A Pinch of Snuff (18 page)

The night was slipping out of his control, thought Pascoe a couple of minutes later as he and Wield clung together in the back of an old Morris Minor which smelt as if it had lately been used for transporting sheep. The passenger seat had been removed entirely and replaced by a crate of brown ale, and Hope's hand, through instinct or inaccuracy, frequently rattled among the bottles as he groped for the gear lever.

'Now, about Maurice Arany,' yelled Wield.

'Well I don't know,’ replied Hope dubiously.

'It'll be all right, Johnny,' said Wield.

Pascoe had a sense of a bargain being struck, or a promise made.

'What do you want to know?' asked Hope.

'Nothing much,' said Wield. 'Just anything you wouldn't expect us to find out any other way.'

This seemed a pretty broad demand, thought Pascoe modestly, and when Hope replied 'He's a Hungarian' he thought at first he was taking the piss. Wield seemed prepared to accept this as a serious contribution, however.

'Yes?' he urged.

'And there was some bother there in 1956,’ Hope went on slowly as though divulging state secrets.

'So there was,' said Pascoe.

Hope heaved a sigh which might have been relief at this acceptance of his assertion, or exasperation that he had to say any more.

'This fellow Haggard, now, that got killed, he was something or other in the British Embassy in Vienna. That's in Austria.'

Suddenly Pascoe was no longer amused by this parade of the obvious.

'Hang on,' he said. 'You're not saying that . . .'

'I'm saying nothing,' said Hope heavily. 'I'm just saying what I've heard others say. Arany either knew, or knew of Haggard before he came here.'

'But he'd just be a boy in 1956,' said Wield.

'Quite fond of boys, so they say,' said Hope. 'Me, I hate owt like that. Anything a bit perverted, I won't touch. You'll never see me mention a drag act in my column, Pete. Edgar'll back me up there.'

Pascoe was now so interested that he was able to forget the erratic progress of the Morris, exacerbated by Hope's habit of turning round to face his auditors every time he spoke.

'So the theory is that Arany had got something on Haggard?' he said.

'It's a strange mix else,' said Hope. 'I mean, it stands out a mile if you look at the facts. You don't have to be a detective!'

'You do if you want to be sure,' said Pascoe reprovingly.

What after all did they have? Arany's family come out of Hungary in 1956 and are transported, very probably via Vienna, to England. Haggard is in Vienna as a British Embassy official in 1956. The following year he leaves the service, possibly under a cloud, and comes home with a bit of money to invest. The inference in the rugby club think-tank was that the cloud was sexual, but rugby club philosophers see everything in physical terms. Suppose there'd been a bit of graft, queue-jumping, buy yourself a trip to sunny Britain? Arany, or his family, is involved. In 1962, Haggard's northward progress brings him to Yorkshire and their paths cross again. But when?

'When did they start to associate, Johnny?' he asked.

'Six, seven years ago, I don't know. One or two reckon Haggard was a sleeping partner in Maurice's agency. You know, put the money up. It'd take a bit of financing and one thing's for sure, he didn't make it doing his turn round the clubs.'

Johnny Hope laughed so violently at the thought that the car came near to making a dramatic entry through the side wall of the Westgate Social Club. When it finally came to rest mostly inside the car-park and with hardly more than two wheels overspilling on to the pavement, a fast-approaching constable sheered off in some confusion as Wield and Pascoe staggered gratefully into the cold night air.

They were inside and drinking another pint before Pascoe had time to think better of it. An acned youth was just finishing a spirited version of 'Young at Heart' which a benevolently drunk Sinatra might have accepted as a tribute. Johnny Hope applauded with more enthusiasm than the rest of the fairly sparse audience put together.

'He's the wife's cousin's lad,' he explained.

'Does your wife ever come with you?' asked Pascoe.

'No. She can't stand the clubs. Doesn't drink either. She's not religious, mind, just prefers the telly and a cup of tea. But she likes the family to stick together. Hello, Bri! Not a bad turn, young Sammy, is he?'

'He'll get paid,' said Brian Burkill ungraciously. 'Friends of yours, Johnny?'

He looked without much favour on Pascoe and Wield.

'Evening, Bri,' said the sergeant. 'Don't crack your face, will you? You know Mr Pascoe.'

'I know him.'

