Under World

by Reginald Hill

  The Jack Russell, which was way ahead of them up the track, looked round to make sure they were following, then scampered on.

  Fifteen minutes later the creamy limestone of the outcrop was visible. The little girl was soon absorbed in searching for blackberries. She was a very choosy picker and it was going to take her some time to fill the plastic seaside bucket she’d brought as her container.

  Billy Farr strolled on. Life seemed good. It would have been marvellous to have had a little lass of their own but it wasn’t to be. And as Pedro had once said, with Tracey he was getting all the pleasures of fatherhood without losing the sleep. Well, not all. There was nothing to match that sheer joy of creation, that was the only word for it, that he felt when he looked at Colin. But it would come again. When Col settled down and married Stella and they had kiddies of their own, a little girl perhaps. Probably would be little too if she took after her mother! Little Stella, but beautiful as a porcelain doll and strong with it, physically and mentally. They’d become really good friends since Col joined the Navy. She too was like a daughter to him. He looked back to Tracey absorbed in passing judgement on a bramble and felt a frisson of sheer pleasure. Two daughters by act of God, and the promise of grandchildren to come. It was good to be alive.

  He hadn’t seen Jacko for some time, he realized. Nor had he heard him. This probably meant he was on to something. Never a noisy dog, he fell absolutely quiet whenever he got a scent or spotted a movement.

  Now Billy Farr saw him, up a steep slope on the far side of the White Rock, where the ground rose in lynchets, each level screened by a profusion of furze and dogberry and wild eglantine. He could just see the terrier’s hind quarters, rigid with attention. Something was up there. Possibly a bird or a rabbit. Farr began to ascend, aware that his approach would probably startle the prey, but not worried. A dog was a dog and hunting was his instinct, but he didn’t want anything to end its life on such a glorious day.

  He needn’t have worried. Nothing was here which the dog might threaten. Nor was there much chance that his own approach would disturb this prey. Putting one hand firmly on Jacko’s nape, he carefully parted the foliage in front of him.

  Here in a scoop of ground, luxuriant with brome and hair-grass, and fragrant with willowherb, a man and a woman wrestled naked, now the golden tan of her narrow back showing on top, now the pallid breadth of his. He bore the marks of a collier, slab-muscled in the shoulder and upper torso, with his skin etched by carbon where the coal dust had soaked into small cuts and abrasions. It looked as if his weight and strength must surely tear the woman apart, but she clung to him with such tenacity, her slim legs locked round his heavy buttocks, her nails digging into his back, that there flashed into Billy Farr’s mind an image from a TV wildlife programme of a tiny golden scorpion destroying a huge black beetle.

  The image was his mind’s attempt to escape from the physical truth he saw before him. But the mind is its own traitor and already as he slid back down the slope and hurried back down the path, seizing an amazed and distressed little Tracey as he passed, a new image, eidetic in its intensity, had printed itself permanently on his brain. He could never forget, or forgive, the sight and the sound of the girl he loved like a daughter as she gave herself willingly and with a joyous lust to Harold Satterthwaite.

  There was a silence in the tiny room after May Farr had finished. Pascoe broke it. ‘So Billy left Tracey at the back of the Club and went off by himself.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Farr. ‘He’d never have done that normally, but he didn’t want to see Pedro or Maggie or anyone. He just wanted to be alone for a bit. To think what to do, what to say. He were a very trusting man, my Billy. He didn’t let a lot of folk get close, but when he did it was absolute trust. Stella Gibson had shattered that. And Col would need to be told. It was all too much for him. He just went off and sat in a field and smoked his pipe for a couple of hours. Then he came home and the news that Tracey had gone missing near on finished him off.’

  A thousand questions arose in Pascoe’s mind.

  He said, ‘And did he tell Colin?’

  ‘He never saw Col again.’

  ‘He could have written.’

  ‘No,’ she said certainly. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you write to someone so far away.’

  ‘Then Colin never knew?’

