Dalziel 17 On Beulah Height

by Reginald Hill

  'We'll need formal identification,’ said Dalziel.

  Meaning, the Dacres had to be told. Whatever small ember of hope they still kept glowing in their hearts had to be put out beyond all doubt.

  'I'll sort that,' said Wield.

  They both knew it was Dalziel's responsibility. But something in the way he spoke had been the nearest to a plea for help the Fat Man was ever likely to utter.

  'My job,' he said, reluctant to confirm weakness.

  'Your job's catching the bastard responsible,' said Wield. 'You can tell 'em when you've done that.'

  He didn't wait for an answer but untied Tig and set off down the path with the little dog at his heels. He glanced back once before he turned out of sight and saw Dalziel still standing there, watching him go. One huge hand rose slowly to shoulder height in a gesture which might have passed for benediction but which Wield knew was the only thank you he was likely to get.

  Back at his bike, he found the dog reluctant to get into the carrying basket, but when Wield straddled the saddle and patted the petrol tank before him, Tig leapt up as if he'd been using this form of travel since birth.

  He didn't hurry. What was to hurry for? He tried to blank out all thought and just let himself relax into the rush of cooling air on his face, the feel of the land's twists and contours rippling up his thighs. Down to Ligg Common, the ground levelling off. Past the police caravan, DI Burroughs standing there, waiting for him to stop and fill her in. He went past her without a glance.

  And finally he drew to a halt in front of 7 Liggside.

  Even before he could switch the engine off, Tig had jumped from his perch and rushed in through the open doorway, barking.

  Oh, shit! thought Wield. Shit shit shit!

  He hurried after the animal, but it was already too late. Tony and Elsie Dacre were on their feet, staring towards the doorway, their eyes bright with desperate hope in reaction to Tig's noisy arrival, which must so often have presaged Lorraine's return home.

  'I'm sorry,' said Wield, helplessly. 'I'm sorry.'

  He was apologizing for letting the dog run in, but his words did the harder task too. The woman cried, 'Oh no. Oh no!' And collapsed weeping into her husband's arms.

  'Where . .. ? How . . . ?' choked the man.

  'Up the valley, along the beck where it runs through that deep ghyll,' said Wield. 'Tig found her.'

  'What happened? Were she ...'

  'Can't say how for certain till they get the chance to ... But the doctor says she was fully clothed. No signs of interference.'

  All this was more than he ought to be saying before the post mortem, but he couldn't sit and see this pain without doing the little in his power to ease it.

  'We'll need to ask someone to do an identification,' he went on.

  Elsie's head snapped up. Hope was a black beetle. Stamp on it hard as you liked, it still scuttled on.

  'It's not sure, then?' she pleaded.

  'Yes, it's sure,' he said gently. 'The clothes she was wearing. And we had the photo. I'm so sorry. Look, I'll come back later, talk about arrangements. You'll need some time . ..'

  He turned and left, feeling shame at his sense of relief to get out of that room where something had finally died.

  A woman was coming through the front door. It was Margaret Coe, Elsie Dacre's mother.

  She said, 'I saw you go in. Has summat happened?'

  Wield nodded.

  'We found her.'

  'Oh, Christ.'

  She pushed past him into the living room. Wield went outside. The sunlight had never seemed so cruel. He felt many eyes upon him. Ignoring them all, he mounted his bike. Tony Dacre came out of the house with Tig in his arms.

  'Can you take him with you?' he said. 'It's going to be too much having him around. Every time he barks, it'll be like . . .Any road, he seems to have taken a fancy to you ... I don't mean have owt done to him, you understand .. . just see he's taken care of while . . . look, were you telling truth back there? He'd not done anything to her?'

  'As far as they could tell without a full examination,' said Wield.

  'Well, that's something,' said Tony Dacre. Then he looked up at the rich blue sky and shook his head wonderingly.

  'Nowt so funny as folk, eh? Here's me, just heard my daughter's dead, and I'm trying to feel comforted she weren't raped. For God's sake, what kind of creatures are we, Sergeant? What's the use of us, any of us?'

