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Ruling Passion
Reginald Hill
‘One of the modern masters of the police procedural’ Sunday TelegraphPeter Pascoe is in shock. A weekend in the country with old friends turns into a nightmare when he finds three of them dead and the missing fourth a prime suspect in the eyes of the local police.They want his cooperation, but Superintendent Dalziel needs him back in Yorkshire where a string of unsolved burglaries looks like turning nasty.As events unfold, though, the two cases seem to be getting entwined…
REGINALD HILL
RULING PASSION
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Copyright (#u73653413-60cb-5a2a-98c9-c96f5697afb8)
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 by HarperCollins in 1993
and by Grafton in 1987
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 1973
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1973
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
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 9780586072608
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780007370320
Version: 2015-06-18
Dedication (#ulink_855650d2-f7bb-5c39-a3e0-ba8ba941cd28)
For Pat again – with love and thanks
Epigraph (#ulink_528dd1fb-9132-5530-977d-1995821ba112)
Search then the ruling passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found unravels all the rest …
ALEXANDER POPE
Contents
Cover (#u7cfef9c1-9512-5980-bb74-b843ca4f66e4)
Title Page (#ue5284cdf-c3ad-568a-821b-04338773f94d)
Copyright (#u68257f7b-3a8e-598a-99fe-30c3b1192b8f)
Dedication (#ub234459b-b094-5d3a-aa28-817726b1723d)
Epigraph (#u8592cb73-ead6-5199-8215-71d429423778)
Part One (#u9eb8bfe8-28d7-5545-aabc-8c3eae29aafc)
Chapter 1 (#u9d707b64-07f0-58c0-9a74-847a841f4054)
Chapter 2 (#u7ad8fa4b-9d2f-5f2a-81a6-137218bdeefc)
Chapter 3 (#uacd5db1f-c416-543c-a88c-30fb7f75d94b)
Chapter 4 (#u47a3d900-4c12-54fc-8a8d-23ee49224f78)
Chapter 5 (#uea5bfcd9-0506-5daf-8b95-20043734aecd)
Chapter 6 (#u518a78dc-47c0-56ce-934b-b9b152994f0f)
Chapter 7 (#u95d4e62b-15de-5cf6-b895-c2e9b967215e)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#u73653413-60cb-5a2a-98c9-c96f5697afb8)
Chapter 1 (#u73653413-60cb-5a2a-98c9-c96f5697afb8)
Brookside Cottage,
Thornton Lacey.
September 4th.
Well hello, Peter Pascoe!
A voice from the grave! Or should I say the underworld? Out of which Ellie (who gave me the glad news of your existence when we met in town last month) hopes to lead you, for a while at least, back into the land of the living.
Ironic, thought Detective-Superintendent Backhouse, his gaze flicking momentarily to the pale-faced man who sat opposite him. He did not speak the thought aloud. He was a kind man, though he never shunned the cruelties of his job when they became essential.
He read on.
Doubtless she told you we’ve been doing up this rural slum to make it a fit place for pallid cits to recuperate in. Well, now it is complete and we’d love for you and Ellie to week-end with us in a fortnight (constabulary duty permitting, of course!). Timmy and Carlo are coming down from the Great Wen so there will be much nostalgia! Not quite as squalid as that other cottage in Eskdale (I hope) – but oddly enough life in Thornton Lacey is not without its correspondences!
‘What’s he mean by that?’ asked Backhouse.
Pascoe stared at the sentence indicated by the superintendent’s carefully manicured finger. It took him a second to bring the words into focus.
‘When we were students,’ he said, ‘we spent a few weeks one summer in Eskdale. In Cumberland.’
‘The same people?’
Pascoe nodded.
‘Colin and Rose weren’t married then.’
‘What’s this about correspondences?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember much about it.’
Except one evening, the six of them, golden in the low-stooping sun, walking in companionable silence across a diagonally sloping field towards the distant village and its pub. The slope had separated their courses, pulling them apart so that they were strung out across the coarse, tussocky grass, only coming together again at the wooden gate in the lowest corner of the loose-stone wall.
Make it Friday evening if possible, but bright and early Saturday if not. Do not fail us in this our command or our wrath shall be terrible and you know just how terrible my wrath can be!
Seriously, it will delight me more than I can say if you come. It’s not every day that we see Abelard reunited with Eloisa (and his vital equipment, I hope!) Love from us both,
Colin (and Rose)
Backhouse finished the letter with a sigh, made a note on a slip of paper, clipped it to the single pale lemon sheet and put it into a bright green plastic folder.
‘I’ll hang on to this,’ he said. ‘If I may.’
Not that it had any value at the moment. Probably it never would. But he preferred to work that way. Meticulousness is the better part of serendipity.
‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ he asked.
The door opened before Pascoe could answer. An ancient constable creaked wearily in, holding some typewritten sheets.
‘Mr – that is, Sergeant – Pascoe’s statement, sir.’
He laid the sheets carefully before Backhouse and retreated.
‘Thank you, Crowther,’ said Backhouse, turning the sheets round and pushing them towards Pascoe.
