A Killing Kindness (11 page)

As it turned out, everyone got away early that  evening. Nothing was happening, the investigation  was in the doldrums, and Dalziel, who had no  qualms about dragging his men on holiday out of  their hotel beds at midnight if a case required it,  said, 'That's it. Everyone sod off, get a bit of rest  while you can.'

Wield headed up the A1 at seventy mph, Dalziel opened a bottle of Glen Grant and grimly settled  down to read all those reports and statements  which he had hitherto ignored, while Pascoe went  home to a quiet non-constabulary evening and  found his wife much concerned with murder.

'She was practically telling me she thought he'd  done it!' she said excitedly. 'Honestly, Peter, she  came as close as damn it to saying, "You want the  Choker? He's outside in the car with the kids!"'

'Wildgoose,' mused Pascoe. 'I knew I'd seen the  name. Sergeant Brady did the interviews with the allotment holders. Just a formality to check  if they'd noticed anyone hanging around in the  past few days.'

'He's a teacher. English and Drama!' said Ellie  triumphantly.

'So?'

'So,
Hamlet!'

'Well, yes. But it
is
the most famous play in the  language. Even Andy Dalziel had heard of it.'

'And he's gone odd.'

'Who? Dalziel?'

'No, you twit. Mark Wildgoose. Lorraine says she  thinks he hates her. She's frightened of him.'

'She sounds a bit odd to me,' grunted Pascoe,  looking at the
Radio Times.
'Hey,
The Man Who Shot  Liberty Valance
is on tonight. Didn't we go to see  that in our distant student days?'

'Did we?' said Ellie. 'I sometimes forget we were  once young together.'

'What are we now?'

'You
are showing many of the symptoms of  senility. Such as deafness. Mark Wildgoose I'm  telling you about. He's going to Saudi Arabia in a  mini-bus. He wears a T-shirt saying
I'm the Greatest, 
and God knows when he last had a bath.

‘For Christ's sake, love,' said Pascoe. 'What's that  you've got in your belly? Tory twins?'

'What's that mean?'

'Well, suddenly you're sounding like a large Conservative majority.'

'Ha ha. Well, how about this? Do you know which school Brenda Sorby went to?'

'The pterodactyl girl? Sorry! No, I don't.'

'The Bishop Crump Comprehensive!' said  Ellie triumphantly. 'Which is where Wildgoose  teaches.'

'And did he teach her?' enquired Pascoe.

'I don't know. I don't see why not.'

'There are upwards of two thousand kids at that  school,' said Pascoe. 'These places are so big that  some kids never even find out who the headmaster is.'

'Teacher,' said Ellie.

'What?'

'Head-teacher. Not headmaster.'

'All right. Head-teacher. I'm sorry. I'll go round  to see Thelma in the morning and get her to drill  all my teeth without anaesthetic as a penance.'

'Oh, don't be so bloody patronizing!' yelled Ellie.

The explosion took Pascoe by surprise. There  was a moment of quietness.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I thought I was just being  sarcastic.'

'And I thought I was just being helpful,' said  Ellie.

'You are. And I'll look into it, I promise. It's just that I was trying not to track my work into the house too much, particularly this case.'

'A woman-killer? This is one case I want to see  you solve,' said Ellie grimly.

'Yes. You and everyone. Hey, talking of help, I took your advice and got in touch with those  linguists, Urquhart and Gladmann. They're coming  in tomorrow.'

'Both of them? You'll enjoy that. They make a point of not agreeing with each other.'

'That is no barrier to true love,' said Pascoe  sententiously. 'As we should prove.'

'Yes,' said Ellie. 'That's one way of looking  at it.'

Chapter 10

One of Dalziel's maxims was that briefing sessions  should be brief. Nevertheless, after the announcement of new developments and the disposition of  forces, he allowed a general airing of ideas while  he scratched whatever area of his large frame  attracted his roving fingers that morning. End of  scratch, end of talk.

The main news of Friday was that Tommy  Maggs's Harlequin mini had been found with its  big-end gone in the southbound car park of the  Watford Gap service area on the Ml.

Dalziel said, 'He probably hitched a lift in a lorry.  He'll be in the Smoke by now. The locals are  checking for sightings at Watford Gap. We'll need  to check with Maggs's family for likely contacts in  London. Relations, friends, the usual.'

