“Because it sounds like metalwork?” said Rye. “I bet at school you were hot on metalwork.”
“You bet. Straight A’s. Talking of which, that asshole Ambrose is a bit over the top, isn’t he?”
“Bird? He’s harmless. Just an act.”
“Acting being a great actor, you mean?”
“It happens all the time. Of course, if you can’t hack it on the stage, you soon get found out. But Bird’s acting being an old-fashioned actor-manager which is a much meatier role. To give him his due, he does a pretty good job. Have you seen any of his productions?”
“Not yet,” said Bowler, wondering if he was going to have to brush up his Shakespeare as well as his art to get near this girl. He was full of curiosity over the revelation that she came from a theatrical family, but a close study of the psychology of interrogation had taught him the supreme importance of rhythm and timing in getting a result. So another place, another time…
“Is he acting being gay as well?” he said.
“Think he fancies you? Now that’s really vain,” she said.
“The way he shook my hand, either he fancies me or he’s a member of some Lodge I don’t know about.”
“So it’s true. You do have to be a homophobic mason to get on in the Filth,” she said.
But she said it with an affectionate smile and he smiled back as he replied, “I thought everyone knew that. Now why don’t we go and look at some etchings?”
15
ALL GOOD THINGS come to an end. Provincial previews take a little longer but even they have their natural term. The guests had their various reasons for coming-some to see, some to be seen; some out of obligation, some out of love; some out of interest, some out of boredom-but they needed only one of two reasons for going-they had either got what they came for, or it wasn’t there for the getting.
Getting the weapon was so easy I hardly noticed that I’d taken it and certainly no one else did. Then I bided my time, in every sense of the phrase. Eventually people began to drift away, and when I saw my particular piece of flotsam join the drift, I followed close behind, but not so close as to draw attention. My aura was strong now, so strong I felt myself borne along on its brightness like a piece of debris on the wind which follows a nuclear blast. Breathe on me breath of God, I sang inside, for this surely must be what His breath feels like. I was aglow with its gloriole, but still time flowed strongly around me. Then I saw him turn away from the main drift and at the same moment I felt time begin to ebb.
“Well, it’s time we were off,” said Andy Dalziel. “Ars longa”-he gave the ess its full sibilance-“and if I stay here much longer, me belly’ll think me throat’s cut.”
Cap Marvell let her gaze linger on the quercine throat in question and said, “You must have a very imaginative belly.”
But the Lord Mayor who felt he had stayed far beyond the requirements of duty was on Dalziel’s side.
“You’re right, Andy,” he said. “If we show the way, then all these other good folk can be off to their lunches, eh?”
His touching belief that, as with royalty, nobody ate till he ate or left before he left, was contradicted by the steady flow of exiting guests as one o’clock approached. But his eagerness to join them was not shared by his wife, who had recovered from her brush with the Hon.’s jacket and was now displaying the oenological expertise recently acquired on a Sunday Times Wine Society weekend. Having expressed the opinion that over-oaked chardonnay had had its day, she had been brought a newly opened bottle of red by Percy Follows.
“Don’t tell me what it is,” she cried, sniffing deeply at the glass cradled in her hands. “Ah, this is good, this is interesting. I’m getting exotic fruit, I’m getting mangrove swamps, I’m getting coriander, I’m getting cumin, I’m getting jaggery.”
“Shouldn’t let it bother you, luv,” said Dalziel. “After fifteen pints of best, I sometimes get a bit jaggery meself. Now are we going, or what?”
“It’s a Shiraz Merlot blend, I’d say. Western Australia? About ’97?” said Margot.
All eyes turned on Follows who, keeping his hand clamped firmly over the bottle’s label, said, “Spot on, my dear. What a nose you have there.”
It was indeed a nose to be proud of. If you were a macaw, thought Cap.
She saw a similar thought form on Dalziel’s lips, got him in a restraint-lock disguised as an affectionate linking of arms, and said, “You’re right, dear. Time to be on our way.”
They moved off, closely followed by the mayor and his triumphing wife.
Ambrose Bird approached Follows, prised the bottle from his fingers, examined the label which read St- Emilion, and said magnificently, “Creep!”
And now the gallery really did begin to empty fast. Soon, of the hundred or so guests who’d attended, only a couple of dozen remained. Among them was Edgar Wield, the glass of chilled white wine he’d received on arrival now warm in his hand. He had little interest in art but his partner, Edwin Digweed, had wanted to come. Sensing Wield’s reluctance he had said acidly, “Very well. I shall remember this next time you want me to attend an autopsy.” Any more realistic argument might have made Wield dig his heels in, but this made him smile and give in with a good grace, neither of which would have been detectable to a stranger but both of which Digweed spotted and appreciated.
Now he waited with ironic patience for Digweed, who couldn’t sharpen a pencil without cutting his finger, to finish a deep discussion he was having with a hunky young wood-turner about the relative merits of elm and yew, and looked forward to the rest of the day which, with luck, would give him the pleasure of his partner’s company away from any disruptive crowd.
He saw Pascoe and Ellie by the exit talking to Ambrose Bird, or rather Ellie and the Last of the Actor- Managers were talking. Wield knew that if Ellie had a weakness, it was a tendency to be star-struck by fully paid-up luvvies. Pascoe, who wore the sweet smile with which he masked impatience, caught Wield’s eye, made a wry face, then moved towards him.
Wield watched him approach, noting with approval the grace of movement, the pleasant manner with which he greeted acquaintance, the general sense of ease and rightness which emanated from that slim figure. The boy was good, would have still been good if this had been a top-level diplomatic reception rather than a provincial arty- farty piss-up. Others must have noticed too. He’d done well, but not too well, or rather not too quickly. Others had flown to DCI and beyond a lot quicker than Pascoe, but those who hit the top too soon always posed the question, Did you hang around anywhere long enough to get your hands dirty? You’ve made the climb but have you done the time? Looking ahead when he was a sprog, setting out on the steep ascent laid out before a graduate entrant, if Pascoe had been able to foresee his long sojourn in Mid-Yorkshire CID, he’d probably have felt his career must have stalled. But not now. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, not even with his closest friends, but he had said enough for Wield to know he was aware of his true worth. And aware even more that there were things in his life more important far than ambition. If he had pushed, gone hunting for the glittering prizes, he could probably have been up and away long since. But now he had other agendas. Hostages to fortune, that’s what some clever bugger had called wife and family, probably meaning it cynically. Well, Pascoe had come close to losing both his child and his missus in the past few years, and now he knew beyond any doubt what ransom he was willing to pay to keep them safe, which was everything he had or could expect to have. So nothing was going to happen without the imprimatur of their happiness.
Young Rosie’s move to secondary school a few years ahead was going to be the testing time, Wield guessed. The old days of bully-boy tactics from above-Take the job or you’re off to Traffic!-were, if not passed, at least passing. Others would be aware of this window too and poised to haul the lad up through it as soon as it was fully open.
Of course they’d need to get King Dalziel’s approval.
“Wieldy, you’ve been standing here so long, I’m amazed someone hasn’t bought you.”
“You know me, Pete. Always find people more interesting than pictures.”
Behind them, they heard an upraising of voices which seemed to emanate from the alcove in which the engraver had been displaying her craft. Then it was drowned by the more distant but to their sensitized ears more
