Death's Jest-Book

8

After its terrible start, Hat Bowler's Christmas had really taken off.

He had rung Rye later on Christmas Day as promised, expecting to find she'd taken to her bed once more. To his surprise and delight, she greeted him brightly and in the background he could hear music and voices.

'You having a party?' he asked.

She laughed and said, 'No, idiot, it's the TV movie. It turned out Myra was on her own too, so when she said she'd better be getting back to her own flat, I asked her what she was going to do, and she said watch the movie probably, so I said,.. Why on earth am I going on like this? I think it's just because I feel so much better.'

'Great. You had anything to eat?'

'God, you're a real mother hen, aren't you? Yes, I have. We each applied our special talents to preparing a Christmas meal. To wit, I opened a bottle of wine, two in fact, and Myra made cheese omelettes, really great, the best I've had in ages, so you needn't worry that I'm dying because I turned down your offer of beans on toast.'

Hat didn't recall specifying beans on toast, but he was too glad at the improvement in Rye to protest. With Myra Rogers on one side and Mrs Gilpin on the other,

Rye now had a double line of defence in the event piss-artist Penn returned to the fray.

When he got to see Rye again on the evening of Boxing Day he'd found the recovery was complete and all the delights of Christmas, traditional and individual, that he'd been looking forward to tasted all the better for being delayed.

This is all I want, Hat’ she whispered as she clung on to him after they made love. This is where I want to be, here, you, me, warm, snug, safe, forever.'

She lay across him, her arms and legs grappling him to her in an embrace so tight it was painful, but nothing in the world would have made him admit that pain. He had known from early on in their acquaintance that she was the one. Without her, life would be… he had no words to describe what life would be. All he knew was that whatever she wanted from him was hers without question. Even when she fell asleep she did not slacken her grip on him, and when she awoke in the small hours of the morning and began to explore his body again, she found his limbs locked in cramp.

'Jesus,' she said. 'Hat, love, what have I done to you? Why didn't you push me off?'

'Didn't want to,' he assured her. 'I'm fine. Oh shit!'

This in reaction to the stab of agony that followed his attempt to stretch his left leg.

She flung back the duvet, climbed astride his body and began to give him a comprehensive massage, which brought first relief then arousal.

'Here's a bit that's still stiff,' she said, running her hand down to his groin. That's going to need some real work.'

'Yeah, that's been bothering me for years,' he said. 'Don't think you'll have much luck there, Doctor.'

'At least we can wrap it up and keep it warm,' she said. 'Like this And Christmas was merry all over again.

Rye was back at work the next day. While many employers bow to the inevitable and close down for the whole of the holiday period, Mid-Yorkshire Library Service was of sterner mettle, recognizing that after the penal sociability of Christmas, many people would be keen to get back to the solitary confinement of books.

On the twenty-seventh the reference library was fairly busy, but there was one notable and unregretted absentee. Charley Penn.

But midway through the morning, the door opened and Penn came in. He headed for his usual seat but without giving her the benefit of his usual glower and after five minutes looking at an unopened book, he rose and came to the desk.

Without preamble he said, 'Wanted to say I'm sorry about kicking up that fuss on Christmas Day. I were right out of order. Won't happen again.'

'Fuss?' she said. 'Oh yes, someone did say something about a drunk on the landing. I didn't actually notice, but I'm glad to hear of your resolution to reform, Mr Penn. Is that with immediate effect or do we have to wait till the New Year?'

Their eyes engaged, hers wide and candid, his deep-set and watchful. Neither blinked, but before it became a playground contest, Penn said, 'Work to do’ and turned away.

Behind him Rye said, 'Going well, is it?'

If he was surprised, it was hidden by the time he turned back to her.

Two steps forward, one step back, you know how it is with research’ he said.

'Not really. I suppose I've never been interested enough in a complete stranger to want to know everything about him.'

'You don't start with a stranger. You start with someone you're acquainted with, if only through their works. That's the contact makes you want to know them better. And sometimes they turn out very different from what you imagined. There's the fascination.'

'I see. And is it harder or easier if they're dead?'

'Both. They can't answer questions. But they can't lie either.'

She was silent long enough for him to wonder if this unexpected exchange were at an end, then she said, 'And they can't object to someone sticking an unwanted nose into their private affairs. That must be an advantage.'

'Think you might be confusing my line of work and your boyfriend's,' said Penn.

'Parallel lines that sometimes intersect, aren't they?'

'That's a bit too clever for a simple soul like me,' said Penn.

'Simple, Mr Penn? With all those books to your name?'

'There's nowt clever in making things up about folk you've invented,' he said with the harsh dismissiveness of success.

'But you haven't invented Heine. And I hope you're not making things up about him.'

'No, he's real enough. But finding out the truth about him doesn't need cleverness, just hard work and a taste for truth.'

'And translating his poems?'

The same.'

'You surprise me. I never seem to see any of your translations any more, Mr Penn. There was a time when I was always coming across them.'

She spoke gravely, with no hint of mockery, but they both knew she was referring to a period when the writer had paid oblique court by leaving translations of Heine's amatory verses where she would chance upon them. When she made it plain she wasn't interested, the poems continued to appear but with a mocking irony colouring his choice. Dick Dee's death brought a halt to all such games.

'I didn't seem able to get down to it for a while’ he said. 'But I'm getting back into the swing now. Hold on a sec. There's something here I'd value a reaction to.'

He went to his cubicle and returned with a sheet of paper which he laid in front of her. It contained two verses side by side.

The rock breaks his vessel asunder But when in the end the wild waters

The waves roll his body along Plug his ear and scarf up his eye

But what in the end drags him under I 'm certain his last drowning thought is

Is Lorelei's sweet song The song of the Lorelei.

She read them without touching the paper.

'So?' she said.

'Two versions of the last verse of Heine's "Lorelei" poem, you know, the one that starts Ich weifi nicht was soil es bedeuten Daft ich so traurig bin.'

'I've come across it’

'Both very free. I give a parallel literal translation, but in my metrical version I try for the spirit rather than just the plain sense of the original. My dilemma is, does Heine want us to think that Lorelei deliberately sang to destroy the boatman? Or simply that it's her nature to sing and the boatman destroyed himself by listening? What do you think?'

'Don't know’ said Rye. 'But I don't much care for "waters" and "thought is".'

'An aesthetic rather than a moral judgment? Fair enough. I'll go with the first.'

He nodded, turned on his heel like a soldier and went back to his seat, leaving the sheet of paper on the desk.

A woman who had been observing this scene from the doorway now advanced to the desk. Rye Pomona looked up and saw a youngish female, rather stockily built, wearing no make up and a rain-spattered, mud-coloured fleece open to show a baggy grey T-shirt whose folds did nothing for her figure and whose colour sat uneasily against her dark complexion. She was holding a Tesco carrier bag and Rye snap-judged her as housewife who'd had kids early, let herself go a bit, and today, with the longueurs and rigours of Christmas behind her, had come to the library determined to seek some educational route to a life less tediously forecastable than her current prospects seemed to offer.

Must be Hat's influence, she told herself. I'm turning into a detective. Which thought, and the thought of Hat himself, brought a smile of such warmth to her face that the woman responded in kind, making her several years younger and three times as attractive. 'Hi,' said Rye. 'Can I help you?' Making sure her body screened out any observation from the library, the woman slid an ID card across the desk.

'Hi,' she said. 'DC Novello. Maybe Hat's mentioned me?'

In fact Hat, to whom love meant no no-go areas, had talked about his colleagues and his work and himself with a complete but subjective openness. His account of his arch-rival, Shirley Novello, had created in Rye's mind a picture of a smooth svelte sophisticated creature, mobile glued to her left ear, organizer welded to her right hand, each colour co-ordinated with her designer power suit. It took a moment to readjust from both that false impression and her equally flawed attempt at detection and Novello said reassuringly, 'It's nothing heavy. Mr Dalziel asked me to look in to see you were all right.'

What the Fat Man had actually said was, 'Let her know to be careful about some slimy sod oozing his way into her confidence. At the same time, do a bit of oozing yourself and make sure she doesn't have owt to hide’

'What a kind man Mr Dalziel is,' said Rye. 'As you can see, I'm fine.'

'Oh good. Wasn't that Mr Perm who was talking to you just now? I heard what happened on Christmas Day. He wasn't bothering you, I hope?'

'No, not in the least. We were just discussing a point of literature.'

Novello's gaze dropped to Penn's sheet of paper. Rye slid it away but not before Novello had read the lines of verse upside down.

'Lorelei,' she said. 'Wasn't that what you found on your computer after the break in?'

Done your homework, thought Rye. This was more in accord with Hat's picture.

'Yes,' she said.

'And you're sure Mr Penn wasn't bothering you?'

'Honestly, I know when I'm being bothered’ she smiled. 'I'm sure this was just coincidental. He came to apologize. I don't think we're going to be best friends, but if he wants things quiet, I'm not going to quarrel with that.'

'He may have his own reasons for wanting things quiet’ said Novello.

'Meaning?'

'Mr Dalziel thinks he might have decided he was getting nowhere barking himself, so he's decided to find himself a dog.'

‘o bark louder at me?' said Rye, amused.

'More sniffer dog than barker’ said Novello. Tress.'

'A journalist? But that's stupid. What would I have to say to a journalist?'

