Asking for the Moon Page 8

  'Remarkable,' said Pascoe. 'I'm impressed. But not much wiser.'

  'It's a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Ulalume was a nymph, the dead love of the poet who inadvertently returns to the place where he had entombed her a year earlier.

  And I cried - "It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed - I journeyed down here -That I brought a dread burden down here -Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber, This misty mid-region of Weir."

  I can do you The Raven and Annabel Lee, too, if you like.'

  'October,' said Pascoe. 'Weir. Wearton. So that's what brought you up here! What an apt choice of poem!'

  'Had I killed my wife and brought her to Wearton to bury her last October, it might indeed seem so,' said Swithenbank coldly.

  'Indeed,' said Pascoe, catching the man's style. 'But that's not quite what I meant. The reference was aptly chosen in that you understood it instantly. To me it meant nothing. Just chance?'

  Swithenbank shook his head thoughtfully.

  'No, not chance. Among other things I do for my firm, I edit a series called Masters of Literature. Slim volumes, a bit of biography, a bit of lit. crit.; nothing anyone's going to get a Ph.D. for, but useful to sixth-formers and the undergrad. in a hurry. I've done a couple myself, including one on Poe, accompanied by a selection of his poems and stories.'

  'I see,' said Pascoe. 'Would this be generally known?"

  'It didn't make any best-seller list,' said Swithenbank.

  'But people in Wearton could know? Your mother might do a spot of quiet boasting. My son, the author.'

  'I think when I'm away she tries to pretend I'm still at college,' said Swithenbank. 'But yes, some of my old friends would know. The only true test of an old friend is whether he buys your books! Boris Kingsley certainly bought a copy - he asked me to sign it.'

  'Boris . . . ?'

  'Kingsley. He lives at the Big House, Wear End House, that is.'

  'I see,' said Pascoe. 'Any other particular friends?'

  Swithenbank laughed, not very mirthfully.

  'I gather that friends come a close second to husbands as popular suspects.'

  'For anonymous letters, yes,' said Pascoe.

  'I'm sure you're wrong, but let me see. Of my own close circle there remain, besides Boris, Geoffrey Rawlinson. His wife, Stella, nee Foxley - big farmers locally. Geoff's sister, Ursula. And Ursula's husband who also happens to be their cousin, Peter Davenport, who also happens to be our vicar!'

  'I see,' said Pascoe. 'A close circle, this?'

  'To the point of inbreeding,' said Swithenbank cheerfully. 'As good local families, we're probably all related somewhere. Except Boris. They've only been here since the end of the last century.'

  'So you all grew up together?'

  'Oh yes. Except Peter. His branch of the family lived in Leeds, but he used to spend nearly all his holidays here. Surprised us all when he went into Holy Orders.'

  'Why?'

  'No one you've stolen apples with can seem quite good enough to be a priest, can they?' said Swithenbank.

  'So apart from you, all your circle have remained in Wear-ton?' said Pascoe.

  'I suppose so. Except Ursula and Peter, of course. They married while he was still a curate somewhere near Wakefield. When was that? - about eight years ago, yes, I'd married the previous year - of course, I'd been working in London for nearly two years by then . . .'

  'So you'd be twenty-three, twenty-four?'

  'So I would. The others fell in rapid succession. First Geoff and Stella, then, almost immediately, Ursula and Peter. It wasn't till three years after that that Peter came to Wearton

  as vicar. Too young for some of the natives but the local connection helped.'

  'But Mr Kingsley didn't marry?'

  'No. He looked after his parents up at the Big House. They weren't all that old, but were both in poor health. His mother went about eighteen months ago, his father last spring.'

  'And that's the lot? Of your friends, I mean?'

  'Yes, I think so. There's Kate's brother, I suppose. Arthur. Arthur Lightfoot. He was several years older and several ages less couth; certainly not one of the charmed circle that made Wearton the Port Said of the north a dozen years ago. But you'd better prick him down on your interview list.'

  'Interview list?'

  'I presume it's more than idle curiosity that's making you ask these questions, Inspector!' he said acidly.

