Reginald Hill: Child's Play

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.