Ruling Passion (34 page)

'It makes sense. More than anything I ever speculated about the case. I had it all worked out.  Every premise a false one! I sometimes wonder if  I'm fit for this business.'

'Not for this particular bit of it, perhaps,' said  Backhouse gently. 'But that's not surprising. I'm  sure you do sterling work back home.'

'Home,' said Pascoe. 'That's a nice word. It's  only a scruffy old bachelor flat, but it'll do for  the time being. That's what I'd like to do now.  Go home.'

'There's no place like home,' said Dalziel, like a  man making a completely original discovery.

'True,' said Pascoe.

'That's where they got that fellow Atkinson, in  an old folks' home in Romford. Told them he was seventy-two! He's an old con artist from way back.  He felt seventy-two when I'd done with him! But we've got enough to put Cowley away for a long  time now.'

'I'm glad,' said Pascoe, relaxing in his chair and  looking round the room with pride.

It was remarkable what a pleasant civilized place  his flat had become. The candles on the table  had seemed a little too much in the light of the  afternoon, but now they were perfect. A woman's  touch worked wonders. Oh yes indeed.

He and Dalziel were sitting opposite each other,  finishing off the sharp white wine which had  accompanied their baked trout.

'It taught me one thing,' said Pascoe suddenly.

'What?'

'Information. If you're cut off from local channels, you're lost! Everyone knew about Culpepper  except me. Everyone knew that it was Sam Dixon  who was having a bit on the side with Marianne  except me.'

'Backhouse always did play his cards too close,'  said Dalziel. 'I hope your promotion doesn't get  you transferred anywhere near him. You made a  lousy impression!' He laughed. 'But he's not such  a hot judge. He reckons nowt to me either!'

'Amazing,' commented Pascoe. 'Anyway it was Dixon who rang Crowther and told him Davenant was at the Culpeppers'. Marianne mentioned he'd  come back and Sam was jealous! Not of her husband, mind you. No competition there. Old Mrs Culpepper knew what was going on, of course.  She knew everything. That's why she was so angry when Dixon turned up at the house. She made him  break half a box of scotch!'

'Tragic,' said Dalziel. 'But if he knew Culpepper was broke, why was he willing to supply the stuff  anyway?'

'Culpepper's usual tradesmen were beginning to  dig their heels in. The bills are huge, it seems. That's why he turned to the local pubs for booze.  Palfrey wasn't going to play. He brought a couple  of bottles to keep on the right side, so to speak,  and shot a line about his low stocks. Dixon now,  well, Dixon was in love. It made him willing to act  quite irrationally. I told you it was him that banged  me on the head at Brookside.'

'Yes,' said Dalziel. 'A bloody ghoulish place, that,  for a lovers's tryst.'

'Too true. Pelman had run into Marianne in  the village and mentioned he'd met me where I was going. She dived for the nearest phone to  warn Dixon. Rang twice, a pre-arranged signal so he'd know who it was. Naturally, he didn't  want me to answer and recognize her voice. So  bang!'

'A violent lot in Thornton Lacey.'

'Yes. Not just me! Then off Dixon goes, worried  sick about me. Picks up his car and drives back  to find me
'accidentally'.
But good old Sergeant  Palfrey's done the job for him. So his guilty secret is safe. Was safe. The proud Marianne's come out  in the open now. Poor old Molly Dixon! They  seemed perfectly matched.'

'Aye. Well, it happens,' said Dalziel dourly.

'What happens?' asked Ellie cheerfully, coming in from the kitchen with a vegetable tureen.

'Policemen do the decent thing and get themselves engaged,' announced Dalziel with heavy  jocularity. 'What's next? It smells good.'

'Surprise,' said Ellie, grinning at Pascoe as  she went out again. She had not been overenthusiastic at the prospect of playing hostess to Andrew Dalziel, but somehow it had seemed a necessary thing to do. Why, she could not  imagine! In the event she was enjoying her role tremendously and deriving much pleasure from  the fat man's vacillations between hearty, old-fashioned guestmanship and his more customary blunt  vulgarity.

'So Dixon was a dark horse,' resumed Dalziel when he felt Ellie was safely out of earshot. 'But  his part was only incidental really, wasn't it?'

'Oh yes. Though he frightened the pants off me when he followed me up the drive at Culpepper's that night on his way to his rendezvous with  Marianne!'

'This fellow Pelman sounds more interesting.'

'He was,' said Pascoe. 'Backhouse told me afterwards that, alibis apart, he couldn't really suspect anyone being motivated to such a crime who  could cheerfully dump loads of chicken-crap into  the pool where his wife and her lover had killed  themselves! Odd reasoning!'

'Not at all,' said Dalziel. 'It's being able to reason like that that makes you a superintendent! I don't understand why he was willing to loan Culpepper a thousand quid. They weren't  great mates, and he knew the old man was pretty well bust.'

'Oh, it wasn't sentiment, rest assured of that!'  laughed Pascoe. 'Culpepper went to see him the  previous night to ask for the loan. And he took as  security half a dozen pieces from his collection -  all the bits, naturally, that Davenant had flogged  him and which he wanted to keep out of sight for  a while!'

'Cunning old Culpepper,' said Dalziel.

'Yes,' said Pascoe with sudden passion. 'I hope  he's not so cunning that they don't put him away for ever!'

'Easy,' said Dalziel, glancing warily at the  kitchen.

'Sorry, sir,' said Pascoe. 'It's just that it's relatively so easy to be objective and impersonal in  our business. You strain after it all the time. X  kills Y. Find him. Charge him. Forget him. X has  many names, we spend all our lives looking for X. He's not unique. But sometimes Y has one  particular name. Y is unique. Something has gone  which to you personally is irreplacable. And then you begin to think it's like this every time. For  someone.'

'Forget names,' urged Dalziel. 'Stick to X and Y.  Life's a series of wrecks. Make sure you're always  washed up with the survivors.'

'Gosh,’ said Ellie at the kitchen door. 'Does  promotion get you a course in philosophy too?  Sorry to interrupt the Socratic moment, but here  we are!'

Triumphantly she brought to the table a large  serving dish on which lay side by side two roast  pheasants.

'Jesus!' said Dalziel in admiring anticipation.  'Well, that's buggered my diet!'

They all laughed. Pascoe, watching Ellie's genuine uninhibited amusement, felt the springs of his own laughter dry up. He busied himself with the  carving knife and sharpening steel. It would be  easy to become permanently suspicious of happiness, to taste no joy without glancing sharply over  the shoulder to check who was watching. Perhaps  this was the formula for survival that Dalziel would  offer, though he could not think so, looking at the  fat man this very moment.

But then, to look at Ellie now, proudly explaining the subtle modes by which the birds had been  brought to their present fragrant succulence, who  would know that a few hours previously he had  found her standing in tears, looking down at the unplucked pheasants whose plumage's iridescent  green and purple gleamed on the kitchen table like  the silk of a woman's evening gown?

To be a look-out, to keep alert, was not a bad  role. Particularly if you did not make a great show of it.

He put down the sharpening steel and approached the pheasants with the knife. Poker-faced, he jerked his head at Dalziel and said to Ellie, 'Which  one is his?'

They all began laughing again. This time Pascoe  laughed to the finish.