Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  Dora said, ‘Ezekiel, III, 3.’

  ‘I love a holy woman,’ said Dalziel, swallowing. ‘Then did I eat it and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. I’ll have another of them.’

  She said, ‘You’re that policeman, aren’t you?’

  ‘Superintendent Dalziel,’ he said. ‘Andy to my friends. And you’re Dora Creed, the best baker in Yorkshire. My dad were a baker, you know. Came down from Glasgow in the Depression, got taken on at Ebor’s, they’ve been taken over by some supermarket long since and it’s all done by computers now. I’d almost forgot what real baking smelt like till I came in here.’

  ‘We’re still shut,’ said Dora, less positively. ‘I’m getting stuff ready to be picked up for the Squire’s Feast.’

  ‘You mean all this lot’s going up to the Hall?’

  ‘Aye, it’s traditional. He feeds everyone who turns up for the Reckoning.’

  ‘Does he now?’ said Dalziel speculatively. ‘I’ll tell you what, luv. You carry on, and I’ll just fit in the odd question as you go by.’

  ‘Well, if it’s official,’ she said, weakening.

  ‘If it were any more official, it ’ud be wearing pinstripes,’ he assured her. ‘In fact, why don’t I give you a hand with these trays while we’re talking?’

  ‘And yourself a hand with my grub, I don’t doubt,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Though shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn,’ said Dalziel. ‘Deuteronomy.’

  ‘I know where it’s from,’ she said. ‘I’m just amazed where it’s got to.’

  ‘You and I are going to understand each other very well,’ laughed Andrew Dalziel. ‘Is that an apple pie? My favourite.’

  ‘Aye, but it’s not cut.’

  ‘Cut? You’re not expecting it to do more than one, are you?’

  She began to laugh and Dalziel would have laughed with her if his mother hadn’t taught him that it was rude to laugh with your mouth full.

  When Wield arrived ten minutes later he found the two well-upholstered figures sitting at one of the tables, their heads almost meeting across a somewhat diminished trayful of confections, with Dora Creed doing most of the talking, a predominance maintained by the fact that the sight of Dalziel’s open mouth clearly affected her like a fledgling’s gape and she couldn’t resist popping something into it.

  Wield had been making for Digweed’s shop with the recovered books till the sight of Dalziel’s car diverted him. Now he wondered if it were wise to break up such an intimate tableau and thought of withdrawing, but the Fat Man looked up and said, ‘Watchman, what of the night?’

  ‘Isaiah, XXI, 10,’ said Dora.

  ‘Eleven, I think you’ll find, luv,’ said Dalziel. ‘Why don’t you go and look it up while I talk with Shadrach here?’

  Obediently, nay, gladly, the woman rose and left. What would have been her attitude if Dalziel had turned up in leathers on a bike? wondered Wield. Probably the same. You didn’t apply human rules to a force of nature.

  He sat down and brought the Fat Man up to date.

  While not expecting fulsome praise, he had hopes of an acknowledgement that his morning had not been in vain.

  ‘So you reckon you’ve solved both these break-ins? Bloody hell, Wieldy, I left you here so’s you could find this missing ploughboy, not do his sodding job!’

  ‘Is that right, sir?’ said Wield, stung. ‘And what have you found, apart from the quality of Miss Creed’s pastry?’

  ‘Me?’ Dalziel’s left eyelid drooped in a knowing wink. ‘I’ve found out what George Creed’s sin was. Have a custard tart. They’re lovely! And stop sulking. It spoils your baby looks!’

  What indiscreet reply Wield, in the grip of his Enscombe-inspired openness, might have made was never known, for at that moment an ancient pick-up rattled to a halt outside and a pair of young farmworkers appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Miss Creed!’ yelled one of them. ‘We’ve come for the grub.’

  Dora emerged from the kitchen and said apologetically to Dalziel, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get this stuff up to the Hall.’

  ‘Nay, lass, we’ll help you load it,’ said the Fat Man gallantly. ‘Won’t we, Sergeant?’

  And for the second time that day Wield found himself acting as an unpaid labourer for the Guillemards.

