Death's Jest-Book (32 page)

The second thing was the figure
on the left, slight, with an oval face and big brown eyes that looked
out at us with a somewhat sardonic expression.

There is only one known portrait
of TLB, a painting done by one Nathan Branwhite when Tom was eighteen
or nineteen. The original has vanished, but a photograph of it still
survives which shows a somewhat introverted face staring out at the
world through what we are assured were large, clear, decidedly brown
eyes with an expression between natural reserve and weary scepticism.
And, this, I swear, was the same face I was looking at!

So, three young men passing the
time doing theatricals (could they have been acting out one of
Beddoes' own plays? I fantasized) and caught forever, not as they
would have been a century later by someone snapping them with his
Kodak, but by the then equivalent, a quick sketch worked up later
into the picture I saw before me.

This was exciting. I made a note
to ask Linda to get her friends to permit a proper examination of the
picture, and then, feeling virtuously that I hadn't after all allowed
myself to be seduced totally from my task, I resumed the much more
interesting business of having that time of my life which my new
friends seemed determined I should enjoy!

Just how far that determination
went, I was soon to discover. It was the third day of our
acquaintance when it happened.

The girls had
left the chalet after their
apres-skating
drinks. I'd just got
into my shower when I heard someone call from the main room. I
wrapped a towel round me and went out to find Zazie there. She said
she'd left her gloves, which we found without much difficulty. Then
she looked at me, sighed enviously and said she'd love a really hot
shower too but the boiler in the castle was playing up and the water
was running lukewarm. Uncertain how to take this, I said she was very
welcome to use mine after I'd finished, which wouldn't be long. I
then returned to the shower, and all uncertainties vanished a moment
later when the glass panel slid open behind me and Zazie stepped in.

No details, except to say that I
rapidly revised my initial judgment, in her case at least, that here
was someone not very experienced in life.

No harm done, I thought
afterwards, and a great deal of pleasure taken. Zazie, like Hildi,
would be heading off in a day or two to spend Christmas with her own
family. I'd probably never see her again and all I'd be left with
(and her too, I hoped) was a happy memory of a lively jig arranged
for two players! And if she'd enjoyed it enough to desire a reprise,
then I was very happy to make my instrument available again.

That was yesterday. Today I was
pleased to see that Zazie showed none of that post-coital
possessiveness which might have sounded a jarring note in our now
very well-tuned quartet. But, I wondered as I got ready for my shower
this afternoon, did this mean it was after all a one-off performance?

Then I heard a noise in the next
room and joyfully headed through to greet her.

Only it wasn't Zazie but Hildi.

As I hadn't bothered with a towel
this time, the way my thoughts were tending was obvious. Unabashed,
Hildi said something in German which I could translate roughly as,
'Seems a pity to waste it’ and next thing ...

Well again, no detail, but those
hours in the gym certainly hadn't been wasted.

I still hadn't quite caught on to
what was happening here, but a suspicion was tickling the inside of
my brain as I lay on the rugged floor like a defeated wrestler and
watched Hildi dress, blow me a kiss, and leave.

After a moment I rose and
stretched and was about to return to the shower room when I thought I
heard a voice calling outside.

I went to the window and looked.

Out on the frozen lake were Zazie
and Mouse. They must have put their skates on again after leaving the
chalet to take a last spin round before the daylight went. Hildi was
standing on the edge calling to attract their attention. And when
they turned and saw her, she clenched both fists and punched them in
the air with thumbs upturned.

And then I knew. These charming
'inexperienced' girls had decided to liven up their stay and mine at
Fichtenburg by each having me in turn!

And how did I feel about that?
Flattered? Outraged? Amused?

None of these. What I felt was
afraid.

Two down, one to go, and that one
was Mouse.

Mouse who wasn't going to vanish
in a couple of days but would be around all through the holiday.
Mouse who in my judgment had little talent to deceive. Mouse who was,
according to Jacques, the apple of her mother's eye.

