Читать книгу An Advancement of Learning - Reginald Hill - Страница 10

Men’s weaknesses and faults are best known from their enemies, their virtues and abilities from their familiar friends.

SIR FRANCIS BACON

Op. Cit.

Franny Roote lay back along the window-sill, his still form blocking out the sunlight. He was wearing his usual summer dress of white beach-shoes, light cream-coloured slacks and a white shirt which was almost a blouse. This colour scheme combined with his own fair colouring somehow blurred the edges of his frame. Without moving, he dominated the room. Only twenty-three, he had developed a repose and still self-sufficiency beyond the reach of many twice his age; and these things put together gave him the indistinct almost inhuman menace of a figure magnified and blurred by sea-mist. It was an image he worked at.

‘You heard nothing more, Elizabeth?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, Franny,’ said the pretty girl in the blue nylon overall. ‘Just about the lists.’

She sounded apologetic, almost distressed, at having so little to tell.

‘You did well, love,’ he said, nodding once, still not looking at her.

‘Franny,’ said the girl. ‘Tonight. It is tonight, isn’t it? May I come again?’

Now he turned his head and looked full in her face with his light blue eyes.

‘Of course you may. We were expecting you.’

Flushing with pleasure, the girl slipped out of the door with the expertise of one used to leaving rooms unobtrusively.

‘Is that wise?’ asked a long-haired sallow-faced girl with low-slung breasts.

‘Is what wise, Sandra?’ he asked patiently.

‘Her, Elizabeth, coming along. I mean, outsiders can mean trouble.’

‘What you mean is, she’s a kitchen-maid,’ said a small, dark-haired, moustachioed youth fiercely. This was Stuart Cockshut, the Union secretary and Franny’s right-hand man. ‘God, what’s the point of trying to do anything if you can’t shake off your reactionary concepts of an elitist society?’

‘Belt up,’ said Anita Sewell who was sitting on the floor staring moodily into the empty fireplace. ‘Stop talking like a colour-supplement student. It’s not politics that’s bothering Sandra. It’s sex. And she’s right. Franny knows when he’s on to a good thing. He gets an extra slice of juicy meat at dinner. And all the gravy he can manage, don’t you, ducky?’

‘Nervous, love?’ Franny said to her gently. ‘Don’t be.’

‘She’ll be all right on the night,’ said Sandra viciously.

Stuart sniggered. Franny spoke again, reprovingly.

‘It has nothing to do with appetite of any kind, my loves. Nor with politics, Stuart. We do live in an elitist society, despite all you say. But the elites have nothing to do with class, or intellectualism.’

He swung his legs down off the sill and stood up.

‘This business interests me. I’ve always had a feeling about that statue. Something compelled me to it.’

Suddenly he laughed and ran his fingers through his hair, looking for a moment about eighteen.

‘I thought it was just the tits.’

The others laughed too, except for Sandra who was seated on the floor next to Anita. He looked down at her thoughtfully and moved his leg till his calf touched her shoulder. She leaned into his leg and closed her eyes.

‘I wonder whose bones they are,’ said a petite round-faced girl from a corner.

‘The police will find out soon enough,’ said Stuart, making it sound like a fault.

‘Perhaps we can beat them,’ said Franny.

They looked at him puzzled for a moment.

‘Of course!’ said the round-faced girl, jumping up and opening a cupboard behind her. From it she took a large box which she put on a low coffee-table. Out of the box she produced a Ouija board which she quickly set up on the table.

Franny knelt down and put his index finger on the planchette. He contemplated Sandra’s pleading gaze for a moment, shook his head minutely and said, ‘Anita.’

The girl touched the other side of the planchette.

Slowly it began to move.

Eleanor Soper was immersed in her favourite recurring day-dream in which her first novel had met with tremendous critical and popular success. Her elbows rested lightly on the untidy sheets of closely scribbled-on foolscap which were scattered over her desk. She was modestly accepting the plaudits of her colleagues and in particular, like a television instant replay machine, her mind kept on bringing Arthur Halfdane forward to offer his obviously deeply felt congratulations.

She was brought back to reality by a knock at the door.

‘Shit!’ she said. Her own subconscious was capable enough of diverting her energies away from her novel without the additional annoyance of external interruption.

