Bones and Silence dap-11 Page 7

  'It's a bit nippy in here,' he said, touching the whitewashed wall. The stones were probably three feet thick and colder on the inside than on the out. 'With all that room in the house, you'd have thought Mr Swain would have had his office in there rather than out here.'

  'Mrs Swain wouldn't have it,' said the woman.

  'Did he tell you that?'

  She considered.

  'No,' she said.

  'How do you know, then?'

  She considered once more, then said indifferently, 'Don't know, but I know.'

  Pascoe sorted this out. Surprisingly it made sense.

  'How long have you been working here, Miss . . . I'm sorry . . . ?'

  'Shirley Appleyard. And it's Mrs.'

  'Sorry. You look so young,' he said with full flarch. It was like shining a torch into a black hole.

  'I'm nineteen,' she said. 'I've been here two years.'

  'Do you like it?'

  She shrugged and said, 'It's a job. Better than nowt, these days.'

  'Yes, they're hard to come by,' said Pascoe, switching to the sympathetic concerned approach. 'You did well, there was probably a lot of competition.'

  'No,' she said. 'I got it because me dad's Mr Swain's partner.'

  'Mr Stringer, you mean? That's handy,' said Pascoe.

  'You mean I should give thanks to God for being so lucky? Don't worry, I get told that at least twice a day and three times on Sundays.'

  She spoke with a dull indifference worse than resentment. Pascoe, as always curious beyond professional need, said, 'I met your father this morning. He seemed a little out of sorts . . .'

  'You mean he didn't strike you as being full of Christian charity?' she said with an ironic grimace. 'He's not that kind of Christian. Didn't you notice the chapel over from the church as you came through the village? Red brick. That's Dad. All the way through.'

  Pascoe smiled and said, 'You live in the village still? With your parents?'

  'Aye. Holly Cottage. That's it you can see at the corner of the field.'

  Pascoe looked out of the window. Visible through the open end of the yard was a small cottage about fifty yards away.

  'You've not far to come,' he said. 'Your husband lives there too, does he?'

  'He's away working, if it's any of your business,' she retorted with sudden anger. 'And what's all this to do with Mrs Swain getting shot?'

  'Shot? Now where did you hear that?' wondered Pascoe. The media so far hadn't got past the general story of a shooting in Hambleton Road, and he was reluctant to think that Seymour had been indiscreet on his earlier visit.

  'Dad rang up this morning to say there'd been some bother, something about Mrs Swain and a shooting, he didn't seem very clear, but he was just ringing to tell me to say nowt if anyone got on to me at work and started asking questions about the Swains.'

  'Excluding the police, of course,' smiled Pascoe.

  'He didn't say that,' she answered without returning his smile. 'So she has been shot, then? Dead?'

  Pascoe said carefully, 'There has been a shooting, yes. And yes, I'm afraid Mrs Swain is dead. And I hope, despite your father, you'll feel able to answer a couple of questions, Mrs Appleyard.'

  'Such as?'

  'Such as, what did you reckon to Mrs Swain?' said Pascoe.

  'She were all right,' said Shirley Appleyard. 'Bit stuck up, but always polite enough when we met.'

  'She seemed a nice-looking woman from her photos,' said Pascoe. He was thinking of the wedding album they'd found in the house, and trying not to think of the bloody ruin on the official police pictures.

  'Not bad,' said the girl. 'And she knew how to make the best of herself. Clothes and jewels and make-up, I mean. Nothing flashy, but you could tell just by looking it cost an arm and a leg.'

  The labels in the clothes brought from Hambleton Road confirmed this. And there'd been an engagement ring and a matching pendant which, if the stones were real, must have cost a few thousand at the least.

  'When did you last see her?' he asked.

  'Week last Friday. I bumped into her in the yard. She said ta-ra.'

  'Just that?'

  'She didn't actually say ta-ra,' said the girl impatiently. 'It were something like, we'd likely not see each other before she went off that weekend, so goodbye.'

  'I thought she was just going on a trip. Didn't that sound a bit final to you, as if she didn't think she'd be coming back?'

