Dalziel 11 Bones and Silence

by Reginald Hill

  He said, 'Mrs Horncastle, have you ever written any letters to Chief Superintendent Dalziel?'

  'No,' she said. 'I have not.'

  Her voice carried conviction. But she would say that, wouldn't she? He had to press on.

  'These letters were unsigned,' he said.

  She saw his drift immediately and half smiled. 'I see you think my association with the Church might have turned me Jesuitical. But no, when I say I have never written to Mr Dalziel, I mean I have never written to him using my own name, or anyone else's name or no name at all. Does that satisfy you?'

  Before Pascoe could reply, the Canon's fragile patience snapped.

  'This is truly beyond belief,' he cried. 'The Chief Constable shall be apprised of this outrage. How dare you force your way into my house and accuse my wife of writing abusive anonymous letters?'

  'I'm sorry, sir, but I've accused your wife of nothing. And why should you think the letters were abusive?'

  'Because I have no doubt that that gross man invites his fair share of abuse!' snapped Horncastle. 'If not abusive, then what?'

  'That's a good question, Eustace,' said his wife approvingly. 'I should be interested to know what I might be thought capable of, Mr Pascoe. So tell me. Is the correspondence threatening? Inflammatory? Obscene?'

  The Canon looked ready to explode again but Pascoe got in quickly, 'In a way, threatening,' he said. 'But not against the Super. Against the writer herself.'

  'You mean a threat of suicide?' said Mrs Horncastle. 'The poor woman. I hope with all my heart you find her.'

  'You've come here to accuse my wife of threatening suicide?' exclaimed the Canon, attaining a new level of incredulous indignation which his wife obviously felt required explaining.

  'There is a special opprobrium attached to suicide in the Church's scale of sins,' she said, in a pedagogic tone. 'My husband would, I think, have preferred obscenity.'

  'Dorothy, what has got into you?' said Horncastle in genuine as well as rhetorical amazement. 'I think it best if you go through into the drawing-room while I remove these people from the premises.'

  'No, thank you, Eustace,' she said. 'I shall see Mr Pascoe and his friend out. Then I shall return to my room to watch the procession pass. I wouldn't miss it for worlds. I've been helping Chung, you know, Mr Pascoe. I met your wife on several occasions and I enjoyed her company very much.'

  'I'm glad,' smiled Pascoe.

  'Dorothy! Did you hear what I said? The drawing-room. At once. I have a great deal I want to say to you.'

  The Canon looked more animated than Pascoe had ever seen him.

  His wife said thoughtfully, 'And I have something I want to say to you, dear. Chung said the time would come and I didn't really believe her. But she was right, I think. She's truly marvellous, isn't she, Mr Pascoe? Without her, I might indeed have been writing letters, if not to Mr Dalziel, certainly on the same subject as that poor woman.'

  'Dorothy, do you hear me? I forbid you to go on talking to this man!'

  It was the last desperate cry of a shaman who begins to suspect his magic staff has got dry rot.

  Dorothy Horncastle wrinkled her nostrils like an animal testing the wind for danger. Then she smiled joyously.

  'I hear you, Eustace,' she said. 'But I'm afraid I can no longer obey. Let me see; what was it that Chung said? Oh yes ... I remember. Eustace, why don't you go and screw yourself?'

  It was a magic moment but it was flawed for Pascoe by being the moment also when any last scintilla of doubt vanished. Dorothy Horncastle was not the Dark Lady. Which meant if the threat of that last letter were serious that he had failed.

  He wasn't even permitted to watch, the final collapse of the Canon whose self-image was fracturing like a cartoon cat running into a brick wall. Wield was pulling at his arm and saying urgently, 'I think there's something you ought to take a look at. I dare say it's nowt as you must've seen it already, only after reading them letters, well, it fits so well...’

  He was thrusting the Evening Post souvenir edition into Pascoe's hands.

  Pascoe read, impatiently at first, and then incredulously; and for a while the disbelief on his face brought relief to Wield's.

