Singing the Sadness

by Reginald Hill

  He looked more carefully at the area where the cars were parked. Surprisingly, that’s what it looked like, a parking area. Lots of evidence, like tyre ruts and oil stains, that Dai’s pick-up hadn’t been the first vehicle here.

  He said unthinkingly, ‘Why do people come here anyway?’

  Ursell gave him a sharp glance, but the old farmer said, ‘Courting couples, it is, mainly. Come here to get up to their tricks, then throw their rubbish out of the window for me to clear up in case any of my sheep get their teeth into them.’

  ‘You saying my da had a fancy woman, Ifor James?’ demanded Bron angrily. ‘You’d better be careful of that tongue of yours, get you into real trouble one of these days, you stupid old goat!’

  The farmer turned his gaze upon her as if debating how to deal with this impertinent child, then decided that if there was ever a time to make allowances, this was it.

  ‘Sorry I am,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to say anything like that, I’m sure. Don’t usually get up to their tricks in the mornings, anyway.’

  This seemed a half-cocked sort of apology to Joe, but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that the old boy was providing a safety valve for the girl’s pent-up emotions.

  She strode away from them now right to the very edge of the quarry and Joe started after her, fearful that she was going to try to climb down to the water’s edge. In fact, it looked as if some bold souls, or perhaps very hungry sheep, had picked a way down the quarry face at various places, but Joe wouldn’t have fancied it. He took her arm but she pulled free angrily.

  ‘It’s not right what he says,’ she insisted. ‘He got up to a lot of things, I know that, but he wouldn’t do that to Ma. He wouldn’t. He really loves her. I’ve heard him say he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He’d never do anything to risk losing her, that’s for sure.’

  She glowered at Joe as if challenging him to deny her. He nodded and said, ‘I’m sure you’re right, Bron.’

  But in his mind’s eye he was seeing her mother rolling around the little sickbay bed with Long John. And he saw something else as well. The bottle of bubbly that he’d mistaken for a weapon. Why had Long John brought that with him? Natural gift from a publican? Or was it because they had something to celebrate?

  Sometimes he thought the worst thing about being a PI was the nasty way it made you think about people.

  No, he emended. Worst thing was having to share these thoughts with someone else. Like the police. Which he’d have to do if they found Dai in the truck below. He was still trying to think if, but he knew he really believed when.

  Yet why should he be so sure? OK, Dai had certainly come here with the pick-up. And even if it had gone over the edge by accident without him in it, he wouldn’t just have walked away and abandoned it, would he?

  He looked down again, following the vehicle’s progress marked in the jungle growing out of the rock face. A series of bounces intermixed with a series of slithers, depending on the varying steepness of the drop. That rust bucket of a machine would probably have started bursting apart at the first hard contact … doors flying open if not flying off …

  He said, ‘Bron …’

  The girl seemed to have sunk into a semi-trance, her eyes fixed on the water far below.

  ‘Bron,’ he said more insistently.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know your dad’s mobile number?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His mobile phone. You know the number?’

  ‘What are you talking about, you black monkey? Think you can ring him under the water and see if he answers, is it?’

  Joe was better at making allowances than Social Security. He made them now and said, ‘Just the number, please, Bron if you can remember it.’

  His mild manner and gentle voice did the trick. She closed her eyes and stumbling a little recited a number. Joe took out his mobile and keyed it in. Her eyes were open again and regarding him uncertainly. Doesn’t know whether to apologize or call me worse, thought Joe. Why the shoot do I get myself into these situations?

  He pressed the transmit button.

  A pause. He waited for the voice telling him the number he’d rung wasn’t obtainable.

  Instead, miraculously, in his ear he heard the ringing tone.

  There was no reply. He didn’t expect it. But when he lowered the phone and strained his ear against the gentle warm breeze, there amidst the rural cacophony of cracklings and rustlings and baaing and birdsong he caught the tiny, comfortingly urban chirruping of a telephone.

  ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Ursell, coming towards them.