  The doorbell rang. Its chime would not have disgraced a cathedral.

  'Your mother?' wondered Pascoe. 'I should like to talk to her.'

  'Never gets home till five on Fridays,' said Swithenbank.

  The bell rang again. Swithenbank made no move.

  'Your mother was mistaken about the bell,' observed Pascoe. 'It seems to be working very well.'

  'She hates to be disturbed,' said Swithenbank, 'so she disconnects it. The first thing I do when I come up here is repair it.'

  Again the bell.

  'You certainly know your business,' said Pascoe admiringly. 'Yes, I'd certainly say it was repaired. It's just the tone you miss, not the function, I gather?'

  Swithenbank rose.

  'It never does to appear too available,' he said, leaving the room.

  He pulled the door shut behind him. Pascoe immediately jumped up and moved as quietly to the door as the creaky floorboards would permit, but he needn't have bothered about sound getting out as the woodwork and walls were

  obviously thick enough to prevent anything less raucous than the bell getting in.

  Working on the Dalziel principle that the next best thing to overhearing a conversation is to give the impression you've overheard it, he did not resume his seat but stood close to the doorway, apparently rapt in contemplation of a small oil painting darkened by age almost to indecipherability, until the door opened and he found himself looking at a pretty blonde carrying a large bunch of dahlias.

  'Let me take those to the kitchen. Mother will be delighted. They're her favourite. Oh, this is Detective-Inspector Pascoe, my dear. Jean Starkey.'

  Swithenbank removed the flowers and left Pascoe and the newcomer shaking hands.

  With an expertise that Pascoe admired, the woman assessed the seating available and chose the comfortable armchair. Not liking the look of the cane chair Swithenbank had occupied, Pascoe perched gingerly on a chaise-longue which was even harder than it appeared.

  'Are you an inhabitant of Wearton, too, Miss Starkey?'

  She glanced down at her ringless left hand and smiled approval.

  'Oh no. Like yourself, just visiting. At least I presume you're just visiting?'

  'For the moment, yes.'

  'Does that mean you may eventually settle here?' asked the woman, rounding her eyes.

  'I think it means the Inspector doesn't consider "visiting" adequately covers his possible return flanked by bloodhounds and armed with warrants,' said Swithenbank.

  He came back into the room carrying a huge vase into which the dahlias had been tumbled with no pretence of aesthetic theory.

  Placing them on a small table within reach of the big armchair he said, 'Do what you can with these, Jean dear. I've no talent for nature.'

  Then, relaxing into the cane chair which seemed to have

  been made for a man of his size, he continued, 'Mr Pascoe is here about Kate's disappearance. No, there's been no news, but there's been a new outburst of anonymous activity. Phone calls to me and a letter to the police. By the way, Inspector, you never actually told me what was in the letter, did you? It must have been something pretty striking to get you off traffic duty. Could I see it? I might be able to help with the writing.'

  'No writing, sir,' said Pascoe. 'Typewriter. Possibly a Remington International, quite old. You wouldn't know anyone who has such a machine?'

  He included the woman in his query. She smiled and shook her head.

  'But what did it say?' persisted Swithenbank.

  'Not much. Let me sec. John Swithenbank kno
ws where the other is. Yes, that's it.'

  Swithenbank and Jean Starkey exchanged puzzled glances.

  'I'm sorry, Inspector,' he said. 'It's like Ulalume to you. I don't get it.'

  'No, no. I should apologize,' said Pascoe. 'I haven't been entirely open.'

  He pulled an envelope out of his inside pocket and from it he took three colour prints which he passed over to Swithenbank. The prints showed from different angles a pendant ear-ring, a single pearl in a gold setting on a thin chain about an inch long.

  'Do you recognize that, sir?' asked Pascoe.

  Jean Starkey, unable to contain her curiosity, had risen to peer over Swithenbank's shoulder at the photographs. He glanced up at her and she put her hand on his shoulder either for her support or his comfort.

  'Kate had a pair like that,' he said. 'But I couldn't be absolutely sure.'

  'It matches the specification in your list of clothes and other items which disappeared with your wife.'

