Death's Jest-Book

9

Ell Pascoe's New Year had been rather flat. The most bubbly thing about it had ' been the two bottles of fizz Pascoe had bought. One was your genuine vintage Widow, the other a supermarket selection Cava, the idea being, Pascoe alleged, to test if they could spot the difference, but really, she guessed, having forked out whatever huge sum had been necessary to get the former, he couldn't bring himself to double it. They had made a thing out of testing each other blind, but the fun had been rather forced and the only significant result of the experiment was to thwart Pascoe's efforts to make love to her on the lounge floor. Whenever drink had disappointed them in the past, they had been able to make jokes about it and find other ingenious things to do, but this time he seemed to take it to heart, and her efforts at jollity came out like the cliches of reassurance.

Happily what drink knocks down sleep builds up and she took advantage of his matutinal stiffie before any memory of last night's fiasco could have an inhibiting effect.

That was good,' he said, 'though next time I'd prefer to be awake all the way through.'

I've often wondered what it would be like myself,' she said. 'But make a note for next year. Less champers, more con gas.'

'Yeah, and maybe we'll go to the Hogmanay Hop.'

'Good idea,' she said. But when he rang her later in the morning to pass on news of how the Hop had ended for Rye Pomona, she felt a selfish pang of relief that they hadn't been there to see it. She'd grown very fond of Hat Bowler. He'd gone through a lot, and to see him suffering again just when he must have thought that from now on in it was going to be roses all the way would have been unbearable. As it was, the shock was diluted by the news that Rye was in no danger, and though she had not yet recovered consciousness, it was a deep and, they hoped, healing sleep that encompassed her.

Ellie was a devout atheist, but it wasn't such a clinical condition that she feared the odd tot of prayer would being about a relapse into full religiosity.

She sat before what was to her non-technical mind the most persuasive evidence of the supernatural she had so far discovered i.e. her computer screen, and said, 'God, if you're in there, spare a thought for Rye Pomona and for Hat Bowler too. Give them the happiness they deserve. OK?'

She stabbed a finger down on the keyboard and watched as the name Franny Roote blossomed on the screen.

Hardly the answer to a maiden's prayer.

So maybe it was as well a maiden wasn't praying.

Meanwhile in a quiet side ward of the Central Hospital Rye Pomona was aghast to find herself once more talking to her dead brother.

What was worse, she could see him quite clearly, and as he listened to her he was irritatedly trying to pick bits of fluff and small shards of china out of his skin.

This was one of the things she and Myra Rogers had been able to laugh at as they celebrated Christmas together. Under the fertilizing influence of a bottle of white wine the seeds of friendship sown at their first meeting in the churchyard had burgeoned rapidly, and a bottle of red had brought it into full bloom.

'You must think I'm really weird,' Rye had said, laughing. 'Drunks banging on my door, me glooming round the churchyard like I was spaced out on dope

'Well, I've got to admit, that first time I saw you there, I thought, Hello, what kind of company am I getting into here! I never did work out what you were up to…'

'It was nothing really… just a sort of feeling down, you know. ..' said Rye, a small nugget of caution resisting the solvent properties of the alcohol.

'Hey, listen, none of my business, some troubles are best shared, some are better kept to yourself, don't I know it! What happened to decent reticence? When my husband died, suddenly everyone was a counsellor, wanting me to sit down and let it all hang out, when all I wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and sort things out for myself.'

'Yes, I know. How did he die? Oh God, I'm sorry… there I go. ..'

'Don't be silly. Funny, now I'm ready to talk, no one ever asks. It was a car accident. Multiple pile-up on the motorway. Just one fatality. Carl. I felt targeted! Like it would have helped if there'd been dozens dead instead of having to read in the papers what a miracle it was things hadn't been a lot worse!'

