The Wood Beyond

'And is, er, Ms Marvell still in the frame?'

Those hard bright eyes ran over his face like a security sensor, cataloguing each feature for future reference.

'No change,' he said laconically, meaning, Pascoe interpreted, that nothing further had emerged either to incriminate or exculpate the woman.

He said, 'You like her a lot?' turning it from assertion to question in mid-utterance.

The eyes seemed to be measuring his inside-head dimensions this time.

'You planning to give me advice, Pete? I should warn you, I've already heard from the Sage of Enscombe.'

'Well I've started so I might as well finish,' said Pascoe. 'Make your peace now before you're certain, otherwise either way, it'll make no difference. If you like her that much, that is.'

'If I knew that, I'd not be listening to you and Old Mother Riley here,' growled Dalziel, glancing towards Wield who had just come through the door. 'What's up wi' you? Get your ticket punched for being late last night, did you?'

He was far advanced in the art of interpreting Wield's expression which to Pascoe looked little different from that which registered amusement or delight.

'Got a woman downstairs playing merry hell, sir,' said the sergeant.

Cap Marvell, thought Pascoe, and he saw that Dalziel thought the same.

'Mrs Howard,' continued the sergeant. 'Wanting to know how long we're going to keep her man banged up.'

'But I thought..' began Pascoe.

'That's right. We did, last night,' said Wield. 'No grounds for holding him longer.'

'Then why didn't he go home?' said Pascoe.

'Fancy woman?' said Wield.

'Would you say he's the type?'

'There's no telling,' said Wield making sure his gaze didn't even touch Dalziel's penumbra. 'But after talking to his missus. . Could just have done a bunk, of course.'

'Why?' said Dalziel. 'That TecSec brief had got him right off the hook, and you don't run from a banned driving charge. Peter, you talk to Mrs Howard, ooze some of that boyish charm over her and see if she knows owt useful. Wieldy, you check out that lass you saw give him the envelope, and if there's no joy there, then get out to Wanwood and chat up your mate in TecSec. And on your way out, one of you send Novello in, will you?'

Wield passed on the message.

'Does he want a cup of tea?' asked Novello, only half satirically.

Wield said, 'That chat you wanted last night, mebbe later, eh?'

'It's OK, I've slept on it, sarge. Woke up and it seemed a lot of nothing.'

She tapped on Dalziel's door and waited till she heard a bellow which might have been Come in, or the mating call of the African gorilla.

There was, however, nothing amatory about his expression.

'Sit,' he said.

She perched right on the edge of a chair and he said, 'Afraid of catching summat?'

'No, sir. Just didn't think I'd be staying long enough to get comfortable.'

Did I really say that? she asked herself incredulously.

'Oh aye? Why's that?'

'Well, we haven't had a lot of..' The word that came into her mind was intercourse, but it didn't seem a good choice. '.. talked a lot since I joined the department.'

'Got something worth saying, have you?'

'Well, not really..'

'Good. Soon as you have, just knock and come in. Now, last evening you escorted yon scrote Jimmy Howard out of the building, right?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Talk with him, did you?'

'Well yes, a bit, but I don't think… I know I didn't tell him anything.. '

'Christ, lass, you must have a bigger guilt complex than Judas sodding Iscariot! It's Howard I'm interested in, not you. So what was the crack?'

She eased her buttocks more fully onto the seat of the chair and said, 'We talked about that video he'd been looking at. He asked me if it was true that the thin woman, Walker, was really dead, and I said yes, she was. And he asked how, and I didn't see any harm in telling him, I mean, it was in the local paper…'

'Do I look like the Pope or summat, lass?' demanded Dalziel.

It occurred to Novello, who was a good Catholic, that given an ermined cloak and a flat red cap, Dalziel could very easily pass for one of the medieval fleshly school of cardinals she'd seen in paintings.

'You want to confess,' he went on, 'you go to see Father Kerrigan. Just tell me what went off!'

Given her assumption up to now that he was hardly aware of her existence, his knowledge that Father Kerrigan was her parish priest came as a jolt. If he knew that, what else…? But his fingers were reshaping a paperknife which she took to be a sign of impatience.

'So I told him what I knew, I mean what was public knowledge about Walker's death. And he went on about her. How did she die? Why were we interested? And I told him that we were always interested in hit-and-run accidents, and he laughed and said.. said things had changed since he was in the Force.'

Dalziel had noticed the hesitation and said, 'What you mean is he said something like, it took more than a mere hit-and-run to get yon fat bugger off his arse when I was in the Force. Right?'

There was a distant cousin of a smile playing round his lips so she said, 'Bastard, sir. He said fat bastard. And I said I knew nothing about that, but if he wanted to go and ask you himself, using the same form of words of course, I was happy to take him back upstairs. He refused my offer.'

'He's not entirely brain-dead then,' said Dalziel. 'How'd be seem to you? I mean, what state of mind do you think he was in, asking these questions?'

She thought a while then said, 'Agitated. Maybe even scared. Certainly well off balance.'

'And did he ask anything about Marvell, the other woman on the video?'

'No. Just Walker.'

'Right. Thanks, lass.'

She rose to go, her legs feeling absurdly weak with relief. Then he said, 'You spoken to Sergeant Wield yet?'

'This morning? Just when he told me you wanted to see me, sir..'

'I know that. I mean, whatever it was you wanted to say to him last night, have you had time this morning?'

As many CID officers before, she began to wonder in which part of her anatomy he'd planted his bug.

'Oh that. It was nothing, really.. '

'In this department, luv, nothing is nothing till I say it's nowt. So tell me.'

So she told him.

Pascoe meanwhile, finding that getting sense out of Mrs Howard was like getting straight answers out of a cabinet minister, abandoned charm and adopted the bludgeoning technique of a current affairs interviewer.

'Has he ever stayed away all night before?'

'Yeah, sometimes, on night shifts and such..'

'Not night shifts,' he snapped. 'We're not talking about night shifts, you know that, Mrs Howard. Now, please answer the question. Has he ever stayed out all night before?'

'Yes. A couple of times, but I didn't half give him — '

'I'm not interested in what you gave him. Why did he stay out on these occasions? Another woman?'

'No! You think I'd put up with that.. '

'Then what, Mrs Howard? What did you put up with?'

'It was playing cards, usually. And drink. He'd get in a game and get a bit of drink down him, then he'd turn up next day, skint usually, and hardly able to walk.'

'So that's what he might have been doing last night?'

'After you'd had him here all the previous night? No, all Jimmy would want would be to get home and wash the stink of them cells off him before he went out.'

'You're saying he wouldn't even have popped in for a quick one?'

'Mebbe that. But no more. That was one thing about Jimmy, couldn't bear feeling mucky. Used to shower straight off when he came home from shift, both in the Force and in his new job.'

So cleanliness if not godliness got him home, thought Pascoe.

He asked, 'Like his new job, does he?'