But his mind was more concerned with the immediate future, balancing Wedderburn's certain wrath against Wield's notional admiration, as he entered the lift and stabbed at the button to take him down.
12
EVENSONG
Peter Pascoe was finding himself becoming fascinated by the Aldermann case. Not that there was a case, and not that he intended letting the fascination develop into an obsession. But somehow the personality of this quiet self-contained man, whom he had only met in passing and who had given him a rose, teased his imagination like a half-remembered melody.
The whole business was of course just plain daft. Sex, booze and the strain of executive decision-making had curdled Dandy Dick's mind. It was an occupational hazard of working under pressure. He should know. As well as this increasingly irritating rash of burglaries, the CID case-load at the moment included three alleged rapes, two suspected arsons, and any number of undisputed robberies, assaults, muggings, frauds and minor offences. Yes, indeed, he should know all about the mind-curdling properties of overwork. He could even recognize the symptoms. They included picking up the telephone half way through the morning, with the self-justification that this was his coffee break, and dialling his opposite number at Harrogate. Relationships with Harrogate CID had been a little strained for a while after a Mid-Yorkshire Investigation into a blue films racket had led to the trial and imprisonment of a Harrogate detective. But things had settled down now, due largely to Pascoe's assiduity in mending fences and despite Dalziel's slightly less conciliatory attitude of
'Ivan? Hi! It's Peter Pascoe. How's it going?'
'All the better for the old man being away at this Modern Policing Conference!' replied Detective-Inspector Ivan Skelwith. 'I dare say you're missing Fat Andy too. It's funny, I was just thinking of giving you a ring. Those housebreakers of yours seem to have strayed on to my patch. Some people got back from holiday yesterday evening and found they'd been done. From what the computer chucks up, it sounds like the same lot.'
'Does it now?' said Pascoe, suddenly scenting a self-justifying opening. 'Why don't I drive over and have a look?'
'Time hanging heavy on your hands, is it? All right. When?'
'This afternoon?'
'Christ, you don't hang about! All right. Come before three. That OK? By the way, what was it
Pascoe said hesitantly, 'Nothing really. There's a firm of accountants on your patch called Bailey and Capstick. They had a man called Aldermann working for them up until seven or eight years ago. He may have left under some kind of cloud. I just wondered if anything was known.'
'I'll sniff around for you,' said Skelwith. 'Anything I should know about?'
'The faintest smell and you'll be the first to know,' promised Pascoe.
'Fair enough. Till three then.'
Ivan Skelwith was a dark and dapper Lancastrian who claimed to have joined a Yorkshire force because their mean measuring tapes enabled him to scrape in at the minimum height requirement. He greeted Pascoe with pleasure and a cup of tea and some biscuits, which helped make up for the lunch Pascoe had skipped to propitiate his conscience in wasting more time on Aldermann.
They spent the next hour at the burgled house where the m.o. and attendant circumstances seemed exactly the same as Pascoe's burglaries, right down to the 'angry householders who as usual were threatening to sue the company who'd sold them their alarm system. The thieves had neutralized this with an expertise which spoke of careful planning. The only unusual feature was that some Virginia creeper which covered the wall on which the external alarm bell was set had been torn away and some plants in the flowerbed immediately below were badly crushed, as if someone or something had fallen on them. There were no helpful footprints or anything of that kind but at least it narrowed the limits within which the break-in must have occurred, for though the damage was not apparent to the casual glance, the owner's one-morning- a-week gardener was able to confirm that the border was untouched when he last called the previous Friday.
'So. A weekend job. Does that help?'
'Not bloody much,' said Skelwith.
Back in his office, they had another cup of tea accompanied this time by jam doughnuts.
Skelwith watched Pascoe devour his enthusiastically and said, 'That's the trouble with marriage. It's all instant sex and gourmet cooking till the kids start coming, then it's do-it-yourself or do without.'
'You look well enough on it,' said Pascoe. 'Four, isn't it? How's that long-suffering wife of yours?'
'Five next January, and she's fine. Now, about that firm of accountants, it's Bailey, Capstick, Lewis and Grey, by the way, only Bailey's been dead twenty years and Capstick retired the year before last. It might have been Lewis and Aldermann, I gather. Their Mr Grey was taken on to replace your Mr Aldermann six years ago and has already attained to a partnership. Mr Aldermann, however, blotted his copybook in some undisclosed way and was lucky merely to lose his job, at least so my informant assures me.'
'Your informant being . . .?' enquired Pascoe.
'Our Sergeant Derby. You might've noticed him on the desk. Rumour has it he was here before they found the spa. He certainly knows something about everything in this town.'
'Very useful,' said Pascoe. 'He didn't give any details, I suppose?'
'I'm afraid not. They tend to keep a well-buttoned lip, these accountants, especially when there's been a bit of naughtiness in the double entry. But Derby reckons your best bet is to steer clear of the active part of the firm and go for old Capstick. First, he was absolute master of the business when Aldermann got the push. Secondly, he himself was eased out last year, having reached seventy and suffering badly from gout. He did not take kindly to being 'cut off in his prime by striplings.' The quotation is, according to Sergeant Derby, from the speech Capstick made at his farewell dinner. Derby does funny voices too.'
'What a splendid man he sounds,' said Pascoe. 'I'm certain he'll have got me an address too.'
