"Asking For The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hill Reginald)

CHAPTER III

Much I marvelled this ungainly Jowl to hear discourse so plainly.

'A poem,' said Dalziel.

'By Edgar Allan Poe,' said Pascoe.

'I didn't know he wrote poems as well.'

'As well as short stories, you mean?'

'As well as pictures,' said Dalziel. 'I've seen a lot of his stuff on the telly. Good for a laugh mainly, but sometimes he can give you a scare.'

Pascoe regarded the gross figure of his boss, Detective-Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell, unless you wanted your head bitten off) and wondered whether the fat man was taking the piss. But he knew better than to ask.

'I've got it here,' he said, proffering a 'complete works' borrowed from the local library.

Dalziel put on his reading glasses which sat on his great shapeless nose like a space-probe on Mars. Carefully he read through the poem, his fleshy lips moving from time to time as he half voiced a passage.

When he had finished he rested the open book on the desk before him and said, 'Now that's something like a poem!'

'You liked it?' said Pascoe, surprised.

'Oh aye. It's got a bit of rhythm, a bit of rhyme, not like this modern stuff that doesn't even have commas.'

'Thank you, Dr Leavis,' murmured Pascoe, and went on hurriedly, 'But does it do us any good?'

'Depends,' said Dalziel, putting his hand inside his shirt to scratch his left rib cage. 'Was it meant to be general or specific?'

'Sorry?'

'If it's specific, listen.

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

You want to find yourself a bit of woodland round a pond and go over it with a couple of dogs and a frogman. What's the country like round there?'

'Like country,' said Pascoe dubiously. 'Wearton's a cluster of houses, pub and a*church in a bit of a valley, so I suppose there are plenty of woods and ponds thereabouts. But if it's that specific, Swithenbank would hardly have mentioned it to me, would he?'

'Mebbe not. Or mebbe he'd get a kick. Playing with a thick copper.'

'I didn't get that impression,' said Pascoe carefully.

Dalziel laughed, a Force Eight blast.

'More likely with me, eh? But he'd soon spot you're a clever bugger, the way you get your apostrophes in the right place. So if he has killed his missus and if this Ulalume poem does point in the right direction, he'd keep his mouth shut. Right? Unless he was bright enough to think we might have got a few calls ourselves.'

'Which we didn't,' said Pascoe. 'Just the letter.'

'And the ear-ring,' said Dalziel. 'Remind me again, lad. How'd we first get mixed up in this business?'

Pascoe opened the thin file he was carrying and glanced at the first sheet of paper in it.

'October twenty-fourth last year,' he said. 'Request for assistance from Enfield – that's where Swithenbank lives. Says he'd reported his wife missing on the fifteenth. They hadn't been able to get any kind of line on her movements after the last time Swithenbank claimed to have seen her. Like him, she comes from Wearton, so would we mind checking in case she'd done the classic thing and bolted for home. We checked. Parents both dead, but her brother Arthur still lives in the village. He's got a bit of a smallholding. He hadn't seen her since her last visit with Swithenbank, two months earlier. Nor had anyone else.'

'Or they weren't saying,' said Dalziel.

'Perhaps. There was no reason to be suspicious at the time. Routine enquiry. That was it as far as we were concerned. A month later Enfield came back at us. Were we quite sure there was no trace? They wrapped it up, of course, but that's what it came to. They hadn't been able to get a single line on Mrs Swithenbank and when someone disappears as completely as that, you start to get really suspicious. But if you're wise, you double check before you let your suspicions show too clearly.'

'Who'd done the checking in Wearton?' asked Dalziel.

'We just left it to the local lad first time round,' said Pascoe. 'This time I sent Sergeant Wield down. Same result. All quiet after that till this week when the ear-ring turned up.'

'How've they been earning their pay in Enfield this past year?' asked Dalziel.

'Saving the sum of things from the sound of it,' said Pascoe. 'But in between the bullion robberies and the international dope rings, they managed to lean heavily enough on Swithenbank for him to drum up a tame solicitor to lean back.'

