On Beulah Height

FIFTEEN

Edgar Wield was feeling quite pleased with himself. He’d got the search under way at Bixford and transported Geordie Turnbull to Danby without so far attracting the attention of any of the flock of carrion crows who called themselves reporters. Downside was that Turnbull’s solicitor was also here, closeted in the station’s one small interview room with his client.

Then Nobby Clark arrived and told him about Pascoe.

No details. Just that Rosie was in hospital. Wield felt sick. The Pascoes were special to him, the nearest thing to family left for him in this country since his sister emigrated. Edwin … Edwin was different. Closer, yes. But more important? No; just differently so. He looked at the phone. He could ring up and find out what had happened. But he hesitated. He tried to work out why. Fear at what he might hear? That certainly. But something more … He probed, and was bewildered to find something that looked like guilt. For what? Was he mean-spirited enough to resent this intrusion on his new-found personal happiness? That would be cause enough to make him feel guilty. He hoped to God it wasn’t. But if not that, what? He probed deeper, saw more clearly, still didn’t believe it. Then had to. He felt responsible. It was an extension of his feelings about this lost child case. Some cynical, self-despising element at the centre of his psyche did not believe he was meant for happiness and was therefore sure that whatever he got of it could only be procured by subtraction from someone else’s store. It was an absurdity, an egotism in its way as disgusting as selfish vanity. But he still hesitated to pick up the phone. It was as if by doing so he would acknowledge creating whatever monstrous news awaited his enquiry.

‘Super’s just driven into the yard,’ said Clark, coming into the office and anxiously checking out his appearance in the glass-fronted photo of the Queen.

Fear of Dalziel was a healthy condition, but belief that he was appeasable by gleaming brass, polished boots, or any other kind of bullshit meant that you had more than average cause to be afraid, thought Wield, glad of the diversion.

He went out to the yard and saw the Fat Man sitting in his car as if reluctant to get out. The sergeant approached and opened the door like a commissionaire.

‘How do, sir,’ he said. ‘Got some bad news. Clark says the 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, undeceived 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 car park 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 co-operating like a lamb,’ said the sergeant. ‘OK, 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 drugs 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 trainer 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 hard-worked 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 trainer, a definite no,’ she said. ‘But the ribbon, a maybe. Lorraine liked ribbons, collected them, did swops 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 marvellous,’ 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 on to 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 savoured 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 co-operative 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 brief’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 clag, 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 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 enquiry 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 towards 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 and with a 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 frog-like; 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 grey 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 towards 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.