Death Comes for the Fat Man

by Reginald Hill

Kentmore said, “Sorry, I’m going on, aren’t I? Look, it would be nice to see you, but if you’re busy or have made other arrangements or…”

  Now Ellie did let herself sound a little irritated.

  “Maurice,” she said. “I’m quite capable of finding my own excuses. If I wanted any. Which I don’t. So when and where?”

  “I really only know the Keldale Hotel,” he said. “The restaurant is pretty reliable. What do you think?”

  Reliable, in this case meaning dull, stodgy, and pretentious.

  “If you’re seriously asking, I think I’d rather grab a burger in the park,” she said.

  “Oh well, if you really wanted to do that…”

  “I’m joking, Maurice. But not the Keldale. How about the Saracen’s Head, Little Hen Street, twelve thirty? You’ll need to book. Or would you like me…?”

  This was a challenge too far to his masculinity.

  “No. I’ll do it. Look forward to seeing you.”

  Was I rude? thought Ellie, putting the phone down. Maybe. But I’m not going to reorganize my day to lunch in the fucking Keldale!

  It occurred to her that she hadn’t mentioned she’d be alone. Ah well, it would be a pleasant surprise for him. She hoped. Whoops. Why did she hope that? Because she was assuming it was her company he wanted, not Peter’s.

  To what end? she heard her husband inquire. For your sparkling conversation? Or your lily white body? “How should I know!” she said to her reflection in the mirror. OK, but you should know why you said yes, came the retort. “Because he seemed to expect me to say no,” she replied briskly as she stood in front of her wardrobe, wondering what to wear. But couldn’t that be exactly the reaction he was looking to provoke? asked her husband. Men, as you have from time to time pointed out, can be devious bastards, especially in pursuit of LWBs. “Speak for yourself,” she retorted.

  And found herself wishing yearningly that he was here to do that.

  She closed the wardrobe and looked at herself in the mirrored door. For a casual pub lunch, what was wrong with the M&S jeans and checked shirt she was wearing?

  Nothing, came the answer.

  Nothing at all.

  The Saracen’s Head was an old coaching-inn pub which Peter and Ellie often used if they met at lunchtime. It was old and dark and could have done with a bit of tender loving care from a sympathetic decorator, but the dining room was clean and airy with well-scrubbed deal tables not too crowded together and a short menu of good plain food cooked from scratch on the premises. Another advantage was that it was a good mile from the Black Bull, CID’s favorite pit stop, so there was little chance of an overspill.

  It occurred to Ellie as she walked toward the ancient sign, which had been creaking over the cobbles of Little Hen Street for at least two hundred years, that in light of Kentmore’s sad family history it wasn’t perhaps the most diplomatic of venues.

  The inn sign showed the eponymous head looking a touch popeyed, which was perhaps not surprising as it had evidently just been severed from its body.

  A Lib-Dem councilor with more sensibility than sense had mounted a campaign to have the sign removed, on the grounds that it was likely to cause offense to non-Christian faith groups. The local paper had produced an editorial which seemed to be supporting the campaign until you reached the paragraph listing other signs the councilor might like to put on his hit list such as Men on public toilets (sexist), Help the Aged over a charity shop (ageist), St. George’s Church (dragonist), and Posy Please (florist).

  Ellie had laughed even though the councilor was a friend of hers. She too had taken a little time to learn that sometimes perception is the better part of principle.

  Kentmore was already there.

  He’s keen, thought Ellie as she saw him rising from his chair and stepping forward to greet her. She was prepared for anything from an air kiss to the touch of warm lips, but all he offered was a brisk handshake. They sat down. The table was set for only two. Did this mean he’d guessed or presumed that Peter wouldn’t come? Watch out for your lily white body, girl! she admonished herself as she ordered the poached salmon salad and a small glass of white wine. He did the same. He said it was his first time here and asked if she knew anything of the history of the place. To an ex-lecturer, it’s always pleasant to be given an excuse to deliver a short lecture, so she did, watching carefully for the first sign of eye-glaze but not detecting any.

