Death's Jest-Book

6
The Ship

Dalziel was right. If you wanted your coffee with Klatsch, not to mention Schlag, latte, or other even more exotic additives, then you headed for Hal's cafe-bar on the mezzanine floor of the Heritage, Arts and Library Centre.

If on the other hand you wanted it with a cloaking background of distant train noises and all too close punk rock, then Turk's was the only place to be.

At least, thought Wield sourly, Ellie Pascoe wouldn't need to agonize over the working conditions of those who had picked the beans to produce this social experience. Anyone with a hand in the process which led to this muck deserved everything they got.

His sourness was caused by the fact that Lee Lubanski hadn't turned up. Twenty minutes of sitting alone in this atmosphere listening to this racket under Turk's indifferent gaze made you wonder if the life you enjoyed outside this place wasn't just a dim memory of people and places long lost. You began to fear that if you stayed too long you might lose all power of decision and end up a permanent fixture like the silent, solitary men hunched over empty cups who surrounded him.

Time to go. He should feel relieved. But he didn't.

He pushed the cup away and began to rise. The door opened and Lee came in.

His young face was twisted with anxiety. He looked like a child who's lost contact with his mam in a supermarket and is experiencing a fear teetering on the edge of panic.

Then he saw Wield and his face lit up. He came straight to the table and apologies began to tumble out of him at such a rate the detail was lost in the torrent.

'Shut up and sit down afore you do yourself an injury’ said Wield.

'Yeah… sure… sorry…'

He sat down and stopped talking but his face still glowed with pleasure at finding Wield waiting. Time to switch off the light.

'Passed on that so-called tip of yours to my boss’ growled Wield. 'He wasn't much impressed. Like I said to you, we don't have the men or the time to follow every bleeding Praesidium van for a whole day. You got any more details?'

The youth shook his head.

'Sorry, nowt about that, but I got something else’

'Oh yes? What's it this time? A sub-post-office job somewhere in the North of England? Or is it not as definite as that?'

Lee's light was now definitely flickering.

'Not very definite, no’ he said defensively. 'But I can only tell you what I heard. You don't want me making things up, do you?'

There was something touchingly ingenuous about this, but Wield did not let his reaction show.

'Too bloody true’ he said. 'All right, let's have it’

'It's that Liam Linford case. They're fixing it so the wanker gets off’

Now it was his intense interest that Wield was concealing.

'Fixing it? Who is? How?'

'His dad, Wally, who fucking else?' said Lee with a show of aggression reminding Wield that under the facade of innocent kid lurked a streetwise rent boy. 'And all I know is they're fixing for that Carnwath to change his evidence so it never gets to Crown Court, and it's no use going on at me for more 'cos that's all I fucking know’

'Yeah yeah, keep your voice down’ said Wield. The music was loud and no one was paying any attention, but too much animation in a place like Turk's was like laughter at a funeral. 'What you do know is where this info comes from’

A sullen, stubborn expression settled like a pall across the boy's pale features.

A client, guessed Wield. He's not going to risk giving up a regular source of income. And maybe it's someone he's a bit scared of.

What he should be trying to do was sign Lee up as an official snout to compensate for any possible loss of earnings, but he didn't think it was worth the effort. Or, maybe he simply didn't want to. Once on the books, his identity would be known at least to Dalziel and Pascoe, neither of whom would hesitate to use him any which way they could, and he would only remain useful as long as he remained a rent boy.

'OK, forget that. How about an educated guess at what they're going to try to do to Carnwath? Anything at all, Lee. You're right, I don't want you to make things up, but I don't want you not to say anything either just 'cos you think it doesn't sound important’

His softer tone had an immediate effect. The sullen-ness vanished to be replaced by a childish concentration.

'Nothing… except he did say something about someone arriving Wednesday… no use asking who or where or when… I don't know.. . just they're due in Wednesday

Wield didn't press. If there was anything else to come, which he doubted, pressure wasn't going to induce it. He said, That's good, Lee. Thanks a lot.'

And his heart ached again at the pleasure his praise clearly caused the boy.

He took some coins out of his pocket and said, 'Here, get yourself a Coke.'

'Nah, that's all right, my treat. 'Nother coffee?'"

Without waiting for an answer, Lee went to the counter where the inscrutable Turk offered no response to his chirpy greeting but supplied the requested drinks with the indifference of an Athenian executioner pouring hemlock.

'So, Lee,' said Wield. 'Tell me a bit more about yourself. You got a trade at all?'

'Trade? Oh, I get plenty of trade,' he replied with a knowing laugh.

'Not what I meant,' said Wield. 'I meant a trade to get a proper living at. What you're talking about will likely kill you in the end, you know that.'

'So what if it does? Anyway, if men've got to pay 'cos that's the only way they can get what they want, where's the harm? Thought you'd have understood that.'

The bold stare reminded Wield that he'd been sussed.

He didn't look away.

'I don't pay for sex, Lee,' he said. 'Anything not available because someone doesn't want to give it to me, I do without.'

'Yeah, well, you're one of the lucky ones then,' said the boy, dropping his gaze. 'How about lasses, you ever try it with a girl?'

The question came out of nowhere and Wield let his surprise show.

'Sorry, I didn't mean… I were just wondering…'

'It's OK,' said Wield. 'Yes, I tried it with girls. When I were your age… younger… Before you understand the truth about yourself, wanting to be like everyone else makes you think there's something wrong, doesn't it?'

As he spoke, he realized he was making a stupid assumption. Being a rent boy didn't mean you had to be gay. But Lee's response confirmed what he'd assumed.

'Yeah, know what you mean’ he said moodily. 'It's like everyone's going to the match and you just want to be heading the other way.'

He took a pull at his Coke, then said, 'You're not drinking your coffee. It's OK, is it?'

Wield put the cup to his lips and let a tide of turgid muddy foam break over his teeth.

'Yeah,' he said. 'It's fine.'

Meanwhile back in latte land, Hal's cafe-bar, popular at any time of year, by eleven o'clock on a December morning well into the pre-Christmas shopping season was crowded with bag-laden Yorkshire maids and matrons, eager to rest their weary feet and refresh themselves with a sophisticated coffee or a traditional strong tea.

All the tables were taken and nearly every chair occupied. The only hint of vacancy was at a table for four at which a lone man sat, but the scatter of books and papers which covered the surface of table and chairs suggested that he was not eager for company. Mid-Yorkshire women in search of rest and recuperation are not so easily put off, however, and from time to time a party would boldly advance to essay an assault on this pathetic creature. Alas for their hopes! Alerted to their approach, the man would let them get within a couple of paces, then turn on them a scowl of such ferocity, in which misanthropy vied with lycanthropy for control of his hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, raggedy-bearded features, that even the Red Cross Knight might have quaked in his armour. Most fled in search of easier prey, but one, a youngish not unfetchingly dumpy woman with a round amiable face advanced as if she simply didn't recognize antagonism and seemed about to take a seat when suddenly a still more fearful shape loomed behind the monster and bellowed in its ear, 'What's up, lad? Pubs not open?'

