A pinch of snuff, p.3
A Pinch of Snuff, page 3
‘Who’d he manage?’
‘Exotic dancers mainly. No, it wasn’t like that. Most of these girls have mum to mind them, so there’s no room for a ponce. Arany just smoothed the way, made contacts, arranged bookings. Now he’s got his own agency. Small, just an office and a secretary, but he does a lot of business.’
‘And how’d he get involved with Haggard?’
Wield shrugged.
‘God knows. He just appeared, as far as I can make out. There’s no trace of a previous connection, but then we never had any cause to keep a close watch on either of these two.’
‘Kept his nose clean, has he?’
‘Oh yes. Everyone keeps a bit of an eye on the club circuit, that’s how we know as much as we do about him, but he’s never been on the books.’
‘Clever or clean,’ said Pascoe. ‘How’s it going anyway, Sergeant?’
‘Slowly and nowhere. No one’s breaking the law and there isn’t any public nuisance to speak of. I don’t know why we bother! But Mr Dalziel says to keep at it, so keep at it I will! You didn’t get anything, did you, sir?’
He spoke with a kind of reproachful neutrality. Pascoe had offered only the most perfunctory of explanations for his visit to the Calliope Club. He had passed on Shorter’s comments on Droit de Seigneur, of course, but the sergeant obviously suspected that there was some other motive for his interest. Was there? wondered Pascoe. All he could think of was obstinacy, because everyone else seemed to be so dismissive of the dentist’s claim, but he was not by nature an obstinate man. On the other hand here he was with enough work to keep two MPs, or six shop stewards, or a dozen teachers, or twenty pop-groups, or a hundred members of the Jockey Club, or a thousand princesses, going for a year and he was reaching for the phone and ringing Ace-High Distributors Inc. of Stretford, Manchester.
A girl answered. Quickly assessing that the word ‘police’ was more likely to inhibit than expedite information, he put on his best posh voice, said he was trying to contact dear old Gerry Toms, last heard of directing some masterpiece for Homeric Films, and could she help? She could. He noted the address with surprise, said thank you kindly, and replaced the receiver.
‘Mike Yarwood beware,’ said Dalziel from the doorway. ‘There’s laws against personation, you know that? Sergeant Wield tells me you went to the pictures last night. Asked a few questions I dare say?’
Pascoe nodded, feeling like a small boy caught trespassing.
‘Jesus wept,’ sighed Dalziel. ‘What do I have to say to get through to you, Peter? You must be bloody slack at the moment, that’s all I can say. Well, we’ll soon put that right. My office, five minutes.’
He left and Pascoe resumed his feeling of surprise that such a respectable place as Harrogate should house such a prima facie disreputable company as Homeric Films.
At least it was relatively handy.
He dialled again.
Another girl. This time he put on his official voice and asked to speak to the man in charge.
After a pause, another female voice said, ‘Hello. Can I help?’
‘I asked for the man in charge,’ said Pascoe coolly.
‘Did you indeed?’ said the woman in sympathetic motherly tones. ‘Were you perhaps shell-shocked in the First World War? They let us women out of the kitchen now, you know, and we’ve even got laws to prove it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘You mean you’re in charge?’
‘You’d better believe it. Penelope Latimer. Who’re you?’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Latimer. My name’s Pascoe; I’m a Detective-Inspector with Mid-Yorkshire CID.’
‘Congratulations. Forget my shell-shock crack. You’ve just explained yourself. What can I do for you, Detective-Inspector?’
She sounded amused rather than concerned, thought Pascoe. But then why should she be concerned? Perhaps I just want people to be concerned when I give them a quick flash of my constabulary credentials.
‘Your company produced a film called Droit de Seigneur, I believe.’
‘Yes.’ More cautious now?
‘I’m interested in talking with the director, Mr Toms, and I wondered if you could help?’
‘Gerry? How urgent do you want him?’
‘It’s not desperate,’ said Pascoe. ‘Why?’
‘He’s in Spain just now, that’s why. If you want him urgent, I can give you his hotel. We’re expecting him back on Friday, though.’
