when Pascoe had thanked her firmly and promised he would collect the stuff for The Towers before he left.
'No one would say anything about it, unless they knew,' Pascoe pointed out reasonably. 'Who did know, Charley?'
'What's it matter?' asked the young man. 'It didn't get nicked.'
'Which probably clears anyone who knew,' offered Pascoe.
Charley considered this.
'Oh yeah. I get you,' he said. 'Well, no one knew, as far as I'm concerned. I never told anyone.'
'And how did you know? Did your grandfather tell you?'
It would have been easy for the young man to lie, and for a moment perhaps he considered it. But to his great credit in Pascoe's eyes, he decided against it and said, 'No. It was when he lent me the money for the ring. He told me to wait a bit, then he went upstairs and I heard a noise, it must've been the panel coming off, you've got to spring it and it sort of flies out, so I went half way up the stairs, just far enough to see he was all right.'
'And you saw him replacing the panel, and then he came down with your money?'
'That's right,' said Charley. 'It'll be me mam's money now, won't it?'
'I expect so,' said Pascoe. 'You should have told me about the possibility of its being there before, Charley. You realize that?'
'Yeah, all right. But I wasn't going to nick it, if that's what you're thinking.'
Pascoe believed him. The tears on the boy's face had been provoked by the presence in the box of several envelopes containing the cash and money orders with which Charley had conscientiously paid off his debt. Such a fond relationship as this had clearly been could not have led to theft.
'We'll say you showed me where it might be hidden, all right?' he said. 'There's about two hundred quid in notes, plus the money orders. Want to check?'
Charley shook his head.
'It'll be kept safe down at the police station for the time being, but your mam will get it all, never fear. Now, is there anything else you want to tell me or show me?'
Charley shook his head.
'OK,' said Pascoe. 'Let's be getting you back. Your mam can have the keys now, I think. You've got the front door one, haven't you? Oh and while I think on, here's the back door key. The one from the wash-house.'
He dug into his pocket and produced the key he'd found in the old boiler in the wash-house.
Charley took it and looked at it, puzzled.
'This isn't it,' he said.
'Isn't what? The back door key? Why do you say that?' asked Pascoe.
'I'm not saying it's not the back door key,' said Charley. 'But it's not the one granda kept hid in the wash- house.'
'No?' said Pascoe.
He went into the kitchen, the youth following.
'What about this one?' he said, holding up the key which had been in the lock beneath the broken window.
'Aye, that's it. That's the one out of the wash-house,' said Charley.
'Are you sure?'
'Of course I'm sure. That's the way I always came and went, see. Look, it's older and muckier, isn't it? And it's got a number on and this one hasn't.'
It was true. The two keys were readily distinguishable. But did it matter? Charley had been away from home for a few weeks after all. Perhaps the old man himself had swapped the keys round.
Yet if he hadn't, what might it signify?
Much, perhaps, if only he had time to sit and ponder it. Much.
Chapter 22
'If this is dying, I don't think much of it.'
Pascoe's hopes of finding a small square of pondering time vanished when he was greeted at the station with news of the raid on the unlicensed betting shop.
'So he did have money? A lot of money? Great!' he declared, much to the delight of Seymour, who hoped that he was in for a large helping of undeserved credit to compensate for the great dollops of undeserved criticism which were ladled on to a detective-constable's plate with monotonous regularity.
But this was not to be. As Pascoe recounted his interview with Mrs Escott it became clear that he did not hold Seymour innocent of blame.
'So she just lost a day,' said Wield.
'That's right. A possibility you would expect a young detective to admit, who had just been warned that the old lady was having memory problems.'
It had been a mistake to let on that Tempest, the warden, had made any comment on Mrs Escott's mental decline, realized Seymour miserably.
'They're not what they used to be, young detectives,' observed Wield.
'You'll need proper statements now, you realize that?' Pascoe said. 'The waitress who served him, the man in the off-licence.'
Seymour brightened up. His attempts to blarney a date out of Bernadette had failed the previous lunch-time, but he had high hopes that a second assault might weaken resistance. ‘Something still puzzles me,' said Pascoe. 'Here's an old lad come into a bit of money, and he's got the spirit and the gumption to lash out on a good meal and a bottle of booze to take home. Now why, on a night like that, does he set off to walk home? Money in his pocket, he could afford a taxi! Or, if that seemed too extravagant, you'd think at the very least he'd catch a bus. A No. 17 would take him from the town centre right to those shops behind Castleton Court, wouldn't it? And how often do they run? Every quarter of an hour, isn't it?'
He looked questioningly at Wield and Seymour. Wield had the face to abide such questions; Seymour felt challenged. He had no answer, but his mind was stimulated to a suggestion offered in hope of a consolation prize.
'Sir, shall I go back and see Mrs Escott again?' he asked.
'For a statement, you mean?' said Pascoe in surprise. 'A statement of what, for God's sake? She can't remember!'
'No, sir,' contradicted Seymour. 'She remembered the wrong day but she remembered it very well. Now, she might still have seen Parrinder on the Friday, mightn't she? Perhaps now she's had time to puzzle it over, something might have come back to her.'
Pascoe doubted it. His own gentle probings had produced a puzzled appreciation that the old lady might have got something wrong, but he had not felt it worthwhile to risk distressing her by going too hard. And now that 'Tap' Parrinder was definitely placed in the betting shop from 1.45 to 4.30 P.M., he couldn't see what positive contribution any further memories of Mrs Escott could make. On the other hand, he appreciated Seymour's eagerness to regain what he felt as lost credit.
'Worth a try perhaps,' he said. 'But go easy, very easy. She's old and confused. And make damn sure you've got all those statements first!'
After Seymour had gone, Wield looked at Pascoe with something which might have been a smile fissuring his lips.
'He's a good lad,' he said.
'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe. 'He did well to get Charlesworth to cooperate, though I expect he's as keen as anyone to see these illicit shops closed.'
'So it clears the way for his own fiddles, you mean?' said Wield.
'Perhaps, though he was looked at recently and he came out clean.'
'So I believe. Did you know he was such an old chum of the Super's?'
Again that immediate and suggestive association! It was going to be very difficult to prevent Dalziel's
