An April Shroud

A large entrance hall stretched before him. What might have been elegant wood-panelling had been ruined by the application everywhere of dark brown paint. It was to Dalziel like a nightmarish blow-up of the narrow lobby of his grandmother’s house which family loyalties had required must be visited every Sunday although the Presbyterian conscience forbade that anyone should gain pleasure from such a visit. Momentarily he felt like Alice, reduced in scale to a position of total vulnerability.

A door opened. Instead of a monstrous grandmother, Mrs Fielding emerged and made for the staircase.

Dalziel coughed and she stopped.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Oh, it’s you. There’s the telephone. Help yourself.’

She turned to go but Dalziel detained her with another thunderous cough.

‘I’d like to dry my things,’ he said. ‘Get changed. A hot bath would be welcome too.’

She looked at him with puzzled, rather disdainful eyes.

‘Look, we’re all wet, but this isn’t a hotel,’ she said. ‘You might find a towel in the kitchen.’

Again she turned.

‘Hold on,’ said Dalziel.

She ignored him and started climbing the stairs.

‘Look!’ he bellowed after her, losing his patience. ‘I’ve been punched on the nose by your daughter, I’ve been stranded by your boatman, and I’ve had my case dumped in the water by that long streak of nowt you left in charge of the punt!’

She stopped four stairs up. He couldn’t see her face in the shadows, but he got the impression that she was smiling.

‘It was your choice to accept the lift,’ she said reasonably.

‘Lady,’ he answered, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. But you did. You must have known I’d have had more chance of getting here safely if I’d set out to walk across the blasted water.’

Now she laughed out loud.

‘We’re warned about turning away angels unawares,’ she said. ‘I see how easy it could be. Come along, Mr …?’

‘Dalziel,’ said Dalziel and followed her upstairs, his case leaving a trail of drips which ran parallel to that cast by his sodden coat.

On the landing she paused uncertainly.

‘We’re a bit crowded at the moment,’ she explained. ‘It’s a big house, but half the bedrooms haven’t been used for years. I wonder …’

She opened a door and went in. The room was in darkness but a couple of moments later she opened wide the curtains and beckoned Dalziel in from the threshold.

‘You’re not superstitious, are you?’ she asked. ‘This was my husband’s room. Well, it’s got to be used again, I suppose. You don’t mind?’

The last question might have been ironical as Dalziel had already opened his suitcase and begun to empty its damp contents on to the bed.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Very kind.’

‘There’s a bathroom through that door. It communicates with my room, so if it’s locked, it’ll be because I’m in there.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, starting to remove his coat. But she did not leave immediately.

‘You said something about being punched on the nose,’ she prompted.

‘It was nothing,’ he said generously. ‘A misunderstanding.’

‘I see. Well, our children seem determined to be misunderstood, and usually it’s someone else who gets hurt. Don’t you agree, Mr Dalziel?’

‘I’m not married,’ said Dalziel, unpeeling his huge sports jacket and revealing broad khaki braces. ‘And I’ve no kids.’

‘Oh. The last of the line, Mr Dalziel?’ she said.

‘Aye. You could say. Or the end of the tether.’

With neat efficient movements she gathered the damp clothing from the bed, an act of conservation as well as kindness.

‘I’ll see to these,’ she said. ‘You look as though you could do with a hot bath straight away.’

Dalziel was touched by this concern with his health till he saw her gaze fixed on his right hand which had unconsciously unbuttoned his shirt and was presently engaged in scratching his navel.

‘Thanks,’ he said and began to take off his shirt.

The water in the antiquated bathroom was red hot both to the touch and to the sight. Having seen the brown peat water used in the manufacture of the best whisky, Dalziel did not anticipate harm from a little discoloration and wallowed sensuously in the huge marble tub, his feet resting on brass cherubim taps which time and neglect had verdigrised to a satyric green.

From what he had seen so far of the house, he surmised that the Fielding family had been going through bad times. You needed a lot of cash to keep up a place like this these days. This didn’t necessarily mean they were poor, not by his standards. It did mean that probably they had been living beyond their means, or rather that as far as the house was concerned their means had lagged behind their rapidly growing expenditure. He was rather surprised to find himself being so charitable towards the idle rich but whatever the failings of the younger members of the household, Mrs Fielding had struck him as a pleasant intelligent woman. And handsome with it. Not a word much used of female attractiveness nowadays. You couldn’t call loose-haired kids with consumptive eyes and no tits handsome. But Mrs Fielding was. Oh yes.

One of the cherubim seemed to leer at him with unnecessary salaciousness at this point. A trick of the steam. He got out and towelled himself vigorously.

Back in the bedroom he discovered that his tin of foot powder had become a runny blancmange, so he opened the bathroom cabinet in search of a substitute. There was a mixture of male and female cosmetics and a variety of pill bottles. Either Mrs Fielding or her late husband was a bit of a hypochondriac, thought Dalziel. It was difficult to tell from the scrawl on the labels. Even the printed words were difficult. Boots of Piccadilly he could manage. But Propananol … could that be for athlete’s foot? Piles, more likely. There was a tap on the communicating door.

