Dalziel 14 Pictures of Perfection Read online

  REGINALD HILL

  Pictures of Perfection

  A Dalziel and Pascoe novel

  Pictures of perfection as you know

  make me sick and wicked

  TO

  THE QUEEN OF CRIME EDITORS,

  ELIZABETH WALTER,

  THIS WORK IS, WITH HER GRACIOUS PERMISSION,

  MOST AFFECTIONATELY

  DEDICATED,

  BY HER ADMIRING

  AND GRATEFUL

  FRIEND,

  THE AUTHOR.

  Nullum quod tetegit non ornavit

  AUTHOR'S NOTE:

  the epigraph and all the chapter headings

  are taken from Jane Austen's letters.

  Volume the first

  PROLOGUE BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE

  DRAFT OF AN UNCOMPLETED History of

  Enscombe Parish BY THE REVEREND CHARLES

  FABIAN CAGE, D.D. (DECEASED)

  It is a truth fairly universally acknowledged that all men are born equal, but the family Guillemard, pointing to the contra-evidence of their own absence from the Baronetage, have long been settled in Yorkshire without allowing such philosophical quibbles to distress or vex them.

  The first stirrings of populism in the last century had been shrugged off as a mere Gallic infection, susceptible to applications of cold iron and a diet of bread and water. But the virus proved a virulent strain, eventually getting a firm grip on a country weak and convalescent after the Great War, and by the nineteen thirties even the Guillemards had begun to suspect its presence in their own Norman blood.

  And by 1952 when Selwyn Guillemard, the present Squire, inherited the estate, he was ready to accept, without prejudice, that there might after all be something in this newfangled notion of the Rights of Man.

  The Rights of Woman, however, remain very much a theme of science fiction.

  About thirty years ago, Squire Selwyn had the ill luck to lose his only son and daughter-in-law in a motoring accident, a grievous loss and one which, despite all my urgings, he seemed more inclined to bear with pagan stoicism than Christian fortitude. Nor did he at this stage derive much consolation from the survival of his infant granddaughter who henceforth was brought up at Old Hall.

  A child reared in an ageing household is likely to be either precocious or withdrawn and little Gertrude Guillemard showed few signs of precocity. Indeed, so quiet and self-effacing was she that even her antique name seemed too great a burden for her and it was soon alleviated to Girlie.

  The Enscombe Old Hall estate is naturally entailed upon the male line. Modern law has rendered such archaic restrictions easily removed, but whichever way he looked, Squire Selwyn could see little incentive to change. Behind, he saw the sternly admonitory face of tradition; ahead, he foresaw that the diminished and diminishing estate was going to need a more vigorously heroic hand than his own to keep it from total collapse, and no one who had ever seen Girlie Guillemard in her infancy could have supposed her to be a heroine. So the Squire had few qualms about admitting his great-nephew, Guy, as heir apparent.

  His wife, Edna, nursed hopes that the main and collateral lines might be joined by a marriage of cousins. These pious hopes survived their adolescence which saw Girlie mature into a self-contained and biddable young woman and Guy sprout into a bumptious self-confident public schoolboy, though a more perceptive woman than Edna Guillemard might have been rendered uneasy by the infrequency of Guy's visits to Yorkshire (which he designated mega-boring) and the stoicism with which Girlie bore his absence. Then, shortly after the young folk reached their majorities and could decently be given some firm prothalamic nudges, tragedy struck the Guillemards again, and Edna died of a too tardily diagnosed adder bite. Once more I officiated at a Guillemard funeral.

  Afterwards the Squire invited me to join himself and the youngsters in his study for a glass of sherry. We talked for a while, as one does, of the virtues of the dear departed, then the Squire took a huge meerschaum from his crowded pipe rack, slowly filled and lit it, and seemed to go into a reverie with his eyes fixed on the furthermost left-hand corner of the room. Finally he nodded, turned his attention to me, and said, 'Edna had a fancy to see these yonkers in church again pretty soon, getting married. What do you think?'