The woman retreated, visibly shocked, and Charley Penn, for it was he, jumped about three inches out of his seat before twisting round and responding weakly, 'I could ask you the same, you fat bastard.'

'Nay’ said Andy Dalziel. ‘I’m a common working man, got to go where the job takes me. You're a scholar and an artist. It's mostly going on in your noddle. You can take your work anywhere, long as you don't lose your head. You've not lost your head recently, have you, Charley?'

The Fat Man brushed the papers off one of the chairs and sank heavily on to it, splaying its spindly metal legs across the tiled floor with a protesting squeal.

'Best get another for the other half of your arse, Andy,' said Penn, recovering.

'Nay, it'll hold, and if it don't, I can sue them. You've not answered my question.'

'Remind me.'

'Short-term memory going? They say that's a bad sign.'

'What of?'

'I've forgotten.' Penn laughed. It didn't make him look less wolfish.

'Have I lost my head recently? Figuratively, I assume you mean? Rather than physically? Or perhaps metaphysically? Or even metempsychotically?'

'I love it when you talk down to me, Charley. Makes me really humble to be the friend of someone so famous.'

Penn's limited fame and fortune rested on his authorship of a sequence of historical romances which had been turned into a popular romping claret-and-cleavage TV series. His hopes of a lasting reputation rested on the critical biography of Heinrich Heine he'd been researching for many years, researches which had provided him with much of the material he used in his fictions. This was an irony which confirmed his cynical outlook on the way things were arranged. As if, he declared, the Venerable Bede had found the only way he could keep body and soul together was by selling plastic crucifixes that lit up in the dark and played 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot'.

'Andy, let's both cut the blunt down-to-earth Yorkshire crap. Just tell me what it is you think I've done that brings you out here looking for me.'

A waitress approached and enquired timidly if she could help them.

'Aye,' said Dalziel. 'Coffee. One of them frothy ones with bits of chocolate. And a hot doughnut. Charley? My treat.'

'By God, it must be serious. Another double espresso, luv. Right, Andy, spit it out.'

Dalziel settled more comfortably in his chair, spreading its legs a little wider.

'First off’ he said, 'I've not come here looking for you, I was on my way to the Reference when I clocked you. Though happen I did think I might find you sitting in your usual spot in the library. I've just bought one of your books, thought I'd get you to sign it for me, make it more valuable when I send it up to Sotheby's.'

He tossed on to the table the paperback he'd picked up at the Centre bookstall when he'd spotted Penn in Hal's. It was entitled Harry Hacker and the Ship of Fools. Its cover showed a ship crowded with agitated men in a turbulent sea being driven on to rocks on which basked several well-endowed women in a state of deshabille.

Penn frowned at it and said, 'So what made you pick this one?'

'Liked the cover. Ship driven on the rocks. Seemed to say something about you, Charley.'

'Like what?'

'Like out of control, mebbe.'

This seemed to reassure the writer. He pushed the book aside and said, 'If it's not me you're after in the Reference, then what is it?'

'Well, it's related to you in a way’ said Dalziel. 'Just tell me straight, Charley. You know where Ms Pomona, the librarian, lives?'

For a moment Penn went still, like a wolf freezing when the wind brings it some trace of its prey.

'Got a flat in Peg Lane, hasn't she?' he said.

'That's right. Church View House. You been round there recently?'

'Why should I? We're not exactly on social visiting terms.'

'Question answered with a question is a question answered, that's what they taught us at police college,' said the Fat Man. 'Thanks, luv.'

He raised the cappuccino the waitress had set in front of him to his mouth and licked the chocolate-flecked foam with an apparently prehensile tongue.

'And a suspect beaten with a table is a criminally damaged table,' said Penn. 'Bet they taught you that as well.'

'Hope it won't come to that,' said the Fat Man, studying his doughnut with the keen eye of a man expert at finding where the sac of jam is hidden. 'So?'

Penn let out a long sigh and said, 'OK, you've got me bang to rights. I' did call round there for a chat, last weekend it was. No harm in that, is there?'

'When at the weekend?'

'Oh, Saturday I think,' said Penn vaguely. 'No one home, so I came away.'

Dalziel chose his point of incision, raised the doughnut to his mouth and bit.

Through red-stained teeth he said, 'Precision is important, Charley, else you miss the full pleasure. Saturday. When on Saturday?'

'Morning, was it? Yes, morning. Does it matter?'

'Morning starts at twelve midnight. Between twelve and one, was it?'

'Don't be daft!'

'One and two then? No? Two and three? No? Give us a clue at least, Charley!'

'And spoil your game? Play's important to kids, isn't that what the psychs say?'

'How about between eight and half past?' said Dalziel, pushing the rest of the doughnut into his maw.

‘That would be about right, I dare say,' said Penn.

‘Thought it might, as a man matching your description were seen lurking in Church View around eight twenty-five.'

'Can't have been me,' said Penn indifferently. 'I gave up lurking years back. Case of mistaken identity then.'

'We got a description,' said Dalziel, taking out a notebook and looking at a blank sheet. 'Bearded, furtive, mad-looking. Like a nineteenth-century Russian anarchist who'd just planted a bomb.'

'Yeah, that does sound like me’ said Penn. 'So I called at about eight fifteen and she wasn't in so I left. So what?'

'Bit early for a social call, weren't it?'

'You know what they say about early birds, Andy.'

'Catch colds, don't they? Still sounds a bit odd to me. Can't remember the last time I called on a lass so early. Not unless I had a warrant and wanted to catch 'em afore they got their clothes on.'

'No such ambition. I just wanted to catch her before she went to work.'

'Works Saturdays, does she?'

'Aye. In the mornings. Mostly.'

'Yes, you'd know that 'cos you'd be in the library yourself most days, right, Charley? So why not have your little chat with her there?'

'Because it's hard to be private there.'

'Private? So there was something private you wanted to discuss with her, Charley?'

'Not particularly.'

'Not particularly? But particularly enough to call on her at sparrow-fart! Come on, Charley! There's only one thing you're interested in discussing with Ms Pomona and it's not something that Ms Pomona would want to discuss with you any time, seeing as it was a nasty traumatic experience which she'll have been doing her very best to forget! So what do you think she was going to say if she opened her door at eight a.m. and saw Cheerful Charley Penn standing there? Sod off! That's what she was going to say.'

Penn drank his coffee, then asked quietly, 'Andy, what's going off here? She made some kind of complaint about me?'

'Not yet.'

'Meaning, but she will? Doesn't surprise me. She has to be dancing to your tune in this, no other way I can see it working.'

‘I won't ask you what that means 'cos I don't like hitting a man I've just invested a coffee in. So what you're saying, Charley, is, you've never been in Ms Pomona's flat?'

'You're slow, Andy, but you get there in the end.'

'That's what all the girls tell me. So if we happened to find one of your fingerprints in Ms P's flat, you'd be hard put to explain how it got there?'

