On Beulah Height

DCI'S-"

"I've spoken to him. They reckon it could be meningitis. She's in a coma."

There it was. The worst. No, not quite the worst. That still lay ahead-perhaps awaiting his phone call…

He said, "Oh, shit."

"Aye, that about sums it up. Nowt we can do about it, but, so let's get on with the job."

He climbed out of the car. Wield, undcvd by this display of stoic indifference, fixed his gaze on the vehicle's dashboard, which was cracked in half.

"Having trouble, sir?"

"Aye," said Dalziel, rubbing his left hand. "Speedo got stuck, so I gave it a whack."

"Hope I never get stuck," murmured Wield closing the door gently.

"Hope you're going to get started," said Dalziel. "Turnbull. From the top."

Wield was the Schubert of report makers, compressing into little space what others would have struggled to express in symphonies. Even the fact that the greater part of his mind was struggling to accommodate the news about Rosie Pascoe didn't inhibit the flow, and in the short walk from the parking lot to the station office, where sight of Dalziel sent Sergeant Clark snapping to attention, he brought the Fat Man up to strength.

Mention of Turnbull's solicitor made Dalziel smile. He liked it when suspects ran crying to their briefs.

"Dick Hoddle? Nose goes one way, teeth go t'other?"

"That's the one."

"Bit rich for the likes of Geordie Turnbull, I'd've thought."

"He's done well, sir. His old boss left him the business or something."

"Need to be something like that," said Dalziel. "Didn't strike me as the kind to save up his bawbees. So what do you reckon, Wieldy?"

"Turnbull's cooperating like a lamb," said the sergeant. "Okay, he called up Hoddle, but in the circs, who wouldn't? Waived his right to be present during the search of his premises. Hoddle wasn't happy, but Geordie said something like, if it was a drug bust, it 'ud be different, everyone knew the cops were capable of planting shit all over the place, but not even Mid-Yorks CID was going to fit someone up in a case like this."

Dalziel, unoffended, said, "He's not so daft. This sneaker and the ribbon from the car…?"

"Novello's taken them round to show the parents. They're not an exact match with the description of what the little girl was likely wearing, but not a million miles off."

"And Turnbull says…?"

"Seems he often has kids in his car. Does a lot locally, ferrying folk about, kids to football matches, that sort of thing. But not just kids. Old folk, disabled, all sorts. He's well liked."

"So was the duke of Windsor," said Dalziel. "You've still not told me what you reckon."

"Same as in Dendale. I reckon everyone who knows him, even the odd husband who doesn't like him, would be amazed if he turned out to be our man," said Wield. "And I reckon I would too. Which means he's either very, very clever, or we should be looking somewhere else."

"Oh, aye? Any suggestions where?"

Wield took a deep breath and said, "Mebbe you'd best talk to Sergeant Clark, sir."

"I will, when he's recovered from his fit. Can you hear me, Sergeant, or is it rigor mortis?"

Clark, who on the better-safe-than-sorry principle had opted to remain in a sort of half-attention posture, let his muscles relax.

"Right, lad. I gather you've got some ghost stories to tell me. Off you go."

Clark had few of Wield's narrative skills and Dalziel let his impatience show.

"So Mrs. Hardcastle, that everyone reckons has gone a bit doolally with grief, has started seeing things? Sounds like it's her doctor she should be talking to, not hardworked coppers. You don't agree, lad?"

Clark, who lacked the guile to conceal his resentment of Dalziel's dismissive remarks about Molly Hardcastle, said, "I think she saw summat, sir."

"Summat?" Dalziel spat out the word like a cocktail cherry found lurking in a single malt. "You mean, summat like a sheep? Or a bush? Or summat?"

The sergeant was saved from a possible test to destruction by the entrance of Shirley Novello.

"Ivor, make me day. Tell us the Dacres have given us a positive on the stuff you found in Turnbull's car."

"The sneaker, a definite no," she said. "But the ribbon, a maybe. Lorraine liked ribbons, collected them, did swaps with friends, so she ended up with a whole boxful. No way of saying what was in there and which she took out that morning. The hair on the one from Turnbull's car's our best bet. They'll be checking that against samples taken from the girl's bedroom. But that's going to take a little while."

"Bloody marvelous," groaned Dalziel. "Which leaves me with a ferret down my trousers."

Meaning, Shirley guessed, that if he kept Turnbull too long, he'd start biting, and if he let him go too soon, he'd be out of sight down the nearest hole.

The Fat Man was regarding her broodingly.

"It was you got onto Turnbull in the first place, right?"

"With Sergeant Wield's help," she said cautiously.

"No. Credit where it's due. You did well. Again."

He didn't make it sound like something he expected her to make a habit of.

"So, what do you reckon to this Turnbull? He were reckoned a bit of a masher back in Dendale. So what's the female view. Still got it, has he?"

"He's… attractive," she said. "Not physically, I mean, not his appearance, but he's got… charm."

"Charm?" Dalziel savored the word. "Would kids like him?"

"Oh, yes. I think so."

"And could he like kids?"

"Sexually? I don't know. I'd have said he was pretty well focused on mature women, preferably those who were safely married and were happy to have a fling without wanting to rock the boat…"

"But?" said Dalziel, who could spot buts the butters didn't know they were butting.

Novello hesitated, then flung caution to the winds.

"But it could be a double bluff. Or not bluff, meaning not conscious. He could chase women because he doesn't want to admit to himself that he really wants to chase little girls…"

The look on Dalziel's face made her wish she could whistle the winds back.

He said, "Well, thank you, Mrs. Freud. You been at the communion wine, or you got half the ghost of a reason for spouting this crap?"

She said defiantly, "He's worried about something, I can tell."

To her ears, it sounded far weaker and wafflier than what she'd said before, but to her surprise Dalziel nodded almost approvingly and said, "Well, that's something. Wieldy?"

"Aye. I'd say so too," said the sergeant.

Novello felt like kissing him. Perhaps he'd turn into a frog?

"Right then, let's go and have a chat afore Hoddle starts ringing the Home Office."

"Shall I come?" said Novello hopefully.

Dalziel thought, then shook his head.

"No," he said. "No distractions." Then, observing the look of disappointment which this time she could not disguise, he condescended to explain. "This Turnbull, I recall him and I know his sort. Women make 'em sparkle. Can't help it. Hang him upside down over a tub of maggots and bring a woman into the room and he'd feel better. I don't want him feeling better. I want him feeling bloody terrified! Come on, Wieldy. And don't forget the maggots!"

And Novello, watching them go, felt almost sorry for Geordie Turnbull.

Three hours later Dalziel was feeling sorry for no one but himself. Also he had a lousy headache.

It was called Dick Hoddle and it wouldn't go away, not unless it took Geordie Turnbull with it.

It didn't help that the interview room made The Book and Candle snug (which he remembered with great longing) look like the Albert Hall. Its one window wouldn't open (the result of paint and rust rather than security), and even with the door left ajar, the temperature in there would have cooked meringues.

Hoddle was clearly a meticulous man. Every hour on the hour he made a case for the interview to end, in progressively stronger terms. This was his third.

"My client has been cooperative beyond the call of civility in each and all of its principal senses…"

He paused as if inviting Dalziel to demand definition, but the Fat Man didn't oblige. There had been a time, before tape recorders became a fixed feature of interview rooms, when he might have offered to push each and all of the lawyer's crooked teeth down his crooked throat if he didn't belt up and let his client speak for himself. Not that that would have been altogether fair, as Turnbull on several occasions had volunteered answers against his counsel's advice. But Dalziel wasn't feeling altogether fair, just altogether pissed off.

"… and as it became clear to me, as a reasonable man, a good two hours ago that he had no case to answer, I can only assume that even your good self must by now have reached the same conclusion. You are, of course, entitled to hang on to him for twenty-four hours from the time of his arrest-"

"And another twelve on top of that if I give the word," interjected Dalziel.

"Indeed. But admit it, Superintendent, there is no prospect that you are going to be able to charge my client with anything, so any attempt to prolong the agony might appear merely malicious and would certainly add weight to any case Mr. Turnbull might already be contemplating for police harassment and false arrest."

"No," said Geordie Turnbull firmly. "There'll be nothing of that. Once I'm free of here, I'll be happy not to have any contact with the law in any form for the next fifteen years."

Dalziel noted the time span, tried to hear it as an admission that his urge to kill had gone off and wouldn't be returning for another decade and a half, failed, and scratched his lower chin so vigorously, the sound-level needle on the recorder jumped.

The door opened behind him. He looked round. It was Wield, who'd been summoned out a few minutes earlier by Novello. Not an easy face to read, but to Dalziel's expert eye he didn't look like he'd just ridden from Aix to Ghent.

At least it gave him a temporary out. He suspended the interview, flicked off the machine, and went out into the corridor.

"Cheer me up," he invited.

"They do a nice pint round the corner at the Queen's Head," said Wield with a sympathetic glance at the Fat Man's sweat-beaded brow.

"And that's it?"

"If it's cheer you want, sir. Word from Forensic. That hair on the ribbon, definitely not Lorraine's. And so far nothing else in the car which suggests she's ever been in it. Same with the stuff Novello got from that rubbish bin."

"Shit," said Dalziel.

"You really fancy him for it, do you, sir?"

"When you're in the muck, you fancy whatever you've got, as the gravedigger said to the corpse. God, I hate that bastard. I'd really like to bang him up and throw away the key."

"Turnbull?" said Wield surprised.

"No! Hoddle, his sodding brief. Any more good news?"

"Not from Bixford. If Turnbull stood for MP, he'd get elected. The ladies think he's lovely, the men think he's a grand chap so long as it's not their particular lady he's chatting up. The vicar's ready to pawn the church silver if dear Geordie needs bail. And his congregation would rather trust their kids with Geordie Turnbull than with Dr. Barnado."

"Oh, aye? It'll be a different tale once word starts getting around and the tongues start wagging. These Christians can forgive owt save innocence. You think he's innocent, Wieldy?"

Wield shrugged and said, "Makes no difference, does it? Without we've got a lot more, or even a little more, I think we're flummoxed. How about you, sir?"

"I don't know," said the Fat Man. "There's summat there that doesn't smell right… he's not mad enough, maybe that's it. Hoddle's threatening all kinds of false arrest shit, but Turnbull's being all laid back and forgiving. And he's from Newcastle! When them buggers finish telling you how many times they won the Cup, they start listing all the bad offside decisions against them since 1893."

"Doubt that'll stand up in court, sir," said Wield.

"Happen not. Owt from Burroughs?"

"Not a thing. They've been right up the valley and back down again. She's waiting to be told what to do next."

Dalziel pondered, his great face brooding like God's over a tricky piece of epeirogeny.

"We'll get 'em off the fell," he said finally. "Hit the buildings again. I want every farmhouse, barn, byre, pigsty, hen coop, garden shed, outside privy, every bloody thing turned upside down. She's close, Wieldy. I feel it."

It would have taken a brave man in search of a medal to point out he'd felt much the same back in Dendale all those years ago, and Wield, though no coward, was equally no pot hunter.

He said, "And Turnbull, sir? Does he walk?"

"Don't be bloody daft! Whatever Hoddle says, he's not leaving here till the twenty-four hours are up. No bugger's going to say I let a possible child killer loose afore I were forced to, not this time."

"No, sir. Novello were wondering if mebbe now things have been going on so long, she could sit in…"

"No," said Dalziel irritably. "Besides what I said before, bring a new face in now and Hoddle will be abso-bloody-lutely certain he's got us on the run. Tell her to take the Dendale file and learn it by heart. Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock, Peter had an appointment with yon Plowright woman who runs Social Services. Thought he might get a line on old Mrs. Lightfoot, who's probably dead, but if she's not, then she's the one Benny would want to find if he came back, which I don't believe. Ivor can go along instead."

"Sounds like a waste of time," said Wield.

"Better a DC'S time than a DCI'S," said Dalziel. "Think of the money we'll save. Any word of the little lass, by the way?"

"I rang the hospital," said Wield in a flat voice which concealed the effort of will even that call had required. "No change."

He still hadn't been able to bring himself to try and contact Pascoe direct. That needed to be a face-to-face contact, he told himself. But he wasn't sure he believed himself.

"Life's a bastard, eh, Wieldy?" said Dalziel wearily.

"Yes, sir. And then we die," said Edgar Wield.

And so the second day of the Lorraine Dacre inquiry draws to an end.

As the shadows lengthen, her parents, unable now to bear any company but their own, sit together holding hands in the tiny living room of their cottage, neither of them deriving any comfort from their contact except for the possibility of giving it to the other. Hope has died in both their hearts, and all that remains is the concealment of despair.

Between Peter and Ellie Pascoe, too, there is a silence born of a secret, but the secret here is not the death of hope but its survival. Life without Rosie is unimaginable, so they refuse to imagine it. Like primitives in a cave, they watch darkness running toward them across the fells and know it holds danger, but know also that tomorrow the sun will rise again and make all things well.

And Rosie Pascoe?

Rosie Pascoe is in the nix's cave.

It's dark down here, but a little light filters down the long, winding tunnel leading to the entrance. Gradually her eyes begin to adjust and shapes and textures begin to rise out of the darkness.

She is on the edge of a small pool of black water. At least at first it seems dull black, but as she peers into it, a little of the light from that sunlit world far above runs across its surface, polishing it as it passes, so that the blackness shines like a mirror held up to the night sky.

In that dark mirror she sees the roof of the cave, soaring high above, like the ceiling of a great old cathedral. And up there something moves, not much, just enough to catch her eye.

It is a bat, hanging upside down at the topmost point of that high ceiling.

Rosie shivers and lets her gaze move across the pool to its far margin. And there in its black mirror she sees another face, bright shining eyes, sharp prying nose, a lantern jaw fringed with jagged whiskers, and teeth like a length of ripsaw in the smile-parodying mouth.

She cries out and raises her terrified gaze from the reflection to the reality.

It is the nix himself, crouched opposite on the far bank of the pool. Seeing that he has her attention, the nix slowly raises his left hand, andwitha long, thin finger tapering to a long, sharp nail, he beckons to her.

Rosie shakes her head.

The nix stands up straight. Crouched, he had seemed froglike, a large frog it is true, but with the comforting promise of a frog's awkward movement out of the water. Now he straightens into a tall, thin man whose long legs have brought him halfway round the pool before fear, which has locked her muscles, becomes terror, which releases them, and she scrambles away from him over the stones and bones which litter the floor of the cave.

Her first thought, for despite everything she's still thinking, is to keep the water between them, and for a while she succeeds. But her young limbs are growing tired, and on her third circuit of the pool, it seems that the thin light spilling through the entrance tunnel is brightening to a golden glow as if that distant sun is shining directly on its mouth in the gray fellside far above.

The way is long and hard, she knows, and very steep. In a straight race she doubts if she would have much chance against those long, skinny legs. But the call of the sun is too strong.

She breaks away and heads into the tunnel.

How rocky the ground is! How full of twists and turns the passage! How low the ceiling!

She comforts herself with the thought that what is awkward for her must be very difficult indeed for the nix, but when she risks a glance back she sees him crouched low and squat once more, not like a frog this time, but scuttling along like a huge spider.

The sight gives her new strength. Also the growing brightness, which has in it now not just the light but the warmth of the sun.

She turns another bend. Still far above her, but now clearly visible, she glimpses the tiny circle of blue sky. And as she looks, the blue becomes a frame round a familiar face and she hears a familiar voice crying her name.

"Rosie. Rosie."

"Daddy! Daddy!" she calls back, and strives toward him.

But the scuttling noise behind is very close now. She feels those bony fingers tighten round her ankles, she feels those rapier nails digging into her flesh.

And she sees the circle of blue shrink to a pinhole, then vanish altogether as the nix drags her back down to his gloomy cavern and his black and fathomless pool.

DAY 3 The Drowning of Dendale

Betsy Allgood [PA/WWST11-6-88]

Transcript 2 No. 2 Of 2 Copies

Once it started raining, it rained like it were bent on catching up in a week for all the dry weather we'd had over the past months.

That first day was a real cloudburst, then it settled into a steady downpour, sometimes slackening for a while but never really stopping. Back in Dendale we heard they were finishing off the clearing-up job, shifting any big stuff left, sorting out the electrics and such, and when that were all done, they bulldozed the buildings. Seems it didn't matter whether they were going to be drowned or not, the Board didn't want owt left standing to tempt folk to explore either under the water or out of it.

So school, pub, church, houses, barns, byres, everything were knocked flat in preparation for flooding the dale. The dam was nigh on finished, the becks were full bubble, the Neb was spouting water like a leaky bucket, and White Mare's Tail was wagging full force again, so that Dender Mere was nearly up to its old flood level, and high on Black Moss col, twixt the Neb and Beulah the new tarn, were broadening and deepening, ready for its release into the valley below.

All this I picked up the usual way kids pick things up, by hanging around grown-ups with mouth shut and lugs open. No chance of seeing any of it for myself. I'd been warned like all the rest of us not to go anywhere near Dendale. Partly it were that our mams and dads were still feart of Benny Lightfoot or the nix or whoever had taken the three girls. Partly I think they knew how much it would hurt them to see their old homes flattened and drowned, and reckoned it would be just as bad or worse for us kids.

In my case they were dead wrong. I really liked it in Danby. I settled in real quick. And when school started in September, I found that Mr. Shimmings, the teacher with the eye patch, hadn't got it anymore. He'd only been wearing it 'cos he'd hurt his eye in an accident and needed to cover it up till it mended. And he didn't have a split cane but only a walking stick to help with the limp he'd got from the same accident. In fact he were really nice, and him and Miss Lavery got on right well.

I forgot to mention, Miss Lavery had got taken on at Danby Primary, and though I weren't in her class anymore, she always stopped and had a word with me when we met.

There were lots of the old Dendale faces around. Mr. Hardcastle, like my dad, were working for Mr. Pontifex on his estate. The Telford brothers had set up their joinery business in Danby, though I heard tell it were mainly Madge's uncle George doing the work, as Joe (that's her dad) didn't seem able to keep set on anything. The Wulfstans had moved back to town and then sold up there and moved off down to London. Nobody saw owt of Aunt Chloe again, but Mr. Wulfstan's works were up here and he was still around, and there were stories of him being seen wandering around the fells like he was still hoping to find some trace of Mary. Also there was talk of his lawyers suing the police for not doing their job properly, but nowt came of it.

As for Benny Lightfoot, he'd gone without trace. His gran made a right durdum about leaving the dale, and barred herself in Neb Cottage when time came. They went up there to try and talk her out, but when there was no sign of her, they broke in and found she'd had a seizure with all the excitement, so she'd been taken off to hospital. She'd have likely ended up in a home if some niece down near Sheffield hadn't said she'd take her in and look after her.

All this seeped into my head the usual way, but none of it bothered me. Dendale and hot weather, and Jenny and Madge and Mary been taken, seemed miles and years away. We had a cottage quite near the school right on the edge of Danby and though it might have seemed like living in the country to a townie, for me after Low Beulah, it were like being in the middle of a city, with different people and different sights all round me every day.

I think change did Mam good at first too. She seemed a lot livelier and made some new friends and even went out with them now and then. Dad were better, too, for a bit. He were shepherd overseer for Mr. Pontifex and I heard Mam tell someone if he kept his nose clean and his lip buttoned, he should get Stirps End Farm when a present tenant retired, which were expected next Lady Day or Midsummer at latest. Dad used to say he didn't know if there were much point in starting all over, and I knew he were thinking of me being only a lass. And mebbe that's why them days I didn't much mind having my hair cut short and nearly always wearing dungarees or jeans, 'cos I thought that mebbe I'd do for a boy and be able to take on the farm.

Sounds stupid, I know, but that's what I thought. And I tried not to think at all about Dendale, and like I say, soon it seemed as far away as London, and I'd not have dreamed of going back if it hadn't been for Bonnie.

The move seemed to have bothered Bonnie most of all, and if it hadn't been that it hardly ever stopped raining, I doubt he'd have come in our new house at all. He wandered around, all restless. If I shut him in a room with me, he wanted to be out. And if I shut him out, he wanted to be back in. And whatever he wanted, he yelled till he got it, and this really got on Dad's nerves. He'd never liked Bonnie anyway, so I did my best to keep them out of each other's way.

Then this night it all went wrong. Dad came into the kitchen through the back door and Bonnie shot between his legs, almost tripping him.

He swore and lashed out with his boot, catching Bonnie right in the ribs.

The cat let out a screech and shot through the open door. I screamed, too, and Mam came in to see what was going off.

"It's Bonnie," I sobbed. "Dad kicked him and he's run away."

"Is that right?" Mam demanded.

"Bloody useless animal," said Dad. "Good for nothing. If I never see it again, it'll be too soon. Anything that can't earn its keep isn't bloody well worth keeping."

This made me cry even more, and not just for Bonnie.

Mam tried to comfort me by saying Bonnie would be back once he realized he were just getting soaking wet outside. And even Dad, who mebbe felt a bit guilty, said it would be all right, Bonnie would be back under his feet in the morning.

But he wasn't. No sign of him.

I cried all through breakfast and all the way to school. No one noticed at first, we were all so wet, a few tears made no difference. It were a really foul day, rain hissing down so hard it came straight back up again, filling the air with curling mist so's you couldn't see across playground. But once we got inside and dried off, my friends soon spotted I were crying and asked me what was wrong. My girlfriends were all dead nice, but one of the boys, Joss Puddle, whose dad had had the Holly Bush in Dendale, said, "Don't know why you're bubbling. I know where he'll be. He'll have gone home."

"Well, he hasn't, stupid," I said. "That's what I've just been telling you. He hasn't come home."

"I don't mean Danby home, I mean his old home, his real home, so who's stupid now?" he retorted. "And I'll tell you summat else. If he's gone back to Low Beulah, he'll likely get drowned, 'cos they're letting loose Black Moss today."

I thought about this all through the morning till break. The more I thought, the more I reckoned Joss were right. Bonnie had been fretting ever since the move. Where else would he run after Dad had kicked him but back to Dendale? At morning break I told Joss to tell teacher I'd gone off home with a bellyache.

Looking back, I know what I set out to do were daft. Chances of finding Bonnie, even if he had set out back to Low Beulah, was rotten. Chances of me slipping and breaking a leg were a lot better. But I had this picture of Bonnie sitting down by the mere all forlorn and this big wall of water rushing down from Black Moss and sweeping him away.

So I set off up the Corpse Road to Dendale.

It were a steep climb out of Danby, but I were strong for my age and the path were so well worn, I had no problem following it even when the mist swirled close. Rain never let up, and soon I was sodden through, but it weren't a cold rain with the wind coming from the south, and I was moving fast as I could, so that kept me warm inside.

As I came over the ridge of the Neb I could hear White Mare's Tail thundering, but there were another noise I didn't recognize. It wasn't till I got halfway down into the dale, and suddenly the mist opened up like it does, that I saw where it came from.

Down from Black Moss what had used to be a whole lot of becklets streaking the hillside like silver threads had knit together into a great tumbling force. It rushed straight down fellside into the valley bottom, where it joined with White Mare's Beck and went roaring down to the mere.

The mere itself were fuller than I'd ever seen it, even in the old spring floods. Mebbe this were 'cos of the dam wall holding it back from running off down dale, mebbe 'cos of all the rain we'd had, and the new force from Black Moss. But already its old shape were gone and it were covering fields and walls which ran along its edges and lapping about ruins of houses, like Heck, which had stood close.

I stood there and felt… I don't know what I felt. I were looking at place I'd spent most of my little life and not recognizing it. It were like looking in mirror and seeing someone else there.