And that had been enough, plus another glass or two of wine, to bring it all out, the crash, Sergius's death, the broken vase…

'It had been there too long. I don't know which was worse, being aware it was there or forgetting all about it. I'd been thinking about it, now that Hat, that's my boyfriend, and me are… an item, you know, it didn't seem right somehow

'Oh, I don't know. I had a boyfriend once who found it a real turn-on to screw in churchyards. I dumped him after I was having a shower at the squash club one morning and a friend asked me why I had RIP stencilled backwards on my left buttock.'

After they recovered from the outbreak of laughter this brought on, it had been easy to tell her everything – or rather that mangled version of everything which she would have given almost anything to be the truth and which she almost believed much repetition might make so. She had even been able to make a joke of the farcical possibilities of her hoovering if, as the Bible promised, our bodies were reconstituted on Judgment Day. It had been a long time since Rye had talked so frankly with another woman and it felt good. Next morning when she tried to recall cloudily what she had said, it didn't feel quite so good, but when she saw Myra again and found her bright and friendly but with nothing pushy or knowing in her manner, the good feeling returned.

Suddenly with the New Year approaching, the future had begun to seem – not possible – but not impossible either. As if through love and friendship and maybe confession (but, oh, how her heart cracked at the thought of confessing to Hat!), some kind of atonement might be within her grasp…

Now here she was on the first day of that bright new year, lying in a hospital bed, talking again to her dead brother.

'Listen,' she said urgently. 'I know you're not there. I know you never have been… all that stuff… I don't know… I don't know… it wasn't me… someone else…'

But it had been her. And Sergius was here, standing before her, silently accusing, but of what? Oh God, no, not accusing her of stopping when she was getting close – not urging her to start again and go on to the bitter end till enough blood had been spilt to give him his tongue – no, she couldn't start down that path again, she would run mad. Perhaps she was running mad…

'Sergius, Sergius,' she cried. 'Don't ask me. I can't… you're not really here

And to prove it she reached out her hand, and he reached out his to her and she took it and he squeezed her fingers hard. She closed her eyes and didn't know whether to sing out with joy or cry out in terror. And when she opened them again it wasn't Sergius after all but Hat who was sitting there, holding her hand as if he felt that only his strong grip kept her from plummeting into a fathomless pit. Maybe he was right.

'Oh, Hat,' she said.

'Hi.'

'Hat.'

'You said that. You're meant to say, "Where am I?"'

'Don't care where I am so long as you're here.'

To her distress she saw his eyes fill with tears.

'Don't cry,' she urged. There's nothing to cry about. Please. What time is it? Come to think of it, what day is it?'

'Still New Year's Day. Just. They said all the signs were you'd got past whatever it was and gone into a deep sleep, but you've been out of it a lot longer than they thought.'

He kept his tone light, but she could tell how deep his concern went.

'Well, I'm back now. So I've just been sleeping, have I?'

'And talking.'

Talking.' Now it was her turn to keep it light. 'Did I make sense?'

'About as much as you ever do,' he said, grinning.

'Seriously.'

'Not a lot,' he said. 'You kept on calling me Sergius.'

'Oh shit. I was… dreaming about… I'm sorry.'

'What for? In hospital again, the smells, the sounds, it must have taken you back subconsciously to that time after the accident.'

'You work that out yourself, Dr Freud?' she said, striving towards lightness, towards the light. 'Have you been here all the time?'

'Most. And when I wasn't, Myra was. She's been great. I like her a lot.'

'Not sure if I approve of my boyfriend liking a good-looking widow a lot,' she said. 'Do they have doctors in this place or are they all still drunk after last night?'

‘I think the ones who matter probably still are. There's this kid looks younger than me looking after you. Whenever I ask him what's wrong, he talks vaguely about tests and talking to Mr Chakravarty, the neuro-consultant. I'd better tell someone you're awake.'

'Why? So they can give me a sleeping pill?'

'So that if there's anything they can start doing to make sure this never happens again, they can start doing it.'

Gently he disengaged her hand and stood up.

She said, 'Hat, I'm sorry. Great way to start the year, yeah?'

He looked down at her, smiling.

'Can only get better. And it will. This is the greatest year of my life, remember. It's the year I'm going to marry you. I love you, Redwing.'

