Death's Jest-Book

10

Letter 8. Received Mon Jan 7 th P. P

Mon Dec 31st

Dear Mr Pascoe,

Safely back in Fichtenburg, thank God. The weather was pretty foul in Basel and if Beddoes experienced anything like those conditions, I don't blame him for being suicidal, and I could well understand how Holbein came to design his Dance of Death there. Or perhaps the real gloom was in me. It's curious. I have always been a person happy with his own company, but the fun I'd had with the others over Christmas seemed to have affected me in a strange way, and for the first time ever I felt really lonely.

I could have come back after twenty-four hours without much loss to my researches, but I was resolved not to give in. My hopes of a career depend very much on the job I do with Sam's book and I'm determined not to let the chance pass. Nor was it a complete waste of time. While I found little to add to Sam's own researches in Basel (oh, for your detective skills, that can take you in an empty room and let you emerge with clues to the perpetrator of some long-forgotten crime!), I confirmed some of his speculations and I came away with a sense that he (and dare I say it? Beddoes too!) approved of the progress I was making in my quest.

But I confess I hurried back here today, looking forward to company other than my own, and with lively anticipation of a Silvesterfest (Hogmanay!) to match our Weinachtfest (Christmas!)

Imagine then my gloom when the first person I saw on my arrival was Frere Dierick! He greeted me civilly enough and confirmed what I'd feared, that he was joining Jacques and myself in the chalet. Well, you're not sharing my room, not even if Linda commands it! I assured myself.

Jacques too seemed to have lost his taste for communal living, and it emerged that Dierick was going to bed down on the living-room floor for the couple of nights before the house party broke up. There was a perfectly good sofa he could have used, but he clearly thought the hard floor would be better for his soul.

My slight depression of spirits rapidly vanished when, for the first time since coming here, I checked my answer phone back home. The only reason I've got one is because Linda tried to ring me once and couldn't get through, which seriously pissed her off, so the royal command came to get some kind of answer service and put it down on my research expense tab. With her in my view, who else was going to be ringing me?

But someone had! Professor Dwight Duerden no less. Twice! He asked me to call him as soon as I could. Naturally I rang immediately, and all I got was his answer service. It was New Year's Eve over there also, so presumably he'd gone away to do whatever Californians do to mark the end of the year.

I left the chalet number, telling him that I'd be here for the next three days, after which I'd ring him from my next destination.

I keep telling myself it must be good news else why would he bother to get in touch? Or perhaps he's just a very polite man and feels he ought to let me know that St Poll Uni Press reckon a book about a poet not many people have heard of by a dead academic ditto, brought to conclusion by an ex-con student double ditto, is exactly the kind of thing they'd pay good money not to be involved with!

But next time I write, maybe I'll have something really exciting to tell you.

Now I must get ready for the party.

Tues Jan 1st

My dear Mr Pascoe,

Here I am again. And a Happy New Year to you and yours!

I ended above saying I might have something really exciting to tell you, and in a sense I have. But it isn't that I've heard from Dwight. Seven or eight hours behind us in California, he's probably still welcoming in the New Year. Ah well. Patience is the virtue of the temperate man.

But excitement there's been – or perhaps I should say excitation!

The party was really jolly, lots of music, games, dancing, with everyone showing off the local customs peculiar to their own country or background.

I was tempted to introduce them to some of the more arcane customs of the Syke, which involved getting blind drunk (sometimes literally) on a potato-based distillation liberally laced with medical spirit, but decided against it! On the stroke of twelve we popped champagne corks and exchanged hugs and kisses all round. I was expecting another bruising blow to the cheek from Linda. Instead to my surprise she aimed right at my mouth and followed through with what felt like six inches of strenuous tongue. Still reeling from this, I was very glad to note that I got nothing but a chaste peck from Mouse.

But, as perhaps you've guessed, it didn't end there.

I finally took my leave in the early hours and started back on the five-minute stroll to the chalet. The weather here had been the same as in Basel for the past few days, murky and wet, and skating had been banned as the See's icy surface became unstable. But tonight the frost had returned, and the air was bright and clear, a joy to be out in after the heat and fumes of the party in the castle. The leperization of smokers is by no means as advanced on the Continent as it is at home and even the men who didn't smoke seemed to feel that Sylvesternacht would not be complete without setting light to a huge tube of tobacco and sticking it in their mouths.

I stood and drew in mouthfuls of fresh air. To liken it to champagne sounds like a cliche, but truly that was how it felt, great draughts of coolth which bubbled along the arteries and invigorated the mind.

I heard the crunch of snow behind me as someone else came out of the castle. It was Linda. She said, 'God, I thought I'd smother if I stayed much longer in there.'

'Yes,' I said. 'But it's been a great night though.'

'You've enjoyed yourself, have you, Franny? That's good. I was worried you might be bored among all us politicos.'

'No way,' I assured her. It's been great.'

She looked really pleased and, slipping her arm through mine, she said, 'I'll walk through the forest with you a little way till I get cooled down.'

And so we strolled companionably through the pine trees and I can honestly say I've rarely felt more at peace with myself and the world than I did at that moment.

Eventually we reached the ruined chapel that had filled me with such superstitious fear on the night of my arrival. Here we paused. Suddenly Linda shivered, whether because of the setting or simply because the cold had struck deep, I don't know. But it seemed perfectly natural for me to unlink my arm and put it around her shoulders and draw her close to share my warmth.

Well, it was like pressing that button in the Pentagon which starts World War Three!

She turned towards me and next thing that tongue which I had felt at the back of my throat as the clock struck twelve was now trying to lick my brain cells out of my skull. We span round and round among the ruins like a pair of drunken waltzers till we fetched up against the cloister wall. Somehow during this mad motion buttons had got unbuttoned, zips unzipped and hooks unhooked, and suddenly I was feeling the heat of her bare bosom burning against my chest and the savage teeth of sub zero air biting into my buttocks! It was, I thought, like having your haunches in Dante's Cocytus while you dipped your member into Phlegethon. And if such infernal images seem ungallant, I can only justify myself by the context, for over her shoulder as we coupled I could see a whole wailful of frescoed figures who seemed to be engaged in much the same activity. Indeed, as I climaxed noisily, it seemed to me that one of these figures, cowled and sinister, detached itself from the fresco and moved shadowily away into the trees.

Afterwards, we got dressed silently and with a speed that had as much to do (I hope) with cold as with regret. Then she reached out her hand, touched my cheek and said, 'Happy New Year, Franny. Sleep well.' And set off back to the castle.

I watched her go then went towards the end of the wall and looked down at the snow.

I saw the fresh prints of a rope sandal. Only one person at Fichtenburg wore rope sandals.

Frere Dierick.

I hurried back to the chalet. Jacques, who'd escaped the party straight after midnight, was on his mobile when I entered. He brought the call to a rather rapid conclusion. Could it be Emerald on the end of the line? I wondered. No sign of Dierick. Jacques looked as if he'd have liked to sit and chat with me, but I excused myself on the grounds of tiredness. He's sharp of eye and apprehension and though he's possibly in no position to cast stones, I still didn't want him to know that I'd been at it with our patroness on what for all I knew was still consecrated ground. I had a feeling that Dierick wouldn't be rushing to tell him either. Info like that was best stored up and kept for a rainy day.

To my surprise, I slept like a top and woke without a hangover, either alcoholic or psychological. It had been, I assured myself, a one-night stand. Linda had too much sense of her own dignity to risk any hint that she had got herself a toy-boy (OK, I'm not that young, but young enough for the chattering classes of Westminster and Strasbourg to have a good chortle over at their cocktail parties). Once assured that I wasn't about to make a big thing out of our brief encounter, we would resume our old relationship, only enriched by that extra closeness which such a shared memory always brings. As for Dierick, if he started hurling accusations around, it would be Linda he'd be taking on, and she could eat squirts like Dierick for breakfast!

But I must admit I was distinctly uneasy until I'd strolled up to the castle and joined Linda and the others for a cup of coffee. My prognosis seems to be right. She greeted me warmly, but not too warmly. Like me, she seems to have survived the celebrations with little after-effect, and as we looked over the wrecked politicos beached all around us, we were able to share a superior smile.

No sign of Dierick. Skulking bastard! I suspect even Jacques shares my distaste. Certainly he's not quite the same easy, outgoing companion he was before the little squirt arrived.

Anyway, I'm going to end my last full day here relaxing, and keeping my fingers crossed for that call from sunny California!

Wed Jan 2nd, 8.30 a.m.

All good things come to an end, and this for me has been very good indeed. What a change there's been in my life. I look back only a couple of months and find it hard to recall that so recently I was a penniless student with no assured future. And of course I don't have to look much further back to see myself as a convicted criminal paying his debt to society. And then with Sam's tragic death, I hit rock bottom.

Of course I'd give it all up to have him still alive, and if I shared Charley Penn's belief that in fact his killer was still undetected, I think that the desire to make good what the law has failed to address is the one thing that might tempt me back to criminality. But there's no escaping the fact that, from that low point, I've been soaring upwards ever since.

I've had several strokes of luck, giving me hope that rather than just being as it were a midwife to Sam's great brainchild, I may really be able to claim a small part in its parentage. And I'm delighted to say that I have made many excellent new contacts among Linda's politicos.

So, dear Mr Pascoe, everything seems for the best in the best of possible worlds!

But I have to stop now and get my gear packed. The party's breaking up. Not even Dingley Dell can keep the real world at bay for ever. The politicos are getting back on their respective gravy trains. Jacques, accompanied by Dierick, is touching base at the monastery then heading back to the UK to resume his promotional tour.

As for me, it had been proposed before New Year that I should travel back with Linda and Mouse to Strasbourg and stay there a few days before going on to Frankfurt and Gottingen, both of which played a large role in Beddoes' European life. At the time the only thing which made me hesitate about instant agreement was Mouse. By herself she may have reverted to the quiet and shy little creature she really is, but Zazie and Hildi could be waiting back home, eager for a progress report, and ready to urge her back into the fray. I'm probably flattering myself, of course, but now that Linda has put herself in the frame too, I shudder at the picture of myself lying in my bed in the Lupin guestroom and both mother and daughter tiptoeing in to say Hello Sailor!

Why is my life so complicated? What wouldn't I give to be more like you, Mr Pascoe, so well organized, with my life under perfect control, but, alas, those genes were not tossed into my cradle by whatever Fairy Godmother attended my birth. My mother knew what she wanted and set out to get it, so I reckon I must have inherited my chaotic make-up from the father I never knew. From what my mother said about him, which wasn't much, he was wild at heart and not one whom fortune favoured. All I can hope is that I might get some of the luck he never did.

I am sitting writing this as I finish off the coffee at the breakfast table. Frere Jacques and I discovered one of many things we have in common is an internal alarm clock set for early rising, the result of our shared experience of the life cellular! Dierick is an even earlier riser. No sign of him this morning, and, to give him credit, no sign of his overnight presence on the sofa. When I met him yesterday, his manner to me was unchanged, distrustful neutrality! So I think I've read that situation right.

Penologists might like to note that in many ways the monastery has left Jacques a lot more disciplined than the Syke left me. His bag is already packed and standing in the entrance porch, and he has just set out to walk up to the castle and make his farewells. I meanwhile, not yet packed, linger here, pinned down by an irresistible urge to bring you up to date with the course of events since last I wrote and a superstitious feeling that by staying close to the phone I may persuade Dwight Duerden to ring. After all, it's still not midnight in California and I did say in my message that I'd be leaving here today. You must think me pathetic to be clutching at such straws – oh god there it goes!

Oh god! indeed. Thirty minutes have passed, one thousand eight hundred seconds, and in that time fortune, who doesn't care to be taken for granted, has raised me up and then shown me how easily she can cast me down!

It was indeed Professor Duerden. He said he'd spoken to various people as soon as he got back to St Poll and they were hugely enthused by what he told them. They are all desperately keen to meet me and find out exactly what it is I've got to offer. I had to keep reminding myself that he was ringing from Southern California where most people speak English, a lot speak Spanish, but everyone speaks hype. But when he finished by inviting me out there as a guest of the university, all expenses paid, I couldn't help catching some of his excitement. No, let me not be too English about this. I was bubbling fit to burst! I heard myself asking, idiotically, what the temperature was out there. To tell the truth, I was getting just a bit tired of invigorating frosts. A man can only be braced so far before he busts. Disappointingly he said it was about forty-eight degrees outside at the moment, then he laughed and went on, 'But it is nearly midnight! During the day, when the sun shines, we get in the high sixties, maybe even higher with a bit of luck.'

That will suit me nicely, I thought. Then something occurred to me which sent my spirits diving. I am, you may recall, a convicted felon. Didn't the US immigration authorities have strong feelings about that? Haltingly I put the objection to Dwight. He said, yes, he was aware of that, but dispensations could be made and he'd had a word with an old chum of his in Washington and another with a former pupil currently in their London Embassy, and it seemed that as long as I'd kept my nose clean since release and Dwight guaranteed to take responsibility for me while over there, I would be admitted as it were on sufferance. All I had to do was send off a formal visa application and then present myself at Grosvenor Square for interview when required. Was that OK?

My spirits were rocketing again! I said it was more than OK, it was great! And he said he thought so too and he'd expect to see me some time towards the end of January.

I must admit I put the phone down and punched the air like a celebrating footballer!

While we were talking I'd thought I'd heard the front door of the chalet open and shut, which I put down to Frere Jacques returning. I had to share my exuberance with someone and I rushed through into his bedroom, only to find it empty. I must have been mistaken, I thought, and needing exercise to work off the joyous rush of energy surging through my body, I went into my own room to pack.

There was a head on my pillow, two eyes looking at me rather nervously, a mouth essaying an inviting smile.

It was Mouse.

I stopped dead in my tracks, then took half a step backwards.

Perhaps fearful that I was going to turn and flee, she threw the duvet back to reveal she was stark naked. The way she did it, a quick spasmodic movement rather than a tantalizing unveiling, plus the tension visible in every muscle and the way she kept her legs pressed tightly together, showed me how nervous and uncertain she was.

I should, of course, have turned away and left the room. But, having overcome God knows what crises of mind and spirit to bring herself to this point, how would such a rejection have affected poor Mouse?

Sorry, that sounds like I'm trying to justify my actions. I freely admit that, without that phone call from Dwight, I would have been out of there so quick, she might have thought I'd been a mirage! But like I said, I was bubbling with a delight I wanted to share with everyone and without a first let alone a second thought (and certainly not that Third Thought which is my grave!) I was out of my clothes and into my bed.

Perhaps my sense of joy was infectious for she very quickly relaxed, though there must have been some pain in it for she was as inexperienced as she looked. But the strange cry she uttered as I entered her (which sounded to my admittedly not very attentive ears like wununredunAAAYtee!} seemed more triumphal than distressed.

From my own selfish point of view, I enjoyed it very much, certainly a great deal more than I might have anticipated. But post coitum timidum est, and as rapidly as the physical pleasure faded from my nerve ends, the possible consequences of my action came swarming into my disanaesthetized mind.

The first and most immediate was that Jacques might return at any moment, and in my haste to oblige Mouse, I now realized I hadn't even shut the door! I began to roll off the bed but we were still tangled up and she seemed inclined to hang on, resulting in a not unstimulating bout of wrestling which might have made me forget about the open door if out of the corner of my eye I hadn't glimpsed a figure standing like Death on the threshold.

It was Dierick. He smiled, the first time I'd seen him smile. It wasn't a pretty sight. Then slowly he closed the door.

Mouse hadn't seen him. Firmly I disengaged myself and got off the bed and, trying not to show an ungentlemanly haste, I pulled on my clothes. After a moment Mouse followed my example. Fully clothed, we stood on either side of the bed and looked each other straight in the eye.

I felt I had to say something, preferably something at the same time wise and affectionate and maybe a bit conciliatory, but all I could manage was, 'Danke schon.'

She said, 'Bitte schon.'

And we both laughed.

Then she left.

So what am I to do now, dear Chief Inspector? Once more I am in desperate need of your good advice. I know how much you must disapprove of what probably seems to you my libidinous nature. How feeble I must sound if I plead strong temptation and very weak flesh! Someone so physically attractive as yourself must have had – must still have – endless opportunity to indulge his baser passions, but I am sure your sense of probity and power of will are both strong enough to make sure you never stray. But that is why I, the weak, must always be turning to you, the strong, in search of strength.

Dierick is the key, of course. I looked for him to open negotiations, but he was nowhere to be found. So I'll have to sweat on it, but I've resolved on one change of plan.

I will finish my packing now, then go and tell Linda that I will not after all take up her invitation to visit Strasbourg but instead will complete my researches in Zurich and Basel, then move on to Frankfurt and Gottingen prior to heading off to sunny California.

Ain't I the laid-back jet-setter then! Ain't I the Citizen of the World!

Of course, even without the threat of Dierick, if Mouse gives Linda any hint of what has just taken place, it may be that I shall no longer have any reason to jet anywhere except home. My claim to be Sam Johnson's literary executor only exists through her goodwill, which might survive or indeed be increased by the memory of our New Year celebration. But the idea that just over twenty-four hours later I'd extended the courtesy to her favourite daughter was not going to go down well.

Once more I ask you to wish me luck.

Dear God, how soon fate exacts payment! Truly no man can call himself happy till he takes his happiness to the grave with him. My visit to Fichtenburg, so successful in many ways, now looks like it might end as badly as it began.

Let me put my thoughts in order.

I went up the castle, as explained above.

On my way there I met Jacques returning to the chalet. We took our farewells as, with a two-day drive ahead of him, he wanted to be off as soon as he could.

In the castle I found no such haste, however. There seemed to be a general reluctance to break up such a successful house party.

Linda expressed what seemed like genuine disappointment when I said I'd have to skip Strasbourg this time round, but it was balanced with huge delight at my news from America. Mouse came in as we were talking and listened with apparent indifference as her mother relayed my news, but I was perfectly content with indifference. Things move on. Perhaps defloration isn't the big thing in a girl's life it used to be!

Finally I said goodbye to Linda, promising to keep in close touch. Incidentally, her parting kiss, much to my relief, had nothing of strenuous tongue in it but was back to full-blooded Henry Cooper hook mode.

Mouse shook my hand. No significant pressure, nor anything in her tone as she said, 'Goodbye, Franny. I'm pleased things are going so well. I do hope you can keep it up.' Then she winked at me! And suddenly it felt like I was the late virgin being encouraged on his way by the voice of old experience.

Perhaps that's what gave me the stimulus to work out what I'm sure your professionally incisive mind spotted instantly, my dear Chief Inspector, to wit, the significance of Mouse's strange cry as I penetrated. One hundred and eighty! The triumphal cry a darts scorer sends up as the third dart enters the treble twenty.

'What are you two grinning at?' asked Linda. But her tone was indulgent.

So, nothing to fear from Mouse. Which only left Dierick, who, I thought with relief, was probably on his way north with Jacques by now.

Then Jacques came into the room and asked impatiently if anyone had seen him.

At first the guy's absence was just a cause of irritation. But soon, when he couldn't be found anywhere, it became a matter of real alarm.

Concern that he might have slipped and hurt himself sent us out into the pine forest, looking for tracks and calling his name. We all tried to recall when last we'd seen him, and established that since Jacques and I said goodnight to him in the chalet the previous evening, nobody had had sight of him. Except of course me, and I could hardly explain about that. The weather, after the brief interlude of clear frosty skies we had on New Year's Eve, has returned to low cloud and swirling mist and temperatures high enough to turn the snow soft and mushy. Darkness will be upon us even earlier than usual this afternoon. It was time, Linda decided, to call off our amateur search and inform the authorities. So now I'm back here in the chalet, turning to you for comfort again, Mr Pascoe. Everyone else is back in the castle, waiting for the police. Only Jacques is still out there with a couple of local forestry workers, refusing to give up the search.

