On Beulah Height (29 page)

There were other sounds, too, movings, shiftings, breathings, which could have been Benny looking for me, so I closed my eyes and lay there quiet as I could and tried to say my prayers like the Reverend Disjohn had taught me. But I couldn't say them in my mind and I didn't dare say them out loud for fear of sharp ears out there listening for me. In the end I think I fell asleep. Or mebbe I started to die. Mebbe it's the same. One moment you're here, next you're nowhere.

Then suddenly I were plucked from that peaceful darkness by arms seizing me close and a voice crying in my ear. For a second I struggled wildly, thinking that Benny had got me again. Then the smell of the body I was pressed against and the sound of the voice in my ears told me it was my dad who'd got ahold of me, and I pressed close as I could, and I knew everything was going to be all right now. I thought everything was going to be all right forever.

On the third day of the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, Shirley Novello woke up feeling pissed off.

The feeling hit her a good minute before she'd struggled far enough out of the clutches of sleep to identify its source. Feelings were like that. Sometimes she woke up happy and lay there luxuriating in mindless joy till finally her waking brain reminded her what she was happy about.

Now she opened her eyes, saw the inevitable bright sunlight spilling in through the thin cotton curtains, yawned, and remembered.

Andy Dalziel, the Pol Pot of Mid-Yorkshire, the thinking woman's Kong, had told her to keep Peter Pascoe's appointment with Ms. Jeannie fucking Plowright, head of Social Services, this morning.

She tried to tell herself she should be flattered to be handed the DCI'S assignment, but all she could feel was pissed. Like yesterday. She'd done all the hard work on the cars, then she'd been shoved off into the school to talk to the kiddywinks. She'd dragged herself back from that by persuading Wield that it was worth asking questions about the blue station wagon the whole length of the Highcross Moor road. He'd gone along with it more, she guessed, because he couldn't think of anything better for her to do than in expectation it would be worth doing. Well, she'd proved him wrong. Result, they had a suspect. Okay, no one seemed very hopeful, but no one had come up with anyone better. Turnbull was for the time being the focal point of the inquiry. The clock was ticking. He would have to be released later today if nothing concrete emerged. But that gave them several more hours to hammer away. She ought to be there, helping with the hammering. Instead of which she was pushed out to the periphery again, all because these pathetic men were scared something from a fifteen-year-old cock-up might come back to haunt them.

Unfair, she told herself. She'd spent a good part of last night studying the Dendale file. The photos of those three little blond-haired girls had gripped her throat like a cold hand and she'd had to pour herself a drink. There'd been a photo of the fourth girl, too, Betsy Allgood, the one who got away, a strange little chubby-faced creature, with cropped black hair, more like a boy than a girl, except for those wide watchful eyes which seemed to belong to some creature of the night. What had become of her? Had the experience of being attacked by Lightfoot left its mark on her soul forever? Or had the resilience of childhood been powerful enough to shrug it off, leaving her free to go forward unscathed?

Whatever, yes, if she'd been engaged in such a case and not brought it to a satisfactory conclusion, then she, too, might find it haunting her dreams for the rest of her life. In fact, if they didn't get a result in the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, perhaps fifteen years from now ...

She pushed the thought away. They were going to get a result. And if the memory of Dendale made the Fat Man even more determined to get his man, that was all to the good.

But this concern with old Mrs. Lightfoot was surely clutching at straws. She was old and sick fifteen years ago. She was almost certainly long dead. God rest her soul, she added, crossing herself. Police work meant you had to become hardened to death in the physical sense, able to look at all sorts and conditions of corpse without spewing your guts. She was becoming better at that. But she was determined to avoid that parallel and irreversible hardening of the emotional and spiritual response.

Now the reason why the DCI couldn't keep his own appointment rose to the surface of her mind and with it a surge of guilt at her own resentment.

She slipped out of bed, dropped on her knees before the ghastly picture of the Blessed Virgin her mother had bought at Lourdes and made her promise to hang on her bedroom wall, presumably as the only form of prophylactic a good Catholic girl owt to use, and said a quick prayer of intercession for the Pascoe girl. Then she rose and looked at herself in the mirror.

