The Price of Butcher's Meat

by Reginald Hill

  —nay—he declared—shes not been back home 2 minutes—shell not want to be gallivanting off afore shes needed her sheets changed—

  Maybe I should have been touched by his desire to keep me close. All I actually felt was the usual irritation that—even at 22—he still wanted to treat me like a kid.

  I said—no reflection on your own personal hygiene dad—but Ive changed my sheets at least twice since I came home. Now getting back to the matter in hand—thank you very much Tom & Mary for your kind invitation. Id be really delighted to accept—

  So there you have it. Heres me—a rational being—with a degree certifying Ive spent 3 years studying what makes people tick—& what do I end up doing?

  Going to visit a place Ive no reason to like—in the company of people I hardly know—just to prove Im not a kid anymore!

  Now thats really mature—eh?

  Watch this space for my next exciting adventure in darkest Mid-Yorkshire.

  & I look forward to some truly madly steamy revelations from darkest Africa!

  Lots of love

  Charley xx

  3

  Ho’d on. How the fuck do I know this bloody thing’s working?

  HELLO! HELLO! DALZIEL SPEAKING! LOOK ON MY WORKS, YOU MUGWUMPS, AND DESPAIR!

  Now, let the dog see the rabbit…I’ll try pressing this, like the bishop said to

  Christ, do I really sound like that? No wonder the buggers jump!

  So it works. So what? Hears everything I say and plays it back word for fucking word. What’s so clever about that? Old Auntie Mildred could do exactly the same—plus good advice! So that’s you christened, right? Mildred!

  But listen, Mildred, you start telling me to wear my woolly vest and it’s straight out of the window for you!

  Yon Festerwhanger were right, but. Nice bit of kit this.

  Jesus, Andy, listen to yourself! Nice bit of kit! You be careful, lad, else you’ll end up like all these kids with their p-pods, walking around with idiot grins on their faces and their heads nodding like them daffs in the poem.

  Keep a record of little thoughts you might lose, Fester said, and mebbe some big questions you normally don’t have time to ask yourself.

  Right, Dalziel, sod the little thoughts, let’s start with the biggest question of them all.

  How the fuck did I end up here in Sandytown talking to meself like the village loony?

  Let’s try and build it up bit by bit like Ed Wield ’ud build up a case file.

  Back to the big bang in Mill Street that set it all rolling.

  That were the Bank Holiday, end of May.

  Don’t recall much of June, mebbe ’cos I spent most of it in a coma.

  Good thing about a coma, they told me, was it gave my cracked bones time to start mending. Bad thing was it didn’t do much for my muscle tone.

  Never knew I had muscle tone before.

  Found out the hard way.

  First time I tried getting out of bed by myself, I fell over.

  Let a week go by, then tried again. But this time I made sure there was a nice fat nurse to fall onto.

  Third time I took three steps toward the door and fell into Pete Pascoe’s arms.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “Home,” sez I. “Soon as I bloody well can.”

  “How do you propose doing that?” sez he in that prissy voice he puts on.

  “I’ll bloody well walk if I have to,” sez I.

  He let go of me and stepped back.

  I fell over.

  I lay there and looked up at him with pride.

  When I first met him he were a detective constable, soft as shit and so wet behind the ears you could have used him to clean windows.

  Now he were my DCI, and he were hard enough to let me fall and leave me lying.

  He’d come a long way and ought to go a lot further.

  “Okay, clever clogs,” I sez. “You’ve made your point. Now get me back into bed.”

  Soon it were getting on for August, and I were still the only one talking about going home. Cap made encouraging remarks, but changed the subject when we got on to dates. I thought, sod this for a lark, they can’t keep me here when I want to be off!

  I said as much to Pete and the bugger sent in the heavy squad.

  His missus, Ellie.

  From the first time I met her, I saw she were already hard enough to let me fall and leave me lying. In fact, back in them early days I reckon she’d have been happy to give me a helping push.

  She said, “I hear you’re talking of discharging yourself, Andy. So who’s going to look after you when you get home?”

