'After this, to catch the public imagination crime had to be extremely bestial or involve a great deal of money. As events later the same year showed, it was soon to be possible to steal two million pounds and become a folk hero even if you bludgeoned someone to death in the process. Up to nineteen sixty-three it was still possible for thinking men to believe in progress. A just war had been fought and won, and this time the result would be, if not a land fit for heroes, at least a society fit for humans. We who grew up in the 'sixties and 'seventies and came to our maturity in the dreadful 'eighties have seen the destruction of that dream without ever having had the joy of dreaming it.
'So, is it surprising that I should be nostalgic for an age that still had hope? And is it reprehensible if my nostalgia should even embrace what was surely the last great murder mystery of the Golden Age?'
EIGHT
'The things you see here are things to be seen, and
not spoken of.'
When the tape finished Pascoe went out into the garden and looked at the emergent stars. He'd been wrong about other people's troubles. They weren't a diversion, merely an addition.
How long the phone rang before it pierced his dullness he didn't know. He rushed back inside and snatched it up.
'You took your time. Not in bed already, are you?' said Dalziel.
'No. I've been listening to that tape.'
'Oh aye? What do you think?'
'You never told me you were personally involved.'
'What makes you say that? Stamper never mentioned my name.'
'You got described. Once seen, never forgotten.'
'Ha-ha. I wish you had been in bed.'
'Why's that?'
'Then you'd have had to get up. I want you down here straight away.'
'Why?' said Pascoe. 'I'm not a dog, comes when you whistle . . . Shit!'
The phone was dead. In any case his aggression was unconvincing. What was the alternative? A couple more hours of his own company till he felt tired enough to risk the waking horrors of sleep? He went out almost cheerfully.
As he got out of his car in the HQ car park, he was surprised to see that Dalziel's space was empty and even more surprised when the Fat Man detached himself from the shadow of a parked van. There was something almost furtive about the movement and furtiveness sat uneasily on that bulk. He beckoned Pascoe towards the entrance.
' 'Evening, sir,' said Pascoe. 'Any particular reason why we're going on like a couple of burglars rather than the city's finest?'
'Funny you should say that,' said Dalziel.
He led the way in, pausing as if to check there was no one about before starting up the stairs. On the first landing he once more checked that the corridor was empty before moving swiftly along it and stopping before the door upon which Hiller's mahogany name plaque hung. Pascoe's curiosity turned to concern as Dalziel inserted a key.
'Hang on a sec,' he said.
'Belt up and get yourself in quick,' hissed Dalziel.
He was pushed into the room and the door closed quietly behind him. It was pitch dark. He took a tentative step forward and caught his shin against a chair.
'Stand still,' ordered Dalziel, and next moment a small desk lamp came on, its light reflected in three computer screens with the greening pallor of a three-day corpse.
Pascoe said with quiet vehemence. 'Now hold on, sir, I said I'd keep a friendly eye on Mr Hiller, but that stops well short of breaking and entering.'
'Who's broke owt?' demanded Dalziel. 'And what's the world coming to if the head of CID can't enter any room he likes in his own station?'
'Fair enough. But I don't see why a man who can enter anything he likes should need any assistance from an ordinary mortal like me.'
'Don't get cheeky, lad,' said Dalziel sternly. 'And give me some credit. If it were just desk drawers or a filing cabinet I wanted into, you could be lying all alone in your pit, feeling sorry for yourself. No, it's them bloody things I need help with.'
He banged his fist in frustration on the keyboard of one of the computers. Pascoe winced.
'You know all about these things, don't you? You went on that course and you're always shooting your mouth off about us not using them enough. Right, here's your chance to give me a practical demo of how useful they'd be.'
'At the right time in the right place, I'll be glad to,' said Pascoe. 'At this time the right place for me is bed. Good night, sir.'
He turned towards the door. And froze.
He could hear footsteps in the corridor. They reached the door. And passed on.
Dalziel, as if he'd heard nothing, said, 'All right, lad, I'll not beg. You bugger off home and I'll see what I can do meself. Man who can play the bagpipes shouldn't have much trouble with one of these jobs.'
He flexed his huge fingers over a keyboard, like a plumber about to start an eye operation with a wrench. Pascoe groaned, knowing, and knowing that Dalziel knew too, that any attempt at interference by a non-initiate would be unconcealable.
'Move over,' he said.
Hope that Hiller might have made access difficult was soon dashed. The man obviously believed that a good lock and his name on a door were security enough. The poor sod had been away from Dalziel too long.
'What do you want to know?' asked Pascoe.
'Everything yon bugger knows.'
Pascoe sighed and said, 'This isn't an old-fashioned interrogation. I can't just thump it and ask it to cough up the lot. And even if I could, God knows how long it'd take to spew it all out, and you've only got me for five minutes, and that's not negotiable.'
'All right,' said Dalziel. 'Main thing I'd like to know is where Kohler's shacked up now.'
The implications of this were too frightening for discussion. Pascoe hit the keys, half hoping it might prove impossible to access Hiller's program, but addresses were clearly not classified as restricted information.
'There you are,' he said tearing off the print-out. 'Now let's go.'
'You said five minutes,' objected Dalziel. 'Let's have every bugger's address, all them as were at Mickledore Hall that weekend.'
'Why should they be in here?'
'I know Adolf.'
He was right. The printer spewed out address after address, balking only at James Westropp.
