Hill, Reginald - Dalziel and Pascoe 14 - Asking For The Moon (HTML)

by Reginald Hill

  'Arthur, listen to me,' said Swithenbank. He spoke urgently, but he was back in full control. 'I'm like you. I believe Kate's dead. A year, no sign, it's too much. The police think so, too. And they think I'm responsible, but I swear I'm not! But they're fixated; result is, my life's permeated with suspicion while the real murderer gets off scot free. They're not even looking for him, just watching me!'

  Willie Dove really got to him, thought Pascoe.

  'But why this charade?' demanded Rawlinson.

  'It was my idea,' said Jean Starkey defiantly. 'I'm a writer.

  I used my imagination. We wanted something to stir the

  police out of their stupor and to get the killer worried at the

  same time.' ,

  'But why up here?' retorted Rawlinson. 'You know how much we loved Kate, John; some of us, that is. Why bring this trouble up here?'

  His wife looked at him with disgust, then turned away.

  'Because I believe this is where the trouble belongs, Geoff,' said Swithenbank. 'Up here. In Wearton. Where else would Kate come? Where else might there be someone to meet her?'

  'She lived with you in London for years!' protested Kingsley.

  Swithenbank shook his head.

  'I've checked and double-checked the possibilities there. Not many. She liked a quiet kind of life, Kate. Well, you all know that. No, I'm almost certain she came back here. And. was not welcome. And got killed for her pains.'

  'But who would kill her? And why?'

  It was Ursula who spoke, her husband's needs momen­tarily forgotten.

  Swithenbank smiled humourlessly.

  'Killing's not so difficult, Ursula dear. We've been pretty close a couple of times tonight, haven't we? You know what Kate was like. Simple, direct, impulsive. Insensitive. If she was sick of me, of our life in London, and wanted to come back to Wearton, she'd just set off. Suppose she has a choice here. Arthur in his cottage or a lover, someone she's been sleeping with on and off for years, perhaps. A man who thinks she takes it as casually as he does, a bit of sensual titillation when the chance offers. A man who doesn't want a scandal, certainly doesn't want a permanent relationship. She goes to him, rather than Arthur. Obvious choice it seems, till this man laughs at her, tells her to go back to London. She wouldn't make a fuss, not Kate. She'd get up quietly and say she was going. But not back-to London, no; back to her brother.'

  Arthur Lightfoot groaned from the depths of his being. The others regarded him uneasily, except for Swithenbank, who went relentlessly on.

  'Angry husbands are one thing, but the prospect of an angry Arthur was quite another. Look at him, for God's sake! And so, one thing leads to another . . .'

  'But not to murder!' protested Ursula. 'It makes no sense!'

  But her words were subsumed by Lightfoot's groan which had swollen to a cry of rage.

  'It's sense to me!' he cried. 'And there's only one here that fits the bill. The stud, him as has covered every mare hereabouts. Like father, like fucking son!'

  Oh God. Here we go again, thought Pascoe as the black barrel rose once more and this time came to a halt against Boris Kingsley's ample belly.

  To his surprise, Kingsley showed not the slightest sign of fear.

  'Come off it, Lightfoot,' he sneered. 'You're not going to

  fire that thing. That's not your way, A bit of sneaky poaching of another man's game. Or even dirtier ways of getting your hands on another man's money. That's all you're good for. So put that thing away.'

  'Did you kill my sister?' demanded Lightfoot.

  'Oh go to hell!'

  'And whoever did kill her, she probably asked for it!' hissed Stella Rawlinson with a venom that shocked even Lightfoot into silence for a moment.

  'Listen who's talking!' he rejoined eventually. But before he could elaborate Swithenbank said in his most casual voice, 'Yet it's a question which needs answering, Boris.'

  Now everyone was quiet. Lightfoot had stepped further into the porch, leaving the door unguarded, but Ursula made no effort to shepherd her husband through it, nor from the expression of rapt attention on his face would he have allowed himself to be removed if she'd tried.

  Strange therapy! thought Pascoe.

  'What do you mean, John?' asked Kingsley courteously.

  Swithenbank was standing under the arch of the doorway up to the tower and the light from the single small bulb that lit the porch scarcely reached him so that his voice came drifting out of the shadows.

