Sempernel shook his head impatiently.
'Won't do, Mr Dalziel. For you to draw attention to yourself in this way - and you must be aware that people who piss into junction boxes often get nasty shocks - you must have had some motive stronger than a sudden urge to make mischief.'
'All right, I'll tell you,' said Dalziel. 'My DCI and his family have been through a lot lately. A right bad time. They survived. Now, a couple of days back, someone starts throwing a different kind of shit at them. I've been looking to see where it might be coming from. There's various possibilities, but this case looks to be up there with the strong contenders. So just on the off chance I'm right, I wanted to take it out of his lap and give notice to anyone who cares to hear that I'll not have folk I'm fond of mucked about. OK?'
Sempernel pursed his lips in puzzlement, like a maiden aunt being offered a good deal on a vibrator.
'So just on the off chance, as you put it, you interfere recklessly with what you suspect might be a case of much greater import than appears on the surface? You must be very fond indeed of Mr Pascoe and his family. Indeed, in the eyes of some people, you may appear fond in the older sense of the word.'
'Aye, mebbe. You come to have me sectioned, have you? Or do you reckon I'm a suitable case for Care in the Community?'
'That would depend on how much I cared for the community in question, I think, Mr Dalziel.'
'Oh aye? And how much is that?'
'More perhaps than you, when you consider the reckless abandon with which you release criminals into it.'
'Criminal? Don't recollect owt about a conviction. Any road, what's the problem? She's got to check in with us on a daily basis and I don't doubt you've got your spooks haunting her wherever she goes . . . hang about though. I'm getting a funny feeling in my piles . . . she's slipped the leash, hasn't she? Come twelve noon tomorrow, clocking-in time, she's not going to show. That's why you're here, isn't it?'
Sempernel put his hands together in a soundless clap and said, 'Perhaps after all I will have one of those curious sweetmeats. They obviously do wonders for the intellect.'
He took an Eccles cake and sank his teeth into it.
'Charming,’ he said. 'Flaky on the outside, succulent within, an experience almost Greek in its intensity. Let us assume you are right, Mr Dalziel. Let us assume that Ms Cornelius went for a stroll in the park and somehow contrived to evade the surveillance of one of my operatives, who is now looking forward to a prolonged stint of duty in our Falklands Office. What then do you imagine the true purpose of my visit is? Apart from the obvious one of spelling out your punishment for such unwarranted interference in matters of state far beyond your brief or competence?'
Dalziel pondered a while then said tentatively, 'Help? You could reckon that when it comes to tracking down a missing person in Mid-Yorkshire, a fat old cop with a bit of local knowledge might be worth half a dozen funny buggers with microphones up their jacksies. Also, by telling me now, you get me on the job twelve hours or so before I'd have found out officially there was a job to be on.'
He looked expectantly at his visitor, who nodded approvingly and said, 'With what is in terms of my trade a very slight adjustment, you are completely right, Mr Dalziel. The slight adjustment is to stand everything you've said on its head. I have come to tell you that tomorrow morning when you learn officially of Cornelius's disappearance, I would appreciate it if you did nothing. Go through whatever motions are necessary to keep you right with the formidable Mrs Broomhill, but if you or your operatives come within sniffing distance of Cornelius's spoor, you are to turn and gallop off in quite the opposite direction. Do I make myself clear?'
'Nay, you can make yourself clear as a prossie's price list, but I take my orders from Mr Trimble.'
'Your Chief Constable?' Sempernel began to laugh. 'I am sure he would be delighted to learn of this change of heart. Mr Trimble has, of course, been put in the picture and will no doubt speak with you in the morning. But it is my reading of your relationship with him that brings me here this evening. You may find ways of doing more or less what you will within the elastic confines of your constabular hierarchy, but in this matter you will be stepping outside your league, and after our little talk tonight, you can no longer offer a plea of inadvertence. Consider yourself warned off, Superintendent. Any further attempt to interfere in this business can only result in the direst consequences for yourself as well as for your what-did-you-call-them? Your friends. A cobbler should stick to his last, Mr Dalziel. Kelly Cornelius is not part of your mystery. I use the word in its medieval sense, of course.'