  As he staggered out weighed down by one of Dora’s trays, he saw Digweed emerge from the bookshop. He glanced Wield’s way and the Sergeant opened his mouth but before he could speak the bookseller’s glance slid over him dismissively and the lean, patrician figure moved swiftly across the street and vanished into the Gallery.

  Sod you too! thought Wield. But any further brooding on the snub was prevented by the arrival of Pascoe, chauffeured by Justin Halavant.

  Pascoe looked with mild amazement on the scene before him but Halavant’s gaze was on the gallery door through which Digweed had just vanished.

  He said, ‘Look, I need to pop into the Morris and set Thomas’s mind at rest.’

  ‘No, hang on,’ said Pascoe, who’d got out. ‘I think Mr Dalziel …’

  ‘I am not about to flee the country, Chief Inspector,’ said Halavant acidly. ‘But I have better things to do than sit around while your colleagues moonlight as removal men.’

  He gunned the engine, swung the wheel hard over and managed a U-turn with millimetres to spare.

  ‘What was that all about?’ asked Dalziel.

  ‘I don’t know. Cold feet, maybe,’ said Pascoe. ‘It’s not good news, sir. What it looks like is, the night before last young Harold Bendish conned his way into Scarletts in order to steal a painting. He had an accomplice also dressed as a cop, probably in his spare uniform. While Mrs Bayle was out of the room answering a fake phone call, Bendish removed the painting, passed it through the window, took in a copy, and hung that in its place.’

  ‘Desperate Dan’s going to love this,’ said the Fat Man. ‘But if you’ve got it right, lad, why’s yon prancing pillock not running around screaming blue murder and threatening to write to his MP?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s almost like he’s treading water. He didn’t argue with anything I said … it was like he knew it all already. I mean, he’d taken the picture, the copy, if I’m right, off the wall already.’

  ‘But he hadn’t come running to us to make a complaint?’

  ‘No, sir. And another thing. The original was an eighteenth-century painting of a fashionable young lady. Halavant said it was one of his ancestors. But according to local history, in the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, the Halavants were still, to quote, a bunch of raggedyarsed peasants!’

  ‘So he’s ashamed of his family origins,’ said Dalziel. ‘No crime in that. Where’s he off to now?’

  ‘The Morris. You know he owns it? Well, evidently he was thinking of selling but after our little chat he’s changed his mind for some reason, so he’s keen to let Wapshare know.’

  The Fat Man’s eyes lit up.

  ‘So it’ll be celebration time down there. It’s time I looked in else Thomas will be thinking he’s offended me. I should’ve gone there first off, anyway. Yon bugger misses nowt that goes on in Enscombe.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Wield. ‘I think we’re in business.’

  He pointed down the High Street to where a Land Rover had just pulled up outside the Post Office.

  ‘Returning to the scene of the crime, you reckon?’ said Dalziel as they watched Guy the Heir get out and go inside the shop. ‘All right, we’ll have a word as we go on past to the pub.’

  He turned and shouted to Dora Creed, ‘Thanks for the grub, luv. I’ll mebbe see you up at the Hall later. Keep smiling!’

  ‘A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance,’ she called.

  ‘And he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast,’ capped Dalziel.

  Where the hell does he get all this scriptural knowledge from? wondered Wield as he and Pascoe fell into step on either side of the Fat Man, who was str
iding purposefully down the middle of the street.

  Doc Holliday and the Earp Brothers on their way to the OK Corral, thought Pascoe. All it needed was a good sound-track. Dalziel broke wind. Not My Darling Clementine after all, but Blazing Saddles, emended Pascoe wryly.

  They stopped outside the Post Office. Through the window they could see Guy Guillemard talking to Daphne Wylmot. He was full of animation, she markedly less so.

  ‘Full marks for nerve,’ said Wield grimly. ‘Shall we go in, sir?’

  ‘Just hold your horses,’ said Dalziel thoughtfully.

  Inside, Guy had picked up Daphne’s hand from the counter. She glanced towards the window, saw the watching trio and said something to the man who turned to look at them and roared with laughter. Then, blowing the woman a kiss, he came out of the shop.

  ‘If it’s not the Keystones!’ he mocked. ‘Who said silent comedy was dead?’

