Child's Play (30 page)

The tears were ready to fall again, but this time with the aid of a pocket mirror and a paper handkerchief she managed to stem them at source.

'Well, it shook Dick, I'll say that for him. Really broke him up for a bit. He stayed on at their flat a while with Cliff - the boy was about nine at the time. Then one day he came to see me and said, could I help? The Council was giving him a bad time about the boy, saying Dick couldn't look after him properly. Well, it was hard, especially with Dick's kind of job. But he was adamant, he'd not have the lad taken into care. He'd been dumped in a home himself, and it wasn't going to happen to his son. You had to admire him for that, didn't you? And the boy was my grandson. So what could I do? I was working full-time at the dry-cleaners just then, but Dick said full-time was no good, would I go part-time and he'd make up the money. I had my doubts, but I said, all right, and give Dick his due, the money wasn't regular, but it nearly always turned up eventually, and a bit over too when he was flush. Plus he paid for all the boy's clothes and so on. I'd no complaints.'

'And did Dick actually live with you?' asked Dalziel, recognizing that there were no short cuts on a marathon.

'Some of the time. But like I said, he worked away a lot. He was restless, didn't like getting into a rut. Also I reckon he often got into a bit of bother and had to move on. But it was nearly always in London and he'd nearly always ring once a week, or send a postcard. And it was rare for more than three or four weeks to pass without him putting in an appearance. He'd spoil the boy rotten then, though I noticed if he was back for more than a couple of days, it wasn't long before he was putting Cliff in his place.'

'You got on well with the boy yourself?' Dalziel asked.

'Well enough,' she said after a hesitation. 'Till he started at the secondary, anyway. I'll make no bones, by the time he reached his teens, he was too much for me to handle. He was in with a bad set, but I expect their mums said that about their lads too. There was bother with the Old Bill too, nothing serious, but enough to make me worry. I soon made up my mind. When he was sixteen and out of school, that was it. He could sling his hook and live permanent with his dad. I liked him well enough, you understand, but it was all getting too much for me. I wasn't as young as I had been, and I wanted a bit of peace and quiet.'

'Nonsense,' said Dalziel gallantly. 'I bet there's life in them old bones yet.'

'You got something in mind?' she said, looking at him assessingly.

Dalziel grinned and said, 'We'll see. What happened to Dick?'

'Three years ago he went off again. He was working up West and we were expecting him at the weekend, but he rang up to say he wouldn't be coming as he was going away for a bit. I said, is it a job? and he laughed, not a real laugh but sort of meaningful, and said, no, it was family business. And that was that. To cut a long story short, we never saw him again. Cliff got a postcard a couple of days later and after that, nothing. Cliff got really upset as more and more time went by, but what was there to do? I rang your lot and all they said was sorry, there was no law against a man going away and not coming back. So I had to make do with that.'

'And Cliff?'

He stopped talking about it, eventually, but I don't think he stopped thinking about it. Not that we ever discussed it. He left school and he didn't get any work, well, I know it's hard to get these days, but he didn't even look, did he? He just started going up West and only coming back when he felt like it. I don't know what he was doing up there, and I don't want to know, but he was never short of money so far as I could see. In the end we had a row and he walked out with all his things and I never saw him again.'

'When was that, Mrs Hornsby?'

'Two years ago. At least. I told him I never wanted to set eyes on him again and I wish I hadn't, leastways not like this.'

She began to cry again, beyond the staunching of tissue, and Dalziel pulled a huge khaki handkerchief out of his pocket and passed it across to her.

'That'll do for now, luv,' he said. 'We've got you booked into a nice hotel. Why don't you go along there now with the lass here and have a nice lie-down. We'll mebbe chat again later, and have a couple of beers too, eh?'

The prospect seemed to please. The woman began to gather herself and her accoutrements together.

'This postcard Cliff got. Where was it from, do you remember?'

It was Wield who spoke.

'I'm not sure,' Mrs Hornsby said. 'North. It could've been Yorkshire. Yes, I think the picture said Yorkshire.'

She smiled at Wield as though pleased that he had broken his silence, but he had resumed his previous distancing, withdrawn expression.

The landlord unlocked the door to let the women out, then paused and looked hopefully towards the men.

Dalziel pointed at his glass and raised two fingers in a gesture mathematical rather than derisory.

'And now, sunshine,' he said to Wield. 'Let's you and me have a little talk.'

Wield did not speak till the whiskies arrived and even then he delayed till the landlord had retreated out of earshot.

Then he put the glass to his lips and knocked the smooth spirit back in one swallow. Dalziel's face across the table looked about as sympathetic as a prison wall. But it was not sympathy he wanted, Wield reminded himself. It was the right to be himself. He thought of the effect saying this was likely to produce on Dalziel and felt his courage ebb. He had to admit it - the man terrified him! Here before him in awful visible form, was embodied all the mockery, scorn and scatological abuse which he had always feared from the police hierarchy. At least, to start with Dalziel was to start with the worst.

He drew a deep breath and said, 'I want to tell you. I'm a homosexual.'

'Oh aye,' said Dalziel. 'You've not just found out, have you?'

'No,' said Wield, taken aback. 'I've always known.'

'That's all right, then,' said Dalziel equably, 'I'd have been worried else that I'd not mentioned it to you.'

I'm not hearing him right, thought Wield, now utterly bewildered. Or mebbe he didn't hear me right!

'I'm gay,' he said desperately. 'I'm a queer.'

'You can be a bloody freemason for all I care,' said Dalziel, 'but it's not going to help with your promotion, if that's what you're after!'

It took Wield a full thirty seconds to begin to assimilate this. 'You knew?' he said disbelievingly. 'How? How long? Who else?'

