Reginald Hill - An April Shroud

'No wonder Herrie and Nigel got on so well! They're both at the awkward age.'

'Don't you think you ought to try to find where the boy went?' suggested Dalziel diffidently.

'I'll make some discreet enquiries round his friends,' she answered with an unworried smile. 'Boys of that age are very contrary. Any hint of a search would just make him burrow deeper. Did Herrie say you'd been telephoning?'

Dalziel considered.

'No. No, he didn't,' he said. 'But I have. I rang the garage.'

'What do they think?' she asked.

'They're not certain. I'm going to ring later.' The lie came easily.

'Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to,' said Bonnie, if you can stick us, that is.'

'I'll bear it,' said Dalziel. 'Tell you what. I'd like to go into Orburn if anyone's going that way. One or two things I'd like to get.'

'There's a shop in the village,' said the woman.

'Do they make up prescriptions?' asked Dalziel.

'No.'

'Well then. Perhaps I can phone a taxi if no one's going that way.'

'Don't be silly. I'll drive you myself. There's always some shopping to get.'

Any hopes Dalziel had of another solitary excursion with Bonnie disappeared when he met the car outside the house at the prearranged time of nine-thirty. It was an old Rover with what looked like the remnants of a nest in the radiator grille. In the front passenger seat was Tillotson and when Dalziel opened the rear door he found himself looking at Mavis Uniff.

Bonnie drove with considerable panache, passing through the flooded bottom end of the drive with an angel's wing of water arcing away on either side. Dalziel hoped the undercarriage was in better repair than the bodywork, but no harm seemed to be done. The suspension felt as if it had given its best and was now in decline, a state understandable if corners were always taken like this. The humped railway bridge where they had stood the previous night provided another interesting obstacle, but the Rover took it like a thoroughbred 'chaser which was more than Dalziel's stomach did.

They slowed to a sedate fifty to pass through Low Fold village, which was a cluster of cottages, a Post Office, a pub and a church. A thought occurred to Dalziel as they passed this last building.

'Why didn't they bury him there?' he asked Mavis sotto voce.

'I don't know,' she replied and, leaning forward to tap Bonnie on the shoulder, asked, 'He wants to know why you didn't bury Conrad in Low Fold?'

Dalziel shook his head reprovingly at the girl but Bonnie seemed happy to answer.

'Lake House dead have always been buried in High Fold churchyard. You see, Low Fold's high and High Fold's low, if you follow me. Mike, my first husband's, there as well, so it's convenient for all the family.'

Dalziel glanced surreptitiously at his companion but no one seemed to find the comment either amusing or odd. He scratched his left armpit thoughtfully and the rest of the journey was completed in silence.

Orburn appeared to him as a town he'd visited many years ago in his youth rather than one he had left just the previous morning. The main street widened into a kind of square, or rather an ovoid, as if someone had pressed his thumb on the narrow thoroughfares which ran out of it and the street had blebbed to four times its normal width. At one end of the bleb was the Lady Hamilton. Bonnie parked a little farther along, next to a marble statue which age or modesty seemed to have rendered anonymous.

'There's a chemist's over there,' said Bonnie. 'I'll make for the supermarket first, I think. What are you two going to do? Labour for me or your own thing?'

Tillotson and Mavis seemed uncertain of their respective plans and in the end Bonnie said to Dalziel, 'See that baker's over the road? There's a little cafe behind it. We'll have a coffee there in about forty-five minutes. All right?'

She strode away, long firm strides stretching her simple denim skirt taut against her thighs. Tillotson hesitated a moment before following. One thing about your posh upbringing, thought Dalziel. Properly done, it instilled good manners. Their fatal weakness.

'What about you?' he said to Mavis.

'I never go into shops if I can help it,' she replied. 'Especially supermarkets. I'll show you the sights if you like.'

'That's kind,' said Dalziel, which it was. It was also a bloody nuisance. Time was short and he didn't want the girl hanging around.

'But it's shopping I'm after, too,' he went on. 'Just bits and pieces, but the sights'll have to wait till another time.'

'You are staying long enough for another time then?' she asked. 'Should I welcome you to the club?'

'We'll see. Thanks for your offer anyway.'

'That's all right. I'll go and brood on nature.'

She smiled at him and walked slowly away. He crossed the road and went into the chemist's where he watched Mavis out of sight while the assistant wrapped a bottle of aspirin.

'Anything else, sir?' asked the girl.

'Yes,' said Dalziel. 'Where's the police station?'

Fortunately it turned out to be in the direction opposite to that taken by Mavis and with the other two trapped in the canyons of the supermarket, Dalziel was able to enter the single-storied building which was the local station with minimum furtiveness.

'Yes, sir?' said the uniformed constable seated at a typewriter resting on a paper-littered desk.

'Always stand up for the public, son,' said Dalziel, producing his warrant card. 'Who's the boss here?'

‘Inspector Grantley, but he's not in just now, sir,' said the constable standing at a curious semi-attention occasioned by the fact that he had eased one foot out of its boot and was unable to fully re-insert it.

‘CID?'

'That's Detective-Sergeant Cross. He's in his office. Shall I ring him?'

'No, it can't be far in a place this size. Which one? Second on the left. Thanks. You haven't got a rupture, have you, son?'

'No, sir!'

‘If you stand like that much longer, you'll likely get one.'

Dalziel rapped sharply on the indicated door and entered.

The sole occupant of the room was not a pretty sight. He looked as if in the best of circumstances he would have been unprepossessing; unshaven, haggard from fatigue, his shirt collar open, feet on his desk, a still steaming mug of coffee propped perilously on his belly, he was quite revolting. Dalziel regarded him with vast approval. This was how a hard-working Detective Sergeant ought to look at least once a day.

'Who the hell are you?' said the man with semi-somnolent irritation.

Dalziel reached forward and plucked the threatening mug from his lap.

'Embarrassing that,' he said. 'Scalded cock. Makes the nurses wonder about you. I'm Dalziel.'

His fame clearly had not penetrated to these dim recesses of the land and though the production of his warrant card set Cross struggling to his feet, it was a Pavlovian reaction to the rank rather than a spontaneous tribute to the reputation.

'Sit down,' ordered Dalziel, 'before you fall down. Hard night?'

'A bit,' said Cross, running his fingers through black spiky hair which might have been petrified for all the effect this had on it. 'Eight hours in a hen battery. God, the stink!'

'I thought there was something,' said Dalziel, sniffing. 'Anything to show for it?'

'No, sir,' said Cross gloomily. 'A waste of time. I've got my report here if you're interested.'

He proffered a sheaf of typewritten papers which Dalziel waved aside.

'No, thanks, Sergeant. I see enough of those on my own patch. This is unofficial. I'm on holiday in the district, so I thought I'd drop in and pay my respects.'

Cross looked at him with the utter disbelief of one who had seen enough of detective superintendents to know that courtesy calls on sergeants belonged with Father Christmas and the fairies.