Bones and Silence

'Come on! You were in on the arm-twisting!' he accused.

'That was before I knew it was going to cost us fifty quid,' said Ellie. 'Let the sod get a taxi with his rake- off!'

Pascoe, uncomfortable in his role of Judas goat leading Dalziel towards Godhead, had been easy meat when the fat man had started touting his tickets to the Mayor's Ball. 'It's for a good cause,' he'd protested to Ellie. 'It's conspicuous charity,' she'd retorted. 'If all those fascist ego-trippers just gave the ticket money to the Hospice Fund, plus what they'll probably spend on new outfits, booze, getting there, etc., we could all have two beds to die in!'

'Second reason,' said Pascoe. 'You've never actually penetrated the monster's lair. Now's your chance!'

When Dalziel returned hospitality, he took you to a pub or a restaurant. Ellie could not deny her often expressed curiosity about his unimaginable home life.

'All right,' she said. 'That's two. So let's hear the third.'

'If two are good enough, that's a majority,' he said evasively.

'Don't be smart, Peter. It doesn't sit right on a Chief Inspector. What's three?'

'In a minute. We're almost there.'

Suddenly he gave a loud double blast on his horn, causing Ellie to jump.

'What was that for?' she demanded.

Thought I saw a cat,' he said vaguely, turning left, then left again almost immediately.

'Are we lost?'

'No. Here it is.' He pulled up and got out, looking at his watch.

'We've plenty of time,' said Ellie. 'Is this really it? I was expecting something a little more gothic.'

'You really ought to watch more old movies. When he's abroad, all he needs is a coffin full of earth from his native Transylvania.'

Dalziel flung open the door at the first ring of the bell. He was immaculate in white shirt, red and green striped tie, and a suit of superb cut in a high quality charcoal grey worsted. For an unhappy moment Pascoe thought that he was ready for an immediate departure, then he noticed he was barefooted.

'Ellie, what fettle?' he said heartily. 'It's been a long time.'

'Hello, Andy,' she replied. 'You're looking very smart.'

'The suit, you mean? Man with a good suit can go anywhere, isn't that what they say? Come away in. Take your coat off, Ellie, so you'll feel the benefit. By God, you don't look so bad yourself. Just wait till I get you up at the Mayor's Ball. We'll show these young 'uns a thing or two!'

Pascoe blew his nose violently in a vain effort to smother his snort of laughter at this coetaneous assumption. Ellie glared at him and Dalziel said, 'Help yourselves to booze. I'll not be long.'

The room they were left in was small and square and contained a three-piece suite in uncut moquette; a fourteen-inch television; a glass-fronted cabinet with a Queen Anne style tea service; a Victorian commode; a marble fireplace polished to look like plastic; a mantel bearing a stopped carriage clock, two brass candlesticks, three brass monkeys, and a chipped ashtray inscribed A Present from Bridlington; above the fireplace hung a round mirror in need of resilvering which interrupted the flight of three china ducks across a sky-blue wallpaper trellissed with pink dog-roses.

'It's like a BBC set for a fifties play,’ said Ellie, running a finger delicately along the mantel. It came up dustless.

'He probably has a woman who comes in and does,' said Pascoe.

'Just like you, eh? Where's this booze he told us to help ourselves to?'

Pascoe opened the commode. It was packed full of glasses and bottles, all whisky, some single malts, some blended. He poured from one picked at random and handed a glass to Ellie. Then he glanced at his watch again.

'Peter, settle down. It's an informal do, it doesn't matter what time we get there within reason.'

'Lad getting impatient, is he?' said Dalziel, coming into the room. 'He's quite right, though. When the booze is free, don't be backward about coming forward.'

'All right if you're not driving,' said Pascoe. 'In fact, start as I mean to go on, could you put a spot of water in this, sir?'

He handed his glass to Dalziel, who wore the expression of a priest asked by a communicant for a little salt on his wafer. Then, shaking his head sadly, he left the room.

'Dilution does not affect blood alcohol level,' Ellie began to lecture, but her audience was in the process of following his host out of the room.

'Come to make sure I drown it?' growled Dalziel at the kitchen sink.

'Just a drop,' said Pascoe placatingly. 'So this is where you were that night?'

'What?' Oh aye.'

'And you were in the dark?' Pascoe flicked the light switch up and down a couple of times, leaving it off.

'That's right.'

'You never said what you were doing. I mean, do you spend a lot of time just standing here in the dark?'

'I do what I bloody well like in my own house.'