She gave him a smile of great sunniness which was well worth basking in on a drab November day. He returned it gladly. She did after all have a point, and he never minded letting opponents build up a points lead. The more confident they got, the more likely they were to drop their guards and reveal a fatal weakness. Like here. Anyone who seriously doubted his willingness to carry through any threat he cared to make was wide open to a sucker punch any time he cared to throw it. But no need to rush, not with beer and crisps and pickles still on the table, and them lovely sugar loaves to leer at.
He drank and nibbled and leered, and waited to see where she would lead the conversation.
She said, 'I cannot of course provide alibis for all of my colleagues though two of them, Meg and Donna, were in fact at the Scarborough wedding also.'
'That 'ud be Jenkins and Linsey? The dykes?'
His reaction when he'd come across this surmise in George Headingley's notes had been, 'What the fuck's that got to do with anything?' But now he was happy to use the term as a possible irritant.
‘That's right,’ she said, unirritated. 'The dykes. As for the others, all I can do is vouch for their commitment to peaceful protest. Except perhaps Wendy.'
'Walker? But she acted as peacekeeper, didn't she?'
'Rather out of character, I feel. What about you? I got the impression you were already acquainted.'
'Aye. We've met.'
'And did I get the impression you were surprised to find her in such company?'
'What're we talking here?' he said. 'Class or causes?'
'Are the two really distinguishable in some people's eyes? But what I meant was, at the peaceful protest end of the activist scene.'
Dalziel laughed and said, 'You call what you got up to peaceful protest? I'd not like to see you if you went to war.'
'I'll try not to invite you then. But you've not answered my question.'
She was very insistent, he thought. That little exchange he'd overheard between her and Wendy Walker must have really got her going for some reason.
He said, 'What surprised me weren't so much Walker joining you lot as you lot taking her on board. How'd that happen?'
If he'd hoped to throw her off balance by reversing the question, he had failed. She was smiling rather slyly, an expression he found strangely exciting.
He crossed his legs the other way and waited for the answer.
'Oddly enough,' she said, 'it was through a colleague of yours in a manner of speaking, man and wife being one flesh. A mutual acquaintance introduced us. I expect you know her well. Mrs Ellie Pascoe.'
'You're not saying she's one of your lot?' he groaned.
'Not really. Sympathetic but too concerned with suffering humanity to have much energy left for the animal kingdom, so no need to be embarrassed.'
Another weakness, imagining embarrassment was one of his.
'Still, a bit of a handful, isn't she? Wendy, I mean.'
'She's certainly got her own ideas, and I'm not sure she'll stay with us forever. Too much energy and resentment, not perhaps enough self-knowledge. Like me, her marriage broke up, but she thinks it was because her husband was a scab, while the truth I suspect is that she so enjoyed the role she found in the Strike that there was no way she was ever going to go back to the life servitude of being a pitman's wife. Pitman. I had my own Pitt man too, so I can sympathize. But the difference is, I changed sides, while she lost; not only a battle but a whole bloody war. So perhaps it was no wonder she was looking for a new role where the issues were clear cut, even if it meant she has to work for a while at least alongside an old class enemy like me.'
She laughed and Dalziel grinned too. Weakness three. Believing she'd got Wendy Walker and her kind sussed. Couple of weeks on the dole could root out the centuries-deep deference of the British worker, but it took major surgery to eradicate the built-in smugness of the middle class.
He sucked the last drops out of the last can. Every plate was empty. Time for business.
He said, 'All right, missus
'Cap,' she urged.
'All right, Cap. So why did you want to see me?'
'To make a statement, of course. You were very keen for us to make statements last night.'
'Was I? Funny how you take these fancies, then go off them. Like being pregnant they tell me.'
'So you don't want a statement?' she said, disconcerted.
'Depends what you've got to state.'
'I thought we could negotiate,’ she said, recovering. 'I mean, you've got a body in the grounds of Wanwood House. I bet you've got some ideas about that already. So if it would help for me to say I saw that plonker Batty start like a guilty thing surprised when he got the news, just say the word. Or that TecSec Nazi, Patten, if it's him you fancy and you need an excuse to search his pad, maybe I could help there.'
Dalziel scratched his bubaline neck and said, 'What makes you think I'd take kindly to the idea of fitting someone up?'
'Oh, I know you wouldn't do it maliciously,' she reassured him, her candid brown eyes gazing deep into his. 'Only if you were sure it was in the best interests of justice. I mean, when I contacted the local media this morning to ask why ANIMA was hardly getting a mention, and got told that in matters sub judice it was editorial policy to afford the police full cooperation, I didn't immediately think, that bastard Andy Dalziel's put the frighteners on. No, I thought, that nice superintendent's imposed a temporary media blackout in the best interests of all concerned. No need for me to go running hysterically to my cousin who does features for Channel 4 or my old school chum who's a junior minister in the Home Office, is there? Why have confrontation when you can have consultation instead?'
Not bad, approved Dalziel. Just because he'd identified three weaknesses didn't mean she couldn't still kick him in the balls. But he was still intrigued as to why she should think he was susceptible to consultation. She didn't give the impression of being thick.
He said, 'Let's get things straight. I take the frighteners off the local media and you'll sign any statement I care to dictate to you?'
'More or less,' she said.
'Talking about fitting folk up always makes me thirsty,' he said, crushing the last empty can in his huge fist.
'Have to be Mexican,' she said, going to the fridge. 'It's good. So good some of the American companies started spreading rumours the Mexican workers piss in it.'
'So what? Yon reservoir up Dendale, the one supplies most of our tap water, we fished five bodies out of there last year. Cheers. Don't have another bit of pork pie in there too, do you?'
'Another bit?' she said.
It took him a second to work this out.
'You mean it weren't pork?'
'I don't eat dead animals, Andy, nor encourage my friends to do so. It was basically tofu.'
'Bloody hell,' said Dalziel, taking a long cleansing suck at his beer. 'Two things I don't do, missus. One is feed folk stuff they don't know what it is. T'other is fit people up. Understand that and we might get on a bit better.'
'Oh dear,' she said, concerned. 'I've offended you. I'm not very good on moral codes. I suppose that means goodbye to Plan Two as well.'
'What's that when it's at home?' he asked suspiciously.
'Well, after our first encounter last night I had the feeling that my boobs hadn't been so closely scanned since my last radiography checkup. I thought if all else failed … let me rephrase that… I rather hoped all else might fail and I'd have to fall back on the flesh, so to speak. But naturally I'd never come between a man and his moral code.'