Death's Jest-Book

5

Dusk comes early even on the brightest December day and when the clouds sag low like dusty drapes over an abandoned bier, there's never much more light than you'll catch in the gloaming of a dead man's eyes.

So though it was not yet four o'clock, the streetlamps of Peg Lane were already kindling as Rye Pomona slipped out of Church View.

Under her arm she carried a Hoover bag.

At first she had tried with brush and pan to retrieve the fine ash which, if the undertaker were to be believed, comprised the selfsame molecules that had once danced around each other to form the limbs and organs of her beloved twin, Sergius.

But, do what she might, shards of china, household dust, carpet fluff, and all the cosmetic debris of her bedroom had been inseparably commingled in the pan while traces of ash remained beyond the reach of bristle in cracks and crannies from which it could only be summoned by Gabriel's trumpet on Judgment Day.

Or a Hoover if you couldn't wait that long.

This was the gallows humour with which she diverted herself as she went about the task of vacuuming her room. What else could she do? Sing a hymn? Speak a prayer? No, Serge would have found the absurdity of the situation hilarious and she would not let him down by relapsing into maudlin solemnity.

In fact, come to think of it, Serge would have found the whole business of keeping his ashes in a jar on her bedroom shelf ridiculous. 'Abso-fucking-lutely typical!' she could hear him cry. 'I always said you were made for the stage. You're a true-born drama queen!' Well, the accident had ended her career plans. Not much future even in this age of teleprompts for an actress whose mind went blank not just of her lines but of language itself whenever she walked onstage. But, oh! how small a price this seemed to be to pay for causing the death of her closest kin, her dearest friend, the better half of herself. And the Furies had thought so too, pursuing her to the frontiers of madness – no, beyond – in their quest for retribution. She should have been warned. The records of history and of literature are unanimous. Only the detail varies of the horrors that invariably attend all man's attempts to raise the dead. That period of her life seemed to her now like a journey through a Gothic landscape by night whose veil of dark was torn aside from time to time by brief jags of lightning to show sights that made the returning blackness welcome. That journey was over, thank God, but the past was not another country which you could simply leave behind. Travel as far and as fast as you could, there were parts of it you dragged with you. Only Hat offered her any hope of freedom. With him she found complete if temporary oblivion. In him she regained all she had lost and more. The half of herself that died with Sergius had been the irreplaceable closeness of kin, but in Hat's embrace she found a new completeness of kith which promised to make her whole again.

But the Kindly Ones know their stuff. Guilt, horror, self-loathing, these are coals of the selfsame fire. Heap them high and they can get no hotter. There is a deep which has no lower; a worst where pangs wring no wilder. So what's a frustrated Fury to do?

Aeons past they had learned their answer.

You don't pour water on a drowning man, you show him dry land.

Waking in Hat's arms, for a moment she could look ahead to a green and pleasant landscape whose rolling hills were bathed in golden sunshine. And then a band of white-hot metal snapped around her skull and her head was twisted round till she saw once more what it was she trailed behind her.

She was a murderer; worse, a serial killer, one of those monsters they paraded before you on tele-documentaries, inviting you to marvel how ordinary they seemed, to speculate what warped gene, what ruined childhood had brought them to this monstrosity.

She had killed nine people – no, not that many – the first two, the AA man and the boy with the bazouki, she had only assisted at their deaths, which she had taken as signs that she was on the right track – a track which had led her beyond all mathematical equivocation to seven indisputable murders, by knife, by poison, by gunshot, by electrocution…

Deluded (it was a delusion. Wasn't it? She knew that now. Didn't she?) into believing that through an alphabetically signposted trail of blood she could come once more to her dead brother, and talk with him, and give him back something of that lost life her wilful selfish stupidity had stolen from him, she had done these dreadful things. And not unwillingly, not under constraint, but eventually with eagerness, with glee even, revelling in her sense of power, of invulnerability, until the trail led her to her last victim, her boss at the library, Dick Dee, a man she liked and admired.

That was torment enough to give her pause. And when she saw the imagined signs pointing clearly towards the man she was coming to love, to Hat Bowler, she began to wake as it were from a dream, only to find herself pinned by black memory in a nightmare.

Was atonement possible? Or – God forbid – relapse?

She did-not know. Nothing, she knew nothing… sometimes even the horrors seemed so far beyond her comprehension that she almost believed they had indeed been a dream… she needed help, she knew that… but who was there to talk to? Only Hat, and that was unthinkable.

So forget the future, she had no future, she had exchanged it for the past. Hardly a fair swap, screamed the Furies. We want change! But it would have to do. We creep under what comfort we can find in a whirlwind.

Getting rid of Sergius's ashes wasn't a step forward, but it was a step in that marking of time which kept her in the present.

Ashes to ashes… dust to the dustbin. That was the obvious way to dispose of them. But she found herself unable to do it.

Instead, holding the bag tight against her breast, she crossed the narrow road and pushed open the squeaky gate into the churchyard. Ahead loomed the tower, black on dark grey against the wintry sky. This was an old burial place. Here a marbled angel folded her grieving wings, there a granite obelisk pointed an accusing finger at the sky, but for the most part the memorials were modest headstones, many so flaky and lichened their messages to the living were almost impossible to trace with finger or with eye. Few were of such recent vintage that family members still kept them tidy or laid anniversary flowers. A cold wind whispered through the long grass and a hunting cat miaowed an almost silent protest at her for interrupting his patient vigil, then sinewed away.

Distantly she could perceive the glow of the populous city and hear the chitter of its traffic, but these lights and sounds had nothing to do with her. She stood like a ghost in a ghostly world whose insubstantiality was her proper medium now. Some memory might remain in this other place of that other place, but the laws of physics by which mortals walk and drive and fly over the earth and by which the earth itself and all the planets and all the stars swing round each other in their crazy reel, were the dreams of an amoeba. She felt as if she could float up through the looming tower and with one small step be on the invisible moon.

