Underworld (9 page)

Third warning. Why not cut the cackle and say that Col was mad, bad, and dangerous to know?

The door opened and the young man in question appeared looking none of these things. Indeed, with tousled hair and an oil stain on his cheek, he looked about sixteen.

'Mam, here's Wendy,' he announced.

A painfully thin young woman entered wearing baggy jeans and a loose knit sweater which emphasized her skinniness. Her eyes were almost feverishly bright and she was smoking a cigarette which the yellowness of her fingers suggested was neither the first nor the last of the day.

'Didn't know you were entertaining, May,' she said, looking at Ellie with open curiosity.

'This is Mrs Pascoe, she runs the course at the college that our Colin goes to. This is Wendy Walker. She runs our Women's Group.'

'The Strike Support Group? The Women Against Pit Closures?' said Ellie.

'Aye, that's what we are now. It's us the University should be spending its time on, not these lads.'

'Yes. How many are in your group?' asked Ellie, irritated with herself. For some reason she'd never even considered the possibility that May Farr might be a member of the Support Group. She'd fallen into the old chauvinist trap of defining her solely in terms of her relationship with men: the grieving widow, the protective mother.

'Twenty at best, more like ten what you might call hardcore,' said Wendy.

'You may have met a friend of mine who's done some work with the Groups. Thelma Lacewing.'

'Thel?' Wendy's mouth widened into a nicotinous grin. 'You a mate of Thel's? She were all right. She's got a grand throwing arm!'

Colin reappeared accompanied by a tall, gangling man with a not unattractively long face, like a sad sheepdog's.

He was clasping a carrier bag out of which smiled the full- moon face of a cauliflower.

'Here's Arthur,' he said. 'You ready for off?'

It was clearly Ellie's dismissal. She rose swiftly before May Farr could protest at her son's rudeness and said, ‘I must dash. Look, I've really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks for the tea. I hope we can meet again sometime. You too er . . .'

'Wendy. Give my best to Thel. Next time she comes, get her to bring you. It's always good to make contact with the outside world!'

The thin woman's tone was both friendly and mocking.

Outside Ellie said, 'You didn't introduce me to your friend.'

'Friend? Oh, him. He's no friend of mine. Arthur Downey. Bloody deputy. He were my dad's best friend once. He's been sniffing around Mam ever since Dad died. He looks just like a bloody great lanky hound, doesn't he? Luckily she's got more sense. Good job someone in our family has.'

They were at the car. To her surprise he opened the door and got in the passenger seat.

'I'm sorry, Col, but I've really got to rush.'

'That's all right. Drop me along the road somewhere. I could do with a good walk. Get the taste of that sodding hole out of my lungs.'

She started up the car and set off.

'Do you really hate the pit that much?' she asked.

He laughed harshly and said, 'Bloody right I do. There's precious few as loves it, that's for sure. But I always hated it, hated it and feared it from a kid.'

'Then why did you go down?' she asked.

'Not much else to do round here,' he said.

'Come on,' said Ellie. 'Your mam said you were pretty bright at school.’

'You have been having a right cosy chat, haven't you? Did she get out the photo album and let you see me in my nappies?'

'She loves you and worries about you very much,' said Ellie quietly. 'But she didn't need to tell me you were bright. So what happened? This isn't the bad old days when there really were no choices.'

'You think not?' He shrugged. 'All right. I were bright enough at school to get something better than the pit, everyone reckoned. Not that there was much better round here. Clerking mainly with a lot less money and the chance of being made redundant any day. Oh aye, the big unemployment rush was starting when I did my O-levels. They said, Stay on at school, another two years and then mebbe college. I told 'em to get stuffed. I was sixteen and fed up with being a kid. They said, Be sensible, listen to our clever advice or you'll end up down pit. I don't know which were worse, the bloody pit being a threat or an expectation! I got mad and said, If I go down pit it'll be because that's what I decide to do, not what you buggers tell me I've got to do! And I went off that day and got myself set on.'

'What did your parents say?'

