Exit Lines (21 page)

Assuring him that he would later want a full statement, Seymour paid up. The cab drew away, leaving him in the gathering dusk looking into the uninviting gloom of the recreation ground. But it was not as uninviting as it must have been two hours later in last Friday's weather. What had possessed the man? he wondered.

He entered the ground, determined to see his reconstruction through to the end. Pascoe and Wield would not be able to claim he had left any stone unturned! The cliche reminded him of Hector and his famous sack. A joke it had seemed at the time of collecting, and a waste of time too. But now, with the certainty of assault and robbery of an old man looming large in his mind, there seemed little to laugh at. And indeed, as he walked slowly across the recreation ground and the few figures still visible seemed very distant, and the lights beginning to glow along the roads at the park's edge were like camp-fires in some vague valley seen from a perilous hill, he found himself wishing for the company even of a twit like Hector.

A few minutes later he had made the crossing without the experience of either assault or inspiration and his remembered fears made him feel ashamed.

Castleton Court lay not far ahead. It seemed a good opportunity to pay another visit to Mrs Escott, though later reflection had brought him to much the same conclusion as Pascoe: i.e., that it was not likely to prove of any profit.

Still, he told himself with the good-natured perception of a favourite grandchild, a visit would most likely be welcome, be rewarded with a hot drink against the chill November air and Grundy's germs. Also it occurred to him that the old lady might well need cheering up if she herself had realized her error of recall.

He let his big, cheerful, reassuring smile slide across his face as he pressed the doorbell, but when no reply came to a second and prolonged pressing, the smile faded.

Oh well, he thought, she was probably out shopping. Try again later.

He turned away, then on impulse turned back and went to Mrs Campbell's door. Here again he thought he was out of luck, but just as he was giving up the door opened cautiously on the chain and Lucy Campbell's bold, handsome face appeared.

She recognized him instantly, which was surprisingly flattering.

'It's Mr Seymour, isn't it? How are you?'

'Well,' he said. 'Look, I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's Mrs Escott I was looking for. She's not at home and I just thought she might have popped in here.'

'No, no,' said Mrs Campbell. 'I saw her a little earlier this afternoon coming in. She looked a little
distrait,
I recall, hardly even looked at me when I said hello. But she's been like that, off and on, recently, poor dear.'

'And she went into her flat?'

'Oh yes. And shut the door rather emphatically.'

There was a pause while they both reflected.

'I think I'd better get the warden,' said Seymour finally.

'Please, wait a moment,' said Mrs Campbell.

She closed the door to undo the chain, then opened it wide.

'Come in,' she said. 'Mr Tempest is in fact visiting me. He's been repairing a window-catch and I asked him to have a cup of tea.'

Mr Tempest was in fact standing in front of the fireplace, an expression of some uneasiness on his round, open face. There was no tea in sight.

Seymour wondered why Mrs Campbell had felt it necessary to put the chain on the door before she opened, then blushed furiously as the outrageous explanation presented itself.

Not at their age! his suddenly puritanical young mind protested.

But Mr Tempest's unease was quickly redirected when he heard Seymour's story.

'She's likely just gone out again, or mebbe having a nap, but we'd best just check,' he said, producing his master key.

The living-room was empty. Seymour looked into the kitchen while Tempest opened the bedroom door.

'Oh Christ!' he heard the warden choke out.

He pushed past him into the room.

Across the bed surrounded by a scatter of pill bottles lay Jane Escott. Her eyes were wide open and staring, but it was not possible to tell if she were alive or dead.

Chapter 23

'There is treachery, O Ahaziah.'

Approached at night through an avenue of skeletal trees which Walt Disney might have designed, The Towers was a sinister sight, more suited to the incisive antics of venereal vampirism than to the careful cradling of reposing age. Their crenellated teeth snatching at a wild November moon, the ungainly asymmetric structures which gave the house its name impressed Pascoe with that sense of foreboding frequently enjoyed by heroines of Gothic romance as they approached some three-volume test of their nerve and their virtue.

