Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  His voice boomed round the crowded vestibule.

  ‘Yes, Mr Dalziel,’ said Hubbard at a much lower level. ‘And we would have preferred the woman to continue a little longer in custody. What the devil were you playing at in there? Where’s DCI Pascoe?’

  ‘Got held up so I had to step into the breach last minute. Sorry if I weren’t up to speed on things, but finding out what’s going on here’s like trying to find out who really shot Kennedy. Here, don’t I know your friend?’

  The stouter suit had stepped away from the conversation. Now, under Dalziel’s benign smile, he said, ‘No, I don’t think we’ve met. Hubbard, I think we should be on our way.’

  The thin suit gave Dalziel a glance at once accusatory and promissory and the pair began to move away.

  The Fat Man let them go two or three paces then he called, ‘I remember. Didn’t you used to hang about with yon funny bugger, Pimpernel, sorry, I mean Sempernel? Aye, that’s it. Didn’t recognize you without your cloak and dagger. How is old Gawain? Still sifting through wastebins to keep us all safe for democracy, eh?’

  The suits slowed momentarily then increased their pace without looking round.

  ‘Well, give him my regards anyway,’ called Dalziel as they went through the door.

  Then he smiled benevolently round the listening room like a medieval pope after a good burning, and said, ‘Nice to meet old friends, isn’t it? But I can’t stay here all day enjoying myself when there’s work to be done,’ and headed out into the sunshine and towards the Black Bull.

  xvii

  the juice of strawberries

  Rosemont was a house for all seasons, but at summer’s height the extensive gardens were a green canvas on which an artist had painted heaven with a palette of roses. From the purity of Iceberg and Virgo, through the faint flush of Félicté et Perpétue and Escapade to the clear-pink of Dandy Dick, the lilac-pink of Yesterday and the salmon-pink of Evensong, the shades ran ever darkening down the red blush of Perfecta, the bright flame of Wilhelm, the dried blood of Kassel, the velvet burgundy of Roseraie de l’Haÿ, ending in the depths of midnight-purple in the robes of Cardinal de Richelieu.

  A seeker after sensation could voyage long hours across this ocean of colour and scent, uncaring because unknowing whether his fate was directing him to Sweet Repose and Penelope or Clytemnestra and Crimson Shower. As Ellie’s car emerged from the tunnel of over-arching hollies which stood sentinel about the main gate, her heart sang at this sense of bursting into a new and golden land. It wasn’t true, of course, but somehow it seemed that the sun always shone at Rosemont, as indeed it had seemed to shine always upon the life of its owner, Patrick Aldermann.

  Ellie was no rose expert but she could identify the long-stemmed sweet-smelling blooms in deep gold, opening to a scarlet flush, which had pride of place in the beds flanking the front door. These were the fruits of Patrick’s own breeding and he’d named them after his wife, who was standing alongside them on the doorstep as Ellie drew up.

  Today, however, the resemblance between bloom and eponym was not as clear as it had once been, though there was presumably some sort of scarlet flush beneath the white gauze taped across her nose.

  ‘Ellie, it’s lovely to see you,’ said Daphne. ‘I hoped you would come.’

  ‘You mean you’ve been lurking in the porch all morning on the off chance?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Don’t be silly. The noise that wreck of yours makes is identifiable five miles off. Careful!’

  This in response to the kiss Ellie offered to plant on her cheek.

  ‘It’s all right. The danger zone’s pretty well signposted. How are you? I’d have brought some flowers only it seemed sort of coals to Newcastle.’

  ‘Belgian chocolates or exotic fruits didn’t cross your mind then? Let’s sit outside. Patrick’s just making some coffee, or is your alcoholism so advanced you’d prefer a gin?’

  ‘Coffee’s fine. Patrick…? I thought he was on his way to Amsterdam or somewhere?’

  ‘He should be, but he’s come over all macho and says he can’t possibly go. I’m working on him.’

  They sat at a handsome round table in delicately scrolled wrought iron. The chairs looked to be made from the same material but proved to be gently yielding and very comfortable. Patrick Aldermann was not inclined to let anything get in the way of his creature comforts.

