Reginald Hill - An April Shroud

'We're on the track of a very dangerous man.'

'Dangerous?' said Pascoe in some alarm. 'The car park man?'

'You'd be surprised. Look there!'

Dalziel put the tiller hard over so the boat came round as sharply as a shallow-bottomed leaky rowing-boat could. Pascoe glanced round in alarm as he felt his left oar strike something. He would not have been too surprised to see an arm reaching out of the water and brandishing a sword. Instead he saw a punt pole, its top pointing drunkenly at the sky and its other end presumably buried in the sludge at the bottom of the lake.

'I told you he was dangerous,' said Dalziel. 'Listen.'

They listened. After a while out of the other small water noises Pascoe picked an intermittent slapping noise, as though some aquatic creature were beating the lake with its flippers.

Dalziel nodded imperiously and Pascoe began once more to strain at the oars. This form of exercise was not one he was accustomed to and his arms and shoulders were already beginning to ache.

'Who's there?' a voice suddenly called out of the darkness. 'Is there anyone there?'

'Aye, is there,' answered Dalziel.

'Is that you, Mr Dalziel? Could you give us a tow? I'm afraid I've lost the pole.'

Pascoe glanced over his shoulder and saw the silhouette of a punt. In the stern a lanky figure was pushing himself upright, his hands dripping. The halfwit must have been paddling with them since he lost his pole, thought Pascoe. His feeling of superiority was almost immediately dissipated as he caught a double crab and fell backwards over his bench. From this undignified position, he heard another voice.

'No closer please, Andy. Just pass over your oars and we'll be on our way.'

Pascoe struggled upright. The punt had now swung round or perhaps the boat had moved as a result of his mishap. In any event, they were now broadside on to the bow of the punt and in it, sitting behind a formidable looking gun, was a second man.

'Evening, Herrie,' said Dalziel.

'Just the oars, Andy.'

The old man's voice was steady but not quite right, thought Pascoe. Strain showed through it. It was like Gielgud playing Little Caesar.

'Come on, Herrie,' said Dalziel jovially. 'What's all this about?'

'I couldn't get the car down the drive,' said the old man. 'Charley said he'd shift some of the visitor's but the keys had gone. That'd be you, I suppose, Andy. So I rang up a taxi, arranged to be picked up on the road at the far side of the lake. I'd have been there by now if my Charon had not proved more than usually incompetent.'

The two craft had moved almost to the point of touching and Pascoe, upright once more, was able to view the strange tableau in all its absurd detail. The fact that he was the only one present in normal twentieth-century garb accentuated his sense of being an audience. The old man was the centre of the tableau. His finely sculpted patrician head was perhaps more suited to a toga than a black doublet, but he made a good Duke Vincentio or even a Hamlet played by some English actor who had left it too late. Dalziel, standing now looking down at the punt, was an imposing figure in his long green gown, but his was not a head for philosophy and suffering; beneath the absurd cap flopping down over his brow, his eyes were calculating and shrewd; Ulysses assessing a tricky situation, or even an overweight Prospero, feeling a bit regretful that he'd drowned his book.

As for the third figure whom Pascoe had already seen at work in the car park, he too was one from the magic island. Ariel and Caliban combined, grace and awkwardness, look at him now as he began to advance down the punt; his first couple of steps movements of ease and elegance, he looked as if he had been wearing thin silks and pink hose all his life. He spoke.

'I say, I don't know what's going on…'

Hereward Fielding turned his head, Dalziel saw his chance and stepped from the rowing-boat into the punt, Ariel took another step and became Caliban, stumbling over a loose cushion and falling heavily to the deck. The punt rocked violently; Dalziel standing precariously on the gunwale swayed like a clipper's mast in a gale, Hereward rose from his gun and reached out a saving hand but it was too late. Like the undermined statue of some deposed dictator, the massive bulk of the man toppled slowly sideways and entered the water with a mighty splash. Tillotson and Fielding knelt anxiously at the side of the punt eager with apologies and assistance. And Pascoe, feeling it was time the twentieth century asserted itself, stepped calmly into the bows and took possession of the gun.

It struck Pascoe as odd that a man who had recently been threatening to blow a hole in his boss should now be so solicitous about his health, but Tillotson's words as he helped drag the waterlogged Dalziel aboard seemed to explain this.

'I'm so sorry, but really all I was going to say was there's no need for any fuss. I mean the gun's not loaded, you don't think I'd leave the thing loaded do you? I told Herrie, he knew it wasn't loaded; please, what's going on? Oh gosh, you are wet, aren't you?'

Pascoe squatting by the duck gun began to chuckle quietly. The unloaded gun doubled the comic dimensions of the thing by removing altogether the heroic element. Of course, if there had been a risk.. . idly he pressed the trigger.

The resulting blast tore the mist apart for about five yards in all directions. More devastatingly, the rowing-boat which was in the direct line of fire at very close range had a hole nine inches across punched in its side close enough to water-level for each rocking motion to ship some water. Very quickly the craft began to settle and the lake poured in.

'Not loaded,' said Dalziel to a dumbfounded Tillotson. 'Jesus Christ. Pascoe, grab those oars!'

Pascoe obeyed just in time. As he began awkwardly to paddle the punt back towards the shore, the rowing-boat sank with a quiet burp, leaving only a few bubbles and Dalziel's floppy hat to show where it had foundered.

Back at the house they found the car chaos was under control. Cross had taken over and the only cars now remaining were those stranded by Dalziel's removal of the keys which fortunately had survived his immersion. But the confusion in the car park seemed now to have been internalized by the members of the household who hung around in their fancy dress like actors uncertain of their cue. Pascoe was particularly sorry for Bonnie Fielding whose anxiety about her father-in-law and distress at Dalziel's half-drowned state were doubled by the discovery that her son Nigel had decided to run away again. Another note had been found saying that one night of working in the restaurant had convinced him this was no life for a sensitive spirit, or words to that effect.

Pascoe tried to keep Hereward apart from the rest of the household but his effort was in vain without resorting to the strong arm of the law and as Dalziel had retired to dry himself without firm instruction, he contented himself with keeping the old poet in sight. He was not at all surprised to find Ellie waiting at the landing-stage. She had sent her parents home by themselves and returned just in time to hear the boom of the duck gun. The look of relief on her face as she saw them emerge from the mist had been a great boost for Pascoe's ego, even though her first words to him were, 'You've got oil all over your best suit!'

Now they were all gathered in the old man's sitting-room. Hereward had poured himself a large brandy and Pascoe was interested to notice that he filled up a glass with Glen Grant also. Cross came into the room accompanied by a new figure whom he introduced to Pascoe as Chief Inspector Balderstone. Briefly Pascoe outlined what had taken place. Obscurely he felt the need to somehow cover up for Dalziel, but he had no idea how to do this. The fat man would have to look after himself.