Bones & Silence (28 page)

I'm rambling. Sorry. Just because it's a ramshackle meaningless world we live in doesn't mean we should give up control of our own thoughts. What I'm saying is I don't want to add to all the misery on offer, so keep me clear of the sensitive plants if you can.

It was good to see you enjoying yourself at the ball last month, by the way, even though you didn't ask me to dance! The Hospice Fund must have done well. I felt so unselfish, knowing I couldn't personally benefit from it. And at the same time I felt like standing up and saying, no need to waste your money, I can teach you how to die! But that would have been a dead giveaway, wouldn't it? And I mustn't make life easy for you. Though come to think of it, it might be nice if I could. I owe you something for laying all my troubles on you like this. It would really please me if I could compensate for dropping one insoluble problem in your lap by helping you out with another. The coroner wasn't very kind to you the other day, was he? And by all accounts you weren't very happy with him. Naturally I can hardly hope to succeed where the Great Detective has failed, but I promise I'll keep my ears open.

It will give me something useful to do during the countdown.

CHAPTER ONE

It had been a mistake to play God.

Especially when you'd solved the old paradox: if God created everything, who created God?

The answer was Chung. And Chung the creator was very different from Chung the malt whisky drinker, or Chung the last tangoist.

Rehearsals at ground level had been demanding enough both of time and energy. But it was his first sight of a pageant wagon that brought matters to a head.

'I'm not going up that,' proclaimed Dalziel. 'Not even if you fit me with crampons.'

That
was a narrow ladder up the back of a triple decker stage mounted on a flat-car. The lower deck represented hell, the middle earth, and the upper heaven. And over the upper deck, perched amid polystyrene clouds, was a tiny platform for the maker unmade, the mover unmoved, God Almighty, Andrew Dalziel.

'Come on, Andy,' said Chung. 'The frame's really secure. And there's a safety harness.'

'Aye, but is there a bloody parachute?' asked Dalziel.

'A couple of times and you'll be running up there like a mountain goat,’ she said persuasively. 'Look.'

She was more like a mountain lion, lithe and tawny, as she scaled the ladder with no apparent effort. Dalziel looked up at her, erect and magnificent, on the tiny platform. She beckoned to him, smiling encouragingly.

'Care for a bunk up, Superintendent?'

He turned and looked at Philip Swain. This was another of the troubles with playing God. As Chung had rightly judged, Swain's presence in the cast had been a positive incentive to someone of Dalziel's character. But Trimble's warning about harassment had inhibited him more than he cared to admit, and now, to add injury to inhibition, the jury at the re-convened inquest on Gail Swain had brought in a verdict of death by misadventure. Swain had left the court with words of sympathy ringing in his ears, while Dalziel's had been filled with the flea-like buzz of pained reproof.

He had brought much of it on himself by refusing to desist from his efforts to blow clouds of suspicion Swain's way, thus obliging Eden Thackeray to waft them aside with reluctant ease.

'You had been
where
that night, Superintendent?' he had asked, smiling.

It turned out that Thackeray knew exactly where he'd been, how much he'd supped, and, their friendship notwithstanding, would bring witnesses to prove it if necessary. When the old solicitor somehow contrived to get him to admit he was being sick into a bucket when he first noticed Gail Swain at the window, his credibility was completely ruined and the coroner's summing up had come close to a recommendation that his conduct of the case be investigated by his superiors.

'Shouldn't you be in California?' he said to Swain now.

'I'm flying out with the coffin at the weekend.'

'Well, I hope it all goes off all right.'

'Thank you,' said Swain, surprised. 'Yes, it's going to be an extremely fraught experience. Not helped, of course, by the delay.'

'What? Oh aye. You're talking about the funeral. I meant the really important thing, your talks with them Delgado lawyers. I reckon they'd have made me mayor of LA if I'd pinned a murder charge on you!'

Swain came close to anger, then opted for amusement.

'That's better, Superintendent,' he said. 'I thought for a moment you were going soft. But thanks for your good wishes all the same. If they're sincere.'

'They're sincere enough,' said Dalziel. 'I want you back here in my reach as soon as possible.'

