Bones and Silence dap-11

by Reginald Hill

'So?'

  'So think about it, sir. If you're looking for someone with no talent for hiding, and he can't be found in the places he seems likely to hide, doesn't it make sense to start looking in the places someone else is likely to have hidden him?'

  Pascoe had to admire the way he used the Dark Lady's phrases as though struck fresh in his personal mint. And he had to admire even more the way in which Trimble digested the implications of his CID chief's remarks without spewing forth rage.

  'You're sure you want to do this, Andrew?' was all he said mildly.

  'Aye. I'm sure.'

  Trimble sighed. He's as worried about Dalziel's obsession with Swain as I am, thought Pascoe. But he's got to let him prove himself right or wrong.

  'And which part of my lovely car park do you propose destroying now?'

  Dalziel pointed towards the gatehouse.

  'That's the last bit done,' he said. 'The bit they were working at when Waterson did his vanishing trick.'

  'Right,' said Trimble with sudden decision. 'Go ahead. But I'm not having us on public display. I want that section of the street shut off. Put out some story about a gas leak, anything. And, Andrew, try to look a little happier. The sight of anything less than utter certainty on that face of yours gives me acid indigestion.'

  He strode smartly into the building.

  'He's all right for a dwarf,' said Dalziel. 'Right, lad. You heard what the man said. I'll leave you to get that sorted. Wieldy, you come with me. Let's see if we can give young Seymour a hand with Mr Swain's statement.'

  He glanced at his watch.

  'And I want the work to commence in exactly thirty minutes, right?'

  'Why so precise?' inquired Pascoe. 'Because I want to make sure I'm looking straight into Mr Philip bloody Swain's eyes when he hears the drills start up again!'

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was not often that Andrew Dalziel admitted a tactical error, but as he sat in the interview room and listened to Sergeant Wield reading out the statement prior to Swain's signing it, it occurred to him that a clever dog didn't do the same trick twice.

  He'd provoked a response from Swain by letting him overhear his request for the pneumatic drills. This time, might it not have been cleverer to get the slippery sod out of earshot rather than alerting him too soon to the continued search?

  Wield's voice droned on.'. . . and I realize I was both committing and compounding a felony by aiding Arnie Stringer to conceal his son-in-law's body . . .'

  Dalziel glanced at his watch. A minute to go. He'd left it too late. Swain was watching him. Perhaps he'd already alerted that sharp mind. He let his gaze lock with Swain's. There was no resistance, no effort to break free. The moment seemed timeless. But time had not stopped. Three storeys below in the car park, the drills suddenly chattered into life, and there was an exchange along their eye beams as telergetic as any ever experienced by enraptured lovers.

  . . and I am prepared to accept the full legal consequences of my error of judgement,’ concluded Wield. That's it, sir. Would you care to sign?'

  Swain broke the eye contact and bowed his head as though in prayer.

  'No,’ he said softly. 'Not yet. I'm sorry, but the slate has got to be wiped completely clean, hasn't it? I know, de mortuis, and all that. But it's the living I have to think of. That poor woman. I hope to God I may be wrong, but I've no way of checking this thing out for myself. Only you can do that, Mr Dalziel.'

  'Do what?' growled Dalziel. He knew now he'd been wrong. Don't play people at their own games. Clever buggers didn't play clever buggers with other clever buggers. Now he was speaking lines Swain had cued from him, but he didn't know how not to respond.

  'Look for firm evidence of what I only suspect and fear.'

  'Which is?'

  'That Arnie Stringer might have killed Greg Waterson!'

  'What?' Dalziel had been expecting nifty footwork but this took his breath away. Tactics forgotten, he spoke from the heart.

  'You'd be better off flogging condoms to cardinals than trying to sell that one, Swain!'

  Philip Swain nodded earnestly and said, 'Yes, I can see how hard it must be for you to grasp such an idea, Superintendent, but listen to what I've got to say before you pass final judgement. Arnie Stringer was always very loyal to me, and after I helped him with his son-in-law, he clearly felt deeply in my debt, emotionally I mean. When this tragic business of Gail's death occurred, he was desperate to do anything he could to console me. He blamed Greg Waterson entirely and made no secret of what he reckoned a man like that deserved. I found myself in the odd position of actually defending the man who'd seduced my wife and created the situation which led to her tragic death. But Arnie was a black-and-white man, and though he shut up, I should have realized he hadn't changed his mind when I asked him to follow Mrs Waterson that night.'

