Death Comes for the Fat Man (47 page)

Kentmore was looking from one to the other in bewilderment.

“What’s going on?” he said. “What trick?”

“Oh sorry, bit of a mistake,” said Pascoe. “Wires crossed. Seems Andy Dalziel’s not dead after all, right, Wieldy?”

“Right,” said Wield. “In fact, like I was just telling Ellie, the news is a bit better. Seems he actually opened his eyes, looked at the nurse who was giving him a bed bath, said,
You missed a bit, luv,
and then went to sleep. But they reckon that’s what it is this time, sleep, different brain patterns from before or summat.”

For a long moment Kentmore looked stunned, as if this news were harder to take in than the lie about Dalziel’s death.

Then he sagged down onto a chair and said brokenly, “Thank God.

Thank God.”

“Right response,” said Pascoe. “Make sure he gets a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive, Wieldy. Now I’ve got to go.”

Ellie’s anger was still there but now it was joined by concern.

“What’s going on?” she cried. “Why are you doing this? Where are you going?”

Pascoe shook his head. Every impulse but one urged him to put his arms around her and beg her forgiveness. The single exception told him he was running out of time. To do what, to prevent what, he wasn’t certain. But it could not be denied.

“I don’t have the time,” he said. “I really don’t.”

He headed into the hallway and out of the front door.

As he slid into his car, Wield called, “Shall I contact Glenister?”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 355

“No!” shouted Pascoe. “Definitely not. No one at CAT. Not a single one of them!”

He saw Ellie standing behind Wield, her face wracked with a conflict of emotions.

He dragged his gaze away and sent the car hurtling down the drive.

3

S I N G L E S

Hugh.” “Andre.”

“De Payens.”

“De Montbard.”

one thousand two thousand three thousand

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah. I’m very comfortable.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. You’re on your way. East Midlands 0630 hours, singles holiday to Alicante so you won’t stand out. Room booked at the EM Hilton tonight, package to pick up at the desk with passport, tickets, euros.”

“And then?”

“Head down for a while. No long-term problem. Bernard says eventually you’ll be recruited. Once you’re on the books offi cially, the slate’s wiped clean.”

“Nice. So this means our mad mullah gets an extension?”

“I thought I’d made that clear. Bernard says let the dust settle.

You’ve got Geoffrey O under control?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Bon voyage then.”

“Cheers.”

Jonty Youngman switched the phone off and looked at Kilda.

“That’s it confirmed,” he said. “I’m off to brown my knees in the sunshine, every thing here stays cool. Orders.”

“Do you always obey orders?”

“Oh yes.”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 357

“You didn’t when you went in after Chris.”

“That was different.”

“No. Nothing’s different. Everything’s always the same.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. Normally women didn’t baffl e him, because he wasn’t interested in what they were thinking. They were soft machinery, a pleasurable arrangement of moving parts. But, maybe because he’d never managed to get hold of any of Kilda’s moving parts, he found himself from time to time trying to get a grip on her thought processes.

“You want I should tell you what I did to that Ab again?” he asked.

When first he told her the details of how he’d killed the man who’d tortured her husband, he’d thought she was finding it a sexual turn-on, but she’d soon disabused him of that notion. But it certainly did something to her.

She shook her head.

“No. I’m beyond that,” she said. “So Hugh says you’ve got to go, and you’ve got to go quietly, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“He must be a pretty scary guy to make someone like you jump.”

“Scary enough, but it’s not Hugh who bothers me here. This guy Bernard, don’t know who he is, but I do know a slap on the wrist from him would likely take my hand off.”

“Did Hugh pass on any instructions from scary Bernard about me?”

“Says I should kill you before I go.”

He usually found it hard to get a reaction from Kilda but that did it.

He let her think he was serious for a moment then laughed.

“Only joking.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, if I killed you then I’d have to off your bro-in-law too, and I don’t have the time. Anyway I told Hugh I had you under control.”

“He believed you?”

“He thinks I’m shagging you rotten.”

“You told him that?”

“Didn’t need to. Just assumes anything shaggable comes my way, I’ll have a slice.”

