D&P21 - Good Morning, Midnight

by Reginald Hill

  As I got up and headed for the door, he said, “Another time then, Kay. Third time lucky, eh?”

  I got out of there and pulled the door shut behind me just as Helen reached the foot of the stairs.

  I turned her round and hurried her back upstairs, scolding her for wandering around in the night draughts, and insisting she came into my room for the rest of the night, which she always loved doing. She lay beside me and chattered herself to sleep but I never closed my eyes, listening to every noise in the darkness and wondering how I was going to deal with this.

  In the morning I found that Pal had gone.

  His father didn’t return till a couple of days later, the day before I was due to fly to the States with Helen. Whatever he’d been doing, he seemed very pleased with the way things had gone and this spilled over into the way he regarded me. It didn’t seem a good time to say anything. When would there be a good time? I didn’t know, but with my trip back home so close, it was easy to postpone my problem. In fact I decided to take my leave of him while things were so good between us. Does that seem contradictory? My thinking was how much better it would be for both of us if we didn’t separate for what was going to be our longest period apart since the wedding on a sour note. So I told him that, rather than heading off first thing in the morning, I’d decided to book me and Helen in at an airport hotel that night. He said fine, it made much more sense, it’s what he always preferred to do. And we kissed like a fond old married couple and off I went.

  Would it have made a difference if I’d stayed? I don’t know. I can’t say whether the lying letter Pal Junior says he sent him was already in the pile of mail which he hadn’t yet opened when I left or whether it came next morning. Maybe if those dreadful accusations were what drove him to kill himself, I could have refuted them. But only at the expense of showing him the kind of son he had, and that might have been worse.

  Of course it could be Pal Junior never sent a letter at all and has just made that up because he’s genuinely convinced that I’m indirectly to blame for his father’s death. Which would mean there’s some other reason for the suicide.

  I don’t know. All I know is we kissed goodbye then off I went, first to Florida to give Helen a look at Disneyland and get the English chill out of our bones. Then I hired a car and we headed north. No plans. I had ten days to get to Hartford and I just wanted Helen to have fun and see as much of my country as we could. That’s why it took the cops so long to track us down.

  I wish I’d been here. In the long run it might not have made any difference, but at least I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it with me and Helen in the house. And I wish I could have got back quicker. Young Pal and Cress were always going to blame me. There’d have been bitter words, I don’t doubt. But words are only a vibration of the air. However bitter, they leave no trace. My delay gave them time for deeds, however. They changed the locks, shut me out of my house because it was now their house. And that first deed was a step which has set them on a path it was always going to be hard to retreat from.

  Like I say, I don’t know exactly why my husband killed himself. Perhaps he didn’t really know either. Perhaps that’s why he seems to have started writing a note then burnt it, because if he could have expressed the darkness inside him, he could have brought it under control. Maybe it was Pal Junior’s letter he burnt. Maybe. Certainly, the way Pal’s been behaving, the things he’s been saying since it happened make it sound like he’s got something on his conscience and is trying to offload his guilt on to me. I wish you could assure him it’s not worth the effort, Andy. I sure as hell feel guilty enough without his help. Much as I’d like it, there’s no way I can put my hand on my heart and swear Pal’s suicide had nothing to do with me. It had something to do with all of us because none of us could offer him enough to stop him doing it. But was I to blame solely and specifically? I don’t believe so. I can’t believe so. Having Emily Dickinson’s poems open on the desk before him, the same volume I had given to him in token of love, might seem like a kind of accusation. I’m sure the kids are going to think so. In a sense they’re right. I’d told him about the way I used the poems as a form of Sortes. So maybe he’d followed my example and hit upon 1062 … Caressed a Trigger absently and wandered out of Life … Could that have tipped him over? Maybe. But when you’re ready to be tipped, even the sun shining bright and daffodils dancing in the breeze must look like a message telling you it’s time to go.

