Reginald Hill - An Advancement of Learning

But this old goon on his right had to be kept happy for a while. He had been quite unable to remember a single thing about the meeting at which Miss. Girling had made her last public appearance. He probably had difficulty remembering the way home, thought Dalziel savagely and quite unjustly. But he had agreed to telephone the clerk to the governors who had promised to dig through the records and send any pertinent information to the college that afternoon.

Meanwhile an hour and a half, two wickets, and thirty eight runs had trickled away with agonizing slowness. But despite his discomfort and his boredom, Dalziel had felt curiously enervated and quite unable to rise from his chair to do something useful. In any case everyone was here, everyone that mattered. Nearly everyone. Big ‹ wheels were moving elsewhere, and all those who had left the college since Girling’s death were being traced and interviewed. But Dalziel was somehow certain the solution was here somewhere.

“Well hit, sir!’ boomed Jessup. ‘ think that’s our man, Superintendent.” “Oh, yes, indeed. Very promising,’ said Dalziel.

“By the pavilion. The man with the minutes,’ said Jessup patiently.

“Let’s go and see.”

The shade of the pavilion was a relief. Dalziel realized his shirt was wringing with sweat; Jessup on the other hand in his absurd hat looked quite cool as he glanced through the papers he had been given.

“No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘ doesn’t bring anything back at all, except very vaguely. Certainly nothing which might help you, Superintendent.

Though I see now why it was so late in the term. It was an appointments meeting and obviously we hadn’t been able to convene the full interviewing panel earlier in the term. Miss. Girling would be eager to get things like this done as soon as possible, before the good candidates got offers elsewhere, you understand.” “Interviewing?’ said Dalziel sharply. ‘ what?”

“A post, of course. It was a short list, only three. For a lectureship in the Biology Department.” “Let me see,’ said Dalziel, unceremoniously removing the papers from Jessup’s hand.

Quickly he flicked through them till he found what he wanted. A list of three names. One stood out as though embossed on the paper.

Samuel Fallowfield.

“Excuse me,’ he said, moving quickly out of the pavilion leaving Jessup tugging his moustache in exasperation.

Dalziel’s cry of ‘!’ as he strode round the outer oval of spectators almost certainly caused the fall of the third wicket. But by the time the angry batsman had returned to the pavilion, Dalziel had disappeared in the direction of the sea and only Pascoe’s head was visible as he went in hot pursuit.

The dismissed batsman was not the only one who noticed Dalziel’s sudden departure. Halfdane and his two female consorts did.

“Perhaps he’s off for a swim,’ he suggested.

That’s not a bad idea,’ said Ellie, watching Pascoe picking himself up from among the daisies.

She stretched herself voluptuously, back arched, breasts at maximum projection, legs at maximum exposure.

“I wouldn’t mind myself,’ she added, watching Halfdane carefully. She saw she had his interest.

Something’s happened to me recently, she thought. Suddenly I’m a huntress! I’ve been eyeing this poor bastard hungrily for a month or so now. Then last night; that was me. And what do I want anyway, for God’s sake? Some memories for a lonely old age? Or something permanent? It’s too late for that with PC Pascoe, even if he doesn’t know it yet. And I’m not really going about it the right way with this one. Any lasting erection must have a firm foundation, so they say.

She giggled at herself, let her body relax and pulled her skirt down.

“Do you think they’d miss us if we did?’ said Marion Cargo from the other chair.

Quietly confident! groaned Ellie inwardly.

“Who cares?’ said Halfdane. ‘ we might see the bold gendarmes again and I want a word with Ellie’s mate. Let’s get our things.”

Ellie’s mate! Perhaps Pascoe was the only hope after all. The beach might tell. It was ground of her own choosing. In or out of the water she knew she was physically superb.

“Let’s go,’ she said.

Landor rose to adjust his wife’s parasol against the threatening manoeuvres of the sun. He had met her and courted her in the long winter of 1947. Curled up deep in an armchair before a roaring fire, or muffled against the snow in layers of clothing which permitted only the slight pale oval of her face to show, she had appealed deeply to his protective instincts. They had married in the spring and the tremors of doubt he had felt even then had been confirmed in every summer thereafter.

He looked at Jane Scotby and received from her a cold impersonal smile in return. She had resented him deeply when he first took up the post, he suspected. But he had met the senior tutor on the beach one morning more than a year ago, perilously perched on the back of a huge brown horse, her face slightly flushed with excitement, her eyes brighter than ever. It had seemed odd at first, almost ludicrous, till he realized how completely in control she was. And the beast was no milk-horse, it terrified the life out of Landor. The meeting had subtly changed their relationship.

His wife on the other hand controlled nothing, not even the running of the household. Lunch today had been all right. Salad and strawberries were difficult to spoil.

That young policeman was most brusque this morning, I felt,’ she said, watching Dalziel and Pascoe depart. ‘ police are not what they were.”

Landor caught Scotby’s bright blue eyes again. She gave no sign of any reaction to his wife’s inanities, for which he was grateful. But comfort was pleasant, it was good to be comforted from time to time.

He watched Ellie Soper and Marion Cargo sinuously rise from their deckchairs, helped by young Halfdane.

He sighed deeply, felt the gaze on him of both the women by his side, and turned his sigh into a yawn. Comfort would be nice, but not at the expense of discretion. He glanced over his shoulder back to the complex of buildings which formed the college. That was his comfort. Nothing could come between him and that.

“What did Walt want?’ asked someone after Sandra had been lying in the grass for ten minutes.

“When?”

“When you came over just now.”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Just to talk. You know what she is.” “No, I don’t really,’ said the youth who had asked the question. ”s never bothered me. don’t get invited on the Tour of the Abbeys trip.”p›

There was a general laugh. Miss. Disney’s annual long weekend among the ruins of Yorkshire’s abbeys with a group of specially selected girls was the subject of a great deal of scurrilous folklore.

“Poor you,’ said Stuart Cockshut. ”s that fat bastard off to?”

They watched Dalziel and Pascoe heading towards the dunes.

“I hope he keeps walking and drowns.”

“You don’t like him, Stuart?”

“I don’t like policemen, period. And this one’s out of the original mould. Thick as pig-shit and twice as nasty.” “Stuart love,’ said Franny who was lying on his back chewing a daisy, ‘you are far too positive for a politician. You are as clear and uncomplicated as a pane of glass.

Yon Dalziel saw through you at a glance. I have no doubt he has a file thicker than Miss. Disney on your many misdemeanours. And probably knows better than you the membership and background of these odd little societies you belong to. You must dirty the window a little, keep the inside polished but let rain-drops and bird-crap stop others from looking in.”