'Young women picking up wage money from a bank make easy targets,' said Pascoe. 'What did you mean, promise?'
'Nowt. There was a cash-flow problem, but it's been sorted.'
Pascoe decided it was time for a little blunt poking, Dalziel-fashion.
'Because of Mrs Swain's death, you mean? But it'll be a while yet before her will can be proved.'
'Mebbe so. But the bank must reckon it's going to be OK.'
'And what do you reckon, Mrs Appleyard?' he asked.
'Nowt to do with me,’ she said indifferently. 'But he's walking around loose, isn't he, so it doesn't seem like you're going to charge him with anything serious.'
She was looking over his shoulder as she spoke and all her previous animation had left her face. Pascoe turned and saw that Stringer and Swain had come together out of the car park and were standing deep in conversation. Swain patted Stringer apparently reassuringly on the arm and walked away. Stringer watched him go, then turned to re-enter the car park. Only now did he spot his daughter.
He came towards them.
"Evening, Mr Stringer,' said Pascoe.
He got a nod in reply, then the man said to the girl, 'You ready, then? Let's be off. Can't expect your mam to take care of the boy all night too.'
So there was a child. And the husband?
She said, 'I told you. I've got some shopping to do.'
'Have you not done it yet? God, it must be grand being able to waste your life chatting at street corners.'
His hard blue-eyed stare left no doubt he included Pascoe in this censure.
His daughter said, 'I'll not be a minute,' and set off along the pavement.
'I gather I'll soon be able to have my parking spot back,' said Pascoe pleasantly.
'What? Oh aye. We're near on done.'
'And after that? Got anything lined up while the weather lasts?'
For some reason this seemed to irritate Stringer.
'I'm not a bloody brickie on the lump!' he said. 'I'm a partner.'
'Even so, you still need work to make profits.'
'We'll get by. What's it to do wi' you, anyroad?'
'Just polite sympathetic interest, Mr Stringer.'
'Police nosiness, you mean. And you can stuff your sympathy. I've always taken care of me own without any help.'
'I'm sure. You must be proud of your grandson. How old is he now?'
'Near on two,' said Stringer. 'He's a fair enough kiddie.'
Pascoe guessed this was as near a boast as the man could get.
'Takes after his grandad, does he?' he said, hoping to encourage the thaw. He certainly got instant heat.
'He'd better not take after his dad, that's for sure!'
'I'm sorry? His father ... is he ... ?'
'Is he what?' demanded Stringer.
'I don't know. Dead perhaps?'
'Dead? What the hell makes you say that?' said Stringer angrily.
'Mr Stringer,' said Pascoe acidly. 'Clearly you feel there is something undesirable about your son-in-law. If you care to explain what, perhaps I will be able to avoid giving you offence.'
Rather to his surprise, his appeal got a positive response, even if it was rather oblique.
'It's a sick world we live in,' said Stringer with the intonation of authority rather than opinion.
'It's certainly a curate's egg-shaped world,' agreed Pascoe. 'But in what particular respect do you detect this sickness?'
'Everything! If it wasn't so sick, why should God have sent things like Aids and drugs to punish the wicked?'
Pascoe groaned inwardly. He'd forgotten Stringer was something of a religious nut, and religious nuttiness was his one conversational no-go area.
'As punishments, they seem to get doled out pretty indiscriminately,' he suggested. 'But I suppose we all have our work to do, even God. I certainly have. Good night, Mr Stringer.'
But he was not to escape so easily. The builder grabbed his arm and said, 'You asked about my son-in-law, mister. Do you not want an answer?'
'No, really, I'm sorry. It's none of my business
'Aye, you're right there. But I'll tell you anyway,' said Stringer. 'And it'll mebbe stop you bothering other folk with nosey questions. This Tony Appleyard, he put my lass in the club three years back. I'd never heard of him till then. She were still at school, a really bright lass, she could have made something of herself, then this nasty little sod . . . Well, it had to be sorted. He wanted her to have an abortion, but that's murder in my book. And in hers too, I'm glad to say. So I had a quiet word with him. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. You come from a country family like me, you know that there's plenty of marriages start with getting caught, not getting wed, and most on 'em turn out all right in the end. They didn't want to get wed, mark you. Said it didn't matter these days, but I said it mattered to me and it mattered to God. And it'll matter to the kiddie when it gets older. So they got wed.'
