Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

‘Problem?’

  ‘Not really. Andy says he’s pretty sure nothing else will happen, either because we’ve sorted the trouble or failing that because whoever it is knows now we’re on to them. But he agrees we ought to stay on full alert.’

  ‘Meaning he thinks a trip to the seaside would be a bad idea?’

  ‘On the contrary, he reckons that Daphne’s cottage sounds an ideal safe house, so long as you’re accompanied by a minder.’

  ‘Like dishy young Hat? Yes, please. So why the worried face?’

  ‘He just sounded a bit preoccupied, that’s all.’

  ‘You rang him at home? Maybe he was just about to scale the mountainous Miss Marvell.’

  ‘Why am I not allowed to make jokes like that? Well, maybe. Anyway, it’s on. And there’s one big plus. It will allow that ravening beast you picked up at Enscombe to demonstrate just how housetrained he is on someone else’s carpets.’

  He studied his wife’s expression, then said, ‘You have told Daphne about Tig, haven’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t know about him till I got back to Enscombe and found the deal had been done,’ said Ellie defiantly.

  ‘Never mind. Nice upper-class English girls are practically suckled by dogs, aren’t they? It’ll be a pleasant surprise. Work going well?’

  He leaned over to squint at the laptop screen but Ellie half closed the lid.

  ‘I’ve told you, I can’t seem to get down to anything, not while I’m waiting for word on the Great English Novel. This is just my comforter, something for me to keep sucking at till I grow out of it.’

  ‘Is it the thing you started at the hospital? I’d love to see it sometime.’

  She smiled and said, ‘No, you wouldn’t. It’s for my eyes only. It’s a course of therapy I need to complete. No, that’s too heavy. Let’s call it a jeu d’esprit for one player.’

  ‘And you’ll know it’s over when the good news from the publisher comes thudding onto the hall mat?’

  ‘Oh no. Haven’t you learned anything, Peter?’ said Ellie. ‘A thud means a returned script. Gloom, doom, rejection. What I want will come floating through the letterbox light as a feather shed from the snow-white plumage of the sweet bird of success who nests on the topmost slopes of Parnassus.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘A letter,’ said Ellie. ‘A long, eloquent, enthusiastic, and accepting letter.’

  ‘Talking of letters.’

  He’d made up his mind. He’d taken a photocopy of the weird letter that morning as he dropped the original off for examination. Dalziel had asked how Ellie had reacted and when he’d heard she hadn’t had the chance to react, his great shoulders had shrugged and he’d said, ‘She’s your missus.’

  Ellie read the few lines quickly and said, ‘Why didn’t you say anything last night?’

  ‘I thought you’d had enough to be going on with.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I think I was wrong. I mean, I think I was wrong to think I could protect you by keeping you in the dark.’

  She said, ‘I don’t know whether to thump you or give you a big gluey kiss. Listen, there was a car last night. It sort of crawled by. I thought the driver stared up at me. I didn’t say anything because I was starting to think that I was turning everything I saw into something sinister and significant.’

  Pascoe shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know whether to give you a big gluey kiss or thump you. What did he look like? What kind of car?’

  ‘Smallish, with a moustache, I think. But the car wasn’t a white Merc. No, it was a hatchback, possibly a Golf. And darkish. Blue, I think.’

  Pascoe recalled the neighbour’s sighting of a metallic-blue Golf turning round and driving away on the day of the attempted abduction. He hadn’t mentioned it to Ellie then. He mentioned it now.

  ‘Anything else I should know?’ she said.

  ‘There are fingerprints on the letter, not Roote’s, not on record,’ he said. ‘So, does it mean anything to you.’

  She read the text again, frowned and said, ‘Sort of cod Elizabethan. Some of the phrases sound familiar… hang on.’

  She went and got her one-volume Shakespeare and thumbed through it.

  ‘Here it is, that bit about the frown o’ the great and the tyrant’s stroke, it’s from Cymbeline.’

  ‘Missed that one,’ said Pascoe. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Explaining the plot takes longer than seeing the play,’ said Ellie. ‘Basically about this guy, Posthumus, who lets himself be conned into thinking his wife’s been unfaithful by an Italian called Iachimo, which is a diminutive of Iago, ha ha.’

