further than twelve miles but Dalziel offered no comment. In the hospital car park he scratched himself comprehensively, yawned and said, 'They'll have a bar here, I expect.' 'I very much doubt it,' said Pascoe. 'You're joking! What's the point of being independent?' 'I'm sure you'll get a coffee.' 'Nay, I'll drink nowt in these places unless it's been brewed or distilled. More germs than a midden.' They walked together through the serried ranks of cars. Pascoe said, 'Look, sir, I still don't get it. You and Sempernel cooing at each other like a pair of randy turtle doves, what the hell was that really about? And don't give me that crap about searching your case. They could have done that easy enough without letting you loose on the Highland Park!' 'So your brain's not gone altogether maggoty since I left you? Good,' approved Dalziel. 'So what did they get that they couldn't have got any other way?' Pascoe thought, then said, 'Nothing, except you and me together talking…
Good God, are you saying that Sempernel was listening to us?' 'Aye, lad. And he'll likely carry on listening for a bit, which is the reason I'm talking to you now. I can't be falling asleep all the time to make sure you don't start asking daft questions.' This was even harder to take in. 'The car? You think they've bugged my car? Come on!' 'Why not? Whose idea was it for you to drive down to the Smoke with Adolf and back with me?' 'Mr Trimble's.' 'But where did he get it from? Who was it told him which plane I was flying on, for instance?'
'But what the hell did they want to hear?' demanded Pascoe. Dalziel grinned lupinely. 'Exactly what they heard was what they wanted to hear.' 'You mean…' Pascoe's mind raced round a maze of meanings but always found himself forced back to its centre. Dalziel was watching him impatiently like an old- fashioned pedagogue. If he'd had a cane, he would have been swishing it encouragingly against his calf.
'You mean all that about Westropp killing his wife, and the Establishment cover-up, wasn't true?' 'That's right. Like a hen-house floor, all a load of crap.' 'Then who did…?' 'Mickledore, of course. Who else? And for exactly the reasons that Wally worked out.
Poor Cissy almost caught him in the act. He knew about her and Westropp, so he thought quick and invented this cover-up tale. She was so besotted, she bought it. Whether she'd have gone on buying it if it hadn't been for the little girl, Christ knows. But by the time she got her mind together she was months into her sentence and all she wanted to do was blot out that night at Mickledore Hall.' Pascoe shook his head, not in denial but to clear it. 'But this is fine, this is what you wanted to prove, more or less. OK, Kohler got the dirty end of the stick but she grabbed hold of it with both hands and wouldn't let go, so it's no one's fault. And if Mickledore really was guilty, then Wally was right. Where's the problem?' Dalziel now shook his head too, but not for clarity. 'The maggots are back, lad. You're not taking drugs, are you?' Pascoe, whose doctor had prescribed a mild tranquillizer which Pottle had approved, was shocked for a second into thinking Dalziel knew about it. The Fat Man's medical philosophy could be reduced to two propositions: men who made money out of putting people on drugs should be called pushers, not doctors; and anyone going to see a psychiatrist needed his head looked. But it was surely too soon for even his spy system to have spotted Pascoe's visits to Pottle? Therefore he was still being prompted to say why what looked like the end of a problem wasn't… He said, ‘If the Establishment cover-up wasn't to make sure Westropp didn't get done for topping his wife, there has to be another reason, right?' 'Not quite brain dead, then? You're getting there. Now you only need to answer the last question. What is it that's had buggers like Sempernel and his mob running round like blue-arsed flies for twenty-seven years? What was it that made it worth while topping Mavis Marsh and probably poor old Wally himself, just so the boat wouldn't be rocked? What was it they were afraid might really come out if there was too much deep digging?'
'Apart from the Partridge business, you mean?'
'Aye. That came later. That gave Waggs the leverage to get Kohler out. He told her that Westropp was dying and that made her so keen to get to see him, she told Waggs about catching Marsh giving young Tommy a blow job. Once they realized Waggs knew about the alleged baby too, they got worried the whole story might come out, either because he kept digging or through Marsh herself. They knew she'd be very susceptible if the tabloids got a hint of it and came round waving huge cheques.'
'She didn't need it,' said Pascoe. 'Do you know how much she left?
A quarter of a million! God knows what other little scams she had going.'
