A Killing Kindness (23 page)

He smiled so uncertainly that she laughed at him and pulled him down and kissed his mouth.

'OK,' she said. 'I'll say the right things and do the  dewy-eyed bit, but not all the time. And whatever I have, I promise you I'm bringing the little sod up  to be a transvestite.'

'Everyone'll be transvestite by the time he's old  enough to enjoy it,' said Pascoe. 'Me, I sometimes  wish I could spend my Saturdays lying in bed,  contributing to the Life Force.'

'Get knotted,' she said amicably. 'It's the police  force that's got you hooked. Now push off, or you  might miss being in at the kill and you know how  you'd hate that.'

He was on the landing when she called out,  'Peter!'

He rushed back in full of anxiety.

'Yes? What's wrong?'

'Nothing. Christ, you mustn't be so nervous.  You'll never last another four months! No, it was  just what Andy was saying about that boy's statement. I just thought.'

'All right, Sherlock. Shoot.'

'Well,' said Ellie, running her fingers through  her hair. 'You know you laughed at me when I said  that perhaps what the medium said in her trance  might have come out of some time-slip caused by  the violence of death?'

'Yes, I remember it well.'

'All right. But now there doesn't need to be a timeslip, does there? I mean, if she didn't meet her  boyfriend, who knows what time she got killed? The sun could have been shining anyway. Perhaps  that medium woman got some of it right after all.'

Sergeant Wield had the perfect excuse for calling  on Mulgan at home. He had promised to pick up  the list of Brenda Sorby's transactions on the day of her death, but developments had prevented him  from doing so the previous evening.

Mrs Mulgan, looking worried almost to the point  of fear, admitted him first to the entrance hall of  their ugly detached bungalow where he spoke  with her in a low voice for several minutes, then  to the lounge where Mulgan, reading the
Daily Mail 
in his shirtsleeves, looked annoyed and made it  clear he'd have preferred to deal with the sergeant  on the doorstep. Unabashed, Wield accepted Mrs  Mulgan's offer of a coffee.

'What use can this stuff be to you anyway?'  asked Mulgan after his wife had gone out.

'The information about the money was very  useful indeed, sir,' said Wield.

'Yes. Well, that was different. These other transactions can hardly be relevant. I hope you're not  going to be bothering our customers.'

'I'm sure every one of them would want to help catch our man, sir. Every little helps. Someone  somewhere knows something.'

'You mean, someone's protecting this lunatic?' said Mulgan incredulously.

'Maybe. Or perhaps someone doesn't realize what they know. Could be you, sir.'

'Me?' said Mulgan, thick lips pursed. 'Hardly. I gave you a comprehensive statement.'

'First statements aren't usually. Comprehensive, I mean. I mean, they can't be, really.'

'First
statements.'

'Oh yes, sir. Often one's enough, but when we  get a bit bogged down, we start crossing the t's  and dotting the i's. We'll be going over everything  again with everyone. For instance, sir, we know all  about what you did that Thursday till the time the  bank was closed, but nothing after that.'

'Oh yes you do,' said Mulgan sarcastically. 'You  made sure, without, I may say, a great deal of  subtlety, that I was at home that evening about  the time that poor Brenda was killed.'

'What time was that, sir?'

'Between eleven and midnight the papers said. During the storm.'

'That's true, sir,' said Wield ambiguously. 'I'm  sorry if we were heavy-handed, but we have to  check everyone. No, it's the earlier bit of the evening I'm interested in. We're still trying to find someone who saw Brenda earlier, so those as would have recognized her are particularly interesting. Did you go straight home from the bank?'

'I think so. I may have popped into the shops  along the parade. It's very handy; at least my wife  thinks it so.'

He laughed and played with the square, black-rimmed spectacles he wore to read his paper.

'It was Thursday, sir,' prompted Wield gently.  'Half-day closing here. But late opening in the town  centre. You didn't go into the centre, did you?'

'No. I very rarely do. And Thursday or not,  Jennings', that's the newsagents, he's always open.  I usually pick up an evening paper there.'

'Then you'd drive home?'

'Yes.'

'Arriving when?'

'Six at least. Often earlier.'

'Nice to have regular hours, sir,' said Wield  appreciatively. 'I expect Mrs Mulgan likes it too.  Do you eat at the same time most nights?'