He grinned and went on, “Should have thought of that when 358 r e g i n a l d h i l l

he introduced me to his mam. Many a good tune played on an old fi ddle.”

“He didn’t mind?”

“He didn’t know. You don’t think of your old mam as shaggable, do you? Not unless you’re seriously bent.”

She looked at him over her coffee cup.

“I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else like you, Jonty.”

“You’re pretty unique yourself,” he said. “In two ways at least.”

“Which are?”

“One, you hate Abdul even more than I do. And, two, you’re the first woman I fancied fucking that I didn’t.”

She smiled coldly and said, “Into every life a little rain must fall.

Which reminds me, I should be on my cloudy way.”

“Don’t forget your camera,” he said.

She picked the Nikon up from the table.

“It’s all fixed, is it?”

“You’re the photographer. You just point and click.”

“Will you get into trouble for this?”

“You really bothered?”

“Not really.”

“Thought not. So why bother with something that doesn’t bother you?”

“What bothers you, Jonty?”

“Not a lot.”

“So why did you get involved?”

He shrugged.

“Needed something to do when the Service dumped me. Till then, skirt and offing Abdul had been enough. Now I just had skirt. Man needs more than skirt.”

“You could have joined the BNP.”

He laughed derisively.

“Bunch of wankers. All mouth and beating up kids and women. Let them get a sniff of real action and they’d shit themselves.”

“Is that why you started writing your books? Because you missed the real action?”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 359

“I suppose. Don’t reckon much to that analysis stuff. But when I saw the chance to get back into the action, no, I didn’t hesitate. So that’s me. How about you?”

“What about me?”

He said, “Normally I’m not much interested in what goes on in a tart’s head, ’cos it’s like chasing a gnat in a dust storm. But you’ve been one exception so you might as well be another. You were so crazy about Chris that losing him’s driven you a bit crazy, right? So why did you fuck his brother?”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. She rose, picked up the camera, and went to the door. Then she paused and without turning said, “It was my wedding anniversary. Maurice had been best man. He said I shouldn’t be alone on that day and he took me out for a drive to the coast, then we had a meal together, and when we got back we had a couple of drinks at the Hall, and looked at some photos and talked about Chris and who said what at the wedding. I think we both had a bit more to drink than we were used to. I realized how much when I went to the loo, but I bathed my face in cold water and thought I was OK. Then I came out of the bathroom and a little farther down the landing Maurice was just coming out of his bedroom. It was a trick of the light, or a trick of the drink, or a trick of the imagination overheated by all that talk of my wedding day, whatever, it all combined and for a moment he was Chris, or so like Chris it seemed to make no difference. From us grabbing hold of each other to him rolling off me and us lying there naked realizing what we had just done seemed like the blink of an eye. And I hadn’t had time to really start feeling guilty when the phone rang. Later it felt like what I did made it ring. I know that’s stupid. The phone would have rung just as surely if I’d gone straight home. But at least I’d have been there to answer it . . . ”

Now she turned to look at him.

“There,” she said. “That make you happier?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t do happiness. Just oblivion. Sex and offi ng Abdul does that for me.”

“I need something a bit longer lasting,” she said.

“I know. Good luck.”

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

“You too. You won’t hang around here too long, will you? They’ll come looking.”

“Not for an hour or so. I’ll be long gone. Kilda, you sure about this?

You could come with me, no strings . . . ”

“There’s always strings, Jonty. I just want to cut the last of them.”

“Sure?”

“What else do I have to be sure about?”

She left.

Not even a good-bye kiss, thought Youngman.

What the hell. There was no shortage of available women, especially if you were going on a singles holiday.

He finished his coffee and then went upstairs to start putting his gear together.

4

S N A P S H O T S

As he headed west, Pascoe shouted a number into his voice-activated car phone.

God was good to him. He knew most of the offi cers on Harrogate CID but the voice which answered was the one he most hoped to hear.

“Harrogate CID. DI Collaboy speaking. How can I help you?”

“Very good, Jim,” he said. “Very user-friendly. You must have been on the etiquette course.”

