An April Shroud

17

It is a truth universally acknowledged by all married men that their wives are rational, understanding, submissive and amiable only in proportion as they are distanced from their mothers.

'For God's sake, Ellie,' protested Peter Pascoe. 'We've only called in to pick up the presents. It's Saturday. I start work on Monday. I need all of tomorrow to get myself organized!'

'We can still be home by mid-morning,' said Ellie firmly. 'If you keep off the booze, that is. Which might not be a bad thing.'

'What's that mean?'

'Well,' said Ellie maliciously, 'that was a nasty case of brewer's droop you caught last Tuesday. I understood CID men were immune. You'll be back in uniform if you're not careful.'

'It was that southern beer,' protested Pascoe, grinning. 'That's why I want to get home really. Surely they'd understand?'

'No,' said Ellie. 'Mum and Dad have gone to a lot of bother. Just look at the way they've done up this bedroom. As for tonight, the table's booked and it's not been cheap, I can tell you. They're not all that well off and I'm not going to let their efforts be wasted. So resign yourself to it. And let's go downstairs before they start worrying. In my family decent folk don't screw in the afternoon.'

'All right,' sighed Pascoe. 'They said it would be like this but I never believed them. You know, I wouldn't mind so much if we were being treated to the best French cuisine in Lincolnshire. But a medieval banquet! Jesus wept!'

It was even more hideous than he anticipated. For a start the car parking was chaotic. A tall blond youth in a see-through tunic and knee-breeches was directing operations with a fine disregard for the laws of space, time and dynamics. Leaving the car was almost as dangerous as remaining in it, but they finally reached the bar where even Ellie's isn't-this-nice expression fractured momentarily when she found they were attached to a gaggle of Townswomen's Guild members, many of whom insisted on dredging up anecdotal treasures from her distant childhood. Fortunately their simultaneity made them mostly incomprehensible.

Pascoe caught Ellie's expression and smiled; and smiled yet again when he saw his father-in-law demand confirmation of the exorbitant prices the striking middle-aged barmaid had charged him for their aperitifs. He suddenly felt that the evening might prove ghastly enough for an objective student of the social sciences to be able to enjoy himself.

Inside the alleged medieval Banqueting Hall, which was more like a parody than an imitation, goodies continued to spill out of the cornucopia. The room was illuminated by electric candles whose dim religious light showed rows of benches and tables set with wooden platters, plastic-handled daggers and goblets made of some alloy so light that once filled to the brim with unctuous mead they became dangerously unstable. Which, decided Pascoe after a careful sip, was more than he was likely to do. The diners were packed close on the benches. Pascoe had Ellie's mother on one side and on the other a statuesque townswoman from whose close-pressed thighs he might have derived much harmless pleasure had it not felt strangely corrugated.

From a gallery at the far end of the hall came music vaguely Elizabethan in style, and a girl so slightly built that in the best Elizabethan tradition she might have been a boy was singing about the pleasures of her hey- nonny-nonny-no. The assembled diners, who seemed not to have been much deterred by the price of pre-dinner drinks, joined in the chorus with prurient enthusiasm.

Pascoe leaned over to Ellie who sat opposite.

'I was wrong,' he bellowed. 'I think I shall enjoy this.'

Behind him someone was beating a tin plate and a strangely familiar voice was shouting, 'My lords and ladies, pray be silent for the entry of the first course.'

No one took much notice except Ellie who ignored Pascoe's words and stared over his shoulder with an expression of pantomimic incredulity.

'Peter,' she said. 'You'll never believe this.'

Slowly Pascoe turned. What he saw came as such a shock he had to use the townswoman's thigh as a support.

'My God!' he said.

Standing at the far end of the hall clad in a green velvet gown and wearing a floppy blue cap embellished with a peacock's feather was Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.

Pascoe laughed so much he couldn't drink his Baronial Brose and was still having difficulty by the time he reached the Cavalier's Capon. The townswoman fortunately put this down to her own rib-tickling conversation. Only Ellie understood his amusement, though after an initial outburst she no longer seemed to share it.

'What's he doing, Peter?' she asked under cover of an outbreak of screams as some wit, immediately imitated, demonstrated the Tudor method of chicken-bone disposal.

'God knows,' said Pascoe. 'But he hasn't spotted me yet. Here!'

He beckoned to a bearded youth in a jester's outfit who was going round taking flash photographs at fifty pence a time.

'Right, man. Grab hold of the little lady and smile.'

'No, no. Not me,' said Pascoe. 'I'd like a picture of him. The portly gent in the green nightie.'

'No, Peter!' protested Ellie. But the photographer after a quizzical raising of the eyebrows had moved away.

'Andy, baby, you've got fans,' said Uniff.

'What?'

'Guy over there wants a pic. So make with the medieval merriment. Say cheese.'

'Shit,' said Dalziel as he followed the direction indicated by the jerk of Uniff s head.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he growled into Pascoe's ear a couple of minutes later.

'Just having a lot of fun,' grinned Pascoe, on whom the mead was having a greater effect than anticipated.

'It's about time you had a piss,' said Dalziel. He nodded sternly at Ellie and moved away.

'Everything going OK, Andy?' asked Bonnie whom he met outside the door.

'Fine,' he said. 'What are you doing?'

'I just stepped out of the kitchen for a quick drag. It's red hot in there.'

Dalziel could believe it. It was a close, humid night with wreaths of mist rising from the unmoving lake.

'Back to it, I suppose,' said Bonnie. She rested her hand on his arm for a moment and raised her face to his.

As he kissed her the door to the hall opened and someone came out.

'See you later,' said Bonnie and moved away.

