A Pinch of Snuff (13 page)

'No, there was nothing of that,' said Blengdale. 'It was pretty late and I'd have noticed if he'd said anything like that. He looked like I felt, ready for bed. Is there anything to show he
was
expecting another visitor?'

'I can't say,' said Pascoe, thinking of the six weals on Haggard's buttocks.

'Well, there's nowt more I can tell you,' said Blengdale, rising. 'I'm a busy man and I'm right behind now. What a bloody day this has been! I'll see you to the door. Sorry I can't be more help. I'd offer you a drink, but I've heard that you're a bugger for duty.'

I'm getting the push, thought Pascoe as he found himself swiftly transferred to the front door, But he could think of no way of - or reason for - resisting the process.

But Blengdale wasn't quite finished with him. He seized his elbow tight and brought his face close to Pascoe's shoulder.

'What's going to happen to that dentist?' he asked.

'I'm sorry?'

'Burkill's my yard foreman. When he took off this morning, I made it my job to find out why.'

'Is he a good worker, Mr Blengdale?'

'Very fair. A bit bolshie, but show me a working man who isn't these days. And he's as tough with the men as he is with the management.'

'Do you know his family?'

'I've met his wife at a works dinner.'

'But you don't know Sandra, his daughter?'

'Never laid eyes on her. Why do you ask? Is there any doubt? The way Burkill talks, it's an open and shut case.'

'It's being investigated,' said Pascoe cautiously. 'We've got to move carefully.'

'I suppose so,' said Blengdale. 'Bloody women can say owt and get away with it. Look, I'm sorry if I said anything out of place about your missus just now. I'm old-fashioned, you see. Not used to fighting with women, so I look around for their menfolk to have a go at. That used to be the way of it. Gwen, my love, the Inspector's just going.'

'Goodbye, Mr Pascoe,' said Gwen Blengdale who had appeared from the garden bearing a bunch of narcissi. 'Would your wife like these, do you think? I'm thinning them out and it's such a shame to waste them.'

'That's most kind of you,' said Pascoe. 'She'll be delighted, I know.'

He took the flowers and laid them beside him on the passenger seat of the car.

Blengdale spoke through the window.

'You have much to do with Andy Dalziel?'

'Well, yes. He's my boss, in fact,' said Pascoe.

'Is he? Well, you've got my sympathy. He's a right hard bastard, that one. Cheerio, Inspector.'

'Cheerio,' said Pascoe.

'And take it easy down the drive,' said Blengdale, adding, as Pascoe wondered how to respond to this solicitude, 'That bloody Z-car stuff knocks hell out of the gravel.'

Chapter 11

Dinner went well that night.

He arrived home at six-thirty to smell his favourite roast duck just beginning to spit in the oven and to find between the front door and the bedroom a trail of garments which even a Chief Constable could have followed without difficulty.

'What,' he said to Ellie as they lay on the patch-work counterpane, 'would you have done if I'd been late?'

'Eaten cold duck,' she answered. 'Now tell me, what kind of day have you had?'

'The last fifty minutes have been great.'

'A nothing,' she said. 'An appetizer. A mere prolegomenon. Let's start eating. I mean literally.'

'Anything new on the political front?' he enquired as they scraped the green flesh from their avocados.

'We had a meeting this afternoon,' said Ellie. 'God, that man Blengdale!'

'The fascist pig who feathers his own sty,' said Pascoe.

'I couldn't get the words out properly,' said Ellie, shamefaced. 'Hey, how do you know I said that?'

'We have our sources. What brought on that particular bit of abuse?'

'Well, I had a phone call at lunch-time. It was your dentist friend . . .'

'Shorter?' said Pascoe, amazed.

'No. Thelma Lacewing. Did you know she was related to Blengdale?'

'Yes.'

'That's the trouble with being married to a policeman.'

'What did she want?'

'Well, first of all she wondered if I'd care to lunch with her one day this week. She thinks I may be interested in WRAG. But then, just before she rang off, she asked me what the college staff thought about the place becoming a country club. I thought she was joking, of course, but no, she insisted, very cool, that that's what she'd heard. Close the college, bring the survivors into town and lease the site and buildings to a private consortium for development into a combined country club and sports complex!'

Pascoe whistled.