He went out of the door.

Rye turned her head and stared at the uncurtained window against which night was pressing like a dark beast eager to get in.

She said, 'Serge, you bastard, what have you done to me?'

And burst into tears.

She woke up the next morning feeling, rather to her surprise, much better. Not physically, though it was fair to say she felt as well as she'd felt at any time in the past month, but mentally. She had made no New Year resolutions either this year or any previous year of her life, but it felt as if a resolution had been made for her.

The hours drifted by. Nurses did their mysterious things and promised that Mr Chakravarty would see her soon; her adolescent doctor examined her and assured her Mr Chakravarty was imminent; she had visitors – Dalziel with a large jar of loganberries pickled in Drambuie which he ate with a teaspoon; members of the library staff in their lunch break with books and enough gossip to suggest she'd been away for weeks rather than half a day (New Year's Day being of course a holiday); Myra Rogers with a basket of fruit and, wise woman, a small grip full of clothes and other necessities. And Hat came too, of course, with flowers and chocolates, and love, the only gift which made her want to cry, though she felt a bit weepie as she saw Dalziel finish the last of the loganberries.

She dozed off a little (it was funny how lying in bed all day makes you so sleepy) and woke to see Hat in deep confabulation with a couple of nurses. She felt no jealousy, just a kind of languorous pride in the effect his youthful charm clearly had on the young women.

She dozed again and woke to find she'd almost missed Mr Chakravarty. He was looking down at her from a great height. He was tall, slim, dark, extremely handsome. He might have been one of those Indian princes who, she seemed to recollect, went to the great public schools and played cricket for England back in the thirties. And, like a prince, he stayed only long enough to be adored then went on his way.

She asked the nurses and the adolescent doctor the questions she'd failed to ask him. They talked of tests and scans, all of which it seemed must be delayed till the necessary facilities became free. It sounded as though there were waiting lists to go on waiting lists.

Alone at last about teatime, she lay fully awake and pondered these matters. Several things were quite clear to her.

Whatever needed to be done was going to take time. During that time she was going to be treated like a poor dependant. And Hat was only going to have to smile for everything concerning her diagnosis to be made immediately available to him.

She got out of bed and took the grip Myra had brought her from under the bed.

The ward sister summoned the adolescent doctor, but Rye simply said, 'I will sign anything you want me to sign as long as I have it before me in the next sixty seconds.'

She then went down to the reception area where there was a large diagram of the hospital, studied it for a while, then strode off with such a certainty of purpose that no one felt it necessary to enquire what that purpose was, not even when she entered areas not accessible to the commonalty of patients.

Finally she arrived at a door with the name she sought printed on it – Victor Chakravarty – and went in. A stout young woman behind a stout old desk viewed her without enthusiasm.

'I want to make an appointment to see Mr Chakravarty,' said Rye. 'My name is Pomona, initial R. He has all my details, or at least they are available to him in Ward 17.'

'You're a patient?' said the woman, as if it were a nasty condition. 'Sorry, but you really shouldn't be here

'I was a patient. I wish to become a client. A paying client. I understand that there are various tests I may have to undergo. I should like to make an appointment to see Mr Chakravarty fairly early one morning so that, after our consultation, I might undertake these tests and hear his interpretation of their results later the same day.'

'He's really very busy

'So I've gathered. So I won't be too demanding. It's Wednesday the second now. Let's say the start of next week. Monday the seventh would suit me very well.'

The stout woman, her alarm at being confronted by an NHS patient alleviated, now came briskly to the most important point.

'Do you have health insurance?'

'No. I shall be paying for my own treatment. Would you like a deposit?'

The stout woman's eyes said she reckoned this wasn't a bad idea, but her mouth said, 'No, of course not

'Good,' said Rye. 'Shall we say nine thirty, Monday morning, January seventh? Here's my home number in case of problems. My work number too. I'll be there between nine and five from tomorrow. Thank you.'

At the door she paused.

