‘It’s about language,’ explained Uniff. ‘Mave does the animations. Not bad, eh? No sound yet. That’s a problem. What do you think? Do we need those O’s vocalized?’
The film ran on. Eventually a stone age doctor presented his stone age patient with a bill. The mouth rounded to an O, the eyes to two more, then they all expanded and exploded into a torrent of letters.
‘How’d you like that?’ asked Uniff as the film ran to an end. ‘Commerce is the mother of language. Not love, hate, religion, sex. But money.’
‘Well,’ said Dalziel. ‘It’s not very long is it?’
‘Hell, man, that’s just the opening sequence. Next we go on to a historical survey. The letters and words are the characters, you dig? All languages, all literatures. It’s very funny, Mave’s done marvels. All the time there’s a struggle between the different functions of language. Finally figures start coming in until at the end we get nuclear physics formulae dominating, then the whole thing goes bang and we’re back to O.’
‘Interesting,’ said Dalziel. ‘I like a good cartoon. Cheaper to make than a real film, I suppose?’
He was just fishing for some indication of where the finance for the project came from, but Uniff pulled up the blinds angrily, seized a large envelope from a shelf and spilled a dozen or more glossy half-plate prints into Dalziel’s lap.
‘Those more in your line, Superintendent?’
Dalziel studied them gravely. He was not one of those who found the vagina in close-up a particularly appealing sight, not even when its owner appeared to have a traffic no entry sign tattooed on the inner thigh.
‘In a way,’ he said. ‘Professionally speaking.’
Uniff retrieved the photographs hastily and returned them to their envelope. His anger had quickly vanished.
‘They’re harmless,’ he said. ‘I was just showing them to you, not asking you to buy them.’
‘No need to get legalistic, Mr Uniff,’ said Dalziel. ‘Though you ought to know that under the Obscene Publication Acts, publication (that is, simply showing someone your dirty pictures) is an offence, whether done for gain or not. But you’re in luck. I doubt if anything you’ve got here is liable to deprave or corrupt me. So let’s forget I ever saw them, shall we, and try to remember where you went last night.’
According to Uniff he had simply gone into Orburn for a drink and stayed on after hours as a guest of the landlord. He coyly refused to give the name of the pub on the grounds that he didn’t want to risk spoiling a good drinking place. Dalziel found this quite reasonable and, in any case, he had no real authority for, or purpose in, questioning the man, so he didn’t press matters.
He went downstairs again and as he reached the hallway, the door to the servants’ quarters opened and Arkwright emerged. Dalziel had never seen a pale Negro before and the sight touched him.
‘Morning, Mr Arkwright,’ said Dalziel with the jovial sympathy of one hard-drinking man for another. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible,’ said Arkwright. ‘Listen. I’m very sorry about all this, I don’t know what happened.’
‘Something you ate I should think,’ said Dalziel, but, observing that the man seemed genuinely distressed at what had passed, he put on his avuncular air and added, ‘Think nowt of it. They’re all silly buggers here, you wouldn’t be noticed.’
A little comforted by this, Arkwright let himself be led to coffee which comforted him even more.
‘Penitent left, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Shithead,’ said Arkwright. ‘I hate that bloody man. He always wants me on a job with him. I’m his liberal credential.’
‘I think he’ll be after a divorce this morning,’ said Dalziel.
Arkwright laughed, regretted it, suddenly sat upright as though at a memory returned and said, ‘You put me to bed? Whose bed was I in?’
‘Why?’ asked Dalziel. ‘Have you spewed or something?’
‘No. It’s just, I remember now, some time in the night, I was woken up. Some guy was pulling at the blankets and saying, “Annie, Annie.” So I sat up and said, “Sir, you are mistaken,” and this guy shrieked like he was wetting his pants and ran.’
Dalziel thought about it for a moment, then as the image of Arkwright’s coal black face emerging from the blankets sharpened in his mind he began to laugh. After a while with great care, Arkwright began to laugh too.