He stood up.
'You off then?' said Dalziel. 'You've not finished your tea.'
'Busy, busy,' said Sempernel.
He went out into the tiny entrance hall and opened the front door.
On the step he said, 'I take it we understand each other, Mr Dalziel.'
'Stick to my last. Got it,' said Dalziel reassuringly.
'Excellent. Do apologize to Ms Marvell if I have spoiled her evening. Good day to you.'
Dalziel closed the door gently after him as Cap came down the stairs.
'Sounds like I might as well have stayed to meet him after all,' she said.
'No, you might have caught something,' said Dalziel.
They went back into the sitting room.
'So, are you going to tell me about him?'
'Rather listen to the wireless.'
He switched on an old wooden-cased radio, spun the dial till he found some pop music and turned the volume up high.
'Good Lord,' said Cap. 'Are we being bugged? How exciting.'
'No point taking chances,' said Dalziel. 'Shall I make some more tea?'
'No, just tell me what's going on.'
'You tell me how much you earwigged first.'
She smiled, and he said, 'As much as that? Who needs to plant bugs? Well, you'll have got the gist.'
'So tell me, what exactly is this man, Sempernel?'
'You're too young to understand the words. Officially I expect he's got a title like Assistant Director Department 55A (Intelligence). I met him a few years back. There was a case involving . . . well, least said, soonest mended, but it were pretty murky and I were glad to come out of it without too much damage.'
'Damage? You mean, physical?'
'That too. But there's more ways of breaking bones than tickling your ribs with an iron bar. There was a public version, and an official version, and the truth. I let on I went along with the official version.'
'You mean you let them think you weren't really bright enough to get near the truth?'
'More or less.'
'But now they'll begin to wonder, won't they? I mean, the way you got onto them. Incidentally, Andy, I didn't find your explanation all that convincing. All that stuff about getting to thinking and lucky guesses and spotting a funny bugger a mile off. I'm your greatest admirer but that's a load of crap, isn't it?'
'You've been keeping bad company,' admonished the Fat Man. 'But you're right. I got this message over the computer. All about Kelly Cornelius. All about how her job's laundering money for South American subversives. No indication of where it came from, but it mentioned my old chum, Pimpernel, and that made it sound like the horse's mouth.'
'Couldn't have been Sempernel himself, could it?' said Cap, frowning.
'Don't see what's in it for him, but it's true he's so devious, he probably pees through his ears. Or maybe he's got another kind of leak.'
'In which case, won't he have spotted that you were being a bit economical with the actualite? And won't that get him seriously worried?'
'Doubt it,' said Dalziel confidently. 'I've got one big advantage over sods like old Pimpernel. He's like you. Born with a silver spoon up his jacksie, went to the best schools, all that stuff, and he's clever enough to suss out that mebbe an uncouth slob like me may be brighter than appearances suggest. But he's got a built-in genetic governor which stops him from ever admitting that even a very good cob
bler could possibly run the shoe shop.'
'I thought I heard you promise to stick to your last.'
'Oh aye. And I meant it. Have you ever seen my last?'
'Not for a little while.'
'Lot of hammering involved.'
'Is that so? Tell you what, why don't we let those poor chaps out there hear a craftsman at his work?'
She stood up, switched the radio off and began to undo her skirt.
'Hang on,' said Dalziel reaching for another Eccles cake. 'I think I'm going to need to keep my strength up.'
BOOK TWO
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
T.S. ELIOT: MARINA
i
strange encounter
'I don't believe it,’ fumed Ellie. 'He's just doing it to annoy me.'
'Peter? Of course, you know your husband better than I do, dear, but that doesn't sound his style. And while not denying the attraction of having some handsome young fellow dancing attendance, another female living cheek by jowl with us in the bothy will attract less comment.'
