Bones and Silence
Wield knew all about hiding, knew also that we hide far less than we think. For years he had hidden his true sexual identity behind the dustjacket of a straight, middle-of-the-road, unemotional cop. But when he finally decided to come out, no delicate glowing butterfly emerged. He was still the same old lumpy green caterpillar nibbling systematically at the leaf till the holes joined up and he could see clear to the other side.
He returned now to his nibbling and pointed at the crucifix.
‘You’re a Catholic, are you, Mrs Waterson?’
‘What? Oh, I see. And that means I should be producing every year like a brood mare?’
‘I didn’t say that. But there could be kids who stayed with their dad or went to gran when the bust-up happened.’
‘Well, there weren’t. And what do you know about my bust-up? Who’ve you been talking to? Some tittle-tattle at the hospital? God, if they worked as hard as I do, they’d have no time to gossip!’
She spoke with a fervour which brought colour to her wan cheeks. Wield, who had been trying to apportion the turmoil he discerned here between concern for her work and other causes possibly linked to his investigation, pushed a large emotional counter towards the job.
‘Do you like being a nurse?’ he asked with deliberate fatuity.
‘Like? You mean, is it a vocation? Or, do I go around the wards singing?’
‘Bit of both, I suppose. I mean, you must be good at it. How old are you, twenty-six, twenty-seven? And you’re a ward sister already.’
She laughed and lit another cigarette.
‘I’m twenty-four, Sergeant, and when I came here three years ago, they said I looked sixteen. And as for being a sister, I’m that because these days nurses are coming in in dribs and leaving in droves. Me, I reckon I didn’t have half the experience necessary for it, and sometimes when I’m alone on the ward in the middle of the night and it’s all quiet except for the odd groan and fart, and I can hardly keep my eyes open, I get to thinking that if something happens, some life or death emergency, I’m the one who’ll be making the decisions till they rouse some poor bloody doctor who can probably hardly keep his eyes open either. Then I start shaking, partly with fear and partly with anger, at the sheer unfairness of expecting me to do the job at all.’
How relevant was all this? wondered Wield. It might have something to do with the case in terms of the break-up of the Waterson marriage. Or it might be a deliberate tactic of diversion. But this he doubted. There was too much genuine passion not to mention desperation for this outburst to be tactical.
It was time to get back to the point.
‘So,’ he said, ‘when you came on shift today you were told your husband had been admitted.’
‘Not straight away,’ she said. ‘Not for a couple of hours. It was Dr Marwood who told me.’
‘What was your reaction?’
‘Well, I wanted to know if he was all right, naturally. And when Ellison … Dr Marwood said it was just some kind of nervous tension and he’d been sedated but seemed fine this morning, I got worried in case it had something to do with me.’
‘Would that have surprised you?’
She thought about this, then said, ‘Yes, it would. He could get very emotional, Greg, you know, fly off the handle, have a fit of what they’d call hysterics in a woman. But it was always at something specific. Often it was completely illogical, but there had to be something, not just sitting at home brooding about things that had happened. And in any case, I doubt if he did much brooding about what had happened to us.’
‘What had happened to you, Mrs Waterson?’ asked Wield.
‘I don’t see that that has anything to do with you,’ she retorted. ‘Look, what you’re here for is to find if I can help you track down Greg, right? Well, I can’t. I walked out on him three weeks ago and till this morning I’d not seen him since.’
‘Mrs Waterson, when I arrived this morning, you didn’t look like, well, like a woman separated from her husband.’
‘Because I was letting him kiss me and feel me up?’
‘That’s right.’
She smiled and drew on her cigarette, both with visible effort.
‘Sergeant, I went to see him in my break. I was exhausted. You can’t imagine what a relief it was to talk to someone who wasn’t talking to me professionally. And when he got hold of me, well, at least he wasn’t grabbing at me to complain about a pain or ask for a bedpan. It was nice and soothing when he started stroking me, like a massage. Oh yes, when you arrived I probably looked as if I was ready to get into bed with him, and I was. But not to make love, just to sleep … sleep … sleep …’
She leaned back and closed her eyes. Wield felt very sorry for her but not so sorry that he was going to return to Dalziel with questions unasked.
He said, ‘What did you and your husband talk about this morning?’
She opened her eyes with difficulty and looked at him blankly.
