On Beulah Height
‘Hill is an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift’ Frances Fyfield, Mail on SundayFifteen years ago they moved everyone out of Dendale. They needed a new reservoir and an old community seemed a cheap price to pay. But four inhabitants of the valley could not be moved, for nobody knew where they were: three little girls who had gone missing, and the prime suspect in their disappearance, Benny Lightfoot.This was Andy Dalziel’s worst case and now he looks set to relive it. Another child goes missing in the next valley, and old fears arise as someone sprays the deadly message on Danby bridge: BENNY’S BACK!
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REGINALD HILL
ON BEULAH HEIGHT
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Harper an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1998
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780006490005
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007374014 Version: 2015-06-19
Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven.
JOHN BUNYAN: The Pilgrimâs Progress
O where is tinye Hew?
And where is little Lenne?
And where is bonny Lu?
And Menie of the Glenne?
And whereâs the place of rest â
The ever changing hame?
Is it the gowanâs breast,
Or âneath the bells of faem?
Ay, lu, lan, dil yâu
ANON: The Gloamyne Buchte
Wir holen sie ein auf jenen Höhân
Im Sonnenschein.
Der Tag ist schön auf jenen Höhân
FRIEDRICH RÃCKERT:
Kindertotenlieder IV
Contents
Day One: A Happy Rural Seat of Various View
Day Three: The Drowning of Dendale
BETSY ALLGOOD [PA/WW/4.6.88]
TRANSCRIPT 1
No 2 of 2 copies
The day they drowned Dendale I were seven years old.
Iâd been three when government said they could do it, and four when Enquiry came out in favour of Water Board, so I remember nowt of that.
I do remember something that canât have been long after, but. I remember climbing up ladder to our barn loft and my dad catching me there.
âWhatâre you doing up here?â he said. âTha knows itâs no place for thee.â
I said I were looking for Bonnie, which were a mistake. Dad had no time for animals that didnât earn their keep. Catâs job was keeping rats and mice down, and all that Bonnie ever caught was a few spiders.
âYon useless object shouldâve been drowned with rest,â he said. âYou come up here again after it and Iâll get shut of it, nine lives or not.â
Before I could start mizzling, sound of a machine starting up came through the morning air, not a farm machine but something a lot bigger down at Dale End. I knew there were men working down there, but I didnât understand yet what they were doing.
Dad went to the open hay door and looked out. Low Beulah, our farm, were built on far side of Dender Mere from the village and from up in our loft you got a good view right over our fieldsto Dale End. All on a sudden, Dad picked me up and swung me on to his shoulders.
âTek a good look at that land, Betsy,â he said. âDonât matter a toss now that thaâs only a lass. Soon thereâll be nowt here for any bugger to work at, save only the fishes.â
Iâd no idea what he meant, but it were grand for him to be taking notice of me for a change, and I recall how his bony shoulder dug into my bare legs, and how his coarse springy hair felt in my little fists and how he smelt of sheep and earth and hay.
I think he forgot I were up there till I got a bit uncomfortable and moved. Then he gave a little start and said, âThings to do still. Nowt stops till all stops.â And he dropped me to the floor with a thump and slid down the ladder. That were typical. Telling me off for being up there one minute then forgetting my existence the next.
I stayed up a long while till Mam started shouting for me. She caught me clambering down the ladder and gave me a clout on my leg and yelled at me for being up there. But I said nowt about Dad âcos it wouldnât have eased my pain and it would just have got him in bother too.
