Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  I heard the crunch of snow behind me as someone else came out of the castle. It was Linda. She said, ‘God, I thought I’d smother if I stayed much longer in there.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it’s been a great night though.’

  ‘You’ve enjoyed yourself, have you, Franny? That’s good. I was worried you might be bored among all us politicos.’

  ‘No way,’ I assured her. ‘It’s been great.’

  She looked really pleased and, slipping her arm through mine, she said, ‘I’ll walk through the forest with you a little way till I get cooled down.’

  And so we strolled companionably through the pine trees and I can honestly say I’ve rarely felt more at peace with myself and the world than I did at that moment.

  Eventually we reached the ruined chapel that had filled me with such superstitious fear on the night of my arrival. Here we paused. Suddenly Linda shivered, whether because of the setting or simply because the cold had struck deep, I don’t know. But it seemed perfectly natural for me to unlink my arm and put it around her shoulders and draw her close to share my warmth.

  Well, it was like pressing that button in the Pentagon which starts World War Three!

  She turned towards me and next thing that tongue which I had felt at the back of my throat as the clock struck twelve was now trying to lick my brain cells out of my skull. We span round and round among the ruins like a pair of drunken waltzers till we fetched up against the cloister wall. Somehow during this mad motion buttons had got unbuttoned, zips unzipped and hooks unhooked, and suddenly I was feeling the heat of her bare bosom burning against my chest and the savage teeth of sub zero air biting into my buttocks! It was, I thought, like having your haunches in Dante’s Cocytus while you dipped your member into Phlegethon. And if such infernal images seem ungallant, I can only justify myself by the context, for over her shoulder as we coupled I could see a whole wallful of frescoed figures who seemed to be engaged in much the same activity. Indeed, as I climaxed noisily, it seemed to me that one of these figures, cowled and sinister, detached itself from the fresco and moved shadowily away into the trees.

  Afterwards, we got dressed silently and with a speed that had as much to do (I hope) with cold as with regret. Then she reached out her hand, touched my cheek and said, ‘Happy New Year, Franny. Sleep well.’ And set off back to the castle.

  I watched her go then went towards the end of the wall and looked down at the snow.

  I saw the fresh prints of a rope sandal. Only one person at Fichtenburg wore rope sandals.

  Frère Dierick.

  I hurried back to the chalet. Jacques, who’d escaped the party straight after midnight, was on his mobile when I entered. He brought the call to a rather rapid conclusion. Could it be Emerald on the end of the line? I wondered. No sign of Dierick. Jacques looked as if he’d have liked to sit and chat with me, but I excused myself on the grounds of tiredness. He’s sharp of eye and apprehension and though he’s possibly in no position to cast stones, I still didn’t want him to know that I’d been at it with our patroness on what for all I knew was still consecrated ground. I had a feeling that Dierick wouldn’t be rushing to tell him either. Info like that was best stored up and kept for a rainy day.

  To my surprise, I slept like a top and woke without a hangover, either alcoholic or psychological. It had been, I assured myself, a one-night stand. Linda had too much sense of her own dignity to risk any hint that she had got herself a toy-boy (OK, I’m not that young, but young enough for the chattering classes of Westminster and Strasbourg to have a good chortle over at their cocktail parties). Once assured that I wasn’t about to make a big thing out of our brief encounter, we would resume our old relationship, only enriched by that extra closeness which such a shared memory always brings. As for Dierick, if he started hurling accusations around, it would be Linda he’d be taking on, and she could eat squirts like Dierick for breakfast!

  But I must admit I was distinctly uneasy until I’d strolled up to the castle and joined Linda and the others for a cup of coffee. My prognosis seems to be right. She greeted me warmly, but not too warmly. Like me, she seems to have survived the celebrations with little after-effect, and as we looked over the wrecked politicos beached all around us, we were able to share a superior smile.

  No sign of Dierick. Skulking bastard! I suspect even Jacques shares my distaste. Certainly he’s not quite the same easy, outgoing companion he was before the little squirt arrived.

