Child's Play (6 page)

A phenomenon often observed by Thackeray in his clients was the greater the guilt, the greater the indignation. It was a reaction he understood now, for there was no denying that without her great-aunt's influence, Lexie Huby would never have done for Messrs Thackeray etcetera. Not that she lacked qualifications, but she was awkward of manner, careless of appearance, spoke what few words she managed to get out with a strong Yorkshire accent, and looked like a twelve-year-old. But when old ladies of great wealth pronounce, old lawyers of good sense take heed, and Lexie had been taken on and hidden away in the nethermost reaches among the storage cabinets and deed boxes so that she would not besmirch the Messrs Thackeray etcetera image.

That had been three years ago. Only a month after she joined the firm, old Mrs Huby had had her first stroke. Had it proved fatal, there was little doubt in Thackeray's mind that after a decent interval, little Lexie might well have been urged to seek a job more suited to her taste and talents.

But the three years that passed had seen a change, not so much in the girl herself who seemed almost indistinguishable from the odd little creature who had first arrived, but in Thackeray's conception of her. Observation and report had slowly convinced him there was genuine intelligence here. Checking back, he had seen that her school references all said she could have stayed on after O-levels, but family pressure had been brought to bear. That awful man Huby! Thackeray shuddered every time he thought of him. It was partly as an anti-Huby gesture, partly because he liked to toss the occasional cat among the complacent office pigeons, but mainly on the basis of true desert that he had elevated this little sparrow to Miss Dickinson's perch.

'Lexie, I won't deny your aunt's influence helped you get the job, but it's your own abilities that will keep you in it,' he said rather tartly. 'Now, what do you think of these letters?'

'Well, they'd all like the money sooner rather than later, but from the sound of the letter and from him coming all this way to see you, this Mr Goodenough at PAWS is the one who'll do something about it.'

'Excellent. Yes, even before he telephoned, I guessed that Mr Andrew Goodenough was going to be the focus of action.'

'You don't seem bothered, Mr Eden,' said Lexie in a puzzled voice.

'Bothered! I'm delighted, Lexie. Merely administering the estate until 2015 would be very dull. Not unprofitable, of course, but dull. But if we have to act on behalf of the estate against an attempt to overturn the will, that could be both lively and extremely profitable. Instant money too, always welcome. So, bring on the lawsuits I say!'

He sat back, pleased at being able to show this naive young thing what a sharp and worldly fellow he really was.

The naive young thing, far from looking impressed, was glancing at her watch.

'Am I keeping you from something, Lexie?' he said sharply.

'Oh no. I mean, I'm sorry, Mr Eden, it's just that I've got an appointment in my lunch-hour and it's nearly half past twelve . . .'

She looked so distressed, his sternness dissolved instantly.

'Then you must run along,' he said.

She left, darting from the room with the swiftness of a wren. An appointment? Hairdresser perhaps, though that close crop of indeterminately brown straight hair didn't look as if it owed much to the coiffeur's art. Dentist, then. Or boyfriend? Alas, least likely of all, he suspected. Poor little Lexie. He could see her growing old in the service of Messrs Thackeray etcetera. He must do what he could for her. Getting her out of the Old Mill Inn and away from the influence of that awful father of hers would be the first step. But how to manage it?

He sat quietly, applying his mind to the task. It was a good mind and it enjoyed the business of manipulating other people's destinies.

He heard the building emptying. His nephew and junior partner, Dunstan Thackeray, stuck his head round the door.

'Coming to the Gents', Uncle Eden?' he asked.

This was not the odd inquiry it sounded. The Gents was the familiar abbreviation of The Borough Club For Professional Gentlemen, the prestigious Victorian institution which had had a Thackeray on its founding committee and of which Eden was the president-elect. As a liberal modernist, he deplored and detested it. As a senior partner in Messrs Thackeray etcetera he had to keep his mouth shut. But he was not in the mood for the usual Gents diet, conversational as well as culinary, of traditional stodge.

'Later. I may be in later,' he said.

He heard his nephew's feet descend the stairs. Then all was silence. He fell into a reverie which a casual observer might have mistaken for a doze.

When he opened his eyes, it took him a few seconds to realize there actually was a casual observer to make the error.

Seated before him where Lexie had perched a little earlier was a man. There was something familiar about him, and not very pleasantly familiar either.

Suddenly it came to him. This was the same sunburnt intruder who had disturbed Gwendoline Huby's funeral.

He jumped up, alarmed.

'Who are you? How did you get in? What the devil do you want?'

The man stared at him as if looking for something in his face.

'You are Eden Thackeray?' he said.

He spoke with a certain hesitancy, like a man reassembling old ideas, old words.

'Yes, I am. And who are you?' repeated Thackeray.

'Who am I?' said the man. ‘In my passport and in my life for the past forty years, it says that I am Alessandro Pontelli of Florence. But the truth is that I am Alexander Lomas Huby and I have come to claim my inheritance!'

Chapter 5

'What's up with Wield?' said Dalziel.

'I don't know. Why?'

'He's been sort of distant these last few days, like he's got something on his mind. Perhaps he's decided on plastic surgery and can't decide whether to go for the blow-lamp or the road-drill.'

'I can't say I've noticed,' said Pascoe.

'Insensitivity, that's always been your trouble,' said Dalziel. He belched, then raised his voice and cried, 'Hey, Wieldy, bring us another of them pies, will you? And ask Jolly Jack if it's my turn to have the one with the meat in this month.'

No one paid any heed. Dalziel and his CID squad were lunch-time regulars in the Black Bull and familiarity had bred discretion. A minute later Wield returned from the bar with two pints of beer.

'You've not forgot my pie?'

The sergeant put the glasses down and reached into his jacket pocket.