  “I’ll look after myself. Always have done,” I said.

  She sighed. Women have two kinds of sighs. Long suffering and ooh-I’m-really-enjoying-that. Lot of men never learn the difference.

  She said, “Andy, you got blown up in a terrorist explosion, you suffered multiple injuries, you lay in a coma for weeks…”

  “Aye, and most of the time since I came out of it I’ve spent on this bloody bed,” I said. “So where’s the difference?”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” she said. “You’re on a carefully planned course of supervised physiotherapy. They say you’re doing well, but it will be ages before you can look after yourself.”

  “So I’ll get help from Social Services. That’s why I pay my bloody taxes, isn’t it?”

  “How long do you think that’ll last?” she asked.

  “Till I get fed up wi’ them? Couple of weeks mebbe. By then I should be fine.”

  “I meant, till they get fed up with you! Who’ll look after you then?”

  I said, “I’ve got friends.”

  “Arse-licking friends maybe,” she said. “But arse-wiping ones are a bit thinner on the ground.”

  Sometimes she takes my breath away! Mebbe I were taking too much credit for putting the steel into Pascoe’s backbone. Should have known that all them years the bugger were getting home tuition!

  “For you mebbe,” I said. “Treat folk right and they’ll treat you right, that’s my motto. There’ll be folk queuing up to give me a hand.”

  “Takes two to make a queue,” she said. “You’re talking about Cap, aren’t you?”

  Of course I were talking about Cap. Cap Marvell. My girlfriend…partner…bint…tottie…none of them fits. Or all of them. Cap bloody marvelous in my book, ’cos that’s what she’s been.

  “So I mean Cap. She won’t let me down. She’ll be there when I need her.”

  I let it out a bit pathetic. Could see I were getting nowhere slogging it out punch for punch, but even the really hard ones are often suckers for a bit of pathos. Vulnerability they call it. Make ’em feel you need help. Stood me in good stead many a time back in my Jack-the-ladding days.

  Didn’t take long to realize it weren’t going to get me anywhere now.

  “Boohoo,” said Ellie. “You’ve been together a good few years now, you and Cap. But you never set up shop together, you’ve both kept your own places. Why’s that?”

  She knew bloody well why it was. We’ve got our own lives, our own interests, our own timetables. There’s stuff in my pack I don’t want her getting touched by. And there’s definitely stuff in hers I don’t want to know about. Every time there’s an animal rights raid, I find myself checking her alibi! But the real big thing is lots of little things, like the way we feel about muddy boots, setting tables, using cutlery, eating pickles straight out of the jar, watching rugby on the telly, playing music dead loud, what kind of music we want to play dead loud, and so bloody on.

  I said, “An emergency’s different.”

  “So this is an emergency now? Right. Whose place will you set up the emergency center at? Your house or Cap’s flat? And how long will you indenture Cap as your body servant before you set her free?”

  “Don’t go metaphysical on me, luv,” I said. “What’s that mean?”

  “You’re not thick, Andy, so don’t pretend to be,” she
said. “Cap’s life has been on hold since you got blown up. You know she’s got a very full independent existence—that’s one of the reasons you’ve never shacked up together, right? She’s not one of those ground-you-walk-on worshippers who only live for their man.”

  “I know what she is a bloody sight better than thee, Ellie Pascoe!” I declared, getting angry. “And I know she’d be ready and willing to put in a bit of time taking care of me if that’s what I need!”

  “Of course she would,” said Ellie with that smug look they get when they’ve made you lose your rag. “Question is, Andy, do you really want her to?”

  No answer to that, at least not one I wanted to give her the satisfaction of hearing. And I didn’t say much either when she started talking about the Cedars out at Filey, the convalescent home provided by our Welfare Association for old, mad, blind, and generally knackered cops. Alcatraz, we call it, ’cos the only way out is in a box.

  What I did say, all grumpy, was, “Were it Cap that put you up to this then?”

