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Under World
Reginald Hill
‘Hill is an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift’ Frances Fyfield, Mail on SundayYears ago, young Tracey Pedley disappeared in the woods around Burrthorpe. The close-knit mining village had its own ideas about what happened, but the police pinned it on a known child-killer who subsequently committed suicide.Now Burrthorpe comes to police attention again. A man’s body is discovered down a mine shaft and it’s clear he has been murdered. Dalziel and Pascoe’s investigation takes them to the heart of a frightened and hostile community. But could the key to the present-day investigation lie in the past when little Tracey vanished into thin air…?
REGINALD HILL
UNDER WORLD
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Copyright (#ulink_2f212ead-c9ff-5ec8-b321-8dcf163ad4ab)
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 1988
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1988
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
The quotations on pages 1, 9, 125, 329 and 421, are from
Dante’s Inferno translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and published by Penguin Books Ltd.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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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 9780586204528
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780007380305
Version 2015-06-22
Epigraph (#ulink_557cca05-2f39-57c7-9f8a-d5a06043f88b)
Hear truth: I stood on the steep brink whereunder
Runs down the dolorous chasm of the Pit,
Ringing with infinite groans like gathered thunder.
Deep, dense, and by no faintest glimmer lit
It lay, and though I strained my sight to find
Bottom, not one thing could I see in it.
Down must we go, to that dark world and blind.
Contents
Cover (#ue28ff280-8aa1-537a-8051-0ba015117cb4)
Title Page (#u8a1cfb4c-69f9-5898-ba50-9c3bac391cf7)
Copyright (#u54f5867f-6d35-545d-b166-cefce81a6f33)
Epigraph (#uba24afba-ac4e-5c3d-918c-d5fa03bd596b)
Chapter 1 (#u6f9d9075-8f07-5912-9855-4445f0c01f2b)
Part One (#u8ba0dd77-dfbf-5900-ac59-cf6a126d9937)
Chapter 1 (#u1cb15768-3cdb-5fd1-8180-9716f8336526)
Chapter 2 (#ud188a201-3f87-5588-aea7-b500433ea398)
Chapter 3 (#u85de39f4-22c6-5008-84b5-de0d2e9e9cd9)
Chapter 4 (#u668996cd-8d15-5f21-b6ca-56d557c83101)
Chapter 5 (#ub22a747d-e442-5a53-b2e4-05343bb4b634)
Chapter 6 (#u8b940a47-1f55-5ceb-8b8c-5278e4ce34fd)
Chapter 7 (#u7876e944-65ac-557e-ba90-4089d6178ec2)
Chapter 8 (#u30e7b63b-cbf5-515e-adc5-7ec72a56f2ac)
Chapter 9 (#u6adf6be5-8bd2-5f3f-9f7f-dbd326f3974e)
Chapter 10 (#uf0d33835-20ca-56ea-81b1-3765148d4698)
Chapter 11 (#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)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#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)
Envoi (#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)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_c2fd1b9d-610a-554a-b3d4-7fdfc78d1c82)
‘Another fine mess you’ve got me into,’ said Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.
In his mind’s eye, Peter Pascoe could see his superior’s broad slab of a face twisted into a mock exasperation intended to be reassuring. The picture had to be mental because he’d lost his torch in the roof fall which held him pinned helpless from the waist down, and Dalziel only used his light fitfully as he dug at the debris with his bare hands.
Mental or not, the picture was not to Pascoe’s liking. In sick-bed terms, comfort from Andy Dalziel was like seeing the doctor edged aside by the priest. He tried to move again and felt pain run up his legs like fire up a fuse, exploding him to full consciousness.
‘Jesus!’ he gasped.
‘Hurting? That’s a good sign.’
‘That’s your expert fucking opinion, is it?’ grated Pascoe. ‘Where’d you pick up that priceless gem? Bart’s, was it? Or the interview room?’
‘Watch it, lad,’ warned Dalziel. ‘I’ll make allowances for delirium but I’ll not stand insubordination. Any more of that and I’ll …’
He hesitated.
‘You’ll what?’ demanded Pascoe. ‘Get me posted to traffic? Don’t bother. I’ll volunteer.’
‘No,’ said Dalziel. ‘What I was going to say was, any more of that and I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.’
There was a silence between the two men for a moment, and the moment was long enough to remind them that in this place there was no such thing as silence. Water dripped, earth dribbled, pebbles clinked, and from time to time there were creaks and groans as a hundred thousand tons of ancient rock tried to close this wound savagely ripped along its guts.
Then a new sound joined the others, almost but not quite the rattle of pain.
‘Like a ton of bricks,’ moaned Pascoe. ‘Oh Christ, don’t make me laugh.’
‘Ton of bricks!’ said Dalziel beginning to splutter. ‘Ton of …’
He let out a bellow of laughter which ricocheted off the pile of rubble under which Pascoe lay and rolled down the old roadway behind them.
‘Don’t,’ pleaded Pascoe. ‘Please don’t …’
But it was too late. The contagion of laughter was upon him and for a good half-minute the two policemen gave themselves over to hoots of merriment all the stronger because of the pain and fear they so inadequately masked.
Finally the merriment faded. Pascoe tried to keep it going a little time after it was completely dead. The alternative tenant of his imagination was a mouse voice squeaking that he was trapped in a dark confined space with no hope of rescue. It was, to misuse a phrase, a dream come true, his dream of the worst fate that could befall him. He closed his eyes, though in that place there was no need, and tried to win his way back to unconsciousness. He must have half succeeded, for he heard a distant voice gently calling his name and when his eyes opened, he was dazzled by a disc of white light which he tried desperately to confuse with the moon riding high above the lime tree in his garden on one of those rare nights when work and weather conspired to permit an al fresco supper and he and Ellie sat, wine-languid, in the summer-soft, flower-sweet, velvet-dark air.
It was a vain effort, a lie which never came close to being a delusion. The voice was Dalziel’s, the light his torch.
