A Killing Kindness (14 page)

'You mean
I say, we will have no more marriages?'

'That's it. You know how it goes on?
Those that  are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall  keep as they are.'

'Yes, I know. So far we've had one widow, three  spinsters. We're still waiting for Mrs Right to come  along.'

Pascoe had a nice line in ghoulishness himself.

'Perhaps that's the way to look at it, Inspector. Odd thing, marriage and engagements. Often kept  very secret. I assume you've checked very carefully indeed to see if Pauline Stanhope was engaged?  The other two girls were, and very recently too.'

'You think that . . .'

'No, I offer no conclusions, Inspector. But a woman widowed can still be regarded from a certain point of view as a married woman. After  all, she retains the title. I should be very interested,  if I were you, to know why poor Mrs Dinwoodie should of all the married ladies in the world be the  one singled out (if you'll excuse the expression) to  be killed. Now I must go.'

After he had left, Pascoe sat for a while and  wondered whether it were really possible for a  man to go around killing people out of compassion.  One, yes. That he could understand. Someone  near and dear who was suffering greatly. But strangers? And compassion for what? He should  have asked that.

But he couldn't sit here all day, thinking. It  was leg work that solved cases, not metaphysical  speculation.

He headed first for the suburban estate where the  Wildgoose family lived. He knew Mark Wildgoose would probably not be there but he had no other  address for the man and, though he might have been able to track him down via the school authorities, this gave him an excuse to talk to the  woman.

Lorraine Wildgoose was in the front garden  passing a small electric rotary mower over the  lawn. She switched it off at his approach and  nodded when he introduced himself.

'Yes, I know,' she said.

'Oh? We haven't met, have we?'

'No. I saw your photo when I called on Ellie  yesterday. Come into the house.'

He followed her. She wore a thin cotton skirt  and a brief halter whose shifts as she stooped to  disconnect the mower lead gave no hint of a limit to her deep sun tan. The observation was quite  objective. Pascoe felt no sensual tingle at these mammary glimpses. There was an intensity of expression on her thin, slightly pock-marked face  which precluded any suspicion of prick-teasing  and suggested that any man showing an interest in her had better lead with his head, in a manner  of speaking.

'Mrs Wildgoose, I'd like to have a word with  your husband. I understand he's not living with  you any more.'

'Would you like a drink?' she said. 'Coffee or something harder? A couple of years ago, you  wouldn't have got either. We were into organic  eating in a big way. That's when he got interested  in the allotment. That's what you'll want to talk  to him about.'

'You do your own gardening now?' said Pascoe  whose response to obliquities was always oblique.  'It's quite a job.'

He was looking out of a french window which  opened on to the back garden. A small patio led on  to a rectangle of lawn some fifty feet deep bordered  by roses and ornamental shrubs.

'I always did. He showed no interest till he  decided he wanted to dig it up to plant beans and ginseng. That's when I put my foot down, so he got the allotment. I feel responsible for that girl's death.'

This was too fast for Pascoe.

'That drink,' he said. 'It's early but I'm quite thirsty. Perhaps a small beer.'

She went out into the kitchen and returned with  a pint can and two tumblers.

'I drink anything now,' she said. 'If it poisons the  system, then I suppose my system's done for.'

Pascoe took the can from her thin nervous fingers, opened it, poured the beer and chose his  words carefully.

'Mrs Wildgoose, from what you said to Ellie yesterday and what you've just said to me, would I be  right in saying you think your husband may know something about these so-called Choker killings?'

'Yes,' she said in a low voice, followed almost  immediately by a
No!
in a semi-scream that startled  Pascoe into spilling some drops of beer.

'How could I say that?' she demanded. 'I don't know. He just seems so odd, so fearful. In everysense. So frightening and so full of fear. Do you  follow me?'

'I think so,’ said Pascoe, more in response to her compellingly intense gaze than the dictates of reason. He could recall a junior schoolteacher  whose urgent questioning had similarly seemed  to preclude a negative response. He could also  remember her wrath when, inevitably, he had  had to admit his real ignorance.

It was time to take the initiative.

The door burst open before he could speak and  a girl of about thirteen rushed in, closely followed by a slightly younger boy. They stopped dead as  they saw Pascoe.