  'Mebbe,' said Shirley Appleyard. 'Or mebbe she just didn't expect to find me here when she came back.'

  'Oh? Why's that?'

  'Business weren't good. Once this job for you lot's done, there's nowt else on the books. So it could be she reckoned the whole thing would have folded by then.'

  'But she had money, didn't she?' prompted Pascoe.

  'Oh aye, but not to pour into this sort of thing.' She gestured at the yard. 'She were generous enough by all accounts with things like art and music, wildlife and restoration funds, you know, all the posh sort of things where you meet the top people. I don't think she'd have been sorry to stop being a builder's wife.'

  'Well, she's managed that,' said Pascoe. 'Did she strike you as a moody kind of person: you know, on top of the world sometimes, then down in the dumps a bit later?'

  His effort to put the question casually failed completely.

  'Drugs, you mean,' said the girl. 'Is that what you're looking for?'

  Pascoe thought of reading the Riot Act, of lying through his teeth, then decided that neither of these courses was going to get him anywhere.

  'Would it surprise you?' he asked.

  'Why should it?' she asked. 'People'll do owt for a bit of pleasure these days. But Mrs Swain, I'd not have said she was more up and down than most, though with her money, she'd be able to afford a steady enough supply for it not to show, wouldn't she?'

  It was a reasonable answer. The more he talked to this girl, the more he felt the need for a sharp mental reprimand. On first sight he'd been ready to categorize her as being as lumpy mentally as she looked physically. Now he realized he'd been very wrong on both counts.

  He said, 'From what you say, Mrs Swain wouldn't have much to do with the day-to-day running of the business?'

  'Nowt at all.'

  He went on, 'Might she bump into any of your customers, though?'

  'Not in a big room she wouldn't. There were never that many.'

  Pascoe laughed out loud and this natural response was far more effective than his earlier hackneyed attempt at charm, for the girl gave him her first smile.

  'A Mr Gregory Waterson, for instance?' he went on. 'Do you know if she ever met him?'

  'Him who had the studio conversion? Oh yes, she met him.'

  'You saw them together?'

  'He came here a couple of times about the job. Once neither Mr Swain nor Dad were around, but he met Mrs Swain in the yard and went into the house with her.'

  'Oh?'

  'Not what you're thinking,' she said. 'Not that I reckon he didn't try his hand.'

  'What makes you say that?'

  'I'd been roughing out some figures for him and I went to the house myself to give him them and I got the impression he'd been coming on strong and Mrs Swain had told him where to get off.'

  'I see. Did you get the impression he'd persist?'

  'Oh aye. Thought he were God's gift.'

  'But you didn't agree with his estimate?'

  She shrugged. 'Funny kind of gift for God to make, I'd say.'

  'But a matter of taste perhaps? Would Mrs Swain perhaps be more interested than she let herself show at first?'

  'How should I know that?' she asked scornfully.

  'Sorry,' repeated Pascoe. 'But as an observer, how would you say things were generally between the Swains?'

  Again she shrugged.

  'It was a marriage,' she said. 'Anything's possible.'

  Pascoe laughed and said, 'That's a touch cynical, isn't it? If you don't believe in the power of true love, I think you've go
t the wrong book.'

  She picked up her discarded Jane Eyre.

  'You mean it ends happy?' she said. She sounded disappointed.

  'Afraid so. You'll need to try men for unhappy endings,' said Pascoe with gentle mockery. 'Try Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Or Anna Karenina. Now they're really miserable!'

  He grinned as he spoke and was rewarded with a second faint smile.

  'What's the rest of this building used for?' he asked.

  'Down below, you mean? That was the old byre and stables, I think. Now it's used for garages and to store stuff they don't like to leave out in the wet.'

  'Is it open? I'd like to take a look.'

  'It'll be locked. Dad doesn't trust anybody.'

  She picked up a bunch of keys, rose and led the way down the outside stair. She was right. All the doors were padlocked. She stood and watched as Pascoe poked around in a desultory fashion. He had little hope that he was going to find a barrowful of dope out here, and if it were hidden by the thimbleful, it would take a trained dog to sniff it out.