Through the mist I could just make out on far side of the mere the round hillock close by where Low Beulah had stood. Then it vanished, and in no time at all I could hardly see more than a couple of steps in front of me again. But it were easy enough to follow Corpse Road down to Shelter Crag. Now I was scrambling around on blocks of stone from buildings that had been knocked down and it were hard to tell just where I was. I were trying to get to the little humpback bridge over White Mare Beck, which would take me onto the road round mere and so up to Low Beulah, but when I reached edge of the beck, or river as it were now, I realized how daft I'd been. Bridge would have gone, if it hadn't been knocked down it would be underwater now. I were so wet, I thought of wading over, but I could see it were too deep. And any road, it moved so fast, I'd have been knocked off my feet.

I stood there shouting, "Bonnie! Bonnie!" over the water for a while. Then it struck me. If I couldn't get over, neither could a cat. One thing Bonnie hated was getting wet. He'd been really miserable just being out in the rain, no way he'd try to swim across a river.

So what would he do? Try and find shelter, I told myself.

I felt a bit happier now. Water was rising fast but not so fast it could catch a cat, and though the new river were running strong, it were a long way short of the huge wave rushing down the dale I'd seen in my fancy.

So I started calling, "Bonnie! Bonnie!" and went wandering off up what were left of the village. The rain was harder now and it seemed to stot up from ground to join the mist so that you could really feel it like stroking your face and arms and legs as you moved along. It were a funny feeling but I were so wet now that I didn't mind it, in fact I think I might have quite enjoyed it if I hadn't been so worried about Bonnie. I couldn't see a thing, but I thought as long as I were going uphill I couldn't come to much harm, and all the time I kept on shouting his name.

And then I heard him meowing back.

I knew right off there were summat wrong. I know all the sounds Bonnie makes, and the kind of yell he gives when he's hungry and wants his supper, or when you've left him shut up for a long time and he's narked with you, is a lot different from the noise he makes when he's scared.

I thought, Mebbe he's hurt himself, and I shouted again, and he shouted back, and I went toward the noise.

First thing I saw was this big pile of stones. Then I heard Bonnie again and I saw his eyes, two slivers of green glistening in the dark. But they were quite high up and I thought he must be standing on this pile of stones. Then above his eyes I saw something else, a paleness in the air, and another pair of eyes, and I took a step closer and saw that someone was holding Bonnie tight against his chest.

And at the same time I realized the pile of stones was all that was left of Neb Cottage and the man holding Bonnie was Benny Lightfoot.

He said, "Is that you, Betsy Allgood?"

His voice were low and unearthly, and his face so thin and his eyes so staring, he looked just like one of the nixes I recall seeing in an old picture book. I'd never been so scared before, nor since. But he had Bonnie and I knew that nixes ate any beasts they took, lambs or dogs, or cats.

So I said, "Yes, it is."

He said, "And you've come calling for me," sort of wonderingly.

I said, "No, I were calling for my cat." Then seeing how he'd made his mistake, I went on, "He's Bonnie. That's what I were calling. Bonnie, not Benny."

"Bonnie not Benny," he echoed. Then he sort of smiled, and he said, "Never mind, you're here now, Betsy Allgood. Come here."

"No, I don't want to," I said.

"You mean, you don't want your cat?"

He held Bonnie up in both hands and he must have squeezed or something, because Bonnie let out a squawk of pain. I didn't decide to do anything, I just found myself walking toward him.

He were standing higher than I was, being up the fell and also on one of the stones from the cottage, and he held Bonnie out toward me. I reached up to take him, but just as my fingers were almost touching his fur, Benny pulled him back with one hand andwiththe other he grabbed me by the arm.

I started screaming, and he pulled me closer to him, his fingers so tight around my flesh, I thought he were going to snap the bone. His face came down close to mine and I could feel his breath on my face, his cold wet lips against my neck, as he spoke in a horrible, breathless whisper, "Listen, listen, little Betsy. I don't want to hurt you, all I want you to do is-"

Then, because I were twisting so hard to get away, he must have slackened his grip on Bonnie, and Bonnie shot up into the air and caught with his claws at Benny's face to stop himself falling.

Now it were Benny's turn to scream. He let go of me to grab at the cat, but Bonnie was already dropping to the ground, and I stooped down and scooped him up. Benny made another grab for me, I felt his fingers touch my hair, but it were so short and so wet, he couldn't get any grip, and then I was running away fast as I could with Bonnie in my arms.

How far I ran I don't know. Not all that far. The ground was damp and skiddy and covered with rocks and I soon tripped and fell. I could feel my ankle hurting, so I didn't try to get up but rolled over under a big boulder and lay there, panting so hard, I thought I must be heard half a mile away. But slowly my breathing eased, and Bonnie, tight against my chest, seemed to know that it wasn't a good idea to make a lot of noise, and eventually I could hear the hiss of the rain once more, and the thunder of White Mare's Tail, and the roar of the new force tumbling down from Black Moss.

There were other sounds, too, movings, shiftings, breathings, which could have been Benny looking for me, so I closed my eyes and lay there quiet as I could and tried to say my prayers like the Reverend Disjohn had taught me. But I couldn't say them in my mind and I didn't dare say them out loud for fear of sharp ears out there listening for me. In the end I think I fell asleep. Or mebbe I started to die. Mebbe it's the same. One moment you're here, next you're nowhere.

Then suddenly I were plucked from that peaceful darkness by arms seizing me close and a voice crying in my ear. For a second I struggled wildly, thinking that Benny had got me again. Then the smell of the body I was pressed against and the sound of the voice in my ears told me it was my dad who'd got ahold of me, and I pressed close as I could, and I knew everything was going to be all right now. I thought everything was going to be all right forever.

On the third day of the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, Shirley Novello woke up feeling pissed off.

The feeling hit her a good minute before she'd struggled far enough out of the clutches of sleep to identify its source. Feelings were like that. Sometimes she woke up happy and lay there luxuriating in mindless joy till finally her waking brain reminded her what she was happy about.

Now she opened her eyes, saw the inevitable bright sunlight spilling in through the thin cotton curtains, yawned, and remembered.

Andy Dalziel, the Pol Pot of Mid-Yorkshire, the thinking woman's Kong, had told her to keep Peter Pascoe's appointment with Ms. Jeannie fucking Plowright, head of Social Services, this morning.

She tried to tell herself she should be flattered to be handed the DCI'S assignment, but all she could feel was pissed. Like yesterday. She'd done all the hard work on the cars, then she'd been shoved off into the school to talk to the kiddywinks. She'd dragged herself back from that by persuading Wield that it was worth asking questions about the blue station wagon the whole length of the Highcross Moor road. He'd gone along with it more, she guessed, because he couldn't think of anything better for her to do than in expectation it would be worth doing. Well, she'd proved him wrong. Result, they had a suspect. Okay, no one seemed very hopeful, but no one had come up with anyone better. Turnbull was for the time being the focal point of the inquiry. The clock was ticking. He would have to be released later today if nothing concrete emerged. But that gave them several more hours to hammer away. She ought to be there, helping with the hammering. Instead of which she was pushed out to the periphery again, all because these pathetic men were scared something from a fifteen-year-old cock-up might come back to haunt them.

Unfair, she told herself. She'd spent a good part of last night studying the Dendale file. The photos of those three little blond-haired girls had gripped her throat like a cold hand and she'd had to pour herself a drink. There'd been a photo of the fourth girl, too, Betsy Allgood, the one who got away, a strange little chubby-faced creature, with cropped black hair, more like a boy than a girl, except for those wide watchful eyes which seemed to belong to some creature of the night. What had become of her? Had the experience of being attacked by Lightfoot left its mark on her soul forever? Or had the resilience of childhood been powerful enough to shrug it off, leaving her free to go forward unscathed?

Whatever, yes, if she'd been engaged in such a case and not brought it to a satisfactory conclusion, then she, too, might find it haunting her dreams for the rest of her life. In fact, if they didn't get a result in the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, perhaps fifteen years from now…

She pushed the thought away. They were going to get a result. And if the memory of Dendale made the Fat Man even more determined to get his man, that was all to the good.

But this concern with old Mrs. Lightfoot was surely clutching at straws. She was old and sick fifteen years ago. She was almost certainly long dead. God rest her soul, she added, crossing herself. Police work meant you had to become hardened to death in the physical sense, able to look at all sorts and conditions of corpse without spewing your guts. She was becoming better at that. But she was determined to avoid that parallel and irreversible hardening of the emotional and spiritual response.

Now the reason why the DCI couldn't keep his own appointment rose to the surface of her mind and with it a surge of guilt at her own resentment.

She slipped out of bed, dropped on her knees before the ghastly picture of the Blessed Virgin her mother had bought at Lourdes and made her promise to hang on her bedroom wall, presumably as the only form of prophylactic a good Catholic girl owt to use, and said a quick prayer of intercession for the Pascoe girl. Then she rose and looked at herself in the mirror.

A wreck, she judged herself. So fucking what? Even a wrecked policewoman would shine among the tatty-bag-smock-and-no-makeup freaks who haunted the offices of Social Services!

It came as a shock at nine o'clock to find herself facing a tall, slender woman in a Gucci-clone suit.

And she clearly came as a disappointment to the head of Social Services.

"I was expecting DCI Pascoe," said Plowright.

And looking forward to him, thought Novello. The sexy face of policing!

"He couldn't make it," she said, and explained why.

"Oh, God, that's terrible," said Plowright, concern shining through with a force which must have reassured many clients ready to be alienated by her appearance. She made a note on a pad, then became briskly professional.

"So how can I help? The message said something about Mrs. Lightfoot from Dendale."

Novello explained. She thought she'd been equally briskly professional but when she'd finished, the social worker said, "And you think it's a waste of time?"

Shit, thought Novello. Memo to self: Plowright's job, like her own, required sensitivity to subtexts, and she'd been a lot longer at it.

She tried for a misunderstanding. "Sorry, I know how busy you are.

…"

"Not my time. Yours," smiled Plowright, pulling out a gold cigarette case and proffering it. Novello shook her head. Smoking was one form of male CID camouflage she had steadfastly resisted. Plowright lit up without any of the now almost compulsory do-you-mind? gestures. Well, it was her office.

"But Peter, DCI Pascoe, presumably didn't think it a waste of his time," the woman continued.

"Mr. Pascoe's a very thorough man," said Novello, determined to retake the high ground. "He likes to eliminate the possible, no matter how improbable. So, can you help, Mrs. Plowright?"

"Call me Jeannie," said the woman. "Yes, I think I can. It's a long time ago, but fortunately we tend to hoard our records. I became involved with Agnes, that's old Mrs. Lightfoot, after she'd recovered from her stroke sufficiently to be moved out of hospital. Things weren't quite so bad in the NHS back then, but already there was a growing shortage of beds, and hospital managers were particularly keen to avoid becoming long-term minders of the elderly infirm."

"So Agnes was no longer in need of treatment?"

"She was in need of care," said Plowright. "No way could she go back to looking after herself. Mentally she was back to full strength, but she couldn't walk unaided and had limited use of her left hand and arm. No further physical improvement was expected, so the hospital turned to us. Our job-my job-was either to get her a nursing-home place or find some member of her family able and willing to look after her. The latter didn't seem a possibility."

"Why?"

"Because her son was dead, her daughter-in-law had remarried and gone to Australia, and her designated next of kin was her grandson, Benny, and nobody knew where he was, but I daresay you know all about that."

"So what happened?" asked Novello, ignoring the dig.

"I set about finding her a place in one of our approved nursing homes. Agnes didn't cooperate. There were forms to be filled in, details to check, all the usual bureaucracy. She just refused to answer questions or write her signature. And then her niece turned up."

"How did that come about?"

"I'd come across her name and address in Agnes's papers, such as they were. One of her old acquaintances from Dendale who came to see her told me that this Winifred Fleck was Agnes's niece. They exchanged Christmas cards because that was what relatives did, but there was no love lost between them. I'd gone through the motions of writing to her anyway, because, like Peter Pascoe, I believe in eliminating the possible no matter how apparently improbable."

She smiled as she said this, presumably to show it was a joke, not a crack. Novello gave a token smile back to show she didn't much care which, and said, "But in this case the improbable possible came good, right?"

"That's right. Mrs. Winifred Fleck turned up at the hospital one day, had a chat with Agnes, then informed the authorities that she would be taking her aunt home to live with her."

"Nice caring lady," said Novello approvingly.

"She looked to have the qualifications. She'd worked as a care assistant in a nursing home, so she knew the kind of thing that was involved."

"But you didn't like her?" said Novello, not displeased to show Jeannie Plowright that she wasn't the only one able to pick up a nuance.

"Not a lot. But that means nothing. I can't say I was exactly in love with old Agnes either. You had to admire her will and her independence, but in her eyes I was an authority figure, and she didn't go out of her way to show her best side to authority figures. Anyway, she was compos mentis, so even if the niece had just served time for beating up patients in the geriatric ward, there was nothing I could have done to prevent Agnes moving in with her once she indicated this was what she wanted."

"Which it was?"

"She said so, signed all the hospital discharge papers, didn't bother to thank anyone, was helped into a car by Winifred, and that was that."

"And you heard nothing more?"

"I passed on the papers to the appropriate Social Services office down in Sheffield and checked with them a couple of weeks later. They said everything was fine, Mrs. Fleck was taking her new responsibility seriously, and she'd applied for all the grants and allowances and so on."

"And that was evidence she was taking it seriously?" said Novello.

"Not in itself, but it gave the Social Service department allotting the funds a right of access and inspection. We don't just pour our largesse with unstinting hand and no follow-up, you know."

"No. Sorry. You heard anything since?"

"No. I've enough on my own plate without examining other people's kitchens."

"Of course not. Though you have climbed a bit higher up the tree," said Novello.

"From which the view may be better, you mean?" Plowright grinned. "Depends which way you're looking. I'm sure you'll find out for yourself one day. Are we done?"

"When you give me Mrs. Fleck's address."

It was already typed on a sheet of nonofficial paper.

Winifred Fleck, 9 Branwell Close, Hattersley, Sheffield (South).

As Novello folded it carefully and put it in her shoulder bag, she thought, this woman must have been up at the crack to dig out those old files and prepare herself so thoroughly for the interview. Would she have been quite so conscientious and cooperative if she'd known it was the tweenie who was coming and not the young master?

Meow! she added guiltily.

She stood up, offered her hand, and said, "Thank you for being so helpful."

"Is that what I've been? You've changed your mind about its being a waste of your time, then?"

She spoke very seriously and for a second Novello floundered between courteous dishonesty and honest discourtesy.

Then Jeannie Plowright laughed out loud and said, "Don't worry, my dear. Peter sometimes lets the mask slip too. I hope we meet again soon."

Novello went down the stairs fast and furious.

Bloody patronizing cow! At least you knew where you were with a man, even if it was in the gutter being kicked.

By the time she reached the ground floor, she'd cooled down a bit. Perhaps it was her own fault. She knew that she approached Inspector Maggie Burroughs with a sort of aggressive caution lest it should seem she was expecting some special sisterhood treatment. Not that she was averse to getting it, but she didn't want to look like she was expecting it. Maybe this defiant I'll-do-it-my-way attitude had colored her approach to Jeannie Plowright.

I'll do it my way! Odd choice of song for an advanced feminist.

Bit like Marie Antoinette comforting herself by whistling the "Marseillaise!"

That made her smile away the remnants of her resentment and she went in search of a phone, humming Ol' Blue Balls' hymn.

Through to Danby section office, she asked for Wield and when he came on, she reported the interview crisply, using lessons learned from his book.

"So what do I do now, Sarge?" she asked when she'd finished.

He hesitated, then said, "Well, the super's in with Turnbull at the moment…"

"Anything happening there?" she asked.

"Not a lot," said Wield. "When the clock stops ticking, I reckon he'll walk free. Look, I think you should follow this thing up, even if it's just to make sure it's a cold trail. I'll clear it with Sheffield so's you don't get arrested for impersonating a police officer."

"If you say so, Sarge," she said despondently.

"Believe me, I wish I were coming with you," said Wield. "This isn't going to be a good place to be when Geordie heads for home."

Was he just being kind? she asked herself as she got into her car. Or did he mean it?

Bit of both, she guessed.

But she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that she was moving away from the real center of things as she headed south.

Peter Pascoe had watched the sun rise from the roof of the hospital.

"Okay," he said, applauding slowly. "You're so fucking clever, let's see what you can do for my daughter."

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Jill Purlingstone sitting on the parapet, leaning back against the antisuicide mesh, smoking a cigarette. He guessed she'd deliberately shuffled her feet or something to let him know he was overheard. Not that he gave a toss.

He said, "Looks like being a nice day."

She said, "In our house, the wet days are the nice ones."

She looked totally wrecked.

He said, "Didn't know you smoked."

"I gave up when I found I was pregnant."

Superstitiously, he thought, Then this is a bad time to start again.

She said defensively as if he'd spoken, "I need something, and getting smashed didn't seem a good idea."

"It has its attractions, though," said Pascoe.

He liked Jill. She was so determinedly down to earth in face of all temptations to soar. She and her husband came from the same lower-middle-class background, but their newfound wealth (no myth this; the salaries and share options of all the MY Water directors had been frequently listed in the local press in various articles critical of their performance) had changed her very little. Derek Purlingstone, on the other hand, had recreated himself, either deliberately or instinctively, and was now a perfect son-of-privilege clone.

Pascoe, Ellie, and Jill had spent the night at the hospital. There was a limited supply of "guest" beds, and the pressure had been for the men to go home, the women to stay. Purlingstone had let himself be persuaded. Pascoe hadn't even listened. "No," he'd said, and walked away.

"Sunday was such a nice day," said Jill. "You know, one of those perfect days."

Why the hell was she talking about Sunday? wondered Pascoe. Then he got it and wished he hadn't. She was looking for fragments to shore against her ruin, and Sunday, the last day before the illness struck, was being retouched into a picture of perfection.

"Everything went so right, you know how it sometimes does," she continued, after she'd lit a cigarette from her old one. "We got up early, packed the car, I was setting the table for breakfast when Derek said, "No, don't bother with that, we'll eat on the way," so we just chucked everything in, milk, cornflakes, orange juice, rolls, the lot, and we stopped after a while and had a picnic breakfast, sitting on the grass, and we saw an eagle through Derek's glasses, well, it wasn't an eagle really, Derek said it was a peregrine but the girls were so excited at seeing an eagle it seemed a shame to disillusion them, and you could see for miles, miles, I'd have been happy just to spend the whole day there, but the others were so keen to get on, and they were right, we hardly saw any traffic along the back roads and we got this lovely spot in the dunes-"

"I think I'd better head back," said Pascoe. "Let Ellie take a rest."

He saw from her face he'd been more abrupt than he intended, but he couldn't stand here letting a watch over the living turn into a wake for the dead.

Or was it just that this day she was reshaping was a day he had no part in? How far back would he need to go in search of such a perfect day, a day he had spent entirely with his family without any interruption of work? Or why blame work? Interruption from himself, his own preoccupations, his own hang-ups? In fact even when he was with Rosie, was most enjoying her company, wasn't there something of selfishness even in that, a use of her energy and joy as therapy for his own beleaguered mind…?

He raced down the stairs as if running from something. The anger inside which had been his companion for so long now had an object, or rather a twin object-the world in which his daughter could fall so desperately ill, and himself for letting it happen. But there was still no way he could let it out. He reached his right hand in the air, as if it had somehow escaped and he was trying to claw it back inside of him.

A figure was standing on the landing below, looking up at him. Embarrassed, he tried to pretend he was doing a one-armed yawn. Then he saw who it was and stopped bothering.

"Wieldy!" he said. "What brings you here?"

This was probably the stupidest question he'd ever asked, but it didn't matter because now he had reached the landing and he did not resist as his impetus took him into the other's waiting embrace.

They held on to each other for a long moment, then Wield broke away and said, "I saw Ellie. She said she thought you'd be up on the roof. Pete, I'm sorry I didn't get here last night…"

"Christ, you must have left last night to get here so early this morning."

"Yeah, well, I'm an early riser. Ellie says there's no change."

"No, but there was definitely something last night. Ellie was out of the room and I was talking to Rosie and just for a moment I thought she was going to come out of it… I wasn't imagining it, really I wasn't… she definitely reacted…"

"That's great," said Wield. "Listen, everyone's… well, you know. Andy's really cut up."

"Yes. We spoke on the phone. He sounded… angry. Which was how I felt. Still do. I've been feeling angry for a long time now, you know, a sort of generalized anger at… things. What I had at home was my refuge from that. Now I've got something specific to be angry about, but it's taken my refuge too…" He rubbed his hand over his thin, pale face, and had a sudden certainty that that other Peter Pascoe had made the same gesture as he waited for the light to break for the last time on that gray morning in 1917.

"Pete, listen, I almost didn't come, don't ask me why, it was stupid, I felt scared…"

"That's okay. I hate these places too," Pascoe assured him.

"No. Look, only reason I'm mentioning it is, now I'm glad. Because I think it will be all right. Since I got here, that's how I've felt. I'd not say it else."

They stood and looked at each other for a moment, then, embarrassed, looked away.

Pascoe said, "Thanks, Wieldy. How're things going, anyway-with the case, I mean? Andy said something about you bringing in a possible."

"Aye. Fellow called Geordie Turnbull. Has a contracting business. If you read the Dendale file, you might recall he was a possible back then too. So, big coincidence, but I doubt if it's going to come to anything this time either."

"No. Pity," said Pascoe, unable to drum up a great deal of interest. Then, ashamed, he said, "Do you know if Andy did anything about my appointment with Jeannie Plowright this morning?"

"Aye. He's put Novello on it."

Pascoe smiled wanly.

"Oh, well. It wasn't such a good idea anyway."

"Sounds a bit sexist, that," said Wield.

"No, she's a good cop. I just think Andy would have gone himself if he'd felt there was the faintest hope of turning anything up."

"Andy's going to be too busy turning the thumbscrews at Danby, which is where I'm on my way to."

"You've taken the long way round. Thanks a lot, Wieldy."

"Aye well. I'll keep in touch. Keep your chin up. Cheers."

"Cheers."

He touched the younger man's arm, then turned and walked away.

Pascoe watched him go. There had been comfort in the contact, no denying it. But now he was alone again, looking for something to blame. What had he narrowed it down to as he ran down the stairs? Oh, yes. The world and himself.

He went back into the ward.

"You saw Wieldy?" asked Ellie.

"Yes."

"It was good to see him," she said.

"Yes."

He looked from her face to Rosie's, from the blossom to the bud, and felt that if anything happened here, there was no way to duck responsibility, and no way to bear it either. The world was safe. His rage would have to strike where its shadow began.

"Why don't you take a walk?" he said gently. "Jill's up on the roof, having a smoke. Or get yourself a coffee. Go on. I'll stay."

"Okay," she said, unable to resist the gentle force of his will. "I won't be long."

She went out of the room like a woman sleepwalking.

Shit, he thought. She blames herself too. Which is crazy, when it's all my fault. Everything's my fault.

"Even England not winning the Test is my fault," he said out loud. "You hear that, kid? Your father may not have a million in share options, but probably even the water shortage is down to him as well."

This old technique of exaggerating fears till they reached absurdity seemed to work. He sat down by the bed and took his daughter's hand.

"That's right, it's me, dear," he said. "But you'd know that anyway. My smooth, soft concert pianist's fingers are completely different from those rough, calloused stumps of your mum's. But she will spend all day up to the elbows in soapy water when she's not outside picking sisal."

He paused. They'd asked if talking to Rosie would help and got a noncommittal "Can't do any harm." Great. But could she hear? That was what he needed to know. No. Not needed. While there was the faintest chance of the sound of his voice having any effect, he would talk till his larynx was raw. But what to say? He doubted if his introspective ramblings could be all that therapeutic. How could it help for Rosie to know that her dad was a self-absorbed neurotic?

He looked around for the pile of stuff they'd brought in for Rosie, favorite dolls, clothes, books-a great pile to reassure themselves she would soon be convalescent.

At the top was Nina and the Nix. He picked it up, opened it, and began to read aloud.

"Once there were a nix lived by a pool in a cave under a hill.

