Dolly was the last to leave the pub.
“You all right, Miss Upshott?” enquired the Captain, who was in a benevolent mood brought on by the realization that, far from being a turn-off, the presence of the grieving widow had actually bumped his takings right up.
“Yes, thank you. Fine,” said Dolly, looking across the green to where the bulk of the church stood black against a gloriously star-spattered sky.
The church getting in the way of the heavens. It was a conceit that pleased her.
But the stars were out of her reach and in times of trouble we turn to whatever comfort is most readily to hand.
When the pub door was closed behind her, she walked over the green and up the path towards the church.
Moscow House too loomed dark against the sky as Kay Kafka walked up the drive. She recalled taking the same walk two nights before. She hadn’t been frightened then and she wasn’t frightened now. She had surfeited on fear all those years ago when she’d gone running to the crèche with Emily’s poem beating through her mind and by the time she stood two days later looking down at the still form of her daughter, so incredibly small it seemed impossible that life had ever informed those tiny limbs, those of her neural circuits that recorded fear had been burnt out.
Only on very few occasions since then had they shown any flicker of life. Once when after her first husband’s death it had seemed possible they might find a way to take Helen away from her. A second time when Helen had shyly but at the same time so hopefully confided in her that she was desperately in love with Jason Dunn. And yet again, here at Moscow House when Helen went into labour.
But such conventional terrors as might be expected to accompany a solitary visit to a house which held the memories this one did had no power over her.
This time the front door was shut but she had Helen’s key, the key Helen insisted on having when the house went on the market. And this time she did not need to rely on finding a stub of candle and a book of matches. Providently she had a pencil torch in her pocket.
Its thin beam led her up the staircase to the study door. She turned the handle and pushed. It swung open and without even a second’s hesitation she stepped into the room where her husband and her stepson had both died.
Now her mind did register something, but it was surprise not fear, caused by the room’s emptiness. She let the torch beam stray hither and thither. Everything had gone. Furniture, picture, even the books. How very thorough. Andy had told her DCI Pascoe was a man for fine detail but she hadn’t expected anything like this.
But their thoroughness had not taken them quite all the way. They had not attempted to remove the gun cabinet from the wall.
She went to it and opened it.
The dust that had gathered inside looked undisturbed.
She reached in, took hold of the gun-retaining clip, twisted it anticlockwise and pulled. It swung out easily on well-oiled hinges and she let the torch beam play into the revealed chamber.
At the same time the room’s central light came on and a voice said, “Once saw a movie where there was a safe hidden behind a safe. Should have thought of that.”
For a second she froze but when she turned, her face showed nothing but the pleasure of a welcoming hostess.
“How nice to see you, Sergeant,” she said. “I’m so glad to have been of assistance.”
“You’ve certainly been that,” agreed Wield. “So what brings you here, Mrs Kafka?”
“It was Mr Pascoe, actually. He asked me if I knew anything about another gun. I said no, but later I got to thinking, and I had this recollection of seeing my husband, my first husband that is, closing this cabinet one day. It struck me as odd that it should swing out completely but I never really thought there might be another cabinet behind it, not till Mr Pascoe made me think, that is. And once I got the notion in my head, that was it. I found I couldn’t rest until I’d seen for myself.”
“Didn’t think of just ringing Mr Pascoe?”
“And send him on a wild-goose chase? No, I thought I’d come down here myself and ask the policeman on duty if I could test out my theory.”
“And when you saw there wasn’t a policeman on duty?”
She smiled at him.
“But of course, there is, Sergeant. You. So here you are. One little mystery solved. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be getting home. My husband’s away and he will probably try to ring me from his hotel. Good night to you, Mr Wield.”
She walked towards him.
He watched her approach, his face giving away nothing.
Then he stood aside and said, “Good night, Mrs Kafka.”
In St Cuthbert’s church Dolly Upshott had no idea how long she’d been sitting.
It was cold in here, but not cold enough to mask the unique smell of the place, what her brother called the odour of sanctity. It comprised wood and leather and cloth and stone and dampness and the ghost of incense and hyssop (David was quite “high”). The stained-glass windows, beautiful with the sun behind them, were too heavily tinted for starlight to penetrate. Only to the south-west where a gibbous moon glanced on a high narrow window did a diffused light pass through, and she’d taken her seat here.
She didn’t move, not even when she heard the church door, which she’d left ajar, creak fully open and footsteps come up the aisle.
“I saw the door was open as I drove by,” said Kay Kafka. “It seemed like an invitation. But if I’m disturbing you …”
“No more than life. Have a pew.”
Uncertain if this was an English joke or not, Kay sat down and looked up at the window where the moonlight set the stained glass glowing. The design showed two haloed figures walking towards each other across a stretch of water. This was usually interpreted as Herbert of Derwentwater visiting his chum Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, or maybe vice versa. One of the figures (probably Herbert) looked a lot less certain than the other, as if not quite able to get it out of his mind that the slightest flicker of faith could have him plunging to a weedy grave.
“I know how he feels,” said Kay.
