D&P20 - Death's Jest-Book

by Reginald Hill

  'Could be. Like you and Roote maybe.' It was a telling counterpunch. He'd kept very quiet about his continued concern with and about Franny Roote, and he was sure that Wield wouldn't have engaged in a deliberate act of delation over his researches into ex-Sergeant Roote's background. But it was difficult to do anything in this building without twanging one of the threads that ran straight to Shelob's lair.

  'If you show me yours, I'll show you mine,' he said.

  'You think that'll be a fair swap?' said Dalziel doubtfully. 'I reckon I'd need change. But all right. Two cocks are better than one, as the actress said to the Siamese twins.'

  Despite his show of reluctance, it was, Dalziel had to admit to himself, a relief to share the details of his interview with Mai Richter. In the week since, he'd looked at what he'd learned from every which side and found he'd no idea what it meant. He'd already contemplated laying it out before Pascoe, but whenever he thought he'd made up his mind, the counter-argument had come surging back, that this was merely the indulgence of weakness, off-loading on to someone else a burden he'd wilfully hoisted on to his own shoulders, and anyway the woman was long gone back to the land of Siegfried and Lorelei.

  But one of his strengths was he was aware of his weaknesses, which happily were to some degree Pascoe's strengths. All right, sometimes he went out of his way to get up that narrow sensitive nose, like when he'd sounded off about Sore Arse and Rusty Bum and the Aral Sea. The difference was that while he knew poetry by rote, he knew nowt about poetry, what made it work, what it was for. Pascoe knew these things. Sensitivity, intuition, imagination, these were the gifts tossed into the infant Pascoe's cradle which had maybe been crushed in his own by the weightier prezzies of a cast-iron gut and sledge-hammer will. No escaping it, Pascoe was a useful, perhaps a necessary complement.

  Thank God after a sticky start, he'd actually grown to like the bugger!

  So now it was with relief that he shared everything he'd done and discovered.

  Pascoe listened intently. Physical unwellness, as long as it didn't involve active pain, always seemed to hone his mind to a more than usually keen edge. The Fat Man offered little explanation of his own thought processes, but Pascoe filled out the bald description of events easily, recognizing and being touched by his boss's willingness to accept total responsibility for the 'tidying-up' (or 'cover-up' as it would no doubt have appeared in the tabloid headlines) of Dick Dee's death, both at the scene and in the subsequent witness statements. But the risk of that kind of accusation seemed to have passed, leaving a very different problem, and Dalziel's implied acknowledgement that he needed help and perhaps comfort here was even more touching. Not that it came very close to being openly implied. 'So there it is’ he growled in conclusion. 'What do you make of that, clever clogs?'

  'Forget it’ said Pascoe.

  'What?'

  'That's the clever clogs answer. Be ready to collect Bowler's pieces and try to put them back together when Rye dies, but till then forget it. There's going to be grief to spare when that happens. Why go looking for more in advance?'

  Tables turned, he thought. Here's me being pragmatic, down-to-earth. And there's him, wrestling with doubt and maybe even conscience!

  But he knew what Dalziel was really wrestling with because it was the thing which, despite all differences, united them - the need to know the truth. 'Except. . .' he said,

  'Might have known there'd be an except’ said Dalziel.

  'Except it's no use us forgetting it unless everyone else is forgetting it too. This woman, Rogers’Richter, how'd she look to you?'

  'Nice tits’ said Dalziel reminiscently.

  Pascoe resisted the bait and said, 'You think she's going to drop it?'

  'Aye. Not her cup of tea. Also she got to like Pomona and started feeling guilty. Plus there's this feminist solidarity thing, sisters, sisters . . . weren't there a song?'

  Fearful that Dalziel was about to burst out singing once again, Pascoe hurried on.

  'Tick her off then. Charley Penn?'

  'Charley 'nil never shut up, but he's like a clock. People will only take notice when he stops ticking.'

  'Which still leaves the other eavesdropper. The second bug, remember? Where was it by the way?'