  ‘So, how are you feeling today?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘Aren’t you getting your script wrong? It’s you who’s got the cauliflower nose, remember?’

  ‘Because I got in the way, not because I personally am being terrorized,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re the one who matters here, Ellie.’

  This was one of the things that made Daphne special, thought Ellie. After an audition as violent as hers, few people could have resisted the temptation to be prima donna, if only for a couple of scenes, in someone else’s opera.

  ‘It’s the kind of distinction I could do without,’ said Ellie glumly. ‘Anyway, I came to say I’m really sorry. And I am.’

  ‘Darling, it wasn’t your fault. Not at all. Or not unless there’s something you’re not telling me.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because, being a bleeding-heart liberal and a product of the let-it-all-hang-out state educational system, you are little skilled in the arts of social hypocrisy. What’s bugging you? I use the phrase horticulturally, of course.’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, everything. Oh, what the hell. It’s stupid, but it does feel like it’s all my fault. Sort of, I mean.’

  ‘Such clarity, such brevity,’ murmured Daphne. ‘But perhaps you could expand just a little.’

  Ellie said, ‘Before Rosie was taken ill, I was feeling, you know, a bit sort of down. Self-analytical. Looking at my life and asking what it really added up to. I know, I know, in terms of what I’d got, nice home, by my plebeian standards anyway, nice husband, good sex, lovely kid, a fridge full of exotic grub and Australian chardonnay, a decent circle of friends, present company excepted, in terms of all this I was doing OK. And I couldn’t moan on about giving up my career, because any time I wanted I could pick up some lecturing work, and if I really got the bug, I could even go back full time, Peter would have fallen over backwards to be supportive. Only I thought about it and realized that attending for a check, or even a cheque, was exactly what I didn’t want! So, no complaints there.’

  ‘Ellie, my dear, I hope this isn’t leading up to a confession that you’ve been screwing the milkman?’ said Daphne.

  ‘Our milkman is a milkwoman who, rumour has it, is fully occupied realizing the randy-squire-and-young-dairymaid fantasies of Mr James, the merry widower at number seventeen. No, I flung my fling, or came close, a few years back. But that was in another country and besides, the boy is dead. So, been there, done that, have no desire to pay another visit. I love Peter, and when he’s not absolutely knackered running around after the Fat Controller, he can make the earth move and the welkin ring for me like we used to read about in mucky books.’

  ‘Our educational systems did have some overlap then,’ said Daphne. ‘So that’s sex, love, maternalism, and creature comforts all sorted out. What’s your problem, dear?’

  ‘I just feel that I haven’t really done anything,’ said Ellie helplessly. ‘Not anything that matters.’

  ‘Come on! When I first met you, you were waving a banner and chanting abuse even though you had a papoose basket strapped on your back. For years you were to protests like Kate Adie is to civil wars, they couldn’t really start till you got there.’

  ‘Oh yes, I marched and made speeches and wrote letters and joined pickets, I did all that. But I never got shot at, or beaten up, or tortured like the people I was protesting for. I never even had to go hungry because I was on strike like the people whose pickets I joined. But it wasn’t just social-conscience stuff. I’ve never lived abroad, I’ve never bummed my way along the Golden Road to Samarkand. I’ve never sailed round the w
orld single-handed, I’ve never been close when something really interesting has happened, like an earthquake or a revolution or a film star getting into a fight in a restaurant. I sometimes read the author blurbs on novels and think that if ever by some miracle I get published, they’ll have to have a blank!’

  ‘Wow,’ said Daphne. ‘Is this perhaps why you started writing? I don’t mean to fill the author blurb blank, of course. Or perhaps I do.’

  Ellie laughed and said, ‘I don’t care what your therapist says about you, I think you’re pretty sharp. Yes, possibly. It’s a way of getting a life, isn’t it? In fact, an infinity of lives. Plus, if it comes off, you’re Ellie Pascoe the novelist instead of just Ellie Pascoe, the policeman’s wife. But there’s more to it than that, I think. I hope. Anyway, my laboured point is that when Rosie nearly died, suddenly all this crap dwindled away to nothing. There was me, there was Rosie, there was Pete. That was it. Holy Trinity. I even prayed to that other Trinity, the one I don’t believe in. And I made promises. Like if we got through this, I’d never be dissatisfied again.’