'Hello, hello, hello,' said Pascoe.

'You'd best sober up before you say summat you'll be sorry for,' said Dalziel grimly. 'Let's go outside.'

They stood together in the cobbled yard hardly able to see each other in the dim light which forced its way out of the Banqueting Hall through the stained plastic windows. Noise escaped more successfully and the overall effect was rather like overhearing an orgy in a church. Pascoe took a deep breath and tried to think of something inoffensive to say.

'Having a nice holiday, sir?' was the best he could manage.'

'Grand,' said Dalziel, and then repeated the word with a note of surprise in his voice.

It was in many ways true, he realized. Certainly in this past week he had been almost totally immersed in getting the restaurant into operation. After the initial reaction to his involvement, they had settled down quickly into a remarkably good team. There were various kinds of expertise present in Lake House but what Dalziel had had to offer was momentum. He got things moving and kept them moving, generally by brute force.

The hard work involved served a double function. It distracted his attention from both the past and the future. The Dalziel whose nights were filled with doubt and sorrow had retreated into some limbo with that other Dalziel whose constabulary soul would shortly have to go marching on.

Or perhaps not. He had always been a liver in the present, never one of those who tried to take the golden moment and beat it out thinly to cover more ground. But just as his mind in the past months had gradually started to plague him with visions of vacant futurity, so in these last few days, unbidden and almost undetected, an insidious optimism had begun to rise in his subconscious like curls of mist on the lake. He still woke early but now Bonnie was by his side. As one who had long opined in many a Yorkshire club and pub that there were nowt wrong with most discontented and unhappy women (e.g. all female politicians, jockeys, journalists, etc.) that couldn't be cured by application of a healthy well-endowed man, he should not have been surprised to find the therapy reversible. He was not a man given to self-analysis, however, but he knew that a future with Bonnie felt a much better prospect than a future without her.

Now here was Pascoe to remind him of the realities of his life starting next Monday morning.

'Something going on here, is there, sir?' enquired Pascoe.

Before Dalziel could reply the door into the yard opened again and another figure emerged and joined them.

'Evening, sir,' he said.

'Hello, Cross,' said Dalziel. 'Bowls Club enjoying themselves?'

'Yes, thanks. Sorry if I'm interrupting. I thought you might be with Mr Balderstone, but he can't have arrived yet.'

He looked with open interest at Pascoe. Dalziel introduced them, then said, 'Look, I'd best get back inside. I'm supposed to be working and we're a bit short-handed. Cross, would you fill in Mr Pascoe here before he pees himself out of curiosity.'

He turned abruptly and left them.

'Smoke, sir?' asked Cross.

'No, thanks,' said Pascoe. 'Just tell me all.'

Briefly Cross outlined the course of events as he knew it which had resulted in Dalziel's involvement in Lake House.

Pascoe listened avidly and when Cross finished his relation he said. 'Yes. Good. That's the police evidence bit and very nicely done too. But what about the rest?'

'Sir?'

'Look, Sergeant. I know Mr Dalziel well. Fair enough, if he sniffs out some dirty business, whether he's on holiday or no, he'll worry away at it. But it'd take more than you've told me to get him to invest money with a gang of people he suspects to be crooks and to go around dressed up like Henry the Eighth's butler.'

Cross considered carefully before replying.

'Well, sir. I think he feels a bit protective towards Mrs Fielding. In a way by staying on he's looking after her interests.'

'Mrs Fielding? The big good-looking woman behind the bar? Ah yes, I saw them together just before.'

Pascoe grinned broadly for a moment, then loyalty wiped his amusement from his face.

'Now, this fellow Butt?' he enquired.

'Due back from Brazil today, sir. The police over there were asked to keep an eye on him, just in case he showed any signs of slipping away. But it was felt best to leave him alone till we had him back on British soil.'

'A bit dangerous, isn't it? If it's not down to him, then the trail will be damned cold,' said Pascoe.

'Not really, sir,' said Cross politely. 'If Butt didn't do it, then the trail leads right back here. They went over his car with a fine-tooth comb. Annie Greave was in his boot all right, there's no doubt about it. And Butt has probably spent the last hour explaining how she got there. Mr Balderstone, Chief Inspector Balderstone, was going to contact Mr Dalziel as soon as he heard anything. I thought he might be here by now.'

So, thought Pascoe. Dalziel is hanging on here in the hope that this guy Butt will cough everything and life at Lake House can go on undisturbed.

How deep is he in? he wondered uneasily. He had not liked the way Cross now and then seemed to be lining the fat man up with the Lake House gang rather than with the forces of law and order.

Yet it was Dalziel who had stirred things up, he reassured himself. He couldn't believe that he would ever have anything to do with suppression of evidence. Though, of course, technically there was nothing illegal in the suppression of theory. But the Dalziel who had been his mentor these many years would not indulge in such hair-splitting.

'We'd better go back inside,' said Pascoe. 'Our wives will be getting worried.'

'I've been married fifteen years,' said Cross. 'After the first ten, policemen's wives stop getting worried. They start getting angry instead. Come on.'

But inside the building they encountered Dalziel once more. He looked anxious and uncertain, expressions which Pascoe had observed on his face as rarely as smiles on an undertaker's.

'Balderstone just rang,' he said without preliminaries. 'The plane arrived, but no Butt.'

'What?' exclaimed Cross.

'He was taken ill at the airport, it seems. Ambulance took him to hospital in Rio.'

'Very convenient,' observed Cross. 'That seems to wrap it up, I'd say. It looks as if we'll have to do it the hard way from now on in. I don't suppose they'll be asking for volunteers to spend a couple of days in Rio chatting him up, will they, sir?'

