On Beulah Height

by Reginald Hill

  ‘And Betsy knows he’s this monster but still sets her heart on becoming his daughter?’ said Dalziel incredulously. ‘One thing I’ll say about you, lass, is you’re not one of them girls-can-do-no-wrong feminists.’

  ‘I’m not talking right or wrong, I’m talking truth,’ retorted Novello angrily. ‘And it would probably make our job a damn sight easier if only men were as willing to face up to the truth about themselves as women are.’

  Oh, shit, she thought, sinking back in her seat. Up there being hallelujah’d with the Trinity one moment, over the battlements and cometing down to hell the next!

  And this was the point where Pascoe rifled his storehouse of palliatives and could only come up with, ‘What is truth?’

  The rest of the journey to the Beulah Chapel passed in a contemplative silence.

  Once in the chapel, Pascoe abandoned meditation for observation. He had a sense of things coming to an end. But as in all the best shows, before it was over, the Fat Man had to sing.

  A voice cut through the hubbub which broke out after Dalziel’s declarations of thirst. It was clear, classy, and came from a well-built, handsome woman whom Pascoe recognized without surprise (he was past surprise) as Cap Marvell, Dalziel’s ex-inamorata. She was proclaiming, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s such a fine night, refreshments are being served out in the yard.’

  As the audience began to file out, she approached the Fat Man, put her hand on his arm and said softly into his ear, ‘Andy, what’s happened?’

  ‘Tell you later, luv,’ he said. ‘It ‘ud be a help if you could get shut of that lot too.’

  A few of the audience, motivated by parsimony, curiosity or arthritis, had opted to remain in their seats. Cap Marvell moved among them speaking quietly, and one by one they rose. She shepherded them to the exit, exchanging a smile with Dalziel as she passed.

  Perhaps, thought Pascoe, I should cancel the ex.

  Dalziel glanced his way, and without thinking he cocked his head to one side and made ahellol hello! face. Christ, I’m getting bold, he thought.

  Marvell closed the door behind the last of the audience. Persuasive lady, thought Pascoe. Or maybe she’d taken lessons from her petit ami and simply told them to sod off out while they still had two unbroken legs to walk on.

  She rejoined Dalziel and said, meek as a housemaid, ‘Anything else, sir?’

  He said, ‘I’ve got a feeling the concert’s over, so you could always lead them in a sing-song to stop ‘em asking for their money back. Seriously, pack ‘em off home once they’ve had their refreshments. Talking of which, I weren’t joking when I said I were parched. You couldn’t jump the queue could you and fetch us a mug of tea? Better still, make it a pot and enough mugs to go round.’

  He looked to the far end of the chapel where the three Wulfstans and Arne Krog stood by the piano at which Inger Sandel remained seated. Like a barber’s shop quartet waiting for a cue, thought Pascoe.

  ‘Five of them, four of us, that makes nine,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wieldy, you’re house-trained. Give the lass a hand.’

  The lass gave him a submissive smile, trod hard but ineffectively on his toe, and went out followed by Wield.

  Pascoe caught a brief flicker of pleasure on Novello’s face. Thinks she’s forgiven because she’s not been elected tea girl, he guessed. Poor sprog. She’d learned a lot. But until she learned that in re Dalziel, pleasure was as emotionally irrelevant as pique, she had not learned enough.

  ‘Well, let’s not be unsociable,’ said the Fat Man.

  And beaming like an insurance salesman about to sell annuities on the Titanic, he set off towards the group by the piano.

  ‘Now this is nice,’ he declared as he approached. ‘Family and friends. It’ll likely save time if I can talk to all of you at once, but if any of you think that could be embarrassing, just say the word and I’ll fix to see you privately.’

  Like a wolf asking the sheep if they want to stick together or take their chances one by one, thought Pascoe.

  No one spoke.

  ‘Grand,’ said Dalziel. ‘No secrets, then. That’s how it should be with family and friends. Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?’

  He helped himself to a chair and sat on it with such force, its joints squealed and its legs splayed. Pascoe and Novello brought out chairs for the others and placed them in a semicircle. Then the two detectives took their places behind Dalziel, like attendants at a durbar.