A wreck, she judged herself. So fucking what? Even a wrecked policewoman would shine among the tatty-bag-smock-and-no-makeup freaks who haunted the offices of Social Services!

It came as a shock at nine o'clock to find herself facing a tall, slender woman in a Gucci-clone suit.

And she clearly came as a disappointment to the head of Social Services.

"I was expecting DCI Pascoe," said Plowright.

And looking forward to him, thought Novello. The sexy face of policing!

"He couldn't make it," she said, and explained why.

"Oh, God, that's terrible," said Plowright, concern shining through with a force which must have reassured many clients ready to be alienated by her appearance. She made a note on a pad, then became briskly professional.

"So how can I help? The message said something about Mrs. Lightfoot from Dendale."

Novello explained. She thought she'd been equally briskly professional but when she'd finished, the social worker said, "And you think it's a waste of time?"

Shit, thought Novello. Memo to self: Plowright's job, like her own, required sensitivity to subtexts, and she'd been a lot longer at it.

She tried for a misunderstanding. "Sorry, I know how busy you are. ..."

"Not my time. Yours," smiled Plowright, pulling out a gold cigarette case and proffering it. Novello shook her head. Smoking was one form of male CID camouflage she had steadfastly resisted. Plowright lit up without any of the now almost compulsory do-you-mind? gestures. Well, it was her office.

"But Peter, DCI Pascoe, presumably didn't think it a waste of his time," the woman continued.

"Mr. Pascoe's a very thorough man," said Novello, determined to retake the high ground. "He likes to eliminate the possible, no matter how improbable. So, can you help, Mrs. Plowright?"

"Call me Jeannie," said the woman. "Yes, I think I can. It's a long time ago, but fortunately we tend to hoard our records. I became involved with Agnes, that's old Mrs. Lightfoot, after she'd recovered from her stroke sufficiently to be moved out of hospital. Things weren't quite so bad in the NHS back then, but already there was a growing shortage of beds, and hospital managers were particularly keen to avoid becoming long-term minders of the elderly infirm."

"So Agnes was no longer in need of treatment?"

"She was in need of care," said Plowright. "No way could she go back to looking after herself. Mentally she was back to full strength, but she couldn't walk unaided and had limited use of her left hand and arm. No further physical improvement was expected, so the hospital turned to us. Our job--my job--was either to get her a nursing-home place or find some member of her family able and willing to look after her. The latter didn't seem a possibility."

"Why?"

"Because her son was dead, her daughter-in-law had remarried and gone to Australia, and her designated next of kin was her grandson, Benny, and nobody knew where he was, but I daresay you know all about that."

"So what happened?" asked Novello, ignoring the dig.

"I set about finding her a place in one of our approved nursing homes. Agnes didn't cooperate. There were forms to be filled in, details to check, all the usual bureaucracy. She just refused to answer questions or write her signature. And then her niece turned up."

"How did that come about?"

"I'd come across her name and address in Agnes's papers, such as they were. One of her old acquaintances from Dendale who came to see her told me that this Winifred Fleck was Agnes's niece. They exchanged Christmas cards because that was what relatives did, but there was no love lost between them. I'd gone through the motions of writing to her anyway, because, like Peter Pascoe, I believe in eliminating the possible no matter how apparently improbable."

She smiled as she said this, presumably to show it was a joke, not a crack. Novello gave a token smile back to show she didn't much care which, and said, "But in this case the improbable possible came good, right?"

"That's right. Mrs. Winifred Fleck turned up at the hospital one day, had a chat with Agnes, then informed the authorities that she would be taking her aunt home to live with her."

"Nice caring lady," said Novello approvingly.

"She looked to have the qualifications. She'd worked as a care assistant in a nursing home, so she knew the kind of thing that was involved."

"But you didn't like her?" said Novello, not displeased to show Jeannie Plowright that she wasn't the only one able to pick up a nuance.