Pascoe made a note. It was his task to make a  note of everything. This was Dalziel's idea of not  wasting his university education.

The briefing continued. Dalziel was sarcastic about the linguists.

'We've got four calls on tape. We don't know  if anyone of them is really the Choker, so it'll  likely not help us much to know which street in Heckmondwike these four come from.' Pause for  sycophantic laughter. 'But we'd be daft not to use  any expert help we can get. I've asked Dr Pottle  of the Central Hospital Psychiatric Unit to give us  an opinion too. He's been given all the details we  have. Mr Pascoe, perhaps you'd see he gets copies of the tapes as well.'

Pascoe made another note, concealing his surprise. He had encountered Pottle on another case,  a small, chain-smoking, rather irritable man with a ragged Einstein-type moustache. Dalziel reckoned  nothing to psychology and had the large man's distrust of little men. 'Has to be something missing,’  he opined. So there must have been pressure here.

The PM on Pauline Stanhope had confirmed the  time of death as between eleven-thirty
A.M
. and  one-thirty
P.M
. The heat in the enclosed tent had  complicated things a little. The cause of death was  two-handed strangulation. Bruising to the stomach was probably caused by a violent blow aimed  at pre-empting struggle or noise. There were no signs of sexual interference. And wherever else she  was going when Mrs Ena Cooper, the penny-roll  woman, glimpsed her leaving the tent before midday, it wasn't to lunch. Traces of a light breakfast  were all that were found in her stomach.

Co-ordinating the collection of statements from stall-holders and visitors to the Fair was Sergeant Bob Brady, a gum-chewing taciturn man who always looked more knowing than Pascoe suspected he ever was. But he had a reputation for being methodical and had also co-ordinated the statements from the allotment holders after the  McCarthy killing.

As far as the Stanhope murder went, Brady's  method so far had produced only the following:  that no one had noticed anything or anyone about  the tent during the significant time, and that after  Mrs Cooper's sighting, no one had seen Pauline  Stanhope till she was found dead.

'Just like the Sorby girl,' said someone.

'She could have come back with someone. Or  someone got into the tent while she was gone and  was waiting for her on her return,' said Brady,  lengthily for him.

'Meaning
he
got in without being seen,
she
came  back without being seen,
he
got out without being  seen,' said Dalziel.

'Why was she killed anyway?' wondered Wield.

'Why were any of them?'

'I know that, sir. But there's a connection here  for the first time.'

'The girl's aunt, you mean?' said Dalziel. 'You checked they never met, though, didn't you?'

'Yes, sir. I contacted Mrs Sorby. She says that she always visited Rosetta Stanhope, never the other way round because of her husband. Not until that  last session, that is, and then Mrs Stanhope insisted  because of the atmosphere.'

'And Brenda never went with her mother.'

'No. Brenda wasn't interested in that kind of  thing. Practical, down-to-earth, sporting type of  girl. More like her father.'

When it was clear that no more was going to  come from this particular discussion. Pascoe said,  'Sergeant Brady, could we go back a bit to the June McCarthy case? You interviewed an allotment holder called Wildgoose, Mark Wildgoose.'

'I remember.'

'Anything special about him.'

'It'll be in my report.'

'It's just like the others,' said Pascoe adding, in case that sounded critical, 'Just what you'd expect,  of course. Though in fact it's even slighter than the others. He only went down to work on his  allotment once or twice a week, if that. He didn't know June McCarthy and had never observed anyone suspicious around the place.'

'Same as most of the rest,' agreed Brady. 'A  few carrots stolen, that's about all the excitement  previous.'

'A couple did recall June McCarthy from when  she was on the day shift,' said Pascoe. Including Dennis Ribble whose shed she was found in.'

'Aye. But Ribble and t'other fellow are in their eighties. Couldn't choke a dead pigeon between  'em,' said Brady to laughter.

'What's your interest in Wildgoose?' demanded  Dalziel. 'You've heard summat?'

'That he is odd. Potentially violent. And he teaches English and Drama at Bishop Crump Comprehensive which is, incidentally, Brenda Sorby's  old school.'

'Oh aye,' said Dalziel. 'Was any of that on your  report, Sergeant Brady?'

Brady shook his head.

'None,' he said with the laconic assurance of one who is not at fault.

