Dalziel 11 Bones and Silence

by Reginald Hill

  'I think you're reading too much into it, sir. He was just very angry. Incidentally, was what he said true? Did you accuse him of those things?'

  'In a manner of speaking,' said Dalziel with the long-suffering expression of one used to misinterpretation.

  'In what manner of speaking do you tell a man he's murdered not only his wife but his business partner?' wondered Pascoe.

  'In a bloody uncompromising manner,’ growled Dalziel.

  'But how can you be so sure, sir?' demanded Pascoe. 'Until we can talk to Waterson and Beverley King, we're stuck with Waterson's statement, and as for Stringer, there's no motive or evidence to suggest anything but an accident, and Stringer's last words confirm this.'

  'Mebbe. Bit odd he felt he had to confirm it. Wouldn't you say?'

  'He opened his eyes, saw me and Swain side by side, put two and two together and wanted to get things straight. Human nature, when you're dying.'

  'You reckon?' said Dalziel, shaking his head. 'Funny view of human nature they sold you at that college, Peter. If I were you, I'd write and ask for a refund. What was it he said again?'

  'He said it wasn't Swain's fault, how many times do I have to tell you,' said Pascoe, driven to petulance.

  'No, the exact words. First rule of detective work, lad. Always be precise.'

  Pascoe took a deep breath, closed his eyes and recited, 'Phil not to blame. God's will. Only helping a friend. Good friend to me.'

  'That's it? You're sure?'

  'Yes, I'm sure.'

  'Then why did you say all he said was that it wasn't Swain's fault?'

  'Because that's what he did say!' exclaimed Pascoe indignantly. 'That was the gist.'

  'The gist.' Dalziel chewed on the word. 'Aye, the gist. Mebbe that's what Swain wanted you to remember, just the gist! Mebbe that's why he grabbed you and made all that commotion about getting my wrist slapped so you'd come back here full of his pathetic threats and with no better bloody recollection of what Stringer actually said than the sodding bloody gist!'

  Dalziel struck his desktop so hard that his telephone jumped inches in the air with a little squeak of alarm and a pile of papers fluttered out of his in-tray on to Pascoe's lap.

  'But what else did he say besides it wasn't Swain's fault?' asked Pascoe, clutching the errant mail. A familiar typeface caught his eye and he tried to shuffle it to the top.

  'He said, helping a friend, right? How was running a JCB over Stringer helping a friend?'

  'He was referring to the job . . .'

  'They were business partners! If Marks went out with Spencer to stock shelves, you'd not call that helping a friend, would you?'

  'Probably not,' said Pascoe. 'Sir, have you looked at your mail yet?'

  'No! When have I had time to look at mail, doing every other bugger's job?' said Dalziel irritably. 'Like yours. You're supposed to be the clever sod with words, aren't you? Well, you've not been so clever here, lad. Helping a friend . . . I'll tell you what it means to me, shall I? I think it means there was something Swain did to help Stringer out, and it was a bit dodgy, and when Arnie realized he were popping his clogs, he wanted to be sure his mate didn't get lumbered . . . Are you listening to me, Chief Inspector?'

  'Yes, sir. Sorry. It's just that there's a letter here from the Dark Lady.'

  'Not another! It's barely a week since the last. I wish she'd put up or shut up!'

  'She was helpful last time, sir,' reminded Pascoe.

  'I'd have heard about Thackeray soon enough,' said Dalziel ungraciously. 'What's she say this time? Knows who Jack the Ripper was, does she?'

  'Nothing so dramatic,' said Pascoe, troubled. 'But you said Tony Appleyard came back up here in February, and you were wondering how it might be that Swain helped a friend

  He held out the letter. Impatiently Dalziel snatched it, scanned it quickly then read it again more slowly.

  'Christ, it's a bit cryptic, isn't it?'

  'Yes. Rings a bell though . . . beneath these pavements . . .'

  'I don't mean the fancy bloody words! I mean, which bloody pavements?'

  Pascoe rose and went to the window and looked down. He heard himself saying, 'If Marks went out with Spencer to plant potatoes, he might call that helping a friend.'

