She returned her attention to the letter.
How much of her recent trauma should she lay out here? Feenies words came back to her. Tell them everything about yourself, she commanded. However trite, however tragic. That way theyll know you really care, youre not just dishing up nourishing broth for the peasants. What youre doing is letting them know there is a real world still going on beyond their prison walls, there are real people still living their lives beyond the blank faces of their guards and torturers.
But when Ellie had asked for information about Bruna, Feenie had shaken her head.
Best you dont know, she said. These women live under regimes and in circumstances you cant imagine. Sometimes they are totally innocent, but sometimes they may have done things which you in your ignorance could find hard to understand or justify. All you need to know is that they are suffering cruel and unnatural treatment. It is your task to give them hope. What they give you in return is up to them.
Ellie began typing again.
My little girl Rosie was taken ill
The phone rang.
Irritated, she went next door into the bedroom and picked up the receiver.
What? she bellowed.
Charming. I wish I hadnt bothered.
Daphne, is that you? Whats up? You forget something?
Only how brusque you can be. Listen, I just thought Id ring you to tell you youre being watched.
Yes, I know. Dennis Seymour. I thought you said he spoke to you
Dont be so dim, Ellie. I dont mean him. You know those plane trees on that little triangle of no-mans-land at the corner of your road? Well, I noticed this fellow hanging about there when I drove past earlier. Only then, not knowing anything about yesterdays punch-up at the Pascoe corral, I didnt pay much heed. But when I passed the trees just now and saw he was still there, still looking towards your house, I thought, Hello-Hello-Hello, this looks like one for a citizens arrest.
Daphne, dont you dare! Dont do anything. Ill get the guy on watch to deal.
So what are you going to do? Run out of the house and point this way? No, listen, untwist your knickers. Count up to a hundred. All Im going to do is get out of the car and stroll back towards him and distract him with brilliant conversation. When you get to a hundred, then head out to your guardian angel and send him winging this way as quick as he likes. And if chummy here tries to do a runner, Ill stick my leg out and send him sprawling, a tactic for which I was once renowned in Mid-Yorkshire girls hockey circles.
No, insisted Ellie. Do nothing. Ill
Start counting. One, two, three
The phone went dead.
Ellie didnt hesitate. She went sprinting down the stairs, out of the house, down the drive, waving and calling to the watching Seymour. He spotted her and started to get out of the car.
No! she screamed. Stay there! Start up!
He was, God be thanked, quick-witted enough to obey.
Turn, turn, turn! Go, go, go! commanded Ellie, scrambling into the passenger seat.
Where are we going? he asked calmly as he accelerated through a U-turn, getting the car up to sixty in about nine seconds.
Were there! she yelled. Stop. Oh, sweet Jesus.
The car snaked to a halt alongside the plane trees.
A figure slumped against one of them, head thrown back to show a face which was a mask of blood.
Call an ambulance, cried Ellie, leaping from the car and rushing towards her friend. Daphne, are you all right?
The woman made a gasping noise which may or may not have been an answer, but at least her eyes were open and she was moving and breathing.
Why didnt you wait? Ellie couldnt stop herself from asking as she knelt to examine the damage. Oh Jesus. What a mess. Is it just your face or are you hurt anywhere else?
aar gasped Daphne.
What? Where?
Car. Bastard took my car. Oh God. Look at the state of this blouse.
vii
a pint of guinness
Thats two days in succession our streets been full of police cars, said Ellie. The neighbours are going to start complaining about you bringing your work home.
They should think themselves lucky Im not a rock star, said Pascoe.
We should all think ourselves lucky for that, said Ellie.
They were at the hospital, to which Ellie had accompanied Daphne in the ambulance. Pascoe had arrived almost simultaneously. He could see she was seriously stressed, but coping by dint of having someone else to look after. Activity had always been her way of dealing with lifes ambushes.
Shed told him what little she knew. Daphne had gasped out her car number and the policeman on watch had put out an alert. Apart from that, she had on Ellies insistence concentrated on using her mouth for breathing.
Peter, howre you doing? You here for Mrs Aldermann?
