Reginald Hill - Exit lines

'I gathered she was out,' said Pascoe undiplomatically. 'Not living at home, I mean.'

'No, not her, not with the old man in there to look after. Help her mam, that one? No way! She's a decent woman, Mabel, and she gets no help from any side. When they had to move the old lad downstairs, Andrea said that was it, she was off as soon as she could find somewhere to go. I wasn't sorry to hear it – not that she told me, like, but her mam told my Dolly – I thought she might get herself right away, out of our Charley's road. But she only goes as far as that hotel, chambermaid come waitress, that's what she is; supposed to be a classy place and they take on the likes of her…'

'Hold on,' said Pascoe, for whom this was ringing a bell. 'Which hotel was it?'

'That Paradise Hall place. Living in, that was the attraction, getting away from home; she'd not do that kind of work at home, I can't see her doing it properly away! When Charley joined up I thought, grand, at least he'll be out of the way now. I was worried she'd pester him into getting married soon as he'd finished his training, but he'd got sense enough to see that wasn't on. I never thought I'd be glad to see our lad go abroad, but I tell you I wasn't sorry. I reckoned that even if he didn't find himself someone else, she wasn't the kind to hang around without getting hold of some other mug. But now she's got herself sacked, nowhere to live except at home, and if I know Andrea, she's not the one to put up with that. So it'll be our Charley who has to suffer. Our Charley!'

Frostick had worked himself up into a fine frenzy. Pushing past Pascoe, he rushed back out of the front door, eager to rejoin the fray.

It was too good a chance to miss. Three minutes later, breathing rather hard, Pascoe had checked the Frosticks' wardrobe, the second bedroom (obviously Charley's), the spare room and the cupboard under the stairs without finding any sign of a pair of boots.

He went into the kitchen, tried the cupboard beneath the sink just on the off-chance. No luck. Outside in the back garden, which consisted of five yards of patio in pink and beige flagstones and one yard of border planted with dwarf conifers, stood a neat shed in green plastic. What implements a man with a garden like this kept in his garden shed teased the imagination, and it was in a spirit of philosophical rather than constabulary inquiry that Pascoe let himself out of the kitchen and moved across the patio.

The answer was… nothing! The hut was as empty as on the day of its erection. Its function was simply symbolic. But was it a last rude gesture at the whole idea of the suburban garden which Frostick had so manifestly triumphed over? Or was it the last piece in a jigsaw of self-delusion? Did Frostick really believe he had a garden? Or that others would believe he had one? Mystery!

Pascoe at this moment became aware he wasn't alone.

Just beyond the wire fence in the hugely neglected next-door garden, seated on an upturned grass-box almost invisible amid the grass it could never hope to contain, was a man smoking a cigarette. He was in his shirtsleeves, slightly unshaven, and with the haunted look of a fugitive. He regarded Pascoe with the still indifference of a reservation Indian. 'I was looking for the lavatory,' said Pascoe, retreating beneath that haggard gaze.

This had to be Jeff Gregory, hiding here from the family altercation which was distantly audible with the occasional scream of 'Teeny, I want my dinner!' rising above it like the melodic line above the choral patter in a Gilbert and Sullivan song.

'I'd better be on my way,' said Pascoe. 'Goodbye now.'

The man didn't speak.

Pascoe moved swiftly away.

'Bugger Bognor!'

Detective-Inspector George Headingley was not a man of impulse, nor one who took risks readily.

Let the Pascoes of this world erect airy hypotheses from which to make intuitive leaps; let the Dalziels kick harem doors down and march boldly in, crying 'Stick 'em up!' to the eunuchs. George Headingley would proceed by the book and what wasn't written in the book had better be written and signed by a competent superior. He'd already stepped off this straight and narrow line a couple of times in this current business, most disastrously at the very start when he had spotted Dalziel at the hospital and, instead of heading back to Welfare Lane at the speed of light, allowed himself to become embroiled.

You abandoned a murder case in order to involve yourself with a road accident? he could hear an incredulous voice asking at the Court of Inquiry.

The DCC's approval had been a pleasant thing, he had to admit that. And he had allowed its balmy breath to waft him still further off a strictly official course. But winds could quickly veer, breezes blow up into typhoons.

But what did you imagine you were doing, Inspector? asked the voice in his mind. Investigating a crime? Or covering one up, perhaps?

Following orders, sir, he replied faintly. Whose orders? Did anyone order you to drink four pints of beer with Mr Dalziel at the Paradise Hall Restaurant on Saturday lunch-time? Did anyone order you to interrogate Mrs Doreen Warsop of The Towers in such a way as to make her change her story? Answer, please, Inspector. Answer!

When the DCC had contacted him on Saturday night to ask him what the hell he was playing at, Headingley knew the time had come to get the answer to all these questions firmly on record.

He requested the favour of an interview with the DCC on Sunday morning and this was what he was enjoying as Pascoe drove the Frosticks to Welfare Lane.

'So nothing you said could be taken as covering or inducing Mrs Warsop to alter her story?' said the DCC.

'No, sir.'

'Then why did she alter it?'

'I don't know, sir. I just got a message from her early yesterday evening asking me to contact her. I rang her up and she told me she was concerned that she may have misled me into thinking she was absolutely certain Mr Dalziel had driven out of the car park. Well, she wasn't. It had been very dark and very wet and she'd been a good distance away, et cetera.'

The DCC thought for a moment, then said, 'After this cosy lunch you had at Paradise Hall, Mr Dalziel dropped you back at The Duke of York, you say?'

'Yes, sir.'

'At what time?'

'Half past three, sir.'

'Half past three!' The DCC's tone was precisely that of Headingley's incredulous mental voices. 'And which direction did he drive off in?'

'Sir?'

The DCC said patiently, 'Did he head towards town or turn back along the Paradise Road?'

'I didn't notice, sir,' said Headingley truthfully, but he sensed the continuing doubt in the DCC's gaze.

'Look, sir,' he went on. 'What's the odds? There's two perfectly good witnesses that Mr Dalziel wasn't driving. And one of them's even willing to admit he was driving.'

'How did Charlesworth strike you?' asked the DCC.

'A bit disconnected really,' said Headingley. 'He just states things very flatly as if he's not much bothered if you believe him or not. Mind you, I spoke to him last night after he'd got back from the races. Perhaps he was worn out counting his money! One thing's certain, though. He wasn't drunk. Breathalyser didn't register at all and they confirmed this at Paradise Hall. Nothing but Perrier water all night. Evidently that's all he ever does drinks

'A teetotal bookie,' mused the DCC. 'Perhaps he's too worried to drink!'

He made a note to contact Customs and Excise in the morning to check on their investigation of Charlesworth's alleged betting-tax evasion.

'And of course there's this Major Kassell too,' he said, brightening. 'He seems a reliable kind of chap by all accounts.'

So you've been checking round too, thought Headingley.

'Yes, sir,' he said, and described his encounter with the Major. He'd already given the gist. This time he added the circumstance.