Now the print men did the rest of the table before it and the chairs were also packaged and despatched to the lab.
While all this was going on, a police caravan had been towed into the car park and here already statements were being taken for the second time in a week from the fairground people, with particular attention paid to those whose stalls or entertainments were within sighting distance of the tent.
Of these, the sharp-faced woman on the penny-roll stall was the most positive. Her name was Ena Cooper.
Just before twelve she went. I told the ugly fellow. No, I didnt speak, well, she werent all that close, like, and we was busy. Things dont really pick up while afternoon, but you get a lot of kids round late morning and the roll stalls are always popular with the kids. No, I didnt see her come back, I went across to our Ethels, shes got a hot-dog stand by the Wheel, for a bite to eat later on, so she could have come back then. About two oclock, just after the ugly fellow was here the first time. I was away mebbe forty-five minutes. No, its no use asking him. Hes so short-sighted he can hardly see the pennies. Kids cheat him rotten when Im not here!
Cooper, her husband, nodded melancholy agreement. Hed seen nowt, heard nowt.
Loudspeaker appeals were made to the crowd requesting anyone who had visited Madame Rashids tent earlier that day to come forward, but so far without success.
Notable by his absence was Dave Lee. After Wield had described his encounter that afternoon, he was sent to pick the gypsy up and bring him in for questioning. At the same time, Dalziel sent a man round to the Wheatsheaf Garage to check the movements of Tommy Maggs.
Pascoe nodded approvingly. Investigation is ninety per cent elimination. In his mind, Maggs was almost completely in the clear as far as Brenda Sorbys death was concerned, and he didnt see the young man as a psychopathic mass murderer. But the obvious has got to be seen to be done.
When he was bold enough to utter these thoughts to Dalziel, the fat man grunted, Oh aye?
A policewoman had been sent to tell Rosetta Stanhope the tragic news. Pascoe had steered her out of the office earlier that afternoon, with assurances that they would certainly consider her kind offer of psychic assistance.
Later he had been summoned to Dalziels office where the fat man was conferring with Detective Chief Inspector George Headingley who was in charge of the Spinks warehouse case. This was now murder. The watchman had died in hospital that morning, and Headingley was in search of more manpower. They had gone over the staff dispositions together and seen how tautly stretched they were. Then Pascoe had mentioned Rosetta Stanhopes offer of help and frivously wondered if they might not take it up.
Aye, said Dalziel. She can try to make contact with the ACC for a start. That buggers been dead from the neck up for years!
They had all laughed. And not long afterwards Wield had phoned with his news.
Now Pascoe awaited uneasily the arrival of the dead girls aunt. She would have to be taken to the mortuary for a formal identification of the body. It was always an unpleasant business, and though Rosetta Stanhope had impressed him as a strong-willed albeit rather eccentric character, experience had taught him there was no way of forecasting reactions.
He felt almost relieved when the policewoman called in with the news that Mrs Stanhope was not at home so she had stationed herself outside her flat to await her return.
Shortly afterwards Wield returned to say that Dave Lee had gone off in his van right after the sergeants visit. No one knew, or at least was telling, his destination.
Finally the DC sent to check on Tommy Maggs arrived, also unaccompanied. Maggs had not returned to work after the dinner break and there was no reply to repeated knockings at the door of his home.
Check with the neighbours, ordered Dalziel. See if hes contacted his parents at work. Find out who his doctor is. Sergeant Wield, youve got Lees van number? Right. Put out a call. Peter, you go and deal with the press, will you? Youre better at shooting shit than anyone else.
Thanks, said Pascoe. What do I tell them?
What you know, which, unless youre holding something back, is bugger all.
Theyll be keen to know if its the Choker again, said Pascoe.
Wont know that till the PM. And then well only know its a Choker!
It looks a pretty clear case, protested Pascoe. I mean, compared with the Sorby girl
You think so? Well have to see, said Dalziel.
The old bastard thinks hes on to something, thought Pascoe. Or perhaps he just likes being contrary.
The journalists who had gathered at the fairground were not just local. Word had spread, and there were even a couple from London already, though it emerged that they had travelled up attracted by the clairvoyance story, and Pauline Stanhopes murder was just a bonus. In the car park, a television crew were unshipping their cameras. They would get some good atmospheric footage if nothing more, thought Pascoe. The fairground amusements, after a brief hiatus, were back to full steam, whirling, glittering, blaring. Did the laughter, the music, the excited shrieking hold perhaps a more than usually strident note of hysteria? wondered Pascoe. It was almost indecent, but at the same time it was inevitable. Death, the biggest barker of them all, had gathered together a huge crowd and the fair people could hardly be expected to ignore this opportunity. It wasnt even as if Pauline Stanhope was one of their own. Nor Rosetta, for that matter. Once a year they joined the show while the rest of them formed a shifting but constant community.
He stonewalled the questions for ten minutes. As hed anticipated, they were most eager for confirmation that this was a Choker killing.
What about the Hamlet calls, Inspector? asked one of the reporters. Has there been one yet?
I dont know. Pascoe smiled. Youd better ask your colleague from the Evening Post. His boss gets them first.
One of the TV men caught his sleeve as he turned away and asked if they could do a filmed interview in about five minutes.
Ill have to check, said Pascoe.
