If Derek is democratic enough to send his girl to a state school, I dont see why we should try to prove him wrong by refusing to let Rosie make friends with Zandra, do you? she said challengingly.
Normally, Dalziel would have enjoyed nothing more than winding Ellie Pascoe up. But this morning standing here on this pleasant patio in the warm sunshine, he felt such a longing to subside into a lounger, accept a cold beer and while away the remains of the day in the company of these people he cared for more than hed ever acknowledge, that he found he had no stomach for even a mock fight.
Nay, youre right, lass, he said. Being friendly with your little lass would do anyone the power of good. But I thought her best mate was called Nina or something, not Zandra. Tother night when I rang and Rosie answered, I asked her what she were doing, and she said she were playing at hospitals with her best friend Nina. They fallen out, or what?
Pascoe laughed and said, Nina has many attractions, but she doesnt have a pony and a swimming pool. At least, not a real pony and a real swimming pool. Ninas Rosies imaginary best friend. Ever since Wieldy gave her this last Christmas, theyve been inseparable.
He went into the living room and emerged with a slim shiny volume which he handed to the Fat Man.
The cover had the title Nina amp; the Nix above a picture of a pool of water in a high-vaulted cave with a scaly humanoid figure, sharp-toothed and with a fringe of beard, reaching over the pool to a small girl with her hands pressed against her ears, and her mouth and eyes rounded in terror. At the bottom it said Printed at the Eendale Press.
Hey, said Dalziel. Isnt that the outfit run by yon sarky sod our Wieldy took up with?
Edwin Digweed. Indeed, said Pascoe.
Ten guineas, it says here. I hope the bugger got trade discount! You sure this is meant for kiddies? Picture like that could give the little lass bad dreams.
He sounds like a disapproving granddad, thought Pascoe.
He said, Its Caddy Scudamore who did the illustrations. You remember her?
That artist lass? Dalziel smacked his lips salaciously. Like a hot jam doughnut just out of the pan and into the sugar. Lovely.
It was an image for an Oxford Professor of Poetry to lecture on, thought Ellie as she said primly, I tend to agree with you about the illustration, Andy.
Come on, said Pascoe. She sees worse in Disney cartoons. Its Nina that bothers me. I had to buy an ice cream for her the other day.
Thats because you never had an imaginary friend, laughed Ellie. I did, till I was ten. Only children often do.
Adults too, agreed Dalziel. The Chief Constables got several. Im one of them. Whats the story about anyway?
About a little girl who gets kidnapped by a nix thats a kind of water goblin.
A breeze sprang up from somewhere, hardly strong enough to stir the petals on the roses, but sufficient to run a chilly finger over sun-warmed skin.
Could have had that drink, said Dalziel accusingly to Pascoe. Too late now. Come on, lad. Weve wasted enough time.
He thrust the book into Ellies hands and set off through the house.
Pascoe looked down at his wife. She got the impression he was seeking the right words to say something important. But what finally emerged was only, See you then. Expect me whenever.
I always do, she said. Take care.
He turned away, paused uncertainly as if in a strange house, then went through the patio door.
She looked after him, troubled. She knew something was wrong and she knew where it had started. The end of last year. A case which had turned personal in a devastating way and which had only just finished progressing through the courts. But when if ever it would finish progressing through her husbands psyche, she did not know. Nor how deeply she ought to probe.
She heard the front door close. She was still holding Rosies book. She looked down at the cover illustration, then placed the slim volume face down on the floor beside her and switched the radio back on.
The strong young voice of Elizabeth Wulfstan was singing again.
Look on us now for soon we must go from you.
These eyes that open brightly every morning
In nights to come as stars will shine upon you.
THREE
Pascoe sat in the passenger seat of the car with the window wound fully down. The air hit his face like a bomb blast, giving him an excuse to close his eyes while the noise inhibited conversation.
That had been a strange moment back there, when his feet refused to move him through the doorway and his tongue tried to form the words, I shant go.
But its strangeness was short-lived. Now he knew it had been a defining moment, such as comes when a man stops pretending his chest pains are dyspepsia.
If hed opted not to go then, he doubted if he would ever have gone again.
Hed known this when Dalziel rang him. Hed known it every morning when he got up and went on duty for the past many weeks.
He was like a priest whod lost his faith. His sense of responsibility still made him take the services and administer the sacraments, but it was mere automatism maintained in the hope that the loss was temporary.