  May Farr said, ‘When he came back for the funeral, I were ill; half dead, now I look back. It were like living in a fog. When I started coming out of it, Col and Stella had already broken up, so there seemed no point in saying anything, especially not when she got herself engaged to Gav Mycroft and married him. And there was bad blood enough between Colin and Satterthwaite without stirring up more. Mebbe I was wrong. But I never guessed that Col might get round to thinking his dad could actually be the killer!’

  Her voice trembled with love and loss, and indignation too. The only words of comfort that rose in Pascoe’s mind would be no comfort at all. Colin was a proven violent man, he wanted to say. It wouldn’t be surprising if he began to wonder whether beneath his father’s calm exterior a like darkness lay.

  He forced his mind back to the job in hand. May Farr was telling the truth, yet there was still a hesitation.

  He pressed on – ‘And what was Col’s reaction when you told him today?’ – and knew he had reached his goal.

  ‘What do you mean? Naturally he were relieved to know at least what happened that day.’

  ‘But was he surprised to learn about Stella and Satterthwaite?’

  ‘Surprised that it was happening then,’ she said, sounding herself surprised, as if she hadn’t really considered this before. ‘But no, he didn’t sound surprised at the idea itself. As if …’

  ‘As if perhaps it was still going on and he knew all about it?’

  Pascoe glanced at his watch. The afternoon was drawing on. It was time he got this information back to Dalziel.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Farr,’ he said. ‘I wish you could have told us this a lot sooner …’

  ‘Sooner? Sooner than what? You’ve known about Billy seeing them two at it up in the wood for long enough …’

  ‘No, I assure you,’ said Pascoe, taken aback.

  ‘Not you. You’re an off-comer, aren’t you? But this lot who were here when it happened …’

  Pascoe looked at Sergeant Swift whose long face grew even longer in surprise.

  ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ he said. ‘First I’ve heard anything about Satterthwaite and Mrs Mycroft. They must’ve been clever to get away with it round here!’

  ‘But you told someone, Mrs Farr?’

  ‘That’s right. I couldn’t put up with Billy being under suspicion any more. He wasn’t going to open his mouth to a soul, he was so upset by everything. But in the end I went along and saw the man in charge and told him straight he were wasting time and money keeping my Billy under suspicion.’

  ‘Who was this you told?’ asked Pascoe. ‘Do you recall his name?’

  ‘Aye, it’s him who’s writing them things in the Challenger, isn’t it? Watmough. That’s his name. Mr Watmough.’

  Now more than ever it seemed imperative to contact Dalziel. He would do it from the car, though, not from this house where there were so many ears.

  He said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Farr. I’ll have to leave a constable here in case Colin does come home or tries to ring you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re doing your job, mister,’ she replied wearily. ‘Now, Arthur, I reckon it’s time you went off home and stopped supping my tea like it grew on bushes. And take them two out there with you. Go on now. I’ll be all right. I need some time to myself.’

  It was probably true. But Pascoe suspected too that in the midst of her own woes, this remarkable woman was finding time for a bit of compassionate diplomacy. He’d been wondering how to get Ellie out of the house without it seeming like a plea or a command. And he guessed Ellie had been wondering how to respond without losing face in front of the fearsome Wendy. Now Ma
y, by lumping them all together, had provided an out.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Farr,’ he repeated. ‘Try not to worry eh? Probably Colin will come in of his own accord when he sits down and considers how daft he’s been.’

  A wintry smile touched her frost-pale lips.

  ‘You think so? Talk to someone who knows him, Mr Pascoe.’

  He left now and stood at the front door waiting for Wendy and Ellie to make their farewells. They weren’t long. Wendy seemed to have Downey in a kind of loose armlock.

  On the step she said, ‘See you, Ellie. Come and visit some time when you can get a pass. Come on, Arthur. What are you going to do? Curl up here and howl?’

  Ignoring Pascoe, which he took for her highest courtesy to a policeman, she led the still reluctant Downey away.

  ‘Well,’ said Pascoe. ‘I suppose you heard most of that?’

