Reginald Hill – Arms and the Women (страница 8)

‘Second time round!’

‘Aye, well. You were a bit excitable, first time.’

‘Hysterical, you mean?’

‘Nay, lass. You know me, if I’d meant hysterical, I’d have said it. Wieldy, you’re lurking. Summat else?’

‘Checked with the Education Department. No one there called Westcombe or fitting the descriptions.’

‘Christ, you’re checking up on me!’ exclaimed Ellie angrily. ‘You think maybe I just lose it when I’m confronted by stupid officials? Well, you could be about to find out you’re right.’

Wield went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The car’s number. How sure are you you got it right?’

‘As sure as I could be considering it was going through my mind these two wanted to abduct me in order to do God knows what to me. So if I got a figure wrong, it wouldn’t be surprising, would it? But it was definitely a dark-blue BMW, one of the big ones. Look, why’re you wasting time grilling me like this? I scribbled everything I could remember down soon as I could. Christ, I haven’t been married to the Force all these years without picking up some of your nasty habits. Why aren’t you out there looking for these people?’

‘You’d be surprised how often I get asked that question and I’ve not worked out a smart answer yet,’ said Dalziel. ‘Can’t even say it’s raining. Why’re you asking about the car, Wieldy?’

‘Did a check, sir. And according to Swansea, what Ellie gave us isn’t a number in use.’

‘False plates then,’ said Dalziel. ‘But try the obvious variations just in case.’

‘Yes, sir. By the way, phone wire was shorted with a pin where it goes into the hall window. Pull it out, it should be OK, but we won’t touch it till Forensic’s finished out there. Oh, and Novello’s here.’

‘Ivor? Good. Send her in.’

‘Hang about,’ said Ellie. ‘If you’re thinking I need a friendly female copper to unburden my heart to…’

‘Nay. I brought her for the strip search but I’ll do it if you like,’ said Dalziel.

Wield made for the door.

Ellie said, ‘Wieldy, sorry I snapped at you. I think I may still be a bit… excitable.’

The sergeant’s generally inscrutable features which, in Dalziel’s words, were knobbly enough to make a pineapple look like a pippin, smoothed momentarily into a warm smile, and he said, ‘I’ll let you know soon as we get a hold of Pete.’

‘By God,’ said Dalziel after the sergeant had gone. ‘Was that a smile, or has he got toothache? Nearest yon bugger ever came to cracking his face at me was the time I fell into the swimming pool at the mayor’s reception. Oh aye. I see you remember that too.’

A smile had touched Ellie’s lips, and she forced it to broaden as she saw the Fat Man observing her closely. Anything was better than having a womanly weep in front of Andy Dalziel. And even more, in front of Detective Constable Shirley Novello, who had just slipped into the room. Five-four, sturdy frame, minimum make-up, dark-brown hair neat but nothing fancy, baggy sweatshirt and matching slacks, she should have been two steps from invisible, which was presumably her intention. Down-dressing did not deceive Ellie Pascoe’s expert eye, however. She’d heard her husband talk a little too appreciatively of the girl’s professional qualities, and she saw the way even Fat Andy’s spirits perked up a notch or two at her entry. This was definitely one to watch.

‘You going to make an old man happy, lass?’ said Dalziel.

‘Don’t think so, sir. Just a first take on house-to-house. We’ve got two people who noticed the BMW. Confirmation of colour, but nothing extra on the numberplate. One of them thought it had an unusually long aerial compared with her husband’s car, which is the same model.’

‘Well-heeled neighbours you’ve got, Ellie,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Mebbe we’re paying Pete too much. That it, Ivor?’

‘Except for an old lady lives at the corner, towards town, that is, says she looked out to see what all the fuss was when she heard the sirens and saw a car doing a three-point turn and going back the way it came. Metallic-blue, sounds like a Golf. Driver looked swarthy and sinister, she says.’

‘Watch a lot of telly, does she? Ivor, it’s what happened before we came that I’m interested in. Afterwards, any poor sod driving along and seeing the street full of flashing fuzz is going to find another route, specially if he’s had a swift snort or two at a business meeting.’

The notion was suggestive. Ellie looked longingly at the bottle of Scotch which the Fat Man had dug out as soon as he arrived. At the time it had seemed virtuously sensible to quote what her first aid course said about avoiding alcohol in cases of shock, but now it seemed merely priggish.

