An Advancement of Learning. Reginald Hill
Then his sharp old eyes caught a flicker of movement among the dunes a furlong ahead.
Without thinking he halted and raised his glasses, without whose weight around his neck he would have felt only half-dressed.
What he saw sent him scrambling up a heathery bank to his right to gain a better vantage point. Then his glasses were up again, swinging wildly round in his incredulity.
In a hollow in the dunes ahead there were about twenty naked men and women dancing. At least that was the only name he could give to it. They were roughly in a circle, moving clockwise; generally in pairs, some facing each other, gripping each other’s arms, sinking to the ground together and leaping up again, their heads flung backwards, shaking in apparent frenzy. Others, arms linked behind, danced back to back, spinning round and round with increasing violence.
He could only see two-thirds of the circle because of the fold of the ground, and even with the clearness of the night and the help of his glasses, detail was not all that clear. But it was obvious that all the men were in a state of great sexual excitement.
A girl appeared alone in the centre of the circle. She seemed to be facing something he could not see because it was on the nearer side of the hollow. She knelt down, her arms flung wide, just in his view. Something advanced towards her from the side of the hollow, blocking her from Harold’s view. Something difficult to make out, dark and shadowy, a strange animal-like silhouette, like the head of a bull.
The dancing reached a new pitch of frenzy, the couples leaping high and shaking their bodies at each other with a wild abandon. Finally one pair collapsed in a tight embrace to the ground, another followed, then another, till in a few moments all lay there together, and a new dance began.
But this had no chance to reach any conclusions. Something happened, Harold couldn’t tell what. But a man leapt up suddenly and looked around. He obviously said something to the others, seemed to shout it in fact, but the distance was too great for Harold to hear.
Then they were all up on their feet and moving again. Not now in the convulsive provocative gyrations of sexual frenzy, but the uncertain changes of direction of fear and panic.
The man who was first to his feet disappeared at a run out of the hollow towards the sea. Instantly the rest scattered and in seconds, as far as Harold could see, the hollow was empty. He followed one or two of the naked figures with his glasses for a few moments, but soon they had all passed completely from view.
Still he swung his glasses to right and left hoping for a brief encore. A movement to the landward side caught his attention. He stopped and focused, but immediately snorted in disappointment. It was a figure all right, but obviously fully clothed. For a moment it stood silhouetted against the night sky, just a bulky shape topped absurdly by a pork pie hat. Then it moved forward down into a hollow among the dunes.
After that all was still.
Harold remained sitting on his vantage point for another fifteen minutes or so. Finally, ‘Now I’ve bloody well seen it all,’ he said to himself in gratulatory tones.
And, rising, he made his way back to the road and thence home.
Truly, so it seemed at the time, it had been Harold Lapping’s lucky night.
It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest; and surely the fairer way is not much about?
SIR FRANCIS BACON
Op. Cit.
The next day dawned as bright as those preceding it, but by breakfast a stiff breeze had sprung up from somewhere and students and staff alike began searching for the cardigans and pullovers they had so recently discarded.
Dalziel set off early in the morning to confer with his superiors. Pascoe couldn’t imagine what such a conference would be like. Who could possibly be Dalziel’s superior without having dismissed him on sight? If you needed qualities of wisdom and tolerance like these to get to the very top, Pascoe despaired of his own prospects. On the other hand there was the example of Kent.
Detective-Inspector Kent, who had supervised the digging of the garden and the collection of the remains the previous day, now appeared in Landor’s office and gave himself a few airs for a while. But he was too nice a man to keep it up. Pascoe liked him, but, like everyone else, marvelled that he had reached his present eminence. He was married with three young children and his family were devoted to him. But the one real love of his life was golf. It was an obsession with him. A week in which he played less than four rounds was to him a wasted week, though other men found it difficult to fit in nine holes between the demands of the job and their domestic responsibilities.
But Pascoe could feel almost sorry for the man now as he stared out of the window in the direction of the golf course. Dalziel distrusted him and though he’d left a whole list of instructions for Pascoe, Kent had nothing but a few reports to work on and Pascoe could almost feel him working himself up to take a stroll towards the links.
Which would be foolish, but it wasn’t Pascoe’s business to say so. He had work enough to do.
The first thing was to get as clear a picture as possible of Miss Girling’s movements on the day of her departure for Austria.
It is remarkable how difficult it is to reconstruct one particular day after five years. Pascoe tried it for himself and found it impossible.
The actual disaster had taken place in the early hours of December 20th. A Tuesday. Pascoe had arranged for copies of relevant press reports to be discreetly obtained for him. There was no point in provoking interest before they had to. The discovery of the bones had created a small stir, but generally speaking the public preferred fresh, warm blood.
Examination of the relevant year book which had provided much help with his lists the day before revealed that term had ended on Friday December 16th.
This seemed late to him. He consulted Landor who came in from time to time in search of files to take to his new office.
‘We are not a university, Sergeant,’ he answered drily. ‘I am realistic enough to fear that many of our students will not deign to open a book once away from us for the vacation. So we keep them here as long as we can. And in Miss Girling’s day, the place was very much a ladies’ seminary.’
Pascoe was growing to like Landor. Before leaving, Dalziel had told him of the previous night’s discoveries. Landor was unamazed.
‘How clever of you, Superintendent,’ he had said. ‘May we expect an early solution? It has taken a mere five years to discover that poor Miss Girling was murdered.’
Landor now suggested that Miss Scotby might have preserved some record of the sequence of end-of-term events. He himself was quite unable to help. Nothing in the registrar’s office was of any assistance either.
But before he could even start another Scotbyhunt, there was an interruption.
A small aggressive man with a Scottish accent burst in.
‘Where’s the other, the fat one?’ he demanded.
‘You mean Superintendent Dalziel?’
‘Dalziel? He’s a Scot?’
‘Only by birth. He’s not here at the moment. Can I help?’ The man looked doubtful, then nodded.
‘Why not? I’m Dunbar. Chemistry.’
He said it as though he were the science’s personification.
‘Yes, Mr Dunbar?’
‘What’s all this about Girling? That fool Disney’s been twittering about her all morning evidently. She’s a dreadful creature, dreadful. But they all are. It’s an occupational hazard. But what about Girling? The daft creature was hinting at a connection