A Pinch of Snuff. Reginald Hill
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or were, very thick with Haggard. The elder, Miss Annabelle Andover, acted as a part-time matron while the school was on the go, and I get the impression that he’s been at pains to keep up the connection. You know, chicken for the cats, that kind of thing. If it ever did come to a court case, it’d be useful for him to be able to prove his immediate neighbours didn’t object to the Club.’
‘Which they don’t? It’s a bit different from a school!’
‘I can’t really say, sir,’ said Wield. ‘Old ladies, old-fashioned ideas, you’d say. But you never know.’
‘Well, we’d better have a chat in case they did notice anything. But at a decent hour. Let’s check on Haggard first. Then I reckon we’ve earned some breakfast.’
At the hospital they learned that Haggard, though intermittently conscious, was not in a fit state to be questioned so they had bacon sandwiches and coffee in the police canteen before returning to the Club.
Arany was still there.
‘Anything missing yet?’ asked Pascoe.
‘Not that I have found,’ said Arany. ‘Some drink from the bar, perhaps. It is hard to say, so much is broken.’
‘Well, keep at it. Perhaps you could call down at the station later, put it down on paper.’
‘What?’ enquired Arany. ‘There is nothing to put.’
‘Oh, you never can tell,’ said Pascoe airily. ‘First impressions when you arrived, that kind of thing. And by the way, would you bring a complete up-to-date list of members with you? Come on, Sergeant. Let’s see if the Misses Andover are up and about yet.’
The Misses Andover were, or at least their curtains were now drawn open. Pascoe pulled at the old bell-toggle and the distant clang was followed by an equally distant opening and shutting of doors and the slow approach of hard shoes on bare boards. It was like a Goon-show sound track, he thought. Eventually the door opened and a venerably white-haired head slowly emerged. Timid, bird-like eyes scanned them.
‘Miss Andover?’ said Pascoe.
The head slowly retreated.
‘Annabelle!’ cried a surprisingly strong voice. ‘There are callers enquiring if you are at home.’
‘Tradesmen?’ responded a distant voice.
‘I thought you said they were deaf,’ murmured Pascoe.
‘They are. They switch their aids off at night,’ answered Wield.
The head re-emerged, accompanied by a hand which fitted a pair of pince-nez to the little nose, and proceeded to scan the two policemen. When it came to Wield’s turn, the head jerked in what might have been recognition or shock and withdrew once more.
‘Mr Wield is one of them, Annabelle.’
‘Then admit them, admit them, you fool.’
The door swung full open and they stepped into the past.
Nothing in here had changed for two generations, thought Pascoe looking round the dark panelled hall. Except the woman who stood before him, smiling. She must have been young and pretty and full of hope when the men delivered that elephant’s foot umbrella stand. Now the folds of skin on her neck were almost as grey and wrinkled as those on the huge foot which had been raised for the last time on some Indian plain and set down (no doubt to the ghostly beast’s great amazement) here in darkest Yorkshire.
‘Miss Andover will be down presently,’ announced the woman, her eyes darting nervously from one to the other.
‘Thank you, Miss Alice,’ said Wield.
‘Miss Alice Andover?’ said Pascoe.
Wield smiled.
‘Then you too are Miss Andover,’ Pascoe stated brightly.
‘Oh no,’ said the woman, shocked. ‘I am Miss Alice Andover. This is Miss Andover.’
She indicated the figure of (Pascoe presumed) her elder sister descending the gloomy staircase.
The sisters were dressed alike in long flowered skirts which might have been antiques or the latest thing off C & A’s racks. From the starched fronts of their plain white blouses depended the receivers of two rather old-fashioned hearing aids. Annabelle, however, was several inches the taller and wore her even whiter hair in a simple page-boy cut while her sister had hers pulled back into a severe bun. Her face had probably never been as pretty as her sister’s, but she had an alert intelligent expression missing from the younger woman’s.
‘My dear,’ said Alice, ‘this is Mr Wield, as you know, but I’m afraid the other gentleman has not been presented.’
‘My fault entirely,’ said Pascoe, entering into the spirit of the thing. ‘Perhaps I may be allowed to break with convention and present myself?’
‘Whoever you are,’ said Miss Annabelle, ‘there’s no need to treat us both like half-wits even if m’sister asks for it. Alice, stop being a stupid cow, will you, dear? She saw Greer Garson in Pride and Prejudice on the box the other week and she’s not been the same since. Let’s go in here.’
She led the way into a bright Habitat-furnished sitting-room with the largest colour television set Pascoe had ever seen lowering from one corner.
‘Well?’ said Miss Andover impatiently, taking up a stance in front of the fireplace and lighting a Park Drive. ‘As you’re with the sergeant, I presume you’re a cop, and from the way he’s hanging back behind you, you must have some rank. Unless you’re a princess and he’s just married you.’
The quip amused her so much that she laughed till she coughed.
Pascoe waited till she’d finished both activities and introduced himself in a brusque twentieth-century fashion.
‘The house next door, Dr Haggard’s house, was broken into last night and a deal of damage done. I wondered if either of you heard anything?’
Miss Alice gasped in fright and seemed to shrink into herself but her sister just whistled in surprise, then shook her head, pointing to her hearing aid.
‘An advantage of this thing is that I need hear only what I want to. It’s very useful at night and when I’m with extremely boring people.’
‘So you heard nothing?’ persisted Pascoe.
‘I’ve said so.’
‘Miss Alice?’
‘Oh no. I switched off too,’ said Alice, evidently retrieved to the present moment by her sister’s command.
‘Which side of the house do you sleep?’ asked Pascoe, causing a time-slip in Miss Alice who put her hand to her mouth in horror at his indelicacy.
‘First floor on the Wilkinson House side,’ said Miss Annabelle. ‘Alice is at the back, I’m at the front.’
‘It’s a very large house,’ said Pascoe. ‘May I have a look upstairs just to get an impression of where you’d be in relation to next door?’
‘By all means,’ said Miss Annabelle. ‘Follow me.’
They set off in procession up the gloomy stairs, the older woman leading, the two men close behind and the younger sister trailing.
On the first floor they halted and Miss Annabelle flung open doors.
‘These are our bedrooms. Mine here and that’s Alice’s. As you can see, they abut on to Wilkinson House, but we weren’t disturbed. Over there are another couple of rooms, used to be our parents’ bedroom and dressing-room. We don’t use them now. Bathroom, boxroom. We use this as a sewing-room or rather Alice does. Me, I was never a hand with the needle. But Alice is an expert. Makes all our clothes in here. Gets the best light, you see.’
Pascoe peered in. The room