Deadheads

'Right. We'd best be off. Can't have all the best brains in CID stuck in hospital at the same time, can we?' said Dalziel. 'Thanks for your help, lad. We'll send your dad in now.'

He and Pascoe turned away.

Wield said, 'I'll drop in again.'

Singh said, 'Oh, no need to bother, Sarge. My dad'll be coming. And my mam. And then there's all my brothers. I'll have plenty of visitors.'

'All right then,' said Wield. 'Cheerio.'

'Cheers, Sarge.'

On their way back to the station, Wield was in such a deeply introspective mood that it drew the attention of the others, used though they were to his blank impassivity.

'You all right, Sergeant?' enquired Dalziel.

'Yes, sir.'

'Gut rot, is it? The takeaway trots?'

'No, I'm all right.'

'You don't look it. You ought to get yourself married and start eating properly.'

But the news which reached them shortly after their return to the station put all thoughts of Wield's health out of their minds.

It was Dalziel who was told first and he burst into Pascoe's office without preamble.

'He's dead! Dandy Dick's dead!'

'What?'

'Aye. Found drowned. He should've been at a meeting at ten, didn't appear, they got the local bobby to check down at his cottage, and there he was, bobbing around in the sea.'

'What caused it? Cramp? Heart-attack?'

'I don't know. Get on to it, will you, Peter? Check what the quack says.'

It was early afternoon when Pascoe got back to Dalziel. The inspector was grave-faced.

'It's not nice,' he said.

'What ever is it? Get a move on, lad!'

'The first doctor that got called thought there was something odd about the body and our man's confirmed it as far as he can without pathological tests.'

'Confirmed what?'

Pascoe said, 'Dick Elgood had been in contact with a large concentration of some chemical reagent shortly before he died.'

'What chemical, for Christ's sake?'

'Oh, I'd say at a guess something like parathion or dieldrin.'

'You'd say! What's the quack say?'

'Still checking, but he agrees. You see, I had a good go at our local lad. He was a bit upset he'd noticed nothing queer about the body. The eyes were a bit funny, he thought, but he put that down to immersion in the sea. Well, we went over everything and he recalled that when he first went into the cottage he'd found the shower on. Now that struck me as odd. Why shower,then go into the sea? So I took a look in the attic. You recall that box that Elgood put up there last Sunday?'

'The garden stuff? Jesus Christ!'

'That's right. It had somehow found its way into the water tank.'

'Found its way?' echoed Dalziel incredulously.

'That's where it was anyway. I got a pair of rubber gloves and lifted it out. There was a real mixture of stuff, some powder, some liquid, all highly concentrated from what I could read on the labels, and a lot of loose tops. I showed the box to the doctor and he said it fitted.

Parathion compounds can easily be absorbed through the skin without much local irritation, and it's easy to take a bit of water through the mouth when you're showering. The effects of a cocktail like this could be quick and devastating. Disorientation, lack of muscular control, spasms, respiratory problems - the poor bastard probably staggered down to the sea with some notion of rinsing himself clean and simply drowned.'

'You've organized the tech lads down there?'

'Of course,' said Pascoe, adding hesitantly, 'not that I think there's much for them to find. Look, sir, it looked to me as if Elgood must have simply rested the box on the edge of the tank. There were some pretty violent winds in that storm the other night and they'd go funnelling through that roof space at a hell of a lick. Over goes the box . . .'

'Do you really believe that, Inspector?' asked Dalziel harshly.

'What else? You can't still be thinking of Aldermann? Where's the motive? That's all been settled! And opportunity? He's been away since Monday! And don't say Sunday night. They left Elgood's picnic at the same time as us and we asked them to drop in at our place as they passed. One thing led to another, we had a drink and a snack, and it was after ten when they left.'

'Very cosy,' growled Dalziel. 'All right. What's to stop him driving his wife and girl home, then taking off back to