  'In the bedroom behind the headboard. I went in and had a look afore I left Church View. According to what Lilley told Richter, it was self-powered, voice-activated, range of mebbe fifty yards tops, and likely to have run out of gas after a fortnight. So the bugger could listen in from a car parked in Peg Lane. Or, if he didn't want to sit around there all night, he could have had a radio cassette tuned in and left somewhere handy. There's St Margaret's churchyard opposite, lots of nice overgrown tombstones to hide summat like that under. I had a poke around but didn't find owt. What's up wi' thee?'

  Pascoe had jumped up and grabbed at the phone on the desk between them.

  He dialled, listened, said, 'Hi, it's Chief Inspector Pascoe. I need to speak to Dr Pottle. Yes, urgent police business. Or clinical business, whatever gets him to the phone.'

  A pause, then Pascoe spoke again, 'Yes, sorry, I'm making a habit of it, aren't I? Listen, all I want is Haseen's mobile number. No, I won't tell her how I got it.'

  He scribbled on the desktop, dialled again.

  'Ms Haseen, hi. It's DCI Pascoe, we met in Sheffield on Saturday. Sorry to trouble you again, but there was something you said when we were talking about Franny Roote

  Dalziel groaned, rolled his eyes and generally did his How long, o lord, how long? act.

  'No,' said Pascoe. 'Nothing personal or private. It was just that you said when talking about listening to him delivering Johnson's paper on the laughs in Death's Jest-Book, it wasn't worth spoiling your lunch for. But in the conference programme, Roote was scheduled for nine o'clock on Saturday morning . . . yes . . . yes , . . that's fine. Very helpful. Thank you very much, sorry to have troubled you.'

  He put the phone down and turned triumphantly to Dalziel, who said, 'Don't tell me. You've found a way of dragging Roote into this. Jesus, Pete, you'll be telling me next he were Jack the Ripper, after he finished killing the princes in the Tower, that is.'

  'His conference session was rescheduled from nine a.m. at his request because he developed terrible toothache the evening before and managed to arrange an emergency appointment for first thing on Saturday morning. Professor Duerden, who had the one thirty session, was pleased to do a swap. I bet Roote was touchingly grateful! But Amaryllis was pissed off because in order to hear Roote, which she wanted to do either for her own professional reasons or because hubby wanted her expert opinion on his state of mind, she had to duck out halfway through a posh lunch someone else was paying for.'

  'Pete, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about’ said Dalziel.

  'I saw him that morning, in St Margaret's Churchyard. Bang on nine. I thought it was some kind of optical delusion, or even worse, some kind of psychic apparition when I got that letter in which he claimed he'd had a vision of me as he started to give his address at nine a.m. But the bastard was just covering his tracks, don't you see?'

  'Hang about. You're saying that Roote were here early that morning ... how?'

  'He drove.'

  'Weren't one of them letters you got written on a train? And weren't his car in dock?'

  'You do pay attention, sir’ said Pascoe. 'So he hired a car . . . no, wait a sec, Blaylock, that Cambridge DI, he said something about some absent-minded academic reporting his car stolen that morning then finding he'd parked it on the other side of the college. Roote stole it, drove up, got here about half seven maybe, did what he had to do, drove back ... he could make it by half ten or eleven, plenty of time to show his face and be ready for his post-lunch session.'

  'Why?' asked Dalziel.

  'Because he's listened to Penn banging away so much about Dick Dee being innocent that he's begun to wonder if maybe he could be right, maybe the guy who really killed his chum Sam Johnson is walking free. So he decided
to check out Penn's theory of a police cover-up himself. He knew Rye was away that night, he realized being down at the conference gave him an alibi if anything went wrong, so he thought, here's a great chance to have a poke around her flat and also to plant a bug. He must have just hidden the cassette when I saw him. He probably picked it up last time he came back. It all fits!'

  Except for one or two holes, such as, why did he turn the place upside down when bug planters traditionally took care to leave no trace of their passage?

  Dalziel didn't look for holes, merely shook his head wonderingly, and said, 'Don't know if you're right or wrong, lad, but it makes no difference. What you're saying is, if there's some other bugger out there still sniffing around, it's up to us to find out afore he does where the smell's coming from.'

  'Or put him somewhere that his nose can't bother us’ said Pascoe.

