his mother will either kill herself or her husband before next quarter day.'
No doubt he could have got some of this from Clark, but when it came to psychological profiling of the young of Danby, he preferred Mrs. Shimming's keener professional eye.
Clark said, 'After we talked yesterday, I made out a list of possibles. We'd had a bit of bother with these spray-can jokers a while back and I'd tracked it back to a bunch of half a dozen of 'em-'
'But not Hardcastle,' said Pascoe. 'I ran his name through the computer. Nothing known.'
'Not enough evidence to go to court, so I dealt with it myself,' said Clark, making a small chopping gesture with his big right hand. Pascoe regarded him blankly. The mythology that there'd been a time when a clip round the ear from your friendly local bobby produced good upstanding citizens was not one he subscribed to, though he had to admit that healthy terror at the approach of Fat Andy did seem to have a temporarily salutary effect.
'So you had a short list. How come you picked out Hardcastle?'
'Made inquiries,' said Clark vaguely. 'Three of the lads I spoke to pointed the finger at Jed and his mate, Vernon Kittle.'
He didn't make the gesture this time, but Pascoe could imagine the nature of the inquiries. What was more important was the reliability of the replies.
'This Kittle, anything known?'
'Bit of juvenile. Thinks he's a hard case. Impresses Jed but not many others.'
'So why didn't you do something about this last night?' asked Pascoe.
'Sunday. Every bugger's off doing something, so it took me till last night to get hold of most on 'em.'
'Even so-'
'And Jed weren't home,' continued Clark. 'Went off to the seaside with Kittle and a couple of birds in Kittle's van. Molly, that's Mrs. Hardcastle, she said there was no telling when he'd get back. Lads… well, you know. So I thought I might as well leave it till morning and pass it on to you.'
So he'd been right. A gift to pay him back for protecting the sergeant from the wrath of Dalziel the previous day. They didn't like to be beholden, these Yorkshiremen. And they didn't like to be treated as fools, as Maggie Burroughs might find out to her cost someday.
He said, 'Tell me, Nobby. All this stuff about Dendale, what do you reckon? Waste of time or could it lead somewhere?'
The sergeant hesitated, almost visibly weighing up the implications of the new intimacy implied by use of his nickname.
Then he said, 'Happen it could. But I hope not.'
'Why not? If it turns out there's a connection, we could solve four mysteries for the price of one.'
'Mebbe. But what if we're just waking a lot of sleeping dogs for nowt? Folk were just about getting to be able to think of Dendale without just thinking about them poor lasses. That were terrible, but life's full of terrible things, and they shouldn't be let spoil everything that's lovely.'
He spoke defiantly, as though anticipating objection, or more probably mockery, for his fancy words.
'And Dendale was lovely, was it?' said Pascoe.
'Oh, yes. It were a grand place, full of grand folk. Oh we had our bad 'uns, and we had our ups and downs, but nowt we couldn't sort ourselves. I'd have been happy to see my time out there, I tell you, promotion or not.'
He spoke with a fervor that made Pascoe smile.
'You make it sound like Paradise,' he said.
'Well, if it weren't Paradise, it were right next door to it, and as near as I'm like to get,' said Clark. 'Then it all got spoiled. From the moment Mr. Pontifex sold his land, that's how most people saw it.'
'So what does that make Mr. Pontifex? The serpent? Or just poor gullible Eve?'
He'd gone too far with his light ironic touch, he saw instantly. Your Yorkshireman enjoys a bit of broad sarcasm but is rightly suspicious that light irony conceals the worm of patronage.
'Be able to see for yourself,' the sergeant said gruffly. 'Jed works for him, so The Grange is where we'll need to go if you want to talk to the lad.'
'Oh, I do, I do,' said Pascoe. 'Lead on.'
The Grange turned out to be a pleasant surprise, not the grim granite block of Yorkshire baronial he'd been expecting, but a long, low Elizabethan house in mellow York stone.
The estate office occupied what looked like a converted stables. No sign that anyone here rode anything more lively than the big blue Daimler standing before the house.
They parked in the shade of some old yew trees and walked across the yard toward the office. Its door opened as they approached and a man came out. He was silver haired, rising seventy, with a narrow, rather supercilious face. He carried a walking stick with a handle in the shape of a fox cast in silver, a perfect match for his hair; and in fact the stick did seem to be for effect rather than need, as he came to meet them with a bouncy sprightly step.
'Sergeant Clark,' he said. 'This is a terrible business. Have I the pleasure of addressing Superintendent Dalziel?'
A man who can believe that can believe anything was the reply which sprang to Pascoe's mind, but fortunately didn't make it any farther.
'No, sir. Detective Chief Inspector Pascoe. Mr. Dalziel sends his compliments but is detained in town.'
A smile broke out on the man's face, changing its whole caste.
'Not the mode of speech my spies have led me to expect from Mr. Dalziel,' he said. 'And now I look more closely at you, I see that neither are you the mode of man. My apologies. I really must learn to hold my fire.'
He had come very close and taken Pascoe's hand. Now Pascoe understood the cause of that screwed-up, apparently supercilious expression. The man was dreadfully shortsighted. Presumably the stick was for detecting obstacles on unfamiliar terrain.
Clark had taken a few steps toward the office. He paused and looked at Pascoe inquiringly. Pascoe gave him a slight nod and he went inside.
'So tell me, Mr. Pascoe, is there any news?' asked Pontifex.
'I'm afraid not,' said Pascoe. 'We can only hope.'
'And pray,' said the man. 'I have heard that locally they are speaking of the man Lightfoot that so many blamed for the Dendale disappearances. Surely there can be nothing in this?'
Pascoe had heard the word surely spoken with more conviction.
He said, 'At the moment, sir, we are keeping a completely open mind.'
The man had released his hand but was still standing uncomfortably close. Pascoe turned as though to look at the house, using this as an excuse to step away.
'Lovely old building,' he said appreciatively. 'Elizabethan?'
'At its core. With later additions but always in the style.'
'You're lucky to have had such tasteful ancestors,' said Pascoe.
'Not really. The Pontifex connection only dates back to my father, whose eagerness to modernize the interior probably did more damage to the structure than anything in the previous four hundred years.'
'So he bought the estate, did he?'
'Such as it was in the late twenties. Chap who owned it went under in the Depression. Too many bad guesses. My father moved in and set about expanding. Anything that came up, he bought, which was how he came to own a good number of farms over in Dendale. But not enough to form a viable whole. An estate, to be workable, needs to have unity, to be contained within a common boundary. There were too many gaps across in Dendale. If the dam hadn't come up, they would have had to be sold anyway.'
Pascoe got a sense of hearing an excuse well rehearsed and often repeated. He guessed that in the eyes of some what was simply sequence-Pontifex selling, the dam being built, and the children disappearing-had become a chain of cause and effect. But it was surprising to find a presumably level-headed businessman affected by such idle chatter.
'Sir, he's gone.'
It was Clark who'd emerged from the office.
'Gone? Where?'
'Estate manager says he saw us out the window and next thing he knew, the lad had vanished.'
