Reginald Hill - Exit lines

Dalziel leered at him and said, 'Tickled your fancy that one, didn't she, Peter? Ellie away for long?'

Whether this was deduction or information wasn't clear. Its insinuation was. Pascoe said, 'She'll be back tomorrow. And strange though it may seem, even were her absence longer, I would not be shooting off my gun all over Yorkshire.'

'I'm doing a bit myself,' said Dalziel, sinking his teeth into the pie. For a moment Pascoe thought this was the beginning of some unsavoury amorous confession and the fat man's eyes registered the thought as he washed the chicken 'n' ham down with half a pint of beer.

'Shooting,' he said. 'Bang, bang.'

'You mean shooting… things?'

'Aye,' said Dalziel gravely. 'They tell me things are in season.'

'Birds? You're going to go shooting birds!' exclaimed Pascoe, incredulity struggling with indignation.

'I asked about sheep,' said Dalziel regretfully. 'I wondered if they'd let me start with sheep, being only a trainee, so to speak. Something a bit bulky and sort of static. Sheep-shooting's never caught on, they tell me. Stags, yes. But not sheep. You can do all kinds of things with sheep, especially if you've been stuck out on the moors a long time, but you can't shoot them. It has to be birds. I asked about swans then…'

Pascoe interrupted this ponderous frivolity.

'But why? It's not your bag, is it? I mean, you're not the..’

'Type?' said Dalziel. 'What you mean, Peter, is I'm not one of your tweedy twits, all upper crust, and brains like these chicken leftovers beneath it. Well, you're right. I'm not. I'm glad you've noticed. But it's not like that any more. It's a popular sport. Pricey but popular. Businessmen, professional people, foreigners, they're all at it. So why not me?'

'Do you want the general objections, or the specific?' asked Pascoe stiffly.

'Well, I doubt if anyone with the stomach for this battery-raised pap can make much of a case against killing birds in the wild,' said Dalziel, swallowing the last of his pie. 'So let's hear the specific. Don't be shy, lad. Speak free.'

'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'It just doesn't seem the kind of thing you'd want to do, somehow.'

'Why not? The Chief Constable's a dab hand, so they tell me. Mebbe I'm a late developer. Mebbe I've got secret ambitions.'

'And secret funds too, from the sound of it,' said Pascoe.

'Oh, aye? And what's that mean?' said Dalziel softly.

'You said yourself it's pricey,' said Pascoe.

'It is that. Couple of thousand a day, basic, if you're hiring the shooting. That'll be for, say, eight guns, ten at the most. And then you've got the rest on top of it. Accommodation, entertainment, transport, guns, shells. It's a rich man's pleasure, no doubt.'

'So?' said Pascoe.

'So there's some generous rich men about,' said Dalziel. 'Hospitality, that's the name of the game. I'm on my holidays, I get asked to go and try my hand at a shoot, where's the harm in that?'

'Depends who's inviting.'

'How about Sir William Pledger, that do you? Well, that's who'll be coughing up in the long run, but more directly, it's his general manager, Barney Kassell, who's doing the inviting. And for Christ's sake, lad, make up your mind.'

'About what?' asked Pascoe.

'About your expression. What's it to be – amazement that I got invited or indignation that I accepted? Listen, lad; Sir William Pledger came up from nowt, and he's not forgotten it. It's not your chinless Charlies who get asked to Haycroft Grange. It's people with clout. Frogs, Wops, Krauts, maybe, but they can't help that! And the locals too; they don't get asked because of the schools they went to, but because of what they are. The Chief Constable, like I said; and Arnie Charlesworth. There's a mix for you! People who know how to make people jump or money jump, that's what's on the ticket of entry. People who don't get old worrying if they'll manage on their pension, if it's index-linked or not, if they'll still be able to afford their subscriptions, or if they'll have to give up smoking and drinking and eating and breathing!'

Dalziel was speaking with a ferocious earnestness which filled Pascoe with horror. The fat man had always had that healthy respect for money and power which you'd expect of a Yorkshire-bred Scot, but this expression of admiration for the rich and powerful seemed anything but healthy. His only consolation was a feeling that Dalziel was also slyly watching him, gleefully assessing his reaction.

Suddenly the Superintendent let out a long satisfied belch and said, 'One thing. I hope I don't have to wait as long for a refill at Haycroft Grange.'

'Sorry,' said Pascoe, taking his empty glass. 'Fancy another bit of pie?'

'I don't think so. I could mebbe manage a jam buttie, though.'

'What about your diet?'

'I'm sure a trendy bugger like you'll have a bread-bin full of wholewheat loaves. They don't count.'

Pascoe returned to the kitchen. Dalziel's voice drifted after him.

'What about you, Peter? Owt new on this murder?'

'Not much,' said Pascoe, returning with a sandwich made to Dalziel standards, that is, two slices of bread half an inch thick each spread with a quarter-inch layer of butter and cemented together with a good half-inch of homemade strawberry jam.

Dalziel bit into it and washed his bite down with his beer as Pascoe told him about the method of entry, the missing articles, the injuries to Deeks and the boot marks on the bathroom floor.

'So, some local tearaway who's heard rumours about the old fellow keeping money in the house, but doesn’t know him well enough to know there's a key hidden in the wash-house, is that it?'

'Seems to fit the bill,' said Pascoe. 'Except that according to his neighbour, there weren't any rumours about money in the house.'

'There's always rumours,' said Dalziel. 'Lovely jam, this.'

'Ellie's mother's,' said Pascoe. 'The stolen property seems the best bet, if he's daft enough to try to flog the medals or the watch.'

'Mebbe,' said Dalziel. 'Anything else going off?'

'No,' said Pascoe hesitantly. 'Except there was another old fellow died the same night.'

'Aye, Peter. I know,' said Dalziel quietly.

'No, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean him, you know that. This was a man called Parrinder. He had a fall, it seems, broke his hip, cut himself, lay in the wind and sleet for several hours and the exposure and bleeding did for him.'

'Only…' prompted Dalziel.

Pascoe launched into a description of the affair, not omitting Hector's sackful of stones.

'I don't know what to do with it,' he said between Dalziel's hoots of laughter. 'I mean, it's evidence in a way. But I daren't send them down to the lab to be looked at when nothing they might or might not find would prove anything about anything! There's nothing to go on, really. I don't know why I'm even talking about it.'

'I do,' said Dalziel. 'You've got one of them feelings, Peter, and nothing short of a cold shower's going to get rid of it! Let's see what we've got. Parrinder goes out late on a nasty wet afternoon. Why? To collect his pension which his friendly neighbours have already offered to collect. Why's he want it now? To buy some rum. Was there nothing to drink in his flat? Where'd he buy the rum? Where'd he collect his pension, for that matter? You'd think he'd go local, wouldn't you? There's a parade of shops with a sub-post-office and beer-off just the far side of Castleton Court, if I remember right. But if he went local, what was he doing walking over the Alderman Woodhouse Recreation Ground which is a short cut into the town centre? And was he going or coming? Of course, you can get all of this sorted out and it'll still not be evidence that he was attacked! The quacks aren't cooperative, you say?'

'Not really. All injuries attributable to his fall.'