"Indirectly," he said, not too happily. "Phil Wallop."
"What? As in Philip Wallop, Contractor, who"s doing Girlie"s improvements at the Hall? What"s he going to do with the place? Turn it into a ma.s.sage parlour?"
"No," he said. "There are of course restrictive covenants. Domestic use only. The positive way to look at it is a man doesn"t make a mess in his own back yard."
"You"re losing me, Larry," she said. Then her sharp mind made the leap. "This wouldn"t have anything to do with this working estimate for the Green Edwin was just telling me about? It would, wouldn"t it! My G.o.d, Wallop"s going to turn us into a suburb!"
Her face flushed with anger, she strode through the french window and across the lawn. Lillingstone hurried after her, catching up as she pa.s.sed through the arched gateway leading into the churchyard.
"Look," he said, "if the Green"s put on sale, it"ll be on the open market. There"ll be other bidders than Wallop."
"Other developers, you mean?"
"No one"s going to pay the kind of money we need without planning permission. It"s Hobson"s choice, Kee, the school or the Green. But I"m not Hobson. Even the PC"s not Hobson. It"s the whole village, and that"s who"ll be making the choice at tomorrow night"s meeting."
She walked on through the well-kept churchyard till they reached another arched gateway, this one with Guillemard arms and motto above it, marking the entrance to the family"s own private route from Hall to church, known as Green Alley. A hundred years ago it had been a broad gravelled path along which full-skirted ladies on the arms of full-bellied gents could stroll between banks of laurel and viburnum and lilac and rhododendron. But the cost of labour had gone up and the cost of irreligion had gone down and gradually Green Alley had shrunk to a muddy track scarcely wider than a sheeptrod.
Here she turned, the anger gone from her face, and reached out and touched her cool fingers against his hand.
"Larry, I"m sorry. I"ve no right to snap at you. Something"s happening here - the school, the vicarage, the Green, the Hall - something that can run out of control unless we all stick together and use our heads. Forgive me?"
"Of course," he said. Her candid gaze, her wise smile, her understanding tone, the cool touch of her fingers, brought to him how much he admired and respected her. Several times in the past he had come close to opening his heart to her and confiding his feelings for Caddy. Something had always got in the way. But here and now seemed the ideal time, the ideal place.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"Kee," he said in a low voice. "I"m pa.s.sionately, insanely, helplessly in love with Caddy."
He opened his eyes and found he was talking to Kee"s retreating back. But having come so far he was not about to give up. Dauntless, he plunged after her along the narrow track till she reached a small clearing where she paused and turned and said, "Sorry, Larry, were you saying something?"
"Yes," he said, keeping his eyes open this time. "I want to tell you that.. ."
"How very odd," said Kee.
"Odd? Why so?" demanded Lillingstone, a.s.suming some kind of precognitive response to his proposed confession.
"The hat," she said.
He knew he wasn"t wearing a hat. Nevertheless his hand flew to his head.
"There," she said impatiently.
He followed her pointing finger. The function of this clearing was easy to work out. Here those upper-cla.s.s promenaders overcome by fatigue, devotion or love had been able to rest a while on a granite bench made for two. It was lichened and ivied almost to invisibility now, but its location was signposted by a marble faun strategically placed to leer encouragingly over the heads of bashful wooers.
A hundred years ago, who knows what ardent outbursts that prurient presence had provoked?
Today, however, it was a real turn-off. Laurence Lillingstone had not become a vicar without being able to recognize a sign when he saw one.
This after all was neither the time nor the place to confess an illicit love.
Not in the presence of a marble statue wearing a policeman"s hat.
Volume the second PROLOGUE BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE Journal of Frances Guillemard August 29 1931. After the school committee meeting this evening Stanley asked me to stay behind to help with some correspondence. As soon as we were alone he made a very stilted and stuttering proposal of marriage! It was so unlike himself that I laughed and asked him if he"d been reading Trollope, upon which he grabbed me in his arms and kissed me so hard I thought I would stifle, but I didn"t want him to stop. After that I would have stayed all night. As it was, I got back very late and expected a scolding (24 and I still get scolded!) but it turned out Selly had done something to draw all the fire and I was able to slip upstairs hardly noticed.