  Instantly he regretted what might later be classified as persuasion, but to his relief, Dalziel was still shaking his head.

  'No! I'd need to be dafter than that mad lass of thine! I'd need a lot more to persuade me, let alone Dan Trimble . . .'

  The telephone rang. He picked it up and grunted, 'Yes?' and listened.

  Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said to Pascoe, 'It's George Broomfield. He says Swain's just turned up. Wants to see Trimble but he's out feeding his face at one of them civic lunches that don't finish till tea-time. Swain doesn't seem bothered, though. Says he'll wait.'

  'Come to complain?' speculated Pascoe.

  'Or to check up,' said Dalziel. With sudden decision he spoke into the phone. 'George, where is he? Right, I want you to do something for me. Ring the Council Works Department and ask if we can borrow a couple of pneumatic drills straightaway. And George, use the phone on the desk and speak up loud and clear like it's a bad line. That's the idea.'

  He replaced the receiver.

  'What . . . ?' began Pascoe but Dalziel laid his forefinger to his lips.

  'Silent prayer,' he said. 'Mebbe God'll send us a sign.'

  He folded his arms on the bow-front of his belly.

  A minute passed. The phone rang again.

  'Yes,' rapped Dalziel.

  A slow smile oozed over his lips as he listened, then he said, 'Of course. It's open house up here. Fetch him right up.'

  He relapsed once more into a Buddha-like repose.

  Two minutes passed. There was a tap at the door.

  'Come in,' he said gently.

  The door was opened by Sergeant Broomfield who said, 'Mr Swain to see you, sir.'

  He stood aside and Swain stepped in. He was elegantly dressed in grey slacks and a royal blue blazer, but his hair was ruffled and his face was pale.

  'Superintendent. Mr Pascoe,’ he said.

  'Mr Swain,' said Dalziel genially. 'Didn't expect to see you again so soon. What can we do for you?'

  Swain took another step forward, waited till Broomfield had pulled the door shut behind him, then said in a voice almost too low to be heard, 'I couldn't keep away. I've come here to confess.'

  part seven

  Angel: Ilka creature, both old and young;

  Believe I bid you that you rise;

  Body and soul with you ye bring,

  And come before the high justice.

  For I am sent from heaven king

  To call you to this great assize.

  The York Cycle:

  ‘The Last Judgment'

  May 16th

  Dear Mr Dalziel,

  It's St Brendan's day. Funny that Ireland which produces so much of the mindless violence which has helped me to despair also produced so many saints. The Navigator they call him, because he travelled around so much. Thinking of him reminded me of another watery story I once read, about a poet, Shelley I think, who went out in a rowing-boat with a friend and her young children. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he .said, 'Now let us together solve the great mystery!' Seeing that he was very close to tipping the boat over, the poor terrified woman managed to say sharply, 'No, thank you, not now. I should like my dinner first and so should the children.' And Shelley rowed them back to the shore instead.

  Me, I've run out of smart answers, and when there's nothing left inside to cope with the greater nothingness outside, I reckon that's the time to start rocking the boat!

  I don't know if what I told you last time was any use. Probably not. It would have been nice to help you solve your little mystery before I solved my Great One. But I don't suppose it matters much to you. Win some, lose some, there's always another one round the corner. Anyway, here's a farewell thought so obvious, you've probabl
y got it painted on your office wall. If I was looking for someone with no talent for hiding, and he couldn't be found in the places he was likely to hide, I'd start looking in the places he was likely to have been hidden. In times of stress we all turn to what we know. A sailor would turn to the sea, a farmer to the earth; and a builder . . . well, we're only lightly covered in buttoned cloth and beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence.

  Good luck with your searching. And you're right not to waste time on me. I'm not hidden, only lost.

  CHAPTER ONE

  They took Philip Swain down to the car park. He led the way into the very first garage to have its foundations dug early in February. Here in one corner he drew an oblong on the concrete floor with a piece of chalk.

  'You're very precise,' said Pascoe.

  'It's not something a man's likely to forget,' said Swain.

  As they came out of the garage a council truck pulled into the car park.

