Recalled to Life

‘Sir, it’s half past. We’re due in the gym with Sergeant Rigg.’

He knew Sergeant Rigg. A no-neck Welshman with a black belt and a short way with latecomers.

‘You’d better go, then.’

He looked at his notes. He still had three sides to go. Before she left, Ellie had warned him to go easy on the midnight oil. (Trying to offer a pastoral substitute for scarcer emotional goods?) He pushed the distasteful thought away and concentrated on her words.

‘You start by thinking if you speak very slowly you might spin it out for five minutes. You end by gabbling so fast you’re incomprehensible, and even then you’ve still got bucketfuls of pearls left uncast.’

He poured them back into his briefcase and followed the cadets from the room.

‘Pete, how’d it go?’

It was Jack Bridger, the grizzled Chief Inspector in charge of Mid-Yorkshire cadet training programme.

‘So-so. I didn’t find them very responsive.’

Bridger regarded him shrewdly and said, ‘They’re just ordinary lads, not post-grad students. At that age all you think about is fucking and football. Secret is to ask the right questions. Talking of which, sounds like they’re going to be asking some funny questions about this Mickledore Hall business.’

‘They’ve started. Full inquiry. Fellow called Hiller, Deputy Chief from South Thames, is leading it. Turned up yesterday even though the official announcement of the inquiry hasn’t been made yet.’

‘Hiller? That wouldn’t be Adolf Hiller, would it?’

He pronounced the name with a long A.

‘This one’s called Geoffrey, I think. Smallish fellow with crooked teeth. Looks as if he’s stolen his suit.’

‘That’s him! Adolf was just his nickname. He were a sergeant here way back, but not for long. Too regimental for old Wally Tallantire. That’s how he got his nickname. Some joker started changing his name on notices and lists to Hitler, and it soon caught on.’

‘But he couldn’t have been here during the Mickledore Hall case, surely, or he’d not have got this job?’

‘No, it was after that. He got moved around like pass the parcel. He were one of those fellows, you couldn’t fault his work, but you couldn’t thole his company.’

Pascoe said, ‘I never knew Tallantire. What was he like? Cut a few corners, would he?’

‘That’s the way the wind blows, is it? Well, it figures. Scapegoats are like lawyers. The best ’uns is dead ’uns. As for cutting corners, well, Wally would certainly go the shortest way, once he got a target in his sights. And the Mickledore Hall case was his golden hour by all accounts, the one he reckoned he’d be remembered for. But there’s a difference between cutting corners and carving people up.’

‘So you reckon he was straight?’

‘On the whole, I’d say so. I’ll tell you one thing, but. Fat Andy won’t take kindly to anyone casting aspersions. Wally was his big hero, he took Andy under his wing, and it needed a pretty broad wing, believe me!’

Pascoe grinned and said, ‘A bit wild, was he?’

‘Wild? He’s a dormouse to what he were! He’d still be pounding a beat if it weren’t for Wally. But Wally was flying high after the Mickledore case, and Andy flew with him.’

Pascoe mused on these things as he headed back to Headquarters. He tried to imagine Dalziel as a wild young thing in need of protection but all he could get was Genghis Khan in short pants. The image made him smile. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, he felt good.

He turned a corner. Ahead, rearing out of a rough sea of rooftops, he glimpsed the huge grey front of the cathedral tower. His mouth felt dry. He tried to make spittle and swallow but couldn’t. The palms of his hands were sweating so that the wheel felt slimy against them. The tower seemed to be swelling to fill the sky, while the car shrank around him to a biscuit tin. He braked hard, pulled in to the side, felt the wheels hit the kerb. His heart was racing like an engine with a stripped gear. His left hand fumbled for the seat-belt release, his right for the door handle. His fingers felt weak and unconnected with his mind, more vegetable than flesh, but somehow the door was open, the belt released and he swung his legs out of the car. An overtaking cyclist had to swerve sharply to avoid collision. She went on her way, swearing over her shoulder. Pascoe paid no heed. He forced his head between his knees and drew in great ragged breaths. After a while he managed to get some rhythm into his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, long, slow inhalations and exhalations. His heart too was slowing, his salivary glands resumed a limited service, and his hands began to feel less like a bunch of radishes bound loosely to his wrists.

When strength returned to his legs, he stood up and walked unsteadily around the car. He forced himself to think about his lecture to the cadets, what he should have told them about criminal investigation, what he shouldn’t have wasted time telling them. The sun was pleasantly warm on his skin, the air tasted good. At last he felt able to get back in and drive away. But he didn’t let his gaze drift up to the skyline again.

A mile away, a van was backing into Pascoe’s spot in the HQ car park. The driver got out and went into the building. Sergeant George Broomfield on the desk said, ‘Can I help you?’

‘Why not? Sergeant Proctor, South Thames. I’m with Mr Hiller’s mob. Got some gear outside in the van. Any chance of a lift?’

His cockney chirpiness grated on Broomfield’s ear, which would have surprised Proctor who came from Ruislip.

‘Doubt it,’ he said. ‘Not for a while, any road. I don’t think I’ve got a body free.’

Suddenly Dalziel was there. How a man of his girth could be sudden, Broomfield never knew, but when he wanted he could lurk like a Brazilian striker.

‘George, what are you saying? Cooperation’s the key word here. Isn’t that young Hector I see through there playing with himself? Send him out to help. Fragile stuff, is it, Sergeant?’

Proctor, recognizing the weight of authority, said, ‘Yes, sir. Couple of computers, software, hardware, that sort of thing.’

Broomfield was looking alarmed. Not even a cockney deserved PC Hector, who didn’t break cups when he washed up, he broke sinks.

‘Computers, eh?’ said Dalziel. ‘Then Hector’s your man. Strong as an ox. Hector! Come on out here!’

He stood by the desk till Proctor and the bewildered-looking constable had gone into the car park. Then he said very seriously to Broomfield, ‘These people are our guests, George. We’ve got to take care of them,’ and set off up the stairs.

He’d reached the first landing when he heard the first crash, and its accompanying cry of anguish followed him all the way up to the second.

He smiled and went on his way to Sergeant Wield’s room.

‘Don’t get up,’ he said to the Sergeant who hadn’t moved. ‘The lad not back yet?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Bloody nuisance. I wish he’d not volunteer all the time for these skives.’

Wield, who knew very well that it was Dalziel who had volunteered Pascoe for the cadet lecture (‘right up your street, being a Master of Ceremonies or whatever it is you are’), said nothing.

‘Tell him to drop in when he gets back, will you?’ Dalziel hesitated at the door, then went on, ‘Matter of no importance, but how’s he been looking to you lately?’

‘Bit rough,’ said Wield. ‘He’s not really been himself since that lass jumped off the cathedral tower. It seemed to knock all the stuffing out of him, somehow.’

‘Certainly knocked the stuffing out of her,’ said Dalziel.

He stared hard at Wield’s inscrutably craggy features as though challenging him to reprove his callousness, but the Sergeant just held his gaze unflinchingly.

‘Right,’ said Dalziel. ‘Well, keep an eye on him, eh? I know I can rely on your feminine intuition.’

He went on to his own office, opened a drawer, and took out the glass of Scotch he’d been drinking when he’d noticed the South Thames van pulling into the car park below his window. He was just finishing it when the door burst open and Hiller came in.

‘Well, come on in, Geoff,’ said Dalziel pleasantly. ‘Have a seat. Getting settled in, are you?’

Hiller remained standing.