Dalziel 17 On Beulah Height

by Reginald Hill

  She told them this verbatim.

  'And there's something else,' she added, seeing that Dalziel's expression had lost some of its previous manic sparkle, and deciding that bad news was best spilled out in a single bucketful. 'Slater gave his name as Barney, not Benny. And it's there on his passport. Barnaby Slater.'

  She waited to be assured this meant nowt, but from the Fat Man's face she saw it meant more than she knew.

  'The younger brother,' said Wield. 'The one who stayed with his mam. He was called Barnabas. Benjamin and Barnabas. The old lady's choice, I always thought. From the sound of it, Marion were none too religious.'

  'So, Benny's not going to come back using his own name, is he?' said Dalziel. 'Helps himself to his brother's passport. Mebbe he had to. Mebbe he never got round to changing his own name.'

  He sounded less than convinced.

  Wield said, 'One way to find out, sir.'

  Aye. Let's get to it. Ivor, you sit in on this too. Don't gab on, but don't be afraid to speak up if you see the need.'

  So this time she wasn't going to be dumped after doing the donkey-work, thought Novello. Great!

  Unless, of course, Dalziel simply wanted a sacrificial victim handy if things started turning sour. Which they gave every sign of doing from the moment they entered the tiny interview room.

  Slater looked from Wield to Dalziel without the slightest sign of recognition and said, 'Jesus, what's this? You gonna sit on my legs while he frightens me to death?'

  'A joker,' said Dalziel. 'I like a laugh.'

  'Yeah? And just who the hell are you, mate?'

  'Me? I'm the bastard in charge of this shit-pile,' said Dalziel. 'But you know that, don't you, Benny? We've met before.'

  The man looked at him blankly. Then he said, 'What was that you called me?'

  'Benny. Benjamin Lightfoot as was.'

  A grin split the man's face.

  'The name's Barney. You think I'm Benny, is that what this is all about? Jeez, what a screw-up.'

  If it was an act, it was a great one. But Wield, studying the man's face, was almost sure it wasn't. The man certainly looked very like the photo of Benny which he himself had doctored, but seen in the flesh, there were too many differences.

  It wasn't a question of physical characteristics, all of which fitted well enough. It was a matter of expression, a glint in the eyes, a twist of the lips, a watchful cocking of the head to one side, little things like this. OK, so people could change a lot in fifteen years, but there was no way Wield could imagine that repressed, shy, fey youngster turning into this assured, aggressive, self-sufficient man, any more than (he now admitted fully to himself for the first time) he had ever been able to believe that Benny Lightfoot had the nous to get himself safe out of the country. Not even with fifty thousand pounds. He'd have had it taken off him by the first con man he met!

  He said, 'When did you last see your brother, Mr Slater?'

  'Before Ma took us to Oz,' said the man. 'We went up the valley to see Granny Lightfoot. Ma said he could still come with us if he wanted, but he just shook his head and clung on to the old lady like someone was going to try and drag him free.'

  Dalziel groaned, like thunder over the sea, but he didn't speak.

  'You keep in touch? Letters and such?' said Wield.

  'Nah. Christmas cards was the limit. We're not a writing family. Not till the old lady's letters when Benny had his spot of trouble, and then there was only the two.'

  'You knew about the Dendale disappearances?'

  'Heard something. Didn't pay it much mind. Troubles of our own. Things started falling apart for us soon after we hit Oz. Jack, that's Jack Slater, my stepfather, turned out a wrong 'un. Nothing crooked - well not so's you'd notice. But the horses, the booze, the sheilas. I left school soon as I could, lot sooner than I should, that's for certain. Someone had to earn. To start with, Ma tried to keep up with Jack, in the boozing at least. Only she didn't have the constitution. By the time Jack up and left, she was real ill with it. That's when the letters came, I guess.'

  'The letters from your grandmother, Mrs Lightfoot?'

  'That's right. Look, telling you all this stuff is going to get me out of here, right?'

  He addressed his words to Dalziel.

  The monkey might be doing the talking, thought Novello, but this guy knows who's grinding the organ.

  'I'm starting to think the sooner I see thy back, the better,' said Dalziel with feeling. 'But I reckon I can thole thy face till you've answered all our questions.'