'Sounds a bit far-fetched!' he said.

'That's what I thought till I saw Blengdale's face when I mentioned it,' said Ellie grimly. 'I've no doubt about it. I've been on to the local papers, the lot. We'll soon ferret out the truth. But you haven't told me how you know what I said to God.'

Pascoe hesitated. Usually he was very careful not to discuss his cases too closely with Ellie. It wasn't a matter of trust, merely of professionality. Like a priest or a doctor, he mocked himself. But such olive branches as had been waved in his direction tonight deserved more than self-righteous reticence.

'Typical,' said Ellie after he'd finished. 'If the bastard was mixed up with Haggard, he's even rottener than I thought. I'm sure Ms Lacewing would disapprove but would you like to assert your masculinity and carve the duck. How was she, by the way? As a dentist, I mean?'

She'd done it with cherries, his favourite. Might as well be hung for a duck as a lamb, thought Pascoe.

Ellie listened fascinated.

'My God!' she said. 'You can't get away from it, can you, Peter? What exactly is the girl alleging?'

'I've no idea. Dalziel was seeing her this afternoon, I think.'

'Poor sod,' said Ellie.

'The girl? Or Dalziel?' said Pascoe.

'Shorter. Innocent or guilty the poor sod's in for a rough time. What do you think, Peter?'

'I don't know. I can't really believe it, but I haven't had a chance to talk to him.'

'But you were there,’ said Ellie.

'Jack was being patched up. And when Dalziel arrived he kept us well apart. Also he suggested we should stay well apart.'

'Did he?' said Ellie. 'Afraid of friendship, is he?'

'He just doesn't want either of us to run the risk of this man Burkill stirring up hints of collusion, that's all. In any case, I'm not sure that I am a friend of Shorter's in any real sense.'

'You confide your fantasies to him.'

'One
of my fantasies,' said Pascoe. 'I've never had any of his in return.'

'Perhaps you have now,' said Ellie.

They ate their duck in silence for a while. The skin cracked between the teeth and was sharply flavoured. The rich meat slid and crumbled and dissolved against the tongue.

'What does fat Andy think?' asked Ellie.

'Thumbs down. I think he's building up to claiming foresight. Last week when I told him what Shorter said about that film, his only reaction was that people like dentists and doctors shouldn't react to erotic stimuli. Since then Shorter's been accused of assaulting a minor and his film theory's turned out to be a load of cock. Dalziel reckons he was just trying to pave the way for the revelation he knew must come.'

'That's a bit far-fetched.'

'So I said. Dalziel says that under stress, everyone can behave in an extraordinary fashion. The courts seem to support him.'

'Still . . . more wine?'

'I'll leave a mouthful to wash down the cheese. There
is
some cheese?'

'Stilton.After my green fig flan.'

 'Oh Jesus.'

The figs were rich and sticky and sweet as decay; the Stilton pungent and creamy.

'Now, a large brandy and fifteen minutes' rest.'

'Fifteen minutes? I'll need a day.'

He held out for ten.

'Peter,' said Ellie some time between 10
p.m. and 6 a.m.

'Yes?'

'How'd you find out that Shorter's theory was a load of cock?'

'On Friday. I told you.'

'We haven't exchanged more than ten polite words since last Thursday, remember?'

'We've exchanged more than that tonight.'

'I know it. So, what happened on Friday?'

'I saw the girl,' said Pascoe. 'The woman in the film. Linda Abbott. Nice woman. Unmarked face. All her own teeth.'

'Lucky old thing. You saw the woman who played the kidnapped wife?'

'That's what I said.'

'And you just saw one woman?'

'Yes. Why? There only was one.'

'Oh Peter,' said Ellie, laughing. 'God, you men! One tit's just like another!'

'What,' said Pascoe, growing more and more awake, 'are you talking about?'

'I saw that film on Friday night, remember?' said Ellie. 'Believe me, the actress who got banged on the chin and the actress who played the blushing bride at the beginning and end of the film were two completely different people!'

Dalziel was offensively unimpressed.

'Suppose she's right, so what?'

'So I haven't proved that Shorter was wrong.'

'So what, again?'

'So there's still a chance that he was right and, if that's so, your notion that he made it all up as part of a subtle ingratiation plan falls a bit flat.'