You stupid bitch! she said to herself in an attempt at a rescuing anger. Getting rid of Serge's ashes is meant to be a move away from all this crazy crap!

And with a series of movements like an orgasmic spasm, she shook the dust out of the Hoover bag.

The wind caught it and for a moment she could see the fine powder twisting and coiling in the air as if trying to hold together and reconstitute itself in some living form.

Then it was gone.

She turned away, eager to be out of this place.

And shrieked as she saw a figure standing beside an ancient headstone which leaned to one side as if something had just pushed it over to open a passage from the grave.

‘I’m sorry,' said a voice. 'I didn't mean to startle you, but I was worried… are you all right?'

Not Serge! A woman. She was relieved. And disappointed? God, would it never stop?

'Yes, I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be? And who the hell ire you?'

Speaking abruptly was the easiest way to control her voice.

'Mrs Rogers… I think we're neighbours… it is Ms Pomona, isn't it?'

'Yes. My neighbour, you say?'

Her eyes, accustomed now to the dark, could make out the woman's features. Mid to late thirties perhaps, a round face, not unattractive without being remarkable, her expression a mixture of embarrassment and concern.

'Yes. Just since last week though. We haven't met but I saw you going into your flat a couple of times. I was just walking down the lane now and I saw you… I'm sorry… none of my business… sorry if I startled you.'

She gave a nervous smile and began to turn away. Not once had her gaze gone to the Hoover bag – which must have been quite an effort, thought Rye. You spot someone emptying their vacuum cleaner in a churchyard, you're entitled to wonder if there's anything wrong!

'No, hold on,' she said. 'You're going back to Church View? I'll walk with you.'

She fell into step beside Mrs Rogers and said, 'My name's Rye. Like the whisky. Sorry I was so brusque, but you gave me a shock.'

'I'm Myra. I'm sorry but I thought that anything in a place like this… even a polite cough's going to sound a bit creepy!'

'Especially a polite cough,' said Rye, laughing. 'Which flat are you then?'

'The other side of you from Mrs Gilpin.'

'Ah, you've met Mrs Gilpin. No surprise there. Not meeting Mrs Gilpin is the hard thing.'

'Yes,' smiled the other woman. 'She did seem quite… interested.'

'Oh, she's certainly that.'

They had reached the gate. Across the road they saw a figure standing at the front door of Church View. It was Hat.

Rye came to a halt. She wanted to see him but she didn't want him to see her, not coming from the churchyard with a Hoover bag in her hand.

Mrs Rogers said, 'Isn't that the detective?'

'Detective?'

'Yes, the one who was round earlier asking if we'd seen anyone suspicious hanging around the building over the weekend’

'Ah. That detective,' said Rye coldly.

She watched Hat out of sight along the street, then opened the gate.

'And did you see anyone?' she asked.

'Well, there was a man last Saturday morning. I hardly noticed him, but Mrs Gilpin seems to have got a closer look.'

‘I'm amazed. Look, do you fancy coming in for a coffee? Unless your husband's expecting you’

'Not any more,' said Myra Rogers. 'That's why I needed to find a new flat. Yes, a coffee would be lovely. Are you planning to use that bag again?'

They were at the front door and Mrs Rogers looked significantly down the basement steps to where the building's rubbish bins stood.

'My domestic economy hasn't sunk that low,' said Rye, smiling.

She went down the steps, took the lid off a bin and dumped the empty bag inside.

'Now let's get that coffee,' she said.

Letter 4. Received Dec 18 ^ th. P. P

Sunday Dec 16th

Night, somewhere in England, heading north

Dear Mr Pascoe,

It was only a few hours since I posted my last letter to you, and yet it seems light years away! Train travel does that to you, doesn't it? Stop time, I mean.

You will recall I was on the point of leaving Cambridge in the company of Professor Dwight Duerden of Santa Apollonia University, CA. During the drive to London we talked naturally enough about the recent unhappy events at God's, and Dwight returned once more to his theme of good from evil, urging me to at least explore the possibility of completing Sam's book myself and finding a new publisher. He would be returning to St Poll for the holidays, and he promised me again that he would make enquiry of his university press. When we arrived at the Ritz we exchanged addresses and farewells and he instructed his driver to take me anywhere I wanted.

I had travelled to Cambridge via London, spending the night at Linda's flat in Westminster, and, rather than risk the purgatory of a Sunday train journey, I decided to take advantage of her kindness again, so that's where I told the driver to go. The flat is a hangover from the days when Linda was an MP before she spread her wings and flew to Europe. It's quite small – a tiny bedroom and a tinier sitting room plus a shower – but comfortable enough and conveniently placed. So, having a longish lease, she decided to keep it on as a pied-a-terre. A crone who lives a troglodyte existence in the basement has charge of the spare key and, if you're on the list of favoured friends, it provides a nice central location to lay your head on a visit to town.

On my first visit, the scowling crone had required three proofs of identity before she would hand over the key. This time I got a friendlier welcome, but I soon realized this was down to the pleasure of telling me I was too late, the flat was already occupied.

That's the trouble with generous people, they can be so indiscriminate.

I was turning away when she tried to rub salt in my wounds by making it clear it was no use me dossing down on a park bench and coming back in the morning.

'It's Miss Lupin's foreign clerical friend,' she said. 'He'll be staying several days.'

'Not Frere Jacques?' I said. 'Is he in? I must say hello.'

And I ran up the stairs before she could reply.

I had to knock twice before Jacques opened the door. He was clad in slacks and a string vest and looked a bit ruffled. But he smiled broadly to see me and I stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. And stopped dead when I saw he wasn't alone.

