your hurry?'
If she'd smiled seductively at him, Seymour would have been off at the double. But she just regarded him very seriously, very calmly, and though he had been aware from the start of her long legs and lissom figure, he now saw for the first time how truly beautiful she was, and simultaneously glimpsed the real depth of unhappiness beneath the revealed discontent.
Reluctantly, telling himself it was duty's call he was answering, he began to sit down again when the flat bell rang.
'I'll get it,' he said. There was an outside chance it might be Waterson, and he didn't want to give him a start.
But the face which glowered hostilely at him was black.
'Dr Marwood,' said Pamela Waterson behind him.
'I just thought I'd look in to see you were all right,' said the doctor. 'Don't let these fellows wear you out.'
'I'd say it's the hospital that wears her out,' retorted Seymour.
'Would you now? Who are you?'
'Detective-Constable Seymour.'
'Constable? It's been sergeants and superintendents up till now. Does a constable mean we're getting near the bottom of the barrel?'
A rude riposte flared in Seymour's mind but he damped it down.
'I'm just doing my job, sir,' he said woodenly. 'And for the time being I've finished it. Thank you for answering my questions, Mrs Waterson, and for the coffee. Excuse me, sir.'
He pushed past Marwood. Behind him as he descended the stairs he heard a brief exchange, then the door closing. But to his surprise, Marwood wasn't on the inside of it. Footsteps came slapping down the concrete stair behind him and as he reached the vestibule of the nurses' home, Marwood's voice called, 'Constable. Mr Seymour. Hang on a minute.'
He stopped and turned.
'Yes, sir,' he said.
'Look, I was rude up there. I'm sorry.'
'Were you, sir? I didn't notice.'
'Balls. You almost gave me a mouthful. What stopped you? Me being a doctor or me being a black?'
The question was asked in as casually non-aggressive a fashion as it could be, but Seymour spotted it’s have- you-stopped-beating-your-wife quality and responded deftly, 'Me being a policeman, sir.'
Marwood laughed and said, 'I see you all come from the same mould in Mid-Yorkshire. You may look completely different, but inside you're all pretty sharp.'
Compliments now. The apology might have been due, but this meant he was after something. Giving or taking? wondered Seymour.
'I get worried about Mrs Waterson,' said the doctor as they strolled towards the car park together. 'She's been under a lot of pressure lately.'
Seymour unlocked the door of his car without answering. If Marwood had more to say, he'd say it.
He got in the car, closed the door, wound down the window and waited.
After a moment, the doctor said, 'Seems to me you people are making a real meal out of getting hold of that man of hers.'
'Doing our best, sir. The Super doesn't like getting the dogs out for a low-key inquiry.'
This was the merest zephyr of a provocation but Marwood felt it.
'Low-key? That woman back there's a nervous wreck and you call it low-key!'
'I'm sorry for Mrs Waterson's domestic problems, sir, but honestly I don't see that they're anything to do with us. We just want to talk to her husband to sort a few things out, then hopefully we can turn him loose to get his marriage straight. I get the impression they're still genuinely fond of each other.'
And this was provocation at gale force.
'Hey, listen, man, there's no way that marriage can ever be straight. He's unbalanced. More, he's a crook. Is that what it takes to get you people off your arses and going full pelt? He's a crook!'
'And what kind of crook is he, sir?' asked Seymour with what he hoped was just enough incredulity to push Marwood over the starting line. For now he guessed that the doctor's dilemma was not being able to get what he wanted unless he gave what he did not want to give.
Probably what he wanted was for Waterson to be put right out of the picture. But for some reason he felt this would put him out of the picture too.
And at last the explanation came.
'He's the kind of crook who asks his wife to steal drugs for him from the hospital!' grated Marwood. 'Now I haven't told you that. If you tell anyone I've told you that, especially Mrs Waterson, I'll deny it. But it's the truth. Now will you get the dogs out and put the useless shit behind bars where he belongs?'
CHAPTER FOUR
Initially, Seymour's report did little to rouse Dalziel's spirits.
'Drugs again,' he said. 'Shit. And did she do it?'
