Reginald Hill: Child's Play

‘Nineteen years,’ said Mrs Hornsby. ‘It’s not much.’

‘No,’ said Wield.

‘No time to do anything. And a lot of what he did do wasn’t what you’d call good, was it?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘I did right to let him be buried up here, didn’t I, Sergeant Wield?’ She sought reassurance.

‘Oh yes,’ said Wield.

‘And they’ll put his dad alongside him?’

‘I’ll make sure they do.’

‘Yes. Well, Mr Dalziel says he’ll see to it too. He’s a nice man, Mr Dalziel, isn’t he?’

The idea was startling enough to penetrate the carapace of self-absorbed melancholy Wield had grown around him in the past few days.

‘What? Oh yes.’

‘And clever with it. He worked it all out, you know. He was telling me all about it, Dicky working at that same hotel and all.’

It had indeed been a small triumph of ratiocination which Dalziel had only mentioned to all those who had the ears to hear without the legs or the rank to run away.

With Commander Sanderson’s help he had pursued Miss Keech through Army Records, Richard Sharman through tax returns and Mrs Huby through London hotel registers.

Miss Keech, now in hospital, had said nothing since the night she almost shot Lexie, so all scenarios were circumstantial. But the facts were that she had been an ATS corporal in 1944 posted to Maidstone, that there’d been an American negro unit stationed close by, that she’d married Sergeant Sharman and given birth to her black baby only six months later.

‘She must’ve worked fast when she realized she was pregnant,’ theorized Dalziel. ‘Caught the poor sod desperate for a bit of romance before he went overseas. Did he really believe his divorce was final? Who knows? In them days, who cared!’

So had begun the course of events which was to start gathering its final momentum three years before when Richard Sharman, arriving one morning for his job as a relief barman at the Remington Palace Hotel, had glimpsed Miss Keech getting into a taxi with Mrs Huby after breaking their journey in London on their return from Italy. He thought he recognized his mother. Checking with the hotel register would have given him the women’s names plus their Troy House address.

A man of action and impulse, he had caught a train north later that same day. By the time he found out where Troy House was, it was late evening. In any case, the women would have gone to bed early after their travels. Getting into the house would pose little difficulty as the animals had to be permitted almost total freedom of movement.

And so poor Sharman had wandered into someone else’s receiving fantasy, just as Pontelli three years later was to be the victim of a situation he had neither created nor comprehended. It was a sad irony that he had almost certainly gone to Troy House in search of Rod Lomas, whose presence there had been revealed to him that same afternoon by John Huby, and who was at that moment keeping a vain vigil outside the Highmore Hotel.

Now Wield gently turned Mrs Hornsby away from the grave and together they walked back towards the chapel where the single funeral car waited. As they approached another car drew up behind it and Dalziel got out.

‘Hello there. Everything go all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thank you, Andy,’ said the woman. ‘It was nice of you to send them flowers.’

‘Think nothing of it. Will you excuse me and the sergeant here a mo?’

He took Wield a few steps into the chapel porch.

‘You all right?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir. Look, I want to talk …’

‘Not here, lad! Show some respect. You won’t mind going back by yourself in that thing, will you?’

‘No. But what about …’

‘I’ll look after Mrs Hornsby,’ said Dalziel firmly. ‘I thought I’d take her out, cheer her up a bit. Spend my winnings.’

‘Winnings?’

‘Oh aye. Haven’t you heard. I collected from Broomfield. Dan Trimble from Cornwall got the job like I said he would.’

‘And Mr Watmough?’

‘Well, he didn’t get the job,’ explained Dalziel patiently. ‘Seeing as there’s only one Chief Constable at a time, I should’ve thought even a detective-sergeant could’ve worked that out.’

‘Yes, sir. I meant, what happened…?’

‘I think the Committee got the notion he had some funny hang-ups about gays,’ said Dalziel.

Wield considered this, then said angrily, ‘You’re not saying that he didn’t get it because they thought he was gay, are you?’

Dalziel regarded him curiously.

‘That’d bother you, would it, lad?’

‘From now on, that kind of crap’ll bother me a lot,’ said Wield grimly.

‘Easy,’ said Dalziel. ‘Two things for you to remember, sunshine. Coming out the way you did doesn’t qualify you to be a hero. What are you going to do? Wear red feathers and a tu-tu and demonstrate outside County Hall? Not your style, Wieldy. Second, it wasn’t because someone thought Watmough was a cryptoqueer he didn’t get the job. Oh no. He sticks out a mile as a cryptoqueer-basher, doesn’t he? But he didn’t know his committee! All these directives on cooperation and information, and he knew bugger all about Councillor Mottram, the chairman!’

‘You mean Mottram …?’ Wield looked at him in disbelief. ‘But he’s got a wife and two kids!’

Dalziel shook his head in sorrow.

‘So had Oscar Wilde,’ he said. ‘Don’t be so square, lad. And keep your mouth shut about Mottram. Just because you’ve come up on deck, don’t rock the boat for them as prefer to remain down in the hold. You didn’t exactly make it with one mighty leap yourself, did you? Now I’d better not keep poor Mrs Hornsby waiting. There’s a lot of comforting needs done there.’

He moved away, then paused and turned.

‘By the by, your sick leave’s over, as of today. I’ll expect you at your desk tomorrow morning. Don’t be late!’

He glanced towards Mrs Hornsby and grinned ferociously.

‘On the other hand, don’t start ringing the hospital if I am!’

Pascoe nursed Rosie in his arms.

‘It’s all over, kid,’ he said. ‘All done. All sorted out. With precious little help from me, I might add. I mean, what did I do? Like the Fat Man said, I got absorbed with peripherals, with intellectual speculation, moral problems and the romantic past. Only he didn’t put it like that, did he? What he said was … No, I won’t tell you, kid, even though you’ve got your eyes shut and you’re snoring. You never know about subliminal hearing and I reckon between us, me and your mum will do enough to mess you up without feeding you the gospel according to Andy Dalziel at such a tender age. Not that I think he was totally right. Once or twice I got close to things, once or twice I got close to being the wise, witty and wonderful dad you’re going to imagine I am till one day it hits you that really I’m as much of a child as you are, and then suddenly the child is truly father to the man and you’ll rather sadly leave me to my silly play and sally forth yourself to save the universe.’

His perambulations with the sleeping baby had brought him before a dressing-table mirror, up-tilted so he could look down at his reflection.

He regarded himself seriously, then said, ‘Excuse me, Inspector, there are still a couple of things I don’t understand …’

Statement made by Detective Chief Inspector Pascoe P. on the something of whatsit in the presence of a cassette-recorder and a bottle of Scotch, half full or half empty depending which way you’re going. Statement made voluntarily, without duress or Dalziel, which some allege are indistinguishable at dusk with the light behind them.