D&P20 - Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  The pigs were still keeping their distance. He'd banked on this. Not for them the plain fare of successfully escorting the Hoard to the Mid-Yorkshire Heritage Centre. No, they wanted to dip their snouts in the great steaming trough of arrests, and bodies in cells, and headlines in papers. But they hadn't thought to escort the empty van down from Mid-Yorkshire. Forcing it to divert into the Estoti service area off the underpass had been easy. And while the strong-arms in his team dealt with the driver and guard, the substitute vehicle, its call-sign signal carefully adjusted, emerged from the southern end of the underpass.

  Reversing the process required a bit more guile.

  'Keep it steady’ he said to his driver.

  They'd gradually diminished their speed for the past quarter-hour so that now they were barely doing forty-five. Were the pigs suspicious? Why should they be? In any case it was too late now, he thought, focusing his gaze beyond the trailing car.

  The pantechnicon coming up fast in the outside lane had no problem in getting past the police car just as the van began its shallow descent into the underpass. Signs warned, no stopping or overtaking, but the pantechnicon flashed its indicator after passing the police saloon and began to pull in front.

  'Plonker!' yelled Rose. 'Get past him, for Christ's sake.'

  His driver began to flash to pull out, but there was a white transit van slowly overtaking him now, blocking the manoeuvre.

  Polchard watched all this in his mirror, then said 'Go,' when the saloon was completely out of sight.

  The driver rammed down the accelerator.

  Ahead was a sign with an arrow pointing off left, saying estotiland service area - authorized vehicles only. The security van roared along the slip road. Further on, down the exit slip road from the service area, the original Praesidium van joined the underpass road at a sedate pace.

  'It's all right, guv, he's turning off,' said Rose's driver reassuringly as the pantechnicon began to move over on to the exit slip road. 'No need to worry. There's the van up ahead.'

  'Where the fuck did you expect it to be? Vanished into thin air?' snarled Rose, annoyed to have let his anxiety show so clearly. 'Close up a bit, will you? And try not to let any other fucker get between us.'

  '. . . fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen .. . there they are,' said Berry as the blip reappeared on the computer screen. 'Not long now. Beginning to look like much ado about nowt, isn't it?'

  'Yeah’ said Hat Bowler. 'Nowt.'

  This oppo couldn't finish too early for him. Though the extreme effects of whatever malaise had hit him over an hour ago hadn't been repeated, he still felt somehow physically cold and mentally spaced out. Another reaction had been a desire verging on a need to hear Rye's voice, so when Berry was called out of the control centre for a few minutes he'd taken the chance to ring the library, only to be told that Rye wasn't due in today.

  This had surprised him. When he'd told her he was going to be tied up on Saturday, he'd got the impression she was working too. He then rang her flat. Nothing but the answer machine.

  So she was out. What did he expect her to do when he wasn't around? Sit at home and mope?

  But he felt uneasy though he knew no reason why.

  The door of the control room opened.

  'Hello, Superintendent. Come to check up on things?' said Berry. 'Must say you lot are taking this very seriously, but it's all going like a dream so far.'

  Hat didn't turn from the screen. All his earlier symptoms were back mob-handed. He knew it wasn't Dalziel who'd come into the room, it was Death.

  Death that master of role-play who was yet always himself. For he could come garbed as a nurse, or a close friend, or in the cap and bells of a jester, or as a great fat policeman, but the cavernous eyes and grinning jawbone were still unmistakable.

  So he sat and stared at the light pulsing like a heart across the screen.

  'Hat’ said Dalziel, 'could you step outside for a moment. I need a word.'

  'Watching the van, sir’ said Hat stiffly. 'Won't be long now till it gets to the museum.'

  'Mr Berry will watch for us,' said Dalziel gently. 'Come on, lad. We need to talk. Your office all right, Mr Berry?'

  By now the manager too knew that a darkness more than the semi-dusk of a grey January day had entered the room.

  'Sure’ he said.

  Hat rose and, still without looking at the Fat Man, went out of the room.

  'Will he be back?' said Berry.

