On Beulah Height (25 page)

"Because now there may be."

"And?"

"And if there is, I'll choose."

"Mebbe you should wait till you're asked," he said. He had identified the feeling as embarrassed delight. It bothered him somewhat. He'd be blushing next!

"Oh, no. That's a cop-out. All the important choices are made in advance of their occasion."

He sat looking at her, recognizing now it wasn't just the handsome face, the sturdy body, and the big knockers he'd missed, but her humor, her independence, and the no-crap way she put things, a quality sometimes obscured, sometimes underlined, by her posh accent. That was all that obviously remained of her previous life in which, barely out of finishing school, she had married into the lower reaches of the peerage, given birth to a son, and watched him (as closely as nannies and boarding school permitted) grow up into a young army officer who was reported missing, believed dead, in the Falklands War.

This had been her epiphanic experience, forcing her to a review of her life, which not even the news that her son was in fact heroically alive could reverse. There had followed, in not-too-rapid succession, disaffection from high society, divorce, deconstruction of all previous moral certainties, dissipation, dedication to a series of radical causes; and finally, Dalziel.

They had met when an animal rights group she was leader of had been involved in a murder investigation. Separated by a few years, several class-strat, and a moon river of attitudes, they had nevertheless felt a mutual attraction strong enough to bridge all gaps until her demand for trust and his need for professional certainties had required a bridge too far.

Now this chance encounter seemed to offer the possibility that this missing bridge could be put in place after all.

She said, "So while we're choosing, let's chat. What brought you to Walter's house? Didn't I read that you're in charge of this missing-child case?"

So she took note of his name in the papers. He was pleased but hid it.

"That's right. His car were spotted parked near where she lived--lives. The Turnip's too."

"Sorry?"

"Krog. The Swede."

"Norwegian, I think. But hardly polite anyway."

"Polite? Mebbe it were some other bugger you missed."

"Could be. So you wanted to see them. Walter and the ... and Krog?"

"Aye. For elimination."

"Thought you sent sergeants to do that."

This was a reference to his use of Wield to interview her when things got hot.

"Not when it's someone like Wulfstan," he said.

"Andy, you're not suggesting the rich and powerful get treated better than poor plebs?" she mocked.

His brow creased like a field furrowed by a drunken plowboy. She'd not have said that if she knew the Wulfstans' history.

"How well do you know them, the Wulfstans?" he asked.

"Not well. The wife hardly at all. Walter only as chair of the festival committee. When I settled down here a few years back, I started going to concerts locally and made a few friends in musical circles, not people who overlapped with my other activities, I hasten to add, before you start asking for names. A particular friend was on the committee. When her job required her to leave the district, she recommended me to take her place, and that was how I got to know Walter."

"Oh, aye? And he was impressed by your experience of organizing pickets and demos and illegal raids on private premises, was he?"

"I keep my life pretty well compartmentalized, Andy," she said. "Poke holes in dykes and trouble comes pouring through, as you and I found out. This is my first year on the committee, so I'm still feeling my way."

"Thought you'd have been in charge by now."

"Not much chance of that." She smiled. "It's so well organized, there's very little to do. This change of venue is our first real crisis, and Walter seems to have got that well under control."

"So I gather. You'll be off to Danby to shift furniture, then?"

"Not today. But I've offered my services tomorrow if needed. Walter runs a tight ship, no evaders need apply. But that's really all I know about him. No use trying to pump me for more, Superintendent."

"I'm not," said Dalziel. "I reckon I know all I need. Probably best you know it, too, in case you feel like letting on you're a friend of mine."

She started to make a joke of this, saw his face, and stopped. Her expression turned dark as his as he told her about the Dendale disappearances.

"Those poor people ... I remember how I felt when they told me Piers was missing. ..."

"Can't understand how you didn't read about it," he said, half accusing.

"Maybe I did. But, Andy, fifteen years back I had other things on my mind. Now I see why you're giving Walter the softly, softly treatment. Poor man. But that explains why they adopted."

