A Pinch of Snuff (23 page)

'Pascoe?That Inspector? What's he want? Fetch him in here, Charlie,' commanded the voice. And to reinforce the seriousness of the order, the television sound was turned down.

Down, but not off. 'Off' was for deaths in the family, recalled Pascoe from memories of his own family on his father's side (not much referred to by his own family on his mother's side). There was a range of permitted sound level for other events and visitors ranging from almost inaudible for the vicar, non-family deaths, and juicy scandal, to full blast for the insurance man, the rent man, and anything political.

'Police' obviously came almost alongside non-family deaths, and on the twenty-six-inch colour screen a man with the face of a dissipated gnome whispered in manic glee as an old woman tried to jump through a hoop.

Mrs Heppelwhite was not alone. Seated alongside her on the calf-hide sofa was another woman, of an age but not yet thickened into monolith. Pascoe had often remarked the strange process by which northern women of a certain age became their own statues, solid, monumental, larger than lifesize. This one had missed it and, though far from slim, was well proportioned, had shining black, elegantly styled hair and a round, attractive, vaguely oriental face.

'What's our Colin done?' demanded Betsy Heppelwhite, rising menacingly as the reluctant Pascoe was ushered in.

'I just want to talk to him, that's all,' said Pascoe. 'A few questions.'

'What about?' demanded the woman. 'Is it still this business with Sandra?'

The other woman started and Pascoe guessed who she was before Heppelwhite intervened to say, 'Inspector, have you met Mrs Burkill, Sandra's mam?'

'No, I haven't,' said Pascoe. 'How do you do? I just called at your house, Mrs Burkill. I thought I might have a chat with Sandra, if that's all right. But she wasn't in.'

The woman looked surprised.

'She was in when I came round here,' she said.

'Oh, she'll have gone down the chippie,' said Mrs Heppelwhite. 'You still haven't said what you want with our Colin, Inspector.'

'Just to talk,' said Pascoe blandly, though he knew that more than blandness was going to be needed here.

'Right,' she said. 'You can talk. But I'll be there when you do.'

'Really, there's no need,' said Pascoe. 'I was just going to pop into the shed and have a few words while he's cleaning his bike.'

'Come on then,' said Mrs Heppelwhite. 'I'll show you. Charlie, make a cup of tea.'

She strode out of the living-room and the others followed, like tugs behind a liner. Heppelwhite and Deirdre Burkill stopped at the kitchen door while Pascoe and Mrs Heppelwhite moved in silence over the springy lawn towards a substantial shed at the bottom of the garden. A light showed through the single-paned window, but there was no sound of tinkering within and Pascoe had a premonition that Clint had somehow become aware of his presence and made off.

But when Mrs Heppelwhite flung open the shed door, he realized he couldn't have been more wrong.

Clint Heppelwhite was there all right, but not tinkering with his bike.

He lay on the floor on some old sacking, his jeans unbelted and pushed down over his buttocks. Alongside him lay a girl with her blouse opened and her bra pushed up over her breasts. She was holding the youth's penis in her left hand while his right hand lay between her legs. She turned her round attractive face towards the door and for a brief moment regarded the intruders with Chinese inscrutability. Pascoe saw the family resemblance instantly.

Then she started screaming. Clint pushed himself to his feet, his face slack with shock. His mother, after a moment of utter stillness, advanced swinging her fists like a fairground boxer and shouting, 'You stupid sod . . . you little cow . . . bitch . . . thick . . . I'll kill you, I'll murder you.'

Her blows were being aimed as indiscriminately as her abuse. Pascoe advanced, recognizing a duty to interpose his own body, and discovered that her indiscrimination included him. The two youngsters were attempting to take evasive action, the shed shook and the gleaming motor-bike, with its front wheel removed and surrounded by oil cans and spanners, toppled slowly off its stand.

Clint let out a cry of agony and wrath and for a second looked as if he might be going to attack his mother.

Then from the doorway came an outraged cry of
'Sandra'
and everything stopped. Everything except Clint's attempts to right his motor-bike and pull up his jeans at the same time. Sandra Burkill made no attempt to adjust her disordered clothing but stood against the furthermost wall, breathing hard, and regarding her mother with calm indifference.