I can hear shouting outside, perhaps they've found him, I hope to God they have.

This is truly dreadful. I went out and saw that the disturbance was coming from the lake shore. Jacques was in the water up to his waist and the forestry men were having a hell of a job to drag him out.

It seems one of the men spotted tracks leading out on to the ice and, without a thought for his own safety, Jacques had rushed out there. The ice, weakened by the thaw, soon gave way. Jacques, thank heaven, is safe and well. We got him into the chalet and dried him off. Half an hour later the police arrived with proper equipment. As they started work, the snow stopped and the clouds thinned enough for the dying rays of the declining sun to cast a sickly pink patina across the lake's surface. Blutensee, I thought. At that moment I knew the worst, and a minute or two later, the cries of the leading policeman confirmed it.

A little beyond where Jacques had reached, only a few inches beneath the water, rested the body of Frere Dierick.

What had induced him to walk on the lake we can only surmise. Perhaps in the swirling snow he wasn't even aware he was walking across ice. I feel full of guilt lest it was the sight of Mouse and myself naked on the bed which had so distracted him he did not pay heed where he was going. But I comfort myself with the memory of his smile, and his careful closing of the door, neither of which suggested any great mental distraction.

Whatever, it is another tragedy. How they seem to follow me around. Or perhaps it is Thomas Lovell Beddoes they follow. Remember Browning's strange superstitious fear at the prospect of opening the Beddoes box? Perhaps he was right. Could it be that Death, who was such a close and well-loved companion of Beddoes for so many years, still stays close to those who would uncover his friend's secrets, and that his company is the price that must be paid for understanding?

But enough of horrors. There will be an enquiry, of course, and we shall all have to make written statements, but I do not doubt that the combined weight of authority to be found in Linda and her guests will expedite matters and we should all be on our way tomorrow at the latest.

I'll write again soon. And, by the way, if you get any enquiries from the CIA or FBI or whoever does the immigration checking at the US Embassy, I know I can rely on you of all people to assure them that I'm leading a blameless life!

Yours fondly,

Franny

Ellie Pascoe didn't know whether to feel happy or sad as she opened her front door. January 7th, first day of waking to a Christmas-free house after the traditional Twelfth Night clearance, and also the first day of the new term. So now the place felt empty in every way as she returned from dropping Rosie off.

She stooped to pick up the mail from the hall floor and sorted through it quickly. There was one with a Swiss postmark. She made a face as she put it on the hall table with the rest of Peter's mail. Despite her public indifference to, tinged with amusement at, the Roote letters, she wished they would stop. To see a rational man irrationally troubled was a trouble. Plus, the longer they went on, the more she began to question Franny's motivation.

What was he getting out of writing them? At first she'd seen them as a snook-cocking joke. But now the joke was wearing thin, and when Roote talked about the correspondence becoming a necessary part of his life, she half believed him. So now she had two cases of obsessive behaviour to be concerned about.

Perhaps, being further removed from it, she would have a better chance of understanding Roote's than her husband's.

She looked down at the letter, felt tempted to open it, resisted. Women who opened their husband's mail deserved everything they read. She knew how she'd react if she found Peter had been at hers. If she were going to do anything, best to throw it in the fire. But no doubt there'd be more and there was no way to guarantee she'd get to the others first.

In any case, that was almost as bad as opening them.

She checked her own three letters. Two were charity follow-ups. Nowadays no one wrote just to say thanks, they wrote to say thanks but it's not enough.

The third had an official but non-charitable look.

She opened it as she went through into the kitchen, read it quickly on the move, then sat down and read it more slowly a second time.

Her intermittent researches into Roote's genealogy had quickly run into the sand. Using as a starting point Franny's assertion in his first letter that he had been born in Hope, she had looked up the name in her Ordnance Survey atlas and been a little taken aback to discover half a dozen places called Hope and as many again which had enough of Hope in their name to make the young man's jest allowable. She'd written to all the relevant registrars' offices with the information she had and their replies had been trickling in over several days. They ranged from the formal to the friendly with one thing in common: no child with the name Francis Xavier Roote had been registered inside the given time-frame.

Soon she was down to her last Hope, a Derbyshire village in the Peak District, not far out of Sheffield, and it was the County Registrar's letter she had in her hand now.

She read it a third time. Yes, it said, there was an entry for the name and date specified. Address 7 Post Terrace; mother Anthea Roote nee Atherton, housewife; father Thomas Roote – and here came the bit that made her sit and read it a third time – police officer.

She reached for the phone to ring Peter. But to tell him what? Surprise surprise… but being surprising wasn't the same as being helpful. Did it really matter? Wasn't she by doing this merely feeding his obsession when she should have been starving it?

She went back into the hall and looked again at the letter with the Swiss stamp.

Sod it, let Roote decide. If this was as innocuous as the last with its account of Christmas fun, why keep the pot boiling? It might even be a farewell… Dear Mr Pascoe, my New Year resolution is to write to you no more. Sorry for any trouble I've caused. Yours etc.

She ripped it open. No point pussyfooting. If a woman was going to open her husband's mail, sod steaming kettles. Let him see you might be nosey but at least you weren't sneaky!

When she'd read it, she said, 'Oh shit.'

Another death. Another death which advantaged Roote. Truly the guy was either very lucky or… No! That was like jumping into quicksand to save a sinking man.

But she could almost hear Peter's reaction to the account of Frere Dierick's death.

Knowledge is power. She'd let herself be talked once again into going shopping in Estotiland with Daphne Aldermann. Daphne, an unrepentant shopaholic, had a theory that the first Monday in January was the time to go to the post-Christmas sales. 'In the early days’ she said, 'there are so many people, they turn into a kind of lynch mob and you can wake up next morning aghast at the memory of what you did the day before. So wait till the crowds have gone, bearing with them most of the chronic sales junk, and step in when they're putting out real bargains to tempt the discerning customer.'

Ellie had let her arm be twisted and now she was glad. Estotiland was a large step on the way to Sheffield, the other side of which lay Hope. So an hour's shopping with Daphne, then off south, and tonight with luck she'd be able to amaze Peter with more than a mohair sweater in the kind of bold design she loved but he hated.

In fact the visit to Estotiland was quite useful for another reason. In a couple of weeks' time Rosie was going to her friend Suzie's birthday party in the Junior Jumbo Burger Bar. Ellie had promised she'd help. At the same time her early-warning system had gone on to red alert at the mention of burgers and this trip today gave her the chance to check the kitchens for potential sources of salmonella, E. coli, and CJD.

Daphne gave a long-suffering sigh, but as she'd resolved long ago never to let Ellie have the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed, she strode boldly with her into the kitchen where they were greeted with great courtesy and invited to examine whatever they wanted to examine and ask any questions they wanted to ask. All the meat was local, they were assured, an assurance backed up with written details of provenance. Standards of hygiene were exemplary, and supervision of the young staff was militarily strict.

'Told you,' said Daphne as they left. 'Estotiland is Paradise Regained. Now, let's go and pluck ourselves some apples!'

A couple of hours and as many mohair sweaters later, they reached the upper retail floor and Daphne turned instinctively towards the lingerie department. Whether it was Daphne or her husband, Patrick, who got off on silk next to the skin, Ellie didn't know, but she saw that glazed look come into her friend's eyes as they entered. Then she paused, wondering if the condition was contagious, as everything seemed to tremble in front of her as though somewhere deep beneath them an underground train had gone rushing by.

'You OK?' said Daphne.

'I think so. Just something walking over my grave, you know. Something big.'

'Probably that fat bastard poor Peter works for. Let's go and find a seat, get a coffee, or take lunch early. Did you eat any breakfast this morning?'

Touched by her friend's willingness to turn away even from the gates of Paradise to offer comfort, Ellie said, 'No, really, you go on. But I think maybe I have had enough. I'll skip lunch, if that's OK, and head off. I've got something I need to do in Sheffield.'

For some reason she didn't want to give chapter and verse on Roote, maybe because it would have been hard to explain without inviting comment on Peter's obsession.

An hour later she found herself standing on the doorstep of 7 Post Terrace in Hope talking to a woman called Myers who'd bought the house three years ago from a couple called Wilkinson and had never heard of anyone called Roote.

As Ellie turned away in disappointment, she heard an eldritch screech. She'd often wondered what one of these would sound like, but she recognized it as soon as she heard it. Its source seemed to be a neighbouring window, which Ellie had noticed was wide open despite the cold, dank weather.

Peering in, she discovered that the reason for the open window was to ensure as little as possible of anything interesting was missed by an aged crone in a rocking chair who without preamble told her that Mrs Atherton-who-used-to-live-there-before-the-Wilkmsons' daughter Anthea had married a man called Roote and, if Ellie cared to step inside, all would be made clear.

Ellie was in like a shot and soon discovered that her informant wasn't quite so ancient nor so crone-like as at first appeared. Her name was Mrs Eel and she made a nice cup of tea and a lovely Victoria sponge, and what was more she'd lived there all her life and what she didn't know about Hope simply wasn't knowledge.

From a somewhat rambling narrative Ellie extracted a classic plot line.

Anthea Atherton's parents had skimped and saved to give their attractive daughter the kind of education which fitted her to move in circles full of rich young men who spoke proper, lived in big houses, drove Range Rovers, and wanted only the company of a beautiful and intelligent young spouse to make their comfortable lives complete.

Then she'd thrown it all back in their faces and married a cop.

Mrs Eel pronounced this punchline with all the revulsion of Tony Blair discovering that one of his cabinet was a socialist.

'How dreadful!' said Ellie. 'I knew a girl who did the same. It never works. And this policeman, was he local then?'

'Oh no. That would have been bad enough. But this 'un worked down South’

More shock-horror. Ellie tried for detail but it soon emerged that while Mrs Eel was needle-sharp on Hope, she was a bit vague on South, which began immediately after Bradwell two miles away. But she knew the cop's name was Tommy Roote and he was a sergeant and how they'd met was there'd been some bother at the posh boarding school Anthea went to, and the sergeant had been part of the investigating team, and Anthea was only seventeen then.

‘Taking advantage of a child, there should be laws against it,' concluded Mrs Eel.

‘I think there are,' said Ellie.

'Likely, and him being a cop, he'd know about 'em, which is why the cunning devil waited till Anthea reached eighteen afore he married her.'

News of this event was greeted by such cries of rage and despair from the Atherton household they were, according to Mrs Eel, audible in Bradwell if not Beyond. The story now skipped a couple of years to the day when Anthea returned home for the first time since the wedding, pregnant and alone. Her parents took her in and after a while gave out the story that her husband was engaged in some special operation and that Anthea was very keen her child should be born a Hopeite. Mrs Eel was not deceived. Her diagnosis, borne out by subsequent events, was a deep malaise in the marriage.

The child was born prematurely before Anthea could be loaded into the ambulance summoned to take her to hospital (so Franny was being strictly accurate when he said he was born in Hope, thought Ellie). Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Roote appeared on the scene and bore off child and wife to his den in the South, thus apparently confirming the official version of events. But Mrs Eel still was not deceived.

'I knew it 'ud end in tears,' she declared. 'The lass kept coming back more and more frequent, always with the lad, but never with the policeman. I think she wanted a divorce early on, but her mam and dad were dead against it.'

This puzzled Ellie until Mrs Eel revealed the Athertons belonged to some fairly fundamental nonconformist sect to whom a foolish marriage might be an offence against your family, but a fractious divorce was an offence against God. So now it was the parents who attempted to keep things going. All the reward they got was that when some professional disaster hit Sergeant Roote's career, their daughter had to share in it. Exactly what form it took Mrs Eel had to admit she didn't know, but she knew it was bad enough to get him chucked out of the Force without a pension, after which it was all downhill, and when in a short time he died (drink or suicide, Mrs Eel theorized) Anthea was left destitute.

At this point Mrs Eel's direct knowledge of what happened became fragmentary, but she was clearly a great snapper-up of indiscreet trifles and she was able to provide Ellie with enough bits and pieces to add to her own knowledge of the subsequent course of Franny Roote's life for the construction of a convincing mosaic.

She laid this out before Pascoe that night, jumping straight in once the anticipated explosion of The bastard's been at it again!' after he read the letter had faded away.

He had listened with close attention but without any of the ooh's and ah's of wonderment and admiration she felt her researches deserved.

But in for a penny, in for a pound.

‘I’ll leave you to find out what this career-ending disaster might have been,' she said. 'What I think happened after his death was that Anthea, faced with the prospect of vegetating gently in Hope, decided to put the expensive education her parents had given her to practical use. She re-established contact with old school-friends. I would guess that to them the sight of a beautiful, wilful, and probably rather condescending old school chum being forced to admit she'd got it all wrong and her life was an unmitigated disaster was irresistible. Soon she was moving once more in their elevated circles. Mrs Eel certainly recalls young Fran (whom she describes as a strange, solemn child, a bit fey) being looked after for increasingly long periods by his grandparents. Ultimately of course Anthea showed her friends the error of their charitable ways by plucking from under their noses the prize plum of the rich and attractive American bachelor who became her second husband. But it seems that Franny did not form part of the deal. He looked like becoming a permanent fixture at his grandparents' house in Hope, then Mrs Atherton died of cancer leaving Mr Atherton too frail and distraught to look after the boy alone. And so, I surmise, began that long involvement with the British boarding school system which has produced such a fine crop of crooks, psychotics and prime ministers.'

'Roote did well then. Two out of three's not bad’ said Pascoe. 'Your conclusions? I can tell by your flaring nostrils that you have conclusions.'

'Surely here we have the perfect explanation of Franny's love’hatred relationship with his father? He's a hero to the boy – that story of the attack in the park is almost certainly based on truth, if perhaps a little coloured by memory. But his failure to provide for his family led to Fran's neglect and stressful upbringing. He tried to write him out of his life by claiming almost complete ignorance of the man, but Ms Haseen got through his guard. And his obsessive relationship with you derives largely from the fact that you are another cop who has had a tremendous influence on his life, bad in that you got him locked up in the Syke, but good in that everything now seems to be falling right for him. Also he's desperately in need of a living father-figure. And of course your obsession with him must have made him believe that you too felt a special relationship here.'

The bastard's got that right then’ said Pascoe feelingly.

'Come on, Pete. Give him a break. I'm not denying there's an element of mockery and teasing in these letters, but can't you see there's much more?'

'Like threats, you mean? And hints at crimes committed which I can't touch him for?'

'No. Like… need.'

'Ellie, if you're going to say they're a cry for help, I may puke’

'Shut up and open the prezzies I bought you in the sales’ she commanded.

He tore open the tissue paper and looked in horror at the mohair sweaters in the bright colours and bold designs she believed suited him.

'I may puke anyway’ he said.

Shirley Novello was a good Catholic, if Catholic goodness means believing all the rules and keeping as many as you can without bursting. The one she had most problems with was the one that says sex outside marriage is sinful, which was perhaps why, as she once tried to explain to Father Joseph Kerrigan, she got involved with a married man from time to time, as in a way that was sex sort of half in marriage, wasn't it?

Father Joe had shaken his head and said, 'If the SJ's took women, I'd enter you straight off. Next time you feel the urge coming on, pray for strength to resist. Miracles do happen. And while you're at it, make the sign of the cross, but make it with your legs.'

In fact a miracle had happened at Christmas, that most miraculous of times. It had started well. Her Transport sergeant had managed to spend the morning with her using the pretext of a duty-sharing roster, which, considering that there were no trains on Christmas Day, meant his wife must be pretty thick. He'd given Novello a digital camera which must have cost an arm and a leg, so in return she'd given him both her arms and legs and every other part of her anatomy she could bring into contact with every part of his she could reach. How he explained the exhausted state in which he returned home she did not know, but when she next saw him, the day after Boxing Day, she found that memory of their festive fuck plus a vast excess of family festivity had combined to make him start talking seriously of escaping to the wildwoods with her and building a willow cabin or some such nonsense.

Now the miracle occurred.

In the twinkling of an eye he was transformed from a strong handsome interestingly hairy lover in the prime of life to a middle-aged beer belly with the beginnings of a bald patch and four noisy, ill-mannered kids. She gave him his marching orders and even thought of returning the camera, but in the end thought what the hell! she'd earned it.

So Novello had begun the New Year as New Years should be begun, with a clean slate and a whole cageful of lively resolutions. They beat their wings at the bars in vain till a Twelfth Night party from which she woke with the certain knowledge that they'd all flown the coop, though in what order she could not say. But the experience, she seemed to recollect, had been splendidly epiphanic. In other words her head felt fuzzy but her body felt great.

She rolled out of bed – her own – checked that no one was crapping in her bog or cooking in her kitchen – they weren't – complimented herself on having a great time without paying the high price of conversation over breakfast, and knocked back her usual hangover cure of a fried-egg sarnie and a litre of coffee black as a Unionist's heart.

Then she noticed the digital camera next to her party clothes on the floor.

She checked the pictures, didn't, thank God, find anything too naughty, but did come across a snap of a good-looking guy with a nice crinkly grin sitting on her sofa. She couldn't put a name to him, but his face sent a distinct mnemonic tremor through her erogenous zone.

She wanted a close-up, but when she tried to feed it into her computer she found the bloody thing was knackered. Never mind. The station was full of bloody things.

Then she set out for work. She was proud of her fitness and she jogged to the station every other day. This was an other day. A lesser woman might have chickened, but not Novello. She'd woken up at her usual time and she was resolved to follow her usual routine. Sticking a change of clothes plus her camera into a small rucksack, she got into her tracksuit and set off.

Since Dalziel had given her the special assignment, her chosen route usually took her along Peg Lane.

Her task of making sure Rye Pomona wasn't being harassed by investigative reporters was either very easy or quite impossible, depending on how you looked at it. The impossible bit was sticking with her twenty-four hours a day. On the other hand she'd been put on her guard, she was an intelligent woman (formidably intelligent, in Novello's estimation) and quite capable of taking care of herself. So the active part of the assignment had soon diminished to a daily check with her for oddities plus the occasional morning diversion just to make sure there wasn't some low life waiting to buttonhole her at this hour most favoured by police, bailiffs and buttonholers generally.

After the events at the Mayor's Hogmanay Hop, it had seemed that even this small routine wouldn't be necessary for some time, but last Thursday Hat had turned up at work, full of joy, to announce that Rye had rung him the previous night to say she'd been discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health and this morning she'd gone back to work.

Novello, guessing that Dalziel would expect her to know all the ins and outs before he'd even heard the substantive news, headed straight round to the library for a chat.

Rye had greeted her like an old friend. To Novello's enquiries after her health she'd replied that the hospital staff hadn't been able to assign any specific cause to her collapse, suspected it might be viral, had given her a couple of shots of God knows what, and sent her home with instructions to make an appointment with her GP.

Novello had been unconvinced. She had a sharp female eye and a proper detective scepticism, both of which detected tell-tale signs of worry and debility. Had she been a closer mate of Hat Bowler's, she might have looked for a diplomatic way of hinting her concern, but even then his boundless relief and joy at Rye's return home could have made her hesitate. As it was, with their uneasy relationship, any hint of reservation on her part was likely to be regarded as peeing on his parade.

Her relationship with Andy Dalziel had no such ambiguities. If he gave you a job, even if you thought it was a complete waste of time, you did it, and you didn't skimp. She'd read every syllable of the Wordman archive twice. Asked for her conclusions, she'd taken a deep breath and told the Fat Man, 'If Dee hadn't been caught in the act of attacking Pomona, there's not enough evidence against him to get him community service let alone a conviction for serial killing. And if he hadn't been killed resisting arrest, which is how we sold it, I can think of half a dozen stories he might have told which would have made CPS very unhappy about charging him.'

Them dozy buggers got hold of Hitler, he'd have pled down to a misdemeanour’ said Dalziel, but without any real force.

'So if there is a journalist on the case, all he has to do is find some way of picking holes in the Pomona attack and after that it's straight through to the goal mouth. Tabloids twenty. Police nil.'

