green and yellow bandanna. Her brow was smeared with ash, though whether by accident or by ritual design, Pascoe did not know.
'Mrs Stanhope,' he said. 'I'm sorry if we're disturbing a ceremony
'Don't let it bother you,' she said. 'Pauline will be getting a straightforward Anglican burial. This is just a cleaning up, for my benefit mainly. To most of these people, she was just a gorgio, hardly worth taking your hat off for.'
'But they're helping you,' said Pascoe. 'They took the tent away.'
She smiled grimly.
'When a chovihani asks you the time, you buy a clock,' she said. 'Have you come to bring me the clothes she died in?'
'I'm sorry. We haven't found them yet,' said Pascoe.
She looked worried.
'That's a pity. They should be burnt, above all things.'
'I wouldn't be surprised if they had been already,' said Pascoe.
'You think so? I hope you're right,' she said. 'What is it you're after, then?'
'Is there someone here who's in charge, some sort of leader?'
She left him and went to the main group of gypsies and talked to them for a moment. A short fat man emerged who might have been anything between fifty and seventy and returned with the woman. He was introduced as Silvester Herne and he enquired pleasantly of Pascoe, 'How can I help you, pal?'
Pascoe regarded him dubiously, wondering what his qualifications as leader were. He didn't look much like a gypsy king. Most likely he had been selected as a front man because of some qualities of glibness or shrewdness he possessed. Still, that was their business.
Briefly he explained that he and his men wanted to look around the camp site and talk to the people on it. They had a warrant which entitled them to enter any or all of the caravans and make a search but this might not be necessary.
Herne scratched his nose reflectively.
'Looking for anything special, pal?'
Pascoe thought for a moment, then said slowly and clearly, 'It's the Choker case I'm working on, Mr Herne. Anything relevant to that case is what I'm looking for. Nothing else interests me much. You might tell your people that.'
'OK,' said Herne.
He rejoined the others.
'Trying to keep the peace, Inspector?' said Rosetta Stanhope.
'That's what I'm paid for,' said Pascoe. Tell me, Mrs Stanhope, if any of them knew anything about the Choker, would they keep quiet? Out of loyalty, I mean?'
'Maybe,' she said. 'And maybe I'm not the person to ask. I'm one of them too, remember?'
'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe. 'I also know you came to me offering to help only last Wednesday morning, but since then you've been a lot less keen.'
There was a time to be subtle, a time to push. Dalziel was pushing forward like a traction engine at this moment. Pascoe suspected his direction but he knew he would have to get up a good head of steam himself to head him off.
'Since then my niece got killed,' said Mrs Stanhope sharply. 'Have you forgotten already?'
'No. But I'd have thought that would have sharpened your appetite to help, if anything,' answered Pascoe just as tartly. 'You know Dave Lee's in trouble?'
'I know he's in hospital,' said Rosetta. 'His missus told me that.'
'She's here?'
Mrs Pritchard must have worked even faster than Dalziel anticipated. This hardly boded well for the search.
'Over there, sir,' said Wield.
Pascoe looked and saw a thin, not bad-looking woman with a fading bruise on her left cheek crouching among a gaggle of children, talking to them. She rose as he watched and the children ran off, whooping excitedly at which noise others detached themselves from the group round the fire and galloped after them. Pascoe looked round to get his bearings. To the south was the Aero Club, to the north-west was the arterial road with the sprawl of the Avro Industrial Estate beyond, to the northeast was the suburb of Millhill, while due east would be the river, invisible in a heavily coppiced fold of land some fifty yards beyond the airfield boundary. That was the direction the children were taking. Pascoe, envied them. The combination of sun and fire was bringing the sweat to his brow.
'Let's get to it,’ he said to Wield.
Wield nodded and with calm efficiency set the men to work. He was a good man, thought Pascoe and wondered as he had done before why Wield had stuck at sergeant.
The gypsies seemed indifferent to the search though not so indifferent that there wasn't at least one member of each family present as the caravans were searched in turn.
Silvester Herne moved from one caravan to the next, then back to Pascoe with offers of help so solicitous that they bordered on parody.
It was hopeless, thought Pascoe. Dalziel had struck lucky because because he had taken the Lees completely by surprise and because he didn't give much of a damn for the niceties of the law. No, that was too grudging an assessment. Dalziel like all good cops made his own luck and wasn't afraid of pursuing it no matter what unlikely direction it took him in.
He found himself quite close to Mrs Lee who was standing with arms folded and a twistedly cynical smile on her face.
Pascoe introduced himself.
'Well, ain't you a change from them other mumply old hedgecrawlers that keep talking to me,' she said, looking at him with mock admiration. 'A good-looking one at last. Theys'll try anything!'
'I'm pleased your husband is out of danger, Mrs Lee,' said Pascoe.
She looked at him with blank indifference.
'Unfortunately he's not out of trouble,' pursued Pascoe. 'Not unless he can explain how that money and the watch and ring came into his possession.'
'Which money? Which watch and ring?' she asked.
Pascoe sighed.
'Look, there's no one can hear us now, Mrs Lee,' he said. 'Dave's not a very good husband to you, is he? I mean, a fine-looking woman like you can't much enjoy being knocked around. Just a couple of words now, just a hint, and we could get him out of your life for a bit. No need to worry about the money, married woman with kids and a husband in gaol, you'd probably get more out of the social security than Dave makes in a moderate week. We'd see the forms were filled in properly, all that sort of thing. No one has to suffer these days!'
She didn't answer but fixed her gaze over his shoulder. Pascoe looked round and saw Rosetta Stanhope talking with a woman who didn't look like a gypsy.
'What's the matter?' asked Pascoe. 'Are you frightened of Mrs Stanhope? Frightened because she's a chovihani?'
'Chovihani? Her?' snorted the woman. 'She's nowt but a didikoi, a posh-ratt. Coming here from her little house and expecting us to treat her like a traveller still after fifty years. She even smells like a gorgio!
Pascoe recognized the insulting terms for half-breed, but was less than convinced of the sincerity of this expression of fearless contempt. It seemed to him more based on deep resentment than genuine scorn.
'Mrs Lee?'
Pascoe turned and groaned inwardly as he recognized the woman who had joined them. This was Pritchard, the solicitor. The last thing he wanted at the moment was an antagonistic legal eye peering over his shoulder.
'You don't have to talk to this man, Mrs Lee,' continued Pritchard in clear tones resonant with upper-class certainty. 'Certainly you don't have to answer any questions he might put to you without benefit of legal advice.'
'Doesn't the Law Society have some convention about not touting for business?' wondered Pascoe
