Deadheads

Patrick threw back his head and laughed in pure delight, a sight almost as bewildering as the rose-tag.

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, yes, yes! You don't remember, do you? I told you years ago that when I bred a rose worth naming, I'd call it after you.'

'Yes, I do remember, but I thought that it was, well, just a compliment, a romantic way of speaking . . .'

'I always mean what I say,' said Patrick seriously. He jumped up and moved to the fireplace. She had never seen him full of such nervous excitement.

I started on this one five, no, six years ago. I knew it had potential after the first blooming, but I'd been disappointed before. Three years ago, I reckoned it was good enough to send to the Royal Society's trial ground. I was right. It got a First Class trial certificate. And what's more, it just won a Gold Medal at the Society's show.'

'This is marvellous,' she said. 'Marvellous. Patrick, I'm so . . .'

She wasn't sure what she was except that she was no longer ready for the immediate confrontation she had planned. Indeed it was beginning to dawn on her that many of the explanations she had hoped to elicit by confrontation might now be given to her, undemanded.

'And I'm not finished,' Patrick went on. 'I've signed a deal with Bywater Nurseries. It'll be in their next catalogue. They're going to produce it commercially!'

'Patrick! Why didn't you say anything?' she cried, but there was no stopping him.

'And that's not all,' he said. 'Not only have I put you on the Garden Centre stalls, I'm putting you into the bookshops too. You know how I keep careful notes of everything I do in the greenhouse? Well, I showed them to a publisher. They said there was a book in it, an account of all the trial and error that's gone into producing Daphne Aldermann. They're going to launch the two of them together, the book and the rose. It's a gimmick, of course, but they seem delighted with it. And what's more important, they're commissioning me to do what I've always wanted to do, that is, write a full and detailed history of the rose!'

Daphne shook her head, not in denial but in bewilderment. All this excitement in him, for months at least, and yet not a word, not a sharing.

'Darling, are you all right?' asked Patrick, momentarily diverted from his euphoria.

'Yes, of course. It's all so overwhelming. It's marvellous, but it's a shock too.'

'A shock?'

'Yes. I never guessed. I mean, you never said anything. All this, and you never said!'

'No, I never did,' he agreed. 'It was all so uncertain. Or rather, I couldn't believe it myself till it was all settled yesterday. But I never hid anything either. It was all there to be seen, what I was doing. The writing, the roses. It was all there.'

Was it a reproach? She didn't know. And she didn't want to know either. A reproach would have to be answered. Or accepted. But she was in no mood to accept reproaches. At least, five minutes ago she hadn't been in any mood. Now she was not altogether certain what mood she was in. These revelations explained many things perhaps - his preoccupation, his secret excitement, even his apparently ill-founded optimism about the future. Oh God! She suddenly realized the implications of her misinterpretations. They had led to Dandy Dick's bed and to a police investigation. Guilt and resentment were warring in her. It was her fault, it was his fault; she had been uninterested, he had been secretive; nothing had changed, everything had changed.

He came across the room and sat beside her.

'Are you all right?' he asked anxiously.

'Yes. Of course. Just a bit overwhelmed.'

'Yes me too.' He laughed boyishly, looking about twenty. 'I thought it might all fall through and I wanted to spare you that. But when it didn't, I wished I'd had you with me. I missed you.'

'Did you?'

She turned her face towards him. He kissed her gently.

'Yes. I did.'

He kissed her again. Suddenly there was no doubt about the passion there.

'Patrick!' she said with the instinctive alarm of one not accustomed to such things in such locations at such times.

'Diana's out, isn't she?' he murmured. 'And you're not expecting anyone, are you?'

Oh Christ! The police! she remembered. But she didn't say. Twelve o'clock, they had said they would call. She squinted round Patrick's head at the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf. It was just after eleven. Surely the police wouldn't be early?

But who cared? Some risks were made to be taken. She drew Patrick down towards her and embraced him with arms and mouth and long slender legs.

Their love-making was short and savage as if they had both been simmering just below the boiling point through many hours of foreplay. Drained, they lay on the cool woodblock floor, clinging to each other like spent swimmers.

Time for talk without fear or reproach. Hardly words. More like the murmur of the sea.

'You should have told me.'

'Yes. But you always seemed so calm, so self-sufficient, I didn't feel able to involve you in my hopes and perhaps disappointments.'

'That's how I seemed? Calm and self-contained?'

'Yes. Or perhaps I feared, which would be worse, that my hopes wouldn't involve you. It was a project so dear to me, I couldn't have borne for it not to be dear to you also.'

'Oh Patrick.'

She drew him even closer. Above their naked bodies the clock ticked on.

'Not that it matters,' she said, after a while, 'but will there be much money in all this?'

He drew back a little and smiled at her and said, 'Some. Not a fortune. But more to come, perhaps. At least it means I'll be able to make my peace with Dick Elgood.'

'Elgood?' she sounded more alarmed than she intended, less than she felt.

'Yes. It's been bothering me, all this unpleasantness about the financial directorship. Dick clearly doesn't want me. And I've never been all that keen, but it seemed silly to miss a chance. But now, well, at least I know where I am at the moment. I can do the job I've got now standing on my head. There'll be minimum interference with the books and the roses.'

'You mean you'll withdraw?'

'That's what I mean.'

'Oh, I'm so glad.'

And in her gladness and her relief that it was all over she found herself launched on a description of Elgood's allegations and the police investigations. But she had not gone far before a slight tension in the naked body in her arms triggered off an awareness of her own foolishness. Nothing good lay at the end of this road. Desperately she looked for an escape route. Ingeniously she found one, chattering on like the idle female gossip she hoped to be taken for.

'I got all this from Ellie Pascoe, you know, the policeman's wife I've been telling you about. We almost fell out about it, it was so absurd, well, I think she thought so too, that's why she told me.'

'Mrs Pascoe told you about her husband's work? Not very discreet. Or loyal. And you didn't tell me.'

He sounded not suspicious but surprised. And speculative.

'I didn't know what to say. Oh Patrick, we've both been stupidly reticent, haven't we?'

She kissed him passionately and caressed him intimately. It was the right response. She felt the tension in his mind relax as the stiffness between his legs returned.

And then as he rolled her over on her back once more her eyes caught the clock face. It was ten to twelve.

'Oh hurry, hurry, hurry!' she cried.

He hurried. As they got dressed she breathlessly explained about the police visit and its reasons.

'You mean all that haste wasn't passion?' he said.

'Yes, of course, most of it, I mean, I'm sorry,' she began. But when she looked at him, he was smiling.

In the event the police were ten minutes late, and though Daphne still felt certain that the evidence of the recent activity in the lounge was clearly there for the professional eye to see, she found she did not give a damn.

'Hello,' she said to Peter Pascoe. 'I've been looking forward to seeing you in the flesh.'

Did he grin faintly and look at the three buttons she had left undone on her blouse as he said, 'Me too.'

Pascoe didn't know how he looked to her, but to him she looked exactly as Ellie had described, a classical English beauty, tall, long-limbed, fair, and sexy with it.

But Aldermann himself, standing alongside her, came as a slight surprise. 'Reserved and watchful' were the words most commonly used of him, and on their one previous meeting he had instantly been aware of the man's privacy, even in giving a stranger a rose.

Aldermann too recalled the meeting.

'Mr Pascoe, how are you? We've met already, haven't we? At Perfecta. I hope there's no plot to burgle my office also?'

He smiled as he spoke, but Pascoe noticed a sudden stiffening in his wife's posture at the mention of the encounter.

'No. I was there on another matter,' said Pascoe equably. 'Sergeant Wield I think you've met also.'

Wield nodded a greeting.

'Of course. How's the window-box, Sergeant?'

'Haven't really had time to think about it, sir.'

'You must make time. Plant ye roses while ye may,' said Aldermann in mock reproach. 'Let me know and I'll pass on a few potted cuttings to you. Baby Faurax I think took your fancy. Now some Pigmy Gold's and Scarlett O'Hara's would provide a really bright setting.'

The man was positively ebullient, thought Pascoe. Outward-going, full of chat. He sensed that something had happened.

He said, 'To get down to business, sir. Mrs Aldermann's probably given you the gist. We've had a tip that your house is next in line to be done by a gang that have been active in this area for a couple of months now. She also probably mentioned the man she found looking around the house who said he was from the Water Board.'

Aldermann glanced interrogatively at his wife and said, 'No, she hasn't mentioned him. But of course I've just got back and we haven't had all that much time for talking.'

This occasioned a kind of splutter from Daphne Aldermann as though she was choking back something. Pascoe felt himself in the presence of secret signals which he did not too much care for. He put on his best official voice.

'Our enquiries have revealed that no such man was sent round by the Water Board. It may well be that this man is connected with the gang I mentioned. And as I gather that you will be leaving the house empty for a couple of nights next week, it is a matter we are taking seriously.'

'Of course,' said Aldermann. 'How can we help?'

'Well, we'll need a list of all the people you would normally inform that you intend being away.'

'That can't amount to many,' said Daphne.

'You'll be surprised, madam,' said Pascoe. 'Especially if you count those who'll find out by association, as it were. I presume you've informed St Helena's that your little girl will be off for a couple of days?'

'Why yes, of course.'

'Then we can assume the teaching staff and the secretarial staff at the school all know. Plus, of course all your daughter's friends and presumably many of their parents.'

'Well, yes, I suppose so. But not even Ellie has suggested that St Helena's is the centre of a crime ring,' said Daphne a touch acidly.

'You amaze me,' Pascoe said, grinning. 'But you see what I mean. Also I'd like to look around and check the layout of the house, look at your alarm system, that kind of thing.'

'Then why don't we divide and rule?' said Aldermann. 'I'll give Mr Wield what information I can down here, and Daphne, why don't you give Mr Pascoe the guided tour?'

Was there something in his voice, a suggestion perhaps? Daphne nodded and said, 'Of course. If that's all right with you, Peter. Oh, I'm sorry, I've got so used to thinking of you as Peter through talking with Ellie.'

'I'm glad she doesn't refer to me as Mr Pascoe,' said Pascoe. 'And Peter's fine. Shall we go?'

For the first fifteen minutes of the tour, their conversation was practical and professional. The alarm system was old but adequate. Pressure mats under all possible entry windows; magnetic switch sensors, flush fitted, on the downstairs doors; and an automatic telephone dialling system. This last was the important item. The house was sufficiently isolated for the alarm bell to disturb nothing except perhaps the odd ploughman on his weary way home who would probably take it for the curfew anyway.

In addition Pascoe made a note of the stealable contents of each room, particularly silverware, ornaments and paintings, the focus of the gang's previous hauls. Not that they showed any particular expertise, taking copies and junk as readily as the genuine stuff. Presumably they had a fence they trusted to sort out the wheat from the chaff without cheating them too much.

In the bathroom, Pascoe noted that the suite bore the name Elgoodware, presumably dating from Eddie Aldermann's connection with the firm, but it would have taken a Dalzielesque indelicacy to mention this, he felt.

The tour ended in the master bedroom. Pascoe finished his notes, then remained at the window admiring the view.

'What are you thinking?' the woman asked behind him.

'I'm just lost in envy,' he answered, turning and smiling at her.

'Envy? But you have a splendid open aspect too.'

'That's right. But I don't own quite so much of it. 'Tis possession lends enchantment to the view. So, despite my egalitarian principles, I feel envious.'

