Читать книгу An Advancement of Learning - Reginald Hill - Страница 11

Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she could come to it?

SIR FRANCIS BACON

Op. Cit.

Sam Fallowfield sat in a deckchair in front of his cottage which looked down over the shingle to the level sands and the very distant sea. When the tide went out here, it kept on going till an onlooker could have doubts whether it ever meant to return. The cottage was solidly built of massive blocks of dark grey stone. It had been whitewashed at some stage but the salt and sand-laden winter gales had long ago stripped away this poor embellishment. It was an end cottage of a block of four, each of which had a small garden at the front and a shared cobbled yard behind. The other three were used only as holiday bases, one by the owner of the block only, while the other two were rented out by the week during the summer. Fallowfield alone lived there all the year round and had done so for the past five years ever since arriving at Holm Coultram.

It was early evening. Soon the holiday-makers, temporarily his neighbours, would be returning from whatever exciting expedition they had so noisily launched that morning. But for the moment he had the place to himself. One or two featureless figures were distantly visible in pursuit of the sea. And away to his right a thin flag fluttered on an elevated plateau to mark the outermost boundary of the golf course. The college was completely out of sight more than half a mile inland.

It was a situation to make a man as indifferent to society as Fallowfield sigh with contentment.

He sighed.

‘That sounds as if it comes from the heart, Sam,’ said a voice behind him.

‘Come and sit down, Henry,’ he said without looking round. ‘You’ll find a beer and another chair behind the door.’

Gratefully Henry Saltecombe lowered himself in the deckchair which he erected with a deftness unpromised by his podgy hands.

‘Hope I’m not obtruding, my dear fellow, but I felt like a constitutional before driving back to the bosom of my family.’

Henry had a pleasant detached house on a modern estate about eight miles down the coast. It overflowed with four children, a dog, a cat, and his wife. He loved them all dearly but was rarely in a hurry to return home to them. He had married late when the habit of peace and solitude had long since moulded itself comfortably around his shoulders, and it was not easily to be torn away.

‘What happened to you then?’ Henry asked after he had opened a can of light ale and jetted it expertly into the O of his mouth. ‘I noticed you disappeared when all the excitement started. The Law has arrived in all its majesty, controlled by a corpulence in excess even of mine. There have been comings and I have no doubt there will be goings. I have even seen one or two students with facial expressions distantly related to alert, intelligent interest. Simeon suspects it’s an act of Walt, and Walt firmly believes it’s an act of God.’

‘And the police?’

‘The police are less public about their suspicions. But it is exciting. At first I thought it was merely some animal remains. But it appears to be certainly human. I myself think the solution is simple.’

‘How?’

‘I have no doubt it will turn out to be a student jape. They knew all about the garden controversy. It was no secret and even if it had been, they have a supremely efficient intelligence system, if only in the military sense. So they get some bones, an anatomical specimen perhaps, and they bury them beneath the statue. What fun! Something to enliven a long, dull, very hot term.’

Fallowfield grinned wryly.

‘I should have thought the term had been sufficiently enlivened already.’

Henry was immediately apologetic.

‘My dear fellow, I never thought … that business is far too serious for anyone to be entertained by it.’

Fallowfield twisted in his chair so that he could see the other’s face. Its rotundities were set in a pattern of sympathetic seriousness.

‘Come off it, Henry. It’s the most entertaining thing that’s happened here in years. One of the few consolations I have in it all is the pleasure I know I am giving my colleagues.’

Henry shook his head in protest, then began laughing. Fallowfield joined in.

‘You see,’ he said.

‘No, Sam,’ said Henry. ‘It’s you. You just don’t strike one as a career man, so how can I worry about your career being ruined? It’s the effect on you personally that matters and you give a damn good impression of not giving a damn. Which makes it easier to spectate.’

‘Enjoy yourself as much as you can,’ said Fallowfield. ‘Who knows whose turn it’ll be next?’

He said it lightly, but it stopped the conversation for a minute.

