Asking For The Moon

'To the point of inbreeding,' said Swithenbank cheerfully. 'As good local families, we're probably all related somewhere. Except Boris. They've only been here since the end of the last century.'

'So you all grew up together?'

'Oh yes. Except Peter. His branch of the family lived in Leeds, but he used to spend nearly all his holidays here. Surprised us all when he went into Holy Orders.'

'Why?'

'No one you've stolen apples with can seem quite good enough to be a priest, can they?' said Swithenbank.

'So apart from you, all your circle have remained in Wear-ton?' said Pascoe.

'I suppose so. Except Ursula and Peter, of course. They married while he was still a curate somewhere near Wakefield. When was that? – about eight years ago, yes, I'd married the previous year – of course, I'd been working in London for nearly two years by then…'

'So you'd be twenty-three, twenty-four?'

'So I would. The others fell in rapid succession. First Geoff and Stella, then, almost immediately, Ursula and Peter. It wasn't till three years after that that Peter came to Wearton as vicar. Too young for some of the natives but the local connection helped.'

'But Mr Kingsley didn't marry?'

'No. He looked after his parents up at the Big House. They weren't all that old, but were both in poor health. His mother went about eighteen months ago, his father last spring.'

'And that's the lot? Of your friends, I mean?'

'Yes, I think so. There's Kate's brother, I suppose. Arthur. Arthur Lightfoot. He was several years older and several ages less couth; certainly not one of the charmed circle that made Wearton the Port Said of the north a dozen years ago. But you'd better prick him down on your interview list.'

'Interview list?'

'I presume it's more than idle curiosity that's making you ask these questions, Inspector!' he said acidly.

The doorbell rang. Its chime would not have disgraced a cathedral.

'Your mother?' wondered Pascoe. 'I should like to talk to her.'

'Never gets home till five on Fridays,' said Swithenbank.

The bell rang again. Swithenbank made no move.

'Your mother was mistaken about the bell,' observed Pascoe. 'It seems to be working very well.'

'She hates to be disturbed,' said Swithenbank, 'so she disconnects it. The first thing I do when I come up here is repair it.'

Again the bell.

'You certainly know your business,' said Pascoe admiringly. 'Yes, I'd certainly say it was repaired. It's just the tone you miss, not the function, I gather?'

Swithenbank rose.

'It never does to appear too available,' he said, leaving the room.

He pulled the door shut behind him. Pascoe immediately jumped up and moved as quietly to the door as the creaky floorboards would permit, but he needn't have bothered about sound getting out as the woodwork and walls were obviously thick enough to prevent anything less raucous than the bell getting in.

Working on the Dalziel principle that the next best thing to overhearing a conversation is to give the impression you've overheard it, he did not resume his seat but stood close to the doorway, apparently rapt in contemplation of a small oil painting darkened by age almost to indecipherability, until the door opened and he found himself looking at a pretty blonde carrying a large bunch of dahlias.

'Let me take those to the kitchen. Mother will be delighted. They're her favourite. Oh, this is Detective-Inspector Pascoe, my dear. Jean Starkey.'

Swithenbank removed the flowers and left Pascoe and the newcomer shaking hands.

With an expertise that Pascoe admired, the woman assessed the seating available and chose the comfortable armchair. Not liking the look of the cane chair Swithenbank had occupied, Pascoe perched gingerly on a chaise-longue which was even harder than it appeared.

'Are you an inhabitant of Wearton, too, Miss Starkey?'

She glanced down at her ringless left hand and smiled approval.

'Oh no. Like yourself, just visiting. At least I presume you're just visiting?'

'For the moment, yes.'

'Does that mean you may eventually settle here?' asked the woman, rounding her eyes.

'I think it means the Inspector doesn't consider "visiting" adequately covers his possible return flanked by bloodhounds and armed with warrants,' said Swithenbank.

He came back into the room carrying a huge vase into which the dahlias had been tumbled with no pretence of aesthetic theory.

Placing them on a small table within reach of the big armchair he said, 'Do what you can with these, Jean dear. I've no talent for nature.'

Then, relaxing into the cane chair which seemed to have been made for a man of his size, he continued, 'Mr Pascoe is here about Kate's disappearance. No, there's been no news, but there's been a new outburst of anonymous activity. Phone calls to me and a letter to the police. By the way, Inspector, you never actually told me what was in the letter, did you? It must have been something pretty striking to get you off traffic duty. Could I see it? I might be able to help with the writing.'

'No writing, sir,' said Pascoe. 'Typewriter. Possibly a Remington International, quite old. You wouldn't know anyone who has such a machine?'

He included the woman in his query. She smiled and shook her head.

'But what did it say?' persisted Swithenbank.

'Not much. Let me sec. John Swithenbank knows where the other is. Yes, that's it.'

Swithenbank and Jean Starkey exchanged puzzled glances.

'I'm sorry, Inspector,' he said. 'It's like Ulalume to you. I don't get it.'

'No, no. I should apologize,' said Pascoe. 'I haven't been entirely open.'

He pulled an envelope out of his inside pocket and from it he took three colour prints which he passed over to Swithenbank. The prints showed from different angles a pendant ear-ring, a single pearl in a gold setting on a thin chain about an inch long.

'Do you recognize that, sir?' asked Pascoe.

Jean Starkey, unable to contain her curiosity, had risen to peer over Swithenbank's shoulder at the photographs. He glanced up at her and she put her hand on his shoulder either for her support or his comfort.

'Kate had a pair like that,' he said. 'But I couldn't be absolutely sure.'

'It matches the specification in your list of clothes and other items which disappeared with your wife.'

'Does it? It's a year ago. If you say it does, then clearly it does. This was with that cryptic note?'

'Not so cryptic after all,' said Jean Starkey.

'No,' said Swithenbank. 'No. I see now why you came hotfoot to Wearton, Inspector. This really does point the finger.'

'But it means nothing!' protested the woman.

He smiled up at her.

'I don't mean at me, dear. I mean at whoever sent it. If it is Kate's, that is. Could I have a look at the ear-ring itself, Inspector?'

'Eventually,' said Pascoe. 'Just now it's down at our laboratory for examination.'

'Examination? For what?'

Pascoe watched Swithenbank closely as he answered.

'I'm afraid, sir, that there were traces of blood on the fastening bar. As though the ear-ring had been torn from the ear by main force.'

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.