Mabel Pascoe was in a different fettle this morning. She opened the door to Gideon’s first knock, managed half a word of greeting and then stood with eyes downcast, a tea towel clutched in one hand.
Sometimes the uniform had that effect. Lairy lads who’d gladly catcall and hoot when he walked hand in hand with Lee through the night streets of Bodmin town would cringe like frightened deer when he made the same walk in his black-and-whites and stab vest. For all his dislike of Mrs P, Gideon had no desire to scare an old lady. “Morning, ma’am,” he said gently, taking off his cap. “You were quite right to speak to me as you did yesterday. One of the people concerned was a friend of mine, that’s all.”
She stood aside. “Come in, Constable.”
She’d never allow him his promotion. That was fair enough. A sergeant in these parts was something different, connected to the army more than the police, a soldier. A constable—riding a pushbike for preference—came to check your locks after a burglary, and helped your neighbouring farmers locate a missing dog, child or cow. Gideon followed her through to the kitchen, a magnificent dark-beamed space where it was clear the daily life of the farm had taken place for centuries. A blackened-oak dresser occupied the whole of one wall, gleaming with blue-and-white china. The cast-iron range, big enough to power a small steamboat, was giving off a formidable glow in spite of the warmth of the day. Everything was spotless, nothing out of place except one teacup, and she’d been in the process of drying that. A lovely place—a faint, inexplicable trace in the air that reminded Gideon of home. “Do you manage all this yourself, Mrs Pascoe?”
“Who else should do it? Nate used to help when he could, but it’s not a man’s work.”
Gideon repressed a smile. The oven would never get cleaned at Chy Lowen on those principles. They’d have to wait till Tamsie grew up and had a go at it. “He was quite confused when I saw him the other night. Has he been poorly long?”
“Would you like a cup of tea? I just made one for your friend.”
When witnesses answered a question with a question, something was awry. Intrigued by the something, Gideon failed to take in the rest of her words. “Please. I’d like a chat with you, and then with Nate too, if I could.” He looked at his watch. Lee ought to be done with his location-scouting work by now. “I just have to make a quick phone call.”
There was barely a trace of a signal. That was his own doing, of course, having campaigned with Lee, Jory and CAMS for the prevention of a new mast overshadowing the Merry Maidens circle down the road. Reflecting that there was no way of doing good for all the geese and ganders of his world, he listened to the staticky hiss of the line, and at length a faint click of connection.
The familiar ringtone—Mike Oldfield’s theme from The Exorcist, Daz Prowse’s idea of a joke when he’d got hold of Lee’s phone a couple of years back—began its ominous jingle. The sound was so much a background noise of Gideon’s day-to-day world that it took him a moment to register that it was coming from upstairs. Lee picked up, dispelling Gideon’s sudden-flash fear that old Mabel had murdered him and stuffed him into a wardrobe. “Hi, handsome.”
“Hi yourself. What are you doing here?”
“Mr Pascoe called me. Or someone near him did—Clem Atherton, maybe, but not directly. You know what I mean.”
“Just barely. Why didn’t I see your car?”
“Parked round the back, to keep out of the way of the tractors. Didn’t you?”
No. Gideon would never possess the natural tact that disarmed even the grumpiest of old Cornish farmers and opened doors to him wherever he went. Mabel Pascoe wasn’t bothered about his uniform or the lack of it. Lee had got here first and softened her up, that was all. “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said resignedly. “I’ll be right up.”
He tapped the end-call button, stared at the screen for a moment, then looked up at the old lady, who was busily stirring sugar he hadn’t asked for into his tea. “I gather Mr Tyack’s upstairs.”
“Yes, of course. Didn’t you know? I didn’t recognise him yesterday, but he’s that clairvoyant fella off the telly.”
“He is indeed.”
“I like that show. He’s respectful, he is, always asking the farmers’ permission before going onto their land.” She eyed Gideon up and down. “Not like some.”
He was trespassing just as much as I was yesterday, when you called him a hippy and threatened to set the dogs on him. Gideon bit back the words. “I’m pleased you let him in. He’ll have come because he believes he can help Nate in some way.”
“That’s what he said.” She brought the cup and saucer to Gideon, handed it to him with a precise kind of roughness that didn’t send so much as a drop over the side. Then she sank into a chair beside the table. “You do take sugar, don’t you? I like a man to take sugar. Shows he’s not fussed about his figure and nonsense like that, and gives him the strength to work as he should in the fields.”
Crikey. If I didn’t take it before, I would now. Gideon, who’d worried a fair bit about his figure in the wake of the stabbing, before his new strength had come to hone down his big frame into dense-packed muscle, carefully sipped his tea. “Lovely. Thank you. It’s very hot in here, Mrs Pascoe, with the range popping away like that. Are you all right?”
“I have to keep the house warm, don’t I? They said.”
“Who did?”
“The social services. The doctor, too. He’s officially senile now, is my Nate.”
Despite himself, Gideon felt a flicker of amusement. She’d made it sound like a badge of honour. “Officially? When did that happen?”
