The Price of Butcher's Meat (38 page)

Seems Claras grandad had been Lady Ds favourite cousin—& when she said come & live with me it was one of those offers you cant refuse. Not that Clara wanted to.

She told

me—if I hadnt come to Sandytown I think by now Id have been—well I dont know what Id have been but it wouldnt have been good. Im really going to miss Aunt Daph—I owe her everything—

& you repaid her by shagging the randy bart—who she was saving up for better things!—I thought—my old mean streak reviving for a moment.

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But what the hell—in her shoes—or out of them—Id probably have done the same!

By now we were best buddies—sharing theories about what had happened—hers being that it was down to some extreme animal rights group—mine that someone shed crossed—with Hen Hollis at the top of the list—had finally flipped. Both theories were based on the grotesque circumstances—Clara seeing the body in the hog roast basket as an ideo-logical statement—me as demonstrating advanced dementia.

She told me about the policemen whod interviewed her—a sergeant & an inspector—must be that Pascoe—both pretty sharp—she reckoned. I told her about my girl—said Id been impressed too.

Nothing like talking to a trained professional to get you back on an even keel—& eventually she felt well enough to come downstairs & have some nourishing broth—but it didnt surprise me when she excused herself soon after & headed for bed.

When I went up she was sound asleep under the duvet so I wasnt bothered by those long pale legs this time. Thought I wouldnt sleep but went out like a light. Woke early this morning—but not so early as Clara. Met her coming out of the bathroom & we dodged around each other—very much back to our old polite acquaintance. Probably regrets opening up to me last night—common reaction.

But all that was scrubbed from my mind when I got downstairs to find Mary & Tom staring gobsmacked at the News article. I could see breakfast was going to be delayed—so I rushed back up to my laptop to give you an update.

Sandytown—Home of the Healthy Holiday!—What a laugh! Bet your daily round of death—disease—& attacks by passing insurgents—feels really dull now!

God knows what today will bring—Im off to breakfast—need to keep my strength up—but watch this space!

Love

Charley xxxx

2

Could hardly keep me eyes open after Pascoe left last night. Had to
ring Cap though. Self-interest. She doesn’t bother much with listening
to the news—says most of it’s lies and all of it’s bad!—but the minute
she does hear Sandytown mentioned she’d be on the phone, and I
didn’t want my beauty sleep disturbed.

I was right. She knew nowt. I filled her in and she went sort of
quiet, then said she’d heard of Lady Denham, but no one deserved to
die like that. I didn’t ask how she’d heard of her ’cos I guessed she were
on some ANIMA hit list! She said she hoped I wasn’t going to get
mixed up in the investigation. I said no way, I’m only here for the cure.

Any road, Pete Pascoe was in charge and he’d made it pretty clear he
didn’t want me peering over his shoulder. That seemed to reassure her.

While her and Ellie have always been a bit suspicious of each other,
she seems to think Pete’s a good infl uence!

After we’d finished talking, I fell into bed and slept like a babbie.

Woke up bright and early, feeling best I’d done for an age. Thought it
must be down to seeing Pete again. Chatting to him about the case
had got me back in the groove, just like the old days. Then Pet came
along while I were having me breakfast and said there’d been another
murder.

I said, Every time I see you these days, you tell me there’s been a
murder.

Since our session in the shower, Pet and I have been sort of formal
friendly, neither of us referring directly to it, but summat like that between you and a lass is always there. At least if you’re my age. Mebbe today’s youngsters just take it in their stride, like having a tasty takeaway!

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Any road, nowt like murder for taking your mind off sex, and when
she said it were headlines in the
Mid-York News
, I asked her to fetch me
a copy.

Didn’t need to look for the byline. Way it made Pete out to be a
cross between Jesus and Hercules Parrot, had to be yon long streak of
printer’s ink, Ruddlesdin. Him and Pete have always been far too close.

For my money, all you get from scratching journalists’ backs is dirty
fi ngernails. Hope the sod’s got it right this time, else Pete’s going to look
like a right nana.

Don’t know why I was wasting my sympathy on him, but. This must
have been that call he got as he were leaving. And the rotten bugger
didn’t bother to come back in and tell me!

When Pet said Pascoe hadn’t been round to interview her or Fester last night, this confirmed it. The cheeky sod were getting ideas
above his station. And there was me falling over myself not to get in
his way.

Well, all that were changed now. If Ruddlesdin were right and
they’d got their man, they’d have spent the night grilling him and if he
cracked, the celebration could just be beginning!

And if Ruddlesdin were wrong, Pete ’ud need all the help he could
get.

I told Pet I needed to get down to the hall tootie-sweetie, and
she said right off she’d give me a lift. I’d like to think it were me
manly charm that made her so willing to help, but I soon realized it
were interrogation time again, and having me in her car were easier
than having me in the shower. She tried hard to fi nd out if I thought
the investigation were really over. Mebbe she’d lain awake all night,
worrying that, faced with the choice of topping or tupping old Daph,
Fester had gone for broke! She must really be hot for the bugger.

Has to be true love, being willing to jump into bed with me for his
sake! Or mebbe I’m being romantic, and she’s got something to hide
herself.

As she dropped me off at the hall, she said to be sure to give her a
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ring if I needed a lift back, so she were certainly keen to have a second
bite at the cherry.

Wouldn’t have minded a second bite at hers if I hadn’t vowed to be
a good boy.

There was a uniform outside the front door, having a quiet fag.