'Nothing, I hope. But as you've probably gathered, Mr Perm thinks that you… that all of us are hiding something. If he's managed to persuade a journalist there could be a story… point is, it won't be someone coming at you asking for an interview, it's more likely to be someone coming at you sideways. Like here at the library, say. Some fellow asking for your help with something, then striking up an acquaintance… it can happen.'

She'd taken the brief smile which touched Rye's lips as scepticism, but it was caused by her memory that this was how Hat Bowler had first attempted to get to know her.

'I'll be on my guard,' she promised.

'So it's not happened yet?'

'No. I think I'd have noticed.'

Novello said gently, 'With these people, the art is making sure you don't notice.'

'Oh dear. Now you're frightening me. But in any case, I've got nothing to hide so what can they hope to get out of me?'

Novello said, 'Can we go into your office for a moment?'

She glanced towards Penn as they went through the door behind the desk, but the writer seemed deeply immersed in his work.

Closing the door she said, 'They'll have the public records. Mr Dalziel thought it might help if you took a look at the inquest transcript.'

She produced a file from the Tesco bag.

Rye said uneasily, 'Is it OK to do this?'

'Of course it is. It's like a copper looking at his notebook in court. No one can remember everything exactly. And if someone did ask you questions, you wouldn't want to give them anything to worry at just because something slipped your mind, would you? They're experts at making owt from nowt.'

Dalziel had said, 'Make sure she understands that what she said to the coroner is all she needs to say.'

And Novello, who had not been made privy to anything but the official picture of what Pascoe and Dalziel had found when they arrived on the scene, nor anything the girl had said outside her formal statement, didn't ask the question forming in her mind, 'And could she say anything more, sir?' because she was beginning to suspect that this ignorance was part of the reason she'd been given this job. Reading everything she could find on the Wordman case had taken up most of her free time since Dalziel gave her the assignment – just because he gave you a job that took up twenty-three hours of the day didn't mean he didn't expect you to fit the rest of your work into the remaining hour.

There was a ring from the enquiry desk bell.

'Look, I've got to go’ said Rye.

'Fine. Keep this. Read it at your leisure. Nothing to worry about, we just don't want you being harassed. I'll keep in touch, if that's OK? Maybe a coffee some time?'

Rye thought then nodded and said, 'Yes, I think I'd like that.'

She ushered the WDC out of the office. Standing at the desk was a tall, blond young man looking like Arnie Schwarzenegger's handsome young brother. Novello gave him a look which was at the same time assessing and admiring. In reply she got a smile which kept up the Hollywood connection by being borrowed straight from Julia Roberts.

Half blinded by such dental effulgence, she glanced at Rye and twisted her mouth into a get-a-load-of-that! expression.

'Take care’ she said.

'You too’ said Rye with a grin.

And as Novello walked away she thought, if that hunk does turn out to be an investigative journalist, then he can investigate me to his heart's content!

At the same time as Novello left the library, about a hundred feet over her head a scene was unfolding which in prospect most investigative journalists would have given their editors' eyeteeth for.

Sergeant Edgar Wield was approaching the top floor of the Centre car park where he had a secret assignation with the teenage rent boy who was madly in love with him.

At least this was how it might be written up by some. of these investigative journalists, thought Wield. Which was why, one way or another, he was going to get things sorted between Lee Lubanski and himself today.

After a dodgy start, Edgar Wield had had a very good Christmas.

His partner, antiquarian book dealer, Edwin Digweed, had turned out to be a traditionalist in matters yulic. At first Wield had looked for an element of piss-taking as the familiar outlines of their cottage vanished beneath a folly of furbelows and he found himself sharing their small sitting room with an outsize fir-tree whose apogean fairy bowed gracefully from the waist because her head pressed against the ceiling. On a shopping expedition to a hypermarket, which during the rest of the year Digweed referred to as Hell's Cathedral, he had watched in bewilderment as their trolley piled up with crackers and baubles and puddings and pies and jars of pickled walnuts and yards of cocktail sausage and samples of every kind of exotic confectionary and savoury on display. Finally he had enquired politely if the Red Cross had perhaps warned Edwin to expect a flash flood of starving but picky refugees in remote Eendale. Digweed had laughed, a sort of jolly ho-ho-ho which Wield never heard him use at any other season, and continued down the aisle, humming along to the piped carols.

Ever a pragmatist, Wield had decided to relax and enjoy it, and discovered rather to his surprise that he did. Even his initially reluctant attendance at the midnight service had been a pleasure. The whole village had been there, and as Corpse Cottage, the Wield’Digweed residence, now festooned with winking fairy lights, snuggled handily under the churchyard wall, it seemed natural that most of the villagers should drop in for a festal warmer on the way home, and very quickly huge inroads were made into what had seemed their excessive provision.

'I was very pleased to see you at the service’ said Justin Halavant, art collector and critic in whose medieval hand a poppy or a lily would not have looked out of place. 'It's so important to demonstrate the solidarity of our faith, don't you think?'

'Oh aye?' said Wield, a touch surprised as he'd have put Halavant down as an aesthetic rather than a devout Christian. 'Look, don't be offended, I enjoyed it, but I'm not what you'd call a true believer

'My dear chap, what's that got to do with anything?' laughed Halavant. 'All I meant was, anyone who doesn't show up in the church at Christmas is likely to end up in the Wickerman at Beltane. Lovely candied kumquats, by the way. I may have some more.'

Later he'd shared the exchange with Digweed, who'd laughed, not his ho-ho-ho but his usual dry chuckle, and said, 'Justin likes his jest. But he's right. Enscombe takes care of its own, one way or another.'

Christmas morning had been going well till among the presents beneath the tree Wield had found a padded envelope marked Not to be opened till Xmas day in a childish scrawl.

'Came with the post yesterday,' said Digweed with an overstudied lack of interest.

Wield opened it to find a card with all the most sucrose elements of Christmas greetings combined in one glutinous design and something wrapped in tissue paper.

The card was inscribed To Edgar the best from your friend Lee.

He unwrapped the tissue to reveal a pair of silver cuff links engraved with his initials.

Edwin asked no questions, but questions hung in the air so Wield gave answers in his most brisk and precise style.

Digweed listened then said, 'You did not think to mention this boy to me earlier.'

'It was police business.'

'So,' said Digweed, glancing at the links and the card, 'it would appear. Isn't there a name for gifts that policemen receive from criminals?'

Oh dear, thought Wield. To a cop, family squabbles leading to domestic violence were a commonplace of Christmas Day. He hadn't anticipated getting personally involved.

'He's not a criminal,' he said. 'But I'll be giving it back to him anyway.'

'And break the little darling's heart? Don't be silly. If you don't want the links, I'll have them. I'll tell people the initials stand for Eternally Worried, that's me.'

He turned away, his shoulders shaking as if at some barely restrained emotion.

'Edwin, there's no need for you to worry…' Digweed turned to face him, still shaking but now the emotion was clear and audible.

'My dear Edgar, what do you take me for?' he said, laughing. 'I may shoot you but I will never play the sulky jealous type. And besides, you say this young man is nineteen but could pass for ten or eleven? I can see you looking appreciatively at a good-looking yunker, but I have never detected the smallest morsel of paedophilia in your make-up. Also, in my experience, cuff links are not the kind of gift a lad gives to his lover. They are more what a son gives to his dad. So, no jealousy, believe me. But some concern. You may not be attracted to young Lubanski, but you are sorry for him and, to a man in your position, that can be more dangerous than sex. You will take care, won't you?'

'He's at risk.'

'No. You are. Don't confuse the apparent child with the real adult. But that's for the morrow. Carpe diem, dear Edgar. And here's a little something to help preserve it too.'

He tossed over a package which Wield ripped open to reveal a mini camcorder.

'Jesus,' he said with real feeling. 'Thanks a million. This must have cost a fortune.'

'Self-interest,' said Digweed. 'I understand that you with your computer expertise will be able to make films of me, then doctor them so that I look and move twenty years younger. I can hardly wait for the experiment to begin.'

And after that Christmas had been everything Lee's card claimed it should be.

Wield could not remember a time in his life when he'd been happier. And because he was happy, he wanted everyone else to be happy too, but this he knew was not even a possibility in that other uncontrollable world that lay in ambush for him whenever he ventured east of Eendale. So now as he approached his rendezvous, his mind rilled with foreboding as he spotted the pale-faced boy who stood in wait for him like Cathy waiting for Heathcliff, outlined against the scudding clouds of a wild and wintry Yorkshire sky.

He had changed their meeting spot partly because regular encounters even somewhere as anonymous as Turk's could draw attention, but mainly because he didn't want any audience if Lubanski got upset with what he was about to hear.

For this was definitely their last meeting.

Dalziel, impressed by the accuracy of the tips so far, had urged Wield to get his new informant signed up properly. Wield knew this wasn't going to happen, but he didn't mind making the proposal because he reckoned this would draw a line under their relationship. The idea of simply continuing to take advantage of the boy's vulnerability and emotional instability filled him with revulsion. Before they parted, he would do his best to persuade Lee out of the dangerous and degrading life he was leading, though, being a realist, he had little hope of success. But no way was he going to let the boy's evident misconceptions about their current relationship continue.

Now Lee turned and saw him, and his change of expression from abandoned puppy dolour to here-comes-master delight struck Wield to the heart and turned the stern words he'd prepared bitter in his mouth, and he heard himself saying, 'Hi, Lee. Good Christmas?'

