Bones & Silence (37 page)

'It wasn't that he didn't recognize his duty, it was just that he couldn't face the thought of what Shirley would think and say.'

'And you?'

'He was my partner and my friend. I believed him absolutely when he said it was an accident. So when he suggested hiding the body, I went along with it.'

'He suggested hiding the body here?'

'No,' admitted Swain. 'He wanted to dig a hole in one of my fields and bury it. I told him that was stupid. It was almost certain to be found. We'd just started work on your garages and even though it went against his grain, I'd persuaded Arnie to work Sundays to catch the mild weather. It'd just be the two of us, we couldn't afford to be paying our labourers overtime, so it was an ideal opportunity for hiding the body. And that's what we did. Next day we excavated the foundations a couple of feet deeper in that corner than we needed. Then Arnie kept watch while I got the body out of the pick-up and covered it with concrete.'

'You did the dirty work, then?' said Pascoe.

'Arnie couldn't face it,' said Swain. 'You cannot begin to believe the turmoil the poor chap was in. As time went by, it got a little better because I persuaded him that if God really disapproved of what he'd done, then He'd find a way of bringing it out. I did what I could to help by having the old barn cleared out, but there was nothing I could do about the most poignant reminders - Shirley and his little grandson.'

'But he still kept quiet,' said Dalziel. 'Waiting for God to do his confessing for him, was that it?'

'Indeed. And odd though it may seem, I think he'd begun to regard you as the Almighty's instrument, Superintendent. When you spoke to him this morning about the boy coming back here, he was really shaken up. I think he came close to making a clean breast of it.'

'And how would you have felt about that, Mr Swain?'

'Like I said just now, glad that it was out. I've had troubles of my own. Now I seem to be getting them behind me and it will be grand to clear the decks absolutely. But I'd give anything for it not to have happened like this. The memory of the digger sliding towards poor Arnie will never leave me. The only thing that eases the burden slightly is something I couldn't say before. In those last few moments I could see his face, and I'm not certain how much of an effort he was really making to get out of the way.'

He said this with the utmost seriousness. How else, indeed, would he say it? But Pascoe waited for the incredulous guffaw from Dalziel. Instead the fat man murmured softly, 'Well, well, another suicide, eh?'

'Not conscious, of course,' said Swain. 'That would have been impossible for a man of Arnie's beliefs. But a slackening of the will to live. That's what a secret like this can do to a man, Superintendent. That's why I decided I owed it to myself as well as Arnie's memory to bring this whole business out into the open.'

At some point after his arrival the initiative seemed to have been firmly claimed by Swain. And at some point while he had been talking the drills had stopped.

The door opened and Wield looked in.

'Sir,' he said, 'I think we're there.'

Dalziel said, 'Constable Seymour here will start knocking your statement into shape, sir. Excuse me.'

On the way downstairs he said fiercely, 'For fuck's sake, Peter, give me a hand in there! We're losing the slippery sod and you just sit there smiling like a curate at a christening.'

In the garage he stooped over the hole. Swain's chalk marks had been very precise. It always surprised Dalziel to see what a small space the human body could fit into, especially when folded into a foetal position. He frowned severely at the young man as though willing him to speak.

Then he said, 'All right. Everyone out. Photos first, then Forensic.'

'All informed, sir,' said Wield.

'Someone will have to tell the girl,' said Pascoe, as they went into the welcome sunshine.

'What? Oh aye. For identification. Look who's here. Man his size should use a moped.'

The Chief Constable was climbing out of a big Rover. He was resplendent in full fig, and the ratepayers' generosity was still written in his face. But the message changed like a teletext screen as he took in Dalziel, and the Roads Department truck, and the two men coming out of the garage with pneumatic drills.

Dalziel approached and Trimble said, 'Andrew, am I sure I want to hear this?'

'Nowt to worry about,' said Dalziel. 'Just an unexpected visitor.'

Quickly he filled Trimble in on the course of events. The Chief Constable groaned gently when he heard about the body but otherwise he listened in silence, asked a couple of pertinent questions when Dalziel had finished, then said, 'Let's hope he's telling the truth and Forensic confirm it. A manslaughter victim in our own backyard's marginally preferable to a murder victim.'

Pascoe said to Dalziel, 'Sir, did you want me to inform Mrs Appleyard?'

He intended only a gentle reminder that people were more important than public relations, but somehow it came out like an ex cathedra rebuke. Dalziel didn't respond. He seemed to have drifted off into some unimaginable inner world. But Trimble took the point well.

'Of course. The young wife. And she's lost her father today. This will be very hard for her. Whoever tells her, I want an experienced WPC present, and the counselling services alerted. But we mustn't jump the gun. Andrew!'

Dalziel rejoined them with a start.

'Sir?'

'I was just saying we should keep the wraps on this till we're absolutely sure what we've got here. And that's for the relatives' sake as well as our own.'

This was for Pascoe's benefit. Reassured by the Chief's reaction to his earlier intervention, he could now admit a smidgeon of sympathy for Trimble's distaste for the anticipated newspaper mockery. It wasn't all that long ago that a dead Italian had been found in a car in this same park, and Pascoe could still recall the yards of wearisome waggery churned out by everyone from the yellow press to the red satirists.

'Aye, you're right,' said Dalziel vaguely.

There was something on his mind, something he was not altogether confident of bringing into the open. Pascoe didn't like this. Dalziel might not always be right, but he was rarely uncertain.

Trimble had sensed it too and he said gently, 'Andrew, I once had toothache and broke my favourite toy engine on my birthday. Since then I've been disaster-proof. What else is on your mind?'

Dalziel said, 'Greg Waterson, sir.'

'Meaning?'

'It's two months almost since he was last seen. We've looked everywhere. Not just us. The Drug Squad. And they
really
look.'

'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.'