His right hand which had been scrabbling beneath his shirt like a ferret in a sack suddenly emerged into the light and slapped ferociously on the table top before him. The meeting broke up.
'Sergeant Wield!' called Dalziel.
'Sir.'
'You reckon Ludlam knows something?'
'That's what I think, sir. But whether it's about Tommy or whether it's about his brother-in-law, I don't know.'
'I've been talking with Mr Headingley,' said Dalziel. 'He's about as far on as we are. So if you think that Ludlam really is holding back, let's keep up the pressure. Call in at Pickersgill's house, stir things up a bit. You're interested in Tommy Maggs, right. But anything you can get on Frankie Pickersgill will be fine.'
'Poor sod,' said Wield.
'Why?'
'Well, I'm trying to get Ron to grass on Frankie again by threatening to tell Frankie that Ron grassed on him last time!'
This tickled Dalziel and he bellowed with laughter.
'There's no chance that the two of 'em could have been on the Spinks's warehouse job together?' he wondered when he had laughed his fill.
'I doubt it. Frankie puts up with Ron for Janey's sake. He really thinks he's a bit of a halfwit and Frankie doesn't suffer fools gladly.'
'No. That's what Mr Headingley reckons too. Well, see what you can do, but don't spend more time on it than necessary. The other thing, you didn't have much to do with Brenda Sorby's bank, did you?'
'I was around, but Mr Pascoe did most of the talking.'
'Right, Sergeant. I want you to go over all that stuff again. Get pictures of everyone concerned in the case, see if any of 'em mean anything to any of the girl's workmates. Peter, don't look so hurt. I meant what I said just now. New eyes. I want you to check through Mrs Dinwoodie's background again, all right? And I did that in the first place.'
'Sir,' said Wield.
'You still here, Sergeant? You want a rest perhaps? Come to think of it, you look a bit knackered. You ought to try getting to bed at a decent time.'
'I was just wondering, sir. How far do I go with this business of putting the pressure on Ron Ludlam?'
Dalziel looked surprised.
'Bluff's for con-men and card-sharps,' he said. 'My rule is, never threaten owt you won't perform.'
After Wield had left, he turned to Pascoe and said, 'What's the background on this Wildgoose stuff, Peter?'
Pascoe told him and he nodded sombrely.
'His wife, eh? Well, women can get pretty bitter when there's a break-up. They don't see straight.'
He sighed deeply. His own wife had left him many years ago and her reasons for doing so had long since fossilized in his mind in the form of hysterical female delusions.
'All the same, the bugger needs checking out. Better go and see him.'
'Wouldn't Brady be better? After hearing me mentioned yesterday, it's going to alert him, me turning up so soon.'
'If he's our man, the bugger'll be alert enough already,' said Dalziel. 'Which is more than I can say for Brady. No, you go, Peter. Don't worry about alerting him, as long as you bloody well terrify him into the bargain!'
'Is that such a good idea? Perhaps we should wait till Dr Pottle produces his profile first,' probed Pascoe.
'That quack! Christ, I'd as lief sit through one of Rosetta Stanhope's seances,' said Dalziel disgustedly. 'It's the sodding ACC's idea, wouldn't you know it? I think that twerp's one of Pottle's best patients.'
A phone rang on the table.
Dalziel picked it up and bellowed 'Yes?' as though he wanted to make it obsolete. He listened a moment.
'Talk of the devil,' he said. 'The sod's here.'
'Pottle?'
'Yes. And a pair of linguists. Peter, get them sorted, will you, or at least out of sight. We can't have the public coming into a respectable police station and finding it looking like a senior fucking common room!'
'Sir, where will you be?' called Pascoe as Dalziel headed for the door.
The lat man grinned, brown teeth bared like a moon-touched churchyard.
'Out of touch,' he said. 'I'll practise what I preach. There was a break-in at the Aero Club bar last night. Just a couple of bottles missing, but there's any number of suspects. That gang of gyppos just across the fence! Me, I don't know any of these buggers yet, but they seem intent on getting in on the act. This gives me a nice excuse to go visiting.'
Chapter 11
Sergeant Wield was no intellectual. The only books he owned were the complete works of H. Rider Haggard which he read and re-read avidly. But he knew a prick-teaser when he saw one.
Janey Pickersgill crossed and recrossed her long legs with maximum slither and maximum exposure. Her skirt had the fashionable side slit and Wield observed that stockings had made a comeback after a decade of tights. She noticed him noticing and stretched sensuously in her armchair, arching her back to obtrude her tiny bust.
Wield yawned, it wasn't altogether an affectation. There had been a lot of talk, not much sleep, the previous night. Maurice, his friend in Newcastle, had been ill at ease, not wholly welcoming. Their talk had not got to the heart of things but Wield suspected the worst.
As he did now.
'Janey, if you're trying to take my mind off my job, forget it,' he said pleasantly. 'I've seen better tits on a Turkish wrestler. Tell me again about that Thursday night.'
'You can't talk to me like that. I'll tell Frankie,’ she threatened. But she arranged her skirt into more decorous folds and lit a cigarette, holding it and puffing it like a beginner. There was something of the tyro about everything she did. Still in her mid-twenties, she had not yet developed the patina of hardness, or worse, of dreary resignation which is worn by those whose contact with authority is invariably defensive or on visiting days. But it would come, thought Wield. Meanwhile, though there was no chance of his being seduced by her charms, he must be careful not to be charmed by her naivete.
She had married Frankie Pickersgill knowing what he was and had lied constantly and vehemently while he was being investigated for the off-licence job.
'Didn't they tell you at the depot Frankie's driving a load across to Manchester? He won't be back till late this afternoon.'
'Yes, I know,' said Wield, settling comfortably in his chair. 'What I don't know is what you're trying to take my mind off with all this leg-waving, Janey. I mean, all I'm interested in is Tommy Maggs. Now the three of you were here the night it happened. Right?'
'The night what happened?' she said warily.
'Why, the night young Tommy Maggs's girlfriend got killed,' said Wield innocently. 'Did anything else happen that night?'
'Yes, all right, we were all here, watching the telly. We've told your lot already. What are you bothering us again for?'
'You see, Janey, Tommy's disappeared,' said Wield earnestly. 'We're worried about him. He's naturally very upset. A young lad like that, wandering around in a distressed state, anything could happen. You can see that, can't you?'
'I can't see what it's got to do with me,' complained the woman, nervously pecking at her cigarette.
'No? Well, it's Ron, really. You know what these youngsters are like. False sense of loyalty, not really knowing their friends' best interests, that sort of thing. There's a chance he may know more than he's letting on. I wondered if you could help.'
'No. I don't know anything. He's said nothing to me.'
'Are you sure? Throw your mind right back. Back to that night when the three of you were sitting here watching telly together.'
'Well, he wouldn't be likely to say much then, would he, as nothing had happened yet,' said Janey with the pride of one stumbling on an oasis of logic in a wasteland of feminine intuition.
'Of course, he wouldn't. You're right,' said Wield. 'Unless he said something about Tommy's state of mind when he left him in the Bay Tree.'