Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  He didn’t have an answer ready himself, apart from porn or a terrorist handbook, neither of which seemed very likely. But what came out was a well-used copy in a slightly tatty dust jacket of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. He opened the accompanying letter.

  Dear Mrs Pascoe,

  Here is the copy of Murder on the Orient Express we talked about on the phone. I hope it is to your satisfaction and that your husband finds it a suitable ornament to his collection. I enclose my invoice in the sum of £295 as agreed.

  ‘Bit hefty for an old thriller, isn’t it?’ said Wield.

  ‘It’s a first edition, with dust wrapper,’ said Digweed. ‘In better condition, I could get four hundred. At that price it’s a bargain.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Wield. ‘It’s dodgy, else you’d not have wanted to get it back when you discovered it was intended for a cop. Is it a forgery?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said the bookseller. ‘That would cost more than the book’s worth!’

  ‘Then it’s the jacket! What was it you said yesterday? A jacket could bump the price up by ten times or more?’

  He saw by Digweed’s face that he’d hit on the truth.

  ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘I mean, OK, so you make a hundred quid or so, it’s not going to make you rich, is it? And it’s a fellow booklover you’re ripping off.’

  The accusation hit Digweed where it hurt. He said, ‘Look, it’s not as bad as it seems … Well, yes, it is, and I’m ashamed, but my motives … What happened was I happened to get two inquiries from the States on the very same day for this volume, and I knew where I could lay my hands on one. I already had on my shelves a couple of copies without wrappers …’

  ‘Worth?’ interposed Wield.

  ‘Oh thirty, forty pounds,’ said Digweed. ‘But that wasn’t the point. I had to disappoint one of my American customers, and I was wondering which when … a friend said, why disappoint either? and a few days later came up with this superb copy of the wrapper design. Well, I did the jacket copy, I mean the writing – it was a sort of challenge – and in the end I had something only a truly expert and scientific examination could distinguish from the original. It all took time and money, you understand. In fact by the time I finished …’

  ‘You were working for nothing, yes, yes,’ said Wield impatiently. ‘So you sent one of the Americans a copy … no, in the end you sent them both a copy, didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t want to play favourites,’ said Digweed. ‘Then coincidentally – these things always go in threes, don’t they? – there came this query from Mrs Pascoe. It was for an anniversary present, and she’d set her heart on getting him this, and I was her last hope … I couldn’t resist.’

  Wield nodded in amused recognition. One of the many things he admired about Ellie Pascoe was that in matters of commerce she didn’t let her feminism inhibit her from using her femininity.

  ‘This friend who copied the design, it was Caddy Scudamore?’

  ‘I never said that,’ said Digweed. ‘I shall never say that.’

  ‘Very noble,’ said Wield. ‘But you’re better at bitchy. Man should follow his natural bent.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ said Digweed abruptly, ‘I presume my particulars will be fed into some know-it-all computer? So perhaps I should preemptively admit I have a record.’

  ‘You what? You’re not really the Pink Panther?’ said Wield, smiling.

  ‘No, though in retrospect my trial seems more comic than tragic. Here are the facts. About thirty years ago a certain gentleman who later became an ornament of the House of Lords was discovered in a Brighton hotel committing what was called an act of gross indecency with his solicitor. It caused great mirth. The lord-in-waiting got six months, suspended. The young solicitor was adjudged to have been led astray by a man his superior in age and social standing, so he got let off with a hefty fine, which he could scarcely afford. And he was also debarred from practising law by his professional council. No prizes for guessing his name. It will all be there in your records, I do not doubt.’

  Long before Digweed finished talking, Wield had reached his own conclusion.

  He knows about me. He can’t do, but he does. It’s nothing I’ve done or said, I’m sure of that. So someone’s told him. Who? Pascoe? Never. Dalziel? Not unless he saw something in it for himself! Which left … no one. Maybe he was being neurotic and Digweed had pressed his button without being aware of it. Such things happened sometimes in interrogations, and the suspect coughed to crimes he wasn’t even suspected of when all he had to do was look blank.