  'No need to turn on the charm, mate,' said Slater. 'OK. These letters. I didn't pay them any heed till years later when I was tidying up after Ma passed on. First one said the old girl had changed her address and was living with some relative in Sheffield and if we saw anything of Benny, would we let her know. Second said she moved again to this nursing home, Wark House, and asked about Benny again. That was it.'

  'Your mother write back?' asked Wield.

  'How would I know?' said Slater. 'Could be, but like I say, she wasn't much in control for ahelluva lot of the time. Talked about Granny Lightfoot sometimes, hated her guts as far as I could make out, and I gathered the feeling was mutual. But one thing Ma always did say about her was she was a tidy old bird with her head screwed on, and if anyone in our family could hang on to a bit of dosh, Agnes was the girl.'

  'Wasn't she concerned about Benny?' Novello heard herself asking.

  Slater shrugged and said, 'Who knows? Didn't talk about him much and when she did, it was usually to say he'd made his bed and could lie on it. I think she was really pissed when he chose to stay with his gran rather than take off with her.'

  'But he was her son, her first born,' Novello persisted.

  'So? That just made getting the old heave-ho from him worse. Sometimes when the booze had got her to the weepy stage, she'd say she'd like to see Benny before she died. Then she'd get past it and say he'd probably got the old girl's dosh by now and was living high on the hog, so why the hell should she worry about him when he didn't worry about her?'

  Wield was looking over his shoulder at Novello to see if she had anything else to say. She gave a small shake of her head.

  'So after your mother died, you thought you'd come back to England and check whether in fact the old lady was seriously rich and see if you could squeeze some of it your way?' said the sergeant.

  'Not so,' said Slater, unperturbed by the provocative question. 'Ma died, and suddenly I was footloose and fancy free, no one to please but myself, no one to spend my money on but me, and I thought, the only relatives I got in the whole wide world are back there in Pommerania, so why not take a trip and see what there was to see.'

  'But you made a beeline for Wark House, right?' said Wield accusingly.

  'No way, mate. Touched down on Monday. Dossed down with this mate of a mate in London. He had this old camper he let me borrow for a few quid. Lot cheaper than hotels and I'm a real open-air boy. I drifted north taking in the sights. Hit Yorkshire Friday morning and thought, no harm in checking Gran Lightfoot out. It was good to find her still alive. Mind you, she was pretty crook. And confused. Thought I was Benny. I tried to put her straight, then she said something which really made my ears prick and I stopped trying. Something about she knew I'd have found the money and used it to get away safe.'

  'Thought you weren't interested in money,' said Wield.

  'Didn't say that, mate. What I said was, that wasn't why I came back. But I wasn't going to look the other way if it looked like some dosh might be due to me. Especially when she let on in her ramblings it was fifty thou in cash, and she'd put it in a tin chest up under the eaves where Benny knew she always hid her valuables, so that's where he'd have looked after she went into hospital.'

  'And she believed Benny had got the money?' said Wield.

  'Yeah, that's clearly what she reckoned when he vanished from sight. And now that she knew for certain he'd got it - because she'd seen me, thinking I was Benny - she said sh
e could die happy. Now I did try telling her again, no need for her to die just yet, happy or not, as I was Barney not Benny, but she was pretty flaked out by now and I could tell she wasn't taking it in. So I left. Look, no need to sit there looking all po-faced. I want her to know who I really am. I'm going to call in again on my way back south and hope I get her when she's a bit more with it.'

  He stared defiantly at Wield and the others, then it came to him that it wasn't just disapproval he was seeing on their faces.

  'What?' he said.

  'Bad news,' said Dalziel. 'Or mebbe good, depending how you look at it. After your visit, she died happy. Last night.'

  'Ah, shit, you're jossing me? No, you're not, are you? Shit. I really hoped . ..'

  He appeared genuinely distressed.

  Novello waited for someone to suggest a break in the interview, but all Dalziel said was, 'Never fret, lad. Tha's still in good time for the funeral. And now there's the money to make it a good un. Sooner we get this sorted, sooner you can start seeing to all that. So let's get on, shall we? Just take it from when you leave Wark House.'