  ‘Do promises to something you don’t believe in count, I wonder?’

  ‘More than any other, I’d say. Never cheat something that can’t cheat back. Anyway, to cut a marathon story down to ten thousand metres, all that stuff I thought had dwindled down to nothing, well, it’s like stuff on your computer screen, it goes out of sight but it’s really still there. I can feel it. I think I got the first reminder when I got rung up about that Liberata meeting I told you about. Part of me said, I’m finished with this stuff, from now on it’s cultivate your own garden, girl. Then guilt clicked in. But worse than guilt. I found myself thinking about old Feenie Macallum. Her life, you couldn’t get it on the back of a dust jacket, you’d need a whole thick volume. You see what I’m saying, Daphne? I know I’ve been changed by what happened, what nearly happened to us. I look at Rosie and Pete and I know that they’re so important to me, I’d die for them. And yet I can still feel deep down inside of me the old seeds of dissatisfaction! Lovely character, ain’t I?’

  ‘And you think that this Trinity you don’t believe in, having tried to set you right earlier this year by nearly killing your daughter, has decided to give you another lesson by having you persecuted by a bunch of loonies? Come on!’

  Daphne laughed, not a forced superior bray but a bubbling gurgle of real amusement which left you no option but to join in.

  As if at a signal, which indeed perhaps it was, Patrick Aldermann appeared carrying a tray which he placed on the table, then stooped to peck Ellie’s cheek.

  ‘How nice to find you both in such high spirits,’ he said. ‘I thought you might have come to blows over who should bear most responsibility for yesterday’s fiasco.’

  ‘Patrick, please!’ said Daphne. ‘We’ve got that sorted.’

  ‘Oh yes? And?’

  Ellie said, ‘I freely accept complete responsibility, despite the fact that what actually happened to Daphne was her own silly fault.’

  Aldermann considered this as he poured the coffee.

  As he handed a cup to Ellie, he smiled. It was a good smile. His normal expression was an unexpressive blank, brown eyes observing you neutrally from an oval face whose complete regularity of feature enhanced the sense of a mask. Another kind of man, realizing how attractive and juvenating his smile was, might have used it more often and more calculatingly, but Aldermann was the least self-conscious man Ellie knew. She wasn’t sure how much she liked him, not because she knew anything about him to dislike, but simply because he gave so little away. People with something to conceal often reveal themselves negatively through the way they wish to be seen, but Patrick was simply… Patrick. A man for whom life had seemed to arrange itself with the natural beauty and perfect proportions of this garden. Except, of course, that this garden owed most of its beauty and lay-out to the working brain and working hand of its owner. Which made you wonder about his life…

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said. ‘She has this fond belief that danger can’t touch her, or that if it does, the gods will protect her by turning her into a bush.’

  ‘Well, you’ve turned her into a flower,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Pity you weren’t around yesterday to spray some sense into her.’

  It was a light-hearted joke at Daphne’s expense but her husband seemed to take it seriously.

  ‘Yes. A pity. But I’m around now.’

  ‘Which you shouldn’t be,’ said Daphne. ‘You should be on your way to Amsterdam. For heaven’s sake, I’m not under threat. It was, as you two moral philosophers keep banging on, my own stupid fault that I put myself in the way of this thug who, having got me out his way, can’t have any more interest in me, can he?’

  ‘He may still have an interest in Ellie,’ said Aldermann. ‘At least I assume Peter thinks so from the presence of that young man lurking behind the Zéphirine Drouhin.’

  Ellie followed his gaze down the garden to an eight-foot-high pillar covered with carmine-pink blooms, through which the shape of DC Bowler was just discernible.

  ‘Shall I ask him up for a cup of coffee?’ said Daphne.

  ‘No!’ said Ellie, irritated. ‘I’ll tell him to sod off.’

  ‘Why not let him be?’ said Aldermann. ‘He’s doing no harm and can come to none. Zéphirine has a glorious scent and no thorns. So what does Peter think is going on, Ellie?’

