On Beulah Height (7 page)

"Sorry, luv, I'm just trying to--"

"I know what you're trying to do, and I know what you'll be doing next. But it didn't do any good last time did it? So what's changed, mister? You tell me that. What's bloody changed!"

Now the woman's voice was at full throttle, her eyes blazing, her face contorted with anger and fear.

"Nay, lass, listen," said Dalziel intensely. "It's early doors, too early to be talking of last time. God knows, I understand how that'll be in your mind, it's in mine, too, but I'll keep it at the back of my mind long as I can. I won't rush to meet summat like that, and you shouldn't either."

"You remember me, then?" said Mrs. Dacre, peering at Dalziel closely, as if there was comfort to be fixed in the Fat Man's memory.

"Aye, do I. When I heard your maiden name I thought, That could be one of the Coes from over in Dendale. You were the youngest, weren't you?"

"I were eleven when it started. I remember those days, hot days like now, and all us kids going round in fear of our lives. I thought I'd never forget. But you do forget, don't you. Or at least like you say you put it so far at the back of your mind, it's like forgetting ... and you grow up and start feeling safe, and you have a kiddie of your own, and you never let yourself think ... but that's where you're wrong, mister! If I hadn't kept it in the back of my mind, if I'd kept it at the front where it belongs ... something like that's too important ... too bloody terrible ... to keep at the back of ..."

She broke down in a flood of tears and her sister-in-law embraced her irresistibly. Then the door opened and an older woman came in. This time the family resemblance was unmistakable. She said, "Elsie, I was down at Sandra's ... I've just heard ..."

"Oh, Mam," cried Elsie Dacre.

Her sister-in-law was thrust aside and she embraced her mother as though she could crush hope and comfort out of her.

Dalziel said, "Mrs. Coe, why don't you make us all a cup of tea?"

The three policemen and the blond woman went into the kitchen. It was just as well. It was full of steam from a kettle hissing explosively on a high gas ring. Mrs. Coe grabbed a tea towel, used it as a mitt to remove the kettle.

"Should make a grand cuppa," said Dalziel. "Needs to be really hot. Mrs. Coe, what do you reckon to Tony Dacre?"

"What kind of question's that?" demanded the woman.

"Simple one. How do you feel about your brother-in-law?"

"Why're you asking is what I want to know."

"Don't act stupid. You know why I'm asking. If I can eliminate him from my inquiries, then I won't have to take this house to pieces."

Honesty is not only the best policy, it's also sometimes the best form of police brutality, thought Pascoe, watching as shock slackened the woman's solid features.

Dalziel went on, "Afore you start yelling at me, think on, missus. You want me to have to start asking that poor woman if her man works on a short fuse or has got any special interest in his own daughter? You're not daft, you know these things happen. So just tell me, is there owt I owt to know about Tony Dacre?"

The woman found her voice.

"No, there bloody isn't. I don't like him all that much, but that's personal. But as for Lorraine, he worships that little lass, I mean like a father should. In fact if you ask me, he spoils her rotten, and if she set fire to the house he'd not lose his temper with her. Jesus, I'd not have your job for a thousand pounds. Aren't things bad enough here without you looking for something even filthier in it?"

Her tone was vehement, but she managed to control the sound level to keep it in the kitchen.

"Grand," said Dalziel with a friendly smile. "Bring the tea through when it's mashed, eh?"

He went out, pulling the door shut behind him. Behind it, Pascoe noticed for the first time, was a dog basket. Lying in it was a small mongrel dog, somewhere between a spaniel and a terrier. Its eyes were open but it didn't move. Pascoe stooped over it and now its ears went back and it growled deep in its throat. Pascoe responded with soothing noises and though its eyes remained wary, it accepted a scratch between the ears. But when his hand strayed down to its shoulder, it snarled threateningly and he straightened up quickly.

"Anyone sent for the vet?" he inquired.

Mrs. Coe said, "For crying out loud, my niece is missing out there and all you're worried about is the sodding dog!"

The sergeant replied, "Not that I know of. I mean, with everything else ..."

"Do it now, will you? I don't like to see an animal in pain, but just as important, I want to know how it got its injuries."

"Oh, aye. I didn't think, sir," said Clark guiltily. "I'll get onto it right away."

