Dalziel 07 Deadheads

by Reginald Hill

  'Can I have my bag, please?' she said.

  He handed it over and she opened it and began to look through her purse.

  'It's all right. I paid out of my own pocket,' he said.

  'Just checking,' she said icily.

  'Look,' he said. 'I'm sorry. You got the wrong end of the stick.'

  'In your case, I imagine both ends are dirty.'

  They finished the journey in silence. At the door of the block of flats, Penny turned her key in the lock and tried to slip inside alone, but Dalziel's shoulder was too quick.

  'Where the hell do you think you're going?' she demanded.

  'Listen,' he said, his great slab of a face set with earnestness, as if a second-rate Renaissance sculptor, stuck with an angry Ajax, had smoothed down its features a bit in an effort to sell it as a St Peter in prayer. 'I just wanted to say, for me it's been a grand night, one of the best I've had in a long while. Grand. I mean that. Sincerely. Thank you.'

  She regarded him with astonishment modulating to simple puzzlement.

  'What are you after?' she asked. 'I mean, really?'

  'Friendship,' said Dalziel promptly. 'Look, hadn't I better step inside and just check for muggers? These cockneys are all at it.'

  She shook her head and laughed. He took this as an invitation, put on an alert, constabulary expression and stepped forward.

  'Seems all right here,' he said. 'I'll just check the other rooms.'

  With the aggressive confidence of one who has no expectation whatsoever of trouble, he opened the bedroom door. The man standing just inside struck him firmly and accurately on the nose, crashing him back against the wall. Penny screamed as he shoulder-charged her to the ground, then his footsteps were receding down the stairs.

  'Jesus Christ!' groaned Dalziel, rubbing his watering eyes. They cleared enough for him to see Penelope who was struggling to her knees. The fall had dislodged her crowning glory of lustrous black curls and beneath the wig appeared a crop of tightly crushed locks, grey almost to whiteness.

  'Are you all right,' asked Dalziel.

  'No better for having you here,' she answered. 'God, your nose is a mess!'

  He helped her up and together they went round the flat. The intruder proved to have been a neat burglar if burglar he was. He had clearly made an attempt to leave things as he found them and Penny had to admit that she might well have never noticed he'd been there.

  'What the hell was he after?' she asked, having ascertained there was nothing missing.

  'God knows,' said Dalziel from the bathroom where he was bathing his nose.

  'What do you think I should do?' asked Penny. 'Call the police?'

  'I am the police, remember?' said Dalziel, himself remembering he had sent a message saying he had a bilious attack to excuse his absence from the closing dinner. 'First thing I'd do is get your lock changed. That thing wouldn't stop a backward parrot.'

  'You're bloody cool, I must say,' she protested. 'I've been burgled, and is this the best you can do?'

  'You've seen nowt yet,' said Dalziel, removing his jacket and tie and sitting down on a sofa.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she asked.

  He looked at her in surprise.

  'You don't think I'd let you stop here by yourself tonight?' he said in a pained voice.

  For a second she thought of getting angry again. Then with a sigh she removed her black wig which she had quickly rearranged and ran her fingers through her whitening hair. She aged fifteen years in a second.

  'My top teeth come out too,' she said.

  'Grand,' he said. 'I was getting worried I might be too old for you. Me, apart from my nose, I've got nowt that's detachable, I'm afraid.'

  Now she smiled knowingly.

  'We'll have to see about that,' she said.

  They had Scotch, then they went to bed, and then they sat up in bed and had some more Scotch.

  'Wasn't there some story, one of those old myths, where some god used to come to earth in various forms to have a bit of fun with the girls?' said Penny.

  'Seems a sensible sort of thing to do,' observed Dalziel.

  'Once he came as a swan, and once he came as a shower of rain, then another time he came as a bull.'

  'How'd he manage it as a shower of rain?'

  'I don't know. But I've a damn good idea how he managed it as a bull!'

  Dalziel smirked modestly as though at a royal accolade.

  'You should have had me that time fifteen years back,' he said. 'I've slowed down a lot.'

