Midnight Fugue

by Reginald Hill

  But for all his mockery of formal religion, today it somehow felt as if his brief unplanned visit to the cathedral had won him the reward of this lunchtime.

  It was tempting just to relax and enjoy it, but how much he could relax rather depended on whether he was working or not. If, as he suspected, someone had been in his house, and if that intrusion had anything to do with this woman, then certainly he was working. But if the phone thing had just been a technical glitch…

  Gina said, ‘So did I check out?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Come on. Since we talked, you’ll have checked me out to make sure I haven’t been sent by Professor Moriarty to bewitch you into a compromising situation. If you haven’t, then I can’t see you being much good to me.’

  Clearly she was completely back in control.

  ‘Fair enough. Aye, you checked out, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He gave her his best leer and said, ‘It’s a long while since I’ve been bewitched into a compromising situation. Bothered and bewildered, yes, all the time. Like now. But bewitched doesn’t come round as often as it once did.’

  ‘I know the feeling. But I know you’ve spoken to Mick. He rang me afterwards. I’m sure he filled out the picture. So why should you feel bewildered and bothered?’

  ‘I’m a cop, Mrs Wolfe,’ said Dalziel heavily. ‘I catch criminals. Nowt criminal going off here, according to you and Mick. Unless you know something I don’t.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as Alex, your dear departed husband, was definitely on Goldie Gidman’s payroll and getting reunited with him might also reunite you with some large sums of dirty money only he knows the location of.’

  He’d seen the vulnerable emotional side of her, now let’s take a look at how she stood up to a bit of rough and tumble.

  She regarded him steadily for a moment then said, ‘And if that was my motive, why on earth would I be sitting here talking to the local king of the cops?’

  ‘Wasn’t your idea to contact me, luv. It was Mick Purdy’s.’

  ‘So I’m keeping stuff from Mick too?’

  Dalziel shrugged and said, ‘All women keep stuff from their men. And vice versa. As you found out. Usually doesn’t matter. No, the big test will come if you find Alex and get faced with the choice: do I take off with the bad cop who’s got the big bucks, or do I stay true to the good cop who’s just got his pension to look forward to.’

  ‘Is that what you really think might happen, Mr Dalziel?’ she said.

  ‘How should I know? This show’s been running for seven years and I’ve just strayed in from the wings.’

  A waitress who had been hovering said, ‘Are you ready to order yet, or would you like a little more time?’

  Gina said, ‘I’m fine. I’ll just have the beef carpaccio with a green salad.’

  ‘I’ll have beef as well, luv,’ said Dalziel. ‘But I’ll have mine roast with Yorkshire pud and lots of spuds. And we’ll have a bottle of Barolo to wash that down.’

  ‘Actually I’d prefer a white, a Montana sauvignon blanc, perhaps,’ said Gina.

  ‘Fair enough. We’ll have one of them too,’ said Dalziel.

  They sat in silence for a while after the waitress had gone. There was a buffet party going on in the gardens. The chatter reached them, not loud enough to be distracting, more like a treeful of birds or the babbling of a brook. And there was music, too; classical but tuneful with it and live not canned–this was, after all, the Keldale. He traced its source to a small group playing in the pagoda.

  ‘That Bach?’ he said.

  ‘Mozart,’ she said. ‘Mr Dalziel, let’s talk straight. One way and another I know cops. I reckon a good police technique here would be to start with a bit of provocation to see if it would shake anything out of me. Then lull me with a bit of idle chit-chat about music, say. Then try to catch me with some more provocation. Eventually, over coffee, we might get down to some constructive talk. Good technique, perhaps, but it won’t make for a very enjoyable lunch.’

  Dalziel’s mobile rang. He took it out of his pocket, glanced at the display then put it to his ear and said, ‘Yeah?’

  He listened for a moment then said, ‘Thanks for that. Just keep a close eye on him OK? A very close eye.’

  He replaced the phone and smiled at the blonde.

  ‘You don’t look the shakeable type to me,’ he said. ‘So let’s drink to constructive talk.’

