were the same killer, why should he have bothered to learn new tricks?
At the press conference summoned in late afternoon in a classroom at St. Michael's school, the ladies and gents of the press were another kettle of fish. The locals, knowing that keeping on the right side of Dalziel was good survival technique, were relatively kind, but the national pack had no such inhibitions. After they'd worried the police incompetence hare to death, they turned their attention to their second perceived prey, the Dendale connection. This was a two-pronged onslaught, with the sensationalist tabloids eager to tell their readers this was the same killer come back to start again (which meant that police incompetence fifteen years ago was now coming back to haunt them), while the rest were pursuing the line that the two cases were probably not connected but Dalziel was letting his obsession with Dendale contaminate the contemporary investigation.
The Fat Man bit back the word bollocks! and said, 'Nay, we've got an open mind to all possibilities, and we hope you gents will keep an open mind too'… and I'll be happy to help open it with a hatchet, his thoughts ran on.
A smarmily sarky sod from one of the heavyweight Sundays said, 'I presume it's in pursuance of this open- minded approach that you still have a diving team searching the Dendale Reservoir?'
Shit! thought Dalziel. So much had happened today that he'd forgotten to call the mermaids off!
'In view of the discovery of the lass's body,' he said portentously, 'we are of course now re-searching the whole area for traces of the assailant.'
'Think he got away by swimming, do you?' called someone to laughter.
'Water's a good place for getting rid of things,' said Dalziel stonily.
'Like a murder weapon, you mean?' said the sarky sod. 'Which, I understand, is likely to have been a rock? You mean, you've got a team of divers searching the bed of a reservoir in a Yorkshire dale for a rock? Tell me, Superintendent, have they managed to find one yet?'
More amusement. This was getting out of hand.
He waited for silence, then said, 'I see the serious questions are over, so I'll get back to work now. I know I don't need to remind you folk that there's people suffering out there, and there's people frightened, and the last thing they need is for what's gone off to be sensationalized or trivialized.'
He let his gaze run slowly over the assembled faces, as if committing each one to memory, then spoke again.
'Up here we judge folk not only by the way they keep the law but by the way they treat each other. And we don't take kindly to intrusion or harassment. So think on.'
He rose, ignoring the attempts to continue the questioning, and walked out.
'You were good,' said Wield.
'I were crap,' said Dalziel indifferently. 'Wieldy, get on the line to them mermaids and tell them to start toweling off.'
The sergeant went away. He was back in a couple of minutes, looking-so far as it was possible to tell from that fractured and foreate face -unhappy.
'All sorted?' said Dalziel.
'Not really,' said Wield. 'When I got through they were just on the point of contacting us. Sir, they've found some bones.'
'What? You mean, human?'
'Aye. Human.'
'Champion,' said Dalziel looking out of the window at the infinite blue of the sky. 'Like my old dad used to say, it never bloody rains but it pours!'
12
At five o'clock, Geordie Turnbull was on the move.
Novello had been driven by a call of nature to leave the car in search of seclusion. This enforced exploration had led her to a small copse in a field almost opposite the compound where, relief achieved, she discovered that with the aid of her glasses, she was able to get a view clear through the length of the bungalow's living room, from open front window to open French door.
She could see Turnbull's head and shoulders as he slouched in an armchair, occasionally taking a sip from a glass. Then he straightened up, reached out, and picked up the telephone.
He didn't dial, so it had to be an incoming call. It didn't last long. He replaced the receiver, drained his glass, and stood up.
Then he moved out of sight. Novello didn't hang about but headed back to her car fast.
Her instinct proved right. A minute later, Turnbull came out of the bungalow carrying a bag. He got into the Volvo station wagon and drove out through the compound gate, turning eastward. It was a fairly empty B road and Novello hung well back. But six or seven miles beyond Bixford, the B road joined the busy dual parkway to the coast and she had to accelerate to keep him within sight.
A few miles farther on he signaled to turn off into a service area. She thought it must be fuel he was after, but he turned into the parking lot, got out, still carrying the bag, and headed for the cafeteria.
Novello followed. She hung back till several more people joined the queue behind him, then took her place. He bought a pot of tea and carried it to a table by the window overlooking the road. She noticed he took the seat which gave him a view of the entrance door.
She got a coffee and found a seat a few tables behind him. Someone had left a newspaper. She picked it up and held it so that, if he should happen to glance round, half her face would be covered. If his roving eye was keen enough to identify her from the top half alone, tough.
He was waiting for someone, there was no doubt about that. He poured his tea and raised the cup to his lips with his left hand, his right never letting go of the handle of the bag on the chair next to his, and his head angled toward the doorway.
This went on for twenty minutes. People came and ate and left. A clearer-up tried to remove Novello's empty cup, but she hung on to it. She had turned the pages of her paper several times without reading a word or even identifying which title she was holding. He likewise had squeezed the last drops out of his teapot. More time passed. Whatever reason he had for being here, he was determined his journey should not have been in vain.
Then finally he froze. Not that he'd been moving much before, but now he went so still, he made the furniture look active.
Novello looked toward the entrance door.
She knew him at once from Wield's doctored photograph.
Benny Lightfoot had just come into the cafeteria.
Andy Dalziel was standing at the edge of Dender Mere, close by the pile of stones which marked the site of Heck Farm. On the sun-baked mud at his feet lay a small selection of bones. He stirred them with his toe.
'Radius, ulna, and we think these could be carpal bones, but being small, they've been a bit more mucked about,' said the chief mermaid, whose everyday name was Sergeant Tom Perriman.
'Age? Sex? How long they've been there?' prompted Dalziel greedily.
Perriman shrugged his broad rubberized shoulders.
'We just pulled 'em out,' he said. 'Adult I'd say, or adolescent at least.'
'And the rest?'
'Still looking,' said Perriman. 'Funny, really. Not much in the way of current here. You'd expect them to stay pretty much together even after a fairly long time. Pure chance I found them. We weren't really interested in searching near the side where it's so shallow-'
'Where exactly?' demanded Dalziel.
'Just here,' said Perriman, disgruntled at having his narrative flow interrupted.
He indicated a spot on the watery side of the exposed pile of rubble and went on. 'I was just coming out, stood up to walk the last couple of yards, and felt something under my foot. Of course it would have been a lot deeper here before the drought. But where's the rest, that's my question.'
'Perhaps there is no more,' suggested Wield.
