Death's Jest-Book (58 page)

He was less convinced than his DI
that Pascoe's news meant there was definitely a heist attempt in the
offing, but he questioned him closely about Andy Dalziel's attitude.
Obviously the Fat Man's opinions carried weight everywhere. Finally
he gave Rose that conditional blessing which Pascoe well recognized.
Interpreted, it meant: your triumph is ours, your cock-ups are your
own.

But Stan Rose was delighted.
Outside the smoky room, he said, 'Pete, let me buy you some lunch.
Least I can do. I owe you.'

Pascoe said, 'Thanks, Stan, but
there's something I need to do up at the university. Talking of
which, there is something ... Remember that boy Frobisher, the one
Sergeant Wield asked you about way back in connection with that
lecturer's death on our patch . . . ?'

'Yeah, I remember him. Accidental
overdose trying to stay awake to finish his work.'

"That's the one. Look, while
I'm here I'd like to poke around the house he lived in, have a word
with any of his mates who are still there, nothing heavy - but if
anyone got stroppy, it would be good to say I'd checked , it out with
you.'

Rose was regarding him like a
poor relation who'd fsuddenly mentioned money.

This anything to do with that
fellow Roote?' he asked.

'Distantly.'

'Pete, this is a non-suspicious
death, all done and dusted.'

'From what you said, his sister
didn't think so.'

'What are sisters for? Pete, it's
a waste of time.'

'You're probably right. And I
realize I should be devoting all my energies to assisting you in this
Hoard oppo .. .'

He slightly
stressed
assisting.
Rose sighed. 'Be my guest, Pete. I can
always say you pulled rank on me.'

'That was my next move,' grinned
Pascoe.

At
the university, Pascoe entered the lecture theatre just as Dr Pottle
was concluding his introduction of Frere Jacques. The front rows were
full but there were plenty of empty seats near the back. Perhaps the
flu bug was to blame. Pascoe seated himself in the rearmost row
alongside a trio of world-weary female students who looked like
they'd only come in to get out of the cold. Pottle finished and
stepped down to take a seat at the front. A woman next to him turned
her head to speak and, though he'd only seen a book jacket photo,
Pascoe thought he recognized Amaryllis Haseen. Frere Jacques was a
surprise. With his cropped blond hair and his tight-fitting black
turtleneck, which showed a muscular torso with no sign of fat, he
looked more like a ski instructor than a monk.

'Well, hello sailor,' said one of
the girls sitting near Pascoe. 'Wonder if he's got a dick to match?'

It came out
perfectly natural, on a par with a young man's
not many of them in
a pound
on sight of a big-breasted woman. Was this an advance to
equality or a backward step? wondered Pascoe.

Jacques began
talking. His English was structurally perfect with just enough of an
accent to be sexy. He talked easily of death, his own experiences as
a soldier, his belief that Western man's growing obsession with
longevity and wonder cures had foolishly made a foe out of the one
fact of nature we couldn't hope to defeat.
'Pick your friends
carefully
is a wise motto’ he said. 'But pick your enemies
even more carefully is a wiser one. Losing a friend is much easier
than losing an enemy.'

His ideas were carefully couched
in the language of psychology and philosophy rather than of religion.
Only once did he stray in the direction of Christian dogma, and that
was when he referred with an ironic twinkle of those luminous blue
eyes to the unique comforts of the English Prayer Book 'which assures
mourners at a funeral that "man that is born of woman hath but a
short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut
down like a flower." No wonder the tradition has grown up after
a funeral of heading back to a house or pub and downing as many
drinks as are necessary to blot out this cheerful message!'

A thread of humour ran through
all his exposition of the stratagems and disciplines by which Third
Thought aimed to make its practitioners more comfortable with that
awareness of death which he argued was essential to a full life. But
there was never anything frivolous or factitious or tinged with mere
bravado in his talk. He ended by saying 'It is commonplace, as many
great truths are commonplace, to talk of the miracle of life. But
being born is only the first of the two great miracles which humanity
is involved in. The second is of course death and in many ways it is
the greater. The fine Scottish poet Edwin Muir understood this, as
expounded in the opening verse of his poem "The Child Dying".