  ‘Another stab at Othello then?’

  ‘Not really. It all ends happily. But dramatically it creaks along, full of unconvincing coincidences and anonymous gents having a chat to keep you up to speed with the plot, which has got the lot: princes kidnapped at birth, mistaken identities, poisons which don’t work, transsexual disguises, and history dodgier than a TV documentary. The verse is odd too, sometimes very lyrical, sometimes positively rough and bizarre.’

  ‘Sounds like the old Swan was getting low in the water,’ said Pascoe, happy to go along with Ellie’s apparent preoccupation with the source of the letter’s language as long as it kept her from brooding on its underlying threat.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s like he’s saying, this one isn’t for the wits, crits and media twits, this one’s for the folk who live and work at the sharp end. Let’s take a look at this arty-farty drama business and see how it really works. OK, I’ve done slick, I’ve done elegant, I’ve done well-constructed, you know I can do them standing on my head. But why should I bother with that stuff when real stories and real feelings will always shine through muddle anyway, like they do in real life? And like in life, poetry’s usually accidental and comes in brief flashes rather than in great elegant preordained chunks. As for the happy ending, tragedy’s easy ’cos tragedy’s the norm. It’s happy-ever-after that sorts out the men from the boys. He would of course be sexist.’

  Pascoe began to feel that going along had gone along far enough.

  ‘Specifically,’ he said. ‘The letter.’

  ‘It’s from a song that’s sung over Fidele’s body, only he’s not really dead, and he’s not really he either, but Imogen, or more properly Innogen, the wrongly accused wife who has disguised herself as a boy and called herself Fidele, which even you can see means faithful, but is also an anagram of defile which is what the wicked Iti claims to have done to her.’

  ‘I’m glad it all ends happily so long as it ends,’ said Pascoe. ‘But what’s its significance here?’

  ‘Look, I’ve done the exegesis, it’s you who gets paid to do the detection. I don’t know what it means, except that it means I’ll be even gladder to get Rosie away safe to Nosebleed Cottage in the morning. I’ll go and ring Daphne now.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were making up your mind between thumping me and giving me a big gluey kiss.’

  ‘So were you.’

  ‘OK. On three. One… two…’

  They were still glued together when a polite cough drew their attention to their daughter, who was patiently spectating.

  Seeing she had their attention she said, ‘Mummy, Tig’s done a big pooh in the middle of the patio. What shall I do with it?’

  xx

  the last of the cobblers

  Ellie Pascoe’s guess had been partially right. Cap Marvell was in Dalziel’s house when Pascoe phoned, but they weren’t about to do anything more intimate than share a pot of tea.

  And Ellie’s epithet was hardly even partially accurate. Well-built the woman was, but her curves were more Cotswold than Caucasus and a long way short of the Himalayan heights offered by a supine Dalziel.

  They had a relationship which both realized might not survive complete honesty, but which both recognized would certainly wither without it.

  So when Dalziel c
ame back from the phone in his entrance hall and said, ‘Pop upstairs for a couple of minutes, luv. There’s someone calling you don’t want to meet,’ Cap did not demur, but picked up her cup and went quietly up the stairs, confident that all would be explained later.

  The doorbell rang.

  Dalziel checked that Cap Marvell had left no sign of her presence, then went to answer it.

  On the doorstep stood the tall, thin, silver-haired man whose approach, observed through the one clear pane in the coloured glass panel in the door, had made him cut short his conversation with Pascoe.

  ‘Mr Dalziel, how pleasant to see you again,’ said the man. ‘Gawain Sempernel. We met…’

  ‘Aye, I recall. You’ve not changed much. How’re you keeping?’

  They shook hands gently, neither trying to turn it into a competition.

  ‘I’m well. No need to ask you. I can see you’re blooming.’

  ‘You’d best come in before the neighbours clock us holding hands. I were just having a pot of tea. Or if you’d like a drop of summat stronger…?’

