Pictures of Perfection (22 page)

Mrs Toke was standing in the lobby when he came back downstairs. She looked at the books he
was carrying and said, ‘It’s that lass, mister. You’re lucky. Lass like her makes some men do strange things. Doesn’t mean it, but that makes it worse.’

Ignoring the curious reference to his invulnerability, Wield said, ‘Couldn’t you persuade him it’s hopeless?’

‘He needs hope, Jason. Put it all in his brother, and when that went, look what followed. Take this away, could be summat else ’ud take its place, but could be it’s the end of things.’

The phrase, quietly spoken, fell from her lips like a sentence of death.

‘Do you think he could harm anyone, luv?’ asked Wield gently.

‘When living’s a pit of blackness, what’s harm?’ she answered. ‘I’ll watch him, never fear. And tell Mr Digweed I’ll make it right.’

‘That mightn’t be enough,’ said Wield. ‘He might still want to prosecute.’

‘Nay, tell him I’ll see he gets all he wants,’ she urged.

‘Now that sounds like an offer he’d be mad to refuse,’ said Wield with a smile.

‘I have a very good eye at an Adultress.’

It was mid-morning when Andy Dalziel, ignoring a CLOSED sign, pushed open the door of the Wayside Café

The tables were crowded with trays laden down with good things. There were pies and pasties and bread rolls and sausage rolls and plate cakes and cup cakes and trifles and custards and bakewells and sponges and …

‘We’re shut,’ said Dora Creed, emerging from the kitchen with another tray. ‘Can you not read?’

‘Aye, can I. The Good Book,’ said Dalziel. ‘And he said, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll I give thee.’

He helped himself to a sausage roll and thrust it into his mouth.

Dora said, ‘
Ezekiel
, III, 3.’

‘I love a holy woman,’ said Dalziel, swallowing. ‘Then did I eat it and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. I’ll have another of them.’

She said, ‘You’re that policeman, aren’t you?’

‘Superintendent Dalziel,’ he said. ‘Andy to my friends. And you’re Dora Creed, the best baker in Yorkshire. My dad were a baker, you know.
Came down from Glasgow in the Depression, got taken on at Ebor’s, they’ve been taken over by some supermarket long since and it’s all done by computers now. I’d almost forgot what real baking smelt like till I came in here.’

‘We’re still shut,’ said Dora, less positively. ‘I’m getting stuff ready to be picked up for the Squire’s Feast.’

‘You mean all this lot’s going up to the Hall?’

‘Aye, it’s traditional. He feeds everyone who turns up for the Reckoning.’

‘Does he now?’ said Dalziel speculatively. ‘I’ll tell you what, luv. You carry on, and I’ll just fit in the odd question as you go by.’

‘Well, if it’s official,’ she said, weakening.

‘If it were any more official, it ’ud be wearing pinstripes,’ he assured her. ‘In fact, why don’t I give you a hand with these trays while we’re talking?’

‘And yourself a hand with my grub, I don’t doubt,’ she said sharply.

‘Though shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn,’ said Dalziel. ‘
Deuteronomy
.’

‘I know where it’s from,’ she said. ‘I’m just amazed where it’s got to.’

‘You and I are going to understand each other very well,’ laughed Andrew Dalziel. ‘Is that an apple pie? My favourite.’

‘Aye, but it’s not cut.’

‘Cut? You’re not expecting it to do more than one, are you?’

She began to laugh and Dalziel would have laughed with her if his mother hadn’t taught him that it was rude to laugh with your mouth full.

When Wield arrived ten minutes later he found the two well-upholstered figures sitting at one of the tables, their heads almost meeting across a somewhat diminished trayful of confections, with Dora Creed doing most of the talking, a predominance maintained by the fact that the sight of Dalziel’s open mouth clearly affected her like a fledgling’s gape and she couldn’t resist popping something into it.

Wield had been making for Digweed’s shop with the recovered books till the sight of Dalziel’s car diverted him. Now he wondered if it were wise to break up such an intimate tableau and thought of withdrawing, but the Fat Man looked up and said, ‘Watchman, what of the night?’

‘
Isaiah
, XXI, 10,’ said Dora.

‘Eleven, I think you’ll find, luv,’ said Dalziel. ‘Why don’t you go and look it up while I talk with Shadrach here?’

Obediently, nay, gladly, the woman rose and left. What would have been her attitude if Dalziel had turned up in leathers on a bike? wondered Wield. Probably the same. You didn’t apply human rules to a force of nature.

He sat down and brought the Fat Man up to date.

While not expecting fulsome praise, he had hopes of an acknowledgement that his morning had not been in vain.