  But meeting the bookseller’s gaze full on and seeing the ironically interrogative arch of those hispid eyebrows, he knew that this time he was got bang to rights.

  He said quietly, ‘Mebbe I should warn you, attempting to influence a public officer by blackmail or intimidation gets you far more than burglary.’

  Digweed’s irony rounded into puzzlement, then exploded into disgust.

  ‘Good God, man, what do you think I am? Some young shit tried that on me once. I told him to publish and be damned. Then, seeing from his oikish expression that he did not grasp the reference, I kicked him in the crutch. He certainly grasped that!’

  Wield said, ‘Assault as well as burglary? You’re a man of hidden talents.’

  ‘Not so well hidden as yours, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Digweed.

  Wield considered this, found he didn’t mind, and said, ‘All right. I’m sorry I misunderstood. Trouble with you is, the stick’s got so many wrong ends, it’s a hard job finding the right one. So nothing’s changed, then. I know you’re gay. You know I am. I’m still a cop, you’re still a crook.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  Wield said, ‘I’m thinking. Care to tell me how you clocked me?’

  ‘I didn’t. Retrospectively I see indicators, of course, such as a strange reluctance to despise you as much as you clearly deserved. But, no, it was Caddy. Don’t be surprised. She has a true artist’s eye and sees behind most masks.’

  ‘So she knows about you?’

  ‘Good Lord, everyone in Enscombe knows about me,’ laughed Digweed. ‘And knew about me long before our worthy constabulary did me the favour of “outing” me all those years ago.’

  ‘A favour, you say? And you’re not thinking of returning the favour?’

  ‘By outing you? How many times do I have to tell you, I’m neither a blackmailer nor a radical.’

  ‘So why let me know you know?’

  ‘Just to be sure. I’d have tried to check you out even if this unfortunate business hadn’t come up. So let’s forget it, shall we, and carry on regardless. What now?’

  ‘How often have you done this?’

  ‘I’ve told you. The two Americans and Mrs Pascoe. She was the last. If it wasn’t that Cad … that my friend had done me three jackets and I still had one left, I wouldn’t have dreamt of it. In fact, I spoke with my friend just after our first encounter and told her that was it. I must have subconsciously penetrated your disguise even then!’

  ‘And your friend?’

  ‘She – or he – had no more interest in any case. All that concerned her was the technique involved. For an artist, copying is part of the learning process whether it’s an old master or a book design.’

  ‘But you’ve still got the genuine jacket, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, I have. But why …?’

  ‘I think Mrs Pascoe deserves it. In fact,’ added Wield, removing the forged jacket and slowly tearing it up, ‘I think she’s going to get it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Digweed, regarding him with an expression in which bewilderment warred with hope.

  ‘Good. Just to be on the safe side, I’d run a duster over the rest of the mail, the bits you shouldn’t have touched. And wear gloves when you take them into town to re-post them.’

  The bookseller fell to with a will …

  What the hell am I doing? Wield asked himself. I mus
t be mad! But before his introspection could go further, Digweed stopped in his task of rubbing his prints off envelopes and said, ‘Sergeant, I didn’t pay any heed to these before, but now I look closer … well, there’s a couple here I think you ought to see.’

  He passed over two identical buff envelopes.

  Wield took them and studied the addresses.

  ‘I think we’ve got a problem,’ he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘When are calculations ever right?—Nobody ever feels or acts, suffers or enjoys, as one expects.’

  Dalziel’s entry into the Morris was like the prodigal’s return home.

  ‘Thomas, it’s been a long time!’ boomed the Fat Man.

  ‘Should have been sooner,’ beamed Wapshare. ‘When I heard you were in the village yesterday, I drew a pint straight off ’cos I thought: Any moment now he’ll be here! When you didn’t show up, I thought: Mebbe he’s got religion!’

  ‘Shortage of time, Thomas, that’s all. But I’ll have it now, long as it’s not the same one. Where’s Halavant? Isn’t that his car out front?’

  ‘Oh, he was here, but he nipped out the back as you came in the front,’ said Wapshare. ‘Owes you money, does he?’

