Death's Jest-Book (20 page)

'Well, there's a comfort,' said
Pascoe. 'So you think I should write to Roote and thank him fulsomely
for his kind concern? Maybe invite him over for supper so that we can
have a heart to heart about his love life?'

'Could be interesting,' said
Ellie as if she took him seriously. 'I think I could help him. There
was a piece in one of the supplements not so long back about famous
mothers and disaffected daughters, you know, the kind of thing hacks
dredge up when they don't have an original idea in their heads, which
is ninety per cent of the time.'

'And you treated it with the
contempt it deserved, of course.'

'No, I
devoured every word avidly on the grounds that a few years hence,
when I'm a rich and famous author, it could be my revolting child
they're writing about. Loopy Linda and her Emerald got a couple of
paras. That girl sounds like she's made it her life's mission to
disoblige her parents. So it could be Fran's right and she's just
using the fornicating
frere
for her own ends.'

He said, 'She'd better watch out
if she tries that on Roote. She'll need to get up very early in the
morning to use that clever sod.'

'From what he says, all she'll
need to do is go to bed very early in the evening,' said Ellie. 'But
no need for you to lose any sleep, love. Even if he is planning to
destroy you, Franny Roote is safely stowed in faraway Switzerland for
the rest of the month, so we can concentrate all our attention on
trying to survive the more conventional perils of Christmas, to wit,
bankruptcy, mental breakdown and chronic dyspepsia.'

'To wit?' said Pascoe. 'I hope
getting published isn't going to turn you precious.'

'Piss off, noddy,' said Ellie,
grinning. That basic enough for you?'

'I hear and obey,' said Pascoe,
finishing his coffee. He rose, stooped over Ellie to give her a
lingering kiss which she much appreciated. But her appreciation
didn't prevent her from noticing that during its execution, he
slipped Franny Roote's letter into his pocket.

In his office he read it again.
Was he over-reacting? There was nothing in this letter which a just
and rational man could interpret as a threat. And he could see how
his attempt to turn the account of the fire at St Godric's into a
mockingly oblique confession of arson might appear to have more to do
with neurotic prejudice than rational thought. He hadn't got anything
from the Cambridge Fire Department to back up his suspicions of
criminality. The call he'd made to the Cambridge police had been more
diplomatic than detective, just to put it on record that he'd been
talking to the fire people. He'd spoken briefly to what sounded like
an overworked sergeant, referred vaguely to a couple of cases of
suspected arson in Mid-Yorkshire educational establishments and the
usefulness of correlating statistics nationally, and asked to be kept
informed of any developments. No mention of Roote. Why risk feelers
being put out along that intricate net of unofficial police contacts
which is just as important to the Force as the National Computer,
resulting in the firm establishment of Franny Roote as dotty DCI
Pascoe's King Charles's head?

He unlocked a drawer in his desk
and took out an unlabelled file. When during the course of a couple
of recent cases Roote had drifted back into his ken - or, as some
might say, been dragged back - Pascoe had quite legitimately collated
all existing material on the man. That remained in the official
records. But this file, for private consumption only, contained
copies and digests of that official material plus much unofficial
stuff including all the recent letters, carefully marked with date of
receipt.

It occurred to Pascoe that if it
hadn't been for the very first case of all, his path and Ellie's, so
divergent since their student days, might never have crossed again.

So Roote could claim to be their
Cupid. Or Pandarus.

Not that he'd ever made such a
claim, Pascoe rebuked himself. Stick with the facts.

And the facts were that this man
had served his time, been a model prisoner earning maximum remission,
co-operated fully with the services administrating his release
programme, and settled down to a couple of worthy jobs (hospital
portering and gardening) while pursuing a course of studies which
would settle him eventually in the academic world, a shining example
of the regenerative powers of the British penal system.

Hooray. Wild applause all round.

So why am I the only person
sitting on his hands? wondered Pascoe.

In his eyes, Roote was neither
reformed nor deterred, he was just a lot more careful.

But no defences are impregnable,
else the country wouldn't be full of ruined castles.

The phone rang.

