A Pinch of Snuff

Pascoe opened the wallet and peered in. It was full of old newspapers. There was a single typewritten sheet accompanying them. This he withdrew. It contained details of Arany’s background, and home and business addresses. Pascoe studied it thoughtfully.

Wield meanwhile had been looking at the sheet Arany had been writing on and Pascoe was surprised to see a strange expression attempting to come to grips with his face, a kind of deferential embarrassment. Like a werewolf turning into Jeeves.

He saw the reason when he himself looked at the list.

Heading the names was Mrs P. Pascoe. Second was Arthur Halfdane. There were about thirty other names. And last of all was Godfrey Blengdale.

I wonder, thought Pascoe. Would that name appear at all if Ellie hadn’t been there? Probably, for there would be others who would remember his presence. But its position on the list seemed to hint at a reluctance to put it there.

‘Thank you, Mr Arany. Now, perhaps you can help us further. What time was it when you left the Club?’

‘Eleven. Eleven-fifteen.’

‘Now, were you the last to leave, or was there anyone else on the premises, apart from Mr Haggard, that is?’

Arany looked at him, his face so blank that Pascoe wondered if he’d understood the question. But he did not repeat it.

‘I saw no one. The club room was empty,’ said Arany finally.

‘Where was Mr Haggard?’ asked Pascoe.

‘He had gone to his quarters.’

‘At what time?’

‘Ten-thirty. The show finished at ten. He had a drink downstairs, then left.’

‘Alone?’ asked Pascoe.

Again the silence. Suddenly Wield moved forward, just half a pace. Pascoe regarded his face, which was set like a traitor’s head, and thought what a boost it would have been to the Inquisition, worth two or three confessions without touching the rack.

‘I think Mr Blengdale went with him.’

‘I see,’ said Pascoe. ‘And you think Mr Blengdale may still have been there when you left.’

‘It is possible. I cannot say definitely.’

‘Well, thank you, Mr Arany. That will do for now,’ said Pascoe. ‘The sergeant here will help you prepare your statement and have it typed up for you to sign. It shouldn’t take a minute.’

Arany banged both hands on the table.

‘Inspector, I am not a bloody stupid foreigner. I can speak and write English probably much better than half of your policemen. I shall write my own statement without Mr Wield having to translate.’

‘As you please,’ said Pascoe. ‘We’ll be next door if you need any help.’

Outside the door he hefted the cardboard wallet and grinned at Wield.

‘You overdid this a bit, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘He’ll be complaining to Amnesty!’

‘It isn’t all padding,’ protested Wield.

‘No? You mean he’s made the papers?’

‘In a way. The clubland columns in the local rag. You know the thing, Club and Pub with Johnny Hope.’

‘Oh yes. Incisive criticism. Old Wrinkle and the Retainers were at the Green Swan last night and kept the customers happy. Did Arany?’

‘Not according to Johnny Hope,’ said Wield. ‘He records his move to management with great enthusiasm.’

‘You’re a very thorough man, Sergeant,’ said Pascoe appreciatively. ‘Well, back to the grind. See that Arany’s OK, will you? He’s more frightened of you than me.’

He glanced at his watch. It was eleven-thirty.

‘I suppose I’d better try to have a chat with Godfrey Blengdale. He’s not going to like being mixed up in this.’

‘I don’t suppose he is,’ said Wield.

Something in his tone caught Pascoe’s attention.

‘Do you know him?’

‘I make it my business to know anyone who’s a big man in this town, sir,’ said Wield. ‘You never know when you may find yourself dealing with them.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Pascoe, thinking he recognized another crusader. He only hoped they were heading for the same holy war.

Chapter 7

Back in his office Pascoe looked up Blengdale’s home number and dialled. There was no reply, so he tried the business number. A voice so tired that it could have been used on a medium’s tape told him that Mr Blengdale had left the country. Further questioning produced the information that this meant he had flown to Northern Ireland on business but should be returning on Sunday.

