'Thanks,' he said. 'And thanks for listening to me about the Mickledore case. Even if it was a cover, it was useful hearing your comments.'
'There you go again, dismissing the simple,' said Pottle, ‘It wasn't just a cover. You could have asked me about this intruder, couldn't you? In fact, that was your obvious excuse for calling on me. No, you chose the Mickledore case because this inquiry genuinely concerns you. And it interests me too. The woman's state of mind in particular. You know, after all that time inside, it was probably harder to leave jail than stay in. The miracle with Lazarus was not that Jesus brought him back to life, but that he bothered to come.'
'So we should be asking why?'
‘Indeed. And while you're at it, there are two other people with dodgy motivations. This fellow Waggs, and our own dear friend, Andrew Dalziel. You might do worse than ask yourself what makes them run, Inspector.'
'
Chief Inspector
,
if we're getting formal again,' said Pascoe.
‘It's mixing relationships that messes them up,' said Pottle. 'Coming in here, you may sometimes be a patient, but leaving you're always a cop. Take care.'
As he drove away, Pascoe felt better than he had done for weeks. It was probably just the illogical euphoria of getting out of the dentist's even though you had another appointment next week. So what? Don't knock. Relax and enjoy!
His radio crackled his call number. He acknowledged and the operator said, 'Message from Sergeant Wield. Ring him as soon as you can.'
He stopped at a phone-box and rang HQ.
Wield said, 'I tried to get you at the hospital security office but they said you'd left.'
'I'm sorry. I got diverted. What's up?'
'Nothing, just a message for you, and as I'd no idea if you were coming straight back here or not, I thought I'd better put out a call.'
The reproachful note again. Pascoe had meant to fill the Sergeant in after Dalziel's departure, but having washed his own hands of the business, it hadn't seemed important.
'So what's the message, Wieldy?'
'A Mr Pollock called. Said to tell you Mrs Friedman was back from holiday and would be taking a drink with him in the Blind Sailor this lunch-time. I thought it might be urgent.'
A querying note this time.
'Not really,' said Pascoe. 'But thanks all the same. See you soon.'
Percy Pollock. He heard the soft melancholy voice in his imagination and shuddered. Thank God he'd washed his hands of all that. Yet as he drove into the town centre, he found Pottle's comments about Kohler and Waggs, and Dalziel too, buzzing round his mind like an invisible fly in a hotel bedroom.
He glanced at his watch. Just after midday. Trimble and Hiller couldn't expect him not to eat. And if you can't sleep, chasing flies with a rolled-up newspaper is better than despair.
He switched lanes and headed for the Blind Sailor.
THREE
'No, you wicked foreign woman, I am your match.'
Dalziel's first full day in the New World was buzzed in by his bedside phone.
'Hello,' he yawned.
'Mr Dalziel? Sorry to trouble you, sir, but there're a lot of reporters down here at the desk would like to talk with you.'
'Reporters? What the hell do reporters want with me?'
He found out when he got up. Someone had pushed a tabloid paper under his door. He looked at it in disbelief. There was his photograph occupying half of the front page with the banner headline, CROCODILE DALZIEL!
He recalled now that a reporter had turned up with the police last night, probably alerted by their radio.
H
OTEL
G
UEST
M
UGGED
would have rated no interest but
B
RIT
T
OURIST
S
OCKS
H
OTEL
M
UGGER
was worth a couple of lines on a quiet night. Unfortunately the story had rung a bell with someone who'd picked up the news of the airport arrest earlier, and the two stories together had added up to this silly season splash.
He knew how to nip such journalistic nonsense in the bud. You confronted its perpetrator with a menacing jocularity and suggested that life, liberty and the pursuit of Pulitzers required his presence elsewhere.
Ten minutes later he entered the hotel lobby with the confident tread of a lion who knows that one roar will clear him a space at the water-hole.
Five minutes after that it occurred to him he must still be jet-lagged. Quite simply, he'd forgotten where he was. What was menace in Mid-Yorkshire was just good copy over here, and once they realized they'd got themselves a genuine original, the more he roared, the more they encouraged his roaring. He heard himself resorting to pleading.
'Now listen, lads, all I want is a bacon buttie and a mug of tea, then I'll get down to some serious sight-seeing . . .'
'A bacon what? A what of tea? What sights are you planning to see, Mr Dalziel? You got any advice on cleaning up the subway? What about a midnight stroll through Central Park? Would you say you look for action or does it just happen around you naturally?'
He'd identified the guy who'd started the trouble and was seriously wondering how he'd look with a concave nose when a soft voice in his ear said, 'You must be starving. I know where to get the best bacon in New York.'
He felt a gentle pressure on his arm, let himself be guided by it, and next moment found himself spinning through a revolving door on to a crowded sidewalk. His pilot turned out to be a beautiful young black woman with a brilliant smile which showed rather more teeth than was the norm in Yorkshire. She led him into what he would have categorized as a transport caff except that the counter was crowded with men and women in smart business suits buying something called coffee-to-go which went in the kind of brown paper bag he associated with illicit sex material. His guide steered him into a booth with a table so narrow there was no way for them to sit opposite each other without their legs interlocking. It felt like a good time to relax and think of England.
'See anything you fancy?' the woman asked. Her voice was deep and throaty, purring through full, slightly moist lips behind which the teeth gleamed like a chain-saw cutting through a mango.
He said, 'Eh?'
