Recalled to Life

by Reginald Hill

  'What about Kohler?'

  'She just stood there. She said, I've killed her. Later when she was asked if she did it on purpose, all she said was. How can you kill someone and it not be on purpose? That was it. Another life sentence. When a con kills a screw, she needs the Archangel Gabriel as witness for the defence to get away with it, and maybe not then. Quite right too.'

  Pascoe ignored the implication and asked, 'So what do you think caused the quarrel?'

  'An educated guess? I'd say that Daphne started fantasizing about the future and Kohler finally made it clear that once she was out, that was that, all Daphne was getting from her was a nice card every Christmas. So Daphne turned nasty and started throwing dirt at her, only being Daphne, she had no idea of just how hurtful whatever weapon she'd got would be to Kohler. She flipped and hit out.'

  'With intent to kill?'

  The woman shrugged and said, 'Like I say, it doesn't matter.'

  'What was she like after the trial?'

  'I only saw her once. They soon transferred her from Beddington, naturally. But I got the impression she'd gone back inside herself, like this time she wanted to bury herself so deep, no one would ever get to her again."

  'But someone or something did,' said Pascoe. 'She's finally out.'

  'Yes, I thought about it when I heard. And I thought: Well, something did get to her once, no reason why that something shouldn't have got to her again. And I doubt it has much to do with any television do-gooder.'

  'I'd be interested to hear your theories, Mrs Friedman," Pascoe said.

  She tapped her empty glass significantly on the table. Pascoe reached for it but she slid it away from him towards Pollock. He took it, rose and made for the bar.

  Now she leaned across the table towards Pascoe. Behind the granny specs her eyes were black as coal and twice as hard. It was haggle time and she didn't want any witnesses.

  She said, 'I gather from Mr Pollock this is by way of being private business rather than strictly speaking an official police matter.'

  'Dual status, you might say,' said Pascoe carefully. 'Why do you ask?'

  ‘Information's like medicine, Mr Pascoe,' she said. 'Private costs more than National Health. In fact if you wait for National Health, it can sometimes take so long, it's hardly worth the bother.'

  He said, 'What are we talking about, Mrs Friedman?'

  She said, 'Suppose Kohler had used Daph as a post-box so she could write to someone outside without anyone inside knowing officially.'

  'I'm supposing,' said Pascoe.

  'Suppose someone wrote back care of Daph. And suppose someone knew where to lay hands on that letter. What would you think that might be worth, Mr Pascoe?'

  Pascoe smiled. Now he knew he was haggling, he wasn't going to fall into the error of over-eagerness again.

  'Not a lot,' he said. 'A fifteen-year-old letter? Can't have been all that valuable, else it would have been sold off long ago.'

  'Perhaps it got saved up for a rainy day.'

  'That's possible,' admitted Pascoe. 'But look at it this way. For a long while now, ever since that Yank, Waggs, started stirring things, there's been a lot of media interest in Kohler. If this letter had any real value, whoever's got it would have flogged it to telly or the tabloids for about a hundred times more than a poor off-duty cop could afford.' He finished his half-pint of bitter and said, 'I'd better be off. Another half-hour and I'll be back on duty and I don't want to be around here then, do I, Mrs Friedman, in case I get a whiff of something not quite kosher.'

  Percy Pollock, spotting a lull in conversation, came across and put her gin in front of her. She drank without looking at him and he retreated to the bar. Pascoe watched her face. She gave nothing away there, but she didn't need to. He'd sat at too many interview tables not to follow the thought process without a visual aid.

  He said, very sympathetically, 'You've tried the media, haven't you? But you got a dusty answer. Only you don't want to admit it, because you reckon that would knock my offer right down into the basement. Am I right?'

  She smiled now, more like dressed-up wolf than granny.

  'You're not daft,' she said. 'But you're not quite right. Yes, I rang the Sphere some time back, when the interest in Kohler started. I didn't mention the letter, though. Just wondered if they'd be interested in paying for an old prison officer's reminiscences, no names, no pack drill. We set up a meeting.'

  'And?'

  'And the next day I got a phone call from a man who said he was in the Home Office Department dealing with pensions. It was nothing he said, just an inquiry about length of qualifying service. But when we got that sorted he chatted on, all very friendly, about how he was sure I knew I was still bound by the Secrets Act and that any breach of confidentiality would certainly mean loss of pension rights and possible prosecution.'

  Pascoe whistled. 'So you forgot about the tabloids? Very wise. Someone at the Home Office must have big ears.'

  'And big muscles,' she said grimly. 'The Pension Department don't have that kind of clout, I tell you. And I've been thinking ever since, if they were putting the screws on at that sort of level just on account of a few reminiscences, then that letter must be really valuable.'

  'In which case you should think yourself lucky they don't know about it,' said Pascoe, who was beginning to suspect it was something he didn't really want to know about either. 'So you reckon it's really valuable? Except that you haven't got anyone you dare try to sell it to, which makes it worthless.'

