Death Comes for the Fat Man (2 page)

What do you make of it so far?”

The Fat Man had moved into playful mode. It’s guessing-game time, thought Pascoe. Robbery in process? Hardly worth it in Mill Street, unless you were a particularly thick villain. This wasn’t the commercial hub of the city, just the far end of a very rusty spoke. The mill itself had a preservation order on it and there’d been talk of refurbishing it as an industrial Heritage Center, but not even the Victorian Society had objected to the proposed demolition of the jerry-built terrace to make space for a car park.

The mill project, however, had run into difficulties over Lottery funding.

Right-wingers said this was because it didn’t advantage handi-capped lesbian asylum seekers; left-wingers because it failed to subsi-dize the Treasury.

Whatever, plans to demolish the terrace went on hold.

The remaining residents had long been rehoused, and rather than have a decaying slum on their hands, the council encouraged small businesses in search of an address and office space to move in and give the buildings an occupied look. Most of these businesses proved as short-lived as the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, and the only survivors at present were Crofts and Wills, Patent Agents at number 6

and Oroc Video at number 3.

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All of which interesting historical analysis brought Pascoe no nearer to understanding what they were doing here.

Losing patience, he said, “OK, so there might be a man with a gun in there. I presume you’ve some strategy planned. Or are you going to rush him single-handed?”

“Not now there’s two of us. But you always were a bugger for the subtle approach, so let’s start with that.”

So saying, the Fat Man rose to his feet, picked up a bullhorn from the bonnet of his car, put it to his lips, and bellowed, “All right, we know you’re in there. We’ve got you surrounded. Come out with your hands up and no one will get hurt.”

He scratched himself under the armpit for a moment, then sat down again.

After a moment’s silence Pascoe said, “I can’t really believe you said that, sir.”

“Why not? Used to say it all the time way back before all this negotiation crap.”

“Did anyone ever come out?”

“Not as I recall.”

Pascoe digested this then said, “You forgot the bit about throwing his gun out before he comes out with his hands up.”

“No I didn’t,” said Dalziel. “He might not have a gun and if he hasn’t, I don’t want him thinking we think he has, do I?”

“I thought the foot patrol reported seeing a weapon? What was it? Shotgun? Handgun? And what was this putative gunman actually doing? Come on, Andy. I left a jug of homemade lemonade and a hammock to come here. What’s the sodding problem?”

Even diplomatic reticence had its limits.

“The sodding problem?” said the Fat Man. “Yon’s the sodding problem.”

He pointed toward the police patrol car parked a little way along from his own vehicle. Pascoe followed the fi nger.

And all became clear.

Almost out of sight, coiled around the rear wheel with all the latent menace of a piece of bacon rind, lay a familiar lanky fi gure.

“Oh God. You don’t mean . . . ?”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 9

“That’s right. Only contact with this gunman so far has been Constable Hector.”

Police Constable Hector is the albatross round Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary’s neck, the long-legged fly in its soup, the Wollemi Pine in its
outback, the coelacanth in its ocean depths. But his saving lack of grace
is, he never plumbs bottom. Beneath the lowest deep there’s always a lower
deep, and he survives because in that perverse way in which True Brits
often manage to find triumph in disaster, the Mid-Yorkshire Police Force
have become proud of him. If ever talk flags in the Black Bull, someone
just has to say, “Remember when Hector . . .” and a couple of hours of
happy reminiscence are guaranteed.

So, when Dalziel said, “Yon’s the sodding problem,” much was
explained. But not all. Not by a long chalk.

“So,” continued Dalziel. “Question is, how to find out if Hector really saw a gun or not.”

“Well,” mused Pascoe, “I suppose we could expose him and see if he got shot.”

“Brilliant!” said Dalziel. “Makes me glad I paid for your education.

HECTOR!”

“For God’s sake, I was joking!” exclaimed Pascoe as the lanky constable disentangled himself from the car wheel and began to crawl toward them.

“I could do with a laugh,” said Dalziel, smiling like a rusty radiator grill. “Hector, lad, what fettle? I’ve got a job for you if you feel up to it.”