  The implication that soon as Slater had told them this, he would be free to go, came close to being an inducement, thought Novello.

  Not that it mattered. She reckoned she could have told most of the man's story for him anyway.

  'I headed on north 'cos that was the way I was pointing,' he began. 'But all the time I was thinking, like you do when you're driving. And what I thought was if Benny had picked up the dosh and taken off, why'd he never tried to contact Gran? I mean, he loved her more than anyone else in the world, right? So what had happened to him? And the sixty-four thousand dollar question, had it happened to him before or after he got his hands on the money?'

  'So you got to wondering if mebbe the box were still where Agnes put it, up in the attic of Neb Cottage,' said Dalziel.

  'That's right. Seemed a long shot, but what the hell, I had nowhere else in particular I wanted to be. Only, when I got to Dendale I discovered there was no Neb Cottage any more. I had a wander round, but it was so long since I'd been there, I couldn't even be sure I was looking at the right heap of stones! But by now I was getting to feel stubborn. If that money was still around and Benny wasn't, then I had as good a claim as anyone, right? So I headed into town and tried the library. Lady there was truly helpful. I was able to read all about what happened back there in the old papers. Also she showed me this book which had before-and-after maps in it which I got photocopied.'

  'Hold on,' said Wield, ever the stickler for detail. 'Let's get the timing sorted. You arrived in Dendale when?'

  'Saturday morning. Got myself a pitch at this farm, then walked up the dale and started looking. When I realized I was getting nowhere, that's when I drove into town. Was in the library till closing, which was also close to opening so I had a few beers and a spot of grub, then back to the dale. Sunday I was up with the lark. This time I boxed clever and first off I climbed up to the ridge of the Neb and wandered along there a while, getting a bird's-eye view. Best way to get your bearings, made more sense of the maps than working out mileage and such on the ground. Once I was sure I'd located the right heap of rubble, I went down there and started digging.'

  'Let's hold it there,' said Dalziel. 'You're up on the ridge. Just looked down one side, did you? Into Dendale? Never looked down the Danby side?'

  'What? Hey, you're not still trying to tie me in to that missing kiddie, are you? Come on! It's clear from what the papers said that you're running around like headless chickens, pointing the finger at poor Benny who no one's seen for fifteen years. You try to keep it in the family and you'll look a real load of assholes!'

  Pascoe at this point would probably have said something about headless chickens not having fingers, thought Novello.

  Dalziel just looked longingly at the tape machine as if trying to switch it off by force of will so he could have a real heart-to-heart.

  Then he said gently, 'Not missing kiddie. Dead kiddie, Mr Slater. Just tell us. Please.'

  'Yeah. Sure. Sorry. You've got a job to do. I hope to hell you get the bastard,' said Slater. 'No, I don't believe I did look down the Danby side. I was concentrating on locating what I hoped might be the site of fifty thousand quid, remember. Soon as I was sure I'd located the cottage ruins, I headed on down there.'

  'You mean you returned to the col and went back down the Corpse Road?' said Wield.

  'Nah. Headed straight down. Crazy really, it's bloody steep. I went arse over tip and nearly did my ankle. In the end I dropped into this ghyll, White Mare's Tail, they call it. The going was a bit easier there, though I'd not have liked to try it if the fall hadn't been all dried up with the heat.'

  'And did you see anyone else?'

  'In the valley? Not a soul for a long time. Oh, yeah, there was someone on the ridge, I think. I glanced back and think I saw some guy on the col where the Corpse Road crosses. But he was a long way off and the ridge took a dip just then and I didn't see him again.'

  'But there were people in the valley later?' said Wield.

  'Yeah, sure. Hikers, families having picnics, all kinds of folk wandering around the bits of the old village that the drought's brought back up. I didn't want an audience to what I was doing, natch, but by then anyway I was pig sick of the business. I'd done all I could with my hands and found nothing. There were blocks of stone there I'd need a crow or pickaxe to shift. So I gave myself the rest of the day off, went to get a wet and see if I could find any action.'

  'Any luck?' asked Dalziel.