  'No’ said Dalziel. 'I don't think he will. You can manage here, I expect?'

  'What's to manage?' said Berry, glancing at the screen. 'I reckon it's all over now.'

  'I think you're right’ said Dalziel. 'It's all over.'

  * * *

  Pascoe was beginning to wish he'd stayed in bed. He sat on a chair and looked uneasily round Franny Roote's flat.

  Normally he was the most meticulous of searchers, missing no possible hiding place in his pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, and just as assiduous in leaving no messy traces of his searching. In fact it was a standing joke among his less particular colleagues that if you wanted to give a room a good tidying, you got Pascoe to search it.

  But something had gone wrong today.

  Roote's flat looked like it had been done over by a disturbed juvenile on his first job.

  With no effect whatsoever, except to waste so much energy he'd broken out in a muck sweat. He took off his jacket and wiped his brow.

  What to do? he asked himself desperately.

  Flee, and hope it got put down to said disturbed juvenile?

  Stay and brazen it out if and when Roote turned up? Or try to tidy things up and cover all traces of his passage?

  That was going to be hard, he thought as he looked around. He'd made a real mess and he knew he couldn't put it all down to his illness. He'd often looked at the after-effects of a destructive burglary and wondered why it was that as well as stealing the thief had needed to wreck what he left behind. Now he began to understand. For some people it wasn't enough simply to rob; they had to hate and even blame those they robbed.

  He'd found nothing to use against Roote, but by God! he'd let the bastard know what he thought of him!

  It was a shameful thing to have done, quite inexcusable.

  Though, thank God, there were limits.

  There was a bookcase against one wall, serviceable rather than ornamental and stained a funereal black. The only things he hadn't laid violent hands upon were the books.

  And, though there'd been nothing conscious in the omission, he thought he knew why.

  He went to the case and took a book down. He'd been right. The name on the fly cover was Sam Johnson. These were part of Roote's inheritance from his old friend and tutor. If there was anything at all about Roote that Pascoe trusted, it had to be the genuineness of his grief for Johnson's death.

  And, of course, it helped that his theory that Roote was involved in Jake Frobisher's death depended on the existence of a love for Johnson that led to a murderous jealousy.

  But it made him feel a little better to think he hadn't reached the point where true pathological hatred would have started, the destruction of what the object loved the most.

  There was a two-volume edition of Beddoes' poems he thought he recognized, quite old with marbled paper boards. He took down one of the books and opened it. Yes, it was the Fanfrolico Press edition. This was Volume Two, the very book that had been found open on the dead academic's lap.

  He started to replace it carefully, and only then saw there was something behind it, a narrow package wrapped in a black silk handkerchief, rendering it almost invisible against the dark wood.

  He took it out and carefully unwound the silk.

  It contained an Omega watch with a gold bracelet, very expensive looking.

  He turned it over and looked at the back of the watch.

  There it was, a circlet of writing, which had been easier to make out on Sophie Frobisher's rubbing than on this shiny surfa
ce, but he knew it off by heart anyway.

  TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS OVER RUINED WORLDS YOUR S

  Well, time into eternity had fallen for both of them now, leaving, like all deaths, ruined worlds behind.

  And now at last, he thought with less glee than he'd imagined he'd feel at this moment of justification, he had it in his power to ruin forever the world of Francis Xavier Roote.

  Behind him the door opened.

  He turned so quickly that his Kung Flu dizziness hit him again.

  When his vision cleared, he was looking at Franny Roote.

  'Hello, Mr Pascoe,' said the young man, smiling. 'I'm so glad you could come. Sorry the place is such a mess. Hey, you look a little pale. Are you sure you're all right?'

  When the pantechnicon pulled in front of Rose's car, Wield's instinct had been to pull out straightway and overtake, but he too found himself blocked by the white transit.

  He finally managed to squeeze by through the narrow space between the vehicle and the central reservation barrier just as the pantechnicon began to turn into the slip road. A long way ahead he glimpsed the rear of the security van.

  A very long way ahead.

  Perhaps it had speeded up. But why should it? The natural thing to do if you momentarily lost sight of your escort in your rear-view mirror was slow down.