…"

Hattersley proved to be a large, sprawling development on the southwest fringe of Sheffield. Its design made Hampton Court Maze look like a short one-way street, and confusion was further confounded by the use of the Bronte family as the sole source of street names. Even the inclusion of Maria and Elizabeth, the two sisters who died in childhood, meant there were only seven names to play with, and this deficiency had been overcome by applying each to a street, a road, a way, a crescent, an avenue, a grove, a place, a lane, a boulevard, and a close.

It was, decided Novello, the place that delinquent postmen got sent to.

It took her half an hour to find her way to Branwell Close and when she did, she didn't get out of the car straightaway, not because she was hot and flustered (which she was), but because of the nature of No. 9.

Her job had often taken her to houses which looked so neglected, it came as a surprise to discover people were actually living there. The Fleck bungalow produced the same effect by opposite means. It looked more like an architect's model than the real thing, with its paintwork so bright, its brickwork so perfectly pointed, its little lawn such an exact square of emerald green, its borders so carefully combed, its flowers so precisely planted, its windows so gleamingly polished, its lace curtains so symmetrically hung, and its wrought iron gate so brightly burnished, that when she finally plucked up courage to make an approach, she hesitated to touch the shining latch and tread on the pastel pink flags of the arrow-straight path.

Then a lace curtain twitched and the spell was broken.

The front door opened before she reached it, presumably to save the doorbell from the danger of an alien print.

Winifred Fleck was the kind of thin, straight, pared-down woman who cannot be said to have reached fifty but rather looks as if she has always been there. She wore a nylon overall as sterile as a surgeon's smock, and her right hand held a duster of such a shocking yellow, dust probably flew away at the very sight of it.

"Mrs. Fleck?" said Novello.

"Yes."

"I'm Detective Constable Novello, Mid-Yorkshire CID," she said displaying her warrant card. "It's about your aunt, Mrs. Agnes Lightfoot. I believe she used to live with you."

She used the past tense almost without thinking. The glimpse of the interior through the open door confirmed that the gods of geometry and hygiene ruled inside also. No way was an elderly relative being cared for within these walls, not unless she was moribund and pinned down in a straitjacket of starched white sheets.

"Yes," said Winifred Fleck.

Words, too, were contaminants, it seemed. The fewer you used, the less the risk.

"So what happened? Did she die, Mrs. Fleck?"

Novello tried to infuse a suitable degree of sympathy into her tone but felt that she wasn't altogether successful. Sympathy seemed a commodity which would be wasted here. Also, if truth were told, she couldn't help hoping that the old lady had passed peacefully away. Then she could abandon this wild goose chase and get back to the real work going on around Danby without her.

"No," said Mrs. Fleck.

"No?" echoed Novello. This woman clearly needed some form of accelerant to get her going. Coldly she considered the possibilities, carefully selected the best.

"Perhaps we could talk about this inside? It's so warm out here, I'm sweating cobbles. I'd give my right arm for a cold drink and a fag."

Novello didn't smoke. But the threat of her presence in this temple of hygiene, spraying perspiration and ash all over the place, must be good for a trade-off.

It was.

"She's at Wark House."

"Sorry?" said Novello mishearing workhouse, and thinking this was a bit blunt, even for South Yorkshire.

"Wark House. The nursing home."

"Ah, yes. But she did live with you?"

"For a while. Then she got to be too much. With my back."

"I see. How long was it she lived here, then?"

"Four years, nigh on."

"Four years. And then she got to be too much?"

Mrs. Fleck glared as if sensing a slight.

"She had another stroke. We couldn't manage her. Not with my back."

We. So there was a Mr. Fleck. Probably hanging up in a cupboard so's not to crease the antimacassars.

"And she's still alive?"

"Oh, yes."

That sounded certain, if unenthusiastic.

"You visit her?"

"I look in if I'm up there. I help out sometimes. Just the light work now. With my back."

Plowright had said she'd been a care assistant in a nursing home. With her back!

Novello reproached herself for lack of charity. The woman had, after all, taken her aunt in when there was no one else to look after her. And it was one thing taking care of an old lady who was a bit doddery, but quite another nursing a bedridden invalid. Novello wondered how she'd cope, shuddered at the thought, and gave Mrs. Fleck a guilt-inspired smile as she said, "If you'd give me the address, I'll not take up any more of your time."

She got the address and directions and took her leave.

As she moved away, Mrs. Fleck said, "What's this about?"

At last, curiosity. Novello had been wondering about its absence.

"Just an inquiry," she replied. "Nothing to concern yourself with."

Lovely language, English. One word covering both legitimate anxiety and sticking your neb in!

She closed the gate carefully, resisting the temptation to wipe it with her handkerchief, and got into her car. It was almost a pleasure to be back in that chaotic, unhygienic box, even if it did take a couple of minutes to dig out her map. Mrs. Fleck's directions had been typically precise, but Novello was determined to make sure she lost no more time.

In fact, Wark House proved as easy to find as the woman had indicated. She drove along a main road till, with a suddenness which surprised her, she was out of the city and into wild moorland. Away to her right she could see a lone building standing against the skyline like the Bates house in Psycho. She turned off toward it on a steadily climbing minor road and five minutes later found herself passing through a gateway which would not have looked out of place at the entrance to a small walled city.

The views from here were spectacular, mile after mile of rolling moor, attractive now in its golden robe of bright sunlight, but in lowering cloud and driving rain hardly a prospect calculated to comfort the old and the dying.

Inside, she took a deep breath, recalling Father Kerrigan's technique for grading the old folks' homes he visited. "If you can smell piss in the hallway, start asking questions."

Wark House passed that test, which was a relief. In fact looking around she was pleasantly surprised by the contrast with its forbidding exterior.

A nurse came out of a room, spotted her, asked if she could help.

"Could I see the matron, please?"

She was taken to an open-doored, open-windowed office where a small black woman of about forty sat behind a paper-strewn desk. Her dress was nurselike but not aggressively so, and her smile was natural rather than professional.

"Shirley Novello," said Novello, taking the outstretched hand.

"Billie Saltair," said the woman. "What can I do for you?"

Novello glanced at the door to make sure the nurse had moved out of earshot.

"Close it if you like," said the matron. "I keep it open so's people can see how hard I work. Also this weather, I'd love to create a draft. Usually up here, you open a window and you get hit by a gale that would scatter all this paper round the building in ten seconds flat, which is probably the best way of dealing with it."

Novello closed the door.

"I'm a police officer," she said. "Nothing to worry about, but people can get the wrong idea."

"Is that so?" said Saltair, mildly amused. "Better tell me the right idea before I join them."

"You've got a Mrs. Agnes Lightfoot staying here, I believe."

"That's right."

"How is she?"

"She's fine, considering."

"Considering what?"

"Considering she can't walk, is half blind, has problems with her speech, and hardly ever gets a visitor."

"Not even Mrs. Fleck?"

"You know Winifred?" said the matron neutrally.

"I've met her. She works here, doesn't she?"

"Occasionally."

"Yes, of course. Her back."

"Ah, you've met her back too?"

The two women regarded each other deadpan for a moment, then began to smile.

"Perhaps I'd better explain," said Novello, deciding that with Billie Saltair, frankness was likely to provoke frankness.

She outlined the background of the case succinctly, finishing by saying, "So all you've got to do is confirm Mrs. Lightfoot hasn't had any strange man in his thirties visiting her in the past couple of weeks and I can get out of your hair."

Saltair was frowning and shaking her head.

"Sorry, I can't do that," she said.

"Oh, come on! It's hardly privileged medical information, is it?" said Novello, irritated, especially as her liking for the matron had led her to strain her own bounds of professional discretion.

"You're getting me wrong," said the matron. "What I mean is I can't tell you Agnes hasn't had any such visitor. There was a man came last week, Friday morning it was. I wasn't here, but I got told all about it when I got back. It was news, you see, Agnes being visited. Unfortunately it was Sally that met him when he turned up on the doorstep. Sally's our youngest nurse, just started. Normally any new visitor would be steered along here first, just so's we can run an eye over them, also put them in the picture about whoever they're wanting to see, once we've judged them genuine. But Sally didn't take this fellow to meet my deputy, just led him straight into Agnes's room and left him there. And by the time she mentioned it to Mary-that's my deputy-the bird had flown."

"Could I talk to Sally?" asked Novello, trying to keep it casual, but with her stomach churning with excitement. Up to now she'd been putting this whole thing down to ultracautious Pascoe covering every angle. She'd ignored his reputation for finding corners of an investigation other cops couldn't reach. What was it that one of her friendlier male colleagues, DC Dennis Seymour, had said when he had invited her to have supper with him and his nice Irish wife and they'd lounged around afterward drinking Old Bushmill? "Big Andy's easy to follow. He walks through walls and you just pour in after him through the gap. But that Pascoe's something else. He creeps through cracks and you've no idea where the clever sod's taking you."

Saltair had gone to the door and yelled at someone to ask Sally to step along when she had a moment.

"Anything else you can tell me about this guy?" asked Novello.

"It's all hearsay with me, best leave it to Sally," said Saltair, which suggested to Novello's sensitive ear that there was.

"Okay," she said. "So what about Agnes? were you here when she came into the home?"

"Sure I was. I've been here from the start. This place used to be the family house of one of the consultants at the hospital I worked at. His wife died, his family moved on, and he was rattling around in here, so he decided to move out. But he saw the way things were going back in the eighties-health care for the aged was going to be a major growth industry-so instead of selling up, he turned the place into what you see and made his favorite staff nurse, who happened to be me, an offer I couldn't refuse. That was seventeen years ago. Jesus, where does the time go?"

"And Winifred Fleck?"

"She came along at the start too. As a care assistant. She'd had some experience and she was pretty good. Not overendowed with human sympathy maybe, but you may have noticed that when it comes to hygiene and good order, she's got no equal."

"It did strike me that her lawn looked freeze wrapped," said Novello.

"Yes, well, mustn't mock. Too much. Hygiene's really important in a place like this, and having someone like Winifred around really kept us on our toes. Must say we were all a bit surprised way back when we heard she was taking an invalid aunt in."

Novello said lightly, "I suppose we're all inclined to take care of our well-to-do relatives."

"Indeed. And if that had been a motive, I could have understood it. But Agnes had a few hundred in the bank, no more. I know because when she had her second stroke and came in here, she was on full grant from the start."

"Sorry, what does that mean?"

"Put simply, the more you've got saved up, the larger your personal contribution to our fees. But if your savings are under what was a fairly modest limit ten years back, then Social Services pick up the tab. The limit's gone up quite a lot since then, with a lot of well-heeled people complaining it was a tax on thrift."

"And the authorities check up on this?"

"Oh, yes. They require sight of bank statements and so on for a couple of years before admission just to make sure there hasn't been some recent large movement of funds in anticipation of care need."

"Which bank?" Novello surprised herself and the matron by asking. But she looked it up and said, "The Mid-Yorkshire Savings." As Novello made a note, she mused, "So Agnes had nothing or very little when she came here. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean she had nothing when she went to live with Winifred."

She saw instantly that she had made a bad move. Billie Saltair's lips puckered like she was sucking a lemon and she said, "Let's get one thing straight, Detective Constable. Winnie Fleck can be a pain in the arse, and I know she'd stoop a hell of a long way, bad back and all, to pick up a penny, but she's as honest as the day is long. Sure, if old Agnes did have a fortune, Winifred would expect her share of it as her due when the old lady died. But she wouldn't screw it out of her, no way."

"Sorry," said Novello meekly, but was saved from further apology by the arrival of a young nurse with short red hair and an anxious expression.

"Sally, this is Shirley Novello," said the matron, obviously judging that any mention of the police would only increase the girl's tension. "We were just talking about Agnes. Miss Novello thinks she might know the visitor she had last week and as you're the only one who actually met him, I'd like you to tell her whatever you can remember. It's okay. There's nothing wrong."

She smiled reassuringly and the girl relaxed slightly and began talking, "Well, he just came in and when I spoke to him and he said he was Agnes's grandson, I got quite excited 'cos I knew Agnes didn't get many visits so I just took him straight along to her room, we usually bring her down to the dayroom after eleven but she hadn't been feeling too clever so it seemed best to let her lie on and see how she felt after lunch…"

The nurse spoke in a flash flood of words which a linguist might have been content to observe from the bank till it died away of its own accord. Billie Saltair, however, bravely plunged in with "Okay, Sally, we get the picture. Miss Novello?"

"He told you he was Agnes's grandson?" said Novello.

"Oh, yes, that's why I took him straight up, he said, "Hello, I believe you've got my grandmother Mrs. Agnes Lightfoot living here," and I said, yes-"

"Did he tell you his name?" said Novello, following the matron's example.

"No, but when I took him in and said, Agnes, I've got a visitor for you, it's your grandson, she said, "Benny, Benny, is that you? I knew you'd come someday, I always knew," and then he took her hand and sat down by the bed and I left them together 'cos I didn't want to intrude…"

"You did okay, Sally," said Novello, smiling. "You were quite right. They needed to be alone. So, her grandson after all these years. How did he look? Not a short, fat chap, was he?"

"Oh, no, he was quite tall and very thin, even his face, sort of long and narrow, and brown, with the sun I mean, well, I know everyone's quite brown just now what with all this heat wave, but his face was sort of leathery like he was used to being out in the sun all of the time which isn't surprising because they get this kind of weather all the time in Australia-"

"Hold on," said Novello. "Why do you say Australia?"

"Because of the way he talked-he had this accent, you know, sort of cockney but different, like the way they speak in Australian movies and Neighbors on the telly."

"And his clothes?"

"Blue-and-white checked shirt, short sleeves, dark blue cotton slacks, black moccasins," said Sally with a precision almost shocking by comparison with her customary loquaciousness.

"Age?" said Novello hoping to stay tuned to this new wavelength.

"Thirties maybe. Hard to say with that leathery, sunburnt look."

"How long did he stay?"

"Well, I don't know exactly, there was a bit of a crisis with Eddie, that's Mr. Tibbett, having a fall, and we had to get him into bed and then call out the doctor just to make sure he hadn't done himself any real harm and next time I looked in on Agnes, he'd gone, her grandson I mean-"

Clearly clothes and looks were her special subject.

"You didn't happen to notice how he got here?" said Novello. "Car? Taxi? Bike?"

"Sorry," said the girl. "He was in the hallway when I saw him, I didn't see if there was a car or anything…"

This time she tailed off of her own accord, sounding distressed.

"Hey," said Novello brightly. "It doesn't matter. You've been a real help. It's not that important. Old Agnes's grandson! I bet she's talked about nothing else since his visit."

"Not really," said Sally. "She doesn't say a lot. It's hard for her, finding the words, you see. I asked her about him, you know, just making conversation. But all she said was, "I knew he'd come, he's a good lad, whatever they say." And when I tried to ask a few questions, she just closed her eyes, so I didn't say anything else. I thought she probably wanted to keep the memory to herself. It could be all she's got."

Novello smiled and said, "No. She's got good nurses and friends like you, Sally, and that's a lot. Thank you. You've been really helpful."

The girl flushed, glanced at the matron, who nodded dismissal, then left the room at a lope.

"You handle people well," said Saltair.

"Thanks. And sorry again for treading on your toes about Winifred."

"But you'll still check?"

"If I told you one of your patients didn't have a heart condition, would you simply put in on his record?"

"Certainly not. But Winifred isn't one of your patients. I mean, she's got nothing to do with this other business, has she?"

"Not that I can see," said Novello. "Not, in fact, that I can see very much at all."

"So Sally hasn't helped?"

"In one way, of course she has. But sometimes more information just means more confusion."

"I know the feeling. Like symptoms. They don't always help diagnose the right disease."

Novello reached out her hand.

"Anyway, thanks for your help. Look, I don't see any point to me bothering Agnes now. Or at any time, from the sound of it. But there may be others who think differently. I'll need to discuss all this with my superiors. They may want to talk to her."

"They'll need to talk to me first," said Billie Saltair with an anticipatory smile. "No one tells me what to do at the Wark."

"Not even your boss?"

"My boss?" said Saltair sounding surprised.

"The owner. The consultant who made you the offer you couldn't refuse."

"Oh, you mean my husband?" She laughed at Novello's expression. "I should have said. That was the offer I couldn't refuse. He's retired now." She grinned rather wickedly. "I've told him there's a bed waiting for him here the first sign he gives of senility, like trying to interfere with the way I run things. I think he half believes me."

And so do I, thought Novello as she headed out into the savage brightness of that moorland sun.

And so do I!

Wield yawned.

Sergeant Clark, not normally an imaginative man, somehow found himself thinking of a visit to Wookey Hole he'd made on holiday years back.

"You were saying, Nobby?"

Wield's face had resumed its normal blank cragginess.

"Oh, aye. She said you rather than the super, if that was possible."

So WOULDC Novello finds me more user friendly than Fat Andy, thought Wield. Should I be flattered?

He yawned again. It wasn't just his even earlier-than-usual reveille that was making him tired. It was the emotional energy he'd used in making the visit to the hospital, plus the hours he'd spent since in that claustrophobic interview room going round and round in ever-decreasing circles with Ringmaster Hoddle cracking the whip.

Well, it was over now. Dalziel had taken Clark's interruption as the signal to abandon hope even though there were still ten minutes to go on the clock.

He picked up the phone and said, "Wield."

He listened carefully to what she told him, making notes in his notebook.

When she finished he said, "So what do you do now?"

Surprised, she said, "That's why I was ringing, Sarge. To get instructions."

"You're the one hot on the scent," said Wield. "How do you see the next move?"

She hesitated then said, "I know it's a lousy time and all that, but I wonder if someone shouldn't run this by the DCI. I mean, it was his call, and he may have thought it through a lot further than the rest of us… I mean, that's the way he does things, isn't it? Coming at them sort of cockeyed… I don't mean-"

"I know what you mean," said Wield gently. "You're dead right. Someone ought to run this past him."

"That's the way I see it," said Novello relieved. "So what shall I do till I hear from you?"

"From me?" echoed Wield.

"Or from the super, whoever does it."

"Into job delegation, are you?" said Wield. "No, this one's up to you. Got a pen? I'll give you Mr. Pascoe's mobile number."

"Sarge, I couldn't… it's not right… someone who's a friend, maybe…"

"That what you're going to say next time you're told to question some woman who's just seen her husband kicked to death, is it? Any road, if you don't think Mr. Pascoe's your friend, then I can't imagine who you think is. So write this down. And keep me posted."

As he replaced the receiver after dictating the number, it rang again.

"Mr. Dalziel, please," said a female voice.

"Mr. Dalziel's"-busy he'd been going to say, but as the Fat Man walked into the office at that moment, mopping his brow with a khaki handkerchief like the side of a military marquee, he emended it to "-here."

"Hello?" growled Dalziel.

"If I were you, I'd take a closer look at Walter Wulfstan."

The line went dead.

"Anything?" said Wield as Dalziel banged the phone down.

"Some nut telling me to take a close look at Wulfstan."

"And will you?"

"At the moment all I want to take a close look at is a yard of ale. Let's sneak out the back while Turnbull and Hoddle are attracting the press flies out front."

The Coach and Horses was only a few yards down the street, and seated in its cool dark bar, the Fat Man downed his first pint in a single draft and was well into his second as Wield filled him in on Novello's report.

"And you've told her to ring Pete? That's a bit hard, isn't it?"

"Who for, sir?"

"Both on 'em! Her for having to do it and him for having to answer it."

This was a new situation, Dalziel playing Mr. Nice to Wield's Mr. Nasty.

He said carefully, "When I saw Pete this morning, it seemed to me that what he needs least is being left to himself. I'd say he's not been really right since that business about his great-granddad, and this thing with his lass is-could be-a last straw. Even if all Novello gets is a blasting, at least it'll have been a diversion."

"So that's Pete taken care of. What about the lass?"

"Part of the learning curve, isn't that what they say, sir?"

"Is that what it is? Well, women have different curves from men, or mebbe you haven't noticed. Seems to me she's making summat from nothing out of this assignment and she ought to be encouraged."

"My reading of her is that's exactly what this is. Encouragement."

"Oh, aye? What do you do for reward out there at Enscombe? Kick each other in the teeth?"

Dalziel finished his second pint and signaled for a third. A memory of the one he'd left standing in The Book and Candle flashed across his mind.

"So what do you think, sir," said Wield, moving the subject on, "-the old lady's visitor, could it be Benny?"

"Who ran off to Oz to join his mum and has now come back on a trip, had a chat with his gran, then decided to come up here and start where he left off, killing little lasses? Make a great book, Wieldy. I'll wait for the movie."

"But the facts, sir-"

"Facts? What a teenage nurse thought she heard a half-blind, half-doolally old woman say?"

"But alongside Mrs. Hardcastle's sighting-"

"That's a fact now, too, is it?" said Dalziel. "Only fact about that is that it set her plonker of a lad running riot with a spray gun…"

He paused, and supped another gill of ale.

"He'd have had to notice it, wouldn't he, Wieldy?" he said. "If any man on God's earth is going to notice a sign saying BENNY'S BACK!, it's Walter Wulfstan. But he never mentioned it. And now we're getting funny phone calls."

He drained his pot and stood up.

"Where are we going, sir?" said Wield, taking a farewell sip of his shandy.

Dalziel hesitated then said, "Nay, lad, you get back to St. Mike's and make sure George Headingley's not using them computers to work out his pension fund."

"And you, sir. Where will you be in case we need you?"

"I think I'll pop round and have another chat to Wulfstan."

"At the Science Park?"

"Mebbe closer than that." He raised his voice and addressed the man behind the bar. "Landlord, I feel a religious fit coming on. How do I find my way to the Beulah Chapel?"

In fact if guilt is the starting point of religion, Andy Dalziel's jocularity had a grain of truth in it, for he felt slightly guilty as he parted from Wield and went in search of the chapel.

It was true, he had good reason to believe Wulfstan could be there this afternoon, but he also had a feeling, or a hope, or something, that Cap Marvell might also be around. Wield knew the woman, knew of their past relationship, and while Dalziel was far too pachydermatous an animal to worry about his colleagues' speculating about a relationship, he didn't care to think of them reaching a conclusion before he did.

So giving the sergeant his conge, plus a curiously puritanical self-doubt as to whether in a case like this, at a time like this, he had any right for such private and personal concerns, left the Fat Man uneasy.

He shook his head to dislodge the feeling like a bear dislodging a bee, and considered his location. Left under an arch, down an alleyway and the chapel's in yard at bottom, the landlord had said.

There was the arch. He turned under it. By contrast with the bright street the alleyway was a railway tunnel, so when the voice spoke, he had a problem spotting its source.

"I see he's back, then."

"Eh?" said Dalziel, poised on the balls of his feet with his fists lightly clenched, ready for either punching or grappling. Strange voices in dark places didn't always presage trouble, but it was worth an across-the-board bet.

"Yon mad bugger, Lightfoot. He's back. I'd have thought you'd have known."

The voice was lightly matter-of-fact, and had the reediness of age or perhaps adolescence. Dalziel relaxed a little and blinked rapidly till his sight adjusted to the new light level.

He saw a shape first, small enough to be a boy. Then his brain filled in a face and he leapt rapidly to the other end of the scale. It was a hollow, sunken face with deep clefts in the skin to mark the cheekbones and split the brow, over which hung a few wisps of thin, graying hair.

It also had something familiar about it.

"Telford?" said Dalziel doubtfully. "Joe Telford? Is that you?"

"It was," said the man. "Long time no see, Mr. Dalziel."

It was indeed. But not as long as that evidenced by this man's appearance. He must still be in his forties! thought Dalziel. And while he'd never been a large man, surely he'd been taller than this?

He took a few steps toward the sunlight at the end of the alleyway and the man moved back before him, like flotsam pushed up the beach by the tide. Now the reason for the height loss became evident. Telford walked with a stoop, leaning heavily on a thick ashen stick. The dark brown suit he wore, making no concessions to the heat, may once have fitted, but now it hung on his slight frame like a tea towel on a beer pump.

