Rreginald Hill: A Killing kindness

While all this was going on, a police caravan had been towed into the car park and here already statements were being taken for the second time in a week from the fairground people, with particular attention paid to those whose stalls or entertainments were within sighting distance of the tent.

Of these, the sharp-faced woman on the penny-roll stall was the most positive. Her name was Ena Cooper.

'Just before twelve she went. I told the ugly fellow. No, I didn't speak, well, she weren't all that close, like, and we was busy. Things don't really pick up while afternoon, but you get a lot of kids round late morning and the roll stalls are always popular with the kids. No, I didn't see her come back, I went across to our Ethel's, she's got a hot-dog stand by the Wheel, for a bite to eat later on, so she could have come back then. About two o'clock, just after the ugly fellow was here the first time. I was away mebbe forty-five minutes. No, it's no use asking him. He's so short-sighted he can hardly see the pennies. Kids cheat him rotten when I'm not here!'

Cooper, her husband, nodded melancholy agreement. He'd seen nowt, heard nowt.

Loudspeaker appeals were made to the crowd requesting anyone who had visited Madame Rashid's tent earlier that day to come forward, but so far without success.

Notable by his absence was Dave Lee. After Wield had described his encounter that afternoon, he was sent to pick the gypsy up and bring him in for questioning. At the same time, Dalziel sent a man round to the Wheatsheaf Garage to check the movements of Tommy Maggs.

Pascoe nodded approvingly. Investigation is ninety per cent elimination. In his mind, Maggs was almost completely in the clear as far as Brenda Sorby's death was concerned, and he didn't see the young man as a psychopathic mass murderer. But the obvious has got to be seen to be done.

When he was bold enough to utter these thoughts to Dalziel, the fat man grunted, 'Oh aye?'

A policewoman had been sent to tell Rosetta Stanhope the tragic news. Pascoe had steered her out of the office earlier that afternoon, with assurances that they would certainly consider her kind offer of psychic assistance.

Later he had been summoned to Dalziel's office where the fat man was conferring with Detective Chief Inspector George Headingley who was in charge of the Spinks' warehouse case. This was now murder. The watchman had died in hospital that morning, and Headingley was in search of more manpower. They had gone over the staff dispositions together and seen how tautly stretched they were. Then Pascoe had mentioned Rosetta Stanhope's offer of help and frivously wondered if they might not take it up.

'Aye,' said Dalziel. 'She can try to make contact with the ACC for a start. That bugger's been dead from the neck up for years!'

They had all laughed. And not long afterwards Wield had phoned with his news.

Now Pascoe awaited uneasily the arrival of the dead girl's aunt. She would have to be taken to the mortuary for a formal identification of the body. It was always an unpleasant business, and though Rosetta Stanhope had impressed him as a strong-willed albeit rather eccentric character, experience had taught him there was no way of forecasting reactions.

He felt almost relieved when the policewoman called in with the news that Mrs Stanhope was not at home so she had stationed herself outside her flat to await her return.

Shortly afterwards Wield returned to say that Dave Lee had gone off in his van right after the sergeant's visit. No one knew, or at least was telling, his destination.

Finally the DC sent to check on Tommy Maggs arrived, also unaccompanied. Maggs had not returned to work after the dinner break and there was no reply to repeated knockings at the door of his home.

'Check with the neighbours,' ordered Dalziel. 'See if he's contacted his parents at work. Find out who his doctor is. Sergeant Wield, you've got Lee's van number? Right. Put out a call. Peter, you go and deal with the press, will you? You're better at shooting shit than anyone else.'

'Thanks,' said Pascoe. 'What do I tell them?'

'What you know, which, unless you're holding something back, is bugger all.'

'They'll be keen to know if it's the Choker again,' said Pascoe.

'Won't know that till the PM. And then we'll only know it's a Choker!'

'It looks a pretty clear case,' protested Pascoe. 'I mean, compared with the Sorby girl…'

'You think so? We'll have to see,' said Dalziel.

The old bastard thinks he's on to something, thought Pascoe. Or perhaps he just likes being contrary.

The journalists who had gathered at the fairground were not just local. Word had spread, and there were even a couple from London already, though it emerged that they had travelled up attracted by the clairvoyance story, and Pauline Stanhope's murder was just a bonus. In the car park, a television crew were unshipping their cameras. They would get some good atmospheric footage if nothing more, thought Pascoe. The fairground amusements, after a brief hiatus, were back to full steam, whirling, glittering, blaring. Did the laughter, the music, the excited shrieking hold perhaps a more than usually strident note of hysteria? wondered Pascoe. It was almost indecent, but at the same time it was inevitable. Death, the biggest barker of them all, had gathered together a huge crowd and the fair people could hardly be expected to ignore this opportunity. It wasn't even as if Pauline Stanhope was one of their own. Nor Rosetta, for that matter. Once a year they joined the show while the rest of them formed a shifting but constant community.

He stonewalled the questions for ten minutes. As he'd anticipated, they were most eager for confirmation that this was a Choker killing.

'What about the Hamlet calls, Inspector?' asked one of the reporters. 'Has there been one yet?'

'I don't know.' Pascoe smiled. 'You'd better ask your colleague from the Evening Post. His boss gets them first.'

One of the TV men caught his sleeve as he turned away and asked if they could do a filmed interview in about five minutes.

‘I’ll have to check,' said Pascoe.

'Well, it's not with you, actually. It's Superintendent Dalziel we'd like.'

Piqued, Pascoe returned to the caravan where he found Dalziel on the phone which the Post Office had just connected.

'The telly men request the pleasure of your company, sir,' he said when the fat man had finished.

'What's up with you, lad? Not photogenic?'

'Perhaps I don't fill a twenty-six-inch screen,' said Pascoe acidly.

'What? Put you out, has it, lad?' chortled Dalziel. 'Here's something to put you back in. I've just been talking to Sammy Locke at the Post.'

'There's been a call?' said Pascoe eagerly.

'I knew that'd please you, Peter. You reckon you'll get the bugger through these calls, don't you? Well, best of luck. There's two of the sods at it now!'

He was wrong.

By the time Pascoe got home that night there'd been four Hamlet calls.

The first, at four-forty-two, said, Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.

The second, at five-twenty-three, said, One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

The third, at six-fifteen, said, To be, or not to be, that is the question.

The fourth, at seven-nine, said, The time is out of joint: – 0 cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.

Ellie, for a change, was in bright good spirits and Pascoe was so pleased to see this that he restricted himself to no more than a forty degree roll of the eyeballs when she announced that she was now the membership secretary of WRAG. In any case, she seemed much more keen to talk about the Choker.

'These phone calls. Are they really going to be any use?'

'We don't have much else,' said Pascoe, tucking into his re-heated beef and mushroom pie. 'But they can't all be the Choker. Sammy Locke's memory of the first voice is a bit vague. He reckons that two, possibly three, of this lot are not so very different from it.'