Arms and the Women (28 page)

'Stronger than Yorkshire tea? Does such a liquor exist? No, tea will suit me very well. What a charming little place you have here. Charming. Reminds me of my niece's mews cottage in Chelsea, except that her place seems to me to have had all the character modernized out of it. I'm so pleased to see you've had the good taste not to tinker.'

Dalziel looked round the small square sitting room he'd led the way into. It was true, he hadn't tinkered. In fact, it had changed very little from the way it had looked when he and his wife moved in all those years ago, and not at all from the way it looked when she moved out a few years later. But it was tidy and clean, what more could a man ask?

'Aye, bags of character here if that's what you're looking for,' he said, filling the cup he'd plucked from the dresser. 'Thinking of making me an offer? I'd expect Chelsea prices.'

'Ah, the gap between expectation and achievement is filled with the screams of good men, still falling,' said Sempernel. 'Except in the case of Yorkshire tea which exceeds all report.'

He put down the cup from which he'd taken a cautious sip and regarded quizzically the plateful of Eccles cakes Dalziel was offering him.

'Thank you, no,' he said. 'A clear head requires a clear stomach. First things first, Mr Dalziel. I shall come straight to the point, as you are famed as a man who approves direct speaking. Indeed, outside the court this morning you spoke directly to a colleague of mine and made a passing reference to myself. I am intrigued to know how you came to make a connection between myself and the gentleman you were addressing?'

'Lucky guess,' said Dalziel off-handedly. 'I can spot a funny bugger two miles off. Must be the way they walk. You ought to do summat about that. As for you, well, yours is the only name I know, isn't it? For all I knew you might be retired to Eastbourne, or pushing up the daisies. So, lucky guess.'

'Lucky indeed,' said Sempernel dryly. 'Let me know if you start selling racing tips. So you have flushed me out. I too have flushed you out of our record system. Your file made interesting reading as I flew up this afternoon. I see that I expressed some doubts as to whether you were in fact quite so intellectually limited as you were at pains to appear last time we met. I am both pleased and disappointed to have my percipience confirmed. Though your performance in court hardly gave the impression of a fine mind at full stretch.'

'Just badly prepared, and yon cow on the bench had a few old scores to pay.'

Sempernel shook his head, smiling.

'No, I don't think so, Mr Dalziel. I think you set out to get the application for a further remand in custody refused. And having succeeded in that, you threw away any chance of persuading me that it was simple inadvertence by going out of your way to embarrass my observer in the court vestibule. Now why did you do this, Mr Dalziel? What is your peculiar interest in Ms Cornelius?'

'Me, I've got none,' said the Fat Man. 'But you lot must have. Stood out a mile something odd were going on. Tying up my DCI in court on a simple assault charge, banging restrictions on the file. I thought at first it were just Fraud playing funny buggers. They like a bit of cloak and dagger, that lot. Then I got to thinking.'

'Thinking, eh? You really are the most surprising fellow, Mr Dalziel,' said Sempernel, trying his tea again. 'And where did your thinking lead you?'

'Led me to wonder, what if the real funny buggers were involved? What if when Cornelius took off, you lot were on her case, watching to see where she'd lead you. Then she got involved in the accident, and my DCI happened to be on the spot, and he's so sharp he's forever cutting himself, and suddenly she's under arrest for assault and under investigation for fraud and you don't know what the hell to do. So you decide, let's keep her under wraps on the assault charge while you make up your mind what to do next. How'm I doing?'

'Well. You are doing well. But I still do not understand why you decided to take such an active part in the affair?'

Dalziel inserted a whole Eccles cake into his mouth, chewed twice and swallowed.

'Impulse,' he said. 'My DCI got tied up, couldn't make it to court this morning. I thought I'd go along myself, see what was what. And when I saw what had to be one of your lads sitting alongside Barney Hubbard at the back, I thought, bugger this for a lark, let's piss into the junction box and see what happens.'

Sempernel shook his head impatiently.

'Won't do, Mr Dalziel. For you to draw attention to yourself in this way - and you must be aware that people who piss into junction boxes often get nasty shocks - you must have had some motive stronger than a sudden urge to make mischief.'

'All right, I'll tell you,' said Dalziel. 'My DCI and his family have been through a lot lately. A right bad time. They survived. Now, a couple of days back, someone starts throwing a different kind of shit at them. I've been looking to see where it might be coming from. There's various possibilities, but this case looks to be up there with the strong contenders. So just on the off chance I'm right, I wanted to take it out of his lap and give notice to anyone who cares to hear that I'll not have folk I'm fond of mucked about. OK?'

Sempernel pursed his lips in puzzlement, like a maiden aunt being offered a good deal on a vibrator.

'So just on the off chance, as you put it, you interfere recklessly with what you suspect might be a case of much greater import than appears on the surface? You must be very fond indeed of Mr Pascoe and his family. Indeed, in the eyes of some people, you may appear fond in the older sense of the word.'

'Aye, mebbe. You come to have me sectioned, have you? Or do you reckon I'm a suitable case for Care in the Community?'

'That would depend on how much I cared
for
the community in question, I think, Mr Dalziel.'

'Oh aye? And how much is that?'

'More perhaps than you, when you consider the reckless abandon with which you release criminals into it.'

'Criminal? Don't recollect owt about a conviction. Any road, what's the problem? She's got to check in with us on a daily basis and I don't doubt you've got your spooks haunting her wherever she goes . . . hang about though. I'm getting a funny feeling in my piles . . . she's slipped the leash, hasn't she? Come twelve noon tomorrow, clocking-in time, she's not going to show. That's why you're here, isn't it?'