'Any motive?'

Pascoe shrugged.

'The marriage wasn't idyllic, so the gossip went, but no worse than a thousand others. She might have been having a bit on the side, her girl-friends guessed, but couldn't or wouldn't point the finger. He wasn't averse to the odd close encounter at a party, but again no one was naming names.'

'That's marriage Enfield-style, is it?' said Dalziel, shaking his head. He made Enfold sound like Gomorrah.

'Give us his tale again,' continued Dalziel.

'Friday, fourteenth October, Swithenbank arrives at his office at the usual time. Nothing out of the ordinary during the morning except that his secretary told Willie Dove, Inspector Dove that is, who was doing the questioning, that he seemed a bit moody that morning.'

'How moody? / shouldn't have cut off her head like that – that moody?'

'The secretary just put it down to the fact that his favourite assistant was leaving that day.'

'Favourite? Woman?' said Dalziel eagerly.

'Fellow. No, it wasn't the fact that he was leaving, more why he was leaving that had got to Swithenbank, it seems. This chap was putting it all behind him, going off to somewhere primitive like the Orkneys to live off the earth and be a free man. There's a lot of it about among the monied middle classes.'

'He's not bent, is he, this Swithenbank?' asked Dalziel, reluctant to leave this scent.

'No,' said Pascoe, exasperated. 'It just made him think, that's all. Doesn't it make you think a bit, sir, when you hear someone's had the guts to opt out? It's a normal sociological reaction.'

'Is it, lad? You ever find yourself fancying somewhere primitive, I'll send you to Barnsley. What's all this got to do with anything?'

'I'm trying to tell you. Sir. They had a party for the dear departing at lunch-time. It started in the office and finished on platform five at King's Cross when they put their colleague on his train. Swithenbank was in quite a state by this time.'

'Pissed, you mean?'

'That and telling all who would listen that he was wasting his life, that materialism was going to be the death of Western society, that any man who was brave enough could sever his chains with a single blow…'

'What kind of chains did he have in mind?' wondered Dalziel.

'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'Though I should say from the way he dresses that he's decided to hang on to the chains and go down with the rest of Western society. Anyway, those sober enough to remember anything remembered this outburst because it was so uncharacteristic of him. An intellectual smoothie was how his secretary rated him.'

'A loyal girl, that,' said Dalziel.

'Willie Dove has his ways,' said Pascoe. 'Where was I? Oh yes. From King's Cross they, that is the survivors, walked back to the office, hoping to benefit from the fresh air. It's near Woburn Place, so not too far, and they got back about two-thirty. But Swithenbank didn't go in. Despite all attempts to dissuade him, he headed for his car.'

'His mates didn't think he was fit to drive?' said Dalziel. 'He must have been bad, considering most of these southern sods drive home half pissed every night!'

'Possibly,' said Pascoe, as if accepting a serious academic argument. 'The thing was, it wasn't home that Swithenbank was making for, but Nottingham.'

'Nottingham? He really must've been drunk!'

'I'm sorry,' said Pascoe. 'Didn't I say? He was due up in Nottingham that evening for a conference with one of his authors. He'd taken an overnight bag to the office with him and planned a gentle drive north at his leisure that afternoon. But as we've seen, events had overtaken him. So far, his story's been confirmable. After this, there's only Swithen bank's word for what happened, and most of that he claims to have forgotten! He says he'd only driven about half a mile when he came to the conclusion he must be out of his mind! He says he didn't really make a conscious decision, but somehow instead of heading for the M i, he found himself on the way home to Enfield. He can't recollect much about the drive, or getting into the flat, but he's pretty certain his wife wasn't there.'

'If she was, he'd be the last person she'd be expecting to see,' said Dalziel. 'Think about that!'