'Why?' said Dalziel, scratching the folds of skin on his neck. 'Let's imagine, because it's only public money we're wasting by sitting here imagining things, let's imagine your Ellie is right. Further, let's imagine that Shorter is genuinely convinced something nasty really did happen in that scene. What's it all amount to? When he wanted an excuse to get chatting to you, he didn't have to make anything up, that's all. Except perhaps his deep concern. Am I right?'

Distasteful though it was to have to bow to ratiocinative powers wielded like a shillelagh, Pascoe had to admit he was right.

'Now, listen to this,' said Dalziel. 'I saw Sandra Burkill yesterday afternoon. She'd already made a statement to a WPC so she was quite happy to talk. She'd got the difficult bit over, actually giving the details.'

'And what were the details?'

'Well, a couple of months ago the girl started a course of treatment. Her teeth were in a bad way and she needed a lot of fillings plus a bit of straightening-out work. She said she didn't mind too much as it got her out of school. First time there, her mother went with her, but after that she went alone except sometimes she was accompanied by a friend, Marilyn Brewer.

'The assaults started on her third visit. While drilling a tooth, Shorter pressed very close against her and she realized that his penis was erect.'

'She said that?' asked Pascoe.

'Of course not. She said she could feel something hard.'

'But she didn't know what?'

Dalziel glared at him in exasperation.

'Of course she bloody well knew what. She's thirteen, living in the 1970s, where they draw diagrams and show films about it in the junior schools. For God's sake, there was none of that when I was thirteen, but I tell you, the lassies around then would have known what, too!'

'I'm convinced,' said Pascoe. 'Go on.'

Dalziel unfolded the rest of the story succinctly. The girl hadn't been too distressed. Shorter was fairly 'dishy' and she'd boasted about it as a conquest to her friend, Marilyn. Each successive visit had seen an advancement of the intimacy, and eventually the pretence of the accidental touch had been discarded.

'So the girl is saying she was a willing partner?' said Pascoe.

'At twelve?With a dentist? In law there's no such thing and you bloody know it,' answered Dalziel. 'Any road, that's not the end of it.'

The end of it had been full sexual intercourse, in the surgery, with the girl (according to her version) now feeling too involved and too frightened to resist.

Now Pascoe
was
incredulous.

'In the surgery?' he demanded. 'You must be joking. What the hell was Alison - the nurse - doing all this time?'

'According to Sandra, she had been sent off early to lunch so that she could pick up some X-ray prints Shorter said he must have for afternoon surgery.'

'And according to Alison?'

'According to Alison, dear Mr Shorter couldn't possibly do anybody any wrong and at the first hint of close questioning she burst into tears.'

'Who was asking the questions?'

'Inspector Trumper. Last night I went round to see Shorter.'

'And?'

'He's suffered a relapse since getting home, his wife told me. Their doctor had been and the poor chap was in bed, heavily sedated, unable to talk to anyone.'

‘I don't blame him. Look, sir, you saw him yesterday after the attack. Can you really imagine Shorter laying the girl on his surgery couch in the middle of the day, even if the nurse was out of the way? Anybody could walk in - MacCrystal; Ms Lacewing; the receptionist; even a lost patient!'

'Perhaps.Last of the morning, though. Everyone going off to lunch. MacCrystal's in the Conservative Club bar at twelve sharp most days. It all adds up.'

'There's little enough to add,' said Pascoe sceptically. 'I hate these cases. You get an unsupported allegation and it all comes down to guesswork and prejudice in the end.'

'Not quite unsupported,' said Dalziel in the diffident tone which Pascoe knew usually heralded triumph.

'What?'

'The girl Marilyn. She was Sandra's confidante - is that right? There's no fun in anything for a woman unless she can tell someone else about it. Well, Marilyn's had a blow-by-blow account. Just hearsay, but it is supportive. Also when I talked with her last night, she said that on one of the early visits, she was actually in the surgery when Shorter was working on Sandra and noticed him pressing his crutch up against her. After that, she says, Shorter asked her to stay in the waiting-room.'

He paused. Pascoe knew he wasn't finished but refused to prompt.

'The quack took a look at Sandra last night. She's not a virgin.'

'It can easily happen,' said Pascoe. 'All kinds of ways. Any doctor'll tell you.'