  ‘Listen. Can’t you hear it?’

  ‘What? Yes, I can … God, you mean … Keep it ringing, keep it ringing! And get a hold of my legs!’

  He lay down at the edge of the quarry with his binoculars to his eyes and pushed himself so far out that Joe actually sat on his legs, fearful he was going to slide over.

  ‘It’s down there to the left … I think I can see something … right, pull me back, boyo, before I join him!’

  Together Joe and Bronwen hauled the DI back to safety.

  ‘What’s happening, what’s happening?’ demanded the girl.

  ‘I think your dad got thrown out of the truck,’ said Joe. ‘He must be caught up in them bushes down there … listen, he could still be … injured.’

  He couldn’t bring himself to say dead, not with the new hope dawning in her eyes.

  ‘We’ve got to get down there,’ she cried.

  Once more Joe seized her arm as she made for the edge. This time she didn’t shove him away.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘The emergency folk will be here soon and they’ll have all the right gear.’

  He looked for confirmation to Ursell, who nodded.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘They know it’s a quarry job. But I’ll get on the radio to tell them the situation’s altered.’

  He looked as if he was going to say something more to Joe then changed his mind and headed for his car.

  It took another fifteen minutes for the emergency services to start appearing but when they did they came mob-handed. A paramedic was lowered down the face of the quarry. He went out of sight beneath the first overhang, then they heard his voice.

  ‘He’s here!’

  Bronwen gripped Joe’s arm so tight he felt his fingers grow numb.

  Then came the second shout.

  ‘He’s breathing!’

  And this time she flung her arms round his neck and hugged him so hard that his sight swam and there was a loud churring, beating noise in his ears.

  It wasn’t till she let him go that he realized it was a helicopter.

  Ursell said to Bron, ‘They’re going to airlift your father straight to the hospital. You get in the ambulance now and you’ll be there not long after him.’

  ‘What about my ma? Someone should tell her.’

  ‘Taken care of. She’ll be on her way quick as you. I’ll be along myself soon. Go now.’

  With a last hug for Joe, Bronwen ran to the ambulance.

  ‘Poor kid,’ said Ursell. ‘Hope it turns out all right.’

  ‘What’s the verdict?’ asked Joe, who’d seen Ursell in close confabulation with the paramedic team.

  ‘He’s unconscious. Head injuries. Some broken bones but nothing spinal, they don’t think. It’s the head that bothers them. Can’t say anything really till he comes round. If he comes round. Seems to be your speciality, Joe, putting people into hospital who can’t talk. Great strain on my resources, it is, having men sitting around there all day twiddling their thumbs.’

  He smiled to show he was joking. At least that’s what Joe hoped his smile meant.

  ‘So what do you think happened here?’ he asked.

  ‘Was going to ask you the same, Joe. Any ideas?’

  Joe took a deep breath.

  ‘Some,’ he said gloomily.

  He told the DI what he’d seen on the security screen in the Lady House.


  ‘Didn’t mention any of this when we were talking before, Joe,’ observed Ursell.

  ‘Didn’t seem relevant then.’

  ‘That’s for me to say,’ replied Ursell without heat. ‘So your theory is, John Dawe lured Dai up here with a phone call, knocked him out, then pushed the pick-up over the edge.’

  ‘Don’t have no theory,’ said Joe. ‘Just telling you what I saw.’

  ‘Just the facts, man, is that it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Joe. ‘Just the facts. Which is all I want from you in return.’

  Ursell said, ‘Take a tip from me, Joe. You seem like a decent sort of man. Life can be a very pleasant thing for a decent sort of man if only he makes sure he doesn’t get himself mixed up with facts.’

  ‘Reckon I’m all mixed up already,’ said Joe.

  Ursell regarded him steadily then said rather sadly, ‘Yes, I reckon you are too. All right. No time now, but if I see you tonight, maybe then I’ll tell you a few facts, but nothing for your comfort, boy. And don’t think I’ve forgotten you should have some facts for me in return. Fair exchange, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe without enthusiasm.

