Exit Lines

by Reginald Hill

  He paused and said, ‘Andy? Andy? Are you there? Hello? Hello? Superintendent Dalziel!’

  ‘If you’re going to shout like that, where’s the point in using the phone?’ said Dalziel’s voice reproachfully. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  ‘Superintendent, when I told you to take some leave yesterday morning, I suggested perhaps a little frivolously that you might care to sample foreign parts. Now I’m suggesting, not at all frivolously, that a short break out of Yorkshire might do you the world of good. I believe they’re enjoying some very pleasant weather on the South Coast at the moment. I think it might do you good. What do you say to Eastbourne, perhaps? Or maybe Bognor Regis?’

  A few seconds later, the DCC replaced the phone with the gentleness of a man to whom even the softest click could be the last sound that shattered his vibrating eardrums. But in his head he could hear a voice quite clearly.

  George Headingley would have been amused, or perhaps not, to recognize in this voice that same note of polite incredulity which was the dominating tone of his own mental Board of Inquiry.

  He said what? And you did what?

  I went to play golf, sir.

  The DCC rose from his desk and went to play golf.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Mehr Licht!’

  Ellie rang again on Sunday night. She sounded rather more cheerful, though she admitted that it was probably on a false basis.

  ‘Mum says the same. Much of the time, most of the time, he’s just like he’s always been. Then he’ll do something odd. Often it’s trivial. He’ll go and have a bath twice in an hour, quite forgetting that he’s been already. Or he’ll not bother with having a bath at all and when she pushes him, he looks puzzled and says he’s just had one that morning. He forgets whole days. When he remembers them later, as he sometimes does, it really upsets him, you know, to know he’s forgotten. From that point of view, I suppose it’ll get better as it gets worse.’

  ‘But he’s been OK today?’

  ‘Oh yes. Fine, completely like his old self. When I see him like this, I can’t help but feel that all he needs is a course of pills to stimulate the old mental juices, you know, some kind of “upper” like we used to take before exams.’

  Not me, thought Pascoe. Not you either, if I remember right. It wasn’t just old age which found memory a trouble. As the dull plateau of middle age hove over the horizon, the broken landscape of youth got rearranged into more interesting patterns. But he kept his reflections for a better time.

  After Ellie had rung off, he was just settling down in front of the television with a bottle of beer and a slice of cold pie when the doorbell rang.

  His first reaction was irritation. For some reason he was certain it was Sammy Ruddlesdin, despite the fact that he’d seen the journalist that morning and given him as full an account as he could of progress on the Deeks case.

  But the shape he saw through the frosted glass of the front door was unmistakable.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ he said. ‘Is it a raid?’

  ‘Them merry quips’ll be your downfall, Peter,’ said Dalziel. ‘A lesser man might take offence.’

  ‘There’s a lot of them about,’ said Pascoe, pressing back against the wall to allow the fat man to pass. ‘Are you coming in?’

  This last was addressed to Dalziel’s neck as he progressed into the living-room. By the time Pascoe had joined him, he’d switched the telly off and was sitting in Pascoe’s armchair looking speculatively at the beer and pie.

  ‘Care to join me, sir?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Why not?’ said Dalziel. ‘It won’t do any harm. I’m trying this fibre diet everyone’s on about, did I tell you? It’s grand, you can eat just about anything as long as it’s got fibre.’

  ‘Well, this is pretty fibrous, as you’ll find,’ called Pascoe from the kitchen. ‘Chicken ‘n’ ham, from the supermarket, not the fruits of anyone’s gun, I’m afraid.’

  He returned with beer and pie.

  Dalziel leered at him and said, ‘Tickled your fancy that one, didn’t she, Peter? Ellie away for long?’

  Whether this was deduction or information wasn’t clear. Its insinuation was. Pascoe said, ‘She’ll be back tomorrow. And strange though it may seem, even were her absence longer, I would not be shooting off my gun all over Yorkshire.’

  ‘I’m doing a bit myself,’ said Dalziel, sinking his teeth into the pie. For a moment Pascoe thought this was the beginning of some unsavoury amorous confession and the fat man’s eyes registered the thought as he washed the chicken ‘n’ ham down with half a pint of beer.