  'Which night was this?' inquired Dalziel, yawning unconvincingly.

  'The night she was meeting Greg. She told me he'd rung, you probably know that, and I was very keen to talk to him

  'Why was that, then?' interrupted Dalziel.

  'To get him to come forward, of course,' said Swain. 'I didn't know then that you already had a statement from Greg completely exonerating me. I know you have a difficult job to do, Superintendent, but I still feel that letting me suffer so long was an unnecessary cruelty.'

  Dalziel closed his eyes for a moment in prayer, or perhaps pain.

  'So you asked Arnie to follow Mrs Waterson?' he said. 'Why not go yourself?'

  'She knew me by sight, and of course Greg knew me too. Being the kind of person he was, if he spotted me, I suspected he'd have taken off as fast as he could. I just wanted to find out where he was living so I could approach him privately and have a talk. So I asked Arnie if he could find out by following Mrs Waterson and he agreed.'

  'What kind of vehicle did he use?' interposed Wield, ignoring Dalziel's malevolent glance.

  'I don't know. The pick-up, I expect. Anyway I didn't see him that same evening. I had an appointment up near Darlington and as things worked out, I didn't get back till late.'

  He paused and took a drink from the cup of cold coffee before him. Wield waited for Dalziel to demand details of this Darlington appointment, but the fat man stayed quiet till Swain resumed.

  'Next morning when I got down here - that job was getting pretty near the end then, you'll remember - I found Arnie had made a really early start. I asked him what had happened the previous night. He said he'd followed Mrs Waterson to a pub, the Pilgrim's Salvation. He'd waited outside and seen her come out by herself. Then he'd hung around till closing time, watching for Waterson, but he must have missed him.'

  'He didn't go in the pub?' said Dalziel.

  'He said not. He wasn't a man who approved of public houses,' said Swain. 'So it made sense.

  Only, well, even for Arnie he was rather brusque and off-hand about the whole business.'

  'And that made you suspect he wasn't telling you the truth,' sneered Dalziel.

  'It wasn't as clear-cut as that,' said Swain. 'But I remember just before I went off to America, I said to Arnie that I wasn't looking forward to it and he said it'd be all right, I'd be back in no time with everything sorted out, and I said no, nothing could be finally sorted out till Greg Waterson turned up, and he said if that was all I was worrying about, I should rest easy as he doubted if I'd be bothered by that bastard again. His words came back to me on the plane and I started wondering ... all kinds of things. But I soon forgot about them in California, there was far too much else to occupy my mind and I hardly gave the business another thought. Till this morning. God! Was it only this morning? It seems an age ago.'

  That's because you go all round the houses telling a tale,' growled Dalziel.

  'I'm sorry,' said Swain, unruffled. 'This morning, as I've told you, Arnie's mind was much occupied by his son-in-law. We sat and talked about it. Then we did some work but I could see he wasn't concentrating. And I said to him from the cab, "For heaven's sake, Ar
nie. Stop moping. All right, make a clean breast if you must and let the law take its course. But don't take more on yourself than you deserve. All you've done is conceal a terrible accident. That's all it was.

  An accident!" And he replied more to himself than me, "Aye, that's what that one was. But not that other fornicator!" Then before I could ask him what he meant, he went back to working, and I did too, and not long after ... oh God, perhaps neither of us had our minds fully on what we should have been doing. I'll never forgive myself!'

  His voice had broken momentarily.

  Dalziel belched and said, 'I still don't see what put Waterson in your mind.'

  'Don't you see? It was what he said before he died. "Not Phil's fault. God's will. Helping a friend. Good friend to me." I thought at first he was referring to the accident. Then later I thought it must be referring to Appleyard. But how could anyone imagine that was my fault? And finally it struck me. What if poor Arnie, feeling himself deeply indebted to me, and hating Waterson not just because of what he'd done to me, but because he was involved in filth like drugs and casual sex, had felt himself to be doing the will of God by putting him out of the way?'

