leave enough to tie a bow with.”
Behind Pascoe, Novello shook her head, baffled as always by this not uncommon male mix of compassion and salacity. How could these guys feel so sorry for a girl and want to fuck her at the same time?
Pascoe said, “I hope she didn’t distract you from your duties.”
“No, sir. We just talked a bit. I thought she were just naturally nosey like women can be. Once word got round we were on the plot mob-handed, most of the Avenue girls must’ve realized that was the end of trade last night and took off elsewhere. But not Dolores.”
“I’m beginning to feel a bit like an ancient mariner here, Joker,” said Pascoe.
“No accounting for tastes, sir,” said Jennison. “Sorry. No, all I wanted to say was, I reckon it was more than just female nebbiness that kept her talking to me.”
“Certainly wasn’t your magnetic personality,” muttered Novello.
Pascoe frowned at her and said, “You’re getting within lunar orbit distance of interesting, Joker. Try for a landing, eh?”
“Well, it were nowt really. She just kept on asking for details, like wanting a description of the fellow who’d topped himself, and she were dead keen to know if any of the girls were involved.”
“You got this woman’s details, I take it?”
Jennison looked uncomfortable.
“No, sir. Sorry.”
“Jesus. Why not?”
“It weren’t till I got to thinking about it later that it struck me as odd enough to mention. And in any case Mr Dalziel’s car turned up while we were talking and I pushed her out of sight behind a tree and when the Super had gone up the drive, she’d disappeared.”
“She shouldn’t be hard to find,” said Pascoe. “I’m sure the girls will be back tonight once the dust has settled. Pick her up and bring her in, will you? And thanks for bringing it to my notice, Joker.”
He went into the house. Jennison gave a modestly self-deprecating shrug and a big wink to Novello, who said, “Yes, thank you, Jerker,” and followed.
“Think it means anything, sir?” she asked.
“You never know.”
“Pity the plonker didn’t mention it last night then.”
Pascoe said gently, “The plonker needn’t have mentioned it at all, Shirley. And you won’t get far in CID unless you’ve got an efficient working relationship with your uniformed colleagues.”
The only efficient working relationship most of that lot want involves their only efficiently working part, thought Novello.
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking around the entrance hall, taking in the high ceilings and counting the doors. “Big place.”
“Yes,” said Pascoe. “They knew the meaning of spacious living in those days.”
Living! thought Novello. Spacious, maybe. Like a pyramid.
“How long’s it been up for sale?” she asked.
“A few months, I gather,” he said.
“So the estate agent will have a key and there could have been any number of people wandering round at one time or other?”
“I suppose. Why do you say that?”
“Never hesitate to point out the obvious,” she said in a tone of voice at once precise and diffident which it took him a second to recognize as a parody of his own. The words too he recognized as one of his maxims for trainee tecs.
“Someone’s certainly been using one of the bedrooms from time to time,” he said.
“Yeah? Maybe one of Jennison’s lady friends decided it would be a lot more comfortable than getting shagged up against a tree or in the back of a Fiesta,” said Novello. “Easy enough to get hold of a key.”
“You think so? How?”
“Make an appointment with the agent and find a chance to make an impression of the key in a bit of putty. Or give the sod a freebie and get one that way. Shall I talk to the agent, sir?”
Pascoe smiled at her indulgently and said, “Not until we have reason enough to satisfy Mr Dalziel that would be a proper use of police time. The use of the bedroom is interesting but so far not of any apparent relevance. Let’s take a look at the locus in quo, shall we?”
She smiled back at him. Mention of something basic like shagging to Pascoe often sent him running to his fancy phrases, but it took more than a bit of Latin to impress a good Roman Catholic girl.
She followed Pascoe up the stairs.
On the landing he paused before an oaken door that showed signs of having been assaulted with a battering ram.
SOCO had clearly done a thorough job up here, leaving their print-indicating marks all over the place, including some on the door’s lower panel about thirty inches from the ground.
“Now why would anyone need to touch that part of a door?” wondered Pascoe.
“A child?” suggested Novello. “Or, more likely, whoever it was got here first knelt to look through the keyhole and rested his hand on the panel.”
“Good thinking,” said Pascoe, checking the fingerprint report. “Constable Maycock and Sergeant Bonnick, who had their prints taken for elimination. But also there’s a full palm-print from someone else not known. Meaning?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Me neither. Here’s something else. On the doorknob they found prints from Sergeant Bonnick and Constables Maycock and Jennison. No one else.”
He looked at Novello expectantly.
“What about Maciver?” she said. “He must have turned the knob to get in.”
“You’d think so,” said Pascoe. “Though I suppose with three other people touching the knob, his prints could have got covered over. But how to explain that on the key there’s only one partial, not Maciver’s?”
“Keys are crap to dust,” said Novello. “Partial could have been there for years. And maybe Jennison wiped it clean for a laugh.”
Shaking his head reprovingly, Pascoe pushed the door open.
The study was full of light. The previous night on his command the shutters had been fully opened to check that they were as secure as they looked. They were. In fact the shutter catches were almost melded together by corrosion, and the sash windows were stiff from long disuse, making Pascoe wonder if they’d remained shut ever since the death of Pal Maciver Senior ten years earlier. He’d instructed that they be left open to let some air into the room to waft away the smell of smoke, cordite and death.
Novello found herself staring fixedly at the bespattered desk, trying to imagine what it was that could bring a man to this level of despair or self-hate. She forced her gaze away and tried to get a feel for the rest of the room. Two tall cabinets packed with books, most of them backed with that posh leather that tells the world, We’re so awfully dull, no one ever reads us; picture of some guy on the wall dressed like a tramp, not bad looking if he lightened up a bit; on one side a coil of rope and on the other an ice axe whose function she recognized from a short but entertaining relationship she’d had with a rock climber who’d almost got her interested in the sport by doing something very ingenious with her on the sports centre climbing wall one night after everyone else had gone. But not even the prospect of a reprise had persuaded her it was worth submitting herself to the violence of wind, weather, vegetation and insect life by joining him on expeditions to godforsaken places like Wales or the Lake District.
“Shirley,” said Pascoe in a tone which suggested that this wasn’t the first time he’d said it. “Still with me? Good. You’ve just read the file on the previous case. Take me through the sequence of events then.”
Novello refocused.
“They worked out he put a record on the turntable, set it playing, sat down, started to write a note to his wife…”
“How do we know it was to his wife?” interrupted Pascoe.
“Because he’d addressed an envelope to her. But he must have changed his mind about the note. Perhaps
