Bones & Silence (33 page)

He looked at Dalziel with wide-eyed appeal.

The fat man smiled once more.

'You're right, Jason. But you've helped me, haven't you? And I think that deserves a reward. Tell you what I'm going to do. Can't drop all the charges against you, but I'm going to give you a break on one of them. Let's see, what've we got? Oh aye. You were in the Rose and Crown when the landlord got duffed up. Don't try to play innocent, lad. This isn't an audition for the Mysteries. We've got witnesses. What else? You've got an alibi for the train job, if it checks out. And you were boss of the gang that beat up my sergeant here, right? That's the one to scrub, I reckon. You could get a couple of years for assault on a police officer and I shouldn't like to think of a good-looking boy like you in an over-crowded cell.'

He smacked his leathery lips together in an obscene kissing noise. Medwin was looking dazed. Dalziel went on, 'Don't worry so much, son. Full cooperation on the pub job, lots of names, and we'll go easy, never fear. Youthful high jinks in a bar, we've all done it, even magistrates. Bound over, a fine mebbe. And we'll keep stumm about the other, eh? Constable Seymour here will steer you straight. And I'm always handy if you need any assistance!'

With a genial wave, Dalziel led the way out.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Wield said indignantly, 'What's going off, sir? You'd got what you wanted, you didn't need any deal, and that bastard beat the shit out of me and God knows how many more besides

'Hold on to your hat, Sergeant,' said Dalziel. 'Do you really want to sit in court and hear that clever little sod tell the beak that you offered him a fiver for a quick wank? That's what he'd likely say; and what do you do if some clever brief comes sniffing round your private life?'

This was such a precise re-run of his own fears that Wield could find no words of protest that wouldn't ring hypocritically.

Dalziel continued, 'And don't worry about Jason. I heard yesterday afternoon that that landlord's had a relapse, long-term kidney damage, so anyone tied up with that rumpus isn't going to walk. Also there's the little matter of conspiracy to cause an affray charge which is why he's been picked up in the first place. That'll come as a nice little surprise when we ferry him across to Leeds in an hour or so. Meanwhile you and me have got work to do. Come on.'

'Yes, sir. Where to, sir?' said Wield, trying not so much to conceal as not to feel the great wave of relief washing over him.

'Where to? Do you not listen when I'm interrogating?' He glanced at his watch. 'Builders start bright and early, don't they? I reckon our best bet for having a little chat with Arnie Stringer will be at Moscow Farm! Let's get a move on. I've got a rehearsal at ten and God can't be late, can he?'

CHAPTER FOUR

It had stopped raining and the sky was beginning to clear with promise of a fine summer day. The yard at Moscow Farm was full of noise and activity. Shirley Appleyard was climbing up the outside stair to her office. Her father was loading a surveyor's level on to a shiny new pick-up, and Philip Swain was backing a gleaming yellow JCB out of the barn door.

But when Dalziel's car drove into the yard, they all paused. And when Swain switched off the JCB's engine, the pause turned into a stillness against which the drift of clouds across the pale blue sky seemed like frenzy.

Slowly Dalziel raised his hand, in greeting presumably, but it seemed to Wield as if the puppet-master had twitched the strings, for the three figures before him instantly returned to life.

'Superintendent, what can I do for you?' said Swain, jumping down.

'You?' Dalziel considered long enough to telepath several grossly offensive suggestions. 'You could tell me who your new lawyer is.'

Swain raised his eyebrows, specially plucked by Chung to look more diabolic.

'So I could,' he said pleasantly. 'But why should you want to know?'

'Just so I'll know who to expect next time we have you down at the station,' said Dalziel.

'In that case, it's hardly worth telling you as I might have changed him several times by then.'

Dalziel laughed, untroubled by Swain's show of assurance. The man was bright enough to have looked behind Thackeray's upfront reasons for breaking the connection, and it wouldn't be comfortable for him to find Dalziel's great grey head peering behind the screen too. But it was early days to decide what, if anything, might be made of the lawyer's doubts.

He said, 'Man knows his own business best. It's Mr Stringer I've come to see today, if you can spare him.'

'We're very busy . . .'

