Ruling Passion (5 page)

And up you too, thought Pascoe, looking at the  receiver. The fat bastard was probably congratulating himself on his subtle psychological therapy.

The phone rang again as Mrs Crowther reached into the oven for his warming plate. This time to  his surprise it was Hartley Culpepper.

'I hoped I'd find you there, Mr Pascoe. Look, it  struck me after I left you at the cottage, are you  staying in the village tonight?'

'Well, yes,' said Pascoe, surprised. 'Yes, I expect  we are.'

'Have you fixed up anything yet?'

'No. Not yet. I haven't really thought,' answered  Pascoe. It was true, he hadn't given a thought to  what they would do that night. The Crowthers, he  suspected, would at a pinch keep Ellie, but it would  mean a great deal of inconvenience for them.

'Perhaps one of the pubs,' he mused aloud.

'Nonsense,' said Culpepper firmly. 'We would be  delighted if you would stay with us. I was going  to ask you and your friend to come to dinner,  anyway. So why not bring your bags with you?  This must have been a terrible strain for both of  you. It'll do you good - it will do us all good - to  be in friendly company. Please come.'

'It's very kind of you,' said Pascoe doubtfully.

'Good,' interrupted Culpepper. 'We'll expect  you, about tea-time then. The Crowthers will be  able to direct you. Goodbye.'

Everyone else is having the last word today,  thought Pascoe,

Constable Crowther had arrived home and  was taking his place at the other side of the  kitchen-table. He nodded an acknowledgement  at Pascoe and settled down to eating his meal.

Either hunger or some form of diplomacy kept  him silent, and Pascoe himself did not speak  until he had disposed of his food without further  interruption.

‘This will mean a lot of work for you,' he said  finally.

Crowther nodded.

'A bit. There's a beer in the cupboard behind you  if you fancy it.'

'Thanks,' said Pascoe. 'This'll be a quiet patch  normally?'

'Quiet enough. Popular for break-ins.'

'Is that so?'

Crowther nodded and chewed his gammon systematically. About thirty chews to the mouthful,  Pascoe thought.

'It's mostly business people now, you see,' resumed Crowther. 'Working in the town. There's been  a lot of building.'

Another mouthful. Another thirty chews.

'And renovation.'

'Like Brookside Cottage?'

'That's right,' said Crowther, nodding vigorously.

'Was it empty when Mr Pelman decided to sell  it?'

That's right.' Another mouthful. This time  Pascoe counted. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine. 'Mr  Pelman didn't like that. It was a handy way into  his woods from the road for anyone wanting to  pot a few birds. And the cottages themselves was  always getting broken into. Not that there wasanything to take, you understand. Practising for  bigger stuff, I reckoned. But they did a lot of  damage.'

So. Vandals and poachers all swanning round  Brookside Cottage. Homicidal? It was surprising  how many people were under the right conditions.

Even people you knew quite well.

'Pelman put it on the market then?' mused  Pascoe. 'That was quite clever. He'd make a bit  of money and have someone there to man his  frontier post.'

'Hardly that,' objected Crowther. 'You can get  into Pelman's woods at a dozen places. And there's  not all that much in there anyhow.'

'No red deer and grizzly bear?'

'No,' answered Crowther, adding, as though in  reproach of Pascoe's mild levity, 'just a lot of  coppers at the moment.'

Pascoe sipped his beer. Crowther's tastes ran to  lukewarm brown ale, it appeared. The thought put  him in mind of the two village pubs, in one of  which Rose Hopkins had last been seen by anyone  alive to tell the tale. Except one person.

'What's the difference between the Eagle and  Child and the Queen Anne?' he asked. It sounded  like a child's conundrum, but Crowther didn't  seem puzzled.

'The Eagle's a free house. Owned by Major  Palfrey. The Anne's tied to the brewery. Mr and  Mrs Dixon just manage it. Not
just.
They manage  it very well, I mean. Nice couple.'

'Who uses which? Or is it just the nearest that  people go to?'

Crowther looked at him closely.

'Couldn't say,’ he said. 'I use the Anne myself.'

'Just because it's the nearest?' insisted Pascoe.  'I should have thought the local law would have  had to preserve a fine show of impartiality towards  licensed premises.'

'I do,’ said Crowther. 'When I'm on duty. But  off, I like to be comfortable where I drink.'

