'Well, we must be off,' announced Mrs Pottinger. 'We're going down to the river to see if we can spot the kingfisher. Have you seen it, Mr Digweed? There have been several reports.'
'Not yet. I dare say it will turn out to have been imported by Girlie Guillemard to guarantee the success of all these new ventures at the Hall.'
'I wish there was something we could import to help us,' said the woman. 'All right, children. Move off now. And walk, don't run! Goodbye, Sergeant, Mr Digweed. See you tonight.'
'This Reverend Harding,' said Wield as the crocodile moved off. 'What did he do?'
'The school was in such a state of disrepair sixty years ago that the ancestors of our current Powers of Darkness were threatening even then to close it down and move all the kids to Byreford. Harding rebuilt the place almost single-handed and sent them scurrying back to their caves from which they have emerged, blinking and scratching their crotches, after all these years. But you don't want to stand here chattering about the mere future of a community when you've got the fate of one whole policeman to worry about, do you?'
He strode off, Wield meekly following, till very shortly they reached the village proper, marked on one side of thfc road by a village hall and the other by the Morris Men's Rest.
'Good pub?' said Wield, seeing no opening for a putdown here.
'Depends,' said Digweed, if your tastes run to Heavy Metal, flashing lights, and draught lager, then it's lousy.'
Wrong again, thought Wield.
They continued up the High Street. Seen on foot, the village was much more extensive than from even a slowmoving motorbike, with frequent ginnels running off between the front cottages into yards where a second range of buildings lurked. At the corner of one of these ginnels stood the village Post Office and Store, with an ornate sign advertising the proprietor as Dudley Wylmot Esquire.
Digweed turned into the shop, with Wield following. Behind the counter, a woman was sorting out some items of mail.
'Shouldn't bother with that, Daphne,' said Digweed. 'Our grand prix of a postman has run his van off the road.'
'Oh dear,' said the woman in a voice that was upper class without being refined, is he all right?'
'He'll live to speed another day,' smiled Digweed.
He actually likes her! thought Wield. She was certainly a good-looking woman, art having perfected what nature had well begun, her hair elegantly coiffed and subtly shaded, her face made up with that expertise in which liberality never spills over into excess. Nearer forty than thirty, judged Wield, whose own absence of beauty made him a connoisseur of it in others. And she'll probably look the same when she's nearer sixty than fifty. That at least we have in common!
'Something up, is there, dear? Hello, Edwin.'
A man had risen from beneath the shop counter, clutching a tin of processed peas in either hand. He was not dressed for stacking shelves unless a brass-buttoned blazer and spotted cravat were the recommended garb. He had a prominent nose over a pencil moustache and from the few words he had spoken Wield guessed that when he said off it would come out like awf.
'Oh hello, Wylmot,' said Digweed unenthusiastically. 'I was just saying that Postman Pat has had a smash.'
Doesn't like him, but, thought Wield.
'Really?' said Wylmot. 'He's all right, I hope?'
'Oh yes. I think so. But they'll need to send someone else for the mail.'
'Not today, they won't. Half-day, or had you forgotten?' said Wylmot cheerfully. 'We were just waiting for Paget before closing.'
'But the mail.. .' protested Digweed.
‘It's all right. Nothing that can't wait till the morning.'
'You think not?' said Digweed. 'Does that mean you read all the mail posted here? If so, you must be a quick reader as I myself brought in several packets this morning containing expensive and in most cases closely printed books. I might add that I paid first-class postage in expectation of a first-class service.'
'You're always saying how these book-collecting chappies spend years chasing up a single volume,' said Wylmot. 'Another day won't make much difference. I say, something that could be important. Kee Scudamore was in earlier and she was saying that Girlie's starting up
a shop at the Hall - postcards, stamps, souvenirs, that sort of thing. Have you heard about this?'
'Something,' said Digweed.
'Well, I think it's a bit off.' (Wield smiled invisibly. A definite awf.) 'Don't want to tread on any toes, but give and take's the essence of village life, and it seems to me that the Guillemards are doing a bit too much taking.'
'Then you'd better get yourself up there and make your point clear,' said Digweed. 'Daphne, my dear, nice to see you. Goodbye.'
He looked at Wield as if expecting the door to be held open for him.
Wield said, 'Excuse me, Mr Wylmot, I'm a colleague of Constable Bendish. You've not seen him around, have you?'
'Can't recall last time I saw him. Never around when we were getting burgled, that's for sure!'
Mrs Wylmot said, 'He called in to settle his paper bill yesterday lunch-time.'
'Didn't say anything about his plans for his day off, did he?'
'No. He bought a box of chocolate gingers, I recall, and seemed in a very good mood.'
'He'd probably just booked old Jocky Hogbin for jay- walking with his Zimmer frame,' said Digweed.
'Wouldn't surprise me,' said Wylmot. 'Little Madge used to pick up her granddad's black twist till Bendish threatened me with a summons for selling tobacco to a juvenile. What did he imagine she was going to do with it?'
