Death's Jest-Book (61 page)

But nails rust and wood rots, and
when two hardy Sunday anglers whose boast it was that not even the
foulest January weather could keep them from their sport saw the
skies darken and the rain come down at a rate beyond even their
tolerance, they pulled aside a dislodged board and stepped into the
tunnel for shelter.

When their eyes had adjusted to
the gloom, one of them noticed a rope floating in the water. To an
angler any line is an object of interest, particularly if one end
dives steeply into the depths. Using his rod, he hooked the rope to
the edge and began to haul it in.

After a while it stuck.

'Gie's a hand here,' he said to
his friend.

And together they hauled at the
rope.

Whatever was on the end of it was
heavier even than a big carp.

And certainly heavier than a pair
of trainers, which were the first things they saw breaking the
surface.

Then another heave revealed that
the trainers still contained feet, and the feet were attached to legs
. ..

At this point one of them let go
and the other made only a token effort to retain his grip. Heedless
now of the rain they hurried out of the tunnel to ring the police.

An hour later, with several
police cars and an ambulance pulsing their lights into the teeming
rain on the road a hundred yards away, the body of what looked at
first glance like a child was laid on the canal bank. The rope was
bound tight around his ankles.

The police doctor declared what
no one doubted, that death had taken place. Photo flashes lit up the
scene both inside and outside the tunnel. Radios crackled.

Rain hissed.

Then a new sound was heard, the
roar of a powerful motorbike engine being pressed hard.

It skidded to a stop on the wet
road, the rider dismounting as it did so and letting the machine come
to rest against a hedge. He pulled his helmet off and at the sight of
his face the officers advancing to remonstrate fell back.

He pushed his way past them,
slithered down the slope into the field and stumbled across the
tussocky grass to the canal bank.

There he stood for a moment
looking down at the small young face at his feet.

Then he moved through the broken
board into the tunnel and a second later all work stopped as a cry
like the rage of a wounded Minotaur came trailing out of the dark.

It
was not till the following morning that Pascoe learned of the grim
discovery. Sunday he'd spent down in Lincolnshire on a visit to
Ellie's mother. He'd faxed in a digest of the official part of his
Sheffield visit to the Fat Man and suggested they meet first thing on
Monday morning to examine the implications. A trip into outer space
wouldn't have prevented Dalziel from tracking him down if he'd wanted
an earlier consult, but the discovery of the body had kept that great
mind occupied.

'Definitely Lubanski,' said
Dalziel. 'Dead for a couple of days at least. Being in the water
makes it hard to be precise.'

'How'd he die?' asked Pascoe.

'Drowned. But there's evidence he
took a beating first. After that it looks like someone tied the rope
round his ankles and tossed him into the cut, then dragged him along
a bit afore hauling him out. Several times maybe.'

Pascoe grimaced, then said,
'Asking questions, you reckon?'

'Could be.'

'So it could be they didn't mean
to kill him, just went too far?'

'Or that they heard all they
wanted to hear, so dropped him in and left him to drown. Either way,
it's murder in my book.'

'Mine too. How's Wieldy taking
it?'

'How do you bloody think?'
snarled Dalziel. 'I just about had to tie him down to stop him
heading straight off to kick the shit out of Belcher.'

'Doesn't sound
such
a
bad idea,' said Pascoe.

'Oh aye? Old Mr Human-rights
Pussyfoot has suddenly become an expert on kicking shit, has he?
Well, I've got gold medals and, believe me, this isn't an option.
Belchamber gets warned off, Wieldy gets locked up, how's that help
anything?'

'If they made Lubanski talk,
won't they be warned off anyway?'

'Depends. If all he knew was what
he told Wieldy, that was fuck all, wasn't it? Any road, from what
Wieldy said about the lad, I wonder if he told them owt, except maybe
that Wieldy was a punter after his arse. Easy enough to credit. I
don't doubt Belchamber knows Wield's gay. Gay cop in tight black
leathers rides into Turk's with a rent boy in tow, what's the
criminal mind to think but he's a bent cop in every way, using his
clout to get freebies. No, I reckon that's the tale the lad would
stick to.'

'You think someone like Lubanski
was capable of that sort of resolution?'