‘This man,’ said Dalziel finally, wiping his eyes with the khaki awning he used as a handkerchief. ‘Did you recognize him? Was he one of the men you met yesterday afternoon?’
‘I can’t say,’ said Arkwright. ‘Might be. But it was dark and I was still very drunk. It must have been pretty early. He sounded urgent. I suppose I was lucky he didn’t just climb in and get on with it.’
Dalziel smiled and nodded. The obvious interpretation of the intrusion would do for Arkwright, but he was by no means sure that the intruder’s purpose had been sexual.
But the more interesting question was, who in this house had not heard last night of the discovered theft and Annie Greave’s disappearance?
13
An Intimate Deodorant
Cross arrived shortly before ten bearing with him a preliminary autopsy report which indicated that Spinx had died from drowning and that the injury on his head was consistent with his having struck the wooden support as he fell. With grim amusement Dalziel recognized in Cross the mixture of relief and disappointment an overworked, middle-aged but still ambitious detective sergeant ought to feel.
‘Never mind, lad,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there’ll be an outbreak of double parking in the town square. No sign of Mrs Greave?’
‘No, sir. Nor of Papworth either. Do you reckon they might have gone off together?’
‘Without his clothes?’ said Dalziel. ‘I doubt it. And I can’t see ’em as the great lovers somehow. Where’d they go anyway? He’d be as out of place in the middle of Liverpool as she was in the country.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Cross. ‘Makes you wonder how they met.’
‘It does that,’ agreed Dalziel who had been wondering this same thing for two days.
‘I wonder if Mrs Fielding could help us there,’ said Cross diffidently. ‘She’d be the one who hired her, I suppose. What do you think, sir, knowing her as you do?’
Dalziel shot him a sharp glance. Christ! he thought. Could the rustic tom-toms work this quick? What did they do round here? Hide seismographs in the mattress?
‘Why not ask her, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘And less of the us. I’m on holiday, remember?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Cross.
Dalziel left him and strolled out of the room trying to look like a man whose only care in the world was whether to have one or two double scotches before lunch.
He met Bonnie in the hallway.
‘Can we have a word together, Andy?’ she asked. She looked very attractive in pea-green slacks and a tight silk blouse which would have gone seven times round Louisa and left enough to blow your nose on.
‘Sergeant Cross is in there,’ said Dalziel with a jerk of his head. ‘I think his need’s greater than mine.’
Again his rudeness only seemed to amuse her.
‘I didn’t realize you were a once-a-month man,’ she said. ‘Later then. Say in an hour? In my room.’
She brushed by him. The brief contact disturbed him more than he would have thought possible.
He wandered into the back of the house and looked in Papworth’s room. Still empty, but now it bore signs of having been searched. Cross obviously didn’t mind leaving traces of his passage.
Dalziel mused on Cross as he continued his stroll. He looked a good competent man, perhaps a bit long in the tooth for a sergeant but not yet hopeless of promotion. Perhaps he himself might put in a word …
Christalmighty! he suddenly laughed at himself. Lord sodding Dalziel dispensing bounty to the plebs! No. Cross could find another fairy godmother. Middle-aged superintendents ne
eded belated christening gifts just as much as sergeants, though the one Dalziel wanted most of all just now had in fact been bountifully bestowed all those grey years ago and was only now beginning to run short.
Clarity of purpose.
Out in the yard he lit a cigarette and walked slowly past the so-called Banqueting Hall. It felt derelict. A white elephant, a folly. Unless someone coughed up some cash. He thought of his own deposit account. Not insubstantial. He hardly gave it a thought till he wanted cash for something special. Like the set of crystal decanters and glasses he’d given Pascoe and Ellie. Looking after your own interests, she’d mocked. But she’d been pleased. So she should have been too, it cost a bloody fortune even with the big discount his cash in hand and his bonny blue eyes got him. Still, there was plenty left. Last night as he lay on Bonnie’s bed, he’d even thought about suggesting an investment, but had put it off. At that moment it might have looked a bit like tucking a fiver behind the clock. Besides there was still the business of the missing gear to resolve. Risking your money was one thing, chucking it away quite another. And after Bertie’s revelation … no, she’d have to find another fool.
