Pascoe turned up his collar and said, 'I'm almost parked in the close. Nearest I could get, the Lane's so narrow.'
'Och, man, you should have come round the back. There's loading yards behind all these shops, did you not know that?'
Of course he knew. He'd been a cop too long in this town not to know its ins and outs. He just hadn't thought, that was all. Or rather he'd thought like a citizen instead of a policeman. Perhaps it wasn't just his leg that had needed a repair job.
He was scurrying along the pavement, head down in anticipation of the oncoming storm, and once again it was ordinary citizen Pascoe in charge, not DI Pascoe, for he was totally unaware of the pursuer at his heels till the attack was launched.
He felt his arm seized from behind. He began to turn, defensive reflexes lumbering into life, but it was too late. A hand caught at the nape of his neck, his head was dragged back, and the main assault was launched at his unprotected face. He felt a soft warm moistness against his mouth, and just as he registered what was happening and started to enjoy it, contact was broken and Chung said, 'Now that's for being a good boy, Pete, honey.'
'What do I get for being a bad boy?' gasped Pascoe.
'We'll have to debate that with Ellie,' laughed Chung. 'But not in the street where we may frighten the natives.'
Several of the natives were already looking at them with undisguised interest. Pascoe couldn't blame them. It wasn't often that you saw a defenceless policeman being sexually assaulted in Mid-Yorkshire.
He said, 'OK, what have I done?'
'We got him, Pete! He's said he'll do it. Hallelujah! I've found my God!'
'He's really said he'll do it?' said Pascoe incredulously.
'I had to work on him a bit,' she grinned. 'But yes, I've hooked the big one. And I just wanted to say thank you, Pete. Without you, I couldn't even have got started.'
'Oh no,' said Pascoe emphatically. 'It was nothing to do with me!'
'Don't be modest, sweetie.'
Chung sank a little in Pascoe's admiration. A director of the top rank ought to be able to tell the difference between modesty and blind terror.
'Walk with me a ways,' said Chung, her grip on his arm brooking no denial. 'I'm on my way to the close to break the news to the Canon. Seems he may have got some silly notion he was up for the part and we don't want him sulking, do we?'
After a few paces her need to use her arms when talking gave him his release but he didn't try to escape. There was in her company such an overflow of vitality that a man would need to be a very dull clod to want to evade that warm aureole.
She was talking about her plans for the Mysteries and after a while Pascoe managed to distance himself sufficiently from her infectious enthusiasm to say, 'Chung, what I don't really get is why you're so keen on these plays. I should have thought they embodied just about every ism that ever got up your nose. I can see how you can direct Shakespeare to get your own ideas across, but surely this stuff is pretty intractable?'
She punched him. It may have been intended as a playful blow but the ribs that received it felt like they could now fit into a thirty-six jacket instead of his normal forty-two.
'So that's how you see me, huh? A preachy polemicist? Well, maybe, but that's not where I start, Pete. The play's the thing, the conscience-catching comes a long way second. This is where it all began, these are the roots, the modern European theatre starts here -'
'I thought the Greeks -' interrupted Pascoe foolishly.
'Same sort of thing, but it died and had to start all over again, this time with
'You sound very . . . Euro-minded,' said Pascoe cautiously.
'What dat you say, my man?' mocked Chung. 'Don't let the slanty eyes fool you, my boy. My daddy brought my mummy back from Malaya with him and this little girl was brought up in would you believe Birmingham?'
She laughed joyously at the idea. Why it should seem so incongruous Pascoe wasn't sure, but he found himself laughing too.
By now they had passed his car park and were at the entrance to the close. Pascoe halted and said firmly, 'I am not going any further. You can spike your Canon without my moral support.'
'Hey, if I need a policeman, I'll blow my whistle,' said Chung. 'But don't go. Come into the cathedral with me, let me show you something.'
Once more he was whirled along, this time out of the chill winter air into the chiller a seasonal atmosphere of the great church. It was empty except for a couple of shadowy figures, which Pascoe hoped were human, gliding along a side aisle. His agnosticism was not proof against the humbling power of these vibrant spaces but Chung's flame burnt bright enough to meet whatever occupied them on level terms. She led him to the choir and made him stoop to look at the woodcarvings beneath the misericords. They consisted of figures, some individual, some in small groups, but all finely differentiated, of men at their trades and at their play. Here were tanners, tinkers, herds and hunters; here were men playing pipes and tabors, shawms and citoles; here were dancers, dicers, tumblers and mummers.
'The guy who carved these knew those people, he'd seen them, he knew they were as important and everlasting as anything else in this place. I'm not doing any prissy historical reconstruction, Pete. I'm plugging into the continuum. Come on, there's some more in the Pliny Chapel.'
But when they reached the chapel they found it was occupied. Named after Sir William de Pliny, whose tomb stood here, topped by a full-size brass effigy of himself and his wife, with a small dog at their feet, this tiny chapel was set aside for private prayer. Standing at the foot of the tomb with her head bowed was a woman. Pascoe