All I wanted was to think about the evening and fill in my journal, but Guy appeared in his dressing gown, very put out because he"d been sent to bed at nine for asking questions when the row started, which he felt was considerably beneath the dignity of a young gent of 13! He thought it had something to do with Agnes, the undermaid, and said Father was in a tremendous paddy and talking, as he always does when Selly gets in hot water, of sending him off to Uncle Jack"s "to grow up"! I got the feeling that, hurt pride apart, Guy wouldn"t be too displeased at the prospect of being left the sole son of the house, with first pick of the horses and everything. But it probably won"t happen.
August 30. Went to Selly"s room this morning and found him packing. This time it"s true. He"s spending a couple of weeks with Great Aunt Meg in Gilbert Street, then it"s off to New Zealand to learn about sheep! As if there wasn"t one thing we had an excess of in Eendale, which is sheep! He was very coy about the reason for his banishment, and in the end he got so pompous we quarrelled. What on earth do they feed them at school and college to make them believe a young idiot who"s spent most of his time shut up with other young idiots knows more about life than any woman who isn"t forty and formidable!
Later I got it out of Mummy. Guy was right (he usually is, the little sneak) and Selly has been "misbehaving" with little Agnes Foote. Agnes has of course been sacked and sent back to her family in Byreford. I said it all seemed a bit extreme to me, Selly off to the Antipodes and Agnes in disgrace all because of a bit of slap and tickle. Sharp intake of breath from Mummy at the expression! Said that the trouble was Selly was taking it too seriously and talking about being in love. Agnes was much more sensible (surprising how sensible servants have to be!) and I needn"t worry about her. Didn"t think it was a good moment to mention me and Stanley, knowing as I do that Father has already got him marked down as "modern" which is only one step above total decadence!
September 24. This has been a dreadful day. I thought that since Selly sailed last week, I had observed a slight softening in Father, as if he relented his harshness to his son and heir, and, though too pigheaded to change his mind, was converted to a gentler, more rational regime in regard to the rest of us. So I told him about me and Stanley. Or rather, coward that I am, I told Mummy and let her pa.s.s on the news. I knew when I heard his cry of rage from the stables that I"d made a gross miscalculation! It was all Mummy could do to stop him from locking me in my room and heading down to the vicarage with a horsewhip. But at least it"s done. I feel quite serene. Nothing will stop me from marrying Stanley now. It"s silly but I find the only thing that really worries me is that I can"t see Stanley getting much help from Father in his efforts to rebuild the village school!
October 26. Today Stanley and I were married in St Mark"s at Byreford. It was a disappointment not to have the ceremony in our own church but at least I was spared the threat of interruption from Father, who would have seen this as the ultimate provocation! I slipped up to the Hall this morning to see Mummy. She wept a lot and said that Father was implacable and wouldn"t I change my mind even now? How little she understands. I b.u.mped into Guy who is home for half-term. He had the cheek to lecture me about disgracing the family by marrying an atheist socialist agitator! He really is the most obnoxious little sn.o.b. I have written to Selly baldly stating the facts. I hope he may be more sympathetic, though I know he"d never have the strength of will to stand up to Father. I thought of Selly later as I came out of church, and who should I see among the onlookers but little Agnes Foote, now Agnes Creed, for when I spoke to her she told me, blushing, that she"d married an old flame of hers from Byreford and by the look of her, he has not been long in doing his "progenitive duty". The euphemism is Mummy"s. She speaks rarely of such things and always as a necessary pain. I hope I shall not think of it so. Soon I shall know. Stanley, who has stayed downstairs to smoke a pipe, has had time to burn a ton of tobacco by now! Shall I ring a bell to summon him to his "progenitive duty"? Then we would see how "modern" he is. But I think I hear him now.
CHAPTER I.
"Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted."
Wield usually walked to work. It wasn"t far and the exercise did him good. But these weren"t the only reasons.
He lived his life in compartments and the bike did not belong in the same compartment as the job. There was no hard and fast rule. He"d use it if necessary. But why attract attention? He was "out" if being resolved never to deny his s.e.xuality meant being out, but that didn"t mean he had to wear a Kiss-me-Quick T-shirt, did it? It was all perfectly reasonable.
Yet his mind, which could collate evidence, a.n.a.lyse statements, and pa.r.s.e PACE, with a speed and clarity beyond computer programming, knew that perfect reasoning is a perilous plan for living. Perfection has no safety net. One slip and it shatters.
When the job was going well, when he was fully involved with his work both on and off duty, he could imagine things were OK. Leisure in short bursts he could pack with his martial arts cla.s.ses, his Gilbert and Sullivan discs, his motorbike maintenance, his Rider Haggard novels.