My conclusion, which may sound a
tad ungallant, was that if we'd been talking about Emerald, who
knows? But when it came to Mouse, nothing she seemed likely to have
to offer was worth risking even the merest shadow of Linda's
disapproval for!

Yet rejection seemed potentially
just as dangerous. How would she react if she turned up tomorrow to
bring this jolly girls' game to its triumphant conclusion and then
had to go out to her friends with her thumbs turned down?

Would she be able to laugh it
off? Or would she be distressed? Angry? Humiliated? Vengeful?

I don't know. Whatever I do, I
can see trouble. You can see why I wish I had you here by my side so
I could lay out the situation before you and beg for your wise
advice. But I can't, so I've decided to do what any sensible man
would do in such circumstances.

I'm going to run.

Not far and not for long. It's
Saturday tomorrow. On Sunday Hildi and Zazie are heading off to join
their families for the festive season. And on Monday, Christmas Eve,
Linda and her cronies will arrive at Fichtenburg. So tomorrow's the
real danger point. I suppose I could find an excuse for keeping out
of the way, but I've learned from experience that no risk is
negligible. Elimination is the better part of avoidance!

So I've packed a bag, written a
note to Frau Buff asking her to make my apologies, and tomorrow first
thing I'm going to start doing what I came to Switzerland to do in
the first place. I'm off to Zurich to pursue my researches into
Thomas Lovell Beddoes, and I shan't come back to Fichtenburg till
Monday, when hopefully her mother's presence and her friends' absence
will combine to keep Mouse in her right senses.

Ihrer guter Freund

Franny

In
the no-man's land between Christmas and New Year, a deathly stillness
falls across the ravaged landscape with devastated survivors picking
their way carefully round the shops exchanging rubbish they have been
bought for rubbish more to their taste, while in empty offices
telephones shrill their urgent summonses in vain. It's as if the
great heart of the city has paused to breathe, and even crime itself
has taken a rest.

It is a lull which policemen take
advantage of in many different ways. Andy Dalziel used it for a bit
of deep thought, which might have surprised the casual spectator, for
in his work as in his play on the rugby fields of his younger days
what caught the eye was the sheer brutality of his approach.

But there was more to him than
just destruction. Not for him the expense of energy in vain pursuit
of the fleet young gazelles behind the scrum. Instead he sent his
mind after them, plotting the likely progress of a move on the basis
of what he knew of his opponents, what he saw of the conditions. He
wasn't always right, but at the end of a game many an opposing winger
wondered how it was that after jinking his way round the full back,
instead of open countryside ahead, he had found himself, like Childe
Roland, suddenly confronted by the Dark Tower.

For Dalziel this calm between the
two great orgies was time to sit and read the game.

There was a smell of danger in
his nostrils and he didn't yet know precisely where it was coming
from except that it had something to do with the Wordman case.

The case was officially resolved
and he had the plaudits to prove it. What was more, it had been
resolved in the best possible way. Not only had the perpetrator been
caught in the act, he'd been killed in the act, thus at the same time
providing incontrovertible evidence of his guilt and depriving all
those arty-farty-Number-10-party,
greenery-yallery-play-to-the-gallery lawyers of any opportunity to
controvert it.

Of course only
the Law could decide a man's guilt, but you can't libel the dead, and
the papers hadn't held back from doing what the courts couldn't by
crying
Gotcha!
and proclaiming Dick Dee
Guilty as not
charged!

A
good
story. But how much better a story it became, now that everyone
except those most personally involved had forgotten the triumphing
tabloid headlines, if one of the same papers could dig up evidence to
suggest a doubt.

He thought of
Penn's crack about the truth dropping through his letter box some
morning.
Watch this space!
he'd said.

And hadn't Pascoe's chum, Roote,
said that Penn was mouthing off about getting help?

That dangerous smell had a strong
reek of investigative journalism about it.

This was bad news. Nowadays
investigative journalism wasn't just some nosey reporter wanting to
make a name, it was big business. If a paper felt there was something
to get its teeth into, there would be no shortage of money, expertise
or advanced surveillance equipment. And they didn't play by the
rules.

