Death Comes for the Fat Man

5

Instead of going straight back to his hotel, Pascoe diverted to Albert Square where he found himself an empty bench. He took out his mobile phone and the scrap of paper Komorowski had given him. He looked around. No one in overhearing distance. But that meant nothing in these days of audio guns.

Jesus, I really am getting paranoiac! he told himself as he keyed in the number.

“Hello,” came a response almost instantly.

“Hello, my name’s Pascoe, I’m-”

“Yes. Fine. This is about our friend, Sergeant Jonty Young, right? Or Mr. John T. Youngman as we ought to call him now. What would you like to know?”

The voice was deep baritone with a faint West Country burr. You could imagine it giving a powerful rendition of “The Floral Dance.”

“Anything you can tell me that I can’t find out somewhere else,” said Pascoe.

“Nice to know there’s still places you bastards can’t get,” said No-name with a chuckle. “All I can tell you is, I knew him as a serving soldier and I’ve kept tabs on him since he left. We take a close interest in any former colleague who takes to writing. There are some cats that need to be kept in the bag. Anyone who looks like stepping over the line we drop on from a great height.”

“You mean you take out an injunction against publication?”

“Sometimes,” said No-name. “Sometimes we just drop something on them from a great height. Joke.”

“Ha-ha,” said Pascoe. “Did Youngman need to be dropped on?”

“No. From our point of view his stuff was harmless.”

“He claimed much of it was fact based.”

“And he was right. Lots of recognizable incidents, some of which he was involved in himself, most of which was general knowledge in the Service. We’re a close-knit bunch. We like to share our adventures. But he never gave anything away that we wanted kept quiet. If anything, his books gave us a lot of rather good publicity.”

What would these people regard as bad publicity? wondered Pascoe.

He said, “So he didn’t have an axe to grind?”

“Not against the Service. But he really hated the people he was fighting against. That comes across loud and clear in his books, and it was even louder and clearer when he was out there, fighting them. Sounds like he didn’t lose it when he got out. Absolutely wrong, of course, but there’ll be a lot of sympathy for him both in and out of the Service.”

For trying to kill a cop? Then Pascoe recalled that as far as No-name was concerned, their interest in Youngman was solely as a suspect in the Templar antisubversives activities.

He said, “Would this sympathy go as far as giving him a helping hand when he is a fugitive from justice?”

“In the Service, no problem. You look after your mates first, ask questions afterward. And as I say, if all he’s been doing is reaching parts that the Law can’t reach, I don’t imagine he’ll be short of support.”

This was more or less what Pascoe had expected but it didn’t make him happy.

He said, “Does that include you?”

“Good Lord, what a question for a loyal servant of Her Majesty and the State! But I daresay I might be tempted to give him a sporting start before I blew the whistle.”

That at least was honest.

“What about going further than just not turning him in? I suspect his first port of call if he set out to recruit people to the Templars would be people like himself. Any likely names you can give me?”

A pause then the man said, “Look, it’s one thing helping you out with Young who, I gather, you can definitely tie in with criminal activity. I don’t see it as part of my job to give you names on spec just so you can go about harassing them and their families.”

“Very loyal of you,” said Pascoe. “Naturally I already have a list of all personnel who have left the SAS in the past ten years. We’ll just have to work our way through it alphabetically and harass the lot of them.”

In fact he was lying. Such a list could no doubt be obtained, but he guessed it would be extensive and any meaningful checking would probably involve more man-hours than he would be able to squeeze out of Bloomfield.

“All right,” said No-name. “I’ll see what I can do. But if you talk to anyone whose name I supply, your source is the Defense Ministry, right? And it’s part of a general checkup.”

“That’s how I’d play it anyway,” said Pascoe. “I’ll be very grateful for your help. You’re the expert here, we’re just grafting away, collecting information. For everyone’s sake, we need to find Youngman as quickly as possible. If you were in my shoes, how would you set about it? You know what his training will have taught him. More importantly you know the man himself. So I’d really appreciate any tips you could give.”

When it came to what he called “flarchery” (by which he meant flattery laid on with a trowel but so lightly recipients hardly felt a thing), Andy Dalziel was happy to give the palm to Pascoe. “Yon bugger could flarch for Hollywood,” he used to say proudly.

No-name was clearly susceptible.

“Well, he won’t be living rough,” he said. “That’s for sure. In a civilized country, you live rough, eventually you get spotted. So he’ll be somewhere out of sight but not out-of-doors. What you need to ask yourself is, first, what might lead you to him, and second, what might bring him out. First is easy. Sex. You’ve read his books?”

“One of them.”

“Well, believe me, the sex scenes are definitely based on experience. He enjoys it, he needs it, and he has an insatiable appetite for it. Me, I wouldn’t leave him in a room with a female cat I was fond of. So cherchez les femmes, plural. Along with sex, he loved soldiering. Just writing about either was never going to do it for him. He really needs action. He tried to reenlist under a different name after we let him go, did you know that?”