'Play a lot of soccer, do you?'

'Six-a-side down the gym’ she said.

'Don't know what the world's coming to. OK, you've not told me owt I don't know. You could make an old man very happy by pointing out some loose end in the killings that we could tie round Dee's neck.'

'Only loose end I could see was that chap Pyke-Strengler who was found shot and decapitated out at Stang Tarn. There was some blood on one of his fishhooks, human, group AB. Not Pyke-Strengler's, but not Dee's either, and not belonging to either of the other two suspects, Penn and Roote, who, to be honest, sir, look about as suspicious as the Pope. How they got in the frame beats me.'

'Wishful thinking’ growled Dalziel. 'You'll do more of it as you get older. So one loose end you can't tie up except to say it definitely doesn't point to Dee. That it? Nothing you can cheer me up with by saying, "Please, sir, here's something no one can argue with 'cos you definitely got it right?"'

'Yes, sir, there is something’

'Spit it out.'

'I think you're definitely right to be worried if it turns out there is an investigative journalist on the job.'

He stared at her till she began to regret her boldness, then said, 'Nay, lass, I'm not worried about that, 'cos I've got this smartass cop on his case who's going to find him for me before he prints a word.'

'Yes, sir. And then…?'

'Then I'll kill him’ said Dalziel. 'But if the first I hear of him is when I open my Daily Crap, then I'll have to find someone else to kill.'

So at eight twenty this Monday morning, Novello was jogging down Peg Lane.

Its once fashionable Victorian townhouses were now given over to multi-occupation and small businesses. There were no garages (presumably the fashionable Victorians kept their broughams in some nearby livery) so the house as opposed to the church side of the street was lined with parked cars for its full length. She slowed down as she passed Church View. The usual cars stood outside. The front door seemed firmly closed. It tended to be left ajar during the day which wasn't very good security. Open or locked, it made no difference to Novello as she'd checked out the lock and got herself a suitable key from the vast selection on offer in CID's boy scout (i.e. be prepared) cupboard.

So all quiet on the Peg Lane front. With a feeling of duty done, she speeded up again. And almost missed them.

Right at the end of the Lane where it went into a bit of a chicane an old white Merc was parked. There were two people in it, a man and a woman. And the man she recognized as Charley Penn.

They were deep in conversation. Or something. They didn't even glance her way as she passed. She crossed the road, ran back a bit till she reached the old wall running round St Margaret's, and scrambled over it.

Here she had a good view of the Merc. She wished she'd got a camera, then remembered that she had. Gleefully she dug it out. There were Dalziel Brownie points to be had here, and an ambitious girl snapped these up avidly.

The woman got out of the car. It didn't seem all that amicable a parting, but at the last minute Penn said something and they exchanged a peck. Then he drove off towards town and the woman started walking in the other direction.

Novello kept pace with her, popping up to take the occasional snap. The woman seemed too preoccupied to notice.

Then she reached the steps of Church View, turned up them, pushed the door open and went inside.

Novello vaulted over the wall with the explosive speed which had made her a sprint champion in her school days. She had her key at the ready but the door hadn't shut properly so she didn't need it. She could hear the woman's steps on the stairway above.

As she began to mount towards Rye's landing, it occurred to Novello for the first time to wonder what she was supposed to do now. Journalists, particularly investigative journalists, are not the kind of people it's advisable to arrest without good reason. In such a situation, Dalziel no doubt had many tried and tested techniques at his disposal. Like grievous bodily harm. Pascoe's diplomatic skills would probably come into their own. And Wield would merely stare for a while then say 'Boo!' to get a result.

But how could a young ambitious WDC deal with the situation without getting herself the kind of bad press which got your card marked by the Chief Constable?

And a little way behind these somewhat selfish thoughts came the question, what the hell was this woman up to anyway?

She reached Rye's landing. It was empty. Shit! Had she had time to ring Rye's bell and talk her way into the flat? Novello didn't believe so. Maybe Rye had coincidentally opened her door just as the woman arrived and been pushed back inside. But such behaviour from a stranger would surely elicit protest. She pressed her ear to Rye's door and heard nothing. What now? Ring the bell and check all was well inside? Or continue her pursuit up the next flight of stairs?

A voice said, 'Can I help you?'

Startled she turned to see a bright-eyed foxy-faced woman of indeterminate age peering at her from the next door to the right.

This made up her mind.

'No thanks. Just visiting Ms Pomona,' said Novello, pressing the bell.

A long minute passed before the door opened.

Rye stood there wearing only a cotton wrap. She looked terrible. Either, thought Novello, casting an expert eye over the deep shadowed eyes, the pallid cheeks, the hunched shoulders and the lifeless hair, she'd been at a Twelfth Night party even wilder than the one she herself didn't remember attending, or she was sick.

'Hey, I'm sorry, have I got you out of bed?'

'No, I was up.'

'Can I come in?'

Rye looked as if she'd like to say No, then glanced at the still-spectating neighbour and said, 'Morning, Mrs Gilpin. Yes, come in.'

Unless as well as admitting the suspected journalist, Rye had also hidden her in the bedroom, it looked as though she was alone.

'So what do you want… nothing's happened to Hat, has it?'

For the first time some spark of life touched the lacklustre eyes.

'No, nothing to do with Hat. He's fine.'

‘Relief, then the light died. No need to worry her with anything else, not till she'd got the photos developed and had a word with King Kong. 'No, I was just passing and thought I'd say hello, check that everything was all right.'

'Yeah, fine. Why shouldn't it be?'

'You know, what we talked about, journalists and such. There hasn't been anyone bothering you?'

Rye said, 'How could anyone bother me?'

Strange answer, but she was a strange girl. And not a well girl by the look of her.

'Sorry to bother you then. I'll let you get back to bed.'

'Bed? No, I'm getting ready for work.'

'Work?' said Novello. Then, catching the echo of her own incredulity, she went on rapidly, 'Monday morning's are hell, aren't they? Especially if you've been partying over the weekend. You should have seen me an hour ago. Coffee and a spot of breakfast's the thing for getting back on track. You had any breakfast yet? Let me give you a hand. I could murder another cup of coffee.'

'No thanks,' said Rye. 'I'm not hungry. Bit of an upset tummy.'

Hell, thought Novello. Has Hat got carried away, put her in the club? Stupid sod! Or maybe (don't rush to judgment in this world 'cos you surely won't want to be rushing to judgment in the next, as Father Kerrigan was forever telling his flock) it was planned, what they both wanted, only as always the woman gets the shit, the man gets the cigars.

'Look, none of my business, but are you sure you're OK? You look, well, not a hundred per cent

'Is that right? How much would you say then? Ninety-five per cent? Fifty? Less?'

That was better. Spark back in her eyes, bit of a flush in her cheeks.

'Sorry,' said Novello. 'I'll be off then, let you get dressed. Take care.'

'Yes. Thank you for calling.'

Again a strangeness of phrase and intonation, this time sounding like Eliza Doolittle reciting some newly learned social mantra.

Novello left. No sign of Mrs Gilpin, thank God. She ran lightly up the next flight of stairs. The top landing was empty. The woman must have heard her pursuing feet and continued up here, listened to the exchange below, then slipped back down and away while she was wasting time in Pomona's apartment. So, a bad decision, she didn't doubt that was how the Fat Man would see it, though she still didn't know what she was supposed to have done if she had confronted this putative journalist.

At least he wasn't going to be able to say she took her time facing the music. As soon as he came in she was knocking at his door. In her hand she held her camera.

'What's this then? Want me picture for your scrap-book?'

Quickly she explained what had happened, playing up her foresight in having the camera, playing down her failure to keep track of the mystery woman. As she spoke she hooked up the camera to the computer which stood on a side table in the superintendent's office, like a memorial to futurity.

When the woman's face came up, he crashed a great fist down on his desk. Novello, anticipating this was the first salvo in a full-blooded assault on her performance, winced. But all he said was, 'Can I send this down the tube so it comes out at the other end?'

'Yes, sir’ she said. 'But I'll need an address.'

'Commander Jenkinson, Scotland Yard’ he said.

There was a service directory by the phone. She picked it up, thumbed through and said, 'Would that be Aneurin Jenkinson? Media Division?'

'That's the bugger.'

'And a message, sir?'

He thought a moment then dictated Nye – who she? – luv Andy.

She typed the message, attached the photo and sent it. Dalziel twisted the screen round so that he could see it.

Novello recalled a story told by the nun who taught deportment at the convent school she'd been expelled from. It concerned Queen Victoria attending a banquet hosted by the Empress Eugenie in Paris. Taking her seat at the dinner table, the Empress momentarily glanced down as most people do to make sure the flunkey was manoeuvring her chair into position. But to the French guests' huge admiration, Victoria seated herself without hesitation or downward glance, as if completely confident that, should the flunkey be remiss in his duty, God Himself would move the chair forward to receive her royal behind.

So, it seemed to her, the Fat Man glowered at the computer in the God-underwritten certainty that his message would receive an instant reply.

It took only a couple of minutes, but that great slab of a face was already beginning to darken with impatience.

She Mai Richter German journalist. CV follows. Watch your balls. She bites. Nye

She printed off the CV, handed it to the Fat Man and read it on the screen herself.

Mai Richter was thirty nine years old, set out to be an academic, had her proposals to do a thesis on American political patronage in the post-war era blocked, dug into the reasons for this and found that certain very senior state officials who controlled the university purse-strings had made it clear this was not an area they cared to see put under the microscope, got her findings published in a national paper, was sued, fought the case to a draw, found that her academic career was on the rocks before it had left harbour, so directed her talent for digging beneath the surface of things to journalism instead.

A list followed of her investigations, mainly in Germany but with some forays into France and the Netherlands. She was an accomplished linguist with perfect Dutch, English, and French. She worked freelance, selling her stories to the highest appropriate bidder. She wasn't a member of any political party but had strong left-wing radical sympathies. She trod a narrow line of legality which, it was theorized, she probably crossed far more often than the couple of times when she'd been caught, which occasions justified her inclusion in international police records. Another reason was that there had been death threats made against her and at least one known attempt.

'Seems to be a dangerous trade, hers’ said Novello.

'She'll find out just how dangerous next time I get my hands on her’ growled Dalziel. 'Let's have another look’

'Next time…? There's been a first time, sir?' said Novello, bringing the image back up.

'Oh aye. I've danced with her and given her a big wet kiss’ said Dalziel. 'This cow calls herself Myra Rogers. She's Rye Pomona's next-door neighbour and best mate!'

Novello's surprise was diluted with relief. She hadn't cocked up after all. That's how she'd disappeared, simply by going into her own apartment. The Fat Man dictated another note.

So she bites? Well, I'm used to that, you Welsh git! And I've still got the scars to prove it. How about a spiky-haired runt, answers to Tris, face like a fucked-up ferret, tanned like an old pub ceiling, dresses like a Polynesian pox-doctor and carries a handbag?

This reply was even quicker.

At least you can show your scars. If I start flashing the stud marks where you stomped me, I'll get arrested! Your ferret (very apt) sounds like Tristram Lilley which probably means there's some serious hi-tec surveillance going on. And if he was carrying a handbag, you're probably on Candid Camera! Sounds interesting. Anything we should know about?

Dalziel's reply read Just a little local difficulty. Thanks, mate. I owe you a pint. Hwyl fawr! Andy

'So she simply went into her flat’ said Novello, thinking there was no harm in underlining her innocence.

'Aye. Let that be a lesson. Don't look for magic when the obvious is staring you in the face.'

The Fat Man spoke without force, or at least not with a force aimed in her direction. He brought up the woman's image again (he was, noted Novello, despite his assertive Ludditism, a quick learner) and sent his mind back to his encounter with Charley Penn in Hal's. As he'd approached the writer's table, a woman approaching from the opposite direction had veered off. She had been unmemorable – except as a niggle which made the unremarkable face of Myra Rogers ring a very faint bell when he first met her. Man who didn't listen to bells could end up late at his own funeral, he told himself scornfully.

Another thing popped into his mind, the dedication in the Hacker novel he'd bought – An Mai ~ wunderschon in alien Monaten! – and Penn's suspicious glance as he saw which book it was. Bugger must have thought I was on to him! Well, I am now, Charley!

Novello picked up the CV print-out which Dalziel had dropped on to his desk and read it again. Then she said thoughtfully, 'Funny, though. This doesn't look like her kind of story at all, does it? It's the big political stuff she usually goes for, cock-ups in Cabinets, corruption in high places. Mid-Yorkshire CID might have got it wrong isn't exactly going to be syndicated round the world, is it? So why put in so much time and effort when there's not much in it for her, even if she does find out whatever there is to find out?'

It was Dalziel's turn to shoot a suspicious glance but she met it boldly. She wasn't about to ask him direct what it was he didn't want anyone to find, but after a lot of deep thought she'd come to the conclusion there had to be something and she'd made a pretty good guess at what it might be. Being on Dalziel's team meant you often had to put up with being treated like a personal slave, but the upside of this was that his pride of possession was second to none, and if anyone tried to mess with one of his cubs, they found themselves messing with Daddy Bear too. Finding a wounded officer and dead suspect after a struggle, and being persuaded the suspect had it coming, Fat Andy wouldn't hesitate to tidy things up to remove any ambiguity about the killing. She'd now looked at every photo and read every bit of paper relating to the affair, and marvelled at how cleverly the selections offered to first the coroner then the Board of Enquiry had underlined the proper roles of the trio involved – Maiden in Distress, Noble Rescuer Sorely Wounded and Foul Fiend Slain With a Single Blow. Had a case ever come to court, then a good defence counsel would surely have picked up on this manicure job. But dead men didn't get tried.

'So what do you think got Richter interested, clever clogs?' he growled.

'Money? Penn must be worth a bob or two, all this telly stuff.'

'She sound to you like someone who'll do owt just for the brass?'

'Not really,' admitted Novello.

'Look at her list of publications.'

Besides her major investigative articles, there were several books listed on what seemed to be social or socio-literary topics. The title of one was translated as Heine's Apostasy: the German Choice.

She said hesitantly, 'Isn't Penn doing a book about someone with a name like that?'

Dalziel looked upon her with the approval he saved for those of his staff whose minds weren't cluttered up with all kinds of art-farty lit. crit. nonsense.

'Aye. This Heinkel or whatever his name is. I'll lay odds they've met before and when Charley started getting these daft ideas in his head about digging up some dirt, he thought of Fraulein fucking Richter straight off!'

'But it still doesn't explain’

'Does if they'd had a roll in the hay first time they met,' said Dalziel. 'Nay, don't look surprised. I know he's no oil painting, but there's no accounting for taste, is there?'

She looked at the huge bulk slumped before her, thought of Cap Marvell, and said, 'No, that's right, sir,' realizing too late she'd not slammed down the visor over her thoughts quickly enough.

He gave her a promissory glare, then said, 'I reckon she'd spent the night at Charley's place, sorting out his irregular verbs, and he were dropping her off so she could become dear Myra, best mate, again.'

She said, 'Looked as if they might have been having a bit of a row.'

'Good. Mebbe she's decided there's nowt in it for her and is giving Charley his cards,' said Dalziel. 'Off you go, lass. Got no work to do?'

She felt dumped. At the door she paused. Nothing like a Parthian shot, was there?

She said, 'One thing, sir. How long has Rogers been living next door to Rye?'

'At least since a week before Christmas. Why?'

So, three weeks at least. And she'd stayed around over Christmas too. Either her passion for Charley Penn was very strong. Or she thought she was definitely on to something worth spending a lot of time on. She thought of saying this to see if she could get a flicker of unease into those relentless eyes. But was it worth the effort?

She didn't know much about the Parthians but she had an impression that despite all their farewell shots, they'd never made the World Cup finals.

'Just wondered, sir,' she said, heading for the door.

'Don't forget your camera. Here, I didn't realize you knew Sol.'

'Sol?' She turned, puzzled, then saw that the image now showing on the screen was the man in her flat with the nerve-tingling smile.

'Aye. Sol Wiseman. Rabbi at the Progressive Synagogue on Millstone Road.'

'Rabbi. A Jewish Rabbi?' said Novello, gobsmacked,

'A lot of them are’ said Dalziel, eyeing her sharply. 'Known him long?'

'No, not really… hardly at all… just trying out the camera.'

She was thinking with horror of her next confession. 'Father, I've screwed a rabbi

Dalziel grinned suddenly as if she'd spoken her fears out loud, unplugged the camera and handed it to her.

Once more she headed for the door.

As she opened it, his voice said, 'Another thing, Ivor. You keep this quiet. And I mean quiet. No exceptions, not even Father Joe. Right?'

'Yes, sir.'

She went out into the corridor and was shutting the door when, without looking up, he added, 'Nice work, lass. You did right well.'

Suddenly things didn't seem so bad after all.

Biting her lip to stop herself grinning like an idiot, Novello went on her way.

Rye Pomona watched out of her window as Novello drove away.

Her appointment was at nine thirty. At nine forty a grim-faced man came out of the consulting room.

'Do we need another appointment, Mr Maciver?' asked the receptionist.

'What for?' he snarled. And left. A great start.

Chakravarty appeared in the doorway, casually dressed in a shirt so white it dazzled the eye and knife-edged cream-coloured slacks. All he needed was a bat to be opening in a test match. He ushered her in, full of apology and charm.

Rye listened to him stony faced, then glanced at her watch and said, 'So let's not waste any more time.'

He blinked as if a bouncer had just whistled past his nose and said, 'Of course. I have your records here. The tests are scheduled. But first let's see things from your point of view.'

He was a good listener, and a good questioner, though after half an hour Rye felt slightly irritated that he seemed to be focusing less on what in her eyes was the most significant event of her medical history, the accident which had killed her brother and left her with her silver blaze, and more on the events out at Stang Tarn the previous autumn which had left Dick Dee dead.

Suspecting his interest was merely prurient, she said dismissively, 'I don't see how this can be relevant. I only suffered a few minor injuries.'

'So I observe, it must nevertheless have been a tremendous shock to your system. And it would seem your symptoms have appreciably worsened since that event.'

'Aren't you jumping the gun?' said Rye. 'You're talking as if everything you've asked about or I've mentioned is part of a single syndrome. Surely until you've examined the results of all the necessary tests, this is mere hypothesis?'

'I prefer to think of it as diagnosis,' he said with a quick flash of the charming smile. 'So far you've given me a history of severe headaches over many years increasing in frequency, occasional bouts of dizziness or disorientation also becoming more frequent, and mood swings if not violent enough to be called manic-depressive, certainly remarkable enough for you to feel they were worth a mention. These begin to form a pattern which may give a pointer to what I should be looking for in the test results.'

'So why don't we get down to the tests?'

He blinked again. Probably every blink means another hundred on his bill, thought Rye. Well, that's what the private patient paid for, the right to be ruder than the doctor.

She'd come as clean as she could in answering his questions, stopping short of telling him about her conversations with Serge, of course, and not getting within screaming distance of her involvement in the Wordman killings. She had told him about her sense of responsibility for the accident that had caused Serge's death, though without admitting that she was indeed responsible. And she'd gone on to describe how, after her recovery, lines she knew by heart had vanished the moment she set foot on a stage, thus bringing to an end her hope of an acting career. She'd been worried in advance that baring so much of herself to an impersonal expert might tempt her to go the whole confessional hog and let everything spill out. But in fact she was finding that the process was causing a distancing between herself and the self who'd done those dreadful things, turning that other into the killer you read about in the paper or see being taken into court on the telly, then you close the paper or switch off the set, and though you may retain a residual impression of the monster for a while, it isn't strong enough to spoil your dinner or trouble your sleep.