‘What did he say about the reasons for him being there?’ he pressed.
‘What makes you think he said anything?’ she evaded.
‘Well, so far you’ve not asked me a single question about it, luv,’ he said. ‘And that sounds like a lack of curiosity which could be a record.’
‘You’re not daft,’ she said wearily. ‘All right. He told me everything. He’d written it all down. Did he not show it to you? Why’d that fat bobby, Dalziel, not come himself?’
That fat bobby. Wield liked it. But Waterson hadn’t mentioned Dalziel in his written statement. Significant?
‘Do you know Mr Dalziel?’ he asked.
‘I’ve seen him, naturally. He doesn’t bother much with curtains. And everyone roundabout talks about him. He’s what you call a character, I suppose.’
‘I suppose he is,’ said Wield. ‘Did you believe your husband’s statement, Mrs Waterson?’
‘Of course, no problem. Things fall apart around him, always have done. Give him a pencil and he’ll draw you a near-on perfect circle. But I’ve known him cut his finger spreading butter and he can break a cup just stirring his tea. Put him and a gun in the same room and someone’s almost bound to get hurt. Story of his life.’
She yawned widely. He wasn’t going to be able to keep this interview going much longer. There were more ways of escape than decamping.
‘Did you know he was having an affair with Mrs Swain?’ he asked.
‘Not specifically,’ she said, standing up and moving slowly towards the narrow bed which occupied one corner of the room. ‘But I know all about her, all that matters, I mean.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she’d be slim, with long legs, good figure, blonde hair. Names don’t matter. I sometimes doubt if Greg knows their names. He’s like a little boy in a sweet shop. He just points at the lemon popsicles, and because he’s such a charming little boy, he usually gets what he’s pointing at.’
As she spoke, she loosened her skirt, stepped out of it, and began to unbutton her blouse. There was nothing seductive or suggestive in the action even if Wield had been seducible or suggestible in that direction. She was on automatic pilot, preparing for crashdown. Wield did notice, however, that she fitted her husband’s blueprint very well.
‘Was it because of the women you left him?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not just the women.’
‘What, then?’ he asked, wondering if sleep or her answer would break the tape first. It was a close-run thing.
‘… it was like … going home … to another shift … and it was always … Saturday night … on casualty …’ she said. Then she slipped onto the bed with one arm still in her blouse and was instantly asleep.
Wield stood looking at her for a while. His two exemplars came into his mind. First he did what Pascoe would have done, eased her arm out of the blouse sleeve and folded the duvet gently over her body.
Then he did what Dalziel would have done and started to search the room.
CHAPTER SIX
Down at the Black Bull, Dalziel was trying to change the subject.
‘Did you have a look at them letters?’ he interrupted.
‘Which letters?’ said Pascoe.
‘From that barmy woman. I put ’em on your desk. Surely you’ve had time to read a couple of letters?’
Pascoe sighed, recalling the small alp of files which had reared out of his in-tray that morning. In fact he had read the letters, if only for their relative lack of bulk.
‘Yes, I saw them. Very interesting. Now about your statement …’
Having grasped the nettle, and also having paid for the first two rounds despite the official postponement of his celebration, Pascoe was determined not to let go.
‘I just said what I saw, lad.’
‘Which was Swain holding the gun. Then Water-son making a grab for him. Then the gun went off?’
‘I heard the gun going off, didn’t see it,’ corrected Dalziel. ‘Now, about them letters, I’d like your opinion, you being such a clever sod.’
‘Yes, sir. You’re sure about the sequence?’
‘Of course I’m bloody sure!’
‘Then Waterson must be covering up for Swain?’
‘See? I was right. You are a clever sod,’ said Dalziel, finishing his second pint. ‘All we’ve got to do is find the bugger, kick some sense into him, and I get to stay flavour of the month. Now, these letters …’
Pascoe gave up. For the time being.
‘What’s your interest, sir?’ he asked. ‘She says she’ll not be writing again.’
‘She’ll write again, never fear,’ growled Dalziel. ‘Then she’ll top herself, and I don’t want any bugger saying we did bugger-all. So get something down on paper, pass the buck to social services, the Samaritans, anyone so long as we look squeaky clean to the coroner. Here come our hot pies. I’ll have another pint to wash the taste away when you’re ready.’