  He related his latest discoveries in Sheffield.

  'So he killed this Frobisher 'cos he were jealous of his relationship with Johnson?'

  'He's killed before. For less reason.'

  'Mebbe,' said Dalziel. 'And your evidence for this is what? Something a nurse going on early shift might have seen? After a night spent on the nest, she were probably too knackered to tell which way were up on a bedpan!'

  ‘There's the missing watch. And the missing drugs.'

  'Oh aye? Which Roote stole? Why?'

  'Drugs, obvious. For use or profit. The watch because Johnson had given it to Jake Frobisher as a love token. Roote took it as a trophy, maybe.'

  'Maybe. You got this inscription there?'

  Pascoe had photocopied it and sent the original rubbing back to Sophie Frobisher as promised. He now produced the copy with his own transliteration underneath.

  'More sodding poetry,' said Dalziel gloomily.

  He reached into his desk, found a jeweller's eyeglass and peered at the rubbing.

  'Reckon you got it wrong’ he said, not without satisfaction.

  'Wrong? How so?'

  'I'd say it isn't YOUR’S TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS OVER RUINED WORDS. but TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS OVER RUINED WORLDS YOUR S.'

  'Let's have a look’ said Pascoe.

  He peered through the glass and said, 'I think you're right. That just makes it even more definite it was a gift from Sam!'

  'Or Simon, or Syd or Santa fucking Claus.'

  'No, it has to be Sam Johnson. I checked out the quote, or rather I got Ellie to check it. It's from Death's Jest-Book, that's a play by Beddoes whose Life Sam was researching. That's the Life that Roote has been given the job of finishing by Linda Lupin. She's ...'

  'Please, God, no more! My brain feels like someone's stirring it with a porridge ladle. I give in. The watch was a prezzie from Johnson to Frobisher. Right, but what's it prove? I reckon we'll have a long day in the outfield if we rely on you getting enough evidence to put him back in the Syke. We're pissing in the dark here. Best thing if we don't want to end up with wet boots is for me to have a heart-to-heart with little Miss Pomona, find out exactly what's going off. And even if she's not talking, I might get a hint how soon it'll be afore she takes whatever she thinks she knows to the grave!'

  Pascoe shook his head in disgust.

  There you go again’ he said. 'Same as with Lubanski. To you death's just another policy tool, isn't it? These are real people we're talking about!'

  'No’ said Dalziel. 'Not Lubanski. He's a dead person, Pete. Not real any more. Where he was is a space. That's what Wieldy's so cut up about. We go, and despite all the memorial services and monuments and pious crap about living on in memories, we have ceased to exist. Where we were is a space an elephant could fart through and we'd never notice the smell. It's like losing a tooth. It hurts for a bit, then we notice the space for a bit, then we start chewing on our gums or the other side of our mouth, and soon both tooth and space are all forgotten. End of sodding sermon. I'll talk to the lass, do the old paternal act. They all love their daddies, ain't that what Freud says? Now to more important things. This DI Rose, you rate him, do you?'

  'Yes, sir. I think he's OK.'

  'Well, I've got my doubts about anyone who can come up with a name like Operation Serpent. Watches a lot of movies, does he? All right, all right, I accept your judgment. It's his show. But it's us as will take the crap if it goes wrong on our patch. I'll be seeing Desperate Dan shortly and if I'm to get his go-ahead, it'll be because I'm telling him I've got you overseeing the job. Thinks the sun shines out of your backside, does Dan.'

  'That's nice,' said Pascoe.

  He stood up and swayed slightly but not so slightly Dalziel didn't notice.

  'You sure you're OK?' he said.

  'I think so.'

  But he was lying. He'd spent much of Saturday sharing air with Kung Flu germs and he knew for certain now they were advancing on him with wild Asiatic screams, chopping and stabbing and kicking.

  But he wasn't going to give in! No way ... no way ... no way ...

  Life is nothing without death, for it is death that defines life, giving it meaning even when it seems completely meaningless. Ask yourself, what could be more meaningless than a life without death?

