Sturgeon's forty thousand sunk without a trace – all these things somehow linked as well. One good break could settle the lot. Perhaps he was on his way to it now. He began to whistle a selection from Oklahoma! bursting into off-key song when he reached 'Oh what a beautiful morning!'
'I realize, Mr Backhouse, that it might not be desirable for you to give us a detailed account of your investigations into these tragic and terrible deaths, but insofar as anything you have discovered might relate directly to this present court's business, we would be grateful to hear of it.'
French's tone was reasonable, deferential almost, but the gaze he fixed on Backhouse over his reading spectacles had something of defiance in it.
Pascoe looked round the crowded schoolroom. The desks had all been stacked outside in the corridor, but it still bore the unmistakable signs of its normal, more innocent function. Children's paintings adorned the walls and a chart immediately behind Backhouse demonstrated that Celia was the tallest in the class, taller even than James and Antony. Poor Celia. He hoped that time would redress the balance for her.
Backhouse was explaining with his usual combination of efficiency and courtesy that he was not yet able to contribute very much officially to the proceedings.
Ellie nudged Pascoe.
'Where's Pelman?' she whispered.
He glanced round the room again. The Culpeppers were there; the Dixons, Bells, Hardistys; the sisters Langdale from the post office; Jim Piss Palfrey; Anton Davenant making notes, but no Pelman.
'He'll have work to do, I suppose. Why?'
'Nothing. Something I remembered. Hang on.'
French had finally succeeded in what had clearly been his aim, to have the note found in the abandoned car introduced into the evidence.
'It has been established that this note is written in the hand of Colin Hopkins, husband of the deceased woman?'
'Yes,' said Backhouse.
'And that his fingerprints are on it?'
'Yes.'
'Thank you. It is not generally the practice of this court to have notes written in such circumstances read aloud, but in this case I think it may be in the public interest to depart from practice. Such a crime as this arouses feelings of horror and revulsion in everyone, but among those who live in proximity to the scene of the crime, it must also arouse trepidation and fear of repetition. It is the task of this court to allay such fears where possible.'
French coughed twice and began to read from the paper before him. Pascoe shut down his hearing and turned his thoughts elsewhere, but phrases kept on coming through… here for ever, ever must I stay
… a naked lover, bound and bleeding… all is calm in this eternal sleep…
'Pope,' whispered Ellie.
'What?'
'Pope. The poet. He's quoting Pope.'
She was holding his hand tightly, and he felt she was trying to keep the words intoned by French in a dry, unemotive, literary context, far removed from the rain-lashed car bumping and skidding its way towards the stinking quarry pool.
'Oh, Peter,' she said. 'It's Eloisa to Abelard!'
She stood up and left. There was no outburst of tears, nothing dramatic at all. It was as if she had remembered an appointment elsewhere.
With an apologetic glance at French, Pascoe followed. He caught up with her in the playground.
'Don't you see,' she said. 'That poem would come to mind because of us. In some way he must have thought about us at the end.'
She clung to him, sobbing now. Pascoe held her close but could not enter into her mood of emotional abandonment.
'You mean, because we were coming for the week-end and one of his little jokes was to compare us with two medieval lovers, an eighteenth-century poem on the subject would come to mind after he'd murdered his wife, two close friends, and decided to commit suicide?'
'For God's sake, Peter, do you have to be so precise and analytical about everything,' she cried, pushing him away. But the tears had stopped.
'This poem, it's years since I looked at Pope, what form does it take?'
'Well, it's supposed to be a letter from the girl Eloisa after they've been separated. Peter Abelard was castrated, you knew that? She's in a nunnery or some such place, but the fire's still there. It's a very passionate poem.'
'A strange choice. Look, love, I want to pushoff for a while and work something out. Do you mind?'
One of Ellie's many virtues was that she knew when not to object.
'All right. I'm all right, I'll go back in now.'
'Fine. One thing. What are you going to say about Pelman?'
'Well, it's not about him really, not directly anyway. It's just that I remember something more about that holiday in Eskdale. That awful farmer who kept hanging round, the one who rented us the place? Well, he lived by himself and the locals in the pub said that his wife had run off with one of his farmhands a few years earlier. No one ever saw them again.'
Pascoe grasped the railings of the playground with both hands and stared unseeingly at the sunlit field on to which the school buildings backed.
'You're right,' he said. 'I remember. And didn't Colin, and Tim, I think, haunt him one night when they were a bit stoned? They dressed up in sheets and ran down the fellside behind his farmhouse as he was driving home.'
'That was it,' said Ellie, smiling widely. 'I remember.'
For a moment they were all alive again.
'I'll go now,' said Pascoe gently. 'See you later.'
'All right.'
She watched him stride athletically across the yard and through the gate. Something made her call after him, 'Take care!' but she didn't think he heard. Incongruously she now remembered what she should have told him about the Jockey. But it would keep. This morning had to be got through first.
'I don't know much about antiques,' said Dalziel, 'but I know what I like.'
'Really?' said Jonathan Etherege, a smile spreading over his round pleasant face. 'I can only hope you have an expensive lack of taste. Would you like to browse?'
'Aye,' said Dalziel, enjoying his fat philistine role. Role? he thought. I am a fat philistine!
But the thought merely added to his enjoyment.
'Been in the business long, Mr Etherege?' he asked, as he strolled around the antiques section of the shop checking the articles he saw against a mental list of stolen property. It was a matter of routine rather than hope.
'Long enough,' said Etherege. 'I started in the scrap business and worked my way down.'
'You're very frank,' said Dalziel. 'Why do you say down?’
'Half a joke.'
'And the other half?'
'Well, if I'm selling you a couple of hundred-weight of lead-piping, you know the going price and either want it or don't. With this stuff everyone thinks in terms of value. It's not just a matter of so much a hundredweight.'
'I still don't follow why you said down,' grunted
Dalziel, trying unsuccessfully to open the top drawer of a handsome Victorian desk. Etherege leaned over, pulled, and the drawer slid effortlessly open.
‘Price is always above value, sir,' he said. 'So it must be down.'
'Too bloody clever for me,' said Dalziel. 'Still you sound like an honestly dishonest man. You like brass, eh?'
'I've been without it,' said Etherege. 'I won't be again if I can help it.'
