On Beulah Height dap-17

by Reginald Hill

  "Pay her no heed, Walter. Every bugger knows she's talking a load of bollocks. Every bugger save her, that is."

  The phraseology and accent might have been Andy Dalziel's but the voice was Elizabeth Wulfstan's.

  She touched Wulfstan's arm, and he subsided. And turning her attention from Novello to Dalziel with a completeness which was like a door shut in the WOULDC'S face, she went on. "You there, glorrfat, you know this is bollocks. Walter's told you what happened with yon poor lass. It were dreadful, but it were an accident. So why don't I call his solicitor, we'll all go round to the cop shop, you take his statement, then we can all go home. I mean, this is a waste of time, isn't it? I haven't heard any cautions, I don't see any tape recorders. I'm off to Italy tomorrow, and I'd like to get a good night's sleep."

  Dalziel looked at her, and smiled, and shook his head, and murmured, "Little Betsy Allgood. Who'd have credited it? Little Betsy Allgood turning into a star."

  She scratched her bald head and said, "Nay, Andy, I've a ways to go yet."

  "Aye, but you'll get there, lass," he said. "You've come this far, what's going to stop you now?"

  "You, mebbe, if you keep us here all bloody night," she retorted.

  "Nay, you're free to go anytime, Betsy," he said. "What's to keep you here? You've done what you set out to do. Come back. Sung your songs. Made your peace. But afore you go, there's a little matter you could help us with."

  He held up his hand. Wield, with that almost telepathic sense of cue which was a necessary survival technique for the Fat Man's acolytes, dipped into the files and papers he was carrying and produced the handwritten blue sheets.

  Reactions: Wulfstan indifferent, hardly registering; Krog, blue-eyed, blank-faced innocence; Elizabeth, frowning, gaze flickering over the others as if assessing how the sheets had got into Dalziel's hands; Chloe, head back, eyes closed, the position she'd assumed after her faint denial of the possibility of her husband's involvement; Inger Sandel, on the piano stool, apparently more interested in the keyboard than the conversation…

  "Seems you thought later you might have got a bit confused about what happened that night you went after your cat," said Dalziel. "Nice to get the record straight."

  "Should've thought, after what we've just heard, you'd got the record straight as you're ever likely to get it," said Elizabeth.

  "There's nowt like hearing it from the horse's mouth."

  She flashed one of her rare smiles.

  "That's what you think of my singing, is it?"

  "I think you hoped you could close things off here with your singing," said Dalziel. "That was the idea, wasn't it? Come back, get it out of your system, quick march into the rest of your life? But the past's like people, luv. They need to be properly buried, else they'll keep coming after you forever. Benny really is back now, so we can give him a proper sendoff. But what about them others? You think some miserable Kraut songs in a disused chapel will do the trick? I don't think so. Ask the Hardcastles. Ask the Telfords. Ask Chloe and Walter here, who've tret you like their own daughter all these years."

  "And she's been a good daughter to me," proclaimed Chloe Wulfstan, suddenly fully awake. "A second chance. More perhaps than I deserved. Grief makes you selfish… Oh, God, when I think of the pain she put herself through… Betsy, I'm sorry, I've tried to make amends…"

  She was gripping the younger woman's hand and looking at her with desperate appeal to which Elizabeth, however, responded only with a frown.

  Pascoe coughed gently. Dalziel glanced at him with something like relief and nodded. They had worked together long enough to have sketched out faint demarcation lines. In Dalziel's words, "I'll kick 'em in the goolies if you'll shovel the psycho-crap."

  Pascoe said, "I don't think you need be too hard yourself, Mrs. Wulfstan. You see, I don't think that Betsy's anorexia and bleaching her hair was really an attempt to turn herself into Mary. Or if it was, it wasn't for your sake, certainly not just for your sake. No. It was to turn herself into the kind of daughter she thought her own father would have preferred. Fair haired, slender, attractive, graceful. Everyone thought the short-cropped hair and boyish clothes were sops to her father's disappointment at not having a son. But I don't think so, Elizabeth. I think they were your mother's deliberate attempt to make you as ungirllike as possible. She wanted to make you invisible to him. But you, what you wanted was visibility. Even after he was dead. Perhaps you thought it was because of the way you looked that he died. You blamed yourself for not being what he wanted. Which bring us to the question, how did you know what he wanted? How your mother knew… well, I think a wife has an instinct. There may be deep layers of pretense which will never permit a public acknowledgment, but she knows. And sometimes the knowledge becomes unbearable. But a little girl… Could be it was your sheer invisibility which was the trick. I bet you followed him around… I bet you could spot him half a mile away in a good light. Just the merest glimpse up the fell would be enough. Yes, I bet that was it, Betsy. I bet that was it."