There was a young woman sitting on the solitary armchair.

Now Jacques is a man of indisputable holiness but also a man, if I am any judge, in whom the testosterone runs free, and it wouldn't have surprised me to find that his love of things English included our gorgeous girls.

But the easy way he introduced me was so guilt-free that I reproved myself for my suspicions, and even more so when I realized what he was saying.

This lovely young woman regarding me with an indifference worse than hostility was Emerald Lupin, Linda's daughter. Even if innate holiness and religious vows weren't enough to keep the old Adam at bay, surely, being a man of considerable good sense, Jacques wasn't going to take the slightest risk of getting up the nose of one of his movement's most influential patrons!

It occurs to me that I am assuming in you an at least passing familiarity with the Third Thought Movement, but in case I'm wrong, let me give you the briefest of outlines.

To begin at the beginning, which in this case is the movement's founder, Frere Jacques. He is a brother of the Cornelians, an Order little known outside the region of Belgium which contains its sole monastery, L'Abbaye du Saint Graal. From various sources I gather that Jacques led an active life as a soldier till he was invalided out of the army seriously wounded during service in a UN peace-keeping unit. Happily for him, and for all of us, his birthplace was close by the Cornelian Abbaye and a relapse necessitated a move to their Infirmary, followed by a long convalescence in their Stranger House. During this time he experienced that sense of peace and acceptance of whatever must come which later he was to formulate into the Third Thought philosophy, and eventually he presented himself to the monks as a candidate for admission to their order.

Their vote was unanimous. I say vote because the Cornelians are peculiar in that all major decisions are taken by the full brotherhood, one monk, one vote. Indeed they are a very liberal and democratic Order, which perhaps explains why Rome not too secretly hopes they will wither on the vine. Their founder, Pope Cornelius, you will recall, was banished and beheaded after a bitter doctrinal dispute in which he argued the Church's capacity to forgive apostates and other mortal sinners. Not much sign that he'd win the argument today, is there?

Jacques, not unnaturally, had found himself much preoccupied by death, particularly death unexpected, which it is, he assures me, even in battle. You always think it will be the next guy! He himself had grown up in the heart of the great Flanders killing grounds where it's still not possible to spend an hour digging in your garden without turning up a button or a bullet or a piece of bone, and none of this had put him off joining the army.

But his own close encounter had been something of an epiphany, and as he worked in the hospice section of the abbey infirmary, it occurred to him that while the patients there all knew that the end was in sight and were preconditioned to try and come to terms with it, for the vast majority of people, it was a bolt from the blue.

Something happens, we turn out to be the next guy, and which of us is ready?

What was needed, he decided, was a kind of hospice of the mind, a state of life like his own during his stay in the Infirmary and Stranger House, which admitted rather than ignored death, a condition of mind like Prospero's when he returned to Milan where, he says, every third thought shall be my grave.

Thus was born Third Thought Therapy, whose aim, simply stated, is to give Death his proper standing in our lives, even when youth, health, happiness and prosperity seem to make him an irrelevance. Then whenever he comes, he will not find us unprepared.

But even Jacques would find it hard to spare a thought for death in the presence of Emerald Lupin!

I knew Linda had a couple of daughters, but I suppose I'd pictured them as young clones of Linda herself. Don't misunderstand me. Though far from conventionally beautiful, Linda is not unattractive in a formidable way, like one of those pele towers in the Border country which age and weathering have given a Romantic cast. In her youth, however, I would guess that Linda, like a tower newly built, was just plain daunting!

But Emerald… How shall I convey her to you? Think summer, think sunshine, think golden roses filling the bowers with rich perfume, think soft white doves tumbling through clear blue air – oh, think whatever you judge loveliest and liveliest and most desirable in the worlds of flesh and spirit, and you may get a glimpse of this fair jewel.

Do I sound as if I'm in love? Perhaps I am. There's a first for everything!

It was explained to me (in too much detail?) that Emerald too had turned up unexpectedly and found Jacques in occupation. Being family she did not require the intermediacy of the crone but had her own key. She had burst in upon him in mid-toilette, but her natural spontaneity and his Continental sang-froid had lifted them high above embarrassment and they'd settled to a debate as to who should vacate the field.

I doubt if Emerald would have had any qualms about dispossessing me if I'd got there first. But she was bent on assuring Jacques that London was full of friends gagging to offer her hospitality. I believed it. Who in their right mind would turn her away?

Another factor in giving Jacques possession now appeared in the form of his personal ghost, Frere Dierick, who was going to bed down in the sitting-room chair. He'd been out viewing the sights and seemed as unimpressed by them as he clearly was by sight of me. But the notebook came out of his robe straightaway to record even the most monosyllabic utterance of his great guru.

Jacques had come to London to help promote the English version of his new book propounding the Third Thought philosophy. He presented me with a copy complete with a nattering inscription, which I let Emerald see in the hope that she'd dilute her bad opinion, but she didn't seem impressed. Can't say I blame her. Authors give away their books like drug barons give free snorts, hoping to start an expensive addiction.

So it was settled. Jacques would remain in situ while Emerald went off to a friend's.

'But what about you, Franny?' said Jacques. 'Perhaps we can squeeze you in here?'

The thought of a night spent in close proximity to Dierick didn't appeal, so I said that if I hurried I could execute Plan B, which was catching the last train back to Mid-Yorkshire from King's Cross.

'I'm heading up to Islington,' said Emerald. 'I can give you a lift.'

She's warming to me! I thought. Or she just wants to make sure I catch my train!

I accepted, Jacques said he'd come along for the ride, Dierick was told firmly by Emerald there wouldn't be room for him in her small car, and the three of us set off. On the stairs, I excused myself, saying I'd meant to use the loo and now it was urgent.

