'He's got me too,' said the girl. 'He wants me! We're in love! And he's old enough to make his own mind up, right, Charley?'
Charley looked miserable. Left to a man-to-man heart-to-heart discussion with his dad, he might well have been able to admit the sense of the elder Frostick's viewpoint. But Andrea with a sharp sense of timing had made sure she precipitated the crisis before the young man could be forewarned, and now the father's vehemence only served to provoke a macho I'll-not-let-my-self-be-pushed-around response.
But at the same time Pascoe sensed even in Andrea's stage-managing another dimension of play-acting which he didn't quite understand.
'Old enough!' sneered Frostick. 'He'll need another hundred years till he's old enough to deal with your sort, flashing everything you've got at him, that's all you bloody know.'
'Is that right? I've never noticed you looking away from whatever I've got to flash, Mr Frostick,' retorted the girl.
Then suddenly Charley was on his feet and Andrea was sprawling alone in the armchair.
'Will you both belt up!' commanded the young man. 'I've not come home to get yelled at and ordered around by anyone. I get plenty of that in my job, and I'll not put up with it here, all right? I've come home for me granda's funeral, that's what, and I think it's time we were showing some respect.'
Even in his brief period away from home, some process of maturation had taken place which surprised the others, Pascoe could see. Andrea recovered quickest and said, 'You tell him, Charley!'
Her fiance spun round and said, 'And that goes for you too, girl. He was good to me, was Granda. If it weren't for him being so generous, you wouldn't have that ring on your finger, so show some respect, will you?'
Andrea stood up. She was wearing less make-up today, perhaps in anticipation of the extra mobility of expression circumstances were likely to require. Rather than anger, what showed now was triumph. The explanation of that sense of play-acting was imminent, Pascoe realized.
'Here, if it's this old ring you're worried about, you take the bloody thing,' she said viciously, pulling it off and chucking it at the young man. 'I've got better things to do than go and live in some crummy married quarters with a private!'
Charley was dumb-stricken but his father, unable to believe this turn of fortune, said, 'You've changed your tune! What's happened? Found yourself some money, have you?'
'You could say that. I've got myself a job,' she said. 'A good job. Out at Haycroft Grange, that's that big house out beyond Pedgely Bank.'
'Haycroft Grange! What'll you be doing there?' demanded Charley.
'Helping out,' said the girl. 'Serving at table, and so on. There's a lot of important people gets there.'
'You mean, domestic service? You'll be a maid?' said Frostick in disbelief.
'I'll be assistant to the housekeeper,' retorted Andrea. 'And I get my own room and a colour telly too. You reckon nowt to me, don't you, Mr Frostick? Well, let me tell you this, I only did my job at Paradise Hall so well that one of the customers there noticed me and it was him that got me this job.'
'You didn't say owt about this on Sunday!' said Frostick.
'I didn't know I was going till last night,' said Andrea.
'I get it!' said Frostick. 'So now you've got yourself fixed up, you don't need to shove yourself off on Charley here any more. Christ, Charley lad, I hope you can see what a lucky escape you've had.'
'Oh shut up, Dad!' the young man burst out. With a last glance, part accusing, part amazed, at Andrea he turned away and rushed from the room. They heard his footsteps going upstairs.
'See you then, Mr Frostick,' said the girl, with a provocative pout. She left too. Pascoe said, 'Excuse me,' and followed her.
He caught up with her just outside the front door.
'You know who I am, Miss Gregory,' he said, with a smile which won a response compounded equally of distrust and dislike.
'Yeah, what do you want?'
'This job you've got, was it Major Kassell who got it for you by any chance?'
'That's right. What about it?'
It wasn't so much aggressiveness, he decided, as an inability to respond other than in terms of her own self- interest. What about it, indeed? So Major Kassell, knowing they were short-staffed out at Haycroft Grange, had suggested to this girl that she might care to apply. But why, for God's sake? Pascoe could imagine the kind of waitress she was. Her one talent was probably provoking men. Takes a big tip to get a big tip.
He said, 'Listen, love, I just want a few answers, that's all. I'll get 'em here, or I'll come up to Haycroft Grange for them if you prefer.'
The threat was mild but effective. She responded instantly.
'Yes, it was him, the Major. He gets in a lot to Paradise Hall. Said to me a week or two back, if ever I needed a job, they were always looking for staff at Haycroft Grange. Well, I thought, no wonder, stuck out there in the middle of nowhere. I mean, Paradise Hall was bad enough but at least there was the bus or you could thumb a lift.'
'What made you change your mind?' asked Pascoe.
'I needed a job, didn't I? Anyway, he told me there was regular transport laid on for the staff. So I thought, why not give it a whirl? I'm starting tomorrow so I can get to know the ropes before the next lot of guests come at the weekend. That's what it is mainly, see, these rich men coming up for the shooting.'
She spoke with real respect. No wonder Kassell had hired her! The rich would get real service. But what did that make Kassell? Added to the information supplied by Sergeant Myers, it made him a lot less than a perfectly respectable witness. Not that it mattered too much now that Mrs Warsop had changed her mind.
'On Friday night, did you notice the other people with Major Kassell?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'There was that bookie, Charlesworth. He gets in a lot. And this big fat bloke, pissed out of his mind. He looked a real villain! Is that who you're after?'
'No, no,' prevaricated Pascoe hastily. 'Just a general question. I was really just interested in the restaurant and the clientele generally.'
'Here, it's not old Abbiss you're after?' said the girl, with sudden malice. 'I could tell you a thing or two about his fiddles. You want to be looking at him and that old dyke from The Towers, that's what you want to be doing.'
'From The Towers?' said Pascoe, suddenly alert. 'You mean Mrs Warsop?'
'That's right. She brings her little fancy girls along, rubs knees with them under the table, it makes me sick!' said Andrea viciously.
'Bad tipper, is she?' said Pascoe disapprovingly.
'Tip? Her? You never see her money. Signs her bill, like she was important. But Abbiss, he never sees her money either.'
'What are you trying to tell me, Andrea?' said Pascoe gently.
But the girl had gone full circle and was now back to her original instinctive distrust.
'Nothing,' she said. 'I've said nothing. It's nothing to do with me any more. I'm off now.'
She stepped over the fence into her own garden. From the house a plaintive wail arose.
'Teeny! Where's my biscuits?'
'Thank Christ I'll be away from that!' she said half to herself.
'I'll see you again some time, Andrea,' promised Pascoe.
'Will you?' she said, turning on him a crooked, not unattractive smile. 'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps,' agreed Pascoe. 'Perhaps.'
Chapter 20
'All my possessions for one moment of time!'
Dennis Seymour was inclined to regard this consultation with Arnie Charlesworth as a slight on his own detective resources. Having spent several hours trudging round all the possible, and some pretty improbable,