All it needed, thought Pascoe, was for the old brass-studded oaken front door to creak open at his approach and a corpse-like figure to glide forward and beckon him in.

He set his foot on the doorstep. The door swung slowly open with a small but indisputable creak and there indeed was a figure, if not corpse-like, at least at an advanced stage of rehearsal of that condition.

It glided forward and spoke.

'Are you the undertaker's man?' it asked in a querulous tone. "Cos if so, you're not wanted. She's got better.'

'Thank you, Mr Wilson,' said Miss Day's patient and kindly voice. 'I'll look after this. Oh hello. It's Mr Pascoe, isn't it?'

'That's right,' said Pascoe, shaking the matron's hand and looking after the retreating Mr Wilson who in the light of the hallway now appeared as simply a white-haired old gent with a glissading style of ambulation caused by a dilapidated pair of carpet slippers. ‘What was all that about?' he asked.

'Mr Wilson? Oh, one of our ladies was taken ill. A bad bout of indigestion was all it was, but she looked very poorly for a while. Another of our lady guests has a distant cousin in the undertaking business and at the slightest sign of decline, she's off to the telephone, presumably to assure the poor man that if he turns up here with a coffin, there'll be work for him to do!'

'And Mr Wilson?'

'He hates her. He's convinced that she's been in his room at night measuring him up.'

She laughed and Pascoe joined in.

'Don't get the impression we're all as odd as that, Mr Pascoe,' she said. 'Most of them here are just plain, straightforward people, whatever that means! But they're all at the time of life when the cracks begin to show. Usually it doesn't matter. Sometimes, though, it can be very painful.'

'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe soberly, thinking of Mrs Escott.

The news of her attempted suicide had been one of the things which had delayed his visit here. When Seymour had rung in from the hospital, he had felt incredibly guilty. It was irrational, he knew. He and Ellie had often discussed the putative right of individuals to determine when they died and though he was not quite so emphatic about it as Ellie, they generally agreed that such a right existed. So Mrs Escott, becoming aware that senility was creeping up on her, had decided to exit with dignity. Only, she hadn't exited. And Pascoe was left with the memory of the apparently content and cogent woman he had spoken to, happily unaware till his interference that she had managed to forget a whole day.

'I'm sorry to call so late,' he began.

Miss Day interrupted him with some exasperation.

'It's only eight-thirty, Mr Pascoe. We don't sound lightsout at nine, you know. This is neither a hospital, nor a nursery, nor an army barracks!'

'Sorry, sorry,' said Pascoe. 'What I really meant was that I hope old Mrs Spillings hasn't been creating because her things didn't turn up earlier.'

He held up the bag which Tracey Spillings had given him.

'No, not a word. She's settled in front of the telly and hasn't moved. Thanks, I'll see she gets it. Was that all, Mr Pascoe? You're just a messenger boy?'

'From each according to his ability, Miss Day,' murmured Pascoe.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean to be rude. I know from old experience that when Tracey's around, people find themselves doing odd things!'

'Yes, she does rather take over, doesn't she?' grinned Pascoe. 'But while I'm here, I'd quite like a word with Mrs Warsop, if she's around.'

'Sorry, you've just missed her. She went out about half an hour ago. Can I help?'

Something about the way in which she made this offer caught Pascoe's attention. Years of playing the rapier to Dalziel's bludgeon in the interrogation room had developed in him a keen ear for the nuances of response. Often there was a rigid barrier between what a witness was willing to volunteer and what he was willing to reveal under questioning. The interviewer had to be alert to these tonal signals which said
ask me this and I shall reply, but if you keep silent, so shall I.

He said, 'Is there somewhere we can talk for a moment?'

She led him into an office made homely by chintzy curtains, Constable reproductions, and a pair of wing-chairs set round a coffee table. It all smacked of a conscious care to put any of the residents who visited her here at their ease, a theory empirically confirmed when he sat down and found that the cushion was several inches higher than expected to facilitate sitting and rising for old limbs.

He guessed that Mrs Warsop's office would be designed on different lines.