  'I don't know,' said Wield. 'I just don't know.'

  He set the dog before him and rode away thinking, oh you bastard, you bastard, whoever you are, it's all of us you kill because you kill our faith in each other, in ourselves. We don't just recoil in horror from what you do, we recoil in horror from ourselves for being part of the same humanity that produced whatever it is that you are.

  A rasping noise rose from between his legs. Tig had fallen asleep with his head on Wield's thigh and was snoring.

  And what the hell is Edwin going to say when he sees you? Wield asked himself.

  And then, as he felt the ease with which he'd made the leap from cosmic despair to domestic problem, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  NINE

  The half of the woman visible above the reception desk of the Mid-Yorkshire Water company was welcoming and fair, but her implacability towards those seeking entrance to the world behind her hinted the presence of a cry of hell-hounds below.

  Pascoe looked easy meat. During the past couple of years, as complaints about drought, pollution and directors' perks had multiplied, she had become adept at repelling much heavier onslaughts than promised by this slim, pale, dishevelled figure.

  'I'm afraid Mr Purlingstone is unavailable today. If you leave your name, I'll see he's told you called.'

  'Just tell him I'm here now. Pascoe's the name. Pascoe. Just tell him.'

  He saw her right hand move and guessed it was on its way to a security button. With a sigh, he produced his warrant.

  'Chief Inspector Pascoe. Tell him.'

  She picked up the phone and moments later Pascoe was floating to the top floor in a scented musical lift.

  Purlingstone was waiting for him when the door slid open.

  'What?' he demanded. 'What's happened? Why've you come?'

  'It's OK,' said Pascoe. 'Nothing to do with Zandra. Really. It's OK.'

  He felt a huge pang of guilt. He wasn't thinking straight, coming round here like this. Just because the man was dealing with his trauma by fleeing from its centre to the place where he still had power and control didn't mean he wasn't in pain. And what else would he think on hearing of Pascoe's arrival but the worst?

  The two men hadn't spoken since their quarrel, and this, thought Pascoe, is no way to build bridges.

  'Derek,' he said. 'I'm sorry. I should have rung. Everything's fine at the hospital. They'd be in touch direct if anything was wrong, wouldn't they?'

  This appeal to logic seemed to work, as worry was replaced by suspicion.

  'OK, so what the hell are you doing here?' demanded Purlingstone.

  'I'm sorry,' repeated Pascoe. 'There are just a couple of questions I'd like to ask.'

  'You sound just like a policeman,' sneered Purlingstone.

  It was true, thought Pascoe. His phraseology was straight out of a telly cop show. But so what? We are what we are.

  He said, 'Where did you stop on Sunday?'

  'What?'

  'Rosie said you stopped for a breakfast picnic on your way to the coast. I just wondered which way you went and where .. .'

  He faltered to a halt, not because the other man was looking angry, but because his annoyance was visibly fading and being replaced by a sort of wary pity.

  He thinks I've cracked, thought Pascoe. He thinks I've lost it entirely.

  It might have been clever to use this wrong impression as a basis for winning both sympathy and information, but he wasn't able to go along with that. What he felt about his sick daughter was his business, not communicable to anyone save Ellie
, and certainly not usable in this kind of situation to gain an advantage.

  He said sharply, 'Come on. It's a simple question. Where did you stop to picnic?'

  'On the moor road out of Danby,' replied Purlingstone. 'I prefer to go that way to the coast. It's a bit further, but it misses a hell of a lot of the traffic. Look, what's all this about? I can't believe it's police business . . . but it is, isn't it? Jesus Christ, how insensitive can you get, Pascoe?'

  No pity now, just anger.

  'No, not really, well, in a way, but...' Pascoe was stuttering in his effort to offer an explanation and avoid another open quarrel. He saw from Purlingstone's face that he wasn't making much headway either way.

  'It's just that Rosie lost this cross she wore, well, it wasn't really a cross, one of Ellie's earrings shaped like a dagger, actually, and one of my DCs found one like it in a waste bin, and I wondered how ... It is it, you see ... I checked ... I mean, it's probably just coincidence, but. . .'

