Bones and Silence
And now they came into the cathedral close and everything changed. Little of the mediaeval had survived the ‘modernization’ of the eighteenth century when Wyatt the Destroyer’s internal restorations had been mirrored and magnified in a ruthless external clean-up of what even antiquarians had had to admit was an ecclesiastical slum. A fourteenth-century deanery had been spared because the eighteenth-century dean had simply refused to move his large family, and a row of Jacobean almshouses had presented a similar logistical problem. Between these and a scattering of other survivals had sprung up new buildings in styles ranging from neo-classic domestic, through romantic picturesque to Victorian Gothic; and by one of those coincidences quite beyond the wit of architects and planners, the result was a delightful and harmonious meld. Nothing was here to provoke a Prince.
The close was entered through a granite gateway in a sandstone wall, and though the old wooden gates had long since vanished, there was still a sense of being admitted, of passing from the hectic and neurotic atmosphere of modern life into a balmier, more restful air.
Chung made a mental note to get the gateway measured. She wanted her procession to be fun, and she didn’t want it to end in farce with a pageant firmly wedged between the pillars. She had hold of the Canon’s arm now to steer him along her reconnoitred route while at the same time permitting him to imagine that it was his expertise which was showing her the best way. This was not easy as the best way could hardly be said to involve the cathedral close at all, since Charter Park, the proposed site for the daily performance of the Mystery Plays, lay as far to the west of the market place as the cathedral lay to the east. Chung had justified her diversion on ecclesiastical grounds. The grand opening procession must be seen to embrace the sacred as well as the profane.
Her real reason, however, was that she had no intention of staging her production in the Park, which was broad and flat and bounded by a main road and a canalized river, providing a choice between a static background of gloomy warehouses or a moving one of double-decker buses.
Her chosen site was much closer at hand. On the far side of the cathedral and belonging to it stretched an expanse of green and pleasant land, dotted with old trees and sinking down in a shallow valley before swelling up once more to a natural vallum where remnants of the city’s mediaeval walls could still be seen. More substantial than these stood the ruins of St Bega’s Abbey from which had come much of the impetus and, after its closure, some of the material to enlarge the small Anglo-Norman cathedral into a huge Gothic edifice which could hold its own against any in the land.
This was the setting Chung lusted after.
They had arrived at the great building itself. She paused and craned her neck to take in the soaring bulk of the lantern tower.
‘It’s incredible,’ she said. ‘How did they do all this without machines?’
‘They had something better. They had God,’ said the Canon.
It was a good feed. She looked at him appraisingly and said, ‘And that’s all you need? I think I’m getting close to finding mine. Canon, would it be possible to climb the tower to get a bird’s eye view of things?’
Horncastle hesitated but his wife inadvertently came to Chung’s aid. Pointing across the road to a tall gabled house as narrow and forbidding as the Canon himself, she said, ‘I thought as we were so near home, a cup of coffee perhaps …’
‘Dorothy,’ said the Canon testily, ‘I have pledged myself to advise Miss Chung this morning. In an hour’s time I have an important luncheon appointment at the Palace. I hardly feel that taking coffee in my own parlour would be a fruitful way of filling the intervening period. If you would follow me, Miss Chung.’
He headed into the cathedral. Chung smiled apologetically at his wife and said, ‘Another time, huh?’ before following.
It was a wearisome climb up a steep, dark, spiral staircase, but worth every ounce of sweat. The city lay stretched beneath them like an illuminated plan, and there was little to interrupt the eye’s flight to the distant green and blue horizons. The only contender in terms of height was the narrow tower which had tumesced out of the old redbrick university in the expansive sixties, and though it flashed back the light of the cold wintry sun most defiantly, its glass and concrete hardly gave promise of another six centuries of such defiance.
Chung moved from side to side, removing her snood to let the chill wind unravel her long black hair. The Canon stood and watched her delight with proprietorial pleasure. Dorothy Horncastle emerged a few moments later from the narrow oak door and stood unnoticed.
Chung came to rest by the eastern parapet and looked down towards the dwarfed ruins of the old abbey. Horncastle came and joined her.
‘It’s magnificent,’ she said sincerely.
‘Yes. I pride myself that we have a setting and outlook dramatic enough to stand comparison with any in the country,’ said the Canon complacently.
