Dalziel 11 Bones and Silence

by Reginald Hill

  Everyone had assumed he would sell the house and find a flat, but inertia had compounded cussedness and he'd never bothered. So now as his gaze slipped to the uncurtained window, it was a totally familiar view that he looked out upon - a small backyard which not even moonlight could beautify, bounded by a brick wall in need of pointing, containing a wooden gate in need of painting, which let into the back lane running between Dalziel's street and the rear entrances of a street of similar housing whose frequent chimneys castellated the steely night sky.

  Only there was something different to look at tonight. A bedroom light went on in the house immediately behind his. A few moments later the curtains were flung aside and a naked woman stood framed in the square of golden light. Dalziel watched with interest. If this were hallucination, the Frogs might be on to something after all. Then as if to prove her reality, the woman pushed the window open and leaned out into the night, taking deep breaths of wintry air which made her small but far from negligible breasts rise and subside most entertainingly.

  It seemed to Dalziel that as she'd been courteous enough to remove one barrier of glass, he could hardly do less than dispose of the other.

  He moved swiftly to the back door, opened it gently, and stepped out into the night. But his speed was vain. Movement had broken the spell and the gorgeous vision was fled.

  'Serves me bloody right,' growled Dalziel to himself. 'Acting like a kid that's never clapped eyes on a tit before.'

  He turned away to re-enter his house but something made him turn again almost immediately. Suddenly from soft porn it was all action movie on the golden screen ... a man moving . . . something in his hand . . . another man ... a sound as explosive as a cough too long suppressed during a pianissimo . . . and without conscious thought,

  Dalziel was off and running, cursing with increasing fervour and foulness as he crashed from one pile of household detritus to another.

  His gate was unlocked. The gate of the house behind wasn't, but he went through it as though it was. He was too close now to see up into the first-floor room. It occurred to him as he charged towards the kitchen door that he might be about to meet a gunman equally anxious to get out. On the other hand there might be people inside as yet unshot, whom his approach could keep that way. Not that the debate was anything but abstract, as if an incendiary dropped on Dresden should somehow start considering the morality of tactical bombing as it fell.

  The kitchen door flew open at a touch. He assumed the lay-out would be similar to his own house, which it was, saving him the bother of demolishing walls as he rushed through the entrance hall and up the stairs. There was still no sign of life, no noise, no movement. The door of the room he was heading for was ajar, spilling light on to the landing. Now at last he slowed down. If there had been sounds of violence within he would have entered violently, but there was no point in being provocative.

  He tapped gently at the door and pushed it fully open.

  There were three people in the room. One of them, a tall man in his thirties wearing a dark blue blazer with a brocaded badge on the pocket, was standing by the window. In his right hand was a smoking revolver. It was pointing in the general direction of a younger man in a black sweater crouched against the wall, squeezing his pallid terrified face between his hands. Also present was a naked woman sprawled across a bed. Dalziel paid these last two little attention. The young man looked to have lost the use of his legs and the woman had clearly lost the use of everything. He concentrated on the man with the gun.

  'Good evening, sir,' said Dalziel genially. 'I'm a police officer. Is there somewhere we can sit down and have a little chat?'

  He advanced slowly as he spoke, his face aglow with that deceptive warmth which, like a hot chestnut in your lap, can pass at first for sensuous delight. But before he got quite within scorching distance, the gun arm moved and the muzzle came round till it was pointing at Dalziel's midriff.

  He was no gun expert but he had experience enough to recognize a large-calibre revolver and to know what it would do to flesh at this range.

  He halted. Suddenly the debate had moved from the abstract to the actual. He turned his attention from the weapon to its wielder and to his surprise recognized him, though he had to bang shut his mental criminal files to get a name. There was a connection with the police but it wasn't professional. Not till now.

  'How do, Mr Swain,' he said. 'It is Mr Swain, the builder, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' said the man, his eyes focusing properly on Dalziel for the first time. That's right. Do I know you?'

  'You may have seen me, sir,' said Dalziel genially. 'As I've seen you a couple of times. It's your firm that's extending the garages behind the police station, isn't it?'