Only the sepulchral confinement of the brain scanner brought it all back to her, brought Sergius too, his flesh disintegrating as it strove to rid itself of all that fluff and dust, his eye accusing, as if all her efforts to contact him had only heaped purgatorial coals upon his spirit. As she rolled back into the by comparison cathedral vastness of the hospital room, she wondered how her turbulent mental activity had registered on the scan. Would it be possible for the expert eye to read a full confession in the message scrawled by all those electronic impulses on the wall of the brain?

After the initial consultation and examination, Mr Chakravarty had vanished, presumably to see another lucrative private client, or maybe glance at a dozen or so National Health patients, while she spent the rest of the morning undergoing tests, some of which she understood, others of which were impenetrably arcane.

Finished, she was told that she should present herself at the peacock throne again at four thirty, by which time Chakravarty, his busy schedule permitting, should have had time to make some preliminary assessments of the test results.

She had no desire to go back to her flat. Hat was working today, but that didn't mean he wouldn't bunk off at some point to visit her at the library. There he would be met by the story she'd fed her colleagues, that she was taking the day off to do the January sales in Leeds. Being a cop, and knowing her attitude to sex and shopping was that they were fine except for the shopping, he might be a little more sceptical than her colleagues and head straight round to Church View. To head him off from doing something stupid like kicking her door down, she'd confided in Myra Rogers who'd promised to listen out for any visitors and confirm that she'd seen her friend set off, hopes high, in search of bargains first thing that morning. Worried that she'd be keeping Myra stuck in Church View, she'd been reassured that her bookkeeping work could for the most part be as easily done at home as in her clients' often cramped offices.

It seemed a good idea too to avoid the chance of an accidental encounter in the town centre so when she got into her car, she drove out into the country. Whether directed by accident or by subconscious choice, she did not know, but she suddenly realized she was driving along the Little Bruton road, and there ahead was the tiny humpback bridge where she'd broken down and sat in despair till she saw the yellow AA van driving towards her like the answer to a prayer. Here it had all started, here the first of her victims had died – no, not a victim, not this one… his death had been an accident… an accident which she had interpreted as a sign…

She stopped on the bridge. Time had stopped for her on that occasion and all those subsequent occasions when deaths had occurred which by no stretch of the imagination could be called accidental. She'd told Chakravarty something about these timeless episodes, not with any detail, of course, but just in an effort to convey her feeling of separation from the chronology of everyday life, her sense of otherness. Now she longed for the experience again… time slowing… stopping… only this time when the flow started again, perhaps instead of the AA man lying dead in the water, he'd be climbing into his van and driving merrily on his way…

But nothing happened. She stood on the bridge and looked down over the shallow parapet. The stream flowed, and so did time. She got back into the car. The past was past and never changed. The dead were dead and the only way to see them again was to join them. Her eyes filled with blinding tears. She kept on driving, faster and faster, but when her eyes cleared, she was still alive, still bowling along this narrow bendy country road as if hands other than hers were turning the wheel.

At four twenty-nine she was back in Chakravarty's office. At four thirty prompt he appeared. So she'd taught him one lesson. But when he didn't make any charmingly humorous reference to his good timekeeping, she guessed he was not the bearer of glad tidings.

She said, 'Mr Chakravarty, before you begin, please understand there is no need to wrap things up. I require clear explanation. No jargon, no concealing technicalities and certainly no euphemism.'

A blink.

'Fine’ he said. 'Then I am sorry to tell you that you have a brain tumour. This is the cause of your recent headaches and of the convulsive episode you suffered at New Year.'

He went on talking, smoothly, eloquently. She registered the drift – that he was advising immediate hospitalization and the commencement of a vigorous combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy – and she got the message – that the tumour was inoperable and treatment likely to be merely palliative. But she wasn't really listening. Out on the Little Bruton road she had longed for a return of that sense of timelessness, and now she had it. She felt as if she could stand up and take her clothes off and dance on the consultant's desk then get dressed and resume her seat, and all the time he would go on talking, unaware that she had escaped from the dimension that he was trapped in. Or perhaps, being a wise and experienced doctor who had spent too much of his life looking into the human brain and the human psyche to be easily deceived, he knew very well that she had left him and was elsewhere and elsewhen, and was merely talking on and on to fill the time until she, as she must do, rejoined him in the cage.

One thing she knew now for certain. She had to re-enter at the same point as she went out. There was no escape to the past.

She sighed and stepped back into the middle of one of his well-balanced sentences.

'How long will I live without treatment?'

A blink. Not an indicator this time of an increase in his fee, she gauged, but perhaps a mental bookmark to remind his secretary to make sure Ms Pomona's bill was placed in her hands immediately.

'At best months, but it could be much less. Tumours of this kind are very fast-growing and…'

'With treatment, how long?'

He looked at her, looked down, took a breath as if in preparation for a long speech, looked into her unblinking eyes again, and said, 'Longer.'

'Much longer?'

'Who knows?' he said. He sounded unhappy. Was it because of her future or his ignorance?

'Long enough to… do things.'

'Like what?'

'Like prepare yourself for… I mean, it might not happen… so quickly, I mean… and there are things, practical and personal.. . nowadays there's a whole raft of strategies… it's possible to be ready…'

Strange how her insistence on directness should in the end drive him to hesitant obliquities.

'Ready for death?'

He nodded.

'Death?' she repeated, determined to make him say it.

'Death,' he said.

'OK. You haven't said anything about my old injury.'

He looked bewildered, then relieved. He was being offered an escape route from her short future into her slightly longer past.

He said, 'Well, I thought about it, of course, in terms of the whole range of symptoms you described. Indeed, I had a chat with a colleague of mine who specializes in neuropsychology and has produced a couple of highly regarded papers on various categories of psychiatric disorder which can occur as a long-term result of brain injury. Not that I was thinking of you in terms of serious psychiatric disorder, of course, but merely exploring the possibility that some of your physical symptoms might be explicable in terms of some minor affective disorder

He was getting away from her again behind those defences of verbiage and syntax which must have done such sterling service for him over the years.

Rye said, 'So what did he say, your colleague? Just the gist will do.'

'Of course, yes. Though you realize this is not at all relevant to your current condition.'

The tumour that has been giving me headaches and made me have a fit and is eventually going to kill me, you mean? Yes, I realize that, and I understand that once you knew about the tumour you would naturally lose interest in my old head injury. But seeing as you did include it initially in your hypothesis… sorry, diagnosis… I might as well get full value for my money, mightn't I?'

'Well, there is a wide range of categories of psychiatric disorder which can occur after a brain injury such as you clearly experienced when you were fifteen. I mentioned affective disorders, which include conditions like mania and depression, plus obsessive compulsive and panic anxiety disorders. Associated with these may be arousal and motivational disorders. Psychotic disorders may also present, and there can be an associated inclination to violence and aggression, but none of this really has any relevance to your condition, Miss Pomona

'Bear with me. This is really fascinating stuff,' she said. 'I know how busy you are, but if I could just take up a little more of your time while I get myself together

It was a good tactic. He smiled and said, 'Of course.' 'These psychotic disorders, what sort of thing's involved there?'

'In general terms, hallucinatory experiences, visual and’or auditory…'

'Seeing people who aren't there and hearing their voices, you mean?'

'Yes, that sort of thing. This can be associated with delusional belief, that is an apprehension of situations and relationships which is based on a false premise which resists all centra-evidence. Thought disorders linked to problems of language function or information processing '

‘Could not being able to remember my stage lines fit in here?'

He looked at her curiously and said, 'Yes, I suppose it could.'

'How fascinating,' she said. 'Just one thing more. My tumour She found she quite liked the possessive. My flat. My books. In my opinion. My boyfriend.

My tumour.

'… is it in any way, could it be in any way, related to that old brain injury?'

He frowned as if feeling it was unfair of her to remind him she was going to die, then said, 'Actually, I don't have the faintest idea. Seems unlikely, but lots of things we now take for granted once seemed unlikely.'

She nodded as if to reassure him that this was the kind of frankness she wanted.

'But, like an accidental brain injury, is a tumour also likely to cause psychiatric disorders? Or have any effect on the way that the mind functions?'

'Well, certainly, but I really don't think you need to start worrying about that.'

'Because it is going to kill me too quickly for any behavioural changes to become significant, you mean?' she said solemnly.

He frowned again. She gave him a quick grin.

'Not all bad then!' she went on. 'But it could be having some effects on my behaviour and thought processes, right? In which case, it could be that some of these new effects might actually counterbalance or negate some of the old effects of my head injury, right?'

He shrugged helplessly. He looked almost vulnerable.

'Anything's possible,' he said, 'but honestly, I don't think there's much point in concerning ourselves with effects when what we need to do is -'

She stood up, saying, 'Thanks a lot, Mr Chakravarty. You've been really helpful.'

'deal with causes’ he concluded, determined to get back to the consulted’consulting relationship. 'Miss Pomona, about your treatment

'No time for that,' she said crisply. 'Don't worry. I'll pay your bill by return of post.'

Then, feeling that he hadn't really deserved such a parting sting, she smiled and said, 'And I'm really grateful. Take care now.'

She went out to the car park. It was curious. She'd been condemned to death and yet what she felt was the kind of euphoria you experience as you leave the dentist's!

It was five thirty. She didn't want to go home yet. She wasn't ready for Myra's sympathetic questioning and even less ready for the possibility of finding Hat sitting on her doorstep. She turned on the car radio and listened to some Country and Western for a while. Its unsophisticated emotionalism seemed just about right. At six o'clock she drove to the Centre. Most of her colleagues would be homeward bound by now and, in any case, as far as they were concerned, she'd spent the day shopping.

She made her way to the Centre theatre. Its director had been one of the Wordman's victims. No, one of my victims, she corrected herself. She didn't know if she could bring herself to confess her sins but at least she could confront them. One of the core members of the company, a young woman called Lynn Crediton, had been appointed as stand-in director and, if the current holiday production of Aladdin was anything to go by, the Council might do worse than to make the appointment permanent. . In the little theatre there was the usual bustle as they got ready for the evening performance in just over an hour. Rye spotted Lynn in the aisle, checking some lighting adjustments. She waited till she'd finished shouting her instructions, then went up to her.

They'd met a couple of times before, and Rye's association with the Wordman case underlined the encounters.

'Hi,' said Lynn. 'You an early punter, or do you fancy being the back legs of a camel?'

'Both, maybe,' said Rye. 'Look, it probably sounds daft, but I used to do a bit of acting and I wondered if I could try out a few lines?'

'You want to audition?' The woman regarded her doubtfully, then said, 'Sure, why not? Can you come along say tomorrow morning, about ten?'

'Well actually, I wondered if I could just go on stage now and do a bit? Just thirty seconds, honestly. I can see you're really busy, but it's just that I feel really up for it. No one has to stop doing anything, then I'll be out of your hair.'

Lynn shrugged.

'OK, help yourself. But I can't promise I'll be able to listen, even for thirty seconds!'

Rye smiled her thanks and stepped on to the low stage.

She stood there for a moment looking out into the theatre. They came back to her, those days before… before Serge died, this is what it had been like, standing in the light, looking into the dark.

Now here she was again.

Standing in the light, looking into the dark.

She cleared her throat, then opened her mouth with no idea what, if anything, was going to come out.

She heard herself begin to sing.

Come away, come away death, And in sad cypress let me be laid.

Fly away, fly away breath,

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

I prepare it.

My part of death no one so true Did share it.

When she started the theatre was full of noise and her soft voice was like the song of a lark above a cattle mart. But by the time she finished, every other sound had stopped, and all eyes were fixed on this slim young woman stock-still at the front of the stage.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet On my black coffin let there be strewn.

Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.

A thousand thousand sighs to save

Lay me 0 where

Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there.

She finished. There was silence. Then Lynn Crediton began to applaud and soon everyone else joined in. Flushing, Rye clambered down off the stage.

That was great’ said Lynn. 'Maybe not quite the mood for Aladdin, but you got pretty close to the day!'

'What? Oh, Twelfth Night, you mean. Don't know why I chose that. It was just something we did at school.'

'And you played Feste?'

'No. I loved the play so much I think I had the whole thing by heart. I played Viola, who found her lost brother. Maybe I should have played Olivia who knew how to mourn hers.'

'Lots of time for that. Like I said, can you come tomorrow morning … are you OK?'

She was looking with concern into Rye's eyes, which were brimful of tears.

'Yes, yes, never better… happy and sad… lost and found. .. I'm sorry, I've got to go.'

She hurried away towards the exit. Lynn called after her, 'You'll come in the morning then for a proper audition?'

Over her shoulder Rye cried, 'No. Sorry. No more auditions, no more acting. Sorry’

And ran through the exit door, leaving the director uncertain whether she had just played a small role in a comedy, a tragedy, or simply a pantomime.

On Tuesday morning Pascoe, after several unsuccessful attempts to hack into the Central Police Computer in search of information about Sergeant Thomas Roote, disgraced, deceased, did what any sensible man did when matters of high technology were concerned, he went to see Edgar Wield.

Usually when faced with such special requests, the sergeant's mosaic features underwent a small rearrangement which experienced Wield-watchers took to indicate a certain degree of pleasure at being given another opportunity to go places that neither Dalziel's strength nor Pascoe's subtlety could reach. Today, however, as soon as Pascoe said, 'Can you do me a favour, Wieldy?', he rolled his eyes and ground his teeth and looked unambiguously pissed off.

'Something bothering you?' asked Pascoe.

'Just get the impression sometimes that no bugger round here thinks I've got owt better to do than hack into places I shouldn't be,' he replied.

'Himself, you mean? As well as myself, of course.'

'Aye, he's on my back to dig up all I can about some guy called Tristram Lilley, but without letting anyone know we're taking an interest. I ask him why he's after this guy and he just growls like a bear that's swallowed a hornets' nest! So it's me fishing blind again, and if I wake some sodding great shark, it's only me that'll get bitten!'

'Come on, Wieldy, you can't say that. You know full well we'd come and visit you in the prison hospital,' said Pascoe. 'So what have you found out about this Lilley?'

'That if you want your computer hacked, your phone tapped, your bank account audited and your intimate moments on video, he makes me look like an amateur.'

'Interesting. But Andy often plays his cards pretty close to his chest till he's ready to thump his Royal Flush on to the table. So why does this one get up your nose so much?'

Wield looked at him speculatively then said, 'I'm getting as secretive as he is. There's more. He's got me checking on a German called Mai Richter a.k.a. Myra Rogers.'

'That rings a faint bell.'

'It should. Myra Rogers lives next door to Rye Pomona and from what Hat's said they've become good mates. He told me not to bother with her official check sheet, so presumably he's got that already. What he wants is how she came into the country, when she changed from Mai to Myra. Well, I took a look at her sheet anyway. She's a journalist, Pete. A ferret. Got some big stories to her credit on the Continent. So what's she doing here, cosying up to the girlfriend of one of my lads, that's what I want to know. That's what I think I'm entitled to know!'

'Me too,' said Pascoe feelingly. 'And I'm going to find out.'

He turned for the door.

Wield said, 'Pete, what was it you came to see me about?'

'Hardly dare mention it’ said Pascoe. 'At least it's no secret. Roote. And before you start lecturing me, it's not Franny, it's his father and it's something Ellie found out.'

He explained.

'Now that is interesting’ said Wield. I'll get on to it. For Ellie's sake, you understand. I still reckon the less you have to do with that fellow the better.'

'Me too,' said Pascoe. 'But we all have our albatrosses. You seen Lubanski yet?'

It was a low shot but it hit. Wield, slightly hungover, had attended a conference with Dalziel and Pascoe on Sunday to discuss the implications of the confirmation that Linford, or LB, was backing whatever job Mate Polchard was planning. The Fat Man's reaction to the death of Liam and the others had been, as Wield had anticipated, good riddance. He'd been more interested in the possible effect of the tragedy on the relationship between Belchamber and Linford. 'He'll be looking for some bugger to blame. He had Belchy in his sights already and he'll not be in the mood to take a new aim.'

'How can he blame Belchamber for getting his son out on bail, which is what he must have been screaming at him to do ever since the committal?' asked Pascoe.

'Fathers, sons, logic goes out the window, specially when they're dead,' said Dalziel. 'Wieldy, set up a meet with young Lochinvar, see if he's heard owt.'

'Yes, sir. Can be a bit hard to get hold of,' said Wield, who'd thought it wiser not to mention that he'd sung a karaoke duet with Lee a few minutes after hearing about Liam.

'Hard to get hold of? He's a rent boy, for fuck's sake!' said Dalziel.

All of which helped explain the sergeant's state of pissed-off-ness with the Fat Man.

Now he said to Pascoe, 'Haven't been able to contact him yet.'

'No?' said Pascoe. 'Wieldy, none of my business, but you're not letting yourself get too close to this lad?'

For a moment it looked like Wield might explode, then he took control and said, 'I'd like to help him, if that's what you mean, get him out of the life he's leading‘

'But he's not interested?'

'No, it's not that. In fact I think I could get him to make a change but only at the expense of letting him think there was something between us. Not sex, I can deal with that, you learn over the years, but some kind of commitment. I'm not sure exactly what he wants me to be, but I know I can't be it. It would be wrong of me to lead him on, only it can't be right to let him stay like he is if I can do owt about it…'

'You try to explain any of this to him?'

'What's the point? The more personal I let things get in the way I talk, the more he takes it as a signal he's making progress. So all I can do is fall back on being a cop, tell him not to waste my time till he's got something really solid to tell me. Now I wonder if that's not just inciting him to take unnecessary risks.'

He sounded so unhappy, Pascoe touched his shoulder and said, 'Come on, mate. What's to risk? If Belchamber catches him poking around, all he's going to do is kick him out, which is what you'd like! Don't think Fat Andy would be very happy, though.'

That bugger's happiness isn't high up my priority list at the moment,' retorted Wield.

Pascoe went looking for Dalziel but discovered he'd gone out, no one knew where. He retired to his office, leaving the door slightly ajar to make sure he didn't miss the crash of those mighty footsteps, but the Fat Man still hadn't returned an hour later when the door swung open and Wield came in bearing a sheet of paper and a folder.

Thomas Roote,' he said without preamble. 'Good old-fashioned copper from the sound of it. Started in the Met. Couple of commendations for bravery. CID, then got moved into the Drug Squad. It was a drug scare at Anthea Atherton's school in Surrey that got the two of them involved. Reason the Squad was called in, dad of one of Atherton's posh chums was a distributor in the Smoke and there was a strong suspicion she was keeping the family tradition going in the school. Nothing came of it except Roote got involved with Anthea. Question, would collaring the suspect dealer have meant laying hands on Anthea too? Answer, not proven. But you can be sure when the sergeant married the girl soon as she turned eighteen, there'd be a query set against his name.'

'So, not a good career move,' said Pascoe.

'No. He'd made sergeant early and looked like he was set to move smoothly up the ladder. But now he stuck. Could also have been that things were on the change way back then and the PR boys were getting control of the Force. Not the kind of approach Tommy Roote seems to have favoured. Complaints now instead of commendations. Beat up some guy who grabbed a hold of his son in the park. Lucky to get away with an admonishment… that mean something to you?'

'Might do,' admitted Pascoe reluctantly. 'So Sergeant Roote was living dangerously.'

That's right. Reading between the lines, he was getting increasingly bolshie at work while at home his marriage was in a tail spin. He was also drinking heavily. Crisis point reached when he was so heavy handed on a big bust that another sergeant reported him. When Tommy heard about it, he went for the guy in the locker room. A DI stuck his nose in and asked what the hell was going on. Roote told him to mind his own fucking business and when he didn't Roote decked him. That was that. Rolled into his hearing drunk and bolshie and sent any chance of being retired early with his pension intact up in smoke. After that it was downhill all the way. Guy like him had plenty of enemies outside and, without the protection of his badge, he was easy meat. Ended up in an alley behind a pub, his ribs kicked in. Choked on his own vomit. Death by misadventure. It's all here.'

He dropped the sheet of paper face-down on the desk.

'Hell's bells. That's a terrible tale,' said Pascoe.

