Bones and Silence

'Bloody hell,' said Dalziel. 'What's up with you? Time of the month, is it, lad? Try to leave your hang-ups at home, eh? It's not fair on them you work with.'

These reasoned reproaches coming from a man who since his last talk with Trimble had been ready to boil babies was almost too much.

'Looking for something, are you, sir?' said Pascoe banging shut the drawers and cupboards which the fat man had clearly been going through.

'Bit of a tension headache. Thought you might have an aspirin. But it doesn't matter,' said Dalziel long-sufferingly. 'It's all this acting business on top of running this madhouse. I must have been doolally to get involved.'

'How's it going with your new Lucifer?' asked Pascoe, deciding that conciliation was the better part of valour.

'He's all right. You know something? I miss Swain in the part! It made it all realler somehow. Now it's nowt but pantomime. Desperate Dan was right. I should never have got involved.'

'Not to worry, sir. It'll all be over soon.'

'Christ, lad, you sound like a nun in a hospice,' said Dalziel. 'I need cheering up. I'll let you buy me a pint later to make up for being so rude to me.'

'I thought you had a headache,' objected Pascoe.

'That's what I tell all the girls,' said Dalziel.

Alone, Pascoe realized that he really did have a headache. In fact, on and off, he'd had one for some time now. It sometimes felt as if there was too much in there trying to get out. Or too much outside trying to get in.

Some time he was going to have to sit down quietly and spread his life out over a table as he'd spread the Swain case last night. But not yet. He couldn't approach his own actions in two roles and find only one inconsistency. No, the roles were as myriad as minutes in a day, and the inconsistencies . . . well, how many pins could you stick in the bum of an angel?

He tried to smile at his own joke, failed, stood up, winced as his bad leg had a relapse, closed his eyes, saw the dark mine in which he'd suffered his injury, felt the rotten ceiling sagging low towards him, saw it was crawling with millions of squeaking slithering bats..’

'Are you all right?'

It was Wield, his craggy face anxious.

'Yes. Fine. Really, I'm fine. Could do with a bit more sleep, that's all. I was burrow ing away at the Swain case last night.'

'Oh aye? Any amazing revelations?'

'You never know, Wieldy,' said Pascoe, managing a smile. 'Let me tell you about it.'

The sergeant listened in silence and when Pascoe was done all he said was, 'Well, best of luck. But I wouldn't draw my savings from the building society to invest in it!'

'Thanks a lot,' said Pascoe, disappointed. 'Let's just wait and see, shall we?'

Twenty-four hours later he was still waiting. He was resolved not to ring Gentry and give him the chance to be acid about CID's notorious impatience. Also, whatever else he felt about the man, he trusted his professionalism implicitly.

Finally a message came. Would he care to step round to the laboratories? He went. He looked. He listened.

When Gentry had finished, Pascoe said with sincere feeling, 'I can't thank you enough. You've done wonders.'

'We've done our job,' said Gentry. 'We can only work on what we're given, what we're told.'

But there was something which might have been a flush of pleasure beneath the parchment skin.

Dalziel was out rehearsing and Pascoe had to wait till that afternoon before he could see him. He was sitting behind the Superintendent's desk when the fat man walked into his room. He stopped short in the doorway when he saw his Chief Inspector smiling at him from his own chair with a broken-shafted pitchfork in his hand.

'Bloody hell, you've finally flipped,' said Dalziel. 'Think you're Britannia, do you?'

'No, sir. I've just come to wish you happy birthday.'

'It's not my birthday.'

'You'll think it is by the time I'm finished,’ said Pascoe.

He talked. Dalziel listened. There was no doubt about the intensity of his listening, but no other emotion showed on his face.

'And what started you on this tack?' Dalziel asked sombrely when the story was finished.

'Like I said, Swain's either a right bastard or a loyal friend. A right bastard wouldn't have helped Stringer in the first place unless circumstances forced him. And if he was a right bastard when he helped Arnie, that meant it wasn't Arnie he was covering up for when he had the barn cleared out. Simple, really, when you think about it.'

'If it's that simple, I won't be grateful,' growled Dalziel. 'But what I meant was, what decided you to turn your massive intellect to proving me right when for months you've been going around behind my back telling any bugger that would listen that I was wrong?'

Blow, blow, thou winter wind! thought Pascoe.

He said, 'Because I wanted you to be right. Who needs a fallible God?'

Dalziel advanced; a great threatening hand thrust forward. Pascoe half rose in trepidation, then his own hand was enclosed and shaken till it lost all sensible contact with his wrist, and Dalziel intoned, 'This day's work is done ilka deal, And all this work likes me right well, And bainly I give it my blessing.'

'Sorry?' said Pascoe.

'Sorry? Being God means never having to say you're sorry! All that I ever said should be, Is now fulfilled through prophecy, Therefore now is it time to me To make an ending of man's folly! Play it through for me again, lad. Play it again!'

part eight

Devil: For it is written, as well is kenned, How God shall angels to thee send, And they shall keep thee in their hend Whereso thou goes, That thou shall on no stones descend To hurt thy toes.

And since thou may without wothe Fall and do thyself no scathe, Tumble down to ease us both Here to my feet;And but thou do I will be wroth, That I thee hete.

The York Cycle:

'The Temptation'

May 29th

Dear Andy,

I've thought of you as Andy for a long time, only I was brought up to respect authority and it seemed better to keep this particular correspondence on a formal footing. But this is the last, so I think I can safely drop all that formal respect stuff, don't you?

So tomorrow's your big day, the day you finally get to play God. It's been in all the papers and I'm looking forward to reading all about you in the Post's souvenir edition tomorrow morning. Through the town you'll go, riding high, looking down on the ordinary folk and seeing everything. I've never doubted that God does see everything, but that just makes it worse, doesn't it? For seeing's not the same as caring, and priests and terrorists both favour black.

I'm sorry. I mustn't ramble. It's just that I'm rather nervous. You see, I've decided tomorrow's my big day too. Don't worry. I'll hang around long enough to look out as you ride by in triumph. I wouldn't miss that, not for all the world, tower and town, forest and field! Then I'll slip quietly away and leave you in peace.

I'm not sure if you'll be reading this before or after the event. No post today, or tomorrow either, being a holiday, so I'll drop it in by hand. Are you the conscientious kind, I wonder, who'll look in to check things over, even on a Bank Holiday when you're on leave? I doubt it somehow! Not that it makes any difference as I'm not about to sign myself. That's for you to guess, though by this time tomorrow, you should have a clue even you can't miss!

I gather you did manage to clear up that other little puzzle. Did my pathetic suggestions help at all? Probably not. Probably, as usual, you did it all by yourself, you and your sidekicks, the pretty inspector and the ugly sergeant. The Holy Trinity! Three in One, and that One's you! And this is your day, isn't it? Trinity Sunday. Well, praise where it’s due. But what about that other trinity, the ones you dug out of the concrete in your carpark? Shouldn't we remember them today also? In fact, when we set your little triumph alongside the pain, the grief the emptiness, the loss, that their discovery has caused, shouldn't we forget your triumph altogether and think of nothing else? What kind of world is it where things like this. . . but I'm sorry, we both know what kind of world it is, only you feel it's controllable, and I know it's out of control, and that's why I'm going to leave it while you ride by in triumphal majesty.