The alleyway ended in an open cobbled yard, across which Dalziel saw the Beulah Chapel. It was an imposing building, constructed of dark red brick and looking rather out of place, certainly out of proportion, in this location. A faint buzz came out of it as from a huge hive of bees. The yard itself was littered with a carpenter's bench, several trestles bearing lengths of wood, and plastic carriers stuffed with tools.

Telford had halted, still in the alleyway's shade. He was tidy enough despite the ill-fitting suit, clean shaven, and smelled of soap and sawdust rather than neglect. This was slightly but not totally reassuring. Dalziel had met too many folk in whom cleanliness was next to dottiness, and his inner sensors were telling him Joe Telford was dotty as a dartboard.

"So how're you doing, Mr. Telford?" said the Fat Man.

"I get by. It's been a worry, but."

"Aye, I daresay it has," said Dalziel.

"Still, wi' a bit of luck, you'll catch bugger this time and that'll be an end on it."

It was the unremittingly matter-of-fact tone of voice which was perhaps the most unnerving thing about the man. In fact, the premature aging apart, it was the only unnerving thing about him. So why was he getting that care-in-the-community tingle? Dalziel decided to apply a subtle psychological test.

"Sorry to hear about your missus," he said. "Must've been a shock."

Telford looked at him and scratched his chin reflectively.

"Not so much of a shock as it'll be to our George when he sees what she does to a tube of toothpaste," he said.

Dalziel smiled approvingly. Flying colors. That was how you expected a down-to-earth Yorkie to react to domestic strife.

"So you're letting the singers use the chapel," he said.

"Aye. Why not? To tell truth, Mr. Dalziel, I don't spend a lot of time down here. And Mr. Wulfstan were always a good customer in the old days. Owt needed done at Heck, he always went local, didn't bring in some fancy Dan from town like a lot of them off-comers. He'll be glad of it too."

"Glad of having somewhere for his concert, you mean? I expect he will."

"No. Glad you're close to getting things sorted. He'll be wanting to see his little lass as much as me."

"See his lass?" echoed Dalziel. "Aye, I daresay, I daresay."

He was thinking remains. He didn't need any bereavement counselor to tell him how important it was for a parent's peace of mind to have a proper funeral, a proper leave-taking, after no matter how many years.

But Telford's next words sent him reeling back to his initial diagnosis.

"This sun's a bloody nuisance, but. You'll have to take care of that when you find them. Could burn their eyes out after all them years in the dark. Best wait for night afore you fetch them out."

"Fetch them out? Out of where, Mr. Telford?"

"Out of yon hole in the Neb he's been keeping them in all these years. Aye, night 'ud be best. Then let them get used to the light gradual like."

Oh, fuck, thought Dalziel. The poor bastard wasn't talking remains, he was talking recovery, he was talking resurrection. He thought his lost lass was going to come up blinking out of some dark cave in the hillside where Benny had kept her all these years. Did he think she'd be older or that some magical suspension of time would have kept her the same age as when she got taken? Dalziel didn't want to know. It was that rare thing, a problem beyond his competence. He remembered Telford's wife. A small, strong woman who had balled up her apron and stuffed it into her mouth when she heard the news. He guessed she'd have kept her suffering to as far as she could, would finally have come to some sort of terms with it. But what was beyond her strength, what she couldn't come to terms with after all these years, was the matter-of-fact craziness of her husband, his gentle insistence that little Madge was alive under the Neb somewhere, just waiting to be rescued. So she'd run. Not far, just to George, who bore a strong physical resemblance to his brother. He bet they lived close. He bet they kept a close eye on Joe. And the Danbyians would accept it. In matters of extramarital lust Yorkshire rustics could be as unforgiving as a government chief whip, but in terms of domestic practicality, they were often more laid back than Latins.

He said gently, "We'll do what's right, Mr. Telford. Is Mr. Wulfstan here now?"

"Aye, him and some others. I'm just waiting for the truck to come. Mr. Wulfstan's arranged to have my bits and pieces taken round to store at his place in the Science Park. I told him not to bother, they'd not come to harm in this weather. But he insisted. He's a good man."

"I'll go and have a word with him, then, Mr. Telford. You take care now."

He strode across the yard thinking, This is no place for me. He didn't mean the Beulah Chapel, he meant Danby. Soon as he'd got news of the case, he should have gone sick, taken a holiday, dumped the whole thing in Peter Pascoe's lap. Then he recalled what else had been dumped in his lieutenant's lap and growled to himself. "Get a grip on yourself, man, or you'll end up daft as poor Joe Telford."

He glanced back to the alleyway. The man had stepped farther back into the deep shade and was only visible now as a gleam of eye white. Perhaps he haunted shadowy places because he felt they somehow kept him in touch with his daughter.

Shaking the depressing thought from his mind, Dalziel pushed open the door of the chapel.

There were several people in there, three of them using vacuum cleaners, which explained the buzzing. The floor space was devoid of pews. Perhaps they'd been removed when the chapel was decommissioned. Or maybe the Beulahites didn't believe in sitting at worship. There was nowt so harmless that some religious sect hadn't made it a sin.

At the far end, where presumably the altar (if they went in for altars) had stood, he saw Wulfstan in a little group which included the two singers. Behind them, Inger Sandel was sitting at a piano, plucking out single notes and examining them long after they had ceased to resound in Dalziel's ear. There was no sign of Cap Marvell. He felt a sag of disappointment, then told himself he had no right to be disappointed, not when the man he wanted to see was in place.

Not that his reason for wanting to see him was any stronger than not having anyone else he wanted to see at that moment. Some investigators he knew, when things ground to a halt in an inquiry, got through by sitting down and going over the story-so-far with a fine-tooth comb. He had two on his team who could do that, in their different ways. But his own way was to make things happen, keep prodding, never let the opposition have a rest, even when you didn't have the faintest idea who the opposition was. When this ignorance had been put to him as a possible invalidation of the technique by Peter Pascoe, Dalziel had replied, "Doesn't matter. The bugger knows who I am and so long as he sees me busy, there's no way he'll rest peaceful in his bed. Push, push, and see what gives."

"Superintendent," Wulfstan greeted him. "I hope you have not decided that you need this hall also."

"Nay, this is all yours," said Dalziel magnanimously. "Standing room only, is it? Like in the Prams?"

"Proms, I think you mean. Where people do stand, yes, but the majority sit. Here everyone will sit. We're having the chairs brought round as soon as we get the place properly cleaned."

"Aye, I can see you're giving it a good going-over," said the Fat Man.

"The atmosphere of a carpenter's shop is not helpful to a singer's throat," said Wulfstan. "I'll be having a commercial dust extractor brought down from my works later to complete the job. So, how can I help you?"

"Just a word," said Dalziel. "Private."

He glanced at the others in the group. The three he didn't know drifted away. Krog and the woman remained where they were.

"Please, you may say what you will before Elizabeth and Arne," said Wulfstan.

Dalziel shrugged.

"Up to you," he said. "Driving into Danby on Sunday morning you'd have to pass under the old railway bridge. There was a big sign sprayed on it. It said BENNY'S BACK! You must have noticed it. But you didn't mention it to me."

He'd placed himself so that all three were in his sight line, and he saw the woman's intense gaze move from his face to her father's as though curious as to the answer to this question. Well, why not? It was a question to be curious about.

Wulfstan said, "I did not mention it because it did not seem relevant, and in any case, I did not doubt that you yourself would already have seen it, or had it pointed out to you."

Reasonable explanation? Or rather explanations, there being two of them. In Dalziel's math, this meant reasonableness divided rather than multiplied by a factor of two.

He said, "Not relevant? After what happened back in Dendale? I'd have thought you'd have felt it relevant, if anyone did."

"And the shock of seeing that name would have brought everything flooding back?" Wulfstan smiled wearily. "First of all, Mr. Dalziel, it has never been away. Not a day passes without me thinking of Mary. That was how I was able to return to Yorkshire, because I realized that distance made no difference."

Dalziel clocked Elizabeth again to see if there was any reaction to this unambiguous statement of the order of things, the dead natural daughter still ranking ahead of the live adopted one. There wasn't.

"As for Lightfoot's name," the man went on, "there was a time when it caused a reaction. But that was several years ago when I first returned here to Danby. He has entered the local folklore. The children have a skipping rhyme that uses his name, and when they play hide-and-seek, the seeker is called Benny. The men in the pubs describing the speed of some football player will say, "He can move like Benny Lightfoot." Most of them have no idea who they're referring to, of course. With my work site here, I had to get used to the name. And I did."

Dalziel nodded sympathetically.

"Aye, grin and bear it, that's the Yorkshire way," he said.

That got a flicker of amusement from the woman.

Wulfstan said, "Now, if that's all… I'm expecting the fire inspector any minute now-"

"Sorry, I know you're busy, yes that's it… except…"

Dalziel bowled a good except. He gave it plenty of air so the batsman had lots of time to worry whether it was his googly or not.

"… except, you've been set up here in Danby for several years now, right? But witness who saw your car parked up the Corpse Road says she's only started noticing it there in the last couple of weeks, and she's been walking her dog up there every morning, come rain or shine, for years."

Wulfstan looked at him broodingly for a long moment. He looked like… something, Dalziel couldn't remember what. Then he gave an exasperated smile and said, "If your question is, why now? the answer is so obvious, I would have thought even a man in your line of work might have got within hailing distance of it unaided. Morbid curiosity, Superintendent. This heat wave has gone on so long that what remains of Dendale village has begun to reemerge. I climb up the Neb to watch its progress. And sometimes as I walk up the Corpse Road, I fantasize that when I reach the Neb, I'll see everything as it was, I mean everything as it was. There. Now you see the depths of absurdity to which the rational mind can descend."

"Oh, I've seen minds that have gone a sight deeper than that," said Dalziel. "Thanks for being so frank. And I'm sorry to have troubled you."

"No trouble. And perfect timing. There, I believe, is the fire inspector. Excuse me."

He headed toward a man who'd just stepped through the door and was looking around with that skeptical have-we-got-trouble-here? expression which is the first thing safety inspectors learn at college.

"How about us, Superintendent? You got any excepts for us?"

Elizabeth Wulfstan's accent still bothered him, even though he'd absolved her of taking the piss.

He said, "None I can think of, miss. Except, them Kraut songs about dead kids-you still planning to sing them tomorrow?"

"I am. After a complimentary ticket, are you? Well, we might manage one, but I reckon someone as glorrfat as you 'ud need two, and I don't know if we can spare that many."

This was piss taking in any language.

He said, "Just thought you might have changed your mind, all things considered."

The Turnip gave him a nod of approval, but the woman just shrugged indifferently.

She said, "Kids die, all the time. Show me somewhere I could sing them that no kids have died."

"We're not talking general, we're talking specific here," he said.

"I thought the Liggside lass were only missing," she said. "Like the others. They're only missing, right? You never found any bodies, did you?"

She spoke mildly, as if they were discussing some minor point of etiquette.

Dalziel said, "Fifteen years is a long time missing. I don't think anyone…"

He paused. He'd been going to say he didn't think anyone was expecting them to come walking back through the door, but his encounter with Joe Telford popped up in his mind. And what did he really know about what Wulfstan and his wife were thinking? Or the Hardcastles? From what Clark had told him, it sounded like all that family had gone doolally to some degree or another.

Perhaps he was the only man in Mid-Yorkshire who was certain beyond doubt all the children were dead… No, not the only one… there was another…

He said, "Any road, it's none of my business. You can sing what you like, luv, long as it doesn't offend public decency."

"Thank you," she said seriously. "But I'll not be singing at all if this place doesn't suit. You done yet, Inger?"

Inger Sandel hadn't once glanced Dalziel's way during the whole of his conversation with the Wulfstans, concentrating on what sounded to his untutored ear like an unnecessary fine-tuning of the piano. But he had the feeling that she hadn't missed a thing. Now she sat back and started to play a scale, tentative at first, then expanding till she was sweeping up and down the whole length of the keyboard. The notes filled the chapel. Finally she stopped and listened to their dying echoes with the same rapt attention as she'd paid to the originals. Then she turned to the other woman and gave a barely perceptible nod.

"Let's give it a bash, then," said Elizabeth Wulfstan.

Dalziel moved toward the door, Arne Krog fell into step beside him.

"I think you are right, Mr. Dalziel," he said. "Elizabeth should not sing the Kindertotenlieder. For the sake of this place. And for her own sake."

"Her own sake?"

Krog shrugged.

"Elizabeth is strong, like a steel door. You cannot see what is behind it. But as you know, the way the child is shaped forms the adult. Perhaps that's where we should look."

Before Dalziel could reply, Inger Sandel started playing the piano, an abrupt, rapid, disturbing torrent of notes before the singer came in, with words to match.

"In such foul weather, in such a gale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale! They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here."

She spat out the words with such power, they turned the Beulah Chapel into a self-contained storm in the midst of the bright, sunny day outside. As she sang, her eyes were once more fixed on Wulfstan, who at first tried to keep his conversation with the fire inspector going but soon turned his head to watch the singer.

"In such foul weather, in sleet and hail, I'd never have let them play out in the dale. I was feart they'd take badly. Now such fears I'd suffer gladly."

She stopped abruptly and the pianist stopped too.

"Bit echoey," said Elizabeth. "But that'll likely improve once the place is filled with spectators. Arne, you know everything, what do you reckon?"

Her voice was not loud, but its projection was imperative. Practicing to be a prima donna, or does she just not like the idea of me and the Turnip having a cosy chat? wondered Dalziel.

He looked at Krog and waited for his response. A look of irritation passed across the man's face, then he smiled apologetically and said, "Excuse me. We will talk again, perhaps."

He hurried away to the two women by the piano.

Dalziel, who had noticed that Wulfstan, despite his close confabulation with the fire inspector, hadn't missed a nuance of this exchange, murmured to himself, "No perhaps about it, lad."

Then he went out into the sunshine.

It was, decided Pascoe, like being on a stakeout.

You did your stag, sat and watched, nothing happened, you got relieved, went off and had a wash and a sandwich, got your head down if you could, went back on stag, and the longer it all went on, the more you began to fear it was all no bloody use, all just a waste of time, your info was wrong, your snout had been sussed, and nothing was going to happen, not now, not in a few minutes, not ever… never never never never nev- "Everything okay?" said Ellie.

"What? Yeah, sure, fine, I mean no change…"

"You look worse than she does," said Ellie looking from the slight form of her daughter to her husband's drawn face. "Why don't you go and try to get some sleep?"

He shook his head and said, "Been there, tried that, it's worse than being awake."

"Okay. At least get out of this place, try some fresh air and sunshine."

"I'm sick of sunshine, couldn't I try some rain?" he said, managing a smile.

She kissed him gently on the lips and he went out of the ward.

The hospital grounds were extensive and had once been a center of horticultural excellence. But the public purse strings had been drawn much tighter in recent years, and this, plus the drought and its attendant hose ban, had turned the gardens into near desert. He walked around for a while, then sat down on a bench and watched the stream of people moving between the parking lot and the main entrance. Coming, their gait was halting and slow; going they moved with ease and vigor. Or was his keen detective gaze distorted by fatigue and that rumbling rage which, like a storm in a neighbor valley, never left him?

Eventually he must have fallen asleep, for he woke suddenly, slumped against the bench, not knowing where he was, then panicking when he worked it out.

But a glance at his watch told him he'd only been away for half an hour. He stood up, stretched, walked briskly back inside, and found a washroom where he splashed cold water over his face.

He got himself a coffee from a machine and went back upstairs. It was, he decided, too early to go back into the ward. Ellie would just get exasperated with him and give him the let's-be-sensible-about-this lecture. Not that he minded the lecture. Like the Mr. Nice and Mr. Nasty interrogation technique, they took turns at being the tower of strength and the weaker vessel. The lecture was part of Ellie's tower mode.

The waiting-room door was slightly ajar and as he made to enter to finish his coffee inside, he heard Derek Purlingstone's voice. He hadn't seen the man so far today. Maybe Mid-Yorkshire Water needed all their staff out in the sticks, digging for wells. Or maybe he needed to keep busy to stop going mad.

Mad was what he sounded now, more angry than mental.

"You know where I lay the blame, don't you?"

Jill said, "Please, Derek…"

"That bloody school! If only you'd agreed to send her to a decent school, this would never have happened. No! Don't come near me. You smell like an old ashtray. God, did you have to start smoking again?"

Before Pascoe could retreat the door was pulled wide open and Jill Purlingstone, her eyes full of tears, pushed past him and ran down the corridor.

Pascoe stepped inside. His instinct was to pretend he'd heard nothing, but when he broke the awkward silence, he found himself saying, "You don't really think the school's got anything to do with it, do you?"

"They had to catch it somewhere," snapped Purlingstone.

"And you really think there'd have been less chance at what you call a "decent school"?"

Pascoe's intention was still conversational rather than combative. During their few social encounters, usually apropos the children, he'd found Purlingstone pleasant enough company, with sufficient common ground between them to make it easy to pass a couple of hours without trespass into disputed areas on either side. And when they had touched upon forbidden topics, like the responsibilities of a modern police force or the efficiency and record of Mid-Yorkshire Water, they had both been able to settle for a light, piss-taking touch. Perhaps that was what Purlingstone was straining for now as he said, "Don't you? You get what you pay for in this life, Peter. Okay, I know you and Ellie are card-carrying Trots, but I always got the impression you reckoned what was best for Rosie was worth going after, no holds barred."

"The best in the system, by all means," said Pascoe. "But not buying yourself out of the system."

"You mean it's okay for you to call in a few favors to get your kid where you want her, but not for me to pay a few quid to do the same?"

"What the hell are you saying? It's a good school and I'm pleased to have Rosie going there."

"Of course you are, especially as Bullgate Junior's three miles closer to you in the opposite direction. How many parking tickets did you have to cancel to get her on the roll at Edengrove, I wonder?"

The sneer came out so glibly that Pascoe guessed it had been used many times before. So what? he told himself. He wasn't always exactly complimentary about Purlingstone behind his back. Time to back away from this irritable spat between two men who should be united by worry instead of set at each other's throats by it.

That was what his mind was saying, but his voice wasn't taking any notice.

"Oh, yes, you're right, a hell of a lot of parking tickets. But that's because I'm not a fat cat with his nose in the trough, so I can't afford the really big bribes."

Jesus! Where's your self-control? he asked himself. Back off. Back off. He could see the other man, too, was close to snapping. Here it comes. Whatever he says, ignore it, walk away.

But his feet remained rooted as Purlingstone's strained, breathless voice said, "I don't have to take that from a jumped-up plod. I work bloody hard for my money, mate. I live in the real world and I've got to earn every penny I get."

"You're joking!" said Pascoe incredulously. "You're doing the same job you used to do before privatization. And if what they paid you then was peanuts, what's that make you now but a monkey with a bloated bank balance? And you know where that money's coming from? It's coming from us poor sods who can't get decent water pumped into our houses. Christ, if anyone's responsible for our kids being sick, it's likely to be you with your polluted beaches and stinking tap water!"

Purlingstone, his face working, took a step toward him. Pascoe balled his fist. Then he felt himself seized from behind and dragged through the door, which was slammed shut behind him.

"Peter, what the hell are you playing at?" demanded Ellie, her voice low but trembling with fury.

"I don't know… he said… and I just felt it was time… oh, shit, it was just stupid. Things came pouring out. Him too. He said-"

"I'm not interested in what he said. All I'm interested in is our daughter, and you getting into a fight in the hospital waiting room isn't going to help her, is it? Look, if you can't hack it here, why don't you go out, go home, have a sleep?"

He took a deep breath, reached down inside himself for control, found it.

"No, I've tried that, it doesn't help," he said. "I'm sorry. It's just I'm so frustrated, I had to lash out. Could have been worse. Could have been you on the receiving end. What are you doing out of the ward, anyway? Nothing's happened, has it?"

"You think I'd be wasting time on this crap? No, no change. I just need the loo, that's all. And I need it even more after this delay."

"Take your time," said Pascoe. "I'll go into the ward, see if I can find a nurse to beat up."

His weak joke seemed to reassure her, and she hurried off. Pascoe looked at the waiting-room door, wondered if he should go in and try to make his peace, decided he wasn't quite ready for that yet, and went down the corridor to the room where Rosie lay.

A nurse was checking the monitors. She gave him a nice smile before she left, so perhaps he didn't look like Mr. Hyde after all. He sat down and took his daughter's hand.

"Hi, Rosie," he said. "It's me. I've just been having a fight with Zandra's dad. You didn't think fathers had fights, did you? Well, it's just like the school playground out there. One moment you're minding your own business, next, someone says something and you say something back, then you're rolling on the ground trying to bite someone's ear off. That's boys I'm talking about. You girls are different. Got more sense, your mum would say. Maybe she's right. Or maybe it's just that women don't get physical, they get even. Sure, they're all for peace, but I sometimes think that for them peace is just a continuation of war by other means. That's a grown-up joke which you'll understand someday when you're a woman. Won't be too long, darling. You'll be bringing some revolting young man home and hoping your aged p's won't disgrace you by drooling into their teacups or taking their teeth out to remove the raspberry jam seeds. Rosie, be kind to us. That's all the world needs really to keep it going round, kids being kind to their parents, parents being kind to their kids, that's the only family value that's worth a toss, that's the only bit of wisdom I've got to give you. I hope you can hear it. Can you hear it, darling? Are you listening to me deep down there somewhere?"

He leaned over the little girl and stared intently into her face. There was no movement, no flicker of the eyelids. No sign of life at all.

Panic stricken, he turned to the monitor. There it was, a steady pulse. He looked from the machine to the face, still not trusting. A muscle moved in her cheek like the softest sigh of breeze on a summer pool. He let out the long, relieved breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

He started to talk again but now his monologue sounded self-conscious and forced, so he picked up Nina and the Nix and started reading where he'd left off before.

"Outside, sun were so bright, a little bit of light filtered down the entrance tunnel. By its dim glow she saw she were in a cave. The ground were strewn with rocks and stuff. In the middle of the cave was a small, foul-smelling pool, and on its edge sat this thing.

"Its body was long and scaly, its fingers and toes were webbed with long, curved nails, its face was gaunt and hollow, its nose hooked, its chin pointed and fringed with sharp spikes of beard, its eyes deep set and-"

Suddenly there was a mechanical beeping sound which had him staring in terror at the monitor for the split second it took him to realize it was his mobile. Angrily he clicked it on and snarled, "Yes?"

There was a pause, as if his vehemence had frightened the speaker. Then a woman's voice said, "Hello. This is Shirley Novello. I was just ringing… I was wondering, how is she, your little girl?"

"No change," said Pascoe.

"Well that's… I mean, I'm glad… I hope everything turns out okay, sir. Sorry to bother you…"

"That's all right," said Pascoe, relenting his brusqueness. "It was good of you to ring. Look, I shouldn't be using this thing in here. They say it can affect things…"

As he spoke he looked anxiously at the monitor. Everything seemed to be as before.

Novello was saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… look, this wasn't such a good idea, sorry, sir. I hope everything turns out okay."

Not such a good idea? It dawned on him that maybe this wasn't just a sympathy call.

For a second he felt furious. Then he thought, To hell with it! What do you want? The world to stop out there just because it was grinding to a halt in here? And the girl wasn't to know he was actually sitting at Rosie's bedside, watching a machine for reassurance she was still breathing.

He said, "Give me your number."

Surprised, she obeyed. He rang off without saying anything further, went out into the corridor and wheeled in a telephone trolley he'd noticed before, plugged it in, and dialed.

"Right," he said. "You've done the sympathy bit. Now you've got two minutes for the rest."

It came out fast and slick. This she'd rehearsed, reckoning that if she did get the chance to speak, the faster the better.

He said, "You got the name of Mrs. Lightfoot's bank?"

"Mid-Yorks Savings."

