Child’s Play

So saying, and full of selfless eagerness to administer this lesson, he began to advance on Eden Thackeray. The lawyer, finding himself in the Court of Last Resources, attempted to ward him off with the person of Miss Keech. Sidestepping to get at his proper prey, John Huby’s foot found space where it looked for terra firma. For a second he teetered on one leg; then with a cry in which fear was now indistinguishable from rage, he plunged headlong into the open grave.

Everyone froze, then everyone moved. Some pressed forward to offer assistance, some pressed back to summon it. Ruby Huby leapt into the grave to succour her husband and landed with both knees in his kidneys. Eden Thackeray, no longer needing Miss Keech for aegis, released her and was then constrained to grab her again as she too started the easy descent into the pit. The vicar stopped smiling comfortingly and Rod Lomas looked across the grave, caught Lexie Huby’s eye, and laughed aloud.

Gradually order was restored and the unquiet grave emptied of all but its proper inmate. It was only now that most of those present realized that at some point in the confusion the catalystic stranger had vanished. Once it was ascertained that the only permanent damage was to John Huby’s blue serge, Miss Keech, still leaning heavily on the arm of Eden Thackeray, signalled that the obsequies were back on course by announcing that a cold collation awaited those who cared to return with her to Troy House.

Walking away from the graveside, Rod Lomas found himself alongside Lexie Huby. Stooping to her ear, he murmured, ‘Nothing in Aunt Gwen’s life, or her fortune for that matter, became her like the leaving of it, wouldn’t you say?’

She looked at him in alarmed bewilderment. He smiled. She frowned and hurried on to join her sister who glanced back, caught the young man’s eye, and blushed beneath her blusher at his merry respondent wink.

Chapter 2

The façade of the Kemble was a mess. To rescue the old theatre from bingo in these hard times; to renovate, refurbish and restore it; to divert public money and extort private sponsorship to finance it; these had been acts of faith or of lunacy depending on where you stood, and the division in the local council had not been on straight party lines.

But the will had been great and the work had been done. Creamy grey stone had emerged from beneath a century of grime and Shakespeare’s numbers had triumphed over the bingo-caller’s.

But now the huge eye catching posters which advertised the Grand Opening Production of Romeo and Juliet had been ripped down, and what caught the eye now were aerosoled letters in primary colours taking stone, glass and woodwork in their obscene stride.

GO HOME NIGGER! CHUNG = DUNG! WHITE

HEAT BURNS BLACK BASTARDS!

Sergeant Wield took a last look as he left the theatre. Council workers were already at their priest-like task of ablution, but it was going to be a long job.

When he got back to the station, he went to see if his immediate superior, Detective-Inspector Peter Pascoe, was back from the hospital. Long before he reached the inspector’s door, a dull vibration of the air like thunder in the next valley suggested that Pascoe was indeed back and was being lectured, doubtless on some essential constabulary matter, by Superintendent Andrew Dalziel Head of Mid-Yorkshire CID.

‘The very man,’ said Dalziel as the sergeant entered. ‘What odds is Broomfield giving against Dan Trimble from Cornwall?’

‘Three to one. Theoretical, of course, sir,’ said Wield.

‘Of course. Here’s five theoretical quid to put on his nose, right?’

Wield accepted the money without comment. Dalziel was referring to the strictly illegal book Sergeant Broomfield had opened on the forthcoming appointment of a new Chief Constable. The shortlist had been announced and interviews would take place in a fortnight’s time.

Pascoe, slightly disapproving of this frivolity when there was serious police business toward, said, ‘How was the Kemble, Wieldy?’

‘It’ll wash off,’ said the sergeant. ‘What about the lad in hospital?’

Pascoe said, ‘That’ll take a bit longer to wash off. They fractured his skull.’

‘The two things are connected, you reckon?’ said Dalziel.

‘Well, he is black and he is a member of the Kemble Company.’

The attack in question had taken place as the young actor had made his way to his digs after an evening out drinking with some friends. He’d been found badly beaten in an alleyway at six o’clock that morning. He could remember nothing after leaving the pub.

The trouble at the Kemble had started with the controversial appointment of Eileen Chung as artistic director. Chung, a six-foot-three-inch-tall Eurasian with a talent for publicity, had gone instantly on local television to announce that under her regime, the Kemble would be an outpost of radical theatre. Alarmed, the interviewer had asked if this meant a diet of modern political plays.