"Elizabeth? Aye, you're right, she's not theirs. You managed to winkle that out even though you say you hardly know the Wulfstans, did you? Well, like they say, once a snout, always a snout."

This ungallant comment was in fact a further reminder of their old intimacy, referring to a time when she'd been the source of some useful information.

"No, I did not winkle it out," she said firmly. "It was volunteered to me, and certainly not by the Wulfstans or anyone up here. By one of those coincidences which can hardly be part of a divine plan, as they keep on throwing us together, I have a friend in London, Beryl Blakiston, who happens to be head of school that Elizabeth attended for a while."

"Bugger me," he said admiringly. "With you upper-class lot, who needs the Internet?"

She regarded him narrowly, suspecting that his acquaintance with the Internet was as vague as hers with the arcana of tactics in the front row of a rugby scrum. But she'd learned it was dangerous to challenge without certainties and went on. "I lunched with Beryl in the spring. Exchanging notes, I mentioned my new responsibilities as a member of the festival committee--it comforts her to hear I keep a couple of toes on the strait and narrow--and she said, was this Wulfstan I mentioned the father of the singer? And I said, yes, because I knew that Elizabeth was penciled in for this year's festival. End of story."

He took a long swallow which brought the end of the second pint a lot closer.

"Bollocks," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"First off, you've already let on that your mate Beryl told you the lass were adopted. And second with a couple of go.-and-that.'s in your belly and a bottle of burgundy on the table, there's no way a pair of likely lasses like you two were going to let go of any interesting subject until well chewed."

"Why do you designate someone you haven't met a likely lass?"

"'Cos you'd not keep on meeting her for lunch else. So what did she say?"

Cap Marvell fixed him with a cool, assessing gaze and said, "Andy, this isn't official, I hope? A drink with an old friend is one thing, but if this is turning into an interrogation, I want my solicitor playing gooseberry."

He looked hurt.

"Nay, lass, I've told you, only reason I came round to see Wulfstan myself was because of what happened way back. Routine inquiry. He's not in the frame. All I'm doing here is making polite conversation till I see which side up the toast is going to fall. If you like, we can talk about the England cricket team. Or the government. Makes you weep, doesn't it?"

"The government?"

"Don't be daft. I don't waste tears on yon prancers."

She laughed and said, "Okay. I believe you, Andy. So, what Beryl told me was that Elizabeth was an adopted child and that there'd been some trouble with her early on, but she'd settled down--"

"Trouble?" interrupted Dalziel. "I like trouble. Tell me about it."

"Beryl didn't go into detail. There is such a thing as professional discretion even after a bottle of burgundy. But I got the impression that it was a question of expectations unsatisfied; the girl's of her adoptive parents, theirs of their adopted child. It was serious enough to require the services of a psychologist, or psychiatrist, I'm not sure which. But in the end it all worked out, mainly, Beryl surmised, because of the girl's burgeoning musical talent. Which, of course, was the main occasion and topic of our discussion."

"Burgeoning," said Dalziel dreamily. "I love it when you talk fancy. Even when I don't understand half you're saying."

"I'm saying that through her singing, Elizabeth discovered a sense of her own value, and also a belief that her adoptive parents valued her. After that, it was possible for her to get back to normal development."

"Normal? Like the way she talks?"

"The accent, you mean? I'm surprised you think there's anything abnormal about that, Andy," she said with wide-eyed innocence.

"Ha ha. It's all right for an ignorant tyke like me, but a lass brought up by the Wulfstans, going to fancy schools and colleges down south, she talks like that out of choice. You've only got to hear her sing to know that."

"You've heard her sing?"

"Aye. On the wireless. Yon dreary stuff you used to play."

"Yon dreary stuff," she echoed. "Is this a portmanteau term to cover all my collection? Or did you have some particular piece of dreariness in mind?"

"It were one of them songs about dead children. Mahler. Only it were in English, and she didn't sing it with a Yorkie accent."

"Ah, the Kindertotenlieder. Yes, I've heard it. Very interesting."

The Fat Man laughed.

"Don't much like it, eh?"

"Why do you say that?"

