a convalescent holiday and of course to renew my acquaintance with Miss Mac, which was absolutely against the rules. I found her condition had begun to deteriorate noticeably but, as is her nature, she was struggling gamely and uncomplainingly on. I was able to help in various ways, one of which that pleasant young man, Mr Bowler, has clearly brought to your notice. My reward has been to see her enter the long period of remission which she is still enjoying. Incidentally, she never let her family know the seriousness of her condition, and they are all too self- absorbed to have noticed anything more than could be put down to the debilities of age.
My own condition, it became clear, was going to leave me with impaired movement in my leg, which I may have exaggerated slightly, so that I was informed I would not be returning to field work. On hearing this, I looked suitably disappointed, refused the offer of a routine desk job, and opted instead for what we call sleep mode. No one ever really retires from our business, Mr Pascoe. And resignation is the agency’s euphemism for death!
Normally an operative in sleep mode is able to pass the rest of his life in what seems to the outside world a normal state of retirement from whatever job he may claim to have had. But in times of need, you are always likely to be reactivated.
When I heard of young Maciver’s death, I went straight round to Blacklow Cottage, bearing the sad news purely as a friend. But I was duty bound to report the odd circumstances of the death to my masters, since when I admit I have been acting as their ears here in Mid-Yorkshire. My conclusion about the affair is I am sure the same as yours, Mr Pascoe. Young Pal came across something which made him think again about the circumstances of his father’s death. Perhaps it was simply a record of his dealings with Gallipot. Pal followed his father’s road pretty exactly here too, hiring the man ostensibly for one purpose then gradually bringing him round to the other. How he did it I’m not sure-bribery, alcohol, drugs, perhaps a combination-but eventually he got Gallipot to reveal all, or at least as much as he knew or suspected, of the true circumstances of his father’s death. You would of course have a much fuller picture if it were not for the tragic accident which deprived you of a chance to question Gallipot. Strange are the workings of fate.
This information must have been shocking to young Pal, but I cannot believe it overthrew his reason to the point where he decided to take his own life. That decision must surely have had some other much closer occasion-I see from your face, Mr Pascoe, that I am right-but once taken, his mind was quite clearly so deranged that he opted to repeat the circumstances of the paternal death as closely as possible, using whatever garbled version Gallipot had fed him as a template.
My reactivation period has been most interesting and I am glad to have been of service to my country again. But I will not disguise the fact that now that everything is satisfactorily settled, I am looking forward to going back to sleep.
All’s well that’s ends well, a sentiment I am sure Mr Dalziel will agree with. He, I would gauge, has most to lose by any public airing of these affairs, and I should hate to see a noble career end on such a sour note.
But if I am any judge of character, I doubt whether you, Mr Pascoe, will let it come to this.
The world is a stranger place than you or I can begin to imagine. We must each cultivate our own garden, Mr Pascoe. Except for young Mr Hat, who I would guess will benefit greatly from being allowed to cultivate Miss Mac’s.
Good luck in your career, Mr Pascoe. I shall follow it with interest.
And now I bid you good day.
Pascoe switched off the tape.
He looked at Edgar Wield, who looked away.
The third person in the room, Andy Dalziel, shifted in his chair, adjusted one buttock as if contemplating breaking wind, changed his mind, and settled instead for a long exhalation of breath midway between a sigh and a whistle which had a quality of infinite distance in it.
Perhaps he’s calling something up, thought Pascoe.
He had thought long and hard about what to do with the recording.
After a while he realized he was simply looking for reasons not to play it to the Fat Man.
Upon which he’d headed straight for Dalziel’s room, pausing only to pick up the sergeant on the way, as a witness, or simply as a supportive friend, he wasn’t sure which. He suspected Wield wasn’t grateful.
The whistling sound faded away.
“Did he know you were taping him?” said Dalziel.
“I didn’t tell him. But I don’t think he cared. He took precautions.”
“Precautions?”
“He refers to your relationship with Kay at least five times. So who apart from ourselves are we going to play it to?”
“You could have burnt it, said nowt.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was concerned some future situation might arise in which I wished I had played it to you.”
Dalziel whistled again, this time the breath going in not out, then said, “You any idea what he’s talking about, Wieldy?”
The sergeant thought for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
“Bloody hell. If this were a sodding democracy, I’d be outvoted. All right, let’s play the democratic game. We’ve all heard it. What next?”
“Now we burn it,” said Pascoe.
“Why?”
“Because, like I said, we can’t use it. And because we don’t know how much of it is true.”
“Which bit in particular?”
“Any of it. For instance, we don’t know what really happened between Kay and her husband. Did he lay hands on her? Was there an accident? Or did she take the ice axe and hit him in self-defence? Or was she so angry and fearful when he threatened to keep her and Helen permanently apart that she deliberately and with premeditation drove the axe into his head?”
“Or mebbe he wasn’t dead at all,” said Wield.
“Eh?” said Dalziel.
“Waverley’s right about an axe falling on you from a wall. Could knock you out, leave a lot of blood, but chances of it killing you are pretty small. Even a single blow by a woman isn’t all that likely to do the trick. Top of the head’s one of the hardest parts of the body. When Waverley realizes Maciver’s just unconscious, he’s got a problem. Call ambulance and police? Suddenly him and Gallipot have got to explain themselves. It’s going to be a headline case, this business about the wife trying to shag the son, all that. Very messy once the papers get their big yellow teeth into it. But if Maciver’s dead, and he can fake it as suicide, all the problems go away. And Kay thinking she did it means her co-operation is guaranteed for ever.”
“So it’s not a corpse he fakes the suicide on,” said Pascoe. “That would be a lot easier than fooling a pathologist about the cause and time of death. Which means all that stuff about the central heating was just a smoke screen for my benefit.”
“Yes. He’d be willing to admit a lot to get you off his back, but likely he reckoned that murder would be an admission too far. Which is what it was if he just tied Pal Senior up and came back to finish the job a day or two later.”
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Dalziel. “You two have got more stories than yon Arabian bint who didn’t want to get topped. How about it’s all a lie, and Maciver really did kill himself, and Waverley just thinks he can make me run scared, thinking I’ve got myself involved in a cover-up?”
“Possible,” said Pascoe. “Possibly also Waverley really is just a VAT inspector with a very active fantasy life and an obsession with Miss Maciver. We don’t know. In fact we’ve got a whole bunch of statements from just about everyone involved in this business, and I’ll tell you what, there’s not a one of them I’m one hundred per cent certain of. And that includes even those I think believe they’re telling the truth.”
“So what are we going to do?” said Wield.
