'Yes, he usually does, these days. It's not surprising, I suppose, when you've lost your last surviving child. Especially as he thinks I killed him.'
The door opened again at this point and the arrival of Tillotson, Louisa Fielding, Uniff and the Indian Maid masked Dalziel's surprise and prevented him from following up Bertie's statement.
'Hello,' said Tillotson, 'I say, are your things all right? I hope there's no permanent damage.'
'If there is,' said Dalziel, 'I'll send you a bill.'
'That's right, captain,' said Uniff. 'Don't let him polite talk you out of your legal rights. I'm a witness. Hey, Mavis!'
The Indian Maid came over to them with two mugs of soup. She was really a striking girl with much of Uniff's prominence of feature, but regularized into something approaching beauty. The likeness was confirmed when Uniff said, 'Mave, meet the captain. Assumed command in our hour of need. Captain, may I present my sister?'
'How do you do, Mr Dalziel,' said the girl. Her voice confirmed his assessment of Uniff s origins. It was unrepentantly Liverpudlian.
'Pleased to meet you,' said Dalziel.
'It was you we saw on the bridge, wasn't it? You looked as if you were going to walk into the water.'
'Or on it,' said Uniff. 'The second coming, nineteen- seventy style.'
'He hasn't had much luck stilling the waters this time,' said Bertie, peering out of the chintz-curtained window.
The door opened once more and Mrs Fielding came in.
'Everyone here? Good. Is there plenty of soup to go round? I can't see Herrie. Or Nigel.'
'Grandpa was here. But Nigel hasn't been down, has he?'
Bertie looked enquiringly at Dalziel who shook his head.
'I hope he's not moving around in his damp clothes,' said Mrs Fielding. 'Lou, darling, run upstairs and find him. Make him come down.'
'But I've not had my soup yet,' protested the blonde girl. 'Bertie can go. He's nearly finished.'
'He'll take no notice of Bertie,' her mother answered firmly. 'Or worse, even if he was on the point of coming Bertie would make him change his mind. You go.'
'Oh bugger,' said Louisa. But she went.
Mrs Fielding came over to the table now and smiled down at Dalziel.
'I just rang the garage,' she said.
'I'm sorry, you shouldn't have bothered, I was just going to,' answered Dalziel.
'No, it struck me you wouldn't know which was nearest or best for that matter. Anyway they were a bit worried when I told them where the car was. There's a great deal of water all along that road now and they aren't sure their breakdown truck can get along. Once it stops raining the water will go down pretty quickly, of course.'
'So I'm stuck,' said Dalziel. 'Well, that's life. Well, if I can use your phone, I'll try to find myself a hotel and a taxi. How close can a taxi get?'
'He's worried about another trip with Charley,' said Bertie Fielding. 'Be comforted, it's just on the south side that the water lies, Mr Dalziel. The road to the north is a bit damp, but passable. I'd say the Lady Hamilton in Orburn would be your best bet, wouldn't you, Mother?'
Dalziel groaned inwardly, visualizing the under-manager's mixture of dismay and triumph at his return.
'Nonsense, Bertie,' she replied. 'It's expensive, unhygienic, and nearly ten miles away. Mr Dalziel will stay with us until he can pick up his car. Please do, Mr Dalziel. We would all be delighted to have you.'
Dalziel looked slowly round the room and saw delight manifest itself in a variety of strange ways. It masqueraded as indifference on Mavis's face, amused knowingness on her brother's, vague uncertainty on Tillotson's and downright dislike of the idea on Bertie's. Only on Bonnie Fielding's did delight appear in anything approaching full frontal nudity.
'I'd be delighted to stay,' said Dalziel.
'Mother,' said Louisa from the door.
'Hello, darling. Did you find Nigel?'
'No, but I found this in his bedroom.' She held up a piece of paper.
'The little sod's taken off again.'
4
Premises, Premises
The general atmosphere of resigned annoyance told Dalziel he was in the middle of a routine upset rather than a major disaster. Nigel, it seemed, had left home to seek his fortune on several previous occasions. Looking at the flaking paint and faded wallpaper around him, Dalziel felt that perhaps the boy had a point. It would take a fool or a clairvoyant to seek a fortune here.
