Читать книгу On Beulah Height - Reginald Hill - Страница 10

‘And now the sun will rise as bright

As though no horror had touched the night.

The horror affected me alone.

The sunlight illumines everyone.’

‘Nice voice,’ said Peter Pascoe, his mouth full of quiche. ‘Pity about the tuba fanfare.’

‘That was a car horn, or can’t your tin ear tell the difference? But no doubt it is Tubby the Tuba leaning on it.’

‘Why do you think I’m bolting my food?’ said Pascoe.

‘I noticed. Peter, it’s Sunday, it’s your day off. You don’t have to go.’

He gave her an oddly grave smile and said gently, ‘No, I don’t. But I think I will. Give you a chance for a bit of productive Sabbath-breaking.’

This was a reference to Ellie’s writing ambitions, marked by the presence of a pad and three pens on the patio by her sunbed.

‘Can’t concentrate in this heat,’ she said. ‘Christ, the fat bastard’s going to rouse the whole street!’

The horn was playing variations on the opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth.

Pascoe, ignoring it, said, ‘Never mind. You’re probably famous already, only they haven’t told you.’

Ellie had written three novels, all unpublished. The third script had been with a publisher for three months. A phone call had brought the assurance that it was being seriously considered, and with it a hope that was more creatively enervating than any heat.

The doorbell rang. The fat bastard had got out of his car. Pascoe washed the quiche down with a mouthful of wine and stooped to kiss his wife. With Ellie any kiss was a proper kiss. She’d once told him she didn’t mind a peck on the cheek but only if she wasn’t sitting on it. Now she arched her bikini’d body off the sun lounger and gave him her strenuous tongue.

The doorbell went into the carillon at the end of the ‘1812’ Overture, accompanied by cannon-like blows of the fist against the woodwork.

Reluctantly, Pascoe pulled clear and went into the house. As he passed through the hallway, he grabbed a light cagoule. It hadn’t rained for weeks, but Andy Dalziel brought out the boy scout in him.

He opened the door and said, ‘Jesus.’

Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, ever full of surprises, was wearing a Hawaiian shirt bright enough to make an eagle blink.

‘Always the cock-eyed optimist,’ he said, looking at the cagoule. ‘Hello, what’s yon? I know that tune.’

This beat even the shirt. Like a child catching the strains of the Pied Piper, the Fat Man pushed past Pascoe and headed through the house to the patio where the radio was playing.

‘You must not dam up that dark infernal,’ sang the strong young mezzo voice. ‘But drown it deep in light eternal!’

‘Andy,’ said Ellie, looking up in surprise. ‘Thought you were in a hurry. Time for a drink? Or a slice of quiche?’ She reached for the radio switch.

‘Nay, leave it. Mahler, isn’t it?’

With difficulty, Ellie prevented her gaze meeting her husband’s.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’re a fan?’

‘Wouldn’t say that. Usually in Kraut, but?’

‘True. This is the first time I’ve heard it in English.’

‘So deep in my heart a small flame died. Hail to the joyous morningtide!’

The voice faded. The music wound plangently for another half-minute then it died too.

‘Elizabeth Wulfstan singing the first of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, the songs for dead children,’ said the announcer. ‘A new voice to me, Charmian. Lots of promise, but what an odd choice for a first disc. And in her own translation too, I believe.’

‘That’s right. And I agree, not many twenty-two-year-olds would want to tackle something like this, but perhaps not many twenty-two-year-olds have a voice with this kind of maturity.’

‘Maybe so, but I still think it was a poor choice. There’s a straining after effect as if she doesn’t trust the music and the words to do their share of the work. More after the break. This is Coming Out, your weekend review of the new releases.’

Ellie switched off.

‘Andy, you OK?’

The Fat Man was standing rapt, no longer Hamelin child lured away by the piper, but Scottish thane after a chat with the witches.

‘Nay, I’m fine. Just feel like someone had walked over my grave, that’s all.’