  Elizabeth was the last to sit down. As she draped herself elegantly over the chair she pulled off her blonde wig and tossed it casually towards the piano. It landed half on the frame, half off, hung there for a moment, then slithered to the ground like a legless Pekinese.

  No one noticed. All eyes were on the singer as she scratched her bald head vigorously with both hands.

  ‘Bloody hot in yon thing,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll give it up.’

  ‘Change of colour, eh?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘Aye. I think my blonde days are just about done.’

  She sat there like an alien in a sci-fi movie. Pascoe, whose impression of her till now had been of a woman striking in appearance but chilling in effect, surprised himself by having a sudden image of pressing that naked head down between his thighs. She caught his eye and smiled as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. He turned his attention quickly to her CD which he was still carrying.

  And that was when goose turned to rabbit.

  At this moment Wield reappeared bearing a tray laden with teapot, cups, sugar, milk and a trayful of biscuits.

  ‘Here comes mother,’ said Dalziel. ‘Funny thing that. When weather’s hot and you’re really parched, there’s nowt cuts your thirst like a cup of tea.’

  He spoke with the conviction of a temperance preacher. Pascoe watched with resigned amusement as the Fat Man made a big thing of seeing the ladies were served first before lifting his own cup to his great lips with little finger delicately crooked in the best genteel fashion. Either he was still planning his strategy or he felt that something which had been fifteen years coming deserved a leisurely delectation.

  Finally he was ready.

  His opening gambit surprised Pascoe, because it repeated his

  offer of separation, only this time targeted and sounding sincere.

  ‘Mrs Wulfstan,’ he said gently, ‘this could be painful for you. If you’d rather we spoke later, or at home …’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m used to pain.’

  Krog, seated to her left, gripped her hand which was dangling loosely almost to the floor, but she offered no return pressure and after a moment he let it go. Wulfstan did not even turn his head to look at her. All his attention was concentrated on Dalziel.

  Was the Fat Man’s concern for the woman really genuine or just another way of turning the screw on her husband? wondered Pascoe.

  Probably a bit of both. Dalziel was long practised at bringing down whole flocks of birds with one stone.

  ‘So it’s cards on the table time,’ he said with all the engaging openness of a Mississippi gambler who has got pasteboard up his sleeve, down his collar, behind his hatband, and in every orifice known to man. ‘Who’s going to start us off?’

  Silence. Which was what he expected. Pascoe caught Wield’s eye and murmured something in his ear. The sergeant nodded and moved quietly towards the exit.

  ‘Stage fright, is it?’ said Dalziel. ‘All right. DC Novello, why don’t you see if you can give us a kick start?’

  Jesus Christ! thought Novello, in both oath and prayer.

  She had been watching with interest to see how the Fat Man was going to play this. Would he come in at the past or the present? Would he be open about what they’d found out or keep most of it back to trip them up with?

  She’d been ready to make critical notes, to give mental marks. Now here she was, at the front of the class, chalk in hand.

  Jesus, she repeated, this time wholly supplicatory.

  Her mind was spinning be
tween the chained skeleton at Heck, the blue sheets of Betsy’s revised recollection, Barney Lightfoot’s story, Geordie Turnbull’s confession…

  Then she thought, that’s all to do with the past! Sod the past. Fat Andy might be anchored in it, but I’m not. The case I’m working on is the murder of Lorraine Dacre, age seven.

  She said, ‘Mr Wulfstan, is there anything you’d like to add to your account of your visit to Danby early last Sunday morning?’

  She focused hard on Wulfstan’s gaunt features, partly in resistance to her desire to glance at Dalziel in search of approval, but also keen to catch any tell-tale reaction. An emotion did move like a mist-wraith across those passive features, but she couldn’t quite read it. If anything it resembled … relief?

  He said, ‘As I told Mr Dalziel, I went up the Corpse Road and stood for some time on the col, looking down into Dendale.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then as I turned away to start the descent to Danby, I glanced along the ridge towards the Neb. And I saw a man.’