  He looked at the two policemen urgently, as though begging them to contradict his dreadful suspicion.

  Dalziel said, 'Oh aye? And what do you think he might have done with the body?'

  'I've no idea,' said Swain. 'But you have to look for it, Superintendent. I beg that you will spare no effort in looking for it.'

  And outside the sound of the pneumatic drills ceased.

  It was Waterson without a doubt, almost perfectly preserved. He had been buried beneath the concrete behind the gatehouse. Unfortunately for the appearance of the car park, the drillers had started at the other side and worked round, so there was a trench some twelve feet in length.

  Dan Trimble regarded this defacing scar sadly.

  'I suppose it could have been worse,' he said.

  'It will be,' said Dalziel laconically.

  'What?'

  'We've not found the girl yet. Beverley King.'

  'You think she's in here too?'

  'Where else? She were on that boat with Waterson and she's not been seen for God knows how long. He'd not leave her alive when he killed this poor sod, would he?'

  'Stringer? Andrew, are you sure? From what you say, he might well think he was the instrument of God in dealing with Waterson, but he'd have to be stark staring mad to include the girl.'

  'Stringer? Who's talking about Stringer?' demanded Dalziel. 'You don't think I swallowed that load of crap, do you? No, it's that bastard up there I'm after. Oh God, he thinks he's so clever. Correction, he is clever. Credit where it's due. He thinks fast, like a rat in a corner. He heard the drills start up again and he guessed what I was after. So quick as a flash, before he's faced with this poor sod's body and asked for an explanation, he gives one!'

  Trimble was unimpressed.

  'That's one way of looking at it,' he said. 'The other is that he's telling the truth. I want both possibilities thoroughly investigated. I gather Swain says he went up to Darlington on business the night Waterson was seen at the Sally. Have you checked this?'

  'What's the rush when I know what we'll find?' retorted Dalziel. 'It'll be a good story. But there won't be any good witnesses.'

  'Mr Pascoe, I wonder if you'd care to check the Superintendent's prognosis?' murmured Trimble. 'But even if it's accurate, it still proves nothing.'

  'Bev King's body'll prove something,' asserted Dalziel. 'And it shouldn't take us long to find. They must've been put in close together.'

  'You'd better be right, Andy,' said Trimble, trying to lighten the tone. 'It's my heart those drills are digging into, you realize that?'

  'Then they'll need to be right sharp,' replied Dalziel.

  By the time Pascoe reached the interview room, the drills were back at their work but Swain showed no sign of reaction to the new outburst of noise.

  The next ten minutes saw a lot of points being marked up to Dalziel. Swain's story was that he had driven north to look at an old house shortly to be demolished, with a view to buying the bricks and some fixtures. The contractor hadn't turned up and on phoning him at home, Swain had discovered one of them had got the wrong date. The man had been unable to join Swain that night, so he had taken a look around by himself, then had a drink and a sandwich at a pub in Darlington called the Crown or something royal. When he came out, he found he had a flat tyre. He had changed it with some difficulty and finally got home after midnight.

  'So apart perhaps from a barmaid in a possibly regal pub, you've got no one who can support your story,' said Pascoe.

  'The demolition contractor can confirm my phone call,' said Swain. 'And I dare say someone saw me changing my wheel in the car park. But why all this interest in my whereabouts, Mr Pascoe?'

  'Routine, sir.'

  'Come on! I'm not an idiot.' He regarded Pascoe reflectively, then suspicion rounded his eyes and his mouth as he exclaimed, 'Oh my God! Those bloody drills . . . have you found. . . not Waterson? Oh Arnie, Arnie. Once he got an idea in his mind . . . And you think I helped him again? Come on, Chief Inspector! I've admitted my part in helping him hide one body, but I assure you I didn't make a habit of it! I am right, aren't I? You have found Waterson?'

  Pascoe nodded, never taking his eyes off the man's face.

  'Damn, damn, damn! I told you that was what I feared, but I still hoped I'd been wrong about Arnie. Couldn't he see it was in my interest for Waterson to turn up alive and well so he could clear up Gail's death absolutely, once and for all?'