  ‘Most,’ admitted Ellie. ‘It explained a lot.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like Col going on last night about bones and blood in the pit. He wasn’t talking about Satterthwaite at all, he was talking about the dog!’

  ‘Was he? Does this mean you’d like to put it in your statement now?’

  She looked at him angrily, decided the grounds of her anger were unsafe, made herself relax.

  He said, ‘Walk you to your car?’

  ‘All right. I’d best get home and pick up Rose.’

  Pascoe glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. It felt later.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ he said. ‘For both of us. Your blood test was negative, by the way.’

  ‘What? Oh, that. It seems years ago.’

  ‘Does it? Perhaps. Ellie, if you rush to meet trouble, you usually find it, so I’m not rushing. But shouldn’t we talk?’

  ‘Here? Now?’

  He looked around. The terraced houses of Clay Street stretched away on both sides, the façades grey with indifference, their windows like blind eyes. But he guessed their indifference was delusive and their blindness like a professional beggar’s.

  Ellie’s car, parked round the corner, was now in sight. They could sit in it and talk, but it wasn’t the place, this wasn’t the time. A wise man picked his own ground for a battle.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at home.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. You’ll probably be late.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll try to be awake,’ she said.

  ‘Just try to be at home,’ he replied before he could stop himself.

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘If you want to know the time, ask a policeman,’ she said. ‘It’s always the Middle Ages. I’ll see you when I do.’

  She marched away towards the car and got in. He noticed she’d left it unlocked. Demonstrating her implicit trust in these knights of the dusty face, he thought savagely.

  As she accelerated past him, he looked for some sign of softening, for at the very least that expression of humorous irony with which she had once laced her indignation.

  But her face was set and cold and unrelenting and she drove by him without even looking in his direction.

  He turned away sadly and went to update Dalziel.

  And in the car Ellie said, ‘You can sit up now,’ and watched in the mirror to see the smiling face of Colin Farr rise into view behind her.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Why’d you not turn me in?’ asked Colin Farr.

  ‘God knows,’ said Ellie. ‘I don’t.’

  She’d turned off the road as soon as they were out of sight of the village, bumping the car a few yards along a deep-rutted, bracken-fringed track before switching off the engine.

  She lit a much-needed cigarette. The effort of not screaming when she first glimpsed him lying in the back, the greater effort of not looking at Peter in silent appeal as she drove by him, had left her nerves in tatters. Now she did let out a smoky gasp as suddenly he slipped with practised ease through the narrow space between the passenger seat and the roof and sat beside her, saying, ‘There. That’s cosier, isn’t it?’

  Reacting against her nervousness, she demanded aggressively, ‘Did you kill Satterthwaite?’

  ‘Now why should I do a thing like that?’ he mocked.

  ‘Because he was screwing lovely little Stella,’ she snapped.

  ‘Oh aye? Nowt to do with me,’ he said.

  ‘It was something to do with you when you were still engaged!’

  ‘Here, your ears have been flapping, haven’t they? Aye, that did surprise me a bit.’

  ‘That she could prefer another man to you?’

  ‘That it had been going on so long. Mebbe it stopped when she got wed, then started up again when she got bored with Gav, which’d be about twenty minutes, I’d say.’

  ‘How did you know about them? Did she tell you?’

  ‘Oh no.’ He grinned. ‘We’re not on such close terms as that. I put two and two together, with some help from a “friend” who left me a note on my lamp-hook. Then I paid Stella a visit unexpected, like, and I felt she were expecting me somehow and there were only one bugger I could think of who could have warned her. Then just as I was leaving there was a phone call. No one spoke, but I could feel that bastard on the other end of the line. Just feel him. And suddenly a lot of other little things came together.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  He smiled wickedly. ‘I left Stella a little going-away present.’

  Behind them a lorry sped along the road. Ellie turned to look at it in alarm, Farr remained indifferent.

  ‘Anyone sees us, they’ll just imagine there’s a bit of quiet humping going on,’ he said.

  ‘Not if it’s the police,’ she said fearfully. ‘And they’re probably checking cars along this road by now.’

