D&P20 - Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  The Dragon was a feature of the play area which in Ellie's view could have been marketed as a pervert's sex-aid. Made of soft but tough plastic in vomit green and arterial blood red, the creature crouched menacingly with its head on the ground. You entered it via its anus and clambered up through its guts to emerge at the top of its spine. Then you slid, legs astride, down its neck over a series of savage bumps, till your weight triggered off some mechanism which produced a climactic roar and an orgasmic jet of scarlet smoke as you shot over its gaping mouth into a sandpit.

  Rosie loved it.

  Ellie shot a glance at Mary's mum, who shot a glance back. Both nodded and a moment later the two girls rushed out, screaming with anticipation.

  Ellie watched them fondly and sipped her coffee. She heard the roar of an engine and saw a motorbike go shooting by on the walkway. Some moron in black leathers. Where the hell was Security? Anywhere near the children's areas was designated a completely pedestrianized zone. Worth an angry word to someone, she noted. But not now. Rest while you could. And besides, the bike was long gone.

  Wield had cut across a couple of fields till he joined the Complex approach road. There was a small queue of traffic at the main entrance. He wove his way through it at speed till an irritated-looking security man blocked his passage.

  Happily it turned out he was ex-job. He recognized Wield's warrant at a glance and reacted to his terse summary of the situation with equally concise directions to the main service level. He was already on his radio by the time Wield sent the mud-spattered Thunderbird racing forward.

  The man's directions were good and within a minute he was on a curving ramp which took him down to the lower service deck. At the extreme point of the first curve his heart leapt as he glimpsed below the unmistakable shape of a Praesidium security van.

  But had they had time to transfer the Hoard to another vehicle and escape down the slip road to the underpass?

  He tail-skidded round the final curve and saw with relief that he was in time. Two figures wearing the Praesidium uniform were in conversation with an Estotiland security man. He brought the bike to a halt about thirty yards away and assessed the situation.

  The pantechnicon was parked alongside the security van. Two other men, one short and square, the other tall and well muscled, were carrying a crate from the van to the larger vehicle. Both men wore navy blue overalls and woollen hats pulled low over their brows. Wield guessed the Complex security man had noticed the presence of these unaccounted for vehicles and come to ask what the problem was. They wouldn't be looking for trouble if it could be avoided and so far the conversation looked pretty amicable. But any second the security man's radio could sound an alert and then things might get nasty. They needed bodies down here fast. What was DI Rose doing? Did he have the bottle for this? Where was the cavalry?

  Above all, where the hell was Andy Dalziel when you needed him?

  Andy Dalziel stood with his arms locked around Hat Bowler's body. Whether he was offering comfort or applying restraint he didn't know. He was experiencing a very odd feeling. Utter helplessness.

  Later when he gathered together every scrap of information on the circumstances of Rye Pomona's death, he would be able to put them together with all those other scraps and hints and intuitions which added up to a conclusion too monstrous to articulate, and tell himself, this way was best. This drew a necessary line under everything.

  But there in that untidy office with the boy in his arms, his body feeling as lifeless as that other sad corpse now lying in the mortuary, he would have given anything to have the power to breathe life back into both of them.

  His mobile started squeaking like a bat in his pocket.

  He ignored it.

  The squeaking went on.

  Answer it,' commanded Hat.

  He thinks it might be a message saying it's all been a dreadful mistake, thought Dalziel. In a life with too many deaths in it, he had come to understand at what pathetically flimsy straws desperate fingers may rasp.

  He removed one arm from its embrace and took the phone out.

  'Dalziel’ he .said.

  Hat's ear was pressed close so that he could catch the voice coming out of the mobile.

  'Guv, it's Novello. I've been trying to get you. Serpent's gone pear-shaped. They've done a switch out at the Estotiland complex. No one seems sure where the Hoard is . . .'

  'Jesus wept!' exclaimed Dalziel.

  He let Hat go and headed back to the control room.

  Berry looked up from his newspaper.

  'Nearly there’ he said cheerfully, nodding towards the screen where the flashing light was just crossing the city boundary. 'Going to join the welcome committee, are you?'

  'Wanker!' snarled Dalziel.