‘So you reckon you’ve solved both these break-ins? Bloody hell, Wieldy, I left you here so’s you could find this missing ploughboy, not do his sodding job!’

‘Is that right, sir?’ said Wield, stung. ‘And what have you found, apart from the quality of Miss Creed’s pastry?’

‘Me?’ Dalziel’s left eyelid drooped in a knowing wink. ‘I’ve found out what George Creed’s sin was. Have a custard tart. They’re lovely! And stop sulking. It spoils your baby looks!’

What indiscreet reply Wield, in the grip of his Enscombe-inspired openness, might have made was never known, for at that moment an ancient pick-up rattled to a halt outside and a pair of young farmworkers appeared in the doorway.

‘Miss Creed!’ yelled one of them. ‘We’ve come for the grub.’

Dora emerged from the kitchen and said apologetically to Dalziel, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get this stuff up to the Hall.’

‘Nay, lass, we’ll help you load it,’ said the Fat Man gallantly. ‘Won’t we, Sergeant?’

And for the second time that day Wield found himself acting as an unpaid labourer for the Guillemards.

As he staggered out weighed down by one of Dora’s trays, he saw Digweed emerge from the bookshop. He glanced Wield’s way and the Sergeant opened his mouth but before he could speak the bookseller’s glance slid over him dismissively
and the lean, patrician figure moved swiftly across the street and vanished into the Gallery.

Sod you too! thought Wield. But any further brooding on the snub was prevented by the arrival of Pascoe, chauffeured by Justin Halavant.

Pascoe looked with mild amazement on the scene before him but Halavant’s gaze was on the gallery door through which Digweed had just vanished.

He said, ‘Look, I need to pop into the Morris and set Thomas’s mind at rest.’

‘No, hang on,’ said Pascoe, who’d got out. ‘I think Mr Dalziel …’

‘I am not about to flee the country, Chief Inspector,’ said Halavant acidly. ‘But I have better things to do than sit around while your colleagues moonlight as removal men.’

He gunned the engine, swung the wheel hard over and managed a U-turn with millimetres to spare.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Dalziel.

‘I don’t know. Cold feet, maybe,’ said Pascoe. ‘It’s not good news, sir. What it looks like is, the night before last young Harold Bendish conned his way into Scarletts in order to steal a painting. He had an accomplice also dressed as a cop, probably in his spare uniform. While Mrs Bayle was out of the room answering a fake phone call, Bendish removed the painting, passed it through the window, took in a copy, and hung that in its place.’

‘Desperate Dan’s going to love this,’ said the Fat
Man. ‘But if you’ve got it right, lad, why’s yon prancing pillock not running around screaming blue murder and threatening to write to his MP?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s almost like he’s treading water. He didn’t argue with anything I said … it was like he knew it all already. I mean, he’d taken the picture, the copy, if I’m right, off the wall already.’

‘But he hadn’t come running to us to make a complaint?’

‘No, sir. And another thing. The original was an eighteenth-century painting of a fashionable young lady. Halavant said it was one of his ancestors. But according to local history, in the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, the Halavants were still, to quote, a bunch of raggedyarsed peasants!’

‘So he’s ashamed of his family origins,’ said Dalziel. ‘No crime in that. Where’s he off to now?’

‘The Morris. You know he owns it? Well, evidently he was thinking of selling but after our little chat he’s changed his mind for some reason, so he’s keen to let Wapshare know.’

The Fat Man’s eyes lit up.

‘So it’ll be celebration time down there. It’s time I looked in else Thomas will be thinking he’s offended me. I should’ve gone there first off, anyway. Yon bugger misses nowt that goes on in Enscombe.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Wield. ‘I think we’re in business.’

He pointed down the High Street to where a
Land Rover had just pulled up outside the Post Office.

‘Returning to the scene of the crime, you reckon?’ said Dalziel as they watched Guy the Heir get out and go inside the shop. ‘All right, we’ll have a word as we go on past to the pub.’

He turned and shouted to Dora Creed, ‘Thanks for the grub, luv. I’ll mebbe see you up at the Hall later. Keep smiling!’

‘A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance,’ she called.

‘And he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast,’ capped Dalziel.

Where the hell does he get all this scriptural knowledge from? wondered Wield as he and Pascoe fell into step on either side of the Fat Man, who was striding purposefully down the middle of the street.

Doc Holliday and the Earp Brothers on their way to the OK Corral, thought Pascoe. All it needed was a good sound-track. Dalziel broke wind. Not
My Darling Clementine
after all, but
Blazing Saddles
, emended Pascoe wryly.

