Dalziel 18 Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  'Hello, darling,' he said, picking her up and giving her a hug and a kiss. She responded briefly then struggled free and refocused her eyes on the screen.

  'All by yourself, dear?' he said.

  'The house is full of people,' she said in her long-suffering voice, which made people sound like termites. 'Mum said we'd have a game of Black Bitch after tea, then all these people came.'

  For some reason, as she recovered from her illness, Rosie had turned her back on the make-believe world which had been her favourite recreational territory hitherto. Storybooks, dolls, even computer games, had all been put aside in favour of playing cards. Ellie theorized that she wanted to give her imagination a rest as there were things there which were a trouble to her. Whatever, she devoured every new card game greedily, and was not deterred by limitation of numbers. Black Bitch or Hearts, her current favourite, was not really a two-handed game, but Rosie got round this by dealing three hands and playing two of them herself. She would even, at a pinch, play it solo.

  'Never mind,' said Pascoe. 'I'll just get myself a bite to eat, then I'll have a game with you before you go to bed.'

  'You're not as good as Mum,' she said, meaning she saw through Pascoe's amateurish attempts to let her win, whereas Ellie, who understood her daughter's needs better, kept up a front of solid competitiveness. 'Anyway, the holidays have started.'

  'So?'

  'So you always say I've got to go to bed because I've got to get up for school in the morning. Well, now I don't.'

  Pascoe tickled her stomach and said in his Jimmy Cagney voice, 'Nobody loves a smartass, kid,' a combination which rendered her a giggling wreck.

  'Well, I'm glad someone's having fun,' said Ellie from the doorway.

  Pascoe kissed her and said hopefully, 'Prayer meeting over?'

  'What?'

  He explained Novello's error. In anyone else she might have found it amusing. Or, the way she was feeling, perhaps not.

  'The only prayer being said in there is me praying for Feenie to get a move on,' she said. 'I'm on my way to make coffee. Sorry about this, but I'd forgotten all about them what with everything else. I'd made us a salad to go with that salmon pate, it's in the fridge, so you just go ahead.'

  'You mean you haven't had anything?'

  'I was waiting for you, wasn't I? And I could hardly sit down and have my supper while the meeting was going on, especially as we're talking about people being starved in jail.'

  'Well, I'll wait for you,' said Pascoe firmly. 'If you like I'll make a lot of noise and rattle dishes at the door. Or Rosie could go in and faint.'

  Rosie looked up hopefully at the prospect.

  'Rosie can start thinking about going to bed,' said Ellie.

  'Yes, I know it's not time yet, but if you start thinking about it now, perhaps it won't be the usual devastating shock when it is time. Shall I make you a coffee?'

  'Please.'

  He followed her into the kitchen and said, 'You OK?'

  'Fine. Just I could have done with a quiet night. Funny. I only suggested they came round here to show myself we were back to normal after, you know, Rosie. Maybe if you marry a cop, this is normal, people trying to kidnap you and beating up your friends.'

  'Happens all the time. Can I have one of those biscuits, or are you sending them ail to Somalia?'

  'This is Liberata, not Oxfam.'

  'I'll take that as a yes,' said Pascoe, helping himself to a biscuit.

  Ellie busied herself making coffee. Instant, he noticed, not cafetiere, always a sign that she would be glad to see the back of her guests.

  'So, are the mighty brains of Mid-Yorkshire's Finest any closer to an arrest?'

  'Oh yes. By definition, every hour that passes takes us an hour closer to what is yet to pass.'

  'Seriously.'

  'We have a fingerprint. We have a make and colour of car with perhaps two numbers and possibly one letter. We have a description. All this to add to what you were able to give us yesterday. So I'd say we were making progress.'

  'Well now, that's a comfort. Peter, over the years I've got used to you bringing the job home with you. But now it seems the job's coming home without you, and I'm not sure I want to get used to that. Could you get the door for me?'

  He held open the kitchen door to let her pass with her trayful of coffee mugs, then overtook her to open the dining room door.

  'You'll take care of Rosie?' she said as she passed through.

