Under World

by Reginald Hill

  ‘I’d not know, I’m not a gardener,’ said Wardle.

  ‘No? People’s more your line, eh? Planting them, feeding them, helping them to grow. But you ought to know, Neil, you can’t make a carnation out of a carrot.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’

  ‘I’m on about doing the important things yourself. Or was there a committee meeting more important than covering up for a friend? Or was it mebbe less of a cover-up and more of a finger-pointing?’

  ‘You slab-faced bastard!’

  ‘Thank Christ for a heartfelt insult from you at last,’ said Dalziel. ‘Now let’s go and scatter the ashes, shall we?’

  As Wield’s motorbike coasted down into Burrthorpe, Peter Pascoe looked at his watch and groaned.

  They’d gone far afield in search of a pub out of sight of a pit-head, and drunk too much of the landlord’s excellent beer, then had to spoil the taste with pints of his awful coffee. For a while the return journey, with the rain-spotted wind cold on their beer-flushed cheeks, had been exhilarating. He and Wield had opened their hearts to each other in the pub, or at least as much of their hearts as men in their kind of situation, in that kind of place, in those sort of circumstances, are able to open; but by the time the winding gear of Burrthorpe Main came into sight, Pascoe was already beginning to regret the immediate past and fear the immediate future.

  For a while after they re-entered Burrthorpe police station they felt themselves lucky. Dalziel had not yet returned. That was the good news. But Chief Inspector Wishart wanted to see them urgently.

  ‘Where the hell have you two been?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Three-hour lunches might be OK in never-never land, I bet you have picnics and hay-rides up there. Down here life is getting to be so fucking real we don’t even have time to be earnest.’

  ‘Sorry, Alex,’ said Pascoe. ‘Trouble with the bike. Sorry. Any developments?’

  ‘No. The mastermind of Mid-Yorks isn’t back from his lunch either, so I don’t suppose I can blame you two skivers too much. To tell the truth, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I’ve got all the men I can spare taking statements from every bugger they can lay hands on. And them as can’t do that are combing the ditches between here and the Pendragon Arms in search of Farr’s pit-black. No sign so far, no weapon, nothing. It’s going to be all down to hard graft, this one, and that’s what I want from you two. None of your pastoral fancies, just some honest to goodness police work.’

  ‘At your service,’ said Pascoe. ‘Have you had another go at Farr?’

  ‘Not yet. Thought I’d let him relax a bit. I want him somewhere where there’s no bloody doctor rushing in every two minutes to say I’m being too rough. His mother’s up at the hospital seeing him. And here’s an interesting thing, Mycroft’s turned up too.’

  ‘What can he want? I thought they didn’t get on?’

  ‘So did I. But I told Vessey to let him in if Farr didn’t object, then press his ear to the keyhole.’

  ‘You’re letting him have visitors without supervision?’ said Pascoe doubtfully.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wishart defensively. ‘Wakefield insisted Mrs Farr was entitled to some privacy. As for Mycroft, I know these miners. They’ll give nothing away if they don’t want to. Much more chance of Vessey picking something up if he keeps his ear pressed to the door.’

  ‘Otitis, most likely,’ murmured Pascoe.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No? Listen, you two had better bear in mind that down here, you’re on my patch and we’ll do things my way. Out there somewhere there’s a nice big clue which can tie this thing up. It’s Farr’s pit-black. I want it found if it means raking every ditch and emptying every dustbin in South Yorkshire.’

  Through the air a plastic carrier bag came sailing. It landed heavily on the table, and a fine grey dust rose from it and settled on Wishart’s papers.

  ‘No need for these gents to dirty their lily-whites, Chief Inspector,’ boomed Dalziel from the doorway. ‘There’s Farr’s pit-black or what’s left of it.’

  Wield looked sadly at the bag and recalled his own fantasy of doing just that. Not for him, it seemed, the extravagant gesture; professionally or personally.

  ‘There’s not a lot left except the soles of his boots,’ said Dalziel advancing. ‘Still, it’ll give the mad scientists something to play with.’

  Wishart said, ‘Where’d you find it, sir?’

