'Up to you,' he said. 'Driving into Danby on Sunday morning you'd have to pass under the old railway bridge. There was a big sign sprayed on it. It said BENNY'S BACK! You must have noticed it. But you didn't mention it to me.'
He'd placed himself so that all three were in his sight line, and he saw the woman's intense gaze move from his face to her father's as though curious as to the answer to this question. Well, why not? It was a question to be curious about.
Wulfstan said, 'I did not mention it because it did not seem relevant, and in any case, I did not doubt that you yourself would already have seen it, or had it pointed out to you.'
Reasonable explanation? Or rather explanations, there being two of them. In Dalziel's math, this meant reasonableness divided rather than multiplied by a factor of two.
He said, 'Not relevant? After what happened back in Dendale? I'd have thought you'd have felt it relevant, if anyone did.'
'And the shock of seeing that name would have brought everything flooding back?' Wulfstan smiled wearily. 'First of all, Mr. Dalziel, it has never been away. Not a day passes without me thinking of Mary. That was how I was able to return to Yorkshire, because I realized that distance made no difference.'
Dalziel clocked Elizabeth again to see if there was any reaction to this unambiguous statement of the order of things, the dead natural daughter still ranking ahead of the live adopted one. There wasn't.
'As for Lightfoot's name,' the man went on, 'there was a time when it caused a reaction. But that was several years ago when I first returned here to Danby. He has entered the local folklore. The children have a skipping rhyme that uses his name, and when they play hide-and-seek, the seeker is called Benny. The men in the pubs describing the speed of some football player will say, 'He can move like Benny Lightfoot.' Most of them have no idea who they're referring to, of course. With my work site here, I had to get used to the name. And I did.'
Dalziel nodded sympathetically.
'Aye, grin and bear it, that's the Yorkshire way,' he said.
That got a flicker of amusement from the woman.
Wulfstan said, 'Now, if that's all… I'm expecting the fire inspector any minute now-'
'Sorry, I know you're busy, yes that's it… except…'
Dalziel bowled a good except. He gave it plenty of air so the batsman had lots of time to worry whether it was his googly or not.
'… except, you've been set up here in Danby for several years now, right? But witness who saw your car parked up the Corpse Road says she's only started noticing it there in the last couple of weeks, and she's been walking her dog up there every morning, come rain or shine, for years.'
Wulfstan looked at him broodingly for a long moment. He looked like… something, Dalziel couldn't remember what. Then he gave an exasperated smile and said, 'If your question is, why now? the answer is so obvious, I would have thought even a man in your line of work might have got within hailing distance of it unaided. Morbid curiosity, Superintendent. This heat wave has gone on so long that what remains of Dendale village has begun to reemerge. I climb up the Neb to watch its progress. And sometimes as I walk up the Corpse Road, I fantasize that when I reach the Neb, I'll see everything as it was, I mean everything as it was. There. Now you see the depths of absurdity to which the rational mind can descend.'
'Oh, I've seen minds that have gone a sight deeper than that,' said Dalziel. 'Thanks for being so frank. And I'm sorry to have troubled you.'
'No trouble. And perfect timing. There, I believe, is the fire inspector. Excuse me.'
He headed toward a man who'd just stepped through the door and was looking around with that skeptical have-we-got-trouble-here? expression which is the first thing safety inspectors learn at college.
'How about us, Superintendent? You got any excepts for us?'
Elizabeth Wulfstan's accent still bothered him, even though he'd absolved her of taking the piss.
He said, 'None I can think of, miss. Except, them Kraut songs about dead kids-you still planning to sing them tomorrow?'
'I am. After a complimentary ticket, are you? Well, we might manage one, but I reckon someone as glorrfat as you 'ud need two, and I don't know if we can spare that many.'
This was piss taking in any language.
He said, 'Just thought you might have changed your mind, all things considered.'
The Turnip gave him a nod of approval, but the woman just shrugged indifferently.
She said, 'Kids die, all the time. Show me somewhere I could sing them that no kids have died.'
'We're not talking general, we're talking specific here,' he said.
'I thought the Liggside lass were only missing,' she said. 'Like the others. They're only missing, right? You never found any bodies, did you?'
She spoke mildly, as if they were discussing some minor point of etiquette.
Dalziel said, 'Fifteen years is a long time missing. I don't think anyone…'
He paused. He'd been going to say he didn't think anyone was expecting them to come walking back through the door, but his encounter with Joe Telford popped up in his mind. And what did he really know about what Wulfstan and his wife were thinking? Or the Hardcastles? From what Clark had told him, it sounded like all that family had gone doolally to some degree or another.
Perhaps he was the only man in Mid-Yorkshire who was certain beyond doubt all the children were dead… No, not the only one… there was another…
He said, 'Any road, it's none of my business. You can sing what you like, luv, long as it doesn't offend public decency.'
'Thank you,' she said seriously. 'But I'll not be singing at all if this place doesn't suit. You done yet, Inger?'
Inger Sandel hadn't once glanced Dalziel's way during the whole of his conversation with the Wulfstans, concentrating on what sounded to his untutored ear like an unnecessary fine-tuning of the piano. But he had the feeling that she hadn't missed a thing. Now she sat back and started to play a scale, tentative at first, then expanding till she was sweeping up and down the whole length of the keyboard. The notes filled the chapel. Finally she stopped and listened to their dying echoes with the same rapt attention as she'd paid to the originals. Then she turned to the other woman and gave a barely perceptible nod.
'Let's give it a bash, then,' said Elizabeth Wulfstan.
Dalziel moved toward the door, Arne Krog fell into step beside him.
'I think you are right, Mr. Dalziel,' he said. 'Elizabeth should not sing the Kindertotenlieder. For the sake of this place. And for her own sake.'
'Her own sake?'
Krog shrugged.
'Elizabeth is strong, like a steel door. You cannot see what is behind it. But as you know, the way the child is shaped forms the adult. Perhaps that's where we should look.'
Before Dalziel could reply, Inger Sandel started playing the piano, an abrupt, rapid, disturbing torrent of notes before the singer came in, with words to match.
'In such foul weather, in such a gale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale! They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here.'
She spat out the words with such power, they turned the Beulah Chapel into a self-contained storm in the midst of the bright, sunny day outside. As she sang, her eyes were once more fixed on Wulfstan, who at first tried to keep his conversation with the fire inspector going but soon turned his head to watch the singer.
'In such foul weather, in sleet and hail, I'd never have let them play out in the dale. I was feart they'd take badly. Now such fears I'd suffer gladly.'
She stopped abruptly and the pianist stopped too.
'Bit echoey,' said Elizabeth. 'But that'll likely improve once the place is filled with spectators. Arne, you know everything, what do you reckon?'
Her voice was not loud, but its projection was imperative. Practicing to be a prima donna, or does she just not like the idea of me and the Turnip having a cosy chat? wondered Dalziel.
He looked at Krog and waited for his response. A look of irritation passed across the man's face, then he smiled apologetically and said, 'Excuse me. We will talk again, perhaps.'