  'More to the point, what do they think?' I replied.

  Now Guy too produced a pipe, all gleaming with stainless steel, pulled the tobacco jar towards him and went through a similarly lengthy filling and lighting process before saying, 'I think I'm a bit young yet to be thinking of marriage, Squire. But a few years on, who knows? In the meantime, I'm happy to admit some kind of gentleman's understanding.'

  Then he sat back in his chair, smiling complacently, I presume at what he took to be his diplomatic dexterity.

  The Squire looked at Girlie. Slowly she reached forward and took a smaller meerschaum from the rack. Slowly she filled it from the jar, slowly she lit it. Satisfied, at last she sat back in her chair and took two or three appreciative puffs. Finally she spoke.

  'As for me,' she said, 'I'd rather screw a rabid porcupine. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see about lunch.'

  When she left she took the pipe with her. What had been a gesture became first a symbol, then, alas, an addiction. There were other changes too. All the Laura Ashley dresses her grandmother thought so became her were discarded (though not destroyed, many of them reappearing a short while later when little Frances Harding came to live at the Hall) and Girlie took to wearing jeans and wellies during the working day, and stark black and white for formal occasions. Her Alice-length hair was reduced to a helmet of turbulent curls, and very soon the great local debate about who would now run the household was rendered superfluous as it became apparent that Old Hall had a new and formidable chatelaine.

  The estate was managed by a factor under the notional supervision of the Squire, but the latter, never the same since the loss of his son, now retreated even further into a protective eccentricity. The task of checking the books soon devolved upon Girlie. These were the insane 'eighties when the psycho patients took over the surgery and started remodelling society in their own image of perfection, without benefit of anaesthetic. Trevor Hookey, the factor, soon revealed himself as a dedicated Thatcherite, wielding his knife with a zealot's glee, crying, 'If it doesn't hurt, it's not working!' and assuring Girlie proudly that the new sleek and slimline Old Hall estate was the super-efficient model of the future.

  Girlie listened politely to this liturgical formulary for a couple of years. Then as her calculator squeaked up the dismal 'grand' total at the annual Reckoning of 1986, she interrupted the zealot, saying, 'Enough. I have seen the future and it sucks. We aren't sleek and super-efficient, we're emaciated and moribund. There's only one large economy left for us to make.'

  'And what's that, my dear?' asked Hookey with a patronizing air.

  'Your salary,' said Girlie Guillemard.

  These Reckonings, by the way, take place on Lady Day, that is the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, which is in England a Quarter Day, and has in Enscombe since time immemorial, or at least since 1716, been the day for the settling of accounts. That it survives as an occasion is a tribute to Yorkshire doggedness. Naturally the largest and most general payments to be made in the area are the Squire's rents, and while the Guillemard estate was still extensive and ways were rough, it was common courtesy to offer the tenants some refreshment before they set off home.

  But over the years, even before the awful 'eighties, the estate was contracting and roads were improving, and gold coin under the floorboards was giving way to paper money in the bank, and eventually cheques and giros and standing orders made it hardly necessary for the physical collection
of rents at all. In any other county, The Reckoning would have ceased to exist save in the memory of greybeards and the annals of antiquarians. But the difficulty of prising a Yorkshire terrier's teeth from the neck of a rat is as nothing to that of persuading a Yorkshire tyke to give up a long-established freebie. So The Reckoning has evolved into an annual bun-fight at which the

  collection of rents occupies only a couple of minutes, and the refreshment and gossip a couple of hours.

  From '86 on it was Girlie who sat in the seat of custom and Girlie who ran the estate. With the factor's departure the village had anticipated that perhaps Guy the Heir would appear to nurture and protect what would one day be his own. But the 'eighties, which had turned this green and pleasant land into a valley of dry bones for so many, had rendered it a loadsamoney theme park for others, and Guy the Heir was far too busy plunging his snout in the golden trough to be concerned with a run-down, debt-ridden estate in mega-boring Yorkshire.

