LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 3

      It was a glorious day. The sun laid a deep shadow obliquely across the polished oak of the coffin as it was lowered into the grave. The sky was cloudless, its blue more thinly painted than the blue of summer but the sun was too bright to stare in the eye. The air was just cold enough to make activity pleasant and the mourners shifted gently, almost imperceptibly, under their coats from time to time.

      Only Connon and Jenny stood in absolute stillness.

      Dalziel was scratching his left breast, his hand inside his coat moving rhythmically.

      ‘Ironical,’ he whispered loudly. ‘Suit you, my boy. Subtle.’

      ‘What?’ said Pascoe.

      ‘This,’ he said. ‘Nature.’

      ‘Human nature? Or red in tooth and claw?’

      ‘Don’t get bloody metaphysical with me. The day, I mean. Fine day for a funeral. Sun. No wind blowing dead leaves or any of that. Fine day for golf.’

      ‘What are you doing here then, sir?’

      Dalziel sniffed loudly. A few heads turned and turned away. He obviously wasn’t about to break down.

      ‘Me? Friend of the family. Last respects must be paid. Heartfelt sympathy.’

      He fluttered his hand inside his coat so that the cloth pulsated ludicrously.

      ‘What’s more to the point, what are you doing here? I come within smelling distance of having a reason. You’re a non-starter. Bloody policeman, that’s all. You’ll get the force a bad name. Intrusion of grief, it could be grounds for complaint.’

      ‘In his master’s steps he trod,’ murmured Pascoe softly.

      ‘Which of us does that make the very sod? And what are you looking for, Pascoe? You’re not nursing any nice little theories, are you? And not telling me?’

      ‘No,’ said Pascoe, ‘of course not.’

      Not bloody much, thought Dalziel. You keep working at it, lad. Nothing like the competitive spirit for sharpening the wits.

      ‘Not a bad gate,’ whispered Arthur Evans to Marcus.

      ‘Arthur!’

      Evans looked sideways at his wife. She had put hardly any make-up on in deference to the occasion and wore a plain black coat, loose-fitting. But the bite in the air had brought the red blood to her lips and cheeks and the looseness of the coat just made it more obvious where it did touch.

      Dressed like that, thought Evans with bitter admiration, she wouldn’t stay a widow long.

      Marcus, on his other side, looked pale beyond the remedy of frost. He swayed slightly.

      ‘You all right, boyo?’

      Jesus, on and off the field, I spend half my life nursing them.

      ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit cold. Poor Connie.’

      Poor Connie. Poor bastard. Evans remembered the shock last Sunday when they had finally got to the Club, arguments buried for an hour. That detective had been there, he was somewhere around now, bloody ghouls, one of Dalziel’s lackeys, there’s a right thug for you, like all these Scotsmen, no finesse, first up first down, feet feet feet. Sid had got in first. Snipped his indirect line, gave the news right out, loud and clear. Mary Connon’s dead. And all I could do was look at Gwen, watch Gwen, see her age beneath the words, then gradually come back to life with awareness of her own life.

      Poor Connie. He deserves sympathy. He deserves … perhaps he will get what he deserves. There he stands with that little girl of his. Not so little. She’s a pretty little thing.

      She’s a pretty little thing.

      The service was over. Out of the corner of his eye Pascoe had noticed two men with spades move tentatively forward from the cover of a clump of trees, then retreat. Their movement startled half-a-dozen crows whose caws had been a harsh burden to the words of the prayer-book and they went winging from the tree tops in ragged grace, as the black-coated mourners moved in twos and threes away from the grave-side, silent at first, but speaking more and more freely as the distance grew between themselves and the motionless couple who remained.

      At the car park they formed little groups before dispersing. Dalziel convened with three or four elder statesmen of the Club, his face and manner serious. He produced a cigarette-case and passed it round.

      Black Russian perhaps, thought Pascoe. That would amuse Dalziel if I could tell him. Do I want to amuse Dalziel? And if I do, is it to keep him sweet so I can manipulate him, like I pretend? Or is it because he puts the fear of God into me? Just how good is he anyway? Or is he just a ruthless sucker of other men’s blood? ‘Don’t get bloody metaphysical with me!’ But said quite nicely really. Like a jocular uncle. Uncle Andrew. You had to laugh. But not here. It’s colder now. Christ, I’m holding conversations with myself about the weather, the mental Englishman, that’s me. Now there’s something to warm us all up, that woman getting into the back seat, back seat’s the place for you, dear, are you sitting comfortably, now get them off. Don’t be shocked, love, that’s what all the detectives are thinking this year, you’ll be giving yourself a scratch in a minute Andrew, you randy old devil. Randy Andy. Now if she’d been killed, her, Gwen, wasn’t it? Evans, that would have been easy. Jealous husband, spurned lover, or one of those tumescent young men who’d been hanging around her from the moment she set foot in the bar, yes, one of those provoked just that bit too far, just over the edge where playing starts to be for real. But not Mary Connon, not that parcel of middle-aged lumber they’d

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