18.10-18.15

Peter Pascoe entered the Keldale at a speed just short of a run and shouldered aside a middle-aged woman at the reception desk.

The receptionist didn’t wait for him to speak but said, ‘Room number 36.’

Pascoe was on his way up the stairs before the displaced guest had time to finish saying, ‘What a rude man!’

Upstairs he saw the door marked 36 was open.

As he rushed towards it, the thought occurred that he was doing exactly what he’d tried to tell Dalziel not to do. But he did it all the same.

A figure stooping by the bed straightened up, alerted by the sound of Pascoe’s entry. For a moment his imagination put a shotgun into the man’s hands. Then he saw it was DC Seymour and he was holding a laptop.

‘Oh hello, sir,’ said Seymour. ‘The Super’s through there.’

He nodded towards a door connecting this room to the next.

Pascoe went through.

‘What kept you?’ grunted the Fat Man, shaking the contents of a drawer on to the floor, then stirring the scattered underwear with his toe.

‘For Christ’s sake, Andy, what are you doing here?’

‘What’s it look like? Trying to spot owt that’ll tell me where these scrotes have gone. How about you, Pete? You following me, or what?’

‘I’m trying to stop you getting yourself killed.’

‘Nice of you. Apart from that, got anything new to share with me?’

‘Nothing important,’ snapped the DCI. ‘Just that Novello’s out of danger, if that’s of any interest to you.’

He was immediately sorry for his shortness as the Fat Man sank on to the bed as if his legs had lost the strength to hold him.

‘Thank Christ for that!’ he said with a religious fervour that could hardly have been matched by an archbishop. ‘I were starting to think…thank Christ for that.’

It was only now that Pascoe realized just how heavily the sense of his responsibility for Novello’s plight had been weighing on his boss.

‘So what have you found?’ he said, trying to turn the subject.

‘Bugger all, so far,’ said Dalziel.

The phone rang.

He picked it up, listened, said, ‘You’re a star,’ and dropped the receiver back on its rest.

‘That were that bonny lass on reception. Think she fancies me. I got her to check if these Delays were in. Aye, don’t look surprised, did you think I was going to smash the door down single-handed? When no one replied I asked her to check the car-park video, see if she could spot the Delays going out. I just missed the bastards!’ He smashed his left fist into his right palm in frustration. ‘They must have gone out of the car park minutes afore I turned in. They were likely around when we were here before, Pete. If only I hadn’t waited till I were sure…’

He stood up, his strength restored.

‘We’ll need to put out a call,’ he said. ‘Nowt yet on Gina’s car, is there?’

‘No. Sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘She could be halfway back to London by now.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Dalziel. ‘Them two didn’t take off out of here to go for a little sightseeing run.’

‘Sir, I think you should look at this,’ said Seymour from the doorway.

They went through into the next room.

‘Found this laptop stuck under the bed,’ said Seymour. ‘Thought it was just plugged in to recharge the batteries. But there’s this…’

He turned it so they could see a map-diagram with a pulsing green spot.

‘That what I think it is?’ said Dalziel.

‘It looks like a tracking bug,’ said Pascoe.

‘And it’s not moving. Jesus, Pete, I bet it’s in her car, and she’s parked somewhere,’ cried the Fat Man.

‘Andy, you’re guessing,’ said Pascoe. ‘Let’s work out where it is and I’ll get a patrol car to take a look…’

But he might as well have been talking to the trees. Dalziel was peering close at the screen.

‘Got it!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘That’s the north road, and yon’s that unclassified road that leads nowhere but a few farms and the Lost Traveller. Was a time when you really needed to be lost to call in there, but it were a good pint last time I was in. So she’s about a quarter mile down the hill beyond. Come on, we can be there in twenty minutes if we move!’

‘No, Andy!’ commanded Pascoe with all the stern authority he could muster. ‘Think about it. If your theory is correct-and very possibly it’s not-then there could be an armed and dangerous man out there. I’ve got an ARU on standby, I’ll whistle them up and we’ll all take a look together.’

‘You wha’?’ cried the Fat Man. ‘There’s a bastard out there who put my girl in hospital and he’s likely looking to do the same to yon lass Gina who came up here looking for my help, and you want me to sit on my thumbs while you follow procedure? You do what you want; you’ll know where to find me.’

‘Listen, Andy,’ said Pascoe seriously, ‘I can’t let you do this. It’s just a matter of minutes…’

‘Minutes might be all we’ve got,’ said Dalziel. ‘And, Pete, what’s all this letting business? There’ll likely come a time and place when you can tell me what to do, but it’s not here and it’s not yet. I’m off. You coming or staying?’

Seymour, who had been watching this confrontation of giants with fascinated interest, mentally noting every phrase and inflexion for the historical record, now focused all his attention on Pascoe. Was this the moment when Spartacus threw off his chains? When Fletcher Christian put Captain Bligh in the longboat and set him adrift?

In the event the outcome was rather lacking in drama.

Pascoe shook his head, like a man waking from a dream, smiled wryly, even rather sadly, and said, ‘Oh, all right then. But if you get me killed, I’m not going to be the one who tells Ellie! Dennis, ring Sergeant Wield, tell him what’s going off and where, and get that ARU moving quick!’

‘And then,’ as Seymour was later to tell his enthralled audience, ‘they went running off down the corridor like a couple of big kids on their way to a party!’

18.15-18.30

Once Gina Wolfe started crying, it felt as if she could never stop.

Alex Wolfe had made no effort to comfort her, just sat there, watching patiently.

That told her more than anything he’d said that for him the past was dead. She wasn’t even a ghost, just a complication that threatened to damage his new life. While the barriers she had created between herself and the past had proved paper-thin, he had found a way to turn that pain into part of a process, the first chance which, though ending in disaster, left you better prepared to grasp the second if and when it came along.

It was this realization that finally dried the physical tears, though inside she felt as if she might be crying forever.

She began to repair her face in the rear-view mirror, taking her time as she tried to adjust to this new-found perspective. She had to try to match his apparent objectivity. If they could both walk away from this safe and sound, well and good. But if only one of them could survive, then she had to be pragmatic. This stranger and his family were nothing to her.

She said, ‘Well, Ed, what was this stupid thing you did?’

Using his new name was a signal to herself of what she felt was their new relationship. He showed no reaction.

He said, ‘When I went on Gidman’s payroll, I set up an online account for the money to be paid into. Not in my own name, of course, and not using my own PC at home. Funny, as stuff started coming back to me, the details of that account and the passwords and everything, they came back bright and clear while other stuff about my actual life before I became Ed Muir was still hazy and fragmented.’

‘Perhaps it says something about your priorities,’ she couldn’t resist saying.

He took her seriously and replied, ‘Yes, I think so too. The money was for Lucy’s treatment. That was always my priority. That was why I made no effort to use the account other than to establish it was still active. Spending Lucy’s money on clothes, or booze, or living expenses, it didn’t feel right.’