‘Oh, that’ll do,’ said Pascoe. ‘You say you’re expecting him back. That means he’s still working for Homeric?’
‘He better had be,’ said Penelope Latimer. ‘He owns a third of the company.’
‘Really? And he wrote and directed the film?’
‘You’ve seen it? Yes, he wrote it, not very taxing on the intellect though, you agree? What’s with this film anyway? Some local lilywhite giving trouble?’
Pascoe hesitated only a moment. She sounded cooperative and bright. At the worst he might pick something up from her reaction.
He told her Shorter’s theory.
Her reaction was an outpouring of pleasantly gurgly laughter.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘Funny,’ she said. ‘You think we pay actresses to get beaten up? Who can afford that kind of money?’
‘If you beat them up enough, I suppose they come cheap,’ said Pascoe with great acidity, tired of being made to feel foolish.
‘Oh-ho! Snuff-films we’re making now? When can we expect you and the dogs?’
‘I’m not with you,’ said Pascoe. ‘What was that you said! Snuff-films?’
‘I thought the police knew everything. It’s when someone really does get killed in front of the camera. They snuff it – get it?’
‘And these exist?’
‘So they say. I mean, who wants to find out? Look, you’re worried about the leading lady being duffed up, right? So if you could have a little chat with her, you’d be happy? All right. I’ll dig out her address on one condition. You see her, ask about the film, nothing more. No follow up just to make your bother worthwhile.’
‘You’ve lost me again,’ said Pascoe.
‘Do I have to spell it out? This is lower division stuff. I mean it won’t be Julie Andrews you’re going to talk to. This girl might – I don’t say she is, but she might be on the game. Or she might have a bit of weed about the place. Or anything. Now I don’t want to sick the police on her. So I want your word. No harassment.’
‘How do you know you can trust me?’ asked Pascoe.
‘For a start you wouldn’t be pussyfooting around about promising if it didn’t mean anything,’ she answered.
‘A psychologist already,’ mocked Pascoe. ‘All right. I promise. But all bets off if she’s just stuck a knife into her boy-friend or robbed a bank. OK?’
‘Now we’re talking about crimes,’ said Penelope Latimer. ‘Hold on.’
While he waited Pascoe picked up his internal phone and got through to Wield.
‘You ever heard of something called a snuff-film?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Wield.
‘Don’t keep it to yourself, Sergeant,’ said Pascoe in his best Dalziel manner.
‘In the States mainly,’ said Wield. ‘Though there are rumours on the Continent. No one’s ever picked one up as far as I know, so obviously there’s no prosecution recorded yet.’
‘Yes, but what are they?’
‘What they’re said to be is films made of someone dying. Usually some tart from, say, one of the big South American sea ports who no one’s going to miss in a hurry. She thinks it’s a straightforward skin-flick. By the time she finds out wrong, it’s too late. The scareder she gets, the more she tries to run, the better the picture.’
‘Better! Who for?’
‘For the bent bastards who want to see ’em. And for the guys who make the charge.’
‘Jesus!’
‘Hello? You there?’ said the woman’s voice from the other phone.
‘Thanks, Sergeant,’ said Pascoe. ‘Yes, Miss Latimer?’
‘It’s Linda Abbott. Address is 25 Hampole Lane, Borage Hill. That’s a big new estate about twelve miles south of here, just north of Leeds.’
‘Local, eh?’
‘What do you think, we fetch them from Hollywood?’
‘No, but I reckoned you might cast your net as far as South Shields, say, or Scunthorpe.’
Penelope Latimer chuckled.
‘Come up and see us some time, Inspector,’ she said throatily. ‘’Bye.’
‘I might, I might,’ said Pascoe to the dead phone. But he doubted if he would. Harrogate, Leeds, they were off his patch and Dalziel didn’t sound as if he was about to let him go drifting west on a wild goose chase. No, he’d have to get someone local to check that this woman, Linda Abbott, had all her teeth. On the other hand, he’d promised Penelope Latimer that he’d handle it with tact. What he needed was an excuse to find himself in the area.
