And thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, he brought them out with a gun clasped in each.
'You should've been there,' said Dalziel reminiscently. 'I felt like John Wayne. Them two buggers went diving for cover just like you see in the movies! There was chairs and tables scattering everywhere! One of them, the hard case, he vaulted clear over the terrace rail and landed on top of a car. Broke his arm in two places. Didn't do the car much good either. And the other was trying to pull a gun out, only it got snagged on his jacket and he couldn't get it loose. I thought he was going to end up shooting himself in the balls!'
'You could have got killed,' protested Pascoe. 'What were you doing all this while?'
'Doing? Nowt. Except laugh. I near on fell out of my chair laughing. And after a bit, I realized she were laughing too. Not just a smile or a giggle, but a real good laugh, the kind you just can't stop. She got serious again before we parted, but. She said, I don't blame him for getting married. Outside, you've got to forget or you go mad, I'm getting to see that now. But was he worth it, Mr Dalziel? Did he ever feel enough for me to make it even for one moment worth it? And I told her, yes, he was worth it. I told her he'd asked me to give her his pillbox because the coat of arms on it was his only excuse for the lousy way he'd acted. I told her how after he got his skull together again, he'd wanted to come forward and put everything straight, only because of who he was, his family connections and such, they pressured him and persuaded him and threatened him till he didn't know what to do. So he did nothing, and he regretted it for the rest of his days, which was why he was so cold-seeming towards her when she got in touch. It was pure guilt.'
'And you think that's the truth?'
'No,' said Dalziel. 'Load of bollocks. I think he were a right shit. Like all on 'em. Right shits. Talking of which, where's Pimpernel? I bet the bugger's going through my case! I hope he doesn't crease my shirts. I spent a long time packing them shirts.'
He poured himself another drink and was half way through it when the door opened and a tall grey-haired man came in with an apologetic smile creasing his canine features.
'Mr Dalziel, so sorry you've been kept waiting. It's just that when I heard you were coming back after seeing poor dear James Westropp, I just had to take this chance of talking with you. He was a dear friend, a dear old friend, and I've been meaning to visit him for ages but kept on putting it off, you know how it is, pressure of work. And now he's gone. Sit down, let me fill your glass. Tell me all about him, poor dear James. Did he mention me at all?'
'As a matter of fact he did, sir,' said Dalziel. 'He sent you a message.'
Pascoe, recalling the message he'd just passed on from Hiller, closed his eyes and inwardly groaned.
'What did he say?'
'He said if I ever saw you to say he'd kept the faith to the end, and he'd left things tidy. He wanted you to know that, sir. I thought it must be something to do with his old school song or something.'
'That's right, Mr Dalziel. His old school. Our old school. I'm touched, deeply touched. I thank you with all my heart.'
'My pleasure, sir,' said Dalziel, in tones vibrant with sincerity. 'My very real pleasure.'
Sempernel regarded him speculatively for a long moment, then visibly relaxed.
'So tell me. Superintendent,' he said in a voice which stayed just this side of patronizing. 'This was your first trip to America? What do you think of it?'
Dalziel thought for a while, then said with saloon bar judiciousness, 'Well, what I think is, it'll be right lovely when they finish it.'
TWO
'But it's not my business. My work is my business.
See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la;
La, la, la! And off his head comes!'
They drove up the A1 in silence, if Dalziel's snoring could be called silence. This was the Great North Road, or had been before modern traffic made it necessary for roads to miss the townships they once had joined. Hatfield they passed, where Elizabeth the First heard of her accession, and Hitchin, where George Chapman translated Homer into English and John Keats into the realms of gold; Biggleswade, where the Romans, driving their own road north, forded a river and founded a town; Norman Cross, near which a bronze eagle broods over the memory of eighteen hundred of Napoleon's dead, not on a field of battle but in a British prison camp; then into what had been Rutland before it was destroyed by little men whose power outstripped their vision by a Scotch mile: and now began the long flat acres of Lincolnshire, and the road ran by Stamford, once the
busy capital of the Fens and later badly damaged during the Wars of the Roses; and Grantham, where God said, 'Let Newton be,' and there was light, though in a later century the same town ushered in some of the country's most twilit years . . .
All this and more Pascoe mused upon, uncertain whether such cycles of human grossness and greatness should be a cause of hope or of despair, till the road began to drift westward towards Newark in whose castle, King John, the reluctant signator of that first faint assertion of civil liberties, Magna Carta, died.
Pascoe slowed down. Instantly the Fat Man was awake.
'We stopping? Grand. I could murder a pint.'
'Actually I was wondering if you'd mind a short diversion. It's Ellie. She got so worried about her mother, she booked her into the Lincolnshire Hospital for some tests. She went in yesterday and I know Ellie's going to be down there today, and as it's only a dozen or so miles out of our way, I wondered . . .'
‘It's your car, lad. The Lincolnshire? That wouldn't be the Lincolnshire
Independent
Hospital, would it? By gum, that'll mean a knee-capping at least when they get to hear about it back at the Trotsky Fan Club!'
Pascoe smiled wanly and wondered if this were such a good idea.
The diversion east proved to be rather further than twelve miles but Dalziel offered no comment. In the hospital car park he scratched himself comprehensively, yawned and said, 'They'll have a bar here, I expect.'
'I very much doubt it,' said Pascoe.
'You're joking! What's the point of being independent?'
'I'm sure you'll get a coffee.'
'Nay, I'll drink nowt in these places unless it's been brewed or distilled. More germs than a midden.'
They walked together through the serried ranks of cars.