The tiny loo was off the bedroom. I really did want to use it, believe me, but I couldn't help noticing as I passed the bed that the coverlet was pretty crumpled. OK, so Jacques had had a lie-down. I did what I had to do and came out. Perhaps there is a bit of the detective in me too, Mr Pascoe, which is why I feel such an affinity with you, but I found myself crouching to look under the bed. And there I found – I know this sounds squalid – a used condom! I felt no shock or surprise, only a little envy.

'What are you doing?' asked a cold voice. I looked up to see Frere Dierick standing over me.

I have no excuse for what I did then. I should have told a lie about dropping some money or something. Instead I stood up with the condom between finger and thumb, pulled open the pocket in his robe where he kept his notebook, and dropped it in, saying, 'There you go, Dierick. Make sure you put that in your notes.'

Then I trotted off to join the others.

At King's Cross, Jacques said he would see me on to my train. Emerald, illegally parked, had to stay with the car. Not that she'd have wanted to come anyway, I thought disconsolately. But to my surprise, as I stooped to say my thanks, she gave me a peck on the cheek and wished me safe journey.

And as we walked to my platform, Jacques took the chance to fill me in on Emerald.

I knew no more of Linda's family background than that she'd once been married to Harry Lupin, the cut-price airline entrepreneur. After the divorce, Linda got custody of the two children, Emerald, then aged eight, and her sister Musetta, seven. (The latter, it seems, takes after her mother. All the gorgeous genes in the family came Emerald's way.)

Emerald after a couple of years got fed up of coming second to politics and decided she wanted to live with Daddy. Six months later, realizing she was now coming third to business and bimbos, she returned to her mother, and thereafter shuttled between both parents and the country's top boarding schools, each of which in turn declared her uncontrollable and ineducable. Now at twenty she is in her final year at Oxford.

Meanwhile Musetta, known to her intimates as Mouse, lived down to her sobriquet by keeping very quiet and only emerging from her nest for food. She's some kind of teacher in Strasbourg, and, as Jacques put it, working on the principle that we love most the apple that falls closest to the tree, she is the pippin of her mother's eye.

Emerald on the other hand seems to have bounced and rolled a long long way.

Without saying anything which would have stood up in a court of law, Jacques conveyed a strong warning that if I wanted to maintain my good relationship with Linda, I should adopt a rigorous hands-off approach to either or both of her daughters.

You old hypocrite! I thought, recalling the condom.

But then I looked into those bright blue eyes in that most open and attractive of faces, and I felt ashamed. How could I condemn him for doing what I longed to do?

We embraced with real feeling. It's been a long time since someone hugged me in that affectionate familial way. I don't recall my father, and my mother was never a hugger. But my thoughts as I sat on the train were all of Emerald. I clung desperately to that final peck on the cheek she'd given me. Wasn't there something of affection in that too? Perhaps she's screwing Jacques merely as an act of defiance against her mother?

I needed help, I needed reassurance. For want of anything else, I dug Jacques' book out of my bag to see if his words could bring me any peace of mind and body.

I let fate open the pages, and lo! the first paragraph my gaze fell upon was this.

To say that man must die alone is a trite and fallacious cynicism. Find if you can a man or woman -friend, guru, mentor, father-figure, mother-figure, use what term you will – but someone you can view as the still centre of all your turbulent thoughts -someone before whom you can pour out unstintingly and without reserve all your hopes and fears and passions and desires – and you will have taken a large step towards that peace of mind which is the end of all our endeavours.

And it hit me, this is what I have found in you, dear Mr Pascoe! This is what I am doing now, writing another letter to you on this oh so slow train journey north. Out there night presses on the grimy window. Lights move by – traffic, street lamps, urban houses, isolated cottages – all indicative of human presence, I know, but not of human community; no, they might as well be will-o'-the-wisps flitting across some dreary bog for all the comfort they bring. And my fellow passengers, each cocooned in that private time capsule we enter on a long train journey, might as well be alien beings from a distant galaxy.

But I have you, and it hardly matters if I think of you as guru or friend or even, despite your youth, the father-figure I never knew. What does matter is my awareness now that whatever my initial motivation in writing, I am using you as a Third Thought Therapy! I hope you don't mind. Perhaps you might find it in you to reply to me, or even (dare I ask it), call round to see me now I'm back in Mid-Yorkshire? Which is where, incredibly, the Dalek in control of the train intercom system has just announced that shortly we will be arriving.

Oh dream of joy! is this indeed The light-house top I see? Is this the hill? Is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree?

I do believe it is. I'll finish this tomorrow.

Hello again! How quickly things change. Just in case you did think of dropping in on me over the next few days, don't bother, I'm not here. Or rather, not there!

Here's what happened. I awoke this morning quite early – Syke conditioning! I'm not due back at work till tomorrow and my renewed hopes that I might once more be able to find a publisher for Sam's Beddoes biography made me keen to get back to work on it. I headed straight out to the university library, planning to spend the day there, probably without a break, which is the way I like to work once I've got my teeth into something.

But I'd hardly started work before I was interrupted by the arrival of Charley Penn.

Charley has many excellent qualities and he has been most helpful in encouraging my literary ambitions, giving me many tips both creative and practical. In all of us there is both light and shade; in some one predominates, in others, the other. But in Charley there is a darkness which sometimes blots out the brightness altogether. Where does it spring from? Perhaps it's part of the German psyche. Though he has taken on much colouring from his Yorkshire upbringing, he is in many ways a true scion of his Teutonic ancestry.

It was Charley who drew my attention to a poem of Arnold's called 'Heine's Grave'. Fine poem, a moving tribute to the dead poet and a sharp assessment of what made him tick. In it Arnold speculates that it was Heine that Goethe had in mind when he wrote that some unnamed bard had 'every other gift but wanted love'.