'Yeah. Made a bundle.'

'I didn't mean trade, Lee’ said Wield, thinking what a stupid question it had been. 'Listen, I've got something to say to you.'

'Me first,' said the youth. 'There's something real big going down in the New Year.'

'Lee’ said Wield, steeling his resolve. 'It's time we put a stop.’

'No, listen, this is really good. I made some notes after. I've got them here.'

Proudly he handed over a sheet of cheap writing paper covered with a childish scrawl.

Tear it up, Wield told himself. Tell him you don't want to know, it's all over, you're washing your hands of him. He's got his own life to live and if you can't make it any better, the least you can do is not make it any worse.

But even as the voice of the man inside spoke these words in his head, the eyes of the cop outside were reading the words on the paper.

B said that things were OK and man in Sheffield shuddunt worry and man in she fsaid that was for him to deside and there's been plenty to worry about already how did B explain that. And B said coincidence and it hadn 't made a difference had it and everything was on as planned for January and the upfront many would be deposited as arranged. And man in Shefsaid it had better be and he rang off.

Now Wield was all cop.

He said, 'This B… he's your source for these tips, is he? You do business with him?'

'Yeah, that's right. Regular. He really goes for me. And he's got one of them speaker phones and he seems to like talking to people while we're, like, doing it…not about it, though he does that too on the net, but real business talk, and the others've got no idea that I'm there doing it…'

Oh God. The Oval Office syndrome. Some guy full of a sense of his own importance and getting a kick out of…

His imagination shut out the picture of the act just as Lee's misplaced delicacy had refused to put it into words.

He said, 'So this man in Sheffield, there was no name mentioned?'

'No. Well, not really.'

Something there? Maybe. But concentrate on facts before you start chasing fancies.

'How do you know he was in Sheffield?'

Lee screwed up his eyes in thought then said, 'Because Belchy asked if he was still in Sheffield and he said yes.'

‘Belchy?

‘B for Belchy.

Oh shit. If what he was thinking was true, there was no way Andy Dalziel was ever going to let this boy go.

Grasping the nettle at once he said, 'Belchy would be Marcus Belchamber, right?'

Lee didn't answer but he didn't need to. Alarm was twisting his boyish features.

'Right?' insisted Wield.

'I didn't tell you that!'

Wield felt a mingling of pity and exasperation. The stupid boy thought it was safe to pass on information as long as he didn't name names. As if it would make the slightest difference to Belchamber that his name had been guessed rather than betrayed. But it clearly made a difference to Lee, and that was something a good cop could play on.

‘Despising himself, Wield said reassuringly, 'Of course you didn't, Lee. Whatever happens, we'd make that quite clear. We've known all along, you see. It's always that way, we know a lot more than we ever let on.'

The upside of giving an impression of omniscience, besides calming the boy's fears and making him more malleable, was that it might make him start thinking of Wield as a part of the huge legal machine rather than an individual.

'So you knew all this stuff I've given you?'

'Most’ said Wield. 'But what you told us was great for tying up loose ends. In fact, I don't know what we'd have done without it. You've done really well.'

The boy looked so pleased that Wield felt his old guilt well up. However this played, this was definitely the last time, he assured himself.

But he was getting way ahead of the game.

He said, 'So, no names, you say? What about when they said cheerio?'

'The man in Sheffield just hung up. Then Tobe got on the net…"

'Tobe? Who the hell's Tobe?'

'It's Belchy's web name, the one he uses when he talks to his mates on the net.'

'How do you know that?'

'Sometimes he's been online while we're… you know. Likes to send messages to say what's happening.'

Belchamber, you are a nasty piece of shit! thought Wield.

He said, 'This is a chat room he uses then?'

'Yeah, but it's real complicated to get in, passwords, and all kinds of shit. You want me to find out more about it?'

'No,' said Wield firmly. 'You mustn't do anything that makes him suspicious. So when he went online was this something to do with the call to the man in Sheffield?'

'I think so. I saw this message he left on the noticeboard. LB call Tobe.'

'LB?'

'Yeah, it's one of these pervs in the chat room, but this one Belchy knows personal and sometimes he'll just leave a message there.'

Someone whose line he doesn't trust to be secure, thought Wield.

'And did this LB ring?'

'Yeah. A bit later. Didn't need to make a note of that, it were really short. LB said what? And Belchy said he'd told his mate the money was through and was it? And LB said he always did what he said he'd do and mebbe Tobe should remember that. End of call.'

'Doesn't sound very friendly.'

'No,' said the boy. 'Come to think of it, when I've heard 'em before, Belchy and LB, I mean, they've always sounded a lot more friendly.'

'And the man in Sheffield didn't sound like a close friend either from what you say.'

'Him? No, definitely not.'

'But you said that Belchamber talked about "his mate's money" when he was talking to LB. Why should that be, do you think?'

'Don't know. Yeah, it is a bit funny. I mean, old Belchy's really posh. Not the kind of guy goes around calling people mate, know what I mean? But he did call the Sheffield guy mate a couple of times. Mebbe he was trying to suck up to him, do you think?'

'Yes,' said Wield softly. 'Maybe he was. Lee, you've done well, picking all this up.'

The boy's face lit up.

'You reckon?

‘Well, you know. Keeps your mind off the job, doesn't it?'

'And how long have you been working for old Belchy?'

'Few weeks now. Real regular. It's good money and no hassle.'

'You sound like you sort of like him?'

Lee looked at Wield blankly and said, 'Like him? He's a punter. I mean, someone like you I can like, but not a punter… liking don't come into it… and he treats me like a kid

'Sorry?'

'Well, he goes on like I'm just a kid, you know, ten or eleven or such. He's got these clothes he likes me to put on, school uniform, green blazer with yellow edging, grey shorts and a cap, all that crap, and he gets narked if I say owt that a grown-up would say. Other times he dresses up like them soldiers in that film Gladiator and I've got to run around bare arse like I'm a slave or summat. Still, it's his money and you gotta give what you get paid for, that's how things work, right?'

'I'm afraid it is, Lee,' said Wield with infinite sadness. 'I'm afraid it is.'

‘Let me get this straight,' said Dalziel. 'While this lad's under the table chewing his dick, Belchamber's chatting away with his dodgy clients on the phone? Or else he's on his computer giving a running commentary to some other sad shirt-lifters? God, that makes the bastard thick and sick!'

'Wouldn't call him thick,' said Wield. 'It's a power thing. The lad doing this to him is a Roman slave. Or else he's a ten-year-old schoolboy. That uniform Lee mentioned sounds like Thistle Hall Prep School to me. I checked. That's where Belchamber went. Mebbe something bad happened to him there.'

'Not bad enough. He's a disgusting excuse for a human being,' said Pascoe fervently. 'I've never liked him. It will be a pleasure to send him down.'

'Hang about’ said Dalziel. 'Let's not get ahead of ourselves. OK, one reading of this is that Belchamber's put a toe over the line and may be acting as a bagman for one of his dodgy clients, though I can't for the life of me understand why he should. In fact it seems so unlikely that I reckon we take a long cold look at things afore we go steaming in on the basis of some scribbles that a rent boy has given to Quentin Crisp here.'

One thing about the Fat Man, he didn't wrap things up in fancy paper.

Or perhaps (mind-boggling thought!) he believed he did.

Pascoe said, 'Let's wire Lubanski up, get something we can produce in evidence. In any case it'll be better if we can assess what's being said for ourselves.'

'No,' said Wield very firmly.’I’ll not have that.'

'Oh?' said Pascoe, taken aback. 'Do you intend arguing that or merely asserting it?'

Dalziel looked from his sergeant to his chief inspector and for a moment thought about settling back to enjoy a rare public confrontation between them.

Then both personal regard and professional responsibility kicked in and he said dismissively, 'Doesn't need arguing. Lad's got to strip off to change into his school uniform. I bet the Belch watches, so while he's running around in the buff, where's he going to keep a wire hidden? Could try for a phone tap, but doubt we'd get it. Things go wrong, no one's going to fancy having Belchamber shitting on us from a great height. No, we'll have to stick with the lad. What's his motive giving you this stuff anyway, Wieldy?'

It was with great reluctance that Wield had let Lee get into the Fat Man's rattle-bag. Though even Dalziel probably found the notion of sex slavery abhorrent, he drew the line at human rights for snouts. Belchamber's involvement plus his sense that this latest bit of info related to something really big had made it impossible to preserve the boy's anonymity. But no way was he going to discuss the true nature of Lee's motivation. He tried to imagine the landslip of emotion running down that Beachy Head of a face if he replied now, 'He wants me for his dad.' Almost worth it just to see. Almost. He said, 'He hates Belchamber's guts.'

It wasn't true. In fact Lee seemed almost as indifferent to Belchamber as a human being as the lawyer was to him. But it would do for the Fat Man.

'Does he now?' Dalziel shuddered. 'Jesus! If you ever get a notion that I'm letting some bugger who hates my guts get his teeth anywhere near my dick, be sure to let me know! So let's see what we've got. Mate. You think this guy in Sheffield could be Mate Polchard. Rings a bell, we were talking about him just the other day, weren't we?'

'Was in the Syke with Roote. They played chess together,' said Pascoe, who suspected the Fat Man remembered full well and was merely testing his reaction.

'That's it. Don't think young Franny could be masterminding this job, whatever it is, do you, Pete?' said Dalziel with heavy jocularity. 'Fits your Mr Big profile to a T.'.

