A Pinch of Snuff

‘You drink it,’ said Pascoe. ‘It’s bad for my fillings, remember?’

‘And you remember our Ms Lacewing’s going to scrape you out on Monday.’

‘How could I forget? Nice to meet you, Mrs Shorter.’ He wondered whether he should offer his hand.

‘You too, Mr Pascoe,’ she said. ‘You must come to see us some time.’

‘Great, great,’ said Pascoe eager to be off before she could thaw into an invitation. ‘Cheerio now. ‘Bye, Jack.’

Outside the pub he found he was in almost as bad a temper as when he’d left the office. He felt somehow manipulated though that was absurd. But come to think of it, in all the years he’d been frequenting the Black Bull, he’d never known Jack Shorter to use the pub.

It was still early and instead of returning to the station he strolled round to Wilkinson Square.

There should have been a constable on duty at the door, but the front steps were empty. Nor, he discovered, when he pushed the door open, had the policeman taken refuge inside.

There was a scrabble of footsteps behind him and when he turned he saw an anxious-faced uniformed constable coming up the steps. He was in his early twenties and looked like a schoolboy caught in some misdemeanour.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Pascoe.

‘Sorry, sir. I was on duty here when the lady next door asked me in to give her a hand with putting a new light bulb in the hallway. She’s very old and afraid of steps.’

‘Miss Andover?’

‘Yes, sir. And it’s been very quiet for the past hour. And I kept an eye open from her window.’

‘While you were up a step-ladder? Think yourself lucky it wasn’t Mr Dalziel who came round. Is Arany here?’

‘Mr Arany? No, sir. He was earlier, but he went off about an hour ago.’

‘All right,’ said Pascoe. ‘Now plant your feet outside that door and don’t move, not even if a river of lava comes rolling down Maltgate.’

Shaking his head at the lowering of standards amongst the younger recruits to the force, and grinning at himself for shaking his head, Pascoe closed the front door and walked down the vestibule.

‘Hello!’ called Pascoe.

He pushed open the door of the wrecked bar. Someone, Arany presumably, had done a good tidying-up job. Just inside the door on a chair was a shopping bag and alongside it a gaudily wrapped packet. Pascoe picked it up. It looked as if it (whatever it was) had been gift-wrapped in the shop. A card was attached saying Happy Birthday Sandra. From Uncle Maurice. The bag contained groceries – butter, tins of soup, frozen fish. Pascoe picked out a jar of pickled gherkins. He felt a sudden urge to eat one. I must be pregnant, he thought.

‘Oh. Hello,’ said a voice behind him.

He turned. A girl in her early twenties wearing a denim suit and a flat cap had come into the room.

‘Who’re you?’ asked Pascoe.