hoops.
'Something to do with security, sex, the Royals, or anything that would lose votes,' he said shortly.
'Well done,' said Dalziel approvingly. 'And if you cast your mind back to Mickledore Hall in 'sixty-three, what do we find? A randy workmate of Profumo's whose son and heir coincidentally happens to be a Home Office minister in the current mob; a second cousin of the Queen's who is some kind of spook; a Yankee who's in the same line of business; a businessman who's got the Tory licence to print money so long as he prints plenty for them; and their jovial host who borrows from anything with a wallet and bangs anything with a purse. Plenty there to explain why yon bugger Pimpernel came oozing out of the Smoke, I'd say.'
'You'll need to say it a bit more plainly, Andy,' said Pascoe, using the familiarity to underline how off the record this conversation was. 'Look, if I knew precisely what were going off, don't you think I'd tell you?' said Dalziel in an injured tone. 'All I'm saying is, I'm not going to sit back and let them make out Wally got it wrong.'
'So what are you going to do about it?'
'Dig a few old bodies up. Talk to them.'
'And how do you propose getting them to talk back? By holding a seance?'
'Sarky! Nay, lad, you're the clever bugger. Yon foreign fellow who went drifting around the Med after the Trojan War, what was his name?'
'Odysseus? Or Aeneas?'
'The one who went down to hell to talk to the dead. Remind me, how did he manage to get them to talk back?'
'I think they both went,' said Pascoe. 'And if I recollect right, they both used a similar method. To get the ghosts to speak, they had to dig a trench and fill it with blood.'
'I knew I could rely on you, lad,' said Andrew Dalziel. 'That'll do very nicely.'
PART THE SECOND
Golden Bough
ONE
'Oh, Father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-
Man when I'm quite growed up!'
‘I am,' said Miss Marsh, 'what you might call a bleeder. Not fully haemophiliac in the Romanoff sense, you understand, but once I start, I take a deal of stanching.'
Not just blood either, thought Pascoe who had anticipated a frosty welcome from the ex-nanny but instead found himself drinking Earl Grey and listening to nursery reminiscences which stretched forever like childhood summers. At one point without interrupting her flow she had arisen, gone over to an ornate escritoire which looked as if it would fetch a bob or two at Sotheby's, and taken from a drawer a well filled photograph album. Thereafter her lecture was illustrated, and for the first time Pascoe truly appreciated the Shandean dilemma that present becomes past at a rate faster than past can be retrieved into the present.
Then, just as he despaired of ever introducing his proposed line of questioning, she gave him an entree with an anecdote about the sanguinary consequences of little Tommy Partridge's cute way with a pin.
'That's why you bled so much at Mickledore Hall when you walked into the wardrobe door?' he interposed.
'Indeed yes. If I'd guessed that my little accident was even a scruple in the scales of justice, I would of course have spoken up years ago. But I never knew. As I was saying to your Mr Hiller only yesterday afternoon, I still do not understand how your Mr Tallantire came to ignore the true explanation of the girl's bloodstained hands.'
Pascoe couldn't understand it either, but there were many things beyond his understanding, what he was doing here being one of them.
'I want to know everything Adolf knows,' Dalziel had said. 'So first thing tomorrow you bugger off and talk to Marsh and Partridge.'
Now was the moment when Pascoe, who had no recollection of volunteering his services at all, should have contested the principle instead of weakly raising objections to the practice.
'No use seeing them till Mr Hiller's been, is it?' he said cunningly.
'Naturally. And as he went to see them this afternoon, you'll be OK.'
'How the hell do you know that?' Pascoe had cried.
'I had a look in Adolf's
'Something to do with security, sex, the Royals, or anything that would lose votes,' he said shortly.
'Well done,' said Dalziel approvingly. 'And if you cast your mind back to Mickledore Hall in 'sixty-three, what do we find? A randy workmate of Profumo's whose son and heir coincidentally happens to be a Home Office minister in the current mob; a second cousin of the Queen's who is some kind of spook; a Yankee who's in the same line of business; a businessman who's got the Tory licence to print money so long as he prints plenty for them; and their jovial host who borrows from anything with a wallet and bangs anything with a purse. Plenty there to explain why yon bugger Pimpernel came oozing out of the Smoke, I'd say.'
'You'll need to say it a bit more plainly, Andy,' said Pascoe, using the familiarity to underline how off the record this conversation was. 'Look, if I knew precisely what were going off, don't you think I'd tell you?' said Dalziel in an injured tone. 'All I'm saying is, I'm not going to sit back and let them make out Wally got it wrong.'
'So what are you going to do about it?'
'Dig a few old bodies up. Talk to them.'
'And how do you propose getting them to talk back? By holding a seance?'
'Sarky! Nay, lad, you're the clever bugger. Yon foreign fellow who went drifting around the Med after the Trojan War, what was his name?'
'Odysseus? Or Aeneas?'
'The one who went down to hell to talk to the dead. Remind me, how did he manage to get them to talk back?'
'I think they both went,' said Pascoe. 'And if I recollect right, they both used a similar method. To get the ghosts to speak, they had to dig a trench and fill it with blood.'
'I knew I could rely on you, lad,' said Andrew Dalziel. 'That'll do very nicely.'
PART THE SECOND
Golden Bough
ONE
'Oh, Father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-
Man when I'm quite growed up!'
‘I am,' said Miss Marsh, 'what you might call a bleeder. Not fully haemophiliac in the Romanoff sense, you understand, but once I start, I take a deal of stanching.'
Not just blood either, thought Pascoe who had anticipated a frosty welcome from the ex-nanny but instead found himself drinking Earl Grey and listening to nursery reminiscences which stretched forever like childhood summers. At one point without interrupting her flow she had arisen, gone over to an ornate escritoire which looked as if it would fetch a bob or two at Sotheby's, and taken from a drawer a well filled photograph album. Thereafter her lecture was illustrated, and for the first time Pascoe truly appreciated the Shandean dilemma that present becomes past at a rate faster than past can be retrieved into the present.
Then, just as he despaired of ever introducing his proposed line of questioning, she gave him an entree with an anecdote about the sanguinary consequences of little Tommy Partridge's cute way with a pin.
'That's why you bled so much at Mickledore Hall when you walked into the wardrobe door?' he interposed.
'Indeed yes. If I'd guessed that my little accident was even a scruple in the scales of justice, I would of course have spoken up years ago. But I never knew. As I was saying to your Mr Hiller only yesterday afternoon, I still do not understand how your Mr Tallantire came to ignore the true explanation of the girl's bloodstained hands.'
Pascoe couldn't understand it either, but there were many things beyond his understanding, what he was doing here being one of them.
'I want to know everything Adolf knows,' Dalziel had said. 'So first thing tomorrow you bugger off and talk to Marsh and Partridge.'
Now was the moment when Pascoe, who had no recollection of volunteering his services at all, should have contested the principle instead of weakly raising objections to the practice.
'No use seeing them till Mr Hiller's been, is it?' he said cunningly.
'Naturally. And as he went to see them this afternoon, you'll be OK.'
'How the hell do you know that?' Pascoe had cried.
'I had a look in Adolf's
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