Good Morning, Midnight (17 page)

“He’s away too. Just for the day. London, on business.”

“London. Poor sod,” said Dalziel with feeling. “Still, he’ll be back in God’s own country tonight.”

“I think he’d need to travel a little further to get there in his case,” said Kay.

Dalziel regarded her shrewdly and said, “Feeling homesick, is he? Never had him down as the type.”

“I think he feels that after what happened last September it’s the place to be. Get the wagons into a protective circle, that sort of thing.”

“How about you?”

“You know me, Andy. This is where I want to be, lots of reasons.”

“And two more since last night, eh?”

“Right. And one big one sitting with me now.”

Something which on a less massively sculpted face might have passed for a blush glowed momentarily on the Fat Man’s cheeks.

He pushed his chair back and said, “Now I’d best be on my way.”

“Sure you won’t have another drink?”

“No. One’s enough when I’m driving,” he said virtuously.

“You mean there’s a cop in Mid-Yorkshire who’d dare breathalyse you?”

“There’s some as ’ud pay for the chance,” he said. “You coming?”

“I may get a snack here. Sure you won’t join me?”

“No fear. They cut the crusts off your sandwiches.”

He stood up. Kay rose too, leaned over the table and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Thanks, Andy,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being my friend.”

“Oh aye. Is that all?”

“It’s a lot. Gets me served quick in pubs,” she said, smiling.

“Not all bad then. Take care, luv. And ring if there’s owt worrying you.”

He left and made for the car park. In his car he didn’t make for the exit straightaway but drove slowly round till he spotted the Thunderbird.

“Enjoy your lunch, Sergeant,” he said. And drove away.

Back in the conservatory Kay Kafka pressed a key on her mobile. She had to wait a few moments before she got a reply. She said, “Hi, Tony. It’s me. Have I disturbed your lunch?”

“Not as much as it’s disturbing me,” said Kafka. “You should see this place, except you can’t because they don’t let women in. I sometimes think it’s a movie set, or something they hire from the National Trust to keep foreign riff-raff in their place. So what’s new with Mr Blobby?”

“Everything’s fine. Any mention your end?”

“Not yet, but they don’t get on to matters of substance till the soup’s been served. Soup! If you’re looking for a weapon of mass destruction, look no further!”

“Tony, you are being careful what you say?”

“You know me. Soul of discretion. Anyway, I’m outnumbered.”

“I thought it was just Warlove.”

“He’s brought that guy Gedye along. The one who looks like a high-class mortician, always measuring you up with his eyes.”

“Tony, don’t go neurotic on me.”

“Just because I’m neurotic doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t creepy. Joke. Now tell me about your chat with Mr Blobby. And the twins, have you been to see them this morning? How do they look in the bright light of day?”

They talked for several minutes more. When the conversation was done, Kay stood up and went through an inner door leading to the spacious hotel lobby, one wall of which was almost filled by a seventeenth-century fireplace in which a twenty-first-century fire looked sadly inadequate. In a deep armchair by the fire, either reading or sleeping behind the Daily Mirror, sat a man. Kay approached the reception desk where two young women, one blonde, one brunette, otherwise so alike they could have been clones, were working. The blonde greeted her brightly.

“Hello, Mrs Kafka. And how are you today?”

“I’m fine,” said Kay. “I’m just going up to the suite. I’ll be doing some work on my laptop, so would you like to send some sandwiches up?”

“Of course, Mrs Kafka,” said the young woman, reaching for a key. “Any special filling you’d like today?”

“A selection will be fine. Thank you.”

As Kay walked away the blonde raised her eyebrows at her fellow worker who mouthed, “Any special filling. You cheeky cow!” They both giggled.

Edgar Wield lowered his newspaper and watched Kay get into the lift. As it ascended, alongside it the door to the bar swung open, giving him a glimpse of Edwin Digweed sitting with a group of rather dusty, slightly foxed men. Then the door closed again behind a young waiter with golden skin, jet-black hair, sultry brown eyes and a face to turn Jove languid.

The blonde receptionist called, “Hey, Manuel. Job for you.”

