Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  ‘In the kitchen, Andy. Help yourself.’

  ‘And Thomas, me nerves are shattered. I think I’d better have a large medicinal malt to stick ’em back together again!’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘You write so even, so clear both in style & Penmanship, so much to the point & give so much real intelligence that it is enough to kill one.’

  Pascoe read the shorter letter first. It was dated two days earlier, the day of Wield’s visit to Enscombe.

  Dear Mr Trimble,

  I am writing this to let you know my intention to resign from the Force with immediate effect. I am sorry not to give more notice but I hope you will agree that once an officer has decided that he is not cut out for police work, the best thing is for him to go as quick as possible. Also I have quite a lot of my annual leave entitlement unused so I hope this will do instead of whatever notice I should have given.

  I apologize if this has caused any inconvenience but as the post of village constable in Enscombe is due to disappear soon anyway, I hope it will not be very much.

  Yours respectfully,

  Harold Bendish (Police Constable 79H8)

  He passed it over to Wield and turned to the other letter which had the same date.

  Dear Sarge,

  I’m writing to say that I’m resigning from the Force. No point trying to do anything about it, because by the time you get this I’ll be long gone and in any case I’ve written to Mr Trimble too, so there’s no point thinking you can keep it quiet and talk me out of it. But I wanted to write and tell you personally because in your own way you’ve tried to help me and because I’d like someone in the Force to know what’s what and I reckon I know you as well as anyone. That should have told me something about myself a long time back. I mean the way I never seemed able to make any real friends in the job. So you’ve got elected to listen and if you think there’s anyone up there who’ll give a toss why I’ve gone, feel free to show him this too.

  I joined the police because everywhere I looked, every time I switched the telly on or opened a paper, I was told the world was full of crap, and why didn’t I drink the right beer or wear the right clothes or use the right aftershave and things would be all right. I thought I’ve got to do something about this or else I’ll go off my trolley. I thought of politics but it didn’t take long to suss out that this was where 90% of the crap started. Social work looked a better bet except it was as full of weirdos as politics was of wankers and I reckoned you’d have to become a fully paid up member before they let you anywhere near real decisions, and then it would be too late. Then it came to me, what about the police? The way I looked at it, the job gave you something important to do at every stage from the bottom up, and there were real chances to get somewhere pretty quick where you could start influencing the way things were run. In a funny way it was the lousy press the Force has been getting recently which made up my mind. I thought, there’s a window here, while they’re washing all their dirty linen and before things have got quiet enough for them to start muckying the next lot, for someone like me to step in and get a quick bunk up as the acceptable/face of policing.

  Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. I tried showing the acceptable face up in Newcastle and I got nutted for my pains, and back at the Station I got rollocked and bollocked and told to get a grip. I came close to jacking it all in then but instead I accepted a transfer down here, though when I first got a look at Enscombe I thought, Harry boy, this is the biggest mistake you ever made! I mean, what had a tiny little isolated spot like this to do with all those things in the real world which had got me into the police in the first place?

  It was you that got me to give it a try, Sarge, though I don’t suppose you knew how close I was to bunking off. You said that just because it all looked so peaceful I shouldn’t think that Enscombe was a cushy billet. Folks round here would be sizing me up and comparing me with old Chaz Barnwall who’d been here for donkey’s years. You told me not to try to get too friendly too quick, but if I stuck to the rules and showed I was here to keep the Law I’d soon find my feet. You finished by saying that looking after a village area like this was the best chance a young bobby had of showing what he was made of. Then, as you were leaving that first time, you hesitated and said, ‘Enscombe’s not like other places, son. Not even like other places in Yorkshire. Keep your guard up, else it’ll have you!’

