'That's all right. My jabs are up to date,' said Wield. 'OK, luv. Go ahead.'
She led him upstairs to a small sitting-room comfortably furnished with a couple of old armchairs, a writing bureau, and a few pictures on the walls. She left him here and went off into an adjacent room, returning with a well-stocked medical bag. The stitch took a few seconds to put in, hardly hurt at all and looked a neat, efficient job.
'That's grand,' said Wield. 'Right professional.'
'Thank you,' she said, smiling with pleasure.
He smiled back and said, 'I were looking at your grandma's journal before.'
Her expression changed to one of such alarm he hastily added, 'No, it were more Caddy Scudamore's picture I were looking at,' but that didn't seem to improve matters either.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I wasn't prying but I happened to notice it when I was round at Mr Digweed's, and I know it's not out yet, but it is going to be published, isn't it?'
'What? Oh yes. Of course. Just some extracts. It was Larry, that's the Vicar, who found it when he was sorting out some old papers in the vicarage. Grandma used to live there, you know, she married Mr Harding, and the journal must have got left behind when they went abroad . ..'
Something (relief perhaps, though for what?) was making her garrulous. First rule of interrogation was, if you get 'em talking, go with the flow whatever direction it takes. This wasn't an interrogation but the principle held.
'Abroad? Where was that?'
'Africa. That's where my mother was born.'
'Africa? You mean, like missionaries? That must have been a change from Enscombe!'
'I suppose so. But they couldn't stay on here . .. well, the family didn't approve of the marriage, and in those days if there was a row between the church and the Hall, it was the vicar who went.'
'When your mum were born, didn't that help mend matters?'
‘If it had been a boy, it might have done, I suppose. But they didn't rate girls.'
'Not unless they wanted to marry someone from the hoi-polloi,' said Wield. 'How did the present Squire react? He must have been your gran's brother?'
'He wasn't around when it all blew up. I think he was in New Zealand or somewhere and by the time he came home, they'd gone out to Africa. His younger brother, Guy, was here, but he seems to have taken the family line.'
'That 'ud be the present Guy's grandfather?'
'Yes.'
'Ah,' said Wield non-committally, but not so much so that there wasn't a moment's silent sympathy between them.
'And did your gran ever get back here?' he resumed.
'No. She died in Africa. They both did.'
'And your mum?'
'She was sixteen or seventeen, she wrote to tell them back here what had happened. There was no reply. The Squire, our Squire, found the letter a couple of years later when he inherited, and he wrote off straightaway, but she'd moved on by then and by the time the letter finally caught up with her, she was having too good a time in London in the 'sixties to pay it any heed.'
'So how did you get here?' he asked.
'Mum was in her thirties when she had me. A mistake maybe. Or maybe she wanted something a bit more permanent than anything else she'd got out of the past few years. I never knew who my father was. I'm not sure if she did. But she looked after me as best she could which was a lot better than she looked after herself. When I was nine she knew she was dying of cancer. She wrote a letter to the Squire saying I would be arriving on such and such a train, packed my things, took me to the station, put me aboard, and kissed me goodbye. Girlie met me at the other end. By the time they traced Mum to the hospital she'd been admitted to, she was dead.'
It was a moving story, and though Wield found himself stumped for a response it certainly deserved a better one than it got, which was the eruption of Dalziel into the room saying, 'Now then, take my eyes off him for a second and he's off upstairs with the prettiest lass in the house. By God, that's neat, Sergeant. Have you ever thought of an ear-ring?'
'We've been looking for the kitchen,' said Pascoe apologetically. 'The Squire offered some refreshment.'
'Aye, scraps from the gentry's table are a feast to us common folk,' said Dalziel. 'Which is Aunt Edwina, then?'
There wasn't much contest as there was only one portrait amid a host of watercolour landscapes. It was a competent rather than striking painting of a lively rather than beautiful woman, in a handsome oval frame, and signed with the initials R.D. at one side.
