Pictures of Perfection

by Reginald Hill

  At sight of Pascoe she halted and said, ‘You from Wallop?’ Or perhaps it was ‘You for wallop?’, meaning some startling new therapy. But Pascoe knew he was fantasizing, having glimpsed the sign proclaiming that the mess outside was the responsibility of Philip Wallop (Contractor) Ltd.

  He said, ‘No.’

  ‘Is there anyone out there?’ she asked.

  Assuming the question was neither theological nor thespian, he shook his head.

  ‘There is no one here,’ she bellowed into the phone. ‘And as it is now past the hour when Mr Wallop’s employees start packing up when they are here, I doubt if anyone’s coming today, wouldn’t you agree? So just tell Mr Wallop this when he finally emerges from his box of Transylvanian earth. Tomorrow lunch-time the whole village will be turning up here for my grandfather’s annual Reckoning Feast, and if the area in front of the house isn’t clean as a new penny by then, a new penny is a bloody sight more than Mr sodding Wallop will get out of me. Got that, dearie? Goodbye!’

  She switched the phone off and said, ‘Right. Now who the hell are you? And what do you want?’

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe,’ he said winningly. ‘And I’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Why? You found some little regulation I’m breaking?’

  ‘Not my line, believe me,’ he said. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with the Health Park.’

  ‘In that case what you want is the Squire,’ she said, setting off at a rapid pace through the door and across the building site towards the main entrance of the house.

  Breathlessly, Pascoe pursued her up some steps and through an imposing door into a sort of baronial hall. Compared to the acreage across which Errol Flynn swash-buckled with Basil Rathbone, this was small beer. Nevertheless, armed with one of the weapons festooning the wall and encouraged by the Korngold soundtrack his fertile imagination was conjuring up, Pascoe felt he could have buckled a fair swash in defence of Girlie Guillemard’s honour.

  Then the music swelled again and he realized he was confusing cause and effect. No ditty of no tone this, but a tape of virtuoso ’cello being played in a minstrels’ gallery at the far end of the hall.

  The volume faded again to be overlaid by a human voice chanting words roughly in time with the music.

  ‘Then up spake Solomon Guillemard

  A gradely man was he,

  “These nuns ye seek ha’ ta’en their wealth

  And fled across the sea.

  I serve the king, the king serves God,

  The Church served God and king” …’

  ‘Grandfather!’ bellowed Girlie.

  The voice and music died together and slowly a figure arose in the gallery. It was an old man cloaked in a velvet curtain and made taller by a moth-eaten Cossack hat.

  ‘Who calls so loud? Can you not see I am in the throes of composition?’

  ‘Tough tittie,’ said his granddaughter. ‘An inspector calls. You could be in trouble or a play. I’ll put him in the study.’

  She was off again, a hard woman to keep up with but well worth the effort, Pascoe assured himself, puffing.

  The study was an octagonal room, presumably fitting into one of the castellated towers (a nineteenth-century improvement?) flanking the Hall. It had the kind of wainscoting an extended family of mice could happily colonize and, from the holes at floor level, probably had. There were rows of dusty bookshelves but very few books, a rocking-chair minus one rocker, a chesterfield which looked as inviting as a basking alligator, and where one might have expected to see a handsome old desk stood a rather battered kitchen table.

  Pascoe touched its rough surface. It must have come across as a comment for Girlie said, ‘Sorry it’s so Spartan but we had to realize a few assets. Banks are not so free with their money as once they were, not unless you’re a Third World dictator or a crook in the City. The Squire should be along shortly. If not, just bellow. He sometimes gets sidetracked.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Pascoe as she made for the door. ‘Look, couldn’t I just ask you a couple of questions, please. I’m looking for a policeman.’

  ‘Thought you were a policeman,’ she said.

  ‘Constable Bendish. Your local bobby. That’s who I want.’

  ‘Oh, him. Cheeky sod. Once asked me for a sample of my mix for analysis.’

  Pascoe, who had wondered himself about the possible presence of some illicit substance in the pipe, flushed gently and said, ‘It is certainly rather exotic.’