"Not a lot. But that means nothing. I can't say I was exactly in love with old Agnes either. You had to admire her will and her independence, but in her eyes I was an authority figure, and she didn't go out of her way to show her best side to authority figures. Anyway, she was compos mentis, so even if the niece had just served time for beating up patients in the geriatric ward, there was nothing I could have done to prevent Agnes moving in with her once she indicated this was what she wanted."

"Which it was?"

"She said so, signed all the hospital discharge papers, didn't bother to thank anyone, was helped into a car by Winifred, and that was that."

"And you heard nothing more?"

"I passed on the papers to the appropriate Social Services office down in Sheffield and checked with them a couple of weeks later. They said everything was fine, Mrs. Fleck was taking her new responsibility seriously, and she'd applied for all the grants and allowances and so on."

"And that was evidence she was taking it seriously?" said Novello.

"Not in itself, but it gave the Social Service department allotting the funds a right of access and inspection. We don't just pour our largesse with unstinting hand and no follow-up, you know."

"No. Sorry. You heard anything since?"

"No. I've enough on my own plate without examining other people's kitchens."

"Of course not. Though you have climbed a bit higher up the tree," said Novello.

"From which the view may be better, you mean?" Plowright grinned. "Depends which way you're looking. I'm sure you'll find out for yourself one day. Are we done?"

"When you give me Mrs. Fleck's address."

It was already typed on a sheet of nonofficial paper.

Winifred Fleck, 9 Branwell Close, Hattersley, Sheffield (South).

As Novello folded it carefully and put it in her shoulder bag, she thought, this woman must have been up at the crack to dig out those old files and prepare herself so thoroughly for the interview. Would she have been quite so conscientious and cooperative if she'd known it was the tweenie who was coming and not the young master?

Meow! she added guiltily.

She stood up, offered her hand, and said, "Thank you for being so helpful."

"Is that what I've been? You've changed your mind about its being a waste of your time, then?"

She spoke very seriously and for a second Novello floundered between courteous dishonesty and honest discourtesy.

Then Jeannie Plowright laughed out loud and said, "Don't worry, my dear. Peter sometimes lets the mask slip too. I hope we meet again soon."

Novello went down the stairs fast and furious.

Bloody patronizing cow! At least you knew where you were with a man, even if it was in the gutter being kicked.

By the time she reached the ground floor, she'd cooled down a bit. Perhaps it was her own fault. She knew that she approached Inspector Maggie Burroughs with a sort of aggressive caution lest it should seem she was expecting some special sisterhood treatment. Not that she was averse to getting it, but she didn't want to look like she was expecting it. Maybe this defiant I'll-do-it-my-way attitude had colored her approach to Jeannie Plowright.

I'll do it my way! Odd choice of song for an advanced feminist.

Bit like Marie Antoinette comforting herself by whistling the "Marseillaise!"

That made her smile away the remnants of her resentment and she went in search of a phone, humming Ol' Blue Balls' hymn.

Through to Danby section office, she asked for Wield and when he came on, she reported the interview crisply, using lessons learned from his book.

"So what do I do now, Sarge?" she asked when she'd finished.

He hesitated, then said, "Well, the super's in with Turnbull at the moment. ..."

"Anything happening there?" she asked.

"Not a lot," said Wield. "When the clock stops ticking, I reckon he'll walk free. Look, I think you should follow this thing up, even if it's just to make sure it's a cold trail. I'll clear it with Sheffield so's you don't get arrested for impersonating a police officer."

"If you say so, Sarge," she said despondently.

"Believe me, I wish I were coming with you," said Wield. "This isn't going to be a good place to be when Geordie heads for home."

Was he just being kind? she asked herself as she got into her car. Or did he mean it?

Bit of both, she guessed.

But she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that she was moving away from the real center of things as she headed south.

Peter Pascoe had watched the sun rise from the roof of the hospital.

"Okay," he said, applauding slowly. "You're so fucking clever, let's see what you can do for my daughter."

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Jill Purlingstone sitting on the parapet, leaning back against the antisuicide mesh, smoking a cigarette. He guessed she'd deliberately shuffled her feet or something to let him know he was overheard. Not that he gave a toss.