'So I see. Must be grand to be able to afford decent equipment at last. Take a lass out in one of these things and she'd not be able to complain you didn't make the earth move for her!' He patted the JCB admiringly. 'Big job, is it? Someone's drive? Or more garages?'

It only became a gibe if you let it. Swain said, 'We're clearing a bit of land on the farm estate. Crimper's Knoll. Do you know it? Not much use for anything but grazing a few sheep, but it will make a lovely setting for a few quality homes.'

'Is that right? You'll have got planning permission?'

Swain smiled a smile compounded of new money and old blood.

'It's in train,’ he said. 'So if you could let me have my partner back as quickly as possible. Do you want to talk inside?'

'Out here will do fine,’ replied Dalziel.

He put his arm around the foreman's shoulders and led him away. Wield said, 'Use your phone?' and without waiting for an answer went up the stairway to the office.

Shirely Appleyard said as he passed her on the stair, 'What's he want?'

'There's divided opinion on that, luv,' said Wield.

Inside the office he closed the door firmly behind him and dialled the station number asking for Pascoe, who did not sound happy when he came on.

'Where the hell are you?' he demanded. 'I've just got in and the place is like a morgue.'

Rapidly Wield explained what had happened, then went on, 'Seymour should be in the interview room with Medwin still. There's something I should have asked the boy and he'll likely be en route for Leeds by the time I get back. It's about the night he attacked me.'

'I thought you said Il Duce had promised him immunity on that? He must be going soft in the head.'

This was no time to explain Dalziel's motives. Wield said, This is just information. It's simply that when Medwin and his gang were beating me up, a vehicle went by. It slowed down, might even have stopped, then it took off again.'

'Like the driver thought of helping, then decided not to get involved?'

'Or like he mebbe picked up Waterson,' said Wield. 'Just a thought. It could be worth asking.'

'You're not getting as dotty about Waterson as the old man is about Appleyard, are you, Wieldy? Good job someone's here doing the real work, isn't it?'

'Anything you want me to tell the Super?' said Wield innocently.

'With his hearing, likely he's heard me already! Cheers.'

Wield left the office and joined Shirley Appleyard at the head of the stair.

She said, 'What're they talking about? Is it about Tony? Have you heard something?'

'Like what?'

'Like .. . like he's dead maybe.'

'Why should he be dead?' wondered Wield.

'I don't know. I wake up in the night sometimes and I'm sure he's dead. Then I tell myself in the morning it was just one of them daft turns you get in the night. But recently it's not mattered whether it's been black dark or broad day, I've still felt the same. So is that why he's come?'

'No,' said Wield, moved by the pain he could see on the girl's face. 'The Super would be up here talking to you if he'd brought bad news, wouldn't he?'

'Would he?' she scoffed. 'You men! We even get our tragedies as drippings from your pot!'

She turned away abruptly and went into the office. Wield, no stranger to pain himself, felt her loneliness and abandonment crying out to him.

He turned and glared down angrily towards the two big men rapt in each other's company.

'So you lied,' Dalziel was saying.

'I said so, didn't I? I lied to me own daughter, you don't think I was going to be bothered lying to the sodding police!'

'That sounds reasonable,' said Dalziel with complete sincerity. 'So now you say that when you went looking for your son-in-law, he'd left the lodging-house you had as his address, but one of the other lodgers said he thought Tony might be staying with a friend in what-was-it Street?'

'Webster Street. Have you got cloth ears or what?' said Stringer angrily.

'Good tale stands twice telling,' reproved Dalziel. 'So you went round . . .'

'. . . and I sat in my car, not knowing which house it might be. It were a long street, tall terraces, mainly flats or bedsits, there was no way I could try 'em all. So all I could do was sit and hope . . .'

'What did you hope, Mr Stringer?' asked Dalziel gently. 'That you'd see Tony and persuade him to come home with you? Or that you'd warn him off forever?'

'I just wanted to talk,' said Stringer. 'I'm a reasonable man. I didn't blame him for going off looking for work. Better than sitting on your backside up here, drinking your dole like some I know.'

'You could have given him a job yourself, couldn't you?'