So it seems to me with Charley. The one person who drew love out of him and returned it to him was Dick Dee. Dee's death and the revelation that he was probably the killer of so many people, including, God damn his soul, my beloved Sam, has quite overthrown Charley. Oh, for much of the time he seems the same, saturnine, savagely humorous, unblinkingly perceptive, but that darkness which always exists in the depths of a pine forest has in his case now spread out to envelope even the crowns of the trees.

Evidence of this came when I asked him what brought him here away from his usual perch in the town reference library.

'She's away on holiday, so I thought I'd take a break too,' he said laconically.

I didn't need an explanation. She is Ms Pomona who came so close to being the Wordman's final victim. Charley is so convinced of his friend Dee's innocence that he has persuaded himself there must have been a conspiracy to conceal the truth. But I'm sure that you know all about this already, Mr Pascoe, as you and Rumbleguts, who were first on the scene after Dee's death, are marked down as the head conspirators! Charley, I think, has the Gothic fancy that his accusing presence in the Reference when Ms Pomona is on duty will eventually wear her down and bring a confession.

I can't say that I was too pleased to see him as my head was full of ideas, but I owe him a lot for recent kindnesses and could not decently refuse his invitation to pop out for a coffee and a chat.

As we drank our coffee, I told him about my excitements in Cambridge, which he found mildly entertaining, but I could tell his mind was elsewhere.

Finally I said, 'Charley, you seem a bit down. Book going badly?'

'No, that's going fine, except I sometimes wonder, what's the point? Heine, Beddoes, we work our knackers off to produce "the definitive work", except of course it never is. At best it replaces the last definitive work and with a bit of luck we may pop our clogs before it gets replaced by the next one. Why do we do it, Fran?'

'You know why,' I said rather pompously. 'We pursue the Holy Grail of Truth.'

'Oh yeah? Well there's only one truth I want to pursue and I've been getting nowhere.'

Oh God, I thought. Here we go. Dick Dee is innocent, OK!

I said, 'Charley, if you're getting nowhere, maybe it's 'cos there's nowhere to get.'

He shook his head and said, 'Not true. But they're clever, I'll give 'em that. This is a fucking X-file. The truth is out there, under Andy Dalziel's fat buttocks or up yon Pascoe's tight arse. I wanted to do this by myself, but I'm not too proud to admit I need help. If the authorities won't listen to me, I've got friends that will!'

I wasn't sure what this meant. I don't think he's wrong about needing help, but I suspect that's not the kind of help he's got in mind. I could speculate, but I'm not going to. Frankly, if Charley's obsession leads him into illegalities, I don't want to know. A man in my situation needs to keep his relationship with the Law plain and unambiguous.

Which is why I feel I need to pass on my fears that Charley is so obsessed with proving his friend's innocence that he's capable of almost anything.

I do this not in any spirit of delation – my time at the Syke has conditioned me irredeemably to regard a grass as the lowest form of life – but in the sincere hope that by alerting you to Charley's state of mind, you might be able to head him off from any indiscretion or, worse, illegality of behaviour.

Enough of that. On my return to the library, I found I was uncomfortably aware of Charley's presence at the next table. It was like having Poe's raven or Beddoes' old crow of Cairo (which Sam amusingly points out is homophonous with the Christian monogram chi-rho, a pretty fancy which he plays with entertainingly for a page and a half before discarding it) brooding at my shoulder. So, though as I said before, I normally hate to be interrupted at my work, it was quite a relief when my mobile began to vibrate.

To my surprise it was Linda ringing from Strasbourg. Instantly I started to fantasize that Emerald had been on the phone to her, telling her she'd met me and later realized that I was the only man on earth for her! What idiots sex makes of us, eh?

Naturally it was nothing like this, though she knew of my meeting with Emerald as she'd been talking to Jacques on the phone. What concerned her more was the account she'd read in her paper of the events at God's.

She questioned me closely, asked if I was all right, then with that savage ability to cut to the chase which is her political hallmark went on to say, 'At least this means that you have a clear field for Sam's book. You'll want to get down to some serious work. When we met in Belgium, you mentioned that there were still a few things Sam had been working on about Beddoes' time in Basel and Zurich. Worth following up, you reckon?'

'Well, yes, I suppose so,' I said. 'I mean, even if they turn out dead ends, the only way to be sure is to follow them as far as possible…'

'Quite right. Like in politics, always cover your back so that you don't find some pushy little squirt second-guessing you. Right, here's what we do. Some chums have got a place in Switzerland. They're heading for warmer climes for a month or two so they've given me use of their bunkhouse while they're away and I'll be spending Christmas there with a few people. It's called Fichtenburg-am-Blutensee in Canton Aargau. The chalet there's the perfect place for you to work, lovely and quiet – my party won't be turning up till the twenty-fourth – and there's easy access to both Zurich and Basel. How's that sound?'.

'It sounds very nice,' I said. 'But maybe…'

'Good,' she said. 'You'll join us for the festivities, but otherwise you'll be your own master. I've spoken to the housekeeper, Frau Buff, and she'll expect you this evening…'

This evening!' I exclaimed. It dawned on me that Linda wasn't discussing possibilities but dictating arrangements! It had been the same when she'd contacted me last month to say that she was in Brussels for a meeting and had decided to spend the weekend in the Stranger House at Frere Jacques' monastery and wouldn't it be a good idea for me to actually meet the founder of Third Thought face to face? While I was still wondering how to refuse politely, she was telling me about my travel arrangements!

The same thing was happening now. I was booked on a tea-time flight from Manchester and my ticket would be waiting for me at the airport. A taxi driver would meet me at the arrivals gate at Zurich.

She rattled on in that peremptory manner of hers for a little while, but after the initial shock, I found that all I could think of was, will Emerald be there at Christmas?