'Get yourself fastened up,' grated Deirdre Burkill. Her voice was low with repressed anger. Behind her Charlie Heppelwhite's long anxious face moved from side to side to get a better view into the crowded shed. He had one hand on Deirdre's shoulder, though whether in comfort or restraint Pascoe could not decide. If restraint, it wasn't very successful as the next moment proved.

Sandra said, 'Keep your sodding hair on,' and started to pull down her bra in a manner which may or may not have been deliberately provocative. Pascoe didn't think there was enough space left in the crowded shed for speedy movement but he was wrong. With a cry of 'You stupid little cow!' Deirdre Burkill shouldered aside all intervening bodies as she flung herself forward and delivered a full-blooded slap across her daughter's face.

'Bloody-little-tart,' she went on, punctuating each word with another blow. Sandra crouched low in the face of this onslaught, covering up with her arms, and Mrs Heppelwhite having had her role as assailant taken away from her now assumed that of defender.

'Stop that, Deirdre!' she commanded, grappling with her friend from behind, and Sandra, seeing her chance, scrambled along the floor and towards the doorway. Here she paused to yell over her shoulder, 'You can fucking talk!' Then as her mother threatened a renewed onslaught, she pushed past Heppelwhite and disappeared into the darkness.

'Don't just stand there looking stupid!' commanded the thin man's wife. 'See where the lass goes!'

Charlie nodded but didn't move immediately. Then with a despairing shake of his head, he turned and went in pursuit.

Pascoe's mind was working furiously. Ideally he would have liked to talk to almost everybody, alone, immediately, while their pulses were still racing. Failing that, Clint was as good a place to start as any.

'Mrs Heppelwhite,' he said. 'Mrs Burkill's upset. Why don't you take her up to the house and get her a cup of tea? Make one for us all, eh?'

To his surprise she made no demur, but put her arm round her friend's shoulders and led her out. Pascoe suspected the respite would not be long, so he turned immediately to the youth who had now righted both his motor-bike and his trousers and said, 'So it was you, was it? All the time.'

'What?'

'Screwing the Burkill kid. Whose idea was it to blame the dentist?'

'What d'you mean?' demanded Clint.

'Oh come on, Heppelwhite! You were caught at it! With my own eyes, I saw it! Is this where you always met? Handy, eh? Just over the garden hedge!'

'Don't be bloody stupid! You're bloody daft, you are!'

'And you're bloody insane if you think you can get away with talking to me like that!' snapped Pascoe, taking a menacing step towards the youth who retreated behind his bike in alarm.

'You've got it all wrong,' he said in a more moderate tone. 'Tonight was the first time I'd touched her. Honest. I was just working on the bike and she came in, dead casual like. Well, she sometimes did. You know how kids are, hanging around. She was just a kid, I'd never thought of her as owt but just a kid.'

'Don't give me that! Are you blind? I bet you've mangled your meat many a time over pictures of skinnier lasses than Sandra!' said Pascoe coarsely.

'I never thought of her as owt else but a kid!' insisted Clint. 'Not till tonight. But it was different, now I knew . . .'

'What?'

'That she were in the club. Someone had poked her. I knew that and it made a difference.'

The boy spoke defiantly and convincingly, but Pascoe was a long way from being ready to be convinced.

'So you just grabbed her!' he sneered. 'And she said OK. Just like that!'

'Just about,' said Clint. 'We sort of bumped into each other. It's not very big this place. That's how it got started.'

Pascoe changed his tack.

'Listen, lad,' he said confidentially. 'There's nothing to be ashamed of, really. No one'll blame you. Don't get me wrong. You're not going to get away with anything, but we've got you now anyway. So why not give us it straight.'

'What d'you mean, got me?' demanded Clint.

Pascoe shook his head in mock bewilderment.

'What's this all about, lad, but illegal carnal knowledge of a girl under age? I mean, you’re not going to deny that, are you? I was here. Your mother was here. Your father was here.
Her
mother was here. We all saw it. It won't help saying you were the second or even the fifty-second. You're the one who's been caught on the job. So why muck up that dentist's life? What've you got against the poor bastard?'

'Nothing. I've got nothing against him!' denied Clint.

'Oh? Is that why you were squirting weed-killer over his lawn last night?' asked Pascoe.