Disgruntled, Pascoe replaced the receiver, then on impulse picked it up again and rang Ellie’s parents’ number in Lincolnshire.

‘Just thought I’d check you’d arrived safely,’ he said.

‘Kind of you.’ She still sounded cool.

‘Mum and Dad well?’

‘Yes. Well, not really. Dad’s a bit under the weather. Nothing specific, just old age, I guess. But I thought I might stop overnight. Would you mind?’

‘Love, with the kind of contact we’ve been having lately, what difference will it make?’

He tried to say it lightly, but it didn’t work.

‘It takes two to make contact,’ she answered sharply.

‘Yes. Yes. I’m sorry. What time will you be back tomorrow?’

‘I’m not sure. Take me when I come, will you. We’ve got an important liaison committee on Monday morning and there’s a bit of a council of war at college on Sunday night. I thought I’d better drop in on my way home.’

‘Out of your way home, you mean. Yes, I’m sure they couldn’t do anything without you. Well, enjoy yourself.’

He banged the phone down, feeling angry and hurt; and also foolish because he knew he had no mature adult reason for feeling angry and hurt.

He glanced at his watch. The Black Bull would be open. He’d been up since five o’clock. He surely deserved an early lunch.

It says much for the humanizing influence of bitter beer that after only half a pint, Pascoe was beginning to regard himself ruefully as some kind of vindictive sexist. He got himself another half and had fallen deep into a reverie about the state of his life when a hand smote, captain-like, upon his shoulder and a voice said, ‘That stuff will rot your teeth.’

It was Jack Shorter. With him, though in some indefinable way not quite of him, was a woman whom he introduced as his wife.

Pascoe looked at the spreading pool of beer Shorter’s greeting had caused him to spill, then he stood up awkwardly because Mrs Shorter looked like the kind of woman who would expect it – the upstanding, that is; not the awkwardness. Indeed her face registered ‘no reaction’ to the beer slopped over the table in a way which Pascoe found more disapproving than a cry of ‘clumsy bugger!’

‘How do you do, Mr Pascoe?’ she said holding out a white-gloved hand. Dalziel would have wiped his own paw ostentatiously on his jacket front before pumping the woman’s up and down, the whiles assuring her that he was grand and how was herself? Not for the first time Pascoe admitted the attractions of action over analysis.

‘John has told me a great deal about you,’ said Mrs Shorter.

‘John?’

‘Jack. Emma and my mother stick at John,’ said Shorter. ‘All right if we join you, Peter? I’ll top you up. Most of yours seems to be on the table.’

He made off to the bar. Mrs Shorter sat down with studied grace. Above medium height, slim and elegant, she reminded Pascoe of models of the pre-Shrimpton and Twiggy era whose cool gazes from his mother’s magazines had provided an early visual aid in his sex education. No longer, he thought sadly. Gone were the days when Woman was good for a flutter, the Royal Geographical Magazine provided rich spoils for the assiduous explorer, and Health and Efficiency was like an explosion in the guts.

But she was good-looking once you got past the perfection of her hair-do and her expensively simple powder-blue suit. She would have graced any Conservative Party platform.

‘We’re not interfering with your business, I hope,’ she said.

‘No. Not at all,’ said Pascoe, puzzled.

‘I thought that detectives visited bars merely in order to observe criminals and meet informants,’ she went on.

She was essaying a joke, he realized.

‘There are some of my colleagues who waste their time like that,’ he said. ‘Me, I just drink.’

‘You’re not talking shop, I hope,’ said Shorter as he rejoined them. ‘Emm, please. You know what it’s like when people come up to me at parties and start flashing their fillings.’

‘There’s a difference between teeth and crime,’ said his wife.

‘Thank you, Wittgenstein,’ said Shorter. ‘There’s also a connection. Talking of which, Peter, any word on what I said to you earlier in the week?’

Peter glanced at Emma Shorter and her husband laughed.

‘It’s all right. I told Emm. I don’t have to get my card marked when I go to see a dirty picture, you know.’