'Miss Day,' he said, 'how long have you been doing this job?'

'At The Towers?Nearly a year now. I've been with the social service department a lot longer of course, since I left school in fact, if you count training periods. I was running one of the residential homes in town before this job fell vacant.'

'Were you asked to come here or did you apply?' wondered Pascoe, letting his instinct direct the questioning.

'Oh, I asked. It surprised some people, but I think it's a good thing to move around in any field, don't you? I know that you've got to stay in one job long enough to be able to do it right, but if you stay too long you risk becoming complacent, don't you agree?'

She spoke earnestly. Pascoe nodded, certain he was on the right track.

'Your predecessor here, had she been here a long time?'

'Miss Collins? Oh yes. Donkey's years! Much longer and she'd have been older than some of the residents!' she laughed.

'And Mrs Warsop?'

'Seven or eight years,' said Miss Day. 'I think she'd been bursar at some girls' boarding-school before, so in some ways it must have been a change for her too.'

'So you had to slot in with many old and well-established routines, I suppose?' said Pascoe.

'Yes. Well, you don't go rushing in like a mad thing, do you? You take your time, change what needs to be changed gradually.'

'Quite right,' approved Pascoe. 'You are in overall charge, are you? Or do you and Mrs Warsop rank equal in respect of your different areas?'

'No. On paper I'm in charge. But after eight years Mrs Warsop is naturally rather possessive of her side of things.'

'Possessive,' said Pascoe. 'Or protective, perhaps?'

'Protective?'

'Defensive. Miss Day, you and I are both public servants and both sensible of the need to tread carefully.' Pascoe hesitated, then plunged. 'Let me ask you a hypothetical question. If there were anything not quite right in the financial management of The Towers, would you be certain of your ability to detect it?'

The woman gave this careful thought.

'Sooner or later, yes,' she said. 'But probably later. And always at the risk of giving sufficient warning for any mismanagement to be halted and the tracks leading to it obliterated. I'll be honest, Mr Pascoe. I've got big plans or at least big hopes. I want to be helping to shape policy about our whole approach to caring for the elderly before I finish. So I've got to move carefully until I'm sure. And I'm far from sure. Look, can I be completely frank?'

Pascoe nodded. Words might be dangerous.

'I don't much like Mrs Warsop. I know it. I don't know why. I don't think it's anything to do with her being, well,
gay,
though that seems a silly word for her, but
lesbian
sounds sort of critical, I always feel. Anyway, I don't think that's it, though it might be part of it. There's none of us quite as liberal as we like to think, is there?'

'No,' said Pascoe, interested at this unsolicited (though as yet unsupported) confirmation of part of Andrea Gregory's Parthian malice.

'But that's irrelevant to her job here, of course. Though it might have been a bit of a strain in a girls' boarding-school. Miaow! Excuse me, Mr Pascoe. But when you’re like me, biggish, pushy, and unmarried in your late thirties, you get used to people regarding you as butch. Whereas once you get the
Mrs
tag, even if it's just a label left over from an eighteen-month marriage and a relieved divorce, society offers sympathy and assistance. All right. So men see you as an easy target, but at least they don't see you as a dangerous competitor!'

'To return to Mrs Warsop,' said Pascoe gently, feeling the time had come for a nudge before Betty Day talked herself out of talking. 'What you're saying is, you suspect a fiddle, but also suspect your own motives in suspecting. Right?'

She looked at him steadily for a moment and then nodded her head.

'You've hit it precisely,' she said. 'And you, Inspector. What's
your
interest in all this?'

'Just interest, so far,' he said. 'A long way from a formal investigation. A vague allegation, a supportive circumstance, and now your own gut-feeling, if you'll excuse the phrase. There's a long way to go, Miss Day. So, for starters, why not tell me about this possible fiddle?'

The approach to Paradise Hall was by no means as Gothic as that to The Towers but the white face and shadowed eyes of Stella Abbiss would not have been out of place in a Transylvanian castle.

