"Asking For The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hill Reginald)

CHAPTER VII

There the traveller meets aghast Sheeted Memories of the Past.

Some women cross their legs provocatively. Stella Rawlinson crossed hers like a no-entry sign and regarded Pascoe with all the distaste of an assault victim scanning an identity parade.

'It's kind of you to talk to me,' he said with as much conviction as he could manage. His mind was still on the kind of admission or confession Davenport had been about to make before Kingsley's ill-timed entrance. After that the vicar had risen and withdrawn without another word and Pascoe, deciding it would be poor policy at this time to invite the man along to the station to 'help with enquiries', had exercised his only other choice and pretended nothing had happened. He'd get back to Davenport after he had chatted to the others, by which time another half-bottle of booze might have put him in the talkative mood once more.

He had picked Stella Rawlinson first on Kingsley's advice. Evidently when the last of the drinks-only guests had gone, Swithenbank had told the others precisely why it was that

Pascoe was here. Pascoe would have liked to have done this himself to observe reactions, but he made no complaint and accepted Kingsley's diagnosis that the only likely non-co-operator was Mrs Rawlinson and it might be well to get her in before her indignation had time to come to a head.

'Can we start by going right back to this time last year?' he said. 'Most people would have a hard time remembering anything after twelve months, but in your case it shouldn't be difficult.'

'What do you mean?' she demanded as if he had accused her of immorality.

'Just that it was the time of your husband's unfortunate accident arid I know how an unpleasant experience like that sticks in the mind,' said Pascoe soothingly. 'It must have been a terrible shock to you.'

'I thought you wanted to talk about Kate Swithenbank,' she said.

'You knew her well?' said Pascoe, abandoning charm.

'We grew up together.'

'Close friends?'

'I suppose so.'

'What was she like?'

She looked genuinely puzzled.

'I don't know what you mean.'

'What words describe her?' said Pascoe. 'Plain, simple, open. Devious, reserved. Emotional, hysterical, erratic. Logical, rational, cool. Et cetera.'

'She kept herself to herself. I don't mean she wouldn't go out or was shy, anything like that. But she didn't give much away.'

The woman spoke slowly, feeling for the words. She was either very concerned to be fair or very fearful of being honest.

'I believe she was sexually very attractive as a young girl,' he probed.

'Who said that?' she asked. 'John, was it?'

'You sound as if that would surprise you.'

'No. Why should it? It would be natural, wouldn't it? He married her.'

'In fact it was his mother,' said Pascoe. 'It's interesting when a woman says it. That's why I wondered what your opinion was.'

'Yes,' she said, not bothering to conceal her reluctance. 'She was very attractive. In that way. When she wanted to be. And sometimes when she didn't want to be.'

Pascoe scratched his head in a parody of puzzlement.

'Now you're bewildering me,' he said.

'A bitch on heat's got no control over who comes sniffing around,' she said viciously, then relenting (or at least regretting) almost immediately, she added, 'I'm sorry, I don't mean to be unkind. She was a nice quiet ordinary girl in many ways. We were truly friends. I should be very distressed to think anything had happened to her.'

'Of course. How terrible it must be for all her friends,' said Pascoe fulsomely. 'But if what you say is true, there might be no cause for worry.'

'If what I say…?'

'About her sexuality. Another man, perhaps; a passionate affair. She takes off with him on a sudden impulse. It's possible. If what you say…'

'Oh, it's true all right,' she said. 'Right from the start. Ten or eleven. I've seen her. In this room.'

She tailed off. Funny, thought Pascoe. Everybody wants to talk, but they all want to feel it's my subtle interrogative techniques that made them talk!

'This room?' He glanced at the Prospect of Wear End. 'You used to play in here as children?'

'Oh no. When we visited Boris, this was one room we were never allowed in,' she answered. 'But I was looking for Kate. We'd lost her. I just opened the door and peered in. She was…'

'Yes?'

'She was sitting on his knee. Her pants were round her knees.'

Pascoe gave his man-of-the-world chuckle.

'So? Childhood inquisitiveness. A little game of doctors with Boris. It's not unusual.'

'It wasn't Boris. It was his father.'

