Ill keep talking to them, promised Mrs Shimmings as they walked down the corridor together. Its no use pressing with children this age. Youve got to let things come in their own good time.
Great, thought Novello. But you dont have to answer to a bunch of men who arent all that impressed even when youve got something positive to report!
By bunch of men she meant, of course, Dalziel and Pascoe, and to a lesser extent, Wield. On joining CID shed quickly sussed out that what mattered most to an ambitious officer was how you rated with the terrible trio.
Shed observed with interest but without comment how her male colleagues reacted. Dalziel put the fear of God into them. His wrath was like being run over by a Centurion tank. On the other hand, going into battle, theres nothing an infantryman likes more than advancing behind a Centurion tank.
Pascoe was rated OK. Lots of concern for the troops. Hed long outlived his early disadvantage of a degree. Indeed, most of them would never even think about it if it wasnt for the Fat Mans occasional weighty witticisms.
And Wield was Wield. Unreadable as a Chinese encyclopaedia, but containing everything a cop needed to know. There were stories about his private life which might have washed away another mans career. But against that unyielding crag, they broke and vanished back into the sea.
Word was that when Dalziel spoke, you obeyed; when Pascoe spoke, you listened; when Wield spoke, you took notes.
But Novello had come to see them rather differently.
The rumours about Wield she ignored. It was so clear to her he was gay that she couldnt understand the need for whisperings. He was a good cop and she could learn a lot from him. But, she guessed, he was also a cop whod made a conscious decision to stay at sergeant rather than risk the greater exposure of higher rank. This she could understand, but had no intention of taking as a role model.
Pascoe. At first shed liked him. Hed been welcoming, helpful, protective when she joined the squad. He still was. But when shed talked about this with Maggie Burroughs whod helped her a lot in her transfer to CID, the inspector had said, Watch out for the friendlies. Theyre sometimes the worst. And when a few minutes after she started talking to the kids, Pascoe had stuck his head into the classroom and asked for a quick word with Mrs Shimmings, all his apologetic smile had said to her was that what he was doing was beyond debate far more important than what she was doing.
Which left Dalziel. A tank was just a machine, but a machine needs someone to run it. A mechanic. Or God. Jokes were made about the Holy Trinity, usually with Pascoe as Son and Wield as Holy Ghost. Novello as a sort of good Catholic favoured Pascoe as Holy Ghost. But big Andy Dalziel was beyond all dispute the Almighty. Get up his nose, and the best you could hope was a big sneeze might carry you a long way away. It was a small comfort to know no one was immune. Even that Spiritus Sanctus, Peter Pascoe, came in for a fair share of crap. So, I believe in Andy Dalziel was the first and last clause of the CID creed. But faith without works didnt get you into heaven and even though the fat prophet had forecast that talking to kids was a waste of time, hed probably still expect some form of result.
It was therefore with relief that she found only Wield in the incident centre. He was poring over a thick file. In his hand was a can of mineral water.
He said, The fridge has turned up. Help yourself.
Gratefully she took a can of lemonade. She would have liked to put it under her T-shirt and roll it around but she instinctively avoided anything which would draw her male colleagues attention to her sex. Even Wields.
Perhaps, she thought, we have a lot in common.
Any luck? he asked without looking up.
Not much. Some talk of Lorraine having a secret place up Ligg Beck, but none of them knows where.
Well, they wouldnt, being a secret, said Wield with a childlike logic she recognized. He closed the file. Upside down she read DENDALE.
She said, Nothing from the search team, Sarge?
Not a sign.
So it could be shes long gone.
Super seems to reckon theyre still around here.
She noticed the they. He noticed her noticing but didnt correct it.
What do you think, Sarge? she asked.
He stared at her reflectively. His eyes, she noticed for the first time, were rather beautiful, circles of Mediterranean blue round a dark grey centre set on a field of pristine white with not a red vein to be seen. It was like finding jewels in a ruin.
He said, I think youve got a notion youd like to let out. Something to do with yon blue estate is my guess.
This was opening enough. She went across to the wall map and said, The Highcross Moor roads got no turn-offs except a few farm tracks for four and a half miles till it swings east and joins the main road here. Theres a pub, the Highcross Inn, at the junction. What Id like to do is check out all the farms along the road and the pub too, to see if anyone else noticed the blue estate.
It sounded pretty feeble now it was out. She was glad it wasnt the Fat Man she was talking to.
Wield said, Weve had men out at all those farms.
Yes, Sarge. But theyll have been searching barns, out-buildings, stables and such. Id be asking a specific question about a specific car.
Youve got a feeling about this blue estate, havent you?
Sort of, she admitted reluctantly.
