Dalziel And Pascoe: A Clubbable Woman Part 8

'Any opposition? Right, carried. What about timing?'

'Week Friday'd be all right,' said Certes.

'Agreed? Right. Anything else?'

'Just one thing if I may, Willie.' Noolan glanced at his watch. If it had been anyone other than Connie . . . but he could hardly choke him off.

'Yes, Connie.'

Connon looked round the table for a moment as though choosing his words carefully. But they had been chosen for some little time already. 'Mr President,' he said, and the formality of his voice made the others pay him even closer attention. 'Yesterday, the day of my late wife's funeral, my daughter received an anonymous letter. I believe it came from someone connected with this Club.' Evans let out a long whistle. The others merely looked stunned. Then Noolan and Sid Hope both spoke at once.

'What grounds have you . . .?'

'What did it say . . .?'

They both tailed off.

'Your ball, I think, Willie,' said Hope. I'll answer you both. Or rather, I won't,' interjected Connon. 'I won't reveal my grounds. Nor will I tell you what the letter said. The writer already knows. It concerns no one else.' 'Well, Connie,' said Noolan expansively, 'I'm sure we're all very sensible of the strain of your situation and the shock this kind of thing, whatever it said, must have caused both you and Jenny. But I don't think that a committee meeting is the proper or best place to discuss this, do you? Let's close the meeting, then we can talk informally. This isn't the kind of thing we'd want to see in the minutes, is it?' 'Yes,' said Connon. 'It is. I'd like to propose that the writer of this letter when known should be barred for life from the Club.' 'You're being a bit b.l.o.o.d.y silly there, aren't you, Connie?' snorted Arthur Evans. 'I mean, how can you bar him from the Club if you don't know who it is, then?' He looked round, acknowledging the triumph of logic by a small rocking movement of the head. The others were looking at Connon, however, each doubtful what to say. Certes, the first team secretary and the youngest there, the man most likely to succeed Hurst as captain, had a rather different problem. He was the least well acquainted with Connon and had no intention of saying anything at the moment. His problem was knowing what to write. His pen rested, unmoving, on his notebook. 'Connie,' said Noolan finally, 'I don't think this is an admissible proposition. Firstly, Arthur's right. We can't bar someone we don't know.' 'I didn't say I didn't know him,' said Connon. Now jump, you b.u.g.g.e.rs. Now stare in wild surmise. This is that thing called change. Things will never be the same again. Till I let them.

Noolan was the only one who did not react.

'Then it is your plain duty to inform the police of your knowledge.'

'Haven't I just done that, Willie?'

Now there's one in the breadbasket for you, you old goat, thought Evans. That's got you nonplussed. Spend all your life hanging around on the edge of the scrum and it comes as a bit of a shock to get a pair of fingers up your nostrils. 'Our discussions at these meetings are minuted, Connie, and as such are published to our members.' 'I know. I haven't noticed Reg writing much for the past few minutes, though. Have you made a note of my proposition, Reg?'

Still without speaking, Certes began to scribble.

'Very well, Connie,' said Noolan resignedly. 'We have a motion proposed by Mr Connon. Is there a seconder?' The blare of music from the social room came in very loud. Connon felt a drum start beating in his head. The edge of pain began to intrude between the m.u.f.fled notes. He put up his hand and began to ma.s.sage his temple.

'Are you all right, Connie?' asked Hurst.

'Yes, fine. Just a headache.' The wheels were turning now. He hadn't felt anything for three days now. But it was back. McMa.n.u.s would have to do something. Old fool. Long past it. What can he know about . . .

I'll second it.'

Well, that's scuppered you, Willie.

It was Arthur Evans's distinctive lilt.

'In that case, unless there's any further discussion we'll take a vote.' 'Just one point,' said Hurst. 'What does it mean if we pa.s.s this motion?' 'Nothing until they catch this fellow, whoever he is. Then if he's in the Club, he gets thrown out. If he's not in, he can't get in.' 'We're still very much in the dark though, Connie. Can you a.s.sure us that the contents of this letter were such as make such action reasonable?' 'You know my daughter? They caused her very real distress. Actionable a.s.sertions were made.'

