Dalziel 17 On Beulah Height Page 5

  Back home, Elsie, already growing concerned, without yet acknowledging the nature of her concern, goes through the motions of preparing Sunday lunch as though, by refusing to vary her routine, she can force events back into their usual course.

  When the door bursts open and Tony appears, the dog in his arms, demanding, 'Is she back?' she turns pale as the flour on her hands.

  All the windows of the house are open to move the heavy air. Out in the road the girls are still at their game. And as husband and wife lock gazes across the kitchen table, each willing the other to smile and say that everything's right, the words of the skipping chant come drifting between them.

  One foot! Two foot! Black foot! White foot!

  Three foot! Four foot! Left foot! Right foot!

  No one runs as fast as Benny Lightfoot!

  OUT GOES SHE!

  FIVE

  Danby, according to a recent Evening Post feature, was that rarest of things, a rural success story.

  Bucking the usual trend to depopulation and decline, new development, led by the establishment of a Science and Business Park on its southern edge, had swollen the place from large village to small town.

  It ain't pretty but it works, thought Pascoe as they drove past the entrance to the Park on one side of the road and the entrance to a large supermarket backed by a new housing estate on the other.

  It takes more than the march of modernity to modify the English provincial sabbath, however, and the town's old centre was as quiet as a pueblo during siesta. Even the folk sitting outside the three pubs they passed with no more than a faint longing sigh from Dalziel locked like figures engraved on an urn.

  The main sign of activity they saw was a man scrubbing furiously at a shop window on which, despite his efforts, the words BENNY'S BACK! remained stubbornly visible, and another man obliterating the same words with black paint on a gable end.

  Neither of the detectives said anything till open countryside - moorland now, not pastoral - began to open up ahead once more.

  'This Liggside's right on the edge, is it?' asked Pascoe.

  'Aye. Next to Ligg Common. Ligg Beck runs right down the valley. Yon's the Neb.'

  The sun laid it all out before them like a holiday slide. Danbydale rose ahead, due north to start with, then curving north-east. The Neb rose steeply to the west. The road they were on continued up the lower eastern arm of the dale, its white curves clear as bones on a beach.

  'Next left, if I recall right,' said Dalziel.

  He did, of course. Lost in a Mid-Yorkshire mist with an Ordnance Survey cartographer, a champion orienteer, and Andy Dalziel, Pascoe knew which one he'd follow.

  Liggside was a small terrace of grey cottages fronting the pavement. No problem spotting number 7. There was a police car parked outside and a uniformed constable at the door, with two small groups of onlookers standing a decent distance (about ten feet in Mid-Yorkshire) on either side.

  The constable moved forward as Dalziel double-parked, probably to remonstrate, but happily for his health, recognition dawned in time and he opened the car door for them with a commissionaire's flourish.

  Pascoe got out, stretched, and took in the scene. The cottages were small and unprepossessing, but solid, not mean, and the builder had been proud enough of them to mark the completion by carving the date in the central lintel: 1860. The year Mahler was born. Dalziel's unexpected recognition of the Kindertotenlied brought the name to his mind. He doubted if the event had made much of a stir in Danby. What great event did occupy the minds of the first inhabitants of Liggside? American Civil War . . . no, that was 1861. How about Garibaldi's Redshirts taking Sicily? Probably the Italian's name never meant much more to most native Danbians than a jacket or a biscuit. Or was he being patronizingly elitist? Who should know better than he that there was no way of knowing what your ancestors knew?

  What he did know was that his mental ramblings were an attempt to distance himself from the depth of pain and fear he knew awaited them beyond the matt-brown door with its bright brass letter box and its rudded step. Where a lost child was concerned, not even rage was strong enough to block that out.

  The constable opened the house door and spoke softly. A moment later a uniformed sergeant Pascoe recognized as Clark, i/c Danby sub-station, appeared. He didn't speak but just shook his head to confirm that nothing had changed. Dalziel pushed past him and Pascoe followed.

  The small living room was crowded with people, all female, but there was no problem spotting the pale face of the missing child's mother. She was sitting curled up almost foetally at the end of a white vinyl sofa. She seemed to be leaning away from, rather than into, the attempted embrace of a large blonde woman whose torso looked better suited to the lifting of weights than the offering of comfort.

