Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  ‘That’s all part of it, don’t you see? Like this play he goes on about, Death’s Jest-Book, it’s all some kind of grisly joke. That stuff about the ambiguities of revenge, one brother becoming dead friendly with the Duke, the other bursting with hate, that’s Roote telling me how he feels.’

  ‘No it’s not. In fact I recall he says quite clear he feels like the friendly brother. And all these crimes you’re going on about, what would they be?’

  Pascoe opened the file he was carrying and produced several sheets of paper.

  ‘You’ve not been playing with your computer again?’ said Dalziel. ‘You’ll go blind.’

  ‘Harold Bright, known as Brillo,’ said Pascoe. ‘Banged up in the Syke the same time as Roote. Had an accident in the shower. Cracked his head. Traces of ammonia-based cleansing fluid found in eyes but never explained. Complications during treatment. Died.’

  ‘And good riddance,’ said Dalziel. ‘I remember the Brights. Hospitalized two of ours when they got arrested, one of ’em had to take early retirement. Dendo still inside?’

  ‘No. Finished in Durham, but he got out last month.’

  ‘Problem solved then. Send him Roote’s address. He sorts out your lad, we bang Dendo up again for the duration. Two for the price of one.’

  Over the years Pascoe had come to a pretty good understanding of when the Fat Man was joking, but there were still some grey areas where he felt it better not to enquire.

  He said, ‘My point is, we know a man died, and now we have Roote’s confession.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Dalziel. ‘His admission might as well have been written by Hans Andersen. And, like he says himself, where are you going to get witnesses? Any road, if he did do it, he deserves a medal. Owt else?’

  ‘I checked that Polchard was there the same time as Roote, and the Syke’s Chief Officer remembers they played chess together,’ said Pascoe sulkily.

  ‘You going to do Roote for cheating then? I remember Mate Polchard. Right tricky sod. He out yet?’

  Wield whose job it was to know everything said, ‘Yes, sir. Came out in the summer. Went off to his place in Wales to recuperate.’

  Polchard was out of the normal run of thugs in more than just his penchant for chess. Not for him the comforts of a Spanish villa with a plethora of Costa fleshpots on his doorstep. His preferred hideaway was a remote Welsh farmhouse in Snowdonia. But when it came to protecting his interests, he ran true to type. Shortly after he bought the farm, a barn belonging to it was burnt down and a message sprayed on a wall in Welsh with under it a helpful translation. Go home Englishman or next time it’s the house. A few days later the local leader of the main Welsh activist group awoke in the early hours to find three men in his room. They were unarmed and unmasked, which he found more worrying than reassuring. They spoke to him politely, showing him a list of the addresses of perhaps a dozen members of his group, his own at the head, and assured him that in the event of any further interference with Mr Polchard’s property, every one of these houses would be reduced to rubble within a fortnight. Then they left. Fifteen minutes later his garden shed blew up and burned with such ferocity it was a pile of cinders long before the fire brigade got near. No complaint was made, but Police Intelligence soon picked up the story, which Dalziel retailed now, at length, to signal his interest in Roote was over.

  But Pascoe listened with barely concealed impatience to the oft-told tale and used it as a cue to wrest the subject back.

  ‘Polchard’s not the only one who’s good at fires,’ he said. ‘This fire Roote writes about at St Godric’s, I’ve got several newspaper reports here and I’ve been on to the Cambridge Fire Service Investigation Department and they’re getting back to me …’

  ‘Hold on, lad. Stop right there,’ said Dalziel. ‘I’ve not had this letter X-rayed and tested for poisoned ink like you, but I have read it, and I don’t recall owt in it coming in hosepipe distance of an admission of arson! Did I miss summat? Wieldy, how about you?’

  The sergeant shook his head.

  ‘No, definitely no admission, not as such …’

  ‘There you go again. Not as such! As what then if not such?’

  Pascoe had had enough.

