Deadheads

'And Aldermann got that job?'

'That's right,' said Pascoe. 'Of course, it doesn't mean anything.'

'No, it probably doesn't,' said Ellie. 'Elgood didn't even mention it, did he?'

'No. That's true. I'll mention it to him though,' said Pascoe. 'By the way, as a matter of interest, when are you seeing this Aldermann woman again.'

'Daphne? We're having coffee together tomorrow. Why?'

'Nothing. What was your impression, by the way.'

'I told you. I liked her. Lively and bright, blinkered of course, but far from stupid. Why do you ask?'

'It's just that Wield described her as a very pleasant, ordinary, upper-middle-class wife, almost a stereotype. She didn't sound your cup of tea, that's all.'

'Wield said that? Well, I suppose the presence of the fuzz is always inhibiting. Did he tell you how sexy she was?'

'Sexy?' said Pascoe, surprised. 'No, there wasn't the slightest suggestion ... in fact, he seemed to think she was rather plain and homely. You thought her sexy?'

'Oh yes. Not in a moist-mouth-look-at-me-shaking-my-great-tits way, but definitely sexy. Of course, Wield might well not notice.'

'Why not?'

But Ellie only smiled and rose to pour some more whisky into her glass.

8

 

BLUE MOON

(Hybrid tea. Richly-scented, lilac-blue blossoms, perhaps an acquired taste.)

When Pascoe arrived at the Perfecta plant early the following afternoon, he found it as silent as a Welsh Sunday.

He hung around a small foyer for a few minutes, coughing loudly as he pretended to examine a small display of lavatorial artefacts, many of them with the Elgoodware insignium. Finally an early-middle-aged woman in a severe black and white outfit arrived and said in a matching voice. 'Mr Pascoe? I'm Bridget Dominic, Mr Elgood's secretary. Would you follow me, please?'

Pascoe obeyed, feeling like a hen-pecked husband as he lengthened his stride to keep up with the swift-walking woman, a picture reinforced by the large plastic carrier bag he was carrying. After Dalziel's hints of Dandy Dick's sultanic habits, he found Miss Dominic a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps advancing age had brought Elgood into the realm of erotic discipline. Miss Dominic wasn't a bad name for a good whipper.

They went up several flights of stairs (didn't they have lifts?) and arrived at a door with Elgood's name writ large on the frosted glass. This opened on to what was clearly Miss Dominic's own office. Pascoe was surprised at its dinginess. He'd have expected Dandy Dick to put on a bit more of a display. Or perhaps it was simply a delayer, like a landscape gardener's tortuous and narrow path before the trees open wide for the surprise view. Miss Dominic knocked. The door was flung open. The view was a surprise.

Elgood, looking most undandified, stood there jacketless, with his waistcoat undone, his tie awry, his hair ruffled, and an amber-liquored glass in his hand.

For one moment Pascoe thought they must have caught him - how had Dalziel put it? - tupping a typist in his in-tray.

'Come in, come in,' said Elgood irritably. 'Thank you, Miss Dominic.'

The secretary retreated. Elgood closed the door behind her and said, 'Have a chair. Have a drink. And don't say 'not on duty'. It's Lucozade. I like to keep my energy up. Sit down. Sit down.'

Pascoe sat down. The room was bigger and pleasanter than the outer office, but still no state apartment. Nice carpet; pretty curtains framing a pleasant view once the eye travelled beyond the industrialized foreground and the suburbanized middle-distance to the rich blue-green of the pastoral horizon; walls papered a bit like an Indian restaurant and hung with some rather gaudy still-lifes and a big photograph of a fiftyish-suited group formally arranged outside a works gate over which arched in letters of wrought iron the name Elgood.

Elgood poured Pascoe a Lucozade and sat himself behind an old-fashioned, very sturdy desk. There was a sheet of newspaper opened on it and on the paper a half-eaten pork pie.

'Lunch,' said Elgood, following his gaze. 'You've eaten? Lucky man. You've come at a bloody inconvenient time, I tell you. I may have to chuck you out a bit rapid. On the other hand, I may be able to sit and rabbit on with you all day. You never can tell.'

'About what?' enquired Pascoe.

'About workers' meetings. We're having to make cutbacks like everyone else. I had the shop stewards in on Wednesday to tell 'em how the Board sees things. They've spent two days deliberating and this lunch-hour they called a full-scale meeting in the works canteen. It's still going on. So that's it, plant and offices idle till they get through yakking.'

'Your office staff are involved as well?' said Pascoe, surprised.

'Most of 'em. I don't have two worlds here, Mr Pascoe, never have done. Same works, same perks, that's always been my motto, though there's a lot outside that don't like it. But I've always got on well with the men who work for me. That's why I've hung on here so long.'

Pascoe, though he had the feeling that this apparent forthrightness was just another version of Dandy Dick's circumlocution which was aimed for some reason at skirting the topic of Aldermann, was interested enough to ask, 'But I thought that would be part of the deal, when I.C.E. took you over.'

Elgood laughed.