  She grabbed hold of a bedpan and said, “That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Andy Dalziel. And if you let out so much as a hint to Cap what I’ve been talking to you about, I’ll stick this thing so far up your behind, they’ll need a tow truck to haul it out! You just lie here and think about what I’ve said.”

  “Yes, miss,” I said meekly. “Tha knows, lass, Pete Pascoe’s a very lucky man.”

  “You think so?” she said, looking a bit embarrassed.

  “Aye,” I said. “It’s not every husband’s got a big strapping wife he can send up on the roof if ever a tile comes off in a high wind.”

  She laughed out loud. That’s one of the things I like about Ellie Pascoe. No girlish giggles there. She enjoys a real good laugh.

  “You old sod,” she said. “I’m off now. I’ve got my own life too. Peter sends his love. Says to tell you that he’s got things running so smooth down at the Factory that he can’t understand how they ever managed with you. Take care now.”

  She bent over me and kissed me. Bright, brave, and bonny. Pete Pascoe really was a lucky man.

  And she’s got lovely knockers.

  Any road, I did think about what she’d said and a couple of days later when I were talking to Cap, I said I were thinking of going to the Cedars.

  She said, “But you hate that place. You once went to visit someone there and you said it was like a temperance hotel without the wild parties.”

  That’s the trouble with words, they come back to haunt you.

  “Mebbe that’s what I need now,” I lied. “Couple of weeks peace and quiet and a breath of sea air. Me mind’s made up.”

  I should have known, men make up their minds like they make up their beds—if there’s a woman around she’ll pull all the bedding off and start again.

  Next time she came she had a bunch of brochures.

  She said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Andy, and I reckon you’re right about the sea air. But I don’t think the Cedars is the place for you. You’d be surrounded by other cops there with nothing to do but talk about crooks and cases and getting back on the job. No, this is the place for you. The Avalon.”

  “You mean that Yankee clinic place?” I said, glancing at the brochures.

  “The Avalon Foundation is originally American, yes, but it’s been so successful it now has clinics worldwide. There’s one in Australia, one in Switzerland…”

  “I’m not going to Switzerland,” I said. “All them cuckoo clocks, I’d never sleep.”

  “Of course you’re not. You are going to the one in Sandytown, where as well as the clinic and its attendant nursing home, there’s an old house that’s been converted into a convalescent home. My old headmistress, Kitty Bagnold, you may recall, is seeing out her days in the nursing home. I visit her from time to time, so it will be very convenient for me to have both my broken eggs in one basket.”

  That were the clincher, of course, her managing to make it sound like I’d be doing her a favor by coming here. I asked who’d be paying. She said my insurance would cover most of it and in any case hadn’t I always said that if you ended up with life left over at the end of your money, the state would take care of you, but if you ended up with money left over at the end of your life, you were an idiot!

  There’s them bloody haunting words again!

  Any road, I blustered a bit for the show of things but soon caved in. When I told Ellie Pascoe I thought she’d have been dead chuffed, but she seemed right disappointed I weren’t going to the Cedars. Even when I assured her I wouldn’t let Cap be out of pocket here, she still didn’t seem too pleased.

  Women, eh? You can fuck ’em but you can’t fathom them.

  But Cap were happy and that meant I felt pretty pleased with myself when a couple of weeks later she drove me here to Sandytown.

  I soon stopped being pleased, but. Cap had hardly set off back to the car park to drive home afore it was being made clear to me that the Avalon weren’t like a five-star hotel with the guests’ wishes being law.

  “Convalescence is a carefully monitored progression from illness to complete health,” explained the matron. (Name of Sheldon—calls herself chief nurse, but with tits a randy vicar could rest a Bible on while he preached the gospel according to St. Dick, she were a shoo-in for the role of matron in one of them Carry On movies!)

  “Oh aye,” I said, taking the piss. “And visiting hours from three to quarter past every third Sunday!”

  “Ha ha,” she said. “In fact, no visitors at all to start with until we’ve had time to observe you and assess your needs and draw up your personal program—diet sheet, exercise schedule, medication plan, therapy timetable—that sort of thing.”