  He picked up the heavy crystal water jug and topped her glass up, then did the same with his own. There was still some water left in the vessel, but he raised it above his head and waggled it at a waitress who was serving a nearby table and called, ‘Refill here, luv, when you’re ready.’

  Gina Wolfe watched him, puzzled. He didn’t look like a man who made toasts in water. A change in the buffet music from lively Mozart to dreamy Strauss drew her attention to the party in the garden. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was a colourful semi-formalism about the way they were dressed. Not a wedding party; no buttonholes, no one in morning suits. Then she saw a woman holding a baby. The child was wrapped in a long white robe that floated in the gentle breeze.

  A christening. Her heart made a little movement in her breast and she felt tears forcing their way upwards into her eyes.

  Then her breathing stopped and she blinked furiously to try to remove the watery veil through which she was peering.

  And at that moment the jug slipped from Dalziel’s fingers and crashed on to the table.

  12.15–12.25

  The claims to quality made by the Keldale were more than justified by the noise produced by the shattering jug.

  No unbreakable plastic this, nor cheap glass which dissolves into powder, but genuine high-tensile crystal that exploded in a scintillation of diamantine fragments, turning heads not only on the terrace but in the garden too.

  Peter Pascoe was already on his third glass of champagne and his sixth lobster ball.

  ‘Enjoying yourself,’ said Ellie, coming up alongside him.

  ‘You know, I do believe I am,’ he said. ‘These fish fingers are really rather nice. As for the bubbly…you did say you were driving us home, right?’

  ‘Yes. My turn. I’m measuring the units carefully, which, considering the quality of this stuff, is a real sacrifice. I may expect to be rewarded for my relative temperance when we get home, so don’t go over the top, so to speak.’

  ‘You interest me strangely,’ said Pascoe. ‘Talking of temperance, I hope Rosie’s sticking to the juice. We don’t want her doing her Gigi act.’

  ‘No problem. Nothing alcoholic or even bubbly with her performance coming up.’

  ‘Performance?’ said Pascoe, alarmed. ‘You didn’t say anything about a performance.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ said Ellie innocently. ‘It’s just a little clarinet duet Ali put together for Rosie and another star pupil. It’ll give the Sinfonietta quartet the chance to get some refreshment.’

  ‘Oh God. I need another drink.’

  As if in response, Ed Muir approached with a champagne bottle at the ready.

  ‘Top up, Peter?’ he asked.

  ‘You bet.’

  He watched approvingly as the man took his glass. He’d only met Muir a couple of times previously, hadn’t felt able to relate very closely to him, perhaps because of the gap between his appearance and his manner. With his shaven head and five-o’clock shadow he looked like someone you’d step aside for if you met him on a lonely street. But his quiet speech and self-effacing manner faded him into the background when you met him in a group. Today, however, at his daughter’s christening, he was so full of joy and pride that he generated more warmth than the pleasant autumn sun.

  And if any doubt about his clubbability remained, the way he tipped a champagne bottle tipped the balance.

  Ali Wintershine had picked well!

  ‘Great party, Ed,’ said Pascoe effusively. ‘The perfect way to launch little�
��’

  For a moment the baby’s name escaped him. Then he saw Ellie mouthing something at him.

  ‘…Lolita,’ he concluded triumphantly.

  Ellie rolled her eyes upwards in exasperation while Muir looked slightly puzzled as it came to Pascoe that the child’s name was Lucinda.

  To correct or not correct? But before he could reach a decision God intervened in the form of an explosion somewhere behind him.

  Sensitized by the anti-terrorist briefings which were now a staple of police life, Pascoe span round.

  Whatever had happened had happened at a table right on the edge of the terrace. Attention centred on a large fat man and a willowy blonde, both on their feet, she looking a touch damp down the front of her dress, he mouthing what were presumably apologies as he tried to wipe her dry with his napkin.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ellie. ‘Et in Arcadia ego!’

