Death's Jest-Book (67 page)

'Lorelei’ said Pascoe.

'You picked it
up. Good. Then I went into the churchyard to plant my receiving
cassette under the eave of a rather vulgar tomb, and that's when I
saw you. Waste of rime, by the way. A few sound effects and a
little pre- and post-coital converse, then the useless thing packed
up. So you've got me bang to rights for that. On the other hand, will
Mr Dalziel be all that keen to force me to explain my behaviour in
detail under the public gaze in open court? Perhaps we should move
on. I presume from the way you are clutching that watch that there is
more?'

Why do I always feel like I'm
speaking lines he's written for me? thought Pascoe desperately. Why
can't I be a good old-fashioned dull unimaginative cop who at some
point would give him a good old dull unimaginative kicking and send
him on his way? What am I doing here? There's all kinds of places I'd
rather be. Home in bed. Chasing around the county on Operation
Serpent. Even, God help me, watching twenty little girls creating
mayhem in the Jumbo Burger Bar at Estotiland! Why in the name of
sanity am I here?

For
a while as the kids tucked into their Jumbo burgers, there was
relative peace. Even Rosie found it difficult to talk with her teeth
sunk deep into a succulent wad of prime beef and chopped onion,
crimson with ketchup. Ellie nibbled at hers, admitted its excellence,
then took another long draught of the black coffee which fell some
way short of the standard set by the burgers but would have to do as
a restorative till she could get within annihilating distance of a
big gin and tonic. Some of the other mums were still trying to be
sparkling and sprightly, but Ellie could read the tell-tale signs.

Rosie finished her burger, washed
it down with a quarter pint of something which was fluorescent mauve
in colour and looked as if it could strip wallpaper, then approached
her mother and said, 'Can I go with Mary to play on the Dragon?'

The Dragon was a feature of the
play area which in Ellie's view could have been marketed as a
pervert's sex-aid. Made of soft but tough plastic in vomit green and
arterial blood red, the creature crouched menacingly with its head on
the ground. You entered it via its anus and clambered up through its
guts to emerge at the top of its spine. Then you slid, legs astride,
down its neck over a series of savage bumps, till your weight
triggered off some mechanism which produced a climactic roar and an
orgasmic jet of scarlet smoke as you shot over its gaping mouth into
a sandpit.

Rosie loved it.

Ellie shot a glance at Mary's
mum, who shot a glance back. Both nodded and a moment later the two
girls rushed out, screaming with anticipation.

Ellie watched them fondly and
sipped her coffee. She heard the roar of an engine and saw a
motorbike go shooting by on the walkway. Some moron in black
leathers. Where the hell was Security? Anywhere near the children's
areas was designated a completely pedestrianized zone. Worth an angry
word to someone, she noted. But not now. Rest while you could. And
besides, the bike was long gone.

Wield
had cut across a couple of fields till he joined the Complex approach
road. There was a small queue of traffic at the main entrance. He
wove his way through it at speed till an irritated-looking security
man blocked his passage.

Happily it turned out he was
ex-job. He recognized Wield's warrant at a glance and reacted to his
terse summary of the situation with equally concise directions to the
main service level. He was already on his radio by the time Wield
sent the mud-spattered Thunderbird racing forward.

The man's directions were good
and within a minute he was on a curving ramp which took him down to
the lower service deck. At the extreme point of the first curve his
heart leapt as he glimpsed below the unmistakable shape of a
Praesidium security van.

But had they had time to transfer
the Hoard to another vehicle and escape down the slip road to the
underpass?

He
tail-skidded round the final curve and saw with relief that he was in
time. Two figures wearing the Praesidium uniform were in conversation
with an Estotiland security man. He brought the bike to a
halt
about thirty yards away and assessed the situation.