'What's your source, Peter?'

'Information,' said Pascoe uncomfortably. He didn't mind telling Dalziel privately but saw no  reason to label Ellie as a snout before all this  lot.

'Malicious?'

'Possibly. But also authoritative.'

'Aye. Sergeant Brady?'

'Sir?'

'Come on, lad. You're the only one here that's met the bugger. Don't be coy.'

Brady lit a cigarette from the one he was smoking.

'Lives on Wordsworth Drive on the Belle Vue  estate about half a mile from Pump Road. Detached  house, just.'

'Garden?' asked Dalziel.

'Grass, roses, flower-beds. No veg. It's not a vegetable estate.'

'And you interviewed him at the house?' said  Pascoe.

'Yes.'

Dalziel looked at Pascoe interrogatively.

'I heard he was separated from his wife,' said  Pascoe. Living apart.'

'Well, she was there that evening. Mind you, she  did shuffle the kids out pretty sharpish when I said  what I was.'

'And her personal reaction?'

Brady looked puzzled.

'Was she shocked, worried, indignant, inquisitive? What?' demanded Pascoe.

'Nothing much. She just showed me into a room where he was sitting with these two kids, said, "Police, for you. Come on children," and that was  that. I didn't see her again.'

Pascoe and Dalziel exchanged glances.

'Probably just visiting,' said Pascoe. 'And Wildgoose himself?'

'Ordinary fellow. Just answered the questions.  Nothing special.'

Dalziel said to Pascoe, 'Any ideas?'

'It might be as well to check when June McCarthy was last on the day shift and ask around if anyone  ever saw Wildgoose talking to her as she passed  the allotments.'

'Would he need to talk to her in advance?'

'He'd need to find out somehow that she'd be  passing that way in the early morning.'

'Right. At the same time check him out on the  times of the other killings.'

Pascoe made a note, saying, 'It'd better be fast.  He's off to Saudi Arabia any moment.'

'Jesus!'

The briefing proceeded.

Wield reported on his visit to the Cheshire Cheese and diffidently wondered if there might be any significance in the closeness of the gypsy camp to three locations linked with the murders.

Dalziel said, 'One scene of killing, two work-places. Not much, is it?'

Wield muttered something about the widow's  mite.

Dalziel said, 'Let's keep religion out of this. All  right. Check on sinister gypsies lurking round the  bank or the factory. Anyone else got any straws  for us to grab hold of? No? Right, then here's  what I think. There's things not being noticed on this case. I say
case,
not
cases,
because that's what it is, and that's what the trouble is. Too  many of you are acting as if there's four individual investigations going on. Well, there's not, there's
one,
and when you're asking questions, taking statements, I want you to remember that. 
Detectives,
that's what you're called. From what I've seen and heard, some of you couldn't detect piss  in a urinal! So get your fingers out. Let's get back to the beginning. Everything new that happens  changes everything that's past. So I want you all looking at what you've done already in that light. We're going to go over all the old ground again,  but this time we'll shift around a bit, see what a  new eye can do. I want all of you to know all of  this case inside out. There's some people reckon getting into the CID means you're licensed to sit on your arse supping pints all hours that God  sends. They'd better get disenchanted. Let's get  some sodding work done!'

His right hand which had been scrabbling beneath  his shirt like a ferret in a sack suddenly emerged into the light and slapped ferociously on the table  top before him. The meeting broke up.

'Sergeant Wield!' called Dalziel.

'Sir.'

'You reckon Ludlam knows something?'

'That's what I think, sir. But whether it's about Tommy or whether it's about his brother-in-law,  I don't know.'

'I've been talking with Mr Headingley,' said  Dalziel. 'He's about as far on as we are. So if  you think that Ludlam really is holding back, let's keep up the pressure. Call in at Pickersgill's house, stir things up a bit. You're interested in Tommy Maggs, right. But anything you can get on Frankie  Pickersgill will be fine.'

'Poor sod,' said Wield.

'Why?'

'Well, I'm trying to get Ron to grass on Frankie again by threatening to tell Frankie that Ron  grassed on him last time!'

This tickled Dalziel and he bellowed with laughter.

'There's no chance that the two of 'em could have been on the Spinks's warehouse job together?' he wondered when he had laughed his fill.