Guilt and alarm were on his face.
'It's all right, sir,' he cried, trying to push away the dog. 'Mr Dalziel knows I'm here.'
'Does he indeed? But does he know you have this strong attraction for dogs?'
He looked at the terror-stricken constable with growing speculation. Surely he looked fatter than he recalled? Less of a beanpole? Perhaps it was just the gaberdine…
'Hector,' he said. 'Open your coat.'
The constable sighed, like the exhalation from a reed-pipe, looked almost relieved, and obeyed.
'I thought it was fair do's, sir,' he explained. 'I mean, who's to miss 'em, and we do all the work. One was for me mam, the other for me Auntie Sheila.'
Hanging in poacher's pockets, which is to say two small sacks pinned to the inside of the voluminous coat, was a pair of fat pheasants.
Pascoe removed one of them and examined it. It had been split open round about the anus. A corner of plastic protruded.
'Hector,' said Pascoe gently. 'What did you imagine this was?'
Hector looked. Then he said in a puzzled voice, 'Giblets, isn't it, sir? They always come in little plastic bags.'
Pascoe began to laugh. He was still chortling quietly as he escorted the lanky constable, danced around by the excited dog, towards the group on the steps.
'Mr Dalziel, sir,' called Pascoe. 'Constable Hector here has made a remarkable discovery.'
He slowly drew forth a long thin plastic bag from the gut of the pheasant. Through the bloodstained transparent covering it was possible to see that it was packed with white powder, perhaps a pound and a half in weight. The sad-faced man came quickly down the steps, took it from Pascoe's hand and made a small incision with his pocket knife.
First he sniffed, then he put a couple of grains on his tongue.
Turning, he nodded at Dalziel.
Hector's face during all this was showing a complex of emotions. He was not yet certain whether he had committed a very great crime or performed a very meritorious deed. But now Dalziel's voice broke out, 'Hector, lad, I don't know how you've done it, but I love you!' And the long head slowly rose from between the hunched shoulders, like a flower roused by the warmth of the sun.
'Remember, you are mortal,' murmured Pascoe as he saw the joy and relief break out on the young man's face.
Dalziel turned back to Kassell.
'Major Kassell,' he said. 'I'm arresting you on suspicion of being involved in the smuggling of illicit drugs into this country. You do not have to say anything but if you do, it'll be taken down and may be used in evidence. Sir William, shall we all go inside now? There's things to be talked about, things to be done.'
With a shattered look on his face, Pledger turned away. Dalziel urged Kassell to follow him, but the Major looked first to the man with the gun. An expression crossed Charlesworth's face which might almost have been one of disappointment, then gently he uncocked his weapon.
'Well, thank God for that at least,' said Kassell with a smile of relief. 'Dalziel, I know nothing of this business, of course, but I realize you've got to do your duty. I should like to ring my solicitor before things go any further, however. I believe that's my entitlement.'
The gun came up so quickly that there was nothing anyone could do. The twin barrels swept up between
Kassell's legs and hard into his groin. He screamed, went grey with pain, doubled up.
'Arnie, for Christ's sake!' shouted Dalziel.
'I deserved one,' said Charlesworth.
'You bastard. I'll get you for this,' choked Kassell.
The bookie considered him for a moment.
'I wouldn't bet on it,' he said.
Chapter 29
'Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouee.'
It started snowing again during the course of the evening and by half past nine, when Pascoe with all loose ends carefully tied up or at least tucked out of sight was preparing to go home, it was settling in earnest.
He thought with alarm of Ellie's drive north the next day, and did not know whether he was more alarmed at the dangers of the drive or the prospect of being without her even longer if the weather was too bad for travel.
Dalziel he had not seen since leaving Haycroft Grange. Whether the fat man were in the building or not he didn't know and wasn't about to find out. There would be plenty of time to dot i's and cross t's over a reunifying pint; now all he wanted was to get back home and go to bed.
But the phone rang as he was leaving.
It was Dr Sowden.
'Just thought you might like to know Mrs Escott's fading fast,' he said rather curtly.
'Thanks,' said Pascoe.
What did it matter? There was nothing more she could tell them. It was probably better for her. What did the future hold but at best a few twilit years of being bullied by the nurses in a geriatric home? No, better by far for her to go now. And there was no point in his being there to see her go. None at all.
'You came, then,' said Sowden.
'Yes. ‘Didn’t sound very interested on the phone,' said the doctor.
'I'm not… interested,'' said Pascoe wearily. 'Involved, maybe. Though Christ knows why.'
Sowden grinned and said, 'I'll be off duty in twenty minutes. Let me buy you that drink we keep talking about.'
'I'm a bit knackered,' said Pascoe. 'Anyway, have you seen the weather?'
'With a bit of luck we could get snowed in some comfortable saloon bar. No crime, no one dying. Two or three days of that would probably do us both the world of good. Still, if you're too tired…'
He led the way into the ward. A nurse was drawing the curtains around Mrs Escott's bed.
'Isn't there, well, somewhere else,' said Pascoe, glancing uneasily at the other beds.
'A kind of dying room, you mean? Afraid not. We're pushed for space, you see. In any case, with these old folk, once you start wheeling them out to die, every time they're taken out of the ward for any reason begins to feel like a death sentence!'
Mrs Escott lay so still and with her face so composed that Pascoe thought he had come too late after all. He stood helplessly by the bedside and repeated to Sowden, 'I really don't know what I'm doing here.'
'In some of the ancient religions, last words are meant to be redolent of significance and power,' murmured Sowden.
Pascoe looked at him in surprise.
'That doesn't sound too scientific to me,' he said.
'Scientifically speaking, death is the great debunker,' said Sowden, feeling the woman's pulse. 'There it is. A faint flutter, like a… like a…'
Perhaps some poetic comparison had suggested itself which embarrassed him for he let the words tail off.
'Aren't there any relatives? Or friends?' asked Pascoe.
'To be here, you mean? No, no relatives that can be traced. Friends at Castleton Court, probably, but too old and not close enough to be brought out on a night like this.'
'So we're it.'
'That's right.'
Pascoe shook his head.
'Not much to show for threescore and ten, is it?' he said half to himself.