  “So,” she concluded, “though the building is seventeenth century, it could be the name was inherited from a medieval pub that once occupied the same site. Or it could be that some Yorkshire entrepreneur cashing in on the buoyant market for cakes and ale after the Restoration thought a nice bit of retrodesign would be just the job. Probably had lances on the wall, Crusader ale in the cask.”

  “Steak and coeur-de-lion pie on the menu,” he contributed, smiling.

  He had a very attractive smile. Apart from the table for two, nothing in his demeanor or conversation suggested he had LWBs on his mind, but she recalled once hearing the Great Guru Dalziel say that getting a confession and getting laid had much in common—you had to be willing to listen to a lot of crap en route without falling asleep.

  The salmon came. It was delicious. She refused a second glass of wine, not through fear of weakening her resistance but because she was picking Rosie up from school later. Kentmore made no effort to persuade her.

  She asked after his sister-in-law, Kilda.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “She keeps herself busy. She has lots of friends.”

  Most of whom she meets at AA sessions, thought Ellie. Then slapped herself mentally for being a bitch.

  “Is she working again now? She was a photographer, wasn’t she?”

  “I hope she’ll get back to it,” he said. “On Saturday at the fete, that was the first time I’ve seen her using her camera since Chris…”

  He tailed off and she came in quickly, “What about family? Any kids?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a pity.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I just thought, losing her husband, kids might have been a comfort. I know if anything ever happened to Peter, I’m certain I’d be even gladder than I am to have my daughter, Rosie…sorry. Not my business.”

  “Kilda’s got me. After it happened we had each other.”

  “It’s good you’re so close,” she said.

  “Yes, it was really handy that she and Chris had a house on the estate.”

  She almost said she didn’t mean that, but stopped herself. Of course he knew she didn’t mean that. How close they were, what comfort they had sought in each other, was their business. And she recalled her instinctive feeling, which she’d passed on to Peter, that they weren’t in a physical relationship.

  She said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. Grief, sharing a death, that either brings people together or thrusts them apart…”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  She said, “Sort of, I suppose. Before we got married, we lost some friends, people we’d been at university with, in circumstances…well, we don’t need to go into that. And I wasn’t certain at the time where it was going to leave us.”

  “But it brought you closer?”

  “Oh yes. Then later, there was a time when Rosie was seriously ill and I really didn’t know what might happen to us if she didn’t make it…still don’t…”

  His hand rested on hers and he said, “I think you’d have been OK. But it’s hell, no getting away from it. They say time heals, but that moment when I realized Chris was dead, that’s left a wound that nothing can heal.”

  His fingers were digging into the back of her hand.

  She said, because it felt necessary to say something, anything, to stop him from reliving the experience, “How did you hear? Letter, or did they contact you direct?”

  “What? Oh yes, eventually. But I knew already. I heard him die, you see.”

  Oh God, she thought. Was this go
ing to be one of those mystic experiences she usually mocked as a retrospective rearranging of the furniture? And when I heard he’d died at two o’clock on Thursday, I remembered that it was just about then that I broke one of my best crystal glasses…just fell apart…he always loved those glasses…

  She drew her hand away from beneath his and said, “Heard…in what sense?”

  “In the sense of I heard,” he said. “He rang me. That’s right. I was in bed and the phone rang and when I picked it up, it was Chris. His helicopter had been shot down and he got taken prisoner. He was injured already and the bastards who took him decided they weren’t going to waste medical supplies on him but they might as well extract any useful information they could before they dumped him. So they tortured him.”

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Ellie. “But this phone call you say he made…”

  “A rescue party turned up and sorted out the bastards who were torturing him but it was too late for Chris. He knew he was dying. There was a satellite phone. Chris begged the chap in charge to let him use it. Strictly against the rules, I imagine, but what use are rules when a man’s dying in front of you?”

  He fell silent.

  Ellie said, “And he rang you?”

