Recalled to Life

by Reginald Hill

  Pascoe examined the walls.

  'Too heavy,' he suggested. 'You could slip the albums in a briefcase. Also, going through the albums would take an age whereas you could check these photos one by one very quickly to see if . . .'

  His words tailed off. He approached within six inches of the wall and moved slowly along it.

  'Have you ever thought of specs, Pete?' said Dekker.

  'I'm looking for . . . Here it is! Look, there's a pinhole here where a hook has been removed.'

  'So there's a pinhole. But there's no space where a picture's been removed, is there?'

  'Yes, there is! Look here. The photos on this row have been rearranged to hide the space, but the gaps between these three aren't quite right and, look, you can see a faint mark on the paintwork, there was a slightly longer photo here.'

  And as he reached this conclusion he remembered what it had been. Miss Marsh and a group of her young gentlemen at Beddington College. The photo she had singled out for his special attention as he left.

  He told Dekker, who said, 'Grasping at straws now, is it?'

  'Not straws,' said Pascoe, returning to the kitchen. 'But scones maybe. Look at that tray. How many scones would you say she baked? From the position of these two and the marks on the tray, I'd say at least six. One on her plate half-eaten. That leaves three to account for.'

  'So she had a good appetite.'

  'Maybe. Or maybe she sat down with her visitor, offered him a cup of tea . . . The teapot! Let's have a look.'

  Pascoe picked up the pot, removed the lid, fished inside.

  'Three teabags,' he said triumphantly. 'She made a full pot. And it's almost empty. She gave her visitor tea and scones!'

  'So what?'

  So what kind of man when his hostess has a heart attack, reacts by washing up his cup and his plate and sloping off with a briefcase full of photos? What he can't manage, of course, is to put the chain on behind him as Miss Marsh would certainly have done.'

  Dekker shook his head.

  Pete, I can think of a dozen simple explanations.'

  'Me too,' admitted Pascoe. 'All I'm asking is, dig deep on this one. Make sure the PM's a really searching, suspicious-circs job, not just a quick natural. For a start, ask 'em to check exactly how many scones she'd had. Tell 'em to count the currants.' He crumbled one of the remaining scones in his fingers. 'See. Six . . . seven . . . eight ... I bet she kept a steady average! Will you do that?'

  'Why not?' said Dekker. 'I've nowt but a couple of thousand better things to do. You'll be off home now to a hot supper? Lucky bugger!'

  Pascoe was able to smile, but his investigatory euphoria quickly faded as he drove east. He tried to revive it by stopping off at a nice little country pub he knew for a pint and a steak, but the last time he'd been here had been with Ellie, and he left both his meal and his drink half finished.

  It was still fairly early when he got home. There was no mail, nothing on his answer machine. He didn't give himself time for thought, fearful of where thought might lead him, but washed two sleeping tablets down with a tumblerful of whisky and went straight to bed.

  EIGHT

  '. . . you know there really is so much too much of you!'

  Dalziel awoke.

  He had a pain, not in his neck where he'd been struck, but more frighteningly in his chest.

  Was this it? The fat man's last farewell?

  He began to move cautiously, thought: Sod this for a lark; if I've got to go, let's get it over with! and pushed himself violently upright.

  The pain vanished. He looked down at the bed and saw the cause. Religion, always a pain in the arse, was also a pain in the chest. He had been lying on top of a Bible.

  Now his head began to ache. He looked at his watch. He'd been out for about fifteen minutes. All around were signs of hasty departure.

  He went into the living-room and was glad to discover they'd moved too quickly to take the booze. A three-inch gargle of bourbon made him sit down rather suddenly, but another inch and a half brought him back to life and his feet.

  He found a notepad by the telephone and started scribbling down everything he could recall of the half-heard conversation. Then he did a thorough search of the flat in case their haste had made them overlook something important.

  It hadn't, perhaps because they'd brought so little with them. The only personal relic was Kohler's Bible. He picked it up, opened it and read the inscription on the flyleaf.

  To Cecily. 'The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. From your loving mother. Christmas 1951.

  The Lord hadn't done such a great job so far, thought Dalziel as he riffled through the pages to make sure there was nothing interleaved. There wasn't. He tossed it back on the bed and made for the door.

  And stopped.

  He went back to the bed, picked up the Bible again and opened it at the first chapter of Genesis.

  He'd been right. There were marks on the page.

  At first it was an underlining of whole words God . . . void . . . darkness . . .face. . . waters . . . As if in despair the woman had started seeking divine comfort and found instead (it can't have been hard) some crazy cipher through which God sent his special condemnation. But gradually this underlining stopped to be replaced from Chapter 12 by small dots under individual letters.

  Now the Lord had saịd unto Abram, Get thee out of the country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I ẉịll ṣḥew thee: And Ị ẉill makẹ of thee a gṛẹat nation, ạnd I will blẹss thee, ạnḍ make thy name great; ạṇḍ thou shalt be a blessing: And I ẉịll bless ṭḥeṃ that bless thee, and curse hịm that çurseth thee: ạṇḍ in thẹe shall all faṃilies of the earth be blessed.