  'I've got you,' she said.

  'Maybe. How much are you asking?'

  She looked at him like a pork butcher in a meat market.

  'Five hundred,' she said.

  'Come on! Who do you think I am?'

  'Mebbe you should speak to your Mr Dalziel. You're only his rep, Percy tells me.'

  'Does he?' said Pascoe. 'Then perhaps he's also told you that if Mr Dalziel had come himself, by now he'd not only have had that letter in his pocket, he'd likely have had your pension too!'

  From her reaction, it appeared that at the very least Pollock had suggested he would be a much softer option, for she said immediately, 'All right. Four hundred.'

  'One,' said Pascoe.

  'Three.'

  ‘One-fifty.'

  'Two-fifty. And I'll tell you what. You can see the letter and if you don't think it's of any interest, give me it back with a tenner for my trouble and we'll forget the whole thing.'

  It was an offer hard to refuse, though his heart sank at the bill of expenses he was going to present Dalziel with.

  He said, 'I'll need chapter and verse. What I mean is, I want to know the lot, how you got hold of it, everything you know about the circumstances surrounding it.'

  She thought, nodded.

  'Deal,' she said.

  'Right,' he said. 'For a start, this visitor Kohler had. What was his name?'

  'Not his. Her,' she said.

  Her?'

  'That's right. Her name was Marsh. Mavis Marsh.'

  FIVE

  'We all have our various ways of gaining a livelihood.

  Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have

  dry ways.'

  For her first twenty-four hours in New York Cissy Kohler had not left the apartment. Most of the time she lay on her bed, blowing skeins of smoke at the ceiling. Jay raised no objection. He spent most of the time on the telephone.

  The morning of the second day passed in much the same way except that this time when she heard Jay's voice talking in the next room, she picked up the bedside phone, covered the mouthpiece and listened.

  'Look, I tell you, she hasn't written any memoirs, I've checked her stuff.'

  'Couldn't she have smuggled them out?' A man's voice, deep, almost growling.

  'Maybe. I doubt it. It's no problem. I know guys, give 'em a couple of facts and a week, can write stuff so authentic she won't know she didn't do it herself.'

  'OK. So long as we don't find something showing up somewher
e else. Exclusivity is what we put our money in. Feeling here is we want to go with this soon as we can. We've been getting a bit of pressure from some strong people, nothing we can't cope with yet, but the sooner we get this in the public domain, the better.'

  'Say anything too soon and you'll have wall-to-wall reporters. This has got to be private.'

  'So why not take her round to the clinic now, get it over with before he snuffs it?'

  'I've told you, he'll go home to die, I know that for sure. She can get to Bellmain at home, but she wouldn't get past first base at the Allerdale. It's like the Pentagon. My way is best, believe me.'

  'When I stop believing you, you'll know. Believe me. Keep in touch.'

  She was lying on her back reading her Bible when Jay came in.

  He said flatly, 'You were listening.'

  'Yes.'

  'Shit. Listen, Cissy, I've got to talk to these guys like that.'

  'Who are they, Jay?'

  'Hesperides. It's a finance corporation. They back a lot of media enterprises. They've invested a lot of money in you. Cissy.'

  'Don't you mean they've invested a lot of money in you, Jay?'

  'I suppose. But I needed that money to get you out.'

  'So you made promises? And to Sempernel too? You're pretty free with promises, Jay. What about those you made to me?'

  'You'll get what I promised, Ciss. Listen, I'll be upfront with you, I owe these guys. They backed another project I set up, only it didn't work out. Now I've got to keep them sweet, or else . . .'

  'Or else they'll want their money back? Give it to them. Tell them we'll pay them off when I get my compensation.'

  'They don't just want their money back, Ciss. They want it back times a couple of million. And they're very concerned about their corporate image. By which I mean they think that anyone who jerks them around and stays healthy is a bad advertisement.'

  She thought about this, then shook her head.

  'I'm sorry, but I don't see there's anything I can do. I don't even know yet if I'm grateful to you. Most of the time I doubt it. After you've done what you promised, maybe I'll have room in my mind to think things through. Meanwhile, don't let these people near me, for I won't lie. The best I can give is silence.'

  'That's all I want,' he said, smiling. Their gazes locked for a moment, then he pulled back his focus to take in the whole of her face.

  'Cissy, you look terrible!' he said. 'You mustn't stay stuck in here all the time. We've got to get you out in the fresh air.'

  'In New York? Has some kind of miracle happened since I was last here?'

  'Come on,' he said.

  She didn't want to go but had no will to resist. The buildings loomed menacingly, the traffic and people rushed by in a torrent that threatened to sweep her away. It was a relief to reach the Park a couple of blocks to the east. They walked in silence for half an hour and then, because he'd observed how unsettling she found the streets, they took a cab home.

