convenient.'
He was looking at Lightfoot as he spoke these last words and it was the smallholder whose hitherto unblinking gaze shifted first.
Pascoe made an educated guess at what Davenport was going to tell him. He'd lay odds that a year ago Lightfoot, out on a poaching trip perhaps, had witnessed Rawlinson's fall from the tower. He had kept out of sight when the vicar descended – he would hardly want to draw the local bobby's attention to himself- and his curiosity had later been whetted by the discrepancy between what he had seen and the official version. But he'd done nothing about it till the summer when he needed money after the fire. With Kingsley senior's death, his old source had dried up, but a visit to the vicarage, a few dark hints of deep knowledge (he had the perfect manner for it), and he had found a new supply of funds to tap. What precisely he did know hardly mattered. He emanated evil intent like few men Pascoe had met.
He made a mental vow that whatever else came out of this extraordinary evening, Arthur Lightfoot was going to get what was coming to him.
But there were still many other questions to be answered. Obviously Swithenbank had deliberately angled his campaign towards Kingsley, with how much justification was not yet clear. Perhaps he just had a 'feeling'. Like Willie Dove had a feeling! Or perhaps he knew more than he had yet said. There was still the dress to be explained. He suddenly felt very tired.
There had been a general movement to the doorway. Outside the wind still gusted fitfully but for the moment the rain seemed to have stopped. Not that that mattered, Pascoe thought ruefully. He was so damp that nothing short of total immersion could aggravate his condition.
'Hold on a moment. I don't think we're finished here yet!'
It was Jean Starkey and her words were greeted with a groan of exasperation in which Pascoe joined. He guessed what she was going to say, but he judged that the moment for dramatic revelation was past. What had been an atmosphere of high emotion in a Gothic setting had now become one of damp and discomfort in a draughty church porch. The time had come for warmth and whisky, followed by some hard questioning in a police interview room. He wanted to save his knowledge of the woman's dress in Kingsley's bedroom till then.
But the woman insisted.
'Tell us about the dress, Boris. You haven't told us about the dress.'
'What dress?'
'The white muslin dress and the big straw hat. Kate's favourite gear, wasn't it? How does it come about that you've got a woman's dress hidden in a locked wardrobe in your house?'
Now the audience's attention was engaged once more. Kingsley made no effort to deny it but asked indignantly, 'How does it come about you know what I've got locked up in my house!'
'It's true, then?' said Lightfoot, who had been smoulderingly subdued for the past few minutes.
'Why shouldn't it be true?'
Whether because of Pascoe's threat or out of personal preference, Lightfoot didn't try to use his gun this time but jumped forward and seized Kingsley one-handed by the throat, bearing him back against the opened door which lay against the wall. No one seemed inclined to interfere, not even when the enraged assailant started using the fat man's head as a knocker to punctuate his demands, 'Where-is-she? Where-is-she?'
It was constabulary duty time once more. Pascoe stepped. forward and said, 'That's enough.'
When Lightfoot showed no sign of agreeing, Pascoe punched him in the kidneys and stepped swiftly back. The blow was a light one and Lightfoot swung round as much in surprise as pain. Kingsley, released, staggered out of the church holding his throat, but he could have suffered no real damage for he was able to scream, Til tell you why I've got the clothes! It's Kate's ghost, you superstitious cretin! Do you really think anything would come back from the grave to an animal like you in that sty of a cottage?'
He even managed a derisive laugh but it stuttered off into a fit of coughing.
'You'd better explain yourself, I think, Mr Kingsley,' said Pascoe, putting himself between the fat man and Lightfoot.
Ah! what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -This misty mid-region of Weir -Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
CHAPTER X
Thank Heaven! the crisis -The danger is past.
'It was like the last act of Hamlet Meets Dracula,' said Pascoe.
Some things were far too serious for anything but flippancy.
'And they're both dead?' repeated Inspector Dove at the other end of the line.
'He died instantly. Well, he would, his head was mostly missing.'
Pascoe remembered his promise that he would see that Lightfoot got what was coming to him.
'He doesn't sound much of a miss,' said Dove cynically.
'He was a blackmailer twice over,' agreed Pascoe. 'Though now he's dead, Davenport won't need to talk and Kingsley's backtracking like mad. There'll be more tight mouths around Wearton than at a lemon-suckers' convention. Not that it matters. My guess is that Stella Rawlinson played the ghost. She hated the Lightfoots, and Kingsley may or may not have been screwing her into the bargain.'
'Into what?'
'Oh, for God's sake! ^1
Pascoe found that he was sick of the jokes and the lightness. It was eight-thirty in the morning. He had got home at three but been unable to sleep. Dalziel had observed his arrival at the station with nothing more expressive than an upward roll of his eyes, then suggested that even southern pansies should be awake by this time and he might as well put Dove in the picture.
'I'm sorry,' said Dove.
'So am I,' said Pascoe. 'I'm a bit knackered. It's all turned out so badly. This Lightfoot, he seems to have been a nasty bit of work all round. But he loved his sister. God, even that sounds like the cue for a crack! – and it shouldn't have come to this. Not for anyone. He was the only one she asked for in the ambulance. Arthur, Arthur, all the time.'
'And she said nothing else before she died?'
'Not a thing. The only people she'd spoken to were Swithenbank's mother and Kingsley's housekeeper. She must have gone straight to Arthur's cottage when she arrived. We found her stuff there. Arthur was out, of course. She rang Swithenbank. His mother answered. She was flabbergasted naturally, told her about the party, asked where she'd been but got no answer. Kate went up to Wear End, learned from the housekeeper that everyone had taken off towards the church, so she set off after them along the old drive.'
'Where the hell had she been?' asked Dove in exasperation. 'You say you found some things of hers at Lightfoot's. Any clue there?'
'Nothing obvious,' said Pascoe wearily. 'At first glance it looks about the same as that list of things she took when she left Swithenbank last year. But it doesn't matter much now, does it?'
'I suppose not. Well, we were dead wrong about Swithenbank. Thank God I stopped this side of pulling his floorboards up! Still, you can't win 'em all.'
'No,' said Pascoe.
'Cheer up, Pete, for God's sake! You sound like it's all down to you. It was just an 'assist', remember? You can't legislate for maniacs!'
'I know. I just feel that if I'd handled things differently…'
Dalziel had come into the room with a sheet of paper in his hand and when he heard Pascoe's remark, the eyes rolled again. It was like a lesson with the globes in an eighteenth-century schoolroom.
'Pete, it wasn't your job to find out where she'd gone. That was our job, it's down to us. Like I say, OK, we missed out. I feel bad about it, but not too bad. I mean, Christ, she came back and we still don't know where the hell she's been! It's our fault. How could you be expected to work it out if we couldn't? Can't!'