  Finished, he walked out into the yard again.

  'Same kind of stuff over there?' he asked, looking at the barn on the far side.

  'No. That's empty.'

  'Better have a glance all the same.'

  Again she was right. The stone floor was swept clean. He looked up into the rafters, screwing his eyes up against the darkness. He thought he saw a movement. There were certainly patches of darker darkness against the dull grey of the slates.

  'Bats,' said the girl.

  'What?'

  'Bats. Pipistrelles, I think they call them.'

  He took an involuntary step backwards. Dark places he'd never cared much for, even less since his experience down the mine. And the creatures of darkness, in particular bats, made him shudder. Ellie, in whom he detected a definite green shift in recent months, had become a member of a local Bat Preservation Group. Had she opted for whales or wild orchids, he could have gone along with her in passion, perhaps even in person; but while intellectually one hundred per cent in favour of the rights of bats, the thought of actually touching them filled him with horror.

  'It's all right. They're hibernating,' said Shirley Appleyard.

  Ashamed of being detected in this unmanly behaviour, Pascoe said brusquely, 'Why's this place not used for anything?'

  'Don't know. There was some talk of Mrs Swain turning it into an indoor shooting gallery.'

  'And what happened?'

  'Came to nowt. Mebbe because of the bats. You can't disturb them, you know. Or mebbe Mr Swain didn't like the idea because of his brother.'

  'His brother?'

  'The one who used to own this place. Tom Swain.'

  It rang a faint bell.

  'Didn't he . . . ?'

  'Shot himself a few years back. In here,' said the girl, deadpan.

  'In here? Not very lucky with guns, the Swains, are they?'

  The girl didn't reply. Pascoe looked around the barn. Bats and a ghost. He couldn't blame Swain for objecting to his wife's proposal.

  He said, 'It looks as if someone's got some plan for it now.'

  'Because it's been cleared out?' The girl shrugged. 'There was nothing but a load of rusty old farm stuff here. Mr Swain got rid of it a couple of weeks back.'

  'So he is planning to use it?'

  'Mebbe. I think he were more interested in the money he got for the scrap.'

  'Really?' said Pascoe, alert to this hint of financial problems. 'Money a bit short, is it?'

  'You'd need to ask Mr Swain or my dad about that,' said the girl.

  'Sorry. I'm not going behind their backs, but you did mention the scrap,' he said conciliatorily.

  'Yes, I did,' she admitted. 'It were just that it amused me at the time.'

  She looked the kind of person who might well treasure up anything which proved a source of amusement.

  'What was funny about it?' he asked.

  'Just the name of the dealer, that was all. They called him Swindles.'

  'Joe Swindles?' said Pascoe.

  'That's right. You know him? That figures.'

  It was true that the police and Joe Swindles were long acquainted, but the old boy had gone for some years now without overstepping the mark, and in fairness Pascoe said, 'Just socially. There's nothing against him.'

  'Too clever, is he?'

  Pascoe laughed, then stopped as he was sure he heard a respondent squeaking from up in the rafters.

  He said, 'Well, that'll do, I think,' and stepped out into the sunlight.

  The girl took this as her dismissal and went back up the stairway to her office without saying anything more.

  He watched her, frowning, then went back into the house.

  Seymour was on his knees in the kitchen with his head in the electric oven.

  'If you're trying to kill yourself,' said Pascoe, 'I'd opt for gas. If not, then pack up. I'll just ring in, then we're on our way to the gun club.'

  He dialled the station and got through to Wield.

  'Is he in?' he asked.

  'Eden Thackeray's turned up to see Swain,' said the Sergeant. 'The Super's taken him upstairs for a chat and a drink.'

  'Will he be long?'

  'Depends,' said Wield. 'You know he fixed up for Swain to be checked out for drugs? Well, the doctor's been held up on some emergency and the Super won't be wanting to let old Eden at his client before he's been given the once over. Is it anything important?'

  'Just a negative on drugs at Moscow,’ said Pascoe. 'But the business doesn't look too healthy financially. Send him a note in, will you? How'd you get on?'