He'd thought Dee's death had
blown no-side on the Wordman game, but now it looked like somewhere
out there the ball might be back in play.

A lesser man might have expended
emotion agonizing over the possibility that the police had got it
wrong, and wasted his time going over the whole investigation with a
fine-tooth comb in search of flaws. Not Andy Dalziel. OK, he'd put
someone on it, but meanwhile his place was not at post mortems. Out
there on the field was where things got settled. Be first at the
breakdown and make sure that after all the shoving and wrestling and
kicking and punching are over, you're the man who comes up with
possession.

And the best way of doing that
was to be the man who hit the bastard with the ball in the first
place. So, who to hit?

Not Charley Penn. He'd hit him
already and it was clear Charley was indestructible in his conviction
that Dee was innocent. Didn't matter. Charley was a nuisance, but
writers weren't newsworthy, not unless they were very old, very rich,
or very obscene. No, the guy who needed chopping off at the knees was
the sodding journalist.

He'd be out
there somewhere. And he wouldn't be coming at you like good old Sammy
Ruddlesdin of the
Gazette,
fag on lip, notebook in hand,
asking where you'd buried the bodies. Nowadays the sting was the
thing; they donned disguises, got you relaxed, listened
sympathetically as you talked, and all the time the little recorder
they'd got taped to their dick was whirring away. Or to their tit.
Let's not be sexist about this.

Targets? They'd want a cop.
Bowler was an obvious choice. Key witness to Dee's murderous attack
on Rye Pomona, plus he was young and impressionable. Definitely the
tit-tape there. Rye herself. Get her to admit what Dalziel had
gleaned from her tearful ramblings while Bowler lay at death's door -
that she had been stripped off, all systems go for a bit of bump and
grind with Dirty Dick before the cavalry came on the scene. By the
time she was fit to make a written statement, he had nudged her into
several small shifts of emphasis so that her readiness to perform had
been reduced to a pleasant relaxation induced by wine and warmth from
an open fire. Her voluntary nudity was nowhere mentioned. In the
confrontational atmosphere of a criminal court, there was no way she
could have got away with such fudgings, but the gentle questionings
of a sympathetic coroner had sketched a picture of a modern young
woman believing her boss was making a play for her and trying to turn
him down, when suddenly to her horror it became clear that it was a
knife Dee wanted to stick into her, not his knob.

Clearly the version of the
incident which Penn would have been urging on his tabloid accomplice
was that, having been led to the very brink of passion's pool by this
prick-teasing tart then told he couldn't drink, Dee had reacted like
any normal stallion and kicked out in fury and frustration. Enter
jealous boyfriend, and battle was joined. As for Dee's knife, well,
he was going to make toast, wasn't he? And when the big boys arrived
on the scene and realized that one of their own had been in a fight
and a member of the public lay dead, they'd set about rearranging the
facts to make it look like a good killing.

Dalziel was uncomfortably aware
that the tidying up he'd done both of the scene and of both Rye's and
Hat's account of events would provide some sustenance for Penn's
version. His motive had been to protect his young officer from
accusation of undue force and the girl from any hint that she was no
better than she ought to be, and everything that he'd said or done
had been underpinned by his utter conviction that Dick Dee was the
Wordman. But he didn't think the tabloids would be much interested in
making fine distinctions between a tidy-up and a cover-up.

So, apart from Hat and Rye, what
would an investigative journalist go after?

The transcript of the inquest
proceedings was in the public domain, so they'd already have that.
But there were other things the bastard would be eager to get his
hands on. Like police and medical records, particularly the PM on
Dee. And GPS records. Dan Trimble, ever a belts-and-braces man, had
wanted a GPS opinion to back up the assumption of Dee's guilt. What
the CPS had replied was that their business was with realities not
hypotheses, but all things being equal maybe there was just a chance
that a prosecution could possibly have been successful . . . perhaps.
. .