‘I’ll wait till we're certain that it is Polchard who's involved before making up my mind, sir,' said Pascoe, po-faced.

'Good thinking. Wieldy, you've checked Polchard out?'

'Christmas at his cottage in Wales. Left on Boxing Day. Spotted in Sheffield the week before Christmas.'

'Spotted where? Doing what?'

'The shops,' said Wield. 'Christmas stuff. Nothing furtive. Looked like he was shopping till he dropped, then off back to the countryside for Christmas.'

'So he'd have been around same time as this DI Rose was getting a sniff of a big job overspilling on to our patch. Pete?'

‘I’ve spoken to Rose. Low key. Didn't want to get him too excited.'

Which had been difficult. His sense of exultation had come bubbling down the line and Pascoe had had to work very hard to keep the cork in.

'Listen’ he'd urged, 'this could be nothing. My advice, don't go shouting round the office. If it comes to nothing, you'll look dafter than before. If it comes to something big, then someone bigger than you will lift it out of your lap. Good security too. Fewer people who know, less chance of some idiot blowing things. Walls have ears, remember?'

This argument seemed to impress. Perhaps Rose had suffered from idle gossip.

'You're right there,' he said. 'Round here they've got bloody tongues too!'

'Anything more from your snout?'

'Still no sign of the bugger. His cronies say he's still in London, but nobody has an address. I bet he's too scared to come back. Someone's really put the frighteners on him.'

'Someone like Mate Polchard?' suggested Pascoe. That kind of strength, yeah.'

They left it that Rose was going to put out cautious feelers to check if Polchard was back in town and, once found, mount a distant surveillance on him.

'It's all owt or nowt,' said Dalziel fretfully. 'This other guy, LB, the one your snout thinks must be one of his creepy computer chums, how's that working out,

‘Wieldy?'

'I'm working on it,' said Wield. 'But these closed chat rooms aren't easy. Lots of checks, codes and passwords. And once you're in, everyone uses screen names.'

'Like Tobe? What sort of fucking name's that?'

'A rather obvious sort, I'd have said’ declared Pascoe. 'I'd guess he calls himself Toby, in reference to Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Can't work out LB though’

'Better revise your Shakespeare then, hadn't you?' growled Dalziel, who didn't mind showing off himself but deplored it in his underlings. 'This chat room, all else fails, can we do the slimy sod for that?'

'Not unless they're using it to download obscene material under the Act’ said Wield. 'Or procuring minors for illegal acts. But if they're just a bunch of like-minded souls who want a place where they can let it all hang out and talk dirty, it's hard to touch them’

'If he's into this, isn't he likely to be into one of the big hard-core rings?' said Pascoe.

'Possibly’ Wield hesitated, then went on, 'My reading of Belchamber, though, is that he's too careful to let himself get into something like that which he can't really control’

'Not so careful if he chats on the phone with a rent boy dangling from his dick’ said Pascoe.

'I think that's all part of it’ said Wield. 'To a lot of people, danger's an essential part of sex. We've all got extremes we like to go to. If we're lucky, we find someone else willing to make the trip. Belchamber wants the danger, wants the extremes, but he's a lawyer. Maximize the professional profit, minimize the personal risk. That's what he likes so much about Lee. He looks like he's ten, and Belchamber makes him act like he's ten, but in fact he's nineteen. If it all went pear-shaped, what have we got? No law against sexual relations with a nineteen-year-old. So Belchamber gets the paedo's kick without the risk. And doing business while he's getting a blow job is the same. It feels really wild, but he thinks he's too powerful relative to the boy to be in any danger of disclosure’

Pascoe was used to listening to Wield's cool, detailed analyses of situations and cases, but though the tone was as dispassionate as ever, there was some pulse running beneath the surface here that he'd rarely detected before.

Dalziel said, 'Another possibility. We're sure, are we, that this kid, as well as sucking Belchamber's plonker, isn't pulling yours?'

For a moment Pascoe thought the Fat Man was questioning Wield's relationship with Lubanski, then he made the shift from the literal to the figurative.

'Certain, sir,' said Wield. 'And after the Linford case and the Praesidium thing, he's got the track record to back it.'

'The security van thing, tell us about that again. Seems funny for old Belchy to be mixed up with such a bunch of losers.'

Reginald Hill

D amp;P20 – Death's Jest-Book

‘They may be losers, sir,' said Pascoe. 'But we haven't had a sniff of them since. Even the van's vanished off the face of the earth.'

'They'd want something for their efforts, wouldn't they?' growled Dalziel. 'Either it's being gutted and the bits sold off through some dodgy dealer, or maybe they shipped the whole thing across to Ireland and it's running around Dublin as we speak. But what's Belchamber's connection?'

'Don't know. Lubanski came in from the shower -Belchamber likes him clean and smelling of carbolic soap – and just caught the end of a conversation. Belchamber said, "and the Praesidium van?" and the other guy said, "we'll hit it Friday".'

'Not a lot,' said the Fat Man. 'Was this other voice the same as the man in Sheffield?'

‘I asked. Lee couldn't say.'

'Could be the aim of the Praesidium job was to bankroll the big job,' said Pascoe.

'Failed miserably then.'

'So maybe Polchard's had to go elsewhere for the money, which might explain how Belchamber got involved.'

'No, he must've been involved already if he were talking to someone about the van before it got hit,' objected Dalziel. 'Look, until we've got a better idea what we're dealing with – and it could turn out to be a bag of bones after all – let's proceed with caution. Wieldy, I'll leave this lad in your tender loving care for the time being, but if ever I feel the need, I'll pick the young sod up myself and shake him around till I'm sure there's nowt else to come out. Now bugger off, the two of you. We've got nowt but mustard seeds here. I'm relying on you pair either to water them or piss on them pretty damn quick.'

At the door Pascoe paused.

'Sir’ he said.

'What? Unless it's about Roote, in which case sod off, I'm busy.'

'What's Novello doing with her nose stuck in the Wordman file?'

'She's doing what she's been told off to do, lad, and a bit more besides. I'd watch that lass. I reckon she's after your job.'

'And welcome to it most days. Shall I ask her direct then?'

With a sigh, Dalziel explained what he was up to, most of it anyway.

'So how's she doing so far?'

'She's spoken to Pomona, put her on guard.'

He gave Pascoe a quick summary of Novello's account of her visit to the library.

'And Penn was showing Rye bits of the "Lorelei" poem? Isn't that as good as an admission he was the one did the break-in?'

'Not so. I'd mentioned Lorelei to him and he's sharp at putting things together, is Charley. Couldn't resist stirring the pot a bit, but I reckon the significant thing is Charley apologizing and being what passes for conciliatory in a tyke-bred Kraut. I reckon that Christmas Day really was just down to too much sauce and he regretted it later. He wants Pomona lulled so's his tabloid wolf can gobble up little Red Riding Hood unawares.'

'I see,' said Pascoe. 'Sir, it is going to be all right, isn't it?'

Pascoe, though he hadn't opposed them, had never been totally happy about the liberties they'd taken with the official version of events that day out at Stang Tarn.

'Worried about your pension?' laughed the, Fat Man. 'No need. If it comes to that, you can share mine.'

The laughter still echoing in his ears, How come it's only my pension that's at risk? wondered Pascoe.

Down in the canteen, Shirley Novello and Hat Bowler were looking into the future but with no thought of pensions.

It had been Novello who proposed a chat over a cup of coffee and it hadn't started well.

'I was at the library this morning,' said Novello. 'Had a talk with your girl.'

'What the hell for?' said Hat fiercely.

'Just to see she was all right.'

'Oh yes? And what business is that of yours? Mebbe you should keep your nose out.'

Oh shit, thought Novello. When love came in the window, reason went out the door. Time to summon the bogeyman.

'It was Mr Dalziel's idea. You want I should tell Mr Dalziel to keep his nose out? Or would you rather do it yourself?'

For a moment Hat looked as if he might be seriously contemplating this, then reality set in and he said, 'So what did he tell you to do?'

Novello explained. She held nothing back. Dalziel had told her to handle things in her own way and that didn't include risking alienation of a colleague she might have to depend on at some future juncture.

Bowler seemed determined to be stupid.

'So he thinks that Penn's trying to get the papers interested in a scandal, only there's no scandal to get them interested in, is there? How much time and money are they going to waste on that, do you think? No story, end of story.'

'You're not looking at this straight on, Hat’ she said. 'Think of it this way. We collect evidence of what we think is a crime and we send it off to the CPS and half the time they look at what we think is a water-tight case and send it back saying, "Sorry no can do, won't stand up in court." So, a good case to us looks like crap to them, right?'

'Yeah but’

'The newspapers are to us what we are to the CPS. What looks like crap to us can look like a good case to them. They don't have to worry about proving things in court. Hints, allegations, lots of stuff in quotes, given half a chance they can probably make us look like we're doing more covering up than a drag queen.'

'Yeah, but if no one's done anything wrong, they can't hurt us, can they?'

Could he really be so naive? wondered Novello.

'If they find a story to run they'll run it hard,' she said patiently. 'There'll be questions, maybe another enquiry. You've been through one already, one that was on your side, and you came out a hero. The papers loved you. But love dies. Another scenario, another role. You may come out clean again, but that doesn't mean you won't be damaged. You know how it works, nothing on the record, but at every promotion board, someone asks, wasn't he the one…? Same with Rye. Yes, on paper she's good, but do you recall…'

'They still need a story to run,' he said obstinately.