  ‘Stronger than Yorkshire tea? Does such a liquor exist? No, tea will suit me very well. What a charming little place you have here. Charming. Reminds me of my niece’s mews cottage in Chelsea, except that her place seems to me to have had all the character modernized out of it. I’m so pleased to see you’ve had the good taste not to tinker.’

  Dalziel looked round the small square sitting room he’d led the way into. It was true, he hadn’t tinkered. In fact, it had changed very little from the way it had looked when he and his wife moved in all those years ago, and not at all from the way it looked when she moved out a few years later. But it was tidy and clean, what more could a man ask?

  ‘Aye, bags of character here if that’s what you’re looking for,’ he said, filling the cup he’d plucked from the dresser. ‘Thinking of making me an offer? I’d expect Chelsea prices.’

  ‘Ah, the gap between expectation and achievement is filled with the screams of good men, still falling,’ said Sempernel. ‘Except in the case of Yorkshire tea which exceeds all report.’

  He put down the cup from which he’d taken a cautious sip and regarded quizzically the plateful of Eccles cakes Dalziel was offering him.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ he said. ‘A clear head requires a clear stomach. First things first, Mr Dalziel. I shall come straight to the point, as you are famed as a man who approves direct speaking. Indeed, outside the court this morning you spoke directly to a colleague of mine and made a passing reference to myself. I am intrigued to know how you came to make a connection between myself and the gentleman you were addressing?’

  ‘Lucky guess,’ said Dalziel off-handedly. ‘I can spot a funny bugger two miles off. Must be the way they walk. You ought to do summat about that. As for you, well, yours is the only name I know, isn’t it? For all I knew you might be retired to Eastbourne, or pushing up the daisies. So, lucky guess.’

  ‘Lucky indeed,’ said Sempernel dryly. ‘Let me know if you start selling racing tips. So you have flushed me out. I too have flushed you out of our record system. Your file made interesting reading as I flew up this afternoon. I see that I expressed some doubts as to whether you were in fact quite so intellectually limited as you were at pains to appear last time we met. I am both pleased and disappointed to have my percipience confirmed. Though your performance in court hardly gave the impression of a fine mind at full stretch.’

  ‘Just badly prepared, and yon cow on the bench had a few old scores to pay.’

  Sempernel shook his head, smiling.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, Mr Dalziel. I think you set out to get the application for a further remand in custody refused. And having succeeded in that, you threw away any chance of persuading me that it was simple inadvertence by going out of your way to embarrass my observer in the court vestibule. Now why did you do this, Mr Dalziel? What is your peculiar interest in Ms Cornelius?’

  ‘Me, I’ve got none,’ said the Fat Man. ‘But you lot must have. Stood out a mile something odd were going on. Tying up my DCI in court on a simple assault charge, banging restrictions on the file. I thought at first it were just Fraud playing funny buggers. They like a bit of cloak and dagger, that lot. Then I got to thinking.’

  ‘Thinking, eh? You really are the most surprising fellow, Mr Dalziel,’ said Sempernel, trying his tea again. ‘And where did your thinking lead you?’

  ‘Led me to wonder, what if the real funny buggers were involved? What if when Cornelius took off, you lot were on her case, watching to see where she’d lead you. Then she got involved in the accident, and my DCI happened to be on the spot, and he’s so sharp he’s forever cutting himself, and suddenly she’s under arrest for assault and under investigation for fraud and you don’t know what the hell to do. So you decide, let’s keep her under wraps on the assault charge while you make up your mind what to do next. How’m I doing?’

  ‘Well. You are doing well. But I still do not understand why you decided to take such an active part in the affair?’

  Dalziel inserted a whole Eccles cake into his mouth, chewed twice and swallowed.

  ‘Impulse,’ he said. ‘My DCI got tied up, couldn’t make it to court this morning. I thought I’d go along myself, see what was what. And when I saw what had to be one of your lads sitting alongside Barney Hubbard at the back, I thought, bugger this for a lark, let’s piss into the junction box and see what happens.’

  Sempernel shook his head impatiently.

