Dalziel 14 Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  He made a note, but didn't bother to underline it. The flowers that bloomed in the spring, tra-la, were unlikely to have anything to do with this case.

  Whistling the tune, he re-entered the cottage just as Filmer arrived.

  You sound happy,' said the uniformed sergeant.

  It's this early rising. You should try it.'

  ‘No need to be cocky just 'cos you were sleeping on the spot,' said Filmer. 'Any word of young Bendish yet?'

  'No,' said Wield, glancing at his watch. 'But there's still time. I'd best get back to Corpse Cottage. You take over here, Terry.'

  'That's right, run like hell before fat Dalziel finds out you're missing,' mocked Filmer. 'God, he's got you buggers scared witless, hasn't he?'

  'Don't be daft,' said Wield. 'He's just a big cuddly bear and we all love him.'

  He passed on what he'd gathered, both information and material, then left without speaking to Wylmot again. The man was quite capable of complaining at being fobbed off with Filmer, and Wield, alert to what he thought of as the Enscombe effect, didn't want to risk being tempted to a second sod awf.

  As he walked past the Wayside Cafe, his nose caught the smell of fresh baking and his stomach gave a low pleading rumble. He tried the door. It was locked but the noise of the handle brought Dora Creed out of her kitchen. She did not look welcoming as she unlocked the door.

  'Sorry, but I were passing and I've not had any breakfast and I could smell your baking . ..'

  ‘I'm getting things done for the Squire's Reckoning,' she said. 'This is a very busy morning for me.'

  'Aye, it will be. Sorry to trouble you . ..'

  'You spent the night in Corpse Cottage, did you? You're up early.'

  'There was a break-in at the Post Office,' he said.

  'Another? Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. Just wait here a moment, Sergeant.'

  She vanished into her kitchen, leaving Wield reflecting that she didn't seem much surprised at this new evidence of man's depravity. A couple of minutes later she returned carrying a plastic bag containing a foil-wrapped packet.

  'Thanks a lot,' said Wield. 'How much do I owe ...'

  'No need for money or thanks, Sergeant. I was an hungred and ye gave me meat. I was a stranger, and ye took me in. My duty and my pleasure.'

  It was enough to turn a man religious, thought Wield, and his conversion was confirmed when he opened the foil parcel and discovered a feast of fresh-baked rolls filled with crisp hot bacon. He washed them down with a mug of Bendish's good tea and felt for a while that all was right with the world.

  But as the minutes ticked by, his worries about the fate of Bendish returned and with them his old conviction that while bacon butties were a strong plea in mitigation, God stood convicted of at least wilful neglect in the way He managed the world.

  At eight on the dot the phone rang. He snatched it up, praying it would be the young man ringing in with apologies for being late . . . except of course he would hardly ring his own cottage!

  Andy Dalziel said, "Morning, sunshine. Anything happening?'

  'No, sir. Except there was a break-in at the Post Office.'

  'Oh aye? Any connection?'

  'Doubt it. What now, sir?'

  'What do you recommend? The circus?'

  It was a straight question. Dalziel liked straight answers.

  He said, ‘If it were up to me, I'd say not. At least, not yet.'

  'Any particular reason?'

  ‘It just doesn't feel like a spot where something nasty's happened,' said Wield reluctantly.

  'I'd like to see Desperate Dan's face when I try that out on him!' said Dalziel. 'But you're the man on the spot, Wieldy. For now. I'll be out later with the lad to take a look for myself. Try not to go completely native till then, eh? And I'll tell you one thing, Wieldy ...'

  'Yes, sir?'

  ‘If young Bendish is still alive when we find him, I'll mebbe kill the bastard myself!'

  Volume the fourth

  PROLOGUE BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE

  Journal of Frances Harding (nee Guillemard)

  February 18th, 1932. What a mixed day this has been. The morning was grey and gloomy. At ten Stanley went to the Palace to see the new Bishop. He expected a reproof for his campaign to improve the school, and though he knew that he came close to breaching the law by his encouragement to parents to keep their children away from school till such time as the fabric of the building and the insanitary washrooms etc. should have been put to rights, he hoped that he might at least engage the Bishop's sympathies. I remained at home, receiving and setting out the items for the sale in the vicarage by which we hoped to boost our fabric fund. When Stanley returned I saw he had received something far worse than a reproof. We are to move, or rather be moved! I see my father's hand unmistakably in this. He has been unrelenting in his opposition to Stanley. He even makes the whole household drive to Byreford twice on Sundays to worship! And of course his influence in the county is so great that he can bring pressure to bear on a young and inexperienced bishop that even a more experienced man might find hard to bear.

  '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 I

  '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 Cafe 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 resumed 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 II

  '. . . 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 e
nough 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 cafe.'

  '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 bloody 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. ..'