But it's only by making these two assumptions that I can even begin to pretend I have something to work at. That's where another murder would come in so useful. Better still, two. Then we would begin to have enough trees to make a wood!'
Only the suspicion that this ghoulishness was being used to provoke him in some way kept Pascoe from voicing another protest.
'You'll be the second or third person to know, Doctor,' he said. 'Carry on.'
'Right you are. I summarize, of course. What it would seem to me we have here is an older rather than a younger man, that is, heading away from thirty-five rather than towards it. He is of course unbalanced, but not in the usual pattern of the psychopathic woman-killer, whose murderous impulses tend, as it happens, to become more controllable as he gets older. You must catch your psychopath young. Inspector, if you are to catch him at all. No, this man's motivation does not seem to be based so much on hate as on, I can find no better term, compassion.'
'Compassion? You mean, he kills women because he's sorry for them?' asked Pascoe with interest.
'In a way, yes. There's good case-law here. The impulse to euthanasia is a strong one in all advanced civilizations.'
'But you can't be saying these murders are just a form of euthanasia?'
'Only in the same way that you could say Jack the Ripper's killings were a form of moral protest. In a way, it's strange that there aren't more Choker-type killings than Ripper-type. Euthanasia is, after all, half accepted and by definition involves killing, while punishment for sexual immorality eventually disappears from advanced societies and only ever involved death in primitive ones.'
'The Church used to roast you for buggery,' objected Pascoe.
'Precisely,' said Pottle drily. 'Look, I must go, Inspector. I have work to do. You'll have a written report eventually!'
'Hang on just a minute. The phone messages, the tapes. What about them?'
'Of the taped messages, either (A) or (D) would fit my man, with my money being on the former. The voice seems to me to have that genuinely regretful intonation which fits my ideas. (B) and (C) sound far too delighted with it all. But it's the first of the messages received that really needs looking at.'
'You mean I say, we will have no more marriages?'
'That's it. You know how it goes on? Those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are.'
'Yes, I know. So far we've had one widow, three spinsters. We're still waiting for Mrs Right to come along.'
Pascoe had a nice line in ghoulishness himself.
'Perhaps that's the way to look at it, Inspector. Odd thing, marriage and engagements. Often kept very secret. I assume you've checked very carefully indeed to see if Pauline Stanhope was engaged? The other two girls were, and very recently too.'
'You think that…'
'No, I offer no conclusions, Inspector. But a woman widowed can still be regarded from a certain point of view as a married woman. After all, she retains the title. I should be very interested, if I were you, to know why poor Mrs Dinwoodie should of all the married ladies in the world be the one singled out (if you'll excuse the expression) to be killed. Now I must go.'
After he had left, Pascoe sat for a while and wondered whether it were really possible for a man to go around killing people out of compassion. One, yes. That he could understand. Someone near and dear who was suffering greatly. But strangers? And compassion for what? He should have asked that.
But he couldn't sit here all day, thinking. It was leg work that solved cases, not metaphysical speculation.
He headed first for the suburban estate where the Wildgoose family lived. He knew Mark Wildgoose would probably not be there but he had no other address for the man and, though he might have been able to track him down via the school authorities, this gave him an excuse to talk to the woman.
Lorraine Wildgoose was in the front garden passing a small electric rotary mower over the lawn. She switched it off at his approach and nodded when he introduced himself.
'Yes, I know,' she said.
'Oh? We haven't met, have we?'
'No. I saw your photo when I called on Ellie yesterday. Come into the house.'
He followed her. She wore a thin cotton skirt and a brief halter whose shifts as she stooped to disconnect the mower lead gave no hint of a limit to her deep sun tan. The observation was quite objective. Pascoe felt no sensual tingle at these mammary glimpses. There was an intensity of expression on her thin, slightly pock-marked face which precluded any suspicion of prick-teasing and suggested that any man showing an interest in her had better lead with his head, in a manner of speaking.
'Mrs Wildgoose, I'd like to have a word with your husband. I understand he's not living with you any more.'
'Would you like a drink?' she said. 'Coffee or something harder? A couple of years ago, you wouldn't have got either. We were into organic eating in a big way. That's when he got interested in the allotment. That's what you'll want to talk to him about.'
'You do your own gardening now?' said Pascoe whose response to obliquities was always oblique. 'It's quite a job.'
He was looking out of a french window which opened on to the back garden. A small patio led on to a rectangle of lawn some fifty feet deep bordered by roses and ornamental shrubs.
'I always did. He showed no interest till he decided he wanted to dig it up to plant beans and ginseng. That's when I put my foot down, so he got the allotment. I feel responsible for that girl's death.'
This was too fast for Pascoe.
'That drink,' he said. 'It's early but I'm quite thirsty. Perhaps a small beer.'
She went out into the kitchen and returned with a pint can and two tumblers.
'I drink anything now,' she said. 'If it poisons the system, then I suppose my system's done for.'
Pascoe took the can from her thin nervous fingers, opened it, poured the beer and chose his words carefully.
'Mrs Wildgoose, from what you said to Ellie yesterday and what you've just said to me, would I be right in saying you think your husband may know something about these so-called Choker killings?'
'Yes,' she said in a low voice, followed almost immediately by a No! in a semi-scream that startled Pascoe into spilling some drops of beer.
'How could I say that?' she demanded. 'I don't know. He just seems so odd, so fearful. In everysense. So frightening and so full of fear. Do you follow me?'
'I think so,’ said Pascoe, more in response to her compellingly intense gaze than the dictates of reason. He could recall a junior schoolteacher whose urgent questioning had similarly seemed to preclude a negative response. He could also remember her wrath when, inevitably, he had had to admit his real ignorance.
It was time to take the initiative.
The door burst open before he could speak and a girl of about thirteen rushed in, closely followed by a slightly younger boy. They stopped dead as they saw Pascoe.
'Oops, sorry,' said the girl.
'This is my daughter, Sue. My son, Alan. This is Inspector Pascoe, dears. We won't be long. If you're finding time's hanging a bit heavy, you might like to finish off the front lawn for me.'
The girl made an unenthusiastic face and withdrew. Neither she nor her brother looked much like their mother in their features, though they shared her dark colouring. At least they were obedient, thought Pascoe when almost instantly the whine of the electric mower was heard. A desirable quality in children, one which he and Ellie would look for in their own family. He hoped.
'Mrs Wildgoose, your husband's mental state may be relevant, but it's not primary, not yet. Think carefully. Is there anything at all, anything concrete, which links your husband to June McCarthy – or any of the other girls for that matter?'
Her eyes opened even wider in amazement at his denseness. Doesn't she ever blink? wondered Pascoe.