'Chew it, probably,' snorted Digweed.
On this rare note of unity they parted.
Outside, Wield said, 'Mr Wylmot is like yourself, I take it, sir?'
'Then you can just take it back,' said Digweed indignantly.
‘I only meant he's an off-comer, settled here by way of business.'
Digweed said acidly, 'Sergeant, my native woodnotes wild may have lost some of their sylvan resonance, but without wanting to make a chauvinist issue out of it, let me assure you I am born of good Yorkshire stock and that my family tree has its roots deep in this parish. I deeply resent being categorized with Mr Dudley Wylmot who is one of those pathetic souls who, having dreamt all his urban life of the joys of rustic retirement, has been foolish enough to pour his severance pay into realizing that dream.'
'His wife seems a nice lady, but,' prompted Wield.
'But, indeed. How such a creature came to marry Wylmot is a question at least as puzzling as what song the Sirens sang or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.'
'Wouldn't know anything about that,' said Wield, ‘Is that where I'll find the lady who saw the hat? The Eendale Gallery?'
They had reached the Tell-Tale Bookshop.
'Yes,' said Digweed, ‘It is by the way Kee you want, the elder sister, the blonde.'
'There's another, is there?'
'Yes. Caddy. She is - how shall I put it? - artistic. In your pursuit of hard factual clarity, you would be well advised to avoid converse with Caddy.'
His tone was almost devoid of irony. I wonder why, thought Wield.
He let his gaze drift from Digweed's face to the sign above the Wayside Cafe.
'Creed,' he said suddenly.
‘Is that a request? A command? Or the beginnings of a conversion?' asked Digweed.
‘It says up there the lady who runs the cafe is Dora Creed. Any relation of that farmer back there?'
'Brother and sister.'
'Ah.'
'Ah what?'
'I'd been wondering how a man up to his eyes in lambs could have heard so quick about Constable Bendish.'
'And you conclude this is explained by his having a sister working in the centre of the village? How beautifully logical, Sergeant. And how elegantly illustrative of the deficiencies of the detective process.'
'Oh? Why's that?'
'Because Dora Creed stopped speaking to George yesterday lunch-time.'
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'I see,' said Wield, who didn't. 'And why was that?'
'Because of George's sin, Sergeant,' said Digweed gravely. 'Dora is a most religious lady. I myself regard religion as mostly pie in the sky, but if the pie is Dora Creed's apple, I may be a convert yet.'
'And just what was this sin?' persisted Wield.
Digweed laughed his superior laugh and said, 'That's where you could really impress with your detective skills. You see, no one has yet been able to find out. Sniff it out, Sergeant, sniff it out!'
I'd rather sniff out one of Dora's pies, thought Wield, his nose twitching at the delicious smells wafting from the cafe.
But duty called.
'I'll do my best, sir,' he said to Digweed. 'Thank you for your help.'
And hoping, though doubting, that his courtesy might give the bookseller a brief frisson of shame, he headed for the Eendale Gallery.
CHAPTER VI
'Our Improvements have advanced very well.'
In England, before the Great War destroyed the eternal verities, for a noble family to stop 'improving' their country seat was pretty clear evidence of financial difficulties.
In the years since, however, it has been the arrival of the contractors which has signalled trouble, for no longer are 'improvements' made in the name of beauty, taste or even convenience, they are offerings on the altar of commerce.
Such thoughts ran through Peter Pascoe's mind as he negotiated the driveway up to Old Hall and came to a halt on a building site.
It was not a particularly large building site but typical of the genus in that order was minimal and activity non-existent. The work seemed centred on a building separate from the main house and he guessed this was the stable block which was going to house the Holistic Health practitioners.
Like many men who see the clouds of middle age on the horizon, Pascoe's scientific scepticism about alternative medicine cloaked a superstitious hope that some astounding revelation would blow the clouds back before it was too late. So it was with the reverence of a man entering a church that he pushed open the stable door.
The smell that met him was just about right for a man in search of a quasi-religious experience. Thuriferously spicy, malty and leafy, it seemed to emanate from a column of smoke. A burning bush perhaps. If so, it should speak.
It spoke. A warbling bird-like note, once repeated. Then a female voice. God after all was a woman.
'Yes, this is Girlie Guillemard. No, I do not see the point of checking again, but I shall do so. Wait.'
Out of the smoke emerged a woman. Her tangle of ochrous hair was restrained by a fillet of baling twine. She wore a moulting brocaded waistcoat over a once elegant silk blouse tucked into a pair of overlarge jeans whose rolled-down waist underpinned her heavy breasts and whose rolled-up legs overhung a pair of Wellingtons, one green and one black. Her face was round, her eyes were grey, her nose was snub, her mouth too large, allowing plenty of room for both the meerschaum which was the source of the smoke, and the mobile telephone into which she was speaking. She was incredibly attractive.
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 swashbuckled 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 Squi
re 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.
Dalziel 14 Pictures of Perfection Page 8