  'Of both of you,' he said to the closing door.

  In the dining room, Serafina Macallum was giving a precis of a documentary on Nicaragua some of the others had managed to miss. She was one of the most single-minded women Ellie had ever met, mind-blastingly so in Pascoe's eyes, but Ellie felt that a bit of tedium was a small price to pay for the assurance that any cause Feenie got her teeth into would be fought over to the death. It did occur to her now that with almost any other group of women she worked with, a coffee break would have been the signal to relax into an exchange of gossip and personal news, might even have given her the opportunity to share some of the traumas of the past two days. But she wasn't on that kind of footing with these people, or rather the group didn't offer that kind of closeness. This too was down to Feenie who'd insisted from its foundation that the only way Liberata could perform its function of helping endangered women all over the world was if its members left their own concerns and problems, large and small, at home.

  So with these women with whom she shared a common cause, Ellie had very little social relationship. Whereas Daphne, who regarded most foreign aid work as unwarranted intrusion into the private affairs of other countries ('just like those Euro-nerds trying to tell us Brits what to do!'), had somehow wriggled into her heart.

  Tonight, she thought, as Feenie guided them briskly through the rest of the agenda, even the glue of common interest was pretty weak.

  'Right,' said Feenie. 'Correspondence.'

  Like a kid who hasn't done her homework, Ellie tried to avoid catching the woman's eye.

  One of the others began to talk. The usual thing, she'd written, no one had replied. It was like sending radio messages into space, Ellie thought dispiritedly. Feenie gave the usual pep talk, insisting that it was worthwhile reminding the authorities that this particular prisoner wasn't forgotten. No one likes being watched, tyrants and torturers least of all, she said.

  And if feeling there might be someone out there watching them troubles the oppressors half as much as it terrifies me, she's dead right, thought Ellie.

  Was terrifies too strong a word? She consulted her feelings. Yesterday after the adrenalin rush of her assault on the invaders and their undignified retreat, she had settled into a sense of threatening unease, balanced by her recollection of utter triumph. But now, after the incident with Daphne . . .

  No, it wasn't too strong. Not with Rosie in the house . ..

  'Ellie?'

  Feenie was studying her through the magnifying glass she used instead of reading glasses, a preference she explained by saying, 'Spectacles mark a weakness, but a magnifying glass is a weapon.'

  'What? Sorry. Oh yes ... I mean, no . . .'

  She'd drifted away, missed what the others had to say, and now it was her turn. Feenie said with impatient emphasis, 'Have you heard from any of your girls?'

  Girls might have been a point of issue with anyone else, but not with Feenie.

  'No, nothing.'

  'Not even Bruna?'

  'No, I'm sorry, nothing, not since before ...’

  Before Rosie had been taken ill. Time now tended to be divided as before or after Rosie's illness. She must stop doing that.

  '. . . since I last saw you.'

  She thought that was true. During the critical time of the illness she had had no energy to spare for anything else. She still occasionally came across references to events which meant nothing to her, and knew they must have occurred during those crisis days. Could be that somewhere in the house there was a card from Bruna that h
ad got set aside for future reference then slipped out of sight. Only the other day she'd had a letter threatening to turn off the gas supply as she'd seen fit to ignore their last Final Notice. She'd sent them a cheque, and a letter pointing out that as they'd now sent her another Final Notice, their previous Final Notice was not in fact their last Final Notice but their penultimate Final Notice, or perhaps simply their Penultimate Notice, as finality, like uniqueness, was not a quality readily susceptible to qualification. So far she had had no reply.

  Feenie said, 'I had thought. . .'then changed her mind about what she'd thought and continued briskly, 'So, no reply to your last. When was that?'

  She was talking about Bruna, of course, not the gas company.

  'Well, I'm writing to her just now actually,' she said evasively.

  Feenie was giving her that cold, turn-you-transparent stare which came as a shock to those who didn't know her, like a shaft of laser light out of a damped-down fire.

  Ellie found herself wondering, does she know about Rosie's illness? Surely someone must have told her. But would it have registered?

