Child's Play (23 page)

'Mrs Windibanks?' said the fat man, slowly eyeing her up and down.

'That's right. Was it something particular you were looking for, Superintendent, or are you just taking a general view with the idea of making an offer?'

'Nay, the coach-work is grand, but I'd need an expert to look at the engine,' said Dalziel.

The woman's smile froze for a second, then she let out a trill of laughter. The barman set a tall, well fruited drink before her and she picked it up and made a mock-toasting gesture towards Dalziel.

'Why I ever left the North, I cannot imagine.'

'I sometimes wonder the same,' said Goodenough.

Dalziel said, 'I was just asking Mr Goodenough here where he was on Friday night. What about you, Mrs Windibanks?'

'Where was I, you mean. Oh, here and there. I had a meal in the restaurant, a couple of drinks in the bar, took a stroll to get some air, went to bed, watched some telly, read a book. That would just about fill the evening in, wouldn't you think?'

'You didn't answer the telephone,' said Dalziel.

'I'm sorry?'

'There were a couple of calls for you late on. The switchboard got no reply from your room.'

'Perhaps I was in the bath.'

'Long bath,' said Dalziel.

The woman sipped her drink, then turned her brilliant smile on the other man.

She said, 'Mr Goodenough, perhaps you can tell me what this is all about.'

'I think,' said Goodenough slowly, his dry Scots accent giving his words a measured forensic weight, 'I think it's about whether I, in order to improve the chances of PAWS inheriting half a million pounds, or you, Mrs Windibanks, in order to improve your chances of gaining seventy-five thousand pounds, would brutally do to death one of our fellow human beings.'

The woman said, 'My God! You're joking, of course?'

But her eyes were narrow with calculation rather than wide with shock.

She went on. 'Has he actually spelt this out, Mr Goodenough?'

Dalziel said, 'Thinking of a lawyer, are you, Mrs Windibanks? Quite right. I admire someone with a sharp eye for a quick profit. But you'll not get rich chasing after poor bobbies with defamation suits, isn't that right, Mr Goodenough? Or have you forgot all your law?'

'You seem to know a good deal about me,' said the Scot.

'I've just started,' said Dalziel. 'I like to know about people. About you. About Mrs Windibanks here. About Pontelli or Huby or whoever he was.'

'That'll be hard to prove now one way or another,' said Goodenough.

'Oh, there's always science,' said Dalziel with the Archimedean certainty of one who found it hard to understand why electricity didn't leak from light sockets with no bulbs in them.

Mrs Windibanks who had been sitting listening to this exchange with an air of weary superiority suddenly said, 'Hang on a sec. Perhaps I can help.'

The two men looked at her with a shared surprise.

'How's that?' said Dalziel.

'This body you've got, could I see it?'

'For identification, you mean? I doubt that'd help very much, luv,' said Dalziel. 'Forty years changes faces a lot. I mean, you saw this man at the funeral and you didn't think, here's Alexander back to claim his cash, did you?'

Mrs Windibanks smiled.

'True,' she said. 'But I wasn't thinking of his face. You see, Superintendent, I've just remembered. When I was a little girl, I used to go to Troy House with my parents and when poor Alexander was at home, he used to be given the task of looking after me. Neither of us enjoyed it much. He was ten years older than I was, you see . . .'

She paused as though daring a challenge. Five years older, guessed Dalziel, six at the most!

'The one thing I did enjoy was when he took me down to the river. He used to go in swimming. I just paddled in the shallows. The thing was, he used to swim in the buff. That school he went to was one of those places where the boys all used to swim nude in the school pool, a considerable perk for some of the staff, I dare say. Well, who am I to blame them? I used to enjoy watching Alex, believe me. He didn't consider me as female - I was a child relative and a bloody nuisance - so he was completely uninhibited. Alas, I spoilt it all one day, though.'

She sipped her drink and looked at them coquettishly over the foliage.

Dalziel said, 'You stripped off.'

'You're spoiling my story!' she protested. 'Yes, I decided that paddling was dull, so while he was floating around, I took off all my clothes and started to wade in. I was just beginning to develop then, you know, enough to be visibly different.'

Dalziel did a quick calculation. The lad must have been seventeen at most. He went in the army at eighteen. So take her alleged ten from his estimated seventeen and you got a most unlikely seven!

'You must have been an early developer, luv,' he said with a broad wink.

'Thank you,' she said as though he'd paid her a compliment. 'As soon as he saw me, everything changed. From being a naked shepherd lad bathing in the spring, he became a blushing, stuttering schoolboy who was so embarrassed he almost drowned! He couldn't get dressed quickly enough. It was my first, but not, alas, my last disappointment. We went bathing together no more.'

'Very touching,' said Dalziel. 'But what's your point, luv?'

'My point is he had a mark, a sort of mole on his left buttock, like a little leaf. I thought that was what it was, first time I saw it, that he'd sat on the grass and it had stuck. But when it didn't wash off, I realized it was part of him. There you are, Mr Dalziel. If your poor corpse has got that mark in his skin, then I would say yes, indeed, this man could be Alexander Huby!'

Chapter 7

Gruff-of-sodding-Greendale soared through the air, hit the wail with a dusty thump, and crashed to the flagged floor.

John Huby, the climax of his tale of woe achieved, now returned the centre of the stage to a dumbfounded Pascoe with an angry glance.

Seymour picked up the recumbent animal and said with relief, it's stuffed.'

The couple of early regulars who were standing at the bar guffawed appreciatively.

Pascoe said, 'I'll have that drink now, if you don't mind.'