'Christ,' said Dalziel. 'I'm glad I didn't ask for the
lasagna.
Cheers.'

Pascoe sipped his pint with a sigh. It was his second and he'd been promising both himself and Ellie to cut back on the calories for a few days. At least he'd only had one pie.

'What's up with you then, Sergeant? Not having another?'

Dalziel had just noticed Wield had not bought himself a drink. 'No, I'll just finish this, then I've got to be off.'

'Off? It's your lunch-hour!' expostulated Dalziel with the same note of exasperation he sounded if any of his flock showed the slightest sign of demur when told they were working till midnight or had to get up at four
A.M.

'I've some catching up to do,' said Wield vaguely. 'This shoplifting. And that Kemble business.'

'Anything new there, Wieldy?' asked Pascoe.

'Not much. I've been researching back through the old information sheets. There's this National Front spin-off group, works a lot through university students, bit different from the usual Front lot in that they keep their heads down, infiltrate Conservative student groups, that sort of thing. Not like your usual Front bully-boy who wants the world to admire his jackboots.'

Wield was sounding quite heated for him.

'What makes you think there could be a link here?' asked Pascoe.

'They call themselves White Heat,' said Wield.

'White Heat. That rings a bell,' said Dalziel.

'James Cagney. Top of the world, ma!' said Pascoe.

The other two looked at him blankly, clearly not sharing his passion for old Warner Brothers movies.

'One of the things sprayed on the Kemble was
White Heat Burns Blacks
,' said Wield, glancing at his watch.

He finished his beer, stood up and said, 'Best be off. Cheerio.'

Pascoe watched his departure with a feeling of faint concern. He hadn't been lying when he told Dalziel he had noticed nothing odd in the sergeant's behaviour recently, but now his mind had been steered in the right direction, he realized that there were a number of minor variations from the norm which, crushed together, might make a small oddity. It was annoying that Dalziel should have proved more percipient in this than himself. He wouldn't call Wield a friend, but a bond of respect and also of affection had developed between the men, a closeness signalled perhaps by his growing irritation at Dalziel's 'ugly' jokes.

His mind was diverted from the problem, if problem there was, by the landlord's voice from the bar.

'Sorry, love, but you don't look eighteen to me, and it's more than me licence is worth to sell you alcohol. You can have a fruit juice, but.'

It was, of course, a stage-loudness for their benefit, thought Pascoe. Though indeed Jolly Jack Mahoney, the licensee, might well have objected even without a police presence to serving this customer, a small bespectacled girl who didn't look much above thirteen.

Mahoney leaned over the bar and said in a quieter voice, if it's grub you're after, love, go through that door, there's a bit of a dining-room, the girl'll slip you a glass of wine with your meal, no bother. Them gents over there are the police, so you see my trouble.'

The girl did not move except to turn her head so that the owl-eye spectacles ringed Dalziel and Pascoe.

Her voice when she spoke was nervous but determined.

'I thought you boasted at the Licensed Victuallers Association that the police never bothered you as long as the CID could get drinks at all hours, Mr Mahoney.'

The publican's jaw dropped through shock into dismay.

'Hold on, hold on,' he said, glancing anxiously towards Dalziel who was viewing him malevolently. 'You shouldn't say things like that, lass. Do I know you?'

'You know my father, John Huby, I think.'

'Up at the Old Mill Inn? By God, is it little Lexie? Why didn't you say, lass! You must be near on twenty now. I know her, she's near on twenty!'

These last affirmations were directed towards Dalziel who finished his pint, placed the glass on the table and pointed menacingly into it, like Jahweh setting up a widow's cruse.

A young man had come into the bar, of medium height, elegantly coiffured and dressed in a black and yellow striped blazer, cheese-cloth shirt and cream-coloured slacks. His regularly handsome features broke into a gleaming smile as he spotted the girl and bore down on her, arms outstretched.

'Dear Lexie,' he cried. 'I am late. Forgive me. Purge me with a kiss.'

Pascoe was amused to see that the girl ducked at the last second from his questing lips and got him in the eye with her big spectacles. Then the newcomer obtained two glasses of white wine and a plateful of sandwiches from Mahoney and he and the small girl sat down at the far side of the room, still within sight but now out of earshot.

He returned his attention to Dalziel who was saying, 'That Mahoney, I'll need to have a quiet word about going around slandering the police.'

'Now?' said Pascoe.

'Don't be daft! When he's shut and we can get down to some serious drinking.'

And he bellowed with laughter at the sight of the pained expression on Pascoe's face.

At their distant table, Lexie and Rod Lomas heard the laugh, but only Lexie registered the source.

'I really am sorry I'm late,' Lomas was saying. 'But I'm afraid I still tend to think of all urban distances as minute outside of London. To compensate, I tend to treat all country distances as vast. Had we been meeting at your father's pub, say, I dare say I'd have been there an hour ago.'

Lexie did not reply but bit into a sandwich.

Lomas said with a smile, 'You don't say a great deal, do you, dear coz?'

'I were waiting for you to finish putting me at ease,' said Lexie.

'Oh dear,' said Lomas. 'I see I shall have to watch you, little Lexie.'

'I'm not your cousin, and I'm five feet two inches barefoot,' said Lexie.

'Oh dear,' repeated Lomas. 'Are there any other sensitive areas we ought to check out straightaway?'

'Why do you call yourself Lomas?' said Lexie. 'Your name is Windibanks, isn't it?'

He grinned and said, 'There you're wrong. It was changed quite legally by deed poll. Rod Lomas is in fact and law my name.'

'Why'd you change it?'

'As I launched myself on what I hoped would be a meteoric theatrical career, but what now looks like being a long steady haul to the top, it occurred to me that Rodney Windibanks was not a name to fit easily into lights. Rod Lomas on the other hand is short, punchy, memorable. Satisfied?'