'Jesus wept,' murmured Dalziel. Tommy Partridge, now the Right Honourable Thomas Partridge, MP, Minister of State in the Home Office, then the twelve-year-old son and heir of Thomas Partridge Senior, MP, Minister of State in the War Office. Had Kohler told her story then to anyone? Certainly not to Tallantire. Wally was a bastard when it came to harming kids. Little Emily Westropp's death had removed any sympathy he might have had for Kohler. But if she'd told him about Marsh, he'd have jumped on the Scots nanny from such a height, she'd have made a new tartan.
He read haltingly on.
I sat on my bed in a daze, I don't know how long. It was the stable clock starting to strike midnight that roused me. Had to talk to someone. Ran down side stairs to guest floor. Don't know why but it seemed important I got there while chimes still sounding. Turned corner by gunroom as last stroke rang out. The door opened and Mick appeared. Looked terrible, clothes disarrayed, face shocked till he saw it was me. Thank God it's you, he said, something awful's happened. I tried to push by and he held me, but I could see her. Pam, covered with blood.
Someone took the seat next to him. He looked up in surprise and irritation. There was plenty of room in the carriage without squeezing alongside the broadest bum in transit. But his irritation turned to surprise and suspicion when he recognized the man next to him. Well-groomed now and smartly dressed in a grey business suit, he was still unmistakably the young hotel mugger who'd slipped so easily out of police custody.
Before he could speak, a hand tapped his shoulder and a familiar voice said, 'Hi, Andy. Running out on me, huh?'
He twisted round to see Linda Steele leaning over the seat behind him. At the same time he felt the Bible pulled from beneath his fingers and the young mugger was on his feet and moving swiftly away down the aisle. As Dalziel rose to give chase, Linda Steele slipped into the vacated seat and barred his passage with her lissom body.
'Why bother?' she asked. 'It's not worth it, believe me.'
He watched the grey suit vanish into the next coach, shrugged and subsided. It was, in any case, picky work, translating those dots, and he didn't much like what he'd been reading either.
'Next time I get yon bugger within reach, I'll break bones first and ask questions after,' he said, subsiding. 'So you're a funny bugger too. Never slept with one of them before, not as I know of. If you were taking pictures, will you send me a set of prints?'
She laughed joyously, then became serious and said, 'Andy, I don't sleep around with anyone. It's not in my job description. I really took a shine to you.'
'Don't worry about bruising my ego, luv,' he said. 'Nowt wrong with mixing business and pleasure. I doubt if there's been a fuck since the world began that hasn't been paid for eventually, one way or another.'
She studied his face so closely he felt her warm breath.
'I have hurt you, haven't I?'
'I can thole a lot of that kind of pain,' he said, if anything, I'm relieved I can't be accused of bedding a reporter. That'd really knacker my reputation back home.'
'I'm sorry to disappoint you, Andy, but I really am a journalist. I just happen to be working for the government too.'
'Oh, it's the government, is it? They're the buggers who're sending people to rob me? Threaten me? Search my luggage? I thought that was why folk came to America, so's they could get away from places where officials robbed and threatened them?'
‘I don't follow. Who's threatened you?'
'Your young mate back there, he was the guy who came into my room with a gun, or didn't you know that?'
'No. Truly. He's just a guy I was told to work with.'
She looked genuinely perturbed but Dalziel reminded himself that they probably wouldn't be talking like this if she hadn't spotted him with Dave Thatcher on the platform and guessed her cover was blown.
'So what are you doing, luv? Just following orders?' he said.
'That's right. But don't worry, Andy. If anyone starts telling me to push people into a gas chamber, I'll tell them to take a hike.'
'Glad to hear it. And next time you're in England and someone robs you in broad daylight on a train, you be sure to give me a ring. Better still, call round in person and we'll continue this full, frank and fearless discussion over a hot mattress mebbe.'
She said very seriously, 'I'll remember that, Andy. Believe me, I'm new to this kind of work and there are a lot of things about it I question.'
'Glad to hear it,' he said again. 'And here's another question you might like to bend your mind to. Where exactly do I send my expenses claim to?'
For a second she looked blank, then she laughed again, joyously, toothily.
'I really do love you, Andy. You take care of yourself, hear?'
Still laughing, she flowed away down the aisle.
Dalziel watched her go. Funny thing about these Yanks, he thought. They took you serious when you were joking and they fell about laughing when you were dead serious.
Sighing at the problems of foreign travel, he made his way to the buffet.
The rest of the journey passed swiftly, punctuated by large sandwiches and long drinks. They passed through Washington and he thought he glimpsed the mugger on the platform. He also thought he glimpsed the Capitol but it might just have been someone's summerhouse.
From time to time he thought about the passage he'd translated from Kohler's memoirs. He tried to make sense of it but didn't like some of the sense he was making. Marsh ending up being kept in comfort by the man whose son she had abused . . . Well, he could fit that into the scheme of things easy enough. But Kohler running into Mickledore by accident after the killing. Kohler guilty of nothing more than helping him cover up the crime . . .