The current weather, however, added a new dimension of concern to this latest escape, for his mother at least. His brother and sister seemed completely unworried, though the Uniffs whether out of sympathy or politeness were much more helpful.
'He can't have gotten far,' said Hank. 'Poor kid. He'll soon have his bellyful of this rain.'
It was not the most diplomatic use of the idiom. Quickly Mavis stepped in.
'Hank, take a look outside. He might be sheltering quite close. If not, we'll take a run down the road in the car.'
Hank left, and Mrs Fielding sat down at the table. She appeared quite composed now.
'Lou, darling,' she said. 'How's the soup? Nigel will be freezing when he gets back.'
'There's oodles left,' said Bertie. 'We're hardly down below yesterday's tide mark.'
'I like it best when we reach that ox-tail we had at New Year,' said Louisa. 'That was my favourite.'
Indifferent to this family humour, Dalziel picked up the note which Mrs Fielding had dropped on the table.
I am leaving home because (1) my plans for the future don't coincide with yours (2) I have no desire to live off money coined by my father's death and (3) there are some people I don't care to have near me. Nigel. PS. I don't mean you. I'll write when I'm settled.
He turned it over. It was addressed to the boy's mother.
Hank returned.
'Any sign?' asked Mavis.
'No. But the rowing-boat's gone.'
'He always threatened to run away to sea,' said Louisa.
'Lou, shut up, will you?' said Mrs Fielding. 'Oh damn. I wish he hadn't taken the boat. I don't like the thought of him on the water.'
'Shall I go after him in the punt?' volunteered Tillotson, a suggestion which drew derisive groans from everyone except Mrs Fielding and Mavis. And Dalziel too, though he groaned internally.
'Thank you, Charles, but no,' said Mrs Fielding. 'Hank, did you see Pappy out there?'
'Not a sign,' said Uniff.
'See if you can find him and tell him Nigel's loose again. Then perhaps you'll join us in the study. It's time to talk.'
Uniff left and the other young people drifted out after him. When Mrs Fielding spoke, Dalziel noted approvingly, the others jumped. He liked a strong leader.
'I'm sorry to leave you alone, Mr Dalziel,' she said. 'But we have to have a business conference. Make yourself at home.'
'Thanks,' he said. 'I'll keep the soup hot for Nigel.'
'That boy. You must think us very odd.'
Dalziel did not deny it.
'He sounds a sensible lad,' he said, indicating the note.
'You think that's sensible?' she asked, surprised.
'Well, it's neatly laid out. One, two, three. I like that,' he said with the authority of one whose own official reports were infamous for their brevity. I came, I saw, I arrested was the Dalziel ideal according to Pascoe.
'It's possible to be methodical and still find trouble,' she answered. 'There's probably a cold joint in the pantry if you're hungry. We usually eat on our feet during the day and sit down for a meal about six-thirty.'
She left and Dalziel glanced at his watch. It was one o'clock. Five hours.
He went into the kitchen in search of food. There was a small deep freeze into which he peered hopefully. It contained very little and nothing of particular appeal. He shuffled the contents around in the hope of coming across one of his favourite frozen dinners-for-two, but there was no sign of such delights. One foil-wrapped package caught his eye. The remnants of a cold j
oint perhaps. He unwrapped it.
'Well bugger me!' said Dalziel.
Inside the foil, sealed in a transparent plastic bag, was a dead rat.
These sods might be hard up but there were limits, he told himself. Gingerly he re-interred the corpse in its icy tomb and closed the lid.
His appetite had left him for the moment so he lit a cigarette and sat down once more to muse upon this odd household.
Just how odd was it? he asked himself. Well, the atmosphere for a start. It didn't feel very funereal. Not that that signified much. He'd been at funerals where by the time the poor sod was planted, half the mourners were paralytic and the rest were lining up for the return to the loved one's house like homesteaders at the start of a land-race.
Anyway atmosphere was too vague. You could breakfast on atmosphere, but you'd better make your dinner out of facts.
Fact one was the age of the non-Fieldings. Coeval with Bertie and Louisa, they were hardly the mourners one would expect at the funeral of a man of Fielding's assumed age.