  “Bloody hell,” I said. “Schedules, timetables—makes me feel like a railway train.”

  She smiled—I’ve seen more convincing smiles in a massage parlor—and said, “Indeed. And our aim is to get you puffing out of the station as quickly as possible.”

  I could see she liked her little joke. But I didn’t argue. I just wanted to sleep!

  That were a couple of days ago. Spent most of the time since then sleeping ’cos every time I woke up there were some bugger ready to pinch and prod and poke things into me. Assessment they call it. More like harassment to me!

  Third day, matron appeared all coy and girlish, straightened my sheets, plumped my pillows, and said, “Big day, today, Mr. Dalziel. Dr. Feldenhammer himself is coming to see you.”

  And that’s when I first set eyes on Lester Feldenhammer, head quack at the Avalon. I could tell he were a Yank soon as he opened his gob. Not the accent but the teeth! It were like looking down an old-fashioned bog, all vitreous china gleaming white. Bet he gargles with bleach twice a day.

  “Mr. Dalziel,” he said. “Welcome to the Avalon, sir. Your fame has preceded you. I’m honored to shake the hand of a man who got injured in the front line of the great fight against terrorism.”

  I thought he were taking the piss, but when I looked at him I could see he were sincere. They’re the worst kind. Never trust a man who believes his own crap.

  I thought, I’ll have to watch this one.

  He shook my hand like he wanted to make sure it were properly attached and he said, “I’m Lester Feldenhammer, director of the Avalon, also head of Clinical Psychology. I think we’ve just about got your program sorted out, but the greatest aid to speedy recovery must come from within. I’ve taken the liberty of putting in your bedside locker a little self-help book I’ve written. It may help you to a fuller understanding of what’s happening to you here.”

  “Gideon Bible usually does the trick,” I said.

  “We like to think of them as complementary,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to monitoring your progress, Mr. Dalziel. On matters physiological, you will, of course, have access to our specialized medical staff. On all other matters, I’m your man. Anything you want to know, you have only to ask.”

  �
�Is that right?” I said. “So what’s for dinner?”

  He decided this were a joke and laughed like an accordion.

  “I can see we’re going to get along famously,” he said. “Now, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.”

  He pulled out this little shiny metal thing.

  “I’m not swallowing that,” I said. “And if tha’s thinking of getting it into me by some other route, tha’d best think again.”

  This time, mebbe because it were a joke, he didn’t laugh.

  “It’s a digital recorder,” he said. “State of the art, practically works itself. What I’d like you to do, Mr. Dalziel, is keep a sort of audio diary. Make a record of your feelings, your experiences, anything that comes into your mind.”

  “You mean, you want me to start talking to myself?” I said. “Like the nutters do?”

  “No, no,” he said. “Not to yourself. Just talk as if you’re speaking to someone who knows absolutely nothing about you.”

  “Like you, for instance?” I said.

  He gave me a smile I could’ve played “Chopsticks” on and said, “I do in fact know a little about you. And I don’t want you to think you’re addressing me specifically. In fact, let me assure you, Mr. Dalziel, I will never listen to any part of it without your permission.”

  “So if you’re not going to hear it, what’s the point?” I asked.

  “The point is you saying things, not me hearing them,” he said. “You can keep a record of all those interesting little thoughts we so easily lose track of. Also you can ask yourself some of the really Big Questions. Think of it as part journal, part self-interrogation. I’m sure a man with your skills will be able to detect truth through no matter how cunningly woven a web of evasion and deceit. Will you do that for me?”

  I said, “Mebbe. But if I don’t get some grub soon, I may just swallow it anyway.”

  He went off, laughing. And that’s how I come to be lying here, talking to myself like a loony. Took another couple of days afore I dug Fester’s little toy out. Man in bed’s got to play with something. Nowt else to do. Newspapers these days aren’t fit to wrap chips in. Telly’s worse, and they don’t feed me enough grub to enjoy a good crap!