Bones and Silence dap-11

by Reginald Hill

  'So you had made your mind up not to take the Delgado job?' said Dalziel. 'Thought you were going to claim you and your missus were still debating? You'll need to remember your lines, lad. Not easy when you're up there with all eyes on you. I know.'

  'What the hell do you want, Dalziel? I only agreed to see you to break the boredom, but I begin to suspect it would be less tedious in my cell.'

  'Liar,' said Dalziel amicably. 'You came to hear what I had to say 'cos despite what you think you think, and despite what you think your brief thinks, you won't really believe you're not going to be charged with murder till you hear it from me.'

  Swain tried not quite successfully to look unconcerned.

  'Look,' he said. 'I've confessed freely to what I've done wrong, and I'll take my punishment. But I'm not a murderer, and you know there's no evidence I'm a murderer, and I can't believe that British justice can make that sort of mistake.'

  'Oh aye? There's a patch of ground not much more than a hundred yards from where we're sitting might make you change your tune,' said Dalziel. 'But let me put your mind at rest. That's why I'm here, you see. Bank Holiday Monday, sun shining, everyone out enjoying themselves, and I got to thinking about you, banged up in here, miserable, worried, not even able to ring your brief - he flew off yesterday to Barbados, I suppose you know that? Not short of a bob or two, them vultures. So here I am, errand of mercy, come to remove all doubt. Though that's a bit of a laugh really, isn't it? I mean doubt's what you want, isn't it? Doubt's your best friend.'

  'What do you mean?' asked Swain long-sufferingly.

  'Doubt, benefit of the, that's what I mean. To be given to accused prisoners by jaded juries. And you've got a lot to benefit from, Phil. Take your missus. You say it were an accident, and there's no evidence it wasn't. So, a doubt. Or Bev King. You say it were Waterson's idea and he carried it through after you changed your mind and tried to stop him. Doubt. Or Waterson himself. You say it must have been Arnie who killed him, out of gratitude to you and revulsion at the kind of man Waterson was. Doubt. And lastly, poor old Arnie. Got in the way of the JCB. Mebbe he didn't try hard enough to get out of the way because of all his guilt feelings. Anyroad, doubt. See what I mean, Phil? Doubt's flavour of the month for you. And it's odd the way it works. Some might say that there's just too many deaths, that it goes way beyond coincidence, that benefit of doubt has got to stop somewhere. But juries don't think like that. It's addictive, doubt. Accept the Crown's got it wrong once, and next time it's that much easier; twice, and after that they're ready to think a trout in the milk got there by jumping out of the galley of a passing Concorde. So I reckon you've made it, Phil. I reckon the prosecution'll write off your wife and Arnie as accidents, accept you had nowt to do with Waterson's death, and slap your wrist for getting mixed up in the plot to kill King. Congratulations! I mean, they'll probably still send you down for a spell, but from what I've seen of you, I'm sure you can eat your porridge and come out smiling, specially when it's only Baby Bear's plate you've got to get through.'

  He finished speaking and Swain studied his beaming face like a sailor still fearful of reefs between him and the sheltered harbour.

  'Is this official, Superintendent?' he asked.

  'It's better than official,' laughed Dalziel. 'It's what I think.'

  Swain nodded and began to smile.

  'Then that's good enough for me,' he said. 'I thank you for coming. It was an unexpected kindness.'

  He stood up and extended his hand. Dalziel examined it for a moment, then grasped it firmly. For a few seconds the two men stood smile to smile, then Dalziel said, 'Only. . .'

  'Only. . .?'

  'Only it's a pity,' began Dalziel then broke off, shaking his head as though in regret. The smile left Swain's face. He tried to withdraw his hand but Dalziel's grip was not to be broken and slowly, without any obvious force exerted by the fat man, Swain found himself pressed back down into his chair.

  'What are you talking about?' he gasped.

  'It's a pity about the other body,' said Dalziel. 'I mean, you must have thought, like the Yanks say, if it's not broke, don't fix it. If there's no risk, why take precautions? If you've got certainty, who needs doubt? You can let go of my hand now, if you like, Phil. Don't want the screws talking, do we?'

