On Beulah Height (19 page)

He spoke with a fervor that made Pascoe smile.

"You make it sound like Paradise," he said.

"Well, if it weren't Paradise, it were right next door to it, and as near as I'm like to get," said Clark. "Then it all got spoiled. From the moment Mr. Pontifex sold his land, that's how most people saw it."

"So what does that make Mr. Pontifex? The serpent? Or just poor gullible Eve?"

He'd gone too far with his light ironic touch, he saw instantly. Your Yorkshireman enjoys a bit of broad sarcasm but is rightly suspicious that light irony conceals the worm of patronage.

"Be able to see for yourself," the sergeant said gruffly. "Jed works for him, so The Grange is where we'll need to go if you want to talk to the lad."

"Oh, I do, I do," said Pascoe. "Lead on."

The Grange turned out to be a pleasant surprise, not the grim granite block of Yorkshire baronial he'd been expecting, but a long, low Elizabethan house in mellow York stone.

The estate office occupied what looked like a converted stables. No sign that anyone here rode anything more lively than the big blue Daimler standing before the house.

They parked in the shade of some old yew trees and walked across the yard toward the office. Its door opened as they approached and a man came out. He was silver haired, rising seventy, with a narrow, rather supercilious face. He carried a walking stick with a handle in the shape of a fox cast in silver, a perfect match for his hair; and in fact the stick did seem to be for effect rather than need, as he came to meet them with a bouncy sprightly step.

"Sergeant Clark," he said. "This is a terrible business. Have I the pleasure of addressing Superintendent Dalziel?"

A man who can believe that can believe anything was the reply which sprang to Pascoe's mind, but fortunately didn't make it any farther.

"No, sir. Detective Chief Inspector Pascoe. Mr. Dalziel sends his compliments but is detained in town."

A smile broke out on the man's face, changing its whole caste.

"Not the mode of speech my spies have led me to expect from Mr. Dalziel," he said. "And now I look more closely at you, I see that neither are you the mode of man. My apologies. I really must learn to hold my fire."

He had come very close and taken Pascoe's hand. Now Pascoe understood the cause of that screwed-up, apparently supercilious expression. The man was dreadfully shortsighted. Presumably the stick was for detecting obstacles on unfamiliar terrain.

Clark had taken a few steps toward the office. He paused and looked at Pascoe inquiringly. Pascoe gave him a slight nod and he went inside.

"So tell me, Mr. Pascoe, is there any news?" asked Pontifex.

"I'm afraid not," said Pascoe. "We can only hope."

"And pray," said the man. "I have heard that locally they are speaking of the man Lightfoot that so many blamed for the Dendale disappearances. Surely there can be nothing in this?"

Pascoe had heard the word surely spoken with more conviction.

He said, "At the moment, sir, we are keeping a completely open mind."

The man had released his hand but was still standing uncomfortably close. Pascoe turned as though to look at the house, using this as an excuse to step away.

"Lovely old building," he said appreciatively. "Elizabethan?"

"At its core. With later additions but always in the style."

"You're lucky to have had such tasteful ancestors," said Pascoe.

"Not really. The Pontifex connection only dates back to my father, whose eagerness to modernize the interior probably did more damage to the structure than anything in the previous four hundred years."

"So he bought the estate, did he?"

"Such as it was in the late twenties. Chap who owned it went under in the Depression. Too many bad guesses. My father moved in and set about expanding. Anything that came up, he bought, which was how he came to own a good number of farms over in Dendale. But not enough to form a viable whole. An estate, to be workable, needs to have unity, to be contained within a common boundary. There were too many gaps across in Dendale. If the dam hadn't come up, they would have had to be sold anyway."

Pascoe got a sense of hearing an excuse well rehearsed and often repeated. He guessed that in the eyes of some what was simply sequence-Pontifex selling, the dam being built, and the children disappearing--had become a chain of cause and effect. But it was surprising to find a presumably level-headed businessman affected by such idle chatter.

"Sir, he's gone."

It was Clark who'd emerged from the office.

"Gone? Where?"

"Estate manager says he saw us out the window and next thing he knew, the lad had vanished."

"Was it Jed you wanted to see?" said Pontifex, sounding relieved. "Any particular reason?"

