Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Yes, I will,’ Wield told himself.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ said Digweed.

  ‘The night is young,’ said Wield, smiling.

  Suddenly he felt like a party.

  Earlier that same evening, Liam Linford too had felt like a party.

  The police had used every delaying tactic possible and, despite Marcus Belchamber’s best efforts, the young man had eaten his Christmas dinner in custody. Released in time for New Year, his first impulse had been to tear the town apart and make sure those he held responsible for his misfortunes got what was coming to them.

  His father had other ideas.

  ‘You keep your head down, your nose clean. I’ll get this business sorted, right?’

  ‘Yeah, like you got Carnwath’s sister sorted, you mean?’ sneered the young man. ‘Let’s face it, Dad, you couldn’t sort washers. If you’d let me break his legs like I wanted, I’d not have spent the holidays in that shithole … Jesus!’

  He found himself sitting on the floor, nursing a bruised jaw, looking up at Wally Linford in a mood he’d never seen him in before.

  ‘You talk like that to me, you’re out of here,’ grated the older man. ‘You step out of line by half an inch and you’re on your own. So help me God, Liam, I’ll throw you to the wolves. Couple of years inside might be just what you need. Make up your mind. Do this my way, or do it alone.’

  And Liam, who didn’t know much but knew that without the clout derived from being Wally’s son and heir he was nothing, had seethed with resentment but obeyed.

  Hogmanay he’d celebrated quietly at home. But a week into the New Year and he was opining that he might as well have stayed inside, there was probably more fun to be had there. But his father’s threats had kept him on the leash till that Saturday night when he saw Wally Linford leaving the house, heading off to find whatever it was passed for fun in his weird world. Liam waited till his car was out of the drive, then got on the phone and rang his closest friend and chief supporting witness, Robbo.

  Robbo might have had plans of his own but he knew better than to object. He turned up at the Linford house twenty minutes later and found Liam waiting. When he opened the door of his Porsche to let his friend in, Liam showed he’d absorbed some of his father’s lesson by saying, ‘No way. The Filth would love to get me and you for drunk driving. I got a taxi coming. Here it is now. Right, mate, this is a whole night job, they told you that? Great. First stop, Molly Malone’s!’

  By eight thirty they were getting very drunk and the pub was getting crowded.

  ‘Fuck this,’ said Liam. ‘Let’s go to Trampus’s, I fancy cunt. And if that other cunt Carnwath’s still working there, I’ll mebbe tell him I fancy him too.’

  Robbo was still sober enough to wonder if this was such a good idea, but he was shouted down and moments later they spilled out into the car park.

  ‘Mr Linford. Over here,’ called the driver of a taxi parked a little way away from the pub door.

  ‘Thought it was a fucking car before,’ said Robbo as they got into the vehicle, which was a traditional London taxi.

  ‘More room in this, sir,’ said the driver, huddled in his seat, woollen hat pulled over his ears and scarf wound round his neck against the dank chill of the night. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Trampus’s club,’ said Liam. ‘And get a fucking move on!’

  The driver seemed to take the instructions to heart and soon they were bowling along at speed to satisfy even their drunken impatience to be where the action was.

  Soon the windows steamed up and when Robbo tried to wind one down to let some cool air in, nothing happened.

  He rapped on the security panel separating passengers from driver and yelled. ‘Here, mate, let some fucking air in!’

  The driver didn’t respond and Liam said, ‘Give it a rest, Robbo. They lock the doors and windows so’s we can’t fuck off without paying. As if we would.’

  He followed this with a burst of raucous laughter at memories of past occasions when they’d bilked some unfortunate taxi driver.

  Robbo, who was rubbing at the steamed up window didn’t join in.

  He said, ‘Where’s this mad fucker taking us? We’re out in the fucking country. Hey, you, where the fuck are we?’

  He banged on the panel again and the driver said, ‘Short cut.’

  Now Liam too rubbed a spyhole in the condensation. Outside there was nothing but darkness with occasionally a glimpse of trees or hedgerows blurring past.