'And all this lot started when Pip Westropp turned up at Beddington College and Marsh thought she saw a way to get her hands on whatever Kohler had got stashed away in the bank. She were greedy as a guppy, that one, but clever with it. You say Partridge laughed when he heard this handicapped kid had nothing to do with either Marsh or his son? It would be a load off his conscience, assuming he's got one. But the funny buggers must have been furious to realize that they'd been jerked around for years by a little old Scots nanny! I bet they wished they'd cancelled her pass years ago!'
'Yes, but why did they decide to kill her now, after all those years?' ‘I reckon they'd thought they could rely on her keeping her mouth shut for her own sake. She seemed to be co- operating all along the line. When Waggs confronted her with Cissy's story, she probably contacted Partridge who passed it on to the funny buggers. Waggs had enough sense to protect his back so they offered him a deal. Go along with Marsh's original story about the blood, which had never come up at the trial, remember? Cissy would be let loose under safeguards, the Partridge scandal would be kept quiet, and hopefully Westropp would be long dead before she got anywhere near him.' 'So why kill Marsh now?' persisted Pascoe. 'You came along, lad,' said Dalziel. 'Sticking your neb in. Asking questions, looking at photos. That was probably the turning-point, when they heard her asking you to look at the photo that linked her and Pip Westropp.' 'They heard…?' 'You don't imagine the place isn't bugged? And once this naughty nanny starts dropping little hints to a clever copper, well, someone's got to go.
Lucky it wasn't you, lad. Except you still knew nowt, whereas they were beginning to wonder just how much Nanny Marsh really did know.'
About what? wondered Pascoe desperately. What could be worse than having a peripheral member of the royal family suspected of killing his wife? 'Got there yet?' asked Dalziel, telepathic as always. 'Think of the year nineteen sixty-three.' 'Got it,' said Pascoe. 'It was Westropp who shot Kennedy.' It was meant as a joke, in rather poor taste perhaps, but they were the kind Dalziel usually liked. But, incredibly, absurdly, far from being amused, the Fat Man was nodding encouragement. 'Warm,' he said. 'You're getting warm. January 'sixty- three, Philby dropped out of sight in Beirut, turned up in Moscow in July. In the autumn the funny buggers fingered Anthony Blunt's collar for the first time. Him they did a deal with. Why? Mainly because he helped clean the pictures at Buck House or something! So how do you think they were going to react if – ' ' – if Westropp, if a Royal, turned out to be another Communist agent. Bloody hell!' 'Well done, Peter. But it's been like squeezing Eskimo Nell out of a nuns' chorus.
You'll need to be sharper than that if you're going to be Queen of the May.' In fact Dalziel's lofty reproof came close to equivocation.
True, he had worked it out, but only after a series of nods and winks which made his own hints to Pascoe look like leaves from the Sibyl.
Westropp was eager, almost desperate to talk. It was, Dalziel decided later, the deathbed confession he was scared he might make to Marilou.
So when Dalziel said, 'You weren't just one of our spooks, you were a bloody commie spy too!' his wasted face had contorted in a congratulatory grin which wouldn't have been out of place in a horror film. 'And they knew about it back in 'sixty-three?' 'They were very suspicious, though of course they simply didn't want to believe it, which helped. I think it was Tony Blunt who gave them the positive confirmation. Oddly, it was Scott Rampling who first came right out with it. No royalist inhibitions, you see. 'You know, James,' he said,
'It wouldn't surprise me one little bit if you didn't turn out to be one of these Cambridge commies too.' I smiled and said, 'Indeed? And what would you do about it, assuming it were true?' He said, 'Hell, if I got the proof, I'd do nothing. I could use it to jerk you and that bunch of amateurs you work for any which way I like, couldn't I?' He was right, that was the only professional response, but fortunately he didn't get anything like proof till it was far too late. Loquacity is the American disease. Didn't he imagine that my friends would give me something to shut him up with?' 'So what did the funny buggers do with you after Mickledore Hall?' asked Dalziel. 'They whisked me away out of sight. They'd have done that anyway. It's a knee-jerk damage limitation exercise when someone in my position looks like they might get too much publicity. I was in no state to resist, not after Emily's death. It was clear that they didn't give a damn what had really happened, they weren't even particularly interested whether or not I'd actually murdered Pam, they just wanted to be sure I came across as the sympathetic figure, the betrayed friend, widowed husband, bereaved father. They knew about me and Cissy, of course. In a way, what I know now was her lunatic act of loyalty worked out to her benefit…'
'Benefit!' exclaimed Dalziel. ‘Indeed. As Mickledore's mistress, she was safe, well, fairly safe. If she'd been