Pascoe tried to look unimpressed.

'Who is dead, I believe?' he said. 'Just as well. It's a serious offence you're alleging, Mrs Rawlinson. Very serious.'

'I felt sorry for him,' she said vehemently.

'For him?'

'And for Kate, too.' It was relenting time again. 'She couldn't help what she was. Her parents died while she was young. Her brother brought her up. That can't have helped. He's an animal. Worse!'

Dear God! thought Pascoe. Incest is it now?

'I've met Mr Lightfoot. He seems an interesting sort of man. He's very sure his sister's dead.'

She shrugged uninterestedly.

'He says he's seen her ghost continued Pascoe.

'He's a stupid ignorant animal,' she said indifferently.

'Perhaps so. But he may be right about his sister. She could very well be dead.'

She laughed scornfully.

'Because some yokel sees ghosts? You must be hard up for clues these days!'

'No,' he said seriously. 'Because what you've been insinuating about the missing woman's morals makes it seem very probable she could provide her husband with a good motive for killing her.'

Her mouth twisted in dismay and for a moment this break in the symmetry of that too well balanced face gave it real beauty.

'No! I've said nothing! I never meant… that's quite outrageous!'

She stood up, flushed with what appeared to be genuine anger.

'But what did you imagine we were talking about?' asked Pascoe.

'You're trying to find out who's been suggesting these dreadful things about John.'

'Oh no,' said Pascoe, shaking his head. 'That would be useful, of course. But what we're really trying to discover is whether or not these dreadful things are true!'

Rawlinson looked angry when he came into the room and Pascoe prepared to deal with a bout of uxorious chivalry.

'What have you been saying to Peter?' demanded the limping man. 'He's in a hell of a state.'

'Nothing,' said Pascoe, taken by surprise. 'Why should anything I say disturb him?'

The question seemed to give the man more cause for rumination than seemed proportionate as he subsided into an armchair and Pascoe moved swiftly to the attack.

'Tell me about falling off the church tower,' he invited.

Rawlinson gripped his right knee with both hands as though the words had triggered off more than the memory of pain.

'Have you ever fallen off anything, Inspector?' he asked in reply.

'Yes, I suppose so. But not so dramatically. A kitchen chair, I recall, when replacing a light bulb.'

'Chair or church, it's all the same,' said Rawlinson. 'One second you're on it, the next you're off. I must have overreached.'

'What precisely were you doing?' asked Pascoe.

'Watching a pair of owls,' said Rawlinson. 'I'm a draughtsman by training, a bird illustrator by inclination. I watch, note, photograph sometimes, and then do a picture. It had never struck me as a dangerous hobby.'

'It's enthusiasm that makes things dangerous,' observed Pascoe sententiously. 'The Reverend Davenport found you, I believe.'

Rawlinson frowned at the name.

'Yes. It was a good job he came when he did. There was a sharp frost and if I'd lain there till morning, I'd probably have died of exposure.'

'And immediately before falling, you remember nothing?'

'I remember arriving at the church, unlocking the door to the tower. Nothing more.'

'How did you get to the church that night?'

'I walked along the old drive, I suppose. I usually did. My bungalow's right alongside.'

'Mr Kingsley didn't mind?'

'Boris?' said Rawlinson in surprise. 'Why should he? I don't think I ever asked him.'

'Technically a trespass then,' smiled Pascoe. 'Do you recall seeing or hearing anything unusual along the drive or in the churchyard that night?'

'Well now,' said Rawlinson slowly. 'I'm not quite certain it was the same night – it's a long time ago – but once I rather thought I heard a crossbill in one of the cypress trees over the lych-gate. Probably I was mistaken.'

He spoke perfectly seriously, but Pascoe did not doubt he was being mocked.

'Your father built the bungalow, you say,' he said abruptly. 'So there's money in the family.'

'A little. He was a jobbing gardener by trade. I earn my own living, if that's what you mean.'

'I'm pleased to hear it,' said Pascoe, faintly sneering. 'Mr Kingsley now, does he also have to find ways to eke out the family fortune?'

If they start being funny, hit 'em hard, was a favourite maxim of Dalziel's.