  ‘He’s just driving away,’ said Pascoe, looking out of the window. ‘Shall I go after him?’

  ‘Nay, I doubt you’d catch him on foot, lad. He’ll keep. He owns this place, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Thinking of selling, didn’t you say, Mr Wapshare?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘He was, but he seems to have changed his mind. That’s what he popped in to tell me,’ said Wapshare. ‘Andy, will you have a piece of pie to go with that beer? Don’t have time to do you a black pudding, I’m afraid. I’m off up to the Hall shortly for the Reckoning Feast.’

  ‘Might just join you,’ said Dalziel. ‘Yon Creed lass knows her way around a bakery, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Aye, and there’ll be some of her brother’s ham to go with it,’ said Wapshare, smacking his lips at the prospect.

  ‘Been around a long time, these Creeds?’ asked Dalziel after downing two-thirds of a pint.

  ‘Oh aye. Used to be shepherds on the estate, when there were an estate. Then way back before the war, old Sam Creed, that’s Dora and George’s granddad, took a step up in the world, married little Agnes Foote who was lady’s maid to the Squire’s wife, and a bit later when the tenancy of Crag End came up, Sam applied and beat the field. Creeds have been there ever since and bloody good farmers they are too.’

  Pascoe watched with interest to see if Dalziel would be any better than he’d been at staunching this flow of history, but the Fat Man seemed content to fill his mouth with pie and listen.

  ‘Talking of Halavant,’ said Dalziel as Wapshare refilled his glass. ‘Weren’t there something about a picture, the Squire’s auntie or summat …’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wapshare. ‘Worth a bit, by all accounts.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asked Pascoe, thinking of the rather dull painting he’d seen on Fran’s wall. Not even love had been able to raise Ralph Digweed above an honest competence.

  ‘Just the fuss old Job made about giving it back,’ said Wapshare. ‘Hetty Bayle told me about it one night when she’d had a drop too much of the genevas. She were there at the deathbed, you see, ready for the laying out. Best layer-out in these parts is Hetty Bayle. Turns out a corpse fit for a Whitsun wedding, my old mother always used to say.’

  Mrs Bayle as layer-out did not present a more gruesome picture to Pascoe’s mind than Mrs Bayle made confidential by a surfeit of gin. He shuddered and asked, ‘What did Job – that was Justin’s father, right? – say exactly?’

  ‘Just that young Fran had to have her grandmother’s picture back. Must have been weighing on his conscience. He wasn’t a man to let himself be bothered by trifles, wasn’t Job.’

  ‘How had he got it in the first place?’

  ‘Well it was when the Vicar, Mr Harding, the one Frances from the Hall got married to and fell out with the family over, it was when he was running around like mad, raising money to save the school back in the ’thirties. You see, there wasn’t much help forthcoming from the Hall ’cos he’d married Frances and the old Squire wasn’t going to do owt that might help the Vicar! Anyway, Mr Harding had a bit of a sale at the vicarage, and Job went along and bought a few sticks of furniture and also these pictures that were his wife’s. Didn’t want her to sell them by all accounts, but she was determined she were going to do her bit. Got a decent price from Job, and a bit later when the fund were still short, Job chipped in a big lump more to make it up. Everyone reckoned at the time he just wanted to show the Hall lot up for a lot of mean bastards. But looking back, it seems likely now that his conscience were bothering him ’cos that picture of Edwina were worth a lot more than he said.’

  ‘Pictures. You said he bought some pictures. Plural,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Aye, I believe there were another, but the one the fuss was about, the one Job told Justin to give back, was old Edwina,’ said Wapshare confidently. ‘He were a hard bugger, but with eternity staring him in the face he thought it best to set the record straight.’

  But eternity hadn’t been staring Justin in the face, thought Pascoe. When old Job whispered with his dying breath, ‘Give Fran her grandmother’s picture,’ he left his son a choice, not a real choice perhaps, but one by which a man obsessed by artistic beauty might be able to salve his filial conscience.

  ‘All right, lad, spit it out,’ said Dalziel. ‘When you start standing there like a hen with the gapes, it means you’ve had an idea.’