  ‘What the hell’s he doing at the Keldale?’ said Pascoe, assuming the high tone of the habitué. ‘And who’s that with him?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if he doesn’t stop trying to massage her tits, I think he might get his face punched,’ said Ellie hopefully.

  This entertaining possibility was unhappily brought to nothing by the rapid arrival of a darkly handsome young man who, assisted by a couple of waitresses, smoothly restored calm and order to the table. Pascoe worked out that something fragile and heavy, a bottle perhaps or a jug, must have been dropped and shattered. Andy getting clumsy in old age? That from a man who for his size had always been incredibly nimble and dextrous was yet another cause for concern about the extent of his recovery.

  And Dalziel chatting up a young blonde while his long-time partner was away for a few days…

  Didn’t the trick cyclists say that a sharp reminder of mortality often sent a man in desperate search for earnests of potency?

  No problems himself in that field, he thought smugly. Though with the afternoon stretching ahead of him and the sun warm on his back and Ellie getting that languorous look, he should perhaps take her advice and slow down a little on the bubbly.

  But not yet!

  He turned to retrieve his glass from Ed only to discover that that particular temptation had been removed. His host had disappeared and with him Pascoe’s refill. Perhaps, he thought charitably, after the explosion, he’d felt constrained to rush and reassure his young wife that all was well.

  Ellie, disappointed in her hope of seeing the Fat Man assaulted, was now concentrating her attention on her husband.

  ‘What?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Lolita!’ said Ellie, shaking her head. ‘What are you like?’

  ‘Your fault,’ he said. ‘The longer I look at you, the younger you get.’

  He waggled his eyebrows at her and tried for a salacious leer.

  She couldn’t help smiling. But Pascoe’s instincts had been right. The warmth of the sun and the single glass of bubbly she’d allowed herself were combining very nicely to make a bit of salacity seem not such a bad idea.

  ‘Keep working on it, Mr Humbert,’ she said huskily. ‘Who knows? You may get lucky.’

  12.20–12.30

  Not all heads had turned at the sound of the exploding jug.

  Shirley Novello’s gaze had remained fixed on the black moustached man at the edge of the lawn.

  As the jug shattered, she saw his head jerk back and his hand go up to the headphones.

  ‘Gotcha,’ she said.

  Now she turned her attention to the Fat Man’s table and watched the pantomime of Dalziel apologizing to everyone in hearing distance and making ineffectual attempts to dry his lunch date down. In no time at all, Pietro was on the scene, directing operations. Novello wondered idly if he were as efficient in everything as he clearly was in his job. He had the glass cleared, the table re-laid, and Dalziel and the blonde re-seated in just a couple of minutes.

  Down on the lawn, the listener seemed to have got over his shock. He was back in his former mode, standing looking vacant, his head nodding as if he were mesmerized by some disco beat. But he had a mobile phone in his hand and, as she watched, he slipped the headphones off one ear and started speaking into the mobile.

  She let a couple of minutes pass till the corner table was no longer a focus of interest, then took up her phone once more and thumbed in the Fat Man’s number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I was right,’ she said. ‘You’re bugged.’

  ‘Grand. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘What do you want me to do now?’

  He thought a moment then said, ‘Stick to the bugger. But don’t get close.’

  ‘I’m on him.’

  The bugger had his headphones back on. Then something happened; nothing as violent as the shattering of the jug, but enough to make him remove the ’phones and give them a shake. Service interrupted, guessed Novello. When the Fat Man said he’d sort something, it usually got sorted.

  The bugger gave up on the ’phones but now he had his mobile to his ear again, receiving this time, not calling. So he wasn’t a loner, he must have back up. Would he continue as an observer now he could no longer listen in?

  Her view was blocked by Pietro, who set an open prawn sandwich and a glass of white wine before her. This guy really was efficient.

  ‘You serve table as well as clean up?’ she said, smiling up at him.

  ‘Depends on the table,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t order any wine.’

  ‘On the house. To make up for the disturbance.’

  ‘So everyone will be getting a glass?’

  ‘Only the sensitive ones. Any news of your friend?’