'Of course, as a private patient, I shall expect complete privacy. Any leakage of information to anyone – friends, relations, anyone – I should view very legalistically.'

She left without waiting for an answer.

On the morning of Saturday January 5th Edgar Wield looked at the over-the-top decorations festooning Corpse Cottage and thought with relief that tomorrow would see the end of them. He'd have had dow after New Year but his born-again-nalist partner declared it was well known to be tremendous bad luck if you laid hands on them before Twelfth Night.

Now Digweed said sadly, 'The place won't be the same without them.'

'You're right there’ said Wield with undisguised irony.

His partner regarded him seriously. Perhaps, thought Wield, he's thinking that in this relationship he makes all the adjustments and when he asks me to go along with one little thing like having bells and baubles all over the place, I make a big fuss. Maybe I should try harder. I will try harder! 'Edgar’ said Digweed. 'Yes?'

'Tonight we're going out’ 'OK’ said Wield. 'Where?' Tinks.'

If Wield's features could have shown aghast, that's what they would have shown.

He said, 'You mean Tinks? Krystabel's? The club? At Estotiland?'

'As always you are right in every respect. Tinks, the night club’

Wield still couldn't believe it: Digweed was even less of a hot-spot night-owl than he was. In his own case, professional discretion played a large part. But for Digweed it was simply a deep-rooted distaste. And of all the clubs available, Wield would have picked Tinks as the one his partner was least likely to be seen dead in. Whether the Estoti brothers had planned it as a gay club, no one knew. But within weeks of its opening in Estotiland, its street name had changed from Krystabel's to Tinkerbell's, hence Tinks, and the management seemed set on running it as almost a parody of what straights thought a gay club ought to be. All this Wield knew by report. If he'd anticipated visiting the place, it seemed likely it would be in the line of duty. Never in his wildest fantasies had he thought he and Edwin would go there as customers.

He said carefully, 'Are you sure this is a good idea? It's a night club, yes, but perhaps not in the way you remember them’

'And what way is that, pray? Discreet lighting, dinner jackets, a string trio to dance to, and perhaps the Western Brothers or Inkspots as cabaret? I assure you, I am completely au fait with modern trends’

'In that case, why…?'

'My good friend, Wim Leenders, is celebrating his fiftieth birthday there, and he wants me to join his party, and he said I've been hiding your light under my bushel for far too long and insisted I bring you. And if he hadn't insisted, I would have done because you cannot imagine I could contemplate entering such a place without your moral support’

This, as well as being a nicely turned compliment, explained everything.

Since they got together, Wield had met several of Digweed's friends. Most of them he liked very much, and generally they seemed to like him, but he avoided getting too close. Over the years, like a lot of his straight colleagues. Wield had learnt to be careful about his choice of friends outside the Force. He'd been upfront with Digweed about his reluctance to be swamped by a whole new circle of acquaintance, vicariously acquired, and usually he'd met his partner's chums singly or in pairs.

Wim Leenders was a six and a half foot, sixteen and a half stone, chisel-bearded Dutchman who'd moved to England twenty years ago because he liked to climb rocks and walk uphill. He collected early books on mountaineering and fell walking, which was how Digweed had come to know him. He seemed to have rather more money than his outdoor-gear shops might be expected to generate, but a careful check by Wield (memory of which filled him with shame) had turned up no hint of naughtiness. Most of the time, as if self-conscious about his physical presence, he was a very quiet-mannered, self-effacing, gently courteous kind of chap, but when he let his hair down, he became a runaway juggernaut. Wield had seen something of this side of him at a funeral wake. What he was going to be like at his own fiftieth didn't bear thinking of. This made his choice of Tinks a damage-limitation tactic which said much for his basic good sense. But Wield still couldn't quite grasp why Edwin hadn't simply made an excuse when he got the invitation.

So, because he believed in openness in a relationship, he asked the question direct.