'I thought perhaps you were merely feeling embarrassed at the prospect of bringing up the topic of my relationship with Dick Elgood,' she said.

'Oh dear,' said Pascoe. 'He's been in touch then?'

'It was the gentlemanly thing to do.'

'As opposed to the policemanly, which is to plot to discuss a wife's infidelity upstairs while her husband sits innocently below? At least you gave me credit for embarrassment.'

'Wrongly, so it seems.'

Perhaps rightly,' corrected Pascoe. 'But we won't know as, in fact, I didn't have to bring it up, did I? You saved me the bother. But, truly, I didn't intend to bring it up anyway. Why should I? As Mr Elgood was quick to point out, what business is it of mine?'

'None, I hope. But there have been several misunderstandings, I think, and if complete frankness is necessary to clear them up, then I'm willing to be completely frank.'

She sat on the edge of the bed, knees demurely together, hands clasped on her lap, cheeks gently flushed, long fair hair falling over her shoulders.

'Yes,' murmured Pascoe, mostly to himself, but she caught the word.

'Yes, what?'

He smiled and said, 'I was just remembering something Ellie said about you.'

'Ellie?' she said alertly.

'Yes. I'm sorry, I shouldn't pass things on, should I? But I've gone too far now. She said you were . . . sexy. I see what she meant.'

Daphne rose abruptly, ran her hand through her hair and left it there.

'Clearly she didn't tell me enough about you,' she said.

'No? What's enough, I wonder?' said Pascoe. 'It strikes me, Ellie's rather pig-in-the-middle in all this.'

'Poor Ellie.'

'You mentioned the open view from our house. I didn't know you'd been there.'

'Once,' said Daphne, still holding her pose which unselfconsciously echoed a position favoured by Hollywood starlet publicity photographers. 'I went to have a row with her.'

'And you can still walk. She must be slipping,' said Pascoe.

'Yes. I didn't really get going. I suppose basically I like her too much.'

'Me too,' said Pascoe ruefully. 'It can be a disadvantage, can't it?'

'Look,' said Daphne. 'There's something I want to put right. In a way I started all this silly business by . . . well, let’s just say I misinterpreted certain things. I know better now. I was going to tell Ellie all about it, and tell her to tell you, but it makes more sense to do it the other way round now you're here.'

Rapidly she told Pascoe most of what had passed between her and Patrick that morning. His cool, appraising gaze half convinced her he guessed the rest and she found herself blushing at the thought.

When she had finished, he said, 'So he is no longer a candidate for this place on the board?'

'He's going to contact Dick Elgood and withdraw.'

'I see. Well, to be honest, it never seemed a particularly good motive for murder!' said Pascoe. 'And Mr Aldermann hasn't struck me as a particularly ambitious man either.'

'Nor, I hope, as a potential killer,' she said sternly.

He gave her a smile which she took as assent but which saved him from the honest answer that in his time he'd seen far more unlikely candidates than Aldermann admit to committing the vilest acts.

'Let's go down,' he said. 'I'm pleased. I really am. Ellie will be too.'

'Yes she will,' said Daphne thoughtfully. 'It's rare to find a radical so ungrudging, isn't it?'

Ellie knows how to pick 'em, thought Pascoe smugly as they descended. This is no stupid woman.

He felt genuinely pleased for Aldermann. During the past few days he'd been doing some gentle probing into the man's financial position and discovered that it was to say the least delicate. The pseudo water-official could have claimed to be representing the gas, electricity or telephone companies with equal authenticity. There were large outstanding bills in each case.

At the lounge door he paused.

'Does your husband know you were going to tell me about his success?' he enquired.

'Oh yes. I'm sure he does,' smiled Daphne.

They went in.

Aldermann and Wield had obviously passed the official stage and were now standing at the window talking gardens.

'Well, Mr Pascoe,' said Aldermann. 'You'll have seen that we've really got very little worth stealing.'

'If you think that, sir, I'd have a word with your insurance company,' said Pascoe. 'It'd be easy enough to pack a couple of thousand pounds' worth at least into a few suitcases. And it could be a great deal more. Those little Dutch flower paintings in your study: I'm no expert, but if they're genuine, they must be worth a bomb.'

'Good Lord. I'd forgotten about them. They were Uncle Eddie's. In fact, a lot of the stuff in the house was his. You can take things in your life so much for granted that you lose sight of their value, can't you?'

'Very true, sir,' said Pascoe. Briefly he explained that they would like to put some men on watch in the house on the two nights the Aldermann family would be away.

'Of course,' said Aldermann. 'You must do what is necessary. I do hope there won't be any mad dashes across the garden, though?'

'We'll try not to damage anything, sir.'

Somewhere a telephone rang. Daphne went to answer it.

'I believe congratulations are in order,' said Pascoe.

Typically Aldermann did not make any pretence of not understanding.

'Thank you. Yes, it's splendid. I feel I've achieved something worthwhile,' he said. 'And started something worthwhile too. A new beginning.'

Daphne returned.

'It's Dick Elgood,' she said. 'He wants to talk to you.'

'And I to him. Goodbye, Mr Wield, Mr Pascoe. Happy hunting next week!'

He went out. Pascoe and Wield exchanged glances which said they were both finished, and allowed Daphne to usher them to the door.

As they passed the open study, Pascoe glimpsed Aldermann at his desk with the phone in his hand. He was listening intently.

At the front door Daphne offered her hand.

'I hope we'll see more of you and Ellie,' she said.

'I'd like that,' said Pascoe.

2

SOUVENIR D'UN AMI

(Tea-rose. Delicate, requires protection in winter, a sheltered wall, and good soil, coppery-pink blooms with yellow stamens, beautifully fragrant.)

Shaheed Singh felt his left wrist seized and his forearm forced upwards behind his body which was rammed sideways against the wall, pinning his right arm uselessly against the rough brick.

'I've been looking for you,' growled a hoarse voice in his ear.

Twisting his head round, Singh found himself looking into the deep-set and vein-crazed eyes of Superintendent Dalziel whose normal ferocity of expression was not improved by a bruised and swollen nose.

'Come on, lad,' said the Superintendent, releasing him. 'You've got some answering to do.'

Feeling more like a prisoner than a colleague, Singh trailed along behind Dalziel's huge hulk, out of the car park where he'd been intercepted and into the station and up the stairs to the Super's room.

Dalziel settled comfortably into the extra-large executive-type office chair, all black leather and chrome, which baffled the annual inventory-takers, and said, 'Sit yourself down, son, make yourself at home,' with a geniality Singh found even more frightening than the initial assault.

'You might as well enjoy the facilities,' continued Dalziel, 'as I gather you've been kind enough to lend CID a hand while I've been away. Sort of filling the gap, so to speak.

‘Some gap, thought Singh, and the comic response, though naturally internalized beyond identification without truth drugs, relaxed him a little.

'Mr Pascoe has left me a full report of everything,' said Dalziel. 'Everything. He's out just now, acting on information you've supplied him with. That must make you proud, lad. To have a Detective-Inspector, not to mention a Detective-Sergeant, occupying a Saturday morning at your behest. And now you've got me. So tell me all about it.'

Singh told. Dalziel questioned. After twenty minutes they both fell silent. Singh sat anxiously, waiting for blame, praise or just simple dismissal. Dalziel stared gloomily at his desk surface, shoulders hunched as though under a burden, and right index finger gently patrolling the fold of flesh which hung over his shirt collar.

'Want to be a copper, do you?' Dalziel said suddenly.

'Yes, sir,' said Singh in a positive tone.

'Why?'

Singh thought of the tangle of reasons which had led, if such a tangle could be said to lead, him to his decision. He settled for simplicity.

'Because I think it's an interesting job, sir. And I think I'll like it. And I think I'll be good at it, sir.'

'Strikes me you think too bloody much, lad,' growled Dalziel. 'Mebbe you should try knowing and doing instead of all this thinking.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' said Singh. 'I just thought . . .' He tailed off miserably.

'There's only two places in a bobby's life, son,' said Dalziel, 'and you've got to be able to live in 'em both. One's out there.'

The index finger emerged from the carnal crease at his collar and poked a hole (metaphorically, though to Singh's eyes the violent digit looked as if it could have managed it figuratively) in the station wall to reveal the outside world.

'Out there it's dark and dangerous and dirty,' said Dalziel. 'Out there, there's men with clubs and knives and sawn-off shotguns who don't much care who gets in their way when they're at their work. Worse; out there, there's men with paving stones and petrol bombs whose work is to provoke us to get in their way. Oh, it's an interesting job all right.

'And then there's the other place and that's in here.'

The finger stabbed down. Singh grasped that what was being indicated was not the interior of Dalziel's desk, but the police station, indeed perhaps the whole of the police force.

'Out there is bad. But sometimes,' said Dalziel, 'sometimes in here makes you long to be back out there, like you long for a pint of ale when you've had a hot, hard day and you're drier than a Wee Free Sunday. Do you follow me, lad?'

Curiously, Singh did. There was no way that he could know that Dalziel was still smouldering at the memory of his last encounter at Scotland Yard. Summoned to the office of the Deputy Commissioner co-ordinating the conference, he had been told in no uncertain terms that his behaviour had caused so much complaint that an adverse report was being sent to his Chief Constable. Insubordinate, disruptive, inattentive and absent were the principal epithets used, not all of them compatible with each other, Dalziel had pointed out, which had provoked the final outburst. Last words are a privilege of rank, and Dalziel was still smarting.

None of this was he about to tell Singh, of course, but the cadet was already beginning to realize that in here was peopled with monsters, or monstered with people, who could cause as much terror and pain as any robber or rioter. So he nodded his head in genuine not just sycophantic agreement.

'Good. You've nearly finished your attachment here, haven't you?'

'Yes, sir. Just another four days.'

'You've done well,' said Dalziel unexpectedly. 'Not much chance usually for a cadet to do well as far as CID's concerned. But you've shown a bit of initiative. I'll see it gets mentioned on your report.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Singh, his stomach turning with pleasure. 'Thank you very much.'

'Right. Push off now. Tell one of them idle buggers down below I'd appreciate a mug of tea. I'm only away a few days and they're sliding into idle habits!'

'Yes, sir,' said Singh standing to attention. 'Sir . . .'

'Don't hang about, lad,' said Dalziel.

But Singh, emboldened by praise, said, 'Sir, if there's going to be a stake-out, at Rosemont, I mean, sir, because of my information, like, I wonder if mebbe I could . . .'

Dalziel's basilisk gaze froze the trickle of words.

'Fancy a bit of action, do you, lad? Bloody a couple of noses, get a police medal?'

'No, sir. I just thought mebbe the experience . . .'

'Let me tell you about the experience,' said Dalziel. 'Either you'll sit on your arse, bloody uncomfortable, all night, and you'll end up in the morning, cold and tired, with bugger-all to show for it, and the officers you're with will all know it's been on your say-so they've wasted their time. Or the villains'll come and there'll be a bit of aggro and mebbe a bit of blood. Any road, when the lights go on, there'll be you, standing there feeling all pleased; and looking right at you will be your old mate, what's his name? oh yes, Jonty Marsh. Are you ready for that, lad? Whichever way it goes?'

Singh hesitated, recalling Wield had warned him along similar lines.

There was a tap on the door behind him.

'Come in!' bellowed Dalziel.