  ‘Definitely not coming,’ she said indicating her mobile. ‘That woman, at the table where the jug got broken, has she been on telly or something? I’m sure I’ve seen her.’

  ‘Mrs Wolfe? Don’t know. She’s certainly got the looks, but I don’t watch too much telly. I prefer real life.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘She’s a hotel guest, is she?’

  ‘That’s right. And the guy with her’s some sort of cop. Mr Lee, the manager, was around when she asked if she could book a table overlooking the garden, and I told her, Sorry, those tables are all taken. And she said, My guest, Superintendent Dalziel, will be disappointed. And suddenly Mr Lee got in on the act and told me he was sure there must be a table available. So I looked again, and there was.’

  ‘Theirs, was it?’ said Novello, glancing at Hook-nose and his partner. At least the exploding water jug seemed to have distracted them from their heavy petting. Maybe it had reminded them of their stolen table. Whatever, they were now deep in conversation.

  ‘Shush! Don’t want to start him on at me again,’ said Pietro.

  His wish wasn’t granted. The couple rose and headed for the hotel entrance. As they passed Pietro, Hook-nose said, ‘After cocking up our table, the least I expected was efficient service. We’ll find somewhere decent to eat.’

  They moved on. Pietro made a face at Novello and said, ‘Better cancel their order. Enjoy your prawns.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Novello.

  But even as she spoke she realized she wouldn’t.

  For as Pietro moved away opening up her sightline to the lawn again, she realized to her horror that the man with the ’phones had vanished.

  12.20–12.35

  Gwyn Jones sank back on the sofa and felt the voluptuously soft leather upholstery embrace his naked flesh.

  Life was good. Back home in the sleepy Mid-Wales township of Llufwwadog they would probably still be in the chapel now, perched on pews as narrow and hard as a cliff ledge, listening to an interminable sermon that started at hwyl and built up to hysteria, and made the hell it threatened seem like a welcome deliverance.

  Outside it would be raining. He knew the Met Office had declared that there was an anti-cyclone stationary over the British Isles, guaranteeing the continuation of the Indian summer right into the middle of October, but as all natives of Llufwwadog knew, such fair-wea
ther forecasts did not apply to them. When the wind was in the east it pushed the rain clouds over the Black Mountains before they burst, and when it was in the west, it punctured them as they reached the foothills. He supposed there must have been days when the Welsh sky was as perfectly blue as the one he could see now backing the topless towers of Canary Warf, but his memory seemed to have scrubbed them all.

  What it hadn’t scrubbed was his waking resolution from an early age–birth, it seemed like now, but that was probably pushing it–to get out of Llufwwadog as quickly as he could. The conventional exit routes for a growing hogyn of sport, art and education were closed to him. He was hopeless at rugby, couldn’t sing or act, and had very little academic ability. So it was either the army or journalism. He had gone for the latter on the grounds that you didn’t have to get up so early in the morning and there was less chance of being shot at.

  It had been a happy choice. The disadvantages of a dreadful prose style and an excitable stutter were negated by a huge natural curiosity, a complete insensitivity to rebuff, and an acuity of eye, ear, and nose that took him places others did not care to tread.

  After an apprenticeship on his local rag, he had moved to Cardiff, where he rapidly made a name for himself by pulling the lid off a little pot-pourri of financial and sexual improprieties in the Welsh Assembly. This it was that got him his move to London, where six years later he was established as one of the Daily Messenger’s famous team of investigative journalists, his particular remit remaining the political scene.

  He was well paid but not well enough to be able to even dream about a pad in Marina Tower, one of the most exclusive developments on Canary Wharf. To do that you needed an editor’s screw, or, failing that, you needed to screw an editor. If she had a bit left over from an extremely profitable divorce, that didn’t do any harm either. This combination of qualities came together in the person of Beanie Sample, the driving spirit behind Bitch!, the glossy mag which for eighteen months now (a long time in magazine life) had contrived to win the hearts, titillate the senses, and open the wallets of readers of both sexes and all ages from eighteen to thirty-eight.