"That's Willie Noolan. Old rugby-club chum of the super's. He'll cooperate if you mention Mr. Dalziel's name and smile knowingly. Tell him you'd like to know when the large sum of money paid into Mrs. Lightfoot's account fifteen years ago went out and in what form."

"Yes, sir. Please, what large sum?"

"The compensation money for Neb Cottage. I found out the other day

… yesterday…"

He paused. Novello guessed he was having difficulty matching real and relative time.

"… anyway, it seems Agnes actually owned Neb Cottage, so the Board would have had to cough up before the move, otherwise they wouldn't have been legally entitled to shift her. Don't know how much, but certainly tens of thousands, I should think. If the money left the account after she went to live with her niece, contact Sheffield and let them go after Mrs. Fleck."

"But the Social people checked when she moved into Wark House."

"Yes, but only two years back. Working in the home, Fleck would know the procedures and make damn sure she kept ahold of Agnes for at least another couple of years after she'd got her hands on the cash. Of course, if it left her account before she had her first stroke…"

Now Novello was with him.

"It could be that Benny got it and that's how he managed to finance his escape."

"Right. With forty or fifty thou in his pocket, it wouldn't have been too hard for him to vanish right out of the country."

"You think so?" said Novello dubiously. "Wasn't he supposed to be a bit simple?"

"Odd, not simple, according to Mrs. Shimmings. You said this visitor at the home had an Australian accent? Well, you've probably been told Australia was where the rest of his family had gone. So where else would someone like Benny head when everything that meant home and security here had vanished? Anyway, it's a lot more likely than the notion that he disappeared into the Neb like a nix or something…"

He looked at the book he'd laid on the coverlet. The nix leered malevolently up at him. Not much like Lightfoot, from the descriptions in the file.

He said, "Anyway, check it out, Shirley. Check everything out, no matter how unlikely. It's a funny world, full of surprises…"

He sounded very weary.

She said, "Thank you very much. I'm sorry to have troubled you when… I hope everything turns out okay. I lit a candle for Rosie this morning…"

She hadn't meant to say that. Pascoe was at best agnostic and as for his wife, if rumor were true, she'd banish all priests to Antarctica bollock naked. But it was all the hope Novello had to offer, so she offered it.

"Thank you," said Pascoe. "That was kind. Thank you."

He replaced the phone.

"You hear that, Rosie? There's a candle burning for you," he said. "Let's hope it's one of those great big ones, eh? Let's hope it goes on burning a long long time."

He picked up Nina and the Nix. Was this any use? he wondered. Could she hear anything at all?

Pointless question. He began to read again.

Rosie Pascoe is lying in a corner where the nix has thrown her. She is very uncomfortable. There are small pieces of rock digging into her back. But she dares not move.

The nix is sitting only a few feet away, staring fixedly at her, as if trying to make up his mind what to do. Is there pity in his eyes? She tries to see it but can't, just a terrifying blankness.

Then somewhere far above her, she hears a telephone ringing.

The nix looks up. She looks up too. And she realizes it isn't a telephone. It is the squeak of the bat who hangs high in the roof of the cave.

The nix is still looking up. He has cupped his pointed ears in his webbed hands and seems to be straining to catch a sound. It is a sight almost comical, but Rosie doesn't feel like laughing. She guesses that any message coming down from the bat will not be for her comfort.

But she takes the chance of the nix's distraction to slide some of the rocks from under her aching body. Only, when she comes to touch they don't feel like rocks. And when she looks down, she sees that they are bones.

Now she strains her ears, too, and begins to imagine she can catch those high, alien squeaks. How loud they are in the nix's mind she can only guess, but he is nodding his head as though to acknowledge he understands… and will obey.

This may be her last chance to escape. The nix sits between her and the cave entrance through which filters that faint light with its promise of the sunlit world above. Is he so rapt by what he hears that she can steal past him and try once more to run up the tunnel? She has to try.

She begins to move, pushing herself up from the bone-strewn ground with infinite care. Then, just as she reaches a crouching position, she feels her left hand seized.

Startled, she looks down. The grip is tight but it is no monstrous paw that holds her. It is a child's hand. She lets her gaze run up the slim white arm and finds herself looking at another little girl like herself. Not quite like herself, for her hair is long and blond while Rosie's is short and black. But there is a terror on that pale face she recognizes as her own. And the face, too, she recognizes, or thinks she does. First it is Nina's from the storybook. Then it is her friend Zandra's. Then it is another little blond-haired girl she doesn't know.

"Help me," says the newcomer. "Please help me."

But when Rosie looks back to the nix, she sees it is too late for help. The webbed hands have come down from the pointed ears, the fixed gaze swings back to her face once more.

And the eyes are no longer expressionless blanks.

They are burning, burning.

Shirley Novello had always believed you needed a High Court order, if not a papal dispensation, to persuade banks to break the seal of confidentiality on a client's account.

But now she discovered, as many before her in Mid-Yorkshire, that all seals flew asunder at the open sesame of Dalziel's name.

Or perhaps it was the smile that did it, she thought, as she followed Pascoe's instructions to the letter and smiled knowingly at Willie Noolan of the Mid-Yorkshire Savings Bank.

He smiled back, more lecherous than knowing, then turned to a computer keyboard.

"Old Agnes Lightfoot? She still alive? By God, you're right," he said, peering at the screen. "Not much there, but. No one's going to get rich when she snuffs it."

"It's fifteen years back Mr. Dalziel's interested in," said Novello.

"Before we got computerized," said Noolan nostalgically.

"So no record?" said Novello, disappointed.

"For shame! You don't get to be a bank by throwing stuff away. It'll be in the cellar. My lad, Herbert, will soon ferret it out. Herbert!"

Herbert, far from being a lad, was perfect evidence of the bank's reluctance to throw anything away, appearing to a neutral eye more years the far side of a rail pass than the near side of a requiem.

He moved on nimble feet, however, and in a very short space with even shorter breath he was laying on Noolan's desk a file as creased and dusty as his own suit.

"Thank you, Herbert," said the manager. "Go and have a lie-down till you get your wind."

"Isn't he a little old to be working?" said Novello after he'd panted his way out of the office.

"You think so? And aren't you a little young to be asking?"

"Sorry," said Novello.

"Nay, lass, don't look so crestfallen!" laughed Noolan. "Herbert's long retired. Only, he prefers it here to home. Says his wife makes demands. I can't imagine what he means. Now let's take a look, shall we? Oh, yes. There it is, I thought it rang a bell. Fifty thousand paid in as compensation by the Water Board. That was the end of July. Then a short while after, forty-nine thousand withdrawn. In cash. Aye, I recall it now. Cash withdrawal like that, everyone wants someone else to sign. More signatures here than a peace treaty. It all comes back now. I tried dissuading her, but she told me if I didn't want her business there was plenty as did. And off she went with the loot in a carpetbag."

"And this was fifteen years ago?"

"So I said."

"And the money's never come back into her account?"

He checked, right through to the time when Agent's account was transferred to computer recording.

"Not a thing."

"Well, thank you very much for your cooperation," said Novello. "Mr. Dalziel will be pleased."

"I'm glad of that. Always happy to help the police, but tell him the slate's beginning to look a bit bare. You don't save with us, do you, luv?"

"I don't earn enough to save with anyone," said Novello. "Sorry!"

She examined the facts as she left the building. This let Winifred off the hook. Like Billie Saltair had said, she might be greedy but she'd done nothing dishonest. In fact old Aunt Agnes had rather taken advantage of her cupidity. She probably guessed that it was only the thought of the compensation money that had made her niece take her in. And for all the years she'd spent in Branwell Close, she'd made damn sure Winifred never got a look at her bank statements. But her guard had dropped when she'd had her second stroke and once Winifred saw the state of her accounts, the road to Wark House had been opened. Or rather, the road back from it had been closed.

So now the crazy scenario in which Benny Lightfoot, with the help of his gran's money, fled to Australia, whence he had returned to start killing children again, took another step toward realization.

This meant someone had to talk to Agnes. Someone! It meant she had to talk to the old lady.

Which meant first of all talking to Billie Saltair.

She rang rather than making the journey back to Sheffield. It was a wise move.

"Not today," said the matron firmly. "We've just put her to bed. She's not at all well, very feverish. If she gets any worse, we'll call in the doctor. Ring me in the morning."

Would the Holy Trinity have insisted? Novello wondered. Big Andy was quite capable of interrogating a frail old woman on her deathbed, but was even he capable of pushing past Billie Saltair?

It would have been a battle worth paying ringside prices to see.

Novello knew better than to fight outside her weight unless forced by dire necessity.

"I'll ring you tomorrow," she said.

As if mollified by this ready compliance, the matron said, "One thing might interest you. Probably nothing to do with Agnes's visitor, but one of our handymen I was chatting to recalled seeing a white van, like a camper van he said, bumping down the drive that Friday morning."

Novello smiled. Detective work was contagious. Even Billie Saltair wasn't immune.

"Thanks a lot," she said, putting some warmth into her voice this time. "I'll be in touch."

She put the phone down, picked it up again, and got through to the Danby incident center. Wield was around somewhere but not immediately visible, so she left her update with DI Headingley, who thanked her avuncularly, like she was a little girl tolerated in the adult world for her lisping voice and golden locks. But to some extent this was preferable to the anticipated response of the sergeant, who, she felt, would rather she didn't come up with any more evidence to support a BENNY'S BACK! scenario.

And was he back? she wondered. Certainly someone was back.

She stood at the window of the CID room, wide open in hope of encouraging a cooling draft. All she got, however, were fumes and noise from the traffic in the street below. She raised her eyes to the Madonna-blue sky above the Franciscan-gray roofs and said, "So where are you now, my wild colonial boy?"

If she'd been a little humbler and cast her eyes down instead of up, she might have seen the "boy" in question pause outside the main entrance of Mid-Yorkshire Police Headquarters and peer up at the old blue lamp which still hung there. She might have observed that for a moment it looked as if he was making up his mind to enter and share whatever was troubling him with those within.

Then the moment was past. He turned away and in a few steps was lost from view.

Dalziel dipped his biscuit into his postcoital tea, got it to his mouth before it collapsed, bit it, and said, "Bloody hell," soggily.

"Bad tooth?" said Cap Marvell sympathetically.

"No," he replied. "This is a Grannie's Golden Shortie."

"Is that a problem?"

"It were for my dad," said Dalziel. "It were his recipe."

It occurred to Cap she knew nothing of Dalziel before he became a policeman, and very little of him before he became the detective superintendent who had, incredibly, eased his bulk into her bed and her affections.

He was back in the former now because when he'd turned up at her flat door earlier that evening, she'd realized he'd never left the latter.

He'd been to the hospital to visit his colleague's sick daughter. There'd been some sort of crisis that afternoon, but the child was stable again. The parents had naturally been in a state and Dalziel, she guessed, had exerted all his energies in the line of optimistic reassurance. Standing on her doorstep, he looked absolutely drained, which was as shocking as visiting Loch Lomond and finding it empty. He'd talked about the sick child, talked about the missing child, talked about the Dendale children, in an uncharacteristically disconnected way, till it was difficult to separate one from the other. What was clear was that he seemed to feel responsible in some way for all of them, and the pain of their parents weighed so heavily that even those broad shoulders were close to bending.

She'd given him whiskey, refilling his glass three times as he talked, and it wasn't till the third glass was emptied that he paused, licked his lips, sniffed, and said accusingly, "This is Macallan. Twenty-five-year-old Anniversary."

"That's right."

During their old itemization, a major point of friction had been her indifference to the subtleties of single malts and her predilection for the purchase of what he termed "rubbing whiskey."

"You got someone important coming?"

"Not yet," she said. "But a girl can hope."

Upon which double-entendre Dalziel had acted.

It had been an encounter more marked by ferocity than tenderness, but that had suited her to such a degree that when he got his breath back and said with passionate longing, "Ee, I could murder a cup of tea," she had slipped meekly out of bed and mashed it for him.

There were times even in the best regulated of households when the Old Adam got the vote over the New Man.

The Golden Shortie had been a treat which looked like paying dividends.

"Your father was a baker, then?" she said.

"Aye. Master. Came down from Glasgow for his health, got took on at Ebor."

The Ebor Biscuit and Confectionery Company was one of Mid-Yorkshire's principal businesses.

"For his health? He was an invalid?"

"Don't be daft," said Dalziel, scornful at the idea that the loins whose fruit he was could be in any fettle but fine. "He fell out with some folk in Glasgow it wasn't healthy to fall out with. Misunderstanding about a loan. He were just a lad. If it weren't for gravity, he'd not have known to crap downward, that's what he used to say."

"I see where you got your silver tongue," observed Cap. "So what about the Golden Shorties?"

"He used to make his own shortbread at home from his gran's recipe and often took a piece in his snap. One day the general manager stopped for a chat during tea break. He noticed Dad eating this shortbread and he said, "That's not ours, is it?"' sort of reproachful. My dad, being a cheeky bugger, said, "No it's not, and I doubt you could afford it." Manager broke off a bit and et it. Then another bit. And another. Then he said, "Right, lad, why don't you tell me just how much it is you think I can't afford?"' Dad, knowing all his mates' lugs were flapping, thought he'd pitch it real high and said, "Next bit'll cost you five hundred nicker," which were a lot of money in them days. "In that case," said the manager, "you'd best come to my office." And fifteen minutes later, Dad were back with his mates, flashing the biggest bundle of notes most on 'em had ever seen."

"So, a happy ending," said Cap.

Dalziel sucked in the rest of his biscuit.

"Not really," he said. "Made him a big man on the bakehouse floor right enough. And when the first batch of Grannie's Goldens came out, he felt right proud. Then it became Ebor's best-selling line. And forever after when he went into a shop, and saw the packs piled high, he felt sick to his stomach. He were an easygoing man, my dad, but whenever he'd had a couple of drinks and started on about selling his birthright for messy porridge, us kids 'ud take cover 'cos he were likely to start breaking things. It all came back just now when I took a bite."

"So, more than just a biscuit," said Cap, mentally noting us kids for future investigation. "A madeleine. Now all you've got to do is write a novel about your life and loves in seven volumes."

"Not enough," said Dalziel. "And what's Madeleine got to do with it? Weren't she the lass who got bedded in that mucky poem?"

"I don't think I recall the mucky poem in question."

"Course you do. If I did it at school, every bugger did it. By that pair of puffs, Sheets and Kelly, one of 'em anyway. Sort of poem you had to work at afore you realized just how mucky it was."

"That is an incentive to learning I don't think they've grasped at Cheltenham Ladies," said Cap who suspected that much of Dalziel's philistinism was a bait to lure her into the trap of patronage.

Or perhaps not.

She observed him carefully and found herself carefully observed in return.

As they were both in that state most perilous to the consumer of crumbly biscuits and hot tea, and both in a condition which marked them as enthusiastic consumers, there was much to observe.

"So what's to become of us, Andy?" she asked.

Dalziel shrugged, and said, "You screw a bit, scream a bit, then you die."

"Thank you, Rochefoucauld," she said. "I was meaning specifically rather than generally."

"Me too. No one I'd rather do both with than you, lass."

"Is that a compliment?"

"You need compliments?"

"Like, yes. Need, no."

"Then it's a compliment. Oh, fuck, where'd I leave me trousers?"

This was in response to a muffled shrilling he recognized as coming from his mobile phone.

"I think we started in the kitchen," said Cap. "I hate those things."

"Could have been worse. Could have rung fifteen minutes back," said Dalziel, rolling off the bed.

She watched him pad out of the room and recalled a monograph she'd read in one of the Sunday supplements on "The Sumo Wrestler as Sex Object." She hadn't taken it all that seriously at the time, but maybe after all…

In the kitchen Dalziel was listening to Wield's account of Novello's latest finding with the unenthusiasm she had foreseen.

"So this means the bugger could have had nigh on fifty thou in his pocket when he took off finally. Great!"

"Gets better, or worse," said Wield. "I thought about this camper van that was seen at Wark House. We've been trawling all the hotels and b-and-b's in the area with no luck. But if he's camping… so I took a trip into Dendale."

"No camping, trailers, or unauthorized motor vehicles on Water Board land in Dendale," quoted Dalziel. "They don't like the idea of folk pissing in our drinking water."

"Yes, I know, sir. But back a ways down the valley, there's a farmer lets out a field to campers and such. Fellow called Holmes. Wild-eyed bugger with a tangle of beard like a briar patch, he'd as lief shot me as helped me, I reckon. But his wife's a tidy body and she sent him to muck out the pigs or something while she told me, yes, there was a camping van, and the fellow on it spoke with what could have been an Aussie twang-"

"These Holmeses, they local?"

"Meaning, would they have known Lightfoot? Holmes, yes, but he never saw this guy. Camping's his wife's business, nowt to do wi' him, long as they shut his gates and don't scare his stock. Wife's an off-comer from Pateley Bridge."

"So when did matey with the twang arrive?"

"Late last Friday. Left yesterday morning."

"Damn," said Dalziel. "Bloody cool if he's our man, but. Owt else, Wieldy? Van number's a bit much to hope for, I suppose?"

"Mrs. Holmes thought the plate had a C and a two and a seven in it. Not much, but I've got Traffic working on it. But she did get a name for the guy. Slater."

He said it with unnecessary significance. Dalziel was there instantly.

"As in Marion Slater, you mean. Benny's mam's new married name when she took off to Oz? You ever get a reply to your inquiries to Adelaide?"

"Nothing yet."

"Well, let's not get excited. It's a common enough name."

"Yes, sir. Not all that common a face, but."

"What do you mean? You said this Holmes woman were an off-comer-"

"That's right. But I got an old photo of Benny from the file, ran it through the copier, touched it up a bit to put a few years on in, and showed her that."

"And?"

"And she said it were him. Mr. Slater. No doubt at all."

Cap watched Dalziel come back into the bedroom carrying an armful of clothes, which he dumped on the bed prior to starting dressing.

"You're going, then? I hoped you'd stay the night."

"Me too. Sorry. Something's come up."

"Something you can tell me?"

"Nowt to tell, really. Just a possible."

"And you've got him?"

"No. Bugger's still out there somewhere. But if he's the one, we will get him, never have any doubt about that!"

He spoke with such vehemence, she had a vision of being pursued with extreme prejudice by this relentless man, and shuddered.

He observed the effect of the shudder on her breasts with undisguised interest.

She said, "Well, take a key just in case you feel like dropping in later."

"I'll see what I can manage," he said.

After he left, she put on a robe and poured herself a Scotch, digging out the bottle of supermarket blended she'd hidden in the kitchen. It was a gesture. No getting away from it, the single malt was infinitely superior, but sometimes gestures needed to be made.

Things were moving faster than she'd anticipated -the bedding, the key. Too fast? How to say? She was playing this by ear, and her ear was not as reliable as once it had been. What she needed was a sign, or better still a sound, something for her to fix her fine-tuning by.

The telephone rang.

Well, that was a sound. Was it an answer?

She picked it up and said, "Hello? Beryl, hi! Yes, it's fine. No one here, not at the moment. No that doesn't mean… well, perhaps it does… my God you've got a disgusting mind… but if you've got an hour to spare, and as you're paying for the call, relax, and I'll tell you all about it."

"Don't imagine just 'cos you don't show it, I don't know you think this is a waste of bloody time," snarled Dalziel.

Wield, by his side, viewing with his customary impassivity the overgrown hedgerows reducing the already narrow road along which they were moving at a perilous speed, did not bother to reply.

They were on their way from Danby to Nether Dendale to talk again with Mrs. Holmes, and though the sergeant was certain he'd got all there was to be got out of the woman, and that he'd done all there was to be done about it, viz., put out an alert for a white camper with the C, two, and a seven in its plate, arrange for copies of his updated picture of Benny Lightfoot to be distributed to all reliefs, and send a fax to Adelaide saying their previous inquiry about the Slater family was now urgent, he didn't think this revisit was a waste of time. This inquiry was building up a head of frustrated energy in the Fat Man which a wise subordinate took every opportunity to release. And besides, the very sight of the Fat Man at full throttle was often a remarkable aide-memoire, even to the most cooperative of witnesses.

In fact, in terms of Mrs. Holmes, it did turn out to be nonproductive. She had given Wield her all. Dalziel kept on pressing till finally her husband growled through his tangle of beard, "Enough's enough. You buggers got no beds to go to? You missed him last time, what meks you think all this durdum's going to get you any closer this?"

"What's that you say?" demanded Dalziel rounding on him.

Holmes didn't flinch.

"I said my missus has told you all she's got to tell and it's about time-"

"No, no," said Dalziel impatiently. "You said, all that durdum, right?"

"It means fuss, or noise," Wield interpreted helpfully.

"I know what it bloody well means," said Dalziel. "Mrs. Holmes, I'm sorry to have kept you up late. You've been a great help. Thanks a lot. And, Mr. Holmes…"

"Aye?"

"I seem to recollect it's a farmer's responsibility to keep his hedges from blocking public roads. You should get them seen to afore there's an accident. Good night."

They got back in the car but instead of heading back to Danby, Dalziel drove up the valley till they reached the locked gate across the reservoir road.

"Fancy a walk?" he said.

They took flashlights but didn't need them. There was an almost full moon hanging like a spotlight in the inevitably clear sky. By its light they climbed the steps up to the top of the dam wall and stood there, looking across the silvered waters of the shrunken mere to the sharp silhouette of Lang Neb and Beulah Height.

"Search is knackered over Danby side," said Dalziel. "And Desperate Dan wants his plods back. Mebbe we should have spent more time looking on this side, eh? At the very least, we should have looked in the mere. I'll have a team of mermaids over here first thing in the morning. What do you think?"

"Good idea, sir," said Wield. "I'll see to it if you like."

Privately he thought that trawling the mere was a waste of time, but he knew that the Fat Man was being driven by more than mere duty here, so he looked up at the magnificent sweep of stars and held his peace.

Nor did he complain when back at Danby, though there was nothing more to be done, Dalziel kept him from his bed for another half hour or more with fruitless speculation. But finally they were done and took leave of each other, and drove their separate ways home. Or rather, Wield drove home, but Dalziel drove back to Cap Marvell's flat.

He didn't know whether he'd have gone in if a light hadn't been showing, but it was, so he did.

Cap was waiting up. She looked at him inquiringly and said, "Anything?"

He said, "Nowt that makes sense. If it is Benny back, it needs a wiser head than mine to suss out why."

As on his first arrival, the revelation of vulnerability touched her deeply and she went to him and took him in her arms.

This time their lovemaking was slower, deeper, though its climax was as explosive as ever.

"Jesus," she said. "That was like… like…"

"Like what?" he said.

"I don't know. Like as if someone had shaken a bottle of bubbly up in heaven and popped the cork, and we were in one of the bubbles streaming out across the cosmos." Then she laughed at her own floweriness and went on. "Sorry about the purple prose, but you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Oh, aye," he said, "but likely it were just God farting in his bath."

She pushed herself far enough back from him to beat his insensitive breast, then let him pull her close again.

"How on earth have I let myself get involved with a Neanderthal like you, Andy?" she asked.

"It's the uniform," he said.

"You don't wear a uniform."

"I'm speaking metabolically," he said. "It's the authority turns you on. I've had snouts like you before. It's my body they want, not my money."

"I'm not your snout," she protested.

"No? Then it must be my natural charm. Am I to keep the key in case I can get tomorrow night?"

"I suppose it's marginally better than having you kick the door down. But tomorrow night I shall be busy myself till quite late. In Danby, oddly enough. It's the first concert of the festival."

"I'd not forgotten," he said. "The Turnip and yon Wulfstan lass. I've been thinking about her."

"Me too," she said. "In fact, I've been doing more than thinking. I've been talking. My friend, Beryl-you remember? the headmistress who had Elizabeth in her school…?"

"Oh, aye. One of your spiders on the worldwide web."

"Thank you for that, Andy. Well, she rang, and during the course of our conversation I quite naturally mentioned Elizabeth Wulfstan-"

"You pumped her!" exclaimed Dalziel delightedly. "I always knew you were a natural!"