“No. When you say let him go, I gather there was some trouble with some prisoners?”

“He murdered them,” said No-name flatly. “Couldn’t be proved, of course, far too clever for that. But we knew, so that was that. Got to draw a line somewhere. Pity. He was a good soldier.”

“But not so good you wanted to let him back in?”

“No one’s that good. Surprising how often it happens. In the past probably a lot got away with it, but in this day and age, cross-checking identities is that much cleverer. So he didn’t make it. Anyway, as I was saying, he’s clearly been back in the action or you chaps wouldn’t be after him. But being blown doesn’t mean he’s going to stop. Unless he’s ordered.”

“Ordered? You wouldn’t expect him to be the man in charge?”

“Of these Templar people? Well, you’ll know more about them than I do, but if there’s a complex strategy level, no, I wouldn’t expect the sergeant to be at that. Where the beautiful trumpets sound, that’s where you’ll find him. That it?”

“One thing more. Don’t you chaps refer to your quartermaster as Q?”

“Occasionally, though it’s a bit naff since the James Bond movies. Why?”

“It’s just that Youngman’s first book is dedicated to Q, leader of men.”

No-name laughed.

“Not a quality much looked for in a quartermaster, I think. Hoarder of duff might be nearer the mark. No, I rather think that would be Major Kewley-Hodge DSO. He was Young’s section leader. Everyone called him Q. Tipped for the top was poor Luke.”

“Poor…?”

“Yes. Got a nasty one in Afghanistan. Ended up paralyzed from the waist down.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pascoe.

“Indeed. But it’s part of the deal. The moving finger writes and all that. And at least he can still move his fingers and push his own wheelchair. We done now?”

“I think so. Thank you.”

“Pleasure. Hope you get him, but I wouldn’t put money on it! ’Bye.”

Wouldn’t put money on it, eh? thought Pascoe. SAS veteran versus PC Plod. A mismatch on Youngman’s terrain, perhaps. But I get choice of weapons! One of which was, or ought to be, the terror of the criminal world.

He punched in another number.

“Wield.”

“Wieldy! It’s Peter.”

“Pete! How’re you doing?”

“Fine. Listen, could you do something for me? Major Kewley-Hodge DSO, ex-SAS. Present location if you please. And anything else you can find.”

“What’s up? Don’t them funny buggers have computers?”

“Yes, but I’ve left the building and I don’t want to attract attention by going back in. Also you’re like that beer that reaches places other beers can’t.”

“But cheaper.”

“No. Beyond price. Can you help?”

“I’ll try. But not till tomorrow, OK? Edwin’s going off at the crack. Book fair in Ghent then a little tour around the Netherlands. He’ll be away for nearly a week, so we’re having a nice meal in and an early night.”

Edwin was Edwin Digweed, antiquarian book dealer and Wield’s partner.

“Tomorrow’s fine. As long as it’s before eight A.M.”

“Oh, that’s all right then. As long as it’s not a rush job.”

They talked a little longer. Pascoe didn’t ask after Dalziel. He knew that any change good or bad would have been retailed to him straightaway.

When he got back to his hotel he ran a bath and as he lay back in the scented water, he rang Ellie.

“Hi,” he said. “Missing you.”

“Are you? Easily remedied.”

She didn’t sound as if her reaction to his decision to return to Manchester had mellowed.

“So what are you doing?” she went on. “Apart from making the world safer for George Bush?”

“Actually I’m in the bath and I could do with someone to scrub my back.”

“I thought CAT would supply Oriental body servants to its top agents.”

“If that’s the case, mine should be on her way,” he said rather smugly.

And he told her about his elevation.

She didn’t react with unconfined joy.

“So what’s that mean, Peter? They’ve put you in the tent so you can piss out?”

This was too close to Pascoe’s own suspicion for him to react indignantly.

He said, “You could be right. But at least I’m in the tent and when the time comes, I’ll piss any which way I like.”

There it was again, thought Ellie, that harshly defiant note which came so naturally to Fat Andy Dalziel but which from her husband sounded like bravado.

She said, “Listen, love, you will take care, won’t you? You’re in unknown territory over there and I don’t just mean Lancashire. There be dragons, and there’s nobody to watch your back, let alone scrub it.”

“Yes, I could do with Wieldy beside me. Sight of that face would make most dragons run a mile.”

Now it was Pascoe’s turn to detect and deplore a Dalzielesque note. He went on hastily, “But there’s a lot of upside. At least I’m really getting to know the people I’m working with.”

He gave her an entertaining account of his new insights on Tim and Rod.

“You’d like them,” he assured her. “They’re bright young guys making their way. Even Dave Freeman, now that he’s been told to be my buddy, is good company.”

He always liked to be a member of a team, thought Ellie. His strength, but maybe his weakness too? Then she thought of all the times that his single-minded sense of purpose had surprised her.

