Free An April Shroud by Reginald Hill Page B

got some of the distinguishing marks of your lesser duck-billed tycoon. No, we've all been sweet-talked into this business in the hope and expectation of much bread, by which, verily, man might not live alone, but without which, verily, he surely can't live with anyone else.'
    'We agreed, no shop,' said Bonnie warningly.
    'Did we? You need to watch yourself in this house, Mr Dalziel. You can be lying in bed minding your own business and wham! you find you've made an agreement!'
    He subsided behind his apple crumble and the rest of the meal passed in meteorological chitter-chatter, though Dalziel had to field a couple of invitations to reveal his own line of business. Never before could he recall himself concealing his profession - except for professional reasons. There were none that he could formulate, so why was he doing something which, when admitted by his colleagues, had always filled him with contempt?
    After dinner they drank coffee whose bitterness resisted the addition of four teaspoons of sugar. The dinner dishes were then piled on a trolley to be wheeled down to the new kitchen where a huge dishwasher was the one positive benefit so far derived from the restaurant scheme.
    'You know, it's stopped raining, for the moment at least,' said Bonnie, looking out of the window. 'I think I'll stroll out and post some letters. Anyone fancy a walk?'
    'I'd like some fresh air,' said Tillotson, but Bonnie shook her head.
    'Sorry, but I told Herrie you'd go up and read to him. There's nothing wrong with his eyesight,' she explained to Dalziel, 'but there are many things he prefers to hear read aloud. And Charley's got the best voice for it.'
    'It's those upper class vowels,' said Bertie. 'Basically the old man's a simple snob.'
    'Hush. So you run along, Charley, Mr Dalziel what about you?'
    'It'd be a pleasure,' said Dalziel. He thought he saw an ironic smile flicker across Mavis's face, but it was hard to be sure.
    'Right. Gum-boots and wet kit, I think. Your stuff should all be dry now. I'll see you outside in five minutes.'
    The rain had indeed stopped, but the atmosphere was damp to the point of saturation. What light there was seemed to glint dully from the surface of the water rather than come from above. There was at first an illusory silence which after a while fragmented into a myriad soft lapping, splashing, dripping noises and the gentle night wind was like a damp breath on Dalziel's face.
    They walked without speaking along what he took to be the main drive of the house. It ran downhill but only reached the level of the floods at the gateway to the road and the light from Bonnie's torch showed that the water though extensive was easily fordable here. They splashed through it, turned away from the lake, and were soon back on dry tarmac as the road began to climb.
    'It's a pity the drive didn't dip lower,' said Bonnie. 'It would have been rather nice to be quite cut off.'
    'Why's that?' asked Dalziel.
    'I don't know. Isolation. An interlude before the outside pressures started up again. As it is, well, everything's been going on at the same time. Business troubles, legalities, funeral arrangements.'
    'It can't have been easy,' said Dalziel.
    'No. You've heard how my husband died, have you, Mr Dalziel?'
    Dalziel's professional instinct was to say no and get it from her own lips, but he had no difficulty in subjugating it.
    'Yes,' he answered. 'Terrible.'
    'Yes. And it couldn't have happened at a worse time.'
    'Money?' asked Dalziel.
    'That's right.' For a moment she sounded like Uniff in her inflection. 'We were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Conrad - my husband - was more enthusiastic than expert in business matters. He spent ten years in the Army - REME, nothing heroic - and came out convinced his gratuity was going to be the basis of a financial empire.
    Well, I always added fifty per cent on to his estimate of the cost of anything, but I think he must have started taking that into account! Anyway, we were well