  He accelerated till he got close behind it. The transit had speeded up too and went by him. Some drivers are like that, hate to be overtaken, especially by a superannuated rocker in black leathers with eat my dust in silver studs on his back. The guy in the passenger seat wound down his window as he went by and Wield half expected to get the finger. But the gesture when it came wasn't the finger, it was a thumbs-up.

  And it wasn't aimed at him, it was directed at the Praesidium van as the transit went rushing past it.

  What the hell did that signify? Could be nothing more sinister than the camaraderie of the road, one working lad greeting another, as you might nod and say How do? to a stranger encountered on your way to work in the morning.

  But as the van rejoined the inside lane ahead of the security vehicle and slowed to match pace with it, his heart misgave him.

  Suddenly he was recalling Lee Lubanski's tip about Praesidium which had ended in the fiasco of the only thing going missing being the van itself. They'd all laughed at this new evidence that most crooks were a full stop short of a sentence, but suppose that in fact things had gone perfectly to plan and all they wanted was the van? Which could mean . . .

  He slowed till Rose's car was overtaking him, then speeded up again to keep pace, mouthing urgently at the DI in the passenger seat. Rose wound down the window. 'What?' he yelled.

  'I think they've done a switch’ shouted Wield. 'I don't think that's our van.'

  It was like knocking at some poor bastard's door and telling him his wife has been in a crash. Rose's face went white as he struggled to resist the words.

  This was the young DI's big test. Now he could get angry, refuse to believe it, carry on as though nothing had happened. Or ...

  'Don't be daft,' he yelled scornfully, desperate not to see Operation Serpent swallowing its own tail.

  'Ours is back at Estotiland’ cried Wield urgently. 'The decoy'll lead you into town, stop at lights, the driver and his mate'll get out, go round a corner and get into that transit.'

  He wasn't sure, he couldn't be sure, but he knew he had to sound sure if Rose was to summon up the cavalry.

  They were out of the underpass now. Estotiland was falling behind. They were back at ground level, the road curving between shallow embankments running up to fields.

  Time for decision, not debate.

  'I'm going back,' he yelled.

  He hit the accelerator and sent the bike across the hard shoulder and bucketing up the rough grassy slope.

  'By God, he can handle that machine,' said Rose's driver with untroubled admiration. He could afford to be calm. All he had to do was what he was told, no come-back.

  In the same spirit, the three men crushed together in the back looked at their leader with blank expressions which said, This is where you earn your pay, guv.

  'Shut up the lot of you,' said Rose savagely. Then grabbing the radio, he said, 'Serpent One to all units

  'It's over, Franny,' said Pascoe wearily.

  Roote smiled with pleasure.

  'I think that's the first time you've called me Franny,' he said. 'What's over?'

  'The games,' said Pascoe. 'This is the closing ceremony.'

  'Surely the awards come first,' said the young man. 'Would you care for a drink? Have to be a tea-bag. I seem to be out of coffee.'

  He was looking ruefully at the heap of grounds Pascoe had emptied out of the jar into the sink.

  ‘I’ll leave awards to the judge,' said Pascoe.

  'Please, don't tell me you've found something else you imagine I've done,' cried Roote. 'I thought we'd put all that behind us. No, I see you're serious. All right, let's get it out of the way, then we can really talk. So what is it this time?'

  He didn't look or sound in the least worried, but then when did he?

  Pascoe gathered his thoughts. The clever thing would be to get him down to the station and sit him in an interview room properly cautioned with the tapes running.

  But you didn't get anywhere with Roote by being clever. So be open, tell him what you've got, get a preview of how he's going to play it so that you're at least partially prepared to counter his tactics when things get official.

  He let his mind run over everything he suspected. None of that stuff from the letters was any good here. Roote himself had planted it in his mind and was no doubt fully covered. Hit him with the unexpected. 'You burgled Rye Pomona's flat,' he said.

  'That's right’ agreed Roote without hesitation. 'Though I think burglary implies felonious intent.'

  'Which you didn't have? I don't think you can deny criminal damage though.'

