Deadheads

'Overwork, you mean?'

'No. A coping stone fell off the belfry of St Mark's at Little Leven while he was inspecting it. It cracked his skull.'

Pascoe let out a long whistle.

'That's what I thought. Awful, but ironic,' said Ellie.

'I was thinking, fortuitous.'

'For Daphne, you mean? Come on!' protested Ellie.

'I meant for Patrick. People do seem to have a habit of shuffling off at his convenience, don't they? Come to think of it, this is the second one you've drawn my attention to. You're working well!'

'Now look!' protested Ellie. 'I just thought I was having a nice gossip about a friend, which as everyone knows is what friends are for, and no harm done. You said you thought all this business was a lot of nonsense, didn't you?'

'I did, and I do,' assured Pascoe. 'But you mean if you thought that anything you told me might help prove that someone - Aldermann, say - was a murderer, you wouldn't tell me?'

Ellie considered this.

'No,' she said doubtfully. 'But . . . well, it makes me feel like a grass. What's worse, I don't even get paid!'

Suddenly Rose, whose protest had diminished to a somnolent mumbling, let out a high C followed by a cascade of sobs.

'Oh dear,' said Ellie. 'Now she really is unhappy.'

'Shall I go?' said Pascoe.

'No. Pour us a drink. I'll see to her. She's probably just mucked up another nappy.'

She left the room. Pascoe rose and poured two glasses of brandy. He took his to the open french window and looked out into his garden. No Rosemont, this, but a plot of well-clovered lawn, bordered with thripped and black- spotted roses and bounded by a sturdy beech hedge beyond which rolled open fields. When they bought the house, its situation had been nicely democratic, mid-way between the town and Ellie's college. Now the college's pleasant rural site was closing and when (or if) Ellie returned in September, it would be to a hideous mid-town building which she asserted made the police station look like the Yorkshire Hilton. Recently Pascoe had been wondering if it might not be sensible to look for a house in town too. It would save the time and expense of travel and be better for all the services necessary to a young man with a growing family.

But on evenings like this, with the air balmy and a broad-faced moon peering down from a still pale sky, he could imagine nowhere better. No, he didn't really want to live closer to his work. It was bad enough not being able to get it out of his mind without being within dropinnable distance of the station. Even here and now, brandy in hand and beauty in view, he found his mind idly playing with the circumstances of the Reverend Somerton's tragic death. A stone from a tower. Like the hammer of God! It would all be fully documented in the coroner's records, of course. And there couldn't have been anything suspicious . . .

Ellie returned, nursing a still sobbing baby.

'There, there,' she said. 'She's not wet. She seemed a bit frightened. Perhaps she had a bad dream.'

'A bad dream! What on earth can she have to dream about at her age?' laughed Pascoe. 'Here, give her to me.'

He took the child and rocked her in his arms. The sobs continued.

'Perhaps you really have been dreaming,' he said. 'Here, I feel a quote coming on. 'A' level English, selections from Coleridge. He was always going on about his son. And once, when he awoke in most distressed mood - that doesn't scan, does it? Then something about an inner pain having made up that strange thing, an infant's dream. He was right, wasn't he? What a strange thing an infant's dream must be. If only you could tell us about it, Rosie.'

'More to the point, what did Coleridge do about it?'

Pascoe grinned and stepped out of the french window and raised his daughter skywards.

'Peter! What on earth are you doing?' cried Ellie in alarm.

'What Coleridge did. Showing her the moon.'

'He should have been locked up! And you too. She'll catch her death. Give her here.'

'No. Wait,' said Pascoe. 'Listen.'

And as they listened the baby's sobs began to change in key from minor to major till they were unmistakably gurgles of delight and she waved her small fists high towards the hanging moon.

'Eat your heart out, Dr Spock,' said Pascoe. 'Me and Coleridge, we've got it made.'

And Ellie, standing at the open window watching and listening to her daughter's and husband's delight, suddenly found herself wondering why she should feel it as pain.

11

 

DESPERADO

(Bush. Vigorous, yellow flower shading to pink, ample foliage, scent faint.)

From the top floor of the car park, Shaheed Singh had a splendid view over the city. The morning sun etched in every detail and he amused himself by picking out familiar landmarks from this unfamiliar viewpoint.

Not in fact that it was totally unfamiliar. The city's main bus station lay at the foot of the multi-storey. From it a pedestrian underpass ran beneath the busy ring road to the town centre, on the fringe of which stood the comprehensive where Singh had been educated. Sometimes for a change he and his mates had eschewed the underpass and ridden the elevators to this top level, walked thence across the bridge to the shopping precinct roof-