  ‘Short cut?’ yelled Liam. ‘Shortcut where?’

  The driver turned to look at him. His face was a skull.

  ‘Shortcut to hell,’ he said.

  He dragged the wheel over, the taxi went through a hedge, down a steep embankment, and turned upside down as it plunged into a river.

  In the rear the two men, bleeding and battered into sobriety, were screaming as they wrestled with the locked doors. For a moment they were suspended in a cocoon of air. Then in the front the driver wound down his window to let the water in.

  Soon the screaming stopped.

  Look who’s here! Ed and Ed! Now truly my cup is full and runneth over!’

  Any hope Wield had nursed of taking a back seat vanished when Wim Leenders’ voice boomed out across the room as they entered and they were ushered to a table of at least twenty already merry partygoers who were urged to shift along so that the newcomers could sit to the right and left of their jovial host.

  He put his arms round them both and invited them to sample the very best that Tinks could offer.

  That the champagne was the best Wield took on trust, never having learnt how to distinguish between bubbles. But he drank his share with no discernible effect, toyed with a taco, shuffled a few circuits of the dance floor, and applauded a comic who made Andy Dalziel sound like a Sunday School teacher. After an hour or so he found he was really enjoying himself. Then it came to karaoke time and when Wim started looking for recruits for his famous Village People turn, he slipped off to the loo.

  They didn’t pipe the music from the club in here, thank God, and he sat in comfortable silence, thinking how great it was to see the usually staid and controlled Edwin letting his hair down, and how lucky he was to have somehow got all the disparate elements of his existence into such a perfect balance.

  When he emerged, he could still hear the joyous chant of ‘In the Navy’ coming from the main room, so he stepped outside for a moment to get a breath of fresher air and almost bumped into the muscular young man in the black T-shirt.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Wield.

  ‘Hello, funny face,’ said the man. He looked rather pale and there was a whiff of a sweet vomit smell on his breath. Drunk too much and gone out to be sick, Wield guessed.

  He said, ‘Wally not come back then?’

  ‘No. Don’t expect him.’ Then a suspicious look. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Wally? Yeah, from way back. Mind you, it’s a long time since I saw him. I’d have said hello earlier, but he didn’t look in the mood to chat. Worried about his lad, I expect.’

  ‘Got cause, hasn’t he,’ said the young man moodily. ‘Should have left the selfish bastard in jail. Ruined my fucking night, hasn’t he?’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Had himself another accident or something. Little shit. Should have thought, with his trouble, no one would have let him near a car. One yell, and Wally goes running.’

  ‘He is his dad,’ said Wield. ‘Heard you call him LB, what’s that all about?’

  ‘Thought you knew him.’ Suspicious again.

  ‘Way back, like I said. It was just plain Wally then.’

  ‘It’s just a net name he uses. Lunch box. LB. Linford. Gerrit?’

  ‘Got it,’ said Wield. ‘Funny.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the young man, looking at Wield assessingly. ‘You been dumped too?’

  ‘No, my friend’s in there karaokeing. Not my scene. Sorry.’

  The young man went back inside. Wield pulled out his
mobile and dialled.

  ‘Pete, it’s me,’ he said. ‘What’s this about Liam Linford in an accident?’

  ‘Thought this was your night off,’ said Pascoe. ‘He was in a taxi that went into the river. A driver in another car saw it happen so help got there quick, it was too late. Liam’s dead, plus that guy Robson who was his witness. And the driver.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Wield. ‘Act of God or … ?’

  ‘Depends how you look at it. The driver was John Longstreet. That’s right. The widower. And when they pulled him out, he was wearing a plastic Hallowe’en mask in the form of a skull.’

  After his call was finished, Wield stood outside a while longer. His elation at discovering that Belchamber’s LB was Wally Linford, underwriter of serious jobs requiring a lot of cash to set them up, was totally extinguished, though no doubt it would delight Andy Dalziel. But the Fat Man hadn’t seen the father’s face as he got the news about his son. Not that it would likely have made much difference.

