An April Shroud (5 page)

'Hello,' said Tillotson, 'I say, are your things all right? I hope there's no permanent damage.'

'If there is,' said Dalziel, 'I'll send you a bill.'

'That's right, captain,' said Uniff. 'Don't let him polite talk you out of your legal rights. I'm a witness. Hey, Mavis!'

The Indian Maid came over to them with two mugs of soup. She was really a striking girl with much of Uniff's prominence of feature, but regularized into something approaching beauty. The likeness was confirmed when Uniff said, 'Mave, meet the captain. Assumed command in our hour of need. Captain, may I present my sister?'

'How do you do, Mr Dalziel,' said the girl. Her voice confirmed his assessment of Uniff s origins. It was unrepentantly Liverpudlian.

'Pleased to meet you,' said Dalziel.

'It was you we saw on the bridge, wasn't it? You looked as if you were going to walk into the water.'

'Or on it,' said Uniff. 'The second coming, nineteen- seventy style.'

'He hasn't had much luck stilling the waters this time,' said Bertie, peering out of the chintz-curtained window.

The door opened once more and Mrs Fielding came in.

'Everyone here? Good. Is there plenty of soup to go round? I can't see Herrie. Or Nigel.'

'Grandpa was here. But Nigel hasn't been down, has he?'

Bertie looked enquiringly at Dalziel who shook his head.

'I hope he's not moving around in his damp clothes,' said Mrs Fielding. 'Lou, darling, run upstairs and find him. Make him come down.'

'But I've not had my soup yet,' protested the blonde girl. 'Bertie can go. He's nearly finished.'

'He'll take no notice of Bertie,' her mother answered firmly. 'Or worse, even if he was on the point of coming Bertie would make him change his mind. You go.'

'Oh bugger,' said Louisa. But she went.

Mrs Fielding came over to the table now and smiled down at Dalziel.

'I just rang the garage,' she said.

'I'm sorry, you shouldn't have bothered, I was just going to,' answered Dalziel.

'No, it struck me you wouldn't know which was nearest or best for that matter. Anyway they were a bit worried when I told them where the car was. There's a great deal of water all along that road now and they aren't sure their breakdown truck can get along. Once it stops raining the water will go down pretty quickly, of course.'

'So I'm stuck,' said Dalziel. 'Well, that's life. Well, if I can use your phone, I'll try to find myself a hotel and a taxi. How close can a taxi get?'

'He's worried about another trip with Charley,' said Bertie Fielding. 'Be comforted, it's just on the south side that the water lies, Mr Dalziel. The road to the north is a bit damp, but passable. I'd say the Lady Hamilton in Orburn would be your best bet, wouldn't you, Mother?'

Dalziel groaned inwardly, visualizing the under-manager's mixture of dismay and triumph at his return.

'Nonsense, Bertie,' she replied. 'It's expensive, unhygienic, and nearly ten miles away. Mr Dalziel will stay with us until he can pick up his car. Please do, Mr Dalziel. We would all be delighted to have you.'

Dalziel looked slowly round the room and saw delight manifest itself in a variety of strange ways. It masqueraded as indifference on Mavis's face, amused knowingness on her brother's, vague uncertainty on Tillotson's and downright dislike of the idea on Bertie's. Only on Bonnie Fielding's did delight appear in anything approaching full frontal nudity.

'I'd be delighted to stay,' said Dalziel.

'Mother,' said Louisa from the door.

'Hello, darling. Did you find Nigel?'

'No, but I found this in his bedroom.' She held up a piece of paper.

'The little sod's taken off again.'

4

Premises, Premises

The general atmosphere of resigned annoyance told Dalziel he was in the middle of a routine upset rather than a major disaster. Nigel, it seemed, had left home to seek his fortune on several previous occasions. Looking at the flaking paint and faded wallpaper around him, Dalziel felt that perhaps the boy had a point. It would take a fool or a clairvoyant to seek a fortune here.

The current weather, however, added a new dimension of concern to this latest escape, for his mother at least. His brother and sister seemed completely unworried, though the Uniffs whether out of sympathy or politeness were much more helpful.

'He can't have gotten far,' said Hank. 'Poor kid. He'll soon have his bellyful of this rain.'

