“Oh, definitely. Definitely.”
“Right. Go on.”
“Thanks. Now, this woman is in her early forties, and she isn’t on the Pill, so her lover has to take precautions.”
“As a matter of interest, is her lover married?”
“Er, no. As a matter of interest, he isn’t.”
“Has he ever been?”
“Um, yes, as a matter of interest, he has.”
“I think I’m getting the picture. Carry on, please.”
I carried on, loosely describing what we’d found at Mrs Silkstone’s house, speculating how things may have happened. I think — I hope — that he eventually realised that I wasn’t one of the protagonists in the whole squalid episode. He gave me the benefit of his experience in these matters, and I was grateful.
It was a long phone call. As we went through the ritual of ending it he said: “Did you ever hear what John Betjemen is supposed to have said on his death bed, Charlie?”
“Something about wishing he’d had more sex, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, and I agree with him. Get it while you can, Charlie, you’re a long time dead.”
I reminded him about Easter and put the phone down, reflecting on the Pete Drago philosophy: get it while you can. He was a good bloke: intelligent, fair and generous; but something drove him, far harder than it drives most of us. And, God knows, that’s hard enough. Bob Dylan included rakes in ‘Chimes of Freedom’, his personal version of the Beatitudes: tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake. I’d never understood why, until now. Maybe he had it right.
We had a killing through the week. A youth was stabbed to death in the town centre, and my heart sank when I learned that he was from the Asian community. I breathed again when it was revealed that his attacker was his brother-in-law, and it was all about family honour. I’m only interested in guilty or not guilty, and was relieved not to have a race war on my hands. Family feuds I can deal with. Saturday lunchtime I tidied my desk and fled, rejoicing at my new-found freedom, eager to be out in the fresh air. I drove to Burnsall, one of the most attractive Dales villages, and donned my boots. The route I took was loop-shaped, through Thorpe and Linton to Bow Bridge, then following the Wharfe back to the village. It’s a beautiful river, sometimes rushing over boulders, sometimes carving deep languid pools and sandbanks. Dippers used to be common-place, not very long ago, and I’ve seen the kingfisher there. The morning showers had passed over, and the afternoon sun made the meadows steam.
There were lots of people about. It’s a popular place, and the last flush of summer always brings us out, determined to stock up on the beneficial rays before the dark nights close in. A group of people were vacating some rocks at the side of the water, packing their picnic remnants into Tupperware boxes and rucksacks. It was a good spot, in a patch of sunshine, with trees on the opposite side and the river gabbling noisily. Very therapeutic. I moved in after them, heading for a seat on a dry boulder, and as I sat down a dead twig, brittle as egg shells, snapped under my feet.
I’d called in Marks and Spencer’s when I left the office, for a prawn sandwich and a packet of Eccles cakes. I wolfed them down with a can of flavoured mineral water, sitting there watching the stream go by. Swallows were skimming the surface, stocking up on flies before their long journey south, and a fish made ripples, out in the middle where it flowed more slowly.
There weren’t many places that I would rather have been, but there’s more to happiness than that. I wondered if Annette were doing something similar, picnicking with another man and his children as a different river slid past them. I leaned forward and picked up a piece of the branch I’d stepped on. It was about four inches long, dead as last week’s scandal and encrusted with lichen. I tossed it, underhand, out into the stream.
It hardly made a splash and bobbed up and down, buoyant as a cork, until the current took hold and pushed it into the flow, heading towards a cleft between two rocks. I watched it accelerate towards them, turning as opposing forces caught and juggled with it. It entered the chute between the rocks, one end riding high, and plunged over the mini-waterfall.
The pressure held it down and the undertow pulled it back. There was a wrestling match between the flow of water and the buoyancy of the twig, but there could only be one result. After a few seconds it broke free of the water’s grip and burst to the surface. I watched it rotate in the current like an ice skater taking a bow and nod away towards the North Sea, eighty miles down river.
I couldn’t do it again. I broke another piece off the branch and threw it into the stream, but it was swept straight through the rocks and away. I tried bigger pieces and smaller ones, with variable quantities of lichen, but it didn’t work. It was the balance that was important. Big twigs were more buoyant, but the water had more to press down on. On the other hand, the lichen provided drag, which should have helped the water. I tossed another piece into the stream and watched it slide away.
“My, that looks good fun,” a voice said, behind me.
I turned, squinting into the sun, and saw an elderly couple standing there. They were wearing lime green and blue anoraks, and had two pale Labradors on extending leads, which they’d thoughtfully reeled in as they’d approached me.
“Hello,” I said. “I didn’t hear you. Isn’t it a nice day.”
“Wonderful,” the man said. “So what is it? Pooh sticks?”
“You need a bridge for that,” I told him. “No, I was just doing some experiments, studying elementary hydraulics.”
“Elementary hydraulics, eh. And I thought it was at least Life, Death and the Universe.”
“No, not quite. Are you going far?”
“Only to the footbridge and back. And you?”
“I walked up to Bow Bridge, and I’m heading back to Burnsall. Far enough for this afternoon.”
“Well enjoy your experiments,” he said. “Hope we didn’t disturb you.”
“Not at all. Enjoy your walk.” His wife gave me a special smile. She was attractive, had once been beautiful. Probably still was, when you knew her. I watched them stroll away, the dogs leaping about on long leads now, biting each other’s necks. It was easy to forgive them their matching anoraks.
No, I thought, as I hooked my rucksack over my shoulder. Not Life, Death and the Universe. Just Life, Death and Elementary Hydraulics.
Chapter Ten
Monday morning Superintendent Isles gave me permission to interview Jason Lee Gelder at HQ, where he was being held. I cleared my diary and reallocated a few tasks to accommodate him. Dave had driven to Cambridge over the weekend, to look at Sophie’s room in the students’ quarters. He was a lot happier now that he knew where she’d be staying, and told us all what a smashing place it was. Expecting displays of enthusiasm from him is normally like expecting impartial advice from your bank manager, but today he was full of it. I decided to attempt to harness the quality.
“And I’ve a special little job for you, Sunshine,” I told him.
“Like what?” he asked. From him, that’s eager.
“One I wouldn’t trust to anybody else.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good. I want you to go to Boots and buy one hundred condoms.”
“A hundred condoms!”
“That’s right. You can put them on your expenses.”
“You want me to buy a hundred French letters and put them on my expenses?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You can cocoa!”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I! Go buy them yourself.”
