Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  The footsteps returned cut by half, as she took the stairs two or three at a time. Then she was back in the gallery clutching a sketching pad and a pencil.

  ‘I’ve got to have your face, do you mind? It’s amazing. Do you live round here? I’d love to do a portrait, would you be interested?’

  All the time the pencil was speeding over the paper.

  ‘Caddy, for heaven’s sake!’ said Kee in that tone of reproof underpinned with pride that parents use when their kids are being intrusively precocious. ‘This is Sergeant Wield. It seems PC Bendish has gone missing.’

  ‘Probably off chasing rustlers or something. Sergeant, OK, if you’re hot on a scent, I can see how sittings could be a problem, but if I could take a few pics? I can work off photos, not the same, of course, but at least they don’t want to talk or pick their noses. OK? Great, don’t go away.’

  The flying footsteps routine was repeated.

  ‘Sorry again,’ said Kee. ‘Don’t let her bother you if you’d rather not. But she is good.’

  ‘These hers?’ said Wield, studying a selection of watercolours. ‘Very nice. She’s good on sheep, isn’t she?’

  ‘No, not those,’ said Kee. ‘They’re Beryl Pottinger’s, our school head teacher. They sell surprisingly well. Tourists like a nice view of somewhere they’ve been. Those are Caddy’s up there.’

  Wield looked and said, ‘Oh aye’, which was the nearest his natural courtesy as well as his native reticence would let him come to ‘Bloody hell!’ From Mrs Pottinger’s placid pastorals to Caddy Scudamore’s lurid landscapes was perhaps a small step for an artist, but it was a mighty leap over a high cliff for a man whose walls were hung with Victorian prints of Gilbert and Sullivan characters.

  Caddy was back with a camera which seemed to have a will of its own, clicking and winking and winding itself on with minimal outside interference. Wield began to feel uneasy. Both privately and professionally his instinct had long been to keep himself in the background, and this degree of attention was without doubt threatening. When the camera was replaced with a camcorder, he felt it was time to retreat.

  ‘This statue. You couldn’t show me where it is, could you?’ he said pleadingly to Kee.

  She looked at the ledger, looked at his face, took pity, switched off the calculator and said, ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Caddy. ‘I need to get him in motion.’

  ‘Oh no you won’t,’ said her sister firmly. ‘This is a place of business, remember?’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ said Caddy sulkily. She was, observed Wield with a critically neutral eye, one of those rare women on whom sulkiness is becoming. When she pouted, her full lips rounded into a moist pink funnel a hetero could pour his soul into.

  ‘Oh well, I’d better get these developed, then,’ she said, and vanished up the stairs once more.

  ‘Caddy, you will listen for the doorbell, won’t you?’ called Kee after her, but got no reply.

  ‘I might as well give up,’ she said to Wield with the resignation of use. ‘Once she gets in that darkroom, she doesn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘She develops her own, does she?’ said Wield.

  ‘Oh yes. Don’t be deceived by the impression she gives of chaos on the hoof. Like a lot of kids nowadays, she manages to have one foot in Bohemia and the other in high tech without showing any sign of doing the splits.’

  The pride was there again, strong and unmistakable. You needed to be a pretty well-balanced character and have a firm sense of your own worth to tolerate the demands of wayward talent in a younger sister, thought Wield.

  As they left the Gallery the young cyclist Wield had noticed the day before came to a silent halt before them.

  ‘Hello, Jason,’ said Kee neutrally. ‘Do you want something?’

  ‘Caddy. Got something for her.’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s too busy now,’ said Kee.

  The youth regarded her with strangely unfocused eyes. She returned his gaze as steadily and stood her ground in front of the door.

  Wield, whose eyes had been taking in the young man’s sub-military garb and the shotgun clipped to his crossbar, said, ‘You got a licence for that gun, lad?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Toke without looking at him. ‘Later, then.’

  He moved swiftly away.

  Wield said, ‘Hold on … !’ but Kee interrupted, ‘It’s OK, Sergeant. He does have a licence. In fact he’s probably got a licence for all the weapons he’s got.’