  Then he seized the Dark Lady file from Wield's hands and began to riffle through it.

  'No, it can't be,' he said. 'It can't.'

  He took out the last letter and scanned it despairingly.

  'Mrs Horncastle,' he said. 'These words, not for all the world, tower and town, forest and field, do they mean anything to you?'

  'They sound familiar,' said the woman. 'Let me see. Yes, I'm pretty sure they are from one of the Mystery plays. That's right. The Temptation. The Devil takes Christ up to the top of the Temple and first of all tells him to prove his godhead by jumping. Then he claims to have all the world to wield, that is to rule, tower and town, forest and field, and offers this to Christ in return for his homage.'

  'The top of the Temple, you say? Oh God,' cried Pascoe. 'Oh God.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Once more they were running, forcing their way through the dense-packed crowds and across the narrow street up which a roar came funnelling like a tidal bore to signal the passage of the procession through the old gateway into the close.

  The cathedral steps were crowded and the great oak doors with their double frieze of intricate carving in which the sacred was embraced by the profane, were firmly shut. Wield split off to the left, Pascoe to the right, and for once the symbols proved correct for within a few seconds of leaving the crowds behind as he explored behind the view-defying buttresses along the side of the building, he found a small low door which yielded to his touch.

  Inside, it was dark and still, with an impression of something waiting and listening, as though the great old church was straining to catch the sound of the approaching procession which it had not heard for over a hundred years.

  No time for fanciful reflection, none for respect either. He sprinted with sacrilegious haste down a side aisle through a disapproving forest of columns till he reached the doorway to the Great Tower.

  This too was open, and from vast space filled with vibrations of infinity, he moved into the stifling confines of a spiral stair filled only with the heat and harsh rasp of his own breathing.

  It was a totally enclosed stairway with no lucent points of reference, and after a couple of moments Pascoe felt as if he were running on a treadmill, ever aspiring, ever low. But his mind was fuelled with fragments of thought which kept his legs pumping away.

  . . . her father was a Scot who went to Malaya as a young padre during the troubles of the post-war era ... for a serving officer to marry a Chinese girl at this time, perhaps at any time, was an act of social self-destruction . . .

  Self-destruction. He knew all about self-destruction! Why hadn't he shown more interest in Ellie's article? Why hadn't he encouraged her to talk about it?

  . . . the family moved to the UK after Malaya achieved independence ... the Reverend Graham obtained a sprawling parish in west Birmingham . . . what his parishioners thought when they first met their new vicar's wife and young daughter is not recorded . . .

  Suddenly there was light. The spiral broke on a narrow landing at the furthermost point of which was a small lancet window, scarcely more than a loophole really, but it admitted the blessed gold of the sun. He staggered to it, sucking at the fresh air. It was too narrow and the wall too thick to let him look down, but he could see straight out over the roofs of the town and so gauge how disappointingly low he still was. He turned his back on the light and plunged again into the timeless spaceless hopeless helix.

  ... at boarding-school she started acting . . . her greatest joy was in the holidays when she went on camping trips with her parents in the Border country which had been her father's birthplace . . .

  It was he decided a nightmare. He was not really here, he was safe in bed at home, and one last thrust of his aching legs would drive him through the surface of this awful dream into the familiar
world of the warm duvet, the white curtains with the blue flowers silhouetted by the first rays of dawn, and by his side, Ellie, soft-breathing, as neat and orderly in sleep as she was loose-limbed and sprawling awake, as though all her natural rebelliousness vanished when she closed her eyes and some deep-seated longing for order and conformity took over. Ellie, whose souvenir article he should have been the first to read, who had been picked to write it so that he would be the first!

  . . . she was eighteen and just about to start drama school when her mother died. It was her father's suggestion that she should take her mother's name. 'Eileen Chung,' he told her, 'will be able to get away with things that Eileen Graham never could!' But, Chung adds, they both knew it wasn't just a showbiz decision. It was a way of extending the dead woman's existence for both of them . . .

