a joke to empty-headed children, Sergeant. When I saw her engagement ring, I made sure my congratulations were formal and sincere, which indeed they were. I never saw her again after she said goodnight that Thursday evening. Now if that completes the inquisition, perhaps you'd like to cast your eye over these transactions in case there's anything you want to ask. I should prefer to have the rest of my weekend free from interruption.'
There was something not quite right about Mulgan's man-of-the-world confession and sarcastic dismissal, but it possibly had nothing to do with the case. As a long-established expert in putting up fronts, Wield had a sharp ear and eye for uncertainties of tone and manner. Mulgan, he decided, seemed to think that being an acting manager somehow meant acting like a manager. He was probably right too. Being a policeman certainly involved a lot of role-playing. Pascoe had once said that. Clever bugger. Too clever by half, according to Dalziel in his darker moments. Wield thought he'd got the pair of 'em worked out. Pay heed to what Pascoe says but do as Dalziel does. What would Dalziel do now? Probably put his shark-like mouth to Mulgan's shell-like ear and enquire in a Force Ten murmur how many members of his staff an acting manager could expect to screw in an average week.
Instead Wield cast his eye down the list, not really seeing it, said, 'This looks fine, sir. I hope it won't be necessary to trouble you again. This morning, anyway.' And left.
When he signed back on watch through his car radio, a message was awaiting him.
He smiled sadly as he listened to the instructions for him to rendezvous with Inspector Pascoe at the Aero Club in fifteen minutes' time.
So much for the sanctity of a detective's day off.
Do as Dalziel does, was the golden rule.
And what does Dalziel do?
What he bloody well wants!
Chapter 20
Pascoe did not like what he was doing.
To him it seemed that Dalziel was becoming obsessed with Lee.
'But there's no real evidence,' he protested. 'OK, it's reasonable to expect him to account for the money and the ring and watch. But there's still no definite tie-in with Brenda Sorby.'
'Michael Conrad, Fine Jeweller and Watch-Repairer, will give us that,' said Dalziel confidently. 'Due back from the sunny Med this afternoon.'
'Then shouldn't we wait?'
'Why? What do you want to do?' demanded Dalziel.
Mow my lawn and then cool off with a tube of lager, thought Pascoe.
'What about Wildgoose? Shouldn't we talk to him?' he said.
'Not home,' said Dalziel promptly. 'I sent Preece round there this morning. Paper, milk, no Wildgoose.
He's probably shacked up with that little bird you mentioned, Andrea Valentine. We could bust in there, I suppose.'
'What?'
'Well, you think Wildgoose may have dumped his spare hash there for safekeeping, don't you? Suspicion of possession. We'd get a warrant easy.'
'No, but…' Pascoe began to protest, but Dalziel interrupted him with agreement.
'Quite right, lad. Can't do things like that. Girl on her own, parents away, it'd give us a bad name. Anyway, we want to get our hands on little Andrea while Wildgoose isn't around to feed her lines. If she's holding the hash, that should give us a nice little lever to squeeze what she knows about her boy-friend out of her!'
Dalziel rubbed his hands together like two sheets of emery paper.
'But what do you hope to find by searching the gypsy encampment?' demanded Pascoe.
'Probably enough stolen gear to put the whole bloody tribe away!' said the fat man. 'I don't know, Peter. But there'll be summat there. Perhaps other bits and pieces that went missing after the other killings and we never knew about them. Listen, that Pritchard cow, the solicitor, she's finally got to Lee's wife. We kept her at the hospital last night – still in custody, sort of, you understand. Well, not for long. We've precious little to hold her on, and Pritchard's raising merry hell. Once she gets back to the encampment, anything that might be evidence really will disappear, you can bet on that.'
'So you want me to search Lee's caravan like you did? But officially this time?'
'No!' roared Dalziel. 'The whole bloody site!'
'But you can't do that! It's provocative! These people have rights too. It's like searching every house on an estate because you suspect one householder of a crime! With what we've got, you'd never get a justice to issue such a general warrant!'
Dalziel grinned and reached into his inside pocket.
'Depends how you pick your justice. Bernard Middlefield didn't have to think twice,' he said, producing the document like a conjuror's rabbit and handing it over.
'Aren't you coming along, sir?' asked Pascoe unhappily.
'Me? No, I don't think so, Peter,' said Dalziel in a sanctimonious tone. 'You're dead right. These people may be dirty gyppos but they're entitled to all the usual consideration and protection of the law. You're the man to see things are done properly. Me, I'm too old fashioned, I suppose. But I'm not so old fashioned that I don't know when to take a back seat and let a younger, more liberal sort of man get on with the job.'
You cunning old bastard! thought Pascoe.
He glanced back as he left the office. The fat man was smiling and nodding his head as though in accord.
If you have to do a job, do it properly, was a maxim which Pascoe believed in. The essence of search is surprise. For this reason he had devised the strategy of dividing his team, sending four round to the Industrial Estate entrance to the encampment while he and two other DC's drove into the Aero Club car park where Wield was already waiting.
With him was a rather puzzled-looking blond man who was introduced to Pascoe as Austin Greenall, the club secretary. He and Wield were looking towards the section of the old aerodrome where the gypsies were. Just over the picket fence a large bonfire had been lit. Its flames were scarcely more than a violet vibration of the air in the bright sunlight, but a plume of dark smoke curved up from the fire towards the club house.
'What's going on?' asked Pascoe.
'Perhaps they feel the cold, sir,' suggested the shirt-sleeved Wield.
'Is it a hazard?' said Pascoe to Greenall, glancing up beyond the smoke to where five or six gliders wheeled slowly high in the sky.
'No, there's not enough for that,' said Greenall. 'If anything, it could be useful. Shows the wind drift and strength.'
'So, no complaints, sir?'
'Do you want me to complain?' wondered Greenall looking at Pascoe curiously. 'I mean, are you after an excuse to go in there?'
'Don't need an excuse, sir,' interjected Wield. 'Not if we've got a warrant.'
'Which we have,' said Pascoe. He spoke into his personal radio. 'Preece, you and the others ready? OK. Wait till you see us coming over the fence, then move in.'
'Are you expecting someone to run?' asked Wield as they set off across the grass.
'Not really,' said Pascoe. 'But if someone did run I don't want Mr Dalziel asking why I hadn't thought of it.'
In fact if anyone had wanted to run, there was plenty of time for it. The picket fence had been repaired so effectively that the policeman had to climb over it, a dangerous and undignified business that soon drew the attention of the crowd of gypsies standing just outside the circle of unbearable heat from the fire which seemed to be centred on a wooden pole rising out of the flames, gruesomely like a martyr's stake.
'It's the tent,' said Pascoe suddenly, and his guess was confirmed by the emergence from the spectators of Rosetta Stanhope. She looked all gypsy now in a dirndl skirt with a red and blue blouse and her hair tied back in a