‘Radical’s content, not form, honey,’ Chung said sweetly. ‘We’re going to open with Romeo and Juliet, is that old-fashioned enough for you?’

Asked, why Romeo and Juliet? she had replied, ‘It’s about the abuse of authority, the psycho-battering of children, the degradation of womanhood. Also it’s on this year’s O-level syllabus. We’ll pack the kids in, honey. They’re tomorrow’s audience and they’ll melt away unless you get a hold of them today.’

Such talk had made many of the city fathers uneasy, but it had delighted a lot of people including Ellie Pascoe who, as local membership secretary of WRAG, the Women’s Rights Action Group, had quickly got in touch with Chung. Since their first meeting, she had talked about the newcomer with such adulation that Pascoe had found himself referring to her in a reaction, which privately at least he recognized as jealous, as Big Eileen.

It was after her television appearance that trouble had started in the form of obscene phone calls and threatening letters. But the previous night’s attack and vandalization had been the first direct interpretation of these threats.

‘What did Big Eileen have to say?’ inquired Pascoe.

‘Miss Chung, you mean?’ said Wield, correctly. ‘Well, she was angry about the paint and the beating-up, naturally. But to tell the truth, what seemed to be bothering her most was getting someone to replace the lad in hospital. He had an important part, it seems, and they’re due to open next Monday, I think it is.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve got tickets,’ said Pascoe without enthusiasm. It was Ellie who’d got the tickets and also an invitation to the backstage party to follow the opening. His objection that there was a showing of Siegel’s The Killers on the telly that night had not been sympathetically received.

‘Do we count it as one case or as two, sir?’ inquired Wield, who was a stickler for orderliness.

Pascoe frowned but Dalziel said, ‘Two. You stick with the assault, Peter, and let Wield here handle the vandals. If they tie in together, well and good, but at the moment, what’ve we got? Someone gives a lad a kicking after closing time. Happens all the time. Someone else goes daft with a spray can. Show me a wall where they haven’t! It’s like Belshazaar’s Feast down in the underpass.’

Pascoe didn’t altogether agree but knew better than to argue. In any case, Dalziel didn’t leave a space for argument. Having disposed of this policy decision, he was keen to get back to the main business of the day.

‘Who’s Broomfield making favourite, Wieldy?’ he asked.

‘Well, there’s Mr Dodd from Durham. Two to one on. Joint.’

‘Joint? Who with.’

‘Mr Watmough,’ said Wield, his craggily ugly face even more impressive than usual. It was well known that Dalziel rated Watmough, the present Deputy Chief Constable, as a life form only slightly above amoeba.

‘What? He wants his head looked at! Find out what he’ll give me against our DCC finding his way out of the interview room without a guide dog, Wieldy!’

Wield smiled, though it hardly showed. He was smiling at Dalziel’s abrasive humour, at Pascoe’s faintly pained reaction, and also just for the sheer pleasure of being part of this. Even Dalziel would only speak so abusively of a superior before subordinates he liked and trusted. With a slight shock of surprise, Wield found he was happy. It was not a state he was much used to in recent years, not in fact since he had broken up with Maurice. But here it was at last, the dangerous infection breaking through, a slight but definite case of happiness!

The phone rang. Pascoe picked it up.

‘Hello? Yes. Hang on.’

He held out the phone to the sergeant.

‘For you, they say. Someone asking for Sergeant Mac Wield?’

The note of interrogation came on the Mac. This was not a name he’d ever heard anyone call Wield by.

The sergeant showed no emotion on his rugged face but his hand gripped the receiver so tightly that the tension bunched his forearm muscles against the sleeve of his jacket.

‘Wield,’ he said.

‘Mac Wield? Hi. I’m a friend of Maurice’s. He said if ever I was in this neck of the woods and needed a helping hand, I should look you up.’

Wield said, ‘Where are you?’

‘There’s a caff by the booking office at the bus station. You can’t miss me. I’m the suntanned one.’

‘Wait there,’ said Wield and put down the receiver.

The other two were regarding him queryingly.

‘I’ve got to go out,’ said Wield.

‘Anything we should know about?’ said Dalziel.

Mebbe the end of life as I know it, thought Wield, but all he said was, ‘Could be owt or nowt,’ before turning away abruptly and leaving.

