He stamped on the accelerator now, finding his strength. The Rover leapt forward, the loose seat-belt buckle swinging noisily against the door. In a few seconds his speed had doubled.
It was all a question of timing really. He suddenly felt optimistic. It was the right thing to do, there was no alternative. The thing was to do it right. He opened his mouth in triumphant song. The road glistened damply.
Behind him, the driver of the blue van watched in disbelieving horror the beginnings of the skid. This couldn't be happening just because he had flashed his lights. It couldn't be!
The road here was slightly raised above the level of the surrounding countryside. The car slid gracefully off the hard surface, struck the grass-verge, then flipped sideways and over down the embankment.
By the time the van-driver halted and made his way to the car, everything was quite, quite still.
The royal-blue Mini-Cooper, backed deep into a tunnel of hawthorn and briar, was still too. The small boy approached it carefully. He had been observing it just as carefully from his hiding-place for. the past ten minutes. At last he was satisfied that it was just as unoccupied as it had been the first time he noticed it two days earlier.
The boy had very good reason for not wishing to be observed. Of all the places his kill-joy parents proscribed, this was placed under their most severe proscription. To be found here would be to risk the most dreadful punishments. The reason lay fifteen yards or so behind him where the sheer walls of the old clay-pit, rimmed now with a double thickness of barbed-wire, fell fifty feet to the opaque waters below.
He'd reached the car and peered in. It was, as expected, empty. But the key was in the ignition which meant that whoever owned it might not be far away. Yet he was certain its position had not changed since he first spotted it. All in all, it was worth taking the risk of looking inside.
Disappointingly it contained little of interest. A sheet of paper had been left on the passenger seat with a lot of writing on it. But he couldn't make a great deal of sense of it.
Rain spattered on the windscreen. It was time to go. He walked back towards the clay-pit and through the gap in the wire to peer down once more at the water. If the rain really got going again, would the surface of the water ever reach the top? It was an interesting speculation, but the growing co-operation of the rain-clouds made him cut it short and retreat. It was a useful gap, this. Eventually someone would notice and repair it, but not many people came this way.
Like the car, it was his secret for the moment.
Wet but happy, he began to make his way home to the village.
Chapter 5
There was a police-car outside Sturgeon's house when Pascoe arrived.
Marjory Clayton had not been much help. Aged about twenty, she was a plain girl, rather anaemic in complexion and wearing a shapeless cardigan which looked as if it had been woven round a sack of potatoes. She seemed genuinely upset at her employer's death and Pascoe treated her gently. Monday had been her half-day and she had been nowhere near the office after midday. Nothing unusual had occurred during the morning. In fact practically nothing at all. No customers, few calls. Business, it seemed, was very, very slack. No, she had not known that Mr Lewis was returning from Scotland that afternoon, though it didn't surprise her. He spent a lot of time up there and seemed quite happy to drive back and forth at fairly frequent intervals.
The other secretary, Jane Collinwood, lived at the far side of town. She would have to wait till later. It was beginning to feel like a wasted day.
But the scene that met him when he stepped through the open front door of Sturgeon's house drove his own troubles out of his mind. Mavis Sturgeon, aged from a sprightly sixty to a parchment like ninety, was being helped into her coat by an awkward-looking constable. She was clearly in a state of shock and showed no sign of recognition.
'What's up?'
'Are you a friend, sir?' asked the constable hopefully.
'I'm a detective-sergeant, son. Come on, what's happened?'
'It's Mr Sturgeon, Sergeant. There's been an accident, and I was sent..’
'Yes.' Pascoe put his arm round the woman's shoulders. 'Have you sent for a doctor?'
'Well, no. She wouldn't… she just insisted on going straight to the hospital,' the constable answered helplessly.
'For God's sake, man! She's in no state, can't you see?'
Pascoe's anger drained quickly away. Being a messenger of death and disaster was no job for a young man. He pointed at the leather-bound address book by the telephone in the hallway.
'You'll find her doctor's number in that, probably. It's Andrews, I think. Ring him. Tell him to get out here at once. Then go next door, dig out a neighbour and bring her round.'
'Please, I must go to Edgar,' said Mrs Sturgeon piteously.
'Yes, love. Soon. Come and sit down a moment,' answered Pascoe, leading her gently into the lounge.
'He's been so worried lately. So worried. He wouldn't tell me why. I should have been harder. I should have tried harder.'
She began to weep and the trio of cats which had been viewing the scene suspiciously from the darkest corner of the room now advanced, mewing piteously, and jumped up on her knees. She buried her fingers in their fur, crying still.
A few minutes later the constable arrived with a neighbour, a sensible middle-aged woman who took control with the brisk efficiency of a Women's Institute president. Pascoe retired to the hall and spoke to the constable.
'Yes, Sarge, pretty serious, I believe. He was still alive when they got him to hospital, but at that age…'
'Do you know how it happened?'
'No. Not the faintest. Nothing else involved, that's all I know.'
'And he was down the Al?'
'Nearly at Doncaster. That's where they've taken him.'
Pascoe turned to the phone, first making sure the lounge door was firmly shut. He had to wait a few moments for the operator to answer and his eyes ran over the opened telephone book. One number caught his eye. A Lochart number, but the name next to it meant nothing.
Finally the operator replied and with compensatory swiftness put him through to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary. He identified himself and inquired after Sturgeon. The old man was very ill, he was told. Face cut, ribs broken, left kneecap shattered, no serious internal injuries as far as they knew yet, but he had lost a great deal of blood and was in a serious condition. Anyone wanting to see him might be well advised to move as quickly as possible.
'Thanks,' said Pascoe, putting down the phone.
Hospital, doctors; blood, violence, death.
'It's a hell of way to make a living,' he said to the fresh-faced constable. 'You'll hang on here till the doctor comes?'
'Yes, Sarge. You going now?'
'There's work to do,' said Pascoe.
Dalziel had decided to skip tea, partly as a result of Grainger's suggestion that he should try to lose a pound or two and partly because the medical examination had taken the edge off his usually ferocious appetite. He had left samples of just about everything extractable or removable from his body. It had made him very conscious of himself as a scaffolding of bone with flesh, blood and gut packed into the interstices. The thought of ham sandwiches or sausage rolls had no immediate appeal. But neither his mind nor his body could find anything wrong with the thought of a large stiff scotch (pure malt, drunk with a large dash of gusto) and accordingly he settled down in his room with the aforesaid medication and tried to think about the work in hand.
He was disturbed to find how little it interested him. When a man had devoted his life to something – even, some might say, destroyed it for that something – the least that something could do in return was not bore him.
The telephone rang. It was the duty sergeant.