  He interrupted angrily, ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s up with you two? It’s as plain as the nose on your face, he’s mocking us, that’s the whole point of the letter. Even without the letter, I’d have known something was wrong. Look at the facts. Franny Roote is a nobody, an ex-con, working as a gardener. Then his tutor, Sam Johnson, gets killed and Roote manages to sweet-talk Johnson’s sister into dropping his almost completed book on Beddoes into Roote’s lap. Suddenly from being an academic nobody, he’s set for the big league. One obstacle – there’s competition in the shape of this guy Albacore, who looks set to get his oeuvre in the shops several months earlier. Roote and Albacore meet. Albacore thinks he’s cut a deal. Take Roote on board, squeeze the juice of Johnson’s researches out of him, and then, of course, he’d be able to drop Roote like the nasty little turd he is. Only he doesn’t know yet that this turd’s got teeth.’

  Dalziel who’d been listening with his great maw open in maximum gobstopped mode burst out, ‘A turd with teeth! I told thee, this is what comes of reading modern poetry!’

  Pascoe who was a trifle vain about his style looked embarrassed but pressed on, ‘But what happens? There’s a fire and Albacore ends up dead and his work goes up in smoke. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Like I say, I’d have been suspicious if I’d read about it in the paper. But that’s not enough for the scrote! He has to write to me and gloat about it!’

  ‘Gloat? I got no gloat. How about you, Wieldy? You step in any gloat? And if you say not as such, I’ll pull your tongue out and ram it up your neb!’

  Wield touched his lips with his tongue as if rehearsing the manoeuvre and said, ‘Not … that I could say definitely was gloating. But like I say, if Pete’s got a feeling … and I agree that Roote’s a tricky bastard …’

  ‘Not so tricky we didn’t bang him up,’ said Dalziel complacently.

  ‘He’s had the benefit of a prison education since then,’ said Wield.

  He was speaking figuratively but the Fat Man pretended to take him literally.

  ‘Fair do’s but,’ he said. ‘He didn’t come out a sociologist like most of the buggers as get educated inside. I really hate it when I hear one of them bastards on the chat shows.’

  The DCI closed his eyes and Wield said quickly, ‘Mebbe we should wait and see what the Cambridge fire people say.’

  The phone rang so aptly that he wasn’t in the least surprised when Pascoe, who’d snatched it up, mouthed Cambridge at them.

  Eyes less keen than Dalziel’s and Wield’s could have worked out it wasn’t good news.

  Pascoe said, ‘Thanks a lot. If anything else comes up … yes, thank you. Goodbye.’

  He put the receiver down.

  ‘So?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘Nothing suspicious,’ said Pascoe. ‘As far as they can make out, the fire started in a leather armchair, probably caused by a lighted cigar butt which had slipped down behind the cushion. Only sign of any accelerant was an exploded brandy decanter.’

  ‘Aye, well, bunch of drunken dons smoking big cigars in a building that’s probably failed every fire regulation laid down over five hundred years, that’s asking for trouble,’ said Dalziel. ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Pascoe, ‘you don’t think that someone like Roote was going to get to work with a can of paraffin, do you? No, he was there, he tells us he was there, puffing away on a cigar with the best of them. That’s what probably gave him the idea.’

  ‘Oh aye? You got second sight now, Peter?’ said the Fat Man. ‘Pity they don’t take account of that in the Criminal Evidence Act. I think that’s enough about Roote for one day. I don’t mind my officers having a hobby so long as they do it in their own time.’

  Angrily Pascoe retorted, ‘A
nd how do you feel about your officers ignoring prima-facie evidence of crime? Sir?’

  ‘Prima facie? That ’ud be an Italian waiter with his throat cut and Roote standing over him with a knife in his hand? Wieldy, them statistics I’m doing for the Chief, how’m I getting along with them?’

  ‘You’ve finished them, sir.’

  ‘Have I? Jesus, I must’ve sat up half the night. It’s no fun being a superintendent. You’d best come along to my office in five minutes and tell me what I think of them afore I pass them on to Desperate Dan. How’s young Ivor settling back in, by the way?’

  Ivor was Dalziel’s sobriquet for DC Shirley Novello, who had taken a bullet in the shoulder during the summer and only recently returned to work full time.

  ‘Looking fine, sir,’ said Wield. ‘Very sharp and eager to make up for lost time.’

  ‘Grand. Now we just need Bowler back and we’ll only be slightly under fucking strength instead of seriously under fucking strength. When’s he due to start?’

  ‘This week, Wednesday I think, sir.’