The three detectives stood before it and studied it with the judicious interest of a Royal Academy selection committee.
Pascoe was struck by an odd sense of familiarity. Wield was musing on the initials. Dalziel was concentrating on the wall.
Fran said, 'Look, if you're really hungry, I'm sure we could rustle up something.'
As she spoke she ushered them firmly towards the door.
Wield, unfed since breakfast, was far from loath. Pascoe, recalling how the tea he'd been offered earlier had been snatched from his lips, was cautiously hopeful. Only Dalziel, usually a tiger on the trail of food, was uncharacteristically reluctant.
But even he was unable to resist the gentle pressure applied by the girl to get them out of her room.
But as they descended the stairs they were greeted by Girlie who said, 'Don't know if it concerns any of you lot, but there's a car talking to itself out there.'
They went outside and found Dalziel's radio crackling his call sign impatiently.
The Fat Man slid into the driver's seat and admitted his presence. He was told the Chief Constable would appreciate a phone call from him. He looked at his watch. It was past four. Plenty of time for Desperate Dan's macho brandy to have been diluted by Mid-Yorkshire's notoriously bromide tea.
'Right,' he said.
He got out of the car. Girlie was standing in the doorway, presumably in the hope of seeing them off the premises. He went towards her and said, is that a phone round your neck, luv, or do you make your own jewellery?'
Without a word, she unhooked the instrument and handed it over. He walked away from them all, dialling, but if this was in the interest of confidentiality, he'd have needed to walk for another ten minutes to render his side of the conversation inaudible.
'Hello, sir .. . Aye, it's me .. . What? .. . Oh, that. Group O? Forty-six per cent of the population, nose bleed, gave a lift to a kiddy that had cut its knee, hundred explanations . . . That's why I came out myself, to be sure . . . Aye, I've not forgotten the Area Liaison meeting tonight ... on my way back now . .. Mr Pascoe too ... no, Sergeant Wield's spending the night here ... at the cottage . . . the lad's not due on duty till eight in the morning . . . likely he'll turn up right as a trivet, and the Sergeant'll be there to greet him . . . Well, if he doesn't, we'll have to think again, won't we? . .. 'Bye now.'
He returned and handed back the phone to Girlie.
'Thanks, luv,' he said, and to Fran standing behind her cousin, 'Sorry we can't stay for that grub. Some other time mebbe?'
The two women withdrew into the house.
'Right,' said Dalziel. 'Peter, you hop in and we'll pick up your car on our way through the village. Wield, you can walk down to the cottage. Do you good, a bit of exercise. You look to me like you've been eating too much.'
'Yes, sir. Sir, why precisely am I spending the night at Corpse Cottage?'
'What's up? You've not got something better to do? Don't answer that. Nay, lad, it's just that I'm not sure what's going off around here, but if owt else happens, I'd like to think there were someone handy who's not completely doolally. Right?'
'Right,' said Wield unenthusiastically.
'One thing, but,' said Dalziel through the car window.
'Yes?'
'Gets dark about half-six at this time of year, doesn't it? I'd make sure you were locked up indoors with a cross round your neck and a clove of garlic up your jacksie! Take care!'
And with his laughter echoing back from the ivied front of Old Hall,
Dalziel sent the car lurching out of sight round the curve of the bosky drive, and left the village to darkness and to Wield.
CHAPTER IV
'You are now collecting your People delightfully, getting them into such a spot as is the delight of my life; - 3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on.'
So dusk stole down on Enscombe.
Crag End Farm, tucked under the western wall of the valley, felt its shadow first. George Creed washed his Wellingtons under the yard pump and laughed as he saw the mud slide off their rubbery blackness. Life was good apart from that silly quarrel with his sister, but that would soon be put to rights. Would have been put to rights already if her daft scripture quoting hadn't driven him to a matching obduracy. Tomorrow would see things sorted, one way or another. He sat on the bench under the kitchen window and lit a pipe. Time for a smoke before he went into the village for the Save Our School meeting. His old dog, sensing his master's contented mood, settled with his head on the damp rubber boot, and together they watched the shadows which had already embraced them reach out to cover Scarletts and the winding river.