I said, 'That sounds marvellous, Linda. Both for the work, and for Christmas. It was beginning to look like being a bit lonely. But I don't want to intrude on your family…'

'You won't,' she said brusquely. 'It will be a couple of political chums. And Frere Jacques will be with us, God willing. So, all fixed, right?'

Reginald Hill

D amp;P20 – Death's Jest-Book

And now disappointment made me dig my heels in a bit.

'Getting to Manchester might be a problem.

‘My car's knackered… and there's my work…'

'Take a cab, bill it to me. As for work, that's why you're going’ she snapped.

'I meant, my job in the university gardens

I heard that snort of disbelief so familiar to millions of British viewers and listeners from her appearance on various chat shows. It had also been a distinctive punctuation of Labour speeches in parliamentary broadcasts before she fell out with her own leadership and flounced off to give the Europeans the benefit of her incredulity.

'You're a full-time scholar now, Fran, so it's no longer necessary to cultivate your garden. The book's the thing.'

Strange, I thought, that after so, many years of estrangement from her stepbrother while he was alive she should be such an enthusiast of his work now that he was dead.

In the end, I did what most people do when Linda comes at them with their lives mapped out. I gave in.

And indeed the more I thought about her plan, the more attractive it seemed.

I really did want to do some serious work and what better place to do it in than a luxurious house (the wooden shack image of chalet I'd immediately discounted as the kind of pseudo-modest understatement by which the rich emphasize their wealth) in beautiful countryside with a nice motherly housekeeper to take care of my comfort?

I didn't really need the uni library for anything other than a chair, as Linda had told me to extract from Sam's personal library all those books I felt relevant to his researches. And I would be completely free from the oppressive presence of poor old Charley.

I went back in to collect my things and tell him of my change of plan.

He said indifferently, 'Switzerland? Don't stand in front of any cuckoo clocks.'

Finally I scribbled a note to Jack Dunstan, the Head Gardener, offering him my thanks and my notice.

So where am I now? On another train, that's where! This time heading for Manchester. Some innate parsimony made me unable to take up Linda's kind suggestion of travelling there by taxi. It would cost a fortune, and this train gets me there with plenty of time to spare.

So there we are. I hope you and dear Mrs Pascoe and your lovely little girl have a merry Christmas, and now that I know why I'm writing to you, I hope you won't think it an imposition if I drop you another line in what looks like it might be a very Happy New Year indeed!

Fondly yours,

Franny

‘I don't believe it!' said Pascoe. 'Here's another one.'

'Another what?'

'Letter from Roote.'

'Oh good. Anything's better than these round robins so many people send with their cards. It's the modern disease. The media's full of it. The obsession with trivia.'

'So how come you find Roote's trivia so interesting?'

'How come you find it so significant? Come on, let's have a look.'

'Hang on. There's reams of it again.'

As he read, Ellie picked up the discarded pages and read in tandem.

Finishing just behind him she regarded his long pensive face across the breakfast table and said, 'Well, friend, guru, father-figure, what's bugging you this time?'

'I feel… stalked.'

'Stalked? That's a bit strong, isn't it? A couple of letters

‘Four. I think four letters constitutes a nuisance if not a stalking, especially when each of them separately is long enough to make several normal letters!'

'In this e-mad age, perhaps. But there's something rather touching about someone taking the time to write a good old-fashioned long narrative letter. And I don't see how your detective neuroses can find anything even vaguely threatening in this one. In fact he goes out of his way to warn you to watch out for Charley Penn who, I must admit, has been rather odd since Dee's death. Not that he ever says anything to me about it, being as I'm compromised by shagging one of the chief conspirators, but I can tell there's something simmering down there somewhere.'

Ellie knew Penn much better than Pascoe. She'd been a member of a literary group he ran, and with the publication of her first novel scheduled for the spring, he had admitted her to the adytum of real writerhood and their acquaintance had taken a step towards friendship till Dee's death had brought the barriers down.

'You don't think Charley's going to come after me with a poisoned ballpoint, do you?' said Pascoe.

'There you go, paranoid every time. If he does have a go, he's more likely to start sniping at you in print. That would be his way of attack. He's a word man, after all.'

She realized what she'd said even as she said it. The last Wordman who'd touched their lives had used more than words to dispose of his many victims.

'Well, there's a comfort,' said Pascoe. 'So you think I should write to Roote and thank him fulsomely for his kind concern? Maybe invite him over for supper so that we can have a heart to heart about his love life?'

'Could be interesting,' said Ellie as if she took him seriously. 'I think I could help him. There was a piece in one of the supplements not so long back about famous mothers and disaffected daughters, you know, the kind of thing hacks dredge up when they don't have an original idea in their heads, which is ninety per cent of the time.'

'And you treated it with the contempt it deserved, of course.'

'No, I devoured every word avidly on the grounds that a few years hence, when I'm a rich and famous author, it could be my revolting child they're writing about. Loopy Linda and her Emerald got a couple of paras. That girl sounds like she's made it her life's mission to disoblige her parents. So it could be Fran's right and she's just using the fornicating frere for her own ends.'

He said, 'She'd better watch out if she tries that on Roote. She'll need to get up very early in the morning to use that clever sod.'

'From what he says, all she'll need to do is go to bed very early in the evening,' said Ellie. 'But no need for you to lose any sleep, love. Even if he is planning to destroy you, Franny Roote is safely stowed in faraway Switzerland for the rest of the month, so we can concentrate all our attention on trying to survive the more conventional perils of Christmas, to wit, bankruptcy, mental breakdown and chronic dyspepsia.'

'To wit?' said Pascoe. 'I hope getting published isn't going to turn you precious.'

'Piss off, noddy,' said Ellie, grinning. That basic enough for you?'

