On Beulah Height dap-17

by Reginald Hill

  Now it were her turn to hide, mine to seek. She were good at hiding because she could keep still as a mouse and not start giggling like most of us did.

  I went right round the church without spotting her. As I passed the door, I heard Arne start singing. Inger must have finished tuning and they were trying it out. I stepped inside to listen.

  The words were foreign, but I'd heard him sing it before and he told me what it meant. It's about this man riding in the dark with his young son and the boy sees this sort of elf called the Erlking who calls him away. The father tries to ride faster but it's no use, the Erlking has got his child and when he reaches home the boy is dead. I didn't like it much, it were really frightening, but I had to listen.

  Arne saw me in the doorway and all of a sudden he stopped and said, "No, it's not right. Something's wrong with this place, perhaps it's the acoustics, perhaps you haven't got the piano quite right. I have to go back to the house now. Why don't you play your scales to little Betsy here? She has a better ear than either of us, I think. Let her say what is wrong."

  I recall the words exactly. He were looking straight at me as he spoke and sort of smiling. He had these bright blue eyes, like the sky on one of them sharp winter's days when the sun is shining but the frost never leaves the air.

  He picked me up and set me on his shoulder and carried me up the aisle. I remember how cold it felt inside after the hot sun. And I recalled the time Dad put me on his shoulder in the hayloft.

  Arne set me down in a pew next to the vicar and ruffled my hair, what there was of it. Then he said, "See you later," and smiled at Inger but she didn't smile back, just gave him a funny look and started playing scales as he went out. Every now and then she'd pause and look at me. Sometimes I'd nod, sometimes shake my head. Don't know how I know if something's right or not, I just do.

  We must have been there another half hour or more. Finally she were satisfied and we said good-bye to the vicar. He wanted to talk but I could tell Inger weren't interested in him, and we went out of the door. It were like stepping into a hot bath after the cold church, and the bright light made my eyes dazzle.

  Then I remembered Mary.

  I called her name. Nothing. It were like being at the bottom of Madge's garden again.

  Inger called, too, and Reverend Disjohn came out of the church and asked what were up.

  "It's nothing," said Inger. "I think Mary must have gone back to the house with Arne."

  She said it dead casual, but I saw the way she and the vicar looked at each other that they were worried sick.

  I were sick, too, but not with worry. Worry's for what you don't know. And I knew Mary were gone.

  We hurried back to Heck. Arne were there and Aunt Chloe. I thought she were going to die in front of us when we asked if Mary had come home. I'd heard folk say that someone had gone white as a sheet often enough, but now for the first time I knew what it meant.

  Vicar had stopped off at the hall on the way through the village and the police were close behind us.

  I told all I could. "Are you sure it was Lightfoot?" they kept on asking, and I kept on saying, "I think it was." Then Arne said, "I think that this young lady has had enough, don't you?" And he put his arm around me and led me out of the house and took me home.

  They went searching up the Neb again, with the dogs and everything, just like last time. And just like last time, they came back with nothing.

  And they went looking for Benny again, and he weren't to be found either.

  His gran said he'd been with her all afternoon till he saw the police cars turning up the track. Then he'd taken off because he couldn't stand any more questioning. No one believed her, at least not about being with her all afternoon.

  Then Mr. Wulfstan came home. He were like a mad thing. He came round to our house and started asking me what had happened. At first he tried to be nice and friendly but after a bit his voice got louder and he started sounding so fierce that I began to cry. "What do you mean, don't know where she was hiding? What do you mean, you think you saw Lightfoot? What do you mean, you stopped playing and went inside to listen to the music?"

  By now he'd got ahold of me and I was sobbing my heart out. Then Mam, who'd gone out to make some tea, came rushing back in and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. I'd never heard her swear before. Mr. Wulfstan calmed down and said he were sorry but not sounding like he meant it, then he rushed off without having any tea. We heard later he went up to Neb Cottage and had a big row with old Mrs. Lightfoot, and the police had to make him come away, and he told them it were all their fault for letting Lightfoot loose when they had him in their cells, and if anything had happened to Mary he was going to make sure everyone of them suffered.

