'He should have woken up by now.'
'What would you like me to do?' 'Look after the walking boys. It'll take them all morning to cover the kids from the school. By then if nothing's come out of the search, it'll be time to start asking everyone questions.'
'Anyone in particular? Streets, I mean?'
Dalziel looked surprised. 'Why, you'll start by asking everyone on the Wood field Estate, and if we still haven't found him, we'll work our way through the rest of town. There's only eighty-five thousand of them.'
'Thanks,' said Pascoe.
Think yourself lucky,' replied Dalziel, shaking a newspaper on his desk. 'At least they had the plane crash in North Africa this year.' Funny man, thought Pascoe as he went swiftly and efficiently to work. Is it just a cover like we all put up? Or does he really not feel these things? What a man to spend Christmas with! I'd be better off at home with all those kids! By midday the Common had been turned over with meticulous care, the pools dragged and the frogmen sent down. As far as Mickey Annan was concerned, the result was absolutely negative. But lots of other things were brought up. A list was always made on these occasions and Pascoe glanced quickly down it. A small part of his mind was still on the unidentified weapon in the Connon case. But there was nothing here which rang a bell. The usual household expendables, a suitcase containing some fairly valuable pieces of pewter (dumped by mistake? or stolen and dumped in fear?) and, an item which made Pascoe whistle slightly, two guns. But he had no time for idle speculation. A large-scale map of the Wood field Estate lay before him. He still had to complete his detectives' schedules. It was one-thirty before he had any lunch. He ate it alone in the police canteen. Mickey Annan now went to the back of his mind. He had taken part in the search that morning for a while, talked to some of the children from the school, as well as helping to organize the house-to-house. But he knew it was a routine, automatic business, none the less essential for all that, and nine times out of ten effective. Mickey Annan would probably be found very soon. It was after the finding that the real work began, and Pascoe was not a man given to anticipating events. Except in the line of business. His thoughts drifted back to the Connons. The missing boy wasn't really interfering with the progress of the Connon case, because the progress only existed in theory. Investigations were still proceeding, but unless Dalziel had some private little line well hidden from everyone else, the phrase was as empty as it sounded. The only thing that was any clearer to him now than it had been when he started was his picture of the murdered woman. It wasn't a very complete one. She seemed to have been a reasonable kind of mother to Jenny; at least she hadn't stimulated any of the strong resentments which seemed to lie uneasily dormant in most daughters, especially those very fond of their fathers. And she seemed to have made Connon a bearable kind of wife. But she had told him his daughter had been fathered by another man and she had tried to separate him from his main interest in life, the Club. Add to this that she was a vain woman with a streak of snobbery, but one who had made a friend of Alice Fernie (who herself was unlikely to pick her friends haphazardly); that she was a manhunting, high-life-loving girl who had shown no desire to keep up her connection with her old stamping-grounds; and finally, that she apparently received obscene letters with equanimity, merely folding them up and putting them away like love-letters sentimentally preserved; add all these things together and you had a woman who was as incomprehensible as women traditionally are. Over his coffee, Pascoe toyed with permutations of possibilities in which Felstead or Evans had written the letter (all the letters?), in which Mary Connon had a lover (someone at the Club? Noolan? Jesus! Or what about Bruiser Dalziel? Joke); in which Connon swung a metal bar held like a spear into his wife's forehead (jealous rage? didn't fit. Careful plan? but was he so cold-blooded a man as that'?). He'd been along all these paths before. They led nowhere yet, except to fantasy in which Gwen Evans held a crow-bar to Mary's head and Alice Fernie struck it home with a sledge-hammer while Mary, unheeding, watched the television. He sighed and returned mentally to the canteen. There was other work to be done. Connon would have to wait. Mary was dead. There was still the faintest of chances that Mickey Annan might still be among the living. Connon was angry when the doctor arrived, but even in anger he didn't lose the moderation of speech or manner which Antony now recognized as his main characteristic.
'I didn't send for you, Doctor,' he said.