  That’s what really caught my attention. So I gave it a try and I thought, if playing by the book is the way to get promoted somewhere I can start doing some real good in, so be it, and I came on really hard. And all the time, it was all still going on in the papers and on the telly, the crap, the crime, and here I was, making sure the Morris shut on time and tractors didn’t leave too much mud on the roads. Also I was lonely, I admit it. I sat in Corpse Cottage some nights and stared at the wall and almost wished old Susannah Hogbin would come bursting through in her coffin just to give me someone to talk to. I even used to look forward to you coming round to check up on me. Sometimes you told me I was doing OK, and I wanted to ask, yes but what am I doing OK? And sometimes you tore a strip off me because I’d not filled in a report properly or I was late in calling in. And sometimes you’d talk about the old times, and how different things were now, and how you couldn’t thole the idea of working in a big town any more, and how it had all once been such a lot better because people trusted each other. And I’d try to tell you how I wanted to see things in the future, and you’d look as if you were listening, but I suppose it was just in the same way I used to look like I was listening to you, when really neither of us had much idea what the other was talking about.

  Then one day … well, I won’t go into details, but one day I realized it didn’t really matter any of it, not your nostalgia or my dreams. The one thing they had in common was they both drew a ring round the present, the here and now which is the only really important thing because it’s the only thing we can be sure of. I’m not explaining this too well, but I suppose what I’m really saying is, I let my guard down, and like you warned me could happen, Enscombe got me! I think it’s because in this place for some reason past and future are part of the here and now so you don’t always have to be staring forward or peering back. Or put it another way, whatever was wrong with me when I came here is cured now. I mean, the world still stinks, and I’ve not given up on saving it. But policing is for other people, not for me. Don’t misunderstand me, Sarge, I’m not knocking the job though you’ve got to admit there’s a lot of right bastards in it who quite frankly shouldn’t be let loose with a tuning fork let alone a truncheon. But they’re not all like that and I can only hope the ones who are all right in the end get the others sorted. Me, I’ve got myself sorted, or maybe I should say Enscombe’s got me sorted, and I can see now that policing’s no way forward for me. So I’m off. I’ll just catch the post if I hurry so you should get this tomorrow morning so you’ll have a day to get someone else out here. Or maybe the brass won’t think it’s worth it with the job scheduled to be axed so soon. They could be wise. Enscombe’s not a safe place for a growing lad!

  Take care. And thanks for … well, just thanks.

  Best wishes,

  Harry.

  Handing over the letter to Wield, Pascoe said, ‘If he posted these when he said, why didn’t they get delivered yesterday morning?’

  Wapshare, who’d been following events with a lively interest, said, ‘It’s easy to miss the post round here. If he’s in a hurry, Ernie Paget’s as likely to be half an hour early as half an hour late. Says it keeps up the average.’

  ‘And if he missed the post day afore yesterday, it wouldn’t have gone yesterday because Paget had his accident,’ interposed Wield without looking up from his reading.

  ‘Sod’s law,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Someone talking about me?’ said Dalziel, coming back into the bar.

  ‘I was just saying if we’d got these letters when Bendish intended, they’d have saved us all a lot of angst,’ s
aid Pascoe.

  ‘Angst? You don’t know the meaning of the word,’ said Dalziel. ‘Come to that, neither do I. Gi’s them letters, Wieldy. Desperate Dan’s given me permission to open them.’

  He took the letters and the whisky Wapshare had poured for him and returned to the kitchen.

  Pascoe, who had less trust than Dalziel in his ability to intimidate Thomas Wapshare into silence, moved across to the window with Wield and said in a low voice, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure if it’s getting better or worse,’ said Wield. ‘Get anything from Big Ears there?’

  He glanced towards Wapshare who smiled back.

  Succinctly Pascoe filled Wield in with his theories about the paintings.

  ‘Aye, the one he gave back, Aunt Edwina’s portrait, were by Digweed’s granddad, Ralph,’ said Wield, and explained things in his turn.

  ‘So, not worth a lot. But why did it go missing again, according to the Squire?’

  ‘They needed the frame for the copy?’ suggested Wield. ‘When she got herself painted by Ralph, Edwina wanted the picture to match the one of eighteenth-century Frances. So she got Ralph to put them both, his and the old one, in matching frames.’

