Reginald Hill - An April Shroud

'What're you trying to say, friend?' asked Uniff uneasily.

'I'm not your friend, friend,' said Dalziel. 'And you don't need an interpreter. Now, I don't know what time you went missing from the little party last night, but I do know what time you got back. Empty roads, fast car. You could get to Epping and back in five hours easy.'

'I told you, I was drinking after hours,' said Uniff.

'That's what they all say round here,' mocked Dalziel. 'I'll tell you something else for nothing, seeing as this is one of my helpful days. You can file, file away at a number stamped in metal; we've got machines in our labs that'll bring it up like a chicken pox.'

'Man, I'm shaking,' said Uniff. 'What's it to be – the rubber truncheon or the water torture?'

He sounded quite recovered from his momentary uneasiness.

'Tell you what,' said Dalziel thoughtfully. 'I think I understand you. You really do think that money's just a game.'

'No. An evil,' said Uniff.

'Oh aye. But you need it.'

'Yeah. That's a game. Getting it, spending it. But I don't like the game so I won't play to the rules.'

'You'll commit crimes?'

'Not against people. Just the money system,' said Uniff. 'Look, man, money's immoral, right? Then all activities aimed at getting hold of money are immoral, right? Your pay-cheque at the end of the month is just as immoral as… as…'

'As defrauding an insurance company,' suggested Dalziel.

'Nice example, Andy,' grinned Uniff. 'That's about the strength of it.'

'So when I suggest you're crooked with money, all I get from you is a laugh. But when I suggest you might have something to do with Annie Greave's death, you begin to shake.'

'Hurting people's something else,' said Uniff seriously. 'You gotta see that. Humanity makes me shake.'

'Is that it? Or guilt?'

Suddenly their conversation was interrupted by two sodden, bleeding birds thrust between them by Charley Tillotson.

'You two look very serious,' he said cheerfully.

'Not as serious as those things,' said Uniff. 'I thought Bonnie said no shooting.'

'Yes. I believe she did. But she didn't seem to mind when I gave her a couple earlier for dinner. There's plenty to spare just at the moment with the flooding. Think of what it must have been like in the old days.'

'You need a licence for that thing,' warned Dalziel.

'Do I really?' asked Tillotson. 'Well, Bonnie might have one. It's her gun, after all. I'll go and ask her.'

'Have you made your statement?' asked Dalziel.

'Oh yes. First in,' said Tillotson proudly.

He went into the house dripping blood and water.

Dalziel turned to follow him, but Uniff placed a restraining hand on his arm.

'Would you answer me a question for a change, Andy.'

'Mebbe.'

'Well, man; like, you keep on dropping hints and making threatening noises, but I just had a little talk with the prodigal son and what he said made you sound more like a mother hen than an avenging angel. This fire business, which is all fantasy, you dig, I mean I admit nothing, but if that's what you believe, then shouldn't we all be down at headquarters having our fingernails pulled out? What's the name of the game, man? Or can I guess?'

Dalziel didn't answer, but turned away and went back into the house.

Behind him Uniff laughed provocatively but Dalziel ignored him. Very soon, he was beginning to realize, he would have to make a decision. In fact he supposed that already that afternoon he'd taken very definite steps towards making it. At the moment he could examine his professional conscience and find it pretty clear if you ignored those small shifting misty areas which always swirled around on the periphery. What he knew to be relevant he had passed on to Balderstone and Cross. And what he merely suspected to be relevant he had not yet consciously decided to withhold.

Ideally Balderstone and Cross should sort things out for themselves without reference to his own special knowledge gained as a guest in this house. Yet they felt, as he would do in their shoes, entitled to share this knowledge. The only way to remove himself from this pernicious position was indeed to remove himself and that might be as painful as remaining.

The interviewing had taken place as nearly all semi-formal activities seemed to in this house in Herrie's sitting-room. At least with the old man sleeping the sleep of the stoned upstairs, there should have been no indignant outbursts.

He met Nigel coming out of the door.

'All right?' said Dalziel genially.

The boy said nothing but looked at him with an expression which might have been accusation or fear. As he moved on, Dalziel watched him with a troubled mind.

Inside Cross and Balderstone sat drinking tea. Bonnie must have made it, thought Dalziel with absurd possessive pride. She was the only one in the house who would even have considered making the policemen comfortable.

'Finished?' asked Dalziel looking at the pile of statement forms which lay on the table by the teapot.

'Yes, sir,' said Balderstone.

'Except for one,' said Dalziel.

'What?'

'Mine.' He produced from his inside pocket a foolscap sheet folded in quarters and placed it with the others.

'I was here too, don't forget,'

'We hadn't forgotten, sir,' said Balderstone.

'Tell me then. What's new?'

'Well, nothing much, sir,' said Cross. 'As far as we can make out, Annie Greave was last seen about the place at two-thirty yesterday afternoon. It was Mrs Fielding that saw her. That was just before the presentation ceremony. So any time after that she could have packed up and gone. We've checked with taxi services, bus and train ticket offices, but no joy yet. She could have been picked up by a passing motorist, of course.'

'Passing where?' asked Balderstone. 'The road past the gate runs between Low Fold and High Fold and it's still under a foot of water most of the way.'

'Yes, sir,' said Cross. 'So either she walked to Low Fold and got a bus there, which no one recalls. Or she was given a lift by someone in the house though no one admits it. Now this could have been just before the ceremony…'

'No,' interrupted Dalziel. 'I was walking back from the village between two-fifteen and two-forty-five and no cars passed me coming from the house. And everyone was gathered in this room when I got back.'

'Except Papworth,' said Cross reprovingly. 'But the rest were here till the drinking started. No one's so sure who was where doing what from about four o'clock on.'

Dalziel felt they were both regarding him significantly. His shoulders rose in a small non-typical Gallic shrug.

'The thing is,' said Balderstone. 'No one would surely be much bothered by admitting they'd given her a lift and just dropped her in Orburn, say, or even farther afield. So I think we've got to accept that nobody did this. Which raises the much more important question. Could anyone have taken her all the way to Epping, either dead or alive, and got back here within the known period of their absence? The answer is, only two. Papworth and Uniff. Now they're both vague enough to be suspicious. Uniff won't give us the name of the pub he claims he was drinking in after hours and Papworth won't give us the name of the woman he claims he was rogering. They both have highly developed senses of honour, it seems. Well, I've tried to avoid waving the big stick…'

'Why?' interrupted Dalziel. 'They shouldn't give us big sticks if they don't want us to wave 'em. Any road, that's up to you. I tell you this, though, on my patch we wouldn’t need to ask. We'd know the pub and we'd know the woman.'

Cross and Balderstone exchanged glances in the face of this large and unmannerly claim. Dalziel glowered at them, recognizing in himself a desire to fall out with them and then let ill-temper cut the ties of co-operation.