Under World

by Reginald Hill

  Leaning his bike against the high boundary fence, Wield walked through the gate. Another policeman emerged from the gatehouse and addressed him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Would you mind answering a couple of questions?’

  His tone was courteous and conciliatory. Perhaps this was his normal voice for addressing members of the public, but Wield guessed he’d been told to be especially careful to create no turbulence in the uneasy atmosphere of Burrthorpe.

  He showed his warrant card. The man examined it closely, clearly as doubtful as the pub landlady that anyone in riding leathers could be a policeman.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ he said finally. ‘But I thought you were one of the locals and I’ve been told to get the name and address of everyone who comes into this place today.’

  ‘What are those jokers doing?’ asked Wield.

  ‘They’re looking for Farr’s pit-black. It weren’t in his locker and they reckon he must have taken it out with him and dumped it.’

  ‘In the yard? Why not outside?’

  The man shrugged. ‘There’s a lot of outside,’ he said. ‘Any road, the gateman saw him ride off and says he definitely weren’t carrying anything bulky enough to be his pit clothing and boots.’

  ‘Oh aye? Same gateman on now?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You been here long? Did duty on the Strike?’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  ‘Then you should know how shortsighted some of these miners can get when they’re seeing their mates getting into bother.’

  ‘Oh aye. Right gang of crooks, most on ’em,’ said the policeman a touch ingratiatingly.

  ‘No,’ said Wield. ‘Just loyal to their mates. Like if your Mr Wishart asked you if them zombies out there had done a morning’s work, you’d likely say yes. Whereas me … well, they’re not my mates.’

  He left and went back to his bike which was parked by the fence outside. He bent down and plucked at the dandelions and docks which were growing from the stony earth under the fence. When he had got a substantial bouquet he thrust it down the front of his jerkin so that the yellow blooms showed clearly beneath his throat.

  ‘For I’m to be Queen of the May, mother. I’m to be Queen of the May,’ he murmured to himself with a flash of that self-mocking humour which all men need who are to walk near dark edges without tumbling off.

  Mounting his machine, he opened the throttle, swept through the pit gate, did a circuit of the yard and went out again. Pushing the flowers out of sight beneath his jerkin, he returned to the gatehouse.

  The constable looked at him uneasily.

  ‘See me then, did you?’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  ‘And you, sir. Did you see me?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the gateman who had appeared behind the policeman. ‘I’m not bloody blind.’

  ‘Describe me,’ said Wield.

  ‘Describe you?’ said the gateman. ‘Nay, mister, if I looked like you, I’d not go around asking people to describe me!’

  ‘Stick to the clothes and the bike.’

  The constable suddenly caught on and his face contracted with concentration as the gateman said, ‘Don’t be daft. It were just a moment since. You were just like you are now.’

  ‘What about you, lad?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sarge, but I can’t see any difference,’ admitted the man.

  Wield reached into his jerkin and pulled out the battered bouquet with a conjuror’s flourish and handed it to the bemused youngster.

  ‘These were sticking out of my jerkin,’ he said. ‘You see, lad, you don’t even have to be loyal to be blind.’

  He felt quite pleased with himself as he rode away. An hour later, having searched both sides of the hedgerows and fences bounding Farr’s likely route to the first pub, he felt a little less complacent. One remote channel of his mind had been running a video in which he quietly placed Farr’s pit-black on a table in the Burrthorpe incident room. But a detective’s life was more disappointment than triumph and in any case he knew quite well that even if he’d found the clothes, he’d have left them in situ till Forensic had taken a first look.

  At the station he asked for Dalziel but was told he wasn’t in and taken along to see Chief Inspector Wishart. They hadn’t met before and Wield noted the cold blankness of response to his uncompromisingly ugly features with which the courteous usually concealed their shock. But when Wishart examined the sergeant’s notes on his morning’s researches, he nodded appreciatively.

  ‘I’d heard you were a treasure, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Now I see what they meant.’

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ said Wield, who’d never been able fully to comprehend his seniors’ enthusiasm for the clarity and rationality of his notes and reports. What other way was there to do them? But dumping Farr’s bloodstained pit-boots on the table in front of the man, now that would really have been something!

