Reginald Hill - Under World

A clock chimed. Ding dong ding dong. Ding dong ding dong. Dong ding ding dong. Ding dong ding dong .

The sound filled him with sudden fury. He counted himself back to control with the hours … seven, eight, nine.

‘I find those chimes a little irritating,’ he said mildly.

‘Do you dear? I’m sure they can be turned off. Most things can.’

Was this irony? he asked himself in amazement. A glance across the table reassured him and he let his mind count another link back in the chain of causality.

The support of his colleagues, their simple loyalty, that too had been missing. That cunning old bastard Winter, the outgoing Chief, had never liked him. God knows what he’d said to the Committee. And as above, so below. That gross grotesque, Dalziel …

He shuddered at the memory.

At least he was now free of them, free to make his own decisions. Free to set the record straight.

There was his book, a serious review of the problems and future of modern policing, based on his own experience and observation, and leavened with accounts of some of the more famous cases he’d been involved with. It was a long way from being finished, of course, but he’d shown an outline and some draft sections to Ike Ogilby.

What was it Ike had said as he returned them?

‘Very interesting, Nev. Should rouse a lot of interest in the so-called quality papers and heavy chat shows. But a lot of it would be above our readers’ heads. It’s not as if you’re claiming you get your ideas from God or anything really wild like that, is it?’

‘I didn’t show you the drafts with a view to Challenger publication, Ike,’ he’d replied, genuinely surprised.

‘Of course not. But I was thinking, Nev, in the remote circumstance things don’t go right for you politically, this time. I mean — you could do worse than keep yourself in the public eye with a series of pieces in the Challenger …’

‘But you said that your readers …’

‘No, I wasn’t meaning the main meat of your book, Nev. You wouldn’t want to show your hand too early there, would you? I’m afraid the country’s too full of unscrupulous senior cops who aren’t above nicking a good idea. No, I was thinking of the more popular market. Memoirs of famous cases. Telling it like it was. We wouldn’t need to take up all that much of your creative time either. I took the liberty of showing your draft to Monty Boyle, our chief crime man. He was most impressed. Monty could work with you. He’d do the leg work and stitch it all together. You’d have copy approval, of course, but this way it wouldn’t interfere with your serious writing.’

‘Interesting idea,’ he’d replied. ‘But hardly the thing for a parliamentary candidate.’

‘Perish the thought,’ said Ogilby. ‘But have lunch with Monty anyway. Never any harm in having lunch, is there?’

So he’d had lunch, and found the journalist a civilized and entertaining companion. The man had asked if he’d mind if he ran his cassette recorder as they talked. ‘It’s best to keep a record, especially when it’s informal. Things get missed. Or misunderstood. This keeps us both straight.’

‘No, I don’t mind,’ said Watmough. ‘Though it seems a waste of your batteries as I really don’t envisage writing anything other than campaign speeches in the near future.’

‘No, of course not. But as a crime reporter, I’m always keen to pick the brain of an expert.’

They had spent a fascinating hour talking about famous cases, then, as they parted, the journalist had said, ‘By the way, I know it’s unlikely to happen, but if Ike ever does sign you up, don’t settle for less than …’ and he had named a quite surprising sum.

Since then, Ogilby hadn’t referred to the matter. Would he bring it up again when news of last night’s débâcle reached him? It wasn’t that Watmough needed the money — there were any amount of run-of-the-mill security adviser jobs he could have if his excellent pension and good investments needed topping up — but he did need to make sure he maintained his public profile in preparation for the next selection short list.

If Ogilby didn’t contact him it shouldn’t be too difficult to contrive an accidental meeting. But he mustn’t appear to be pressing …

In the hall, the telephone rang. He rose and went to answer it.

‘Neville? It’s Ike.’

He glanced at his watch and smiled. Ten past nine. These newsmen didn’t let the grass grow under their feet when they really wanted something! Now what was that figure that Monty Boyle had said he should go for?

It was good to feel back in control again.

‘Hello, Ike,’ he said. ‘And what can I do for you?’

Peter Pascoe was getting used to going to work on Tuesdays in a bad temper. And an opinion pollster catching him en route would also have detected a marked swing to the right, at least as far as mining communities were concerned.

This morning at breakfast, Ellie had announced that she was planning to go down a mine. ‘An experience shared is a gap bridged,’ she declared. Pascoe, dismayed by the idea for a pudder of reasons, none of which he could identify reasonably, wondered whether this meant he was likely to find himself going to bed with a miner. Ellie informed him coldly that while reason was occasionally democratic, ridicule was always élitist. This, coming from a woman who fell off her chair at the ranting of radical comedians, had to be challenged. One thing led to another and the other led to the usual, which was Pascoe sitting at his desk in a bad temper on Tuesday morning.

After an hour of tedious paperwork, he had declined from a boil to a simmer when his door burst open with a violence worthy of the Holy Ghost fresh from Philippi jail. It was, however, no paraclete who entered.

‘He’s done it!’ exclaimed Dalziel. ‘I knew it’d happen. Reason said no, but me piles told me different.’

‘Who’s done what, sir?’ asked Pascoe, rising to place himself defensively between the fat man and his records cupboard which Dalziel had taken to rifling at will during the past few days.

‘It’s Wonder Woman’s memoirs. The Challenger ’s going to publish them!’

‘Good Lord. I heard he didn’t get the nomination …’

‘He’d as much chance of being nominated as an aniseed ball on a snooker table,’ snarled Dalziel. ‘We all knew that. But Ogilby was going around saying he’d read some of the memoirs in draft and it were like eating cold sago with a rusty spoon, so no one reckoned the Challenger could really be interested. But it was funny, the more folk said it were impossible, the more my piles ached.’

Pascoe was singularly uninterested in Dalziel’s haruspical haemorrhoids but he found himself marvelling as often before at the extent of his personal intelligence service. If it happened in Mid-Yorkshire, he knew it in hours; anywhere else in the county and he might have to wait till the next day.

‘But if it’s as bad as that, why should Ogilby be interested?’

‘Christ knows! But he must reckon there’s enough dirt in there to be worth digging for! They can make silk knickers out of a pig’s knackers, them bastards! That Leeds vicar last week. Caught two youngsters nicking candlesticks and by the time Monty Boyle were finished, he had Headingley sounding like a mix of Salem and Sodom!’

‘Monty Boyle!’ exclaimed Pascoe. ‘Of course!’

‘You know something I don’t?’ said Dalziel incredulously.

Pascoe explained.

‘It fits, doesn’t it? The Pickford case was Watmough’s finest hour. And it was during South’s investigation of that Burrthorpe girl’s disappearance that it all came to a head and Pickford topped himself, leaving a note confessing all. So if Boyle was sniffing around so that he could collaborate with Watmough on a tell-all series, he’d not want to draw rival attention to it by getting involved in a court case. Only, this was before the selection meeting, so Ogilby must have been pretty sure what the result would be.’