Reginald Hill - An April Shroud

Pascoe laughed so much he couldn't drink his Baronial Brose and was still having difficulty by the time he reached the Cavalier's Capon. The townswoman fortunately put this down to her own rib-tickling conversation. Only Ellie understood his amusement, though after an initial outburst she no longer seemed to share it.

'What's he doing, Peter?' she asked under cover of an outbreak of screams as some wit, immediately imitated, demonstrated the Tudor method of chicken-bone disposal.

'God knows,' said Pascoe. 'But he hasn't spotted me yet. Here!'

He beckoned to a bearded youth in a jester's outfit who was going round taking flash photographs at fifty pence a time.

'Right, man. Grab hold of the little lady and smile.'

'No, no. Not me,' said Pascoe. 'I'd like a picture of him. The portly gent in the green nightie.'

'No, Peter!' protested Ellie. But the photographer after a quizzical raising of the eyebrows had moved away.

'Andy, baby, you've got fans,' said Uniff.

'What?'

'Guy over there wants a pic. So make with the medieval merriment. Say cheese.'

'Shit,' said Dalziel as he followed the direction indicated by the jerk of Uniff s head.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he growled into Pascoe's ear a couple of minutes later.

'Just having a lot of fun,' grinned Pascoe, on whom the mead was having a greater effect than anticipated.

'It's about time you had a piss,' said Dalziel. He nodded sternly at Ellie and moved away.

'Everything going OK, Andy?' asked Bonnie whom he met outside the door.

'Fine,' he said. 'What are you doing?'

'I just stepped out of the kitchen for a quick drag. It's red hot in there.'

Dalziel could believe it. It was a close, humid night with wreaths of mist rising from the unmoving lake.

'Back to it, I suppose,' said Bonnie. She rested her hand on his arm for a moment and raised her face to his.

As he kissed her the door to the hall opened and someone came out.

'See you later,' said Bonnie and moved away.

'Hello, hello, hello,' said Pascoe.

'You'd best sober up before you say summat you'll be sorry for,' said Dalziel grimly. 'Let's go outside.'

They stood together in the cobbled yard hardly able to see each other in the dim light which forced its way out of the Banqueting Hall through the stained plastic windows. Noise escaped more successfully and the overall effect was rather like overhearing an orgy in a church. Pascoe took a deep breath and tried to think of something inoffensive to say.

'Having a nice holiday, sir?' was the best he could manage.'

'Grand,' said Dalziel, and then repeated the word with a note of surprise in his voice.

It was in many ways true, he realized. Certainly in this past week he had been almost totally immersed in getting the restaurant into operation. After the initial reaction to his involvement, they had settled down quickly into a remarkably good team. There were various kinds of expertise present in Lake House but what Dalziel had had to offer was momentum. He got things moving and kept them moving, generally by brute force.

The hard work involved served a double function. It distracted his attention from both the past and the future. The Dalziel whose nights were filled with doubt and sorrow had retreated into some limbo with that other Dalziel whose constabulary soul would shortly have to go marching on.

Or perhaps not. He had always been a liver in the present, never one of those who tried to take the golden moment and beat it out thinly to cover more ground. But just as his mind in the past months had gradually started to plague him with visions of vacant futurity, so in these last few days, unbidden and almost undetected, an insidious optimism had begun to rise in his subconscious like curls of mist on the lake. He still woke early but now Bonnie was by his side. As one who had long opined in many a Yorkshire club and pub that there were nowt wrong with most discontented and unhappy women (e.g. all female politicians, jockeys, journalists, etc.) that couldn't be cured by application of a healthy well-endowed man, he should not have been surprised to find the therapy reversible. He was not a man given to self-analysis, however, but he knew that a future with Bonnie felt a much better prospect than a future without her.

Now here was Pascoe to remind him of the realities of his life starting next Monday morning.

'Something going on here, is there, sir?' enquired Pascoe.

Before Dalziel could reply the door into the yard opened again and another figure emerged and joined them.

'Evening, sir,' he said.

'Hello, Cross,' said Dalziel. 'Bowls Club enjoying themselves?'

'Yes, thanks. Sorry if I'm interrupting. I thought you might be with Mr Balderstone, but he can't have arrived yet.'

He looked with open interest at Pascoe. Dalziel introduced them, then said, 'Look, I'd best get back inside. I'm supposed to be working and we're a bit short-handed. Cross, would you fill in Mr Pascoe here before he pees himself out of curiosity.'

He turned abruptly and left them.

'Smoke, sir?' asked Cross.

'No, thanks,' said Pascoe. 'Just tell me all.'

Briefly Cross outlined the course of events as he knew it which had resulted in Dalziel's involvement in Lake House.

Pascoe listened avidly and when Cross finished his relation he said. 'Yes. Good. That's the police evidence bit and very nicely done too. But what about the rest?'

'Sir?'

'Look, Sergeant. I know Mr Dalziel well. Fair enough, if he sniffs out some dirty business, whether he's on holiday or no, he'll worry away at it. But it'd take more than you've told me to get him to invest money with a gang of people he suspects to be crooks and to go around dressed up like Henry the Eighth's butler.'

Cross considered carefully before replying.

'Well, sir. I think he feels a bit protective towards Mrs Fielding. In a way by staying on he's looking after her interests.'

'Mrs Fielding? The big good-looking woman behind the bar? Ah yes, I saw them together just before.'

Pascoe grinned broadly for a moment, then loyalty wiped his amusement from his face.

'Now, this fellow Butt?' he enquired.

'Due back from Brazil today, sir. The police over there were asked to keep an eye on him, just in case he showed any signs of slipping away. But it was felt best to leave him alone till we had him back on British soil.'

'A bit dangerous, isn't it? If it's not down to him, then the trail will be damned cold,' said Pascoe.

'Not really, sir,' said Cross politely. 'If Butt didn't do it, then the trail leads right back here. They went over his car with a fine-tooth comb. Annie Greave was in his boot all right, there's no doubt about it. And Butt has probably spent the last hour explaining how she got there. Mr Balderstone, Chief Inspector Balderstone, was going to contact Mr Dalziel as soon as he heard anything. I thought he might be here by now.'

So, thought Pascoe. Dalziel is hanging on here in the hope that this guy Butt will cough everything and life at Lake House can go on undisturbed.

How deep is he in? he wondered uneasily. He had not liked the way Cross now and then seemed to be lining the fat man up with the Lake House gang rather than with the forces of law and order.

Yet it was Dalziel who had stirred things up, he reassured himself. He couldn't believe that he would ever have anything to do with suppression of evidence. Though, of course, technically there was nothing illegal in the suppression of theory. But the Dalziel who had been his mentor these many years would not indulge in such hair-splitting.

'We'd better go back inside,' said Pascoe. 'Our wives will be getting worried.'

'I've been married fifteen years,' said Cross. 'After the first ten, policemen's wives stop getting worried. They start getting angry instead. Come on.'