“What job? I’m very busy,” he replied without slowing his graceful step.

“Too busy for Mrs Kafka?”

Now he slowed and went to the desk.

The girls spoke to him in voices too low for Wield to catch. After a moment he laughed and moved away, calling over his shoulder, “Never mind. Your turn will come.”

“Loves himself, doesn’t he?” said the brunette.

“And why not? Wouldn’t mind giving him a helping hand, how about you?” said the blonde.

She glanced towards the fireplace and saw Wield watching her. A smile lit up her face and she gave a little wave. He gave a wave and a smile back.

“Not thinking of going les, are we?” said Digweed who’d emerged from the bar unnoticed.

“It’s Doreen, Tom Uglow’s lass from the village,” said Wield.

“Yes, I do know that,” said Digweed a little tetchily. “Let’s see if we can get her to rustle up some sandwiches.”

He went to the desk and spoke to the girls.

When he returned he said, “They’ll be along shortly. The waiter’s rather busy at the moment.”

“I bet he is,” said Wield.

Twenty minutes later Wield had finished his beer and, with an afternoon’s work ahead of him, had moved on to cranberry juice, which if his partner was to be believed would help him grow up into a big healthy boy. He was thinking if the food didn’t arrive soon he would have to leave without it.

“What on earth are they doing with these sandwiches?” grumbled Digweed. “Churning the cheese? There’s the manager. I think I’ll have a word.”

A portly man in a pinstripe suit had appeared behind the desk and was talking to the receptionists. Digweed began to rise but before he was out of his chair, the lift door slid open and the handsome young waiter erupted looking like an advertisement for the Wrath of Achilles. The manager glanced towards him, pursed his lips and called, “Manuel, I’ve told you before. Use the service lift.”

The waiter didn’t even look his way but as he strode towards the main exit made a gesture whose meaning was as unmistakeable in rural Mid-Yorkshire as it was in urban Spain or even Homeric Greece.

Digweed subsided into his chair.

“Not from Barcelona, is he?” said Wield.

“Valencia, I believe,” said Digweed, pronouncing it correctly. “I think our sandwiches may be some little time.”

“Probably just as well if there’s something wrong with your teeth,” said Wield.

Moscow House in the clear light of day no longer looked like it had strayed out of a Poe short story. True, it was a bit run down, but nothing that a pressure gun and a paint brush couldn’t put right in a couple of days. And though the garden could certainly have done with a short-back-and-sides, Pascoe rather liked the wild-meadow look, with brassy daffs trumpeting their triumph over a wilderness of grasses.

He was surprised to find Constable Jennison on guard duty at the front door.

“You still here?” he said.

Jennison, happy to be here in broad daylight, did a comic take to left and right, then said, “Oh me, sir? Yes, I’m still here. Leastways I was last time I looked.”

Novello, who’d not been a member of Joker Jennison’s fan club ever since he’d affected to mistake her for part of a drag act booked to do a turn at the Welfare Club, grimaced at this weak attempt at humour. When I’m DCI, any plod taking the piss will wish he’d stayed in bed with a broken leg that day, she promised herself.

Pascoe grinned broadly and said, “I mean, you haven’t been here since last night, I take it?”

“No, sir. Got relieved about one. Came back on an hour ago and Bonk-Sergeant Bonnick told me I was off the cars today and back down here. I think he blames me for letting that lot up the drive last night.”

Pascoe said, “Even if you’d checked them, I think we’d have had to let them up to the house. They were family, after all. Anyone been around today?”

“Not since I came on, sir. And the guy I took over from said it had been dead quiet too.”

“A master of the apt phrase. Come on, Shirley. Let’s take a look inside.”

As they stepped into the house, Jennison said, “Sir, can I have a word?”

“Of course,” said Pascoe, turning back to him.

“It’s probably nowt, but last night when I were on the gate, I got talking to one of the working girls. Dolores, she said her name was. Sounded foreign. Long black hair, dead white face, but I think she were just a kid really. It’s a crying shame. Lovely figure, but. Bum to die for, and legs you could wrap twice round your neck and still leave enough to tie a bow with.”

