'The Fat Man seems to think so. He's had me reading the file. He even marched me up to the top of the Corpse Road last night.'
'Did he, now? That sounds pretty official.'
'You don't sound like it makes you happy.'
'I think it's a bit soon to be talking of this time and last time, that's all.'
'What about this fellow Lightfoot?' insisted Pascoe. 'You must have met him. What did you reckon? I gather some folk thought he was the village idiot, but I've heard that in fact he was pretty bright.'
'Oh, he was bright enough,' said Wield. 'But there was something about him. Like he came from another world.'
This was untypically imprecise for the sergeant.
Pascoe said, 'What do you mean, other world? Heaven? Hell? Jupiter? Wales?'
'Not as far removed as that,' said Wield. 'No, his other world was
… Dendale.'
'I don't get you,' said Pascoe. 'Okay, that's where he lived, and I know that he was so upset when his mother decided to emigrate that he ran off to his gran's. But lots of people like where they are so much, it would take dynamite to shift them.'
'It did take dynamite to shift them out of Dendale, remember?' said Wield. 'Okay, for most of them, it was an uprooting, but the roots would take again in similar soil. The majority of them resettled over here around Danby, and from all accounts they've settled in very well. But the odd one… well, since I've been living in Enscombe, I've got a different perspective on how folk relate to the place they call home. There's none of us there would want to leave. I feel like that, and I've not been living there long enough to shit my own weight, as they say. But I've met some people, like the Tokes-you recall the Tokes?-that I reckon you couldn't uproot, only break off at ground level.'
The Tokes were a mother and son living in Enscombe who'd figured in the case which brought Wield and Edwin Digweed together.
'Yes, I remember the Tokes,' said Pascoe. 'Lightfoot was like that?'
'To some extent. You know how folk say, I belong to such a place. Just a figure of speech usually, but with Lightfoot, like with Toke, it really means what it says. The place owns them. For better or worse. For good or evil.'
'Hold on, Wieldy,' said Pascoe. 'You're stealing my lines. I'm the one who goes all metaphysical, right? You're Mr. Microchip, the man with the pointy ears.'
Wield scratched one of the organs which, though certainly irregular, were hardly pointed.
'Just goes to show what country life can do to you, doesn't it?' he said.
Like Shirley Novello earlier, Pascoe found it hard to tell if the sergeant was altogether joking, but he laughed anyway. There were enough uncertainties in life without admitting the possibility that your Rock of Ages might after all turn out to be soft centered.
He said, 'But I agree with you about sticking to this time. Let's work with what we've got. There were some car sightings unaccounted for…'
'I've got Novello working on them,' said Wield. 'In fact, this came through for her a couple of minutes ago. Presumably it's to do with the sightings, but she's not around to tell me what.'
'Yes, she is,' said Pascoe who'd just seen the WOULDC come through the door. He glanced at the sheet of paper Wield had handed him as she approached. It was a list of green Land-Rover Discoverys registered locally in the past year.
'Morning, Shirley,' he said.
Dalziel called her Ivor. Pascoe had made sure no one else did. Eccentric leaders were for following, not imitating, else the Victory would have been full of one-eyed sailors.
'Morning, sir,' she said, looking a touch anxiously at the list in his hand. Pascoe guessed she'd have liked to get to it before Wield so she could have presented it with her interpretation all ready. Like Clark she was still at the stage where she thought rabbits plucked from hats impressed the brass. Unlike Clark, she'd probably grow out of it. Her face, while not conventionally good looking, was full of character and intelligence. She'd settled down well since joining the department a few months back, but she was still on guard. Perhaps that was a permanent condition of service for women in the police force, thought Pascoe. Or was that too easy? Was there something more he could be doing to assure her that here in Mid-Yorkshire at least there wasn't anyone lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to chop her off at the knees?
'So you're making progress,' he said, handing her the list.
Glancing at it as she spoke, she explained how she got the information, then went on to the Saab convertible, and finally to the moving car on the Highcross Moor road.
She led them to the wall map to illustrate her findings here.
'Geoff Draycott, thirty-two, married, tenant at Wornock Farm, that's here. He was out in this field, here, about eight-thirty, quarter to nine, when he saw this car heading up the road away from town. It was moving very fast, which was what drew his attention. Mind you, he seems to think everything that uses that road moves too fast. It seems it's been improved considerably in the last ten years as the Science and Business Park developed and a lot of the people there began to use it as a quick way of heading north to join up with the arterial here, instead of heading south and east. But improvement hasn't extended to fencing, and Draycott reckons he loses a couple of sheep at least every year because of speeding cars and trucks.'
'Must have been pretty powerful if it was speeding,' said Wield looking at the contours.
'He says it was a big station wagon, blue, but he couldn't identify the make and was at the wrong angle to get any numbers. He did say he thought that it might have stopped up here.'
She pointed to a high bend of the road marked on the map with the viewpoint symbol.
'There's a bit of hardstanding. It's a popular place for picnics. He caught the flash of sun on a glass up there just a little later, but he can't be sure it was the same car.'
'Bit early for a picnic,' said Wield. 'Owt else?'
'Not on any of these. But when I caught up with Draycott, he was driving a red Ford pickup. Popular vehicle with farmers-I spotted another three as I drove around. And I got to wondering if some of the folk round here who got asked about car sightings mightn't have bothered to mention these, or other farm vehicles, because they're so familiar, they're almost invisible. Like the postman in the Chesterton story.'
One for me? thought Pascoe, amused. He hoped she was bright enough not to have tried it out on Andy Dalziel, whose response would probably have been…
'Postman? On a Sunday? Now, that is odd.'
They turned. There he was. Sometimes he came roaring in like a steam locomotive, sometimes he rolled up, soft as a hearse, which, today, clad in a suit black enough to please an undertaker and a shirt white enough to make a shroud, he might have been following.
'No, sir, the Father Brown story…' said Novello, flustered into the error of explanation.
'Father Brown? I thought you were one of Father Kerrigan's flock. Not been head-hunted, have you?'
Time for a rescue act.
Pascoe said, 'Shirley was just trying out an idea on us, sir. And very interesting it was too. But let's make a start on what we've got first, shall we?'
He gave Dalziel a digest of the WOULDC'S findings. The Fat Man was dismissive.
'A blue station wagon, speeding? Overtake their tractor, bloody farmers think you're speeding. And if he wants to get away so quick, what's he stop up the hill for? And this white Saab, right out in the open, weren't it? At the edge of the common for all to see. Not what you'd call furtive, is it?'
'The Discovery was quite well hidden,' said Pascoe.
'Except for anyone walking their dog past it,' said Dalziel. 'Told you it 'ud be a four-wheel drive last night, didn't I?'
'I think, to be strictly accurate, I told you that,' said Pascoe, thinking, He doesn't want to be bothered with any of this. His mind's fixated on Benny bloody Lightfoot. 'But we do have a list of names and we're going to need to check them…'
'Aye, aye, shove up the overtime bill,' said Dalziel gloomily. 'Desperate Dan's going to love me.'
This, from one to whom police budgets and the affection of his chief constable were matters of equal