They stopped outside the Post Office. Through the window they could see Guy Guillemard talking to Daphne Wylmot. He was full of animation, she markedly less so.

‘Full marks for nerve,’ said Wield grimly. ‘Shall we go in, sir?’

‘Just hold your horses,’ said Dalziel thoughtfully.

Inside, Guy had picked up Daphne’s hand from the counter. She glanced towards the window, saw the watching trio and said something to the man who turned to look at them and roared with laughter. Then, blowing the woman a kiss, he came out of the shop.

‘If it’s not the Keystones!’ he mocked. ‘Who said silent comedy was dead?’

He climbed into the Land Rover. Wield looked urgently at Dalziel who stepped forward and said, ‘Mind you belt up, sir.’

‘Thank you kindly,’ said Guy. ‘Mustn’t be breaking the law, must we? Ciao!’

The vehicle pulled away.

Wield turned incredulously to the Fat Man but before he could speak, Dalziel patted him on the head almost paternally and said, ‘Usually it makes no difference, Wieldy, but sometimes having the wrong aerial really mucks up your reception. Hang on here a tick while I have a quiet word.’

He went into the shop, leaving the door open so that his ‘quiet word’ came booming out.

‘’Morning, missus,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Dalziel, CID.’

‘Good morning. If it’s about the break-in I’m afraid my husband isn’t here.’

‘No matter,’ said Dalziel. ‘You can pass on owt you think he ought to know, luv. It’s just a sort of confirmation really, as the bishop said to the choirboy. First off, you and Guy Guillemard are having it off, right?’

‘What?’ The woman’s voice rose disbelievingly. ‘What do you mean …?’

‘Well, like, you’re having a fling, screwing, humping, shagging …’

It would have been semasiologically interesting to see where Dalziel’s search for the
mot juste
led him, but the woman lacked the true scientific spirit.

‘How dare you talk to me like this?’ she interrupted angrily.

‘Sorry, luv,’ said Dalziel penitently. ‘Does that mean you’d rather we waited for Mr Wylmot? I’m not in a hurry.’

Sometimes Pascoe thought Dalziel was a sadist. Sometimes he thought he was just a man who liked to cut through crap. Always he knew that with the Fat Man you got a choice. Either you did things his way now, or you did them his way a little later.

Daphne Wylmot read the runes and said in a voice which was suddenly as calm as a summer sea, ‘That won’t be necessary. Yes, Guy and I are lovers. Please go on.’

‘And last night Guy Guillemard came round here after your husband had gone to sleep.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Bit chancy that, wasn’t it, luv?’

Daphne laughed musically.

‘No, I don’t take chances, Superintendent. Dudley can’t hold his drink. When he’s had a skinful, he falls into bed and that’s it for at least six hours.’

Wield, recalling her spritzer and Dudley’s large gin and tonics, thought grimly that she certainly didn’t take chances.

‘So you switched off the alarm and opened the back door and let Guy in. And when he’d finished, you let him out and forgot to put the alarm back on.’

‘I didn’t forget. I was rather … tired myself when we finished so I just told him to let himself out. I knew I’d be up first and I meant to lock the door and switch the alarm on then. But when I saw we’d been burgled, I thought it would be foolish to touch the alarm.’

‘Very wise,’ beamed Dalziel. ‘There, it hardly hurt at all, did it, missus? Thanks for your cooperation.’

‘And thank you in advance for your discretion,’ she replied.

‘You can bank on it,’ said Dalziel gallantly. ‘Good-looking lass like you, but. I reckon you could do a lot better for yourself than yon bag of wind.’

‘Really? You’ve fucked with Guy too, have you?’ she asked with wide-eyed interest.

It was a rare pleasure to see Dalziel put down beyond riposte, but they knew better than to let it show.

He glowered at them suspiciously as he came out of the shop and said, ‘So that’s only one of the two crimes of the century you’ve solved, Wieldy. Mebbe you’d better check them books
really did come from Digweed’s shop before you start crowing about the other.’

He nodded up the street to where Digweed had just emerged from the Gallery. The bookseller glanced in their direction, then hurried into his shop.

‘I’ll see you in the pub, then,’ said Wield, glad of a chance to escape.

‘Poor old Wieldy!’ laughed Pascoe, watching him hurry away.

‘You were ready to go along, weren’t you?’ growled Dalziel. ‘And you’ve not got his excuse. So let’s be getting on down to the Morris, shall we? And see what kind of cock-up you’ve managed to make!’

And suddenly Pascoe felt all his newfound certainties crumbling like Dora Creed’s shortcrust pastry.