‘You did bed the girl, didn’t you, Sam?’ asked Henry finally.

‘I’ve never denied it,’ replied the other.

‘Here?’ He indicated the cottage.

Fallowfield shrugged.

‘Up against a tree. Out among the dunes. In the principal’s study. What difference does it make where?’

‘She always struck me as a nice sort of girl.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘Every detail makes some difference, Sam,’ said Henry earnestly. ‘There’s a difference between casual promiscuity and a real love affair. And between malevolence and malleability. She says you conspired to get rid of her. I know this couldn’t be true. Now, does she really believe it, or is she merely being used?’

‘Used? How?’ Fallowfield’s tone was sharp.

‘Politically, I mean. Things have been quiet here for a while. They seem to have got all they wanted. But people like that youth Cockshut are never satisfied. And there’s something about Roote I don’t like either. They could be looking for another excuse to start trouble again.’

‘Is that all?’ Fallowfield laughed. ‘I suppose it might be something like that.’

‘You don’t seem much concerned.’

‘Why should I be? It’s all a game, isn’t it? It’s about as real as that.’

He pointed towards the distant flag which was being held now by one unidentifiable figure while another tried to strike an invisible ball into the hole. From his demeanour it seemed likely he had missed.

‘You’re talking of the game I love,’ said Henry, glad to be able to shift from the seriousness of the past couple of minutes.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Fallowfield with a smile. ‘I try never to be frivolous about other people’s games, then they won’t be amused or offended by mine. Games are all metaphors after all, and often euphemistic at that. Ah, here comes happiness.’

A large shooting brake was jolting down the track which curved for a couple of furlongs from the metalled road down to the cottages. Even at a distance the car windows seemed incredibly crowded with faces.

‘Four adults, seven children,’ observed Fallowfield, ‘I still don’t know who belongs to whom. Adults or children. They go soon, thank God.’

‘I must be off this minute,’ said Henry, rising. ‘Thanks for the beer. Oh, by the way, I brought you some mail from your pigeon-hole. I didn’t know whether you would be in tomorrow. Not much. And one looks like your luncheon bill. You must come and have a bit of supper with us one night next week. Let me know when’ll suit you. ’Bye.’

‘I will. ‘Bye.’

They both knew he wouldn’t. He never did.

Henry made his way back through the cottage and out into the courtyard, waving his walking-stick with mock ferocity at the tidal race of small bodies which poured out of the now arrived car.

Behind him on the other side of the house, Fallowfield’s face had once more lost all trace of the animation it had held during Henry’s visit.

He was staring down at the single sheet of paper he had taken from the first envelope he had opened.

It was headed by that day’s date. The message was simple.

‘I must see you tonight.’

It was signed ‘Anita’.

Dalziel did not receive the report on the bones until after 7 P.M. Pascoe, anticipating fall-out from his superior’s wrath, had rung the lab at 5.30 to discover the report had been sent to the superintendent’s office. He re-routed it before reporting to Dalziel, who was much less condemnatory than might have been expected.

‘Limited minds,’ he said. ‘Specialization means you can only think about one thing in one way. I’m not specialized.’

‘No, sir,’ said Pascoe.

‘Traffic problems to pornographic films at Buckingham Palace. I’ll deal with them all. Now you, Pascoe. You’re in a dangerous position.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Dalziel had had another half hour alone with Landor. Pascoe reckoned the principal had been foolish enough to bring out the bottles. We all learn from our mistakes.

‘You’ve got specialized knowledge. Or think you have. Without being in a specialized job. You’ve got this … whatever it is …’

‘Degree, sir,’ said Pascoe helpfully.

‘I know it’s a bloody degree. But in something, isn’t it?’

‘Social sciences.’

‘That’s it. Exactly. Which equips you to work well in …’

‘Society, sir?’

‘Instead of which you have to work in …’

‘Society, sir?’

There was a long pause during which Dalziel looked at the sergeant more in sorrow than in anger.