  ‘Herbal. I’m trying to wean myself off nicotine. Trouble is, I’m even more addicted to this stuff now. So you’ve lost Childe Harold?’

  ‘I thought he was known as Dirty Harry?’

  ‘That’s down in the Morris. Up here, as you’ve probably gathered, we’re more into balladry.’

  Was he being sidetracked again?

  Pascoe said, ‘Yes. What exactly is that all about?’

  ‘Senility. It’s our vices keep us going. You get too decrepit for the old ones, you’ve got to fill the gap with something new. Usually it’s slanderous gossip or avarice. With the Squire it’s a bad attack of History. The Guillemards are mentioned in one of the old northern ballads. Now the Squire’s got it into his head to compose a whole ballad history of the family. Worse, he likes to give public performances. The WI got two hundred stanzas before Mrs Hogbin had one of her turns. Fifty people rushed out to find a doctor. Two returned.’

  ‘That must have nipped his public career in the bud.’

  ‘No way. Round here you don’t reject the Squire so lightly. He’s got firm bookings for the Local History Society and the WEA creative writing group. He’d have been on North Light by now if that turd Halavant didn’t run it. Here he comes. Ask him to give you a sample if you have an hour to spare! ’Bye!’

  She was gone. Through the door came the Squire, now curtainless and hatless, these props (if props they were) resting in the arms of a young woman who hovered obscurely in the doorway, not quite in or out.

  Even without the ermine extension, the Squire was a good six foot six, and he bore himself like a guardsman. Age had creased his face like a cotton jacket after a long journey, but though his gait was laboured, his eyes showed no sign yet of being ready for the terminus.

  ‘You are the police inspector?’ he said magisterially. ‘How is it that such tyros bear such titles?’

  He seemed to be addressing his question to someone situated where second slip would have been on a cricket field.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector, actually,’ said Pascoe.

  The gaze adjusted to take him in.

  ‘Just so. You have come about the unspeakable Bendish?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe, marvelling again at Enscombian prescience.

  ‘Not before time. It is several weeks since I wrote to Tommy Winter.’

  ‘Tommy … You mean Mr Winter who used to be Chief Constable?’

  ‘Used to be?’ The eyes bored into him like a jeweller’s drill.

  ‘Yes, sir. He retired some while back. We have a new chief now. Mr Trimble. But he should have got your letter …’

  ‘Why so? I marked it personal. You did not tell me of this Trimble.’

  This was directed at the slip fielder again. Pascoe decided it was best not to let himself be tempted to flash his bat at any deliveries swinging past him in that direction.

  He said, ‘In that case, sir, it would probably be forwarded to Mr Winter in Barbados where he’s retired to. Could I ask you, sir, what it was you wanted to consult Mr Winter about?’

  The eyes fixed him doubtfully, wandered to second slip questioningly.

  The woman, who was so unobtrusive Pascoe had forgotten her, said, ‘Shall I order some tea, Uncle?’

  She offered the suggestion meekly, almost inaudibly, but it recalled the Squire to his hostly duties.

  ‘Of course, my dear. Chief Inspector, do sit down.’

  Pascoe declined heavily on to the chesterfield and wished he hadn’t. The leather upholst
ery seemed to have been moulded by generations of men with more than the usual number of buttocks into something like a relief map of Cumberland.

  The woman had slipped out, leaving Pascoe with no impression other than that she was small and slight. This, he guessed, was Franny Harding, the poor relation, a guess confirmed when the Squire, balancing his length precariously on the deficient rocker, said, ‘Don’t know what we’d do without Fran. Always there when you need her. And she eats next to nothing, you know.’

  Ignoring this tantalizing glimpse into the domestic economy of the upper classes, Pascoe, deciding that in this case ambiguity was the worse part of discretion, said bluntly, ‘Constable Bendish may have gone missing, sir.’

  ‘And you’ve come to spread the good news? That’s what I call service.’

  Was he for real? wondered Pascoe.

  He said, ‘So could you please tell me why you wrote to Mr Winter. What had Bendish done? Booked you for speeding, something like that?’

