Death Comes for the Fat Man (16 page)

The air held promise of another glorious summer day and Hector, not insensitive to natural impulses, had a Monsieur Hulot spring in his step as he strode along the pavement.

At some point he heard a car behind him, some distance away and traveling slowly, but unusual enough at this hour for Hector’s well-tuned ear to detect it. Ahead at a T-junction, Shady Grove joined a slightly busier street with the equally unlikely name of Park Lane. At the junction, Hector turned as always to cross the Grove and proceed along the Lane. Normally this did not involve a pause, just a right turn of almost military precision, but today, aware of the car, he halted on the pavement to check its position.

It was a black Jaguar, only about twenty yards away now, but as it had come to a halt, it offered no danger. Indeed, he saw the driver behind the tinted glass smile at him and with a gloved hand gesture him to cross.

He nodded acknowledgment and stepped out onto the roadway.

The car engine roared, the wheels spun, rubber burned, and in a moment far too short for even a mind far sharper than Hector’s to register alarm, the Jaguar had covered the twenty yards and fl ipped him so high into the air, it passed beneath him before he came crashing to the ground.

The car braked, slewing to a halt across Park Lane. The driver looked back at the inert figure through his rear window. It twitched. He engaged reverse gear. But before he could start reversing, a milk fl oat came into view at the far end of Shady Grove.

Banging it into first, he sent the Jag racing away down Park Lane.

7

S A U R O N ’ S E Y E

Across the Pennines in Lancashire, which hates to be outshone in any way by its eastern neighbor, the day dawned with the same bright promise that had greeted Hector.

Back in Yorkshire, such promises were usually kept, and when after allowing himself an extra hour in bed, Pascoe finally strolled out of his hotel in search of the sights Glenister had advised him to see, he ignored Manchester’s reputation for meteorological fi ckleness and didn’t bother to carry a coat.

He was still looking for the first of the promised sights when a totally unharbinged volley of rain sent him diving into a doorway in search of cover.

He found himself at the entrance of what turned out to be a secondhand bookshop. Prominent in its dusty window display was a hefty leather-bound volume entitled
The Templar Knights
. The rain showing little sign of abating its attack, he went inside. At a rickety table sat a Woody Allen look-alike immersed, not too happily, in entering figures in a ledger.

To Pascoe’s request to take the book from the window he replied with the perfunctory nod of one whose mental addition has been interrupted.

Pascoe did a quick skip through the volume. An introductory chapter gave the background to the Order’s foundation in a style even more pedagogic than Lukasz Komorowski’s. The sumptuously illustrated book then went on to describe how the Order evolved into a fi ghting force of such wealth and resource, it came to be seen as a threat by many European states. The vows of poverty and obedience were self-evidently shattered, and rumor alleged that the vow of chastity was even more comprehensively disobeyed by acts of what were coyly described as “unnatural congress.”

118 r e g i n a l d h i l l

“Very nice volume that,” said a voice which was so George Formby that Pascoe had difficulty ascribing it to Woody Allen.

“Yes, indeed,” he said. “How much is it?”

“Think I’ve marked it up at one seven-five. You’re not trade, are you?”

“Oh no,” said Pascoe, taken aback. “Bit rich for my blood, I’m afraid.”

“I could let me arm be twisted for one fi fty.”

“No, really, it’s the subject matter I’m interested in more than the volume.”

“Oh yes?” said the man sniffily. “Lot of interest in that kind of stuff since that geezer Tom Brown became all the rage.”

“Dan Brown, I think you mean.”

“Do I? Anyway, result is there’s any amount of paperbacks come out on the Templars and such like, there’s a box over there, one quid fifty each or three for a fi ver.”

“I think your mathematics may have gone astray,” said Pascoe smugly.

“Don’t think so. Folk daft enough to buy three ought to pay more,”

said the man.

Unwilling to be relegated to this group, Pascoe said, “Actually I do do a bit of collecting. Crime novels. I inherited several fi rst-edition Christies a few years back, and I try to fill in the gaps when I can.”

