‘I’m really sorry about all this and I’m sorry the watchman’s dead and I wish he wasn’t but I want to do anything I can to help the police catch whoever it was that killed my Brenda.’
‘That’ll grab them in the gallery,’ said Dalziel. ‘There’ll be more water in the jury box than on a test match wicket at Manchester.’
‘I feel sorry for the lad,’ said Wield quietly.
‘That’s a bad sign, Sergeant. Next thing you’ll be putting stamps on your Christmas cards.’
Dalziel yawned. It was eight-thirty on Saturday morning. After Maggs had made his statement the previous night, Dalziel had talked to him earnestly for nearly two hours, going over everything again and again. His instinct had been to explore the new dimensions opened up by the statement instantly, but in the end he had decided to sleep on it, using as a soporific half a bottle of Scotch.
Now he was stretching himself, ready for action.
The news from the hospital was that Dave Lee had had a good night. Better still from Dalziel’s point of view had been the confirmation of the hospital diagnosis a perforated ulcer whose condition could hardly have been aggravated by a blow to the stomach. Ludlam too was doing well. He had refused to say anything when questioned briefly after Maggs’s statement and the doctor had insisted that the interview be postponed till the morning. But Frankie Pickersgill had talked freely till Janey arrived on the scene and let her split loyalties tear her into hysterics.
‘You see what this means, Sergeant,’ continued Dalziel.
Wield, who had seen what it meant the minute Tommy had started talking, prepared himself to be amused at the fat man’s analysis.
‘We haven’t got a single sighting of Brenda from the time she left the bank, that’s what it means. We weren’t bothered as long as we thought she’d met up with Tommy at half-eight. But now things look different. We’re back to square one. Every man who’s got anything to do with this case, I’ll want him checked out again. Before, we were just asking what they were doing at eleven o’clock that night. Now I want to know what they were doing at six o’clock! That bank manager, for instance. Mulgan. You said he was reported to have a bit of a lech going for the girl. Mebbe he offered her a lift into town after work. That schoolteacher too. And Lee, of course. We’ll need to get round the lot. I think I’ll give Mr Pascoe a ring.’
‘I thought it was his day off, sir,’ said Wield neutrally. ‘And with the Spinks job cleared up, won’t we be able to use Mr Headingley’s men?’
‘There’s a lot of loose ends there still. And what will they know about anything anyway?’ said Dalziel irritably. ‘No, we need men who’ve got this thing at their fingertips.’
He reached for the phone.
Pascoe answered with a sharp, suspicious Yes? and his tone did not change when he realized who it was.
He listened to Dalziel’s digest of Maggs’s statement and its implications without comment or question.
‘You don’t seem all that interested, Peter,’ said Dalziel in an injured tone.
‘Don’t I, sir? I’m sorry. I’m not long up. Ellie hasn’t been feeling too well and we had a rather disturbed night.’
‘Nowt serious, I hope,’ said Dalziel.
‘I don’t think so. But I reckon she ought to lie on in bed.’
‘Best place for her,’ said Dalziel expertly. ‘These things always happen at weekends.’
‘What things?’
‘Anything,’ said Dalziel. ‘But I’m glad it’s not serious. Look, I know it’s your day off, but if Ellie’s just going to be lying around, I’d appreciate it if you could pop in and lend a hand for a couple of hours. After you’ve taken her breakfast up, of course.’
‘Now that’s what I call big of you, Andy,’ interrupted Ellie’s voice.
‘Ellie! You’ve got yourself up after all,’ said Dalziel.
‘No, I’ve been eavesdropping on the extension,’ she said. ‘Early morning calls on Peter’s day off always fill me with suspicion.’
‘Are you all right, lass? I told you yesterday, this flying wasn’t for you in your condition.’
‘Flying?’ said Pascoe.
‘I didn’t go flying,’ protested Ellie. ‘Listen, Andy, I’ll do a deal. Peter goes in today, he gets next Friday and Saturday off, no reservations, no conditions, earthquakes, wind and fire not excepted.’
‘You have my personal guarantee,’ said Dalziel.