  He spoke with a passionate earnestness Pascoe could not fault.

  He stood up abruptly and went to tell Dalziel he'd earned ten out of ten for his prognosis.

  But in the car park he found the fat man's credit as a clairvoyant was fast running out. A Somme of new trenches serpentined away from Waterson's grave and it was clear that the area which might reasonably have been concreted at the same time was almost exhausted. Trimble's face had smoothed to an emotionless mask more revealing than tic or grimace, and the drillers, sensitive to vibrations stronger than those of their machines, paused and looked inquiringly at Dalziel.

  'Keep going,' he said harshly. 'She's here. Peter, how'd you get on?'

  Pascoe retailed what Swain had said, loyally stressing the accuracy of Dalziel's prediction. Trimble was not impressed.

  'There's still nothing to link Swain with Waterson's death,' he said. 'Not even a good motive. Why on earth should he want to murder a man whose testimony cleared him of any suspicion of complicity in his wife's death?'

  'Man who trains fleas needs a big thumb,' said Dalziel.

  'I'm sorry?'

  'Mr Waterson was a very volatile character,’ said Pascoe, feeling that Dalziel's gnomic utterance required some slight exegesis. 'I think the Super means that, like a photographic negative, he needed to be fixed at a very precise point to preserve the desired result.'

  Trimble said, 'I think I'll go inside before I'm tempted to ask any more questions.'

  As they watched him walk away, Dalziel said, 'What the fuck were you on about!'

  'Same as you, I think.'

  'In that case, book me in to see Pottle!'

  By six o'clock Pascoe was beginning to wonder if a trip to the psychiatrist mightn't be such a bad idea for Dalziel.

  'Sir,' he said diffidently. 'I'm sure you appreciate you're well back into the area that was completed in February?'

  'So what?'

  'Well, Waterson was last seen on March the first, wasn't he?'

  'I know that.'

  'So if your theory is the girl was killed at the same time, then wherever she is she can't be . . . there.'

  He gestured to where the last bit of concrete was being ripped up in front of the new garages.

  'Who said she was killed at the same time?' said Dalziel.

  'Well, I just assumed

  'Leave assumption to the Virgin Mary,' snapped Dalz
iel. 'When's the last sight there was of this lass?'

  'She moved from Bulmer's Wharf on February the third. She last visited her parents on February the fourteenth. The farmer at Badger Farm reckons there was someone round the boat for most of February ...'

  'That peasant! Bugger's too tight to buy a calendar let alone a pair of specs!' interrupted Dalziel.

  'Nevertheless. Look, if she is buried here, she must have been killed by either Swain or Stringer. And as you've got back beyond the March level already, she must have been killed in the second half of February. Why, for God's sake? Why?'

  'I don't know why,' grated Dalziel. 'All I know is that sod killed his missus, and in my book he's guilty of everything else that happened round here till some cleverer sod than me proves him innocent!'

  He was close to running amok, thought Pascoe. He looked desperately for some brake he could apply.

  'Then logically you intend digging up everything that was concreted over since Valentine's Day?'

  'If that's what it takes,' said Dalziel.

  'Even if it means going inside some of the new inspection garages? Mr Trimble's not going to like it.'

  'You leave Desperate Dan to me,' said Dalziel. 'He may do the Floral Dance, but it's me who plays the fiddle.'

  But at eight o'clock the music came to an abrupt end.

  An hour earlier, Swain, who had been remarkably laid back about the whole protracted business, finally summoned his lawyer. Trimble conferred with the man for a while, then came down to talk to his head of CID. He didn't talk long. The drills had gouged random inspection holes in a good sixty per cent of the garage floors. When Dalziel reluctantly admitted they were into concrete laid at least a week before the last reported sighting of Beverley King, Trimble said, 'That's it, Andy.'

  'But . . .'

  'No buts. Work stops now. If I hear those drills again, you're suspended. You'd better believe me.'

  He strode away. Five minutes later he reappeared in the silent car park with Swain and his solicitor, a bat-faced man with a switched-on memo-cassette in his hand. Trimble was at his most man-of-the-world conciliatory, but Swain didn't look as if he needed his feathers smoothed.