  ‘Just a thought really,’ said Pascoe, glancing uneasily at Wapshare.

  ‘Nay, it’s all right,’ said Dalziel, taking his meaning. ‘You can talk in front of Thomas. Sooner or later he hears every bloody thing that’s said round here. Only he knows if it’s said to me, or by me, and he passes it on without my say-so, he’ll end up in one of his own black puddings. Right, Thomas?’

  ‘You know me, Andy. Soul of discretion.’

  ‘Arse ’ole more like,’ said Dalziel. ‘Peter?’

  Pascoe explained, concluding, ‘So if there were some doubt about the provenance of this painting, that would explain why Halavant’s been so coy about reporting its theft.’

  ‘And you say you found him rooting around Corpse Cottage?’

  ‘Actually he was lying on the bed with the Vicar on top of him,’ said Pascoe. ‘But I suspect he went there to search in the first place.’

  ‘So, he’s a bloody sight sharper than some folk I could mention.’

  ‘He had all the facts,’ protested Pascoe.

  ‘That’s what we get paid for, Peter. Getting there without the facts,’ said Dalziel pontifically. ‘This picture, how much might it be worth?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’m no expert and what I saw was only a copy. But if it was by someone really big like Reynolds, say, the sky’s the limit. There are a lot of other important portraitists in the eighteenth century who would fetch a small fortune.’

  ‘So,’ said Dalziel with satisfaction. ‘Enough to make a poor cop think it worth taking a risk, eh?’

  ‘But it can’t have seemed all that much of a risk,’ offered Pascoe. ‘With the copy in place, and with Halavant reluctant to report it missing if and when he noticed …’

  ‘So why’s young Bendish not around toughing it out?’ demanded Dalziel, glaring at the door as if he expected the answer to come bursting in.

  It opened, and Wield stepped inside. He was carrying a plastic supermarket bag.

  ‘Well, bugger me,’ said Dalziel. ‘Here’s some of us working our fingers to the bone, and others have got time to bunk off and do their weekend shopping!’

  Wield’s gaze took in the pint pot and the half-eaten pie.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ he said. ‘But you know you left your car outside the caff? Well, the radio were bleeping so I opened the door and I found this dumped on the seat.�
��

  He up-ended the bag on the bar and tipped out the stolen packets and letters.

  ‘Don’t tell me. You’ve solved the Post Office break-in again!’ said Dalziel. ‘Who’s in the frame this time? Me?’

  ‘You shouldn’t leave your car unlocked,’ said Wield mildly. ‘No, I reckon someone got cold feet and just decided to give the stuff back. But there is something here you should look at.’

  ‘Aye, well, first things first. What did Control want?’

  ‘Message for you to get in touch with Mr Trimble, sir. But I really think you ought to see these first.’

  He placed the two brown envelopes in front of Dalziel.

  ‘I saw Bendish’s writing on the notice board in the cottage,’ he said. ‘This looks like it.’

  One of the envelopes was addressed to Sergeant Filmer at the Byreford Section Office. The other was addressed to Chief Constable Daniel Trimble.

  Dalziel weighed them delicately in his hand as though attempting to access their contents by ESP. Then with sudden decision he inserted his forefinger under the top-most flap and ripped the envelope open.

  ‘Sir,’ said Pascoe anxiously. ‘Should you be doing that?’

  ‘Could be a bomb,’ said Dalziel. ‘Any road, likely they were open when you found ’em, eh, Wieldy? Now let the dog see the rabbit.’

  He pulled out the single sheet in the envelope addressed to Trimble, read it without any visible reaction, then turned his attention to the much longer missive addressed to Sergeant Filmer. Now, like Belshazzar’s dining-room wall, those slablike features began to show a message.

  And when he finished he said, as Belshazzar himself probably said in some vernacular translation, ‘Well, fuck me rigid with a wooden truncheon!’

  ‘Sir?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Want to read them now they’re open, do you?’ observed Dalziel scornfully. ‘Here, then, take a look. Thomas, I need a phone.’