'I believe Inspector Dove has thought about it,' said Pascoe patiently. 'All Swithenbank does remember positively is waking up some time after five, lying on his bed and feeling rough. He had a shower and a coffee, felt better, tried to ring Nottingham to apologize for his lateness but couldn't get through, wrote his wife a note saying he'd been home, and set off up the Mi like the clappers. Like I say, there's no support for any of this. But one of the neighbours definitely saw him arrive back the following afternoon about five p.m. His wife isn't in and Swithenbank gets worried.'

'Why? She never misses Dr Who, or what?'

'His note was still there,' said Pascoe reprovingly. 'Untouched. He does nothing for an hour or two, then rings around some likely friends. Nothing. Finally late on Saturday night when she still hasn't returned, he contacts the police. And the wheels go into motion. Routine at first. There's a suitcase and some of his wife's clothes missing. So they check the possibilities. Friends, relatives, etc. – that's where we first came in. Her passport's still at home. A month later she's made no drawing upon her bank account. So now Willie Dove moves in hard.'

'Started digging up the garden and chipping at the garage floor, did he?' said Dalziel.

'He probably would have done except that they lived in a flat and he parked his car in the street,' said Pascoe. 'But he found nothing.'

'So what's he think?'

'He thinks Swithenbank's a clever bugger and has got the body safely stashed. He's kept on at him ever since, but nothing.'

'So why's he think Swithenbank's the man?'

'Intuition, I suppose.'

Dalziel snorted in disgust.

'Intuition! Evidence plus an admission, that's what makes detective work. I hope I never hear you using that word, Peter!'

Pascoe smiled weakly and said, 'He's not making a big thing out of it. He just feels in his bones that some time between leaving the party and getting to Nottingham, Swithenbank did the deed and disposed of the body.'

'What's wrong with the night before?' asked Dalziel. 'Put her in the boot. That'd explain his bit of depression that morning.'

'So it would,' said Pascoe. 'Except…'

'All right, clever bugger,' growled Dalziel. 'What's up?'

'Except, she went to the hairdresser's on Friday morning. Last reported sighting,' said Pascoe.

Dalziel was silent for a while.

'I ought to thump hell out of you twice a day,' he said finally. 'I take it because you've said nowt much about it that this Nottingham visit was confirmed.'

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'Jake Starr, some science fiction writer. He was doing a bit on Jules Verne for Swithenbank's Masters of Literature series. He confirmed Swithenbank arrived a lot later than arranged, about eight p.m. They worked – and ate – till the early hours. Got up late the next morning. Swithenbank left after lunch. We know he was back in Enfield by five.'

Dalziel pondered.

'All we've got really is a cockney cop's feeling that he did it. Right?'

'And the phone calls. And the letter and ear-ring.'

Dalziel dismissed these with a two-fingered wave of his left hand.

'This lass who turned up today. His fancy piece, you reckon?'

'Could be,' said Pascoe cautiously.

'Perhaps she's the other lass in the poem, that Psyche.'

'I think Psyche represents the poetic soul,' said Pascoe.

'Poetic arsehole,' said Dalziel scornfully. 'What's it say? – so I pacified Psyche and kissed her. That sounds like flesh and blood to me. Mind you, if she is his fancy woman, it's a funny thing to do, bringing her up to Wearton like that. It's like flaunting it a bit, wouldn't you say?'

Pascoe indicated that he would say. Jean Starkey had been much occupying his mind since he left Wearton that morning. He had made a note of her car number and asked for it to be traced as soon as he got back to the station, but since vehicle licensing had been computerized, this process could now take several hours.

'Well, it all seems bloody thin to me,' said Dalziel, rising from his chair and scratching his left buttock preparatory to departure. 'Some old mate trying to stir things for Swithenbank. Did you check on his old acquaintance in the village?'

'Didn't have a chance this morning,' said Pascoe. 'I had to be back here for a meeting at lunch-time. But I'll go back, I suppose, and have a word. Or send Sergeant Wield.'