'That was because he'd been playing around with Sandra,' insisted the youth. 'These sods think they can . . .'

He tailed off as he became aware of his admission.

'Come on,' said Pascoe abruptly.

'Where?'

'Up to the house first. Then down to the station. What did you think? I was going to smack your wrist and send you off to bed without any supper?'

Back in the house, he found the two women sitting in the living-room drinking tea. The telly had been switched off.

'What's he been saying to you?' demanded Mrs Heppelwhite of her son.

Pascoe answered.

'I've been questioning your boy about two offences, Mrs Heppelwhite. One involves an assault on a girl under the age of consent. The other involves trespass and wilful damage, to wit, entering upon the property of Mr Jack Shorter and applying weed-killer to his lawn. This offence he has admitted, the other he can hardly deny.'

This reduced Mrs Heppelwhite to silence momentarily and during the moment, her husband came in.

'Where's Sandra?' asked Deirdre Burkill.

'At home,' said Charlie. 'It's all right. I made her a cup of tea.'

'I'd better go,' said the woman.

'Hold on just a second,' said Pascoe. 'I'll come with you. I'd like a quick word with the girl, if you don't mind.'

'I wanted to send for Bri,' said Mrs Heppelwhite to her husband. 'But Deirdre wouldn't let me.'

'Probably best,' said Charlie. 'Let things settle first.'

'They'll be a while settling,' said Pascoe. 'I'm taking your son down to the station with me to make a statement.'

'You're what?'

'He says something about Colin putting weed-killer on that dentist's garden,' said Mrs Heppelwhite.

'Is that right, Clint?'

To Pascoe's relief the boy nodded miserably. If he had started denying it now, it could have made things difficult.

'The dirty bugger had it coming to him,' said Deirdre Burkill savagely. 'And worse.'

'He's got worse,' said Pascoe. 'His wife could be dead by this time. She took an overdose.'

His words turned off all sound as firmly as the television switch.

'Oh God,' said Charlie Heppelwhite finally.

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Remember that. There's no way of getting at just one person. Others have to suffer too. Mr Heppelwhite, I'll leave Clint here with you for a couple of minutes. I'm sure you'll be able to persuade him it'd be pointless and futile to take off. Mrs Burkill, ready?'

'For what?' said the woman, but she accompanied him out of the house without protest.

There was a gap in the hedge between the two back gardens and after they had pushed through it, Mrs Burkill stopped and turned to Pascoe.

'Is it right what you said about that fellow's wife?' she asked.

'Yes,' said Pascoe.

'What'd she do a thing like that for?'

'Who knows?' said Pascoe.

'It makes you bloody wonder, doesn't it?' said the woman wearily. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky and shook her head. Pascoe looked up too. The stars were at their old confidence trick. As they watched, on the western horizon one fell.

'Make a wish,' said Deirdre Burkill and opened her kitchen door.

Sandra was sitting in the living-room with the television on. The room was like Burkill's front garden, neat and tidy enough, but untouched by the hand of enthusiasm. The furniture belonged to the early fifties and a coal fire burnt in the original old black range. Only an onyx clock, presented for fifteen years as secretary at the Westgate Club, brought a touch of modernity to the decor. And it was wrong.

'You all right?' asked Deirdre.

The girl didn't answer and her mother angrily pulled the television plug from its socket.

'I were watching that!' protested Sandra.

Pascoe didn't want another domestic battle and walkout, so he intervened swiftly.

'Sandra, I'm Detective-Inspector Pascoe. I'd like a chat with you if you don't mind.'

He sat down beside her on the sofa and wished he had a WPC with him and Mrs Burkill out of the room. He studied the girl carefully. Apart from her fully developed figure, there was nothing remarkable for her age, and these days even that wasn't very remarkable. She wore no make-up; her hair was long, brown and straight, apparently untouched by rollers and setting lotions; her plain white blouse (now buttoned up) and straight grey skirt belonged in the old tradition of school uniform.

There must be thousands like her, he thought. Except that there
was
something else, a kind of sensuous aura, which he would have dismissed as a simple masculine response to knowledge of her experience and condition (Clint's defence, he recollected) had it not been for his strong sense of the same quality in her mother.

'I want to ask about you and Clint, Sandra,' he said gently. 'Has it been going on long?'