Pictures of Perfection. Reginald Hill
play a large part in his detective life. Once he had known them, but only as examination knowledge, which sparkles like the dew in the morning and has as brief a stay. He was pretty certain the pigeons and the rabbit were OK, but he couldn’t swear to the duck. Wieldy would know. Wieldy knew everything, despite never showing the slightest interest in promotion exams.
But at least he could check the gun licence.
It was too late, he realized as he looked up from tucking his shirt into the trousers. The young man had vanished.
‘Who was that?’ he asked. ‘And where’s he gone?’
‘God knows, and He’s not telling,’ said Wapshare. ‘Name of Toke. Jason Toke. Bit strange but he’s harmless, and you’d have to walk a long mile to find a better shot. We buy a lot of stuff off him. He doesn’t work – who does these days? – and the money helps him and his mam. But what are we hanging around here for, Chief Inspector? Come through into the bar and make yourself comfortable till your trousers are ready.’
The bar was a delight, nicely proportioned and very user-friendly, with lots of old oak furniture well polished by much use, a huge fireplace with a log fire, walls completely free of horse-brass, and best of all, not a juke box or fruit machine in sight. Waspshare drew a couple of pints before he got a potion which satisfied his critical gaze.
‘There we are,’ he said, handing over a glass. ‘Clear as a nun’s conscience.’
Pascoe produced some money and when Wapshare looked ready to be offended, he placed the coins carefully on a ziggurat of copper and silver which towered up beside a notice saying Save Our School.
‘Money trouble?’ he said with the sympathy of a parent who spent so much time answering appeals that he sometimes suspected he’d been edged into private education without noticing it.
‘Aye, but not just books and chalk. Worse than that. We need enough to pay a teacher, else they’ll close the place down and bus our kids nine miles to Byreford.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Pascoe. ‘How’s the appeal doing?’
‘OK, but not OK enough to provide an income. That takes real money. Only way we can get that is to sell something and we’ve nowt to sell except our Green. So no school or no Green. It’s what they call a double whammy, isn’t it? But you’ve not come here to talk about schools, have you, sir? Not unless it’s a school for scandal!’
‘So what do you think I have come here to talk about? asked Pascoe.
‘At a guess I’d say … Constable Bendish!’ He peered into Pascoe’s face and let out his infectious laugh. ‘Nay sir, don’t look so glummered! There’s no trick. Soon as it got round that Terry Filmer were getting his knickers in a twist about Dirty Harry going missing, I said to my good lady, five quid to a farthing some smart detective from the city’ll stroll in here afore the day’s out and start making discreet inquiries. So fire away, Mr Pascoe.’
Pascoe sipped his beer, decided that a man who kept ale as good as this was entitled to a bit of smart-assery, and said, ‘It’s a fair cop. But no big deal. It’s just that we need to get hold of Bendish, but it’s his day off and no one seems to know where he’s got to. Probably some simple explanation …’
‘Like he’s trapped under a fallen woman,’ grinned Wapshare. ‘Lucky devil!’
Wondering if this echo of Dalziel’s theory sprang from local knowledge, Pascoe said, ‘Is that why you called him Dirty Harry just now?’
‘No. That just slipped out. A kind of nickname some folk use,’ said Wapshare, hesitating before going on, ‘I might as well tell you as you’ll not be long finding out, your Constable Bendish didn’t set out to make himself popular. For years we had old Chaz Barnwall, lovely man, and when he retired last back end, we gave him a party here that went on till milking time. Next night, dead on the stroke of eleven, the door opens and young Harold walks in. “Welcome to Enscombe,” says I. “You’ll have a drink against the cold?” And he never cracks his face but says, “No, I won’t. For two reasons. One is my warrant which doesn’t allow me to drink on duty. The other is your licence which doesn’t allow you to serve drink after eleven. Get supped up and shut up, landlord.” And he went outside and sat in his car in the car park, and the first lad who came out, he breathalysed.’
‘New broom,’ said Pascoe. ‘Making his mark.’
‘He did that right enough. As well as the breathalysing, he marked folk for road tax, tyres, lights, MOT, leaving mud on the road, letting animals stray – you name it, if it’s an offence there’s someone round here he’s done for it! Can you wonder some folk took to calling him Dirty Harry!’
‘So, a lot of people with grudges,’ said Pascoe. ‘You included?’
‘Nay, takes more than that to cause a grudge round here. As for me, I were grateful to have an excuse to get to bed at a decent time. This pubbing takes up far too much fishing time as it is.’
‘I notice you don’t exactly advertise,’ said Pascoe.
‘Them as I want in here knows where it is,’ said Wapshare. ‘Plus a few discerning travellers like yourself, of course. But if it’s the sign you mean, there’s a story behind that.’
A policeman in full possession of his trousers might have avoided the temptation and pressed on with official inquiries. But Pascoe felt himself in the grip of stronger forces than mere duty. He finished his beer and said, ‘A story, you say?’
‘Aye. You’d like to hear it? Let me get you the other half. And what about summat to eat? Only take a tick to fry up some chips and a slice or two of my black pudding. Nay? You’ll have a piece of cold pie, but? My good lady would never forgive me if I let you go without trying her game pie. That big enough for you? If not there’s plenty more. Now let me see. The sign. We’ve got to go back a few hundred years …’
Pascoe began to feel this might have been a very serious mistake. But as he sank his teeth into the wedge of pie and found it matched in quality the superb ale, he comforted himself with the argument that this came under the heading of gathering local colour.
‘Thing is,’ began Wapshare, ‘there never used to be a pub here in Enscombe at all. There was no way we were going to get one without the approval of the Guillemards, and the Guillemards reckoned that the last thing working men needed was a pub to get bolshie in.’
‘The Guillemards? They’re the family at Old Hall, right?’ said Pascoe, recalling the brief briefing he’d received from Terry Filmer about the last sighting of Harry Bendish.
‘That’s right. Used to be a big bunch of them and right powerful.’
‘And now?’
‘There’s the old Squire; his granddaughter, Girlie; his great-nephew, Guy Guillemard, who’s the heir; and little Franny Harding, the poor relation.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Every posh family needs a poor relation to remind ’em how well they’re doing. Only in recent years they’ve not been doing so well. But way back, when I’m talking about, they were rotten rich, and they made sure Enscombe stayed dry till well into the last century.’
‘What happened then?’
‘What happened? They were rude to Jake Halavant, that’s what happened!’
‘Halavant? Any relation to Justin Halavant at Scarletts?’
‘You know Justin? Then mebbe you’ll be surprised to learn that at the start of the last century the Halavants were nowt but a bunch of raggedyarsed peasants who could hardly pronounce their own name let alone spell it. The only one on ’em with enough brains to make a pudding was Jake. Good with his hands too – carving, painting, owt of that. And a real artist with his tongue, by all accounts. So it didn’t surprise anyone when he decided he’d had enough of living like a pig, and he upped and vanished. But everyone was