  Light again! The surface of the dream or the surface of reality was close. This light seeped down from above and grew stronger with every muscle-straining step. Up there somewhere was an open door. But open on to what?

  ... at twenty-six she was devastated when her father died, and she threw herself into her work with that unremitting energy which is the hallmark of everything she does . . . How old is Chung? I'm afraid that I cannot tell you, for in the only bit of coyness I encountered in this refreshingly frank and open woman, she refused to say! And why would she? For everyone who knows her is agreed that, like the great dramas she produces, time is meaningless in the case of someone as complete, as talented, as unique as Eileen Chung. We in Mid-Yorkshire are very lucky to have her. We should take care that we treasure her according to her worth, and when, as they surely will, pressures come upon her to leave us for new challenges elsewhere, we owe it to ourselves to make it very hard for her to go . . .

  He burst through the doorway into the dazzle of the midday sun and reeled with the heat and the light and the joy of it. He caught at the door frame to steady himself and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was still and no longer dazzled. And he was looking at Chung.

  She was leaning backwards against the shallow parapet, looking towards him with a welcoming smile, beautiful beyond the scope of brush or pen.

  She called, 'Hello, Pete, baby. I was beginning to think no one would make it.'

  'Chung. Hi.'

  He began to move towards her. She shook her head slightly. He stopped.

  'Chung,' he said. 'There's no need for this.'

  'Need for what? I'm just enjoying the best view in town. Will you listen to those cheers? They're just loving it, aren't they? And why not? It's just another show, a change from the telly. Let's go out and have a laugh at the God on wheels! Perhaps he'll give a wave as he passes! Do you think he'll give us a wave, Peter? Probably not. God doesn't need to look up, does he? What's the point when everything's below?'

  Beneath the lightness, he sensed desperation. He said urgently, 'He did his best!'

  'You're very loyal, Pete. I knew you wouldn't be right for Lucifer. Treachery's not your style. But no, he didn't do his best. You know it, I know it. But I'm not saying he deceived me. I managed that all by myself. I said I picked him because he wouldn't give a damn, so I can hardly complain about being right!'

  Pascoe examined this and thought he saw a glimmer of hope.

  'Chung, if you know it's a game, I mean, not a game, I realize it's deadly serious, but a gamble, a life and death gamble, if you know that...’

  'Why does a bright girl like me carry on with it?' She laughed and then turned serious. 'Pete, the me that thinks it's in control never meant to lay this thing on Andy. That me was telling the truth in those letters. But there's another me .. . look, it's like when you're acting sometimes, something takes over, you become the part you're playing even though you know you're out there on a stage. What I mean is, if you're in my game, there's no problem to being two or three contradictory things at the same time!'

  He tried another small step forward. She didn't seem to notice, but there was still twenty feet between them. He could hear the sound of shawms and timbrels in the wind, and he thought he could trace Dalziel's approach in the swell of applause.

  He said, 'OK, it's not simply a game, but that doesn't entitle you to cheat.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You said Andy never asked you to dance at the ball. Hell, your tango nearly stopped the show!'

  'Not guilty!' she replied. 'It was me who asked him, the first time anyway. After that he just grabbed me. So it was subtle misdirection, not cheating. No point in making things too easy for the great detective, was there? Not that I need have bothered, for all the interest he took.'

  It was time for a change of direction. By talking about the game, he was merely playing the game. She was peering over the parapet and he moved slowly forward, saying, 'OK, so he had a lot of other things on his mind. But he did pass the case on to me, you know that. It's my responsibility now. Please don't make it my guilt.'

  She turned to look at him, catching him in mid-step. He froze for a moment, like a child playing statues, then under her quizzical gaze smiled sheepishly and lowered his foot to the ground.