'OK, try this. Librarian screws boss in country cottage. Jealous lover catches them at it. There's a fight. Lover stabs rival to death. Thirteen times.'

'That's a load of garbage!'

'Not the thirteen stabs. I've read the PM report.'

Hat said, 'Listen, Novello, don't you think I haven't been through all this? I was on my back with that bastard on top of me. He'd stabbed me already, would have killed me if Rye hadn't hit him with a bottle. That must've made him drop the knife and he started hitting me with this heavy glass dish and would probably have finished the job with that if I hadn't got hold of the knife somehow and stabbed him with it.'

'Yeah. Thirteen times. Mainly in the back, though you did manage to get him a good one under the ribs too. That would probably have been enough without the other dozen.'

For a moment it looked as if he was going to explode in resentful anger. Instead he closed his eyes tight and knotted his fists tighter, then slowly forced himself to relax.

'We were fighting, him for his freedom, me for my life,' he said quietly. 'We rolled around a bit, I suppose, but mainly he was on top of me with my arms round him, so his back was the easiest target. I don't remember much. I was losing consciousness. All I knew was while I still had an ounce of strength left, I had to use it against him.'

'And of course you were defending your girl's honour,' said Novello lightly. 'Real picture-book heroics.'

To her surprise he grinned at her mockery.

That's how it started maybe, but not how it finished. In the end it was all about me being scared shitless. Literally, I gather. I was convinced I was going to die and I was terrified. You must know the feeling, Novello. You've been there.'

Her hand went to the shoulder where she'd taken the bullet that had come close to killing her.

'Not straight off’ she said. 'For a time I was out of it. Still breathing, still moving, but too shocked to feel much. Later though, when it looked like all of us were going to end up dead and I was too weak even to think about resistance, then I got scared.'

'Shitless?' he said.

'I may have pee'd myself, but we ended up so wet there was no way of telling’ she said, smiling at him in a sharing moment. Then the smile faded and she said in a businesslike voice, 'OK, however you finished, you started off being a hero. In your statement you say that when you burst into the cottage, you found Rye and Dee struggling, both naked, lots of blood. And you assumed’

'I assumed nothing! I saw he was attacking her. And it wasn't just sexual, though that was bad enough. The bastard was trying to kill her!'

'Because of the knife, you mean? And because you'd worked out that all the evidence pointed to Dee being the killer known as the Wordman? If there hadn't been a Wordman connection and you'd come across the same scene, what would you have thought?'

'The same’ he said promptly. 'OK, different motivation. He'd wanted sex, she'd turned him down, he'd got nasty, tried to force her, and when she fought back, he lost it.'

'Right’ she said thoughtfully. 'But even given his sole aim was to kill her, there must have been some sexual element in the attack all the same. I mean, in your hospital statement you say she was naked, right?'

'Yeah. He must have torn her clothes off her, obvious.'

'Fair enough. No mention of this in the inquest evidence though.'

'No need. It wasn't down as an attempted rape.'

'No, of course not,' she said. 'Then there's Rye's injuries. It's on record she needed treatment, but mainly for shock. Physically there was nothing but a few scratches and a little bruising. No need for this to figure in the inquest record either, nor in the enquiry report. She was attacked, she was terrified, that was enough.'

'What's your point?' said Hat. 'In fact, what's the point of any of this? Like I say, I've been through it all before, with Mr Dalziel and with the enquiry. So why the hell do I have to sit here being interrogated by someone who knows nothing about the case and whose only claim to seniority is that she's been a DC a few months longer than me?'

'Do I have to explain it all again?' she said wearily. 'Mr Dalziel, and the enquiry team too, they had the same aim, to clarify the truth, but they had a bloody good idea what the truth they wanted to clarify was. Dee, the psychopathic serial killer, had been prevented from carrying out his last murder by the intervention of Bowler, the modest young hero. That is the gospel truth in the authorized version. Only there's Penn's revised version, which Fat Andy thinks he's persuaded the forces of Anti-Christ, better known as the tabloid press, to take an interest in. We can assume the cunning bastards will get hold of everything I've got hold of. And what we've got to ask ourselves so that we can be ready for it, is what are they likely to make of things like the thirteen stab wounds on Dee's body? The fact that they were made by the deadly weapon with which he was attacking Rye, indicating clearly that he'd been disarmed when he was killed? The absence of any significant and life-threatening wounds on Rye's body?'

She could have added Rye's nudity and the lack of any forensic evidence indicating that her clothes had been removed by force, but she felt she'd gone far enough. Hat, she observed with a pang, was looking worse than he had at any time since his return to duty. Then, apart from a little pallor, he had shown no signs of his illness, but had moved and behaved with all his old ebullience. Now he looked careworn and a decade older.

'So what do you make of it, Shirl?' he asked.

She hated Shirl, didn't much care for Shirley, was happy to be simply Novello which had a neutrality to match her work clothing. But Bowler's rare use of her first name signalled dependency rather than condescension.

'Not much, and I doubt they'll make much either, not without they get something else, like a few good quotes from you or from Rye,' she said reassuringly. 'So take care.'

'You bet,' he said, getting up. 'Back to the grind. See you upstairs.'

She watched him go. She had no special feeling for Hat, but there was a quality of brightness and bounce about him which it was hard to resist, and she wasn't happy to have a part in snuffing it out. She hoped she'd been telling the" truth about the likely tabloid reaction, but she doubted it. If, as Dalziel suspected, one of the papers had already committed an undercover investigative reporter to the case, they weren't going to step away from it without at the very least a mud-stirring article. There was enough material here already for that and she'd barely got going on her devil's advocate assignment. But of course, it wasn't just that which would be bothering Bowler. He too was a detective and she doubted if she'd asked any questions he hadn't already asked himself. She just hoped to God that he'd have the nous not to ask Rye. She herself hardly knew the woman, thought her interesting, and was certain there was a lot more to her than met the eye. If that lot more had included opening her pages to her librarian boss, that was her business and Hat would be well advised not to make it his.

But if it made a tabloid headline, it would take a stronger will than she guessed he possessed to keep his lips glued.

Letter 7 Received Mon Dec 31 ^ st P. P

Wed Dec 26th

My dear Mr Pascoe,

Have you had a good Christmas? I have, in fact so good that only now does it seem I've had time or energy to sit down and write to you. Perhaps you'd have preferred it if I hadn't bothered? I hope not, but in any case it's no longer a matter of choice. They say in China that if you save someone's life then it becomes your responsibility. In a way you may have saved mine by putting me in the Syke, so now you're having to pay the price.

Last time I wrote I was on my way to Zurich.

God, what a wonderful city! You can almost smell the money! But that I know will be of little interest to one so unmaterialistic as yourself, so let me hasten to matters more to your taste, such as art, history, and the pursuit of knowledge.

From the point of view of new material, my short stay was as unproductive as I anticipated. To dig up anything new from ground already carefully riddled by Sam and Albacore, I would have needed a vast supply of serendipity, and I'd already used mine in making a possible connection between Beddoes and Fichtenburg. But good biography is as much concerned with getting inside the mind of its subject as establishing external facts about him, and I think I got a great deal out of simply strolling around the city, imagining I was that other lonely, disaffected and unattached exile, Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

You, of course, by instinct and training, are expert at tracking motives. How much easier would it be with you at my side for me to understand what made Beddoes, shortly before his twenty-second birthday and shortly after having taken his degree at Oxford where he had begun to establish a reputation as a poet, decide to leave England and spend nearly all the remainder of his life in Germany and Switzerland? In particular, how could someone who so clearly loved the English tongue as much as he did have pretty well relegated it to his second language by the time he died?

Sam's theory is that everything can be traced to the boy's early exposure to the brutal realities of death, and to the devastatingly early loss of his powerful father. If we look at the three main energy centres of Beddoes' life, we can see how they all relate to his father, and how they're all preoccupied with man's struggle against the ultimate enemy.

Through medicine he seeks for ways to understand and conquer it while at the same time looking for any evidence in flesh, blood and bone of the existence of the soul. While he does not seem inclined to follow his father in channelling his medical skills into improving the health of the underprivileged (Beddoes Sr founded the quaintly named Institute for the Sick and Drooping Poor!), Thomas Lovell actively supports – sometimes at personal risk – what today we would call human rights movements throughout Germany. And, of course, through the creative power of his imagination he attempts to grapple hand to hand with the Arch-Fear.

So why come to Germany? The answer lies in what I've just written. Here he could be at the cutting edge (ho ho) of medical research; here there were strong undercurrents of social revolution such as only rarely made themselves felt in dull, complacent little England; and here with its dark forests and dramatic castles and sweeping rivers and turbulent mythology lay the true Gothic heart of Europe which, since the Jacobeans, the British had only dabbled their toes in.

But in the end he sees that his attack has failed on all three fronts.

I visited the site of the old town theatre which Beddoes hired for a night in a last sad attempt to pluck some morsel of comfort out of his disintegrating life by dressing young Konrad Degen up in hose and doublet and putting the poor lad on the stage as Hotspur.

Sam muses that perhaps Beddoes saw Hotspur, an uncomplicated, impulsive, brave, honourable, poetry-mocking, life-loving man of action, as the kind of son who wouldn't have let his father die. Or perhaps the only way a man can really bring a father back to life is to become him by having a son yourself.