'Oops, sorry,' said the girl.

'This is my daughter, Sue. My son, Alan. This is Inspector Pascoe, dears. We won't be long. If  you're finding time's hanging a bit heavy, you  might like to finish off the front lawn for me.'

The girl made an unenthusiastic face and withdrew. Neither she nor her brother looked much like their mother in their features, though they  shared her dark colouring. At least they were  obedient, thought Pascoe when almost instantly the whine of the electric mower was heard. A  desirable quality in children, one which he and  Ellie would look for in their own family. He hoped.

'Mrs Wildgoose, your husband's mental state  may be relevant, but it's not primary, not yet.  Think carefully. Is there anything at all, anything
concrete,
which links your husband to June McCarthy - or any of the other girls for that  matter?'

Her eyes opened even wider in amazement at his denseness. Doesn't she ever blink? wondered  Pascoe.

'The allotment,' she said.

'We know about the allotment,' said Pascoe  patiently. 'Did he ever mention June McCarthy?  Or any girl he'd met or seen when he was in Pump  Street?'

'Why should he?' she demanded. 'He'd want to  keep something like that pretty quiet, wouldn't  he?'

'Like an affair, you mean?' said Pascoe doubtfully. 'You're suggesting he could have been having  an affair with this girl?'

'It wouldn't have been the first,' she retorted  bitterly. 'He's got a little greenhouse down there.  Very handy.'

'A greenhouse is not the most discreet of places to have an affair in,' observed Pascoe pedantically.

'The wall panes are whitewashed,' she said triumphantly. 'So you can't see in. And the children went down there once and he wouldn't let them  in.'

Pascoe had a quick mental vision of Wildgoose fornicating among the tomato plants. Green  thoughts in a green house.

'And that's all?' he said.

'What else do you want? Photographs?' she  flashed.

'Did he ever drink in the Cheshire Cheese, do  you know?' asked Pascoe.

'We have done,' she said. 'Of course that was  before we went off alcohol.'

'Was your husband back on alcohol before you  broke up?'

'Yes, he was,' she said. 'I remember he came  home one evening and I smelt it on his breath.  It was round about then that I felt things were  beginning to go desperately wrong.'

'In what way?'

'This hate I told you about. This resentment. It  seemed to flare up then.'

'Then
being?'

'Earlier in the summer. I don't know. End of  May, I think.'

Pascoe took out a diary and thumbed through it.

'And you actually left him when?'

'June 14th,' she said promptly. 'I remember that. It was Alan's birthday. Mark was late. I  complained. There was a great row. Mark flew out of the house. He didn't come back till after  midnight, in a worse mood than when he'd left  and stinking of drink. I slept in the spare room  that night with the bed pushed against the door.  First thing next morning I got out with the children  and went round to Thelma Lacewing's flat. You'll  know her, I expect.'

'Oh yes.'

'She's marvellous, isn't she?'

'Uh-huh. And your husband . . . ?'

'Still sleeping, of course. The drink did that for  me at least. That at least. Yes, the fourteenth. Just  a month. Christ.'

Pascoe regarded her keenly and waited.

For a woman so eager to suggest her husband might be the Choker she was missing a golden  opportunity.

Or perhaps she was clever enough to know that some things don't need underlining. Perhaps she felt she could rely on even the most bumbling of  bobbies to recall that it was on the night of June  14th that Mary Dinwoodie had been choked to death behind the Cheshire Cheese.

He asked one last question as he rose with Mark Wildgoose's new address in his notebook.

'Despite your suspicions of your husband you still see him. Why's that?'

'He's entitled to access to the children. In any case, I certainly don't want him to think I suspect,'  she said defiantly.

It didn't ring true.

'How was your trip yesterday?' he enquired idly  as she escorted him to the open front door.

The girl was in the garden propelling the electric mower. She seemed to have made very little  progress, observed Pascoe.

'Fine,' said Lorraine Wildgoose. 'It was OK. The children enjoyed it. Oh, excuse me.'

Behind her a telephone was ringing. She retreated,  closing the door firmly.

Pascoe walked down the path. The girl was standing still watching him. The mower blades had a different note when it wasn't in motion.

