Dalziel And Pascoe: Pictures Of Perfection Part 12

He said, 'Only if you've worked on it long enough to make it short.'

'Fear not. It's part of my address to the Local History a.s.sociation. The parlour's the best place to tell it. Can we go downstairs?'

Am I imagining it, or is he keen to get out of this bedroom? wondered Pascoe. They made their way downstairs, meeting Wield on the way up.

'Why don't you take a look around up there?' suggested Pascoe.

Wield was the best systematic searcher of premises he'd met, though if you knew what you were looking for, there was no one to beat Andy Dalziel. No system, but he had a nose for going straight to the spot. As for himself, Pascoe acknowledged a deep-rooted distaste for this hands-on invasion of privacy which rendered his searches paingiving as well as painstaking. Dalziel had once remarked, 'Pete, lad, I'll always know if you've been searching my room 'cos you'll leave it tidier than you found it!'

The Sergeant continued upstairs. Pascoe and the Vicar went into the living-room and Lillingstone took up a public speaker's stance in front of the fireplace.

'You probably remarked as you approached the cottage that this wall behind me is in fact built right into the hillside,' the Vicar began. 'Beyond that wall, Mr Pascoe, lies my graveyard.'

He paused for effect. Pascoe looked at his watch, also for effect. Lillingstone grinned and hurried on.

'I'd like to take you back to Lammas 1787. That was the third day of the longest uninterrupted period of rain ever recorded even in these damp climes. It was also the day when the Hogbin clan gathered to bury Susannah, their matriarch who had ruled them with a rod of iron for more than three decades. Alas, it was as true then as it is now, that the longer you are feared, the less you will be mourned and the relief the Hogbins felt at getting out of the deluge and into this house was redoubled by their realization that the dreaded Susannah was gone for good. They ate the funeral meats and drank the funeral ale, and the gathering got merrier and merrier, so that even the sound of the incessant rain beating against the windows only increased their merriment.

'Quips and jokes flew thick and fast, and frequent repet.i.tion of the best only served to make them the funnier. And the most brilliant shaft of all has been saved for us in the written record of Silas Hogbin, then a youngster of nine or ten, who was sitting crouched here, in the alcove behind the chimney breast, drinking in the wild talk of his elders as children love to do.

'His own father had just repeated it for the umpteenth time, "Aye, but didsta see t'ole? Fuller o' watter than Daft Jimmy's heed! T'owld la.s.s weren't buried. She were launched!" And for the umpteenth time the Hogbins fell about with laughter.

'But this time it was not the sound of mirth alone which followed the joke. Another noise intruded, at first scarcely distinguishable through the laughter, but eventually causing it to still as the mourners strained their ears to identify its source.'

Lillingstone paused dramatically. Right on cue came a groaning, creaking noise which seemed to come out of thin air. Pascoe gave a little start, then grimaced as he realized it was only Wield moving something upstairs.

'Get a move on, will you?' he said with the brusqueness of embarra.s.sment.

'It was at this moment,' resumed the Vicar, 'that young Silas had a strange experience. In his own words it was as if a great finger jabbed into his back and started to push him forward into the room. He looked round to check the cause.

'"Hey, Dad," he called. "This wall's starting to bulge . . ."

'And simultaneous with his warning, the stones of this very wall flew asunder to admit a great tide of earth and rocks and water. You can imagine the panic. Screaming and praying, the Hogbins went scrambling for the doors and windows with scant regard for the precedence due to s.e.x or age. Nor was it just natural fear for their lives which set them fleeing. It was also the supernatural terror caused by the violent entry on this muddy tide of a still bright-handled coffin which burst asunder on this very floor to reveal the pallid face and wide accusing eyes of the founder of their feast, Susannah!'

He stopped speaking and stood with his fingers pointing dramatically downwards.

It was a bit over the top, thought Pascoe. He wondered if his sermons were like this.

He said, 'Sounds a bit of a tall story to me, Vicar.'

'What? It's well doc.u.mented, I a.s.sure you,' said Lillingstone, looking hurt, it was the same cloudburst that caused the church tower to take its final lurch sideways and washed out the foundations of the old vicarage, making it too dangerous to live in. The vicar had to bed down at Old Hall till the parish raised enough money to build the fine old vicarage I now inhabit, so it's all down in black and white in the records.'

'Very generous paris.h.i.+oners you have round here,' said Pascoe.

'Indeed they are,' said Lillingstone, as if suspecting a slight. 'They practised self-help here long before it became a euphemism for governmental meanness and insensitivity.'