Perhaps the real question was how much reliance he could place on the ciphered ramblings of an incarcerated woman desperately trying to reassemble the scattered jigsaw of her life? He liked that. Scattered jigsaw. Sort of thing the boy Pascoe might say. Where the fuck had he been last night? He felt the need stronger than ever to speak to someone whose mind he knew, who knew his own mind, who'd laugh at his jokes or at least recognize when he was joking.
He fell asleep and was awoken by a hand squeezing his shoulder and the conductor's voice saying, 'Time to pretty up, sir. Next stop, Williamsburg.'
Still yawning on the platform, Dalziel reached up and shook the man's hand.
'Bye-bye, Blackbird,' he said.
'Now I got you!' exclaimed the conductor, ‘It's been an honour to have you aboard, Mr Greenstreet. You keep chasing that falcon, you hear?'
Laughing, Dalziel turned away. The temperature was a pleasant change after the damp chilliness of New York. It was like a balmy English summer evening. And the pleasant surprises continued with his taxi-driver. Taciturn but courteous, he drove with a painstaking attention to legality and safety that won Dalziel's heart and a large tip which he examined doubtfully.
‘It's all right, friend,' said Dalziel. 'I've been saving it up.'
At the hotel he was processed with friendly efficiency. Quickly unpacked, he consulted his corporeal needs and decided what he'd like best after the long journey was to stretch his legs and inhale some fresh air. Always suspicious of any urge to exercise for its own sake, he thought he might combine it with a recce and asked the desk clerk for directions to Golden Grove.
The man was impressed. 'Nice address,' he said.
'Yes, I know, it's in the historic area,' said Dalziel impatiently. 'Can I walk there?'
'Reckon you'll have to,' said the man, glancing at his watch.
The force of this remark didn't strike Dalziel till, after crossing a busy main road, he realized that ahead of him the buzz of traffic and the glare of street lights had vanished. Even more disturbing was the absence of tarmac from the road. There was lighting of a kind, but it was very dim. He began to wonder if he'd gone wrong. He knew from the movies what an American high-class neighbourhood looked like - a sort of cross between Ilkley and Babylon - and this didn't begin to fit the bill. He drew some r
eassurance from the sight of other people strolling around and he accelerated to overtake a couple.
'Excuse me,' he said.
They turned and he ceased to be reassured. The woman was wearing a long muslin dress and a mob cap, while the bearded man was dressed in knee-britches and a leather tunic. They smiled at him with the instant effulgence of doorstep evangelists, and the man said, 'How can we help you, stranger? I'm Caleb Fellowes and this is my wife, Mistress Edwina.'
Dalziel took a step back. America, he knew from his reading of the British tabloids, was full of way-out religions and he was not about to be kidnapped by the loonies or moonies or whatever they called themselves.
'Nay, it's all right, I can find me own way,' he said.
'Are you come late from England, sir?' inquired the woman. 'What news of the tea tax? How fares King George?'
'Dead,' said Dalziel. 'But his missus is still going strong.'
They looked at him blankly, then burst into laughter, which was a lot more reassuring than their welcoming smiles.
Fellowes said, 'What is it you're looking for, friend?'
'Place called Golden Grove,' said Dalziel, still uncertain.
'The Bellmain house? We're going that way. Why not walk along with us?'
He sounded so normal that Dalziel began to seek explanations other than religious nuttiness for the fancy dress.
'You going to a party?' he wondered. 'Or is it a film, mebbe?'
'You really don't know? No wonder you looked like you'd seen a ghost. You're in Colonial Williamsburg, friend, where everything's like it was two hundred years ago, round the time of the Declaration of Independence.'
'Does that mean I can get drunk for sixpence?' asked Dalziel.
'Hell no, more's the pity,' said Fellowes, drawing an indignant snort from his wife.
'And you actually live here?'
'My family's lived here almost as long as there's been a here,' said Fellowes proudly.
'How about the Bellmains?'
'The same, only they made more money. They had a big plantation down by the James River. Golden Grove it was called, which is how the house got its name. Golden Grove tobacco used to be one of the very best.' He spoke with the nostalgia of a recent apostate.
'Plantation? Like with slaves and all that?'
'Surely. 'Bout the same time as back in England they were still shoving five-year-old boys up chimneys to clean them.'
'Still do where I come from,' said Dalziel. 'A lot of these Bellmains, are there?'
'Nope. There's only Marilou left. And her kids, of course, but they're English and I guess they've got their father's name.'
'But there's a Mr Bellmain, isn't there?'
'Her second husband. From the sound of it, he ain't going to be around much longer.'
'Call' said his wife reprovingly.
'Local custom, is it? Man taking the wife's name?' asked Dalziel.
'No. Could be she felt she didn't have much luck first time she changed it, so this time round she felt she'd keep a hold of it.'
