Death's Jest-Book (14 page)

Didn't seem to make her happy.
Come to think of it, it didn't make him happy either.

He looked around himself, hoping
to find a gap. She didn't own a TV set or hi-fi equipment, the
obvious targets. Lot of books, wouldn't be able to check those till
they were back on the shelves, but they didn't seem a
likely
target. He went back into the bedroom. What the hell was she going to
do about those ashes? Her clothes, which had been tipped out of
drawers, were scattered over them. Not the kind of thing you wanted
to find in your undies, he thought with that coarseness policemen
learn to use as a barrier between themselves and the paralysing
effect of so much of what they see.

There was a lap-top open on a
table by the bed. Funny that hadn't gone. Expensive model, easily
portable. He noticed it was in sleep mode.

'You always leave your computer
on?' he called.

'No. Yes. Sometimes,' she said
from the living room.

'And this time?'

'I can't remember.'

He ran his fingers at random over
the keyboard and waited. After a while it got the message and began
to wake up.

Now the screen came into focus.
There were words on it.

BYE BYE LORELEI

then they vanished.

He turned to see Rye had come
into the room. She was holding the power cable which she had just
yanked out of the wall socket.

'Why did you do that?' he asked.

'Because,' she said, 'if I want a
detective, I'll dial 999.'

'And are you going to dial 999?'

She rubbed the side of her head
where the silver blaze shone in the rich brown hair.

'What's the point?' she said.
'You lot will only make more mess. Best just to tidy up, get some
better locks.'

'Your choice,' he said, not
wanting to force the issue. 'But maybe you ought to make'absolutely
sure nothing's missing before you make up your mind. You won't be
able to claim unless your insurance company sees a police report.'

'I told you, nothing's missing!'
she snapped.

'OK, OK. Right then, let's do a
bit of tidying up, or would you like a drink first?'

'No’ she said. 'No. Look,
I'll do the tidying up myself. I'd prefer it.'

'Fine. Then I'll make us a coffee
. . .'

'Christ, Hat!' she exclaimed, her
hand at her head again. 'What happened to that guy who was so
oversensitive he couldn't make a pass? I'll spell it out. I don't
want a fuss, Hat. I've got a headache, Hat. I would rather be alone,
Hat.'

Of course she would. He forced
himself not to glance towards the shattered vase.

He nodded and said brightly, 'I
think I've got that. OK. I'll ring you later.'

‘Fine,' she said.

He went to the door, stood
looking down at the lock, and said, 'Thanks for a great weekend. I
had the best time of my life.'

She said, 'Me too. Really. It was
great.'

He looked back at her now. She
managed a smile but her face was pale, her eyes deep shadowed.

He almost went back to her but
had the wit and the will not to.

'Later,' he said. 'We'll talk
later.'

And left.

As
Sergeant Wield approached Turk's his clear and well-ordered mind,
long used to separating the various areas of his life into
water-tight compartments, had no problem with setting out what he was
doing.

He was an officer of
Mid-Yorkshire CID, on duty, going to meet a. nineteen-year-old rent
boy who might possibly have information which would be of interest to
the police.

He was alone because said rent
boy was not a registered informant (which would have required the
presence of two officers at any meeting) but a member of the public
who had indicated he wanted to speak to Wield only.

So far, so normal. The only
abnormality was that he was having to remind himself !

Then through the grubby glass of
the cafe window, he saw Lee sitting at the same table they'd occupied
on Saturday night, looking like a kid who'd bunked off school, and he
broke his stride to remind himself again.

Turk returned his greeting with
his usual glottal grunt and poured him a cup of coffee. Lee's face,
which had lit up with pleasure or relief on Wield's entrance, had
resumed its usual watchful suspicious expression by the time the
sergeant sat down.

'How do?' said Wield.

'I'm fine. Survived your sarney
then?'

'Looks like it.'

There was silence. Sometimes in
such circumstances, Wield let the combination of the silence and his
un-readably menacing face work for him. Today he judged that whatever
point was going to be reached would require a path of small talk. Or
maybe he just wanted to talk.

