Reginald Hill - Singing the Sadness

Ursell said softly, ‘We can certainly count ourselves lucky having two pairs of trained eyes at the scene of the crime.’

That unsarcastic sarcasm again.

‘So it was definitely a crime?’ said Joe.

Ursell hesitated then shrugged.

‘It’s no secret, not round here anyway. Yes, it was arson. Traces of an accelerant, probably petrol.’

‘So maybe if this woman shouldn’t have been in the house, these fire raisers thought the place was empty?’ suggested Joe.

‘Could be,’ admitted Ursell. ‘Why she didn’t hear something and get out quick is the puzzle.’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Joe, very superior. ‘She was naked when I found her. I reckon she was in the shower when it happened, probably didn’t hear a thing. Came out, found the place full of smoke. Ran into the front bedroom which was when we spotted her. Saw there was no way out there. Headed back, ceiling beneath already on fire, and her foot went through the floorboards. After that, best she could manage was to drag herself back into the shower, turn the cold water full on, and lie there waiting for the end.’

The long speech brought on a fit of coughing which spared Ursell the angst of having to agree.

‘You here to sing, you say? Interesting,’ he observed when Joe regained control. ‘Rest of the choir coughs in tune too, I daresay.’

‘Come along and listen if you’ve a spare moment,’ snapped Joe, irritated at the sneer against the choir. ‘You might learn something.’

‘Oh yes? About as much chance as I have of having a spare moment, with all this in my lap.’

Now Joe was thoroughly incensed, not a condition he was very familiar with.

‘Listen, Inspector. I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced, but this fire, whoever’s responsible, it’s not me or my choir, and it’s almost certainly not that poor woman who’s got herself nearly burnt to death. Now, if you need to talk to me again, you’ll find me at Branddreth College.’

He strode to the door. It was an effort not to show what an effort striding was, but he managed it.

With Merv’s strength at one side, and Beryl’s warmth at the other, he set off down a long corridor.

Ursell overtook them without a glance and turned down a side corridor. When they reached it, Joe looked along it and saw the inspector talking to a uniformed policeman who’d just risen from a chair outside a door.

‘Hang on a sec,’ said Joe.

He abandoned his supporters and walked down the side corridor. Ursell and the uniformed man watched his approach in silence. When he reached them, Joe peered in through the glass panel of the door. He’d anticipated what he would see there, but the sight of that deathly still figure lying on a bed, hooked up to a variety of drips and monitoring apparatus, still caught at his throat worse than the smoke from the fire.

‘How’s she doing?’ he asked.

‘No change,’ said Ursell.

‘I hope that … I hope …’

Joe broke off. What had this cop, who looked like he thought life was a form of irritable bowel syndrome, to do with his hopes?

He turned away, but he’d only gone a few paces when the inspector came alongside.

‘Mr Sixsmith.’

‘Yes?’ said Joe, halting.

‘I don’t think I said, you did OK.’

Saying it seemed to hurt his throat as much as speaking hurt Joe’s.

‘Yeah,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe not OK enough, eh? You’ll let me know if anything …’

‘Rest assured,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ll let you know.’

Maybe it was just the accent, but the words sounded very final.

In The Lost Traveller’s Guide, the famous travel book devoted to places unlikely to be visited on purpose, Branddreth Hall, the seat of Branddreth College, is described thus:

Here we have a building which achieves the remarkable feat of spanning six centuries, from medieval stronghold through Tudor hall, Georgian manor and Victorian mansion, to twentieth-century school, without once coming within welly-hurling distance of distinction. Succeeding generations have recorded their disappointment that, despite all attempts at contemporaneous improvement, the complete building sullenly insists on remaining less than the sum of its parts, and in this unrepentant ugliness, the Lady House, an Edwardian dower house built in what might best be called the Mock-Tudor Council Estate style, shows an almost touching family resemblance.

Joe, whose architectural acme was the green and yellow marble-clad ziggurat housing the new Malayan restaurant in Luton High, viewed the hall with no such critical eye. All he saw was the gift-wrapping round the cosy little sickbay where Beryl was going to act as his personal nurse.

On their way, they had passed the burnt-out shell of the farmhouse, or Copa Cottage as he now knew it was called. Only a jagged shell of outer wall remained standing and firemen were still picking their way through the ashes. A real inferno, thought Joe. And nearly my pyre.

A fire engine and two police cars were parked in front of the ruin with a plum-coloured Daimler standing a little to one side, like a duchess keeping her skirts out of the heavy tread of the hired help.

Next to it stood four people, watching the firemen at their work. Two of them, a man and a woman, thirtysomethings, smartly tweeded in the way posh townies dress for the country, he with his arm comfortingly round her shoulders, Joe guessed to be the Haggards from Islington. A little to one side, regarding them with grave concern, stood a tall distinguished man, with aquiline nose, silvering hair, and a walking stick.

And set back from this trio, regarding them all with unreadable blankness, was Detective Inspector Ursell.

Who’d had time to finish his business at the hospital, leave after them, and still get here before they did. Which meant that Merv could still be a long way from sussing out these winding country roads, a suspicion confirmed when Mirabelle hissed, ‘What you doing bringing us past here?’

Thinks seeing the place again might do my head in, thought Joe, not altogether displeased at being regarded as such a sensitive plant. Then Beryl’s arm went around him, and he realized his body was shivering. Maybe he was that sensitive plant after all!

The rest of the journey (less than a mile – Merv had got that right at least) passed in melancholy silence. But when they got out of the coach and heard the sound of singing voices drifting through the bright spring air, interrupted from time to time by Rev. Pot’s cries of encouragement or abuse, Joe’s heart bounded and he felt like he’d come home.

Even the discovery that the cosy little sickbay was more barrack room than BUPA didn’t depress his spirits. Meekly he allowed Beryl to check him over for damage in transit then put him to bed, with Aunt Mirabelle playing gooseberry, more, he thought generously, out of concern for his condition than suspicion it wouldn’t debar him from unclean thoughts.

He drank some thin soup and a cup of tea. A high liquid intake was prescribed till his throat eased. Hopefully he enquired about the availability of Guinness. Beryl pursed her lips (oh, how he longed to open that purse) but Mirabelle, God bless her, said, ‘That black stout supposed to be good for nursing mothers, isn’t it? Don’t see how it can do you any harm. But sleep first.’

Upon which promise, and the imagined promise contained in the kiss which Beryl brushed across his mouth, Joe closed his eyes obediently and, to what would have been his surprise if he’d been awake to appreciate it, he fell asleep immediately.

He woke in semi-darkness and the knowledge that there was someone in the room.

Like most of Joe’s instant certainties, evidence came a good way second. His occasional good friend, Superintendent Willie Woodbine of Luton CID, justified his plagiarism of Joe’s occasional detective triumphs (the same occasions on which he became a good friend) by saying, ‘God knows how you get there, Joe, but you’ve got to understand, the real work starts with me having to plot a logical path that won’t get laughed out of court.’