The knock again.

Angrily, she opened the door.

‘Hallo, Ellie,’ said Pascoe.

‘For Godsake,’ she said, motionless with surprise.

Pascoe reached out his hand. She took it and they stood there holding hands, looking at each other.

Pascoe felt relieved and disappointed at the same time as he took in her short black hair cut to the contours of her finely structured head; her grey eyes, questioning now; her strong chin, raised slightly aggressively. He had not known what to expect, had half-feared an immediate return of all the old welter of emotions and passions. Looking into his own mind, he could find no trace of them. That was good. But still he felt sorry that something so strong could have gone so completely.

He looked again at the once so dear and familiar features. Nothing. But he knew he was keeping his mind well away from the equally dear and familiar curves and hollows lying beneath the old sweater and the threadbare slacks.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Sit down. This is – well, Christ, it’s a surprise. I don’t know … what are you doing here?’

‘Combining pleasure with business.’

‘Business? Oh. You mean the statue?’

‘I’m afraid so. But you’re the pleasure.’

They both laughed and when they stopped, the atmosphere had become easier. They spent the next few minutes exchanging news of old university acquaintances. Or rather Ellie provided most of the news and Pascoe most of the questions. He was surprised to find how eager he was for information.

‘You haven’t kept in touch with anyone then?’ she asked finally.

‘Christmas cards. Wedding invitations. That sort of thing.’

‘Summonses. Warrants. That sort of thing,’ she answered, half-joking, half-serious.

‘I’ve been spared that,’ said Pascoe, wholly serious.

She looked embarrassed for a second, a faint flush touching her cheek-bone.

Pascoe began to reach out a hand to touch her face but stopped himself in time.

‘Well, you’ll be spared it here too,’ Ellie said emphatically. ‘The statue had been up for five years or so when I arrived. What’s it all about, anyway?’

‘We’re still trying to find out. Who has been here since the thing was put up, then?’ asked Pascoe casually. He didn’t need the information. He had a list in his document case which told him exactly.

‘I’m not sure. The oldest inhabitants, obviously. Jane Scotby. And Miss Disney. Not Landor, though. That’s obvious. He came when Miss Girling died. The history man, Henry Saltecombe. And George Dunbar, head of stinks. There might be others, we’re a large staff and I haven’t got to know them all yet. But what’s your interest? You don’t think someone on the staff then was responsible?’

‘Responsible for what?’

‘Why, for killing whoever got killed and burying them in the garden,’ said Ellie in surprise.

‘Someone’s responsible,’ replied Pascoe. ‘Any likely runners?’

The atmosphere was changing again.

‘I should have thought that your best approach was to discover who it was that got killed,’ said Ellie a little stiffly.

‘We’re working on it,’ said Pascoe cheerfully.

He glanced at his watch. Dalziel would be expecting some kind of report soon.

‘I must be off. Look, any chance of seeing you later tonight? There’s lots to talk about.’

Ellie hesitated a moment before saying, ‘Yes, surely. I’m dining in tonight and I usually pop into the bar afterwards, about eight. You’ll still be around then? Good. Anyone will direct you.’

‘Right,’ said Pascoe at the door. ‘It was nice to see your name on the staff-list. See you!’

He went out with a casual wave.

‘No doubt,’ said Ellie to the closed door.

She picked up her pen again but did not start to write for some time. She was trembling slightly. He looked at me like a bloody suspect! she thought. Not a sign of emotion. A useful contact! Sod him.

Convinced soon that all her trembling sprang from indignation, she began to write again but had to stop soon to light one of her infrequent cigarettes. Sod him!

Rather sticky, thought Pascoe with some regret as he walked down the corridor from Ellie’s room.

But I won’t work at not being a policeman. Not just to be liked. Not by anyone. It’s not worth it. He congratulated himself once again on his self-possession during the encounter. Then he bumped into a large beautifully rounded girl in a frivolously short skirt.

‘Sorry,’ he said. She smiled and massaged herself voluptuously. He felt his self-possession crack.

Well, sometimes it may be worth it, he emended cautiously.

When he reached Landor’s room, it was empty. He took the lists Dalziel had requested of him from his case and laid them neatly on the desk.