  ‘Thirsty work this talking,’ said Wapshare, who had stolen silently upon them carrying two pints. ‘I reckon you lads deserve a drink.’

  ‘You know, I reckon we do!’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Dalziel, coming into the room a moment later. ‘Turn me back for a moment and it’s piss-up time. Where’s mine, Thomas?’

  ‘What’s the Chief say, sir?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘He says, as far as he’s concerned, Bendish’s resignation is effective from the date of these letters.’

  Pascoe took this in and said, ‘Clever. So anything he might have done from then on, he did as a civilian.’

  ‘That’s right. Dan’s got ambitions and bent cops leave a smell around that top brass don’t like. This way he hopes there won’t be any need for Special Investigations to come crawling all over us. I reckon he’ll be lucky.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Pascoe. ‘Look, whatever Bendish has been up to, he clearly wanted to distance himself from the Force before he got up to it.’

  ‘Don’t be naïve, lad,’ said the Fat Man. ‘He hoped this job at Scarletts would pass unnoticed but he wasn’t about to hang around with his fingers crossed. On the other hand, just to do a runner would raise a lot of dust, the way it has in fact. So he wrote these letters in a pathetic attempt to cover up his disappearance.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Pascoe stubbornly. ‘But I for one am glad to know he’s probably alive and well.’

  ‘Forgetting the blood in the car, are you?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘And in the garden shed,’ added Wield.

  ‘Oh aye. But that’s something else,’ said Dalziel. ‘I’ve been on to Forensic. There was blood on that bit of rug I sent ’em. But Group A not O. And several weeks old. And mixed up with traces of semen and vaginal fluid. So forget about some bleeding prisoner. The only thing to get banged up in there was some lucky virgin a few weeks back. Mebbe just about the time our Constable Bendish was seen trawling his tackle round the garden wall!’

  ‘So you think that he …’

  ‘Was banging that quiet little maiden who’s got you all fooled? Aye do I!’

  ‘But Franny’s not the only possibility,’ protested Pascoe. ‘It needn’t have been anyone from the Hall at all. Or there’s Girlie.’

  ‘Nay, she’s otherwise engaged. Saw it straight off first time I clapped eyes on ’em.’

  ‘On who?’

  ‘Her and George Creed, of course,’ said Dalziel in exasperation. ‘Got their wellies mixed, hadn’t they? Which means they put ’em on in a hell of a hurry. Which means likely someone caught ’em at it!’

  ‘George Creed’s sin,’ said Wield, recalling Digweed’s mocking comment.

  ‘Sin? Aye, that’s about the strength of it. It were a right shock for Dora, walking in on them like that, her being so religious and all …’

  ‘She told you this?’ said Pascoe, amazed.

  ‘I cried unto the Lord with my voice … I poured out my complaint before him; I showed him my trouble,’ said Dalziel complacently. ‘Once she knew that I knew, she weren’t slow to tell me. So Girlie’s out. Got herself a man she’s got a lot in common with …’

  ‘Such as?’

  Dalziel glanced at Wapshare and winked.

  ‘Same wellie size for a start. No, it’s little Miss Muffet … what’s up with you, Wieldy?’

  And Wield, recalling a trail of footsteps in the morning dew, and a trail of false suspicions across his mind, said, ‘I think I might know where Harry Bendish is.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Who can understand a young Lady?’

  ‘I thought the body was unfamiliar,’ said Justin Halavant. ‘And now I recognize the face, I see why.’

  He was peering at the Crucifixion. The naked woman now had a head. It was unmistakably Fran Harding’s. And it was wearing a policeman’s helmet.

  ‘Oh hello, Justin,’ said Caddy, turning from her easel. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, scanning the triptych judiciously, ‘that perhaps like most good ideas, it has outlived its usefulness.’

  ‘Scrap it, you mean?’

  ‘One does not scrap a scrapbook,’ he reported. ‘These are working notes. Trying things out here has taught you invaluable things. Light has been easy since the Impressionists but you have learnt to master darkness. The head, though, is merely jocular. Worse, it is perhaps confessional.’

