REGINALD HILL
ARMS AND THE WOMEN
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Copyright © Reginald Hill 2000
Extract from ‘Marina’ from the Collected Poems 1909–62 by T.S. Eliot (published by Faber and Faber Ltd) Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd
Lines from ‘Girls’ by Stevie Smith from The Collected Poems of Stevie Smith (Penguin) © James McGibbon 1975
Extracts from The Englishman’s Flora by Geoffrey Grigson (Phoenix House 1987)
Extract from A Celtic Miscellany by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (Penguin 1971)
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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.
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Source ISBN: 9780007313181
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007378548
Version: 2015-06-18
This one’s for
those Six Proud Walkers
in whose company the sun always shines bright
Emmelien
Jane
Liz
Margaret
Mary
Teresa
who most Fridays of the year…on distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly…
and, of course, laughing and talking and eating
almond slices,
with fondest greetings from
one of the trailing shadows!
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling Questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE: Urn Burial
With my own eyes I’ve seen the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a pot, and when the young lads asked her, what do you want for yourself, Sibyl? she replied, I want to die.
PETRONIUS: The Satyricon
Girls! although I am a woman
I always try to appear human
STEVIE SMITH: Girls!
Contents
ii who’s that knocking at my door?