‘Happen not. Owt from Burroughs?’
‘Not a thing. They’ve been right up the valley and back down again. She’s waiting to be told what to do next.’
Dalziel pondered, his great face brooding like God’s over a tricky piece of epeirogeny.
‘We’ll get ‘em off the fell,’ he said finally. ‘Hit the buildings again. I want every farmhouse, barn, byre, pigsty, hen-coop, garden shed, outside privy, every bloody thing turned upside down. She’s close, Wieldy. I feel it.’
It would have taken a brave man in search of a medal to point out he’d felt much the same back in Dendale all those years ago, and Wield, though no coward, was equally no pot hunter.
He said, ‘And Turnbull, sir? Does he walk?’
‘Don’t be bloody daft! Whatever Hoddle says, he’s not leaving here till the twenty-four hours are up. No bugger’s going to say I let a possible child killer loose afore I were forced to, not this time.’
‘No, sir. Novello were wondering if mebbe now things have been going on so long, she could sit in …’
‘No,’ said Dalziel irritably. ‘Besides what I said before, bring a new face in now and Hoddle will be abso-bloody-lutely certain he’s got us on the run. Tell her to take the Dendale file and learn it by heart. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, Peter had an appointment with yon Plowright woman who runs Social Services. Thought he might get a line on old Mrs Lightfoot who’s probably dead, but if she’s not, then she’s the one Benny would want to find if he came back, which I don’t believe. Ivor can go along instead.’
‘Sounds like a waste of time,’ said Wield.
‘Better a DC’s time than a DCI’s,’ said Dalziel. ‘Think of the money we’ll save. Any word of the little lass, by the way?’
‘I rang the hospital,’ said Wield in a flat voice which concealed the effort of will even that call had required. ‘No change.’
He still hadn’t been able to bring himself to try and contact Pascoe direct. That needed to be face-to-face contact, he told himself. But he wasn’t sure he believed himself.
‘Life’s a bastard, eh, Wieldy?’ said Dalziel wearily.
‘Yes, sir. And then we die,’ said Edgar Wield.
And so the second day of the Lorraine Dacre enquiry draws to an end.
As the shadows lengthen, her parents, unable now to bear any company but their own, sit together holding hands in the tiny living room of their cottage, neither of them deriving any comfort from their contact except for the possibility of giving it to the other. Hope has died in both their hearts and all that remains is the concealment of despair.
Between Peter and Ellie Pascoe, too, there is a silence born of a secret, but the secret here is not the death of hope but its survival. Life without Rosie is unimaginable, so they refuse to imagine it. Like primitives in a cave, they watch darkness running towards them across the fells and know it holds danger, but know also that tomorrow the sun will rise again and make all things well.
And Rosie Pascoe?
Rosie Pascoe is in the nix’s cave.
It’s dark down here, but a little light filters down the long winding tunnel leading to the entrance. Gradually her eyes begin to adjust and shapes and textures begin to rise out of the darkness.
She is on the edge of a small pool of black water. At least, at first it seems dull black, but as she peers into it, a little of the light from that sunlit world far above runs across its surface, polishing it as it passes, so that the blackness shines like a mirror held up to the night sky.
In that dark mirror she sees the roof of the cave, soaring high above, like the ceiling of a great old cathedral. And up there something moves, not much, just enough to catch her eye.
It is a bat, hanging upside down at the topmost point of that high ceiling.
Rosie shivers and lets her gaze move across the pool to its far margin. And there in its black mirror she sees another face, bright shining eyes, sharp prying nose, a lantern jaw fringed with jagged whiskers, and teeth like a length of ripsaw in the smile-parodying mouth.
She cries out and raises her terrified gaze from the reflection to the reality.
It is the nix himself, crouched opposite on the far bank of the pool. Seeing that he has her attention, the nix slowly raises his left hand and with a long thin finger tapering to a long sharp nail, he beckons to her.
Rosie shakes her head.
