REGINALD HILL
A KILLING KINDNESS
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Copyright
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 1980
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1980
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN 9780586072516
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780007370252
Version: 2015-06-18
Dedication
For Dan and Pat
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Epigraph
The man that lays his hand upon a woman,
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom twere gross flattery to name a coward.
JOHN TOBIN: The Honeymoon
Chapter 1
it was green, all green, all over me, choking, the water, then boiling at first, and roaring, and seething, till all settled down, cooling, clearing, and my sight up drifting with the few last bubbles, till through the glassy water I see the sky clearly, and the sun bright as a lemon, and birds with wings wide as a windmills sails slowly drifting round it, and over the banks rim small dark faces peering, timid as beasts at their watering, nostrils sniffing danger and shy eyes bright and wary, till a current turns me over, and I drift, and still am drifting, and
What the hells going on here! Stop it! This is sick
Please. Oh God! Be careful youll
Jack! No!
Ohhhh
See! Look. The lights please
fakery I dont want
lights! Mrs Stanhope, Mrs Stanhope, are you all right?
auntie, are you OK? Please, auntie
thank you, love, Im a bit in a minute did I get
vicious blackmailing cow and Ill see
picking up lots of forget-me-nots. You make me
Sorry, said Sergeant Wield, switching off the pocket cassette recorder. That was on the tape before.
Pity. I thought she was proving that Sinatra really was dead, said Pascoe putting down the sergeants handwritten transcription of the first part of the recording. Did you switch off there, or what?
Or what, I think. I had the mike in my pocket, nice and inconspicuous. When I jumped up to grab at Sorby it mustve fallen out and pulled the connection loose. Im sorry about all this, sir!
Oh no, youre not, said Pascoe. Not yet. When Mr Dalziel comes through that door with the Evening Post in his hand, thats when youre going to be sorry.
Wield nodded gloomy agreement with the inspector, who now studied his report as if seeking some hidden meaning.
Like all Sergeant Wields reports, it was pellucid in its clarity.
Calling on Mrs Winifred Sorby in pursuit of enquiries into the murder of her daughter, Brenda, he had found her in the company of her neighbour, Mrs Annie Duxbury. A short time later, Mrs Rosetta Stanhope and her niece, Pauline, had turned up. Mrs Stanhope was known to the sergeant by reputation as a self-professed clairvoyant and medium. It emerged that Mrs Sorby wished Mrs Stanhope to attempt to get in touch with her dead daughter. The sergeant had been pressed to stay and take part. Agreeing, he had excused himself to go out to his car where he had a small cassette recorder. Concealing this under his jacket, he had returned and joined the women round a table in the dead girls darkened bedroom. After a while Mrs Stanhope had seemed to go into a trance and finally started talking in a voice completely different from her own. But only a few moments later the door had burst open and Mr Sorby, the dead girls father, had entered angrily and brought the seance to an end.
His fury at his wifes stupidity had been redirected when he became aware of the sergeants presence. He had rapidly found a sympathetic ear for his complaints in the local press and by the time a chastened Wield had returned to the station, Pascoe had already fielded several enquiries about the police decision to use clairvoyance in the Sorby case.
His wifes always gone in for that kind of stuff, explained Wield. Sorbys never approved. Naturally she wasnt expecting him back for a couple of hours.
Perhaps hes got second sight, grunted Pascoe.
He was examining the transcript again. It had taken Wield nearly an hour of careful listening to sort out the confusion of overlapping voices.
Lets get it straight, said Pascoe. Mrs Stanhope in her trance voice. Thats clear. Then Sorby arrives and starts shouting. OK?
Yes, said Wield. Next thats Please. Oh God, etc., is the niece, Pauline. Jack no! thats Mrs Sorby.
And this great yell?
Mrs Stanhope coming out of her trance. Then the niece again, Sorby going on about fakery, Mrs Sorby asking Mrs Stanhope if shes all right.
Which she is. Speaking in her normal voice again, right?