  'Yes. That's right.'

  'Detective-Superintendent Dalziel.' He held out his hand, took a small step forward. Instantly the gun was thrust closer to his gut. And in the split second before launching what might have been, one way or another, a fatal attack, he realized it was not being aimed but offered.

  'Thank you,' he said, taking the barrel gently between two huge fingers and wrapping the weapon in a frayed khaki handkerchief like a small gonfalon.

  The transfer of the weapon released the younger man's tongue. He screamed, 'She's dead! She's dead! It's your fault, you bastard! You killed her!'

  'Oh God,' said Swain. 'She was trying to kill herself... I had to stop her, Waterson . . . the gun went off. . . Waterson, you saw what happened. . . are you sure she's dead?'

  Dalziel glanced at the man called Waterson, but cataplexy seemed to have reasserted its hold. He turned his attention to the woman. She had been shot at very close range. The gun he judged had been held under her chin. It was a powerful weapon, no doubt about that. The bullet had destroyed much of her face, removed the top of her head and still had force enough to blow a considerable hole in the ceiling. The last oozings of blood and brains dripped quietly from her long blonde hair to the carpeted floor.

  'Oh yes,' said Dalziel. 'She's dead all right.'

  Interestingly his stomach was feeling much calmer now. Could it be the running that had done it? Mebbe he should take up jogging. On second thoughts, it would be simpler just to avoid mineral water in future.

  'What happens now, Superintendent?' asked Swain in a low voice.

  Dalziel turned back to him and studied his pale narrow face. It occurred to him he didn't like the man, that on the couple of occasions he'd noticed him around the car park with his ginger-polled partner, he'd felt they were a right matching pair of Doctor Fells.

  There are few things more pleasant than the coincidence of prejudice and duty.

  'Impatient are we, sunshine?' he said amicably. 'What happens now is, you're nicked!'

  part two

  Adam: Alas what have I done? For shame!

  Ill counsel, woe worth thee!

  Ah Eve, thou art to blame;

  To this enticed thou me.

  The York Cycle:

  'The Fall of Man'

  February 14th

  Dear Mr Dalziel,

  I want to say I'm sorry. I was wrong to try to involve a stranger in my problems, even someone whose job it is to track down wrongdoers. So please accept this apology and forget I ever wrote.

  In case you're wondering, this doesn't mean I've changed my mind, only that next time I feel in need of an untroubled and untroubling confidant, I'll ring the Speaking Clock! That might not be such a bad idea either. Time's the great enemy. You look back and you can just about see the last time you were happy. And you look ahead and you can't even imagine the next time. You try to see the point of it all in a world so full of self-inflicted pain, and all you can see are the pointless moments piling up behind you. Perhaps counting them is the point. Perhaps the best thing I can do with time is to sit listening to the Speaking Clock, counting off the seconds till I reach the magic number where the counting finally stops.

  I'm growing morbid and I don't want to leave you with a nasty taste, though I'm sure
a pint of beer would wash it away. I'm writing this on St Valentine's Day, the feast of lovers. You probably won't get it till St Julianna's day. All I know about her was she specialized in being a virgin and had a long chat with the Devil! Which do you prefer? Silly question. You may be a bit different from other men but you can't be all that different! So forget Julianna. And forget me too.

  Your valedictory Valentine

  CHAPTER ONE

  Peter Pascoe's return to work was not the triumphal progress of his fantasies. First he found his parking spot occupied by a heap of sand. For a fraction of time too short to be measured but long enough to excoriate a nerve or two, he read a symbolic message here. But his mind had already registered that the whole of this side of the car park was rendered unusable by a scatter of breeze blocks, hard core, cement bags, and a concrete mixer.

  Behind him a horn peeped impatiently. It was an old blue pick-up, squatting low on its axles. Pascoe got out of his car and viewed the scene before him. Once there had been a wall here separating the police car park from the old garden which had somehow clung on behind the neighbouring coroner's court. There'd been a tiny lawn, a tangle of shrubbery, and a weary chestnut which used to lean over the wall and drop sticky exudations on any vehicle rash enough to park beneath. Now all was gone and out of a desert of new concrete reared a range of unfinished buildings.