  ‘Tommy Dickinson’s back garden,’ said Dalziel. ‘He went back to the lockers and fetched it out after they found Satterthwaite’s body. Covering up for his mate.’

  ‘Some cover-up,’ said Pascoe. ‘Taking this stuff pointed straight at Farr. Unless …’

  ‘That sounds like the labour pangs of an idea,’ said Dalziel. ‘Glad to see lunch-time boozing hasn’t fuddled your brain, lad. But it’s not on. No way would Dickinson be trying to shift interest on to his mate. He’s about as devious as a backward tortoise, our Tommy. It wasn’t even his idea. Neil Wardle, branch secretary and bright enough to be a CID man, he cottoned on that Farr was likely to be Number One suspect. And before you ask, he wasn’t trying to point the finger either. If that had been his game he’d have lifted it himself as he came off shift. No, it was later when the word got round about the body that his mind got to working. He couldn’t get back himself so he asked Tommy to go. What he really wanted Tommy to do was check to see if there were owt incriminating in Col’s locker but Tommy watches a lot of Yankee crime stuff on the telly and he knows they can prove owt they like with their tests. So to be on the safe side, he took the lot home and burnt it.’

  ‘And did you get him to say if there were any bloodstains on the gear?’ asked Wishart.

  ‘Got him to say nowt,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wardle told me all this. Tommy’s flat out on his mam’s sofa and liable to stay that way till tomorrow. Weak heads, these miners have. Any road, he’s not going to incriminate his mate, so it’s down to Forensic. Not that I can see young Farr leaving the stuff if it were covered with blood. He struck me as a clever cunt, that one. So none of this seems to leave us much further on.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Wield, thinking that even if high drama seemed out of his reach, he might as well get credit for his bit part, ‘there is one thing. It seems likely Farr made another phone call last night, before the one he made to … Mrs Pascoe.’

  ‘And we’ve not had much help from that quarter, have we?’ said Dalziel genially. ‘So, Sergeant Wield, you think it might be helpful for us to talk to this person who got Farr’s first call?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, get to it, lad.’

  ‘But we don’t know …’

  ‘Mycroft, Stella Mycroft’s the name. Used to be Farr’s fiancée, but got wed to that deputy Farr talked to on the way out of the pit. Gavin Mycroft. We went down to the Welfare together today, but I noticed he didn’t stay long. Overcome by an irresistible urge to visit the sick, I gather. Unsupervised, I also gather. I hope that lad you’ve got on duty up there’s got ears like Dumbo, Chief Inspector!’

  The bastard’s got us bugged, thought Pascoe. And just look at that five-acre face beaming smugly as he pulls his smart little rabbits out of his great sodding hat. Oh for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!

  Sergeant Swift appeared at the door. He didn’t look happy. Wishart rose immediately and went out into the corridor with him. Dalziel moved round the desk and sank gratefully into Wishart’s chair.

  ‘Thought he’d never offer,’ he said. ‘Right. Here’s what we do. You two, seeing as you’re such good friends, you can stick together and get yourselves round to this fellow Mycroft’s house. Pick yourself a pretty little WPC as chaperone on your way out. I want the Mycrofts and I want them simultaneously but separately. You deal with her, Wieldy. You should be a bit less susceptible to female eye-flutter than this lecherous sod. I want to know why Mycroft went visiting at the hospital today. And just in case there’s any dispute, I’ll head back
to the Infirmary and ask that young bugger, Farr, the same questions. All right?’

  ‘Hold it.’

  It was Alex Wishart’s turn to interrupt from the doorway, but Pascoe could see that he wasn’t motivated by anything like Dalziel’s unbearably condescending oneupmanship. If any emotion showed on the Scot’s still face, it was an untypical trepidation.

  ‘Yes, lad. What’s up? Another body, is it?’

  ‘On the contrary, sir,’ said Wishart with an immediately quenched flicker of humour.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s Farr, sir. We’ve just heard from the Infirmary. He’s done a bunk. Taken off. Disappeared. Sir.’

