Ruling Passion (29 page)

The
Observer
article on Birkham in general and Etherege's antique shop in particular, published  the previous autumn in glorious Technicolor, had  been written by Anton Davenant.

Chapter
7

It was a busy day and Pascoe had little opportunity to consider his future with Ellie, though from  time to time his surface thoughts would be disturbed by undercurrents of commingled pleasure  and unease. A rational ordering of his feelings only produced the disturbing realization that he  had it in him to be a very solitary man. But  whether this was a reason to marry or stay single he could not decide. Solitariness was not far removed from loneliness and this he feared. He believed he could recognize similar characteristics  in Ellie, but how good a basis for marriage this  common area would be he could not speculate.  Equally far beyond contemplation, however, was  a life without Ellie. Which is as good a definition  of love as I'm likely to get in a police station, he told himself. Motives for marriage are at least as  various and unexpected as motives for murder.  That sounded like the kind of cold comfort Dalziel  would doubtless offer!

He brought his mind back to bear upon his work. It was mainly a question of listening at the  moment as everyone seemed to be in the mood  for talking.

Etherege was awake and recovering.

As soon as this news reached them, Dalziel sent  Pascoe to the hospital to interview him. 'I doubt if he'd talk to me,' he said.

The antique-dealer admitted cheerfully to the  twelve break-ins which were laid at this door.  The only regret he expressed was in breaking his pattern. He had had a job lined up in the  usual way for the beginning of the week, but  the people had changed their plans and stayed  at home. Matthew Lewis, it turned out, had been  a customer of his and had had the misfortune to  mention that there would be no one at home  that week to take delivery of a table Etherege was renovating for him.

'Normally I wouldn't dream of doing a customer,' said Etherege virtuously, 'but when the  other thing fell through, it seemed a pity to scrap  everything. The devil finds work for idle hands,  you know.'

'I see. Was that why you killed him?' asked Pascoe. 'Because he recognized you?'

'Nonsense!' declared the antique-dealer. 'I was wearing a nylon stocking. I merely tapped him on  the head in self-defence when he attacked me. The  purest accident, I assure you.'

Pascoe didn't believe a word of it but it was not his business to decide on the nature of the charge to be brought.

'What did Davenant say when he heard you'd  killed somebody?' asked Pascoe casually.

'You don't think I went about telling everybody,' protested Etherege. 'Oh dear. Was that a trap, or  did you really know about Anton?'

'We knew,' asserted Pascoe. 'How did you warn him off?'

'We had a little system. I would put a rather hideous Victorian conversation piece in the side-window if all was well for a conversation. Rather  clever.'

'What happened last Wednesday?'

'Oh, I couldn't face the fellow, not with the  Lewis business so fresh in my mind and my partner not here to comfort me. I was deeply distressed by it all, you know. He rang later. He  made an appointment for yesterday, but he cancelled that and that awful fat man came instead.  Hey, it wasn't Davenant who put you on to us,  was it?'

'We're not at liberty to divulge the source of  information,' said Pascoe gravely. Etherege nodded as if his suspicions had been confirmed and when  Pascoe left ten minutes later, he had a detailed list  of every item Davenant had ever received from  Etherege.

Back at the station, Dalziel was having less success than he had anticipated with Cowley and  Clayton. Like Etherege they were trying to strike a balance between confessing what was undeniable and denying what was most culpable.

Cowley started with a complete denial of any knowledge of his partner's activities, but when  faced with the girl's allegations, he shifted his  ground rapidly and claimed instead that his complicity had merely been one of silence. Dalziel went  along with this until he had squeezed every last  admission possible out of the man on these terms.  Then he accused him of being Archie Selkirk and  laughed raucously at his denial.

'We've got men checking Lewis's cottage for fingerprints,' he said. 'Yours will be there. You  couldn't keep your gloves on all the time!'

Cowley thought for a moment.

'Yes, of course,' he said. 'I've been to the cottage, so my prints might well be there.'

'You said you'd never been near the place.'

'Did I? I'm sorry, I'd forgotten.'

'I suppose while you were there, you might  inadvertently have handled the legal papers concerning the land transfer from Selkirk to Mr Sturgeon?'

