undistinguished tune which as a ten-year-old he could pick out on the drawing-room piano. Did anyone sing that hymn now? he wondered. It had been a favourite choice of Miss Barnett on those long dark afternoons in winter before the Sunday school was released, when the outside light was fading and the small Adam Dalgliesh was already dreading those last twenty yards of his walk home, where the rectory drive curved and the bushes grew thickest. Night was different from bright day, smelt different, sounded different; ordinary things assumed different shapes; an alien and more sinister power ruled the night. Those twenty yards of crunching gravel, where the lights of the house were momentarily screened, were a weekly horror. Once through the gate to the drive, he would walk fast, but not too fast, since the power that ruled the night could smell out fear as dogs smell out terror. His mother, he knew, would never have expected him to walk those yards alone had she known that he suffered such atavistic panic, but she hadn’t known and he would have died before telling her. And his father? His father would have expected him to be brave, would have told him that God was God of the darkness as He was of the light. There were after all a dozen appropriate texts he could have quoted. “Darkness and light are both alike to Thee.” But they were not alike to a sensitive ten-year-old boy. It was on those lonely walks that he had first had intimations of an essentially adult truth, that it is those who most love us who cause us the most pain. He said: “So you’re looking for a local man, a loner, someone who has a night job, the use ofa car or van and a knowledge of
Hymns Ancient and Modern
. That should make it easier.”
Rickards said: “You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”
He sat in silence for a minute, then said: “I think I’d like just a small whisky now, Mr. Dalgliesh, if it’s all the same to you.”
It was after midnight when he finally left. Dalgliesh walked out with him to the car. Looking out across the headland, Rickards said: “He’s out there somewhere, watching, waiting. There’s hardly a waking moment when I don’t think of him, imagine what he looks like, where he is, what he’s thinking. Susie’s ma is right. I haven’t had much to give her recently. And when he’s caught, that’ll be the end. It’s finished. You move on. He doesn’t, but you do. And by the end you know everything, or think you do. Where, when, who, how. You might even know why if you’re lucky. And yet, essentially, you know nothing. All that wickedness, and you don’t have to explain it or understand it or do a bloody thing about it except put a stop to it. Involvement without responsibility. No responsibility for what he did or for what happens to him afterwards. That’s for the judge and the jury. You’re involved, and yet you’re not involved. Is that what appeals to you about the job, Mr. Dalgliesh?”
It was not a question Dalgliesh would have expected even from a friend, and Rickards was not a friend. He said: “Can any of us answer that question?”
“You remember why I left the Met, Mr. Dalgliesh.”
“The two corruption cases? Yes, I remember why you left the Met.”
“And you stayed. You didn’t like it any more than I did. You wouldn’t have touched the pitch. But you stayed. You were detached about it all, weren’t you? It interested you.”
Dalgliesh said: “It’s always interesting when men you thought you knew behave out of character.”
And Rickards had fled from London. In search of what? Dalgliesh wondered. Some romantic dream of country peace, an England which had vanished, a gentler method of policing, total honesty? He wondered whether Rickards had found it.
BOOK TWO
THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER TO
FRIDAY 23 SEPTEMBER
1
It was 7.10 and the saloon bar of the Duke of Clarence pub was already smoke-filled, the noise level rising and the crowd at the bar three feet deep. Christine Baldwin, the
Hymns Ancient and Modern
. That should make it easier.”
Rickards said: “You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”
He sat in silence for a minute, then said: “I think I’d like just a small whisky now, Mr. Dalgliesh, if it’s all the same to you.”
It was after midnight when he finally left. Dalgliesh walked out with him to the car. Looking out across the headland, Rickards said: “He’s out there somewhere, watching, waiting. There’s hardly a waking moment when I don’t think of him, imagine what he looks like, where he is, what he’s thinking. Susie’s ma is right. I haven’t had much to give her recently. And when he’s caught, that’ll be the end. It’s finished. You move on. He doesn’t, but you do. And by the end you know everything, or think you do. Where, when, who, how. You might even know why if you’re lucky. And yet, essentially, you know nothing. All that wickedness, and you don’t have to explain it or understand it or do a bloody thing about it except put a stop to it. Involvement without responsibility. No responsibility for what he did or for what happens to him afterwards. That’s for the judge and the jury. You’re involved, and yet you’re not involved. Is that what appeals to you about the job, Mr. Dalgliesh?”
It was not a question Dalgliesh would have expected even from a friend, and Rickards was not a friend. He said: “Can any of us answer that question?”
“You remember why I left the Met, Mr. Dalgliesh.”
“The two corruption cases? Yes, I remember why you left the Met.”
“And you stayed. You didn’t like it any more than I did. You wouldn’t have touched the pitch. But you stayed. You were detached about it all, weren’t you? It interested you.”
Dalgliesh said: “It’s always interesting when men you thought you knew behave out of character.”
And Rickards had fled from London. In search of what? Dalgliesh wondered. Some romantic dream of country peace, an England which had vanished, a gentler method of policing, total honesty? He wondered whether Rickards had found it.
BOOK TWO
THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER TO
FRIDAY 23 SEPTEMBER
1
It was 7.10 and the saloon bar of the Duke of Clarence pub was already smoke-filled, the noise level rising and the crowd at the bar three feet deep. Christine Baldwin, the
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