Hardly! That was much more Andy Dalziel. Then Dido? Come on! See her chucking herself on a pyre 'cos she'd been jilted. Helen? Ellie looked at herself in the mirror. Not today. So who?
'Me, myself,' she mouthed in the mirror. 'God help me.'
As she returned to the ward, a nurse came toward her, saying, 'Mrs. Pascoe, we've got someone on the phone for your husband. She says she's a colleague and it's important.'
'She does, does she?' said Ellie. 'I'll be the judge of that.'
She went to the phone and picked it up.
'Hello,' she said.
There was silence, then a woman's voice said, 'I was trying to get hold of DCI Pascoe…'
'This is Mrs. Pascoe.'
'DC Novello, Shirley Novello. Hi. Mrs. Pascoe, I was so sorry to hear… how is she, the little girl?'
'Hanging on,' said Ellie not about to share her hope of hope with a woman she'd only met once briefly. 'So tell me, DC Novello, what's so important?'
Another silence, then, 'I just wanted a quick word… look, I'm sorry, this is a terrible time, I know. It's just that there's this line of inquiry he started really, and it would be useful, the way he looks at things… I'm sorry… it's really insensitive, especially
… it really doesn't matter, Mrs. Pascoe. I do hope your little girl gets better soon.'
She meant, especially because it's about the child who'd gone missing from Danby, thought Ellie. This was the woman who'd rung yesterday. Peter had mentioned her, provoking an outburst of indignation at such crassness. What had Peter replied? She lit a candle for Rosie.
Ellie had no time for religion, but no harm in hedging your bets with a bit of good old-fashioned magic.
'That candle still burning?' she said.
'Sorry?'
'Never mind. What precisely do you want, Miss Novello? No way you get to tell Peter without telling me first.'
Five minutes later she reentered the ward.
Pascoe looked up and said, 'Still nice and peaceful. Hey, you going somewhere?'
Ellie had brushed her hair and used her minimalist makeup to maximum effect.
'No. You are. I want you to go home, have a bath, get a couple of hours' sleep in a real bed. No, don't argue. Come here.'
She led him to the window and swung the panel so that it acted as a mirror.
'See that antique wreck standing next to that gorgeous woman? That's you. If Rosie opens her eyes and sees you first, she'll think she's done a Rip van Winkle and slept for fifty years. So go home. Sleep with your mobile under your pillow. Slightest change and I'll ring till you waken, I promise.'
'Ellie, no-'
'Yes. And now. I've fixed a lift for you, that nice young girl from your office called, Shirley Novello is it? She said she'd be delighted to run you home. She's down in the parking lot waiting.'
'Shirley? Again? Jesus…'
'She's in touch with him, too, I gather. Listen, she wants help and she must think you're the only one if she's willing to come after you here. Perhaps she's delusional, but I think in this case, if you can help, you ought to.'
He shook his head, not in denial but in wonderment.
'You are… ineffable,' he said.
'Oh, I don't know. I'm looking forward to being effed quite a lot when this is over,' she said lightly. 'Now go.'
'Only if you'll promise to do the same when I get back.'
'Drive around with a WOULDC? You must be joking. Yes, yes, I promise.'
They kissed. It was, she realized, the first intimate noncomforting contact they'd had since this began.
She watched him go, hoping her homeopathic theory would work, if that was the right way to describe putting him in the way of other parents' woe at the loss of a child. No, it wasn't the right way, she told herself, turning now to look down at Rosie. They weren't going to lose their child. There was a candle burning for her. And, like Dido after all, her mother would make a candle of herself if that's what it took.
'Hello, sir.'
'And hello to you, too, Shirley,' said Pascoe, getting into the car. 'Kind of you to drive me home. You've got between here and there to tell me what you want to tell me.'
Novello thought, If you want to know what a man will look like when he's old, put him by his child's sickbed for a couple of nights.
But she responded to his crisp speech, not his wrecked appearance, and ran off the resume she had prepared with a Wieldian conciseness and lucidity.
He offered no compliment. Indeed he seemed to offer little attention, apparently more interested in the crackling air traffic of her car radio, which she'd left switched on.
She reached down to turn it off but he grasped her hand and said, 'No, leave it.'
It was the first time they'd made physical contact, and in other circumstances with other officers she'd have suspected it was the preliminary to a pass and prepared for defensive action.
He held the hand for a second, then she had to change gear and he released it.
'So,' he said. 'Benny's been seen in Dendale and in the Central Library by a reliable witness. Agnes drew the money out of the bank. And Geordie Turnbull's been attacked.'
Novello, who'd included the latter piece of information only in the interests of comprehensiveness, said, 'Yes, but that'll probably be some local nutter, someone like this Jed Hardcastle perhaps-'
'Geordie Turnbull's been living in Bixford for years and making no secret about it, not unless you think having your name printed in big red letters over a fleet of bulldozers is being secretive. Why wait so long?'
'Because of the Dacre girl going missing,' said Novello, stating the obvious, and wondering whether this had been such a good idea. 'That started it all up again.'
To her surprise, he laughed. Or made a sound which had a familiar resemblance to laughter.
'Shirley, you should get it out of your mind that what happened to those families who lost their daughters is something that needs starting up again. It's a permanent condition, no matter how long they survive. Like losing an arm. You might learn to live without it, but you never learn to live as if you've still got it.'
He spoke with a vehemence she found disturbing and when he saw the effect he was having on her, he took a breath and made himself relax.
'Sorry,' he said. 'It's just that in a case like this you share in the woes of others only insofar as they relate to, or underline, your own. When I heard Rosie was ill, the fact that the Dacres' child was missing, probably abducted, possibly already murdered, may not have gone out of my mind altogether, but it certainly dropped right out of my consciousness. Understandable initial reaction, you think? Perhaps so. And the perspective will return. But never the same. I know now that if I was within an arm's length of fingering the collar of Benny or any other serial killer, and someone said, 'Rosie needs you,' I'd let him go.'
He realized that his laid-back confidentiality was troubling her as much as his previous vehemence. He recalled a long time ago in his early days with Dalziel, the Fat Man in his cups had come close to talking about his broken marriage, and he'd shied away from the confidence, unwilling to know what his superior might regret telling.
'In other words, I think we need to look beyond the Dendale families for Turnbull's attacker. And you say he didn't want to report it? That's interesting.'
'Yes, sir,' she said, aware that the distance between the hospital and Pascoe's house was growing shorter. 'But I'm not really concerned with that bit of the investigation anymore.'
But you've not forgotten it was you who got the lead in the first place, thought Pascoe, detecting resentment.
He said gently, 'I know that being mucked around can be a real pain sometimes. But you've got to keep the whole investigation in view. That's what the people you think are mucking you around are doing. Don't get mad, get promoted. Mr. Dalziel has thought from the start that Lorraine Dacre's disappearance was connected with Dendale fifteen years back. I didn't agree, but the more I see the way things are working out, the more I think he may be right. So, don't create connections, but don't overlook them either.'