Digweed said, 'Wim helped me out of a rather tricky situation a few years back, long before I knew you. Of course my first reaction was to say no to his invitation, but he has been most pressing and I've brooded on the matter for some days and come to the conclusion it would be – how to put it? – pusillanimous of me to refuse. But I really do need what you would call back-up, Edgar.'

'Of course I'll come,' said Wield. 'On one condition.'

'And what is that?'

There is going to be jelly and cream, isn't there?'

Digweed laughed, then said seriously, Thank you, Edgar. I appreciate it.'

Which made Wield feel good, though the feeling had not developed into any lively anticipation of enjoyment as through the taxi window bearing them south about nine thirty that night he saw a serpentine neon sign wriggling the name Krystabel's across the dark winter sky.

But life is full of surprises.

As they got out of the taxi, the club doors burst open and a burly man in a long mohair overcoat emerged. He had a mobile phone pressed to his ear and his face was deathly pale. Behind him appeared a young man with a fashionably shaven head and wearing a tight black T-shirt which showed off his muscular torso.

'Come on, LB, it'll be OK, don't let him snarl you up like this,' he called. 'Hey, would you like me to come with you?'

The burly man showed no sign of having heard and strode off towards the car park.

Wield, who had retreated into the taxi, now got out. He didn't watch the departing man but concentrated on the other who, becoming aware of this, said 'You'll know me again, funny face’ before twisting round and going back inside.

'Yes, I will’ Wield told himself. 'Friend of yours?' said Digweed. 'The night is young’ said Wield, smiling. Suddenly he felt like a party.

Earlier that same evening, Liam Linford too had felt like a party.

The police had used every delaying tactic possible and, despite Marcus Belchamber's best efforts, the young man had eaten his Christmas dinner in custody. Released in time for New Year, his first impulse had been to tear the town apart and make sure those he held responsible for his misfortunes got what was coming to them.

His father had other ideas.

'You keep your head down, your nose clean. I'll get this business sorted, right?'

'Yeah, like you got Carnwath's sister sorted, you mean?' sneered the young man. 'Let's face it, Dad, you couldn't sort washers. If you'd let me break his legs like I wanted, I'd not have spent the holidays in that shithole… Jesus!'

He found himself sitting on the floor, nursing a bruised jaw, looking up at Wally Linford in a mood he'd never seen him in before.

'You talk like that to me, you're out of here’ grated the older man. 'You step out of line by half an inch and you're on your own. So help me God, Liam, I'll throw you to the wolves. Couple of years inside might be just what you need. Make up your mind. Do this my way, or do it alone’

And Liam, who didn't know much but knew that without the clout derived from being Wally's son and heir he was nothing, had seethed with resentment but obeyed.

Hogmanay he'd celebrated quietly at home. But a week into the New Year and he was opining that he might as well have stayed inside, there was probably more fun to be had there. But his father's threats had kept him on the leash till that Saturday night when he saw Wally Linford leaving the house, heading off to find whatever it was passed for fun in his weird world. Liam waited till his car was out of the drive, then got on the phone and rang his closest friend and chief supporting witness, Robbo.

Robbo might have had plans of his own but he knew better than to object. He turned up at the Linford house twenty minutes later and found Liam waiting. When he opened the door of his Porsche to let his friend in, Liam showed he'd absorbed some of his father's lesson by saying, 'No way. The Filth would love to get me and you for drunk driving. I got a taxi coming. Here it is now. Right, mate, this is a whole night job, they told you that? Great. First stop, Molly Malone's!'

By eight thirty they were getting very drunk and the pub was getting crowded.

'Fuck this,' said Liam. 'Let's go to Trampus's, I fancy cunt. And if that other cunt Carnwath's still working there, I'll mebbe tell him I fancy him too.'

Robbo was still sober enough to wonder if this was such a good idea, but he was shouted down and moments later they spilled out into the car park.

'Mr Linford. Over here,' called the driver of a taxi parked a little way away from the pub door.

‘Thought it was a fucking car before,' said Robbo as they got into the vehicle, which was a traditional London taxi.

