class teacher, did their best to divert and distract, but they, too, were weighed down by their more specific fears for their lost pupil, and despite their best efforts, some of this filtered through.
Very little was forthcoming. Some of Lorraine's friends said that Lorraine had a 'secret place' up Ligg Beck, but when pressed as to its whereabouts, they looked at Novello like she was brain dead and said, 'We don't know. It was a secret!' Finally she pushed too hard and provoked a squall of sobbing from one girl, which quickly spread to others, and the interview was over.
'I'll keep talking to them,' promised Mrs. Shimmings as they walked down the corridor together. 'It's no use pressing with children this age. You've got to let things come in their own good time.'
Great, thought Novello. But you don't have to answer to a bunch of men who aren't all that impressed even when you've got something positive to report!
By bunch of men she meant, of course, Dalziel and Pascoe, and to a lesser extent, Wield. On joining CID she'd quickly sussed out that what mattered most to an ambitious officer was how you rated with the terrible trio.
She'd observed with interest, but without comment, how her male colleagues reacted. Dalziel put the fear of God into them. His wrath was like being run over by a Centurion tank. On the other hand, going into battle, there's nothing an infantryman likes more than advancing behind a Centurion tank.
Pascoe was rated okay. Lots of concern for the troops. He'd long outlived his early disadvantage of a degree. Indeed most of them would never even think about it if it wasn't for the Fat Man's occasional weighty witticisms.
And Wield was… Wield. Unreadable as a Chinese encyclopedia, but containing everything a cop needed to know. There were stories about his private life which might have washed away another man's career. But against that unyielding crag, they broke and vanished back into the sea.
Word was that when Dalziel spoke, you obeyed; when Pascoe spoke, you listened; when Wield spoke, you took notes.
But Novello had come to see them rather differently.
The rumors about Wield she ignored. It was so clear to her he was gay that she couldn't understand the need for whisperings. He was a good cop and she could learn a lot from him. But, she guessed, he was also a cop who'd made a conscious decision to stay at sergeant rather than risk the greater exposure of higher rank. This she could understand, but had no intention of taking as a role model.
Pascoe. At first she'd liked him. He'd been welcoming, helpful, protective, when she joined the squad. He still was. But when she'd talked about this with Maggie Burroughs, who'd helped her a lot in her transfer to CID, the inspector had said, 'Watch out for the friendlies. They're sometimes the worst.' And when, a few minutes after she started talking to the kids, Pascoe had stuck his head into the classroom and asked for a quick word with Mrs. Shimmings, all his apologetic smile had said to her was that what he was doing was beyond debate far more important than what she was doing.
Which left Dalziel. A tank was just a machine, but a machine needs someone to run it. A mechanic. Or God. Jokes were made about the Holy Trinity, usually with Pascoe as Son and Wield as Holy Ghost. Novello, as a sort of good Catholic, favored Pascoe as Holy Ghost. But big Andy Dalziel was beyond all dispute the Almighty. Get up his nose, and the best you could hope was a big sneeze might carry you a long way away. It was a small comfort to know no one was immune. Even that Spiritus Sanctus, Peter Pascoe, came in for a fair share of crap. So, I believe in Andy Dalziel was the first and last clause of the CID creed. But faith without works didn't get you into heaven, and even though the fat prophet had forecast that talking to kids was a waste of time, he'd probably still expect some form of result.
It was therefore with relief that she found only Wield in the incident center. He was poring over a thick file. In his hand was a can of mineral water.
He said, 'The fridge has turned up. Help yourself.'
Gratefully she took a can of lemonade. She would have liked to put it under her T-shirt and roll it around, but she instinctively avoided anything which would draw her male colleagues' attention to her sex. Even Wield's.
Perhaps, she thought, we have a lot in common.
'Any luck?' he asked without looking up.
'Not much. Some talk of Lorraine having a secret place up Ligg Beck, but none of them knows where.'
'Well, they wouldn't, being a secret,' said Wield with a childlike logic she recognized. He closed the file. Upside down she read
DENDALE.
She said, 'Nothing from the search team, Sarge?'
'Not a sign.'
'So it could be she's long gone.'
'Super seems to reckon they're still around here.'
She noticed the they. He noticed her noticing but didn't correct it.
'What do you think, Sarge?' she asked.
He stared at her reflectively. His eyes she noticed for the first time were rather beautiful, circles of Mediterranean blue round a dark gray center set on a field of pristine white with not a red vein to be seen. It was like finding jewels in a ruin.
He said, 'I think you've got a notion you'd like to let out. Something to do with yon blue station wagon is my guess.'
This was opening enough. She went across to the wall map and said, 'The Highcross Moor Road's got no turnoffs except a few farm tracks for four and a half miles till it swings east and joins the main road here. There's a pub, the Highcross Inn, at the junction. What I'd like to do is check out all the farms along the road and the pub, too, to see if anyone else noticed the blue station wagon.'
It sounded pretty feeble now it was out. She was glad it wasn't the Fat Man she was talking to.
Wield said, 'We've had men out at all those farms.'
'Yes, Sarge. But they'll have been searching barns, outbuildings, stables, and such. I'd be asking a specific question about a specific car.'
'You've got a feeling about this blue station wagon, haven't you?'
'Sort of,' she admitted reluctantly.
'You won anything on the National Lottery?' he inquired.
'Ten pound.'
'Not enough to retire on if Mr. Dalziel catches you running around following hunches,' said Wield. 'But as I can't think of anything else for you to do, off you go. But keep in close contact. And you get buzzed to come back here, no mucking about saying reception's bad because of the hills, that sort of crap. You come running. Okay?'
'Okay, Sarge. Thanks.'
And turning quickly before he could change his mind, she hurried out into the sweaty embrace of the panting sun.
As she got into her car she saw DI George Headingley's gleaming Lada turn into the parking lot. She sent her beat-up Golf roaring past him with a casual wave. George had always had a reputation as a careful man, but as retirement loomed closer, carefulness became an obsession. Privately, not a penny was spent unnecessarily and it was rumored he'd worked out to the hour if not the minute the best time to take his pension. Professionally, he did everything by the book, and if the book didn't tell him what to do, he did what he thought would please the chief constable and Andy Dalziel, not necessarily in that order.
No way if he'd arrived ten minutes earlier would she have been heading out on a hunch. 'Make us a cup of tea, Shirl,' he would have said. 'Then you can take care of answering the phone till the super gets back.'
But now with one mighty bound, she was free. She gunned the car up the rising road, wound down the window, and pulled up her T-shirt to let the cooling draft play upon her burning skin.
She didn't stop till she reached the high bend where Geoff Draycott thought the blue station wagon might