He paused. Pascoe said, 'And did it work out?'
'Don't make me laugh!' instructed the man unnecessarily. 'That feckless bugger? A fitter he called himself. Fit for sod-all, that's what he were! He worked at Atlas Tayler's but he got laid off when the Yanks pulled out. I could have fixed him up with a labouring job in the firm, but oh no, he wanted his trade, he said. And in the end he set off south looking for work. Well, he found something, by all reports, making good money, at least good enough for him to live the life of Riley by himself with no thought of sending owt back for his wife and kiddie.'
'You mean he's not come back to see them?' said Pascoe.
'Come back? Why should a useless bastard like that come back unless it were to bring more trouble with him?' exclaimed Stringer. 'I even went looking for him not long back, but he must have got wind of it, for he'd moved on without any forwarding address. Well, I tell you, he'll not have moved far enough for me!'
'And what about Shirley?' asked Pascoe, taken aback by the force of the man's emotion. 'What does she feel about all this? How's it affected her?'
'If you'd known her a few years back, you'd not need to ask that,' said Stringer. 'Here, take a look.'
From his wallet he took a colour snapshot. It was a picture of Stringer and a girl of twelve or thirteen, sitting together at a small folding table under a striped canvas awning. They were both smiling widely at the camera. The girl wasn't beautiful, but she was fresh-faced, vital, carefree, and it took a long hard stare to discern in this child the lineaments of Shirley Appleyard.
Her father was much more recognizable, but the passing of those years had stamped a mark of pain and anger and bafflement on his features too.
'Lovely girl,' said Pascoe.
He didn't mean it to sound past tense, but that's how Stringer heard it.
'Yes, she were,' he said, half to himself. 'Lovely girl. Everyone said so. And she reckoned there was no one like her dad. Went everywhere with me, told me everything. Then it all started to change. Like milk going sour. Gradual at first, everything looks the same . . . but in the end, it's not to be hid! You got any kids, mister?'
'One. A girl.'
'Then you'll likely understand.'
Understand what? wondered Pascoe as he drove home. Stringer did not strike him as a man for whom a trouble shared was a trouble halved. But as he read Rosie her bedtime story, he found himself speculating how he would feel about anyone who mucked up his daughter's life, and he did not find much comfort in the speculation.
He went downstairs to find Ellie at the dining-room table surrounded by the files and papers she'd started gathering as a result of her election as Chung's unpaid PRO. They exchanged smiles, then he wandered into the lounge and poured himself a drink. He knew there was a chat show on the television he usually liked to watch but he couldn't be bothered to switch it on tonight. Suddenly Ellie slipped on to the arm of his chair and rested her elbow on his shoulder.
'You look glum,' she said. 'Something bothering you?'
'No. Just life.'
'In that case, stop wor
rying. In the end it cures itself, they tell me.'
'That's on the National Health,' he said. 'Some people go private and jump the queue.'
'I'm sorry? What's this? My mystery for tonight?'
'No. There's this woman, Gail Swain, blew her head off. At least that's how it looks to me. And there's this other woman who's been writing to Dalziel saying she's going to kill herself.'
'Good lord. You never mentioned this before.'
'No. Well, she stopped and it seemed to be all over, then she just started again,' he said lamely.
'I see. Why Dalziel? And if Dalziel, how you?'
'In extremis even atheists say their prayers. And it is a leader's privilege to delegate.'
Ellie laughed, then said, 'These letters, any chance of taking a peek?'
Pascoe hesitated before replying, 'I don't have them with me. I left them at work.'