The door opened and Pascoe appeared with Wield behind him.

'Here they are, the heavenly twins, Castor and Bollocks,' said Dalziel. 'Run along, son, and don't forget about that tea.'

Singh left, passing under the craggy indifference of Wield's expression like a nervous pinnace beneath a fortified cliff.

'Welcome back, sir,' said Pascoe, observing the swollen nose with keen interest. 'We weren't expecting you till this afternoon.'

'I skipped the fond farewells,' said Dalziel. 'I've been going through all this stuff on Aldermann, then I had a word with young Abdul.'

'Singh, you mean, sir? Shaheed is his first name, I think,' said Pascoe.

'Aye, Abdul. He's not daft, that lad. Has someone been giving him a hard time? I just got an impression he might be feeling he's being shoved around a bit.'

He glared accusingly at the two men.

'I won't have officers throwing their weight around,? he said. 'Consideration for subordinates, that's what it takes to knit a good team together. Understood?'

Pascoe glanced at Wield, then said, 'I entirely agree, sir.'

'Good. Now what have you two idle sods been at these past few days? This joker Aldermann, are we arresting him or protecting him?'

'Protecting him,' said Pascoe promptly. 'I've found nothing concrete to suggest he's ever stepped over the line except in the case of the old lady's money when he was working for Capstick in Harrogate.'

'One step's often enough,' said Dalziel.

'We're all permitted one bit of stupidity, sir,' said Pascoe. 'Anyway, there's something else.'

Briefly he recounted what Daphne had told him at Rosemont.

Dalziel sniffed, rubbed his nose and winced.

'That's something,' he said grudgingly. 'That explains a few things.'

'A lot,' said Pascoe firmly.

'You're recommending we wrap it up, are you?'

'We have no complainant, no evidence of crime, nothing!' said Pascoe.

The internal telephone rang. Wield picked it up and listened.

'Sir,' he said to Dalziel, 'there's a Mr Masson to see you.'

'Masson! The solicitor? What's he want?' asked Pascoe.

Dalziel made a face. It wasn't pretty.

'Acting on information received,' he intoned, 'mainly from you, Inspector, indicating you believed Masson wasn't coming clean with us, I rang the old sod at his golf club and told him he'd better get his arse down here if he didn't want to be retrospectively struck off. Or words to that effect.'

'Oh dear,' said Pascoe.

'Now you tell me that the case is closed,' said Dalziel. 'Perhaps you'd like to talk to him?'

'No, thanks,' said Pascoe.

'Tell 'em to wheel him in,' Dalziel said to Wield. Christ, is there nothing we can charge anyone with? Have you been right through the index in the big book?'

'We might try Elgood and Mandy Burke with perjury?' suggested Pascoe. 'Or perhaps she actually gave the ladder a push . . .'

'Do you really believe that? No? Nor do I. Accident. Perjury now, they'd have to cough in front of witnesses, and they're not going to do that, are they? No, the lines I was thinking on were that Aldermann spotted Burke and Elgood making off after lunch at the White Rose and gave the husband a ring in the hope he'd catch them in the stirrups. Good as a killing, that. He'd not be likely to stay on at Perfecta, would he? Still, now you've washed him whiter than snow, that's buggered that, hasn't it?'

There was a tap at the door. Wield opened it and Masson stepped in. He was wearing a red sports shirt and checked trousers.

'Right, Inspector Pascoe, that'll do for now, but I'll want to talk to you later,' said Dalziel sternly. 'Mr Masson, good of you to come!'

Pascoe and Wield left. As Pascoe closed the door he heard the beginning of Dalziel's conversation.

'Promising lad, that Pascoe, but a bit overkeen sometimes. I'm sorry if he's been bothering you about the Mrs Highsmith business.'

'What business is that?' said Masson sharply.

'You're not still her solicitor, are you?' said Dalziel. 'You'll understand then, I really can't say. Of course, if she herself wanted to see you . . .'

He nodded significantly at the wall, as if suggesting Penelope were chained to the other side of it. It was simply his intention to get rid of Masson with minimum aggro, but it was already striking him as curious that the man hadn't come in with all guns blazing indignation. He decided to try the all-boys-together line. Besides, he felt in need of sustenance.

'What about a drink?' he said. 'And a little chat off the record.'

He took a huge key from his pocket, opened the cupboard in his desk and produced a bottle of Glen Grant and two glasses which he filled to the brim.

'Here's health,' he said.

They drank.

'Of course,' he went on, but not sure where he was going, 'you were Mrs Highsmith's solicitor after she inherited the house, weren't you? There was all that business about the disappeared will . . .'

For a moment he thought he was going to get the expected explosion from Masson but then the old man relaxed and drank deeply from his glass.

'Look,' he said. 'I'm not absolutely sure what this is all about, but there are some things it might help you to know, only . . .'

'Only . . .?'

'Between these four walls?'

'Of course. You have my word,' said Dalziel solemnly.

'All right then,' said Masson, taking a deep breath.

What came was an anti-climax.

'I've no idea what happened to the will,' said Mr Masson.

'None?' said Dalziel disbelievingly.

'Nothing that I could offer in evidence,' said the solicitor firmly.

'But suspicions?'

'Ah, suspicions! Suspicions are only malicious guesses, aren't they? There had been a will. I had left it with Mrs Aldermann after she had called me in to discuss the possibility of changing it substantially in favour of her niece. She died. There was no will to be found. Why should I be suspicious rather than accept that in all likelihood the old lady had torn it up prior to getting me to draft a new one?'

‘Because,' said Dalziel gently, 'because you buggers are like us buggers, you're bred up to be suspicious. Instead of which you're sitting there all sweetness and light and Christian understanding! You weren't having a bit on the side with Mrs Highsmith, by any chance, were you?'

'Mr Dalziel! How dare you?' cried Masson, scandalized.

'It's not impossible,' protested Dalziel. 'She's a very attractive woman. You were a vigorous young man, well, in the prime of life, twenty years ago.'

'I was, I was,' said Masson, suddenly smiling. 'I could tell you a tale . . . but I won't. And I certainly wouldn't have dreamt of bending my sense of duty in the interests of a mere personal relationship!'

'But you did suspect that it wasn't Mrs Aldermann who'd got rid of the will, didn't you?' pressed Dalziel. 'So why did you sit on your arse and say nowt? Why?'

'All right, I'll tell you why,' said Masson with sudden passion. 'Because justice was best served by doing nothing. Because I was absolutely certain that three years earlier, Florence Aldermann had deliberately and maliciously destroyed her husband's will, that's why!'

Dalziel finished his whisky in his surprise and had to pour himself another.

'But why should she?' he wondered. 'This chap, Eddie Aldermann, wasn't the kind to disinherit his wife from what I've heard of him.'

'Of course he wasn't. He was the fairest, the kindest, of men. I drew up his will, of course. In it he left the bulk of his estate to his wife. But he also left a substantial legacy to Mrs Highsmith to be held in trust for her son, Patrick, till he came of age. It was this that so offended Mrs Aldermann, I suspect. Oh yes, there was no doubt in my mind but that she destroyed the will. Unfortunately I had just suffered a bereavement myself, my wife. And I had gone to Australia on a six-month visit to my daughter there. I didn't know anything of all this till I came back. No will! I was furious. But I was uncertain what to do. There were constraints upon me, you see. After all, I might have been wrong. It wasn't until she herself was struck down two years later and Mrs Highsmith came to Rosemont to take care of her that I learned that the allowance Eddie had always made her had been discontinued. Then I was sure! But it began to look as if things might be regularized without my intervention. There was all this talk of Mrs Highsmith staying on permanently, and of a new will. I was determined that justice would be done in this one, and to Mrs Aldermann's credit it must be said that she'd come to a much truer estimate of her niece's worth. It takes a brush with death to put things in perspective sometimes, Mr Dalziel.'

Dalziel rubbed his huge hand across his huge face.

'Look,' he said in his kindliest tones, 'I still can't see why you let it pass. I mean, I can see why someone else might do it, but I know you, Mr Masson, I know how you've always gone on about the letter of the law being as important as the spirit, and I can't see how, on what you've told me, you could convince yourself you were right to say nothing if you thought Penny Highsmith had removed that will. Why not take it to the law and try to sort out things there?'

Masson laughed. It was an unexpected sound, high and clear and girlish.

'It was because I could have done that and won very easily that I did what I did, Mr Dalziel,' he cried. 'That was the whole point! But I'd promised Eddie, you see. And also there'd have been a very great scandal. Things in those days weren't quite so free as now. This way achieved the same, the right, the proper result, without any of that.'

'You've lost me,' said Dalziel. 'What result? What did you promise Eddie Aldermann?'

Masson shook his head. 'A promise is a promise.'

'To a dead man. Listen, you've bent your principles a good way, just bend them a little more. If you don't, I'll just have to go on probing. People will start talking, I don't know what about yet, but they will. And I'll probe till I find out. You've given me a direction, Masson. I'll keep going till I get there.'

No one could view the menacing thrust of Dalziel's huge head and the determined clamp of the jaws without believing him.

'All right. But no further!'

'Than necessary,' said Dalziel, uncompromising now he knew he'd won.

'Patrick's father,' said Masson.

'Yes?'

'Patrick Highsmith's father.'

'Yes! said Dalziel, there already, but determined to make Masson say it.

'Patrick Highsmith's father was Eddie Aldermann.'

3

WILL SCARLET

(Modern shrub.Wide-spreading, bright red blooms, long-lasting, with a musky scent.)

Saturday had started well for Dick Elgood. At eleven o'clock he had been sitting in his office in the otherwise empty Perfecta building waiting for a visitor.

The man, who arrived dead on time, wore dark glasses and a light grey hat. These were simple measures to cut down the possibility of recognition, matters of habit rather than fear though there were certainly people in this town whose recognition was to be avoided.

Pascoe for instance might have recognized him as the man he'd glimpsed last time he had visited Elgood, but that was unimportant. Daphne Aldermann, however, might have recognized him as the man who'd masqueraded as a Water Board official, and that could have been embarrassing. And Andy Dalziel would certainly have recognized him as the man who'd punched his nose the previous night, and that would probably have been fatal.

'Come in, Mr Easey,' said Elgood. 'What have you got for me?'

Raymond Easey was a private enquiry agent, based in London, and recommended to Elgood by a business friend as having those qualities of speed, discretion, and scant respect for the law as long as the money was right, which Dandy Dick had specified. His main brief had been to procure an accurate representation of Patrick Aldermann's financial position. His work here had been satisfactory to the extent that Elgood could now prove to the board that Aldermann was in some financial embarrassment. But that in itself might not be enough to discredit him.

Easey's secondary instructions had been that any evidence of unlawful activity on Aldermann's part would bring a large bonus. The man had seemed clean, however, and the agent's efforts to penetrate Rosemont in search of evidence to the contrary had been thwarted by Daphne's unexpected return. Fortunately his intimate knowledge of the household debts had enabled him to talk his way out of that.

He had returned to London where one of his employees had been checking on Aldermann during his brief visit there. It had all been boring stuff, flower shows and publishers, except for one unexplained visit to a flat in Victoria. Easey took over. He did all his illegal work himself on the grounds that employing others to do it cost too much, laid himself open to blackmail, and you couldn't trust the bastards anyway.