  'It's an odd place, Wearton, Mr Pascoe,' he said. 'You try to escape it but it comes after you. And I was foolish enough to take one of the oddest pieces of it away with me! Oh, don't be shocked, friends. Even among your outstanding oddities, Kate stood supreme! And when she left me, I knew that sooner or later she'd come back here, as long as she was alive, that is.'

  'Or dead.'

  Arthur Lightfoot spoke so solemnly that no one dared even by expression to show disbelief.

  Swithenbank ignored him.

  'You know what I did when Jean and I first started brooding on schemes to start our rabbit?'

  'Goose,' muttered Pascoe to himself.

  'I wrote down the names of everyone here, you excepted, of course, Inspector. And I started to cross out those who I couldn't bring myself to believe capable of killing Kate. Do you know, I sat for an hour and hadn't crossed out a name!'

  'Oh, come on, John,' said Ursula.

  'Not even yours, dear,' he said regretfully. 'So I made a league table instead. And do you know, Boris, however I constructed it, you kept on coming out on top!'

  'Well, you know me, John,' said Kingsley. 'Always a winner.'

  'Shut up!' snapped Lightfoot, prodding him with the gun.

  This had gone far enough, thought Pascoe. This lunatic could accidentally fire that thing at any moment.

  He coughed gently and was flattered to note that he immediately had everyone's attention. He also had for the first time a full frontal of Lightfoot's shotgun. He reached out, took the barrel fastidiously between thumb and forefinger and moved it aside.

  'Mr Lightfoot,' he said quietly. 'If that weapon is pointed once more at anyone here, and most especially at me, I shall arrest you instantly for threatening behaviour. Lower it and break it!'

  The man gave him a look full of hatred, but obeyed, and Davenport, as though the action held some personal symbol­ism for him, suddenly stepped away from Ursula and in best vicarial tones said, 'Please, everybody, hasn't this gone far enough? You're all soaking and it's mainly my fault. I don't want pneumonia on my conscience as well. You're all welcome to dry out at the rectory. Mr Pascoe, I'd like a private word with you later, if it's convenient.'

  He was looking at Lightfoot as he spoke these last words and it was the smallholder whose hitherto unblinking gaze shifted first.

  Pascoe made an educated guess at what Davenport was going to tell him. He'd lay odds that a year ago Lightfoot, out on a poaching trip perhaps, had witnessed Rawlinson's fall from the tower. He had kept out of sight when the vicar

  descended - he would hardly want to draw the local bobby's attention to himself- and his curiosity had later been whetted by the discrepancy between what he had seen and the official version. But he'd done nothing about it till the summer when he needed money after the fire. With Kingsley senior's death, his old source had dried up, but a visit to the vicarage, a few dark hints of deep knowledge (he had the perfect manner for it), and he had found a new supply of funds to tap. What precisely he did know hardly mattered. He emanated evil intent like few men Pascoe had met.

  He made a mental vow that whatever else came out of this extraordinary evening, Arthur Lightfoot was going to get what was coming to him.

  But there were still many other questions to be answered. Obviously Swithenbank had deliberately angled his cam­paign towards Kingsley, with how much justification was not yet clear. Perhaps he just had a 'feeling'. Like Willie Dove had a feeling! Or perhaps he knew more than he had yet said. There was still the dress t
o be explained. He suddenly felt very tired.

  There had been a general movement to the doorway. Out­side the wind still gusted fitfully but for the moment the rain seemed to have stopped. Not that that mattered, Pascoe thought ruefully. He was so damp that nothing short of total immersion could aggravate his condition.

  'Hold on a moment. I don't think we're finished here yet!'

  It was Jean Starkey and her words were greeted with a groan of exasperation in which Pascoe joined. He guessed what she was going to say, but he judged that the moment for dramatic revelation was past. What had been an atmos­phere of high emotion in a Gothic setting had now become one of damp and discomfort in a draughty church porch. The time had come for warmth and whisky, followed by some hard questioning in a police interview room. He wanted to save his knowledge of the woman's dress in Kingsley's bedroom till then.

  But the woman insisted.

  'Tell us about the dress, Boris. You haven't told us about the dress.'