Dalziel didn't answer but turned away and disappeared towards the kitchens. Cross shrugged at Pascoe and the two men re-entered the Banqueting Hall.

'Thought you'd got lost,' observed Ellie's father.

'There was a queue for the loo,' lied Pascoe as he attempted to squeeze back on to the bench beside the townswoman whose thighs seemed to have settled and spread like wedges of ripe Brie.

'You missed the Sir Toby's Syllabub,' observed Ellie.

'I don't think I did, really,' said Pascoe.

They had now reached the stage in the evening when the historical was at war with the nostalgic – a war it could not hope to win. The bearded photographer had reappeared armed with a guitar and though the mead-sodden audience were happy enough to listen to one verse of 'Drink to Me Only', further than that they would not go. The guitarist read their mood and gauged their taste perfectly, and soon the composition rafters were ringing with such fine medieval songs as 'Bless 'em All', 'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain', and 'The Rose of Tralee'.

After some thirty minutes of this, during which time the tables were cleared completely (a pre-empting of the souvenir hunters in which Pascoe thought he detected Dalziel's hand), the guitarist announced that coffee was available and the bar would be open until ten-thirty. Clearly authenticity stopped at the licensing authorities.

Ellie and Pascoe sat fast while all around them their fellow diners scrambled for the exit.

'They'll be able to charge a quid a drink from now till closing time,' observed Pascoe. 'That should please Dalziel.'

'Why?'

'He's a shareholder.'

Quickly he passed on all he had learned that night. Ellie whistled speculatively when he finished.

'What's she like?' she asked.

'Who?'

'This woman, Bonnie Fielding is it?'

'I don't know, do I? I've only seen her distantly. Your dad thinks she overcharges.'

'Let's hope she doesn't overcharge big Andy,' said Ellie. 'Come on, let's take a look.'

'He can look after himself, you know,' said Pascoe, rising to follow her.

'Huh!' she snorted.

'What's that mean?' he asked as they squeezed through the crowd towards the bar.

'It means that the way he was babbling on at our wedding reception, he was ripe for plucking. He no longer deems his soul immortal. I've seen the symptoms developing. You getting married was the last straw.'

'Bollocks!'

'Well, one of them,' emended Ellie in the face of this forceful argument. 'I don't mean he fancies you. And I don't think he objects to me like he used to. But he's unsettled. I mean, wasn't it a bit odd that he should take his first holiday in God knows how long at the same time as your honeymoon?'

'No wonder you can't flog your novel!' said Pascoe.

They had finally reached the bar at which all hands seemed to be manning the pumps, or rather taps, optics and bottle openers. Dalziel was among them. Pascoe watched his technique for a while with interest. He poured the drinks with swift efficiency then charged eighty pence for a round of two, one pound forty for three, one ninety for four and three pounds for anything over. It seemed to be generally acceptable. Pascoe studied the list of prices, took from his pocket the exact amount required for two scotches, ordered them from an old man in a black doublet and passed over the money.

'That's Hereward Fielding,' whispered Ellie.

'Who?'

'The poet. I knew he lived locally, but I didn't link him with this lot.'

Somewhere behind the bar, a phone rang. The big woman who Pascoe supposed was Bonnie Fielding retreated to answer it.

'It's for you, Andy,' she called a moment later.

Dalziel was a long time on the phone and though the bar service went on as efficiently as ever, Pascoe sensed an awareness among the servers of what was going on in the background. Finally Dalziel reappeared and beckoned to Bonnie and the two disappeared from sight.

'Let's try to find somewhere less crowded,' suggested Ellie.

Again Pascoe followed her, but he protested when she opened a door marked ' Staff and led him through.

'Friends of the proprietor,' she grinned.

'Can't you read?' demanded a most unfriendly voice. A stout youth had appeared at the other end of the corridor they were in and was glowering at them.

'We're friends of Mr Dalziel,' said Ellie firmly.

'Are you? Well, I'm sorry, but we don't let our staff socialize during business hours,' said the youth pompously.

'You're Bertie Fielding?' asked Pascoe.

'Yes. Why do you ask?'

'No reason. Someone described you to me, that's all.'

Fat and nasty had been Cross's words. To another auditor he might have used the same words of Dalziel, thought Pascoe.

'You might tell Mr Dalziel I'd like to see him,' continued Pascoe, resolved not to retreat before this creature. 'Inspector Pascoe.'

'Not another!' groaned Bertie. 'What do you do? Breed from mud?'

But he went all the same and a moment later Dalziel emerged from the bar. He shook Ellie's hand formally.

'Nice to see you,' he said.

'Hi,' she answered.

'Come on through,' said Dalziel. 'I'll be glad to take the weight off my feet.'

They followed him into the main house. He moved around, observed Pascoe, with the familiarity of the inmate.

'We'll go in here,' said Dalziel. 'It's the old boy's sitting-room, but every bugger uses it.'

'Cosy,' said Ellie. 'You seem to be enjoying your holiday.'

'Aye,' he grunted looking at her ironically. 'He'll have told you everything, I suppose?'

'I wouldn't know that,' said Ellie. 'He may be holding something back.'

'He's daft if he doesn't,' said Dalziel. 'The practice'll come in useful later.'

'If I may interrupt this curiously oblique conversation,' said Pascoe. 'Look, sir, is this private business or a case? I mean, I don't want to stick my nose in…'

'Why not?'

'Because if it's private, it's private, and I've no right to interfere,' said Pascoe steadily. 'Unless requested, of course. But if it's a case…'

'Cross gave you a run-down, didn't he?' said Dalziel. 'How'd it look to you?'