"I've got this lad, Peter Pascoe-you'll likely recall him, Ellie Pascoe's man--he's sort of cultured, degree and such. I've tried to squeeze it out of him but it's like malaria, once you've had it, it stays in the blood, and you never know when you're going to start shaking. Well, I've noticed with him, and buggers like him, whenever they don't much like summat, but it's not polite or fashionable to say it's crap, what they say is, it's very interesting."

Cap Marvell smiled and said, "How you do pin us butterflies down, Andy. But you're right. I didn't care much for the translation, and I didn't think her voice was yet ready for those particular songs."

"So why'd she choose them? More to the point, why'd the record company let her choose them?"

"Her reasons I can't guess at. But the recording company ... well, it's a very minor label, too small to catch anyone really big, so they concentrate on young hopefuls, get them to sign up for three or four discs, and hope by the time they get to the third or fourth some of them will have made it to stardom. Elizabeth has great potential. After the concert, she's heading for Rome, where she's been taken on by Claudia Alberini, one of the top voice coaches in Europe. I suspect that if she dug her heels in and told the record company she wasn't going to sign unless she started with the Kindertotenlieder, they decided it was a risk worth taking. Particularly when she said she wanted to do them in her own translation."

"Why'd that help?"

"It's a talking point. Anything that rouses interest and gets exposure is okay. You still can't make it unless you're good, but if you're good and marketable, then you hit the heights a lot quicker. Nigel Kennedy was a good example back in the eighties."

"Didn't he start speaking funny too?"

"Yes, he did. And you could be right," said Cap. "Beryl reckoned she went on speaking like this at school just to make a statement of individuality, you know, "I might be adopted but I'm not dependent on anyone." But of course now she's starting on her career, she might see it as a marketing image thing. I don't know. Like I say, I don't really know the girl at all. But singing the cycle on Wednesday doesn't look like a good choice."

"Because of Lorraine Dacre, you mean?"

"Indeed. Also musically. I've never heard them without the original orchestral accompaniment. Sandel's a fine pianist, but they're bound to lose something."

A phone rang. It took Dalziel a second to realize it was in his own pocket.

"Bloody hell," he said. "Can't escape these things even in the bog. Hello! Wieldy, what's amiss? Hold on. I can hardly hear you."

He stood up, said to Cap, "I've marked my drink," and went out of the snug.

When he returned she said, "You weren't long. I've hardly touched your beer."

He finished the second pint, looked sadly at the third, and said, "I've got to go."

"Still business before pleasure," she said.

"This business," he said somberly. "Someone's been picked up. Just for questioning, nothing definite, but I need to be there. Sorry."

"Of course you've got to go," she said. "Andy ..."

She hesitated. She'd anticipated having more time for negotiation about a possible future meeting before they parted. She hadn't yet made up her mind how she wanted to play it, but now wasn't the time to prevaricate.

"Andy, there's still a lot to say," she went on. "Promise you'll ring. Or better still call round. I've always got plenty of tofu in the fridge."

This reminder of her vegetarianism brought a wan smile.

"It's a date," he said. "See you."

He hurried out, leaving for possibly the first time in his life an untouched pint on the table.

She drew it to her and took a sip.

Not a gap bridged, she thought. But certainly a bridge commenced, even if it consisted only of pontoons, lifting and shifting in currents and tides, and promising only the most perilous of passages for each to the other's distant shore.

The first hospital gate Pascoe reached had an EXIT ONLY sign.

Pascoe turned in and roared up the drive toward the looming gray building.

There was a parking space vacant next to the main entrance. It was marked CHIEF EXEC. Pascoe swung into it, narrowly missing a reversing Jag XJS. He got out, slammed his door shut, and set off running. Through the Jag's open window a man called angrily, "Hey, you. That's my spot."

Over his shoulder Pascoe called, "Fuck you!" without slackening his pace.

He'd been here before, knew the layout well. Ignoring the elevator lift, he ran up the stairs to the third floor. It required no effort. Far from panting, it was as if his body had given up the need for breathing. There was a waiting room at the end of the children's ward. Through the open door he saw Ellie. He went in and she came to his arms.