‘Just finishing,’ he called.

‘Your trousers were soaking,’ Mrs Fielding answered, ‘so I’ve put them with the rest to dry. You’ll find some things in the wardrobe to wear for the time being if you like. There’re hot drinks downstairs.’

‘Ta,’ he called. A kind and thoughtful woman, he decided. Once she had made up her mind to be welcoming she carried it through.

Mr Fielding had clearly not been as fat as Dalziel but he had been tall and broad-shouldered. The trousers wouldn’t fasten at the waist, but a long nylon sweater stretched over the cabriole curve of his belly and covered the shameful schism. An old sports jacket, also unfastenable, and a pair of carpet slippers completed the robing and it was time to descend.

Downstairs no sounds offered him a clue to the location of the hot drinks, but after three false starts he at last opened a door into an inhabited room.

‘Who the devil are you?’ demanded the old man, glaring at him through the steam rising from a mug held at his thin bluish lips.

‘Andrew Dalziel. I was given a lift. My car broke down. Can I have some of that?’

He advanced to the broad kitchen table on whose scrubbed wooden top stood a steaming jug.

‘No. That’s mine. You’ll find some on the hob through there.’

There was the adjacent back kitchen where on a gas stove coeval almost with the house Dalziel found a pan of what his mother would have called ‘nourishing broth’.

He plucked a large mug from a hook on the wall, filled it and tasted. It was good.

He returned to the other room. Probably nowadays an estate agent would call it a breakfast-room, but the plain wooden furniture pre-dated the studied pseudo-simplicities of modern Scandinavian pine. These chairs threatened real painful splinters to the unwary. Dalziel sat down cautiously.

‘Those are my son’s clothes you’re wearing!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘I recognize them. Even the slippers. Ye gods, ye gods, how little time it takes!’

‘My clothes were wet,’ explained Dalziel, thinking that someone ought to have persuaded the old man also to a change of clothing. The raincoat and umbrella had not been able to protect the bottom of his trousers and his shoes from a soaking.

‘I’m sorry about your son,’ he said.

‘Why? Did you know him?’

‘No. How could I? I’m here by accident.’

‘So you say. So you say. Men come, men go, and it’s all put down to accident. Have you known Bonnie long?’

‘Your daughter-in-law? I don’t know her at all, Mr Fielding,’ averred Dalziel. ‘I don’t know anyone here.’

‘No?’ The emphasis of Dalziel’s answer seemed almost to convince the old man. But only for a moment.

‘You’re not from Gumbelow’s, are you?’ he suddenly demanded. ‘Or television? I have positively interdicted television.’

Dalziel’s patience was wearing thin, but now the door opened and the stout youth who must be Bertie Fielding came in. He ignored the inmates and passed straight through into the back kitchen, returning a moment later to stare accusingly at Dalziel.

‘That’s my mug. You’ve taken my mug.’

Dalziel blew on his soup till he set the little globules of fat into a panicky motion.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

Bertie turned once more and went back to the stove.

‘My grandson is an ill-mannered lout,’ said Mr Fielding sadly.

‘Can’t think where he gets it from,’ answered Dalziel.

Bertie returned, drinking soup from what appeared to be an identical mug.

‘I hear Charley sank your case,’ he said, more amicably now. Like a baby who doesn’t really mind what teat gets stuck in his mouth, thought Dalziel.

‘Mr Tillotson? Aye, there was a spot of bother,’ he answered.

‘There would be,’ said Bertie maliciously. ‘Evidence of divine whimsy is Charley. Looks like a Greek god but things happen to him like Monsieur Hulot.’

‘You haven’t quite got the balance right,’ mocked Mr Fielding, explaining to Dalziel, ‘Bertie likes to rehearse his witty abuse till he’s got the lines off pat.’

Bertie smiled angrily.

‘Still can’t bear a rival near the throne, Grandpa?’

‘Rival?’ exclaimed the old man, pushing himself upright. ‘When has the eagle considered the boiling fowl a rival? Or the antelope the hog? Good day to you, Mr Dalziel. If you are as uninvolved in our affairs as you claim to be, it seems unlikely that we shall meet again. On the other hand …’

He walked stiffly from the room, his shoes squelching gently on the stone-flagged floor.

‘Your grandfather seems a bit upset,’ probed Dalziel, sucking in a noisy mouthful of broth.

‘Yes, he usually does, these days. It’s not surprising, I suppose, when you’ve lost your last surviving child. Especially as he thinks I killed him.’

The door opened again at this point and the arrival of Tillotson, Louisa Fielding, Uniff and the Indian Maid masked Dalziel’s surprise and prevented him from following up Bertie’s statement.

‘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 …?’