In his notebook he noted the time, then added, in his old-fashioned round schoolboy’s hand, Mr Pascoe and party.
“OK, Dolores,” he said, and watched with a classical appreciation as the young tart slipped like a shy nymph from behind the sheltering column.
– Heading up the drive, Pascoe was aware of headlights blooming behind, but thought nothing of it. As some of his civilian acquaintance liked to point out, if you got burgled and wanted a cop while the clues were still hot, it could be twenty-four hours before you saw one; but if you moved beyond the reach of human help by getting yourself killed, then every police vehicle in the county would be rushing to your door.
He saw an ambulance parked before the house alongside an Audi A6 Avant. In the passenger seat of the ambulance a paramedic was carefully puffing cigarette smoke out of his open window. By his side, the driver was talking into his radio mike.
Pascoe read the scene clearly. It wasn’t good news. Their disposition meant there was nothing for them here except body recovery. The driver would be talking to his Control, asking for instructions. Which were most likely to be, don’t hang around waiting for the cops to tell you they’ve finished with the corpse, which could take forever. Get back here, plenty of other work to do.
He applied the handbrake, turned to the women in the rear and said, “Stay in the car, please, until I’ve checked things out.”
Perhaps he should have applied the rear-door child-locks, but locking Ellie in wasn’t something a man did lightly. Anyway he couldn’t see how this situation could prove more problematic than many others he’d dealt with over the years.
He soon found out.
Alongside them the ambulance had started up and begun to move away. Cressida flung her door open and ran after it, beating her fist against its rear doors. An Alfa Spider slewed to a halt across the drive, forcing the ambulance to stop, and another woman half fell out and began shouting at the paramedic through his open window. Behind the Spider, a Volvo estate came to rest rather more sedately. Its male driver emerged with athletic grace, a blond young man, lovely to look at, the perfect type of the Handsome Sailor. He looked ready to join the assault on the emergency vehicle but was called to order by a scream from the rear of his car and, with evident reluctance, turned to assist a pregnant woman out of the back seat.
From the opposite door a tall slim woman slipped out and stood assessing the scene with a calm unblinking gaze. The woman from the Spider was demanding to know who was being taken to hospital and insisting if it was her husband that she should be admitted to ride with him. The paramedic was trying without much success to convince her the vehicle was empty and they’d been called away on another emergency. Cressida was wrestling with the rear door handle. The pregnant woman, magnified by a trick of the headlights and mist so that she could have modelled for Gaea, heavy with Titans, was now advancing with majestic instancy. By her side the Handsome Sailor seemed divided between wanting to guide her ponderous steps and wanting to get to the ambulance, presumably to add his vote to the demand for information. The driver out of frustration leaned on his horn. Sergeant Bonnick, attracted by the noise, appeared in the open doorway of Moscow House. The paramedic, realizing that nothing but proof ocular was going to convince the women that the ambulance was empty, climbed out of the cab and went round to the rear doors. Another set of headlights came swimming up the drive.
“Peter,” said Ellie, who was standing alongside her husband viewing the activity, “I think it’s time to exercise your authority.”
“Not to worry,” said Pascoe with the calmness of one in no hurry to confront a belligerent drunk, a hysterical wife (widow?), and a woman who looked as if a good sneeze could send her into epeirogenic contractions. “When they realize the cupboard’s bare, they’ll settle down.”
“Wimp,” said Ellie.
The paramedic pushed Cressida to one side and pulled open the doors.
Everyone, including the trio from the Volvo, peered inside.
For a moment it looked as if Pascoe was right.
There was a moment of complete and blessed silence.
Then it was broken by the slamming of a car door, presumably belonging to the newly arrived vehicle invisible behind the Volvo’s dazzling headlights.
The noise cracked through the stillness like a starting gun and had much the same effect.
Cressida turned her attention from the ambulance’s emptiness to the others around her, seeming to register them for the first time. Her attention focused on the tall slim woman.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Hello, Cressida,” said the woman mildly. “I think we ought to ask someone in authority just what’s happened here, don’t you?”
“Oh, you do, do you? Well, any interest you might have had in what happens here ended ten fucking years ago. Now all you’re doing is trespassing. Get off my property before I throw you off,” snarled Cressida, taking an aggressive step towards the tall woman.
“Your property, Cress? What do you mean, your property? It’s as much mine as yours, and Kay’s here with me, so just shut up!”
This was Gaea, her voice shrill, her pretty face contorted.
“Jesus Christ, can’t you two just grow up and stop acting like a pair of sodding schoolgirls! It’s Pal, my husband, your brother, we should be worried about here, not who owns what, right?”
This was the Spider Woman. Her reproaches, far from calming things down, merely drew the fire of both the sisters, who seemed united in dislike of their sister-in-law if nothing else.
The Handsome Sailor meanwhile was heading towards the house. He looked in superb shape but Bonnick, who made such a big thing of physical fitness, ought to be able to take care of him, thought Pascoe. On the other hand once the trio of quarrelling women diverted their attention from the ambulance and each other to what lay inside the house, even the redoubtable Bonnick could be in bother.
The blond reached the doorway, the sergeant spoke to him, the young man began to push past, Bonnick tried to apply a basic armlock which the other evaded with practised ease. Realizing he was dealing with someone who’d done the same unarmed-combat courses as himself, the sergeant threw restraint to the winds and the young man to the ground, only to have his legs swept from under him. Next moment, the two were grappling on the doorstep, while the angry voices of the three women rose in volume and intensity.
Definitely time to assert his authority, thought Pascoe, taking a deep breath. At least things couldn’t get any worse.
He was of course wrong.
As he moved unhappily towards the ambulance, he heard a great voice as of a trumpet speak to him from the darkness behind the headlights.
“Evening, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to see you’ve got everything here under control.”
And out of the mist into the light stepped the bulky figure of Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.
10
It would be hard to describe Andy Dalziel as a soothing presence, but like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, he provided a new and unignorable focus of attention.
Reactions to his arrival were various.
Pascoe said, “What the fuck’s he doing here?”
Ellie said, “God alone knows, but I’m sure if we wait he’ll tell us.”
The wrestlers carried on wrestling.
Cressida, Spider Woman and Earth Mother regarded him with wary neutrality.
Only the tall slim woman looked pleased to see him.
“Andy, it’s so good to see you again,” she said, smiling as if she meant it.
She stepped forward to meet him, holding out her hand.
“You too, Kay,” said Dalziel, taking the hand. “Though mebbe not here.”
“On the contrary,” said the woman, who had a soft unobtrusive American accent. “Here is perfect. We need to know what’s going on, and I’m sure if anyone can tell us, you can.”