"Just checking with everyone to see if they noticed anyone strange wandering around yesterday, sir," Pascoe prevaricated.

"Of course. One of your chaps called. Wasn't able to help him, I'm afraid. You've seen how unreliable my eyesight is."

Did he want an affidavit? wondered Pascoe.

He shook hands and took his leave. As he walked back to the cars, he asked Clark, "Pontifex got any family?"

"Daughter. He's divorced. Wife got custody."

"So he lives here alone. Does he help a lot of lads or is Jed Hardcastle unique?"

Clark shot him a disapproving glance.

"Nothing of that," he said with distaste. "There's never been a sniff of that."

"I wasn't suggesting that," protested Pascoe. Or was I? From the sound of it, that was still a stonable offense round Danby. Better warn Wieldy!

"I reckon truth is that Mr. Pontifex feels he owes the Hardcastles something," continued Clark. "Lot of folk would agree. I mean, mebbe if he'd not sold his land ..."

"But there'd have been a compulsory purchase order, wouldn't there?" objected Pascoe.

"Lot of difference between compulsion and profit," said Clark with Old Testament sternness.

"You think he might be to blame in some degree, then," said Pascoe curiously.

"Well, if it were someone local like Benny Lightfoot took them lasses, it could be that finding himself sold up and moved out triggered something off in him that might else have laid buried till his dying day."

From Old Testament sentence to modern psychobabble! Which was not to deny the possibility that there could be something in it. There'd been no such suggestion in the file, though. Fifteen years ago, offender profiling had been the job of a police artist, and even today in certain parts of Yorkshire it was an art practiced by consenting officers in private.

Pascoe asked, "Was the Lightfoot cottage part of Pontifex's estate?"

"No. Belonged to old Mrs. Lightfoot, Benny's gran. Way it was, her husband had it as a tied cottage from Heck when Arthur Allgood were farming there. When old Lightfoot died, his son, Saul, took it over on the same tie."

"That's Benny's father, the one who drowned?"

"You keep your lugs open," said Clark, admiring again. "That's right. After he died and Marion fell out with the old lady and took her kids off back to town, everyone thought Arthur would soon have her out of Neb Cottage to make way for a new man. But before he could do it, lo and behold, he snuffed it too! A hundred years ago I reckon they'd have had the old girl down for a witch."

"But what difference did that make? The cottage would still be tied."

"Oh, aye. But now it belonged to Chloe Allgood, Arthur's daughter, her that married Mr. Wulfstan. They wanted to hang on to Heck for a holiday place, but the rest of the farm they were happy to sell. Naturally Mr. Pontifex's agent were round there in a flash."

"But Pontifex didn't get Neb Cottage?"

"No, he didn't. Turned out the old lady had got hold of Chloe right after her dad's funeral and talked her into selling her the cottage. No one knows where the money came from--word was that she'd had a bit of insurance on her man and put it all into a bigger insurance on her son. Well, she knew that long as Saul were alive, she'd be okay, but if owt happened to him, she'd be in trouble."

"Bright lady," said Pascoe.

"Oh, aye. You had to get up early in the morning to reach market before Mr. Pontifex," said Clark, laughing. "I gather he weren't best pleased when he found he weren't getting Neb Cottage along with the rest of the Heck holdings."

"So what happened when Pontifex decided to sell up to the Water Board?"

"That were the finish, really. Most as owned their own places caved in and sold. Mr. Wulfstan at Heck made a fuss but it didn't get him anywhere. Only old Mrs. Lightfoot held out to the end, and they'd have had to send the bailiffs in to drag her out if she hadn't been taken ill with a stroke. It was all too much for her, they reckoned, the move and all that business about Benny. So they carried her off in an ambulance and 'dozed the cottage quick as maybe. It was a right shame, her ending her time in the dale like that. Something else on Mr. Pontifex's conscience, they reckoned."

"People blamed him, did they?"

"Aye. For everything. The move. And the vanishings. They were linked in people's minds, you see. And in Mr. Pontifex's too. That's why he gave Ced Hardcastle Stirps End, which by all accounts had been as good as promised to Jack Allgood, who were twice the farmer Cedric ever was. And it didn't stop there. Like I say, when he saw what was happening between Jed and his father, he stepped in and gave the boy a job in his office."

