Reginald Hill: Exit lines

'Beggars can't be choosers. Fancy a warmer at my place?'

'You still have some?'

'Why not? I didn't give it up for all the world, Andy. It was just that Tommy used to tell me it was as bad as the stuff he was on, and when I surfaced after his death I remembered, and I just stopped wanting it after that. Now, well, if ever I want it again, I'll take it.'

'Christ, if it's like this tomorrow, you'll want it,' said

Dalziel, looking up at the lines of snow streaming horizontally beneath the lowering grey cloud. 'Will we be expected to go out in this?'

'You're no sportsman, are you, Andy? Good shooting weather this, sorts the men out from the boys. More important is, will the weather be too bad for all those important people to fly in?'

Dalziel shrugged.

'One thing I've learnt, being in regular employment. Pay's the same whatever the hours.'

'Is that so? I wouldn't know, being in the risk business,' said Charlesworth.

'Risk? Bookies take risks like the Queen Mother takes snuff,' mocked Dalziel. 'Not often and behind locked doors. Let's get to that drink before I freeze up, Arnie. There's bits of me I've only seen in a mirror these past few years and I don't want our first face-to-face to be with them lying on a pavement!'

And the snow swirled madly in the light of Pascoe's headlamps as he parked his car as close as possible to the hospital door early that evening. A sign told him that this space was reserved for consultants. He recalled that Sherlock Holmes had called himself a consulting detective. What was good enough for Sherlock was good enough for him.

Seymour was waiting for him in the entrance. He carried with him the lab report on Mrs Escott's bag. It had come in while Pascoe was out at the Frostick house. Charley had still not returned from his post-funeral walk, but Mrs Frostick had given a positive identification of the medals. Suspecting that his evening might be busy and knowing from experience how easily the time could slip away, Pascoe had headed for home to have his first hot meal of the day and ring Ellie.

He had been very tentative in his hints that Mrs Soper's passivity might be as much due to her daughter's energetic authoritarianism as to her own incapacity, but he knew that Ellie was very sharp to sniff out meanings.

He also knew that she was reluctant to accept alternative judgments until she had pragmatically tested them, but, once having made the test, she was scrupulously honest in reporting her findings.

'Hi,' she said. 'You got back all right?'

'Just about. It was the thought of the headlines that kept me going. Policeman arrested for driving under the influence of sexual exhaustion.''

'Oh yes. And Unsatisfied wife gives evidence!'

'That's not what you said this morning!' he protested.

'That was this morning. Still, I've just got to wait till Saturday.'

'Saturday?' he said neutrally.

'Yes, Saturday. Rose was a bit fractious this morning, so I took her firmly under my wing and kept at a safe observing distance from Mum and Dad. He was generally OK, but when he showed a slight tendency to want to mow the lawn, she took him very firmly in hand. I had a talk with her at tea-time. She says she's been very glad of the rest and will be delighted if any time in the future I feel like spelling her. Also if she feels she can't cope, she'll be in touch with the speed of light. I believe her. In fact I think I got a faint whiff of not-being-too-sorry-to- see-the-back-of me.'

'I can't believe it,' he said.

'You smug swine,' said Ellie. 'Look, the problem's not going to go away, you do understand that, don't you, you-who-understand-everything? And it'll get worse.'

'It's life we're talking about, isn't it?' said Pascoe, with a pessimism which was meant to be comic but didn't entirely come off.

The phone had rung again as soon as he replaced the receiver. It was Wield with news of the lab report.

'I'll meet you at the hospital,' Pascoe had replied. Then, changing his mind, had added, 'No. Send Seymour with it. Familiar faces might help.'

And faces didn't come much more unfamiliar than Wield's, he thought unkindly as he replaced the telephone.

He read the report quickly as they made their way up to the ward. There they met Dr Sowden.

'My God,' said Pascoe. 'Do you run this place single-handed?'

'It sometimes feels like it,' said Sowden. 'What is it this time? Come to pay me off?'

'Pay you off?' said Pascoe in puzzlement.

'I read about the inquest in the evening paper. You will note I didn't go along in person.'

'Doctor,' said Pascoe. 'If you feel you had something to say, you should've gone along and said it. What happened anyway?'

Sowden looked abashed.

'You don't know? Your fat friend got off. No, sorry, that's not the way to put it. Death by misadventure, with no one querying that Charlesworth was the driver.'

'Wrong, Doctor,' said Pascoe softly. 'A great deal of querying has been done.'

'But not publicly?'

'Publicity you want? Next time someone complains you've stitched a glove inside him, let's hear you demand publicity. Even if you come out innocent, you don't come out clean.'

Pascoe spoke with a vehemence which sprang from doubt rather than certainty. Sowden seemed to accept his argument, if rather grudgingly, but his antagonism was re-awoken when Pascoe explained his present purposes.

'Let me get this straight,' he said. 'You're saying that the old gent who died from exposure and shock after he broke his hip was attacked – well, you've tried that before, Inspector. I must give you credit for sticking to your guns! But this latest, that he was attacked by a seventy-five-year-old woman, his neighbour and friend, who left him there to die! This is something else.'

'Read that,' said Pascoe, handing over the lab report.

Sowden scanned it. Briefly it stated that on the side of Mrs Escott's bag there were faint traces of human blood and tissue.

'So what does that prove? That she'd cut herself at some time, most probably. It happens. It happens a lot more frequently than old ladies turning to mugging, I should think.'

'Not mugging,' said Pascoe. 'She thought she was being mugged. She was terrified of being out after dark. At the same time she'd started rambling, losing her grip on time and place. Only intermittently at this stage before returning to complete normality, except for some memory lapses. Her friends were worried about her. The old worry greatly about their own. Who else understands the problems like they do? So imagine what "Tap" Parrinder felt when, being driven home in a taxi with a full belly and three hundred pounds' worth of winnings in his pocket, suddenly as they pass the Alderman Woodhouse Recreation Ground, he glimpses his friend Jane Escott going in.'

'Of course!' said Seymour. 'That's why he jumped out so suddenly!'

'Yes. He runs after her. Perhaps she hears him and starts running away in terror. He catches up, seizes her shoulder. She turns, swinging with her shoulder-bag heavy with all her hoarded change, catching him on the temple. He goes down and she goes on running, running, not stopping till she is safely at home, taken there by instinct, getting undressed, going to bed with her heart still pounding, and finally falling asleep to awake on Saturday morning with all memory of the Friday gone, and Thursday substituted in its stead.'

'You have a persuasive narrative style,' said Sowden. 'You should try fiction.'

'No,' said Pascoe. 'Fiction's full of bright, perceptive, open-minded young doctors. I couldn't screw myself up to that pitch of invention.'

'You will permit me to criticize your thesis medically, I take it?' said Sowden with heavy sarcasm.

'Why? You're not a geriatrician, are you?' said Pascoe. 'From what I can make out, the old are either dead or dying by the time they reach your hands. Look, it's possible. I've checked it. I talked with your Mr Blunt earlier today.'