Bones & Silence (24 page)

Swain hung the phone up angrily. Dalziel continued to smile. Now it was decision time for the builder: follow Thackeray's advice and refuse to talk until the lawyer was available, or show how little he had to fear by letting the policeman in?

A firm believer in his own maxim, never offer a choice unless you don't mind which choice is made, Dalziel said with lively interest, 'Why's it called Moscow Farm, Mr Swain? I mean, a place this old must go back before us ignorant buggers up here in Yorkshire had ever heard of Moscow. How old is it, anyway?'

It was hard not to answer two questions on a subject so dear to Swain's heart.

He said, 'Seventeenth-century, most of the present building. But there's bits of the mediaeval walls still in situ, and records show there was a settlement here before Domesday.'

'And Moscow?'

'The name's changed a couple of times, usually after it passed out of the family's hands for a while. Beginning of the last century we lost it and one of my ancestors went off to do a bit of soldiering in Europe. A mercenary. Five years later he turned up rich enough to buy it back. He changed the name to Moscow. The story was that he somehow made his cash during Napoleon's retreat, though it was never clear whose side he was officially on.'

'How the hell do you make money out of something like that?' wondered Dalziel, genuinely curious now.

'Looting the poor bastards who froze to death, I expect,' said Swain. 'As you may have heard, it's an old family tradition that anything's permissible when it comes to the farm.'

He spoke sardonically, clearly intending to let Dalziel see he knew what the fat man was up to, but the gibe faded into surprise as he became aware of his surroundings. Somehow as they talked he and Dalziel had moved from the doorstep to the sitting-room and the fat man was now sitting at his ease in a broad old-fashioned wing chair.

'What the devil is it you want?' exploded Swain.

Dalziel's expression became earnest.

'First I want to say I'm sorry we seem to have got off on the wrong foot, Mr Swain. Now I've got a clear picture of what really happened, I'd like to start over again, so that, like Mr Thackeray said, we can get this all cleared up and you can enjoy your sorrow in private.'

'I'll drink to that,' said Swain, regaining some of his equilibrium.

'Now that's a grand idea. Scotch'll be lovely.'

Swain looked a little put out to be taken so literally, but he fetched Dalziel a reasonably large Scotch with a reasonably good grace.

'That's better,' said Dalziel. 'Nippy out. Looks like we're getting the real winter at last. You'll have been glad it kept off so long.'

'Will I?'

'Because of the car park job, I mean. Can't be much fun laying bricks in a blizzard. But no work, no pay, eh?'

'Dan Trimble wanted it done as soon as possible,' said Swain, inserting the familiarity casually. 'And the long term weather forecast was good.'

'But not the short term financial forecast? Still, no worries now, not once all them lovely dollars drop into your account.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' demanded Swain, angry again, but this time in control of his anger.

'Whoah!' exclaimed Dalziel. 'Don't get mad. I thought that was all behind us. I'm not meaning to be offensive, Mr Swain. You'll get your wife's brass, that's only right, that's the way she wanted it, else why make your wills the way you did?'

'What do you know about our wills?' asked Swain.

In fact Dalziel knew very little except what he'd guessed, but he saw no reason not to sow a little discord between Swain and his lawyer.

'You mustn't blame anyone,' he said. 'There's nowt confidential about a will. Question some people might ask though is, if your missus had managed to get back to the States, would she have changed it?'

'Changed it? Why?'

'In my experience, wives aren't bothered much about benefiting their husbands after giving them the old heave-ho!' sneered Dalziel.

But Swain was out of reach of his provocation now.

'Who says Gail was leaving me?' he asked quietly.

'Come on, Mr Swain. Stands to reason, doesn't it? She wanted you to take up a post with the family firm in California, you wanted her to pump money into your business here. She gives you an ultimatum, then shacks up with her boyfriend. Any chance of a drop more of this? It's a Glenlivet, isn't it?'

It was the need of thinking space rather than hospitality which took Swain back to the drinks cupboard, but Dalziel didn't mind. His gratitude was all to God for making some men clever enough to squeeze whisky out of barleycorn, and himself clever enough to squeeze it out of a stone.