  I asked my mam why he were so mad with me. She said, he's not mad with you, he's mad with himself for not taking better care of the thing he loves most in the world. I said, but it's not his fault that Mary got took, and she said, aye but he thinks it is, and that's why he's running round looking for someone else to blame. And I wondered if my dad would run around like that if I got took. Weeks passed. They didn't find Mary. And they didn't find Benny. The concert was canceled. Arne and Inger went away. And the day came when we all had to move out of our homes.

  I were glad to go. Everyone else had long faces and there were some who were wailing and moaning. Dad went around like he were looking for someone to hit and Mam, who were having one of her bad turns again, could hardly drag herself out of the house. But I sat in the backseat of the car with Bonnie held tight in my arms and bit my cheeks to stop myself smiling. Remember, I were only seven and I thought that grief and guilt and fear were things you could drive away from like houses and barns and fields, leaving them behind you to be drowned.

  And when, as we drove down the village street for the last time, the first drops of rain we'd seen in nigh on four months burst on the windscreen, I recalled Reverend Disjohn's Friday talk and felt sure that God was once again sending His blessed floods to cleanse a world turned foul by all our sins.

  "And now the sun will rise as bright As though no horror had touched the night. The horror affected me alone. The sunlight illumines everyone."

  "Nice voice," said Peter Pascoe, his mouth full of quiche. "Pity about the tuba fanfare."

  "That was a car horn, or can't your tin ear tell the difference? But no doubt it is Tubby the Tuba leaning on it."

  "Why do you think I'm bolting my food?" said Pascoe.

  "I noticed. Peter, it's Sunday, it's your day off. You don't have to go."

  He gave her an oddly grave smile and said gently, "No, I don't. But I think I will. Give you a chance for a bit of productive Sabbath-breaking."

  This was a reference to Ellie's writing ambitions, marked by the presence of a pad and three pens on the patio by her sun bed.

  "Can't concentrate in this heat," she said. "Christ, the fat bastard's going to rouse the whole street!"

  The horn was playing variations on the opening motif of Beethoven's Fifth.

  Pascoe, ignoring it, said, "Never mind. You're probably famous already, only they haven't told you."

  Ellie had written three novels, all unpublished. The third script had been with a publisher for three months. A phone call had brought the assurance that it was being seriously considered, and with it a hope that was more creatively enervating than any heat.

  The doorbell rang. The fat bastard had got out of his car. Pascoe washed the quiche down with a mouthful of wine and stooped to kiss his wife. With Ellie any kiss was a proper kiss. She'd once told him she didn't mind a peck on the cheek but only if she wasn't sitting on it. Now she arched her bikinied body off the sun lounger and gave him her strenuous tongue.

  The doorbell went into the carillon at the end of the "1812" Overture, accompanied by cannonlike blows of the fist against the woodwork.

  Reluctantly Pascoe pulled clear and went into the house. As he passed through the hallway, he grabbed a light cagoule. It hadn't rained for weeks
, but Andy Dalziel brought out the Boy Scout in him.

  He opened the door and said, "Jesus."

  Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, ever full of surprises, was wearing a Hawaiian shirt bright enough to make an eagle blink.

  "Always the cockeyed optimist," he said, looking at the cagoule. "Hello, what's yon? I know that tune."

  This beat even the shirt. Like a child catching the strains of the Pied Piper, the Fat Man pushed past Pascoe and headed through the house to the patio, where the radio was playing.

  "You must not dam up that dark infernal," sang the strong young mezzo voice. "But drown it deep in dark eternal."

  "Andy," said Ellie, looking up in surprise. "Thought you were in a hurry. Time for a drink? Or a slice of quiche?" She reached for the radio switch.

  "Nay, leave it. Mahler, isn't it?"

  With difficulty Ellie prevented her gaze meeting her husband's.