Fact two was this business conference going on. What were they doing – reading the will? Not likely these days. Then what?
Fact three was the lad, Nigel. His farewell note hinted at household relationships more turbulent than the usual teenage antipathies.
Fact four was the enigmatic remarks people kept dropping about Fielding's death.
And fact five was a freezer with a dead rat in it.
He stood up and dropped his fag end into Bertie's mug. When it came down to it, he distrusted facts almost as much as atmosphere. He knew at least three innocent men who would be bashing their bishops in Her Majesty's prisons for many years to come because of so-called facts. On the other hand, on other occasions other facts had saved all three from well-deserved sentences. We are in God's hands.
So he abandoned facts and set off on a walkabout of the house hoping to encounter truth.
He strolled along the brown horror of the entrance hall opening doors at random. One room contained a full-size billiard table, presumably the one on which the coffin had rested. There were two or three balls on the table and a cue leaned up against a pocket. Someone had not waited long to resume playing.
Dalziel moved on and reached the next door just as a telephone rang inside.
'Hello!' said old Fielding's reedy but still imperious voice. 'Yes. This is Hereward Fielding speaking.'
So that's what 'Herrie' was short for. Jesus wept!
He remained at the door. He was firmly of the conviction that if you didn't have enough sense to lower your voice, then you either wanted or deserved to be overheard.
'No, I will not change my mind,' said Fielding. 'And I am too old to be bribed, persuaded or flattered into doing so. Now please, leave me alone. I have just buried my son today, yes, my son. Spare me your sympathy. You may come tomorrow if you wish, but I make no promises about my availability. Good day.'
The phone was replaced with a loud click. Dalziel pushed open the door and entered.
The room was large and ugly, its furnishings and decoration old enough to be tatty without getting anywhere near the ever-shifting bourne of the antique. Fielding had turned from the telephone to a wall cabinet, the door of which seemed to be jammed. He glanced up at Dalziel.
'Oh, it's you,' he said, heaving. The door flew open and a glass unbalanced and fell to the threadbare carpet. He ignored it, but plucked another from inside and with it a bottle. Dalziel fixed his gaze on this. It took a strong man to stand with a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other, and not offer him a drink.
'Can I help you?' asked Fielding.
'No. The others seem to be in conference and I was just having a look around,' said Dalziel.
'Were you? Well, this room, by general consensus the coldest and draughtiest in this cold and draughty house, is sometimes regarded as my sitting-room. Though naturally should anyone else wish to eat, drink, sleep, play records, make love or merely take a walk in it, my selfish demands for privacy are not allowed to get in the way.'
'That's good of you,' said Dalziel heartily, closing the door behind him. 'Terrible, this weather. I pity all the poor sods on holiday.'
'I understood you were on holiday,' said Fielding, filling his glass.
'So I am,' said Dalziel, mildly surprised at the idea. 'Pity me then. Yes, it's still chucking it down. I hope your grandson's all right.'
'What?'
'Your grandson. He's run away, I believe. I'm sorry, didn't you know?'
The old man took a long swallow from his glass. What was it? wondered Dalziel. He couldn't see the label which was obscured by Fielding's long bony fingers, but the liquid was an attractive pale amber.
'It would be too optimistic to hope you might mean Bertie?' said Fielding.
'No. The lad. Nigel.'
'I feared so. It was ever thus. Wilde was wrong. You don't have to kill the things you love. Just wait long enough and they'll go away.'
'Who?' said Dalziel, pouncing on this further reference to killing and wanting to get its provenance right.
'Who? You mean, who… Oscar Wilde. The Ballad of Reading Gaol.'
'Oh, the poof,' said Dalziel, his interest evaporating.
Unexpectedly Fielding laughed.
'That's the one,' he said. 'Will you have a drink, Mr…?'
'Dalziel. Yes, I will.' Here's another one who thinks he's summed me up and can start patronizing me, thought Dalziel as his huge hand held the glass he had retrieved from the floor steadfastly under the bottle till the meniscus touched the rim and Fielding said ironically, 'Say when.'