'Very likely. Lewis showed me some stuff, but I passed it back straightaway. I didn't want to be  involved.'

'Wise man,' said Dalziel. 'Tell me, did Mrs Lewis know about the fraud?'

'She probably knew there was something going  on. A business deal. Nothing more.'

'Just like you?'

'Right.'

'And the girl. Why should she be making these accusations against you?'

'To cover herself, of course. You're not altogether thick, are you? Anyway, does she say that I disguised myself as this man, what do you call him,  Selkirk?'

She didn't, of course. Despite her obvious fear, or  because of it, she was still able to see that to admit  that she possessed certain pieces of knowledge was to incriminate herself still more. But she did give  them a few new lines on the man, Atkinson, and Dalziel had set matters in train for their investigation in London.

Also, as soon as Pascoe rang in from the hospital, a hunt for Anton Davenant was instigated. At Pascoe's suggestion, they contacted Thornton  Lacey, and by the time he returned to the station,  it had been established that he had booked out of the Eagle and Child the previous afternoon,  destination unknown.

But there was some other more disturbing news  for Pascoe.

'They've let Pelman loose!' he told Ellie that  evening.

'My God! Why?'

'No evidence'

'No evidence! But he tried to blow your head  off with a shotgun!'

'He claims he'd no idea it was me. He heard  a noise, saw a trespasser, probably a poacher, scrambling out of the stream bed, shouted at him  to stop, and then blasted off over his head to give  him a scare. It appears that he is most distressed  that I got hit by a splinter!'

'Backhouse must be mad. I never thought I'd  prefer fat Dalziel's kind of copper-ing, but Christ!  I'm sure he wouldn't have let Pelman walk out of  it like this.'

'There's a bit more to it,' protested Pascoe. 'He's  got a reasonable alibi, it seems. The Amenities  Committee meeting finished at eight-thirty that  night. Now we know that Rose left the Queen Anne at eight-fifty, and all the evidence, circumstantial and medical, indicated the murder took  place about then. Now, according to Marianne  Culpepper, she stayed behind in the village hall after the meeting to sort out some clerical work with Pelman and he didn't go off until nearly nine. That would make it impossible for him to  have done it.'

Ellie snorted vigorously, a most effective sound.  Pascoe suddenly had a picture of her snorting disbelievingly across their dinner table at something  the chief constable had said. She will be the missing Dalziel part of me, he thought, and was somehow  cheered by the thought.

'Surely Backhouse isn't going to take much notice of anything Maid Marianne says to defend  Pelman, is he? If she'd said he'd spent the next few  hours rolling around the vestry with her, then it  might have made sense!'

'Perhaps in her own modest way that was what she was saying,’ suggested Pascoe. 'Anyway it  seems to have satisfied Backhouse.'

'And that means it's even further from being over than I thought, Peter. What the hell? It's over  for me, I swear it. I'm going to pile great heaps of  joy between me and that Saturday morning. Great, insurmountable mountains of joy. For both of us.  Right?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

They were drinking in the Jockey at Birkham once more. Pascoe recalled that Etherege had  refused to admit any knowledge of the attack on  Ellie. Pascoe was certain he was lying, just as he  was equally certain it had been Jones-the-cat-meat  who had committed the assault. Probably it had  been the sight of Ellie in Dalziel's company which  had convinced the man that it was dangerous to leave even the faint clue of the pendant in her  possession. The handbag had been a mere cover. But Jones was admitting nothing, probably wisely. Assault on a woman could get him a couple of  extra years.

'Having doubts?' asked Ellie, breaking in on his  thoughts.

'About what?'

'About accepting my proposal. Not that it matters. I had a tape-recorder strapped to my thigh.'

'I didn't notice,' he smiled. 'No. No doubts. In  fact I think I'm getting more certain by the minute.  I was just a bit distracted, that was all. I don't know why, I just thought of Mrs Lewis. Mountains of joy  made me think of her. I don't know where she's going to get them from. Husband gets murdered.  There's no money left in the kitty. Two young kids. Now she's going to have to find out that her late dearly beloved was having a bit, or rather, a lot,  on the side with his secretary. From what she says,  the next step would have been the big move-out, leaving Mrs Lewis and family high and dry.'

'It sounds as if she may be better off with him  dead.'