  "Right," she said. "You're a fan?"

  "Wouldn't say that. Usually in Kraut, but?"

  "True. This is the first time I've heard it in English."

  "So deep in my heart a small flame died. Hail to the joyous morningtide!"

  The voice faded. The music wound plangently for another half minute, then it died too.

  "Elizabeth Wulfstan singing the first of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, the songs for dead children," said the announcer. "A new voice to me, Charmian. Lots of promise, but what an odd choice for a first disc. And in her own translation, too, I believe."

  "That's right. And I agree, not many twenty-two-year-olds would want to tackle something like this, but perhaps not many twenty-two-year-olds have a voice with this kind of maturity."

  "Maybe so, but I still think it was a poor choice. There's a straining after effect, as if she doesn't trust the music and the words to do their share of the work. More after the break. This is Coming Out, your weekend review of the new releases."

  Ellie switched off.

  "Andy, you okay?"

  The Fat Man was standing rapt, no longer Hamelin child lured away by the piper, but Scottish thane after a chat with the witches.

  "Nay, I'm fine. Just feel like someone had walked over my grave, that's all."

  This time the Pascoes' gazes did meet and shared the message, It'd be a bloody long walk!

  He went on. "Yon lass, he said her name was Wulfstan?"

  "That's right. She's going to be singing in the Dales Festival. I saw the disc advertised in The Gramophone, special mail-order price, so I've got it coming, but I might not have bothered if I'd heard that review first. What do you think, Andy, being an expert? And are you sure you won't have a drink?"

  The gentle irony, or the repeated offer, brought Dalziel out of his reverie and for the first time his gaze acknowledged that Ellie was wearing a bikini whose cloth wouldn't have made a collar for his shirt.

  "Nay, lass. I know nowt about music. And there's no time for a drink. Sorry to be dragging him off on a Sunday, but."

  He made dragging off sound like a physical act.

  Ellie was puzzled. Three things which passeth understanding: Dalziel recognizing Mahler; Dalziel refusing a drink; Dalziel not clocking her tits straight off.

  "It sounds urgent," she said.

  "Aye, kiddie goes missing, it's always urgent," he said. "Where's young Rosie?"

  The juxtaposition of ideas was abrupt enough to be disturbing.

  Pascoe said quickly, "She's spending the weekend with a school-friend. Zandra with a Zed, would you believe? Zandra Purlingstone?"

  There was a teasing interrogative in his tone which Dalziel was onto in a flash.

  "Purlingstone? Not Dry-Dock Purlingstone's daughter?" he exclaimed.

  Derek Purlingstone, general manager of Mid-Yorks Water, PLC, the privatized version of the old Water Board, had played down the threat of shortages when this year's drought started by gently mocking the English preoccupation with bathing, adding, "After all, when you want to clean a boat, you don't put it in a bath, do you? You put it in a dry dock!"

  He had learned the hard way that only the sufferers are allowed to make jokes about their pain. Dalziel's surprise rose from the fact that Dry-Dock's position and politics made him the kind of man whose company Ellie would normally have avoided like head lice.

  "The same," said Pascoe. "Zandra's in Rosie's class at Edengrove and they've elected each other best friend."

  "Oh, aye? With all his brass, I'd have thought he'd have gone private. Still, it's reckoned a good school and I suppose it's nice and handy, being right on his doorstep."

  Dalziel spoke without malice, but Pascoe could see that Ellie was feeling provoked. Edengrove Primary, with its excellent reputation and its famous head, Miss Martindale, might lie right on Purlingstone's doorstep, but it was a good four miles north of the Pascoes', while Bullgate Primary was less than a mile south. Ellie had made inquiries. "Bullgate has many original and unique features," a friend in the inspectorate told her. "For instance, during break, they play tiggie with hammers." After that, she made representations, with the upshot that Rosie went to Edengrove. Even with the shining example of New Labour leadership before her, Ellie felt a little exposed, and as always was ready to counterpunch before the seconds had left the ring.