'Yes. Half six, usually. It's our main meal of the  day. If you want the details, Sergeant, though I  can't imagine why, my wife and I will probably  sit and have a sherry and talk about the day, then  we eat, wash up, go out for a stroll perhaps if the  weather's nice, or potter in the garden. Watch a  bit of television, then bed. That's about it.'

'And that night was no different.'

'Very few of them are different enough to be distinguishable, Sergeant,' said Mulgan. 'Had it been, though, I would certainly recall,'

He put his spectacles back on and looked pointedly at his newspaper as though to indicate the  interview was over.

Wield gave him a quarter-minute.

'It was a Thursday, though, sir,' he said.

Mulgan didn't look up.

'Yes?' he said.

'And your wife was saying that most Thursdays  she goes to visit her mother in the afternoon. She  often doesn't get back till eight. Or later.'

Now Mulgan looked up again.

'That's right,' he said. 'And as it was a Thursday,  she probably wasn't in when I got home and  probably didn't get back till late. What are you  trying to say, Sergeant? And why didn't you tell  me you'd been cross-examining my wife too.'

'No, honestly, I'm sorry,' said Wield, rearranging  his features into a new chaos which his tone  signalled meant distress. 'All I wondered was, did  you maybe stop off, have a drink somewhere  that night? I mean there'd be no rush to get  home, would there? And if so, did you perhaps  see anything of Brenda, just passing, I mean? Or  talking to someone?'

The bait was a bit obvious, he thought. Guilty or innocent, Mulgan would see it dangling there.

‘I’ll tell you something, Sergeant,' said the manager with a sigh. 'Then perhaps you'll go away and  leave me to get on with my weekend, and tell the world you're a liar if you try to use what I've told  you. I fancied Brenda. Yes, it's clear someone's  suggested this to you, and it's true. She was a nice  girl, I felt relaxed with her and we could have a  laugh and a joke together. If I'd had the slightest  encouragement, well, who knows what any of us  might not do with encouragement! But I didn't and  when I realized our other junior Miss Brighouse,  who no doubt is your source of information, was  ready to make a joke of it, I became the soul  of correctness. I have no desire to be a joke to  empty-headed children, Sergeant. When I saw her  engagement ring, I made sure my congratulations  were formal and sincere, which indeed they were.  I never saw her again after she said goodnight that Thursday evening. Now if that completes the  inquisition, perhaps you'd like to cast your eye  over these transactions in case there's anything  you want to ask. I should prefer to have the rest  of my weekend free from interruption.'

There was something not quite right about Mulgan's man-of-the-world confession and sarcastic dismissal, but it possibly had nothing to  do with the case. As a long-established expert in  putting up fronts, Wield had a sharp ear and eye  for uncertainties of tone and manner. Mulgan,  he decided, seemed to think that being an acting  manager somehow meant
acting
like a manager. He  was probably right too. Being a policeman certainly  involved a lot of role-playing. Pascoe had once said  that. Clever bugger. Too clever by half, according to Dalziel in his darker moments. Wield thought  he'd got the pair of 'em worked out. Pay heed  to what Pascoe says but do as Dalziel does. What  would Dalziel do now? Probably put his shark-like  mouth to Mulgan's shell-like ear and enquire in  a Force Ten murmur how many members of his staff an acting manager could expect to screw in  an average week.

Instead Wield cast his eye down the list, not  really seeing it, said, 'This looks fine, sir. I hope  it won't be necessary to trouble you again. This  morning, anyway.' And left.

When he signed back on watch through his car  radio, a message was awaiting him.

He smiled sadly as he listened to the instructions for him to rendezvous with Inspector Pascoe at the Aero Club in fifteen minutes' time.

So much for the sanctity of a detective's day  off.

Do as Dalziel does, was the golden rule.

And what does Dalziel do?

What he bloody well wants!

Chapter 20

Pascoe did not like what he was doing.

To him it seemed that Dalziel was becoming obsessed with Lee.

'But there's no real evidence,' he protested. 'OK,  it's reasonable to expect him to account for the  money and the ring and watch. But there's still  no definite tie-in with Brenda Sorby.'

'Michael Conrad, Fine Jeweller and Watch-Repairer, will give us that,' said Dalziel confidently. 'Due back from the sunny Med this  afternoon.'

'Then shouldn't we wait?'

'Why? What do you want to do?' demanded  Dalziel.