Getting in was simple. He'd waited till he saw the woman leave with a fat, balding man. Always ultra-careful in such matters, he had tracked them to a restaurant and seen them safely launched on their meal before returning to the flat and getting in with a pick-lock.

A systematic search had elicited the disappointing information that Mrs Highsmith was the subject's mother. Still, mums were notorious for keeping letters and other memorabilia, and loving sons often poured their hearts out into the maternal ear in search of a totally uncritical sympathy. But there had been nothing until he had noticed that the lining of the old leather writing-case he'd just been through with no joy was torn. He stuck his fingers in. There was something in there. He had just pulled it out and read the words in an almost Gothic script Last Will and Testament of Florence Aldermann when the outer door of the flat had opened.

Carefully he'd put the will in his pocket, replaced the case in the drawer, and waited. His escape from the flat, the bruises on his knuckles, and the pounding in his heart as he fled along the street, had almost convinced him that the game wasn't worth a candle. But now Elgood's face as he looked at the will told him different. There was pleasure there, and a man had to pay for his pleasure.

'Will she miss it?' wondered Elgood.

'Hard to say. It was well hidden to the point of being lost. You know how it is. People put things away somewhere safe and a week later they've forgotten where the hell they put 'em. Eventually they forget they even had 'em!'

He was perfectly right. Penny Highsmith had had two decades to lose track of the will and with her happy-go-lucky nature, she needed far less than that. After Aunt Flo's death, the will had been genuinely mislaid, and when Penny came across it a couple of days later she'd stuck it in the lining of her writing-case, not with any real criminal intent but as a simple device for gaining pause to think. After all, hadn't that nice, amiable lawyer said with something approaching a wink that, in his view, the absence of a will would mean justice was done the way Eddie Aldermann would have liked it? Not that she'd ever felt she had any rights as far as Eddie was concerned. A dear, kind man, sadly hag-ridden by old Aunt Flo, it had seemed perfectly natural when he came across her sunbathing in the garden one balmy afternoon, well away from her aunt's disapproving eye, to draw him down beside her and give him what the old bat had clearly denied him for years. He'd been extremely concerned and generous when Patrick came along, but she'd never made any demands and it hadn't surprised her when, after Eddie's death, Flo had stopped the allowance.

But now as the lawyer steered her towards this large inheritance, it had begun to seem foolish to worry about a will which gave everything away to some daft charities, and by the end of a year it had gone quite out of her mind.

'You've done well,' said Elgood. 'I'll see you're rewarded.'

Easey smiled. He saw to his own rewards.

He put another piece of paper on the desk.

'My bill,' he said. 'Terms are cash.'

Elgood looked, whistled, but paid. He was, after all, in some ways paying for his future.

And then had come the happy moment when he phoned Aldermann.

Daphne had answered. She'd sounded surprisingly pleased to hear his voice, but he'd cut her off sharply and asked for her husband.

Aldermann he'd offered even less chance to talk. There was, he was discovering in himself, a distaste for what he was doing. It was close to blackmail. In fact, what else was it but blackmail? But Elgood had a lifetime of ruthless business dealing behind him and he was not about to go soft now.

'Aldermann?' he said. 'Listen to me. I've got something you might like to see. No, don't interrupt. It's a will. Aye, that's what I said. And it seems to me to make it pretty clear that that big house of yours and them gardens and all that cash you've got through, shouldn't by right have ever come to you in the first place!'

There was a long pause.

Finally Patrick said mildly, 'I should be interested to see this document.'

'Bloody right you'd be interested,' said Elgood harshly.

'Yes? Are you at the office now? Shall I come round?' asked Aldermann reasonably.

Elgood sitting alone at his desk was suddenly aware of the vast silence all around him. There would be a security man somewhere in the building, but he could hardly ask him to lurk outside the door while he spoke to his own accountant! What he feared he was not quite sure. But even if, as he now believed, all his previous suspicions of Aldermann had been simply and embarrassingly hysterical, it would be foolish to be alone with him when he threatened the thing the man most loved. A restaurant, perhaps? A bar?

Suddenly a better idea occurred.

'No. I'm just leaving,' he said. 'I'll be down at my cottage tomorrow, though. There's a few people coming round for drinks and a snack on the shore at lunch-time. Why don't you join them? Bring the wife and your little girl. They'll enjoy it. Oh, you might like to bring a letter too, withdrawing your candidacy for the board. Twelve to half past. Right?'

'I shall look forward to it,' said Aldermann courteously. 'Could you give me directions?'

'Oh, ask Daphne. She'll know where it is,' said Elgood.

He regretted what he'd said even as he replaced the phone. It had been silly and unnecessary. Still, it could be taken in all kinds of ways, most of them innocent, he assured himself. He put it out of his mind. Carefully he placed the will and the rest of Easey's papers in a large envelope which he put in his briefcase. Then, after a moment's thought, he took out the will once more and went next door into Miss Dominic's office, where he ran off a copy on the Xerox machine. It had struck him that permanent retention of the original might be no bad thing. Putting it in a plain envelope, he opened the wall safe in his room and placed it inside. Returning to his desk, he took out his diary and examined the list of telephone numbers which filled a couple of pages at the back. Then he began to ring.

It was late notice and after forty-five minutes he had only gathered half a dozen adults and three children for his lunch-time picnic.

It'd have been a bloody sight easier and probably cheaper to hire two coppers and a hungry Alsatian, he told himself. Then something in the thought made him smile and finally laugh out loud. He picked up the phone and dialled once more.

4

SUMMER SUNSHINE

(Hybrid tea. Rich yellow, smallish blooms, often a late starter, some black spot, sweetly scented.)

'There's one thing you've got to give these jumped-up South Yorkshire miners,' declared Andy Dalziel. 'They never forget how to push the boat out.'

In proof of his assertion, he brandished a half-pint tumbler in one hand and in the other a bottle of malt whisky over which he had clearly established proprietorial rights. Not that there were any serious challengers. The sun was high and hot and it was the beer, soft drinks and chilled white wine that were attracting the greatest trade. Everyone was dressed for the weather. The children were naked; a few of the ladies, including Ellie and Daphne, might just as well have been, for all the protection their skimpy bikinis afforded; those who weren't in swimming gear were in summer dresses, or slacks and sport shirts; and even Dalziel had made the double concession of removing the jacket of his shiny grey suit and covering his head with a huge khaki handkerchief, knotted at the corners.

'He looks grotesque,' murmured Ellie to Pascoe. 'And that nose! I bet what really happened was that Patrick's mother punched him! You don't really believe he had it away with her, do you?'

'I hope you don't use such phrases in the Chantry Coffee House,' answered Pascoe primly. 'And yes, that's what I believe. Erotic bragadoccio is not among Andy's many vices, but certain nods and winks and a general impression of remembered pleasure whenever the lady is mentioned convince me I'm right.'

'Yes, I know what you mean,' admitted Ellie. 'I've noticed it with Daphne. I don't know what Patrick's doing to her but a kind of blissful glaze comes over her eyes every time I mention him. Get me another glass of wine, love. I'm too hot to move. Isn't this glorious! I bet you wish you'd brought your swimming trunks.'

She arched her back with cat-like complacency at her own forethought. Pascoe looked down at her and shuddered and was glad that he wasn't wearing his tight-fitting trunks. Not that Ellie would have been anything but amused and flattered to see the evidence of his desire, but she might not have been so happy to observe the reaction maintained when he turned his attention to Daphne.

She came out of the sea now and flopped down alongside Ellie, water still trickling down the curves and promontories of her body.

'Isn't this lovely?' she said. 'Diana, you are taking care of Rose, aren't you?'

The little girl had elected herself guardian of the baby at first sight and was now digging a protective moat in the sand around her. Rose clearly regarded this as a first step towards the castle which was her proper due.

'She's fine,' said Ellie. 'It's role-stereotyping, of course, and in principle I object. But I'll hire her by the hour if you like! Daphne, I'm so glad everything's turned out so well.'

'Yes. I like a happy ending too.'

'You didn't tell Patrick about your little adventure, did you?' asked Ellie casually.

'Oh no. I got a bit too close for comfort, but I steered myself safely away. I suppose you think I should have done the perfect frankness bit, do you?'

'Not I,' said Ellie. 'Confession may be good for the soul but it's pretty lousy for marriages. Ah, here comes our genial host now.'

She had found Dandy Dick's charm at their introduction a little too carpet-salesmannish for her taste and the sight of him now stepping swiftly through the shallows didn't change her impression.

'He's not exactly Johnny Weissmuller, is he?' she said, looking at the small body whose well-developed muscles and heavy tan couldn't conceal its age.

'Go on. Make me feel good,' said Daphne drily. 'I hope one day you get seduced by that fat cop with the swollen nose.'

'Please, no!' said Ellie. 'I take back everything I've said!'

Elgood walked along the beach, enquiring after everyone's well-being but not stopping till he reached Patrick Aldermann who was talking to a couple by the huge food-hamper which a catering firm had supplied. He put his arm round Aldermann's shoulders and said, 'Patrick, there you are. I wanted to ask you; I've been trying to establish a few plants round the cottage, but nowt seems to take properly. All I'm doing is providing salad suppers for a swarm of bloody insects. It struck me, if anyone knows how to sort this lot out, it'll be our Patrick. Would you take a look? Come up with me now. I've got to pop up to make myself decent. It's all right for the ladies to flash the flesh, but when you get to my age, you don't want to put folk off their food!'

'Of course,' said Aldermann. 'It'll be a pleasure.'

The two men made their way across the beach and up the broken cliff face.

'All sweetness and light,' said Dalziel in Pascoe's ear. 'Does you good to see it. That stuff'll rot your night-stick.’

‘It’s a rather pleasant Orvieto,' said Pascoe, replacing the bottle in the cool-box. 'And I'm pouring it for Ellie.'

'Oh aye? And that's another thing,' said Dalziel. 'I wouldn't have let my wife lie around a beach like that. She'd have frightened the bloody seagulls!'

He roared with laughter, and Pascoe thought with surprise, he's a bit tiddly. It was hardly surprising. The whisky bottle was two-thirds empty. Also, it was quite clear that the fat man was suffering from the sun. He squinted upwards now with a malevolent eye and said, 'No wonder most foreigners are half daft. All that bloody heat boiling their brains. Well, I'm off to find somewhere cool inside. I'll see you later.'

Pascoe watched him stride determinedly towards the cliff, stumbling occasionally as the sand caved in beneath his bulk. He returned to Ellie and handed over the drink.

'Back in a moment,' he said.

He caught up with Dalziel as he began the ascent.

'You following me or something?'

'No, I just felt like a leak,' said Pascoe.

They laboured up a little further.

'Too bloody rustic for me,' growled Dalziel. 'This lot'll come down some day, all of it. Including that bloody cottage.'

'Must keep him on his toes,' agreed Pascoe.

Dalziel got to the top with only one stop for another couple of ounces of Scotch. Patrick was alone in front of the cottage.

'Where's Dick?' asked Dalziel.

'Having a shower and getting changed,' said Aldermann.

'What's he want with a shower? Just been in the bloody sea, hasn't he?' said Dalziel, passing into the dark of the interior.

Pascoe caught Aldermann's eye and the two men smiled.

'By the way, you might as well have these,' said Aldermann. He handed over a key ring with some small labels attached. 'It'll save you calling at Rosemont later. I've marked them all.'