  The pick-up's peep became a blast. Pascoe walked towards it. The window wound down and a gingerhead, grizzling at the tips, emerged above a legend reading SWAIN & STRINGER Builders, Moscow Farm, Currthwaite. Tel. 33809.

  'Come on,' said the ginger pate, 'some of us have got work to do.'

  'Is that right? I'm Inspector Pascoe. It's Mr Swain, is it?'

  'No, it's not,' said the man, manifestly unimpressed by Pascoe's rank. 'I'm Arnie Stringer.'

  'What's going on here, Mr Stringer?'

  'New inspection garages. Where've you been?' demanded the man.

  'Away,' said Pascoe. 'Not the best time of year to be working outside.'

  It had been unseasonably mild for a couple of weeks but there was still a nip in the air.

  'If bobbies with nowt better to do don't hold us back talking, we'll mebbe get finished afore the snow comes.'

  Mr Stringer was obviously a graduate of the same charm school as Dalziel.

  It was nice to be back.

  Retreating to the public car park, Pascoe entered via the main door like any ordinary citizen. The desk area was deserted except for a single figure who observed Pascoe's entry with nervous alarm. Pascoe sighed deeply. While he hadn't really expected the Chief Constable to greet him with the Police Medal as journalists jostled and colleagues clapped, he couldn't help feeling that three months' absence to mend a leg shattered in pursuit of duty and a murderous miner deserved a welcome livelier than this.

  'Hello, Hector,’ he said.

  Police Constable Hector was one of Mid-Yorkshire's most reliable men. He always got it wrong. He had been everything by turns - beat bobby, community cop, schools' liaison officer, collator's clerk - and nothing long. Now here he was on the desk.

  'Morning, sir,' said Hector with a facial spasm possibly aimed at bright alertness, but probably a simple reaction to the taste of the felt-tipped pen which he licked as he spoke. 'How can we help you?'

  Pascoe looked despairingly into that slack, purple-stained mouth and wondered once more about his pension rights. In the first few weeks of convalescence he had talked seriously about retirement, partly because at that stage he didn't believe the surgeon's prognosis of almost complete recovery, but also because it seemed to him in those long grey hospital nights that his very marriage depended on getting out of the police. He even reached the stage where he started broaching the matter to Ellie, not as a marriage-saver, of course, but as a natural consequence of his injury. She had listened with a calmness he took for approval till one day she had cut across his babble of green civilian fields with, 'I never slept with him, you know that, don't you?'

  It was not a moment for looking blank and asking, 'Who?'

  'I never thought you did,’ he said.

  'Oh. Why?' She sounded piqued.

  'Because you'd have told me.'

  She considered this, then replied, 'Yes, I would, wouldn't I? It's a grave disadvantage in a relationship, you know, not being trusted to lie.'

  They were talking about a young miner who had been killed in the accident which crippled Pascoe and with whom Ellie had had a close and complex relationship.

  'But that's not the point anyway,' said Pascoe. 'We ended up on different sides. I don't want that.'

  'I don't think we did,' she said. 'On different flanks of the same side, perhaps. But not different sides.'

  'That's almost worse,' he said. 'I can't even see you face to face.'

  'You want me face to face, then stop whingeing about pensions and start working on that leg.'

  Dalziel had come visiting shortly after.

  'Ellie tells me you're thinking of retiring,' he said.

  'Does she?'

  'Don't look so bloody betrayed else they'll give you an enema! She doesn't want you to.'

  'She said that to you?'

  Dalziel filled his mouth with a bunch of grapes. Was this what Bacchus had really looked like? AA ought to get a picture.

  'Of course she bloody didn't,' said Dalziel juicily.

  'But she'd not have mentioned it else, stands to reason. Got any chocolates?'

  'No. About Ellie, I thought. . .' He tailed off, not wanting a heart to heart with Dalziel. About many things, yes, but not about his marriage.

