Wield now went after the trolley which, after a bit of trial and error, he found in one of the examination cubicles.
A nurse was talking to the second ambulance man and taking down details. It struck Wield that they seemed to spend rather a lot of time taking down details but he supposed it was necessary for them to know what they were dealing with.
Again his warrant card worked and he leaned over the recumbent figure.
'Ron,' he said.
The eye flickered recognition if not welcome.
'What happened, Ron?'
The tongue moved like a blind animal in the ruined mouth. He caught the word stairs.
'Ho ho. Come on, Ron, Frankie did this, didn't he?'
There was a vigorous shaking of the head which must have caused considerable pain and Ludlam even managed to raise himself up on his elbow and say with a hard-won clarity. 'I fell down stairs.'
'All right, take it easy. Let's have a look at you.'
The doctor had arrived. Wield found himself eased out into the corridor. Not that he resisted much. If Ron in this state was determined not to put the finger on his brother-in-law, his mind must have been very firmly made up. Presumably Janey had passed on the information Wield had left wither that morning. Presumably Frankie had blown his gasket. Presumably it was fear of more of the same that was keeping Ludlam's mouth shut.
Presumably… presumably…
He didn't like the feel of it, Wield realized. If Ron had shot his mouth off in his present state, then recanted like mad when wiser counsel returned with health, that might have made sense. This way, there had to be something else, some extra pressure. Something.
He thought of ringing George Headingley and suggesting he should send a man round to see Pickersgill. It was after all the Spinks's warehouse case that was likely to be involved here.
Instead, knowing he was ripe for an excuse to get away from the hospital but unable to resist the temptation, he checked Dave Lee's status, which was alive and well but unconscious, and headed for the car park. As he drove out, a taxi came in. There was a woman alone in the back and he thought he recognized Janey Pickersgill. That cleared the ground nicely, he thought.
It took a lot of ringing at the doorbell to get any reply. Finally Pickersgill's face scowled out through a span about six inches wide.
'What do you want?' he demanded.
'You,' said Wield promptly. 'Better let me in, Frankie.'
Grudgingly he was admitted. Peckersgill was a long wiry man with a narrow face and restless eyes. He was wearing his working clothes – jeans and a white sweat shirt. Wield guessed that he had arrived home just as Janey was confronting her brother with the accusation that he'd fingered Frankie for the whisky job. Given time, she might have decided not to tell her husband, but she'd have been unable to miss lashing out at her brother first. Once Frankie picked up what was going on, he would have been unstoppable.
'I've just been talking to Ron,' said Wield. 'Oh yes. No need to look surprised. They called us right away when they heard what had happened to him.'
'Heard? Heard what?'
'That's right, Frankie. I said heard. He's been chatting away as fast as he can through the broken teeth.'
'What's he say, then?' asked Pickersgill defiantly-
For answer Wield grabbed his wrists, turned the hands over and struck the bruised and swelling knuckles together.
'You'll find it hard to hold a steering-wheel,' he said. 'Still, you probably won't have to for a while.'
'What the hell are you on about?' demanded Pickersgill. 'What's all this about Ron, anyway? I've just got home this minute. I had a bit of an accident with my hands, that's all.'
'Fell down stairs as well, did you? It doesn't matter anyway, Frankie. Assault and battery's the least of your troubles, son.'
Pickersgill tried to pull his hands away but Wield's grip was unbreakable.
'That's right, Frankie. Ron's gone all the way. You didn't think he wouldn't, did you? I mean, he's done it once, hasn't he, so why not again? So now there's just our Janey to alibi you and you know what her word's worth after last time.'
Pickersgill's reaction was not what he'd expected. Incredulity first, then simple bewilderment, then something not far off amusement.
'You're telling me he says it was me that got into Spinks's warehouse?' he said. 'You want me to believe he's got the nerve to try that? You'll have to do a lot better than that, Mr Wield!'
I shall indeed, thought Wield, trying desperately to interpret this unforeseen turn. I shall indeed.
And he did. It was stupidly simple.
'It's the other way round, isn't it, Frankie?' he said softly. 'It's not been him alibi-ing you, but you alibi-ing him.'
He let go of the hands. He had no need of contact now. He had a stronger, better kind of grip on Pickersgill, the grip of a charge he could make stick.
'You lied about him being here that night. That's obstruction, Frankie. At the very least, we've got you for obstruction.'
The long thin face was sullen and uncertain.
'I don't know what you're on about,' he said.
It's Janey, thought Wield. Janey's told him the beating was enough. But it's a long way from being enough in Frankie's eyes.
'All right,' he said. 'You'd better come down to the nick with me, Frankie.'
'What the hell for?'
'Just to keep you out of the way, mainly,' said Wield. 'Though we'll think of something better for your brief. You'll need a brief, Frankie. You see, after I've shut you up, I'm going back to the hospital where I'll tell Ron you've shopped him for the Spinks job. Now, I reckon he's going to tell me you were the other man on that job.'
'Me! Do a job with that cowboy? You know that's not on, Mr Wield!'
'Mebbe I do, mebbe I don't. Who was the second man then, Frankie? Come on, lad. You know the watchman's dead. You don't want to be mixed up in this any more than you have to. Who was he?'
Again the unexpected reaction. A sort of triumphant amusement emerging in a raucous rush of laughter which almost drowned the noise of a door opening.
Almost.
Wield spun round and darted into the long narrow entrance hall. The front door was shut but at the other end the door which led into the kitchen was wide open and through it Wield could see a figure fumbling at the exit to the back yard.
It must have been locked. It was only half open when Wield reached him, hands flat and stiff like butcher's cleavers. The figure turned, his hands raised also. But one look at the pale and frightened face told Wield that the only intention here was a terrified defence.
Lowering his own arms, he smiled, the smile playing round his pitted face like a butterfly on a slag heap.
In response the other relaxed also and let his hands fall slowly from before his youthful anxious features.
'Hello, Tommy,' said Wield.
Chapter 19
Statement of Thomas Arthur Maggs made at Mid-Yorkshire Police HQ in the presence of Detective-Sergeant V. K. Wield.
‘I'm sorry about all the trouble I've caused. I didn't mean it but there didn't seem much else to do. It was all on top of me and Ron said I'd be dropping him in the shit if I told the truth but likely I would have done if the