But when he had a full day off, or, worse, several full days, the truth came rushing up to meet him. These compartments were empty. There was no one to share them with. There had been no one for longer than he cared to remember. There was part of his life he hadn"t just compartmentalized; he"d walled it off and plastered over the bricks.
It wasn"t simply a matter of s.e.x. A man could do without that and still function. Or if he couldn"t, there were outlets of minimal risk.
But companionship, closeness, care; sorrow at parting and joy at reunion; planned trips and surprise treats; accusations, apologies, quibbles, quarrels, and quiet breathing; all the pain and pleasure of shared existence; this was what he"d walled himself off from, raising a dust of desolation which no amount of fresh spring air blasted over his face as he roared through the highways and byways of rural Yorkshire could blow away.
This time he"d been off for almost a week. If he"d made an issue of it he was probably ent.i.tled to more like a month. It had felt like a year. But now at last it was over, and precisely on the first stroke of twelve from the town-hall clock, he pa.s.sed through the imposing portals of Mid-Yorkshire Police HQ. He felt his heart leap, or at least lurch, as he smelt the dusty disinfected odour of the place, but it would have taken an ECG machine to detect the movement.
The last note of the hour was sounding as he reached the CID floor. Simultaneously a bulky figure stepped out of an office and a voice like a sports day tannoy system boomed, "My G.o.d, someone"s rubbed the bottle and let the genie out! What time of day do you call this, Sergeant?"
And Wield knew he was back home.
"The time of day my holiday finishes, sir," he said.
"Holiday? I hope you"ve brought me a stick of rock, "cos I know just the place to stick it!"
Judging the threat to be non-personal, Wield advanced to make his obeisance to the Head of Mid-Yorkshire CID and Master of All He Cared to Survey, Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.
"Trouble, sir?"
"Owt or nowt. You know Sergeant Filmer?"
"Terry? Aye. Section sergeant out at Byreford, isn"t he?"
"That"s the b.u.g.g.e.r. Well, he reckons one of his plough-boys has gone walkabout."
Ploughboy was Dalziel"s personal nomenclature for any uniformed officer stationed in the sticks. For decades the arrangement had been for each sizeable village to have its own resident constable under the immediate supervision of a Section Office in some centrally placed small township. Economy disguised as efficiency was causing a radical shake-up of the system, and in the not too distant future the village bobby would vanish completely. Wield, like most thinking coppers, regretted his imminent demise. This was hands-on policing with good public relations, and the additional advantage that it provided a testing ground to see how promising youngsters coped with responsibility.
"If Sergeant Filmer says he"s missing, he ought to know," said Wield.
"You reckon? Thing is, it"s the lad"s day off. He clocked off at noon yesterday and he"s not due back on till eight tomorrow morning. Only Filmer calls in at the police cottage first thing this morning - says there was a report he needed, but I reckon he just likes to stick his neb in, keep them on their toes - and there"s no one there."
"But it"s his day off."
"Makes no matter to Filmer. He uses his key to get inside, checks the bedroom, finds the bed"s not been slept in."
"So he got up early and made the bed. Or found somewhere better to sleep last night."
"Against the rules. You don"t sleep away from home without you inform your Section Office."
"You don"t ring up at midnight and say, "Hey, Sarge, I"ve struck lucky", do you?" said Wield.
"My reaction, just. Not Filmer. He checks the wardrobe. If the lad did strike lucky, he went on the date wearing his uniform, "cos it isn"t there. Next he checks the car. It"s alongside the cottage, badly parked, unlocked, with stains on the pa.s.senger seat."
"Bloodstains?"
"Strawberry jam for owt I know," growled Dalziel. "Now Filmer"s right up in the air. Starts making what he calls discreet inquiries. I can hear him. I"ve lost a constable, anyone seen him "And had anyone?"
"Not since yesterday afternoon. But first off he finds some old sod who reckons he saw our missing ploughboy about tea-time having a set-to with a h.e.l.ls Angel..."
"In uniform? Or out?"