'Mam was furious. She'd not hit me for three or four years but she made my ears ring that day, I tell you. Dad were always a quiet man. He just said, 'You've made up your mind to go down. See you make up your own mind to come up: I soon found out what he meant. I hated it and everyone told me I'd not stick it, so I had to stick it, didn't I? And I did stick it for nigh on three years till my dad had his accident. Did Mam tell you about that? He ended up with a locked knee and one leg shorter than the other. He didn't get much compensation either. This deputy, Satterthwaite, said the lads had been larking around during their break when it happened. They often do muck about a bit, you've got to do something else you'd go mad. But not Dad. He'd just sit there quiet. Downey were there too. He could've said something, but he reckoned he was looking the other way. Bastard! He'd just got made up and I suppose he wanted to show Satterthwaite he knew which side his bread were buttered now. So there wasn't as much compensation as there should have been. Union took it up but they got nowhere as usual. Not that the money bothered Dad too much. It was ending up on pit-top that got to him. He'd been a collier all his life. He had more pit-sense than all the deputies put together. They all used to turn to him for advice. Except Satterthwaite. That's why the bastard resented Dad so much. For him to end up with a surface job at his age really finished Dad. You could see it in his eyes. All that he knew was useless to him now. It wasn't just his leg that got shattered, it was his whole picture of himself. That's when I came up too, when I saw that.'

He fell silent. Ellie was driving very slowly, not wanting to take the youth too far, not wanting to stop him talking.

'I went and joined the Merchant Navy, don't ask me why,' he resumed, I'd never given it any thought before and the nearest I'd ever been to the sea had been a week at Brid one summer. Mebbe it was because I thought it'd be as far away from mining as I could get.'

'And was it?'

'Sometimes. Sometimes it seemed worse. At least at the end of a shift down pit you're your own man. But yeah, it mainly was a bloody sight better, and it was good having your money saved for you as there was bugger-all to spend it on. Come the end of a trip, you could have a right good time.'

Ellie tried to imagine what a right good time looked like to Colin Farr. Booze and birds? It seemed more likely than books and Beethoven. Was she being culturalist?

She said, 'But you came back?'

' Aye.'

'Because your father died?'

'Aye.'

'And you stayed because of your mother.'

'Aye,' he repeated, but this time he didn't sound so sure.

'Did she ask you to stay?'

'No! She wanted me to go off again,' he exclaimed. 'She said she'd be fine and the last thing she wanted was to see me back down the pit. But I said no, I'd stay.'

'That was very thoughtful,' said Ellie.

'No, it wasn't! It had nowt to do with Mam, or at least not directly,' burst out Farr. There were stories. About the way Dad died. I overheard a lad saying it were suicide. I half killed the bugger before they got me off. After that most of 'em were a bloody sight more careful. But I knew they'd still be on with their stupid bloody gossip behind my back. And I reckoned the further off I was, the braver they'd get. So I stayed.'

'To protect your mother?' said Ellie.

'I suppose so. Incidentally. But mainly to show them buggers that I didn't care. But they better had, if they didn't want to end up in the gob with a broken jaw.'

'In the gob?'

'The hole left where they've taken the coal out of the seam. Don't you read those bloody essays you make us write?'

'Yes, of course. Sorry. Colin, what's been going on today?'

'Nowt,' he said harshly. 'What do you mean?'

'Oh, come on!' said Ellie. 'Why'd you take me to meet your mother and then leave us together?'

'Mebbe I wanted to give her a chance to discuss your prospects and ask if your intentions were honourable!' he sneered.

Containing her anger with difficulty, she brought the car to a halt by the roadside but didn't switch off the engine.

'It's been an interesting day, Colin,' she said very formally. 'Thank your mam again, will you? And I'll see you next week.'

He sat looking gloomily out of the window without speaking. She stole a glance at her watch. Daphne would be in that state of icy politeness which in the privately educated daughters of C of E archdeacons passes for rage.

'Colin . . .' she began.

His reaction was astounding. He turned towards her, placed his right hand on her left shoulder and thrust his left hand with considerable force up her skirt between her legs.

For a moment simple astonishment excluded outrage. She looked at him, eyes and mouth rounded in a dramatic mask of surprise. His face was very close but he made no effort to kiss her. His hand was pressed hard against the narrow gusset of her panties, but the fingers were still.

Then outrage came and she hit him, an open-handed slap across the face with as much force as the swing-limiting confines of the Mini permitted.

Immediately he withdrew his hand, released her shoulder, and turned his head to stare out through the wind-screen once more.

It took another moment for Ellie to regain her powers of speech.

'And what the hell was all that about?' she demanded.

‘Nothing. I thought you might fancy a quick jump,' he said indifferently.

'Oh no, you didn't!' she retorted. 'Don't give me that! Even when you were pissed out of your mind in some dockland knocking shop, your approach'd be subtle compared to that!'