  She tried to keep the note of puzzlement out of her voice, but didn’t succeed.

  He said, “And not Kilda, you mean? Of course he tried her first. But she was away. So he rang me. We spoke only a few seconds. And then he fell silent. After a moment a voice said, ‘Sorry, sir, he’s gone. I’ll be in touch.’ Then the phone went dead.”

  “Oh my God. And what did you do?”

  “What do you think I did?” he demanded savagely. “Dialed 1471 and tried to get reconnected? Sorry, that was rude. I don’t know what I did. It felt like a dream, a nightmare. Eventually of course it became official. That was better, marginally. Official you can deal with. Official gives you things to do, decisions to make, papers to sign.”

  He emptied his glass, pointed at Ellie’s.

  She shook her head.

  He said, “Probably wise. The bottle was a temptation back then. In the end I resisted it. But let’s have some coffee.”

  When it came he said, “This was meant to be a jolly sociable lunch. Sorry to off-load all this stuff onto you, especially when you’ve got troubles of your own.”

  “Troubles?” she echoed, unsure which of them he might be refering to.

  “Peter’s boss, I get the impression he means a lot to you both…”

  “Andy? Yes, he does. A lot.”

  “So if he doesn’t make it, you’re going to be hit hard?”

  It occurred to her that if this was his idea of getting the lunch back on jolly sociable lines, he ought to go on a course.

  She said, “Yes, we are. It will be…I think earth-shattering’s the only way to put it. Most people we love, kids, parents, spouses, you feel their vulnerability, you worry about them, often too much maybe. But Andy…imagine going to the Lake District and finding that Great Gable wasn’t there. I keep telling myself the prognosis isn’t good, that it’s time to start letting go. But inside I can’t get close to accepting it.”

  He squeezed her hand again. It felt like genuine sympathy rather than a move.

  He said, “Incidentally, I was reading in the paper about an alert at the hospital on Sunday. There was some speculation that an attempt had been made on the life of a policeman who was a patient there and I wondered if it might have been your friend.”

  Ellie looked at him curiously. The only paper which had come that close to the truth was the Voice, and she wouldn’t have put Kentmore down as a reader.

  He misread her hesitation and said, “Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking you about police matters. It was crass of me. And as I only saw it in some rag I glanced at in the hairdresser’s, it’s probably a load of rubbish anyway.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re right, there was an incident. But it didn’t involve Andy, not directly, that is. Another officer who was a witness in the Mill Street case. Look, I really don’t know anything more than that.”

  And Peter would tell her she shouldn’t have said even as much as that. But by comparison with what she wasn’t saying, about her crazy husband running around the Kielder Forest with a bunch of heavily armed madmen, it was the tiniest of indiscretions. And whatever else Kentmore was, she couldn’t see him as an undercover Voice reporter!

  His hand was still on hers. He gave what felt like a farewell squeeze, poured more coffee, and asked how Tig and Rosie were after their triumph at the fete.

  As they left together, Ellie said, “Thanks for the lunch. I enjoyed it.”

  “Does that mean you’ll want to come again if I call again?”

  “If? That’s not very flattering,” she said.

  “It just means I’m far too old-fashioned to be presumptuous enough to say when.”

  This rang a bit arch. Or maybe that’s what old-fashioned flirting sounded like.

  “In that case, good-bye. Or au revoir,” she said, offering her hand.

  She could do archness too.

  He took her hand. This time however he did not shake it firmly, but used his grip to draw her toward him and brushed his lips against her cheek.

  “I’ve really had a good time,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

  For a moment she thought his lips were coming round to her mouth. Then over his shoulder, reflected in the glass of one of the pub windows on the far side of the road half hidden by a parked car, she saw a figure she recognized.

  “There’s Kilda,” she said, breaking away. “She must have come looking for you.”

