He said, 'Dr Batty. .'
'David. Do call me David. Your elephantoid boss does and I see no reason why I should be on less familiar terms with the civilized face of policing than with its rump.'
Pascoe smiled, not just at the joke though it wasn't bad, but at the value judgment it contained. You'd think a doctor of all people would know the dangers of under-estimating a rump.
'David, this is all very interesting, but the fact that your great-grandfather was a wily old bird hardly seems relevant to my enquiries. Though of course if what you're saying is that somehow ALBA bought what it in fact owned already, the DTI might be interested
'I thought I made it clear. ALBA didn't own it. This other company did. True, old Arthur's shares in it were inherited by my.. mother, so when the company, that's ALBA, decided that Wanwood would make an ideal site for its research centre, there was little problem about putting the clinic, which was already in terminal decline, into liquidation. It was all perfectly legal and above board. You saw the papers yourself.'
Pascoe had registered but could see no significance in the curious little hesitation about Mrs Batty's ownership of the controlling share. Perhaps that's where the weakest point of the fiddle lay. Not that he believed there was one chance in a million of proving an illegality. This was peanuts compared with the billions that vanished every year in the great world of commerce, leaving no trace but the anguish of impoverished shareholders and the frustration of the Serious Fraud Squad. But for all that, he knew what common sense, not to mention common decency, told him, that there had been a fiddle.
'Yes, I saw the papers. But I saw nothing there to indicate ALBA was buying what the wife of its chairman owned already and had helped put into receivership in order to facilitate her husband's acquisition,’ said Pascoe coldly.
'Well, you wouldn't, would you? As for my father, he's got rather the same ambitions as old Arthur, and this is one skeleton he prefers to keep buried deep in the family cupboard. Why he should worry I don't know. In the present climate a history of good old honest sleaze is probably a recommendation!'
'Sleaze? Would you care to be a little more specific without of course incriminating yourself?'
'Nice one, Peter,' said Batty chuckling. 'Well, you see, by 1930 Arthur was becoming really impatient. He reckoned he'd dropped enough strong, and expensive, hints. So he entered into direct negotiation for what, after all, he truly believed was no more than his due. And everyone was at it. Alas, he'd waited too long. He got caught up in the wave of indignation and investigation which ended up with Maundy Gregory's conviction in '33 for touting honours. That was it. He escaped prosecution, but his name was tainted for evermore. You can see why my father would prefer that old story wasn't dredged up when he's so close to the short list himself.'
No, thought Pascoe. I can't really. And I can't see why I've spent so much time sitting here listening to this sordid saga of life in the commercial fast lane.
He said, 'Will you have any objection to one of my men coming along and taking a closer look at those files in your cellar?'
'No, of course not,' said Batty. 'If you care to take them away and burn them when you're finished I'd have no objection to that either. So tell me, Peter, what was it you actually wanted to see me about?'
'Well, about the files, I suppose,' said Pascoe.
'But you didn't know the files existed till you got here,' said Batty amused.
Pascoe smiled too.
'ESP,' he said. 'I'm famous for it, didn't you know?'
v
Ellie Pascoe's appointment with Miss Martindale was at midday. She wasn't looking forward to it. Not many people intimidated her, but Miss Martindale was high on the short list.
In appearance the head teacher was far from formidable. With her flowered dresses, flattish shoes, bare legs, bobbed hair and round, smiling, glowing, almost make-up-less face, she wouldn't have been out of place at a Betjeman tennis tourney. But when you tried to stick labels on her, that healthy pink skin was like Teflon.
Politically, from loony left to rabid right, nothing fitted. Socially she moved with an automatic gearbox up and down the classes. Sexually she gave no clue whether she was vestal or venereal, straight or gay. Her manner was easy and friendly yet she observed the formalities as rigidly as any old-fashioned schoolmarm. To Ellie's invitation at an earlier meeting to use her first name she'd replied, smiling, 'I'll think of you as Ellie but in the interests of consistency it had better stay Mrs Pascoe.'
'And how shall I think of you?' enquired Ellie.
'If all goes well, I hope as little as possible,' had come the reply. So, difficult to lay a glove on. But if she floated like a butterfly, she could also sting like a bee.
'After we spoke on the phone, I had a word with Rose's class teacher who couldn't recall a single instance of Rose using inappropriate language.'
No language was 'bad' of course. On that at least they were agreed.
'Perhaps,' said Ellie, 'because in reference to the learning situation no occasion arose when it would seem appropriate.'
'We have also monitored as far as is humanly possible her speech outside of the classroom. In play. During fairly fierce disputes with her friends about some point of information or order. The same.'
'What are you saying, Ms Martindale?' The 'Ms' was the closest Ellie could get to establishing some control of the relationship. 'That I'm imagining this inappropriate language?'
'Of course not.' That natural irresistible smile. 'Simply that you and your husband are, to the best of our knowledge so far, the only ones who have shared an occasion on which Rose felt the language in question was appropriate.'
It took Ellie an incredulous microsecond to pick the bones out of this.
'You mean it's our fault?'
'Please, Mrs Pascoe, I didn't think we were talking faults here. I thought we were meeting to discuss what you see as a problem, not to deal with what others might see as a complaint.'
Ellie pulled herself together.
'You're quite right,' she said. 'I do see it as a problem. And if, as seems likely, the problem originates here, then yes again, I am making a complaint.'
'Fair enough. The complaint being that your daughter is learning new words and phrases at school?'
Ellie stiffened in her seat and pursed her lips. Then she thought in horror, I don't purse my lips! That's what Mum used to do when she felt a fit of righteous indignation coming on!
She saw Miss Martindale regarding her gravely but with just the hint of a held-back smile on that generous mouth. Their gazes locked. And gradually the tension ebbed from Ellie's shoulder muscles and she relaxed in her chair.
'Oh shit,' she said.
'Is that exclamatory or descriptive?'
'It just seemed the appropriate thing to say.'
Miss Martindale considered and the smile broke loose.
'Bugger me,' she said, 'if I don't believe you're right.'
When she left ten minutes later, Ellie offered her hand and said, 'Thank you, Miss Martindale.'
The smile flickered in acknowledgment of the 'Miss'.
'Always a pleasure, Ms Pascoe,' she said.
As she drove away, Ellie was still smiling. That was something you tended to forget about Miss Martindale. You rarely came away from an interview feeling victorious. But you usually came away feeling good. She drove into the town centre. Street-level parking was almost impossible and she disliked the multistorey. On impulse she turned into the Black Bull car park. This was CID's favourite drinking hole and normally she'd have steered clear, but today the thought of bumping into the gang didn't bother her, and she might even be lucky enough to catch Peter there by himself, though of course he claimed it was only the iron grip of Fat Andy that dragged him into the place. The other attraction was that for the price of a sandwich and a beer, plus a nice smile at Jolly Jack the lugubrious landlord, she could get free parking while she did her afternoon shopping.