“So it’s not a corpse he fakes the suicide on,” said Pascoe. “That would be a lot easier than fooling a pathologist about the cause and time of death. Which means all that stuff about the central heating was just a smoke screen for my benefit.”
“Yes. He’d be willing to admit a lot to get you off his back, but likely he reckoned that murder would be an admission too far. Which is what it was if he just tied Pal Senior up and came back to finish the job a day or two later.”
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Dalziel. “You two have got more stories than yon Arabian bint who didn’t want to get topped. How about it’s all a lie, and Maciver really did kill himself, and Waverley just thinks he can make me run scared, thinking I’ve got myself involved in a cover-up?”
“Possible,” said Pascoe. “Possibly also Waverley really is just a VAT inspector with a very active fantasy life and an obsession with Miss Maciver. We don’t know. In fact we’ve got a whole bunch of statements from just about everyone involved in this business, and I’ll tell you what, there’s not a one of them I’m one hundred per cent certain of. And that includes even those I think believe they’re telling the truth.”
“So what are we going to do?” said Wield.
Pascoe liked the we. A lesser man would have said you.
He looked at Dalziel and said, “Sir?”
He said, “There’s nowt we can do about any of the big stuff, sanction busting, politics, all that shit. And despite your fancy theories about murder, I reckon this guy Waverley’s untouchable. The best we could do by hassling him is get his boss, Mr sodding Gedye, nervous enough to have Waverley permanently retired. But we’re all happy that Pal Junior actually did kill himself, right? For which in my book he deserves a vote of thanks. Always had him marked for a right nasty bastard.”
“The blue beer and the bullshit were quite amusing,” ventured Pascoe.
“I give you that. Yon so-called captain had it coming,” agreed Dalziel. “But it don’t make up for trying to destroy his kid sister’s marriage, does it?”
“I didn’t say that. His mental condition was, to say the least, suspect. But in fairness to him, I don’t believe he ever thought there was a real chance of getting Kay sent down for murdering him. Embarrass her, piss her off, yes. But in the end he knew we were bound to work it out. His real aim was to make us think seriously about the circumstances of his father’s death.”
“So why not come to us with his suspicions? Or leave a letter detailing them?” asked Wield.
“Perhaps because he thought that with Kay having such good friends in high places, any suggestion that Ash-Mac’s management might have been involved would be kicked into touch without a second thought. In any case, accusations contained in suicide notes are always treated with a pinch of salt and he had no real evidence to offer. So he set out to show us how it could be done. By imitating the exact circumstances, he ensured that any investigation of his own death would be an investigation of his father’s also. He dropped the letter addressed to the Officer i/c the Maciver Murder Enquiry in the post after the last pick-up on Wednesday evening so that it wouldn’t reach us till Friday. He left Gallipot’s card in his wallet so that we’d be straight on to him. And he’d given Gallipot a key to Casa Alba and instructed him to e-mail any incriminating photo he got to Mrs Lockridge, to give us another possible link to the man.”
“Some link, with the bugger dead,” growled Dalziel. “You saying that was down to Waverley?”
“That would be my guess,” said Pascoe. “The funny buggers, certainly. Pal knew that when they caught on what was happening, Gallipot would be at risk, but he thought we’d get to him before they did, and that Jake would reckon the best way to defuse a potentially deadly secret was to share it.”
“So everyone’s been jerking us about,” said Wield. “And we don’t know the half of it. I don’t much care for being kept in the dark.”
“Aye, where do we go from here, Pete?” said Dalziel. “You started with one suspicious death and now you seem to be saying there could be at least two more, Gallipot and Pal Senior.”
“And what about Tony Kafka? Is he on the run, or what?” said Wield.
Tony Kafka who wanted to be a good American…
In his mind’s eye Pascoe was seeing Kay Kafka run out of Cothersley Hall to embrace her husband as he left the previous afternoon. There had been something very final in that embrace. She had clung to him as if she meant to keep him with her by main force. He had turned away from the intensity of the scene, feeling like a voyeur. When she came back into the room she’d said, “Tony is a good man. He wants to be a good American,” as if this were an aim fraught with difficulty and peril.
He pushed the scene out of his mind like a slide and replaced it with another.
After talking with Waverley, he had watched the Jag drive away and then returned to the cottage.
“Time to be off, Hat,” he’d said.
“So soon, Mr Pascoe?” said Miss Mac. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to ask me about?”
“No need. Just a small matter that Mr Waverley was able to clear up. Ready, Hat?”
Bowler clearly wasn’t. He began to rise with all the reluctance of a small boy told it was time to abandon his computer game and go to bed.
Miss Mac said, “I must say I don’t reckon much to the youth of today, Mr Pascoe. In my time, if I’d offered to help a poor old pensioner with her garden, I’d have been too ashamed to leave the job half-done. What do you say?”
Pascoe said, “I think it would be most reprehensible behaviour. What on earth are you thinking of, Bowler? But I’ve got to go so you won’t have a lift.”
“Got my mobile, I can easily ring a taxi,” said Hat.
“You’ll stay for supper then we’ll see about that,” said Miss Mac firmly.
“Goodbye then,” said Pascoe. “I’ll see myself out.”
At the front door he’d paused and glanced back. Hat was sitting at the table again. He had picked up his wedge of bread and was laughing at something Miss Mac had said. There was a flutter of birds about his head.
Pascoe smiled at the memory then realized his two colleagues were watching him very seriously. It occurred to him that a propos the Maciver affair they were looking to him for words that would give them, to use the modern cant term, closure.
Why should it be down to me? he asked himself angrily. How come I get elected moral arbiter of this odd little trinity?
He’d once said something similar to Ellie, demanding rhetorically, Why do they treat me like I’m CID’s moral conscience? To which she’d replied, How else should they treat you? and would not stay for an answer.
Right, he thought. If that’s what they want…
He put on a parsonical voice and declaimed, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
He smiled at the baffled expressions before him and said, “That’s one way of looking at things. How does it grab you?”
Dalziel said, “Me, I’m a dedicated flesh and blood man.”
“Me too,” said Wield.
“Then we have a majority. Pal Maciver found he had an inoperable brain tumour and he took his own life. That will be the inquest verdict. Whether it will mark the end of the affair I don’t know, but it will certainly mark the end of our part in it. We have done all we can, I think. Whether we’ve done enough, we won’t find out till the evil day, whenever that is.”