“Is that right? Sorry, don’t think I’ve anything of the old lady’s that might interest you, but I do have a Freeman Wills Crofts.
Death of a
Train.
First edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1946, fine, with a fi ne jacket, just a couple of tiny nicks, nothing more. Snip at two fi fty. Like a look?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but, something in Pascoe’s reaction clearly giving him hope of a sale, he went to fetch the volume.

Pascoe stared down at the picture of a locomotive and a railway-man, which formed the cover design, but what he was really looking at, and what had caused him to react, was the name. Or rather the names.

Particularly in conjunction with the title.

Freeman. Wills. Crofts.

Death of a Train.

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 119

The firm of patent agents at number 6 Mill Street had been Crofts and Wills.

And of course there was Dave Freeman . . .

Coincidence? What was it the Gospel According to St. Andy said?

Bump into your best mate coming out of the Black Bull, that’s coincidence. Bump into him coming out of your wife’s bedroom, that’s correspondence.

“Yes, it’s a really nice volume,” said Woody Allen, mistaking his raptness for interest in the book. “Could cut my own throat and do it for two.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m really just a Christie man,” said Pascoe. “Thanks anyway.”

Pausing only to purchase a paperback on the Templars from the bargain box (which as an act of atonement the proprietor clearly rated on a par with Becket’s murderers dropping a couple of groats into the poor box as they left the cathedral), he resumed his drift round the city. A shaft or two of watery sunlight tried to lure him into the middle of a park, far from shelter, but he was too smart for that and when the next downpour came, he was only a dash away from the Café Mozart where Glenister had arranged to meet him. There was a good hour to go before the appointment, but his bad leg was twingeing and a sit-down with a drink seemed very attractive.

The place had gone for an old-fashioned Central European feel—

waiters with long aprons, newspapers in wooden holders, lots of urns and ferns to hide behind, the air filled with Viennese waltz muzak which probably had Mozart turning in his pauper’s grave.

Spooks must feel very much at home here, he thought as he helped himself to a
Guardian,
sank into a low sofa, and ordered a coffee.

The thought seemed to act as a conjuration.

“Pascoe, that you? Thought it was.”

He looked up to see Bernie Bloomfield staring down at him.

Perhaps the lowness of his seat exaggerated the man’s height, but he felt like a wandering hobbit who has inadvertently attracted the attention of Sauron’s distant eye. At a more accessible level he could see Lukasz Komorowski loitering in the background.

“Hello, sir,” he said.

120 r e g i n a l d h i l l

Bloomfield folded himself onto the sofa and became Alastair Sim again.

“How are you, Peter?” he asked solicitously. “Looking a bit peaky, if you don’t mind me saying. That was a terrible ordeal for you. You sure you’re over it?”

“I’m fine, sir,” said Pascoe fi rmly.

“Good, good. And Andy Dalziel, anything new there?”

“Not yet.”

Komorowski, he noted, had found another table and was examining a potted fern with a phytographic intensity, or perhaps he was just checking for concealed mikes.

“Never despair. If I know my Andy he’ll open his eyes one of these days and start demanding to know what’s been done about fi nding the bastards who put him there.”

“And we’ll be able to give him the good news that they’re all dead,”

said Pascoe.

“That’s right. Regrettably, of course.”

“Regrettably?”

“No intelligence from dead bodies, Pascoe. I’m sure you understand that. Andy certainly would.”

“Yes, sir. Though he might find it a bit harder to understand why Dave Freeman had been allowed to set up a covert surveillance operation in Mill Street without tipping him the wink. He’s very territorial.”

If Bloomfield had reacted with Alastair Sim’s expression of polite bafflement, Pascoe would have had a lot of backtracking explanation and apology to do.

Instead he didn’t know whether to feel pleased or fearful when the man nodded and murmured, “Sandy told you about that, did she?”

Finessing the Commander might be clever, but he doubted if it was wise. And a direct lie was certainly a folly too far.

“I half-worked it out myself, sir,” said Pascoe with cautious ambiguity. “Crofts and Wills. Not the smartest of cover names.”

“One of young Dave’s whims. He quite likes Willis and Hardy too.

I must have a word with him. But before you start getting hot under the collar, remember I’m still a cop. I know how important to morale these things are, so it’s rule number one on my watch, the local force d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 121

must always be kept in the loop. On a need-to-know basis of course. In this instance, Dan Trimble needed to know, but for the moment Andy didn’t.”

