Dalziel 11 Bones and Silence

by Reginald Hill

  'I should stress in preamble that the statement is exactly as Mr Swain dictated it, free from my own or anyone else's emendation or intervention.'

  He coughed once more and began reading.

  "'When Superintendent Dalziel brought me to the station on the night Gail died, I think I was in a state of shock. Everything felt so unreal, distant, unimportant. Everything except Gail's death, that is. This state of shock continued for some time after that night but it wasn't till I went to see my doctor on Mr Thackeray's advice that it was diagnosed.

  '"I shall always feel I bear some guilt for Gail's death. Somehow I must have failed her. And perhaps if I hadn't rushed round to Waterson's house that night, things could have been worked out. Whatever the truth of the matter, I now see that in my first statement these feelings warped my judgement and my memory to the point where I wanted to assume total guilt, even stretching beyond the moral and psychological to the physical, and claim that my hand was actually on the gun when it went off. Now I can recollect and more importantly admit what really happened.

  '"When Gail started waving the gun around, it was Waterson not me who made a grab at it. Perhaps he felt threatened, perhaps his sole concern was to prevent her from doing herself harm. I don't know. All I know is that the gun went off and Waterson seemed to go to pieces. He staggered away from Gail with the gun in his hand. I took it from him for fear he might inadvertently fire it again and cause further harm. He collapsed against the wall and I remained where I was, clearly in a state of shock, till Mr Dalziel arrived.

  '"I am not attempting to evade responsibility by modifying my original statement, merely to record the exact truth, for I now see this must be the first step in my attempt to come to terms with my loss, my grief, my guilt."'

  Thackeray stopped reading and said, 'That is my client's revised and movingly frank statement, which I am sure you will accept in the spirit in which it is offered.'

  Dalziel, who had listened like a country squire at a Lenten sermon, yawned widely and said, 'Aye, I think I can promise that much.'

  'Thank you,' said Thackeray. 'No doubt the other witness, Mr Waterson, will confirm this version of events in his statement when it becomes available.'

  Oh, you cunning old devil! Pascoe thought admiringly. Somehow you've got wind of Waterson's statement, or perhaps you've simply made an inspired guess. Here was an adversary truly worthy of Dalziel!

  'We're still trying to locate Mr Waterson,’ said Dalziel evasively.

  'Strange what heavy weather you're making of it,' said Thackeray. 'And I fail to see why Mr Waterson's absence, however motivated, should further delay an early settlement of this matter. Common humanity cries out for the inquest to be resumed and the remains to be released to next-of-kin. My client has suffered too much already.'

  'Not at our hands,' said Dalziel. 'You said yourself, everything were by the book.'

  'Indeed it was,' agreed the solicitor. 'Nothing was missed. Except perhaps a few opportunities. For instance, when you called in your doctor to look at Mr Waterson on the night of the accident, you didn't ask him to examine Mr Swain too.'

  'No need. Waterson were a nervous wreck. Mr Swain here were fine. He looked a sight better than he does now, if you don't mind me saying.'

  Swain, who hadn't opened his mouth since Pascoe arrived, glared angrily at Dalziel but Thackeray patted his arm soothingly and said, 'Yes, I recall you mention in your own statement how calm and collected Mr Swain appeared to be. And you stressed this again the following day when we first discussed the case. I got the impression then that you were drawing inferences from your observation which were not to my client's advantage.'

  'I just state the facts as I see 'em, nowt more.'

  'Of course. What you didn't see was the possibility that this apparent control of my client's emotions might in fact be symptomatic of the shock which has since been diagnosed and whose delayed and more obvious physical manifestations are, as you have just observed, only now becoming visible. What a pity with a doctor on the spot that night that you didn't . . .'

  'He were examined the next day,' interrupted Dalziel.

  'Indeed,' said Thackeray. 'But we must ask ourselves, Superintendent, what were the instructions you gave the examining doctor on that occasion. Incidentally, my acceptance that things were done according to the rules on Tuesday night does not of course extend to include that examination on Wednesday afternoon. Where consent is obtained by deception, there is no legality.'

