'Fuck that,' she said aloud. Opened the book again. Looked again. Went to the foot of the stairs and called, 'Sir? You still awake?'
There was a pause, then Pascoe's voice said, 'What?'
She went up the stairs, previous doubts forgotten, and stood at the open bedroom door. Pascoe was sitting at a dressing table onto whose surface he had spilled what looked like the contents of a jewel box. He glanced up at her and said again irritably, 'What?'
'Have you got a magnifying glass?' she asked.
She half expected some sarcasm about Sherlock Holmes, but all he said impatiently was 'Bureau. Left-hand drawer,' and resumed his sorting out of the shining baubles.
She went downstairs, found the bureau, found the glass, and returned to the book.
'Bingo,' she said.
'Still here? Good.' Pascoe was in the hallway.
'Sir, take a look-'
'Yes, yes, tell me all about it in the car. I need a lift back to town.'
'But I thought-Mrs. Pascoe said-'
'Just take me back.'
'Yes, sir. To the hospital, sir?'
'No,' he said. 'You can take me to the offices of Mid-Yorkshire Water PLC.'
The police doctor's preliminary on-site report was brief.
The child's skull was fractured, which was probably the cause of death. She was fully clothed and there was no immediate sign of sexual interference.
'Anything more, you'll need to wait till they've had her on the slab,' he concluded.
Dalziel recognized this brutal brevity as a familiar way of dealing with a child's death. No way of keeping it out of those areas of sensibility which surface in the dark hours of the night, but here and now there was no time for mournful meditation.
'Right. Let's get her down there,' he said.
Once the body had been removed from the rocky chamber, it became clear that this must have been the 'secret place' Lorraine's friends had talked about. A candle, some comics, a tin containing biscuits and bearing the inscription Emerjensy ratoins, a rubber bone pocked with Tig's teeth marks, these told the tale. There was some evidence that she must have contrived her own screen door of grass and brushwood, but the bung of rock and earth which Wield had removed had almost certainly been put there by the killer.
'Then he dragged the sheep's body up from the ghyll bottom,' said Wield. 'That was enough to confuse the dogs and the thermal imaging cameras alike. Tig knew where to come, but. He weren't following a scent. He just knew.'
The dog had had to be removed from the chamber by a dog handler wearing protective gauntlets, but once out and in Wield's care, he had allowed himself to be put on his lead and tied up without protest. He stood up when the corpse was removed and watched the body box being carried down the fellside to the nearest spot the vehicle could reach. Then he subsided as if knowing that this part of his life was over.
'We'll need formal identification,' said Dalziel.
Meaning, the Dacres had to be told. Whatever small ember of hope they still kept glowing in their hearts had to be put out beyond all doubt.
'I'll sort that,' said Wield.
They both knew it was Dalziel's responsibility. But something in the way he spoke had been the nearest to a plea for help the Fat Man was ever likely to utter.
'My job,' he said, reluctant to confirm weakness.
'Your job's catching the bastard responsible,' said Wield. 'You can tell 'em when you've done that.'
He didn't wait for an answer but untied Tig and set off down the path with the little dog at his heels. He glanced back once before he turned out of sight and saw Dalziel still standing there, watching him go. One huge hand rose slowly to shoulder height in a gesture which might have passed for benediction but which Wield knew was the only thank-you he was likely to get.
Back at his bike, he found the dog reluctant to get into the carrying basket, but when Wield straddled the saddle and patted the gas tank before him, Tig leapt up as if he'd been using this form of travel since birth.
He didn't hurry. What was to hurry for? He tried to blank out all thought and just let himself relax into the rush of cooling air on his face, the feel of the land's twists and contours rippling up his thighs. Down to Ligg Common, the ground leveling off. Past the mobile police van, DI Burroughs standing there, waiting for him to stop and fill her in. He went past her without a glance.
And finally he drew to a halt in front of No. 7, Liggside.
Even before he could switch the engine off, Tig had jumped from his perch and rushed in through the open doorway, barking.
Oh, shit! thought Wield. Shit shit shit!
He hurried after the animal, but it was already too late. Tony and Elsie Dacre were on their feet, staring toward the doorway, their eyes bright with desperate hope in reaction to Tig's noisy arrival, which must so often have presaged Lorraine's return home.
'I'm sorry,' said Wield helplessly. 'I'm sorry.'
He was apologizing for letting the dog run in, but his words did the harder task too. The woman cried, 'Oh, no. Oh, no!' And collapsed weeping into her husband's arms.
'Where…? How…?' choked the man.
'Up the valley, along the beck where it runs through that deep gill,' said Wield. 'Tig found her.'
'What happened? were she…'
'Can't say how for certain till they get the chance to… But the doctor says she was fully clothed. No signs of interference.'
All this was more than he ought to be saying before the postmortem, but he couldn't sit and see this pain without doing the little in his power to ease it.
'We'll need to ask someone to do an identification,' he went on.
Elsie's head snapped up. Hope was a black beetle. Stamp on it hard as you liked, it still scuttled on.
'It's not sure, then?' she pleaded.
'Yes, it's sure,' he said gently. 'The clothes she was wearing. And we had the photo. I'm so sorry. Look, I'll come back later, talk about arrangements. You'll need some time…'
He turned and left, feeling shame at his sense of relief to get out of that room where something had finally died.
A woman was coming through the front door. It was Polly Coe, Elsie Dacre's mother.
She said, 'I saw you go in. Has summat happened?'
Wield nodded.
'We found her.'
'Oh, Christ.'
She pushed past him into the living room. Wield went outside. The sunlight had never seemed so cruel. He felt many eyes upon him. Ignoring them all, he mounted his bike. Tony Dacre came out of the house with Tig in his arms.
'Can you take him with you?' he said. 'It's going to be too much having him around. Every time he barks, it'll be like… any road, he seems to have taken a fancy to you… I don't mean have owt done to him, you understand- just see he's taken care of while… look, were you telling truth back there? He'd not done anything to her?'
'As far as they could tell without a full examination,' said Wield.
'Well, that's something,' said Tony Dacre. Then he looked up at the rich blue sky and shook his head wonderingly.
'Nowt so funny as folk, eh? Here's me just heard my daughter's dead and I'm trying to feel comforted she weren't raped. For God's sake, what kind of creatures are we, Sergeant? What's the use of us, any of us?'
'I don't know,' said Wield. 'I just don't know.'
He set the dog before him and rode away thinking, Oh you bastard, you bastard, whoever you are, it's all of us you kill because you kill our faith in each other, in ourselves. We don't just recoil in horror from what you do, we