  Pondering these things, he re-entered the club room and walked past the momentarily silent karaoke set-up without paying any attention to a young man with electric blue hair and a matching silk shirt open to the waistband of a pair of trousers cut so tight it made your eyes water to look at them, who stood there, mike in hand, waiting his turn.

  He glanced round, saw Wield, his eyes opened in delighted surprise and he leapt forward to grab the sergeant’s hand.

  ‘Mac!’ he cried. ‘It really is you. Hey, this is great. I’m on next. Come and give me some backing.’

  It was Lee Lubanski.

  Not the pale waif whose vulnerability plucked Wield’s heart strings, nor yet the streetwise kid whose cynical view of life so depressed him. This was Lee in his party pomp, Lee hyped up on something, Lee so desperately having a good time, so genuinely delighted to see him there that Wield didn’t think to resist till it was too late.

  The music began. Wield recognized the song. The old early eighties hit ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and thought, oh shit.

  He could see Wim and his guests out there, faces wreathed in delight, hear them urging him on. He caught Edwin’s gaze, saw him drop his jaw in mock gobsmacked mode, then give him an encouraging smile. If he pulled free now and walked off, it wouldn’t look like stage fright, it would look like a lover’s quarrel.

  ‘Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by,’ sang Lee.

  He had a good voice for this, a real Bonnie Tyler rasp, and as he approached the big belt-it-out section of the song he urged the still silent Wield to join in.

  ‘For I need you now tonight and I need you more than ever …’

  Fuck it, thought Wield. In for a penny, in for a pound. And he started to sing, or at least to growl out the words in a voice as cracked and fractured as his features.

  ‘… forever’s gonna start tonight …’

  As the final ‘Turn around, bright eyes’ faded away, applause broke out, enthusiastic generally and riotous from Wim’s table with everyone on their feet, clapping and cheering.

  ‘That was great, Mac,’ said Lee, his eyes shining. ‘What shall we do for an encore?’

  ‘Got to get back to my friends, it’s a birthday party, sorry,’ said Wield.

  The look of hurt disappointment that switched off the light on the boy’s face stabbed right through him.

  He squeezed his hand then let go.

  ‘Hey, Happy New Year, Lee,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. Keep in touch, won’t you?’

  And it was almost as painful to see the way in which this small sop of kindness brought back the light.

  ‘Yeah, sure, Mac. See you soon. Enjoy your party.’

  In the taxi on the way home, Digweed said, ‘Let me guess. That was Lee Lubanski?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry if it embarrassed you.’

  ‘What’s to embarrass in the sight of a dad and his lad having a laugh together?’

  ‘Dad and lad,’ echoed Wield. ‘Isn’t there a poem about dads fucking up their lads?’

  ‘Poetry now, is it? I’ll have to take you out more often. “They fuck you up your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” That the one you’re thinking of?’

  ‘That’s the one. It happens, I’ve seen it. And that’s what bothers me, Ed. I’m scared I’m going to fuck the lad up.’

  Digweed put his arm round Wield’s shoulders.

  ‘Just so long as he doesn’t do it to you first, Ed. So long as he doesn’t do it to you.’

  10

  The Friar

  Letter 8. Received Mon Jan 7th. P.P

  Fichtenburg-am-Blutensee

  Aargau

  Mon Dec 31st

  Dear Mr Pascoe,

  Safely back in Fichtenburg, thank God. The weather was pretty foul in Basel and if Beddoes experienced anything like those conditions, I don’t blame him for being suicidal, and I could well understand how Holbein came to design his Dance of Death there. Or perhaps the real gloom was in me. It’s curious. I have always been a person happy with his own company, but the fun I’d had with the others over Christmas seemed to have affected me in a strange way, and for the first time ever I felt really lonely.