Goodbye, Andy Dalziel. Will you remember me? I doubt it. But try to remember in your triumph that you're not really a god.

Thanks for everything you've done.

Which is to say, thanks for doing nothing.

Except making it easy.

CHAPTER ONE

Andrew Dalziel got out of his car, stretched, yawned, scratched, and critically examined the blue sky, the golden sun, the russet-bricked walls edged with a neatly tended border of green grass broken at regular intervals by quincunxes of orange marigolds. And he saw that it was good.

There was something about an old prison, even when declined into a mere remand centre, that brought comfort to the weariest soul, a sense of tried and tested purpose, a feeling of solidarity in a shifting world. Hither men had come to pay for their crimes, and paid, and hence returned to the society that had judged them, and thence more often than not returned again to this same spot in a cycle of crime and punishment, wrong and retribution, as endless and unremitting as all those other cycles of day and night, birth and death, Left and Right, Romantic and Classical, promotion and relegation, marriage and divorce, ingestion and defecation, permissiveness and puritanism, itching and scratching, whose centrifugal forces hold the timeless, limitless, meaningless universe together.

Some there were, of course, who had come to this place and never left it, but that was in other harsher days, though these too might yet return. Dalziel was no opponent of capital punishment, but he had little faith in those who administered justice. There was nowt wrong with hanging, he'd say, so long as judges too got hanged fur their mistakes. But in case this should be regarded as a sort of crypto-liberalism, he also advocated that those responsible for putting crooks back on the streets should personally indemnify society against all their future depredations.

Tucked away at the back of the prison grounds was an area, entered through a wicket gate, which might have been mistaken for an old walled garden, except that the walls were too high to admit any procreant sunlight and the earth too sour to nourish any but the hardiest weeds. Deep down here, dissolved in lime lest their rotting flesh should spread a moral corruption, the bodies of those executed in the good old days had been hidden away. Dalziel had been known to stroll at length within these walls, like a laird walking his policies, so deeply rapt that those glimpsing him got an impression that he was listening to some sage and serious conversation. And the truth was that he knew the names and histories of nearly every soul who rested here, and knew also that in his judgement a good proportion of them were almost certainly innocent of the crimes laid on them, hence his cynicism about the efficacy of the courts.

But this was not his destination this fine Monday morning. Nor was it his concern with the condemnation of innocence that brought him here

Whatever his reasons, the prison authorities at all levels clearly felt it odd that a man couldn't find something better to do on a fine Bank Holiday Monday.

'Thought you were in this procession, Mr Dalziel,' said the officer who conducted him to the interview room. 'Mysteries or something, isn't it?'

'Aye, lad, you're right,' said Dalziel amiably. 'But we don't kick off till midday, so I thought I'd just pay a few calls first.'

'If you like it so much here, you can do my shift and I'll take your part,' laughed the officer.

'You're better off here, son,' advised Dalziel. 'Kick him up, will you?'

'Only if he wants,' said the officer primly. 'He doesn't have to come.'

'Don't worry. When you mention my name, he'll not be able to stay away.'

A few minutes later the door opened and Philip Swain came into the room. His short time in custody had already faded the healthy glow he had brought back with him from California, but it hadn't yet touched his old easy manner.

'Hello, Superintendent,' he said. 'What's up? Stage fright?'

'Hello, Mr Swain. How are they treating you?'

'All right. But I won't hide that I'll be glad to be out and back at Moscow.'

Dalziel smiled. Mockery, bravado, or genuine confidence, it was all one to him.

'Looking for bail, are you?' he said.

'Once you've completed your inquiries, you'll hardly oppose it again, surely?'

'Why not? Don't want you doing a bunk, do we?'

Swain smiled and said, 'Come on! If I wouldn't go to live abroad on a handsome salary, I'm scarcely going to slum it as a penniless fugitive.'

'So you had made your mind up not to take the Delgado job?' said Dalziel. 'Thought you were going to claim you and your missus were still debating? You'll need to remember your lines, lad. Not easy when you're up there with all eyes on you. I know.'

'What the hell do you want, Dalziel? I only agreed to see you to break the boredom, but I begin to suspect it would be less tedious in my cell.'

'Liar,' said Dalziel amicably. 'You came to hear what I had to say 'cos despite what you think you think, and despite what you think your brief thinks, you won't really believe you're not going to be charged with murder till you hear it from me.'

Swain tried not quite successfully to look unconcerned.

'Look,' he said. 'I've confessed freely to what I've done wrong, and I'll take my punishment. But I'm not a murderer, and you know there's no evidence I'm a murderer, and I can't believe that British justice can make that sort of mistake.'

'Oh aye? There's a patch of ground not much more than a hundred yards from where we're sitting might make you change your tune,' said Dalziel. 'But let me put your mind at rest. That's why I'm here, you see. Bank Holiday Monday, sun shining, everyone out enjoying themselves, and I got to thinking about you, banged up in here, miserable, worried, not even able to ring your brief - he flew off yesterday to Barbados, I suppose you know that? Not short of a bob or two, them vultures. So here I am, errand of mercy, come to remove all doubt. Though that's a bit of a laugh really, isn't it? I mean doubt's what you want, isn't it? Doubt's your best friend.'

'What do you mean?' asked Swain long-sufferingly.

'Doubt, benefit of the, that's what I mean. To be given to accused prisoners by jaded juries. And you've got a lot to benefit from, Phil. Take your missus. You say it were an accident, and there's no evidence it wasn't. So, a doubt. Or Bev King. You say it were Waterson's idea and he carried it through after you changed your mind and tried to stop him. Doubt. Or Waterson himself. You say it must have been Arnie who killed him, out of gratitude to you and revulsion at the kind of man Waterson was. Doubt. And lastly, poor old Arnie. Got in the way of the JCB. Mebbe he didn't try hard enough to get out of the way because of all his guilt feelings. Anyroad, doubt. See what I mean, Phil? Doubt's flavour of the month for you. And it's odd the way it works. Some might say that there's just too many deaths, that it goes way beyond coincidence, that benefit of doubt has got to stop somewhere. But juries don't think like that. It's addictive, doubt. Accept the Crown's got it wrong once, and next time it's that much easier; twice, and after that they're ready to think a trout in the milk got there by jumping out of the galley of a passing Concorde. So I reckon you've made it, Phil. I reckon the prosecution'll write off your wife and Arnie as accidents, accept you had nowt to do with Waterson's death, and slap your wrist for getting mixed up in the plot to kill King. Congratulations! I mean, they'll probably still send you down for a spell, but from what I've seen of you, I'm sure you can eat your porridge and come out smiling, specially when it's only Baby Bear's plate you've got to get through.'

He finished speaking and Swain studied his beaming face like a sailor still fearful of reefs between him and the sheltered harbour.

'Is this official, Superintendent?' he asked.

'It's better than official,' laughed Dalziel. 'It's what I think.'

Swain nodded and began to smile.

'Then that's good enough for me,' he said. 'I thank you for coming. It was an unexpected kindness.'

He stood up and extended his hand. Dalziel examined it for a moment, then grasped it firmly. For a few seconds the two men stood smile to smile, then Dalziel said, 'Only. . .'