'Right-oh. Go on, Willie.'

'Let's have a vote then. Those in favour?' Firmly, Arthur's hand went up, Hurst's. Certe's. More slowly Hope's.

'And you, of course, Connie.'

'Of course. And you, Willie?' 'It's not part of my function to vote here, unless the meeting is deadlocked. Carried unanimously. Anything else? No? Then I declare the meeting closed.' They sat still for a second, then Evans stood up and pushed his chair back and the others followed.

'Let's get a drink,' said Evans.

'Just hang on a moment,' said Certes. 'I've got the tickets we ordered for the Welsh match at Twickenham next month. They're a bit scattered around - we must have been near the bottom of the pile, I'm afraid.' 'b.l.o.o.d.y inefficiency,' said Evans. 'It wasn't like this when I was secretary. Eh, Sid?' Too true. The nearest we ever got to Twickenham was Cardiff.'

Certes grinned amiably.

'Anyway, I've sorted them out so we can all sit next to our nearest and dearest.'

'With the best seats for committee members, of course?'

'But of course. Here you are Sid. Three it was, eh? One for you, Peter. Two for you, Willie.' He hesitated and a note of uncertainty came into his voice.

'And you too, Connie. There's two here for you.'

'Two?' said Connon. 'Let's go and have that drink,' said Noolan over-loudly. 'All this talking!' That's right,' said Connon, reaching over and taking the tickets. 'It was my turn to get Marcus's this year. I hope we can see this time. I was behind a post last year and the Irish scored three tries right on the other side of it.' Trust the b.l.o.o.d.y Irish. Second only to the Welsh in low cunning,' said Hurst. 'Are you sure you're OK, Connie?' he whispered to Connon as the others went ahead through the door. 'Yes. Just a bit of a head, that's all. I don't think I'll go through just yet, Pete. I'll catch you up in a minute or two.'

'OK, Connie. See you do. It's good to see you around again. We missed you at the selection meeting earlier. There's copies of the teams on the board there. I'd be interested to hear what you think.'

'I'll have a look.'

'Right. Don't linger too long, though. There's not much drinking time left.' From the far end of the social room, Superintendent Dalziel noted with interest the order of emergence from the committee meeting. 'Sit down, Willie,' he said to Noolan who was so deep in thought he'd almost walked past the table. 'What kept you so long?' Pascoe found Jacko Roberts fascinating and Roberts himself seemed to be almost obsessively interested in the (to him) paradoxical situation of a well-educated man joining the police-force.

'You went to college, did you?' he asked again.

'Yes. University.' 'Like them posh-talking b.a.s.t.a.r.ds over there in the corner?' 'Yes. That's right. Beneath this rough exterior lies the education of a posh-talking b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' 'But they'd make you a sergeant straightaway? No uniform or anything?' 'No. I had to spend the usual time on the beat, in uniform.'

'Directing traffic?'

'Yes. That too.' That's what your boss should be. Directing traffic. I can understand him, but your 'What's a nice guy like me doing in a dirty job like this? Well, I'm trying to get information out of you for a start.' For a while as Jacko's interest grew, Pascoe had seen the outline of a softer, happier, younger face beneath the deeply etched misanthropy of his usual expression. But now the mask returned - or the illusion faded.

'It's your round.'

Pascoe brought Roberts two pints.

'It'll save time.'

'What do you want to know?' 'Simple questions, really. Who'd want to harm Mary Connon?'

'Next question?'

'Who'd want to harm Connon?'

'Next?'

'Who's knocking off Gwen Evans?' He jerked his head slightly towards the other end of the bar where someone was describing to the lady in question some event which seemed to involve a great deal of grappling with her unresisting frame. It could have been anything from a dance routine to a loose maul.

'Anything else?'

That'll do for starters.'

Another half-pint gulp.