‘A dramatic setting?’ said Chung, eagle-eyed for an entrée. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. You must be a classicist, Canon. That fold of ground there, the Greeks would have had to turn it into an amphitheatre. And the ruins, what a backcloth! No chance of transferring them to Charter Park for the Mysteries, I suppose?’
‘If it were feasible, you should have them,’ replied the Canon, quite happy to hypothesize the impossible in return for Chung’s smile.
‘Pity,’ she sighed. ‘That tatty park could surely do with something to match the material. But you’ll be doing wonders enough if you can get us permission to route the procession through the close. I gather the Bishop is none too keen.’
‘Indeed? I can assure you that whatever route we decide on today will be the route you take,’ said Horncastle sharply.
‘You can? That’s great,’ exclaimed Chung at full glow. ‘But your other idea, about the ruins, that would take a real miracle, huh?’
There it was. A temptation on a tower. If he followed the best precedents, the Canon would scornfully deny ever having had any such idea about the ruins. Or he might compromise, and still take it as a joke about transferring the ruins to Charter Park. Or he might be vain enough to let himself be manipulated into accepting parenthood of a proposal to use St Bega’s as the main Mysteries site, and with parenthood, responsibility.
Then she looked into his hard unblinking eyes and knew she had made a mistake. He was a bright man within his limits, and she had seen only the limits and forgotten the brightness.
She smiled, acknowledging defeat, and said, ‘But it’s a great route. Thanks for your help.’
And submission proved the key. The Canon said, ‘I think I might rise to the occasional miracle, in a purely dramatic sense, of course.’
‘You mean you think you could really swing it for us to use St Bega’s?’
‘It would require the approval of the Chapter but that would be something of a formality once the Bishop and I showed the way. Would you like me to attempt the miracle, as you call it?’
There was the scent of a bargain here which made Chung momentarily uneasy. But clerics should know better than to do deals with pagans.
She said, ‘It would be truly marvellous.’
‘In that case I shall speak to his lordship at luncheon today. Now let us descend. Permit me to lead the way. The stairs are steep and there is danger here for the unvigilant.’
Oh, you’re so right, baby, thought Chung as he stepped through the doorway with exaggerated care. She looked round in search of Mrs Horncastle. She was standing in the furthermost corner of the tower leaning out over the parapet. Like Chung, she had removed her headgear, revealing a tumult of chestnut hair which seemed to dance exuberantly at its release from the confines of the woollen hat. There was even some colour in the hollow cheeks now, and a brightness in the eyes as they stared into the space which divided her from the crawling dots below.
‘Mrs Horncastle, we’re going now. Are you all right? Mrs Horncastle!’
‘What? Oh yes. Yes, of course. So sorry.’
She was like a woman waking from a dream. She looked at the hat in her hand as if uncertain how it got there. Then she pulled it down over her rebellious hair and hurried across the roof and through the staircase door.
The darkness swallowed her.
For a moment Chung paused as if reluctant to leave this pale winter sunlight. Then, with a sigh which had nothing theatrical about it, she followed the Horncastles into the gloom.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Mr Swain, I’d like to take you over your statement again,’ said Dalziel with the effulgent smile of a man who wants to sell a used Lada.
Swain glanced at his watch with the air of a man who has two minutes to spare and has started counting. Sharp-featured, deep-eyed and black-haired, he was quite striking in a Mephistophelean kind of way. And his rather supercilious appearance was matched by the voice which said, ‘I thought I’d already been as clear as I could without supplying a video, Superintendent.’
Dalziel smiled wolfishly. Pascoe guessed he was thinking: Oh, but you did, my lad! But this was no time to be seeing Swain through Dalziel’s indisputably prejudiced eyes. Pascoe was more interested to find the oddities he had detected when reading the statement confirmed by his first meeting with the man. Stereotyping was of course a fascist device for perpetuating class divisions but Pascoe found himself unable to avoid a prejudice which provided your paradigmatic jobbing builder with Stringer’s cloth cap, baggy trousers and vernacular speech forms, rather than Swain’s Daks blazer, Cartier watch, and upper-class phonemes.
Dalziel said, ‘Last night when you wrote your statement, you were naturally upset. Who wouldn’t be? Man kills his wife, he’s got a right to be upset. I’d just like to be sure you got things down like you really wanted. Here, take a look, tell me if there’s owt you want to change.’
