reminded Sergeant Wield of a picture in his illustrated H. Rider Haggard showing what happened to Ayesha after her second immersion in the Flame of Life. That this frailness should at one time have contained this vastness was a concept requiring a greater effort of lateral thinking than he was inclined to make.
Pascoe showed why he was an Inspector by shouting, 'How do you do?' to the old lady whose eyes never left Dallas. Nor, from the size of the stack of tapes standing next to the VCR, did it look as if they would ever need to. Mrs Spillings jerked her head towards the inner door which led to the kitchen. Here the noise level was reduced to that of a medium-sized steel foundry, but this was compensated for by a wallpaper design of huge tropical fruit whose violence was intensified by the confined space, the 1000-watt strip lighting, and highly polished kitchen units in the puce which was clearly Mrs Spillings's favourite colour.
Pascoe introduced himself and started to explain what he wanted, but quickly found that his explanation was neither needed or heeded. Mrs Spillings launched straight into narrative.
'This is what happened,' she said. 'You'd best make notes as it's the second time of telling and there'll not be a third. It were an hour back, no, I tell a lie, likely more. I'd just finished the ironing when Dolly Frostick came banging on my door, screaming blue murder. I went straight out, there was others at their doors and windows, but all hanging back, not doing owt. You'll know how backward folk can be about coming forward in your job, until they think they're getting something for nothing and then there's no hanging back. I said Dolly, calm yourself, lass, and tell us what's up. And she said It's me dad, it's me dad! and set off shrieking again. I saw I could be here till next Sunday waiting to get any sense out of her, so I went to have a look for myself. I saw right off the house were in a mess and I said to myself, Hey up! burglars! and I picked up the poker from the grate before I went upstairs.
'He were lying in the bathtub. The water were all bloody, so I pulled out the plug. I said, Bob, Bob, what the hell have you been up to? but he said nowt, just flickered his eyelids for a second. So I lifted him out of the bath – he were no weight at all, skin and bones, they all go like that, mine's just the same – and I wrapped him in a towel and I took him into the bedroom and put him on the bed and covered him over.
'There were a lot of others there by then. Where one goes, they're quick enough to follow. Not that any on 'em were good for owt but getting under my feet. I told Minnie Cope from 21 to put kettle on and make a pot of tea – that's about her limit – and I went downstairs myself and rang for the ambulance and for you lot. Dolly Frostick were back in the house by then. She'd quieted down a bit, so I gave her a cup of tea with a lot of sugar. Next thing someone said the police is here, but it was only that Sheila Jolley's nephew from Parish Road. He were always a gormless child and he's not improved much with ageing. I told him it were a serious matter and he'd best make himself useful by getting some proper bobbies down here, so he went off out with his little wireless. Then the ambulance came and they got poor old Bob away, just.
'I put Dolly in the ambulance with her dad and I sent Minnie Cope along for company. I'd have gone myself only I can't be sitting around all night in a hospital waiting on some black bugger's convenience. And I thought when you lot finally got someone with a bit of sense here, he'd likely want to know what'd been going off. So I stayed in the house till this one came. He's no oil-painting, but at least he's not simple like that Tony Hector. But he says I've got to wait and tell it all again to you, whoever you are. Well, I've waited, and I've told it and if you write it down, I'll sign it. Right?'
She spoke dismissively and it took all of Pascoe's courage for him to say, 'There are just a couple of questions, Mrs Spillings.'
'Like what?'
'Well, like, did you hear anything odd next door earlier this evening?'
Mrs Spillings looked at him in disbelief, then opened the door into the living-room, admitting a Force 10 gale of noise.
It was reply sufficient.
Mrs Spillings said, 'I'll let you two out the back way. That'll be the way he got in, you'll have worked that much out, I dare say. Me, I've got proper locks fitted and all, but Bob Deeks never bothered though I kept on telling him. Come on! Don't hang about.'
She opened the back door and with considerable relief the two policemen exited from the vibrant house. They found themselves in a tiny back yard with a brick washhouse, a bird-table and some kind of evergreen in a tub. Mrs Spillings unlocked a door in the high wall at the bottom of the yard and they went out after her into a narrow lane which ran between the backs of the Welfare Lane houses on one side and those of the Parish Road houses on the other. The lane acted as a wind tunnel, sucking icy darts of rain into it horizontally at vast speed. Mrs Spillings seemed indifferent to the weather. She walked a couple of paces to the next door and gave it a push. It was a ramshackle affair and lurched creakingly on one hinge.
'That's how the bugger'll have got in,' she re-affirmed. 'Listen. Bob Deeks were a miserable old sod, but I never found any harm in him. You lot want to get this sorted proper.'
'We'll get him all right,' assured Pascoe.
'Oh aye, you'll likely get him,' said the woman. 'It's what he gets that bothers me. Suspended sentence! I'd suspend the buggers!'
'It's a tenable position,' said Pascoe, trying to re-grasp the initiative. 'I may need to talk to you again.'
'Any time you like, sunshine,' came the voice drifting back along the lines of sleet. 'Any time, as long as I'm not busy.'
Pascoe and Wield went through into the yard of No. 25 and let themselves into the house. The fingerprint man was hard at work in the kitchen.
'Anything?' asked Pascoe.
'Millions,' came the cheerful answer. 'I reckon there's more dabs here than there is in the North Sea.'
'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'And thanks a lot. Sergeant, we’ll need everyone who was in the house for elimination. Get a start on it, will you? Combine it with door-to-door along the street. Anyone see or hear anything? Any strangers wandering around? Why am I telling you this? You know the drill at least as well as I do. Use Hector and anyone else you can lay your hands on. I'll get some extra hands drafted in as soon as I can.'
'Where will you be, sir?' inquired Wield.
'At the hospital,' said Pascoe. 'Talking to Mrs Frostick, if possible, and checking on what killed Deeks.'
He paused at the door, turning his already dripping raincoat collar up as the wind outside shrieked its joy at the prospect of having another go at him.
'And if I find George Headingley in intensive care,' he added bitterly, 'it might just about justify getting me mixed up in this lot.'
Chapter 5
'Bring me all the blotting-paper there is in the house!'
In the event, it took George Headingley only five minutes to convince Pascoe that there were worse things to be mixed up with than murder inquiries. 'You've got yourself a real mess there, George,' he said feelingly. 'A real mess!'
'You can say that again,' said Headingley. 'I'm sorry I got you called out, but I got this feeling I was going to be needed mopping up after Fat Andy, and as things are turning out, I was right.'
The two men were talking in the comfortably appointed foyer of the main modern wing of the City General Hospital. Headingley had contacted Wield a couple of minutes after Pascoe's departure from Welfare Lane, and learning of his destination had hastened to intercept him.
'Arnie Charlesworth! What the hell was he doing driving round with Arnie Charlesworth?' demanded Pascoe.
'Be careful what you say,' objected Headingley. 'He's regarded as a respected member of the community.'
'We've all got things we regard as respected members,' said Pascoe, 'but we're in trouble if we start flashing them round in public.
‘You know,' said Headingley, 'you've always been Andy's golden boy, but there's no need to start sounding like him! All right, so Charlesworth's a bookie and a bit of a hard case, and not the kind of man we should be seen taking favours from. But he's completely legit, and he's a big charity man. The mayor's parlour, the Rotary, the