Penh raised his coffee cup, looked at it speculatively and said, 'If you took this cup and left it in the Vatican, you'd find my print there, but that doesn't mean I'm the Pope. Andy, don't you think it's time you told me what you're really after here?' 'Just having a coffee with an old friend.' Penn made a play of looking round then said, 'Must have missed him.'

Dalziel emptied his cup and said, 'No rest for the wicked, eh? Oh, just one thing more. Lorelei. What's one of them when it's at home?'

'Why do you ask, Andy? Owt to do with little Miss P's intruder?'

Dalziel didn't answer but just stared at the writer till he raised his hands in mock surrender and said, 'She's a German nymph who lives on the Rhine. Her beautiful song lures fishermen to steer their boats on the rocks and drown. Heine wrote a poem about her. "Ich weifi nicht was soil es bedeuten Daft ich so traurig bin. Bin Marchen aus alien Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.'"

'You're hard enough to follow in English, Charley.' '"I don't know of any good reason For me to feel so sad. A legend from some old season Keeps running around in my head."'

'Sounds like you, Charley.'

'How so?'

'Well, you've got everything most men want, a bit of fame, a bit of fortune, but you still droop around like you got the world on your back. And this Lorelei, beautiful young woman luring ships to destruction. Seems to run around in your head all right. Like in this book of yours, if the cover's owt to go on.'

'It's an imaginative interpretation.'

'That's all right then. What happened to Lorelei in the end? Some questing knight stick his lance into her?'

'Not that I know of,' said Penn. 'Not many fishermen on the Rhine nowadays, but I don't suppose she's averse to going for bigger prey, the odd pleasure boat full of trippers. No, I'd say that Lorelei's still out there, biding her time.'

'Best left alone then. That's what my old Scots gran used to say about beasties and bogles and things that go bump in the night. You don't bother them and they won't bother you. See you upstairs, mebbe.'

He stood up. Penn said, 'You've forgotten your book.'

He opened the paperback, scribbled in it and handed it to Dalziel.

The Fat Man moved away, squeezing between the crowded tables. He expected Penn would follow his progress out of the cafe, but when he looked at the reflection in the glass wall which marked Hal's boundary, he saw the bearded face buried deep in a book once more.

Wonder what language he thinks in? thought Dalziel.

Outside, he opened the book. The printed dedication was in German.

An Mai – wunderschon in alien Monaten!

Dalziel's German was up to that. 'To May – beautiful in every month!'

But he didn't need linguistic skills to interpret the message which Penn had scrawled beneath the title Harry Hacker and the Ship of Fools.

Bon voyage, sailor!

He laughed out loud.

'Charley’ he said. 'I didn't know you cared.'

A man cannot live and work in the same town for many years without finding his head and his heart assailed by fond associations wherever he looks, and when Dalziel's route to the reference library took him past the toilet in which the Wordman had murdered Town Councillor 'Stuffer' Steel with an engraver's burin, he went inside for a pee, but stopped short when he found himself looking at a man up a step-ladder screwing a video camera into the ceiling.

'How do,' said Dalziel. 'What's this? Filming Uro-trash?'

'Updating the system, mate. State of the art, that's what they're getting now. Beam a close-up of your bollocks to the moon with this kit,' said the man proudly.

'Oh aye? Mebbe someone should warn 'em at NASA.'

Unfazed by the prospect of universal distribution, he had his pee then went on his way, from time to time observing other evidence of the new installation taking place.

In the reference library he was greeted with the kind of smile that twangs a man's braces and the words, 'Mr Dalziel, how nice to see you!' uttered with evident sincerity by the fine-looking young woman behind the desk.

The Italian strain in the Pomona family might be a couple of generations old, but the genes had come out fighting in Raina of that ilk, pronounced Rye-eena and contracted familiarly to Rye. Her skin had a golden glow and her dark expressive eyes might have sent a more poetic man than Fat Andy in search of images from Mediterranean skies. Her hair was a rich brown, except for a single lock of silvery grey which marked the main impact point of a head injury she had received at the age of fifteen in the car crash that killed her twin brother. Antipathetic at first towards the superintendent, and not encouraged to greater charity by the reports of persecution she received from her incipient boyfriend, DC Hat Bowler, she had relented her attitude in the aftermath of the Wordman case when she had come to see that, no matter what his outward semblance seemed to indicate, Dalziel was deeply defensive of his young officer and determined that no official crap should come his way.

Also, as she had confessed to Hat (causing the young man some perturbation of spirit), there was something sort of sexy about Dalziel, in a non-sexy sort of way. Observing the DC's bewilderment, she had added, 'I don't want to shag him, you understand, but I can see how it might be that he's not short of offers.'

Hat, who had often joined in lewd canteen speculation about the geophysics of the Fat Man's relationship with his inamorata, the not insubstantial Cap Marvell, found himself looking at things from a new viewpoint. Rye often had this effect on him – this was one of the pleasures, and the perils, of getting close to her – but no previous change of angle had been so disorientating as having to regard Andy Dalziel as a sex object rather than a performing whale. Thank God she had put in the disclaimer about not fancying him herself. Even the imagined prospect of such a rival quite unmanned him.

Knowing nothing of the food for thought he'd given the young couple, and careless of it had he known, Dalziel returned the smile and said, 'Nice to see you too, lass. What fettle? Tha's looking well. Helping young Bowler convalesce must be doing you good.'

Did his eyes twinkle salaciously as he said it? Rye didn't mind if they did, being as indifferent to his speculations as he would have been to hers.

'Yes, he's coming along very nicely. You'll have him back later this week, I gather.'

'That's right. Can't wait, from the look of him. He even popped in for a chat yesterday afternoon, just to get the feel of things. That's what brings me here today, summat he said. Not that I need an excuse to want to see you, but.'

He spoke flirtatiously. He'd decided that there was no way to the subject of her burglary save head on. But like in his rugby-playing days, no harm in a gently distracting shimmer of the hips before you ran straight through the bugger standing in your way.

'He told you about the break-in then’ she said, undistracted.

'You don't seem surprised. Didn't you tell him you didn't want to make a thing of it?'

'I heard he'd been asking my neighbours questions. Didn't think it would stop there.'

'You were right. It was his duty to report it in, and he's a good cop,' said Dalziel sternly. Then he added with a grin, 'And likely he also got to thinking if he said nowt, then you got murdered in your bed and he mentioned casually that your place had been turned over a few days back, I'd have sent him to join you.'

'I'm sure you'd have meant it as a kindness. All right. Some idiot got into my flat, left it looking a bit untidy, but nothing damaged and nothing taken. I couldn't see the point of pouring oil on dying embers by letting you lot really mess the place up with fingerprint powder all over the place and God knows what else. I've had enough of questions, statements and creaking bureaucracy in recent times to last me a lifetime!'

'Aye, it's a slow grinding mill, ours, and everyone ends up a bit ground down.'

'Doesn't show on you, Superintendent’ she said.

He laughed and said, 'Nay, I'm part of the machinery. And once I'm set in motion, I've got to clank on till I run down. Any chance of a coffee?'

'Any chance of me saying no? No. Come on through then.'

He went behind the reception desk and followed her into the office.