'It looked like you were dancing on a tightrope, sir,' said Pascoe. 'With a high wind blowing up.'

'Did it? Well, I'll tell you what, Inspector, I'll just put you right in the picture, you and your missus both, and we'll see what the combined might of two university educations can make of it.'

Dalziel lit a cigarette. He looked, thought Pascoe, a bit like Cardinal Wolsey might have looked in a private moment, worn down by, rather than relaxed from, the cares of office.

'There's a possibility that this man Butt may have given Annie Greave a lift from Lake House, fallen out with her somewhere along the road home, killed her and dumped her body in Epping Forest. We mustn't discount this.'

'But you don't believe it?' said Pascoe.

'I wouldn't say that,' Dalziel answered. 'There's another possibility though. Only one other, really. Annie Greave was killed here and hidden in the boot of Butt's car. Butt didn't find her till he was nearly home. He stopped for a drink and a sandwich just before closing time at a pub just off the A1 at Baldock. They back-tracked him there. Perhaps he opened the boot for some reason when he came out of the pub. There was Annie's body. Now he'd be very bothered. I mean, Christ, who wouldn't? But he'd be particularly bothered. First he was half-cut. He'd got stoned here to start with. I bet he hadn't got much idea how he'd driven to Baldock! So he didn't fancy talking to the police in that state.

'And second, he was off to Brazil in the morning. A big job, lots of prestige. Now, you and me, we know a hundred reporters who'd just love to get so close to a murder enquiry. But not Butt. At best, if he rang the police it'd mean cancelling his Brazil trip. At worst, it could mean a lot more. For all we know he was so stoned that he couldn't positively remember that he hadn't given this woman a lift and perhaps even killed her! Remember, he hadn't seen Annie Greave up here, so he had no direct link in his mind with Lake House.

'So the stupid sod, half pissed still, does the obvious stupid thing. Drives to Epping, scrapes a bit of a hole, drops Annie in it, covers her up, and goes home. Next morning he flies off to Brazil.'

'Well, it's a theory,' said Pascoe dubiously. 'It is only a theory, isn't it, sir?'

Dalziel ignored him.

'There was another person died here last night,' he said. 'Spinx, an insurance claims investigator. It looks like an accident. It looks to me less like an accident if Annie died here at the same time.'

'The old police text,' observed Ellie. 'Wherever two or three die together, there shall Old Bill be also.'

'What's the connection, sir?' asked Pascoe with a warning glance at his wife.

'Spinx came to the house for some reason,' said Dalziel. 'Suppose Annie rang him? She'd decided to take off, not liking the look of me. But Annie's kind like to make a bit of money wherever they can. So she rings Spinx telling him she's got a bit of information to sell him. She fixes for him to come out to the house. That'll mean she'll get a lift as well, very useful. He turns up, parks his car at the agreed spot by the lake. But she doesn't come. He waits an hour, then goes looking. He's been to the house before, of course, so he knows his way around. When he gets to her room, there's someone in the bed, so he gives them a shake.'

'How do you know this?' demanded Pascoe.

'I've talked to the guy in the bed,' said Dalziel. 'He can't identify Spinx, of course, but it fits. You see, everybody else in the house knew Annie had gone by then.'

'So why should anyone kill Spinx?'

Dalziel lit another cigarette. He's back up to forty a day, assessed Pascoe.

'He ran into the killer perhaps. Said he was looking for Annie. That made him dangerous. What had Annie said to him on the phone? Perhaps he hinted at more knowledge than he had. He was an absurd little git. Bang, he gets hit on the head with a lump of wood. And drowned.'

'Out there, on that landing-stage?' asked Pascoe incredulously. He had risen and was peering out of the bay window which overlooked the lake.

'It's pretty black tonight, but I think I'd still notice any funny goings-on,' he said. 'And this would be earlier than now, I take it?'

'Yes,' said Dalziel. 'I think it probably happened by his car. I think that someone then took the punt along the shore to those trees where the car was parked, loaded the body in it and brought it back to the landing-stage to fake the accident. I noticed that the water where I found the body was pretty oily. His suit was badly stained with oil. So was mine. I got it from sitting in the punt.'

'Why did you take a quiet look, sir?' asked Pascoe.

'Because,' said Dalziel slowly, 'because this is all guess work. Because I don't want to stir things up for the people in this house if I don't have to.'

'Mrs Fielding in particular?' asked Ellie.

'Have you seen owt else here I'm likely to fancy?' snapped Dalziel. 'Any road that's my business.'

'You said,' interrupted Pascoe in a thoughtful voice, ‘that Annie might have had some info to sell Spinx. Would that have been about the fire insurance? Or the theft?'

'What's it matter?'

'Well, the allegedly stolen stuff wasn't insured, Cross said. And there was no fire claim pending, was there? I mean, even the fraud scheme had gone into abeyance because (a) Fielding had died and (b) you had come to life.'

Dalziel looked at Pascoe with a faint smile.

'I taught that lad,' he said. 'Well, that's my business too.'

He's still not telling us everything, thought Pascoe, peering out of the window again. There was someone down there by the landing-stage, he observed, only a shadow moving darkly against the misty grey of the water's surface. One of the Townswomen's Guild keeping a lecherous rendezvous? More likely one of the Bowls Club honking his ring.

'Well, it'll be settled one way or another soon enough,' he said.

'How's that?'