  He climbed into the Land Rover. Wield looked urgently at Dalziel who stepped forward and said, ‘Mind you belt up, sir.’

  ‘Thank you kindly,’ said Guy. ‘Mustn’t be breaking the law, must we? Ciao!’

  The vehicle pulled away.

  Wield turned incredulously to the Fat Man but before he could speak, Dalziel patted him on the head almost paternally and said, ‘Usually it makes no difference, Wieldy, but sometimes having the wrong aerial really mucks up your reception. Hang on here a tick while I have a quiet word.’

  He went into the shop, leaving the door open so that his ‘quiet word’ came booming out.

  ‘’Morning, missus,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Dalziel, CID.’

  ‘Good morning. If it’s about the break-in I’m afraid my husband isn’t here.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Dalziel. ‘You can pass on owt you think he ought to know, luv. It’s just a sort of confirmation really, as the bishop said to the choirboy. First off, you and Guy Guillemard are having it off, right?’

  ‘What?’ The woman’s voice rose disbelievingly. ‘What do you mean …?’

  ‘Well, like, you’re having a fling, screwing, humping, shagging …’

  It would have been semasiologically interesting to see where Dalziel’s search for the mot juste led him, but the woman lacked the true scientific spirit.

  ‘How dare you talk to me like this?’ she interrupted angrily.

  ‘Sorry, luv,’ said Dalziel penitently. ‘Does that mean you’d rather we waited for Mr Wylmot? I’m not in a hurry.’

  Sometimes Pascoe thought Dalziel was a sadist. Sometimes he thought he was just a man who liked to cut through crap. Always he knew that with the Fat Man you got a choice. Either you did things his way now, or you did them his way a little later.

  Daphne Wylmot read the runes and said in a voice which was suddenly as calm as a summer sea, ‘That won’t be necessary. Yes, Guy and I are lovers. Please go on.’

  ‘And last night Guy Guillemard came round here after your husband had gone to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Bit chancy that, wasn’t it, luv?’

  Daphne laughed musically.

  ‘No, I don’t take chances, Superintendent. Dudley can’t hold his drink. When he’s had a skinful, he falls into bed and that’s it for at least six hours.’

  Wield, recalling her spritzer and Dudley’s large gin and tonics, thought grimly that she certainly didn’t take chances.

  ‘So you switched off the alarm and opened the back door and let Guy in. And when he’d finished, you let him out and forgot to put the alarm back on.’

  ‘I didn’t forget. I was rather … tired myself when we finished so I just told him to let himself out. I knew I’d be up first and I meant to lock the door and switch the alarm on then. But when I saw we’d been burgled, I thought it would be foolish to touch the alarm.’

  ‘Very wise,’ beamed Dalziel. ‘There, it hardly hurt at all, did it, missus? Thanks for your cooperation.’

  ‘And thank you in advance for your discretion,’ she replied.

  ‘You can bank on it,’ said Dalziel gallantly. ‘Good-looking lass like you, but. I reckon you could do a lot better for yourself than yon bag of wind.’

  ‘Really? You’ve fucked with Guy too, have you?’ she asked with wide-eyed interest.

  It was a rare pleasure to see Dalziel put down beyond riposte, but they knew better than to let it show.

  He glowered at them suspiciously as he came out of the shop and said, ‘So that’s only one of the two crimes of the century you’ve solved, Wieldy. Mebbe you’d better check them books really did come from Digweed’s shop before you start crowing about the other.’

  He nodded up the street to where Digweed had just emerged from the Gallery. The bookseller glanced in their direction, then hurried into his shop.

  ‘I’ll see you in the pub, then,’ said Wield, glad of a chance to escape.

  ‘Poor old Wieldy!’ laughed Pascoe, watching him hurry away.

  ‘You were ready to go along, weren’t you?’ growled Dalziel. ‘And you’ve not got his excuse. So let’s be getting on down to the Morris, shall we? And see what kind of cock-up you’ve managed to make!’

  And suddenly Pascoe felt all his newfound certainties crumbling like Dora Creed’s shortcrust pastry.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘How soon the difference of temper in Children appears!’