‘Now hold on,’ began Pascoe.
‘Soon as you can, Peter,’ said Dalziel hastily. ‘Ellie, brandy’s the stuff, listen to an expert.’
‘Brandy? The stuff for what?’
‘Owt that Scotch can’t cure. Take care!’
Pascoe went slowly up to the bedroom.
‘Eavesdropping now, is it?’
‘Certainly.’
‘What’s all this about next Friday?’
‘Well, we’ve got to go down and see my mother sometime and I thought it’d be nice to stay overnight.’
‘Jesus. And for this I give up my Saturday?’
‘I could invite her up here for a while,’ said Ellie.
‘All right, you win. But listen, are you sure you feel OK?’
‘Never better. I’ll give Thelma a ring, maybe. Now what was it you said about breakfast?’
Later as he cleared away the tray, he said, ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else you want?’
She looked lugubriously down at her swelling breasts and belly.
‘How about a nice big shiny egg we could take turns to sit on? And when it hatched, out would pop a nice little brat about six years old with your eyes and my nose all neatly dressed and talking and ready for school.’
He smiled so uncertainly that she laughed at him and pulled him down and kissed his mouth.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll say the right things and do the dewy-eyed bit, but not all the time. And whatever I have, I promise you I’m bringing the little sod up to be a transvestite.’
‘Everyone’ll be transvestite by the time he’s old enough to enjoy it,’ said Pascoe. ‘Me, I sometimes wish I could spend my Saturdays lying in bed, contributing to the Life Force.’
‘Get knotted,’ she said amicably. ‘It’s the police force that’s got you hooked. Now push off, or you might miss being in at the kill and you know how you’d hate that.’
He was on the landing when she called out, ‘Peter!’
He rushed back in full of anxiety.
‘Yes? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Christ, you mustn’t be so nervous. You’ll never last another four months! No, it was just what Andy was saying about that boy’s statement. I just thought.’
‘All right, Sherlock. Shoot.’
‘Well,’ said Ellie, running her fingers through her hair. ‘You know you laughed at me when I said that perhaps what the medium said in her trance might have come out of some time-slip caused by the violence of death?’
‘Yes, I remember it well.’
‘All right. But now there doesn’t need to be a timeslip, does there? I mean, if she didn’t meet her boyfriend, who knows what time she got killed? The sun could have been shining anyway. Perhaps that medium woman got some of it right after all.’
Sergeant Wield had the perfect excuse for calling on Mulgan at home. He had promised to pick up the list of Brenda Sorby’s transactions on the day of her death, but developments had prevented him from doing so the previous evening.
Mrs Mulgan, looking worried almost to the point of fear, admitted him first to the entrance hall of their ugly detached bungalow where he spoke with her in a low voice for several minutes, then to the lounge where Mulgan, reading the Daily Mail in his shirtsleeves, looked annoyed and made it clear he’d have preferred to deal with the sergeant on the doorstep. Unabashed, Wield accepted Mrs Mulgan’s offer of a coffee.
‘What use can this stuff be to you anyway?’ asked Mulgan after his wife had gone out.
‘The information about the money was very useful indeed, si
r,’ said Wield.
‘Yes. Well, that was different. These other transactions can hardly be relevant. I hope you’re not going to be bothering our customers.’
‘I’m sure every one of them would want to help catch our man, sir. Every little helps. Someone somewhere knows something.’
‘You mean, someone’s protecting this lunatic?’ said Mulgan incredulously.
‘Maybe. Or perhaps someone doesn’t realize what they know. Could be you, sir.’
‘Me?’ said Mulgan, thick lips pursed. ‘Hardly. I gave you a comprehensive statement.’
‘First statements aren’t usually. Comprehensive, I mean. I mean, they can’t be, really.’
‘First statements.’
‘Oh yes, sir. Often one’s enough, but when we get a bit bogged down, we start crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. We’ll be going over everything again with everyone. For instance, sir, we know all about what you did that Thursday till the time the bank was closed, but nothing after that.’
