An Advancement of Learning

Roberts pointed wordlessly to the bottom drawer of an old wooden cabinet shoved almost inaccessibly into a corner. Jackson got down on one knee and began to toss out an assortment of papers with gay abandon.

Suddenly the fountain of stationery ceased.

‘Now wait a minute,’ he said again, this time triumphantly. ‘How about that? The artist always recognizes his own work!’

He held a record card in his hand. As he stood up, his expression turned from triumph to polite bewilderment.

‘Tell me, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Just what is the nature of the enquiry you’re making?’

Pascoe didn’t reply, but almost rudely took the card from the dentist’s hands.

The diagram and its symbols meant little to him. He’d have to take the dentist’s word that it checked with his own written description. And of course it would be double-checked by a police-surgeon.

But the name at the top of the card took him completely by surprise. Expert though he was at keeping a poker-face, the two men facing him would have no difficulty in reading the shock in his eyes.

The middle-aged woman, the vicissitude of whose teeth were recorded on the card in his hands, was Miss Alison Cartwright Girling.

Chapter 6 (#ulink_65627404-1f1a-5381-9e6b-caf3645e215e)

… sometimes a looker-on may see more than a gamester.

SIR FRANCIS BACON

Op. Cit.

‘You’ll never believe this,’ Pascoe had said.

‘I’ll believe anything,’ Dalziel had answered. ‘But let’s make sure. I don’t trust dentists.’

‘Who then?’

‘Doctors. I trust doctors. And policemen.’

It hadn’t been difficult to find out who Miss Girling’s doctor had been.

Yes, the general description of height and proportions seemed to fit. Yes, Miss Girling had twice broken her left leg while ski-ing. She was an enthusiastic ski-er, went to Austria every Christmas.

And yes, he knew about the wig. It wasn’t merely vanity. In one of her ski-ing accidents, she had hit her head against a tree and torn part of the scalp away. The result had been a scar and a small bald patch. Hence the wig.

‘Now we can ask the question,’ said Dalziel. It was nearly 10 P.M. He was sitting at Landor’s desk. In his hands was the commemorative plaque removed from the base of the statue.

‘And the question is, what is Miss Girling doing here, under her own memorial, when best report places her firmly in some Austrian cemetery?’

‘That’s a good question,’ said Pascoe. ‘Mind you, it did strike me as odd that she should have been left over there in the first place. Why not bring her body back to be buried in the land of her fathers with all due military and civic honours?’

‘Expensive.’

‘She can’t have been short of a bob or two, a single woman with a job like this. Someone must have got it.’

‘What do you know about the way she died?’ asked Dalziel. ‘Or was supposed to have died?’

‘Nothing. I just assumed she’d run into a tree or over a cliff or something. If I’d known she’d had two broken legs and a stripped scalp, it wouldn’t even have surprised me. It’s not possible, I suppose, that she could have cracked her head in the accident and some nut had her corpse brought home and secretly buried here?’

‘It’s bloody unlikely,’ said Dalziel. ‘Listen, we can’t sleep on this. Someone must know. There must be a doctor’s report. A death certificate. Something. I know. That woman, the senior thing.’

‘Miss Scotby?’

‘That’s right. She was a great mate, wasn’t she? Get her over here.’

‘I thought it was Miss Disney who claimed to be the bosom friend, sir?’

Dalziel groaned.

‘I couldn’t bear them both at once. Scotby preferably, but Disney if you must.’

There was a list of staff numbers beside the internal phone. Neither Miss Scotby nor Miss Disney answered.

‘They keep later hours than I’d have thought,’ said Pascoe.

‘Or else they’re in bed. Look, scout around see if you can dig up either of them. I’ve got some phoning to do.’

Pascoe left, not certain where he was going. The building they were in seemed completely deserted. Outside, his gaze was immediately attracted to a row of brightly lit windows in one of the new buildings. The curtains were only partly drawn and inside he could see what looked like a colourfully decorated lounge bar.

Ellie! The memory of their appointment for a drink after dinner rushed back into his mind. Their first encounter had not gone particularly well. This could kill it dead, he thought as he pushed open the door.

He was certain she would have left long before. Five minutes had always been her limit even in the days of their closest relationship.

But she was still there. His mind had become used even in their short previous meeting to the changes half a dozen years can make; and now, comparisons over, he was suddenly reminded of how attractive she was. She looked up and smiled. For a moment Pascoe thought she had seen him, then he saw a tall, slim young man moving from the bar clutching a couple of glasses before him.

He would have retreated at this point, not wanting to compound unpunctuality with unwanted interruption, but Eleanor glanced his way and he was forced to go on, though the smile had faded and the line of her jaw became set in an aggression as memory-stimulating as her beauty.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘There was work to be done.’

‘A bore,’ sympathized the young man putting a gin in front of Ellie. He looked with interest at Pascoe.

‘I’m Halfdane,’ he said. ‘Arthur Halfdane.’

‘This is Sergeant Pascoe. I was telling you about him,’ said Ellie, making it sound unpleasant.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked Halfdane.

‘No, thanks,’ said Pascoe.

‘Duty,’ murmured Ellie. ‘Like on the telly.’

‘It’s quiet in here,’ said Pascoe, attempting the light touch. ‘I expected wild revelry.’

‘It usually is pretty quiet mid-week. But even the regulars haven’t turned up tonight. Roote and his mob haven’t been in, have they?’