'Mebbe,' said Dalziel. 'Does she have to wear fancy dress too?'
'No,' said the man, smiling. 'She doesn't work for the Foundation, but naturally the house has got to fit in. That's Golden Grove there.'
It was larger and set further back than most of the others, constructed of warm red brick and framed by trees. A solitary upstairs light shone behind a curtained window.
'You planning to call now?' asked Fellowes.
'No,' said Dalziel. Til leave it till morning. It's a bit late. Good night. And thanks for your help.'
He walked away. It was a lie, of course. In his game, it didn't matter whether you called early or late as long as you were unexpected.
The truth was that for the first time, or mebbe the second, he didn't fancy the truth. What he did fancy was street lights and traffic, even New York style. He'd had his fill of the past. These eighteenth-century streets with their absence of any noise but a burst of frenetic fiddle- playing from a wooden tavern were far more disturbing than the darkest alleys of home.
Ahead the lights of cars passing along the boundary road signalled the return of the twentieth century. Behind . . . He glanced back and shuddered. It was like looking down the throat of Old Time. It was a dangerous business disturbing the past. That dark shape moving sideways at his glance to merge into the shadows, illusion? ghost? or a living presence watching in the night?
There was a time when he would have gone to find out.
Not tonight. Tomorrow would do. Tomorrow was another day. Who'd said that? Some tart in a movie. He remembered thinking it were a pretty daft thing to say and if some sod got paid cash for writing it, he should give up bobbying and sell his notebook to Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Now it made sense. He began to walk even faster towards his hotel.
Towards tomorrow.
ELEVEN
'For as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in
the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning.'
Sergeant Wield said, 'You want your head looked.'
Pascoe was taken aback. It had bothered him from the start, keeping Wield in the dark, even with the argument that it was for his own good. Now that all his cards were on Trimble's table, he saw no reason not to bring the Sergeant up to date. While he hadn't expected fulsome thanks, he'd anticipated at least a gratified neutrality.
'Why so?' he said defensively. 'Look, OK, perhaps I was silly to let Andy involve me in sneaking around. But now it's all in the open, there can be a real investigation without having to worry that maybe someone's trying to fix the results.'
'I reckon you were better off sneaking,' said Wield grimly. 'Where've you been? It's not just results that get fixed, it's people.'
This echoed his own earlier fears too closely to be comfortable.
'Openness is our best protection,' he proclaimed.
'You've been pulling too many Christmas crackers,' said Wield. 'What I can't understand is why Fat Andy's got himself so het up. He knows the way things work.'
'Loyalty to Wally Tallantire,' said Pascoe. 'I explained all that.'
'So you did. Dalziel defending the dead. He'll be into table-rapping next.'
This echo of Pottle's speculation about the Fat Man's motive was disturbing. Was he naive in accepting simple loyalty to a dead colleague as sufficient?
Anyway, it no longer mattered. Did it?
He got down to some work.
About five in the afternoon, there was a tap at the door and Stubbs came in.
'Hi,' said Pascoe, smiling a welcome. 'We never got that drink.'
'No. Busy busy busy. You know how it is.'
'Any chance this evening? They'll be open in an hour.'
'Maybe.' Stubbs was examining his reflection in the glass of a Chagall print. 'Christ, this hard water plays hell with your hair.'
He had something on his mind. He'd get round to it sooner or later.
Pascoe said, 'You want the name of my barber?'
Stubbs turned his gaze on Pascoe's head, dropped it slowly to his chain store suit, and said, 'Know how old you are? Same age as me, only a fortnight in it. I punched up your record on the screen.'
'So?'
'So nothing. Maybe the older look's the way to get on round here.'
'You've got to be inconspicuous,' said Pascoe mildly.
'Like your boss? He wears a suit but he's about as inconspicuous as a rapist in a nunnery.'
To say whatever he wanted to say, he needed to provoke a reaction.
Pascoe said, 'How come you were looking at my record? That's supposed to be confidential.'
'Not once you started sticking your nose into our business.'
'Now hold on,' said Pascoe. 'All right, so I might have got out of line a bit, but that's all sorted between me and Mr Hiller now.'
'Sorted for you maybe,' said Stubbs. 'Listen, I can't stand people who fart and run. Couple of things you ought to get straight about Geoff Hiller. First is, he'
s dead straight. OK, he'd win no prizes in a charm school, though maybe he'd come out ahead of your Mr Dalziel. But he doesn't work to orders. He got picked for this job because anyone who knows him knows he wouldn't try to cover up police incompetence.'
'And if he found there was something more than police incompetence being covered up?'
'He wouldn't back off from that either,' said Stubbs. 'That's what I mean. You and your boss have gone creeping around behind Geoff's back. Now it's starting to look as if something really nasty might turn up, where are you? Safe in your pits while Geoff's out there in the open, taking the flak.'
Recalled to Life Page 27