'I don't see what this has got to do with anonymous letters, Inspector,' said Rawlinson.

'Don't you? Well, I'll explain. I want to get a clear picture of the missing woman. One thing that's starting to emerge is that she came from a very different background from most of the people she called her friends in Wearton. Just how different isn't quite clear to me yet.'

Rawlinson looked unconvinced but replied, 'All right, there's no secrets. Me you know about. Boris has some inherited money, but not much. I believe it came as something of a shock to find out just how little when his father died earlier this year. But in addition he's a "company director", whatever that means. You'd better ask him. John you'll know about, too…'

'Not his family. What did his father do?'

'He was a solicitor, rather older than Mrs Swithenbank, I believe. He died ten years ago. The Davenports – well, Ursula's my sister, of course…'

'And therefore shared in the family fortune?'

'We split what little there was,' said Rawlinson acidly. 'When I married, I bought out her share of the bungalow. Shortly afterwards she married Peter, who is also one of the family. A cousin. His family live in Leeds. He had delicate health as a child and used to come down here for the good country air nearly every holiday. No real money in the family, and a damn sight less in his job! Now, let me see. Anyone I've missed out?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Your wife.'

'I thought you'd have quizzed her yourself,' said Rawlinson. 'Stella's from farming stock, one of the biggest farms in the area.'

'Well off?'

'Oh yes. Though show me a farmer who'll admit it!'

Pascoe laughed, though the attempt at lightness came awkwardly from Rawlinson's lips.

'So I'm right to say that Kate Lightfoot was the odd one out? Everyone else had some kind of well-established financial and social background.'

'Village life is surprisingly democratic,' protested Rawlinson. 'We all went to the same schools, no one bought their way out.'

'Democracy works best where there's a deep-implanted pecking order,' observed Pascoe cynically. 'Everybody can be equal as long as we all know our places. What was the Lightfoots' place, do you think? Her father was an agricultural labourer, I believe.'

'That's right. He used to work for Stella's father, in fact. Not that he was much of a worker at the end. He boozed himself to death. The mother took off soon after and there was some talk of putting Kate in care, but she made it clear she wasn't going to leave her brother easily. He was about twenty at the time, working on the farm like his father. Then suddenly he gave up his job and the tied cottage that went with it and bought up a smallholding just on the edge of the village, opposite the war memorial, you might have noticed it as you drove in?'

'No,' said Pascoe. 'The way you said "suddenly" sounded as if you meant "surprisingly".'

'Did it? This was a long time ago. I was only a lad, but in a village you learn early that all business is conducted in public. There was some talk of insurance money from his father's death. But knowing the old man, it didn't seem likely.'

'And what were the other speculations?' asked Pascoe.

Rawlinson looked at Pascoe as if for permission, then poured himself a glass of sherry.

'If you were a farm labourer in those days, you didn't save. The only handy source of a bit of extra income was fiddling your employer. Bags of spuds, petrol for the tractor, that sort of thing. Not that it could come to much, and with a Yorkshire farmer like my father-in-law watching over you, I hardly believe it could come to anything! But Stella, my wife, believes wholeheartedly that Lightfoot's fortunes such as they are were based on robbing her father rotten!'

'So he brought his sister up,' said Pascoe. 'Were they close?'

'You might say so,' said Rawlinson cautiously.

'What would you say?'

He shrugged and rubbed his knee again.

'Kate was – is – very much her own person, Mr Pascoe. I was – am – very fond of her. We went out together for a while – nothing serious, all our gang tried various combinations till we settled as we are. I think I got to know her as well as anyone, but there were points beyond which you were not permitted to go.'

'Physically, you mean?' said Pascoe, acting stupid.

'Physically you went precisely as far as Kate was in the mood for,' replied Rawlinson drily. 'But I mean mentally, emotionally even. She shut you out. It was difficult to guess what she felt about Arthur, even when they were together.'

'And about the rest of you?'

'Friendly tolerance.'

'Even John Swithenbank?'

'No. No,' said Rawlinson, a spasm crossing his face as he rose suddenly to stretch his leg. 'John was different. I'd have said she disliked and despised him with all her heart.'

