“I mean, watch where you tread. Literally. They often crap or piddle all over the place when they make this kind of mess.”
Pascoe trod carefully but it turned out there was no need. The cottage was not large — living-room, kitchen, lavatory, shower, one bedroom and a boxroom. The damage was restricted almost entirely to the living-room.
Even those things belonging elsewhere which had been damaged — like the pillows and some clothing from the bedroom — had been taken downstairs first. There was a drawing in the lavatory — rather more care had been taken this time, but the theme was the same as below 164 and on the shower floor a tumbler had been shattered, whether by accident or malicious design it was hard to say.
As he stood looking out of the back window, Pascoe saw Halfdane coming over the dunes, making for the beach, with Ellie and Marion Cargo. All three had towels bundled under their arms and were obviously going swimming.
Swiftly he moved downstairs, out of the back door, and intercepted them.
“Hello,’ said Halfdane cheerily. ‘ met by sunlight! Come and join us, do.” “I’d love to,’ said Pascoe, smiling at Ellie. ‘ duty and modesty forbid. Look, I’m sorry to hold you up, but I just wanted to ask if you’d met anyone making their way back to the college?”
They looked at each other, then shook their heads.
“Sorry,’ said Halfdane. ‘ we couldn’t have been far behind you.
Why do you ask?”
“It’s not important,’ said Pascoe casually. He saw Ellie roll her eyes with exaggerated exasperation, but surprisingly it was Marion Cargo who made the usual complaint.
“If you people never say what it is you really want to know, how do you expect anyone to cooperate?”
“Us people?’ said Pascoe looking over his shoulder as though in search of them. ‘, you mean me! Never’? a bit strong to someone you’ve only met twice, isn’t it, Miss. Cargo?”
He pulled himself up. It was foolish to let these people get up his nose. These people! There, he was doing it now. It was just that, somehow, a shared background and many shared interests seemed to separate rather than bring them closer. He might have ended up like them if… if what? If there hadn’t been something in him which made it necessary to be a policeman.
In any case, as a policeman he could be conciliatory and seek information at the same time.
“I’m sorry,’ he said with his best smile. ‘ just wanted a word with Mr. Fallowfield, that’s all, and as he’s not at home, I wondered if I might have missed him in the dunes. You haven’t seen anything of him today, have you?”
Again the exchange of glances and the shaking of heads.
“In that case, I’ll go back and wait a bit,’ he said. ‘ a nice swim.”
He smiled once more. Ellie rolled her eyes again, but this time in a mock amazement at his performance which invited him to be amused with her. He grinned warmly. Marion remained impassive.
He had only gone a few steps when Halfdane overtook him.
“By the way, Sergeant, I wanted to have a quick word with you.”
“Yes?’ said Pascoe, rather brusquely he realized as he saw Halfdane’s eyes narrow.
But, Christ! why did he have to be grateful just because people condescended to talk to him?
“It’s probably nothing. I would have mentioned it to your superintendent, but his manner’s a bit off- putting.”
Suddenly Pascoe was fed up.
“What is it you want to tell me? Sir?”
“There’s a lot I could tell you,’ said Halfdane ironically, ‘ I really wanted to ask you something. In a case like this, a serious case I mean, if some minor breach of the law comes to light incidentally, while you’re pursuing the important enquiry, what do you do?”
“I don’t follow,’ said Pascoe woodenly.
“I think you do.”
“We don’t make bargains. And we don’t make judgments.”
“No? But you pay informants, don’t you?”
Pascoe shook his head, not in denial but in sheer impatience.
“Look,’ he said. ‘ you’ve got information, it’s your civic duty to pass it on, no matter what it is.” “Get knotted,’ said Halfdane, turning back to where the two women waited.
Pascoe did not wait to hear more but set off smartly back to the cottage.
“Well?’ said Dalziel.
“They’ve seen no one.” “There’s none so blind,’ said Dalziel. ”m beginning to think they’re all in a gigantic conspiracy.” “Perhaps so,’ said Pascoe, trying (unsuccessfully he was sure) not to let his chief see his own annoyance at the encounter. ‘; where’s Fallowfield? That’s the big question.”
“It’s bigger than you think,’ said Dalziel. ‘ and see what I’ve found.”
He led the way into the bedroom where he had obviously done a fairly comprehensive search.
“Look,’ he said, pointing into a suitcase which lay open on the bed.
In it were a flowered mini-skirt; some underwear; a pair of sandals.
Pascoe looked at the superintendent who nodded.
“They fit the description,’ he said. ”d lay good money they’re Anita Sewell’s.”
Pascoe snapped the case shut.
I’ll check it out,’ he said.
“Hold on a minute!’ said Dalziel. ”ll keep. No, you keep on sniffing around here for a bit. See if you can do a bit of detecting for a change. You should be well up on the psychological stuff. Well, tell me what kind of person would tear up a place like this? And what kind of person would have a place like this to tear up?” “All right,’ said Pascoe cautiously, uncertain how serious Dalziel was.
He went back downstairs to the living-room. Behind him he heard the bed creak protestingly. Dalziel was a great believer in taking rest when and where you got the chance. Pascoe was always ready to recognize the wisdom of others. He turned the slashed cushion of the deepest armchair upside down, gathered up an armful of paper from the floor and sat down.
Something about the drawings which defaced the walls caught his attention first. Some had been done in some kind of chalk. Bright yellow. There had been no sign of it during the search. He made a mental note to look more closely.
Other drawings and pieces of writing had been done more primitively by scoring the plaster with a sharp edged object. The brass candlestick on the mantelshelf? He stood up and looked more closely. The corners of the square base were scratched and smeared with powdered plaster.
Perhaps the chalk had just run out. It had been laid on pretty thickly.
He sat down again and began looking at the papers he held. It was a disappointing task at first. The only sheets which were not out of books were typewritten lecture notes, or at least so he assumed from the subject- matter. The books from which the majority of the pages had been ripped were again mainly text-books, easily identifiable as the pages had merely been torn whole from their covers. But here and there he noticed were smaller fragments of pages, some reduced almost to confetti, and he began to fit some of these together to see why they had been given special treatment.
It wasn’t an easy task and after a few minutes he chucked the whole lot on the floor in annoyance and began to do what he ought to have done in the first place — look for book covers.
It didn’t take long to sort out the odd ones — or rather the non-biological ones, for they were not particularly odd in themselves.
Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Leary’s Politics of Ecstasy, Professor Thorndike’s History of Magic and Experimental Science (only three volumes out of eight), Aleister Crowley’s Magic in Theory and Practice and the same writer’s translation of Eliphas Levi’s The Key of the Mysteries, Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (particularly badly damaged — Pascoe could find no piece of a page larger than a postage stamp), Eros and Evil by R.E. Masters; the covers from these and a score of others on related topics Pascoe stacked in the space he cleared on the floor in front of him. He heard the stairs creak and Dalziel appeared in the doorway.
His eyebrows went up when he saw what Pascoe had been doing.
“Pornography?’ he said hopefully.