“Sorry?”
“The picture in the window. Walking on water’s fine till something comes along to remind you it’s water you’re walking on.”
“Like a ship, you mean?”
“Or a shark.”
They shared a moment of humour, but soon they moved beyond sharing, each into some private space where they looked for whatever it was that had brought them into this place at this time.
It was the church clock striking midnight that brought them out of their reveries.
Even now neither spoke nor moved till the twelfth note had sounded across the green, rolling out beyond the sleeping cottages and farms, past the near meadows, over the still streams, finally fading to nothingness in the neighbouring valley-glades.
Now they rose and walked down the aisle together.
Outside they stood for a moment looking up at the brilliant stars above the dark unheeding village.
“Looks set fair for tomorrow, doesn’t it?” said Kay.
“You think so?” said Dolly. “Doesn’t matter. Even if it rains, water’s not the end of the world, is it? We can always swim.”
“So can sharks,” said Kay.
March 23rd, 2002
1 • a lady calls
Peter Pascoe awoke on Saturday morning feeling good. Drowsily he tried to give shape to the as-yet amorphous causes of this pleasant state. It was the beginning of a free weekend; last night’s concert had been close to a triumph, Rosie playing with a brio which visually more than compensated for her somewhat cavalier attitude to musical notation; he and Ellie had put her to bed with love and kisses, and not long after put themselves to bed with even more; and one of the shapes which was contributing largely to his euphoria, or perhaps one should more accurately say two of them, was, or were, pressed invitingly close against his belly at this moment.
Then a thin wail from his mobile phone brought him out of his dream.
He grabbed it from the bedside table, switched off the sound, checked the display. It was Wield. What the hell did he want at ten to eight on a Saturday morning?
As he staggered out of the room to find out, it occurred to him that his irritation was misdirected. His long lie-in was already spoken for. He had a date with Dalziel to pay a visit to Cothersley Hall. Plus, and even more imperatively, he had an agreement with Rosie to drop her off for her nine a.m. clarinet lesson on the way in to the station. After last night she would have the Royal Festival Hall in her sights, or at least the Wigmore. Indeed, as he settled on the loo seat to answer his phone, he could already hear her running up a scale whose atonality would have left Schoenberg gasping.
“Yes?” he yawned.
“Morning, Pete,” said Wield, sounding disgustingly wide awake. “Wanted to catch you before you set out.”
Briefly he described the events at Moscow House the previous night.
“You didn’t bring her in for questioning then?” said Pascoe.
“No point. Would have meant rousting you and Andy out of bed, and for what? She had her story ready anyway.”
“Which you believed?”
“No way. I reckon she wanted to check what might be in there. Anything she didn’t fancy us finding, she’d have removed. Then some time today she’d have ‘remembered’ about the hidden cabinet and passed on the info like a good citizen.”
“Tell me again what you found.”
“A silver whisky flask, initials P.M. A silver cigarette lighter, same initials. A medicine bottle, empty, but the label says it contained Valium capsules prescribed to Mr P. Maciver. A microcassette. And a diary, stamped with the year 1992. I’ve not done anything with them yet other than photo them in situ and bag them. I’m at the lab now. I rang Dr Death and told him I needed some bodies down here a.s.a.p. Soon as they show, I’ll get this stuff tested and printed. Of course it may turn out it’s all covered with Mrs Kafka’s prints, and she was in the study to recover the evidence. But if that’s the case, why’d she leave it there in the first place?”
“Good question. I wish you’d got in touch to ask it last night.”
“For what? To spoil your sleep? There was nowt to be done till this morning, at least nowt I could think of,” said the sergeant, sounding slightly aggrieved at the DCI’s reproachful tone.
He was quite right, thought Pascoe. Dalziel might have said, read the diary, play the tape, bugger the risk of cross-contamination! But he knew he would have contained his impatience till the lab did its work.
Also there was the memory of what Wield would have disturbed if he had rung …
He said, “Sorry, Wieldy, you were quite right. Listen, there’s something else you can do for me now that you’re out and about so bright and early. Once you’ve got those idle sods at the lab working, could you give Tom Lockridge an early call before he makes for the golf course or whatever it is he does on a Saturday morning? Shake him up a bit. Tell him he’ll have to be suspended from our medical examiner list for concealing his intimate connection with a key witness in a case he was advising on.”
“OK. Anything special you want me to shake out of him?”
“It’s clear Sue-Lynn imagined she was going to benefit substantially when her husband died …”
“But the photo gives them an alibi,” interrupted Wield.
“I know. But it’s more her reaction now that she knows Pal changed his will … and Pal’s reasons for changing his will … and one or two other things …”
“Sounds to me like you’re coming round to Andy’s point of view, Pete.”
“Yes. Ironic, isn’t it? Just when I feel I’m making headway getting him round to mine! Anyway, my point is, while I can still see lots of motives for murder, I can’t yet see any for suicide. But Sue-Lynn will clearly be desperate to prove he was going doolally. And I’ve got a feeling Tom Lockridge is on the case too. So shake away. Keep in touch, will you? I’ll be out at Cothersley.”