  'Haven't we all?'

  'Not you,' he said. 'Must be living down here that's done it. It's all too fast for me.'

  'Like Yorkshire was too slow for me,' she said. 'I really missed London, I admit it. And the funny thing was, it didn't get any better as time went by. I paid visits, mind you. I mean, it's only a couple of hours or so on the train. But it wasn't the same. I had to get back.'

  'Is that why you decided to sell up?'

  'That's right.'

  'How did Patrick react?'

  'Patrick? He didn't say much. He was never one for big dramatic scenes. But I could see he wasn't too happy. But it was my life too, and there's only one life apiece, isn't there? He'd just finished his "O" levels, it was a good time to move. And another couple of years and he'd be taking off by himself anyway. So I went ahead with the sale.'

  'And Patrick!'

  'He went ahead with his life as if there wasn't any question of leaving,' said Penny. 'God, that boy! He could be infuriating, he'd always been like this; anything happening or about to happen that he didn't care for, he just ignored it. I remember he came home about that time and told me he'd been discussing things with his teachers and he was going to take up accountancy. Just like that. I said he could do that just as easily in London as Yorkshire, but he didn't seem to hear me. I couldn't even see why he wanted to do accountancy. I mean, he was all right at maths, but not great. Whereas for biology, and in particular anything to do with plants, he always got top marks. He even won prizes. But no, it had to be accountancy.'

  'Perhaps it was because he admired his great-uncle so much,' said Dalziel.

  'I don't remember telling you Uncle Eddie was an accountant,' said Penny, frowning.

  'I bet you don't remember half of what's been said since we got under these sheets,' laughed Dalziel. 'What stopped you from selling up in the end?'

  'I recall telling you that,' said Penny. 'You're not only a nosey sod, you're an absent-minded one too.'

  'Oh aye. The poor bugger died. Accident, was it?' said Dalziel, whose last telephone conversation with Pascoe had given him full details of the death.

  'In a way. He got poisoned, something he ate,' said Penny. 'Some insecticide hadn't got washed off, or something.'

  'And didn't you get anyone else interested in buying?' asked Dalziel.

  'No. I sort of lost heart, I suppose,' she said. 'I took it off the market. It struck me that perhaps I really ought to consider Patrick's feelings a bit more. I mean, the house was just a white elephant to me, but clearly not to him.'

  She spoke almost defiantly.

  'So what did you do!' asked Dalziel, though he knew full well.

  'I had a talk with him. I told him that we'd stay on at Rosemont for the time being, but as soon as he reached his majority, I was off back to London and he could make his own mind up whether he wanted, or indeed could afford, Rosemont. I was thinking of twenty-one when I said it, but the age of majority was lowered not long after to eighteen, and Patrick seemed determined that should be the decision date. It came. He wanted to stay on by himself, he said. I said, If that's what you want.'

  Dalziel whistled and said, 'You must've thought a lot, or very little, of the lad to let him get stuck with a bloody great house like that when he was still only eighteen and not properly earning!'

  'Oh yes, I know it seems odd,' said Penny. 'But Patrick . . . well, you've got to meet him to know what I mean. When he wants something, he just sits qui
etly there till he gets it. He always did, from a baby. Things weren't quite as bad as they seem, mind. Aunt Flo had left me pretty well heeled. After I'd had Rosemont valued and added that to all the other assets, then divided by two, Patrick got a few thousand on top of the house and I got enough to buy the lease on this place and keep me comfortable, at least until they invented inflation. I'll probably start spending capital in the end. I made it quite clear to Patrick that this deal ended his expectations from me. In fact, whatever little there's left when I go will go to my grandchildren when they're twenty-one. But I can't see it being very much!'

  'Well, you can't take it with you,' said Dalziel. 'You said he changed his name, your lad.'

  'No I didn't!' said Penny, sitting upright. 'What the hell is this, Andy Dalziel?'

  'What's what?' asked Dalziel, looking puzzled. 'You said before that your lad's name was Aldermann now. I can hear you saying it.'