It was the first time he'd been in here since he'd supervised the search which followed Dick Dee's death. They'd found nothing here or in the man's flat which added much to the case for the Head of Reference being the Wordman, but it hadn't mattered. In retrospect such a long trail of evidence, albeit mainly circumstantial, led to his door that CID had had to field a lot of hostile questioning about how many people had died because they couldn't see what lay under their noses.

Things had changed considerably.

The paintings and photographs of great lexicographers which had darkened the walls had been replaced by some vapid watercolours of Yorkshire beauty spots and the plaster had been given a coat of paint. The furniture too was new, or at least new in here, probably a straight swap with another municipal office organized by someone sensitive enough to guess that Rye might not be too happy to feel that she was sitting on a seat polished by the buttocks of the man who'd tried to kill her.

'Nice’ he said, looking around. 'Lot brighter.'

'Yes. He's still here though.'

'You reckon? That bother you?'

She shook her head.

'No’ she said. 'They asked me that, not directly of course, but they wanted to move me. And I said no, this was where I wanted to be. You see, I always liked Dick. He was kind to me. Except… yeah, well. Except. Maybe if I'd never gone out to the tarn that day… Maybes, eh? But here in the library, I always remember him as a good friend.'

She busied herself making coffee, but he could see her dark eyes brimming with tears.

Dalziel said, 'He had to be stopped. What happened to you stopped him. Nowt to feel guilty about, luv. But I know how you feel. Couple of times I've had to send someone down that I'd rather not have done. Only a couple of times, you understand. Mainly I'm happy to kick 'em down the dungeon steps and slam the door behind them. But with these two, I sometimes think that if mebbe I'd. done summat a bit different, mebbe looked the other way, I wouldn't have had to… Aye, mebbe's not a spot you want to spend a winter's night in. I'll take mine black’

Rye finished making the coffee and by the time she set a mug in front of him, she was back in control.

'So apart from the fact that I'm a recovered victim and one of your work-slaves' bit of fluff, how come I'm getting the special treatment over a minor crime? From what I've heard, you're stretched enough trying to deal with major ones!'

'We're never so stretched that we can't find time to spread a little comfort and light’ said Dalziel. 'Listen, I reckon I can talk to you straight. Being a victim and surviving doesn't just get you tea, sympathy and congratulation. It can also get you a lot of unwelcome attention from all sorts of weirdos. There's lunatics out there who work out that having been attacked once means you've probably got a taste for it. Or that it's up to them to finish a job half done. Or they just get a kick out of thinking that, because you've been scared shitless once, you're really going to freak out when it happens a second time’

Rye had frozen with her mug poised a couple of inches from her mouth.

'This is comfort and light?' she said. 'What do you do when you bring bad news? Shove a severed leg through the letter box and yell, "There's been a bit of an accident, luv!"'

'You prefer round the houses, I'll send DCI Pascoe’ said Dalziel. 'I'm not done yet. They're the freaks and I'm glad to say there's not a lot of them around. But there's another bunch. Them as reckon you're not the victim at all but some other bugger is, someone who's either been jailed or in your case killed. They reckon that what's happened to this other bugger is your fault. Stands to reason, don't it? You're alive and he's dead. Sick proboscis’

Rye interpreted this as sic probg but was wise enough not to test whether the variation was ironic or ignorant.

She said, 'Is this other bunch a large bunch or do you have someone specific in mind?'

'More than my job's worth to put names in your mouth’ said Dalziel virtuously. 'But you mention a name and it 'ud be my duty to look into it’

He liked the way she didn't hesitate.

'Charley Penn’ she said. That's who we're sniffing around here, isn't it? Two of my neighbours saw him, or someone who fits his description, but you know that. Well, I'll talk about him, but let's get one thing clear. I am not putting in a complaint about him. And I'll deny all knowledge of this conversation if you try to make this official.'

'What about this tape recorder I've got strapped to my groin?' said Dalziel.

'Here's me thinking you were just glad to see me’ she said boldly.

He laughed and said, 'You've been keeping bad company, lass. So, unofficially, tell me about Charley.'

'What's to tell? He can't get his head round finding out that his old schoolmate and best buddy was a serial killer. End of story.'

'End of opening para,' said Dalziel. 'What's he said to you?'

'Not much directly. Just sits out there and glowers. I feel his eyes on me all the time.'

‘That all? Didn't he used to send you. poems or summat?'

'Sort of, in the old days… I mean, before all this happened. Thing was, he used to fancy me. At least I think he did, or maybe it was just some silly game he got off on. Anyway, you know these German poems he's been working on for the past thousand years or so?'

'Heinkel,' said Dalziel.

'Heine. He'd leave the odd love poem lying around where he knew I'd find it. He'd pretend it was accidental, but in that leering way he has which made it clear it wasn't.'

'Can't blame the bugger for trying,' said Dalziel.

'Can't you? All right, it wasn't major harassment, but it became irritating and I might have said something if he hadn't been… if. ..'

'If he hadn't been such a mate of Dee's,' completed Dalziel. 'But he's not been sending you these billy-doos since Dee snuffed it?'

'No, at least I'm spared that. Though maybe it was better having him leering at me lecherously than glaring at me as if he'd like to

… I don't know what.'

'So you feel threatened, then your flat gets broken into, and there's a message on your computer which is a straight link to Heinz

'Heine. You work that out for yourself, or did your pet bloodhound sniff it out?'

Dalziel said gravely, 'Listen, luv, sometimes what a cop needs to do 'cos he's a trained sniffer dog and what he needs to do 'cos he's a love-sick puppy turns out to be one and the same thing. What you grinning at?'

‘Trying to see you as a love-sick puppy, Superintendent.'

'I like my tummy scratched as well as the next man’ said Dalziel. 'Just takes a stronger woman, that's all. Point I'm making is, in this case it weren't a matter of professional versus personal. Brains and bollocks, they all told young Bowler he had to have a word. Now that's sorted, let's get back to onions. Charley Penn's scaring you, the break-in suggests a link with Charley, why aren't you screaming for police protection?'

She ran her fingers through her thick brown hair so that the silver blaze rippled like a fish in a peaty stream.

'I don't know’ she said unhappily. 'I suppose I wanted it to be all over, you know, draw a line and say, that's it, new start. They wanted me to have counselling, all that crap, but I said no. Watching Hat get better, and helping him, that was like a kind of surrogate healing for me. And this weekend we've just had, well, it was great. I felt really happy. Then we got back and I saw the flat and I didn't want to let it register, I suppose. I just wanted to tidy up and carry on like nothing had happened.'

'I can understand that. How do you feel now? Ready to make it official?'

She laughed and said, 'You don't give up, do you? All right. I'll make it official my flat was broken into. But I'm not pointing a finger. You want to talk to Penn, that's up to you. He was in his usual spot earlier, but I expect he's gone down to Hal's for a coffee.'

'Aye, he has. That's where I saw him on my way in.'

She stared at him assessingly then said, 'You've spoken to him already, haven't you? All this stuff about needing me to give the go-ahead was bollocks!'