Dr John Sowden was an old acquaintance, almost an old friend, of Pascoes. They had first met at the intersection of a police and medical case and perhaps because that had marked out so clearly the parameters of their areas of common ground, their friendship had somehow only flourished in miniature, like a bonsai tree.
Thats right. How is she?
Fine, considering someones given her a fair bang on the nose. Broken but I think well get away without surgery.
Any other injuries?
No. Some shock from the assault and the loss of blood, but nothing that a good nights rest wont put right. Ive got a nurse cleaning her up now, then shell be ready to go home. What is it? Your friendly neighbourhood mugging? Were you with her when it happened, Ellie? Can check you out as well, if you like.
He was looking at the blood on her T-shirt.
No, thanks, said Ellie. This is Daphnes. I got there later. Im fine.
It wasnt a complete lie. She consulted her body and mind and found that she felt a lot better than she thought she ought to. Perhaps like a vampire I need blood to feed on, she thought, watching as Pascoe, with an apologetic smile in her direction, drew Sowden a little way along the corridor and spoke to him in a low voice.
When he rejoined her she said, So?
So you heard it all. He wasnt keeping anything back for my ears only.
Well, Im pleased about that, else this new, violent doppelgänger of mine might have been tempted to break his nose too.
But she smiled as she said it. She liked John Sowden. He was pretty sound on issues like abortion and euthanasia and he had a mouth to die for.
A few moments later they were allowed into the treatment room where they found Daphne sitting on the edge of a bed, drinking tea.
She said, Ellie, have you seen the state of me? I shall have to go into purdah for a month at least.
No, you look fine, honestly. Youll have those English-rose looks back in no time.
An English rose I dont mind but not when Im wearing it bang in the middle of my face. Oh God, has anyone been in touch with Patrick? No way I can go to the garden centre like this. Theyd probably spray me with an anti-black-spot mixture.
No, you look fine, honestly. Youll have those English-rose looks back in no time.
An English rose I dont mind but not when Im wearing it bang in the middle of my face. Oh God, has anyone been in touch with Patrick? No way I can go to the garden centre like this. Theyd probably spray me with an anti-black-spot mixture.
I tried your home number on my mobile, said Pascoe. No reply. Give us the name of this garden centre and Ill make sure he gets a message to come here and collect you.
No, please. Just say I cant make it to lunch, Ill see him at home later, said Daphne firmly. Its called Mossy Bank. Thank you, Peter, youre a darling.
Pascoe stepped aside to make the call and Ellie sat on the bed next to her friend and put her arm around her.
Watch out for blood, said Daphne. This blouse is ruined.
Itll come out, said Ellie. And Im well spattered already.
Are you? Let me see. Oh, Im sorry. I hope its not one of your best.
Ellie, knowing well Daphnes view that baggy T-shirts, especially those printed with subversive messages, were the nadir of style and taste, laughed out loud and said, Ill insist that you personally buy me an exact replacement in the market. So, my girl, what the hell did you think you were playing at, provoking this hoodlum? He might have had a knife or a gun or anything.
Didnt see why you should have all the fun. But why is it when a snotty-nosed Trot like you mixes with the lowlife, you get to kick them in the balls, while a respectable Tory lady like me ends up in hospital?
Before Ellie could answer, Pascoe rejoined them, saying, Thats done. Daphne, I hope you havent been telling Ellie your tale because youre just going to have to tell it to me again.
She was just going to start, said Ellie.
I was just going to tell you it was all your fault, actually, said Daphne. I had it all sorted. I was going to stroll up to this fellow and distract his attention. Then while he had his back turned on your house (after the count of one hundred, remember?), you were going to get your guardian angel to come scooting along to make an arrest. Except that just as I got to him, you came belting out of your driveway, waving your arms and screaming at that poor policeman in the car. Naturally my man realized something was up and turned to make his getaway. Equally naturally, I attempted to grapple with him and keep him there. Upon which he nutted me, I think is the phrase. Its something Ive often seen on the telly and Ive always assumed its effect was a touch exaggerated, like people in Westerns being hurled backwards when someone shoots them. Now I know better. Its a funny thing how much closer Ive got to the realities of lowlife since I met you, Ellie.
