They had returned to the living room as he talked and he gave Novello a waggle of the eyebrows as she sat down again, which said clear as speech that he rated her high among the aforementioned blessings.
'Didn't know you were a religious man,' said Wield.
'Comes with age, I expect, Mr. Wield. Well, it's a good across-the-board bet, isn't it. Maybe that's why I employ the vicar's mother.'
'So with all this religious feeling, you'd be at church on Sunday morning?' said Wield.
'As a matter of fact, I was,' said Turnbull. 'Why're you asking, Mr. Wield?'
You know why we're asking, thought Novello. It's been on the news. In the paper. In the Daily Mirror. Or perhaps you knew before that.
…
It was an afterthought. A professional coda. She must fight against this submission to charm which got employers leaving businesses to him and vicars passing over their mothers to work for him, and God knows what else…
'Which service?' asked Wield.
'Matins.'
'That's eleven o'clock, right?'
'Right.'
'And before that?'
'Before? Let me see…'
He screwed up his brow in a parody of remembrance.
'I got up about nine. I remember Alistair Cook's Letter from America was on the radio as I shaved. Then I made myself some coffee and toast and sat with it outside round the back because it was getting hot already, and I read the Sunday paper. That would take me up till about nine forty-five, I expect. That enough for you, Mr. Wield, or do you want more?'
There was an undertone of anger there now which he couldn't disguise. Or perhaps he could have disguised it perfectly well but just wasn't bothering. Or perhaps he wasn't angry at all.
'You were by yourself? You didn't see anyone? No one saw you?'
'Not till I went out to church,' said Turnbull.
'How far's the church?'
'The other side of the village, about a mile.'
'So you walk there?'
'Sometimes. Depends on the weather and what I'm doing afterward.'
'And yesterday?'
'I drove there. I was picking up a friend, heading out for a day on the coast after the service.'
'You always leave your car out front where it is now?'
'Not always. Sometimes I put it in the garage.'
'And Saturday night?'
A hesitation. Would it be so hard to remember? Perhaps, like Novello, he was working out where Wield was going with this. And like her, getting there.
'In the garage,' he said.
Which meant that if, say, the newspaper boy recalled that when he delivered the paper sometime before nine o'clock the car hadn't been visible, it signified nothing.
She looked at Wield. She knew, indeed had firsthand experience of, his reputation for thoroughness. He wasn't going to let this go till he had checked out everyone in the area who might have noticed Turnbull driving away from his house early on Sunday morning. Correction, she thought. Till I have checked them all out! Great.
Turnbull was on his feet. He went out of the room and they heard him dialing a number on the phone in the narrow hallway.
'Dickie,' he said. 'Geordie Turnbull. Yeah, not bad considering. Considering I've got company. The police. No, no trouble, but I think I'd like you down here to hold me hand. Soon as you can. Thanks, bonnie lad.'
He came back in and said, 'Dick Hoddle, my solicitor, is going to join us, Mr. Wield. Hope you don't mind?'
'It's your house,' said Wield indifferently.
'Yes, and I'm staying in it,' said Turnbull. 'That's why I want Dickie here. One thing we should get straight, Mr. Wield. I've no intention of letting you take me over to Danby to help you with your inquiries. Not without I'm under arrest.'
'You asked me before what this was about,' said Wield. 'Seems like you knew all the time.'
'Oh, I knew all right, bonnie lad. Only I couldna believe it. You lot have done this to me once before, remember? I couldn't really believe you were going to do it again. But you are, aren't you?'
'We're going to pursue all possible lines of inquiry into the disappearance of Lorraine Dacre, yes,' said Wield.
'You do that. And I hope you find the bastard responsible. But you people track your muddy boots through people's lives and never think about the mess you leave behind. I'm not going anywhere there'll be cameras and reporters. Anything you want from me you'll get here, else you'll not get it at all.'
'Fine,' said Wield. 'Here's where we want to be. To start with I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Turnbull. We'll need to search your premises. And examine your car. Is that agreeable to you?'
'Do I have a choice?'
'Oh, yes. Between sooner or later,' said Wield.
'Go ahead,' said Turnbull tossing his car keys onto the floor in front of Novello. 'Do what you bloody well like. You always did.'
He spoke with a good deal of bitterness, but it was diluted by something else, thought Novello as she picked up the keys. Something which had been there almost from the start. Something very like… relief?
But relief at what? That finally his crimes were catching up with him? Or perhaps simply relief that something he'd feared was actually under way?
She went out to the car.
Wield walked round the room whistling, not very tunefully 'A Wandering Minstrel I.' Music for him began with Gilbert and ended with Sullivan.
'Nice room, Mr. Turnbull,' he said when he completed the circuit and rejoined the other in front of the fireplace.
'Like I say, I've been lucky. And people have been good to me. Tommy Tiplake. And all the folk round here. They'll speak for me, Mr. Wield.'
It was almost an appeal, and Wield was almost affected.
'Nice to have friends,' he said. 'Grand old fireplace, that.'
'Yes.'
'Bit big for here, mebbe. And it looks, don't know how, familiar.'
'Grand memory you've got there,' complimented Turnbull. 'It came out of the Holly Bush in Dendale. The snug bar, remember? Don't worry. It was paid for. Tommy and the other demolition men did a deal with the Water Board for any bits and pieces they fancied. It'll be in their records.'
'I'm sure it will,' said Wield. 'Better for something like that to find a good home than end up in pieces at the bottom of the mere, eh?'
There was a moment of shared nostalgia for a past through which progress had plowed its six-lane highway.
Then from the doorway, Novello said, 'Sarge.'
He went out. She showed him a pair of evidence bags. In one was a child's pink-and-white sneaker. In the other a blue silk ribbon tied in a bow.
'The ribbon was down the backseat,' she said. 'The sneaker was buried beneath a whole pile of stuff in the trunk.'
Wield stood in silent thought. Novello guessed what the thought was. Confront Turnbull with their discovery now or wait till they'd tried to get an identification from the Dacres?
