It was not his intention to be anything but conciliatory, but Cruikshank was looking for criticism.
'Listen,' he said. 'If every time some poor old sod dies accidentally we sent his belongings to Forensic, they'd need a fucking warehouse! It's like a fucking Oxfam appeal down there at the best of times with all the rubbish you lot dump on them.'
'Sorry,' said Pascoe. 'I really just meant, has anyone collected them from the hospital?'
Cruikshank exploded.
'They will be collected!' he cried. 'There's no hurry to collect them because there's no one been in any hurry to claim them! You don't see any crowds of mourning fucking relatives or weeping fucking children, do you? But rest assured, they'll get collected as soon as I've got someone to spare to collect them. I'm a bit short-staffed, you see. Why? you ask. Because you lot don't seem to be able to manage without my lads, that's why. Well, that figures, Inspector Pascoe. I put up with that. I even put up with Andy Dalziel fixing for me and a couple of my lads to sit on our arses at the airport all Saturday morning waiting for the Mafia to fly in, which it didn't. But when one of my lads is down to assist you with one case, I don't expect him to be sent off to spend hours gathering old stones which have nothing whatsofuckingever to do with the said case!'
'Good,' said Pascoe, retreating. 'Fine. Look, I'll collect them, shall I, Ernie? All right? Good. Excellent. Thanks a lot.'
Half an hour later he was wandering hopefully along the corridors of the City General when he came face to face with Dr Sowden, who was looking so beautifully haggard and weary that any sharp-eyed television director would have snapped him up instantly.
'You look dreadful,' said Pascoe. 'You ought to see a doctor.'
'You look lost,' said Sowden. 'You ought to ask a policeman.'
Pascoe explained his mission and Sowden said, 'You don't give up, do you? I can feel it, you still think there was something odd about Parrinder's death.'
'Maybe. But no reflection on you, Doctor,' said Pascoe. 'Mr Longbottom didn't find anything suspicious and most of my colleagues think I'm daft.'
'An honest cop!' exclaimed Sowden. 'The city may yet not be consumed by fire. Come on, I'm just going off duty, I'll show you where you want to be.'
He stood by and watched curiously as Pascoe removed the dead man's clothes from the plastic storage bag. Carefully he went through the broken glass of the rum bottle and the sodden brown paper in which it had been re wrapped till he came across a receipt.
'A clue?' said Sowden.
'Indeed,' said Pascoe gravely. 'His pension book, money, watch and so on, where will they be?'
'Valuables they lock up,' said Sowden. 'With the dead, wreckers' laws can apply, even in hospitals.'
Pascoe smiled and removed from Parrinder's raincoat pocket a rolled-up newspaper. Soaked by the rain, it had dried almost into a papier-mache cylinder which he prised open with difficulty.
'Aha,' he said.
'Another clue?'
'In a way. Evidently before he died he looked up, saw looming over him a dog which one of my men described as being built like a horse, laughed, said Polly, and expired. Look.'
He pointed to the list of runners in the 3.55, the last race at Cheltenham. Ringed in blue ballpoint was the horse called Polly Styrene.
'Clever old you,' said Sowden.
Pascoe modestly accepted the plaudits on Dalziel's behalf. Things were beginning to make more sense. Here was a real reason for Parrinder's decision to sally forth into the wintry weather. He wanted to place a bet!
'But,' continued Sowden, 'so what?'
'It won, at four to one,' said Pascoe.
'Aha,' said Sowden. 'I think I'm with you. Where, you are wondering, are his winnings? In that bottle of rum, I would suggest. Not to mention in his stomach. He seems to have had a substantial meal not long before he died.'
'You did take a look at Mr Longbottom's findings, then,' grinned Pascoe. 'Just in case, eh? But how much did he win? I wonder how his other selections did?'
He pointed at ballpoint rings in two earlier races, round Red Vanessa in the 2.10 and Usherette in the 2.45, then he frowned.
'What's up?' asked Sowden, his doctor's eyes quick for symptoms. 'Clue run out, has it?'
'No, it's just that he didn't go out till after three that afternoon, so he would only have had time to back Polly Styrene himself.'
'Telephone? Got someone else to place his bets?' suggested Sowden.
'I don't think he was a telephone punter. And if someone had backed it for him, wouldn't they have brought him his winnings too?'
'Perhaps they didn't and he went out looking for them,' suggested Sowden, who seemed enlivened by this detective game. 'Or perhaps he had backed all these horses himself the week before, say. That's possible, isn't it?'
'I think so. Only they seem to have been marked as current selections in Friday's paper. I'll have to find out what kind of gambler he was.'
He went through the rest of the pockets, coming up with nothing except another receipt, this time from the restaurant at Starbuck's, a large department store in the city centre. The main charge was?2.95, which Pascoe remembered from a recent rare visit was the basic cost of the Shopper's Special High Tea. Various smaller items brought the total up to?4.80. This with the rum meant he'd spent?8.75, of which only five pounds had come from his recently collected pension. But how much had he had on him in the first place? Or what if he had decided to place more than his usual fifty pence on Polly Styrene, say a couple of pounds, feeling flush because he hadn't touched his pension that week? That would give him eight pounds in winnings which, come to think of it, was just about right. And he celebrates by having a good meal and buying a bottle to keep the cold out. But mocking fate, which likes its victims at their ease and happy, is lurking… End of story, Pascoe told himself determinedly, but with no inner conviction.
He collected the rest of Parrinder's possessions from the hospital security officer. A glance in the pension book told him last week's money had been collected at the head Post Office in the city centre on Friday. Good. Everything that fitted was good. He thanked Sowden for his help and would have departed, but the young doctor said, 'That other business…'
'Yes?'
'The road accident. Look, I don't want to cause trouble, but I'd just like to be certain that, well, everything's been done that ought to be done.'
'I think I can assure you of that,' said Pascoe gravely.
Sowden's face showed doubt as well as fatigue and Pascoe added, 'I can't say anything more than that, really I can't. I mean, either you believe me or you don't. If you don't, then all you can do is start causing trouble, as you put it. That's your prerogative. And it'll give you something to think about next time a patient complains you've stitched him up with a stethoscope inside.'
Sowden grinned.
'All right,' he said. 'But I'll keep an eye on things if you don't mind. To sweeten the pill, let me buy you a drink next time I cross-question you.'
'You know where to find me,' said Pascoe. 'If I were you, I'd get a few weeks' sleep.'
'And if I were you…'
'Yes?'
'… I think I'd be telling me to get a few weeks' sleep,' said Sowden, changing direction with a yawn. 'Good hunting.'
'Good sleeping,' said Pascoe.
In the caravan in Welfare Lane he put Parrinder's possessions down in a corner next to Hector's sackful of stones. Wield looked at the new acquisition and raised his eyebrows, producing an effect not unlike the vernal shifting of some Arctic landscape as the sun sets an ice-bound river flowing once more through a waste of snows.