'How touching. And why is that?'

Dalziel smiled like a polar bear.

'Because of the Mysteries, of course,' he said. 'Because your understudy's crap, and Chung reckons you're the very best Devil she's ever directed.'

He was telling the truth. Swain was excellent m his part and Chung had been very annoyed to learn he was likely to be away for as long as a week.

'I'm flattered,' he said, smiling. 'And I do hope you've managed to reach your heaven by the time I return.'

'I'll get there in the end,' said Dalziel. 'I usually do. Don't forget your lines while you're away. I'll be listening carefully.'

'Andy, are you going to get your ass up here or not?' yelled Chung.

'All right, I'm coming,' said Dalziel. And began the long ascent.

Back at the station later, he parked his car in the refurbished car park which was like a constant mocking reminder of his failure. In his office he rummaged through his mail and groaned as he came across another letter from what Pascoe called the Dark Lady. As if conjured by his thought, Pascoe came into the room.

'Stopped knocking, have we?'

'Sorry, sir. Thought you were still at your theatricals. I was going to drop this on your desk.'

'Tell me about it. I'm pig sick of reading words just now.'

'I just had a call from Leeds Central. As you know, they've had real trouble with their football yobs. But because they're highly organized over there, that's meant they're vulnerable to infiltration and the Leeds undercover operation's had one or two excellent results.'

'Send the buggers a medal, then. What's this got to do with us?'

'The word is that during the last couple of seasons some of our City supporters, short of any real action over here, got themselves into the Leeds gang for their jollies. But now they're dividing themselves between the two because they've got big ambitions to make a name for themselves as the City mob. Just first names so far, which isn't much help, but as soon as they can get some real detail, they'll let us know. Promising, eh?'

'Yes, must be nice to get other buggers to do your work for you,' said Dalziel sourly. 'I wish I could manage it. I seem to recollect asking some idle sod to get this joker sorted.'

He tossed the latest letter across to Pascoe who read it with a troubled look on his face.

'Doesn't sound like a joker to me,' he said.

'No? Then get her off my back! Christ, you've had long enough!'

This from a man who found the Dark Lady's plight an irritation too trivial to waste his own precious time on was too unjust for argument. Pascoe rang Pottle and got invited to have a drink in the University Staff Club. The psychiatrist read the letter twice.

'She's very confused,' he said.

Pascoe, with a guest's sensitivity, suppressed the mock amazement which rose to his lips by taking a long pull at his spritzer. Pottle regarded him with a slight smile which suggested he had noted the suppression.

'That may seem obvious,' he went on. 'But what I detect is a confusion beyond the basic mental and spiritual turmoil which has brought her to the point of suicide. It's all to do with this understanding of her own motives which hovers between the conscious and the subconscious. Despite her disclaimer, she began to suspect her use of Dalziel as a sounding-board was also an appeal for discovery, so she ended the correspondence after letter two. Then her need to "talk" grew so strong she had to start again to protect herself from discovery! After another two letters, the pattern repeats itself, and she resolves to stop once more, though this time without announcing it.'

Pascoe interrupted, 'Not out of fear of being tracked down so much as fear that that's what she really wanted?'

'More or less,' said Pottle. 'Several weeks pass. And finally an awareness that she is rapidly approaching the point of no return brings with it a desire to be prevented so strong that she has re-opened the correspondence. Such fascinating ambiguities! She claims to be distressed lest Dalziel had passed the case to a more feeling subordinate. An inspired guess or actual knowledge? Subconsciously, of course, she is probably simply miffed that the Great Detective as she calls him isn't taking her seriously. Happily, you are.'

He regarded the detective sympathetically and poured another inch of Muscadet into his glass, not hiding his disapproval as Pascoe topped it up with soda.

'I'm driving,' said Pascoe. In fact he quite liked the combination and didn't think anyway that the Staff Club's Muscadet was worth getting religious over.

'Last time you said she was probably as likely to give clues for policemen as psychiatrists,' he went on. 'Does it still look that way?'

'I believe so. But they may not be all that obvious.'

