Authors: Reginald Hill
'Mebbe. But . . .'
'I talked to Charley. He remembers Cliff being there that night. And he remembers he went out with a young fair-haired chap. I thought of Vollans. I couldn't see what it meant, but I thought it'd be worthwhile having a little chat.'
'Some chat!'
'He tried to give me the runaround. I'd come too far to be turned off with a smooth answer, so I belted him in the gut and had a look around. When I opened that cupboard, I had a good idea I was in the right spot.'
There was a movement by the sofa. Vollans was on his feet. He was clearly regaining control of himself though he still looked more like a frightened fox than Robert Redford.
'You can't do this,' he said in a high voice. 'I'm Press. This'll be all over the front page of every paper in the country!'
Pascoe ignored him.
'What's he said to you, Wieldy?' he asked quietly.
'Nothing yet. You came in just when it were getting interesting.'
'All right. Now I'll handle it, understand?'
The sergeant obviously understood, but equally obviously didn't agree.
Pascoe sighed and stepped towards Vollans.
'Henry Vollans,' he said. 'First let me caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Next I'd be grateful if you would get dressed and accompany me to the nearest police station for further interrogation. Oh, and can you give me your car keys, please, as your vehicle will be required for forensic examination?'
'I don't have to do any of this,' protested the reporter. 'I want to ring my office. I want to contact a solicitor.'
'Mr Vollans, that's your right,' said Pascoe. 'But I'm in a bit of a hurry, so in that case, I'll leave Sergeant Wield here to bring you in when you're ready, shall I?'
The sergeant stepped forward. He was still holding the bayonet.
'Don't leave me with that lunatic!' screamed Vollans. 'I'll come! I'll come!'
Chapter 12
Lexie Huby stood very still.
Miss Keech had sunk exhausted on to the lower cellar step, but there still looked strength enough in those gnarled and speckled fingers to raise the long-barrelled pistol which rested on her knees.
'It was his, you know. Sam Huby's. Your father's uncle. He brought it back from the war. The First War. He kept it for security. And when he died,
she
kept it. I knew it was there, of course, in the bedside drawer. But I didn't think it would fire. I certainly never thought she would fire it. But she did. Just the once.'
'She? Great Aunt Gwen?'
Miss Keech looked at her as if surprised to find her there. Then that sly smile which Lexie had noticed earlier crept across her lips.
'I told you, didn't I? Lexie, I said, if you open that door you must bear the consequences. But you never took any notice of me from a little girl. None at all!'
'Tell me what happened, Miss Keech,' said Lexie peremptorily.
Perhaps it was the tone of voice, echoing Great Aunt Gwen's when she addressed her underlings, that did the trick. Suddenly the old Keech was back, in voice at least, matter of fact, neutral of tone.
'All right. We'd just got back from Italy, well, from London really. We broke our journey in London. Perhaps he followed us? Yes, I'm pretty certain that must be it. Our first night back. We were both very tired, but a noise awoke me. One of the animals, I thought. They were such a nuisance, but she insisted they had the run of the place. Anyway, something made me get up. I went out of my room. Her door was ajar. The glow from her night light spilled out on to the landing. I could hear her voice speaking. I went a couple of steps towards it when I heard another voice, a man's voice saying,
Mother
? I froze. Mrs Huby said,
Who's there? Closer! Closer! Let me see!
And then she shrieked and the gun went off and this figure came reeling out and down the stairs, staggering like my dad used to on a Saturday night when he came home drunk.
'I rushed in. She was sitting up in bed, the gun -
this
gun - still smoking in her hand. She said, "It was a devil, a devil pretending to be my son!" Then her mouth went all twisted and she stiffened in the bed and no more words would come. I didn't know what to do so I rushed downstairs to the telephone to call for help. And he was still there, lying in the hallway face down! I almost fainted, but he wasn't moving, he was so, so still. I had to get by him to reach the phone. I put the light on and stooped down to look and see if he was dead or just unconscious. And then I recognized him. All those years, and I could still recognize him!'
Lexie cast a horrified glance over her shoulder.
'You mean it really was him? Alexander, her son, come home?'
Now Miss Keech laughed with a mad heartiness.
'You stupid girl!' she said. 'How could we ever, ever have thought you were clever? Oh yes, the son had come home all right. But not to
her,
not to that mad old woman. It was
my
son who'd come, Lexie,
my
son!'
It was only now that Lexie began to be seriously worried for her life. A delusion as strong as this was capable of taking off in any direction.
She said brightly, 'So Alexander was really your son? I never knew that.'
Miss Keech looked at her in amazement.
'Is something wrong with you, girl? Are all the Hubys mad? It was Richard, my own son, lying there. He'd got into the wrong room, poor lad. Though what I'd have done with him if he'd come to me, I don't know. You know what old Gwendoline was like about blacks. That's why I gave him up in the first place. One of the reasons, anyway. You've no idea what people were like. Not being married was bad enough, but
black!
You'd think I'd bedded down with a gorilla or something. I couldn't see an end to it, no money, no job. What could I do? And then I went to see her and chatted her up about Alex, and how marvellous the spoilt little brat had been, and how I was sure he were alive somewhere, and she took me on. But one sniff of my little black bastard and I'd have been out! I went to see him. I always meant one day ... at least I thought perhaps one day . . . but he grew so surly, always on about coming home with me, or not speaking at all . . . it seemed best in the long run not to upset him by . . .'
As her speech grew more rambling, the old Yorkshire rhythms and idiom were surfacing again. Distantly Lexie thought she heard the front doorbell ring. She took a step forward. The gun shifted as Miss Keech seemed to jerk back to awareness. Perhaps it was an accidental movement, but Lexie did not feel like finding out.
'You never told him you worked here, then?' she said.
