Ruling Passion Read online

  ‘No favour,’ said Backhouse. ‘I’m ringing from the station at Thornton Lacey. I’ve got one of your men here. A Sergeant Pascoe.’

  ‘Pascoe!’ said Dalziel, livelier now. ‘He’s not been crapping in the street again, has he?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Joke,’ sighed Dalziel. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Nothing really. He’s down here visiting some old friends.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So when he arrived this morning, three of the old friends were dead. Shotgun at close range.’

  Now there was a long silence.

  ‘Christ,’ said Dalziel finally. Another silence.

  ‘That’s rough,’ said Dalziel. ‘I don’t think he’s got enough old friends left to spare three.’

  Backhouse made a moue of distaste at the callousness of the comment, though he thought he detected a hint of real concern in the intonation. But he might have been mistaken.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Backhouse, ‘I’m just interested in confirming that he and Miss Soper didn’t arrive till this morning.’

  ‘She’s with him, is she?’ grunted Dalziel.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Vaguely. Hey listen, my lad, you’re not thinking Pascoe had anything to do with this, are you?’

  ‘Just checking, Andy. He says he got held up on a case last night.’

  ‘Too true, he did. He wasn’t best pleased, but he’s a dutiful lad. He was here till about nine-thirty. Then we had a drink till closing. That suit you?’

  ‘I think so. We haven’t had the PM yet, but the doctor was very certain it happened last evening. I wasn’t really concerned about the sergeant, but I wanted to be sure. He may be a great help to us.’

  ‘Now watch it!’ said Dalziel threateningly. ‘We’ve got work to do here too, you know. Nothing glamorous like a multi-murder, but someone’s got to catch thieves. And I need Pascoe. He’s due back Monday. I’ll expect him Monday.’

  ‘We do have experienced detectives of our own,’ said Backhouse drily. ‘No, the way he can help is with his knowledge of the missing man.’

  ‘Missing man?’

  ‘Didn’t I say? We’re one light. The host, the man whose cottage it is, Colin Hopkins. Your sergeant’s special mate.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dalziel. ‘You reckon him for it, then?’

  ‘I’d like to talk with him,’ said Backhouse cautiously.

  ‘I bet!! Anyway, what you’re saying is you want Pascoe to help pin this on his mate? You’re asking a bit much, aren’t you?’

  ‘It was his friends who died,’ said Backhouse quietly.

  ‘Well, he’s a good lad. Is he there? I’d better have a word.’

  What kind of grudging condolence did he propose? wondered Backhouse.

  ‘He’s with Miss Soper at the moment. She is badly shocked.’

  ‘Later then. But I want him Monday. Right? I’ll look for you on the telly!’

  Bloody old woman, thought Dalziel as he replaced the receiver. He scratched the back of his left calf methodically from top to bottom, but derived no relief. The itches you scratch are internal, someone senior enough to dare had once told him. He looked with distaste at the mound of files on his desk. Suddenly they seemed trivial. Stupid twats who spent good money on pretty ornaments, then didn’t take the trouble to look after them properly. Somewhere in that lot there was a pattern, a flawed system. There was always a flaw. A man lay at the bottom of that pile and they’d find him in the end. But today, this moment, it seemed trivial.

  It was a rare feeling for him. He wasn’t a man who took his work lightly. But now he stood up and went in search of someone to drink a cup of tea with and talk about football or politics.

  The enormity of what had happened had not struck Ellie for some time after her return to the cottage. She had not gone into the building but made her way along the side of the whitewashed garage into the garden. At the bottom of the dew-damp lawn, audible though not visible, ran a stream in a deep cutting, shaded by alders and sallows. The murmuring water, the morning-fresh garden unheated yet by the lemon sunlight, the flight of a white-browed blackbird from a richly laden apple-tree, all helped to make unreal the tableau formed by the man on his knees by the dead woman at the foot of the sundial. Only the gnomon of the dial, cutting the fragrant air like a shark’s fin, seemed to be of menace.

  Something shone, brighter than dewdrops, in the grass around the body. Pieces of broken glass. Her first concern was intimate, domestic. Pascoe’s trousers might be torn or, worse, his knees cut.