He pushed a photocopy of Swain’s statement across the table. Swain said softly, ‘A man who kills his wife? I think either I must have misheard or you must have misread, Superintendent.’
‘Sorry, sir. Slip of the tongue,’ said Dalziel unconvincingly. ‘Though you do say as it was mebbe your efforts to get the gun off her that … anyroad, you just read through what you wrote and let me know if it’s right.’
Swain ran his eyes down the sheets. When he finished he sighed and said, ‘It’s like a nightmare, all confused. I’m amazed I could have written this so clearly, but, yes, it’s the most sense I can make out of the fragments. Would you like me to sign it again?’
‘No need,’ said the fat man. ‘Signing a cheque twice won’t stop it bouncing. If it’s going to bounce, I mean. Anyroad, there’s notes been taken, so all this is on the record.’
Wield was taking the notes. Pascoe had been invited along to observe. What the tactics were likely to be he could only guess. Dalziel’s response to the news of Waterson’s statement and subsequent disappearance had been stoic to the point of catalepsy, encouraging his colleagues to move in his vicinity like off-piste skiers. But his abandonment of the idea of leaving Swain to sweat till after lunch showed how seriously he was taking things.
‘This wife of yours, did she make a habit of carrying guns around with her, Mr Swain?’ inquired Dalziel.
‘Of course not. At least, not to my knowledge.’
‘Not to your knowledge, eh? And I dare say you would’ve noticed if she’d started slipping three pounds of Colt Python down her cleavage, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of what?’
‘Colt Python, weighs forty-four ounces unloaded, overall length eleven and a quarter inches, fires the .357 Magnum cartridge,’ said Dalziel quoting the lab’s preliminary weapon report.
‘Was that what it was?’ said Swain. ‘I’ve no interest in guns.’
‘So you’d never seen this one before?’
‘Never.’
‘Is that so? You did know she was a member of a gun club, didn’t you?’ said Dalziel.
‘Of course I did.’
‘And you never noticed any of her weapons about the house? They have to be kept under lock and key, Mr Swain, in a proper cabinet. You mean to tell me that a pro builder like you never noticed this interesting extension to your wife’s wardrobe?’
Dalziel’s sneers were as subtle as birdshit down a windscreen. Swain said wearily, ‘The guns weren’t kept in the house, except on the odd occasion she’d been shooting in some competition at another club and needed to store one overnight. That’s the only reason we had the secure cabinet put in. Otherwise they were kept in the club armoury.’
Dalziel looked nonplussed for a moment.
‘When was the last time she had a gun at home, then?’ he asked.
‘A couple of years ago, I’d say,’ said Swain. ‘She gave up competition shooting, you see, so there was never any reason to remove them from the club.’
‘And you aren’t a member of this club?’
‘No. I told you. I hate guns, ever since … well, I’ve always hated them. And I was right, wasn’t I?’
His voice rose to something not far short of a shout. Dalziel regarded him speculatively for a while, then he turned on a sympathetic smile, his face lighting up like the Ministry of Love.
‘I’m glad you feel like that about guns, Mr Swain. My sentiments entirely. I gather there’s a very different attitude to gun-ownership in the States.’
He made the States sound like somewhere beyond Alpha Centauri.
‘I believe so,’ said Swain. He put his hand to his brow as if to massage a headache. Then he asked in a low voice, ‘Has my mother-in-law, Mrs Delgado, been told?’
‘I expect so,’ said Dalziel negligently. ‘Leastways we told the Los Angeles police. She’s sick, you say?’
‘Yes. She’s pretty well bedridden now. The most optimistic prognosis is a year, perhaps eighteen months.’
‘So your missus would be planning a long trip mebbe.’
‘It was open-ended. Naturally, if the end looked imminent, Gail would have stayed.’
‘So that’s why she took most of her clothes?’
‘What? Oh yes, of course. You’ve been poking around the house.’
‘Not me personally. One of my officers. Routine. But he did say it looked like there’d been a good clear-out.’
‘If you’d ever seen what Gail packed for a weekend in the country, you’d not be surprised at that, Superintendent,’ said Swain sadly.
‘Oh aye, I know what you mean,’ said Dalziel with a rueful shake of his head to express male solidarity. ‘How long do you reckon she’d have stayed in Hambleton Road, Mr Swain?’