'I thought as host you'd have saved me for last, Inspector,' said Boris Kingsley in a hurt voice.

'Why? Aren't you ready for me?' asked Pascoe.

Kingsley laughed.

'On the contrary, I'm perfectly rehearsed. What do I know about the letter and phone calls? Nothing at all. What do I know about Kate's disappearance? Ditto. Do I think John might have mur dered her? No. Do I think anyone else here tonight might have murdered her? Improbable but not impossible. Who am I not one hundred per cent sure about? Mind your own business.'

He sat back looking vastly pleased with himself.

'Why were you left on the shelf, Mr Kingsley?' asked Pascoe as if the man hadn't spoken.

'What do you mean?'

'The Wearton Six. Rawlinson gets his Stella, Swithenbank gets his Kate. Symmetry requires that you end up with Ursula, Mrs Davenport. But she opts for an outsider.'

'Hardly an outsider,' protested Kingsley. 'Peter spent most of his hols here. And he's Ursula's cousin. We knew him almost as well as each other.'

'Almost,' said Pascoe. 'Still, you did end up unattached.'

'What the devil's this got to do with anything?' demanded Boris. ,

'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'Probably nothing. But if, say, you didn't get married because all your life you'd nursed a passionate but unrequited love for Kate Lightfoot, it might mean much.'

'Who's been talking to you? Has someone been saying something? Who was it? Geoff?' He sounded genuinely angry.

'No,' said Pascoe. 'That wasn't one of the things Mr Rawlinson told me. Where were you a year ago tonight, Mr Kingsley?'

The anger subsided and Kingsley shook his head like a boxer who has walked into a sucker punch and now means to take more care.

'I can't be sure. I'd need more notice of that question.'

'I'd have thought by now everyone here had notice of it,' remarked Pascoe drily. 'It was the weekend Mr Rawlinson fell off the church tower. Remember?'

'Of course. Yes. Dreadful business. I remember wondering…'

'What?'

'Mustn't even hint these things, of course, but Geoff had been behaving rather oddly for some time before. You know, very moody. Self-absorbed.'

He paused invitingly. Pascoe made a note. He distrusted invitations.

'You mean he may have been upset because his affair with Kate was coming to some kind of climax, so when they met on the Friday evening he killed her, hid the body and then tried to commit suicide in a fit of remorse?' he asked with mild interest.

It was a long time since he'd seen a man splutter, but Kingsley spluttered now.

'Please. No! Don't say such things!'

'All right,' said Pascoe indifferently. 'What about you? What were you doing that night?'

'I've no idea. I didn't hear about it till next day, so I wasn't directly involved. Probably sitting in front of the television at home.'

'Alone?'

'If that was what I was doing, yes. Surely people who have the alternative of human conversation never watch television, do they, Inspector? It's a kind of mental masturbation, essentially a solitary pursuit.'

He had stopped spluttering. Pascoe yawned widely.

'Where do you think Kate Swithenbank is now?' he asked through the yawn.

Boris rolled his eyes upward and slapped the arm of his chair.

'I do wish you'd stop trying to confuse me with these changes of direction,' he said. 'They're irritating without being effective. Unless, of course, your aim is merely to irritate.'

'Do you think she's dead?'

'I've no idea. How should I know?'

'I didn't say know. I said think. Only one person could really know. Except her brother, of course.'

'Why him?' said Kingsley sharply.

'Hadn't you heard? He's seen her ghost.'

Kingsley laughed merrily.

'What a cretin!'

'Why do you dislike him, Mr Kingsley?'

'Who says I dislike him?'

'He says. It hardly seems worth denying. I mean, is there anyone who can really be said to like him? I'm just interested in reasons. Irrational Dr Fell prejudice? Aesthetic repugnance? Or perhaps, like Mrs Rawlinson, you think he cheated your father?'

The reaction was astonishing.

'What the hell do you mean?' demanded Kingsley, his face suddenly twisting in porcine ferocity. 'What've they been saying to you? Come on, Inspector, spit it out. You'd do well to remember this is my house and you'd be wise to watch what you say!'

