching an investigation into Ashur-Proffitt shortly before the close of business this afternoon, which will be about eleven p.m. our time. I did warn you yesterday, but I admit it’s happened somewhat sooner than I guessed.”
“And what is Joe’s reaction?”
“It didn’t seem worth warning him. That way he won’t have to fake shock.”
“Always so considerate, Tim. And this action you are contemplating
…?”
“Kafka is due in the States tomorrow to meet with Joe and discuss his concerns about the current activities of Ash-Mac’s.”
“Well, from the sound of it, that meeting will be off, so nothing to weep or beat the breast about there. Indeed, it could be a plus, the way Tony was going on.”
“I don’t think so. A tete-a-tete with Joe might just have brought him back into line. I fear that when he realizes what has been going on in the Corporation, that pustulating conscience of his may just explode.”
“You think so? He hasn’t been party to any of this, then?”
“No. But he’ll be investigated along with the others, of course.”
“And no doubt someone will do a deal to get immunity from prosecution. They always do. So what’s the worry?”
“You’re right. Someone will do a deal. But what they say will, on the whole, only harm Ashur-Proffitt. What Kafka might say could harm us. All of us. You. Me. Our masters.”
“Oh dear. So you think… action? No need to give me details. And then things will be OK?”
“Hoblitt, my man informs me, is sound. You agree?”
“Excellent fellow,” said Warlove. “Like a rock. All three vee’s and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few more.”
“Good. Let’s proceed.”
“If we must. But what about questions… this sea-green incorruptible, is he the kind to ask questions?”
“Of course he is. But policemen are the prisoners of their own experience. They never ignore the obvious. Over the next few weeks, I suspect that Ashur-Proffitt executives are going to go missing in droves.”
“You think so? Then I am reassured, my boy. Oh look. Here’s the soup. How do they always manage to get their timing so perfectly right? I sometimes suspect that they must have the tables bugged.”
Gedye smiled to himself and began to eat his soup.
18 IN THE PARLOUR
Arriving at Cothersley Hall was a very different experience from arriving at Casa Alba.
For a start there was no sign of the house from the roadway, just a pair of massive granite columns Pascoe was sure he’d once seen in the British Museum, crowned by eagles with wings outstretched and expressions of pained surprise, as though in the act of laying polyhedral eggs.
On either side of the columns as far as the eye could see stretched a six-foot wall topped by razor wire, and from them hung a double metal gate, apparently designed to obstruct incursion by anything less than a Centurion tank.
He began to get out of the car then paused as a small CCTV camera situated in the lea of one of the eagles turned towards him. It must have liked what it saw for a moment later the great gates began to swing silently open.
&n
bsp; Come into my parlour…
But spiders offered no threat to a man fortified with what in fact had turned out to be a rather good ploughman’s at the Dog and Duck washed down with half a pint of lager. A fondness for lager was a vice he concealed from Andy Dalziel. He admired Shirley Novello’s refusal to be intimidated into drinking anything she didn’t fancy, but he hadn’t yet found the nerve to join her in sitting at the Fat Man’s table in the Black Bull sucking some Transylvanian pils called Schlurp straight out of the bottle.
It had been easy to get the Captain talking about his blue beer. In fact once started it had been hard to get him talking about anything else, though reference to the tragic death of Mr Maciver had stimulated a curious melange of what’s-the-world-coming-to-I-blame-the-government polemic and always-thought-there-was-something-odd-about-him Schadenfreude.
He set the car in motion and drove through the gateway into a long curving avenue of ancient beeches, festive with the first bright growth of spring. In his mirror he saw the gates closing behind him, occasioning a momentary feeling of unease which quickly vanished as the car rounded a bend and Cothersley Hall came into view.
Now this, he thought, was much more to Ellie’s taste than Casa Alba. It was a solid brick-built seventeenth-century manor house, south facing, adorned with but not swamped by gold-heart ivy, not over-large, just right for a gentleman farmer and his family, and, of course, a few necessary servants.
He tried to imagine what a seventeenth-century Ellie would have done about necessary servants and smiled.
Twenty-first-century Ellie certainly wouldn’t approve the single-storey extension on the western side of the building, with its broad expanses of glass through which he could glimpse a swimming pool, but its architect had done his considerable best to preserve the harmony of the place.
As he got out of the car, the house door opened and a man came out. He was in his forties, stockily well-built, with greying black hair just short of a crew cut and a leathery high-cheekboned face.
He came down the steps and said, “You the dick?”
“Some people have called me such,” said Pascoe. “I prefer Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe.”
“Yeah. Thought I recognized you from Kay’s description. I’m Tony Kafka.”
He shook hands with a firm but non-competitive grip.
“So what’s the word on Pal?” he asked. “Suicide, or is there more?”
“What makes you ask that?” said Pascoe.
“Ranking cop coming out of his way to interview the dead man’s former stepmother don’t strike me as routine procedure.”
He set off up the steps towards the door. He walked with a rolling gait like a traditional sailor.
“You’re conversant with routine procedure, are you?” said Pascoe following.
“I read a lot of crime crap,” said Kafka over his shoulder. “And I’ve been in business long enough to know a guy ducking a question when I see one. That guy who came out to the plant was just the same.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Guy with a face to sink a thousand ships. Detective Sergeant I think he was. Turned up just as I was leaving an hour or so ago. God knows what he wanted and neither of them was sharing the info with me.”