‘I thought it was a rise in salary I was getting,’ said Pascoe, nursing his half full glass. ‘I didn’t realize it was an entertainment allowance.’
Dalziel thought this so funny he choked on his pie and, his own glass being empty, he finished Pascoe’s.
‘That’s better,’ he gasped. ‘And I see you’re ready now, so how about them drinks?’
It’s pinpricks not principles that engender treason. As Pascoe put the foaming pint before his chief he said casually, ‘Talking of free booze, there’ll be some going on Sunday evening if you’re interested. A little reception at the Kemble in connection with these Mystery Plays they’re putting on in the summer. Ellie’s a mate of Eileen Chung’s and she said they’re keen to have some police liaison. These theatricals pour the plonk like there’s no tomorrow and I don’t see why those blighters in traffic should enjoy all the freebies, so I’ve fixed for us to get invited.’
‘Good thinking, lad. They can come in later and do the work! Chung, eh? I’ve seen her and I’ve heard a lot about her but we’ve never actually met. I’d like that. I think the arts deserve every thinking citizen’s support.’
He squinted over his glass to catch Pascoe’s reaction, then he added, ‘And I’ve always been partial to a bit of dusky chuff,’ and laughed so much he started coughing again.
Back at the station the laughter stopped when Dalziel found the full post-mortem report on Gail Swain on his desk. It confirmed the cause of death as massive brain damage from the .357 Magnum cartridge which had been recovered from Waterson’s converted attic after bursting its way through from the bedroom below. Blood alcohol was present at the level of 155 milligrams per 100 millilitres, which meant, as Dalziel observed, that she was well pissed. Remains of what the pathologist designated as an exotic meal, probably Chinese or Indian, were found in her stomach. She was a heavy smoker, had had her appendix removed, had sustained a fracture of her left tibia not less than three years before, had had no children, and had had sex a couple of hours before her death.
She was also a heroin user.
Dalziel threw back his head and bellowed, ‘Seymour!’
Thirty seconds later a broad-shouldered redhead peered anxiously through the door. Detective-Constable Dennis Seymour’s ear was not refined enough to distinguish furioso from simple fortissimo so he always anticipated the worst.
‘Had a good poke around Swain’s house, did you?’ said Dalziel.
‘Yes, sir. Report’s on your desk, sir.’
‘I’ve read it. It’s not a bad report far as it goes. But I couldn’t see owt in it about drugs.’
‘Drugs?’ Seymour’s good-looking face went rigid with alarm. ‘I wasn’t told to look for drugs, sir.’
‘You weren’t told to look for Barbary apes either, but I dare say if you’d found a pair fornicating on the kitchen floor, you might have mentioned them!’
‘What I meant, sir, was I saw no sign of drugs.’
‘Oh aye? Checked every bottle in the bathroom cabinet, did we? Stuck your finger in every tin and jar in the kitchen and had a lick?’
Seymour shook his head. He looked so contrite that Dalziel, who was not above admitting an injustice once it had served its turn, said, ‘Not your fault, lad. You weren’t told. Though the way to get on is to do things you’re not told, as long as they’re not things you’ve been told not to, except if you know for sure they need doing. Ask Mr Pascoe to step in here a moment, will you?’
With the mingled relief and bafflement of a supplicant leaving the sibyl’s cave, Seymour departed. Dalziel picked up the phone and spoke to Sergeant Broomfield on the desk below.
‘Get the quack along here, will you, George? I want him to give Swain a going-over for drug abuse.’
‘Yes, sir. What if he don’t want to be gone over, sir?’
‘Tell him it’s routine. A pre-release examination just so he can’t come back with accusations about brutality. He hasn’t fallen off a chair or accidentally banged his head against someone’s boot, has he?’
‘No, sir. Very well behaved. One thing, though: he’s asked to contact his solicitor.’
‘Taken his time, hasn’t he? He got the chance last night, it’s in the record. Which crook acts for him?’
‘Mr Eden Thackeray.’
‘Old Eden? Shit. Get the quack quick as you can, George.’
He put the phone down and looked up at Pascoe who’d just come in.
‘What’s this about drugs, sir?’
‘Seymour been blubbing? I had high hopes of him once, but I reckon he’s not been the same since he started screwing that Irish waitress. Sap your strength, the Irish do. I’d pump bromide into their potatoes. Take a look at this.’
