Death's Jest-Book (50 page)

'Me too,' said Pascoe feelingly.
'And I'm going to find out.'

He turned for the door.

Wield said, 'Pete, what was it
you came to see me about?'

'Hardly dare mention it’
said Pascoe. 'At least it's no secret. Roote. And before you start
lecturing me, it's not Franny, it's his father and it's something
Ellie found out.'

He explained.

'Now that is interesting’
said Wield. I'll get on to it. For Ellie's sake, you understand. I
still reckon the less you have to do with that fellow the better.'

'Me too,' said Pascoe. 'But we
all have our albatrosses. You seen Lubanski yet?'

It was a low shot but it hit.
Wield, slightly hungover, had attended a conference with Dalziel and
Pascoe on Sunday to discuss the implications of the confirmation that
Linford, or LB, was backing whatever job Mate Polchard was planning.
The Fat Man's reaction to the death of Liam and the others had been,
as Wield had anticipated, good riddance. He'd been more interested in
the possible effect of the tragedy on the relationship between
Belchamber and Linford. 'He'll be looking for some bugger to blame.
He had Belchy in his sights already and he'll not be in the mood to
take a new aim.'

'How can he blame Belchamber for
getting his son out on bail, which is what he must have been
screaming at him to do ever since the committal?' asked Pascoe.

'Fathers, sons, logic goes out
the window, specially when they're dead,' said Dalziel. 'Wieldy, set
up a meet with young Lochinvar, see if he's heard owt.'

'Yes, sir. Can be a bit hard to
get hold of,' said Wield, who'd thought it wiser not to mention that
he'd sung a karaoke duet with Lee a few minutes after hearing about
Liam.

'Hard to get hold of? He's a rent
boy, for fuck's sake!' said Dalziel.

All of which helped explain the
sergeant's state of pissed-off-ness with the Fat Man.

Now he said to Pascoe, 'Haven't
been able to contact him yet.'

'No?' said Pascoe. 'Wieldy, none
of my business, but you're not letting yourself get too close to this
lad?'

For a moment it looked like Wield
might explode, then he took control and said, 'I'd like to help him,
if that's what you mean, get him out of the life he's leading‘

'But he's not interested?'

'No, it's not that. In fact I
think I could get him to make a change but only at the expense of
letting him think there was something between us. Not sex, I can deal
with that, you learn over the years, but some kind of commitment. I'm
not sure exactly what he wants me to be, but I know I can't be it. It
would be wrong of me to lead him on, only it can't be right to let
him stay like he is if I can do owt about it. ..'

'You try to explain any of this
to him?'

'What's the point? The more
personal I let things get in the way I talk, the more he takes it as
a signal he's making progress. So all I can do is fall back on being
a cop, tell him not to waste my time till he's got something really
solid to tell me. Now I wonder if that's not just inciting him to
take unnecessary risks.'

He sounded so unhappy, Pascoe
touched his shoulder and said, 'Come on, mate. What's to risk? If
Belchamber catches him poking around, all he's going to do is kick
him out, which is what you'd like! Don't think Fat Andy would be very
happy, though.'

That bugger's happiness isn't
high up my priority list at the moment,' retorted Wield.

Pascoe went looking for Dalziel
but discovered he'd gone out, no one knew where. He retired to his
office, leaving the door slightly ajar to make sure he didn't miss
the crash of those mighty footsteps, but the Fat Man still hadn't
returned an hour later when the door swung open and Wield came in
bearing a sheet of paper and a folder.

Thomas Roote,' he said without
preamble. 'Good old-fashioned copper from the sound of it. Started in
the Met. Couple of commendations for bravery. CID, then got moved
into the Drug Squad. It was a drug scare at Anthea Atherton's school
in Surrey that got the two of them involved. Reason the Squad was
called in, dad of one of Atherton's posh chums was a distributor in
the Smoke and there was a strong suspicion she was keeping the family
tradition going in the school. Nothing came of it except Roote got
involved with Anthea. Question, would collaring the suspect dealer
have meant laying hands on Anthea too? Answer, not proven. But you
can be sure when the sergeant married the girl soon as she turned
eighteen, there'd be a query set against his name.'