'Of course not. I didn't dare risk it. Then I stopped going and we lost contact. All those years. All her fault! And now he'd come back and she'd shot him! No, I suppose fair's fair. She'd had a shock. A black man in her room. She always thought their one aim was to rape white women. And calling her "mother" too! So I won't think too badly of her, may she rot in hell! To tell the truth, I didn't know what I felt either. It were such a shock. All I knew was, it'd be best if no one knew about him. It was so complicated, you see. If she lived, then she'd surely put me out when she found out about Richard. And if she died, God knows what they might have said about me bringing my black son here to kill her. I'd put up with her all those years. I was nearly seventy. I deserved to have some peace to look forward to at the end of my life!
'So I dragged him down here into the cellar. It was just a temporary thing till I saw how the land lay. I could always say he must have stumbled down here himself and I'd not found him for a day or two.
'Well, she didn't die. She started to get better, only she thought it was all some kind of visitation. The black devil come to persuade her Alexander was dead! I nursed her well, no one can deny that. And I moved Richard's body back there. I laid him all out decent and said a prayer and burnt a candle. I'm not a religious woman, so I don't reckon you need church and vicar to lie peaceful. You can put me in there with him when I go, and see if I care!'
She spoke defiantly. Lexie thought of the years of self-justification behind that defiance and tried to find some sympathy for the woman, but it was hard. She had never liked her. Now she was beginning to understand why.
The doorbell was still ringing.
She said, 'What about Pontelli, the Italian? Did he come here too?'
'Oh yes,' said Miss Keech, bird-like alertness suddenly back in her mad, bright eyes. 'He came. I found him skulking around. I had the gun. He said at first he wanted to see Rod and I said Rod wasn't here. He said he knew he was here, then he started calling me Keechie and asking if I didn't know who he was. I said no I didn't and he said he was Alexander. I laughed and said, no he wasn't, Alexander was long, long dead and he was a fraud and I'd make sure everybody knew it. Then he got angry and said when he came into his inheritance, the first thing he'd do was make sure I was thrown out of Troy House. He came towards me and the gun went off.'
She looked at the weapon as if noticing it for the first time.
'I didn't mean to fire it. He turned and ran away. I laughed. I thought he'd been frightened by the noise. I didn't know the gun had hurt him till later when I read about it. It didn't bother me. If he'd died here, I'd have put him in the wine cellar with Richard. Two sons in the same spot. They'd have been company!'
'You think he might really have been Mrs Huby's son?'
'He was someone's son,' said Miss Keech with that now very irritating slyness.
The bell had stopped ringing. Whoever it was must have gone away. Lexie said briskly, 'I think you really ought to get back to bed, Miss Keech. You're not terribly well, you know.'
'Aren't I? Why? What's up with me?' she snapped suspiciously.
'You're just tired, I think. It's all been very hard on you. And that other body being found across the field must have been the last straw.'
She spoke with pseudo-sympathy, introducing the subject of Sharman's death in an effort to divert the old woman's attention from Pontelli and this staring skeleton she claimed was her son. But she realized instantly it was an even stranger path she had diverted on to as hot tears began to stream down Miss Keech's face.
'He came to the house, the man who found him, and asked to use the phone. Then the police came and I was so worried in case it had something to do with . . . with the other. But everyone was so polite and they just wanted to use the phone and I made them tea and everything was all right till the young man with the red hair came to the house. I heard him on the phone. I heard him say he'd recognized the dead man and it was the dark boy who'd been arrested for shoplifting and his name was Cliff Sharman. I knew at once it had to be my grandson. I didn't know I'd got a grandson till that moment, and all at once I knew, and I knew that he was lying dead in a ditch within sight of Troy House ... his father dead inside and him dead outside ... I knew . . .'
The thin body beneath the long cotton nightdress was racked with sobs and now at last Lexie felt that surge of true sympathy which she'd hitherto sought in vain.
'Miss Keech,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'
And moved forward to offer this old, cold woman who had felt the full savagery of time's revenges the comfort of her young arms.
Perhaps Miss Keech misinterpreted the gesture. Or perhaps she found the thought of close physical contact repugnant. She jerked backwards, trying to stand upright, and the gun went off.
Lexie staggered backwards, shrieked and fell. The cellar was full of smoke and the ricocheting echoes of the explosion. Cutting through them came a voice crying her name. Two figures appeared at the head of the stairs. The foremost, young, slim and athletic, bounded down, not pausing by the old woman, and knelt by the fallen girl.
'Oh, Lexie,' said Rod Lomas in a tone of despair far beyond his acting abilities, 'lie still, oh, Lexie, don't worry, we'll get a doctor in no time.'
'Never bother with a doctor,' said Lexie Huby sitting upright. 'Fetch a cobbler. It's these bloody high heels I put on so I'd look a bit taller for you!'
The second newcomer, fat and breathless, stooped
beside Miss Keech and removed the gun from her unresisting fingers.
'You all right, luv?' he asked. 'We'll have you back in bed in a jiffy.'
He then continued down the steps, nodded at Lexie in passing, saying cheerfully, 'Evening, luv,' and went to the door of the wine-cellar.
'Richard Sharman, I presume,' he said in a tone of some satisfaction. 'That
's
what I like, a good neat finish.'
And turning, Dalziel smiled like some benevolent Christmas spirit on the recumbent girl, the distraught young man and the slack and broken sick old woman.
Chapter 13
It was the day of Neville Watmough's interview, the day of Cliff Sharman's funeral.
Watmough woke with that sense of divine inevitability which comes to most men but rarely, and then usually in little unimportant things. But today it was not just a matter of knowing the putt was going in the hole or the dart in the treble twenty. Today his life's work was truly to begin, and he was ready for it.