‘Mac,’ said Pascoe. ‘I never knew Wield had Scottish connections.’

‘I don’t suppose they know either. He gives nowt much away, does he?’

‘It was probably a snout and we all like to keep our snouts under wraps,’ said Pascoe defensively.

‘If I looked like Wield, I’d put my snouts on display and keep my face under wraps,’ growled Dalziel.

Thank you, Rupert Brooke, thought Pascoe, regarding the superintendent’s huge balding head which his wife had once likened to a dropsical turnip.

But he was careful to sneeze the thought into his handkerchief, being much less sure than Sergeant Wield of his ability to shut his mind against Dalziel’s gaze, which could root up insubordination like a pig snuffling out truffles.

Wield’s capacity for concealment was far greater than anything Pascoe ever suspected.

Mac, the voice had said. Perhaps it had served him right for relaxing his guard and letting happiness steal in like that, but such instant retribution left the courts for dead! That a voice would one day call to change his life as he had chosen to live it had always been possible, indeed likely. That it should sound so young and speak so simply he had not anticipated.

I’m a friend of Maurice’s. That had been unnecessary. Only Maurice Eaton had ever called him Mac, their private name, short for Macumazahn, the native name of Allan Quatermain, the stocky, ill-favoured hero of the Rider Haggard novels Wield loved. It meant he-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open and Wield could remember the occasion of his christening as clearly as if … He snapped his mind hard on the nostalgia. What had existed between him and Maurice was dead, should be forgotten. This voice from the grave brought no hope of resurrection, but trouble as sure as a War Office telegram.

When he reached the café, he had no problem in picking out the caller. Blue-streaked hair, leg-hugging green velvet slacks and a tight blue T-shirt with a pair of fluorescent lips pouting across the chest, were in this day and age not out of the ordinary even in Yorkshire. But he’d called himself the suntanned one, and though his smooth olive skin came from mixed blood rather than a Mediterranean beach, the youth would have been impossible to miss even if he hadn’t clearly recognized Wield and smiled at him welcomingly.

Wield ignored him and went to the self-service bar.

‘Keeping you busy, Charley?’ he said.

The man behind the counter answered, ‘It’s the quality of the tea, Mr Wield. They come here in buses to try it. Fancy a cup?’

‘No, thanks. I want a word with that lad in the corner. Can I use the office?’

‘Him that looks like a delphinium? Be my guest. Here’s the key. I’ll send him through.’

Charley, a cheerful chubby fifty-year-old, had performed this service many times for both Wield and Pascoe when the café had been too full for a satisfactory tête-à-tête with an informant. Wield went through a door marked TOILETS, ignored the forked radish logo to his left and the twin-stemmed Christmas tree to his right, and unlocked the door marked Private straight ahead. It was also possible to get into this room from behind the bar, but that would draw too much attention.

Wield sat down on a kitchen chair behind a narrow desk whose age could be read in the tea-rings on its surface. The only window was narrow, high and barred, admitting scarcely more light than limned the edges of things, but he ignored the desk lamp.

A few moments later the door opened to reveal the youth standing uncertainly on the threshold.

‘Come in and shut it,’ said Wield. ‘Then lock it. The key’s in the hole.’

‘Hey, what is this?’

‘Up here we call it a room,’ said Wield. ‘Get a move on!’

The youth obeyed and then advanced towards the desk.

Wield said, ‘Right. Quick as you like, son. I’ve not got all day.’

‘Quick as I like? What do you mean? You don’t mean …? No, I can see you don’t mean …’

His accent was what Wield thought of as Cockney with aitches. His age was anything between sixteen and twenty-two. Wield said, ‘It was you who rang?’

‘Yes, that’s right …’

‘Then you’ve got something to tell me.’

‘No. Not exactly …’

‘No? Listen, son, people who ring me at the station, and don’t give names, and arrange to meet me in dumps like this, they’d better have something to tell me, and it had better be good! So let’s be having it!’

Wield hadn’t planned to play it this way, but it had all seemed to develop naturally from the site and the situation. And after years of a carefully disciplined and structured life, he sensed that what lay ahead was a new era of playing things by ear. Unless, of course, this boy could simply be frightened away.

