Deadheads (14 page)

'Now as she talked and I looked, I began to sense there was something not quite right. Nothing specific, and nothing, I believed at that moment, very serious; the result probably of inexperience and being constantly badgered by Mrs McNeil. I had on occasion myself blinded her with science to give the impression I was doing the stupid thing she wanted me to do while in fact doing something else, or nothing at all. So after she'd gone, I went through the whole file very carefully with a view to doing Patrick a favour, nothing more.

'What I discovered devastated me. The whole thing was a charade. As he'd moved her monies hither and thither, he'd dropped off various amounts in the process, never very large individually, but over the three or four years he'd been managing the account amounting to about two-thirds of the whole. It was ingenious, but it was insane. Discovery was inevitable sooner or later. His only hope would have been if he'd had expectations of acquiring the money elsewhere and replacing it.'

Capstick paused and shook his old lion's head gloomily. As if she had been waiting near by for such a hiatus in his speech, Mrs Unger appeared, nodded approvingly at the empty plate, and removed the tea-tray.

After she'd gone, Pascoe said to the old man, 'And what did you do when you realized what had been going on?'

Capstick sighed and said, 'For a couple of days, nothing. I wanted to think, and Patrick was on his sick bed, remember. But on the third day, having ascertained by telephone that he was out of bed, I went to see him. I put it to him bluntly that I knew he'd been embezzling Mrs McNeil's money. He offered neither denial nor excuse, but sat regarding me with that air of quiet, controlled interest I knew so well. I told him that the first step I proposed was to inform the client, Mrs McNeil, of what had taken place. I would also assure her that the firm would indemnify her against however much of the loss proved unrecoverable. And I would offer her my full cooperation in the event of a police investigation.'

‘In the event of,' echoed Pascoe. 'So you had hopes it wouldn't come to that and you'd be able to protect the firm's name? Aldermann must have been relieved.'

'I doubt it, Mr Pascoe. I had no intention that my offer to indemnify Mrs McNeil should be seen as an inducement for her not to prosecute. I told Patrick that this interview with Mrs McNeil would take place, at my request, in the presence of her solicitor and he alone would be responsible for advising her legally. Does that satisfy your doubts?'

'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe. 'I meant no disrespect. I just wanted things to be clear in my mind. So the solicitor's advice was not to prosecute?'

'I'm not certain what it would have been,' said Capstick. 'You see, it was never given. When I contacted Mrs McNeil, I discovered that her cold had matured into 'flu and she too was in bed. Again I waited at the convenience of a virus. This time the waiting was in vain.'

'What do you mean?'

'Patrick, in his mid-twenties, quickly recovered. But Mrs McNeil, who was almost eighty, didn't. She died, Mr Pascoe, she died.'

Pascoe sat back and composed his face into a blank screen across the thoughts running madly round his mind.

'Of 'flu, you mean? Did she go into hospital?'

'No. She died at home. It was quite unexpected, though not, I gather, very unusual in people of that age. Which is one of the reasons Mrs Unger is so solicitous to keep me out of these summer zephyrs which she interprets as Siberian draughts.'

'But Patrick Aldermann still wasn't prosecuted?' pursued Pascoe. 'I mean, I should have thought that whatever chance he had of Mrs McNeil letting him off the hook for old times' sake vanished when she died. The howl of defrauded legatees must have been audible throughout the country!'

'It proved not,' said Capstick. 'Yes, there were several specific legacies, to old friends, servants, a couple of charities. There were no close relations, you see. There was plenty of money to pay all these. And the residue of the estate was willed wholly and without condition to Mr Patrick Aldermann of Rosemont. The only defrauded legatee was himself!'

'Well, well, well,' said Pascoe.

'Well, indeed,' said Capstick. 'I spoke to her solicitor, of course. He was a man I knew well and I wanted to put him in the picture before he noticed anything for himself, though whether he would have done or not, I have never been sure. We thought long and hard. In the end, there seemed to be no point in instigating an official investigation.'

No, there wouldn't, thought Pascoe, but this time kept his mouth shut.