Nearly swallowed it when he saw me getting out of the car. Name of
Mick Scroggs, I recalled. Nice enough young lad, even if he does come
from Mexborough. I asked him where I’d find the DCI. He said he’d
called a briefing in the incident room. I were surprised to hear that
weren’t in the hall itself. Typical Pete that. Me, I’d have been in one of
them big drawing rooms with the comfy sofas.

I tapped the young Scroggs’s chest afore I moved on and said, “Listen, lad, if I get there and find I’m expected, I’ll come back and by the
time I’ve finished relocating your personal radio, you’ll be able to get
Five Live by farting, right?”

He didn’t say owt but I think he got the message.

When I shoved the incident room door open, I thought it ’ud be
like old John Wayne coming into a bar, everyone freezing, then diving
for cover. Instead, after a moment of shock, it were big smiles all round
and folk telling me it were good to see me and shaking my hand, and
I started to feel a right old Scrooge. Mebbe Pete’s smile were a bit strained,
and it’s hard to tell if Wieldy’s grinning or passing a hard turd, but I
swear young Bowler had tears in his eyes and Ivor Novello even gave
me a hug!

I could see at once that this was no breakfast celebration, confirmed
when Pete said, “Good to see you, sir. I presume you’ve seen this morning’s
News
? You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the report of
my apotheosis has been slightly exaggerated. So sit yourself down, and
if you’ve got anything you’d like to say, I know we’d all be delighted to
hear it.”

The lad’s good, no denying it. If he’d gone into politics, he’d be
prime minister by now.

The room setup were great, just what I’d have expected from them
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two. I clocked the display boards. Everything neatly laid out, connections made with different-color ribbons, just what the troops need. All
right having everything correlated on computers, but a screen’s a glass
darkly. Seeing it up on a display board is what brings you face- to-face.

Couldn’t fault the way Pete ran the briefing either. Wieldy were a
great help, of course, specially when Pete started using words of more
than three syllables. He’d got everyone there, even Jug Whitby for local
knowledge. Good thinking. A wise cop makes sure his team can see the
wood as well as the trees. Let the buggers compartmentalize and they
can miss connections. Pete knew that.

Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’d had a wise cop teaching him!

I don’t think any on ’em can have slept much, but Wieldy had got
a coffee machine or ganized and there was plenty of it, thick and black
and sweet the way cops like it, none of this modern fi fty-seven variet-ies and all piddle.

Naturally Pete started with Ollie Hollis. Everyone there knew there
was a suspect in custody, but they could see as well as I could that no
one was popping champagne corks and they had to be told why. Or,
because it were Pete, made to work out why.

He said, “The needle driven into his back damaged the spinal cord
between vertebrae C-three and C-four, causing paralysis of the legs and
arms. Also the shock may have triggered a violent asthma attack. Unable to move from his prone position because of the paralysis, he would
have experienced grave difficulties in breathing, which eventually led to
asphyxiation.”

It had taken me a while to realize Pete talking like this were deliberate. Me, I like to give it straight in language the dimmest plod could
understand. Pete prefers to make the buggers concentrate real hard, ask
questions, draw conclusions. The bright ones like Bowler and Novello
knew this was a chance to shine.

Bowler got in first here. Found out later from Wieldy the silly young
sod were beating up on himself for not having got to Witch Cottage
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afore Ollie Hollis got killed. Mebbe that’s why he were so pleased to
see me—thought I looked like a friendly face!

He said, “You mean there was a significant gap between him being
stabbed by the needle and dying?”

“Possibly as much as thirty minutes,” said Pete. “Which means . . .”

What it meant to Hat was, the earlier the attack had taken place,
the better for his guilt feelings! But he’s too bright a lad to say that.

He said, “Then it’s hardly likely that guy Godley would have hung
around all that time with his hand on the needle, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” said Pascoe. “Which means his story of discovering
Hollis and trying to remove the needle could well be true.”

Even though it was what they’d all been expecting, there was a moan
of disappointment.

“We cutting him loose then?” asked Bowler.

“Not yet,” said Pete. “He may be telling the truth about Hollis, but
several witness statements mention him having a violent altercation
with Lady Denham and until we get a satisfactory explanation of that,
he’s going nowhere.”

Understandable but dangerous. When the rest of the press, who’d be
feeling a bit disgruntled at being upstaged by a provincial rag, realized
Ruddlesdin had got it all wrong, they’d likely put his continued deten-tion down as spite.

Now Pete moved on, or back, to Daph’s murder.

Wieldy had the PM details and laid them out with his usual preci-sion.

Cause of death strangulation. Contusion on brow looked more likely
to have been sustained by, say, falling against a hard object rather than
being hit by a weapon. Whatever, someone had almost immediately decided to finish the job off with his bare hands. Or, seeing as Daph
weren’t in a state to fight back, with
her
bare hands. Good news were
that she was dead afore she started grilling. Heat made establishing an
exact time of death hard, but they reckoned between thirty minutes and
an hour before she’d been discovered.

And there were seminal traces in her vaginal passage.

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“You mean she’d been raped?” interrupted Novello, not clever, as
Wieldy prides himself on saying what he means.

Pete cut in, “There were no signs of violence around the genital area,
and the estimate was that the coitus had occurred some hours before
death, so it seems likely it was consensual.”

Wield resumed.

Clothing was charred but a large red stain on the front of her dress
had been identified as red wine. Spatter pattern suggested it might have
been thrown rather than simply spilled. No glass found at scene, though
a champagne cork, some silver foil, cigarette stubs, and food remains
were recovered from the hut. Possible DNA samples from food. Partial
fingerprint on the foil.