'I hear and obey,' said Pascoe, finishing his coffee. He rose, stooped over Ellie to give her a lingering kiss which she much appreciated. But her appreciation didn't prevent her from noticing that during its execution, he slipped Franny Roote's letter into his pocket.

In his office he read it again. Was he over-reacting? There was nothing in this letter which a just and rational man could interpret as a threat. And he could see how his attempt to turn the account of the fire at St Godric's into a mockingly oblique confession of arson might appear to have more to do with neurotic prejudice than rational thought. He hadn't got anything from the Cambridge Fire Department to back up his suspicions of criminality. The call he'd made to the Cambridge police had been more diplomatic than detective, just to put it on record that he'd been talking to the fire people. He'd spoken briefly to what sounded like an overworked sergeant, referred vaguely to a couple of cases of suspected arson in Mid-Yorkshire educational establishments and the usefulness of correlating statistics nationally, and asked to be kept informed of any developments. No mention of Roote. Why risk feelers being put out along that intricate net of unofficial police contacts which is just as important to the Force as the National Computer, resulting in the firm establishment of Franny Roote as dotty DCI Pascoe's King Charles's head?

He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out an unlabelled file. When during the course of a couple of recent cases Roote had drifted back into his ken – or, as some might say, been dragged back – Pascoe had quite legitimately collated all existing material on the man. That remained in the official records. But this file, for private consumption only, contained copies and digests of that official material plus much unofficial stuff including all the recent letters, carefully marked with date of receipt.

It occurred to Pascoe that if it hadn't been for the very first case of all, his path and Ellie's, so divergent since their student days, might never have crossed again.

So Roote could claim to be their Cupid. Or Pandarus.

Not that he'd ever made such a claim, Pascoe rebuked himself. Stick with the facts.

And the facts were that this man had served his time, been a model prisoner earning maximum remission, co-operated fully with the services administrating his release programme, and settled down to a couple of worthy jobs (hospital portering and gardening) while pursuing a course of studies which would settle him eventually in the academic world, a shining example of the regenerative powers of the British penal system.

Hooray. Wild applause all round.

So why am I the only person sitting on his hands? wondered Pascoe.

In his eyes, Roote was neither reformed nor deterred, he was just a lot more careful.

But no defences are impregnable, else the country wouldn't be full of ruined castles.

The phone rang.

'DCI Pascoe.'

'Hello. DCI Blaylock, Cambridge here. You were talking to one of my sergeants yesterday about the fire at St Godric's and I gather you've been asking the local fire people about the way the fire started too. Something about possible parallel cases involving educational establishments on your patch? Would that be at one of the Yorkshire universities then? I don't recall reading anything recently.'

It was little wonder. The allegedly possibly related cases with which Pascoe had salved his conscience had been two junior school fires, one of which had been set by disaffected pupils while the other had been started by an errant rocket on Bonfire Night.

Pascoe felt it was time to come at least partially clean.

He explained in measured rational tones that, happening to know that one of the delegates at the St Godric's conference was an ex-con to whom the destruction of Professor Albacore's research papers might afford some small advantage, he had thought it worth enquiring if there were any suspicious circumstances.

'My sergeant picked you up wrong then?' said Blaylock.

'Let us rather say that I could see no reason to add to your CID workload by suggesting otherwise without any supporting evidence. Therefore my call, which was in the nature of a courtesy marker rather than a passing on of information, perhaps erred on the side of underplaying my slight and distant interest. The fault if any is mine.'

Such circumlocution might bamboozle a plain-speaking Yorkshireman, but those working in the shadow of our older universities are more practised in threading their way through verbal mazes.

'So you had a hunch but didn't want to put it upfront because Fat Andy thinks it's a bladder full of wind,' said Blaylock.

'You know Superintendent Dalziel?'

'Only like a curate knows Beelzebub. Heard a lot about him, but hope I'll never have the pleasure of meeting him personally.'

Something defensive almost formed on Pascoe's lips, but he let it fade unspoken. As Dalziel himself once said, when offered the sympathy vote, sigh deeply and limp a bit.

'Anyway, sorry I stuck my nose in without talking to the main man. Incidentally, are you so overstaffed down there, they put DCIs in charge of non-suspicious fire cases?'

'No, just something one of the smart young chaps who wants my job mentioned, so I stuck my nose in and found to my surprise that it rubbed against yours. Thought it worth giving you a bell just in case you knew anything I ought to.'

'So what was it your smart young chap mentioned?' said Pascoe, trying to keep the hopeful excitement out of his voice.

'It's probably nothing. You know how keen these youngsters are to make mountains out of molehills so they can climb up 'em.'

Blaylock had a deep reassuringly mellow voice reminding Pascoe of the kind of actor cast in the role of Scotland Yard inspector in black-and-white thrillers made before the war. Perhaps he wore a tweed jacket and smoked a pipe. Cambridge, city of dreaming squires, gleaming in the wide flat fens like a jewel on the brow of a submerged toad. How nice to work there. What beauty in your daily life, what sense of history, what opportunity for cultural contact and intellectual stimulus…

Jesus, I'm even sharing dreams with Roote now!

'I quite like mountains myself,' said Pascoe.

'It was just that the PM on Albacore showed death from smoke inhalation, but it also mentioned some possible damage to the back of his head. Hard to be sure though as the body was badly burnt. In any case, as he was overcome by smoke, he'd probably go down pretty hard and might well have cracked his head.'

'What about the way he was found?' said Pascoe. 'What I'm getting at…'

'I know what you're getting at,' said Blaylock in a kindly voice. 'We read all the training manuals down here too. My bright boy checked. Albacore was found lying face-down across the threshold of his study, facing in. But the experts assure me it means nothing. Unable to see and choking, victims often end up so disorientated they head back towards the source of a fire, and once they go down they may roll over several times in their efforts to escape.'

