“I’d put money on it,” said Pascoe.
“It’s terrible using people like that,” said Kentmore angrily.
“I did try to warn you about shows like Fidler’s,” murmured Kilda, whose glass seemed to be filling itself.
“Yes, you did,” said Kentmore, frowning. “But I was foolish enough to believe my views on agriculture were enough to make me primetime television fodder. Silly me. Ellie, Peter, I think we should be heading off. Many thanks for your hospitality.”
He hesitated, then took a card out of his wallet and set it down on the table.
“Look, it would be nice to keep in touch, if you like, that is. In fact, as I was telling Ellie earlier, doing a bit of touting for custom, it’s our local village fete tomorrow…”
“Yes,” said Pascoe, seeing where he was heading. “I heard Fidler giving it a plug. Weather forecast sounds good. I hope you have a lovely day.”
But Kentmore was not to be diverted.
“They always have it on one of my fields,” he went on. “From what you were saying, your little girl’s going to miss out on her skating treat. I know it’s not the same, but the organizers always go out of their way to give the kiddies a good time. So, just a thought, we’re no distance really, Haresyke, just the far side of Harrogate. If you felt like a breath of country air…”
“What a nice idea,” said Ellie. “We might just do that, mightn’t we, Peter?”
She spoke with a degree of enthusiasm which seemed to go beyond politeness.
“Yes. Sounds great,” he said.
His own effort at enthusiasm must have fallen short, because Kilda Kentmore grinned slyly at him, then finished her drink and leaned forward to brush her ice-chilled lips against his cheek, murmuring, “Thanks for the drink. Good night, Ellie.”
Ellie shook Kentmore’s hand and said, “Thanks for the lift, and everything.”
“My pleasure. Good night.”
“Well, you seem to have made a hit there,” said Ellie after their guests had left.
“He seemed a nice enough guy,” said Pascoe.
“I wasn’t talking about the guy, but Miss Stolichnaya. Weird relationship.”
“You find a nice guy taking care of his dead brother’s widow weird?”
“Still taking care a couple of years on I find weird. But you’re right, he is rather nice. For a land-owning, Tory-voting, peasant-oppressing country squire, that is. Maybe it would be fun to drive down and take a look at him in his natural milieu, what do you think? And at lean and thirsty Kilda too, of course.”
“Kilda,” said Pascoe. “Interesting name. Rings a bell.”
“She is, or was, a fashion photographer. Dropped out after she lost her husband, I gather. But maybe you recall it from a few years back when you were drooling over the lingerie adverts in the glossy mags.”
“Could be. But isn’t there a saint called Kilda?”
“Wrong,” said Ellie one of whose less attractive traits was combining snippets of esoteric knowledge with a love of being right. “True, it’s the name of a barren, windswept island in the Outer Hebrides whence all life has fled, but in fact there never was an actual saint called Kilda. So a sort of pseudosaint. Fits in most respects so far as I can see.”
Women beware women, thought Pascoe. Time to move on. But subtly.
“Talking of lean mean women,” he said, “how did things end between you and F-Fiona? Did you pull one of her two f-faces off?”
“Don’t be silly. I offered her a deal. Either I strangled her there and then or she undertook to get my next book the biggest exposure since Harry Potter.”
“I presume she’s still breathing? I think you’ll do very well in the media business, love. You’ve got the right twisted mind for it.”
“You reckon? So how would your nice straight mind react if I said let’s take this bottle of scotch upstairs and finish it in bed?”
Pascoe stood up and said, “I feel a twist coming on.”
7
IN THE MOOD
On Saturday morning two nurses were straining their backs cleaning and rearranging Dalziel.
“Much more of this and they’ll be finding a bed for me,” complained one of them, a little blonde with the face and figure of a well-fed angel. “How long before they switch this bugger off?”
Her friend, used to excursions into the macabre as an escape route from the everyday horrors of their job, replied, “Could be they’re keeping him going till they find someone in need of a big heart. With his weight, he must have a huge one.”
“Not just his heart,” said the first nurse, looking down. “Wonder if I could get that transplanted onto my Steve? Mind you, with his weak knees, he’d probably fall over every time he stood up!”
Dalziel, could he have heard the exchange, might have enjoyed a good laugh. Unfortunately, he isn’t having an out-of-body experience today. In fact, he is very much in body, awareness reduced to a pinprick of dim light in a black box at the bottom of the deepest shaft of an abandoned mine. There is nothing in this awareness that could be called memory, not even of the most generalized kind—rain in the grass, light on the land, sun on the sea—no sense of anywhere else, not even really a sense of here and now, just the thinnest membrane of differentiation between pinprick and darkness.
And the only choice remaining is when to let the pressure of the dark pop the membrane and go out, go out, beyond all doubt…
The blond nurse said, “Right, that’s Fatty done. No, hang on. Best put the music back on else his girlfriend will be looking for someone’s arse to kick.”
Cap Marvell’s mini-disc frequently got switched off, sometimes because a cleaner wanted the power point, sometimes because a consultant didn’t like competition with the sound of his own voice, sometimes because a member of staff simply found Swinging with the Big Bands even pianissimo set his teeth on edge, but mainly because very few people believed it served any function other than to bolster delusional hope.