'I'm no b.l.o.o.d.y oracle. And I don't see why I should help you. But I'm big-hearted. That's why I'm so poor. Last first. That thing along the bar there, there's so many trying it's hard to say who's succeeding. But I'll tell you who Evans has elected front runner.' 'Yes?' 'Connon. That's right. The boy wonder. And that answers two of your questions, doesn't it?' Perhaps, thought Pascoe. Perhaps it answers three. More likely it doesn't answer any. Not a word of this before, not a hint; surely there'd have been a hint, a nod, a wink? Surely Dalziel would have known?

Perhaps Dalziel did know.

Or perhaps there was nothing to know. Perhaps Gwen Evans was as pure as the driven snow. Perhaps.

But it didn't matter. No woman could look like that without someone starting a rumour about her and someone. But there had been no mention of Connon exercising his talents there. Of course, there wouldn't be. You didn't mention that kind of thing to a detective investigating the death of a fellow club-member's wife. Especially when he was the best fly-half the club had ever had. No, it just wasn't done. Not unless you were a jumped-up b.a.s.t.a.r.d like Jacko Roberts. Or a woman. He hadn't talked to any women down here. But the place seemed full of them. Camp-followers. Regulars as regular in their attendance as any man. He'd have to pick one out. They had a different scale of loyalties.

'Do you believe it?' he asked.

'Me? I'd believe anything bad about anybody, if I didn't know they were all a load of b.l.o.o.d.y liars.' 'Evans, now. I thought he was an old mate of Connon's?' 'The first people you suspect are always your friends. Usually you're right.'

'Is Evans right?'

Jacko looked him in the eyes for the first time since they'd met. His head, ill-constructed out of sharp edges and loosely-hung skin, rested against the wall, out of place between two framed photographs of past successful teams, young men, glowing with health. 'Welshmen weren't born to be right. They were born to be b.l.o.o.d.y tragic.' He finished the second pint with a definitive swallow and the backward movement of his head shifted one of the pictures. Pascoe reached forward to straighten it. The fifteen young men smiled brigh ly at him. One face, happier than the others, caught his attention. He looked at the names underneath.

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'Connon?' He looked closer. Yes, unmistakable now. Connon's face looked back at him.

'He looks as if he'd been made King of the Harem.'

Now Jacko peered closely, this time at the date. 'He had,' he said. 'Twenty years old. Happy in the day time, happier in the night-time. Just picked for the first trial. Six weeks later he's bust his ankle and put this girl in the club. He wakes up one morning and though he doesn't know it, he must suspect it - the party's over. And no one's ever going to ask him to another.'

'Never?'

'Never. From now on he's a gatecrasher.' Jacko nodded sagaciously and rattled his gla.s.ses together. Pascoe smiled and shook his head. 'No thanks, Mr Roberts. I'll be getting on, I think. Thank you for the chat. Cheerio!' Let me find some nice little girl, with someone else's drink swilling inside her nice flat little belly, who'll talk and talk and talk, and be nice to look at. Or even just one who's nice to look at. I wonder where Jenny is? But when he turned to look, she was gone and Marcus was talking to someone else.

Ted Morgan had gone too.

The price of information was too high, decided Jenny. So far she had got no information and she had come dangerously near to paying the price. Ted Morgan's car was parked high above the town about five yards down a narrow cart-track which led off the road between two steeply sloping fields. Jenny was heartily relieved that the recent bad weather had made the track so muddy that even the pa.s.sionate and rather drunk Ted had not dared go any further.

They were not really out of the town. The hill, or knoU, they were on was almost completely surrounded below by two horns of suburb. The gossip was that the farmer who owned the land was merely hanging on till the price came up to his requirements, then some builder would carve out of the hillside a super executive-type estate, with views for fifteen miles and mortgages for fifty years. The only bit of information Jenny had got out of Morgan was that he 'knew' the builder was Jacko Roberts. It was obviously a popular site, if not for builders, then certainly for lovers. Four or five sets of headlights had blazed rudely into the neck of the lane, then turned in disappointment away. The sudden illumination did not seem to inhibit Ted, but Jenny found it comforting. She'd also refused to transfer from the front seat and the gear-lever, handbrake and steering-wheel were welcome allies. At the moment there was a truce. She lit her second cigarette. She didn't really smoke, but it was timeconsuming and also provided a potential weapon. Ted puffed energetically at his, uncertain yet whether to congratulate himself on being parked up here with this very attractive young girl, or to commiserate with himself for his failure to make more than token progress. 'Ted,' said Jenny brightly, 'how long have you known my father?' Morgan shifted uneasily. He didn't like any of the implications of the question. 'Oh, a good few years.'