  But they were not long, the days of swine and Porsches. And by the early 'nineties the smartest pigs, those who could still remember how to walk on two legs, were putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the wrack of that frightful image of perfection they had worshipped in vain. It would be comforting to see this as conversion. Alas, I fear that they are merely searching for new horizons to pollute, new territories to exploit. I fear nowhere is safe, not even the green grass, clear air, translucent waters and simple country folk of a distant, mega-boring Yorkshire dale.

  CHAPTER I

  'How horrible it is to have so many people killed! -

  And what a blessing one cares for none of them!'

  It is the Day of Reckoning.

  The sun is shining. The inhabitants of Enscombe will tell you the sun always shines on Reckoning Day, meaning it hasn't rained much above a dozen times in the last twenty years. But this year they are right. After a week in which March seemed always looking back to January, suddenly it has leapt forward into May, and even in the shade, the air hangs warm and scented with blossom.

  The village lies still as a painting, an English watercolour over which the artist has laboured with furious concentration to fix forever one perfect moment. What problems it must have posed! How to capture the almost black shadows which the sun, just past its zenith, lays on the left-hand side of the High Street, without giving a false Mediterranean brightness to the buildings opposite? And then the problem of perspective, with the road rising gently from the Morris Men's Rest at the southern end of the village, widening a little beyond the Post Office to admit the cobbled forecourts of the sunbright bookshop and cafe opposite the shadow-dark gallery, then steepening suddenly into a breathless hill as it climbs alongside the high churchyard wall over which headstones peep as though eager to see how the living are doing in these hard times. Nor is the curiously slouching tower of the church easy to capture accurately without making the artist look merely incompetent! And that distant pennant of kingfisher blue which is all that is visible of Old Hall above the trees beyond the church, were it not better with an artist's licence to ignore it as a distraction from the horizon of brooding moorland which is the picture's natural frame?

  But it is that blue pennant which explains the village's stillness, for it betokens that the Squire is hosting his Reckoning Feast. And, more important still, for any daubster can paint a house but only the true artist can hint the life within, the pennant signals that behind this picture of still beauty there is warm pulsating humanity always threatening to burst through.

  Now there is movement and the picture starts to dissolve. A woman comes hurrying down the shady side of the street. Her name is Elsie Toke. She is a slight, rather fey-looking woman in her forties, though her face is curiously unmarked by age. But it is marked now by anxiety as she looks to the left and right as though searching for someone. She catches a movement ahead of her on the sunny side of the street. A figure has emerged into the light, not very sensibly dressed for this place and this weather in combat fatigues with a black woollen balaclava pulled over his head so that only the eyes are visible. And crooked in his right arm he has a heavy short-barrelled gun.

  He has not seen the woman yet. His mind seems boiling like the sun with more impressions and ideas than it can safely hold, a maelstrom of energy close to critical mass. He recalls reading somewhere of those old Nordic warriors who at times of great crisis ran amok. Berserkers they called them, responding to some imperative of violence which put them in touch with the violence which lies behind all of nature. He had found the idea appealing. When all else fails, when the subtlest of defence strategies prove futile, then throw caution to the winds, go out, attack, destroy, die!

  The woman calls, 'Jason!'

  He becomes aware of her for the first time. She is hurrying towards him, relief smudging the worry from her face. He registers who she is but it means nothing. To a berserker, all flesh is grass, waiting to be mown down. If any thought does cross his mind it is that he has to start somewhere. He shifts the gun from the crook of his arm to rest the stock on his hip. The expression on her face is changing now. She opens her mouth to speak again, but before the words can emerge, he fires. She takes the shot full in the chest. She doesn't scream but looks down in disbelief as the red stain blossoms and the sour wine smell of blood rises to her nostrils.

  The berserker is already moving on. There are other figures in the long High Street now and his mind is reeling with delight at the prospect of conjuring fear into familiar faces as they admit the unbelievable.