'Never say that,' said Pascoe seriously. 'The next  step then is the gun, or the knife, or the poison.'

'Constabulary philosophy! There's a thing. What  you're trying to say is that relatively we're lucky?'

'Relatively,' said Pascoe, 'I hope we will be. Thornton Lacey is a non-place from now on. Let's  start shovelling up those mountains!'

But Thornton Lacey had not yet finished with  Pascoe. As he prepared to leave his flat the next  morning, the phone rang. It was Dalziel.

'I've just had Backhouse on the line. It seems that  Constable Crowther's inquiries about Davenant were not altogether unproductive. He got an  anonymous phone call last night to say that Davenant was back in Thornton Lacey staying  guess where?'

'The Culpeppers'?'

'You used to be fun to play with! Naturally he  let Backhouse know. And Backhouse for some  peculiar reason seems to think it would be a good idea for you to get down there and pick him up. He's expecting you by twelve noon so get your  skates on. Ferguson'll go along to hold Davenant's  hand on the way back. I'll have him and a warrant waiting for you at the desk.'

'Thanks,' said Pascoe.

He went back into the bedroom where Ellie, who had a morning free from teaching, was lying  half-awake.

'I'd have made your breakfast,' she admonished,  'if you'd given me a push. Are you off?'

'Yes,' he said. He hesitated a moment, then bent down and kissed her. 'See you tonight.'

At his front door he turned back and re-entered  the flat.

'That was Dalziel on the phone,' he said. 'I'm  going to Thornton Lacey to pick up Davenant. He's at the Culpepper's. Goodbye, love.'

He left feeling happier. The future might hold plenty of things not to talk about and plenty of  times when there would be no time to talk. But  not now. Not yet.

Chapter 8

The journey to Thornton Lacey was swift and uneventful in objective terms. Detective-Constable  Ferguson pleased to be out of the office routine  for a while, chattered away with the brightness of  one who feels no career height to be unscalable, and the radio filled in the few gaps left by his  near-monologue.

Pascoe drove. (He was a bad passenger. Fortunately Ellie was a good one.) Ferguson's voice did not bother him. He hardly heard it. It was a glorious morning and a light mist rose to the sun from  the roadside fields. The car seemed to be moving more and more slowly through a world where  sound was deadened as though by winter snow.  He drove by instinct; in fact the car seemed to  drive itself, drifting round bends, floating over the  crests of hills, as though in some relationship quite other than mere movement with the countryside  around it.

His mind, not usually given to the wilder flights of imagination, was strangely supine, ready to  accept that this journey should somehow go on  for ever in a region of non-time. Or that time  should have been tricked and that once more  they were on the road that Saturday morning  twelve days earlier with nothing to fear at the  end of their journey.

'Thornton Lacey,' said Ferguson approvingly.  'You've made good time, Sergeant. Sorry,
sir.'

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

He drove directly to the police station. Crowther  was behind the desk.

'Morning,' he said.

'Morning,' said Pascoe. 'I believe you've got  someone for us.'

'Mr Backhouse is having a cup of coffee in the sitting-room sir. Shall I have Mrs Crowther bring one through for you?'

'That would be kind,' said Pascoe without  enthusiasm. He had hoped he might be lucky  enough just to pick up Davenant and get away.

'Hello, Peter. It is Peter, isn't it?' Backhouse rose, smiling, like a gentleman farmer welcoming  a luncheon guest.

Suddenly it's Christian names all round, thought  Pascoe. Perhaps the word's out that I'm earmarked  for Commissioner.

'Yes, sir,' he answered. 'This is Detective-Constable  Ferguson. Do you have Davenant here for us?'

'No. No, in fact we don't,' said Backhouse. 'Sit down, will you? Ferguson, perhaps you'd like to see how a small country station like this functions, would you? Constable Crowther would be delighted to show you round, I've no doubt.'

Ferguson stood uncertainly for a moment. The  thing was, when Dalziel gave you a choice, it was  a real choice. When he wanted you to go, he just  told you to shove-off.

Pascoe looked significantly at the door and Ferguson left as Mrs Crowther brought the coffee  in.

Alone at last, but with none of the romantic  overtones of the phrase, the two men sipped their  coffee in silence for a while.