Bones and Silence

Mitchell was now pure Geordie. Dalziel leaned forward and grasped his knee in a crocodile grip.

'Aye,' he said softly. 'And how will these important people like it when their club's closed down 'cos its corporal cook rangemaster doesn't have the sense to observe regulations? I've spotted at least three you're in breach of already, and that's without looking. Once I really start poking about I doubt if you'd get a licence to run a fairground stall.'

'You're bluffing,' said Mitchell. 'This place is run by the book.'

'Aye, but it's me shouting the odds,' grinned Dalziel. 'What's up anyway, lad? She's dead, remember. She's not going to sue for breach of confidence!'

Mitchell hesitated. He's wondering how far I'll really go if he doesn't give me something, thought Dalziel. He wandered across to the cabinet and picked up the revolver. There were a couple of rounds in the cylinder. He closed it, cocked it, squeezed the trigger. There was a loud explosion and the ceiling light shattered. Mitchell moved with tremendous speed. The athletic part of his image at least was no fraud, and glass shards were still pattering to the floor as he grabbed the gun from Dalziel's hand.

'Jesus! Are you crazy?' he demanded, white-faced.

'Me?' said Dalziel indignantly. 'Leaving loaded weapons lying around in public, that's crazy!'

Mitchell went back to his desk, unlocked a drawer, dropped the gun inside, and relocked it. He regarded Dalziel with undisguised amazement.

'I can't believe in you,' he said. 'Who do you think you are? Wyatt Earp?'

'It's not me who goes poncing round like a Yankee film star,' said Dalziel comfortably. 'Now, you were telling me about Mrs Swain.'

It was little enough to shoot up a man's ceiling for. At most, it confirmed what Dalziel knew or had deduced from other sources.

Gail Swain had grown confidential over drinks a couple of times. Dalziel guessed that after Mitchell had made his sexual play and been put pretty firmly in his place, Gail had been happy to keep him dangling as a devotee cum confidant. She didn't seem to get on well enough with other women to have made any close friends in England, so perhaps she needed a Mitchell in her life. After Atlas Tayler closed, she'd complained with more incomprehension than bitterness about Swain's refusal to take the post Delgado's offered in the States at three times his British salary. But real resentment had started creeping in when Swain's building business hadn't got off the ground and he started canvassing auld acquaintance for new jobs.

'She didn't like that, and I think Swain tried to cut it down to a minimum because of this, but when she came back from her father's funeral, everything changed.'

'Why?'

'Two reasons,' said Mitchell. 'First she came back with an even better job offer for her husband. I don't think she could believe that he would refuse again.'

'And the second reason?'

'She was rotten rich! I don't know how much, millions maybe. She'd not been short before, but now it was dropping off her and Swain could see no reason why she shouldn't invest in his building company in a big way. She didn't see it like that and told him not a penny would he see till he was settled in LA. That's when he started up badgering his old mates again. He knew this really got up her nose and reckoned he could bounce her into coughing up the cash rather than suffer the embarrassment of being married to a notorious cadger. To tell the truth she was a hell of a snob, and he knew it.'

'But it didn't work?'

'Hell, no. Snob she might be, but she had true grit,' said Mitchell, who having decided that Dalziel was not to be denied was now relaxing into his role. 'The trouble as I saw it, was that those two were just on completely different wavelengths. She couldn't see why he wasn't jumping at the chance to go and live in sunny California. But he'd obviously really got the hump with Delgado's for closing down Atlas Tayler like they did. Also I don't think she could really grasp that he actually preferred being his own boss here in Yorkshire!'

'She told you this?'

'Most of it. She got really pissed one night, she was so upset. I don't know what Swain was playing at. I'd have gone like a shot.'

'But you never got invited,' observed Dalziel.

'No. She was a one-man woman, till the divorce courts got to work anyway. Even though her one man was a fulltime loser!'

Dalziel smiled grimly. This wanker really did think he was the bee's knees. If a lass didn't fancy a bit on the side with him she didn't fancy it with anyone!

'You don't like Philip Swain?' he said.

'Missing a chance like that, he has to be a real asshole!' said Mitchell. 'Not that I knew him all that well personally. Like I told the other cop, he was never a member. But I remember his brother, he was a member, and no, I didn't much care for him either. Christ, the way he talked you'd have thought that Moscow Farm was a palace and the Swains were royalty!'

'Tom Swain, would that be? The one who shot himself?'

'That's right. Look, Superintendent, if that's all, I really should get back to my members. You'll keep my name out of things, won't you? I don't want the ladies round here to get the idea I'm the kind who kisses and tells!'

His macho image was back on full beam.

Dalziel said negligently, 'Don't see why not. After all, you've told me next to nowt I didn't know already.'

When they've coughed, give 'em a hard slap between the shoulder-blades, telling 'em it's all useless crap, and you never know what last little gobbet they'll spit out.