Bernard Middlefield was approached rather less directly. Dalziel couldn't see him as a killer, certainly not of the kind described by Dr Pottle. But he was a customer at Brenda Sorby's bank, his company works were next to the Eden Park Canning Plant where June McCarthy had been employed, and he had been at the Aero Club the night Andrea Valentine was killed. So Dalziel treated him as a witness and only obliquely enquired about his own movements that night.
It emerged that he had stayed on after the disco finished. He hadn't noticed Wildgoose and the girl leave in particular, though he had said goodnight to Thelma Lacewing.
'What time would that be?' wondered Dalziel.
'Eleven. Eleven-fifteen. I don't know exactly.'
Middlefield was even vaguer about the time of his own departure. He'd had a couple of drinks with Greenall while the bar-helpers cleared up. Then, after they had gone, he had finally called it a night. He had then driven home, a distance of about three miles, arriving in time to join his wife in watching the last part of the same film that Mulgan was so well acquainted with.
Greenall whom Dalziel consulted later was able to be more precise. It had been nearly a quarter to one before Middlefield had left.
'I offered to drive him myself,' said Greenall. 'He was OK, you understand, but he'd put away quite a lot of Scotch. He got a bit huffy at that and I had to make a joke of it. But he drove away very steadily, I noticed. I remember thinking he was more likely to attract attention going at that rate than speeding!'
So, a sedate three miles – say ten minutes at the outside. It fitted, thought Dalziel not without relief. If there'd been any doubt, the next step would have been an examination of the boot of the JP's Mercedes, which would have meant coming into the open. Dalziel didn't give a bugger for anyone, but he knew who he wanted his friends to be.
In the middle of the afternoon Wield appeared. Quizzed about this devotion to duty on his day off, he shrugged, said he'd heard about the discovery of Wildgoose's body on the radio and thought he'd better check in to see if he could help.
'What a bloody miserable existence the poor sod must have,' commented Sergeant Brady to anyone who cared to listen. 'Nothing better to do than come in here on his Sunday off. What he needs is a short-sighted woman!'
Wield did not hear this, would not have reacted if he had. All his emotion for that day had been spent in a stormy scene in Maurice's Newcastle flat. Their usual roles had been reversed. Maurice, the more effervescent extrovert of the two, had tried to play it cool. Yes, there was somebody else, an interesting young chap who worked in the Borough Surveyor's office. Wield would like him. He was coming to lunch. Why didn't Wield stay on and have a drink and meet him?
And Wield, the calm, controlled, inscrutable Wield, had exploded in a wild, near hysterical fury which had amazed and frightened himself almost as much as it did his friend. He had left and made the normally two-hour journey back in seventy-five minutes. For two hours he had sat in his room examining the new vistas of violence his morning's experience had opened up for him. And finally he poured the tumblerful of whisky which had been standing before him back into the bottle untouched and went to work.
But there was little to do, just routine, nothing happening, no leads developing.
And when at six o'clock Gladmann appeared, full of the marvellous couple of days he had spent with rich and generous friends in their cottage on the coast, Pascoe thrust the envelope with the tape into his hands, said 'Sod it!' out loud, and went home, feeling, as he told Ellie, as if he'd spent the entire Sabbath at a very long and very tedious church service where the preacher's text had been It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows.
It still felt pretty vain the next morning. Monday mornings normally don't mean much to policemen. If anything, they bring a sense of relief. The incidence of crime shoots up at weekends, much of it petty, it's true, but all of it time-consuming. But this Monday, all the Monday morning feelings they had skipped for so long seemed to be lying in wait for those working on the Choker case.
The papers were full of comment, nearly all critical. An editorial in the Yorkshire Post wondered heretically if it might not be time to ask the Yard for assistance. Dr Pottle telephoned first thing to say that he had been invited to take part in a chat show on television and he wanted to be clear about what he should and shouldn't say.
'He thinks he knows something important?' queried Dalziel incredulously. 'Why hasn't the silly bugger told us, then?'
Pascoe removed the hand which he had pressed very firmly over the mouthpiece and said, 'Mr Dalziel says he can see no reason not to rely on your professional discretion, Doctor.'
'That's kind of him. By the way, have the papers got it right? This man, Wildgoose – you believe the Choker killed him to cover up his latest murder?'
'More or less. How does that fit with your profile?' asked Pascoe.
'Very well,' said Pottle. 'The killing of the girls he can clearly justify to himself. Even a one-off cover-up killing. But a second opens up the possibilities of a third, a fourth, indeed an infinitude. And that, if, as I posit, he is a man of conscience, must be very distressing.'
'What's he say?' asked Dalziel when Pascoe replaced the receiver.
'He says the Choker's probably sorry about killing Wildgoose.'
'Je-sus,' said Dalziel.
At ten A.M. the phone rang.
Wield took it. He looked unusually pale this morning and there were deeper shadows than usual in the canyons of his eyes.
'For you, sir,' he said to Pascoe. 'The Service Children's Education Authority.'
'Probably want their degree back,' muttered Dalziel. 'Obtaining by fraud.'
It was a woman, friendly, apologetic. She introduced herself as Captain Casey.
'Sorry this wasn't dealt with more promptly,' she said. 'But like most government offices, it's difficult to find anyone but half-wits round the place after lunch-time on Friday. I expect it's the same in the police.'
'All the time,' said Pascoe. 'What can you tell me, please?'
'Everything. Or at least all you asked for. Yes, there was a Peter Dinwoodie on the staff of Devon School. He resigned at the end of Summer Term, 1973. He hasn't been employed in any of our schools since. Nor does he seem to have had a job in the public sector in this country. I rang the DES to check. Thought you might like to know.'
'That was kind of you,' said Pascoe.
'Amends for the delay,' said Captain Casey. 'Now, you also asked whether his wife was employed at the same school, Mr Pascoe. No, she wasn't. In fact, according to our records, Mr Dinwoodie was a bachelor when last he worked for us.'
'Bachelor? Not married, you mean?' said Pascoe foolishly.
'I often do mean that when I say bachelor,' she said pleasantly.
'You're certain?'
'Our records are.'
'Well, thank you very much, Captain.'
'Hang on,' she said. 'You also wanted to know if a Mark Wildgoose had ever taught in Germany. The answer is no, definitely not. By the way, I saw that name in the newspaper this morning. A man murdered. Is it anything to do…'
'Thank you, Captain Casey,' said Pascoe firmly. 'Thanks a lot.'
'Oh well. Any time,' she said. 'Before lunch on Friday that is. Cheerio!'
'What was all that about?' asked Dalziel who had been watching Pascoe's reactions.
'More mystery,' said Pascoe.
When he had outlined the call, Dalziel said, 'Yes, well, all right. So he got married later, when he got back to the UK. What about it?'
'There was a daughter,' said Pascoe. 'She was killed in a car crash early this year. She was seventeen.'
He watched as Dalziel deliberately counted on his fingers.
'I'm with you,' said the fat man. 'But so what? He married a widow.'