Stamper was looking surprised, a genuine dropped jaw surprise, not an upper class raised eyebrow imitation. But the voice was holding out.
'I'm sorry? What on earth are you talking about?'
Suddenly Dalziel was on his feet, leaning over the desk, his mouth almost touching Stamper's face so that though his whispered words would be beyond reach of even a sensitive microphone, they would reverberate thunderously in the man's ear.
'I'm talking about puffed-up noddy merchants who keep private armies so no one can get close enough to tell 'em what pathetic little pricks they really are.'
'Now just tha' hold on, Dalziel! No bugger talks to me that way!'
It was there, the old Yorkshire accent, loud and sweet.
Dalziel stood back and said, 'Ee bah gum, Art. It's grand to have thee back wi' real folk again.'
There was a tap at the door which opened almost simultaneously to reveal Deputy Chief Constable Hiller.
'What fettle, Geoff - sorry - sir?' cried Dalziel. 'Sir Arthur and I are just this moment finished. Thanks for your cooperation. I'll see myself out.'
Pausing only to make sure his glass was empty, he pushed between the lowering-faced Hiller and the puzzled-faced Wendy Stamper, and went quickly across the hallway into the woman's office.
There was an outside phone on the desk. He picked it up, dialled. A voice said, 'South Yorkshire police, can I help you?'
'CID. Mr Monkhouse, please. That you, Des? Andy Dalziel here . . . I'm grand. Listen, you know that private security review we set up in the county? Well, I'm taking a personal interest and I'd like your OK to me asking a few questions round your patch . . . Thanks. Oh, and I'd like it yesterday, if that's OK . . . Aye, I'll tell you about it some time. Thanks a lot. I owe you a pint. All right, two. Cheers.'
He put the phone down as Wendy Stamper came back into the room.
'Just checking the time,' he said.
She said, 'That man Hiller seemed surprised to find you were here.'
'Adolf? I shouldn't worry. His short-term memory's going. Anything surprises him that happened later than nineteen sixty-three. That's why he's on this inquiry.'
'And why are you on it, Mr Dalziel?'
She hadn't, he decided, been in on her father's little trick, but she had worked out for herself that something fishy was going on.
'Justice,' he said sternly.
'Justice? You mean that because the innocent have suffered once, you want to make them suffer again?'
He didn't think she was talking about Mickledore and Kohler.
He said, 'See much of your mother, do you, Miss Stamper?'
'No.'
'Because she's in America, you mean?' probed Dalziel. 'Jet-setter like you, that should be no problem.'
'I don't see that this is any of your business. Can I have your pass, please?'
He handed it over, she filled in a time, signed it and handed it back.
'That'll get you through the gate if you show it in the next fifteen minutes.'
'You count 'em in and you count 'em out? That's tight security.'
'You object?'
He smiled and fixed the label back in his lapel.
'Of course not. How come your brother blames your dad while you lay it all on your mam? She stuck around till you were old enough to look after yourselves, didn't she?'
'I was old enough to see what was going on a long time before that,' she said. 'Girls mature a lot earlier than boys.'
'Is that right? My experience is, kids see a lot but don't understand the half of it, not even lasses.'
'Then you must have had a very easy time of it,' she flared.
He scratched his chin reflectively and said, 'Didn't have to suffer a lot of country house weekends, that's for sure.'
'I'm sorry. I shouldn't make comments about other people's lives. What do any of us know about each other?' She was back in control. 'Look, you'd better be on your way. Superintendent, or I'll have to do your pass again.'
'Right. Mebbe we'll meet again. Thanks for the drink. Nice drop of pop, that Glencora. Could do really well with the right management, don't you think?'
Her face smoothed into an android blank as she answered, 'I wouldn't know about that, Mr Dalziel. Goodbye.'
He pondered on this and other matters as he drove back to the gate. The barrier was down, the jovial giant was leaning against its centre, one huge hand negligently raised. Dalziel slowed to a crawl but he kept going. The giant's complacent smile remained till the car got within a couple of feet. Now he frowned his disapproval and leaned forward to slap the bonnet commandingly.
Dalziel looked puzzled and kept on coming. The bumper made contact with the guard's shins, nudging them back till they could go no further and he came sprawling across the bonnet, his buttocks wedged tight against the barrier and his eyes popping with anger and shock.
Now Dalziel put the brake on, climbed out of his seat, walked slowly forward and unhooked the man's long truncheon from his belt.
Holding it vertically, he said softly, 'Some people might say this was an offensive weapon, friend. Me, I reckon it's just a spare backbone. And unless you'd like me to fit it personally, I suggest you raise that barrier without opening your mouth. Not even to smile. Especially not to smile.'
He strolled to the rear of the car, laid the golden truncheon under the back wheel across a slight unevenness in the surface, climbed into his seat and reversed slowly. There was a satisfying crunch.
The giant straightened up. Dalziel smiled at him through the wind-screen and laid a finger across his lips. The man turned away and raised the barrier. It seemed to take more effort than it had before.
Dalziel drove away. There was another nice crunch which he enjoyed. Not a bad morning's work, he thought. But he did not deceive himself. There was trouble approaching. But so what? It was going one way, he was going the other, and soon it'd be behind him with all the
other trouble that littered his past. Clear horizons were for boring holidays on the Costa Brava. Hell, which he didn't believe in, would be sun, sand, and a tideless sea.
And heaven? (Which he didn't believe in either.)
Good whisky in your belly. Satisfaction in a job well done. Anticipation of a struggle ahead. And a mate or two you could rely on. In fact, the status quo. The conclusion took him by surprise. Was he really in heaven after all, sitting in a stuffy car on a crowded motorway? Perhaps he was. And perhaps knowing it made it hell after all.