'Only. . .?'

'Only it's a pity,' began Dalziel then broke off, shaking his head as though in regret. The smile left Swain's face. He tried to withdraw his hand but Dalziel's grip was not to be broken and slowly, without any obvious force exerted by the fat man, Swain found himself pressed back down into his chair.

'What are you talking about?' he gasped.

'It's a pity about the other body,' said Dalziel. 'I mean, you must have thought, like the Yanks say, if it's not broke, don't fix it. If there's no risk, why take precautions? If you've got certainty, who needs doubt? You can let go of my hand now, if you like, Phil. Don't want the screws talking, do we?'

'What the hell are you on about? What other body?' demanded Swain, nursing his bloodless hand.

'Young Tony Appleyard's, of course. I can see why you didn't bother much there, Phil. I mean, everything pointed so clearly to Arnie. Motive, opportunity, behaviour. And he even believed himself he'd done it!'

'He did do it! You bastard, what are you trying to pin on me? I don't need to listen to this. I want to talk to my solicitor!'

'Like I said, Phil, that'd either mean him coming back from Barbados, which he wouldn't like, or you going out there, which isn't convenient just at present. But of course you're free to terminate this interview any time you like. Just say the word. I can't stay much longer anyway. Got my public to think of. What's it to be?'

Swain made an effort to get control of himself and said, 'I think you're a bad loser, Dalziel, and this is just a little bit of compensatory sadism. But the telly's always lousy on a Bank Holiday, so I might as well let you entertain me for a while.'

Dalziel nodded approval.

'You know, Phil,' he said genially. 'I didn't like you at all when we first met, but recently you've grown on me. Like a polyp. I'll be almost sorry to cut you off. Right now, here's the case as I see it. Arnie came to you right enough, thinking he'd killed Appleyard. But all that business of you agreeing to help, and your missus rowing with you because she overheard, was so much crap. No, what really made you sit up and take notice was when Arnie told you he'd been fighting with his son-in-law in your bam! Because that's where you'd dumped your missus when you killed her, probably the night before. So now you say you'll check up on the lad and you get out there pretty damn quick, and it's just as well you do, because young Appleyard was only stunned and he's just woken up in the corner where he fell and he's just realized he's not alone!'

Dalziel paused, shaking his head as though made speechless by his mental picture of the scene. Swain said thickly, 'This is pure fantasy. ‘

‘Aye, it's fantastic all right,' said Dalziel. 'That's what the jury will have to understand, that two creatures as fantastic as you and Greg Waterson could exist. Between you, you'd just about have made a normal human being. But it was all you to start with. There you were with a witness to your wife's death, and back there in the house was a poor sod who thought he'd killed that witness. You must have thought the logic was inescapable, Phil. You picked up the nearest weapon, which happened to be an old broken-handled pitchfork, and you stuck it through that lad's throat. Good luck or good aim? Who knows? Down he went and back into the house you go to tell poor old Arnie, yes he was right, his son-in-law was dead.

'After that, well, we know the way it really was, Phil, and we know the way you say it was. Could be you'll still get away with it. Could be they'll even believe your missus died accidental, so you'll be able to keep the money. But it won't do you any good because you'll be serving a long, long time for the one killing you thought you need never worry about, the one you thought could never show up on your doorstep.'

'You're lying, Dalziel,' said Swain with some of his composure recovered. 'You haven't got the face for a bluff.'

'You think so? Oh, I see what you're getting at. You reckon because you took the precaution of having that barn cleared out, there can't be any physical evidence. Now that would be all right if only Joe Swindles had stuffed everything into his crusher. But he didn't, did he? I mean, he couldn't have, else how would I know about the pitchfork?'

He let Swain digest this for a moment, then added softly, 'And if you think that lying around Joe Swindles's yard all these weeks would mean there were no traces on the spike, think again. There’s blood there right enough and it's the right group, you can take my word for it.'

As he spoke he gently caressed a large sticking plaster on the ball of his thumb.

Swain said, 'Why have you come here, Dalziel? Why are you telling me all this?'

Dalziel smiled and thought of all the things he wasn't telling Swain. He wasn't telling him that bats did not sleep consistently through their winter hibernation but woke up from time to time, because they were disturbed, or because of changes in temperature, or simply because they needed to get rid of the excess water created by the metabolizing of their fatty food reserves. Clever Pascoe to set Dr Death hunting for traces of bat piss! And clever Dr Death to find significantly larger traces on the woman's clothing than the youth's, suggesting that she'd been there first and longer. Gentry had also proved conclusively that Appleyard's neck wound could not have been made by any of the spikes on that harrow, not without some skin penetration by other spikes. But best of all had been the discovery during the search for the urine stains of a minute spot of Appleyard's blood on the woman's clothing, as if on waking he had first put his hand to his wounded head, then stretched it out to push himself upright and found himself touching a corpse.

He said with a broad smile, 'Don't expect I'll be seeing much of you alone after this, Phil. Don't you think I deserve a bit of a gloat? See you on Thursday. We've fixed the hearing bright and early so it won’t interfere with my play-acting. We all miss you, by the way. Your stand-in's OK, but not a patch on you. Doesn't have the same feeling for the part!'

As he walked away in the golden summer sunlight, Dalziel continued smiling. He had no objection to a good gloat but he wouldn't have wasted such a lovely morning on that alone. He'd been delighted with the new case that Pascoe had dumped in his lap, but by now he'd come to have a very healthy respect for Swain's ability to twist and turn and bob and weave as new evidence came hurtling at him. He could imagine the man's mind back there wheeling round like a bat in an attic, sending out spirals of sound in its desperate effort to find an exit hole.

Yes, he'd wanted to gloat, but he'd also wanted to confuse. Carefully he peeled off the plaster to reveal the ball of his thumb unsullied by cut or scar. There had been a trace of blood on the point of the pitchfork, and it was the same group as Tony Appleyard's. But that was not the same group as Dalziel's. When you're dealing with clever buggers don't play them at their own game was a lesson he'd learned the hard way. But there was no harm in giving them something to be clever about!

Now it was all in the hands of the lawyers.

And of God too, of course.

He glanced at his watch. Chung would be getting impatient.

He took a deep breath of the good air and went to begin the Creation.

CHAPTER TWO

The letter lay unnoticed in the centre of Dalziel's for once uncluttered desk till the middle of the morning when Pascoe walked into the room.

So far it had been a relatively quiet day but the town was filling up rapidly. Already the central car parks were turning away disgruntled motorists and soon the pubs would be open. No doubt five hundred years ago the authorities were faced with similar problems of public merriment fomenting public disorder and holiday crowds inviting holiday crime, but Pascoe for once found no comfort in a sense of historical continuity. If the Mysteries had stayed in the Middle Ages where they belonged, and all these trippers had stopped at home to watch Bank Holiday sport on the telly, life for Mid-Yorkshire's finest would have been so much easier.

Or am I merely bottling out at the thought of being in charge of the shop? he asked himself. It was funny; he had been absolutely certain Dalziel would not be able to resist popping in to check that all was well, and he'd been ready to greet him with a nice line in sarcastic exasperation. But now with the procession due off at midday, it didn’t seem likely the fat man would show, and Pascoe found he was experiencing a reaction distressingly like disappointment.

