Good Morning, Midnight

‘Why’d he stick his son with a name like Palinurus?’

‘Story is, back home Liam was a blacksmith, no education, but a lot of business sense. Made money some dodgy folk considered was rightly theirs, which was why he left. Came here, used his money to set up in business …’

‘As a blacksmith?’

‘Blacksmith makes things out of metal. Machine-tool business is just the posh end of blacksmithery. Any road, soon he were doing well, married a local lass, and decided he really ought to get himself an education. Got talking to some schoolteacher over a drink one night who told him the greatest literary work of the century had come out of Ireland and it were called Ulysses. You heard of it?’

‘Of course. Joyce.’

‘Aye, her. So Liam went off, determined to read all he could about this Ulysses, only when he asked at the library they got the wrong end of the stick and provided him with lots of stuff about myths and legends and the Trojan War and such, all of which he downed like a gallon of Guinness, and when his missus dropped a sprog, he looked for a name in this lot, and came up with Palinurus.’

‘Strange choice.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He was Aeneas’s helmsman who dozed off at the helm and fell overboard.’

‘Oh aye. Drowned, did he?’

‘No, actually. He made it to the shore, the first of the Trojans to reach Italy. Only the natives didn’t like the look of him so they beat him to death and chucked him back in the sea.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Dalziel. ‘Could be Liam thought it ’ud be a useful reminder to his lad every time he heard his name that, if he didn’t keep his eyes open, he could end up in a foreign land being shit upon by strangers.’

Pascoe said, ‘A little career advice with the paternal sex talk would have been more direct.’

‘He was Irish, remember. They don’t do direct. And back then I don’t suppose they did sex talks. But old Liam was right up to date when it came to making money. Lots of demand for machine tools during the war and in the post-war years. Everything seemed to be going his way. You’ll recall the other Mac? Mungo Macallum?’

‘The armaments man? Before my time, but I met his daughter, the pacifist.’

‘Old Serafina. Aye, I remember that. When Ellie got herself into bother with the funny buggers. Well, Mungo and Liam were sort of rivals for a bit, each looking for skilled men and cheap labour. Scotch Mac and Irish Mac they called them. But when Mungo died in the fifties and Serafina set about turning his business into money to finance her causes, Liam filled his boots. Plant, orders, workers, the lot. By the time his boy – let’s call him Pal Senior and the headless wonder back there Pal Junior, wouldn’t want your brain to overheat – when Pal Senior took over, the business were booming. Pal Senior had an education, nowt special but enough to set him up as an English gent. Did all the things gents are supposed to do, like tearing foxes into shreds and blowing small birds to smithereens.’

‘Which is how he had the shotgun to blow himself to pieces?’

‘Aye. Could’ve been one of the birds fought back, of course. No, we’d have noticed the birdshit. Gave all that up in his thirties when he had his accident.’

‘Shooting accident?’

‘No. As well as huntin’ and shootin’, he were a bit of a climber in every sense. Yon painting in there shows him at his peak – that’s a joke. You know how those mad buggers like to make life difficult for themselves. Well, he were the first to climb some Scottish cliff, solo, at midnight, on Christmas Day, bollock naked, or summat like that. It were on that mountain in the background. As you can see, him having his picture painted, he were chuffed to buggery. Ironic really.’

‘Why so?’

‘He went back next year and fell off. Broke this and that. Most of it mended, except his left leg. Couldn’t bend it after that. Not many mountains you can hop up, so it were goodbye to all that. Old Liam was failing, so Pal threw himself into the business, heart and soul. It was his pride and joy, and he was coining so much he were able to put a few down payments on a peerage with the Tories. But all that changed, both the coining and the payments, after seventy-nine when old whatsername started running around like a headless chicken, putting folk out of work. Suddenly it were like Maciver’s was falling off a mountain too. Order book empty, men laid off. Terrible times.’

‘Terrible,’ agreed Pascoe. ‘And this is when the takeover happened?’

‘Aye. It were looking like rags-to-rags in three generations when this Yank outfit, Ashur-Proffitt Inc, came sniffing round. Pal Senior had a choice between accepting their offer or seeing the rest of his workers laid off. So, no choice. Maciver’s became Ashur-Proffitt-Maciver’s, a.k.a. Ash-Mac’s, and Pal Senior got a fistful of dollars and a seat on the Board, executive director or some such thing. More of a face-saver than a real job, from the sound of it.’

‘And that got to him?’

‘So they reckoned,’ said Dalziel, yawning. ‘Lots of lolly and nowt to do, sounds like heaven to me, but.’

‘So what did you reckon?’ asked Pascoe.

‘Me? I reckoned he killed himself and that’s all I needed to know. He did it by himself, no one helped him. He weren’t hypnotized or under a spell or owt like that. Simple suicide.’

‘Oxymoron,’ said Pascoe. ‘Suicide’s never simple.’

‘Oxymoron yourself,’ retorted Dalziel. ‘From our point of view, it’s always simple. Forget the wherefores. The only question is, was it or wasn’t it unassisted suicide? If it was, no crime, so no investigation necessary. End of story.’

‘Except that Pal Junior back there’s written another chapter.’

‘Sequel, more like. Never as good as the original. I mean from the look of it, he couldn’t even be bothered to write himself new lines, just used his dad’s.’

‘What about old Liam? How did he die?’

‘Natural causes. Got his three score and ten in, so nowt to concern us there. All you need to do, Pete, is get this wrapped up with minimum pain to the living.’

‘One way or another, they seem quite capable of inflicting enough pain on each other,’ said Pascoe. ‘This Mrs Kafka, if she married a Yank, how come she’s still living round here? He doesn’t happen to work at Ash-Mac’s, does he?’

It was a shot in the dark, or rather in the twilight when you see things dimly without always being certain what it is you’re looking at.

‘Aye. Boss man. Here, isn’t that the ambulance?’ Dalziel said, cupping his ear.

It was, thought Pascoe, one of his more pathetic attempts at diversion.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

‘No? It’s old age. Plays tricks on the senses,’ said the Fat Man sadly.

Pascoe smiled. When Dalziel played the ageing card, a wise man hoarded his trumps. Then all at once his own ear caught the wail of a siren drawing closer.

‘Thought I heard it,’ said Dalziel complacently. ‘Nice to know the cavalry sometimes does turn up in time.’

Then came another sound which had both men jumping to their feet.

The piercing yell of a baby, indignant at being launched from its warm safe haven into a strange, cold world.

Now it became a duet.

‘So much for the cavalry,’ said Pascoe as they hurried down the stairs.

The front door opened to admit two paramedics at the same time as Ellie appeared in the doorway of the lounge. Her hands were bloody, her expression exultant. She could have posed for the Triumph of Motherhood, thought Pascoe. Or Clytemnestra on bath-night.

‘Twins,’ she declared. ‘Boy and a girl.’

‘Excuse us, luv,’ said one of the paramedics, pushing past.

‘Everything OK in there?’ said Dalziel.