An April Shroud (20 page)

Fielding was very quiet on the short journey and Dalziel made no attempt to break the silence. In Orburn he parked the car in the ovoid square once more and watched Herrie step smartly through the dignified portals of the bank. For a poet, he had a surprisingly stiff and military bearing, or perhaps it was just his contact with commerce which had effected the change.

Dalziel's first call was the same as on the previous day, the chemist's shop. The girl assistant smiled knowingly when he asked to see the chemist himself. She thinks I want a packet of rubbers, thought Dalziel, and he leered so grossly at her that the smile vanished and she retreated quickly into the dispensary.

'Yes, sir,' said the chemist, a man with a Douglas Fairbanks profile and what looked like a duelling scar down his left cheek. He might have been Rupert of Hentzau in retirement.

Dalziel took him to one side and presented him with a piece of paper. On it he had written PROPANANNAL(?)

'What kind of condition would you take this for? I'm not sure of the spelling.'

'Well,' said the chemist dubiously. 'May I ask why you want to know?'

Dalziel sighed. The less he had to use his police authority at this stage, the better he'd be pleased.

'My old mother,' he said. 'She's very independent but we're desperately worried. You understand?'

'I see,' said the chemist, weakening.

'She's not local,' urged Dalziel.

‘In that case,' said the chemist.

It turned out that the chemist was not a romantic hero in retirement but rather a physician manqué. Once he started, even Dalziel, famed throughout Yorkshire for his ability to halt the most garrulous of witnesses in midsyllable, found it hard to drive home the plug. In the end he plucked a packet at random from the nearest shelf, pulled out his wallet and escaped in the caesura produced by the reckoning of change.

But it had been a profitable visit none the less, though he felt no very great sense of triumph as he made his way to the police station.

There was another man closeted with Sergeant Cross this morning. Something about the way in which Cross introduced him as Detective Chief Inspector Balderstone made Dalziel feel that they had just been talking about him prior to his arrival. He wasn't surprised. It would have been strange if Cross's report on the presence in Lake House of a senior police officer had not produced some reactions from above.

Balderstone's attitude was very correct but to start with at least very reserved. He can't make his mind up if I'm a biased witness, impartial observer, or fifth column, thought Dalziel. And he wasn't altogether sure he knew himself.

After ten minutes or so, the atmosphere had thawed considerably.

'Look,' Dalziel had said. 'I'm just there by accident. It's Sergeant Cross's case, for what it is. And what is it? Well, there's two accidental deaths. Curious, but not criminal as far as we can see. A woman and a man have disappeared. It happens all the time. Christ, I'm not where I was planning to be three days ago, so in a sense I've disappeared. And lastly there's been a theft. That's the only crime. Simple theft. And, I tell you straight, it wouldn't surprise me if that didn't get quietly brushed under the carpet soon.'

'I don't understand,' said Balderstone. He was about forty, with the squashed face of a bulldog.

'A mistake,' said Dalziel. 'The booze not ordered, or stored elsewhere. A misunderstanding about the kitchen equipment. Mrs Greave exonerated.'

'Why do you say this, sir?' asked Balderstone.

‘It's just a theory,' said Dalziel. 'That's why I came here this morning. Like I said, it's the sergeant's case. Any information or ideas I've got, well, it's my duty to pass them on. So here I am.'

He looked for a moment staunchly dutiful, like the centrepiece of a First World War music-hall tableau depicting patriotic pride.

A few moments later, after hearing what Dalziel had to say, Cross began to feel that it wasn't so much his rights as the officer in charge of the case that Dalziel was interested in as the facilities at his disposal. This was confirmed when Dalziel delved into his plastic carrier, produced a paper bag and handed it over with the instructions, 'And get your labs to take a look at that.'

Cross opened the bag and peered in.

'Any special instructions, sir?' he asked.

'What do you think?'

Out of the box in the paper bag, Cross lifted a large aerosol can of what was coyly described as an intimate deodorant.

'I don't know what to think, sir.'

Angrily Dalziel snatched it back and put it on the desk top. From the carrier he produced another bag, took from it a cake box, opened it and showed its contents to Balderstone and Cross. It was a dead rat.

