Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue

Another surprise. Nothing she’d been told about the man had hinted devotion.

She pulled in after him, parked in the next row, and slid out of her seat. He was slower exiting his car than getting into it. She studied him across the low roof of the Nissan. He looked preoccupied, anxious even. His gaze took her in. She removed her sunglasses and gave him a tentative smile. If he’d responded, she would have started to speak, but he turned away abruptly and strode towards the cathedral.

Once again his speed caught her unawares and she lost distance as she followed him. When he stopped to speak to someone at the door, she almost caught up. Then he vanished into the building.

Inside she looked for him in the main aisle along which most of the other arrivals were moving towards the High Altar. No sign. He surely couldn’t have spotted her and headed here as a diversion to shake her off? No, that didn’t make sense.

Then she saw him. He’d found a seat in the north aisle where the golden October sunlight filtering through the eastern windows did not penetrate. He sat hunched forward with his head in his hands. Despite his size he looked strangely vulnerable. Something very serious must be troubling him to require prayer of this intensity.

She sat down a couple of rows behind and waited.

When Gina Wolfe’s Nissan pulled out to follow Andy Dalziel’s Rover, fifty yards back a blue VW Golf slipped into place behind her. There were two people in it; in the front passenger seat a man, broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced, his skull close-cropped in a gingery stubble; alongside him a woman of similar build and feature, her short fair hair packed tight into curls that could have been sculpted by Praxiteles.

His name was Vincent Delay. The driver was his sister. Her name was Fleur. On first hearing this some people were amused, but rarely for long.

She had no problem keeping the bright red sports car in sight along the relatively straight main road. Not that visual contact mattered. On her brother’s knee was a laptop tuned to a GPS tracker. The bright green spot pulsating across the screen was the Nissan that she could see ahead, signalling left to follow the Rover. Fleur turned off the main road too and half a minute later braked to avoid coming up too close behind the red car. It was the Rover driver causing the hold-up. He’d slowed almost to a halt to exchange words with a female pedestrian. It didn’t take long. Now he was off again.

As they passed the woman, Vincent turned his head to stare at her through the open window. She noticed his interest and glared back, mouthing something inaudible.

‘Up yours too, you old scarecrow,’ growled the man.

‘Vince, don’t draw attention,’ said Fleur.

‘What attention? Must be a hundred. Probably deaf as a post and can’t remember anything that happened more than five minutes ago.’

‘Maybe,’ said the woman, turning into the car park and finding a spot a few cars along from the Nissan. Here they sat and watched as the fat man made his way towards the cathedral followed closely by the blonde.

‘Who the fuck is that?’ said Vince. ‘Can’t possibly be our guy, can it?’

The woman said, ‘Don’t swear, Vince. You know I don’t like it any time and particularly not on a Sunday.’

‘Sorry,’ he said sulkily. ‘Just wondering who Tubby is, that’s all.’

‘And it’s a good question,’ she said in a conciliatory tone. ‘But we know where he lives, so finding out won’t be a problem. Now get after them.’

‘Me?’ said Vince doubtfully. Following was subtle stuff. Usually he didn’t get to do the subtle stuff.

‘Yes. You can manage that, can’t you?’

‘Sure.’

He got out of the car, then stooped to the window.

‘What if they go inside?’

‘Follow them,’ she said in exasperation. ‘Grab a hymn book. Try to look religious. Now go!’

He set off at a rapid pace. Ahead he saw Blondie going into the cathedral.

He followed. Inside he stood still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the light. Blondie was easy to spot and through her he located Tubby.

When the woman sat down, he took a seat several rows behind her, picked up a hymn book, opened it at random.

His lips moved as he read the words. The world is very evil, The times are waxing late, Be sober and keep vigil, The Judge is at the gate.

Fucking judges, thought Vince.

For the first couple of miles, Andy Dalziel’s reaction to the surprisingly light traffic had been relief. He should get to the meeting in plenty of time and without use of what clever clogs Pascoe called son et lumiere.

But by the time he approached the town centre, he was beginning to find the absence of other vehicles suspicious rather than surprising. This after all was Monday morning, when traffic was usually at its worst.

Couldn’t be a Bank Holiday, could it? Hardly. September had just turned into October. Last Bank Holiday, spent in a sea-side convalescent home, had been at the end of August. No more till Christmas, by which time the rest of the European Union would have had another half-dozen. Faintest sniff of no matter how obscure a saint’s day, and them buggers were parading idols, wrestling bulls and throwing donkeys off the Eiffel Tower. No wonder we had to win their wars for them!

He came out of his Europhobic reverie to discover that, despite being well ahead of the clock, his automatic pilot had directed him via his usual short-cut along Holyclerk Street in defiance of the sign restricting entry ‘within the bell’, i.e. into the area immediately surrounding the cathedral, to residents and worshippers. And now his suspicions about the lightness of traffic began to take on a more sombre hue.

There were people walking towards the cathedral with that anal-retentive demeanour the English tend to adopt when trying to look religious; not great numbers, but a lot more than he’d have expected to see at this time on a Monday morning. Mebbe during his absence there’d been a great conversion in Mid-Yorkshire. In fact, mebbe his absence had caused it!

Slowing to the pace of a little old lady clutching a large square volume bound in leather, its corners reinforced by brass triangles that gleamed like a set of knuckle-dusters, he leaned over to the passenger side and wound down the window.

‘How do, luv. Off to church, are you? Lovely morning for it.’

She turned, fixed him with a rheumy eye, and said, ‘My God, how desperate must you be! I’m seventy-nine. Go away, you pathetic man!’

‘Nay, luv, I just want to know what day it is,’ he protested.

‘A drunkard as well as a lecher! Go away, I say! I can defend myself.’

She took a swing at him with her brass-bound book which, had it connected, might have broken his nose. He accelerated away, but doubt was now strong enough to make him turn into the cathedral car park a hundred yards on.

A sporty red Nissan pulled in behind him. Its driver, a blonde in her late twenties, got out the same time as he did. She was wearing wrap-around shades against the autumn sunlight. She eased them forward on her nose, their eyes met and she gave him a smile. He thought of asking her what day it was but decided against it. This one might have hysterics or spray him with mace, and in any case back along the pavement the little old lady was approaching like the US cavalry. Time to talk to someone official and male.

At the cathedral’s great east door he could see a corpse-faced man in a black cassock acting as commissionaire. No backward collar, so a verger maybe. Or a cross-dressing vampire.

Dalziel moved towards him. As he entered the shadow of the great building his mind drifted back to a time when he’d been hauled along this street as God on top of a medieval pageant wagon and something like an angel had come floating down from the looming tower…