Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  It was an interesting trip. I got the feeling that something has changed for him. Perhaps Frère Dierick’s death has something to do with it. I’m sure the man and the monk in Jacques must always have been in delicate balance, and with the removal of that death’s head reminder of his commitment to the life celibate, the man is very much in the ascendancy. He talked of Emerald, and I have a strong suspicion that in the very near future he might be contemplating the huge step of changing his vows monastic for vows marital! (I must confess, shame-faced, that I also for a moment entertained a very faint suspicion that perhaps Jacques knew more about the circumstances of Dierick’s death than he should do … But I soon thrust this aside. Ungrounded suspicions are a mental cancer. We should trust our friends absolutely, don’t you agree, Mr Pascoe?)

  What Linda will make of it, I don’t know. We shall see.

  My stay in M-Y was brief, all too brief, alas, for me to make contact with you. How good it would have been to see you face to face and get direct assurance of the rapport I am psychically convinced my letters are building between us. But I had news of you from one or two common acquaintance, and it was generally good, though dear old Charley Penn, who’d glimpsed you in town, thought you were looking just a little bit peaky. Do take care of yourself, my friend. I know your job necessarily involves irregular hours and takes you out in all weathers, but you’re not getting any younger and you mustn’t let the indestructible Dalziel overstretch you.

  Back to my Great Adventure. At last I left these clouded hills behind and, after an interminable passage through fog and filthy air followed by an even longer passage through the morass of US Immigration, I was greeted by a young god and goddess wearing baseball caps and beaming smiles (literally beaming; dear old Apollonia clearly knows how to honour her devotees!) and waving a banner bearing my name. They turned out to be Dwight’s teenage twins, whom he’d sent to meet me, and all my troubles seemed to drop away as they led me, blinking, out into the bright sunshine, and drove me to their lovely home which stands on stilts rising out of a beach of golden sand running down to the deep deep blue of the Pacific ocean. Stout Cortez, I get the message, man!

  I spent the first couple of days relaxing and acclimatizing in the bosom of Dwight’s family – not literally; this was strictly hands-off territory, though the kids’ fondness for skinny-dipping with their friends kept temptation before my eyes. Happily, despite a pleasant air temperature when the sun shines, the ocean is still pretty cold at this time of year and that kept my interest from becoming embarrassing, though maybe Dwight’s sharp eye detected something, for once I’d got over my jet lag and was ready to strut my stuff before his publishing friends, he suggested that, now that term was beginning (bit of an earlier start out here than you were probably used to at Oxford – or was it Cambridge? I can’t recall), it might be more convenient if I had a room on campus. Nice to think even a modern West Coast liberal academic dad keeps an eye on his kids’ virtue.

  Being on campus is great, especially as I’m occupying one of the faculty guest suites – not quite as impressive historically as the Quaestor’s Lodging at God’s, but a lot more user-friendly – and I’ve been introduced around as a distinguished academic visitor. Dwight got me to sit in on a couple of his classes, then persuaded me to do a seminar on Beddoes’ poetry with a specially selected group of students and a few faculty members. It went really well and the students seemed to take to Beddoes in a big way and soon I was getting invitations to talk to all kinds of groups. Dwight was delighted, so long as they didn’t get in the way of his own programme, whose purpose I quickly gathered was to do such a good PR job on me that when I finally made my pitch to the top men at the St Poll University Press, I would make my entrance on a wave of golden opinion.

