Reginald Hill - Under World

‘How did you know about them? Did she tell you?’

‘Oh no.’ He grinned. ‘We’re not on such close terms as that. I put two and two together, with some help from a “friend” who left me a note on my lamp-hook. Then I paid Stella a visit unexpected, like, and I felt she were expecting me somehow and there were only one bugger I could think of who could have warned her. Then just as I was leaving there was a phone call. No one spoke, but I could feel that bastard on the other end of the line. Just feel him. And suddenly a lot of other little things came together.’

‘What did you do?’

He smiled wickedly. ‘I left Stella a little going-away present.’

Behind them a lorry sped along the road. Ellie turned to look at it in alarm, Farr remained indifferent.

‘Anyone sees us, they’ll just imagine there’s a bit of quiet humping going on,’ he said.

‘Not if it’s the police,’ she said fearfully. ‘And they’re probably checking cars along this road by now.’

‘I’m not going any further by car,’ he said. ‘Up there I’m going, and it’ll take more than a few flat-footed bobbies to catch me, over or under the ground.’

He was staring ahead at the tree-clothed ridge above them, incandescent in the declining sun.

‘They’ll have dogs, helicopters …’

He laughed at her.

‘I’m not Lord Lucan!’ he said. ‘Just an ordinary pit-lad who’s got in a bit of bother.’

‘Did you kill him?’ she asked once more.

‘I suppose I did, in a manner of speaking,’ he mused. ‘But that’s not the bit of bother I’m worried about. My dad’s dead and I’d got so muddled and muddied with this bloody place that I actually got to thinking that mebbe he was a killer, aye, and a child molester too. God, I must have been near on mad! But I got to thinking lying in that hospital this morning, everything so quiet and light and clean, I got to seeing how daft I was. I didn’t need Mam to come along with explanations. I knew as I should have known all along that Dad couldn’t harm any living thing! He didn’t much like it if Jacko caught himself a rabbit. And as for my dad hurting Jacko … you should have seen the poor little sod’s skull …’

‘I did.’

‘What?’ said Farr, jerked back to the present. ‘When? How? Oh, they searched the house, did they? Bastards.’

‘That’s what you were talking about when you started rambling about blood and bones last night, wasn’t it? Jacko.’

‘I went on about blood and bones, did I? I don’t recall.’ He looked at her speculatively. ‘Did you tell your husband’s mob, then?’

Ellie shook her head.

‘Secrets? Best not to have secrets, Ellie,’ he said. She felt their ages reversed, distorted, he the elderly experienced sage, she the youthful naïve disciple.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Colin, come back with me now. There’s no need to run. There’s nowhere to run to.’

‘Who’s running?’ he said. ‘But I’m not coming back, not just yet.’

He opened the door and got out.

‘Colin,’ she said. ‘Why did you ring Stella when you came out of the pit yesterday?’

‘Ring her first , you mean.’ He smiled. She found him insufferable but had to persist. ‘Why?’

‘I owed her a warning,’ he said. ‘That much at least I owed her. Do me a favour, Ellie. Ring my mam and tell her I’m OK.’

‘Surely,’ said Ellie, disproportionately pleased at this request for help. ‘But I won’t ring. There’s a copper there. He’ll listen in. I’ll go back and pretend that I forgot something. Col, is there anything I can get you while I’m there? Food, clothes, anything? I could drop it off here as I pass.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Too dangerous for you to try to bring owt from home and I’m not going to hang around by the roadside anyway. But you’re right, a bit of grub and something to drink wouldn’t come amiss. You could mebbe get someone else to fetch it for me.’

‘All right. Who?’

He thought a moment, then smiled.

‘Arthur,’ he said. ‘You’ll have met him, Arthur Downey, always hanging around our house, trying to be useful. Now’s his chance. He lives in the street backing ours, Number Thirty. Tell him to bring whatever he can up to the White Rock. But not turnips. I hate his bloody turnips!’

‘The White Rock? He’ll know where that is?’

‘Oh aye. Even Arthur’ll know where the White Rock is. Right, I’m off.’

‘Colin,’ she said urgently as he turned away. ‘What was it you warned Stella of?’

He turned back, his face troubled.

‘I met Gav on the way out of the pit. He were his usual charming self. He warned me to keep away from Stella. I didn’t really know what I was saying. All I wanted was to get out. So I told him not to fear, I’d not be messing with Harold Satterthwaite’s leavings. He wanted to kill me then, I think, but I just didn’t have the time to fight. So I ran off shouting at him to ask Satterthwaite himself if he didn’t believe me. When I got up on the bank and started thinking straight, I knew I shouldn’t have told him so I rang Stella to warn her. She deserved that.’

‘But Colin, that means …’

He leaned through the window and kissed her full on the lips. She responded with a passion that frightened her. Finally he broke away and regarded her with a smile that hardly mocked at all.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Pascoe,’ he said. ‘You’ve come off lucky. Not many do as have much to do with me.’

Then he turned again and began to run up the track, as lithe and fluid and lovely as a cat. She watched him out of sight. And still she watched and seemed to see him still. Finally a cloud caught the slanting sun and dulled the golden glow in Gratterley Wood.

She started the car and backed out on to the road and turned once more to Burrthorpe.

After Watmough had finished, Dalziel rose and went to the door.

‘If I see any blind lame lepers, I’ll send ’em in,’ he said as he passed through it, leaving Watmough to sip his coffee uncertain if he’d been complimented or not.

Dalziel ran up the stairs, very light on his feet for such a big man. He opened a door and peered in. Alex Wishart was sitting at the far side of a desk facing Gavin Mycroft.

‘Alex, a word,’ said Dalziel.

The Scot got up and came towards the door. The deputy turned and said, ‘Look, can I go home now? I’ve been here for hours and it’s bloody nippy for one thing.’

He was still wearing the white overall they’d provided at the hospital.

‘We’ll have some of your clothes fetched in,’ said Dalziel.

Wishart came into the corridor. He made to pull the door shut behind him but Dalziel’s large foot got in the way. He looked in surprise at the fat man and was taken aback to see his pumpkin face wrinkle into a wink.

‘She’s coughed,’ said Dalziel in a whisper Henry Irving would have been proud of. ‘I told her we’d definitely be charging Farr and that did it. What he told her when he rang up last night was that on his way out of the pit, he’d blown the gaff on her and Satterthwaite to Gav. Poor sod. He must have flipped it. Straight off he went and thumped Harold. Overdid it. He’ll likely get off with manslaughter if he plays his cards right. Don’t be too rough on him. He’s had a lot to put up with.’

Another wink for the upper balcony and Dalziel went noisily down the stairs.

Now he re-entered the room where Stella Mycroft was sitting puffing angrily at a cigarette. A WPC stood by the door while opposite her sat Sergeant Wield. He stood up as Dalziel entered and flickered his eyes negatively.

As Dalziel took the vacated chair, Stella began to rave, ‘How long’s this going on, for God’s sake? Does Gav know I’m here? Does any bugger know I’m here? I’ve told you all I know which is bugger-all, so why’m I being kept stuck in here with you pair of ugly sods popping in and out like rats from a compost heap?’