Read Online Arms and the Women by Reginald Hill - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Reginald Hill
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Ivor? Or are you only here for the beer?'
You tell me, fatso! thought Novello. But even as she fought the impulse to tip the remnants of her Coke over his great grizzled head, the answer came to her in that curious admixture of gratification and indignation which was her frequent response to Dalziel.
She was here not because he fancied her or wanted someone to fetch the beer; she was here because he simply reckoned she could make a useful contribution.
She looked around. Like Mrs Robinson, all she could see were sympathetic eyes. Well, four anyway. The Fat Man's expression was one of confident expectation, like a ringmaster watching a performing pig. Bastard.
She said, 'Well, there was one thing that did occur to me about what happened yesterday . . .'
'Spit it out, lass, afore I die of thirst.'
'What if you, that is we, are all barking up the wrong tree? What if it's got nothing whatsoever to do with the DCI and the people he's put away or is trying to put away? What if in fact it's all to do with Ellie, Mrs Pascoe, herself?'
Silence fell and the three men looked at each other with a wild surmise, though Novello feared it had more to do with her sanity than her insight.
Then the phone behind the bar rang and Jack Mahoney, the landlord, after listening a moment, called, 'Are you buggers here?'
Dalziel said, 'How many times do you need telling to put your mitt over the mouthpiece first, you thick sod? Ivor.'
For once Novello felt nothing but relief at being appointed gofer.
She went to the phone, identified herself, and listened.
Then she looked towards the waiting men.
'Well?' said Dalziel. 'Have I won the lottery, or wha'?'
But it was to Pascoe that Novello addressed herself, trying and failing to sound neutrally official.
'Sir,' she said. 'It's Seymour. It's lousy reception, but there's been more trouble at your house. I'm sorry, but I think he said he's following an ambulance to the hospital.'
vi
citizen's arrest
Ellie Pascoe hadn't realized just how shaken up she still was until the doorbell startled her so much she knocked a fortunately almost empty cup of coffee over her computer.
Get back to normal, she'd told herself, and then recalled that this was also what she'd told herself after Rosie's illness and had soon come to an understanding that normal wasn't just a sequence of repeated activities, but a condition like virginity which could never be regained.
But she'd followed the pattern of her normal day, retreating (a nice religious word for what sometimes felt like a nice religious activity) to the boxroom which she refused to call a study. Real writers had studies and you weren't a real writer till you got something published. Well, she had hopes. The rejection of her third attempt at a novel might have driven her to despair had it not come at the time of Rosie's illness when despair wasn't a place she had any desire to visit, and certainly not for the sake of anything as unimportant as a sodding book!
As Rosie started to recover, Ellie had started to write again, but just as her daughter seemed in her play to have turned away from the games of imagination which had once been her favourite territory, so the mother now found herself toying with characters and situations from long ago rather than the snapshot here-and-now realism she'd hitherto thought of as her forte. She'd pursued this new line without questioning, even after she realized that it wasn't likely to lead to anything she could submit for publication. But it was . . . fun? Yes, it was certainly that. But, like the fun of children, like child's play, it was learning also. Here was something important to her at that time in those circumstances, but also in other times and future circumstance maybe. During her previous existence as a lecturer, a colleague who ran a Creative Writing course had moaned to her that he spent far too much time dealing with the hang-ups of students who clearly regarded narrative fiction as a branch of therapy
You tell me, fatso! thought Novello. But even as she fought the impulse to tip the remnants of her Coke over his great grizzled head, the answer came to her in that curious admixture of gratification and indignation which was her frequent response to Dalziel.
She was here not because he fancied her or wanted someone to fetch the beer; she was here because he simply reckoned she could make a useful contribution.
She looked around. Like Mrs Robinson, all she could see were sympathetic eyes. Well, four anyway. The Fat Man's expression was one of confident expectation, like a ringmaster watching a performing pig. Bastard.
She said, 'Well, there was one thing that did occur to me about what happened yesterday . . .'
'Spit it out, lass, afore I die of thirst.'
'What if you, that is we, are all barking up the wrong tree? What if it's got nothing whatsoever to do with the DCI and the people he's put away or is trying to put away? What if in fact it's all to do with Ellie, Mrs Pascoe, herself?'
Silence fell and the three men looked at each other with a wild surmise, though Novello feared it had more to do with her sanity than her insight.
Then the phone behind the bar rang and Jack Mahoney, the landlord, after listening a moment, called, 'Are you buggers here?'
Dalziel said, 'How many times do you need telling to put your mitt over the mouthpiece first, you thick sod? Ivor.'
For once Novello felt nothing but relief at being appointed gofer.
She went to the phone, identified herself, and listened.
Then she looked towards the waiting men.
'Well?' said Dalziel. 'Have I won the lottery, or wha'?'
But it was to Pascoe that Novello addressed herself, trying and failing to sound neutrally official.
'Sir,' she said. 'It's Seymour. It's lousy reception, but there's been more trouble at your house. I'm sorry, but I think he said he's following an ambulance to the hospital.'
vi
citizen's arrest
Ellie Pascoe hadn't realized just how shaken up she still was until the doorbell startled her so much she knocked a fortunately almost empty cup of coffee over her computer.
Get back to normal, she'd told herself, and then recalled that this was also what she'd told herself after Rosie's illness and had soon come to an understanding that normal wasn't just a sequence of repeated activities, but a condition like virginity which could never be regained.
But she'd followed the pattern of her normal day, retreating (a nice religious word for what sometimes felt like a nice religious activity) to the boxroom which she refused to call a study. Real writers had studies and you weren't a real writer till you got something published. Well, she had hopes. The rejection of her third attempt at a novel might have driven her to despair had it not come at the time of Rosie's illness when despair wasn't a place she had any desire to visit, and certainly not for the sake of anything as unimportant as a sodding book!
As Rosie started to recover, Ellie had started to write again, but just as her daughter seemed in her play to have turned away from the games of imagination which had once been her favourite territory, so the mother now found herself toying with characters and situations from long ago rather than the snapshot here-and-now realism she'd hitherto thought of as her forte. She'd pursued this new line without questioning, even after she realized that it wasn't likely to lead to anything she could submit for publication. But it was . . . fun? Yes, it was certainly that. But, like the fun of children, like child's play, it was learning also. Here was something important to her at that time in those circumstances, but also in other times and future circumstance maybe. During her previous existence as a lecturer, a colleague who ran a Creative Writing course had moaned to her that he spent far too much time dealing with the hang-ups of students who clearly regarded narrative fiction as a branch of therapy
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