  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. I loved my husband. OK, maybe I loved him more for being Helen’s dad than for being Palinurus Maciver. But that made him even more precious to me. Sexual love is selfish. As well as great pleasure it can be the occasion of great pain, sometimes given carelessly, sometimes with malice aforethought. But I loved Pal through Helen. No way I could hurt one without hurting the other. If I seem cool and collected now it’s not because I’m not in pain myself. It’s because all my strength now has only one task.

  To protect Helen and bring her through this pain.

  I can’t find it in me to condemn Pal Junior for the way he’s reacting. Finding his father like that must have been terrible beyond belief. However badly he’s behaved in the past, the way he’s acting now is completely understandable. But he’s got to stop. Not for my sake, I’m big enough to take it. But for his own sake, and for Cressida’s, and above all for Helen’s.

  She’s got her life ahead of her. With me by her side, I believe that can be a good life, the kind of life her father would have wanted for her. No way should anything be allowed to get in the way of that.

  That’s what I owe to my husband.

  That’s what I owe to myself.

  Andy, I’m sorry, you asked for a brief statement and I seem to have given you a life history. Once I got started … well, it’s probably not much use to you, but it’s done me a lot of good, I think, just getting it all said. I could just scrub over it, I guess, but I’d like you to hear it, because I want you to understand why I want all this tidied up as quietly as possible. Like I say, Helen’s the only person who matters in all this. I don’t much care what the other two do or say, so long as it doesn’t turn into a public screaming match that Helen can’t help hearing about. Time will sort everything out, I’m sure of that, but to get that time we need a truce.

  Andy, I’m sure that if any man can fix that truce, it’s you.

  13 • not the Beverley Sisters

  After the tape had finished Pascoe once more sat staring at the windscreen, his gaze going no further than the insect-smeared glass.

  No question, it was a powerfully moving statement. Even without anything but a superficial knowledge of the woman, he could feel himself being magicked by her.

  But was it enough to explain Dalziel’s relationship with her? He thought not.

  The Fat Man was beyond simple enchantment. He wouldn’t have needed to be bound to the mast to listen to the sirens singing. He’d have sat in a deck chair with a pint in his hand, applauded politely when they finished and said, “Aye, very nice, but they’re not the Beverley Sisters, are they?”

  No, though the statement may have reinforced his feelings for the woman, their relationship pre-dated it. Wield had spotted something between them from the start, and the way she addressed him and the things she said in the tape’s little coda confirmed a relationship already established, a judgment already made before Pal Senior’s suicide brought Kay into his life professionally.

  And here he was again ten years on, the perfect gentle knight riding to his lady’s aid.

  “God help the horse!” said Pascoe out loud, and smiled.

  Conclusion: the only thing he was certain of was that if the Fat Man believed hearing the tape would make him steer well clear of Kay Kafka, he was wrong. Their brief encounter at the hospital hadn’t told him much, but then he hadn’t been asking much. He was still a long way from seeing how the link between stepmother and stepson could have any bearing on the latter’s death, but after listening to the tape
he knew he would like to confront the enchantress again and make up his own mind about her.

  And why not now? Cothersley Hall was only a few miles away. He’d noticed it on his map when he’d been looking for Casa Alba, which didn’t figure. You needed more than money to get your house name on an OS sheet, you needed antiquity.

  So, he was resolved. Like the tinker in the ballad he would ride boldly up to the hall. But not quite straightaway. It was a long time since breakfast, which as a result of his late rising (oh, the sweet memory) had consisted of a mouthful of coffee and a gobbet of bread. Now, despite the Fat Man’s warning and his own observations, the fripperies of the Dog and Duck were seeming quite attractive. In addition there were a couple of things he’d like to check out with the Captain.

  As he turned on the engine, he glanced up at the house.

  Sue-Lynn was standing at an upstairs window watching him. She was holding something to her jaw, probably a bag of frozen peas.

  No, he corrected. Not peas. Dublin Bay prawns, or Beluga caviare. She looked like a woman with expensive tastes.

