'Are you all right?' asked Jenny anxiously.
'He looks a bit dazed,' said Antony. 'It was the soil. One of the legs just went down as if it was on quicksand.' 'I'm all right,' said Pascoe, rather light-heartedly. Take me to my leader.'
Jenny and Antony looked at each other dubiously.
'Come inside and have a cup of tea,' suggested Jenny. 'Or a drop of Daddy's scotch.' She took him by the arm and led him unresistingly into the house. 'Hello,' said Connon, looking at the sergeant's earthstained suit. 'Had a fall?' 'Nothing to worry about, sir,' replied Pascoe. 'Winded me a bit that's all. May I use your phone?'
'Of course. Any luck with your tree?'
'Perhaps,' said Pascoe enigmatically, then seeing Jenny's look of enquiry, he relented and added, 'I think there may be a footprint.'
'On the windowsill?'
'On the wall.' 'That's absurd,' said Connon. 'No one could get in there. And the window was fastened in any case.' Pascoe didn't answer but went out to the phone. Jenny looked worriedly at her father. Today he looked paler than ever. T wish they could have left this alone till Christmas was over,' she whispered to Antony. He squeezed her shoulder and went out into the hall after Pascoe who was just replacing the receiver. 'He's out,' said Pascoe, more to himself than Antony. 'He'll ring here when he gets back.' 'Sergeant,' said Antony. 'Forgive me if I seem to be playing the amateur sleuth once again, but something else occurred to me the other day, which might or might not be of interest to you.' 'Let's have it,' said Pascoe. 'Every little helps. Shall we go into the other room?' 'Well no,' said Antony. 'It would make my explanation easier if we stepped outside.'
Two minutes later Antony returned to the lounge.
'Has he gone?' asked Jenny, who was sitting on the arm of her father's chair. 'No. He's in the garden again. But he sent me in to ask you something. You know a girl called Sheila Lennox?'
'Yes.'
'He wants to know if you know where she works.' Thirty minutes later the three of them were still sitting in the lounge. 'I hope he's going to pay for his telephone calls,' said Jenny. 'It's a little price to pay to see the great detective's great detective at work,' said Antony. Connon sat with his hand pressed to the side of his brow. 'Have you got your headache again, Daddy?' asked Jenny.
'No. Not really. Just a little. It'll pass.'
'Oh, I wish…' but the front-door bell interrupted Jenny's wish. Antony rose, but they heard the door being opened before he left the room.
'How do you do, Sergeant?' boomed a familiar voice.
'Oh God,' groaned Jenny, 'it's Fat Dalziel.'
'The gang's all here,' intoned Antony.
In the dining-room, Pascoe was speaking swiftly, persuasively to Dalziel who listened intently. 'All right,' he said when the sergeant had finished. I'll buy it. Let's ask him now, shan we? Where's he work?' 'He doesn't today. It's Christmas Eve, remember? He finished early for Christmas. That's why I left word for you to come here.'
'That makes it easier. Come on.'
Pascoe hung back, his memories of training thronging his mind.
'Shouldn't we call up a little support? Just in case.'
Dalziel laughed contemptuously.
'A strapping young lad like you? Not to mention me, the terror of seven counties. You must be joking. Anyway, it might still be a lot of hogwash. Let's ask.'
Jenny heard the front door close.
'That's bloody polite, I must say,' she said angrily. 'In and out without a by-your-leave, and they don't even say goodbye.' 'Perhaps they're not going far,' said Antony, peering through the curtains. 'In fact, they're not. They're just going across the road.' 'Where to?' demanded Jenny, jumping up and rushing to the window.
Connon stood up too and slowly followed her.
Over the road, Dalziel held his thumb down hard on the bell-push. 'Someone knows we're here,' he said laconically. 'Or there's a big draught behind the curtains.'
'Here we are,' said Pascoe.
The door opened. 'Good morning, madam,' said Dalziel with effusive politeness to the large woman who stood there, still rubbing her sleepy eyes. 'We're police officers. I wonder if I might have a word with your son.' Maisie Curtis opened her mouth to say something. From somewhere at the rear of the house came the slam of a door.
'Sergeant,' said Dalziel. The back.'
But he was speaking to an already retreating Pascoe. Stanley Curtis was young, fit, and had a good start. When Pascoe rounded the back of the house, he had already moved across the Fernies' garden and was clearing the next hedge like a trained hurdler. Pascoe made no attempt to follow him but rapidly assessed the situation. While the barriers between the Boundary Drive gardens were uniformly low, the hedges and fences which separated the bottoms of the gardens from those of the houses behind were generally much higher. Pascoe took this in, turned and ran past Dalziel again without a word. The Connons saw him leap into his car like a Le Mans driver and accelerate explosively up the street. Two hundred yards on he brought the car to an equally violent halt. Stanley Curtis, dragging in great mouthfuls of air through his hugely open mouth, was coming out of someone's gate. He stopped when he saw the car and made as if to turn back.
Pascoe leaned over and opened the passenger door.
'Come on, Stan,' he said. 'It's no weather to be out without your jacket.' His chest still rising and falling spasmodically, the youth came across the pavement and climbed into the car. 'Let's get Superintendent Dalziel,' said Pascoe, swinging the car in a turn which took him up on to the pavement. 'Then we'll go somewhere quiet and have a talk. I expect you're ready for a talk, aren't you?'
Chapter 8.
'I didn't kill her,' said Stanley.
'No?' said Pascoe.
They were sitting, the three of them, in Dalziel's room at the station. Mrs Curtis had with some difficulty been persuaded to leave. She had become slightly hysterical and it had taken the intervention of the boy himself to get her out. He had spoken to her with a kindly firmness which seemed to surprise her and she had left without further protest. Pascoe too had been surprised by the maturity the youth was showing. It was as if the desperate physical effort to get away had burnt off all the panicking, fearful element in him. For the moment anyway. 'Let's start with that,' said Stanley firmly. 'I didn't kill her.'