Reginald Hill: Child's Play

‘So,’ I said ‘the money is just for you. How did you think you could get away with it?’

‘With what?’

‘Fraud.’ I spelt it out. ‘Misappropriation of funds. I’m sure the Fraud Squad will have half a dozen other charges. Not forgetting impersonation.’

‘By me? Who of?’

‘Sarah Brodsworth,’ I said.

‘But she is me,’ said Lexie. ‘I even changed my name by deed-poll when I got to eighteen. There’s no problem. I’m officially Alexandra Sarah Brodsworth-Huby. How can I impersonate myself?’

‘Don’t quibble,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t become you. Your aunt had a purpose for this money. There is no way in which you will be able to claim it came into your possession legally.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘There wouldn’t be. But it’s not in my possession.’

‘Transferring it to a Swiss account isn’t going to alter matters, Lexie,’ I said. ‘Who advised you? Lomas?’

‘Why do you mention him?’

‘I just thought he might have inherited some of his father’s expertise about fund-laundering,’ I sneered.

She said, ‘How’d a nice lady like Mrs Pascoe get herself married to a mind like yours?’

For the first time I got angry.

‘Don’t try to be smart with me, young girl,’ I said grimly, launching into my Dalziel impersonation. ‘You think it’s all a game, don’t you? A little play with you in the lead? You should’ve been the family actor, Lexie. From what I’ve seen of Lomas you could knock him into a cocked hat, which is probably where he belongs! Well, your next big part will be in court. What’s it to be? Simple little Lexie Huby, the office mouse? No, that’ll hardly do, not now you’re almost a fully-fledged solicitor. How about, clever Miss Huby, the self-educated working class lass, who’s overcome all obstacles and reads poetry and listens to opera? But when I tell them that behind the poetry and the opera, there’s a blonde wig and a pair of false boobs and a sharp little, greedy little mind at work, they’ll look closer at you then, Lexie, and save their applause for the judge who sends you down.’

She said, amused, ‘My wig’s better than his, I think. But you’ve not got it quite right, Mr Pascoe. The poetry and the opera, yes, I acknowledge that, and I couldn’t live without ’em. But I’ve known for a long time that behind the poetry and the music there’s a world full of horrible, ugly things that can’t be disguised, that can hardly be avoided.’

‘Unless you’ve got the money to build a big enough barrier,’ I concluded for her. ‘And that’s your justification?’

‘What do I need with money?’ she snapped suddenly. ‘I need money like my dad needed it. It was thinking he needed it that nearly ruined him. Knowing he wasn’t getting it just put him on the right road. Like Rod. He’ll never be a great actor, mebbe, but unless someone gives him a lot of money, he’ll have to work so hard he’ll become a very good one.’

‘And you?’ I said, somewhat taken back.

‘Oh yes. Money’d spoil me too,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to cheat to get it, Mr Pascoe. I can’t see any trick to making a lot of money if that’s what you want. It’s a talent I’ll have to be on my guard against as long as I live, I suspect. Here take a look at this. I’ve got a class to go to, and I’ve wasted too much time here already.’

She thrust a piece of paper at me.

On it the Yorkshire Commercial Bank acting on behalf of the East African Famine Relief Fund acknowledged receipt from the accredited representatives of Women For Empire of six hundred and eighty-nine thousand, three hundred and seventy-four pounds and thirty-eight pence.

‘Do me a favour,’ she said. ‘Stick it in this envelope and post it for me, will you? I’ll not have much time to get down to the Post Office now you’ve made me so late.’

She handed me an envelope, I glanced down at it.

It was addressed to Henry Vollans, c/o HM Prison, Wakefield, Yorkshire.

‘Lexie,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I thought that …’

‘Yes,’ she said, and grinned. It was like an internal light being switched on and for the first time through the outer layer of disguise I could see the unmistakable and true Lexie Huby.

I said, ‘Was this what you planned from the start?’

‘Planned? No plans, Mr Pascoe,’ she said. ‘I’m getting to the age of plans now, because that’s how adults get things done, but I wasn’t an adult when all this started. I don’t know. Mebbe it started when I was a child and I first heard about Alexander, about him being dead, and not dead. I never liked Great Aunt Gwen but I could see how desperately she wanted Alex not to be dead, and I thought of all the other mothers who wanted their children not to be dead, well, not thought, because that means plans, doesn’t it, but imagined, that’s the child’s way, imagination, play …’

‘But death?’ I said. ‘What could death mean to a child?’

She said, ‘Death? Not much. Not then; not now. What is it? You here, I there; you stopping, I going on? Unimaginable! But I can imagine dying and the fear of it. The love of it too. I can imagine …’

Pascoe pressed the stop button and then ran the tape back to the beginning. He’d listened to it three times already and the final section was still as harrowing as it had been when first he’d heard it in that stuffy bank office. Lexie had seemed almost to be speaking in a trance induced by the intensity of her own imaginings. It struck him that this power to project herself so deep into the minds and feelings of others might prove a double-edged weapon. To a child, such imaginings were principally play; to an adult, along with valuable insights, they must bring a terrible vulnerability. He would watch little Lexie Huby’s progress with interest and with concern. Meanwhile he found himself vulnerable to a question of conscience.

This was, did his approval of the direction in which Gwendoline Huby’s money had been diverted give him the right to conceal his knowledge of its diversion?

He knew what Ellie would say. ‘Right? It wasn’t a matter of right. It was your duty to do nothing!’

He could guess what Dalziel would say. ‘Bury it. But if that lass is going to practise law round here, don’t let her forget she owes you a favour!’

Sod ’em all! When it came down to it, there was only one person whose judgment he could rely on absolutely.

He pressed the erase button on the cassette, locked the whisky bottle in his desk, and went home to talk to Rosie.