  Part Three

  And next, a wolf, gaunt with the famished craving

  Lodged ever in her horrible lean flank,

  The ancient cause of many man’s enslaving; –

  She was the worst …

  Chapter 1

  Now all was furious activity as the terrified souls trapped in Burrthorpe police station scurried hither and thither, fearful that a pause might bring them to the painful attention of Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel who sat, massive and baleful and still, at the centre of all this movement.

  To Wishart’s protests that he’d thought all for the best, he simply replied, ‘I bet your lot backed Bonnie Prince Charlie.’

  Constable Vessey was advised to change his name, have plastic surgery, flee the country. He’d returned from his cuppa and drag (no more than three minutes, God help me!) to find Gavin Mycroft in his underclothes, tied by a bloodstained bandage to his chair.

  ‘He threatened me with a knife,’ said Mycroft. ‘What could I do? Bugger’s mad, that’s my opinion.’

  Mycroft was now at the station, making a statement. Dalziel had dispatched Wield to fetch in Stella Mycroft for questioning about Farr’s phone call.

  ‘And don’t mention he’s escaped. And don’t let her see her husband when she gets here,’ he bellowed after the departing sergeant.

  ‘What about me?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘You? Aye, it’s time you got sorted, lad,’ said Dalziel enigmatically. ‘You go off and see if Farr’s headed for home. Take that Sergeant Swift. He looks the freshest of this bunch of zombies and he knows his way around. Check Farr’s mates’ houses too, Wardle and Dickinson. And check the Welfare. I want you to find this sod a bloody sight quicker than you’ve found Monty Boyle!’

  At May Farr’s house, Pascoe knocked at the front door while Swift and a constable went through the alleyway to the back. After a little delay, the door was opened on a chain by a man who regarded Pascoe with the watchful distrust of a guard dog and growled, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Police,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’d like to see Mrs Farr.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  He vanished; there was a distant mutter of conference, then he returned and the chain was released.

  ‘Weren’t you at the station last night?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘That’s right. Name’s Arthur Downey. Friend of the family. In here.’

  Pascoe was pointed into the kitchen.

  Round a blue formica table three women were sitting.

  One, middle-aged, handsome, but with her face pallid with strain, rose as he entered. He recognized her from the previous night as May Farr. On one side of her was a smallish woman with a thin pinched face, whose body gave off emanations of volcanic vitality and whose expression was one of mocking contempt.

  But it was the woman on the other side that Pascoe focused on.

  It was Ellie.

  So this was what Dalziel had meant.

  She said, ‘Hello, Peter. You know May, do you? And this is Wendy.’

  ‘So you’re the good cop Ellie’s been telling us about,’ said Wendy sceptically. ‘At least you look human, which is more than can be said for yon gorilla who was let loose in the Club today.’

  Pascoe said, ‘Mrs Farr, you won’t have heard but Colin’s escaped …’

  ‘Escaped?’ interrupted Wendy. ‘What from? He weren’t locked up, were he?’

  ‘Shut up, Wendy,’ said May Farr. ‘What’s happened, mister?’

  ‘Colin left the hospital,’ Pascoe rephrased. ‘Neither we, the police, nor the medical staff, were finished with him. We’d like …’

  ‘May! There’s some bobbies in your back yard.’ It was Downey this time, pointing out of the window.

  ‘Christ, it’s just like the Strike all over. Buggers thinking they can go where they please,’ cried Wendy, rising and heading for the door. ‘I’ll soon sort ’em!’

  ‘Wendy, sit down,’ ordered May Farr. ‘This is my house. I’ll do my own sorting. What’s going off, Mr Pascoe?’

  ‘We’re looking for your son. There’s a warrant out now. I’m sorry those men have jumped the gun a little, but we’ve got to look. Inside too.’

  ‘Look away,’ said the woman indifferently. ‘A man in a hospital nightgown shouldn’t be hard to find.’

  ‘He’s got clothes,’ said Pascoe. ‘He took them from a visitor. At knife-point, it’s alleged.’

  ‘A visitor? Gav Mycroft were there as I left. Was it Gav?’

  ‘I believe so,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘That explains the knife,’ said Wendy. ‘No other way Col was going to get anything out of that stuck-up bugger.’

  ‘It doesn’t altogether explain the knife,’ said Pascoe.