Wield had gone to Ash-Mac’s? What the hell for? wondered Pascoe as Kafka led the way across a shadowy heavily wainscoted hall. On a table by the door stood a well-used leather grip.
“In here,” said Kafka, pushing open the door into a long airy reception room where Kay Kafka was sitting on a chaise longue as gracefully as any character in a Jane Austen movie. “Honey, you got a visitor.”
“Mr Pascoe, how nice to see you again,” she said. “Please, sit down.”
“Yeah,” said Kafka. “Over there with your back to the light, that’s the best interrogation position, right? And do you want to grill us both at once or separately?”
“It’s Mrs Kafka I’d like to speak to,” said Pascoe.
Kay said, “You must forgive my husband, Chief Inspector. Tony, if the cabaret’s over, maybe you’d like to organize some drinks? Coffee? Tea? Or something stronger?”
“That’s to check how serious this is,” said Kafka. “If you say, ‘Not while I’m on duty, madam,’ we know we’re in for a rough ride.”
“I think you may have been reading the wrong crime crap,” said Pascoe courteously. “Coffee would be nice. Espresso if at all possible.”
“If at all possible!” echoed Kafka as he left the room. “Only in England…!”
Somewhere a phone was ringing.
Kay said, “Excuse Tony. He thinks he’s putting you at ease.”
“No problem. I love a wag,” murmured Pascoe, sitting down at right angles to the window. “And I’m certainly at ease. Nice house you’ve got, Mrs Kafka.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” she said. “Though not precisely to my taste.”
“No?” said Pascoe, surprised.
“No,” she said firmly. “Tony bought and renovated it long before I married him. I’ve made some adjustments since, but the main structure’s pretty obdurate. As indeed is Tony.”
“My wife would like it,” said Pascoe.
“She would? How is she, by the way? We only met briefly the other night, but she struck me as a pretty capable lady.”
“She’s fine,” said Pascoe. “Look, I’m sorry to be troubling you, but there are a couple of uncertainties surrounding the sad death of your stepson which I thought you might be able to help with.”
She said, “Uncertainties? Yes, I should imagine that when someone chooses to kill himself in such a macabre fashion, there are bound to be uncertainties.”
“Macabre?” said Pascoe. “Shooting yourself is, alas, pretty commonplace.”
“But doing it in a manner which almost exactly replicated his own father’s death seems pretty macabre to me,” she replied.
“I suppose it was,” said Pascoe as if this had never occurred to him. “What do you think was going on in his mind when he chose to do that? Was he making some kind of statement, perhaps?”
“I doubt it. Striking a pose, perhaps.”
“A bit extreme, don’t you think? I mean, people strike poses to draw attention to themselves, but there’s not much point if you can’t enjoy that attention.”
She shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that as his reason for killing himself. God knows what that was, but once he’d decided to end his life, then, being the way he was, naturally he’d look for some specially dramatic way of making his exit. In fact, I’m not a psychiatrist, but it must take a lot of will power to carry you through from the idea of suicide to the actual execution, and maybe setting up some kind of formal dramatic structure is a good way of keeping you on track.”
“How would you apply that in your first husband’s case?” enquired Pascoe. “I hope you don’t mind me asking.”
“No, I don’t mind. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. Pal Senior was very different from his son. He found the striking of poses offensive. He prided himself on his matter-of-factness. He was a man of business and proud of it, and he believed that once you set your mind to a task, you carried it through, no second thoughts allowed. So he wouldn’t need a dramatic structure. He had a shotgun. He used it.”
“Yet there was some artistic presentation involved,” insisted Pascoe. “The volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry on the desk, the particular poem it was open at. How did it go? He scanned it-staggered-dropped the Loop to Past or Present…”
“Past or Period,” she corrected. “Caught helpless at a sense as if His mind were going blind -”
“Doesn’t sound very matter-of-fact to me,” said Pascoe dubiously. “Sounds like a man who feels things slipping out of control. Yet he seemed to do everything very methodically. Why do you think he left the book on his desk?”
This was dangerous ground, he realized. He was questioning a woman about the way her first husband had killed himself with her sec
ond about to return any moment. From what little he’d seen of Kafka he didn’t seem like a man who’d react kindly if he found someone had reduced his wife to a tearful breakdown.
But Kay didn’t look as if she was about to weep. Her expression was gravely compassionate rather than sorrow-stricken. It suited her. She was, he acknowledged yet again, and almost with a shock as if he’d somehow missed it before, a truly beautiful woman.
She said, “The poem was a message to me. I gave him the book, and because he knew it was important to me, he really worked hard to come to terms with Emily. But often I’d catch him reading it with a look of exasperated bafflement on his face, like a child asked to study what is yet beyond his ken. He once told me it troubled him that such short poems, often just a scatter of lines, a handful of words, should leave him groping after meaning.”
“Groped up, to see if God was there-Groped backward at Himself,” said Pascoe softly.
She smiled at him, briefly, then went on, “I think that what he was saying to me by leaving the volume open at this poem was, Listen, love, I got this one right in the end. Now I know what this one means . He was offering the only kind of comfort he could think of. I believe he tried to write me a note explaining what was going on in his mind, saying how sorry he was, but found the only words he could use were inadequate. So he chose instead to let Emily describe how he felt for him and, by using her poem, he said he loved me.”
She fell silent. Pascoe was deeply moved. All the nasty things that had been said about this woman sounded in his head now like mere snarls of envy and resentment. Oh yes, she was a pretty good magicker all right.
Time to pull something out of the hat himself, if he could.
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