Behind Pascoe, Novello shook her head, baffled as always by this not uncommon male mix of compassion and salacity. How could these guys feel so sorry for a girl and want to fuck her at the same time?

Pascoe said, “I hope she didn’t distract you from your duties.”

“No, sir. We just talked a bit. I thought she were just naturally nosey like women can be. Once word got round we were on the plot mob-handed, most of the Avenue girls must’ve realized that was the end of trade last night and took off elsewhere. But not Dolores.”

“I’m beginning to feel a bit like an ancient mariner here, Joker,” said Pascoe.

“No accounting for tastes, sir,” said Jennison. “Sorry. No, all I wanted to say was, I reckon it was more than just female nebbiness that kept her talking to me.”

“Certainly wasn’t your magnetic personality,” muttered Novello.

Pascoe frowned at her and said, “You’re getting within lunar orbit distance of interesting, Joker. Try for a landing, eh?”

“Well, it were nowt really. She just kept on asking for details, like wanting a description of the fellow who’d topped himself, and she were dead keen to know if any of the girls were involved.”

“You got this woman’s details, I take it?”

Jennison looked uncomfortable.

“No, sir. Sorry.”

“Jesus. Why not?”

“It weren’t till I got to thinking about it later that it struck me as odd enough to mention. And in any case Mr Dalziel’s car turned up while we were talking and I pushed her out of sight behind a tree and when the Super had gone up the drive, she’d disappeared.”

“She shouldn’t be hard to find,” said Pascoe. “I’m sure the girls will be back tonight once the dust has settled. Pick her up and bring her in, will you? And thanks for bringing it to my notice, Joker.”

He went into the house. Jennison gave a modestly self-deprecating shrug and a big wink to Novello, who said, “Yes, thank you, Jerker,” and followed.

“Think it means anything, sir?” she asked.

“You never know.”

“Pity the plonker didn’t mention it last night then.”

Pascoe said gently, “The plonker needn’t have mentioned it at all, Shirley. And you won’t get far in CID unless you’ve got an efficient working relationship with your uniformed colleagues.”

The only efficient working relationship most of that lot want involves their only efficiently working part, thought Novello.

“Yes, sir,” she said, looking around the entrance hall, taking in the high ceilings and counting the doors. “Big place.”

“Yes,” said Pascoe. “They knew the meaning of spacious living in those days.”

Living! thought Novello. Spacious, maybe. Like a pyramid.

“How long’s it been up for sale?” she asked.

“A few months, I gather,” he said.

“So the estate agent will have a key and there could have been any number of people wandering round at one time or other?”

“I suppose. Why do you say that?”

“Never hesitate to point out the obvious,” she said in a tone of voice at once precise and diffident which it took him a second to recognize as a parody of his own. The words too he recognized as one of his maxims for trainee tecs.

“Someone’s certainly been using one of the bedrooms from time to time,” he said.

“Yeah? Maybe one of Jennison’s lady friends decided it would be a lot more comfortable than getting shagged up against a tree or in the back of a Fiesta,” said Novello. “Easy enough to get hold of a key.”

“You think so? How?”

“Make an appointment with the agent and find a chance to make an impression of the key in a bit of putty. Or give the sod a freebie and get one that way. Shall I talk to the agent, sir?”

Pascoe smiled at her indulgently and said, “Not until we have reason enough to satisfy Mr Dalziel that would be a proper use of police time. The use of the bedroom is interesting but so far not of any apparent relevance. Let’s take a look at the locus in quo, shall we?”

She smiled back at him. Mention of something basic like shagging to Pascoe often sent him running to his fancy phrases, but it took more than a bit of Latin to impress a good Roman Catholic girl.

She followed Pascoe up the stairs.

On the landing he paused before an oaken door that showed signs of having been assaulted with a battering ram.

SOCO had clearly done a thorough job up here, leaving their print-indicating marks all over the place, including some on the door’s lower panel about thirty inches from the ground.

“Now why would anyone need to touch that part of a door?” wondered Pascoe.

“A child?” suggested Novello. “Or, more likely, whoever it was got here first knelt to look through the keyhole and rested his hand on the panel.”