'I can easily wait and drive you into the town centre,' offered Aldermann, thinking she was referring to the weather.
'Thanks, but don't worry. I rather fancy the walk and I'm sure it'll only be a shower. No, it was that lot I was oh-bothering about.'
Aldermann had already observed 'that lot' with some slight curiosity as he slowed down outside the large Victorian villa which had been converted into St Helena's School. The 'lot' consisted of four women each carrying a hand-painted placard which read variously: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PAYING FOR? WHAT PRICE EQUALITY? PRIVATE SCHOOLS = PUBLIC SCANDALS and, at more length, ST HELENA FOUND THE TRUE CROSS, THE REST OF US ARE BEARING IT. Two of the women were carrying small children in papoose baskets.
Aldermann drove slowly along a row of child-delivering Volvos till he found a kerbside space.
'Isn't it illegal?' wondered Aldermann as he parked. 'Obstruction, perhaps?'
'Evidently not. They don't get in the way and they only speak if someone addresses them first. But it could upset the children.'
Aldermann looked at his daughter. She did not seem upset. Indeed she looked very impatient to be out of the car. She also looked very pretty in her blue skirt, blue blazer with cream piping, cream blouse, and little straw boater with the cream and blue ribbon.
'As long as they don't try to talk to them,' he said. 'Goodbye, dear.'
He kissed his wife and daughter and watched as they walked along the pavement together. As forecast, none of the picketing group made any movement more menacing than a slight uplifting of their placards. At the school gate, Daphne and Diana turned and waved.
Aldermann waved back and drove away, thinking that he was indeed a well-blessed man. Even the rain which was now beginning to fall quite heavily was exactly what the garden needed after nearly a fortnight of dry weather. He switched the windscreen-wipers on.
Daphne Aldermann coming out of St Helena's fifteen minutes later did not feel quite so philosophical about the rain. Her talk with Miss Dillinger, albeit brief, had isolated her from potential lift-givers just long enough for the kerbside crowd of cars to have almost entirely disappeared.
Turning up the collar of her light cotton jacket, she put her head down into the rising wind and, hugging the shelter of the pavement trees, headed townwards. There was a car still parked about fifty yards ahead, a green Mini some five or six years old. A woman was leaning over the front seat putting a baby of about nine months into a baby seat at the rear. The woman was long-limbed, athletically slender, with short black hair and positive, clear-cut features which just stopped this side of wilfulness. There was something familiar about her and Daphne smiled hopefully as she completed her task and straightened up at her approach.
The woman regarded her with clear grey eyes and a half smile as the rain came lashing down.
'You look as though you'd like a lift,' she said.
'Thanks awfully. That's really most kind of you,' said Daphne, making round to the passenger door with no further ado. But as she stooped to get in, her eye caught something on the rear seat under the baby. Upside down, the words
'It's all right,' said the woman behind the wheel. 'No proselytizing. Just a lift. But it's up to you.'
She started the engine. The wind wrapped damp fingers around Daphne's trailing leg.
She pulled it in and shut the car door.
'What a lovely little boy,' she said brightly, nodding at the blue-clad baby who nodded back as the car accelerated over a bumpy patch of road.
'No,' said the driver.
'No?'
'Little, I'll grant you. But not lovely. And not a boy. My daughter, Rose.'
'Oh, I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. It's a nice test of anti-stereotyping.'
'Really? Well, I still think she's lovely.'
The woman rolled her grey eyes briefly, but Daphne caught the contumely. It was not a safe way in which to treat an Archdeacon's daughter.
'And you,' she resumed with increased brightness. 'Are you Rose's mother? Or her father?'
The woman looked at her in surprise, then threw back her head and laughed so fervently that the car did a little chicanery on the straight road, and Rose, stimulated by either the movement or the laughter, suddenly chortled merrily.
'Mother,' said the woman. 'I'm Ellie. Ellie Pascoe.'
'Daphne Aldermann,' said Daphne. 'How d'you do?'
'How d'you do,' said Ellie gravely. 'You know, I came out so quick this morning that I didn't have time for any breakfast. Do you fancy a coffee and a bacon buttie?'
'Why not?' said Daphne, determined to meet boldness with boldness.
'Why not, indeed?' said Ellie, and laughed again.
3
YESTERDAY
'So Dandy Dick's finally gone doolally,' repeated Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, apparently much taken by the assonance and