  'What dress?'

  'The white muslin dress and the big straw hat. Kate's favourite gear, wasn't it? How does it come about that you've got a woman's dress hidden in a locked wardrobe in your house?'

  Now the audience's attention was engaged once more. Kingsley made no effort to deny it but asked indignantly, 'How does it come about you know what I've got locked up in my house!'

  'It's true, then?' said Lightfoot, who had been smoulder­ingly subdued for the past few minutes.

  'Why shouldn't it be true?'

  Whether because of Pascoe's threat or out of personal pref­erence, Lightfoot didn't try to use his gun this time but jumped forward and seized Kingsley one-handed by the throat, bearing him back against the opened door which lay against the wall. No one seemed inclined to interfere, not even when the enraged assailant started using the fat man's head as a knocker to punctuate his demands, 'Where-is-she? Where-is-she?'

  It was constabulary duty time once more. Pascoe stepped . forward and said, 'That's enough.'

  When Lightfoot showed no sign of agreeing, Pascoe punched him in the kidneys and stepped swiftly back. The blow was a light one and Lightfoot swung round as much in surprise as pain. Kingsley, released, staggered out of the church holding his throat, but he could have suffered no real damage for he was able to scream, Til tell you why I've got the clothes! It's Kate's ghost, you superstitious cretin! Do you really think anything would come back from the grave to an animal like you in that sty of a cottage?'

  He even managed a derisive laugh but it stuttered off into a fit of coughing.

  'You'd better explain yourself, I think, Mr Kingsley,' said Pascoe, putting himself between the fat man and Lightfoot.

  Ah! what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -This misty mid-region of Weir -Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

  CHAPTER X

  Thank Heaven! the crisis -The danger is past.

  'It was like the last act of Hamlet Meets Dracula,' said Pascoe.

  Some things were far too serious for anything but flippancy.

  'And they're both dead?' repeated Inspector Dove at the other end of the line.

  'He died instantly. Well, he would, his head was mostly missing.'

  Pascoe remembered his promise that he would see that Lightfoot got what was coming to him.

  'He doesn't sound much of a miss,' said Dove cynically.

  'He was a blackmailer twice over,' agreed Pascoe. 'Though now he's dead, Davenport won't need to talk and Kingsley's backtracking like mad. There'll be more tight mouths around Wearton than at a lemon-suckers' convention. Not that it matters. My guess is that Stella Rawlinson played the ghost. She hated the Lightfoots, and Kingsley may or may not have been screwing her into the bargain.'

  'Into what?"

  'Oh, for God's sake!1

  Pascoe found that he was sick of the jokes and the lightness. It was eight-thirty in the morning. He had got home at three but been unable to sleep. Dalziel had observed his arrival at the station with nothing more expressive than an upward roll of his eyes, then suggested that even southern pansies should be awake by this time and he might as well put Dove in the picture.

  'I'm sorry,' said Dove.

  'So am I,' said Pascoe. 'I'm a bit knackered. It's all turned out so badly. This Lightfoot, he seems to have been a nasty bit of work all round. But he loved his sister. God, even that sounds like the cue for a crack! — and it shouldn't have come to this. Not for anyone. He was the only one she asked for in the ambulance. Arthur, Arthur, all the time.'

  'And she said nothing else before she died?'

  'Not a thing. The only people she'd spoken to were Swithenbank's mother and Kingsley's housekeeper. She must have gone straight to Arthur's cottage when she arrived. We found her stuff there. Arthur was out, of course. She rang Swithenbank. His mother answered. She was flabbergasted naturally, told her about the party, asked where she'd been but got no answer. Kate went up to Wear End, learned from the housekeeper that everyone had taken off towards the church, so she set off after them along the old drive.'

  'Where the hell had she been?' asked Dove in exasperation. 'You say you found some things of hers at Lightfoot's. Any clue there?'

  'Nothing obvious,' said Pascoe wearily. 'At first glance it looks about the same as that list of things she took when she left Swithenbank last year. But it doesn't matter much now, does it?'

  'I suppose not. Well, we were dead wrong about Swithen­bank. Thank God I stopped this side of pulling his floorboards up! Still, you can't win 'em all.'

  'No,' said Pascoe.

