The Price of Butcher's Meat

by Reginald Hill

  “No, I didn’t. She was ready for everything I was likely to ask, so she’d have been ready for that too. Best thing with her was to frustrate expectation. Anything more than gut feeling she wrote the letters?”

  “That funny spelling. That notebook I was looking at, nothing significant, just jottings, reminders, that sort of stuff, but I did notice she spelt diet and receipt both with an ei.”

  “That is how you spell receipt, Dennis,” said Wield gently.

  “Is that right?” said Seymour, unfazed. “I’ll try and remember that, Sarge. But diet’s d-i-e-t. Isn’t it? Not d-e-i-t.”

  “Right. So she wrote the threatening letters and we’ve got her at the scene. Why don’t you see her in the frame for the hog roast murder?”

  “Don’t reckon her as a killer, that’s all,” said Seymour.

  He was, judged Wield, the only one of the DCs who would have ventured such an unsupported judgment. Sometimes, by contrast with Novello and Bowler, he might come across as a bit naive, but what you got from him was always simple reaction without hidden agenda.

  “There’s been a lot of cases across the world where animal rights extremists haven’t fought shy of killing and maiming,” said Wield. “And I got the feeling she wasn’t as laid back about losing her eye as she let on.”

  “Okay, she might have lobbed a rock down at the old lady. Might even have broken the cliff fence to give her a fright. But strangling her…not a woman’s MO, is it?”

  Wield tried to work out if this was sexist or not. Either way, he tended to agree. Could even be that the fence and the falling rock were pure accident. Interfering with the car brakes would have been a serious attempt at causing harm, but the local garage had poured scorn on the notion that anything other than her ladyship’s reluctance to pay for maintenance was needed to make them fail.

  “Right, Dennis. Once you’ve got Lady Nelson back to the Terrace, start getting this lot down on paper for the DCI to look at. I’ll be over at the hall talking to the poor relation.”

  But when he got across to the hall, there was no sign of Clara Brereton.

  “Gone for a swim,” said Bowler, trying for bright and breezy but not getting close.

  “She’s what!”

  “I told her she had to wait for you and she sat around for a bit, then a couple of minutes ago she suddenly got up, said she was getting hot and would it be okay if she popped down to the beach for a swim and waited for you there? I said I didn’t think that was a good idea, but she was already moving off. I didn’t see how I could stop her without arresting her.”

  “So why didn’t you go with her?”

  “Thought I’d better let you know what was happening.”

  “You’ve got a phone.”

  “Yeah, I know. Thing was, Sarge, she’s not got anything with her, so unless she’s wearing a cozzie under her clothes, I thought maybe she wanted to skinny-dip…”

  Jesus, thought Wield. What was it with these sensitive young straights? Tongues hanging out at the sight of a scantily clad lass, but overcome with embarrassment at the prospect of seeing one naked!

  “That’s her problem,” said Wield. “Come on.”

  With a promissory glance at Scroggs, who was discreetly keeping his distance, he set off toward the cliff path.

  As they walked, Bowler continued his defense.

  “Anyway, I couldn’t see it made much difference, Sarge. I mean, we’ve got the photos—”

  “How do you know it was the photos she was after?” interrupted Wield. “She might have left them because they weren’t what she wanted.”

  They reached the top of the path and paused. Before them lay the sea, gleaming silky blue under the noon-high sun, stretching away to a heat-smudged horizon. For a moment they were lifted far above the sordid concerns that had brought them here.

  Mebbe, thought Wield, letting the peace and beauty of the scene wash over him as he drew in a deep breath of the famous sea air that Tom Parker claimed cured everything, mebbe what we’re meant to do is go down this path and if we find yon lass skinny-dipping, we should strip our clothes off too and join her!

  He shook the daft fancy out of his head and started the descent.

  Gradual at first, it soon began to steepen, not enough to be a problem unless you had vertigo, for time had worn good footholds in the rock. Nevertheless a wise man concentrated on his footing and forgot the view. Bowler was ahead, moving with the easy confidence of youth, but suddenly he stopped and called, “Sarge!”