The sound of a vehicle approaching interrupted his thoughts. He reached the end of the hall, stepped out and was almost knocked down by a large truck which rattled past him into the cobbled yard. He turned to harangue the driver, and saw the legend on the opening door. Gibb and Fowler, Builders.
Little Mr Gibb jumped out and the men on the back began to disembark.
‘Hang around, lads. Have a smoke till I see what’s what,’ commanded Gibb.
He looked around as if in search of somebody and showed his teeth in a gothic smile when he spotted Dalziel.
‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘You were right then.’
‘Was I?’ said Dalziel. ‘What about?’
‘Me being back on the job sooner than I expected. You drop into my place before you go. There’s a big bottle there for my friends.’
He winked knowingly. Dalziel looked at him bewildered. Could he actually have spoken his thoughts about putting money into the venture last night? And if he had, could Bonnie have taken him seriously after what happened?
He didn’t believe it. Anyway, one thing was clear. Gibb wasn’t going to start work just on a promise.
‘Mr Gibb!’ a voice called imperiously.
They turned. Standing in the doorway of the main house was Hereward Fielding.
‘Would you step inside for a moment, please.’
‘Right. See you around,’ said Gibb happily to Dalziel.
So, thought Dalziel. Mystery solved. But a bigger one put in its place. What had produced this complete turnabout by the old man?
He approached the men sitting on the tail-board of the truck who looked at him incuriously.
‘What do you think of it then?’ he asked, jerking his head at the Banqueting Hall.
‘Think?’ said a venerable grey head, wearing overalls overlaid with paint to the consistency of armour. ‘There’ll be fancy prices, no doubt.’
The others grunted with the sagacity of men who knew better than to be caught by fancy prices.
‘Sad about the accident,’ said Dalziel.
Grey-head nodded agreement but another rounder, jollier man piped up, ‘Silly bugger shouldn’t have been up there. Not his job.’
‘Whose job was it?’ asked Dalziel.
This flummoxed them for a moment.
‘Depends what he were doing,’ said grey-head cautiously.
‘Come and have a look,’ invited Dalziel.
Ghoulish curiosity proved stronger than Gibb’s command and they followed him into the Banqueting Hall, dropping their voices to the hushed murmurs of a stately-home-tours party.
‘He was up a ladder, there,’ said Dalziel. ‘With a drill. They thought he was fixing a beam.’
‘Nothing to fix,’ said grey-head. ‘We put that beam up ourselves, last thing we did before knocking off. That won’t come down in a hurry.’
‘So what could he have been fixing? Up there along the wall a bit. You can see where he was drilling.’
They peered into the shadowy arch of the high roof.
‘Christ knows,’ said grey-head. ‘There’s nothing there. I plastered right along this wall after they finished the wiring.’
Suddenly everything was illuminated.
Gibb stood by the door with his hand on the light panel.
‘So here you are then,’ he said. ‘Right, lads, let’s get the gear in. We’re in business.’
The men streamed out of the hall with no signs of over-enthusiasm.
‘So the old man’s coughing up,’ pried Dalziel.
‘Don’t let on you didn’t know,’ said Gibb. ‘I’ll have cash in my hand before the day’s out. That’s the deal.’
‘And how long will it take you to finish the job?’
‘Working hard at it? With lots of overtime, two or three days.’
‘That’s not bad.’
‘No. Well, frankly, Mr Dalziel, with things the way they are, I’d prefer to take it easy, give the lads a week, ten days even. But the old man’s a tough nut. He’s made it quite clear that he’s no party to the original agreement. If I go to law, there’s no way I can get my hands on his cash. So he’s calling the tune. And that says, three days at the outside. So we’re dancing the quickstep. Excuse me.’
Dalziel followed him out, musing on what had been said, but especially on the flash of illumination which had come to him as Gibb switched on the lights.