  Dalziel's entrance drew all eyes. They looked for hope and, getting none, acknowledged its absence by dropping their focus from his face to his shirt.

  'Who the hell's this clown?' demanded the blonde in a smoke- roughened voice.

  Clark said, 'Detective Superintendent Dalziel, Head of CID.'

  'Is that right? And he comes out here at a time like this dressed like a frigging fairground tent?'

  It was an image that made up in comprehensiveness what it lacked in detail.

  Dalziel ignored her, and crouched with surprising suppleness before the pale-faced woman.

  'Mrs Dacre, Elsie,' he said. 'I came soon as I got word. I didn't waste time changing.'

  The eyes, mere glints in dark holes, rose to look at him.

  "Who gives a toss what you're wearing. Can you find her?'

  What do you say now, old miracle worker? wondered Pascoe.

  ‘I’ll do everything in my power,' said Dalziel.

  'And what's that then?' demanded the blonde. 'Just what are you doing, eh?'

  Dalziel rose and said, 'Sergeant Clark, let's have a bit of space here. Everyone out please. Let's have some air.'

  The blonde's body language said quite clearly that she wasn't about to move, but Dalziel took the wind out of her sails by saying, 'Not you, Mrs Coe. You hold still, if Elsie wants you.'

  'How the hell do you know my name?' she demanded.

  It was indeed a puzzling question, but not beyond all conjecture. Coe was Elsie Dacre's maiden name, and an older woman who had assumed the office of chief comforter without either a family resemblance or the look of a bosom friend was likely to be an in-law.

  Dalziel just looked at her blankly, not about to spoil that impression of omniscience which made people tell him the truth, or at least feel so nervous, it showed when they tried to hide it.

  'Right Sergeant,' he said, as Clark closed the door after the last of the departing women. 'So what's going off?'

  'I've got my lads up the dale

  'Three. That's how many he's got,' interposed Mrs Coe scornfully.

  'Tony - that's Mr Dacre - naturally wanted to get back up there looking and a bunch of locals were keen to help, so I thought it best to make sure they had some supervision,' Clark went on.

  Dalziel nodded approvingly. The more disorganized and amateur an early search was, the harder it made any later fine-tooth combing whose object was to find clues to an abduction, or murder.

  'Quite right,' he said. 'Little lass could easily have turned her ankle and be sitting up the dale waiting for someone to fetch her.'

  Such breezy optimism clearly got up Mrs Coe's nose, but she kept her mouth shut. It was Elsie Dacre who responded violently, though so quietly to start with that at first the violence almost went unnoticed.

  'No need for all this soft soap, Mr Dalziel,' she said. 'We all know what this is about, don't we? We all know.'

  'Sorry, luv, I'm just trying to ...'

  'I know what you're trying to do, and I know what you'll be doing next. But it didn't do any good last time, did it? So what's changed, mister? You tell me that. What's bloody changed!'

  Now the woman's voice was at full throttle, her eyes blazing, her face cont
orted with anger and fear.

  'Nay, lass, listen,' said Dalziel intensely. 'It's early doors, too early to be talking of last time. God knows, I understand how that'll be in your mind, it's in mine too, but I'll keep it at the back of my mind long as I can. I won't rush to meet summat like that, and you shouldn't either.'

  'You remember me then?' said Mrs Dacre, peering at Dalziel closely as if there was comfort to be fixed in the Fat Man's memory.

  'Aye, do I. When I heard your maiden name I thought, that could be one of the Coes from over in Dendale. You were the youngest, weren't you?'

  'I were eleven when it started. I remember those days, hot days like now, and all us kids going round in fear of our lives. I thought I'd never forget. But you do forget, don't you. Or at least, like you say, you put it so far at the back of your mind it's like forgetting ... and you grow up and start feeling safe, and you have a kiddie of your own, and you never let yourself think .. . but that's where you're wrong, mister! If I hadn't kept it in the back of my mind, if I'd kept it at the front where it belongs . . . something like that's too important ... too bloody terrible ... to keep at the back of . .’