‘Look, you’ve got it all wrong, or maybe you’re pretending to get it wrong … Like I said, I’m a friend of Maurice’s …’

‘Maurice who? I don’t know any Maurices.’

‘Maurice Eaton!’

‘Eaton? Like the school? Who’s he when he’s at home?’

And now the youth was stung to anger.

Leaning with both hands on the desk, he yelled, ‘Maurice Eaton, that’s who he is! You used to fuck each other, so don’t give me this crap! I’ve seen the photos, I’ve seen the letters. Are you listening to me, Macumazahn? I’m a friend of Maurice Eaton’s and like any friend of a friend might, I thought I’d look you up. But if it’s shit-on-auld-acquaintance time, I’ll just grab my bag and move on out. All right?’

Wield sat quite still. Beneath the unreadable roughness of his face, a conflict of impulses raged.

Self-interest told him the best thing might be to spell out what a misery the boy’s life was likely to be if he hung around in mid-Yorkshire, and then escort him gently to the next long-distance coach in any direction and see him off. Against this tugged guilt and self-disgust. Here he was, this youth, a friend of the only man that Wield had ever thought of as his own friend, in the fullest, most open as well as the deepest, most personal sense of the word, and how was he treating him? With suspicion, and hate, using his professional authority to support a personal - and squalid - impulse.

And also, somewhere down there was another feeling, concerned with both pride and survival - an apprehension that sending this boy away was no real solution to his long-term dilemma, and in any case, if the youth meant trouble, he could as easily stir it up from the next phone box on the A1 as from here.

‘What’s your name, lad?’ said Wield.

‘Cliff,’ said the young man sullenly, ‘Cliff Sharman.’

Wield switched on the table lamp and the corners of the room sprang into view. None was a pretty sight, but in one of them stood an old folding chair.

‘All right, Cliff,’ said Wield. ‘Why don’t you pull up that chair and let’s sit down together for a few minutes and have a bit of a chat, shall we?’

Chapter 3

As soon as Pascoe walked through the door, his daughter began to cry.

‘You’re late,’ said Ellie.

‘Yes, I know. I’m a detective. They teach us to spot things like that.’

‘And that’s Rosie crying.’

‘Is it? I thought maybe we’d bought a wolf.’

He took off his jacket, draped it over the banisters and ran lightly up the stairs.

The little girl stopped crying as soon as he entered her room. This was a game she’d started playing only recently. That it was a game was beyond doubt; Ellie had observed her deep in sleep till her father’s key turned in the lock, and then immediately she let out her summoning wail and would not be silent till he came and spoke to her. What he said didn’t matter.

Tonight he said, ‘Hi, kid. Remember last week I was telling you I should be hearing about my promotion soon? Well, the bad news is, I still haven’t, so if you’ve been building up any hopes of getting a new pushchair or going to Acapulco this Christmas, forget it. Want some advice, kid? If you feel like whizzing, don’t start unless you can keep it up. Nobody loves a whizzkid that’s stopped whizzing! Did I hear you ask me why I’ve stopped? Well, I’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities. One: they all think I’m Fat Andy’s boy and everyone hates Fat Andy. Two: your mum keeps chaining herself to nuclear missile sites and also she’s Membership Secretary of WRAG. So what? you say. WRAG is non-aligned politically, you’ve read the hand-outs. But what does Fat Andy say? He says WRAG’s middle-of-the-road like an Italian motorist. All left-hand drive and bloody dangerous! Three? No, I’ve not forgotten three. Three is, maybe I’m just not good enough, what about that? Maybe inspector’s my limit. What’s that you said? Bollocks? You mean it? Gee, thanks, kid. I always feel better after talking to you!’

Gently he laid the once more sleeping child back on her bed and pulled the blanket up over her tiny body.

Downstairs he went first into the kitchen and poured two large Scotch-on-the-rocks. Then he went through into the living-room.

In his brief absence his wife had lost her clothes and gained a newspaper.

‘Have you seen this?’ she demanded.

‘Often,’ said Pascoe gravely. ‘But I have no objection to seeing it again.’

‘This,’ she said, brandishing the Mid-Yorks Evening Post.

‘I’ve certainly seen one very like it,’ he said. ‘It was in my jacket pocket, but it can hardly be the same one, can it? I mean your well known views on the invasion of privacy would hardly permit you to go through your husband’s pockets, would they?’

‘It was sticking out.’