She had seen him hesitating at the dining-room door and after a short delay while she finished serving a table, she came to join him.

'I don't expect you want to eat,' she said.

Pascoe sniffed the rich odours drifting from the kitchen.

'Alas,' he said. 'A light purse develops simple tastes. A loaf of bread. A flask of wine.'

She frowned and said, 'Is it me or Jeremy you want?'

Pascoe did not reply. His eyes had moved away from that face, so sensual with suffering, into the dining-room. It was half full, not bad for so early in the week, he guessed. But what really took his attention was the presence of Doreen Warsop. She was seated at a table for two in front of one of the windows. Her companion was a young woman with frizzy blonde hair who was indulging in the disgusting habit of smoking between courses. Not that she'd had much of a course if the pile of food on her plate was to be completely abandoned. Probably eight or nine quid's worth there, assessed Pascoe. There were probably hungry people in Chinese takeaways who'd be glad of it. He got the impression that Mrs Warsop, who was persevering with her pheasant with truffles, did not take kindly to having smoke puffed in her face.

He said, 'He's in the kitchen, is he?'

'Yes. Very busy. Like me.'

There were in fact two girls serving, one of them looking suspiciously young. Pascoe tried to recollect the law on children's working hours, but quickly abandoned the attempt. His purpose here was vague and delicate enough already without risking unnecessary diversion.

'Right, I'll go through,' he said.

'Is it a raid?' demanded Jeremy Abbiss as Pascoe entered the kitchen. 'Pray God it's a raid and I can abandon this devil's kitchen for a simple monastic cell!'

'What's up? Have you got the
zabaglione
gang in again?'

'What? Oh. You remembered! No, in fact, things would be fine, only our idiot girl from the village is being assisted by her even less gifted sister. She keeps getting lost between here and the further tables!'

'Worse than the girl you fired, is she?' asked Pascoe idly.

'Infinitely, though it grieves me to say it. At least dear Miss Andrea had all her marbles, it was just her morals and motivation that were in doubt.'

'Morals? You were concerned for her essential purity, no doubt?'

'No!' laughed Abbiss, chopping a tomato with incredible speed. 'I do not set myself up as an arbiter of private pleasures, though I must say I draw a line at some things. There was this bloody soldier she used to bring back, spent all night here sometimes; well, that was pretty cheeky, but when I came down early one morning and caught him taking a final soldier's farewell across the reception desk, I felt that things were getting out of hand! When I remonstrated he didn't even stop, just told me over his shoulder to get lost! I mean, really!'

Pascoe grinned at the thought of young Charley's youthful energy. He probably had to run all the way back to camp too, in an exhausted state! Still, a sergeant-major's wrath is straw to the fire in the blood.

'But it wasn't the screwing, as long as she didn't do it in the dining-room and frighten the customers; it was the way things tended to fade away around her. Half a bottle of Scotch here, a couple of quid there, nothing startling, nothing provable. And she acted as if she wasn't really employed here at all, but just doing a favour by helping out. Enough's enough. At last we quarrelled beyond repair.'

The infant idiot came in, allowed Abbiss to present her with a bowl of salad, then looked around hopefully for the door.

Abbiss ushered her out, rolling his eyes upward in mute appeal.

'So, tell me, Mr Pascoe,' he resumed. 'Why have you come to see me? More questions about your fat friend?'

'Indirectly,' said Pascoe. 'You remember last time we talked, I mentioned Mrs Warsop.'

'Who?' asked Abbiss, now at work on a cucumber.

There was, Pascoe noted, coincident with Mrs Warsop's name, a slice a couple of millimetres thicker than the others.

Encouraged, he pressed on.

'The bursar at The Towers. I'm sure you know her. In fact she's dining here tonight. Shall I perhaps call her in?'

'I don't think we need disturb the customers,' said Abbiss primly. 'What about her anyway?'

'At first she was certain she'd observed Mr Dalziel driving his car away. Later she became unsure.'

'A woman's privilege.'

'I tend to seek less sexist explanations,' said Pascoe.