certainly.' 'Anything I should know about?' 'Hasn't Him Upstairs told you?' fenced Pascoe, uncertain what form Dalziel's 'cover' might have taken. 'Haven't seen him. Seems he rang in first thing and said his grandmother had been taken ill and he had to go and see her.' 'His what?’ 'That's what I thought. If he ever had a granny, which I doubt, she must be seriously dead by now.' 'And he left no message for me?' 'Not for you. About you. Said you'd rung him in the night with a bad toothache and you might be a bit late as you'd likely need an emergency dental appointment. Your dentist in Harrogate, is he?' So much for the promised cover. It was pathetic, except that to a man who could use a sick granny as grounds for bunking off, a dental appointment might shine like the brightest heaven of invention. He glanced at his watch. He was going to be late for a lord, adding discourtesy to deception. Pulling the wool over a garrulous nanny's eyes was one thing, but this was really going naked into the conference chamber. Dalziel's rather surprising dip into the epic past came to his mind. What was it Aeneas carried to get him into, and out of, the nether regions? A golden bough, that was it. 'You still there?' demanded Wield's voice in his ear. 'Yes, but I shouldn't be,' said Pascoe. 'See you later.' He stepped out of the box. The street, though it was called something Grove, was quite devoid of trees. But he could see a sign saying T HE G ROVE B OOKSHOP. He had read somewhere that if you approached a writer with his grandmother's head in one hand and his latest book in the other, you were sure of a genial welcome. In the shop they said, yes, they had a copy of In A Pear Tree, it was?12.95, and no, the paperback hadn't been published yet, there'd been an unexplained delay. Groaning with the natural pain felt by most educated Englishmen at parting with money for books when the libraries are full of them, Pascoe paid.
TWO
'Is your hand steady enough to write?' 'It was when you came in.' Two hundred and fifty miles to the south, Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel was also confronting the high cost of literature. He rarely read crime novels, but bookstall advertising had left a subliminal impression that the genre had more Queens than Solomon, so when he rang the bell of William Stamper's St John's Wood flat, he anticipated the epicene, and would not have been dismayed by drag. Instead the door was opened by a burly man in a balding woollen dressing-gown, his unshaven face pouched and pallid with what Dalziel's expert eye identified as the effect of a serious hangover. ' 'Morning, lad. Like a ciggy, or do you still prefer bull's-eyes?' 'I'm sorry…' said Stamper, blinking hard. His reopened eyes looked at air. Somewhere behind him Dalziel's voice said, 'If this is what writing does to you, I'd give it up and get a real job. Kitchen in here? You look like you need a coffee almost as much as me. Ever travel Intercity? Every time you lift your cup, they hit a bump so's you throw the stuff over your shoulder. Best place for it, I reckon.' 'Who the hell are you?' demanded Stamper. 'You've forgotten me already?' said Dalziel, amazed. He paused in his task of spooning large quantities of instant coffee into half pint mugs to produce his warrant card. 'Detective- Superintendent Dalziel. But you can call me Uncle Andy.' 'Good God! The bull's-eyes. It's you… only there's a lot more of you.' 'Aye, well, like they say, the merrier, the more. You've not stayed still yourself. I'd not have known you from yon skinny little kid. Is there owt to put in this?'
'Milk, you mean?' Dalziel frowned and said, 'I'd not advise milk to a man in your condition. It curdles the stomach. Me, I'm all for this homosexual medicine.' Stamper stared, then said, 'Homeopathic, you mean?' 'Aye, that's the lad. Hair of the dog. It's all right, I see it.' If he did, it was with some strange Celtic third eye, for he now strolled into the living-room and set the mugs on a pile of typescript on a desk, one of whose drawers he opened to reveal a half-filled bottle of Teacher's. He poured a carefully judged measure into each mug. 'Enough to taste but not to waste,' he said. 'Well, how have you been, young William?' Stamper drank and shook his head, not negatively but in search of clear thought. He said slowly, 'Hold on. I stopped being young William God knows when, and you were never Uncle Andy. So let's get things in their right perspective. What the hell do you want, Superintendent?' 'Not sure. I got off at King's Cross, wanted somewhere for a coffee and a crap, and you were handiest.' 'How did you happen to have my address?' Dalziel said, 'Have you not been getting my Christmas cards, then? No, seriously, that programme you did on the murder, it were good. Only, you were still accepting the verdicts then. Now Cissy Kohler's gone free.' 'So?' 'So, did it surprise you? I mean, you must've done a lot of research on the case.
Did you turn up anything that made you think, hello, that's funny?'