  She knew, and had known since she first looked from the window, that Rose was dead. Calling for an ambulance was a gesture, the drowning swimmer’s last clutch at the crest of the wave that will sink him. The ugliness of it, visible now as Pascoe laid the woman on the grass once more, was the greater shock. But even that she assimilated for the moment as she turned back to the cottage, looking for the others. Pascoe stopped her before she went in through the open french window.

  But it had been too late to stop her seeing what lay inside.

  The police-station at Thornton Lacey was merely the front ground-floor section of the pleasant detached house in which Constable John Crowther and his wife lived and which they would give up with great reluctance when Crowther reached retiring age in a couple of years. Neither he nor his wife was particularly impressed by the arrival of major crime in their little backwater. There was nothing in it for the constable except trouble. At this late stage in his career, not even personal solution of the crime and apprehension of the criminal could bring him promotion. But he was a conscientious man and, unasked, was already preparing for the superintendent a résumé of all local information he felt might be pertinent.

  His wife, a craggy woman whose outward semblance belied her good-heartedness, took one look at Ellie on her arrival at the station and led her into the kitchen for tea and sympathy. Ellie had deteriorated rapidly under the treatment (a necessary process, well understood by Mrs Crowther) and by the time Pascoe came away from Backhouse, she had been given a mild sedative by the doctor and removed to a bedroom.

  Doctor Hardisty, a rangy, middle-aged man whose unruly grey hair gave him a permanently distraught look, met Pascoe at the kitchen door. They had encountered once already at Brookside Cottage.

  ‘You all right?’ he now asked diffidently.

  ‘Fine,’ said Pascoe. It wasn’t altogether a lie. The act of signing the coolly formulated statement had produced a temporary catharsis. Momentarily the morning’s discoveries had been reduced to the status of a ‘case’. He even found himself prompted to question the doctor about his examination of the bodies, but decided against it. Hardisty was the local man, living and practising in the village. By now the bodies would be on their way to the mortuary and the probing knife of the pathologist.

  By now Timmy and Carlo and Rose would be on their way …

  He nipped the thought off smartly.

  ‘Miss Soper?’ he asked. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Resting upstairs. I’ve given her something.’

  ‘May I see her?’

  ‘If she’s awake. It’s straight ahead on the landing.’

  Pascoe turned and began to climb the stairs.

  Ellie opened her eyes as he came through the door. Her dress was draped tidily over a chair and she lay under a patchwork quilt in her slip.

  ‘OK, love?’ said Pascoe, taking her hand.

  ‘Doped to the back teeth,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to sleep. It’s always worse remembering when you wake up.’

  ‘You’ve got to sleep,’ he said gently. The sight of her lying there so palely moved him almost as deeply as the discovery of the three corpses had done.

  She nodded as though he had performed some feat of subtle persuasion, and closed her eyes. But as he opened the door to leave, she spoke again.

  ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Where’s Colin? He’s got to be told.’

  ‘It’s all in hand,’ he said reassuringly. �
��Sleep now.’

  On the stairs he felt dizzy and had to pause, leaning heavily on the banister. It was certainly in hand, the business of finding Colin. But the searchers’ motives were far from humane.

  ‘You OK, Sergeant?’ said Backhouse from the foot of the stairs. He sounded more concerned than the doctor had done.

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Pascoe, descending.

  ‘Miss Soper asleep?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Backhouse looked closely at him, his thin scholarly face solicitous, assessing.

  ‘I’m going back to the cottage. The lab boys should be finished now. I wondered if you felt up to coming with me. I’d appreciate your assistance.’

  The ghost of a grin flitted involuntarily over Pascoe’s lips at this semi-formal courtesy. Fat Dalziel, his own superintendent, must have missed out on this part of the senior officers’ training course.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ he said.

  Some minor telepathy must have operated. As they climbed into the waiting car, Backhouse said, ‘I’ve been talking to Mr Dalziel on the phone.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He was naturally sorry to hear what had happened.’