Well, its not with you, actually. Its Superintendent Dalziel wed like.
Piqued, Pascoe returned to the caravan where he found Dalziel on the phone which the Post Office had just connected.
The telly men request the pleasure of your company, sir, he said when the fat man had finished.
Whats up with you, lad? Not photogenic?
Perhaps I dont fill a twenty-six-inch screen, said Pascoe acidly.
What? Put you out, has it, lad? chortled Dalziel. Heres something to put you back in. Ive just been talking to Sammy Locke at the Post.
Theres been a call? said Pascoe eagerly.
I knew thatd please you, Peter. You reckon youll get the bugger through these calls, dont you? Well, best of luck. Theres two of the sods at it now!
He was wrong.
By the time Pascoe got home that night thered been four Hamlet calls.
The first, at four-forty-two, said, Now get you to my ladys chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.
The second, at five-twenty-three, said, One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
The third, at six-fifteen, said, To be, or not to be, that is the question.
The fourth, at seven-nine, said, The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.
Ellie, for a change, was in bright good spirits and Pascoe was so pleased to see this that he restricted himself to no more than a forty degree roll of the eyeballs when she announced that she was now the membership secretary of WRAG. In any case, she seemed much more keen to talk about the Choker.
These phone calls. Are they really going to be any use?
We dont have much else, said Pascoe, tucking into his re-heated beef and mushroom pie. But they cant all be the Choker. Sammy Lockes memory of the first voice is a bit vague. He reckons that two, possibly three, of this lot are not so very different from it.
Youve got all todays calls on tape, you say, said Ellie. What you want is a language expert to listen to them.
Good thinking, said Pascoe, whod already made the suggestion to Dalziel but wasnt about to be a clever-sticks. Anyone in mind?
Well, theres Dicky Gladmann and Drew Urquhart at the College. They impress their students by working out regional and social backgrounds by voice analysis.
And are they right?
One hundred per cent usually, I gather. But I think they probably check the records first. Still, theyre certainly incomprehensible enough to be good linguists.
Pascoe finished his pie, drew breath and started in on the apple crumble, also warmed up.
She wants me to get fat too! he suddenly thought.
Ill give them a try. Though theyre probably enjoying their little vacation in Acapulco, he said. By the way, you never said, how did la Lacewing respond to your theory about the medium message?
Thought it was a load of crap, said Ellie moodily.
Did she now? Well well. Let me have the transcript back, wont you?
Yes. And she got pretty close to embarrassing me by talking about you being in charge of the case.
That embarrasses you?
Of course not. No, I mean she was trying to put down some loud-mouthed, fellow called Middlefield, hes a JP or something, thinks all murdered women are ipso facto whores. I tell you what was interesting, though. I gathered the fellow he was talking to was the manager of the bank where that other girl worked. The one on the tape. Or not.
Brenda Sorby. Now that is interesting, said Pascoe.
Later as they lay in bed, Ellie said drowsily. This poor woman at the fairground. You say she was Rosetta Stanhopes niece?
Thats right.
Then maybe shell get in touch with her. I mean, they must have been close.
Maybe, said Pascoe. Well call you in if it happens.
She dug her elbow in his ribs and soon her breath steadied into the regularity of sleep.
Pascoe found sleep difficult, however, and when it did come, it came in fits and starts and flowed shallowly over a rocky bed. Ellie was partly responsible by putting the thought of Pauline Stanhope into his mind, but she would have been there anyway. He always slept badly the night before attending a post-mortem and tomorrow he was due at the City Mortuary at nine A.M. to attend the last forensic rites on the body of Pauline Stanhope.
Chapter 8
The police pathologist was a swift, economical worker who never took refuge in the kind of ghoulish heartiness with which some of his colleagues sought to make their jobs tolerable. Pascoe was glad of this. He liked to enter an almost trance-like state of professional objectivity on these occasions and had already offended the Mortuary Superintendent and the nervous new Coroners Officer by his brusque response to their efforts at socialization.
The pathologist examined the neck first before asking the Superintendent to remove the clothes which were then separately packaged and sent on their way to the laboratory. After a further careful examination of the naked body, turning it over on the slab so that nothing was missed, the pathologist was ready to make the median incision. As the scalpel slipped through the white skin, the Coroners Officer swayed slightly. This was his first time, Pascoe had gathered from the mans nervy conversation with the Mortuary Superintendent. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notebook, and tapped the man on the shoulder.
Borrow your pen a moment? he asked brusquely.
Yes, of course, said the man.
Pascoe scribbled a few notes, then returned the implement.
Thanks, he said. Youd better have it back. Your needs greater than mine. Your boss is a stickler for detail in all these forms, isnt he?
The man managed a pale grin, then began writing at a furious rate.
After a while Pascoe took his own pen from his pocket and followed suit.
There was another disturbance, more obvious this time, about thirty minutes later.
Voices were heard distantly upraised. After a while the door opened and a porter came in and spoke quietly to the Mortuary Superintendent who relayed the information to Pascoe.
Theres a woman outside with a man. She says shes the girls aunt and shes making a fuss about seeing the body.
Pascoe looked at the cadaver on the examination table. The sternum and frontal ribs had been removed and the omentum cut away so that heart, lungs and intestine were visible.
The pathologist continued with his work, undisturbed by the interruption.