‘That’s what I mean,’ he said finally. ‘You’re too bloody clever by half.’

Neither ‘yes’, nor ‘no’ seemed suitable here, so Pascoe preserved a diplomatic silence.

‘I’m stopping here,’ said Dalziel suddenly. ‘Landor’s fixed me up with a room. It’s a long drive home.’

To nothing, thought Pascoe. Dalziel seemed to read the thought.

‘You might as well stay too. There’s no reason for you to go back, is there?’

‘No, sir.’

Pascoe had had a date that night, but he had put it off hours earlier as he saw the way things were going. It had been a pity. He had felt certain he wouldn’t have had to spend that particular night alone in his flat.

‘Right. Then you’ll be at hand. They’re going to give us dinner in here. I think we’re a bit low for High Table. Conversation-killers, that’s what we are. Even you, Pascoe, who might have been One Of Them.’

Pascoe again skirted round the comment.

‘What about the principal, sir? Isn’t he going to want this room back pretty soon?’

Dalziel frowned.

‘I hope we’ll be able to give it to him pretty soon. But evidently part of these flash new buildings you see going up around the place is a new administrative centre. He’s quite happy to have an excuse to start in there ahead of schedule.’

‘Odd,’ said Pascoe. ‘This is … nice.’

He looked around the comfortably proportioned, panelled room.

‘Doesn’t fit the new image, I expect,’ said Dalziel. ‘We’re still in Miss Disney-Land.’

He laughed loudly at his own joke, his flesh shaking till he started an itch in the small of his back. This he erased against the corner of the desk, grunting with satisfaction.

Dinner arrived early, about 6.45, and they were sawing through some rather stringy beef when the lab-report was delivered.

‘You read it,’ said Dalziel carrying on with his meal.

‘Well?’ he said through a mouthful of apple crumble a few minutes later.

‘Female, middle-aged, been in the ground a few years, five or six would fit nicely. Skull is fractured in two or three places, probably the result of blows with a heavy instrument and almost certainly contributory factors in the death, there’s a lot of technical stuff about the bones which isn’t going to be of much help, she wasn’t a hunchback, or lame or anything like that. Height about 5′ 6″. A big-boned woman, normal weight expectation 9 to 9½ stone, but they can’t make a guess at whether she was relatively fat or thin, size 5½–6 in shoes, size 7½ in gloves. That’s interesting, left leg has been broken twice, but old breaks.’

‘Accident prone,’ volunteered Dalziel, scraping the remnants of custard from his plate noisily. ‘What else?’

‘The mouth should be a help. No less than three gold fillings, one a fairly complex job.’

‘We’ll need that dentist. Your Mrs Farish is the only one of your probables that the age fits. Anything more?’

‘Yes. That red hair. It was a wig. Or what was left of a wig. Real hair, mind you, but treated, and remnants of the binding fabric still remained. That could help.’

Dalziel was unimpressed.

‘Too many bloody wigs about these days. You never know whether what you’ve got hold of is going to come away in your hand or not. What about clothes etcetera?’

‘Well, there were traces of fabric in the earth samples we sent along and they’ll let us know if they can make any definite pronouncements on the buttons, bits of metal and so on we picked up. They reckon the body was fully clothed and wrapped up in something, a blanket or a piece of curtaining. But they’re still working on it.’

Dalziel poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred in two large spoonfuls of sugar.

‘The first thing then is for you to go and see that dentist. It’s a long chance, but at the least it will eliminate Mrs Farish. And then …’

‘Then?’

‘Then we’ll have to visit every dentist and doctor in the area. And eventually between here and Central Europe if necessary. Unless we get something else. Well, you might as well be off. You won’t want to finish that, will you? It’s cold.’

‘I thought it was a bit off as well. Didn’t you?’ was the best Pascoe could do as he pushed back his chair.

Dalziel merely grinned, then grimaced as he took a mouthful of hot coffee.

‘Shall I make you an appointment while I’m there?’ asked Pascoe, and closed the door without waiting for a reply.