  He went out again and met Hat coming out of the office.

  'Where do you think you're going?' he demanded.

  'To the hospital, where else?' retorted the young man.

  One straw crumples, you grab at the next.

  ‘I’ll come with you.'

  'Don't be stupid’ said Hat savagely. 'You've got work to do.'

  He pushed the Fat Man aside and ran down the stairs.

  Dalziel watched him go, that unfamiliar feeling back with reinforcements.

  Then he put the phone to his ear again and said, 'Ivor, you still there?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'I'm on my way. Listen, you get yourself down to the hospital morgue. Bowler's on his way there. I want you to stick to him like shit to a blanket, OK? Don't let him out of your sight. If he goes to the bog, count ten then kick the door down. Got that? Good.'

  He thrust the phone into his pocket and headed down the stairs at a speed to match the young DC's." feeling like a very bad day indeed. At least there was no way he could see for it to get worse.

  Pascoe said, 'Yes, there's more and it gets more serious. Jake Frobisher. You remember him?'

  Roote's expression turned solemn.

  'Yes. I knew him vaguely. A bright young man. Tragic accident. Greatly missed.'

  'Especially by Sam Johnson.'

  'Indeed. Sam was very close to Jake, and naturally he was cut up when it turned out Jake had overdone it, popping pills to keep him awake to catch up with his course work.'

  He enunciated the words carefully, like a kid reciting a lesson.

  'Yes, I understand that was the official verdict’ said Pascoe. 'And I can see why, in the circumstances, Sam should feel so cut up he couldn't wait to get away from Sheffield. Which explains his rather precipitous move to MYU, with all its sad consequences. Funny that. You could say, if Jake hadn't died, Sam would still be alive too.'

  That got to you! thought Pascoe gleefully as for a second pain fractured the mask of polite interest on Roote's face.

  'I've often thought the same’ said the young man quietly.

  'I bet you have’ said Pascoe. 'I bet you could write a nice little paper on tragic irony, couldn't you, Mr Roote? Tragic irony and the eternal triangle, by F. X. Roote MA. A new research topic after you've finished exploring Revenge.'

  'What are you getting at?'

  'Let me spell it out. Sam and Jake were lovers. That got right up your nose. You alone wanted to be Sam's best boy. You chummed up with Jake and waited your chance to break up the relationship. Maybe you even encouraged the boy to believe that his closeness to Sam put him above the uni's normal academic demands. Whatever, it finally came about that the Academic Board forced Sam to wield the big whip and tell Jake, either this course work gets done or you're out. Mission accomplished, you must have thought, except that either it seemed possible Jake might indeed get the work done, or you simply didn't trust Sam not to give him a bunk-up with his grades. So, under pretence of helping Jake out, you sit in his room the night before the deadline, feeding him uppers to keep him mentally right on top of things, only God knows what else you slip in there till finally the boy collapses. Plenty of choice, him being a pedlar in a small way. Then you slip away. Only you made t
wo mistakes, Franny. One, you were seen by a witness who can positively identify you. Two, you couldn't resist taking his drug stash and, more tellingly, this love token, which it must have torn your guts to see Jake flashing around.'

  He held up the watch.

  He didn't expect Roote to start like a guilty thing surprised, but the youth was full of surprises. His face crumpled and tears came to his eyes as he looked at the watch. Could this at last be confession time? Pascoe asked himself.

  The security man's radio crackled. He lifted it to his mouth, pressed the Send button, and said, 'Yes, over.' Then he listened.

  Wield couldn't make out the words, but didn’t need to, the body language told all.

  The security man took a step back from the Praesidium men.

  The radio was still pouring urgent words into his ear.

  Don't be a hero, urged Wield, letting the bike move gently forward.

  The man pressed the Send button and began to speak.

  The taller of the other men reached into the cab of the pantechnicon. When he straightened up, he had something in his hands.

  Wield, because he had that kind of mind, identified it even from this distance as a Mossberg 500 ATP8C ,shotgun.

  He sent the Thunderbird raging forward.

  The big man pushed between the Praesidium pair, pointed the gun at the security man, and fired.

