'In the canteen, I think.'
'Get down there. I want them back out here in two minutes flat.'
'But Mr Swain's pen -'
'Give it here,' said Dalziel. 'I'll see he gets it. He'll need it to sign his next bloody statement! Now get a move on!'
Shaking his head, the sergeant left.
Pascoe said, 'Sir! are you sure you really want to do this? Remember, we've got it worked out that this garage was completed by the eighth of February. There's no sign the floor was touched till we started digging today. Beverley King was alive and well on the thirteenth, we know that for certain. It doesn't make any kind of sense . . .'
'You reckon? What doesn't make sense to me, lad, is that yon bugger hates my guts, yet he comes along here all cooperative. He doesn't just say, 'It's in there some where,' he brings us right inside and sketches out the exact spot with a stick of chalk he just happens to have about his person. He sits upstairs all day with hardly a murmur. And when he goes off, he leaves summat behind so he can come back later and put his mind at rest that he's got away with it.'
'Got away with
'Fuck knows! But he hasn't!' snarled Dalziel. 'Where's them drills?'
He stepped out of the door and stepped back inside immediately. Over his shoulder, Pascoe saw Trimble picking his way across the devastated yard.
He vanished inside. It must have been a close-cut thing, for a couple of minutes later Broomfield emerged with the puzzled drillers.
'Mr Trimble didn't see you?' confirmed Dalziel.
'No. Doesn't he know . . . ?'
'Mind your own business,' snarled Dalziel. 'Right, lads, sorry to keep you so late, but here's what I want you to do. Start drilling here and work across the floor. And do me a favour, keep it quiet as you can.'
The drillers exchanged glances.
'Sorry,' one of them said. 'There's only two levels with these things. That's
'All right,' growled Dalziel. 'If you can't be quiet, at least be quick.'
And once again the drills rattled into life.
'I give him two minutes,' shouted Pascoe.
'Three,' said Dalziel. 'He'll take a minute to believe it. I'll try to cut him off. You keep these buggers hard at it.'
He strode towards the entrance to the station but he had underestimated Trimble's reaction time and he met the man on the threshold. The incredulity was certainly there, however.
'Andy, what's going on? What's that noise?'
'What noise, sir?' said Dalziel cupping his ear.
'That noise! It's the drills, isn't it?' shouted Trimble in anger, and also perhaps slightly in fear that the sound existed solely in his mind.
'Oh,
And as though his words were a command, the drills fell instantly still.
Dalziel smiled benevolently at the Chief Constable. It could be a simultaneous technical hitch but the odds must be heavily against that? The silence stretched on and on till Trimble said impatiently, 'Well?'
'You mean the drills, sir?' said Dalziel with a hint of reproach. 'That's what I was coming to tell you about. Come and take a look.'
At what? he wondered as he strode confidently across the car park, hands deep in his jacket pockets to hide the tightly crossed fingers.
Pascoe appeared at the garage door. He gave a slight confirmatory nod, but it was the bewildered expression on his face which Dalziel found most reassuring, and he let his fingers disentangle as he waved Trimble into the garage ahead of him.
Now there was a second, smaller hole in the concrete floor. It had been dead reckoning with Swain. Only eighteen inches away from his boundary chalk mark, and there gleaming in the harsh light of a bare bulb was a sinuous tress of bright blonde hair.
'It's not possible,’ said Trimble.
'Isn't it, sir? What?' said Dalziel.
'It can't be Beverley King. Can it?'
'No, sir,' said Dalziel with the pleasant condescension of re-established authority. 'I think this time you may be right.'
'Then who?'
There was a noise behind them. They turned. Standing in the doorway was Philip Swain.
'Hello, sir,' said Dalziel. 'Come to pick up your pen, have you?'