  The next morning they went out again, and again in the afternoon. She realized to her mild surprise that she was enjoying the Park. Here at least there'd been little change and from time to time some small thing, like a kid's kite bucking against the wind, or the World Series intensity of a softball game, would join the lacerated edges of her torn-apart life. Such healings were fragile as spans of snow across a dark and fathomless crevasse, but they brought a life and colour to her cheeks which, though quickly fading, did not completely fade.

  At breakfast on the fourth day. Jay announced he had to go out and might not be back in time for their morning walk.

  'So I'll go by myself,' she said.

  He looked at her assessingly, then smiled.

  ‘Why not?'

  She watched from the window till he emerged five storeys below and climbed into the driving seat of the blue Lincoln which had been waiting for him at the airport. His backers obviously liked to keep up appearances at both ends of a bargain.

  The Lincoln pulled away. She turned and picked up the first volume of the telephone directory and looked up the Allerdale Clinic. It was on East 68th, between Madison and Park. She looked out at the grey skies, put on her raincoat and went to the elevator.

  She'd chosen right. Rain was already pocking the sidewalk. A cab came by, hesitating before going on to pull up in front of the next building. While she debated whether to pursue it, another pulled in before her and a young black woman got out. Two cabs in New York on a wet morning! It had to be a good omen. She climbed in.

  East 68th Street was a narrow canyon of big handsome houses.

  The Clinic was so discreet she hardly knew it was there even when she was dropped right in front of it. She entered what could have been the vestibule of a very expensive, very old money apartment house. Jay had said a quiet life came expensive these days. Obviously a quiet death didn't come cheap either.

  An elegant receptionist looked up from a computer keyboard and asked if she could be of assistance.

  'I'd like to see one of your patients,' said Cissy. 'Mr Bellmain.'

  The girl touched a couple of keys and said, 'Your name

  is . . . ?'

  'Waggs,' said Cissy. 'Mrs Waggs.'

  'Thank you. Would you take a seat?'

  She sat down, riffled the pages of a glossy magazine unseeingly. The girl murmured into a phone. A door opened and a woman came towards her. She was middle-aged, dressed in a smart black business suit. She said, 'Mrs Waggs? I'm Ms Amalfi, the Clinic's Executive Officer. How may we help you?'

  'I'd like to see Mr Bellmain. I'm an old friend. I was in the area so I thought, why not call?'

  'I understand. Unfortunately we have strict rules at the Allerdale, Mrs Waggs. In the interests of our patients, visitors are restricted to a list prepared by the family. I'm sure if you are an old friend you'll have no difficulty getting your name added to the Bellmain list.'

  'Yes, of course, but as I'm here anyway . . .'

  'I'm sorry,' said Ms Amalfi, standing to one side so that Cissy could rise. There was no contact but she felt herself drawn up and urged out. She was long accustomed to obedience to people with such authority. Only once during those slow years had she lost the control which let them keep theirs. Only once, and a woman had lain there dead.

  The rain had slackened off, though the lowering sky promised only a temporary relief. She set off walking without any attempt to choose a direction. When a cab came towards her after four blocks, she hailed it, meaning to direct it back to the apartment. But she found she wasn't ready yet to step back into that particular cell and instead said, 'Macy's.'

  'You always walk away from where you're heading?' inquired the driver.

  'If I can manage it,' she said.

  Her acquaintance with New York was restricted to half a dozen shortish visits with the Westropps, but Macy's was what she remembered best. For a while as she stepped once more into that world of hustling, bustling, commercial colour, she felt the years between slip away. But soon she began to feel fatigued and confused. Finally she took refuge in the coffee shop, sat down thankfully and rolled a cigarette. She didn't have time to inhale before two women on the next table told her she was in a non- smoking zone. It wasn't done with any of the diffident politeness she'd have expected thirty years ago, but with a mordant savagery, as though she were committing an act of public indecency.

  She dunked her cigarette in her coffee and left.

  Outside the rain was now bouncing off the tarmac and suddenly cabs were rarer than unicorns. She started walking up Broadway, old memory struggling against new panic. There had been changes here, new buildings for old, old vices dressed up as new. She struggled to keep her observation at an assessing, objective level, but darkness kept washing in on the flurries of rain turning the Great White Way into a tunnel of night along which the untimely car headlamps smeared light like the spoor of snails.

  She tried a trick she had learnt in prison. When you can't fight your fears any more, run with them, steering them
into ever more gothic regions of your subconscious till finally you tumble over into such grotesqueries that even blind panic has to pause and smile.

  She was Snow White in the storm, she told herself, with malicious laughter screeching from the foul black air, skeletal arms stretching to trip her, evil eyes watching for her to stumble. But beneath it all she sought the assurance that it was only the harmless owl gliding through the storm-tossed trees under which sheltered a myriad tiny creatures, all as frightened as she.

  It might have worked in a forest. But here were no trees, only concrete and glass, and the bright-eyed creatures sheltering in these doorways looked far from harmless.