'Are you one of his special friends?'

'I wouldn't say that. Not really. Not like Marcus. Or Arthur.'

'Owen's very pretty, isn't she?'

'So-so,' said Ted casually.

Jenny laughed and started coughing.

'Don't be so offhand,' she spluttered. 'You wouldn't say no, would you?'

He grinned.

'No, I don't suppose I would. Chance'd be a fine thing.' 'I suppose there's a lot of compet.i.tion for a pretty woman?' How the h.e.l.l do you get a man to gossip about your dead mother? she thought. I bet Pascoe could.

Ted grew enthusiastic.

'You bet there is. It can be fun.'

run?'

'Depends whether you join it, or watch it. Me, I weighed up my chances and decided to watch it. Then it's fun.' He's still talking about Gwen, she thought disappointedly. But what can I expect? If he knew what I wanted he'd be out of the car and away in a flash of shock. But I can't sit here all night. It'll be time for round two soon. Come on, my girl, you're supposed to be a budding teacher. Skilful questioning of the child can make him tap sources of knowledge he didn't know he had. But it'd be easier to give him a work-card. Tell me, Ted,' she began, but he wasn't finished yet. Like the good gossip he was, he had merely been marshalling the various elements of his anecdote to their best advantage. 'You should have been there last Sat.u.r.day night. Arthur starts looking at his watch about seven. She should have been there by then. He doesn't go home after the game, you see, not worth it, has his tea here and starts straight in on the beer. Well, I was there, behind the bar, standing in for Marcus, for a few minutes he said, more like two hours, so I saw it all develop. He'd look at his watch, then at the clock on the wall, then at his watch. Finally about quarter to eight he shoots through to the other room and finds d.i.c.k and Joy Hardy there, they were supposed to be picking Gwen up and bringing her round. But it turns out she wasn't in. So he comes back through trying to look unconcerned. But he's shooting some pretty piercing glances around, I tell you. I let him see me there bright and clear!'

He paused to chuckle.

'Why?' asked Jenny in puzzlement.

Ted sighed at the stupidity of women.

'Because those who were there couldn't be where his old woman was, could they?'

'And who wasn't there?'

Suddenly the impetus of Ted's narrative seemed to fail. 'Oh, lots,' he said without enthusiasm. 'I mean, I couldn't see, could I?' 'But you were behind the bar? That means Uncle Marcus wasn't there.' Ted cheered up. That's right. He wasn't. Though I can't imagine Marcus . . . anyway it doesn't matter.' He reached over and put his arm round her shoulders, more paternalistically than pa.s.sionately.

'Is that the end of the story, then? It's a bit pathetic.'

'Pathetic? Yes, I suppose it is. You've got to feel sorry for him, haven't you? I'm sure there's nothing to any of it, really. Anyway, let's talk about something interesting, like you and me.' Poor Ted, she thought. He's just remembered what happened last Sat.u.r.day night. But it's more than that, isn't it? He's remembered that Daddy wasn't there either; he's remembered who he's talking to and he's just sober enough to mind his p's and q's. Does he really know something about Daddy and Gwen? I wonder. Or is it all in that cotton-wool mind? She half turned to look at the figure beside her and this proved a near fatal mistake.