  She broke down in a flood of tears and her sister-in-law embraced her irresistibly. Then the door opened and an older woman came in. This time the family resemblance was unmistakable. She said, 'Elsie, I was down at Sandra's . . . I've just heard ...'

  'Oh, Mam,' cried Elsie Dacre.

  Her sister-in-law was thrust aside and she embraced her mother as though she could crush hope and comfort out of her.

  Dalziel said, 'Mrs Coe, why don't you make us all a cup of tea?'

  The three policemen and the blonde woman went into the kitchen. It was just as well. It was full of steam from a kettle hissing explosively on a high gas ring. Mrs Coe grabbed a tea towel, used it as a mitt to remove the kettle.

  'Should make a grand cuppa,' said Dalziel. 'Needs to be really hot. Mrs Coe, what do you reckon to Tony Dacre?'

  'What kind of question's that?' demanded the woman.

  'Simple one. How do you feel about your brother-in-law?'

  'Why're you asking, is what I want to know.'

  'Don't act stupid. You know why I'm asking. If I can eliminate him from my enquiries, then I won't have to take this house to pieces.'

  Honesty is not only the best policy, it's also sometimes the best form of police brutality, thought Pascoe, watching as shock slackened the woman's solid features.

  Dalziel went on, 'Afore you start yelling at me, think on, missus. You want me to have to start asking that poor woman if her man works on a short fuse or has got any special interest in his own daughter? You're not daft, you know these things happen. So just tell me, is there owt I ought to know about Tony Dacre?'

  The woman found her voice.

  'No, there bloody isn't. I don't like him all that much, but that's personal. As for Lorraine, he worships that little lass, I mean like a father should. In fact, if you ask me, he spoils her rotten, and if she set fire to the house he'd not lose his temper with her. Jesus, I'd not have your job for a thousand pounds. Aren't things bad enough here without you looking for something even filthier in it?'

  Her tone was vehement, but she managed to control the sound level to keep it in the kitchen.

  'Grand,' said Dalziel with a friendly smile. 'Bring the tea through when it's mashed, eh?'

  He went out, pulling the door shut behind him. Behind it, Pascoe noticed for the first time, was a dog basket. Lying in it was a small mongrel dog, somewhere between a spaniel and a terrier. Its eyes were open but it didn't move. Pascoe stooped over it and now its ears went back and it growled deep in its throat. Pascoe responded with soothing noises and though its eyes remained wary, it accepted a scratch between the ears. But when his hand strayed down to its shoulder, it snarled threateningly and he straightened up quickly.

  'Anyone sent for the vet?' he enquired.

  Mrs Coe said, 'For crying out loud, my niece is missing out there and all you're worried about is the sodding dog!'

  The sergeant replied, 'Not that I know of. I mean, with everything else ...'

  'Do it now, will you? I don't like to see an animal in pain, but just as important, I want to know how it got its injuries.'

  'Oh aye. I didn't think, sir,' said Clark guiltily. 'I'll get on to it right away.'

  The woman, who'd busied herself mashing the tea, pushed past them angrily. Clark, following her, paused at the door and said, 'Owt else I should have thought of, sir?'

  'Unless Lorraine turns up O K in the next half hour or so, this thing's going to explode into a major enquiry. We'll need an incident room. Somewhere with plenty of space and not too far away. Any ideas?'

  The sergeant's broad features contorted with thought, then he said, 'There's St Michael's Hall. It's shared between the church and the primary school and it's just a step away ...'

  'Sounds fine. Now get that vet. Good job you thought of it before the super, eh?'

  He smiled as he spoke and after a moment Clark smiled back, then left.

  One thing about Dalziel, thought Pascoe. He provides solid ground to build a good working relationship with the troops.

  He opened the back door of the kitchen which led into a small, tidily kept yard with a patch of lawn and a wooden shed. He stepped out into the balmy air and opened the shed door. Some gardening tools, an old pushchair, and a child's bike.

  Carefully controlling his thoughts, he next went to the yard door and unlatched it. He found himself looking across an area of worn and parched grassland scattered with clumps of furze whose bright yellow flowers threw back defiance at the blazing sun. This had to be Ligg Common with beyond it the long sweep of Danbydale rising northwards to Highcross Moor.