'And Church Cottage became Corpse Cottage. Was Bendish bothered by ghosts that you heard?'

'Young Harry? No!' laughed Lillingstone. 'Far too sensible to believe in ghosts.'

Pascoe noted 'young Harry', the first non-deprecatory reference to Bendish he'd heard. Christian charity? Law and order solidarity? Or genuine liking?

He said, 'But the Hogbins weren't sensible?'

Lillingstone laughed again and said, 'I believe the Hogbins would still be here if the Squire hadn't offered them the Lodge rent-free and a sharecropping deal in return for Jocky taking care of the Hall gardens. But it made a better story for them to be haunted out than hired out. Most Yorks.h.i.+remen love facts, Mr Pascoe, and they like them penny plain. Ens...o...b..ans are something else. They go for tuppence coloured every time.'

Wield's head appeared round the door and looked significantly at Pascoe.

Lillingstone said, 'I'll be on my way, then, if there's nothing else?'

'Not unless you've decided to tell me your real reason for being here,' said Pascoe. 'Vicars should stick to penny plain, even in Ens...o...b.., wouldn't you agree? So come to confession when you're ready.'

Lillingstone left, looking seriously discomfited.

'Doubt if you'll be getting an invite to the Sunday School treat this year,' said Wield.

'I'll survive. You found something, have you, Wieldy?'

'Could be owt or nowt. Everything's in order. Hard to say what's missing without knowing what was here to start with. But at least we can be sure he wasn't dressed for duty when he took off, which is a relief.'

He had led the way upstairs into the bedroom. The wardrobe door was open. He pointed to a black bin-liner lying inside. Pascoe stooped and opened it.

It contained two police uniforms, fresh back from the dry cleaners by the look of them.

Or rather, one and a half police uniforms, for Wield's sharper eye had spotted a discrepancy. He picked up one pair of trousers, looked at the label and said, 'We're not using Marks and Sparks as a supplier now, are we?'

'Seems unlikely. Why?'

'That's where these came from. Right colour, and just about the same material. Would get by a casual glance, maybe, but not a real inspection.'

Pascoe shrugged and said, 'So he spilt paint on the originals and didn't want to have to explain himself to Filmer. Who incidentally needs a kick up the backside for missing this lot.'

'Probably just thought it was dirty was.h.i.+ng,' said Wield defensively.

'Whereas it is in fact very clean was.h.i.+ng,' said Pascoe thoughtfully. 'Odd. Bendish was wearing one of these uniforms at Scarletts last night. And I've not noticed an all-night dry cleaners in the village, have you?'

Before Wield could riddle this riddle, an all too familiar voice came drifting up the stairs.

'Is there anybody there?'

Pascoe went out on to the tiny landing and looked down into the hallway.

'Only us listeners,' he said. 'Can I help you, Mr Digweed?'

'That depends,' said the bookseller, frowning. 'We met at the station earlier, didn't we? I've forgotten your name . . .'

'Pascoe. Chief Inspector.'

'Just so. And from the sound of it you are perhaps also the token literate in our benighted constabulary. Or did my question merely stir up some childhood memory of rote-learned verse? I dare say even the worthy Sergeant Wield knows de la Mare's Traveller.'

Here we go again, thought Wield as he descended the stairs behind Pascoe, wondering if his boss could resist the temptation to take the old fart on.

He couldn't.

'De la Mare's Listeners, I think you mean,' he said courteously. 'His Traveller is of course something else. But what urgent business brings you here, Mr Digweed?'

'Who said anything about urgency?' said the bookseller, somewhat piqued.

'A self there is that listens in the heart, To what is past the range of human speech, Which yet has urgent tidings to impart,' said Pascoe.

Digweed regarded him, frowning. Yet it did not seem to Wield that it was merely being capped in this arty-farty quotation game that made him frown.

Then the bookseller said, 'Of course, you're quite right. And I'm sorry if I spoke boorishly. Think of it as a protective bitterness, like painting the nails with alum, causing more discomfort to the biter than anyone who happens to get scratched.'

Wield, a.s.suming cynically that his thick skin was excluded from this apology, was surprised when Digweed filtered a frosty smile in his direction also.

Then the bookseller's expression turned businesslike.

'And yes, Mr Pascoe, it is a matter of urgency that brings me here hoping to find Sergeant Filmer and your good Sergeant Wield at their rendezvous. My shop has been broken into. I have been robbed.'