Perhaps, he thought as he opened the door of the Super's office, perhaps I have not really come up here in search of the file I suspect Fat Andy has abstracted from my cabinet, but to inhale his aura. The thought was so disgusting he almost turned on his heel. Then he noticed the letter.

Even upside down he recognized the typing. He didn't touch it but walked slowly round the desk till he could see it the right way up. It was addressed to Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, Head of CID, Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary. In the top left hand corner was typed the word PERSONAL. It bore no stamp.

He picked up the phone and buzzed the desk.

'There's a letter on Mr Dalziel's desk,' he said. 'When did it come?'

There was a pause for consultation, then Sergeant Broomfield came on.

'Came through the box first thing,' he said. 'About half seven. No one saw anyone posting it. Said "Personal", so I stuck it in the Super's room. Thought he'd have looked in this morning some time. Usually does when he's on leave, unless he's at least a hundred miles away.'

'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe. 'Thanks, George.'

He replaced the receiver and sat down. After a moment he picked up the letter and opened it.

He read it twice then reached for the phone again.

'Central Hospital.'

He gave Pottle's extension but the voice that answered was not Pottle's.

'I'm afraid the doctor's not here today.'

'Can I get him at home? It's urgent.'

'No, I'm sorry. He's at a conference in Strasbourg. Can I help?'

'No,' said Pascoe. He put the phone down and read the letter again. There was no time to fill anyone else in, but another mind would have been so good to interpret these words - and to share the burden he felt they placed upon him. He wished now he'd shown the letters to Ellie. He wished Dalziel was here to take his share of responsibility. Which was large. Huge, in fact. For that was what the letter was about, wasn't it? Telling Dalziel he'd failed.

He recalled now what Pottle had said about the suicide as gamester, offering life as a stake. The psychiatrist had suggested that the reasons alleged for the choice of Dalziel as correspondent might be fallacious. It wasn't his reputation of being too hard to be upset by the letters that had made him the candidate, but his fame as a detective, a man who walked through brick walls as he headed for the truth.

Here in this last letter the Dark Lady had let the veil fall, not from her identity but from her feelings. It was a bitter letter, full of implied reproach. Gone was the tone of grateful respect, to be replaced by a more accusatory almost sneering note. And he was lumped in it with Dalziel. The pretty inspector and the ugly sergeant making up a Holy Trinity, sharing in the same triumphs, the same failures . . . That was unfair, she hadn't chosen to write to him, it wasn't his ... Angrily he pushed aside these time-wasting justifications. He was the one with the letter before him, a letter which stated that the Dark Lady was going to kill herself that very day. No one else could stop her, that was certain. It was down to him. But how? He recalled something else that Pottle had said. Any clues she offered were likely to be such clues as a policeman might interpret. It was time to ignore distress, guilt, anger; time to be a cop.

He read through the letter one more time.

He felt he knew this woman. He could infer acquaintance from the letter, though of course it would be possible for her to know him but not vice versa. In that case there was no hope. So start from the premise that he knew her. She mentioned Wield also. The ugly sergeant. And she referred to a specific case. The Swain case. There were two women involved there, both with considerable cause to feel disenchanted with life. He reviewed them clinically in his mind. Shirley Appleyard was the younger, but he'd always felt a mature strength there. And she had a child to hang on to. Pam Waterson was strong too. But her personal tragedy would be compounded by hard work and long hours in an environment full of death, decay, disease . . .

He reached for the phone and dialled the number of the Infirmary.

Mrs Waterson was not on duty, he was told. Next he dialled the nurses' annexe. After some time, a woman's voice answered the communal phone. Yes, she thought Pam was in. She'd give her a knock. A couple of minutes later she came back on. Sorry, she must have been mistaken. There was no reply.

And she rang off before Pascoe could make up his mind whether his fears were strong enough to demand that she immediately raised the alarm.

But he couldn't spend any more time in abstract speculation. Picking up the letter, he set off back to his own room where he grabbed the complete Dark Lady file. As he made for the door, Wield came in, his face contorted in a smile.

'Have you seen this?' he said, waving the Posts souvenir edition in Pascoe's face. 'It's got a photo of the Super in it. Makes him look like Old Mother Riley!'

Pascoe ignored the paper and bore the sergeant with him along the corridor, down the stairway and out into the car park which still bore its scars like a British heavyweight. In the car, the puzzled Wield read the letter as Pascoe explained where they were going. He'd heard Pascoe refer to the case but this was the first time he'd actually seen one of the letters and he was clearly puzzled by the Chief Inspector's agitation.

'Is there something in the rest of this lot which makes you think it could be her?' he said.

'Yes. I don't know. Maybe. I can't take the risk, you see that?'

'I see you'd want to stop her. Yes, obviously. I mean, it's obvious you'd want to stop her, though not necessarily obvious you should . . .'

Pascoe turned angry eyes on Wield and said, 'Don't give me any crap about free choice! Read those letters. There's no free choice there. She's been driven . . .'

'Yes, all right,' said the sergeant soothingly. 'I wasn't meaning to debate morality. Only to say, well, I can't see why you're taking it so personal. It's not even like it's you she's been writing to . . .'

'She wants to be found, she wants to be stopped, I know she does!' interrupted Pascoe. 'All right, she made the wrong choice with Dalziel, but she got a second chance with me, and what have I done?'

'A damn sight more than anyone else would have, from the sound of it. You've nowt to reproach yourself with.'

'Haven't I? All right, I've gone through the motions, but what's it amounted to? Nothing. A facade. At least Andy was open. Chuck them aside. They're an irrelevance. It's the Samaritans she should be writing to. If she wants police time, let her go out and commit an indictable offence! So on he boldly goes, passing by on the other side. While me, I pussyfoot down the middle of the road, a bit closer to the action maybe, but not getting close enough to actually do any good.

They had reached the Infirmary grounds. He ignored all signs diverting him to car parks, and drove straight up to the nurses' annexe. Leaving the car door wide open behind him, he rushed inside and bounded up the stairs, two at a time. Despite his efforts to keep pace, Wield was left behind. He had never seen Pascoe so agitated before. By thought association he recalled his recent comment that he had never seen Dalziel so obsessed before. One with punishment, the other with protection. The twin poles of policing. Pascoe, Dalziel, as far apart as you could get, but with a world in precarious balance between them . . . what the hell was he doing with a head full of philosophical waffle when he should be concentrating on (a) stopping Pascoe from making a fool of himself and (b) stopping himself from inducing a heart attack?

Breathless, he reached the second landing. Already he could hear Pascoe hammering on a door, calling, 'Mrs Waterson! Pamela! Are you in there?' Other doors had opened and heads were peering out. Pascoe seemed unaware of them. As Wield joined him, he said, 'We'll have to break it down. I know she's in there. I just know!'

And Wield, observing over Pascoe's shoulder the door handle beginning to turn, said, 'Yes, I believe you're right.'

The door was flung open. Pam Waterson stood there with a dressing-gown held tight around her body. Her eyes were bright with anger.

'What the hell's going on?' she demanded.

Pascoe turned and looked at her with an amazement too strong to be as yet compounded with relief. Indeed, to find his certainty proved so unarguably delusive amounted almost to a disappointment.