'You think so?' he said. 'All right, you're the clever one. You tell me what I was after!'

'I don't know! You were watching me, weren't you? You just wanted to see what I'd do. You wanted, I don't know, to shock me, defile me even, is that it?'

'Defile?' he savoured the word. 'Sort of sacrilege, you mean? Like gobbing on a crucifix, something like that?'

He was mocking her and she did not feel in any state to trade verbal blows.

'Get out,' she said. 'Just bloody well get out!'

He climbed out of the car and closed the door gently behind him.

She set off instantly, accelerating rapidly. She never once glanced in her rear-view mirror for fear of seeing him. But after she had driven half a mile she had to pull into the side of the road once more.

With awkward tyro movements, she lit a cigarette. She was shaking, she was amazed to discover. She tried to tell herself it was rage, but she knew it was not. It was the aftermath of that moment of sheer nerve-fracturing terror when she had been absolutely certain he was going to rape her.

Oh, you bastard,' she said. 'You cocky little bastard!'

It was five minutes before the shaking stopped enough for her to drive back to town.

Chapter 2

The following Sunday Pascoe drove to a newsagents where he wasn't known and bought a
Challenger
. Sitting in his car, he turned with scarcely a pause past the page with the topless blonde and settled down to the first episode proper of Watmough's memoirs.

'Bloody hell,' he said after he finished, and immediately began the unpleasant task of reading the article again.

It outstripped his expectation in several ways. The language was even more lurid than he'd guessed, details were given of Pickford's assaults on his victims which had never appeared before, and there were quotes from recent interviews with relatives, plus the revelation (with address) that Pickford's widow had remarried and gone to live in Essex. These were obviously the work of Monty Boyle, but it all came out under the imprimatur of Neville Watmough.

As far as Mid-Yorks went, there was the expected side- swipe at their inefficiency in dealing with what turned out to be the first Pickford killing, that of Annie Tweddle. But this was nothing compared with what was hinted at in the trailer for the following week.

What of the body that got away? Little Tracey Pedley was never found. Did Pickford abduct her and subject her to the same terrible fate as the others?

At the time the evidence seemed to point that way. But upon examination how flimsy that evidence seems. Before Pickford's suicide it amounted to little more than the alleged sighting of the by now notorious 'blue car' off the road near the place where her pail was found. And after Pickford's
death the
best the police could do was establish that he had no alibi for the time of Tracey's disappearance.

But what if the police got it wrong for once? What if Pickford did have an alibi?

There were always those in Burrthorpe who were never satisfied with the official explanation and their doubts may have been rekindled three months later when the last witness to admit seeing Tracey alive himself died in strange circumstances. Coincidence? Like the coincidence that it was his best friend who gave the most positive sighting of the blue car?

'A tragic accident.' said the coroner. But there were those who whispered of remorse, or even retribution.

But suppose they too are wrong as the police may prove to have been wrong? Suppose the killer of Tracey Pedley is still alive and perhaps even having his evening pint drawn by the father he so cruelly bereaved . . .

What do I think?

Find out next week. Only in the
Challenger
.

Bastard! thought Pascoe.

As he drove home he wondered if he should draw Ellie's attention to the fact that it was her protégés father who was being blackguarded here. Not that she'd said much about young Farr or her class since their row the previous Sunday. She wasn't usually a sulker and he'd expected a detailed account of her trip to Burrthorpe Main, but there'd been only the most basic of responses to his truce-offering inquiry.

He found her reading a colour supplement.

'I got a
Challenger
,' he said. ‘Thought I should keep up to date.'

'Why bother? Crap's crap no matter when,' she said, not looking up.

'I thought you might be interested to see if Adi had been able to do anything about Watmough's article.'

'Has she?'

‘If she has, I wouldn't have cared to see the original version. This one's grisly enough for my money. There's a bit about Burrthorpe in it.'

She turned a page of her supplement indifferently.

‘It sounds like he's got something nasty up his sleeve. For us, I mean.'

'Us?'

'Us, the fuzz,' he joked. She didn't smile, but said, 'What's it to do with you?'

'There was only ever circumstantial evidence linking Pickford to the Pedley girl's disappearance. He worked for a press tool manufacturer near Huddersfield. That afternoon he had an appointment over here at Tanyard-Lees, the fork-lift truck works on the Avro Estate. It's forty-five miles as the crow flies. He left his office at three-thirty. Burrthorpe's well south of his route but if he had diverted there he could have made it easily by four. Tracey was last seen alive by a local man just after four.'