  'You thought she'd be dying to get you out of the Force? Bloody right, she'd love it! But not because of her. She wants you to see the light for yourself, lad. They all do. It's not enough for them to be loved, they've got to be bloody right as well! Your mates too mean to bring you chocolates, is that it?'

  'They're fattening,' said Pascoe, loyal to Ellie's embargo.

  'Pity. I like chocolate. So drop this daft idea, eh? Get the years in first. And you've got that promotion coming up, they're just dragging their feet till they're sure you won't be dragging yours. Now I'd best be off and finger a few collars. Oh, I nearly forgot. Brought you a bottle of Lucozade.'

  He winked as he put it on the bedside locker. The first bottle he'd left, Pascoe had taken at face value and nearly choked when a long swig had revealed pure Scotch.

  This time he drank slowly, reflectively. But the only decision he reached after another grey night was that on your back was no place for making decisions.

  Now here he was on his feet, thinking that on your back might not be such a bad place after all.

  'Constable Hector,' he said in a low voice. 'I work here. DI Pascoe, remember?'

  In Hector's memory a minute was a long time, three months an eternity.

  He's going to ask for identification, thought Pascoe. But happily at that moment, Sergeant Broomfield, chief custodian of the desk, appeared.

  'Mr Pascoe, good to see you back,' he said, offering his hand.

  'Thanks, George,' said Pascoe with almost tearful gratitude. 'I thought I might have been forgotten.'

  'No chance. Hey, have you heard about Mr Dalziel, though? Got himself a killer, single-handed, last night. He says that round here they're so certain of getting caught, they've taken to inviting CID to be present! He doesn't get any better!'

  Chuckling, the sergeant retired to the nether regions while Pascoe, conscious still of Hector's baffled gaze, made his way upstairs. He had brought his stick, deciding after some debate that it was foolish to abandon it before he felt ready. But as he climbed the stairs he realized he was exaggerating its use. The reason was not far to seek. I'm reminding people I'm a wounded hero! he told himself in amazement. Because there wasn't a reception committee, and because Fat Andy has somehow contrived to upstage me, I'm flaunting my scars.

  Disgusted, he shouldered the stick and tried to run lightly up the last couple of stairs, slipped and almo
st fell. A strong hand grasped his arm and supported him.

  'I expect you'd like another three months away from here,' said Detective-Sergeant Wield. 'But there's got to be easier ways. Welcome home.'

  Wield had the kind of face which must have thronged the eastern gate of Paradise after the eviction, but in those harsh features Pascoe read real concern and welcome.

  'Thanks, Wieldy. I was just trying to prove how fit I am.'

  'Well, if you fancy a miracle cure, come and touch God's robe. You heard about his little coup last night?'

  'I got a hint from Broomfield.'

  'You'll get more than a hint up here.'

  Dalziel was on the phone but he waved them in expansively.

  'Couldn't take the risk of hanging about, sir,' he was saying. 'He might have been away or we could've ended up with one of them hostage situations, tying up men and traffic with reporters and the SAS crawling all over the place!'

  He made them both sound like rodents.

  'Thank you, sir. Ten o'clock? That'll suit me fine. And I'll make sure them buggers carry on working regardless!'

  He replaced the receiver.

  'Good morning, sir,' said Pascoe. 'I gather congratulations are in order.'

  'I believe they are,' said Dalziel complacently. 'Though Desperate Dan's got mixed feelings. Doesn't know whether to pat my back or stab it. Either way he'll need a box to stand on!'

  He was referring to Dan Trimble, Chief Constable, who, though small by police standards, was not a dwarf.

  'Mixed feelings? Why?'

  'Being out of practice at detective work, lad, you likely didn't notice it's like a bomb site down there.' Dalziel had risen and was looking out of his window. 'That's Dan's personal project. Part of his grand modernization plan. Rumour is he set the coroner up with a rent boy to get him to part with his garden. And he probably had to flog his own ring to get those tight bastards at County Hall to allocate the money. Trouble is, if the work's not finished in March, the money is! That's why Dan was all set to give me a kiss and a police medal till he heard who it was I'd nicked.'