‘How the hell should I know? You’d better ask Waterson that.’
‘I shall. Make a note to ask Mr Waterson when you see him, Sergeant Wield,’ said Dalziel.
Pascoe felt Wield wince beneath his totem-pole impassivity. The Sergeant had set all the systems at top pressure to track down Waterson, but so far there’d been no trace. Wield had spoken briefly to the wife before leaving the hospital. She had denied any knowledge of her husband’s intentions or whereabouts, and agreed to make herself available for a longer interview at the end of her shift.
Dalziel leaned forward and said, ‘Talking of Waterson, what do you reckon to him, Mr Swain? Setting aside the fact he were knocking off your wife.’
Swain looked at him in amazement and Pascoe tensed his muscles to intervene. Then Swain shook his head and said, ‘I’d heard about you, Dalziel, but no one got close to the reality.’
Dalziel looked modestly pleased and said, ‘Well, like they say, only God can make a tree. So? Waterson?’
‘I don’t know. He seemed all right. Lively. Pretty bright. Not a good payer, but who is these days?’
‘I hope you’ll not have any bother when you finish our car park and garages,’ said Dalziel righteously. ‘Had to twist his arm a bit, did you?’
‘I had to bill him a few times and give him a couple of phone calls.’
‘No solicitor’s letters delivered by a pair of brickies with a German Shepherd?’
‘You’ve been attending too many trials,’ said Swain. ‘If anything, I went more than usually easy with Waterson. I felt some sympathy with him. He was like me a couple of years back, trying to set up by himself after he’d been made redundant, and I know how careful you’ve got to be with the money then. Also I gather his wife left him. There’s ironic for you! I felt sorry for the bastard because his wife had left him and she probably did it because she found he was screwing around with mine!’
‘Mebbe so. You met her, did you?’
‘Mrs Waterson? Only once. The day the job started. I got the distinct impression that was the first she knew of it. I never saw her again but I’m not around all the time. Arnie Stringer, my partner, usually takes care of on-site supervision.’
‘Does he now? Now that is good news, Mr Swain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nowt, except it’s a comfort to know your men will be able to get on with our garages while we’ve got you banged up in here,’ said Dalziel cheerfully.
It was not the worst of his provocations but it was the one that hit the button. Swain shot to his feet and shouted, ‘You great lump of blubber, I’ve had enough of this. I don’t have to sit here listening to your loutish maunderings. Can’t you get it into your thick skull, she was my wife, and she’s dead, and I blame myself … she’s dead, and I blame …’
As rapidly as he had risen, he slumped in his chair again, pressed his face into his hands and his whole body went into a spasm of almost silent sobbing.
Dalziel viewed the scene with the detachment of a first-night critic, belched, stood up and said, ‘I don’t know about you lot, but my belly feels like me throat’s been slit. Lunch.’
Outside he said, ‘He’s good. Best free show since Crippen broke down at his wife’s funeral.’
‘That’s a bit hard,’ protested Pascoe. ‘He’s got good cause to be upset.’
‘You mean, because I’m on to his nasty game?’ growled Dalziel.
Pascoe grimaced and said, ‘Look, sir, with this statement of Waterson’s in the files … I know there’s a bit of difference, but with two of them on more or less the same lines …’
‘Aye, it is odd, that,’ said Dalziel deliberately misunderstanding. ‘Wieldy, you’ve had the rare privilege of seeing both these buggers while they’re compos mentis. How do you read it? Any chance of ’em being a pair of poofs cooking up this Irish stew between ’em?’
Was the question more or less offensive for being addressed to a gay? And did it make any difference that Wield had received a measure of protection from Dalziel when others were ready to ladle on the persecution with generous hand?
Wield said, ‘I’d say no, they’re not gay. Though they’re not always easy to spot, are they? Incidentally, I ran them both through the computer just in case no one else heard your instructions last night, sir.’
Is he being cheeky? wondered Dalziel, who was notorious for his distrust of any form of intelligence that couldn’t sup ale. ‘Man who lets a key witness go missing should think twice before he’s cheeky. All right, lad, what did the Mighty Wurlitzer say?’
‘Nothing known about Swain,’ said Wield. ‘But Waterson lost his driving licence last week.’
