A Killing kindness

'For what? Experts, I've shit 'em,' announced Dalziel. 'What have they done for us so far, tell me that?'

'They've analysed those phone voices. Why don't we get every man connected with the case on tape and pass them over for comparison?' suggested Pascoe.

'That implies that (a) you trust that pair of Midsummer Night Dreams and (b) you're certain the Choker made one of those calls. It wouldn't be admissible evidence in any case.'

'No, but it's surely worth a try,' urged Pascoe.

Dalziel continued to look doubtful. He glanced at his watch.

'Christ, it's after two o'clock,' he said. 'And I haven’t had my dinner. Peter, I think we may have gone as far as we can today. Why don't you push off home, take your rest day as scheduled? You've earned it.'

'Oh no,' said Pascoe firmly. 'The bargain was, I get next Friday and Saturday, guaranteed. Try to wriggle out of that and Ellie'll twist your arm off and hit you with the soggy end. I'll just give her a ring and see how she is, though.'

But the phone rang before he could reach it.

He picked it up and listened.

'For you,' he said, handing it over to Dalziel.

'Of course I wouldn't try to wriggle out of anything,' said Dalziel, aggrieved. 'I was saying you could take the afternoon off as a bonus, but seeing as you don't want it… Hello!

He bellowed into the receiver from which a tinny voice had been emerging unregarded as he spoke.

'Jesus!' said the voice. 'Why don't you just open the window and forget about the phone.'

'Who's that?' demanded Dalziel.

'Sammy Locke, Evening News. How's business?'

'Quiet,' said Dalziel suspiciously. 'What've you heard?'

'Well, one of our contributors has phoned in a piece about strange goings-on among the gypsies. Police raids, brutality, interference with traditional funeral rites.'

'What? Who the hell was that? You print that and you won't get within spitting distance of another crime story in this town.' promised Dalziel.

'We'll see,' said Locke indifferently. 'And nothing else has been happening?'

'No. Why? Should it?'

'You tell me. Listen to this.'

There was a click, a pause, then a voice said wearily. 'Oh God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.'

There,' said Sammy Locke, 'Perhaps you'd better start looking for a body.'

Chapter 22

Interestingly, a message without a body seemed to stir up Dalziel much more than a message with a body.

'Got them linguists yet?' he demanded of Pascoe for the third time.

'I've sent cars out, told the lads to pick them up as soon as they come home,' said Pascoe. 'But really, all they can tell us is which of the other four, if any, this is. Sounds like (A) to me.'

'Me too,' said Wield. 'Though it's hard to be sure. He sounds different somehow. You know, not so certain of himself. Unhappy.'

'Hell's bells,' said Dalziel. 'He's unhappy! Wait till this hits the papers. They'll give us stick, and not having had the advantage of a public school education, I don't care for stick.'

'No, sir. But the sergeant's right. I've sent for Dr Pottle as well to see what he thinks,' said Pascoe.

Dalziel's shrug, like Atlas getting a bit restless, indicated his opinion of Dr Pottle.

Sergeant Brady came into the Murder Room. He had been checking the missing persons reports. Weekend nights always brought in a good crop of non-returning youngsters.'

'Seven lasses,' said Brady. 'Three turned up very late, looking satisfied, likely. Another two are back as well, only the parents didn't bother to tell us. That leaves two. They sound like they've just taken off to the Smoke. Classic backgrounds, like Mr Pascoe says.'

'Keep after them all the same,' ordered Dalziel, adding when the sergeant left, 'Christ, Peter, what're you doing to Brady? Classic backgrounds! He'll be spelling psychology with two p's and only one k next!'

On cue, the sergeant returned to announce that Dr Pottle was here.

'Hasn't he got a golf-course to go to?' muttered Dalziel.

In fact whatever it was that Pottle did on Saturday afternoons he seemed only too pleased to have been invited away from it. He took the new tape into a neighbouring room and played it through several times.

'You have no body?' he enquired when he had finished.

'No. You think we're likely to get one?' said Dalziel.

'That I can't say. But whether this is your man or not, he certainly sounds to me very disturbed. If we assume that he is the (A) of the previous set of tapes, the change is marked.'

'That's what I thought,' said Wield. 'Unhappier, sort of.'

Pottle looked at him approvingly.

'You have a sensitive ear,' he said.

Wield coughed almost noiselessly into his fist. Pascoe who was beginning to be a keen student of Wieldology noted this down as the equivalent of a flush of pleasure.

'Last time his tone was regretful but resolved, as though he were performing a painful necessity,' continued Pottle.

'This is hurting me as much as it hurts you, you mean?' said Dalziel. 'We had an old sod at school used to say that as he thumped you.'

'Partly that. More being cruel to be kind. Compassionate, almost,' said the doctor. 'As I said in my written report, these are just impressions, but supported, I think, by the treatment of his victims and the tone and content of the telephone calls. Now, here there are two distinct changes. His voice sounds much more distressed, there's not the same authority there as before. And the words he speaks are concerned with himself, not with his victim. Oh God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. He's beginning to find it hard to live with himself, I would say.'

'Would this show in his outer behaviour?' wondered Pascoe.

'Not necessarily. Not yet anyway.'

'More important, does it mean he's less or more dangerous?' demanded Dalziel.

'I can't answer that,' said Pottle.

Dalziel gave an expressive pout of his thick lips and putting his hand into his waistband began to scratch his stomach audibly.

'One last thing,' said Pascoe. 'Suppose that his last killing, that is the last we definitely knew about, had been motivated not by whatever it is that's bugging him deep down, but by a simple desire not to be caught. How would this affect him?'

Pottle lit a cigarette from the one he was already smoking.

'This is a hypothesis, or do you know something?' he asked.

'An educated guess,' replied Pascoe.

'Then I would guess also that his own survival might not be sufficient justification to himself for taking life. Not unless it was definitely a one-off once-for-all-time act.'

'In other words, he might do it, resolved that after this there would be no more killings.'

'Yes.'

'And then if he found there were going to be other killings, that the compulsion was still there…?'

'I see what you're getting at, Mr Pascoe,' said Pottle. 'Yes, that could explain the change of tone here in this message. If he has killed again because his compulsion, he now knows he may be tempted to kill again for his survival. And that is what he finds it hard to contemplate.'

'Hold on, now,' said Dalziel. 'If he killed that girl on the fairground just to protect himself, surely it's the call that followed that murder which should be full of this unhappiness your sensitive ears are picking up.'

'Oh no,' said Pottle. 'His motivation would have been sufficient at the time to justify himself thoroughly. Therefore he would be most meticulous about his cover-up.'

'Cover-up?'

'That's right. By laying the girl out as he did and by making the phone-call in the same tone and terms as before, he was attempting to misdirect you into pursuing him as the motiveless Choker still.'