  Below them the cliff was now steepening to a degree sufficient to cause concern even to the young and active. There was a ledge beyond which it seemed to fall away sheer and here the path turned sharply right to follow the ledge and then descend the cliff face by zigs and zags. Along the ledge and all the way down the remainder of the path, a wooden fence had been built to give protection from the drop.

  This was the fence that Lady Denham suspected had been sabotaged. No doubt now, though sabotage was perhaps too subtle a word. The top bar of the fence had been shattered and hung drunkenly from its stanchions.

  Bowler leapt down the last few feet, steadied himself against one of the uprights, peered over, and said, “Oh shit!” Then he was off along the oblique path at a breakneck speed.

  Wield reached the broken fence and looked down and saw what had provoked the young DC’s reaction.

  Below him, sprawled facedown across a huge sea-smoothed boulder, was the body of Clara Brereton.

  4

  When Charley entered the lounge, Dalziel, occupying one of Tom Parker’s low-slung Scandinavian chairs like the USA occupying Iraq, tried to lever himself upright but had difficulty formulating a satisfactory exit strategy.

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t bother to get up.”

  “Nay, I’ll not be beaten,” he said. “There! Done it! Good to see you again, Miss Heywood. How are you bearing up?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Deal.”

  He took the deliberate mispronunciation in his stride and said, “Nay, lass, let’s not be formal. I’m an old friend of your dad’s. Call me Andy. Uncle Andy, if you like. And I’ll call you Charley, right?”

  Uncle Andy! Jesus Christ!

  She replied pertly, “Of course, Andy. Any friend of Dad’s is a friend of…my father.”

  He roared with laughter. Mary Parker, pleased to see them at ease with each other, said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve things to do. Then I’ll throw together some lunch. Just something light. Would you care to join us, Mr. Dalziel?”

  “That’s real kind of you, missus. Nowt I like better than a light lunch. Except mebbe a heavy one.”

  Mary smiled politely at what she hoped was a joke and said, “Good. I’ll bring it outside, shall I? Such a lovely day.”

  Charley led the way out onto the terrace. Minnie followed, but not on their heels. She was expert in assessing distances. Too close drew attention and got you dismissed, too distant and you couldn’t hear a damn thing. She was helped in her efforts at unobtrusiveness by the distant ululation of a siren.

  “That you lot disturbing the peace?” said Charley.

  Dalziel cupped his sagacious ear and said, “Not one of ours. Ambulance, I’d say. Sounds like it’s down in the town. Probably some daft sod’s got sunstroke on the beach.”

  Under cover of this exchange, Minnie squatted down on the edge of the terrace, about ten feet away, making herself as small as possible and keeping very still.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about, Andy?” asked Charley, determined to seize control of the conversation.

  “Murder,” he said.

  “Oh. As a witness? A suspect? Or because of my psychological training? I’m afraid I have no background in criminal profiling.”

  “Nay, but you’ve got sharp eyes, a sharp brain, and you’re nebby.”

  “That’s your assessment after what? Two brief encounters? No wonder the police have a track record of getting things wrong!”

  “It happens. Like
them trick cyclists who set homicidal maniacs loose to kill some other poor bugger.”

  “Hardly the same.”

  “No. Your lot don’t do it after two brief encounters, you’ve usually had years to study the case notes and still get it wrong. Any road, I’m not making snap judgments about you, Charley. I’ve been inside your mind; I’ve read your e-mails.”

  “Jesus!” said Charley angrily. “Is there anyone left in Sandytown who hasn’t?”

  “Oh aye. There’s always a few folk who wait for the movie,” said Dalziel, grinning. “Never fret, lass. I’m not going to sue you for defamation. Listen, serious now afore our light lunch comes. I think it could be useful if we pooled our resources.”

  “Oh yes? Like I let that Novello bitch see my e-mails, you mean?”

  “No, not like that. Don’t be hard on poor Ivor. She’s a nice lass and a good cop, but she’s still at the bottom of the heap. She’s got to do what other people tell her.”

  “And you’re at the top, I take it?”

