'No. This all local work?'
They had moved into the craft section.
'A lot of it. Fancy a basket for your wife? Or a horse brass?'
'For my wife? Not very complimentary,' said Dalziel. He could see no sign of anything like the pendant Ellie had described. He began to poke among the ornaments displayed on a large wooden tray.
'Very nice,' he said. 'But I'd like something for the neck. No, not a collar either. A whatsit.'
'A pendant?' suggested Etherege. 'We have a couple here. A simple rather plain design, if you like that sort of thing.'
'No. No,' said Dalziel. 'Something a bit more decorative than that.'
'I'm sorry. We did have some rather nice ones with local stones in a ceramic setting, but, alas, they've all gone now,' answered Etherege. 'Such a pity.'
He knows, thought Dalziel suddenly. The sod knows. He knows who I am and what I'm after. Shit! If he's that sharp, it's going to be difficult to touch him.
He looked at his watch. It might be worthwhile getting a search warrant and really turning this place over. But he doubted it.
Etherege was looking at his watch too.
'Will you excuse me a moment?' he said. 'Feel free to poke around as much as you like.'
Cheeky bastard, thought Dalziel, as he watched Etherege disappear into what looked like a small office behind the stamp display. He's probably gone off for his elevenses so I can convince myself there's nothing here.
The thought of his usual mid-morning coffee and two doughnuts set his stomach rumbling. He'd even been reasonably successful these past few days in cutting down on the drink, and the cumulative effect was not one he could foresee himself becoming resigned to.
He looked around the converted barn in frustrated distaste. His own tastes, so far as they could be called tastes, in living styles were what was generally known as old-fashioned. But that was because they had been formed by the material and moral aspirations of a working-class family in the 'twenties. This self-conscious pursuit of the aged was not something he understood. He liked the old oak table off which he ate his lonely breakfast (and precious little else since his wife had left him) because it was his and had been his parents'. Probably his grandparents' too; he had no idea how old it was. It didn't signify. But if he had to get another, it would be something new. This stuff was just secondhand. Evidence of your own family's use and misuse was one thing; other people's scars, scratches and grime was something quite different.
No, there was nothing for him here, either professionally or personally. He turned to go, then on impulse went through the stamp section and pushed open the office door. He intended only to leave Etherege with some kind of thinly veiled threat. Dalziel was a man who did not like to feel mocked.
The significance of what he saw when he opened the door took a moment to sink in. Etherege was sitting at a table with his jacket off and his left shirt-sleeve rolled up. In his right hand he held a hypodermic syringe. He looked up angrily at the intrusion.
'Please wait outside,' he said sharply. Dalziel didn't move. 'It's all right,' said Etherege, still sharp, but mocking now as well. 'I'm not having a fix. It's merely my insulin shot.'
'You're a diabetic,' said Dalziel, stepping into the room. 'Well, well, well.'
He smiled broadly. This was the morning of the lucky break, after all. He had had things the wrong way round. Etherege wasn't merely the greedy fence. This was where the action was worked out in detail. It made much more sense.
'Is it a crime?' asked Etherege. 'Better call a policeman.'
He really did think he was sitting pretty, thought Dalziel. He believes we can't touch him. Perhaps we can't, but we'll have a bloody good try.
He leaned over the antique-dealer and picked up the insulin pack which lay on the table.
'You know, Mr Etherege,' he said, 'you shouldn't go around peeing in other people's kettles.'
Etherege became absolutely still. It was almost possible to see his mind rushing to a realization of what Dalziel meant.
'The world is full of diabetics,' he said with an effort at coolness. Dalziel noted the effort, and looking grim, he placed his hand heavily on the man's left shoulder.
'Jonathan Etherege,' he intoned. 'I must ask you to accompany.. . Jesus!'
He leapt back, sending a chair, a card-index and an electric kettle crashing to the floor, and gazed at his wrist. Dangling grotesquely from it was the hypodermic which Etherege had thrust violently upwards. The sight made him nauseous and quite unfit to deal with the attack that followed. Etherege's knee caught him in the stomach and drove him back into the sharp edge of a filing cabinet. Memories of the potential – and realized – violence of the man they had so long been looking for mingled fragmentarily with black shapes of pain which were trying to join together and bring complete obscurity.
There were a few seconds' respite, enough for sight impressions to return, albeit blurred and wavy. Etherege, he realized, hadn't given up the good work by any means. He had merely been casting around for something to kill him with. The answer to his problem was a large pot dog. A King Charles spaniel. Staffordshire-ware. Seven pounds a pair. Dalziel's grandmother had had a couple till the young Andrew had taken the head off one with a cricket ball. His mind threw up the absurd thought that this might be its mate come to exact a terrible vengeance.
Later he said that he was given strength by the thought of the amusement it would give his enemies to hear he'd been done to death with a china dog. Now it was just the instinct for survival. He drove himself forward under the descending dog, wrapped his arms around the dealer and grappled him to the floor. For a moment he thought that his mere weight superiority was going to be enough to keep him there, but Etherege's outstretched hands came into contact with the electric kettle and he brought it crashing round into the side of Dalziel's head. Stunned, he could not prevent himself from being rolled over, but Etherege's first kick acted as a restorative and when the man drove his foot a second time towards Dalziel's ribcage, the fat man caught him by the ankle and pulled him off balance. He fell backwards through the open door into the shop.
They both rose at the same time and as they looked at each other they knew that their roles had reversed. Through Dalziel's being a tide of terrible anger was running fast and free, driving out the aches and pains. Casually he pulled out from his wrist the remains of the hypodermic and dropped them to the floor.
'Now, Mr bloody Etherege,' he said, and stepped forward.
Etherege turned and ran, but his over-filled shop hindered rapid movement. The ceramic display-case went crashing down as he blundered past. A grandfather clock by Barraclough fell into Dalziel's path and chimed its last as the fat man trod carelessly on the disembowelled works.
Etherege, realizing he could not make the door, took to the heights, bounding desperately across chairs and tables, cabinets and bureaux. The late Victorians took it well, but much damage was inflicted on earlier pieces, especially when Dalziel followed.
His simple unambiguous aim now was to hurt Etherege. He did not know where this incredibly violent desire stemmed from, nor did he care to investigate. It was as if the repressed violence of three decades in the police force had finally asserted its right to exist.
Etherege knew it and the knowledge made him incredibly agile. As Dalziel cumbersomely surmounted a mahogany dresser, the dealer skipped lightly across a set of genuine fake Chippendale dining-chairs and made for the door which opened as he reached it. A man and woman stood there, blocking the exit and gazing in amazement at the scene before them. Etherege perforce hesitated and next moment Dalziel was on him.
He pushed him across a table and began driving blows into his body and face. The man offered no defence, hardly seemed to be conscious.
'Look here,' said the newly arrived customer, stepping forward, but stepping more rapidly back when he saw Dalziel's expression.
Something deep inside, however, was telling him he must stop. This was wrong. He had never lost his temper like this in his life.
There was a disturbance behind him and someone seized him by the shoulder.
'Get the police!' said a man's voice and he felt himself being pulled back from Etherege.
The fury came back. He turned and saw an indignant-looking man in his late thirties. Dalziel did not care for the look or the touch of him. He balled his fist and smacked into the stranger's face with all the strength he could
