Under World

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, May, but it’s Stella, Stella Mycroft, Stella Gibson as was.’

  ‘I know who Stella Gibson married, Arthur,’ said May Farr in a rather exasperated tone. ‘What’s she want?’

  ‘I just wanted to find out how Colin was,’ said Stella, pushing past Downey into the room and looking at Ellie with undisguised curiosity.

  What she saw, Ellie did not care to speculate. Seeing ourselves as others see us might be a desideratum of general social philosophy but it didn’t apply when the other in question was in her early twenties, with an exquisite sensuous figure, silver-blonde hair and a face whose small features had a delicate beauty which not even a heavy hand with the make-up could disguise.

  ‘Does Gavin know you’re here?’ asked Mrs Farr sharply.

  The girl shrugged. Even that was a sensuous movement.

  ‘I don’t have to get permission to ask after an old friend,’ she said. ‘Any road, he’ll be as keen to know what’s going off as everyone else.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t doubt they’re all taking a lively interest,’ said the older woman bitterly. ‘Well, they’ll have to be disappointed, I know as little as they do and a damn sight less than they can make up!’

  ‘Is he still in hospital?’

  ‘Yes, but they say he’s OK, thank God. Stella, they say your Gavin saw Colin on his way out of the pit. What’s he say happened?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Stella. ‘What’s Arthur think? He was down there too?’

  ‘Oh, Arthur,’ said May as if Downey weren’t there. ‘He’d not say owt he thought might upset me. But I always got straight talk from you when you were going with our Colin. At least I thought I did.’

  So that was it, thought Ellie. An old flame. Perhaps not wholly extinguished either. She examined her feelings, recognized jealousy, and realized with perhaps more concern how little surprised or dismayed she was by the recognition.

  ‘Folk are saying that Col hated Harold’s guts,’ said Stella, watching Ellie though she addressed her words to May. ‘They’re saying that he’s always had a wild streak and that it’d not surprise them if it turned out he’d put paid to the bastard like he threatened often enough. That’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘I asked for it straight,’ said May Farr with a humourless smile. ‘Do these folk say why Colin should have hated Harold Satterthwaite?’

  Stella Mycroft hesitated, then said, ‘Them things some folk hinted about Colin’s dad and the Pedley kid, Harold Satterthwaite were the worst of all, he really believed them.’

  ‘Nay, Stella, no need to bring all that up,’ protested Downey indignantly. ‘Not now. Aren’t things bad enough?’

  ‘It’s all right, Arthur,’ said May Farr. ‘No other reason you can think of, Stella?’

  ‘What other reason would Col need?’ said the younger woman. ‘You should know best how he felt about his dad?’

  It was like watching a No play, thought Ellie. You could sense the drama without really understanding it. Certainly there was little love lost between these women. Did the elder resent the younger for having thrown her son over? Or the younger blame the elder for making him unmarriageable?

  ‘Aye, I should,’ said May Farr. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, I mustn’t stay,’ began Stella, but the other woman was already out of the room. Arthur Downey looked reproachfully at Stella and said, ‘Can’t you watch what you’re saying?’ before he too left.

  ‘Silly sod,’ said Stella. ‘Hangs around here like a toothless guard dog!’

  ‘Are they …?’ said Ellie.

  ‘He’d like to, I reckon, but he’s not exactly Action Man, our Arthur. No, I reckon May would have to start anything if anything were going to start. One thing’s certain: Arthur’s not spent a night in this house since Billy died else the local CIA would have had it all on tape!’

  ‘So Mr Downey lives by himself?’

  ‘He lodges with his sister and her husband in the next street. He and Billy were big mates, at least Arthur used to tag along behind Billy like a dog. Then Arthur got made up to deputy. Well, that didn’t help. They’re funny about deputies, this lot, I should know. And not long after, Billy Farr had his accident and had to take a job on the bank. Arthur and him got back to being a bit closer after that maybe, but not much. Billy didn’t seem to want to know, really. There was a lot of people reckoned he turned right unsociable after his accident but I always thought he were a lovely man. I was engaged to Col, and while he was away at sea, I used to come round here a lot and we’d look at Col’s cards and work out where he was, and Billy used to make a great fuss of me. Me and little Tracey. I always reckoned he’d have liked a daughter of his own.’