'Just a checking-up call,' replied McManus cheerily. 'Just because you don't send for me doesn't mean you don't need me any more.'
'I'm fine,' said Connon. 'You've had a wasted journey.'
'It's a good way to waste it, then. But I'll be the judge of how fine you are. You don't look so hot to me.' Connon did not look well. He seemed to be visibly losing weight. His cheek-bones were prominent and the paleness of the skin stretched over them was accentuated by the darkness which ran like a stain round his eyes. 'Come along, then, and let's take a look at you,' said McManus. Connon had enough of himself left to give Jenny a sardonically accusing glance as he left the room with the doctor.
'He knows it was you,' said Antony.
That doesn't matter. As long as Doctor Mac can do something for him.' 'I'm sure he can,' said Antony cheerfully. 'He'll come up with some witches' brew.' But he could not feel so certain inside that Connon's malady would respond to physical treatment.
'Do you think the police have given up?' asked Jenny.
'I don't know. Do you want them to?' 'I'm not sure. I don't much care now whether they catch someone or not. But I'd just like everyone to know for Daddy's sake that he had nothing to do with it. Do you think they took any notice of what you said about the telephone-box?' 'They must have done. There's a new directory there now. I had a look. But I don't think my amorous rival Pascoe was too delighted to receive advice and assistance from me. As far as the police are concerned I suspect there's a very thin line between public support and amateur interference.' 'As if you would interfere in what wasn't your business!' said Jenny with mock indignation. 'I see you've come to know me well,' responded Antony. 'Come and sit on my knee.'
His hand stroked her leg as he kissed her.
I've been here before, thought Jenny. But she was very glad to be there again. Talking of interference,' said Antony a little while later, removing his lips from the side of her neck.
'Don't be disgusting,' she said.
'I think I shan interfere once more. There's something else which keeps on coming back to me which they might possibly be interested in.'
Jenny sat upright. 'What's that, Sherlock?'
But they heard a footstep on the stairs and Jenny rose swiftly, smoothing down her dress.
The door opened and McManus came in.
'How is he, Doctor?' asked Jenny anxiously.
The old man carefully closed the door behind him.
'He's just putting his shirt on. He'll be down in a minute.'
He looked enquiringly at Antony.
'It's OK, Doctor,' said Jenny. 'How is he?' 'Well, physically there's nothing I can put my finger on. He complains of being listless, loss of appetite, that kind of thing. But this we might expect. Also his head still pains him from time to time where he got that knock. But I think this is like his other symptoms. There's nothing wrong. It's purely nervous in origin.' 'But he seems to be getting worse, not better,' protested Jenny. Antony put his arm comfortingly round her waist. 'Yes. That's true. It's a delayed reaction, not uncommon. A kind of shock. He's been living on his reserves of nervous energy for the past couple of weeks. It can't go on for ever.' He struggled into his overcoat which Antony brought him from the hall. 'But don't worry. I've been his doctor for many years, nearly all his life, I suppose. I've seen him like this before, before you were born, when he cracked his ankle the week before the final trial. He went as thin as a rake, and deathly pale then for a couple of weeks. You'd have thought the end had come. But it hadn't. He got back to normal in no time. No, no, it hadn't. It hadn't.' He shook his head and laughed softly to himself at the memory. Hadn't it? wondered Antony. And in what way could the end come twice? 'Well, I suppose you've told them three times as much as you've told me,' said Connon from the door. 'I long ago noted that to a doctor keeping confidences meant telling your patient nothing and his relatives everything. You should all be struck off.'
McManus laughed as he picked up his bag.
'Goodbye, Jenny; and you, young man. I'll call in again, Connie, if you don't call to see me. Take your medicine now and stop worrying your friends.' They watched him get into his car, then returned to the lounge. 'Well,' said Jenny, 'time for lunch, I think. Antony, make yourself useful for once, love. You'll find a tablecloth in the top drawer of the sideboard. Set the table, if it's not beneath your dignity.' She went out into the kitchen. Antony grinned in resignation at Connon and began searching for the tablecloth. 'It's good of you to stay on with us,