'They won't leave Butt to his own devices now, will they? It looks damn suspicious already, having a nice convenient illness just before coming home. He'll have read about the discovery of the body in the English papers and probably thinks the longer that he takes to come back, the safer he'll be. No, it'll be the old bedside interrogation technique. A man on his back soon cracks. I wonder which he'll go for when the first British copper walks through his door – the sudden relapse or the miraculous recovery.'

He laughed as he spoke.

'He went for the relapse,' said Dalziel!.

Pascoe stopped laughing.

'I'm sorry…?'

'Butt's dead. That's what the second phone call was about. Heart attack. He never recovered consciousness.'

'Oh,' said Pascoe, rapidly considering the implications. 'You've got to give it to him. If it was an act, then he really died the part.'

'What've you been feeding him on?' Dalziel asked Ellie. 'It's a joke a minute.'

'I suppose we'll never know now,' continued Pascoe. 'One thing's certain, if anyone up here does know anything about Annie Greave's death, this must have been a happy bit of news. You'll have talked to Mrs Fielding?'

'Yes,' said Dalziel.

'Oh,' said Pascoe, keeping disapproval out of his voice with difficulty. 'Then all you've got to do is arrest anyone with a big smile. Sir.'

He reverted to peering out of the window and musing on the mutability of things.

'I don't really see what difference it makes,' said Ellie, puzzled. 'Even if Butt had come back and was questioned, surely he was bound to deny killing the woman and you'd be no further forward?'

'That'd be right,' agreed Dalziel. 'If it wasn't for the diary.'

'The what!' asked Ellie.

'Butt was sober enough when he buried Annie to attempt to lay a bit of a false scent. He helped himself to the contents of her purse to make it look like robbery. But as well as her cash he got hold of a notebook she kept which gave details of her relationship with everyone in this house.'

'Oh,' said Ellie, nonplussed. 'I didn't know that. In fact, come to think of it, how do you know that?'

'She's got the makings of a jack,' said Dalziel to Pascoe who had been listening in puzzlement to the conversation. 'No, of course it's not true. But it's not too unlikely a story is it?'

'It is if you know that Butt's lying dead on the other side of the world,' said Pascoe.

'Right,' said Dalziel. 'Fortunately that's not common knowledge in this house. No, I told Bonnie, Mrs Fielding, that Butt was alive and well and waving this notebook under the noses of our interested colleagues at Heathrow.'

It was at best a compromise, he admitted that. And like most compromises, it was a fusion of small betrayals. Lying to Bonnie was one; holding out on Balderstone another. As a trap it was too feeble; he saw this in Pascoe's face. But as a way of treating those who trusted him, it was too brutal; he saw this in Ellie's.

But it was the best he could do. Having decided that, no bugger was going to get in his way.

'What do you think's going to happen, sir?' asked Pascoe in the kindly voice he reserved for lady magistrates and Ellie's relations.

'Likely nothing,' said Dalziel. 'I told Bonnie that the Essex police were pretty satisfied that Butt had nowt to do with the murder and that Balderstone would be coming out here tonight. And I asked her to let everyone know that they should hang around after the bar closes and the customers go home.'

Pascoe glanced at his watch. It was twenty past ten. The bar closed in ten minutes.

'Ellie,' he said. 'Your mum and dad will be wondering where we've got to. It would be kind to reassure them.'

'When policemen start being kind to their in-laws, let wives beware,' said Ellie. 'What are you going to do?'

'I'll hang on here for a while. Look, if they want to head for home, tell them not to worry. I'll cadge a lift into Orburn later.'

Ellie glanced from her husband to the fat man in the floppy hat.

'OK,' she said.

After she had gone the two men kept their silence for a while. Dalziel lit yet another cigarette and Pascoe prowled lightly round the room peering at the old man's books and examining the furniture.

'None of your antiques here,' said Dalziel finally. 'But if yon cupboard's open, you'll mebbe find a drink in it.'

The cupboard was indeed open and Pascoe straightened up with a bottle of Remy Martin in one hand and Glen Grant in the other. Hereward had not put all his money into the business. The scotch had been purchased in recognition of Dalziel's personal taste and the fat man had acknowledged this kindness by spending at least an hour each night sitting here with the old poet drinking and exchanging tales of the criminal and the literary underworlds.

Pascoe poured Dalziel a scotch and helped himself to a generous measure of cognac.

'This man, Balderstone,' said Pascoe. 'What's he like?'

'Not bad.'

'Is he relying much on you? For inside information, I mean?'

'He'd be bloody daft if he was,' said Dalziel acidly.

Pascoe sipped his drink thoughtfully. At least there was no self-deception here.

'So what happens tomorrow when nothing happens tonight?' he asked.

'You're a detective,' said Dalziel. 'They've questioned everyone twice, taken statements. What'd you do?'

'Well, normally I'd go and solve some easier crime, and thank God this one was down to Essex, not me!'

'Now suppose you're the killer. What then?'

Pascoe considered.

'Unless I was very stupid, I'd laugh myself to sleep at this all-revealing diary story. Then when I discovered that Butt was actually dead, I'd laugh myself awake. If I wanted to be really clever, I might just start recollecting that I caught a glimpse of Butt driving away that night with someone beside him in the car. But that'd be gilding the lily a bit.'

'There you are then,' said Dalziel. 'There's nowt to be done.'

'Not quite,' said Pascoe. 'You haven't asked me what I'd do if I were you.'

Dalziel reached up one voluminous sleeve and began to scratch under his armpit.

'No, I bloody haven't,' he said uninvitingly.

'I'd be worried sick,' said Pascoe, 'in case by not telling the investigating officer what I suspected, I was impeding the course of justice.'

'What's suspicion?' asked Dalziel. 'Bugger all. It's what you know that counts.'