He paused, saw no response, went on. 'If Pickford kept his four-thirty appointment on the Avro Estate, he just couldn't have picked up Tracey. That's where we came in. As it was on our patch, we did the checking at Tanyard-Lees, and we confirmed that Pickford didn't make it.'

'And now Watmough's saying you made a mistake? It's possible, isn't it? Anyone can.'

'Sure. But I can't see it.'

For the first time she looked up.

'What? So it's infallibility now? Who was the Pope on this occasion? You or Fatso?'

'Neither. It was Wieldy. And he's the nearest thing to infallible we've got, especially on something as simple as this.'

'Perhaps it was too simple,' said Ellie. 'You're not saying Watmough's been holding back on something all this time?'

'No, of course not. He's a lot of things but dishonest isn't one of them.'

'So, if some new information came up, he'd bring it out, even if it marred his triumph slightly?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'I suppose so. But what new information could there be about something as straightforward as this? No, I reckon it's just a bit of
Challenger
titillation.'

'Then you've nothing to worry about, have you?' said Ellie returning to her article, which appeared to be on interesting things to do in the kitchen with squid.

Was this yet another threat to his well-being? wondered Pascoe.

He folded up the
Challenger
, left it neatly on the coffee table and went to phone a friendly warning through to Wield.

At nine o'clock on Monday morning, Sergeant Wield turned off the main road through the Avro Industrial Estate into the service road running alongside the Stalag security fence which wrapped itself round the premises of Tanyard-Lees.

Most of his colleagues must have seen yesterday's
Challenger
. The prospect of seeing the worm turn yet again to nip Andy Dalziel on the ankle was almost irresistible. Wield had resisted because he knew what rags like the Challenger would do to someone like himself if they got the chance. Once they had got close and Dalziel had been the most substantial bulwark fending them off. So he owed something to Andy Dalziel.

He also owed something to Peter Pascoe. Of all his colleagues who must have worked out what the article was getting at, only Pascoe had picked up the phone to make sure he didn't come in the next day unprepared.

Well, he was going to be better than prepared. He was going to be justified. He'd gone over it all last night a thousand times. He'd come here as instructed, checked every way possible whether Pickford had kept his appointment, and returned with confirmation of the answer everyone logically expected. No, he hadn't.

The only doubt that snagged in his mind lay in that phrase 'that everyone logically expected'. He knew how easy it was to see what you expected to see. It was a principle he'd lived behind most of his life.

But he still couldn't believe he'd fouled up.

What he could believe was that the
Challenger
had 'persuaded' someone to recall' that perhaps Pickford had shown up that September day after all.

He halted his car at the entrance barrier, got out and went into the gatehouse.

The gateman looked up from his newspaper and said, 'Yes, sir?' He was a man of about sixty, grey-haired, ruddy-complexioned, with the kind of face that knows things about central heating and carburettors.

'I'd like to see Mr Wattis, please. Is he in yet?'

'Who?'

Wield consulted his notes. He'd called in early at the station that morning to check out the file.

'Mr Lewis Wattis. He's assistant controller, Purchasing. Or was.'

'Was it is, sir,' said the gateman, 'Mr Wattis retired two years ago, mebbe more.'

'Oh. Do you have an address?'

'Forwarding, you mean? Who knows?' The gateman looked slowly upwards then let his gaze slip slowly down.

'Dead?' said Wield.

'Same year he retired,' said the gateman. 'It's often the way, though I'd not have expected it of Mr Wattis. He wanted to be retired, you see. He wasn't going to be pining away for this place!'

Wield stood at the counter, his face showing none of the bafflement he was feeling. It was Wattis that Pickford's four-thirty appointment had been with. It was Wattis who had assured him that Pickford had not turned up. Naturally Wield had double-checked at the gatehouse. No one could enter the works without passing through here and signing the book. Donald Pickford's name did not appear.

'Was it business, sir, or private? If it was business, I can give Purchasing a ring and see if anyone can help you,' offered the gateman. If not Wattis, who then had the
Challenger
dug up to say that Pickford did keep his appointment? His eyes, inward-looking, refocused outward and the gateman's friendly knowing face swam into definition.

Wield said, 'How long have you been here, Mr . . . ?'

'Moffat. Twenty years, more,' said the man.

'So you'd be working here when the Pickford killings took place?'

The man's face registered consternation.

'Here, look, so that's it. Sorry, mate. I can't say anything about that. You'd better buzz off. I've got work to do.'