  ‘All …? How many does he have, then?’

  ‘A whole armoury, according to local rumour. But I’ve never seen them, so don’t take what I say as gospel.’

  ‘You don’t like the lad, but?’

  She shrugged and said, ‘He’s a bit weird. And he’s got a thing about Caddy. I don’t like weird men having a thing about my kid sister.’

  They set off at a brisk pace up the High Street.

  As the hill began to climb she pointed to a narrow driveway off to the right just below the church.

  ‘That takes you round to Corpse Cottage where Mr Bendish lives. Then it climbs up the hill to the vicarage.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Wield, pausing. ‘It’s well hidden.’

  ‘Do you want to take a look? We can carry on up to the vicarage and get into the churchyard that way.’

  ‘The vicarage is round there too, is it?’

  ‘Higher up, on the same level as the church.’

  Wield said, ‘No, we’ll just go the regular way. I’ll leave the cottage till later.’

  When I’ve not got a sharp-eyed civilian in tow, he added mentally, and then caught those sharp eyes smiling at him as though he’d spoken aloud.

  They climbed the hill till they drew level with the War Memorial.

  Wield paused. It was in the form of a Celtic cross with the simple inscription For the Fallen of the Parish of Enscombe with two lists of names, alphabetical and without rank, one for 1914–18, the other for 1939–45.

  ‘You had some bother last Armistice Day,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. When they gathered for the service, they found someone had spilt blood over the cross. Animal blood. You were asking about Jason Toke. It was Jason that did it. Everyone knew.’

  ‘Toke?’ said Wield. ‘He’s a funny-looking antiwar protester.’

  ‘How very observant of you,’ said Kee. ‘He is, as he looks, quite obsessed with things military. Just like his brother.’

  ‘There’s another?’

  ‘Was. Warren. A couple of years older than Jason. A year ago last Christmas he got blown up in Northern Ireland. That’s when Jason started turning weird. One symptom was he wanted the Parish Council to put Warren’s name on the War Memorial. He got extremely upset when they wouldn’t.’

  Wield ran his eye down the list of names.

  ‘There’s a Toke there already. Two.’

  ‘Oh yes. They’re all here if you look. Tokes and Wapshares. Hogbins and Guillemards, Digweeds and Halavants, all the old local families. A roll of honour or a testament to futility, depending how you look at it.’

  ‘No question how Toke looked at it,’ said Wield. ‘How come he hasn’t joined up?’

  ‘Perhaps even the Army draws a line. No, that’s unfair. It’s just as likely to be a reluctance to leave his mother alone. They’re very close.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ said Wield. ‘So your only real objection to Toke is he fancies your sister? Can’t blame him for that.’

  He spoke sincerely. Even lacking the equipment tuned to that particular wavelength, he had no trouble picking up the signal.

  ‘Yes,’ she said not without pride. ‘Caddy’s very attractive.’

  ‘So you don’t really think Toke could be positively dangerous?’ he pressed.

  She said, ‘Who knows what anyone is capable of if pushed in the wrong direction, Sergeant? Even a policeman.’

  They had walked up the hill and now they entered the churchyard. It was extremely well kept,
grass razed, weeds strimmed, moss and lichen carefully removed from the headstones to leave even the oldest inscriptions legible.

  ‘Someone works hard,’ Wield observed.

  ‘We know how to take care of our dead,’ said Kee.

  The same names he’d seen on the War Memorial were repeated here, though the democracy of its alphabetic listing was absent, with Tokes and Hogbins packed close together under simple slabs radiating away from the marble mass of the Guillemard mausoleum, over which brooded an intricately carved version of the bird he’d noticed on their coat of arms.

  ‘What is that thing?’ he asked.

  ‘Heraldically it’s a halcyon which in mythology guaranteed calm seas when it was brooding on its floating nest. Its real-life equivalent is the kingfisher. According to tradition, i.e. Guillemard propaganda, there were kingfishers nesting along the Een when the first Guillemards settled here in ten-sixty-something, and as long as they continue there, the family will enjoy halcyon days.’

  ‘Must be pleased there’s one here at the moment,’ said Wield, recalling Mrs Pottinger.