There seemed to be something contradictory in this simultaneous demand for frankness and caution but Pascoe, who had been completely innocent of subtle intent, was not long in finding a hypothesis to resolve the contradiction.

'Come on, Mr Kingsley,' he said with the weary certainty of one who knows exactly what he is doing. 'I'm a policeman, remember? That means I've a job to do. It also means that I know all about discretion. In any case, there can't be any question of charges, not now. Not either way.'

He held his breath and hoped he was making sense. Kings-ley's features gradually resumed a more normal colour and expression.

'You're right,' he said. 'I'm sorry. It's just that it makes me angry, even thinking about it.'

'How long have you known?' enquired Pascoe, still feeling his way.

'I never liked the man,' said Kingsley, 'but it wasn't till after Father died. I was going through his papers. The figures told the story. Then there was a diary… well, God, he was wrong, of course. But to suffer like that all those years!'

'This was how Lightfoot bought his smallholding?' pursued Pascoe.

'That's it. And how he's compensated for its inefficient running ever since! You wouldn't think he needs money to look at the man! But he's got expensive habits – drinking, women, too. God, he'd need to pay well to get any half decent woman near him!'

Ignoring the curious scale of values this suggested, Pascoe went the whole hog and said, 'So Arthur Lightfoot steadily blackmailed your father ever since he discovered he'd been interfering with an under-age girl, to wit, his sister Kate.'

Kingsley nodded. It seemed to be some relief to the man to hear someone else say it openly.

'I went to see him, of course, when I realized. I didn't know what I was going to do, but it was going to be bloody extreme!'

'And.'

'And he said nothing. Admitted nothing. Denied nothing.

He just sat there cleaning that blasted shotgun of his. I ran out of words! There was nothing to do. I couldn't get him through the law – there was some evidence, but nothing certain enough, and besides even though he was dead, my father had paid for peace and quiet and a good name.'

'So what did you do?'

'Do, Inspector? Do? I did nothing.'

Kingsley was now back in full control.

'I hope one night I may catch him poaching on the bit of land that remains to me. Or that he might catch food poisoning from his own disgusting cooking. Yes, I can only sit and pray for some happy accident.'

'Like his cottage burning down, for instance?'

'Yes, that was a real tonic when I heard about it. A pity our fire service is so efficient.'

'He didn't come to see you afterwards?'

Kingsley regarded him shrewdly.

'Now why on earth should he do that? You're not suggesting I had anything to do with the fire, Inspector?'

'Of course not,' smiled Pascoe. 'But he'd need money for repairs. He doesn't sound as if he'd carry much insurance.'

'You may be right,' said Kingsley indifferently. 'He certainly wouldn't get it here. I only wish he'd had the cheek to try!'

'And now we come to the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,' said Pascoe.

'And what's that?'

'Did Kate Swithenbank have any idea what her brother was up to all those years?'

There was a long silence.

'And if she did, what then, Inspector?'

'What indeed, Mr Kingsley? Something perhaps that some people might call a motive.'

There was a knock on the door.

Jesus! thought Pascoe. They time their interruptions here better than a French farce!

'Come in,' called Kingsley.

A wizened old head with eyes like a blackbird's thrust itself round the door.

'Can ah see thee about t'supper?' it demanded.

'Just coming, Mrs Warnock,' said Kingsley.

The blackbird's eyes regarded Pascoe unblinkingly for twenty seconds, then the head withdrew.

'Mostly duty calls,' said Kingsley, rising. 'Motive, you say? Hardly for me, though. I mean, I didn't find out about Lightfoot's bit of nastiness till six months after Kate disappeared, did I?'

'So you say, Mr Kingsley,' agreed Pascoe.

'But as for the others, well, I'll leave you to find your own motives there, you're clearly so good at it. Must fly now. Work up an appetite, dear boy. I'll send Ursula in, shall I? That should start the juices running!'

"Boris seemed very pleased to get away from you,' said Ursula, rippling into the red leather armchair. 'What were you talking about?'

'I'm not sure,' said Pascoe. 'He was on occasion a trifle obscure. Though he seemed to find no difficulty in accepting that someone in your little group might have been capable of murdering Kate Swithenbank. But he wouldn't say who he had in mind.'

