'With your troubles, who needs curses?'
'Thanks anyway,' grinned Pascoe.
This time she smiled back. She was very smart in a tweed coat and elegant brogues.
'You're right not to be frightened of an ordinary old woman like me,' she said. 'But don't forget I'm pure-bred Romany under this outfit. I've been away a long time but you can't be away for ever.'
'You're not really thinking of going back?'
'To end my days sitting on the vardo steps puffing away at an old pipe to keep off the flies, you mean? Well, it may not seem a bad option when the spring's back in the air and the green's among the trees. I'd be someone there, at least. Here… well, I miss her, Mr Pascoe. She stopped me missing him and now she's gone, I miss them both.'
'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe helplessly. 'About everything.'
'It's going to be all right,' said Rosetta Stanhope. 'It's taken care of. Let me have your little girl's date and time of birth, if you like. I'll cast her horoscope. It'll be a fortunate one, I feel it. Everything's going to be all right. Everything.'
'Yes,' said Pascoe.
Chapter 27
Austin Greenall went straight to the Aero Club from the courtroom, but news of his acquittal had preceded him. Bernard Middlefield had been in court too and had had no lawyers and journalists to delay his departure.
It was late afternoon and the shadows were long. The only glider in the sky was making its approach, but in the club house were a dozen or so members who had presumably managed to organize their work so that they could enjoy their flight earlier in the afternoon. Perhaps not coincidentally they included three other committee members besides Middlefield. A quorum.
There was silence as he entered, then someone said, 'Congratulations, Austin.' This started a small spatter of yes, well done, never doubted for a minute, hardly felt before quickly drying up.
Middlefield said, 'Can we go into the office?'
'By all means,' said Greenall. 'Go ahead.’
‘No; with you, I mean,' said Middlefield exasperatedly. 'There's business to do. We've had a committee meeting…’
'A very brief one, surely?'
'Not just now. Earlier this week. We had to make decisions.'
'Contingency plans? In case I got acquitted?'
'All we want is to find out what you plan to do.'
'I thought, first, a little flight. Just to clear the mind, stretch the muscles. Roger. Peter. Would you give me a hand?'
'It's a bit late, Austin,' protested the first man addressed, Roger Minstrel, his assistant, who had been running the Club single-handed for the past few months.
'I'll give you a hand,' said Thelma Lacewing from the doorway. She looked very fetching in boots, pink cords and a light blue anorak. 'Assistance is getting hard to find round here. I thought I'd hit the deserted village when I came down just now.'
'Thelma, I'm sorry,' apologized Minstrel. 'Honestly, I was out there watching you, but…’
He tailed off.
'You came inside for the welcome home party,' concluded Lacewing. 'You'd better get a move on, Austin. The lights are going out all over Yorkshire. Starting here, as usual.'
'Yes,' said Greenall making for the door. 'Roger?'
'All right, but it is late,' said Minstrel.
'We'll talk later,' called Middlefield after them in an attempt to re-affirm his authority.
By the time Greenall had got himself ready. Minstrel and Lacewing had manoeuvred the glider into position and the man went off to the towing winch.
Greenall climbed into the cockpit and strapped himself in.
'I gather you were acquitted,' said the woman.
He nodded.
'How do you feel about it?' she asked.
'I'm not sure,' he said.
'Do the police still think you're guilty?'
'I don't know. You'd better ask your friend.'
'Ellie Pascoe?' said Lacewing, frowning. 'She's had – still has – other things to worry her apart from whether you're guilty or not. What about you? What do you think?'
'About being guilty?' he said with a faint smile. 'I'm not very clear yet.'
'I should try to be clear before you land,' she said. 'For everyone's sake.'
She turned away and retreated to the wing tip which she grasped and raised. The signal was given to Minstrel. The winch engine bellowed into life. The glider began to move.
It was a perfect launch. The skills were too deeply grafted into Greenall's sinews and nerves for his enforced lay-off to have damaged them. Released from the towline, the glider soared as he expertly used the wind to carry him over the industrial estate where there was a complex of thermal activity he could read like a contour map.
Why had he chosen the glider? he wondered. The Cub would have taken him higher and further, given him more control. But he knew why, he realized. In the small aeroplane he was always aware of what it had once felt like to have at his fingertips control of such speed and power as most men could hardly dream of. A king of infinite space. Soaring in the glider brought no such memories. This was something different, not mastery of a kingdom by force of conquest, but more like acceptance as a citizen by a kind of naturalization process. Citizen of infinite space. Not quite the same ring about it but at this moment, at this time, the experience brought a peace and sense of belonging which he desperately needed.
‘What were his plans? Middlefield had asked.
What did he think about his guilt or innocence? Thelma Lacewing had wondered.
Stupid questions. Guilt, innocence, the future; these were not things to be decided or even usefully contemplated. He had felt guilty, it was true, else why had he talked at such length to that fellow Pascoe? But with the talking the guilt had lessened, was already going as he talked to the man, and had gone completely by the time that sergeant with a face like a hangman's labourer had come in.
Guilt might return, though it had not returned since then. And even if it did return, he now knew from experience that innocence returned too. So the future must take care of itself, whatever it brought. It was written. He knew it.
He hadn't told Pascoe everything, not quite everything. When he had slipped into Madame Rashid's tent at Charter Park, he hadn't killed the girl straightaway. He had given her his palm to read. She had examined it, murmuring a few well-worn platitudes, then she had gone very quiet, and looked at his hand quite fixedly, and slowly risen, pushing his hand away and raising her own to her mouth. He had punched her then, very hard, in the stomach, and killed her. She had seen he was going to kill her, he was sure of that. And what was going to happen had to happen. Guilt he had felt then, and again, still stronger, after the slaying of Wildgoose. But he was an evil man, a debaucher of youth. He saw that now. There was no more guilt to be felt there.
The flight was doing him good. He had known it would. He felt ready for the earth again, ready to go back and take his place once more and do whatever had to be done.
He looked down to get his bearings. Up here it was still bright but the height made a lot of difference. At ground level the sun was now dipping below the horizon, but it made no difference, not to a citizen of infinite space. He dipped across the airfield in a long descending run with the light wind behind him and turned for his landing approach. To his surprise he realized he was still rather high. Perhaps he was more out of practice than he imagined. To compensate and to reassure himself of his touch, he applied full airbrake and side-slipped to lose height till he was satisfied he was approaching at the optimum angle.