'Aye. Well, come through to the kitchen then, out of the way of flapping lugs.'

With a sour glare at the two customers to make sure they didn't miss his point, John Huby led the way into the private quarters behind the bar. As Pascoe followed he glanced at Seymour and with a flicker of his eyes gave him the probably not unwelcome command to chat up the blonde who was polishing glasses against her straining, plunging blouse.

'I see you're extending, Mr Huby,' said Pascoe. 'Business must be good.'

'You think so? Then you don't know much about it, do you?'

'No, not really, but I thought . . .'

'I'm extending to
make
business good,' said Huby. 'If it
were
good, I'd not be bothered, would I?'

Pascoe tried to work out if this interesting economic theory were Keynesian or Friedmannite, gave up and said, 'It must be costing a packet.'

'What if it is? What's that to you?'

'Nothing, it's nothing,' Pascoe assured him.

'As long as that's understood,' said the man. 'Ruby!'

A larger, older version of the girl behind the bar appeared.

'Fetch us a couple of beers, will you?' said Huby.

'Halves?'

The man looked at Pascoe. It was a moment of significant assessment, he guessed.

'Pints,' said Huby.

The woman disappeared.

'Your wife?' suggested Pascoe.

'Aye.'

Ruby Huby. Pascoe savoured the name. Ruby Huby.

He said, 'I'm sorry about your disappointment, Mr Huby. But, as I said to you before, what I'm here about is this man who was murdered, the man, we believe, who interrupted your aunt's funeral and claimed to be your missing cousin.'

'He didn't do that,' objected Huby. 'Not at the funeral.'

'I believe he said,
Mama
,' Pascoe pointed out.

'Our Lexie and Jane, they've got a stack of old dolls that say
Mama
,' retorted Huby scornfully.

'The implication was clear enough, I should have thought,' murmured Pascoe.

Huby glowered at him with the expression of a man who was regretting having said 'Pints'.

Somewhere a telephone shrilled.

'He certainly claimed to be Alexander Huby in the presence of Eden Thackeray,' said Pascoe.

'Him? What's he know. Bugger all. He didn't even know Alex when he were a lad.'

'But you did, of course?'

'Aye. Not well. He were off at that fancy bloody school most of time, but I knew him. I knew him well enough to be able to say if some bugger turning up after all these years were him or not.'

'And what was your considered verdict?' said Pascoe, certain of his answer.

Mrs Huby came in with two pints on a tray.

'You're wanted on phone,' she said to her husband.

'Who is it? Tell 'em to ring back. I'm busy.'

'It's that woman,' she said. 'Says it's important.'

Grumbling, Huby rose and left the room.

'Cheers,' said Pascoe sipping one of the pints. 'Good ale, this. Is that your daughter behind the bar, Mrs Huby?'

'Aye. That's our Jane.'

'Yes. I've met your other daughter, Lexie, isn't it? She works at Mr Thackeray's.'

'That's right.'

'Bright girl,' said Pascoe fulsomely. 'You must be proud of her.'

'Oh yes,' said the woman, with sudden enthusiasm. 'She were always clever, our Lexie. She could've stayed on at school and done her Highers, you know. Teachers wanted her to. But John said no. It'd be wasted on a girl.'

'Do you think it would've been?' asked Pascoe.

The woman sat down suddenly. She must've been good-looking in her prime and it wasn't long past. Pascoe guessed she was a good ten years younger than her husband.

'Times have changed,' she said. 'Especially in the town. I'm glad she got a job there. She's a good help in the pub and everyone likes her. But it isn't for Lexie, I could always tell that.'

Pascoe tried to tune into the little girl being useful and popular in the public bar and failed to get a picture.

He persisted, 'But do
you
think she should've stayed on and done her A-levels, Mrs Huby?'

'Not just A-levels,' said the woman. 'College. They reckoned she could've gone to college. Not just nights, like she does now. But proper college.'

'She goes to night classes, does she? What in?' wondered Pascoe.

'At the Institute. Something to help in her job, I think,' said the woman, whose pride clearly did not extend to the particular. 'And she drives her own car, you know. And listens to that fancy music. I wish she could get herself a nice boy, though. But she doesn't seem much interested.'

The door opened and Huby returned. His wife stood up, nodded pleasantly at Pascoe and left.

'Nice woman,' said Pascoe.

Huby regarded him with deep suspicion.

'You've not come here to pass compliments at my wife,' he said, making it sound like technical rape. 'I thought you wanted to ask me about this Italian fellow.'

'That's right. But not much point really as you only glimpsed him the once,' said Pascoe negligently.

'Who said I only saw him the once?' demanded Huby. 'That were you, not me!'

'You mean you saw him again?' asked Pascoe, amazed at the admission rather than the fact.

'Aye, did I. He came here last Friday.'

'Friday night, you mean?'

'No, I bloody well don't! If you want to answer the questions as well as ask 'em, why don't you sod off and talk to yourself!'

It occurred to Pascoe to wonder if some distant consanguinity existed between the Huby's and the Dalziels.

'Tell me about it,' he said politely.

'It were Friday afternoon. I'd been in town. I got back here just on closing time and he were sitting out there in the bar, by the window. Not that I paid any heed at first. I didn't really notice him till Ruby called time. Well, after a while most on the buggers moved off, but he sat fast. I were helping clear up and I went over to him and said, time to trot, sunshine, or some such thing. He didn't budge, but just looked up at me and said,
Hello, John.'

'And did you recognize him?' asked Pascoe.

'I saw he were the fellow who'd caused the fuss at the funeral,' said Huby.