  ‘Not till Wednesday?’ said Dalziel incredulously. ‘You’d think the bugger had had major surgery. Here, pass us that phone and I’ll give him a wake-up call.’

  Up till now Dalziel had made little effort to hurry Bowler from his sickbed, knowing how easy it was for a convalescent hero to be turned into a gung-ho cop who’d killed a suspect through use of excessive force. But now the Board of Enquiry had finally cleared Bowler of all culpability, the case was altered.

  ‘Shouldn’t bother,’ said Pascoe. ‘I gather Ms Pomona’s taken him away for a weekend of rest and recuperation. They won’t be back till later today.’

  ‘What? Off with his light o’ love, is he? If a man’s fit enough to shag, he’s fit enough to work, says so in the Bible. Wait till I see him. Wieldy, them figures, five minutes right? By the way, Pete. Chief’s taking me out to lunch. His treat for all my hard work. With luck I won’t be back till tea-time, so if anyone wants me, you’ll have to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Except I’ll be in court myself this afternoon,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Oh aye, the Linford committal. Nowt to worry about there, we’ve got the scrote sewn up tighter than a nun’s knickers, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Pascoe. ‘Though Belchamber will be looking to do a bit of snipping …’

  ‘Sod the Belcher,’ growled Dalziel. ‘Nowt he can do long as your witness, the Carnwath lad, stays strong. No second thoughts after that scare on Saturday?’

  ‘Oz is rock solid,’ said Pascoe. ‘And they can’t get at him directly. Not married, no current girl, parents dead. Only close family is a sister in the States. She is coming over for Christmas, but not till Wednesday, by which time it’ll be sorted, God willing.’

  ‘Then what are you moaning about? Wieldy, five minutes.’

  The Fat Man left.

  Pascoe watched the great haunches swing out of sight and said, ‘You’ve made yourself indispensable to Rustybum, Wieldy. Could be a fatal mistake.’

  ‘No, way I look at it is, if the station goes up in flames and Andy can only get one person out, it’ll be me over his shoulder and down the drainpipe. Talking of flames …’

  He looked significantly at the letters lying on the desk in front of Pascoe.

  ‘You think I’m overreacting too?’

  ‘I think something about Franny Roote’s got to you in a big way. And I think that he knows it and he’s enjoying jerking you around.’

  ‘So you agree that he’s setting out to provoke me with these confessions … all right, half-confessions?’ said Pascoe hopefully.

  ‘Mebbe. But that’s all they are, provocations. One thing I’m certain of about our Franny is, he’s not going to put himself at risk.’

  ‘So your advice is … ?’

  ‘Forget it, Pete. He’ll soon get tired and concentrate on manipulating his new friends.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Pascoe gloomily.

  Wield observed his friend closely, then said, ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. It’s silly but … look, Wieldy, if I tell you this, not a word to Andy, eh?’

  ‘Guide’s honour,’ said Wield girlishly.

  Pascoe smiled. Even though he was now living openly with his partner, Edwin Digweed, at work Wield rarely let slip the mask with which he’d concealed his gayness for so many years. This brief flash of campness was a reassurance stronger than a dozen notarized oaths sworn on Bibles and mothers’ graves.

  He said, ‘In the letter, you remember the bit where Roote stands up to give Sam Johnson’s paper? He looks at the clock and it’s nine o’clock on Saturday morning, and then he looks down and he sees … here it is … it was you, Mr Pascoe. There you were, looking straight at me.’

  He raised his eyes from the paper and looked at Wield with such appeal that the sergeant touched his arm and said urgently, ‘Pete, it’s just a try-on. It’s that German doppelganger stuff he’s picked up from Charley Penn. It’s for frightening kids with …’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Wieldy. Thing is, last Saturday I took Rosie to her music lesson in St Margaret Street, and I parked outside the church to wait for her. And I saw him.’

  ‘The teacher?’

  ‘No, dickhead! Roote. In the churchyard, standing there looking straight at me. St Margaret’s clock began striking nine. I saw him for two chimes of the bell. Then I started getting out of the car and, by the time I’d got out, he’d vanished. But I saw him, Wieldy. At nine o’clock like he says. I saw Franny Roote!’