'So, not a good career move,'
said Pascoe.

'No. He'd made sergeant early and
looked like he was set to move smoothly up the ladder. But now he
stuck. Could also have been that things were on the change way back
then and the PR boys were getting control of the Force. Not the kind
of approach Tommy Roote seems to have favoured. Complaints now
instead of commendations. Beat up some guy who grabbed a hold of his
son in the park. Lucky to get away with an admonishment . . . that
mean something to you?'

'Might do,' admitted Pascoe
reluctantly. 'So Sergeant Roote was living dangerously.'

That's right. Reading between the
lines, he was getting increasingly bolshie at work while at home his
marriage was in a tail spin. He was also drinking heavily. Crisis
point reached when he was so heavy handed on a big bust that another
sergeant reported him. When Tommy heard about it, he went for the guy
in the locker room. A DI stuck his nose in and asked what the hell
was going on. Roote told him to mind his own fucking business and
when he didn't Roote decked him. That was that. Rolled into his
hearing drunk and bolshie and sent any chance of being retired early
with his pension intact up in smoke. After that it was downhill all
the way. Guy like him had plenty of enemies outside and, without the
protection of his badge, he was easy meat. Ended up in an alley
behind a pub, his ribs kicked in. Choked on his own vomit. Death by
misadventure. It's all here.'

He dropped the sheet of paper
face-down on the desk.

'Hell's bells. That's a terrible
tale,' said Pascoe.

'Yeah. Explains a few things
about Roote, maybe.'

'Like why he hates the police,
you mean?'

'Like why he's so mixed up about
his father, I meant. I think it's back.'

Along the corridor echoed the
tread of mighty footsteps and a discordant whistling of something
which to Wield's sensitive ears might have been 'Total Eclipse of the
Heart'. A moment later Dalziel filled the doorway.

His two subordinates stared at
him so unwelcomingly that he took a step backwards and said, 'Be,
I've not been met with looks like that since my dear wife left me.
What have I done? Left my dirty socks in the bidet again?'

'More like dirty fingerprints on
the polished table, sir,' said Pascoe, going straight on the attack.
'What's all this about Mai Richter? Or Myra Rogers? More to the
point, what's it all got to do with Rye Pomona?'

Dalziel's response was to advance
towards Wield and hold out one huge paw.

'Before the cock's crowed thrice,
eh?' he said, shaking his head sadly. That for me?'

Silently Wield handed over the
folder containing his findings on Richter and Lilley.

'It was me who asked Wieldy what
he were up to’ said Pascoe.

'Oh aye? Ask him what he were up
to at links last weekend and he sings a song, does he?'

'I just think that anything to do
with Rye Pomona and Bowler, I'm entitled to know.'

'And why's that then?'

'Because I was with you when we
interfered with a crime scene and when we edited Pomona's statement’
said Pascoe baldly.

The Fat Man backheeled the door
shut with a slam that had constables in the canteen three floors
below bolting their scalding coffee and heading back out several
minutes early.

'Nay, lad, you weren't with me’
he said fiercely. 'Except maybe in your dreams. And I'd keep quiet
about them, even when you're letting it all hang out on yon Pozzo's
couch.'

Jesus, thought Pascoe. Has he got
me bugged?

Wield was staring out of the
window at the cloudy sky with an intensity that suggested all his
senses except for sight were disengaged.

Dalziel suddenly relaxed and
smiled ruefully, shaking his great head.

'My torture!' he said, using a
strange oath allegedly passed down from his Highland forebears.
'You're getting me as daft as yourselves. Mebbe I should have put you
in the picture, but it didn't seem that important. All that's
happened is I were told a foreign national might be living on our
patch under an assumed name. You know what them sods at Immigration
are like, so I thought it best to get ahead of the game and take it
seriously.'

'Well, that's awfully
conscientious of you, sir’ said Pascoe. 'Can't have anonymous
foreigners getting up to their disgusting tricks in Mid-Yorkshire,
can we? So tell me, Wieldy, what have you found out about this wolf
in sheep's clothing?'

