immediately in front of the door into a rose-arbour by the erection of a bit of trellis work at right angles to the wall, and he crouched behind the little protection this afforded. The wind came howling down the street full of rain and incipient snow. A shoot of the rambler clinging precariously to the trellis whipped round and slashed against his face. 'Jesus,' he repeated and turned up his collar and went up the path. As he closed the gate he saw the curtain drop into position in the front window. 'All right. I'm off the premises,' he said aloud. What a thing it was to be loved. Not that we deserve it anyway. Bloody half-wits. God, to think how chuffed I was to get out of uniform. Detective! All I've done since seems to be walk around and knock on doors. First Connon. Now this. Poor little bugger. I wonder where he is? He turned his mind away from the private conviction that little Mickey Annan was somewhere lying dead; deep beneath bracken on the moors; under an old sack in some outhouse; it didn't matter where. His job at the moment was to ask questions.
Someone must have seen the boy that night.
His heart sank when he saw where his questionings would take him next. It was a little cul-de-sac of some two dozen semi-detached bungalows. Pensioners. Old Women. Mostly alone, often lonely. Welcoming, garrulous. He would be pressed to cups of tea, cocoa, Bovril, Horlicks. He tried to harden his heart in advance, but knew it was just a front. I'm your friendly village-bobby-type, he thought, not your hard-as-nails CID boy. This is going to take hours. 'Mrs Williams? Mrs Ivy Williams?' he said to the large heavily-made-up woman who answered his ring.
'No, that's my mam. What are you after, then?'
'I'm from the police. We're checking on the movements of people in this area last night, Mrs…?' 'My name's Girton. Is it about that lad then what's missing? Well, mam can't help you. Never gets out at night, do you, mam?' An elderly woman had appeared out of the kitchen which Edwards could see through the half-opened door at the end of the small hallway.
'What's that? What's up?'
'It's a policeman, mam. You weren't out last night, were you, mam?'
'No, I wasn't. Where'd I go?'
'That's right,' said Mrs Girton to Edwards. 'Where'd she go?' 'Well, thank you. You weren't here yourself last night, were you?' 'No, not me. Mondays and Thursdays are my regular nights. Sorry.' 'Will you have a cup of tea, eh?' Mrs Williams was; already turning into the kitchen. Her daughter caught the: look on Edwards's face and grinned sympathetically. 'Don't be daft, mam. He's got a lot of work to do,, haven't you? Got to visit everyone in the road?'
'That's right. Thanks all the same. Good night.'
He turned to go. 'Everyone in the road, eh?' shrilled the old woman. 'Well, make sure you talk to Mrs Grogan next door, then. She knows something, eh? She'll be able to tell you something if you're from the police.'
She disappeared back into the kitchen.
Edwards raised his eyebrows quizzically at Mrs Girton, who shrugged. 'You never know. She's getting on now, but she takes good notice of whatever anyone says. I wouldn't pay too much heed myself, though.'
'Well, thanks anyway. Good night.'
'Good night.' It was raining in earnest. He glanced at his sodden list under the street-lamp. Mrs Kathleen Grogan, No 2. There was a sharp double blast from a horn. Turning, he saw at the end of the cul-de-sac a police- car. He went towards it. 'Hello, Brian,' said the uniformed constable cheerily. 'Enjoying yourself?'
'Great. What are you doing here?'
They've found him. Mickey Annan.' Edwards nodded and said, more as assertion than question, 'Dead?' 'No. Alive and well. We've come to tell you to jack it in. Hop in and we'll give you a lift back.' Edwards was half into the back seat before he remembered Mrs Grogan. He hesitated. 'Come on, then.' 'Look, John. Could you hang on just a couple of minutes? There's just one more call I'd like to make.' 'What're you on about? Playing detectives? I told you, the house-to-house is off..
'Yes but…'
'Sorry, Brian. I've got to get on. There's at least two other poor sods trudging around in the wet when they could be clocking off and going home. Now hop in and let's go.'