At Scarletts too the inmates acknowledged the approach of night in their different ways. Mrs Bayle set about checking her defences. Fop sniffed the air with hopeful anticipation. And Justin Halavant poured himself a glass of Batard-Montrachet which some Frog had claimed was the best wine in the world for getting philosophical on.
So far the test was inconclusive.
He took a careful sip and once more examined the situation.
Looked at positively, he was no worse off.
Looked at legally, he had lost nothing that he could really complain about losing.
Looked at morally, a problem had been solved, a wrong righted, a dying wish fulfilled.
But none of these considerations, nor yet the wine, prevented him from feeling robbed, cheated, and humiliated.
Ultimately it was all down to that ungrateful child, Caddy. True, his approach had been less than subtle; in fact, memory of his gaucherie was almost as painful as memory of its consequence; but there had been no need for that sister of hers, the Ice Queen, to share his humiliation with the whole village. And any guilt he had felt about Caddy herself had been washed away by his detection of her part in this latest outrage. Presumably the whole village knew about that too. Therefore it was meet that his revenge should be taken against the village as a whole. And what better wine than the Batard to appetize revenge? But not tonight. Tomorrow was the Day of Reckoning. Quite soon enough to draw on himself the hatred of all his neighbours. He rose and went to the door and shouted. 'Mrs Bayle!'
'Yes?'
‘If Mr Philip Wallop calls, tell him I'm out. Ask him to call again tomorrow.'
'Oh yes? Going to the School meeting, are you?'
The meeting? Yes, why not? That's how it had all started. So why not!
On the edge of the village as the shadows stretched to consume the wilderness he had created out of Intake Cottage's once lovely garden, Jason Toke too was thinking of Caddy. He had nothing so positive as hope; what he did have was a certainty that without that ghost of a dream of a possibility which was his mainstay, something cataclysmic would happen in his life, sending him shooting off irresistibly in some new and unforecastable direction. To Jason, the best thing that had happened in recent times was the story of Halavant's rejection. Justin had wealth, power, influence, yet Caddy had rejected him. So what did she want?
And that ghost of a dream of a possibility came again to haunt the boy's mind as his supple, intelligent fingers dismantled and oiled his guns.
Higher up the valley where the sun lingers longer to gild the lead of the church roof and flood the vicarage windows with fire, thoughts of Caddy filled Larry Lillingstone's mind also as he sat at his desk over his neglected papers. He had known it was a mistake from the start. As soon as he felt those longings, he should have gone straight round to the Bishop and told him he couldn't stay in Enscombe. What matter if he looked foolish? Anything was better than this mess he had got himself into. Yet was it such a mess? Was it not an occupational hazard of his calling since time began for a poor priest to find himself teetering astride the perilous gap between the state's laws and his flock's needs? His famous predecessor Stanley Harding hadn't hesitated to defy convention or the law in his efforts to save Enscombe School.
But Harding's motives had been pure! Whereas he had thrown up his hands in firm refusal till he had learned of Caddy's involvement ... Oh Caddy, Caddy, Caddy. Would she be at the meeting tonight? Did he want her to be or not? Perhaps the best thing would be to stay away himself? After all, nothing would be certain till tomorrow. Perhaps it would turn out to be an empty dream after all and things could be put back to what they were?
There was a tapping at the window. He rose and peered out into the dusk. Standing on the lawn looking as insubstantial as the light vapours rising from the damp grass was the figure of a woman. For a long moment he regarded the pale oval of her face without speaking or moving. Then with a deep sigh he began to open the french window.