  I went along with this, did the parties, pressed the flesh, talked the talk and walked the walk, but I really got a lot more enjoyment out of being with the students. How reluctantly do we all admit that we are taking leave of our youth! With what slow steps and fondly lingering backward glances do we move onward! When at last you begin to understand the truth of Byron’s lines ‘There’s not a joy the world can give / Like that it takes away’ then you know you’ve started the long goodbye. Being with these kids reminded me of the way I felt in those few days at Fichtenburg when I skated and tobogganed and drank sweet coffee and ate cream cakes with Zazie, Hildi and Mouse, pleasure without responsibility, time without definition, world without end. Perhaps the cruel suddenness with which my own student days hit the rocks (yes, yes, my own fault, no resentment, no reproach!) makes me all the more desperate to clutch at these straws floating round the wreckage. Did you ever feel like this Mr Pascoe? You will be well past such immaturities, I know, but was there ever a time, even after your marriage perhaps, with your lovely daughter still little more than a voice and an appetite in swaddling clothes, when you felt a yearning to be as you had been age eighteen, nineteen, twenty, when nothing you had now seemed worth the loss of those boundless horizons, that unfathomable joy? Or even later, when your little girl lay desperately ill, or when your beloved wife was under threat, did it ever flash across your mind that if you had known it was going to be like this, you’d never have given such hostages to fortune?

  Probably not. You’re not like me, weak and worldly, though I like to think that in some ways we are very close. And will be closer, I hope and pray.

  Anyway, like I said, I met with young people and in their company I felt young again. It is, I think, a canard that American students age for age know less than European students; but it’s certainly true that they are much more eager to know more! They lapped up what I told them about Beddoes, and when (because it was easy to move from his obsession with death to my chosen way of dealing with it) I went on to tell them about Third Thought, they lapped that up too. They know nothing of the movement here, it seems, and Frère Jacques’ book has not yet found a publisher in the States. I suspect that America in general and California in particular is so awash with home-grown mystic, metaphysical, quasi-religious trends and sects and disciplines that they don’t feel much need to import them! But this one really appealed, perhaps because I was able to present it in truly American terms such as, How to live with death and be happy ever after! Soon we were having regular meetings which always began (my idea!) with a chorus of ‘Happy We!’ from Acis and Galatea. (The lyric is, of course, amatory, but this only underlines the relationship with death that Third Thought aims at. And if my suspicions about Jacques are right, how apt!) Then I’d read a passage from my copy of Jacques’ book, and soon photocopied extracts were being passed around like samizdat literature in the Soviet Union. It made me realize that, do what we will with technology, there is no substitute for direct human contact. Soon the word spread around the campus, aided by the new in-greeting between initiates – Have a nice death! (One of mine too. Though I confess it owes not a little to Beddoes’ jest of leaving champagne ‘to drink his death in’.)

  A spin-off of this was, by the time I was finally summoned to make my pitch to the Uni Press people, rumours of Third Thought had reached their ears too and they seemed as interested in Jacques’ book as they were in mine (or rather Sam’s, though the way Dwight had sold it, my part loomed disproportionately large, because, as Dwight put it when I made some mild protest, ‘You’re hot, breathing, and here!’)

  Anyway, they were very interested in both books, and by the time we’d finished talking, they’d made an offer on Beddoes and wanted to get in touch with Jacques. I got straight on the phone to Linda, who was delighted, and she got Jacques to ring me, and the upshot is I have been given full authority to act as I see best on both their behalves.

  So there it is. Triumph. I came, saw, overcame. But I don’t feel I can take any credit. Recently I seem to be on a roll. Question is, who’s loading the dice? Initially I approached Third Thought in a pretty sceptical frame of mind. It was interesting, but no more interesting than a whole lot of weird metaphysical stuff I’d been
into in my teens, with the disincentive it didn’t throw in sex or drugs as part of the deal! Linda’s involvement gave me a reason for sticking with it, but the more I’ve had to do with Frère Jacques, the more I’ve come to believe that there really might be something here for me.

  I’m not certain where you stand on religion, Mr Pascoe. Somehow I can’t see your good lady … but there I go, making assumptions. Bad habit. It really would be great to talk to you about this, and so many other matters, face to face some time. In the past our meetings have always had – how shall I put it? – a legal agenda. But over the past few weeks as I’ve been writing to you, I’ve had such a strong sense of us coming together that I have to believe, or at least very much hope, that you have felt this too.