  ‘Won’t do, Mr Dalziel. For you to draw attention to yourself in this way – and you must be aware that people who piss into junction boxes often get nasty shocks – you must have had some motive stronger than a sudden urge to make mischief.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ said Dalziel. ‘My DCI and his family have been through a lot lately. A right bad time. They survived. Now, a couple of days back, someone starts throwing a different kind of shit at them. I’ve been looking to see where it might be coming from. There’s various possibilities, but this case looks to be up there with the strong contenders. So just on the off chance I’m right, I wanted to take it out of his lap and give notice to anyone who cares to hear that I’ll not have folk I’m fond of mucked about. OK?’

  Sempernel pursed his lips in puzzlement, like a maiden aunt being offered a good deal on a vibrator.

  ‘So just on the off chance, as you put it, you interfere recklessly with what you suspect might be a case of much greater import than appears on the surface? You must be very fond indeed of Mr Pascoe and his family. Indeed, in the eyes of some people, you may appear fond in the older sense of the word.’

  ‘Aye, mebbe. You come to have me sectioned, have you? Or do you reckon I’m a suitable case for Care in the Community?’

  ‘That would depend on how much I cared for the community in question, I think, Mr Dalziel.’

  ‘Oh aye? And how much is that?’

  ‘More perhaps than you, when you consider the reckless abandon with which you release criminals into it.’

  ‘Criminal? Don’t recollect owt about a conviction. Any road, what’s the problem? She’s got to check in with us on a daily basis and I don’t doubt you’ve got your spooks haunting her wherever she goes… hang about though. I’m getting a funny feeling in my piles… she’s slipped the leash, hasn’t she? Come twelve noon tomorrow, clocking-in time, she’s not going to show. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

  Sempernel put his hands together in a soundless clap and said, ‘Perhaps after all I will have one of those curious sweetmeats. They obviously do wonders for the intellect.’

  He took an Eccles cake and sank his teeth into it.

  ‘Charming,’ he said. ‘Flaky on the outside, succulent within, an experience almost Greek in its intensity. Let us assume you are right, Mr Dalziel. Let us assume that Ms Cornelius went for a stroll in the park and somehow contrived to evade the surveillance of one of my operatives, who is now looking forward to a prolonged stint of dut
y in our Falklands Office. What then do you imagine the true purpose of my visit is? Apart from the obvious one of spelling out your punishment for such unwarranted interference in matters of state far beyond your brief or competence?’

  Dalziel pondered a while then said tentatively, ‘Help? You could reckon that when it comes to tracking down a missing person in Mid-Yorkshire, a fat old cop with a bit of local knowledge might be worth half a dozen funny buggers with microphones up their jacksies. Also, by telling me now, you get me on the job twelve hours or so before I’d have found out officially there was a job to be on.’

  He looked expectantly at his visitor, who nodded approvingly and said, ‘With what is in terms of my trade a very slight adjustment, you are completely right, Mr Dalziel. The slight adjustment is to stand everything you’ve said on its head. I have come to tell you that tomorrow morning when you learn officially of Cornelius’s disappearance, I would appreciate it if you did nothing. Go through whatever motions are necessary to keep you right with the formidable Mrs Broomhill, but if you or your operatives come within sniffing distance of Cornelius’s spoor, you are to turn and gallop off in quite the opposite direction. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Nay, you can make yourself clear as a prossie’s price list, but I take my orders from Mr Trimble.’

  ‘Your Chief Constable?’ Sempernel began to laugh. ‘I am sure he would be delighted to learn of this change of heart. Mr Trimble has, of course, been put in the picture and will no doubt speak with you in the morning. But it is my reading of your relationship with him that brings me here this evening. You may find ways of doing more or less what you will within the elastic confines of your constabular hierarchy, but in this matter you will be stepping outside your league, and after our little talk tonight, you can no longer offer a plea of inadvertence. Consider yourself warned off, Superintendent. Any further attempt to interfere in this business can only result in the direst consequences for yourself as well as for your what-did-you-call-them? Your friends. A cobbler should stick to his last, Mr Dalziel. Kelly Cornelius is not part of your mystery. I use the word in its medieval sense, of course.’