The woman, who'd busied herself mashing the tea, pushed past them angrily. Clark, following her, paused at the door and said, "Owt else I should have thought of, sir?"

"Unless Lorraine turns up okay in the next half hour or so, this thing's going to explode into a major inquiry. We'll need an incident room. Somewhere with plenty of space and not too far away. Any ideas?"

The sergeant's broad features contorted with thought then he said, "There's St. Michael's Hall. It's shared between the church and the primary school and it's just a step away. ..."

"Sounds fine. Now get that vet. Good job you thought of it before the super, eh?"

He smiled as he spoke and after a moment Clark smiled back, then left.

One thing about Dalziel, thought Pascoe. He provides solid ground to build a good working relationship with the troops.

He opened the back door of the kitchen, which led into a small, tidily kept yard with a patch of lawn and a wooden shed. He stepped out into the balmy air and opened the shed door. Some gardening tools, an old stroller, and a child's bike.

Carefully controlling his thoughts, he next went to the yard door and unlatched it. He found himself looking across an area of worn and parched grassland scattered with clumps of furze whose bright yellow flowers threw back defiance at the blazing sun. This had to be Ligg Common with, beyond it, the long sweep of Danbydale rising northward to Highcross Moor.

Sunlight eats up distance and the head of the valley looked barely a half hour's stroll away, while the long ridge of the Neb stood within range of an outfielder with a good arm. He let his gaze cross to the valley's opposite lower arm and here caught the glint of the sun on the glass of a descending car, and suddenly its tininess gave a proper perspective to the view.

There was a huge acreage of countryside out there, more than a few dozen men could search properly in a long day. And when you added to the outdoors all the buildings and barns and byres from the outskirts of the town to the farmed limits of the fell, then what lay in prospect was a massive operation.

He stood and felt the sun probe beneath his mop of light brown hair and beneath the surface of his fair skin. A few more minutes of this and he'd turn pink and peel like a new potato, while another hour or so would beat his brain into that state of sun-drunk insensibility he usually experienced on Mediterranean beach holidays while Ellie by his side only grew browner and browner and fitter and fitter.

Sometimes insensibility was the more desirable fate.

"You taken root or wha'?"

He turned and saw Dalziel in the yard doorway.

"Just thinking, sir. Anything happened?"

"No. She's quieter now. Much better with her mam than yon sister-in-law. Where's Clark? I want to ask him about Dennis Coe, the brother."

"Mrs. Coe's husband?"

"We'll make a detective of you yet. Six or seven years older than Elsie, if I recall. We'll need to take a close look at him."

"Why? Was he in the frame fifteen years back?" asked Pascoe, thinking that Dalziel's coup with Mrs. Coe's name was looking a pretty simple conjuring trick now.

"Missing kids, every sod old enough to have a stiff cock ends up in the frame. He'd be eighteen or thereab. Bad age. And all the kids who went missing were blond and he wed himself a blonde. ..."

"Come on!" said Pascoe. "You reach any further and you'll be in the X-files. In any case, I'd say Mrs. Coe's color comes straight out of a bottle."

"So he married dark but let her know he preferred blondes. Okay, stop flaring your nostrils, else you'll get house martins building. One thing you can't argue with, he's Lorraine's uncle, and uncles rate high in the statistics for this kind of thing."

Pascoe shook his head and said dully, "Mrs. Coe said she'd not have our job for a thousand pounds. She's way out. Sometimes a million's not enough for the way we have to look at things."

"Talking of looking, what's yon?"

The Fat Man was staring north. Over the distant horizon the heat haze had coalesced into something thicker.

"Never a cloud, is it?" said Dalziel.

"Not of rain," said Pascoe. "I'd say smoke. Slightest spark starts a grass fire this weather."

"Best make sure some other bugger's noticed," said Dalziel.

He pulled out his mobile, dialed, spoke, and listened.

"Aye," he said, switching off. "They know. It's a big one. And not the only one either. Brigades on full alert and they're using our uniformed, too, which isn't good news for us if we have to hit the red button."

"When?" said Pascoe. "You don't think that there's--"

He was interrupted by Sergeant Clark from the doorway.

"Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Douglas, the vet, is here. We got him on his mobile coming back from a farm call."