‘You could always try staying at home and watching them on television, though,’ said the woman.

‘I’ve checked it out,’ said Pascoe thinking as he used the phrase that he must have been watching too much television. ‘Nothing in it, I’m glad to say. The special effects department must be getting better and better.’

He thought of referring to the previous night’s events at the Calli – they would after all be in the evening paper – but decided against the ‘from-the-horse’s-mouth’ intimacy that would imply.

‘Oh,’ said Shorter. ‘I suppose I ought to be relieved, but I feel, well, not disappointed exactly, but a bit stupid, I suppose.’

‘You ought to try apologizing,’ said Mrs Shorter. ‘It’s not your time that’s been wasted.’

‘Oh Lord. Peter, I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t spend a lot of time …’

‘Hardly any at all,’ interrupted Pascoe. ‘It’s all right. I’m glad you mentioned it. If people didn’t pass their suspicions on to us, we’d get nowhere.’

Again Mrs Shorter’s expression did not change but he felt she was raising her eyebrows at his public relation cliché. He felt annoyed. She could please herself what she thought about his manners, but further than that she could get stuffed. Dalziel again. I’ll be scratching my groin next, he thought in alarm. Hastily he finished his drink.

‘I’m sorry, I have to dash,’ he said.

‘But I’ve got you a pint,’ said Shorter.

‘You drink it,’ said Pascoe. ‘It’s bad for my fillings, remember?’

‘And you remember our Ms Lacewing’s going to scrape you out on Monday.’

‘How could I forget? Nice to meet you, Mrs Shorter.’ He wondered whether he should offer his hand.

‘You too, Mr Pascoe,’ she said. ‘You must come to see us some time.’

‘Great, great,’ said Pascoe eager to be off before she could thaw into an invitation. ‘Cheerio now. ‘Bye, Jack.’

Outside the pub he found he was in almost as bad a temper as when he’d left the office. He felt somehow manipulated though that was absurd. But come to think of it, in all the years he’d been frequenting the Black Bull, he’d never known Jack Shorter to use the pub.

It was still early and instead of returning to the station he strolled round to Wilkinson Square.

There should have been a constable on duty at the door, but the front steps were empty. Nor, he discovered, when he pushed the door open, had the policeman taken refuge inside.

There was a scrabble of footsteps behind him and when he turned he saw an anxious-faced uniformed constable coming up the steps. He was in his early twenties and looked like a schoolboy caught in some misdemeanour.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Pascoe.

‘Sorry, sir. I was on duty here when the lady next door asked me in to give her a hand with putting a new light bulb in the hallway. She’s very old and afraid of steps.’

‘Miss Andover?’

‘Yes, sir. And it’s been very quiet for the past hour. And I kept an eye open from her window.’

‘While you were up a step-ladder? Think yourself lucky it wasn’t Mr Dalziel who came round. Is Arany here?’

‘Mr Arany? No, sir. He was earlier, but he went off about an hour ago.’

‘All right,’ said Pascoe. ‘Now plant your feet outside that door and don’t move, not even if a river of lava comes rolling down Maltgate.’

Shaking his head at the lowering of standards amongst the younger recruits to the force, and grinning at himself for shaking his head, Pascoe closed the front door and walked down the vestibule.

‘Hello!’ called Pascoe.

He pushed open the door of the wrecked bar. Someone, Arany presumably, had done a good tidying-up job. Just inside the door on a chair was a shopping bag and alongside it a gaudily wrapped packet. Pascoe picked it up. It looked as if it (whatever it was) had been gift-wrapped in the shop. A card was attached saying Happy Birthday Sandra. From Uncle Maurice. The bag contained groceries – butter, tins of soup, frozen fish. Pascoe picked out a jar of pickled gherkins. He felt a sudden urge to eat one. I must be pregnant, he thought.

‘Oh. Hello,’ said a voice behind him.

He turned. A girl in her early twenties wearing a denim suit and a flat cap had come into the room.

‘Who’re you?’ asked Pascoe.

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