  Which from the sound of it she wasn’t going to enjoy for long.

  He gave her a wave, resisted the temptation to gun his engine and dig up more gravel as he tried to break the records so recently established by the two women, and set off down the drive at the speed of a cautious cortege.

  14 • Mohawks

  As Edgar Wield drove back from Harrogate, he thought of diverting to the Golden Fleece once more in the hope that Edwin might be free for lunch. Mature consideration made him decide this was unlikely and to expect his friend to break off some learned confabulation with his dusty colleagues would be as unfair as the bookseller calling him out of a CID meeting.

  Instead he turned the bike in quite the other direction and headed for the Blesshouse Industrial Estate which sprawled to the south of the city.

  It was clear as he got nearer that even with New Labour’s promised recovery, the working week ended at Friday lunchtime for a lot of workers. A steady stream of cars and buses flowed out of the estate and probably some of them wouldn’t be flowing back in until the following Monday lunchtime or even Tuesday.

  He paused to study a billboard diagram and located Ashur-Proffitt (with Maciver’s printed after it in smaller letters). When he arrived at the barrier that blocked his entrance to the plant, a uniformed man appeared from the kiosk and said, “How do, mate? And what can we do you for?”

  As he removed his helmet and goggles, Wield said, “Bet if I’d turned up in a suit and a BMW you’d not have talked to me like that, Bri.”

  “Bugger me, it’s you, Wieldy!” exclaimed the man. “I should have recognized the bike. How’re you doing? Long time no see.”

  His name was Brian Edwards, he was a broad red-faced man in his fifties, and he’d been a DC till a problem with stomach ulcers brought on by the usual CID mix of stress, fags, beer and fatty takeaways had got him invalided out.

  “I’m fine,” said Wield. “Didn’t know you worked here.”

  “Oh aye. More than ten years now.”

  “And is this all you do? I mean, are you on the security staff?”

  Edwards grinned.

  “You’re thinking, is this the best the poor sod could get, being a gate-man? No, don’t deny it, Sarge. Aye, I could have done better, might even have been wearing a suit and sitting in an office now. But I told ’em, I don’t want owt that means wandering around at night and risking getting banged on the head and having to chase some thieving scrote who’ll likely pull a blade if I catch him. No, checking folk in and out of the gate will do me fine. Regular hours and I’ve not had any trouble with me belly for years.”

  “You’re looking well,” agreed Wield. “You don’t recollect another ex-job guy, name of Jake Gallipot, who worked for Security here about ten years back?”

  “Gallipot? DS from Harrogate? Him there used to be the stories about? Aye, I remember him. I recall thinking, if retired DSs are reduced to wandering around in peaked caps with a big stick, then mebbe I’m not doing so bad. He didn’t last long, though. Couple of months at the outside, could have been less.”

  “Did he leave or was he pushed?”

  “Think he just handed in his cards. Never heard nowt to the contrary. He were pretty popular, always ready to stand and have a chat with anyone. Aye, everyone liked Jake. I heard later he’d got his own business, security or investigation or something, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Good luck to him. Wouldn’t have done for me. Start sticking your nose into other people’s business you never know what they’ll end up sticking into you.” He regarded Wield shrewdly and asked, “Is it Gallipot you’re here about?”

  “If it was, who’d I want to speak to?” said Wield.

  Edwards laughed.

  “You don’t change, do you? Give nowt that’s not paid for and then ask for change. It ’ud be Tom Hoblitt. He does the hiring and firing. If this were the army, he’d be the RSM or top sergeant, him being a Yank.”

  “Mr Hoblitt it is then. Where do I find him?”

  “Nay, I’ll take you across to Admin myself,” said Edwards. “Can’t have suspicious characters wandering around the plant unaccompanied, got strict instructions about that. Leave your bike here, it’ll not get nicked.”

  He spoke briefly to another man in the kiosk then led the way towards the plant at a brisk pace as though determined to demonstrate how fit he was.