'Me,' said Ursula promptly.

'Really? Why should he think that?'

'He likes playing Noel Coward, does Boris, but in fact he's terribly straightforward and conventional. His wisdom is proverbial in the strict sense. I mean his mind works in maxims. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned has all the ring of eternal truth to Boris.'

'Meaning you have been scorned by…?'

'John Swithenbank, of course. And it's true. I was furious. But only for a time.'

'How long a time?'

'Till the wedding. John so clearly regarded the whole business as farcical and whatever Kate regarded it as just as clearly had nothing to do with all those loving vows they made at the altar. Resentment has to have an object. I seemed to have lost mine on that day.'

'So you don't think the marriage was happy?' said Pascoe.

'What's happy?'

'I don't know what, but I know where. It's somewhere this side of either running off or committing murder,' said Pascoe.

She didn't seem to feel this required any answer. She was probably right, he thought. He was beginning to see possibilities but the problem was like one of those trick drawings beloved of psychologists – sometimes he saw a rabbit and sometimes he saw a goose. A frightened rabbit that had nothing to do with the missing woman, or a Christmas goose being led to an early slaughter.

'Why do you think he married her?'

'She wanted him to.'

She spoke as if this should have been obvious. Was it an. answer? There were women, and men, too, in whom volition and achievement appeared contiguous. This Kate Lightfoot was emerging as a formidable woman.

'And Kate, why should she wish to marry a man she didn't love, perhaps even like?'

Ursula leaned forward and opened her arms and knees to the electric fire. Pascoe shuddered but not from the cold.

'John offered her an escape route from Wearton.'

'Why should she need that?' he asked. 'No one was keeping her prisoner.'

'Strictly speaking, no. But she had no training, no employment. She left school and looked after Arthur's cottage, that was all. She'd been doing it for years, and taking care of the business paperwork, too. She was surprisingly ignorant of the world in many ways. She asked my advice once…'

'About what?' interrupted Pascoe.

'Getting away, of course. She wanted to go to London. I told her there were two ways for a country girl to go to London, as a typist or as a tart. Unless, that is, she could find some nice well-heeled fellow and marry him! Next thing she and John were engaged.'

Ursula laughed ruefully and rubbed her hands together, then crossed her arms and rubbed her bare shoulders, making a sound which Pascoe found very disturbing.

'That was, what? Nine, ten years ago?'

'Something of the sort.'

'And. since their marriage, what have your relations with her been?'

'Excellent,' she said promptly. 'Why? You don't really think I killed her, do you? I used to see her a couple of times a year in Wearton, and on the odd occasion I saw her in London. She was always the same, me too, I hope. I enjoyed her company and she never had occasion to push me around. No, that's the wrong phrase. There was never anything Kate wanted me to do except be myself, so I never got taken over.'

'And your feelings for Mr Swithenbank?'

'I'm very fond of John,' she said. 'I might have had an affair with him if he'd suggested it, but he never did. And Kate never showed the slightest interest in Peter.'

'What about your brother?' enquired Pascoe. 'Did she ever show any interest there?'

Now her expression turned cold as though the electric fire had been switched off.

'I'm sure you've discovered they were once very close, Inspector,' she said. 'But I'm equally sure you know that Geoff has the perfect alibi for that weekend. He was lying in hospital half dead.'

'Yes. Did you notice anything odd in his behaviour before the accident?'

'Odd? No. Why do you ask?'

'Just that Mr Kingsley said he was rather moody at that time. That's all.'

She laughed.

'Boris! The great psychologist now! It must do dreadful things to your ears, having to admit so much rubbish.'

Pascoe decided the time was ripe for a hard push.

'I think you're being rather unkind to Mr Kingsley,' he said. 'After all, it was he who took care of your husband tonight.'

'What's that mean?' she asked fiercely.

'Nothing, except that he got him out of the way when he started drawing attention to himself. He brought him to talk to me. Mr Kingsley seemed to feel your husband wanted to get something off his chest."

That was stretching things a bit but Boris was big enough to look after himself.