“Mr. Trimble knew about number six but didn’t tell the Super?” said Pascoe, unable to hide his surprise, which came close to amazement.

He’d always had a lot of respect for the Chief Constable. Whether this news increased it or reduced it, he wasn’t yet sure.

“It was very low-key at that stage. Oroc Video was rated as nothing more than a talking shop, then we got a hint it might be changing up.

Crofts and Wills was really just a precautionary cover in case we later needed to set up a real surveillance op.”

“And there was no one there when the explosion happened?”

“No, thank God. Bank Holiday, remember. Someone going in and out of a Patents Agency would have looked distinctly odd, wouldn’t it?

Of course, the minute we’d made it fully operational, the Mill Street flagging would have been upgraded and all relevant senior offi cers in Mid-Yorkshire notifi ed.”

“But it hadn’t been upgraded yet, because Wills, or was it Crofts, happened to miss a huge delivery of Semtex?”

“It wasn’t all that huge in terms of sheer bulk, Peter. Nothing that couldn’t have passed for a couple of boxes of videos. But, yes, missing it was unfortunate.”

“
Unfortunate?
” echoed Pascoe derisively. “You really shouldn’t be so hard on Crofts, or was it Wills, sir? Maybe the stuff had been delivered on an earlier Bank Holiday. Or a Sunday. Do CAT teams get Sundays off too?”

Long before he finished, the old Pascoe diplomat in him was whispering,
cool it!,
but his voice was drowned by the new Dalziel thunder.

Bloomfield rose slowly.

“I understand why you feel upset, Pascoe. This is a bad business and I’m sorry you got sucked into it, but no one’s to blame here, except the enemy. Talk of poor intelligence, or instructions not being followed, just confuses the issue. If the worst happens and Andy dies, I’d like him to be remembered as a hero. Enjoy your stay with us. I’m sure you can make a contribution.”

122 r e g i n a l d h i l l

He rested his hand lightly on Pascoe’s shoulder, then went to join Komorowski who was already drinking coffee and eating a large cream cake with a fork.

Whoops, thought Pascoe. Really got the eye of Sauron on me now.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut like a wise little hobbit.

Bloomfield took a seat with his back to Pascoe’s table. As Komorowski poured him coffee from a tall cream-and-blue-glazed pot with a metal top, the Commander took out a mobile and keyed a number.

Pascoe raised the
Guardian
and started to read an article about pol-lution. Government policies were ineffective, it claimed. Opposition suggestions, it mocked, were idiotic. What was needed, it implied, was someone as wise as the article’s author, who had answers to problems the politicians hadn’t even got questions for.

Plonker, thought Pascoe. He looked for the sport section. It was on a separate holder. Perhaps they couldn’t find wood strong enough to bear the weight of a whole newspaper these days. The commander, he noted, had finished his call.

He’d only managed a couple of paragraphs when his own phone rang.

It was Glenister.

“Peter,” she said. “Sorry, but I can’t make our date. Something’s come up.”

I bet it has, thought Pascoe.

“Oh yes? Anything I can help with?”

“I wish. On my way to Nottingham. The wheels are coming off in the Carradice trial.”

Great! thought Pascoe. Having a condemned terrorist in the family wasn’t a pleasant prospect. He kept the relief out of his voice as he said, “What’s happened?”

“One of our witnesses has done a runner, some of our best evidence has been declared inadmissible, and the defense are pressing for a dismissal. I think they’ll get it. Time for damage limitation.”

While your boss is relaxing with a
Kaffee mit Schlag,
thought Pascoe. Why wasn’t he on the job?

Because damage limitation puts you in the fall-out area, came the answer.

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 123

Glenister was still talking.

“Look, laddie, no reason for you to hang around here over the weekend. I’m sure that lovely wife of yours is missing you like hell. Why don’t you head back to sunny Yorkshire this afternoon, take the weight off your feet? I’ll be in touch Sunday evening, first thing Monday at the latest. Got to rush now. ’Bye.”

Pascoe put the phone back in his pocket. Komorowski glanced his way and said something to Bloomfield who turned, smiled, and nodded encouragingly, as if he had overheard what Glenister had just said.