Bones and Silence

‘Hello,’ said Pascoe. ‘Busy?’

She rested her book against the typewriter on her desk and said, ‘Can I help you?’

She was rather square-featured and plumply built, had straight brown hair, almost shoulder length, wore no discernible make-up and spoke in a husky contralto voice with a strong local accent.

Pascoe picked up the book and examined the illustration which showed a terrified young woman whose bodice was undoubtedly ripped fleeing from a burning house in whose doorway stood a Munster-like figure.

‘I don’t remember that bit,’ he said.

‘Makes you want to read the book,’ she explained. ‘More than them bloody teachers ever did.’

It was a point, perhaps two.

He put the book down on the typewriter and looked around. He found he was shivering slightly. The house had been warm and he’d taken off his topcoat, but here, despite a double-barred electric wall heater, the atmosphere was still dank and chilly. The woman at the desk on second inspection proved to be less plump than he’d thought. She had insulated herself with at least two sweaters and a cardigan.

‘It’s a bit nippy in here,’ he said, touching the whitewashed wall. The stones were probably three feet thick and colder on the inside than on the out. ‘With all that room in the house, you’d have thought Mr Swain would have had his office in there rather than out here.’

‘Mrs Swain wouldn’t have it,’ said the woman.

‘Did he tell you that?’

She considered.

‘No,’ she said.

‘How do you know, then?’

She considered once more, then said indifferently, ‘Don’t know, but I know.’

Pascoe sorted this out. Surprisingly it made sense.

‘How long have you been working here, Miss … I’m sorry …?’

‘Shirley Appleyard. And it’s Mrs.’

‘Sorry. You look so young,’ he said with full flarch. It was like shining a torch into a black hole.

‘I’m nineteen,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here two years.’

‘Do you like it?’

She shrugged and said, ‘It’s a job. Better than nowt, these days.’

‘Yes, they’re hard to come by,’ said Pascoe, switching to the sympathetic concerned approach. ‘You did well, there was probably a lot of competition.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I got it because me dad’s Mr Swain’s partner.’

‘Mr Stringer, you mean? That’s handy,’ said Pascoe.

‘You mean I should give thanks to God for being so lucky? Don’t worry, I get told that at least twice a day and three times on Sundays.’

She spoke with a dull indifference worse than resentment. Pascoe, as always curious beyond professional need, said, ‘I met your father this morning. He seemed a little out of sorts …’

‘You mean he didn’t strike you as being full of Christian charity?’ she said with an ironic grimace. ‘He’s not that kind of Christian. Didn’t you notice the chapel over from the church as you came through the village? Red brick. That’s Dad. All the way through.’

Pascoe smiled and said, ‘You live in the village still? With your parents?’

‘Aye. Holly Cottage. That’s it you can see at the corner of the field.’

Pascoe looked out of the window. Visible through the open end of the yard was a small cottage about fifty yards away.

‘You’ve not far to come,’ he said. ‘Your husband lives there too, does he?’

‘He’s away working, if it’s any of your business,’ she retorted with sudden anger. ‘And what’s all this to do with Mrs Swain getting shot?’

‘Shot? Now where did you hear that?’ wondered Pascoe. The media so far hadn’t got past the general story of a shooting in Hambleton Road, and he was reluctant to think that Seymour had been indiscreet on his earlier visit.

‘Dad rang up this morning to say there’d been some bother, something about Mrs Swain and a shooting, he didn’t seem very clear, but he was just ringing to tell me to say nowt if anyone got on to me at work and started asking questions about the Swains.’

‘Excluding the police, of course,’ smiled Pascoe.

‘He didn’t say that,’ she answered without returning his smile. ‘So she has been shot, then? Dead?’

Pascoe said carefully, ‘There has been a shooting, yes. And yes, I’m afraid Mrs Swain is dead. And I hope, despite your father, you’ll feel able to answer a couple of questions, Mrs Appleyard.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, what did you reckon to Mrs Swain?’ said Pascoe.

‘She were all right,’ said Shirley Appleyard. ‘Bit stuck up, but always polite enough when we met.’

‘She seemed a nice-looking woman from her photos,’ said Pascoe. He was thinking of the wedding album they’d found in the house, and trying not to think of the bloody ruin on the official police pictures.

‘Not bad,’ said the girl. ‘And she knew how to make the best of herself. Clothes and jewels and make-up, I mean. Nothing flashy, but you could tell just by looking it cost an arm and a leg.’

The labels in the clothes brought from Hambleton Road confirmed this. And there’d been an engagement ring and a matching pendant which, if the stones were real, must have cost a few thousand at the least.

‘When did you last see her?’ he asked.

‘Week last Friday. I bumped into her in the yard. She said ta-ra.’

‘Just that?’

‘She didn’t actually say ta-ra,’ said the girl impatiently. ‘It were something like, we’d likely not see each other before she went off that weekend, so goodbye.’

‘I thought she was just going on a trip. Didn’t that sound a bit final to you, as if she didn’t think she’d be coming back?’

‘Mebbe,’ said Shirley Appleyard. ‘Or mebbe she just didn’t expect to find me here when she came back.’