  ‘I can’t go into details,’ said Ellie virtuously. ‘Except he thinks the danger’s probably over now. My minder down there in the rose bush is more for Peter’s peace of mind than my protection.’

  ‘Exactly the reason you’re hanging around here, Patrick,’ said Daphne. ‘It’s a typical male control thing. Your feelings masquerading as our fault.’

  ‘Bravo,’ laughed Ellie. ‘You’ve been reading one of those books I loaned you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You lot think you invented female insight the way kids think they invented sex. It’s been around a lot longer than Germaine Greer, if that’s possible. Ellie, help me get it into his head that just because I got a bang on the nose doesn’t mean I have ceased to be able to stay in my own house by myself.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ellie. ‘I can see how you might be concerned, Patrick. Frankly I don’t know how you can bear to let anyone so completely headstrong and so totally unreliable out of your sight for a moment. But isn’t the solution obvious? Take her to the conference with you.’

  ‘Oh, he’s tried that,’ said Daphne. ‘And I’d go if it was anywhere but Holland! I feel so depressed there, mentally and geographically. Only fish and crustaceans were created to exist below sea level. The thought that only some small child’s finger is preventing a tidal wave from the North Sea gushing all over me is more than I can bear. But wait. I feel an idea coming on. There is a Plan B. This involves me going away to stay somewhere safe with someone sound. Patrick’s preferred candidate is my cousin Joyce in Harrogate. I would prefer the bed of the North Sea to the company of my cousin Joyce in Harrogate. On the other hand, Ellie, you are someone sound whose company I could bear, for a little while at least. As for somewhere safe, David and his chums are abandoning the comforts of the bothy today for the more character-building terrain of a camp site in the Trossachs. Why don’t we head out there for a few days, Rosie too, of course, and solve both our husbands’ problems by looking after each other?’

  So, thought Ellie, must Marie Antoinette have sounded as she put forward her solution to the bread-shortage crisis. And so looked too, probably, except maybe for the nose bandage; but certainly the same shining eyes, the same delighted smile, the same exudation of exultation, which probably made the feyer members of the French court a little warm under the collar, were on show here.

  She left it to Patrick to point out the major flaw in the proposition, viz, that when stung by a wasp, you do not achieve safety by running away with the jam-pot. When he didn’t speak, she put it down to natural spousal reluctance to hurl the first stone and said, �
�Daph, that’s great, except for one thing. It’s me these lunatics are interested in, not you. Safest thing for you is to keep as far away from me as possible.’

  ‘There you go again,’ said Daphne. ‘Me, me, me all the time.’

  Ellie looked at Patrick for the delayed support.

  Instead, after another long moment’s reflection, he said, ‘Nosebleed, as you know, is about fifty miles away on the coast.’

  ‘Nosebleed?’ echoed Ellie, trying to interpret this as an obscure and untypically discourteous reference to Daphne’s injury.

  ‘Yes. Our cottage. Nosebleed Cottage. That’s its name.’

  ‘Good Lord. Charming.’

  Patrick smiled and said, ‘Don’t let it put you off. It’s a local name for the common yarrow, Achillea millefolium.’

  ‘Achillea? As in Achilles?’ said Ellie, suddenly thinking of her story.

  ‘That’s right. Yarrow is a potent medicinal plant and has magical properties too, though the distinction is often blurred. Hang on a moment.’

  He went through the window into the house.

  Daphne said, ‘Haven’t you learnt never to express an interest in any form of vegetation when Patrick’s around, not even if you’re eating it?’

  ‘Shut up. I am interested.’

  Patrick returned, bearing tomes of various size and antiquity. He leafed through what looked the most ancient.

  ‘Here we are. Gerard’s Herball, 1597. “The plant Achillea is thought to be the very same wherewith Achilles cured the wounds of his soldiers.” And Grigson in his Englishman’s Flora cites Apuleius Platonicus’s Herbarium. “It is said that Achilles the chieftain found it and he with this same wort healed them who were stricken and wounded with iron.” So, a kind of Homeric Savlon.’

  ‘As Achilles seemed to spend the best part of his life running around, wounding people, I imagine he had plenty of opportunity to try it out,’ said Ellie. ‘That’s medicine. You mentioned magic before too.’