He stood up, caught Novello’s eye, mouthed Stay!, and left the room.
In the hallway he said, “Wieldy, it’s me.”
“Sorry to butt in, Pete, but you did say to keep you posted.”
“It’s OK. Shoot.”
Wield gave him a succinct account of his visit to Tom Lockridge’s surgery, then went on, “After I left him, I dropped in at the hospital to see if I could have a word with this Chakravarty guy. His secretary was blocking like Boycott, but when I told her to mention the name Maciver, I got shown straight in. At first I got the impression he was ready to co-operate, but when I explained what I wanted, for some reason he seemed to change his mind and all he would say was that he was unable to confirm at this time whether Pal Maciver had been his patient or not. You any idea what’s going on, Pete?”
Pascoe thought for a moment then said, “I do believe I have. You leave him to me, Wieldy. Now what about that stuff from Moscow House.”
“I’ve just rung the lab. I hope you’ve not arrested Mrs Kafka; Maciver’s prints were all over everything. No sign of hers. There was a bit of piano music on the tape in the microcassette. Dr Death thought it was Schubert maybe.”
“Schumann,” said Pascoe.
“Whatever. But the diary might be interesting. No forensic except for Maciver’s prints and someone else’s, a lot older, most likely Pal Senior’s. It’s his diary for 1992, and it finishes a few days before he topped himself. Death’s done with it now and I’m on my way there to have a read.”
“Great,” said Pascoe. “I’m heading back to the station myself shortly so I’ll see you there.”
He switched off the phone and turned to see Novello coming out of the sitting room.
“Mr Dalziel wants his document case from the car, sir,” she said apologetically. “I played deaf the first two times he said it, but I think if I’d stayed any longer, he’d have thrown me out of the window.”
“That’s OK. We’re done here. Why don’t you go and start the car?”
“But the super’s document case…”
Pascoe said, “The super wouldn’t recognize a document case if he found one in a document case shop with “document case” stamped all over it.”
Then he winked and said, “You make a very nice cup of tea, Shirley. I hope your getaway technique’s up to the same high standard.”
This has got to be that post-operative irony you hear those plonkers with the verbal squits talk about on the telly when you’re too pissed to switch it off, thought Novello as she went outside. It means he wants me to know he really appreciates me. At least that had better be what he means!
In the sitting room Dalziel and Kay Kafka hadn’t moved but somehow it felt as if they were closer together.
Pascoe said briskly, “Sir, that was Sergeant Wield. I need to get back to talk to him. No need for you to come, though. I thought you might want to hang on a bit with Mrs Kafka to see if any new information comes through about Mr Kafka.”
“You’re finished with me, Mr Pascoe?” said the woman.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. I’m sure you’ll get some good news soon.”
He took in the Fat Man’s faintly puzzled expression without catching his menacingly demanding eye as he turned on his heel and moved across the hall almost at a trot.
The car was at the bottom of the steps with the engine running.
He slipped into the passenger seat and said what he’d never expected to hear himself saying to Novello, “Fast as you like, Shirley.”
She gunned the engine and they were already thirty yards down the drive and accelerating before the rearview mirror showed him Dalziel erupting out of the front door of the Hall.
“I think the super’s trying to attract your attention, sir,” said Novello.
“Really? No, I think he’s just waving goodbye.”
In fact what the Fat Man was now doing was running back inside. Then they were into a gravel-spraying skid on the bend which took them out of sight of the house and heading down the straight towards the gateway.
“Sir,” said Novello. “I think the gates are closing.”
Pascoe looked ahead. She was right. The fat bastard must have found the switch and thrown it.
“I heard you were a fast driver,” he said sceptically.
Novello heard and accepted the challenge. They got through the gates with only a lightly affectionate clip to the passenger mirror.
Pascoe wound down his window and adjusted it.
“I think we can drop within hailing distance of the legal limit now, Shirley,” he suggested.
“Yes, sir,” said Novello, maintaining her speed. “That would be so you can tell me what’s going on, would it, sir?”
And Pascoe, recognizing an offer it would be foolish to refuse, said. “I was going to anyway.”
Shirley Novello listened with an intensity matched, to Pascoe’s relief, by a proportionate deceleration as he described Wield’s encounter with Kay Kafka the previous evening and the subsequent forensic results.
“So instead of making Mrs Kafka look more guilty, her showing up at the house last night and opening the cabinet puts her in the clear?” she said.
“You sound doubtful, Shirley. Or is it disappointed?”
“Doesn’t worry me one way or the other,” she said. “So now what you’re thinking is that Maciver deliberately set up his suicide so it would look like Mrs Kafka murdered him?”
“That’s how it’s looking.”
“But that’s stupid!” she protested.
He said, “Yes, I suppose it is, though I’d like to hear your reasons for saying so, Shirley.”
She said, “Well, it’s like the Irish joke about the guy who found his wife in bed with his best friend and he drew out his gun and put it to his own head and said, “Right, this’ll show you.” The wife fell about laughing and he said, “I don’t know what you’re laughing at-you’re next!” I mean, what’s the point of Maciver killing himself to put one over on his stepmother? She’s still going to be alive and he’s going to be dead.”
“You put it well,” he said. “And I like the analogous anecdote. But ask yourself, can you think of any circumstance which might render the concept less like an Irish joke?”
Novello, whose classical education didn’t go much further than the acquaintance with church Latin inculcated by a Catholic upbringing, would have been baffled by reference to the Socratic elenchus, but after an initial resentment at being as she saw it patronized by the DCI and his little questions, she had come to recognize their serious intent was not just to show her the path, but make her take it herself. In other words he wasn’t trying to put her down by showing her what a clever clogs he was, he was teaching her to be a clever clogs too.
She said slowly, “Fitting up Kay had to be an afterthought. He had to have another reason for killing himself, a real reason, not an Irish joke one.”
“And, remembering he wasn’t a good Catholic, what might a real reason be?”
She said, “That he was going to die anyway, but slower and with more pain.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
He took out his phone and dialled the number of the Central Hospital and asked to be put through to Mr Chakravarty. After the usual obstacles which are put in the way of non-paying applicants who wish to talk directly to consultants, he got the great man’s secretary who was back in full Boycott mode.
“Mr Chakravarty has already spoken to an officer this morning about Mr Maciver,” she said reprovingly. “And in any case he is a very busy man and I don’t know when he’ll be available.”
“That’s fine,” said Pascoe. “I’d hate to interrupt his hospital work. Tell him I’ll be happy to interview him at his home, if he prefers. Oh, and by the way, tell him it’s not Mr Palinurus Maciver I want to talk about, but Miss Cressida Maciver.”
He removed the phone from his ear and smiled at Novello. They were passing through Cothersley village
