He let the note of accusation sound loud and clear.
'Very noble,' said Dalziel. 'But a waste of time.'
'I'm sorry?'
'You don't imagine a day's gone by in the last fifteen years without her thinking of her daughter, do you, Mr. Krog?' said Dalziel. 'Thing like that, just waking up each morning reminds her of it.'
He spoke with great force and Krog looked at him curiously.
'And you, too, Superintendent. I think you have thought of it.'
'Oh, aye. But not every day. And not like her. I just lost a suspect, not a daughter.'
'I think perhaps if you had, you would not have lost your suspect also,' said Krog, making a sharp chopping movement with his right hand.
'For a foreigner, you're not so bloody daft, Mr. Krog,' said Andy Dalziel.
7
Peter Pascoe, being, as Ellie put it, not exactly a New Man but certainly a one-careful-lady-owner, genuine- low-mileage, full-service-record-available kind of used man, had tried his hardest to like Inspector Maggie Burroughs, but he couldn't quite manage it. That she was efficient was beyond doubt. That she had become a sort of unofficial shop steward for all Mid-Yorkshire's women officers was most commendable, given the number of female high fliers who adopted the Thatcher principle of I'm aboard, pull up the gangplank! That she was sociable, reasonable, and desirable was generally agreed.
And yet… and yet…
'I don't think I'd have taken to her even if she'd been a fellow,' Pascoe told his wife in an effort to assure her that this was not a gender issue.
He was a little taken aback when Ellie's response was to hover between screaming with rage and laughter. Happily she had opted for the latter even when he compounded his unwitting condescension by adding, 'No, no, I assure you, I really do see her as the future of the force…'
'Exactly. And like most men approaching an interesting age, the last thing you can look at with any equanimity is the future.'
Perhaps she was right. But certainly not in every respect.
Because one identifiable factor in, but uncitable reason for, his dislike of Burroughs was that he'd detected she didn't care for Ellie, and that, especially in another woman, showed a deficiency of judgment beyond forgiveness or repair.
Unlike Dalziel, who let dislike show like buttocks through torn trousers, Pascoe hid his behind smiling affability.
'Hi, Maggie,' he said. 'How's it going?'
'Not a damn thing so far,' she said. 'I'm beginning to agree with the locals that she's not here.'
'Car, you reckon? That's what Shirley Novello is plugging. Not to any great effect, mind you.'
He made a wry face to dissociate himself from the Fat Man's putdown of the WOULDC, but Maggie Burroughs was shaking her head.
'No, not a car, but ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night-or the morning, in this case. They're all convinced this Benny guy's got her, and it's catching. What's the official line on that, sir? I mean, it is all bollocks, isn't it?'
'Benny is to Danby what Freddy was to Elm Street,' said Pascoe. 'A legend based on a terrible reality.'
He saw her hide a smile and guessed he must have sounded a touch portentous.
'Just make sure every inch of ground gets covered,' he said abruptly. 'Sergeant Clark around?'
'Yes. Using his local knowledge to singularly little effect,' said Burroughs scornfully.
'He's a good man,' said Pascoe. 'You know he was the resident constable over in Dendale when it all happened fifteen years ago?'
'I doubt if there's anyone over the age of two he hasn't told that,' said Burroughs. 'He's hanging around somewhere.'
Advice formed in his mind. Make friends unless you feel strong enough to make enemies. But he kept it to himself. Perhaps she was tomorrow's version of Andy Dalziel. His own philosophy was You don't have to suffer fools gladly, but for a lot of the time it makes sense to suffer quietly. In any case he didn't think Clark was a fool, just the kind of steady stolid old-fashioned sergeant a go-getter like Burroughs would see as a dinosaur.
He found Clark pulling on a cigarette in the stingy shade of a clump of furze.
He dropped the butt end guiltily at Pascoe's approach and ground it under his heel.
'Make sure it's out,' said Pascoe. 'I'd rather you destroyed your lungs than set fire to the fellside. So, tell me about Jed Hardcastle.'
'Oh, aye. Jed. Thing you should know is, Jed's the youngest of the Hardcastles out of Dendale-'
'Yes, yes, and he lives at Stirps End and he's got a sister, June, and they don't get on with their dad, I know all that stuff,' said Pascoe impatiently. 'What I want from you is why you think he's responsible for the graffiti.'
He'd got his information from Mrs. Shimmings, never suspecting how much his interruption had pissed off Shirley Novello.
'Jed Hardcastle?' the head teacher had said. 'Yes, I know him well. His eldest sister was one of the Dendale girls, but you'll know that.'
'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Tell me about Jed.'
'Well, he was the youngest of the three Hardcastle children, only two years old when they moved over here, so he did all his schooling in Danby.'
'So the move can't have had much effect on him?' said Pascoe.
'Growing up in a family where a child's gone missing must have had an effect, I imagine,' she said quietly. 'And in the Hardcastle family, there'd not be much doubt about it. None of the other kids were ever allowed to forget what happened to Jenny. Cedric blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on her, and in reaction he brought up June, her young sister, like she was going to be empress of China. She couldn't do anything without close supervision. Didn't matter so much when she was a child, but when she got to be a teenager
… well, you know what teenage girls are like.'
'I'm looking forward to finding out,' said Pascoe. 'My girl's seven.'
'Then be warned. At seven, June was a quiet, biddable child but by the time she got to fifteen, she'd had rebellion bred into her. One day she took off to town. They found her and brought her back. She waited a year, then took off again, this time to London. It took months, but finally they made contact with her. But she's not coming back, she's made that quite clear.'
'And Jed?'
'The same story but different. He suffered both ways. From over-protection when he should have been learning how to flex his wings. And from the Yorkshire farmer's assumption that an only son will follow in his father's footsteps when he's dead, but till that time he'll act as unpd, unprivileged farm laborer. It didn't help that Jed's a slightly built lad, and quite sensitive. To be told that your dead sister was a better help about the place when she was half your age can't be very encouraging.'
'But he didn't follow his sister to the bright lights?'
'No. He got into a bit of bother, nothing serious, teenage vandalism, that sort of stuff. And life round the farm was one long slanging match with his father, so I gather. Heaven knows how it might have ended, but Mr. Pontifex -it's one of his farms that Cedric leases-saw the way the wind was blowing and took young Jed under his wing, gave him a job helping round the estate office. Like I say, he's bright, picks things up quickly, could do well in the right environment.'
'Which isn't mucking out byres?'
'Especially not with your father telling you how useless you are all the time,' agreed Mrs. Shimmings.
'And he still lives at home?'
'That was the main aim of the exercise,' she said. 'One thing everyone agrees on. If Jed leaves home, too,
