didn't ask him to examine Mr Swain too.'
'No need. Waterson were a nervous wreck. Mr Swain here were fine. He looked a sight better than he does now, if you don't mind me saying.'
Swain, who hadn't opened his mouth since Pascoe arrived, glared angrily at Dalziel but Thackeray patted his arm soothingly and said, 'Yes, I recall you mention in your own statement how calm and collected Mr Swain appeared to be. And you stressed this again the following day when we first discussed the case. I got the impression then that you were drawing inferences from your observation which were not to my client's advantage.'
'I just state the facts as I see 'em, nowt more.'
'Of course. What you didn't see was the possibility that this apparent control of my client's emotions might in fact be symptomatic of the shock which has since been diagnosed and whose delayed and more obvious physical manifestations are, as you have just observed, only now becoming visible. What a pity with a doctor on the spot that night that you didn't . . .'
'He were examined the next day,' interrupted Dalziel.
'Indeed,' said Thackeray. 'But we must ask ourselves, Superintendent, what were the instructions you gave the examining doctor on that occasion. Incidentally, my acceptance that things were done according to the rules on Tuesday night does not of course extend to include that examination on Wednesday afternoon. Where consent is obtained by deception, there is no legality.'
Dalziel was slumped low in his chair, a posture which pushed his embonpoint into corrugations along whose valley bottoms beneath his shirt his fingers scraped glacially. He was beginning to look defeated. It was not an edifying sight.
'If you want to tell the world I had Mr Swain examined because his missus were a junkie, go ahead,' he snapped. 'Seems to me all this fine talk amounts to is instead of one statement from your client, we've got two. More the merrier, say I.'
It was an untypically feeble counter, underlined by Thackeray's formally polite appreciative chuckle.
'That's it,' he said. 'Let's think of them as rough draft and fair copy. It's so easy to get things wrong the first time, isn't it? You of all people should understand that, Mr Dalziel.'
'Eh?'
'Your own statement, I mean. Don't look so alarmed. I haven't been burgling your office. I was talking to Mr Trimble about another matter, and I happened to mention my concern at these delays, and in particular at the distress it must be causing Mrs Delgado who is too ill to travel and who is naturally impatient for her child's body to be released to the States for burial. And Mr Trimble, though sympathetic, told me that where witnesses clashed, and one of them was a senior police officer, he must obviously place a strong reliance on that man's version of things.'
'That was nice of him,' said Dalziel savagely.
'Indeed. I drew the assumption that it must be yourself he was referring to, and I wonder now whether you might not care to take a long look at the detail of your own statement. No one is perfect. I'm sure your own vast experience contains many instances of a highly trained observer proving to have been deceived.'
Dalziel shot Pascoe a glance of promissory malice. Surely he can't think I've been talking to Eden about my little experiment!
Thackeray had risen and stood with his hand on Swain's shoulder as he spoke. Now he exerted a gentle pressure and the man rose.
'That's good,' said Dalziel. 'You can hardly see the strings!'
'I'm sorry?' said Thackeray with dangerous mildness.
Pascoe tried to telepath a warning to his chief. This was a lost battle. Nothing to do but keep your head down and regroup. Pointless to stand up in the trenches and hurl clods at the triumphant tanks.
But Dalziel wanted a medal more than his supper.
'I just meant, funny thing, this shock. Takes away the power of speech, does it, unless someone else writes the lines?'
Swain looked ready to retort angrily, but Thackeray was swift with a palliative misunderstanding.
'If you're referring to my client's decision to take part in the forthcoming production of the Mystery Plays, certainly this has been recommended as a useful therapy. Role-playing has an honourable history in psychological rehabilitation and what better way of coming to terms with guilt than exploring the greatest guilt of all?'
Pascoe was agog at the implication of this. Could Swain really have a part in Chung's production? And if so . . . but Thackeray hadn't finished.
'I hear you too are planning to tread the boards, Superintendent?' he said pleasantly.
'That's right.'
'As God, I gather? I hope you also might find the experience therapeutic. But I hope even more that your evident willingness to share a stage with Mr Swain signals an end to harassment and an early wrapping up of this tragic affair. Good day.'
He left. Swain followed, but paused at the door and said, with no expression on his face or in his voice to hint whether he was being mocking or conciliatory, 'See you at rehearsal.' Then he too was gone.
Dalziel opened a drawer in his desk, took out a bottle and a glass, poured an unhealthy measure and drank long and deep.
'Well, come on,' he said. 'When you look like that, you've either got piles or you're chewing on a serious thought. Spit it out!'
'No, it's nothing,' said Pascoe. 'Except that, well, it's an odd business, this . . .'