'Yeah. Explains a few things about Roote, maybe.'

'Like why he hates the police, you mean?'

'Like why he's so mixed up about his father, I meant. I think it's back.'

Along the corridor echoed the tread of mighty footsteps and a discordant whistling of something which to Wield's sensitive ears might have been 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. A moment later Dalziel filled the doorway.

His two subordinates stared at him so unwelcomingly that he took a step backwards and said, 'Be, I've not been met with looks like that since my dear wife left me. What have I done? Left my dirty socks in the bidet again?'

'More like dirty fingerprints on the polished table, sir,' said Pascoe, going straight on the attack. 'What's all this about Mai Richter? Or Myra Rogers? More to the point, what's it all got to do with Rye Pomona?'

Dalziel's response was to advance towards Wield and hold out one huge paw.

'Before the cock's crowed thrice, eh?' he said, shaking his head sadly. That for me?'

Silently Wield handed over the folder containing his findings on Richter and Lilley.

'It was me who asked Wieldy what he were up to’ said Pascoe.

'Oh aye? Ask him what he were up to at links last weekend and he sings a song, does he?'

'I just think that anything to do with Rye Pomona and Bowler, I'm entitled to know.'

'And why's that then?'

'Because I was with you when we interfered with a crime scene and when we edited Pomona's statement’ said Pascoe baldly.

The Fat Man backheeled the door shut with a slam that had constables in the canteen three floors below bolting their scalding coffee and heading back out several minutes early.

'Nay, lad, you weren't with me’ he said fiercely. 'Except maybe in your dreams. And I'd keep quiet about them, even when you're letting it all hang out on yon Pozzo's couch.'

Jesus, thought Pascoe. Has he got me bugged?

Wield was staring out of the window at the cloudy sky with an intensity that suggested all his senses except for sight were disengaged.

Dalziel suddenly relaxed and smiled ruefully, shaking his great head.

'My torture!' he said, using a strange oath allegedly passed down from his Highland forebears. 'You're getting me as daft as yourselves. Mebbe I should have put you in the picture, but it didn't seem that important. All that's happened is I were told a foreign national might be living on our patch under an assumed name. You know what them sods at Immigration are like, so I thought it best to get ahead of the game and take it seriously.'

'Well, that's awfully conscientious of you, sir’ said Pascoe. 'Can't have anonymous foreigners getting up to their disgusting tricks in Mid-Yorkshire, can we? So tell me, Wieldy, what have you found out about this wolf in sheep's clothing?'

'Born 1962 in Kaub in the Rhine-Palatinate’ recited Wield in an old-fashioned schoolroom voice. 'Studied at Heidelberg, Paris and London. Freelance journalist, concentrating on political corruption stories at a national and local level with a special interest in environmental affairs. Convictions in Germany for breaches of the peace, obstruction, possession. No UK convictions. No warrants outstanding

'Yeah yeah’ said Dalziel, holding up the folder he'd taken from the sergeant. 'Got all that without wasting your precious time. Hope there's summat a bit more useful in here’

'Can't say, as I don't know what you want to use it for’ said Wield.

Dalziel gave him a glower and Pascoe hastily interposed his own body, saying, 'Kaub. That's on the Rhine, I recall. Few miles south of the Lorelei.'

'Is it now?' said the Fat Man. 'You been there?'

'Yes. Did a Rhine tour a few years back. Lovely spot. Very romantic, in every sense’

'One sense at a time is as much as I can manage’ said Dalziel. 'And seeing as we're in such a sharing mood, anything else I should know about?'

His gaze was focused on the sheet bearing the new info on Roote Senior, which, despite the fact that it was face-down on the desk at a distance of several feet, he looked to be reading like a billboard poster.

'No, sir’ said Pascoe firmly.

'And you, Wieldy. Owt more from Boy George?'

'No, sir.' Equally firmly.

'Grand. Then we can all get down to some work, can't we?'

He left.

'Why is it that I feel like I've been told, "You scratch my back or I'll have the skin off yours"?' said Pascoe.

'Me too,' said Wield. 'It's like having a pet bear. A lot of the time it's all warm cuddles, then suddenly you realize the bugger's crushing you to death!'

Mai Richter dreamt she was back in her home town of Kaub, standing in Metzger-gasse, its lovely main street, looking towards the town tower, silhouetted against a ghastly sky. Higher still, a looming presence on even the sunniest days, was the bulk of Gutenfels with its restored ruins reminding those beneath where the real power in this land once lay.

But Mai Richter's gaze was fixed much lower. Before the tower a bonfire raged, its teeth of flame ripping through the ribs of pinewood which formed its frame to reveal the orange heart pulsing within. Figures danced around, cloaked and hooded, with just enough firelight stealing beneath the cowls to reveal pallid faces and staring eyes and mouths twisted in terrible pleasure. They were hurling books into the fire's maw, which received them greedily, devouring whole volumes in a second. She knew that these were her books, books she had written with sweat and tears and love and devotion, all the copies of all her books, every word she had ever written, reducing to ashes before her eyes, vanishing forever from libraries and bookshops and, worst of all, from her mind.

What use to think of books when she knew beyond doubt that when they'd burnt all her words, it would be her body they turned to next. Already she could feel the heat of the ravening flames, yet she had no power to flee or to resist. Somewhere close she could hear the pulse and the roar of the mighty Rhine but its cooling waters offered no relief.

And now its sound was changing, still as powerful and as pulsing as ever, but now something more, something else… and suddenly she recognized the dark and terrible music of Siegfried's funeral with a shock of fear that woke her.

The dancing shadows of the bonfire were replaced by the still white walls of her bedroom and its searing heat by the sharp chill of an English January night.

But the music remained. Those shuddering glooms of sound which roll down the margins of mortality into the underworld still reverberated in her mind. And in her ears.

She sat up.

Still it was there.

Slowly she got out of bed, fumbled in her bedside drawer, found what she was looking for, and moved towards her bedroom door. Beneath it she could see a line of light, red and faintly flickering as if the bonfire she had dreamt about lay just beyond this portal.

Dauntless, she took the handle, turned it and pushed the door open.

From her tape deck the music boomed, while from her gas-fire the flickering orange flames cast just enough light to trace the outline of a monstrous figure whose bulk spilled over the edge of the old armchair in which it sat. Her nerveless fingers sought but could not find the light switch.

'Who's there?' she demanded shrilly. 'Who is that? I warn you, I have arms.'

'Good job I'm 'armless then’ said the figure. 'It's all right lass, it's only me, the Ghost of Christmas Past. Come in and shut that door. There's a hell of a draught.'

And the figure leaned forward till she was able to recognize the unwelcome welcome face of Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.

Dalziel relaxed in his chair and watched the woman as she busied herself round the room, turning the music off and the lights on. The round anonymity of her face, which must be useful in her line of work, had somehow vanished. Perhaps it was the shock of sudden awaking to this strange invasion or the absence of make-up or the fact that her hair was no longer neat and carefully coiffed. Her round features now seemed sharp and well defined. She slept in nothing but a thin white T-shirt and it could be that the new awareness this gave him of her sexuality aided the defining process. He noted that, despite her delaying tactics, she made no attempt to get a dressing gown. Bright lass, he thought. Gets herself together, but reckons there might be some advantage in distracting me with her tits.

Finally she sat down opposite him, very demurely, pulling the T-shirt over her knees.

'So,' she said, 'Superintendent Dalziel, you have broken into my flat at one o'clock in the morning. You are drinking my whisky, which is theft, and as you've gone through my tapes, I presume you've performed an illegal search. Or is there something I have missed?'

'Nay, lass, that just about wraps it up. Nice whisky too. Was a bit worried you might have nowt but schnapps or some other Kraut firewater. Going to join me?'

She smiled and leaned forward to fill a glass and said, 'I'm really interested to know why a senior policeman should put his career at risk in such a way.'

'Aye, that's the tie-break question, isn't it? To tell you the truth, all I really came lor was to find out why you are leaving.'

'Leaving?'

'Come on, luv. You don't imagine someone with your record can book plane seats without half the police forces in Europe knowing.'

This was a lie. In the three days since getting Wield's report, the Fat Man had certainly spent a lot of time planning his strategy with regard to Richter, but he'd had no idea of her plans to return to Germany until he'd found the plane ticket in her desk drawer. It was for tomorrow, it was one-way, and it was first class.

His conclusion had been that she felt her job here was either over or getting nowhere and he'd been tempted to steal away as silently as he'd come, but only for a second. It was, he'd discovered in the course of a life packed, both professionally and personally, with problems, a delusion that they ever went away.

And Charley Penn certainly wasn't going away.

She said, 'So you have also been illegally accessing computer databases?'

'Not sure what that means, but I dare say you're right. So let's get down to it, Fraulein Richter. Here's what I know about you and what I want from you. You're an old mate of Charley Penn's, on good shagging terms, from the look of things. You came here at his instigation to see what you could sniff out via Miss Pomona about the circumstances of Dick Dee's death. Now, what I'd like for you to do is tell me what you imagine you've found out, then we can all get into our beds. All right?'

She shook her head in not altogether affected amazement.

'Charley told me about you, Mr Dalziel, but I did not altogether believe him. Now I realize he got it wrong. He told me you were arrogant and ruthless, but he did not tell me you were also stupid. Do you really think you can break your English law and violate my rights in this way and get away with it? You say you've studied my background. You must know I've helped put more powerful and important men than you behind bars.'

I'm sorry, luv,' said Dalziel, deliberately misunderstanding. 'My dad told me never to contradict a lady, but I've got to say that, when it comes to putting buggers behind bars, I reckon I’can give thee half the Sudeten-land start and still be in Prague afore ye. But why make such a pother? It's tit for tat, you help me, I'll help you, can't say fairer than that.'

'What could you help me with?' she asked mockingly. 'Are you going to fix a parking ticket, perhaps?'

'I can manage that too, but I were thinking more of keeping you out of jail’ said Dalziel, leaning forward to help himself to more whisky. 'Jail? For what?' she demanded. 'You got no laws in Germany then? Well, we've got enough to go round. First off, personation, forgery and deception. You took this flat telling the estate agent you were English and called Myra Rogers, and handing over a set of references to show what an upright British citizen you were. Want more? You've got a bagful of interesting-looking white powder in your fridge. And while you may have a licence back home for that natty little gun you were waving just now, I can't find any trace of anything which makes it legal here. Want more? You've employed Mr Tristram Lilley to introduce illicit surveillance equipment into a private dwelling which involved illegal entry. Yes, I've had a word with him I being a self-centred little scrote, he's talking so fast, his own equipment can't keep up. Want more? I haven't even started with the stuff I can heap on top of you yet.'

These are empty threats, Superintendent,' she said calmly. 'I have been hounded by experts and threatened with physical violence, death even, and I am still here. I know lawyers who will get me out of your clutches without even leaving their offices.'

‘I can believe it. They ought to geld one a day to encourage the others. Aye, the law's an ass, all right, but the good thing is it's a broken-winded and spavin'd ass. Now I'd guess that maybe one thing that's helped you decide to leave first class is someone back in Kraut-land has offered you a real job setting the world to rights.'

She was good at hiding, but he was better at seeking and saw he'd scored a hit.

He went on, 'I think I can guarantee you'll stay banged up long enough for your friends back home to find themselves another Mata Hari. And I'll make sure that you get such publicity all over Europe, you'll need to wear a beard next time you go undercover.'

She thought for a moment then she smiled at him.

'Perhaps you're right,' she said. 'Tell me what you want and I'll see if I can help you.'

Then she shivered and went on, 'It's so cold in these English flats, don't you think so? In Germany we know how to keep warm.'

As she spoke, she half turned to the gas fire and arched her body towards it as if in search of heat, hitching the T-shirt up as she did so.

Dalziel relaxed in his chair, nodded approvingly and raised his glass.

After a moment, Richter pulled her T-shirt back over her knees.

'Nice try, lass, but I've got one of my own at home that I'd like to get back to,' said Dalziel. 'Save it for Charley. Though I can't understand what you see in him myself. Thought you lot liked a bit more meat on your men.'

'Charley is a good man,' she said seriously. 'And not a stupid one. When he told me his story and asked for my help, I admit it did not seem like my kind of thing.'

'Which is political corruption on a big scale, right?'

That sort of thing,' she smiled. This sounded, personal, petty. At best, if Charley had got it right, it was about some insignificant provincial bobbies covering their tracks. It might make a little stir in the English papers, but anything makes a stir here. But Charley is an old friend, and it suited me to rest quiet a few weeks away from home. So I came.'

'Saw, and conquered. You certainly seem to have conquered little Miss Rye,' said Dalziel. 'So what have you found out?'

She hesitated and he growled from deep in his chest, The truth, remember.'

She said, ‘I am not thinking of a lie. No, it is the truth that I have to work out, for to tell the truth I don't know what I have found. Except that Rye is very disturbed, and distressed. Her boyfriend, the young policeman, he makes her very happy, but he is also the cause of much of her unhappiness too. All this I have found hard to understand. When I first spoke to her she was scattering the contents of a vacuum cleaner into the churchyard. I later found when we became friends that it was the ashes of her dead brother which had been spilt during that strange burglary she had.'

'Strange? How was it strange? It was Charley Penn, wasn't it?'

'No. Not so. Charley was here that morning because he spent the night with me. No danger, we knew Rye was away, just like you know she is away tonight, I presume, else you would not have played the music so loud.'

'Aye, she's round at young Bowler's’ said Dalziel. 'So what happened?'

‘I don't know. We heard a crash, like something breaking. It seemed to come from next door, but we knew the flat was empty. Charley went out to listen at the door. That's when Mrs Gilpin saw him, so he didn't come back in to me but went home.'

'You sure it weren't you?' said Dalziel doubtingly. 'Some bugger left a message about Lorelei on her computer. Right up Charley's street, that, and not far from the bottom of your street back home, if my information is right.'

'You've been digging deep, Mr Dalziel,' she said. 'Yes, she told me about the message when we became friends. Very odd, especially because of the link with Charley. Another odd thing was the quiet.'

'Sorry?'

'She said her flat was a mess, things knocked over, drawers emptied. Yet apart from the one crash, I heard nothing. Also odd is the other bug.' 'Eh?'

'Did not Tris tell you when you spoke to him?' she said, giving him a sharp look which Dalziel received with apparent complacency. The truth was he'd never talked to Lilley. The man lived in London and it would have been difficult to roust him out without reference to the Met. He wanted to keep his interest in Lilley and Richter low profile. But from what he'd read and seen of the man, he got the impression that he'd be quick to do a deal to save his own skin, and Richter clearly found this easy to believe too.

So, this other bug Lilley was likely to have mentioned…

He said, 'Oh aye. That. He did say summat, but it's yours I'm interested in.'

She let out a burst of triumphant laughter.

'Because the other bug is your own, right? And, let me guess, it has not been working properly? Perhaps Tris did something to it when he found it.'

She'd noted his hesitation, but jumped to the wrong conclusion. That's the trouble if you spend your life looking for conspiracies, you start seeing them everywhere!

'Always said you can't trust this modern technology,' he said, trying to sound sheepish but not too much.

'Tris says so too. One bug is never enough. You must ask for a bigger budget.'

'Oh, I shall. But let's concentrate on what you've got, shall we? Bugs are all right, but there's nowt like a close friend for getting to the heart of things.'

She didn't blush but she looked distinctly unhappy. Could journalists feel guilt? Why not? They were only human. In some cases, only just human. But Richter's motivations in the past seemed to have more to do with moral principle than personal profit. And now, if she thought the police had planted this other bug, she could be seeing him as a fellow investigator rather than an object of investigation.

He said, 'I know it's hard when you like someone. I like Rye, too. And I like my lad Bowler. And I want to do what's best for both of them. But I can't do that without I know what's going on, can I?'

He sounded so serious and sincere, he could have sold himself insurance.

She nodded and said, 'OK. I think Rye is troubled because perhaps she knows more than she has said about this Wordman. It is very personal to her. She talks sometimes when she has drunk a lot of wine as if he had something to do with her brother, which cannot be as he died when she was only fifteen. But these things have got mixed up in her mind. She blames herself for the death of her brother, I think, and perhaps somehow she blames herself for the death of this Dick Dee also. She liked him very much, that is clear. And if once you get it in your head that being close to you is what has killed people you love, then you are on the way to breakdown.'

'But why should she blame herself for Dee's death?'

'Perhaps because she'd begun to suspect he was the Wordman but wouldn't let herself believe it. Perhaps she engineered a situation in which he would have to reveal the truth and it all went wrong. And because the truth was never revealed clearly and unambiguously, his death troubles her. What if he were innocent?'

'She's said that, has she?' asked Dalziel. 'She thinks Dee were innocent?'

'She said to me one night, "What if the Wordman wasn't dead, Myra? What if he was still out there, checking out his next victim? What if he's just waiting till everyone's guard is down, then it's all going to start again?" I asked her if she had any reason for thinking this. All I wanted to do was comfort her, but I owed it to Charley to ask.'

'And her answer?'

'She fell asleep in my arms, so I put her to bed,' said Richter tenderly.

'Didn't jump in beside her?' enquired Dalziel casually. Women could do whatever they wanted in his book, so long as they didn't do it in the street and frighten the plods. Or unless one of them was as good as engaged to one of his DCs.

She grinned at him, looking wickedly sexy, and said, 'No, I am aggressively hetero, Mr Dalziel. But you're going to have to take my word for that.'

'Missed the bus, eh? Story of my life. But I never like to climb aboard unless I'm sure I can afford the ride. On you go with your tale.'

'There is not much more to tell,' she said. 'On the tapes I have of her alone, sometimes there is sobbing. Sometimes there is the sound of her pacing around in the night. And sometimes she talks aloud, to her dead brother, often very angrily, as if she blames him for her unhappiness. Also to Hat, full of love, and regret, and apology. More like someone taking leave than someone talking to the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with. But this was before’

'Before what?'

She emptied her whisky glass, filled it up again, emptied it again.

'I do not know if I have the right to tell you this, and I do not think I could tell you this if I was going to stay and be her friend as she believes I am. And I believe it too, or believe it could be so, which is why I am leaving and why I will never see her again, and also why I am able to break the word I have given.'

'Slow down, luv,' said Dalziel. That Scotch is turning you German. Breaking confidence is like taking off a sticky plaster. There's only one way, short and sharp.'

She nodded, took a long slow breath, then said, 'On Monday she went to the hospital for tests. She has a brain tumour. She is going to die.'

'Well fuck me rigid and sell me to the Tate!' exclaimed Dalziel, who had let his mind rehearse half a dozen possible revelations without getting close. 'Can't they do owt?'

'She does not want anything done’ said Richter.

'Shit. Someone's got to talk to her’ said the Fat Man agitatedly. 'These days they can cure owt save foot and mouth and politicians. Does Bowler know?'

'No one knows. Except me. Now you. So now it is your responsibility not mine to decide what to do. This is why I am glad to go. My job, which was never a job I should have undertaken, is done. Now I can go to a real job’

'Run away, you mean, and leave the poor lass to suffer all this alone, after you've weaselled your way into her confidence? Jesus! What they say about you bastards doesn't tell the half of it!'

His contempt left her unmoved.

She said, 'You mistake, Superintendent. If she was as unhappy as I would be in her situation, then I doubt if I could have decided so easily to go. No, the thing that makes me go is that the news has not made her miserable, it has made her happy! She acts as if she had gone along to the hospital anticipating confirmation that she had cancer and instead been told that she was free! I can offer comfort to despair. I cannot try to bring despair to joy. Now I think I have said all that I want to say to you, Superintendent. Aufwiedenehen, but not too soon, eh?'

Dalziel finished his drink and said, 'Just one thing afore I go. If you'd not mind taking off that nightie or whatever you call it.. ‘

She looked at him, puzzled, then smiled, stood up and pulled the T-shirt over her head.