'Nay, lass,' said Dalziel soothingly. 'I had an unofficial word, that's true. All you've done is make it official. It's just a question of labels. Talking of which, you didn't come into work on Friday carrying a suitcase with a lot of labels on, did you?'

'Sorry?'

'You went off for the weekend Friday evening with young Bowler, right?'

'That's right. But I went home first to pick up my bag then drove round to Hat's.'

'Anyone shouting "Enjoy your weekend away! Give him one for me!" as you left?'

'I don't remember, might have done.'

'And was Penn in the library on Friday?'

'Ah.' She had got his drift. She frowned and said, 'Yes, he was. But I can't swear that anything was said then that indicated I was going to be out of my flat till Monday. Will you want to look around now it's official?'

'Your flat? Not worth it if you've cleaned it up. You might think about improving your security, but. talking of which, I'm glad to see they're spending a bit of money on a decent system to protect their staff round here. Better late than never, eh?'

The absence of a decent security system in the Centre had been one of the obstacles to an early solution of the Wordman case. By an irony not unremarked by his civic colleagues, Stuffer Steel had been the man mainly responsible for the penny-pinching approach which had led to the installation of the Centre's original bog-standard basic CCTV system.

'I don't think it's their staff they're worried about,' said Rye. 'Heritage is displaying the Elsecar Hoard next month, and it was a condition of getting it that our security was right up to date.'

'Poor old Stuffer must be spinning in his grave,' said Dalziel.

Councillor Steel, when news of the controversy about the Hoard first hit the headlines, had opined that the remaining Elsecars should be sent down the mines (if a mine could be found for them to be sent down) and their Hoard sold and the money distributed among the poor and oppressed of Yorkshire.

Andy Dalziel, no great lover of the councillor, for once agreed with him.

'Yes, I suppose he must,' said Rye.

There were tears in her eyes again and Dalziel cursed himself for his insensitivity.

He said, 'Better be off now. Take care, lass. And don't be too hard on young Bowler. But I'd not be too soft either! Cheers.'

On his way out of the library, he met Penn coming back in.

Dalziel took the book out of his pocket and flourished it.

'Nice one, Charley’ he said. 'Can't wait to read it.'

Penn watched him go, then made his way to his usual place and sat down.

Rye was back behind the counter.

Their gazes met, and locked.

It was Rye who broke off first. She grimaced as if in pain, put her hand to her head, then retreated into the office, kicking the door shut behind her.

Charley Penn smiled a wintry smile.

'Gotcha’ he mouthed. Then he turned to his books.

On Wednesday morning, despite the early hour, the passengers on the overnight flight from New York to Manchester strode into the public arrivals area with the sprightly step of the born-again who'd not only survived six hours trapped in a tin can but had passed through the Green Channel without some fish-eyed customs official attempting to investigate their private parts.

One, an attractive athletic-looking young woman with a papoose harness tied tightly against her breast so that it didn't impede her from pushing her luggage trolley, scanned the crowd waiting along the barrier eagerly as if in search of a familiar face.

She didn't find it, but what she did see was a man in a sober grey suit holding up a piece of white card bearing the name carnwath.

She went to him and said, 'Hi. I'm Meg Carnwath.'

'Hello,' he said. 'I'm Detective Sergeant Young, Greater Manchester CID.'

'Oh God. What's happened? Has Oz had an accident…?'

'No, no, he's fine, really. It's this case he's a witness in… he's told you about it?'

'Yes, he has. He rang up yesterday to say that it had been put back till this afternoon, but he'd still have plenty of time to meet me and drive me back home.'

'How'd he sound?'

'A bit nervous. He said he'd be glad when this first stage was over. After that he thought he'd be OK, like a first night.'

'Well, he's right to be nervous. We got a whisper there might be an attempt to bring pressure on him via you. Probably nothing in it, but for everyone's sake, it made sense for us to pick you up and keep you nice and safe till Mr Carnwath has given his evidence.'

'Oh God,' exclaimed the woman, wide-eyed. 'Oz said this guy who killed the girl was pretty heavily connected, but this is like something out of the movies.'

'We'll try to keep the car chases within the legal limit,' said Young, smiling. 'Anyway, even if there was anything to worry about, there isn't now. Here, let me take that.'

Pushing the trolley he led her out to the waiting car which was a big Mercedes.

'Well, this is nice,' she said. 'Didn't realize the police were so upmarket.'

'We didn't want to draw attention,' he said. 'Escort you to a police car and everyone would have you down as a drug smuggler! Besides, you deserve a bit of comfort after being squashed in a plane seat so long. There's a baby harness in the back if you want it.'

'Later maybe. He yelled all the way across then went out like a light when we landed, so I'll let sleeping dogs lie as long as he stays that way.'

She climbed in and made soothing clucking noises into the papoose hood while Young put the cases in the boot.

'Husband not with you this trip?' he said over his shoulder as he drove slowly and carefully through the morning traffic building up around Manchester.

'Partner. He's coming on later. I wanted to get here early and have some time with my brother, show him his nephew, they've not met yet.'

‘That'll be nice’ he said.

There was a little more desultory conversation, but when the car left the suburbs behind and began to climb eastwards over the Pennines, Young saw in his mirror that the woman's eyes had closed, so he stopped talking and concentrated on driving through a mist which grew thicker as they got higher. After about twenty minutes he turned the car gently down a side road without disturbing his passenger, and some minutes later turned again along a narrow rutted track which the Merc's suspension negotiated without causing more than a restless shifting.

Finally he brought the car to a halt before a low stone-built farmhouse whose tiny windows, too small to admit a sufficiency of daylight in good weather and useless in these murky conditions, were ablaze with light.

The cessation of movement woke the woman.

She yawned, peered out of the window and said, 'Where are we?'

'Here’ said Young vaguely. He picked up the car phone, pressed some buttons, listened then handed it to her, saying, Thought you might like a word with your brother.'

'Oz?' she said into the mouthpiece.

'Meg? That you? Are you OK? Where are you?'

'I'm fine. Not sure where I am though, looks like a scene from a horror movie. Where did you say we were, Sergeant?'

'One of our safe houses’ he said.

'A safe house? I thought we were heading straight for home.'

'Well we are, but not quite straight. Few hours here till the committal proceedings are over, then we'll be on our way. It's OK, Mr Carnwath knows all about it, ask him.'

'Oz,' she said into the phone, 'Sergeant Young says I've got to stay here, wherever here is, some safe house, till the proceedings are over. He says you know about it.'

There was a pause then Oz Carnwath said, 'That's right, Sis. You sit tight till this thing's finished. It won't take long.'

If you say so, Bro. You're OK, are you?'

'Oh yes, I'm being well looked after.'

She handed the phone back to Young. The farm door opened and another man came out and walked towards them, a slightly menacing figure silhouetted against the rectangle of orange light. She tried to open the car door, but found she couldn't move the handle.

Young said, 'Sorry. Force of habit,' and pressed the lock release.

The new man held open the car door for her. He was young, leather jacketed, with the bold eyes and leering smile of one who imagines himself irresistible to women.