‘Oh yes you do,’ said Mulgan sarcastically. ‘You made sure, without, I may say, a great deal of subtlety, that I was at home that evening about the time that poor Brenda was killed.’
‘What time was that, sir?’
‘Between eleven and midnight the papers said. During the storm.’
‘That’s true, sir,’ said Wield ambiguously. ‘I’m sorry if we were heavy-handed, but we have to check everyone. No, it’s the earlier bit of the evening I’m interested in. We’re still trying to find someone who saw Brenda earlier, so those as would have recognized her are particularly interesting. Did you go straight home from the bank?’
‘I think so. I may have popped into the shops along the parade. It’s very handy; at least my wife thinks it so.’
He laughed and played with the square, black-rimmed spectacles he wore to read his paper.
‘It was Thursday, sir,’ prompted Wield gently. ‘Half-day closing here. But late opening in the town centre. You didn’t go into the centre, did you?’
‘No. I very rarely do. And Thursday or not, Jennings’, that’s the newsagents, he’s always open. I usually pick up an evening paper there.’
‘Then you’d drive home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Arriving when?’
‘Six at least. Often earlier.’
‘Nice to have regular hours, sir,’ said Wield appreciatively. ‘I expect Mrs Mulgan likes it too. Do you eat at the same time most nights?’
‘Yes. Half six, usually. It’s our main meal of the day. If you want the details, Sergeant, though I can’t imagine why, my wife and I will probably sit and have a sherry and talk about the day, then we eat, wash up, go out for a stroll perhaps if the weather’s nice, or potter in the garden. Watch a bit of television, then bed. That’s about it.’
‘And that night was no different.’
‘Very few of them are different enough to be distinguishable, Sergeant,’ said Mulgan. ‘Had it been, though, I would certainly recall,’
He put his spectacles back on and looked pointedly at his newspaper as though to indicate the interview was over.
Wield gave him a quarter-minute.
‘It was a Thursday, though, sir,’ he said.
Mulgan didn’t look up.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘And your wife was saying that most Thursdays she goes to visit her mother in the afternoon. She often doesn’t get back till eight. Or later.’
Now Mulgan looked up again.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘And as it was a Thursday, she probably wasn’t in when I got home and probably didn’t get back till late. What are you trying to say, Sergeant? And why didn’t you tell me you’d been cross-examining my wife too.’
‘No, honestly, I’m sorry,’ said Wield, rearranging his features into a new chaos which his tone signalled meant distress. ‘All I wondered was, did you maybe stop off, have a drink somewhere that night? I mean there’d be no rush to get home, would there? And if so, did you perhaps see anything of Brenda, just passing, I mean? Or talking to someone?’
The bait was a bit obvious, he thought. Guilty or innocent, Mulgan would see it dangling there.
‘I’ll tell you something, Sergeant,’ said the manager with a sigh. ‘Then perhaps you’ll go away and leave me to get on with my weekend, and tell the world you’re a liar if you try to use what I’ve told you. I fancied Brenda. Yes, it’s clear someone’s suggested this to you, and it’s true. She was a nice girl, I felt relaxed with her and we could have a laugh and a joke together. If I’d had the slightest encouragement, well, who knows what any of us might not do with encouragement! But I didn’t and when I realized our other junior Miss Brighouse, who no doubt is your source of information, was ready to make a joke of it, I became the soul of correctness. I have no desire to be a joke to empty-headed children, Sergeant. When I saw her engagement ring, I made sure my congratulations were formal and sincere, which indeed they were. I never saw her again after she said goodnight that Thursday evening. Now if that completes the inquisition, perhaps you’d like to cast your eye over these transactions in case there’s anything you want to ask. I should prefer to have the rest of my weekend free from interruption.’
There was something not quite right about Mulgan’s man-of-the-world confession and sarcastic dismissal, but it possibly had nothing to do with the case. As a long-established expert in putting up fronts, Wield had a sharp ear and eye for uncertainties of tone and manner. Mulgan, he decided, seemed to think that being an acting manager somehow meant acting like a manager. He was probably right too. Being a policeman certainly involved a lot of role-playing. Pascoe had once said that. Clever bugger. Too clever by half, according to Dalziel in his darker moments. Wield thought he’d got the pair of ’em worked out. Pay heed to what Pascoe says but do as Dalziel does. What would Dalziel do now? Probably put his shark-like mouth to Mulgan’s shell-like ear and enquire in a Force Ten murmur how many members of his staff an acting manager could expect to screw in an average week.
