Bones and Silence

‘I’m the most careful bugger you’ll meet in a summer day at Scarborough Fair,’ said Dalziel. But he smiled as he spoke. Information came before provocation. He had said nothing yet about the content of his own witness statement. On the other hand, to balance matters, he hadn’t mentioned Waterson’s either, nor the latter’s defection.

‘Mrs Swain’s suicide is part of a long tragic history for that family,’ resumed Thackeray. ‘He’s a Swain of Currthwaite, you knew that, of course?’

‘I know he lives out there. I thought he’d be just another townie with a daft American wife playing at country living.’

‘Not entirely unjust,’ admitted Thackeray, holding his glass to the light to admire the crystal facets and also, apparently fortuitously, to point its emptiness. Dalziel groaned satirically and refilled it with the twelve-year-old Islay he’d dug out of his desk on the lawyer’s arrival.

‘How kind. Yes, Swain is by education and, I suspect, inclination, a townie. But there have been Swains at Currthwaite since Elizabeth’s day. Minor country gentry rather than good yeoman stock, I’d say. Indeed, they have usually appeared if not reluctant, certainly rather feckless farmers. But with a great sense of loyalty to the place. They were forever getting into debt, and on many occasions even lost the farm, but somehow they always contrived to get it back. Their saving grace has been that, despite the fact that few of them have shown any talent for safe investment and humdrum business, there is a consistently recurring strain of ingenuity and opportunism which has hitherto pulled them back from the brink of complete disaster.’

‘Good con-men, that’s what you mean?’ said Dalziel.

Thackeray sighed and said, ‘What I mean is what I say, Andrew. To continue, Philip is the product of the family’s last period of prosperity in the post-war years.’

‘Spiv time,’ grunted Dalziel. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

‘His elder brother, Tom, was naturally in line for the farm, and Philip was packed off to college to read business studies. It was a superstitious rather than a sensible choice. Philip’s bent was entirely practical and something like engineering would have made much more sense, but I think his father hoped that by laying him on the altar of commerce, he might at last appease Mammon and usher in a long period of prosperity for the Swains.’

‘You don’t half talk pretty,’ said Dalziel, topping up their glasses. ‘Is that how you get to charge so much?’

‘It helps. Where was I? Oh yes. Philip did all right, nothing spectacular, but family influence helped him to a job locally with Atlas Tayler who you may recall were successfully making the transition from old electrics to new electronics in the seventies. He was still playing his promising young executive role there five years later when they got taken over by the American company, Delgado International, who were keen to establish a European base.’

‘Delgado. Hey, he called his mother-in-law Mrs Delgado.’

‘Perhaps because that’s her name, Andrew,’ said Thackeray kindly. ‘Yes, he married into the family, albeit a cadet branch. He and Gail met when the Americans ferried a group of their new staff out to head office in Los Angeles on a re-orientation course. They fell in love. No doubt the family looked him over, decided there was no harm in adding a bit of family loyalty to the financial ties binding Atlas Tayler to them, and gave their approval. So it was back here after the honeymoon and onward and upward in his executive career. Meanwhile, back at Moscow Farm, his father had died and brother Tom was making a real pig’s ear of running things. It was hard to lose money when the EEC were practically paying farmers to grow less, but Tom was the worst kind of Swain.’

‘I doubt it,’ growled Dalziel.

‘For heaven’s sake, Andrew, I’m telling you all this so you will understand what a decent and reliable citizen my client is,’ snapped Thackeray.

‘Oh aye? I thought you were just spinning things out till the bottle was empty,’ said Dalziel. ‘Also, it doesn’t say much for the family lawyer letting all these Swains get so deep in trouble.’

‘I’m very conscious of that. But there’s a secretive streak about them when it comes to money matters,’ said the lawyer, frowning. ‘I doubt if even Philip knew just how bad things were with the farm, though I know he’d been putting what funds he could afford at Tom’s disposal for some time. But finally it all got too much for the poor man and one day he went into the barn and blew his brains out. That’s why even you should realize what a devastating effect this new tragedy will have had upon my client.’

‘Aye, it must be a bit rough,’ said Dalziel with spurious sympathy. ‘So that’s how Phil got his hands on Moscow, was it?’

‘Yes, but it was an inheritance more troublesome than covetable. Everything that could be mortgaged was, and all the buildings had fallen into a sad state of disrepair. There was no way that Philip’s salary could take care of things, but happily his wife had a not inconsiderable dot and was sufficiently taken by the notion of family roots to pour out dollars with a liberal hand till Moscow Farm became a place fit for a Californian to live in. I suspect that was the happiest time of their marriage. She got a real kick out of interior decorating, by plastic card of course, while he enjoyed himself even more by planning and helping with the restructuring.’

‘What about farming?’

‘His practical bent didn’t extend to things that mooed or needed planting. But he hung onto the land. A wise move, when you see what has happened since between the village and the town. To this government, a Green Belt is a martial arts qualification needed for survival in the Cabinet. Once the land to the east is all gone, there’ll be planning permission for the asking on Moscow’s acres to the west, and prices will rocket.’

‘Right,’ said Dalziel. ‘So we’ve got Philip Swain with a good job, his family home all refurbished, and lots of valuable development land in the foreseeable future. How come he ends up as a small builder with cash-flow problems?’

