Colin, Inspector.'
'Just to talk,' said Pascoe blandly, though he knew that more than blandness was going to be needed here.
'Right,' she said. 'You can talk. But I'll be there when you do.'
'Really, there's no need,' said Pascoe. 'I was just going to pop into the shed and have a few words while he's cleaning his bike.'
'Come on then,' said Mrs Heppelwhite. 'I'll show you. Charlie, make a cup of tea.'
She strode out of the living-room and the others followed, like tugs behind a liner. Heppelwhite and Deirdre Burkill stopped at the kitchen door while Pascoe and Mrs Heppelwhite moved in silence over the springy lawn towards a substantial shed at the bottom of the garden. A light showed through the single-paned window, but there was no sound of tinkering within and Pascoe had a premonition that Clint had somehow become aware of his presence and made off.
But when Mrs Heppelwhite flung open the shed door, he realized he couldn't have been more wrong.
Clint Heppelwhite was there all right, but not tinkering with his bike.
He lay on the floor on some old sacking, his jeans unbelted and pushed down over his buttocks. Alongside him lay a girl with her blouse opened and her bra pushed up over her breasts. She was holding the youth's penis in her left hand while his right hand lay between her legs. She turned her round attractive face towards the door and for a brief moment regarded the intruders with Chinese inscrutability. Pascoe saw the family resemblance instantly.
Then she started screaming. Clint pushed himself to his feet, his face slack with shock. His mother, after a moment of utter stillness, advanced swinging her fists like a fairground boxer and shouting, 'You stupid sod… you little cow… bitch… thick… I'll kill you, I'll murder you.'
Her blows were being aimed as indiscriminately as her abuse. Pascoe advanced, recognizing a duty to interpose his own body, and discovered that her indiscrimination included him. The two youngsters were attempting to take evasive action, the shed shook and the gleaming motor-bike, with its front wheel removed and surrounded by oil cans and spanners, toppled slowly off its stand.
Clint let out a cry of agony and wrath and for a second looked as if he might be going to attack his mother.
Then from the doorway came an outraged cry of 'Sandra' and everything stopped. Everything except Clint's attempts to right his motor-bike and pull up his jeans at the same time. Sandra Burkill made no attempt to adjust her disordered clothing but stood against the furthermost wall, breathing hard, and regarding her mother with calm indifference.
'Get yourself fastened up,' grated Deirdre Burkill. Her voice was low with repressed anger. Behind her Charlie Heppelwhite's long anxious face moved from side to side to get a better view into the crowded shed. He had one hand on Deirdre's shoulder, though whether in comfort or restraint Pascoe could not decide. If restraint, it wasn't very successful as the next moment proved.
Sandra said, 'Keep your sodding hair on,' and started to pull down her bra in a manner which may or may not have been deliberately provocative. Pascoe didn't think there was enough space left in the crowded shed for speedy movement but he was wrong. With a cry of 'You stupid little cow!' Deirdre Burkill shouldered aside all intervening bodies as she flung herself forward and delivered a full-blooded slap across her daughter's face.
'Bloody-little-tart,' she went on, punctuating each word with another blow. Sandra crouched low in the face of this onslaught, covering up with her arms, and Mrs Heppelwhite having had her role as assailant taken away from her now assumed that of defender.
'Stop that, Deirdre!' she commanded, grappling with her friend from behind, and Sandra, seeing her chance, scrambled along the floor and towards the doorway. Here she paused to yell over her shoulder, 'You can fucking talk!' Then as her mother threatened a renewed onslaught, she pushed past Heppelwhite and disappeared into the darkness.
'Don't just stand there looking stupid!' commanded the thin man's wife. 'See where the lass goes!'
Charlie nodded but didn't move immediately. Then with a despairing shake of his head, he turned and went in pursuit.
Pascoe's mind was working furiously. Ideally he would have liked to talk to almost everybody, alone, immediately, while their pulses were still racing. Failing that, Clint was as good a place to start as any.
'Mrs Heppelwhite,' he said. 'Mrs Burkill's upset. Why don't you take her up to the house and get her a cup of tea? Make one for us all, eh?'
To his surprise she made no demur, but put her arm round her friend's shoulders and led her out. Pascoe suspected the respite would not be long, so he turned immediately to the youth who had now righted both his motor-bike and his trousers and said, 'So it was you, was it? All the time.'
'What?'
'Screwing the Burkill kid. Whose idea was it to blame the dentist?'
'What d'you mean?' demanded Clint.
'Oh come on, Heppelwhite! You were caught at it! With my own eyes, I saw it! Is this where you always met? Handy, eh? Just over the garden hedge!'
'Don't be bloody stupid! You're bloody daft, you are!'
'And you're bloody insane if you think you can get away with talking to me like that!' snapped Pascoe, taking a menacing step towards the youth who retreated behind his bike in alarm.
'You've got it all wrong,' he said in a more moderate tone. 'Tonight was the first time I'd touched her. Honest. I was just working on the bike and she came in, dead casual like. Well, she sometimes did. You know how kids are, hanging around. She was just a kid, I'd never thought of her as owt but just a kid.'
'Don't give me that! Are you blind? I bet you've mangled your meat many a time over pictures of skinnier lasses than Sandra!' said Pascoe coarsely.
'I never thought of her as owt else but a kid!' insisted Clint. 'Not till tonight. But it was different, now I knew…'
'What?'
'That she were in the club. Someone had poked her. I knew that and it made a difference.'
The boy spoke defiantly and convincingly, but Pascoe was a long way from being ready to be convinced.
'So you just grabbed her!' he sneered. 'And she said OK. Just like that!'
'Just about,' said Clint. 'We sort of bumped into each other. It's not very big this place. That's how it got started.'
Pascoe changed his tack.
'Listen, lad,' he said confidentially. 'There's nothing to be ashamed of, really. No one'll blame you. Don't get me wrong. You're not going to get away with anything, but we've got you now anyway. So why not give us it straight.'
'What d'you mean, got me?' demanded Clint.
Pascoe shook his head in mock bewilderment.
'What's this all about, lad, but illegal carnal knowledge of a girl under age? I mean, you’re not going to deny that, are you? I was here. Your mother was here. Your father was here. Her mother was here. We all saw it. It won't help saying you were the second or even the fifty-second. You're the one who's been caught on the job. So why muck up that dentist's life? What've you got against the poor bastard?'
'Nothing. I've got nothing against him!' denied Clint.
'Oh? Is that why you were squirting weed-killer over his lawn last night?' asked Pascoe.
'That was because he'd been playing around with Sandra,' insisted the youth. 'These sods think they can…'
He tailed off as he became aware of his admission.
'Come on,' said Pascoe abruptly.
'Where?'
'Up to the house first. Then down to the station. What did you think? I was going to smack your wrist and send you off to bed without any supper?'
Back in the house, he found the two women sitting in the living-room drinking tea. The telly had been switched off.
