An Advancement of Learning. Reginald Hill
about the principal, sir? Isn’t he going to want this room back pretty soon?’
Dalziel frowned.
‘I hope we’ll be able to give it to him pretty soon. But evidently part of these flash new buildings you see going up around the place is a new administrative centre. He’s quite happy to have an excuse to start in there ahead of schedule.’
‘Odd,’ said Pascoe. ‘This is … nice.’
He looked around the comfortably proportioned, panelled room.
‘Doesn’t fit the new image, I expect,’ said Dalziel. ‘We’re still in Miss Disney-Land.’
He laughed loudly at his own joke, his flesh shaking till he started an itch in the small of his back. This he erased against the corner of the desk, grunting with satisfaction.
Dinner arrived early, about 6.45, and they were sawing through some rather stringy beef when the lab-report was delivered.
‘You read it,’ said Dalziel carrying on with his meal.
‘Well?’ he said through a mouthful of apple crumble a few minutes later.
‘Female, middle-aged, been in the ground a few years, five or six would fit nicely. Skull is fractured in two or three places, probably the result of blows with a heavy instrument and almost certainly contributory factors in the death, there’s a lot of technical stuff about the bones which isn’t going to be of much help, she wasn’t a hunchback, or lame or anything like that. Height about 5′ 6″. A big-boned woman, normal weight expectation 9 to 9½ stone, but they can’t make a guess at whether she was relatively fat or thin, size 5½–6 in shoes, size 7½ in gloves. That’s interesting, left leg has been broken twice, but old breaks.’
‘Accident prone,’ volunteered Dalziel, scraping the remnants of custard from his plate noisily. ‘What else?’
‘The mouth should be a help. No less than three gold fillings, one a fairly complex job.’
‘We’ll need that dentist. Your Mrs Farish is the only one of your probables that the age fits. Anything more?’
‘Yes. That red hair. It was a wig. Or what was left of a wig. Real hair, mind you, but treated, and remnants of the binding fabric still remained. That could help.’
Dalziel was unimpressed.
‘Too many bloody wigs about these days. You never know whether what you’ve got hold of is going to come away in your hand or not. What about clothes etcetera?’
‘Well, there were traces of fabric in the earth samples we sent along and they’ll let us know if they can make any definite pronouncements on the buttons, bits of metal and so on we picked up. They reckon the body was fully clothed and wrapped up in something, a blanket or a piece of curtaining. But they’re still working on it.’
Dalziel poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred in two large spoonfuls of sugar.
‘The first thing then is for you to go and see that dentist. It’s a long chance, but at the least it will eliminate Mrs Farish. And then …’
‘Then?’
‘Then we’ll have to visit every dentist and doctor in the area. And eventually between here and Central Europe if necessary. Unless we get something else. Well, you might as well be off. You won’t want to finish that, will you? It’s cold.’
‘I thought it was a bit off as well. Didn’t you?’ was the best Pascoe could do as he pushed back his chair.
Dalziel merely grinned, then grimaced as he took a mouthful of hot coffee.
‘Shall I make you an appointment while I’m there?’ asked Pascoe, and closed the door without waiting for a reply.
The dentist’s name was Roberts. He was a round-shouldered gangling man with a small head and a hooked nose. Spider-like, was the thought which came into Pascoe’s mind. He shouldn’t have cared to be loomed over professionally by this sinister figure.
Roberts was not happy at being removed from in front of his television set. It was a song-and-dance show. Perhaps it was close-ups of the singers’ mouths he found so interesting, thought Pascoe, his stomach moving uneasily as the smell of the surgery caught at his imagination.
Roberts had been warned on the telephone that there might be an interest in Mrs Farish’s dental record.
‘You’re lucky,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘I can’t keep things for ever. It would have gone soon. It took me forty-odd minutes to find it as it was. And I don’t need to look at it again to tell you it’s nothing like this.’
He waved the piece of paper on which Pascoe had copied down the relevant details from the lab-report.
‘Really, sir? Why?’
‘Well; those gold fillings. Now this one, at the front here, that was probably essential, nothing else would do the trick. So you’d get it on the National Health, you see? But these two. Not necessary at all. Someone paid for that work.’
‘And it wasn’t you that did it?’
‘No. Well, as far as I can remember. But I think I would, wouldn’t I?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir. I’d be grateful if you could have your records checked. We’ll be asking everyone.’
‘More work. All right then. I’ll have a look.’
He turned to the door. Pascoe didn’t budge.
‘Now, sir, would be as good a time as any. While we’re here. It’ll save me coming back.’
Roberts was displeased.
‘Look, here! I’ll get my receptionist … this is out of working hours.’
Pascoe felt his own resistance stiffening, which he knew was foolish. He just was not in the mood for the Robertses of the world that night.
‘Hello, Julian, here you are,’ said a voice from the door. ‘I saw a light so I came through. What’s this? An emergency?’
The newcomer was in his forties, a strongly-built distinguished-looking man with an engaging smile.
‘Oh no. It’s nothing. The police. This is my partner, James Jackson. This is …’
‘Sergeant Pascoe, sir. We’re hoping that someone in your way of business will be able to help us by recognizing this set of teeth. Unfortunately it will probably be more than five years ago since they received treatment.’
Roberts seemed to have diminished since the arrival of his partner.
‘James is more the man for you,’ he said irritably. ‘He gets most of our private patients.’
Jackson laughed.
‘You’re too modest, Julian,’ he said. Pascoe doubted it. ‘Let’s have a look.’
He took the description of the dead woman’s jaws from the sergeant’s hands and glanced at it, casually at first, then with growing interest.
‘Now wait a minute,’ he said.
‘You recognize it?’ said Pascoe, hardly daring to hope.
‘It rings a faint bell. The gold work, you see. But it’s absurd … let’s see.’
He glanced rapidly through the drawers of the filing cabinet before him.
‘No, no,’ he said, nonplussed.
‘Perhaps where Mr Roberts got Mrs Farish’s record …’ prompted Pascoe.
Roberts pointed wordlessly to the bottom drawer of an old wooden cabinet shoved almost inaccessibly into a corner. Jackson got down on one knee and began to toss out an assortment of papers with gay abandon.
Suddenly the fountain of stationery