He said, 'Are you all right? I thought...’

'Yes, of course I'm all right.' She glanced along the corridor at the line of curious heads protruding from each doorway like a colonnade of caryatids. 'Come in and see for yourself if you must.'

This invitation puzzled Wield until he stepped into the flat and a man's voice said, 'Pam, what's going on?'

It was Ellison Marwood experiencing the difficulty of the newly awoken in pulling on a pair of trousers. Pam Waterson had obviously decided that inviting them in was the lesser of two perils when the other was the risk of Marwood displaying himself thus to that gauntlet of eyes.

'I'm sorry. It's nothing. I thought . . .'

Pascoe was doing a bad job, and Wield, who knew the value of presenting a stolid official face on occasions, said, 'We had reason to suspect that a woman as yet unknown to us might be at risk, and we wished to eliminate Mrs Waterson from our inquiries.'

This stiff formula calmed things down for a second while they prised some meaning from it.

'At risk from me?' demanded Marwood.

'Don't be daft,’ said the woman. 'You mean she's going to harm herself, don't you?'

'Yes, I'm sorry,' said Pascoe, still floundering.

'You haven't written any letters to the police, have you, Mrs Waterson?' said Wield, still playing it official.

'No, I haven't.

'Hey, this is outrageous, you know that?' intervened Marwood, putting on indignation with his clothes. 'What are you suggesting? What right do you think you've got, bursting in here and telling Pam she's some sort of nut case . . .'

'Be quiet, Ellison,' she said. 'They didn't burst in. And there have been times recently when I thought. . . well, never mind what I thought. But I haven't written any letters. And I'm going to be OK, believe me. Greg almost ruined my life when he was alive. I promise you, he's not going to finish the job now he's dead.'

She lit a cigarette and drew on it long and deep.

Marwood said, 'You said you'd give those things up.'

'No. That's what you said,' stated Pam Waterson. 'Which is not, and is never going to be, the same thing.'

It was time to go and let this little skirmish either explode into war or implode into bed.

'Come on, sir,' said Wield to Pascoe. 'Didn't you say you wanted to check Mrs Appleyard?'

'What? Oh yes.'

'Appleyard?' said Marwood, glad of a diversion which without dishonour might allow him to back off from the tobacco war. 'Shirley Appleyard, the Stringer girl? Is she on your list too? Well, tough tittie again, boys. Her mother was admitted late last night and last I saw, young Shirley was sitting by her bedside in Ward seventeen.'

They left. Pascoe needed to check, of course, but this time Wield had no difficulty in convincing him to take a less precipitate approach.

The ward sister told them that Mrs Stringer had been admitted for observation after collapsing the previous evening. So far no specific medical condition had been diagnosed beyond that covered by the vague term nervous exhaustion. Her daughter had brought her in, stayed till satisfied there was no immediate danger, gone home to look after her child, and returned that morning.

As they spoke the girl herself appeared. Her eyes took in Pascoe and Wield but she made no sign of recognition as she said to the nurse, 'She's sleeping again. I'll head home now. I've got a neighbour looking after Antony and I don't like to impose. But I'll be back later.'

'Fine,' said the nurse. 'Don't worry. She's in good hands.'

Shirley Appleyard nodded and walked away. The two policemen, taken by surprise, had to hurry to catch up with her.

'Mrs Appleyard, could we have a word?' said Pascoe.

'I thought we were done with you lot, till the trial anyway,' said the woman, still walking.

'Yes, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about your mother too. I'm glad it doesn't sound too serious.'

'No? If she'd lost a leg, would that sound serious?'

'Yes, of course, but...’

'Well, she's lost something that's left a far bigger gap!'

She halted and swung round to confront Pascoe. For a moment she looked ready to explode in anger, then she took a deep breath and resumed control.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I shouldn't take it out on you. I'd no idea either. I was stupid and thought that once she got over the first shock, she'd really be able to relax and start enjoying life now Dad had gone. I thought I'd have the much bigger gap because Tony and me were young and I still had some daft romantic notions hidden away. Shows what I know, doesn't it? I tried to feel properly upset when I found out Tony were dead, but a sort of relief kept on breaking in; not relief that he was dead, I didn't want that, but relief that I didn't need to wonder what was going on any more. Mam, though, well, she'd had to put up with Dad for over twenty years, at least that's how I saw it. But it wasn't just putting up, there was a lot more to it than that. I never realized, and there I was telling her to buck up and enjoy life, like she'd just won first dividend on the pools, and all the time...’

She shook her head in self-rebuke.

'That's the way anyone would have seen it, believe me,' said Pascoe earnestly.

'It'd be nice to think so,' said the girl. 'But it's not true. I was moaning on about her yesterday to this old girl I met at the Kemble. That Chung asked me to do some poster-work, did you know that? And then I got on helping with other things like painting backcloths and so on. There were lots of other people there, she's really marvellous at getting people to help, and I mean, normally I'd not have done more than say hello to someone like this Mrs Horncastle, she's a Canon's wife and talks dead posh, but that doesn't matter when you're around Chung, and I found myself moaning on about Mam not being able to jolly herself up. She didn't say a lot but she must have had a word with Chung, 'cos next thing she's working alongside me and talking about Mam, and suddenly I was seeing things in a completely different way. Funny, isn't it? She only met her the once and she seemed to know more about her than I did! When I got home last night, I started talking to Mam, really talking to her, not at her, and suddenly she started talking back like I'd never heard before, on and on and on, just one great flood. Something like that's supposed to make you better, I always thought, getting it out of the system, that sort of thing. Only it wasn't like that. She went through the whole of their life together, good and bad, and it left her exhausted, more than exhausted, collapsed. I thought she'd had an attack and I rang the doctor and he got her in here. They say there's nowt specific, it's just that she's been hanging on, using all her strength just to hang on, and I never saw it, I never saw...’

There were tears in her eyes. Pascoe took her arm and squeezed it, helplessly. His distress seemed to act homeopathically on hers, for she recovered her composure almost instantly and said, 'Anyroad, what are you two after now?'

Pascoe glanced at Wield then said, 'Nothing. Really, there was just a medical query to clear up, that's all, then someone told us about your mother

'Is that it? Then I'll be off. I don't want to get stuck in the crowds. I'd have thought you two would have been out cheering your boss.'

Pascoe grinned and said, 'Oh, we do that all the time. Aren't you going to watch, especially now you're involved?'

She shook her head and said, 'Later perhaps, but not today. Though I could have had a ringside seat. This Mrs Horncastle invited me to go along and sit in her bedroom window overlooking the close. The wagons will pass right outside, she said, and we would have been just on a level with Mr Dalziel. Not every day you get to be on a level with God, is it? I might have gone, but not with Mam coming in here. Look, I'll have to rush. See you.'

She hurried away, a young woman vital and strong, with a capacity to love and bear, and a will to survive the most devastating wreck of her hopes.

'You didn't ask about the letters,' said Wield.

'I think I did,' said Pascoe. 'But listen, did you hear what she said about Mrs Horncastle?'

'The Canon's wife? Aye, she said she offered her a seat in her bedroom. I never thought of the Super being so high he could peer into folks' bedroom windows. I bet he gives some poor sods a nasty shock!'