'Someone
like Lubanski?
Hark at you, Chief Inspector. OK, if you won't
give the little scrote credit for any noble feelings, how about
self-interest? Some psycho's asking you if you've been grassing him
up to the pigs. Tell him yes, and you're absolutely certain you're
going to die. Keep telling him no, and perhaps, just perhaps, you'll
make it. Didn't work out, that's all. Either the psycho miscalculated
or he's a real psycho. Either way, it don't matter. Here's how we
play it. For the papers, body found in the cut, identification
difficult because of deterioration in the water, enquiries
proceeding.'

'And Wieldy, is he going to play
along?'

'He'd better. I sent for yon
Digweed to take him home and keep him there for now, even if it means
chaining him to the bed. Yon old fart's likely got the chains
anyway.'

Did he actually say that to
Digweed? Pascoe decided he didn't want to know and remarked, 'Wieldy
won't be happy.'

'Don't want him happy. Just don't
want him doing owt that'll make him look like anything but a bent cop
shit scared 'cos this lad he's been forcing to give him freebies has
turned up dead. That should convince Belcher's boys that Lubanski's
told us nowt.'

Pascoe considered then said,
'You've been persuaded that this idea that Belchamber's planning to
heist the Elsecar Hoard's got legs, have you? You were a bit
sceptical on Friday. My trip to Sheffield persuaded you, did it?'

Dalziel grinned.

'It helped, but it was the phone
ringing with news of a definite ident on the body that did it.
There's an upside to everything, Pete. Lubanski alive and feeding
Wieldy with titbits because he liked to see him smile meant nowt.
Lubanski tortured and dead means there's definitely something going
off and most likely it's Belchy trying to get his hands on the Hoard.
So God bless the lad, eh? But don't tell Wieldy I said that!'

Pascoe looked at his boss with a
distaste he made no effort to disguise. From time to time he had
tried to persuade Ellie that most of the Fat Man's callousness, not
to mention his occasional racism, sexism, and general political
incorrectness, was deliberately provocative rather than deep
engrained.

'Or maybe it's a safety valve to
help him deal with the crap, like a surgeon making bad jokes as he
carves open a patient,' he theorized.

'Or maybe you thinking like that
is your technique for stopping you kicking the fat bastard in the
balls,' said Ellie.

'Probably break my foot if I did’
said Pascoe. But listening to the Fat Man now made him think it might
be a risk worth taking.

On the other hand, his own
reaction might have less to do with the natural sensitivity of his
soul than with (a) guilt that his own attitude to Wield's
relationship with the youth had been pretty ambivalent, and (b) the
fact that he'd had a lousy night and was feeling a bit under the
weather. It was two days since his trip to fluey Sheffield, just
about the right incubation time, and he'd breakfasted on orange juice
and some proprietary brand anti-flu capsules which consumer tests
showed were less effective than simple aspirin, though costing six
times as much, but in whose efficacy he had an almost superstitious
trust.

Dalziel glowered back at him and
said, 'What's up wi' thee? Ellie kick you out of bed last night?'

'I'm fine,' snapped Pascoe. 'By
the way, am I ever going to get to hear what's going off in regard to
that German journalist and Rye Pomona? Or is it a national security
matter, for your eyes only?'

'Could be. Like you and Roote
maybe.' It was a telling counterpunch. He'd kept very quiet about his
continued concern with and about Franny Roote, and he was sure that
Wield wouldn't have engaged in a deliberate act of delation over his
researches into ex-Sergeant Roote's background. But it was difficult
to do anything in this building without twanging one of the threads
that ran straight to Shelob's lair.

'If you show me yours, I'll show
you mine,' he said.

'You think that'll be a fair
swap?' said Dalziel doubtfully. 'I reckon I'd need change. But all
right. Two cocks are better than one, as the actress said to the
Siamese twins.'

Despite his show of reluctance,
it was, Dalziel had to admit to himself, a relief to share the
details of his interview with Mai Richter. In the week since, he'd
looked at what he'd learned from every which side and found he'd no
idea what it meant. He'd already contemplated laying it out before
Pascoe, but whenever he thought he'd made up his mind, the
counter-argument had come surging back, that this was merely the
indulgence of weakness, off-loading on to someone else a burden he'd
wilfully hoisted on to his own shoulders, and anyway the woman was
long gone back to the land of Siegfried and Lorelei.