Pascoe said, 'Look, sir, I still don't get it. You and Sempernel cooing at each other like a pair of randy turtle doves, what the hell was that really about? And don't give me that crap about searching your case. They could have done that easy enough without letting you loose on the Highland Park!'
'So your brain's not gone altogether maggoty since I left you? Good,' approved Dalziel. 'So what did they get that they couldn't have got any other way?'
Pascoe thought, then said, 'Nothing, except you and me together talking . . . Good God, are you saying that Sempernel was listening to us?'
'Aye, lad. And he'll likely carry on listening for a bit, which is the reason I'm talking to you now. I can't be falling asleep all the time to make sure you don't start asking daft questions.'
This was even harder to take in.
'The car? You think they've bugged my car? Come on!'
'Why not? Whose idea was it for you to drive down to the Smoke with Adolf and back with me?'
'Mr Trimble's.'
'But where did he get it from? Who was it told him which plane I was flying on, for instance?'
'But what the hell did they want to hear?' demanded Pascoe.
Dalziel grinned lupinely.
'Exactly what they heard was what they
wanted
to hear.'
'You mean . . .' Pascoe's mind raced round a maze of meanings but always found himself forced back to its centre. Dalziel was watching him impatiently like an old- fashioned pedagogue. If he'd had a cane, he would have been swishing it encouragingly against his calf.
'You mean all that about Westropp killing his wife, and the Establishment cover-up, wasn't true?'
'That's right. Like a hen-house floor, all a load of crap.'
'Then who did . . . ?'
'Mickledore, of course. Who else? And for exactly the reasons that Wally worked out. Poor Cissy almost caught him in the act. He knew about her and Westropp, so he thought quick and invented this cover-up tale. She was so besotted, she bought it. Whether she'd have gone on buying it if it hadn't been for the little girl, Christ knows. But by the time she got her mind together she was months into her sentence and all she wanted to do was blot out that night at Mickledore Hall.'
Pascoe shook his head, not in denial but to clear it.
'But this is fine, this is what you wanted to prove, more or less. OK, Kohler got the dirty end of the stick but she grabbed hold of it with both hands and wouldn't let go, so it's no one's fault. And if Mickledore really was guilty, then Wally was right. Where's the problem?'
Dalziel now shook his head too, but not for clarity.
'The maggots are back, lad. You're not taking drugs, are you?'
Pascoe, whose doctor had prescribed a mild tranquillizer which Pottle had approved, was shocked for a second into thinking Dalziel knew about it. The Fat Man's medical philosophy could be reduced to two propositions: men who made money out of putting people on drugs should be called pushers, not doctors; and anyone going to see a psychiatrist needed his head looked. But it was surely too soon for even his spy system to have spotted Pascoe's visits to Pottle? Therefore he was still being prompted to say why what looked like the end of a problem wasn't . . .
He said, ‘If the Establishment cover-up wasn't to make sure Westropp didn't get done for topping his wife, there has to be another reason, right?'
'Not quite brain dead, then? You're getting there. Now you only need to answer the last question. What is it that's had buggers like Sempernel and his mob running round like blue-arsed flies for twenty-seven years? What was it that made it worth while topping Mavis Marsh and probably poor old Wally himself, just so the boat wouldn't be rocked? What was it they were afraid might really come out if there was too much deep digging?'
'Apart from the Partridge business, you mean?'
'Aye. That came later. That gave Waggs the leverage to get Kohler out. He told her that Westropp was dying and that made her so keen to get to see him, she told Waggs about catching Marsh giving young Tommy a blow job. Once they realized Waggs knew about the alleged baby too, they got worried the whole story might come out, either because he kept digging or through Marsh herself. They knew she'd be very susceptible if the tabloids got a hint of it and came round waving huge cheques.'
'She didn't need it,' said Pascoe. 'Do you know how much she left? A quarter of a million! God knows what other little scams she had going.'
'And all this lot started when Pip Westropp turned up at Beddington College and Marsh thought she saw a way to get her hands on whatever Kohler had got stashed away in the bank. She were greedy as a guppy, that one, but clever with it. You say Partridge laughed when he heard this handicapped kid had nothing to do with either Marsh or his son? It would be a load off his conscience, assuming he's got one. But the funny buggers must have been furious to realize that they'd been jerked around for years by a little old Scots nanny! I bet they wished they'd cancelled her pass years ago!'
'Yes, but why did they decide to kill her now, after all those years?'
‘I reckon they'd thought they could rely on her keeping her mouth shut for her own sake. She seemed to be co- operating all along the line. When Waggs confronted her with Cissy's story, she probably contacted Partridge who passed it on to the funny buggers. Waggs had enough sense to protect his back so they offered him a deal. Go along with Marsh's original story about the blood, which had never come up at the trial, remember? Cissy would be let loose under safeguards, the Partridge scandal would be kept quiet, and hopefully Westropp would be long dead before she got anywhere near him.'
'So why kill Marsh now?' persisted Pascoe.
'You came along, lad,' said Dalziel. 'Sticking your neb in. Asking questions, looking at photos. That was probably the turning-point, when they heard her asking you to look at the photo that linked her and Pip Westropp.'
'They heard . . . ?'
'You don't imagine the place isn't bugged? And once this naughty nanny starts dropping little hints to a clever copper, well, someone's got to go. Lucky it wasn't you, lad. Except you still knew nowt, whereas they were beginning to wonder just how much Nanny Marsh really did know.'
About what? wondered Pascoe desperately. What could be worse than having a peripheral member of the royal family suspected of killing his wife?
'Got there yet?' asked Dalziel, telepathic as always. 'Think of the year nineteen sixty-three.'