desk was a tabloid newspaper. 'Sorry, sir, but the traffic was jammed solid,' lied Pascoe ungratefully. 'What? Oh yes. We'll need to …' He took a deep breath, then said, 'What the hell do I care about traffic? My daughter's been on a trip to the States, Mr Pascoe.
She got back home last night. She brought me a litre of very old cognac which didn't get much older, as she also brought me this.' He turned the tabloid round and pushed it across the desk. Pascoe saw the headline CROCODILE DALZIEL. Uninvited, he sat down to read the rest.
It didn't take long. It was the kind of paper which assumed in its readers the attention span of a lively four- year-old. 'Is it really that bad, sir?' he said in the bright tone of a ship's surgeon asking Lord Nelson what a man with only one arm wanted with two eyes anyway.
'If anything, it reflects rather well on Mid-Yorkshire.' Trimble said, if you work it out, you'll see this has all taken place in his first twelve hours on American soil. What will he do in a week?' 'End organized crime by the sound of it,' said Pascoe. They may want to keep him.' Trimble smiled wistfully, then composed his face to an official coldness as he said, 'You may be wondering why I'm not ordering your instant reduction to the ranks. The first reason is that my daughter's thoughtful gesture has reminded me that you are still the lesser of two evils. The second is that Mr Hiller seems to feel that he may not have made it as clear as he should have done that he did not require your assistance. This I find puzzling, having heard him in my presence address you on the subject in terms so pellucid that a backward sports commentator could have understood him. But it does give me an excuse, if not a reason, for letting you yet again off the hook.' 'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe. 'No, you're not. Not yet. But you will be if you disobey instructions once more. My instructions, whose clarity is not in doubt. You will not make contact, in person, by phone, by proxy, or by any other means, with anyone connected with Mr Hiller's inquiry. If any such person should contact you, you will immediately refer them to Mr Hiller. Do I make myself clear?' 'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'And no.' 'I'm sorry?' 'Yes, you make yourself clear, sir,' said Pascoe. 'But no, I can't undertake to follow these instructions.' Trimble passed a hand over his face. 'Did I really hear you say that?' he asked wonderingly. 'What I mean is, I need reassurances. When all this started, I admit I was out of line.
Because of loyalty – misplaced loyalty, you might say – to Mr Dalziel, I bent the rules. I was probably wrong, I was certainly professionally wrong because I didn't have any good professional reasons. But now it's different. To put it starkly, I think there's a chance that Mavis Marsh's death was arranged because of her connection with the Mickledore Hall affair. Before I can agree to follow instructions to stay away from the case, I need to feel sure that it's going to be properly investigated. If you can give me that assurance, sir, and the same assurance about all aspects of this business, and that all relevant findings will be published, then fine, I'll get back to bringing CID records up to date, and very glad about it too.' 'Oh dear,' said Trimble, looking down at the American tabloid. 'I may have got you and Andy Dalziel in the wrong order after all. Let me, without prejudice to my right to throw you out of here and suspend you without pay, make a couple of points. One is, Marsh's death is being treated as suspicious by our colleagues in West Yorkshire, mainly I gather at your instigation. The other is that I, as a man as well as a policeman, resent your implication that I would let myself or anyone under my command be diverted from the strictest observation of proper legal procedures.' Pascoe felt reproved but unrepentant. No point in changing your mind once you'd dived off the high board. 'I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to imply you would. But I do wonder, just how much is Mr Hiller under your command?' For a moment he thought he'd gone too far but after a long silence Trimble said mildly, 'That you must judge for yourself. In fact, in the whole of this business, judging for yourself might not be such a bad thing.' There was a knock at the door. 'That will be him now. Come in!' Hiller entered. He seemed to have shrunk even further into his suit. Adolf after a week in the bunker, thought Pascoe unkindly, then recalled a little guiltily that in this business at least, Hiller had not yet given him cause for unkindness. Trimble said, 'I've just been talking to Mr Pascoe about his involvement in the Marsh case. Do we know any more yet?' Hiller sat down heavily and said, 'DCI Dekker rang me ten minutes ago. He'd got the pathologist's report.' 'And what's the verdict?' prompted Trimble. ‘Indeterminate. She suffered from arhythmia, some kind of fibrillation, that's when the heart beats too fast, and she was taking a digitalis-derived drug. An overdose of this, or even a build-up through taking prescribed doses, can evidently lead to heart block.