Unfriendly friendly universe

I pack your stars into my
purse

and bid you, bid you so
farewell.

That I can leave you, quite go
out,

Go out, go out beyond all
doubt,

My father says, is the
miracle.'

He sat down. The applause, led by
the three no longer bored girls, was enthusiastic. Pottle stood up to
say that Frere Jacques would now take questions and afterwards would
be happy to sign copies of his new book.

The questions were as usual led
by the tyro academics eager to count coup. One quoted with heavy
irony from a later stanza of Muir's poem which referred to 'the far
side of despair' and 'nothing-filled eternity' and wondered what the
good Brother's religious superiors thought of this alternative to the
Christian heaven he seemed to be promising his proselytes. One of
Pascoe's neighbours said very audibly, 'Dickhead!' but Jacques needed
no external shield, parrying the blow easily with the assurance that
the questioner, whether atheist or Christian or anything else, need
not fear his beliefs were being challenged as Third Thought was
non-secular, non-proselytory, and concerned only with the living.

The girl who'd said, 'Dickhead',
then asked very seriously what part sex with its 'little death'
played in Third Thought philosophy, to which Jacques replied equally
seriously that if she cared to read chapter seven of his book, he was
sure she'd find her question answered. As he finished speaking, he
smiled, not at the questioner but at someone seated at the other end
of Pascoe's row. He leaned forward to look and saw a stunningly
beautiful blonde-haired young woman smiling back at the monk.

Afterwards Pascoe bought a copy
of the book and was wondering whether to join the signing queue
(which included all three of his young neighbours) when Pottle tapped
his shoulder and said, 'Peter, how nice to see that the policeman's
pursuit of enlightenment doesn't stop in the forensic laboratory. Let
me introduce you to Amaryllis Haseen.'

As he shook hands with the woman,
Pascoe thought that Roote's description had been a bit over the top
but not much. She was definitely sexy in a slightly overblown and
garish kind of way. He could see how she might provoke many stirrings
and rustlings and scratch-ings in the wainscot of St Godric's SCR.

He said, 'I was very sorry to
hear of the death of your husband, Ms Haseen. Sir Justinian will be a
great loss to scholarship.'

Englishmen are notoriously bad at
offering condolences and Pascoe thought he'd done it rather well, but
the woman regarded him with unconcealed scepticism and said, 'You
knew my husband, Mr Pascoe?'

'Well, no . . .'

'But you know his books? Which
one impressed you most?'

Pascoe glanced appealingly at
Pottle who, smiling faintly, said, 'In fact, Amaryllis, you and the
Chief Inspector do have a common acquaintance, I believe. A Mr Franny
Roote.'

Grateful for
both the change of subject and the opening, Pascoe said, 'I read with
great interest what you said about him in
Dark Cells,
which -I
was really impressed with, by the way. Fine work. If you've got a
moment to talk about him, I'd really appreciate it.'

His attempt at diversion by
flattery failed miserably.

She said coldly, 'I cannot talk
about my clients, Mr Pascoe, none of whom was identified in the book
anyway.'

He said, 'No, but Franny
identified himself to me in a letter. Prisoner XR, if I remember
right. So perhaps the rules of confidentiality no longer apply. He
was certainly very open about his sessions with you and the debt he
feels he owes you for supporting his transfer from the Syke to
Butler's Low.'

'If you've got a whip’ said
the Gospel according to St Dalziel, 'just a little crack will usually
do the trick -so long as they're convinced you're willing to draw
blood.'

Pascoe fixed her with what he
hoped was a stare full of Dalzielesque conviction.

Get 'em in a corner then show 'em
a get-out, was another of the Master's tips.

'But you met him again recently
at St Godric's, I believe, long after he'd ceased to be a client, so
no ethical problems talking about that, are there? I know it must be
a very painful memory to you, that conference. But at the same time
it must have been a source of great pleasure seeing someone you'd
helped as a prisoner receiving the applause of a distinguished
academic audience for his paper. Weren't you impressed?'