  Sunlight eats up distance and the head of the valley looked barely a half-hour's stroll away, while the long ridge of the Neb stood within range of an outfielder with a good arm. He let his gaze cross to the valley's opposite lower arm and here caught the glint of the sun on the glass of a descending car, and suddenly its tininess gave a proper perspective to the view.

  There was a huge acreage of countryside out there, more than a few dozen men could search properly in a long day. And when you added to the outdoors all the buildings and barns and byres from the outskirts of the town to the farmed limits of the fell, then what lay in prospect was a massive operation.

  He stood and felt the sun probe beneath his mop of light brown hair and beneath the surface of his fair skin. A few more minutes of this and he'd turn pink and peel like a new potato, while another hour or so would beat his brain into that state of sun-drunk insensibility he usually experienced on Mediterranean beach holidays while Ellie by his side only grew browner and browner and fitter and fitter.

  Sometimes insensibility was the more desirable fate.

  'You taken root or wha'?'

  He turned and saw Dalziel in the yard doorway.

  'Just thinking, sir. Anything happened?'

  'No. She's quieter now. Much better with her mam than yon sister-in-law. Where's Clark? I want to ask him about Dennis Coe, the brother.'

  'Mrs Coe's husband?'

  'We'll make a detective of you yet. Six or seven years older than Elsie, if I recall. We'll need to take a close look at him.'

  'Why? Was he in the frame fifteen years back?' asked Pascoe, thinking that Dalziel's coup with Mrs Coe's name was looking a pretty simple conjuring trick now.

  'Missing kids, every sod old enough to have a stiff cock ends up in the frame. He'd be eighteen or thereabout. Bad age. And all the kids who went missing were blonde and he wed himself a blonde

  'Come on!' said Pascoe. 'You reach any further and you'll be in the X-files. In any case, I'd say Mrs Coe's colour comes straight out of a bottle.'

  'So he married dark but let her know he preferred blondes. OK, stop flaring your nostrils else you'll get house martins building. One thing you can't argue with, he's Lorraine's uncle, and uncles rate high in the statistics for this kind of thing.'r />
  Pascoe shook his head and said dully, 'Mrs Coe said she'd not have our job for a thousand pounds. She's way out. Sometimes a million's not enough for the way we have to look at things.'

  'Talking of looking, what's yon?'

  The Fat Man was staring north. Over the distant horizon the heat haze had coalesced into something thicker.

  'Never a cloud, is it?' said Dalziel.

  'Not of rain,' said Pascoe. 'I'd say smoke. Slightest spark starts a grass fire this weather.'

  'Best make sure some other bugger's noticed,' said Dalziel.

  He pulled out his mobile, dialled, spoke and listened.

  'Aye,' he said, switching off. 'They know. It's a big one. And not the only one either. Brigade's on full alert and they're using our uniformed too, which isn't good news for us if we have to hit the red button.'

  'When?' said Pascoe. 'You don't think that there's .. .'

  He was interrupted by Sergeant Clark from the doorway.

  'Excuse me, sir, but Mr Douglas the vet's here. We got him on his mobile coming back from a farm call.'

  'Vet?' said Dalziel to Pascoe. 'What's up? Feeling badly?'

  In the kitchen they found a broad-built grey-bearded man kneeling down by the dog basket. His examination of the mongrel produced the odd rumbling growl but nothing as menacing as the snarl provoked by Pascoe's inexpert probe.

  Finally he stood up and turned his attention to the humans.

  'Peter Pascoe, DC I,' said Pascoe, offering his hand. 'And this is Superintendent Dalziel.'

  'We've met,' said Douglas shortly. His voice had a Scots burr.

  'Aye, what fettle, Dixie?' said Dalziel. 'So, what's the damage?'

  'Shoulder and ribcage badly bruised. I don't think there's a fracture, but he needs an X-ray to be sure. Possibility of internal injury. I think it's best in all the circumstances if I take him back to the surgery with me. Any news of the wee lassie?'

  'Not yet,' said Pascoe. 'These injuries, what do you think caused them?'

  'No accident, that's for sure,' said the vet flatly. 'If I had to guess, I'd say someone had given the poor beast a good kicking. Good day to you.'

  Gently he lifted the dog from the basket and went out of the kitchen.