Reginald Hill - Asking For The Moon

'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?'