But delusion was not a term anyone cared to use in the face of Cap Marvell’s very real anger, so now the strains of “In the Mood” played by the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra stole forth once more, crept into the Fat Man’s ear and sent its brassy brightness spiraling down into the darkness.
A couple of seconds later a momentary respondent syncopation of the hitherto regular notes of the heart monitor might have interested the nurses but by now they were out of the door and on their way to their next angelic assignment.
8
WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOR
On Saturday morning Pascoe, as a result of what had been very much an in-body experience, woke late.
Ellie’s side of the bed still bore her warm imprint and he rolled into it as he ran over the events of the previous night. After their initial frantic bout of lovemaking, Ellie had confessed how frightened she’d been at the sight of the gun and he had told her how he had felt in those long minutes after the screen went blank. Then they had lain silent in each other’s arms for a long while, clinging to each other less like lovers than a pair of lost children in a dark forest who can face any terror except the terror of being alone.
The bedroom door opened. He looked toward it, smiling, expecting to see Ellie come in bearing coffee and croissants.
She came in, but coffee-less. And she didn’t return his smile.
“I just heard the news. They’ve murdered Mike. Did you know about this?”
Who’s Mike? he wondered, but happily before he could articulate the question his brain answered Michael Carradice, aka Abbas Asir, suspected terrorist.
He sat up and said, “There was something on the news about a body, his name was mentioned but nothing definite. Has it been confirmed it’s him?”
“Oh yes. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I had other things on my mind, remember?”
“Like sex, you mean?”
He didn’t reply but regarded her gravely till she grimaced and said, “Sorry. I know…I’m just so…shi
t, I don’t know what I am. This is England, isn’t it? But there’s bombs going off, people getting their heads chopped off and waving guns around on the telly, and now this…what’s happening, Pete?”
He reached out his hand and drew her down beside him onto the bed.
“I don’t know but I’m going to find out,” he said. “What else did the police say?”
“Just that they confirmed the body was his. The reporters kept on asking about cause of death. Cause of death: poisoning. Not ricin as everyone’s saying—that would have taken much longer. A massive injection of diamorphine. Quicker. And kinder, though I doubt if that played much part in their thinking. I put the telly on and I saw the shot they took of the dinghy he was in, and the banner. Now it’s safe. Pete, they’re saying they’ve heard from those Templar lunatics who beheaded Said Mazraani. He was acquitted, and they murdered him just the same.”
“They probably murdered him because he was acquitted,” said Pascoe somberly.
“And what are your Manchester chums doing about it?” she demanded, pulling away from him. “Or do they reckon this is just someone doing their dirty work for free?”
“I’ll be sure to ask next time I see them,” said Pascoe. “Now maybe we ought to get ourselves decent before Jane turns up with our daughter.”
He walked through a quick shower and got dressed. He could smell coffee being brewed downstairs. He picked up his mobile and dialed the Lubyanka. When the phone was answered he identified himself and asked if Lukasz Komorowski was in.
His thinking was simple. To anyone else he might have to explain his interest in Carradice, or risk them putting their own interpretation upon it.
To his surprise he got put through instantly.
“Hi,” he said. “Didn’t know if you’d be there.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” said Komorowski. “How is your wife, by the way?”
“You saw the show?” wondered Pascoe.
“No. Not my thing. But I heard about it.”
I bet, thought Pascoe.
“She’s fine. But this Carradice business coming on top of it…look, I know this is personal, but if there’s anything you know, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem,” said Komorowski. “With acquittal very much on the cards, naturally we arranged surveillance. We had men in place. In addition we’d put a trace on him, a bug in the heel of his shoe. While he was being processed out of the system, his solicitor was telling the Press his client would be joining him shortly to answer their questions. But of course he didn’t. The bug told us he was still in the building. When we went looking we found his shoes on top of a lavatory cistern. We assumed this had all been part of a ruse concocted by his brief so that he could leave via one of the other exits. His lawyer denied it, but we were unpersuaded till we got the news that his body had been found in a dinghy floating on a Nottinghamshire reservoir. Cause of death. Ricin poisoning.”
“Shit. I gather there’s been a message from the Templars.”
“Oh yes,” said Komorowski. “All the main TV companies and most of the national papers. As before. Where the Law fails, we will provide justice, that sort of thing. It will, I fear, resonate with a lot of people.”
“A lot of Voice readers, certainly,” said Pascoe.
“Voice readers? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
Pascoe could sense the faint smile on the man’s lips.
“Look, thanks a lot for being so open with me,” he said. “It’s not that there was ever any close connection between my wife and Carradice, you understand…”
“Of course,” said Komorowski. “I’m glad you felt able to ring. In fact, if you hadn’t, I was going to ring you.”
“You were?” said Pascoe, surprised. “Well, thanks even more.”
“I must confess my motives were mixed,” said the man. “Concern for your wife’s feelings coming a little behind a more professional concern. The distant connection between Mrs. Pascoe and the dead man is of course of no interest to anyone of sense, but the tabloids would seize upon it with great glee. Headlines like I married a terrorist’s auntie, says bombed bobby would not, of course, bring down the government, but they could be deeply embarrassing. And in pursuit of a good story, these people are without scruple. No one is safe, colleagues, friends, family—children are particularly vulnerable.”