  She turned to wave, and felt her face adjusting into an expressive mode she couldn’t immediately identify. Then she got it. This was the look of wide-eyed innocence she used to adopt whenever her mother almost caught her reading a magazine that didn’t have the parental seal of approval. Jesus! she thought, forcing her features into a neutral mask. It isn’t like I had my hand down the guy’s trouser front or something!

  For a second the woman behind the car didn’t move and Ellie thought, Maybe it isn’t her. Or maybe she’s had a few and doesn’t care to meet me.

  Then she moved forward across the road toward them.

  If she’d been hitting the bottle, there was no sign of it in either her appearance or her speech. She flashed a brief formal smile at Ellie then said, “Maurice, I finished earlier than I expected so thought I might still catch you here. Hello, Ellie.”

  “Hello,” said Ellie. “We were just saying good-bye.”

  “That sounds a bit final,” said the woman.

  Ellie detected a note of mocking satisfaction that she found provocative.

  “Not really,” she said. “In fact, I was just going to ask Maurice here if he fancied coming to lunch with us at the weekend? Peter will be back by then and I know he’ll be sorry to have missed you. You too, of course, Kilda.”

  There you are, dear, thought Ellie, feeling back in control of the situation. Let’s see just how possessive you are!

  The Kentmores looked at each other, deciding which of them would formulate the refusal, guessed Ellie.

  Then the man said, “It would have to be Saturday for me.”

  “Fine.”

  “Then that would be lovely. Wouldn’t it, Kilda?”

  “Great,” said the woman.

  “Oh good,” said Ellie. “I’ll look forward to seeing you then. Shall we say round about twelve? Thanks again for lunch, Maurice.”

  “Thanks for coming. I enjoyed it. See you Saturday then.”

  The pair of them walked away, close but not touching. As soon as they were out of earshot an animated conversation broke out between them. It didn’t look too friendly.

  Just what is the relationship between them? wondered Ellie as she watched them go.

  And how the hell am I going to explain to Peter that I’ve asked them for lunch?

  2

  PROMOTION

  Back in the
Lubyanka Pascoe found that attitudes had changed.

  The first person he saw when he arrived at eight forty-five was Freeman, who’d glanced at his Patek Philippe watch with a smile and said, “What kept you?”

  “My ten-mile run before breakfast,” said Pascoe. “Is Sandy in yet?”

  “Of course she is. You know the old Jacobite tradition. No breakfast till you’ve killed an Englishman. But you’ll have to wait. She’s upstairs with Uncle Bernie.”

  “Killing him?”

  “I hope not. I’ll let her know you’re here, shall I? Where will you be?”

  Pascoe said, “In the cellar, I suppose. I don’t want to get myself arrested by showing up anywhere else.”

  Freeman seemed to find this very witty.

  “Good to have you back, Pete,” he said, sounding as if he meant it.

  Pondering these things, Pascoe descended to the room where he’d worked so boringly the previous week. Here he found Tim and Rod already engaged in their seemingly endless task of record trawling.

  When they saw him, they both rose with expressions of delight and greeted him like a returned prodigal. News of his role in the Youngman affair had clearly reached them and they were eager for details. Suspecting some kind of confidentiality test, he only confirmed what they already knew. Unsatisfied, they insisted he join them in the staff canteen for further debriefing and morning coffee. The few people already there and others who came later also gave him the big welcome, confirming what he’d already begun to feel, that he had moved, or been moved, from outsider to one-of-us.

  Still he looked for hidden motives, for mocking irony. But quickly he began to realize how much his sense of being kept out of the loop and his suspicion that the Templars had an informant in CAT had colored his feelings about the whole of the unit. Now he was reminded of what he shouldn’t have forgotten, that these people too—even the spooks—were policemen, and cops don’t like vigilantes. If, as occasionally happens, there is dirty work to be done, then you consult your conscience and if you get a green light, you do it yourself. What you never do is let civilians trespass on your turf, even if they seem to be giving you a helping hand. And when the vigilantes in question not only blow up a cop, but then compound what was presumably an accident by trying to kill another who might be a witness, any ambiguity about their status evaporates completely.