Ellie, who always preferred a present to an absent foe, turned her irritation on Daphne and said, 'If this bothy of yours is so cramped I can't imagine why you said you could put her up anyway.'
'Well, we are a tad isolated and we can hardly expect the poor child to keep watch on us from up a tree and sleep at nights in her car, can we?' said Daphne. 'I must say that she's no slouch behind the wheel.'
This was apropos a glance in her driving mirror. Daphne drove with what she called aplomb and what her friends called abandon, but the Fiat Uno of Shirley Novello had shown no sign of losing contact along the winding minor roads leading out to Axness.
Ellie glanced back, smiled at Rosie in the rear seat with Tig sleeping on a travelling rug by her side, then let the smile fade as she refocused on the supermini. Why she should feel so antagonistic towards Novello she didn't know. Or maybe it was a case of didn't want to know. She was fairly sure sexual jealousy didn't come into it. If Peter found himself turned on by the woman, he never showed it, which a neurotically jealous wife might have found significant in itself. She, of course, was neither neurotic nor jealous, but sometimes wondered if there weren't worse conditions, worse that is as grounds for personal antagonism. They'd met for the first time only recently when Ellie had called in at the station to thank everybody for all their messages and gifts during Rosie's illness. Novello, Pascoe had told her, had lit a candle in her parish church for the little girl. Ellie, though she hoped she'd have the courage of her lack of conviction never to use God as a last gasp insurance on her own behalf, had no such compunctions when it came to her daughter, and had thanked the young woman warmly. Then, as was natural to her, she'd tried to deformalize the boss's wife/junior officer relationship by suggesting they slipped into first names. She'd seen something shift behind the DC's eyes, and for the rest of the visit, the young woman hadn't called her anything. When next they met, it had been back to Mrs Pascoe.
Now, it would have been OK to think that here was an ambitious young female officer who was being careful not to look as if she hoped to cut corners by chumming up with the DCI's missus. Ellie could have accepted, even applauded, such caution. The rising unto place is even more laborious for females than for fellows. And it's by a whole lot of indignities that policewomen with a bit of luck and a lot of care might one day come to dignities.
But Ellie couldn't rid herself of the feeling that there was more to it than that, or rather, less to it than that. What she half suspected she had seen in Novello's eyes was the kind of half-scornful pity she could recall experiencing herself in her younger days when confronted with some middle-aged middle-class woman who’d tried to come on too friendly too quick; not so much a reaction against being patronized as against the poor old sod's assumption that her fixed and finished life had something in common with, or superior to, the empowered, liberated existence of the new generation of females.
'For Christ's sake, I'm not much more than ten years older than her!'
'Sorry?' said Daphne.
Ellie realized she had spoken her thought out loud.
'I was just saying that she looks older than her age, wouldn't you say?' she recovered.
Daphne considered then said, 'No. I'd say . . .'
'What?'
'I'd say she has that extremely rare kind of face which doesn't remind you of anyone else you know. What in particular do you have against the girl, dear?'
'Nothing,' said Ellie, facing the front once more. 'Daphne, has it ever occurred to you that other vehicles, not to mention flocks of cows and herds of sheep, are also permitted to use these narrow country roads?'
Criticizing her friend's driving was an excellent diversionary tactic. Ellie was willing to share much with Daphne, but not the possible selfish triviality of her reasons for disliking Shirley Novello, which she wasn't even willing to share with herself.
'Really, Ellie. What is it you would like me to do?'
'Well, how about slow down for a start?'
'And if as a result of slowing down, I collide with a cow which would not have been there if I'd continued at my preferred speed, how will you feel then?'
This was, like many of Daphne's arguments, unanswerable, unless you had the time, energy, and intellectual resources to attack the assumptions which underpinned it, and as the principle of these seemed to be an assurance of vehicular invulnerability which only a fatal accident could contradict, a QED seemed unreachable, in this life anyway.
