He checked the time. Still early enough to start some tying-up. Let Dalziel and the brass think what they might. He had no stomach for any more of this evening's entertainment.
Outside in the Square he paused and glanced up at the Andover sisters' house. He thought he glimpsed a pale movement behind an upstairs pane. It might have been a face. Perhaps just a cat. He waved just in case and went on.
First he went to the Infirmary.
Charlie Heppelwhite they told him was doing well. He had lost two fingers but the third had been stitched back on, so Dalziel's quick thinking had not been in vain. A nurse showed him to the ward. She was young and Irish, with a bright little face and a melodic line of chatter like a song-thrush in a hedgerow. Pascoe liked listening to her though he took in hardly a word of what she said.
It was visiting time and the ward was full of fruit and Lucozade and bright repetitive conversation punctuated by smiling desperate silences.
Charlie Heppelwhite had three visitors; Clint, Betsy, and Deirdre Burkill.
The last was patched and plastered and looked rather worse than when Pascoe had last seen her.
'Hello,' said Pascoe generally. 'I was up here so I thought I'd look in.'
'Nice of you,' said Charlie. On the whole he looked the healthiest of the bunch. Clint had a sullen, closed, pale look and Betsy's face had an unnatural feverish flush.
Does she know? wondered Pascoe, looking from Heppelwhite to Deirdre Burkill.
'You OK?' he said inanely.
Heppelwhite held up his bandaged hand.
'I won't be much use at the washing-up for a while,' he said.
'You never were,' said Betsy without force.
'I'm going to do Blengdale for every penny I can get,' continued Charlie. 'Never took notice when we complained about lack of safety precautions. The sod hasn't been anywhere near me since it happened, do you know that? Well, when he does, he'll find out he's got real troubles.'
'He might have called round,' agreed his wife.
Oh, he was busy elsewhere, thought Pascoe. As soon as he realized what Burkill's late arrival at the yard meant, he must have tried to get hold of Toms. Then when he couldn't, he'd made the mistake of going out to Hay Hall himself.
It suddenly struck Pascoe that his approach up the drive must have been spotted from the house, precipitating Blengdale's flight.
And Crabtree's delaying tactics. His crutch ached at the memory. The sod had known bloody well who it was on the other side of the door!
'Mrs Burkill,' he said. 'Sandra's all right. I thought you might like to know.'
'Thanks,' she said indifferently.
'And Brian too.'
This time she didn't thank him.
At the reception desk he made enquiries about Emma Shorter and discovered that she had discharged herself that afternoon.
'It was against doctor's orders,' said the receptionist. 'But we can't keep them in if they don't want to stay.'
She sounded disapproving as though, had she the running of the place, there'd be a stop to this softness.
Pascoe begged the use of a phone and dialled Shorter's number. He deserved to know that the case against him was almost certain to be dropped.
There was no reply. Pascoe stood by the phone and wondered. If Emma Shorter had left just this afternoon, you'd have thought there'd be someone in the house this evening.
'Thanks,' he said to the receptionist and went out to his car.
He wanted to go home. He felt almost desperate for home. But instead he swung west in a wide arc which eventually took him by a series of social degrees from houses that reflected the dignity of labour to villas that proclaimed the delight of wealth, and ultimately to Acornboar Mount.
Shorter's lawn was beginning to burn where Clint had sprayed the weed-killer, but the dentist's water treatment had blurred the edges of the word so that it was almost illegible.
There were two cars in the drive, Shorter's Rover and a battered Mini.
Pascoe put his finger to the door bell and leaned on it till he heard footsteps in the hall.
'For God's sake… oh, it's you,' said Shorter ungraciously.
'Sorry, Jack, but if you can't hear your phone, I thought I'd better make sure you heard your door bell,' said Pascoe. 'Can I come in?'
Shorter looked less than enthusiastic, but Pascoe was moving forward with a policeman's majestic instancy and it would have taken a physical barrier to prevent him.
'In here, is it? Great,' said Pascoe, pushing open the lounge door.
Emma Shorter, pale-faced but with something more of her calm self-possession and elegant grooming than the last time Pascoe had seen her, sat in one of the tubular steel chairs. At the other side of the room looking both physically and mentally uncomfortable, Alison Parfitt perched on the edge of the hanging basket. She was wearing a red raincoat with the belt pulled tight in a casual knot to reveal the generous curves of her bust and behind. And to counter the somewhat over-studied calm of the other woman's demeanour, the young nurse had a determined set of the jaw and shoulders which gave promise that her unease would not make her an easy target.
'Peter!' said Emma. 'Come in. Do you know Miss Parfitt, John's nurse? We were just going to have a sherry. Won't you join us?'
'Come on, love!' exclaimed Shorter. 'Yes, he knows Alison. And he'll know a bloody sight more besides. They'll have been conning my private life pretty thoroughly, so we don't need to make up stories to preserve the decencies. All right, Peter. Here we are, nicely mounted for your detective microscope. There's my wife who's had such a nasty shock to her standards and values that she took an overdose. Though I suspect it was an even nastier shock for her to realize just how much of an overdose she'd taken. Next here's my mistress, come to have things out in the open and stake her claim. And finally, there's me. On the edge of professional ruin, gaol even. But I must be all right deep down inside, else why should these two virtuous ladies squabble over me?'
How odd, thought Pascoe. I hadn't noticed. Of the three of them, it's Shorter who's by far in the worst condition.
'I'm not squabbling, my dear,' observed Emma. 'I invited Miss Parfitt round here to talk sensibly about our plans, not to compete for you.'
'You knew about… this, then?' said Pascoe.
'About them all, even when I haven't been able to put names to them,' said Emma Shorter. 'I'd adjusted my life to include them, I suppose. This other thing was just too much. I couldn't fit it in. I suppose that's why I took the pills. John is right, but only partially so – his usual degree of success. I meant to kill myself. But I regained consciousness while they were doing all kinds of unpleasant things in an effort to revive me, and when I realized from what I could pick up that there was a real chance they wouldn't succeed, then I suddenly felt frightened. And angry! But you know what I felt in the end? When I opened my eyes yesterday morning and knew that they'd succeeded and saw John sitting all baggy-eyed at the end of the bed?
'I felt vastly amused! I was too exhausted to laugh out loud, but I laughed inside. And I've been laughing inside ever since. I'd almost done him the biggest favour of his life, but it hadn't come off and the poor dear would just have to keep a stiff upper lip and hide his disappointment!'
'Perhaps,' said Shorter grimly, 'perhaps I won't bother.'
'What about you, Alison?' asked Pascoe gently. 'What do you feel about all this?'
'I love him,' said the girl, adding angrily in response to Emma's small but eloquent raising of her eyebrows, 'Yes, I do. And I love him enough to stand by him. That's what loving means.'
'Is it, now?' murmured Emma Shorter. 'I suppose it is. Well, I'm about to sit by him from now on. I've decided to leave things in the hands of the law. If he gets convicted, I shall divorce him. Otherwise I see no reason why we shouldn't continue our charade, except that from now on he will know I know it's a charade.'
She is ashamed, thought Pascoe. Ashamed that she could do what she did. Odd. And Alison on the other