'That's kind of you,' said Pascoe. 'We'll take great care. Especially in the garden. You're leaving in the morning, you said?'

'That's right. Shall I leave the alarm on?'

'Everything as normal, sir,' said Pascoe. 'We'll see to it.'

'Sir,' echoed the man musingly. 'Perhaps we could be less formal, if professional etiquette permits? With our ladies so friendly . . .'

'And our lords too,' smiled Pascoe, nodding at the interior where Dalziel could be heard raucously demanding where Dandy Dick hid his ice. 'Peter.'

'Patrick.'

They shared a moment, then Elgood came through the door, dapper in black Italian sports shirt and immaculate grey slacks.

'Hello, there,' he said, nodding at Pascoe. 'Now, Patrick, what do you think? What ought I to do?'

He gestured at the small patch of 'garden' which surrounded the cottage, distinguished from what lay beyond only by a few straggly roses long since reverted to briar.

'Salt air. Sandy soil. You've got problems,' said Aldermann. 'You've also got wasps, I see, and a lot of other insect life which needs to be controlled.'

'Yes, it's a bloody nuisance, isn't it?' said Elgood, swiping at a passing fly. 'It's OK by the sea, fortunately, but up here, it's getting a bit much. I've brought down a boxful of stuff that ought to sort out the buggers, though.'

He kicked a cardboard box standing just inside the door. Aldermann stooped and opened it. He frowned as he studied its contents. Elgood obviously bought insecticide as he bought picnic food, indiscriminately by the hamper.

'You've got enough here to kill off most of the insect life of Yorkshire,' he said reprovingly. 'Also some of this is extremely dangerous to humans. You shouldn't use it without protective clothing. And you certainly shouldn't leave it lying around especially with children in the vicinity.'

Elgood looked rather put out at being reproached in this fashion but he said, 'All right, all right. I'll find somewhere safe.'

He picked up the box and led the way into the cottage, the other two following. Dalziel looked up from an armchair, his eyes opening wide as he saw the box.

'Reinforcements!' he said, holding up the now empty bottle. 'Grand!'

Elgood ignored him and looked around for somewhere to store the box. Finally he put it down in the small passage between the living-room and the kitchen, reached up to the ceiling and drew on a cord which pulled open a trap with a foldaway ladder.

'I had the attic properly boarded when I put the tank for the shower in,' he said. 'It's good for storage and insulation too.'

He went up the ladder with the box and returned a few moments later, closing the trap after him.

'Satisfied?' he said rather sarcastically to Aldermann, who didn't reply.

'Nice spot you've got here, Dick,' said Dalziel with a leer. 'Just the right size for a loving couple. Cosy.'

'Remind me to ask you some time, Andy,' said Elgood.

'That'd make the buggers talk!' laughed Dalziel. 'You staying on tonight?'

'No. I've got to get back. I'll be busy first thing in the morning. I'll probably come down on Tuesday, though. I like to relax the night before an important board meeting.'

He glanced at Aldermann as he spoke with a hint of gloating triumph which seemed to Pascoe unnecessary in view of the peaceful solution of their problems.

'Relaxation you call it!' said Dalziel. 'Things must have changed!'

'A quiet swim, a quiet night all by myself, that's what I call relaxing, Andy. Don't you find quiet nights all by yourself relaxing? You must have had a few.'

Elgood was not a man to mess with, thought Pascoe. But nor was Dalziel.

'Aye, that's right, I have. And they are relaxing. But then I've got a clear conscience and most of my enemies are locked up, so what's to trouble my sleep, Dick? What's to trouble my sleep?'

On the beach below, the only thing troubling Ellie Pascoe's sleep was Daphne's voice, low and confidential in her ear. Her euphoria at the revitalizing of her relationship with her husband was beginning to be just a little tedious. Perhaps, thought Ellie with a sudden rather painful flash of self-awareness, I prefer my friends to be at odds with themselves so that I can be witty and wise.

'You know,' said Daphne, 'for the first time I think I'm really getting close to an understanding of what things mean to Patrick; in fact, you might say, of what it really means to be Patrick.'

It occurred to Ellie to suggest that it might be better if Daphne concentrated her attention on understanding what it really meant to be Daphne, but, perhaps fortunately, suddenly sun, sea and Orvieto exerted their authority and Daphne's voice, and the ripple of the waves, and the crying of the gulls, became one lulling note. Here, it seemed to say, was a place where storms, nor strife, nor pain, nor evil, could ever come. Ellie slept.

5

DAYBREAK

(Hybrid musk.Rich yellow buds opening to light yellow flowers, golden stamens, deep musky fragrance.)

Sergeant Wield sat on the edge of the bed, acutely conscious of Police-Cadet Shaheed Singh's presence only a few feet away in the scented darkness.

They were in one of the bedrooms of Rosemont. A potpourri of rose petals stood on the window-sill and the draughts of air which penetrated from the stormy night outside carried the sweet perfume on their breath.

There were only another four men on the operation. Pascoe and a large DC called Seymour were in a bedroom on the other side of the house and two uniformed constables were seated in a car parked up a track about a hundred yards from the main gates. These were all the men that could be spared, Dalziel had explained. The Minister for Employment was touring the area the following day; demonstrations had been arranged (Pascoe had avoided discovering the depths of Ellie's involvement), threats had been received, and the Chief Constable wanted every available man on the job for the duration of the visit.

'And he doesn't want the buggers half asleep,' said Dalziel. 'Not that he'd notice. He hasn't been fully awake for forty years or more. And young Singh had better not go either. With so few of you, if there is any bother, he might be tempted to start mixing it, and the last thing I need at the moment is to have to explain how I came to let a cadet get thumped. ‘It had been Wield who'd argued the other way, knowing how disappointed the boy would be.

'He'll be useful to keep someone awake, otherwise we'd have to have one man by himself,' he said.

Finally Dalziel was persuaded.

'But he stays upstairs. Even if he thinks they're massacring you lot down below with a chain-saw, he stays out of sight. Right?'

And when Wield had departed, the Superintendent said to Pascoe, 'And you can put young Abdul in with that bugger to keep him awake. Wield must be shorter of beauty sleep than any other man in the county!'

So here they were, waiting. It was nearly midnight. Sunday's glorious weather had spilled over into Monday morning, but storm clouds had begun to simmer in mid-afternoon and the long midsummer evening had sunk into premature darkness shortly after nine, and into almost total blackness a couple of hours later. Wield had waited for his night vision to develop, but even now the room only existed as a wash of black over some heavier concentrations which marked the furniture. The narrow slit in the curtained window let in no light worth mentioning. It overlooked the east side of the house, which meant that the horizon was smudged with the tangerine glow of city lights, but this only served to accentuate the nearer darkness. In the last hour a strong wind had blown up which so far had failed to clear the sky and had merely served to fill the old house with creaks and groans and eerie flutings, while at the same time whipping the dark mere of the garden into such a frenzy of formless movement that Wield had ceased to peer out, finding his straining eyes were filling the night with advancing shapes.

'Sarge,' whispered Singh.

'Yes?'

'Do you reckon they'll come?'

'What's up? Getting bored?' asked Wield.

'No!'

'Then you must be either drunk or unconscious,' said Wield. 'Mebbe they'll come, mebbe they'll not. Just think yourself lucky it's the middle of summer.'

'Why's that?'

'You could be freezing your bollocks off and sitting around here till six or seven in the morning. As it is, it'll start getting light around four. You might even get an hour's sleep before you go back on duty. So count your blessings.'

There was a long silence from the patch of blacker black which was Singh.

'Sarge,' he said finally, emboldened by the lack of visibility and the feeling of intimacy such conditions can engender between even the most antagonistic of couples. 'Do you think I'm doing the right thing, training to be a cop, and all?'

'What do you mean?' asked Wield. 'Why do you ask?'

'It's just that, well, you've never been very encouraging. I've talked to some of the others, you know, some of the DCs and the uniformed lads I've got to know, and, well, they all say you're fair, and very sharp too. There's a lot on 'em reckon you ought to have got on a lot further by now . . .'

'Are you building up to a retirement presentation, or what?' wondered Wield.

'No, well, all I was wondering was, if you're as fair and sharp as everyone says, and you don't rate me . . .'

The boy's voice faded from a whisper to an uneasy, embarrassed silence and the wind's endless moaning took control again.

'What makes you think I don't rate you?' asked Wield.

'You' ve always been a bit, like, sharp,' said Singh. 'I'm sorry, look, I'm not complaining, but I just wondered . . .'

'What'd you do if you didn't become a copper?' asked Wield.

'I'd help in my father's shop, I expect,' said Singh.

'You don't want to do that? Don't you get on with your dad?'

'Oh yes, we get on fine . . . only . . . well, if I worked in the business, I'd have to sort of do things his way. I mean, his way's the right way, I think, because he's done very well, and I don't mean he's strict about religion and that; he wants the family to belong here, he says, not to just be passing by; but if I stayed at home, I think I'd always be, well, like, a lad, a boy, I know I am still, everyone calls me "lad", but at home in my father's shop, I think I'd stay as a boy until . . . until . . .'

'Until he died,' said Wield softly.

'Yes, I think so. And I don't want to ever be wishing that my father would die.'

The darkness between them was now vibrant with the electricity of confession, binding them in a circuit of intimacy Wield had not wished for but now could not deny.

'My dad died,' he said softly. 'I was thirteen. He was very strict, very stern. He kept pigeons. I had to keep the loft clean. And when there got to be too many and some had to have their necks pulled, he made me help him. I think I wanted most of all in the world to be like my dad, to be big and strong and certain and able to pull pigeon's necks and not care. I never could, though. Perhaps, if he'd lived, I might have come to it, but I doubt it. They're such soft birds, trusting . . .'

He yearned to reach out and touch the boy's shoulder. A simple, uncomplicated, encouraging gesture.

But he reminded himself bitterly that just as in his professional world there were no free lunches, in his private world there were no simple gestures.

'You carry on and be a cop, lad,' he said harshly. 'As long as you can pull the pigeons' necks and not start enjoying it, you'll be all right.'

They both fell silent and remained silent while outside the wind at last blew itself out and dawn's green light began to move across the badly ruffled gardens.

When it was full light, Pascoe came yawning into the bedroom.

'All right,' he said. 'That'll do.'

Singh regarded him miserably, expecting reproach, but Pascoe just grinned and, ruffling the boy's hair in the gesture Wield had not dared, said, 'What're you doing tonight, Shady? Hope you haven't got anything heavy planned.'

'Are we coming back, sir?'

'Why not? Mr and Mrs Aldermann won't be home till tomorrow.' He yawned again and added, 'Seymour's switched off the alarm. I've told him to go back with the lads in the Panda and send a car out for us. Meanwhile I'm sure Mrs Aldermann wouldn't grudge us a cup of coffee.'

They went downstairs, Wield and the boy turned towards the kitchen, Pascoe said, 'I'll get a breath of air, I think,' and made for the front door.

But as he passed the door of Aldermann's study, he saw it was ajar and heard a noise inside.

Carefully he pushed it open till he could see one end of the handsome hard oak partner's desk which he guessed had belonged to Eddie Aldermann. There was a figure stooping over an opened drawer. He pushed the door open a little further.

'Come in, Peter, come on in. Had a good night, have you?'