"In. So Filmer decides either there was an emergency which got him back in uniform, or mebbe this old boy who"s rising eighty and recovering from a stroke is a bit confused. He keeps on asking, and, lo and behold, he finds himself another witness in the village who also recalls having a bit of bother yesterday with a h.e.l.ls Angel. Only he got closer and he gives a description which makes this b.u.g.g.e.r sound like a cross between King Kong and Rasputin. Now Filmer really panics. First off he radios in a right alarmist report to the Mother Superior, who naturally lobs the buck straight upstairs to Desperate Dan, who can"t find me "cos I"m out doing some real police work, so he drops it like a steaming hot t.u.r.d right into the lad"s lap. If I"d been around it"d have got slung back with interest. Let Uniformed take care of their own, say I!"
"So what"s the state of play now, sir?" asked Wield, who had no problem identifying the Mother Superior as Chief Superintendent Almond, the new Head of Uniformed Branch, while Desperate Dan was of course Chief Constable Daniel Trimble, and "the lad" was Wield"s very good friend, Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe.
"You know Peter. Always a soft touch. Though fair do"s, by the time he gets landed, yon daft b.u.g.g.e.r Filmer has decided that he can kill two birds with one stone by bringing in the ploughboy"s car for Forensic to check the stain, and the witness to look at our Family Alb.u.m to try and spot King Kong."
"He put a witness in a car he wants Forensic to look at and drove him here?" said Wield incredulously.
"See what I mean? Pete decides he"d best go and tiptoe through the turnips himself, to see what damage has been done. Left me a note. He can be a wilful b.u.g.g.e.r when he wants."
Wield had a good face for hiding smiles, a capacity he used now.
"And Filmer?"
"He"s in here with his star witness turning pages. You have a word with him, Wieldy, come the old Sergeants" Union, see if he"s got owt sensible to say. I seem to make him nervous, can"t think why."
Another smile was absorbed and Wield pushed open the door.
The shining bald head of Sergeant Filmer was bent alongside the shining silver head of a man peering at a pageful of photographs.
At the sound of the door, both heads turned.
Filmer"s face registered relief as he recognized Wield.
The witness"s face registered first surprise, then relief also.
And Wield"s face for once allowed his feelings of disbelief, comprehension and dismay to be printed clear.
"So you"ve got him!" cried Edwin Digweed, the Ens...o...b.. bookseller. "Jolly good. Now perhaps you"ll admit I wasn"t exaggerating when I said that here was a face marked for villainy if ever I saw one."
"You what?" said Dalziel, who had followed Wield into the room.
"Is it Harold Bendish that"s missing?" asked Wield.
"That"s right. What"s this old b.u.g.g.e.r on about?"
The old b.u.g.g.e.r looked ready to be offended, but as Wield advanced towards him, fear took over and he retreated till his legs caught the lip of the table and he could go no further.
"For heaven"s sake, someone!" he cried. "Shouldn"t this man be under restraint?"
"It"s all right, sir," said Wield soothingly. "There"s been a mistake. I"m a detective."
"What?" Digweed looked from Wield to Filmer, saw no denial there, looked back to Wield, recovered both his balance and his aplomb, and said, very Lady Bracknellish, "A detective? You? That does indeed sound like a very great mistake. I still find it hard to believe. Superintendent. .. ?"
"This is Detective-Sergeant Wield, one of my officers," said Dalziel in a dangerous voice. "Will someone tell me what"s going off here?"
"I was in Ens...o...b.. yesterday, sir," said Wield. "I met Mr Digweed, briefly. Then a bit later on, I..."
"You a.s.saulted Constable Bendish!" interposed Digweed. "Excellent. To preserve your cover, isn"t that the term? I presume that extraordinary costume you had on was some form of cover?"
"I spoke with Bendish, sir," said Wield stolidly, addressing himself to Dalziel.
"Oh aye? And what did you say?"
Wield glanced doubtfully at Digweed, who said, "Yes, yes, of course. From being so vital a witness I have to be dragged from my place of business - which incidentally will be doing no business at all while I"m away - I have become an intrusive member of the general public who must on no account be allowed to overhear high-level police discussion. Excuse me, gentlemen, I shall return home where I will spend more of my valuable time penning a strong letter of complaint. You do, I presume, employ at least one token literate to read such letters? Never mind. I"ll put it on tape also. Now I give you good day."
He strode out. It was a rather good, very English sort of exit.
Dalziel jerked his head at Filmer, who went in apologetic pursuit.
Then the Fat Man turned to Wield and fixed him with a gaze which would have frozen a Gorgon.
"Right, sunshine," he said with dreadful softness. "Now you can tell me what you were doing in fancy dress beating up PC Bendish!"