Sempernel put his hands together in a soundless clap and said, 'Perhaps after all I will have one of those curious sweetmeats. They obviously do wonders for the intellect.'

He took an Eccles cake and sank his teeth into it.

'Charming,’ he said. 'Flaky on the outside, succulent within, an experience almost Greek in its intensity. Let us assume you are right, Mr Dalziel. Let us assume that Ms Cornelius went for a stroll in the park and somehow contrived to evade the surveillance of one of my operatives, who is now looking forward to a prolonged stint of duty in our Falklands Office. What then do you imagine the true purpose of my visit is? Apart from the obvious one of spelling out your punishment for such unwarranted interference in matters of state far beyond your brief or competence?'

Dalziel pondered a while then said tentatively, 'Help? You could reckon that when it comes to tracking down a missing person in Mid-Yorkshire, a fat old cop with a bit of local knowledge might be worth half a dozen funny buggers with microphones up their jacksies. Also, by telling me now, you get me on the job twelve hours or so before I'd have found out officially there was a job to be on.'

He looked expectantly at his visitor, who nodded approvingly and said, 'With what is in terms of my trade a very slight adjustment, you are completely right, Mr Dalziel. The slight adjustment is to stand everything you've said on its head. I have come to tell you that tomorrow morning when you learn officially of Cornelius's disappearance, I would appreciate it if you did nothing. Go through whatever motions are necessary to keep you right with the formidable Mrs Broomhill, but if you or your operatives come within sniffing distance of Cornelius's spoor, you are to turn and gallop off in quite the opposite direction. Do I make myself clear?'

'Nay, you can make yourself clear as a prossie's price list, but I take my orders from Mr Trimble.'

'Your Chief Constable?' Sempernel began to laugh. 'I am sure he would be delighted to learn of this change of heart. Mr Trimble has, of course, been put in the picture and will no doubt speak with you in the morning. But it is my reading of your relationship with him that brings me here this evening. You may find ways of doing more or less what you will within the elastic confines of your constabular hierarchy, but in this matter you will be stepping outside your league, and after our little talk tonight, you can no longer offer a plea of inadvertence. Consider yourself warned off, Superintendent. Any further attempt to interfere in this business can only result in the direst consequences for yourself as well as for your what-did-you-call-them? Your friends. A cobbler should stick to his last, Mr Dalziel. Kelly Cornelius is not part of your mystery. I use the word in its medieval sense, of course.'

He stood up.

'You off then?' said Dalziel. 'You've not finished your tea.'

'Busy, busy,' said Sempernel.

He went out into the tiny entrance hall and opened the front door.

On the step he said, 'I take it we understand each other, Mr Dalziel.'

'Stick to my last. Got it,' said Dalziel reassuringly.

'Excellent. Do apologize to Ms Marvell if I have spoiled her evening. Good day to you.'

Dalziel closed the door gently after him as Cap came down the stairs.

'Sounds like I might as well have stayed to meet him after all,' she said.

'No, you might have caught something,' said Dalziel.

They went back into the sitting room.

'So, are you going to tell me about him?'

'Rather listen to the wireless.'

He switched on an old wooden-cased radio, spun the dial till he found some pop music and turned the volume up high.

'Good Lord,' said Cap. 'Are we being bugged? How exciting.'

'No point taking chances,' said Dalziel. 'Shall I make some more tea?'

'No, just tell me what's going on.'

'You tell me how much you earwigged first.'

She smiled, and he said, 'As much as that? Who needs to plant bugs? Well, you'll have got the gist.'

'So tell me, what exactly is this man, Sempernel?'

'You're too young to understand the words. Officially I expect he's got a title like Assistant Director Department 55A (Intelligence). I met him a few years back. There was a case involving . . . well, least said, soonest mended, but it were pretty murky and I were glad to come out of it without too much damage.'

'Damage? You mean, physical?'

'That too. But there's more ways of breaking bones than tickling your ribs with an iron bar. There was a public version, and an official version, and the truth. I let on I went along with the official version.'

'You mean you let them think you weren't really bright enough to get near the truth?'

'More or less.'

'But now they'll begin to wonder, won't they? I mean, the way you got onto them. Incidentally, Andy, I didn't find your explanation all that convincing. All that stuff about getting to thinking and lucky guesses and spotting a funny bugger a mile off. I'm your greatest admirer but that's a load of crap, isn't it?'

'You've been keeping bad company,' admonished the Fat Man. 'But you're right. I got this message over the computer. All about Kelly Cornelius. All about how her job's laundering money for South American subversives. No indication of where it came from, but it mentioned my old chum, Pimpernel, and that made it sound like the horse's mouth.'

'Couldn't have been Sempernel himself, could it?' said Cap, frowning.

'Don't see what's in it for him, but it's true he's so devious, he probably pees through his ears. Or maybe he's got another kind of leak.'

'In which case, won't he have spotted that you were being a bit economical with the actualite? And won't that get him seriously worried?'

'Doubt it,' said Dalziel confidently. 'I've got one big advantage over sods like old Pimpernel. He's like you. Born with a silver spoon up his jacksie, went to the best schools, all that stuff, and he's clever enough to suss out that mebbe an uncouth slob like me may be brighter than appearances suggest. But he's got a built-in genetic governor which stops him from ever admitting that even a very good cobbler could possibly run the shoe shop.'

'I thought I heard you promise to stick to your last.'

'Oh aye. And I meant it. Have you ever seen my last?'

'Not for a little while.'

'Lot of hammering involved.'

'Is that so? Tell you what, why don't we let those poor chaps out there hear a craftsman at his work?'

She stood up, switched the radio off and began to undo her skirt.