  Anyway, I’m going to end my last full day here relaxing, and keeping my fingers crossed for that call from sunny California!

  Wed Jan 2nd, 8.30 a.m.

  All good things come to an end, and this for me has been very good indeed. What a change there’s been in my life. I look back only a couple of months and find it hard to recall that so recently I was a penniless student with no assured future. And of course I don’t have to look much further back to see myself as a convicted criminal paying his debt to society. And then with Sam’s tragic death, I hit rock bottom.

  Of course I’d give it all up to have him still alive, and if I shared Charley Penn’s belief that in fact his killer was still undetected, I think that the desire to make good what the law has failed to address is the one thing that might tempt me back to criminality. But there’s no escaping the fact that, from that low point, I’ve been soaring upwards ever since.

  I’ve had several strokes of luck, giving me hope that rather than just being as it were a midwife to Sam’s great brainchild, I may really be able to claim a small part in its parentage. And I’m delighted to say that I have made many excellent new contacts among Linda’s politicos.

  So, dear Mr Pascoe, everything seems for the best in the best of possible worlds!

  But I have to stop now and get my gear packed. The party’s breaking up. Not even Dingley Dell can keep the real world at bay for ever. The politicos are getting back on their respective gravy trains. Jacques, accompanied by Dierick, is touching base at the monastery then heading back to the UK to resume his promotional tour.

  As for me, it had been proposed before New Year that I should travel back with Linda and Mouse to Strasbourg and stay there a few days before going on to Frankfurt and Göttingen, both of which played a large role in Beddoes’ European life. At the time the only thing which made me hesitate about instant agreement was Mouse. By herself she may have reverted to the quiet and shy little creature she really is, but Zazie and Hildi could be waiting back home, eager for a progress report, and ready to urge her back into the fray. I’m probably flattering myself, of course, but now that Linda has put herself in the frame too, I shudder at the picture of myself lying in my bed in the Lupin guestroom and both mother and daughter tiptoeing in to say Hello Sailor!

  Why is my life so complicated? What wouldn’t I give to be more like you, Mr Pascoe, so well organized, with my life under perfect control, but, alas, those genes were not tossed into my cradle by whatever Fairy Godmother attended my birth. My mother knew what she wanted and set out to get it, so I reckon I must have inherited my chaotic make-up from the father I never knew. From what my mother said about him, which wasn’t much, he was wild at heart and not one whom fortune favoured. All I can hope is that I might get some of the luck he never did.

  I am sitting writing this as I finish off the coffee at the breakfast table. Frère Jacques and I discovered one of many things we have in common is an internal alarm clock set for early rising, the result of our shared experience of the life cellular! Dierick is an even earlier riser. No sign of him this morning, and, to give him credit, no sign of his overnight presence on the sofa. When I met him yesterday, his manner to me was unchanged, distrustful neutrality! So I think I’ve read that situation right.

  Penologists might like to note that in many ways the monastery has left Jacques a lot more disciplined than the Syke left me. His bag is already packed and standing in the entrance porch, and he has just set out to walk up to the castle and make his farewells. I meanwhile, not yet
packed, linger here, pinned down by an irresistible urge to bring you up to date with the course of events since last I wrote and a superstitious feeling that by staying close to the phone I may persuade Dwight Duerden to ring. After all, it’s still not midnight in California and I did say in my message that I’d be leaving here today. You must think me pathetic to be clutching at such straws – oh god there it goes!

  Oh god! indeed. Thirty minutes have passed, one thousand eight hundred seconds, and in that time fortune, who doesn’t care to be taken for granted, has raised me up and then shown me how easily she can cast me down!

  It was indeed Professor Duerden. He said he’d spoken to various people as soon as he got back to St Poll and they were hugely enthused by what he told them. They are all desperately keen to meet me and find out exactly what it is I’ve got to offer. I had to keep reminding myself that he was ringing from Southern California where most people speak English, a lot speak Spanish, but everyone speaks hype. But when he finished by inviting me out there as a guest of the university, all expenses paid, I couldn’t help catching some of his excitement. No, let me not be too English about this. I was bubbling fit to burst! I heard myself asking, idiotically, what the temperature was out there. To tell the truth, I was getting just a bit tired of invigorating frosts. A man can only be braced so far before he busts. Disappointingly he said it was about forty-eight degrees outside at the moment, then he laughed and went on, ‘But it is nearly midnight! During the day, when the sun shines, we get in the high sixties, maybe even higher with a bit of luck.’