  'Cheer up, Pete, for God's sake! You sound like it's all down to you. It was just an "assist", remember? You can't legislate for maniacs!'

  'I know. I just feel that if I'd handled things differently . . .'

  Dalziel had come into the room with a sheet of paper in his hand and when he heard Pascoe's remark, the eyes rolled again. It was like a lesson with the globes in an eighteenth-century schoolroom.

  'Pete, it wasn't your job to find out where she'd gone. That

  was our job, it's down to us. Like I say, OK, we missed out. I feel bad about it, but not too bad. I mean, Christ, she came back and we still don't know where the hell she's been! It's our fault. How could you be expected to work it out if we couldn't? Can't!'

  'Too bloody true!' bellowed Dalziel, who had come close enough to eavesdrop on Dove's resonant voice.

  'What's that, Pete? Someone there with you?'

  'Mr Dalziel's just come in,' said Pascoe hastily. 'I'll keep in touch.'

  'You do that, old son. I'm avid for the next instalment. I used to think it was just a joke about you lot north of Watford having bat-ears and little bushy tails, but now I'm not so sure. Love to Andy-Pandy! Cheerio now!'

  Pascoe put down the phone.

  'I don't know what he's got to be cheerful about,' said Dalziel malevolently. 'Or what you've got to be miserable about either.'

  'Two people dead,' said Pascoe. 'That's what.'

  'And that's your fault?'

  'Not court-of-law my fault. Not even court-of-enquiry my fault,' said Pascoe. 'It's just that, I don't know, I suppose ... I was enjoying it! Secretly, deep inside, I was enjoying it. Big house, interviews in the library, chasing up to the churchyard, stopping the vicar from jumping, uncovering all kinds of guilty secrets - you know I was thinking, gleefully almost, wait till I get back and tell them about this! They'll never believe it!'

  'I believe it,' said Dalziel. 'And I'd have done much the same in your shoes. You did it right. The only thing you couldn't know was that she was alive. That's what you call a paradox, you philosophers with degrees and O levels, isn't it? If you'd known she was alive, she'd be alive! But you didn't. You couldn't!'

  'Someone should have done,' said Pascoe. 'They should have looked harder.'

  'Too true,' said Dalziel with grim satisfaction. 'Cases like

  these, you follow up every line. One line they didn't f
ollow.'

  'What?'

  Dalziel scratched his backside on the corner of the desk, a frequent preliminary to one of his deductive tours de force, which one of his more scurrilous colleagues had categorized as the anal-lytical approach.

  'What was Swithenbank doing on the day his missus disappeared?'

  'The Friday, you mean?'

  'Aye.'

  Pascoe opened his notebook at the page on which he'd first started jotting down notes on the Swithenbank case.

  'He was at a farewell party at lunch-time.'

  'Who for?'

  'One of his assistants.'

  'Name?'

  'I've no idea,' said Pascoe.

  'Cunliffe. David Cunliffe,' said Dalziel triumphantly. 'Thought you'd have known that.'

  'It wasn't in any of the papers Enfield sent me,' said Pascoe defensively.

  'Bloody right it wasn't,' said Dalziel with relish. 'They've a lot to answer for. This fellow was heading for the good life, back to Mother Earth, do-it-yourself, all that crap, right?'

  'Yes. Up in the Orkneys, I think.'

  'That's right,' said Dalziel. 'One of the little islands. Him, a few natives, a lot of sheep; and his wife.'

  'His wife?'

  'Oh yes. Only, suppose she wasn't his wife! They don't take kindly to living in sin up there, so it'd be better for community relations to call her his wife. But suppose that on that Friday your Kate packed her few things, put on her new blonde wig and set off for the Orkneys!'

  Pascoe shook his head to fight back the waves of fatigue, and something else, too.

  'Why the wig?' he asked.

  'She was meeting her boy-friend at King's Cross, on the train. She had the wit to guess there might be mutual acquaintance there to see him off and she didn't want to be spotted. As it happened, the whole bloody party came along, including hubby, so she was very wise. Imagine, there's Swithenbank shooting all that shit about how he wished he had the guts to up and leave everything, meaning his missus, for a better life, and there she is sitting only a few carriages away, doing just that!'