Reginald Hill - An April Shroud

Feeling very pleased with his metaphor, Dalziel tipped the remnants of his beer into a pot holding a tired-looking rubber plant. The assistant manager stood in the doorway, looking disapproving. Dalziel addressed him as they passed.

'The reason the best barmaids have big tits,' he said, 'is for warming up pots of cold tasteless beer.'

The man's expression did not alter but Dalziel was entertained to notice that Balderstone looked distinctly embarrassed.

Hereward Fielding had slumped across the driving seat in their absence so Dalziel pulled him upright and wound the seat-belt round him with all the ferocity of a devout executioner strapping a heretic to the stake.

'That should hold the old sod,' he grunted to Balderstone through the open window. 'Oh, by the way. You won't forget there were six, no five, other people who left Lake House last night, probably heading for London. All pissed and two at least horny with it.'

Balderstone looked nonplussed. Dalziel hoped he was pretending.

'Butt, the feature writer and his dolly photographer, Penitent the BBC man, and the two Yanks. I'd try Penitent first, he had a car to himself. His side-kick was too stoned to travel. Which, as it turns out, may have been lucky for someone.'

'How's that?'

'Well, someone tried to get into bed with him, thinking he was Annie. Which means that whoever it was thought that Annie was alive and well and ready for fun.'

The thought of Arkwright's black face rising from the pillow made Dalziel laugh again and it kept him amused all the way home. Or rather all the way to Lake House, which is not my home, he reminded himself. Though the sight of his own car parked at the head of the drive made him feel pleasantly lord-of-the-manorish as he halted the Rover alongside.

The garage had delivered it at lunch-time, Tillotson informed him. Bonnie had paid the bill, so would he please settle up with her?

Dalziel nodded his approval of this young gentleman's protection of a lady's interests. It was good to know that there were still young men who recognized that a lady of breeding should find it impossible to ask for money. Not that he approved of the elitism implicit in the recognition (as an elite of one, he felt that most other elites were puffed-up crap) but he disapproved even more of women being like men.

'I hope the sods haven't charged for cleaning it,' he said, looking disapprovingly at the tide-mark left round the paintwork by its recent immersion.

'I wouldn't be surprised,' said Tillotson cheerfully. 'Still, drop Pappy fifty pence and he'll give it a polish for you. Does it quite nicely too.'

‘If he was here, I might do that,' said Dalziel.

'Oh, he's here,' said Tillotson casually. 'Turned up shortly after you left.'

'What!' bellowed Dalziel. 'Has anyone told Sergeant Cross?'

'No, I don't think so. Should they have done?'

Could he really be so thick? wondered Dalziel, looking darkly at Tillotson across whose face signs of uneasiness were passing like the movement of a field of wheat at the first breath of the approaching storm.

'Would you like to see him? Shall I fetch him?' offered Tillotson, eager to be somewhere else.

'No,' growled Dalziel who had paused in his efforts to ease the still-sleeping Fielding out of the car. 'You look after the old man.'

'Oh. Is he ill?' said Tillotson, concerned.

'No,' said Dalziel. 'He's unconscious. Which means he doesn't know he's back in this bloody nut house. Which means, for my money, he's very well indeed. Here, get hold.'

He found Papworth in his room, stretched out on his bed apparently asleep. He was fully clothed except for his boots which lay on the floor as though they had been kicked off and dropped over the bed end. The room smelled of tobacco, sweat and something else rather unpleasant which Dalziel couldn't place.

'On your feet, Papworth,' commanded Dalziel.

The man didn't move, but Dalziel sensed that he was awake. He lifted his right foot, placed it against the bed end and thrust with all his weight. The bed moved a couple of inches and crashed against the wall.

Papworth jerked upright, his face taut with anger.

'You stupid fat bastard!' he said.

'Temper,' said Dalziel mildly. 'You look as if you'd like to kill me.'

'Don't give me ideas,' said Papworth, swinging his legs off the bed.

'You think you could kill a man just because he woke you up?' asked Dalziel. 'That's interesting.'

'Your words, not mine. Why don't you sod off?'

Dalziel grinned horribly.

'I ought to warn you, Mr Papworth, that I am a police officer.'

'Don't bother. I know,' said Papworth. ‘It's not hard to smell 'em out.'

‘In here it would be bloody miraculous,' said Dalziel, sniffing. 'What else do you know, Mr Papworth?'

'What do you mean?'

'Come on!' snapped Dalziel. 'Don't play the thick ploughboy with me. That tube of tool-grease you've been passing off as your daughter, she took off last night. Where'd she go?'

'Mrs Greave? I don't know. She's a free agent. What's up? Didn't she give her notice?'

'It's not what she gave. It's what she took.'

Briefly Dalziel listed the missing items. Papworth, fully in control of himself now, was unimpressed.

'All that? She must have had a big bag.'

'Oh no,' said Dalziel who had also settled down. 'This lot's been going for a long while. And you never noticed?'

'I'm the outdoor man,' said Papworth. ‘If she'd taken any trees, I'd have noticed.'

Dalziel smiled inwardly. There was nothing he loved better than a joker. In his experience of interrogation, wit was the last defence of the guilty and generally it sprang from deep uncertainties rather than the confidence it claimed to demonstrate.

'Look,' he said in a voice unctuous with reasonableness. 'Look. There's nothing for you to worry about. Don't take any notice of me if I shout a bit. It's my upbringing. I'm like you. Good solid working-class stock. I've no time for these fancy fal-da-rils. Look. This woman, Annie Greave, now we know what she's not. She's not your daughter. And we know what she is. She's a Liverpool whore. What we don't know is where she is. And it might help us to find her if you told us how you came to meet her in the first place.'

‘If she's a pro,' said Papworth, 'I'd have thought that were obvious.'

'True,' said Dalziel, looking pleasantly surprised as though the thought hadn't struck him. 'So you picked her up. Where was this – Liverpool?'

'That's it,' said Papworth.

'I thought so. What were you doing in Liverpool? It's a good way. Not the kind of place you go for a holiday.'

Dalziel laughed as he spoke, inviting Papworth to share the absurdity of the thought.

‘I went there a few times with young Master Bertie,' said Papworth. The feudal phrase came awkwardly from his lips.

'Did you? As his valet?' said Dalziel, unable to restrain the sarcasm. But it appeared to pass unnoticed.

'He worked up there. Didn't have a car, so when he was going back after a stay at Lake House, I'd sometimes drive him in the Rover and bring it back the next day.'

'And spend the night screwing Annie,' said Dalziel with a wink.

'That's it.'

'And you got to enjoy this so much that when the chance came to install her here in Lake House, you thought, why not? But for decency's sake, and to save the bother of testimonials, you said she was your daughter?'

'Right again,' said Papworth. 'You needn't have woken me up, seeing you've managed to work it all out by yourself.'

'I like a nice chat,' said Dalziel genially. 'So. Let me see. Bertie was how long in Liverpool? Just over a year, I think. Fifteen months, say. And he came back here to start the restaurant project early this year. How often did he come home while he was away? Every weekend? Once a month? Twice a year?'