  She certainly wasn't going to say anything now, she thought resentfully, meeting Feenie's gaze head-on.

  It was the older woman who broke off.

  'Fine,’ she said, draining her coffee mug noisily and setting it down with an emphasis which said clearly that she wouldn't be averse to some more. 'Now, let's see what's been going on round this crazy world of ours, shall we?'

  She reached for her cuttings bag. Every day she trawled through all the British papers and any foreign ones which came her way in search of relevant detail which she felt it her duty to interpret and share. Around the world with Serafina Macallum might not take eighty days, but it sometimes felt like it. It was, however, a voyage which even someone as packed with moral fibre as Ellie found it hard to curtail.

  But tonight help was nigh, and from an unpromising source. The last woman to arrive, who had joined the group during the period of Ellie's neglect (hence the slight hiatus in giving Novello the OK wave), hadn't struck her as a very forceful personality. In her thirties, with wispy blonde hair, a pale anxious face, and that habit of constant hand-wringing which Ellie always found so irritating, she had made only a minimal contribution to the discussion, and that in a voice so low as to be almost inaudible. Ellie, never scared of rushing to judgement, had instantly categorized her as the kind of woman whose heart is in the right place but the rest of whose body might as well be somewhere else for all the use she was. Even her name, Wendy Woolley, seemed peculiarly apt.

  But as Ellie was always finding out, snap judgements, like snapshots, often went well wide of their target. Earlier Helen Gough, the group's secretary, had reminded them apologetically that this was her last meeting with the group as her husband's job was taking him down to London. This too had happened during the period of Ellie's non-participation, but she guessed that Feenie had treated the news as she did most things she didn't want to hear by completely ignoring it. Now she looked at the secretary as if this was the first she'd heard of this treachery and said in a tone of uncomprehending astonishment, 'Well, if you are adamant about accompanying him, then I suppose we must appoint a successor,’ upon which most of those present, recalling their departing colleague's frequent complaints that what Feenie Macallum expected was a full time PA-cum-troubleshooter-cum-secretary, found something very interesting in their laps to occupy their attention.

  Then, amazingly, Wendy Woolley had whispered that if it wasn't too presumptuous of her as the newest member, she would be very happy to take on the job.

  'Splendid,’ said Feenie. 'I suggest you start taking notes now. No doubt Helen will be far too busy packing to write up the minutes. And then we must fix up a day for you to come down to Axness and get acquainted with the files. Tomorrow, shall we say?'

  Wendy Woolley had again surprised everyone by shaking her head and whispering that tomorrow might be difficult.

  'The day after then,' said Feenie irritably. 'We'll speak on the phone to confirm it.'

  Mrs Woolley had subsided, and Ellie had guessed that this first show of resistance was likely to be her last, but now, as Feenie Macallum levelled the magnifying glass at the first cutting, she firmly closed the pad on which she had been making notes, clicked shut her fountain pen, stood up and said clearly, 'I'm sorry, but I really have to go.'

  It was like the first chord of the National Anthem at a Tory Conference. The other three rose instantly, with Ellie close behind. Only Feenie remained seated, her disbelief unconcealed.

  In the hallway, the others said their thank yous and good nights and headed out into the still balmy evening. Wendy Woolley was last and when she said, 'Thank you for the coffee,' Ellie replied, 'No. Thank you.'

  The woman didn't pretend not to understand, but smiled faintly and said, 'I thought you looked rather, well, weary. Sorry. None of my business . . .'

  'Believe me, I'm glad you made it so,' said Ellie, smiling back. 'See you again soon, I hope.'

  She went back into the dining room. To her relief, Feenie Macallum was slowly assembling her bags.

  'A good meeting,' said Ellie brightly.

  'You think so? A pity we had to finish so precipitately. Knowledge is power and unless we use every means at our disposal to find out what is going on in the world, we will end up impotent. When Mrs Woolley has been with us a little longer I am sure she will understand this and make her arrangements accordingly.'

  Ellie said firmly, 'I'm sure that Wendy had excellent reasons for wanting to get away. And it's great that she's got the commitment to take over as secretary.'