'Ah well, you see, they're not all clever cunts like me,' said Dalziel modestly. 'Listen, Wieldy, what are you telling me? You're a queer? Well, I've known that almost as long as you've been in CID. But it's not interfered with your work, no more anyway than Mr Pascoe having a row with his missus, or Seymour not getting it away with that Irish bint. Only time I was worried was when you went all dewy-eyed when young Constable Singh got himself hurt, so I saw to it he got posted out of harm's way!'

'You bastard!' said Wield, slowly beginning to grow angry. 'Who the hell do you think you are? What am I supposed to be? Grateful?'

'You can be whatever you fucking well like, Sergeant,' said Dalziel. 'Except mebbe insubordinate. Listen, lad, I'll spell it out. What you are is your business except when it touches your job and then it's mine. All I want to hear from you now is if, and how, your relationship with this boy, Sharman, has touched your job. So talk!'

There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

Wield went through the whole thing from the very start omitting nothing, adding nothing.

Dalziel nodded admiringly when he finished.

'By God, Sergeant, you're the best maker of reports I've ever come across. What's that fancy word Mr Pascoe used about them? Pellucid! That's what they are, pellucid. Just so we know where we are, why don't you tell me what you've done that's illegal in all this?'

Wield said after a little thought, 'I've withheld information. I've broken police regulations. And I've acted in a manner unbecoming and unprofessional.'

'That's about the strength of it,' agreed Dalziel. 'We'll sort that out just now. Let's concentrate on the boy first of all. You were fond of him?'

'I was growing fond of him,' said Wield in a low voice. 'I found him very attractive. He was young, vital, and, I don't know, brave in a kind of way. At least he had the courage to be what he was. He thought I was pretty contemptible, I think. I knew he was all kinds of other less attractive things too. I wasn't blind. When he walked out I thought: That's it. There's pain here, yes, but I'm well out of it. Pain I can bear. It'll fade. I'll survive. Then I found out he was dead . . .'

His voice, growing steadily lower, faded into inaudibility.

'Easy, lad,' said Dalziel. 'Listen, it might help to know that on the basis of what you've said and something that the DCC told me earlier today, I reckon young Master Cliff went straight from your flat to telephone the
Challenger
and make an appointment to blow the gaff on you this morning.'

Slowly Wield shook his head.

'No,' he said bitterly. 'That doesn't help at all.'

'Sorry I spoke, then,' said Dalziel. 'All right, sunshine, you sit here and feel sorry for yourself while I make a couple of phone calls.'

He went through the bar to the telephone and got through to the station. First he asked for Watmough. The DCC did not seem happy to hear his voice nor did what Dalziel had to say much increase his store of felicity.

'This murdered man is possibly the same person who has been ringing the
Challenger,
you think?'

'Seems likely.'

'Has anything emerged about the precise details of his allegations?' asked Watmough cautiously.

'As far as I can make out, he said nowt and he's left nowt in writing,' said Dalziel disingenuously. 'What I wanted to find out is who was the reporter he was supposed to be meeting, but didn't? I'll need to talk to him.'

'Vollans. Henry Vollans.' said Watmough. Dalziel could almost hear his mind clicking like an abacus as he calculated possible advantages and disadvantages. 'Yes, you must talk to him, I see that. But discreetly, Andy. I'll have a word with Ike Ogilby too. There must be no rushing to judgment on this one, you understand?'

'Aye,' said Dalziel. 'Can you put me back to the exchange?'

Here he asked for Pascoe's extension and found that the Inspector had just got in. Through the open door of the snug he could see that Wield had risen to his feet.

He said urgently, 'Listen, Peter, there's a reporter on the
Challenger
I want a word with, name of Vollans. Can you get hold of him somehow.'

'Henry Vollans? I was just talking to him at the Old Mill Inn half an hour ago,' said Pascoe. 'Yes, I'll get him. What's all this about?'

'Sorry. Got to go. See you in, say, half an hour.'

He dropped the receiver on to the rest and went out to meet Wield who was walking slowly towards the exit.

'All ready then?' he said heartily. 'Good. Let's drop in at your place and have a poke around.'

Wield's craggy features went stiff.

'Poke around? You don't think I had something to do with killing him, do you?'

Dalziel thrust his face close to the sergeant's.

'Listen, lad. I could get you remanded in custody for a week pending inquiries on what you've just told me, you must know that.'

'Yes, but . . .'

'No buts! I could. And I might yet if the fancy takes me. You've done one clever thing in all this business, and that's talking to me. Now do another and shut up except when I ask questions. Here's a question. Sharman according to the
P.M
report had had it up the bum some time in the twelve hours before he was killed. Would that have been you?'

'Yes.'

'Later you had a row and he walked out?'

'Yes.'

'You can start chucking in the odd
sir
if you like,' said Dalziel kindly.

'Yes, sir.'

'And he didn't come back to your flat?' 'No, sir.'

'Then his gear must still be at your place, mustn't it? So let's go there and start poking around.'

Chapter 5

Henry Vollans had left the Old Mill Inn with a sense of great relief. Not even the attentions of the attractively upholstered daughter of the house, offered (though he did not know it) on the rebound from the suddenly disenchanted Seymour, could compensate for the aggressive tedium of John Huby's conversation. Vollans was happy to put the man out of his mind and turn his thoughts once more to the enigmatic Sarah Brodsworth. Pascoe clearly thought she was a plant from some organization, after the Huby money. But if so, which? He suspected Pascoe knew more about her than he was saying whereas he himself knew rather less.

But he had a few not inconsiderable advantages over Pascoe. For one thing, he was young and looked like Robert Redford. Should Sarah Brodsworth herself remain resistant to his charms, then he would have to turn them even more strongly on the old girl. It might mean several more hours of colonial reminiscence but somewhere in there he would learn everything about Brodsworth that the ancient biddy could tell him.