‘That’s all right, then. You’re equally well known for your support of a wife’s right to grab anything that’s sticking out. What am I looking at? This Kemble business. Well, the chap who got kicked is going to be all right, but he can’t remember a thing. And Wield’s looking into the graffiti. Now why don’t you put the paper down …’

‘No, it wasn’t the Kemble story I wanted you to look at. It was this.’

Her finger stabbed an item headed Unusual Will.

Published today, the will of the late Mrs Gwendoline Huby of Troy House, Greendale, makes interesting reading. The bulk of her estate whose estimated value is in excess of one million pounds is left to her only son, Alexander Lomas Huby, who was reported missing on active service in Italy in 1944. Lieutenant Huby’s death was assumed though his body was never found. In the event that he does not appear to claim his inheritance by his ninetieth birthday in the year 2015, the estate will be divided equally between the People’s Animal Welfare Society, the Combined Operations Dependants’ Relief Organization, both registered charities in which Mrs Huby had a long interest, and Women For Empire, a social-political group which she had supported for many years.

‘Very interesting,’ said Pascoe. ‘Sad too. Poor old woman.’

‘Stupid old woman!’ exclaimed Ellie.

‘That’s a bit hard. OK, she must have been a bit dotty, but …’

‘But nothing! Don’t you see? A third of her estate to Women For Empire! More than a third of a million pounds!’

‘Who,’ wondered Pascoe, sipping one of the Scotches, ‘are Women For Empire?’

‘My God. No wonder they’re dragging their feet about promoting you to Chief Inspector! Fascists! Red, white and blue, and cheap black labour!’

‘I see,’ said Pascoe feeling the crack about his promotion was a little under the belt. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them.’

‘So what? You’d never heard of Bangkok massage till you married me.’

‘That’s true. But I’d still like to know which of my worldwide sources of intelligence I can blame for my ignorance. Where did you hear about them?’

Ellie blushed gently. It was a phenomenon observed by few people as the change of colour was not so much in her face as in the hollow of her throat, the rosy flush seeping down towards the deep cleft of her breasts. Pascoe claimed that here was the quintessence of female guilt, i.e. evidence of guilt masquerading as a mark of modesty.

‘Where?’ he pressed.

‘On the list,’ she muttered.

‘List?’

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘There’s a list of ultra-right-wing groups we ought to keep an eye open for. We got a copy at WRAG.’

‘A list!’ said Pascoe taking another drink. ‘You mean, like the RC’s Index? Forbidden reading for the faithful? Or is it more like the Coal Board’s famous hit list? These organizations are the pits and ought to be closed down?’

‘Peter, if you don’t stop trying to be funny, I’ll get dressed again. And incidentally, why are you drinking from both those glasses?’

‘Sorry,’ said Pascoe handing over the fuller of the two. ‘Incidentally in return, how come at nine-thirty in the evening you’re wearing nothing but the Evening Post anyway?’

‘Every night for what seems weeks now you’ve been staggering in late. Rosie instantly sets up that awful howl and you stagger upstairs to talk to her. I dread to think what long term effect these little monologues are having on the child!’

‘She doesn’t complain.’

‘No. It’s the only way she can get your attention for a little while. That’s what all this is about. The next stage is for you to stagger back downstairs, have a couple of drinks, eat your supper and then fall asleep beyond recall by anything less penetrative than Fat Andy’s voice. Well, tonight I’m getting in my howl first!’

Pascoe looked at her thoughtfully, finished his drink and leaned back on the sofa.

‘Howl away,’ he invited.

The Unusual Will item had caught other eyes that day too.

The Mid-Yorks Evening Post was one of several northern local papers in the Challenger group. The Challenger itself was a Sunday tabloid, published in Leeds with a mainly northern circulation though in recent years under the dynamic editorship of Ike Ogilby it had made some inroads into the Midlands. Nor did Ogilby’s ambitions end at Birmingham. In the next five years he aimed either to expand the Challenger into a full-blown national or use it as his personal springboard to an established editorial chair in Fleet Street, he didn’t much care which.

The other editors within the group were requested to bring to Ogilby’s notice any local item which might interest the Challenger. In addition Ogilby, who trusted his fellow journalists to share a story like the chimpanzee trusts its fellow chimps to share a banana, encouraged his own staff to scan the evening columns.