  ‘A man? What man? You didn’t mention this in your statement. Why not?’

  She was gabbling too many questions in her eagerness to be at him.

  He touched his hand to his face as though in need of tactile reassurance that he was flesh and blood.

  Then he said quietly, ‘Because it was Benny Lightfoot.’

  Novello let out a snort of angry derision. The bastard was going to play silly buggers, was he? He was hoping to hide behind all this Benny’s Back! hysteria. But she had the wherewithal to chop that frail prop from under him.

  Her voice sour with sarcasm, she said, ‘You saw Benny Lightfoot? Now that must have been a real shock, Mr Wulfstan. Especially as you of all people must have known beyond any shadow of doubt that he was dead.’

  If she’d expected shock/horror all round, she was disappointed.

  Wulfstan shook his head wearily and repeated, ‘I saw him.’

  The three women showed nothing, or very little, on their faces.

  And Arne Krog said, ‘It’s true. There was a man.’

  And to Wulfstan he said, almost apologetically, ‘I followed you.’

  This confirmation set Novello back for a second till she grasped its implications. Of course, there had been a man, not Benny but Barney, who’d talked about wandering high on the Neb in search of a bird’s-eye view of the valley.

  Wulfstan was looking at Krog, faintly surprised. Well, a man would be surprised to have his sighting of a ghost confirmed from such an unexpected source.

  ‘So what did you do then, Mr Wulfstan?’ enquired Novello.

  ‘I went up the ridge after him,’ said Wulfstan.

  ‘And did you catch up with him?’ she asked.

  ‘No. He disappeared.’

  ‘You mean, like in a puff of smoke?’ she mocked.

  ‘No. There are crags and folds of ground along the ridge. He went out of sight and did not reappear. I assumed he’d dropped down one side or the other.’

  She got his drift now. Benny/Barney had dropped down on the Ligg Beck side and there encountered Lorraine and … Good try, Walter. Only it wouldn’t wash.

  Feeling completely in control, she set about clearing the ground.

  ‘What about you, Mr Krog? You see which way this man went?’

  Krog said, ‘No. I saw Walter go after him, then I went back down the Corpse Road.’

  ‘And you didn’t see Mr Wulfstan again?’

  ‘Not till later that day at his house.’

  So now you’re on your own, Wulfstan. Just you, and me. And the child.

  ‘So what happened next, Mr Wulfstan?’ she asked gently. ‘Did you walk along the ridge, looking left and right in search of this man you thought was Benny Lightfoot? And did you look down at the Ligg Beck side and see someone down there, far below? And was it a little girl you saw, Mr Wulfstan?’

  In court this would be called ‘leading the witness’. She almost hoped he wouldn’t let himself be led, forcing her to drive him with angry scorn.

  But there was no defiance in his face, nor denial in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I looked down. And I saw a little girl. I looked down and I saw Mary.’

  ‘Mary?’ Novello was momentarily bewildered. Against her will she glanced sideways at the men. Pascoe gave a small encouraging nod. Wield, who had rejoined the group bearing the Dendale file and the envelope with Betsy Allgood’s transcripts, was as unreadable as ever. Dalziel was staring at Wulfstan and frowning.

  She too wrenched her attention back to the man. So he was still wriggling, was he? She gathered her strength for frontal attack.

  ‘Come on, Mr Wulfstan!’ she said. ‘You mean Lorraine, don’t you? You looked into the valley and saw Lorraine Dacre.’

  There was a creaking sound as Dalziel shifted his weight forward on his uneasy chair.

  ‘No, lass,’ he corrected gently. ‘He means Mary. That right, Mr Wulfstan? You looked down towards Ligg Beck and you saw your daughter, Mary? Looking just like she looked last time you saw her, fifteen years back?’

  And for the first time in their acquaintance, Wulfstan regarded Andy Dalziel with something close to gratitude and said, ‘Yes. That’s right, Superintendent. I saw my Mary.’

  TWENTY

  The sky shimmers like blown silk, the sun staggers drunkenly, the rocky ridge beneath his feet yields like a trampoline. After so many years, after so much pain, she is there, as blonde and blithe as he remembers her, not a day older, not a wit changed. The ghost of the man who took her has led him back to her.