  Here comes Thomas Wapshare, eyes bright with curiosity, chubby cheeks aglow, mouth already curving into his jovial landlord's smile, and curiously the smile still remaining even as the eyes at last grasp what is happening, even as the muzzle comes up and at short range blasts him in that oh so comfortable gut.

  And there across the street unlocking the Post Office door is Dudley Wylmot, a thin, gangling man with a weak chin and a spiky moustache under a rather large nose which gives him the air of a self-important rabbit. There is certainly something of the rabbit in him now as he turns with his key in the door and becomes aware of the gun barrel pointing straight at him. The berserker waits just long enough for Wylmot to register fully what is happening then he fires. The shot takes him in the neck, and he spins round, slamming against the blood-spattered door.

  Now the berserker moves faster. Up ahead he has seen Caddy Scudamore opening the door of the Eendale Gallery. Luscious, gorgeous, infinitely desirable Caddy who looks at you as if you aren't there unless she takes a fancy to paint you. Shared, her indifference is bearable. But what right has she to select one out of the mass? She has the door open. She steps inside. He blasts her right between the shoulder-blades, smiling beneath his balaclava to see the fresh red blood blot out all the other colours on her paint-stained smock.

  'Hey!'

  The voice comes from behind him. He turns. In the doorway of the Tell-Tale Bookshop stands the distinguished grey-haired patrician figure of Edwin Digweed. He must have seen the attack on Caddy through his window. A wise man would have dived behind his book-shelves! He snaps off a shot without conscious aim and feels a surge of superhuman power as the bookseller grabs for his stomach and feels the sticky blood oozing through his fingers.

  Out of sheer exuberance the berserker lets one off at the window of the empty Wayside Cafe, then holding his weapon at the high port begins to jog up the hill past the churchyard.

  He is slowing down by the time he reaches the War Memorial set in a nook of the wall, so he takes a breather and gives the bronze soldier, who has been gazing nobly into space for more than seventy years, a reminder of what it was all about.

  The driver of an open-topped cabriolet in a striking shade of metallic aubergine slows almost to a halt as he observes the berserker's assault on the memorial. His name is Justin Halavant and he has a slightly off-key sense of humour which inspires him to call, 'I say: has war been declared on all statuary or just the military genre?'
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  He realizes his mistake at once. Startled, the berserker swings round and pumps off two rapid shots. The first hits the car door, but the second hits Halavant high on the side of his head, his muscles spasm, his foot rams down on the accelerator, and the car goes screaming down the hill into the village.

  Not waiting to see what becomes of it, the berserker jogs up the hill and turns into the churchyard.

  Here he pauses, leaning against a headstone, to check his ammunition. He is tempted to do a bit of damage to the church but ammo is running low and instinct urges him on to surprise the great bulk of villagers still at the Reckoning Feast before rumour of his activities reaches them from the village. But he does waste a shot at the Guillemard coat of arms above the arched gateway which leads from the churchyard into Green Alley and the Old Hall estate.

  Now the climax is close, which is just as well since the energy which not long before had seemed set to last him for ever is now fading fast and the weapon which had seemed like a willow wand in his hands pulls at his muscles like a pig of iron.

  Out of the corner of his eye he glimpses a figure and instinctively he pumps a shot at it before he realizes it is only a marble faun leering over a low stone bench. His snap shot hits home and as he watches, the leering head slowly topples off.

  Now he is close enough to the Reckoning to hear its noise. Not the usual hubbub of vacuous gossip and the chomping of greedy teeth. No, now it is the throb of a passionate 'cello and an old but still piercing voice raised in rhythmic incantation.

  'Who has not seen in windy March

  Flocks fleeing through the fields,

  Neath arching ash and leaning larch,

  With Winter on their heels,

  His breath with strength to drench or parch,

  More fierce because it fails?'

  It is the Squire inflicting his ballad on the captive audience. It occurs to the berserker, across whose dark and stormy mind an occasional shaft of rationality shoots, that some of the listeners might, to start with, regard his interruption as a blessed relief.