Hill, Reginald - Dalziel and Pascoe 17 - On Beulah Height

by Reginald Hill

  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 genuine or just another way of turning the screw on her husband? wondered Pascoe.

  Probably a bit of both. Dalziel was long practiced 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, and 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 toward the exit.

  "Stage fright, is it?" said Dalziel. "All right. WOULDC 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 between 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 telltale 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 toward 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 shocksthorror 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?" inquired 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 a 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 toward 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 an
d said, "Yes. That's right, Superintendent. I saw my Mary."

  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 blond and blithe as he remembers her, not a day older, not a whit 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 wild, 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 skeptical 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 color. 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 started 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 come back into the chapel 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 laid 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 realstunreal world of her storybooks.

  "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 toward 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, "--l 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.

  "I think you know, Mr. Dalziel," he said. "Fifteen years ago I believed you were irredeemably stupid, now I see I may have been mistaken. About the irredeemable element at least. I started going up to the ridge of Lang Neb when I heard that the reservoir was shrinking so much that Dendale village was reappearing. I make my living from the sun, so I appreciated the irony that it was solar heat that was going to bring that living to an end."

  "How exactly?" said Dalziel. "Just so's everyone knows what you're talking about."

  He glanced toward Chloe Wulfstan. Pascoe, probably the most advanced Dalzielogist in the civilized world, read the message with little difficulty.

  Tell her now publicly, so that if she knew before, no one will be able to trick it out of her.

  An unexpected chivalry? Or just a subtle turn of the screw to make sure Wulfstan kept on talking?

  Whichever, it was working.

  "You will find, probably have found already, the remains of a man in the ruins of Heck. That man is--was--Benny Lightfoot. I put him there. I left him there to drown. I am solely responsible for his death. My motive was, I think, obvious."

  Dalziel looked toward Novello, who was scowling with concentration as she followed events. Hers was one of those rare faces that look prettier in a scowl.

  "Not to them as weren't around, mebbe," said the Fat Man. "So if you could just give us an outline ... You'll have lots of opportunity to dot your p's and q's later."

  As well as studying Dalzielogy, Pascoe collected Dalzieliana. He made a mental note of this one.

  "After we had all moved out of the dale and the rains started, I found I couldn't keep away. At all hours of day and night, I'd be hit by this irresistible urge to go back there and wander around on the fellside. You might imagine such a compulsion, often involving a long drive from some distant place, would be relatively easy to control. But when I tell you that the form it took was an absolute certainty that Mary was there, wandering lost and frightened, and if I didn't go and find her she would certainly die, you may understand why I always obeyed.

  "I never found her, of course. Sometimes I imagined ..."

  He paused and almost visibly withdrew into himself, and Pascoe went with him, to a dark, rain-swept fellside, where every fitful gleam of light seemed to glance off a head of blond curls and every splash and gurgle of water sang like the echo of childish laughter.

  "But one night," he resumed, "I heard a noise and saw a figure which wasn't just in my imaginings. It was close by the ruins of Neb Cottage, near where you were found a little later," he said to Elizabeth, who returned his gaze blankly. "It was, of course, Benny Lightfoot."

  Another living ghost haunting the valley, finding what comfort he could in the ruined remains of the only existence he had ever wanted.

  But there had been nothing for his comfort in this encounter with a fellow ghost.

  "I should have brought him in and handed him over to you," said Wulfstan to Dalziel. "But I didn't trust you not to let him go again. No. That's too simple. That's too much of an excuse. I wanted him for myself because I felt sure I could get out of him things about my daughter that you with your more restricted methods never could."r />
  "You tortured him," said Novello.

  "I beat him," said Wulfstan. "With my fists. I never used instruments then or later. Does that make it better? It is your area of expertise, not mine. And when I couldn't get anything out of him and I saw dawn lightening the sky, I forced him down to Heck. I knew the cellar was still accessible because I'd cleared a gap sufficient for my entrance in my search for Mary, in case she'd gone back to her old home and taken shelter there. I bound him tight with strips of cloth I tore from his own jacket, and the next night I returned with lengths of chain, and padlocks, and staples, and made him secure. All I wanted was for him to tell me what he'd done to her, where she was. But he wouldn't. No matter what I did to him, he wouldn't. I thought it was because he believed once he'd told me what I wanted to know, I'd kill him. And I swore by everything I held holy, by the memory of Mary herself, that I'd let him live if only he'd tell me what I needed to know. But still he wouldn't talk. Why? Why? All you had to do was tell me. ..."

  He was back there again, and this time they were all with him, in that squalid hole with the rising waters lapping ever higher, and the two faces so close together, both so contorted with pain, that perhaps it was difficult to tell in that dim light who was torturer, who victim.

  Except that one went back each morning to a world of warmth and light while the other lay bound in chains, surrounded by darkness and lapped with freezing water.

  Then it was easy to tell, thought Pascoe.

  He said, "So he never talked. And you let him die."

  Wulfstan said, "Yes. I'm not sure if I meant to. If I'd have been able to. But I had to go away for a couple of days. I came back on the day that Elizabeth ... Betsy went missing. When they found her and I heard her story that she'd been attacked by Benny near Neb Cottage, I thought ... I don't know what I thought, but part of it was relief that he must have got out, that he was still alive. The next night I went down to Heck. The water had risen considerably. I could see at once he hadn't got away but he must have made a superhuman effort to pull the chain out of the wall--I could see one of his arms sticking out into the water. A block of stone above the entrance hole had collapsed and trapped it. I reached down into the water and touched his skin. It was cold. I tried to push it back into the cellar but couldn't. So I covered it with bits of rubble and went away."