  She said, 'I like you, Pete. Always have done. If Ellie hadn't been such a good friend, who knows? But fucking's easy, and friends are hard to find. You should bear that in mind. Sometimes being nice and reasonable can make a person just as self-absorbed as being a real selfish bastard. Take a day off, Pete, and let it all hang out! Let Ellie know if she gets right up your nose or if some little scrubber in the pub with her skirt round her bum gets you horny. She'll probably break your jaw but at least you'll know why you're hurting. There's no profit in partial openness. If it's not wide open, it might as well be locked. Was that in a play or did I say it? It gets hard to tell sometimes.'

  'I don't know,' said Pascoe, trying for a matching lightness. 'But it didn't sound like Shakespeare.'

  'No? Think you know your Shakespeare, huh?'

  'Better than I know my Mysteries.'

  'Well, this week's your chance to learn! Though I'm not sure if it's worth it.'

  She was no longer looking at him, but even as he tensed his muscles for an explosive sprint, she leaned far out over the parapet in her effort to follow the progress of the pageant wagon which sounded to be passing right in front of the cathedral. In that position, he didn't even dare essay another small step.

  'Surely any learning experience is worth it?' he said.

  She pulled herself back to the vertical and his pulse returned to a mere fifty per cent above normal.

  'Depends what you learn in the end,’ she said. 'It's a funny thing about plays, Pete. They're all about pain, did you know that? Even the comedies; especially the comedies. They end in union, tragedy in separation, because that's the only answer we've found. I know about separation. Mummy died when I was eighteen, Daddy when I was twenty-six. This surprises you, don't it, Pete? Big girl like me missing her mummy and daddy? But I was nothing and nowhere without them. And I never found anyone else, because I seemed to get too busy with other people finding me. The world's full of shit, Peter. Read the papers, watch the box, it's coming thick and fast from all sides and it's getting worse. You stick to Ellie, hon. Two people clinging together get to ward off some of the crap for a while at least. That's all that comedy is, a tragedy postponed!'

  He could see her cracking up before him with pain and despair showing through. It was more than he could bear, yet within his own pain he felt an admixture of resentment. Chung shouldn't be like this, not Chung who had come among them like a goddess, asking nothing but worship for her healing touch.

  He took another step and said urgently, 'Isn't it possible to make sense of it? Isn't that what all these plays and books and works of art are about?'

  'You reckon?' she said. 'So what's to do when you realize that all that Shakespeare can offer us in the end is resignation? And all that the Mysteries can offer is . . . mystery.'

  'Chung, for God's sake, I mean, for my sake, for our sakes. Whatever you feel, we love you, we n
eed you.'

  'Love,' she said. 'Need.' As if they were foreign words.

  Far below, the noise of the crowd reached a climax as Dalziel arrived. Then suddenly Chung smiled and in an instant was herself again, beautiful, and strong.

  'Jesus, Pete, you look terrible! Look, it's OK, baby. No need to come rushing over here to make a grab at me! You don't really think I'd let someone I like as much as you watch me jump, do you? Come on! God's passing by, the show's nearly over. Time to start planning the next one, huh? I'm really glad you're here, though. Would you mind leading the way down those nasty stairs? They really give me the creeps. You'll never believe this, but I'm terrified of falling!'

  She moved away from the parapet, laughing joyously, and Pascoe, his limbs trembling with relief, laughed too as he turned towards the doorway.

  But even as he laughed and turned and lost sight of her, he knew he was in error.

  He spun round and his mind kept spinning as his eyes sought desperately for some sign, some trace.

  But he had known before he turned that he was at last completely alone on the tower.

  And now to the half admiring, half mocking cheers of the crowd as the God, Dalziel, passed in all his glory, was added a new wailing, shrieking noise, haled out of horror and dismay. It rose up the sides of the great cathedral, spiralling towards the sun like the thin piping of a bird, and was absorbed as though it had never been into the vast empty sky.

  Raging, Pascoe looked upwards and cried, 'Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!'

  And did not know if he was addressing Chung, or God, or Dalziel, or merely himself.