Reginald Hill - Under World

‘It’s a pig of a world, Pedro,’ said Wardle.

From inside came a cry. ‘If this place is open, why’s there no bugger serving drink?’

‘Someone should tell that lot in there,’ said Pedley bitterly.

‘Never fear,’ said Wardle. ‘Living round here, most on ’em will find out for themselves sooner or later. Let’s get inside, Pedro. I think I’d like a closer look at that fat cop. He’ll bear watching, that one, and I don’t want Tommy talking himself any deeper in trouble.’

‘You reckon he’s in trouble, do you?’ asked Pedley, leading the way through into the bar.

‘The way that bugger picked him up like he’d been tickling a trout?’ said Wardle. ‘Oh yes. He’s ready to be buttered and fried, is Tommy, and served up for breakfast with a sprig of parsley in his gills!’

Wield’s job that morning had been to backtrack Colin Farr. The crashed motorbike had been recovered and the sergeant used its location as his starting-point. He was riding his own machine, a lovely old BSA Rocket. In the past, without making a state secret out of it, he’d tended to keep his bike and his job in separate compartments, but recently he had started to use it not only to get to work but, when the occasion demanded, on the job. He wondered if this was some kind of symbolic gesture to reinforce his rather muted coming-out, but having long since acknowledged the fruitlessness of self-analysis, he didn’t wonder much. Today, tracing the route of a man on a motorcycle, it was the obvious choice of transport.

But first he walked, taking the shortest way along the network of narrow roads from the scene of the accident to the telephone kiosk where Farr had waited for Ellie Pascoe. There was something here not right. He liked Mrs Pascoe but his judgement was that her heart ruled her head and that whenever she felt a pressure from society or self-interest to act in a certain way, her tendency would be to rush off in the opposite direction.

Wield smiled, without visible evidence. Self-analysis might be a waste of time and spirit, but chopping up other people’s minds was fun.

He returned his own mind to the job in hand.

It had taken him twenty minutes to walk from the scene of the accident to the kiosk. That was the time of a fit man in daylight knowing where he was going. He noted it down with the qualification that Farr might have taken as much as twice as long. And there was no knowing how long he may have lain stunned after the crash.

In other words it was probably all a waste of time, but Wield had long since learned to leave inspired short-cuts and quantum leaps to them with the rank to cushion their shortfall.

He returned to his bike, his eyes still searching for signs of Farr’s passage, but there was a marked absence of bloodstains and footprints, and it needed woodlore more skilled than his to read anything into bent grass on the verge or broken twigs in the hedgerow.

Back at his bike he studied his map, made a decision and mounted. Here his judgement proved excellent. The first pub he called at was full of traces of Farr’s passage which the landlord pointed to with a kind of melancholy pride.

‘He came in, asked for a pint and it went down without touching the sides. It were only then I started realizing how cut he were. He banged the glass down, said, “Another,” and I said, “Is that a good idea?” and he leaned across the bar, and, you see that jar full of ten p’s? Well, that were a column for the Cancer Research till his elbow caught it. I said, “Out!” and fair dos, he didn’t answer back, but he knocked that stool over as he turned and it caught that table and spilled someone’s drink. He didn’t seem to notice. It were like he weren’t really in the same world as the rest of us. He just set off through the door. I heard a bike start up and I thought: Good riddance if he runs into a wall and breaks his bloody neck!’

Wield said, ‘You didn’t think of ringing the police?’

‘What for? They’d just come in here, all buttons and gob, frighten off me regulars, sup a couple of free pints, then bugger off home with nowt done that’s any benefit to me!’

Wield acknowledged defeat, noted all relevant details and pursued his errant task. He missed out on the next two pubs but at the third, the Pendragon Arms, a large roadhouse about ten miles out of Burrthorpe, he struck lucky again. Colin Farr’s arrival had been too quiet for anyone to be precise about the time. The landlord’s wife had been the first to notice just how much liquor he seemed bent on putting away.

‘It was non-stop. Every second person I served was him, at least that’s how it felt. But he were quiet enough, a good-looking lad too, he looked a bit down in the mouth, I thought. I bet he’s been stood up, I said to myself. I said to him, “Cheer up. It may never happen.” And he said, “It has bloody happened. But you’re right about one thing. Up’s the direction. I’ll not go down again. There’s more dead than living down there. How much would they need to pay you to work with dead men, love?” I said, “I do it for nothing, have you seen my Charlie!” And we had a laugh.’

She laughed again in memory or illustration, and Wield thrust a question into the gap.

‘How long did he stay?’

‘Half an hour, mebbe. Just went like that. I glimpsed him in the passage using the phone …’

‘He made a telephone call from here?’ Wield asked sharply, not waiting for a gap this time.

‘That’s what I’m saying. But he didn’t come back in. Can’t say I was sorry. I quite liked him, as a woman I mean, but as a landlady I could see he were bad news after a while. Pity. He looked such a proper lad. That’s the trouble nowadays, there’s no knowing who’s what just by looking, is there? I mean, I’d never have spotted you for a copper, not in a month of Sundays …’

Wield emerged half dazed from this assault on his ear, but with a clear picture of Farr’s progress that night. He timed himself to the gates of Burrthorpe Main. Farr’s progress, he noted this time, would probably have been rather quicker. From the sound of him, he wasn’t the type to drive sedately. Nor was Wield when on the open road, but risk-taking on these narrow winding lanes was daft.

Work had obviously resumed at the pit after the necessary hiatus of the night before. But there were also a couple of uniformed policemen wandering around in the desultory fashion of men set to look for something which three times over the same ground has persuaded them they will not find.

Leaning his bike against the high boundary fence, Wield walked through the gate. Another policeman emerged from the gatehouse and addressed him.

‘Excuse me, sir. Would you mind answering a couple of questions?’

His tone was courteous and conciliatory. Perhaps this was his normal voice for addressing members of the public, but Wield guessed he’d been told to be especially careful to create no turbulence in the uneasy atmosphere of Burrthorpe.

He showed his warrant card. The man examined it closely, clearly as doubtful as the pub landlady that anyone in riding leathers could be a policeman.

‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ he said finally. ‘But I thought you were one of the locals and I’ve been told to get the name and address of everyone who comes into this place today.’

‘What are those jokers doing?’ asked Wield.

‘They’re looking for Farr’s pit-black. It weren’t in his locker and they reckon he must have taken it out with him and dumped it.’

‘In the yard? Why not outside?’

The man shrugged. ‘There’s a lot of outside,’ he said. ‘Any road, the gateman saw him ride off and says he definitely weren’t carrying anything bulky enough to be his pit clothing and boots.’