'He said what? Then obviously Boris was talking even more stupidly than he usually does.' She stood up abruptly. 'I'll go and have a word with him and with Peter. That is, if you're finished with me, Inspector?'

There was clearly no way that he was going to get her to stay – the words were a challenge, not a request for permission to leave – so Pascoe shrugged philosophically.

At the door she paused.

'One thing I will tell you about Kate. She was the same in London as she was in Wearton. If she wanted out and I think she did, she wasn't just going to walk off alone into the great unknown. There'd have to be someone to go with or go to.'

'From what I've heard of her, I agree,' said Pascoe. 'Which means, if she came to Wearton…'

'What?'

'Well, the Wearton men seem to be all alive and well and still living in Wearton. So, unless she's locked in an attic somewhere.. .'

The anger left her face.

'Yes, I see that,' she said softly. 'I don't think… no, not that.'

The door closed quietly behind her.

Pascoe studied his notes for ten minutes. They were sketchy. He tended to use his book as some men use a pipe – to occupy the hands, permit significant pause and accentuate dramatic gesture. Much of his scrawl meant nothing. But as he jumped from one page to the next, his mind traced a line between the points where his scrawls quavered into sense and a shape began to form. But he still couldn't see if it were a goose or a rabbit.

He was interrupted by a discreet tap on the door.

'Come in, Miss Starkey,' he called.

She entered, smiling and saying, 'Wow, that was clever. Wasn't that clever, John?'

Swithenbank, close behind, agreed.

'I knew he was clever the first time I laid eyes on him,' he said.

'You two seem very pleased with yourselves,' said Pascoe.

'We've been watching their faces after you'd finished with them,' said Swithenbank, 'and they've all looked so wrought up, I've been certain you've got something out of them.'

'And that's what you've come to tell me?'

'No,' said the woman. 'Boris says supper will soon be ready. A trifling foolish banquet which some ancient crone is slowly hauling up from the kitchen. I think he's hoping that between the hors-d'oeuvre and the cheese you will reveal all and send the guilty party screaming out of the window into the police net you've doubtless cast around the house.'

'It's no joking matter, Jean,' said Swithenbank, frowning.

She made a mock penitential face but slipped her hand into his and gave it an affectionate squeeze as though to express real apology.

Pascoe sighed and wondered what to do. It was like being a blacksmith surrounded by hot irons. Which should he strike first?

'I think I'd like another word with Mr Davenport before supper,' he said finally.

With a bit of luck the alcoholic reverend would once more be ripe for the confessional. Pascoe was ready to make a fair guess at what he would say, but like all good detectives he basically distrusted deduction. Evidence without admission was of as doubtful efficacy as works without faith. To hypoth esize from clues was fine so long as you remembered the basic paradox that the realities of human behaviour went far beyond the limits of human imagination. Intuition was something else, but you kept it well in check if you worked for Dalziel!

Swithenbank said, Til fetch him, shall I? You will be fairly quick, though, else Boris's goodies will get cold.'

Pascoe said, 'As quick as I can, but do start without me.'

Swithenbank left but Jean Starkey hesitated at the door.

'Yes?' said Pascoe, shuffling his notes.

Suddenly he knew what was coming and would have preferred not to receive it at this juncture. But there's no evading a woman determined to make a clean breast of things.

'You know that I'm Jake Starr, don't you?' she said.

He looked up now. 'Clean breast' had been the right image. She was leaning back against the jamb, one knee slightly raised and the foot planted against the woodwork behind her in the traditional street walkers' pose. The red dress seemed to cling more tightly than ever and her nipples, tumescent from the room's coldness or (could it be?) some more personal sensation, were blatant beneath the taut material.

He wondered if she was about to make him an offer he would have to refuse and he wondered why the certainty of his refusal didn't prevent his mouth from going dry and his leg muscles from trembling.

'Yes, I know it,' he managed to reply.

She laughed and came and sat down on the chesterfield, but her approach diminished rather than intensified the sexuality of the moment.

'I told John you'd found out,' she said triumphantly. 'He wouldn't believe me, but I could tell. You were puzzled by me yesterday, but not tonight.'