‘Oh, great,’ mocked Dalziel. ‘That changes everything, that does.’
‘What did he do, Wieldy?’ asked Pascoe defensively.
‘Nowt really. He’d totted up penalty points pretty regularly for motor offences, but a couple of weeks back he got flashed because one of his rear lights was on the blink and he took off like a jet. They picked him up later all apologetic, thought he’d probably be drunk, but he was well inside the limit. So they did him for speeding and that put him over the top.’
‘For crying out loud!’ said Dalziel in exasperation. ‘Can’t either of you contribute owt useful? Peter, what do you reckon to these two?’
‘I’ve not met Waterson,’ Pascoe pointed out. ‘But he sounds … wayward.’
‘Wayward, eh?’ said Dalziel. ‘I’ll make a note. And Swain? Does he sound wayward too?’
‘No, but he sounds a very odd kind of small-time builder.’
‘What? Too educated, you mean? You’d best not let yourself be heard talking like that at home else you’ll be washing your mouth out with carbolic. But I know what you mean. He’s a very odd kind of fellow all round. Has to be if he thinks he can get the better of me! But we’re wasting good drinking time. We’ll have to postpone your celebration, but …’
‘There’s still an hour,’ said Pascoe.
‘Aye, but Wieldy here won’t be with us, will you, Sergeant? He’s got another hospital appointment, if he doesn’t manage to lose this one too. You and me though, Peter, we’ll have a jar and go over these two statements with a fine-tooth comb.’
‘Three statements,’ said Pascoe, crossing his fingers and trying to cross his toes.
‘Three? What do you mean – three?’
Wield took a small step towards the window as if contemplating hurling himself through it when hostilities broke out.
‘There’s Swain’s,’ Dalziel went on. ‘And there’s Waterson’s. What other bugger’s made a statement that needs looking at?’
Pascoe wondered if the window were wide enough for a double defenestration.
He took a deep breath and thought that no matter what they paid chief inspectors, it wasn’t enough.
‘Yours,’ he said. ‘Sir.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The nurses’ annexe at the Infirmary was a nineteen-sixties purpose-built block situated about a furlong from the main building and linked to it by what had once been a pleasant tree-lined walk. Pleasant, that is, in summer and daylight. A series of late-night assaults a decade before had made protection more important than pleasance, and now the pathway was flanked by more lamp standards than trees and corridored in high tensile steel link-fencing.
Wield found Pamela Waterson’s room on the third floor. When she opened the door she regarded him blankly for a second, then said, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ and turned away.
He followed her into the room where she flopped wearily into a chair. Her long blonde hair was loose now, its bright tresses about her face accentuating the dark shadows under her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can see you’re very tired.’
‘You don’t have to be a detective to work that out,’ she answered bitterly. ‘I was tired when I came off my last shift two hours late because my relief had a car accident. Then I only managed an hour’s sleep before I was due on again –’
‘Why was that?’ interrupted Wield.
‘Nothing special,’ she said, lighting her third cigarette since his arrival. ‘Life goes on, all the ordinary tedious things that take a few minutes when you’re on top of them. Shopping, paying bills, washing, ironing –’
‘Do you have a family, Mrs Waterson?’ he interrupted again.
‘Do I look like I have a family?’ she said, gesturing around.
Presumably she simply meant that a bedsitter in a nurses’ block was not a place to bring up a family, but Wield seized the opportunity for an open examination of the room.
There was little to be learned from the mainly institutional furniture. On the wall above the bed there was a little wooden crucifix; on another wall above a small bookcase hung a charcoal sketch of a female head whose laughing vitality delayed identification with the weary woman before him. He let his gaze fall to the books. Pascoe laid great store on books as revealers of personality. Mrs Waterson’s choice ran mainly to biography and her taste was wide. There were a couple of Royals, Charles and Earl Mountbatten; several showbiz, including Monroe, Garland, the Beatles and Olivier; one political, Lloyd George; and a scattering of literary, ranging from Byron and Shelley through Emily Brontë and Oscar Wilde to Sylvia Plath and Simone de Beauvoir.
Looking for the meaning of her own life in other people’s patterns was the way Pascoe would probably see it. Dalziel on the other hand would say, ‘Sod the books! Poke about behind them, see what she’s hiding!’