Death Comes for the Fat Man

14

To start with, the music seemed less discordant than he’d expected.

Back at the Lube, he expected to be wheeled in before a court-martial consisting of Bloomfield, Komorowski, and Glenister. Instead he was met by two men he didn’t know who introduced themselves without a flicker of a smile as Smith and Jones.

Their job, they said, was to debrief him, which they did with great courtesy but at considerable length. And when they had finished taking him through his activities in minute detail, they went back to the beginning and started again. After a couple of hours, they offered him coffee and sandwiches. Then they started again.

By the time they announced they were finished, it was after ten pm. He felt as if he’d been in the interview room with them for days. It seemed impossible that it was only yesterday morning that he had returned to the Lube and taken up his new job.

He stood up and said, “Any chance of a word with the Commander now?”

They looked at each other, then Smith (he’d got them distinguished by the color of their eyes) said, “I’m sure you’ll be contacted if it is felt necessary.”

Pascoe digested this, then said, “You mean this is it?”

“As far as we’re concerned, yes.”

“Then I’ll bid you good night,” he said, stretching. “May I have my briefcase?”

“It will be waiting for you at Security.”

They walked down the stairs with him. The foyer was dark and empty. Komorowski’s plants looked as if they’d curled up for the night.

At the security checkout, as he handed over his badge, the duty officer said, “May I have your pass too, sir.”

His sense of relief began to wash away.

“But I’ll need it to get in tomorrow morning,” he said.

“Sorry, sir. If you could just hand it over…”

So this was how it was done, he thought disbelievingly. Not even a kangaroo court. One strike and you were out. If he’d ever really been in.

“I suppose it’s better than the poisoned umbrella,” he said, handing over the pass.

“Your briefcase, sir. And your mobile phone.”

He took them and walked across the foyer. Nobody said goodnight.

Back at the hotel, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find his bag packed and waiting at reception. He sat down in his room and tried to think things through.

He’d crossed a line, and he was out. The question was whether he was out because he’d broken a few of their stupid fucking rules or because he’d started to get too close to the Templar mole.

Not that it mattered. He had done everything he could. Should he have been more subtle? Perhaps. But if you were dropped blindfolded into a snake pit, surely it made more sense to follow your instinct and make a mad rush to where you thought the exit might be rather than crawl around, trying to feel your way out?

He was tempted to ring Ellie, but he suspected he’d be bugged, and anyway, to ring her so late with talk of snake pits and blindfolds would add to her fear that he was heading for the funny farm.

Maybe she was right and maybe what he’d been doing wasn’t conducting an investigation but running round like a headless chicken in a superstitious effort to distract whatever judgmental deity held Andy Dalziel’s life in the scales.

He opened the minibar. A distaste for people who were profligate with public money had kept his demands on it to a minimum, but now he felt he’d earned what Dalziel would probably have called a wee deoch an doris. He plucked out a couple of miniatures of single malt and poured them into a goblet. They went down very smoothly, and he replenished his glass with another two. That left the mini-bar empty of whisky. He’d have to move on to cognac, or liqueurs.

What would Andy have done at such a juncture? Tipped the lot into a jug probably, given it a shake, them taken it to bed with him.

Each to his own. He set the goblet on the bedside table and went into the bathroom where he showered, then climbed into bed.

His mind was still working too hard to make sleep an imminent prospect. The alcohol should kick in eventually but meantime he needed some other soporific.

Blood on the Sand lay beside his whisky glass.

He opened it and began to read, and for a while it seemed set to do the trick.

He was reading a chapter in which nothing much happened.

Shack’s patrol had been sent out to check an enemy MSR. They found themselves in a stretch of empty desert watching a length of empty road along which nothing moved for twenty-four hours. The chapter was full of authenticating acronyms and cant terms and the characters seemed to be competing to decide who was the most boring and limited. Shack’s authorial voice was at pains to point out that life even in a “glamorous” unit like the SAS could be tedious and uninvolving. Pascoe felt that he overdid the demonstration but it was perfect for a reader in search of rest.

The chapter ended with them packing up to rendezvous with the Chinook that was taking them back to base. Then a call came through on the radio telling them to stay put and await further orders. No reason, but this wasn’t surprising. Radio traffic was always kept as brief as possible to make it harder for the enemy to get a fix.

Finally they got the bad news. Their helicopter had been brought down by enemy fire en route to the rendezvous. A reconnaissance overflight had spotted the downed machine still more or less in one piece but there was no sign of its three crew members. When the Search and Rescue choppers got there, they confirmed that though there was blood in the cabin, the crew and all portable equipment had vanished, which suggested they’d been taken prisoner. The Iraqis would not have bothered to remove corpses.

The only significant center of population within a radius of fifty kilometers was a substantial village which an SAS patrol had recced a fortnight earlier, finding no sign of enemy occupation. Tracks from the downed machine led here and when one of the S and R helicopters did an overflight, it drew ground fire. Normally the response would have been to pump in a few rockets and call up a Tornado strike, but the possibility that captured crew members might be held here gave pause. Shack’s patrol was less than an hour’s journey away. They were instructed to approach with caution, check on the enemy disposition, and if possible confirm the presence of prisoners.

By now Pascoe was drifting away, but the day’s events still lurked at the far end of his mind, ready to emerge, so he stifled a yawn and began the next chapter.

Ten minutes later he was as wide awake as he’d been all day.