Stamper shook his head, winced, and said, 'No, but it was a retrospective, not an investigation.' 'Oh aye? Well, now you know you missed summat. That must nark you a bit.' 'Not a lot,' said Stamper.
'OK, when Waggs contacted me, I admit I did wonder if I'd missed an opportunity for a bit of media glory, but I couldn't honestly make out a case for getting the scent first.' 'So you talked to Waggs? I didn't see you on his telly show.' 'No point,' said Stamper. 'There was nothing I had to contribute.' 'Little lad hiding behind a curtain and nebbing on the mouldy oldies? Same little lad who spotted Kohler wandering around with blood dripping from her hands? Come on! With credentials like that, these telly people would likely have paid good money to hear you fart! How's your dad, by the way?' 'What?' 'Arthur Stamper. Sir Arthur, I beg his pardon. One of Maggie's knights.
Service to industry, weren't it?' 'Service to self,' snarled Stamper.
'As to how he is, I wouldn't know. I haven't seen him since… for a long time.' 'No? Aye, well, that figures, hating his guts like you do …' 'Now hold on…' 'No need to be coy,' said Dalziel. 'If you want to keep a secret, you shouldn't take advertising space on the airwaves.' Stamper drank again and said, 'It showed that much?' 'Not so a deaf man in a smithy would have noticed,' comforted Dalziel.
'What did he ever do to you?' 'Fed me, clothed me, paid for my education, gave me all the advantages he lacked, and never forgave me for not becoming in fact what he was in fantasy. I could have been an utter wastrel as long as I did it in the right way – sacked from Eton, rusticated from Oxford, cashiered from the Guards, that sort of thing.
Then he'd have been delighted with me. Instead I moped at boarding-school and went into such a decline that the staff were glad when my mother took me away. I was frightened of horses, hated hunting, cried if I saw anything being shot, and hid behind my mother's skirts whenever he came near me. So he took it out on her instead. If I hate him, it's for her sake as much as my own. But I hope I stop some way short of hatred. Let's call it a vigorous contempt.' He laughed. 'God knows why I'm telling you all this.'
'Father figure,' said Dalziel complacently. 'You're hoping I'll give you a cuddle and a bull's-eye. And your mam? How's she?' 'She divorced him, as I guess you know,' said Stamper shortly. 'When was that?'
'Middle of the 'seventies.' 'Oh aye. Saw her little Willie through college, did she? Then took off.' 'Something like that. She's a very remarkable woman. What the hell is all this about, Mr Dalziel? I know they've released Kohler. Does that mean they reckon Mickledore was innocent too and the case is being reopened?' 'I wouldn't know owt about that,' said Dalziel. 'Like I said, I'm just off the train, and had a bit of time to kill, and thought I'd renew an old acquaintance, seeing you were so handy. Now I'd best be on my way. How do I get to Essex from here?' 'Essex?' 'Aye. It's near London, isn't it? Can I get a bus?' 'Essex is a large county,' he began to explain. 'It depends which…' His voice tailed off in face of Dalziel's expression of bucolic astonishment at the extent of his wisdom. 'I think you can find your own way to Essex, Superintendent,' he said. 'Nay, lad, I thought you were building up to offering me a lift. You've got a car, I dare say.' 'Right. But not a taxi.' 'I weren't thinking of paying.
Still, if you aren't coming, I'd best be off. No telling how long she'll be at this address. Got any message for her? From what you said in your talk, you seemed quite struck.' Stamper said quietly, 'Who is it you're going to see, Mr Dalziel?' 'Didn't I say? Cissy, of course.
Cissy Kohler.' Stamper rubbed his hand over his stubble. 'I'll need to shave and shower,' he said. 'Aye, it'd be best, especially if it's a small car. No mad rush. We're not expected.' He picked up his coffee mug, noticing that it had left a brown ring on the typescript. From the other side of the wall, he heard a shower start up. Immediately he started opening drawers in the writing desk. An address book held his attention for a while. He made a couple of notes, then dug deeper till he found a bundle of letters all in the same gracefully flowing hand.
He picked one out at random. Like most of the others it was headed Golden Grove, and it bore the date January 3rd, 1977.
Dear Will, it was such a joy to get your Christmas card and letter. If you knew how much I look forward to hearing from you, I know you'd write more often, but at least now I can feel sure it's just natural laziness that keeps you from writing, not as I feared resentment. I wish you'd come to see us. I know that, even if there was just the teeniest bit of resentment there, once you saw how truly happy I am, it would vanish right away… The shower stopped.