“Who the fuck’s that?”

“Oh dear. Think we may need a refresher. Pete Pascoe here.”

“Thought I recognized that poncey voice. How do, Pete? How’re they hanging?”

“Low and swinging free. Listen, Jim, you may have a situation. You know Haresyke Hall. Well, it’s the Gatehouse . . . ”

He gave a brief outline, ending, “Hopefully you won’t need it, but I’d rustle up an ARU if you can.”

“Jesus. I’d seen something asking us to keep our eyes skinned for this guy Youngman, but I didn’t realize it was that serious.”

“CAT policy, they don’t want to scare the shit out of the citizens.”

“So they keep honest cops in the dark? Great thinking. This woman, the sister-in-law, who lives there, you say she’s in the frame too? So no hostage situation.”

“She’s in the frame, sure, but that doesn’t mean Youngman won’t threaten to slit her throat. He’s an ex-SAS hardcase, so be very careful.”

“You’re on your way, you say?” replied Collaboy. “In that case I’ll be so fucking careful, I’ll do nowt till you show your pretty face. That way, 362 r e g i n a l d h i l l

if it goes well, I can take the credit, and if it goes pear shaped, you can take the blame. Talking of which, I’ve just brought this Youngman character up on my computer and it says any sighting, inform CAT before action. You got that in hand, have you?”

“This isn’t a sighting, Jim. Just a vague possibility.”

“Which you want me to vaguely support with some vaguely armed back-up? You pulling my plonker, Pete?”

“You never complained before. Look, leave CAT to me, OK? I’ll see everyone who needs to know gets to know.”

“OK,” said Collaboy dubiously. “But I’ll need that in joined-up writing when you get here. My ex will be very unhappy indeed if I lose my pension.”

“Not all bad then,” said Pascoe. “Cheers, mate.”

Cheers, mate,
he echoed in his mind as he switched off. Soon as he’d heard Collaboy’s voice he’d slipped into a saloon-bar modality, no conscious decision necessary, just a simple sound trigger.

Truly, he thought, I am the great chameleon. Fat Andy and Wieldy are themselves whoever they speak to, but me, I change shape and color and idiom according to my company. Which is very useful, but does make it difficult to put your finger on the real me. Was it for example the real me who’d cruelly deceived Ellie into thinking Dalziel was dead? And does it make it better or worse that I knew her pain would not be so much at losing the Fat Man, though that would be painful enough, but the greater and more intense part would derive from her empathy with my imagined sense of loss?

Worse, he decided without much debate. It makes it much worse.

When this is over I’m going to change, he assured himself. It’s Mill Street that has done this to me. I’ll take the tablets, go on a counseling course, turn back the clock, be me again.

Which brings me back to the first question. Who is
me?

He pushed these introspective musings to the back of his mind and concentrated on finding the quickest way through the Saturday-afternoon traffic which, though lighter than on a weekday, made up in unpredictability what it lost in intensity. What did these people do with their cars for the rest of the week? he wondered as he aggressively overtook a yellow Beetle holding the center of the road with all the d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 363

unconcerned assurance of a Panzer troop rolling into an undefended Belgian village.

His trip to the fete had taught him the quickest route. Out of Harrogate he took the Pateley Bridge road. As he passed Burnt Yates, the name slipped his mind back to A-Level English.
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
That’s why they have policemen, he thought.

To bear the reality for the rest of the sods!

Now he was off the main road, and after passing through the village of Haresyke, he rolled up to a
Road Closed
sign with an attendant constable. Jim Collaboy gave an impression of comfortable inertia, but he didn’t hang about.

Pascoe identified himself and the officer told him that the DI and his team were round the next bend about three hundred yards short of the entrance to Haresyke Hall.

The ARU had left its vehicles a couple of hundred yards down the track. As Pascoe pulled in behind the ARU vehicles, he was reminded of the previous Sunday up in Northumberland. How long ago that seemed! How furious Ellie had been at his involvement. She hated guns and everything associated with them. Now here he was again, in pursuit of the same prey, once more rendezvousing with armed men in visored helmets and bulletproof vests.