But one of his strengths was he
was aware of his weaknesses, which happily were to some degree
Pascoe's strengths. All right, sometimes he went out of his way to
get up that narrow sensitive nose, like when he'd sounded off about
Sore Arse and Rusty Bum and the Aral Sea. The difference was that
while he knew poetry by rote, he knew nowt about poetry, what made it
work, what it was for. Pascoe knew these things. Sensitivity,
intuition, imagination, these were the gifts tossed into the infant
Pascoe's cradle which had maybe been crushed in his own by the
weightier prezzies of a cast-iron gut and sledge-hammer will. No
escaping it, Pascoe was a useful, perhaps a necessary complement.

Thank God after a sticky start,
he'd actually grown to like the bugger!

So now it was with relief that he
shared everything he'd done and discovered.

Pascoe listened intently.
Physical unwellness, as long as it didn't involve active pain, always
seemed to hone his mind to a more than usually keen edge. The Fat Man
offered little explanation of his own thought processes, but Pascoe
filled out the bald description of events easily, recognizing and
being touched by his boss's willingness to accept total
responsibility for the 'tidying-up' (or 'cover-up' as it would no
doubt have appeared in the tabloid headlines) of Dick Dee's death,
both at the scene and in the subsequent witness statements. But the
risk of that kind of accusation seemed to have passed, leaving a very
different problem, and Dalziel's implied acknowledgement that he
needed help and perhaps comfort here was even more touching. Not that
it came very close to being openly implied. 'So there it is’ he
growled in conclusion. 'What do you make of that, clever clogs?'

'Forget it’ said Pascoe.

'What?'

'That's the clever clogs answer.
Be ready to collect Bowler's pieces and try to put them back together
when Rye dies, but till then forget it. There's going to be grief to
spare when that happens. Why go looking for more in advance?'

Tables turned, he thought. Here's
me being pragmatic, down-to-earth. And there's him, wrestling with
doubt and maybe even conscience!

But he knew what Dalziel was
really wrestling with because it was the thing which, despite all
differences, united them - the need to know the truth. 'Except. . .'
he said,

'Might have known there'd be an
except’ said Dalziel.

'Except it's no use us forgetting
it unless everyone else is forgetting it too. This woman,
Rogers’Richter, how'd she look to you?'

'Nice tits’ said Dalziel
reminiscently.

Pascoe resisted the bait and
said, 'You think she's going to drop it?'

'Aye. Not her cup of tea. Also
she got to like Pomona and started feeling guilty. Plus there's this
feminist solidarity thing, sisters, sisters . . . weren't there a
song?'

Fearful that Dalziel was about to
burst out singing once again, Pascoe hurried on.

'Tick her off then. Charley
Penn?'

'Charley 'nil never shut up, but
he's like a clock. People will only take notice when he stops
ticking.'

'Which still leaves the other
eavesdropper. The second bug, remember? Where was it by the way?'

'In the bedroom behind the
headboard. I went in and had a look afore I left Church View.
According to what Lilley told Richter, it was self-powered,
voice-activated, range of mebbe fifty yards tops, and likely to have
run out of gas after a fortnight. So the bugger could listen in from
a car parked in Peg Lane. Or, if he didn't want to sit around there
all night, he could have had a radio cassette tuned in and left
somewhere handy. There's St Margaret's churchyard opposite, lots of
nice overgrown tombstones to hide summat like that under. I had a
poke around but didn't find owt. What's up wi' thee?'

Pascoe had jumped up and grabbed
at the phone on the desk between them.

He dialled, listened, said, 'Hi,
it's Chief Inspector Pascoe. I need to speak to Dr Pottle. Yes,
urgent police business. Or clinical business, whatever gets him to
the phone.'

A pause, then Pascoe spoke again,
'Yes, sorry, I'm making a habit of it, aren't I? Listen, all I want
is Haseen's mobile number. No, I won't tell her how I got it.'

He scribbled on the desktop,
dialled again.