'More room in this, sir,' said the driver, huddled in his seat, woollen hat pulled over his ears and scarf wound round his neck against the dank chill of the night. 'Where to?'

'Trampus's club,' said Liam. 'And get a fucking move on!'

The driver seemed to take the instructions to heart and soon they were bowling along at speed to satisfy even their drunken impatience to be where the action was.

Soon the windows steamed up and when Robbo tried to wind one down to let some cool air in, nothing happened.

He rapped on the security panel separating passengers from driver and yelled. 'Here, mate, let some fucking air in!'

The driver didn't respond and Liam said, 'Give it a rest, Robbo. They lock the doors and windows so's we can't fuck off without paying. As if we would.'

He followed this with a burst of raucous laughter at memories of past occasions when they'd bilked some unfortunate taxi driver.

Robbo, who was rubbing at the steamed up window didn't join in.

He said, 'Where's this mad fucker taking us? We're out in the fucking country. Hey, you, where the fuck are we?'

He banged on the panel again and the driver said, 'Short cut.'

Now Liam too rubbed a spyhole in the condensation. Outside there was nothing but darkness with occasionally a glimpse of trees or hedgerows blurring past.

'Short cut?' yelled Liam. 'Shortcut where?'

The driver turned to look at him. His face was a skull.

'Shortcut to hell,' he said.

He dragged the wheel over, the taxi went through a hedge, down a steep embankment, and turned upside down as it plunged into a river.

In the rear the two men, bleeding and battered into sobriety, were screaming as they wrestled with the locked doors. For a moment they were suspended in a cocoon of air. Then in the front the driver wound down his window to let the water in.

Soon the screaming stopped.

‘Look who's here! Ed and Ed! Now truly my cup is full and runneth over!'

Any hope Wield had nursed of taking a back seat vanished when Wim Leenders' voice boomed out across the room as they entered and they were ushered to a table of at least twenty already merry partygoers who were urged to shift along so that the newcomers could sit to the right and left of their jovial host.

He put his arms round them both and invited them to sample the very best that Tinks could offer.

That the champagne was the best Wield took on trust, never having learnt how to distinguish between bubbles. But he drank his share with no discernible effect, toyed with a taco, shuffled a few circuits of the dance floor, and applauded a comic who made Andy Dalziel sound like a Sunday School teacher. After an hour or so he found he was really enjoying himself. Then it came to karaoke time and when Wim started looking for recruits for his famous Village People turn, he slipped off to the loo.

They didn't pipe the music from the club in here, thank God, and he sat in comfortable silence, thinking how great it was to see the usually staid and controlled Edwin letting his hair down, and how lucky he was to have somehow got all the disparate elements of his existence into such a perfect balance.

When he emerged, he could still hear the joyous chant of 'In the Navy' coming from the main room, so he stepped outside for a moment to get a breath of fresher air and almost bumped into the muscular young man in the black T-shirt.

'Sorry,' said Wield.

'Hello, funny face,' said the man. He looked rather pale and there was a whiff of a sweet vomit smell on his breath. Drunk too much and gone out to be sick, Wield guessed.

He said, 'Wally not come back then?'

'No. Don't expect him.' Then a suspicious look. 'You know him?'

'Wally? Yeah, from way back. Mind you, it's a long time since I saw him. I'd have said hello earlier, but he didn't look in the mood to chat. Worried about his lad, I expect.'

'Got cause, hasn't he,' said the young man moodily. 'Should have left the selfish bastard in jail. Ruined my fucking night, hasn't he?'

'How's that?'

'Had himself another accident or something. Little shit. Should have thought, with his trouble, no one would have let him near a car. One yell, and Wally goes running.'

'He is his dad,' said Wield. 'Heard you call him LB, what's that all about?'

'Thought you knew him.' Suspicious again.

'Way back, like I said. It was just plain Wally then.'

'It's just a net name he uses. Lunch box. LB. Linford. Gerrit?'

'Got it,' said Wield. Funny.'

'Yeah’ said the young man, looking at Wield assessingly. 'You been dumped too?'