That means the heart rate drops too low to feed the required amount of blood to the brain, inducing dizziness and fainting. Sometimes the heart stops altogether for a few seconds. Sometimes, without outside aid, it won't start again. And, of course, during such an attack it would not be difficult to make sure it didn't start again.' 'Are you saying this is what happened?' demanded Trimble. 'I'm saying that evidently it could have happened,' said Hiller irritatedly. 'There is no evidence either way. Unless we take as evidence the fact that the pathologist found only five currants in her stomach?' 'I'm sorry?' said Trimble. 'I gather Mr Pascoe can explain.' Pascoe explained. He kept on explaining. He wasn't yet sure how they were going to react, but at least he would know that they knew everything there was to know. He laid out the facts without comment until Trimble, with the reluctance of a hypochondriac asking his doctor to tell him the worst, said, 'And what is your interpretation of these facts?' 'When Marsh went to see Kohler in June nineteen seventy- six she told her something that made her want to get out. Thereafter she applied for parole and began to accept Daphne Bush's overtures of friendship because she needed a private channel to the outside world. Bush became her letter-box. I don't know if she wrote to anyone else but she certainly wrote to James Westropp. And in that letter she accused him of being the real killer of his wife. When Bush brought Westropp's reply to her cell, the two women fell out – it may have been because of the letter, there may have been some other reason – they had a fight, and Daphne Bush got killed.' 'Hold on,' said Hiller. 'I've read all the evidence. There was nothing about a letter being found in the cell.' 'I think Mrs Friedman removed it, along with anything else that might have suggested there was anything going on between Bush and Kohler. Partly to protect a colleague's reputation, partly because in her eyes there's no such thing as mitigating circumstance when a con kills a screw.' 'She admitted this?' 'She admitted nothing. She's a very careful lady. How much she really knows, I wouldn't like to say.
Not all that much is my bet. I think she got really pissed off when her chum started going gooey-eyed over Kohler and they had a row. It wasn't just a general principle that made her keep her mouth shut when Kohler was on trial, it was a particular hatred. She was delighted to do her bit to see that Kohler got another life sentence.' But why would Miss Marsh go to see Kohler in the first place?' asked Trimble.
'Were they friends? Or was it just some purely altruistic motive?' ‘I doubt it,' said Pascoe. 'She struck me as a lady with a keen eye for the main chance.' 'What makes you say that?' said Hiller. ‘Just look at her! Living at her ease in that posh flat by dint of putting the squeeze on Partridge because he'd fathered a child on her!' exclaimed Pascoe. 'I've just told you all about that.' ‘Yes, you did,' said Hiller.’It's been puzzling me. You say the source of your information is some old Welshman who lives on an estate village?' 'That's right.'
'Put not your trust in Welshmen, Mr Pascoe,' said Hiller almost facetiously. 'One other thing Mr Dekker told me the pathologist said.
Miss Marsh was not a virgin, certainly. But equally certainly, she'd never had a child.' Pascoe was taken aback, and before he could recover, Trimble pressed home, 'Perhaps Marsh went to see Kohler to talk about the blood evidence. Perhaps she offered at that time to give testimony and that's what sparked Kohler's interest in getting out.' 'Why wait so long?' demanded Pascoe. 'Perhaps it had been nagging her conscience for years but she'd persuaded herself it made no real difference. Then the coincidence of her being at Beddington College while Kohler was five miles away in Beddington Jail brought it to the surface. But when Kohler killed Bush, that just confirmed to her that she'd been rightly condemned in the first place.' It made some sense, certainly more than his own theories. Trimble concluded, 'When the basis of your conclusions proves wrong, change your conclusions. Basic rule of detection, Mr Pascoe.' In his head Pascoe heard another voice. 'When you're sure of where you're at, lad, who gives a fuck if you started from the wrong place?' Hiller was standing up. Trimble said in a non- authoritarian voice, 'Do you want a chat, Geoff?' Looking grey and weary, the DCC shook his head. 'I think it better not. In the circumstances. Mr Pascoe, thank you.' He left.
Trimble said, 'Well, Peter, it looks like the same angel that's covered Andy Dalziel's tracks all these years has taken you under his wing. But be warned. There are people out there ready and able to blast angels out of the sky if they feel the need.' It was an odd thing to say. But Pascoe wasn't really listening. He was looking at the door which had just closed behind Hiller and wondering why he had the sense of having just witnessed a man destroying his own career.
TEN