'Who says you can't say anything? Your friends at the
Challenger
?' said Wield aggressively.

'Yes, that's right,' said Moffat. 'Mr Boyle warned me some of you lot would likely be along and he said to tell you I'd sold what I know to the
Challenger
and if you want to find out about it, you can buy a copy next Sunday!'

Wield said incredulously. 'Boyle told you to say that to the police?'

'Police? You're police?' replied the man with equal incredulity.

Wield produced his warrant and Moffat said, 'Yes. I see. Sorry, but you didn't look like . . . No, Mr Boyle said if the police came round, then naturally I should tell them all I know.'

'And also why you didn't tell all you knew a couple of years ago,' said Wield grimly.

'That's easy, mate. I was never asked!'

Wield, who'd been sure that either someone had lied in the past or was lying now, listened to Moffat's story with a growing sense of his own culpability.

Moffat had been on holiday when the Pickford suicide made headlines.

'I read about it on the beach at Rimini,' he said. 'When I read he were a salesman for that tool company, I remember thinking, I wonder if he were that fellow who came to see Mr Wattis?'

'But he didn't come to see Mr Wattis,' said Wield. 'Mr Wattis was sure he hadn't kept his appointment. And his name wasn't in the book.'

'No,' said Moffat. 'The thing was, he was late. Just ten minutes, but that was enough for old Wattis. He was a bit of a joke really. Just treading water till his time was up. And off to the golf course like a flash if he got half a chance. Pickford must have been the last thing he had on his plate that day. He'd give him five minutes, then off. He went out just as Pickford came in. That's how I recall the time. I glanced at the clock when Pickford said he had a four-thirty appointment. It was just gone four-forty. I told him it were too late. I said I'd ring through and see if they could fix up another day, but I tipped him the wink that it'd likely be a waste of time. You see, with Mr Wattis being so demob happy, no one treated him serious any more. You could be pretty certain any salesman they steered towards him wasn't someone they intended doing business with! Pickford didn't seem bothered, just said thanks and went off. So his name didn't get in the book and the only person he saw at Tanyard-Lees was me, and no one ever asked me!'

'He came back off holiday three weeks later,' Wield told Pascoe on his return to the station. 'His stand-in, that's the fellow I saw when I looked at the gate book, went off to his usual duties and never mentioned my visit. Why should he? I just looked in the book, and there was never any mention of Pickford's appointment at the Plant in the papers, Wattis retired a month later, went down to Cornwall and died, and Moffat never thought any more about his possible encounter with Pickford till Monty Boyle came round with a handful of fivers.'

'You're sure he's telling the truth?' said Pascoe.

'Certain. More important, perhaps, Boyle's obviously certain too, certain enough to go public with it. Even ten minutes late wouldn't give him enough time to divert to Burrthorpe and kill that little girl. Christ, what a cock- up!'

'Come on, Wieldy, you can't blame yourself. You were asked to check what looked a ninety per cent certainty according to the way South, that is, Mr Watmough presented it to us. You checked it the best way you could. No one can blame you.'

'Tell that to the
Challenger
on Sunday,' said Wield. 'Tell it to Mr Dalziel now.'

'I'll come with you,' said Pascoe.

‘To hold my hand? No need. He'll likely just send me to bed with no supper.'

'I'll come anyway. And talking of supper, I've been meaning to ask you round for a bite one night.'

In fact the notion had just popped into his head, but even as he said it, he recognized he was merely confirming a stage in their friendship.

'Great.’ said Wield. 'When?'

'Make it tomorrow, if that's OK. Eightish?'

'Eightish it is. If I survive.'

The condition seemed less of a joke when Dalziel flung open his door as they approached and glowered at them like a jealous Italian catching his wife and brother in flagrante delicto.

'Well?' he snarled, is it true?'

Wield nodded unhappily.

'I'd not have thought it possible of you,' cried Dalziel, more than ever like a man betrayed. 'How'd it happen? Mental breakdown, was it?'

Stoically Wield gave his explanation. It was clear, concise, and void of excuse or special pleading.

'So,' said Dalziel. 'Clever cunt, this Monty Boyle. I think we'd better have a word with him. See to it, Peter. Poor old Nev!'

Pascoe looked at the fat man in surprise. Sympathy for Watmough? And from a man whose usual position on the Christian forgiveness ethic was that no enemy ever fell so low that a kick in the teeth couldn't drive him lower.