Then he stood back to view the effect. Dissatisfied, he readjusted them minutely to attain perfect symmetry.

‘You’ll make someone a lovely housekeeper,’ said Dalziel from the door.

Five witty answers and several bluntly obscene ones ran through Pascoe’s mind, but he used none of them, merely bowing Dalziel with as much irony as he dared to the desk.

‘What’s this lot then? Lot of bloody names. No good till we know who got the chop, are they?’

‘This might help,’ said Pascoe, delicately touching the central list.

‘Let’s see then. Persons reported missing between … well, you tell me, eh? There might be long words I’d have trouble with.’

It would be nice to think the sneers derived from an affectionate respect. Or perhaps not. Dalziel, according to oral tradition, had destroyed whatever lay between him and his wife despite, or because of, his almost canine affection for her. That had been before Pascoe met him. He had learned the hard way just how much of Dalziel’s invitations to familiarity to accept.

Now he picked up the list and gave it an unnecessary glance. It didn’t do to appear too efficient.

‘Only two real possibilities so far, sir,’ he said. ‘Mrs Alice Widgett, aged thirty-three, housewife. Last seen leaving her home on August 27, destination unknown. She left a tatie-pot in the oven and two children watching television.

‘Secondly, Mary Farish. Widow. Aged forty-five. She’s the nearest. Lived all alone on the outskirts of Coultram. She had a dental appointment at 3 P.M. on November 9th. She left home at 2.15, but never reached the dentist.’

‘That’s what I feel like, too,’ said Dalziel, sticking a nicotine-stained forefinger into his mouth and sucking noisily. ‘Best reason for disappearing I know. Well, the dentist’s a help. He’s still around?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll take details of the jaw along as soon as we get them from the lab.’

‘Who are taking their bloody time. Why no one else? It looks a fair list.’

‘Yes. Some of them are men, of course.’

‘Why? We know the sex, don’t we? Even I can tell the difference between a male and a female skeleton.’

‘Of course,’ said Pascoe soothingly. ‘I just thought it would be useful to know which men felt it necessary to disappear quietly about that time. And the other six women were either seen boarding trains or long-distance buses, or some subsequent contact has taken place, a postcard, a telephone call. This doesn’t cut them out altogether, of course.’

‘Worse bloody luck,’ said Dalziel gloomily. ‘Have you got someone contacting parents, family, friends, again?’

‘No,’ said Pascoe. ‘It didn’t seem necessary. I’ll get their files of course.’

‘On which you’ll find nothing’s been done for five years. Naturally. We can’t spend our precious bloody time chasing around after runaway adults. But you’ll probably find half the sods have turned up again and no one’s thought to tell us. They usually don’t.’

‘I’ll get on to it right away,’ said Pascoe.

‘By the way. Did they have red hair?’

‘Mary Farish did. And the other’s described as auburn.’

‘It might help. But then she might have come from a thousand miles away.’

‘A Central European, you mean?’ asked Pascoe against his better judgment. ‘That would narrow things down.’

Dalziel squinted at him calculatingly for a moment.

‘Shove off,’ he said. ‘We’ve all got work to do.’

‘Hey!’ he called after him. ‘What about that bint of yours? Get anything there?’

He backed up the double entendre with a toothy leer. Pascoe answered straight.

‘Not much. I’m seeing her tonight for a drink. All in the line of duty, of course. She hasn’t been here long enough to know much. I did gather they’re having a bit of excitement at the moment. Some lecturer’s been knocking off a student and there’s a bit of a rumpus.’

‘Who?’

‘A fellow called Fallowfield. Biologist.’

‘That figures. Was he here five years ago?’

He answered the question himself by running his gaze quickly down the list before him.

‘No. Then he’s of no interest. Dirty sod. Though it must be a temptation. There’s a lot of it around. I think I’ll take a walk and see what’s going on. You can stop here. You’ll need the phone.’

Jauntily he left the room. Pascoe had to close the door behind him. He jerked two fingers at the solid oak panels.

When he turned round he found two students solemnly staring at him through the large open window. They nodded approvingly, each tapped the side of his nose with the forefinger, and they went on their way. Despite the heat, Pascoe closed the window before he started his telephoning.