  'Yes, there's that,' said Feenie grudgingly. 'Ellie, before I go, I wanted to say how pleased I was to learn that your child has recovered from her illness. I have been rather preoccupied with one thing and another during the past few weeks, but I should have contacted you earlier. I'm sorry.'

  Apologies from Feenie were as rare as resignations from cabinet ministers. Rarer since New Labour had got in.

  'That's OK. Yes, she's fine now. Still getting over it inside, though. Me too. But it's going to be OK.'

  Feenie smiled.

  'Knowing you, I'm sure it is. Now, about Bruna . . .'

  Oh God, thought Ellie. Am I still going to get the reproof?

  'Look, really, I'm writing,' she said.

  'No, it's not that. But two or three weeks ago I heard from one of my contacts that she had been released. I thought in view of the close relationship you seemed to be establishing, she might have contacted you.'

  'That's great news,' said Ellie. 'I'm really pleased. But she certainly hasn't been in touch, not for some time, in fact. Some considerable time. I thought the Colombian authorities must have tightened up on their censorship. Maybe if she had some notion she was going to get out in the next few months, she thought it best not to be provocative by writing to someone like me. And of course, the letters that she managed to get smuggled out for someone outside to post, she'd want to be very careful not to risk rocking the boat by getting caught doing that. Or maybe knowing she was going to get out, she just wanted to back away from our relationship.'

  She was being over-loquacious in her search for reasons because the truth was she felt a little bit hurt, which was absurd. This kind of correspondence was never about herself, it had always to be about the imprisoned woman. Except, of course, in another sense it was all about herself, and you couldn't go on pouring yourself out in front of a stranger without in your mind turning that stranger into a friend.

  'Don't feel hurt if you don't hear anything more,' said Feenie, with that startling incisiveness. 'She may have very good reasons for avoiding all contact with the outside world. Now she's free I can tell you that Bruna is the sister of one of the most wanted guerilla leaders in the country. That was why she got picked up in the first place, in the hope of being able to use her to flush him out. All they got for their efforts was a wave of violence. Now they might be hoping she will lead them to h
er brother, which is very good reason for her to keep her head down. I know we don't do what little we do for thanks, but don't give up on her.'

  'Thanks, Feenie,' said Ellie. 'I'm glad you told me that.'

  They had moved through the hallway as they spoke and were now standing on the front doorstep. On impulse, Ellie kissed the old woman's cheek, a liberty she had never dared take before, and got the laser look again but this time accompanied by the flicker of a smile.

  As she cycled through the gateway, Feenie looked up and down the road, then called over her shoulder, 'I see our spy has flown. Once spotted, they're quickly replaced. Security is a hydra, my dear, a veritable hydra.'

  And glaring at one of Ellie's neighbours out walking his dog as if she suspected both of being undercover Special Branch officers, she took her serpentine way down the street.

  With a long sigh of relief Ellie closed the door and went into the lounge, where Pascoe was pouring a large Scotch which she downed in one.

  'Bad as that?' he said.

  'I'm a fraud,' she said. 'First hint of personal danger and the rest of the world can take a hike.'

  'The rest of the world wants you safe,' said Pascoe. 'Otherwise who's going to take care of it?'

  'And am I safe, Peter? I've been thinking about it. Best bet seems to be that someone wants to get at you through your family, right? But is it so they can twist your arm to do something they want? Or is it just to hurt you? In other words, intimidation or lunacy. I know which I prefer.'

  'Probably the former,' said Pascoe lightly. 'In which case, having tried and failed, they'll go away.'

  'But they didn't, did they?' said Ellie. 'They were still here today and we've got Daphne's nose to prove it.'

  'Look, if they were just after hurting me by hurting you, some twisted kind of revenge, they had their chance when you opened the door, didn't they?' argued Pascoe.

  'Bucket of acid in the face, you mean? This is really cheering me up.'

  'But it didn't happen,’ insisted Pascoe. 'So the odds are on some idiot looking for a bit of leverage in the hope of keeping himself or his nearest and dearest out of jail. Of course, there's a third possibility . . .'