'Evening, Mr Burkill,' said Pascoe. 'You haven't got a motor-bike by any chance?'

'No. Why?'

'No reason. What time does your show start?'

'Eight o'clock, after the bingo.'

'Who runs that?'

'Whoever's handy.'

'And tonight?'

'I did the calling tonight. What's up, Inspector? Someone robbed a train?'

'I'm just interested in how these places run, that's all.'

'Ah. Slumming, is it?' said Burkill.

Pascoe ignored him, though he recognized a trace of truth in the sneer. Like all detectives he had a pool of more or less useful informants, but the small club circuit was very much the prerogative of Dalziel himself, and, of course, the indispensable Wield. 'You're a saloon bar man,' Dalziel had told him early in their association. 'It's them trendy shirts and the way you turn your head away when you pick your nose. Stick to your last, lad. The low life's not for you.'

It had been a joke, another Dalziel story to tell old friends, but Pascoe had since realized what he recognized once more now as he looked around this smoke-filled room with its gaudy vinyl wallpaper, its Formica tables and stackable chairs, its shouted conversations and screeched amusement, its pints of bitter and port and lemons - that some catch of self-awareness in him could never be released sufficiently to let him plunge without restraint into these less than Byzantine pleasures. It wasn't just the natural watchfulness which becomes second nature to most detectives. It was a need to assess before experiencing. It was a distrust of the commonalty of pleasure. It was a sense of the cry of bewilderment in human laughter. Above all, it was a longing for joy and a fear of being duped and debased by some shoddy substitute.

Such were Pascoe's extrapolations in his more self-analytical moments. He sometimes thought he was going quietly mad.

On the other hand, he had been totally immersed in the delight offered him by Estelle, the teenage trampolinist. Perhaps there would be something else tonight which would engage his whole attention, though the standard of the group presently offering harmonic near-misses in a nasal falsetto did not bode well. The audience seemed indifferent, too, drinking and talking as though they weren't being told by four epicene young men that angel face with wings of lace had taken off to another place. At a table quite close Pascoe recognized the Heppelwhites, Burkill's associates in the great assault. With them was a portly woman, in cast of feature not dissimilar from Estelle's mother.

Presumably this was Mrs Heppelwhite joining her men for a jolly family outing. Clint caught his eye and nudged his father who looked up and then looked quickly away. The youth picked up his pint and took a long draught. There was a fresh white bandage around his palm.

'Back in a minute,' said Pascoe to Wield. 'An old friend. Look, before William Hickey here gets totally insensible, see if he can give us anything more. Ask him about Haggard in particular.'

As he approached the Heppelwhites' table, the older man developed an intense interest in the group while his son spoke animatedly to his mother.

'Evening, Mr Heppelwhite, Clint,' said Pascoe. 'Enjoying the show?'

'We were,' said Charlie.

'Shut up,' said the woman. 'Our Colin says you're a copper, mister. Well, sit down then before you have the whole room looking.'

Pascoe sat.

'I suppose it's about what these two silly buggers got up to with that Brian Burkill? He's a menace, that one. It's always been Brian-this, Brian-that. You'd think he'd built this place brick by brick with no help! Concert secretary, that's what he is, and bedlam like this, that's what we've got to suffer. I've got a cat sounds better on the prowl!'

'Oh, Mother,' protested Charlie.

'Shut up,' she said. 'They're easy led, these two, Mister Whatever-your-name-is. I wouldn't get to see their wage packets if Bri Burkill wanted first dip.'

'That's daft talk, Betsy, love,' said Charlie.

'I thought I told you to shut up. And my glass is empty. I'll have a lager and lime this time. And don't forget to bring one for the sergeant. Keep in with the fuzz, my dad taught me.'

'I'm an Inspector,' corrected Pascoe.

'You're still only getting the one,' said Betsy Heppelwhite. Pascoe found himself warming to this formidable lady.

He waited till her husband had reluctantly gathered their glasses together and set off to the bar, then asked, 'You agree that it was a daft thing to do, then?'

'You've enough to do to fight your own battles, mister,' she said. 'That Brian Burkill always goes on like Cassius Clay, he's big enough to fight his own fights. Always has been.'

'You've known him a long time?'

'Longer than I care to remember. I was at school with Deirdre, that's Mrs Burkill. A nice lass, but soft, always soft. Well, she paid for it.'