'No, my friend's in there karaokeing. Not rny scene. Sorry.'

The young man went back inside. Wield pulled out his mobile and dialled.

'Pete, it's me,' he said. 'What's this about Liam Linford in an accident?'

Thought this was your night off,' said Pascoe. 'He was in a taxi that went into the river, A driver in another car saw it happen so help got there quick, it was too late. Liam's dead, plus that guy Robson who was his witness. And the driver.'

'Shit,' said Wield. 'Act of God or…?'

'Depends how you look at it. The driver was John Longstreet. That's right. The widower. And when they pulled him out, he was wearing a plastic Hallowe'en mask in the form of a skull.'

After his call was finished, Wield stood outside a while longer. His elation at discovering that Belchamber's LB was Wally Linford, underwriter of serious jobs requiring a lot of cash to set them up, was totally extinguished, though no doubt it would delight Andy Dalziel. But the Fat Man hadn't seen the father's face as he got the news about his son. Not that it would likely have made much difference.

Pondering these things, he re-entered the club room and walked past the momentarily silent karaoke set-up without paying any attention to a young man with electric blue hair and a matching silk shirt open to the waistband of a pair of trousers cut so tight it made your eyes water to look at them, who stood there, mike in hand, waiting his turn.

He glanced round, saw Wield, his eyes opened in delighted surprise and he leapt forward to grab the sergeant's hand.

'Mac!' he cried. 'It really is you. Hey, this is great. I'm on next. Come and give me some backing.'

It was Lee Lubanski.

Not the pale waif whose vulnerability plucked Wield's heart strings, nor yet the streetwise kid whose cynical view of life so depressed him. This was Lee in his party pomp, Lee hyped up on something, Lee so desperately having a good time, so genuinely delighted to see him there that Wield didn't think to resist till it was too late. The music began. Wield recognized the song. The old early eighties hit Total Eclipse of the Heart' and thought, oh shit.

He could see Wim and his guests out there, faces wreathed in delight, hear them urging him on. He caught Edwin's gaze, saw him drop his jaw in mock gobsmacked mode, then give him an encouraging smile. If he pulled free now and walked off, it wouldn't look like stage fright, it would look like a lover's quarrel.

'Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by,' sang Lee.

He had a good voice for this, a real Bonnie Tyler rasp, and as he approached the big belt-it-out section of the song he urged the still silent Wield to join in.

'For 1 need you now tonight and I need you more than ever

Fuck it, thought Wield. In for a penny, in for a pound. And he started to sing, or at least to growl out the words in a voice as cracked and fractured as his features.

'… forever's gonna start tonight

As the final 'Turn around, bright eyes' faded away, applause broke out, enthusiastic generally and riotous from Wim's table with everyone on their feet, clapping and cheering.

That was great, Mac,' said Lee, his eyes shining. 'What shall we do for an encore?'

'Got to get back to my friends, it's a birthday party, sorry,' said Wield.

The look of hurt disappointment that switched off the light on the boy's face stabbed right through him.

He squeezed his hand then let go.

'Hey, Happy New Year, Lee’ he said. 'Good to see you. Keep in touch, won't you?'

And it was almost as painful to see the way in which this small sop of kindness brought back the light.

'Yeah, sure, Mac. See you soon. Enjoy your party.'

In the taxi on the way home, Digweed said, 'Let me guess. That was Lee Lubanski?'

'Yes. Sorry if it embarrassed you.'

'What's to embarrass in the sight of a dad and his lad having a laugh together?'

'Dad and lad’ echoed Wield. 'Isn't there a poem about dads fucking up their lads?'

'Poetry now, is it? I'll have to take you out more often. "They fuck you up your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do." That the one you're thinking of?'

That's the one. It happens, I've seen it. And that's what bothers me, Ed. I'm scared I'm going to fuck the lad up.'

Digweed put his arm round Wield's shoulders.

'Just so long as he doesn't do it to you first, Ed. So long as he doesn't do it to you.'