'This is grand,' said Dalziel, watching the print-outs roll off. 'Fit one of these in the station bog and think of the saving. Now what about . . . ?'
'What about nothing. This is the end.'
Pascoe set about tidying up. There was a chance this illicit access might go unnoticed and he wanted to maximize it.
'Stick that stuff under your jacket, for God's sake!' he told Dalziel, who was clearly prepared to wander round the station trailing clouds of print-out paper.
Their roles were now reversed. It was Pascoe, made furtive by fear, who checked the corridor was empty.
'Right, let's go,' he said.
Dalziel seemed to take forever locking the door and Pascoe was in an agony of impatience lest they should be discovered at this final moment.
'Right,' said the Fat Man finally. 'Let's get out of here before you faint. You're as nervous as a curate on his first choirboy.'
Pascoe didn't reply. He was looking aghast at the mahogany plaque. Through the first ‘l’ of Hiller's name ran a cross-bar turning it to Hitler.
'I might have known!' he cried. 'It was you!'
He licked his finger and rubbed at the bar but the ink was indelible.
Dalziel drew him gently away, saying, 'Can't have Adolf thinking we'd lost our sense of humour. You eaten tonight? You've got to look after yourself even though the cook's away. Tell you what. I'll treat you to a fish supper and we can eat it at my place while we talk about what to do next. We'll go in your car. I didn't bring mine. Less evidence I've been here tonight, the better.'
'Whereas I don't count?'
'Nay, lad. Your great advantage is, you're beneath suspicion!'
They stopped at a chippie a few streets from Dalziel's house. He was obviously well known here, raising two fingers as he went through the door and being served immediately over the head of a thickset youth who said, more in puzzlement than complaint, 'Who the hell are you?'
'Doctor,' said Dalziel, it's an emergency. I've got a fish diabetic in the car.'
When they got to Dalziel's house they found it had been burgled.
It was the usual job. Kitchen window smashed, drawers ransacked.
'Portable radio, brass carriage clock, gold cufflinks, ten quid in loose change,' said Dalziel after a quick scout round. 'Draw that curtain to keep out the draught and let's get stuck into our haddock afore it gets cold.'
He deposited a ketchup bottle and two cans of beer on the kitchen table, sat down and began to unwrap his fish and chips.
'Aren't you going to . . . ?'
'What? Ring the station and drag half the squad round here to scatter dust over me haddock and chips? You know the score, lad. Five per cent clear-up on your normal opportunist break-ins, so what's the odds on this?'
Pascoe slowly unwrapped the newspaper round his fish. It was the local
Evening Post
and he found himself looking at the weekly Crime Round-up column where the trivia of brawls and burglaries enjoyed a mayfly's exposure. Here was an explanation of Dalziel's cynicism. But not of its phrasing.
He chewed a chip and said, 'Why should the odds be any worse on clearing up
this
job?'
"Cos it weren't opportunist and it weren't a break-in,' said Dalziel promptly. 'Probably came in through the front door, smashed that window as an afterthought on the way out.'
Pascoe went to the window and examined it, went through into the entrance hall and looked at the front door.
'What makes you say that?' he asked, returning to his seat in the kitchen. 'I can't see anything.'
'Me neither. You've got to give credit where it's due. Are you not going to eat that haddock?'
'If it wasn't just a straight break-in, what were they after?' insisted Pascoe.
Dalziel, who had rapidly devoured his own fish, broke a bit off Pascoe's and put it in his mouth.
'Wally Tallantire's papers, I'd guess,' he said chewily.
'What? But Mrs Tallantire said there weren't any. Didn't she?'
'Adolf's not the trusting type,' said Dalziel sadly.
'But I don't believe he's the burgling type either.'
'No, he'd not do owt as chancy as that. But he'd mebbe pass on his thoughts to them as would.'
'You mean this security connection you've dreamt up?' Pascoe laughed incredulously. 'You're telling me they'd set up a break-in just to have a look for some non-existent papers?'
'Who said they were non-existent?'
'You mean you have got them? This gets worse. Just what the hell are you playing at?'
'Playing at? Don't know what you mean,' said Dalziel, helping himself to more fish.
'Concealing evidence. Stealing computer files. For Christ's sake, what are you dragging me into?'
'You make everything sound so sodding sinister! All I'm trying to do is protect a mate's reputation. You'd do the same, wouldn't you?'
‘If it was worth protecting, maybe,' said Pascoe savagely.
'Oh aye? How about if I said your Ellie's a mixed-up cow who's finally found an excuse to run off to her mam? Whoops, watch it, lad. You wouldn't hit a man who's left you some haddock, would you?'
Pascoe found he was standing with his fists balled. He tried to unclench them, found he couldn't.
'What was that in aid of?' he said softly.
'Just showing that sticking up for a mate's got nowt to do with truth. Even if Wally turned out as guilty as hell, I'll still smack any bugger that says so.'
Pascoe's hands relaxed.
'All right, Socrates,' he said. 'But it's not as simple as that.'
'Never is, not in life, but law's different. "Guilty or not guilty?" - "Please, m'lud, it's not as simple as that." Christ, the judge would hit the ceiling, then cling on up there so he could shit on you from a great height! No, our Adolf won't be perhapsing around with this one, not when there's no bugger to answer back.'
'There's you.'
'Aye, there is, isn't there? Story of my life, answering back.'
'Perhaps you'd better start answering me,' said Pascoe, resuming his seat.
'Sure you want to know? Ignorance might be your best defence.'