  So perhaps when I get back to Mid-Yorkshire we can meet and by the fire help waste a sullen day, or something? Please.

  By the way, Dwight has told me to make full use of the mail services open to senior faculty members, so I’ll send this off Express Delivery, otherwise I could get home first!

  See you soon!

  Yours ever,

  Franny

  P.S. I really do like St Poll. Much more my kind of place than plashy old Cambridge! I’ve taken the chance whenever possible of drifting off by myself and strolling the streets – yes, it’s that rarity in American towns, a place where you can actually walk for miles without exacting the interest of the local constabulary! So much to see. It’s got big modern shopping malls, of course, but away from these, lots of small, very individual outlets survive, delis with delicious food, antique shops where you can still unearth a bargain, and bookshops ranging from the uni store where you can enjoy a coffee and a bagel as you read, to lovely atmospheric second-hand and antiquarian dealers.

  By one of those coincidences which make life such fun, I was peering in the window of one of these when it dawned on me the name was familiar. I searched my memory and drifted back to that evening at God’s when Dwight assured poor Dean Albacore that he knew a book dealer in St Poll who could put a price on anything, even something as priceless as a copy of Reginald of Durham’s Vita S. Godrici. His name was Fachmann. Trick Fachmann. And that was the name I was looking at!

  On a whim I went inside and introduced myself.

  What a fascinating man he is. Transparently thin with piercing bright eyes, he comes across as so erudite, so scholarly, and at the same time so worldly wise. Only in America do I think you could find such a combination. I know the UK academia is full of would-be Machiavels – Albacore was such a one – but Mr Fachmann could at the same time have been a medieval ascetic and the modern consigliore to some great Mafia godfather.

  I told him how come I’d heard his name, and I made enquiry, just to amuse myself, whether he could justify Dwight’s boast and put a price on an original copy of Reg of Durham’s Vita S. Godrici. Without hesitation he said, ‘No problem.’ I said, ‘So what might it be?’ He said, ‘That depends whether I’m selling or buying.’ I laughed, but he said, ‘I’m not joking. There’s a market for everything. There’s two kinds of possession. The common one is the conspicuous. When you’ve got it, baby, flaunt it! The other is private, when you both possess and are possessed by an object. You don’t need the world to know as long as you know you’ve got it.’

  I said, ‘And you know the market?’ to which he replied with a smile, ‘Know of it. To use it would of course be illegal. It’s like any other market, full of bustle and stallholders shouting their wares. That amuses you? Listen, any movement of antiquities of any kind anywhere and ears prick. It’s like the stock exchange. Movement means availability. I know antique dealers round here who get a dozen enquiries every time the Getty down at Malibu makes a purchase. There’s some big deal just gone down for some Brit collection. Once it’s in the Getty, forget it. But to get here it’s got to be on the move, so the market stirs.’

  I presume he meant the Elsecar Horde, which us who live in Yorkshire know all about. He sounded serious too, so perhaps you’d better keep your eyes skinned, Mr Pascoe! (Teaching my grandmother – sorry!)

  Anyway, Trick and I talked at length and I told him all about myself. When I mentioned Beddoes, he went to his shelves and came back with a copy of the 1850 Pickering edition of Death’s Jest-Book. Very few were produced, even fewer survive. I took it from him and held it, which was fatal. I felt that burning lust for possession whatever the cost, which I’m sure a man of culture like yourself must understand. I did not dare ask the price, but my eyes must have spoken the question for he said as if we’d been bargaining, ‘OK, here’s my final offer. You keep hold of this and send me a signed first edition of your Beddoes book and of every other book you subsequently produce. Deal?’

  What could I do but stammer my thanks? I am beginning to discover, as you have always known, that even in these most wicked and selfish times, there are still to be found huge reserves of unselfish goodness and loving kindness. Talk again soon.