'Born 1962 in Kaub in the
Rhine-Palatinate’ recited Wield in an old-fashioned schoolroom
voice. 'Studied at Heidelberg, Paris and London. Freelance
journalist, concentrating on political corruption stories at a
national and local level with a special interest in environmental
affairs. Convictions in Germany for breaches of the peace,
obstruction, possession. No UK convictions. No warrants outstanding

'Yeah yeah’ said Dalziel,
holding up the folder he'd taken from the sergeant. 'Got all that
without wasting your precious time. Hope there's summat a bit more
useful in here’

'Can't say, as I don't know what
you want to use it for’ said Wield.

Dalziel gave him a glower and
Pascoe hastily interposed his own body, saying, 'Kaub. That's on the
Rhine, I recall. Few miles south of the Lorelei.'

'Is it now?' said the Fat Man.
'You been there?'

'Yes. Did a Rhine tour a few
years back. Lovely spot. Very romantic, in every sense’

'One sense at a time is as much
as I can manage’ said Dalziel. 'And seeing as we're in such a
sharing mood, anything else I should know about?'

His gaze was focused on the sheet
bearing the new info on Roote Senior, which, despite the fact that it
was face-down on the desk at a distance of several feet, he looked to
be reading like a billboard poster.

'No, sir’ said Pascoe
firmly.

'And you, Wieldy. Owt more from
Boy George?'

'No, sir.' Equally firmly.

'Grand. Then we can all get down
to some work, can't we?'

He left.

'Why is it that I feel like I've
been told, "You scratch my back or I'll have the skin off
yours"?' said Pascoe.

'Me too,' said Wield. 'It's like
having a pet bear. A lot of the time it's all warm cuddles, then
suddenly you realize the bugger's crushing you to death!'

Mai
Richter dreamt she was back in her home town of Kaub, standing in
Metzger-gasse, its lovely main street, looking towards the town
tower, silhouetted against a ghastly sky. Higher still, a looming
presence on even the sunniest days, was the bulk of Gutenfels with
its restored ruins reminding those beneath where the real power in
this land once lay.

But Mai Richter's gaze was fixed
much lower. Before the tower a bonfire raged, its teeth of flame
ripping through the ribs of pinewood which formed its frame to reveal
the orange heart pulsing within. Figures danced around, cloaked and
hooded, with just enough firelight stealing beneath the cowls to
reveal pallid faces and staring eyes and mouths twisted in terrible
pleasure. They were hurling books into the fire's maw, which received
them greedily, devouring whole volumes in a second. She knew that
these were her books, books she had written with sweat and tears and
love and devotion, all the copies of all her books, every word she
had ever written, reducing to ashes before her eyes, vanishing
forever from libraries and bookshops and, worst of all, from her
mind.

What use to think of books when
she knew beyond doubt that when they'd burnt all her words, it would
be her body they turned to next. Already she could feel the heat of
the ravening flames, yet she had no power to flee or to resist.
Somewhere close she could hear the pulse and the roar of the mighty
Rhine but its cooling waters offered no relief.

And now its sound was changing,
still as powerful and as pulsing as ever, but now something more,
something else . . . and suddenly she recognized the dark and
terrible music of Siegfried's funeral with a shock of fear that woke
her.

The dancing shadows of the
bonfire were replaced by the still white walls of her bedroom and its
searing heat by the sharp chill of an English January night.

But the music remained. Those
shuddering glooms of sound which roll down the margins of mortality
into the underworld still reverberated in her mind. And in her ears.

She sat up.

Still it was there.

Slowly she got out of bed,
fumbled in her bedside drawer, found what she was looking for, and
moved towards her bedroom door. Beneath it she could see a line of
light, red and faintly flickering as if the bonfire she had dreamt
about lay just beyond this portal.

Dauntless, she took the handle,
turned it and pushed the door open.

From her tape deck the music
boomed, while from her gas-fire the flickering orange flames cast
just enough light to trace the outline of a monstrous figure whose
bulk spilled over the edge of the old armchair in which it sat. Her
nerveless fingers sought but could not find the light switch.

'Who's there?' she demanded
shrilly. 'Who is that? I warn you, I have arms.'

'Good job I'm 'armless then’
said the figure. 'It's all right lass, it's only me, the Ghost of
Christmas Past. Come in and shut that door. There's a hell of a
draught.'