“About a month ago. They call it by some fancy name, but that’s what he is. All written down on papers, so you and Mr Tyack don’t need to worry about anything he says.” She pushed a damp strand of hair off her brow. “He wanted that solar-farm deal as much as I did, Constable, so there’s no use him ranting and raving about it now. And there’ll be plenty of money after that, so I’ll be able to keep him at home where he belongs, with all the care he needs coming in. I’ll never let him go into one of them homes—not my old man. This is where we’ve always lived, and this is where he’ll stay.”
Gideon always carried a freshly laundered handkerchief. That was another good village constable’s habit. What with one thing and another—car crashes, lost dogs, ne’er-do-well sons arrested for dope or bloody unthinkable downloads, somebody somewhere would end up crying. He held out the handkerchief towards her, and she grabbed at it blindly, like a child. “That must’ve been a hard decision to make,” he said gruffly. “I’m sure it’s a good one.”
“I just want to do right by him. He never could look after himself, so I’ve done it for him. I always have.”
A silence fell in the beautiful, overheated room: rich with the echoes of simple words packed tight with meaning, with more than the sum of their parts. If anyone could get the lid off, it was the man upstairs. “I should leave you alone,” Gideon said, as kindly as he could. Truly he was sorry for her—but what the bloody hell had she done? “Can I take my tea upstairs and have a chat with Nate?”
“You won’t get any sense out of him. I told you.”
“All right. I’d still like to try.”
“That’s what he said, too—your friend, the clairvoyant. He sees things, doesn’t he? I didn’t think I believed in any of that rubbish, but he’s different. He sees.”
“That’s right, Mrs Pascoe. He does.”
***
Lee was sitting by the side of Pascoe’s bed. He had the old man’s big-knuckled, hard-worked hand in one of his, and was holding it lightly. He looked up and smiled as Gideon hesitated in the doorway. “Come in. Mrs Pascoe’s right—he’s not making sense this morning, but he’s still glad you’re here.”
“Really? He tried to shoot me the other day.”
“It was nothing personal. Speak to him the way you normally would. He can still hear.”
Gideon had his doubts. Pascoe was in his pyjamas, propped up on three spotless white pillows. If the kitchen downstairs had been the perfect old-Cornish example of its kind, this was the bedroom equivalent: polished oak floor, a tall window admitting peaceful light. “Morning, Nate,” he said uncertainly. “You’ve got everything nice and comfortable here, I see. That’s good.”
“Come and sit down.” Lee indicated the chair on the other side of the bed. “Er... might be an idea to close the door behind you.”
Gideon thought so too. He did as he was bidden. Pascoe was staring fixedly at a point near the bedroom ceiling. “Are you okay over there?”
“Yep. He’s just got some stuff going on, and I wanted to be with him.” Lee too gave a wry glance ceilingwards. “The devil shouldn’t get all the best tunes.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just speak to me as you normally would, as well. It’ll help.”
“All right. I did a bit of research earlier on. It’s about a week ago that the solar-farm company made their offer. If Nate had... Sorry. If you had any objections, Nate, I guess it would’ve been handy that you were declared incapable at that time.”
“Yeah. Far less of a problem for Mabel to push it all through. She really loves him, though, Gid. It was like a fire in the air all around her when she was talking about him.”
“Right. So we’ve got her motives, and then there’s her grasping bastard of a son. There might’ve been some jiggery-pokery about signatures and consent. But that’s a matter for lawyers, not the police, and... I’m really getting the feeling that it’s not the main problem around here today.”
“Did Jenny Spargo manage any impropriety for you?”
“With a right good will. The school is what David Rawle says it is, or the way he tells it to what he calls the authorities—a fully accredited private academy and retreat for gifted children. Rawle is listed as a teacher, and so’s his wife. There’s no record of anyone called Alice on the staff there, but that doesn’t necessarily imply any wrongdoing, and... that’s not the main problem here today either, is it?”
“No,” Lee said thoughtfully. “That’s just our problem. The main problem here today is...” He leaned forward and passed his free hand back and forth in front of Pascoe’s blindly staring eyes. “I’m sorry to alarm you, Nate. But can you see that strange person sitting on top of the wardrobe, too?”
Pascoe sucked a noisy breath and jolted violently upright. He tore his hand out of Lee’s. “I see her,” he cried, scrambling back against the headboard, sending pillows flying, obliging Gideon to catch him before he could tumble out of the bed. “I see her! She’s been here for hours and hours, ever since I woke up—waiting for you, she says. Oh, it is better that you rush upon this blade than betray your coven, Constable Frayne—but I never betrayed ’em, never, not for all the jealousy and nagging of her downstairs. Won’t you please tell her?”
He was a big man, his frame not yet touched by the disintegration of his mind. His limbs were long, flailing in terror. Gideon dodged a fist, got a gentle restraining hold and hoisted him back onto the mattress.
He took his time about tucking the pillows back into place. Lee, uncharacteristically, hadn’t moved to help. His eyes—pure silver, so west-coast wild that Gideon could almost hear the mermaids singing—were fixed, as Pascoe’s had been, on a point on the far wall above the massive, handsome oak armoire. It was part of Gideon’s duty to help unmask Lee’s monsters, and he’d done it with ferocious joy. He had to admit, however, that he was in no hurry to see this one for himself. Pascoe was breathing hard, clutching at the eiderdown. Gideon turned.