Poor Beddoes. For a moment I slipped out of my skin and time into his and felt his pain, and felt too, what is worse, his faith that the future must be better than the past and that by the time we reached, say, the twenty-first century, the world would have taken large steps towards Utopia.

But enough of these dolorous imaginings! The festive season was waiting for me back at Fichtenburg. Let me tell you how I have celebrated it.

On my return to the castle early in the evening of December 23rd, I found Linda and her party had arrived that morning. She greeted me warmly with her version of the Continental kiss. One of the most popular videos on offer in the Syke was called Great British Sporting Moments (Dr Johnson was right; if you want a patriot, look in the jails!) and one of the Moments which got a particularly loud cheer was the old black-and-white footage of Henry Cooper flooring Cassius Clay, as he still was then, with a left hook.

Linda's bruising buss to the point of my cheekbone had much the same effect. I was still reeling from it as she followed it up with close enquiry into the progress of my researches. I got the impression she knew all about the pattern of my first couple of days there – Frau Buff, probably – and regarded my rather abrupt departure to Zurich as a pleasing demonstration of my capacity to put duty before pleasure. No hint she knew the form that pleasure took, thank God!

She took the coincidence of the Stimmer connection with Beddoes in her stride, very much a Third Thought reaction. God's hand is in everything; we should marvel all the time, not just on the odd occasion when our spiritual caliginosity clears enough for us to glimpse Him at work. She has no real interest in Beddoes. She is backing me because by doing so she disobliges a lot of poncy academics, and also because (I make the point objectively not vaingloriously) in some as yet undefined way she likes the look of me.

She foresaw no problem in getting the Stimmers to permit examination of the Keller painting. That's her real strength. She simply doesn't admit the possibility of failure!

But I could tell she was genuinely pleased by my progress, for suddenly she apologized – with that brusqueness you encounter in people who are not used to apologizing – for a regrettable but necessary interference with my scholastic privacy. It seems that her party has swollen some way beyond its opening numbers (politicos love a freebie!) and pressure on room space has necessitated putting someone in the chalet's second bedroom.

The good news was that it was Frere Jacques.

I said, 'That would just be Jacques by himself, would it?'

She took my point immediately and said, 'Yes. Doleful Dierick's back at the Abbey, making sure the Brothers don't enjoy Christmas too much. But I should warn you, he's threatening to join us for New Year.'

Well, sufficient is the evil, etc, and I said I'd be delighted to have Jacques' company, and I meant it. A chaperon was just what I needed. Timid and naive Mouse might be, but she's her mother's child, and Linda is a woman who hates to leave a job undone.

I met Mouse on my way down to the chalet. She greeted me with what looked like unfeigned delight, reproached me for my abrupt disappearance, and said that Zazie and Hildi had told her to wish me a very merry Christmas on their behalf.

' Carefully I looked for hidden meaning. With relief, I found none.

In the chalet I discovered Frere Jacques sitting at the kitchen table writing.

He too expressed great pleasure at seeing me and also tried to apologize for breaking in on my scholarly privacy.

I told him I was delighted to have the company, and hoped he didn't mind being separated from Linda's main party.

'Good heavens, no!' he laughed. 'They seem as boring a bunch of politicos as you could hope to find outside of your House of Commons tea-room.'

'No plans to seduce them to Third Thought?' I said slyly.

That might be a problem, as a Third Thought clearly requires two other thoughts to go before it,' he replied gravely. Then he grinned and said, 'But you can't be a Christian without believing six impossible things before breakfast, so I'm calmly optimistic.'

Now this was unbuttoning with a vengeance! Again that hesitant, doubtful part of my mind, always looking at the shadows in the sunniest scenes, made me recall that old stratagem of Machiavelli's, that the best way to get a man to let you into his confidence is to offer him the illusion of free admission into your own first.

What a trouble to me is this inability to give my trust without stint, but I did feel easy enough with him to ask outright what he was doing spending Christmas at Fichtenburg when I should have thought a man in his line of work might have found the season making other calls on his time.

He said, 'Do not imagine because I mock these politicos that I despise them. For Third Thought to prosper, it can't be seen as a refuge for oddballs. We must appeal to ordinary people, and if they see people they trust trusting me, then they have taken a large step towards us.'

'You think people trust politicians?' I said. 'You know that Linda is known as Loopy Linda in the British Press?'

'You think that people trust the British Press?' he countered. 'Of course with her surname she was bound to be called Loopy. Most of your papers, like Shakespeare, would sell their souls for a bit of word-play! Whenever I get mentioned in your press, few of the journalists can resist the temptation to make a dormez-vous or sonnez les matines joke. If Linda reverted to her maiden name of Duckett, I dread to think what might ensue.'

This set the tone of the relationship between us and by the time the festivities were over, we were very good chums. He was sharp enough to notice how I avoided the company of Mouse and I countered by comparing her unfavourably with Emerald.

'Yes,' he said. 1 thought you were somewhat struck with Miss Emerald.'

‘Funny,' I said. 'I thought much the same about you.'

Which made him laugh, but I felt those keen blue eyes checking me out for hidden meanings as he laughed.

I'm really getting to like this guy. But I still made sure I kept the innermost casket of my soul firmly locked. It's only with you, Mr Pascoe, that I feel able to reveal everything. Frere Jacques might wear the religious robe but it is you who are my sole confessor.

So we had a great time. Even the religious bits were fun. Jacques presided at a decidedly ecumenical service in the music room on Christmas morning. His sermon was short, eloquent and entertaining, one of the politicos (a German) proved to be a dab hand on the piano, and both Linda and Mouse turned out to have very nice voices, the latter soprano, the former mezzo, which combined most pleasingly in a Bach anthem. They sang again, making a fair shot at the "Flower Song" in Lakme after the superb Christmas dinner which Frau Buff and her team of Coppelias provided, and each of us was then invited in turn to contribute to the entertainment.

I felt a bit like poor old Caedmon as the foreigners did their various things very competently, and might have snuck off back to my cowshed if Linda hadn't fixed me with her dominatrix gaze and said, 'Franny, let's have one for England, eh?'

Reluctantly I stood up. The only thing that came into my panicking mind was a comic poem of Beddoes, The New Cecilia'. His sense of humour is a mix of the dark surreal and the medical robust, and in this poem he tells of the alcoholic widow of St Gingo, who denies her dead husband's capacity to work miracles with the words -

He can no more work wonder

Than a clyster-pipe thunder

Or I sing a psalm with my nether-end.

And she immediately pays the price.

As she said it, her breakfast beginning on

A tankard of home-brewed inviting ale,

Lo! the part she was sitting and sinning on

Struck the Old Hundredth up like a nightingale.

And so it continues for the rest of her life, leading to the moral-

Therefore, Ladies, repent and be sedulous

In praising your lords, lest, ah well-a-day!

Such judgment befall the incredulous

And your latter ends melt into melody.

As I launched into this, suddenly the huge inappropriateness of what I was doing struck me like a pink blancmange at a funeral feast. Here was I on Our Lord's birthday in front of my devout patroness, her spiritual guru, and an audience of her distinguished friends reciting a poem about a saint's widow farting psalm tunes!

But, like the Widow Gingo, I could find no way to interrupt my flow.

I dared not look at Linda. As I finished, I heard a choking sound come from her direction which at first I took for the beginning of an explosion of inarticulate rage. And then it matured into a long macaw-like screech of laughter. She laughed until the tears ran down her face. Most of her guests roared their approval too, and those who had to have Beddoes' nineteenth-century idiom and sometimes convoluted syntax explained to them demanded a repeat performance which I embellished with a bit of body language which also went down very well. But when they urged me to give some further examples of Beddoes in merry mood, I modestly demurred. Leave 'em laughing when you go was always a good maxim in the music halls.

It occurred to me that it might also make a good motto for Third Thought, but I'd taken enough risks for one day so I kept it to myself!

But life is real, life is earnest, and I'm beginning to feel the need to get down to some work on the book, so tomorrow I'm borrowing Linda's car and heading off to Basel.

Why Basel? Because that's where poor Beddoes ended his life in January 1849.

Despite being a doctor, his suicide was a long drawn out business, its first stage being a self-inflicted wound in his right leg in July 1848. It's ironic that after a couple of decades of active involvement in radical politics, Beddoes should have sunk to this pitch of despair in the very year when most German states were in a ferment of revolution. Initially it looked as if the radical cause was winning. In Frankfurt a German parliament was trying to draft a new liberal constitution uniting the whole of Germany, yet it was this same city that Beddoes left in the spring with his young friend, Konrad Degen, to wander through Germany and Switzerland for several weeks without showing the slightest interest in the fascinating new political situation.

According to Beddoes' cousin, Zoe King, Beddoes had been very depressed as a result of an infection contracted through a cut in his own skin while dissecting a corpse. Also, for reasons we do not know, he believed his republican friends had deserted him. His life must have seemed utterly empty when, after the failed theatrical debut of Konrad in Zurich, the friends quarrelled and the young baker headed back home.

So Beddoes moved to Basel and wounded his leg. Perhaps he intended to sever an artery and bleed to death. Strangely off target for such a devoted student of anatomy, he was taken to hospital where he attempted to finish the job by deliberately letting the wound become infected, he hoped fatally. Again he was only partially successful, the part in question being his right leg below the knee, which was amputated in September of that year after gangrene set in.

