LITMIR.BIZ

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Haggard.

      ‘The punch that knocks the girl down.’

      ‘How extraordinary. Shall we look again? Maurice!’

      They sat through the sequence once more.

      ‘It’s quite effective, though I’ve seen better,’ said Haggard. ‘But on what grounds would you claim it was real, if by real you mean that some unfortunate girl really did get punched?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Pascoe. ‘It has a quality … I’ve seen a few fights, and that kind of …’

      He tailed off, uncertain if he was speaking from even the narrowest basis of conviction. If he had seen the film without Shorter’s comments in his mind, would he have paid any special attention to the sequence? Presumably hundreds of people (thousands?) had sat through it without unsuspending their disbelief.

      ‘I’ve seen people burnt alive, decapitated, disembowelled and operated on for appendicitis, all I hasten to add in the commercial cinema,’ said Haggard. ‘So far as my own limited experience of such matters permitted me to judge, I was completely convinced of the verisimilitude of these scenes. I shouldn’t have thought dislodging a few teeth was going to present the modern director with many problems.’

      ‘No,’ said Pascoe. He was beginning to feel a little foolish, but under Dalziel’s tutelage he had come to ignore such social warning cones.

      ‘Can I see the titles, please?’ asked Pascoe.

      Haggard addressed Maurice Arany again and as the titles rolled, Pascoe made notes. There wasn’t a great deal of information. It was produced by a company called Homeric Films and written and directed by one Gerry Toms.

      ‘A name to conjure with,’ said Pascoe.

      ‘It must be his own,’ agreed Haggard.

      ‘You don’t know where this company is located, do you?’

      ‘It’s a mushroom industry,’ said Haggard. ‘It probably no longer exists.’

      ‘But there have been other films from the same people?’

      Haggard admitted there had.

      ‘Perhaps your distributor could help.’

      ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, but you’re welcome to the address.’

      Upon this co-operative note, they parted. Pascoe sat in his car in the Square for some time until other members of the audience began to leave. There were no overt signs of drunkenness, no undue noise in the way they entered and started their cars, and certainly no suggestion that anyone was about to roam around the Square all night in search of some luckless resident to assault and ravish.

      When he got home, Ellie was sitting in front of the television eating a dripping sandwich.

      ‘Good meeting?’ he asked.

      ‘Useless,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you declare a police state and shoot the bastards? You know what they said? Higher education might be a luxury this authority could no longer afford!’

      ‘Quite right,’ he said, regarding her affectionately. She was worth his regard. Friends at university, they had met again during an investigation at Holm Coultram College where Ellie was a lecturer. After some preliminary skirmishing they had become lovers and then, the previous year, got married. It was not an easy marriage, but nothing worthwhile ever was, thought Pascoe with a swift descent into Reader’s Digest philosophy.

      ‘You know who they’ve brought in to chair our liaison committee? Godfrey bloody Blengdale, that’s who.’

      ‘Is that bad?’ asked Pascoe, yawning. He sat down on the sofa next to Ellie, took a bite of her sandwich and focused on the television screen.

      ‘It’s sinister,’ said Ellie, frowning. ‘He’s the right-wing hatchet man on that council. I’ve never really believed there was a chance they could seriously consider closing the college down, but now … shall I switch this off?’

      ‘No,’ said Pascoe, watching with interest as James Cagney prepared to sort out a guy twice his size. ‘I may learn something.’

      ‘About dealing with suspects?’

      ‘About dealing with women. Is this the one where he pushes the grapefruit in whatsername’s face?’

      ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really been watching. It’s just been something to take my mind off those pompous bastards. Where’ve you been anyway? Boozing with Yorkshire’s Maigret?’

      ‘No. I’ve been to the pictures which is what makes this so nice.’

      Briefly he explained. Ellie listened intently. He didn’t often discuss the detail of his work with her but this wasn’t a case, just a speculation, and Pascoe who would have welcomed her clarity of thought on many occasions was glad to invite it now.

      To his surprise like Dalziel she dismissed as irrelevant the question of the broken teeth.

      ‘It’s not very likely, is it?’ she said. ‘It’s this chap Haggard you want to be interested in. I’ve heard of him. Before his school folded, he was a thorn in everyone’s side. No official standing, of course, and he had ideas that made the Black Papers shine at night. But he knew how to get to people, push them around.’

      ‘He obviously hasn’t lost his charming ways,’ said Pascoe. ‘The neighbours are almost solidly against him, but it’s getting them nowhere.’

      ‘So you have a complaint to investigate? Great! Can’t you fit him up? Slip a brick in his pocket or something?’

      Pascoe sighed. Ellie made police jokes like some people make Irish jokes, and at times they began to wear a bit thin.

      ‘It’s nothing to do with me. Sergeant Wield’s looking after things there. I’m only here for the teeth.’

      ‘So you say. Sounds odd to me. And this dentist of yours, he sounds a bit odd too.’

      ‘Christ,’ said Pascoe. ‘You sound more like Dalziel every day.’

      He bit into Ellie’s dripping sandwich again and watched James Cagney bust someone right on the jaw. The recipient of the blow staggered back, shook his head admiringly, then launched a counter-attack.

      This, thought Pascoe, is what fighting ought to look like. When the Gerry Toms of this world could produce stuff like this, then they might climb out of the skin-flick morass. This appealed to man’s artistic sense, not his basic lusts.

      Guns had appeared now. Cagney dived for cover and came up with a huge automatic in his hand.

      ‘Great,’ said Pascoe, his artistic sense thoroughly appealed to. ‘Now kill the bastard!’

       Chapter 3

      Sergeant Wield’s ugliness was only skin deep, but that was deep enough. Each individual feature was only slightly battered, or bent, or scarred, and might have made a significant contribution to the appeal of any joli-laid hero from Mr Rochester on, but combined in one face they produced an effect so startling that Pascoe who met him almost daily was still amazed when he entered his room.

      ‘Thanks for the membership card,’ said Pascoe, tossing it on the desk. ‘Maurice Arany, what do you know about him?’

      ‘Hungarian,’ said Wield. ‘His parents brought him out with them in ’fifty-six. He was thirteen then. They settled in Leeds and Maurice started work in a garage a couple of years later. He has no formal qualifications but a lot of mechanical skill. He got interested in the clubs and for a while he tried pushing an act around, part time. Bit of singing, juggling, telling jokes. Trouble was he couldn’t sing and his jokes never quite made it. Arany spoke near perfect English, but he couldn’t quite grasp

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