'And what makes you think that Balderstone's told you everything he knows?' demanded Pascoe. 'Have you given him cause to take you into his confidence? Put what you suspect and what he knows together and bang! you may have a solution.'

Dalziel glared at him angrily and Pascoe realized he had gone further than he intended. He sank the rest of his drink quickly in an effort to anaesthetize himself, but before the storm could break, the door burst open and another high pressure centre flowed in on a wave of distant noise like the honking of a flight of geese.

'Andy,' cried Bonnie. 'Have you seen that halfwit Charley anywhere? God Almighty, it's like Brand's Hatch out there! Where the hell has he got to?'

The noise he could hear wasn't geese, Pascoe realized, but the gabbling of human voices raised in anger commingled with a variety of car horns.

'What's up?' asked Dalziel.

'It's the car park. He got in such a muddle that he told the last people to arrive just to leave their cars on the drive with the keys in and he'd sort them out. Well, they're still there, blocking the way, but the keys have gone. Some twit tried to go round them across the garden, but it's so wet with all this rain that he's got stuck. God, what a mess!'

'And Charley's gone?' asked Dalziel, very alert.

'I've been telling you, yes! You must have directed traffic sometime, can't you do anything?'

They all make cracks about a cop's job in the end, thought Pascoe. But she was a fine-looking woman. A bit long in the tooth perhaps, but what she'd lost in youthful athleticism she could probably more than make up in expertise. Which was a male chauvinist pig thought he'd do well to keep hidden from Ellie.

'Come on,' said Dalziel, rising and making for the door. Pascoe realized that he was being addressed, not Bonnie, and rudely pushed past her in the fat detective's wake.

'This Charley,' he said. 'Could he be the one?'

Dalziel didn't answer but began to climb the stairs.

If so, he's probably long gone, thought Pascoe. All those cars to choose from. Unless…

He caught Dalziel's green velveteen sleeve.

'Those keys,' he said. 'You've got em!'

'Right,' said Dalziel. 'No bugger drives out of here till I'm done.'

He flung open the door of a room which was in darkness. Neither of them needed the light to know it was empty.

'It doesn't look as if he's taken anything,' said Dalziel, puzzled. 'He won't go far in his fancy dress surely.'

'Where'd he go anyway?' asked Pascoe. 'I mean he'd hardly set off walking to Orburn if he thinks Balderstone's coming driving along that road any moment. Hang on, though. Downstairs when I was looking out of the window, there was someone by the lake.'

'Oh no!' groaned Dalziel.

They turned, met Bonnie looking bewildered half-way up the stairs, pushed by her once more and ran out of the front door.

The night was warm and almost windless. The mist on the lake surface had crept a little further up the garden in the last fifteen minutes and the rail of the landing-stage was barely visible, an indistinct line of faded runes scratched on a limestone wall. Though the noise of the car park chaos was more clearly audible here, its effect was to increase the feeling of isolation, like traffic heard beyond a prison wall.

'Andy!' called Bonnie from the doorway. But Dalziel did not pause.

'Careful!' he said to Pascoe as he ventured out on the landing-stage. 'This stuffs rotten.'

With sixteen stone going before me, what have I got to worry about, thought Pascoe.

Dalziel stopped short of the broken and still-unmended section beneath which he had discovered Spinx. The duck punt had gone.

Pascoe began to speak but Dalziel gestured impatiently and peered out across the lake, his head cocked to one side. Like a St Bernard on an Alpine rescue mission, imaged Pascoe.

'Do you hear anything?' asked Dalziel.

'Only the waters wappe and the waves wanne.'

'Come on.'

Grasping Pascoe's arm for support, the fat man clambered down into the rowing-boat which rocked dangerously under his weight.

'You want me to come in that?' asked Pascoe incredulously.

'Someone's got to row,' said Dalziel.

'But what's the point?' protested Pascoe as he stepped down. 'If you think he's out there, just get the locals to start a search. I mean, what's at the far side?'

'America,' said Dalziel. 'Just row.'

Grumbling, Pascoe unshipped the oars and began to pull away from the shore while Dalziel sat in the stern with the tiller in his hand. It took only a few strokes to put the house and garden out of view and the sense of being alone on a limitless expanse of water grew rapidly.

'I'm sorry, sir, but what are we doing?' demanded Pascoe for the sake of hearing his own voice rather than in hope of an answer. But to his surprise, Dalziel laughed, a short bark reminding him once more of his St Bernard image.

'We're on the track of a very dangerous man.'

'Dangerous?' said Pascoe in some alarm. 'The car park man?'

'You'd be surprised. Look there!'

Dalziel put the tiller hard over so the boat came round as sharply as a shallow-bottomed leaky rowing-boat could. Pascoe glanced round in alarm as he felt his left oar strike something. He would not have been too surprised to see an arm reaching out of the water and brandishing a sword. Instead he saw a punt pole, its top pointing drunkenly at the sky and its other end presumably buried in the sludge at the bottom of the lake.

'I told you he was dangerous,' said Dalziel. 'Listen.'

They listened. After a while out of the other small water noises Pascoe picked an intermittent slapping noise, as though some aquatic creature were beating the lake with its flippers.

Dalziel nodded imperiously and Pascoe began once more to strain at the oars. This form of exercise was not one he was accustomed to and his arms and shoulders were already beginning to ache.

'Who's there?' a voice suddenly called out of the darkness. 'Is there anyone there?'

'Aye, is there,' answered Dalziel.

'Is that you, Mr Dalziel? Could you give us a tow? I'm afraid I've lost the pole.'

