'Are you all right?' said Cap.
'Yes, fine. Why?'
'Your lips were moving, but no words were coming out.'
'It's a ventriloquist act I'm working on,' said Ellie. 'I think you may have spotted where I'm going wrong. Andy was telling me he's here because you invited him. How come you're here, if you don't mind me asking?'
'My grandfather, imagining he was rich enough for his money to last forever, decided to use some of it to give his name a similar lifespan. He was wrong about his money, as my father, inflation, and a lot of lethargic horses proved. As for his name, you'll have noticed it, but I bet you didn't think of me.'
'Hang on. You don't mean the Marvell Collection in the library? I thought it had something to do with the poet.'
'The family claim a distant relationship,' said Cap. 'But no, it was Grandfather's bid for immortality. And in the hope that some of his descendants might have similar funds and a similar fancy, the family name remains on the university's permanent invitation list. I wasn't going to come, then I thought it might be amusing to test the depth of their desire to see me by bringing Andy along. In fact he seems more at home than I am.'
'A man with roots knows where all the bodies are buried,' said Ellie broadly. 'I am of course quoting. Talking of buried bodies, whatever you say, it must have been a bit of a shock to you last night.'
'Less than you'd imagine. You expect bodies on a battlefield and that's what it felt like out there. You've got me worried about Wendy though.'
This was a change of tack. Perhaps she was all heart after all.
'I'm sure she'll be OK. She just wants a heart-to-heart. You know. Girl talk. We go back a long way.'
Which was laying it on a little thick.
Cap smiled and said, 'Yes, of course. Burrthorpe. And you were her sponsor, weren't you? And her guru too, it seems. Excuse me. There's Galway from Biology trying to avoid my eye. We need to talk about his rats. Catch you later, Ellie.'
She moved away in pursuit of a furtive-looking man in a hispid tweed suit. Ellie felt a pang of sympathy for him. Cap's energies might be misdirected but she was nonetheless formidable. With a bit of luck, Dalziel might for once have overfaced himself.
She looked around for Wendy once more. Still no sign. Damn her, she'd better show. Already she was feeling that she'd done her duty by the NUM and the one drink she allowed herself when driving wasn't going to last much longer. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned, saying, 'There you are,' only to find, instead of Wendy, she was being smiled at by Arthur Halfdane, historian and former colleague, whose career had prospered at the expense of his fresh young face and curly hair.
'Ellie,' he said. 'You're looking great. Someone I'd like you to meet. Melbourne University prof here on a sabbatical. Fascinating character.'
Bitter experience had taught her that while linguists were usually little snakes with silver tongues, and Eng. Littites frequently had both the tears and the teeth of the crocodile, your most dangerous academic fauna was a smiling historian with a burden to share.
Behind Halfdane she could see a desiccated man with irregular yellow teeth and a red line running round his brow suggesting either recent brain surgery or the habitual wearing of a tight-fitting cork-hung hat.
Ducking into the lee of a merry-faced woman in her late thirties and a flowered jump suit which strained to constrain her exuberant flesh, Ellie hissed, 'Thanks but no thanks. I've done my Ozzie quota for the year.'
'That's OK, girl. I hate you fucking Poms too,' said the Rubenesque woman, her smile even wider.
'Ellie,' said Halfdane with that smug historian's expression evolved through centuries of being right about everything fifty years after it happened, 'let me introduce you to Professor Pollinger.'
xv
Peter Pascoe lay in the dark and felt its weight press upon him.
Peine forte et dure.. Who was it said, 'More weight?'. . And had it been in defiance or merely a plea to hasten a certain end?
Idiot! he told himself. Over the top as usual. What cause have I for despair? There are those out there with nothing but darkness between them and the sky.. soldiers and poor unable to rejoice … the lost, the dispossessed.. while I lie here with a wife and daughter I love..
.. with a wife and daughter who love me — o Alice Ada the thought of you should give me strength to fight — why is it the thought of you brings me to the brink of hopelessness?
Because I cant believe this is for you — not any of it — how can this filth this foulness this blood these broken bones and scattered limbs these lice these rats this helpless hopeless heedless hell have anything to do with you? What is it these horrors protect you from? — Some baby-butchering Hun on a poster? — Ive seen him this monster — Ive seen him dead and Ive seen him alive — and dead he lies there like my own mates — same gore oozing from same mangled limbs — same disbelief in same uncomprehending eyes.
And alive he looks like a lost boy terrified the hand I offer with a fag will turn into a fist — and when he starts to believe my kindness he reaches in his tunic and shows me pictures of his Alice his Ada.
Is this the monster Im protecting you from? Am I the monster hes protecting his family from? I dont know — there must be a reason and if not this then what?
Peter Pascoe rolled out of bed and tiptoed from the room.
Sleep wasn't going to come tonight. He'd known it from the moment Studholme had told him the truth. The major, so reluctant at first to reveal what he knew, once that barrier was over, seemed ready to sit and talk forever. Pascoe's instinct, fine-honed on years of interrogation, knew there was more to come, a lot of questions still to answer. But not now, not now. All he wanted was to be alone in the afterwrack of this bombshell. He'd almost pushed Studholme out of the house, then poured himself a Dalzielesque Scotch and roamed restless, ending up in the garden, feeling the need for space and distance and the cloudy indifference of the sky.
Cold had driven him back in where he found his wanderings had disturbed Rosie. With a huge effort he had put a lid on his emotional turmoil so that it wouldn't overflow and be detectable by the child. A favourite story had soothed her fret and when sleep had finally relaxed those already unflawed lineaments to the breath-catching freshness of the very first spring, he had looked down on her, then closed his own eyes and imagined never seeing her again.
He opened his eyes. She was still there. He had sat by her bedside till he heard the car in the drive and knew that Ellie had returned.
They drank coffee together while she told him with delight of Dalziel's presence at the party and the speculations it aroused. Pascoe had responded dully to both gossip and news and finally headed for bed, pleading his early start and long drive. He wanted to talk to Ellie, but not till he felt he had something rational, something coherent, to say. There were dark places inside his mind that he didn't feel able to share, not yet, not perhaps ever. Once when he was younger he'd have said that love was about openness, about the utter nakedness each to each of two bodies and minds and souls. But not now … not now.. not now..