REGINALD HILL
AN APRIL SHROUD
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Previously published in paperback by HarperCollinsPublishers in 1993 and by Grafton in 1987
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1975
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1975
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN 9780586072615
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780007370276
Version 2015-06-18
Contents
… the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all
And hides the green hill in an April shroud
JOHN KEATS
De’il and Dalziel begin with ane letter
The de’il’s nae guid and Dalziel’s nae better.
Old Galloway Saying
No one knew how it came about that Dalziel was making a speech. Pascoe had with great reluctance let himself be persuaded into a church wedding, partly by the argument sentimental (Mum’s looking forward to it), partly