  Wield gave him a brief account of his interview with Mrs Waterson. As he listened Pascoe flicked through the pages of the wedding album which he'd laid on the table by the phone. Shirley Appleyard had been a little ungenerous. Certainly at the time she was married, Gail Swain had been rather more than all right. He paused at an all-female group photograph by the side of a palm-fringed swimming pool. Even among those tanned and cosseted women she stood out, slim, radiant, her fair hair glowing like a candle flame.

  But as he drove away from Moscow Farm a few moments later it was an image of a stocky, unkempt, pale-faced woman reading Jane Eyre that he took with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'Philip Swain is an interesting, not to say complex character,' said Eden Thackeray. 'I'm surprised you were not previously acquainted, Andrew.'

  'We were. He's the jobbing builder mucking up our car park,' said Dalziel.

  'I mean socially. As twin luminaries in our great social galaxy, I would have expected your orbits to cross before now.'

  Dalziel grinned. He enjoyed Thackeray's gentle piss taking in much the same way as the solicitor enjoyed his more gamesome assaults. Superficially everything about the two men was different, but it was mainly a difference of style. Beneath his bland exterior, the senior partner of Messrs Thackeray, Amberson, Mellor and Thackeray was as sharp, ruthless, and even anarchic as Dalziel himself.

  'They've crossed now,' said the fat man. 'And they used to build gibbets at crossroads. So why's he interesting, apart from having shot his missus?'

  'Andrew, please. A slip of the tongue, I realize, but you really should be more careful.'

  'I'm the most careful bugger you'll meet in a summer day at Scarborough Fair,' said Dalziel.

  But he smiled as he spoke. Information came before provocation. He had said nothing yet about the content of his own witness statement. On the other hand, to balance matters, he hadn't mentioned Waterson's either, nor the latter's defection.

  'Mrs Swain's suicide is part of a long tragic history for that family,' resumed Thackeray. 'He's a Swain of Currthwaite, you knew that, of course?'

  'I know he lives out there. I thought he'd be just another townie with a daft American wife playing at country living.'

  'Not entirely unjust,' admitted Thackeray, holding his glass to the light to admire the crystal facets and also, apparently fortuitously, to po
int its emptiness. Dalziel groaned satirically and refilled it with the twelve-year-old Islay he'd dug out of his desk on the lawyer's arrival.

  'How kind. Yes, Swain is by education and, I suspect, inclination, a townie. But there have been Swains at Currthwaite since Elizabeth's day. Minor country gentry rather than good yeoman stock, I'd say. Indeed, they have usually appeared if not reluctant, certainly rather feckless farmers. But with a great sense of loyalty to the place. They were forever getting into debt, and on many occasions even lost the farm, but somehow they always contrived to get it back. Their saving grace has been that, despite the fact that few of them have shown any talent for safe investment and hum-drum business, there is a consistently recurring strain of ingenuity and opportunism which has hitherto pulled them back from the brink of complete disaster.'

  'Good con-men, that's what you mean?' said Dalziel.

  Thackeray sighed and said, 'What I mean is what I say, Andrew. To continue, Philip is the product of the family's last period of prosperity in the post-war years.'

  'Spiv time,' grunted Dalziel. 'Sorry. Go on.'

  'His elder brother, Tom, was naturally in line for the farm, and Philip was packed off to college to read business studies. It was a superstitious rather than a sensible choice. Philip's bent was entirely practical and something like engineering would have made much more sense, but I think his father hoped that by laying him on the altar of commerce, he might at last appease Mammon and usher in a long period of prosperity for the Swains.'

  'You don't half talk pretty,' said Dalziel, topping up their glasses. 'Is that how you get to charge so much?'

  'It helps. Where was I? Oh yes. Philip did all right, nothing spectacular, but family influence helped him to a job locally with Atlas Tayler who you may recall were successfully making the transition from old electrics to new electronics in the seventies. He was still playing his promising young executive role there five years later when they got taken over by the American company, Delgado International, who were keen to establish a European base.'

  'Delgado. Hey, he called his mother-in-law Mrs Delgado.'