The
pantechnicon was parked alongside the security van. Two other men,
one short and square, the other tall and well muscled, were carrying
a crate from the van to the larger vehicle. Both men wore navy blue
overalls and woollen hats pulled low over their brows. Wield guessed
the Complex security man had noticed the presence of these
unaccounted for vehicles and come to ask what the problem was. They
wouldn't be looking for trouble if it could be avoided and so far the
conversation looked pretty amicable. But any second the security
man's radio could sound an alert and then things might get nasty.
They needed bodies down here fast. What was DI Rose doing? Did
he have the bottle for this? Where was the cavalry?

Above all, where the hell was
Andy Dalziel when you needed him?

Andy
Dalziel stood with his arms locked around Hat Bowler's body. Whether
he was offering comfort or applying restraint he didn't know. He was
experiencing a very odd feeling. Utter helplessness.

Later when he gathered together
every scrap of information on the circumstances of Rye Pomona's
death, he would be able to put them together with all those other
scraps and hints and intuitions which added up to a conclusion too
monstrous to articulate, and tell himself, this way was best. This
drew a necessary line under everything.

But there in that untidy office
with the boy in his arms, his body feeling as lifeless as that other
sad corpse now lying in the mortuary, he would have given anything to
have the power to breathe life back into both of them.

His mobile started squeaking like
a bat in his pocket.

He ignored it.

The squeaking went on.

Answer it,' commanded Hat.

He thinks it might be a message
saying it's all been a dreadful mistake, thought Dalziel. In a life
with too many deaths in it, he had come to understand at what
pathetically flimsy straws desperate fingers may rasp.

He removed one arm from its
embrace and took the phone out.

'Dalziel’ he .said.

Hat's ear was pressed close so
that he could catch the voice coming out of the mobile.

'Guv, it's
Novello. I've been trying to get you. Serpent's gone pear-shaped.
They've done a
switch out at the Estotiland complex. No one
seems sure where the Hoard is . . .'

'Jesus wept!' exclaimed Dalziel.

He let Hat go and headed back to
the control room.

Berry looked up from his
newspaper.

'Nearly there’ he said
cheerfully, nodding towards the screen where the flashing light was
just crossing the city boundary. 'Going to join the welcome
committee, are you?'

'Wanker!' snarled Dalziel.

He went out again and met Hat
coming out of the office.

'Where do you think you're
going?' he demanded.

'To the hospital, where else?'
retorted the young man.

One straw crumples, you grab at
the next.

‘I’ll come with you.'

'Don't be stupid’ said Hat
savagely. 'You've got work to do.'

He pushed the Fat Man aside and
ran down the stairs.

Dalziel watched him go, that
unfamiliar feeling back with reinforcements.

Then he put the phone to his ear
again and said, 'Ivor, you still there?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I'm on my way. Listen, you get
yourself down to the hospital morgue. Bowler's on his way there. I
want you to stick to him like shit to a blanket, OK? Don't let him
out of your sight. If he goes to the bog, count ten then kick the
door down. Got that? Good.'

He thrust the phone into his
pocket and headed down the stairs at a speed to match the young
DC's." feeling like a very bad day indeed. At least there was no
way he could see for it to get worse.

Pascoe
said, 'Yes, there's more and it gets more serious. Jake Frobisher.
You remember him?'

Roote's expression turned solemn.

'Yes. I knew him vaguely. A
bright young man. Tragic accident. Greatly missed.'

'Especially by Sam Johnson.'

'Indeed. Sam was very close to
Jake, and naturally he was cut up when it turned out Jake had
overdone it, popping pills to keep him awake to catch up with his
course work.'

He enunciated the words
carefully, like a kid reciting a lesson.

'Yes, I understand that was the
official verdict’ said Pascoe. 'And I can see why, in the
circumstances, Sam should feel so cut up he couldn't wait to get away
from Sheffield. Which explains his rather precipitous move to MYU,
with all its sad consequences. Funny that. You could say, if Jake
hadn't died, Sam would still be alive too.'

That got to you! thought Pascoe
gleefully as for a second pain fractured the mask of polite interest
on Roote's face.

'I've often thought the same’
said the young man quietly.

'I bet you have’ said
Pascoe. 'I bet you could write a nice little paper on tragic irony,
couldn't you, Mr Roote? Tragic irony and the eternal triangle, by F.
X. Roote MA. A new research topic after you've finished exploring
Revenge.'