“Sir?” said Hector hesitantly.

Pascoe wished he could feel that the hesitation demonstrated suspicion of the Fat Man’s intent, but he knew from experience it was the constable’s natural response to most forms of address from “Hello” to

“Help! I’m drowning!” Prime it as much as you like, the mighty engine of Hector’s mind always started cold, even when as now his hatless head was clearly very hot. A few weeks ago, he’d appeared with his skull cropped so close he made Bruce Willis look like Esau, prompting Dalziel to say, “I always thought tha’d be the death of me, Hec, but there’s no need to go around looking like the bugger!”

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

Now he looked at the smooth white skull, polished with sweat beneath the sun’s bright duster, shook his head sadly, and said, “Here’s what I want you to do, lad. All this hanging around’s fair clemmed me.

You know Pat’s Pantry in Station Square? Never closes, doesn’t Pat.

Pop round there and get me two mutton pasties and an almond slice.

And a custard tart for Mr. Pascoe. It’s his favorite. Can you remember all that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hector, but showed no sign of moving off.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Dalziel. “Money up front, is that it? What happened to trust? All right, Mr. Pascoe’ll pay you. I can’t be standing tret every time.”

Every tenth time would be nice, thought Pascoe as he put two one-pound coins onto Hector’s sweaty palm where they lay like a dead man’s eyes.

“If it’s more, Mr. Dalziel will settle up,” he said.

“Yes, sir . . . but what about . . . him?” muttered Hector, his gaze flicking to number 3.

Poor sod’s terrified of being shot at, thought Pascoe.

“Him?” said Dalziel. “That’s what I like about you, Hector. Always thinking about other people.”

He stood up once more with the bullhorn.

“You in the house. We’re just sending off to Pat’s Pantry for some grub and my lad wants to know if there’s owt you’d fancy. Pastie mebbe?

Or they do grand Eccles cakes.”

He paused, listened, then sat down again.

“Don’t think he wants owt. But a nice thought. Does you credit.

It’ll be noted.”

“No, sir,” said Hector, fear making him bold. “What I meant was, if he sees me moving and thinks I’m a danger . . .”

“Eh? Oh, I get you. He might take a shot at you. If he thinks you’re a danger.”

Dalziel scratched his nose thoughtfully. Pascoe avoided catching his eye.

“Best thing,” said the Fat Man finally, “is not to look dangerous.

Stand up straight, chest out, shoulders back, and walk nice and slow, like you’ve got somewhere definite to go. That way, even if the bugger d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 11

does shoot, chances are the bullet will pass clean through you without doing much harm. Off you go then.”

Up to this point, Pascoe had been convinced that the blind obedience to lunatic orders which had made the dreadful slaughter of the Great War possible had died with those millions. Now, watching Hector move slowly down the street like a man wading through water, he had his doubts.

Once Hector was out of sight, he relaxed against the side of the car and said, “OK, sir. Now either you tell me exactly what’s going on or I’m off back to my hammock.”

“You mean you’d like to hear Hector’s tale? Why not? Once upon a time . . . ”

Hector is that rarity in a modern police force, a permanent foot patrol,
providing a useful statistic when anxious community groups press for
the return of the old beat bobby. The truth is, whether behind the wheel
or driving the driver to distraction from the passenger seat, a motorized
Hector is lethal. On a bike he never reaches a speed to be dangerous, but
his resemblance to a drunken giraffe, though contributing much to the
mirth of Mid-Yorkshire, does little for the constabulary image.

So Hector plods; and, plodding along Mill Street that day, he’d heard
a sound as he passed number 3. “Like a cough,” he said. “Or a rotten stick
breaking. Or a tennis ball bouncing off a wall. Or a shot.”

The nearest Hector ever comes to precision is multiple-choice answers.

He tried the door. It opened. He stepped into the cool shade of the
video shop. Behind the counter he saw two men. Asked for description,
he thought awhile then said it was hard to see things clearly, coming as
he had from bright sunlight into shadow, but it was his fairly firm opinion
that one of them was
a sort of darkie.