Its another funny thing, said Ellie, that now you cant talk down your nose, you sound almost normal.
Daphne, said Pascoe quickly. This man, can you describe him?
Well, he was furtive, you know. Perhaps not so much furtive as simply loitering. Thats what made me notice him, though, as I told Ellie. I wouldnt really have paid any attention if she hadnt told me about her dreadful experience of yesterday
As Daphne Aldermann got older, she sounded more and more like an archdeacons daughter, thought Pascoe. Or rather the way you expected an archdeacons daughter to sound in an old black and white play, circumlocutory and slightly prissy, with audible inverted commas appearing round any modernism. She should have been a judge. Or at least a magistrate. Yes, she was precisely the type of woman who, despite valiant efforts to broaden the selectorate, still dominated on the magisterial bench. Not that shed ever shown the slightest ambition in the direction so far as he knew. And while she might make bath sound like an American novelist, she could pronounce the shibboleth which got you admitted to Ellies friendship so there had to be more to her than met the eye. Which was probably true of her husband also. A quiet, charming man who lived for roses, he had been in the frame for not one but several apparently accidental deaths. Nothing was ever proved, and in his company Pascoe blushed to recall his suspicions. And yet and yet
Could you describe him, please, Daphne? he said.
Yes, of course. Sorry, Im jabbering a bit, arent I? First time Ive been assaulted, you see. Comes as a shock, especially when the motive isnt sexual. No, thats a stupid thing to say, it would obviously have been a much greater shock if hed then gone on to rape me. What I mean is, he just nutted me as if well, as if I were a man.
Not an English gentleman then? murmured Pascoe, winning a Medusa glare from Ellie. Sorry.
No. Youre right. I mean, Im not saying he wasnt English, or British anyway. As Ellie keeps on telling me, were a rainbow society now. But he certainly wasnt Anglo-Saxon. He was dark, not negroid, just well-grilled, like Ellie. I wish I tanned like that but with my colouring all you gets a splotchy pink. Still, they say nowadays its bad for you, too much sun, gives you skin cancer not that Im suggesting for one moment, dear, that youre in danger of that. No, Im sure in your case its all down to natural pigmentation
Putting aside the interesting question of Ellies ethnic origins, said Pascoe, youre saying this fellow was well-tanned? Hair?
Yes, of course. Sorry, I mean it was black, cut short, I dont mean shaven, not like those do they still call them bovver boys?
The term is, I believe, a trifle passé, said Pascoe. So, short hair. Moustache? Beard?
Yes, now I come to think of it, he did have a moustache, said Daphne. Not a big one. Short too. Like his hair. In fact, he was very neat generally, almost dapper. He would have made a very good head waiter at a decent restaurant.
Was she taking the piss? He glanced at Ellie, who gave him her sardonic smile. She had once advised him, not much point in mocking Daphne when shes so much better at it herself. But it was hard to resist the temptation. And she seemed to enjoy it in a harmlessly flirty kind of way. Harmless because there wasnt the slightest sign he turned her on, and he himself had never gone overboard on English roses, who, in a metamorphosis which might have been of interest to Ovid, often seemed to age into English horses.
Whatever, the technique finally got him a pretty good description. Not very big, five-six, five-seven maybe, slim build, thin face, sharp-nosed, wearing a dark-blue lightweight jacket of good cut (Daphne had an eye for clothes), well-pressed light-grey slacks without turn-ups, wine-coloured loafers (this with a moue of distaste), an open-necked powder-blue shirt, and a gold chain with some sort of medallion round his neck.
Excellent, said Pascoe. Hang on.
He raised Control on his mobile and passed on the description. In return he was told that the Audi had been found.
Thats quick, said Pascoe.
Didnt get far. Leyburn Road. A shopping parade. You know it, sir?
Know it? I owe money there.
It was five minutes drive from his house, ten minutes walk via the recreation ground.
Whos there? he asked.
Sergeant Wield.
That was good. Everything would be in smooth running order.
Pass him the description, said Pascoe, unnecessarily, he was sure, but he said it anyway. Ellie, whod picked up the gist, was hissing something at him.