Ruling Passion

For Pat again - with love and thanks

Search then the ruling passion: there, alone, 

The wild are constant, and the cunning known; 

The fool consistent, and the false sincere; 

Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. 

This clue once found unravels all the rest . . .

ALEXANDER POPE  

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Brookside Cottage,

  Thornton Lacey.

September 4th.

Well hello, Peter Pascoe!

A voice from the grave! Or should I say the  underworld? Out of which Ellie (who gave  me the glad news of your existence when  we met in town last month) hopes to lead  you, for a while at least, back into the land  of the living.

Ironic, thought Detective-Superintendent Backhouse, his gaze flicking momentarily to the pale-faced man who sat opposite him. He did not speak  the thought aloud. He was a kind man, though he  never shunned the cruelties of his job when they  became essential. 

He read on.

Doubtless she told you we've been doing up  this rural slum to make it a fit place for pallid  cits to recuperate in. Well, now it is complete  and we'd love for you and Ellie to week-end  with us in a fortnight (constabulary duty  permitting, of course!). Timmy and Carlo are  coming down from the Great Wen so there  will be much nostalgia! Not quite as squalid  as that other cottage in Eskdale (I hope) -  but oddly enough life in Thornton Lacey is  not without its correspondences!

'What's he mean by that?' asked Backhouse. 

Pascoe stared at the sentence indicated by the  superintendent's carefully manicured finger. It  took him a second to bring the words into focus.

'When we were students,' he said, 'we spent a  few weeks one summer in Eskdale. In Cumberland.' 

'The same people?'  

Pascoe nodded.

'Colin and Rose weren't married then.' 

'What's this about correspondences?' 

'I don't know. I don't remember much about it.' 

Except one evening, the six of them, golden in  the low-stooping sun, walking in companionable  silence across a diagonally sloping field towards the  distant village and its pub. The slope had separated  their courses, pulling them apart so that they were  strung out across the coarse, tussocky grass, only  coming together again at the wooden gate in the  lowest corner of the loose-stone wall.

Make it Friday evening if possible, but bright  and early Saturday if not. Do not fail us in this  our command or our wrath shall be terrible  and you know just how terrible my wrath  can be!

Seriously, it will delight me more than I  can say if you come. It's not every day that  we see Abelard reunited with Eloisa (and his  vital equipment, I hope!) 

Love from us both,

Colin (and Rose)

Backhouse finished the letter with a sigh, made  a note on a slip of paper, clipped it to the single  pale lemon sheet and put it into a bright green  plastic folder.

'I'll hang on to this,' he said. 'If I may.' 

Not that it had any value at the moment. Probably it never would. But he preferred to work  that way. Meticulousness is the better part of  serendipity.

'Would you like another cup of tea?' he asked. 

The door opened before Pascoe could answer.  An ancient constable creaked wearily in, holding  some typewritten sheets.

'Mr - that is,
Sergeant
- Pascoe's statement, sir.' 

He laid the sheets carefully before Backhouse  and retreated.

'Thank you, Crowther,' said Backhouse, turning the sheets round and pushing them towards  Pascoe.

'Read it,' he said gently as Pascoe picked up a  ball-point and made to sign at the bottom of the  first sheet. 'Always read before you sign. Just as  you always tell others to read before they sign,  I hope.'

Without answering, Pascoe began to read.

Statement of Peter Ernest Pascoe made at  Thornton Lacey police station, Oxfordshire,  in the presence of Detective-Superintendent  D. S. Backhouse.

On the morning of Saturday 18th September, I drove down from Yorkshire to Thornton  Lacey. I was accompanied by a friend, Miss  Eleanor Soper. Our purpose was to spend the  week-end with some old friends, Colin and  Rose Hopkins of Brookside Cottage, Thornton  Lacey. Other guests were to include Mr Timothy Mansfield and Mr Charles Rushworth,  also old friends, though I had not seen them  nor the Hopkinses for more than five years.  I do not know if anyone else had been  invited.

It was our intention to arrive at nine-thirty  but we made such good time that it became  clear we were going to be there by nine . . .

It was a glorious morning after a night of torrential rain. A light mist lay like chiffon over the  fields and woodlands, yielding easily to the gentle  urgings of the rising sun. The roads were empty at first. Even the traditionally dawn-greeting farmhouses seemed still to sleep in the shining wet  fields.

‘I like it,’ said Ellie, snuggling contentedly into  the comfortably sagging passenger seat of the old  Riley. 'There are some things it's worth being  woken up for.'

Pascoe laughed.

'I know what you mean,’ he said with hoarse  passion.

'You're a sex maniac,’ she answered.

'Not at all. I can wait till we reach a lay-by.'

Ellie closed her eyes with a smile. When she  opened them again it was an hour later and  she was leaning heavily against her companion's  shoulder.

'Sorry!' she said, sitting upright.

'So much for the attractions of the early morning! We're making very good time, by the way.  You're sure they really want us for breakfast?'

'Certain. When I talked to Rose on the phone she  was very angry we had to cry off arriving last evening  and insisted on first thing today. Poor girl, she probably had a fatted calf roasting or something.'

'Yes. I'm sorry. It was a shame.'

Ellie put on her indignant look.

'Shame! That fat sadist Dalziel doesn't know the  meaning of the word.'