  I wish I were dead and with Mic and Em.

  She had moved from trying to get a divine message out to putting her own in.

  He flicked through the pages. The dots proliferated. By Samuel 1 they were appearing both under and over letters, and he worked out this meant she was no longer bound by strict sequence, but could move back and forward on the same line which was much more economical. By Ecclesiastes there was a system of annotation almost musical and he guessed that this form of writing had become as natural to her as typing to a trained secretary.

  It would take some deciphering, but he guessed that here were those memoirs, that journal of her life and thoughts, which the tabloid scavengers would give their best friends' balls to get their hands on. Waggs would probably kick his own if he knew what his panicky haste had made Kohler leave behind. And Kohler herself? How was she going to feel when it dawned on her what had happened?

  For the first time in twenty-seven years Dalziel felt almost sorry for the woman.

  He heard the apartment door open.

  This time he wasn't going to be caught unprepared. He moved silently behind the bedroom door. Footsteps approached cautiously. Paused. Then someone stepped into the room. The second the figure registered on his sight, he moved, launching himself in the kind of tackle which had once turned fleet-footed half-backs into stretcher cases. Fortunately time had slowed his impetus, and place offered a soft bed for landing on rather than a solid patch of earth. Even so, there was no strength for resistance left in the limp body crushed into the mattress beneath his bulk.

  Nevertheless he raised his hand threateningly, and at the same time recognized that not only the threat but the tackle itself had been unnecessary.

  Beneath him Linda Steele opened her eyes and gasped, OK, Dalziel. What the hell are you going to do? Rape me or preach me a sermon?'

  And he realized that his upraised hand was clutching Kohler's Bible.

  'How the hell did you get in here?' he demanded, slipping the book into his jacket pocket.

  'Power of the Press. I looked all over for you, finally came back here and the guy downstairs said someone that sounded like you had gone up with Kohler, then Waggs came back and not long after, the two of them left like they'd conju
red up the devil. Talking of whom, I realize now that you're just glad to see me, but could you be glad vertically for a while?'

  'Eh? Oh. Sorry.'

  He pushed himself off the bed. She'd not been altogether wrong, he realized. There had been a certain element of pleasure creeping into their contact and not the sort he'd ever experienced on a rugby field.

  Standing upright brought pain to join the pleasure. He put his hand to the back of his head and winced.

  'You OK?' said Linda Steele, sharp-eyed.

  'I will be. Someone slugged me. Waggs, I think.'

  'Jee-sus. How bad is it?' she said, touchingly solicitous. 'You need a doctor?'

  'Nay, lass. I've heard what them buggers charge over here. It is you who can provide all I need.'

  'What do you have in mind?' she asked uneasily.

  He smiled and said, 'Just look at the time. It's hours since you bought me breakfast and my belly thinks me throat's been cut!'

  Dalziel hadn't made his mind up how much to tell Linda Steele but his instinct advised very little. She was after all not only a woman but a journalist, neither of whose need-to-know ratings occupied much space in Dalziel's scheme of things. A woman's started at how to boil an egg, then got debatable. A journalist's stopped at how to breathe in.

  On the other hand, as well as giving him his only lead, she was picking up his expenses, which aroused his curiosity as much as his gratitude. There's no such thing as a free journalist.

  Also she was strangely attractive, even dentally speaking. He got a warm glow from the memory of their legs interlocking beneath the breakfast table.

  She took him to what she claimed was the best deli in town. They sat side by side, which limited opportunities for patellar interlock but was a great promoter of gluteal frottage.

  Interestingly she seemed happy to accept his sketchy account of how he'd spotted Kohler coming out of the apartment house, followed her round town for an hour or so, then accosted her when she was about to re-enter.

  'So you've no idea where they've bolted? Or why?' she said.

  'Wish I had,' he said. 'Don't bother with the menu, luv, I'll have some of that.'

  He pointed at a neighbour's overcrowded plate. But when the waitress came, he heard Steele order him a sandwich and scowled at her meanness, till a piled high plate was put before him.

  'This is a sandwich?' he asked in amazement.

  'Something wrong?' said Linda Steele.

  'Nay, lass. This looks like the best thing that's happened to me since I got here!'

  'That's hard to believe, Andy,' she said. 'I'd have thought a well-set-up guy like you would have struck lucky, no problem.'

  As she spoke she regarded him sultrily and ran her prehensile tongue round the Grand Prix circuit of her lips.

  Dalziel regarded her thoughtfully over a sheaf-sized forkful of corned beef. OK, so he had to admit he fancied her. But that didn't entitle her to jerk him around just because she felt safe in company. Time to get this thing on the table, so to speak.

  He forked another bale of beef to his lips and clamped his free hand round her upper thigh.

  'You lost something, Andy?' she asked.

  'I were just wondering what's for afters?'

  'Anything particular you fancy?'

  'We could go back to my hotel room and try room service,' he said.

  He thought that was pretty smooth. In Barnsley it would probably have won an award for smoothness. But this unsophisticated woman threw her head back and howled with laughter.