The dentist’s name was Roberts. He was a round-shouldered gangling man with a small head and a hooked nose. Spider-like, was the thought which came into Pascoe’s mind. He shouldn’t have cared to be loomed over professionally by this sinister figure.

Roberts was not happy at being removed from in front of his television set. It was a song-and-dance show. Perhaps it was close-ups of the singers’ mouths he found so interesting, thought Pascoe, his stomach moving uneasily as the smell of the surgery caught at his imagination.

Roberts had been warned on the telephone that there might be an interest in Mrs Farish’s dental record.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘I can’t keep things for ever. It would have gone soon. It took me forty-odd minutes to find it as it was. And I don’t need to look at it again to tell you it’s nothing like this.’

He waved the piece of paper on which Pascoe had copied down the relevant details from the lab-report.

‘Really, sir? Why?’

‘Well; those gold fillings. Now this one, at the front here, that was probably essential, nothing else would do the trick. So you’d get it on the National Health, you see? But these two. Not necessary at all. Someone paid for that work.’

‘And it wasn’t you that did it?’

‘No. Well, as far as I can remember. But I think I would, wouldn’t I?’

‘I’ve no idea, sir. I’d be grateful if you could have your records checked. We’ll be asking everyone.’

‘More work. All right then. I’ll have a look.’

He turned to the door. Pascoe didn’t budge.

‘Now, sir, would be as good a time as any. While we’re here. It’ll save me coming back.’

Roberts was displeased.

‘Look, here! I’ll get my receptionist … this is out of working hours.’

Pascoe felt his own resistance stiffening, which he knew was foolish. He just was not in the mood for the Robertses of the world that night.

‘Hello, Julian, here you are,’ said a voice from the door. ‘I saw a light so I came through. What’s this? An emergency?’

The newcomer was in his forties, a strongly-built distinguished-looking man with an engaging smile.

‘Oh no. It’s nothing. The police. This is my partner, James Jackson. This is …’

‘Sergeant Pascoe, sir. We’re hoping that someone in your way of business will be able to help us by recognizing this set of teeth. Unfortunately it will probably be more than five years ago since they received treatment.’

Roberts seemed to have diminished since the arrival of his partner.

‘James is more the man for you,’ he said irritably. ‘He gets most of our private patients.’

Jackson laughed.

‘You’re too modest, Julian,’ he said. Pascoe doubted it. ‘Let’s have a look.’

He took the description of the dead woman’s jaws from the sergeant’s hands and glanced at it, casually at first, then with growing interest.

‘Now wait a minute,’ he said.

‘You recognize it?’ said Pascoe, hardly daring to hope.

‘It rings a faint bell. The gold work, you see. But it’s absurd … let’s see.’

He glanced rapidly through the drawers of the filing cabinet before him.

‘No, no,’ he said, nonplussed.

‘Perhaps where Mr Roberts got Mrs Farish’s record …’ prompted Pascoe.

Roberts pointed wordlessly to the bottom drawer of an old wooden cabinet shoved almost inaccessibly into a corner. Jackson got down on one knee and began to toss out an assortment of papers with gay abandon.

Suddenly the fountain of stationery ceased.

‘Now wait a minute,’ he said again, this time triumphantly. ‘How about that? The artist always recognizes his own work!’

He held a record card in his hand. As he stood up, his expression turned from triumph to polite bewilderment.

‘Tell me, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Just what is the nature of the enquiry you’re making?’

Pascoe didn’t reply, but almost rudely took the card from the dentist’s hands.

The diagram and its symbols meant little to him. He’d have to take the dentist’s word that it checked with his own written description. And of course it would be double-checked by a police-surgeon.

But the name at the top of the card took him completely by surprise. Expert though he was at keeping a poker-face, the two men facing him would have no difficulty in reading the shock in his eyes.

The middle-aged woman, the vicissitude of whose teeth were recorded on the card in his hands, was Miss Alison Cartwright Girling.