  "If Derek is democratic enough to send his girl to a state school, I don't see why we should try to prove him wrong by refusing to let Rosie make friends with Zandra, do you?" she said challengingly.

  Normally Dalziel would have enjoyed nothing more than winding Ellie Pascoe up. But this morning, standing here on this pleasant patio in the warm sunshine, he felt such a longing to subside into a lounger, accept a cold beer, and while away the remains of the day in the company of these people he cared for more than he'd ever acknowledge, that he found he had no stomach for even a mock fight.

  "Nay, you're right, lass," he said. "Being friendly with your little lass would do anyone the power of good. But I thought her best mate was called Nina or something, not Zandra. T'other night when I rang and Rosie answered, I asked her what she were doing, and she said she were playing at hospitals with her best friend Nina. They fallen out, or what?"

  Pascoe laughed and said, "Nina has many attractions, but she doesn't have a pony and a swimming pool. At least not a real pony and a real swimming pool. Nina's Rosie's imaginary best friend. Ever since Wieldy gave her this last Christmas, they've been inseparable."

  He went into the living room and emerged with a slim, shiny volume which he handed to the Fat Man.

  The cover had the title Nina and the Nix above a picture of a pool of water in a high vaulted cave with a scaly humanoid figure, sharp toothed andwitha fringe of beard, reaching over the pool to a small girl with her hands pressed against her ears, and her mouth and eyes rounded in terror. At the bottom it said, Printed at the Eendale Press.

  "Hey," said Dalziel. "Isn't that the outfit run by yon sarky sod our Wieldy took up with?"

  "Edwin Digweed. Indeed," said Pascoe.

  "Ten guineas it says here. I hope the bugger got trade discount! You sure this is meant for kiddies? Picture like that could give the little lass bad dreams."

  He sounds like a disapproving granddad, thought Pascoe.

  He said, "It's Caddy Scudamore who did the illustrations. You remember her?"

  "That artist lass?" Dalziel smacked his lips salaciously. "Like a hot jam doughnut just out of the pan and into the sugar. Lovely."

  It was an image for an Oxford professor of poetry to lecture on, thought Ellie as she said primly, "I tend to agree with you about the illustration, Andy."

  "Come on," said Pascoe. "She sees worse in Disney cartoons. It's Nina that bothers me. I had to buy an ice cream for her the other day."

  "That's because you never had an imaginary friend," laughed Ellie. "I did, till I was ten. Only children often do."

  "Adults too," agreed Dalziel. "The chief constable's got several. I'm one of them. What's the story about, anyway?"

  "About a little girl who gets kidnapp
ed by a nix-that's a kind of water goblin."

  A breeze sprang up from somewhere, hardly strong enough to stir the petals on the roses, but sufficient to run a chilly finger over sun-warmed skin.

  "Could have had that drink," said Dalziel accusingly to Pascoe. "Too late now. Come on, lad. We've wasted enough time."

  He thrust the book into Ellie's hands and set off through the house.

  Pascoe looked down at his wife. She got the impression he was seeking the right words to say something important. But what finally emerged was only "See you then. Expect me… whenever."

  "I always do," she said. "Take care."

  He turned away, paused uncertainly as if in a strange house, then went through the patio door.

  She looked after him, troubled. She knew something was wrong and she knew where it had started. The end of last year. A case which had turned personal in a devastating way and which had only just finished progressing through the courts. But when, if ever, it would finish progressing through her husband's psyche, she did not know. Nor how deeply she ought to probe.

  She heard the front door close. She was still holding Rosie's book. She looked down at the cover illustration, then placed the slim volume facedown on the floor beside her and switched the radio back on.

  The strong young voice of Elizabeth Wulfstan was singing again.

  "Look on us now, for soon we must go from you. These eyes that open brightly every morning In nights to come as stars will shine upon you."

  Pascoe sat in the passenger seat of the car with the window wound fully down. The air hit his face like a bomb blast, giving him an excuse to close his eyes while the noise inhibited conversation.