'You seem to have been very busy sticking your nose into my affairs, Dalziel,' said the builder grimly.

'Your
wife's
affairs. Sorry, I didn't mean . . . but now you've brought the subject up, did she have a lot of affairs, Mr Swain, or was Waterson a one-off?'

'I don't know! How the hell should I know? Waterson was the first that I knew of and it came as a great shock to me!'

'Aye, so you said. But you didn't live in each other's pockets, did you? You had your interests, she had hers. Like this Arts Committee. And the Gun Club. Must've spent a lot of time there, made some close friends, especially when she were on the team.'

Swain's grimness dissolved into a harsh laugh.

'Mitchell, you mean? For heaven's sake, man, Gail grew up surrounded by real Hollywood studs. You don't think she was going to find that pathetic imitation anything but amusing, do you?'

'There's all kinds of amusement,' probed Dalziel.

Swain took a long pull at his whisky. To drown a resurgence of rage? If so, the Scotch proved a good palliative, for his response was measured and reasonable.

'OK, look, I don't know. I was deceived once, so why not a dozen times?'

He should have let his anger speak. It would have rung truer than this rueful acceptance of possible cuckoldry, thought Dalziel. Or was he, as Pascoe clearly thought, letting prejudice colour all his responses to Swain? He felt a sudden uncharacteristic flood of self-doubt. OK, so the man had plenty of motive for killing his wife, but most men did, and vice versa. Might it not after all have been simply a happy accident that just when he must have thought all was lost, Gail had turned out not to be in Los Angeles changing her will, but in Hambleton Road, killing herself?

He looked at Swain and thought, No! Swains don't have that sort of luck! In fact from what he'd learned of the family, they seemed to suffer from congenital bad luck. What they did have, some of them, was a certain capacity for grabbing at straws, for plucking their own salvation out of other people's disaster.

Sod all the contradictions and contra-evidence! Sod pious Pascoe and his clever little experiments! In Dalziel's book of certainties Swain had killed his wife, and Dalziel had as good as seen him do it! The flood of self-doubt had parted and he was safely through it, but there was still a long trek to the Promised Land.

He said, 'A man needs to be busy himself to be deceived, Mr Swain.'

'My work did keep me occupied, yes.'

'I mean . . . you know . . .
busy.'

Dalziel made a pumping motion with his forearm and said, 'Sauce for the goose, eh? Of course, it's different for a man.'

He gave his vilest leer. He had little hope of coaxing a confidence from the man but he might bludgeon a brag. If (and why not?) Swain were having a bit on the side, that would strengthen his motivation, and it might be worth giving this not improbable
she
a good shaking to see what came out of her. Between the sheets was the non-Catholic's confessional.

'Is it? How the hell would you know?'

Swain was answering his words not his thoughts, but it was just as offensive. Oh, I shall have you, my lad, promised Dalziel.

He changed tack and said, very serious, 'All I'm saying, sir, is, if there is a lady, better to tell us now rather than risk us stumbling on her unawares and mebbe causing embarrassment. I can promise maximum discretion. We'd just want to see her for purposes of elimination. Like you wanted to see Mrs Swain at Hambleton Road. For purposes of elimination.'

He spoke with the sweet reasonableness of a hard left politician proposing revolution, and vastly enjoyed the millisec in which Swain reacted to tone before registering content.

For another longer moment he thought he had triggered the expected explosion but from somewhere deep down in himself Swain drew up reserves of control.

'Thackeray warned me about you,’ he said. 'But he didn't tell me the half. Well, I'll tell you what, Mr Dalziel. You provoke away all you like. I've got nothing to hide. The only games I'll play with you will be on Eileen Chung's stage. I suppose that was your clever little idea too? Well, I'm calling your bluff, Dalziel. It may please your ego to play God to my Lucifer, but wrap you up though Chung might, it'll be plain to everyone you're still a fat slob!'

There it was. The anger burning through.

'And you, Mr Swain?' said Dalziel softly. 'What'll people see in you?'

Swain laughed, back in charge.

'All the mirth that is made is marked in me!'
he said. 'You see, I've started learning my lines already. I hope you can keep up, Superintendent. Now, good day.'

