Death's Jest-Book (66 page)

So she was out. What did he
expect her to do when he wasn't around? Sit at home and mope?

But he felt uneasy though he knew
no reason why.

The door of the control room
opened.

'Hello, Superintendent. Come to
check up on things?' said Berry. 'Must say you lot are taking this
very seriously, but it's all going like a dream so far.'

Hat didn't turn from the screen.
All his earlier symptoms were back mob-handed. He knew it wasn't
Dalziel who'd come into the room, it was Death.

Death that master of role-play
who was yet always himself. For he could come garbed as a nurse, or a
close friend, or in the cap and bells of a jester, or as a great fat
policeman, but the cavernous eyes and grinning jawbone were still
unmistakable.

So he sat and stared at the light
pulsing like a heart across the screen.

'Hat’ said Dalziel, 'could
you step outside for a moment. I need a word.'

'Watching the van, sir’
said Hat stiffly. 'Won't be long now till it gets to the museum.'

'Mr Berry will watch for us,'
said Dalziel gently. 'Come on, lad. We need to talk. Your office all
right, Mr Berry?'

By now the manager too knew that
a darkness more than the semi-dusk of a grey January day had entered
the room.

'Sure’ he said.

Hat rose and, still without
looking at the Fat Man, went out of the room.

'Will he be back?' said Berry.

'No’ said Dalziel. 'I don't
think he will. You can manage here, I expect?'

'What's to manage?' said Berry,
glancing at the screen. 'I reckon it's all over now.'

'I think you're right’ said
Dalziel. 'It's all over.'

* * *

Pascoe
was beginning to wish he'd stayed in bed. He sat on a chair and
looked uneasily round Franny Roote's flat.

Normally he was the most
meticulous of searchers, missing no possible hiding place in his
pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, and just as assiduous in
leaving no messy traces of his searching. In fact it was a standing
joke among his less particular colleagues that if you wanted to give
a room a good tidying, you got Pascoe to search it.

But something had gone wrong
today.

Roote's flat looked like it had
been done over by a disturbed juvenile on his first job.

With no effect whatsoever, except
to waste so much energy he'd broken out in a muck sweat. He took off
his jacket and wiped his brow.

What to do? he asked himself
desperately.

Flee, and hope it got put down to
said disturbed juvenile?

Stay and brazen it out if and
when Roote turned up? Or try to tidy things up and cover all traces
of his passage?

That was going to be hard, he
thought as he looked around. He'd made a real mess and he knew he
couldn't put it all down to his illness. He'd often looked at the
after-effects of a destructive burglary and wondered why it was that
as well as stealing the thief had needed to wreck what he left
behind. Now he began to understand. For some people it wasn't enough
simply to rob; they had to hate and even blame those they robbed.

He'd found nothing to use against
Roote, but by God! he'd let the bastard know what he thought of him!

It was a shameful thing to have
done, quite inexcusable.

Though, thank God, there were
limits.

There was a bookcase against one
wall, serviceable rather than ornamental and stained a funereal
black. The only things he hadn't laid violent hands upon were the
books.

And, though there'd been nothing
conscious in the omission, he thought he knew why.

He went to the case and took a
book down. He'd been right. The name on the fly cover was Sam
Johnson. These were part of Roote's inheritance from his old friend
and tutor. If there was anything at all about Roote that Pascoe
trusted, it had to be the genuineness of his grief for Johnson's
death.

And, of course, it helped that
his theory that Roote was involved in Jake Frobisher's death depended
on the existence of a love for Johnson that led to a murderous
jealousy.

But it made him feel a little
better to think he hadn't reached the point where true pathological
hatred would have started, the destruction of what the object loved
the most.

There was a two-volume edition of
Beddoes' poems he thought he recognized, quite old with marbled paper
boards. He took down one of the books and opened it. Yes, it was the
Fanfrolico Press edition. This was Volume Two, the very book that had
been found open on the dead academic's lap.

He started to replace it
carefully, and only then saw there was something behind it, a narrow
package wrapped in a black silk handkerchief, rendering it almost
invisible against the dark wood.