'Policemen aren't allowed to ignore the obvious,' said Pascoe. 'I've already asked Mr Dalziel for a list of his partners at the ball. That should eliminate half a dozen.'

'So many? I should have thought one veleta would have sent him reeling to the bar,' said Pottle, who had suffered much abuse from Dalziel over the years. 'Yes, that was certainly a very obvious clue, reducing your suspects by about fifty thousand at a stroke. And she's started talking about methods at last.
Jumping under a train.
Possibly just a tease. Never take what she says too literally. But clues there are, and there'll be more before the end.'

'She'll write again.'

'Oh yes. No doubt about it. The closer she gets, the more nods and winks she'll give. But you'll need to be sharp. Don't expect a name and address!'

'It'd make life a lot easier,’ said Pascoe.

‘That's what we'd all like,’ said Pottle gently. 'Including your Dark Lady.'

As Pascoe drove back to Headquarters, he brooded on what Pottle had said. He recognized in himself the growth of an obsession, but he did not know or perhaps did not want to know how to combat it. It was all right for Pottle to tell him to be a detective, but he didn't feel like a detective, more like a medium striving to make contact with a lost soul and having to work through some not totally sympathetic spirit guide! These intermediaries often figured as Red Indians, or Chinamen. He'd got Dalziel.

He picked up his car radio mike and intoned, 'Is there anybody there?'

'Say again, over,' crackled the radio.

Hastily he replaced the mike. A chief inspector was too senior to be wild, too junior to be eccentric. It was the sober middle age of a police career. But even the middle-aged were allowed their obsessions and if you had one, there was only one thing to do - ride it till either you fell off or it dropped from under you.

Outside his room, he bumped into Dalziel and said rather aggressively, 'You won't forget that list of your dancing partners, will you, sir?'

Dalziel didn't reply but opened the door and ushered Pascoe inside, then overtook him and sat at his desk.

'This is your in-tray, lad,' he said kindly. 'And this sheet of paper here is the list I promised. And these sheets here are the complete guest list. So if you take this list from this one, you'll find you've got close on two hundred names, one of which might belong to this daft tart who's wasting so much of your highly expensive time.'

'At least it's a life I'm trying to save, not just my self-esteem,' retorted Pascoe, allowing himself to be stung.

'Meaning?' said Dalziel.

Pascoe was already regretting his outburst but he knew better than to back down.

'Meaning we still seem to be spending a lot of time and energy chasing around after Gregory Waterson so you can try to re-open the Swain case.'

'I'm not denying it,' said Dalziel equably. 'But he is a criminal suspect, isn't he?'

'All right. But Tony Appleyard's not a criminal, is he?' said Pascoe obstinately. 'And we seem to have got half the police in north London and all the DHSS looking for him.'

'It's about time them buggers had something useful to do,' said Dalziel. 'Anyroad, I made a promise, lad.'

'To Shirley Appleyard, you mean? But you've said yourself she's not pressurizing you.'

'That's right. I wasn't sure from the start why she really wanted to see him. Stick a knife in him, mebbe. Anyroad, yes, she seems to have lost interest. Last time I told her I'd heard nowt, she just shrugged and said,
I shouldn't bother any more. It's not worth it. Likely he's dead.'

'And why are you still bothering?' asked Pascoe, rancour erased by genuine interest.

'Because it's worth it to me,' grunted Dalziel. 'One, I'll break my own promises, not wait till someone gives me permission. And two, I want to know. He might be a useless specimen but he's from off my patch, and he went south to work, not to die, if that's what's happened to him. I wouldn't put it past them cockneys.
Here's a dead 'un, not one of ours, another bloody northerner, when's the next load of rubbish going out to the tip?
It's time they knew they've got me to answer to!'

This was the nearest thing to a radical political statement Pascoe had ever heard from the Superintendent. It wasn't going to usher in the Socialist Millennium, but shouted loud enough, it might cause a little unease in Thatcherland.

'Look, sir,' he said. 'I'm sorry if I sounded off a bit . . .'

'Never apologize, never explain,' said Dalziel, rising. 'Just do your job, and never forget the golden rule.'