Reginald Hill - Exit lines

'Sam Ruddlesdin'll ask,' forecast Pascoe.

'Sam Ruddlesdin's got a boss who might take a wider view,' said Headingley. 'But it's nothing to do with me. I'm just poor bloody infantry. Good day. Would Mr Abbiss be in, please?'

A woman had come into the bar. She was very striking, with jet black hair tumbling over her shoulders and a pale, consumptive pre-Raphaelite face from which huge dark eyes stared like visitors from another world.

'I'm Stella Abbiss,' she said. 'Can I help you?'

Stella and Jeremy Abbiss wish you bon appetit it said at the foot of the menu. Husband and wife, Pascoe assumed. Partners anyway. He settled back to see if nice old-fashioned George Headingley would press for the man.

But Headingley had suffered enough from antagonistic mine hosts that day and he smiled sweetly and flashed his warrant card and said in his best, hushed we-don't-want- to-embarrass-the-customers voice, 'It's just a small matter of clearing up a couple of points regarding the accident last night. You've probably heard about it?'

'The old man near The Duke of York?' she said in a low voice which throbbed like a 'cello string.

She was la belle dame sans merci, Pascoe thought with delight. I shall become obsessed with her. But first I must bring Ellie here to approve. She deserves a good meal. He glanced again at the prices and changed his thought to: She deserves a nice drink. Could that delicious shadow round the eyes be real, or did she put it on with a feather?

'That's the one.'

'We had some reporter round this morning asking questions,' she said.

'I'm sorry to inconvenience you again,' said Headingley. 'It's just a matter of getting the picture clear.'

'You want to know how drunk the fat man was, is that it?'

Such directness allied to such feyness! It was a dizzying concoction. Were their sauces like this? If so, well worth the money!

'Well, yes, for a start,' said Headingley manfully.

'Depends how drunk five large Scotches, a bottle and a half of Burgundy and three balloons of cognac would make him,' she said.

'And in your estimation, how drunk would that be?' asked Pascoe, just for the privilege of engaging in commerce with this creature.

Those strange compelling eyes joined his for a lovely moment. This was true Paradise, this was the primal idyll with everything possible and no sin, no shame. Then her gaze slipped his and moved to a point just above his right shoulder.

'Why don't you ask him yourself?' she said.

'Beer!' boomed a familiar voice. 'A pint of your best for me, lass, and pints of your second best for this pair of trainees who ought to be too bloody busy to drink it!'

Pascoe turned. The primal idyll was over. Approaching with the weary wayworn smile of a fallen archangel whose heavy pinions have at last deposited him safe on Eden was Andrew Dalziel.

'Et tu, Brute?'

Dalziel's arrival produced at least one bonus. To the three pints of beer which she drew for them, Stella Abbiss, without any direct request being made, added three portions of cold game pie.

'Delicious,' approved Dalziel. 'I tried it last night. The fruits of your own gun, if I remember right, love?'

She nodded slightly. To Pascoe's mental video library was added the slow-motion sequence of this frail, pale beauty clad only in gumboots tracking a low-flying pheasant across a frost-laced stubble field with her hot, smoking barrel.

He was jerked rudely out of his reverie by Dalziel, who said, 'Now, Peter, what are you doing here? I knew old George had been set to sniff around after me, but I thought you had other things on your plate. Just along to see the fun, is that it? Heard the fire engine and couldn't resist chasing along to see the fire?'

The sheer unjustness of the imputation made Pascoe speechless for a moment and Headingley said, 'He's along because of me, sir. We were meeting for a spot of lunch at The Duke of York and I asked him to give me a lift up here.'

'Oh aye? Carless, are you? Do a lot of drinking in The Duke of York, do you?'

Pascoe had recovered now and said coldly, 'More to the point maybe, what are you doing here, sir?'

'Me? I'm on holiday,' said Dalziel. He supped his beer and regarded Pascoe thoughtfully over the glass. When he put it down, it was empty. He said, 'Young cop, frequenting expensive places like this, doesn't look good, Peter.'

'It's even more expensive at night, they tell me.'

'And they tell you right. Difference is, I wasn't paying.'

'Me neither,' said Pascoe, glancing significantly at Headingley. 'But it does make a difference who's paying, doesn't it?'

'Like Arnie Charlesworth? Didn't give me a chance. I was still reaching for my wallet when he signed the bill. That's the way to be, my lads. So rich you don't bother about real money. Hey, lass, another three of the same.'

'Not for me,' said Pascoe, covering his glass in alarm. 'I'm not well into this one yet.'

'Nor me,' said Headingley, though with less conviction.

The woman approached with another pint which she put firmly in front of Dalziel. Pascoe smiled his thanks and something which might have been a responsive humour touched her pale narrow lips.

'Fancy a slice of that, do you?' said Dalziel. 'She's not your speed, lad. Burn you up with her exhaust while you're still looking for first gear. Any road, you should be ashamed of yourself, you with a fine wife to wash your linen and a bonny babbie to dandle on your knee.'

It was an interesting picture. Even Headingley grinned and said, 'It must be a comfort, all that clean linen, if you ever get knocked down by a getaway car.'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Though Ellie does complain about skinning her elbows on the edge of the wash-tub. But to get back to what we were talking about, don't you think you should tell Inspector Headingley exactly what you are doing here?'

Headingley stopped grinning and hid his face in his beer glass. Even with the semi-official investigative authority he had received from the DCC, he wouldn't have dared essay so direct an approach to Dalziel. But it might be interesting to see how far the fat man would let his golden lad go before he came to a dusty answer.

'What do you think, Peter?' asked Dalziel through a mouthful of pie. 'Cover up my tracks? Cut out a few tongues? Any road, what's it to you? If it's jolly George here I should be pouring out my soul to, how come you're asking the questions? I don't see his hand up the back of your jacket!'

Pascoe said carefully, 'Just call it mere vulgar curiosity, sir.'

'That's all right then,' said Dalziel, suddenly relaxing. 'Mrs Abbiss!'

'Yes?' came the low, musical voice.

'You didn't find a spare hat when you tidied up last night, did you? Trilby, I suppose you'd call it. Grey wool, with a black band, size 7 ^ /4, manufactured by Usher and Sons of Leeds?'

Silence, and then she materialized behind Pascoe, reached over him and placed a grey trilby in Dalziel's hands.

'Thanks, love,' he said. He placed it carefully on his head.

'Fits, you see,' he said, eyeing Pascoe steadily. 'If it fits, wear it, that's what they say, isn't it? This kind of weather, fifty per cent of heat loss is through the top of your head, did you know that? Like walking around with a fucking chimney! Well, what've you got so far, Sherlock?'

The sudden switch away from Pascoe took Headingley by surprise and he choked on his beer. This occasioned a usefully cunctatory bout of coughing, but the therapeutic blow Dalziel administered between his shoulder-blades extended this to the nearer shores of death.

Pascoe answered.

'One of your fellow diners here saw you driving away in your car.'

'Oh aye?' said Dalziel without interest. 'So the DCC said.'

'By chance she worked at The Towers where the man that got knocked over was staying at the moment.'