The nix stands up straight. Crouched, he had seemed frog-like; a large frog it is true, but with the comforting promise of a frog’s awkward movement out of the water. Now he straightens into a tall thin man whose long legs have brought him halfway round the pool before fear, which has locked her muscles, becomes terror, which releases them, and she scrambles away from him over the stones and bones which litter the floor of the cave.
Her first thought, for despite everything she’s still thinking, is to keep the water between them, and for a while she succeeds. But her young limbs are growing tired, and on her third circuit of the pool, it seems that the thin light spilling through the entrance tunnel is brightening to a golden glow as if that distant sun is shining directly on its mouth in the grey fellside far above.
The way is long and hard, she knows, and very steep. In a straight race she doubts if she would have much chance against those long skinny legs. But the call of the sun is too strong.
She breaks away and heads into the tunnel.
How rocky the ground is! How full of twists and turns the passage! How low the ceiling!
She comforts herself with the thought that what is awkward for her must be very difficult indeed for the nix, but when she risks a glance back she sees him crouched low and squat once more, not like a frog this time, but scuttling along like a huge spider.
The sight gives her new strength. Also the growing brightness which has in it now not just the light but the warmth of the sun.
She turns another bend. Still far above her but now clearly visible she glimpses the tiny circle of blue sky. And as she looks, the blue becomes a frame round a familiar face and she hears a familiar voice crying her name.
‘Rosie. Rosie.’
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ she calls back, and strives towards him.
But the scuttling noise behind is very close now. She feels those bony fingers tighten round her ankles, she feels those rapier nails digging into her flesh.
And she sees the circle of blue shrink to a pinhole then vanish altogether as the nix drags her back down to his gloomy cavern and his black and fathomless pool.
DAY THREE
The Drowning of Dendale
ONE
BETSY ALLGOOD [PA/WW/11.6.88]
TRANSCRIPT 2
No. 2 of 2 copies
Once it started raining, it rained like it were bent on catching up in a week for all the dry weather we’d had over the past months.
That first day was a real cloudburst, then it settled into a steady downpour, sometimes slackening for a while but never really stopping. Back in Dendale we heard they were finishing off the clearing-up job, shifting any big stuff left, sorting out the electrics and such, and when that were all done, they bulldozed the buildings. Seems it didn’t matter whether they were going to be drowned or not, the Board didn’t want owt left standing to tempt folk to explore either under the water or out of it.
So school, pub, church, houses, barns, byres, everything were knocked flat in preparation for flooding the dale. The dam was nigh on finished, the becks were full bubble, the Neb was spouting water like a leaky bucket and White Mare’s Tail was wagging full force again, so that Dender Mere was nearly up to its old flood level, and high on Black Moss col twixt the Neb and Beulah the new tarn were broadening and deepening ready for its release into the valley below.
All this I picked up the usual way kids pick things up, by hanging around grown-ups with mouth shut and lugs open. No chance of seeing any of it for myself. I’d been warned like all the rest of us not to go anywhere near Dendale. Partly, it were that our mams and dads were still feart of Benny Lightf
oot or the nix or whoever had taken the three girls. Partly, I think they knew how much it would hurt them to
see their old homes flattened and drowned, and reckoned it would be just as bad or worse for us kids.
In my case, they were dead wrong. I really liked it in Danby. I settled in real quick. And when school started in September, I found that Mr Shimmings, the teacher with the eye-patch, hadn’t got it any more. He’d only been wearing it ‘cos he’d hurt his eye in an accident and needed to cover it up till it mended. And he didn’t have a split cane, but only a walking stick to help with the limp he’d got from the same accident. In fact, he were really nice, and him and Miss Lavery got on right well.
I forgot to mention, Miss Lavery had got taken on at St Michael’s Primary, and though I weren’t in her class any more, she always stopped and had a word with me when we met.
There were lots of the old Dendale faces around. Mr Hardcastle, like my dad, were working for Mr Pontifex on his estate. The Telford brothers had set up their joinery business in Danby, though I heard tell it were mainly Madge’s Uncle George doing the work, as Joe (that’s her dad) didn’t seem able to keep set on anything. The Wulfstans had moved back to town and then sold up there and moved off down to London. Nobody saw owt of Aunt Chloe again, but Mr Wulfstan’s works were up here and he was still around, and there were stories of him being seen wandering around the fells like he was still hoping to find some trace of Mary. Also, there was talk of his lawyers suing the police for not doing their job properly, but nowt came of it.