'I'd like to know how it died,' said Dalziel.

'That's very interesting,' said Balderstone after listening to Dalziel for some moments after Cross had left the office. 'But what do we have if it all turns out to be true?'

'Bugger all,' said Dalziel. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly eleven-thirty.

'Are you in a hurry, sir?' asked Balderstone.

'No. I've arranged to meet the old boy at twelve in the Lady Hamilton. He's buying me my dinner. I should think we'll be there till two or later. So if anything turns up by then, you know where to get in touch.'

They talked a little more, exchanging gossip about mutual acquaintances till Cross returned with the news that Dalziel's enquiries had all been set in motion and the rat was on its way to the forensic laboratories.

'Grand,' said Dalziel. 'Well, I'd best be on my way. I'll hear from you later, I hope.'

He got up to go.

'Oh sir,' said Cross.

'Yes?'

'Don't forget. . . this.'

He handed over the deodorant can.

Dalziel examined him carefully for signs of amusement, but the sergeant's face remained expressionless. He took the top off the can and pressed the button. A thin liquid haze filled the air for a moment then disappeared leaving behind a faint lemony scent. Dalziel sniffed.

'That's what the world's coming to,' he said, tossing the can into Cross's waste-paper basket.

It was his third good exit line of the morning but he felt strangely hypocritical as he left the police station. He had withheld nothing which had any direct bearing on the case as it stood at present, he assured himself. Should the scope of Cross's investigations widen, then of course he would reveal
everything
he had surmised.

But his mind though not much given to symbolism told him that his reassurances smelt of lemon.

14

When We Dead Awake

Lunch at the Lady Hamilton was an expensive and alcoholic occasion. Only the best would do for Hereward Fielding and though the Lady Hamilton's best had won it no stars in the posher eating guides, the food was hot and plentiful and swam around very pleasantly in the three bottles of criminally costly claret that the old man insisted they drank with it. All this he regarded merely as a base for the brandy which followed and by two-thirty he was ready to tell the story of his life.

Dalziel whose caution and capacity had both proved larger was willing enough to listen to this personal history as long as it came fairly swiftly to the past twenty-four hours.

'My life has been tragic. Tragic,' Hereward assured him.

'It's been very sad lately,' agreed Dalziel.

'Sad
is no fit word for it,' reproved Fielding. 'Sad is . . . sad. What I feel is despair. A despair all the stronger because I half believe in futurity. We may survive, Dalziel.'

'That's hopeful,' said Dalziel. Surprisingly, he realized he meant it. That bloody wine must have got to him after all.

'No. Oh no. Think of it. When we dead awake it will be to each as if but a second ago he had felt the pangs of dying, the explosion in the head, the drowning of the lungs, the fingers tightening round the throat. What a noise of screaming and wailing there will be at that moment! Followed by what a moment of silence and amazement as we realize the pain is no more.'

'Well, that is hopeful,' asserted Dalziel. 'These dead people, did you have anyone special in mind?'

But the old man was not listening to him.

'But this in turn will be followed by the onset of such a fear at the strangeness and uncertainty of this awakening that all we remember of that forever unattainable past - sunlight, sea-smells, the pleasures of mind and appetite, and even the pains of dying - will seem more desirable to us than all the fabled joys of immortality. Even
your
lonely, frightened and unhappy existence will beckon you backward with siren song, Dalziel. Even that. Even that.'

He nodded emphatically, and set his brandy balloon like a specimen case over his nose as he sought the last few drops.

'I'll tell you what you are,' said Dalziel, irritated by this unmannerly comment on his own state of being, 'you're pissed. We'd best be on our way home.'

Before I'm finished, he told himself grimly, I'll give these bastards something else to be sorry for.

The old man seemed to read his thoughts.

'Don't be offended, Dalziel. It's not pity I offer. Nor is it pity I ask for. It's merely an audience. And in return, I offer an audience. This is the best we can do for each other, be audiences. Shall we in good music-hall tradition exit with a song?'

He struck his brandy glass with a coffee spoon, took up the resultant note with remarkable accuracy and began to sing.

