effort at control now clearly visible along the jaw line.
'But it was a pretty clear message he left,' objected Dalziel.
'He left no message, as you well know!' snarled Swain.
'Using your wife's Python to blow his head off sounds to me like he was trying to say something,' said Dalziel genially. 'But I mustn't keep you back. You're rehearsing this afternoon, aren't you? She's got me at it later this morning. Real slave-driver, that Chung, isn't she?'
'I begin to feel she has committed a monstrous blasphemy in casting something as gross as you to play the Godhead, Dalziel!' shouted Swain, pale-faced. His hands worked at the gear levers, Dalziel stepped smartly aside and the huge machine roared out of the yard narrowly missing the policeman's car.
'What's up with him, do you think?' wondered Dalziel.
'I suppose having to shout like the town crier about your dead brother and your dead wife might upset some folk, sir,' suggested Wield.
'Mebbe so,' said Dalziel. 'But it were interesting how long it took to get him upset. Christ, look at the time. Nowt done, half the morning gone, and that Chung gets right nasty if you're late for rehearsals. You'd think she'd have more respect for Superior Beings, but not her. Comes of mixing the blood, I reckon. Like chemicals. You've got to be careful or you end up with a hell of a bang.' Then, smacking his lips grossly, he added, 'And that's what she'd be, I dare say. A hell of a bang!'
Was it all in the mind or did he really have immoral longings in him? wondered an intrigued Wield.
'Fancy your chances there, do you, sir?' he prodded.
'Go and wash your mind out, Sergeant,' ordered Dalziel sternly. 'Professional and platonic, that's me and Chung. Never forget, a virtuous woman's price is far above rubies.'
Then, pushing a near fatal finger into Wield's ribs, he added, 'And I'm not sure these days if I could even afford Ruby!'
And shaking with mirth at his own high wit, he headed for the car.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crimper's Knoll was a pleasant place to be on a fine summer morning. It was a pleasure Philip Swain planned to share with perhaps half a dozen house-holders at about two hundred thousand pounds apiece. But there was more than money involved here. This would be his showcase. After this people would start thinking of Swain and Stringer as creators as well as constructors. Such was his excitement at the project that though detailed plans were still to be drawn up and he had not yet obtained even outline planning permission, he couldn't wait to set his mark on the ground. 'We'll need an access road,' he told his partner. 'A man doesn't need planning permission to give himself access to his own land. I've got all my life to shape my behind to an office chair. This is one job I'm going to start myself!'
But the JCB had rested like a sleeping mastodon in the lee of the Knoll ever since its arrival more than an hour earlier, and the two men sat almost as still on a grey rock, looking westward over the sun-flooded central Yorkshire plain.
Stringer broke the long silence.
'You've been a good mate to me, Phil,' he said.
'And I'll not say owt to harm you, rest assured.'
'You'll lie, you mean?' said Swain. 'I thought the whole point was to stop lying.'
'Another little 'un in a good cause won't harm me. But the big one . . .'
'That was in a good cause too. A better cause,' insisted Swain. 'For your own daughter, your grandson
'Mebbe it were for them, part of it. But mostly it were for me. I see that now.'
'And what's opened your eyes? That fat policeman? A strange instrument of virtue if ever I saw one!'
'Aye, he's a mad bad bugger, right enough,' agreed Stringer. 'But God's not choosy. It's the Devil who sends his agents in fancy wrapping. And no matter who sent him, one thing's certain, he'll get there in the end. So I'm not being brave or virtuous. I just want to be the one who tells our Shirley.'
'Arnie, you're wrong,' insisted Swain. 'Sit it out. Keep quiet and there's no way Dalziel can . . .'
'Nay, my mind's made up,' said Stringer, rising. 'I know you're only thinking of me, but believe me, Phil, this will be the best for me too. I'll mebbe be able to sleep quiet in my bed again.'
Swain rose too.
'If that's the way you want it, Arnie,' he said.
'It is.'
'Then I'll see you get the best help money can buy. Meanwhile you're still a partner in this business, so let's get some work done, shall we?'
It was getting on for noon and in the less than pastoral surroundings of the police canteen before Wield caught up with Pascoe.
'It's been hell,' said Pascoe. 'We were just going to ship them off to Leeds when Medwin's doting parents turned up with a very nasty solicitor. Seems young Jason didn't turn eighteen till March the twentieth, and the brief got very stroppy about his rights as a minor if he was questioned about offences committed before that date. He had a point.'
'Shit,' said Wield, angry with himself. 'I should have spotted that. It was recognizing him that threw me.'
'Not to worry. I got it sorted,' said Pascoe.
'Thanks. And did you have time to . . . ?'
'Ask your supplementary? What else are chief inspectors for but to clean up after sergeants? Now let me see.' He produced a notebook and thumbed through it. 'You wanted to know if he noticed a vehicle slowing down as he was enjoying himself beating you up. Yes, he did. And it might have been a car or it could have been a van or maybe even a pick-up. And it might have been black or blue or brown or burgundy, and it may have stopped and
