'What? Oh, of course, you'd know about that. The picketing, you mean. She's tried to get my wife interested in that lot but no joy there, I'm glad to say. No, if I were you I'd keep off the Calli while she's got you in the chair. On the other hand I'm sure she'd be fascinated by any plans Bevin might have for harnessing female labour in the war effort.'

'Shorter,' said Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel reflectively. 'Does your fillings in a shabby mac and a big hat, does he?'

'Pardon?' said Pascoe.

'The blue film brigade,' said Dalziel, scratching his gut.

'I managed to grasp the reference to the shabby mac,' said Pascoe.

'Clever boy. Well, they need the big hats to hold on their laps.'

'Ah,' said Pascoe.

'Of course it's a dead giveaway when they stand up. Jesus, my guts are bad!'

Scatophagous crapulence, diagnosed Pascoe, but he kept an expression of studied indifference on his face. On his bad days Dalziel was quite unpredictable and it was hard for his inferiors to steer a path between overt and silent insolence.

‘I reckon it's an ulcer,’ said Dalziel. 'It's this bloody diet. I'm starving the thing and it's fighting back.'

He thumped his paunch viciously. There was certainly less of it than there had been a couple of years earlier when the diet had first begun. But the path of righteousness is steep and there had been much backsliding and strait is the gate and it would still be a tight squeeze for Dalziel to get through.

'Shorter,' reminded Pascoe. 'My dentist.'

'Not one for us. Mention it to Sergeant Wield, though. How's he shaping?'

'All right, I think.'

'Shown his face at the Calli, has he? That's why I picked him, that face. He'll never be a master of disguise, but, Christ, he'll frighten the horses!'

This was a reference to (a) Sergeant Wield's startling ugliness and (b) the Superintendent's subtle tactic for satisfying both parties to a complaint.