He shook his head in irritation. He was thinking too much, like the boy, Pascoe, and look how miserable it made that poor sod.
He leaned all his considerable weight on to the accelerator and slipped into the endless line of cars doing no more than 20 m.p.h. over the legal limit heading north in the outside lane.
ELEVEN
'My way out of this is to put you all in the wrong.'
The explosion came at two o'clock that afternoon.
There was still no sign of Dalziel when Pascoe returned from lunch but there was an urgent message requesting their immediate attendance upon the Chief Constable.
The atmosphere in the Chief's office was like a First World War court martial. Trimble's face was stern though relatively neutral, but Hiller, occupying a chair ambiguously placed to one side of the Chief's desk as though to give him a buttock on both the seat of judgement and the prosecution bench, wore the expression of a vengeful hamster.
'Mr Dalziel?' said Trimble.
'Not back yet, sir.'
'Back from where?' demanded Hiller.
It was a wife-beating question, inviting him to admit complicity, claim ignorance, or essay deceit.
He said, 'From lunch, sir.'
Hiller looked ready to assault him but Trimble intervened.
'I think we can leave Mr Dalziel to answer for himself. Mr Pascoe, I understand you have been detailed to act as liaison officer between Mr Hiller's inquiry team and CID.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I ask because it may be that it was some rather broad interpretation of this duty that took you to Haysgarth to interview Lord Partridge about the Mickledore Hall case yesterday morning.'
It was a tenuous line of defence but probably the only one possible that Trimble was offering him. Yet all that Pascoe could think was how wrong he'd been to even dream that he could trust a lord.
'Yes, Mr Pascoe?' prompted Trimble.
Oh, sod it, thought Pascoe. What was the point of all this boxing clever when down the road they were already drawing lots to see who got the firing squad detail?
'No, sir,' he said.
'No, what?'
'No, it wasn't any such misinterpretation of my liaison role that took me to Haysgarth.'
'All right,' said Trimble, patience at end. 'Then what?'
Pascoe drew in a deep breath and with it, or so it seemed, the office door, which swung slowly open to reveal Dalziel.
'Got a message asking me to drop by, sir,' he said, making it sound like an invitation to afternoon tea.
Had he been listening at the door? wondered Pascoe, as perhaps did Trimble for he said, 'Excellent timing, Andy. As always. I was just asking Mr Pascoe here why he interviewed Lord Partridge yesterday.'
'Oh, that. Don't be too hard on the lad, sir. I admit I were a bit narked myself when I heard what a cock-up he made, but after my experience this morning, I've got a lot more sympathy.'
He shook his head ruefully. Pascoe groaned inwardly, Hiller's lips, already tight, faded to a pale line, and Trimble sat back in his chair and looked as if he were trying to think of England.
'Explain,' he said gently.
'It's this private security firm inquiry you're so keen on, sir. Lord Partridge since he came out of politics doesn't get any official protection but he does have a firm called SecTec who keep an eye on things. So I thought his lordship would be just the man to give us a customer's eye view of the private sector. Only it seems Peter, Chief Inspector Pascoe that is, let himself be lured into some idle-chit-chat about the Mickledore business. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if his lordship weren't trying to pump the lad, you know how these politicians' minds work. Any road, her ladyship came in, got her knickers in a twist, and Mr Pascoe, being a well bred sort of chap, thought it best to beat a retreat.'
Hiller could contain himself no longer.
'And I suppose coincidentally that's what happened to you this morning when you spoke with Sir Arthur Stamper?'
'Aye, that's right,' said Dalziel, beaming with pleasure at Hiller's perspicuity.
'Perhaps I should warn you that Sir Arthur taped your conversation.'
'Grand! Then if you listen to it, you'll hear it was him that recognized me from way back and set off talking about Mickledore. I had a hell of a job getting him back on course. Then you turned up, Geoff, and steam had to give way to sail.'
If Hiller
had
grown a Hitler moustache, he would have swallowed it by now.
Trimble said almost indifferently, 'I suppose you had cleared yourself with South before going to Sheffield?'
'Oh yes. Des Monkhouse'll have it on record.'
'I don't doubt it,' snarled Hiller. 'Called in one of the famous Dalziel favours, did you? And what about your
lad
here visiting Mavis Marsh? I suppose that was about private security firms as well? I warned you what would happen if you got in my way, Dalziel - '
'Mr Hiller.' Trimble spoke quietly but his voice was like a gunshot across a saloon brawl. He let the ensuing silence confirm itself, then went on, 'I think I'd like a private word with Mr Dalziel now. I'm sure you have a great deal of work on your plate, and I assure you it will proceed without any impediment. Mr Pascoe, thank you for . . . coming,' he concluded.
As they descended the stairs together, Hiller said without looking at him, 'I'm disappointed in you, Mr Pascoe. I'd heard good things, but I see now that bad habits are not easily avoided if you keep bad company.'
'I'm sorry, sir. But if loyalty's a bad habit, then you're right. That's all that's motivating Mr Dalziel, loyalty to his old boss. OK, so he acts . . . erratically sometimes, but the only thing personal in it is that sense of loyalty. That can't be altogether bad, can it?'
He spoke with a passion born more of uncertainty than conviction and now Hiller looked at him.
'I believe in loyalty too, Mr Pascoe,' he said, with something not unlike sympathy in his thin voice. 'Loyalty to a common cause. Anything else is just personality cult. But there are other habits you might care to pick up from Andy Dalziel. For instance, he prides himself on not letting himself be used. Now there's a quality worthy of emulation by all of us, wouldn't you say?'