"In its Elizabethan sense, I think I must be," said Cap. "What she told me was of great interest. And as I cannot see how it can be relevant to your inquiries and therefore qualifies as simple gossip, I shall not hesitate to pass it on. Of Elizabeth's early history Beryl knew nothing, except that she was in fact distantly related to Chloe Wulfstan… what's the matter?"

"Durdum," said Dalziel.

"Sorry?"

"Durdum. Means a lot of noise and fuss. I heard this farmer use it tonight. He's from Dendale. It rang a bell. That's the only place I've heard it used."

"Philology now," said Cap impatiently. "Shall I go on?"

"The Wulfstan girl used it too," said Dalziel. "And glorrfat. Another Dendale word. She called me a glorrfat. Either she's really turning the screw or she's from Dendale! And related to Chloe, you say?"

His mind was trying to superimpose an image of a tall, slim woman with shoulder-length blond tresses on an image of a small chubby child with cropped black hair. Nothing matched… except mebbe those dark, unblinking eyes…

"Shall I go on?"

"Yeah. What happened?"

"Well, it was all very sad, really, though happily it seems to have worked out more or less all right. It seems that when she first came to the school, Elizabeth was a rather unprepossessing, chubby child with short black hair… Andy, I wish you wouldn't twitch. Is it a revival of sexual passion or merely the DT'S?"

"Just keep talking," he urged.

"Best offer I've had all night," she said. "But a change took place. Tell me, was the Wulfstans' real daughter, the one who went missing, a slim blond child?"

"Aye, were she," said Dalziel. "Pretty as a picture."

"Well, it was that picture which probably got into Elizabeth's head. That's what they all guessed she was trying to do. Turn herself into the child her adoptive parents had lost. She started to lose weight, but no one paid much heed. Adolescent girls do go through all kinds of changes. And she let her hair grow. Only, of course it was the wrong color. And that's where the tragedy, or near tragedy, happened. It seems one night she shut herself in the bathroom with a bottle of bleach and set about trying to turn her hair blond. The results were devastating. Fortunately Chloe heard her screams and got her under the shower. But her scalp was badly damaged. She was lucky not to have got any in her eyes. And while she was in hospital they realized that far from just losing puppy fat, the girl was severely anorexic."

"I knew it!" exclaimed Dalziel. "From the start. First off I thought she were taking the piss with the way she spoke. Even when I realized she weren't, I still had this feeling she were having a secret laugh. It were because I didn't recognize her."

"You knew her? When? How?"

"Back in Dendale," said Dalziel. "She were the last of the girls to get attacked, the only one to get away. She were little Betsy Allgood."

Betsy Allgood [PA/WWST18-6-88]

Transcript 3 No. 2 Of 2 Copies

Like I said, I thought everything were going to be all right forever.

If things worked out, sheep would have gum boots, my dad used to say.

But they don't. And Dad didn't get Stirps End either.

When we heard that Mr. Hardcastle had got it, Dad wanted to rush off and speak to Mr. Pontifex straight off. But Mam got in front of the door and wouldn't let him pass. She didn't often stand up to him when he were ireful, but this time she did, and told him he'd best sleep on it, and she knew it weren't right and Stirps End been good as promised, but she reckoned Mr. Pontifex had given it to Cedric Hardcastle out of guilt.

Guilt over what? yelled my dad.

"'Cos he thinks it were him selling land to the Water Board that set things off back there in Dendale, so he's given Ced the farm 'cos they lost Madge, which makes us the lucky ones, 'cos we might not have Stirps End but we've still got our Betsy!"

And when she said this, I saw my dad's eyes turn to me, and they were black as grate lead, and I knew he were thinking he'd rather have the farm.

Well, he held off seeing Mr. Pontifex till next morn, but it didn't do much good from all accounts, and he came back saying we'd best pack as he'd told Mr. Pontifex to stuff his job, and likely the old sod would be coming with the bum-bailiffs to turn us out of our cottage afore nightfall.

Mr. Pontifex did turn up later that day, but he were on his lone and he talked a long while with my mam first, 'cos Dad went out into the backyard when he came through front door, then he talked to them both together, and upshot was Dad stayed on as his sheep man with a bit more brass besides and the promise of first refusal on the next farm to come up. But that would be like waiting for a drink from a Methodee, said Dad, seeing as all the farms on the Pontifex estate were let to families who'd got sons to carry on the tenancies. And though he didn't look at me this time, I knew he were thinking of me again.

So everything were spoiled now. I thought for a bit after we left Dendale that it was all going to be all right, but now it were back to what it had been before but worse, with Mam taken badly again and Dad walking round like he had come to the end of things but just couldn't stop moving.

That's how it were, you see, for all of us, I mean. It's funny how you can know inside that everything's knackered, that there's no point in owt, but outside you just carry on living like nothing was different, like it made some sense to be going to school and doing your lessons and learning stuff by heart to help you for the future.

I don't know how long this went on. It could have gone on forever, I suppose. Some folk have been dead forty years before they get buried, Dad used to say. I know I were in the top class and next year I'd be moving on to the secondary. I remember thinking mebbe that would change things somehow for me. They gave us a lot of stuff about it at school one day and I went home with it to show Mam.

And I found her dead.

No, I don't want to talk about it. What's to talk about? She'd lived, now she were dead. End of story.

Which left me and Dad.

They wanted to take me away and put me with someone. They wanted to write to Aunt Chloe straight off and see if she could help.

But I said no, I were going to stay at home and look after Dad. Someone had to look after him now, didn't they? And what with Mam being so ill for such a long time, I'd been doing most things round the house anyway, so where was the difference? They said we'd need to have someone from Social who'd come in to help and I said that would be okay even though I didn't want them, 'cos I could see this was the only way they were going to agree.

So that's what we did and it was okay for a bit and it would have been okay forever if only Dad could have got his farm and if only Mam hadn't died like she did and if only…

Any road, he went off one morning and I never saw him again. They said he went up over the Corpse Road and down into Dendale, and over to the far side of the reservoir closest to where Low Beulah used to be. Then he filled his pockets with rocks and walked into the watter so that when the divers found him, he were lying close by the pile of rubble which they'd made out of the old house.

I said it weren't so, he weren't dead, he'd just gone away and he'd come back for me one day. They wanted me to look at his face afore they closed up the coffin and buried him, but I wouldn't. Of course I know that he's dead but that's not the same as knowing for sure, is it? That's what Dad used to say. There's knowing and there's knowing for sure and there's space between the two of them for a man to get lost in. That's where he is for me, in that space. Lost.

And after that? After I came to live down here with Auntie Chloe? I had to do something, you can see that. Things don't just stop and start again, like nothing had happened before. But things can be changed. I read in this book about yon singer called Callas, how she changed herself from being plain and glorrfat, so that's what I was aimed at, changing myself, that's how come I burned my head and all. To be like Mary? Oh, yes, I wanted to be like Mary. And Madge. And Jenny. I wanted to be like any of them as were wanted and missed…

That's all. You said I just had to talk about the old days, I needn't talk about now if I didn't want. Well, I don't. And I don't want Aunt Chloe to hear this, that's definite. But him, oh, aye, you can show it to him if you like, let him hear what it's like to be me, I'd like him to understand, that's for sure. Because who else is left in the world to understand?

DAY 4 Songs for Dead Children

Lieder are usually sung in their original German, but the young mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Wulfstan, feels strongly that something essential is lost to an English-speaking audience, the majority of whom have to get the sense of the songs from a program note. Unable to find a satisfactory performing translation of the cycle, she has made her own, not hesitating from time to time to use her own Yorkshire demotic.

The original texts were the work of the German poet Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866), who had reacted to the death of his son by writing more than four hundred poems of lament, some specific to his loss, many more general. Mahler used five in his song cycle. His interest in setting them was primarily imaginative and artistic. He was unmarried and childless when he started working on them in 1901. By the time he completed the cycle in 1905 he had married Alma Schindler and they had two children. After their birth, Alma could not understand his continuing obsession with the Ruckert-based cycle, which superstitiously she saw as a rash tempting of fate. The death of their eldest daughter of scarlet fever in 1907 seemed confirmation of her worst fears.

Here are the poems in Elizabeth Wulfstan's own translation.

(i)

And now the sun will rise as bright As though no horror had touched the night. The horror affected me alone. The sunlight illumines everyone. You must not dam up that dark infernal, But drown it deep in light eternal! So deep in my heart a small flame died. Hail to the joyous morningtide!

(ii)

At last I think I see the explanation Of those dark flames in many glances burning. Such glances! As though in just one look so burning You'd concentrate your whole soul's conflagration. I could not guess, lost in the obfuscation Of blinding fate which hampered all discerning, That even then your gaze was homeward turning, Back to the source of all illumination.

You tried with all your might to speak this warning: Though all our love is focused on you, Yet our desires must bow to Fate's strict bourning. Look on us now, for soon we must go from you. These eyes that open brightly every morning In nights to come as stars will shine upon you.

(iii)

When your mother dear to my door draws near, And my thoughts all center there to see her enter Not on her sweet face first off falls my gaze, But a little past her, seeking something after, There where your own dear features would appear Lit with love and laughter bringing up the rear, As once my daughter dear.

When your mother dear to my door draws near, Then I get the feeling you are softly stealing With the candle's clear gentle flame in here, Dancing on my ceiling! O light of love and laughter! Too soon put out to leave me dark and drear.

(iv)

I often think they've only gone out walking, And soon they'll come homewards all laughing and talking. The weather's bright! Don't look so pale. They've only gone for a hike updale. Oh, yes, they've only gone out walking, Returning now, all laughing and talking. Don't look so pale! The weather's bright. They've only gone to climb up Beulah

Height. Ahead of us they've gone out walking-But shan't be returning all laughing and talking. We'll catch up with them on Beulah Height In bright sunlight. The weather's bright on Beulah Height.

(v)

In such foul weather, in such a gale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale! They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here. In such foul weather, in sleet and hail, I'd never have let them play out in the dale. I was feart they'd take badly. Now such fears I'd suffer gladly. In such foul weather, in such a bale, I'd never have let them play out in the dale For fear they might die tomorrow.

That's no more my source of sorrow. In such foul weather, in such a bale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale. They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here. In such foul weather, in such a gale, In sleet and hail, They rest as if in their mother's house, By no foul storm confounded, By God's own hands surrounded, They rest as in their mother's house.

On the morning of the fourth day of the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, Geordie Turnbull rose early.

He had a hangover, not the sort that makes you turn over in bed and burrow under the sheets in search of masking darkness and the sanctuary of sleep, but the sort that sends you stumbling to the bathroom to void the contents of your gut one way or the other, and wish you could do the same with the contents of your head.

Ten minutes under a cold shower set at maximum force brought him closer to the possibility that there might be life after coffee.

It had been a long time since he felt like this. His release from custody and return to Bixford hadn't brought him the relief he'd hoped for. First off, there'd been the press, who both in person and on the phone had pestered him all day. Then there'd been the attitude of his fellow villagers. Fifteen years ago in Dendale it had taken him aback to see the speed with which he'd declined from good ol' Geordie to the Fiend of the Fells. But there he'd been an off-comer, an outsider tolerated because he was pleasant company and would soon be gone. Here in Bixford he thought he'd set down roots, but the taint of being questioned in a child abduction case soon showed him how shallow those roots were. Not that anything had been said, but an overheard whisper, a turned-away glance, even the over-sympathetic tone in which they'd asked about his ordeal down at the pub, had been enough to send him home early to his thoughts and his own whiskey bottle.

Now, toweling himself vigorously, he wandered from the bathroom to the kitchen. His brain was clawing its way painfully to normal consciousness level, but how far it had to go was evidenced by the fact that he'd filled his kettle before he registered that the back door onto the patio was wide open.

This jolted him several steps farther up the slope, and when he heard the footstep behind him, he twisted round, flailing with the kettle at the intruder.

The man swayed back, easily avoiding contact with anything other than the lash of water whipped out of the spout. Then he stepped forward and brought his forehead crashing against Geordie's, paused to examine the effect, before driving a vicious punch into the unprotected belly and raising his knee to receive the man's face as he doubled up. Finally he strolled round the retching figure, pushed a kitchen chair against the back of his legs and pulled him down onto it by his hair. Blood from Turnbull's nose and split eyebrow spattered his naked belly and thighs. The intruder pulled some sheets of kitchen roll and tossed them onto his bloodstained lap.

"Blow your nose, Mr. Turnbull," he said. "I think there's something you want to get off your conscience. When you're ready, I'd like to talk with you about it."

On the morning of that fourth day Elizabeth Wulfstan rose early too.

She slipped out of bed and flung back the curtains on the deep sash window, drenching herself luxuriously in the light which flooded in, heedless of the fact that she was naked and the window fronted directly onto Holyclerk Street.

Hail to the joyous morningtide! The words formed on her lips but she did not speak them, much less sing them.

Below her the street was empty, not even a milkman to enjoy the spectacle she offered. Not that hers was a classically voluptuous body. She had a singer's good chest development, but her breasts were small, almost adolescent, and there wasn't enough spare flesh to hide her ribs' corrugations. Indeed what was most likely to have caught a prurient milkman's eye was the complete absence of hair from her head and her pubes.

What caught her eye were two spaces in the line of residents' cars parked along the curb. As she stood there, going through a sequence of breathing exercises, she checked to left and right and couldn't spot either Walter's Discovery or Arne's Saab.

She finished her exercises, crossed the room, opened the door, andwiththe same total indifference to the possibility of being seen, strolled down the corridor to the bathroom.

Here she brushed her teeth, then gargled gently with a mild antiseptic mouthwash, rinsed, and examined the moist pink interior of her mouth with critical interest.

Now she sang the words, pianissimo.

"Hail to the joyous morningtide."

Finally she showered in lukewarm water so there wasn't too much steam, toweled vigorously, and returned to her room.

Inger Sandel, dressed in shorts and sun top, was sitting on the bed.

Elizabeth didn't break stride but went to her dressing table, sat down, and began to make up her face. It was a slow, delicate process. Her skin was naturally sallow and it took meticulous work to transform it to the flushing fairness of her preference.

Satisfied at last, she met the other woman's eyes in the mirror, then spun slowly round on her stool to face her and said conversationally, "You an active dyke or do you just like gawking?"

Inger said, "Am I a practicing lesbian? Yes."

"Always? Sorry, that's daft. I mean, when did you suss it? When you were a lass or not till later?"

"Always."

"So you never tried it with a man? Not even Arne?"

Inger gave one of her rare smiles and said, "Of course with Arne. Once. He wanted. I wanted to work with him. It seemed necessary, and once out of the way, it has stayed out of the way. And you?"

"Not with Arne, no way."

"But someone?"

"A tutor at college. Thought I'd best try it to get it over with."

"And?"

"And I got it over with."

"So there was no relationship after between you and this tutor?"

"No way."

"You are sure of yourself, I see. But what about him? Did he not want something more?"

"Well, I left a fiver on my pillow next morning and went off early. I expect he got the message."

It was a moment when, if they were ever going to share a smile, they might have done so. But it passed.

"Any more questions?" asked Elizabeth.

"Why do you shave your bush?"

"To get a match with this," said Elizabeth, patting her bald pate. "Turns you on, looking at me, does it?"

"It is… pleasing, yes."

"Pleasing?" She stood up, yawned, stretched. "Well, don't get your hopes up, luv."

She slipped into a pair of pants and pulled a black T-shirt over her head, careful not to touch her face. Then, taking the blond wig off its stand, she fitted it onto her head and studied herself in the dressing-table mirror.

"I had no hopes," said Inger.

"Best way to be. It's always midnight somewhere, my dad used to say. So if it weren't hope that brought you here, how come you're squatting on my bed end?"

"It is the Kindertotenlieder. I agree with the others. I think you should not sing them."

"Which others?"

"Arne. The fat policeman. Walter."

"Walter's said nowt."

"When does Walter ever say anything in contradiction to you? But I see the way he is when you sing them."

"Oh, aye. That's a clever trick when you're banging the piano. Got eyes in the back of your head, have you?"

The woman on the bed didn't answer but just sat there, monumentally still, face impassive, her unblinking gaze fixed on Elizabeth, who made some unnecessary adjustments to her wig.

"So what're you saying, Inger?" she asked finally. "That you're going to take your piano and play in some other street?"

"No. We must all make our own choices. I will not make yours for you. If you will sing, I will play."

"Then everything's champion, isn't it? Ist'a coming down to breakfast or what?"

Without waiting for an answer, she left the room and ran down the stairs. In the kitchen she found the back door open and Chloe standing on the patio, drinking a mug of coffee. The garden, long and narrow, flanked with mature shrubs and shaded at the bottom by a tall pear tree, showed the effect of the drought everywhere, with the rectangle of lawn looking as cracked and ochrous as an early oil painting.

"Morning," called Elizabeth, switching on the electric kettle. "Wet the bed, did you?"

"That's an idea. If we all peed on the lawn, do you think it would help?" said Chloe. "Walter went out very early and woke me, so I got up. And I've come out here in hope of seeing a bit of dew, but even that seems to have stopped."

"Mebbe it's been banned, like hose. I'd not try a pee. Likely that's been banned too."

Chloe came back inside, smiling. There could never be a motherstdaughter closeness between them, but sometimes when alone together their bond of Yorkshire blood allowed them to relax into an earthy familiarity which threatened neither.

Just as common were the times when she felt she'd given house room to an alien.

"I've been talking to Inger. She reckons I owtn't to sing the Mahler cycle. What do you think?" asked Elizabeth suddenly.

Chloe pretended to drink from her empty mug and wondered how someone so direct could be so inapprehensible.

"Why are you interested in what I think?" she prevaricated.

Elizabeth chewed on a handful of dried muesli, then washed it down with a mouthful of black coffee.

"She said Walter and Arne and yon glorrfat bobby thought I shouldn't. But she didn't mention you. So I thought I'd ask if them songs bother you."

"Because of Mary, you mean? The part of my mind which deals with that has long been out of the reach of mere songs," said Chloe.

"That's what I thought," said Elizabeth. "Oh, by the way, thanks."

"For what?"

"For bringing me up."

Chloe opened her mouth in a mock gape which wasn't altogether mock. Before she could say anything, the door opened and Inger came in. Elizabeth finished her coffee, grabbed a handful of fresh grapes, said, "See you," and left.

Inger said, "Does she eat enough?"

"For a singer, you mean?"

"For a woman. This morning I saw her naked. She has strong bones, so I had never realized before how little flesh is on them. She was anorexic once, I think?"

Another member of the unreadably direct tendency, thought Chloe wryly. The only way to respond was either silence or a directness to match their own.

She sat down and said, "After Betsy had been with us some time-she was still Betsy in those days-she was diagnosed as being anorexic. She had treatment, both medical and psychological. Eventually she recovered."

There. How easy it was to be completely direct and yet give next to nothing away!

"So she went through a phase many modern children go through, you spotted it, had it treated. Why do you feel so guilty?"

Give nothing away! Who was she fooling? Not this sharp-eared woman, that was for certain. She'd once asked Arne what made Inger tick. She'd been a little jealous of her in those long-ago days when the young singer had surprised her body onto levels of pleasure her experience with Walter had hardly even hinted at.

Arne had laughed and said, "Inger is gay, so no need to feel that kind of jealousy, my love. But don't feel superior, either, which, though they will deny it, is how straight women feel about lesbians, because they think they offer no threat. Inger hears more in the silence between the notes than most of us hear in the music itself."

Perhaps also she had heard things from Arne that should not have been spoken, or at the least listened carefully to the silences between his words.

Ironically it had been the crisis with Betsy which brought Arne back into her bed. After Mary's disappearance she had broken off relations with him for reasons too incoherent to merit the term, but which included a sense of being punished for her infidelity and a revulsion against anything which even threatened to dilute her pain.

But the Betsy crisis had been different. This time she needed escape from herself, and had found it in the singer's company and caresses.

She couldn't remember now exactly how much she'd revealed of her feelings to Arne. But, if he'd spoken of it to Inger, then even a little was probably enough.

So let her have it from the horse's mouth now, why not? The human heart can only shut so much away, and her dark cavern was full.

She said, "I never wanted Betsy to come to us, you know. We'd moved away to the south, I had used every ounce of my will to close a door on Dendale and the past, and now here was this child threatening to open it all up again. I'd never really liked her, she was such a plain child, dark and fat, and strange, too, you'd get this uneasy feeling and turn around and there Betsy would be, watching you, waiting till you noticed her, then asking if Mary was coming out to play. We put it down to her mother, Lizzie, my cousin, who'd always been highly strung, and had the baby blues after Betsy was born and never seemed truly to get out of them. It didn't surprise most people, I think when she took an overdose. The inquest said it could have been accidental, but I think they were just being kind. Jack, that's Betsy's father, was much more of a shock. He was real down-to-earth Yorkshire, hard as nails, he'd see off anything, so most people thought. So when he drowned himself…"

"There was no doubt this time?" asked Inger.

"Not a lot of people go swimming with their pockets full of rocks," said Chloe. "So there was Betsy. Eleven and a half years old. An orphan. Without a relative in the world, except for me."

"So you took her in?"

Chloe shook her head.

"I took to my bed. I screamed and shouted and blubbered gallons of tears every time the possibility of her coming to live with us was mentioned. It was Walter who persuaded me… no, not persuaded… that implies an appeal to rationality… he just worked on me, you know the way the sun can still be burning you even when you think you're protected by a thick layer of cloud? Well, I put up my layer of cloud, but all the time Walter was up there, burning through. And in the end, he won."

"You think he was right?"

"Of course he was right. The child needed a home. And when she came, it was a lot easier than I thought. Far from bringing a pressure to open that door I'd worked so hard shut, the girl showed no desire to talk about her parents, or Dendale, or anything in the past. In fact she talked very little at all, and less and less as time went by, and I thought (if I thought at all) Oh, good, she's closed a door on the past too. And it seemed to me we could coexist very well in this untroublesome silence."

"She was a child," said Inger in a neutral tone that was nonetheless judgmental.

"I know. I should have… but I didn't. She seemed fine to me. Okay, she lost a bit of weight, but that pleased me. I used to tell her sometimes she shouldn't eat so many sweets and cakes and stuff, and I thought she was just growing out of a puppy-fat stage."

"How old was she when you realized there was a problem?" asked Inger.

"Realized?" Chloe laughed bitterly. "I never realized. One night there were these terrible screams from upstairs. I rushed up to find Betsy in the bathroom. Her head… oh, God, what a mess. She'd decided to turn her hair blond, and she'd mixed a hideously strong solution of bleaching powder… I got her under the shower and screamed at her to keep her eyes closed and held her there far longer than I should have done, because all the time I was holding her there, I felt I was doing something right and I didn't have to start thinking about what I had done wrong. But finally I got her to hospital. They sorted her out, said she had damaged part of her scalp so badly that her hair would probably fall out and might grow back in patches, but that wasn't what they were worried about, it was her anorexia, and they wanted to know what treatment she was getting for it."

"And you had no idea of this?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I did, deep down, but just didn't want to let her be a trouble to me. Walter had been away on a long trip, a couple of months. Perhaps he would have noticed. He was always closer to her than I was."

"It does not seem so now," said Inger.

"No?" Chloe smiled to herself. Perhaps after all the pianist, by listening so closely to the silences, missed some of the notes. "Ah, well. Certainly back then, it must have been very clear. She was treated by a child psychiatrist, Dr. Paula Appleby, you may have heard of her. I believe she's quite well known. Walter never settled for anything but the best. Dr. Appleby treated Betsy for eighteen months, two years, I don't know how long. I sat back and let Walter take care of all that. I felt guilty now, yes, but I still didn't want to get involved. I had closed a door on Dendale to shut it out. Betsy, too, had closed a door, but it seems she had shut herself in with it, and I didn't want any part of opening all that up again. And when Dr. Appleby said that the business with the hair and the anorexia was her attempt to turn herself from a little fat dark-haired girl into a slim blonde so that she'd be like Mary and we'd love her, I just felt sick. Do I sound like a monster?"