Mow my lawn and then cool off with a tube of  lager, thought Pascoe.

'What about Wildgoose? Shouldn't we talk to  him?' he said.

'Not home,' said Dalziel promptly. 'I sent Preece  round there this morning. Paper, milk, no Wildgoose.

He's probably shacked up with that little bird you  mentioned, Andrea Valentine. We could bust in  there, I suppose.'

'What?'

'Well, you think Wildgoose may have dumped  his spare hash there for safekeeping, don't you?  Suspicion of possession. We'd get a warrant easy.'

'No, but. . .' Pascoe began to protest, but Dalziel  interrupted him with agreement.

'Quite right, lad. Can't do things like that. Girl  on her own, parents away, it'd give us a bad name.  Anyway, we want to get our hands on little Andrea  while Wildgoose isn't around to feed her lines. If  she's holding the hash, that should give us a nice  little lever to squeeze what she knows about her  boy-friend out of her!'

Dalziel rubbed his hands together like two sheets  of emery paper.

'But what do you hope to find by searching the  gypsy encampment?' demanded Pascoe.

'Probably enough stolen gear to put the whole  bloody tribe away!' said the fat man. 'I don't know,  Peter. But there'll be summat there. Perhaps other  bits and pieces that went missing after the other  killings and we never knew about them. Listen,  that Pritchard cow, the solicitor, she's finally got  to Lee's wife. We kept her at the hospital last  night - still in custody, sort of, you understand.  Well, not for long. We've precious little to hold  her on, and Pritchard's raising merry hell. Once she gets back to the encampment, anything that might be evidence really will disappear, you can  bet on that.'

'So you want me to search Lee's caravan like you did? But officially this time?'

'No!' roared Dalziel. 'The whole bloody site!'

'But you can't do that! It's provocative! These  people have rights too. It's like searching every house  on an estate because you suspect one householder of a crime! With what we've got, you'd never get a  justice to issue such a general warrant!'

Dalziel grinned and reached into his inside pocket.

'Depends how you pick your justice. Bernard  Middlefield didn't have to think twice,' he said,  producing the document like a conjuror's rabbit  and handing it over.

'Aren't you coming along, sir?' asked Pascoe  unhappily.

'Me? No, I don't think so, Peter,' said Dalziel in  a sanctimonious tone. 'You're dead right. These people may be dirty gyppos but they're entitled  to all the usual consideration and protection of  the law. You're the man to see things are done  properly. Me, I'm too old fashioned, I suppose.  But I'm not so old fashioned that I don't know  when to take a back seat and let a younger, more  liberal sort of man get on with the job.'

You cunning old bastard! thought Pascoe.

He glanced back as he left the office. The fat  man was smiling and nodding his head as though  in accord.

If you have to do a job, do it properly, was a maxim which Pascoe believed in. The essence of  search is surprise. For this reason he had devised  the strategy of dividing his team, sending four round to the Industrial Estate entrance to the  encampment while he and two other DC's drove  into the Aero Club car park where Wield was  already waiting.

With him was a rather puzzled-looking blond man who was introduced to Pascoe as Austin  Greenall, the club secretary. He and Wield were looking towards the section of the old aerodrome  where the gypsies were. Just over the picket  fence a large bonfire had been lit. Its flames  were scarcely more than a violet vibration of  the air in the bright sunlight, but a plume of  dark smoke curved up from the fire towards the  club house.

'What's going on?' asked Pascoe.

'Perhaps they feel the cold, sir,' suggested the shirt-sleeved Wield.

'Is it a hazard?' said Pascoe to Greenall, glancing  up beyond the smoke to where five or six gliders  wheeled slowly high in the sky.

'No, there's not enough for that,' said Greenall.  'If anything, it could be useful. Shows the wind  drift and strength.'

'So, no complaints, sir?'

'Do you want me to complain?' wondered  Greenall looking at Pascoe curiously. 'I mean, are  you after an excuse to go in there?'

'Don't need an excuse, sir,' interjected Wield.  'Not if we've got a warrant.'

'Which we have,' said Pascoe. He spoke into his  personal radio. 'Preece, you and the others ready?  OK. Wait till you see us coming over the fence,  then move in.'

'Are you expecting someone to run?' asked  Wield as they set off across the grass.

'Not really,' said Pascoe. 'But if someone did run I don't want Mr Dalziel asking why I hadn't  thought of it.'