'Turn around’ he said.

She obeyed.

'Right’ he said. 'You can put it back on.'

'For a moment I thought you'd changed your mind’ she said, parodying a disappointed pout.

'Nay, don't take it personal, lass’ he said, rising. 'Just making sure there was nowt but flesh to see. And very nice flesh it was.'

She smiled at him as he went to the bureau, picked up her gun, examined it, put the safety catch on, then slipped it into his pocket.

'You couldn't take it out of the country’ he said. 'Not legally, anyway. So best I take care of it’

'I am being permitted to leave then, am I?'

'Can't see why not. One thing more, but. Just in case you're hoping this tape you switched to record when you came in might have summat on it that would embarrass me, don't be too disappointed when you find I disconnected the recording switch. Just as well, eh, else you'd have ruined old Wagner’

He reset the deck and once again the doom-filled music rolled around the room.

'What would I have used it for anyway?' she said indifferently. 'Tell me, Mr Dalziel, why did you choose this music?'

'Don't know. Why do you ask?'

'There are some who say that it contains all that is best and worst in the German psyche’ she said. 'I thought perhaps it was some kind of statement, a bit racist, even’

'Racist? Me?' he said indignantly. 'Nay, lass, I just dearly love a catchy tune, even if it were written by a dead Kraut. You'll be seeing Charley afore you go?'

'Yes’

'What will you tell him?'

'As much as he needs to know’ she said.

'A man can't ask more than that from his woman’ said Andy Dalziel.

A few miles away, close entwined by choice and by necessity in the narrow single bed, Rye and Hat lay in the dark.

'You awake?' said Hat.

'Yes.'

'Not worried about anything, are you?'

'What should I worry about when I've got everything I want? Do I look worried?'

'Well, no…'

In fact during the past few days she had seemed to exude happiness. It was true that sometimes when he glimpsed her without her knowledge, he thought she looked paler and the shadows beneath her eyes looked darker. But the moment she became aware of his presence, she glowed with a joy that made such thoughts seem a blasphemy.

He ran his hands down her body and said, 'Not losing a bit of weight, are you?'

'Perhaps. After Christmas I like to start the New Year with a diet to get rid of all those chocs. But I've noticed that cops seem to prefer their women with a bit of weight.'

'Not me,' said Hat fervently. 'But I don't want to feel I'm going to bed with a xylophone – ouch!'

She had rammed a finger up his backside till it hurt.

'My body's my business,' she said. 'You'll just have to learn to play the xylophone. And if you keep on living off junk food, I'll just have to learn to play the bagpipes.'

'We'd better get a house in the country or else the neighbours'll be complaining every time we make love. Talking of which’

'So soon? Are you taking something?'

'No, I meant talking of a house in the country… when are we going to move in together? I mean permanently, not turn about, your place and mine. In fact, I mean really permanently. How do you feel about getting married?'

She didn't reply and after a while he said, 'You thinking about it, or just thinking how to say no?'

'I'm thinking about it,' she said. 'Best advice seems to be it's not such a good idea marrying a policeman.'

'You've been taking advice?' he said, faking large indignation to conceal small hurt.

'Of course not, but I read a lot of books, and wherever there's a cop there's usually a marriage in trouble.'

'Books! What do these writers know? They should get out more instead of spending all their time at home inventing stuff.'

'But it's true’ she said. 'It's a demanding job. And it's dangerous.'

She pushed herself away from him as far as she could, which wasn't far without falling to the floor, and said, That's one thing that does worry me, Hat. Your job is dangerous, and it's getting more so. I just don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you.'

'Don't be daft,' he said. 'Chances of anything like that must be

… I don't know what, but they've got to be longer than winning the lottery.'

'It almost happened, remember?' she said. 'I came close to losing you.'

'OK, but lightning doesn't strike twice, so that makes it even less likely it could happen again.'

'I wish I could believe that. All I know is, if anything did happen that would be the end for me. Of everything, I mean. My life would be over too. There'd be no point in going on.'

'No, you mustn't say that,' he urged fiercely. 'Look, nothing's going to happen

'But if it did?'

'Then you'd have to bear it, I suppose

'No way.'

'Yes, you could. You're strong, Rye. Stronger than me. I think you could come through anything if you put your mind to it.'

'I wouldn't want to put my mind to it.'

'You'd have to. Promise me!'

'What? That I'd throw roses on your grave then head down to the singles club?'

'No, don't be silly. That you'd give life a chance.'

'That sounds like something off a calendar!'

'I'm sorry I don't have some Fancy Dan way of putting it. It's just that I think these days everyone seems so concerned with getting ready for death. It's all about hospices and such things. Well, death's not that much of a problem, it seems to me, and if it is, it soon gets solved. Living's the hard thing to get right. Living's the important thing.'

He fell silent. She put her hand on his face and traced his eyes and his mouth in the darkness.

'That's a good calendar you've got,' she said. 'OK, I'll promise. Only you've got to promise too.'

'Eh?'

'Fair's fair. If anything should ever happen to me, you've got to promise that you'll practise what you've just been preaching, that you won't confuse grief with despair, that you'll mourn but not forever, that you will never forget me, but you'll never forget this promise that you made to me either. That you understand I won't be at rest till you are happy again. Can you promise that? If you can't, I won't.'

He put his hand up to take hers.

'I promise,' he said.

'OK, then so do I.'

He drew her to him. Her softness, her scent, her warmth enveloped him like the air of lost Eden, but he frowned into the dark as he tried to analyse a strange feeling that something had happened which he didn't understand.

Rye lay with her head pressed against his chest and her lips were smiling.

Letter 9. Received Fri Jan 18thP. P

The UNIVERSITY of SANTA APOLLONIA Ca.

Guest Suite No 1

Faculty of Arts

Wed Jan 16th

Dear Mr Pascoe,

What a week this has been! What a rare mood I'm in! You cannot believe how much I'm enjoying America. It's been like stepping into a movie and finding I was a star! Have you been here? I'm sure you have – a cultured, well-rounded man like yourself will not have been content to take the rest of the world on report. You will have travelled everywhere, observed, sampled, judged. My exuberance probably strikes you as ingenuous, perhaps naive, even jejune. But remember, this brave new world is indeed new to me. All my acquaintance with it hitherto has been through the cinema, so no wonder I saw and felt it as a movie set!

Of course my good impression of this bright sunlit world was helped by the contrast with what I had left behind. Frankfurt was wet and windy, Gottingen locked in ice and snow. Anyone wanting to understand the Gothic glooms of the German character should spend a winter there! Not that I suffered any particular discomfort, being able to afford, at Linda's insistence, decent lodgings. But I made no noticeable advance in my researches in either place. I did track down some people called Degen in Frankfurt who may or may not be of the same family as young Konrad, the baker whom Beddoes lived and travelled with and attempted to turn into a Shakespearean actor. But they had no papers or artefacts that could be linked to their distant relative and I got the impression that their few alleged family memories of the man were in fact gleanings from various predecessors (including Sam himself) who had come here on Beddoes' trail. (Though there was a young blond Degen who fluttered his silky eyelashes at me

… ah, the things we biographers do in search of empathy with our subjects!)

As for Gottingen, it's a pretty, enough little town, much of which has survived intact since Beddoes' day. My hopes soared, but, apart from viewing his name in the university records, I could find nothing to add to what his own letters tell us of his life there. Sam wrote one of his 'Imagined Scenes' in which Beddoes and Heine, both students at the university and sharing an interest in poetry and radical politics, met and quarrelled, but the dates don't really fit and eventually Sam scored through it on the grounds that even imagination's wings need at least one feather of fact to achieve lift-off.

So all in all, what with the foul weather, the lack of progress, the weighty echt Deutchheit of everything, I grew daily duller and more stupefied, and time seemed to crawl by as if I'd been put into an uncomfortable seat between two fat men with BO at the start of one of Wagner's longer operas sung by an amateur music society and accompanied by a school band, and told there weren't going to be any intervals.

At this juncture I thought how wise you had been, dear Mr Pascoe, to eschew the life academic in favour of the life detective. The mean streets your work takes you down seemed as nothing compared to the gloomy avenues I found myself lost in. No wonder that poor Beddoes with his death fixation opted to spend most of his adult life here. Even now in this age of universal light when it's possible in England or America for a child to grow up in a big city without ever having noticed a star, shades and miasmas and Gothic glooms are available on tap out here. What it must have been like in the early eighteen hundreds pains the imagination! Beddoes sought enlightenment through medicine, that most socially beneficial of sciences, and through support of radical egalitarian movements, but each of these avenues led him back to the same conclusion, that man was a botched creation whose proper domain was darkness and whose only salvation was death.

The longer I stayed there, the closer I could feel myself coming to agreeing with him!

Happily at this juncture the US Embassy in London, with whom I had been in close correspondence since talking to Dwight, now summoned me for interview, so I took my conge with considerable relief!

Not that things improved in England. The weather was foul and the Embassy officials treated me like their Public Enemy No. l, bent on bringing down the Republic. The only good thing was I once again found Frere Jacques in residence at Linda's Westminster pad, and this time, having become such chums, neither of us objected to me bedding down on the couch for a couple of nights. It turned out he was heading north on his promotional tour and, as I wanted to touch base back in Mid-Yorkshire before heading off into the west, he offered me a lift in his hired car as far as Sheffield.

It was an interesting trip. I got the feeling that something has changed for him. Perhaps Frere Dierick's death has something to do with it. I'm sure the man and the monk in Jacques must always have been in delicate balance, and with the removal of that death's head reminder of his commitment to the life celibate, the man is very much in the ascendancy. He talked of Emerald, and I have a strong suspicion that in the very near future he might be contemplating the huge step of changing his vows monastic for vows marital! (I must confess, shame-faced, that I also for a moment entertained a very faint suspicion that perhaps Jacques knew more about the circumstances of Dierick's death than he should do… But I soon thrust this aside. Ungrounded suspicions are a mental cancer. We should trust our friends absolutely, don't you agree, Mr Pascoe?)

What Linda will make of it, I don't know. We shall see.

My stay in M-Y was brief, all too brief, alas, for me to make contact with you. How good it would have been to see you face to face and get direct assurance of the rapport I am psychically convinced my letters are building between us. But I had news of you from one or two common acquaintance, and it was generally good, though dear old Charley Penn, who'd glimpsed you in town, thought you were looking just a little bit peaky. Do take care of yourself, my friend. I know your job necessarily involves irregular hours and takes you out in all weathers, but you're not getting any younger and you mustn't let the indestructible Dalziel overstretch you.

Back to my Great Adventure. At last I left these clouded hills behind and, after an interminable passage through fog and filthy air followed by an even longer passage through the morass of US Immigration, I was greeted by a young god and goddess wearing baseball caps and beaming smiles (literally beaming; dear old Apollonia clearly knows how to honour her devotees!) and waving a banner bearing my name. They turned out to be Dwight's teenage twins, whom he'd sent to meet me, and all my troubles seemed to drop away as they led me, blinking, out into the bright sunshine, and drove me to their lovely home which stands on stilts rising out of a beach of golden sand running down to the deep deep blue of the Pacific ocean. Stout Cortez, I get the message, man!

I spent the first couple of days relaxing and acclimatizing in the bosom of Dwight's family -not literally; this was strictly hands-off territory, though the kids' fondness for skinny-dipping with their friends kept temptation before my eyes. Happily, despite a pleasant air temperature when the sun shines, the ocean is still pretty cold at this time of year and that kept my interest from becoming embarrassing, though maybe Dwight's sharp eye detected something, for once I'd got over my jet lag and was ready to strut my stuff before his publishing friends, he suggested that, now that term was beginning (bit of an earlier start out here than you were probably used to at Oxford – or was it Cambridge? I can't recall), it might be more convenient if I had a room on campus. Nice to think even a modern West Coast liberal academic dad keeps an eye on his kids' virtue.

Being on campus is great, especially as I'm occupying one of the faculty guest suites – not quite as impressive historically as the Quaestor's Lodging at God's, but a lot more user-friendly -and I've been introduced around as a distinguished academic visitor. Dwight got me to sit in on a couple of his classes, then persuaded me to do a seminar on Beddoes' poetry with a specially selected group of students and a few faculty members. It went really well and the students seemed to take to Beddoes in a big way and soon I was getting invitations to talk to all kinds of groups. Dwight was delighted, so long as they didn't get in the way of his own programme, whose purpose I quickly gathered was to do such a good PR job on me that when I finally made my pitch to the top men at the St Poll University Press, I would make my entrance on a wave of golden opinion.

I went along with this, did the parties, pressed the flesh, talked the talk and walked the walk, but I really got a lot more enjoyment out of being with the students. How reluctantly do we all admit that we are taking leave of our youth! With what slow steps and fondly lingering backward glances do we move onward! When at last you begin to understand the truth of Byron's lines There's not a joy the world can give ‘ Like that it takes away' then you know you've started the long goodbye. Being with these kids reminded me of the way I felt in those few days at Fichtenburg when I skated and tobogganed and drank sweet coffee and ate cream cakes with Zazie, Hildi and Mouse, pleasure without responsibility, time without definition, world without end. Perhaps the cruel suddenness with which my own student days hit the rocks (yes, yes, my own fault, no resentment, no reproach!) makes me all the more desperate to clutch at these straws floating round the wreckage. Did you ever feel like this Mr Pascoe? You will be well past such immaturities, I know, but was there ever a time, even after your marriage perhaps, with your lovely daughter still little more than a voice and an appetite in swaddling clothes, when you felt a yearning to be as you had been age eighteen, nineteen, twenty, when nothing you had now seemed worth the loss of those boundless horizons, that unfathomable joy? Or even later, when your little girl lay desperately ill, or when your beloved wife was under threat, did it ever flash across your mind that if you had known it was going to be like this, you'd never have given such hostages to fortune?

Probably not. You're not like me, weak and worldly, though I like to think that in some ways we are very close. And will be closer, I hope and pray.

Anyway, like I said, I met with young people and in their company I felt young again. It is, I think, a canard that American students age for age know less than European students; but it's certainly true that they are much more eager to know more! They lapped up what I told them about Beddoes, and when (because it was easy to move from his obsession with death to my chosen way of dealing with it) I went on to tell them about Third Thought, they lapped that up too. They know nothing of the movement here, it seems, and Frere Jacques' book has not yet found a publisher in the States. I suspect that America in general and California in particular is so awash with home-grown mystic, metaphysical, quasi-religious trends and sects and disciplines that they don't feel much need to import them! But this one really appealed, perhaps because I was able to present it in truly American terms such as, How to live with death and be happy ever after! Soon we were having regular meetings which always began (my idea!) with a chorus of 'Happy We!' from Ads and Galatea. (The lyric is, of course, amatory, but this only underlines the relationship with death that Third Thought aims at. And if my suspicions about Jacques are right, how apt!) Then I'd read a passage from my copy of Jacques' book, and soon photocopied extracts were being passed around like samizdat literature in the Soviet Union. It made me realize that, do what we will with technology, there is no substitute for direct human contact. Soon the word spread around the campus, aided by the new in-greeting between initiates – Have a nice death! (One of mine too. Though I confess it owes not a little to Beddoes' jest of leaving champagne to drink his death in'.)

A spin-off of this was, by the time I was finally summoned to make my pitch to the Uni Press people, rumours of Third Thought had reached their ears too and they seemed as interested in Jacques' book as they were in mine (or rather Sam's, though the way Dwight had sold it, my part loomed disproportionately large, because, as Dwight put it when I made some mild protest, 'You're hot, breathing, and here!')

Anyway, they were very interested in both books, and by the time we'd finished talking, they'd made an offer on Beddoes and wanted to get in touch with Jacques. I got straight on the phone to Linda, who was delighted, and she got Jacques to ring me, and the upshot is I have been given full authority to act as I see best on both their behalves.

So there it is. Triumph. I came, saw, overcame. But I don't feel I can take any credit. Recently I seem to be on a roll. Question is, who's loading the dice? Initially I approached Third Thought in a pretty sceptical frame of mind. It was interesting, but no more interesting than a whole lot of weird metaphysical stuff I'd been into in my teens, with the disincentive it didn't throw in sex or drugs as part of the deal! Linda's involvement gave me a reason for sticking with it, but the more I've had to do with Frere Jacques, the more I've come to believe that there really might be something here for me.

I'm not certain where you stand on religion, Mr Pascoe. Somehow I can't see your good lady… but there I go, making assumptions. Bad habit. It really would be great to talk to you about this, and so many other matters, face to face some time. In the past our meetings have always had – how shall I put it? – a legal agenda. But over the past few weeks as I've been writing to you, I've had such a strong sense of us coming together that I have to believe, or at least very much hope, that you have felt this too.

So perhaps when I get back to Mid-Yorkshire we can meet and by the fire help waste a sullen day, or something? Please.

By the way, Dwight has told me to make full use of the mail services open to senior faculty members, so I'll send this off Express Delivery, otherwise I could get home first!

See you soon!

Yours ever, Franny

P.S. I really do like St Poll. Much more my kind of place than plashy old Cambridge! I've taken the chance whenever possible of drifting off by myself and strolling the streets – yes, it's that rarity in American towns, a place where you can actually walk for miles without exacting the interest of the local constabulary! So much to see. It's got big modern shopping malls, of course, but away from these, lots of small, very individual outlets survive, delis with delicious food, antique shops where you can still unearth a bargain, and bookshops ranging from the uni store where you can enjoy a coffee and a bagel as you read, to lovely atmospheric second-hand and antiquarian dealers.

By one of those coincidences which make life such fun, I was peering in the window of one of these when it dawned on me the name was familiar. I searched my memory and drifted back to that evening at God's when Dwight assured poor Dean Albacore that he knew a book dealer in St Poll who could put a price on anything, even something as priceless as a copy of Reginald of Durham's Vita S. Godrici. His name was Fachmann. Trick Fachmann. And that was the name I was looking at!

On a whim I went inside and introduced myself.

What a fascinating man he is. Transparently thin with piercing bright eyes, he comes across as so erudite, so scholarly, and at the same time so worldly wise. Only in America do I think you could find such a combination. I know the UK academia is full of would-be Machiavels -Albacore was such a one – but Mr Fachmann could at the same time have been a medieval ascetic and the modern consigliore to some great Mafia godfather.

I told him how come I'd heard his name, and I made enquiry, just to amuse myself, whether he could justify Dwight's boast and put a price on an original copy of Reg of Durham's Vita S. Godrici. Without hesitation he said, 'No problem.' I said, 'So what might it be?' He said, 'That depends whether I'm selling or buying.' I laughed, but he said, ‘I’m not joking. There's a market for everything. There's two kinds of possession. The common one is the conspicuous. When you've got it, baby, flaunt it! The other is private, when you both possess and are possessed by an object. You don't need the world to know as long as you know you've got it.'

I said, 'And you know the market?' to which he replied with a smile, 'Know of it. To use it would of course be illegal. It's like any other market, full of bustle and stallholders shouting their wares. That amuses you? Listen, any movement of antiquities of any kind anywhere and ears prick. It's like the stock exchange. Movement means availability. I know antique dealers round here who get a dozen enquiries every time the Getty down at Malibu makes a purchase. There's some big deal just gone down for some Brit collection. Once it's in the Getty, forget it. But to get here it's got to be on the move, so the market stirs.'

I presume he meant the Elsecar Horde, which us who live in Yorkshire know all about. He sounded serious too, so perhaps you'd better keep your eyes skinned, Mr Pascoe! (Teaching my grandmother – sorry!)

Anyway, Trick and I talked at length and I told him all about myself. When I mentioned Beddoes, he went to his shelves and came back with a copy of the 1850 Pickering edition of Death's Jest-Book. Very few were produced, even fewer survive. I took it from him and held it, which was fatal. I felt that burning lust for possession whatever the cost, which I'm sure a man of culture like yourself must understand. I did not dare ask the price, but my eyes must have spoken the question for he said as if we'd been bargaining, 'OK, here's my final offer. You keep hold of this and send me a signed first edition of your Beddoes book and of every other book you subsequently produce. Deal?'