He tossed the PM report over the desk.
‘Take Seymour back to Swain’s house and see what you can find. I doubt it’ll be much, though. He didn’t look to me like a user. A night in the cells and it’d have started to show. Also he’d have been a lot keener to contact his brief to get him out. As for her, if she set out to screw her way back to LA, she’s not likely to have left a cache of scag under the floorboards. But there may be traces. And if he knew, then maybe he can point us at the pusher.’
‘Right, sir,’ said Pascoe. ‘By the way, these letters you were so concerned about. I thought I’d –’
‘Sod the bloody letters,’ said Dalziel irritably. ‘We’re here to sort out crooks, not piss around with hysterics! I’m surprised at you for wanting to waste my time!’
Half an hour later Pascoe drove into Currthwaite, a village in danger of being annexed into a suburb, albeit a pretty plush suburb. On the town side the invasion was practically complete with the old rolling parkland now dotted with a range of well fortified high-class executive dwellings. Even when he entered the village proper between a Norman church in mellow York stone and a blockhouse chapel in angry brick, the High Street cottages were signalling their surrender with window-boxes without and Sanderson curtains within, and everywhere he looked he saw the greenwellied conquerors marching their labradors in a non-stop victory parade.
Moscow Farm at the far end of the village showed signs of having fallen to the same attack. Snow-cemed, window-boxed, double-glazed, burglar-alarmed, sauna’d, showered, and centrally heated, it bore as much relation to an old working farmhouse as Washington Heights to Wuthering Heights. But when he looked out of the french window at the rear, Pascoe saw there had been an active resistance movement, for the old farmyard after being prettied into a patio had regressed into a builder’s yard.
‘I bet the rest of the village don’t much like it,’ said Seymour. ‘Not with the kind of prices they’re asking round here.’
‘You’re into the property market, are you?’ asked Pascoe.
‘Want to be. I got engaged.’
‘Congratulations. To Bernadette, I take it?’
Bernadette McCrystal was the Irish waitress whose debilitating influence Dalziel so deplored. Pascoe had met and liked her, though he doubted if marrying her was going to herald halcyon weather in Seymour’s voyage through life.
‘Of course,’ said Seymour a touch indignantly.
‘I’ll buy you a drink. Now let’s get on.’
Ninety minutes later to Seymour’s undisguised relief they had found nothing.
‘I didn’t fancy going back to the Super with a barrowload of coke.’
‘Still time,’ observed Pascoe. ‘Out there is where they’ll keep the barrows. I’ll take a look. I’d like a word with his secretary anyway. You take one more look round here.’
He went out into the yard. It was enclosed on two sides by wings of old agricultural buildings, stables, barns and byres, which, red-tiled and white-painted, had something of an almost Mediterranean look in the thin February sunlight. It was a delusion soon shattered as he stepped out into the chilly air.
The firm’s business office was in what must once have been a hayloft above the byre which was now used as a garage. It was reached by a flight of external stairs which Pascoe would not have fancied in icy weather.
He knocked at the door and went in. Behind a desk reading a paperback whose cover promised a bodice-ripper but whose title claimed Jane Eyre, sat a young woman he knew to be Swain’s secretary. She had emerged briefly on their arrival, but on spotting Seymour whom she’d met on his first visit, she had retreated to Mr Rochester.
‘Hello,’ said Pascoe. ‘Busy?’
She rested her book against the typewriter on her desk and said, ‘Can I help you?’
She was rather square-featured and plumply built, had straight brown hair, almost shoulder length, wore no discernible make-up and spoke in a husky contralto voice with a strong local accent.
Pascoe picked up the book and examined the illustration which showed a terrified young woman whose bodice was undoubtedly ripped fleeing from a burning house in whose doorway stood a Munster-like figure.
‘I don’t remember that bit,’ he said.
‘Makes you want to read the book,’ she explained. ‘More than them bloody teachers ever did.’
It was a point, perhaps two.
He put the book down on the typewriter and looked around. He found he was shivering slightly. The house had been warm and he’d taken off his topcoat, but here, despite a double-barred electric wall heater, the atmosphere was still dank and chilly. The woman at the desk on second inspection proved to be less plump than he’d thought. She had insulated herself with at least two sweaters and a cardigan.
