the concert.'
'Oh, yes?' He picked up the Kindertotenlieder disc. 'Interesting design. The bars of music are Mahler, I presume?'
'Yes. But not from the lieder. The second symphony, I think.' She paused as if waiting for a response, then went on. 'You would like to buy one?'
'No, thanks,' he said, putting it down hastily. 'My wife's got one already. Mrs. Wulfstan's in, you say?'
'Yes, she is,' she said, smiling as if at some private joke. 'Goodbye, Mr. Pascoe. Nice to have met you.'
She stepped outside and began pulling the door to behind her.
'Hold on,' he said anxiously. 'Mrs. Wulfstan…'
'It's all right,' she reassured him. 'I must go out for a little while. Just shout.'
He'd have preferred that she did the shouting. As he'd once explained to Ellie, being a cop isn't a cure for shyness, it just makes it rather inconvenient on occasion, as when for example you found yourself in a strange house without any visible authority.
He first coughed, then called, 'Hello,' in the small voice, at once summons and apology, he used for waiters.
He strained his ears for a response. There was none, but he thought he detected a distant murmur of voices.
Dalziel would either have bellowed, 'SHOP!' or taken the chance to poke around.
He opened his mouth to shout, then decided that on the whole for a man of his temperament, being caught poking around was the lesser of two embarrassments.
He pushed open the nearest door with an apologetic smile ready on his lips.
It opened onto what looked like a gent's study of the old school. He ran his eyes over the glazed bookcases, the mahogany desk, the oak wainscoting, and thought of the converted bedroom which he used as a home office. Perhaps he should start taking bribes?
The room was empty and even his decision to follow one of the Fat Man's paths didn't mean he could go as far as poking through the desk drawers.
He went back into the hall and tried the door opposite. This led into a small sitting room, also empty, which had another door leading into a nicely sized dining room, very Adam, with an oval table so highly polished, it must have been a card-sharper's delight.
In the wall opposite the door he'd come in by was a serving hatch, partially open. The voices he'd heard before were now quite distinct, and he went forward and peered through the hatch without opening it further.
He found he was looking into a kitchen, but the talkers weren't in there. The back door was wide open onto a patio with one of those lovely long luscious 'bell' gardens beyond, and he felt the stab of covetousness once more. He could see two people out there. One, a woman, visible in half profile, was seated into a low-back wicker chair. The other, a man, was leaning over her from behind with his hands inside her blouse, gently massaging her breasts.
The man (again identified from the Post) was Arne Krog. The woman he assumed to be Chloe Wulfstan, a deduction quickly confirmed.
Krog was saying, 'Enough is enough. Someday you will have to leave him. If not now, when?'
The woman replied agitatedly, 'Why will I have to leave? All right, yes, you're probably right. But it's an option. Like suicide. Knowing you can, knowing one day you probably will, is a great prop to endurance.'
'You mean, knowing one day you'll leave gives you strength to stay? Come on, Chloe! That's just a clever way of using words to avoid making decisions.'
She gripped both his wrists and forced his hands up out of her blouse.
'Don't talk to me about avoiding decisions, Arne. Where's the decision you're making in all this? Are you saying if I left Walter today, you'd fling me over your saddle, gallop me away into the sunset, and make sure I lived happily ever after?'
Arne Krog fingered his fringe of silky beard sensuously. Likes to have his hands on something soft, thought Pascoe.
'Yes, I suppose that's more or less what I'm saying,' he said.
'More? Or less?'
'Well, less the saddle,' he said, smiling. 'And I'm not sure if anyone should promise ever after. But as far as is humanly possible, that's what I'd do.'
He spoke the last sentence with a simple sincerity that Pascoe found quite moving.
Chloe stood up and regarded him fondly, but with the kind of fondness one feels for a lovable but untrainable dog.
'So you love me, Arne. Enough to want to spend the rest of your life with me. My very perfect, gentle, and chaste knight. You would be chaste, wouldn't you, Arne? I mean, when we're not together, you don't go putting it around your little groupies on the concert circuit, or in the opera chorus, do you?'
Krog's fingers stopped moving in his beard.
'Let me guess,' he said softly. 'The lovely Elizabeth, the Yorkshire nightingale, has been singing?'
'I talk to my daughter, yes.'
'Your daughter.' Krog smiled. 'I remember your daughter, Chloe. And not all the wigs and cosmetics and diets in the world can turn Betsy Allgood into your daughter. If that is what she is trying to be, of course.'
'Why do you hate her so much, Arne? Is it because she's going to have the kind of career you always dreamt of? A huge fish in the big ponds, not just a smallish one in the puddles?'
'That shows how close we really are, Chloe. I cannot hide my disappointments from you.'
The woman smiled sadly.
'Arne, you don't hide them from anybody. No one can be so laid back unless he's seething inside. Perhaps you should have let some of the anger show in your singing.'
'Ah, a music critic as well as a psychologist. Perhaps you are right. Just because I appear calm doesn't mean I'm not angry. By the same token, just because I screw around doesn't mean I don't love you. Always follow your logic through, my dear. And just because I'm not flying into a despairing rage doesn't mean I'm giving up on you. If you won't leave, I'll wait until you are left, as you will be, believe me. Everyone will go, Elizabeth to her career, Walter to… God knows what. And one day you'll look around, and there'll be nobody left but good old laid-back Arne. Better to run now, I say. You notice pain far less if you're running than if you're standing still.'
It was, Pascoe decided, time to make his move before Inger Sandel returned and wondered why he'd been in the house all this time without making contact with Chloe.
He went back into the hallway, walked toward the kitchen door, pushed it open, and shouted with Dalzielesque force, 'Shop!'
Then he went into the kitchen, put on his apologetic smile as he saw their surprised faces turned toward him, and advanced onto the patio, flourishing his warrant card and saying, 'Hello, sorry to intrude, but Miss Sandel let me in. Chief Inspector Pascoe. Mrs. Wulfstan, I wonder if I might have a word.'
Krog was looking at him frowningly. Pascoe thought, This clever sod is thinking it's at least five minutes since the woman left, so what the hell have I been doing in the meantime?
He said, 'It's Mr. Krog, isn't it? The singer? My wife's a great fan.'
He recalled hearing a writer say during a radio interview that when men told him their wives loved his books, he ran his eyes up and down the speaker and replied, 'Well, no one can be indiscriminating all of the time.'
All Krog said was 'How nice. Excuse me.' And left.
Chloe Wulfstan said, 'Please sit down, Mr. Pascoe. I'm afraid I don't have too much time.'
'Yes. Of course. The concert. Your husband's gone already? Actually it was really him I wanted to see, so I don't need to delay you any longer.'
Once more his mind supplied the smart reply. 'I don't see why you needed to delay me at all.' And once again the opportunity was missed.
'You're sure it's nothing I can help you with?' she said. 'Has it anything to do with that poor child out at Danby? I heard on the news they'd found her body.'
'Yes, it's terrible, isn't it?' said Pascoe. 'I can guess how painful it must be for you, Mrs. Wulfstan-'
'Oh, you can guess, can you?' interrupted the woman contemptuously.
He thought of the past few days and said quietly, 'Yes, I think I can. I'm sorry. I'll go now and let you get