  The man staggered back drunkenly, took a few steps sideways, then collapsed.

  Wield had to swerve to avoid his body and felt the machine going from under him. His loss of control probably saved his life. The big man had swung the gun to cover his approach and now he fired again. Wield heard shot pellets ricocheting off concrete, felt a spatter of them bed themselves into his leathers. One of the Praesidium men was yelling angrily, but his words were drowned by the noise of a fast approaching siren. At the same time, several more security men came racing down the ramp.

  Wield hadn't stopped rolling till he fetched up against the front wheel of the van. He came to his feet in a single movement and scrambled through the open door, pulling it shut behind him as the next shot ploughed into the armour-plated side. The key was in the ignition. He turned it on, pressed on the accelerator and swung the wheel over hard, swinging the vehicle round till it crashed into the front of the pantechnicon.

  'Get out of that if you can,' he mouthed at the big man, who sent another ball of shot crashing into the van's window, which bulged and crazed but didn't give.

  A police van was coming fast up the slip road.

  The heisters seemed uncertain what to do, all except the big man, who had seized the crate from the back of the pantechnicon and was now dragging it, screaming at the others for help, into the loading bay, heading towards the service lift.

  The others began to follow him. Police officers and security men began to run forward. One-handed, the big man sent a shot towards them. It didn't find a target, but it was enough to discourage heroics and send the pursuers diving for cover.

  The four fugitives and the crate disappeared into the lift and the doors closed.

  Up above, aware of the sound of police sirens but happily ignorant of the drama going on beneath her feet, Ellie Pascoe grimaced as Suzie's mum, the founder of the feast, acknowledged that the partygoers had eaten as much as they could contain. Next on the agenda was the Punch and Judy show, a sore test of political correctness but a good way of channelling the little buggers' newly refreshed energies and aggressions.

  Leaving the other mums to get the kids into a rough kind of line, Ellie went outside to summon Rosie and her friend. Little Mary came instantly, but Rosie yelled, 'Just one more go,' and vanished into the Dragon. The sound of sirens was nearer, coming from all sides. Along the walkway beyond the play area, Ellie saw four men running, two of them in some kind of uniform. One of the uniformed men and a short square man in overalls were carrying a crate between them. The other uniformed man was jogging alongside another man in overalls who was huge and carried something in his right hand.

  It looked like a gun.

  'Oh Jesus,' said Ellie. Then she screamed, 'Rosie!'

  Her daughter had appeared on top of the dragon. She waved at her mother and launched herself down the switchback neck. The beast roared, the crimson smoke belched, Rosie vanished into it and, when she reappeared through the fumes, she was caught up under the big man's left arm.

  'Mum!' yelled the little girl.

  Ellie began to run forward. Their paths must intersect. The gun began to wave in her direction but she knew it didn't matter. It would take more than a gun to stop her now.

  But before her suicidal bravado could be put to the test, there was the sound of a siren behind her and a police car came round the side of the Jumbo Burger Bar.

  The fleeing men changed direction, now heading away from the play area towards the crowded commercial shopping area of Estotiland.

  Ellie went in pursuit, but as they disappeared through a sliding glass door, she felt herself seized from behind.

  She turned on her captor, swinging her fists, but stopped struggling when she saw the unmistakable features of Edgar Wield.

  'They've got Rosie’ she sobbed.

  'It'll be OK, Ellie,' he said urgently. 'There's nowhere for them to go.'

  She wanted to believe him, she wanted to run after her daughter, she wanted .. . above all - fuck feminism - she wanted her husband.

  'Wieldy,' she said. 'Get Peter, for me. Please. Get Peter!'

  ‘It's funny,' said Roote. 'You know where the quotation comes from?'

  'Death's Jest-Book,' said Pascoe. 'What's so funny about that?'

  'Just the context. A message of love from Sam. But if you look at the context of the quote, we're back with that tragic irony you were talking about, Mr Pascoe. Here it is.'

  He took down the other volume of Beddoes' works and opened it at a page which was marked by what looked like a sheet of writing paper.