'DCI Pascoe.'

'Hello. DCI Blaylock, Cambridge
here. You were talking to one of my sergeants yesterday about the
fire at St Godric's and I gather you've been asking the local fire
people about the way the fire started too. Something about possible
parallel cases involving educational establishments on your patch?
Would that be at one of the Yorkshire universities then? I don't
recall reading anything recently.'

It was little wonder. The
allegedly possibly related cases with which Pascoe had salved his
conscience had been two junior school fires, one of which had been
set by disaffected pupils while the other had been started by an
errant rocket on Bonfire Night.

Pascoe felt it was time to come
at least partially clean.

He explained in measured rational
tones that, happening to know that one of the delegates at the St
Godric's conference was an ex-con to whom the destruction of
Professor Albacore's research papers might afford some small
advantage, he had thought it worth enquiring if there were any
suspicious circumstances.

'My sergeant picked you up wrong
then?' said Blaylock.

'Let us rather say that I could
see no reason to add to your CID workload by suggesting otherwise
without any supporting evidence. Therefore my call, which was in the
nature of a courtesy marker rather than a passing on of information,
perhaps erred on the side of underplaying my slight and distant
interest. The fault if any is mine.'

Such circumlocution might
bamboozle a plain-speaking Yorkshireman, but those working in the
shadow of our older universities are more practised in threading
their way through verbal mazes.

'So you had a hunch but didn't
want to put it upfront because Fat Andy thinks it's a bladder full of
wind,' said Blaylock.

'You know Superintendent
Dalziel?'

'Only like a curate knows
Beelzebub. Heard a lot about him, but hope I'll never have the
pleasure of meeting him personally.'

Something defensive almost formed
on Pascoe's lips, but he let it fade unspoken. As Dalziel himself
once said, when offered the sympathy vote, sigh deeply and limp a
bit.

'Anyway, sorry I stuck my nose in
without talking to the main man. Incidentally, are you so overstaffed
down there, they put DCIs in charge of non-suspicious fire cases?'

'No, just something one of the
smart young chaps who wants my job mentioned, so I stuck my nose in
and found to my surprise that it rubbed against yours. Thought it
worth giving you a bell just in case you knew anything I ought to.'

'So what was it your smart young
chap mentioned?' said Pascoe, trying to keep the hopeful excitement
out of his voice.

'It's probably nothing. You know
how keen these youngsters are to make mountains out of molehills so
they can climb up 'em.'

Blaylock had a deep reassuringly
mellow voice reminding Pascoe of the kind of actor cast in the role
of Scotland Yard inspector in black-and-white thrillers made before
the war. Perhaps he wore a tweed jacket and smoked a pipe. Cambridge,
city of dreaming squires, gleaming in the wide flat fens like a jewel
on the brow of a submerged toad. How nice to work there. What beauty
in your daily life, what sense of history, what opportunity for
cultural contact and intellectual stimulus . . .

Jesus, I'm even sharing dreams
with Roote now!

'I quite like mountains myself,'
said Pascoe.

'It was just that the PM on
Albacore showed death from smoke inhalation, but it also mentioned
some possible damage to the back of his head. Hard to be sure though
as the body was badly burnt. In any case, as he was overcome by
smoke, he'd probably go down pretty hard and might well have cracked
his head.'

'What about the way he was
found?' said Pascoe. 'What I'm getting at. . .'

'I know what you're getting at,'
said Blaylock in a kindly voice. 'We read all the training manuals
down here too. My bright boy checked. Albacore was found lying
face-down across the threshold of his study, facing in. But the
experts assure me it means nothing. Unable to see and choking,
victims often end up so disorientated they head back towards the
source of a fire, and once they go down they may roll over several
times in their efforts to escape.'

Pascoe was now very excited
indeed, but he put a lid on it and asked negligently, 'So you found
yourself wondering if someone could have whacked Albacore on the head
and left him to die in the burning study.'