Pascoe glanced over his shoulder and saw the silhouette of a punt. In the stern a lanky figure was pushing himself upright, his hands dripping. The halfwit must have been paddling with them since he lost his pole, thought Pascoe. His feeling of superiority was almost immediately dissipated as he caught a double crab and fell backwards over his bench. From this undignified position, he heard another voice.

'No closer please, Andy. Just pass over your oars and we'll be on our way.'

Pascoe struggled upright. The punt had now swung round or perhaps the boat had moved as a result of his mishap. In any event, they were now broadside on to the bow of the punt and in it, sitting behind a formidable looking gun, was a second man.

'Evening, Herrie,' said Dalziel.

'Just the oars, Andy.'

The old man's voice was steady but not quite right, thought Pascoe. Strain showed through it. It was like Gielgud playing Little Caesar.

'Come on, Herrie,' said Dalziel jovially. 'What's all this about?'

'I couldn't get the car down the drive,' said the old man. 'Charley said he'd shift some of the visitor's but the keys had gone. That'd be you, I suppose, Andy. So I rang up a taxi, arranged to be picked up on the road at the far side of the lake. I'd have been there by now if my Charon had not proved more than usually incompetent.'

The two craft had moved almost to the point of touching and Pascoe, upright once more, was able to view the strange tableau in all its absurd detail. The fact that he was the only one present in normal twentieth-century garb accentuated his sense of being an audience. The old man was the centre of the tableau. His finely sculpted patrician head was perhaps more suited to a toga than a black doublet, but he made a good Duke Vincentio or even a Hamlet played by some English actor who had left it too late. Dalziel, standing now looking down at the punt, was an imposing figure in his long green gown, but his was not a head for philosophy and suffering; beneath the absurd cap flopping down over his brow, his eyes were calculating and shrewd; Ulysses assessing a tricky situation, or even an overweight Prospero, feeling a bit regretful that he'd drowned his book.

As for the third figure whom Pascoe had already seen at work in the car park, he too was one from the magic island. Ariel and Caliban combined, grace and awkwardness, look at him now as he began to advance down the punt; his first couple of steps movements of ease and elegance, he looked as if he had been wearing thin silks and pink hose all his life. He spoke.

'I say, I don't know what's going on…'

Hereward Fielding turned his head, Dalziel saw his chance and stepped from the rowing-boat into the punt, Ariel took another step and became Caliban, stumbling over a loose cushion and falling heavily to the deck. The punt rocked violently; Dalziel standing precariously on the gunwale swayed like a clipper's mast in a gale, Hereward rose from his gun and reached out a saving hand but it was too late. Like the undermined statue of some deposed dictator, the massive bulk of the man toppled slowly sideways and entered the water with a mighty splash. Tillotson and Fielding knelt anxiously at the side of the punt eager with apologies and assistance. And Pascoe, feeling it was time the twentieth century asserted itself, stepped calmly into the bows and took possession of the gun.

It struck Pascoe as odd that a man who had recently been threatening to blow a hole in his boss should now be so solicitous about his health, but Tillotson's words as he helped drag the waterlogged Dalziel aboard seemed to explain this.

'I'm so sorry, but really all I was going to say was there's no need for any fuss. I mean the gun's not loaded, you don't think I'd leave the thing loaded do you? I told Herrie, he knew it wasn't loaded; please, what's going on? Oh gosh, you are wet, aren't you?'

Pascoe squatting by the duck gun began to chuckle quietly. The unloaded gun doubled the comic dimensions of the thing by removing altogether the heroic element. Of course, if there had been a risk.. . idly he pressed the trigger.

The resulting blast tore the mist apart for about five yards in all directions. More devastatingly, the rowing-boat which was in the direct line of fire at very close range had a hole nine inches across punched in its side close enough to water-level for each rocking motion to ship some water. Very quickly the craft began to settle and the lake poured in.

'Not loaded,' said Dalziel to a dumbfounded Tillotson. 'Jesus Christ. Pascoe, grab those oars!'

Pascoe obeyed just in time. As he began awkwardly to paddle the punt back towards the shore, the rowing-boat sank with a quiet burp, leaving only a few bubbles and Dalziel's floppy hat to show where it had foundered.

Back at the house they found the car chaos was under control. Cross had taken over and the only cars now remaining were those stranded by Dalziel's removal of the keys which fortunately had survived his immersion. But the confusion in the car park seemed now to have been internalized by the members of the household who hung around in their fancy dress like actors uncertain of their cue. Pascoe was particularly sorry for Bonnie Fielding whose anxiety about her father-in-law and distress at Dalziel's half-drowned state were doubled by the discovery that her son Nigel had decided to run away again. Another note had been found saying that one night of working in the restaurant had convinced him this was no life for a sensitive spirit, or words to that effect.

Pascoe tried to keep Hereward apart from the rest of the household but his effort was in vain without resorting to the strong arm of the law and as Dalziel had retired to dry himself without firm instruction, he contented himself with keeping the old poet in sight. He was not at all surprised to find Ellie waiting at the landing-stage. She had sent her parents home by themselves and returned just in time to hear the boom of the duck gun. The look of relief on her face as she saw them emerge from the mist had been a great boost for Pascoe's ego, even though her first words to him were, 'You've got oil all over your best suit!'

Now they were all gathered in the old man's sitting-room. Hereward had poured himself a large brandy and Pascoe was interested to notice that he filled up a glass with Glen Grant also. Cross came into the room accompanied by a new figure whom he introduced to Pascoe as Chief Inspector Balderstone. Briefly Pascoe outlined what had taken place. Obscurely he felt the need to somehow cover up for Dalziel, but he had no idea how to do this. The fat man would have to look after himself.