In fact, as it now occurred to Ellie, Daphne in driving resembled her husband in life, in possessing a certainty that all would be well so powerful it seemed to be self-fulfilling. Whatever, they reached Axness a good hour before their ETA of noon without even a sniff of danger.
Or perhaps, thought Ellie, it was more accurate to say they achieved Axness, for as a reachable place it hardly seemed to exist. She had remarked on this on her only previous visit some three years earlier when Feenie Macallum had hosted a Liberata meeting at Gunnery House. There was no boundary sign, no village green, no pub, no church, very little sign of human habitation at all; even the fields seemed accidental, marked off not so much by hedgerows as by little lines of sportive wood run wild, with the beasts that grazed them looking like members of one long herd stretching for miles as they migrated waterwards under the burning sun.
But it had an identity which you could certainly feel. Ellie had forgotten how strange that feeling was, as if when you came away, some mnemonic censor lowered a curtain between the world you were heading back to and the world you were leaving. But now on return, the recollection of that previous visit came flooding back. It had been a chilly day of late winter beneath a lowering sky, grey and cracked like an old plaster ceiling, very different from this dome of Wedgwood-blue soaring to the golden boss of the sun. But that same sense of a changed dimension had been there, that impression of a neutral emptiness waiting to be filled momentarily by whatever you brought to it, but leaving no doubt in your mind that whatever it was, it would drain away ineluctably as soon as you departed.
A large part of this feeling derived from the subtle change in the light ahead which marked the end of land and the start of sea. Long before the first glimpse of water, the sky was preparing you for the change which always comes when humans are reminded what a tenuous grip on existence they have, scratching a living on the spoilheaps the gods threw up when they dug out the oceans . . .
Ellie shook her head to dislodge these irritatingly irrational thoughts. I've been spending too much time with that fat old sod, Odysseus, she told herself. But as the car reached the crest of a ridge and she saw half a mile ahead the blue and silver savannah of the sea, she shuddered. Even on a windless day under a summer sun, there was no mistaking its power and menace. No wonder t
he Greeks nicknamed Poseidon the Earth-Shaker.
'Lovely, isn't it?' said Daphne. 'That's one childhood memory you never forget, your first sight of the sea.'
'I've seen it before,' chimed Rosie from the rear, taking this personally. 'Often.'
'Yes, of course you have, dear,' said Daphne. 'But I bet you can still remember the first time.'
Rosie screwed up her eyes in an effort of recollection, then said triumphantly, 'Yes, there were lots of seagulls and some donkeys and a whole lot of sand and Mum and Dad took their clothes off and wrestled on it.'
Daphne shrieked with laughter and Ellie said, 'Jesus. She was nine months old. And we thought she was asleep.'
'I hope at least you didn't frighten the donkeys,' said Daphne. 'Nearly there. And all in one piece, you'll have noticed.'
She paid immediately for her overmod when she turned at speed off the narrow country road into an even narrower high-hedged lane and came into confrontation with an ancient rusty dusty Land Rover. The Audi skidded to a stop only a foot from the other vehicle’s bumper. The seat-belted humans lurched forward against their restraints, but the sleeping dog shot off the back seat, hit the floor, and set up a frenzied barking.
'Oops,' said Daphne. 'You OK, folks?'
Ellie had already turned to check on Rosie who was only concerned for Tig.
'Don't touch him till he's calmed down,' urged Ellie anxiously.
'Oh God, do you see who it is? Ellie, would you care to mollify your giant?' murmured Daphne.
For a second Ellie thought she was referring to the yapping dog. Then she turned her head to see Serafina Macallum climbing out of the Land Rover and approaching the Audi with grave displeasure printed on her face.
She leaned to the open driver's window and said sternly, 'This is not a race track but a public highway . . .' then her monitory gaze widened to take in the passenger seat and she said in a doubtful tone, 'Ellie, can that be you?'
Dalziel 18 Arms and the Women Page 20