The Price of Butcher's Meat (4 page)

Now he were my DCI, and he were hard enough to let me fall and
leave me lying.

He’d come a long way and ought to go a lot further.

“Okay, clever clogs,” I sez. “You’ve made your point. Now get me
back into bed.”

Soon it were getting on for August, and I were still the only one talking about going home. Cap made encouraging remarks, but changed the
subject when we got on to dates. I thought, sod this for a lark, they can’t
keep me here when I want to be off!

I said as much to Pete and the bugger sent in the heavy squad.

T H E P R I C E O F B U T C H E R ’ S M E AT 2 1

His missus, Ellie.

From the first time I met her, I saw she were already hard enough to
let me fall and leave me lying. In fact, back in them early days I reckon
she’d have been happy to give me a helping push.

She said, “I hear you’re talking of discharging yourself, Andy. So
who’s going to look after you when you get home?”

“I’ll look after myself. Always have done,” I said.

She sighed. Women have two kinds of sighs. Long suffering and
ooh-I’m-really-enjoying-that. Lot of men never learn the difference.

She said, “Andy, you got blown up in a terrorist explosion, you suffered multiple injuries, you lay in a coma for weeks . . .”

“Aye, and most of the time since I came out of it I’ve spent on this
bloody bed,” I said. “So where’s the difference?”

“Don’t exaggerate,” she said. “You’re on a carefully planned course of
supervised physiotherapy. They say you’re doing well, but it will be ages
before you can look after yourself.”

“So I’ll get help from Social Services. That’s why I pay my bloody
taxes, isn’t it?”

“How long do you think that’ll last?” she asked.

“Till I get fed up wi’ them? Couple of weeks mebbe. By then I should
be fine.”

“I meant, till they get fed up with you! Who’ll look after you then?”

I said, “I’ve got friends.”

“Arse-licking friends maybe,” she said. “But arse-wiping ones are a bit
thinner on the ground.”

Sometimes she takes my breath away! Mebbe I were taking too
much credit for putting the steel into Pascoe’s backbone. Should have
known that all them years the bugger were getting home tuition!

“For you mebbe,” I said. “Treat folk right and they’ll treat you right,
that’s my motto. There’ll be folk queuing up to give me a hand.”

“Takes two to make a queue,” she said. “You’re talking about Cap,
aren’t you?”

Of course I were talking about Cap. Cap Marvell. My girlfriend . . .

2 2

R E G I N A L D H I L L

partner . . . bint . . . tottie . . . none of them fits. Or all of them. Cap
bloody marvelous in my book, ’cos that’s what she’s been.

“So I mean Cap. She won’t let me down. She’ll be there when I need
her.”

I let it out a bit pathetic. Could see I were getting nowhere slogging
it out punch for punch, but even the really hard ones are often suckers
for a bit of pathos. Vulnerability they call it. Make ’em feel you need
help. Stood me in good stead many a time back in my Jack- the-ladding
days.

Didn’t take long to realize it weren’t going to get me anywhere now.

“Boohoo,” said Ellie. “You’ve been together a good few years now, you
and Cap. But you never set up shop together, you’ve both kept your own
places. Why’s that?”

She knew bloody well why it was. We’ve got our own lives, our own
interests, our own timetables. There’s stuff in my pack I don’t want her
getting touched by. And there’s definitely stuff in hers I don’t want to
know about. Every time there’s an animal rights raid, I find myself checking her alibi! But the real big thing is lots of little things, like the way we
feel about muddy boots, setting tables, using cutlery, eating pickles straight
out of the jar, watching rugby on the telly, playing music dead loud, what
kind of music we want to play dead loud, and so bloody on.

I said, “An emergency’s different.”

“So this is an emergency now? Right. Whose place will you set up
the emergency center at? Your house or Cap’s flat? And how long will
you indenture Cap as your body servant before you set her free?”

“Don’t go metaphysical on me, luv,” I said. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re not thick, Andy, so don’t pretend to be,” she said. “Cap’s life
has been on hold since you got blown up. You know she’s got a very full
independent existence—that’s one of the reasons you’ve never shacked
up together, right? She’s not one of those ground-you-walk-on worshippers who only live for their man.”

“I know what she is a bloody sight better than thee, Ellie Pascoe!” I
declared, getting angry. “And I know she’d be ready and willing to put in
a bit of time taking care of me if that’s what I need!”

T H E P R I C E O F B U T C H E R ’ S M E AT 2 3

“Of course she would,” said Ellie with that smug look they get when
they’ve made you lose your rag. “Question is, Andy, do you really want
her to?”

No answer to that, at least not one I wanted to give her the satisfaction of hearing. And I didn’t say much either when she started talking
about the Cedars out at Filey, the convalescent home provided by our
Welfare Association for old, mad, blind, and generally knackered cops.

Alcatraz, we call it, ’cos the only way out is in a box.

What I did say, all grumpy, was, “Were it Cap that put you up to this
then?”

She grabbed hold of a bedpan and said, “That’s the daftest thing I’ve
ever heard you say, Andy Dalziel. And if you let out so much as a hint to
Cap what I’ve been talking to you about, I’ll stick this thing so far up
your behind, they’ll need a tow truck to haul it out! You just lie here and
think about what I’ve said.”

“Yes, miss,” I said meekly. “Tha knows, lass, Pete Pascoe’s a very
lucky man.”

“You think so?” she said, looking a bit embarrassed.

“Aye,” I said. “It’s not every husband’s got a big strapping wife he can
send up on the roof if ever a tile comes off in a high wind.”

She laughed out loud. That’s one of the things I like about Ellie Pascoe. No girlish giggles there. She enjoys a real good laugh.