  ‘I know you’re right,’ she said rather sadly. ‘I just needed you to tell me. It’s over. I hoped for a masterpiece, but you always knew it was just a doodle. Shit.’

  ‘Don’t be too hot for perfection, Caddy,’ said Halavant. ‘It is in human terms a form of stasis, the inevitable precursor of decay. Wherefore resist it, distrust it, if necessary destroy it. My God. How dare I preach to you! I turn my back for a moment and you make a leap forward like this!’

  He was looking at the Wield portrait.

  ‘It’s OK, you think?’

  ‘It’s magnificent,’ said Halavant simply. ‘They’ll mark the start of your first truly mature period from this.’

  ‘I don’t know if I like the thought of being truly mature,’ said Caddy, looking directly at him for the first time. ‘How are your balls, by the way?’

  ‘No permanent damage,’ he said. ‘But they are not the motivation of my visit. This is.’

  He unwrapped an oval parcel he had placed by the door on entry to reveal the forged portrait of the first Frances Guillemard.

  ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I can’t change it for the real one, I haven’t got it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t want it changed, I want it signed. Painted from memory of, what – half a dozen viewings? It’s a splendid piece of work.’

  ‘But not good enough to fool you?’

  ‘Oh yes. At least for some time, if that nice policeman, the almost normal one, hadn’t drawn my attention to it. Once I looked closely and caught that hint of a mocking wink, I knew!’

  ‘Made you mad, did it?’ she said, grinning.

  ‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘I worked out what had happened and went round to Corpse Cottage to try and retrieve the original. Like many of my moves lately, it rapidly degenerated into farce.’

  ‘Why not just tell the police?’

  ‘Because it was quite clear to me who had painted this and I had no desire to involve the country’s best young artist in a forgery scandal at the outset of her career.’

  She regarded him sceptically.

  ‘But now they know.’

  ‘They worked it out for themselves. One should never underestimate the pedestrian mind. It’s walking slowly that gives you the best view of the countryside. However, merely sign your name to this and it (a) ceases to be a forgery and (b) increases its potential value to me.’

/>   ‘But what about the original? Don’t you want it back?’

  ‘No. It’s Fran’s by right. She should have had it last year when Daddy died. Was that someone downstairs?’

  Caddy went to the door and called, ‘Hello?’

  There was no answer and she said, ‘No, just the boards warming up in this sunshine.’

  ‘Yes, it does ease old joints rather, doesn’t it? Where’s Kee? She wasn’t downstairs, so I came straight up.’

  ‘She went up to the vicarage.’

  ‘Really? Interesting but worrying. To embrace religion is a definite step on the path to spinsterhood.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s religion she’s after embracing,’ said Caddy with her wicked grin.

  ‘What? You mean his reverence? I got the impression from Mrs Bayle, the Hecate of Enscombe who gathers weekly reports from all the weird sisterhood, that Larry, our pastoral lamb, was bleating after you.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ she said with the confidence of one not unfamiliar with the recuperative powers of suitors brought to the edge of death by her indifference. ‘Kee’s far better at that sort of thing than me.’

  ‘And she’s told you that she loves him?’

  ‘Of course not. Kee never tells me anything she thinks might make me worry about the future.’

  ‘And would her marrying the Vicar make you worry?’

  ‘Not really. I’m sure they’d come up with some ingenious scheme for letting me paint in the vestry. But it would cause Kee a lot of problems. She may not know it, but she’s the kind who’d like a houseful of kids. That she might feel she’s got to give up because looking after me is a full-time maternal job.’

  ‘But why not tell her you can look after yourself?’

  She laughed joyously.

  ‘Come on, Justin! After Kee, you know me better than anyone. In fact, artistically speaking, you know me best of all. So you know that after six months of looking after myself I’d have either died of food poisoning or been arrested for non-payment of bills. No, I’ll need to be taken into care if Kee is going to have any chance of the life she deserves.’