Bones and Silence

'Oh? Then you'll know that Tom Swain tried to touch Gail for money to save the farm.'

'Gail? Surely it would be his brother he turned to?'

'Philip didn't have money. Only his salary and that wasn't enough to keep his wife in Gucci knickers. No, Tom went to the source and she turned him down flat.'

'She told you this?'

'Indirectly. Also I heard him trying to put the bite on her one night here at the club. She didn't like that and really choked him off. Next day, bang! No wonder she felt guilty. That's why she helped Philip get Moscow Farm back into shape, of course. Guilt. He could have milked it for ever if the silly twit hadn't decided he'd rather be poor in this hole than rolling in it in LA.'

'But why should she feel so guilty?' wondered Dalziel. 'I mean, Tom Swain must have tried to borrow money from everyone. Why should her refusal be seen as the one that pushed him over?'

'Well, he pointed a pretty steady finger, I'd say. All right, so they said he probably picked it because it was the one most certain to do the job, but it was clear as a farewell note to me.'

'What the hell are you talking about, laddie?' demanded Dalziel. 'Picked what?'

Mitchell looked at him for a moment, then let out a bellow of triumphant laughter.

'You don't know, do you? I know it wasn't made anything of at the inquest, but you'd think you blighters would keep full notes somewhere. Let me lighten your darkness, Mr Dalziel. The gun Tom Swain used to blow his head off was his sister-in-law's Colt Python!'

CHAPTER SIX

Peter Coombes was thin and dark with an ascetic mien more suited to a Jesuit mission than a modern personnel office, and an intense, unblinking gaze which made Pascoe feel uneasily that his thoughts were showing. It didn't help to find that when he broke the eye contact, over the other's shoulder he was looking at a framed photograph of a beautiful blonde woman lying on a lawn with a collie and two young children.

Coombes glanced round, as though indeed catching something of Pascoe's thought, and said proudly, 'My family. And I don't exclude the dog. Do you have children, Mr Pascoe?'

'One. A girl. No dog,' said Pascoe.

'Yes. I suppose in your line of work,' said Coombes, mysteriously incomplete, leaving Pascoe to work out whether policing unfitted you for dog-ownership or more than one act of procreation.

'It's about your Mr Waterson,' said Pascoe, accepting Coombes's gestured invitation to sit in an easy chair by a coffee table. Presumably the hard chair in front of Coombes's desk was reserved for another class of interviewee.

'Not our Mr Waterson, not any more,' corrected Coombes. 'Is there any chance of being told what this is all about?'

'I'm sorry. All I can say is, this has nothing to do with your firm, except in so far as Mr Waterson was once employed here. You have a Miss King on your staff, I believe? Beverley King?'

It had seemed good thinking to kill two birds with one stone. Coombes was the obvious man to consult about personnel, and it gave Pascoe a chance to assess how things were in the Coombes household. If Christine Coombes were still living in the family house with her husband, two children and a dog, it didn't seem likely she'd have Waterson concealed in the potting-shed.

'Wrong again, I'm afraid,' said Coombes. 'Yes, we did have a Miss King working for us. No, we don't any more.'

'Really? When did she leave?' asked Pascoe, alert.

To his disappointment, the reply was, 'A few weeks ago. I can easily check. Would I be right in guessing your interest in Miss King is connected with your inquiries about Mr Waterson?'

He was obviously as careful as the priest he resembled.

Pascoe said bluntly, 'You knew she and Mr Waterson were having an affair?'

'Indeed,' he said gravely.

'How did you know?'

'I caught them in a compromising situation in the office one lunch-time.’

‘What did you do?'

'I invited them to see me later that day.'

'Together?' said Pascoe, surprised.

'Of course not. Greg - Mr Waterson - and I had a friendly chat. I assured him I was not sitting in moral judgement but had to insist for the sake of the firm's reputation and the smooth running of office life, he carried on his love-life outside the premises.'

'And what was his reaction?'

'He seemed amused,' said Coombes. 'In fact he laughed out loud. He said he'd do his best, but I couldn't understand why he found it all so entertaining.'

He fixed his eyes earnestly on Pascoe and Pascoe willed himself not to let his own slip past the man once more to the photograph of his wife lying on the lawn.

'Did you take the same line with Miss King?' he asked.

'Hardly.'

'Oh? Why not?'

'Miss King had only been with us a couple of months. She had not made a good impression.'