heading back into the trap of the camp with its high soldier-proof perimeter fence.
What he was heading towards was Seymour's car which drew in to the side of the road. Seymour made to get out, but Wield in the passenger seat restrained him. And as the sprinting corporal drew level with the car, the sergeant leaned across and flung open the driver's door. There was a fearsome impact and the door slammed shut with a violence that set the inmates' eardrums vibrating.
'Now you can get out and pick him up,' said Wield. 'Good arrest, son. It'll look well on your record. And it'll be something to impress that little Irish girl of yours with next time you go dancing. Might make her forget the pain.'
Gillott was incredibly verbose for one who had appeared so taciturn. It was stopping him talking that was difficult, but with Moody's identification and the discovery of Bob Deeks's pocket watch hidden in his locker, he saw little hope in silence. Not even his bruised ribs inhibited the flow, the main current of which was directed at washing as much blame towards Andrea Gregory as possible.
'It was her idea. She said he was an animal. She said all old people were animals. She said they were crazy, smelly and nasty. She said she'd want to be put down before she got like that. We'd been drinking. I'd been driving the sergeant-major to the station in town and I had his car. I thought: Sod going back straight away. No one'll miss me. So I gave Andrea a ring. I'd been stuffing her rotten ever since that wet boyfriend of hers went to join the battalion. We went for a drive. She brought a bottle of Scotch along from the restaurant. We stopped and had a drink and a fuck and some more drink. I said if I had enough money I'd buy myself out of the Army. She said she knew where there was a few hundred lying around for the taking. I said where? She said at Charley's grandad's. She said that when they got engaged Charley had left her outside the back of his grandad's. He went in and came out not long after with a century in cash. He bought her that flashy ring. She said she knew where the back key was kept hid. What she didn't know was where the money was hid and he wouldn't tell us. We looked everywhere. The old man just kept on looking at my uniform and saying 'Charley' all the time. It got on my wick. Was there some money, eh? Was there really some money? Or was it all for nothing?'
Pascoe had come as close as he ever had to striking a prisoner at this point.
He said as much to Wield as they sped towards Haycroft Grange to pick up Andrea Gregory. Wield had offered to take his car as Pascoe's was temporarily out of commission but Pascoe had said, 'No. Full panoply of the law, I think. I don't want the Sir William Pledgers of this world thinking that we can be relied on to be nice and discreet for their sake.' Thus he and Wield were sitting in the comfortable back seat of a large white squad car with the Mid-Yorkshire insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides.
'Christ, they took risks, didn't they?' said Wield.
'They were both half-cut from the sound of it,' said Pascoe. 'But with that din coming from Mrs Spillings's house, and the other side empty, they weren't in much danger of being overheard. And Andrea had her wits about her enough to realize that using the outside key might be a giveaway. She spotted the duplicate key on the kitchen table. According to Gillott, it was her idea to stick one of the keys in the inside of the lock and smash the window to make it look as if someone had broken in.'
'But she put the wrong key back in the shed.'
'Yes. I should have spotted the implications of that sooner, but there's been a lot of distraction these past few days.'
The two men fell silent. Dusk was beginning to settle over the undulating landscape, flecked white with snow which the wind had blown into the folds and pleats of the heathered moor. The uniformed driver was consulting a road map and driving with one hand.
'You're not lost, are you, Pearson?' asked Wield.
'No, sir. It's just that we turn off somewhere along here down an unclassified road and I don't want to miss it.'
'How about up there, at the top of the rise, where the green van's turning?'
'Yes, that'll likely be it,' agreed the driver.
They turned off the B-road on to a narrower but still well-metalled track which meandered down into a riverless valley. Distantly they glimpsed the chimneys of Haycroft Grange against the snowy hillside opposite. The green van ahead was either in difficulty or the driver did not trust his brakes as the road steepened.
'For God's sake,' said Pascoe impatiently as their speed dropped to under twenty. 'Can't you get past him, Pearson?'
Wield glanced at the Inspector, thinking he had rarely seen his temper so ragged. The Sergeant's instinct rather than his detective powers sought out the reason. It occurred to him that Pascoe, despite his comparative youthfulness and liberal modernism of outlook, would have done very nicely as an English gent in one of Wield's much loved Rider Haggard novels. His belief in the equality of women still turned to disappointment at the discovery that they could equal men in baseness as well as achievement. And his loyalty to Andy Dalziel must be very much at odds with his strict code of fair play and honesty.
Plus, of course, the fact that he was clearly missing his wife and daughter.
Pearson replied defensively. 'The road's a bit narrow, sir.'
They were nearing the bottom of the valley where the road straightened out for almost a hundred yards before beginning to wind up the opposing hillside.
'Give him the bell then,' ordered Pascoe. 'It's like a bloody funeral procession!'
Obediently the driver pressed a switch. Next moment the pastoral peace was fragmented by the pulsating screech of the siren, and on the roof flashing blades of light scythed the darkling air.
The green van pulled over to the narrow verge and stopped. Pearson sent the police car accelerating by, then reached forward to switch off the lights and siren, but Pascoe stopped him.
'Leave it,' he said. 'I like a bit of son et lumiere. It's a not unfitting way to let those gun-happy buggers up there know we're coming, wouldn't you say, Sergeant?'
But Wield did not reply. He was much more interested in looking back and wondering why the driver of the green van had changed his mind and turned round and was now heading back up the hill.
Chapter 28
'Ut puto deus fio.'
'That sounds like your lot, Dalziel,' said Sir William Pledger. 'Didn't realize you were bringing some friends.'
He laughed and his guests joined in, even those who did not understand or did not appreciate the joke. Among the latter was Major Barney Kassell, who regarded Dalziel with grave suspicion.
The fat man shrugged and said indifferently, 'Me neither.'
The shooting party had just returned from the moors and, still muddy and tweedy, were taking a hot toddy with their host in the gun-room before retiring to hot baths and fresh linen. Kassell went to the window which overlooked the courtyard of the Grange where the beaters were collecting their pay and the day's bag of pheasants, more richly plumed than a tombful of dead pharaohs, were awaiting their collector.
'Excuse me,' said Kassell. 'I'll just pop down and see that all's well, shall I?'
Pledger nodded and Kassell left. Dalziel looked as if he might be about to follow, but the Dutch judge who was expounding his pet theory of penal reform gripped him firmly by the elbow and the fat man, who was in an uncharacteristic state of uncertainty, let his mind be made up for him. He retrieved something of his self-esteem, however, by emptying his glass so positively that the punk-haired maid with tits like ostrich eggs, recently transferred from Paradise Hall, broke away from the French banker who seemed to think she was his personal property and came straight to him.
'Another of the same, love,' said Dalziel. The girl obliged. The judge seemed to be distracted by her imminence and lost his thread and Dalziel took the opportunity to turn away and look into the courtyard. Arnie Charlesworth was already at the window. He glanced at Dalziel and raised an interrogative eyebrow. Dalziel shook his head.
Down in the courtyard, Pascoe and Wield had got out of the police car. Kassell was talking to the Inspector, angrily at first it seemed, and then rather more calmly, while Wield stood stolidly by and regarded the colourful