It was Dalziel, looking wide-awake and healthy, except where a nicked undulation of flesh over his left jaw, repaired with pink toilet paper, showed the dangers of early morning shaving.

'What are you doing here? Sir?' demanded Pascoe

'Pastoral care, Peter,' said Dalziel genially. 'I woke up and got to thinking about you, stuck out here all night with nothing happening. Nothing did happen, did it? No, I didn't think it would. In fact, I didn't think it would last evening, but it seemed silly to be a kill-joy when you'd gone to all that bother to set things up.'

What the hell did he want? wondered Pascoe.

'Looking for anything in particular, sir?' he asked, nodding at the desk.

'No, not really. Aldermann's in the clear, isn't he? I've got your word on it, and that's good enough for me. Just my natural curiosity, lad. Unpaid bills, mainly, but he'll soon have that sorted. And a lot of stuff about roses. He corresponds with the best people, doesn't he? Even I've heard of some of their names. Let's bung this stuff back and take a stroll around, shall we, Peter? Best time of day, this. You ought to try getting up early more often. Taste the dawn.'

He watched like a benevolent Nature spirit as Pascoe tidied up the papers he'd disturbed and closed the drawers.

'It's all right, lad,' he said, observing the Inspector's hesitation. 'They weren't locked. Trusting soul, Aldermann. And it helps your tender conscience, I've no doubt. Where's Beauty and the Beast, by the way?'

Pascoe led the way to the kitchen. Wield and Singh were deep in conversation which stopped as he entered, and when Dalziel came in behind him, they both stood up, Singh's chair practically falling over in his eagerness.

'Take it easy, lad,' said Dalziel in his kindly voice. 'Not quite got the hang of chairs yet? Don't worry. It'll come, it'll come. You know, I could just fancy a cup of tea. Think you can manage that, son?'

Singh nodded.

'Good. And have a bit of a poke around in the larder. I don't expect you'll find any beef dripping here. That's what I'd really like, a beef dripping sarnie. Failing that, a bit of toast with Marmite. I'm sure they'll have Marmite. Lay it on thick so there's a bit of flavour. Will you do that for me?'

'Yes, sir,' said Singh.

'Good lad. Come on, Inspector. We'll take a turn round the garden.'

'I'll have a coffee,' said Pascoe to Wield. 'But no Marmite.'

As he walked towards the front door with Dalziel, the fat man boomed, 'A good lad, that darkie. He'll go far. Wouldn't surprise me if he went all the way. I'd like to see that. Make a change from some of these pasty-faced buggers I saw last week. You'd think they lived under stones down there!'

Outside Pascoe was puzzled to see no sign of Dalziel's car. He couldn't have walked here, surely! The turbulence of the night was long past and a fine summer's day was unfolding like a flower. But the storm had left its mark. Dalziel tutted as he walked across the once smooth lawn now strewn with twigs and leaves and petals.

'Bit of tidying up for our Patrick here,' he observed.

'I think he pays someone to do the basic stuff,' said Pascoe.

'Aye, he would. No expense spared with this lad. Mind you, he'll need help. There's a lot of land here, a lot of land.'

They strolled round the formal gardens till they arrived at the small complex of greenhouses.

'This is where it all happens, this hybridization is it?' said Dalziel, peering through the glass like a voyeur hoping to glimpse flesh. 'Clever fellow, our Patrick. Very clever.'

'Sir,' said Pascoe determinedly. 'Do you still suspect him of something?'

'Me? No. Why should I? A lot of people died, it's true. But there's always people dying, isn't there? And we've no bodies, have we? That's what we're short of Peter. Bodies.'

He sounded almost regretful. Pascoe was reminded of the police pathologist who demanded flesh.

'Plenty of nothing, that's all we have,' continued Dalziel. 'And all we're likely to have from the look of it. Let's get back to the house. All this morning air's making me hungry.'

'You really fancy him for at least one of these deaths, do you, sir?' persisted Pascoe as they walked back through the rose-garden.

Dalziel paused to pluck a crimson bloom which the wind had half snapped off its stem and put it in his button-hole.

'Milord,' he said, displaying that expertise in unexpected areas with which he sometimes surprised his subordinates.

'Very fitting,' said Pascoe drily. 'About Aldermann . . .'

'He frightened his mam,' said Dalziel. 'No, that's too strong. He had a lot of influence over her, and she's not an easy woman to dominate, I tell you. But you think he's all right?'

'I quite like him,' admitted Pascoe. 'And you?'

'Only met him once, haven't I?' said Dalziel, adding thoughtfully, 'But I must say I quite like his mam!'

Back in the house, they found a pot of tea and a plateful of Marmited toast waiting for Dalziel. He tucked in with a good appetite, telling a long rambling anecdote about his army experiences as a military policeman. Pascoe drank his mug of coffee and responded to Wield's interrogative glance with a minute shrug.

'Right,' said Dalziel, glancing at the kitchen clock which said seven A.M., 'let's get washed up. Always leave a place as you'd hope to find it, you shouldn't forget that, son.'

Singh nodded as if this were the most helpful piece of advice he'd ever heard.

Carefully, they washed up with Dalziel doing the drying. When he'd finished, he folded the tea-towel carefully and draped it over the draining-rack.

'Now, Peter,' he said, 'if you'd set the alarm again.'

'We're going?' asked Pascoe.

'Oh no. We're staying,' said Dalziel.

He led the way upstairs. Silently, the other three followed.

Dalziel opened the master bedroom, looked with approval at the large, deep, double bed, removed his shoes, and spread himself out across the silk coverlet.

'Wake me when they come,' he said closing his eyes.

'When who come?'

One red-shot eye opened.

'The burglars,' said Dalziel. 'That's what we're here for, isn't it? To catch some burglars.'

The eye closed. The fat man appeared to sleep.

Just after eight o'clock, they all started, except Dalziel, as they heard a distant noise. It was the grind of an approaching vehicle. Pascoe joined Wield at the window. An old green van was coming up the drive. It turned and disappeared along the side of the house, momentarily revealing the legend Caldicott and Son, Landscape Gardeners.

'Are they here then?' said Dalziel, sitting up. 'Let's take a shufti out the back.'

He rolled off the bed and went out on to the landing and walked round till he reached one of the bedrooms overlooking the rear.

'The gardeners?' said Pascoe, following him. 'You mean, it's them?'

'It's in Arthur Marsh's file,' said Dalziel. 'That unemployment benefit fiddle he got done for - he was working for a gardening firm. I'm surprised that didn't strike you as odd, Peter! Trained electrician. If he'd wanted to do a bit of moonlighting, why start humping wheelbarrows and garden forks about?'

'He's there. Jonty's there!' said Singh, excitedly peering between the drawn curtains. 'And Artie too. I can see them!'

'Can you? Good lad. Watch you don't move them curtains though,' said Dalziel.

'But if you spotted this yesterday, why didn't you say anything,' said Pascoe indignantly.

'It was just a theory, lad,' said Dalziel soothingly. 'Besides, I weren't sure whether Arthur Marsh was using the gardening job just to case places which he then turned over independently, or whether the whole firm was in it. He might have dropped in last night, in which case, the 'nick was all yours. But when I checked this morning and nothing had happened, then theory two seemed to be on.'

'They don't much look as if they're planning to break in,' said Wield, who'd joined Singh.

'What do you want? Masks and bags marked "Swag"?" demanded Dalziel. 'They've got work to do in the garden, haven't they? They're paid to be here. They're entitled to be here! That's the beauty of it.'

Pascoe produced Aldermann's list of tradesmen and others who would know the house was going to be empty and quickly scanned it.

'He doesn't mention the gardeners,' he complained.

'Why should he? Likely he just mentioned the people he's cancelled, like milk and newspapers,' said Dalziel. 'He wouldn't cancel the gardeners. Gardens keep on growing even while you're away. I checked one of the other places that'd been done. Yes, they had Caldicott's one morning a week. Yes, they remembered Artie, he was the friendly one, always popping in to fill his teapot, always ready to help in the house with a bit of lifting or moving. It's a good set-up, isn't it? Lots of opportunity to case the target. And no crawling around in the middle of the night. You just drive up at your usual time and some time during the day, when observation's taught you you're least likely to be interrupted, you get inside, lift what you want, dump it in the van in a couple of old sacks, and drive off with it!'

'Eventually they'd have run out of houses,' said Pascoe in an aggrieved tone.

'Yes, likely they would. That would certainly have been another way of stopping them,' said Dalziel judiciously.

'Why'd they bring in Jonty Marsh, sir?' wondered Wield.

'There was another lad, Caldicott junior, I think you'll find. Only he broke his arm the other week.'

'Harrogate,' said Pascoe, remembering the torn ivy that Ivan Skelwith had pointed out. 'I bet that was at Harrogate.'

'Aye, and likely they needed another nippy little sod to do any clambering about that was needed, so Arthur recommended his kid brother.'

'They still don't look as if they're up to anything,' said Wield doubtfully.

'O ye of little faith,' said Dalziel. 'Come back to the front bedroom.'

Obediently they followed. Wield and Singh resumed their watch at the front window, stupidly in both their opinions as the gardeners were all round the back. Then ten minutes later, Singh said, 'Here's somebody. It's the postman!'

He cycled up to the front door, sorted out his mail, thrust it through. On his way back he diverted to the side of the house and addressed himself to somebody, then passed from sight.

'He'll be having a cup of tea,' said Dalziel. 'It'll be a habit every Tuesday morning. They're not going to let him see owt suspicious, are they?'

Reproved, the watchers resumed their watching and Dalziel his position on the bed.

'He's gone,' said Wield at last.

'Right. Shouldn't be long now,' said Dalziel, eyes still closed.

'Where should we be watching, sir, back or front?' asked Wield.

'No matter. You'll not really see much. They'll fix the alarm bell first. That'll likely be a job for young Jonty. Jam it, or muffle it, or even cut it, depends on the type. Arthur will have sussed it out. Next, the nipper will be sent up aloft again, this time to cut the telephone wire. Normally of course this'd set the alarm ringing, but as they've fixed that already, all it means is that the alarm dialling system is knackered too. Then one of them will come in, through a window mebbe, or a door if Arthur's managed to get a key. The others will carry on with their business so that any passing peasant wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Only from time to time as one of 'em passes by the house with a barrow, he'll pick up an old sack and later chuck it into the van.

'I'm just guessing, of course,' concluded Dalziel. 'But that's the way I'd do it.'

He's right, of course, thought Pascoe, full of bitter self-reproach. For the past few months he'd begun to wonder arrogantly if Dalziel might not be past it. A creature from another age, that's how he thought of him, a dinosaur about ready for extinction. Well, what came after the dinosaurs? The apes. Almost unconsciously he dropped his jaw and did a little simian shuffle. Dalziel's eyes, which had appeared firmly shut, opened wide.

'You all right?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. Touch of cramp.'

It was another ten minutes before they heard a noise downstairs.

'Sir!' said Wield urgently.

Dalziel slowly rose, yawning.

'Give 'em a moment to start loading up,' he said.

He looked at his watch like a commander about to send his troops over the top.

'Right,' he said. 'Off we go. No, not you, young Abdul. You stay up here, son. Sorry, but I made promises about you. Don't worry, you'll get mentioned in dispatches, I'll see to that. You've done all right.'

Singh looked disappointed, but clearly Dalziel's praise was some consolation.

