A Pinch of Snuff

‘’Cos there’s a lot of funny buggers about,’ completed Lorraine happily.

‘Well, I’m not one of them,’ said Pascoe. ‘I hope.’

He showed his warrant card, taking care to keep it masked from the few remaining mums.

‘You might well hope,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘What’s up?’

‘May I walk along with you?’ he asked.

‘It’s a free street. Lorraine, don’t you run on the road now!’

‘It’s about a film you made,’ said Pascoe. ‘Droit de Seigneur.’

‘Oh aye. Which was that one?’

‘Can’t you remember?’

‘They don’t often have titles when we’re making them, not real titles, any road.’

Briefly Pascoe outlined the plot.

‘Oh, that one,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s been suggested,’ said Pascoe, ‘that undue violence may have been used in some scenes.’

‘What?’

‘Especially in the scene where the squire beats you up, just before the US cavalry arrive.’

‘You sure you’re not mixing it up with the Big Big Horn?’ said Mrs Abbott.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Pascoe. ‘I was speaking figuratively. Before your boy-friend rescues you. You remember that sequence? Were you in fact struck?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘It’s six months ago, of course. How do you mean, struck?’

‘Hit on the face. So hard that you’d bleed. Lose a few teeth even,’ said Pascoe, feeling as daft as she obviously thought he was.

‘You are one of them funny buggers,’ she said, laughing. ‘Do I look as if I’d let meself get beaten up for a picture? Here, can you see any scars? And take a look at them. Them’s all me own, I’ve taken good care on ’em.’

Pascoe looked at her un-made-up and unblemished face, then examined her teeth which, a couple of fillings apart, were in a very healthy state.

‘Yes, I see,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mrs Abbott. You saw nothing at all during the making of the film that surprised you?’

‘You stop being surprised after a bit,’ she said. ‘But there was nowt unusual, if that’s what you mean. It’s all done with props and paint, love, didn’t you know?’

‘Even the sex?’ answered Pascoe sharply, stung by her irony.

‘Is that what it’s all about then?’ she said. ‘I might have known.’

‘No, really, it isn’t,’ assured Pascoe, adding, in an attempt to re-ingratiate himself, ‘I’ve been at your house by the way. I said I was a washing-machine salesman.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t want to stir anything up,’ he said, feeling noble.

‘For crying out loud!’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘You don’t reckon I could do me job without Bert knowing?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Pascoe, discomfited.

‘Bloody right not,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘And I’ll tell you something else for nothing. It’s a job. I get paid for it. And whatever I do, I do with lights on me, and a camera, and a lot of technicians about who don’t give a bugger, and you can see everything I do up there on the screen. I’m not like half these so-called real actresses who play the Virgin Mary all day, then screw themselves into another big part all night. Lorraine! I told you to keep off of that road!’

‘Well, thank you, Mrs Abbott,’ said Pascoe, glancing at his watch. ‘You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

‘No trouble, love,’ said Mrs Abbott.

He dug into his pocket and produced a ten-pence piece which he gave to Lorraine ‘for sweeties’. She waited for her mother’s nod before accepting and Pascoe drove off feeling relieved that after all he had not been categorized as a ‘funny bugger’, and feeling also that at the moment Jack Shorter would top his own personal list.

He needn’t have worried about his meeting. It started late because of the non-arrival of one of the senior members and was almost immediately suspended because of the enforced departure of another. Reluctantly Pascoe found a phone and rang Ellie to say that his estimate of a seven o’clock homecoming had been optimistic.

‘Surprise,’ she said. ‘Will you eat there?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said.

‘I was hoping you’d take me out. You get better service with a policeman.’

‘Sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘Better try an old boy-friend. See you!’

He replaced the receiver and went back to the conference room where Inspector Ray Crabtree of the local force told him they were scheduled to restart at seven.

‘Fancy a jar?’ asked Crabtree. He was a man of forty plus who had gone as far as he was likely to go in the force and had a nice line in comic bitterness which usually entertained Pascoe.

‘And a sandwich,’ said Pascoe.

‘Where do you fancy? Somewhere squalid or somewhere nice?’

‘Is the beer better somewhere squalid?’

‘No.’

‘Or the food cheaper?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice.’

‘Then somewhere nice.’

‘That’s a sharp mind you’ve got there, Pascoe,’ said Crabtree admiringly. ‘You’ll get on.’

‘Somewhere nice’ was the lounge bar of a large, plush and draughty hotel.