  ‘Tracey was the child who disappeared?’

  ‘That’s right. You’d know all about that. After that Billy really was unsociable. I don’t think I got a kind word out of him from that day on. Nor her either. You’d have thought … any road, I thought it’d be different when Col came back, and it was, or mebbe it was the same. We dragged on a bit, but it ended with me giving him his ring back. We were standing on the bridge over the mineral railway. A train went under and I remember he just dropped the ring over into a wagon full of coal. He were always half mad.’

  That’s my boy, thought Ellie. Ever the symbolist. But never my boy, nor this woman’s either, though clearly she still felt some claim.

  Another part of her mind had been trying to work out why Stella Mycroft was being so frank with a total stranger. Native Yorkshire tactics were usually to ferret out other people’s business and keep quiet about your own. But two things dawned on her.

  One was that Stella didn’t need to be nosey because by now the local CIA would have programmed everything they could find out about Mrs E. Pascoe into the central computer. The other was that this gratuitous stream of reminiscence was not aimed at bringing her into the life of Burrthorpe but excluding her from it. Look, Stella Mycroft was saying; see how much closer we can be to each other even in our hates and quarrels than you can ever hope to be even in your affections. See how my life has been entwined with Colin’s long before you ever set your strange and stranger’s eye upon him. Understand that all these odd things that go on in this village have everything to do even with the least important of us who live here and nothing at all to do with an incomer like yourself!

  It was a formidable attack, no less destructive because it came from the flank, and probably from the hip. Stella hadn’t come round to this house where she was clearly unwelcome to see her ‘rival’ off. She’d come to find out about Colin.

  Typically, Ellie counter-attacked.

  ‘You got bored with waiting for Col to make up his mind, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Stella, unperturbed. ‘I’m a good waiter. But I’m not an Arthur Downey. I won’t dance around and look ridiculous. I should have known when Col left in the first place how little I figured in his decisions. But I gave him the benefit and waited. Oh, I didn’t languish but inside I was waiting. But when he finally came back and I realized that had nowt to do with me either, I said, Sod it! and six months later I married Gavin. Rebound? Mebbe. But you do rebound off a stone wall, don’t you, Mrs Pascoe?’

  ‘I see you know my name, Stella,’ said Ellie in her best garden-party voice. She felt she was losing on points and needed a space to review tactics.

  ‘Everyone round here knows your name and your husband’s name and number too by now,’ said Stella viciously, as if suddenly tired of this game. ‘And most on ’em can’t understand why you don’t just bugger off out of it and leave us to look after our own affairs!’

  ‘I’ll go when I know whether or not Colin killed that man,’ said Ellie spiritedly. ‘You’ve told me what “folk” are saying. What do you say?’

  The answer she got was totally unexpected.

  ‘Of course, he bloody killed him!’ exploded Stella. ‘You may not have known Colin long, but long enough surely to know that one day sooner or later he
was bound to kill someone. It’s there inside him, have you never felt it? Mebbe it’s in his blood, I don’t know. But he was bound to kill someone some day, and now it’s happened and his only hope is that your man and the other pigs will be too thick to pin it on him. They got so used to fitting up lads who’d done nowt during the Strike, that mebbe they’ve forgotten how to deal with someone who’s so obviously guilty!’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ demanded Ellie. ‘I thought you were supposed to be his friend.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Stella Mycroft, regarding her with an expression of mocking triumph. ‘I’m his friend. And you run to your friends before you run to your teachers. It was me he rang up first last night, me! That’s how I know he’s guilty. Because he bloody well told me so!’

  From the doorway there came a crash. Ellie turned. May Farr stood there, her face grey as morning, at her feet the shards of a china cup lying in a pool of amber tea.