'That's what my bright boy wanted
me to wonder. But he couldn't get anything out of the arson experts
to suggest the fire had been started deliberately. So I made a note
in the file and was getting on with more pressing matters, till I
heard about your interest, Mr Pascoe. But if in fact all you've got
is the vague notion you just outlined to me, then it's not much help,
is it? Nothing plus nothing equals nothing, right?'

Not if, deep down inside, you
know you're right, thought Pascoe. But what was the point of trying
to explain to a man he didn't know a hundred plus miles away what his
nearest and dearest face to face had listened to with unconcealed
scepticism?

'You're right,' he said.

'I've been glancing through the
file as we talked’ said Blaylock. 'I see this man Roote made a
statement, just like all the rest of them. Any point in reeling him
back in and putting a bit of pressure on him, do you think?'

Pascoe thought of Franny Roote,
of that pale still face, of those eyes whose surface candour
concealed what lay beneath, of that quietly courteous manner.
Pressure applied here was like pressure applied to quicksand. It
either sucked you in and destroyed you, or, if you managed to
withdraw, it showed no sign that you'd touched it.

'No point whatsoever,' he said.
'Listen, it was just a passing notion. If I did find anything
positive, I'd get straight in touch. And perhaps you could keep me
posted if. . .'

'Don't worry, you'd hear from
me,' said Blaylock, his mellow voice taking on a slight edge of
menace.

So that was that, thought Pascoe
as he replaced the phone. The unofficial network would be alerted.
The news would soon be out. Hieronimo is mad againe.

'So what?' he said aloud.

'Does my heart good to see a man
too deep in his work to hear a knock at his door.'

Dalziel stood on the threshold,
had been standing there God knows how long.

The unofficial Roote file was
open on the desk. Pascoe closed it, not, he prayed, over-casually,
and said, 'Must be going deaf. Come in, do.'

'Owt interesting going off?' said
Dalziel, his eyes fixed on the unlabelled file.

Taking the bull by the horns was
better than waiting to be gored.

'Got another letter from Roote
this morning. Would probably have binned it, but I've just had an
interesting call from a DCI Blaylock at Cambridge.'

'Never heard of him.'

'He's heard of you,' said Pascoe.

He gave the gist of his
conversation, convinced Dalziel had heard his half of it anyway.

As he spoke, the Fat Man ran his
eyes over the letter, and Pascoe took advantage of the distraction to
slide the file into a drawer. When he'd finished reading, he dropped
the letter on to the desk, farted gently and asked, 'So what's this
Bollock decided to do next?'

'Blaylock. Nothing. No evidence
of crime. Leave it alone.'

'But you reckon Albacore caught
Roote with a flamethrower in his hand, and then the lad whacked him
on the head and left him to barbecue, right? What do you think he's
confessing to in his latest, then? Plans to scupper the Swiss Navy?'

'No,' said Pascoe, aiming at
reasonableness. 'Nothing concrete to bother us here.'

'You reckon?' said Dalziel. 'This
stuff about Charley Penn, doesn't that bother you?'

'No, not really,' said Pascoe,
surprised. 'Nothing new there, is there? We all know how hard it's
been for Penn to accept that his best mate was a killer.'

'How about what young Bowler said
yesterday?'

Pascoe looked blank and the Fat
Man said accusingly, 'I told you all about it in the Bull, but I
could tell it weren't going in.'

'Yes it did,' protested Pascoe.
'Something about a break-in at his girl's flat. You can't think Penn
had anything to do with that? He may be a bit stretched out at the
moment, but I can't see him breaking and entering, can you? Anyway,
didn't Bowler say there was no sign of forced entry? I don't see
Charley as a dab hand with a picklock!'

'Always got a trick or two up his
lederhosen, your Hun. Frogs thought the Maginot Line 'ud keep 'em out
in 1940, look what happened there. Any road, he's a writer. Learn all
kinds of dirty tricks, them writers. It's the research as does it.
Look at yon Christie. All them books, all them murders. Can't touch
pitch and not get defiled, lad.'

An idiot might have been tempted
to suggest that maybe he was confusing his Christies, but Pascoe knew
that Dalziel in frolicsome mood was like an elephant dancing, the
wise man did not complain it was badly done, he just steered well
clear.