This time the Pascoes’ gazes did meet and shared the message, it’d be a bloody long walk!

He went on, ‘Yon lass, he said her name was Wulfstan?’

‘That’s right. She’s going to be singing in the Dales Festival. I saw the disc advertised in The Gramophone, special mail-order price, so I’ve got it coming, but I might not have bothered if I’d heard that review first. What do you think, Andy, being an expert? And are you sure you won’t have a drink?’

The gentle irony, or the repeated offer, brought Dalziel out of his reverie and for the first time his gaze acknowledged that Ellie was wearing a bikini whose cloth wouldn’t have made a collar for his shirt.

‘Nay, lass. I know nowt about music. And there’s no time for a drink. Sorry to be dragging him off on a Sunday, but.’

He made dragging off sound like a physical act.

Ellie was puzzled. Three things which passeth understanding: Dalziel recognizing Mahler; Dalziel refusing a drink; Dalziel not clocking her tits straight off.

‘It sounds urgent,’ she said.

‘Aye, kiddie goes missing, it’s always urgent,’ he said. ‘Where’s young Rosie?’

The juxtaposition of ideas was abrupt enough to be disturbing.

Pascoe said quickly, ‘She’s spending the weekend with a schoolfriend. Zandra with a Zed, would you believe? Zandra Purlingstone?’

There was a teasing interrogative in his tone which Dalziel was on to in a flash.

‘Purlingstone? Not Dry-dock Purlingstone’s daughter?’ he exclaimed.

Derek Purlingstone, General Manager of Mid-Yorks Water plc, the privatized version of the old Water Board, had played down the threat of shortages when this year’s drought started by gently mocking the English preoccupation with bathing, adding, ‘After all, when you want to clean a boat, you don’t put it in a bath, do you? You put it in a dry dock!’

He had learned the hard way that only the sufferers are allowed to make jokes about their pain. Dalziel’s surprise rose from the fact that Dry-dock’s position and politics made him the kind of man whose company Ellie would normally have avoided like head-lice.

‘The same,’ said Pascoe. ‘Zandra’s in Rosie’s class at Edengrove and they’ve elected each other best friend.’

‘Oh aye? With all his brass, I’d have thought he’d have gone private. Still, it’s reckoned a good school and I suppose it’s nice and handy, being right on his doorstep.’

Dalziel spoke without malice, but Pascoe could see that Ellie was feeling provoked. Edengrove Primary, with its excellent reputation and its famous head, Miss Martindale, might lie right on Purlingstone’s doorstep, but it was a good four miles north of the Pascoes’, while Bullgate Primary was less than a mile south. Ellie had made enquiries. ‘Bullgate has many original and unique features,’ a friend in the inspectorate told her. ‘For instance, during break, they play tiggie with hammers.’ After that, she made representations, with the upshot that Rosie went to Edengrove. Even with the shining example of New Labour leadership before her, Ellie felt a little exposed, and as always was ready to counterpunch before the seconds had left the ring.

‘If Derek is democratic enough to send his girl to a state school, I don’t 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 he’d ever acknowledge, that he found he had no stomach for even a mock fight.

‘Nay, you’re 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. T’other 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 doesn’t have a pony and a swimming pool. At least, not a real pony and a real swimming pool. Nina’s Rosie’s imaginary best friend. Ever since Wieldy gave her this last Christmas, they’ve 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 & 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. ‘Isn’t 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, ‘It’s 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. It’s Nina that bothers me. I had to buy an ice cream for her the other day.’

‘That’s 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 Constable’s got several. I’m one of them. What’s the story about anyway?’

‘About a little girl who gets kidnapped by a nix – that’s 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. We’ve wasted enough time.’

He thrust the book into Ellie’s 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 husband’s psyche, she did not know. Nor how deeply she ought to probe.

She heard the front door close. She was still holding Rosie’s 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.’