Right. And Sorby again. The niece had jumped up and put the light on. Sorby pushed her aside and looked as if he was going to assault Mrs Stanhope. Thats when I got in on the act.
And the rest is silence, said Pascoe. Thats apt.
I wish it had all been bloody silence, said Wield. He had one of the ugliest faces Pascoe had ever seen, the kind of ugliness which you didnt get used to but were taken aback by even if you met him after only half an hours separation. The advantage of such an arrangement of features was that it normally blanked out tell-tale signs of emotion. But at the moment unease was printed clearly on the creased and leathery surface.
The phone rang.
It was the desk sergeant.
Mr Dalziels just come in, he said. Hes on his way up.
The door burst open as Pascoe replaced the receiver.
Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel stood there. A long intermittently observed diet had done something to keep his bulging flesh in check, but now anger seemed to have inflated him till his eyes threatened to pop out of his grizzled bladder of a head and his muscles seemed on the point of ripping apart the dog-tooth twill of his suit.
Like the Incredible Hulk about to emerge, thought Pascoe.
Hello, sir. Good meeting? he said, half rising. Wield was standing to attention as if rigor mortis had set in.
Champion, till I got off the train this end, said Dalziel, raising a huge right hand which was attempting to squeeze the printing ink out of a rolled up copy of the local paper.
He pretended to notice Wield for the first time, went close to him and put his mouth next to his ear.
Ah, Sergeant Wield, he murmured. Any messages for me?
No sir, said Wield. Not that I know of.
Not even from the other bloody side! bellowed Dalziel. He looked as if he was about to thump the sergeant with the paper.
Its all a mistake, sir, interposed Pascoe hastily.
Mistake? Certainly its a bloody mistake. I go down to Birmingham for a conference. Hello Andy, they all say. Hows that Choker of yours? they all say. Fine, I say. All under control, I say. That was the bloody mistake! You know what it says here in this rag?
He unfolded the paper with some difficulty.
It has long been common practice among American police forces to call on the aid of clairvoyants when they are baffled, he read. I leave a normal English CID unit doing its job. I come back and suddenly its the Mid-Yorkshire precinct and were baffled! No wonder Kojaks bald.
Pascoe risked a smile. Lots of things made Dalziel angry. Not having his jokes appreciated was one of them.
The fat man hooked a chair towards him with a size ten foot and sat down heavily.
All right, he said. Tell me.
For answer, Pascoe shoved Wields report towards him.
He read it quickly.
Sergeant.
Sir!
Oh, stop standing there as if youd crapped yourself, said Dalziel wearily.
Think I may have, sir, said Wield.
This tickled Dalziels fancy and he grinned and belched. There had obviously been a buffet bar on the train.
Howd it happen you had a recorder in your car, lad? Not normal issue these days, is it?
No, sir, said Wield. Its my nephews. Itd gone wonky so Id been having it repaired.
That was kind of you, said Dalziel approvingly. At an electrical shop, you mean?
Not exactly, sir, said Wield, uncomfortable again. Its Percy Lowe who services the radio equipment in the cars. Hes very good with anything like this.
Oh aye. In his own time and with his own gear, I suppose, said Dalziel sarcastically.
He did a good job on your electric kettle, sir, said Pascoe brightly.
Dalziel edged nearer the corner of the desk to scratch his paunch on the angle.
Lets hear what the spirits had to say, then, he commanded.
He followed Wields transcript closely as the tape was played again.
Now thats what I call helpful, he said when it was done. That makes it all worthwhile. Heres us thinking Brenda Sorby was killed after dark when all the time the sun was shining, and that she was chucked into our muddy old canal thats so thick Judas bloody Iscariot could walk on it, and all the time it was some nice crystal-clear trout stream!
Sir, said Pascoe, but the sarcasm wasnt yet finished.
So all weve got to do now, sergeant, is work out the most likely nesting ground for albatrosses in Yorkshire. Or condors, maybe. Wasnt there a pair seen sitting on a slag heap near Barnsley? Thats it! And these dark-skinned buggersll be Arthur Scargill and his lads just up from tpit!