He seemed to make his mind up that Pascoe  had a sympathetic ear and leaned over the table  confidentially.

'Difference is, and this is just me, mind you,'  he went on, 'the Dixons make you feel welcome,  the Major always makes me feel he's doing me a  favour by pulling me a pint.'

He nodded emphatically and started rolling an  absurdly thin cigarette in an ancient machine.  Pascoe laughed knowingly.

'Major Palfrey thinks he's the squire rather than  the landlord, does he?'

'That's the trouble with this place now,' averred  the constable, lighting his cigarette which burnt  like a fuse. 'It's full of bloody squires. Trouble is,  there aren't enough peasants to go round.'

Constable Crowther, it appeared, invariably took  a ten-minute nap after his lunch and could see no  reason to interrupt his routine today. Pascoe was  sorry about this. The man's conversation interested  him and he was still desperately in need of things to interest him. He decided to take a walk, down to  the village perhaps, find out what was going on.  As he stood up, he realized he hadn't mentioned  the arrangements that had been made for the  evening.

Mrs Crowther came into the kitchen and bustled  around her snoozing husband, clearing the table  with no effort at noise-evasion.

'Miss Soper and I are going to spend the night  at Mr Culpepper's house,' said Pascoe. 'I'd like to  let Miss Soper sleep, though, as long as possible.  Is that OK?'

'We could have kept you here,' answered the  woman. 'Our lad could have used the camp-bed.'

'Thank you very much. But I didn't want to  trouble you. And Mr Culpepper was most insistent.'

Crowther opened his eyes and looked straight  at Pascoe.

'Culpepper,' he said. He made it sound like an  accusation. Then he went back to sleep.

In Crowther's book, Culpepper was probably  one of the self-appointed squires, thought Pascoe  as he stood outside the station in the bright sunlight and took his bearings. He wasn't certain if he  altogether liked what he saw. Not that it wasn't  pretty. In the rememberable past Thornton Lacey  must have been a roadside hamlet of a couple of  dozen houses plus a church, a shop and a pub  which served the numerous farms in the rich  surrounding countryside. But things had changed.

Over the hill one day, perhaps only a couple of  decades ago, had come the first - the first what?  He remembered the phrase in Colin's letter.
Pallid  cits.
The first pallid cit. Soon there must have been  droves of them. And they were still coming. He  recalled as he had driven in that morning an  arrowed notice on the outskirts of the village had  directed their attention to a
High Class Development  of Executive Residences.
It had made them laugh to  think of Colin and Rose in such company. Many  things had made them laugh on the journey.

With an effort of will he returned his attention  to the village. Pallid cits had to be catered for. There  was a ladies' hairdressing salon very tastefully  slotted beneath an awryly-timbered top storey. At least two Gothic-scripted antique shops were  visible. Passing pallid cits had to be tempted to stop  and invest in the past. But not to stop permanently,  he suspected. No one defends the countryside and  its traditions more fiercely than he who has just  got planning permission for his own half-acre. The  Village Amenities Committee didn't sound like a  farmworkers' trade union, somehow.

It's that bloody woman again, thought Pascoe  gloomily. Why have I taken against her so much  so rapidly? And I'm spending the night under  her roof.

But why the hell should I? I didn't want to.

That anger which had been bubbling under the surface all morning suddenly broke through again.  He had progressed about a quarter of a mile down the long, winding village street and now realized  he was opposite the Queen Anne. On an impulse  he crossed over and went in.

It wasn't long till closing time and the bar was  empty.

'Lager, please,' he said to the attractively solid-fleshed woman who came to take his order.

'Thirsty weather,' she said with a smile.

'Do you put people up?' he asked, sipping his  drink.

'Sorry. You might try the Eagle and Child. They  have a couple of rooms there they sometimes  let.'

'Thanks. Is it Mrs Dixon, by the way?' Pascoe  asked.

That's right,' the woman answered, looking at  him with sudden wariness. 'Why?'

'You served Mrs Hopkins, Mrs Rose Hopkins of  Brookside Cottage, last night I believe.'

'Yes. Yes, I did.' She glanced through into the  other bar.

'Sam. Sam, love. Got a moment?'

A red, jolly-faced man, solid as his wife, stepped  through, a smile on his lips. Pascoe could understand how Crowther felt made welcome.

'Lovely day, sir. Yes, my dear?'