He said, 'Lubanski. Where's that
come from?'

'My mam's name. She were Polish.'

'Were?'

'She's dead. When I were six.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Yeah? Why?' His tone was
sceptically aggressive.

Wield said gently, 'Because no
age is good to lose your mam, and six is worse than most. Old enough
to know what it means, too young to know how to cope. What happened
then?'

He didn't need to ask. Like
Pascoe in pursuit of Franny Roote, he'd done some research that
morning. Lee Lubanski had a juvenile record, nothing heavy:
shop-lifting, glue-sniffing, absconding from a children's home.
Nothing there about rent-boy activities. He'd been lucky, or clever,
or protected. A conscientious social worker had pieced together a
brief family history when the boy first went into care. Grandfather
was a Polish shipworker active in the Solidarity movement. A widower
with dodgy lungs and a fifteen-year-old daughter, when General
Jaruzelski cracked down on Walesa and his supporters in 1981,
Lubanski, fearful that he wouldn't survive a spell in jail and
fearful too of what might become of his daughter if left to run
loose, had somehow got out of the country on a ship which docked at
Hull. Seeing no reason why the UK authorities should be very much
different from those back home, he'd slipped through the immigration
net into the murky waters of metropolitan Yorkshire, only to find
that what he'd fled from in Poland awaited him here. After a few
months of precarious existence, he died of untreated TB, leaving a
pregnant daughter with a basic knowledge of English and no obvious
way of making a living other than prostitution, which was her
profession when Lee slithered into this unwelcoming world.

The new mother touched surface
just long enough for her son to be registered officially and for her
to get the minimum benefits offered by a caring state, but then her
father's fear of authority took over and she slipped out of sight
again until Lee came of school age. Now the Law got a line on her,
but by the time it was ready to pronounce on her status as an illegal
alien, she was too far gone with her father's illness for there to be
argument over anything but who was going to pay for the coffin.

Her son too was, as might be
expected, tubercular, but happily at an early enough stage for
treatment. The assumption of the social worker's report was that he'd
been the product of an unprotected encounter with a client, but in
this alone did Lee's fragmented account differ from what Wield had
read.

'My mam were going to get
married, but she couldn't 'cos she were only fifteen, so she had to
wait till she were sixteen, and something must have happened with my
dad . . .'

Had some bastard lied to the girl
in order to get her into bed for nothing? Or had she lied to her son
so that he wouldn't have to grow up thinking he was the product of a
five-quid shag up against a garage wall?

Whatever, it was clearly
important to the boy. To the young man. To the nineteen-year-old male
prostitute who'd got him here on the promise of useful information.

Wield sat up straight and looked
at his watch to break the thread of confidentiality.

'OK, Lee’ he said. 'I've
got things to do. So what did you want to see me about?'

For a moment Lee looked hurt,
then his features became watchful and knowing.

Thought you might like to hear
about a heist that's coming off’ he said with an effort at
being casual.

'A heist?' said Wield, hiding his
smile at the use of this Hollywood word.

‘That's right. You
interested or wha'?'

'Won't know till you tell me a
bit more’ said Wield. ‘Like, what? Where? When?'

'Friday. Security van.'

'Good. Any particular security
van?'

'You wha'?'

'You may not have noticed, lad,
but the streets of our city are pretty well jammed with security vans
at the busy times of day.'

'Yeah, well, it's one of
Presidium's.'

This was better. Praesidium was a
newish Mid-Yorkshire security company which by aggressive marketing
was making its presence felt in a growth industry.

Wield close-questioned Lee about
the cargo, time and location, but the boy just shrugged, and his only
response to enquiries about the source of his information was it was
guaranteed good, this with a double dose of that knowing look.

'OK, Lee’ said Wield. 'It's
not much to go on, but I'll mention it to my boss. He's a
payment-by-results man, by the way.'

'Payment? What payment?' said the
youth angrily.

'You'll be wanting something for
your trouble, won't you?'