  ‘Shooting,’ he said. ‘Bang, bang.’

  ‘You mean shooting … things?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Dalziel gravely. ‘They tell me things are in season.’

  ‘Birds? You’re going to go shooting birds!’ exclaimed Pascoe, incredulity struggling with indignation.

  ‘I asked about sheep,’ said Dalziel regretfully. ‘I wondered if they’d let me start with sheep, being only a trainee, so to speak. Something a bit bulky and sort of static. Sheep-shooting’s never caught on, they tell me. Stags, yes. But not sheep. You can do all kinds of things with sheep, especially if you’ve been stuck out on the moors a long time, but you can’t shoot them. It has to be birds. I asked about swans then …’

  Pascoe interrupted this ponderous frivolity.

  ‘But why? It’s not your bag, is it? I mean, you’re not the …’

  ‘Type?’ said Dalziel. ‘What you mean, Peter, is I’m not one of your tweedy twits, all upper crust, and brains like these chicken leftovers beneath it. Well, you’re right. I’m not. I’m glad you’ve noticed. But it’s not like that any more. It’s a popular sport. Pricey but popular. Businessmen, professional people, foreigners, they’re all at it. So why not me?’

  ‘Do you want the general objections, or the specific?’ asked Pascoe stiffly.

  ‘Well, I doubt if anyone with the stomach for this battery-raised pap can make much of a case against killing birds in the wild,’ said Dalziel, swallowing the last of his pie. ‘So let’s hear the specific. Don’t be shy, lad. Speak free.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pascoe. ‘It just doesn’t seem the kind of thing you’d want to do, somehow.’

  ‘Why not? The Chief Constable’s a dab hand, so they tell me. Mebbe I’m a late developer. Mebbe I’ve got secret ambitions.’

  ‘And secret funds too, from the sound of it,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Oh, aye? And what’s that mean?’ said Dalziel softly.

  ‘You said yourself it’s pricey,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘It is that. Couple of thousand a day, basic, if you’re hiring the shooting. That’ll be for, say, eight guns, ten at the most. And then you’ve got the rest on top of it. Accommodation, entertainment, transport, guns, shells. It’s a rich man’s pleasure, no doubt.’

  ‘So?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘So there’s some generous rich men about,’ said Dalziel. ‘Hospitality, that’s the name of the game. I’m on my holidays, I get asked to go and try my hand at a shoot, where’s the harm in that?’

  ‘Depends who’s inviting.’

  ‘How about Sir William Pledger, that do you? Well, that’s who’ll be coughing up in the long run, but more directly, it’s his general manager, Barney Kassell, who’s doing the inviting. And for Christ’s sake, lad, make up your mind.’

  ‘About what?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘About your expression. What’s it to be – amazement that I got invited or indignation that I accepted? Listen, lad; Sir William Pledger came up from nowt, and he’s not forgotten it. It’s not your chinless charlies who get asked to Haycroft Grange. It’s people with clout. Frogs, Wops, Krauts, maybe, but they can’t help that! And the locals too; they don’t get asked because of the schools they went to, but because of what they are. The Chief Constable, like I said; and Arnie Charlesworth. There’s a mix for you! People who know how to make people jump or money jump, that’s what’s on the ticket of entry. People who don’t
get old worrying if they’ll manage on their pension, if it’s index-linked or not, if they’ll still be able to afford their subscriptions, or if they’ll have to give up smoking and drinking and eating and breathing!’

  Dalziel was speaking with a ferocious earnestness which filled Pascoe with horror. The fat man had always had that healthy respect for money and power which you’d expect of a Yorkshire-bred Scot, but this expression of admiration for the rich and powerful seemed anything but healthy. His only consolation was a feeling that Dalziel was also slyly watching him, gleefully assessing his reaction.

  Suddenly the Superintendent let out a long satisfied belch and said, ‘One thing. I hope I don’t have to wait as long for a refill at Haycroft Grange.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pascoe, taking his empty glass. ‘Fancy another bit of pie?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I could mebbe manage a jam buttie, though.’

  ‘What about your diet?’

  ‘I’m sure a trendy bugger like you’ll have a bread-bin full of wholewheat loaves. They don’t count.’