It was brandy, a cheap brand Dalziel suspected, not from any connoisseurship of the liquor but by simple taste-bud comparison with the smoothness of his own favourite malt whisky. Something of his reaction must have shown and he realized he had inadvertently got back at Fielding for his suspected condescension when the old man said, 'I'm sorry, it's not good, but these days we all have to make sacrifices.'
'It's fine. Just the job for this weather,' said Dalziel, emptying his glass and proffering it for a refill.
'The weather. Yes. That foolish boy. I hope he will be all right. He never goes far, at least he didn't when Conrad – that's his father, my son – was alive.'
'Fond of his dad, was he?'
'Very,' said the old man firmly.
'But he still ran away, even then?'
'Certainly. It's in the family. Conrad was always taking off when he was a boy. I myself ran off to join the Army in 1914. I was sixteen at the time.'
'Did they take you?' asked Dalziel.
'Not then. I looked very young. We were younger then, you know. Balls dropping, menstruation, it all happened later in my generation. But now they seem to need jock-straps and brassieres in the cradle.'
Fielding laughed harshly.
'Anyway, it was a blessing I see now. I went legally and forcibly in 1916 and within six months I was ready to run away again, home this time.'
'It must have been terrible,' said Dalziel with spurious sympathy. 'All that mud.'
'Mud? Oh no. I didn't mean the trenches. I never really saw the trenches. It was just the sheer boredom of the whole thing that made me want to run away. Very unfashionable. I wrote a book about my experiences a few years after the war. A light, comic thing, it went down well enough with your general reader, but it put me in bad with the intelligentsia for the next decade. But then I did a bit of Eliot-bashing and that was a help. Even so, I still got the cold shoulder, more or less, until the fifties. After that it was just a question of survival. Hang on long enough and you're bound to become a Grand Old Man. Like the essays Paul Pennyfeather set in Decline and Fall. The reward is for length, regardless of merit.'
He laughed again, a series of glottally-stopped cracks, like a night-stick rattling along metal railings. Dalziel contemplated making him laboriously explain what he had just said, sentence by sentence, but decided against it on the grounds that the poor old sod probably couldn't help himself.
'So you're not too worried about the boy?'
'In the sense that he is too sensible to contribute willingly to his own harm, no. But as you say, the weather is appalling and in addition, we live in troubled times, Mr Dalziel. The post-war period is an age of unbalance, of violence. Women and children cannot wander around with impunity as in my boyhood. Even the police seem more likely to be a source of molestation than a protection against it.'
'They've a hard job,' said Dalziel mildly.
'I dare say. They certainly make hard work of finding an answer to the crime wave.'
'Oh, the answer's simple,' said Dalziel. 'Charge two guineas a pint for petrol, have a dusk to dawn curfew, and deport regular offenders to Manchester.'
It was a Yorkshire joke. Fielding was not very amused.
'It's in man's mind, not his motorways that the answer lies,' he said reprovingly. 'Has Bonnie organized a search for Nigel? No, you said they were in conference, didn't you? Conference! You see how this house is run, Mr Dalziel!'
Dalziel felt impelled to defend Bonnie Fielding.
'The man, Pappy, has been warned to keep look-out. The lad took the boat, it seems.'
'Worse and worse,' said the old man angrily. 'That fool Papworth is totally unreliable. Let's go and find him and you'll see.'
He drained his glass and led the way out at a pace which had Dalziel's borrowed carpet slippers flip-flopping on the uncarpeted floor.
Dalziel paused in the hallway as he heard the sound of raised voices drifting down the stairs. Someone, it sounded like Bertie, was shouting angrily and other voices mingled in the background.
'Come on!' commanded Fielding, irritated by the delay and obediently Dalziel followed him through a door which led into a new complex of meaner corridors running through what presumably had once been the servants' quarters.
Fielding strode on ahead till he reached a door on which he rapped imperiously. Then without waiting for a reply, he flung it open with an aplomb which won Dalziel's professional admiration.
The room looked as if it had been furnished from an army surplus sale. The metal bed was made up with a neatness that invited inspection and the objects on the bedside locker – ashtray, alarm clock and a box of matches – were placed at the corners of an isosceles triangle.
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