A pinch of snuff

'Not the truth,' corrected Pascoe. 'Just the time. You did give me the alternative. And I'll gladly tell you what time it is. It's time you and Mr Toms and all your associates packed up your bags and crawled out of this county, and out of this country, until you got back under whatever stone you crawled out from in the first place.'

He spoke far more emphatically than he had intended. Interestingly, Crabtree reacted more strongly than the woman.

'Hang about, Peter,' he said. 'You can't talk…'

'Hold it, Ray,' said Penny Latimer quietly. 'I'm not a bad judge of character and Peter here doesn't strike me as being one of the Mrs Grundy brigade. In fact, if he can be as rude as that while he's drinking my whisky, he must reckon he's got something to be rude about. You're not still on this snuff-film tack, are you?'

'I haven't put it out of my mind,' said Pascoe. He might as well have said he couldn't, and never would. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the envelope which contained the photos of Sandra Burkill.

Selecting one, he passed it over to the woman.

She glanced at it without curiosity or revulsion.

'It's further than we go,' she said. 'But it's up to the lawyers to draw lines.'

'The girl is twelve years old,' said Pascoe.

Now she made a moue of distaste.

Pascoe continued, 'And that's a line the lawyers have drawn even if your spastic conscience can't quite manage it.'

'What the hell do you mean, my conscience?' demanded the woman.

'Oh, have a look at the picture, dearie,' said Pascoe. 'I've got a good memory for details. I reckon it'll be easy to prove that that was taken in your shooting room in Hay Hall.'

She looked again and her face blanked over.

'I know nothing about this,' she said.

'Really? Don't tell me; it's the corrupt fuzz fitting you up, right? That's one of our policewomen and the fellow on the left's the Chief Constable.'

'Don't get too indignant, sweetie,' she replied. 'It'll give you crows-feet round the eyes.'

She was right, thought Pascoe. This indignation might be ageing; it was certainly addictive. And it would get him nowhere.

'Let's go see Mr Toms,' he said.

Retrieving the picture from Penny, he strode out of the room and across the vestibule, following the power cables which snaked from the generator truck via some side window across the scarred oak floor.

The cameras were rolling, as were the actors. Toms stood looking down on the tangle of limbs with the worried frown of a Senior English Master considering whether he ought not to expunge the word 'bastard' from the school production of King Lear.

'Cut,' said Pascoe.

Toms turned round.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he demanded.

Pascoe approached and spoke softly in his ear.

'I've come for an audition,' he said. 'I'm going to screw you up.'

The actors had disentangled themselves and were rising to their feet. There was not, Pascoe observed, an erection in sight.

'You can bugger off out of here,' instructed Toms. 'I've got work to do. You've ruined this shot already. That costs money.'

'Gerry, I think you should listen to the Inspector,' said Penelope Latimer.

'You do? Oh all right. We might as well take a break. Five minutes, boys and girls. And try to come back looking a bit less like evacuees from the geriatric ward!'

The cast left, pulling on an assortment of dressing-gowns and bath-robes.

'Now, Inspector, perhaps you'll start explaining.'

'Perhaps you will,' said Pascoe. 'The girl in this picture. When did you last see her?'

Toms glanced at the photo.

'That's easy. I've never seen her in my life,' he said confidently.

'Never? How odd. It looks to me as if this very room is the setting for this picture. Wouldn't you agree?'

Toms examined the photograph once more, pursing his lips as he ostentatiously switched his gaze from the picture to the fireplace.

'It's certainly a similar fireplace,' he said. 'But the design is not uncommon and I dare say you can buy something very like that in marbled plastic at any DIY shop. But tell me, Inspector: what does the girl say?'

Pascoe's first reaction was that Toms was mocking him, safe in the knowledge that the girl had been spirited away, God knows where, by Arany. But there was something in the man's intonation, a sense of effort to remain casual, that made him decide to treat the question as genuine.

'When I spoke to her last night,' he said carefully, 'she seemed ready to change her story.'

This non-committal answer seemed to give Toms new confidence.

'It seems an extraordinary thing, Inspector, that you should feel able to come here with your slanderous accusations based on no more than a rather poorly defined film still!'

'Slanderous?' said Pascoe. 'How have I slandered you? You do take pictures, don't you? Nude picture, pornographic pictures?'

'Within the law,' said Toms, very morally superior. 'When you start accusing me of conniving at the sexual molestation of a twelve-year-old, you're saying I've committed a crime. And that's slanderous.'

'You're right,' said Pascoe. 'You're so right. Now I wonder how you manage to be so right?'

'What?'

'What I mean is, how do you happen to know that the girl in the picture, whom you have never seen before, is only twelve years old?'

Toms looked blank for a second, then slowly smiled and ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

'Did I say twelve years old? Well, so what? I used the term generally, not particularly. She's obviously a kid, else why all the fuss? I really am sorry to spoil your Perry Mason moment, Inspector, but I'm not about to be tricked into one of your nasty cells just to please your Puritan conscience. I see your game. You don't like the modern liberating spirit abroad in the arts, no policeman does, so you desperately look around for some method of getting at the artist.'

'Save it,' said Pascoe wearily. 'I've seen the film of the matchbox cover. Let's stop mucking about.'

'Yes, let's,' interrupted Penny Latimer. 'You've been all round the houses. Now it's time to spell it out, baby.'

Pascoe looked at the other three people in the room. Curiously, of them all, Ray Crabtree was the only one who looked at all ill at ease. Understandably so in a way. No policeman likes to have another pointing out what's been going on under his nose. Toms was affecting boredom fairly successfully, while the woman looked alert and interested which might not be the worst way of concealing guilt.

Where the hell was Dalziel? wondered Pascoe. How would he want this played?

Carefully, was the only answer.

'Let's sit down, Mr Toms, shall we? There are one or two more questions I want to ask.'

'Oh God! Ask if you must. I need a drink.'

So saying, Toms headed out into the hallway, presumably in search of Penny's bottle. Pascoe followed, still talking because he was beginning to feel that if he stopped talking, he might thump somebody.

'You made several telephone calls from the Candida Hotel last Friday night,' he said.

'Yes. I told you. I rang Penny to say I was stranded.'

'I know that, Mr Toms,' said Pascoe. 'It's the other calls I'm interested in.'

'Other calls?' said Toms, halting. 'What others?'

'To Mr Godfrey Blengdale, for a start,' said Pascoe.

'Blengdale?' said Toms. 'I don't recollect the name.'

He sounded completely confident in his ability to deny all knowledge of Blengdale. Pascoe attempted to match his confidence.

'You mean, you don't know your own partner's name?' he asked. 'Perhaps I misunderstood Miss Latimer, but I thought she implied that Mr Blengdale owned a third of Homeric?'

The lie sent a shiver of indignation over Penny's frame. Toms glared at her angrily. Pascoe regarded them with an expression of mock bewilderment which would have done credit to Dalziel and somewhere some god of mischief chortled in delight, flicked a few pieces hither and thither, and sat back to enjoy the perfect moment he had created.