'Good day to you too,' said Dalziel pleasantly. 'And thanks for your time.'

He left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. He had noticed an extension phone on a table in the sitting-room. He went to the wall phone in the hall and gently lifted the receiver. Swain was dialling. The number was ringing. He waited.

A woman's voice spoke and for a second he felt a frisson of self-congratulatory delight. Then the words registered.

'Thackeray, Amberson, Mellor and Thackeray, can I help you?'

Shit,' said Dalziel, replacing the receiver. Like so many things, it worked more often on the television screen than it did in life.

He left but not by the front door. Pascoe had reported something about a secretary who had an office out back. Who knows? Perhaps Swain was conventional enough to be banging his secretary. Or perhaps she was nosey enough to listen in to his telephone calls.

Outside he ran nimbly up the steps leading to the office, paused to get his breath, then entered with a suddenness intended to be impressive.

The girl behind the desk glanced up from her book but gave little sign of being impressed. Her silence forced him to speak.

'Mrs Appleyard?' he said. 'Detective-Superintendent Dalziel.'

'Yes?'

'You don't seem surprised.'

'You've told me who I am and who you are, both of which I knew. What's to be surprised over?'

Dalziel examined this and found it pleasingly pragmatic.

'Mind if I ask you a few questions?' he said.

She returned her attention to her book without replying.

Dalziel scratched his armpit and wondered how best to proceed.

'Mr Swain a good boss, is he?' he essayed.

'He's all right,' she said without looking up.

'How'd he get on with his missus?'

She put her book down and examined him in a way which made him feel on sale. She was a plain, ordinary-looking girl but her cool brown eyes had a disconcerting steadiness.

'You want me to help you. Why?'

'Well, it's everyone's duty to help the police, isn't it? I mean, how else can we fight crime?'

Even to his own ears his platitudes lacked conviction.

She said, 'That's not what I meant. Why should
I
help
you?'

The pronouns were emphasized. He considered his answer carefully. He had the feeling there were several wrong answers but only one right one.

He said, 'Because mebbe I could help you.'

This seemed to amuse her momentarily, then she became serious again.

'You reckon? All right, I want to find my husband.'

Straight down to bargaining, thought Dalziel admiringly. With him not even knowing whether she had owt to bargain with!

He said, 'Lost him, have you?'

She explained briefly, clearly, like Wield making a report.

'His name's Tony Appleyard. We got married three years back when we found I were pregnant. Then he got made redundant and after a while he got so fed up, he went down south to look for work. He were a fitter by trade but he ended up in London, Brent it were, labouring on the lump till he got something better. He wrote and sent money when he could, at first anyway. He was living in this place with a lot of other men, lodging-house he called it but it sounded like a doss house. I used to write regular, but his answers got less and less frequent. Christmas I thought he might come back but there was only a card for the kiddie. I got so I was thinking of going down there to see for myself, but Dad said he'd go. He went in the middle of January. At the house they told him Tony had moved out a week before and not left a forwarding address. I've been in touch with the police down there and up here, the uniformed lot, I mean. They all said it was nowt to do with them. What a grown man did was up to him as long as it wasn't a crime and leaving your wife and kid evidently isn't. But I reckon they could find him if they wanted. If you wanted.'

Dalziel said gently, 'Why do you want to find him, love? Court order for maintenance won't do much good unless he's got a regular job.'

'Mebbe that's why he's moved on,' said the woman. 'Mebbe he's shacking up with someone else. Don't worry, I've thought of every possibility. And mebbe it's just all got too much for him and he's on the road feeling as down and desperate as I do sometimes. I need to know, Mr Dalziel, so I can work out what's best to do. Will you help?'

Dalziel considered. Scratching his corrugated neck he said, 'Chief Inspector Pascoe spoke with you the other day. Why'd you not ask him?'

She half-smiled and said, 'He were more interested in what I was reading. I read to get away from things. You look to me more interested in the things I'm getting away from.'

Dalziel smiled back.

'I shouldn't underestimate Mr Pascoe,' he said. But he felt flattered all the same.