  'What the hell are you on about? What other body?' demanded Swain, nursing his bloodless hand.

  'Young Tony Appleyard's, of course. I can see why you didn't bother much there, Phil. I mean, everything pointed so clearly to Arnie. Motive, opportunity, behaviour. And he even believed himself he'd done it!'

  'He did do it! You bastard, what are you trying to pin on me? I don't need to listen to this. I want to talk to my solicitor!'

  'Like I said, Phil, that'd either mean him coming back from Barbados, which he wouldn't like, or you going out there, which isn't convenient just at present. But of course you're free to terminate this interview any time you like. Just say the word. I can't stay much longer anyway. Got my public to think of. What's it to be?'

  Swain made an effort to get control of himself and said, 'I think you're a bad loser, Dalziel, and this is just a little bit of compensatory sadism. But the telly's always lousy on a Bank Holiday, so I might as well let you entertain me for a while.'

  Dalziel nodded approval.

  'You know, Phil,' he said genially. 'I didn't like you at all when we first met, but recently you've grown on me. Like a polyp. I'll be almost sorry to cut you off. Right now, here's the case as I see it. Arnie came to you right enough, thinking he'd killed Appleyard. But all that business of you agreeing to help, and your missus rowing with you because she overheard, was so much crap. No, what really made you sit up and take notice was when Arnie told you he'd been fighting with his son-in-law in your bam! Because that's where you'd dumped your missus when you killed her, probably the night before. So now you say you'll check up on the lad and you get out there pretty damn quick, and it's just as well you do, because young Appleyard was only stunned and he's just woken up in the corner where he fell and he's just realized he's not alone!'

  Dalziel paused, shaking his head as though made speechless by his mental picture of the scene. Swain said thickly, 'This is pure fantasy. ‘

  ‘Aye, it's fantastic all right,' said Dalziel. 'That's what the jury will have to understand, that two creatures as fantastic as you and Greg Waterson could exist. Between you, you'd just about have made a normal human being. But it was all you to start with. There you were with a witness to your wife's death, and back there in the house was a poor sod who thought he'd killed that witness. You must have thought the logic was inescapable, Phil. You picked up the nearest weapon, which happened to be an old broken-handled pitchfork, and you stuck it through that lad's throat. Good luck or good aim? Who knows? Down he went and back into the house you go to tell poor old Arnie, yes he was right, his son-in-law was dead.

  'After that, well, we know the way it really was, Phil, and we know the way you say it was. Could be you'll still get away with it. Could be they'll even believe your missus died accidental, so you'll be able to keep the money. But it won't do you any good because you'll be serving a long, long time for the one killing you thought you need never worry about, the one you thought could never show up on your doorstep.'

  'You're lying, Dalziel,' said Swain with some of his composure recovered. 'You haven't got the face for a bluff.'

  'You think so? Oh, I see what you're getting at. You reckon because you took the precaution of having that barn cleared out, there can't be any physical evidence. Now that would be all right if only Joe Swindles had stuffed everything into his crusher. But he didn't, did he? I mean, he couldn't have, else how would I know about the pitchfork?'

  He let Swain digest this for a moment, then added softly, 'And if you think that lying around Joe Swindles's yard all these weeks would mean there were no traces on the spike, think again. There’s blood there right enough and it's the right group, you can take my word for it.'

&nb
sp; As he spoke he gently caressed a large sticking plaster on the ball of his thumb.

  Swain said, 'Why have you come here, Dalziel? Why are you telling me all this?'

  Dalziel smiled and thought of all the things he wasn't telling Swain. He wasn't telling him that bats did not sleep consistently through their winter hibernation but woke up from time to time, because they were disturbed, or because of changes in temperature, or simply because they needed to get rid of the excess water created by the metabolizing of their fatty food reserves. Clever Pascoe to set Dr Death hunting for traces of bat piss! And clever Dr Death to find significantly larger traces on the woman's clothing than the youth's, suggesting that she'd been there first and longer. Gentry had also proved conclusively that Appleyard's neck wound could not have been made by any of the spikes on that harrow, not without some skin penetration by other spikes. But best of all had been the discovery during the search for the urine stains of a minute spot of Appleyard's blood on the woman's clothing, as if on waking he had first put his hand to his wounded head, then stretched it out to push himself upright and found himself touching a corpse.

