“Oh yes, Mr Hat,” said Miss Mac, standing up to make the tea. “It makes more sense than almost anything else I’ve heard in the last few days. Much more sense.”
3 GOING WITH THE FLOW
“A poem?” cried Dalziel, infusing the word with an astonishment that made Edith Evans’ handbag sound like polite enquiry. “You want me to read a poem? What comes next? Listen to a sonata for two kazoos and a flugelhorn?”
But he read it, and examined the envelope, and checked out the PM report, and listened with nothing more than a steady volcanic rumbling to Pascoe’s account of the other things that bothered him.
Then for a space there fell between them that silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird, which in this case was the Fat Man’s fingernails being dragged along his trouser gusset.
Finally he said, with menacing softness, “Twenty-four hours. That’s what you’ve got. To the sodding second.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Pascoe, making for the door.
“Hang about. I’ve not said what I expect you to do in them twenty-four hours.”
“Sorry, sir. I assumed it was to discover whether or not there was any criminal element in Pal Maciver’s death.”
“Nay, lad. Nowt you’ve said makes me change my mind about that. Suicide, plain as the face on your nose, and that’s penny plain. What I need you to do is find me the skulking bastard who sent that letter. There’s someone out there trying to stir things up and I want the pleasure of seeing them face to face.”
“Yes, sir. Then I’d better start at Cothersley, I suppose.”
“Cothersley? Why?”
“Because that’s where Maciver lived.”
Also where Kay Kafka lived. He’d spotted the Fat Man reacting.
“Then it would be bloody funny if you didn’t go there to chat to the grieving widow. Shouldn’t bother with the pub, but. Dog and Duck. Used to serve a decent pint, still came in a jug first time I went there, but it’s all been fancified like the rest of the fucking place. Six kinds of foreign lager, all so cold they taste like penguin piss, and not a pork scratching in the house. So take heed.”
“Engraved on my heart, sir,” said Pascoe. “Any other tips?”
“Aye, just the one. Don’t get carried away. It’s a lot easier to stir crap up than to get it to settle. You might like to engrave that on your arse so every time you sit down, you’ll remember.”
“I surely will, sir. And if I need expert advice on sitting on anything else I might find embarrassing, I’ll certainly know where to come.”
The not very subtle reference to the Maciver tape popped out like a blown fuse button before he could control it.
Far from being provoked, Dalziel reacted as if this were merely confirmation of some course of action he’d been undecided about.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cassette and tossed it to Pascoe.
“Two sides to every tale, Peter. Have a listen to this when you’ve got a spare moment. Which you don’t have. Twenty-three hours, fifty-eight minutes, that’s what you’ve got. Now sod off.”
Pascoe looked at the cassette in his hand as he left the room. It was brand new, so probably a copy of… what? Two sides, he’d said, so this had to be Kay Kafka, which made it very interesting, but it could be very dangerous too. Putting the Maciver tape into his mental recycle bin hadn’t been too hard on his professional conscience. But what if this new tape revealed even more serious breaches of procedure … or worse…?
In any case, he had no time to spare for it now. When the Fat Man gave you a time limit, you took it seriously.
He thrust the cassette into his pocket and bellowed Wield’s and Novello’s names as he passed through the CID room. A Pascoe bellow was a phenomenon unusual enough to make people jump, but by the time the sergeant and DC appeared in his office, he was already on the phone, despatching the SOCO team back to Moscow House with orders to give the whole house a thorough going over, and get everything moveable out of the study down to the lab.
Replacing the phone, he filled them in on the new situation.
“It may still be nothing,” he said, “but I want to be sure everything’s been covered. Let’s give Maciver the full treatment: bank and phone records, credit rating, business deals, the lot. Shirley, you get on to that. Wieldy, that Harrogate PI, Gallipot, check him out, find what that was all about. And get someone talking to the Avenue working girls tonight just in case anyone noticed anything. Oh, and Joker Jennison mentioned one in particular-Dolores, she called herself-who seemed very interested in what was happening in Moscow. I told him to track her down. See what he’s done about it and kick his arse if it’s not enough.”
Novello, looking as if she’d gladly volunteer for the last job, went out.
Pascoe said, “And ring the lab, too, Wieldy. Tell them that everything to do with Moscow House is a priority. Tell them the super wants it done yesterday or he’ll be down there himself to see what’s holding things up.”
“Right,” said Wield. “Any hint what you’ll be doing while me and Novello are working ourselves into a muck sweat for you?”
“Coming on a bit strong, am I, Wieldy?” said Pascoe. “Sorry, but the fat sod’s given me twenty-four hours and I suspect he’s using a stopwatch. Me, I’m off to Cothersley to talk to the widow. And this time, I don’t care how many clerics or medics get in the way, I’ll gallop right over them if I have to!”
Wield watched him go with a fond smile. Pascoe with a bit between his teeth was as formidable in his way as the Fat Man; not quite so hot at breaking down brick walls perhaps, but certainly better fitted for slipping through narrow gaps.
Novello he was pleased to see was already talking to the phone company.
“No,” she was saying. “This is urgent. I thought people in your line of business might have heard of things like computers and fax machines. Yes, thank you. And some time this morning if it’s not disturbing your social life too much.”
Good telephone manner! he thought.
He went to his own phone and rang the lab. The use of Dalziel’s name got a cheeky reply, but when he offered to bring the Fat Man to the phone in person, the tone changed. Then, being a thorough man, he double- checked that the SOCO team had taken Pascoe’s exhortations as to speed and thoroughness to heart.
Next he found the card with the name Jake Gallipot on it and rang the number.
The phone rang five times before it was answered. Good technique. Never let them think you’ve nothing better to do.
“Gallipot,” said the kind of dark brown baritone that sells things on the telly.
“Jake,” he said. “This is Edgar Wield. Mid-Yorkshire. We met way back when you were in the job…”
“Wieldy! How’re you doing? Great to hear from you, old son. I was just sitting here thinking about the good old days, and how I’d been silly to lose touch with so many old chums, then the phone rings and it’s you! Psychic or what?”
Or what, thought Wield. Old chums? He’d never aspired to such a standing. He recalled him as a tall, craggily handsome man with the sort of reassuring smile that could have sold a lot of insurance if he hadn’t opted for a police career that looked set to spiral onwards and upwards. Rumour and gossip had provided a plenitude of explanation for its abrupt termination, ranging from slipping one to the Chief Constable’s wife to difficulty in explaining a wardrobe full of designer suits and a second car which, as asserted by the comic sticker in the window of his old Ford Prefect, really was a Porsche.
“Nice to talk to you as well, Jake,” he said. “But it’s business, I’m afraid.”
“Private or official, Wieldy?”
“Official. Nothing to worry about. A man called Maciver, Palinurus Maciver, killed himself the night before last. We found your card in his wallet. I’m just tying up loose ends and, when I recognized your name, I thought, nice to give old Jake a ring, see how he’s doing, kill two birds with one stone.”