What could I do but stammer my thanks? I am beginning to discover, as you have always known, that even in these most wicked and selfish times, there are still to be found huge reserves of unselfish goodness and loving kindness. Talk again soon.

Yours ever,

Franny

‘Sou see what he's saying?' said Pascoe urgently. 'Please, tell me you see it too.' 'I think it might speed things up if you ^! tell me first, Peter,' said Dr Pottle with some sign of irritation.

Pascoe had turned up without an appointment, brushing aside Pottle's secretary's objection that he was far too busy working on his opening address to the Psychandric Society's Symposium which was taking place the following day.

'He'll see me’ declared Pascoe, making it sound like a threat. 'I just want two minutes. Ask him.'

And a short time afterwards he was ushered in to be assured by Pottle that, if he was still there after one hundred and twenty seconds, the secretary would call security.

'He's saying that when he set fire to Albacore's study to destroy the man's research papers, he also took the opportunity to help himself to the copy of the Libellus de Vita Sancti Godriti which he'd seen earlier that night.'

'Knowing, of course, that it would be assumed to have been reduced to ashes in the fire?'

That's right,' said Pascoe triumphantly. 'You've got it. You're beginning to see just what this bastard is capable of.'

‘Well, I can at least say I can see why you should be convinced of this.'

Pascoe studied this answer which fell a long way short of the hoped-for endorsement.

'Why's that?' he asked.

'Because, having convinced yourself he's guilty of arson and attempted murder, you're hardly going to strain at a little matter of theft.'

'A little matter? This thing was invaluable!'

'And that makes a difference?'

Pottle made a note on the pad before him. Upside down, it looked like a meaningless squiggle. Pascoe had once taken the opportunity offered when Pottle was called out of his office to have a quick glance at this pad and found that, right way up, his notes still looked like meaningless squiggles. Perhaps that's all they were, but it felt like the psychiatrist was noting every twist and turn of Pascoe's attitudes to Franny Roote.

'Anything more you have to tell me before you leave?' said Pottle, looking at his watch.

The bugger knows there is, thought Pascoe.

He thought of saying no, but that would have been silly. Pointless having a dishwasher and doing your own pots.

He said, 'Rosie got one of those trace-your-family-tree kits and Ellie got the notion it would be interesting to check out Roote

'Really? Bit of an odd idea for someone as rational as Ellie to get, isn't it?'

'You think my wife is rational?' Pascoe looked at Pottle with serious doubt.

'You don't?'

'1 think she has her reasons that reason wots not of,' said Pascoe carefully. 'Anyway, these are the results of her investigation.'

He passed over a file containing the information Ellie had given him, plus the results of his own follow-up.

Pottle read through it and whistled.

'Was that a Freudian or a Jungian whistle?' asked Pascoe.

'It was an unsophisticated expression of amazement that one irrational woman could so easily discover what a well-organized CID seems to have overlooked for many years.'

'We accepted the records. Only it seems that the information on which they were based was fed into the system by Roote himself. At an early age, it should be said.'

'Meaning he decided very early on that his memories of his father, good and bad, should be completely private. Whatever the truth of Mr Roote, he undoubtedly presents a fascinating object of study. I can see why Haseen got so interested in him. Ellie's findings seem to suggest that, far from being deceived, Haseen got him to open up more than he'd ever done before. It's the stuff in the letters about not remembering his father that's a lie.'

'Didn't I always say you can't trust the bastard?' said Pascoe. Then, sensing an irrationality here, he went quickly on: 'It certainly underlines his reasons for hating the police, who he thinks treated his father so badly. Which all goes to show how right I am in being suspicious when he smarms up to me.'

That might be a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ said Pottle. 'His reasons for lying to you about his father may have changed from desire to keep your long nose out of his business to a confusion of your function and the dead man's. His memories of his father's standing as a policeman, able to deal with all threats that came to his family, are very powerful.

And it's clear he has a huge respect for you as a professional

'Come on! He's taking the piss, isn't he? He's such an arrogant sod he thinks he's brighter than all the rest of us put together.'

'I think you're wrong. Once he may have felt so, but getting caught and ending up in the Syke made him realize that he wasn't Supermind. Realizing how much Haseen had managed to get out of him must have come as a shock too. His respect for you made him think it likely that not only would you read Haseen's book, but that you would identify his disguised presence in it too. So he pre-empts this by drawing your attention to it en passant and boasting about the way he put one across on Ms Haseen by feeding her duff sensational memories of his father. Would you have read the book, incidentally?'

'No way’ said Pascoe. 'Even if I had come across it by chance, half a para of her turgid style would have made me close it fast. He's been too clever by half.'

'Only because he thinks you're too clever by three-quarters.'

'That's right. He thinks I'm clever enough to read between his lines and get the real messages, but powerless to do anything about them! All the pleasure of boasting, none of the penalties of confession. But he'll over-reach himself one day and I'll have him!'

'But so far you haven't come close?'

'No, but one day… there has to be something… maybe that dead student of Sam Johnson's in Sheffield… he keeps glancing at that… I'm sure there's something there

'Perhaps. But, Peter, motive is not a constant, you must have observed that. The reason for starting something is often not the same as the reason for continuing to do it. It works in both directions. The penniless man who steals out of necessity may turn into the wealthy man who steals out of greed. Or the ambitious politician who does charity work because it looks good on her CV might end up as a passionate advocate of some particular charity despite the fact that it's having an adverse effect upon her career.'

'And the objective psychiatrist can end up getting religion,' said Pascoe. 'I reckon my two minutes are up. Sorry to leave before the end of the service, but I enjoyed the sermon.'

'A polite man's rudeness is like a summer storm; it refreshes the flowers and settles the dust,' murmured Pottle.

'Freud?'

'No, I just made it up. Peter, read this letter again, read them all again, and try to look for patterns other than the one printed on your eye.'

'If I were you, I'd stick to the day job,' advised Pascoe. 'Gotta dash.'

He left. A moment later his head reappeared round the door.

'Sorry’ he said.

'A rude man's apology is like winter sunshine

'Go screw yourself’ said Peter Pascoe.

Earlier that same Friday morning a large container lorry had rolled off the Dutch ferry at Hull dock. The driver handed over his papers to be checked, then swore in exasperation as the officials invited him to drive his vehicle into a remote examination bay where a full team of searchers stood waiting with their equipment and dogs.

'Poor sod’ said the driver of a refrigerated lorry which was next in line. 'Looks like that's his morning gone.'

'More than his morning if what we hear is true,' said the man examining his papers. 'OK, Joe?'

'OK’ said the officer who had been giving the lorry a going-over.

'Safe journey, mate.'

The refrigerated vehicle moved out of the dock complex with the ease of familiarity and was soon on the motorway heading into Mid-Yorkshire. The driver took out a mobile phone and rang a pre-set number.

'On my way’ he said. 'Worked a treat. No bother’

He spoke too soon. Half an hour later he noticed his oil-warning light blinking intermittently. He banged the instrument panel and it stopped. Then it shone bright red.

'Shit’ he said, pulling over on to the hard shoulder.

Then, 'Shit shit shit!' he added as he slid out of the cab and saw a motorway patrol car a few hundred yards behind him closing fast and flashing to pull in.

'Trouble?' said the police officer who got out of the passenger door.

'Yeah. Oil pressure. Probably nothing.'

'Let's take a look, shall we?'

As they took their look, the police car's driver wandered round the back of the truck.

'Ah’ said the truck driver. Think I see what it is. Get that fixed in a couple of minutes. Thanks for your help.'

'You sure?' said the policeman.

'Yeah. No sweat. Twenty minutes tops’

'Great. We're due off in half an hour, so it'll be someone else's problem if it turns out more complicated than you think’ said the policeman, grinning.

'Harry. Got a minute?'

It was the other policeman.

His colleague went to join him.

'Listen. Thought I heard something.'

'Like what?'

'Like a sort of scratching’

They listened. The driver watched them for a moment then climbed into his cab.

'There. You hear it?'

'Yeah’

The cop moved swiftly along the truck and hoisted himself on to the cab step.

The driver had picked up his mobile. He flashed an unconvincing smile and said, 'Just thought I'd better ring my boss, tell him I'd had a little hitch’

The policeman reached forward and took the phone and looked at the number displayed. Then he switched the phone off.

'Tell you what’ he said. 'Let's not bother him till we see just how little your hitch is.'

Fifty miles away and an hour later, Wield was sitting in Turk's.

When Lee had rung him and asked for a meet, the sergeant had suggested the multi-storey again but the youth had said, 'No fucking way. Froze my bollocks off last time and the weather's even colder today. Turk's.'

He's calling the shots, thought Wield uneasily. Which was bad whatever their relationship was. What did he mean, whatever? Lubanski was an informant, period. Cops who started acting like social workers were asking for trouble. And whatever he looked like, he wasn't a child at risk but an adult in need of protection only if he asked for it.

But now, sitting opposite him and feeling himself drawn willy-nilly into the undisguised pleasure the boy took in his company, Wield saw the scene as it might look to a passer-by whose sharp gaze penetrated the steamed-up window. Uncle and nephew off on a day-trip together. Father and son even. This was the first time they'd met since the karaoke. Dalziel happily had seemed preoccupied with something else and Wield had found it easy to find excuses not to make the effort.

Lee was looking straight at him and, despite his certainty that his face gave nothing away, Wield hid his expression behind the mug of foul coffee which the freezing day had driven him to.

'So what you got?' he asked brusquely.

'You're in a hurry. Got a date or something?' said Lee. But not aggressively, not even provocatively. Just a relaxed joke between friends.

'I've got work to do, yes,' said Wield.

'Get a coffee break, don't you? Anyway, I expect you put this down as work.'

He wants some kind of denial, however qualified.

That's right,' said Wield brusquely. 'And I hope it's productive. What have you got?'

The hurt in the boy's eyes brought the protective mug up again.

'That guy rang last night,' he said sullenly. •

'Which guy?'

'The one he calls Mate.'

'What did he say?'

Lee produced a scrap of paper and began to read.

'He said it were all fixed his end for next week but where was the money? And Belchy said not to worry, it would be there. Then he rang the other guy…'

'LB? Thought you said he didn't ring him direct?'

'Usually he don't. But it sounded like he'd been hard to get hold of on the net.'

Understandable. Grief was a great antaphrodisiac. And a great enemy of rational thought. Possibly Linford was blaming Belchamber for getting Liam out on bail now.

'And he made contact?'

'Yeah. And I'll tell you something else. I know who LB is now. He's Wally Linford, dad of that wanker Liam who got himself killed last weekend.'

This was said with such triumph Wield hadn't the heart to reveal he knew it already.

'How do you know?'

'Said "Linford" when he answered the phone. And Belchy called him Linford from then on. They had a right row. Linford was yelling. Belchy never yells, but I could tell he were getting really uptight. His dick went soft.'

Wield felt Lee watching him closely as he said this.

He's sussed how it bothers me when he refers to what he actually does to Belchamber, he thought. And me being bothered implies a relationship. Not good. But he kept his tone level and neutral as he asked, 'What were they quarrelling about?'

'Money. Belchy was worried about some payment he had to make and Linford was yelling he couldn't be bothered with all this crap just now and Belchy said mebbe he should be bothered 'cos his mate were going to be very bothered if he didn't get the next lot of upfronts and Linford said it had nothing the fuck to do with him what this mate felt, he was just an investor and kept a good safe distance away from his fucking clientele, like a fucking lawyer, things went pear-shaped he walked away from the shit, no skin off his nose, so stick that in your crown and wear it, your fucking majesty!'

This sounded like it was verbatim. Wield's mind was racing. Linford, still hugely disturbed at his son's death, was taking it out on Belchamber for the want of anyone else. And it wasn't just a case of a client sacking his lawyer. Their suspicions that for some reason Belchamber had crossed the line were obviously right. He was involved here, not as a lawyer hovering in the background ready to step forward only if things went awry, not even as a reluctant bagman, but as a principal, an initiator. But of what? And why the hell should he be taking that dangerous step across when staying on the legal side must be second nature to him?

‘And what was all that 'your majesty' business?

‘Just a joke? One queen to another maybe? Or…

'That any good then?' said Lee.

'What? Sorry. Yes, it's very helpful. Any more?'

'No, that's it for now. Don't worry, I get owt else, I'll be right on to you.'

Wield said, 'Lee, I think maybe it's time you stopped dealing with Belchamber.'

'Yeah? Why's that then? You trying to save my soul again, Mac?'

He spoke with a knowing cockiness that grated. Wield said, 'Not your soul. Your body maybe. If he got wind that you're passing stuff on to me…'

'No chance! All I do is listen. Not breaking into safes and such. Anyway, I can take care of Belchy. He's soft as pigshit.'

'Maybe. But there's people he's mixed up with who aren't, and they're twice as nasty.'

'You reckon? Well, I meet lots of nasty people, Sergeant Mac. No need to worry about me.'

'But I do worry, Lee.'

'Really?'

'Really.'

'Yeah, well, you'll be the first.' He spoke with an attempt at throw-away bravado.

'I shouldn't think so,' said Wield. 'Your mam must have worried.'

'Mebbe. And my dad too. He'd probably have worried if he'd known.'

He's still hanging on to the idea that it was ignorance rather than indifference which made his father dump his pregnant mother, thought Wield. He said gently, 'I'm sure he would have, Lee.'

'Yeah. I wish I'd got a picture of him or something. Mam didn't have anything. Not that he were owt much to look at, she said. In fact most folk reckoned, he were a right ugly bugger. But she said looks aren't everything, he were right sexy and she knew he were the one for her first time she saw him. They were just kids, younger than me, I think, so he'd just be in his thirties now. Wherever he is.'

Oh Christ, thought Wield aghast, suddenly recalling the young man's interest in his possible hetero experience. Edwin had warned him that Lee might be seeing him as a father substitute, but for once those sharp old eyes hadn't looked deep enough.

It's not a substitute the poor little sod's after; he's looking to cast me as his actual sodding father!

Lee had brought his wandering gaze to bear full on Wield's ravaged features. His expression was defiant but not despairing. Hope is a persistent virus. Vaccinate yourself against it all you like, it still clings on. Wield said, 'Look, Lee’

Then the door burst open and several uniformed policemen rushed into the cafe.

One stayed by the door, two went behind the counter and grabbed hold of Turk with rather more force than his unresisting demeanour merited, two more vanished into the rear of the premises while another addressed the half-dozen customers.

'Stay in your seats, gents. We'll need your names and addresses, just as witnesses, you understand, then you can go.'

Lee was now glaring accusingly at Wield, who said, 'It's nowt to do with me, lad.' Obviously unconvinced, the boy began to rise when a hand clapped on his shoulder and a voice said ponderously, as if the words were being prised out of mud, 'Keep sat down.'

Oh shit, thought Wield, recognizing the voice before he took in the face. It belonged to PC Hector, the albatross round Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary's neck, the mote in its eye, the pile on its rectum. He was, Dalziel opined, the most reliable officer in the Force – he always got it wrong. If he survived long enough he might outdistance the Fat Man himself as a source of amazing anecdote.

Now his gaze, which had focused with grave suspicion on Wield's black leathers, moved up to take in the sergeant's features. There was a moment of mental perturbation, then recognition came up like thunder out of China 'cross the Bay, and he said in stentorian tones, 'Hello. It's you,. Sarge! What you doing here? Undercover, is it?'

Behind him, Wield saw Turk register the words, saw his gaze flicker to Lee.

He rose and put his face close to Hector's and said in a low voice, ‘I'm having a cup of coffee, which is just as well, 'cos if I were on a job, you'd have just blown it.'

Hector looked so crestfallen it was almost possible to feel sorry for him then, and said in the kind of whisper which echoes round the gods, 'Sorry, Sarge, I never thought.'

‘There'll be a first time, maybe.' Then turning to the officer who'd. addressed the cafe clientele, none of whom showed the slightest interest in what was happening, he said, 'Johnstone, what's going off?'

Truck broke down on the motorway coming from Hull. Two of our lot stopped to give assistance and heard noises. Turned out it was full of illegals. The driver tried to make a call but got stopped before he got through. This was the number he was ringing.'

‘I see. Got a search warrant?'

'One's on its way, but we thought we'd best make sure of getting Sonny Jim here.'

'Yeah. Well, I'd get yon pair out of the back till it arrives, so that if you do find anything, it will be admissible.'

'Yeah, right, Sarge.'

Wield turned back to Lee, who was on his feet and looking anxious to be elsewhere. It came-back to him now that on their first encounter the youth had made some crack about Turk's sandwiches containing the remains of illegals that hadn't made it.

'You know anything about Turk being in the people-smuggling business?' he asked.

'I'd heard a buzz, that was all.'

'And you didn't think it was worth mentioning?'

'No. It's not like real crime, is it? Just a lot of poor sods wanting in. Christ, think what it must be like where they come from if they think it's going to be better here!'

This was matter for an interesting discussion on comparative sociology which would have to wait till some other time.

He led Lee to the door and said to the guardian constable, 'This one can go. I've got his details.'

The man stood aside and Lee headed through the door like a canary out of a cage.

‘I'll be in touch,' Wield called after him.

‘Scuse us, Sarge,' said a voice behind him.

He turned, then stepped aside to let Turk and his pair of close escorts pass.

His gaze and that of the cafe proprietor met. All he saw there was the same blank indifference with which the man dispensed his unspeakable coffee.

No harm done, Wield reassured himself as he watched the police car pull away. So now Turk knew that he was a cop. Presumably he already knew that Lee was a rent boy. God knows what he might speculate about their relationship, but so what? Anyway, he was going to have other more serious matters on his mind.

But still Wield felt uneasiness working like dyspepsia in his gut.

He stayed a little longer to make sure that everything was by the book then left. Part of his mind had never stopped working at the new info Lee had given him and now he gave it his full attention. There was something there that meant something to him. That stuff about crown and majesty…

Unlike most minds in search of something only dimly remembered, Wield's didn't work by turning to something completely different in the hope of stumbling across the desired item by chance, as it were. His relied more on the computer principle. You fed the information into a program, pressed search, and waited for results.

The answer came two minutes later as he sat with idling engine waiting for the traffic lights to change.

He was in the right-hand lane. As the lights showed red and amber, he accelerated left across the bows of a stately old Morris containing three old ladies in fur hats on their way to lunch with the bishop, who with a synchronicity worthy of the Beverley Sisters gave him the finger and screamed, 'Asshole!'

It was forty minutes later that Wield pulled into the police station car park.

Proximity to the seat of law being no guarantee of security, he squatted to wrap a length of chain around the rear wheel and pillion, and as he did so he noticed a big black Lexus in one of the public bays.

Its number plate read JUS 10. There was a man in the driver's seat talking into a phone, difficult to identify through the tinted glass. But as Wield snapped his lock shut, the man got out and headed into the building and there was no mistaking that Roman head, those sculpted locks. It was Marcus Belchamber.

Straightening up, Wield once again felt that acid uneasiness in his gut.

Belchamber had disappeared by the time he reached the front desk. Des Bowman, the duty sergeant, looked up and said, 'How do, Wieldy. What fettle?'

'Grand, Des. Weren't that Belchamber I saw just come in? What's he doing?'

'He's acting for Yasher Asif, you know him? Runs that caff called Turk's by the station. They brought him in for questioning about some illegals-smuggling racket.'

'Thanks, Des. Let me through, eh?'

The sergeant released the security lock and Wield went through the door and hurried up the stairs to CID. He glimpsed Pascoe through the open door of his office and went in.

The DCI was studying a letter whose handwriting Wield identified at a glance. Franny Roote's. Shit, he thought, is the silly sod still letting himself be distracted?