  ‘You’ve mapped out possible alternative routes to the Pendragon, I see. But you haven’t been over them?’

  ‘I thought I’d better report, sir. I did notice, though, there was a couple of lads in the pit-yard who looked as if they might fancy a walk in the country.’

  ‘Oh? Why’d you not send them?’

  ‘They were your men, sir. South Yorks, I mean. And even though they’d be doing most of their looking on our patch …’

  The door opened and Pascoe came in.

  ‘Hallo, Wieldy,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Alex, if you’re busy …’

  ‘No, come in, Peter. I was just admiring the sergeant here. Not only a meticulous worker but a diplomat too. There can’t be many of them in Mid-Yorks!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Pascoe. ‘What’s he been doing?’

  Wishart glanced questioningly at Wield and Pascoe grinned and said, ‘There’s nothing you can tell the sergeant here about Mr Dalziel that he can’t cap from personal experience.’

  ‘Well, after suggesting to the Indian consultant treating Farr that he might hurry things along by a bit of ju-ju, he then contrived to provoke a near-riot in the middle of the village which he only managed to quell by declaring the Welfare Club bar open an hour early!’

  Pascoe and Wield exchanged glances.

  ‘Yes, Alex,’ said Pascoe innocently. ‘But what’s he done that strikes you as being over the top?’

  ‘I see. You’re all the bloody same!’ said Wishart. ‘Meantime, as the only way to get in touch with your – sorry, our – boss is to walk into the Welfare uninvited, which I am certainly not going to do and I don’t want anyone else doing, you’d better tell me what you’ve been up to, Peter.’

  Pascoe outlined his conversation with Watmough. It didn’t take long.

  ‘That’s it?’ said Wishart.

  ‘He’s promised to get back to me,’ said Pascoe defensively. ‘I think he needed a bit of space to get himself sorted.’

  ‘You’ll need a bit of space when your boss hears that report,’ forecast Wishart. ‘They say there’s a lot of it in Australia.’

  ‘Sounds to me that Monty Boyle’s the chap we really ought to be talking to,’ said Wield. ‘Any luck there?’

  ‘None,’ said Pascoe. ‘He’s like the Scarlet Pimpernel. First time I contacted his office I think they were just giving me the runaround. But this morning I got the impression they genuinely didn’t know where he was. Even asked me to give him a message if I stumbled across him!’

  ‘Sounds to me you two have lost track that it’s yesterday’s murder we’re investigating,’ said Wishart. ‘Historical research may go down big in the groves of Academe you lot work in, but down here life is real, life is earnest. Farr should be released from hospital tomorrow. That’s when we’ll start making progress, I think.’

  ‘Meanwhile he’s just helping with inquiries. When’s visiting? From what I heard last night, his friends and family aren’t going to take quietly to leaving him unsuccoured on his bed of pain.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. The Union brief’s been threatening me with the Court o
f Human Rights all morning. Not that that bothers me, but I don’t want another Burrthorpe riot, so I’ve agreed he can have a visit from his mother and other applications will be treated on their merits. Meaning if we think there’s a chance of our resident bobby overhearing anything interesting, we might let someone else in.’

  ‘You’re a cunning old Celt,’ laughed Pascoe. ‘Me, I’m just a simple soul who’s starving. Time for lunch, I think.’

  He and Wield headed for the door, but Wishart said, ‘A word in private, Peter,’ and Wield went ahead by himself.

  ‘It’s about your good lady …’

  ‘No problem,’ interrupted Pascoe. ‘She’s in the clear on the drinks charge. So all she is now is a witness who’s made a statement.’

  ‘I wish it were as simple as that, Peter,’ sighed the Scot. ‘Did you know she was at the hospital earlier this morning? No, I see you didn’t. She didn’t get to see Farr, of course, and she won’t be on my permitted visiting list either. But she did dig up some tame feminist lawyer, Ms Pritchard, you may know her? We had the pleasure of meeting her in court during the Strike. A strange choice of brief for macho Colin, I’d have thought. He seemed to think so too and told her to sod off. Which she did. Ellie unfortunately didn’t. According to my information she’s still in Burrthorpe. In fact she’s been in Farr’s mother’s house for most of the morning.’