Dalziel led the way with no apparent attempt at concealment, but moving down the stairs with incredible lightness for a man of his bulk.

As they reached the hallway, a man clutching a sack appeared at the study door. It was Arthur Marsh. He stared at them in complete amazement for a moment, then dropped the sack with a hoarse cry of alarm and turned and fled. The policemen followed in order of seniority, though this was accidental rather than hierarchical. At the study door Wield glimpsed Arthur trying to get out of the window with Dalziel clinging on to his left foot with all the proprietary strength of a hungry bear. A noise behind him attracted Wield's attention. He turned and saw that in one thing Dalziel had been wrong. There was not just one man in the house. Coming out of the dining-room with a silver candlestick in his hand was Jonty Marsh.

'All right, lad,' growled the sergeant, advancing.

Jonty feinted to retreat, then suddenly sprinted forward, ducking under Wield's outstretched arms and nearly falling. Wield grabbed and the boy swung the heavy candlestick against his kneecap.

'Jesus Christ!' cried Wield as Jonty recovered his balance and went dashing up the stairs. On the landing he paused uncertainly. In some little pain, Wield was hobbling after him. The fleeing boy turned once more and rushed into the master bedroom.

Wield heard a babble of voices, then one voice - Jonty's - screamed, 'You fucking black wanker!' Then there was a crash and a cry and a thud, then silence.

Pain forgotten, Wield ran up the last flight of stairs and flung himself into the bedroom.

The window was open. On the floor beneath it lay the crumpled body of Police Cadet Singh. By his head was the silver candlestick and from his head coiled a line of blood like an undone ribbon.

There was a cry from the window. Wield peered out. Distantly he saw the green van careening down the drive, doors still open and banging against the sides like some discordant cymbals. But it was going nowhere. A police car was gently nosing forward between the avenue of holly bushes, blocking the way.

The cry was closer at hand. Jonty Marsh had swung himself over the sill and was trying to reach a drainpipe some five feet to his left. He clearly wasn't able to make it. The one hand by which he still clung to the sill was white with the strain, but not as white as the terrified face that looked up towards Wield.

The sergeant instinctively grabbed the boy's wrist just as the fingers began to slide off the smooth stone. Despite his slight build, he was heavy enough to make Wield gasp as he felt the full weight pulling at his arm. He was leaning too far out for his strong back and leg muscles to contribute much to the effort, but the greatest weakness was in his will. His mind was full of the boy at his feet with his eyes closed and his head bleeding, rather than the boy at the end of his arm with his eyes wide with terror and his mouth piping piteous bird-like cries. The sweat of effort and the sweat of fear lubricated their gripping hands and he could feel Jonty Marsh slipping away and he was not sure that he cared.

Then Pascoe was by his side, leaning out to grab the boy by the arm, saying 'Come up, you young bastard!' and suddenly he was a feather weight and came plunging back through the window like a hooked trout.

Pascoe dumped the boy on the floor with a force which knocked the remaining breath out of him and said, 'Lie still, sonny, or I'll chuck you back.'

Now he turned to help Wield with the injured cadet. To his surprise the sergeant was kneeling by the boy's head, his hands fluttering nervously over but not touching him, his craggy face, in whose rocks and hollows emotion usually lay deeply hid, cracked wide in an earthquake of violent grief.

'Sergeant!' said Pascoe.

The stricken eyes turned up to meet his.

'He's dead,' said Wield in a hoarsely vibrant tone. 'He's dead!'

Below the moving hands, Cadet Singh's eyelids twitched, then opened.

'You'd better not tell him that,' said Pascoe. 'Now for God's sake, go and rustle up an ambulance!'

6

FÉLICITÉ ET PERPÉTUE

(Climber.Vigorous, healthy, abundant foliage, profuse white flowers with faint blush, high climbing, sweet-scented.)

Dick Elgood had not been lying when he said that he liked to relax alone on the night before an important meeting.

He left the offices of Perfecta at six o'clock, pausing to glance at the old Elgoodware artefacts on display in the vestibule. This is how it had all started. Here were the beginnings of the road which had led him to where he was now. Which was where? He felt uneasy at the thought. It was daft! How could the condition, the achievement, which only a few weeks ago had seemed such a cause for congratulation, for complacency even, now appear hollow, empty, meaningless? Perhaps a man needed more than work. An interest, an obsession. Like Aldermann's garden and his bloody roses! What did he have? Women, a lot of 'em, more than he could recall. That was something, surely. Pleasure; ecstasy; and more to come. His strength was less than it had been, but far from failing. Perhaps he should have arranged for a bit of company tonight. He thought of telephoning around, but decided it was too late. And surely it was best to stick to his plan.

Nevertheless, the desire for company remained, and he didn't go straight to the cottage but drove first to a favourite restaurant some ten miles up the coast where he had a steak. There was a new waitress, a smiling lass, who caught his fancy and he lingered longer than he intended over his coffee and brandy. But when he judged the moment ripe to ask what time she finished, she replied promptly, as though the question had been anticipated, that her father collected her shortly after eleven. Dick finished his brandy philosophically, guessing that one of her colleagues had played bitch in the manger and warned her off. He had certainly used the place often enough for his reputation to be known, and like most dedicated followers of the fancy, his sexual vanity did not permit him to consider that perhaps the girl simply didn't like the look of him.

It was after ten-thirty when he arrived at the cottage, much later than he had intended. He felt vaguely dissatisfied as he stood by the white post which marked the furthest encroachment of the sea and gazed down at the darkling shore where a thin white line and a rhythmic susurration signalled the retreating tide. He should have stuck to his original intention and come straight down. Now he would have to forgo his anticipated swim. Food, alcohol and an ebb tide were ingredients which mixed to disaster. And in any case, though usually he regarded the water as simply an alternative element, tonight the moving darkness stretching away to an imperceptible horizon filled him with a sense of menace and being alone. Shivering, he turned and went inside.

His customary pre-bed cup of cocoa with a shot of rum soothed his slightly ruffled nerves and he soon fell asleep. But he passed a broken night, waking frequently out of ancient dreams of flying and falling to listen to the strange patterns of noise that sea and wind and darkness were weaving all around. He was glad to get up on Wednesday morning, gladder to see that even so early the sun was already beaming promises of great warmth from an untroubled sky. The sea was its old self, dancing invitingly in the little bay below the cliff. He was tempted to go straight down, but at his age such suddenness was to be avoided. He did some stretching and warming exercises, then took his usual little breakfast of pure apple juice and a dry crispbread and black coffee. Then he relaxed and smoked a couple of cigarettes. Finally he was ready.

He put on his towelling robe and clambered down the broken cliff face to the beach. He removed the robe, looked around, and removed his trunks also. He liked to swim naked but was very careful to do so only when he could be almost completely certain of being uninterrupted. He had no desire to be dragged into court on an indecency charge.

As always, his swim invigorated him mentally and physically, reminding him of both his fitness and his self-sufficiency. He was hardly puffing as he clambered back up the cliff and re-entered the cottage.

He went straight into the shower cubicle to wash off the salt water. Carefully adjusting the jet till he got the perfect temperature, he stepped inside. First he soaped himself all over, then he poured shampoo on to his still thick and vigorous hair and began to massage it to a lather. The water ran steadily, caressing his body. It wasn't for some time that he felt the first prickles of discomfort. It wasn't bad, just as if he were showering after too long an exposure to a burning sun. He raised his head to the streaming water, letting it run over his face. His eyes prickled as if he'd got soap in them. He opened them to wash it out. And screamed as they seemed to burst into flame.

He staggered sideways out of the shower, but the pain came with him. His mouth tasted acrid, he couldn't see out of one eye and vision from the other was blurred and distorted. He crashed across the living-room, making for the front door. He was twitching convulsively and his mind was hardly able to function beyond his desperate desire to get down to the sea. The sea would cleanse him, soothe him, save him. He was in the little garden now. He hit the white post, reached the edge of the cliff and fell rather than descended down its broken face. Now he could hear the water though sight was almost gone. Even the bold red sun was only a match-head to his unblinking gaze. He staggered on, his feet dragging through the shingle and the sand till he felt the waves lapping at his feet. He kept going a step or two further, then fell forward and let the water take him. After a while he rolled on his back and tried to float. Above him seagulls mewed, but the sound barely touched his ears, like the cry of children playing on a distant shore.

Shaheed Singh awoke first to the dawn chorus of hospital life and didn't manage to get back to sleep till after nine A.M. When he opened his eyes an hour later, Dalziel, Pascoe, and Sergeant Wield were standing by his bed.

"Morning, lad,' said Dalziel. 'We've finished your grapes. How're you feeling? Always thought you needed a turban to finish you off.'

Singh put his hand to the swathe of bandage which crowned his head and smiled, not at the comment but at Inspector Pascoe's undisguised pained reaction to it.

'They wouldn't let us see you till last night and by then you were asleep,' said Dalziel accusingly. 'You sleep a lot for a young copper.'

'The doctors say that there's no fracture, just a heavy concussion,' said Pascoe. 'You'll be out in a day or two. Your dad's outside, but he insisted we came in first.'

'What about Jonty and them others?' said Singh. 'Did we get 'em?'

'Oh yes. And don't worry, we'll see you get mentioned in all the right places,' smiled Pascoe.

Wield said, 'I brought you some books. And some chocolate.'

'Thanks, Sarge,' said Shaheed.

'Right. We'd best be off. Can't have all the best brains in CID stuck in hospital at the same time, can we?' said Dalziel. 'Thanks for your help, lad. We'll send your dad in now.'

He and Pascoe turned away.

Wield said, 'I'll drop in again.'

Singh said, 'Oh, no need to bother, Sarge. My dad'll be coming. And my mam. And then there's all my brothers. I'll have plenty of visitors.'

'All right then,' said Wield. 'Cheerio.'

'Cheers, Sarge.'

On their way back to the station, Wield was in such a deeply introspective mood that it drew the attention of the others, used though they were to his blank impassivity.

'You all right, Sergeant?' enquired Dalziel.

'Yes, sir.'

'Gut rot, is it? The takeaway trots?'

'No, I'm all right.'

'You don't look it. You ought to get yourself married and start eating properly.'

But the news which reached them shortly after their return to the station put all thoughts of Wield's health out of their minds.

It was Dalziel who was told first and he burst into Pascoe's office without preamble.

'He's dead! Dandy Dick's dead!'

'What?'

'Aye. Found drowned. He should've been at a meeting at ten, didn't appear, they got the local bobby to check down at his cottage, and there he was, bobbing around in the sea.'

'What caused it? Cramp? Heart-attack?'

'I don't know. Get on to it, will you, Peter? Check what the quack says.'

It was early afternoon when Pascoe got back to Dalziel. The inspector was grave-faced.

'It's not nice,' he said.

'What ever is it? Get a move on, lad!'

'The first doctor that got called thought there was something odd about the body and our man's confirmed it as far as he can without pathological tests.'

'Confirmed what?'

Pascoe said, 'Dick Elgood had been in contact with a large concentration of some chemical reagent shortly before he died.'

'What chemical, for Christ's sake?'

'Oh, I'd say at a guess something like parathion or dieldrin.'

'You'd say! What's the quack say?'