  Dalziel was slumped low in his chair, a posture which pushed his embonpoint into corrugations along whose valley bottoms beneath his shirt his fingers scraped glacially. He was beginning to look defeated. It was not an edifying sight.

  'If you want to tell the world I had Mr Swain examined because his missus were a junkie, go ahead,' he snapped. 'Seems to me all this fine talk amounts to is instead of one statement from your client, we've got two. More the merrier, say I.'

  It was an untypically feeble counter, underlined by Thackeray's formally polite appreciative chuckle.

  'That's it,' he said. 'Let's think of them as rough draft and fair copy. It's so easy to get things wrong the first time, isn't it? You of all people should understand that, Mr Dalziel.'

  'Eh?'

  'Your own statement, I mean. Don't look so alarmed. I haven't been burgling your office. I was talking to Mr Trimble about another matter, and I happened to mention my concern at these delays, and in particular at the distress it must be causing Mrs Delgado who is too ill to travel and who is naturally impatient for her child's body to be released to the States for burial. And Mr Trimble, though sympathetic, told me that where witnesses clashed, and one of them was a senior police officer, he must obviously place a strong reliance on that man's version of things.'

  'That was nice of him,' said Dalziel savagely.

  'Indeed. I drew the assumption that it must be yourself he was referring to, and I wonder now whether you might not care to take a long look at the detail of your own statement. No one is perfect. I'm sure your own vast experience contains many instances of a highly trained observer proving to have been deceived.'

  Dalziel shot Pascoe a glance of promissory malice. Surely he can't think I've been talking to Eden about my little experiment!

  Thackeray had risen and stood with his hand on Swain's shoulder as he spoke. Now he exerted a gentle pressure and the man rose.

  'That's good,' said Dalziel. 'You can hardly see the strings!'

  'I'm sorry?' said Thackeray with dangerous mildness.

  Pascoe tried to telepath a warning to his chief. This was a lost battle. Nothing to do but keep your head down and regroup. Pointless to stand up in the trenches and hurl clods at the triumphant tanks.

  But Dalziel wanted a medal more than his supper.

  'I just meant, funny thing, this shock. Takes away the power of speech, does it, unless someone else writes the lines?'

  Swain looked ready to retort angrily, but Thackeray was swift with a palliative misunderstanding.

  'If you're referring to my client's decision to take part in the forthcoming production of the Mystery Plays, certainly this has been recommended as a useful therapy. Role-playing has an honourable history in psychological rehabilitation and what better way of coming to terms with guilt than exploring the greatest guilt of all?'

  Pascoe was agog at the implication of this. Could Swain really have a part in Chung's production? And if so . . . but Thackeray hadn't finished.

  'I hear you too are planning to tread the boards, Superintendent?' he said pleasantly.

  'That's right.'

  'As God, I gather? I hope you also might find the experience therapeutic. But I hope even more that your evident willingness to share a stage with Mr Swain signals an end to harassment and an early wrapping up of this tragic affair. Good day.'

  He left. Swain followed, but paused at the door and said, with no expression on his face or in his voice to hint whether he was being mocking or conciliatory, 'See you at rehe
arsal.' Then he too was gone.

  Dalziel opened a drawer in his desk, took out a bottle and a glass, poured an unhealthy measure and drank long and deep.

  'Well, come on,' he said. 'When you look like that, you've either got piles or you're chewing on a serious thought. Spit it out!'

  'No, it's nothing,' said Pascoe. 'Except that, well, it's an odd business, this . . .'

  'You've noticed that, have you? Well, thank God we promoted you. Man as sharp as that deserves to go right to the top!'

  The unfairness of Dalziel's picking on an easy target after his recent mauling by Thackeray did not surprise Pascoe, but it stung him.

  'But there's no reason why it should be seen as a sinister oddness,' he continued briskly. 'In fact, it's all far too daft for planning. Couldn't it be that what we've got here is quite simply what both Swain and Waterson say - and what with very little adjustment you partially witnessed - a suicide, or at worst a tragic accident?'

  'You think I'm getting obsessed, is that it?'