This gentleman's asking about Mrs Hopkins.'

Sam Dixon composed his features to a solemnity  they clearly weren't made for.

'A dreadful business. Are you from the Press,  sir?'

'No,' said Pascoe. The man looked nonplussed  for a moment.

'The thing is,’ he said finally, 'it's an upsetting  business. Molly - my wife - has spoken to the  police already. Now, we don't like talking about  our customers at the best of times, but in circumstances like this, especially with friends of the poor  woman

'I'm a friend,' said Pascoe suddenly. He appreciated the man's diplomacy but he couldn't keep the  abruptness out of his voice. 'I
was
a friend. I'm not  just after a bit of sensational titillation.'

'I never suggested you were, sir,' said Dixon  quietly.

'No. Of course you didn't. I'm sorry,' said Pascoe.  'The thing is, well, I found them, you see.'

Absurdly he found himself unable to go on. One  part of him was detached, viewing the phenomenon with a sort of professional interest. He had  seen this kind of thing a hundred times in his job,  had come to watch for it, the moment when a witness to a crime or an accident suddenly
feels
what he has seen. It was a completely unforecastable syndrome. Sometimes it was accompanied by complete collapse. Or mild amnesia. Blind panic. Or, as  now, temporary paralysis of the speech organs.

A large brandy appeared under his nose from  nowhere. If you had to act like this, his detached  portion thought, here was clearly the place to do it.

'Sit down, sir. Drink this up. Nothing like it for  clearing the head.'

'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe, suddenly regaining control of his tongue. 'It's ridiculous.'

'Nonsense. Go on, knock that brandy back.'

He did so and felt much better.

'You're very kind,' he said, trying to regain  control of the situation. 'I'm sorry. I should have  said who I was before I started asking questions.'

'Not at all.' Dixon eyed him with the calculating  scrutiny of one long expert at diagnosing the condition of his customers. Pascoe evidently passed  muster.

'What did you want to know?'

'Just what happened when Mrs Hopkins came  in. What she said. That kind of thing.'

This was silly. It would all be on record.  Backhouse might let him see it. Certainly he  could arrange unofficially to have a look. What  did he expect to do, anyway? Spot some incredibly  subtly concealed clue which would reveal precisely  what happened last night and prove Colin . . .  innocent? He must be innocent! Then where the  hell was he?

'There was nothing special about last night,'  Molly Dixon was saying. 'We were very busy.  You'd expect that at that time on a Friday night,  but it was worse than usual as I was on my own  with just our barmaid, and she's a bit slow. Sam  was at the Amenities Committee Meeting. Rose  came to the off-licence counter there.'

She pointed at a small hatch which was visible  through a door in the wall joining the two bars.

There's a bell in there. She rang it. I went  through as soon as I could.

"A bottle of scotch,"  she said. "First that comes to hand will do. I can  see you're busy."

I gave her a bottle. "Will this  do?" I asked.

"Anything," she said. "They've had  so much I could give them cold tea."

"I'd try hot  coffee if they're that bad," I said. She paid me,  took the bottle and went. There should have been  a penny change. I shouted, but she didn't hear, and  next thing I heard a car starting, so I went back to  the fray.'

The Mini-Cooper? You heard the Mini?' asked  Pascoe.

'I'm not that expert! It sounded a bit sporty,  that's all.'

'And she said nothing else?'

'Not that I can remember. It was a very busy  night.'

'Of course. I'm very grateful to you,' said Pascoe.  'Just one thing. You called Mrs Hopkins "Rose".'

'That's her name, isn't. . . wasn't it?' said Molly,  puzzled.

'Yes, of course. What I meant was, you knew  her quite well?'

'Oh yes! We got on very well right from the start.  I'd only known her and Colin a couple of months,  but we soon got on friendly terms. That's why it  came as such a shock ... I still can't believe it.'

They didn't use the other pub, then? The Eagle  and Child.'

He intercepted a quick glance between the man and his wife. Intercepted and, he thought, interpreted.

'They may have done on occasions,' said Dixon  in a neutral tone.

'Come on!' said Pascoe. 'Rose is dead and God  knows what's happened to Colin. So you can forget  professional etiquette for once, can't you?'

Another glance. This time the woman spoke.

'They went there to start with, I think. It was a  bit nearer to the cottage. And it's popular with . . .'

She hesitated.