Bones and Silence

After a while Ellie looked in, then withdrew, and he heard the television come on in the lounge.

Half an hour later she looked in again.

'Not finished yet?' she asked.

'I've finished being a loving husband,' he said. 'Now I'm going to be a right bastard.'

'Oh, sorry, I blinked. There, I missed it,' she said. 'I'm off to bed.'

'I'll be up in half an hour or so.'

'Which one of you? 'Night.'

He smiled after her, then returned to his papers.

Forty minutes later he read through his notes.

And there it was. Not much; in fact almost totally insignificant. Except that when it was all you had, it had to signify.

He glanced at his watch. Too late to disturb anyone. Except a wife. Wives were not anyone.

She opened one eye as he entered the room, then closed it again. He squeezed her shoulder gently till she reopened it.

'Do I have to guess which one it is?' she asked sleepily.

'Neither. It's a benighted male in search of female illumination. Wake up, my sweet, and tell me all about our little friends, the bats.'

The following morning he was up early. By eight o'clock he was passing through a creaking doorway beneath a vandalized legend which read JOE SWINDLES - CRAP MERCHANT. In a miasmic office a stout white-haired man was smoking a small cheroot, eating a fried egg sandwich and reading the Sun. He looked up with the ill-tempered expression of one who does not care to have his matutinal pleasures interrupted, then smiled yolkily as he recognized his visitor.

'Mr Pascoe. This is a nice surprise. Haven't seen you in ages. I've been feeling right neglected. What can it mean, I ask myself? Have I given offence? Or has he simply left me for another?'

'I expect it means, Joe, that either you've got honester or I've got slower,' said Pascoe.

'Well, you might have got slower, Mr Pascoe. Happens to the best of us. But if I got any honester, they'd have had to pick me for God in these Mysteries instead of that lovely Mr Dalziel. How is the dear old chap, by the way? Must be getting close to retirement now?'

Pascoe smiled. It was Joe Swindles's alcoholic ambition to get Dalziel into his crusher before he died to repay him for what he considered to be various injustices perpetrated over the years.

'I'll pass on your regards,' he said. 'Now, Joe, I want a favour.'

Swindles listened as Pascoe explained, then he scratched his venerable pate and said, 'In February, you say? Now that's asking a lot, Mr Pascoe. That could take a lot of looking for, and then it'd most likely have gone in the crusher.'

Pascoe was not impressed. One thing he had learned about Joe Swindles was that he had an almost supernaturally accurate knowledge of the contents of his scrap yard. All he was doing now was negotiating.

'I know your time's valuable, Joe,' said Pascoe. 'So I'll give you a fiver a minute. That's a fiver for every minute less than five it takes to find them.'

It cost him twenty pounds. He looked at the rusting heap of agricultural machinery and tools removed from the barn at Moscow Farm and wondered if he was doing a wise thing.

'Why'd you hang on to them, Joe?' he asked.

'Agricultural archaeology,' Swindles replied promptly. 'There's money in it already. This stuff's not old enough yet, but a few more years and one of these country museums'll be paying a pretty penny for this junk.’

‘Is that what you call a spike harrow?' said Pascoe pointing.

'Either that, or a hell of a hairbrush,' said Swindles.

Pascoe examined the implement in silence for a few minutes. Then he said, 'I'll need to borrow it, Joe.'

'Just the harrow?'

'No. Best take the lot. You'll get it back.'

'Bloody right I will!' Swindles thought for a moment then said, 'You'll need someone to lift it wherever you want it taken.'

'Are you volunteering?'

'I'd have to charge my usual rates. Discount for cash.'

Pascoe laughed.

'Joe, he said, 'if Mrs Thatcher knew about you, she'd make you a lord.'

He was still chuckling as Swindles unloaded the scrap on to the paved area in front of the police laboratories.

Gentry, the Head of the Forensic Examination Unit, did not share his amusement. He extended a skeletal finger towards the heap of rusting rubbish and said harshly, 'What is that?'

Pascoe, knowing from experience that there was no way to charm him into cooperation, replied crisply, 'Evidence in the case of Anthony Appleyard. Here's a copy of the path, report. You'll see it says he died as a result