  'The drills,' said Dalziel with satisfaction. 'They've been quick for a change. Let's get them to work.'

  'Sir, mightn't it be best to wait for Mr Trimble?' suggested Pascoe, back in his role of moderating influence.

  'What for?' demanded Dalziel, whose euphoria when Swain first appeared had been replaced by a kind of irritated watchfulness as the nature of the man's 'confession' became clear. 'Wieldy's a tidy sort of fellow. He'll keep the mess down, won't you, lad? Come on, sir. Let's get back inside and put a bit of fat on this tale of thine.'

  By the time they reached the interview room, they could hear the drills at work.

  'Now, sir, in your own time,' said Dalziel. 'You've been cautioned, remember, and Constable Seymour here will be taking notes. So go ahead.'

  'I want to start by apologizing,' said Swain quietly. 'I know I've acted very stupidly. All I can say in my defence is I did it for my friend, but even then I wouldn't have become involved if I'd thought that a serious crime had been committed. Arnie told me it was an accident, and he was a man I trusted beyond reserve.'

  'The facts, sir,' urged Dalziel.

  'Of course. Arnie came to me that Saturday night or early Sunday morning. It was the first weekend in February, I can't recall the exact date. I've never seen a man so distressed. What had happened was he'd heard a noise outside his cottage and went down to find his son-in-law trying to force a window. Obviously he wanted to get in and make contact with Shirley without disturbing her parents. Arnie said he was in a disgusting condition, stinking of drink and vomit. Not only that, he looked so wasted and unwell that Arnie feared it was more than just drink. I'm afraid that Arnie's attitude to things like AIDS was rather fundamentalist. He regarded it as a judgment of God and he did not doubt his son-in-law deserved to be heavily judged.'

  'To the point of death, you mean?' said Dalziel.

  'If God willed. But not at Arnie's hand, you must believe that. Appleyard took off when he saw Arnie. He made for the farm and Arnie caught up with him by the old barn. He pushed him inside and told him to get away from Yorkshire and never show his face here again. And when he thought he'd made his point, he turned away to go back to the cottage. Now I'm not saying he wouldn't have given the lad a good shaking while this was going on, but nothing more. Only, when he turned away, the boy who must have been almost demented flung himself on Arnie and tried to strangle him from behind. Arnie staggered round trying to shake him off, and finally he got rid of him by throwing him over his head. Unfortunately the boy fell onto an old spike harrow that had been lying around with a lot of other junk for years. One of the spikes went clean through his throat, and when Arnie dragged him clear he was dead. I'm sure a post-mortem will confirm all this.'

  'It would have confirmed it then,' grunted Dalziel. 'Why'd he not call the police, this pillar of the chapel? Why didn't you call the police for that matter?'

  'It wasn't that he didn't recognize his duty, it was just that he couldn't face the thought of what Shirley would think and say.'

  'And you?'

  'He was my partner and my friend. I believed him absolutely when he said it was an accident. So when he suggested hiding the body, I went along with it.'

  'He suggested hiding the body here?'

  'No,' admitted Swain. 'He wanted to dig a hole in one of my fields and bury it. I told him that was stupid. It was almost certain to be found. We'd just started work on your garages and even though it went against his grain, I'd persuaded Arnie to work Sundays to catch the mild weather. It'd just be the two of us, we couldn't afford to be paying our labourers overtime, so it was an ideal opportunity for hiding the body. And that's what we did. Next day we excavated the foundations a couple of feet deeper in that corner than we needed. Then Arnie kept watch while I got the body out of the pick-up and covered it with concrete.'

  'You did the dirty work, then?' said Pascoe.

  'Arnie couldn't face it,' said Swain. 'You cannot begin to believe the turmoil the poor chap was in. As time went by, it got a little better because I persuaded him that if God really disapproved of what he'd done, then He'd find a way of bringing it out. I did what I could to help by having the old barn cleared out, but there was nothing I could do about the most poignant reminders - Shirley and his little grandson.'

  'But he still kept quiet,' said Dalziel. 'Waiting for God to do his confessing for him, was that it?'