'Still checking, but he agrees. You see, I had a good go at our local lad. He was a bit upset he'd noticed nothing queer about the body. The eyes were a bit funny, he thought, but he put that down to immersion in the sea. Well, we went over everything and he recalled that when he first went into the cottage he'd found the shower on. Now that struck me as odd. Why shower,then go into the sea? So I took a look in the attic. You recall that box that Elgood put up there last Sunday?'

'The garden stuff? Jesus Christ!'

'That's right. It had somehow found its way into the water tank.'

'Found its way?' echoed Dalziel incredulously.

'That's where it was anyway. I got a pair of rubber gloves and lifted it out. There was a real mixture of stuff, some powder, some liquid, all highly concentrated from what I could read on the labels, and a lot of loose tops. I showed the box to the doctor and he said it fitted.

Parathion compounds can easily be absorbed through the skin without much local irritation, and it's easy to take a bit of water through the mouth when you're showering. The effects of a cocktail like this could be quick and devastating. Disorientation, lack of muscular control, spasms, respiratory problems - the poor bastard probably staggered down to the sea with some notion of rinsing himself clean and simply drowned.'

'You've organized the tech lads down there?'

'Of course,' said Pascoe, adding hesitantly, 'not that I think there's much for them to find. Look, sir, it looked to me as if Elgood must have simply rested the box on the edge of the tank. There were some pretty violent winds in that storm the other night and they'd go funnelling through that roof space at a hell of a lick. Over goes the box . . .'

'Do you really believe that, Inspector?' asked Dalziel harshly.

'What else? You can't still be thinking of Aldermann? Where's the motive? That's all been settled! And opportunity? He's been away since Monday! And don't say Sunday night. They left Elgood's picnic at the same time as us and we asked them to drop in at our place as they passed. One thing led to another, we had a drink and a snack, and it was after ten when they left.'

'Very cosy,' growled Dalziel. 'All right. What's to stop him driving his wife and girl home, then taking off back to the coast?'

'Nothing, I suppose,' admitted Pascoe. 'But his wife would know. I mean, it'd take at least two hours, there and back.'

'You're going out there today to tie up the burglary business, aren't you?' said Dalziel. 'Ask her.'

Pascoe hesitated, then said, 'If I must, sir.'

'Oh yes,' said Dalziel intensely. 'You know you bloody well must.'

It was three o'clock when Pascoe arrived at Rosemont and its gardens were still awash with the high tide of the sun. All along the road from town he had driven with his windows down, letting the fresh air cleanse his mind, confounding his worries in the green and gold beauties of an English midsummer day. Turning into the gates of Rosemont had meant plunging for a brief moment into a dark tunnel of over shading holly trees. But when he emerged once more into the bright air, it seemed as if he must have stumbled upon the very source of all this richness and warmth. The brick of the house, the green of the lawns, the rainbow spectrum of bloom curving around the borders - all seemed part of a single design with the great arch of blue sky in which the sun shimmered like a bonfire reflected in a deep lake

In front of the house a Mini was parked. As he halted behind it he recognized it as Ellie's.

'Oh shit,' he said aloud.

He rang the bell. A few moments later Daphne opened the door.

'Peter!' she cried. 'How nice. Come in. Ellie's here, we're out on the terrace.'

'Daphne,' he said, 'have you heard about Dick Elgood?'

Her face shed its smiling welcome and darkened to pain.

'Yes. The office rang soon after we got back just before lunch. Patrick went in, but there was nothing he could do. It's dreadful, isn't it? No one seemed quite sure what had happened. Was it a heart-attack while he was swimming?'

She wasn't acting. Pascoe was certain. He steeled himself for the next question whose purpose must seem obvious, but before he could speak, she said, 'Look, you go through. I was just getting some more lemon squash. Will that do for you, or would you prefer a beer?'

'No, squash will be fine.'

He walked through the house and out on to the terrace.

'Hi,' said Ellie. 'So this is what you really do when you ought to be beating up prisoners with a rubber truncheon.'

'So this is what you do when you should be chaining yourself to the Minister of Employment's left leg,' he said, stooping to kiss her. 'I'm here on business. What about you?'

'Oh, I rang to say welcome back and chat about the burglary attempt, and Daphne was in a bit of a tizz about Dick Elgood, so when she said come round, I came. It's awful, isn't it?'

'Awful,' agreed Pascoe. 'Where's Patrick?'

'In his rose-garden, where else?' said Daphne from behind. She set down a jugful of squash on the table. 'He's rather cut up about Dick, I think, and he always flies to his flowers in time of distress. David, stop bothering your sister!'

Baby Rose was once more in the care of little Diana. With them was a good-looking young boy with his father's brown eyes and stillness of expression.

'We brought him back because he got rather upset when he overheard us talking about the burglary,' explained Daphne. 'He had to see for himself that his precious room and all its contents hadn't been disturbed. I think he rather resents not being the centre of Diana's attention. David, stop it, or you'll go back to school this very evening!'

'Boys take much longer to mature than girls,' said Ellie comfortably. 'Peter, what did happen to Dick Elgood? Have you heard anything?'

'There'll have to be an inquest,' said Pascoe vaguely.

'He always seemed likely to go quickly,' said Daphne. 'All that exercise at his age.'

Ellie choked into her squash and Daphne glanced reprovingly at her.

'It's funny,' she continued, 'but I felt as if I were seeing him for the last time on Sunday. There seemed to be something very final when we said goodbye.'

'Come on,' said Ellie deflatingly. 'We all have these premonitions after the event.'

'No, that night, after we got back from your place, I couldn't sleep. I went to bed, but in the end I had to get up. I was sitting out here half the night drinking whisky. It was a strange feeling to have after such a lovely day. A sense of some horrible happening being quite close. You can believe me or not,' she said defiantly.

'And Patrick? Did he have this premonition too?' asked Pascoe with sudden interest.

'No.' Daphne laughed. 'He slept solidly, till I woke him getting back into bed about four. Then we had to get up again so he could have a drink. Then we sat out here and drank and talked for another hour or so.'

She blushed faintly as she spoke and Ellie guessed that conversation wasn't all that had passed between them on the terrace.

'I slept all the way to Gloucester,' concluded Daphne. 'I was still yawning when I met the headmaster and the staff, I'm afraid.'

'That's all right,' said Ellie. 'In those places the teachers are used to that reaction to their presence.'

'Tut-tut,' said Pascoe, filled with relief at what he'd just heard. Surely even Dalziel would admit this unsolicited alibi? 'I think I'll go and have a word with Patrick, if you'll excuse me.'

He found Aldermann hard at work in his rose-garden.

'Hello, Peter,' he said. 'I didn't know you'd arrived. I'm sorry to have been so unhostly.'

'That's OK. No, don't stop. It's nice down here.'

'There's really such a lot to do,' said Aldermann, still apologizing. 'That storm the other night - it must have been the night you were in the house - such damage!'

All the time he talked the silver blade of the pruning knife was moving with swift economy around the rose branches, severing broken twigs and damaged blooms which were then popped into the canvas bag slung around his neck.

'And now, of course, you're minus your gardeners,' said Pascoe.

'Yes, that's almost the worst thing,' said Aldermann. 'I was flabbergasted. Caldicott! Why, he's been coming to Rosemont ever since he was a boy. And his father before him was with Uncle Eddie from the beginning.'

'It was Brent, the son, who was the trouble, it seems,' said Pascoe. 'He had a bit of a record, nothing serious, but that's how he met Arthur Marsh when they were in the nick together. Later Arthur had this bright idea. It was quite bright, I suppose.'

'But how did they get old Caldicott to go along with it?'

'Feeling the pinch, I suppose. Everyone's been cutting back lately, wanting Caldicott to come half a day a week instead of a full day, but expecting much the same work. It's easy to start resenting their big, comfortable houses and all the goodies you glimpse through doors and windows. Marsh saw other things - alarm systems, sensor locations, bypass switches, wiring circuits - he's a trained electrician and there's plenty of written material about these systems nowadays. They were able to do such neat jobs, not being hurried and working in daylight, that often it wasn't till the owners got home, sometimes days later, that the break-in was discovered.'

'I still find it hard to believe, or forgive. I certainly never cut back on their time here.'

No, you wouldn't thought Pascoe.

He said, 'Caldicott senior did say as much. He's the one who's cracked and coughed the lot. He hadn't wanted to do Rosemont. That's where the business had really started, he said, and you were that rare thing among employers, a real gardener rather than just a flash Harry wanting to put on a show.'

'He said that?' Aldermann looked pleased. 'Well, I'll have to find someone else now, of course. It was quite a shock. But then this other business of Dick Elgood - that was really devastating. You've heard, of course?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'I've heard.'

'Poor Dick. It's such a tragic waste. But then, so much of his life was, wasn't it?'

'He looked very successful to me,' said Pascoe.

'Did he? Yes, I suppose he would. And I dare say that's how he thought of himself too. But I doubt if he was really a happy man. I honestly believe that in Nature there's only one true course of development for each of us, and the trick is finding it. At some point Dick took a wrong road. Like a rose-tree. You can cut and trim it away from its true growth and be quite successful with it for a long time. But in the end, the misdirection shows.'

'What will happen at Perfecta now?' asked Pascoe.

'I don't know. It's all in the melting-pot. There'll be changes, I expect, but nothing ever really changes.'

Patrick Aldermann spoke with the confident disinterest of one who knows where the real centre of things lies: And why should he not? Had not life confirmed his judgement at every turn? Some might have called him an opportunist, but opportunity so invariably offered must assume the dimension of fate. There had been no doubt in his mind this lunch-time, for instance, that when he went to Perfecta he would find that Quayle had already assumed the mantle of acting chairman and managing director, and in that capacity had installed himself in Elgood's office. It hadn't even been necessary to find a pretext for getting him to open the safe. A stricken Miss Dominic had already opened it at his behest. And just as inevitably, the plain white envelope which Patrick had picked out and pocketed had contained the original of his Great-Aunt Florence's will. This was no opportunism but destiny! With such assurance of maintaining the true order of things, where for instance had been the risk in wandering into Elgood's cottage as the departing guests crowded the little garden outside to make their goodbyes, pulling down the attic ladder, ascending and depositing the cardboard box with bottle tops slightly loosened into the open cistern? Three minutes. No one had noticed he'd gone. So it had always been. So, he assumed, it would always be. Beyond choice. Beyond morality. Preordained.

He became aware that Pascoe was observing him curiously. And not only Pascoe. His son was standing close behind the policeman, almost invisible in the camouflage of sun-flecks through the breeze-stirred roses.

'Hello, David,' said Aldermann, resuming his pruning. 'What are you up to.'

'Mummy sent me to say it's rude for you to keep Mr Pascoe standing out here so long.'

'And she's right, of course. Thank you, David. Peter, I'm sorry.'

‘It was my idea,' said Pascoe.

'That's no excuse,' said Aldermann, slicing another bloom off its stem with a single economic motion which set the sunlight spilling off the silver blade like alien blood.

'Daddy,' said the boy.

'Yes, David.'

'What is it that you're doing? I mean, I can see what you're doing, but why do you do it?'

'Well,' said Aldermann with his knife poised above another deadhead. 'I'm . . .'

Then he paused and smiled as if at some deep, inner joke.

Carefully he closed the pruning knife and put it in his pocket.

'Later, David,' he said. 'I'll explain to you some other time. We have our guests to look after. Peter, you must be roasted, standing out here in the sun. Let's go and find a cool drink and sit and talk to the ladies. Isn't it a perfect day?'