  ‘She’s a free agent,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘That’s what Adam said about Eve,’ said Wishart caustically. ‘Look, Pete, once the Press get on to this, and the Powers That Promote get round to reading the Press, you could be in real bother. OK, I know that Big Andy loves you, but not even Mid-Yorks is a hereditary monarchy … no, don’t say anything you might regret. Just push off and get some lunch. Take your time. You look like a wet weekend in Largs.’

  Pascoe left, closing the door very gently behind him. Wield was waiting for him outside.

  ‘Everything OK?’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  It was an instinctive response, defensive, distancing. He’d always hidden doubts and sometimes pain beneath a cloak of confident control. As a graduate entrant to the police, he’d wrapped the cloak even tighter as a defence against sneers from above and mockery from alongside. And now it was a response that felt as if it had been printed in his genes.

  Wield said, ‘I don’t fancy owt round here. Why don’t we find a pub out of sight of a pit and pretend we’re commercial travellers?’

  ‘All right,’ said Pascoe. ‘Why not? My car’s round the back.’

  ‘My bike’s out front if you’re not fussy who you’re seen with your arms round.’

  It dawned on Pascoe that Wield was offering more than a lift.

  He was offering himself as a friend, a confidant.

  There had been a moment not long ago when Wield himself had needed an ear to pour his doubts into, a secure, compassionate and unjudgemental confessional, and Pascoe had proved sadly inadequate. To ignore his offer now, as he had ignored his need then, would be to fix their relationship for ever. Perhaps that was what he wanted. Perhaps that was what he had always wanted, relationships which were fixed, certain, and unchanging. Perhaps that was why he had joined the Force in the first place. To feel himself supported by a hierarchy which left little doubt where you were, and to devote himself to a job whose basic function was to preserve the sum of things by law.

  These thoughts came not singly but in a bubbling torrent, confused but not uncontrollable. Control would always be an option for Pascoe, until one day perhaps he controlled himself out of this life.

  That thought swam up through the maelstrom, sole and terrifying. Where the hell had it come from? No, don’t answer that, he thought.

  ‘Wieldy, I’ll be proud to be seen hanging on to you,’ he said. ‘Only I’m not going to eat any live chickens as we ride!’

  Chapter 15

  ‘Just get her out of here!’ screamed May Farr. ‘You little whore! It was a black day you ever got your claws into this family!’

  Stella Mycroft, overcome with remorse at the sight of Mrs Farr’s faintness, had tried to modify her claim to having heard Colin confess.

  ‘No, he didn’t actually say he’d done it, not in so many words, but he was right upset about something nasty that had happened down pit, that was clear, and I thought …’

  ‘When did you ever think about owt but your own gratification?’ Mrs Farr had demanded, beginning to recover. After that one thing led to another and Stella Mycroft’s remorse quickly evaporated under the heat of the older woman’s fury and soon she was giving as good as she got.

  ‘It’s not me who harmed your Colin,’ she yelled. ‘He were glad to be shut of me. He’d been harmed beyond repair years since, like poor old Billy. Mebbe if you’d been more of a proper wife and mother, Billy wouldn’t have gone wandering round the woods with other people’s kids and Colin wouldn’t be lying in that hospital now!’

  That’s when May Farr had started screaming abuse and looked ready to back it with physical attack till Arthur Downey put his arms round her and cried to Ellie, ‘For God’s sake get her out of here!’

  Stella took little persuading. At the front door she said to Ellie, ‘You’re seeing us at our best, aren’t you? You’ll have some grand tales to tell when you get back home.’

  ‘Mrs Mycroft, what was that all about? What’s this got to do with Mr Farr’s death? Did Colin confess to you or not?’

  ‘It’s well seeing you’re a copper’s wife,’ said Stella. ‘Nothing but questions. Well, they can ask till their faces are as blue as their uniforms, they’ll not get anything out of me.’

  Her tiny, beautiful face was set in an expression of defiance but the flawless blue eyes which locked with Ellie’s for a second were haunted by despair.