'I had been over the rest of Patrick's work with a fine-tooth comb and everything was in order. I had one last interview with him. I told him I expected his resignation on my desk the following day. It was. I also told him that it was my hope and intention that I should never see him again. I haven't. But often as I sit here in the summer and look at those exquisite colours out there in the garden, I regret it. It was the right decision, but I regret it. Those of my contemporaries I haven't outlived are as immobile as I am, Mr Pascoe. Acquaintances of younger generations pay the occasional duty visit and begin to glance at their watches while the sun is still high. But Patrick, I think, would have visited me and complained about my neglect of his roses, and taken tea and sat quietly here till the sun went down.'

He stopped talking and his head dropped slowly on to his chest as if he slept. But when Pascoe shifted his chair cautiously, preparatory to rising from it, Capstick looked up immediately and smiled.

'Off now, are you?' he said.

'Yes. I'm sorry, but I've really got to go.'

'Of course you have. Crime waits for no man, I dare say. Did I help you at all?'

'A great deal, I think,' said Pascoe cautiously.

'And did I hurt Patrick?' he asked sadly.

'I can't say, Mr Capstick,' said Pascoe. 'It's a complicated business.'

He stood up and took a last look down the garden. In the still air it seemed that he heard young voices singing.

'Evensong and choir practice,' said Capstick, catching the cock of his ear. ‘I did not realize it was so late. Old people never do, Mr Pascoe. I hope I have not spoiled your dinner.'

'Of course not. And likewise,' said Pascoe. ‘Is that the church where Mr Aldermann's father-in-law was killed?'

'Patrick's? Yes, it was. Tragic accident.'

'Were you here when it happened?'

'No, I wasn't, as a matter of fact. It was a Saturday. I was away for the weekend. But I recall the whole village was a-buzz with it when I got back.'

'Ah,' said Pascoe, not knowing if he were disappointed or not.

'He was a decent chap, Somerton,' said Capstick. 'A bit serious, perhaps, but decent.'

'You knew him? Of course, your firm looked after some church accounts.'

'You're well informed,' said Capstick. 'But not just the church accounts. We looked after Somerton's own money. A tidy sum, fifty thousand or thereabouts. That's why I thought Daphne would have been able to bolster young Patrick's finances, but clearly I was wrong.'

'You mean the Reverend Somerton's personal account was dealt with by your firm?' said Pascoe, wanting to get this clear.

'Yes. What of it?'

'Nothing,' he said, smiling. 'Just constabulary curiosity.'

But as he shook hands and took his leave, he thought of Patrick Aldermann lunching with the pretty young schoolgirl who'd come into the office on church business, and then later in the day finding an excuse to open her father's file and seeing to his delight and speculation how much he was worth.

With such dark thoughts in his mind he drove back to the station, where he was mildly surprised to find Sergeant Wield waiting for him in the company of Police Cadet Shaheed Singh.

They came together into his office, Wield as implacably and impassively ugly as ever, and Singh with his dark, handsome face uncertain whether his presence was required for praise or for punishment.

'I think you should hear what Cadet Singh's been up to, sir,' said Wield.

Pascoe heard.

'Well, well, well,' he said.

13

MASQUERADE

(Floribunda.Very vigorous, free flowering, rather raggedy blooms changing from yellow to pink to red.)

Andrew Dalziel was bored. His personal opinion was that if God had wanted policemen to attend conferences, He'd have fitted chairs on their backsides, and probably tongues as well.

Saturday, the opening day of the Conference, had been all right. There'd been old friends to greet, stories to exchange, drinks to be drunk. But after a Sabbath full of lectures and seminars, Dalziel was ready to join the Lord's Day Observance Society.

On Monday morning he had set out early from his hotel with a tattered old A-Z street map and found his way to Denbigh Square. He'd noted down Penelope Highsmith's address from Pascoe's file, not with any firm intention of doing anything about it, but more intuitively, in case he should feel like doing anything about it. Woodfall House proved to be a tall old building within hearing distance of Victoria Station. He studied the names under the glass panel on the portico, then turned away and headed for the Yard.

He was late, winning a couple of reproving glances. Lunch-time saw him back in Denbigh Square, but the entrance to Woodfall House only opened once and that was to admit an old man with a dog.

The reproving glances were black looks when he returned late for the afternoon session. An address on policing racially mixed communities given by a black Captain from Miami was followed by an open discussion. Dalziel joined in vigorously, doubting whether the American experience had much relevance in the UK.