'That's it,' approved Dalziel. 'Delegate. You've got plenty to keep you occupied, I hope. Our problems. This is nowt but an "assist", after all.'

'If Kate Swithenbank's lying in a hole near Wearton, it's more than an assist!' protested Pascoe.

'If Jack the bloody Ripper's opening the batting for Yorkshire (and I sometimes think the buggers who are look old enough), it's still someone else's case,' said Dalziel. 'They'll be open in an hour. You can pay for my help with a pint."

'Dear at half the price,' muttered Pascoe as the fat man lumbered from the room.

He spent the next twenty minutes going over his notes on the background to the case. On the left-hand page of his notebook he had made a digest of the facts as he knew them.

The right-hand page was reserved for observations and comments and was woefully blank. He managed by an effort of will to break the blankness with a couple of question-marked words, but it was reaching beyond the limits even of that intuition which Dalziel so scorned and he hastily turned the page as though the fat man might be peering over his shoulder.

He was now among the notes on Swithenbank's 'friends' in Wearton. The tedious business of chatting with each of them would have to be done some time. He wondered whether his conscience would permit him to send Sergeant Wield again. Perhaps, if only the woman Jean Starkey hadn't turned up. There was a false note there somehow. It could be, of course, that Swithenbank wasn't expecting her. He was cool enough to carry it off. Perhaps she was a bit on the side who felt it was time to claim a more central position. But there had been nothing in her manner to suggest that her arrival was an act of defiance. Another hyper-cool customer? Like calling to like? John Swithenbank. Jean Starkey. Same initials. Not something you could really comment on in a report, though Dalziel had once told him he could squeeze significance out of a marble tit. Jean Starkey. John Swithenbank. And… and.. . there was something there… the marble tit was yielding…

'Excuse me, sir.'

'Oh damn!' said Pascoe, roused from his reverie just on the brink of revelation.

'Sorry, sir,' said Sergeant Wield. 'That car registration you wanted checked. They've broken all records. Here you are.'

He placed a sheet of paper on the desk and withdrew.

Pascoe looked down at it, unseeing at first, then the words hardened into focus.

Miss Jean Starkey, 38A Chubb Court, Nottingham.

'Well,' said Pascoe. 'Well.'

The marble was like a wet bath sponge now.

He picked up his telephone and rang the public library. That done, he asked his exchange to connect him with Inspector Dove at Enfield.

'Hello, Peter. What's up? Don't say you've corralled our boy!'

'Not yet,' said Pascoe. 'Look, Willie, that statement from the writer Swithenbank went to visit, Jake Starr. Who took it?'

'Hold on. Let's have a look. Here we are. We did what we did with you lot, relied on Nottingham. Why? What's up?'

'Do you know if anyone at Nottingham actually met Jake Starr?'

'Hang about, there's a note here, can't read my own writing. No, in fact I don't think they did. I remember now. They spoke to his secretary, who said Starr was on his way to New York. But she remembered Swithenbank arriving and she was there on Saturday morning when he left. She got in touch with her boss who sent a statement confirming this and having Swithenbank in his sights till bedtime. The secretary was around most of the time too. So we didn't ask them to follow it up when this Starr fellow got back. Why?'

'You don't happen to have a note of the secretary's name, do you?'

'Yes. I've got a statement from her here. I'm sorry, Pete, we could have sent you photo-copies of all this stuff but knowing how much your boss hates paper, I thought the brief digest would do. Jean Starkey. Miss Jean Starkey. There we are. Now tell me what this is all about.'

'With pleasure,' said Pascoe. 'I've just been on to our library where they have useful things like a Writers' Who's Who. Jake Starr is a pseudonym. And no prizes for guessing that the real name is Jean Starkey. But there's more. Miss Starkey's a very personable blonde who at this very moment is in Wearton visiting Swithenbank. And it didn't look like business to me!'

Dove whistled.

'That leaves us with a bit of egg on our face, doesn't it?' he said cheerfully. 'Does it get us much further forward, though?'

