Authors: Reginald Hill
"So this means the bugger could have had nigh on fifty thou in his pocket when he took off finally. Great!"
"Gets better, or worse," said Wield. "I thought about this camper van that was seen at Wark House. We've been trawling all the hotels and b-and-b's in the area with no luck. But if he's camping ... so I took a trip into Dendale."
"No camping, trailers, or unauthorized motor vehicles on Water Board land in Dendale," quoted Dalziel. "They don't like the idea of folk pissing in our drinking water."
"Yes, I know, sir. But back a ways down the valley, there's a farmer lets out a field to campers and such. Fellow called Holmes. Wild-eyed bugger with a tangle of beard like a briar patch, he'd as lief shot me as helped me, I reckon. But his wife's a tidy body and she sent him to muck out the pigs or something while she told me, yes, there was a camping van, and the fellow on it spoke with what could have been an Aussie twang--"
"These Holmeses, they local?"
"Meaning, would they have known Lightfoot? Holmes, yes, but he never saw this guy. Camping's his wife's business, nowt to do wi' him, long as they shut his gates and don't scare his stock. Wife's an off-comer from Pateley Bridge."
"So when did matey with the twang arrive?"
"Late last Friday. Left yesterday morning."
"Damn," said Dalziel. "Bloody cool if he's our man, but. Owt else, Wieldy? Van number's a bit much to hope for, I suppose?"
"Mrs. Holmes thought the plate had a C and a two and a seven in it. Not much, but I've got Traffic working on it. But she did get a name for the guy. Slater."
He said it with unnecessary significance. Dalziel was there instantly.
"As in Marion Slater, you mean. Benny's mam's new married name when she took off to Oz? You ever get a reply to your inquiries to Adelaide?"
"Nothing yet."
"Well, let's not get excited. It's a common enough name."
"Yes, sir. Not all that common a face, but."
"What do you mean? You said this Holmes woman were an off-comer--"
"That's right. But I got an old photo of Benny from the file, ran it through the copier, touched it up a bit to put a few years on in, and showed her that."
"And?"
"And she said it were him. Mr. Slater. No doubt at all."
Cap watched Dalziel come back into the bedroom carrying an armful of clothes, which he dumped on the bed prior to starting dressing.
"You're going, then? I hoped you'd stay the night."
"Me too. Sorry. Something's come up."
"Something you can tell me?"
"Nowt to tell, really. Just a possible."
"And you've got him?"
"No. Bugger's still out there somewhere. But if he's the one, we will get him, never have any doubt about that!"
He spoke with such vehemence, she had a vision of being pursued with extreme prejudice by this relentless man, and shuddered.
He observed the effect of the shudder on her breasts with undisguised interest.
She said, "Well, take a key just in case you feel like dropping in later."
"I'll see what I can manage," he said.
After he left, she put on a robe and poured herself a Scotch, digging out the bottle of supermarket blended she'd hidden in the kitchen. It was a gesture. No getting away from it, the single malt was infinitely superior, but sometimes gestures needed to be made.
Things were moving faster than she'd anticipated --the bedding, the key. Too fast? How to say? She was playing this by ear, and her ear was not as reliable as once it had been. What she needed was a sign, or better still a sound, something for her to fix her fine-tuning by.
The telephone rang.
Well, that was a sound. Was it an answer?
She picked it up and said, "Hello? Beryl, hi! Yes, it's fine. No one here, not at the moment. No that doesn't mean ... well, perhaps it does ... my God you've got a disgusting mind ... but if you've got an hour to spare, and as you're paying for the call, relax, and I'll tell you all about it."
"Don't imagine just 'cos you don't show it, I don't know you think this is a waste of bloody time," snarled Dalziel.
Wield, by his side, viewing with his customary impassivity the overgrown hedgerows reducing the already narrow road along which they were moving at a perilous speed, did not bother to reply.
They were on their way from Danby to Nether Dendale to talk again with Mrs. Holmes, and though the sergeant was certain he'd got all there was to be got out of the woman, and that he'd done all there was to be done about it, viz., put out an alert for a white camper with the C, two, and a seven in its plate, arrange for copies of his updated picture of Benny Lightfoot to be distributed to all reliefs, and send a fax to Adelaide saying their previous inquiry about the Slater family was now urgent, he didn't think this revisit was a waste of time. This inquiry was building up a head of frustrated energy in the Fat Man which a wise subordinate took every opportunity to release. And besides, the very sight of the Fat Man at full throttle was often a remarkable aide-memoire, even to the most cooperative of witnesses.
