Pascoe doubted it. His own gentle probings had produced a puzzled appreciation that the old lady might have got something wrong, but he had not felt it worthwhile to risk distressing her by going too hard. And now that 'Tap' Parrinder was definitely placed in the betting shop from 1.45 to 4.30 P.M., he couldn't see what positive contribution any further memories of Mrs Escott could make. On the other hand, he appreciated Seymour's eagerness to regain what he felt as lost credit.
'Worth a try perhaps,' he said. 'But go easy, very easy. She's old and confused. And make damn sure you've got all those statements first!'
After Seymour had gone, Wield looked at Pascoe with something which might have been a smile fissuring his lips.
'He's a good lad,' he said.
'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe. 'He did well to get Charlesworth to cooperate, though I expect he's as keen as anyone to see these illicit shops closed.'
'So it clears the way for his own fiddles, you mean?' said Wield.
'Perhaps, though he was looked at recently and he came out clean.'
'So I believe. Did you know he was such an old chum of the Super's?'
Again that immediate and suggestive association! It was going to be very difficult to prevent Dalziel's friendship and Charlesworth's fortune from going together like fish and chips.
'No, but it does give Mr Dalziel a good reason for dining with him, doesn't it?' he pointed out.
'Aye, but then you'd think he'd have put Mr Dalziel on to this illegal betting shop racket, wouldn't you?' said Wield, who seemed determined to play devil's advocate.
'It was Mr Dalziel who put us on to Charlesworth, remember? I suppose a bookie has got to be careful about fingering others in the same line, even when they're bent. Could be that friend Don will turn out to be financed by some legit firm who might not take kindly to Charlesworth shopping them. Seymour will keep his mouth shut there, I hope.'
'Oh yes. He didn't really want to tell me! I think he rather liked Charlesworth, and he's certainly taken a shine to Seymour from the sound of it.'
'Yes,' said Pascoe thoughtfully. 'There was a son, I recall. It was in the local rag a few years back. He seemed bent on raising a bit of hell with his dad's hard-earned cash and ended up getting himself killed in a car smash. He'd be almost Seymour's age.'
'And build too if he took after his dad. And mebbe colouring if he took after his mam.'
Pascoe looked at Wield in surprise.
'You know her?'
'I saw her once in court. Speeding offence. Not long after the lad died. And not long before she and Charlesworth separated. Big red-haired woman. I got the impression she was chasing her lad the best way she knew how. I often wondered if she ran out of steam before she caught up with him.'
Pascoe shook his head glumly. This dying was enough to get a man down. He could just about cope, as everyone had to, with the idea that the car or perhaps the blood clot which was to knock him over was already speeding on its way. But the thought of what his death might mean to Ellie and to Rose was unbearable. Though is that real altruism or just disguised egotism? he asked himself. After all, the pension's not bad, and there's a bit of insurance, and that supercilious, bow-tied historian at the college has always fancied Ellie, and Rose would have lost all memory of me by the time she was two…
This morbid train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Cruikshank.
'Seems you were right, then,' he congratulated Pascoe, with the smile of a candidate who has just lost his deposit.
'Yes, well, it's got to happen sometimes. Law of averages,' joked Pascoe, careful not to crow in the face of this attempt at magnanimity.
'That's right,' said Cruikshank. 'Oh, by the way, in the caravan that came back from Welfare Lane, there was this bag of stones. Hector told me they were the ones you got him to collect from the recreation ground. I thought, that's Inspector Pascoe! So much on his plate, he's bound to overlook a thing or two. So I've sent them down to Forensic for testing. On CID authority. That all right then?'
Pascoe looked at him with horror, imagining the reaction of the irascible little Scot in charge of the laboratory to the arrival of several dozen stones, unlabelled, all piled together in one bag, with a request for careful and almost certainly non-productive examination.
You rotten sod, Cruikshank! he thought. You wouldn't have dared pull such a stunt if Dalziel had been around!
'Thanks a lot,' he said to Cruikshank. 'Mr Dalziel will be so pleased to find uniformed and CID working so well together. I'll make sure he knows exactly how much you've cooperated, Inspector!'
Which in the circumstances was the best he could do.
Dennis Seymour was also doing his best, but Bernadette McCrystal was more than a match for him. To the vast disapproval of the dragon supervisor, he had insisted that taking her statement was a matter of such urgency that it brooked no delay. Now, in the supervisor's own office, with the statement signed and sealed, he had turned to more personal matters.
'Why won't I go out with you, is it?' she asked. 'Time was when a girl didn't have to offer reasons, but times change and here's three to be going on with. One, you're a policeman and I've got me reputation to be thinking of. Two, you're a Protestant, and I've got me religion to be thinking of.'
'And three?' prompted Seymour.
'Three, I like dancing, real dancing I mean, and you look a clumsy, awkward sort of a fellow and I've got me feet to be thinking of.'
'Hold on!' he protested. 'I'm a black belt at the old ballroom.'
'Black belt? That's judo, isn't it?'
'Yeah,' he grinned. 'I'm not so hot on the entrechats, but you won't half fly around the floor.'
She laughed and said, 'All right. I'll give you a two-dance trial. Where are we going?'
'I'll leave that to you,' said Seymour, delighted. 'I'll just choose where we're starting from. The lounge bar at The Portland, eight o'clock tonight.'
'That's a posh kind of place,' she said thoughtfully.
'I reckon you're a posh kind of girl,' said Seymour gallantly.
'Then you're on. Now I'd better get back to cleaning them tables, else she'll be grinding her false teeth to pumice.'
Outside the department store, Seymour stopped to take in a deep breath of wintry air. He felt well satisfied with life. Just as (oh, how these untimely thoughts came sneaking in!) 'Tap' Parrinder must have felt, close to this very spot last Friday. Money in his pocket, food in his belly, nothing to bother him except to decide which off- licence to buy his rum in.
In fact, it occurred to Seymour for the first time, he had a choice of two close at hand. Turning left about a hundred yards along on the opposite side of the road was the off-licence he'd actually used.
But if he'd turned right instead, the very next Shop to Starbuck's was a wine and spirit store.
And if his plan had been to walk back to Castleton Court, taking the short cut across the Recreation Ground, then that was the way he should have gone.
It was probably simply explained. Perhaps this wine shop had been closed on Friday evening. It was easy to check. Seymour strolled along and looked at the listed opening hours, then went in to double-check.
No, it had been open.
Perhaps it was a question of choice, or of price? But a glance at the shelves showed the same brand of rum that he'd purchased at the other place, and five pence cheaper at that.
As Seymour made his way to the other off-licence, he recalled Pascoe's puzzlement that a man with money in his pocket should choose to walk home in that weather. Fifty yards further in this direction there was a taxi-rank. Perhaps Parrinder had determined to get a taxi, but after buying his rum changed his mind. Perhaps there was no taxi free and, impatient of waiting, he had set out on foot.