To the politically correct, this might have resonated as racist and been
educed as evidence of Hector’s unsuitability for the job. To those who’d
heard him describe a Christmas shoplifter wearing a Santa Claus outfi t
as
a little bloke, I think he had a mustache,
a sort of darkie came close
to being eidetic.

The second man
(looked funny but probably not a darkie,
was
Hector’s best shot here) seemed to be holding something in his right hand
12 r e g i n a l d h i l l

which might have been a gun, but it was hard to be sure because he was
standing in the deepest shadow and he lowered his hands out of sight
behind the counter when he saw Hector.

Feeling the situation needed to be clarified, Hector said, “All right
then?”

There had been a pause during which the two inmates looked at each
other.

Then the sort-of-darkie replied, “Yes. We are all right.”

And Hector brought this illuminating exchange to a close by saying
with an economy and symmetry that were almost beautiful, “All right
then,” and leaving.

Now he had a philosophical problem. Had there been an incident and
should he report it? It didn’t take eternity to tease Hector out of thought; the
space between now and teatime could do the trick. So he was more than
usually oblivious to his surroundings as he crossed to the opposite pavement,
with the result that he was almost knocked over by a passing patrol car. The
driver, PC Joker Jennison, did an emergency stop then leaned out of his
open window to express his doubts about Hector’s sanity.

Hector listened politely—he had after all heard it all before—then
when Jennison paused for breath, off-loaded his problem onto the constable’s very broad shoulders.

Jennison’s first reaction was that such a story from such a source was
almost certainly a load of crap. Also there were only five minutes till the
end of his shift, which was why he was speeding down Mill Street in the
fi rst place.

“Best call it in,” he said. “But wait till we’re out of sight, eh?”

“I think me battery’s fl at,” said Hector.

“What’s new?” said Jennison, and restarted the car.

Unfortunately his partner, PC Alan Maycock, came from Hebden
Bridge, which is close enough to the Lancastrian border for its natives to
be, by Mid-Yorkshire standards, a bit soft in every sense of the term, and
he was moved by Hector’s plight.

“I’ll get you through on the car radio,” he said.

And when Jennison dug him viciously in his belly, he murmured,

“Nay, it’ll not take but a minute, and when they hear it’s Hec, they’ll likely
just have a laugh.”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 13

As a policeman, he should have known that the rewards of virtue are
sparse and long delayed. If you’re looking for quick profit, opt for vice.

Instead of the expected fellow constable responding from Control, it
was duty inspector Paddy Ireland who took the call. As soon as he heard
number 3 Mill Street mentioned, he gave commands for the car to remain
in place and await instructions.

“And then the bugger bursts in on me like he’s just heard the fi rst bombs dropping on Pearl Harbor,” concluded Dalziel. “Got me excited till he mentioned Hector. That took the edge off! And when he said he’d already called it in, I could have wrung his neck!”

“And then . . . ?” inquired Pascoe.

“I finished me pie. Few minutes later the phone rang. It were some motormouth from CAT. I tried to explain it were likely all a mistake, but he said mebbe I should let the experts decide that. I said would this be the same experts who’d spent so much public money breaking up the Carradice gang?”

Pascoe, the diplomat, groaned.

Six months ago CAT had claimed a huge success when they arrested fifteen terrorist suspects in Nottingham on suspicion of plotting to poison
the local water supply with ricin. Since then, however, the CPS had been
forced to drop the case against first one then another of the group till
finally the trial got under way with only the alleged ringleader, Michael
Carradice, in the dock. Pascoe had his own private reasons for hoping
the case against him failed too—a hope nourished by Home Offi ce statements made on CAT’s behalf that were sounding increasingly irritated and
defensive.

“What’s up with thee? Wind, is it?” said Dalziel in response to Pascoe’s groan. “Any road, the prat finished by saying the important thing was to keep a low profile, not risk alerting anyone inside, set up blocks out of sight at the street end, maintain observation till their man turned up to assess the situation. Why’re you grinding your teeth like that?”