Death's Jest-Book (21 page)

But he couldn't resist a dig.

He said, 'I see what you mean.
But it's a bit like this Roote thing, isn't it? No complaint, no
evidence, so no case. How do you see yourself proceeding, sir?'

Dalziel laughed, ran a massive
finger round the space on the desk where the file had been, and said,
'Like the Huns in 1940. Blitzkrieg! Seen owt of Wieldy?'

'Got another mysterious call and
went out.'

'God, I hope he's not going to
come back with another half-baked tip.'

'You reckon there's nothing in
this Praesidium business then?' said Pascoe, determined to show how
closely he had been listening in the Bull.

‘I’m not holding my
breath’ said the Fat Man.

'He's usually a pretty good
judge,' said Pascoe loyally.

'True. But hormones can jangle a
man's judgment worse than a knock on the head. Look at Bowler. Love's
a terrible enemy of logic. I think I read that in a cracker.'

'Love ... I don't see how Edwin
Digweed can have anything to do -'

'Who mentioned Digweed? What if
our Wieldy's playing away? Nay, don't stand there like a hen with the
gapes. It happens. Is it coffee time yet? I could sup a cup.'

Pascoe, uncertain how serious
Dalziel was about Wield, but knowing from experience that the Fat
Man's basic instincts sometimes got to places that a cruise missile
couldn't reach, recovered his composure and said brightly, 'Going
down to the canteen, sir?'

'No way.
Buggers stop talking when I show my face there. I like a bit of
Klatsch
with my
Kaffee.
Pardon my Kraut, must've picked
it up off Charley Penn. If anyone wants me, tell 'em I've gone down
the Centre in search of a bit of cultural enlightenment. Ta-rah!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Yeah .. . sure . .. sorry . . .'

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

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

The youth shook his head.

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

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

Lee's light was now definitely
flickering.

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

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

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

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

Now it was his intense interest
that Wield was concealing.

'Fixing it? Who is? How?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn't look away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Remind me.'

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

'What of?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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