After all, even though it was faith not good works that got you into the Kingdom, lack of the former was no excuse for giving up the latter, was it?
He smiled to himself. He could still smile. The blacker the comedy, the bigger the laugh, eh? And he had found himself involved in the classic detective black comedy when the impartial investigator of a crime discovers it is his own family, his own history, he is investigating, and ends up arresting himself. Or at least something in himself is arrested. Or rather
No. Metaphors, analogies, parallels, were all ultimately evasive.
The truth was that what he had discovered about his familys past, and present, had filled him with a rage which at first he had scarcely acknowledged to himself. After all, what had rage to do with the liberal, laid-back, logical, caring and controlled Pascoe everyone knew and loved? But it had grown and grown, a poison tree with its roots spreading through every acre of his being, till eventually controlling it and concealing it took up so much of his moral energy, he had no strength for anything else.
He was back with metaphors, and mixing them this time, too.
Simply, then, he had come close from time to time to physical violence, to hitting people, and not just the lippy low-life his job brought him in contact with who would test a saints patience, but those close around him not, thank God, his wife and his daughter but certainly this gross grotesquerie, this tun of lard, sitting next to him.
You turned Trappist or are you just sulking? the tun bellowed.
Carefully Pascoe wound up the window.
Just waiting for you to fill me in, sir, he said.
Thought Id done that, said Dalziel.
No, sir. You rang and said that a child had gone missing in Danby and as that meant youd be driving out of town past my house, youd pick me up in twenty minutes.
Well, theres nowt else. Lorraine Dacre, aged seven, went out for a walk with her dog before her parents got up. Dogs back but she isnt.
Pascoe pondered this as they crossed the bypass and its caterpillar of traffic crawling eastwards to the sea, then said mildly, Not a lot to go at then.
You mean, not enough to cock up your cocktails on the patio? Or mebbe you were planning to pop round to Dry-docks for a dip in his pool.
Not much point, said Pascoe. Well be passing the Chateau Purlingstone shortly and if you peer over his security fence, youll observe that hes practising what he preaches. The pool is empty. Which is why theyve taken the girls to the seaside today. We were asked to join them, but I didnt fancy wall-to-wall traffic. A mistake, I now realize.
Dont think I wouldnt have airlifted you out, growled Dalziel.
I believe you. But why? OK, a missing childs always serious, but this is still watching-brief time. Chances are shes slipped and crocked her ankle up the dale somewhere, or, worse, banged her head. So the local station organizes a search and keeps us posted. Nothing turns up, then we get involved on the ground.
Aye, normally youre right. But this time the grounds Danby.
Meaning?
Danbydales next valley over from Dendale.
He paused significantly.
Pascoe dredged his mind for a connection and, because theyd just been talking about Dry-dock Purlingstone, came up with water.
Dendale Reservoir, he said. That was going to solve all our water problems to the millennium. There was an Enquiry, wasnt there? Environmentalists versus the public weal. I wasnt around myself but weve got a book about it, or rather Ellie has. Shes into local history and environmental issues. The Drowning of Dendale, thats it. More a coffee-table job than a sociological analysis, I recall Sorry sir. Am I missing the point?
Youre warm, but not very, growled the Fat Man, whod been showing increasing signs of impatience. That summer, just afore they flooded Dendale, three little lasses went missing there. We never found their bodies and we never got a result. I know you werent around, but you must have heard summat of it.
Meaning, my failures are more famous than other peoples triumphs, thought Pascoe.
I think I heard something, he said diplomatically. But I cant remember much.
I remember, said the Fat Man. And the parents, I bet they remember. One of the girls was called Wulfstan. Thats what fetched me up short back there when I heard the name.
The singer, you mean? Any connection? It cant be a common name.
Mebbe. Not a daughter, but. They just had the one. Mary. It nigh on pushed the father over the edge, losing her. He chucked all kinds of shit at us, threatened hed sue for incompetence and such.
Did he have a case? enquired Pascoe.
Dalziel gave him a cold stare, but Pascoe met it unblinking. Hidden rage had its compensations, one of them being an indifference to threat.
There were this local in the frame, said the Fat Man abruptly. I never really fancied him, two sheets short of a bog roll, I reckoned, but we pulled him in after the second lassie. Nothing doing, we had to let him go. Then Mary Wulfstan vanished and her old man went bananas.