Before he could speak Pascoe looked up and said, 'Wieldy, what do you know about the Elsecar Hoard?'

It was like having his mind read.

'A lot more now than I did an hour ago,' said Wield. 'Why do you ask?'

'No reason… just an idea… oh shit, what am I tiptoeing around for? It's something Roote says in this letter.'

'Giving you tips now, is he? I thought it were all hidden confessions.'

'I think I may have got another of those too,' said Pascoe grimly. 'But that's between me and him. Anyway, he mentioned the Hoard apropos a conversation he had with what sounds very like a high-class fence. And I got to thinking. It's in Sheffield at the moment and it's coming here soon

The twenty-sixth, week tomorrow,' said Wield.

'You're well informed.'

'Some of us get places by honest police work that other idle sods reach by imaginative leaps,' said Wield. 'If you're talking about this job Mate Polchard's planning, that is.'

Now it was Pascoe's turn to feel mind-read.

'What else? Tell me about this honest police work. You interest me strangely.'

Quickly Wield filled him in on his conversation with Lubanski.

'It was this bit about the crown that got me thinking. That and wondering why the hell Belchamber should have got so personally involved in this job. Then I remembered seeing a poster at the Centre about the Hoard being on exhibition in January. And I recalled there was some article fulminating over the sale that Belchamber had written in the Gazette. Didn't read it myself, but Edwin gets hot and bothered about such things and he kept quoting bits at me over the dinner table till I told him that the moral indignation of a dipstick like the Belch weren't good for my digestion. Anyway, I went down to the reference library to look it up in the back numbers. Took a closer look at them posters too. They've got Belchamber giving a lecture on the Hoard on the exhibition opening day. Odd that.'

'Why? He's really involved. I saw him on the telly the other week. He might be a shitbag, but he knows his Medes from his Persians.'

'It's odd because of the way he's blown hot and cold. I'll show you what I mean. Yon lass of Bowler's was very helpful. Hadn't seen her-since that scare at New Year.'

'How'd she look?'

'Bit pale maybe, but full of the joys of spring otherwise.'

In fact, Rye had greeted him rather frostily till it was established that his motive in appearing there had nothing to do with her. Then she had thawed and to his enquiry after her health, she'd replied, 'Never better. Just some virus that's going around, but I'm over it now. How about you, Mr Wield?'

'I'm fine. At least nothing that a bit of spring sunshine won't cure. Roll on, eh?'

'Yes,' she said. 'I can't wait.' Which for some reason she seemed to think of as funny and her laughter was so infectious, he found himself joining in.

‘This article…' prompted Pascoe.

'Articles. There were two of them. It was Rye put me on to the other which appeared way back when Belch were on better terms with the Elsecars. I've got copies. This is the earlier one.'

He handed it over. Pascoe scanned it quickly then read it again at a more leisurely pace.

This described a visit Belchamber and other officers of the Mid-Yorkshire Archaeological Society had been permitted to make to view the Hoard. It was fulsome with expressions of gratitude to the Elsecars for their kind condescension in allowing the visit. The style when he described the content of the Hoard was scholarly and objective, but later it became personal and familiar as he started theorizing, or perhaps romancing was a better word, about the provenance of various items and the background of their owner and the circumstances of their loss.

Readers of some previous pieces of mine on Roman Yorkshire may recall that on one occasion I traced my own ancestry back, reasonably legitimately, to the fifteenth century and then, rather more fancifully, to Marcus Bellisarius, an official of the Provincial Governor's commissariat, briefly mentioned by Tacitus. Now when I was permitted to hold the serpent coronet (or Cartimandua 's Crown as the Victorians mistakenly dubbed it) I must confess to feeling a thrill at my contact with the smooth twists and folds of gold that seemed more than just the natural pleasure of an amateur of ancient history. The thought popped into my mind: suppose the collector of these wonderful things was in fact my putative ancestor Marcus Bellisarius?

Suppose the serpent coronet came to him as part of the dot of the Brigantian princess that he married (such alliances were not uncommon in the older Romano-British families), and suppose that, though the Hoard was lost beyond recall in flight from God knows what peril, he or his children survived and flourished and founded the family of which this undeserving scion, sixteen centuries later, was permitted to hold this symbol of that union?

Then someone took the coronet from me and I was back in the world of reality.

'Two snakes intertwined. Good symbol for the Belchamber family’ said Pascoe.

'You see how completely obsessed he seems to be with the Hoard and in particular the coronet?' said Wield. 'So it's no surprise to find him really pissed off when he hears it's going to America. Here's the second article, the one that got Edwin going.'

Pascoe scanned it quickly. In measured prose whose orotundity did not disguise real feeling, it expressed huge indignation that a weak and time-serving government should allow such treasures as these to leave the country. It concluded:

My professional work brings me in contact with all sorts and conditions of men who have committed all sorts and conditions of crime, but rarely have I confronted an action as criminal as this. As a lawyer I must take care how I describe the family who propose it and the politicians who permit it, but I will say that, though of course I subscribe to that basic tenet of our legal system that every accused is entitled to a defence, I think that I personally would draw the line at defending such as these.

That's really telling them’ said Pascoe. 'It certainly is. Which makes it odd that he's made it up with the Elsecars since then. Giving lectures and helping them arrange this tour’

'The aim of which is to help raise enough money to keep it here’ said Pascoe. 'Which is what he wants’

'Oh aye. That's what he wants right enough’ said Wield. 'But anyone who can add up knows there's not a cat in hell's chance of making enough from admission fees to get anywhere near the Yanks' price’

Pascoe hid a smile, recognizing that what he was now alleging everyone knew the sergeant had probably not even thought of until a couple of hours ago.

He said, 'So what you're saying is, the reason Belchamber threw his weight behind this tour is because he wants the Hoard out in the open where he can get his hands on it? That's a big leap, Wieldy. This is Belchamber we're talking about, the guy who doesn't fart without studying precedent’

'Guy gets an obsession, he'll do anything’ said Wield a little pointedly. 'And he's an arrogant bastard, that's clear. Put the feeling you get in both those pieces with his change of heart, then add what Lee overheard

'You could be right, Wieldy. If so… Look, has Lubanski told you everything, do you think? Or is he holding something back to get more Brownie points from you later?'

'I think he's told me everything’ said Wield, his worries reawoken by mention of Lee's name. 'You know that Belchamber's here?'

'Yeah. I met him outside, brought him in. We had a nice chat, but I don't think he's forgiven me for what I said to him after young Linford's committal. Seems he's representing some guy Uniformed just brought in on a smuggling illegals charge.'

'I know. Asif. He runs Turk's caff. I was there when they nicked him.'

'You mean, with Lubanski?'

'Yeah.'

Pascoe digested this, saw the worry in Wield's eyes, guessed its source.

'Ah. But this Asif doesn't know you're a cop, I presume?'

'Didn't till Hector opened that great gob of his. Yon bugger's not fit to be let out!'

It was rare that Wield expressed his opinion of a fellow policeman so forcibly.

'But is there anything to make you think Asif might know of the link between Lubanski and Belchamber? Not likely, is it?'

The phone rang. Pascoe ignored it. Sorting Wield was his priority at the moment.

Not that Wield looked ready to be sorted.

'You know as well as I do, Pete, that a lot of stuff we have to pay good money for can be common knowledge if you move in the right circles. Lee knew Turk was into smuggling illegals, for instance. No, he didn't give me a tip, it was just a joke he made that I took no notice of. He assumed everyone knew! Pete, just now you said you met Belchamber and escorted him in. But I saw him a few minutes ago in the car park…'

Pascoe picked up his phone and spoke briefly to the desk sergeant.

Putting the receiver down he said, 'Yes. They're waiting for some hotshot to arrive from Immigration. Belchamber had a couple of minutes alone with Asif then came out. Seems he'd left something in the car. Went out for it, came back. That's when you must have seen him.'

Wield digested this, didn't care for the flavour.

The bastard was on his car phone. Shit, I don't like this.'

Pascoe, concerned to see his usually phlegmatic friend so agitated, said, 'Come on, Wieldy. Don't make something out of nothing. What do -you think happened down there in the cells? Asif said to Belchamber, "Oh, by the way, putting aside my natural concern that I am in deep shit here banged up on suspicion of a serious offence which is why I called you, thought you might like to know I've seen that kid who sucks your dick cosying up to a cop in my caff a few times." Then the Belch takes off to his car and rings some hardmen he knows and says, "I'd like to fix up a hit on Lee Lubanski, action immediate." Is that what you're thinking, Wieldy?'

If he'd thought to mock the sergeant out of his concern, he'd miscalculated.

'You're a mind-reader, Pete,' said Wield savagely. Tell me why I'm wrong.'

'Because this is Mid-Yorkshire, not the Mid-west. Because a guy like Belchamber might not be too chary about the way he makes his money, but the civilized, respectable face he shows is more than just a face. He may do a lot of things, but I doubt he's capable of having another human being killed!'

'Pete, you're missing the point. Men who use boys the way Belchamber uses Lee don't think of them as human beings. They're toys. That's how he feels able to carry on talking about his business on the phone with Lee there. He's negligible. He has a function and outside that function he doesn't exist. And if it turns out he does, then all that that means is this particular toy is broken, so you throw it away and get a new one!'

Wield's voice had climbed close to shouting level by the time he finished and Pascoe was staring at him in alarm when Dalziel's voice boomed from the doorway.

'What's all this then? Lovers' tiff? Have some consideration, eh? There's folk trying to sleep in this building.'

Quickly Pascoe explained.

The Fat Man listened intently then said, 'So what are you hanging around here for, Wieldy? Go and find the lad. Offer him protection, and if he don't want protected, put him in protective custody and bring him in. Off you go, chop-chop.'

Wield didn't hesitate. It wasn't permission he needed, just affirmation that he wasn't letting his emotions run away with his reason.

Dalziel closed the door behind him and turned to Pascoe.

'I hope this lad's worth all the bother. Come up with owt interesting this morning, did he?' he asked.

Pascoe filled him in and showed him the two articles. The Fat Man read them with little sign of interest then said, 'So what garden path's this stuff leading us up then?'

Pascoe, knowing from experience that Dalziel's dumb-ox reaction was usually a provocation to precise exposition, marshalled his thoughts and said, 'We have two things. DI Rose's tip that something big is being planned which straddles South's patch and ours, and Lee Lubanski's report of stuff he's overheard while servicing Belchamber. Conversations involving possibly Mate Polchard and certainly Linford also point to something being planned which may well be the job in question. Puzzle: why is Belchamber involved at the criminal end instead of merely standing by in readiness in case he's needed at the legal end? Possible answer: because he himself initiated the job.'

'The job being heisting this Hoard thing 'cos, like a good little patriot, he wants to save it for England?' said Dalziel, sounding like the Pope being told God was a woman.

'I'd say from these articles that that was certainly his initial reaction. Something had to be done, anything was worth doing, to keep the Hoard in the country. But at some point, perhaps as he began to realize the appeal to the country for money and to the Elsecars for patriotic sacrifice was going to fail, he began to ask himself, does the country deserve to have the Hoard saved for it?'

'And his answer was…?'

'No, it doesn't because it doesn't value its heritage sufficiently. I, on the other hand, do. So why not save it for myself? But how to do it? And now his years of crawling in the mud with the pondlife come in useful. He needs experts, he knows where to find them, and he knows how the system works.'

'Which system's that?'

'The finance system,' said Pascoe impatiently. Sometimes the Fat Man took his dumb elenctic act too far. 'He needs the best. Also he wants to keep control. He's not offering a share of profits. This is not a profit-making job. So this means paying top dollar. I don't know what level of remuneration gets Polchard out of bed these days, but I expect it's a little over the National Minimum Wage. And, profits or not, Mate will be well aware of the notional value of the stuff he's being asked to heist.'

'So why not go for it himself?'

'Because he's a cash man. Because he knows how hard it would be to move stuff like this. And also because he knows that Belchamber's often been the only thing between him and a lot more years in the Syke.'

Gratitude, you mean?' said Dalziel sceptically.

‘No. Chess. Sacrifice everything except your queen.'

'So why bring in Linford? Belchamber must be pretty well heeled.'

'Certainly. But with most of it well tied up. Also, he doesn't want to draw attention to himself by the sudden realization of assets. So he turns to Linford, who is expert in the supply of large quantities of used banknotes.'

'He'll want payback with interest.'

'He'll get it from the profits.'

'Thought you said there weren't going to be any profits? Thought the idea was Belch would keep the Hoard in his cellar and go down there and have a wank from time to time.'

'No. If you read his articles, the first one, a large part of the Hoard consists of golden coin, hugely valuable but by its nature hardly unique. I don't think he'd have any problem moving most of this. Also I suspect that, in terms of personal ownership, what he really lusts after is the snake coronet. A lot of the other stuff he might be very willing to share with similar bent collectors for a price.'

'And you and Wieldy got all this from someone making some crack about the Belch wearing a crown?' said Dalziel sceptically.

'There's also the fact that the Hoard Exhibition is currently in Sheffield on DI Rose's patch and it's transferring up here to the Centre on January twenty-sixth.'

'It's still a hell of a leap’ said Dalziel. 'You got a better shell-hole in mind, why don't you just jump into it?' snapped Pascoe. The Fat Man grinned with satisfaction. 'Nay, lad, you believe in it enough to get stroppy, that's good enough for me.'

There was a tap at the door and Novello's head appeared.

'Ah. You're both here,' she said.

'Isn't that what I always say about Ivor, Pete? Smart as a whip,' said Dalziel.

'Sergeant Bowman downstairs has been trying to get hold of one of you. Some Immigration official's turned up,' said Novello.

'Oh aye. Tell 'em to sit him down and fetch him a cup of tea.' The Fat Man grinned. 'Better still, tell Bowman to get Hector to fetch him a cup of tea.'

'Yes, sir.'

Pascoe said, 'Shirley, I seem to recall you're an expert on saints.'

Novello remembered Sister Angela who wielded a ruler edge-on like a broadsword if you got a detail wrong.

'Know a bit, sir’ she said.

'Saint Apollonia. Any connection with teeth?'

'Yeah. She had all of hers knocked out or pulled out during her martyrdom. She's the one to pray to if you've got toothache.'

'Thanks, that's very helpful’

Novello left.

Dalziel said, 'That got owt to do with owt, or have you just lost a filling?'

'Just something I was curious about’

'Curious is right’ growled the Fat Man. 'I hope you're not on the turn, lad. One practising Catholic in the squad's quite enough’

'Hadn't you better go and see this Immigration chap? He's probably hopping round with a scalded crotch by now’

Dalziel boomed a laugh and said, 'We can live in hope. If plonkers like him showed a bit more common humanity then mebbe there'd be fewer poor bastards thinking the only way they can get into the country is curled up in a truck with a lot of frozen ham. Why are you walking funny? Hurt your ankle?'

'No, sir’ said Pascoe. 'Just trying to avoid stepping in this milk of human kindness someone's spilt all over the floor.'

'Ha bloody ha. That's the trouble with you poncy liberals. Think you've cornered the market in heart.'

‘Talking of which, sir, do you really think Wieldy's right to be concerned about Lubanski?'

'Shouldn't imagine so,' said Dalziel.

'Then why did you send him to look for the lad?'

' 'Cos if we're going to start taking this Hoard thing seriously, I wouldn't mind half an hour with the little scrote myself, see what he really knows. This seemed as good a way as any to get Wieldy to bring him in without coming over all maternal. Can't abide to see a grown man crying, that's always been my trouble. So stop worrying, he'll be back with his likely lad in half an hour and then I'll really give the young sod something to suck on!'

But for once Andy Dalziel was wrong.

More than an hour had passed before Wield returned, and he was alone.

'He wasn't at his address, I checked out I all the other likely spots and there was no sign. Someone thought they might have seen him getting into a car, but couldn't be sure.'

'There you are then,' said Pascoe reassuringly. 'Off with a punter.'

'It's the middle of the sodding day!'

'Come on, Wieldy! What's that got to do with anything? OK, maybe it was a mate who picked him up. Your witness said "getting into a car", not "being dragged" into it. So wherever he is, he's gone willingly and I don't doubt he'll be back in his own good time.'

Dalziel returned from dealing with the happily unscalded Immigration official.

'Not a bad fellow,' he opined. 'Mad eyes and shoulders on him like an ox. Don't know if that influenced Aiif, but he were real co-operative. Put his hand up like teacher's pet. Likely that call Belch made from his car were to whoever's behind Turk. Belch and him had had a word, Turk wanted to know what the deal was if he look the rap, Belch passes the word. Up goes Turk's kand and the buck stops there.'

Wield said, 'Let's hope you're right.' But he didn't sound very hopeful.

And when six o'clock arrived with still no sign of Lubanski, he reembraced his first theory with renewed passion.

'I think k's time we had a word with Belchamber’ he said forcefully.

'And what's he going to say? Yes, I fixed for Lee to be kidnapped? Get real, Wieldy.'

'Depends how you put the question’ said Wield grimly.

Pascoe and Dalziel exchanged glances.

The Fat Man said, 'I can see it's an attractive notion, Wieldy, taking Belch somewhere quiet and kicking his guts till he spills them. But you'd have to go all the way and kill him 'cos if there's one person a good cop doesn't want coming after him with a complaint, it's Marcus Belchamber.'

Pascoe, seeking a less basic appeal, said, 'More importantly, if you're wrong about this, and Belchamber's got no reason to think Lee has been grassing him up, you could be dropping Lee right in it, plus we'll have shown our hands in a big way.'.

Wield considered this then said, 'Let's say you're right. So why's Lee vanished?'

'Simple’ said Dalziel. 'You warned him that what he was doing could be dangerous, right? Told him to take care’

'Yes, but he wasn't taking a damn bit of notice’ said Wield.

'Might give that impression, kids like him live on bravado, eh? Show you're scared in the streets and you're knackered. But he trusts you, Wieldy, everything you've said about him shows that. So you say something, it'll have sunk in. Then what happens? He's sitting with you in Turk's and suddenly the place is full of cops. I know you explain it's nowt to do with you, but even if he believes you, it's a reminder. You may be a wise old father-figure, but you're a cop as well, and he's been cosying up to you in public, and God knows who's been watching. So maybe it's time he took a little holiday. Business has been good, he's got a bit in the bank. Wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't on his way to Marbella this very moment’

It was logical, it was persuasive. Pascoe could see Wield setting the Fat Man's hypothesis alongside everything he knew about Lubanski and getting a good match.

Also it gave him real hope and that's a bait it takes a Beckett to spit out.

'All right’ he said. 'You could be right. But if you're not.. ‘

He left his threat unspoken, or perhaps he simply hadn't yet worked out the details but knew it would be the terror of the earth.

'You really think he's on his way to Spain, sir?' said Pascoe after Wield had left.

'Fuck knows. But for the sake of argument, let's assume he's been kidnapped. Why? 'Cos someone got worried about what he's been telling Wieldy about Belch's plan. What has he been telling Wieldy about Belch's plan? Not a lot. Most of what we think we know about it is loaves and fishes, a big meal based on a few scraps. But if they tret him like yon Saint Aspidistra you were asking Ivor about and pulled his teeth out to find out what he'd said, all they'd hear about were the scraps. And, not knowing what active imaginations Wieldy and you have got, they likely think they're still in the clear’

'So if we are right and it's the Elsecar Hoard they're after, which is being transported here next Saturday, a week from tomorrow, that doesn't leave much time.'

'No it doesn't, but it's still not a lot to go on,' grumbled Dalziel. 'What we need is some silver-tongued bastard full of low cunning who can go down to Sheffield tomorrow morning and sell them this notion in such a way that, if it turns out a dud, it's all their fault, and if it turns out a winner, we get most of the credit.'

That would indeed take a huge length of silver tongue and a dizzy depth of cunning’ said Pascoe. 'Have you anyone in mind, sir?'

'Belt up and bugger off,' said Dalziel.