But it wasn't necessary. Her eyes lit up and she said triumphantly, 'Yes, I can. The first one was a horse called Willie Wagtail. It was such a funny name it stuck in my mind. In the second race it was Glaramara.''
'Well done,' said Pascoe, looking down the list to check the betting forecasts.
He looked again. He went through the card for the whole afternoon. There were no such horses running that day.
But as his eye ranged over the racing page, it did pick up the name of Glaramara. He still had to search to locate it, but there it was, in the small print of the also-rans after the result of the 2.40 at Wincanton on Thursday afternoon. Willie Wagtail was an also-ran in the previous race on the same day.
He looked at the old lady's smiling, happy face ‘and said gently, 'Yes, that's very good, Mrs Escott. Thank you. By the way, you don't happen to remember what the weather was like that afternoon when you watched television with Mr Parrinder, do you?'
'Why, yes,' she said, looking puzzled. 'Friday, you mean? It was bright but blowy. I remember saying to Tap that the sun looked warm enough from inside but there'd be precious little warmth in it if you went out. But he did go out, didn't he? And there was no need, no need at all. Especially not in the dark. It's so frightening these days if you’re old, Mr Pascoe. All these muggings you hear about. I try never to be out after dark. Why did Tap go, Mr Pascoe? Why did he go?'
Pascoe folded the newspaper and put it in his pocket. His theory was coming back together, but he felt little joy in it.
'I don't know, Mrs Escott,' he said quietly. 'Thank you again for all your help. Thank you very much indeed.'
When Pascoe arrived at the Frostick house on Nethertown Road he was greeted by much the same sounds as had sped him on his way on Sunday. The argument died down as he rang the doorbell. An anxious-looking Mrs Frostick opened the door and ushered him into the living-room where he found Mr Frostick, red-faced and clench-fisted, glaring at a limb-entangled couple in an armchair. The tangle consisted of a young man in private soldier's uniform whom Pascoe took to be Charley Frostick, with Andrea Gregory, in or out of a mini-skirt, coiled sinuously about his person. There was, Pascoe felt, more of provocation than passion in her pose. It was aimed at fuelling the wrath of Frostick Senior rather than the desires of Frostick Junior, who was looking both physically and mentally rather uncomfortable under the girl's embrace.
The pause in debate lasted only until Frostick saw how unimportant the interrupter was. He nodded dismissively at Pascoe, then picked up the silver thread of his oratory with all the ease of a Cicero.
'Bloody mad's what I say, and bloody mad's what I mean! That's what you'll be if you let her get you hitched. You're just getting a start, you've your whole life ahead of you, your career, everything!'
'He's got me too,' said the girl. 'He wants me! We're in love! And he's old enough to make his own mind up, right, Charley?'
Charley looked miserable. Left to a man-to-man heart-to-heart discussion with his dad, he might well have been able to admit the sense of the elder Frostick's viewpoint. But Andrea with a sharp sense of timing had made sure she precipitated the crisis before the young man could be forewarned, and now the father's vehemence only served to provoke a macho I'll-not-let-my-self-be-pushed-around response.
But at the same time Pascoe sensed even in Andrea's stage-managing another dimension of play-acting which he didn't quite understand.
'Old enough!' sneered Frostick. 'He'll need another hundred years till he's old enough to deal with your sort, flashing everything you've got at him, that's all you bloody know.'
'Is that right? I've never noticed you looking away from whatever I've got to flash, Mr Frostick,' retorted the girl.
Then suddenly Charley was on his feet and Andrea was sprawling alone in the armchair.
'Will you both belt up!' commanded the young man. 'I've not come home to get yelled at and ordered around by anyone. I get plenty of that in my job, and I'll not put up with it here, all right? I've come home for me granda's funeral, that's what, and I think it's time we were showing some respect.'
Even in his brief period away from home, some process of maturation had taken place which surprised the others, Pascoe could see. Andrea recovered quickest and said, 'You tell him, Charley!'
Her fiance spun round and said, 'And that goes for you too, girl. He was good to me, was Granda. If it weren't for him being so generous, you wouldn't have that ring on your finger, so show some respect, will you?'
Andrea stood up. She was wearing less make-up today, perhaps in anticipation of the extra mobility of expression circumstances were likely to require. Rather than anger, what showed now was triumph. The explanation of that sense of play-acting was imminent, Pascoe realized.
'Here, if it's this old ring you're worried about, you take the bloody thing,' she said viciously, pulling it off and chucking it at the young man. 'I've got better things to do than go and live in some crummy married quarters with a private!'
Charley was dumb-stricken but his father, unable to believe this turn of fortune, said, 'You've changed your tune! What's happened? Found yourself some money, have you?'
'You could say that. I've got myself a job,' she said. 'A good job. Out at Haycroft Grange, that's that big house out beyond Pedgely Bank.'
'Haycroft Grange! What'll you be doing there?' demanded Charley.
'Helping out,' said the girl. 'Serving at table, and so on. There's a lot of important people gets there.'
'You mean, domestic service? You'll be a maid?' said Frostick in disbelief.
'I'll be assistant to the housekeeper,' retorted Andrea. 'And I get my own room and a colour telly too. You reckon nowt to me, don't you, Mr Frostick? Well, let me tell you this, I only did my job at Paradise Hall so well that one of the customers there noticed me and it was him that got me this job.'
'You didn't say owt about this on Sunday!' said Frostick.
'I didn't know I was going till last night,' said Andrea.
'I get it!' said Frostick. 'So now you've got yourself fixed up, you don't need to shove yourself off on Charley here any more. Christ, Charley lad, I hope you can see what a lucky escape you've had.'
'Oh shut up, Dad!' the young man burst out. With a last glance, part accusing, part amazed, at Andrea he turned away and rushed from the room. They heard his footsteps going upstairs.
'See you then, Mr Frostick,' said the girl, with a provocative pout. She left too. Pascoe said, 'Excuse me,' and followed her.
He caught up with her just outside the front door.
'You know who I am, Miss Gregory,' he said, with a smile which won a response compounded equally of distrust and dislike.
'Yeah, what do you want?'
'This job you've got, was it Major Kassell who got it for you by any chance?'
'That's right. What about it?'
It wasn't so much aggressiveness, he decided, as an inability to respond other than in terms of her own self-interest. What about it, indeed? So Major Kassell, knowing they were short-staffed out at Haycroft Grange, had suggested to this girl that she might care to apply. But why, for God's sake? Pascoe could imagine the kind of waitress she was. Her one talent was probably provoking men. Takes a big tip to get a big tip.
He said, 'Listen, love, I just want a few answers, that's all. I'll get 'em here, or I'll come up to Haycroft Grange for them if you prefer.'
The threat was mild but effective. She responded instantly.
'Yes, it was him, the Major. He gets in a lot to Paradise Hall. Said to me a week or two back, if ever I needed a job, they were always looking for staff at Haycroft Grange. Well, I thought, no wonder, stuck out there in the middle of nowhere. I mean, Paradise Hall was bad enough but at least there was the bus or you could thumb a lift.'