'Oh, the life of the spirit's a very fine thing

But you can't be a monk without flogging your ring

And strangely enough I believe you will find

You can't be a tart without flogging your mind.'

The waiters gathered in a concerned but uncertain posse by the kitchen door. The large bill had already been paid with a lavish tip, but it wasn't just gratitude or hope of future largesse that immobilized them, Dalziel felt; it was disbelief that this patrician figure could be the source of the disturbance. Then they were joined by the shiny under-manager whose face set in horror and indignation as he recognized Dalziel.

'Come on, Herrie,' said Dalziel grimly. 'Let's go home.'

He stood up, put his hand under the old man's arm and eased him up.

Outside he deposited the now almost comatose Fielding in the Rover and, puffing from the exertion, he closed the door with his buttocks, leaned against it and began to scratch himself against the handle. Chief Inspector Balderstone who turned up a few moments later was reminded of a brown bear he once saw up against a tree in a Disney nature film.

'Glad I've caught you, sir,' he said.

'Hello, lad,' said Dalziel genially. 'You've been quick. What've you found out? Was I right?'

'Mainly, sir. But we'll come to that in a minute. More important is, they've found Mrs Greave.'

'And you think that's more important?' said Dalziel scornfully. 'You've still a lot to learn, Inspector. Where'd they pick her up? Liverpool.'

'Not quite,' said Balderstone. 'Epping Forest.'

'Christ,' said Dalziel. 'She must have taken a wrong turning!'

'She did that all right,' said Balderstone. 'She'd been bashed over the head and then strangled.'

Annie Greave's body had been discovered at nine o'clock that morning by a man riding through Epping Forest. His horse had been reluctant to pass close to a pile of loose branches and leaf mould which looked as if it had been heaped hastily into a shallow ditch. The man dismounted, pulled aside a branch and saw shining through in all its unnatural glory the red hair of Annie Greave.

With her in the ditch had been a suitcase and handbag, so identification had not been difficult. When the Liverpool police were contacted to be told of the woman's death and asked if anything were known, they recalled that Cross had rung them the previous evening asking for a watch to be kept for the woman.

'Time of death?' asked Dalziel, screwing up his face at the temperature of his beer.

After ensuring that Herrie was comfortable and not in any immediate danger of choking himself, he had escorted Balderstone back into the Lady Hamilton with the assurance that professional ethics forbade him to discuss so serious a matter in the street.

'Not known yet, but I doubt if it'll be much help. You rarely get better than give-or-take-three hours. But they reckon she was dumped before three o'clock this morning.'

'How's that?'

'There was a thunderstorm which started just about then. Very heavy rain for an hour. The body had obviously been out in it.'

'Who've they got down there?' asked Dalziel. 'Sherlock bloody Holmes? Anything else?'

'Well, she hadn't been robbed and she hadn't been raped. At least, not so you'd notice.'

'What's that mean?'

'She'd had intercourse not all that long before death. But no signs of force. Also a meal.'

'They're on the ball, these bloody cockneys,' admitted Dalziel grudgingly. 'Our police surgeon wants two weeks' notice to take a blood sample.'

'Their pathologist just happened to be handy when they brought her in.'

'What had she eaten?' asked Dalziel.

'Sausages.'

'That figures,' Dalziel laughed. 'Sausages, eh? What about her case?'

'Sorry?'

'Did it look as if she'd packed it herself? Had anyone been through it?'

'No, sir. Neatly packed, they said. Everything nicely folded. Woman's packing. Oh, and there were a couple of bottles of gin.'

'Souvenirs,' said Dalziel, thinking that it all fitted. Annie Greave hadn't rushed off in a hurry. No, she'd made up her mind to go, got ready, then slipped away when everyone else was too busy to notice. The last time she'd been seen at Lake House was mid-afternoon, as far as Cross's questioning had been able to discover. But Dalziel felt that she had probably delayed her departure till the post-presentation party was well under way.

What had happened then? Had someone come to collect her. A taxi, perhaps. Doubtless this was being checked. Or had she arranged with someone in the house to drive her to a bus or railway station?