Never fear, said nix, standing up. Im bigger and Ill take care of thee.
He came round the pool towards her. At that moment a voice came drifting down the tunnel from far above.
Nina! Nina! it cried.
Its Dad! cried Nina. Im coming. Im coming.
And she set off to run up the tunnel, but shed only gone a little way when those terrible hands caught at her ankles and dragged her screaming back down.
Far above she could still hear her dads voice, but now it was fading and soon it was far away, then she couldnt hear it at all.
She lay on the edge of the pool with the nix towering over her.
Just wait till my dad gets a hold of you, she sobbed. Hell pull your neck like a chickens for the pot.
Hell have to catch me first, laughed nix. Now lets go for this swim.
Nina looked up at him and saw he were strong enough to make her do whatever he wanted her to do. No use fighting then. What was it her mam used to say? God made men strong but he made us clever. Why use fists when you can use your noddle? And her dad were always boasting she were bright as a button.
Well, now was time to see just how bright a button she really was.
All right, said Nina. But Ill need to tidy up first.
She stood up and began brushing off her dress, which had got all dusty when the nix dragged her down the tunnel. Then she took the ribbons out of her pigtails and unplaited her hair and combed it with her fingers so that it tumbled over her shoulders like a fall of bright water.
And all the while nix watched her with eyes like hot coals.
There, said Nina. Im ready. But youll need to jump in with me to help me to swim.
Take care, Nix, squeaked bat. Theyre sly as spiders, these lasses.
But nix wasnt listening. His eyes and his thoughts were fixed entirely on Nina.
She took his hand in hers and made him stand alongside her on a big rock at the edge of the pool.
And she said, Ill count up to three and then well jump together. All right?
All right, said nix.
One, said Nina.
And two, said Nina.
And three, said Nina.
And they jumped.
Only, as nix jumped forward into the pool, Nina let go his hand and jumped backwards on to the ground.
Then she turned and ran as fast as shed ever run in her life up the tunnel.
It only took nix a second to realize her trick.
Then, screaming with rage and dripping foul-smelling mud and water, he dragged himself from the pool and set out after her.
Oh, she were fast, but he were faster.
She didnt dare waste time looking back, but she could hear him behind her, his sharp nails screeling against the rock like hard chalk on a shiny slate, his stinking breath panting like Bert the blacksmiths bellows.
Her long hair streamed behind her and she felt it touched by his outstretched hand. Faster then she ran, and faster, till she felt it no more. But still he was close and her strength was failing. Now she felt the hand again, this time close enough to get a hold of a tress.
She felt the grip tighten, she felt her hair being twisted to make the grip firmer, above her she could see the ring of bright light that marked the end of the tunnel.
But it was too late. He had her hair fast now. He was pulling her to a stop. It was too late.
She stretched out her arms to the light and screamed, Daddy! Daddy!
And just as she gave up hope and knew she were about to be dragged back down to the depths, she felt her hands seized.
For a moment she was stretched taut as a rope in the tug-o-war at the village sports. Then, just as in the tug-o-war when it seems the two teams are so evenly matched they must hold each other there for ever, suddenly one side will find the strength for one last pull and the other will go sprawling helpless on the ground, so Nina felt the pull above increase, the pull behind slacken.
And next moment she was out on the hillside in the bright golden sunlight, lying on the grass at her fathers feet.
Oh, how they hugged and kissed, and nothing was said to scold her or remind her shed disobeyed.
When they were done hugging and kissing, her dad rolled a huge boulder across the entrance to the cave.
There, he said. Thatll keep yon nix where he belongs. Now, lets be getting you home to your mam. Lets take her some flowers to brighten the house.
So they set to, and picked moon daisies and stepmothers, Aarons rod and bedstraw, and on their way home they found a bank covered with flopdocken, which the nixes hate, and them they picked also.
And very soon after, when Ninas Mam went to the back of her cottage and looked anxiously up the hillside, her heart jumped with joy as she saw her man and her little lass coming downhill towards her with their eyes bright as star-shine, their voices raised in a merry catch, and their arms full of flowers.
TWO
Monday dawned, the sun rising into the inevitable blue sky with the radiant serenity of Alexander entering a conquered province.
Its soundless reveille against the leaded light of Corpse Cottage in Enscombe did not disturb the deep slumber of Edwin Digweed, antiquarian bookseller and founder of the Eendale Press, but not for nothing had Edgar Wield been nicknamed by a previous lover, Macumazahn, He Who Sleeps With His Eyes Open.
