'It is for some,' said Pascoe, shivering still from the frosty November night.
But Dalziel was right, he thought as he looked round the room. It was cosy, probably as cosy as it had been in the three hundred years since it was built. It was doubtful if any previous owner, even the most recent, would have recognized the old living-room of Stanstone Rigg farmhouse. Eliot had done a good job, stripping the beams, opening up the mean little fireplace and replacing the splintered uneven floorboards with smooth dark oak; and Giselle had broken the plain white walls with richly coloured, voluminous curtaining and substituted everywhere the ornaments of art for the detritus of utility.
Outside, though, when night fell, and darkness dissolved the telephone poles, and the mist lay too thick to be pierced by the rare headlight on the distant road, then the former owners peering from their little cube of warmth and light would not have felt much difference,
Not the kind of thoughts a ghost-hunter should have! he told himself reprovingly. Cool calm scepticism was the right state of mind.
And his heart jumped violently as behind him the telephone rang.
Dalziel, now pouring himself a large scotch from the goodly array of bottles on the huge sideboard, made no move towards the phone though he was the nearer. Detective-superintendents save their strength for important things and leave their underlings to deal with trivia.
'Hello,' said Pascoe.
'Peter, you're there!'
'Ellie love,' he answered. 'Sometimes the sharpness of your mind makes me feel unworthy to be married to you.'
'What are you doing?'
'We've just arrived. I'm talking to you. The super's having a drink.'
'Oh God! You did warn the Eliots, didn't you?'
'Not really, dear. I felt the detailed case-history you doubtless gave to Giselle needed no embellishment.'
'I'm not sure this is such a good idea.'
'Me neither. On the contrary. In fact, you may recall that on several occasions in the past three days I've said as much to you, whose not such a good idea it was in the first place.'
'All you're worried about is your dignity!' said Ellie. 'I'm worried about that lovely house. What's he doing now?'
Pascoe looked across the room to where Dalziel had bent his massive bulk so that his balding close-cropped head was on a level with a small figurine of a shepherd chastely dallying with a milkmaid. His broad right hand was on the point of picking it up.
'He's not touching anything,' said Pascoe hastily. 'Was there any other reason you phoned?'
'Other than what?'
'Concern for the Eliots' booze and knick-knacks.'
'Oh, Peter, don't be so half-witted. It seemed a laugh at The Old Mill, but now I don't like you being there with him, and I don't like me being here by myself. Come home and we'll screw till someone cries Hold! Enough. ^1*
'You interest me strangely,' said Pascoe. 'What about Aim and the Eliots' house?'
'Oh, sod him and sod the Eliots! Decent people don't have ghosts!' exclaimed Ellie.
'Or if they do, they call in priests, not policemen,' said Pascoe. 'I quite agree. I said as much, remember…?'
'All right, all right. You please yourself, buster. I'm off to bed now with a hot-water bottle and a glass of milk. Clearly I must be in my dotage. Shall I ring you later?'
'Best not,' said Pascoe. 'I don't want to step out of my pentacle after midnight. See you in the morning.'
'Must have taken an electric drill to get through a skirt like that,' said Dalziel, replacing the figurine with a bang. 'No wonder the buggers got stuck into the sheep. Your missus checking up, was she?'
'She just wanted to see how we were getting on,' said Pascoe.
'Probably thinks we've got a couple of milkmaids with us,' said Dalziel, peering out into the night. 'Some hope! I can't even see any sheep. It's like the grave out there.'
He was right, thought Pascoe. When Stanstone Rigg had been a working farm, there must have always been the comforting sense of animal presence, even at night. Horses in the stable, cows in the byre, chickens in the hutch, dogs before the fire. But the Eliots hadn't bought the place because of any deep-rooted love of nature. In fact Giselle Eliot disliked animals so much she wouldn't even have a guard dog, preferring to rely on expensive electronics. Pascoe couldn't understand how George had got her even to consider living out here. It was nearly an hour's run from town in good conditions and Giselle was in no way cut out for country life, either physically or mentally. Slim, vivacious, sexy, she was a star-rocket in Yorkshire's sluggish jet-set. How she and Ellie had become friends, Pascoe couldn't work out either.
But she must have a gift for leaping unbridgeable gaps for George was a pretty unlikely partner, too.
It was George who was responsible for Stanstone Rigg- By profession an accountant, and very much looking the part with his thin face, unblinking gaze, and a mouth that seemed constructed for the passage of bad news, his unlikely hobby was the renovation of old houses. In the past six years he had done two, first a Victorian terrace house in town, then an Edwardian villa in the suburbs. Both had quadrupled (at least) in value, but George claimed this was not the point and Pascoe believed him. Stanstone Rigg Farm was his most ambitious project to date, and it had been a marvellous success, except for its isolation, which was unchangeable.
And its ghost. Which perhaps wasn't.
It was just three days since Pascoe had first heard of it. Dalziel, who repaid hospitality in the proportion of three of Ellie's home-cooked dinners to one meal out had been entertaining the Pascoes at The Old Mill, a newly opened restaurant in town.
'Jesus!' said the fat man when they examined the menu. 'I wish they'd put them prices in French, too. They must give you Brigitte Bardot for afters!'
'Would you like to take us somewhere else?' enquired Ellie sweetly. 'A fish and chip shop, perhaps. Or a Chinese takeaway?'
'No, no,' said Dalziel. 'This is grand. Any road, I'll chalk what I can up to expenses. Keeping an eye on Fletcher.'
'Who?'
'The owner,' said Pascoe. 'I didn't know he was on our list, sir.'
'Well, he is and he isn't,' said Dalziel. 'I got a funny telephone call a couple of weeks back. Suggested I might take a look at him, that's all. He's got his finger in plenty of pies.'
'If I have the salmon to start with,' said Ellie, 'it won't be removed as material evidence before I'm finished, will it?'
Pascoe aimed a kick at her under the table but she had been expecting it and drawn her legs aside.
Four courses later they had all eaten and drunk enough for a kind of mellow truce to have been established between Ellie and the fat man.
'Look who's over there,' said Ellie suddenly.
Pascoe looked. It was the Eliots, George dark-suited and still, Giselle ablaze in clinging orange silk. Another man, middle-aged but still athletically elegant in a military sort of way, was standing by their table. Giselle returned Ellie's wave and spoke to the man, who came across the room and addressed Pascoe.
'Mr and Mrs Eliot wonder if you would care to join them for liqueurs,' he said.
Pascoe looked at Dalziel enquiringly.
'I'm in favour of owt that means some other bugger putting his hand in his pocket,' he said cheerfully.
Giselle greeted them with delight and even George raised a welcoming smile.
'Who was that dishy thing you sent after us?' asked Ellie after Dalziel had been introduced.
'Dishy? Oh, you mean Giles. He will be pleased. Giles Fletcher. He owns this place.'
'Oh my! We send the owner on errands, do we?' said Ellie. 'It's great to see you, Giselle. It's been ages. When am I getting the estate agent's tour of the new house? You've promised us first refusal when George finds a new ruin, remember?'
'I couldn't afford the ruin,' objected Pascoe. 'Not even with George doing our income tax.'