'Do you think I didn't offer?' exclaimed Stringer indignantly. 'He didn't want to work for me, told me flat. Said it were bad enough living with me. I said he could soon put that right if he had a mind to.'

'And he took off south. Right. So now you're sitting in Webster Street and suddenly you see your son-in-law walking along the pavement and he's with this lass...’

'This tart!' said Stringer fiercely. 'I know a whore when I see one.'

'That's a great talent,' said Dalziel admiringly. 'Saves you a lot of bother in a nunnery. So you follow them into this house and have a row..’

'I didn't want a row. I just wanted to know what the useless article were playing at.'

'So there wasn't a row?'

'It weren't all that quiet,' admitted Stringer. 'Upshot were that this tart started yelling she'd had enough, this were her pad, she were going out and when she came back she didn't want to find either of us here.'

'And after she'd gone, you got down to some really serious discussion?'

Stringer said grimly, 'I told him straight I didn't want him coming back up here and being around my lass and my grandson, not after he'd been rolling around with that slag and picking up everything she'd got!'

'Oh aye? And how did you make sure he got the message? Nut him and knee him, the old Liverpool reminder?'

'I never laid a hand on him,' said Stringer. 'Didn't need to. He were passing bricks just listening to me.'

'And you left him well persuaded he'd best not show up here again?'

'I reckon I did,' said Stringer.

'It'll mebbe come as a shock, Mr Stringer, but you were a lot less persuasive than you think,' said Dalziel. 'But mebbe you know that already.'

'What are you on about?'

'I mean your son-in-law, Tony Appleyard, did come back, Mr Stringer. Reappeared and vanished again, like a magician's mate.'

Stringer regarded him blankly.

He said, 'Come back, you say? He'd not come near me, would he? Not after what I'd said to him.'

'It wouldn't be you he wanted to see, would it?' said Dalziel.

He turned and looked up at the stair leading to the office. It was empty now. Wield had descended and was talking to Swain. But a shadowy figure could be seen behind the grimy window.

'And he didn't come near Shirley, if that's what you're thinking. What's all this about anyway?'

'I should've thought that were obvious. Lad goes missing, it's our job to find him.'

'Come off it! You showed no interest before. And you lot don't waste time chasing after folk unless you think you've got good reason.'

'We chase when we're asked sometimes, Mr Stringer.'

'Is that right? And who asked you?'

Dalziel shrugged massively. It was Stringer's turn to raise his eyes to the office window.

'Why's she so concerned about him?' he asked in genuine bewilderment. 'Useless idle lout that's brought her nowt but tribulation.'

'And a child,' said Dalziel. 'You'd not be without your grandson, would you? At least you owe him that.'

'I owe him nowt,' said Stringer fiercely. 'Nowt! Look, will you have to tell her that I saw him in London?'

'That would bother you?'

Stringer thought for a moment. He looked old and defeated. He said, 'No, you're right. Why should something like that . . . something so trivial ... Do you believe in God, Mr Dalziel?'

'As a last resort,' said Dalziel.

'What? Oh aye. Well, I've believed in Him as a first and last and only resort. I've tried to run my life proper. I always reckoned if you did that, then nowt could happen that wasn't meant to happen. I don't mean it'd all be plain sailing, I'm not an idiot, but that it'd all have a meaning and God's will would show through everything!'

'And?'

'Well, that's all right till things start going to pieces, one thing after another, and all the time you're saying, Thy will, not mine, and sometimes you're excusing God, and sometimes you're excusing yourself ... Do you understand what I mean? No! Why the hell should you?'

He looked at Dalziel with a terrible contempt but the fat man did not feel it was all directed at him, nor would he have much cared if it had been.

He said, 'Mebbe I understand how your lass feels playing second fiddle to a pile of red bricks. Excuse me.'

He walked away and ran lightly up the stairway to the office.

Shirley Appleyard said, 'What's up?'

'Nowt,' said Dalziel. 'We heard a rumour that your husband came back up here early in February. I were just asking your dad if he'd heard owt about it.'

'And what's he say?'

'That he hadn't. I don't suppose you knew owt about it either, else you'd have told me when you asked me to find him, wouldn't you?'

She didn't meet his gaze for a moment but when she did, hers was as unblinking as his.