Ted mistook the move completely and his other arm came round with an enthusiasm which had nothing paternal in it. Jenny found herself dragged uncomfortably over the gear-stick and hand-brake, her left cheek was pressed in against her teeth by the pressure of an ardent but misdirected kiss and she felt a b.u.t.ton on her cardigan give with a violence which boded ill for Marks and Sparks cowering beneath. Round two, she thought, and I didn't even hear the bell. Now this long metal rod with the k.n.o.b on the end which is doing G.o.d knows what damage to my pelvis is the gear-lever. From the freedom of play it seems to have in relation to my belly it must be in neutral. This other more rigid lever which is gouging a hole in the knee of my tights must be the hand-brake. Therefore if I move my hand down there, poor Ted, he's shifting out of the way, G.o.d knows what he imagines I'm going to do, there we are, rather stiff, but there she goes, I think. It took Ted several seconds to realize the car was moving. Jenny clung to him tightly, partly to delay his attempts to remedy the situation, partly to buffer herself against any possible impact. By the time he got his foot to the brake pedal they were down among the mud and the car slid on for several yards before coming to a halt. Below them the lights of the town twinkled unconcernedly on. Jenny had a very poor topographical imagination and needed to apply herself with great concentration to the task of relating the main lines of street lights to her own knowledge of the town. It was a task she devoted herself to while Ted with a most ungentlemanly violence of language put the car into reverse and tried to back up the lane. The wheels spun in the mud-lined cart-tracks. Jenny let them spin on for a while; but she was above all things a sensible girl and had no desire to find herself irretrievably stuck. That would be jumping out of the frying-pan into a raging inferno. 'Why don't you,' she said in the ultra-kind voice she reserved for very recalcitrant children, 'get out, put some branches or stones or something under the wheels, then start pushing? I will drive. I do have a licence and I'm really quite good.' Without a word, Ted climbed out of the car and began pulling at the hedgerow. Jenny felt quite sorry for him.

She wound down the window.

T think we'll need some more branches,' she said. Dave and Alice Fernie were walking like a couple of children down the private side of Boundary Drive. They were hand in hand, about a yard apart, swinging their joined hands high and indulging in a tug-of-war every time they encountered a lamp-post or a tree. Alice screamed with laughter as Fernie gave her a jerk which pulled her forward so hard that her left shoe stayed behind, its heel bedded deep in the gra.s.s verge. 'Oh-Dave-you-silly!' she half-panted, half-laughed, hopping towards him as he retreated, holding her at arm's length, but didn't finish for he let her catch up, caught all her weight to his body and kissed her pa.s.sionately. It had just been an ordinary night, starting like a hundred others. They had walked to the local pub, about half a mile into the estate, to have a couple of drinks with a handful of old acquaintances. But things had gone absolutely right from the start, contrary to usage. Perhaps the Christmas decorations in the pub had helped. Dave had had just the right amount of drink, he hadn't been tempted to display his superior knowledge in argument; he hadn't produced any slanderous gossip, he hadn't felt it necessary to demonstrate his virility by being overattentive to someone else's wife. He had irritated no one, offended no one; he had been moderate in speech, witty in comment, generous in purchase and was now obviously amorous in intent. There was a sharp edge of frost in the air. Above, clouds ragged as crows' wings beat across the sky, turning the moon into a pale flower drifting beneath the sea. When for a moment it floated into a clear patch of the sky, it turned to silver the branches and few tenacious leaves of the tree against which they now leaned. There had been nights like this years ago, when they were younger, before there was a house and a television set, before they were married. Memories real as the rough bark pressing against the back of her hands came crowding into her mind. But she did not speak them. Dave did not like the past and she was not going to risk losing any part of the present. The wind rose suddenly and her foot began to feel the cold. Gently she pulled away. I'll get my shoe, Dave, and we'll get on home,' she said.

'Right, love.'

His arm was round her waist now as they walked on, quietly, antic.i.p.atingly. It was darker on this side of the road. The trees, the older less efficient lamp-posts, all contributed. Ahead they could see the telephone-box which stood almost outside their gate. They didn't need one till the hoi polloi came,' Fernie had once commented.When he was in the mood, everything appeared as evidence of the difference between 'us' and 'them'. Now it looks like a beacon, welcoming us home, thought Alice, though not without a wry glance at her own romanticism. They were nearly there and she turned to cross the road. But he pulled her back and leaned her against another tree.

'Dave!' she said.

He kissed her again.

'Afraid of the neighbours?' 'Of course not. I'm afraid of me. There's some things you can't do out on the street.'

'Why not?' he whispered. 'It'd be fun.'

'Oh, you fool,' she murmured.

They kissed once more.