'What do you mean?'

'Him, that's what I mean. They've been married best part of twenty years and I doubt if he's spent more than two evenings in that house.'

'Mam, you shouldn't be talking like this,' said Clint suddenly.

'Don't you tell me how I should or shouldn't talk or I'll take the back of my hand to you, big as you are!' snapped his mother. 'I'm not saying owt I haven't said a thousand times before.'

'That's the trouble,’ muttered Clint almost inaudibly, then gave a sharp cry of pain, from which Pascoe surmised that Mrs Heppelwhite had substituted the point of her shoe for the back of her hand. Angrily the boy stood up, shoving his chair back into the neighbouring table, and shambled out of the room. His mother watched him go indifferently.

'I've told him, while he lives in my house, he behaves like I want him. He's got the choice.'

'He seems to have hurt his hand,' said Pascoe.

'Aye.Came off his bike tonight. That's another thing I don't like, that bike. He'll kill himself one of these days. I don't know what these lads are coming to these days. It's the police I blame.'

With difficulty Pascoe resisted the lure of this fascinating by-road and brought her back to the main track.

'Burkill mistreats his wife, you say?'

'He doesn't thump her, if that's what you're getting at. Not enough to bother her, any road. It's just that he spends every night here. Always has.'

'You're here,' observed Pascoe.

'Couple of nights a week maybe. And we arrive together at a decent time, have a couple of drinks, then off. Bri's first in, last out. Even if Deirdre comes, she never sees him, he's so bloody important.

‘Is she here tonight?'

'No. She usually sits with us if she does.'

'I suppose Sandra's too young to come?'

Mrs Heppelwhite's formidable lips tightened significantly.

'Aye.By her birth certificate.'

'What's that mean?'

'Haven't you seen her? She could pass for five-and-twenty, that lass. And does. I've seen her. I hardly recognized her once a few months back. She had more paint on her than our front door.'

'Does Mrs Burkill permit this?'

'Of course she doesn't, but kids these days! She'll have it in her handbag or hidden somewhere outside. Once she's away from the house, out it comes and on it goes. I'd have flayed her back for her if she'd been mine.'

'And Mrs Burkill?'

'Spoke
to her. Didn't dare tell Bri. That's one thing he's some use for. He'd have knocked seven bells out of her.'

'He doesn't seem to have touched her after this recent business,' observed Pascoe.

'No. He had someone else to thump there, didn't he? And he got my two men mixed up in it too. All for that little madam. I'll tell you what,' she added emphatically. 'Mebbe I shouldn't say it, but if that poor sod of a dentist did touch her, it wouldn't be without encouragement.'

'I'm afraid that won't help him much in court, Mrs Heppelwhite,' said Pascoe.

'No. No doubt she'll turn up in her old school clothes looking the picture of innocence. Well, them's the risks these rich buggers have got to take for their money. Not that I care. But I feel sorry for his wife, that's all. It's always the woman who suffers!'

Storing this in his collection of unanswerable assertions somewhere between
God is Good
and
There's No Place Like Home,
Pascoe waited just long enough to say 'cheers' to Heppelwhite on his lager-laden return, then retreated to the bar. Wield and Hope were in close conversation with Burkill near by.

'Collecting evidence, are you?' said Burkill. 'What about Shorter? Has that bastard been arrested yet?'

'I'm not in charge of the case, Mr Burkill. Remember, you were rather insistent that I shouldn't be.'

'Mr Dalziel will see me right, Inspector,' averred Burkill. 'He doesn't much care for this kind of thing.'

'I think we may all trust Mr Dalziel. What about your lass?'

'What the hell do you mean?'

Pascoe realized that his sentence juxtaposition had led him into trouble. He made haste to pour oil, knowing it would do no one any good if he had to arrest Burkill for assault.

'I meant, what happens to her now. Is she going to have the baby or . . .'

'Abortion, you mean,' said Burkill, subsiding. 'I don’t know. We haven't really talked about it. You can get that done, can you? I mean, officially?'

'Oh yes. In a case like this, young girl and everything, there's no problem. Look, would you like someone to come round to talk it over with you and your wife, and Sandra too, of course.'

'Police, you mean.'

'No, I don't mean police. Someone from the social services. I know the man in charge there. Of course, you could ring him yourself, I just thought it might be easier if I put you in contact.'