  Naturally. But I bet the sod didn’t make the normal polite distressed noises. Backhouse was doing a translation job.

  ‘He says you’re too important to be spared past the week-end, but I would appreciate what help you can give me in that time.’

  Appreciate again. He was being given kid-glove treatment. You didn’t have to be a detective to work out why. But let them say it. He was damned if he was going to broach the matter.

  Them. With surprise Pascoe realized that he was thinking of the police as them.

  ‘Stop here,’ said Backhouse to his driver. The car pulled up outside a high-roofed, pebble-dashed building with narrow, church-like windows. A well-kept notice advertised that this was Thornton Lacey Village Hall. Beneath the gold and black lettering a typewritten sheet supplied the menu of activities that could be sampled in the hall during the current week. Last night, for instance, the Village Amenities Committee had met. And tonight the Old Time Dancing Group was scheduled to waltz, fox-trot, two-step, and polka its way down Memory Lane. But the light fantastic would have to be tripped somewhere else, thought Pascoe as he followed Backhouse into the building.

  The large musty-smelling room was full of activity. Shirt-sleeved policemen were arranging tables and two Post Office men were fixing up telephones. All the lights were on to supplement the meagre ration of sunlight the windows let in.

  ‘The station’s too small,’ said Backhouse. ‘Especially if this turns into a large scale operation. Which I hope it won’t.’

  He glanced sideways at Pascoe, then looked quickly away. A uniformed inspector came to meet them.

  ‘Anything new?’ Backhouse greeted him.

  ‘Just a couple of things, sir.’

  The inspector glanced assessingly at Pascoe, then led Backhouse away to the far end of the hall. Pascoe thought of following. He was desperately keen to discover what was going on but also very conscious of his ambiguous position. He was merely a witness, he had no official standing here.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

  The interrupter was a big man, barrel-chested and strong-jawed. He was wearing a polo-necked sweater and jodhpurs. Pascoe felt sorry for the horse that would have to carry that bulk which he estimated at fifteen stone. It was all pretty solid stuff. The man was in his forties but still a long way from turning to flab.

  ‘Well? Come on, man. Who’s in charge?’

  Backhouse’s attention had been caught and he came across to meet the man.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m Detective-Superintendent Backhouse. And you …?’

  ‘Angus Pelman. What the hell are you up to?’ asked the man in a rather more moderate tone.

  ‘We’re conducting a murder inquiry, sir,’ responded Backhouse. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard.’

  Yes, that is surprising, thought Pascoe. Over two hours had elapsed since the crime had been reported. He had no doubt that shortly – perhaps already – the TV cameras would be rolling and the press-men patrolling around Brookside Cottage. But Angus Pelman had contrived to remain ignorant till he entered the hall.

  He was also contriving to look completely taken aback at the news. When Backhouse filled in a few details, he sat down violently on the nearest chair.

  ‘The Hopkinses at Brookside Cottage?’ he repeated incredulously.

  ‘You knew them, sir?’ asked Backhouse.

  ‘I should do,’ Pelman answered. ‘I sold them the damned place.’

  A memory started up in Pascoe’s mind, beautifully clear. The cottage in Eskdale, six (or was it seven?) years ago. The owner had been a farmer who lived half a mile down the valley. He was a big, randy bastard, full of himself, and he took to dropping in from time to time – exercising his right of inspection, he claimed, though his main objects of inspection were clearly the two girls, particularly Rose. They suspected also that he visited the place while they were out walking on the fells. In the end they did something, some kind of joke … but the memory faded as quickly as it had come. He would have to ask Ellie.

  ‘Shot, you say? Both shot?’ said Pelman.

  ‘Not both the Hopkinses, sir. Mrs Hopkins, and their two guests.’

  ‘And Colin Hopkins?’

  ‘We hope to contact him soon, sir.’

  ‘You mean, he doesn’t know? But he was around yesterday evening. I saw him in the village.’

  Suspicion dawned, followed by outrage.

  ‘You’re not suggesting he had something to do with it, are you? Man, you’ve got to be mad. I haven’t known him long, but it’s out of the question!’