'Get the luggage, Constable,' said Young.

'Luggage? I'm going to be here long enough to need luggage?'

'Stuff for the baby, maybe. He's very good. Wish I could say the same for mine.'

'You've got children, Sergeant? How many?'

'Two. For God's sake, be careful, Mick.'

The leather-jacketed man had opened the boot and begun to lift out the cases. As he swung them over the boot's lip, one of them burst open, spilling its contents to the ground. His leering smile vanished to be replaced with the uneasy perplexity of a cabinet minister faced by an ethical policy.

On the ground lay three telephone directories, a Tesco bag full of stones, and a grey blanket clearly marked as the property of Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary.

The woman undipped her papoose basket, and tossed it to Young, saying, 'Look after baby, will you?'

He wasn't ready for it. It bounced off his hands and turned upside down and only a desperate panic-driven lunge got it into his grasp a few inches from the ground. From inside came a piercing wail of 'Mummy!'

Young looked up in shock to discover the woman was paying no attention to him.

From her pocket she'd taken a small aerosol tube. She was pointing it at leather jacket and giving him a quick squirt. He fell back, cursing and clawing at his face. Young began to rise. The spray turned in his direction. He raised the papoose basket in an effort to protect himself but it was too late. The fine jet hit him right in the eyes. As he twisted away crying out in pain, a plastic doll fell out of the basket, squeaking, 'Mummy!'

The woman picked up the doll and spoke to it.

'Novello here,' she said. 'Think you can come and clear up now.'

Peter Pascoe watched with interest as Oz Carnwath gave his evidence that afternoon, but it wasn't the witness's face he watched, nor that of the accused, though it might have been entertaining to see his cocky anticipation turn to shocked incredulity as instead of the expected hesitations and uncertainties, he heard firm and confident affirmations that he, Liam Linford, had driven his Lamborghini out of the car park on the night in question.

It was Linford Senior, sitting in the body of the court, that Pascoe watched. His expression of barely contained fury did more for Pascoe's festive feelings than any number of Christmas cards. Marcus Belchamber did all his considerable best to dent Carnwath's certainties, but hardly left a smudge let alone a scratch on them. It came as no surprise to anyone when the presiding magistrate committed Linford Junior for trial in the Crown Court in February. But the journalists present pricked up their ears when, after Belchamber's application for bail had been heard, the prosecuting lawyer stood up to oppose it on the grounds that there had been a serious attempt to interfere with a witness. The magistrate required a full report as soon as possible and ordered Liam Linford to be remanded in custody till she got it. Wally Linford proved harder to lay a finger on. Taken in for questioning as he left the court, he had Belchamber by his side from the start, and simply denied any knowledge of the plan to kidnap Meg Carnwath. The two false policemen and the other two men who had intercepted Oz on his way to Manchester Airport also denied any connection with Wally, but claimed they were old acquaintances of Liam who had been overcome by indignation at what looked like a potential injustice. They had certainly been well schooled as nothing on the recording from the wire Oz had worn, or from Shirley Novello's, actually constituted a direct threat. Belchamber, after studying the account of what had happened to Novello, offered as his opinion that if he were advising the false police officers – which of course he had no reason even to contemplate doing -he would probably suggest an action against the WDC for assault. In the meantime, if they had nothing more to ask his client, he thought it best to bring the interview to a close.

Pascoe switched off the recording machine and said, 'Something you should understand, Wally. You've tried to fix Oz Carnwath and failed. His evidence is on record. Your attempt is on record. Anything else that happens to that lad, threats, accidents, even dirty looks, will be noted and reported and investigated. And I'll make sure every bugger connected with this case from the judge to the jury knows about it and believes it's down to Liam direct. And I reckon that will mean years on his sentence. Ask Mr Belchamber here if you don't believe me.'

Belchamber pursed his lips and said, 'This is a conversation I shall of course need to report to your superiors and the GPS, Chief Inspector.'

'What conversation, Mr Belchamber? I heard no conversation. You hear any conversation, Constable Novello? Sergeant Wield?'

His colleagues shook their heads.

'There you are. Three to two. In a democracy, we must be right. So watch it, Wally. After all your big-time stunts, it would be a shame to go down for a domestic, wouldn't it?'

After the lawyer and his client had left, Novello said admiringly, 'Nice one, sir. That made the bastards squirm. Real hairy-chested stuff.'

It was a genuine compliment. Novello liked her men muscular and hairy. The willowy Pascoe-type did nothing for her.

'Not the point,' said Pascoe wearily. I just wanted to warn them off Oz and his family. And talking of hairy chests, that trick of yours with the CS-spray, I've written it up as reaction to direct and sudden threat, which is the only way to justify it when you hadn't told them you were a police officer and issued a warning. The only true words Belchamber spoke were when he said they could be entitled to bring an action against you. What were you thinking of? You didn't even try to sound threatened on the tape!'

'Well, I felt it. And it wasn't my fault the case burst open,' protested Novello.

'Fault doesn't come into it. Cop on the spot gets the glory and the crap. All we've got is a couple of guys impersonating police officers. No threats, no holding against your will, no direct link with either Linford. I'm very doubtful we'll have enough to persuade the beak to turn down Belchamber when he requests a review of the remand in custody order. So we'll have Liam out and about, all down to you, Novello. Take heed. You've been backed up once. Don't expect it again.'

With the blank expression which conceals high dudgeon, Novello left.

'Was I too hard, Wieldy?'

'On Linford and Belchamber? Not enough. On Novello? Just about right.'

‘Thanks. So, this informant of yours came up trumps. Looks like you've got yourself a winner there. Better sign him up official, quick as you can.'

'Not interested,' said Wield.

'Who? Him or you?'

'Him, of course,' said Wield, meeting Pascoe's eyes straight on.

'Fine. But be careful.'

It was conventional CID wisdom that there was no such thing as a free tip-off.

'Yeah. So we'll be taking this Praesidium thing a bit more seriously now?'

'I expect so. Let's go and see the Mighty Kong.'

'OK. But, Pete’

'Yes?'

'I'd like to keep in the background on this one. I mean, sitting in on the interview with Linford's one thing, but I don't think I should be in the front line if we set up an op on the Praesidium tip.'

'You think it might help someone make a connection between your informant and us if it looks like you're calling the shots here?'

'It's possible.'

'OK. No problem. You'll miss out on the glory though. Could tell against you when you're on the short-list for Commissioner.'

'It's a risk I'll just have to take,' said Wield.

In the criminal's Advent calendar, each window opens on a new opportunity.