  ‘I’m not going any further by car,’ he said. ‘Up there I’m going, and it’ll take more than a few flat-footed bobbies to catch me, over or under the ground.’

  He was staring ahead at the tree-clothed ridge above them, incandescent in the declining sun.

  ‘They’ll have dogs, helicopters …’

  He laughed at her.

  ‘I’m not Lord Lucan!’ he said. ‘Just an ordinary pit-lad who’s got in a bit of bother.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’ she asked once more.

  ‘I suppose I did, in a manner of speaking,’ he mused. ‘But that’s not the bit of bother I’m worried about. My dad’s dead and I’d got so muddled and muddied with this bloody place that I actually got to thinking that mebbe he was a killer, aye, and a child molester too. God, I must have been near on mad! But I got to thinking lying in that hospital this morning, everything so quiet and light and clean, I got to seeing how daft I was. I didn’t need Mam to come along with explanations. I knew as I should have known all along that Dad couldn’t harm any living thing! He didn’t much like it if Jacko caught himself a rabbit. And as for my dad hurting Jacko … you should have seen the poor little sod’s skull …’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What?’ said Farr, jerked back to the present. ‘When? How? Oh, they searched the house, did they? Bastards.’

  ‘That’s what you were talking about when you started rambling about blood and bones last night, wasn’t it? Jacko.’

  ‘I went on about blood and bones, did I? I don’t recall.’ He looked at her speculatively. ‘Did you tell your husband’s mob, then?’

  Ellie shook her head.

  ‘Secrets? Best not to have secrets, Ellie,’ he said. She felt their ages reversed, distorted, he the elderly experienced sage, she the youthful naïve disciple.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Colin, come back with me now. There’s no need to run. There’s nowhere to run to.’

  ‘Who’s running?’ he said. ‘But I’m not coming back, not just yet.’

  He opened the door and got out.

  ‘Colin,’ she said. ‘Why did you ring Stella when you came out of the pit yesterday?’

  ‘Ring her first, you mean.’ He sm
iled. She found him insufferable but had to persist. ‘Why?’

  ‘I owed her a warning,’ he said. ‘That much at least I owed her. Do me a favour, Ellie. Ring my mam and tell her I’m OK.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Ellie, disproportionately pleased at this request for help. ‘But I won’t ring. There’s a copper there. He’ll listen in. I’ll go back and pretend that I forgot something. Col, is there anything I can get you while I’m there? Food, clothes, anything? I could drop it off here as I pass.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Too dangerous for you to try to bring owt from home and I’m not going to hang around by the roadside anyway. But you’re right, a bit of grub and something to drink wouldn’t come amiss. You could mebbe get someone else to fetch it for me.’

  ‘All right. Who?’

  He thought a moment, then smiled.

  ‘Arthur,’ he said. ‘You’ll have met him, Arthur Downey, always hanging around our house, trying to be useful. Now’s his chance. He lives in the street backing ours, Number Thirty. Tell him to bring whatever he can up to the White Rock. But not turnips. I hate his bloody turnips!’

  ‘The White Rock? He’ll know where that is?’

  ‘Oh aye. Even Arthur’ll know where the White Rock is. Right, I’m off.’

  ‘Colin,’ she said urgently as he turned away. ‘What was it you warned Stella of?’

  He turned back, his face troubled.

  ‘I met Gav on the way out of the pit. He were his usual charming self. He warned me to keep away from Stella. I didn’t really know what I was saying. All I wanted was to get out. So I told him not to fear, I’d not be messing with Harold Satterthwaite’s leavings. He wanted to kill me then, I think, but I just didn’t have the time to fight. So I ran off shouting at him to ask Satterthwaite himself if he didn’t believe me. When I got up on the bank and started thinking straight, I knew I shouldn’t have told him so I rang Stella to warn her. She deserved that.’

  ‘But Colin, that means …’

  He leaned through the window and kissed her full on the lips. She responded with a passion that frightened her. Finally he broke away and regarded her with a smile that hardly mocked at all.