'Over here,' he said, 'we're told that what we need is more blacks in the police force. Now, mebbe that's right for us, I don't know. But if it is, we'll have to use 'em differently from you lot, won't we? I mean, your police forces seem to be jammed full of blacks from what I see on the telly, but you still leave us standing for racial violence!'

There were chuckles from the groundlings, glowers from the brass. The American said, 'Excuse me, sir, but do you have much experience of racial tension in your particular area?'

'Only when there's a London team visiting,' said Dalziel. The chucklers laughed and the glowerers mouthed his name to each other and made notes.

As soon as the session finished, Dalziel was off before he could be caught. This time he was in luck. As he arrived in Denbigh Square, a taxi pulled up outside Woodfall House and a woman got out. Dalziel recognized her instantly. Mentally he'd been adding a decade and a half to his remembered image, but this tall elegant woman in clinging cords and a light cotton jacket seemed hardly to have changed at all. Even her irrepressibly curly hair was as richly black as ever. She chatted pleasantly with the taxi-driver as she paid him, then ran lightly up the steps.

Dalziel strolled slowly by, paused as though his attention had been caught by something and looked uncertainly at the woman unlocking the street door. She, attracted by his still presence, returned his gaze queryingly.

'Penny?' said Dalziel. 'It's never Penny Highsmith is it?'

'That's right,' said the woman. 'Who the hell are you?'

'Andy Dalziel,' he said. 'You probably don't recall. When you were living up in Yorkshire, you used to come down to the rugby club some Saturday nights. Andy Dalziel. We met at the rugby club.'

'Andy Dalziel? Oh God, I remember! You were a copper, weren't you? Andy Dalziel! Crikey, you've put on a bit of weight.'

'Just a bit,' said Dalziel advancing up the steps, smiling. 'You've hardly changed a bit, though. Soon as I saw you I thought, That's Penny Highsmith or her double. How're you doing?'

He extended his hand. She took it uncertainly and he shook hers energetically.

'Well, well,' he said, it's a small world. A small world.'

'Yes,' she said. 'I suppose it is.'

She stood with the key in the door, but she showed no inclination to invite him in. He remembered her as a generous, easy-going woman, but life in London was enough to rub the fine edge off anyone's sense of hospitality.

'I'm down here for a conference at the Yard,' he explained.

'The Yard?'

'Scotland Yard.'

'Oh, you're still a copper then. I thought they all retired at forty.'

'Not quite,' he said. 'And you. What're you doing?'

'Oh, this and that,' she said vaguely.

'Grand,' he beamed. 'Well, I'll tell 'em all at the club I saw you. I'd best be off. I'm just on my way back to my hotel. Usually there's a pot of tea going about now. Cheerioh then.'

He shook her hand again and turned away. If she didn’t call him back by the third step, he'd have to think again.

It was on the fourth step that she said, 'Look, if you've got a moment, why not come up and have a cuppa with me?'

'Now that's nice of you,' he said, turning. 'As long as it's no bother. That would be really nice.'

The flat was comfortable without being luxurious, the flat of an active woman who expected to spend more time out of it than in.

Dalziel relaxed in a deep armchair and watched Penny Highsmith bustling around making the tea. Minus her jacket, her generous figure showed to even greater advantage beneath a translucent silk blouse with a high collar which concealed any giveaway wrinkling of the neck. Certainly there was precious little else which put her in her mid-fifties rather than early forties. It wasn't fair, thought Dalziel. Men were supposed to age gracefully, but the same years which had merely rounded Penny's bust had positively billowed his belly.

Still, he wasn't here to seduce her, though once upon a time, once upon a time . . .

There'd been a dance in the clubhouse. It had been the usual thrash with the beer as important as the dancing. He'd hardly moved away from the bar except to go to the Gents. It was as he returned from such a visit that he ran into Penny Highsmith coming out of the Ladies. Distantly a smoochy slow waltz had begun to play. He had danced her along the corridor, then through the door which led to the changing-rooms. There in the darkness in an atmosphere laced with the perfume of liniment and sweat they had embraced passionately and there had been little resistance to his investigating fumbles, till all at once a cry went up outside, 'Andy! Andy Dalziel. Where the hell is he? Andy! They want you back at the cop-shop, chop-chop!' He'd been willing to go on, but Penny had whispered, 'No, they'll be coming in here next. Later. There'll be another time.'