Pascoe didn't smile. He said, 'In that last letter it said something about looking out at Dalziel as he passed, didn't it?'

'Yes, I think it did,' said Wield. 'But it was just a manner of speaking, wasn't it? And even if it wasn't, we can't really check on everyone who's got a house overlooking the procession route, can we?'

'We can check on Mrs Horncastle.'

Wield looked at Pascoe as though he thought he had finally gone mad.

'Look,' he said. 'I can see this is bothering you, but we can't just go around bursting in on folk to see if they're about to top themselves. All right, these two, there was mebbe some real cause for concern, but this Canon's wife . . . How well do you know her anyway?'

'I've only met her a couple of times,' admitted Pascoe. 'But it sticks out like a sore thumb that she's not a happy woman.'

'That covers a hell of a lot of people,' said Wield. 'And if she's so miserable she's going to top herself after the Super rides by, why'd she invite young Shirley up to share the view?'

'So she wouldn't be able to do it,' said Pascoe. 'It fits with what Pottle said, a sort of gamble. And she was at the ball and didn't get asked to dance. And she's in a position to know the religious calendar inside out and she laughed like a drain when I told her Dalziel was short-listed for God and there was that dream about her dog...’

They were almost at the trot again as they headed for the main exit from the Infirmary. Wield gasped, 'I don't understand half what you're on about . . .'

'If you bothered to read the file, perhaps you would,' barked Pascoe in a reprimand as unfair as any ever hurled by Dalziel at a shell-shocked subordinate.

Wield registered, assessed, forgave, and, once back in the car, he turned to the beginning of the file and began a slow analytical examination of the letters.

He was interrupted after only half a minute.

'That paper of yours, does it have a pageant timetable?'

'I think so. Yes, here it is. Let's see . . . the first wagon, that's Mr Dalziel's, should be leaving the market place now and heading towards the close, due there in about fifteen minutes.'

'Right,' said Pascoe, and Wield returned to the Dark Lady.

They made good progress through quiet back streets, but as they neared the close, holiday crowds and traffic diverted from the pageant route began to clog their way. Finally they were halted by an irritated uniformed policeman who stooped to the window and said, 'Can't you bloody well read? It's all closed to traffic up ahead till the pageant's passed. You'll have to back up and . . .'

He finally became aware that what Pascoe was waving at him wasn't a driving licence.

'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'Didn't recognize you. Thing is, the road ahead's . . .'

'Just get us through!' grated Pascoe.

A few moments later by dislodging angry sightseers from hard won vantage-points, the constable got them through on to the actual pageant route. Away to his left Pascoe glimpsed the head of the procession. Chung might have held back on the Nubian slaves, but otherwise she'd gone the whole hog in search of God's plenty. Dalziel's wagon must be a good ten minutes behind, which meant it wouldn't be passing between the cathedral and the Canon's house for almost half an hour. He relaxed a little.

Beside him Wield was deeply immersed in the letter file. There were things here that were bothering him and he was beginning to share something of Pascoe's sense of urgency, but he kept it under control. This was a time for cold analysis. Pointless two of them going off half-cocked.

As they passed through the gateless gateway of the close, they were greeted by ironic cheers from the pressing crowds who, expecting God on top of a machine, were amused to be offered a pair of mere mortals in a dusty Sierra. Once more an angry policeman intercepted them, but this one recognized them before he opened his mouth.

'Park this somewhere nice and safe, lad,' ordered Pascoe, climbing out. 'I'll be in Canon Horncastle's house. Come on, Wieldy.'

Clutching the file and his newspaper, Wield found himself once more in pursuit of Pascoe who was shouldering his way through the crowd like an All Black in sight of the line. He caught up with him at the forbidding entrance to a dark narrow house right opposite the Great Tower of the Cathedral.

'Peter,' he said. 'There's something....’

But the door was already opening in response to Pascoe's imperious knocking, and a dark clad figure confronted them with the amazed scorn of a Victorian butler finding trade on his front step.

'What on earth is the meaning of this din?' demanded Canon Horncastle.

'Police,' said Pascoe. 'May we come in?'

As his request was spoken over his shoulder, it seemed to Wield a little redundant. The Canon thought so too, for his thin face flushed like pack ice during a seal hunt and he cried, 'How dare you force your way into my house like this!'

'I'd like to speak to your wife, sir,' said Pascoe.

'My wife!' exclaimed Horncastle as though Pascoe had made an indecent suggestion. 'I assure you of this, Inspector or whatever you are, you will not speak to my wife without a considerably more detailed account of your reasons than you have yet given me.'

‘Thank you for being so protective, Eustace, but I think I'm of an age to make my own decisions.'

The voice came from the head of a brown varnished stairway rising out of the gloomy hall which despite the warmth of the day outside contrived to be damp and chilly. The woman was silhouetted against the light of a landing window and for all Wield could see, she might indeed have been clutching a poison bottle in one hand while with the other she pressed a dagger through her bloodstained nightgown into her ravaged heart. Such Gothic notions seemed entirely appropriate to this sepulchral house and its cadaverous master, but in the event as she descended she proved to be wearing a light grey twinset and a tweedy skirt and carrying nothing more sinister than a pair of spectacles.

Pascoe advanced to meet her. For the third time in the space of less than an hour he was faced with the delicate task of finding out if the woman he was speaking to was on the point of killing herself. With Pam Waterson, he had put the question more or less direct. With Shirley Appleyard he had let his own observations give him the answer. What would be his approach this time? Wield asked himself.

'Could we have a word alone, Mrs Horncastle?' he asked.

'No, you could not.' It was the Canon, his voice thin and dangerous. 'Anything you have to say to my wife will be said in front of me.'

Pascoe scratched his ear and looked interrogatively at the woman. He had no doubt that the Canon opposed the ordination of women and probably didn't much care to see them hatless in church, but this attempt at domestic domination was straight out of Trollope! Surely Victorian values stopped somewhere short of this?

But the woman surprised him.

'Eustace is of course right, Mr Pascoe,' she said quietly. 'There is nothing which can be said to me nor anything which I might say in reply that I would wish to keep from his ears.'

This was either total submission or . . . could it be total war? He looked into her calm features, but found no clue there. Suddenly, however, he was ninety per cent certain she was not his Dark Lady, but he couldn't back off without the missing tenth.

He said, 'Mrs Horncastle, have you ever written any letters to Chief Superintendent Dalziel?'

'No,' she said. 'I have not.'

Her voice carried conviction. But she would say that, wouldn't she? He had to press on.

'These letters were unsigned,' he said.

She saw his drift immediately and half smiled. 'I see you think my association with the Church might have turned me Jesuitical. But no, when I say I have never written to Mr Dalziel, I mean I have never written to him using my own name, or anyone else's name or no name at all. Does that satisfy you?'

Before Pascoe could reply, the Canon's fragile patience snapped.

'This is truly beyond belief,' he cried. 'The Chief Constable shall be apprised of this outrage. How dare you force your way into my house and accuse my wife of writing abusive anonymous letters?'

'I'm sorry, sir, but I've accused your wife of nothing. And why should you think the letters were abusive?'