Only one building stands higher in Enscombe than the church and that is Old Hall. Nor is this an entirely fortuitous symbolism. The Hall was built on the site of, and out of the stones of (and, some whispered, with the wealth of), the old priory of St Margaret. When Thomas Cromwell's team of dissolvers reached this remote part of Yorkshire, all they found was a smoking ruin. The Lady Prioress, so they were assured by the local Justice of Peace and Lord of the Manor, one Solomon Guillemard, having received advance warning of the King's just wrath, had fled to the Popish Netherlands, taking with her all her followers and, what was worse, all their valuables. On word of this the loyal peasantry of Enscombe had risen up in righteous indignation and not stood down again till the priory was reduced to the present worthless ruin, which none the less, out of patriotic love and feudal duty, Solomon Guillemard was willing to take off the State's hands for a very small consideration. The men from London, having learnt the hard way that it rarely paid to argue with a Yorkshireman, accepted the offer and hurried on to their next port of call, hoping to find better pickings at Jervaulx or Rievaulx.
All this Squire Selwyn had put into his ballad, but as he sat at his writing desk that evening, his thoughts, like Lillingstone's, were not on the papers before him but on a woman.
Girlie had said she had something she wanted to talk over with him and from her manner he knew it was no light matter. He feared the worst. Had she turned out to be one of those feckless, fluttering kinds of girl he recalled from his youth, there'd have been no problem. She'd probably have gone off long since and got herself married. Instead, she had taken on the Hall and all it involved, including looking after young Fran and himself, no easy task that! And what was more she'd made a first-rate job of it, dragging the estate back from the brink of ruin and now planning for its future survival with the help of this damn Health Park. If anyone deserved to inherit, it was Girlie.
But she couldn't. Not a matter of law. Male inheritance was no longer the hard and fast thing it had once been. But that in his view made it all the more important. His study of the family history had taught him this if nothing else, that tradition had to come before personal whim. How many Squires of the past must have wished they could redirect the inheritance? His own father had never concealed his preference for his younger son, Guy. But Fuctata non Perfecta. You didn't fiddle with the natural state of things, and he'd inherited. Now it was only proper, pain though he was, that the present Guy should inherit in his turn.
He had told Girlie this, said he would leave her what was his personally to leave (which wasn't much), and added (which was less) that he would urge upon Guy his family duty to see that Girlie and Fran kept a roof over their heads. His own recommendation was that Girlie should not rely on her cousin's kindness, but while she was still young, divert her undoubted talents for making money for the estate to making money for herself.
She had listened politely, said
thank you, and gone about her business.
And now he was filled with a foreboding that she was coming to tell him she had taken his advice and was leaving.
He couldn't blame her. But, oh God, how he would miss her.
That was her now, tapping on the door. He straightened himself up and prepared for bad news.
It was both better and worse than he expected.
When she had finished a silence fell between them, stretching out as if to fill the space left by the receding light. She hadn't asked for a decision but he knew one was expected of him.
'Tomorrow,' he said finally. 'Leave it with me till the Reckoning. I'll make up my mind by then.'
CHAPTER V
‘I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.'
Dusk descended too on Enscombe's newest inhabitant, but brought with it nothing heavier than the realization that he hadn't eaten for ten hours and was bloody hungry!
Wield went into the kitchen at Corpse Cottage, opened the fridge and stepped back with a shudder. He'd seen more inviting scenes-of-crime. Kids today were a primitive tribe, eating stuff which would put most western tourists on their back for a fortnight.
Nothing for it but the Morris. Both his superiors had recommended it, so it was almost a dereliction of duty not to sample its wares.
He stepped out of the front door. It was a surprisingly remote situation despite its village setting. Up against the churchyard wall with the High Street just out of sight downhill and the vicarage just visible uphill, Corpse Cottage was well placed to be haunted. Yet he felt nothing but an almost proprietorial pleasure as he stood on the step.
Whistling 'When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls' he set off to the pub.
Two things surprised him as he pushed open the barroom door. The first was how full the place was so early in the evening. The second was that his arrival didn't provoke that moment of speculative silence any newcomer might expect in a country pub. In fact he got a few welcoming nods from one or two of the faces he recognized.
Dalziel 14 Pictures of Perfection Page 16