Hereward Fielding was standing in the doorway of the main house once more. He beckoned imperiously.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ve a great deal to do and it won’t get done hanging around here, waiting for you.’
‘You’re expecting me then,’ said Dalziel.
‘Of course. When I saw you out in the yard with that man, I knew you’d be here in a short time.’
‘Well,’ said Dalziel. ‘That saves the bother of being subtle.’
‘Really,’ said Fielding. ‘A pity. That I should have liked to observe. To business then. I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided after all to invest my newly acquired wealth in the family business. A foolish decision, you may think, but freely made. Blood after all is thicker than water.’
‘Your blood than lake water, mebbe,’ grunted Dalziel. ‘That’s got shot of the crap. Now tell me what really changed your mind.’
Fielding shook his head in reluctant admiration.
‘If I could have written poetry of such simple directness,’ he said, ‘I would have been a set-book by now. No, Dalziel. That’s all I have to say. Pry no further; or else.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else I shall command my daughter-in-law to forbid you the house.’
His eyes twinkled and an ironic smile tugged at his thin lips.
‘You see, I am a man of influence now.’
Dalziel was unimpressed.
‘Think on,’ he said. ‘You might think it’s bad having me here privately, but that’s nowt to having me officially.’
‘I believe it,’ said Fielding. ‘But come now, there’s no cause for us to quarrel. In your younger, greener days you must have been trained to help old gents cross the street. Now you may drive me into Orburn if you would be so kind. I must visit my bank and make arrangements for the malodorous Gibb.’
‘And buy a big hat,’ added Dalziel.
‘Perhaps not today,’ laughed Fielding. ‘But I shall certainly be laying in a stock of decent brandy. They can use this stuff for flaming Christmas puddings. We could do a little sampling at the Lady Hamilton after lunch. On me, of course.’
‘I haven’t got a car,’ said Dalziel.
‘We’ll take the Rover. I have the keys.’ He held them up as evidence.
‘Five minutes then,’ said Dalziel, turning away.
Fielding’s manner interested him. His speech style was normally what Dalziel designated as ‘clever poofy�
�� but there was an element of strain behind it today which had nothing to do with intellectual affectation. Nor did he much care for the quick production of the Rover’s keys. Fielding must have got them from Bonnie. And the house was full of young drivers. Indeed there was no apparent bar to the old man’s driving himself.
Well, if they wanted him out of the way, he’d go. It suited him to go to Orburn anyway. But he’d go on his own terms.
He headed for the kitchen fast. Tillotson and Louisa were drinking coffee together. They weren’t speaking to each other but the atmosphere between them was manifestly more cordial than ever before in Dalziel’s limited experience. When he had a moment, he must find out why she’d punched the poor sod on the nose that night.
‘Morning,’ he said brightly.
‘Hi,’ said Louisa. ‘Fancy a cup?’
This was real cordiality.
‘No time, thanks all the same. I’m running Herrie to town. Like to come?’
They exchanged glances.
‘No thanks,’ said Louisa.
‘Things to do,’ said Tillotson.
‘Great news about the restaurant,’ said Dalziel.
‘Yes, isn’t it,’ said Tillotson brightly. ‘With a bit of luck we can still open on time. I always knew it would be all right.’
Unimpressed by this unlikely claim to clairvoyance, Louisa said nothing but pulled her lower lip forward so that the moist inner flesh showed. It was quite sexy, thought Dalziel. If you were as skinny as she was, he supposed you had to do your best with whatever protuberances you could lay your hands on.
‘Grand,’ said Dalziel. ‘Excuse me.’
He went into the back kitchen and returned a moment later with something in a plastic carrier bag.
‘Taking a picnic?’ asked Louisa.
‘Just a nibble,’ said Dalziel. ‘Sure you won’t come?’
‘Sure. Any news about Mrs Greave?’ asked Louisa.
‘No. You’ll have to do your own dinner,’ said Dalziel. ‘Perhaps the great white hunter here will shoot a couple of flying fish. You owe me for a cleaning job, Charley.’
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