It was true, but it was not the true reason for the hesitation and he guessed that Ellie sensed it. Prior to the case which left him with his still painful leg, he had confided without inhibition or censorship in Ellie. If asked then, he would have said he did it out of complete love, complete trust. But in the grey hospital hours he had found himself wondering if he hadn't simply been testing that trust and that love to destruction. Finally had come a time when they found themselves in public and private opposition and, retrospectively, he found himself identifying a certain perverse satisfaction in having reached a boundary. As he emerged from the greyness, so that identification had become far less positive. But it added an extra and sufficient weight to the pressures keeping partially closed what had once been totally open.
Ellie rose and yawned. 'No bother,' she said lightly. 'I've got enough on my plate without solving your cases for you.'
He followed her back into the dining-room, eager to minimize damage.
'How's the unpaid job?' he asked.
'Could be fun. But time-consuming. I'll never be nasty about PR men again.'
'Like to bet?' smiled Pascoe. 'Incidentally, you might like to do a bit of PR liaising with Chung on my behalf: Somehow word's got out that she's keen to cast Dalziel as God. Could you assure her my lips have been sealed? I don't want to end up in some oriental death-lock.'
'You could have fooled me,' said Ellie. 'But I shouldn't worry. Leaks from the Kemble are like leaks from the Cabinet. She-who-must-be-obeyed drills the holes.'
'Chung? But why?'
'It's called pressure, dear. What's the best way of getting Dalziel to do something?'
'I don't know. Bribery? Corruption? Telling him not to do it . . .'
'Well done! I've no doubt Chung will be trying all the other techniques and some we haven't thought of besides. But for him to be told not to do it, the people who tell him have got to know he's been asked, right?'
'This is all too clever for me. And how come Chung knew what buttons to press so quickly anyway . . . Oh no! Ellie, you haven't got yourself involved as psychological adviser as well as PR person, have you?'
She blushed beautifully. Normally he was a great admirer of his wife's blushes but admiration and trepidation were poor partners. If Dalziel were even to begin to suspect the collective guilt of the Pascoe household . . . The phone rang before he could launch into remonstrance. He picked it up nervously, certain it was going to be Dalziel. Instead he heard Wield's voice.
'Sorry to bother you, only there's been some trouble at the Rose and Crown in Bradgate. You know there's a floodlit match tonight? Well, some visitors got into a barney with some of City's supporters. Landlord tried to intervene and he's ended up in hospital. Thought you should know.'
It was a kindness. Normally the Sergeant wouldn't have bothered Pascoe with a pub brawl, but Dalziel had been making ever more abrasive noises about the lack of visible progress on the football hooligan front, and it would be well to be word-perfect on this incident.
'I'll wander down there,' said Pascoe. 'Super around, is he?'
'No. I gather Mr Trimble asked him to drop in for a chat earlier and he came out with a face like fat. Pulled the handle off the door when he shut it behind him, I hear tell. Any idea what's upset him?'
'I hope not, Wieldy,' said Pascoe fervently. 'I sincerely hope not!'
By the time Dalziel reached the Kemble, he was cooling down. Retaliation was after all the better part of rage. A wild swing could move a lot of air, but it took a carefully planted boot in the balls to bring tears to the eyes.
Nor was it simply a matter of personal esteem and self-satisfaction. Dan Trimble wasn't a bad sort of fellow, friendly, bright, and not ungenerous with his Glenmorangie. Mid-Yorkshire could have done a lot worse. But a Chief Constable had to understand that while he might indeed among constables be a chief, when it came to detective-superintendents, he was at best second among equals.
The man's first error had been to tell him bluntly that it was time he tied up the Swain case. He was being pressurized by Eden Thackeray, by the coroner's office, by the Press, and even by the Delgado Corporation's American lawyers who were concerned (a) to have the body released for interment in the family vault and (b) to have the circumstances of death cleared up so that the process of dealing with Gail Swain's will could be commenced, particularly as this involved a substantial block of Delgado shares recently inherited from her father.
‘I’ll be blunt, Andy,' said Trimble. 'I've given you plenty of rope, but it doesn't look as if you can hang Swain with it, does it? We have his statement and Waterson's statement which concur on the main issues -'
'Once I get my hands on Waterson, I'll change all that!' interrupted Dalziel.
Trimble looked at him doubtfully, then said, 'How close are you to finding him?'