“And the best of luck,” said Wield. “I reckon you’ll need it.”
Pascoe switched off the phone, turned the shower on and stepped underneath.
As he towelled himself down, he heard the front door bell. Jesus, he thought. Doesn’t anyone have a long lie-in on a Saturday morning anymore? The clarinet fell silent, which suggested Rosie was taking care of things. He went back to the bedroom where he found that one person at least was set for the long lie-in. She had rolled over, throwing the duvet off her naked body and he groaned with frustrated longing as he pulled his clothes on.
He was buttoning up his shirt when the door opened and Rosie came in.
She said, “There’s a lady to see you.”
“A lady? You mean a woman,” said Pascoe, loyally adding his weight to Ellie’s attempts to purge the child of prejudice in all its forms.
Rosie thought, then said, “Yes, of course she’s a woman. But she looks like a lady and she talks like a lady.”
She turned and left with the Parthian shot, “You know I mustn’t be late.”
Behind him there was a sound as Ellie awoke.
“Was that the door bell I heard before?” she yawned.
“Yes. Rosie got it. Seems I’ve got a visitor.”
“At this time on a Saturday morning? Jesus.” Then with sudden suspicion, “It’s not that fat bastard, is it?”
“Reasonable guess,” he said. “But no. This one’s a woman. Sorry. A lady.”
“Well, if she’s here with your love-child, tell her to go and find some bulrushes,” said Ellie.
“God, you’re sexy when you yawn,” he said.
“That sounds like an argument for boring sex,” she said, sinking back on to the pillow.
On another occasion he might have read that as a hint. This morning, with Dalziel, Rosie and a lady weighing in the counterbalance, he turned and went out of the room.
As he descended the stairs he guessed that his daughter, with a sense of precedence which wouldn’t have been out of place in a Victorian society hostess, would have put her lady in the lounge rather than the kitchen.
He was right. And Rosie was right too. At least as far as she could see.
Standing by the patio window looking out into the garden was Dolly Upshott.
She looked pale, with dark shadows under her eyes. The short brown hair was even more hectic than usual. Looking at her young form clad in a Fair Isle sweater, sensible tweed skirt and flat brogues, it was still hard to believe what her presence there must surely mean was the truth.
Which with admirable directness, she now confirmed.
“Got your message,” she said. “I thought of doing a runner, but decided there was no point really. I looked you up in the phone book. I’m really sorry to be bothering you at home like this, but I thought that showing up at the cop-shop would probably remove any chance I had of keeping this thing sub rosa. I mean, I’d be straight into the torture chamber there, wouldn’t I? Tape machines, witnesses, red-hot irons, all the apparatus.”
Her attempt at humour was more revealing of her agitated state of mind than hysterical tears would have been.
He said, “Please sit down, Miss Upshott. I haven’t had any breakfast and I need at least one cup of coffee before I can function properly. Can I get you something?”
“Coffee would be nice,” she said.
He went out and ran lightly up the stairs. Ellie opened her eyes as he came into the bedroom.
“What?” she said.
“Sorry, can you take Rosie to her lesson?”
“Jesus. You mean it really is the love-child?”
“Far more serious than that,” he said. “Could even be serious enough to make me late for Fat Andy.”
“In that case, what does a little inconvenience to me matter. OK.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“And you’ll pay,” she called after him.
He collected a microcassette recorder from his study, went into the kitchen, made a couple of
mugs of instant coffee and took them through to the lounge.
“Right, Miss Upshott,” he said.
“What do you want me to do?” she said. “I want to get everything out of the way, here, now. I heard what you said in your message about coming round to the vicarage. Please, I couldn’t bear that. I’ll do anything, but David must never hear any of this, all right?”
Though he never liked doing it, Pascoe had long ago learned the detective art of making non-binding promises, unenforceable agreements.
He smiled sympathetically and said, “Your best way to ensure that, Miss Upshott, is to tell me everything, as fully and frankly as you can.”
As he spoke he set the microcassette between them on the table.
She didn’t seem to notice it but continued to examine his face closely till he felt the sympathetic smile must resemble a cynical leer.
Finally she closed her eyes as if to compare what she saw with some inner picture.
When she opened them again after nearly a minute she said in a small childlike voice, “All right, then. I will.”
2 • Dolly
Gosh, where on earth shall I begin? I mean, you’d think that something that’s ended up where this has ended up would have a pretty definite starting point, wouldn’t you? On your mark—get set—bang! But that’s not the way life works, is it? I suppose it really began when Mother died. Or perhaps when Mother got ill. I was still living at home, you see. That was in Chester, do you know it? Sorry. Not relevant. I had a job then, in a bank, nothing exciting. After a while even all that money becomes boring, though I sometimes used to dream … but I shouldn’t be telling you that! Then Mother got ill and needed more and more looking after. The bank was very good, and arranged for me to work full-time part-time, if you see what I mean. But eventually even that was too much. I was needed at home all the time for the last six months till Mother passed on.
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