  He spoke with such authority that the woman's doubts were momentarily assuaged, but he guessed that he had gone as far as he dared without finally convincing her that his motives for the evening were interrogative rather than romantic.

  Besides the sight of those still splendidly firm breasts pendant above his reclining head was enough to blunt even the sharp spur of constabulary duty.

  He reached up and drew her down towards him.

  'This Greek god fellow,' he said. 'What did he try his hand at after the bull?'

  PART FOUR

  And in the midst of this wide quietness

  A rosy sanctuary I will dress

  With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain . . .

  KEATS: Ode to Psyche

  1

  HAPPINESS

  (Hybrid tea. Brilliant crimson blooms on long sturdy stems, perfect for developing under cover.)

  Daphne Aldermann rose early on Saturday morning with a feeling that this was a day of important decision.

  Since her talk with Ellie she had seemed to spend every waking moment analysing the state of her marriage. Oddly, all previous attempts at self-understanding now appeared vague, ineffectual, and delusory, as if her education, her upbringing, and her whole genetic inheritance had been aimed at misting her view of reality. In a way, it was true. The surface was far from all, but a well-ordered surface certainly compensated for a lot. Beneath it she had not felt particularly unhappy, or wildly neglected, or desperately unfulfilled. And the knowledge that she lived a life which must make many people envious had helped to make her believe that most of its suspected inadequacies were to be traced to her own shallowness. Now something had changed, or at least come to fruition. Perhaps Ellie Pascoe's openness, her frank discontents, her admitted sense of ambiguity in relation to her own marital role, and her saving humour when she seemed to be getting too near to that awful earnest greyness which the left wear as proudly as the right do their blacks and browns, had encouraged the reaction, but it hadn't caused it. She had merely been living through a sort of extended adolescence and at last she'd grown up.

  Diana was spending the morning with a friend. Daphne was assiduous in making sure that Rosemont's isolation didn't mean her daughter's too, and she'd driven the little girl to the friend's house shortly after nine. Patrick had rung briefly the previous evening to say he'd be home mid-morning. He had sounded strange, highly charged with some emotion unidentifiable at the end of a very crackly line. The police had also rung and she'd arranged for them to come at midday.

  Now she sat and drank a coffee and waited for her husband to return.

  When he did, there was going to be open speaking. How open, she was not sure. She had not inherited her High Anglican father's love of confession, but she believed herself willing to reveal the truth of her brief relationship with Dick Elgood if that seemed necessary to shock Patrick into a retaliatory openness. The time for mysteries was past. Patrick had to admit her into his mind if they were to have a future together.

  With these and similar rock-hard resolutions she sat and passed the time till on the stroke of eleven she heard the front door open. Instantly the rock began to crumble, and suddenly the thin surface of her life seemed quite strong and certainly rigid enough to carry her not unhappily to the grave.

  But the knowledge of her weaknesses had given her a knowledge of her strength too, and by the time he entered the lounge she had summoned up her spirit of resolution once more.

  Unfortunately the man she was resolved to confront was not quite the man who came through the door. It was Patrick all right, but instead of the small reserved smile and the gentle peck on the cheek she would have expected, he advanced with a positive beam on his face, caught her in a full embrace and kissed her almost passionately.

  'Hello,' he said. 'It's good to be back. These are for you. Where's Di?'

  'She's at Mary Jennings'. Patrick, thank you . . . but buying flowers . . . you?'

  These were a bunch of roses, carefully wrapped in tissue paper.

  Patrick sat down, relaxing into the deep armchair with a positive grin on his face.

  'Even Rosemont doesn't have every variety,' he said.

  Carefully she removed the paper. There were five of them, rich golden blooms on long stems, a couple of them opening to reveal a scarlet flush and emit a sweet, delicate perfume. Daphne, fairly expert perforce, could not identify them.

  'Darling, they're beautiful. What are they?'

  'There's a tag, I think,' he said off-handedly.

  She looked. Wrapped round the stems was a green plastic nurseryman's tag. She read it, then once more, still not understanding.

  Type - hybrid tea.Variety - Daphne Aldermann.

