Bones and Silence

'Well, that's not a crime either,' said Dalziel. 'So now you're wondering if when he saw he couldn't hold off these Muncaster people any longer, he mightn't have started wondering how it would be if his missus snuffed it.'

'No, Andrew. The facts are so plain that I cannot see how even your prejudice can maintain you in your belief that Swain is culpable in his wife’s death. Hypocritical, self-centred and immoral he may be, but that doesn't make him a killer.'

'Doesn't make him unfit to be your client either,' said Dalziel shrewdly. 'I mean, that description must fit half the buggers on your books! There has to be something else.'

'Perhaps you have merely lost touch with the workings of a sensitive conscience, Andrew,' said Thackeray, rising.

At the bar, John yawned a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving.

Dalziel shook his head thoughtfully and said, 'Money. It's something to do with money. In the bank's where you sods keep your conscience, isn't it?'

Then a broad smile spread over his face.

'Here! It wasn't ... it couldn't ... I bet it was! One of them pressing debts that got paid off out of Mrs Swain's account, was it a lawyer's bill? Did the cheeky bugger pay off your account with a forged cheque? By God, I've not been much taken with Swain so far, I admit it. But there's good in everyone if you look close enough. Paying off his lawyer with a forged cheque! I'd drink to the cheeky bugger if I had a drink! What a good idea! Sit yourself down, Eden, and stop looking so long faced. John, set 'em up again. Double double doubles!'

CHAPTER THREE

Not long after Dalziel finally answered John's increasingly blasphemous prayers by leaving the Gents, Sergeant Wield was on his way to work. This was the day of the soccer hooligan dawn raid. Let's make a big splash with this one, Dalziel had said. But as usual, Wield thought as he shook the drizzle out of his raincoat, it was the poor bloody infantry that got wet.

At least he had the consolation of being inside. Pascoe was in the great outdoors, coordinating the uniformed teams making the arrests. He would move behind them from house to house, getting what he could from parents and family, and making sure his searchers picked up any scraps of supportive evidence from the youths' rooms.

Wield's task meanwhile was to welcome the arrested men and take down initial statements, hoping to squeeze some nice gobbets of self-incrimination from them while sleep was still hot in their eyes and dawn-knock fear still sour in their guts.

The first three were, in varying proportions, surly, defiant, indignant and afraid, but that was all they seemed to have in common. What was it that united in violence a nineteen-year-old car mechanic, a twenty-one-year-old who'd never worked, and a newly-wed twenty-three-year-old who'd just passed the second part of his exams to become a solicitor's clerk? He, oddly enough, was the only one who didn't start mewling for a lawyer. Perhaps already he was anticipating what this might do to his career and hoping for an anonymous exit route. Wield applied pressure and soon a steady trickle of names and information emerged, interrupted at intervals by protestations of personal innocence. Only when pressed about the train killing and the pub assault did the trickle dry completely. He had enough legal nous to know where grassing stopped and witnessing began.

The fourth and last was eighteen, unemployed, and the least distressed of those arrested, perhaps because he had had the longest time to recompose himself.

He was also the ringleader of the gang that had attacked Wield at the park gates the night he had followed Waterson.

There was no sign of recognition. Wield, accustomed to being unforgettable in his cragginess, felt strangely piqued.

'Medwin, Jason,' recited Wield. 'Seventy-six Jude's Lane. Unemployed.'

'That's me,' agreed the youth pleasantly.

'Ever been employed?'

'Apprentice fitter when I left school. Redundant.

Then I was with the Parks Department for a few months.'

'Redundant again?'

'Nah. Jacked it in. Didn't suit me.'

'What do you reckon would suit you, son?' asked Wield.

'Don't know. Job like yours mebbe.' He grinned. 'Must be grand to be able to thump people with no comeback!'

Wield said gently, 'Like thumping people, do you?'

Medwin shrugged.

'Don't mind a bit of a mill,' he said.

'Is that right? Why is that?'

'Don't know. Gives me a buzz. Let's me know I'm alive.'

'Someone thumps you back hard enough, it might let you know you're dead,' suggested Wield.

Another shrug. He was a good-looking boy; blond hair cropped short up the sides, fashionably coiffured on top; nose slightly crooked (result of some old fight perhaps?); eyes deep blue; smile attractive; cheeks lightly downed; jaw edged with stubble to show he'd been too quickly roused for shaving . . . Wield pulled himself up. What had started as a professional description was turning into . . . what? He reminded himself that Medwin, Jason, went to football matches to cause mayhem, lay in wait for gays at park gates, was planning to disrupt the holiday pleasure of thousands of visitors to the city.

'So you don't mind if someone hurts you or kills you?' he said.