'Very close,' lied Dalziel.
'I hope you're not bullshitting me, Andy,' said Trimble quietly. 'I like to back my men, but I'm getting bad vibrations here. Everything points to a verdict of suicide. The way I see it, the most serious charge on offer will be harassment against you if you don't wrap this thing up quickly. So be warned!'
That had been bad enough but worse had followed. Clearly relieved at having got the professional unpleasantness out of the way, and perhaps already congratulating himself on how easily he'd got his famous Yorkshire bear to do the Cornish Floral Dance, Trimble poured the whisky and said with a smile, 'Changing the subject, I had to laugh at lunch today. Someone said he'd heard that one of my officers was to play God in these Mysteries. I told him there was room for only one God in the Mid-Yorkshire Force, and like cleanliness, he was next to it! He assured me he'd had this on good authority, and I assured him on even better authority that if any of my officers proposed to bring the Force into disrepute by letting himself be wheeled round town on a carnival float in his nightgown, I'd be the first to know!'
Dalziel regarded him blankly, but behind the cold granite slab of his forehead bubbled a thermal spring of thought. He'd met Chung's invitation to be God with the great guffaw of derision it deserved, but she hadn't been put out, merely smiling and making a joke, and pouring more whisky with such a generous hand that he'd left her with the promise that he'd think about it.
Well, he'd thought, and guffawed again, and was seeing her this evening to drink more of her Scotch, and assure her firmly but suggestively that his ambitions were earthy rather than divine.
But now all of a sudden he was feeling there was something going off here that he didn't quite grasp.
He said, 'What you mean, sir, is, if someone wanted to do summat like that, you reckon you could ban him?'
'I'd hope it would never come to that, but oh yes, Andrew, never doubt it. I could and I would!'
So there he was, professionally and personally put in his place. He'd almost crushed his tumbler into a crystal ball and shown Trimble his future in it. But a wise man does bad by stealth, and so he had fled the field, leaving the Cornish pixie to his suppositious triumph.
A tumblerful of Chung's Highland Park took the last of the heat from his head, and when the sinuo
us Eurasian said, 'You seem a bit down, Andy. Anything bothering you?' he was able to laugh and reply, 'Nowt I can't sort out.'
A few moments later, however, rather to his surprise, he found himself telling her all about Trimble's interference in the Swain case, though he was careful to avoid any mention of names. It was a futile discretion, however, for after only a few sentences, Chung interrupted with, 'Hey, this is Phil Swain you're talking about, right? But I thought he must be right in the clear. I mean, he was at my party! I must say I was surprised to see him after what happened to his poor wife, she was on our Arts Committee.'
'You knew her well?' asked Dalziel, alert for new information.
'No, hardly at all. This great interest she's supposed to have had didn't show in practice. She only attended every second meeting. I reckon her membership was cosmetic, but fair do's, she was always ready to lead the way when we were touting for cash.'
'That must have pleased her husband,' sneered Dalziel. 'Did you ever hear her talk about him?'
'No. I saw them together a few times and they seemed all right. To tell the truth, it was him I felt sorry for. She always struck me as a bit of an up-and-down lady who expected people to dance to her moods.'
Dalziel frowned at this further witness to Gail Swain's volatility.
Chung said, 'You don't like Phil Swain much, do you?'
'I wouldn't say I don't like him,' said Dalziel. 'I hate the bastard's guts!'
'But he is in the clear, right?'
'Not while I'm breathing! What's your interest, luv?'
She hesitated, then said, 'Hell, look, I'd better come clean, Andy. I want you for God, no, don’t say anything yet. I chose you because you've got a kind of special aura. Well, Phil Swain's got an aura too, not for God I hasten to say, but I had put out some feelers, then this awful business about his wife happened and I thought that was that. But when he turned up at the party last Sunday, I got to wondering if he might like something to take his mind off things, you know, sort of occupational therapy . . . but it's you I really want, Andy, and if Phil taking part would really be an obstacle, seeing how you feel about him, well, I'll definitely cross him off my list, if only you'll say yes.'
Bones and Silence dap-11 Page 12