  ‘My, what sharp eyes and ears you have, Sergeant,’ she said smiling.

  Wield smiled back, thinking how nice it was to get information without having to suffer Digweed’s savage putdowns.

  When they reached the entrance to Green Alley he pointed to the lintel and asked, ‘What’s Fucata non Perfecta mean?’

  ‘Depends who you ask. Fucata means painted or rouged, and by extension forged or counterfeit. It’s either feminine singular or neuter plural. Thus the family will tell you it means either things which are painted cannot be perfect, or a rouged woman has got something to hide. In either case the implication is that the Guillemards play by the rules, what you see is what you get.’

  ‘What if I ask in the village?’

  ‘There are some who might go along with the Guillemards’ claim to honesty by assuring you it means we’re not perfect, we’re a bunch of phonies!’

  ‘And you, miss?’

  ‘At the moment I’m rather in sympathy with the answer you’d get from the habitués of the Morris just before closing time.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Fucata non Perfecta means fuck you, Jack, we’re all right! Ah, here we are.’

  She led the way into a small clearing. The fitful wind twitched the clouds and let a meagre ration of spring sunshine filter through the arching shrubs to light up the blossom of an old laurustinus leaning rather wearily against a little stone bench.

  ‘How very odd,’ murmured Kee, letting her gaze drift all round the glade. ‘I’m afraid it’s gone.’

  ‘What? The hat?’ said Wield.

  ‘Not just the hat. The whole dashed statue!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Miss H. is an elegant pleasing pretty-looking girl, about nineteen, I suppose, or nineteen and a half, or nineteen and a quarter, with flowers in her head and music at her finger ends.’

  Frances Harding, having escorted Pascoe to the door, looked ready to flee back into the house. The sun, happening to break through the clouds at this moment, touched her face, letting Pascoe see clearly what before he’d only got a vague impression of. Unsure and self-effacing she might be, but now it struck him as the uncertainty of spring, and he guessed there was a definite self here to efface. Her eyes, when not cast modestly down, were bright with intelligence and blue as the ribbon which tied back her hair. For a moment he was reminded of someone. Girlie perhaps? Or the Squire? He didn’t think so.

  He said, ‘Could you show me where the walled garden is?’

  She started as if he’d made an immoral suggestion and said quickly, ‘I must go back in. Grunk’s rehearsing.’

  ‘Grunk?’

  ‘The Squire,’ she said. ‘Great-uncle … it’s my name … look, I have to go, he hates to be without music.’

  ‘Surely he can press a switch himself?’

  The incomprehension on her face sparked comprehension on his.

  ‘I’m sorry. What a twit. It was you playing, wasn’t it? I thought it was Casals or someone on tape!’

  Her pale face flushed with pleasure, turning from snowdrop to almond blossom. A man might spend his time less profitably than striving to induce this effect, thought Pascoe.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It would just take a minute. And he’s got to drink his tea. My tea too! If I go myself, heaven knows where I’ll end up!’

  For a second longer she hesitated, wrinkling her nose like some young coney sniffing the air outside the family burrow, then she said, ‘All right.’

  She moved with unobtrusive speed and Pascoe found he had to make an effort to keep up. They went round the side of the house past a Victorian cast-iron conservatory which looked to be held up by a rampant vine growing within.

  ‘That’s the walled garden over there,’ said the girl, pointing towards a rough-hewn granite wall rising eight or nine feet above the unkempt lawn and looking as if it might have been built to keep the natives out rather than a garden in.

  Distance away was about sixty yards, judged Pascoe, wondering how good the Squire’s eyes were. As he approached it became apparent there would be no problem about anyone running around its rampart, which from the density of the grassy fringe growing out of it looked to be at least a couple of feet wide. The entrance door which faced away from the Hall was solid oak and firmly locked.

  ‘How long since the key was lost?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘A little while,’ said Fran vaguely. ‘In fact I don’t think anyone’s seen it since Mr Hogbin went.’

  ‘Hogbin?’ said Pascoe, recalling this was the name of the old man who’d reported the altercation between Bendish and the Hells Angel.