  A phone had been ringing in a room behind Purlingstone. It stopped and a young woman came out.

  'Derek,' she said urgently.

  'What?'

  'Sorry, but it's the hospital. They said, can you get back there straightaway?'

  'Oh, Christ.'

  The two men looked desperately at each other, each hoping for a reassurance the other couldn't give. Pascoe was thinking, they could be ringing home, and I'm not there, and I've had my mobile switched off. . .

  He said, 'Can you give me a lift? Please.'

  'Come on.'

  Ignoring the lift, together the two men ran down the stairs.

  They could have rung from the car, but didn't. The pain of ignorance can end. The pain of knowledge is forever. As they entered the waiting room and saw the two women clinging together, they knew it was very bad. On sight of her husband Jill Purlingstone broke loose and rushed to his arms.

  'What's happened?' demanded Pascoe, going to Ellie.

  'Exactly what, I don't know, but it doesn't sound good,' said Ellie in a low voice.

  'Oh, Christ, and she was doing so well. I should never have left..’

  'It isn't Rosie,' hissed Ellie in his ear. 'She's doing fine. It's Zandra.'

  For a moment his relief was so strong he could have laughed out loud. Then his gaze went to the other couple, locked in an embrace which looked like an attempt to crush out all feeling, and shame at his joy came rushing in.

  'Should I go and try to find out something?' he asked Ellie, his voice as low as hers.

  'No. They said they'd let Jill know as soon as there was anything more to tell.'

  The door opened. Mrs Curtis the paediatric consultant came in. Ignoring the Pascoes, she went towards the Purlingstones, who broke apart like guilty lovers surprised. Only their hands remained in fingertip contact.

  'Please,' said the consultant. 'Shall we sit down?'

  'Oh, God,' breathed Ellie, for the woman's voice had the ring of death as sure as any passing bell.

  Pascoe took her arm and drew her unresisting body out of the room.

  In the corridor she looked up at him pleadingly, as if in hope of finding contradiction in his face. He had none to offer. There was a hush about the wards, and the set look on the faces of two nurses who went quietly by which confirmed what they already felt.

  Ellie turned back towards the door, but Pascoe tightened his grip on her.

  'Jill will need me,' she said fiercely.

  'No,' he said. 'We're the last people on earth those two will want to see at the moment.'

  From inside the waiting room a voice - it could have been either male or female - screamed, 'Why?'

  It was the universal cry of loss; but it contained in it the particular question, Why my child? Why not someone else's?

  Ellie heard it at all its levels and ceased her efforts to pull away.

  'Let's go in and see Rosie,' said Pascoe.

  They found the attending nurse full of excitement.

  'She opened her eyes just now. I think she's beginning to wake up,' she said. 'I've been talking to her, but it's your voices she'll be wanting to hear.'

  They stood on either side of the bed, leaning over the small still figure of their daughter. Ellie tried to speak, but there were too many conflicting emotions squeezing at her throat.

  Pascoe said, 'Rosie, darling. Come on now. This is Daddy. Time to wake up. It's time to wake up.'

  In the gloomy cave, the nix has made his move. No pursuit round the pool this time; instead he comes running straight across it, splashing through the black waters so that they part on either side like the water in the tank at the fairground when the roller coaster comes hurtling down.

  Taken by surprise, Rosie and her companion break apart and take flight, one to the left, one to the right. The air is filled with noise, the animal roar of the nix, the high spiralling squeaks of the bat, the screams of the two little girls - and something else, a voice, her father's voice, calling Rosie's name.

  Her flight has brought her round the pool to the mouth of the exit tunnel. Here the voice is clearer. She looks up into the brighter light, then looks round to see where the nix is.

  He is on the far side of the pool once more. He is standing over the other girl who has stumbled to the ground.

  Her hair has fallen over her face so that all Rosie can see are her eyes, which might be Nina's, or Zandra's, or some other child's altogether, peering at her so fearfully, so pleadingly, she hesitates for a moment.

