'I don't think so,' said Pascoe. 'Something the old man said. Agar. It struck me at the time, but I didn't know why. I think I'll have another word with him, if that's OK, sir.'
'It's better than having you wandering around here, being cryptic,' said Dalziel. 'But when the blinding flash comes, I'd like to be among the first to know.'
As though it had been specially ordered for fair fortnight, the fine weather which had begun to break up the day before was now definitely at an end. It was still warm, but in the eastern sky great ridges of violet-tinged cloud blocked out the sun and as he drove slowly by the empty expanse of Charter Park, seagulls driven inland by the still distant storm floated covetously over the heads of the council workmen clearing up the debris. There would be a couple of policemen hovering too in case anything relevant was discovered, but Pascoe reckoned that the seagulls had a better chance.
Heading for Shafton took him directly towards the storm and the air was quite dark by the time he reached the Garden Centre. He had Agar's home address, but he slowed as he approached the Centre and saw that his judgement had been right. There in the rose field was a solitary figure with a hoe, carefully repairing the damage done by yesterday's line of searching coppers.
The old man glanced up as Pascoe approached but did not pause in his work.
'Big feet some of you lads have,' he said, heeling a loosened root into the earth.
'They had to look,' said Pascoe.
'I dare say.'
'Looks like rain,' said Pascoe, falling into slow step alongside him.
'We can do with it,' said Agar. 'But that lot looks like it's going to come down cats and dogs, and any of these plants that're not firmly set can easy be toppled.'
'Well, I won't keep you back,' said Pascoe. 'It was just that last Friday when we talked you said something that didn't really register till later. You said that Mrs Dinwoodie blamed herself for letting her daughter run off to Scotland to be married. Now Mrs Dinwoodie as a widow would be solely responsible for her daughter while she was still a minor. If she agreed to the wedding, why did the girl have to go to Scotland?'
The old man paused.
'I said that? Well, mebbe I shouldn't have. But there's no harm to be done now. The lass, Alison, she weren't Mr Dinwoodie's daughter. No, she used the name, but she weren't his daughter. I knew, but only at the end when there was trouble and I heard 'em talking. Mrs Dinwoodie knew she could trust me.'
Pascoe put his hand on the old man's shoulder and brought him to a halt.
'Please, Mr Agar. Tell me everything you know,' he said.
It wasn't much. Shortly before Dinwoodie's death, Alison had met a boy, a nice lad, just eighteen, down from the Borders to do a six-month course at the Yorkshire Agricultural Institute. Their relationship had intensified after and probably as a result of her stepfather's death and they had been eager to get married. But somehow Alison's real father had emerged on the scene just about now. Still legally the girl's guardian, his permission was needed for an under-age marriage in England, and he was making a fuss about giving it. So Mary Dinwoodie had not raised any objection when her prospective son-in-law proposed taking Alison back to Scotland with him and marrying her there after she had the necessary residential qualifications.
She had gone up to the wedding, taken a train back to Yorkshire after the ceremony and was met at her house by the news that the honeymooners' car had skidded on the wintry roads only twenty miles after setting out and the young couple were both killed.
'Like I said, she went off after that. To stay with friends, she said, but I reckon she was off by herself and it wouldn't have surprised me if she'd killed herself. But I took care of the place as best I could, and the bank helped to keep the accounts straight, and then, lo and behold, last month she comes back, and it looks as if we can mebbe get things on a proper basis. Well, you know the rest, mister. Better if she'd stayed away forever. Better mebbe if she had killed herself even.'
The sky was completely veiled in cloud now and Pascoe felt the first splashes on his cheek, big warm drops that burst ripely as they struck.
'You should have told someone this before, Mr Agar,' he said.
'Should I? I never thought. It seemed of no account somehow, what with her dead. No account.'
'And the man's name? Mrs Dinwoodie's first husband. Alison's father.'
'Nay, I know nothing of that, mister,' said Agar, 'nothing more than what I've told you. Nothing more.'
Back at the station he found that Dalziel was out. This suited him very well. There was a driving urgency in him which rendered him impatient of diversions for explanations and hypotheses. Ignoring Wield's curious glances, he went to his own office, picked up the telephone and asked to be connected with the SCEA in London.
It took a few minutes to track down Captain Casey.
'Hello again,’ she said. 'I didn't expect you so soon.'
'Me neither. Look, that school in Linden, the Devon – do you have a complete list of staff? What I'm particularly interested in is other people who resigned in 1973.'
'You're lucky, I haven't sent the file back yet,' she said. 'Hold on a sec. Here we are. You want the lot?'
'Just the resignations to start with,' he said.
Besides Dinwoodie there were only another two, and only one of these a woman.
'Now, do you want the whole list?'
'No thanks,' he said slowly. 'I think this'll do.'
He replaced the receiver and carefully drew a ring round the woman's name.
Mary Greenall.
Then he picked up the telephone again.
'I want the Air Ministry,' he said. 'I want the section that deals with personnel records.'
Twenty minutes later he came out of his room, the sense of urgency pulsing stronger than ever. He found Wield and asked, 'Mr Dalziel back yet?'
'Not yet,' said the sergeant.
'Damn.'
'Are you on to something, sir?' asked Wield.
Pascoe hesitated, then said firmly. 'Yes. It may open up the whole damn thing. I'm almost certain.
‘Listen, I'm going out now. Tell Mr Dalziel I'll be at the Aero Club. That's it. The Aero Club.'
It was silly. There was no need for all this rushing. But he felt impelled to it. Perhaps if there'd been a bit more rushing early on and a little less painstaking, step-by-stepping…
As he went through the door that led into the car park, he almost collided with Dicky Gladmann, clad in a streaming plastic mac.
'Hello there!' said the linguist. 'I say, I've had a listen. Most interesting.'
'Fine,' said Pascoe, turning his collar against the rain. 'I'm in a bit of a rush. We'll talk later.'
'Well, it's all written down,' said Gladmann, producing the buff envelope. 'Really, it's been terribly interesting. I'm not sure how significant it might be…'
'I'll let you know,' said Pascoe, taking the envelope and thrusting it into his jacket pocket. 'Many thanks. We'll be in touch.'
He dashed out into the storm and was well dampened in the short time it took to get into his car. The light was so bad now that he switched his headlights on before moving off. Behind him through the rear-view mirror he could see Gladmann standing forlornly in the doorway looking with his old-young-man's face and his plastic mac like the nucleus of a queue outside a porno-cinema.
The storm was at its height as he drove into the old aerodrome. There was no wind and the orange windsock hung heavily from its pole, its fluorescence dulled by the torrential rain. Sheet lightning flickered through canyons of cloud and thunder cracked and rolled like an artillery barrage. There would be no flying today, and precious little drinking either if the absence of cars was anything to go by.
Pascoe glanced at his watch. Nearly twelve-thirty.
He parked as close to the club-house door as he could get and dashed in, realized he'd left his lights on, dashed out again, switched them off and was sodden wet by the time he made his second entrance.