A Pinch Of Snuff by Reginald Hill

Author:Reginald Hill [Hill, Reginald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1978-09-12T08:45:54+00:00

Chapter 14

They caught up with Johnny Hope at the Branderdyke Variety and Social Club. This was a bit larger than most of the local clubs and somewhat different in character. It had a real stage with a proscenium arch and though in origin it was, like the rest, a meeting and drinking place for locals, it had taken a larger step than most towards the status and dimensions of Wakefield or Batley.

Top of the bill that night was a singer who was either on his way up to, or down from, the Top Thirty. But it was in the communal changing room shared by the lesser artistes that they found Johnny Hope.

He was talking to a young sullen-faced girl, so slim and slight that it was difficult to gauge her age. She wasn’t answering, however. Every time Hope asked a question, a suspicious-eyed matron with a mouth like a sabre-cut replied, draping one arm protectively over the girl who was wearing a cream and lavender Bo-Peep costume.

‘How old are you, Estelle?’ Hope asked as if sensing Pascoe’s problem.

‘Seventeen,’ said the matron.

‘When did you first get interested in the trampoline, Estelle?’ asked Hope.

‘She saw Olga Korbut on the telly at the Olympics in 1972 and she thought she’d like to start doing the gymnastics,’ said the matron. ‘One thing led to another.’

‘One more thing,’ said Hope, but he was interrupted by the entry of an elderly man eating a frankfurter with onions.

‘Your girl’s got two minutes, missus,’ he said splodgily.

‘Come on, luv,’ said the matron.

She led her daughter out, glaring ferociously at Pascoe as if he had an indecent thought written in a balloon above his head.

‘Isn’t she,’ enquired Pascoe, ‘a trifle overdressed for trampolining?’

‘Johnny,’ said Wield.

‘Hello, Edgar!’ said Hope.

Edgar, thought Pascoe.

‘This is my Inspector, Peter Pascoe.’

‘Glad to meet you, Peter,’ said Hope, shaking his hand vigorously. ‘Any mate of Edgar’s a mate of mine.’

Now the women had disappeared, Pascoe took a closer look at the man. He was small, ruddy-faced, his bright blue eyes ringed with crows-feet from (perhaps) too much time in too many dimly lit

rooms, his cheeks crazed with broken blood vessels from the same cause. He was about fifty, wore a bright green and yellow checked jacket, and gave off what seemed a totally spontaneous affability.

‘We wanted to chat about Maurice Arany,’ said Wield.

‘Maurice, eh? Well, not now, not now. I missed Estelle last night, got mixed up in a barney at the Turtle. Can’t afford that again. Come on, we’ll just get a pint afore she starts.’

They did but only because Hope’s waved hand won them instant attention at the crowded bar at the back of the hall.

On stage was a trampoline. Music started, loud enough and poured from amplifiers enough to drown the chatter and clinking and other noises attendant on the drinking of pints and devouring of scampi and chips.

It was a nice, bouncy tune and when Estelle strolled on and clambered on to the trampoline, Pascoe settled back for a pleasant athletic balletic routine, thinking how easily pleased these Yorkshiremen were.

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