‘No. Just comes natural, specially when I’m not.’
‘Is that so? I thought we’d entered on a new era of transparency.’
‘Nay, lad,’ protested the Fat Man, ‘I’m not holding owt back. I can’t help it if occasionally I make a lucky guess.’
‘And in this case, what might your guess be?’
‘About the dead ’un? I’d say, Welsh and a journalist. Nay, don’t lose your rag, Pete. You know me, always a lucky guesser.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing, Andy, much more of this and your luck is really going to run out,’ said Pascoe in a low, hard voice.
‘Pete, trust me. I’ll never keep owt from you that I think you need to know, OK? Now you’ll be wanting to get back there quick to talk to this Watkins. I’ll join you soon as I can. Couple of things I need to check first. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Pascoe reluctantly. ‘But don’t make me come looking for you, Andy.’
The two men stood staring at each other for a long moment.
It was Dalziel who turned away.
16.42-18.05
Nye Glendower drove westward along the roads of Mid-Yorkshire at a moderate speed in keeping with his standing as a respected Chief Constable and pillar of a community that expected its pillars to be strong and upright and based on good Welsh granite. After a few minutes his mirror showed him a white Mondeo coming up fast behind him.
He gave a wave and for an hour they drove in close convoy. Finally, with the Yorkshire border behind him and the declining sun beginning to be a trouble to his eyes, he signalled left to pull into a lay-by separated from the main road by a line of scrubby trees.
The Mondeo drew in behind him. Its driver got out. Glendower followed suit and stood by the X5 as she came towards him.
Myfanwy Baugh, Chief Executive of the Cambrian NHS Trust, a solidly built woman in her early fifties with a natural authority and unbending will that made many a man who’d tasted the sadness of her might say grudgingly, ‘That Myfanwy, she’s got balls.’
But Nye Glendower knew she hadn’t.
She opened her mouth to speak. He took her in his arms and stopped her tongue with his.
After a long moment she pushed him away and said, ‘Somebody might see us.’
‘All racing home,’ he said, indicating the traffic flashing past beyond the trees. ‘Anyway, who’s to know who we are round here?’
‘That fat slob you were talking to, for one. It was that cop who ruined our lunch, wasn’t it?’
‘The same. Bad luck he should have been in the car park just then. Could have been worse, though. He could have seen the two of us together. You did well to hang back, Myfi.’
‘Is that meant to flatter me? Nye, the point of going to that dump was that nobody knew either of us there and we’d be able to relax for a change. Instead of which we end up doing a runner like a couple of petty crooks!’
‘Hey, we didn’t do a runner, I paid the bill, girl!’ he laughed. ‘Listen, there’s nothing to worry about. Just a precaution once I got a sniff there was some sort of op going on round the hotel. Anyway, the fat bastard’s just filling in time till he gets his pension, so forget him. Point is, we’ve still got a night in hand. I was thinking maybe head down into the Peak District? Should get in somewhere nice, Sunday evening, lot of weekenders will have checked out. And it’s on our way home, more or less.’
She was shaking her head emphatically.
‘I think we should head home now, Nye. We’ve got away with one close encounter. Let’s not push our luck.’
He didn’t argue. Myfanwy Baugh hadn’t got where she was without being able to signal when she’d made up her mind and wasn’t to be budged.
But he too had had to fight his way up the rocky promotion mountain, and he hadn’t got to the top without learning that the way to deal with immoveable obstacles was to push them in a new direction.
He opened the rear door of the X5.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But get in. Let’s at least say goodbye properly.’
She said, ‘Here? You must be mad!’
But she wasn’t resisting as he put his arms round her thighs, lifted her up and laid her across the back seat, in the process forcing her short skirt up around her buttocks.
He said, ‘See you’re wearing my favourites, girl. You know what the red silk does to me. What were you thinking when you put them on, eh?’
‘For God’s sake get in and close the door,’ she said hoarsely. ‘And we’ll have to make it quick.’
He smiled as he pulled the door to behind him. He knew his Myfi. Once they got started, goodbye caution. She’d want it to last as long as he could make it last.
For a brief moment his mind went back to his meeting with Andy Dalziel. They were of an age and there had been a time when Dalziel was regarded as the sharpest knife in the box, the man with the starry future. But you never knew what time was going to do to a man. It had been a shock to see what he’d become-a grampus puffing around in a very small pond, a ready-to-be superannuated superintendent who let himself be bossed around by his pushy young DCI. What a contrast with his own continuing rise to the stellar heights! What pain it must have caused Dalziel to come across his contemporary in the car park of a posh hotel, stacking designer luggage into an expensive car, and looking at least a decade younger than the poor fat sod!
And if he could see me now, he thought triumphantly, still getting it on in the back seat with a sexually rampant woman, he’d probably have a heart attack!
Then the red silk panties slid down to Myfi’s ankles and Aneurin Glendower erased all thought of Andy Dalziel from his mind forever.
Or at least for a minute and a half.
For it can’t have been much longer than that before the rear door was pulled open and a polite but forceful cough halted him in mid-stroke with Myfanwy’s legs round his neck, one of her feet waving the red panties like a May Day banner.
He turned his head, not without difficulty-she was a strong woman-and managed to bring one angry eye to bear on the intruder.
He saw a uniformed constable standing to attention, his gaze firmly fixed somewhere above the car roof. Behind him alongside a police Range Rover stood another constable, his face bearing the emotionless unfocused look that can only be put there by a waxwork sculptor, or by the awareness that, if you let it relax for a millisec, you will collapse to the ground and roll around in fits of ungovernable laughter.
‘Chief Constable Glendower, sir?’ said the first constable in a broad Lancashire accent. ‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s an urgent message from Detective Superintendent Dalziel of Mid-Yorkshire CID. He’d like for you to ring him. As soon as it’s at all convenient. I’ve got his number here. If you’ve got a pen handy. Sir.’
Behind him the other constable gave up, did a smart right turn and marched away, stuffing his fist into his mouth. Out of the gathering dusk came a noise like the hoarse barking of a hyena.
At last Glendower found his voice.
‘Shut…the…fucking…door!’ he said.
17.35-17.55
When Mrs Esme Sheridan opened her door, the sight that met her eyes made her recoil in shock. But indignation triumphed over fear and, pausing only to select a walking stick from the elephant-foot umbrella stand in
