to the use of our findings in any but the most peripheral supportive role.'
'Did he?' said Pascoe. 'Well, thank him, and tell him we won't rush into anything, though over the next month we hope to arrest the entire population of Scotland and the West Midlands on suspicion.'
He stood up and held out his hand.
Gladmann took it and held it a little longer than convention required. Not all the spots on his bow tie were in the original pattern, Pascoe noticed. He got a sense that the man was rather lonely and glad of the contact involved in helping the police with their enquiries.
'Which part of the world are you from, Mr Gladmann?' he heard himself asking. It was not the most diplomatic of questions even to a duller mind than the linguist's.
'Surrey,' he answered with a half smile. 'Good solid bourgeois background. Old grammar school, nice class of kid. And I got my first degree in Eng. Lit., Renaissance drama a speciality. Good day to you, now, Inspector. Don't forget. Call on me at any time.'
Pascoe sat and ruminated on what Gladmann had told him for a few minutes, but then he put the report and the tapes away in a filing cabinet and got down to some overdue paperwork. Tomorrow, Saturday, should be his day off and he wanted to be as up to date as possible.
After half an hour he was interrupted by the return of DC Preece.
No 73 Danby Row, he reported, was the property of one Hubert Valentine, who worked in the Rates and Valuation department of the local council and who was presently on holiday in Minorca with his wife. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Andrea, was alone in the house.
'Very tasty,' said Preece, grinning salaciously. 'I told her I was on a consumer research survey for a big record company. What did she buy, what did her parents buy? It all came out. Very friendly girl.'
What had also come out was that Andrea was a sixth-form pupil at the Bishop Crump Comprehensive School. Preece's description fitted the girl Pascoe had seen leaving Wildgoose's flat that morning.
He dismissed Preece and got back to work, but a few minutes later, Dalziel burst in.
'Bloody lab,' he said. 'A few residuals, nothing. The watch is one of them digital things, new. Waterproof so they can't say if it's been in the water or not. No way of tracing where it was bought. The ring's nine carat gold. There's an inscription inside. All my love all my life. And there's a monogram on the signet. Too fancy to be clear with all them curlicues and things but it could be MLA or WTA. Neither of the things has been reported missing.'
Pascoe rose and went to his filing cabinet.
'What about TAM?' he said.
'What about it?'
'Tommy Maggs's middle name is Arthur.'
He passed on Wield's thought about the holiday-making jeweller.
'That's possible. That'd explain a lot,' said Dalziel. 'There's a brain behind that ugly mask. When's this jeweller expected back?'
'Tomorrow, the notice on his door said, according to Wield.'
'Right. We'll be waiting for him. Meanwhile, let's assume that he did provide the ring and the watch. So, Brenda draws out the cash, spends some of it on the watch and the ring – which must have been ordered in advance, obviously, to get the inscription done. And somehow the whole bloody lot ends up in Lee's caravan. That bugger's got some explaining to do!'
'Not for a while yet,' said Pascoe, telling him about the operation.
'At least we know where he is. Do you know what time it is, lad?'
'Late,' said Pascoe.
'Nigh on opening time. Let's wash the day away.'
Pascoe demurred, but Dalziel was not in a mood to be denied.
'It's your day off tomorrow, isn't it? Ellie will see quite enough of you then. It's being scarce that makes a thing valuable.'
A quick one, then,' conceded Pascoe.
As he tidied up his desk, he told the fat man about Gladmann's findings. Dalziel was unimpressed.
'Linguists, psychiatrists, crap-merchants the lot of them.'
'Maybe,' said Pascoe. 'But Dave Lee doesn't fit into this phone-call pattern at all.'
'So mebbe it means nothing.'
'And Pottle's reading of the Choker doesn't fit Lee either.'
'Pottle! What's he know?'
'He's been right before.'
'So had Pontius Pilate. Are you going to be all night?'
He clattered down the stairs ahead of Pascoe, but pulled up sharp at the swing-doors which opened into the main foyer of the station and peered cautiously through the central crack. When Pascoe joined him the fat man put a huge finger cautiously to his lips and motioned his subordinate to peep through.
At the desk a youngish woman in a grey dress was talking to the sergeant.
'If I am not to be allowed access to Mr and Mrs Lee wherever they are, then I insist on talking to the officer in charge of the case,' she said in a clear, angry voice.
'I'm not sure if he's in, Miss Pritchard,' said the sergeant.
'Then you'd better find out,' insisted the woman.
Reluctantly the sergeant picked up his telephone.
'Lacewing's solicitor?' whispered Pascoe. 'Aye. Come on, lad, before she starts searching the building.'
And chortling gleefully, Dalziel led the way to the rear exit.
Chapter 18
Shortly before seven P.M. Dave Lee was wheeled off to the operating theatre. Only the fact that it was Friday evening and the consultant treasured his Saturday morning golf prevented the gypsy from being put into storage overnight, or so the ward sister assured Wield. The sergeant was pleased to have the man anaesthetized so that he could relax his vigilance. He went down to the hospital canteen but changed his mind when he spotted Mrs Lee with her attendant WPC, both tucking into healthy portions of pie, peas and chips. Instead he went for a stroll outside to get the smell of medicine and illness out of his nostrils.
His perambulations took him past the entrance to C ASUALTY as an ambulance drew up. He paused and watched with professional interest the unhurried efficiency with which the attendants got the incoming patient out of the vehicle and on to the trolley. As the man was wheeled by him, the sergeant looked down. There had been considerable violence here, he saw with a small shock. One eye was closed by a huge and purple swelling, the lips were cracked and bleeding, the nose looked as if it might be broken and the open mouth through which bloody spittle bubbled revealed at least two broken teeth.
The still-functioning eye touched Wield's face in passing and for a second registered something other than pain. The reaction suddenly brought the damaged individual features into a single focus and Wield felt a second shock, stronger than the first.
It was Ron Ludlam.
He followed the trolley through the automatic doors. One of the ambulance men was talking to the girl on reception.
'Excuse me,' interrupted Wield. 'What happened to him?'
When he reinforced his question with his warrant card, the ambulance man said, 'Fell down stairs.'
'Eh?'
'That's what he says, mate. And that's what his sister says. I just bring 'em in.'
'His sister. That'd be Mrs Pickersgill, right? Where's she?'
'Coming on later, she said. It was her that rang us. She was very upset.'
'Not upset enough to come with you, though?' said Wield.
'Mebbe she had things to do, baby to feed, old mother to look after. Like I said, I just bring 'em in.'