  'Well,' said Roote, looking around his wrecked room with a smile, 'I bow to your expertise there, Mr Pascoe.'

  Pascoe flushed and said, 'So what was your intention, if not to steal?'

  'I'm sure you've guessed. It's dear old Charley Penn, really. He went on so much about his chum Dee being innocent that in the end he got me wondering. I don't give a toss about Dee, but if it were true that he wasn't the Wordman, this meant the guy who did kill Sam Johnson was still roaming free. Of course Charley's obsessed and a man with an obsession tastes with a distempered appetite, as I'm sure you are aware, Mr Pascoe. I must say I have always sensed something . . . different about Ms Pomona, an odd sort of aura. Anyway, without having the slightest idea what I might be looking for, I thought I owed it to Sam to have a poke around.'

  'And you chose a solitary woman's flat to have a poke around in?'

  'Where else to start, Mr Pascoe? Charley was full of police conspiracy theory. I knew of course that, as far as you were concerned, that was out of the question, and I certainly didn't fancy breaking into Mr Dalziel's house. But young Mr Bowler, one look tells you he'd sell his soul for the sake of Ms Pomona. So she had to be the starting point. I knew she was going to be away that night, I had an excellent alibi in the conference. My session was a bit early, but it was easy to get it changed. It was a bit of a shock to run into you, I must admit. You looked like you'd seen a ghost, so I thought maybe I could persuade you that in a sense you had. Hence my second letter. Would I have written it if we hadn't encountered? I don't know. My first letter was genuinely intended to clear the air between us. But after the second, I found I was really enjoying having someone I could unburden myself to. In a sense, I regard our encounter as a nudge from God. But I'm sorry if the letters have caused you any distress.'

  If he sounded any sincerer, I'd buy his old car, thought Pascoe savagely.

  He said, 'So you found there was nothing to find, but left a bug anyway?'

  'You found that? Clever. My intention, of course, was to leave no trace of my passage. But I accidentally k
nocked a vase over, which turned out to be a funerary urn. This confirmed my sense of Ms Pomona's otherness. People who keep dead people in their bedrooms are, you must admit, different. No way to clear it up, so I set about making it look like your normal burglary, rather as you have done here, Mr Pascoe.

  Then as I was leaving I took the precaution of peering through the peephole, and who should I see lurking on the landing but Charley Penn! That gave me the idea of leaving something on her computer which might make Charley suspect number one.'

  'Lorelei’ said Pascoe.

  'You picked it up. Good. Then I went into the churchyard to plant my receiving cassette under the eave of a rather vulgar tomb, and that's when I saw you. Waste of rime, by the way. A few sound effects and a little pre- and post-coital converse, then the useless thing packed up. So you've got me bang to rights for that. On the other hand, will Mr Dalziel be all that keen to force me to explain my behaviour in detail under the public gaze in open court? Perhaps we should move on. I presume from the way you are clutching that watch that there is more?'

  Why do I always feel like I'm speaking lines he's written for me? thought Pascoe desperately. Why can't I be a good old-fashioned dull unimaginative cop who at some point would give him a good old dull unimaginative kicking and send him on his way? What am I doing here? There's all kinds of places I'd rather be. Home in bed. Chasing around the county on Operation Serpent. Even, God help me, watching twenty little girls creating mayhem in the Jumbo Burger Bar at Estotiland! Why in the name of sanity am I here?

  For a while as the kids tucked into their Jumbo burgers, there was relative peace. Even Rosie found it difficult to talk with her teeth sunk deep into a succulent wad of prime beef and chopped onion, crimson with ketchup. Ellie nibbled at hers, admitted its excellence, then took another long draught of the black coffee which fell some way short of the standard set by the burgers but would have to do as a restorative till she could get within annihilating distance of a big gin and tonic. Some of the other mums were still trying to be sparkling and sprightly, but Ellie could read the tell-tale signs.

  Rosie finished her burger, washed it down with a quarter pint of something which was fluorescent mauve in colour and looked as if it could strip wallpaper, then approached her mother and said, 'Can I go with Mary to play on the Dragon?'