'The thing is,' said Balderstone. 'No one would surely be much bothered by admitting they'd given her a lift and just dropped her in Orburn, say, or even farther afield. So I think we've got to accept that nobody did this. Which raises the much more important question. Could anyone have taken her all the way to Epping, either dead or alive, and got back here within the known period of their absence? The answer is, only two. Papworth and Uniff. Now they're both vague enough to be suspicious. Uniff won't give us the name of the pub he claims he was drinking in after hours and Papworth won't give us the name of the woman he claims he was rogering. They both have highly developed senses of honour, it seems. Well, I've tried to avoid waving the big stick…'
'Why?' interrupted Dalziel. 'They shouldn't give us big sticks if they don't want us to wave 'em. Any road, that's up to you. I tell you this, though, on my patch we wouldn’t need to ask. We'd know the pub and we'd know the woman.'
Cross and Balderstone exchanged glances in the face of this large and unmannerly claim. Dalziel glowered at them, recognizing in himself a desire to fall out with them and then let ill-temper cut the ties of co-operation.
'Of course, we're approaching it from that side too, sir,' said Balderstone calmly. 'Now, the other possibility, and this looms very large in view of the statements we have received, is that Mrs Greave left with one of the visitors.'
'Visitors?'
'The people here for the presentation. You can't recall when any of them left, sir?'
'No,' said Dalziel, shaking his huge head slowly. 'They'd all gone, except Arkwright, when I came back downstairs.'
'After your… discussion with Mrs Fielding,' said Balderstone, glancing at Dalziel's statement. 'It's a pity, but they all seem to have got away fairly quietly. Lots of cheeriohs inside the house, but no one seems to have escorted them to the door.'
'Do you know where they went?' asked Dalziel.
'Your own surmise, London, seems very likely. But we've passed on the information to Epping and no doubt they will be checking down there. Well, I think we've done all we can here and it's getting on.'
He began to gather up the sheets of paper from the table. Dalziel glanced at his watch. It was after six.
'By the way, sir,' said Balderstone, 'Mr Albert Fielding while we were talking to him made enquiries about the procedure for bringing a complaint against a police officer.'
'What did you do to him? Forget to kiss his arse?' asked Dalziel.
'No, sir. The complaint, I gathered, was aimed at you.'
'What!'
'He seemed to think that certain insinuations you made in the presence of his young brother, Nigel, were slanderous. I indicated that as you were not here in an official capacity, he would be best advised to seek redress through a civil action, when the police, I assured him, would investigate the alleged offences thoroughly. This seemed to quieten him down.'
'The puffed-up nowt!' said Dalziel. 'He needs to be locked up for a few months.'
'Perhaps. But it seems unlikely now. Conspiracy is very difficult to prove, especially when the conspirators are forewarned.' His voice was studiedly neutral.
'It would never have stuck,' said Dalziel.
'You're probably right,' agreed Balderstone. 'This boy Nigel puzzled me a bit, though. The one you talked to.'
'Yes?'
'Well, we just had him in as a matter of form. So we could say we'd seen everyone in the house. His mother had told us he just came back this morning. That struck me as odd. He's how old? Fifteen? Sixteen? And she hadn't been much bothered when he ran away. Strange, even in this day and age.'
'He'd done it before,' said Dalziel. 'And he did ring.'
As though on a cue the telephone rang and Dalziel grabbed it. It was the uniformed sergeant at Orburn Police Station wanting to talk to Cross. Balderstone and Dalziel moved across into the window bay to avoid disturbing him.
'The lad seemed very disturbed by it all,' continued the inspector.
'He's very young,' offered Dalziel. 'I suppose from his point of view, Annie Greave was almost one of the family. And he still hasn't got over his dad's death.'
'You're probably right,' said Balderstone. 'It can't have helped for him to hear you saying what you thought his father had been up to either.'
'No,' said Dalziel. 'An error of judgement, that. I'm sorry.'
'There's been a sight too much death about this house,' said Balderstone. 'Mr Fielding, Mrs Greave. And Spinx, of course. We found his car by the way. When he came through the gates he turned right and ran it down through the trees to the lake edge. A good spot to hide. You haven't picked up any hint of what he was after, have you?'
'No. Everyone seemed baffled. Probably he was just trying a last desperate snoop before reporting failure.'
'It was his last, sure enough,' said Balderstone. 'Tell me, sir, you said you'd leave it to us to break the news of Annie Greave's murder so you could have a chat with the people here before they knew about it. Did anything come out of this?'
'Not really,' admitted Dalziel, thinking guiltily of how he had spent a great deal of his time since getting back to the house. 'I had a good go at Papworth, but got nowhere. He says he picked Annie up one night in the Pool, struck up a regular liaison with her and brought her out here when the chance presented itself.'
'It's possible, I suppose,' said Balderstone. 'When they're getting on a bit, some of these girls fancy a steady relationship even if it means a cut back in pay. But not out here, I shouldn't have thought. You indicated to Sergeant Cross that you were pretty certain Papworth was knocking her off, though.'
'Yes, I did,' agreed Dalziel. Another prevarication.
'So there might be something in it. What about connecting the others with her?'
'I think there's a chance Uniff might have been using her as a model for some candid camera shots. Hard to prove, though. Liverpool CID might be able to establish a connection, but what would it prove?'
'I don't really know, sir,' said Balderstone blankly. 'So no one said anything which suggested a foreknowledge of Mrs Greave's death.'
Dalziel shook his head. He could do this quite honestly.
Cross put the telephone down and joined them in the bay shooting a quick glance at Balderstone. It seemed to Dalziel that the inspector nodded almost imperceptibly as though indicating to the sergeant that it was all right to go ahead. If true, this both piqued and alarmed him.
'They've been on from Essex again,' he said. 'Trying to baffle us with speed, I reckon. But fair dues, they've done well, or the Met has. They found the Yanks at Claridge's and seem pretty convinced they're in the clear. Penitent, the BBC man, they got hold of also. He started talking about his civic rights a bit quick, but in the end they were sure he hadn't seen Annie Greave.'
'Pity,' said Dalziel, feeling much more disappointed than the single word showed. He was surprised to find how much he wanted Annie to have been seen alive and well and a long way from Lake House.
'You fancied him?' asked Balderstone.
'He was alone.'
'No, he wasn't,' interrupted Cross. 'I think that's what bothered him. It turns out that he gave a Miss Nicola Sugden a lift back…'
'Who?' asked Balderstone.
'The lass in the green tunic!' said Dalziel. 'The photographer.'
'That's her,' said Cross. 'And she seems to have spent the night in Penitent's flat. His wife and two kids arrived home from a visit halfway through the interview.'
'No wonder he abandoned poor Arkwright!' said Dalziel. 'That means Butt was by himself.'
'Yes, sir,' said Cross, looking at his notebook. 'They contacted the paper he was doing the feature for and got his address. It's in Chigwell, Essex, only five or six miles from Epping.'
Dalziel began to scratch his ankle, bending forward to conceal the relief on his face.
'Butt,' he said. 'Nasty bastard. I'd have said touching up typists on the Underground was his limit but you can