'Do you see anything you fancy for breakfast?'
He dropped his gaze to a menu as large and obscure as the Rosetta Stone.
'I like to know who I'm eating with when I've not brought my taster,' he said.
'I'm Linda Steele,' she said.
'Aye, but
what
are you? A journalist?'
'A writer. Freelance. I do anything I can get to do, features, reportage, research. I get pieces published once in a while, help other people with their projects. I've got a few TV credits, did you ever see that documentary Columbia did on the Washington riots . . . ?'
'Missus, it's no use trying to impress me with telly. Back home I'm so far behind with
Dallas
, there's people not born yet who are dead. So what do you want with me, Linda Steele?'
'I want to buy you breakfast.'
'I'll not quarrel with that. Can I get bacon and eggs? I don't suppose they do black pudding?'
'Black . . . what?'
'Never mind. I like me bacon crisp enough to shave with, and me eggs like a parrot's eye.'
Linda Steele translated the order into American and the waitress replied in kind.
'She wants to know if you want syrup.'
'No, thanks. Marmalade.'
'With your eggs?'
'With my toast! Bloody hell, you'll be offering me kippers and custard next. Right, luv. What's a journalist expect in return for a breakfast over here?'
'How about an exclusive?' she said, smiling.
'Nay, lass, I don't come cheap as that, not even for syrup. Any road, that daft paper you've got there tells you all there is to know.'
She had a copy of the Crocodile Dalziel tabloid sticking out of her bag.
'Not really,' she said, pulling it out and spreading it before her. 'I don't see anything in here about Cissy Kohler.'
Dalziel whistled a long E flat, inserted his left hand under the table, and began to scratch his knee. The vibrations communicated themselves to the woman's contingent thigh but she kept on smiling.
'You wouldn't know a fellow called Thatcher, would you?' asked Dalziel finally.
'He said you were sharp,' she laughed. 'Yes, I know Dave. He mentioned you to me, said he thought there might be a story in it. Only, by the time I got to you, you'd managed to create your own news.'
'That's right, luv. So what do I need with a freelance?'
'A lot. The way I see it, all you've got so far is publicity, which doesn't get you any closer to Cissy but could get her a lot further from you.'
'Oh aye? And how do you make that out?'
'She sees the story, recognizes the picture. A Yorkshire cop in New York. If she's not paying heed. Jay Waggs certainly is. They don't want to be bothered, so they take off.'
The breakfast arrived. It crowded the plate and smelt good. Dalziel shovelled his mouth full of bacon and said crispily, 'So they're in New York, then?'
'Maybe.'
He tested a yolk with his fork. It was to his satisfaction.
'How come you've got their address?' he asked.
'Dave Thatcher felt he owed you, so he got some of his contacts to check around. They dug it out.'
'Oh aye? Then why not give it direct to me?'
She smiled and gave a little mammary shiver.
'Perhaps he felt he owed me too. This way he kills two birds with one stone.'
Dalziel tried not to let himself be diverted by speculation about the nature of Thatcher's debt to the woman. He said, 'So what do I have to do to get it from you?'
'The address, you mean?' she said, raising her eyebrows. 'Just give me exclusive rights on any story that comes out of all this.'
He thought, chewed, nodded.
'All right. But I'll need more than the address. Let's talk money?'
'Money?'
'Aye. Cash. Spondulicks. Dollars.'
'I thought you were doing this out of loyalty to a dead buddy?'
'What makes you think loyalty comes cheaper than disloyalty? I'm only a poor British cop. Even our bribes have dropped way behind inflation. If this takes more than another couple of days, I'll be spent up.'
Their gazes met, his wide-eyed, candid, appealing; hers narrow and assessing.
'OK,' she said. 'I reckon I can swing expenses.'
'Ah,' he said. 'So you're not just doing this on spec. You've got a market fixed up already.'
For a second she looked annoyed, then she laughed.
'I can see I'm going to have to watch you, Andy,' she said. 'Yeah, I gave a buddy in the business a ring, let him have a vague outline and got him really interested. So there's a budget, but it's not bottomless.'
'My needs are simple,' said Dalziel, sweeping a roll around his plate. 'So what's the address?'
She gave it to him. It meant nothing. She produced a city street map and marked it in.
'This is what they call the Upper West Side. It's an apartment house. Very pricey.'
'I didn't get the impression Waggs was stinking rich.'
'It's not his. Dave's contacts reckon it belongs to his backers.'
'Backers?'
'Yeah. Waggs is a guy who puts deals together, you know, the kind who's always selling more than he's really got? For him to get this Kohler thing rolling, he sold the idea to a West Coast finance group called Hesperides. They've been behind a lot of pretty successful film and TV stuff in recent years. All very respectable.'
'But?'
'But way back where the money starts . . .' She shrugged. 'Back home you've probably got the same kind of link-up between respectable big business and crooks.'
'Oh aye. We call it privatization. So what are you saying?'
'That getting close to Waggs and the woman may not be all that easy. First off, these apartment blocks are purpose built to keep unwanted visitors out. Second, Hesperides won't be too keen on seeing someone getting between them and their investment.'
'I was wondering why you hadn't just gone rushing round there yourself,' said Dalziel. 'I didn't bank on rough stuff. Maybe we should renegotiate.'
'Later maybe,' she said, squeezing his leg between hers. 'I guess there comes a time when us poor defenceless girls need a big tough man.'