As he looked over the headland from the southern window a bicycle came into sight. At first it was too distant to see who was riding but then he recognized Neil Pascoe. They had never spoken but, like all the headlanders, they knew each other by sight. Pascoe seemed to be cycling with a ponderous determination, his head low over the handlebars, his shoulders working. But as he came close to the mill he suddenly stopped, put both feet on the ground, stared towards the mill as if seeing it for the first time, then dismounted and began wheeling the bicycle over the rough scrubland.
For one second Dalgliesh was tempted to pretend that he wasn't home. Then he realized that the Jaguar was parked at the side of the mill and that it was possible that Pascoe in that long stare had glimpsed his face at the window. Whatever the purpose of this visit it looked as if it were one he couldn't avoid. He moved over to the window above the door, opened it and called down: 'Are you looking for me?'
The question was rhetorical. Who else would Pascoe expect to find at Larksoken Mill? Looking down at the upturned face, the thin jutting beard, Dalgliesh saw him curiously diminished and foreshortened, a vulnerable rather pathetic figure clutching his bicycle as if for protection.
Pascoe shouted up against the wind: 'Could I talk to you?'
An honest reply would have been 'If you must', but it was not one that Dalgliesh felt he could shout down against the noise of the wind without sounding ungracious. He mouthed 'I'll be down.'
Pascoe propped the machine against the wall of the mill and followed him into the sitting room.
He said: 'We haven't actually met but I expect you've heard of me. I'm Neil Pascoe from the caravan. I'm sorry if I'm butting in when you want some peace.' He sounded as embarrassed as a door-to-door salesman trying to reassure a prospective customer that he wasn't a con man.
Dalgliesh was tempted to say, 'I might want some peace but it doesn't look as if I'm likely to get it.' He asked: 'Coffee?'
Pascoe gave the predictable reply: 'If it isn't too much trouble.'
'No trouble. I was thinking of making it.' Pascoe followed him into the kitchen and stood leaning against the door post in an unconvincing assumption of ease as Dalgliesh ground the coffee beans'and put on the kettle. It struck him that he had spent a considerable time since his arrival at the mill providing food and drink for uninvited visitors. When the grinding had ceased, Pascoe said almost truculently: 'I need to talk to you.'
'If it's about the murder then you ought to be speaking to Chief Inspector Rickards not me. This isn't my case.'
'But you found the body.'
'That might in certain circumstances make me a suspect. But it doesn't give me the right to interfere professionally in another officer's case outside my own force area. I'm not the investigating officer. But you know that, you're not stupid.'
Pascoe kept his eyes on the bubbling liquid. He said: 'I didn't expect you to be particularly pleased to see me. I wouldn't have come if there were anyone else I could talk to. There are things I can't discuss with Amy.'
'As long as you remember whom you are talking to.'
'A policeman. It's like the priesthood, is it? Never off duty. Once a priest always a priest.'
'It isn't in the least like the priesthood. No guarantee of confidentiality in the confessional and no absolution. That's what I'm trying to tell you.'
They said nothing else until the coffee had been poured into the two mugs and carried by Dalgliesh into the sitting room. They sat, one each side of the fireplace. Pascoe took his mug but seemed uncertain what to do with it. He sat twisting it in his hands, looking down at the coffee, making no attempt to drink. After a moment he said: 'It's about Toby Gledhill, the boy – well, he was a boy really – who killed himself at the power station.'
Dalgliesh said: 'I've heard about Toby Gledhill.'
'Then I expect you know how he died. He hurled himself down on top of the reactor and broke his neck. That was on Friday the twelfth of August. Two days before, on the Wednesday, he came to see me at about eight o'clock in the evening. I was on my own in the caravan, Amy had taken the van into Norwich to shop and said she wanted to see a film and would be back late. I was looking after Timmy. Then there was this knock and there he stood. I knew him, of course. At least, I knew who he was. I'd seen him on one or two of those open days at the power station. I usually make time to go to those. They can't stop me, and it gives me an opportunity of putting one or two awkward questions, countering their propaganda. And I think he was present at some of the meetings of the new pressurized water reactor inquiry. But, of course, I'd never really met him. I couldn't think what he wanted of me, but I invited him in and offered him a beer. I'd lit the stove because there were a lot of Timmy's clothes which needed drying so the caravan was very hot and rather damp. When I remember that night I seem to see him through a haze of steam. After the beer he asked if we couldn't go out. He seemed restless as if he found the caravan claustrophobic and he asked more than once when Amy was expected back. So I lifted Timmy out of his cot and put him into the backpack and we set off to walk north along the shore. It was when we had got as far as the abbey ruins that he told me what he'd come to say. He came out with it quite baldly, without any preamble. He'd come to the conclusion that nuclear power was too dangerous to use and that, until we've solved the problem of radioactive waste, we ought not to build any more nuclear power stations. There was one rather odd expression he used. He said: "It's not only dangerous, it's corrupting."' Dalgliesh asked: 'Did he say why he'd come to this conclusion?'
'I think it had been building up for quite a few months, and Chernobyl had probably brought it to a head. He said that something else had recently happened that had helped to make up his mind. He didn't say what but he promised he would tell me when he'd had more time to think. I asked him if he was merely going to give up his job and opt out or whether he was prepared to help us. He said he thought that he had to help. It wouldn't be enough just to resign his job. It was difficult for him and I could see just how difficult. He admired and liked his colleagues. He said they were dedicated scientists and very intelligent men who believed in what they were doing. It was just that he couldn't believe any more. He hadn't thought about the way ahead, not very clearly anyway. He was like I am now; he just needed to talk it through. I suppose I seemed to be the natural person. He knew about PANUP of course.' He looked up at Dalgliesh and said rather naively: 'That stands for People Against Nuclear Power. When the proposal was put forward for the new reactor here I formed a little local group to oppose it. I mean a group of ordinary concerned local residents, not the more powerful national protest bodies. It hasn't been easy. Most people try to pretend that the power station isn't really there. And of course quite a number welcome it because it does bring in some employment, new customers for the shops and pubs. Most of the opposition to the new reactor wasn't local, anyway, it was people from CND, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Of course we welcomed them. They're the ones with the heavy guns. But I thought it important to get something going locally and I suppose I'm not really a joiner. I like to do my own thing.'
Dalgliesh said: 'And Gledhill would have been quite a catch for you.' The words were almost brutal in their implication.
Pascoe flushed then looked him in the eyes. 'There was that too. I suppose I realized it at the time. I wasn't entirely disinterested. I mean, I did know how important it would be if he came over. But I was, well, flattered I suppose that he'd come first to me. PANUP hasn't made much impact, really. Even the initials were a mistake. I wanted something that people would easily remember, but PANUP – a bit of a laugh. I can guess what you're thinking, that I might have done more good for the cause by joining an existing pressure group instead of ministering to my own ego. You'd be right.'