  He regarded May Farr steadily trying to assess her reaction to all this.

  She seemed to be taking it calmly, but it was only the relative calm of one who has been pushed so close to the edge that she knows that even the slightest movement might send her over. Could it be she knew something? If her son had got this far, they’d find him in the next few minutes. A miner’s terrace afforded little space for secret panels, priests’ holes, escape tunnels. Even in persecution, the poor were disadvantaged.

  Or perhaps Farr had been in touch by telephone. If so, given the smallness of the house and the situation of the phone which was in the hall almost outside the kitchen door, there was no way the others present could not be privy to the knowledge. He wanted to look at Ellie but he forced his gaze to remain on May Farr.

  ‘Are you saying I gave him the knife?’ she demanded.

  ‘Not saying. Asking. It’s important for us to know how he’s armed, Mrs Farr. It could be important to Colin too.’

  ‘So you’ll know whether to use tanks or atom bombs? Why not ring Greenham and tell ’em to get Cruise on the move?’

  It was Wendy again. May Farr ignored the outburst this time and said quietly, ‘I gave him no knife.’

  ‘All right, Mrs Farr. May we search the house now?’

  ‘You’ll find nowt.’

  Taking this as acquiescence, Pascoe began to search. As anticipated, hiding places were few. As he came down the stairs, Swift appeared and said, ‘No luck, sir? Me neither. There’s something out in the wash-house you mebbe ought to take a look at, though.’

  He followed the sergeant through the tiny kitchen into the yard. Here in an old brickbuilt wash-house Swift pointed to a plastic bag.

  ‘It were pushed down behind the old boiler,’ he said.

  Pascoe picked up the bag and opened it carefully.

  ‘Christ,’ he said.

  ‘I’m no path man, sir,’ said Swift. ‘But I’d say that that skull had been bashed in, wouldn’t you?’

  Gingerly Pascoe reached into the bag and brought out the tiny skull.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said Pascoe. ‘And even though you’re no path man, Sergeant, would you have any ideas about whose bones these might be?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Sergeant Swift grimly. ‘A bloody good idea.’

  ‘Let’s get inside and talk to Mrs Farr,’ said Peter Pascoe.

  Chapter 2

  Dalziel’s fingers inside his shirt scratched ineffectually at his ribcage. It was like trying to play a polystyrene-wrapped zither.

  ‘Tell me again,’ he said patiently.

  ‘He rang. It were
about six. He said he’d come off shift early again …’

  ‘Again? He’d done it before?’

  Stella Mycroft lit another cigarette and said, ‘Aye. That’s what again means down here.’

  She was a pretty lass, thought Dalziel. Pretty and possibly passionate and certainly bright. He inserted the ‘possibly’ because during his alcoholic interrogations at the Welfare, he had elicited many wishful fantasies about Stella’s love-life but nothing more positive than the firm assertion from Tommy Dickinson that Colin Farr had been ‘shagging her rotten’.

  But she was certainly bright, clubbing his googly questions all over the field with a violence that was often superfluous. Let’s try her with a Yorker, he thought.

  ‘When? Why? How do you know?’ he rapped.

  It was no problem to her.

  ‘Not long back. He had a row wi’ Harold Satterthwaite. He came round to see me,’ she rapped back.

  All this Dalziel knew.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘To bed you?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, blowing a jet of smoke at him. ‘Not that he were much bothered about a bed.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him to get lost. We’d gone steady once, been engaged, but that were a long time back and now I was a respectable married woman.’

  ‘And he went?’

  ‘I thought he did. But he must have hung around in the hall. I went upstairs and when Gav came off shift he found someone had lit the fire and made a right sooty mess down the wall.’

  ‘You told him who it was?’

  ‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I? I’d done nowt wrong.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He wanted to go after Col, what else? That’s all you lot ever think of, isn’t it? Screwing, drinking and fighting.’

  ‘Oh aye? And which of these did he want to do to Mr Farr – screw him, buy him a drink, or fight him?’

  ‘You’re a real joker, aren’t you?’ said Stella.

  ‘Some of my fans laugh all the way to the dock,’ said Dalziel. ‘Did your husband go after Farr?’