It was not the most diplomatic use of the idiom. Quickly Mavis stepped in.

'Hank, take a look outside. He might be sheltering quite close. If not, we'll take a run down the road in the car.'

Hank left, and Mrs Fielding sat down at the table. She appeared quite composed now.

'Lou, darling,' she said. 'How's the soup? Nigel will be freezing when he gets back.'

'There's oodles left,' said Bertie. 'We're hardly down below yesterday's tide mark.'

'I like it best when we reach that ox-tail we had at New Year,' said Louisa. 'That was my favourite.'

Indifferent to this family humour, Dalziel picked up the note which Mrs Fielding had dropped on the table.

I am leaving home because (1) my plans for the future don't coincide with yours (2) I have no desire to live off money coined by my father's death and (3) there are some people I don't care to have near me. Nigel. PS. I don't mean you. I'll write when I'm settled.

He turned it over. It was addressed to the boy's mother.

Hank returned.

'Any sign?' asked Mavis.

'No. But the rowing-boat's gone.'

'He always threatened to run away to sea,' said Louisa.

'Lou, shut up, will you?' said Mrs Fielding. 'Oh damn. I wish he hadn't taken the boat. I don't like the thought of him on the water.'

'Shall I go after him in the punt?' volunteered Tillotson, a suggestion which drew derisive groans from everyone except Mrs Fielding and Mavis. And Dalziel too, though he groaned internally.

'Thank you, Charles, but no,' said Mrs Fielding. 'Hank, did you see Pappy out there?'

'Not a sign,' said Uniff.

'See if you can find him and tell him Nigel's loose again. Then perhaps you'll join us in the study. It's time to talk.'

Uniff left and the other young people drifted out after him. When Mrs Fielding spoke, Dalziel noted approvingly, the others jumped. He liked a strong leader.

'I'm sorry to leave you alone, Mr Dalziel,' she said. 'But we have to have a business conference. Make yourself at home.'

'Thanks,' he said. 'I'll keep the soup hot for Nigel.'

'That boy. You must think us very odd.'

Dalziel did not deny it.

'He sounds a sensible lad,' he said, indicating the note.

'You think that's sensible?' she asked, surprised.

'Well, it's neatly laid out. One, two, three. I like that,' he said with the authority of one whose own official reports were infamous for their brevity.
I came, I saw, I arrested
was the Dalziel ideal according to Pascoe.

'It's possible to be methodical and still find trouble,' she answered. 'There's probably a cold joint in the pantry if you're hungry. We usually eat on our feet during the day and sit down for a meal about six-thirty.'

She left and Dalziel glanced at his watch. It was one o'clock. Five hours.

He went into the kitchen in search of food. There was a small deep freeze into which he peered hopefully. It contained very little and nothing of particular appeal. He shuffled the contents around in the hope of coming across one of his favourite frozen dinners-for-two, but there was no sign of such delights. One foil-wrapped package caught his eye. The remnants of a cold joint perhaps. He unwrapped it.

'Well bugger me!' said Dalziel.

Inside the foil, sealed in a transparent plastic bag, was a dead rat.

These sods might be hard up but there were limits, he told himself. Gingerly he re-interred the corpse in its icy tomb and closed the lid.

His appetite had left him for the moment so he lit a cigarette and sat down once more to muse upon this odd household.

Just how odd was it? he asked himself. Well, the atmosphere for a start. It didn't feel very funereal. Not that that signified much. He'd been at funerals where by the time the poor sod was planted, half the mourners were paralytic and the rest were lining up for the return to the loved one's house like homesteaders at the start of a land-race.

Anyway atmosphere was too vague. You could breakfast on atmosphere, but you'd better make your dinner out of facts.

Fact one was the age of the non-Fieldings. Coeval with Bertie and Louisa, they were hardly the mourners one would expect at the funeral of a man of Fielding's assumed age.

Fact two was this business conference going on. What were they doing - reading the will? Not likely these days. Then what?

Fact three was the lad, Nigel. His farewell note hinted at household relationships more turbulent than the usual teenage antipathies.

Fact four was the enigmatic remarks people kept dropping about Fielding's death.

And fact five was a freezer with a dead rat in it.

