trap with a foldaway ladder.
'I had the attic properly boarded when I put the tank for the shower in,' he said. 'It's good for storage and insulation too.'
He went up the ladder with the box and returned a few moments later, closing the trap after him.
'Satisfied?' he said rather sarcastically to Aldermann, who didn't reply.
'Nice spot you've got here, Dick,' said Dalziel with a leer. 'Just the right size for a loving couple. Cosy.'
'Remind me to ask you some time, Andy,' said Elgood.
'That'd make the buggers talk!' laughed Dalziel. 'You staying on tonight?'
'No. I've got to get back. I'll be busy first thing in the morning. I'll probably come down on Tuesday, though. I like to relax the night before an important board meeting.'
He glanced at Aldermann as he spoke with a hint of gloating triumph which seemed to Pascoe unnecessary in view of the peaceful solution of their problems.
'Relaxation you call it!' said Dalziel. 'Things must have changed!'
'A quiet swim, a quiet night all by myself, that's what I call relaxing, Andy. Don't you find quiet nights all by yourself relaxing? You must have had a few.'
Elgood was not a man to mess with, thought Pascoe. But nor was Dalziel.
'Aye, that's right, I have. And they are relaxing. But then I've got a clear conscience and most of my enemies are locked up, so what's to trouble my sleep, Dick? What's to trouble my sleep?'
On the beach below, the only thing troubling Ellie Pascoe's sleep was Daphne's voice, low and confidential in her ear. Her euphoria at the revitalizing of her relationship with her husband was beginning to be just a little tedious. Perhaps, thought Ellie with a sudden rather painful flash of self-awareness, I prefer my friends to be at odds with themselves so that I can be witty and wise.
'You know,' said Daphne, 'for the first time I think I'm really getting close to an understanding of what things mean to Patrick; in fact, you might say, of what it really means to
It occurred to Ellie to suggest that it might be better if Daphne concentrated her attention on understanding what it really meant to be Daphne, but, perhaps fortunately, suddenly sun, sea and Orvieto exerted their authority and Daphne's voice, and the ripple of the waves, and the crying of the gulls, became one lulling note. Here, it seemed to say, was a place where storms, nor strife, nor pain, nor evil, could ever come. Ellie slept.
5
DAYBREAK
Sergeant Wield sat on the edge of the bed, acutely conscious of Police-Cadet Shaheed Singh's presence only a few feet away in the scented darkness.
They were in one of the bedrooms of Rosemont. A potpourri of rose petals stood on the window-sill and the draughts of air which penetrated from the stormy night outside carried the sweet perfume on their breath.
There were only another four men on the operation. Pascoe and a large DC called Seymour were in a bedroom on the other side of the house and two uniformed constables were seated in a car parked up a track about a hundred yards from the main gates. These were all the men that could be spared, Dalziel had explained. The Minister for Employment was touring the area the following day; demonstrations had been arranged (Pascoe had avoided discovering the depths of Ellie's involvement), threats had been received, and the Chief Constable wanted every available man on the job for the duration of the visit.
'And he doesn't want the buggers half asleep,' said Dalziel. 'Not that he'd notice. He hasn't been fully awake for forty years or more. And young Singh had better not go either. With so few of you, if there is any bother, he might be tempted to start mixing it, and the last thing I need at the moment is to have to explain how I came to let a cadet get thumped. ‘It had been Wield who'd argued the other way, knowing how disappointed the boy would be.
'He'll be useful to keep someone awake, otherwise we'd have to have one man by himself,' he said.
Finally Dalziel was persuaded.
'But he stays upstairs. Even if he thinks they're massacring you lot down below with a chain-saw, he stays out of sight. Right?'
And when Wield had departed, the Superintendent said to Pascoe, 'And you can put young Abdul in with that bugger to keep
So here they were, waiting. It was nearly midnight. Sunday's glorious weather had spilled over into Monday morning, but storm clouds had begun to simmer in mid-afternoon and the long midsummer evening had sunk into premature darkness shortly after nine, and into almost total blackness a couple of hours later. Wield had waited for his night vision to develop, but even now the room only existed as a wash of black over some heavier concentrations which marked the furniture. The narrow slit in the curtained window let in no light worth mentioning. It overlooked the east side of the house, which meant that the horizon was smudged with the tangerine glow of city lights, but this only served to accentuate the nearer darkness. In the last hour a strong wind had blown up which so far had failed to clear the sky and had merely served to fill the old house with creaks and groans and eerie flutings, while at the same time whipping the dark mere of the garden into such a frenzy of formless movement that Wield had ceased to peer out, finding his straining eyes were filling the night with advancing shapes.
'Sarge,' whispered Singh.
'Yes?'
'Do you reckon they'll come?'
'What's up? Getting bored?' asked Wield.
'No!'
