'Life,' she groaned. 'Jesus, what do those fucking Frogs put in their booze?'
Catch her unawares and she could be deliciously politically incorrect. But no time now to enjoy the sound, not to mention the sight, of her, sprawled across the bed in a state of naked abandon which even in his present haste brought the familiar lustful tightness to his throat.
The doorbell had long stopped ringing. He dragged on his dressing gown and staggered onto the landing, shouting, 'Rosie, love, get up, will you? You're late.'
'No I'm not,' said his daughter from the foot of the stairs. 'I've had my breakfast and I've been making yours.'
She was all dressed ready for school, neat and tidy as could be, and in the kitchen the percolator was bubbling, the toaster toasting, and two bowls of muesli sat on the table.
By his there was a bulky package.
'I had to sign for it,' said Rosie proudly. 'The postman said really you or Mummy should sign but I said you were busy.'
That at least was something, thought Pascoe. On recent evidence, he'd not have been surprised if she'd told the man her parents were pissed out of their minds and probably bonking their eyeballs out.
He said, 'You've done really well, darling. But you should have waited. You know you oughtn't to be playing around with electrical things in the kitchen.'
She regarded him with the scorn of one who'd been born knowing how to programme a VCR, and said, 'Skimmed milk or Gold Top?'
Pascoe examined the package. The label told him it was from Barbara Lomax, Ada's solicitor. He'd phoned her office to say that he'd carried out Ada's instructions with regard to disposing of her ashes, and would be interested to know what other duties his role as executor required of him. He'd expected there might be a few papers to sign, but this package looked like serious work.
Well, it would have to wait. Legal duties were important, but he had a greater master than the Law to serve.
He shovelled in his muesli, slurped down his coffee, refused (much to Rosie's distress) his toast, and on his way up to the bathroom passed Ellie on her way down.
'Bloody red wine,' she hissed at him. 'You know it doesn't agree with me.'
'It wasn't my idea,' he called but she was already out of earshot.
He went out of the door at a run but she caught him as he backed the car out of the garage.
'But it was worth it,' she murmured bending to kiss him through the window. Then rather spoilt it by adding doubtfully, 'At least I think it was… never mind, it'll probably all come back later.'
As he drove too fast along the road into town, he found himself like a tardy schoolboy rehearsing excuses. Maybe I should have asked Rosie to write me a note! he mocked himself. Just tell the fat old sod the truth. Which was? That I slept in. Why? Because I slept too well. Also because I slept too badly. Which? Both. How come? I slept well because we wined and dined and… exhausted ourselves. And I slept badly because I've got this maggot in my mind like one of those maggots which grew fat on all those thousands of bodies out there in the Salient, corners now of foreign fields, compost and bone meal, long ploughed under, to set the green shoots reaching for the sun, for beasts to graze on and finally create those mountains of excess for which the EU is the jest and riddle of the known world.
No! Better Rosie's note than this rambling truth. Dear Mr Dalziel, my daddy is late because he and Mummy got pissed last night. I will try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
His radio crackled. Control, which in this case meant Dalziel, wanted to know his location. He was approaching a roundabout. Straight on would take him to his desk in about fifteen minutes. Exit right and the ring road would bring him within striking distance of Wanwood House in about the same time.
A bit of advice from his younger detective days sprang into his mind. Never be late, always be somewhere else. Could even have been the Fat Man himself.
He kept going round the roundabout.
Into his radio mike he said, 'Location Wanwood House following up yesterday's enquiries at ALBA HQ.'
What he was going to do when he got there he had no idea. This was an absurd schoolboyish way for a mature DCI to be behaving. But when you thought about all those young boys who back in 1914 had lied themselves to death, perhaps there was a balance to be redressed, and every act of mature childishness was a tiny chipping at that greatest mountain of European waste, the Everest of unused youth.
Perhaps. Or perhaps he was just following a well-worn track into the male midlife crisis.
Whatever, he'd better start thinking of a reason for visiting Wanwood or he might find crisis coming a little early this year. iii
Wield usually got on well with women. After they got over the twin barriers of his looks and his profession, they found his presence so unthreatening that even the most nervous were able to relax, though only the most perceptive, such as Ellie Pascoe, got beyond the face and the job into the penetralium of his mystery, and worked out the cause of their comfort was his gayness. Like sometimes cancels out like, however, and it soon became apparent he wasn't going to get anything out of the first two ANIMA women he interviewed, Meg Jenkins and Donna Linsey, who ran a pet shop and their lives together. He doubted if they'd have sold him a goldfish and was glad to put their musty, musky premises behind him.
The next three were much more unbending but not to any great effect other than a consensus that what Wendy Walker did outside the group was a mystery. This in itself was not uninteresting, in that to keep yourself to yourself within any group of Yorkshire women required an act of will beyond the reach of all but the most dedicated. But Wield had been too long at his last to cobble significance out of secrecy. He knew better than most that the habit of discretion was harder to divest than the reasons for it. Like the old adage said, once a nun, always a nun.
Annabel Jacklin happily was as unnunlike as you can get without starring in The Sound of Music. This was Jacksie, the buxom blonde whose descent into the crater had prefaced the discovery of the buried bones. Previously Wield had only glimpsed her sodden wet, mud streaked, and deeply shocked. Fully recovered from her experience, she now made the most of a not-too-distant resemblance both in looks and bounce to Marilyn Monroe at her peak in Some Like It Hot, a movie which an old partner of Wield's had once made him sit through three times. This was not an experience likely to be repeated in the company of Edwin Digweed who was fervent in his belief that the only good films ever made were square-shaped, grainy, and usually silent, which left Wield nothing to do but shrug and say, 'Nobody's perfect.'
But any hint of flirtatious flaunt at finding a strange man on her doorstep vanished the moment Wield identified the reason for his visit.
'I nearly fainted when I realized who it was they'd got in Intensive Care,' she said. 'First time it's happened to me, someone I knew personally I mean, and it's a real shock, you know. You're in a kind of different mode when You're at work, sort of detached – you've got to be, in our job – and seeing someone you know sort of jolts you back to what you are normally, do you know what I mean?'
'Yes,' said Wield. 'Same in my line.'
'I can imagine. How is she, do you know? It's my day off but I was going to call round and see how she was doing.'
'Still unconscious, I believe. But they're doing their best. Sorry. Here's me telling you. What I need's a bit of background, Miss Jacklin. Had you known Miss Walker long? Were you close friends?'
'Yes. Well, I think so. I don't know. I mean, I knew her… know her… we were friends but not for all that long…'
'You mean, you got on well but you hadn't known her long enough really to know a lot about her?' said Wield.
'That's right. Hey, why don't you answer all the questions as well as ask them?' said the woman, her earlier sparkle reasserting itself.
'Does that mean you met outside the group?'
'Couple of times, yeah. It was her who kept me in the group really. When she joined I was feeling pretty pissed off. Not with helping the animals and things, I've always done that since a kid, you know, RSPCA, donkey sanctuaries, animal shelters, then I got into signing petitions, and marches, and protests…'
'Then you joined ANIMA,' inserted Wield.