  That will suit me nicely, I thought. Then something occurred to me which sent my spirits diving. I am, you may recall, a convicted felon. Didn’t the US immigration authorities have strong feelings about that? Haltingly I put the objection to Dwight. He said, yes, he was aware of that, but dispensations could be made and he’d had a word with an old chum of his in Washington and another with a former pupil currently in their London Embassy, and it seemed that as long as I’d kept my nose clean since release and Dwight guaranteed to take responsibility for me while over there, I would be admitted as it were on sufferance. All I had to do was send off a formal visa application and then present myself at Grosvenor Square for interview when required. Was that OK?

  My spirits were rocketing again! I said it was more than OK, it was great! And he said he thought so too and he’d expect to see me some time towards the end of January.

  I must admit I put the phone down and punched the air like a celebrating footballer!

  While we were talking I’d thought I’d heard the front door of the chalet open and shut, which I put down to Frère Jacques returning. I had to share my exuberance with someone and I rushed through into his bedroom, only to find it empty. I must have been mistaken, I thought, and needing exercise to work off the joyous rush of energy surging through my body, I went into my own room to pack.

  There was a head on my pillow, two eyes looking at me rather nervously, a mouth essaying an inviting smile.

  It was Mouse.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, then took half a step backwards.

  Perhaps fearful that I was going to turn and flee, she threw the duvet back to reveal she was stark naked. The way she did it, a quick spasmodic movement rather than a tantalizing unveiling, plus the tension visible in every muscle and the way she kept her legs pressed tightly together, showed me how nervous and uncertain she was.

  I should, of course, have turned away and left the room. But, having overcome God knows what crises of mind and spirit to bring herself to this point, how would such a rejection have affected poor Mouse?

  Sorry, that sounds like I’m trying to justify my actions. I freely admit that, without that phone call from Dwight, I would have been out of there so quick, she might have thought I’d been a mirage! But like I said, I was bubbling with a delight I wanted to share with everyone and without a first let alone a second thought (and certainly not that Third Thought which is my grave!) I was out of my clothes and into my bed.

  Perhaps my sense of joy was infectious for she very quickly relaxed, though there must have been some pain in it for she was as inexperienced as she looked. But the strange cry she uttered as I entered her (which sounded to my admittedly not very attentive ears like wununredunAAAYtee!) seemed more triumphal than distressed.

  From my own selfish point of view, I enjoyed it very much, certainly a great deal more than I might have anticipated. But post coitum timidum est, and as rapidly as the physical pleasure faded from my nerve ends, the possible consequences of my action came swarming into my disanaesthetized mind.

  The first and most immediate was that Jacques might return at any moment, and in my haste to oblige Mouse, I now realized I hadn’t even shut the door! I began to roll off the bed but we were still tangled up and she seemed inclined to hang on, resulting in a not unstimulating bout of wrestling which might have made me forget about the open door if out of the corner of my eye I hadn’t glimpsed a figure standing like Death on the threshold.

  It was Dierick. He smiled, the first time I’d seen him smile. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Then slowly he closed the door.

  Mouse hadn’t seen him. Firmly I disengaged myself and got off the bed and, trying not to show an ungentlemanly haste, I pulled on my clothes. After a moment Mouse followed my example. Fully clothed, we stood on either side of the bed and looked each other straight in the eye.

  I felt I had to say something, preferably something at the same time wise and affectionate and maybe a bit conciliatory, but all I could manage was, ‘Danke schön.’

  She said, ‘Bitte schön.’

  And we both laughed.

  Then she left.