  Pascoe returned to the kitchen. Dalziel’s voice drifted after him.

  ‘What about you, Peter? Owt new on this murder?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Pascoe, returning with a sandwich made to Dalziel standards, that is, two slices of bread half an inch thick each spread with a quarter-inch layer of butter and cemented together with a good half-inch of homemade strawberry jam.

  Dalziel bit into it and washed his bite down with his beer as Pascoe told him about the method of entry, the missing articles, the injuries to Deeks and the boot marks on the bathroom floor.

  ‘So, some local tearaway who’s heard rumours about the old fellow keeping money in the house, but doesn’t know him well enough to know there’s a key hidden in the wash-house, is that it?’

  ‘Seems to fit the bill,’ said Pascoe. ‘Except that according to his neighbour, there weren’t any rumours about money in the house.’

  ‘There’s always rumours,’ said Dalziel. ‘Lovely jam, this.’

  ‘Ellie’s mother’s,’ said Pascoe. ‘The stolen property seems the best bet, if he’s daft enough to try to flog the medals or the watch.’

  ‘Mebbe,’ said Dalziel. ‘Anything else going off?’

  ‘No,’ said Pascoe hesitantly. ‘Except there was another old fellow died the same night.’

  ‘Aye, Peter. I know,’ said Dalziel quietly.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean him, you know that. This was a man called Parrinder. He had a fall, it seems, broke his hip, cut himself, lay in the wind and sleet for several hours and the exposure and bleeding did for him.’

  ‘Only …’ prompted Dalziel.

  Pascoe launched into a description of the affair, not omitting Hector’s sackful of stones.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with it,’ he said between Dalziel’s hoots of laughter. ‘I mean, it’s evidence in a way. But I daren’t send them down to the lab to be looked at when nothing they might or might not find would prove anything about anything! There’s nothing to go on, really. I don’t know why I’m even talking about it.’

  ‘I do,’ said Dalziel. ‘You’ve got one of them feelings, Peter, and nothing short of a cold shower’s going to get rid of it! Let’s see what we’ve got. Parrinder goes out late on a nasty wet afternoon. Why? To collect his pension which his friendly neighbours have already offered to collect. Why’s he want it now? To buy some rum. Was there nothing to drink in his flat? Where’d he buy the rum? Where’d he collect his pension, for that matter? You’d think he’d go local, wouldn’t you? There’s a parade of shops with a sub-post-office and beer-off just the far side of Castleton Court, if I remember right. But if he went local, what was he doing walking over the Alderman Woodhouse Recreation Ground which is a short cut into the town centre? And was he going or coming? Of course, you can get all of this sorted out and it’ll still not be evidence that he was attacked! The quacks aren’t cooperative, you say?’

  ‘Not really. All injuries attributable to his fall.’

  ‘And no evidence of robbery. Pension money intact except for the few quid he’d pay for the rum. It wasn’t open, you say?’

  ‘No. The seal was intact or so the doctor said.’

  ‘So he hadn’t had a few nips. Better if he had, maybe. Could’ve kept the cold out a bit longer. And he did speak before he died, but didn’t say anything to indicate he’d been attacked.’

  ‘Only Polly,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Attacked by a woman, mebbe,’ said Dalziel. ‘There’s plenty as’d pay for the pleasure. No, it looks to me like you’ve got a sackful of nowt, Peter.’

  ‘So you’d just forget it,’ said Pascoe, half-relieved.

  ‘No. I didn’t say that,’ said Dalziel. ‘I’d have a bloody good look at his possessions, see if there’s a receipt with the rum, look at the Post Office stamp in his pension book. Mebbe I’d do it in my own time, but I’m like you, Peter. Just plain nosey! So I’d do it!’

  They talked a little longer. Pascoe cautiously approached the topic of the road accident, but when Dalziel veered away from it, he didn’t press. There was no hint of a specific reason for Dalziel’s call and the only one which Pascoe could guess at, which was loneliness and a desire for friendly company, required a mental lèse-majesté difficult even to contemplate.

  Finally he left abruptly, saying vaguely he had things to do.

  An hour later the phone rang. It was Dalziel.

