Reginald Hill - Exit lines

'He were lying in the bathtub. The water were all bloody, so I pulled out the plug. I said, Bob, Bob, what the hell have you been up to? but he said nowt, just flickered his eyelids for a second. So I lifted him out of the bath – he were no weight at all, skin and bones, they all go like that, mine's just the same – and I wrapped him in a towel and I took him into the bedroom and put him on the bed and covered him over.

'There were a lot of others there by then. Where one goes, they're quick enough to follow. Not that any on 'em were good for owt but getting under my feet. I told Minnie Cope from 21 to put kettle on and make a pot of tea – that's about her limit – and I went downstairs myself and rang for the ambulance and for you lot. Dolly Frostick were back in the house by then. She'd quieted down a bit, so I gave her a cup of tea with a lot of sugar. Next thing someone said the police is here, but it was only that Sheila Jolley's nephew from Parish Road. He were always a gormless child and he's not improved much with ageing. I told him it were a serious matter and he'd best make himself useful by getting some proper bobbies down here, so he went off out with his little wireless. Then the ambulance came and they got poor old Bob away, just.

'I put Dolly in the ambulance with her dad and I sent Minnie Cope along for company. I'd have gone myself only I can't be sitting around all night in a hospital waiting on some black bugger's convenience. And I thought when you lot finally got someone with a bit of sense here, he'd likely want to know what'd been going off. So I stayed in the house till this one came. He's no oil-painting, but at least he's not simple like that Tony Hector. But he says I've got to wait and tell it all again to you, whoever you are. Well, I've waited, and I've told it and if you write it down, I'll sign it. Right?'

She spoke dismissively and it took all of Pascoe's courage for him to say, 'There are just a couple of questions, Mrs Spillings.'

'Like what?'

'Well, like, did you hear anything odd next door earlier this evening?'

Mrs Spillings looked at him in disbelief, then opened the door into the living-room, admitting a Force 10 gale of noise.

It was reply sufficient.

Mrs Spillings said, 'I'll let you two out the back way. That'll be the way he got in, you'll have worked that much out, I dare say. Me, I've got proper locks fitted and all, but Bob Deeks never bothered though I kept on telling him. Come on! Don't hang about.'

She opened the back door and with considerable relief the two policemen exited from the vibrant house. They found themselves in a tiny back yard with a brick washhouse, a bird-table and some kind of evergreen in a tub. Mrs Spillings unlocked a door in the high wall at the bottom of the yard and they went out after her into a narrow lane which ran between the backs of the Welfare Lane houses on one side and those of the Parish Road houses on the other. The lane acted as a wind tunnel, sucking icy darts of rain into it horizontally at vast speed. Mrs Spillings seemed indifferent to the weather. She walked a couple of paces to the next door and gave it a push. It was a ramshackle affair and lurched creakingly on one hinge.

'That's how the bugger'll have got in,' she re-affirmed. 'Listen. Bob Deeks were a miserable old sod, but I never found any harm in him. You lot want to get this sorted proper.'

'We'll get him all right,' assured Pascoe.

'Oh aye, you'll likely get him,' said the woman. 'It's what he gets that bothers me. Suspended sentence! I'd suspend the buggers!'

'It's a tenable position,' said Pascoe, trying to re-grasp the initiative. 'I may need to talk to you again.'

'Any time you like, sunshine,' came the voice drifting back along the lines of sleet. 'Any time, as long as I'm not busy.'

Pascoe and Wield went through into the yard of No. 25 and let themselves into the house. The fingerprint man was hard at work in the kitchen.

'Anything?' asked Pascoe.

'Millions,' came the cheerful answer. 'I reckon there's more dabs here than there is in the North Sea.'

'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'And thanks a lot. Sergeant, we’ll need everyone who was in the house for elimination. Get a start on it, will you? Combine it with door-to-door along the street. Anyone see or hear anything? Any strangers wandering around? Why am I telling you this? You know the drill at least as well as I do. Use Hector and anyone else you can lay your hands on. I'll get some extra hands drafted in as soon as I can.'

'Where will you be, sir?' inquired Wield.

'At the hospital,' said Pascoe. 'Talking to Mrs Frostick, if possible, and checking on what killed Deeks.'

He paused at the door, turning his already dripping raincoat collar up as the wind outside shrieked its joy at the prospect of having another go at him.

'And if I find George Headingley in intensive care,' he added bitterly, 'it might just about justify getting me mixed up in this lot.'

'Bring me all the blotting-paper there is in the house!'

In the event, it took George Headingley only five minutes to convince Pascoe that there were worse things to be mixed up with than murder inquiries. 'You've got yourself a real mess there, George,' he said feelingly. 'A real mess!'

'You can say that again,' said Headingley. 'I'm sorry I got you called out, but I got this feeling I was going to be needed mopping up after Fat Andy, and as things are turning out, I was right.'

The two men were talking in the comfortably appointed foyer of the main modern wing of the City General Hospital. Headingley had contacted Wield a couple of minutes after Pascoe's departure from Welfare Lane, and learning of his destination had hastened to intercept him.

'Arnie Charlesworth! What the hell was he doing driving round with Arnie Charlesworth?' demanded Pascoe.

'Be careful what you say,' objected Headingley. 'He's regarded as a respected member of the community.'

'We've all got things we regard as respected members,' said Pascoe, 'but we're in trouble if we start flashing them round in public.

‘You know,' said Headingley, 'you've always been Andy's golden boy, but there's no need to start sounding like him! All right, so Charlesworth's a bookie and a bit of a hard case, and not the kind of man we should be seen taking favours from. But he's completely legit, and he's a big charity man. The mayor's parlour, the Rotary, the Masons, anywhere they make decisions and influence people, he's welcome.'

'All right. So it's only suspicious sods like you and me who'll be worried about Dalziel hobnobbing with this respectable citizen.'

'I hope so,' said Headingley. 'But I've got a nose for trouble, Peter. It's not the Charlesworth connection that bothers me. It's this other thing. And it's Sam Ruddlesdin who's got a pretty sensitive nose himself. He rang me a little while back, asked about the Deeks killing. I told him you were on the case and would, I was sure, be only too pleased to cooperate fully with the Press. Then he said, dead casual like, Oh, by the way, this accident out on the Paradise Road, Mr Dalziel was a passenger in the car, is that right? I said I believed he was. He asked if he was OK and I said I understood so, and he said that he believed Arnie Charlesworth was driving and I said yes, and then he said, But it was in fact Mr Dalziel's car? That shook me rigid. I'd no idea if it was or not. I'd just assumed it had been Charlesworth's car. Well, I waffled round it, but it got me worried. And then something else began to worry me too. Listen.'

Pascoe listened. At the head of the foyer were six lifts, seemingly in constant use even at this hour. They announced their arrival with a melodic ping! The pings were pitched at slightly different levels and as Pascoe listened their interval and sequence suggested the communications code from Close Encounters. At last! he thought. An explanation of why hospitals always give the impression of being run by aliens disguised as human beings.