By January, apparently recovered in spirits and reconciled with young Konrad who'd been installed in lodgings nearby, he was fit enough to make excursions from his hospital room. On one of these he obtained poison of some kind – not difficult if you were a doctor – and that was that.

How sad – not that he should die, for we all must come to that – but that he who had such talent, such intelligence, and such opportunity, should have ended up so depressed and disappointed and disillusioned that life lost all meaning for him.

He left a note, addressed to one of the two important men in his life, both of them lawyers. He was articled for a while to the first of these, Thomas Kelsall, a Southampton solicitor. The law career came to nothing, but a friendship was formed which remained one of the few constants in Beddoes' existence. Without the correspondence between these two we would know even less of Beddoes' life than we do, and without Kelsall's unselfish enthusiasm for the poetry, very little of it might have survived.

The other lawyer, to whom the note was addressed, was a man called Revell Phillips of the Middle Temple who seems to have become Beddoes' consultant on financial matters, though, as with Kelsall, there was clearly something much deeper in the relationship. Together, Sam speculates, these two lawyers may have provided in some wise the substitute he was always seeking for that father he lost so young.

In the note Beddoes writes the phrase which provided Sam with the title for his book.

I should have been among other things a good poet.

And typically he ends with a macabre jest.

Buy for Dr Ecklin [his attending physician] one of Reade 's best stomach pumps.

Knowing, of course, that next time Ecklin sees him he'll be dead from poisoning!

It's a letter that makes me cry every time I read it. And smile too. He was truly a merry mad tragic figure.

But I mustn't end on a melancholy note this letter which has been concerned with this most merry of times! I hope you and yours have had as good a Christmas as I have.

Yours fondly,

Franny

Pascoe frowned as he read the letter, then tossed it across to Ellie who read it and laughed out loud.

'What?' he said.

'The farting poem. I begin to warm to Beddoes. Who on earth is St Gingo, or did he just make him up for the rhyme?'

'Wouldn't be surprised. Making things up to suit his own weird purposes, sounds just the sort of thing that would appeal to Roote.'

'And what precisely do you think he's making up here?'

Pascoe thought, then said, 'Himself. He's making himself up. This jolly, sociable fellow who gets on with people and has serious conversations with his spiritual advisor and goes off to work out of sense, of duty. He's telling me, "Look, Mr Pascoe, I can be anything I want to be. Try to get hold of me and you'll find yourself clutching air."'

'Ah, now I'm with you. He's telling you this in the same way he told you he'd just bashed Albacore over the head and left him to burn to death in the Dean's Lodging?' said Ellie. 'Peter, I suggested you got this business sorted, but I meant by doing your job. All you seem to be doing is diving into Roote's letters like some religious fanatic reading Nostradamus's texts and finding in them whatever fits his particular world-picture.'

'Yeah? Well, Nostradamus was mad too,' said Pascoe stubbornly. 'And Pottle agreed there was something seriously disturbed about the guy when I showed him the letters.'

'Yes, and didn't he say that Haseen was a psychologist of good standing in the trade, not the idiot you took her for?'

'Just shows how clever Roote is, doesn't it?' said Pascoe. 'All that crap about his father, she swallowed it hook, line and sinker.'

Ellie shuddered at the confused image and said, 'So how about maybe it's you who swallowed the crap?'

'Sorry?'

'What do you really know about Roote's childhood and early family background? I mean, where did you get it from?'

'I don't know, the records, I suppose.'

'Right. But where did the stuff in the records come from? Maybe that's the crap and Franny put it there. Maybe Ms Haseen was good enough to dig some of the truth out of Fran and, when he saw it in her book, he was really pissed off at how much he'd let slip.'

'Yes, but it's Roote in his letters that draws my attention to this. I mean, he's not mentioned by name in Dark Cells, is he? I'd probably never have known about the sodding book if he hadn't referred to it.'

'Yes, but he knows you're a clever clogs, Pete. OK, he may overdo the admiration for you, but my reading is, he's only exaggerating what he really feels. In his eyes, you'd have no difficulty in tracking down the book and his part in it. So he makes a pre-emptive strike and draws your attention to it and his cleverness in deceiving Haseen about the father he never knew. Because that's what he wants the world to think, that he never knew his father, that he never had this close worshipping relationship with him and suffered this huge psycho-trauma when he left them and’or died.'

Pascoe finished his coffee and rose from the breakfast table, shaking his head in mock wonderment.

'And to think’ he said, 'you're the one tearing me off for reading between the lines! I may be stretching things sometimes trying to break his code, but you're into astrology!'

He stooped and kissed her and made for the door.

She called after him, 'Don't forget the champagne.'

They had decided to celebrate the New Year at home. They'd received a couple of party invitations, and Fat Andy had assured them that an invite to the Lord Mayor's Hogmanay Hop in the old Town Hall was theirs for the arm-twisting, but they'd turned down everything on the grounds that they couldn't get a babysitter. Which was probably true. But in fact Ellie knew she hadn't tried very hard, and Peter hadn't looked at all disappointed. Is this how middle age begins? she wondered. Which gloomy thought had made her insist that staying in didn't mean they couldn't celebrate expansively and expensively.

'And get the real stuff,' she shouted after him. 'None of your sodding Cava!'

'You saying you can taste the difference?' he shouted back.

'Maybe not, but I can read it!' she yelled.

She went up to her study to check on Rosie. The genealogy kit she'd got for Christmas had been a great hit, mainly because of a jocular suggestion in the preamble that a study of your ancestry could reveal that you were in fact really a prince or princess.

'Mum,' she said when Ellie entered the room, 'will I ever see Granddad Pascoe?'

Pascoe's father lived in Australia with his eldest child, Susan. Ellie had met him once when she and Peter were students and she'd stayed overnight at their Warwickshire home. She hadn't cared for the way he brought up his son's plans to join the police force and tried to engage her in his objections against them. The fact that she too thought Peter would be throwing himself away made no difference. Fathers should be concerned about their children, but with warmth and understanding, not with chilly uncaring self-righteousness. She sometimes wondered, but not aloud, how large a part the desire to disoblige his father had played in helping Pascoe make up his mind to join the Force.

It had come as no surprise when she re-engaged with Pascoe to learn that his father had joined his favourite daughter in Australia on retirement. He'd never been back. The loss of one grandfather to Alzheimer's had clearly got Rosie wondering about the other.

'One day, I'm sure you will’ she said brightly. 'And all your Australian cousins.'

Who might be all right. She'd seen photos and they looked quite normal. Anyway, there was time enough for Rosie to learn that families weren't all sweetness and light.

'How's it going, dear?' she asked. Yesterday she'd got the impression that where dialectics had failed, simple tedium might be succeeding.

'It's all right but I think Tig gets a bit bored’ said Rosie.

Ellie smiled. More and more it was Tig who got bored, Tig who got hungry, Tig who got tired. It was a masterly transference strategy which left Rosie able to assert herself without overt selfishness. Everyone, thought Ellie, should have a Tig.

It was certainly true that the little mongrel sitting under the desk had an air of patient long-suffering which seemed to say, this genealogy's OK, but when does the action start?

Now! was clearly the answer as Rosie's mention of his name brought him to his feet with a tail wag that started at the neck.

Rosie slid off her chair.

'Shall I clear up later?' she said. 'Tig looks like he might want to do a dump.'

Clearing away all her gear had been a condition of Rosie's use of the study, but cleaning up after Tig got precedence.

'I'll do it,' said Ellie, pretty sure she'd been conned again.

She sat down at her desk and began to put together the genealogy pack. It was aimed at the young market, and the introductory blurb urged the tyro genealogist to press older relations for details of family history, adding, 'but be careful. As people grow older, they are more likely to make little slips of memory. So double-check everything!'

Good advice.

More or less the good advice she'd been giving to Peter about Roote.

Would he take it? Maybe. Maybe not.

On the other hand, she thought virtuously, there wasn't much point going around dishing out good advice unless you were willing to take it yourself.

And, because she always found the cloak of virtue a rather itchy cloth, she gave herself a good scratch by adding, and wouldn't it be fun to toss the result of her own researches into Roote's background in front of Peter and say, hey, I think you missed a bit!

She got the pack papers in order and began to read from the beginning.

The Old Town Hall clock, still standing proud despite the fact that its broad face which once enjoyed a clear view right out to the swell of the northern dales now had to squint through a jungle of tumescent modernity, gathered its strength and struck.

The still and frosty air offered such little resistance to the note that even the benighted inhabitants of Lancashire must have been made aware that here in the very middle of God's Own County the Old Year was on his way out and the New on her way in.

For a moment there was no competition, then every bell in the town started ringing, rockets climbed into the air to dim the stars with their cascading colours, car horns sounded, revellers round the equine statue of the Grand Old Duke of York in Charter Park which already bore its traditional embellishment of streamers, toilet rolls, and inflated condoms, burst into raucous cheering while in the more sedate confines of the Old Town Hall itself, the guests at the Lord Mayor's Hogmanay Hop let out a welcoming whoop, then started applying their tongues to the first serious business of the New Year.

One of many things Dalziel liked about Cap Marvell was she gave as good as she got and they might have become linked in a lingual knot it would have taken an Alexander to sever if Margot, the Lady Mayoress, hadn't exercised her droit de seigneuse by tapping him on the shoulder and saying, 'Fair do's, Andy. Save some for old Tom's breakfast.'