  ‘Just a thought,’ he said. ‘That old boy, Parrinder, followed the horses you said.’

  ‘So Seymour told me.’

  ‘I was just looking at yesterday’s paper. It’s got Friday’s results in it. Last race at Cheltenham, won by a horse called Polly Styrene – yes, two words. Four to one. Just a thought. Thanks for the jam buttie. You’ll make someone a lovely mother!’

  The phone went dead and Pascoe went to bed.

  The next morning when he arrived at the station, he checked when the Parrinder inquest was to be. It was later that same day, with Inspector Ernie Cruikshank looking after the police side. Pascoe, knowing the man’s dislike of CID in general and himself in particular, approached him with caution.

  ‘Bit vague, isn’t it? What do you want? Adjournment for further inquiries? That’ll have the Press sniffing!’

  Pascoe knew this. He could see Ruddlesdin linking this with the other two deaths in a punchy piece about old people being at risk both on the street and in their homes which would have the DCC reaching for his night-stick.

  ‘Try to make it sound very routine,’ he said. ‘Parrinder’s things, anyone looking at them?’

  It was not his intention to be anything but conciliatory, but Cruikshank was looking for criticism.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘If every time some poor old sod dies accidentally we sent his belongings to Forensic, they’d need a fucking warehouse! It’s like a fucking Oxfam appeal down there at the best of times with all the rubbish you lot dump on them.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘I really just meant, has anyone collected them from the hospital?’

  Cruikshank exploded.

  ‘They will be collected!’ he cried. ‘There’s no hurry to collect them because there’s no one been in any hurry to claim them! You don’t see any crowds of mourning fucking relatives or weeping fucking children, do you? But rest assured, they’ll get collected as soon as I’ve got someone to spare to collect them. I’m a bit short-staffed, you see. Why? you ask. Because you lot don’t seem to be able to manage without my lads, that’s why. Well, that figures, Inspector Pascoe. I put up with that. I even put up with Andy Dalziel fixing for me and a couple of my lads to sit on our arses at the airport all Saturday morning waiting for the Mafia to fly in, which it didn’t. But when one of my lads is down to assist you with one case, I don’t expect him to be sent off to spend hours gathering old stones which have nothing whatsofuckingever to do with the said case!’

  ‘Good,’ said Pascoe, retreating. ‘Fine. Look, I�
��ll collect them, shall I, Ernie? All right? Good. Excellent. Thanks a lot.’

  Half an hour later he was wandering hopefully along the corridors of the City General when he came face to face with Dr Sowden, who was looking so beautifully haggard and weary that any sharp-eyed television director would have snapped him up instantly.

  ‘You look dreadful,’ said Pascoe. ‘You ought to see a doctor.’

  ‘You look lost,’ said Sowden. ‘You ought to ask a policeman.’

  Pascoe explained his mission and Sowden said, ‘You don’t give up, do you? I can feel it, you still think there was something odd about Parrinder’s death.’

  ‘Maybe. But no reflection on you, Doctor,’ said Pascoe. ‘Mr Longbottom didn’t find anything suspicious and most of my colleagues think I’m daft.’

  ‘An honest cop!’ exclaimed Sowden. ‘The city may yet not be consumed by fire. Come on, I’m just going off duty, I’ll show you where you want to be.’

  He stood by and watched curiously as Pascoe removed the dead man’s clothes from the plastic storage bag. Carefully he went through the broken glass of the rum bottle and the sodden brown paper in which it had been rewrapped till he came across a receipt.

  ‘A clue?’ said Sowden.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Pascoe gravely. ‘His pension book, money, watch and so on, where will they be?’

  ‘Valuables they lock up,’ said Sowden. ‘With the dead, wreckers’ laws can apply, even in hospitals.’

  Pascoe smiled and removed from Parrinder’s raincoat pocket a rolled-up newspaper. Soaked by the rain, it had dried almost into a papier-mâché cylinder which he prised open with difficulty.

  ‘Aha,’ he said.

  ‘Another clue?’

  ‘In a way. Evidently before he died he looked up, saw looming over him a dog which one of my men described as being built like a horse, laughed, said Polly, and expired. Look.’