  'You mean, this is their name?' she said in bewilderment.

  Patrick threw back his head and laughed in pure delight, a sight almost as bewildering as the rose-tag.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, yes, yes! You don't remember, do you? I told you years ago that when I bred a rose worth naming, I'd call it after you.'

  'Yes, I do remember, but I thought that it was, well, just a compliment, a romantic way of speaking . . .'

  'I always mean what I say,' said Patrick seriously. He jumped up and moved to the fireplace. She had never seen him full of such nervous excitement.

  I started on this one five, no, six years ago. I knew it had potential after the first blooming, but I'd been disappointed before. Three years ago, I reckoned it was good enough to send to the Royal Society's trial ground. I was right. It got a First Class trial certificate. And what's more, it just won a Gold Medal at the Society's show.'

  'This is marvellous,' she said. 'Marvellous. Patrick, I'm so . . .'

  She wasn't sure what she was except that she was no longer ready for the immediate confrontation she had planned. Indeed it was beginning to dawn on her that many of the explanations she had hoped to elicit by confrontation might now be given to her, undemanded.

  'And I'm not finished,' Patrick went on. 'I've signed a deal with Bywater Nurseries. It'll be in their next catalogue. They're going to produce it commercially!'

  'Patrick! Why didn't you say anything?' she cried, but there was no stopping him.

  'And that's not all,' he said. 'Not only have I put you on the Garden Centre stalls, I'm putting you into the bookshops too. You know how I keep careful notes of everything I do in the greenhouse? Well, I showed them to a publisher. They said there was a book in it, an account of all the trial and error that's gone into producing Daphne Aldermann. They're going to launch the two of them together, the book and the rose. It's a gimmick, of course, but they seem delighted with it. And what's more important, they're commissioning me to do what I've always wanted to do, that is, write a full and detailed history of the rose!'

  Daphne shook her head, not in denial but in bewilderment. All this excitement in him, for months at least, and yet not a word, not a sharing.

  'Darling, are you all right?' asked Patrick, momentarily diverted from his euphoria.

  'Yes, of course. It's all so overwhelming. It's marvellous, but it'
s a shock too.'

  'A shock?'

  'Yes. I never guessed. I mean, you never said anything. All this, and you never said!'

  'No, I never did,' he agreed. 'It was all so uncertain. Or rather, I couldn't believe it myself till it was all settled yesterday. But I never hid anything either. It was all there to be seen, what I was doing. The writing, the roses. It was all there.'

  Was it a reproach? She didn't know. And she didn't want to know either. A reproach would have to be answered. Or accepted. But she was in no mood to accept reproaches. At least, five minutes ago she hadn't been in any mood. Now she was not altogether certain what mood she was in. These revelations explained many things perhaps - his preoccupation, his secret excitement, even his apparently ill-founded optimism about the future. Oh God! She suddenly realized the implications of her misinterpretations. They had led to Dandy Dick's bed and to a police investigation. Guilt and resentment were warring in her. It was her fault, it was his fault; she had been uninterested, he had been secretive; nothing had changed, everything had changed.

  He came across the room and sat beside her.

  'Are you all right?' he asked anxiously.

  'Yes. Of course. Just a bit overwhelmed.'

  'Yes me too.' He laughed boyishly, looking about twenty. 'I thought it might all fall through and I wanted to spare you that. But when it didn't, I wished I'd had you with me. I missed you.'

  'Did you?'

  She turned her face towards him. He kissed her gently.

  'Yes. I did.'

  He kissed her again. Suddenly there was no doubt about the passion there.

  'Patrick!' she said with the instinctive alarm of one not accustomed to such things in such locations at such times.

  'Diana's out, isn't she?' he murmured. 'And you're not expecting anyone, are you?'

  Oh Christ! The police! she remembered. But she didn't say. Twelve o'clock, they had said they would call. She squinted round Patrick's head at the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf. It was just after eleven. Surely the police wouldn't be early?

  But who cared? Some risks were made to be taken. She drew Patrick down towards her and embraced him with arms and mouth and long slender legs.