As for Benny Lightfoot, he’d gone without trace. His gran made a right durdum about leaving the dale, and barred herself in Neb Cottage when time came. They went up there to try and talk her out, but when there was no sign of her, they broke in and found she’d had a seizure with all the excitement, so she’d been taken off to hospital. She’d have likely ended up in a home if some niece down near Sheffield hadn’t said she’d take her in and look after her.
All this seeped into my head the usual way, but none of it bothered me. Dendale and hot weather, and Jenny and Madge and Mary being taken seemed miles and years away. We had a cottage quite near the school, right on the edge of Danby, and though it might have seemed like living in the country to a townie, for me after Low Beulah, it were like being in the middle of a city, with different people and different sights all round me every day.
I think change did Mam good at first, too. She seemed a lot livelier and made some new friends and even went out with them now and then. Dad were better too for a bit. He were shepherd overseer for Mr Pontifex and I heard Mam tell someone if he kept his nose clean and his lip buttoned, he should get Stirps End Farm when present tenant retired which were expected next Lady Day or midsummer at latest. Dad used to say he didn’t know if there were much point in starting all over, and I knew he were thinking of me being only a lass. And mebbe that’s why them days I didn’t much mind having my hair cut short and nearly always wearing dungarees or jeans, ‘cos I thought that mebbe I’d do for a boy and be able to take on the farm.
Sounds stupid, I know, but that’s what I thought. And I tried not to think at all about Dendale, and like I say, soon it seemed as far away as London, and I’d not have dreamt of going back if it hadn’t been for Bonnie.
The move seemed to have bothered Bonnie most of all and if it hadn’t been that it hardly ever stopped raining, I doubt he’d have come in our new house at all. He wandered around, all restless. If I shut him in a room with me, he wanted to be out. And if I shut him out, he wanted to be back in. And whatever he wanted, he yelled till he got it, and this really got on Dad’s nerves. He’d never liked Bonnie, anyway, so I did my best to keep them out of each other’s way.
Then this night it all went wrong. Dad came into the kitchen through the back door and Bonnie shot between his legs, almost tripping him.
He swore and lashed out with his boot, catching Bonnie right in the ribs.
The cat let out a screech and shot through the open door. I screamed too and Mam came in to see what was going off.
‘It’s Bonnie,’ I sobbed. ‘Dad kicked him and he’s run away.’
‘Is that right?’ Mam demanded.
‘Bloody useless animal,’ said Dad. ‘Good for nothing. If I never see it again, it’ll be too soon. Anything that can’t earn its keep isn’t bloody well worth keeping.’
This made me cry even more, and not just for Bonnie.
Mam tried to comfort me by saying Bonnie would be back once he realized he were just getting soaking wet outside. And even Dad, who mebbe felt a bit guilty, said it would be all right, Bonnie would be back under his feet in the morning.
But he wasn’t. No sign of him.
I cried all through breakfast and all the way to school. No one noticed at first, we were all so wet, a few tears made no difference. It were a really foul day, rain hissing down so hard it came straight back up again, filling the air with curling mist so’s you couldn’t see across playground. But once we got inside and dried off, my friends soon spotted I were crying and asked me what was wrong. My girlfriends were all dead nice, but one of the boys, Joss Puddle whose dad had had the Holly Bush in Dendale, said, ‘Don’t know why you’re bubbling. I know where he’ll be. He’ll have gone home.’
‘Well, he hasn’t, stupid,’ I said. ‘That’s what I’ve just been telling you. He hasn’t come home.’
‘I don’t mean Danby home, I mean his old home, his real home. So who’s stupid now?’ he retorted. ‘And I’ll tell you summat else. If he’s gone back to Low Beulah, he’ll likely get drowned ‘cos they’re letting loose Black Moss today.’