Instead Wield cast his eye down the list, not really seeing it, said, ‘This looks fine, sir. I hope it won’t be necessary to trouble you again. This morning, anyway.’ And left.
When he signed back on watch through his car radio, a message was awaiting him.
He smiled sadly as he listened to the instructions for him to rendezvous with Inspector Pascoe at the Aero Club in fifteen minutes’ time.
So much for the sanctity of a detective’s day off.
Do as Dalziel does, was the golden rule.
And what does Dalziel do?
What he bloody well wants!
Chapter 20
Pascoe did not like what he was doing.
To him it seemed that Dalziel was becoming obsessed with Lee.
‘But there’s no real evidence,’ he protested. ‘OK, it’s reasonable to expect him to account for the money and the ring and watch. But there’s still no definite tie-in with Brenda Sorby.’
‘Michael Conrad, Fine Jeweller and Watch-Repairer, will give us that,’ said Dalziel confidently. ‘Due back from the sunny Med this afternoon.’
‘Then shouldn’t we wait?’
‘Why? What do you want to do?’ demanded Dalziel.
Mow my lawn and then cool off with a tube of lager, thought Pascoe.
‘What about Wildgoose? Shouldn’t we talk to him?’ he said.
‘Not home,’ said Dalziel promptly. ‘I sent Preece round there this morning. Paper, milk, no Wildgoose. He’s probably shacked up with that little bird you mentioned, Andrea Valentine. We could bust in there, I suppose.’
‘What?’
‘Well, you think Wildgoose may have dumped his spare hash there for safekeeping, don’t you? Suspicion of possession. We’d get a warrant easy.’
‘No, but …’ Pascoe began to protest, but Dalziel interrupted him with agreement.
‘Quite right, lad. Can’t do things like that. Girl on her own, parents away, it’d give us a bad name. An
yway, we want to get our hands on little Andrea while Wildgoose isn’t around to feed her lines. If she’s holding the hash, that should give us a nice little lever to squeeze what she knows about her boy-friend out of her!’
Dalziel rubbed his hands together like two sheets of emery paper.
‘But what do you hope to find by searching the gypsy encampment?’ demanded Pascoe.
‘Probably enough stolen gear to put the whole bloody tribe away!’ said the fat man. ‘I don’t know, Peter. But there’ll be summat there. Perhaps other bits and pieces that went missing after the other killings and we never knew about them. Listen, that Pritchard cow, the solicitor, she’s finally got to Lee’s wife. We kept her at the hospital last night – still in custody, sort of, you understand. Well, not for long. We’ve precious little to hold her on, and Pritchard’s raising merry hell. Once she gets back to the encampment, anything that might be evidence really will disappear, you can bet on that.’
‘So you want me to search Lee’s caravan like you did? But officially this time?’
‘No!’ roared Dalziel. ‘The whole bloody site!’
‘But you can’t do that! It’s provocative! These people have rights too. It’s like searching every house on an estate because you suspect one householder of a crime! With what we’ve got, you’d never get a justice to issue such a general warrant!’
Dalziel grinned and reached into his inside pocket.
‘Depends how you pick your justice. Bernard Middlefield didn’t have to think twice,’ he said, producing the document like a conjuror’s rabbit and handing it over.
‘Aren’t you coming along, sir?’ asked Pascoe unhappily.
‘Me? No, I don’t think so, Peter,’ said Dalziel in a sanctimonious tone. ‘You’re dead right. These people may be dirty gyppos but they’re entitled to all the usual consideration and protection of the law. You’re the man to see things are done properly. Me, I’m too old fashioned, I suppose. But I’m not so old fashioned that I don’t know when to take a back seat and let a younger, more liberal sort of man get on with the job.’
A Killing Kindness Page 18