“Yes, OK, I know all this, but there’s no reason why it should get out. Is there?”
“We live in an age of leaks, Mr. Pascoe,” said Komorowski gloomily. “Even the secrets we take to the grave with us aren’t safe from the scavengings of biographers and obituarists. As for reasons, malice has its reasons that reason wots not of. But I’m probably taking too dark a view here. If you and Mrs. Pascoe keep your heads beneath the parapet for a while, I’m sure the Carradice story will soon go the way of all copy.”
Am I being warned here or threatened? Pascoe asked himself.
He said, “Was Carradice definitely guilty?”
“If it’s any consolation, yes, he was. Beyond all doubt, except for the kind that defense lawyers cultivate like delicate orchids in the hothouse of our courts. Will you be returning to us on Monday?”
“Superintendent Glenister is going to ring me tomorrow,” said Pascoe.
“I see. Whatever, I’m sure we will meet again. Don’t hesitate to ring if I can be of any further assistance. Good-bye.”
He rang off. From downstairs Ellie’s voice called, “Coffee’s getting cold!”
In the kitchen he said, “Sorry. I got talking on the phone.”
He passed on in full what Komorowski had said.
Ellie said, “I thought the CAT spooks tended to keep you at arm’s length?”
“And now here’s one falling over himself to be friendly. Yes, I noticed that too.”
“And do you believe him?”
“Which bit of him?”
“Let’s start with the bit about Mike being definitely guilty.”
“He seemed very sure.”
“It was people like him who were sure about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re always wrong.”
“No. But it doesn’t make any difference anyway. Does it?”
He knew what she was saying but he still said, “What?”
“Mike was murdered. What he might or might not have been guilty of is irrelevant. He was murdered, end of story. Right? Or now you’ve been told he was definitely guilty, does this make it some sort of justified homicide in your book?”
“No, of course not,” said Pascoe irritably. “An unlawful killing is an unlawful killing. It’s up to the courts to take account of motive and circumstance. Without fear or favor. That’s the way the judiciary operates in trying cases. And that’s the way the police operate in investigating them.”
“And that’s what you’re doing in regard to the Mill Street explosion, right?”
“I’m sorry?” said Pascoe, thinking, Christ! and I thought I’d kept this under wraps! Could she have got a hint from Wieldy? Not likely, but how else…?
“You’re not letting it alone, are you, Peter?”
“It nearly killed me. It may have killed a very good friend,” he proclaimed. “I’m sorry if I seem a bit obsessive about it. I’ll try to put it out of my mind in future, shall I?”
It was bluster, aimed at winning space to think. Sometime soon he would have to share his doubts and theories about what had actually happened in Mill Street, but he’d have preferred Edgar Wield to be the first to run his cool unblinking gaze over them.
Next moment he realized he no longer had a choice.
Ellie said, “There was a file behind a cushion on the sofa.”
Oh shit. His private investigation file, which events last night had put right out of his mind.
He said, “You read it?”
“Stuff you find down the sofa is common property, house rule, remember?”
A rule which on occasion had provided a useful way of giv
ing Rosie a bit of extra pocket money when an open advance would have breached strict economic policy.
“So?”
“So let’s not beat about. Do you really think Mill Street wasn’t just a dreadful accident but something more sinister? Or is this just a neurotic symptom of PTSD?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds a bit crazy, I know, but what’s happened to Carradice and to Mazraani sounds crazy too, and we know that’s really happened.”
“Yes, but whoever organized those killings wants the world to know about it. There’s been no message relating to Mill Street, has there?”
“No, but it could be they’re a bit reluctant to admit doing something which not only killed three terrorists but also blew up two policemen, maybe killing one of them.”
That brought silence. Pascoe drank his cooling coffee and crumbled a soggy croissant. This was not in any respect the breakfast he’d expected.
Ellie said softly, “Pete, are you sure you know what you’re getting into here?”
“You mean if I’ve spotted there are inconsistencies, so have the CAT investigators, and why aren’t they saying anything? Oh yes, I’ve looked down that road and I’m still not sure where it leads.”
“No,” said Ellie. “I hadn’t thought of it, but it just makes things worse.”
“What then?”
“It’s what we were talking about before, only a lot more personal. I mean, if the explosion hadn’t put Andy in a coma and come close to killing you, would you be so bothered about it? Even if you spotted inconsistencies. Three terrorists killed. Who cares? CAT want to call the shots. Dan Trimble is happy they should. Would you in those circumstances have started stirring things up and getting yourself noticed?”
“In those circumstances, the guys who did this would have wanted the world to know, so there wouldn’t have been a problem,” declared Pascoe triumphantly. But it was merely a debating point and they both knew it.
He couldn’t resist following it up with another.
“Anyway, it’s not two minutes since you were getting aerated because you thought the death of Carradice might get downgraded because people thought he was a terrorist. So why are you down on me for trying to get at the truth about Mill Street?”
Death Comes for the Fat Man Page 18