two girls were looking down at Arkwright.
'Is he the sole survivor?' asked Dalziel.
Louisa nodded.
'The others left shortly before you and Bonnie reappeared,' she said. 'I think they got hungry. Also Herrie made it clear that he was fed up of listening to Abbott and Costello.'
'It wasn't very kind of Penitent to abandon him,' said Dalziel indicating the snoring Negro.
'What shall we do with him?' asked Tillotson. 'We can't just let him lie there all night.'
'Are you going to give him your bed then?' mocked Bertie.
'Stick him in Mrs Greave's room,' said Dalziel. 'She won't be back.'
'And of course the servants' quarters are the proper place for a black man,' said Bertie. He looked healthier now and his nastiness was returning.
'A bed's a bed,' said Dalziel, refusing to be drawn.
'A liberal policeman! But suppose it was your sister's bed, Dalziel. What then?'
'Personally,' said Dalziel, 'I wouldn't envy a randy billy goat getting into my sister's bed. Come on, sunshine. Charley boy, give us a hand.'
Together he and Tillotson lifted Arkwright from his tape-recorder and carried him, feet trailing, down the corridor to Mrs Greave's room where they dumped him on the bed, removed his tie and shoes and covered him with a patchwork quilt. Then at Tillotson's suggestion, they retired to the kitchen where the young man brewed a pot of coffee at the expense of only one cup and a few minor burns.
Dalziel glanced at his watch. It was still early, just a quarter past nine, but he found himself yawning.
'Tired?' said Tillotson sympathetically, pouring the coffee.
'A bit,' said Dalziel. 'It's been a hard day. Or a day of surprises, and that's always hard. You don't care much for surprises when you're getting on.'
'I don't like surprises either,' said Tillotson sadly.
'No? Well, you're young enough to take things in your stride anyway. How much cash have you got in this business?'
'A few hundred,' said Tillotson. 'Not much, but all I possess.'
'That's enough. All you possess is quite enough,' said Dalziel 'What's your standing?'
'I'm sorry?'
'I mean, what's the deal? Is it shares? Or a partnership agreement? What kind of investment have you made?'
'Does it matter?' asked Tillotson.
Dalziel rolled his eyes and scratched the skin around his Adam's apple.
'Look,' he said, 'love's one thing but business is another. Of course it matters. One way you can just lose your investment if the thing folds. Another way, though, you can be held partly responsible if the thing goes bankrupt which might mean you having to find more cash. You follow? It depends what you signed.'
'Oh, I didn't sign anything,' said Tillotson. 'I just made out a cheque to Conrad, Mr Fielding that is.'
'That was,' said Dalziel. 'Well, so much for the fatherly advice. If you're ever in the market for a used car, give us a ring.'
Shaking his bull-like head, he drank his coffee. It was truly awful but something in Tillotson touched off a non-habitual response of kindness and he said nothing. They talked in a desultory fashion for nearly half an hour before Dalziel yawned again and said he would take a turn in the fresh air before heading for bed.
After checking that Papworth had still not returned he left the house and strolled down to the water's edge to smoke a cigarette and think. The flood level had perceptibly dropped, for the wooden slats of the landing-stage were now quite clear of the surface. He took a couple of tentative paces along the stage, then halted for the treads were not only still greasy from their long submersion, but in addition he felt them give under his considerable bulk. Indeed, at the end of the landing-stage there was a gap, just perceptible in the dim light, where the treads seemed to have fallen away altogether.
The waters of the swollen lake stretched away before him, stirred by a light wind so that small waves slapped against the recovered row-boat and the duck punt. They were moored together by the landing-stage, and occasionally in their rising and falling touched with a dull noise like distant artillery. Above, the cloud cover was broken now and the clustered stars shone through the uneven rents. Dalziel regarded them for a while, then looked away. There was something too much of the tribunal about the unblinking clarity of their regard to ease his mind. He had once promised a recalcitrant suspect justice if he co-operated. Any cunt can get justice, the man had answered. Me. I want mercy. He had got seven years. If, speculated Dalziel, instead of putting 'em away in prison, they could transfer the years from the criminal's life to the arresting officer's, I'd be nigh on bloody immortal!
All those years, his mind ran on. All those years for all those men. And for all those men guarding them. And for all those men chasing them and catching them and prosecuting them and condemning them. There were more stars, so they said, than could be counted. And in the end unless something strange and unbelievable happened to mankind, all those years too would add up beyond the reckoning of any human mind.
His mind was running on like a tuppenny novel. Such speculations were not for detective superintendents of the old school no matter how many sleepless nights they had had and no matter how many women proved to be as unreliable as the first. Eyes to the ground finds you sixpences. Cautiously but steadfastly he advanced along the landing-stage till he reached the gap left by the missing treads. In fact they weren't missing, but broken, their jagged edges sunk into the water.
Dalziel didn't move but stood quite still peering through the gap. There was just enough light to make out the surface of the water, dully shining and touched with little swirls of rainbow. The wind gusted, the small waves slapped, the boats came together. And rising to the surface as though drawn by a line from Dalziel's unblinking stare came a face.
Dalziel regarded it without surprise. Ever since he first looked on these floods he had been waiting for a body. The face began to sink again but he thrust his hands quickly into the chill water, grasped the sodden collar and hauled the upper part of the torso clear of the lake.
The features had not been long enough immersed for identification to be difficult. It was Spinx, the insurance investigator.
'Hello sailor,' said Dalziel.
12
'All right, so it's accidental death!' said Cross.
'I didn't say that,' said Dalziel.
'Well, what do you say, sir?'
'You've had as good a look at the scene as I have. Those boards were rotten; there's a mark on his head where he could have banged it against the main support as he fell and there's traces of what might be blood on the edge of the support. You'll just have to wait for the p.m. and the lab reports.'
'I know all that,' said Cross. 'But it's a question of what I do now. I mean, there's all these other features…'
'Such as?'
'Well, the Greave woman for instance. And Mr Fielding's death so recently. Lots of odd things, sir. I'm asking for your advice.'
'My advice,' said Dalziel, 'is to do what you would have done if I hadn't been here. Personally, and this isn't advice, just me thinking out loud, I'd put a tarpaulin over one end of that landing-stage and a copper at the other and bugger off back to my chickens.'
Cross looked at him undecided, then the telephone rang inside the house. A moment later Bonnie appeared at the front door and said, 'Sergeant Cross, it's for you.'
Cross went inside. Dalziel lit a cigarette absently. It was about the twentieth he had lit absently in the past