'What are you getting at?'

'Let me spell it out. Sam and
Jake were lovers. That got right up your nose. You alone wanted to be
Sam's best boy. You chummed up with Jake and waited your chance to
break up the relationship. Maybe you even encouraged the boy to
believe that his closeness to Sam put him above the uni's normal
academic demands. Whatever, it finally came about that the Academic
Board forced Sam to wield the big whip and tell Jake, either this
course work gets done or you're out. Mission accomplished, you must
have thought, except that either it seemed possible Jake might indeed
get the work done, or you simply didn't trust Sam not to give him a
bunk-up with his grades. So, under pretence of helping Jake out, you
sit in his room the night before the deadline, feeding him uppers to
keep him mentally right on top of things, only God knows what else
you slip in there till finally the boy collapses. Plenty of choice,
him being a pedlar in a small way. Then you slip away. Only you made
two mistakes, Franny. One, you were seen by a witness who can
positively identify you. Two, you couldn't resist taking his drug
stash and, more tellingly, this love token, which it must have torn
your guts to see Jake flashing around.'

He held up the watch.

He didn't expect Roote to start
like a guilty thing surprised, but the youth was full of surprises.
His face crumpled and tears came to his eyes as he looked at the
watch. Could this at last be confession time? Pascoe asked himself.

The
security man's radio crackled. He lifted it to his mouth, pressed the
Send button, and said, 'Yes, over.' Then he listened.

Wield couldn't make out the
words, but didn’t need to, the body language told all.

The security
man took a step back from the Praesidium men.

The radio was
still pouring urgent words into his ear.

Don't be a hero, urged Wield,
letting the bike move gently forward.

The man pressed the Send button
and began to speak.

The taller of the other men
reached into the cab of the pantechnicon. When he straightened up, he
had something in his hands.

Wield, because
he had that kind of mind, identified it even from this distance as a
Mossberg 500 ATP8C
,
shotgun.

He sent the Thunderbird raging
forward.

The big man pushed between the
Praesidium pair, pointed the gun at the security man, and fired.

The man staggered back drunkenly,
took a few steps sideways, then collapsed.

Wield had to swerve to avoid his
body and felt the machine going from under him. His loss of control
probably saved his life. The big man had swung the gun to cover his
approach and now he fired again. Wield heard shot pellets ricocheting
off concrete, felt a spatter of them bed themselves into his
leathers. One of the Praesidium men was yelling angrily, but his
words were drowned by the noise of a fast approaching siren. At the
same time, several more security men came racing down the ramp.

Wield hadn't stopped rolling till
he fetched up against the front wheel of the van. He came to his feet
in a single movement and scrambled through the open door, pulling it
shut behind him as the next shot ploughed into the armour-plated
side. The key was in the ignition. He turned it on, pressed on the
accelerator and swung the wheel over hard, swinging the vehicle round
till it crashed into the front of the pantechnicon.

'Get out of that if you can,' he
mouthed at the big man, who sent another ball of shot crashing into
the van's window, which bulged and crazed but didn't give.

A police van was coming fast up
the slip road.

The heisters
seemed uncertain what to do, all except the big man, who had seized
the crate from the back of the pantechnicon and was now
dragging it, screaming at the others for help, into the loading bay,
heading towards the service lift.

The others began to follow him.
Police officers and security men began to run forward. One-handed,
the big man sent a shot towards them. It didn't find a target, but it
was enough to discourage heroics and send the pursuers diving for
cover.

The four fugitives and the crate
disappeared into the lift and the doors closed.

Up
above, aware of the sound of police sirens but happily ignorant of
the drama going on beneath her feet, Ellie Pascoe grimaced as Suzie's
mum, the founder of the feast, acknowledged that the partygoers had
eaten as much as they could contain. Next on the agenda was the Punch
and Judy show, a sore test of political correctness but a good way of
channelling the little buggers' newly refreshed energies and
aggressions.