‘And which way did it send you? Mad or bad?’ enquired Pascoe.
Dalziel stopped polishing and regarded him almost sympathetically.
‘Don’t give up, lad,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Only reason a sprog like you reckons he can get cocky with someone like me is you don’t hold much hope we’re ever going to get out of this. My advice is, until you’re dying and I’m dead, stay polite and call me sir. Except when Tankie’s around that is. Then I’ll call you sir and you can call me what you like, short of vulgar abuse. Vulgar abuse is for warrant officers and NCOs.’
The fat oaf isn’t joking, realized Pascoe. Curiously it was almost comforting.
He said, ‘What did Trotter mean, he could have gone to university?’
‘Now that’s a good question. More you know about a man, the more you open up opportunity.’
‘For negotiation, you mean?’
‘For kicking his bollocks into his brain-pan,’ growled Dalziel. ‘I’ve been trying to fill you in on the background ever since you let yourself get dragged into this. One thing you’ve got to grasp about Tankie is, he’s no deadhead. He were a bright lad. Passed eleven plus, went to the grammar, got ‘O’ levels, and it were right enough, he could’ve stayed on for his ‘A’s and mebbe gone to college, but that would’ve meant going away, leaving his sister and his mam alone wi’ his father. Now he were a real bruiser, Thomas. Tankie were named for him, but he’d never answer to Tommie so that’s why he got Tankie. He grew into it when he got on in his teens, but he were nowt alongside Thomas. Made me feel like a ballet dancer, he did!’
Pascoe had a brief vision of Dalziel in a tutu. It was like a snip from Fantasia.
‘Glad to see you can still smile, lad,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Lose your sense of humour, and what you got left? Your job, maybe. But what’s a job to a man wi’ a degree?’
‘This Thomas, am I right in assuming Tankie didn’t get on with him?’ said Pascoe.
‘Am I right in assuming …’ mocked Dalziel. ‘I bet you’re a whizz in an interrogation, lad! Yes, you’re bloody right! He were a violent sod were Thomas, and he made no distinction of friend, foe or family.’
‘Wasn’t anything done about him?’ demanded Pascoe indignantly.
‘Oh we kept him straight in the pubs and streets,’ said Dalziel. ‘But in them days, what a man got up to in his own house was his own business, short of breaking bones, and not even then sometimes. There was some as said there was more than just beatings went on when the kids were young.’
‘Incest, you mean?’ said Pascoe horror-struck. ‘And you say nothing was done?’
‘You need complaint, you need proof,’ said Dalziel grimly. ‘One of these days it’s all going to start coming out, things that go on behind closed curtains. My old boss, Wally Tallantire, used to say, “An Englishman’s home is his knocking-shop, Andy.” That’s why the church and the Tories rabbit on about the family. Keeps it under wraps.’
This cold view of society chilled Pascoe to the marrow. He said, ‘If you thought something like that was going on …’
‘I didn’t, ’cos apart from a few D and Ds, Thomas didn’t really bother us. It weren’t till Tankie got his call-up papers the family came to my notice. Came as a shock to Tankie. Everyone knew National Service were coming to an end and the clever buggers were finding six new ways of getting deferred before breakfast every sodding morning. Tankie just said he weren’t going. That’s when I came in the picture. I arrested him, told him not to be stupid and if he didn’t let himself be handed over to the army he’d end up in a civvy jail for the duration, and while you could get home from the army, you didn’t get leave from prison – though the way things are going, they’ll soon be sending the buggers off to Majorca for a few days in the summer!’
Avoiding the temptation of an excursion into the interesting territory of penal philosophy, Pascoe said, ‘Not the best advice you ever gave by the sound of it. Sir.’
‘Aye, you’re right there,’ admitted Dalziel. ‘The army took him, and once they’d got him, well, as long as he kept on breaking their rules, they were going to keep locking him up in their prisons.’
‘But he gave them cause, didn’t he?’ said Pascoe, surprised by the sympathetic tone of Dalziel’s voice.
‘Oh aye. He weren’t a tearaway, but he had a talent for violence. Not surprising, if you think about it. Kids learn from the way they’re brought up, even if it’s the wrong way. He hated his dad for being violent, but that was the only way he ever saw for getting the things you wanted from life.’
Pascoe knew sociologists who’d needed a whole lecture to make much the same point. Get Dalziel on campus and maybe they could have got through the degree course in a fortnight! Mind you, he doubted if they made mortarboards to fit heads like that.
‘You keep on grinning, your face’ll stay like that,’ said Dalziel warningly. ‘People may stop asking you to funerals.’
All the time he talked, his forefinger kept up its tiny circles on the toe of the boot. Occasionally he examined his progress and administered further salivary unction.
‘Did Tankie try to stand up to his father, then?’ asked Pascoe.
‘Oh aye. But it were no contest. Might be different now he’s broadened out and learnt a few dirty tricks. But back then, it took me all my strength to sort the bugger out.’
‘You had a fight with him?’ cried Pascoe.
‘Aye, well, after the first couple of times Tankie bunked off from the barracks and headed home, I started getting some idea of the lie of the land. So I thought mebbe I could set the lad’s mind at rest by having a quiet word with Thomas. By God. I’d not want many quiet words like that!’
‘What happened?’
‘I didn’t want to talk in public – this were unofficial, fewer folk who saw us the better. So I waited for him in the ginnel that runs from back of their house to the main road. I spoke him fair. I said, “Thomas, tha’s got to stop beating thy wife. If tha wants exercise, there’s plenty nearer thy own weight as’ll be only too pleased to give it thee.” And he said, “Name one.” And I hit him.’
Puzzled by this apparent non sequitur, or perhaps even ignoratio elenchi, Pascoe said, ‘You hit him? Why?’
‘I reckoned if I’d said, “Me for one,” he’d have hit me. So it seemed daft to waste time on the courtesies. Big mistake I made was giving him a fair blow on the chin. It knocked him back but it was a long way off knocking him out. Well, after that, he kicked me to one end of the ginnel and I kicked him all the way back. In the end it settled nowt. Don’t know if thumping ever does, but you certainly don’t get a man to see things your way by fighting a draw with him.’
Pascoe thought, John Wayne did in The Quiet Man, but this is the real Wild West up here.
He said, ‘If you were going to these extremes to try and help Tankie’s family, how come he hates you so much he’s threatening to kill you?’
‘I never told Tankie owt o’ this!’ said Dalziel indignantly. ‘I weren’t doing it to make some doolally kid love me. I just wanted to stop the stupid sod giving me grief by heading back here every two minutes. Also Thomas were overdue a good kicking. Like I say, a lot of good it did. Thomas still ruled his house like Godzilla on a bad day. And Tankie kept on heading for home and walking right over any poor sod who got in his way. My fault for being polite.’
Oh God, thought Pascoe. What have I done coming to this dreadful place? And if I get out of