Death Comes for the Fat Man (8 page)

After scrolling through it twice, he asked, “Where’s the gun?”

“Sorry?” said Freeman, at his shoulder.

Pascoe got in a bit of payback, blanking him for a second before swiveling round in search of Glenister who, he discovered, had moved across to the wallboard.

“Where’s the gun?” he said. “Hector reported that one of the men he saw had a gun. There’s no gun mentioned here.”

“Peter,” said the woman, “despite your admirable loyalty to Constable Hector, you’ve admitted yourself that when it comes to detail, he’s not the most reliable of witnesses. In fact, wasn’t it Hector’s involvement that made Mr. Dalziel so sure there was no man with a gun on the premises that he took the reckless action he did?”

Reckless.
Shit on Dalziel, shit on Hector, in fact, shit on Mid-Yorkshire police work generally. He thought he was getting the message.

He stood up and said, “Thanks, Dave,” to Freeman.

“Anytime, Pete.”

Pete.
Was this kid his own rank? Or just a cheeky sergeant?

Neither, the answer came to him. The C in CAT stood for d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 55

combined. Freeman was a spook. Did Trimble know that Glenister had imported nonpolice personnel into the Station? Of course he did!

Pascoe answered himself angrily. He was getting as paranoid as Andy Dalziel about the Security Services.

Glenister was observing him as if his reactions were scrolling across his forehead.

He went up to her and said brusquely, “So what’s the state of play now?”

“Complex. We’re working backward and forward at the same time, trying to trace where all this explosive we didn’t know about came from, and what it was they planned to do with it. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Peter. I’ll get your PC linked to our network here so you’ll have everything at your fingertips and not need to wear a hole in the corridor running along here every time you need an update. But do drop in anytime you need to. For obvious reasons we need to have a bit of a firewall between us and the rest of the Station. But as far as you’re concerned, you’re fireproof. And I’m hoping it will be two-way traffi c.

Anything you think may help, don’t hesitate. You’re the man on the spot. Your input could be invaluable.”

It was an exit cue if ever he’d heard one.

But for all her vibrantly sincere assurances, as Pascoe returned to his own office, he felt less like a protagonist with big speeches still to come than an attendant lord, fit to swell a progress or start a scene or two.

In fact, it occurred to him as his ribs twinged and his knee began to ache that at the moment, he didn’t actually feel fi t enough even for those walk-on roles.

And when Edgar Wield looked in twenty minutes later and found him half slumped across his desk, he made no protest as the sergeant escorted him down the stairs to the car park and drove him home.

2

S H O W B U S I N E S S

Archambaud de St. Agnan said, “Aren’t we too close?”

“For what?” said Andre de Montbard. “He’s used to being followed. That’s what makes it so easy.”

Ahead of them, the silver Saab turned right into a long street of tall Edwardian houses and came to a halt after about fi fty yards. Andre pulled the black Jaguar into the curb some three car lengths behind.

The driver of the Saab got out. He was a tall, athletically built man with shoulder-length hair and a lean, intelligent face with a neat black mustache beneath an aquiline nose. Pausing beneath a streetlamp to look back at the Jaguar, he put his hands together and made a small perfunctory bow before running lightly up the steps, inserting a key, and vanishing through the door.

“Cheeky sod,” said Andre. “Thinks he’s bulletproof. He’s due a reality check.”

He got out, opened the back door, and took out a sports bag.

“You OK?” he said to Archambaud, who hadn’t moved.

“Yeah. Fine.”

Andre said, “Listen, it’s OK to be scared. Really. Ones I always looked for were the ones who didn’t look scared first time out.

Remember what they did to your uncle, OK? All you’ve got to do is give him a tap, I’ll be taking care of the serious stuff. Crap yourself if you must, so long as you don’t freeze, OK?”

Managing a smile, Archambaud said, “I’ll try to avoid both.”

“So let’s do it.”

They walked quickly along the pavement and climbed the steps of the house. Andre glanced down the list of names by the bell pushes, selected the one marked Mazraani, and pressed.

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 57

After a short delay a voice came over the intercom.