  It came out more dramatically than intended. Not thought I saw or imagined I saw, the plain assertion I saw! He waited impatient for Wield’s reaction.

  The phone rang.

  Wield picked it up, said, ‘Yes?’ listened, said, ‘OK. Turk’s. But not for an hour,’ and replaced the receiver. He stood in thought for a long moment till Pascoe said, ‘Well?’

  ‘What? Oh, just someone, owt or nowt.’

  Normally such imprecision would have aroused Pascoe’s curiosity but now it merely aggravated his impatience.

  ‘I mean about Roote,’ he said.

  ‘Roote? Oh yes. You thought you saw him but he’s in Cambridge. Had your eyes tested lately, Pete? Look, I’d best get along to make sure Andy understands what he’s going to be telling Dan. Good luck with Belchamber. See you later.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Pascoe to the empty air. ‘It’s bad enough seeing things but it gets worse if you turn invisible at the same time.’

  And was relieved to find he could still laugh.

  4

  The Newly-Wed

  It had been the best weekend of Hat Bowler’s life, no competition, not even from the winter weekend a couple of years ago when he’d trudged back from a long unproductive stint in a hide looking for a reported Rock Thrush and there it had been, perched on the bonnet of his MG where it stayed long enough to get three good shots with his camera.

  It hadn’t just been the sex but the sense of utter togetherness they shared in everything they did. Saturday had been a perfect day till dinner when she’d pushed away her plate and said, ‘Shit, I’m getting one of my headaches.’ At first he’d laughed, taking it as a joke, then had felt a huge pang of selfish disappointment as he realized it wasn’t. But this had quickly been blanked by anxiety as her face drained of colour. She’d assured him it was nothing, taken a tablet, and when, instead of retiring to her own room, she lay willingly and trustingly in his arms the whole night through, this had seemed an affirmation of love more powerful than sex. Gradually the next morning the colour had returned to her cheeks and by lunchtime she was as active and joyous as ever, and that night … if ever joy was unconfined, it was in the boundless universe which was their bed that night.

  They didn’t leave the room till halfway through Monday morning, and only then because they were due to check out. Slowly they drove back into Mid-Yorkshire. They were in Rye’s Fiesta – Hat’s MG was taking eve
n longer than its owner to recover from the injuries sustained during the rescue mission – but it was lack of volition rather than lack of power which dictated their speed. Both knew from experience that joy is a delicate fabric and life’s shoddy sleeve has a thousand tricks up it which can be played to bankrupt poor deluded humans even as they rake their winnings in. This journey was a time-out. In the car with them they carried all the joyous certainties of that hotel room, but what lay ahead could never be certain. Out of some part of Hat’s subconscious, the existence of which he had hitherto not even suspected, the Gothic fancy leapt that if they had been driving along a narrow mountain road with a rock face on one side and a precipice on the other, it might have been well to seize the wheel and send them plunging to their deaths. Happily a hawthorn hedge and a turnip field didn’t offer quite the same incentive, so it was a fancy easy to resist and one he decided to keep to himself. What after all was he feeling so pessimistic about? Had not Rye promised he would be safe with her, and he certainly intended exerting all his strength to ensure she stayed safe with him.

  Impulsively he leaned over and kissed her, nearly bringing the turnip field into play.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘don’t they do road safety in the police any more?’

  ‘Yeah, but some of us get special exemption.’

  She reached over and touched him intimately.

  ‘And that’s a special exemption, is it? Hang on.’

  The turnip field came to an end to be followed by a meadow full of sheep with a rutted overgrown lane in between. Rye swung the wheel over and they bumped up the lane for twenty yards or so before jolting to a halt.

  ‘Right,’ she said, undoing her seat belt. ‘Let’s have a road safety lesson.’

  For the rest of the journey his heart was like a nest of singing birds which permitted no discordant future possibilities to be heard. The world was perfect and all that lay ahead was an eternity exploring its perfections.

  But, for all his certainties, he was sorry when the journey came to an end and they turned into Peg Lane where Rye lived. Somehow, cocooned in the car, they had seemed as solitary as Adam and Eve at the world’s dawn. Still, God was obviously smiling upon them as there was a parking space right in front of Church View, the big converted townhouse which contained Rye’s flat.