'Does that make it worse?'
'It doesn't make it any better. Five times. It's this hot weather I blame. Is he one of mine? Don't tell me. I'll recognize him by the weary way he walks. And this is why I didn't see you in church yesterday? You were too busy fornicating.'
'No, Father. I told you. We went off to the seaside for the day, and it just sort of happened.'
'No, my girl. Once it just sort of happens, five times takes enthusiasm.'
It wasn't easy, thought Novella as she left the church a little later, being a modern woman, a Roman Catholic, and a detective constable all at the same time. They got in each other's way. To the soul sisters, a good screw was 'exuberating in your own sexuality'; to the holy father it was the sin of fornication. As for her job, there were times when it required her to behave in ways equally offensive to both the sisterhood and the Fatherhood.
She arrived at the Danby incident room five minutes late. No sign of Dalziel (thank you for that at least, God); or Pascoe. But Wield was there.
'Sorry, Sarge,' she said. 'Went to confession.'
Somehow telling a lie in these circumstances didn't seem on.
'Hope you got it on tape,' said Wield.
A joke? She made a guess and smiled.
'You weren't here yesterday? Me neither. Get up to speed, then I'd like you to take a closer look at these three car sightings.'
'Super around?'
'Up the dale with DI Burroughs and the search team.'
'And Mr. Pascoe?'
'Along shortly. He's checking the shop.'
An excuse for lateness? They covered each other's backs, these two.
The thought must have shown. Wield said, 'Or mebbe he's at confession too. Takes longer as you get older, they say.'
Another joke? He was in an odd mood today. She found herself a computer screen and went to work.
Three cars. In the early stages of a case like this when you went in mob handed, with rough-terrain search teams, house-to-house inquiries, media appeals, et cetera, et cetera, what you rapidly got was a vast amount of clutter. Which is why the better part of investigation was elimination. (pascoe.) Not easy. Probably by the time she sorted out these three, there'd be several others reported. Sunday was a bad day for witnesses. People went off for the day, didn't get back till late. There'd be huge gaps in yesterday's house-to-house. Not her problem. Yet.
She plotted her car sightings on the map. The closest, not a sighting but a hearing, was on the Corpse Road. Someone had added a note, Evidence of parking two hundred yards up track. 4wd? Not much point pursuing the deaf flower arranger. On the other hand… she looked at her watch, then rose and headed out, whistling a hymn tune which caused Sergeant Wield to wonder if too much religion might be getting in the way of her work.
The hymn was in fact 'In Life's Earnest Morning,' but its present occasion was secular. Novello had once lodged with a dog-owning family. The dog, a well-trained poodle, had signaled its need to go out every morning by a loud yapping to which her landlord, equally well trained, had responded by singing, 'In life's earnest morning, ar When our hope is high, ar Comes thy voice in summons, ar Not to be put by,' as he got the lead and headed for the door.
She headed past the church and sat on a stone at the foot of the Corpse Road. After only five minutes her faith was rewarded. A springer spaniel came running down the track, stopped dead when it saw her, then approached cautiously. She reached out her hand and spoke to it softly and finally it allowed her to scratch its head.
It was followed a few moments later by a breathless thickset woman in loose cotton slacks and a pink sun top.
'There you are, Zebedee,' she said. 'It's all right. He won't bite.'
'Me neither,' said Novello.
She stood up and introduced herself. The woman gave her name as Janet Dickens, Mrs., and said she lived about ten minutes' walk away.
'Is this about that little girl?' she asked. 'That's really dreadful. We were away all day yesterday across at my sister's near Harrogate, we go alternate Sundays and they come here, but I heard it on the news when we got back.'
'Did you take Zebedee for his walk before you went?' asked Novello.
'Oh, yes. No way he'll let me get away without his morning stroll.'
'And you always come here.'
'That's right. He gets quite uppity if I try to take him anywhere else.'
'Good. I wonder if you noticed a vehicle up this track yesterday morning,' said Novello.
'A vehicle? Oh, you mean the Discovery? Yes, it was there again. Why? You don't think…?'
'No, we don't think anything,' said Novello firmly. 'This is just one of several vehicles we need to check out for elimination purposes. This vehicle was a Land-Rover Discovery, you say?'
'That's right. Green. Local, it had the Mid-Yorkshire letters, and this year's registration, and one of the numbers was a six, I think, but I'm sorry, I can't recall the others.'
'You've done very well,' said Novello, making notes. 'But you said again. It was there again. What did you mean?'
'Oh, I've seen it four or five times in the past couple of weeks. That's how I remember as much as I do about the number, I suppose. I'm so scatterbrained, if I'd just seen it once, I'd likely have told you it was a yellow Porsche with an 007 license plate. What will you do now? Put out some kind of alert?'
'Nothing as dramatic as that, Mrs. Dickens,' said Novello.
It took a couple of minutes to persuade Mrs. Dickens that she wasn't about to conjure up the Flying Squad and a pack of bloodhounds. Finally, assurances that, as they'd missed her yesterday, the house-to-house team would probably be on her doorstep this very moment, got her on her way.
Novello returned to the Hall. Wield was nowhere to be seen, so she passed her information to Control and asked for a list of possibilities. Then, with one down, and feeling hot for hunches, she went in pursuit of another.
The two people reporting the white car at the edge of Ligg Common had been vague and contradictory. One described it as small, another as quite big. The first opined it might have been a Ford Escort, the second was certain it was some sort of Vauxhall but couldn't say which.
But there'd been a third sighting even vaguer, picked up during house-to-house: Mrs. Joy Kendrick, who'd been driving by the common early and thought she'd noticed a car and it could've been white, but she wasn't absolutely sure as the kids were being fractious in the back as they didn't like being left with their gran for the day, which was the purpose of the journey.
Novello had noticed children beginning to arrive for school as she went out to the Corpse Road. On her return, the numbers had grown considerably. Because of the constant coming and going of police vehicles from the incident center next door, a line of crowd-control barriers had been set up to reinforce the low wall which divided the playground from the Hall forecourt, and the naturally curious kids were pressing thick against them. There were a lot of adults there too. After yesterday's news, parents who'd normally just drop their kids off, or even let them walk there under their own steam, were taking extra precautions.
As Novello reemerged from the center, a couple of teachers were going along the barrier urging the children to go into the school. Novello entered the playground and approached one of them, showing her warrant card.
'I'm Dora Shimmings, head teacher,' said the woman. 'Look, I arranged with Mr. Pascoe yesterday that any general questioning of the children in Lorraine's class wouldn't be done until we'd got the school day under way in as normal a fashion as possible.'
She spoke with a quiet authority that made Novello glad she wasn't about to contradict her.
'It's not that,' she said reassuringly. 'I just wanted to know if Joy Kendrick was one of your parents.'
'Very much so. We have all three of hers. But none of them is in Lorraine's class.'
'What age are they?'
'The twins are six and Simon's eight. There they are now.'
