Pictures of Perfection

CHAPTER FOUR

Which one should it be?

The Good? The Bad? Or the Ugly?

He made his choice.

He raised his gun.

And he fired.

Wield felt the impact like a light punch on his chest. He looked down, saw the red stain blossoming, smelt the pungent, raw, vinegary odour of blood, and asked, more in bewilderment than bitterness, ‘Why me?’

Laundering might save his cotton shirt, but he knew from experience that there was no salvation possible for the Italian silk tie his sister had bought him for Christmas. His wardrobe was festooned with silk ties (his sister was an unimaginative present-buyer) which spots of gravy, spatterings of soup, or even the fine spray from a rashly opened Guinness can had rendered unwearable. But blood was far worse than any of these. Blood was forever.

It occurred to him to wonder why the hell he was worrying about his laundry.

Dalziel and Pascoe had reacted according to their respective humours.

The Fat Man went hurtling forward with the speed which in his rugby days had amazed many a twinkletoed stand-off. But fast as he was, youth and vengeful fury made Harry Bendish even faster. His injured leg forgotten, he leapt on to the table and launched himself in a bone-crunching tackle which caught the berserker in the midriff and swept him the full length of the polished surface till they shot off the end and crashed together on to the unyielding lawn.

Pascoe meanwhile put his arm around Wield and cried, ‘Oh God, Wieldy, are you all right?’

It was not perhaps the question a man of education in such a circumstance would wish to have asked, but cliché comes in through the french window when deep emotion writes the script.

Wield, more practised in control and more wedded to precision, examined and analysed his feelings, and said with a mild surprise, ‘I’m a lot better than expected.’

‘But all this blood …’

‘I don’t know whose it is,’ said Wield. ‘But I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.’

And Dalziel, noting with admiration that Bendish not only tackled like a full back but punched like a front-row forward, flourished the berserker’s discarded weapon like a trophy and said, ‘It’s one of them war-game guns that fires paintballs. Still, not to worry. It’s the thought that counts. Tell you what, young Bendish. Pull that balaclava thing off and you’ll get a lot better target to aim at!’

Harry paused in mid-punch, nodded his acknowledgement of the superior wisdom of age and experience, and ripped aside the balaclava to reveal the slack, pallid face of Guy Guillemard.

The young redhead got in one more telling blow before Franny seized his arm and cried, ‘Enough!’

Bendish looked ready to disagree, but young love is a disciplinarian stronger even than old authority, and reluctantly he rose to his feet, then less reluctantly put his arms round the girl’s yielding body and pulled her close for comfort.

Now the victims of the berserker’s assault on his way through the village began to appear to express their outrage. Thomas Wapshare brought explanation as well as indignation.

‘The bugger broke into the Morris,’ he said. ‘Drank a bottle of cognac, and he must have found a bucket of pig’s blood, you know, what I use for the black puddings, and reckoned it’d be a lark to fill his ammo with that instead of paint. You should see the bloody mess he’s made!’

Edwin Digweed too appeared. He and Wield took in each other’s gory appearance and exchanged smiles.

‘I thought I was dead,’ admitted Digweed.

‘Me too,’ said Wield.

The bookseller touched his bloody front with his forefinger and held it up before his eyes.

‘What I suggested before,’ he said, ‘it occurs to me, a sensible chap like you might feel a very natural caution about letting yourself be picked up by a strange man. I assure you I too have been extraordinarily cautious since this new Black Death came among us. I have the certification to prove it.’

‘Me too,’ said Wield. ‘Don’t worry. I was going to ask.’

‘You were? Does that mean you’ve decided yes?’

‘From about five minutes ago,’ said Wield, looking ruefully at his bloody front. ‘Life’s too long for silk ties, isn’t it?’

Three of Guy’s victims didn’t return to the Hall.

Caddy Scudamore had looked over her shoulder at the blood trickling down her smock, then headed straight into her studio where Justin Halavant found her a few moments later, stripped to the waist, experimenting with this new material on a variety of surfaces. Smiling, he pushed a stool into a corner and sat down to watch her.

And Elsie Toke hardly paused in her stride as she headed past the pub and turned towards her cottage.

Here at her front gate she stopped and sighed with relief.

Her son was in the garden. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and he was digging the ground under one of the windows.

‘Hello, Ma,’ he said. ‘Thought we’d have some stock and petunias here. And some spuds and cabbage round the side. What’s been happening to you?’

‘Yon mad bugger, Guy Guillemard. Not to worry. It’s the last time he’ll be larking around here for a while. Fancy a cup of tea? I fetched you some cakes from the Hall.’

‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘Good Reckoning, was it?’

‘Aye. Interesting. That Justin Halavant’s going to wed young Caddy Scudamore, did you know?’

She watched him keenly.

‘Aye, I knew,’ he said. ‘I thought mebbe some sweet peas over there. Warren were always fond of sweet peas.’

‘That’d be nice,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and get out of these mucky things, then I’ll make that tea.’