“You old sod,” she said. “I’m off now. I’ve got my own life too. Peter
sends his love. Says to tell you that he’s got things running so smooth
down at the Factory that he can’t understand how they ever managed
with you. Take care now.”

She bent over me and kissed me. Bright, brave, and bonny. Pete Pascoe really was a lucky man.

And she’s got lovely knockers.

Any road, I did think about what she’d said and a couple of days
later when I were talking to Cap, I said I were thinking of going to the
Cedars.

She said, “But you hate that place. You once went to visit someone there
and you said it was like a temperance hotel without the wild parties.”

2 4

R E G I N A L D H I L L

That’s the trouble with words, they come back to haunt you.

“Mebbe that’s what I need now,” I lied. “Couple of weeks peace and
quiet and a breath of sea air. Me mind’s made up.”

I should have known, men make up their minds like they make up
their beds—if there’s a woman around she’ll pull all the bedding off and
start again.

Next time she came she had a bunch of brochures.

She said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Andy, and I
reckon you’re right about the sea air. But I don’t think the Cedars is the
place for you. You’d be surrounded by other cops there with nothing to
do but talk about crooks and cases and getting back on the job. No, this
is the place for you. The Avalon.”

“You mean that Yankee clinic place?” I said, glancing at the brochures.

“The Avalon Foundation is originally American, yes, but it’s been so
successful it now has clinics worldwide. There’s one in Australia, one in
Switzerland . . .”

“I’m not going to Switzerland,” I said. “All them cuckoo clocks, I’d
never sleep.”

“Of course you’re not. You are going to the one in Sandytown, where
as well as the clinic and its attendant nursing home, there’s an old house
that’s been converted into a convalescent home. My old headmistress,
Kitty Bagnold, you may recall, is seeing out her days in the nursing
home. I visit her from time to time, so it will be very con venient for me
to have both my broken eggs in one basket.”

That were the clincher, of course, her managing to make it sound
like I’d be doing her a favor by coming here. I asked who’d be paying.

She said my insurance would cover most of it and in any case hadn’t I
always said that if you ended up with life left over at the end of your
money, the state would take care of you, but if you ended up with
money left over at the end of your life, you were an idiot!

There’s them bloody haunting words again!

Any road, I blustered a bit for the show of things but soon caved in.

T H E P R I C E O F B U T C H E R ’ S M E AT 2 5

When I told Ellie Pascoe I thought she’d have been dead chuffed, but
she seemed right disappointed I weren’t going to the Cedars. Even when
I assured her I wouldn’t let Cap be out of pocket here, she still didn’t
seem too pleased.

Women, eh? You can fuck ’em but you can’t fathom them.

But Cap were happy and that meant I felt pretty pleased with myself
when a couple of weeks later she drove me here to Sandytown.

I soon stopped being pleased, but. Cap had hardly set off back to the
car park to drive home afore it was being made clear to me that the
Avalon weren’t like a fi ve-star hotel with the guests’ wishes being law.

“Convalescence is a carefully monitored progression from illness to
complete health,” explained the matron. (Name of Sheldon—calls herself chief nurse, but with tits a randy vicar could rest a Bible on while he
preached the gospel according to St. Dick, she were a shoo-in for the
role of matron in one of them
Carry On
movies!)

“Oh aye,” I said, taking the piss. “And visiting hours from three to
quarter past every third Sunday!”

“Ha ha,” she said. “In fact, no visitors at all to start with until we’ve
had time to observe you and assess your needs and draw up your personal program—diet sheet, exercise schedule, medication plan, therapy
timetable—that sort of thing.”

“Bloody hell,” I said. “Schedules, timetables—makes me feel like a
railway train.”

She smiled—I’ve seen more convincing smiles in a massage parlor—

and said, “Indeed. And our aim is to get you puffing out of the station as
quickly as possible.”

I could see she liked her little joke. But I didn’t argue. I just wanted
to sleep!

That were a couple of days ago. Spent most of the time since then
sleeping ’cos every time I woke up there were some bugger ready to pinch
and prod and poke things into me. Assessment they call it. More like
harassment to me!

Third day, matron appeared all coy and girlish, straightened my
2 6

R E G I N A L D H I L L

sheets, plumped my pillows, and said, “Big day, today, Mr. Dalziel. Dr.

Feldenhammer himself is coming to see you.”

And that’s when I first set eyes on Lester Feldenhammer, head quack
at the Avalon. I could tell he were a Yank soon as he opened his gob. Not
the accent but the teeth! It were like looking down an old-fashioned
bog, all vitreous china gleaming white. Bet he gargles with bleach twice
a day.

“Mr. Dalziel,” he said. “Welcome to the Avalon, sir. Your fame has
preceded you. I’m honored to shake the hand of a man who got injured
in the front line of the great fight against terrorism.”

I thought he were taking the piss, but when I looked at him I could
see he were sincere. They’re the worst kind. Never trust a man who believes his own crap.

I thought, I’ll have to watch this one.

He shook my hand like he wanted to make sure it were properly attached and he said, “I’m Lester Feldenhammer, director of the Avalon,
also head of Clinical Psychology. I think we’ve just about got your program sorted out, but the greatest aid to speedy recovery must come from
within. I’ve taken the liberty of putting in your bedside locker a little
self-help book I’ve written. It may help you to a fuller understanding of
what’s happening to you here.”

“Gideon Bible usually does the trick,” I said.

“We like to think of them as complementary,” he said. “I’m really
looking forward to monitoring your progress, Mr. Dalziel. On matters
physiological, you will, of course, have access to our specialized medical
staff. On all other matters, I’m your man. Anything you want to know,
you have only to ask.”

“Is that right?” I said. “So what’s for dinner?”