He stood up and dropped his fag end into Bertie's mug. When it came down to it, he distrusted facts almost as much as atmosphere. He knew at least three innocent men who would be bashing their bishops in Her Majesty's prisons for many years to come because of so-called
facts.
On the other hand, on other occasions other
facts
had saved all three from well-deserved sentences. We are in God's hands.

So he abandoned facts and set off on a walkabout of the house hoping to encounter truth.

He strolled along the brown horror of the entrance hall opening doors at random. One room contained a full-size billiard table, presumably the one on which the coffin had rested. There were two or three balls on the table and a cue leaned up against a pocket. Someone had not waited long to resume playing.

Dalziel moved on and reached the next door just as a telephone rang inside.

'Hello!' said old Fielding's reedy but still imperious voice. 'Yes. This is Hereward Fielding speaking.'

So that's what 'Herrie' was short for. Jesus wept!

He remained at the door. He was firmly of the conviction that if you didn't have enough sense to lower your voice, then you either wanted or deserved to be overheard.

'No, I will not change my mind,' said Fielding. 'And I am too old to be bribed, persuaded or flattered into doing so. Now please, leave me alone. I have just buried my son today, yes, my son. Spare me your sympathy. You may come tomorrow if you wish, but I make no promises about my availability. Good day.'

The phone was replaced with a loud click. Dalziel pushed open the door and entered.

The room was large and ugly, its furnishings and decoration old enough to be tatty without getting anywhere near the ever-shifting bourne of the antique. Fielding had turned from the telephone to a wall cabinet, the door of which seemed to be jammed. He glanced up at Dalziel.

'Oh, it's you,' he said, heaving. The door flew open and a glass unbalanced and fell to the threadbare carpet. He ignored it, but plucked another from inside and with it a bottle. Dalziel fixed his gaze on this. It took a strong man to stand with a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other, and not offer him a drink.

'Can I help you?' asked Fielding.

'No. The others seem to be in conference and I was just having a look around,' said Dalziel.

'Were you? Well, this room, by general consensus the coldest and draughtiest in this cold and draughty house, is sometimes regarded as my sitting-room. Though naturally should anyone else wish to eat, drink, sleep, play records, make love or merely take a walk in it, my selfish demands for privacy are not allowed to get in the way.'

'That's good of you,' said Dalziel heartily, closing the door behind him. 'Terrible, this weather. I pity all the poor sods on holiday.'

'I understood
you
were on holiday,' said Fielding, filling his glass.

'So I am,' said Dalziel, mildly surprised at the idea. 'Pity me then. Yes, it's still chucking it down. I hope your grandson's all right.'

'What?'

'Your grandson. He's run away, I believe. I'm sorry, didn't you know?'

The old man took a long swallow from his glass. What was it? wondered Dalziel. He couldn't see the label which was obscured by Fielding's long bony fingers, but the liquid was an attractive pale amber.

'It would be too optimistic to hope you might mean Bertie?' said Fielding.

'No. The lad. Nigel.'

'I feared so. It was ever thus. Wilde was wrong. You don't have to kill the things you love. Just wait long enough and they'll go away.'

'Who?' said Dalziel, pouncing on this further reference to killing and wanting to get its provenance right.

'Who? You mean, who . . . Oscar Wilde.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol.'

'Oh, the poof,' said Dalziel, his interest evaporating.

Unexpectedly Fielding laughed.

'That's the one,' he said. 'Will you have a drink, Mr . . . ?'

'Dalziel. Yes, I will.' Here's another one who thinks he's summed me up and can start patronizing me, thought Dalziel as his huge hand held the glass he had retrieved from the floor steadfastly under the bottle till the meniscus touched the rim and Fielding said ironically, 'Say when.'

It was brandy, a cheap brand Dalziel suspected, not from any connoisseurship of the liquor but by simple taste-bud comparison with the smoothness of his own favourite malt whisky. Something of his reaction must have shown and he realized he had inadvertently got back at Fielding for his suspected condescension when the old man said, 'I'm sorry, it's not good, but these days we all have to make sacrifices.'

'It's fine. Just the job for this weather,' said Dalziel, emptying his glass and proffering it for a refill.

'The weather. Yes. That foolish boy. I hope he will be all right. He never goes far, at least he didn't when Conrad - that's his father, my son - was alive.'