Pascoe was now very excited indeed, but he put a lid on it and asked negligently, 'So you found yourself wondering if someone could have whacked Albacore on the head and left him to die in the burning study.'

'That's what my bright boy wanted me to wonder. But he couldn't get anything out of the arson experts to suggest the fire had been started deliberately. So I made a note in the file and was getting on with more pressing matters, till I heard about your interest, Mr Pascoe. But if in fact all you've got is the vague notion you just outlined to me, then it's not much help, is it? Nothing plus nothing equals nothing, right?'

Not if, deep down inside, you know you're right, thought Pascoe. But what was the point of trying to explain to a man he didn't know a hundred plus miles away what his nearest and dearest face to face had listened to with unconcealed scepticism?

'You're right,' he said.

'I've been glancing through the file as we talked’ said Blaylock. 'I see this man Roote made a statement, just like all the rest of them. Any point in reeling him back in and putting a bit of pressure on him, do you think?'

Pascoe thought of Franny Roote, of that pale still face, of those eyes whose surface candour concealed what lay beneath, of that quietly courteous manner. Pressure applied here was like pressure applied to quicksand. It either sucked you in and destroyed you, or, if you managed to withdraw, it showed no sign that you'd touched it.

'No point whatsoever,' he said. 'Listen, it was just a passing notion. If I did find anything positive, I'd get straight in touch. And perhaps you could keep me posted if…'

'Don't worry, you'd hear from me,' said Blaylock, his mellow voice taking on a slight edge of menace.

So that was that, thought Pascoe as he replaced the phone. The unofficial network would be alerted. The news would soon be out. Hieronimo is mad againe.

'So what?' he said aloud.

'Does my heart good to see a man too deep in his work to hear a knock at his door.'

Dalziel stood on the threshold, had been standing there God knows how long.

The unofficial Roote file was open on the desk. Pascoe closed it, not, he prayed, over-casually, and said, 'Must be going deaf. Come in, do.'

'Owt interesting going off?' said Dalziel, his eyes fixed on the unlabelled file.

Taking the bull by the horns was better than waiting to be gored.

'Got another letter from Roote this morning. Would probably have binned it, but I've just had an interesting call from a DCI Blaylock at Cambridge.'

'Never heard of him.'

'He's heard of you,' said Pascoe.

He gave the gist of his conversation, convinced Dalziel had heard his half of it anyway.

As he spoke, the Fat Man ran his eyes over the letter, and Pascoe took advantage of the distraction to slide the file into a drawer. When he'd finished reading, he dropped the letter on to the desk, farted gently and asked, 'So what's this Bollock decided to do next?'

'Blaylock. Nothing. No evidence of crime. Leave it alone.'

'But you reckon Albacore caught Roote with a flamethrower in his hand, and then the lad whacked him on the head and left him to barbecue, right? What do you think he's confessing to in his latest, then? Plans to scupper the Swiss Navy?'

'No,' said Pascoe, aiming at reasonableness. 'Nothing concrete to bother us here.'

'You reckon?' said Dalziel. 'This stuff about Charley Penn, doesn't that bother you?'

'No, not really,' said Pascoe, surprised. 'Nothing new there, is there? We all know how hard it's been for Penn to accept that his best mate was a killer.'

'How about what young Bowler said yesterday?'

Pascoe looked blank and the Fat Man said accusingly, 'I told you all about it in the Bull, but I could tell it weren't going in.'

'Yes it did,' protested Pascoe. 'Something about a break-in at his girl's flat. You can't think Penn had anything to do with that? He may be a bit stretched out at the moment, but I can't see him breaking and entering, can you? Anyway, didn't Bowler say there was no sign of forced entry? I don't see Charley as a dab hand with a picklock!'

'Always got a trick or two up his lederhosen, your Hun. Frogs thought the Maginot Line 'ud keep 'em out in 1940, look what happened there. Any road, he's a writer. Learn all kinds of dirty tricks, them writers. It's the research as does it. Look at yon Christie. All them books, all them murders. Can't touch pitch and not get defiled, lad.'

An idiot might have been tempted to suggest that maybe he was confusing his Christies, but Pascoe knew that Dalziel in frolicsome mood was like an elephant dancing, the wise man did not complain it was badly done, he just steered well clear.

But he couldn't resist a dig.

He said, 'I see what you mean. But it's a bit like this Roote thing, isn't it? No complaint, no evidence, so no case. How do you see yourself proceeding, sir?'

Dalziel laughed, ran a massive finger round the space on the desk where the file had been, and said, 'Like the Huns in 1940. Blitzkrieg! Seen owt of Wieldy?'

'Got another mysterious call and went out.'

'God, I hope he's not going to come back with another half-baked tip.'

'You reckon there's nothing in this Praesidium business then?' said Pascoe, determined to show how closely he had been listening in the Bull.

‘I’m not holding my breath’ said the Fat Man.

'He's usually a pretty good judge,' said Pascoe loyally.

'True. But hormones can jangle a man's judgment worse than a knock on the head. Look at Bowler. Love's a terrible enemy of logic. I think I read that in a cracker.'

'Love… I don't see how Edwin Digweed can have anything to do -'

'Who mentioned Digweed? What if our Wieldy's playing away? Nay, don't stand there like a hen with the gapes. It happens. Is it coffee time yet? I could sup a cup.'

Pascoe, uncertain how serious Dalziel was about Wield, but knowing from experience that the Fat Man's basic instincts sometimes got to places that a cruise missile couldn't reach, recovered his composure and said brightly, 'Going down to the canteen, sir?'

'No way. Buggers stop talking when I show my face there. I like a bit of Klatsch with my Kaffee. Pardon my Kraut, must've picked it up off Charley Penn. If anyone wants me, tell 'em I've gone down the Centre in search of a bit of cultural enlightenment. Ta-rah!'