You won anything on the National Lottery? he enquired.
Ten pound.
Not enough to retire on if Mr Dalziel catches you running around following hunches, said Wield. But as I cant think of anything else for you to do, off you go. Keep in close contact though. And you get buzzed to come back here, no mucking about saying receptions bad because of the hills, that sort of crap. You come running. OK?
OK, Sarge. Thanks.
And turning quickly before he could change his mind, she hurried out into the sweaty embrace of the panting sun.
As she got into her car she saw DI George Headingleys gleaming Lada turn into the car park. She sent her beat-up Golf roaring past him with a casual wave. George had always had a reputation as a careful man, but as retirement loomed closer, carefulness became an obsession. Privately, not a penny was spent unnecessarily and it was rumoured hed worked out to the hour if not the minute the best time to take his pension. Professionally, he did everything by the book, and if the book didnt tell him what to do, he did what he thought would please the Chief Constable and Andy Dalziel, not necessarily in that order.
No way if hed arrived ten minutes earlier would she have been heading out on a hunch. Make us a cup of tea, Shirl, he would have said. Then you can take care of answering the phone till the Super gets back.
But now, with one mighty bound, she was free. She gunned the car up the rising road, wound down the window and pulled up her T-shirt to let the cooling draught play upon her burning skin.
She didnt stop till she reached the high bend where Geoff Draycott thought the blue estate might have halted. Recognizing that a lot of people would be tempted to stop here for the view, the Council when they improved the road in response to Danbys growing prosperity had put down some hardstanding to make a small informal car park complete with rubbish bin.
Are we the only race in the world, she wondered, who if they visit a place of great natural beauty where there isnt a rubbish bin, would just dump their litter all over the ground?
She got out of the car and viewed the view. It was worth looking at in every direction. She had a pair of binoculars with her and through them she scanned the peaceful roofs of Danby, grey and blue slated, red, yellow, brown and ochre tiled, basking and baking far below. Then she followed the winding line of Ligg Beck up the valley. She began to feel her good feeling drain out of her as she reached a police Range Rover and remembered why she was here.
She picked out Maggie Burroughs wearing a very unofficial straw sun bonnet as she pored over a map on the open tailgate and talked into a radio. And standing a little apart in deep conversation with Sergeant Clark was Peter Pascoe, shirt-sleeved, his fair skin pinking, looking very like a twenties young gent out on a walking tour.
She continued her sweep up the valley, moving over the double line of searchers advancing slowly a half mile ahead of the Range Rover, till the slight eastwards twist put the valley head out of her vision.
And finally she came full circle and looked at the closest section, that which fell away immediately beneath her feet.
Now this was interesting. The valley narrowed the further up it you went, and this plus the location of the viewpoint on a spur of ground meant that the deep gash which marked the becks course in the upper reaches was relatively close here. Of course the tucks and folds of the terrain meant a lot remained hidden. But a man standing up here and glimpsing a child walking along the path beside the ghyll, say at that point there, would have no problem moving down the valley flank, far less steep on this side than on the Neb, and cutting her off, say there.
She lowered the glasses and studied the scene without them. Now it all looked a lot further off. Well, it would, wouldnt it? But no reason someone stopping here shouldnt have a pair of binoculars. And with them it would be all too easy to establish that what you were looking at was one small girl, alone, except for one equally small dog
All theory, of course. Not to be paraded naked before the sceptical gaze of the Holy Trinity. But clothe it with a couple of relevant facts
She scanned the ground at the edge of the hardstanding in hope of seeing something to show that someone had headed down the slope. Rapidly she realized it was not a very profitable way of spending her time. She was no Chingachgook to read in bent and heather who had passed this way and when. Also probably every kid in every family whod ever stopped here had run a little way down the fellside.
She went to the car, found a pair of plastic gloves, and removed the inner liner of the rubbish bin. It was packed full. This would have been a popular stopping place yesterday as the day wore on, and the presence of a Sunday tabloid on the top indicated it hadnt been emptied since. She tipped the contents on to the ground and began to sift through the lower strata. From her convent school Latin lessons the word haruspex popped into her mind; a soothsayer who based his prognostications on the entrails of animals. Good name for those FBI investigators shed read about who specialized in the interpretation of trash. Could be Scotland Yard or MI5 had a few too, but it didnt rate high in the Mid-Yorkshire training programme. Possibly an expert could have made much of the food containers and wrappings which made up the greater part of the rubbish, but Novello concentrated on the rest and after a few minutes she had isolated a lithium 3V battery of the type used in some cameras, an empty Marlboro Lights cigarette packet, two Sunday papers (one broadsheet, one tabloid), a broken earring, and a tissue with a brown stain that might be blood.