  'No,' lied Pascoe. 'In fact, very likely you're thinking on these lines already. Like Mr Thackeray said, you wouldn't have agreed to taking part in Chung's Mysteries with Swain if you'd still been after him. Would you?'

  'Mebbe not,' said Dalziel. 'I'm not sure, lad, and that's the truth of it. Every bugger seems to know more than me and be two or three steps ahead of me just now. Almost like we've got a mole.'

  Oh God, thought Pascoe, thinking of his part and Ellie's part in feeding Dalziel to Chung. But more worrying even than this was the sight of his notoriously invulnerable chief in doubt and disarray.

  As if sensing Pascoe's concern, Dalziel tried for a confident smile and said, 'But not to worry, eh? I'm to be God Allbloodymighty, and by God, one way or another I'll send Swain down to hell and make old Eden jump out of his dusty briefs before I'm done with him.'

  It wasn't bad as a cry of defiance, but it seemed to Pascoe that he'd got his lines wrong. It wasn't God but the fallen angels who went in for cries of defiance which might rise to, but could never disturb, the real Allbloodymighty sitting on his crystal throne.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Perhaps the great secret of Dennis Seymour's likeability was that he didn't work at it. He was Juan rather than Giovanni, his charm was intuitive not calculated, and its rewards came more as surprises than triumphs.

  Having committed himself to his beautiful Bernadette, he was genuinely reluctant to put himself in the way of other offers. Not that he ever sought them, but it was incredible what a sympathetic interrogation could lead to. Recently a 'friend' in the Force had hinted to Bernadette that her fiancé was CID's sexual stormtrooper and this hadn't gone down too well, so Seymour adopted his coldest, most official manner when he called on Pamela Waterson.

  To start with she replied in kind, indeed was almost hostile; Seymour wouldn't have minded if she'd stayed this way, but he couldn't help being genuinely sympathetic when she told him she was too tired to put up with much questioning, and she couldn't help responding to his genuine sympathy. After fifteen minutes they were sitting on a sofa, drinking coffee and capping each other's awful-job anecdotes.

  'What really gets up my nose is being me,' she said finally after a long recital of plaints.

  'Sorry?'

  'What I mean is, I don't have to put up with all this crap. Overworked, understaffed, poorly paid, lousy facilities, being told I'm a selfless angel when I do my job, and a selfish shit when I moan about it; I could walk away from all this, you know. Head for the private sector tomorrow, get everything I want. Or go abroad and get twice as much as I need. Only, because I'm me, I won't do it, I can't do it. It's crazy, isn't it? Like sitting in a prison cell with only two ways out, a door to comfortable freedom or a window with a thousand-foot drop to bare rock, and knowing you can never take the door.'

  'You're sure about that?' said Seymour.

  'Of course I'm sure! I've just said it, haven't I?' she said angrily.

  'No, what I mean is, there's usually more than two ways out of things.'

  'Is that so? Name me another two,' she challenged.

  'All right,' grinned Seymour. 'What would happen if you threw a bedpan at the Chief Health Officer?'

  'I'd get sacked.'

  'That's one. And what would happen if you got pregnant?'

  'At the moment I think they'd call the poor little blighter Jesus,' she said sadly.

  'It'd make two whatever they called him. Do you fancy a family, luv?'

  'I took it for granted when I got married,' she said. 'I'm a Catholic, you see. Not good, but still Catholic. He had other ideas. I took the easy line and went along. No, that's not fair. I went along because that's what I wanted then. Now I wish . . . but it's too late . . .'

  'It's definitely over between you then? You'll get divorced?'

  She shook her head. 'No divorce,' she said. 'I'm still that much of a Catholic. But yes, it's definitely over. Oh, I still fancy him, I suppose. That funny-looking fellow who came the first time likely told you he caught us cuddling. Not that it meant anything. There's nothing so comfortable as a cuddle when you're tired and depressed.'

  She glanced at Seymour thoughtfully as she spoke and he took a long draught of air from his empty coffee cup.

  'You see,' she resumed, 'I didn't leave him because I found out he was different after we married. Rather, it was because he was more like himself than I realized.'

  'Eh?' said Seymour.