  It might be a fair exchange, but it didn’t sound like it was going to be a pleasant one.

  He looked up as the helicopter which had been winching the unconscious figure of Dai Williams aboard banked away into the clear blue sky.

  ‘Hope he makes it,’ said Joe.

  ‘Makes it, misses it, life goes on,’ said Ursell heading for his car. ‘See you, Joe.’

  Sometimes Luton seemed a million miles away.

  Chapter 22

  Life goes on.

  Which means we all march to our own tune, thought Joe.

  It was only professional idiots like him who got themselves in situations where different tunes were playing like a radio someone’s twiddling the band selector on.

  He drove slowly back from the quarry. He had no stomach to return to the festival so he went straight through the village and on to Branddreth Hall where he sat outside in the sun, till the bus brought the choir from the festival field.

  He was half expecting to be a centre of attention and questioning when they got back and didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed to find he wasn’t. All the choristers wanted to talk about was the festival – the departure of the Guttenbergers, their own performance so far, where they felt they stood in relation to the other choirs. Dai Williams’s ‘accident’ meant nothing to them except the minor inconvenience that his wife wasn’t around to supply tea and biscuits when they got back to the college. But with Mirabelle, that high priestess of the life-goes-on school of philosophy, ready, willing and able to step into the breach and the kitchen, this wasn’t really inconvenient at all.

  What tune Ella Williams would be moving to Joe didn’t know. Tragic march, celebration waltz? Maybe an uneasy mixture as she feared what Dai might remember if and when he woke up. Could she really be mixed up in a murder attempt? His judgement said no, but what did he really have to go on except the excellence of her cooking?

  Leon Lewis, arriving shortly after the choir, did seek him out, however, full of the proper concern of a properly concerned employer, enquiring anxiously after his caretaker’s wellbeing, and then taking off to the hospital to see for himself. And Morna Lewis took everyone by surprise, or at least Joe, by coming over from the Lady House to take over Ella’s job of superintending the reception caterers. It wasn’t so much that she came that surprised him, but the quiet efficiency she displayed, making him adjust his mental picture of her as put-upon wife, indulgent mother, and overstretched hostess.

  He took the chance of asking her if she’d seen anything more of Wain. She said, no, not since the afternoon at the festival field.

  Then she looked at him with a sharpness which meant another minor image adjustment and said, ‘You seem very keen to catch up with my son, Mr Sixsmith. Any particular reason?’

  Joe reached for some evasive formula, thought, I’ll be on my way home this time tomorrow so why am I lying? and said, ‘Got some money I want to return to him. He seemed to think I could help him find out about the woman in the cottage who got burnt, but I don’t think I can, so he’s due a refund.’

  As he watched for Morna Lewis’s reaction to the words, he found himself distracted by his own. If Wain had really set fire to Copa knowing it contained a woman to whom he’d supplied drugs, then wasn’t it a bit late to be paying someone to find out about her?

  She said, ‘But surely that’s a job for the police. Why on earth should Owain get involved?’

  ‘You know kids,’ said Joe. ‘Ideals, all that stuff.’

  ‘Yes, that must be it,’ she said, giving him the smile full beam, like he’d said something significant instead of just bromide. Not that he didn’t believe in kids having ideals, only it was hard to see how even a doting mum could imagine it applied in this case. Maybe if he could remember his own mum doing any doting, he’d have understood better.

  She went back to her supervising work and Joe left the assembly hall. He was wandering around in the hope of bumping into Beryl alone. He’d glimpsed her, but only in company which she didn’t seem keen to let herself be winkled out of. Could she really be jealous of Bronwen? He knew the idea shouldn’t make him feel pleased, but he couldn’t deny it did. Anyway, when she got the full picture, she’d understand. He felt the time had come to share everything he was into with someone, and telling Beryl would kill two priests with one confession. Or something.

  But all the choristers seemed suddenly to have vanished off the face of the earth and the only Lutonite he could find was Merv.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Where’s everyone?’