In fact, in terms of Mrs. Holmes, it did turn out to be nonproductive. She had given Wield her all. Dalziel kept on pressing till finally her husband growled through his tangle of beard, "Enough's enough. You buggers got no beds to go to? You missed him last time, what meks you think all this durdum's going to get you any closer this?"
"What's that you say?" demanded Dalziel rounding on him.
Holmes didn't flinch.
"I said my missus has told you all she's got to tell and it's about time--"
"No, no," said Dalziel impatiently. "You said, all that durdum, right?"
"It means fuss, or noise," Wield interpreted helpfully.
"I know what it bloody well means," said Dalziel. "Mrs. Holmes, I'm sorry to have kept you up late. You've been a great help. Thanks a lot. And, Mr. Holmes ..."
"Aye?"
"I seem to recollect it's a farmer's responsibility to keep his hedges from blocking public roads. You should get them seen to afore there's an accident. Good night."
They got back in the car but instead of heading back to Danby, Dalziel drove up the valley till they reached the locked gate across the reservoir road.
"Fancy a walk?" he said.
They took flashlights but didn't need them. There was an almost full moon hanging like a spotlight in the inevitably clear sky. By its light they climbed the steps up to the top of the dam wall and stood there, looking across the silvered waters of the shrunken mere to the sharp silhouette of Lang Neb and Beulah Height.
"Search is knackered over Danby side," said Dalziel. "And Desperate Dan wants his plods back. Mebbe we should have spent more time looking on this side, eh? At the very least, we should have looked in the mere. I'll have a team of mermaids over here first thing in the morning. What do you think?"
"Good idea, sir," said Wield. "I'll see to it if you like."
Privately he thought that trawling the mere was a waste of time, but he knew that the Fat Man was being driven by more than mere duty here, so he looked up at the magnificent sweep of stars and held his peace.
Nor did he complain when back at Danby, though there was nothing more to be done, Dalziel kept him from his bed for another half hour or more with fruitless speculation. But finally they were done and took leave of each other, and drove their separate ways home. Or rather, Wield drove home, but Dalziel drove back to Cap Marvell's flat.
He didn't know whether he'd have gone in if a light hadn't been showing, but it was, so he did.
Cap was waiting up. She looked at him inquiringly and said, "Anything?"
He said, "Nowt that makes sense. If it is Benny back, it needs a wiser head than mine to suss out why."
As on his first arrival, the revelation of vulnerability touched her deeply and she went to him and took him in her arms.
This time their lovemaking was slower, deeper, though its climax was as explosive as ever.
"Jesus," she said. "That was like ... like ..."
"Like what?" he said.
"I don't know. Like as if someone had shaken a bottle of bubbly up in heaven and popped the cork, and we were in one of the bubbles streaming out across the cosmos." Then she laughed at her own floweriness and went on. "Sorry about the purple prose, but you know what I mean, don't you?"
"Oh, aye," he said, "but likely it were just God farting in his bath."
She pushed herself far enough back from him to beat his insensitive breast, then let him pull her close again.
"How on earth have I let myself get involved with a Neanderthal like you, Andy?" she asked.
"It's the uniform," he said.
"You don't wear a uniform."
"I'm speaking metabolically," he said. "It's the authority turns you on. I've had snouts like you before. It's my body they want, not my money."
"I'm not your snout," she protested.
"No? Then it must be my natural charm. Am I to keep the key in case I can get tomorrow night?"
"I suppose it's marginally better than having you kick the door down. But tomorrow night I shall be busy myself till quite late. In Danby, oddly enough. It's the first concert of the festival."
"I'd not forgotten," he said. "The Turnip and yon Wulfstan lass. I've been thinking about her."
"Me too," she said. "In fact, I've been doing more than thinking. I've been talking. My friend, Beryl--you remember? the headmistress who had Elizabeth in her school ...?"
"Oh, aye. One of your spiders on the worldwide web."
"Thank you for that, Andy. Well, she rang, and during the course of our conversation I quite naturally mentioned Elizabeth Wulfstan--"
"You pumped her!" exclaimed Dalziel delightedly. "I always knew you were a natural!"