He realized now, not without disappointment, that he'd been mistaken and no offer for his silence was going to be made. She was grinning at him slyly as if she could read his thoughts and he said coldly, 'You didn't imagine you could get away with it for ever, did you?'

'I didn't imagine I could get away with it at all!' she replied. 'It's no secret. I mean, you get lists of pseudonyms in half a dozen reference books. I even got mentioned in a colour supplement article last May – don't policemen read the Sunday papers?'

'Not in Enfield it seems. OK, so you fooled us. Why?'

She looked at him closely and shook her head in reproach.

'Nothing sinister,' she said. 'It's just that ever since I started using a male pseudonym, I've found it very useful to pretend to be my own secretary. When people ring who don't know me, it's useful to be able to say Mr Starr's not available, can I take a message? That way I get time to think about offers, check up on things generally; as myself I'm a lousy negotiator, always say yes too quickly, never dream of trying to up the price of a story or an article. As Mr Starr's secretary, I pass on the most devastating messages without turning a hair. So when the police contacted me I automatically responded in the same way. Even when I realized it wasn't about not paying a parking fine, I didn't let on. I was due in New York the following day and I'd no intention of letting a bumbling bobby delay me. So I made a statement as Jake Starr's secretary, rang John to find out what the hell was going on, told him what I'd done, and sent another statement as Jake Starr from America. It all seemed a bit of a laugh, really.'

'A woman goes missing and you're amused?' said Pascoe.

'Hold on! I thought she'd merely taken off with some boyfriend. And I was glad. John had seemed to be hedging his bets a bit, I thought. Always on about his marriage being on the rocks but never getting close to doing anything about it. So if she'd made the break, what do you expect from me but a big whoopee!'

'And later? When she didn't show up?'

She shrugged expressively.

'We got worried, naturally. I couldn't understand why the police weren't on to the Jake Starr thing, you really have been pretty inefficient, Inspector. But I could see no profit in doing your work for you. John was being given a rough enough time. So I lay low and hoped that Kate would turn up again. Funny that, isn't it? I was delighted to learn she'd gone. Now here I was desperate to have her come back.'

Pascoe nodded approvingly. It was a good story. He had no idea whether he believed it or not, but in the circumstances it was a very good story. He must try some of her books.

'One more thing,' he said. 'Why have you come to Wearton?'

She warmed herself at the fire, reminding him of Ursula. Two women; similar problems? Then she smiled widely and the problems whatever they were seemed defeated.

'I changed my mind about doing the police's job for them,' she said. 'Come with me.'

She rose and took him by the hand like a small child, or a lover, and led him out of the library, across the hall, up the stairs and into a bedroom.

'Am I to go to bed without any supper?' he asked.

She laughed and taking up a nail file from a huge mahogany dressing-table, she approached a small oak wardrobe which didn't match anything else in the room. Sliding the file into the crack between the door and the jamb, she forced it upwards till it met the lug of the lock and made half a dozen sideways twisting movements.

'Viola! she said triumphantly and opened the door.

'Why did you bother to lock it after you last time?' enquired Pascoe, regarding the scarred woodwork which advertised forced entry like a neon sign.

She looked hurt.

'I didn't want Boris to know I'd been in here,' she said. 'But look inside.'

With a sigh, Pascoe obeyed.

And the sigh turned into a whistle of appreciation as he spotted the white muslin dress with blue ribbons and the floppy white hat trimmed with cotton roses. In his mind's eye he saw again the half-photograph he had examined in Arthur Lightfoot's cottage just a few hours ago.

'You've broken the law, you realize,' he said casually to Jean Starkey, who was standing beside him with the repressed smugness of one who anticipates congratulation.

'I've broken the law?' she began indignantly, but stopped as she heard rapid footsteps on the stairs and a man's voice calling, 'Pascoe! Pascoe!'

A moment later Swithenbank appeared at the door, his customary calm surface considerably ruffled.

'Pascoe, you'd better come,' he said urgently. 'It's Peter Davenport. I don't know what the hell's going on but he's been having the most tremendous scene with Ursula and now he's taken off back towards the church. He seems quite hysterical.

'Ursula thinks he's going to kill himself!'