'Because I have no doubt that that gross man invites his fair share of abuse!' snapped Horncastle. 'If not abusive, then what?'

'That's a good question, Eustace,' said his wife approvingly. 'I should be interested to know what I might be thought capable of, Mr Pascoe. So tell me. Is the correspondence threatening? Inflammatory? Obscene?'

The Canon looked ready to explode again but Pascoe got in quickly, 'In a way, threatening,' he said. 'But not against the Super. Against the writer herself.'

'You mean a threat of suicide?' said Mrs Horncastle. 'The poor woman. I hope with all my heart you find her.'

'You've come here to accuse my wife of threatening suicide?' exclaimed the Canon, attaining a new level of incredulous indignation which his wife obviously felt required explaining.

'There is a special opprobrium attached to suicide in the Church's scale of sins,' she said, in a pedagogic tone. 'My husband would, I think, have preferred obscenity.'

'Dorothy, what has got into you?' said Horncastle in genuine as well as rhetorical amazement. 'I think it best if you go through into the drawing-room while I remove these people from the premises.'

'No, thank you, Eustace,' she said. 'I shall see Mr Pascoe and his friend out. Then I shall return to my room to watch the procession pass. I wouldn't miss it for worlds. I've been helping Chung, you know, Mr Pascoe. I met your wife on several occasions and I enjoyed her company very much.'

'I'm glad,' smiled Pascoe.

'Dorothy! Did you hear what I said? The drawing-room. At once. I have a great deal I want to say to you.'

The Canon looked more animated than Pascoe had ever seen him.

His wife said thoughtfully, 'And I have something I want to say to you, dear. Chung said the time would come and I didn't really believe her. But she was right, I think. She's truly marvellous, isn't she, Mr Pascoe? Without her, I might indeed have been writing letters, if not to Mr Dalziel, certainly on the same subject as that poor woman.'

'Dorothy, do you hear me? I forbid you to go on talking to this man!'

It was the last desperate cry of a shaman who begins to suspect his magic staff has got dry rot.

Dorothy Horncastle wrinkled her nostrils like an animal testing the wind for danger. Then she smiled joyously.

'I hear you, Eustace,' she said. 'But I'm afraid I can no longer obey. Let me see; what was it that Chung said? Oh yes ... I remember. Eustace, why don't you go and screw yourself?'

It was a magic moment but it was flawed for Pascoe by being the moment also when any last scintilla of doubt vanished. Dorothy Horncastle was not the Dark Lady. Which meant if the threat of that last letter were serious that he had failed.

He wasn't even permitted to watch, the final collapse of the Canon whose self-image was fracturing like a cartoon cat running into a brick wall. Wield was pulling at his arm and saying urgently, 'I think there's something you ought to take a look at. I dare say it's nowt as you must've seen it already, only after reading them letters, well, it fits so well...’

He was thrusting the Evening Post souvenir edition into Pascoe's hands.

Pascoe read, impatiently at first, and then incredulously; and for a while the disbelief on his face brought relief to Wield's.

Then he seized the Dark Lady file from Wield's hands and began to riffle through it.

'No, it can't be,' he said. 'It can't.'

He took out the last letter and scanned it despairingly.

'Mrs Horncastle,' he said. 'These words, not for all the world, tower and town, forest and field, do they mean anything to you?'

'They sound familiar,' said the woman. 'Let me see. Yes, I'm pretty sure they are from one of the Mystery plays. That's right. The Temptation. The Devil takes Christ up to the top of the Temple and first of all tells him to prove his godhead by jumping. Then he claims to have all the world to wield, that is to rule, tower and town, forest and field, and offers this to Christ in return for his homage.'

'The top of the Temple, you say? Oh God,' cried Pascoe. 'Oh God.'

CHAPTER THREE

Once more they were running, forcing their way through the dense-packed crowds and across the narrow street up which a roar came funnelling like a tidal bore to signal the passage of the procession through the old gateway into the close.

The cathedral steps were crowded and the great oak doors with their double frieze of intricate carving in which the sacred was embraced by the profane, were firmly shut. Wield split off to the left, Pascoe to the right, and for once the symbols proved correct for within a few seconds of leaving the crowds behind as he explored behind the view-defying buttresses along the side of the building, he found a small low door which yielded to his touch.

Inside, it was dark and still, with an impression of something waiting and listening, as though the great old church was straining to catch the sound of the approaching procession which it had not heard for over a hundred years.

No time for fanciful reflection, none for respect either. He sprinted with sacrilegious haste down a side aisle through a disapproving forest of columns till he reached the doorway to the Great Tower.

This too was open, and from vast space filled with vibrations of infinity, he moved into the stifling confines of a spiral stair filled only with the heat and harsh rasp of his own breathing.

It was a totally enclosed stairway with no lucent points of reference, and after a couple of moments Pascoe felt as if he were running on a treadmill, ever aspiring, ever low. But his mind was fuelled with fragments of thought which kept his legs pumping away.

. . . her father was a Scot who went to Malaya as a young padre during the troubles of the post-war era ... for a serving officer to marry a Chinese girl at this time, perhaps at any time, was an act of social self-destruction . . .

Self-destruction. He knew all about self-destruction! Why hadn't he shown more interest in Ellie's article? Why hadn't he encouraged her to talk about it?

. . . the family moved to the UK after Malaya achieved independence ... the Reverend Graham obtained a sprawling parish in west Birmingham . . . what his parishioners thought when they first met their new vicar's wife and young daughter is not recorded . . .

Suddenly there was light. The spiral broke on a narrow landing at the furthermost point of which was a small lancet window, scarcely more than a loophole really, but it admitted the blessed gold of the sun. He staggered to it, sucking at the fresh air. It was too narrow and the wall too thick to let him look down, but he could see straight out over the roofs of the town and so gauge how disappointingly low he still was. He turned his back on the light and plunged again into the timeless spaceless hopeless helix.

... at boarding-school she started acting . . . her greatest joy was in the holidays when she went on camping trips with her parents in the Border country which had been her father's birthplace . . .

It was he decided a nightmare. He was not really here, he was safe in bed at home, and one last thrust of his aching legs would drive him through the surface of this awful dream into the familiar world of the warm duvet, the white curtains with the blue flowers silhouetted by the first rays of dawn, and by his side, Ellie, soft-breathing, as neat and orderly in sleep as she was loose-limbed and sprawling awake, as though all her natural rebelliousness vanished when she closed her eyes and some deep-seated longing for order and conformity took over. Ellie, whose souvenir article he should have been the first to read, who had been picked to write it so that he would be the first!

. . . she was eighteen and just about to start drama school when her mother died. It was her father's suggestion that she should take her mother's name. 'Eileen Chung,' he told her, 'will be able to get away with things that Eileen Graham never could!' But, Chung adds, they both knew it wasn't just a showbiz decision. It was a way of extending the dead woman's existence for both of them . . .

Light again! The surface of the dream or the surface of reality was close. This light seeped down from above and grew stronger with every muscle-straining step. Up there somewhere was an open door. But open on to what?

