Reginald Hill - Under World

‘No, Mam, it weren’t the paper. I’ve been down the workings a dozen times before.’

‘But why?’

‘I had to know if Dad … I had to know , and where else was there to look?’

He stared at her with a defiance which was more heartrending than a direct appeal for help.

‘If he killed himself, you mean? Is that it? Why’d you need to look, Col? You could’ve just asked me. You should’ve been able just to ask yourself! Instead you go risking life and limb … It were an accident, Colin. Likely Jacko got lost and he were looking for him and some idiot had taken the cover off … it were an accident , nothing to do with … anything.’

‘Nothing to do with Tracey, you mean? Just coincidence? Up there where he’d last been with her, Jacko goes missing and Dad goes looking for him? It’s a nice story, Mam, but if it’s true, then how do you explain this?’

He held out a circle of imprinted metal.

She took it and looked at it, bewildered but fearful.

Then slowly he unzipped his leather jacket, and she screamed inaudibly and slid all the way to the floor as out of it spilled a confusion of delicate ivory bones.

Pascoe was amazed to find himself under violent attack the moment he got home on Monday evening. It took him some little time to work out the angle of assault and the nature of the armament, and when he did he had to double-check.

‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You’re blaming me for what Neville Watmough’s writing in the Challenger ? Is that it?’

‘No. Yes. In a manner of speaking, you are responsible, aren’t you?’

‘Speak to me in that manner, that I may hear and be instructed,’ said Pascoe gravely.

Ellie was not to be mocked into truce.

‘It’s you, it’s Dalziel, it’s the whole bloody way the police function, isn’t it? You don’t think of people as people, they’re statistics, so many crooks and potential crooks. So many victims and potential victims. You don’t care about feelings, not till someone starts knocking you in the media and then you come all over hurt. Look, you cry, we’re giving you protection, aren’t we? And it’s our lives, not yours, that are at risk out there on the front line, so you should just sit quiet at home and thank your lucky stars that you’ve got the best police force in the world to go along with the best TV, the best Royal Family, and the best Health Service, look at all the frogs and wogs who come here for freebies …’

‘Hang on!’ said Pascoe. ‘Aren’t we getting just a little incoherent? What about some of that fine old academic discipline we used to get before the war? If you want to bitch about the Challenger , bitch away and I’ll bitch with you …’

‘Bitch? Bitch? What’s with this sexist language? You give yourself away every time you open your mouth. Peter, you’re in quicksand and you can’t see it. You’re sinking. Every day you’re becoming a bit more of a Dalziel clone. No, all right, I take that back, he is absolutely unique! But you could be a Watmough clone, respectable, polite, self-important, thinking that a life spent shovelling manure qualifies you to pontificate on agricultural policy and technique.’

‘I thought you said it was quicksand I was sinking in,’ said Pascoe. ‘Whoops, before you tell me that I always flee to frivolity in the face of defeat, let me quickly slip in that I’ve asked Wield for supper tomorrow night. Perhaps you can serve him the food we’re quite clearly not going to get tonight.’

‘Wield? Why? I knew you were friends — well, friendly — but you’ve never asked him for a meal before.’

‘I’ve asked him now. OK? I thought you liked him.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. How’s he been? I haven’t seen much of him since he came out.’

‘He seems OK. As for coming out, I can’t say I’ve noticed very much change.’

‘As you never noticed anything in the first place, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Ellie acidly.

This reference to the fact that he had been amazed at the revelation of Wield’s homosexuality while both Ellie and Dalziel found it completely unsurprising was a low blow. She knew how much he blamed himself for his insensitivity. Well, in this age of equality, both sides can fight dirty.

He said, ‘To get back to Watmough and the Challenger , would I be right in saying what all this is really about isn’t human rights but the Marvellous Boy of Burrthorpe? Has he been weeping dusty tears on your shoulder all afternoon?’

It was a savage blow. Ellie momentarily reeled but, like the fighter she was, rallied magnificently. All night long the noise of battle rolled, with pause only for hasty mouthfuls of a scratch supper and a couple of hours’ necessary sleep. Breakfast was a cross-table bombardment and hostilities would certainly have been resumed in the evening by the fireside’s glow if it hadn’t been that Wield was coming to supper.

He arrived dead on time, clutching a bunch of red roses and a bottle of white wine. He was casually dressed in a pair of elegant light blue slacks, a pale lemon open-necked sports shirt and a diamond patterned lambswool sweater.

He said, ‘I’ve left my leathers in the garage. I hope that’s OK.’

Pascoe and Ellie avoided exchanging glances.

‘Leathers?’ said Pascoe faintly.

‘Yes. I came on the bike,’ said Wield.

‘Of course,’ said Pascoe. ‘The famous motorbike. Darling, you must have heard me mention the famous motorbike.’

He did glance at Ellie this time and saw he was overdoing it.

‘Come in,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘It’s great to see you again. Can I …’

She looked at his burdens.

‘Oh yes,’ said Wield. ‘I brought you these. I hope they’re what you like.’

Carefully he handed Ellie the bottle of wine and Pascoe the bunch of roses. They both looked at him for some signal that the distribution had been an error, but that gnarled and knotted face gave no more away than the bark of an old elm tree.

Then he smiled and said, ‘You can swap if you think I’m being sexist.’

Ellie began to laugh a fraction before Pascoe.

‘I really am glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a drink while Peter’s putting his flowers in water!’

It was a delightful relaxed evening. Wield let down three or four of his outer defence barriers, and though Pascoe got a sense of plenty of layers in reserve, the shrewd and humorous man revealed was a pleasant guest to have at anyone’s table. Ellie demurred at calling him Wieldy but the sergeant refused to reveal his Christian names on the grounds that they might discriminate him.

‘Wieldy’s fine,’ he said. ‘As long as you make no cracks about “unwieldy”. I had enough of that in training.’

After supper they were sitting talking with a Glenn Miller record on low in the background when the phone rang. Pascoe answered it and a man’s voice, young and Yorkshire and not very distinct, asked if he could talk to Mrs Pascoe. Relieved that at least it wasn’t a summons to duty, he went back to the lounge and summoned Ellie. After she had gone into the hall, he offered to refill Wield’s glass.

‘Best not,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m always getting stopped. Our car lads think anyone on a bike’s a Hell’s Angel who’s probably breaking the Highway Code by eating a live chicken as he rides. One of these days I’ll get some smart kid who’ll show how impartial he is by breathalysing me.’

‘You think we should get special treatment?’ wondered Pascoe, who had not found Wield’s temperance infectious.

‘Not special. Neither specially good nor specially bad. The same. Equal.’

‘That should be easy enough to arrange,’ said Pascoe.