  I could have come back after twenty-four hours without much loss to my researches, but I was resolved not to give in. My hopes of a career depend very much on the job I do with Sam’s book and I’m determined not to let the chance pass. Nor was it a complete waste of time. While I found little to add to Sam’s own researches in Basel (oh, for your detective skills, that can take you in an empty room and let you emerge with clues to the perpetrator of some long-forgotten crime!), I confirmed some of his speculations and I came away with a sense that he (and dare I say it? Beddoes too!) approved of the progress I was making in my quest.

  But I confess I hurried back here today, looking forward to company other than my own, and with lively anticipation of a Silvesterfest (Hogmanay!) to match our Weinachtfest (Christmas!)

  Imagine then my gloom when the first person I saw on my arrival was Frère Dierick! He greeted me civilly enough and confirmed what I’d feared, that he was joining Jacques and myself in the chalet. Well, you’re not sharing my room, not even if Linda commands it! I assured myself.

  Jacques too seemed to have lost his taste for communal living, and it emerged that Dierick was going to bed down on the living-room floor for the couple of nights before the house party broke up. There was a perfectly good sofa he could have used, but he clearly thought the hard floor would be better for his soul.

  My slight depression of spirits rapidly vanished when, for the first time since coming here, I checked my answer phone back home. The only reason I’ve got one is because Linda tried to ring me once and couldn’t get through, which seriously pissed her off, so the royal command came to get some kind of answer service and put it down on my research expense tab. With her in my view, who else was going to be ringing me?

  But someone had! Professor Dwight Duerden no less. Twice! He asked me to call him as soon as I could. Naturally I rang immediately, and all I got was his answer service. It was New Year’s Eve over there also, so presumably he’d gone away to do whatever Californians do to mark the end of the year.

  I left the chalet number, telling him that I’d be here for the next three days, after which I’d ring him from my next destination.

  I keep telling myself it must be good news else why would he bother to get in touch? Or perhaps he’s just a very polite man and feels he ought to let me know that St Poll Uni Press reckon a book about a poet not many people have heard of by a dead academic ditto, brought to conclusion by an ex-con student double ditto, is exactly the kind of thing they’d pay good money not to be involved with!

  But next time I write, maybe I’ll have something really exciting to tell you.

  Now I must get ready for the party.

  Tues Jan 1st

  My dear Mr Pascoe, here I am again. And a Happy New Year to you and yours!

  I
ended above saying I might have something really exciting to tell you, and in a sense I have. But it isn’t that I’ve heard from Dwight. Seven or eight hours behind us in California, he’s probably still welcoming in the New Year. Ah well. Patience is the virtue of the temperate man.

  But excitement there’s been – or perhaps I should say excitation!

  The party was really jolly, lots of music, games, dancing, with everyone showing off the local customs peculiar to their own country or background.

  I was tempted to introduce them to some of the more arcane customs of the Syke, which involved getting blind drunk (sometimes literally) on a potato-based distillation liberally laced with medical spirit, but decided against it! On the stroke of twelve we popped champagne corks and exchanged hugs and kisses all round. I was expecting another bruising blow to the cheek from Linda. Instead to my surprise she aimed right at my mouth and followed through with what felt like six inches of strenuous tongue. Still reeling from this, I was very glad to note that I got nothing but a chaste peck from Mouse.

  But, as perhaps you’ve guessed, it didn’t end there.

  I finally took my leave in the early hours and started back on the five-minute stroll to the chalet. The weather here had been the same as in Basel for the past few days, murky and wet, and skating had been banned as the See’s icy surface became unstable. But tonight the frost had returned, and the air was bright and clear, a joy to be out in after the heat and fumes of the party in the castle. The leperization of smokers is by no means as advanced on the Continent as it is at home and even the men who didn’t smoke seemed to feel that Sylvesternacht would not be complete without setting light to a huge tube of tobacco and sticking it in their mouths.

  I stood and drew in mouthfuls of fresh air. To liken it to champagne sounds like a cliché, but truly that was how it felt, great draughts of coolth which bubbled along the arteries and invigorated the mind.