  He does not pause to wonder how she has grown no older during all those years. He does not pause to ask why she is in this valley rather than Dendale where she was lost. He does not pause to consider the steepness of the hillside beneath him. Instead he plunges down the slope like a champion fell runner at the peak of his form. Nimble-footed, he bounds from rock to rock. Below, at the edge of the deep ghyll through which the beck runs out of sight, she gathers flowers, heedless of anything but herself and the plants beneath her feet, and perhaps the little dog that circles her, barking at bees and flies and nothing at all.

  He calls her name. He is too breathless to call very loud, but he calls it all the same. The dog hears him first and looks up, its excited bark turning to deep-throated growl. He calls again, louder this time, and this time the girl hears him.

  ‘Mary!’

  She turns and looks up. She sees, rushing down on her, a wild-eyed creature mouthing strange words, his arms flailing high and wide, his legs tiring now and sending him staggering like a drunkard. The flowers fall from her hand. She turns to flee. He shouts again. She runs blindly. The edge of the ghyll is near. She looks back to see his outstretched hands descending upon her.

  And she falls.’I saw two things when I got down beside her. I saw that she was not Mary. And I saw that she was dead.’

  Novello glared at him, trying not to believe, and failing. She had wanted a trapped monster, not a crazed father. She opened her mouth to ask sceptical questions, but Dalziel gave her a silencing glance and said, ‘So what did you do then?’

  ‘I picked up the body and began to climb out of the ghyll. I think I was going to carry her back down the valley and seek help, though I knew that for her the time of help was over. Halfway up the slope, on a ledge, the dog attacked me, biting at my ankles. I had to stop to try and chase it away. Finally I kicked it so hard, it fell to the bed of the ghyll and lay there, still snarling up at me. It was now I noticed this gap behind a large flake of rock. When I peered in I saw that this must have been some kind of den for the child. It contained the kind of things a little girl would choose to have around her … I remember from the days when …’

  He looked at his wife whose face had lost all colour. Elizabeth was holding one of her hands and Arne Krog was gripping the other arm.

  ‘I laid her in there, thinking that this would be a good place to leave her while I went for assistance. And then I star
ted thinking of what that meant, of telling people, of seeing her parents, perhaps … I found I did not have the strength for that. Over the years I had grown to think I had the strength for anything, but I knew I hadn’t got the strength for that. So I blocked the entrance to her little den. All I wanted to do was give myself time to think. I was not trying to hide her forever. I would not do that to her parents. I know all too well what not knowing where your child’s body lies can do a parent’s mind.’

  ‘So why’d you cover your traces with that dead sheep?’

  It was Wield, who’d been standing in the background unnoticed. ‘I’m the one who found her,’ he went on accusingly. ‘I saw how hard you’d worked to make sure she stayed hid.’

  ‘The dog was still close,’ said Wulfstan. ‘I chased it off with stones but I was worried that it might come back. I thought the dead sheep might prevent it, or any predator, from penetrating behind to where I’d lain the child. And I went back to the car along the fellside and drove home. I don’t think anybody saw me.’

  Oh yes they did, thought Pascoe. Another little girl who, thank God, imagined she was seeing a scene from the real/unreal world of her story books.

  ‘And exactly when were you going to come forward and give us the benefit of this information, sir?’ said Dalziel with functionary courtesy.

  ‘After the concert. Tomorrow morning,’ said Wulfstan. ‘I have been putting my affairs, both business and personal, in order for some time now. These last three days have given me time to complete the process, and I thought I would not wish to spoil Elizabeth’s … to spoil my other daughter’s debut at the festival.’

  He looked towards Elizabeth now. What passed between them was hard to read.

  Affection? Understanding? Apology? Regret? All of these, though in what proportion and in what direction was impossible to say.

  ‘Owt else you want to tell us?’ said Dalziel. ‘Like for instance why you’ve been going up the Corpse Road these past few weeks. And why you started putting your affairs in order?’

  Wulfstan gave him a distant, almost headmasterly nod of approval.