  “Oh yes. King of the castle, that’s me,” said the Fat Man complacently.

  “Then it was your idea to eavesdrop on me and Mr. Godley talking in the police car, was it?”

  “Eh?”

  There was a massive conviction about that eh? which persuaded Charley more than oath or argument that Dalziel was truly ignorant of the mobile phone ruse.

  Briefly she explained what had happened. She saw no reason not to tell him what Godley had said. All it did was explain the oddities of the healer’s behavior, and that sly sod Pascoe probably had it on tape anyway.

  Far from disapproving the ruse, Dalziel seemed inclined to take some credit for it.

  “Nose like a retriever, Pete,” he said complacently. “Give him a sniff of a hint and he’s up and after it instantly.”

  “It was a monstrous thing to do. And probably illegal,” she retorted.

  “Steady on, lass. It’s a cop’s job to get at the truth any way he can.”

  “Even if it means hurting people!”

  “Can’t see why Godley should feel hurt. It were him holding back that made it necessary in the first place.”

  “I’m talking about me! It looked like I was part of the deception. That’s what Mr. Godley went away thinking, anyway!”

  “Oh dear,” said Dalziel. “Now I can see how that would really hurt him. Never mind. Yon shitlit’s full of misunderstandings, isn’t it? Makes it all the sweeter when he finds out the truth and realizes you weren’t in on it.”

  Charley, assuming he meant chick lit and also assuming he knew what he meant, tried to work out the implications of this.

  “Hang about,” she said. “You said it was you gave Pascoe the hint. What hint was that?”

  “I think I said summat about Godley fancying you rotten, and that probably set Pete thinking he might open up to you. Clever, eh?”

  Charley shook her head violently. She felt control of the conversation slipping irretrievably from her grasp. She tried a laugh—truly what he’d just said was daft enough to laugh at—but somehow she couldn’t manage it.

  “You’re mad,” she said. “He thinks I’m a waste of space, takes him all his time to stay in the same room as me.”

  “Takes some lads like that,” said the Fat Man. “Crazy for you but doesn’t think he’s got a cat in hell’s chance, you being so attractive and superior and way out of his league.”

  “Me?”

  “Aye. Love’s a bit shortsighted, isn’t that what they say? Come on, young Charley. Driving a young man to distraction’s not all that bad, is it?”

  “Not a young man, maybe,” said Charley, still trying to get her head round what he’d said. How did he manage to assert what was so manifestly crazy with such authority?

  “Picky, are we?” said Dalziel. “Thirty’s young by my standards.”

  “Thirty?”

  “Just turned, I saw his details on the incident room board. Okay, that face fungus makes him look older, but that’s likely why he wears it. Gives him a bit of gravitas.”

  Charley tried to envisage a shaven Mr. Godley, but it wouldn’t come. In any case, it didn’t matter. Thirty, forty, fifty, even in the remote contingency Dalziel was right, the poor sod was doomed to suffer till he got over it.

  “Look,” she said. “None of this matters, does it? The important thing is, what he told me puts him out of the frame, as you lot say, right?”

  “You reckon?” said Dalziel dubiously. “Should have thought it gives him and Miss Lee a good motive for being seriously pissed off with Lady D. He were seen quarreling with her, tha knows. In fact, I think you were one of them as fingered him.”

  “No I didn’t,” she protested angrily. “All I said was…and I didn’t know it was going to be grand jury testimony…anyway, it was hardly a killing matter, was it?”

  “I’ve known folk kill for less,” he said. “And it could have been an accident.”

  “An accidental strangling? Come on!” she mocked. “And what about Ollie Hollis? That was no accident. Why would Mr. Godley want to kill him?”

  “Mebbe Ollie saw something that could tie Godley in to the murder?”

  “That’s stupid! If his motive for quarreling with Lady Denham was to protect his sister, he’s hardly going to commit murder in her treatment room, is he?”

  Dalziel nodded his great gray head approvingly.

  “There,” he said. “Knew I were right about you, Charley. Good bit of logic to back up what both of us think without benefit of logic—that Mr. Godley ain’t no killer. So who’s next?”