  'Indeed. And odd though it may seem, I think he'd begun to regard you as the Almighty's instrument, Superintendent. When you spoke to him this morning about the boy coming back here, he was really shaken up. I think he came close to making a clean breast of it.'

  'And how would you have felt about that, Mr Swain?'

  'Like I said just now, glad that it was out. I've had troubles of my own. Now I seem to be getting them behind me and it will be grand to clear the decks absolutely. But I'd give anything for it not to have happened like this. The memory of the digger sliding towards poor Arnie will never leave me. The only thing that eases the burden slightly is something I couldn't say before. In those last few moments I could see his face, and I'm not certain how much of an effort he was really making to get out of the way.'

  He said this with the utmost seriousness. How else, indeed, would he say it? But Pascoe waited for the incredulous guffaw from Dalziel. Instead the fat man murmured softly, 'Well, well, another suicide, eh?'

  'Not conscious, of course,' said Swain. 'That would have been impossible for a man of Arnie's beliefs. But a slackening of the will to live. That's what a secret like this can do to a man, Superintendent. That's why I decided I owed it to myself as well as Arnie's memory to bring this whole business out into the open.'

  At some point after his arrival the initiative seemed to have been firmly claimed by Swain. And at some point while he had been talking the drills had stopped.

  The door opened and Wield looked in.

  'Sir,' he said, 'I think we're there.'

  Dalziel said, 'Constable Seymour here will start knocking your statement into shape, sir. Excuse me.'

  On the way downstairs he said fiercely, 'For fuck's sake, Peter, give me a hand in there! We're losing the slippery sod and you just sit there smiling like a curate at a christening.'

  In the garage he stooped over the hole. Swain's chalk marks had been very precise. It always surprised Dalziel to see what a small space the human body could fit into, especially when folded into a foetal position. He frowned severely at the young man as though willing him to speak.

  Then he said, 'All right. Everyone out. Photos first, then Forensic.'

  'All informed, sir,' said Wield.

  'Someone will have to tell the girl,' said Pascoe, as they went into the welcome sunshine.

  'What? Oh aye. For identification. Look who's here. Man his size should use a moped.'

  The Chief Constable was climbing out of a big Rover. He was resplendent in full fig, and the ratepayers' generosity was still written in his face. But the message changed like a teletext screen as he took in Dalziel, and the Roads Department truck,
and the two men coming out of the garage with pneumatic drills.

  Dalziel approached and Trimble said, 'Andrew, am I sure I want to hear this?'

  'Nowt to worry about,' said Dalziel. 'Just an unexpected visitor.'

  Quickly he filled Trimble in on the course of events. The Chief Constable groaned gently when he heard about the body but otherwise he listened in silence, asked a couple of pertinent questions when Dalziel had finished, then said, 'Let's hope he's telling the truth and Forensic confirm it. A manslaughter victim in our own backyard's marginally preferable to a murder victim.'

  Pascoe said to Dalziel, 'Sir, did you want me to inform Mrs Appleyard?'

  He intended only a gentle reminder that people were more important than public relations, but somehow it came out like an ex cathedra rebuke. Dalziel didn't respond. He seemed to have drifted off into some unimaginable inner world. But Trimble took the point well.

  'Of course. The young wife. And she's lost her father today. This will be very hard for her. Whoever tells her, I want an experienced WPC present, and the counselling services alerted. But we mustn't jump the gun. Andrew!'

  Dalziel rejoined them with a start.

  'Sir?'

  'I was just saying we should keep the wraps on this till we're absolutely sure what we've got here. And that's for the relatives' sake as well as our own.'

  This was for Pascoe's benefit. Reassured by the Chief's reaction to his earlier intervention, he could now admit a smidgeon of sympathy for Trimble's distaste for the anticipated newspaper mockery. It wasn't all that long ago that a dead Italian had been found in a car in this same park, and Pascoe could still recall the yards of wearisome waggery churned out by everyone from the yellow press to the red satirists.

  'Aye, you're right,' said Dalziel vaguely.

  There was something on his mind, something he was not altogether confident of bringing into the open. Pascoe didn't like this. Dalziel might not always be right, but he was rarely uncertain.