Huge truckloads of consumer desirables I crowd the road en route for city centres. Shop shelves groan with goodies. The malls are packed with shoppers whose purses are packed with cash. The tills ring merrily all day and much of the night and large sums of money have to be transferred with forecastable regularity to the banks. The average house soon has several hundred pounds' worth of easily portable presents 'hidden' in the garage or the cupboard under the stairs. In the non-average house, their value might run into thousands. The party season starts, at home and in the workplace. The provident smuggler is ready to supply the huge appetite for cheap booze and fags, while the happy toper is morally susceptible to a whole range of no-questions-asked deals and physically susceptible to anyone who fancies his wallet. To an ambitious policeman, keen to pack his CV with collars felt and cases solved, Advent windows also open upon golden opportunity. Here is the devil's plenty. Here is the year's late harvest. The art is to recognize what's ripe for reaping and what's going to prove indigestible, and with resources stretched to the limit, there is little time for careful consideration. So Pascoe found he had all the encouragement in the world to pursue his resolve to put Franny Roote out of his mind and get on with the job of making sure the better part of Mid-Yorkshire had a happy and crime-free Christmas.

But God's a merry fellow who once He has set a jest in train doesn't care to see its object drift off the pre-ordained path.

After the accuracy of Wield's information in the Linford case, it had been decided to take the Praesidium tip seriously. This didn't mean they could offer blanket coverage, but everyone agreed with the sergeant's assessment that the small firms wages delivery was the most likely target, so that's what they focused on. When told of Wield's desire to keep in the background to protect his snout, Dalziel had taken a deep breath, raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, giving the effect of a monkfish that had just swallowed an electric eel, but he hadn't argued, and it was Pascoe who found himself put in charge.

Thanks, Pete,' Wield. said. 'Not that it should cause you much bother. My estimate is they'll hit it early while it's still carrying most of the cash and you'll have the rest of the day to do the paperwork and still be home in time for a late tea.'

Of course it hadn't worked out like that.

The DCI and his team had crawled along the narrow country roads after the van all morning, their hearts sinking with each delivery, for they knew that as the money went down, so did their chances of getting a result. A less conscientious officer might have called things off with a couple of calls still remaining. The villains would not only have to be unambitious, they'd need to be downright stupid to risk hitting the van with a prospective share-out of only a few hundred pounds. But Pascoe had stuck it out to the bitter end. Only when: he last drop had been made on the northernmost boundary of his patch did Pascoe say to his dispirited men, 'Right, that does it. Let's go home.'

Half a day wasted with no result. These things happened, policemen got used to them, but such philosophy did not dilute his intention of being seriously sarcastic with Wield.

He saw him on the phone as he entered the CID room. The sergeant made a summoning gesture, then said into the phone, 'He's just come in.'

'Who?' mouthed Pascoe as he approached.

'Rose’ mouthed Wield in return, giving Pascoe a moment of fright as he wondered what crisis had got his young daughter ringing him at work. Then Wield, who missed little, saw the reaction and expanded, 'DI Rose.'

This, though a relief, meant nothing, till he took the phone and said, 'Pascoe.'

'Hi there. Stanley Rose.'

'Stanley…? Stan! Hello. And DI! When did this happen? Many congratulations.'

The last time he'd talked to Rose, the man had been a DS in South Yorkshire and the occasion had been the case which brought Franny Roote back into his life.

Looking at people who might think threatening Ellie was a good way to pay old scores, he'd liaised with Rose when he discovered Roote was living in Sheffield. It had all been done by the book, but when Pascoe had turned up to interview Roote, he'd found him lying in his bath with his wrists cut. In fact, the cuts were not very deep and he was more likely to have died from hypothermia than blood loss, but naturally rumours of undue pressure had circulated and for a while both Rose and Pascoe looked susceptible to charges of harassment. But Roote was (in Pascoe's eyes) far too subtle a serpent to risk all on a single strike. So he had made no complaint, but his silence was, (to Pascoe's ears) the silence of the snake lurking in the long grass.

So, no official action or come-back. But in the ledgers of CID, to go on to someone else's patch and cause them embarrassment left you with a debt to pay, and Pascoe guessed it was being called in now.

'Beginning of the month,' said Rose. They must have been wondering what to give me for Christmas and I'd been dropping hints all year.'

'I'm delighted. Long overdue,' said Pascoe. 'Remind me to buy you a drink next time we meet. So what can I do for you, Stan?'

On the surface it was a simple request for liaison and co-operation. Rose had got a whisper from a snout of a job that was being planned in the New Year. The information was vague. The forward planning suggested it was big, as did the fact that it involved the recruitment of a top driving and muscle team – which was how the snout had got the whisper. And though the organizational nerve centre was in South, word was that the job itself could be over the Mid-Yorkshire border.

'Sorry it's all so waffly,' concluded Rose. 'But it occurred to me that you might spot a few straws in the wind your side, and they might not seem worth much by themselves, but together… well, maybe we could make a brick.'

So, there it was, a more or less token request, a formality which if not quite empty would in the vast majority of cases prove lamentably unproductive.

But Pascoe, because he owed Rose and because he could recall those early days after he had taken that large step from sergeant to DI, read the sub-text.

Rose wanted to make a good early impression. He'd been delighted when his snout was the first with this sniff. Probably he'd made rather more of it than it merited at that stage and when, after a couple of weeks, nothing more had been forthcoming, he'd begun to feel rather foolish. Certainly his colleagues in the rough and ready ethos of the CID wouldn't be backward in asking him how the great crime of the new century was coming on! Perhaps he'd been provoked into once more overselling what remained an insubstantial maybe. So he looked around for help. Who owed him? DCI Peter Pascoe, one of the famous Andy Dalziel's brightest and best, who happened to work on the patch mentioned as a putative location for the putative job, that was who!

So it was worth a punt calling in that debt which, furthermore, would be understood to include the major share of credit should anything ever come of this business.

Pascoe asked questions, made notes and encouraging noises.

'OK,' he said finally. ‘I’ll pull out all the stops, Stan, believe me.'

I'm grateful,' said Rose. This is really good of you.'

'Self-interest,'laughed Pascoe. 'If we don't help each other, we'll be a long time waiting for any other bugger. You see a Samaritan coming towards you these days, it's probably because he fancies putting the boot in.'

These were Dalziel's views rather than his own; indeed it was possibly the Fat Man's very phraseology. But he felt few qualms about voicing them. Just as Wield had kept his gayness under wraps in order to survive in his chosen profession, so Pascoe had recognized early on that educational achievement and liberal humanism were not exactly episematic qualities in the still very traditional police force. A common soldier may have a field marshal's baton hidden in his knapsack, but he was never going to get the chance to wield it if he didn't learn the language of the barrack room.

'You're right there,' said Rose. Things don't go away either. I was just telling your Sergeant Wield, that student he was asking about a while back in connection with a possible suicide

'Sorry?' said Pascoe. 'I don't recall…'

But of course he did. Roote's tutor at Sheffield University, Sam Johnson, had (according to rumour) made his move to Mid-Yorkshire as a result of his reaction to the sudden death of Jake Frobisher, a student he'd put under pressure to bring his work up to date or be sent down. When Johnson himself died in suspicious circumstances, Pascoe had used the possibility that he'd committed suicide to instruct Wield to check up on Frobisher's death, allegedly with a view to providing the coroner with a full picture of the lecturer's state of mind. But he knew, and Wield had guessed, that his real hope had been to find some link, however remote, between Franny Roote and both tragedies.

'Jake Frobisher. Some link with that lecturer who was one of your Wordman victims.'