  'Does it? It's a year ago. If you say it does, then clearly it does. This was with that cryptic note?'

  'Not so cryptic after all,' said Jean Starkey.

  'No,' said Swithenbank. 'No. I see now why you came hotfoot to Wearton, Inspector. This really does point the finger.'

  'But it means nothing!' protested the woman.

  He smiled up at her.

  'I don't mean at me, dear. I mean at whoever sent it. If it is Kate's, that is. Could I have a look at the ear-ring itself, Inspector?'

  'Eventually,' said Pascoe. 'Just now it's down at our laboratory for examination.'

  'Examination? For what?'

  Pascoe watched Swithenbank closely as he answered.

  'I'm afraid, sir, that there were traces of blood on the fastening bar. As though the ear-ring had been torn from the ear by main force.'

  CHAPTER III

  Much I marvelled this ungainly Jowl to hear discourse so plainly.

  'A poem,' said Dalziel.

  'By Edgar Allan Poe,' said Pascoe.

  'I didn't know he wrote poems as well.'

  'As well as short stories, you mean?'

  'As well as pictures,' said Dalziel. 'I've seen a lot of his stuff on the telly. Good for a laugh mainly, but sometimes he can give you a scare.'

  Pascoe regarded the gross figure of his boss, Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell, unless you wanted your head bitten off) and wondered whether the fat man was taking the piss. But he knew better than to ask.

  'I've got it here,' he said, proffering a 'complete works' borrowed from the local library.

  Dalziel put on his reading glasses which sat on his great

  shapeless nose like a space-probe on Mars. Carefully he read through the poem, his fleshy lips moving from time to time as he half voiced a passage.

  When he had finished he rested the open book on the desk before him and said, 'Now that's something like a poem!'

  'You liked it?' said Pascoe, surprised.

  'Oh aye. It's got a bit of rhythm, a bit of rhyme, not like this modern stuff that doesn't even have commas.'

  'Thank you, Dr Leavis,' murmured Pascoe, and went on hurriedly, 'But does it do us any good?'

  'Depends,' said Dalziel, putting his hand inside his shirt to scratch his left rib cage. 'Was it meant to be general or specific?'

  'Sorry?'

  'If it's specific, listen.

  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

  You want to find yourself a bit of woodland round a pond and go over it with a couple of dogs and a frogman. What's the country like round there?'

  'Like country,' said Pascoe dubiously. 'Wearton's a cluster of houses, pub and a*church in a bit of a valley, so I suppose there are plenty of woods and ponds thereabouts. But if it's that specific, Swithenbank would hardly have mentioned it to me, would he?'

  'Mebbe not. Or mebbe he'd get a kick. Playing with a thick copper.'

  'I didn't get that impression,' said Pascoe carefully.

  Dalziel laughed, a Force Eight blast.

  'More likely with me, eh? But he'd soon spot you're a clever bugger, the way you get your apostrophes in the right place. So if he has killed his missus and if this Ulalume poem does point in the right direction, he'd keep his mouth shut. Right? Unless he was bright enough to think we might have got a few calls ourselves.'

  'Which we didn't,' said Pascoe. 'Just the letter.'

  'And the ear-ring,' said Dalziel. 'Remind me again, lad. How'd we first get mixed up in this business?'

  Pascoe opened the thin file he was carrying and glanced at the first sheet of paper in it.

  'October twenty-fourth last year,' he said. 'Request for assistance from Enfield - that's where Swithenbank lives. Says he'd reported his wife missing on the fifteenth. They hadn't been able to get any kind of line on her movements after the last time Swithenbank claimed to have seen her. Like him, she comes from Wearton, so would we mind checking in case she'd done the classic thing and bolted for home. We checked. Parents both dead, but her brother Arthur still lives in the village. He's got a bit of a smallholding. He hadn't seen her since her last visit with Swithenbank, two months earlier. Nor had anyone else.'

  'Or they weren't saying,' said Dalziel.