  He said, 'Athulf, the Duke's son, is talking to his brother, Adalmar. He says "I have drunk myself immortal." His brother replies, "You are poisoned?" And Athulf says,

  I am blessed, Adalmar. I've done't myself,

  'Tis nearly passed, for I begin to hear

  Strange but sweet sounds, and the loud rocky dashing

  Of waves, where time into Eternity

  Falls over ruined worlds.

  Beautiful, isn't it?'

  'I'm not here to discuss aesthetics,' said Pascoe wearily. 'If you've got a point, make it, then I'll arrest you.'

  'Yes, I'm sorry. My point is.. . .I think you'd better read this, Mr Pascoe.'

  He removed the bookmark and handed it over. Pascoe now saw that it was indeed a sheet of writing paper which was enclosed in a piece of transparent plastic through which he could see writing.

  He looked up at Roote, who nodded encouragingly. And sympathetically.

  Don't read this, Pascoe told himself. It's another spell this evil sorcerer is laying on you. Take him in, hand htm over to Fat Andy, the Witchfinder General!

  But even as he told himself not to read, his eyes were taking in the scrawled words.

  Darling Sam its all too much its not just the work though thats more than I can get through without the help you promised me its what you said to me I thought you loved me more than that Im looking at the watch you gave me as I write well my worlds really broken now why did you do this to me youve been carrying me for two years now you always said that as long as you were around I didnt need to worry about grades or anything whats changed Sam except that you stopped loving me or maybe all I ever was to you was an easy way of getting your gear theres no other explanation and I cant bear it I wont bear it Jake

  'What's this supposed to be?' said Pascoe, trying for mocking scepticism and failing. In any case Roote looked beyond reach of such weak weapons as he began talking in a rapid low drone, as if returning somewhere he didn't want to be and wanting out fast.

  'I was round at Sam's that night, it was supposed to be a review s
ession on my thesis but he wasn't in any state to review anything except his own psyche. He drank and rambled about Jake and what he meant to him. There are plenty of nasty people around in the academic world, Mr Pascoe, and when it became known that Jake's assessment work was way behind schedule, it was made clear to Sam that this new deadline was absolute and unextendable, and if there were the slightest hint that Sam had been offering any special assistance, either by way of writing the assignments or grading them, it wouldn't just be Jake's head on the block. So he'd given him a real talking to and tried to shock him into a realization that he had to find his own salvation. Now he was beginning to feel he'd gone too far. You should never talk to someone you loved like that. He wanted to go round and see Frobisher and apologize. What did a stupid degree matter anyway? They could set up house together, Jake could act as his research assistant, happiness ever after was still a possibility, lots of maudlin crap like that.'

  'I can see how it would have touched your heart’ said Pascoe sarcastically.

  'I'm not pretending I was sorry to see the relationship heading for the rocks,' said Roote. 'I stopped him going out, he kept on drinking and in the end I put him to bed about midnight. Then the phone started ringing. I answered it. It was Frobisher. He just assumed I was Sam and started off with all these incoherent ramblings. I remember thinking, Christ, I just get shot of one self-absorbed monologue, and now I'm right into another. Then what Jake was actually saying began to get through. He'd taken something, lots of things from the sound of it. My first reaction was, good riddance! I'm not proud of it, but there you go. Finally he stopped speaking, and then I got to thinking what this really meant. And I knew I had to go round there.'

  To make sure he'd done the job properly?' said Pascoe.

  Roote smiled wanly but ignored the crack. ‘I got round there, found his door unlocked and him lying on the floor. He was dead.'

  'Well, that was handy.'

  'It was disastrous’ said Roote coldly. 'I found this note. I knew that Jake's suicide would devastate Sam. Plus the knives were out for him in the university, and the reference to Frobisher supplying him with dope would finish him professionally. So I had to do whatever I could to tidy things up. I sat Jake at his table and dug out all his unfinished work and set it round him, making it look like he'd been really trying to get it into shape. Then I put the jug and glass by his hand. I put some pill bottles there too, empty of everything except a few uppers. I checked I'd done everything I could to make it look accidental, and left. I took the note for obvious reasons, and the watch because I didn't want some smart cop making connections with Sam, and the drug stash to stop awkward questions being asked around the house. The rest you know.'