Pascoe paused and smiled at the girl.

'Your mother's upset,’ he said. 'Don't take notice  of everything she says. It's a bad time for her.'

The girl didn't return his smile but she made no  effort to deny her eavesdropping.

'Are you going to arrest Daddy?' she said.

'No. Why should I? But I'm going to talk with  him.'

'It's not always his fault,’ she said. 'She spoilt it  yesterday.'

'Yesterday?'

'Yes. She went into some woman's house first  of all and didn't come out for ages. We were  roasting in the car. Then when we got to the  seaside she nagged all the time. Daddy wanted us  all to have tea together later and not come home till the evening, but she started to row with him  and we were back home by tea-time.'

'So it wasn't a very good day for you?' said  Pascoe thoughtfully.

'It could have been,' she retorted.

Pascoe dug into his pocket and came up with a  50p piece. In the distance he could hear the carillon  of an ice-cream van.

'It's a funny old world,' he said. 'But the grass  keeps on growing. Why don't you find your brother  and share a cornet or whatever else you can buy  with this nowadays?'

The silver coin spun through the air. She caught  it two-handed, smiled with great charm, said 'Thank  you!' and ran off out of the garden gate.

Pascoe watched her go and suddenly felt sick  that he might be close to solving this case.

Chapter 13

Though Dalziel rarely showed he was impressed by  anything his subordinates suggested, nothing went  unnoticed. Pascoe he was always very attentive  to. Wield also. He hadn't yet quite fathomed the  sergeant, but he seemed to have his feet planted  on the ground, the seance aside, that was.

So he drove slowly round the locations and wondered whether indeed there might be a significance in the relative closeness of Brenda Sorby's and  June McCarthy's places of work.

Wield's car was parked outside the bank (Dalziel  had spent an hour at his desk before setting off on his travels) so the superintendent did not pause. But  he sat outside the entrance to the Eden Park Cannery for long enough to attract the gateman's attention.

'Can I help you?' enquired the man in a belligerent tone.

'What do you think I'm doing, casing the joint?'  said Dalziel. He held out his warrant card. The  gateman was not particularly impressed but when Dalziel heaved his bulk out of the car, he became  a little more respectful.

'You knew June McCarthy?' enquired Dalziel.

'Sure,' said the man. He was rising sixty, grey-haired, with a cynical mouth and a knowing eye.

'How well?'

'Not well enough to choke her,' said the man.

'How well's that?'

'With some women, just one look at 'em's well  enough,' laughed the man. 'But she seemed a nice  enough lass.'

'Liked the boys, did she?'

'Not really. She went steady with that soldier  lad. He was a big burly chap, knew how to handle  himself. So I reckon the others kept clear even when he was away.'

Dalziel knew all this from the records.

'Are you going inside?' asked the gateman.

The fat man stood there undecided. A blue  Mercedes drew up alongside the kerb and the electrically operated window slid silently down.

'Andy!'

Dalziel went across to the car.

'Hello,' he said.

It was Bernard Middlefield JP, not a man he  cared for all that much, but a friend to the police who needed all the friends they could get these  hard days.

'Thought it was you,' said Middlefield.

'Well, you wouldn't think it was Fred Astaire,'  said the fat man.

'What brings you round these parts? That poor  girl, is it?'

'Sort of. What about you Bernard?'

'Me? That's my works next door,' said Middlefield  in a pained voice.

'So it is,' said Dalziel, looking towards the long  single-storied brick and glass building. 'You didn't  know her, by any chance, did you, Bernard?'

'The dead lass? No. But I see enough of them.  What a sample you get in this place! It's like the  flight out of Gomorrah when the hooter goes.'

'Oh aye. Aren't yours the same?'

'No. I employ skilled labour! Electrical assembly's a lot different from canning peas. Why don't you  come in, have a cuppa and a look round?'

‘Too busy, Bernard, thanks all the same. How's  Jack? Business OK?'

'Fine, both fine. Will I see you at the Mansion House tomorrow?'

The High Fair holiday fortnight traditionally  ended with a civic luncheon on the last Saturday, a custom some ratepayers thought might be more  honoured in the breach.