Deadheads

'He was, I guess, though he kept it all inside, as usual. He loved Eddie, I think, more than me in many ways. I tried to explain to him that I didn't think we'd be going to Rosemont so often now. What I really meant was ever. But that didn't seem to bother him. Not, you understand me, because he wasn't bothered by not going back, but more as if he thought I was being stupid for suggesting we wouldn't. As it turned out, he was right. Aunt Flo had a heart attack while she was in London. I was with her. She'd just brought me tea in Harrods. It was a sort of annual treat! I visited her in hospital, helped her around as she recovered, and then she asked us to go up to Rosemont with her till she had thoroughly convalesced. I suppose she knew she was never going to be fully recovered, that's why she suggested I stayed on permanently. But I told you all this the other night, didn't I! Hey, how come we're talking about all this again?'

'Just passing the time. So Aunt Flo dropped dead in the rose-bushes. And fortunately for you, she'd just torn up her old will.'

He hadn't meant it to come out quite so cynically. Or, if he had, he had overestimated the degree of alcoholic intimacy between the two of them. The contented, wine-languorous expression slipped from her face.

'And what the hell does that mean?' she demanded harshly.

'Nothing. Just remarking how lucky things fell out,' said Dalziel. 'They're taking their time with this coffee.'

'Bugger the coffee,' she said dangerously. 'What are you trying to say, Andy Dalziel? That I got rid of Flo's will when I realized she was dead? Is that it?'

Her voice was raised sufficiently for some other diners to glance curiously towards their table. Dalziel wasn't bothered. In Yorkshire it was generally reckoned there was more chance of getting Dalziel pregnant than getting him embarrassed.

He did, however, regret that this discordant note had been sounded in an evening he was genuinely enjoying. But as what Penny was accusing him of meaning was precisely what he did mean, he saw no reason to evade the issue.

'Well, didn't you?' he said. 'No one would blame you if you did.'

Except perhaps the governing body of the RSPCA, not to mention the reverend gents directing the Church Missionary Society. But their hypothetical cavils were as the bleats of a sheep being sheared to Dalziel's mental ear.

His generous reassurance did not produce the desired calming effect.

'You fat bastard,' she said. 'You haven't changed, have you? They all said you were a nasty bit of work then, and you still are now. I'll leave you to finish this muck. Next time you take a lady out, probably in another fifty years, try to buy her a decent bottle of wine instead of five gallons of this sludge, will you? Give my regards to Yorkshire.'

She rose as she spoke, almost knocking her chair over, turned and strode towards the door. She was fairly steady, Dalziel noted approvingly. And he admired her steadiness too in sticking to her story. In ninety per cent of cases, whatever threats, promises or inducements had been offered, the criminal who coughed was a fool.

Not that he could think of Penny Highsmith as a criminal, he thought, as her fetchingly rounded rear elevation vanished through the door.

The waiter arrived with the coffee and whisky.

'Bill,' said Dalziel tersely.

He downed the Scotch in one, studied the bill which the prescient waiter had quickly prepared as the quarrel developed, approved it, paid it and stood up.

Plucking Penny's handbag from the back of the chair where she'd hung it on arrival, he made for the door. The pavement was empty, but he stood with the bag held in the air which a passing taxi took to be a signal.

As it stopped, Penny emerged from a nearby shop doorway.

Dalziel got into the taxi, leaving the door open. After a moment, the woman joined him. He gave her address.

'Can I have my bag, please?' she said.

He handed it over and she opened it and began to look through her purse.

'It's all right. I paid out of my own pocket,' he said.

'Just checking,' she said icily.

'Look,' he said. 'I'm sorry. You got the wrong end of the stick.'

'In your case, I imagine both ends are dirty.'

They finished the journey in silence. At the door of the block of flats, Penny turned her key in the lock and tried to slip inside alone, but Dalziel's shoulder was too quick.

'Where the hell do you think you're going?' she demanded.

'Listen,' he said, his great slab of a face set with earnestness, as if a second-rate Renaissance sculptor, stuck with an angry Ajax, had smoothed down its features a bit in an effort to sell it as a St Peter in prayer. 'I just wanted to say, for me it's been a grand night, one of the best I've had in a long while. Grand. I mean that. Sincerely. Thank you.'

She regarded him with astonishment modulating to simple puzzlement.

'What are you after?' she asked. 'I mean, really?'

'Friendship,' said Dalziel promptly. 'Look, hadn't I better step inside and just check for muggers? These cockneys are all at it.'

She shook her head and laughed. He took this as an invitation, put on an alert, constabulary expression and stepped forward.