These she bagged separately. The rest she replaced in the plastic liner, which she sealed with tape and placed in the boot of her car. She had no real hope that any of it would have anything to do with the case, but if it did, she didnt want to have to tell Dalziel that the rest of the potential evidence was in some municipal tip.
Now she scanned her map. There were four farms worth visiting. Her hopes were high. She felt things were going well.
A couple of hours later, things were grinding to a halt. Finding the farms was easy. Finding all the folk who might have been around on Sunday morning was less so. Soon, as she tramped across tussocky heather and grazed her knees and elbows clambering over drystone walls, all that was left of the famous feeling was aching muscles and the beginnings of a heat rash under her arms.
But she was determined that whatever other accusation might be aimed at her, half-heartedness wasnt going to be on the agenda. Thoroughness, an old teacher had once told her, was its own reward. Which was just as well as by the time she crossed off the last farm, she had to acknowledge she had reaped no other.
So finally she came down to the Highcross Inn.
SIX
There was a RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY sign at either end of Holyclerk Street.
Dalziel nipped into a spot ahead of an old lady who scanned his screen furiously for sight of a residents disc, found none, started to get out of her car to remonstrate, glimpsed that huge face regarding her with a Buddhas benevolence, felt her road rage evaporate, and drove on.
Had she followed her first instinct and dropped a lighted match into his petrol tank, Holyclerk Street would not have been surprised. There was very little of human emotion and appetite it hadnt seen during its long history.
Its name pointed its link with the great cathedral which loomed over the human dwellings like an ocean-going liner over a fleet of bumboats. It stood within the bell, which meant that anyone living here could set out at a brisk pace on the first note of any summons and guarantee being in his place by the last. Nowadays a house within the bell usually cost at least 20 per cent more than a comparable house without, but it was not always thus.
The original medieval street containing the seminary from which it derived its name had by the reign of Queen Anne fallen almost completely into disrepair and disrepute. The timbered buildings had developed such alarming lists and been so often patched and propped, they looked like a file of drunken veterans staggering home from a very hard war. No person of wealth or standing would have dreamt of occupying one, and they had declined to low taverns, verminous lodging houses, and brothels.
That such a civic sore should pustulate within pissing distance of the cathedral was regarded by many good burghers as an offence against both God and Man. But as a substantial number of the said good burghers actually owned the houses and shared in their profits, Man delayed so long in providing a remedy that God grew impatient, and one dark September night, having first ensured the wind was in the right quarter, He tripped a drunken punk and her geriatric jo as they climbed the stairway to her reechy bed and sent their link flying like a meteor through a hole in the rotten boards down into the cellar where it landed in an open cask of illicit brandy.
The resultant fire left an ashen scar which for many years was regarded as lively evidence of the wrath of the living God, but when a combination of shanty town and Paddys Market looked to be developing there, the City Fathers this time pre-empted the deity by sweeping the area clean of undesirables and initiating a building programme of dwellings fit for dignitaries of the Church.
It was these elegant residences that now lay before Dalziels unimpressed eye. He knew little of medieval history and eighteenth-century fires, but he could look back to a period when the well-to-do had demonstrated their well-to-do-ness by migrating to the Green Belt, leaving the likes of Holyclerk Street to fragment into student flats and fly-by-night offices. But the Church had flexed its financial muscle (this was before its Commissioners had demonstrated their inability to serve either God or Mammon by losing several millions), purchased and refurbished, then made a killing when a hugely successful tele-adaptation of the Barchester novels cast a romantic glow over cathedral closes and made living within the bell once more the thing.
The sun was laying its golden blade right down the centre of the street so there was no shade to be found. Dalziel thought of following the example of the owner of the white cabriolet parked in front of him which had been left with its top down and its expensive hi-fi equipment on open offer. Surely in these ecclesiastic surroundings such confidence was justified? He wound his window down an air-admitting fraction, walked a step or two away, remembered the Church Commissioners, and returned to wind the window up as far as it would go.
This second passing of the white cabriolet registered that it was a Saab 900, the property of a national car-hire company. He checked the Residents parking disc. It was marked temporary and the address on it was 41 Holyclerk Street. The Wulfstan house.