‘It’s a bit nippy in here,’ he said, touching the whitewashed wall. The stones were probably three feet thick and colder on the inside than on the out. ‘With all that room in the house, you’d have thought Mr Swain would have had his office in there rather than out here.’
‘Mrs Swain wouldn’t have it,’ said the woman.
‘Did he tell you that?’
She considered.
‘No,’ she said.
‘How do you know, then?’
She considered once more, then said indifferently, ‘Don’t know, but I know.’
Pascoe sorted this out. Surprisingly it made sense.
‘How long have you been working here, Miss … I’m sorry …?’
‘Shirley Appleyard. And it’s Mrs.’
‘Sorry. You look so young,’ he said with full flarch. It was like shining a torch into a black hole.
‘I’m nineteen,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here two years.’
‘Do you like it?’
She shrugged and said, ‘It’s a job. Better than nowt, these days.’
‘Yes, they’re hard to come by,’ said Pascoe, switching to the sympathetic concerned approach. ‘You did well, there was probably a lot of competition.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I got it because me dad’s Mr Swain’s partner.’
‘Mr Stringer, you mean? That’s handy,’ said Pascoe.
‘You mean I should give thanks to God for being so lucky? Don’t worry, I get told that at least twice a day and three times on Sundays.’
She spoke with a dull indifference worse than resentment. Pascoe, as always curious beyond professional need, said, ‘I met your father this morning. He seemed a little out of sorts …’
‘You mean he didn’t strike you as being full of Christian charity?’ she said with an ironic grimace. ‘He’s not that kind of Christian. Didn’t you notice the chapel over from the church as you came through the village? Red brick. That’s Dad. All the way through.’
Pascoe smiled and said, ‘You live in the village still? With your parents?’
‘Aye. Holly Cottage. That’s it you can see at the corner of the field.’
Pascoe looked out of the window. Visible through the open end of the yard was a small cottage about fifty yards away.
‘You’ve not far to come,’ he said. ‘Your husband lives there too, does he?’
‘He’s away working, if it’s any of your business,’ she retorted with sudden anger. ‘And what’s all this to do with Mrs Swain getting shot?’
‘Shot? Now where did you hear that?’ wondered Pascoe. The media so far hadn’t got past the general story of a shooting in Hambleton Road, and he was reluctant to think that Seymour had been indiscreet on his earlier visit.
‘Dad rang up this morning to say there’d been some bother, something about Mrs Swain and a shooting, he didn’t seem very clear, but he was just ringing to tell me to say nowt if anyone got on to me at work and started asking questions about the Swains.’
‘Excluding the police, of course,’ smiled Pascoe.
‘He didn’t say that,’ she answered without returning his smile. ‘So she has been shot, then? Dead?’
Pascoe said carefully, ‘There has been a shooting, yes. And yes, I’m afraid Mrs Swain is dead. And I hope, despite your father, you’ll feel able to answer a couple of questions, Mrs Appleyard.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as, what did you reckon to Mrs Swain?’ said Pascoe.
‘She were all right,’ said Shirley Appleyard. ‘Bit stuck up, but always polite enough when we met.’
‘She seemed a nice-looking woman from her photos,’ said Pascoe. He was thinking of the wedding album they’d found in the house, and trying not to think of the bloody ruin on the official police pictures.
‘Not bad,’ said the girl. ‘And she knew how to make the best of herself. Clothes and jewels and make-up, I mean. Nothing flashy, but you could tell just by looking it cost an arm and a leg.’
The labels in the clothes brought from Hambleton Road confirmed this. And there’d been an engagement ring and a matching pendant which, if the stones were real, must have cost a few thousand at the least.
‘When did you last see her?’ he asked.
‘Week last Friday. I bumped into her in the yard. She said ta-ra.’
‘Just that?’
‘She didn’t actually say ta-ra,’ said the girl impatiently. ‘It were something like, we’d likely not see each other before she went off that weekend, so goodbye.’
‘I thought she was just going on a trip. Didn’t that sound a bit final to you, as if she didn’t think she’d be coming back?’
‘Mebbe,’ said Shirley Appleyard. ‘Or mebbe she just didn’t expect to find me here when she came back.’
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘Business weren’t good. Once this job for you lot’s done, there’s nowt else on the books. So it could be she reckoned the whole thing would have folded by then.’
‘But she had money, didn’t she?’ prompted Pascoe.