  ‘Getting their heads down so they can shine tonight, I expect,’ said the big man. ‘Which you oughta think of trying yourself, boy. You look real rough.’

  It wasn’t till his friend said it that Joe realized how much he felt it.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right,’ he said.

  They strolled along together.

  ‘So how’ve you been earning all that money you got?’ asked Merv. ‘Or have you given it back like you said?’

  ‘No chance,’ said Joe. ‘Young Wain’s harder to get hold of than a cup final ticket and the Haggards are back in the Smoke.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ said Merv. ‘Turned up this afternoon. Leastways I think it must be them. Guy in a linen suit, arm and a leg cost an arm and a leg. Woman much the same, twenty-five going on fifty. I saw them getting out of this big Jag and going up to Lewis. Didn’t look like Stanley finding Livingstone either. I was close enough to earwig. He said, This better be good, Leon. We were almost at Oxford. And Lewis said, Your choice. Of course if you prefer that I make all the decisions. Then they clocked me and moved away. Mean anything to you?’

  It meant, thought Joe, that Lewis must’ve got Haggard on his car phone and suggested he turn round and come back. Why? Or, just as significant, when? He worked out the distances roughly. Could have been just after Lewis had caught him in the Lady House cellar. Or could have been an hour earlier, an hour later. No point guessing without he knew when the Haggards had left, plus the state of the roads.

  ‘Hello, Joe. Anyone at home?’ said Merv.

  ‘Sorry. I was thinking.’

  He started to tell Merv everything that had happened. Merv wasn’t Beryl, but he brought his own brand of direct-action thought to most situations. True, you didn’t always want to take too much notice, not unless you hankered after hard beds and striped sunlight. But sometimes he got to the meat of things while smarter asses were still grazing round the meadow.

  Apart from a request for sharper graphics in regard to the activities of Long John and Ella Williams, he listened in silence. Then when Joe had finished, he said almost enviously, ‘Joe, for a homely slippers-and-pipe sort of guy, you surely do see life.’

  ‘You know I don’t smoke,’ protested Joe.

  ‘When would you find the time?’


  ‘So. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you should keep your head down, and head off home soon as the festival’s over without talking to anyone, especially anyone whose money you got, and leave no forwarding address,’ said Merv. ‘Nothing but trouble in all this for you. Trouble with the cops and trouble with God knows who else, and maybe you don’t want to find out. Two folk in hospital already, Joe. You had a shotgun in your face. This is the Wild West out here, boy, and I don’t think they take kindly to greenhorns riding in to clean up the town.’

  ‘Not what I’m aiming to do,’ denied Joe. ‘But Ursell’s not a man to run out on.’

  ‘Because he can drop Doberley in it? Hey, Dildo’s a cop, it’s not like dropping a real human being. Anyway, this guy Ursell’s playing his own private game from the sound of it. Doesn’t trust this Pantyhose guy, right? And sounds like he can’t be sure whose sty this other pig, Prince, is rooting in either. So if he starts making a fuss about Dildo, all kind of questions could get asked before he’s ready to answer them. No, I think you can walk away from this clear and free and with a bit of profit for your troubles.’

  It was, he had to admit, sound advice, and he had a feeling that for once Beryl’s reaction would not have been so very different from Merv’s. But neither of them had lifted that trapped woman in their arms, and pushed her through the hole in the shower ceiling, and seen those poor burnt limbs struggle to find strength to drag her poor burnt body into the attic of the flaming cottage. That had been the human spirit, the life force, call it whatever you like, at work. Man who walked away from that was walking away from himself. At the least he had to know who she was.

  ‘Thanks, Merv,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll take your advice.’

  ‘And head on out? Now, you mean?’

  ‘No. I mean take your advice and crash out. You’re right. I feel really rough.’

  It was as if the admission gave authority for all the overtaxed systems of his overtaxed body to turn off. By the time he got to his room he felt far worse than he had since waking up in hospital and he barely had strength to strip off his clothes and collapse on to his bed and into instant sleep.