"Vet?" said Dalziel to Pascoe. "What's up? Feeling badly?"

In the kitchen they found a broad-built gray-bearded man kneeling down by the dog basket. His examination of the mongrel produced the odd rumbling growl but nothing as menacing as the snarl provoked by Pascoe's inexpert probe.

Finally he stood up and turned his attention to the humans.

"Peter Pascoe, DCI," said Pascoe, offering his hand. "And this is Superintendent Dalziel."

"We've met," said Douglas shortly. His voice had a Scots burr.

"Aye, what fettle, Dixie?" said Dalziel. "So, what's the damage?"

"Shoulder and rib cage badly bruised. I don't think there's a fracture, but he needs an X-ray to be sure. Possibility of internal injury. I think it's best in all the circumstances if I take him back to the clinic with me. Any news of the wee lassie?"

"Not yet," said Pascoe. "These injuries, what do you think caused them?"

"No accident, that's for sure," said the vet flatly. "If I had to guess, I'd say someone had given the poor beast a good kicking. Good day to you."

Gently he lifted the dog out of the basket and went out of the kitchen.

"Good man, that," said Sergeant Clark approvingly. "Really worries about sick animals."

"Aye, well, he supports Raith Rovers," said Dalziel. "So someone gave the dog a kicking. That's enough to get the show on the road. Good thinking to have the beast checked out."

Pascoe said, "Yes. Well done, Sergeant Clark. So what do you want me to do, sir? Call in the troops and set up an incident room?"

"Aye, best go by the book," said Dalziel without enthusiasm. "Any suggestions, Sergeant? As far as I recall, your section office isn't big enough to swing a punch in."

"St. Michael's Hall, sir," said Clark with brisk efficiency. "Doubles as assembly hall and gym for the primary school and as a community center. I've spoken on the phone with Mrs. Shimmings, the school head. You'll likely remember her, sir. She were in Dendale, like me. Miss Lavery, she was then. She's really upset. Says she'll go to the school now to be on hand in case we needed her help, talking about the little girl and such."

Dalziel looked at him reflectively and said, "Well done, Sergeant. You're thinking so far ahead, you'll end up telling fortunes. Okay, Peter, off you go. Tell 'em I want someone from uniformed who knows left from right to head up the search team. Maggie Burroughs'll do nicely. And we'll need a canteen van. It'll be thirsty work tramping round them fells. And an information van for the common. I'll be here to see they get themselves sorted. Any questions?"

"No, sir," said Pascoe. "Lead on, Sergeant."

Clark went out. As Pascoe followed, Dalziel's voice brought him to a halt.

"Word of advice, lad," he said.

"Always welcome," said Pascoe.

"Glad to hear it. So listen in. You do Nobby Clark a favor, don't let him pay you back in beer. Make sure you work the bugger's arse off. All right?"

Not just a conjuring trick, thought Pascoe. He really does know everything.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Right off its haunches."

St. Michael's Primary, like Danby itself, had grown.

The original stone building, apparently modeled on the old church from which it took its name, had sprouted several unbecoming modern extensions which compensated in airiness for what they lacked in beauty. The Hall, standing between the church and the school, was clearly designed by the same hand and even had a belfry and stained glass windows, through which filtered a dim religious light to illumine a spacious, lofty interior with a stage at one end and a small gallery at the other.

Pascoe wrinkled his nose as the musty smell set up resonances both of lessons in the gym and of amateur dramatics in drafty village halls. Not that the entertainments on offer here were totally amateur. Among the notice board's Forthcoming Attractions he saw a poster for the opening concert of the eighteenth Mid-Yorkshire Dales Music Festival, due to take place the following Wednesday and consisting of a song recital by Elizabeth Wulfstan, mezzo-soprano, and Arne Krog, baritone.

That name again. He recalled the strong young voice singing mournfully And now the sun will rise as bright ar as though no horror had touched the night. ...

The heat wave looked set for many more days, perhaps weeks, but he doubted if there'd be any more bright dawning for the Dacres.

For Christ's sake! he admonished himself. Don't rush to embrace the worst.

"This will do nicely," he said to Clark, and got on his mobile. He'd already set the operation in motion back at Liggside, and this was merely to confirm the location. ETA of the first reinforcements was given as thirty minutes.