A pinch of snuff

'That's about as helpful as most of what they tell us,’ sneered Dalziel.

'I think he was suggesting that the caning and the beating-up may not have been done at the same time or for the same reason.'

'Haggard's got a kink, you mean? Christ, I don't need any wog medicine man to tell me that – he was one of your erudite Asians, I suppose? They usually are after midnight.'

'You mean, something's known about Haggard?'

Dalziel grinned like an advert for Jaws.

'In this town something's known about every bugger,' he said. 'If I could get half the sods I drink with in the Rugby Club bar into CID, the crime rate'd be halved tomorrow. Or into gaol for that matter.'

'I know I'm a soccer man,' said Pascoe, 'but if you could see your way…'

Dalziel settled back in his chair and scratched his right groin sensuously.

'I'd have thought you and Wield, being so interested in the Calli, would have known all there was to know about Gilbert,' he said in ponderous satire. 'He was an interesting fellow. Like you, Peter.'

'Like me?' said Pascoe, alarmed.

'Educated, I mean. University. A real university, though. Oxford. And a real subject. Classics.'

Having seen his own university and discipline dismissed as illusory, or at best mimic, Pascoe felt a need to re-establish himself.

'Was he a real doctor too? I mean, he wasn't brown or yellow or black, which puts him halfway there already, doesn't it?'

'A Doctor of Philosophy, oh yes,' said Dalziel, delighted at having provoked a response. 'You ever thought of trying it?'

'Taking a research degree?' said Pascoe in surprise.

'No. I meant philosophy,' said Dalziel. 'It helps you keep your temper, they tell me. Well, he did a spell in the Foreign Office. He was out in Africa or West India, somewhere hot and black. Then he went to Europe, Vienna, I think. My more intellectual contacts…'

'Old scrum-halves,' interrupted Pascoe.

'You're learning. They tell me getting from the mosquitoes into Europe would be a step up. Things going well. Then, about 1956, he left.'

'Why?' asked Pascoe.

'How should I know why?'

'I thought the Rugger CIA knew everything.'

'A man abroad's like a team on tour,' said Dalziel. 'What you do there doesn't count. Any road, when he got back to England he started teaching, down in Dorset or some such place.'

'What kind of school?'

'One of them what-they-calls-it, prep schools.'

'A bit of a come-down after the governor's palace,' said Pascoe.

'Well, not all that much,' said Dalziel. 'He started as headmaster.'

'Good God! With no experience? I knew these places were low level, but surely…'

'Ah yes,' said Dalziel. 'But he'd bought it. I mean, it was his. He's not going to sit around being third-Latin-teacher-in-charge-of-tuck-boxes, is he? Not when it all belongs to him.'

'He had money then?'

'Not when he went to foreign parts, they say. But when he came back, he had enough. After three years he sold the school and moved on. He bought another place near Cambridge. Two years there, then on to Derbyshire. Next stop – here. You'll have noticed a progression?'

'North,' said Pascoe.

'Good,' said Dalziel. 'I'll be able to send you out to post letters before you're much older.'

'It looks like he was moving on all the time,' said Pascoe, 'when it would make more sense to stay in one place and consolidate a school's reputation. So presumably there was a reason.'

'I know nowt about reasons,' said Dalziel, reaching the end of his scratch. 'Only..’

'Yes?' prompted Pascoe.

'Some slanderous sod once told me, and I wouldn't normally listen but we were drinking and it was his next shout, that it was just a simple organizational error that caused the trouble. Kind of thing that could happen to any man.'

'Yes?' repeated Pascoe. He could see that Dalziel was enjoying himself. It was like being in a cage with a frolicsome brown bear.

'Oh yes. Every now and then it seems that Haggard, when he had to punish some lad, would get him in his study and say, "I'm sorry, boy, this means six of the best, you realize that? Go and fetch the cane." And the boy would go to the cupboard and pick a cane and bring it back. Then, and here's where this error crept in, then Haggard would bend down and the boy would lay into him!

Dalziel rocked with laughter as he spoke while Pascoe looked on with fascinated horror. After a while the fat man became aware his Inspector wasn't laughing.

'What's up with you then?' he said, modulating his long bellowing into intermittent chortles. 'You're looking like you've messed your pants.'

'I didn't think it was very funny, that's all,' said Pascoe.

'Not funny. Boy canes headmaster? It's like man bites dog!'

'Yes. I can see that. Only, the whole situation, well, it's pretty nasty, isn't it?'

'Nasty?' said Dalziel, amazed. 'I thought you were one of these free-wheeling whatever-turns-you-on types? You're noted for soft-pedalling on these squatters and six-in-a-bed communes. What's bothering you here?'

'Well, it's the children. The effect something like that must have on a child..’

'Come off it!' exclaimed Dalziel, 'Caning teacher? It's every kid's dream. Mind you, I wouldn't like any lad of mine in a school like that. Oh no. And once word got out, the schools folded pretty quickly and Haggard moved on even quicker. But as for harming the boys! – as long as he didn't touch 'em (which he didn't) how could he harm them? That's like saying…'

He paused to search out an analogy.

'Like saying, that using a truncheon on policemen could be bad for criminals?' suggested Pascoe.

'Go and get stuffed,' said Dalziel, very much put out at the failure of his humorous anecdote.

'And was there anything like this while Haggard was running his school here?' asked Pascoe.

'On my patch? You've got to be joking!' said Dalziel indignantly. 'He sometimes whacked the poor little sods a bit too hard, but hardly anyone complained.'

'Except, presumably, the poor little sods.'

'It wasn't their money,' said Dalziel. 'Anyway, there's two theories for you.'

'Two?'

'Either Gilbert Haggard had been getting up to his old tricks with some co-operative friend who took things too far. Or some poor little sod came back for a bit of eye-for-an-eye. OK?'

'Thank you very much,' said Pascoe fulsomely.

'Well, we'd better get this show on the road,' said Dalziel. 'A man like that, you'd think he'd have his heart checked regularly, wouldn't you?'

'It can happen to the best of us,' said Pascoe.

'That's all right then. Well, don't hang around here. Go and do something. You'd best find out who was there last night, who left last, that sort of thing.'

Dalziel was never afraid of telling his underlings to do the obvious.

'Arany's coming in to make a statement,' said Pascoe. 'He'll know.'

'Good. I'll get Sergeant Wield to organize a house-to-house round the Square. He knows who's who after listening to all their complaints. And we'd best pick up a few likely tearaways and bounce them off the wall a bit. That's favourite, I think: yobbos looking for mucky pictures and loose change, Haggard disturbs them; bang!'

'Oh dear,' said Pascoe. 'What about those two super theories you gave me?'

'You shove off and get some work done,' said Dalziel grimly.

'I'm going, I'm going.'

'And Peter…'

'Yes?' said Pascoe at the door.

'Next time you tell me my stories aren't funny, you call me sir.'

'Yes, sir,' said Pascoe.

Wield had returned to the Square to set his team of detective-constables on their round of house-to-house enquiries. He himself at Pascoe's request came back to the station bringing Arany with him.