  Suddenly Pascoe liked him a lot better.

  ‘We’ve reached no conclusions yet, sir,’ answered Backhouse reasonably. ‘By the way, if you weren’t expecting to find us here, why did you come in?’

  Pelman looked puzzled.

  ‘Why did I …? Oh, here you mean. Simple. I’m the chairman of the Amenities Committee; we had a meeting last night and on the morning after these meetings, the secretary brings the minutes along here. She’s got them typed out by then. We check through them together, then pin them up on the notice board so that everybody can see what’s been going on.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Backhouse approvingly. ‘Nice.’

  He was looking towards the door as he spoke, and Pascoe, following his gaze, was uncertain whether he was commenting on the democratic process or the woman who stood there.

  She was nice, if you liked that kind of thing. Early thirties, well groomed brown hair, expensively but quietly dressed, good figure; Pascoe had no objection to any of these. But he felt himself antagonized by her look of amused self-possession as she surveyed the scene.

  Upper-middle class, certain of her place in the scheme of things, full of common sense and good works, committee woman, is or will be a magistrate, cardboard cut-out of the good Tory MP’s wife, or even the good Tory MP. Complacent bitch.

  Pascoe was surprised at the violence of his thoughts. And at the ridiculous speed of his entirely intuitive analysis. There was a spring of rage in him which would have to be tapped with the greatest care. He tried to wipe the slate clean and start again with this woman, but she seemed bent on confirming his conclusions.

  ‘Hello, Angus,’ she said in a clear, high-pitched, well-educated voice. ‘You’re well protected. The minutes aren’t that explosive, I hope.’

  She came forward holding a leather folder in her hand. So this was the secretary of the Amenities Committee. That figured.

  ‘Hello, Marianne. Haven’t you heard?’

  Pelman briefly told her what had happened. As he spoke, Pascoe observed the woman keenly. Two important members of the village community and neither had heard the news. He would have to revise his ideas about the tribal nature of the English village.

  ‘Would you like a seat, Mrs …
er …?’ asked Backhouse politely as Pelman finished.

  ‘Culpepper,’ supplied Pelman.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the woman. She did not look too overcome to Pascoe’s jaundiced eye, but then her upbringing probably laid great stress on the stiffness of upper lips. It worked both ways. She placed the leather folder on a nearby table, but it slipped and fell open to the floor. Pascoe picked it up and stood with it in his hands, glancing down at the neatly typewritten sheets. He took in the topmost of them with the casual ease of a thousand-words-a-minute man. It seemed to have been a lively meeting, mainly centred on the alleged pollution of the stream which ran through the village. Downstreamers suspected upstreamers of having inefficient or even extra cesspools. Upstreamers vehemently denied this. The water in question was presumably the brook which ran behind Brookside Cottage. The sundial in the garden rose vividly in his mind. Only the sunny hours …

  ‘I’ll take that,’ said Pelman, seizing the folder from Pascoe’s unresisting hand. ‘We won’t hold you up any more, Superintendent. Come on, Marianne. Let’s get you a stiff brandy in the Bird.’

  Exit John Wayne with the lady, thought Pascoe as the jodhpured man steered Marianne Culpepper doorwards by the elbow. She gently disengaged herself before passing out into the street.

  ‘Put someone on that door,’ said Backhouse mildly, ‘before they establish a right of way. I’ll be at the cottage.’

  He motioned Pascoe to move out before him, and let him wait by the car while he exchanged a few more words with the inspector. The street was surprisingly empty. The sun had grown warm as the morning progressed, but Pascoe shivered from time to time as he waited for Backhouse to come and start the short journey back to Brookside Cottage.

  Chapter 3

  Their driver parked the car on the grass verge about forty yards from the cottage. The assortment of vehicles scattered in the immediate vicinity prevented a closer approach.

  Three or four newspapermen intercepted the superintendent as he walked along the road. Locals mainly, Pascoe assessed. It was still too soon for anyone to have emerged from the chaos of Saturday morning London. But they would do. Three dead from shotgun wounds was too big to leave in the hands of a local runner.