He took it out and carefully
unwound the silk.

It contained an Omega watch with
a gold bracelet, very expensive looking.

He turned it over and looked at
the back of the watch.

There it was, a circlet of
writing, which had been easier to make out on Sophie Frobisher's
rubbing than on this shiny surface, but he knew it off by heart
anyway.

TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS
OVER RUINED WORLDS YOUR S

Well, time into eternity had
fallen for both of them now, leaving, like all deaths, ruined worlds
behind.

And now at last, he thought with
less glee than he'd imagined he'd feel at this moment of
justification, he had it in his power to ruin forever the world of
Francis Xavier Roote.

Behind him the door opened.

He turned so quickly that his
Kung Flu dizziness hit him again.

When his vision cleared, he was
looking at Franny Roote.

'Hello, Mr Pascoe,' said the
young man, smiling. 'I'm so glad you could come. Sorry the place is
such a mess. Hey, you look a little pale. Are you sure you're all
right?'

When
the pantechnicon pulled in front of Rose's car, Wield's instinct had
been to pull out straightway and overtake, but he too found himself
blocked by the white transit.

He finally managed to squeeze by
through the narrow space between the vehicle and the central
reservation barrier just as the pantechnicon began to turn into the
slip road. A long way ahead he glimpsed the rear of the security van.

A very long way ahead.

Perhaps it had speeded up. But
why should it? The natural thing to do if you momentarily lost sight
of your escort in your rear-view mirror was slow down.

He accelerated
till he got close behind it. The transit had speeded up too and went
by him. Some drivers are like that, hate to be overtaken, especially
by a superannuated rocker in black leathers with eat my dust in
silver studs on his back. The guy in the passenger seat wound down
his window as he went by and Wield half expected to get the finger.
But the gesture when it came wasn't the finger, it was a thumbs-up.

And it wasn't aimed at him, it
was directed at the Praesidium van as the transit went rushing past
it.

What the hell did that signify?
Could be nothing more sinister than the camaraderie of the road, one
working lad greeting another, as you might nod and say How do? to a
stranger encountered on your way to work in the morning.

But as the van rejoined the
inside lane ahead of the security vehicle and slowed to match pace
with it, his heart misgave him.

Suddenly he
was recalling Lee Lubanski's tip about Praesidium which had ended in
the fiasco of the only thing going missing being the van itself.
They'd all laughed at this new evidence that most crooks were a full
stop short of
a
sentence, but suppose that in fact things had
gone perfectly to plan and all they wanted was the van? Which could
mean . . .

He slowed till Rose's car was
overtaking him, then speeded up again to keep pace, mouthing urgently
at the DI in the passenger seat. Rose wound down the window. 'What?'
he yelled.

'I think they've done a switch’
shouted Wield. 'I don't think that's our van.'

It was like knocking at some poor
bastard's door and telling him his wife has been in a crash. Rose's
face went white as he struggled to resist the words.

This was the young DI's big test.
Now he could get angry, refuse to believe it, carry on as though
nothing had happened. Or ...

'Don't be daft,' he yelled
scornfully, desperate not to see Operation Serpent swallowing its own
tail.

'Ours is back at Estotiland’
cried Wield urgently. 'The decoy'll lead you into town, stop at
lights, the driver and his mate'll get out, go round a corner and get
into that transit.'

He wasn't sure, he couldn't be
sure, but he knew he had to sound sure if Rose was to summon up the
cavalry.

They were out of the underpass
now. Estotiland was falling behind. They were back at ground level,
the road curving between shallow embankments running up to fields.

Time for decision, not debate.

'I'm going back,' he yelled.

He hit the accelerator and sent
the bike across the hard shoulder and bucketing up the rough grassy
slope.

'By God, he can handle that
machine,' said Rose's driver with untroubled admiration. He could
afford to be calm. All he had to do was what he was told, no
come-back.

In the same spirit, the three men
crushed together in the back looked at their leader with blank
expressions which said, This is where you earn your pay, guv.