“Gentlemen, how can I help you?”

“Just like a quick word, sir,” said Andre.

“By all means. Won’t you come up?”

They heard the wards of the door lock click open.

“See? Easy.”

They went inside. There was a lift but Andre ignored it and set off up the stairs.

The flat they wanted was on the second floor. They rang the bell.

When the door opened, they went in. There were two men in the room that was conventionally furnished with a sofa and easy chair, a hi-fi system from which, turned well down, came the voice of a woman singing in Arabic, and a heavy oak dining table with four matching chairs. The tall man from the Saab was standing in front of the table, facing them. The other man, in his twenties, with a wispy beard, sat in the easy chair. He was smoking a richly scented cigarette and avoided eye contact with the newcomers.

“Evening, Mr. Mazraani,” said Andre to the tall man. “And this is . . . ?”

“My cousin, Fikri. He’s staying with me for a few days.”

“That’s nice. Anyone else in the fl at?”

“No. Just the two of us,” he replied.

“Mind if we check that? Arch.”

Archambaud went out of a door to the left. After a few moments he came back into the living room and said, “Clear.”

“So now we can perhaps get down to what brings you here. Won’t you introduce yourselves for the tape?”

Mazraani’s voice was bland and urbane. He seemed almost to be enjoying the situation, by contrast with the other man, who looked resentful and apprehensive.

Andre said, “Certainly, sir. I’m called Andre de Montbard, Andy to my friends. And my colleague is Mr. Archambaud de St. Agnan.

He’s got no friends. And this lady singing is, I’d say, the famous Elissa?

Compatriot of yours, I believe? Gorgeous girl. Lovely voice, and those big amber eyes! I’m a great fan.”

He moved to the hi-fi and turned up the volume, using his index knuckle.

58 r e g i n a l d h i l l

Then he set his sports bag on the table, unzipped it, reached inside and took out an automatic pistol with a silencer attached.

A look of disbelief touched Mazraani’s features, but the seated man did not even have time to register fear before Andre shot him between the eyes from short range.

“Sorry about that, sir, but we wanted to talk to you privately,” said Andre. “So why don’t you just relax and we’ll have that drink.”

Horror at what he’d just seen had paralyzed Mazraani. He stood there looking down at the body, blinking now and then as if trying to clear the image from his vision, his mouth open but no words coming out.

Andre nodded at his companion, who looked almost as shocked as Mazraani.

“Wake up, Arch!” snapped Andre.

The man called de St. Agnan gave a twitch, then reached into his pocket, took out a leaden cosh, and swung it against Mazraani’s neck with tremendous force. He gave a choking groan and sank to his knees.

“There, that wasn’t difficult, was it?” said Andre. “And unless my nose has got stuffed up, you’ve not even crapped yourself yet. Now it’s showtime.”

He went back to the sports bag and took out a video camera which he passed to Archambaud. Next came a black hood with eyeholes which he pulled over his head, then a pair of long latex gloves which he put on.

Now he took out a length of polished wood, about two and a half feet long, like the extension butt of a snooker cue. And finally he drew forth a bin liner from which he took a gleaming steel cleaver blade, six inches deep and eighteen inches long, with a threaded tail of another eight inches which he screwed into the end of the wooden butt.

Mazraani was trying to rise. Archambaud raised the cosh again but Andre said, “No need for that, Arch. Here, sir, let’s give you a hand.”

He placed one of the dining chairs on its side in front of the stricken man, then pushed him forward so that his head rested over the chair back.

“Just get your breath, sir,” said Andre. “Arch, you ready?”

“Do we really need this . . . ?” said Archambaud uneasily.

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 59

“Main point of the exercise. Just point the fucking thing and try to keep it steady.”

He pushed the tall man’s long hair forward over his head to leave the neck clear, grasped the polished wood of the butt, and raised the glistening blade high above his head.

“You rolling?”

“Yes,” said Archambaud in a low voice.

“Then here we go!”

The blade came crashing down.

It took three blows before the severed head fell onto the carpet.

“All that practice with logs, thought I’d have done it in one,” said Andre. “You OK?”