"After all those years?" said Pascoe. "Now, that's a tender conscience."

"Aye, in some folks it's like game. Longer it hangs, tenderer it gets."

Pascoe smiled and said, "Ever thought of writing for The Archers, Sergeant? They pay good money for lines like that."

They had reached their cars and were standing in the shade of a tall yew tree. It was pleasantly cool here out of the skull-drilling rays of the relentless sun.

"So whither away, Sergeant?"

"Sir?" Puzzled.

"It's your patch. I'm sure round here the word is that fear wists not to evade as Clark wists to pursue."

"Sir?" The monosyllable now bewildered.

"Where will we find the lad?" Pascoe spelled it out.

"He'll have gone home, won't he? Where else?" said Clark confidently. "You all right, sir?"

Pascoe had suddenly reached out to rest his hand against the rough bark of the yew tree.

"Fine," he said. "Someone must have walked across my grave. That's what comes of standing under this churchyard tree."

He moved briskly toward his car. He looked pale.

Clark said anxiously, "You sure, sir?"

"Yes, I'm fine," said Pascoe with some irritation. "And there's work to do. Just lead the way to Stirps End with all the majestic instancy you can muster, Sergeant!"

Ellie Pascoe was breaking the speed limit even before she got out of her own short driveway. She knew it was stupid, and, by great effort of will, got to braking distance of thirty miles per hour by the end of the street. It was only four miles to the school, and the difference between driving like normal and driving like a lunatic was significant only in the soul.

Miss Martindale greeted her with a face as placidly reassuring as her voice on the phone had been.

"Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Pascoe," she said. "Miss Turner thought she seemed a little bit distant, that was how she put it. Reluctant to get on with anything, and downright snappy if pressed. We all have days like that, days when we'd rather spend time inside ourselves than face outside demands. Happens to me all the time. Then Miss Turner noticed Rosie was a bit hot and flushed. Probably only the start of a summer cold. Getting hot and then cooling off all the time makes children susceptible. No real problem, but better nipped in the bud with half an aspirin and the rest of the day in bed."

The soothing flow of words relaxed Ellie, even though she recognized that this was what they were meant to do. Miss Martindale was a bright young woman. No; more than that; Ellie knew a lot of bright young women, but Martindale was one of the rare breed she felt her own genius rebuked by. Not that they were in competition, but on the rare occasions when they did lock horns, it was always Ellie who found herself giving ground.

She tried to explain this to Peter, who'd said, "Whatever she's taking, I wonder if she'll give me the name of her supplier?"

Rosie was sitting on the edge of the bed in the small medical room, watched over by the school's massively maternal secretary. When she saw her mother, she said accusingly, "I told you you shouldn't have made me go to school this morning."

Thanks a bunch, kid, thought Ellie.

She gave her a hug, then examined her closely. Her face certainly looked a bit flushed.

"Not feeling so good, darling?" she said, trying to keep it matter of fact. "Bed's the best place for you. Let's get you home."

She thanked Miss Martindale, who smiled reassuringly, but from the secretary, who clearly had her down as the kind of mother who sent her ailing child to school rather than spoil her own social life, all she got was an accusing glare. Ellie responded with a sweet smile. Okay, the head might have the hex on her, but she wasn't going to kowtow to a sodding typist.

On the way home she chatted brightly, but Rosie hardly responded. In the house, Ellie said, "Straight to bed, I think. Then I'll bring you a nice cool drink, shall I?"

Rosie nodded and let her mother unbutton her dress, something which in recent months had brought a fierce I can do that myself!

Ellie made her comfortable in bed, then went down to the kitchen and poured a glass of homemade lemonade. Then she poured another. Sickbed circumstances demanded a bit of indulgence.

"Here we are, darling," she said. "I brought one for Nina, too, in case she got thirsty."

"Don't you ever listen?" demanded Rosie. "I've told you a hundred times. Nina's back in the nix's cave. I saw her get taken."

The flash of spirit was momentarily reassuring, but it seemed to wear the little girl out. She took only a single sip of the drink, then sank back into her pillow.

"I'll leave it for her anyway," said Ellie cheerfully. "She might like it after her daddy rescues her."