  You didn’t have to be an industrial archaeologist to plot the history of Ash-Mac’s, thought Wield. The story of the firm was written quite clearly in the ugly sprawl of buildings that lay before him. The initial basic workshop where Liam Maciver had started all those years ago was still there, with around it all the brick-built development that marked the company’s rapid expansion in the late thirties and forties. A keener eye might have been needed to detect the point where consolidation finished and decline began, but the reversal of that decline was unmistakable in several brand-new concrete-and-glass structures including a small office block over which flew both the Stars and Stripes and the Union flag.

  Edwards led Wield in here. An unwelcoming receptionist wearing more paint than a bellicose Mohawk listened as the gate-man explained the sergeant’s purpose, her gaze running over his leathered body as though assessing where best to place her tomahawk. She then picked up her phone, pressed a button, spoke rapidly in what might as well have been Iroquoian, listened, then said, “Thank you, Mr Edwards. Sergeant Wield, will you come this way?”

  She rose and set off rapidly up a flight of stairs.

  Wield looked at Edwards, who made a face, murmured, “I think she likes you,” and left.

  The woman, as if unable to conceive her instruction would not be instantly acted upon, was already out of sight but Wield was able to detect her progress by the sonar click of stiletto heels and soon fell into line astern. On the second landing she passed through a door without knocking, said to another woman, whose face differed from hers only in that the tribal artist had painted a smile on it, “This is Sergeant Wield,” and left.

  The smiling woman went to an inner door, tapped once, opened it, and said, “Sergeant Wield.”

  He went through. A man was sitting behind a desk. He was in his forties, stockily built, with vigorous hair on the turn from black pepper to sea salt. He rose, extended his hand and said, “Tony Kafka. How can I help you?”

  “Must be a mistake, sir,” said Wield, shaking the proffered hand. “It was Mr Hoblitt I wanted to see.”

  “So I understand, but this time you got on a fast track to the organ grinder himself. Hoblitt’s around the plant somewhere, so maybe I can clear up whatever it is you want clearing up.”

  “Just a routine enquiry, sir. Hardly worth bothering you with.”

  This was his first encounter with Kafka. There’d been no reason to have any direct contact with him when Pal Senior topped himself and less reason since. But he’d often wonde
red what kind of man it was that had taken on the enigmatic Kay Maciver and her stepdaughter after the tragedy.

  The room itself gave little clue to character. Hanging on the wall was a photograph of the rock carvings of the heads of some American presidents which Wield recalled seeing in an old Hitchcock movie. On the clutter-free desk stood another photo in a silver frame, this one of a smiling soldier with a medal on his chest. He had to be some close relative of Kafka. The cheekbones and the nose were unmistakable. Nothing else which could be called personal was on view.

  “You won’t be bothering me, Sergeant,” said Kafka in a tone which clearly implied, How could you?

  “Just an old employee we’re interested in,” said Wield. “Man called Gallipot. He worked for your Security people about ten years ago.”

  “Gallipot?” said Kafka. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  But it did. And not a very sweet chime either, thought Wield. The guy was good but it took best actor Oscar ability to deceive this critical gaze.

  “No reason it should,” said Wield. “Maybe I should talk to Mr Hoblitt …?”

  “Of course. Sorry. Let’s see if we can find him for you. I’m just on my way out. Off to the States first thing tomorrow so I’m heading down to London tonight. And I’m still not packed.”

  This sudden flood of information affably expressed was a natural reaction, often observed by Wield, in a witness who has decided to move swiftly away from an area he’s not comfortable with. Kafka was a man more at home with directness than deceit, which did not necessarily mean he was not deceptive.

  He picked up a briefcase and led the way out of the office block. A man in a rather Ruritanian uniform was walking toward them with a huge German Shepherd whose expression reminded Wield of the receptionist.

  “Seen Hoblitt, Joe?” said Kafka.

  “In Despatch,” replied the man.

  No sir. Was this American democracy at work?

  Kakfa glanced at him amusedly and said, “What do you think of the uniform?”