  ‘Mrs Mycroft, are you all right?’ asked Ellie. ‘Can I help …?’

  ‘Round here, you help your own,’ said Stella. ‘That’s mebbe the trouble.’

  She gazed out along the frowning terrace.

  ‘I thought it’d be better up on the estate,’ she said. ‘But it’s just the same. People thought I were upset when Colin went off to the Navy. Well, I were. Not that he’d gone, but that he’d not taken me with him. He never wanted me but for the usual. Once I realized that, it made things easier. But it still hurt.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Why should you, love? You’ve got to live it to understand it. I’m off. Good luck, missus. Once you get mixed up with the Farrs, you bloody need it!’

  She teetered away on her high heels, a perfect porcelain doll, but with steel beneath the glaze.

  Ellie went back in, expecting to find May Farr still in need of calming down. Instead the atmosphere had changed completely. She was on the telephone talking excitedly.

  ‘It’s the Union lawyer,’ explained Downey. ‘I think the police are going to let her see Colin.’

  ‘I should damn well think so,’ said Ellie. She regarded the man curiously. Stella had described his devotion to May Farr as pathetic but she recalled Peter in one of his more philosophical detective moods saying that pity, disapproval, or contempt, must not be allowed to affect judgement of an emotion’s kinetic power.

  Peter. Where was he? What would he do when he found out where she was?

  ‘It’s a strange business, Mr Downey,’ she said to distract her mind. ‘What do you really make of it?’

  His long face twisted into a baffled smile.

  ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘People do odd things. None of us should run to lay blame. It’s like down the pit. Take all the care you can and there’ll still be accidents, people killed, mained … if you can look after one other person, you’ve done all that can be asked … if we all did that, life would be OK, wouldn’t it?’

  There was no doubt who his one other was.

  May Farr put down the phone. Her face was rejuvenated.

  ‘They’ve said I can visit him,’ she said. ‘That’
s good, isn’t it? That must mean they don’t reckon there’s a case against him.’

  Ellie realized that they were both looking at her attentively. I’ve been elected police consultant! she thought resentfully. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she could have confidently confirmed the woman’s optimism, but the image of Dalziel’s friendly smile rose in her mind.

  ‘It means it certainly can’t be a watertight case,’ she said carefully. ‘Mrs Farr, let me drive you up to the hospital.’

  The woman who had been putting on her top coat looked assessingly at Ellie, then said in a kindly voice, ‘No, love, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. There’s no point, really.’

  Thinking she meant there was little chance that they’d let her in to see Colin also, Ellie opened her mouth to say she didn’t mind. Then she realized that the woman simply meant she had no part left in this drama.

  ‘Arthur will take me. Shouldn’t you be getting back to your little girl, Mrs Pascoe?’

  ‘She’s in the crèche,’ said Ellie. ‘She’ll be all right. They’re very good and she loves it there. Couldn’t I …?’

  What could she do? she asked herself.

  ‘Look,’ said May Farr as if taking pity. ‘You can hang on here if you like. Someone might ring. You can tell them where I am, what’s going off. Would you mind? It’d be a help.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Ellie, delighted to be given a role.

  ‘Right. We’ll be off. Come on, Arthur.’

  ‘Do you want to borrow my car?’ asked Ellie. ‘It’s just parked around the corner …’

  ‘I’ve got my own car, missus,’ said Arthur Downey possessively.

  He followed May out of the front door. The policeman parked against the kerb opposite made a note and resumed his paperback novel.

  In the quiet house Ellie prowled around between the living-room and the kitchen. This was permitted territory, she felt. Already her mind was beginning to advance Jesuitical arguments for extending her wanderings upstairs. She was entitled to use the lavatory, of course, and what harm could there be in pushing open the door of Colin’s room and peeping in. You could learn a lot from a man’s room, she told herself. But what did she hope to learn about Colin Farr? The answer was chilling enough to make her sit down in an armchair and lock her arms round her legs as though they might independently convey her upstairs to some dreadful revelation. For all she could, all she needed to, find out about Colin Farr was whether his incoherent ramblings about blood, bones and death down the mine had been an admission of guilt.