desk last night before it went down to the lab for close examination. The words on the page had been hard to read under the mullock of blood and brain, but he’d made out the page numbers and the numbers of some of the small poems printed on them.
He checked these now against the older book from which the solider matter had been removed, leaving the page severely stained but legible. The page and poem numbers corresponded. Pal Junior’s imitation had been exact.
The poem numbers ranged from 1062 to 1068. How many had Dickinson written? He knew little about her except that she was American and responsible for the lines Parting is all we know of Heaven And all we need of Hell. Or was that Ella Wheeler Wilcox, someone else he knew absolutely nothing about?
Ellie would know, though he would suffer for admitting his ignorance. She was big on the neglect of female writers. Pascoe smiled as he recalled Fat Andy’s riposte after listening to a harangue which he’d deliberately provoked: “I think I’ve got it now, lass. If it’s got tits and can put two words down on paper, it’s a lost genius.”
He ran his eyes over the tiny poems.
The first, 1062, seemed the relevant one. He scanned it-staggered Dropped the Loop
To Past or Period Caught helpless at a sense as if
His Mind were going blind- Groped up to see if God was there Groped backward at Himself
Caressed a Trigger absently
And wandered out of Life.
It was, he thought, surprisingly good.
Whoops!
There he went. Patronizing or what? Because she was female, American, and he knew sod all about her, he was surprised to be impressed.
The only thing surprising here, he could hear Ellie say, is your prejudicial ignorance, and I’m not surprised at that.
He returned his attention to the poems.
1063 had stuff about ashes in it and there had been a fire in the wastepaper bin. And 1065 began Let down the Bars, Oh Death -but then got into sheep imagery. The others had nothing suggestive in them. At least he couldn’t see anything. Maybe they needed a female eye.
He said, “You read these poems, Shirley?”
She nodded.
“What did you make of them?”
She shrugged.
“For the tape,” he said smiling.
“Load of bollocks,” she said. “But I’m not really into poetry and stuff.”
“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,” he said.
He’d taken the volume out of the evidence bag now. After all these years, the risk of contamination hardly applied. Set in one place all these years, the spine creaked and cracked as he turned to the title page.
It bore an inscription in an elegant flowing hand. “The World ~ stands ~ solemner ~ to me~
Since I was wed ~ to You!”
For my darling Pal from your solemnly loving Kay
“Nice,” said Novello over his shoulder.
“In what way?”
“All ways. If she meant it, brings-a-tear nice. If she didn’t, nice one, Kay! Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, is there something going on here? Do you reckon there’s something dodgy about last night’s suicide?”
He said with a smile, “Just being a good housewife, Shirley.”
Despite trying to keep it light, he could see she took it as a shut-out. But explaining that he probably wouldn’t still be messing with this if his boss hadn’t told him to leave it alone wasn’t the best example to lay before a subordinate!
Was there anything here to justify further delay in passing this over to Paddy Ireland? The answer was no… except maybe for that suspicion of a hesitation…
“Right,” he said negligently. “That’s it, dear. Over to Uniformed. Could you dump this stuff back in the store, then we can both get back to some real work?”
The dear worked. He saw her jaw set and guessed he was at last going to get what was bugging her in the form of a Parthian shot.
“Oh, by the way,” she said as she started gathering the tumble of papers together, “there was that -”
That was a tape cassette.
She pushed it across the desk towards him. He looked at it without touching. It was the kind of cassette they used in the interview room but without a label.
He said, “This was where?”
“Tucked away in one of the box files,” she said. “Could just have ended up there by accident.”
“You haven’t played it then?”
“No, sir.”
Positive without being over emphatic. She was good. But Pascoe had been where she was now.
She’d listened to the tape. It contained something she didn’t care to admit she’d heard. She’d been uncertain what to do about it till he’d got up her nose with his dear, which had made her decide it would be amusing to leave him to listen to it alone, and later observe surreptitiously how he reacted.
It was time for her to learn that DCs had no secrets from DCIs.
“OK. Probably nothing, but I’ll have a listen,” he said.
He took the tape, swivelled in his chair to face the table that bore his computer and other electronic equipment, and loaded it into the cassette player.
Novello, laden with the file material, was trying to negotiate the door.
Pascoe said, “Tell you what, Shirley. You might as well sit down and listen to this too. Then if it’s got to go back with the rest of that stuff, you won’t need to make an extra trip.”
She halted, turned, looked at him over the files.
Their gazes locked for a moment. Then she nodded as if getting a message.
“As you wish, sir,” she said, returning to her seat.
He waited till she was settled and pressed the “start” button.
A familiar voice boomed out. “Voluntary statement made by Mr Palinurus Maciver Junior in the presence of Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel. Date March 27th, 1992. Time one thirty-seven. God, I should be out enjoying me lunch! All the meat pies ’ull be gone. Never mind, duty calls, eh? Off you go, Mr Maciver. The floor’s yours. Tell us thy story. But try and keep it short!”
Pascoe looked at Novello and tried to keep his face as blank as hers.
An unlabelled cassette. The super’s voice casually breaking several clearly spelled out rules of procedure. Already, without hearing a word of what Maciver might say, he understood Novello’s concern-and her well-hidden glee.
He settled back to hear the dead man talking.
I hope you’ll be taking this a little more seriously by the time I’m done, Superintendent.
My name is Palinurus Maciver Junior. I am making this statement of my own free will.
This is in relation to the alleged suicide of my late father, Palinurus Maciver Senior. I’ve already tried to indicate to you what I think really happened. I haven’t yet seen any indication that you’re acting on my suspicions, which is why I want to make this statement formally.
I think my father was deliberately driven to the point where he took his own life and I think that my stepmother Kay Maciver was involved. I’m not saying directly involved. The bitch made sure she was well out of the way in the States when it happened. That strikes me as being pretty indicative in itself. I don’t know the details of what took place. That’s up to you lot to find out, isn’t it? That’s your job-though, God help us, you don’t exactly