  'That's what they call it in England these days, is it? Well, why not? There must be worse ways of spending a wet afternoon.'

  Whatever her motive, she gave with unstinting hand and everything else. He was happy to find himself entirely free from jet-lag or whatever they called it. In fact the only trouble was that, as any demolition man knows, if you place a stick of ageing gelignite too close to a source of heat, it may explode spontaneously.

  'Come on, Dalziel!' she protested. 'You got another date or something?'

  'Thought that was how it were done over here,' he said with an uncharacteristic effort at insouciance 'Sort of American Express.'

  'Stick to what you know,' she advised. 'Meantime, I think we'd better take some time out. You got anything to drink?'

  They lay together drinking whisky and talking. She was almost as good as Dave Thatcher in the subtle art of casual interrogation, and he saw no reason not to tell her as much about his quest as he'd told the airport man. But still she probed his mind as her assessing fingers probed his body.

  Mebbe this was how all American journalists worked. In which case he was lucky he hadn't got those guys who shopped Nixon!

  Finally he tired of being quizzed, but he'd found out the hard way not to be rude to a lass who'd got her hand where Linda had hers, so he said, 'What about you, luv? You a native New Yorker?'

  'Do I sound like I am?' she asked almost indignantly.

  'Nay, you all sound alike to me," he said. 'There's differences, is there?'

  'You're joking? No, you're not joking! Well, let me tell you, I'm from Ohio. I came to the Big Apple about five years back to make my fortune. I'm still working at it.'

  'Could be your luck's turned today,' said Dalziel complacently. 'By the by, I've often wondered, what's all this Big Apple stuff? More like Big Anthill from what I've seen so far.'

  'Careful who you say that to, they're very sensitive, these New Yorkers,' warned Linda. 'I've heard all kinds of explanations. One I like best is that to you European folk, America was like those legendary islands way out west, you know, where the sun always shone and there were golden apples growing on the trees. New York being the first landfall for most people got the name, Big Apple.'

  'Oh aye, I remember summat of that at school. Weren't there some nymphs used to run around naked, guarding the apples?'

  'That's why you remember, is it?' she laughed. 'Yeah, I think you're right. And funny thing, now I come to think of it, you know what those guardian nymphs were called. The Hesperides. That's right. Like Jay Waggs's backers.'

  That's all right then. I were worried when I thought they might be a bunch of gangsters, but naked nymphs are right up my street.'

  'You say so? Well, let's see. But none of this American Express this time, Andy. Let's try for a bit of English reserve, huh?'

  He took a deep breath, thought of England, the Dunkirk spirit, once more unto the breach, rule Britannia . . .

  'Andy, they should use you to pay off the National Debt,' said Linda Steele. 'OK if I take a shower.'

  'Help yourself,' he said.

  He lay on the bed and listened to the water running. Then he rose quietly and went through her handbag. There was nothing of any interest except a journalist's card and more spare condoms than a nice girl ought to carry. Condoms made him think of Arthur 'Noddy' Stamper. Of William Stamper, crime writer and broadcaster. Of his voice on the Golden Age of Murder programme . . . my mother was ... a Bellmain of Virginia, no less ... Of the receptionist at the clinic . . . Mr Bellmain's on a fifteen-minute visit cycle.

  Kohler had gone to a clinic where a patient called Bellmain was being visited by Scott Rampling.

  It didn't make much sense. Normally he was a patient man. Everything made sense if you gave it time. Even perhaps life. But time in this mad scrambling place was a much scarcer commodity than it was back in Mid-Yorkshire. There, he had often mocked the boy Pascoe's tendency to go scampering round a case, dropping hypotheses like crap from a dysenteric duck, but he wouldn't have minded that muddying flow here and now. Perhaps he'd ring him later.

  Linda Steele came out of the shower, glowing darkly, like charcoal on a barbecue.

  Perhaps, thought Dalziel, I'll ring Pascoe much later.

  'I left the shower on for you,' she said. 'If you'd come in to rub my back, think of the water we'd have saved.'

  'Nay, lass. Likely we'd have been in there yet,' he said, reaching out. She slipped out of his grasp like a Welsh
fly half, got behind him and pushed him showerwards.

  'I gotta run,' she said. 'You've fucked up my schedule.'

  'That's what I'm here for,' he said. But he didn't resist too much. It would have been demeaning to find his eyes were greedier than his belly and besides, when you weren't sure what people wanted, best thing was to let 'em have their own way.

  He got into the shower, started carolling one of the rugby songs of his muddy youth, and after a while he lowered the volume and moved back to the door which was slightly ajar.

  Through the crack he saw Linda Steele bending over his suitcase. She was still naked and the view convinced him he needn't have worried about his appetite. Now she closed the case and picked up his jacket from the scatter of clothes about the floor. Christ, the Bible and the notes on Waggs's and Kohler's half-heard conversation were still in his pocket! He turned his head away and called, 'Hey, luv. Pour us a drink, will you? I hate being wet out and dry in.'