  ‘Speeding? What’s the fellow talking about?’ (This to the slip.) ‘I haven’t sped for twenty years or more. Anyway that’s what you people get paid for, isn’t it? Booking chaps for speeding, that sort of thing. Sneaky kind of work, I give you that. But it’s in your job description, and I wouldn’t whinge about a fellow doing what he gets paid for. But striking, that’s something else. Conduct unbecoming, get my drift?’

  ‘Striking?’ said Pascoe, a whole new area of explanation for Bendish’s absence opening up. ‘You mean Bendish went on strike? He wasn’t doing his job?’

  ‘Of course he was doing his job. Is the fellow braindead or what?’ (To the slip.) ‘Look here, I’m not complaining about the fellow’s work. Zealous he was, by all accounts. But this other business. Striking. Not the thing, you know. But a delicate matter, with ladies in the house. So I thought, a word in Winter’s ear. Barbados, did you say? Thought only crooks made enough to retire to Barbados. Have you checked your pension fund?’

  ‘This striking, sir,’ said Pascoe, determined not to be diverted again. ‘Are you sure you’ve got it right …?’

  ‘That’s what they call it on Test Match Special. Seem to think it’s a bit of fun, but I don’t know. Had none of it when I was a yonker. Not so bad when it’s a girl, I suppose, but more often than not it’s a fellow. And what happens if they harm the wicket, eh?’

  ‘Streaking,’ said Pascoe. ‘You mean streaking.’

  ‘That’s the chap.’

  ‘And you say that Constable Bendish is a streaker?’

  ‘Certainly. Saw him myself. There I was in the conservatory potting my pelargoniums, and I looked up, and there he was, running along the wall around the walled garden, naked as the day he was born.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Pascoe. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Couldn’t be surer. Hung like a bull, he was. Prize bull at that.’

  ‘This walled garden, could I take a look?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s a bit inconvenient at the moment. Lost the key after old Hogbin had his stroke. Not much to see so early in the year anyway. You interested in gardening? Young men should have an interest. Old men too. Mine’s family history. Did you know I was working on a ballad chronicle of the Guillemards? Perhaps he’d care for a few stanzas?’

  The question was addressed to slip, but this time Pascoe, scenting danger, flashed his bat in an attempt at interception.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have much time …’

  ‘In a hurry? Quite understand. I’m very busy myself. Fran, you there?’

  The young woman was, standing in the doorway with a tea tray in her hands.

  ‘The Inspector hasn’t got time for tea after all. Leave the tray here, my dear, and show him out. Good day to you, Inspector. Give my regards to Tommy Winter.’

  And Pascoe found himself being steered out of the room with the uncomfortable feeling that by concentrating so hard on the outswinger, he had allowed himself to be comprehensively yorked.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Mary and I … went to the Liverpool Museum & the British Gallery, & I had some amusement at each, tho’ my preference for Men & Women always inclines me to attend more to the company than the sight.’

  Caddy Scudamore was all eye. What she looked at she saw totally, and much of what reached her through the other senses was translated visually also. For her the baking smells of Dora Creed’s oven filled the street between with golden threads, and birdsong was a drift of blossom on the bright spring air.

  Naturally, because God is fair, and fairy godmothers always reserve some gifts from the cradle, there were compensating deficiencies.

  In conversation she only heard what she wanted to hear; in kindness, she only gave what she knew she could spare; and in morality, she was pleasantly surprised at the regularity with which the justifiable and the convenient coincided.

  ‘All that is needed to raise her to the top rank of artists,’ opined Justin Halavant in his Evening Post preview of her last one-woman show, ‘is a deep distress to humanize her soul.’

  It was presumably in a spirit of pure artistic altruism that after the show’s opening, he had ambushed her on the studio stairs and wrestled her to the ground with breathless assurances of eternal love and a rave review.

  Caddy, however, was not yet ready for quite so deep a distress, so she had responded by kneeing him in the balls.

  Whether this distress humanized his soul is difficult to say, but it certainly hospitalized his body, and no review of any kind appeared in the Post, just a note to say that the Arts Page editor was convalescing after, appropriately enough, ‘a bad fall’.