"You sound like you needed help as much as Betsy. I am surprised that Walter did not understand this."

"He was too busy seeing Betsy through her trouble. Dr. Appleby got her talking about the past and wanted us to see the transcripts. She said it was a family problem, we all needed to know all about each other. I refused point blank and I don't think I'd have let myself be persuaded, but it turned out Betsy herself said she didn't mind Walter seeing them, but she didn't want me to have to read them. I think when I heard that, for the first time I felt something like affection for her."

"Because she wanted to save you pain?"

"That was the only reason I could see. After the treatment was over and she was back to normality, if that's the right word, we got on much better. I think we both felt that even if she could never be a daughter to me, on the other hand there was a tie of blood between us which couldn't be denied."

"But despite being normal," said Inger, "she kept on dieting and took to wearing a blond wig?"

"Her hair wouldn't grow back properly. She needed a wig. She asked if I would mind if it was blond. I said, why should I? As for the dieting, I did get worried about this and used to fuss her at mealtimes. Then one day she showed me a chart with all the calorific values of the stuff she ate carefully worked out and said, "No way am I going to stuff myself with cakes and such fodder. This is what I eat, and it's enough, and I don't go off to the lavvy to stuff my finger down my throat and spew it all up either. So never rack thyself, I'll be fine." After that I stopped worrying. She started taking the singing seriously about then. She'd always had a voice, that you know. Now she said she wanted to find out if it was good enough to make her living with. It was about this time we formally adopted her. We'd called her Elizabeth from the start, and when she went to school, it had seemed easier to say her name was Wulfstan."

"She didn't mind?"

"Who knows what goes on in Elizabeth's head? But she said nothing. And when Walter suggested we make it legal, she seemed almost pleased."

"And you?"

"I didn't mind. Somehow it made her less of a reminder of the past. I think that was why I quite welcomed the blond wig and the change of shape too. All that remained of Betsy Allgood out of Dendale was the accent."

"That bothered you?"

"No, but I thought it might cause her trouble, with her classmates, I mean. And later, as she grew up. I once suggested she have elocution lessons. She said, "Why? There's nothing wrong with my voice, is there?"' And I realized she was speaking perfect BBC English. Then she went on, "But I'll not be shamed to crack on like Mam and Dad, and them as don't like it can bloody lump it!" That was the last time I brought the subject up."

"So you became friends."

"I'd not put it strong as that," said Chloe. "But, as I said, we're blood, and you don't need to like your relations all the time, do you? She helped me, I think. Or perhaps it was just time that helped me."

"To get better, you mean?"

"Not really. Like Elizabeth's scalp, there's no cure for what was damaged in me. But you learn to live with a wig. Whatever, four years ago when Walter seemed to be spending more and more time up here at the Works, I heard myself say, wouldn't it make more sense for us to live up there? It took him by surprise. Me too. He said, "You're sure?"' And I said, because I am after all a woman and we must seize our chances, "Yes, but only if we can buy a house in the bell." And here we are."

"You did not want to live in the country?"

Chloe's face went dark and she said softly, "No. I'm a country lass born and bred, but now I can't even bear to look out of the train or car window when we're passing through empty countryside. Now, is that all, Inger? Have I quite satisfied your curiosity?"

"Like sex, only till the next time," said Inger.

Edgar Wield wouldn't have minded a lie-in that morning.

His own sense of guilt had got him up early the previous morning, and the Fat Man's sense of guilt had kept him up late the previous night. But he'd missed his morning visit to Monte in order to get to the hospital, and to miss it again would just add guilt to guilt, so he slipped out of bed at his usual ungodly (edwin's epithet) hour.

Not perhaps all that ungodly, however. For as he strolled through the churchyard, the church door opened and Larry Lillingstone, the vicar, came out. A handsome young man, his present unclerical garb of jersey and shorts made him look more Apolline acolyte than Anglican divine.

Wield ran his gaze appreciatively over the suntanned limbs and said, "Morning, Larry. This what they call muscular Christianity?"

"Just off for my jog," said Lillingstone, smiling. "This truly is the best time of day. You can't believe there's much wrong with the world on mornings like this, can you?"

Wield thought of the Dacres waking from whatever chemical sleep they'd managed, of the Pascoes keeping their desperate vigil by Rosie's bed. But joy was as rare and refreshing as rain these past few days, so he returned the smile and said, "Dead right. Specially if you've been lucky enough to get yourself a bonny lass like Kee Scudamore. I gather congratulations are in order."

"How on earth… we only decided yesterday and I've not told anyone…" Then Lillingstone laughed and went on. "What am I saying? This is Enscombe! Yes, Kee's going to marry me, and I'm the happiest

… Bloody hell!"

This impious ejaculation was caused by the sudden descent from the branches of the old yew under which they stood of a small furry figure onto Wield's head, where it clung, gibbering.

"How do, Monte," said Wield, gently drawing the little monkey down into his arms. "What's up, Vicar? Think the devil had come for a visit?"

"It's strange how medieval the mind can be in moments of stress," admitted Lillingstone.

"Never fear. I missed my visit yesterday morning and he's obviously made his mind up it's not going to happen twice, so he's come looking for me, right, Monte?"

"Well, certainly if you ever became Enscombe's second missing policeman, there'd be no need to mount a search party, would there?" said Lillingstone, referring to the event which had first brought Wield to Enscombe.

"No," said Wield thoughtfully. "No. Likely there wouldn't. Excuse me, Vicar, but I think I'd best be getting to work. Enjoy your run. And you, you little bugger, enjoy your nuts."

Putting the muslin bag of peanuts into Monte's paws, he launched the tiny animal up into the yew and watched as he commenced his aerial route back to his tree house in the grounds of Old Hall. Then, with a wave of his hand which comprehended both man and monkey, he set off back the way he'd come.

The first person he saw as he got off his motorbike in Danby was Sergeant Clark, who had the faintly self-important look of a man who knows more than you do.

"Super around?" asked Wield.

"Been and gone," said Clark.

Wield waited, not asking more. "No wonder the bugger's such a good interviewer," Dalziel had once observed. "Face like that's worth a thousand clever questions."

"He's gone to Bixford," said Clark. "Word came this morning, Geordie Turnbull's been attacked."

If he'd been looking for oohs and ahs, he was disappointed.

"Tell us," said Wield impassively.

"Local patrol car were driving by his place early on. Seems the super had said to keep a close eye on Turnbull. Well, the big gate were open. It's always kept shut, save when he's got machinery coming in and out, that is. They went in to check and found Turnbull looking like he'd gone three rounds with Tyson."

Wield, who abhorred imprecision above all things, said impatiently, "Just how bad is he?"

"Looked worse than it was," admitted Clark almost reluctantly. "Few cuts and a squashed nose, they say. Turnbull were trying to patch himself up, and he didn't want to make it official. But the lads called it in anyway."

"Very wise," said Wield.

"So what do you think? There's a lot of folk round here said when we let him go that best thing would have been to kick the truth out of him."

"I hope you got their names, then, 'cos likely Mr. Dalziel will want to talk to them," said Wield heavily. "One thing's for sure, if that was the aim of the exercise, he's off the hook."

"How's that?" asked Clark, puzzled.

"If he'd admitted owt, they wouldn't have left him nursing his wounds, would they?" said Wield. "Something you can do for me, Nobby. That vet I read about, Douglas is it? Where's he hang out?"

Clark told him. Wield put his crash helmet back on and flung his leg over the bike.

"You not going inside?" demanded Clark. "What shall I say if anyone asks after you?"

Wield grinned, like a fissure in a rock.

"Tell them I've gone to see a man about a dog," he said.

Andy Dalziel was meanwhile standing over Geordie Turnbull, looking minded to start where the intruder had stopped.

"You're not helping anyone, Geordie, least of all yourself. He could be back. So why not tell me who it was, what he were after, and I'll sort it?"

"I've told you, Mr. Dalziel. I never saw his face. He jumped me, knocked hell out of me, then took off."

"You're a bloody liar," said Dalziel. "You'd have been straight on the phone to us, in that case. But you're so keen to keep it quiet, you don't even bother with getting treatment in case someone reports it. That eye needs a couple of stitches, I'd say. And your nose could do with being lined up with your gob again."

"Maybe so, but at least I keep it out of other buggers' business," retorted Turnbull spiritedly.

"I think this is my business, Geordie," said Dalziel. "I think this is about them missing lasses."

"Do you think if I knew anything about that, I'd not tell you?" demanded Turnbull. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take your advice and go down to the clinic. As everyone in the place'll know what's happened by now, I might as well save them the trouble of thinking up excuses to come and gawk."

"I'll find out in the end, tha knows that, Geordie," promised Dalziel.

"I don't doubt it, Mr. Dalziel," said Turnbull. "But as it could take you another fifteen years, I won't hold my breath."

It was a parting shot that not even the adamantine defenses of the great Andy Dalziel could parry.

He went out to his car, glaring up at the already ferocious sun as though thinking about tearing it out of the sky. But the eye of God beamed benevolently back, knowing that this fiery fury was nothing but the inflamed swelling round a deep wound of despair.

The eye of God, which makes no distinctions of persons, was beaming with equal benevolence on Police Constable Hector as he left Mid-Yorkshire Police Headquarters and began his slow perambulation through the center of town. His gait was not exactly majestic; in fact he moved as if under the control of a trainee puppeteer who'd got his strings tangled. This was also an apt metaphor for how his superiors felt. Finding a niche for a man of his talents had been difficult. For a time the conventional wisdom was that the public weal would be best served by keeping Hector hid in the bowels of the building, "helping" with records. But the increase in computerization had put an end to that. Though specifically forbidden to touch anything that had switches, buttons, lights, or made a humming noise, Hector's mere presence seemed somehow perilous to the proper function of electronic equipment. "He's a human virus," declared the sergeant in charge. "Get him out of here else he'll be into the Pentagon War Room in a fortnight!" A spell on the desk had brought complaints from the public that they got better service from Mid-Yorks Water. Finally, when the Evening Post supported a local campaign to get bobbies back on the beat with a piece of research from the Applied Psychology Department of MYU showing that life-sized cardboard cutouts of policemen in supermarkets reduced the incidence of shoplifting by half, the ACC said, "Well, we can manage that, at any rate," and Hector was returned into the community.

But not without some necessary fail-safes. He had to radio in every thirty minutes, else a car was sent out to look for him. If his assistance was required in any matter more serious than a request for the time, he had to contact Control for instructions. And in particular, he was strictly forbidden to make any attempt to direct traffic, as his last venture in that area had resulted in a gridlock which made the chief constable miss a train.

But when the copies of Wield's modified photo of Benny Lightfoot had been handed out that morning, Hector had taken his with the rest and registered that they were being instructed to ask people if they had seen this man. The instruction was, in fact, aimed at patrol-car officers, who were advised particularly to check garages in the district in case the camper van had been filled up with gasoline. Door-to-door inquiries were being concentrated on the Danby area. But Hector, delighted to have a task he comprehended, thrust the photo in front of any pedestrians he encountered, demanding, "Have you seen this man?" but rarely staying for an answer as his eager eye spotted yet another target who might pass him by unless he hurried.

It was with some irritation that he felt himself tapped on the shoulder as he blocked the way of a young man on a skateboard. He turned to find himself looking at the woman he'd just questioned.

"What?" he demanded.

"I said yes," she said.

"Eh?"

"You asked me if I'd seen that man and I said yes."

"Oh."

He scowled partly in puzzlement, partly because he'd just noticed the skateboarder had taken the chance to glide away.

"Right," he said. "So you've seen him then?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

This was undeniable.

He said, "Hang on, will you?" and looked at his personal radio. One of the buttons had been painted fluorescent orange by a kindly sergeant who had then written in Hector's notebook, "Press the bright orange button when you want to talk."

Hector actually remembered this, but checked in his book just to be quite sure.

"Hello?" he said. "This is Hector talking. Over."

He had an official call sign, but no one was foolish enough to insist on it.

"Hector, you're ahead of yourself, aren't you? You're not due to check in for another ten minutes."

"I know. It's yon photo you gave me. I showed it to this woman and she says she's seen the man. What do you want me to do?"

"The pho-his Hector, where are you?"

"Hang on."

He turned his head slowly looking for something to locate himself by.

The woman said, "You're in Bra. gate. Can you hurry this up? I'll be late for work."

"She says we're in Bra. gate, Sarge," said Hector.

"She's still with you, is she? Thank God for that. Stay there, Hector. And whatever you do don't let her leave, right?"

"Right," said Hector. "How shall I stop her?"

"You're a policeman, for God's sake!" yelled the sergeant. "Just keep her there!"

"Right," said Hector again.

He switched off his radio and replaced it with great care. Then he turned to the woman.

"So what's going off?" she asked.

He said, "You are under arrest. You do not have to say anything, but I have to warn you that anything you do say will be taken down-"

"This is crazy," she said angrily. "I'm off."

She turned to walk away. Hector with some difficulty pulled out his new style long baton, and set out after her.

Fortunately his first swing missed entirely and the patrol car had turned up before he could get into position to try a second.

The car officers got the woman into the backseat and calmed her down, then listened to what she had to tell them.

She finished with "And I've got to get to work now. With the cutbacks we're short staffed as it is, and if I'm not there to get things started, there'll be real trouble."

"Someone from CID will need to talk to you," said the driver. "But from the sound of it, it's best they do that at work anyway. So let's be on our way."

Through the window open against the morning heat, Hector said, "What shall I do?"

The woman told him.

"Couldn't have put it better myself, luv," said the driver, grinning broadly as he drove away.

That morning of early rising, Shirley Novello slept late.

Sparing only enough time to make herself look as if she hadn't just fallen out of bed, she drove to headquarters with a disregard for speed limits and road courtesy which she would have found deplorable in a civilian.

By the time she'd parked her car, she was awake enough to find it deplorable in herself. Two minutes she might have saved, if that. And for what? Dalziel and Wield and all important people would be clocking on at Danby. It was only the supernumeraries like herself who were kept on the perimeter of the inquiry, tidying up. She herself was faced with the possibility of another tedious trip down to Sheffield if old Mrs. Lightfoot had revived sufficiently to be interviewed.

Still, even if the big guns were away, no need to give the little pistols ammunition.

She opened the door of the CID room and strolled in, trying to look as if she'd been researching down in Records for the past half hour.

Dennis Seymour looked up from his desk and said in a loud voice, "Morning, Shirley. You're looking gorgeous today. But then why shouldn't you be, with all that beauty sleep you're having?"

She glowered at him, angry that someone she thought of as a mate should be pointing the finger like this. Then it dawned on her that Seymour was the only person in the room.

"Where's everybody?" she asked.

"Busy," he said. "Things don't stop just because you're asleep. All our suspects have been in the action. Geordie Turnbull's been attacked and there's been a definite sighting of Benny Lightfoot in Dendale. We even have a good likeness, thanks to our own Toulouse-Lautrec."

He tossed Novello a copy of Wield's updated picture.

She said, "I wish I'd had this yesterday when I was down at Wark House."

"Never heard of the fax, Detective?" said Seymour. "Or take it with you. Didn't you say someone would have to talk to the old lady?"

"Yes. I'd have done it yesterday, only she wasn't up to snuff."

She must have sounded a touch defensive because Seymour said, "But you think a hard, insensitive man might have insisted? If you're thinking of a hard, extremely fat insensitive man, you're probably right. But no harm done. Much better to chat when the old girl can chat back. They're up and down like a fiddler's elbow, these old folk. She'll probably be bright as a button today."

"I hope so. But I'll fax the photo anyway. Sooner we get confirmation, the better."

She scribbled a note to Billie Saltair, asking her to show the accompanying picture to the nurse, Sally, and get her reaction, if any; also inquiring how Mrs. Lightfoot was this morning and stressing the necessity for an early interview.

Even her note lacked the true CID masculine assertiveness, she thought. But what-the-hell? Some of her male colleagues would still be questioning Winifred Fleck!

The reply came back ten minutes later.

"Great!" she said, reading it as it crept out of the machine. "Spitting image of the man who came to see old Agnes."

"Another triumph," mocked Seymour. "They'll be letting you lie in bed all day if you go on like this."

"Oh, shit," said Novello, the complete fax in her hand.

"Sorry. Didn't realize you were quite so sensitive."

"Not you. It's Agnes Lightfoot. She died in the night. I knew I should have talked to her yesterday!"

"Hey, what could she have told you that you don't know?" asked Seymour.

"I'll never know, will I?" said Novello savagely, grabbing the phone and dialing the Wark House number.

"Saltair," said the matron's husky voice. "That Detective Novello? Thought you'd be ringing."

"What happened?"

"Nature happened," said Billie Saltair. "It was her time. I think she'd just been waiting for a signal, and her visitor last week seems to have been it."

"Did she say anything before she died?" asked Novello without much hope.

"She did, as a matter of fact," said the matron. "She took my hand, looked up at me bright and hard. And said, "I knew he'd come. I knew. Benny's back." Then she died. That's it. Anything else I can help with?"

Novello thought hard.

"Yes," she said. "If anyone rings up asking about Agnes, don't say she's dead, okay? Just say she's pretty ill, too ill to talk on the phone. Can you do that?"

There was a pause, then Saltair said, "Yes, in this case, I think I can stretch to that. But only because no one's rung up asking about Agnes for so many years, I think the chances of causing distress are minimal. Anything else?"

"Yes. I think it would be a good idea if we had one of our people at the home, just in case Benny turns up in person to have another chat to his gran."

"Fine. But have you got anyone old enough to fit in?"

"We'll send a master of disguises. Thanks a lot. And I'm really sorry about Mrs. Lightfoot."

"Me too. Happens all the time, but you never get used to it. Bye."

Novello replaced the phone.

"So," said Seymour. "And who's this master of disguises?"

"There's only two of us here, and what is it you macho men are always saying, that putting the cuffs on a young, fit, and dangerous criminal's no job for a woman?"

"I've never said that in my life," said Seymour indignantly. "Bernadette would have my guts for garters if she thought I said things like that."

"Okay. Sorry. But someone's got to go. I'm sure if we could track the Fat Man down, he'd give the go-ahead. Lots of Brownie points for initiative on offer here, Dennis."

"I'm sure. So why aren't you rushing to collect them?"

"Because I think I need to talk to the DCI," said Novello unhappily.

"Mr. Pascoe? But he's-"

"Yes, I know. But this is. his line of inquiry. I spoke to him yesterday and he was very helpful. I need to bring him up to date and check whether there's anything I'm missing. This time I think I'd better go round and see him in person."

"To the hospital, you mean?" Seymour whistled and rose to his feet. "You're right, I reckon, Shirley. I've got the easy job. In these nursing homes, it's only the old who die."

"Wieldy, what the hell have you got there?" said Maggie Burroughs.

She was standing on the shady side of the mobile police van on Ligg Common, drinking a cup of tea.

As if in answer to her question, from the basket strapped to the sergeant's passenger saddle came a sharp yap.

"This is Tig, ma'am," he said. "Lorraine's dog. Vet says he's fit enough to go home."

"You think the Dacres'll want it?" said Burroughs doubtfully. "Every time they look at it…"

"Yeah," said Wield. "No telling how it'll take people."

"There's always the RSPCA," said Burroughs with the indifference of a non-animal lover. "So why've you brought it here?"

"Just thought it might be worthwhile taking him up the valley."

She looked at him doubtfully and said, "Might have been a good idea two days ago, but I can't see what you can hope for when men, dogs, and thermal imaging cameras haven't come up with anything more interesting than a dead sheep. You know the search has been scaled down? Super's got a frog team diving in the reservoir. Worth a look, I suppose. But this side, we're done. The van will stay for a couple of days just to show willing, maybe jog someone's memory. But that's it."

Does she think I'm asking permission? wondered Wield. Technically she was in charge of the search, that was true. But now there wasn't any search for her to be in charge of.

"So you reckon I shouldn't bother?" he said.

It was the old put-up-or-shut-up technique. But Maggie Burroughs was up to it.

She took a long sip of tea, then smiled at him.

"Not up to me to tell CID how to pass their time," she said. "No, Sergeant, you take your walk. But do me a favor. Write it up for me. It'll round the search report off. Show we tried everything."

Show you tried everything, thought Wield, who had no doubts about, or problems with, the extent of Maggie Burroughs's ambition.

He said, "Thank you, ma'am," revved up, and sent the bike bumping up the dusty path running alongside the creeping beck.

Burroughs watched him go. In her eyes a middle-aged queer on a vintage motorbike was not the image of modern policing she wanted to project. But he was close to Dalziel, and she didn't reckon that falling out with the Fat Man's favorites was any way for an ambitious officer to get on in the Mid-Yorkshire force.

Wield took the bike as far as he could before the path became too steep and rocky for comfort. He was almost at the spot where Tony Dacre had found Tig that Sunday morning, and assuming the frightened and injured animal had headed for home, the attack must have taken place upstream from here.

"Right, lad. Walkies," said Wield.

At first he put the little animal on a lead, frightened it might simply run away. But when it showed no inclination to do anything but trot up the familiar path with occasional stops to cock its leg or bark at a bird or butterfly, Wield took the risk of letting it run free.

They were now high up the valley, where it narrowed considerably. Westward rose the steep side of the Neb, while to the east the ground sloped a little more easily to the Danby-Highcross Moor road. Here Ligg Beck ran through a steep sided ghyll, no Grand Canyon, but deep enough for a bone-breaking fall. In spate, there must have been fine cascades here, but this summer all that remained of the water which over a thousand years had etched this crack in the bare rock was a trickle of damp in the depths, where ferns drooped and mosses clung.

Wield took a breather. He'd brought a bottle of water, and after taking a swig himself, he poured some into the palm of his hand and let the dog have a drink.

Likely Burroughs was right, he thought. This was a waste of time. Except that in his methodical mind, even negatives needed to be tested before you put them to one side.

He'd also brought a pair of field glasses. He put them to his eyes and slowly scanned the valley. Not a sign of life, except for the odd sheep. If he stood up, he could get a good view of the rooftops of Danby. The Highcross Moor road was visible in glimpses lower down, but immediately above him, the folds of ground kept it out of sight, though he could see the back of a square plaque on a metal post which he worked out must be the NO LITTER sign at the viewpoint young Novello had had such high hopes of.

Mebbe her theory wasn't so daft after all. If he could see the sign so clearly, anyone up there with glasses would easily be able to pick out a small girl walking her dog along this path.

There'd been no glasses in Turnbull's car but there had been a powerful pair in his bungalow.

He lowered the binoculars and let his naked eye take in the proper scale of the thing. The slope was steep but not too steep, and mainly grassy. Man in a hurry could come down here in four or five minutes, he reckoned.

Going back up, carrying a child, that was something else. Twenty minutes… probably thirty, depending how fit you were. Turnbull looked strong enough in the shoulders to carry the girl, but how much exercise did those legs get?

In any case it was a hell of a risk to take.

But, seeing the girl down here, alone and vulnerable, what would such a sick mind as this man must have reck of risk?

Wield was brought out of his reverie by the sound of Tig barking.

It seemed to be coming from the bowels of the earth, and his first thought was that the daft animal had gone down a rabbit hole. Then he realized the noise was coming from the ghyll.

Tig was down there somewhere, and he sounded as if he'd found something.

Getting down the ghyll proved fairly easy. A narrow sheep trod angled down the slope, offering little problem to a man who kept himself in trim. He soon found himself in shade but any hope that this would be better than the heat of the sun soon vanished. It was like descending into a sludge of warm air, and what was worse the atmosphere was foul with the stink of corruption.

Dogs, men, thermal image cameras-they couldn't possibly have missed this, thought Wield.

And now he saw that of course they hadn't. The trod ran across the bottom of the ghyll and up the other face till it was blocked by a slab of rock resting at an angle of about thirty degrees, where it turned back on itself and zigzagged up the remaining slope.