"In its Elizabethan sense, I think I must be," said Cap. "What she told me was of great interest. And as I cannot see how it can be relevant to your inquiries and therefore qualifies as simple gossip, I shall not hesitate to pass it on. Of Elizabeth's early history Beryl knew nothing, except that she was in fact distantly related to Chloe Wulfstan ... what's the matter?"
"Durdum," said Dalziel.
"Sorry?"
"Durdum. Means a lot of noise and fuss. I heard this farmer use it tonight. He's from Dendale. It rang a bell. That's the only place I've heard it used."
"Philology now," said Cap impatiently. "Shall I go on?"
"The Wulfstan girl used it too," said Dalziel. "And glorrfat. Another Dendale word. She called me a glorrfat. Either she's really turning the screw or she's from Dendale! And related to Chloe, you say?"
His mind was trying to superimpose an image of a tall, slim woman with shoulder-length blond tresses on an image of a small chubby child with cropped black hair. Nothing matched ... except mebbe those dark, unblinking eyes. ...
"Shall I go on?"
"Yeah. What happened?"
"Well, it was all very sad, really, though happily it seems to have worked out more or less all right. It seems that when she first came to the school, Elizabeth was a rather unprepossessing, chubby child with short black hair. ... Andy, I wish you wouldn't twitch. Is it a revival of sexual passion or merely the DT'S?"
"Just keep talking," he urged.
"Best offer I've had all night," she said. "But a change took place. Tell me, was the Wulfstans' real daughter, the one who went missing, a slim blond child?"
"Aye, were she," said Dalziel. "Pretty as a picture."
"Well, it was that picture which probably got into Elizabeth's head. That's what they all guessed she was trying to do. Turn herself into the child her adoptive parents had lost. She started to lose weight, but no one paid much heed. Adolescent girls do go through all kinds of changes. And she let her hair grow. Only, of course it was the wrong color. And that's where the tragedy, or near tragedy, happened. It seems one night she shut herself in the bathroom with a bottle of bleach and set about trying to turn her hair blond. The results were devastating. Fortunately Chloe heard her screams and got her under the shower. But her scalp was badly damaged. She was lucky not to have got any in her eyes. And while she was in hospital they realized that far from just losing puppy fat, the girl was severely anorexic."
"I knew it!" exclaimed Dalziel. "From the start. First off I thought she were taking the piss with the way she spoke. Even when I realized she weren't, I still had this feeling she were having a secret laugh. It were because I didn't recognize her."
"You knew her? When? How?"
"Back in Dendale," said Dalziel. "She were the last of the girls to get attacked, the only one to get away. She were little Betsy Allgood."
Betsy Allgood [PA/WWST18-6-88]
Transcript 3 No. 2 Of 2 Copies
Like I said, I thought everything were going to be all right forever.
If things worked out, sheep would have gum boots, my dad used to say.
But they don't. And Dad didn't get Stirps End either.
When we heard that Mr. Hardcastle had got it, Dad wanted to rush off and speak to Mr. Pontifex straight off. But Mam got in front of the door and wouldn't let him pass. She didn't often stand up to him when he were ireful, but this time she did, and told him he'd best sleep on it, and she knew it weren't right and Stirps End been good as promised, but she reckoned Mr. Pontifex had given it to Cedric Hardcastle out of guilt.
Guilt over what? yelled my dad.
"'Cos he thinks it were him selling land to the Water Board that set things off back there in Dendale, so he's given Ced the farm 'cos they lost Madge, which makes us the lucky ones, 'cos we might not have Stirps End but we've still got our Betsy!"
And when she said this, I saw my dad's eyes turn to me, and they were black as grate lead, and I knew he were thinking he'd rather have the farm.
Well, he held off seeing Mr. Pontifex till next morn, but it didn't do much good from all accounts, and he came back saying we'd best pack as he'd told Mr. Pontifex to stuff his job, and likely the old sod would be coming with the bum-bailiffs to turn us out of our cottage afore nightfall.
Mr. Pontifex did turn up later that day, but he were on his lone and he talked a long while with my mam first, 'cos Dad went out into the backyard when he came through front door, then he talked to them both together, and upshot was Dad stayed on as his sheep man with a bit more brass besides and the promise of first refusal on the next farm to come up. But that would be like waiting for a drink from a Methodee, said Dad, seeing as all the farms on the Pontifex estate were let to families who'd got sons to carry on the tenancies. And though he didn't look at me this time, I knew he were thinking of me again.