Glancing up at the cathedral tower, he nodded appreciatively and moved on.
At number 41 he leaned on the bellpush a measured second then stepped back and waited.
In its previous posh manifestation hed guess this streets doors had been opened by uniformed maids, but nowadays domestic servants were pretty thin on the ground, if only because the kind of people who needed the work werent prepared to kow-tow to the kind of prats who needed the servants.
He recognized instantly the woman who opened the door though it was fifteen years since they had met.
And Chloe Wulfstans face showed that she recognized him.
Mr Dalziel, she said.
Age hadnt changed her much. In fact she looked a lot younger than last time hed seen her, but that wasnt so surprising. Then, the news of her daughters disappearance not only drained the blood from her face but also melted the flesh from her bones. But he had never seen her cry, and somehow he knew that she hadnt cried in private either. All her energy had gone to holding herself together even at the expense of locking everything inside.
No point in mucking about.
He said, Im sorry to trouble you, Mrs Wulfstan. Youll have heard about this lass whos gone missing from Danby?
It was on the radio, she said. And in this mornings paper. Is there any news?
The voice was level, conventionally polite, as if he were the vicar being invited to take tea. Fifteen years back he recalled that shed still retained a trace of the accent of her birth and upbringing on Heck Farm; educated, yes, but enough there to remind you that she was a Mid-Yorkshire lass. Now that had entirely gone. She could have been presenting Womans Hour.
Over her shoulder he could see a hallway hung with prints of musical cartoons. Down a broad staircase drifted the tinkle of a piano and a womans voice singing.
When your mother dear to my door draws near,
And my thoughts all centre there to see her enter
Not on her sweet face first off falls my gaze
But a little past her
There was the sound of discord as if someone had banged a hand down on the piano keys and a mans voice said, No, no. Too much too soon. At this point he is still trying to be matter of fact, still trying to be rational about his own irrational behaviour.
That voice. He thought he recognized it. Both voices in fact. The womans was the lass hed heard singing on the radio at Pascoes the previous morning. Same bloody set of songs too. His memory took him back to the first time hed heard them He wrenched it back to the other voice, the mans. That rather too perfect English. Surely it was the Turnip. Despite Wields frequent reminders that Arne Krog was a Norwegian, not a Swede, Dalziel had persisted in his awful joke. Poncy sod had once dared correct his English, and Dalziel was an unforgiving God.
Mr Dalziel? said Chloe Wulfstan.
He realized he hadnt answered her question.
No. No news, he said.
Im sorry for it, she said. How are no, I neednt ask.
Howre the parents? he concluded. Just like youd expect. Youd likely know the mother. Came from Dendale. Elsie Coe afore she married.
Margaret Coes girl? Oh, God. Margaret was very ill last year. Her recovery seemed a miracle. Now I wonder if it wasnt a curse. Is that a wicked thing to say, Mr Dalziel?
He shrugged impassively, denying the inclination rather than the qualification to judge.
She went on, in a curious reflective tone. I got used to thinking wicked things, you know. When I saw their sympathetic faces, women like Margaret Coe, I used to think: inside youre really glad its me, not you, glad its my Mary whos gone, not your Elsie or
She stopped as if someone had alerted her to her hostessly duties and said, briskly, Is it Walter you want to see, Mr Dalziel? He is here, but hes in the middle of a meeting about the Music Festival. They have to find a new location for the opening concert but of course, youd know that. Im being very rude keeping you on the doorstep. Do come inside. Ill let him know youre here.
He advanced into the hallway. It was a relief to be out of the suns direct rays, but even with all the windows open, its heat walked in with him.
Youd have thought a bugger into solar power would have installed air-conditioning, grumbled Dalziel.
Chloe Wulfstan knocked gently on a door, opened it and slipped inside.
In his brief glimpse into the room which looked like an old-fashioned oak-panelled study, Dalziel saw three people, one full face, one in profile, and one just the back of a head above an armchair. But it was the back of the head that he focused on. He felt something inside him tighten for a second, his stomach, his heart, it wasnt possible to be anatomically precise, but it was the kind of feeling he couldnt recollect having had for a long long time.
The door opened again and Mrs Wulfstan came out. The piano had started again upstairs.