'We don't have much else,' said Pascoe, tucking into his re-heated beef and mushroom pie. 'But they can't all be the Choker. Sammy Locke's memory of the first voice is a bit vague. He reckons that two, possibly three, of this lot are not so very different from it.'
'You've got all today's calls on tape, you say,' said Ellie. 'What you want is a language expert to listen to them.'
'Good thinking,' said Pascoe, who'd already made the suggestion to Dalziel but wasn't about to be a clever- sticks. 'Anyone in mind?'
'Well, there's Dicky Gladmann and Drew Urquhart at the College. They impress their students by working out regional and social backgrounds by voice analysis.'
'And are they right?'
'One hundred per cent usually, I gather. But I think they probably check the records first. Still, they're certainly incomprehensible enough to be good linguists.'
Pascoe finished his pie, drew breath and started in on the apple crumble, also warmed up.
She wants me to get fat too! he suddenly thought.
'I'll give them a try. Though they're probably enjoying their little vacation in Acapulco,' he said. 'By the way, you never said, how did la Lacewing respond to your theory about the medium message?'
Thought it was a load of crap,' said Ellie moodily.
'Did she now? Well well. Let me have the transcript back, won't you?'
'Yes. And she got pretty close to embarrassing me by talking about you being in charge of the case.'
That embarrasses you?'
'Of course not. No, I mean she was trying to put down some loud-mouthed, fellow called Middlefield, he's a JP or something, thinks all murdered women are ipso facto whores. I tell you what was interesting, though. I gathered the fellow he was talking to was the manager of the bank where that other girl worked. The one on the tape. Or not.'
'Brenda Sorby. Now that is interesting,' said Pascoe.
Later as they lay in bed, Ellie said drowsily. This poor woman at the fairground. You say she was Rosetta Stanhope's niece?'
That's right.'
'Then maybe she'll get in touch with her. I mean, they must have been close.'
'Maybe,' said Pascoe. 'We'll call you in if it happens.'
She dug her elbow in his ribs and soon her breath steadied into the regularity of sleep.
Pascoe found sleep difficult, however, and when it did come, it came in fits and starts and flowed shallowly over a rocky bed. Ellie was partly responsible by putting the thought of Pauline Stanhope into his mind, but she would have been there anyway. He always slept badly the night before attending a post-mortem and tomorrow he was due at the City Mortuary at nine A.M. to attend the last forensic rites on the body of Pauline Stanhope.
Chapter 8
The police pathologist was a swift, economical worker who never took refuge in the kind of ghoulish heartiness with which some of his colleagues sought to make their jobs tolerable. Pascoe was glad of this. He liked to enter an almost trance-like state of professional objectivity on these occasions and had already offended the Mortuary Superintendent and the nervous new Coroner's Officer by his brusque response to their efforts at socialization.
The pathologist examined the neck first before asking the Superintendent to remove the clothes which were then separately packaged and sent on their way to the laboratory. After a further careful examination of the naked body, turning it over on the slab so that nothing was missed, the pathologist was ready to make the median incision. As the scalpel slipped through the white skin, the Coroner's Officer swayed slightly. This was his first time, Pascoe had gathered from the man's nervy conversation with the Mortuary Superintendent. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notebook, and tapped the man on the shoulder.
'Borrow your pen a moment?' he asked brusquely.
'Yes, of course,' said the man.
Pascoe scribbled a few notes, then returned the implement.
'Thanks,' he said. 'You'd better have it back. Your need's greater than mine. Your boss is a stickler for detail in all these forms, isn't he?'
The man managed a pale grin, then began writing at a furious rate.
After a while Pascoe took his own pen from his pocket and followed suit.
There was another disturbance, more obvious this time, about thirty minutes later.
Voices were heard distantly upraised. After a while the door opened and a porter came in and spoke quietly to the Mortuary Superintendent who relayed the information to Pascoe.
'There's a woman outside with a man. She says she's the girl's aunt and she's making a fuss about seeing the body.'
Pascoe looked at the cadaver on the examination table. The sternum and frontal ribs had been removed and the omentum cut away so that heart, lungs and intestine were visible.
The pathologist continued with his work, undisturbed by the interruption.
'I'll sort it,' said Pascoe.
He went out of the examination room, through the storage room, into a small reception area, where a clerk was holding Rosetta Stanhope at bay.
With her, to Pascoe's surprise, was Dave Lee.
'Mr Pascoe,' she said, 'they say my niece is here. I've a right to see her, haven't I? I'm entitled. I want to see her.'
Emotion was giving her voice rhythms and resonances from her childhood, forcing them up through the heavy overlay of conventional urban Yorkshire.
'You can't stop her, mister,' said the man. 'It's her niece.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs Stanhope,' said Pascoe quietly. 'There's an examination going on just now. When it's all over we'll make arrangements, I promise you.'
'You've no right to stop her,' said the man belligerently. 'Like she says, she's entitled.'
'I don't think you'd want to see her now, Mrs Stanhope,' said Pascoe. 'Please. Later. It's for the best.'
'You mean, they're cutting her up?' asked the woman.
'There has to be a post-mortem,' said Pascoe gently.
She nodded and Pascoe took her arm and led her through the door of the Superintendent's office. The clerk looked uncertain at this procedure but Pascoe who knew all about social dynamics said to him, 'Get us a cup of tea, will you?' and he went away quite happily feeling his function reinforced.
'We tried to get hold of you last night,' said Pascoe after Rosetta Stanhope had sat down. There were only two chairs in the room and Pascoe took the other, leaving Dave Lee to stand awkwardly and with ill grace by the window.
'I went away,' she said.
'You didn't say anything about going away when we talked yesterday lunch-time,' said Pascoe. 'Unexpected, was it?'
'Yes. Unexpected. I left a note in the flat for Pauline.'
Her voice choked as she spoke the girl's name. Pascoe looked at her carefully. She was wearing the same grey suit as on the previous day, only it wasn't quite so smart now, a little crumpled, a little awry and straggly.
'How did you hear about your niece, Mrs Stanhope?' he asked.
She shot a glance at the man.
'I heard… this morning,' she said. 'In the papers.'
'Yes, I see.'
Pascoe reminded himself to check the papers. Most of them were very co-operative in not revealing a victim's name till next-of-kin had been informed. On the other hand the background and setting were unusual enough to
