in at the back. It were daft really, I could have got into serious bother, but I knew this lad on the gate. Later, when I'd passed out, we were allowed to stay out. I'd still get back late sometimes even though it were so close. And often I'd be fair worn out on the square or at the range!'
He spoke with a mixture of pride, bewilderment and awkwardness. He was glad, Pascoe guessed, to have someone to talk to who was sympathetic but also a stranger, and official with it. He did not doubt that Charley had indulged in his fill of sexual boasting in the company of his fellow soldiers, but that was miles away from this stumbling analysis of the strange ambiguities of body and spirit.
'I'd not really thought of being married to Andrea, do you understand that?' he continued. 'Even when we got engaged. I mean, I couldn't think of her as a wife, somehow, not like me mam, you know, in the house and taking care of things and all that… no, I couldn't see that…'
They had arrived at Welfare Lane. The police caravan had gone and there was nothing to distinguish No. 25 from its neighbours. After Charley's visit, Pascoe could see no further reason for keeping the house sealed. Mrs Frostick would want to start the sad job of sorting out her father's belongings. There had been no will, so the whole estate – money, goods and the house itself – would pass to her as the only child. Pascoe had no doubt that she would see Charley right, but the boy wasn't going to get the old pocket watch that had always been promised him. Not unless the gods decided to be kind.
He didn't open the car door straight away but sat for a moment in case Charley wanted to unburden himself further, but the youth quickly opened the passenger door and got out, perhaps because he felt that there had been quite enough self-examination for one day, perhaps because Mrs Tracey Spillings had appeared at the kerb- side and was peering through the windscreen.
'Hello, Charley,' she said. 'You're looking grand. It must suit you, all this open air life. I was right sorry about your grandad. He could be a miserable old devil when he wanted but he never did nobody any harm and we've had some good times. All these years we've been neighbours and I never thought it'd come to this. It's a terrible business, Charley. I hope they get the bugger as did it, but they run rings round the police nowadays, don't they? You've got the best one of the bunch here, I reckon, but that's not saying too much. You know who was first round? Mrs Jolley's nephew from Parish Road, that Tony Hector, looks as if he's been washed and stretched. Then there was another, you've never seen such a face! When first I saw it, I thought they'd caught the killer, he looked ripe for anything! How are you, lad?'
'I'm fine, thanks, Mrs Spillings,' said Charley, looking slightly shell-shocked.
'And your mam and dad? And that lass you're engaged to? All all right?'
Charley glanced at Pascoe and said, 'Aye, they're OK.'
'Good. You'd like a cup of tea,' asserted Mrs Spillings without fear of contradiction.
'No, thanks,' said Charley boldly. 'But don't let me stop you from having one, Mr Pascoe. In fact, I'd as lief have a look round the house by myself to start with.'
Pascoe who had slid away to unlock the front door regarded the boy with mute congratulation. Such tactical skill must surely predicate a knapsack full of field-marshal's batons.
'That's right,' approved Mrs Spillings. 'You come along with me, Mr Pascoe.'
She seized his arm and Pascoe for the first time in his life knew what it must feel like to be nicked.
But as he entered No. 27, a second and perhaps stranger phenomenon occupied all his attention.
The house was in silence.
Without the waves of broadcast decibels beating against it, even the wallpaper seemed almost peaceful, like a coral reef after a tropical storm.
'Where…?' began Pascoe.
'Mam?' said Mrs Spillings. 'Aye, it is quiet. She's gone.'
'Gone? Oh, I'm sorry,' said Pascoe sitting down heavily and feeling the usual English middle-class inadequacy in matters of commiseration.
'What? No! You silly bugger!' roared Mrs Spillings. 'I don't mean gone. I mean she's gone away. She were booked down to go to The Towers this Friday, but this vacancy came up unexpected and Betty Day, the matron there, she got in touch to ask if she'd like an extra few days. I've known Betty Day for years, her dad was Eric Day who used to have the fish shop in Brahma Street and her mam was a Spurling out of Otley. They washed their hands of her by all accounts when she married Eric, but they changed their tune when Betty came along. She's a grand lass – lass! she must be nearly forty now! Mam's been going to The Towers for years, and I was right pleased when Betty took it over last year! Mrs Collins who ran it before were all right, but she was ancient herself and letting things slide. Betty's making a world of difference. And Mam loves it there and it's a bit of a break for me. Gives me a chance to really bottom this place!'
There were signs everywhere of an enthusiastic November spring-clean about to be commenced.
'A bit of a busman's holiday,' said Pascoe wryly.
'Busman's? Oh aye! I see what you mean. No, I've never minded cleaning, it comes easy to me. But talking of busmen, I'd better get a move on. It all happened so sudden there was half a dozen things Mam forgot to take. Nowt that she can't do without, mind you, but they like to make a fuss! I'm sorry, lad, but can you make your own tea?'
'You mean you're going out there on the bus?' said Pascoe.
'Well, I'm not walking, love!' said Tracey Spillings cheerfully.
Suddenly she eyed him speculatively.
'Of course, if you were happening to be passing that way in that fancy motor of yours, it'd save me a trip and I could make you that tea after all.'
Cheeky cow! thought Pascoe without any real indignation. In fact, he found himself thinking, why not? He'd been wondering intermittently what, if anything, he should do about Andrea's insinuations concerning Mrs Warsop and her former employer. Pass them to Headingley was the obvious answer, except that Headingley had been warned off the Dalziel affair and was likely to respond to any new information with an answer even more obvious.
Now, nudged by the coincidence that Tracey Spillings's old mam had clearly been slipped into the space vacated by Philip Westerman, Pascoe found himself unable to resist the temptation to meddle. The kind of bother Dalziel seemed to be in clearly went a lot further than just the question of his involvement in Westerman's death.
'All right,' he said. 'You're on. I'll take them.'
'Could you? That'd be grand! It'd really save me half a day,' said Tracey Spillings. 'Mind you, it's just like a man. Do owt to get out of going into the kitchen!'
She bustled off to make the tea. With her temporary departure, Pascoe became aware just how unfortunate Mrs Spillings Senior's listening habits had been for poor old Bob Deeks. With no masking roar of TV soundtrack, the noises made by Charley Frostick as he moved around next door were quite clear. Tracey Spillings would surely have recognized a pattern different from her old neighbour's usual one and just as surely, being the kind of woman she was, gone to investigate.
He listened carefully, gauging that Charley was upstairs now, probably in the bathroom. There was a distant crash, as of something falling, not too heavily, but with a strangely hollow noise.
Pascoe rose from his chair and moved quietly out of the house. Charley had left the front door of No. 25 ajar. He went in, through the living-room and up the stairs. The bathroom door was open.
Charley was on his hands and knees by the bath. The fibreglass panel which boxed in the end had been removed. It was probably the noise of this as it fell back against the ceramic lavatory pan that had attracted Pascoe. Charley was reaching beneath the bath. He grunted with effort, or more likely with achievement, for now he withdrew his arm.
In his hand was a cardboard shoe-box. Still with his back to the door, he took the top off.
Pascoe took a quiet pace forward but not quiet enough. Charley spun round in alarm and more than alarm, for there were tears on his face. The box fell out of his grip. Across the patterned vinyl floor fluttered a skein of five- pound notes.
'I just wondered if it were still there,' said Charley. 'No one had said anything about it and I just wondered.'
They were sitting downstairs drinking the tea which Mrs Spillings had brought round on discovering Pascoe's departure. Her volubility did not mean she was insensitive to atmosphere and she had withdrawn without demur
