disturbance you could find out when he was there, how long, and (if possible) why, I'd be very grateful.'
Description, mouthed Pascoe, trying to make it look somehow accidental.
'Shall I try for a description also?' asked Lauder. 'To make sure it's the right man?'
'Please,' murmured Dalziel with a self-restraint which Pascoe would not have believed he possessed. 'Soon as you can, eh.'
He gave Lauder his telephone number, replaced the receiver, and picked it up again straightaway.
'Get me the infirmary at Doncaster, will you?' he said. 'I want someone who knows something about the condition of Mr Edgar Sturgeon. I don't want some little brown man who doesn't know a thermometer from a banana.'
If they could expel Dalziel from the Commonwealth, thought Pascoe, there might be hope for peace in our time.
'Your girl-friend called, Sergeant,' said Dalziel suddenly.
'What?'
'I spoke to her.'
'What! I mean, what did she want, sir?'
'How should I know? She said bugger all to me.'
A tiny, tinny voice was coming out of the ear-piece with which Dalziel was massaging his bald spot. Finally he became aware of it.
'Hello!' he roared, reducing it to silence. But after introducing himself, he settled down to listen.
'Well, there's no help there,' he said when he had finished. 'It seems to me as if Sturgeon and Lewis are soon going to have something else in common. They're both going to be dead.'
The men searched the ground thoroughly for over an hour. Then they searched it again, this time with a metal detector. Only after this second search and after as comprehensive a photographing of the area as was possible outside Hollywood did Backhouse send the order to tow the blue Mini-Cooper away. There was no question of driving it away. The ignition had been left on, the engine was sodden wet and the wheels had buried themselves deep in a morass caused by the recent rains.
Backhouse walked through the gap in the wire and peered down into the clay-pit.
'I wouldn't go too near the edge, sir,' said Constable Crowther, practising what he preached and standing a good two yards back. Always sensitive to local expertise, Backhouse retreated before asking why.
'If you look over to the other side, sir, you'll see there's quite an overhang. Well, that continues all the way round. They gouged deep into the sides before they decided the place was played out.'
'When was that?'
'Oh, when I was just a lad, sir. I'm from these parts, as you know. There was always trouble with the drainage, I believe. Water coming in, but not finding a way out very easily. Finally they struck an underground stream and that was that. Once they stopped pumping it away, the place just filled up.'
'It's deep then?'
'It is, especially after the rain we've been having.
Deep and dangerous. Bits of the overhang drop in from time to time. That's why they've got this wire round it. But what's wire to kids? Or anyone determined to get through?'
'What indeed?' said Backhouse staring at the neatly cut gap in the fence. 'Any fatalities?'
'Three, sir, that I know of.'
'Children?'
'That's what you'd expect, sir, but the answer's no. If they'd all been kids, something would have been done about the place long ago. Only one was anything like a child. Boy of sixteen, skylarking with friends round the edge, slipped and fell in. He couldn't swim.'
'And the others?'
'A man and woman, sir. Suicide pact. They were having an affair, but there were difficulties. They both wanted divorces but there was little chance of that. So they talked it over, it seems, then strolled up here one night and jumped in.'
'Good Lord! Yes, I seem to remember something. About twelve years ago?'
'That's right, sir.'
'I wasn't in this area then, of course, but it was in the national Press. Wait now, wasn't one of them called..’
'Yes, sir. Mary Pelman. She was married to Mr Angus Pelman.'
'Well now. There is a thing, Crowther,' said Backhouse. It was difficult to know whether he was commenting on Crowther's information or the arrival of the breakdown vehicle which came grinding up the long, wet track from the distant road.
'We found her almost at once,' Crowther continued. 'She came up to the surface. He stopped down in the mud. It took nearly three weeks before they got him out.'
'Who does it belong to, Crowther?' asked Backhouse, watching the breakdown truck negotiate itself into position before the Mini.
'No one, really,' said Crowther. 'Mr Pelman owns most of the land on this side, the south. His house is at the back of that ridge over there. Then the land drops away, woodland mainly, down to the village.'
'The woods behind Brookside Cottage?' said Backhouse.
'That's right. But there's no direct route. Not for a car. It'd have to come round by the road and up the old track. Three miles about.'
'Something seems to have come this way pretty regularly,' said Backhouse, examining the ground carefully. 'I wonder why? And who would want to cut a gap in the wire?'
'Can't say, sir,' said Crowther. 'Do you think Hopkins is in there, sir?'
'I don't know yet. I'm not even sure if I'd like him to be. It'd be neat, certainly. But I don't know.'
Forgetting Crowther's injunction, he strolled back towards the edge, thinking of the odd, enigmatic note found in the car. It was back at HQ now undergoing the most rigorous examination. Fingerprints, handwriting, type of paper, all would be subjected to the closest scrutiny. But the state of mind of the writer was what interested Backhouse. Could it be read as a confession and the last desperate cry of a man about to drown himself? It might well be. Hopkins seemed to have been something of an original. Perhaps the opinion of that other highly individual young man, Sergeant Pascoe, might be worth seeking. If it could be obtained without sparking off some kind of explosion.
The breakdown truck was advancing from the bosky tunnel into which the Mini had reversed. He turned to watch it. It wasn't possible for the truck to turn towards the track until the car was clear of the undergrowth. Therefore it came straight towards him. For a frightening second he thought it wasn't going to stop, but the driver began to spin the wheel round a good twenty feet away. In any case, it could hardly come through the small gap in the wire.
One of the truck's wheels lost its grip on the soft ground momentarily and began to spin. Foolishly the driver revved up and the next minute both were spinning wildly.
Half-wit, thought Backhouse, staggering slightly for some reason. Fainting fit? he wondered. The first warnings of a stroke? It was frightening, as if the ground were moving under him.
'Superintendent!' yelled Crowther.
Backhouse, still surprised, stepped towards him, then turned his step into a leap, as beyond all dispute the ground moved.
Crowther seized him by the hand and dragged him violently away from the quarry. Quite unnecessary, Backhouse thought, as he turned and looked back. It was a goood two seconds before a long section of earth, including the bit on which he had been standing, slid undramatically out of sight into the depths below. It was difficult to see any difference. If it hadn't been for the posts supporting the wire leaning drunkenly out into space it would have been impossible to detect that anything had happened.
'Get this thing out of here before it causes any more damage!' commanded Backhouse, pointing at the truck.
'If he's under that little pile, sir, he'll be hard to find,' said Crowther.
'We'll find him, never fear,' said Backhouse. 'If he was buried under a mountain, we'd find him.'
'Hello! Peter?' said Ellie uncertainly, standing at the open front door.