The phone rang.
‘Have you got paralysis?’ bellowed Dalziel.
Thirty seconds later he was in the fat man’s office.
‘There’s a meeting this afternoon. Inter-divisional liaison. Waste of fucking time so I’ve told ’em I can’t go, but I’ll send a boy to observe.’
‘And you want me to suggest a boy?’ said Pascoe brightly.
‘Funny. It’s four-thirty. Watch the bastards. Some of them are right sneaky.’
‘One thing,’ said Pascoe. ‘Where is it?’
‘Do I have to tell you everything?’ groaned Dalziel. ‘Harrogate.’
Chapter 4
Pascoe had no direct experience of the polygamous East, but he supposed that, with arranged marriages thrown in, it was possible for a man to know a woman only in her wedding dress and total nudity. But would he recognize her if he met her in the street? Pascoe doubted it. He regarded the gaggle of women hanging around outside the school gates and mentally coated each in turn with blood. It didn’t help.
He’d come to see Linda Abbott hoping that the law-breaking forecast by Penny Latimer would not be too blatant. Now he wished that he’d found the woman leaning against a lamp post smoking a reefer and making obscene suggestions to passersby. Instead he’d found himself at the front door of a neat little semi, talking to an angry Mr Abbott who had been roused from the sleep of the just and the night-shift worker by Pascoe’s policeman’s thumb on the bell push.
Having mentally prepared himself to turn a blind eye to Mrs Abbott’s misdemeanours, Pascoe now became the guardian of her reputation and pretended to be in washing-machines. Mrs Abbott, he learned, had a washing-machine, didn’t want another, wasn’t about to get another, and cared perhaps even less than Mr Abbott to deal with poofy commercials at the door. But he also learned that Mrs Abbott had gone down to the school to collect her daughter and, having noticed what he took to be the school two streets away, Pascoe had made his way there to intercept.
He spotted Linda Abbott as the mums began to break off, clutching their spoil. A bold face, heavily made up; a wide loud mouth remonstrating with her small girl for some damage she’d done to her person or clothes. The camera didn’t lie after all.
‘Mrs Abbott?’ said Pascoe. ‘Could I have a word with you?’
‘As many as you like, love,’ said the woman, looking him up and down. ‘Only, my name’s Mackenzie. Yon’s Mrs Abbott, her with the little blonde lass.’
Mrs Abbott was dumpy, untidy and plain. Her daughter on the other hand was a beauty. Another ten years if she maintained her present progress and … I’ll probably be too old to care, thought Pascoe.
‘Mrs Abbott,’ he tried again. ‘Could I have a word?’
‘Yes?’
‘Mam, is this one of them funny buggers?’ asked the angelic six-year-old.
‘Shut up, our Lorraine,’ said Mrs Abbott.
‘Funny …?’ said Pascoe.
‘I tell her not to talk with strangers,’ explained Mrs Abbott.
‘’Cos there’s a lot of funny buggers about,’ completed Lorraine happily.
‘Well, I’m not one of them,’ said Pascoe. ‘I hope.’
He showed his warrant card, taking care to keep it masked from the few remaining mums.
‘You might well hope,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘What’s up?’
‘May I walk along with you?’ he asked.
‘It’s a free street. Lorraine, don’t you run on the road now!’
‘It’s about a film you made,’ said Pascoe. ‘Droit de Seigneur.’
‘Oh aye. Which was that one?’
‘Can’t you remember?’
‘They don’t often have titles when we’re making them, not real titles, any road.’
Briefly Pascoe outlined the plot.
‘Oh, that one,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s been suggested,’ said Pascoe, ‘that undue violence may have been used in some scenes.’
‘What?’
‘Especially in the scene where the squire beats you up, just before the US cavalry arrive.’
‘You sure you’re not mixing it up with the Big Big Horn?’ said Mrs Abbott.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Pascoe. ‘I was speaking figuratively. Before your boy-friend rescues you. You remember that sequence? Were you in fact struck?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘It’s six months ago, of course. How do you mean, struck?’
