Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Where shall we go?’ I asked Stanley.

  ‘Nowhere that they want us to go,’ he exclaimed. ‘The Bishop thinks I am bribable with some comfortable suburban parsonage. I told him that if I left it would be to somewhere that needed me more than a Yorkshire suburb. Like Africa.’

  The idea both frightens and excites me. But we had no time for discussion because people started to arrive for the sale. Things were going rather slowly, till who should turn up but Job Halavant. He is no churchgoer, but God moves in a mysterious way, and I suspect my father’s withdrawal from church life, and in particular his steadfast refusal to give any help or support to Stanley’s school campaign, has inspired a contrary interest in Job! He bought several pieces of old furniture which Stanley had put up for sale, and he bought Aunt Edwina’s pictures too. I was sorry to see them go. Stanley didn’t want me to sell them as they were all I brought with me from the Hall, but it was precisely for that reason I insisted. He was willing to part with everything of his own, so how could I do less? Job payed an excellent price, then on top of that he added five hundred pounds for the fund. Stanley said if we went on like this, we would be able to do what really ought to be done, which is rebuild the school from scratch. He was half joking, but lo and behold! two hours later Job Halavant returned. He had been on the phone and said that he had persuaded Theo Finch-Hatton to supply stone from his quarry at cost which Job himself would defray. Likewise Joe Nibb’s building firm was going to loan us digging and building equipment free, charging only for labour which again Job was willing to undertake, which meant work could start almost straight away!

  Whatever his motives are, this is God’s hand at work. Likewise, if we do go to Africa, it will not be the malice of my father in Old Hall that sends us there but the mercy of Our Father in Heaven.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘It was a Prince of days – everybody was out and talking of spring.’

  Wield stood with a cup of tea in his hand and looked out of the window. Spring sunshine on a cottage garden. Colour here a-plenty already with the tulips and daffs and a golden torrent of forsythia, and the promise of so much more to come – lilies and delphiniums, roses and red hot pokers. It needed a bit of work now the growing season was under way, but by the start of May it would be a picture. And the whole village too. A picture.

  Wield was no sentimentalist. If this business required the full police circus – police transports crowding the High Street, an army of bobbies beating across the moors, the village hall turned into an incident room, Post Office vans laying extra lines, helicopters quartering the skies, diggers and divers disturbing badgers and fish in their search for what no one wanted to find, house to house inquiries, the media mob, the bar of the Morris loud with urban oaths, the floor of the Wayside Café muddied with wallies’ wellies – if that’s what it took to find out what had become of Harold Bendish, so be it.

  On the other hand, to do that to a place like this if it wasn’t necessary was so much tactical bombing; no permanent physical damage of course, but places could be traumatized as well as people.

  He rinsed his cup and then with great care washed Digweed’s glasses too. They were probably worth a fortune and breaking them would be ill return for what was probably the man’s one good deed of the year.

  No, that was unfair. Digweed was obviously well thought of locally and willing to spend time and energy on the common weal. Last night he had called a truce. Wield was happy to let peace break out in its train. He began to whistle ‘The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, tra-la’ as he dried the glasses.

  Behind him someone coughed and he turned to see Filmer viewing this domestic scene with a lip-curl that prompted him to ask frivolously, ‘Solved the Great Post Office Mystery, yet, Terry?’

  ‘Funny,’ growled Filmer. ‘One thing for sure, he won’t be flying down to Rio on the proceeds.’

  ‘Or she,’ said Wield. ‘Mustn’t be sexist. What’s the damage?’

  ‘A cardigan Mrs Stacey got from a catalogue but it didn’t fit, a couple of Mr Digweed’s mail order books, and a herb pudding.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Mrs Hogbin’s herb pudding. It’s famous. Whenever she makes one, she sends a slice to her nephew in Wimbledon. Those were the packets so far as the Wylmots can recall. Some letters too, they think. I’ve checked with the packet senders. The cardigan cost twenty pounds, the books are worth about fifty, and the pudding about seven and six.’

  ‘Seven and six?’

  ‘They still count in old money among themselves round here,’ said Filmer.

  ‘So. Any ideas?’

  ‘Incomers,’ said Filmer with a countryman’s certainty.

  ‘Oh aye? Up the motorway from the big city, hit the target, and off, all for some books and a herb pudding?’ mocked Wield.

  ‘You got any better ideas? Going to run around with this like Prince Charming after Cinderella, perhaps?’

  He produced an evidence bag containing the sole cast Wield had found and tossed it on to the table with such force the cast broke in two.

  ‘Careful,’ remonstrated Wield, carefully picking up the bag. Broken, the cast showed even more clearly what it consisted of. Sand, earth, cement, gravel … It occurred to him he knew exactly where he could find such a combination underfoot. Before he could share his revelation, Filmer said, ‘Fat-arse and fancypants still stinking in their pits, are they? When are they going to start taking young Bendish’s disappearance seriously?’

  ‘Oh, soon,’ said Wield vaguely. Filmer’s genuine concern about his missing lad was touching, but that didn’t make his griping any less irritating. ‘You hold the fort here, will you, Terry, I’ve just got to pop up to Old Hall.’