He answered the summons immediately, taking care to make as little noise as possible. Edwin was not at his best if woken too early, one of the many adjustment-necessitating discoveries made during their first year together.
Downstairs, Wield brewed his morning coffee (two spoons of instant and three of white sugar in boiling milk, not the cafetiere of freshly ground Colombian Edwin insisted on at all times of day) then went on his morning visit.
This took him via the churchyard into the grounds of Old Hall, home of the Guillemard family, by permission squires of Enscombe for nearly a thousand years. Falling on hard times, the family had been preserved by the acumen of its present commercial head, Gertrude (known, misleadingly, as Girlie), who had lured visitors to the estate by all manner of attractions, including a Childrens Animal Park. Here, in pens or roaming free as their nature required, could be found calves, lambs, kids, piglets, fowl (domestic and game), dormice, harvest mice, field mice, and a rat called Guy. But it was not on any of these that Wield was making his morning call.
He made for a lofty oak which held the remains of a tree house in its fork and whistled gently.
Instantly a small figure appeared and dropped with scarcely more than a token touch to trunk or branch the thirty feet into his arms.
Morning Monte, said Wield. What fettle?
Monte was a monkey; a marmoset, the local vet had informed him when hed taken the animal for a comprehensive check a necessary precaution in view of its origins. For Monte was an escapee from a pharmaceutical research lab whod taken refuge in Wields car. The sergeant had smuggled it out, assuring himself this was a decision postponed, not a decision made.
It had been the first real test of his new relationship. Edwin Digweed, though fond enough of animals, made it clear that he had no intention of sharing his home with a free-roaming primate. A menage a trois may have its attractions, he said. A menagerie a trois has none.
There had been a moment, as Wields unblinking eyes in that unreadable face regarded him calculatingly, that Digweed had recalled an anecdote told of John Huston. Required by his current mistress to choose between herself and a pet monkey of peculiarly disgusting habits, the film director had thought for thirty seconds, then said, The chimp stays.
Digweed held his breath, suddenly fearful that his world might be about to dissolve beneath his feet.
But what Wield had said was, Hes not going back there. He escaped.
Hiding his relief, Digweed exclaimed, He it is a monkey, not the Count of bloody Monte Cristo. All right, we cant send him it back to that place, but the proper place for him it is a zoo.
Monte. Thats what well call him, said Wield. As for the zoo, I know just the spot.
Hed taken Monte to see Girlie Guillemard. Much impressed by the little animal, and having established he was marginally less inclined to bite, scratch or otherwise assault ill-behaved children than herself, shed offered him refuge in the Animal Park.
The move had worked surprisingly well. Wield visited every morning he could, bearing gifts of peanuts and fruit. Thered been an early crisis when duty had prevented his visit for nearly a week. Finally, Monte had gone looking for him at Corpse Cottage. Finding only Edwin there, asleep in bed, Monte had awoken him, presumably to make enquiries, by pushing up his eyelids.
Naturally, my first thought was, Im being raped by an ape, said the bookseller. So I lay back and thought of Africa.
Naturally, my first thought was, Im being raped by an ape, said the bookseller. So I lay back and thought of Africa.
Now Wield gently removed the beast from his head where it was searching diligently for nits. He regarded the little animal with great affection. Hed tried to explain to Edwin that it wasnt just sentimentality. In fact, of all the decisions hed made as a gay man, of all the small steps hed taken towards his present state of outness, none not even his acceptance of Digweeds suggestion that they set up house together seemed more significant than his rescue of Monte.
It had been theft, no matter how you looked at it. It had put his career on the line. Would he have done it before he took up with Edwin? He doubted it. It was as if his own pool of contentment had filled to such an unanticipated level there was a constant overspill which could no more let him ignore the monkeys plight last November than his sense of duty could have permitted him to steal it a year earlier.
Edwin, who, as he listened to his partners untypically hesitant self-analysis, had been preparing huevos a la flamenca, remarked acidly, Do let me know when you go soft on unborn chickens. Thereafter, however, whenever Monte came searching for the absent Wield, he was greeted with great kindness and given a lift back to Old Hall.
Dalziel did not know, at least not officially, about Monte. Keep it that way, advised Pascoe, whod got the full story, else some day when you think youre out of reach, hell use the beast to track you down.