Across the path by the slab lay the remains of a sheep. The scavengers had been here and there were bones lying apart from the main carcass. But decay had been rapid enough in this heat to quickly rot the flesh to a state not even a hungry fox found appetizing, and the body had been left to the depredations of flies, which rose like wind-tugged pall each time Tig barked.

"Come away, boy!" called Wield.

The dog turned, took an uncertain step toward him, then turned back.

"For Christ's sake, didn't that vet feed you?" demanded the sergeant. "You've got to be desperate to want to stick your gob into that lot!"

He took a deep breath and held it as he crossed the streambed and started up the other side, planning to grab Tig and keep going to the top.

The dog struggled as it felt Wield's hands seize it and whimpered piteously as he lifted it up to his chest.

Got to be desperate… His own words echoed in his head.

He stopped and had to take a breath. But now he ignored the stench. He was looking at the spot where the carcass lay. Directly above it, the side of the ghyll was almost sheer. It was easy to see how the sheep, grazing too near the edge and stretching down in search of the not-so-sun-scorched vegetation growing between the rocks, could have lost its footing and plunged to the bottom, breaking its back.

But surely it would have been to the bottom of the ghyll, not this angle of the trod, which was barely more than a six-inch ledge on the steep slope?

The dog lay dormant in his arms now, as if sensing that he was no longer the object of reprimand.

Wield went back down to the streambed. There was a rock there with some wool on it and a brown stain which might be blood. He looked up toward the carcass. The grass on the bank of the almost dried-up stream was slightly flattened and some of the ferns were snapped. As if something had been dragged. And there were more traces of wool up the rocky slope to the trod.

He put the dog down and climbed back up to the carcass. The ground was too rocky to bury anything here. But that rock slab, the way it lay, there could be a space beneath in the angle it made with the ghyll wall.

He would need to move the sheep to see.

Not even the heat of the chase could make him contemplate taking his hands to that task. He found a large flat piece of stone which he used as a shovel, and gagging from the foulness directly beneath his nose, he began to lever the rotting corpse away from the slab. It came to pieces as he pushed, and fell in stinking gobbets to the streambed below. Flies rose in a fetid, humming spiral around his head, which he shook like an irritated bullock. Tig, dodging the descending bones, was now by his feet as the gap beneath the slab was revealed. Only, there wasn't a gap. It was choked with stones and turf and wads of heather. But that hadn't got there naturally, that hadn't grown there. Using his hands now that it was just good, honest rock and vegetation he had to deal with, he began to unplug the hole. Suddenly his hand was through into space. He withdrew it. The hole was big enough to admit a rabbit. Or a small dog. Before Wield could grab him, Tig was through, barking fiercely for a moment; then, perhaps the most terrible noise Wield had ever heard, the bark died to an almost inaudible whimper.

Wield tried to proceed systematically but despite himself he found he was tearing at the remaining debris with a ferocity which brought sweat streaming down his face and blood from his fingernails.

Finally he stopped. He hadn't got a flashlight. Mistake. Man should never go anywhere without a length of string, a cutting blade, and a flashlight.

He knelt on the trod, heedless that his knees were resting on ground stained by the juices of the decomposing sheep.

He kept his head a little way back from the hole to permit as much light as possible to enter. And he waited.

At first he could see nothing but the vaguest of shapes. Then gradually, as his eyes adjusted, he saw the light gently run over the outlines of things. As he'd guessed, there was a triangular space in here, almost tentlike, about two and a half feet wide, three feet high, and six feet deep. In the middle of it, a hump, difficult to make out, perhaps because his mind didn't want to make it out. The first thing he really identified was the gleam of Tig's eyes, and then his teeth as his lips drew back in a soundless snarl.

The dog was lying up against something. Wield knelt there straining his eyes, till slowly, inexorably, he was forced to see what he had known for some minutes he was going to see.

He rose unsteadily to his feet and reached into his pocket. Flashlight he might not have, but he hadn't forgotten his mobile.

"Stay, Tig," he said unnecessarily.

Then, telling himself it was to improve reception, but knowing that he wanted above all things to be out of this dark and noisome canyon and back into the bright light and fresh air, he climbed up from the ghyll, pressed the necessary buttons, and began to speak.

The woman's name was Jackie Tilney. She was overweight, overworked, over thirty, and so pissed off with having told her story to three different sets of cops that she was ready to tell the fourth to take a jump.

Only, the fourth wasn't a set, though possessed of enough flesh to make two or three ordinary bobbies, and if he'd taken her putative advice and jumped, she feared for the foundations of the public library, where she worked.

So she told her story again.

She had definitely seen the man in the photograph. And she had spoken with him. And he had an Australian accent.

"The first time was-"

"Hang about. First time?" said Dalziel. "How many times were there?"

"Two," she retorted. "Don't your menials tell you anything?"

Dalziel regarded her thoughtfully. He liked a well-made feisty woman. Then he recalled that in Cap Marvell, he'd got the cruiser weight Queen of Feist, smiled fondly, and said, "Nay, lass, I don't waste time with tipsters when I can go straight to the horse's mouth. Go on."

Deciding there had to be a compliment in there somewhere, Jackie Tilney went on.

"The first time was last Friday. He came to the reference desk and asked if we had anything about the building of the Dendale Reservoir. I told him that he could look at the local papers for the period on our microfiche system. Also this book."

She showed him the volume. It was called The Drowning of Dendale, a square volume, not all that thick. He remembered it vaguely. It had been written by one of the Post journalists and contained more photographs than text, basically a before-and-after record.

"He asked me to do a couple of photocopies," Tilney went on. "These maps."

She showed him. One was of Dendale before the flooding, the other after.

"Did you chat to him at all?"

"A bit. He had a nice easy manner. Just about the weather and such, how it was a lot cooler back home this time of year and how he'd packed three raincoats for his trip to England because everyone told him it rained all the time."

"Was he trying to chat you up, do you think? Good-looking lass like yourself, it 'ud not be surprising."

"Am I meant to be flattered?" she said. "No, as a matter of fact, he didn't come on at me at all. It made a nice change. World's full of fellows who think, just because you're on the other side of a counter, you're sales goods. I got the impression he had other things on his mind anyway."

"Such as?"

"Look, mister, I'm too busy trying to keep an underfunded understaffed library system going in this town to have time to develop my psychic powers. I wouldn't be spending this amount of time with you if it didn't have something to do with that missing girl."

"Now, what makes you think that, luv?"

"I read the Post, don't I?"

She produced the paper and spread it before him, open at an article about the investigation with photos of Lorraine Dacre and her parents, of the Hardcastles and Joe Telford, of Geordie Turnbull and his solicitor, and one of Dalziel himself, caught at what looked like a moment of religious contemplation.

With that subtlety and taste for which British journalists are universally famed, the editor had opted to print on the page opposite a feature about the Mid-Yorkshire Music Festival, highlighting the facts that the opening concert was in Danby, featuring Songs for Dead Children sung by Elizabeth Wulfstan, who as a child in Dendale fifteen years back had been the last and only surviving victim of the uncaught abductor of three local girls.

There was a full-figure picture of Elizabeth looking inscrutable, a close-up of Walter Wulfstan looking irritated, and a midshot of Sandel on a piano stool looking bored with the Turnip by the piano looking charming.

Without being actionable, the combined effect of the two pages was to suggest that the police were as out of their depth now as they'd been fifteen years ago.

"Sounds like you need all the help you can get," said Jackie Tilney.

"I'll not quarrel with that," said Dalziel. "So that's the first time you saw him. What about the second?"

"Yesterday afternoon, he were back. He went through the papers again. And then he went through the book. He was noting things down. Then I noticed he'd left the table where he'd been sitting and I thought he'd gone. But I glimpsed him over there, behind that stack."

"And what's kept over there?" asked Dalziel.

"Business directories, mainly," said Tilney.

"Oh, aye?"

Dalziel strolled over and took a look. She was right. Why shouldn't she be? He returned to the desk.

"And then?"

"And then he left. He was going somewhere else in town, I think. I saw him looking at one of those town maps you get from the Tourist Center. And that was the last I saw of him till that constable of yours stuck that picture in front of me this morning. By the by, is he fit to be let out by himself? The bugger came after me with his stick!"

"He's an impulsive young lad," said Dalziel. "But good hearted. I'll have a fatherly word with him."

He gave her a savage smile suggesting the father he had in mind was Cronos.

"Are we done?" she asked.

He didn't answer. When you've caught a bright witness, don't let it go till you've squeezed it dry, was a good maxim. A uniformed constable approached and was not put off by Dalziel's Gorgon glare.

"What?"

"You're to ring Sergeant Wield at the van, sir."

Meaning, use a land line, not your mobile phone, for extra security. Meaning…

Jackie Tilney said, "There's a phone in the office. You can be private there."

She'd caught the vibes of his reaction. Sharp lady.

He went through and dialed. Half a ring and the phone was answered.

"It's me," he said.

"We've found her, sir."

The tone told him, dead. His head had long since given up hope of any other outcome, but a tightening of the chest told him his heart had kept a secret vigil.

He said, "Where?"

"Up the valley."

Where he himself had ordered the abandonment of the search the previous night. Shit.

He said, "I'm on my way. You got things started?"

Unnecessary question.

"Yes, sir."

"And quiet as you can, Wieldy."

Unnecessary injunction. Born of his own sense of missing things.

"Yes, sir."

He put the phone down and went back to the desk.

"That'll do for now, luv," he said. "Thanks for your help."

Her eyes suggested his efforts to stay casual were failing.

He picked up The Drowning of Dendale.

"All right if I borrow this?"

"Long as you pay the fine," she said. "Good luck."

"Thanks," he said.

He strode out of the library. Suddenly he felt full of energy. The pain at the confirmation of the child's death was still there, but alongside it was another feeling, less laudable and best kept hidden from others, but unhideable from himself.

After fifteen years, he finally had a body. Bodies told you things. Bodies had been in contact with killers at their most desperate, hasty, and unthinking moments. Mere vanishings were the mothers of rumors, of false trails, of myths and imaginings. But a body…!

He might hate himself for it, but he could not keep a spring out of his step as he headed for his car.

Tuesday's bright dawn had brought little but the blackness of contrast to the Pascoes, but Wednesday's brought a glimpse of hope.

Mrs. Curtis, the consultant, was still several watts short of optimism, but when she said, "For a while yesterday we seemed close to falling through, but now it seems more likely we were simply bottoming out," Ellie didn't even register the medically patronizing we but simply embraced the embarrassed woman.

She knew there was no question yet of celebration. Rosie was still unconscious. But at least and at last the sunshine brought with it the hope of hope. And with hope came space for her mind to relax its relentless focus on a single object.

Halfway through the morning Ellie was in the washroom regarding herself critically in the mirror. She looked a wreck, but that was nothing to the way Peter looked. He looked like a wreck that had had another couple of accidents. Which, she thought, was not all that far from the truth.

They were both in the wrong jobs, she'd often thought it. He should have been basking on the fringes of the life academic, trying his hand at the novel introspective, running Rosie back and forth to school, keeping the house ticking over… no, more than ticking over; on the odd occasion when he'd taken over the ironing, she'd found him pressing underpants, for God's sake! With Peter in charge, they'd have crisp new sheets every night.

And herself? She should have been out there on the mean streets, riding the punches and taking the bumps, moving on from one case to the next with nothing to show but the odd bit of scar tissue, none of these deep bruises which keep on hemorrhaging around the bone long after the surface flesh has apparently recovered.

Trouble was, though they shared great areas of social conscience in common, the spin that nature and/or nurture had put on hers made her regard the police force as a cure almost as bad as the disease. Peter, on the other hand, though not blind to its flaws, felt himself duty driven to work from within. A right pious little Aeneas, Italiam non sponte sequor and all that crap. Which made her… Odysseus? Fat, earthy, cunning old Odysseus? Hardly! That was much more Andy Dalziel. Then Dido? Come on! See her chucking herself on a pyre 'cos she'd been jilted. Helen? Ellie looked at herself in the mirror. Not today. So who?

"Me, myself," she mouthed in the mirror. "God help me."

As she returned to the ward, a nurse came toward her, saying, "Mrs. Pascoe, we've got someone on the phone for your husband. She says she's a colleague and it's important."

"She does, does she?" said Ellie. "I'll be the judge of that."

She went to the phone and picked it up.

"Hello," she said.

There was silence, then a woman's voice said, "I was trying to get hold of DCI Pascoe…"

"This is Mrs. Pascoe."

"DC Novello, Shirley Novello. Hi. Mrs. Pascoe, I was so sorry to hear… how is she, the little girl?"

"Hanging on," said Ellie not about to share her hope of hope with a woman she'd only met once briefly. "So tell me, DC Novello, what's so important?"

Another silence, then, "I just wanted a quick word… look, I'm sorry, this is a terrible time, I know. It's just that there's this line of inquiry he started really, and it would be useful, the way he looks at things… I'm sorry… it's really insensitive, especially

… it really doesn't matter, Mrs. Pascoe. I do hope your little girl gets better soon."

She meant, especially because it's about the child who'd gone missing from Danby, thought Ellie. This was the woman who'd rung yesterday. Peter had mentioned her, provoking an outburst of indignation at such crassness. What had Peter replied? She lit a candle for Rosie.

Ellie had no time for religion, but no harm in hedging your bets with a bit of good old-fashioned magic.

"That candle still burning?" she said.

"Sorry?"

"Never mind. What precisely do you want, Miss Novello? No way you get to tell Peter without telling me first."

Five minutes later she reentered the ward.

Pascoe looked up and said, "Still nice and peaceful. Hey, you going somewhere?"

Ellie had brushed her hair and used her minimalist makeup to maximum effect.

"No. You are. I want you to go home, have a bath, get a couple of hours' sleep in a real bed. No, don't argue. Come here."

She led him to the window and swung the panel so that it acted as a mirror.

"See that antique wreck standing next to that gorgeous woman? That's you. If Rosie opens her eyes and sees you first, she'll think she's done a Rip van Winkle and slept for fifty years. So go home. Sleep with your mobile under your pillow. Slightest change and I'll ring till you waken, I promise."

"Ellie, no-"

"Yes. And now. I've fixed a lift for you, that nice young girl from your office called, Shirley Novello is it? She said she'd be delighted to run you home. She's down in the parking lot waiting."

"Shirley? Again? Jesus…"

"She's in touch with him, too, I gather. Listen, she wants help and she must think you're the only one if she's willing to come after you here. Perhaps she's delusional, but I think in this case, if you can help, you ought to."

He shook his head, not in denial but in wonderment.

"You are… ineffable," he said.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm looking forward to being effed quite a lot when this is over," she said lightly. "Now go."

"Only if you'll promise to do the same when I get back."

"Drive around with a WOULDC? You must be joking. Yes, yes, I promise."

They kissed. It was, she realized, the first intimate noncomforting contact they'd had since this began.

She watched him go, hoping her homeopathic theory would work, if that was the right way to describe putting him in the way of other parents' woe at the loss of a child. No, it wasn't the right way, she told herself, turning now to look down at Rosie. They weren't going to lose their child. There was a candle burning for her. And, like Dido after all, her mother would make a candle of herself if that's what it took.

"Hello, sir."

"And hello to you, too, Shirley," said Pascoe, getting into the car. "Kind of you to drive me home. You've got between here and there to tell me what you want to tell me."

Novello thought, If you want to know what a man will look like when he's old, put him by his child's sickbed for a couple of nights.

But she responded to his crisp speech, not his wrecked appearance, and ran off the resume she had prepared with a Wieldian conciseness and lucidity.

He offered no compliment. Indeed he seemed to offer little attention, apparently more interested in the crackling air traffic of her car radio, which she'd left switched on.

She reached down to turn it off but he grasped her hand and said, "No, leave it."

It was the first time they'd made physical contact, and in other circumstances with other officers she'd have suspected it was the preliminary to a pass and prepared for defensive action.

He held the hand for a second, then she had to change gear and he released it.

"So," he said. "Benny's been seen in Dendale and in the Central Library by a reliable witness. Agnes drew the money out of the bank. And Geordie Turnbull's been attacked."

Novello, who'd included the latter piece of information only in the interests of comprehensiveness, said, "Yes, but that'll probably be some local nutter, someone like this Jed Hardcastle perhaps-"

"Geordie Turnbull's been living in Bixford for years and making no secret about it, not unless you think having your name printed in big red letters over a fleet of bulldozers is being secretive. Why wait so long?"

"Because of the Dacre girl going missing," said Novello, stating the obvious, and wondering whether this had been such a good idea. "That started it all up again."

To her surprise, he laughed. Or made a sound which had a familiar resemblance to laughter.

"Shirley, you should get it out of your mind that what happened to those families who lost their daughters is something that needs starting up again. It's a permanent condition, no matter how long they survive. Like losing an arm. You might learn to live without it, but you never learn to live as if you've still got it."

He spoke with a vehemence she found disturbing and when he saw the effect he was having on her, he took a breath and made himself relax.

"Sorry," he said. "It's just that in a case like this you share in the woes of others only insofar as they relate to, or underline, your own. When I heard Rosie was ill, the fact that the Dacres' child was missing, probably abducted, possibly already murdered, may not have gone out of my mind altogether, but it certainly dropped right out of my consciousness. Understandable initial reaction, you think? Perhaps so. And the perspective will return. But never the same. I know now that if I was within an arm's length of fingering the collar of Benny or any other serial killer, and someone said, "Rosie needs you," I'd let him go."

He realized that his laid-back confidentiality was troubling her as much as his previous vehemence. He recalled a long time ago in his early days with Dalziel, the Fat Man in his cups had come close to talking about his broken marriage, and he'd shied away from the confidence, unwilling to know what his superior might regret telling.

"In other words, I think we need to look beyond the Dendale families for Turnbull's attacker. And you say he didn't want to report it? That's interesting."

"Yes, sir," she said, aware that the distance between the hospital and Pascoe's house was growing shorter. "But I'm not really concerned with that bit of the investigation anymore."

But you've not forgotten it was you who got the lead in the first place, thought Pascoe, detecting resentment.

He said gently, "I know that being mucked around can be a real pain sometimes. But you've got to keep the whole investigation in view. That's what the people you think are mucking you around are doing. Don't get mad, get promoted. Mr. Dalziel has thought from the start that Lorraine Dacre's disappearance was connected with Dendale fifteen years back. I didn't agree, but the more I see the way things are working out, the more I think he may be right. So, don't create connections, but don't overlook them either."

"No, sir," said Novello. "They do keep on jumping up, don't they? I read the old files. You recall that girl, Betsy Allgood, the one who got away from Benny? Well, seems she's back too!"

She reached into the backseat, picked up the Post, and dropped it in Pascoe's lap.

Not such a clever idea, she thought as he spent the next couple of minutes studying both pages, the one on the case and the one on the concert.

"Betsy Allgood," he murmured. "There was a photo in the file. She didn't look much like that."

"We grow up, sir," she said. "We start looking the way we want, not our parents, as you'll likely find out."

He glanced at her sharply, then smiled his thanks for this oblique reassurance.

"Well, it's certainly an improvement," he said. "She was, if I recall, a rather unprepossessing child."

It was her turn to give him the sharp glance. He thought, That was pretty crass, Pascoe, in your situation, being snooty about other people's kids.

But the photo continued to bother him. Or rather the photos, because while Betsy/elizabeth, who he'd seen before, looked totally unfamiliar, Walter Wulfstan, whom he'd never seen, rang some kind of bell. But why not? Local dignitary, the kind of man you were likely to see on the top table at some of the civic occasions he'd been delegated to attend as what Dalziel called the "smart-arse face of policing."

And something else was bothering him too…

He said, "Pull in here, will you? By that phone box."

She obeyed, puzzled, but had the wit to sit in silence while Pascoe listened, frowning, to the air traffic on her radio.

"Something's happening," he said.

She said, "I didn't hear anything, sir…"

"No, it's not what anyone's saying, just now and then a pause, an inflection… maybe I'm way off beam, but do me a favor, Shirley. Check with the incident room at Danby."

"Okay," she said, pulling out her mobile.

"No," he said, pointing to the phone box. "If I'm right, you won't get anything unless you're on a land line."

She flushed at her slowness, and got out of the car.

Pascoe studied the paper again, then twisted round to place it on the rear seat. Novello had the same attitude as Ellie toward her car, he observed. You kept the driver's seat free and used the rest as a mobile litter bin. He frowned as he saw a couple of plastic evidence bags amid the debris. Things like that you kept locked in your trunk till you could hand them in for examination or storage as soon as possible.

He picked the bags up and set them on his lap. They both had tags indicating their contents had been examined by the lab. The larger bag contained a cigarette pack, two Sunday papers, and a stained tissue, the smaller one a camera battery and a silver earring in the shape of a dagger.

He was still looking at this bag when Novello got back into the car, but her words put any questions he had to the back of his mind.

"They've found her," she said in a flat, controlled voice. "I spoke to Mr. Headingley. Not formally identified yet, but it seems Sergeant Wield's sure. He took her dog up the valley…"

"Clever old Wieldy," said Pascoe. "Doesn't explain how everyone else missed her. Dogs, thermal imaging…"

"There was a dead sheep. In this weather…"

"Clever old killer," said Pascoe, trying to keep the image of the dead girl at arm's length. "Anything on cause yet?"

"No sir. The scene-of-crime team's up there with the doctor now. This knocks my notion about abduction on the head."

She, too, was trying to cope with it by losing the child's body in a heap of detective abstractions.

Pascoe said, "I bet the super's pleased."

"Sir?" Her indignation couldn't be hidden.

"Because he's got a body," said Pascoe. "He'd given her up long since. From the very first moment he heard she'd gone missing, I think. But to get after the killer he needs something concrete. Otherwise you're just punching air. So, anything else?"

"Yes, the super briefed the DI before he went off up the valley."

She passed on the results of Dalziel's interview with Jackie Tilney, with an amount of detail that surprised Pascoe.

"You must have a lot of influence with George Headingley," he said.

The DI belonged to an old school who believed that telling DC'S too much only confused them and telling WOULDC'S anything other than how many sugars you took was a complete waste of breath.

"Told him I was under instructions from you, sir, and you wanted a blow-by-blow. He sends his best wishes, by the way, for… you know.

…"

"Yes, I know," said Pascoe. "This book -The Drowning of Dendale. I'm sure Ellie's got a copy lying around somewhere. She's into this local history stuff. But why would Benny want to see it? And what would he need photocopies of the maps for? By all accounts he knew the valley like the back of his hand."

"That was fifteen years ago, before the valley was flooded," said Novello.

"With the drought it's pretty well back to what it was," objected Pascoe.

"Except that all the buildings have been bulldozed," said Novello, starting up the car and pulling away from the curb.

"I suppose so," said Pascoe. "Tell me, these evidence bags…"

She had noticed the bags in his lap and anticipated his reprimand.

"It's okay, sir," she said. "They're for dumping, not storing. It's stuff I got out of the litter bin at the viewpoint on the Highcross Moor road when I was thinking abduction. The lab found nothing, not surprising now the girl's been found in the valley. I'll stick them back in a trash bin next time I have a clear-out."

"Fine," he said.

He sat in silence for the rest of the journey. Not the best idea she'd ever had, thought Novello. But what had she expected? He'd been useful last time, probably because his mind had already taken a couple of hypothetical steps ahead before his personal crisis intervened. But since then, as he said himself, the Dacre case had been relegated to a very low place in his mental priorities.

When they reached his house, he got out, still clutching the plastic bags.

"Sir," she said, pointing.

"What? Oh, yes. I'll stick them in our bin, shall I? Look, come inside for a moment."

She followed him inside. He headed straight upstairs, leaving her wondering whether she was meant to follow. Not that she cared what was meant. Down here by the open door was the place to be. Pascoe was neither a verbal nor a physical groper, but men under stress could behave strangely, and being assaulted by a popular senior officer with a kid on the danger list was not a good career move for an ambitious