  'Perhaps. There was no reason to be suspicious at the time. Routine enquiry. That was it as far as we were concerned. A month later Enfield came back at us. Were we quite sure there was no trace? They wrapped it up, of course, but that's what it came to. They hadn't been able to get a single line on Mrs Swithenbank and when someone disappears as completely as that, you start to get really suspicious. But if you're wise, you double check before you let your suspicions show too clearly.'

  'Who'd done the checking in Wearton?' asked Dalziel.

  'We just left it to the local lad first time round,' said Pascoe. 'This time I sent Sergeant Wield down. Same result. All quiet after that till this week when the ear-ring turned up.'

  'How've they been earning their pay in Enfield this past year?' asked Dalziel.

  'Saving the sum of things from the sound of it,' said Pascoe. 'But in between the bullion robberies and the international dope rings, they managed to lean heavily enough on Swithenbank for him to drum up a tame solicitor to lean back.'

  'Any motive?'

  Pascoe shrugged.

  'The marriage wasn't idyllic, so the gossip went, but no worse than a thousand others. She might have been having a bit on the side, her girl-friends guessed, but couldn't or wouldn't point the finger. He wasn't averse to the odd close encounter at a party, but again no one was naming names.'

  'That's marriage Enfield-style, is it?' said Dalziel, shaking his head. He made Enfold sound like Gomorrah.

  'Give us his tale again,' continued Dalziel.

  'Friday, fourteenth October, Swithenbank arrives at his office at the usual time. Nothing out of the ordinary during the morning except that his secretary told Willie Dove, Inspector Dove that is, who was doing the questioning, that he seemed a bit moody that morning.'

  'How moody? / shouldn't have cut off her head like that - that moody?'

  'The secretary just put it down to the fact that his favourite assistant was leaving that day.'

  'Favourite? Woman?' said Dalziel eagerly.

  'Fellow. No, it wasn't the fact that he was leaving, more why he was leaving that had got to Swithenbank, it seems. This chap was putting it all behind him, going off to somewhere primitive like the Orkneys to live off the earth and be a free man. There's a lot of it about among the monied middle classes.'

  'He's not bent, is he, this Swithenbank?' asked Dalziel, reluctant to leave this scent.

  'No,' said Pascoe, exasperated. 'It just made him think, that's all. Doesn't it make you think a bit, sir, when you hear someone's had the guts to opt out? It's a normal sociological reaction.'

  'Is it, lad? You ever find yourself fancying somewhere primitive, I'll send you to Barnsley. What's all this got to do with anything?'

  '
I'm trying to tell you. Sir. They had a party for the dear

  departing at lunch-time. It started in the office and finished on platform five at King's Cross when they put their colleague on his train. Swithenbank was in quite a state by this time.'

  'Pissed, you mean?'

  'That and telling all who would listen that he was wasting his life, that materialism was going to be the death of Western society, that any man who was brave enough could sever his chains with a single blow . . .'

  'What kind of chains did he have in mind?' wondered Dalziel.

  'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'Though I should say from the way he dresses that he's decided to hang on to the chains and go down with the rest of Western society. Anyway, those sober enough to remember anything remembered this outburst because it was so uncharacteristic of him. An intellectual smoothie was how his secretary rated him.'

  'A loyal girl, that,' said Dalziel.

  'Willie Dove has his ways,' said Pascoe. 'Where was I? Oh yes. From King's Cross they, that is the survivors, walked back to the office, hoping to benefit from the fresh air. It's near Woburn Place, so not too far, and they got back about two-thirty. But Swithenbank didn't go in. Despite all attempts to dissuade him, he headed for his car.'

  'His mates didn't think he was fit to drive?' said Dalziel. 'He must have been bad, considering most of these southern sods drive home half pissed every night!'

  'Possibly,' said Pascoe, as if accepting a serious academic argument. 'The thing was, it wasn't home that Swithenbank was making for, but Nottingham.'

  'Nottingham? He really must've been drunk!'

  'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe. 'Didn't I say? He was due up in Nottingham that evening for a conference with one of his authors. He'd taken an overnight bag to the office with him and planned a gentle drive north at his leisure that afternoon. But as we've seen, events had overtaken him. So far, his story's been confirmable. After this, there's only Swithen-