too. Mickledore tried to tidy things up. Altruistic? Mebbe. But there's a lot of self-interest there too. It's his house. He's been banging the dead woman and if that gets out, his rich dad-in-law-to-be will definitely scupper his wedding plans. Only his tidying-up's too good, especially when he gets help from someone willing to take the whole thing on herself. But just how far would you have gone, Miss Kohler, if Emily hadn't drowned?
Even your motive's not clear-cut, is it?' 'Come on, Dalziel!' said Waggs. 'You're just making smoke for the Brit Establishment. We're going to get this thing out in the open…' 'Not with Cissy's help, you're not,' said Dalziel glancing at the woman whose blank face confirmed his assertion, ‘I doubt if you really want to, anyway.
Man'ud need to be a real shit to want to make a blockbuster movie out of his ma's murder. Particularly if he weren't all that sure how he really felt about her anyway. I mean, she did dump you so's she could take off with her new family – ' Waggs was on his feet, his face flushed. 'I don't have to listen to this crap – ' 'That's right, lad,' agreed Dalziel. 'In your situation I'd be much keener to spend time thinking up my next story for your mates in LA. Like the Arabian Nights, isn't it? A story a day keeps the heavy mob away. In fact, I hope the golden tongue's well oiled just now. There's two burly gents just got out of a car and it's either love at first sight or they're looking for someone.' Waggs peered over the terrace rail. At the far side of the car park two men were standing, one pointing towards their table. Now they began to move purposefully forward. 'Ciss, I'll be in touch,' said Waggs. Dalziel watched him hurry away and said, 'He's not a bad lad, but not really cut out for this avenging angel stuff.' 'Is he really in trouble?' asked Kohler anxiously. 'From the minute he was born. Don't worry too much. He's had the practice dodging it. What'll you do now?' 'Concerned, are you?' She laughed shortly. 'I got the impression you fancied yourself as a bit of an avenging angel too, Mr Dalziel.' 'Like I say, nowt's clear-cut. We all got conned a bit that weekend, but it was you who got stuck with the bill.' 'You're forgetting Mick. And Pam. And little Em. I'm still alive. At least I think I am.' 'So what'll you do?' 'Who knows? Collect my compensation, settle down somewhere, grow a tree, hang myself from it.' For a second Dalziel was alarmed. He examined her closely, this woman he had chased across an ocean in the certainty of her guilt. He knew there was no way he could have tholed what she'd put up with these long years. He'd have either broken the cell door to get out or broken his neck in his efforts to do so. That thought reassured him almost as much as the level unblinking way in which her gaze held his. There was a strength here which his own strength, though so different, responded to. He said, 'Make it an oak, luv. Give yourself a bit of time to think.' A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up and realized he'd frightened Waggs unnecessarily. The two men from the car park had arrived and, close up, his newly educated eye fixed them as more likely to be Rampling's 'guys' than Hesperides heavies. 'You Dalziel?' said the taller of the two, not discourteously. 'I'm not sure, not till I know who you are, sonny.' 'Come on,' said the shorter man aggressively. 'Of course it's Dalziel. Do you see any other fat ugly slobs out here?'
'Now, where'd you get a description like that, I wonder?' said Dalziel reflectively. 'Pardon me, sir,' said the courteous one, 'but Mr Rampling would like a word.' 'He can have two if he likes. Can't you see I'm busy?' 'Jesus Christ. These Anglos really piss me off,' said the short man. 'Listen, fella, just move your big fat butt off that chair and come with us, OK?' 'You really sure you want me to stand up?' asked Dalziel. 'What's that? A threat?' sneered the man. 'Please, Harry,' said his friend. 'Fuck please. This guy's beginning to believe his own publicity. What are you going to do, friend? Roll over me with your belly? Or maybe you've got a concealed weapon in there?' 'Nay, lad,' said Dalziel, smiling as he rose. 'The only hidden weapons I've got are these.' And thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, he brought them out with a gun clasped in each. 'You should've been there,' said Dalziel reminiscently. 'I felt like John Wayne. Them two buggers went diving for cover just like you see in the movies! There was chairs and tables scattering everywhere! One of them, the hard case, he vaulted clear over the terrace rail and landed on top of a car. Broke his arm in two places. Didn't do the car much good either.