Try this,' said Pascoe. 'If somehow Swithenbank did contrive to have his missus in the boot when he drove north that afternoon, with Starkey alibi-ing him, he had all the time in the world to dispose of the body somewhere a long, long way from Enfield. Naturally he'd want somewhere as safe as possible. What if his childhood memories put him in mind of the perfect hiding-place up here?'

'Hidden cave, secret passage, that sort of thing?' said Dove, making it sound like something out of Enid Blyton, much to Pascoe's irritation.

'OK then. Where do you think she is?' he asked. 'Stuffed up the chimney in his flat?'

'First place we looked,' laughed Dove. 'Thanks for ringing, Pete. It could be helpful and at least it gives you something better to do than chasing cows out of cornfields. Keep up the good work and let's know when he's planning to come back, then I'll see what a bit of real pressure can do. Anything else I can do for you?'

He can do for me! thought Pascoe indignantly. As he flicked through the pages of his notebook, his eye fell on his question-marked words. Never mind what Dalziel said, everyone had one good intuitive guess coming and even Dalziel would reckon this was in a good cause.

He made a mental choice, crossed out one of the words and said in a studiously casual voice, 'Just one thing. Kate Swithenbank's last reported sighting was at the hairdresser's. Did anyone ask what she had done there?'

There was a pause and a rustling of papers.

'It's not here if they did,' said Dove. 'Any particular reason?'

'Just part of the steady plod us yokels go at,' said Pascoe. 'I don't really imagine that you lot have overlooked anything. Else.'

'Get stuffed,' said Dove. Til see if I can find out. Cheers now.'

'Cheers.'

Pascoe sat back in his chair and felt pleased with himself. His social science degree enabled him to regard such phenomena as inter-regional rivalries with academic objectivity. On the other hand you couldn't get away from it, there was something very pleasant about getting one up on those smart-alec sods in London. Dalziel would, in his own phrase, be chuffed to buggery.

There was still the problem of tactics. There was no question now of sending Sergeant Wield to Wearton. This was his affair, right to the bitter end. The question was when? And how?

The answer came from the most unexpected source.

His telephone rang and the constable on the exchange said a Mr Swithenbank would like to speak to him.

'Put him on,' commanded Pascoe.

'Inspector, glad to have caught you.'

His voice sounded higher, lighter on the telephone.

'I was just thinking about you, Mr Swithenbank.'

'I'm flattered. And I about you. A thought struck me -you hinted a desire, or rather an intention, of talking about this business with my old acquaintance in the village. Are you still keen?'

'It's on my schedule,' said Pascoe cautiously.

'The thing is, Boris -Kingsley is having a little get-together at the Big House tomorrow evening. I was just going to ring him to make it OK to take Miss Starkey along with me. All my old chums will be there. So it occurred to me, if you'd like to take them all in one fell swoop, I'm sure Boris wouldn't mind. He's always had a taste for cheap fiction and a real life detective questioning his guests in the library would be right up his street.'

Pascoe thought about it, felt the silence growing long enough to be significant and decided he didn't mind. After all, Swithenbank mustn't be allowed to think the law was so easily organizable.

'Deep thoughts, Inspector,' said Swithenbank. 'Penny for them.'

'Something about Greeks bearing gifts,' replied Pascoe. 'Yes, I think that might prove very useful, Mr Swithenbank. Thank you.'

'Oh good. Why don't you call here about seven and then you can have a drink and a chat with Mother before we set out.'

'Fine,' said Pascoe. "Bye. ^1

'Cheeky bugger,' he said to the replaced telephone. You had to admire the man's nerve, he thought with a smile. Setting him up like Hercule Poirot.

Then his eyes fell on the still open volume of Poe and he pulled it towards him and read:

And I cried – 'It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed – I journeyed down here -That I brought a dread burden down here -

He glanced at his desk calendar. Tomorrow was Saturday, 14 October.

'Cheeky bugger,' he said again. But there was no humour in his voice this time.