I thought about this all through the morning till break. The more I thought, the more I reckoned Joss were right. Bonnie had been fretting ever since the move. Where else would he run after Dad had kicked him but back to Dendale? At morning break, I told Joss to tell teacher I’d gone off home with a bellyache.
Looking back, I know what I set out to do were daft. Chances of finding Bonnie even if he had set out back to Low Beulah were rotten. Chances of me slipping and breaking a leg were a lot better. But I had this picture of Bonnie sitting down by the mere all forlorn and this big wall of water rushing down from Black Moss and sweeping him away.
So I set off up the Corpse Road to Dendale.
It were a steep climb out of Danby, but I were strong for my age and the path were so well worn, I had no problem following it even when the mist swirled close. Rain never let up, and soon I was sodden through, but it weren’t a cold rain with the wind coming from the south, and I was moving fast as I could, so that kept me warm inside.
As I came over the ridge of the Neb, I could hear White Mare’s Tail thundering but there were another noise I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t till I got halfway down into the dale and suddenly the mist opened up like it does that I saw where it came from.
Down from Black Moss what had used to be a whole lot of becklets
streaking the hillside like silver threads had knit together into a great tumbling force. It rushed straight down fellside into the valley bottom where it joined with White Mare’s Beck and went roaring down to the mere.
Already the mere itself were fuller than I’d ever seen it even in the old spring floods. Its old shape were gone and it were covering fields and walls which ran along its edges and lapping about ruins of houses like Heck which had stood close.
I stood there and felt… I don’t know what I felt. I were looking at place I’d spent most of my little life and not recognizing it. It were like looking in mirror and seeing someone else there.
Through the mist, I could just make out on far side of the mere the round hillock close by where Low Beulah had stood. Then it vanished, and in no time at all I could hardly see more than a couple of steps in front of me again. But it were easy enough to follow Corpse Road down to Shelter Crag. Now I was scrambling around on blocks of stone from buildings that had been knocked down and it were hard to tell just where I was. I were trying to get
to the little hump-back bridge over White Mare’s Beck which would take me on to the road round mere and so up to Low Beulah, but when I reached edge of the beck, or river as it were now, I realized how daft I’d been. Bridge would have gone, if it hadn’t been knocked down it would be underwater now. I were so wet, I thought of wading over, but I could see it were too deep, and any road it moved so fast I’d have been knocked off my feet.
I stood there shouting Bonnie! Bonnie! over the water for a while. Then it struck me. If I couldn’t get over, neither could a cat. One thing Bonnie hated was getting wet. He’d be really miserable just being out in the rain, no way he’d try to swim across a river.
So what would he do? Try and find shelter, I told myself.
I felt a bit happier now. Water was rising fast, but not so fast it could catch a cat, and though the new river were running strong, it were a long way short of the huge wave rushing down the dale I’d seen in my fancy.
So I started calling ‘Bonnie! Bonnie!’ and went wandering off up what were left of the village. The rain was harder now and it seemed to stot up from ground to join the mist so that you could really feel it like stroking your face and arms and legs as you moved along. It were a funny feeling, but I were so wet now that I didn’t mind it, in fact I think I might have quite enjoyed it if I hadn’t been so worried about
Bonnie. I couldn’t see a thing, but I thought as long as I were going uphill I couldn’t come to much harm, and all the time I kept on shouting his name.
And then I heard him miaowing back.
I knew right off there were summat wrong. I know all the sounds Bonnie makes, and the kind of yell he gives when he’s hungry and wants his supper, or when you’ve left him shut up for a long time and he’s narked with you, is a lot different from the noise he makes when he’s scared.
I thought, mebbe he’s hurt himself, and I shouted again, and he shouted back, and I went towards the noise.
First thing I saw was this big pile of stones. Then I heard Bonnie again and I saw his eyes, two slivers of green glistening in the dark. But they were quite high up and I thought he must be standing on this pile of stones. Then above his eyes I saw something else, a paleness in the air, and another pair of eyes, and I took a step closer and saw that someone was holding Bonnie tight against his chest.
On Beulah Height Page 22
