He found he was blinking tears back from his eyes. Well, it had been a hard day so far and he’d had no breakfast. Even as he fought against this weakness which he suspected unfitted him to be a policeman he found himself wondering how his complete breakdown would affect the woman, which perhaps meant he was cut out to be a cop after all.
Before he could test just how meltable she was, he heard the sound of Dalziel’s footsteps with their high-pitched lef’ri’lef’ri’lef accompaniment. The Fat Man appeared in the cell with a pint mug in one hand and a plate piled with some kind of stew in the other. At Trotter’s command he marked time at the foot of the bed. Despite all his efforts at steadiness tea slopped out of the mug at every step and gravy dripped off the edge of the plate.
‘Look what you’re doing to the officer’s meal!’ screamed Trotter. ‘I’ve a good mind to make you lick it up, you horrible man. HALT. LEFT TURN. Give the officer his meal and apologize for the mess you’ve made.’
‘SIR!’ shouted Dalziel breathlessly. ‘Here’s your meal, SIR! Sorry about the mess, SIR!’
He didn’t look well, thought Pascoe. Or perhaps that greyness round the mouth was his natural colouring. The eyes were lively enough, full of promissory vengeance which came across as all embracing rather than targeted.
Even if I get out of this lot, thought Pascoe, I don’t get the feeling I’ve much of a future in Mid Yorkshire!
He dug deep for his Alec Guinness voice. Because of the thickness in his throat it came out more Tunes of Glory than Bridge on the River Kwai.
‘Carry on, Mr Trotter.’
And the poor fat sod was off again, doubling back down to the kitchen presumably to get his own grub this time.
Pascoe looked speculatively at the woman. The old blankness was back. Impervious she might be to hot tears, but how would she react to hot stew in her face?
Badly, he answered himself. And in these confined quarters there wasn’t much chance of ducking out of the spread of two shotgun barrels.
He took a careful sip of his tea, then set it on the floor and examined the stew. There was a spoon half submerged in its rich brownness which gave off a good appetizing smell reminding him he’d missed breakfast. While there was life, there was hunger. He began to eat. It tasted as good as it smelt and he’d almost finished by the time Dalziel returned, clutching another mug and plate.
Trotter noticed his progress and said, ‘Sir! Like another helping, sir?’
He almost said yes, then he looked at Dalziel still double marking time, and thought it would mean another trip to the kitchen for the poor sod.
‘No, thank you, Mr Trotter,’ he said.
‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. Prisoner, HALT! Stan’ atease. Next inspection in thirty minutes.’
Then he was gone. Dalziel waited till they heard the key turn in the lock before subsiding slowly onto the bed.
‘You OK, sir?’ said Pascoe.
The great grey head turned slowly towards him.
‘What’s up, lad? Worried in case I snuff it and there’s nowt between you and Tankie but your fancy degree? Rest quiet. There’s nothing wrong with me that a good woman and a bottle of Highland Park wouldn’t put right.’
‘Glad to hear it, sir. Talking of a good woman, was Mrs Dalziel expecting you to drop in at home before you went back to Wales? If so …’
‘Forget it, lad. There is no Mrs Dalziel now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘Dead?’
‘No such sodding luck,’ grunted the Fat Man. ‘Just divorced. You married?’
‘No sir.’
‘Good. First thing I’ve heard in your favour so far. Not engaged or owt like that? Girlfriend filling her bottom drawer?’
‘No sir. There was a girl at university …’
‘Oh aye. The one got you auditioning for An Inspector Calls? She still hanging around?’
‘No sir. Not the type who hangs around. Not the type who likes her boyfriends joining the police force either.’
‘One of them? Then you’re well rid of her,’ growled Dalziel. ‘Ee, that weren’t half bad. Wouldn’t like to fetch me another helping, would you?’
He’d been demolishing his stew as he talked and now he thrust the plate towards Pascoe who took it and half rose before he remembered.
‘Nice to see that being an officer for five minutes hasn’t spoilt your manners,’ grinned Dalziel.
Angrily Pascoe threw the plate onto the bed. It skidded off the mattress, hit the stone-flagged floor and shattered.
‘Clever,’ said Dalziel. ‘Tha knows who’ll get the blame for that?’
‘Why the hell aren’t we talking about how to get out of here instead of exchanging dull details of our domestic lives?’ demanded Pascoe. ‘Everyone seems to think you’re so bloody marvellous, why don’t you do something to prove it?’
‘Got a temper, have you?’ said Dalziel not disapprovingly. ‘All right. Here. Take hold of that.’
He reached down and picked up two long sharp shards of china, one of which he handed to Pascoe.
He went on. ‘First chance we get, we jump ’em. You grab the lass, get a hold of her hair, stick that into her throat or her eye, any bit of her you can get at that’ll do a lot of damage. Think you can manage that, lad?’
Pascoe looked at the fragment of plate and imagined sinking it into one of those pale grey eyes …
‘I’m not sure, sir …’ he said.
‘Oh aye? So while I’m doing the business on Tankie, Jude’s turning my spine into bonemeal? No thanks. We need another plan. Your turn.’
He tossed the plate shard back onto the floor and looked expectantly at the younger man.
‘I don’t know,’ cried Pascoe. ‘I meant something more like escaping … this isn’t a prison, I mean it wasn’t built to keep people in. Surely we can find a way to get out …?’
‘Like the Count of Monte Cristo, you mean? Now that were a good movie. Robert Doughnut, weren’t it? Only they had to dig for about twenty years, didn’t they? About the same amount of time you spent in school, learning fuck all. Tell you what, why don’t you take the first shift, lad?’
It wasn’t so much the words as the Fat Man’s more-in-pain-than-in-anger expression that got to Pascoe.
He said, ‘You’re forgetting something. It wasn’t the tunnel that got him out, it was the old sod dying and being dumped in the sea in a sack. Our only problem is going to be, where will we find a sack big enough?’
He’d gone too far. If Dalziel looked big before, now he seemed to swell monstrously like the genie let out of the bottle in The Thief of Baghdad.
He tried to recall how Sabu had got him back in again. By persuading him he couldn’t get back in again!
He forced a smile and said, ‘You got a temper too, sir? Maybe we’re a matching pair.’
For a moment, the Fat Man trembled on the brink of nuclear fission. Then, slowly subsiding, he snarled, ‘Man who can believe that should stick to directing traffic.’
His anger must have dulled his hearing for he was still on the bed when the door flew open and Trotter erupted, yelling, ‘What