And the other was trying to pull a gun out, only it got snagged on his jacket and he couldn't get it loose. I thought he was going to end up shooting himself in the balls!' 'You could have got killed,' protested Pascoe. 'What were you doing all this while?' 'Doing? Nowt. Except laugh. I near on fell out of my chair laughing. And after a bit, I realized she were laughing too. Not just a smile or a giggle, but a real good laugh, the kind you just can't stop. She got serious again before we parted, but. She said, I don't blame him for getting married. Outside, you've got to forget or you go mad, I'm getting to see that now. But was he worth it, Mr Dalziel? Did he ever feel enough for me to make it even for one moment worth it? And I told her, yes, he was worth it. I told her he'd asked me to give her his pillbox because the coat of arms on it was his only excuse for the lousy way he'd acted. I told her how after he got his skull together again, he'd wanted to come forward and put everything straight, only because of who he was, his family connections and such, they pressured him and persuaded him and threatened him till he didn't know what to do. So he did nothing, and he regretted it for the rest of his days, which was why he was so cold-seeming towards her when she got in touch. It was pure guilt.' 'And you think that's the truth?' 'No,' said Dalziel.
'Load of bollocks. I think he were a right shit. Like all on 'em.
Right shits. Talking of which, where's Pimpernel? I bet the bugger's going through my case! I hope he doesn't crease my shirts. I spent a long time packing them shirts.' He poured himself another drink and was half way through it when the door opened and a tall grey-haired man came in with an apologetic smile creasing his canine features. 'Mr Dalziel, so sorry you've been kept waiting. It's just that when I heard you were coming back after seeing poor dear James Westropp, I just had to take this chance of talking with you. He was a dear friend, a dear old friend, and I've been meaning to visit him for ages but kept on putting it off, you know how it is, pressure of work. And now he's gone. Sit down, let me fill your glass. Tell me all about him, poor dear James. Did he mention me at all?' 'As a matter of fact he did, sir,' said Dalziel. 'He sent you a message.' Pascoe, recalling the message he'd just passed on from Hiller, closed his eyes and inwardly groaned. 'What did he say?' 'He said if I ever saw you to say he'd kept the faith to the end, and he'd left things tidy. He wanted you to know that, sir. I thought it must be something to do with his old school song or something.' 'That's right, Mr Dalziel. His old school. Our old school. I'm touched, deeply touched. I thank you with all my heart.' 'My pleasure, sir,' said Dalziel, in tones vibrant with sincerity. 'My very real pleasure.' Sempernel regarded him speculatively for a long moment, then visibly relaxed. 'So tell me.
Superintendent,' he said in a voice which stayed just this side of patronizing. 'This was your first trip to America? What do you think of it?' Dalziel thought for a while, then said with saloon bar judiciousness, 'Well, what I think is, it'll be right lovely when they finish it.'
TWO
'But it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw!
I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And off his head comes!' They drove up the A1 in silence, if Dalziel's snoring could be called silence. This was the Great North Road, or had been before modern traffic made it necessary for roads to miss the townships they once had joined. Hatfield they passed, where Elizabeth the First heard of her accession, and Hitchin, where George Chapman translated Homer into English and John Keats into the realms of gold;
Biggleswade, where the Romans, driving their own road north, forded a river and founded a town; Norman Cross, near which a bronze eagle broods over the memory of eighteen hundred of Napoleon's dead, not on a field of battle but in a British prison camp; then into what had been Rutland before it was destroyed by little men whose power outstripped their vision by a Scotch mile: and now began the long flat acres of Lincolnshire, and the road ran by Stamford, once the busy capital of the Fens and later badly damaged during the Wars of the Roses; and Grantham, where God said, 'Let Newton be,' and there was light, though in a later century the same town ushered in some of the country's most twilit years… All this and more Pascoe mused upon, uncertain whether such cycles of human grossness and greatness should be a cause of hope or of despair, till the road began to drift westward towards Newark in whose castle, King John, the reluctant signator of that first faint assertion of civil liberties, Magna Carta, died. Pascoe slowed down. Instantly the Fat Man was awake. 'We stopping? Grand. I could murder a pint.' 'Actually I was wondering if you'd mind a short diversion. It's Ellie. She got so worried about her mother, she booked her into the Lincolnshire Hospital for some tests.
She went in yesterday and I know Ellie's going to be down there today, and as it's only a dozen or so miles out of our way, I wondered…' ‘It's your car, lad. The Lincolnshire? That wouldn't be the Lincolnshire Independent Hospital, would it? By gum, that'll mean a knee-capping at least when they get to hear about it back at the Trotsky Fan Club!' Pascoe smiled wanly and wondered if this were such a good idea. The diversion east proved to be rather