  So what am I to do now, dear Chief Inspector? Once more I am in desperate need of your good advice. I know how much you must disapprove of what probably seems to you my libidinous nature. How feeble I must sound if I plead strong temptation and very weak flesh! Someone so physically attractive as yourself must have had – must still have – endless opportunity to indulge his baser passions, but I am sure your sense of probity and power of will are both strong enough to make sure you never stray. But that is why I, the weak, must always be turning to you, the strong, in search of strength.

  Dierick is the key, of course. I looked for him to open negotiations, but he was nowhere to be found. So I’ll have to sweat on it, but I’ve resolved on one change of plan.

  I will finish my packing now, then go and tell Linda that I will not after all take up her invitation to visit Strasbourg but instead will complete my researches in Zurich and Basel, then move on to Frankfurt and Gӧttingen prior to heading off to sunny California.

  Ain’t I the laid-back jet-setter then! Ain’t I the Citizen of the World!

  Of course, even without the threat of Dierick, if Mouse gives Linda any hint of what has just taken place, it may be that I shall no longer have any reason to jet anywhere except home. My claim to be Sam Johnson’s literary executor only exists through her goodwill, which might survive or indeed be increased by the memory of our New Year celebration. But the idea that just over twenty-four hours later I’d extended the courtesy to her favourite daughter was not going to go down well.

  Once more I ask you to wish me luck.

  Dear God, how soon fate exacts payment! Truly no man can call himself happy till he takes his happiness to the grave with him. My visit to Fichtenburg, so successful in many ways, now looks like it might end as badly as it began.

  Let me put my thoughts in order.

  I went up the castle, as explained above.

  On my way there I met Jacques returning to the chalet. We took our farewells as, with a two-day drive ahead of him, he wanted to be off as soon as he could.

  In the castle I found no such haste, however. There seemed to be a general reluctance to break up such a successful house party.

  Linda expressed what seemed like genuine disappointment when I said I’d have to skip Strasbourg this time round, but it was balanced with huge
delight at my news from America. Mouse came in as we were talking and listened with apparent indifference as her mother relayed my news, but I was perfectly content with indifference. Things move on. Perhaps defloration isn’t the big thing in a girl’s life it used to be!

  Finally I said goodbye to Linda, promising to keep in close touch. Incidentally, her parting kiss, much to my relief, had nothing of strenuous tongue in it but was back to full-blooded Henry Cooper hook mode.

  Mouse shook my hand. No significant pressure, nor anything in her tone as she said, ‘Goodbye, Franny. I’m pleased things are going so well. I do hope you can keep it up.’

  Then she winked at me!

  And suddenly it felt like I was the late virgin being encouraged on his way by the voice of old experience.

  Perhaps that’s what gave me the stimulus to work out what I’m sure your professionally incisive mind spotted instantly, my dear Chief Inspector, to wit, the significance of Mouse’s strange cry as I penetrated.

  One hundred and eighty!

  The triumphal cry a darts scorer sends up as the third dart enters the treble twenty.

  ‘What are you two grinning at?’ asked Linda. But her tone was indulgent.

  So, nothing to fear from Mouse. Which only left Dierick, who, I thought with relief, was probably on his way north with Jacques by now.

  Then Jacques came into the room and asked impatiently if anyone had seen him.

  At first the guy’s absence was just a cause of irritation. But soon, when he couldn’t be found anywhere, it became a matter of real alarm.

  Concern that he might have slipped and hurt himself sent us out into the pine forest, looking for tracks and calling his name. We all tried to recall when last we’d seen him, and established that since Jacques and I said goodnight to him in the chalet the previous evening, nobody had had sight of him. Except of course me, and I could hardly explain about that. The weather, after the brief interlude of clear frosty skies we had on New Year’s Eve, has returned to low cloud and swirling mist and temperatures high enough to turn the snow soft and mushy. Darkness will be upon us even earlier than usual this afternoon. It was time, Linda decided, to call off our amateur search and inform the authorities. So now I’m back here in the chalet, turning to you for comfort again, Mr Pascoe. Everyone else is back in the castle, waiting for the police. Only Jacques is still out there with a couple of local forestry workers, refusing to give up the search.