  Chapter 12

  Neville Watmough looked drawn and strained, but it was when he greeted Pascoe like an old friend that the detective knew the man was in trouble.

  ‘Peter, come in, how are you?’ The use of his first name was a giveaway in itself. The ex-DCC had never felt able to go beyond the formal courtesy of ‘Mr Pascoe’ in office.

  ‘Let’s go into the study, shall we? What about a drink?’

  Pascoe couldn’t hold back a glance at the mantelshelf where the presentation clock showed it was only twenty to eleven.

  ‘Too early?’ laughed Watmough. ‘Time has less significance when you’re retired. Coffee, then?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Pascoe, distrusting all this cosiness.

  ‘Well, sit down anyway. How’s everything back at the works? I must drop in some time soon and have a chat before everyone forgets who I am.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ said Pascoe, only conscious of the sarcastic vibrations as he finished the sentence.

  ‘I should explain,’ he went on quickly, ‘that I’m here on duty.’

  ‘Not a social call, then?’ said Watmough, not sounding very surprised.

  ‘No, sir. The point is this. You probably heard on the news about this killing at Burrthorpe Main Colliery last night?’

  ‘Yes. And that you had a man helping with inquiries.’

  ‘That covers a multitude of possibilities as you know, sir. The thing is, there’s a chance that there might be a tie-up here with the Tracey Pedley disappearance.’

  ‘Yes, but that … ah.’

  Watmough fell silent. It must be hard, after so long responding to any mention of Tracey Pedley with the confident assertion that she was almost certainly one of Donald Pickford’s victims, to admit now that the case was still open. Even when you yourself were responsible for undermining your own theory. Or at least publicly responsible.

  Pascoe said, ‘Incidentally, sir, when did you realize that it was almost impossible for Pickford to have abducted the Pedley girl?’

  Watmough said, ‘Not while I was still in the Force, if that’s what you’re thinking. What are they saying down there? That when I realized Pickford actually had made his call that afternoon I hushed it up for fear of looking silly?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Pascoe. ‘No one would believe you’d ever shirk your duty.’

  Watmough looked taken aback at this assurance.

  ‘No, of course not. I’m glad to hear it. Look, are you sure you won’t have that drink? Sorry, you’re on duty, aren’t you? Well, I’m not any more, so if you don’t mind …’

  He went to a bureau and took out a bottle and a glass. It was scotch, Pascoe was interested to note, not the goat-piss sherry for which he was justly infamous. And he didn’t have to remove the stopper.

  He poured himself a modest measure and returned to his chair.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t till I started on my articles that I realized that Pickford wouldn’t have had the time to … no, that sounds as if I had a sudden inspiration, like Sherlock Holmes, doesn’t it? It wasn’t me at all. It was Monty Boyle who got on to it. He’s very impressive in his own way. Very professional.’

  ‘Very elusive,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of him for a couple of days. Of course, his office would cover for him if he didn’t want to see me. But when I rang this morning I got the impression they genuinely didn’t know where he was …’

  He looked at Watmough hopefully.

  ‘Sorry. Can’t help. I haven’t seen or heard from him since our last so-called creative session last week.’

  ‘No? Tell me, sir, how does it work, this partnership? Boyle updates your stuff with his own research, then knocks it all into Challenger shape?’

  ‘More or less,’ said Watmough without enthusiasm. ‘It was fun at first. Boyle and I got on well. I’d go over my notes with him, then we’d sit and have a drink and chat about old times. He had a tape-recorder so he wouldn’t miss anything. He’d obviously done a lot of background research before ever I signed up with the Challenger. Almost as if they knew … never mind … but he was thorough. I’ll give him that. A damn sight more thorough than your precious Sergeant Wield had been.’

  He glared at Pascoe accusingly.

  ‘He carried out his instructions to the letter,’ said Pascoe carefully.

  ‘Very loyal of you, Peter. There’s a lot of loyalty in Mid-Yorks CID. Perhaps a bit too much on occasion.’

  ‘And what occasion would that be, sir?’