  He said with a broad smile, 'Don't expect I'll be seeing much of you alone after this, Phil. Don't you think I deserve a bit of a gloat? See you on Thursday. We've fixed the hearing bright and early so it won’t interfere with my play-acting. We all miss you, by the way. Your stand-in's OK, but not a patch on you. Doesn't have the same feeling for the part!'

  As he walked away in the golden summer sunlight, Dalziel continued smiling. He had no objection to a good gloat but he wouldn't have wasted such a lovely morning on that alone. He'd been delighted with the new case that Pascoe had dumped in his lap, but by now he'd come to have a very healthy respect for Swain's ability to twist and turn and bob and weave as new evidence came hurtling at him. He could imagine the man's mind back there wheeling round like a bat in an attic, sending out spirals of sound in its desperate effort to find an exit hole.

  Yes, he'd wanted to gloat, but he'd also wanted to confuse. Carefully he peeled off the plaster to reveal the ball of his thumb unsullied by cut or scar. There had been a trace of blood on the point of the pitchfork, and it was the same group as Tony Appleyard's. But that was not the same group as Dalziel's. When you're dealing with clever buggers don't play them at their own game was a lesson he'd learned the hard way. But there was no harm in giving them something to be clever about!

  Now it was all in the hands of the lawyers.

  And of God too, of course.

  He glanced at his watch. Chung would be getting impatient.

  He took a deep breath of the good air and went to begin the Creation.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The letter lay unnoticed in the centre of Dalziel's for once uncluttered desk till the middle of the morning when Pascoe walked into the room.

  So far it had been a relatively quiet day but the town was filling up rapidly. Already the central car parks were turning away disgruntled motorists and soon the pubs would be open. No doubt five hundred years ago the authorities were faced with similar problems of public merriment fomenting public disorder and holiday crowds inviting holiday crime, but Pascoe for once found no comfort in a sense of historical continuity. If the Mysteries had stayed in the Middle Ages where they belonged, and all these trippers had stopped at home to watch Bank Holiday sport on the telly, life for Mid-Yorkshire's finest would have been so much easier.

  Or am I merely bottling out at the thought of being in charge of the shop? he asked himself. It was funny; he had been absolutely certain Dalziel would not be able to resist popping in to check that all was well, and he'd been ready to greet him with a nice line in sarcastic exasperation. But now with the procession due off at midday, it didn’t seem likely the fat man would show, and Pascoe found he was experiencing a reaction distressingly like disappointment.

  Perhaps, he thought as he opened the door of the Super's office, perhaps I have not really come up here in search of the file I suspect Fat Andy has abstracted from my cabinet, but to inhale his aura. The thought was so disgusting he almost turned on his heel. Then he noticed the letter.

  Even upside down he recognized the typing. He didn't touch it but walked slowly round the desk till he could see it the right way up. It was addressed to Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, Head of CID, Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary. In the top left hand corner was typed the word PERSONAL. It bore no stamp.

  He picked up the phone and buzzed the desk.

  'There's a letter on Mr Dalziel's desk,' he said. 'When did it come?'

  There was a pause for consultation, then Sergeant Broomfield came on.

  'Came through the box first thing,' he said. 'About half seven. No one saw anyone posting it. Said "Personal", so I stuck it in the Super's room. Thought he'd have looked in this morning some time. Usually does when he's on leave, unless he's at least a hundred miles away.'

  'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe. 'Thanks, George.'

  He replaced the receiver and sat down. After a moment he picked up the letter and opened it.

  He read it twice then reached for the phone again.

  'Central Hospital.'

  He gave Pottle's extension but the voice that answered was not Pottle's.

  'I'm afraid the doctor's not here today.'

  'Can I get him at home? It's urgent.'

  'No, I'm sorry. He's at a conference in Strasbourg. Can I help?'