'Of course. Yes, I remember. Turned out he was popping pills to keep himself awake to meet some work deadline, wasn't that it?'

That's right. Accidental death, clear cut. Only complication was, when his gear was sent to his family, his sister started asking questions about some expensive watch she said was missing, implication being that one of our lot had nicked it. Well, it all got sorted, no evidence, no case, his mum didn't want a fuss, in fact she didn't even recollect the watch in question. End of story, right?'

'Should be,' said Pascoe neutrally, letting his gaze drift towards Wield, who was peering into a screen as if he saw his future there. 'But I'm not going to bet on it.'

'Wise man,' said Rose. 'Sophie, that's the sister, – started here as a student in September, and lo and behold, end of last term she got pulled in with a bunch of other kids all high as kites on speed. Must run in the family, eh? We found a great stash of the stuff in her room, which incidentally is in the same house her brother died in – how's that for morbid? Anyway, the little cow, instead of putting her hand up, starts claiming it was planted there so we could get our own back for her daring to accuse us of nicking her brother's watch! Case came up yesterday. The bloody magistrate lets her ramble on through the whole sad story, wipes a tear away from his eye, glowers at me on the witness bench, and gives her a conditional discharge! I told her afterwards she was lucky and she'd better be careful or she'll, end up like her brother. Having my watch nicked, you mean? she says, and gives me the finger, then takes off with her mates, laughing. It's a great job we've got, isn't it?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe thoughtfully. 'Yes, I believe it is. I'll be in touch, Stan.'

He put down the phone and stared at Wield until the sergeant's head turned, as if compelled by the force of Pascoe's gaze.

The DCI jerked his head in summons and went through into his office.

The sergeant followed, closing the door behind him.

Succinctly, Pascoe filled him in on the day's debacle.

'So thanks a lot for that, Wieldy,' he concluded. 'Nothing I like better than a scenic tour of the county in mid-winter instead of wasting my time doing useful things.'

'Pete, I'm sorry. I'll talk to my informant and see…'

'Yeah yeah,' said Pascoe impatiently. The failed job had dropped a long way down his priority list of things to be pissed off with Wield about. 'Forget it. But there's something else. Remember when Sam Johnson died, I asked you to check out that student death in Sheffield, boy called Frobisher, the one people seemed to think had upset Johnson so much he made the move here to MYU?'

'I remember’ said Wield.

'And you told me it was all done and dusted, accidental overdose, no loose ends.'

‘That's right.'

'What about this missing watch? I don't recollect you mentioning that in your report. That not a loose end?'

'Didn't look like one to me,' said Wield. 'In fact it looked like it was probably nowt at all, not worth mentioning, just a young lass being silly.'

'Even young lasses get over being silly’ said Pascoe. 'Not this one though, eh?'

He hadn't wanted to sound confrontational, but the sheer unreadability of the sergeant's face was a provocation to provocation. For the first time he understood how it must feel to be sitting opposite Wield in the interrogation room.

The reply came in the quiet reasonable voice of a patient father explaining life to a recalcitrant son.

'If you remember, the reason you gave for being interested in Frobisher was it might be relevant to Johnson's state of mind if it turned out he'd topped himself. By the time I got the details of Frobisher's accidental overdose, we knew that Johnson had been murdered by the Wordman, so there was no way for the lad's death to be relevant, not even if it had had more loose ends than you'd find at a monk's wedding.'

The tone remained constant throughout, but the concluding Dalzielesque image sent a message of strong feeling which Pascoe gleefully registered as a minor victory, of which he was almost simultaneously ashamed.

Wield had been then, and was now, trying to save him from what he and probably everyone else regarded as a dangerous obsession.

But they were wrong, Pascoe assured himself. Not that he was absolutely, bet-the-deeds-of-the-ranch certain he was right. But obsessions were irrational and as he wasn't going to do anything that couldn't be tested by reason, this was no obsession. As for danger, how could this particular pursuit of truth be more dangerous than any other?

The only real danger he would admit was that of falling out with those he loved most.

He said gently, 'Sorry, Wieldy. I'm being a plonker, but everyone's entitled this time of year. Rose tell you what he was after? No? Ah, well, it's me he feels owes him.'

He quickly ran through Rose's request for help.

'Not much,' said Wield.

'Not much is overstating it. Still, he's a good cop, so let's pull out the stops. Any sniff of anything big going down on our patch, I want to know. Pass the word.'

'Even to Andy? He'll not be chuffed at you paying off old debts on company time.'

'He's going to be even less chuffed if something big did happen and South were sitting there smugly saying, "Well, we did warn you!"'

Wield gave a small nod which might have meant anything from he was totally convinced to he was totally unpersuaded, but Pascoe watched him go, certain that his instructions would be carried out to the full.

He took off his overcoat, hung it up, then sat at his desk and on a piece of paper wrote Sophie Frobisher. Then he added a question mark.

What the question was he wasn't certain, nor indeed whether he'd ever ask it.

One thing was certain, thank God, and that was that he needn't make any decision about it till next month when the new university term began.

Perhaps by then Roote would have faded to distant irritation. Perhaps the last letter in which he said goodbye to England would prove to be a farewell letter in every sense.

And perhaps Christmas would be cancelled this year!

Pascoe laughed.

Dalziel said, 'Glad to see you're in such a good mood.'

Shit! Is there a secret passage he uses to get into my room? wondered Pascoe.

'I was just coming to see you, sir. Dud tip, I'm afraid, complete waste of time

'Half right’ said the Fat Man. 'About the waste of time, but not the tip.'

'Sorry?'

'I've just had an angry call from Berry at Praesidium. Says he thought we were taking care of his wages van today.'

'Yes, sir, and we did until it made its last drop… Shit, you're not saying…?'

He was.

The Praesidium security men, after a day spent in the expectation of imminent attack, had felt they deserved a soothing cup of tea on the way back, to which end they had pulled into the lorry park of a roadside cafe on the bypass just north of town. As they got out of the van, they were jumped on by a bunch of masked men armed with baseball bats and at least one sawn-off shotgun. Surprised in every sense, they put up no resistance and were left unharmed, locked in a white transit van, tucked away in a remote corner of the lorry park where they might have remained a lot longer if Morris Berry, the Praesidium boss, hadn't noticed his van suddenly vanish from the screen. He'd sent someone to investigate at the last known location and they'd heard noises from the transit. By the time Pascoe arrived on the scene, he found the security men enjoying their now even more necessary soothing cup of tea and sufficiently recovered to be much amused at the image of the thieves' gobsmacked expressions when they found they'd got a vanload of nothing.

Pascoe didn't share their amusement. This might be a cock-up for the crooks, but he knew that it was going to register as a cock-up for the cops also. When the story was told in the canteen and the papers, the joke was going to be on him. And in the annual list of crime statistics, this day's work would show as a security van hijacked despite a tip-off and an expensive escort operation.

Suddenly Franny Roote was relegated to the very bottom of his piled-up troubles and when at last he returned to his office, he swept the piece of paper bearing Sophie Frobisher's name into his waste bin without even reading it.