“But that’s quite enough about me,” he went on. “How’s your day been?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” said Ellie brightly. “While you were busy being promoted, I was being chatted up.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” said Pascoe. “And which of your many still hopeful admirers is taking advantage of my absence?”

“Got myself a new one,” she said.

She gave an account of her lunch with Kentmore.

Pascoe said, “How odd. What’s his game, I wonder?”

“Peter, it would be nice if occasionally you reacted like a jealous husband rather than a suspicious copper,” she said.

“OK, OK, I’ll challenge him to a duel next time we meet. Seriously, did you get the impression his interest was purely, or rather impurely carnal? Or were you really persuaded that, on the basis of your previous encounters, he decided, hello, here’s a woman who could share my lifelong interest in breeding pigs?”

“Maybe he just felt it would be nice to see me again. Anything wrong with that?”

“Nothing at all,” said Pascoe. “Hey, I thought you wanted me to act jealous.”

“Nice readjustment,” she said. “Maybe wrong verb, though.”

“Sorry. Feel jealous. Which of course I do. So what did you talk about? Apart from the price of pork, that is.”

“It wasn’t what you call flirtatious stuff,” she admitted. “He asked how Andy was and how I’d feel if he didn’t make it. From there we got to talking about loss and grief-”

“Jesus!” interrupted Pascoe. “He’s not one of those weirdos who get off on death, is he? Watch him if he suggests a rendezvous in a graveyard.”

“That might be interesting,” she said. “But no, I just think he’s a man who’s not really got over the death of his brother. I can understand why. It’s so unbelievable you couldn’t invent it. He actually heard him dying.”

“Sorry? I thought he got killed in Iraq.”

Ellie told him the story.

“God, that must have been rough,” he said when she finished. “Poor bastard. Bet that took the edge off your appetite.”

“I managed. The grub’s too good at the Saracen to leave on your plate.”

Pascoe laughed. His wife’s healthy appetite was something Andy Dalziel always put at the top of a list of her good qualities. Sometimes when they were particularly at odds, it was the only item on the list.

“So, having softened you up with his sad story, did he weep on your shoulder and suggest another meeting for the next installment?”

“No,” she said brightly. “I did.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes. You see, your fan Kilda turned up as we were leaving, and knowing how struck you were by her boozy charms, I thought I’d let you have your chance to shine. I’ve invited them to lunch on Saturday.”

“You’ve what?”

“You heard. Is there a problem.”

“I was looking forward to a quiet weekend with my family,” he said gloomily.

“Like the one we had last weekend?” she said. “Sorry. At least it sounds as if you’re planning to come back this weekend.”

“Of course I am,” he retorted.

“Even if your country needs you?”

He was too honest to assure her that he’d be home whatever, but she’d long ago come to accept that being married to a cop meant you couldn’t demand assurances, so she didn’t leave him hanging but said, “Look, love, it was just one of those invitations that sort of slipped out. I don’t think they were all that keen, at least not her. It’ll be the easiest thing in the world to ring and say you can’t get back from Manchester, so lunch is off.”

“That’s sounds like tempting fate a bit,” he said.

Like most policemen, he had a broad superstitious streak, though like most policemen he would have denied it.

“OK,” said Ellie. “Let’s wait till we’re absolutely sure you can make it home before I tell them you can’t.”

After all these years, her pragmatism still had the power to leave him breathless.

“Sounds good to me,” he said. “But if they did come, you weren’t planning to let your common interest in pig breeding persuade you to give them roast pork, were you?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s just I thought I could hear a pig being slaughtered in the background.”

It took a second for Ellie to catch on.

“Pete! She’d be mortified if she heard you!”

“She’d be Wonder Woman to hear anything over that din. Do you think Benny Goodman could bear to be dragged away from practice to talk to her old dad?”

“Only if you hold the jokes,” said Ellie sternly. “I’ll get her in a minute. So how do you intend to pass the rest of the evening in swinging Manchester?”

“You know me,” said Pascoe. “Grab a bite to eat, then do the clubs, sink a couple of bottles of bubbly, snort a few lines of coke. Or maybe I’ll just settle down with a good book.”

The reading matter he actually settled down with as he ate his excellent dinner in the hotel restaurant was Ffion’s interrogation. There’d clearly been several sessions, but it seemed to him that at an early stage the interrogation team had decided they’d got everything useful and were concentrating on frightening the shit out of the poor woman.

After the meal and a stroll round the block to get some air, he went up to his room. He wasted an hour watching a TV cop-shop show that had more holes than an election manifesto, then decided it was time for the good book he’d mentioned to Ellie.

The choice lay between two sagas of struggle and sacrifice and brutality and destruction against a desert background, to wit, Blood on the Sand, the second of Youngman’s novels, and the Gideon Bible.

Well, he told himself, what you want’s a soporific, not something of riveting interest.

He made the right choice. After two chapters of Blood on the Sand, he fell fast asleep.