  Then her father's voice again. Come on, Rosie, time to wake up!

  And she turns her back on the cave and the pool and the dark world of the nix, and goes running up the tunnel into the light.

  TEN

  Shirley Novello was not a natural liar. During childhood, both parental and religious influences had urged upon her the primacy of truth.

  Her parents had believed, or pretended to believe, anything she told them. At first, this had seemed fun. You could eat your ice cream then tell them you'd tripped and dropped it in the sand, and they'd give you the money for another. Or you could blame your little brother for some breakage you'd done yourself and sit back and watch him get a spanking. It had seemed easy to reconcile this with the standard of absolute truth in the confessional which she accepted without question. After all, what was the point of lying to God who knew everything, especially when by confessing all the lies she told at home, she could get absolution for them?

  Then one day after confession, the priest had asked, 'Why do we tell God the truth, Shirley?' And she'd replied, 'Because He would know if we were telling lies.' And he'd said, 'No, that's not it. It's because of the pain we give those who love us when they know we're telling lies.'

  That was all. But she knew he was talking about her mum and dad. And that was the end of lying.

  Except, of course, when it was absolutely necessary. Adolescence taught her that truth was not always an option, a lesson confirmed most forcefully by work in the CID. Far too much of your time was spent on the slippery slopes of ends justifying means.

  And with colleagues almost as much as criminals.

  'Let me get this straight,' said Detective Inspector Headingley.

  'The DCI has assigned you to watching Geordie Turnbull?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  She'd been both lucky and unlucky to find Headingley in charge of the incident centre when she reported to Danby. While he was the least likely of the CID hierarchy to authorize her 'poncing about' (his epicene usage) on her own line of enquiry, he was also least likely to question the alleged authority of a senior.

  'You're seeing a lot of Mr Pascoe,' he observed.

  'The super's had me following up some of his lines of enquiry, and now things are looking a bit better at the hospital, he wants to be sure I'm doing things right, sir.'

  Headingley nodded approvingly. This he could understand. Even at moments of great personal crisis, any self-respecting CID officer wants to keep an eye on any airheaded female who was getting her painted fi
ngernails into his . . . the metaphor tapered out, but he knew what he meant.

  'All right,' he said. 'I'll put it in the book, DCI's assignment. And don't take all day over it.'

  But all day looked like what she was going to have to take, and each succeeding minute made it more likely that she would have to explain herself to at best Wield, at worst, the Fat Man.

  The truth of her 'assignment', which she'd wrapped up so imposingly for Headingley, was that Pascoe had listened, or half- listened, to her assertion that, prompted by the name TIPLAKE on the bulldozer in the Neb Cottage photograph, she had examined the driver through the magnifying glass and was almost certain she could identify him as Geordie Turnbull. Then he had said, 'So what?'

  Good question, but one she'd hoped he might try to answer rather than simply ask.

  Not that she wasn't willing to give it a go.

  Well, Benny would know him, wouldn't he? I mean, he was around the dale all that summer. And suppose the reason Benny's come back is to clear his name .. . Yes, that could be it. Benny's innocent and he's trying to work out who really did it, and he recalls that Turnbull was taken in for questioning back then, and he sees in the papers that he's been questioned again . . . then he spots him in that photo, and you can see the name of the firm on the bulldozer, the old name, I mean, Tiplake it was. So Lightfoot checks in the business directories at the library and finds the address, only it's Turnbull's now of course . ..'

  'And goes out there this morning to try and beat the truth out of Geordie?' Pascoe concluded for her. He didn't hoot with laughter. Even if his present situation hadn't put so much ground between himself and amusement, he probably wouldn't have openly ridiculed her. But his serious expression and even tone didn't conceal the fact that he thought she was being ridiculous.

  'It's possible,' she said defiantly.

  'If he'd read what's been written about Turnbull in the local papers this week, why would he need to go burrowing among the business directories?' asked Pascoe. 'No problem about finding him after he read that lot.'