'By the paper, no. Like most
literary analyses, so called, it was big on waffle, low on
psychological rigour. Hardly worth rushing lunch for. But of course
it wasn't Roote's work, was it? I was rather more interested in his
relationship with the late Dr Johnson.'

'You must have known Sam when Sir
Justinian worked at Sheffield?'

'Oh yes. We met.'

He said, 'I knew him too. Very
bright, very attractive guy, I thought.'

'You found him attractive?' She
gave him an assessing glance.

'Yes, I did. I gather there was
some kind of falling out with your husband.'

She shrugged and said, 'On
Johnson's part, perhaps. A certain type of character always comes to
resent those who have helped them as much as Jay helped Johnson with
his Beddoes book. For some people it is easier to quarrel with the
helper than to acknowledge the help. I did not know him well, but he
always struck me as a very volatile, perhaps even unstable character.
I was not surprised when I heard of the circumstances of his
departure from Sheffield.'

'The death of that student, Jake
Frobisher, you mean?'

'You know of that? Of course, you
would. Again the closeness followed by the rejection, the same
pattern as with Jay, except of course the closeness in this case was
sexual rather than academic collaboration. I think Johnson's death
may have been a lucky break for Roote, in more ways than one.'

‘I’m not sure he sees
it like that. And certainly he doesn't see the rift between your
husband and Johnson in quite the same light,' said Pascoe, finding in
himself the beginnings of a serious antipathy to this woman.

He guessed she wasn't exactly
crazy about him either, and now she proved it.

She said, 'Your name is Pascoe,
you say? That name rings familiar. Wasn't one of the policemen who
helped put Roote away called Pascoe?'

'That was me,' said Pascoe.

'And he's writing to you, you.
say?' She smiled with evident satisfaction. That must be a source of
concern to you, Mr Pascoe.'

'Why?'

'Because whenever he spoke of his
trial, though he claimed to have sublimated any thought of revenge
into other areas, particularly his academic research, I still
detected an undercurrent of resentment and a feeling of having been
ill done by. Of course, this was years ago, and time does, in some
few cases, bring about changes 'Indeed,' interposed Pottle. 'And Mr
Roote, some of whose letters I have seen, wrote specifically to the
Chief Inspector to assure him he had no thought of revenge.'

Amaryllis smiled again, like a
Borgia hostess seeing her guest holding out his wine-glass for a
fill-up.

'Well, that's all right then. If
someone as devious, as complex and as clever as Franny Roote tells
you that he doesn't want to harm you, what have you to worry about?
If you'll excuse me, I'm heading back" to Cambridge today and I
need to get packed.' She moved away.

Pascoe said to Pottle, That
sounded to me very like a vote for my interpretation of Roote's
motives. She doesn't go out of her way to be charming, does she?'

Pottle smiled and said, 'Peter,
you were aggressive, indeed threatening, and hinted all kinds of
criticism of her recently dead husband. What makes you think that
psychiatrists are above feelings of resentment and thoughts of
revenge? I see you have the good Brother's book. Would you like to
get it signed? I think he might welcome being rescued.'

The book-signing queue had
diminished to the three female students, who were crowding round
Jacques apparently hanging on to his every word and looking ready to
hang on to anything else of his they could get hold of. Standing a
little to one side, watching with a quizzical smile, was the
beautiful blonde.

The predatory trio looked up
resentfully as Pottle and Pascoe approached.

'Sorry to interrupt, but you have
an appointment to keep, Brother. Ladies, I'm sure you'll find a
chance to continue your conversation later in the day.'

Jacques said goodbye to the
girls, who retreated, comparing inscriptions.

This appointment.. . ?' he said
to Pottle.

'With Mr Pascoe here’ said
Pottle. 'Chief Inspector Pascoe who, among other things, would like
you to sign his book. Let's find somewhere a little more private.'

As he led them away, Jacques shot
an apologetic glance at the blonde. Pottle showed them into a small
empty office, closing the door behind them.

'Pascoe?' said Jacques musingly.
'Tell me, you're not Franny Roote's Inspector Pascoe by any chance?'