'By God, Marge, I'd not have liked to be in thy tag team!' said Dalziel, massaging his shoulder where she'd tapped it.

Not many people dared to call her Marge or make open reference to her former career as a female wrestler, but Margot was not in the mood to be offended. She grabbed Dalziel in a neck lock, gave him a kiss like a hot jam doughnut, said, 'Happy New Year, Andy!' then moved on to perform her consort duties round the rest of the guests.

Dalziel winked at Cap then turned his attention to the age-honoured ceremony of embracing every woman of his acquaintance in turn and wishing them a Happy New Year. The greeting ranged from full-length body hug and mouth contact to a chaste cheek peck, though air-kissing happily had not penetrated the heart of Mid-Yorkshire. Dalziel, who was no grabber of unwilling ass, was usually able to gauge to a T the amount of pressure and skin contact each encounter required, but finding himself suddenly face to face with Rye Pomona, he paused uncertain. He'd been delighted if surprised to see Bowler escorting the young woman into the high-vaulted council chamber (now used solely for social functions since the erection of a modern state-of-the-art Civic Centre a few years back), delighted because Rye looked so much better than last time he'd seen her, and surprised that the young couple hadn't found somewhere noisier, sweatier and younger for their night out. All had been explained when during his welcoming speech the mayor had mentioned their sadness at being without Councillor Steel ('Save a fortune on catering but’ Dalziel had whispered to Cap). 'On the other hand’ continued the mayor, 'it gave him great pleasure to have as his personal guests the young people who had contributed so much to the final apprehension of the monster who murdered him.'

So young Bowler was on a freebie. Couldn't blame him for accepting it, thought Dalziel as he saw the champagne corks flying from the mayoral table. And in fact as the evening went on, the average age of the guests seemed to get lower (or maybe it was just the huge quantities of various elixirs of youth being sunk!) and the band had proved up to anything from Scots traditional through strictly ballroom to dirty disco.

Rye, Dalziel decided, was chaste cheek territory, but as he stooped to administer the salute, she turned her head and kissed him on the lips, not long, but long enough to make him think longer would have been nice.

'I hope you find everything your heart wants, Mr Dalziel’ she said seriously.

'You too, luv. You too.'

His gaze drifted to the woman standing next to her. Bit dumpy, but he liked that. Not bad looking, honey blonde hair over good shoulders, wearing a clinging blue dress cut low enough to show a piste of bosom it would be a pleasure to ski down. He didn't know her though she wasn't totally unfamiliar. There was a man by her side. He didn't know him either, but he looked a bit of a tosser. Narrow, pointed face with restless eyes, one of those linen jackets that looks like it's travelled from Hong Kong scrunched up in the bottom of a rucksack, brightly flowered silk shirt that showed his nipples, and a pair of trousers cut so tight it would take a chisel to get into the pockets which presumably was why he carried a handbag. No doubt there was some modern macho term for the male version, but Dalziel liked to call a spade a spade.

'Happy New Year to you, too, luv’ he said, giving her the peck.

'You too, Superintendent,' she said.

'Do I know you?' he asked.

'We met briefly on Christmas Day but we weren't introduced,' she said.

'This is Myra Rogers, my next-door neighbour’ said Rye.

'I remember’ he said. 'Nice to meet you again.'

'And this is Tris, my escort’ said Mrs Rogers.

Tris, the escort! Has she hired him for the night then? wondered Dalziel. Hope she got a money-back guarantee.

The band which had greeted the New Year with a furious outburst of 'Happy Days Are Here Again' now decided that the time had come when the kissing had to stop and, with a bagpipe skirl, they announced the onset of 'Auld Lang Syne'.

Cap appeared at his side as they formed a circle.

'Had a good snog then?' he asked her.

'Bruised but unbowed’ she said, 'Here we go!'

'Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind

They sang it once with feeling, then repeated the chorus at speed, all rushing into the centre of the circle. Dalziel targeted a man in the Social Service Department who'd given him some grief in a recent case and was pleased to see him retire badly winded.

'Well, that was fun, wasn't it?' said Cap.

'It were all right. Only one verse but, and even then they get the words wrong’ said Dalziel, who tended to get a bit SNP at Hogmanay.

'And you know them all, I suppose?'

'Bloody right. Me dad taught me and I've got the bruises to prove it. My favourite verse is second from last:

And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,

Andgie's a hand o' thine;

We'll tak a right good willie-waught

For auld lang syne.'

'Lovely’ she said. 'But what on earth's a "right good willie-waught"?'

'Don't know, but I'm hoping to give you one when we get home. Hello, young Bowler. Enjoying yourself?'

'Yes, sir. Very much.'

'Grand. Don't get a taste for free champagne but. It can come pricey. Here, don't rush off, they've just announced a Dashing White Sergeant.'

'That would be Sergeant Wield, would it, sir?'

'Don't be cheeky. Grab that lass of thine and show us your style.'

'Don't think we can do this one, sir.'

'Then it's time you bloody learnt.'

It was a terrifying experience being in the same set as Andy Dalziel, who moved his great bulk around with what at first seemed like reckless abandon, but quickly it dawned on Hat that the Fat Man was in perfect control. Like Henry VHI shaking a leg at Hampton Court, he was at the centre of all movement, directing by command and example. And if he was the king, Rye was the queen. Hat knew from visits to discos what a natural mover she was, but tonight was the first time he'd seen her in more formal dances and it was a revelation which made him feel gauche and inadequate.

As the music came to an end and the dancers started to move away in search of refreshment, Dalziel clapped his hands thunderously and shouted, 'Nay, lads, we're just getting warmed up! More! More!' Recognizing the voice of authority when they heard it, the band launched into the tune once again, and Hat too reluctantly turned back to the fray. But strangely it was Rye who resisted. Her hand felt cold and limp in his and her body, which a moment ago had seemed to be floating weightlessly, seemed stiff and heavy.

He said, 'Hey, come on, can't let him think he's worn us out, can we?'

She looked at him and tried to smile. Suddenly he noticed how very pale she was.

He said, 'You OK, love?'

She said, 'Yes, fine.' And indeed as she moved back on to the floor, her step seemed as light and graceful as ever.

They took their places, the band started playing, fairly sedately at first but under Dalziel's booming demands that they 'put a bit of oomph into it!' the beat got faster and faster and soon Hat found himself spinning round at a pace that set his head reeling. He abandoned any attempt to put in the steps but simply concentrated on keeping up with the other members of the set, all of whom seemed determined not to let a big fat cop outface them. But it was no contest. Dalziel danced like a man possessed, but also like a man perfectly under control, never off-balance, never missing a step. Only Rye kept up with him without giving any sign she found it an effort. She winked at Hat whenever the pattern of movement brought them together and when she encountered Dalziel, she looked straight into his eyes with a faintly mocking smile on her lips.

The music was now at breakneck speed and only a macho determination not to show weakness in front of the Fat Man… or Rye

… or maybe both… kept Hat going. Dalziel had Rye in his grasp, spinning her round then releasing her to the next in line. Like a queen she moved, such balance, such grace, such… Hat felt a surge of pure pleasure at the notion that she was his… no, not his… not in any controlling, possessive sense… but that he and she were…

His thoughts stuttered to a halt. There was something wrong… no, not wrong… it was Dalziel's fault… he had thrown Rye from him with far too much force… she was spinning away from the other dancers across the floor… she'd come to a graceful stop in a moment then returned, smiling… but suddenly there was nothing graceful about the way she was moving… from Queen of the Dance under perfect control she had become mechanical doll with the spring broken… still she was turning, but now her arms were flailing the air as if to fight off a swarm of marauding bees… and then she went down.

The music stuttered to a stop. Hat was running towards that writhing, twisting form which wasn't Rye, couldn't be Rye, mustn't be Rye! He was running with all his power, but it felt as if he were running through water.

Her mouth was open but nothing came out. Her eyes were wide and staring but they weren't seeing anything that anyone else in that room could see. Hat reached her, collapsed to his knees by her side. He was trained to deal with emergencies, but now not a single course of action suggested itself. He could only kneel here feeling a paralysing blackness envelope him, unwilling, unable to let himself admit that everything he loved and thought most lovely in the world could in the twinkling of an eye be reduced to this.

Then Myra Rogers pushed him aside, knelt by the young woman's head and forced open her mouth to check that her tongue wasn't blocking the air passage.

She looked like she knew what she was doing. Dalziel was close too, shouting, 'Get a doctor. I've seen at least three of the buggers here. Get to the bar, that's where they'll be.' And Cap Marvell had produced a mobile and was talking urgently to the ambulance service.

Rye had stopped moving now. For a moment beyond definition Hat thought she was dead. Then he saw her chest move. A doctor arrived and began to examine her. Myra Rogers eased Hat upright.

'She'll be OK,' she said reassuringly. 'Probably the heat and all the activity…'

Dalziel said, 'Ambulance on its way. Can hear it now. She'll be fine, lad.'

For once the Fat Man's reassurance felt light and worthless.

The ambulance arrived. As Hat followed the stretcher trolley out, he glanced upwards. It was a clear frosty night. Stars crowded the dark vault of the sky. Was there life up there? Who gave a fuck?

Somewhere close a raucous drunk yelled, 'Happy New Year!'

Hat climbed up into the ambulance, and the doors closed, shutting out indifferent stars and happy drunks together.