  It wasn't working. He'd kept going at such length in the hope of seeing some cracks appearing, but there was nothing on the woman's face except that same frown of concentration. The others more than made up for it, however, as the implications of what he was saying got through. Wulfstan had emerged from his dark inner world, Krog's features had been surprised by a natural feeling. Sandel looked up from her piano amazed, and Chloe's grip on her daughter's hand came close to being an armlock.

  She said, "Betsy, please, what's he mean? What is he trying to say?"

  "Pay no heed," said Elizabeth harshly. "Load of riddles. It's the way these buggers talk when they've got nowt to say."

  "Betsy, we can't pursue the dead, however guilty," said Pascoe. "But the living need to speak out. Think of the pain your silence has caused. Okay, a mixed-up child can't be blamed for keeping quiet, but you did more than keep quiet, didn't you? You misdirected. Think of the consequences. Think of that poor man drowning in a cellar. Think of little Lorraine. All these spring from your silence. There has to be an end."

  "Aye," she said dragging her arm free from Chloe's grip. "And I've reached it. I've had enough of this. I'm off first thing in the morning and I'd like a good night's sleep, if no one else would. Walter, I'm sorry the way things have worked out, but they can't do much to you for an accident. Chloe…"

  In one last desperate appeal, Chloe said, "Elizabeth, if you know anything, please, please, tell us."

  "Know what? What should I know?" cried Elizabeth.

  "Where she is. Where my daughter is! Tell me. Tell me!"

  Last chance, thought Pascoe. But to admit she knew would be to admit everything. Not least that she had let the suffering of her adoptive parents stretch out over all those years. Would she have the strength? He could see it was tearing her apart.

  He murmured something to Wield, who delved into the files he was carrying and came up with the map he'd drawn of Dendale fifteen years earlier. He gave it to Pascoe, raising his eyebrows interrogatively. Pascoe took it in his left hand, at the same time showing Wield what he held in his right.

  Instantly Wield was back on the sunlit fellside, the dale spread out below him like the Promised Land, behind him the fold built from stones first raised into walls here four thousand years before, beside him the dark, wiry shepherd, his dogs obedient at his feet, and in the gloaming air the song of larks and the bleating of the folded sheep.

  …

  You bastard! thought Wield, recalling his thoughts when he realized the dead sheep had been used to hide the missing child's whereabouts. Different man, but, yes, the same trick!

  And Pascoe, like a conjurer, held up the map and CD, then turned the latter through forty-five degrees so that the silhouetted face became the outline of the Dendale fells with a formalized sun arrowing its rays down into what had been the girl's mouth.

  He knew now what the notes coming out of her mouth signified. Ellie had recalled the hosts discussing it on the record review prog
ram she had been listening to that Sunday morning, which now seemed a million light-years away.

  "Mahler's Second is known as the Resurrection Symphony," she'd said. "It's about the awakening of the dead, and judgment, and redemption. These bars are a quote from the first sounding of the resurrection theme, and there was a lot of speculation why she'd used them instead of a quote from the lieder themselves."

  Well, the speculation was over.

  He held the disc cover close to the singer's eyes.

  "I think you've told us where Mary and the others are already, Betsy," he said. "I think you've been longing to tell somebody for ages. You want it to be finished, you want to start moving forward, don't you? But you know there can't be any hope of redemption and renewal without resurrection. That's what you want to tell us, isn't it, Betsy? We'll catch up with them on Beulah Height. In bright sunlight. The weather's bright on Beulah Height."

  And though very little physical change was possible, it was as if they saw Elizabeth Wulfstan shrink to Betsy Allgood as she sat heavily on her chair and began crying.

  Though he'd only heard them once, Pascoe could not get the words of the song out of his mind. They sounded there as he lay in bed and they were still with him next morning as he toiled up the fell.

  Oh, yes, they've only gone out walking, Returning now, all laughing and talking.

  There was no laughing and talking among the men who labored up the hillside with him. It was already warm enough to make them sweat under the burden of picks and shovels, even though the sun had not yet risen high enough to fill the valley. But up ahead the eastern flanks of the double peak were already washed with gold.

  We'll catch up with them on Beulah Height In bright sunlight. The weather's bright on Beulah Height.

  Now they were close enough to see the sheepfold, a semicircle of drystone wall built against the craggy face of the saddle.

  Still no one spoke. Like men in a dream they moved, needing no instructions when they reached the fold, but advancing on the crag as if to some well-rehearsed choreography, and swinging their picks in unison as they probed for the weakness they knew must be present in its apparently solid facade.

  Three times they swung and three times they struck, and at the third blow a strange thing happened.

  Sparks flew as metal clashed against granite and all at once the air seemed to ignite as a bright lava of sunlight poured down the ridge into the hollow of the fold.

  At the same time a huge slab of rock swung open like the gates of a fortress.

  The men stepped back, amazed. And fearful too. Only Pascoe held his ground, straining his eyes to see into that black cavern, straining them so much that after a while his fancy created the impression of movement.