'It wasn't his fault. It's this string of break-ins  we've been brought in on. The phone rang just as  I was leaving.'

'So you said,’ grunted Ellie. 'Bloody queer time  for a burglary. I bet Dalziel did it.'

'The break-in happened some time earlier in the  week,’ explained Pascoe patiently. 'It was only  discovered yesterday when the people got back  from holiday.'

'Serves them right for coming back early. They  should have stayed away for the week-end. Then  we could have enjoyed all ours too.'

'I hope we will,' said Pascoe, smiling fondly at  her. 'It'll be good to see them all again.'

'Yes, I think it will be. Especially for you,' said  Ellie thoughtfully. 'You've been cut off too long.'

'Perhaps so. I didn't do all the cutting, mind.  Anyway, cutting's the wrong image. They were  always there. Like securely invested capital! I've  never doubted that one day I would see them  all again.'

'It took an accident to bring me to light again,'  admonished Ellie.

'There is a something power which shapes our  ends, rough-hew them how we may,' proclaimed  Pascoe solemnly. 'Colin's not the only one who  can quote.'

'Here's to it,' said Ellie, relaxing in the window-warmed light of the now completely triumphant  sun.

We arrived at Thornton Lacey at eight-fifty.

I noted the exact time as I looked at my watch to see how close to our forecast time of arrival we were. I suggested to Miss Soper  that we should wait for half an hour before  proceeding to Brookside Cottage, but after  discussion we decided against this. Thus it  must have been two or three minutes before  nine o'clock when we reached the cottage.  The curtains were all drawn and we received  no reply to our knocks.

'We should have waited,' said Pascoe smugly. 

'Nonsense. If they got so pie-eyed last night that  they can't hear us knocking, they weren't to be  ready for nine-thirty either.'

The professional part of his mind felt there  was some flaw either of logic or syntax in this  statement, but this week-end he was very firmly  and very consciously off duty. So he grinned and  stepped back from the doorway, craning his neck  to spot any signs of activity behind the bedroom  curtains.

It was a lovely cottage, just stopping this side of  biscuit-tin sentimentality. Tudor, he told himself,  half-timbered, doubtless full of wattle-and-daub  whatever that was (those were?). A not very successful attempt had been made to train a rambling  rose around the doorway. Above the thatched roof  a flock of television aerials parted the morning  breeze and serenely sang their triumph over charm  and Tudory.

'Colin's quite ruthless,' said Ellie, following his  gaze. 'If you modernize, modernize. He doesn’t see any virtue in pretending that a pair of farm-labourers' cottages was once a desirable sixteenth-century residence.'

'Nor in keeping farming hours, it seems,' said  Pascoe, banging once more on the door and rattling  the worn brass handle.

'Though perhaps,' he added thoughtfully, 'they  do preserve some old country customs, such as  never locking your door.'

He pressed the door-handle right down and  pushed. The hinges creaked most satisfactorily as  the heavy oak door slowly swung open.

Now it was Ellie's turn to show reluctance.

'We can't just appear at the foot of the bed,' she  protested, hanging back.

'Well I'm not going to go and get a warrant,'  answered Pascoe. 'At least we can find the wherewithal to make coffee and a lot of noise. Come  on!'

The front door opened directly into a nicely proportioned lounge, with furnishings which, though  comfortable looking, were antiquated rather than  antique. Two or three whisky tumblers stood on a  low table in the middle of the room; they were still  half full. An empty bottle of Teacher's stood beside  them. A Churchillian cigar had been allowed to  burn out in a large cut-glass ashtray. Ellie sniffed  the air distastefully.

'What a fug! I was right - they must have been  having themselves a quiet little ball last night.'

She began drawing curtains back prior to opening a window. Pascoe too was sniffing gently, a faintly  puzzled look on his face. He crossed the room to  the door in the farthermost wall. It was ajar and  he pushed it fully open and stepped through into  the next room. It was clearly the dining-room. The  round, highly polished mahogany table still bore  the debris of a meal.

But it wasn't the table which held his attention.  White-faced he turned to stop Ellie from following him. She had moved to the rear window now  and was just drawing the curtains there. 

'Ellie,' he said.

She froze, her hand on the window-latch, staring incredulously through the pane.

A thin, single-noted scream forced its way from  the back of her throat.

Two men were lying on the dining-room floor  in the positions indicated in the police photograph 'Al'. They had both received severe  gunshot wounds, and had been bleeding  copiously. The nature of the wounds and the  strong cordite smell I had noticed in the air led  me to assume the wounds had been caused  by a shotgun fired at close range. The man  lying beside the dining-table (position 'X'  on the photograph) I recognized as Timothy  Mansfield of Grover Court, London, NW2.  The other man I was not able to recognize  immediately as he had received the greater  part of the gun-blast in the neck and lower face, but later I was able to confirm he was  Charles Rushworth of the same address. I  turned to prevent Miss Soper from following me into the room, but she was clearly  disturbed by something she could see from  the rear window. I looked out into the garden  at the back of the house and saw the figure  of a woman lying at the base of the sundial  in the centre of the lawn (photograph 'C3') I  could not recognize her from the window as  her face was pressed to the grass. There had  been a great deal of bleeding from the head.

'It's Rose,' said Ellie, not believing herself.  'There's been an accident.'

She made for the dining-room, seeking a way  into the garden. Pascoe caught her by the shoulders.