  'No,' said Pascoe. He put the phone down and read the letter again. There was no time to fill anyone else in, but another mind would have been so good to interpret these words - and to share the burden he felt they placed upon him. He wished now he'd shown the letters to Ellie. He wished Dalziel was here to take his share of responsibility. Which was large. Huge, in fact. For that was what the letter was about, wasn't it? Telling Dalziel he'd failed.

  He recalled now what Pottle had said about the suicide as gamester, offering life as a stake. The psychiatrist had suggested that the reasons alleged for the choice of Dalziel as correspondent might be fallacious. It wasn't his reputation of being too hard to be upset by the letters that had made him the candidate, but his fame as a detective, a man who walked through brick walls as he headed for the truth.

  Here in this last letter the Dark Lady had let the veil fall, not from her identity but from her feelings. It was a bitter letter, full of implied reproach. Gone was the tone of grateful respect, to be replaced by a more accusatory almost sneering note. And he was lumped in it with Dalziel. The pretty inspector and the ugly sergeant making up a Holy Trinity, sharing in the same triumphs, the same failures . . . That was unfair, she hadn't chosen to write to him, it wasn't his ... Angrily he pushed aside these time-wasting justifications. He was the one with the letter before him, a letter which stated that the Dark Lady was going to kill herself that very day. No one else could stop her, that was certain. It was down to him. But how? He recalled something else that Pottle had said. Any clues she offered were likely to be such clues as a policeman might interpret. It was time to ignore distress, guilt, anger; time to be a cop.

  He read through the letter one more time.

  He felt he knew this woman. He could infer acquaintance from the letter, though of course it would be possible for her to know him but not vice versa. In that case there was no hope. So start from the premise that he knew her. She mentioned Wield also. The ugly sergeant. And she referred to a specific case. The Swain case. There were two women involved there, both with considerable cause to feel disenchanted with life. He reviewed them clinically in his mind. Shirley Appleyard was the younger, but he'd always felt a mature strength there. And she had a child to hang on to. Pam Waterson was strong too. But her personal tragedy would be compounded by hard work and long hours in an environment full of death, decay, disease . . .

  He reached for the phone and dialled the number of the Infirmary.

  Mrs Waterson was not on duty, he was told. Next he dialled the nurses' annexe. After some time, a woman's voice answered the
communal phone. Yes, she thought Pam was in. She'd give her a knock. A couple of minutes later she came back on. Sorry, she must have been mistaken. There was no reply.

  And she rang off before Pascoe could make up his mind whether his fears were strong enough to demand that she immediately raised the alarm.

  But he couldn't spend any more time in abstract speculation. Picking up the letter, he set off back to his own room where he grabbed the complete Dark Lady file. As he made for the door, Wield came in, his face contorted in a smile.

  'Have you seen this?' he said, waving the Posts souvenir edition in Pascoe's face. 'It's got a photo of the Super in it. Makes him look like Old Mother Riley!'

  Pascoe ignored the paper and bore the sergeant with him along the corridor, down the stairway and out into the car park which still bore its scars like a British heavyweight. In the car, the puzzled Wield read the letter as Pascoe explained where they were going. He'd heard Pascoe refer to the case but this was the first time he'd actually seen one of the letters and he was clearly puzzled by the Chief Inspector's agitation.

  'Is there something in the rest of this lot which makes you think it could be her?' he said.

  'Yes. I don't know. Maybe. I can't take the risk, you see that?'

  'I see you'd want to stop her. Yes, obviously. I mean, it's obvious you'd want to stop her, though not necessarily obvious you should . . .'

  Pascoe turned angry eyes on Wield and said, 'Don't give me any crap about free choice! Read those letters. There's no free choice there. She's been driven . . .'

  'Yes, all right,' said the sergeant soothingly. 'I wasn't meaning to debate morality. Only to say, well, I can't see why you're taking it so personal. It's not even like it's you she's been writing to . . .'

  'She wants to be found, she wants to be stopped, I know she does!' interrupted Pascoe. 'All right, she made the wrong choice with Dalziel, but she got a second chance with me, and what have I done?'