'Shut up the lot of you,' said
Rose savagely. Then grabbing the radio, he said, 'Serpent One to all
units

'It's
over, Franny,' said Pascoe wearily.

Roote smiled with pleasure.

'I think that's the first time
you've called me Franny,' he said. 'What's over?'

'The games,' said Pascoe. 'This
is the closing ceremony.'

'Surely the awards come first,'
said the young man. 'Would you care for a drink? Have to be a
tea-bag. I seem to be out of coffee.'

He was looking ruefully at the
heap of grounds Pascoe had emptied out of the jar into the sink.

‘I’ll leave awards to
the judge,' said Pascoe.

'Please, don't tell me you've
found something else you imagine I've done,' cried Roote. 'I thought
we'd put all that behind us. No, I see you're serious. All right,
let's get it out of the way, then we can really talk. So what is it
this time?'

He didn't look or sound in the
least worried, but then when did he?

Pascoe gathered his thoughts. The
clever thing would be to get him down to the station and sit him in
an interview room properly cautioned with the tapes running.

But you didn't get anywhere with
Roote by being clever. So be open, tell him what you've got, get a
preview of how he's going to play it so that you're at least
partially prepared to counter his tactics when things get official.

He let his mind run over
everything he suspected. None of that stuff from the letters was any
good here. Roote himself had planted it in his mind and was no doubt
fully covered. Hit him with the unexpected. 'You burgled Rye Pomona's
flat,' he said.

'That's right’ agreed
Roote without hesitation. 'Though I think burglary implies
felonious intent.'

'Which you didn't have? I don't
think you can deny criminal damage though.'

'Well,' said Roote, looking
around his wrecked room with a smile, 'I bow to your expertise there,
Mr Pascoe.'

Pascoe flushed and said, 'So what
was your intention, if not to steal?'

'I'm sure you've guessed. It's
dear old Charley Penn, really. He went on so much about his chum Dee
being innocent that in the end he got me wondering. I don't give a
toss about Dee, but if it were true that he wasn't the Wordman, this
meant the guy who did kill Sam Johnson was still roaming free. Of
course Charley's obsessed and a man with an obsession tastes with a
distempered appetite, as I'm sure you are aware, Mr Pascoe. I must
say I have always sensed something . . . different about Ms Pomona,
an odd sort of aura. Anyway, without having the slightest idea what I
might be looking for, I thought I owed it to Sam to have a poke
around.'

'And you chose a solitary woman's
flat to have a poke around in?'

'Where else to start, Mr Pascoe?
Charley was full of police conspiracy theory. I knew of course that,
as far as you were concerned, that was out of the question, and I
certainly didn't fancy breaking into Mr Dalziel's house. But young Mr
Bowler, one look tells you he'd sell his soul for the sake of Ms
Pomona. So she had to be the starting point. I knew she was going to
be away that night, I had an excellent alibi in the conference. My
session was a bit early, but it was easy to get it changed. It was a
bit of a shock to run into you, I must admit. You looked like you'd
seen a ghost, so I thought maybe I could persuade you that in a sense
you had. Hence my second letter. Would I have written it if we hadn't
encountered? I don't know. My first letter was genuinely intended to
clear the air between us. But after the second, I found I was really
enjoying having someone I could unburden myself to. In a sense, I
regard our encounter as a nudge from God. But I'm sorry if the
letters have caused you any distress.'

If he sounded any sincerer, I'd
buy his old car, thought Pascoe savagely.

He said, 'So you found there was
nothing to find, but left a bug anyway?'

'You found that? Clever. My
intention, of course, was to leave no trace of my passage. But I
accidentally knocked a vase over, which turned out to be a funerary
urn. This confirmed my sense of Ms Pomona's otherness. People who
keep dead people in their bedrooms are, you must admit, different. No
way to clear it up, so I set about making it look like your normal
burglary, rather as you have done here, Mr Pascoe.

Then as I was leaving I took the
precaution of peering through the peephole, and who should I see
lurking on the landing but Charley Penn! That gave me the idea of
leaving something on her computer which might make Charley suspect
number one.'