Edwards got back out of the car.
'OK, John. You shove off. I'll make my own way back.' 'Have it your own way. But you're a silly bugger. Cheers.' Yes, I'm a silly bugger. The silly bugger to end all silly buggers. 'Bugger!' he said aloud as he watched the car's taillights disappear into the driving rain. 'I must be mad.' He made his way back along the pavement and turned up the narrow path. Pascoe had sat in silence as his superior swiftly and efficiently did his part in calling off the search for Mickey Annan. This was the first rule when an operation was over. Get your men back. There were too many working hours for too few police as it was without letting any be wasted unnecessarily.
Finally Dalziel was done.
'What happened?' Pascoe had asked.
'He was out looking for Jesus.'
'What?' 'It's these bloody schools. When I was a kid it was twotimes table and the sharp edge of a ruler along your arse if you didn't know them. Now it's all stimulating the imagination. Christ! Show me a kid who ever needed his imagination stimulated! Anyway, little Mickey Annan was a wise man in the school Nativity play and got very interested in guiding stars in the East, and all. Especially when his teacher explained that Jesus was born again for everyone every Christmas and Bethlehem was never far away. How many bloody miles to Bethlehem! His favourite poem! Anyway, to Mickey the East was where his Uncle Dick and Aunt Mavis live at High Burnton out towards the coast.'
'How did he get there? He did get there, I take it?'
'Oh yes. Sat on a bus. Told the women he was sharing a seat with that he'd lost his money. He reckons wise men don't need to bother much with the truth as far as ordinary mortals are concerned. Anyway his uncle had gone off for Christmas with his family, the house was empty. He got in through a half-closed larder window. Very small evidently. Then he bedded down.'
'But what's he been doing today, then?'
Dalziel had looked pityingly at the sergeant. 'Wise men don't travel by day,' he said. 'You can't see any stars by day. You've got to wait till it's night.'
'Oh? I suppose you would, really.'
'Anyway the woman in the bus saw his picture in this evening's paper, told the local bobby and gave him the boy's uncle's address which the lad had passed on to her the previous evening. He was very chatty, evidently, not a care in the world when she was with him. She never associated him with the missing lad till she saw the picture. Off they went to Uncle Dick's just in time to meet Belshazzar taking off in search of a clear patch of sky. Kids! I hope his father whacks him till he's a confirmed atheist.' Pascoe was still grinning at the story as he rang the doorbell of Arthur Evans's house. There were lights on all over the house but no one seemed in a hurry to answer the door. He hoped it would be Gwen Evans who came, though his business was with her husband. Analysing his emotions, he came to the conclusion that Owen's affair with Marcus, far from making her more inaccessible, had merely confirmed her accessibility.
He rang the bell once more.
Almost instantly this time the door was flung open. Arthur Evans stood there. He looked distraught, his tie was pulled down and his collar open, his hair was ruffled, but even if he had been neatly dressed and groomed, the bright staring eyes and hectic cheeks would have warned Pascoe that something was amiss. And the smell of whisky. 'What the hell do you want?' demanded Evans, then with a sudden change of tone. 'Is anything wrong? Have you found them?'
'Found who?' enquired Pascoe politely.
'Oh, Christ,' said Evans, letting his shoulders sag as he turned and walked away from the open door. Pascoe hesitated a moment then followed him, closing the door quietly behind him. Evans had gone through into the lounge and was standing leaning against the mantelpiece in the classic pose of grief.
But this was no mere pose, Pascoe decided.
'Mr Evans,' he said softly, 'what has happened?'
Evans looked at him wretchedly.
'What am I to do without her?' he groaned. 'Without Mrs Evans, you mean?' asked Pascoe. 'Why, where is she, Mr Evans. What's happened to her?' He did not go any further into the room but stood in the door keeping a watchful eye on Evans. For all he knew, Gwen was lying upstairs dead and the man in front of him was building up
