indifference, rang false as a politician's indignation.
'One in there might interest you, sir,' said Wield.
He jabbed his finger at the bottom of the sheet. Pascoe looked over the Fat Man's shoulder.
Walter Wulfstan.
That name again. Pascoe's eyes strayed to the poster still visible on one of the few parts of the notice board not yet covered up by constabulary paper.
The opening concert of the Mid-Yorkshire Dales Music Festival, Elizabeth Wulfstan singing Kindertotenlieder. Songs for Dead Children. Not the most diplomatic of programs for this place at this time.
It occurred to him that this place was literally this place. Had anyone told the festival people that their opening venue had been commandeered?
Observing Dalziel for the second time in two days apparently rapt at the appearance of this name from the past, Pascoe voiced his concern to Wield.
'The secretary of the parish council was round first thing this morning,' the sergeant said. 'I told him he could certainly cancel everything this week. Next week, we'd have to wait and see.'
'He wouldn't be pleased.'
'Oddly enough his words were, Mr. Wulfstan wouldn't be pleased. Seems he's chair of the music festival committee.'
'He's back at that again, is he?' said Dalziel, who never let rapture obstruct eavesdropping.
'Back?' said Pascoe.
'He dropped out of Yorkshire after Dendale. Seemed to uproot himself completely. Sold up his house in town, handed over the on-site running of the business to his partners, and set himself up down south as their international sales manager, running across Europe, oiling the wheels, that sort of thing. Speaks good Frog and Kraut, they say. Must have done all right. Seven, eight years back, the company needs more space and builds on a greenfield site outside Danby. That was the start of yon Science and Business Park thing. Lots of Euro-lolly, they say, most of it down to Wulfstan. And eventually he moves back to town. Bought a house 'in the bell.' Holyclerk Street.'
In the bell referred to the top-price area around the cathedral.
'Very nice,' said Pascoe.
'Keep doing the lottery,' said Dalziel. 'Ivor, get on the phone to Wulfstan's firm at the Business Park, will you? See if he's there. If he is, I'll just pop round and have a word.'
'There are other names on the list, sir,' said Pascoe.
'Nay, it'll be his,' said Dalziel dismissively. 'What's up, lass? Tha does know how to work a phone?'
Novello, who hadn't moved, said, 'What's the firm's name, sir?'
'Oh, aye. Summat weird. Helioponics, that's it. Helioponics. You need six zero levels to know what it means.'
'Sounds to me like a nonce word, by analogy with hydroponics,' said Pascoe.
'Nonce, eh? Well, them perverts do have a language of their own.'
Wield came in before this could get silly and said, 'I think they started off making domestic solar panels, but now they're into all kinds of alternative energy sources and applications.'
'My God, Wieldy, you got shares, or what?'
Wield looked blank, which was easy. In fact it was Edwin who had Helioponic shares. Financial openness was part of their unwritten partnership agreement. 'If you know how poor I am,' Digweed had said, 'you will not be forever expecting me to pay half of all those expensive foreign holidays your crooked friends doubtless subsidize for you in their Bermudan villas.'
'Sir,' said Novello from the phone, 'Mr. Wulfstan was at the park but he's just headed back to town. Seems he's had to call an emergency committee meeting. Something about the music festival needing a new location?'
'Must be mellowing,' said Dalziel. 'In the old days he'd have come round here and given us all a rollocking. Right, that's me. I'm off to put myself on Any Other Business. Pete, what are you up to?'
'I need to see Clark. He might have a line on the spray-can artist.'
'Oh, aye? Well, he's up the dale with Maggie Burroughs. I've just been up there. She's got the search well organized, so try not to give the impression you're double-checking her. I know how heavy footed you can be. Wieldy, you keep things steady here till George Headingley shows his ugly face, then see if you can find something useful to do. That everything?'
'Sir, shall I stick with these car sightings? I've got a couple of ideas,' said Novello.
'Ideas? Nice young lass like you shouldn't be having ideas,' said Dalziel. 'Nay, they'll keep. That's why red herrings are red, to preserve them. Anyone talked to the kiddies in Lorraine's class yet?'
'Not yet,' said Wield. 'Mrs. Shimmings wanted to get the school routine going first.'
'I doubt if there'll be owt there, but someone had better do it. That's the job for you, Ivor. Off you go, chop chop.'
Novello turned swiftly and moved away through the door before her resentment could show.
'She did well,' Pascoe observed neutrally.
'She did her job,' growled Dalziel.
Pascoe glanced at Wield, who rubbed his chin.
'Jesus wept,' said the Fat Man.
He went to an open window and bellowed, 'Ivor!'
The woman turned.
'You did well,' shouted Dalziel.
Then turning back to face the others, he said, 'There. Can't bear the thought of having you two looking at me all day like I'd drowned your kitten. Now can we all go off and do what we get paid to do, or would you like a big wet kiss from Mother to help you on your way?'
Rosie Pascoe was having a bad day at school.
She'd looked for Zandra as soon as she got into the yard, but she was nowhere to be found, and Miss Turner, their class teacher, told her that Mrs. Purlingstone had phoned to say that Zandra was poorly and wouldn't be coming in.
At least that had meant she was able to hold the floor alone with her tales of treats and adventures at the seaside. But by playtime, as the heat of the day built up, she found her usual energy lacking and was content to stand aside from the intricate whirl of playground games.
All the voices seemed distant, like the TV with the sound turned low, and the playing children moved before her like figures on that small screen. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, this distancing. Indeed it was the kind of mood in which she usually most easily made contact with her friend Nina. But there was no sign of her today, and then she remembered that Nina had been taken by the nix again and was probably still being held captive in his cave.
Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a figure beyond the high wire mesh which bounded the playground. Her heart full of hope, she went toward it. The bright sunlight dazzled her, in fact she'd been irritated by bright light all day, and she couldn't see clearly, but as she got close she knew it wasn't Nina, and when she blinked she found there was no one there at all, and she was left clinging to the mesh like a marmoset in a cage.
Someone touched her shoulder and she turned quickly.
It was Miss Turner. She was a small woman, a lot shorter than Mummy, but somehow today she seemed to loom very high.
'Play's over, Rosie,' she said in a voice with the same distant unreal quality. 'It's time to come inside.'
Some miles to the north, Shirley Novello was having a bad time in school too. She didn't mind kids, but she wasn't mad about them. And she did mind the assumption that her gender automatically meant she was the best person to talk to Lorraine's classmates, particularly when she felt she was doing an okay job on the car inquiry. But she had more sense than to complain, not in the middle of a missing child case. Here, if you were told it would help to wrestle in mud, you wrestled in mud.
Not that there was much chance of finding any mud to wrestle in. All the windows of the school were wide open, but a feather resting on a sill had as much chance of moving as on a dead man's lips.
The children were lethargic, partly because of the heat, partly because the initial charge of excitement at the police presence had faded, leaving them increasingly aware of the reason for it. Mrs. Shimmings and Miss Blake, the