Thackeray sipped his whisky and wondered why Dalziel was being so blatant. The phone rang on the fat man’s desk. He picked it up, listened, said, ‘You’re sure? Shit. All right, stick him in two. I’ll be down shortly.’

‘Bad news?’

‘Depends how you look at it. So what happened when Delgado decided to back out of Britain?’ Dalziel asked.

‘You recall that?’

‘Aye. Five hundred lost jobs was still making headlines two years ago,’ growled Dalziel. ‘And wasn’t there a lot of flak about a Yankee contrick?’

‘Indeed. Delgado’s certainly played their cards very close to the chest. Right up to the announcement of closure, everyone thought they were in fact planning to expand their UK investment instead of relocating it in the cheaper pastures of Spain. There were rumours of a takeover bid for a company in Milton Keynes. Of course it could never be proved that Delgado’s started them deliberately, but certainly they were up and away before the unions knew what had hit them.’

‘But not Swain?’

‘No. Philip took his redundancy money like the rest of them. He had the usual Swain longing to be master of Moscow and his own life. Like a good Thatcherite, he decided to create his own small business. He chose building, partly because he believed he’d discovered a constructive talent in himself while putting the farm to rights. And partly because of Arnold Stringer.’

‘That’s the big gingery chap who’s Swain’s foreman?’

‘Swain’s partner,’ corrected Thackeray. ‘Also his childhood playmate. There have been Stringers in Currthwaite as long as Swains, peasant stock as opposed to gentlemen farmers, of course, and chapel rather than church, but such divisions were never urged upon the young. Indeed, according to local folklore, a Swain cuckoo has from time to time slipped into the Stringer nest. Whatever the truth, the two boys went happily to the village school together. Later of course their paths diverged. Stringer was a farm worker at Moscow at fifteen, decided there was no future in it when he got married at eighteen, took a job on a building site, and eventually set up on his own in a small way. And that’s how he stayed. It’s clear he wasn’t cut out to be one of Mrs T’s success stories. He still lives in one of the few Moscow farm cottages still standing and it was natural that when Philip took over he should push the basic re-building work his way. It was equally natural that when Philip started looking for an entrée into the construction business, he should opt for energizing his old schoolmate’s firm. Stringer’s trade expertise, Swain’s social contacts, it was potentially a winning combination.’

‘You approved?’ said Dalziel.

‘I felt there were worse ways for him to invest his lump sum,’ said Thackeray carefully. ‘He is a Swain, after all, and I was fearful he might just pour his redundancy pay-off down some empty gold mine.’

‘And since then?’ said Dalziel refilling their glasses.

‘Since then, what?’

‘Well, this winning combination hasn’t exactly been bothering Wimpey’s, has it? As far as I can make out, doing our car park and garages is the biggest job they’ve ever had. And like I say, my lad, Pascoe, reckons there’s not a lot of money in the bank. Though likely things’ll be different now his missus has been sent off?’

‘Andrew,’ said the lawyer warningly.

‘Just thinking aloud,’ said Dalziel. ‘Another thing strikes me. Situated like he was, married into the family and all, he must have been a right useless wanker for Delgado’s to turn him off like a factory hand.’

‘That is where you’re wrong,’ said Thackeray. ‘I happen to know that Swain was offered a top executive post with an excellent salary at head office in Los Angeles.’

‘But he couldn’t bear to leave sunny Currthwaite, is that it?’

‘Partly, yes,’ said the lawyer seriously. ‘But there was something else which may help you understand the quality of the man. Because they did not trust his native loyalties, Philip was not made privy to Delgado’s plans. When news of the closure came out, he was enraged.’

‘Was he now? Aye, he struck me as a good actor too.’

‘This was no act, believe me,’ urged Thackeray. ‘You ask the unions involved. There’s not one of them will hear a bad word against Swain.’

‘So you’re telling me Swain jacked in his sinecure with Delgado’s as an act of solidarity with his downtrodden comrades?’ said Dalziel.

‘Andrew, I’m not telling you anything,’ said Thackeray, suddenly aware how far he’d let himself be led in discussing his client’s background. ‘I’m merely passing the time of day till whatever obstacle lies in the way of my immediate interview with my client is removed. With another kind of officer I might by now have grown suspicious. But if one member of the Gentlemen’s Club cannot trust another, what is the world coming to? Incidentally, talking of the Gents, I gather you have not yet taken up your allocation of Ball tickets, so I have brought them along. They are in great demand so any you do not want for your own guests will be easily disposable. It’s twenty-five pounds the double ticket, so that will be two hundred and fifty pounds.’

‘Christ,’ said Dalziel. ‘When we were lads, you could go to a good hop, with a guaranteed jump after, if it weren’t raining, all for one and six. And she paid for her own.’

‘That was a long time ago, long enough for the present good cause to seem not unattractive, perhaps. Think of it as an investment.’

Dalziel glared at him balefully as he wrote a cheque. The Gents were sponsoring the Mayor’s Spring Charity Ball which this year was in aid of the local Hospice Appeal fund. He tossed the cheque over the table and said, ‘I’ll just go and see what’s holding things up.’

‘Take your time,’ said Thackeray, reaching for the Islay.