  He made his way into the High Street and turned up the hill past the War Memorial. As he entered the churchyard he glimpsed a figure moving rapidly between the tombstones before vanishing through the arch into Green Alley. He couldn’t be certain but it looked like Franny Harding, clutching her ’cello case. She had been coming from the direction of the vicarage and on impulse he went to the arch leading into the vicarage garden and peered through.

  In the morning dew a single line of small footprints led from the french window across the lawn. None went the other way, which meant either she’d gone into the vicarage via the drive up past Corpse Cottage, or she’d been there all night. Giving encores?

  He caught a movement behind a bedroom window and, ashamed, he turned away and hurried into Green Alley.

  So deep immersed in thought was he that he almost walked through the little glade without noticing. Then he did a classic double take. The faun’s statue was back.

  Odder still, as he looked at it, its head fell off.

  And oddest of all, it spoke.

  ‘I didn’t break it!’

  He advanced and peered over the marble bench. Crouched behind it was little Madge Hogbin.

  ‘Hello, luv,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?’

  ‘Don’t go to school on Reckoning Day,’ she said.

  ‘That’s nice. Did you see who brought the statue back?’

  She shook her head violently and repeated, ‘I didn’t break it.’

  ‘Didn’t think you did,’ he said, picking up the head and wedging it into place. ‘Did you see it with a hat on the other day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And who put it there? Mr Bendish, was it? Harry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Who then?’

  ‘The other one.’

  ‘The other one what?’

  ‘The other policeman, silly!’

  ‘The other policeman? There were two policemen? And what were they doing?’

  She put her fist to her mouth and giggled bubblily.

  ‘I’m sorry, luv. I didn’t hear you. What were they doing?’

  The fist came out.

  ‘Kissing!’ she shouted. Then she was away through the bushes, trailing laughter behind her.

  Wield resu
med his walk and his musings. This time they were almost fatal, for he stepped off the path on to the drive without slowing down and had to step back extremely quickly as a battered yellow VW Beetle raced by, heading for the main gate. He just had time to glimpse Fran Harding’s diminutive figure crouching at the wheel, and leaning against the passenger seat her ’cello case.

  Behind her she had left a scene of frantic activity with half a dozen workmen cleaning up the mess left by their renovation of the stable block. This display of energy was explained by the supervisory presence of Girlie, pipe at full steam, standing on the entrance steps and occasionally issuing a fumarolic exhortation to greater effort.

  As Wield went slowly towards her, studying the ground in the hope of spotting a matching print to confirm his theory about the Post Office cast, Guy the Heir came striding across the garden to join his cousin on the steps. They exchanged what didn’t seem like very cousinly words, then he headed away towards the Land Rover parked round the side of the house.

  Wield went up the steps and joined Girlie.

  ‘Young Fran seemed in a hurry,’ he said.

  ‘Not another near miss, I hope! Don’t know what’s got into that girl. She’d better be in just as much of a hurry to get back here. It’s the Squire’s Reckoning today and I need all hands to man the pumps.’

  ‘At least you’ve got the weather for it,’ said Wield.

  ‘Sun always shines on Reckoning Day,’ said Girlie. ‘Anything I can do for you, Sergeant, as long as it doesn’t involve taking my eye off these layabouts?’

  But Wield was not listening. Rapt as Crusoe on that fatal Friday, he was looking down at a damp print on the age-smoothed granite which in pattern and dimension looked a precise match for the Post Office cast.

  He looked at Girlie’s feet. They seemed the right size but she was wearing a pair of green wellies, not trainers, and besides there was no reason for her feet to be damp.

  He heard the roar of the Land Rover’s engine bursting into life and the vehicle came slowly towards them. Wield raised his hand in an effort to signal it to stop, but Guy the Heir, either ignoring or mistaking the gesture, responded by raising his hand to his grey forage cap in mock salute.

  The gesture confirmed what Wield had deduced. The flowers that bloomed in the spring tra-la did after all have something to do with this case, for in the crease of the cap at the point where Guy’s fingers mockingly touched it was tucked a drooping, fading narcissus.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘… and then for Candour & Comfort & Coffee & …’

  ‘Couldn’t you at least drive me up to the door?’ pleaded Pascoe.

  ‘Don’t be daft! It’s nobbut a step and you’ll have to walk into the village afterwards anyway,’ said Dalziel. ‘See you later.’

  He’d brought it on himself by speculating as they drove along on who had rung Bendish with the report of someone hanging round Scarletts. Was the idea to get him there, or just to get him out of the way? Maybe no one rang … Maybe it was word of mouth …

  At which point Dalziel said, ‘Seems to me like you left a few gaps, lad.’

  ‘Not really. Not what I’d call gaps …’

  ‘Aye. Big enough for a horse to crap through. We’ll be passing yon fancy house soon. Good chance to fill ’em.’

  ‘And you, sir …?’

  ‘Not me. No good with these arty-farties. I think I’ll have a word with that Dora Creed at the café.’

  ‘Miss Creed? But what’s she got to do with anything?’

  ‘Don’t know. But she’s got nice little feet. And there was a good smell coming out of her caff yesterday. Here we are. Out you get!’