  ‘Nothing. I speak generally. Perhaps bitterly. I’m sorry. But when Boyle told me that Pickford had kept his appointment on the Avro Estate, I felt stupid. I’d been so definite about him being responsible for the Burrthorpe girl’s disappearance. Boyle said it didn’t matter. The Pickford case would still be presented as my personal triumph. But here we had yet another unsolved case and it was our duty to let the public know. I still wasn’t happy. I said that new evidence should be handed over to the police at once. I saw Ogilby. He said the evidence would be handed over simultaneously with its publication in the Challenger. That was to be this coming Sunday.’

  ‘Was to be?’

  ‘Things may have changed with last night’s news,’ said Watmough.

  Pascoe said, ‘These allegations that there was some kind of vigilante group in Burrthorpe after the girl disappeared, how much truth is there in them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who’s making them?’ said Watmough.

  Pascoe was taken aback by this superficially disingenuous answer. Was Watmough trying to force from him an admission that he knew the content of the next article? If so, he could have it!

  ‘You are, sir,’ he said. ‘In the Challenger next Sunday.’

  For a second Watmough looked blank. Then he smiled wanly and said, ‘This sounds like Dalziel.’ And then all trace of the smile faded and he looked very old and tired.

  ‘You must think me a very foolish man, Inspector, not to know what’s appearing under my name in a Sunday paper,’ he said.

  ‘I assume they wouldn’t print anything with no grounds at all,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Grounds? If you call idle speculation, airy rumour, retailed over a glass of brandy after a lunch with Monty Boyle, grounds, then grounds there may be. It had never occurred to me that such things plus personal anecdote and even private animosity should provide the main colouring of my memoirs.’

  He stood up. It was an effort. Pascoe glanced at the clock. It was just gone eleven. The chimes had not been triggered, he noticed.

  ‘I have got one or two other things …’ he began.

  ‘I’m sure. Can we make it later? I’ve got a few things to take care of myself. I’m not being evasive, I assure you. I will be delighted to cooperate fully in helping with your inquiries.’

  The wan smile returned as he uttered the ritual phrase.

  Pascoe let himself be ushered to the door. Dalziel wouldn’t like it, but for once he’d have to lump it.

  ‘Are you just helping out with South�
��s investigation again?’ asked Watmough at the door.

  ‘Rather more than that, sir.’ Pascoe explained the position.

  ‘So Mr Dalziel is in charge? Well, well. He’s by way of being a friend of yours, I believe?’

  He couldn’t keep the note of interrogation, or perhaps rather of incredulity, out of his voice.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Pascoe simply, not having the two or three hours necessary for an in-depth analysis of the relationship.

  ‘Well, a man must be allowed to make his own friends,’ said Watmough. ‘As long as he is careful to make his own enemies too.’

  How wise, thought Pascoe. If I found that in a Christmas cracker, I’d ask for my money back!

  That was a Dalziel type joke, he realized even as it popped into his mind.

  And he realized then what Watmough was saying to him.

  Chapter 13

  ‘This your missus?’ said Detective-Superintendent Dalziel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gavin Mycroft.

  ‘Bonny lass,’ said Dalziel, putting the wedding photograph down. ‘Suits white. Nice room this, Mr Mycroft. Nice things. Someone’s got taste.’

  ‘We don’t all keep coal in the bath,’ said Mycroft.

  His dark good-looking face was watchful, almost sullenly so. He was, Dalziel guessed, about thirty. He had already been interviewed about his encounter with Colin Farr in the pit the previous day. Dalziel had a copy of his statement in his hand.

  ‘Load of rubbish,’ he said, waving it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A lot of the coal we get nowadays. Now, I can remember when I were a lad, a couple of bags of Shillbottle would keep you going nicely for a week in winter, burning hot and steady all the time and going down to nowt more than a fine brown ash. No clinker, or if there were, you’d put it in a box and ask the coalie next time he came if he’d changed his trade and gone into selling hardcore for road-making! Why is it things have got so bad, Mr Mycroft?’

  ‘I don’t know. Seems all right to me.’