She said, “There is something else, Mr. Pascoe. About the cave. I made a mistake. It wasn’t Clara I saw there with Teddy Denham. It was Sidney Parker.”
Pascoe passed his hand over his face, hiding any reaction.
“Not Clara Brereton but Sidney Parker. I see,” he said musingly. “Well, that was certainly quite a mistake, Miss Heywood. What relevance it might have I don’t know, but before we draw any conclusions from it, we need to be absolutely sure-”
Dalziel, seeing the young woman was once more ready to be provoked, got in quickly, “We’ve been through all this, Pete. Miss Heywood’s sure. Me too.”
“In that case, sir, the matter is, of course, beyond all doubt,” said Pascoe, draining all irony from his voice. “To be quite clear, Miss Heywood, your error was only in the personnel involved, not in the activity? The two men were also in flagrante?”
Charley said, “Yes. Ted was definitely buggering him.”
The Fat Man grinned. He was beginning to really like this lass.
Pascoe showed no emotion. “So in the light of this, are you now saying that all that stuff in your e-mails about Ted Denham coming on to Miss Brereton, not to mention yourself, was probably a misinterpretation also?”
Charley looked as if she might be considering physical violence for a moment, then said, “No way. All right, to some extent it might have been a smoke screen to put Lady Denham off the scent, but at a guess I’d say Ted’s bisexual.”
Pascoe echoed, “A smoke screen? To hide what? And why?”
“From what little I got to know about Lady Denham, I’d say there wasn’t much chance of her leaving anything to a gay,” said Charley.
“Except mebbe a couple of her evening gowns,” said Dalziel cheerfully.
Again Pascoe looked from the woman to the Fat Man.
He said, “If I could have a word in private, sir?”
He set off walking toward the hall. Dalziel winked at Charley and followed.
“So you weren’t here when the lass got attacked?” he said as he caught up.
“No,” said Pascoe shortly. “I was visiting Franny Roote.”
“You mean interviewing him?”
“That too. It’s all right, Andy. As I told you last evening, I can keep my personal feelings and professional responsibilities separate.”
“As the bishop said to the actress,” said Dalziel. “So, this private word you want-not in trouble, am I?”
“Only like Brer Rabbit in the bramble bush,” said Pascoe, halting and turning to face the Fat Man. “I’d like to get back to your agreed professional involvement in the investigation, if you don’t mind. Perhaps you’d care to tell me how you got on with the interviews you volunteered to do at the Avalon?”
Dalziel grimaced and said, “Getting a bit above myself, am I? Old habits, eh? Like me, they die hard. From now on in, I’ll play it by the book. You’re the boss.”
“I know I am,” said Pascoe. “The interviews. Sir.”
Dalziel gave him a digest of his conversations with Sheldon and Feldenhammer.
“And your conclusions?”
“Ho’d on. I’m not done yet.”
Now he gave an account of his visit to Kyoto House. As he related Minnie Parker’s contribution, Pascoe groaned.
“Jesus, Andy,” he said. “We’ve already had Tom Parker banging on about Novello interviewing the girl without a responsible adult present. If he finds out you’ve been questioning her about people screwing on the beach, you could be in big trouble.”
“It weren’t like that,” protested Dalziel. “She just came out with it. Could be completely the product of her imagination for all I know.”
“I don’t think so,” said Pascoe, producing the envelope with the photos. “Anyone you recognize here?”
Dalziel examined them for a moment, then said, “Hope old Fester rubbed some sunblock onto his buttocks.”
“Fester? This is Dr. Feldenhammer, is it?”
“Oh aye. No doubt. And the lass must be this Indian lady Minnie told us about.”
“Indeed. I’m afraid this means we’ll have to talk to the girl again. I’ll try to play down how we got the info, but maybe you’d better start working on a good explanation of how you came to be talking to her unofficially without a responsible adult present.”
“Don’t preach to me, lad, not till you’ve started shaving,” retorted Dalziel, forgetting his recent resolution to play the underling. “Any road, Charley Heywood’s a responsible adult, and a bright one too. I’m not the only one straying off the straight and narrow here. She lays a complaint about you bugging her private conversations, you’ll know what trouble is. If I were you, I’d start building bridges with that lass.”
“No conversation with a suspect in custody can be called private,” declared Pascoe, trying for the forensic high ground.
“In custody?” snorted Dalziel. “Crap! You knew Godley were in the clear, as evidenced by the fact he’s now running around loose.”
“Which he wouldn’t be if I hadn’t used Miss Heywood to get to the truth of his relationship with Miss Lee,” riposted Pascoe. “You never used to be so pussyfooted, Andy.”
“And you never used to make your own sodding rules, lad!”
The two men glared at each other for a moment, then both began to grin.
Pascoe said, “Anyway, he certainly doesn’t look like he wants to complain now.”
They both glanced toward Charley and Godley, who were having an animated conversation in the middle of the lawn.
“That’s ’cos the poor sod thinks the sun shines out of her ears,” said the Fat Man. “If you’d dropped him in a bog and young Charley were in it too, he’d have been grateful. But she’s still a long way from being your greatest fan.”
“And you think she’s the complaining type?”
“Mebbe not, but if her dad, Stompy Heywood, hears you’ve been messing his daughter around, I’d make sure your BUPA payments are up to date. Think on, and while you’re thinking, here’s the way I see things. Festerwhanger’s right in the frame. Daph were coming on at him hard and he didn’t dare fend her off too strong ’cos she knew about his little bit of naughty with the Indian patient.”
“Whoah!” said Pascoe. “We don’t know she’s a patient. Could be a nurse.”
“She were a patient, I can feel it in my water,” said the Fat Man.
“Offer the same argument for God and I’m sure the whole world will turn religious,” said Pascoe.
“Ha ha. Listen, she has to be a patient. Doctors don’t get struck off for shagging nurses, else the NHS would be in an even worse state than it is!”
“And you believe Lady Denham was capable of telling Feldenhammer that if he didn’t marry her, she’d publish those pictures of him on the beach? I mean, they would put most women right off!”
“Not Daph,” said Dalziel almost admiringly. “Probably took them as a testimonial he were fit for purpose! Seems the one time she did manage to get him into bed weren’t all that satisfactory, so it must have been nice to see him on top form, so to speak.”
Pascoe shook his head and said, “But he’s a doctor.”
“He’s a man!”
“No. I meant, doctors don’t strangle people. They give them poison, or bring on heart attacks with a large bill.”
Dalziel laughed and said, “Aye, but they can be provoked like anyone else.”
“I suppose so. Who else knows about this putative patient? You say Minnie told Sid Parker?”
“That’s right. And my guess is he told Ted Denham. The poor sod’s obviously crazy about Ted! Bought him a mobike called Sexy Beast, didn’t he? Wants to make him happy, that’s what love’s about, right? Nice presents, help with problems like what to do with a rotting old house, sweet nothings whispered in his ear, pillow talk, aye that’ll be how Ted got to hear about the Indian maid.”
“Stop there, Andy. Why has she suddenly become a maid? I thought the whole point was she was a patient.”
“Sorry. Word association, that’s all.”
He whistled the opening bars of the rugby song. Pascoe, an unreconstructed soccer fan, looked blank. So Dalziel sang the words. Pascoe, who was slightly prudish, looked blanker.