There was no answer to this.
Pascoe said, 'You seem to have guessed we'd want to look through Pauline's things, so isn't this a bit premature?'
She picked up a shoe-box from the bedside table.
'Her letters, diary, address book,' she said. 'All that could be of interest to you. But none of it will be of use. I can tell you that. Take them anyway. Make copies and return them, please. They too must go. Also the things she was wearing when she died. Those especially must be destroyed. When can I have them?'
'They're in the car,' remembered Pascoe. 'I'll fetch them now.'
He returned a few moments later with the parcel of clothes and personal effects.
'Thank you,' she said. Then after a moment's hesitation, she added abruptly. 'I still want to help, you understand, like I told you. But it's harder now.'
'Because it's your own, you mean?'
She thought about this for a while, then agreed, 'Yes. Because it's my own.'
Pascoe puzzled over this remark as he went downstairs to his car. It seemed to him there might have been a rather strange emphasis in it, though at the same time he recognized that the whole ambience of the flat inclined him to suspicion of strangeness.
My own. In a way Pauline hadn't been her own, of course. For in a way, her own were the gypsies, particularly the Lees. And after Pauline's death she had been away on some unlikely family jaunt with Dave Lee.
Could family loyalty – or fear – persuade her to help cover up Dave Lee's involvement in her niece's death? It hardly seemed likely. But there was something there, of that he was convinced.
As he was opening his car door he heard his name being called, and Rosetta Stanhope came running after him, breathless and agitated.
'What's the matter?' he asked.
'Where's the rest?' she demanded.
'Rest? Rest of what?'
'The rest of her clothes! The clothes she died in. Those I must have, those are the most important of all!'
'But you've got everything,' assured Pascoe. 'Jeans, suntop, underclothes, sandals. I checked them off myself as I signed for them.'
'Not those, you fool!' flashed the woman, all gypsy now. 'The headscarf, the shawl, the skirt. Where are they?'
'Oh God!' exclaimed Pascoe. Her theatricality was infectious for he found himself striking his forehead with his open hand. But he meant it.
'You bloody fool!' he said to himself. 'You fool!'
Chapter 16
Sergeant Wield was an expert typist, a skill he kept well concealed from less dextrous colleagues who would have been quick to attempt to abuse it. Alone in the CID room, he was able to finish his reports on his morning visits to the bank and the Pickersgill household in record time. Now his thoughts turned to Newcastle and Maurice. There was someone else, he was certain. Brief encounters he had suspected before. He avoided them himself, but was willing to tolerate them in Maurice, recognizing that the other lacked his own almost monastic self-discipline. But what he had felt last night was the imminence of someone more dangerous, more permanent.
He sipped at a cold cup of coffee and wondered what he would do. Something. He was not a man to sit back and do nothing.
'Penny for 'em,' said Dalziel who had entered the room unobserved. 'You must be solving at least six of the ten great mysteries of the century, the way you look. What've you decided – Jack the Ripper escaped on the Mary Celeste?'
The telephone rang. Wield raised it off the rest.
'Anything interesting?' said Dalziel.
'Not really, sir. Lee created merry hell for a bit after he was brought in. They could hear him at the desk. He was claiming assault. By you.'
'Oh aye. You didn't go near him, did you?'
'No, sir. The lad who brought him in was very clear about your instructions. He shut up after a bit.'
'Good. I'll get on to him by and by.' Dalziel belched generously. 'Answer your phone, lad. Don't keep the public waiting.'
It was Mulgan from the Northern Bank.
'Sergeant Wield? I got authority to do that check you asked for.'
'Oh good. I was going to call later, sir,' reminded Wield.
'Yes, I know. But something emerged which I thought you might like to know instantly. Did you find any money on Brenda's body?'
'Hang on,' said Wield. He left his desk and went to a filing cabinet. Dalziel raised his eyebrows but the sergeant ignored him.
'A little in her purse,' said Wield. 'Three pound notes, some coppers. Why do you ask?'
'It's just that among her other transactions, she drew a cheque for cash against her own account.'
'Oh,' said Wield. 'Is that normal?'
'It's not against the rules, if that's what you mean, as long as there are funds to cover it. But normally I would expect one of my staff to cash their own cheques at someone else's till. Safer, if you follow me.'
'I think so. But there were funds to cover Brenda Sorby's cheque?'
'Oh yes. She was a very provident girl. No, it was just the amount that interested me, particularly as I saw no reference to cash in any of the newspaper reports. That morning she drew out two hundred pounds. In five pound notes.'
Wield passed on the news to Dalziel who took the phone from him.
'Mr Mulgan, Superintendent Dalziel here. Listen, you wouldn't have the numbers of the notes that Miss Sorby received, would you?'
'I'm sorry, no. It's impossible to…'
'Yes, yes, I understand. But there might be some marks? I mean, often the things I get from my bank look as if they'd been left lying around in a kindergarten!'
'There might be the odd pencil mark left by a teller when counting them into bundles,' said Mulgan acidly.
'And these marks would be identifiable as coming from someone at your bank?'
'Possibly, but not necessarily,' said the manager.
'Right. Thanks a lot, Mr Mulgan. We'll get back to you.'
He replaced the receiver forcibly.
'Creepy sod,' he said.
'You know him, sir?'
'Hardly. He just sounds a creepy sod. Like he was chewing a ball-bearing to make himself sound like a chinless wonder. Two hundred pounds, Sergeant! We should have known about this sooner. Good job I sent you this morning.'
'Yes, sir,' said Wield. 'It was a good idea of yours to check through the girl's transactions.'
'All right, save the satire,' said Dalziel. 'You'll get the credit. Question is, who got the money?'
'You think this could have just been straight theft after all?' asked Wield.
'I think nowt,' said Dalziel. 'All I know is that this morning I found one hundred and five pounds hidden away in Dave Lee's caravan that he can't account for.'
He smacked a huge fist into a huge palm making a crack like a breaking bone.
'Let's go and have a chat with Mr Lee, shall we,' he said.