  Kee Scudamore had been sitting by the till when Digweed entered the Gallery.

  ‘You’re looking very pensive,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you found finance so enthralling.’

  ‘It’s money that makes the world go round,’ she said. ‘I should have thought last night’s meeting made that quite clear. This windfall Larry hinted at, have you any idea what it might be?’

  ‘I should have thought you were more likely to be his confidante than I,’ he answered, smiling.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked angrily.

  ‘Whoops. Sorry. You seem to be fond of his company, that was all I meant. Forgive me if I strayed into an impertinence.’

  ‘A misconception, certainly,’ she said rather bitterly. ‘I can assure you that it isn’t me he’s got his eyes on.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve noticed, then?’

  ‘Hasn’t everyone?’

  ‘Indeed. Has he said anything?’

  ‘Not in so many words, or rather, so far I’ve avoided hearing them.’

  ‘I see. Or rather I don’t. Why should he speak to you rather than Caddy herself? I know you are in some ways in loco parentis, but surely such old-fashioned notions hardly apply in this day and age, not even in clerical circles?’

  ‘Can’t say. You’ll need to ask Larry.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, regarding her thoughtfully. ‘Here’s that deed of his, by the way. Very interesting notion of yours, but as I forecast, far beyond the reach of my own rusty law. I faxed it off to a chum of mine who’s better equipped to pronounce on such things. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear. Of course, Larry might be well ahead of you in all this. Could be that this is what he was getting at last night.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps.’ The idea seemed to please her. ‘I think I’ll take this back to him now and drop a hint.’

  He said gently, ‘Kee, you will take care.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’m very fond of you, that’s all. Look, sometimes it seems better to plunge in, take risks, get your pain over. But pick your moment. You’ve got to carry on living afterwards, whatever happens.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Edwin?’ she asked, very controlled.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Finance perhaps. Investment. That’s what makes the world go round, didn’t you say? Is Caddy above?’

  ‘Yes. You want to see her? You might tell her I’ll be out for a while. Not that it makes the slightest difference!’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose it does,’ said Digweed.

  He ran lightly up the stairs and went straight into the studio without knocking. Caddy was standing in front
of her portrait of Wield, studying it critically.

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Digweed. ‘Is that who I think it is? Of course it is, there can’t be two like that!’

  ‘Hi, Edwin,’ she said. ‘There’s something missing.’

  ‘Indeed. And from your Crucifixion still, I see. Have you decided whose face is going to plug that gap?’

  ‘Whoever fits,’ she said vaguely. ‘Was there something special you wanted?’

  ‘Just to say, that cover business, it’s all finished now. All loose ends tied up. OK?’

  ‘If you say so,’ she said indifferently.

  ‘I do. Caddy, exactly what is it you’re trying to paint here?’

  His gaze had moved from the oval blank above the shapely torso to the background. By a trick of compression, Scarletts had been relocated just below the school. Halavant, accompanied by Fop, from whose jaws dangled a scrap of bloodstained cloth, was looking towards the Green where the builder Phil Wallop, previously imaged standing triumphantly next to a cement mixer, had been over-painted to a pale shadow, but his check-trousered legs could now be seen bright and fresh, waving from the mixer’s mouth.

  ‘What I see,’ she said. ‘Or maybe time. The way one thing takes the place of another, but nothing ever really goes away. Not here anyway. But it’s not right either. It’s so easy to miss things, isn’t it?’

  She was back in front of Wield’s portrait.

  Digweed said encouragingly, ‘Honestly, it’s fine. Such a strange face. God, I’d not like to play poker with him!’

  ‘Yes, I think he’s a man who uses silences like you use words …’

  She let the sentence hang, then began to laugh.

  ‘That’s it. Of course. Thank you, Edwin.’

  ‘For what?’ he asked. Then bewilderment turned to incredulity as he looked from her face to Wield’s and back again.

  ‘Caddy, if you’re saying what I think, well, that’s absurd …’

  ‘Of course, but isn’t everything? So that’s all right.’

  She picked up her brush and palette and approached the painting. Her foot kicked over a half-full mug of cold coffee but she didn’t notice as she began to attack Wield’s eyes.