“Kay is a clever lady. She knows what Pal’s playing at. She knows her own little bit of heaven on earth is at serious risk. She guesses that Pal may think the perfect time to strike is shortly after the birth of the twins when her paradise will seem complete. So she decides to get in first. She arranges to meet him at Moscow House. Perhaps she hints that sex might be on offer rather than money. What more fitting rendezvous in view of all that had happened or almost happened there? She gets there in advance to get things ready. When he comes, they have a drink together. When he starts feeling woozy, she says she’d like to look in the study. He sits down in his father’s chair. She puts the shotgun under his chin and blows his head off. She’s shown us she knew where the second gun was hidden.”
Dalziel said, “Do you really believe any of this, Peter?”
“I believe it’s possible, sir. And I believe we’ve got to proceed on the lines of that possibility.”
“Then let’s proceed,” said the Fat Man, standing up. “But remember, Pete. She’s worried about Kafka. OK, I know you think mebbe she knows what he’s up to, but you can’t be sure. So I don’t want you going in there clogs flying.”
“No, sir. I’ll just get Novello, shall I?”
“Ivor? What do you want her for?”
Because I want an independent witness to this interview, thought Pascoe.
He said, “If Mrs Kafka is really upset, sir, it’s good procedure to have a woman officer in attendance. Is that all right, sir?”
“You know me, lad. Good procedure’s my middle name,” said Dalziel.
No it’s not, it’s Hamish, thought Pascoe.
But this was one piece of arcane knowledge he thought it wise to keep to himself.
Edgar Wield’s fist was beginning to hurt from hammering at the door.
A man passing by said, “Surgery’s shut on a Saturday. Hurt your face, have you, mate? You’d best head down to Casualty.”
Wield carried on knocking. Finally after several minutes more the door opened.
“What?” snarled Tom Lockridge.
Haggard, unshaven, with the reek of whisky on his breath, he looked like an illustration for a Graham Greene novel.
“Your wife said I’d likely find you here,” said Wield.
What Mary Lockridge had actually said was, “I’d try that whore’s gin-palace at Cothersley. Failing that he could be dossing down at his surgery. And failing that, I don’t give a damn.”
The surgery being closer than Cothersley, Wield had come here first and his persistence was due to the presence of Lockridge’s Audi badly parked in the street.
“Oh yes. Any message?” said the doctor with heavy sarcasm.
“No. Can I come in?”
“You got an appointment? Yes, why not. Better than performing out here.”
They went inside. Lockridge sat down in the waiting room and said, “So what brings you into town on a fine Saturday morning, Sergeant, when you could be tiptoeing through the tulips with your mate out at Enscombe?”
It was an undisguised gibe, and it brought home to Wield just how unprivate a man’s private life could be. Also, up to now uncertain whether to go in hard or soft, it provoked him into a choice.
“I’m here to ask why, once you had identified the corpse of Pal Maciver, you subsequently failed to disclose your connection with his wife,” he said harshly.
“I told your boss she was my patient,” protested Lockridge.
“You didn’t tell us you were shagging her,” said Wield, who when he opted for hard could come close to the Fat Man’s high standards.
“I didn’t see what my personal relationship with Mrs Maciver had to do with anything,” the doctor blustered.
“Come off it, Doc! You don’t need me to spell it out, do you? If it was suicide, keeping quiet was bad enough. But if it wasn’t…”
Suddenly the bleary eyes were alert.
“Not suicide? Why? What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” said Wield, backing off. “I’m just saying that when you examined the body you didn’t know anything for certain about the circumstances of death except that it had been violent.”
“And certainly not an accident! So if it wasn’t suicide…”
“That would leave murder, in which case you and Mrs Maciver might look like pretty good suspects. Except you seem to have an alibi.”
“Eh?”
Wield showed him the date-inscribed photograph.
“Did she give you that? The cow. Well, at least it gets me off that hook.”
“Mebbe. Puts you on another with the Medical Council.”
“You reckon? I doubt it. She knows if she makes a fuss there, I could get struck off, and she’s probably already calculated what that would do to the alimony.”
“You could be right about your wife’s reaction,” said Wield. “But she’s not the only one who knows, and I’m not sure I can see any incentive for us to keep our mouths shut.”
“Oh shit. You wouldn’t? Why? I’ve always got on well with you lot, haven’t I?”
He looked appealingly at Wield, who returned his gaze impassively. Dalziel might have the edge on him when it came to hard but in the field of impassive he yielded the palm to no man.
Then, when he saw the man was looking into the pit and seeing nothing but darkness, he relaxed, and said in a milder tone, “Best tell me all about it, Doc, and we’ll see if we can find a way through this crap, eh?”
The soft approach did the trick.
Lockridge launched into an account of his affair, self-justifying and defensive, but falling on Wield’s finely attuned ear as pretty comprehensive and accurate.
“I often wondered if Pal knew and just didn’t care,” said Lockridge. “He dropped me as his doctor, you know. No reason. Just felt like a change. That made me wonder, but he went on being as friendly as ever. But since he killed himself, I’ve been wondering if there mightn’t have been another reason…”
“Such as?” encouraged Wield.
“Well, I do a bit of work down at the hospital. To be honest, I’d like to get out of general practice and specialize. Anyway, to cut a story short, a couple of months ago, I spotted Pal coming out of Vic Chakravarty’s consulting room. Thought nothing of it, I knew they sometimes played squash together, but when Sue-Lynn rang the other night and told me about the will, I got to thinking…”
“Sorry, Tom, you’re losing me,” said Wield.
“You know the bastard changed his will, cut her off with hardly a penny? It all goes to his sister, the older one, and some dotty aunt. I told Sue-Lynn it would never stand up in court. I mean, the very fact that he made such changes then topped himself is sufficient to suggest he wasn’t in his right mind, isn’t it?”
“Some folk might think that cutting your adulterous wife out of your will was a pretty rational thing to do,” said Wield. “What’s this got to do with Chakravarty?”
“He’s the neurological consultant. If it wasn’t a social call but a medical one, then this could be the evidence we need that Pal was mentally unstable…”
“We? You said ‘we’?”
“Did I? Yes, I did. And I meant it. I’m in it too, aren’t I? I mean, things are definitely over between me and Mary, our marriage had been on the rocks for a long time and this has just pushed it off the reef so that it can slide gently into the sea. I love Sue-Lynn and she loves me, but love’s not enough, is it? You need bread as well as roses. To be quite honest, by the time Mary is finished with me, I expect I’ll be a bit strapped. Sue-Lynn should have been sitting pretty, and as long as she’s got enough for herself, she’s the soul of generosity with those around her. Neither of us is really mercenary, you understand, but I can’t see any future for us unless we can get
