Bones and Silence

This stiff formula calmed things down for a second while they prised some meaning from it.

'At risk from me?' demanded Marwood.

'Don't be daft,’ said the woman. 'You mean she's going to harm herself, don't you?'

'Yes, I'm sorry,' said Pascoe, still floundering.

'You haven't written any letters to the police, have you, Mrs Waterson?' said Wield, still playing it official.

'No, I haven't.

'Hey, this is outrageous, you know that?' intervened Marwood, putting on indignation with his clothes. 'What are you suggesting? What right do you think you've got, bursting in here and telling Pam she's some sort of nut case . . .'

'Be quiet, Ellison,' she said. 'They didn't burst in. And there have been times recently when I thought. . . well, never mind what I thought. But I haven't written any letters. And I'm going to be OK, believe me. Greg almost ruined my life when he was alive. I promise you, he's not going to finish the job now he's dead.'

She lit a cigarette and drew on it long and deep.

Marwood said, 'You said you'd give those things up.'

'No. That's what you said,' stated Pam Waterson. 'Which is not, and is never going to be, the same thing.'

It was time to go and let this little skirmish either explode into war or implode into bed.

'Come on, sir,' said Wield to Pascoe. 'Didn't you say you wanted to check Mrs Appleyard?'

'What? Oh yes.'

'Appleyard?' said Marwood, glad of a diversion which without dishonour might allow him to back off from the tobacco war. 'Shirley Appleyard, the Stringer girl? Is she on your list too? Well, tough tittie again, boys. Her mother was admitted late last night and last I saw, young Shirley was sitting by her bedside in Ward seventeen.'

They left. Pascoe needed to check, of course, but this time Wield had no difficulty in convincing him to take a less precipitate approach.

The ward sister told them that Mrs Stringer had been admitted for observation after collapsing the previous evening. So far no specific medical condition had been diagnosed beyond that covered by the vague term nervous exhaustion. Her daughter had brought her in, stayed till satisfied there was no immediate danger, gone home to look after her child, and returned that morning.

As they spoke the girl herself appeared. Her eyes took in Pascoe and Wield but she made no sign of recognition as she said to the nurse, 'She's sleeping again. I'll head home now. I've got a neighbour looking after Antony and I don't like to impose. But I'll be back later.'

'Fine,' said the nurse. 'Don't worry. She's in good hands.'

Shirley Appleyard nodded and walked away. The two policemen, taken by surprise, had to hurry to catch up with her.

'Mrs Appleyard, could we have a word?' said Pascoe.

'I thought we were done with you lot, till the trial anyway,' said the woman, still walking.

'Yes, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about your mother too. I'm glad it doesn't sound too serious.'

'No? If she'd lost a leg, would that sound serious?'

'Yes, of course, but...’

'Well, she's lost something that's left a far bigger gap!'

She halted and swung round to confront Pascoe. For a moment she looked ready to explode in anger, then she took a deep breath and resumed control.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I shouldn't take it out on you. I'd no idea either. I was stupid and thought that once she got over the first shock, she'd really be able to relax and start enjoying life now Dad had gone. I thought I'd have the much bigger gap because Tony and me were young and I still had some daft romantic notions hidden away. Shows what I know, doesn't it? I tried to feel properly upset when I found out Tony were dead, but a sort of relief kept on breaking in; not relief that he was dead, I didn't want that, but relief that I didn't need to wonder what was going on any more. Mam, though, well, she'd had to put up with Dad for over twenty years, at least that's how I saw it. But it wasn't just putting up, there was a lot more to it than that. I never realized, and there I was telling her to buck up and enjoy life, like she'd just won first dividend on the pools, and all the time...’

She shook her head in self-rebuke.

'That's the way anyone would have seen it, believe me,' said Pascoe earnestly.

'It'd be nice to think so,' said the girl. 'But it's not true. I was moaning on about her yesterday to this old girl I met at the Kemble. That Chung asked me to do some poster-work, did you know that? And then I got on helping with other things like painting backcloths and so on. There were lots of other people there, she's really marvellous at getting people to help, and I mean, normally I'd not have done more than say hello to someone like this Mrs Horncastle, she's a Canon's wife and talks dead posh, but that doesn't matter when you're around Chung, and I found myself moaning on about Mam not being able to jolly herself up. She didn't say a lot but she must have had a word with Chung, 'cos next thing she's working alongside me and talking about Mam, and suddenly I was seeing things in a completely different way. Funny, isn't it? She only met her the once and she seemed to know more about her than I did! When I got home last night, I started talking to Mam, really talking to her, not at her, and suddenly she started talking back like I'd never heard before, on and on and on, just one great flood. Something like that's supposed to make you better, I always thought, getting it out of the system, that sort of thing. Only it wasn't like that. She went through the whole of their life together, good and bad, and it left her exhausted, more than exhausted, collapsed. I thought she'd had an attack and I rang the doctor and he got her in here. They say there's nowt specific, it's just that she's been hanging on, using all her strength just to hang on, and I never saw it, I never saw...’

There were tears in her eyes. Pascoe took her arm and squeezed it, helplessly. His distress seemed to act homeopathically on hers, for she recovered her composure almost instantly and said, 'Anyroad, what are you two