  'Not sure. All I know is I woke in my camp bed next morning with my Y-fronts on back to front and a mouth like a pig man's bucket. All I could think was, when I finally stop shaking, I'm out of here. But by midday when I'd got a few pints of tea inside me and could think of taking solids without spewing my ring, I got a little more upbeat. So I drove off to get some tucker, and afterwards, I found one of these big DIY superstores and bought myself a pick and a crow. I waited till late evening when I had the valley to myself before I started work. It was almost pitch black by the time I gave up. By then I knew for certain that wherever the money was, it wasn't there.'

  'But you still didn't accept the obvious conclusion that Benny had got it?' said Wield.

  'Did at first,' said the man. 'Then I got to thinking, you jokers were after him, right? So one place you'd be watching day and night till it was 'dozed would be Neb Cottage, 'cos that's where he'd most likely make for. So if he'd shown, you'd have spotted him. And as you didn't, maybe he had never come back for the money.'

  'Maybe he did come back,' said Novello. 'Maybe that's what he was doing by the ruins when he attacked Betsy Allgood. Looking for the box.'

  'Could be,' said Dalziel. 'Had a bad night, didn't he? So you started wondering who else might have got the money?'

  'Right,' said Slater. 'First off, I thought it might be one of you lot. Well, you were on the spot, right? And fifty thou in used notes is a helluva temptation even for virtuous gents like yourselves.'

  He smiled at Novello as if to exclude her from the slur. She didn't smile back.

  'But once you'd put such a daft notion out of your head,' said Dalziel genially, 'you still didn't give up. Once a Yorkie, always a Yorkie, eh? So it was back to yon bonnie lass in the library, eh?'

  'Right,' grinned Slater. 'I just didn't want to leave before I'd made damn sure I'd not missed anything. And this time I found myself staring at the pic of the 'dozer demolishing the cottage.'

  They were all as far ahead of him now as Novello had been from the start, but it was necessary for him to spell it out for the tape.

  He'd made out the name painted on the bulldozer, checked it in the local business directories, and discovered that for the last several years Tommy Tiplake had been trading as Geordie Turnbull out of the same address. And he recalled reading in the local paper the day before that this same Turnbull had been helping the police with their enquiries just as he'd done fifteen years ago in Den
dale.

  'Coincidence? Maybe,' he said. 'I almost dropped it in your laps then, got as far as the cop shop, but thought, what the hell, with all this stuff in the paper about Benny Lightfoot fifteen years back, once you jokers get your hands on Benny's brother, you're going to be more interested in fucking him around - pardon my French, miss - than following up some half-baked gumshoe work I'd been doing. So I went off to Bixford and had a drink in the pub and got chatting to some of the locals. All the talk was about Turnbull, and I soon heard enough to make me wonder how come a 'dozer driver like him had suddenly got enough put by to buy into his boss's firm way back. It made me think it was worth having a quick talk with Geordie.'

  'Talk?' said Dalziel. 'If that's what you do to any poor sod you have a quiet talk with, I shouldn't like to see anyone you fancied having a quiet snog with!'

  'There was a misunderstanding,' said Slater. 'But we soon got on the same wavelength. I'll give him his due. Once he saw the way the wind was blowing, he didn't mess around but put his hand up straightaway. Said it had been bothering him for years, but he just hadn't been able to resist the temptation when he pushed over the old cottage and saw this tin box lying in the rubble with tenners spilling out of it. Can't say I blamed him. Would probably have done the same myself.'

  'I get the impression, Mr Slater, that you have done much the same yourself,' said Wield.

  'The money, you mean? Listen, mate, I got that money fair and square. You ask Turnbull. Like I said, once he understood who I was, he co-operated of his own free will. Wanted to get it off his conscience. Also he's done all right, our Geordie. Fifteen years ago, fifty thou was big money still. Now it's a down payment on one of those earth movers of his. I told him, get me the dosh in readies today and I'll forget the fifteen years interest I'd be entitled to. He agreed. If he says different, he's a liar. Why the hell he wanted to get you people involved, I don't know. He's the only one committed a crime here, not me.'

  'Blackmail's a crime,' said Dalziel softly. 'Extortion's a crime. And don't give me any of that kangaroo crap about this being your money. It was your gran got robbed, not you. It's her sodding money if it's anyone's.'