  ‘He lives at the Lodge. He looked after the gardens till he had a stroke before Christmas.’

  ‘And nobody’s wanted to get in here since then?’

  ‘There’s not a lot to do in the winter. And Girlie says it’s hard enough looking after what you can see!’

  Pascoe, looking round, took her point. There was a large tract of formal lawn bounded by outcrops of shrubbery, with further afield the blossom of orchards, the spring green of woodland, and above all the brooding brownness of the naked moor.

  ‘Not much point in taking too much care if you’re going to have your Cousin Guy’s skirmishers trampling all over the place,’ he said lightly. ‘Interesting mix, that, a Health Park and a battlefield.’

  She shook her head so vigorously the blue ribbon came loose, allowing her hair to veil her face, preventing him from reading the emotion there.

  ‘I’ve got to get back to Grunk,’ she said.

  She set off but after a few paces paused and waited.

  So I’m not trusted to wander at will, thought Pascoe.

  Back at the house he said, ‘Thanks, Miss Harding. I hope I get the chance to hear you play again. When’s the Squire’s next performance?’

  ‘Tomorrow at the Reckoning,’ she said. ‘That’s when everyone comes to pay their rents. But I’m sure you won’t need to stay in Enscombe that long.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Pascoe, realizing too late the accidental rudeness, but it didn’t matter anyway as she’d already vanished into the house.

  He turned away to see Sergeant Wield coming down the drive accompanied by a classically beautiful blonde. Beauty and the Beast, thought Pascoe. Dalziel would have said it. Does that make me any better than the Fat Man?

  ‘’Afternoon, sir,’ said Wield formally. ‘This is Miss Scudamore who runs the Gallery in the High Street. Thought you might be interested in what she’s got to say.’

  The woman gave a brief and lucid account of her sighting of the hat.

  ‘And now you say this statue’s vanished?’

  ‘The Sergeant needed to see the hole in the ground where it had been standing before he was convinced,’ said Kee. ‘Makes you wonder if Doubting Thomas was a policeman.’

  She smiled to show there was no malice in her frivolity.


  Wouldn’t have made any difference, thought Pascoe. Wield was no princess to be bruised by peas.

  ‘I’d not be surprised,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Thanks for your help, miss.’

  ‘My pleasure. Call again before you leave. My sister’s a fast worker when divine inspiration descends.’

  With a cool nod at Pascoe she walked away.

  ‘What was that about divine inspiration?’ asked Pascoe, thinking he detected a reaction to this apparently innocuous parting shot.

  ‘Nowt,’ said Wield. ‘You got anything yet?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Funny place. Nice pub. Did you get in?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Wield with emphasis. ‘Didn’t get into the Wayside Café either. Thought you had to be a superintendent before you could spend time in them places.’

  ‘Whoops,’ said Pascoe. ‘Well, if you’ve not been eating and drinking, just what have you been up to? And Fat Andy said you’d fill me in on this Hells Angel.’

  Pascoe seemed disproportionately entertained to learn that Wield had been the villainous biker, but he listened with close attention to everything else the Sergeant told him. He had great respect for Wield’s powers of observation and reasoning. Also it was important to his own self-esteem to keep his end up. Wield had been a sergeant while he was still a constable. Now promotion had taken him several steps beyond the older man and in some ways it was much more important to convince Wield that his advancement was justified than Dalziel. Correction. Nothing was more important than keeping Dalziel sweet. But it was terror that motivated him there while with Wield it was affection.

  They walked up the drive as they talked till they reached the scene of Wield’s encounter with Bendish.

  ‘Of course, all this is less important now that we’ve got the much later sighting at Scarletts,’ said Pascoe. ‘But this thing about the hat intrigues me. This little girl …’

  ‘Madge Hogbin. She lives in the Lodge with her grandparents.’

  ‘One of whom is old Mr Hogbin who had a stroke, lost the key to the garden, and was watching out of his window when you met Bendish,’ said Pascoe, not to be outdone in local knowledge.

  ‘Aye. And he’s still watching,’ said Wield.