‘Hit on the face. So hard that you’d bleed. Lose a few teeth even,’ said Pascoe, feeling as daft as she obviously thought he was.
‘You are one of them funny buggers,’ she said, laughing. ‘Do I look as if I’d let meself get beaten up for a picture? Here, can you see any scars? And take a look at them. Them’s all me own, I’ve taken good care on ’em.’
Pascoe looked at her un-made-up and unblemished face, then examined her teeth which, a couple of fillings apart, were in a very healthy state.
‘Yes, I see,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mrs Abbott. You saw nothing at all during the making of the film that surprised you?’
‘You stop being surprised after a bit,’ she said. ‘But there was nowt unusual, if that’s what you mean. It’s all done with props and paint, love, didn’t you know?’
‘Even the sex?’ answered Pascoe sharply, stung by her irony.
‘Is that what it’s all about then?’ she said. ‘I might have known.’
‘No, really, it isn’t,’ assured Pascoe, adding, in an attempt to re-ingratiate himself, ‘I’ve been at your house by the way. I said I was a washing-machine salesman.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want to stir anything up,’ he said, feeling noble.
‘For crying out loud!’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘You don’t reckon I could do me job without Bert knowing?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Pascoe, discomfited.
‘Bloody right not,’ said Mrs Abbott. ‘And I’ll tell you something else for nothing. It’s a job. I get paid for it. And whatever I do, I do with lights on me, and a camera, and a lot of technicians about who don’t give a bugger, and you can see everything I do up there on the screen. I’m not like half these so-called real actresses who play the Virgin Mary all day, then screw themselves into another big part all night. Lorraine! I told you to keep off of that road!’
‘Well, thank you, Mrs Abbott,’ said Pascoe, glancing at his watch. ‘You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
‘No trouble, love,’ said Mrs Abbott.
He dug into his pocket and produced a ten-pence piece which he gave to Lorraine ‘for sweeties’. She waited for her mother’s nod before accepting and Pascoe drove off feeling relieved that after all he had not been categorized as a ‘funny bugger’, and feeling also that at the moment Jack Shorter would top his own personal list.
He needn’t have worried about his meeting. It started late because of the non-arrival of one of the senior members and was almost immediately suspended because of the enforced departure of another. Reluctantly Pascoe found a phone and rang Ellie to say that his estimate of a seven o’clock homecoming had been optimistic.
‘Surprise,’ she said. ‘Will you eat there?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said.
‘I was hoping you’d take me out. You get better service with a policeman.’
‘Sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘Better try an old boy-friend. See you!’
He replaced the receiver and went back to the conference room where Inspector Ray Crabtree of the local force told him they were scheduled to restart at seven.
‘Fancy a jar?’ asked Crabtree. He was a man of forty plus who had gone as far as he was likely to go in the force and had a nice line in comic bitterness which usually entertained Pascoe.
‘And a sandwich,’ said Pascoe.
‘Where do you fancy? Somewhere squalid or somewhere nice?’
‘Is the beer better somewhere squalid?’
‘No.’
‘Or the food cheaper?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice.’
‘Then somewhere nice.’
‘That’s a sharp mind you’ve got there, Pascoe,’ said Crabtree admiringly. ‘You’ll get on.’
‘Somewhere nice’ was the lounge bar of a large, plush and draughty hotel.
Crabtree ordered four halves of bitter.
‘And two rounds of ham, Cyril,’ he added. ‘Tell ’em it’s me and I like it cut with a blunt knife.’
‘They only serve halves in here,’ he said as they sat down. ‘Bloody daft. You’ve got to get them in twos. Wouldn’t do for Sitting Bull.’
‘Who?’
‘Dalziel. Your big chief. You know, I could have had his job.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Pascoe.
‘Oh yes. We were up before the same promotion board once. I thought I’d clinched it. They asked, are you as thick as Prince Philip? “Oh yes,” says I. “Twice as thick.”’
‘And what did Dalziel say?’
‘He said, “Who’s she”?’