... at twenty-six she was devastated when her father died, and she threw herself into her work with that unremitting energy which is the hallmark of everything she does . . . How old is Chung? I'm afraid that I cannot tell you, for in the only bit of coyness I encountered in this refreshingly frank and open woman, she refused to say! And why would she? For everyone who knows her is agreed that, like the great dramas she produces, time is meaningless in the case of someone as complete, as talented, as unique as Eileen Chung. We in Mid-Yorkshire are very lucky to have her. We should take care that we treasure her according to her worth, and when, as they surely will, pressures come upon her to leave us for new challenges elsewhere, we owe it to ourselves to make it very hard for her to go . . .

He burst through the doorway into the dazzle of the midday sun and reeled with the heat and the light and the joy of it. He caught at the door frame to steady himself and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was still and no longer dazzled. And he was looking at Chung.

She was leaning backwards against the shallow parapet, looking towards him with a welcoming smile, beautiful beyond the scope of brush or pen.

She called, 'Hello, Pete, baby. I was beginning to think no one would make it.'

'Chung. Hi.'

He began to move towards her. She shook her head slightly. He stopped.

'Chung,' he said. 'There's no need for this.'

'Need for what? I'm just enjoying the best view in town. Will you listen to those cheers? They're just loving it, aren't they? And why not? It's just another show, a change from the telly. Let's go out and have a laugh at the God on wheels! Perhaps he'll give a wave as he passes! Do you think he'll give us a wave, Peter? Probably not. God doesn't need to look up, does he? What's the point when everything's below?'

Beneath the lightness, he sensed desperation. He said urgently, 'He did his best!'

'You're very loyal, Pete. I knew you wouldn't be right for Lucifer. Treachery's not your style. But no, he didn't do his best. You know it, I know it. But I'm not saying he deceived me. I managed that all by myself. I said I picked him because he wouldn't give a damn, so I can hardly complain about being right!'

Pascoe examined this and thought he saw a glimmer of hope.

'Chung, if you know it's a game, I mean, not a game, I realize it's deadly serious, but a gamble, a life and death gamble, if you know that...’

'Why does a bright girl like me carry on with it?' She laughed and then turned serious. 'Pete, the me that thinks it's in control never meant to lay this thing on Andy. That me was telling the truth in those letters. But there's another me .. . look, it's like when you're acting sometimes, something takes over, you become the part you're playing even though you know you're out there on a stage. What I mean is, if you're in my game, there's no problem to being two or three contradictory things at the same time!'

He tried another small step forward. She didn't seem to notice, but there was still twenty feet between them. He could hear the sound of shawms and timbrels in the wind, and he thought he could trace Dalziel's approach in the swell of applause.

He said, 'OK, it's not simply a game, but that doesn't entitle you to cheat.'

'What do you mean?'

'You said Andy never asked you to dance at the ball. Hell, your tango nearly stopped the show!'

'Not guilty!' she replied. 'It was me who asked him, the first time anyway. After that he just grabbed me. So it was subtle misdirection, not cheating. No point in making things too easy for the great detective, was there? Not that I need have bothered, for all the interest he took.'

It was time for a change of direction. By talking about the game, he was merely playing the game. She was peering over the parapet and he moved slowly forward, saying, 'OK, so he had a lot of other things on his mind. But he did pass the case on to me, you know that. It's my responsibility now. Please don't make it my guilt.'

She turned to look at him, catching him in mid-step. He froze for a moment, like a child playing statues, then under her quizzical gaze smiled sheepishly and lowered his foot to the ground.

She said, 'I like you, Pete. Always have done. If Ellie hadn't been such a good friend, who knows? But fucking's easy, and friends are hard to find. You should bear that in mind. Sometimes being nice and reasonable can make a person just as self-absorbed as being a real selfish bastard. Take a day off, Pete, and let it all hang out! Let Ellie know if she gets right up your nose or if some little scrubber in the pub with her skirt round her bum gets you horny. She'll probably break your jaw but at least you'll know why you're hurting. There's no profit in partial openness. If it's not wide open, it might as well be locked. Was that in a play or did I say it? It gets hard to tell sometimes.'

'I don't know,' said Pascoe, trying for a matching lightness. 'But it didn't sound like Shakespeare.'

'No? Think you know your Shakespeare, huh?'

'Better than I know my Mysteries.'

'Well, this week's your chance to learn! Though I'm not sure if it's worth it.'

She was no longer looking at him, but even as he tensed his muscles for an explosive sprint, she leaned far out over the parapet in her effort to follow the progress of the pageant wagon which sounded to be passing right in front of the cathedral. In that position, he didn't even dare essay another small step.

'Surely any learning experience is worth it?' he said.

She pulled herself back to the vertical and his pulse returned to a mere fifty per cent above normal.

'Depends what you learn in the end,’ she said. 'It's a funny thing about plays, Pete. They're all about pain, did you know that? Even the comedies; especially the comedies. They end in union, tragedy in separation, because that's the only answer we've found. I know about separation. Mummy died when I was eighteen, Daddy when I was twenty-six. This surprises you, don't it, Pete? Big girl like me missing her mummy and daddy? But I was nothing and nowhere without them. And I never found anyone else, because I seemed to get too busy with other people finding me. The world's full of shit, Peter. Read the papers, watch the box, it's coming thick and fast from all sides and it's getting worse. You stick to Ellie, hon. Two people clinging together get to ward off some of the crap for a while at least. That's all that comedy is, a tragedy postponed!'

He could see her cracking up before him with pain and despair showing through. It was more than he could bear, yet within his own pain he felt an admixture of resentment. Chung shouldn't be like this, not Chung who had come among them like a goddess, asking nothing but worship for her healing touch.

He took another step and said urgently, 'Isn't it possible to make sense of it? Isn't that what all these plays and books and works of art are about?'

'You reckon?' she said. 'So what's to do when you realize that all that Shakespeare can offer us in the end is resignation? And all that the Mysteries can offer is . . . mystery.'

'Chung, for God's sake, I mean, for my sake, for our sakes. Whatever you feel, we love you, we need you.'

'Love,' she said. 'Need.' As if they were foreign words.

Far below, the noise of the crowd reached a climax as Dalziel arrived. Then suddenly Chung smiled and in an instant was herself again, beautiful, and strong.

'Jesus, Pete, you look terrible! Look, it's OK, baby. No need to come rushing over here to make a grab at me! You don't really think I'd let someone I like as much as you watch me jump, do you? Come on! God's passing by, the show's nearly over. Time to start planning the next one, huh? I'm really glad you're here, though. Would you mind leading the way down those nasty stairs? They really give me the creeps. You'll never believe this, but I'm terrified of falling!'

She moved away from the parapet, laughing joyously, and Pascoe, his limbs trembling with relief, laughed too as he turned towards the doorway.

But even as he laughed and turned and lost sight of her, he knew he was in error.

He spun round and his mind kept spinning as his eyes sought desperately for some sign, some trace.

But he had known before he turned that he was at last completely alone on the tower.

And now to the half admiring, half mocking cheers of the crowd as the God, Dalziel, passed in all his glory, was added a new wailing, shrieking noise, haled out of horror and dismay. It rose up the sides of the great cathedral, spiralling towards the sun like the thin piping of a bird, and was absorbed as though it had never been into the vast empty sky.

Raging, Pascoe looked upwards and cried, 'Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!'

And did not know if he was addressing Chung, or God, or Dalziel, or merely himself.