  Yours ever,

  Franny

  You see what he’s saying?’ said Pascoe urgently. ‘Please, tell me you see it too.’

  ‘I think it might speed things up if you tell me first, Peter,’ said Dr Pottle with some sign of irritation.

  Pascoe had turned up without an appointment, brushing aside Pottle’s secretary’s objection that he was far too busy working on his opening address to the Psychandric Society’s Symposium which was taking place the following day.

  ‘He’ll see me,’ declared Pascoe, making it sound like a threat. ‘I just want two minutes. Ask him.’

  And a short time afterwards he was ushered in to be assured by Pottle that, if he was still there after one hundred and twenty seconds, the secretary would call security.

  ‘He’s saying that when he set fire to Albacore’s study to destroy the man’s research papers, he also took the opportunity to help himself to the copy of the Libellus de Vita Sancti Godrici which he’d seen earlier that night.’

  ‘Knowing, of course, that it would be assumed to have been reduced to ashes in the fire?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe triumphantly. ‘You’ve got it. You’re beginning to see just what this bastard is capable of.’

  ‘Well, I can at least say I can see why you should be convinced of this.’

  Pascoe studied this answer which fell a long way short of the hoped-for endorsement.

  ‘Why’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because, having convinced yourself he’s guilty of arson and attempted murder, you’re hardly going to strain at a little matter of theft.’

  ‘A little matter? This thing was invaluable!’

  ‘And that makes a difference?’

  Pottle made a note on the pad before him. Upside down, it looked like a meaningless squiggle. Pascoe had once taken the opportunity offered when Pottle was called out of his office to have a quick glance at this pad and found that, right way up, his notes still looked like meaningless squiggles. Perhaps that’s all they were, but it felt like the psychiatrist was noting every twist and turn of Pascoe’s attitudes to Franny Roote.

  ‘Anything more you have to tell me before you leave?’ said Pottle, looking at his watch.

  The bugger knows there is, thought Pascoe.

  He thought of saying no, but that would have been silly. Pointless having a dishwasher and doing your own pots.

  He said, ‘Rosie got one of those trace-your-family-tree kits and Ellie got the notion it would be interesting to check out Roote …’

  ‘Really? Bit of an odd idea for someone as rational as Ellie to get, isn’t it?’

  ‘You think my wife is rational?’ Pascoe looked at Pottle with serious doubt.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I think she has her reasons that reason wots not of,’ said Pascoe carefully. ‘Anyway, these are the results of her investigation.’

  He passed over a file containing the information Ellie had given him, plus the results of his own follow-up.

  Pottle read through it and whist
led.

  ‘Was that a Freudian or a Jungian whistle?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘It was an unsophisticated expression of amazement that one irrational woman could so easily discover what a well-organized CID seems to have overlooked for many years.’

  ‘We accepted the records. Only it seems that the information on which they were based was fed into the system by Roote himself. At an early age, it should be said.’

  ‘Meaning he decided very early on that his memories of his father, good and bad, should be completely private. Whatever the truth of Mr Roote, he undoubtedly presents a fascinating object of study. I can see why Haseen got so interested in him. Ellie’s findings seem to suggest that, far from being deceived, Haseen got him to open up more than he’d ever done before. It’s the stuff in the letters about not remembering his father that’s a lie.’

  ‘Didn’t I always say you can’t trust the bastard?’ said Pascoe. Then, sensing an irrationality here, he went quickly on: ‘It certainly underlines his reasons for hating the police, who he thinks treated his father so badly. Which all goes to show how right I am in being suspicious when he smarms up to me.’

  ‘That might be a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater,’ said Pottle. ‘His reasons for lying to you about his father may have changed from desire to keep your long nose out of his business to a confusion of your function and the dead man’s. His memories of his father’s standing as a policeman, able to deal with all threats that came to his family, are very powerful. And it’s clear he has a huge respect for you as a professional …’