Balderstone listened carefully but ventured no comment and a couple of minutes later, Dalziel reappeared.

He had changed quickly into sports jacket and slacks. On his feet incongruously he wore a pair of multi-coloured carpet slippers. But casual though his garb was, Pascoe realized it separated him from the medieval/Tudor costume of the Lake House people as clearly as if he had come down in full police uniform.

He greeted Balderstone and spoke quietly to the two local policemen for a few moments, after which Cross slipped out of the room.

'Andy,' called Hereward Fielding. 'There's a drink waiting your attention here. And for your friends too.'

The atmosphere had subtly changed, realized Pascoe. From confusion and doubt a kind of optimism had emerged. He felt he could guess its source and the next minute confirmed this.

'Thanks,' said Dalziel, taking the drink. 'I need that.'

'I'm sorry about your soaking,' said Hereward. 'And about that gun! When I think what could have happened, my blood curdles.'

He shivered and took a long pull at his drink.

'My fault really,' added Tillotson. 'I'm so sorry.'

'But even with the gun empty, it was a silly joke,' resumed Hereward.

'Joke?'

'Holding you up like that! It's true what they say about second childhood. I never thought I'd start playing pirates!'

He laughed and all around him the others laughed too.

Dalziel didn't laugh.

'Where were you going, Herrie?' he asked.

'I told you. I couldn't get out of the gate because of those damned cars, so I organized a taxi.'

'At the other side of the lake.'

'That's so. You see I wanted to get into High Fold and as you'll recall from our first encounter, that's over that side.'

'And why did you want to get into High Fold?' asked Dalziel. He was speaking very calmly and with hardly any inflection, as if, thought Pascoe, he merely wants to get this out of the way so he can get on with the real business. Pascoe had no doubt that this was Dalziel's intention, but where he could go from here he could not see. It was clear that the truth about Butt had been unearthed, probably from Sergeant Cross who would have no reason to withhold it. This is what came of acting alone, as Dalziel had often warned him. Almost certainly this stupid pretence about the diary had been exploded also. So Hereward had now learned the truth. There was no need to run. The evidence such as it was pointed to Butt and no one else.

Pascoe wondered uneasily if Dalziel had assumed he would keep the old man incommunicado, but he himself had made no effort in this direction when they first re-entered the house.

'I wanted to get to the pub there and buy a couple of bottles of cherry brandy. Revolting drink, I know, but very popular with the lower orders. We had run short. Bonnie asked me to see what I could do.'

He glanced at Bonnie who met Dalziel's disbelieving gaze full on and nodded.

'Why go to High Fold. Why not Low Fold? It's a mile closer.'

'It's the licensing hours,' said Hereward. 'Different authorities. They have an extra half-hour at weekends in High Fold.'

It all fitted together rather nicely, thought Pascoe in whose mind a little doubt had begun to stir. Could it be true? No! He had been there, had heard the exchange between Dalziel and this man. But what had he heard? A joke. Why not?

Dalziel had remained silent since Fielding's last answer and the old man decided to press home his advantage.

'What's all the fuss, Andy? Is it the gun? I'm sorry about that, but you have to make allowances for the mentally handicapped. Hank has promised to dismantle it tomorrow. He's good with his hands.'

Uniff waved them before him like a Negro minstrel.

'Yeah, man,' he said.

Balderstone coughed gently.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said to Dalziel. 'Have you any instructions?'

'It's your case, Chief Inspector,' said Dalziel. 'I'm a guest here. Though there's one suggestion I could make.'

'What's that, sir?'

'Arrest the bloody lot of them,' snarled Dalziel. 'Charge 'em with obstructing the police and with being accessories before, after, and during the fact.'

'What fact is that, sir?'

'The fact that Open Annie Greave was done to death in this house ten days ago.'

He glared malevolently at the group before him. Their reactions all looked to Pascoe like bad acting, but perhaps it was their theatrical costume which gave this impression. Only Hereward remained firmly in character.

He laughed disbelievingly.

'Can that be it, Andrew? You think that absurd story you told Bonnie made me start like a guilty thing surprised and set off across the lake like Lord Ullin's daughter? For God's sake, you know me well enough by now. Even if I were guilty, if in my age I had found sufficient strength first to roger then to strangle this unfortunate woman, can you imagine that I would take flight in such a futile and undignified fashion? Dressed like this?'

His hands touched his doublet, his face lengthened in amused surprise, till finally he began to laugh at the self-evident absurdity of the idea. It was an infectious laugh and gradually, one by one, the others joined in. Even Pascoe felt tempted. Dalziel's face didn't change.

'Come on, Andy,' said Bonnie. 'Let's have a drink and count the takings. Your friends can help. At least it'll be an honest count with the law so well represented.'

She advanced smiling. She was an extraordinarily attractive woman, thought Pascoe. Something of this must have shown on his face as a sudden sharp kick on the ankle reminded him that Ellie was standing close by.

'I'm sorry,' said Dalziel.

'Sorry? Never apologize,' laughed Bonnie.

But Dalziel stood aside and pushed open the door. The smile faded and with it ten years from Bonnie's face.

'Oh, Andy,' she said. 'Whatever happened to Sydney Carton? This is a far, far shittier thing than you have ever done.'

Dalziel considered this while Pascoe's eyes flitted from the stricken woman to the even more devastated visage of her father-in-law. Then he looked through the door.

Standing in the hallway with Sergeant Cross's protective or retentive arm around his shoulders was Nigel Fielding.

'No, it isn't,' said Dalziel to Bonnie.