‘Next left, if I recall right,’ said Dalziel.
He did, of course. Lost in a Mid-Yorkshire mist with an Ordnance Survey cartographer, a champion orienteer, and Andy Dalziel, Pascoe knew which one he’d follow.
Liggside was a small terrace of grey cottages fronting the pavement. No problem spotting number 7. There was a police car parked outside and a uniformed constable at the door, with two small groups of onlookers standing a decent distance (about ten feet in Mid-Yorkshire) on either side.
The constable moved forward as Dalziel double-parked, probably to remonstrate, but happily for his health, recognition dawned in time and he opened the car door for them with a commissionaire’s flourish.
Pascoe got out, stretched, and took in the scene. The cottages were small and unprepossessing, but solid, not mean, and the builder had been proud enough of them to mark the completion by carving the date in the central lintel: 1860. The year Mahler was born. Dalziel’s unexpected recognition of the Kindertotenlied brought the name to his mind. He doubted if the event had made much of a stir in Danby. What great event did occupy the minds of the first inhabitants of Liggside? American Civil War … no, that was 1861. How about Garibaldi’s Redshirts taking Sicily? Probably the Italian’s name never meant much more to most native Danbians than a jacket or a biscuit. Or was he being patronizingly elitist? Who should know better than he that there was no way of knowing what your ancestors knew?
What he did know was that his mental ramblings were an attempt to distance himself from the depth of pain and fear he knew awaited them beyond the matt-brown door with its bright brass letter box and its rudded step. Where a lost child was concerned, not even rage was strong enough to block that out.
The constable opened the house door and spoke softly. A moment later a uniformed sergeant Pascoe recognized as Clark, i/c Danby sub-station, appeared. He didn’t speak but just shook his head to confirm that nothing had changed. Dalziel pushed past him and Pascoe followed.
The small living room was crowded with people, all female, but there was no problem spotting the pale face of the missing child’s mother. She was sitting curled up almost foetally at the end of a white vinyl sofa. She seemed to be leaning away from, rather than into, the attempted embrace of a large blonde woman whose torso looked better suited to the lifting of weights than the offering of comfort.
Dalziel’s entrance drew all eyes. They looked for hope and, getting none, acknowledged its absence by dropping their focus from his face to his shirt.
‘Who the hell’s this clown?’ demanded the blonde in a smoke-roughened voice.
Clark said, ‘Detective Superintendent Dalziel, Head of CID.’
‘Is that right? And he comes out here at a time like this dressed like a frigging fairground tent?’
It was an image that made up in comprehensiveness what it lacked in detail.
Dalziel ignored her, and crouched with surprising suppleness before the pale-faced woman.
‘Mrs Dacre, Elsie,’ he said. ‘I came soon as I got word. I didn’t waste time changing.’
The eyes, mere glints in dark holes, rose to look at him.
‘Who gives a toss what you’re wearing. Can you find her?’
What do you say now, old miracle worker? wondered Pascoe.
‘I’ll do everything in my power,’ said Dalziel.
‘And what’s that then?’ demanded the blonde. ‘Just what are you doing, eh?’
Dalziel rose and said, ‘Sergeant Clark, let’s have a bit of space here. Everyone out please. Let’s have some air.’
The blonde’s body language said quite clearly that she wasn’t about to move, but Dalziel took the wind out of her sails by saying, ‘Not you, Mrs Coe. You hold still, if Elsie wants you.’
‘How the hell do you know my name?’ she demanded.
It was indeed a puzzling question, but not beyond all conjecture. Coe was Elsie Dacre’s maiden name, and an older woman who had assumed the office of chief comforter without either a family resemblance or the look of a bosom friend was likely to be an in-law.
Dalziel just looked at her blankly, not about to spoil that impression of omniscience which made people tell him the truth, or at least feel so nervous, it showed when they tried to hide it.
‘Right Sergeant,’ he said, as Clark closed the door after the last of the departing women. ‘So what’s going off?’
‘I’ve got my lads up the dale …’
‘Three. That’s how many he’s got,’ interposed Mrs Coe scornfully.
‘Tony – that’s Mr Dacre – naturally wanted to get back up there looking and a bunch of locals were keen to help, so I thought it best to make sure they had some supervision,’ Clark went on.
Dalziel nodded approvingly. The more disorganized and amateur an early search was, the harder it made any later fine-tooth combing whose object was to find clues to an abduction, or murder.
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Little lass could easily have turned her ankle and be sitting up the dale waiting for someone to fetch her.’
Such breezy optimism clearly got up Mrs Coe’s nose, but she kept her mouth shut. It was Elsie Dacre who responded violently, though so quietly to start with that at first the violence almost went unnoticed.
‘No need for all this soft soap, Mr Dalziel,’ she said. ‘We all know what this is about, don’t we? We all know.’
‘Sorry, luv, I’m just trying to …’
‘I know what you’re trying to do, and I know what you’ll be doing next. But it didn’t do any good last time, did it? So what’s changed, mister? You tell me that. What’s bloody changed!’
Now the woman’s voice was at full throttle, her eyes blazing, her face contorted with anger and fear.
‘Nay, lass, listen,’ said Dalziel intensely. ‘It’s early doors, too early to be talking of last time. God knows, I understand how that’ll be in your mind, it’s in mine too, but I’ll keep it at the back of my mind long as I can. I won’t rush to meet summat like that, and you shouldn’t either.’
‘You remember me then?’ said Mrs Dacre, peering at Dalziel closely as if there was comfort to be fixed in the Fat Man’s memory.
‘Aye, do I. When I heard your maiden name I thought, that could be one of the Coes from over in Dendale. You were the youngest, weren’t you?’
‘I were eleven when it started. I remember those days, hot days like now, and all us kids going round in fear of our lives. I thought I’d never forget. But you do forget, don’t you. Or at least, like you say, you put it so far at the back of your mind it’s like forgetting … and you grow up and start feeling safe, and you have a kiddie of your own, and you never let yourself think … but that’s where you’re wrong, mister! If I hadn’t kept it in the back of my mind, if I’d kept it at the front where it belongs … something like that’s too important … too bloody terrible … to keep at the back of …’
She broke down in a flood of tears and her sister-in-law embraced her irresistibly. Then the door opened and an older woman came in. This time the family resemblance was unmistakable. She said, ‘Elsie, I was down at Sandra’s … I’ve just heard …’
‘Oh, Mam,’ cried Elsie Dacre.
Her sister-in-law was thrust aside and she embraced her mother as though she could crush hope and comfort out of her.
Dalziel said, ‘Mrs Coe, why don’t you make us