  “You’re the detective,” she said. “Also I’m getting a bit fed up with this one-way traffic. You’ve got my e-mails plus a tape of a private conversation. Time to share a bit of what you know, I’d say. Or is this ee by gum lass, I think thee and me could make a grand partnership stuff just another ploy like Novello’s and Pascoe’s?”

  “Fair enough,” he said without hesitation. “Turn and turn about it is. And I promise you, nowt you tell me will get passed on without your say-so. Right?”

  “Right,” she said. “So now it’s your turn, Andy.”

  “Okay. Let’s go through the suspects. Best get you out of the way first, I suppose.”

  “Me?”

  “Aye. Pete Pascoe reckons your lousy spelling puts you in the frame.”

  He explained about the anonymous letters with their spelling error.

  “I’ve always had bother with e’s and i’s,” she said. “But no one bothers in an e-mail, right?”

  “Don’t say that to Pete Pascoe,” said Dalziel. “If he left a suicide note, I’d know it were forged if there were just one semicolon out of place. Not to worry, but. My reading of you is that if you did decide to write an anonymous letter, any clues it gave wouldn’t be mistakes but deliberate red herrings.”

  He seemed to intend it as a compliment.

  “You’re saying I’d make a good criminal?” said Charley.

  “That’s what it takes to make a good detective,” he said. “Look at me. One gene more or less and I could have been the Napoleon of crime!”

  He put his hand under his shirt and looked out to sea with such a lugubrious expression, she laughed out loud.

  “If that’s meant to be Napoleon, remind me not to ask for your Jimmy Cagney!”

  “Jimmy Cagney? Bit old for you. No, hang on, it’s all them movies your mam loves to watch, right? Sorry, didn’t mean to tread into the personal stuff, but it’s all tangled up in your e-mails, isn’t it? Listen, I’ll give you another one for free, just to prove good faith. Fester and Pet!”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Lester Feldenhammer and Nurse Petula Sheldon. You met them at that do in the clinic. And you saw them at the hog roast.”

  “That’s right. What about them?”

  “Come on, luv. In your e-mails you mention Mary Parker filling you in on Daph having the hots for Fester. And his affections being engaged elsewhere.”

  “Else
where being Nurse Sheldon? So what are you saying? A crime of passion? Aren’t they a bit old for that?”

  “Christ, you really are ageist, aren’t you? Pet and Fester are younger than me, and I can still tear a passion if I put my mind to it. They had a bloody great row at the party that ended with Pet hurling her wine over Daph.”

  “Hardly lethal, is it?”

  “No, but it’s a step in the wrong direction.”

  She shook her head.

  “No. A woman chucks wine ’cos she’s pissed off with someone. Killing them takes passionate jealousy, and I can’t see Sheldon being jealous of someone thirty years older than she is. Anyway, sticking her in the hog roast cage suggests intent rather than impulse, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded complacently. He was right. She was quick. Pete would probably kill him for giving away confidential info about the case, but he had the feeling that young Heywood would sniff out prevarication like the Holy Inquisition.

  He said, “Maybe there was intent. Maybe Pet and Fester were more than just irritated by Daph.”

  She said slowly, “Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. If Feldenhammer wanted to stop Daph bothering him, why not simply tell her it was no go? Okay, she was persistent. Most women would have taken the hint when he ran away to Switzerland for six months. And when she followed him out there, why not just say, Enough’s enough, act your age, woman! Unless…”

  Dalziel leaned forward and nodded his head encouragingly.

  “Unless what?” he said.

  “Unless,” said Charley, “unless she had some sort of a hold over him. From the way she set about getting Miss Lee out of Witch Cottage, she clearly wasn’t above a bit of blackmail!”

  The Fat Man sat back in his chair and beamed at her.

  “If I weren’t promised, Charley, I might ask Stompy for leave to marry thee.”

  “If you did, I’d run a lot farther than Switzerland,” she retorted. “Okay, so that’s the conclusion you’ve reached too, so it has to be right! Have you any idea what?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll find out. Then we’ll see if what she was using to pull his string were important enough to make him want to cut hers.”