'I'm sorry to hear that, sir,' said Pascoe. 'What's been taken?'

Digweed rolled his eyes upward and said, 'I run a bookshop, Chief Inspector, a shop for selling books. So why don't you hazard a guess?'

And Wield grinned to himself at this evidence that not even quotation itself kept a man safe from scratching.

CHAPTER X.

'You distress me cruelly by your request about Books; I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them.'

The bookshop had a musty, dusty smell which Pascoe drank in like mountain air. To Wield's nose, however, it wasn't a million miles removed from the pong of a damp cardboard box used as a cot by some unfortunate in the shopping precinct.

Digweed took them into a back room and showed them a window from which a circle of gla.s.s had been removed. 'How could they do that?' asked Digweed. 'Stick a sucker on the gla.s.s, an ordinary drain plunger would do,' said Wield. 'Whip round it with a gla.s.s cutter and pull. Then reach in and unlock the window. I'd get on to the glazier right away, sir. Don't want to put temptation in folks' way.'

'I am quite capable of cutting a piece of gla.s.s and opening a tin of putty myself,' said Digweed acidly. 'Country life teaches you self-sufficiency. Indeed, I begin to wonder if we might not be better off policing ourselves.'

'What seems to be missing?' interrupted Pascoe, who had been examining the shelves more like a bibliophile than an investigator.

'As far as I can make out from the gaps, a rather eclectic selection. To wit, a modern edition of Thorburn's Birds, a nineteenth-century History of the Warrior, and a catalogue of the Renoir exhibition at the Hayward in 1985.'

'So, a renaissance burglar,' said Pascoe. 'Worth much?'

'Not a lot. The Warrior was rarish and nicely bound, but not in much demand. Fifty, sixty pounds the lot, I suppose.'

Wield, peering through the lozenged gla.s.s of a locked cabinet, said, 'These in here would be more valuable, would they, sir?'

'Indeed, but as the cabinet is locked and every inch of shelf s.p.a.ce is full, I would hazard a guess that nothing has been removed.'

He spoke in the tone of voice used by primary teachers and Party Political broadcasters, provoking Wield to a dull obduracy.

'He could have used a picklock, taken some valuable stuff, wrapped the covers round them other books and put them back in the cabinet so's you'd not notice.'

He saw he'd said something daft as well as dull because even Pascoe was smiling. But at least he got between Wield and Digweed's more savage mockery by quickly saying, 'Not very likely, Wieldy, as having the original dust jacket usually quadruples a book's value. Right, Mr Digweed?'

'At the very least.'

'Nevertheless, it might be as well to check,' said Pascoe loyally.

With a long-suffering sigh, Digweed produced a key and unlocked the cabinet. He ran his eyes and one finger lightly along the book spines and said, 'No, they have not been touched.'

Wield reached by him and plucked out a volume, not realizing till he did so that this might seem to imply a doubt of Digweed's judgement, and not caring when he did realize. What had caught his eye was the author. It was a copy of Lysbeth by his much-loved Rider Haggard. The flimsy, rather soiled jacket was buff-coloured with nothing on it but the full t.i.tle, Lysbeth, A Tale of the Dutch, the author's name and that of the publisher, Longman & Co., on the spine in blue.

Digweed was hovering anxiously as if he feared Wield might be about to tear the volume in half like a circus strong-man.

'May I take that, Sergeant?' he said. 'Unless of course you were thinking of purchasing it.'

'No,' said Wield. 'I've got it already.'

'Really? Not, I think, this particular edition,' said Digweed with his best patronizing smile.

'Oh yes,' said Wield. 'Just the same, except mine's in a lot better nick. Published 1901, wasn't it?'

He opened the volume to check, saw he was right, saw also the typed insert containing a description and price.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!' he exclaimed.

Digweed removed the book from his fingers. He was no longer smiling.

He said, if indeed you do have a copy of this edition, perhaps we could do business, Sergeant.'

'No thanks,' said Wield. 'Sentimental value. They were my auntie's. And besides, I like to read them.'

'They? Them?'

Pascoe, who had been enjoying this, said, 'Oh, yes. Sergeant Wield's got what must be a full set of Haggards, isn't that right, Wieldy?'

'Of first editions?' said Digweed faintly.

'I don't rightly know,' said Wield. 'I've never bothered to look.'

'And dust jackets?'

'Oh aye. They've all got wrappers, stops 'em getting mucky. That's what they're for, isn't it?'