  Fancy? This was no fancy. There was movement in there. He could see shapes in the darkness, small forms advancing slowly toward the light.

  And now the first was close enough for the sun to give detail to the uncertain outline. Oh, Christ! It was a child, a girl with long blond hair, blinking her eyes against the unaccustomed light and bearing in her arms a bouquet of fresh-picked foxgloves. Behind her came another child, also carrying flowers. And another… Oh, sweet Jesus. He recognized these children from their photographs. The first was Jenny Hardcastle, the second Madge Telford. And the third Mary Wulfstan, her mother's features unmistakable in the small solemn face.

  How to account for this Pascoe did not know. Nor did he care. His heart was swelling with such joy, he could hardly breathe. So this was how it ended. All that pain and grief and despair hadn't been for nothing. They were alive, alive, alive…

  But the miracle wasn't over. Another figure came forward. He looked and did not dare believe. Lorraine. Lorraine Dacre, holding her flowers in one hand and rubbing her eyes with the other, as though just awoken from sleep.

  And behind came another…

  Now it wasn't joy that pumped Pascoe's heart, it was fear. He was choking. Not with fear of the child he was seeing, but fear of the knowledge that came with her-the knowledge that she had no place in this wild, high landscape, that it was only his imagination that could have put her there…

  The fifth figure was Zandra Purlingstone.

  He threw back his head and shrieked his rage and despair to the empty sky. For a second it seemed he stood alone on the bare hillside. Then even that illusion was gone. He was lying in his bed with the pearly light of dawn turning his window into a magic lantern screen against which moved the slender boughs of the silver birch which grew at the bottom of his garden.

  He rose and dressed swiftly. He had plenty of time to keep his first appointment of the day, but there was something else he needed to do which took him in quite the wrong direction. Not pausing for breakfast, he got into his car and drove through the still-empty streets into town.

  At the hospital, a security man advanced to challenge him, recognized him, and called a greeting. Pascoe raised a hand but did not pause. Lightly he ran up the stairs, waved a hand at a surprised Sister, and went into the small room where Rosie lay.

  Late last night he'd spoken to Ellie on the phone, told her what had happened, where he needed to be the following morning. Dalziel had assured him his presence would not be necessary. Pascoe hadn't argued, simply said he'd be there. Ellie had understood, told him to go home, get what rest he could, assured him that Rosie was doing marvelously well.

  Last night Ellie's voice, her reassurance, had been enough. This morning he needed to see for himself.

  Ellie had had her bed brought into the room so she could be at her daughter's side. She stirred as Pascoe entered but did not waken. He smiled down at her, then tiptoed past to Rosie's bed.

  She had thrown the top sheet off and lay there curled with one fist pushed up against her chin, like Rodin's Thinker.

  Think on, my love. But not too much. Not yet. Time enough to wrestle with life's problems. Time enough.

  Gently he drew the sheet over her. It would be nice to kick off his shoes and lie down here with his wife and child, and wake with them in a little while. But there was work to be done. A debt to be paid. What had Ellie called him? Pious Aeneas, always on his way to the Lavinian shore.

  How the gods must love irony to let the sight of those he loved most both tempt him from his duty and give him the strength to do it.

  He brushed Rosie's brow with his lips, then stooped over Ellie.

  A writing pad lay by her side, half hidden by the duvet. She still clutched a pencil in her hand. She'd started writing again. She was indomitable! For her, a huge crisis endured gave her strength to turn away and confront all the smaller crises put on hold. Indomitable!

  Guiltily he peeked at the penciled scrawl. Suppose it wasn't a new book, but something intensely personal… but no, there were the reassuring words Chapter One. He read the opening lines.

  It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was blowing off the sea and the guard commander bowed into it with his cloak wrapped around his face as he left the shelter of the grove and began to clamber up to the headland.

  Ellie stirred. He looked down at her with love and admiration. Indomitable. A new tune, she'd said. I think we'll all be ready for some new tunes after this. And with typical boldness she'd chosen as her fanfare the corniest opening line in literature!

  With a woman like this by his side, a man could go anywhere.

  But first he had somewhere to go by himself.

  He kissed her gently and went out of the room.

  The breeze which had stirred the birch tree at dawn was stronger now, pulling at his hair, portending change. As he sped north he saw for the first time in weeks the smooth blue ocean of sky break against the far horizon in a faint spume of silver cloud.

  The gate across the reservoir road was thronged with grim-faced policemen who checked his warrant even though they knew him. Today was by the book.

  Despite his efforts at speed, his diversion had made him late and he saw the others waiting for him at the head of the mere. Greetings w
ere short and muted. They watched in silence as he pulled on his boots.

  Finally he was ready. At a grunted signal from Andy Dalziel, they turned their faces to the rising fell and went to keep their rendezvous on Beulah Height.

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