An April Shroud. Reginald Hill

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      ‘I was having a nap,’ she said with more of accusation than explanation in her voice.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Fielding. ‘Do you know where Papworth is?’

      ‘No,’ said the woman yawning, showing good teeth in a moist pink mouth. Her glance flickered towards Dalziel who looked her up and down from her bare feet to the untidy brightness of her hair and leered grotesquely at her. Dalziel’s leer was so unambiguous that it was like a lesser man exposing himself. Mrs Greave screwed up her mouth in distaste and said, ‘Sorry, I’ve no idea. I’d better start thinking about dinner, I suppose, so if you’ll excuse me.’

      She began to close the door but Dalziel leaned forward so that his belly curved into the doorway. It was more subtle than putting your foot in the jamb.

      Sniffing noisily, he said, ‘Is something burning?’

      The woman half turned, then swung back again to prevent Dalziel from entering the room.

      ‘No,’ she said, and swung the door to so violently that he had to skip back to avoid a collision. But he smiled to himself as they moved on. He had penetrated far enough to see a man’s suede shoe lying on the floor. It looked wet.

      ‘So she’s the cook, is she?’ he asked.

      ‘So rumour has it,’ said Fielding drily. ‘It was probably the dinner you smelt burning.’

      Dalziel laughed. It was turning out to be a very interesting household, this. It had to be Papworth who was in the woman’s room. Perhaps he was just taking evasive action. With this old fusspot on the prowl, who could blame him? Though, of course, you didn’t need to take your shoes off to hide.

      ‘Papworth’s knocking her off, is he?’ he said, voicing his thought.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Mrs Greave. The cook.’

      Fielding laughed again.

      ‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘She’s his daughter!’

      ‘His daughter?’ echoed Dalziel. ‘You’re sure?’

      ‘No one can ever be sure of their father,’ said Fielding. ‘We believe what we’re told, don’t we? Come on. We might find him in the Hall.’

      It seemed that this hunt for Papworth was becoming an obsession with the old man. Dalziel’s own enthusiasm had waned, partly because he still had not discarded his theory about Papworth’s whereabouts (a man could visit his daughter in her bedroom, couldn’t he?) but mainly because Fielding now proposed that they should go out into the rain-filled yard.

      ‘Hold on,’ he said at the door. ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘Just over there,’ said Fielding, pointing to a long high-roofed building which ran out from the main house. It looked as if it might once have been a stables, but surprisingly, in this neglected house, this particular block looked as if someone had been working on it fairly recently, an impression confirmed by the wording on a sign propped against the wall. Gibb and Fowler, Building Contractors, Orburn.

      ‘It joins up with the house,’ said Dalziel reasonably. ‘Can’t we get into it without going outside?’

      ‘If you must,’ said the old man crossly, shutting the door.

      Their route this time took them through a new world in the form of a large room (or perhaps two or three rooms knocked into one) where the old stone walls had been plastered and painted a brilliant blue. On one side were a pair of large freezers and on the other, gleaming in silver and white, a row of microwave ovens. It was like stepping out of a bus shelter into a space ship.

      ‘What’s all this?’ asked Dalziel in bewilderment.

      ‘We drink a lot of soup,’ said Fielding, not stopping to offer further explanation but pressing on through the room with unflagging speed.

      Dalziel followed down another short corridor, then into the building which was the object of Fielding’s forced march.

      Here he halted and let his eyes get used to the dim light filtering through the narrow arched windows. If the microwave ovens had been a step forward out of the nineteenth century, what was going on here was just as determined a step back.

      The building had been a stables, he reckoned, with an upper floor used perhaps as a hay-loft. This floor had now been removed with the exception of a small section at the far end which had been transformed into a kind of minstrels’ gallery. The joists supporting the arched roof had clearly lacked something in antiquity and they were being supplemented by a new fishbone pattern of age-blackened beams, standing out starkly against the white-washed interstices. Dalziel rapped his knuckles against one of these beams which was leaning against the wall, prior to elevation. It rang hollowly and felt smooth and cold to the touch. Dalziel was not repelled. He had nothing against plastic. He would as lief eat off colourful Formica as polished mahogany. Nor did it seem distasteful to him that the panes of stained ‘glass’ which were being fitted into the windows were plastic also. His reaction was one of simple puzzlement.

      To what end would the Fieldings be transforming an old stables into something that looked like a set for a remake of Robin Hood?

      Old Fielding, having peered into various recesses and through various doors, now abandoned his search for Papworth and returned to enjoy Dalziel’s bewilderment.

      ‘What do you think of this?’ he asked, gesturing with a flamboyance more in keeping with his surroundings than his person. ‘Is it not a fit monument for our times? What would Pope have had to say?’

      ‘Monument?’ said Dalziel, wondering momentarily if the old man was being literal and this place was indeed intended to be some sort of mausoleum, a kind of bourgeois Taj Mahal. But what about the ovens?

      The answer was obvious.

      ‘It’s a café,’ said Dalziel.

      This solution sent the old man into paroxysms of laughter which modulated into a coughing bout from which it seemed unlikely he would recover. Dalziel watched for a moment coldly, then administered a slap between his shoulder-blades which brought the dust up out of the old man’s jacket and sent him staggering against a section of stone reproduction wall which gave visibly.

      ‘Thank you,’ said Fielding. ‘Though I fear the cure was more dangerous than the disease. Well now. A café. Yes, that’s the word. Not the word that will be used, of course, should this sad enterprise ever come to fruition. No. Then this place will be called a Banqueting Hall. My daughter-in-law is too careful, I think, to risk the penalties prescribed under the Trades Descriptions Act by calling it a Medieval Banqueting Hall, but the word “medieval” will certainly appear somewhere on the prospectus.’

      ‘People will eat here,’ said Dalziel.

      The prospect did not displease him. Eating was one of the Four Deadly Pleasures. Though he could not see the necessity for all these trappings. A meal was a meal.

      ‘That’s right. A dagger and a wooden platter. At a given signal, chicken legs will be thrown over the right shoulder. It’s a pastime very popular I believe in the North-East where the past is still close СКАЧАТЬ