  She smiled and said, 'Does sound daft, doesn't it? What I mean is, before we married, I knew he talked big but got easily scared; I knew he was crazy about natural blondes with long legs. But none of it mattered. Knowing how frightened he got just seemed to make us closer, and I believed I could steer him clear of situations which might make him blow up. As for blondes with long legs, well, I was one, wasn't I? So what happened? Nothing, except that I found that to prove how unscared he was, he could get himself involved in stupid things. And I couldn't be around all the time to stop him blowing up. And his love of willowy blondes didn't stop with me. Like I say, I can't put the blame on not knowing what he was like!'

  'What kind of stupid things did he get himself involved in?' wondered Seymour.

  'Things like trying to set up on his own. I mean, you're mad to be self-employed when no one in his right senses would work for you in the first place!'

  'But you still like him? So when he rang and asked you to meet him, you went?'

  'Of course. Why not?' she demanded.

  'You knew the police wanted him to help in a serious inquiry,' said Seymour as sternly as he could manage.

  'Oh, that,' she said dismissively. 'You'll find him in the end. This business is just a silly tragic accident, right? It'd probably all be cleared up by now if he hadn't run off.'

  'Very probably. So why'd he run?'

  'I don't know. Because it made him feel important, likely.'

  'Is that what he told you when you met?' said Seymour.

  'No. I asked him about it, naturally, but he just got all mysterious, and that was one of the games I stopped playing with him very early on.'

  'So what else did you talk about?'

  'I can't remember all of it. Just the bad bits when he started getting excited. That's the trouble with Greg, the good bits are lovely, he can be charming, amusing, marvellous to be with ninety per cent of the time, but once you've had a taste of the other ten per cent, that's what you remember.'

  'So tell me about the bad bits at the Sally,' said Seymour.

  'Well, there were two. When I gave him Mr Swain's message -'

  'Mr Swain?'

  'Yes. He rang me a few days ago and asked if Greg had been in touch. When I said no, he said if I did hear from him, would I let him know?'

  'So you told Mr Swain Greg had made contact?'

  'Yes, and he said would I ask Greg to get in touch with him?'

  'And what did Greg say when you told him this?'

  'That was when he started getting excited, and it wasn't
till I convinced him I'd not let on to Mr Swain where we were meeting that he calmed down. He said to tell Mr Swain not to worry, he'd definitely be hearing from him.'

  'And has Swain rung you since last night?'

  'Not that I know of.'

  'Fine. Now what else upset your husband? You said there were two.'

  'Yes. That was when he asked me for money. He said he was hard up and couldn't get to a bank. I gave him what I'd brought with me. About forty pounds, it was all I could manage. He told me it wasn't enough, he needed a lot more than that, and began to get very excited. God, he was trying to keep out of sight and he still couldn't control himself!'

  She shook her head in exasperation, but there was still affection there too. There had to be something very attractive about this lunatic!

  'So what happened?'

  'I did the only thing possible to defuse things. I left.'

  'And your husband?'

  'When I looked back he was heading for the bar with my money.'

  'And would this explosion transfer itself to somebody else?'

  'Oh no. If he was by himself he might sit in a corner muttering for a while. But in a pub, he'd be all charm and good cheer in a couple of moments once I was away. That's always been the unfair thing about Greg. He comes out of these bouts fine, it's those around him who are fond of him that have things mucked up for them.'

  She was close to tears. Seymour squeezed her hand, then hastily let it go. He tried to make his next question unambiguously official.

  'Mrs Waterson,' he said. 'It's in everyone's interest for us to find Greg. Did he give any hint where he was staying? Until we talk with him, we can't wrap this thing up, you see. Has he got any close friends who might be putting him up?'

  'If he has, they'll have blonde hair and long legs,' she said. 'Do I sound bitter? Well, perhaps I am, but not jealous bitter. Just that, well, it's sometimes a hell of a job making sense out of life, and this kind of stuff doesn't help. Are you married?'

  'Me? No,' said Seymour uneasily. 'Heavily engaged, though.'

  It felt a good time to retreat. He began to rise.

  'One-way traffic, is it?' she said. 'Sorry. Look, sit down. Relax. Have some more coffee.'