'It was no trouble, just a
favour, for what you did for me last night. Or should I have offered
you money for that? Or summat else maybe?'

The implication was clear, but
the indignation seemed genuine.

Wield said, 'Sorry, lad. Picked
you up wrong. My line of work, you think . . . well, you know, you
don't often get owt for nowt. Sorry.'

'Yeah, well, that's all right’
said Lee.

'Good. OK. Listen, how can I get
hold of you?'

'Why should you want to get hold
of me?'

'Just in case anything comes up.
About the . . . heist.'

Lee thought a moment then said,
‘I’ll be in touch if there's owt, don't worry’

Wield said, 'Sure, that's fine’
not doubting he could get a line on the young man whenever he wanted.
'Got to go now. Cheers. You take care of yourself.'

This time he didn't look into the
cafe as he walked by the window, not wanting to risk another glimpse
of vulnerability. For the moment all that mattered was this tip. It
was too vague to be of much use as it stood. He could imagine what
Dalziel would tell him to do, so he might as well do the do-able part
before he got told.

Back on his bike, he headed for
the estate that housed Praesidium Security.

Praesidium's boss, Morris Berry,
a fleshy man with sweaty palms, was unimpressed. He called up the job
sheets for Friday on his computer and after a quick examination
opined that, if the tip were true, they must be dealing' with a
singularly unambitious gang of heisters as the only job worth the
risk of a hit was the rural wages round. This delivered wage packets
to various small businesses across the county. OK, with Christmas
bonuses included, the initial amount carried was larger than usual,
but it still only amounted to thousands rather than hundreds of
thousands, and of course with each delivery, it got less.

Wield checked for himself and had
to agree with the conclusion. At least it narrowed down the likely
time of the hit as the gang must know that the longer they waited,
the less they were going to get. Berry laughed and asked what made
him think crooks were that clever. This lot must be really thick to
contemplate attacking one of his state-of-the-art vans with the
latest tracker devices installed so he knew their exact location all
the time.

He demonstrated this with a
computerized map of Yorkshire which showed van-shaped icons flashing
away at various locations. Then he zoomed in on one of them.

There we are, Van 3 on the A1079
approaching The Fox and Hen. If the bastard stops there, he's fired!'

The bastard, happily for him,
kept going. Wield, impressed enough to have even more doubts about
Lee's tip, glanced at his watch. Jesus, it was two o'clock. Time for
a pint and pie in what should by now be the CID-free zone of the
Black Bull.

Peter
Pascoe felt nervous. Despite all his assurances first to Ellie then
to the Fat Man that the Linford case was well under control, he still
had misgivings. At the heart of them stood Marcus Belchamber,
advocate solicitor, of what was generally regarded as Yorkshire's
premier law firm, Chichevache, Bycorne and Belchamber.

It was universally acknowledged
that if you wanted to sue your loving gran for feeding you toffees at
five to the detriment of your pancreas at thirty, or if you wanted
rid of your spouse but not your spouse's assets, you retained Zoe
Chichevache. If you wanted to draw up a commercial contract which
would leave you keeping your fortune when all about you were losing
theirs and blaming it on you, you retained Billy Bycorne. But if you
simply wanted to stay out of jail, you sent for Marcus Belchamber.

He was of
course an ornament of Yorkshire society, exuding reliability and
respectability. His standing as a minor man of learning, particularly
in the field of Roman Britain, was unassailable. Even his one
approach to flashness was an unobtrusive learned jest in that he
drove a Lexus bearing the numberplate jus 10, which, if you took the
digit 1 as letter I could be translated as
Behold the Law!

Dalziel had a dream. 'One day the
bastard 'ull overreach himself and I'll have his bollocks for
breakfast.'

But, in the private opinion of
the Fat Man's colleague, such a culinary treat was unlikely ever to
be on the menu. Why should one who could so easily gather the golden
apples free ever risk lending his clients his arm to shake the tree?

And today Belchamber was
appearing for the accused, Liam Linford.