  Peter Pascoe, lying on a bed of pain, was absolute for death. Every bone in his body seemed to have its peculiar ache. He'd never before been so conscious of himself as an osseous being, an articulated construct. It seemed very odd to him that in art Death should be so often figured as a skeleton. It was in his bones that life persisted, painful miserable unbearable life. His flesh and his mind and his soul were all desperate to wave the flag of surrender, but these insurgent bones persisted in defying Death's violent engines. He lay like Leningrad under that siege, kept alive by the sheer pain of the assault that was aimed at destroying him.

  Not that his bones were good for anything other than aching. He had crawled out of bed on Tuesday morning, dismissing as female fuss all Ellie's attempts to persuade him he was unfit even for Dalziel's company. He had got into his car and sat there for a little while feeling that something was not quite right but unable to put his finger on it. The main problem seemed to be finding somewhere to insert his ignition key. Gradually it came to him that he was sitting in the rear seat. It was during his attempt to rectify this error that the unreliability of his limbs made itself absolutely clear, and Ellie, who had been watching his contortions from the house with growing concern, emerged to half lead, half drag him back inside.

  Death is our constant companion from the moment we are bom, never more than a heartbeat away, and yet we make a stranger of him, a dangerous stranger too, a bitter enemy.

  Not me, said Pascoe fervently. Not me. Come on, mate. I'm all yours, let's be off, over the hills and far away!

  He heard Rosie on the landing being refused admittance by Ellie.

  "Why?' she asked. 'Is Daddy dying?'

  'Of course not,' said Ellie. 'He's just got the flu.'

  Why did she lie? You shouldn't lie to your kids. Tell them the truth. Of course he's dying! Could a man feel like this and not be dying? Most of his body knew it. If only these bloody bones, the incorruptible, the immortal part, would accept the majority vote and let him die in peace! At least his daughter understood how serious his illness was.

  'If Daddy does die before Saturday, would that mean I'd miss Suzie's party at Estotiland?' said Rosie anxiously.

  'Not necessarily,' said Ellie. 'I'm sure we could find a comer of the bouncy castle to lay him out in.'

  When the sun shims and the sky is blue and our hopes are high, then we give thanks to God for life. It is only when the storm clouds blot out all light and hope lies crushed that we turn to death with pre-emptive thanksgiving. But it is in that glorious morning that we should be giving thanks for death also.

  Later of course when he recovered, the memory of his wimpish self-pity filled him with shame. At what point he had picked up Frere Jacques' autographed book from his bedside table he didn't know, but from time to time he dipped into it at random, hoping to
light upon a strategy for dealing with these Kung Flu assailants.

  While we are living, every third thought should be our grave, but when we are dying every third thought should be our life.

  He tried that and he found that the plural possessive was very apt, for the feverish nightmarish world which he inhabited for much of the time was lit by brief flashes of total awareness in which he knew everything that was going on. Perhaps he picked up hints from things Ellie said, as well as from the brief distance-keeping visits of Dalziel and Wield, back at work and, apparently, back in control.

  He knew for instance that Dalziel had talked to Rye Pomona because Dalziel was telling him this during his visit, but somehow he found himself experiencing their conversation rather than just listening to a precis of it...

  ‘Time for a quick word, luv?' said Andy Dalziel.

  'For you, Superintendent, always,' said Rye.

  Dalziel looked at her and thought, she knows why I'm here.

  Here was her flat. He'd visited it once before, illegally, after his illegal entry into Mai Richter's apartment next door. Light and her welcoming presence made it look different now. She looked different too from the last time he'd seen her. She was definitely thinner. And paler, but her pallor disguised by a light that seemed to shine through her translucent skin. This light, her lively movement, her gay manner, all disguised or at least distracted the eye from the fact that she was beginning to look seriously ill.

  He sat down opposite her and they locked, or rather engaged gazes, for there was nothing of strife or opposition in the way they looked at each other.

  He heard himself saying, 'Myra Rogers, her next door, she were really Mai Richter, an investigative journalist. I expect you knew that?'

  'I guessed it. Or something like it. But only after she left. She said she'd got a job offer down south, but I knew there was more to it. More to her.'

  'She liked you. She couldn't bear to hang around after you told her you were going to die and not let anyone do anything about it.'