Archambaud managed a nod. He was pale and shaking but he still held the camera pointed at the body.

“Good man,” said Andre.

He wiped the blade on the bearded man’s robe before unscrewing it from the handle and dropping it into the bin liner which he replaced in the sports bag.

“Now all we need are the credits then we’re out of here.”

From the bag he took a cardboard tube about eighteen inches long out of which he pushed a paper scroll. This he unrolled, to reveal that it was covered with Arabic symbols. After checking it was the right way up, he held it before the camera for thirty seconds.

“OK,” he said, replacing the scroll in the tube. “You can turn that thing off now. Time to go. You touch anything out there?”

“Just the door handles, and I wiped them.”

“Great,” he said, removing the hood and dropping it into the bag.

“We make a good team. Morecambe and fucking Wise, that’s us. In fact, let’s see . . . ”

He looked at his watch.

“Four minutes thirty since we came through the door. I gave us five, and I was only expecting one of them. Now that’s what I call show business!”

3

WA L K I N G T H E D O G

After his first attempt to get back to work, Pascoe spent the next two days in bed. On the third he was feeling recovered enough to insist that he was going to spend another day on his back only if Ellie joined him, which she did, purely on medical grounds, she said, which in fact turned out to be true as she cunningly contrived to leave him so exhausted that when he woke again, it was the morning of the fourth day.

He appeared so much better that Ellie had few qualms about letting him take their daughter’s dog Tig out for a stroll after lunch.

“You won’t be taking the car?” she said.

“Of course not. I’m going for a walk, remember?” he retorted.

Satisfied that this amounted to an assurance he wasn’t going anywhere near Police HQ, she waved him a good-bye before heading into her “study” to get on with some very necessary work on her second novel.

(If asked – which few people dared–how things were going, Ellie would reply that it was one of the great myths of publishing that the most diffi cult thing of all was to follow up the success of a universally acclaimed first novel. No, the really difficult thing was to produce a second novel after your first had attracted as much attention as a fart in a thunderstorm.)

Now she reimmersed herself in her book, confident that all she needed to do here to produce a best-seller was apply the same subtle understanding of human nature that she had just demonstrated in her management of her husband.

Meanwhile, two streets away, Pascoe was climbing into a car driven by Edgar Wield, who wasn’t happy.

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“Ellie’s going to kill me when she finds out,” he said.

“Relax. She’ll not find out,” said Pascoe confi dently.

Wield didn’t reply. In his experience there were two people who always found out, and one of them was Ellie Pascoe.

The other was still lying in a coma.

“So what’s Sinister Sandy up to?” said Pascoe.

“Oh this and that,” said Wield vaguely.

Pascoe looked at him suspiciously.

“Start with this, then move on to that,” he ordered.

“Well, she plays her antiterrorist stuff pretty close, that’s understandable,” said Wield. “But with us being a bit shorthanded at the top, it’s been a real help her being an old mucker of Desperate Dan’s. She keeps well back from the hands-on stuff, of course—says it’s our patch, so it should be our calls—but when it comes to structuring organization and paperwork, she’s really got on top of things. Now it’s not just Andy who knows what’s going off, it’s the lot of us.”

Pascoe’s suspicions were thickening by the second. Praise from Wield on matters of organization was praise indeed. Well, he was entitled to call it like he saw it. But that crack about Dalziel came close to high treason.

He said, “You sound like you’re a convert, Wieldy. Hey, you didn’t tell her I rang this morning, did you?”

“What do you think I am?” said Wield, hurt. “Anyway, she had to drive down to Nottingham. The Carradice trial’s started and she’s involved.”

“Involved in the great cock-up, is she?” said Pascoe, not without satisfaction. “God, and she’s the one calling the shots in our investigation!”

They drove the rest of the way to their destination in silence except for the excited panting of Tig, who always insisted on having a car window open sufficiently for him to stick his snout out. Basically a terrier, he condescended to treat most humans as equals on condition they fed him, played games to his rules, and took him on adventurous walks, all that is except Rosie Pascoe, whom he had elected Queen of the Universe.