She said, ‘OK, Andy. Let’s do it one more time. Then I don’t care if it brings on complete amnesia, I’m going to have that drink you prescribed.’

‘I’m feeling better already,’ said Dalziel. ‘No, Ivor, don’t sneak off. Got your short stubby pencil ready? I want you taking notes. Everything, not just what you think’s important, OK?’

‘Sir,’ said Novello.

Her eyes met Ellie Pascoe’s and she gave a little smile. All she got in return was a small frown. Confirming what she’d felt on their previous few meetings, that La Pascoe didn’t much like her. Couldn’t blame her, the WDC thought complacently. When I’m her age, I’ve no intention of liking good-looking women ten years my junior who work with my husband. Not that her own husband, if she ever bothered, would be anything like Chief Inspector Pascoe. It would probably be a comfort to Ellie Pascoe to know that her fantasies featured chunky, hairy men on surf-pounded beaches, not slim, nice-mannered introverts who would feel it necessary to buy you a decent French meal before checking into a good four-star hotel. But it was not a comfort she was about to offer.

The Great God Dalziel was speaking.

‘Right, lass. One more time. You were really taken in at first?’

‘Damn right I was. All I could think was, not again, oh God, it’s not all happening again. You know, Rosie in hospital, me camping out there, all the fears…’

The memory of that time was still so powerful, it had the therapeutic effect of reducing her present aftershock to manageable size, and she went on more strongly, ‘She’d only gone back to school for this final week before the summer hols… she insisted, and you know Rosie, when she makes up her mind…’

‘Can’t think who she takes after,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wanted to see all her mates, did she? And not miss this end-of-term outing.’

‘Both of those. Also to get out from under me, I suspect.’

‘Eh?’

Ellie said, ‘Andy, I’m ready for that drink now. Please.’

She took the proffered tumbler and said scornfully, ‘That wouldn’t drown a tall gnat. Cheers.’

It went down in one. Dalziel, who’d poured himself a good three inches, poured her another millimetre.

‘God Almighty, man! And it’s not even your whisky,’ she said.

‘Not my stomach either,’ said Dalziel. ‘You said something about Rosie getting out from under you. Never had you down as the clinging-mother type.’

‘No? Perhaps not.’

She brooded on this for a moment, glanced at Novello, then, with an effort at matter-of-factness, went on, ‘Since we got her back, after the meningitis, I’ve hardly been able to bear letting her out of my sight. She goes in the garden to play and two minutes later I have a panic attack. I think in the end I just began to get on her nerves, so school seemed a desirable alternative.’

‘Nay, you know what kids are like about missing things…’

‘The trip to Tegley Hall, you mean? Well, there’s another thing. They invite any parents who feel like giving a hand to go along. It’s a big responsibility, ferrying that number of kids around somewhere like that. I was going to go, but last night Rosie suddenly said, “Why can’t Daddy go? Miss Martindale says it doesn’t just have to be mummies.” Peter, bless his heart, said, why not? He’d like nothing better than a day in the company of his daughter and a hundred other kids. And he rang you and you kindly said that considering how hard you’d been working him for the past hundred years or so, he was long overdue a bit of time off…’

‘Don’t recollect them as my exact words,’ said Dalziel.

‘Peter is one of nature’s paraphrasers. So, nothing for me to do but say, “Great. It’ll give me the chance to get on with some work,” and smile through my tears.’

‘So you worried?’

‘Of course I worried. I worried about what kind of mother I was. And I worried about them out there in the big wide world without me to look after them. And I worried about myself for worrying about them!’

Plus the other worries she wasn’t about to air in front of Novello. Or Dalziel either, for that matter. Or indeed herself if she could help it. Worries like damp patches on a kitchen wall, that you could stand a chair in front of, or hang a wallchart over, or even just ignore, but you knew that sometime you were going to have to deal with them.

‘So I went upstairs, switched my laptop on and started working,’ she concluded.

‘That help with worries, does it?’ He sipped his Scotch and looked at her doubtfully.

Something else she wasn’t going to lay out in present company.

‘The poet Cowper managed to keep religious mania at bay for several decades by dint of writing,’ she said spiritedly.