Reginald Hill: A pinch of snuff

'Don't get too indignant, sweetie,' she replied. 'It'll give you crows-feet round the eyes.'

She was right, thought Pascoe. This indignation might be ageing; it was certainly addictive. And it would get him nowhere.

'Let's go see Mr Toms,' he said.

Retrieving the picture from Penny, he strode out of the room and across the vestibule, following the power cables which snaked from the generator truck via some side window across the scarred oak floor.

The cameras were rolling, as were the actors. Toms stood looking down on the tangle of limbs with the worried frown of a Senior English Master considering whether he ought not to expunge the word 'bastard' from the school production of King Lear.

'Cut,' said Pascoe.

Toms turned round.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he demanded.

Pascoe approached and spoke softly in his ear.

'I've come for an audition,' he said. 'I'm going to screw you up.'

The actors had disentangled themselves and were rising to their feet. There was not, Pascoe observed, an erection in sight.

'You can bugger off out of here,' instructed Toms. 'I've got work to do. You've ruined this shot already. That costs money.'

'Gerry, I think you should listen to the Inspector,' said Penelope Latimer.

'You do? Oh all right. We might as well take a break. Five minutes, boys and girls. And try to come back looking a bit less like evacuees from the geriatric ward!'

The cast left, pulling on an assortment of dressing-gowns and bath-robes.

'Now, Inspector, perhaps you'll start explaining.'

'Perhaps you will,' said Pascoe. 'The girl in this picture. When did you last see her?'

Toms glanced at the photo.

'That's easy. I've never seen her in my life,' he said confidently.

'Never? How odd. It looks to me as if this very room is the setting for this picture. Wouldn't you agree?'

Toms examined the photograph once more, pursing his lips as he ostentatiously switched his gaze from the picture to the fireplace.

'It's certainly a similar fireplace,' he said. 'But the design is not uncommon and I dare say you can buy something very like that in marbled plastic at any DIY shop. But tell me, Inspector: what does the girl say?'

Pascoe's first reaction was that Toms was mocking him, safe in the knowledge that the girl had been spirited away, God knows where, by Arany. But there was something in the man's intonation, a sense of effort to remain casual, that made him decide to treat the question as genuine.

'When I spoke to her last night,' he said carefully, 'she seemed ready to change her story.'

This non-committal answer seemed to give Toms new confidence.

'It seems an extraordinary thing, Inspector, that you should feel able to come here with your slanderous accusations based on no more than a rather poorly defined film still!'

'Slanderous?' said Pascoe. 'How have I slandered you? You do take pictures, don't you? Nude picture, pornographic pictures?'

'Within the law,' said Toms, very morally superior. 'When you start accusing me of conniving at the sexual molestation of a twelve-year-old, you're saying I've committed a crime. And that's slanderous.'

'You're right,' said Pascoe. 'You're so right. Now I wonder how you manage to be so right?'

'What?'

'What I mean is, how do you happen to know that the girl in the picture, whom you have never seen before, is only twelve years old?'

Toms looked blank for a second, then slowly smiled and ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

'Did I say twelve years old? Well, so what? I used the term generally, not particularly. She's obviously a kid, else why all the fuss? I really am sorry to spoil your Perry Mason moment, Inspector, but I'm not about to be tricked into one of your nasty cells just to please your Puritan conscience. I see your game. You don't like the modern liberating spirit abroad in the arts, no policeman does, so you desperately look around for some method of getting at the artist.'

'Save it,' said Pascoe wearily. 'I've seen the film of the matchbox cover. Let's stop mucking about.'

'Yes, let's,' interrupted Penny Latimer. 'You've been all round the houses. Now it's time to spell it out, baby.'

Pascoe looked at the other three people in the room. Curiously, of them all, Ray Crabtree was the only one who looked at all ill at ease. Understandably so in a way. No policeman likes to have another pointing out what's been going on under his nose. Toms was affecting boredom fairly successfully, while the woman looked alert and interested which might not be the worst way of concealing guilt.

Where the hell was Dalziel? wondered Pascoe. How would he want this played?

Carefully, was the only answer.

'Let's sit down, Mr Toms, shall we? There are one or two more questions I want to ask.'

'Oh God! Ask if you must. I need a drink.'

So saying, Toms headed out into the hallway, presumably in search of Penny's bottle. Pascoe followed, still talking because he was beginning to feel that if he stopped talking, he might thump somebody.

'You made several telephone calls from the Candida Hotel last Friday night,' he said.

'Yes. I told you. I rang Penny to say I was stranded.'

'I know that, Mr Toms,' said Pascoe. 'It's the other calls I'm interested in.'

'Other calls?' said Toms, halting. 'What others?'

'To Mr Godfrey Blengdale, for a start,' said Pascoe.

'Blengdale?' said Toms. 'I don't recollect the name.'

He sounded completely confident in his ability to deny all knowledge of Blengdale. Pascoe attempted to match his confidence.

'You mean, you don't know your own partner's name?' he asked. 'Perhaps I misunderstood Miss Latimer, but I thought she implied that Mr Blengdale owned a third of Homeric?'

The lie sent a shiver of indignation over Penny's frame. Toms glared at her angrily. Pascoe regarded them with an expression of mock bewilderment which would have done credit to Dalziel and somewhere some god of mischief chortled in delight, flicked a few pieces hither and thither, and sat back to enjoy the perfect moment he had created.

The front door opened. A short round figure half stepped, half fell in. One arm hung useless at his side, the other was raised in a vain effort to staunch the flow of blood from a broad gash across his brow.

'Why, here's Mr Blengdale himself come to resolve all problems,' said Pascoe cheerfully. 'My compliments to the make-up man. That looks really convincing!'

No one made a move towards the now recumbent figure which had slid to the floor like a medieval outlaw crossing a church threshold to sanctuary.

But the drama was far from over.

'Mr Toms!' called a sepulchrally deep voice from outside. 'There's someone out here would like to talk to you!'

Slowly, ignoring Blengdale, Toms moved through the doorway.

Pascoe followed.

The spring sun was low in the sky now and he had to shade his eyes against it before the blur of figures at the far side of the driveway sharpened to identifiability.

Dalziel was there, hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, bulky and menacing as an Easter Island statue. Wield was there too, his harsh and angled face set like a witch-doctor's mask. Between them, with the sergeant's broad left hand firmly grasping his right forearm, was Brian Burkill.

Suddenly Pascoe was sure his guess about Blengdale's financial involvement with Homeric was right. Somehow Burkill had found out too. It had been Blengdale that Burkill had been in pursuit of at the yard this morning. Poor Charlie Heppelwhite had merely got in the way. And presumably after Blengdale came Toms. And then Arany. Though perhaps the Hungarian was already lying battered and bleeding somewhere on Burkill's trail.

'Who are those men?' said Penny Latimer over Pascoe's shoulder.