Reginald Hill - A pinch of snuff

'After talking to him, I think he's probably innocent,' he had wanted to say. 'But, after talking to him, I like him a bloody sight less than I thought I did.'

On the other hand, he found he liked Emma Shorter a little more. Loyalty is the better part of love. He wondered if her loyalty was the 'my country right or wrong' type.

They caught up with Johnny Hope at the Branderdyke Variety and Social Club. This was a bit larger than most of the local clubs and somewhat different in character. It had a real stage with a proscenium arch and though in origin it was, like the rest, a meeting and drinking place for locals, it had taken a larger step than most towards the status and dimensions of Wakefield or Batley.

Top of the bill that night was a singer who was either on his way up to, or down from, the Top Thirty. But it was in the communal changing room shared by the lesser artistes that they found Johnny Hope.

He was talking to a young sullen-faced girl, so slim and slight that it was difficult to gauge her age. She wasn't answering, however. Every time Hope asked a question, a suspicious-eyed matron with a mouth like a sabre-cut replied, draping one arm protectively over the girl who was wearing a cream and lavender Bo-Peep costume.

'How old are you, Estelle?' Hope asked as if sensing Pascoe's problem.

'Seventeen,' said the matron.

'When did you first get interested in the trampoline, Estelle?' asked Hope.

'She saw Olga Korbut on the telly at the Olympics in 1972 and she thought she'd like to start doing the gymnastics,' said the matron. 'One thing led to another.'

'One more thing,' said Hope, but he was interrupted by the entry of an elderly man eating a frankfurter with onions.

'Your girl's got two minutes, missus,' he said splodgily.

'Come on, luv,' said the matron.

She led her daughter out, glaring ferociously at Pascoe as if he had an indecent thought written in a balloon above his head.

'Isn't she,' enquired Pascoe, 'a trifle overdressed for trampolining?'

'Johnny,' said Wield.

'Hello, Edgar!' said Hope.

Edgar, thought Pascoe.

'This is my Inspector, Peter Pascoe.'

'Glad to meet you, Peter,' said Hope, shaking his hand vigorously. 'Any mate of Edgar's a mate of mine.'

Now the women had disappeared, Pascoe took a closer look at the man. He was small, ruddy-faced, his bright blue eyes ringed with crows-feet from (perhaps) too much time in too many dimly lit rooms, his cheeks crazed with broken blood vessels from the same cause. He was about fifty, wore a bright green and yellow checked jacket, and gave off what seemed a totally spontaneous affability.

'We wanted to chat about Maurice Arany,' said Wield.

'Maurice, eh? Well, not now, not now. I missed Estelle last night, got mixed up in a barney at the Turtle. Can't afford that again. Come on, we'll just get a pint afore she starts.'

They did but only because Hope's waved hand won them instant attention at the crowded bar at the back of the hall.

On stage was a trampoline. Music started, loud enough and poured from amplifiers enough to drown the chatter and clinking and other noises attendant on the drinking of pints and devouring of scampi and chips.

It was a nice, bouncy tune and when Estelle strolled on and clambered on to the trampoline, Pascoe settled back for a pleasant athletic balletic routine, thinking how easily pleased these Yorkshiremen were. The girl looked quite good, though her full skirt and frilly blouse obviously hampered her.

'I wonder,' said Pascoe, then said no more.

The girl was taking them off.

To cries of encouragement which penetrated even the ten-decibel music, she jumped right out of her skirt, shed her blouse sleeves like duck-down, took four somersaults to get out of her lacy stockings, and with a mid-air spin twisted out of what was left of her blouse. Now in pants and bra she did a series of manoeuvres which to Pascoe's untutored eye looked first class. Higher and higher she leapt and it was hard to spot the moment when she took off her bra.

She was so slender that as a conventional stripper she would probably have been mocked off the stage, but her grace and strength of movement filled the act with erotic promise.

'You don't get this in the Olympics,' bellowed Hope in his ear.

'No,' agreed Pascoe. One thing had certainly led to another.

But how was she going to get off? he wondered. Movement was of the essence. Once let her stand still and she would be but a seventeen-year-old looking like twelve.

The answer was simple. The highest bounce yet; she reached up her arms, caught at a bar or rope behind the drop curtain and swung her legs up out of sight. A moment later a pair of pants fluttered gently down to land on the trampoline.

When she appeared to take her bow she wore an old woollen dressing-gown and it was a measure of her act's success that even the loudest of club wits were applauding too hard to invite her to take it off.

Pascoe felt ashamed when he realized he'd clapped till his hands were sore. Ms Lacewing would elevate him several places on her death list if she could see him now, which, thank God, was not likely.

'Good evening, Inspector,' said Ms Lacewing.

It was her. She looked ravishing in a long white gown. Her appearance had been changed by the wearing of a Grecian-style hair piece pulled round over her bare left shoulder, but he would have recognized those sharp little teeth anywhere.

'Don't look so amazed,' she said. 'I'm on a recce tonight. You've got to spy out the land before you attack, haven't you? Policemen know that, surely?'

Pascoe realized she was rather tipsy. 'Drunk' seemed too coarse a word.

'Are you by yourself?' he asked.

'What do you think I am?' she asked in mock indignation. 'Uncle Godfrey! Come here!'

Pascoe turned. Sure enough it was Blengdale who approached, leaving behind a bunch of smiling cronies.

'He doesn't like me calling him uncle,' said Ms Lacewing. 'But Gwen is Mummy's sister, so you really are my uncle, aren't you, Uncle? Though,’ she added, stretching up to whisper none too quietly in Pascoe's ear, 'it doesn't stop him wanting to screw me.'

'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Nice to see you again, Mr Blengdale.'

'You here on business or pleasure, Pascoe?' said Blengdale.

'Bit of both,' said Pascoe vaguely.

Blengdale nodded as though he knew what that meant.

'Uncle Godfrey, I think our steaks have arrived,' said Ms Lacewing. 'Shall I help you back to the table, Uncle?'

For a moment Pascoe felt sympathy for Blengdale. Then the girl turned to him and he decided to reserve all his sympathy for his own defence.

'You look as if you might be quite a ram, Inspector,' she said. 'I must ask your wife when I meet her. She sounds as if she might be sympathetic to my plans.'

'What are your plans?' he asked.

'See you in court,' she giggled. 'Perhaps they'll put me up on the same day as Jack Shorter.'

Pascoe turned away to meet another pint being thrust his way by Wield.

'Drink up,' said the sergeant. 'Then we're off to the Westgate Social. There's a singer there that Johnny wants to catch. I said we'd go in his car and make our own way back here later.'

The night was slipping out of his control, thought Pascoe a couple of minutes later as he and Wield clung together in the back of an old Morris Minor which smelt as if it had lately been used for transporting sheep. The passenger seat had been removed entirely and replaced by a crate of brown ale, and Hope's hand, through instinct or inaccuracy, frequently rattled among the bottles as he groped for the gear lever.

'Now, about Maurice Arany,' yelled Wield.

'Well I don't know,’ replied Hope dubiously.

'It'll be all right, Johnny,' said Wield.