  And here he was faced with what seemed like a mile of Fop-patrolled garden to get across.

  If it were a mile, he broke the world record and practically fell through the door when at last it opened to his urgent knock.

  It was only as the door closed behind him that he realized, like the cowardly prince in the legend, that his flight had brought him face to face with what he most feared. There at the foot of the stairs, like Anubis guarding the entrance to a Pharaoh’s tomb, sat Fop.

  Slowly the beast rose, slowly advanced, and slowly took a long reflective sniff at his crotch. Then scornfully it turned away and vanished into the kitchen.

  Some test had been passed, for Mrs Bayle said, ‘I’ll tell him you’re here.’

  ‘I’d like a word with you first. Please.’

  She led him into a laundry room where she resumed her task of ironing sheets. There was a warm, comfortable smell, reminding him of childhood. Ellie was not big on ironing sheets.

  ‘It’s about the night Mr Bendish called,’ he began. ‘Can you remember exactly what he said?’

  ‘He said there’d been a report of someone suspicious hanging around the house.’

  ‘Did he say someone had phoned him with this report? Or told him direct? Or what?’

  She regarded him stonily and said, ‘You asked what he said exactly and I’ve told you. Nowt about phones or owt like that, just there’s been a report.’

  ‘Fine, good, excellent,’ said Pascoe. ‘So you let him in to look around.’

  ‘He insisted.’

  ‘And what did he say when he came in?’

  ‘First off, he asked me if the alarm system was on. I said, aye, it were always on, and he said would I switch it off, and I said, what for? And he said, so’s he wouldn’t set it off when he was checking, and I said, he could check without touching, and he said his mate who was checking outside would likely try the windows to make sure they were fast …’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Pascoe, reluctant to interrupt this unprecedented flow but in need of clarification. ‘His mate? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean his mate. T’other bobby in the car.’

  ‘You mean there were two of them?’

  ‘No wonder you lose track, mister, when you don’t know how many you’ve got in the first place!’ she said in exasperation.

  ‘This other policeman, did you know him?’

  ‘No. Not that I saw much on him, but the only other bobby I’ve ever seen with young Bendish is yon Sergeant Filmer and it weren’t him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Not big enough. Sat there with his hat on and there were still plenty of space above, not like yon awkward length Filmer.’

  Pascoe recalled Dalziel’s words. Gaps big enough for a horse to crap through. And shuddered at the thought of the Fat Man’s reaction to this extraordinary new information.

  But that was for the future. Here and now he’d better devote all his energies to making sure he didn’t leave a crack a mite could crawl through.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘We went round the house, him picking things up and fiddling with things when all he had to do was ask me if owt had been interfered with and I’d have soon told him. He opened the curtains and checked the windows …’

  ‘Did you see anything of this other policeman, the one who was supposed to be checking outside?’

  ‘Aye, I got a glimpse, but it’s no use asking if I recognized him. It were dark out there and I’d switched the security lights off with the rest of the system. Is this going to take much longer? I’ve got the lunch to be getting on with.’

  Pascoe, who did not relish the thought of a transfer to the kitchen where Fop was demolishing bones, said hastily, ‘Not long. Just tell me what else happened.’

  ‘Happened? Nowt. No, I tell a lie. We got to the drawing-room …’

  ‘That’s the long room, the one with most pictures?’

  ‘Aye, that’s the one. And while we were in there the phone rang, and I went out into the hall to answer it.’

  ‘What was the Constable doing then?’

  ‘Same as other places, fiddling with the window, I think.’

  ‘Who was it on the phone?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘I don’t see that’s any of your business,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if it’s a
secret …’

  ‘No secret,’ she said. ‘It were some lass from the television wanting to talk to Mr Halavant about his next programme. She said he’d gone through it with his producer but he’d managed to mislay his notes or summat and there were some things he needed to check.’

  ‘Did she keep you talking long?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘Long enough and all for nowt. I told her he weren’t home, but she insisted I took down all the bits they needed to know about running order and inserts and that stuff.’

  Beneath her scorn was a certain pride at being au fait with such matters. Even the Mrs Bayles of this world were not impervious to the seductive charms of the telly.

  ‘But in the end it were all for nowt,’ she concluded, all scorn now. ‘She suddenly announces the producer is signalling he’s found his notes after all, so thank you and good night!’

  ‘So you didn’t need to bother Mr Halavant with this?’

  ‘No, but I told him just the same.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because, like you, he asked. Just after you’d been yesterday. Just the same, question after question. I told him I went back to the Constable and I showed him out and I watched him get in the car …’

  ‘His colleague was still in the passenger seat?’

  ‘Aye. And I saw them go down the drive and out of the gate. And I made sure they shut it behind them. Then I went back inside and checked round for myself. And then I thought I heard a noise …’

  ‘Like a bird, I think you said?’

  ‘Aye, but not like any bird I know,’ she replied. ‘Truth is, I don’t hear high sounds so well any more. Doesn’t bother me, got a special bell fitted to the phone so I don’t miss none of his calls. So this noise, it was more like I knew it was there than really heard it.’