  Up to this point, there had been a close and generally mutual beneficent connection between Scarletts and the Eendale Gallery. The Scudamores were regular ornaments of the artistic soirées Halavant held for his metropolitan friends, and he always brought his house guests to the Gallery, urging them to buy cheap what the soaring wheel of the art market would soon render dear. His patronizing possessiveness sometimes got up Kee’s nose, but money in the till is a potent decongestant, and had he been able to accept his testicular rebuff in the spirit in which it was given, that is, necessary but no big deal, then as things had been they might have remained.

  Unhappily Halavant’s hurt went straight through his prostate to his pride. It was inconceivable to him that the Scudamores would not dine out on the story, so he set about getting his retaliation in first.

  One evening Kee walked into the Morris bar just as Thomas Wapshare said, ‘I never read any review in the Post of young Caddy’s latest show. Did I miss it?’

  Halavant, who was sitting with his back to the door, shook his head sadly and, raising his voice so the whole room could hear, replied, ‘No, Thomas. There was no review. As you know, I’ve long been a patron of Caddy’s work. More, I may say I’ve been a guide and counsellor to the girl. But in this latest show I felt she had gone down a blind alley. As a friend, I offered this criticism constructively and privately. And I promised her there would be no adverse review. Alas, her response was distressingly immature, causing a rift which I hope time will mend. The child has indisputable talent. Let’s hope she grows up before she fritters it all away on such meretricious daubs.’

  He paused, modestly awaiting the applause due to such a display of selfless forbearance, but his audience’s gaze was focused over his shoulder. He turned his head slowly and Kee advanced, smiling.

  ‘Justin, I’m so glad I’ve caught you. I want to apologize for my sister’s behaviour. After all you’ve done for her, I really don’t know how she had the gall to resent your attempts to grope her. But as you say, she’s very young. Probably it was just a knee-jerk reaction. Talking of knee jerks, how are your privates? Has the bruising gone? I believe they were dreadfully swollen, though in your case, that’s not a totally unusual condition, is it?’

  Thus the rift betwixt salon and gallery became a schism, though the usual good sense of interested Enscombians prevented it from h
ardening into trench warfare. Why take sides when, with a bit of nimble foot-work, you can move quite happily between the lines?

  Sergeant Wield as yet knew none of this as he entered the Eendale Gallery and saw the now familiar expression of half-recognition touch the face of the slim, elegant blonde woman working with a calculator at an open ledger.

  ‘Miss Scudamore?’ he said. ‘Miss Kee Scudamore?’

  ‘That’s right. Can I help you?’

  He showed her his ID and said, ‘I were looking for Constable Bendish. You haven’t seen him around, have you?’

  ‘No. Sorry. He used to come in regularly on Sundays to check I wasn’t selling anything which would contravene the terms of the Sunday Trading Act, but thankfully he gave that up for Lent.’

  Wield smiled and said, ‘What about his hat?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I understand you observed a policeman’s hat on a statue.’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes turned from his face to the window as she looked across at the bookshop. ‘Ah, you’ve been talking to Edwin Digweed.’

  ‘Listening,’ said Wield, and was rewarded with an understanding smile. ‘He said you’d mentioned it to him. Didn’t seem like a secret, so he passed it on to me for what it’s worth.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ she said. ‘I’d probably have mentioned it myself when Sergeant Filmer got round to me.’

  Wield, not too impressed by this sudden display of civic dutifulness, said, ‘So you’d heard the Sergeant was asking questions?’

  ‘It’s a small place,’ she said.

  ‘Depends if you count the moors,’ said Wield. ‘Now about this hat …’

  ‘Oh my God! That’s incredible! Don’t let him go!’

  The outburst came from a young woman in a paint-stained smock who’d appeared at an interior door. Wield just had time to register full parted lips and huge dark eyes under a torrent of richly black hair before she turned away and he heard footsteps racing up a flight of stairs.

  ‘My sister, Caddy,’ said Kee. ‘You must excuse her. She doesn’t waste much time on social niceties.’