Death’s Jest-Book

Indeed it was the worst.

They’d found Justinian Albacore’s body on the ground floor where the fire had been at its fiercest.

I was devastated. I had little cause to love the man but perhaps something in his mockingly subtle character appealed to me and I’d found last night that I had no problem with the prospect of spending much time in his company.

Dwight wanted to talk but all I wanted was to be left to myself.

I got dressed and went outside. The shell of the Dean’s Lodging, gently steaming in a Fennish drizzle, stood as a dreadful illustration of the power of flames. As I stood and contemplated it I was joined by my handsome young Fire Officer who gave me the fullest picture they could piece together of last night’s events.

It seems that Amaryllis had been woken by Justin getting out of bed in the early hours. Drowsily she asked him what was up, to which he replied he thought he’d heard something downstairs but it was probably nothing so why didn’t she go back to sleep, which she did. She woke again some time later to find the room full of smoke. On the landing outside her bedroom she found things even worse with flames plainly visible at the foot of the stairs. She retreated into her room and rang the fire brigade. Then, pausing only to put on slacks, T-shirt, several warm pullovers and a little make-up, she opened the bedroom window which overlooked the roof of an architecturally incongruous conservatory, built by an orchidomaniac Victorian dean before there were such things as conservation orders, on to which she descended with the help of a drainpipe and from which she slid into the arms of the first fireman on the scene.

As for Justin, all that is possible at the moment is speculation.

It seems likely that when he descended the stairs he found his study already well ablaze. His awareness that lying within was the college’s greatest treasure, Reginald of Durham’s Vita S. Godrici, which he had personally and recklessly removed from the college library, must have blinded his judgment. Instead of raising the alarm, he probably rushed inside to rescue the precious manuscript but found himself driven back by the heat to the threshold where, overcome by fumes, he collapsed and died.

From what I can see for myself and from what my new friend told me, it’s pretty clear that not only has the Vita been reduced to ashes, but not a page of Albacore’s Beddoes manuscript or a single card from his card-index system can have survived the inferno.

It is still early days to reach conclusions about causes, but when I told the Fire Officer that we had all been sitting around the study last night drinking brandy and smoking cigars, his large blue eyes sparkled and he made a note in his note-pad.

The conference has naturally been cancelled and, after a morning spent answering questions and making statements, I am sitting here once more writing to you, dear Mr Pascoe, in the hope of clearing my thoughts.

I know you will think me selfish, but deep down beneath all my real sorrow over Justinian’s death is a tiny nugget of self-pity. All my hopes have died too, all the glorious dreams of a Cambridge future I was having only last night.

Poor old me, eh?

One more interruption, this one, I hope, definitely the last!

As I wrote my last self-pitying sentence, Dwight came into the room and said with that American directness, ‘So what are your plans now, Franny, boy?’

‘Plans?’ I said bitterly. ‘Plans need a future and I don’t seem to have one.’

He laughed and said, ‘Jesus, Fran, don’t go soft on me. It’s an ill wind … Seems to me you’ve got a great future. From what I’ve picked up over the last couple of days, you’ve inherited a half-written book about Beddoes which looks like it’s got the field clear after what happened last night. Tell me, you got any deal going with a Brit publisher?’

‘Well, no,’ I said and explained the situation.

‘And there’s no way these guys can come back at you now and say they’ve got a claim to anything that Dr Johnson did while he was taking their money?’

‘No. In fact I’ve got a written disclaimer. It seemed a good thing to ask for …’

‘I’ll say!’ he said approvingly. ‘So now you can go ahead and finish the book any which way you want and make your name, right?’

I thought about it. This was an aspect of the tragedy that hadn’t occurred to me before. Truly, God works in a mysterious way!

He said, ‘Ever think about getting it published in the States? Lot of interest in Beddoes over there, you know. Lot of money available too, if you know where to look.’

I said, ‘Really? I wish I knew where to look then!’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘My own university publishers have been stirring themselves recently. They’re just waking to the truth I’ve been telling them for years, either you grow or you die. Tell you what, I’m going to pack now, then I’m being driven up to London …’

‘Down,’ I said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I think from Cambridge you always go down to London. Or anywhere.’

He came close to me and said, ‘Listen Fran, that’s the kind of thinking you want to get out of your head. OK, Cambridge was once the place to be, but that was costume drama time. Nothing stays still. Either you go away from it or it goes away from you. Hell, I was in Uzbekistan recently and being an old Romantic I wanted to take a look at the Aral Sea. Well, I got to where my battered Baedeker said it ought to be and you know what I found? Nothing. Desert. The Russkis have been siphoning off so much water for so long that it’s shrunk to half its size. I talked to this old guy still living in the house he was born in and he pointed to the cracked stony ground outside his front door and said that when he was a kid he used to run out of the house naked on a summer morning and dive straight into the waves. Now he’d have to run two hundred fucking miles! Same thing with Cambridge. It’s all dried up. Look real close at it and what do you see? It’s an old movie set where they once did a few good things, but now the cameras and the lights and the action have moved on. Nothing as sad as an old movie set that’s been left to rot in the rain. Think about it, Fran. I’ll be moving out in an hour. Hope you’ll be with me.’

Well, after that I needed a walk to clear my head. Once more I strolled along the Backs. Only this time I looked at all those ancient buildings with a very different eye.

And you know what I saw this time? Not temples to beauty and learning, not a peaceful haven where a man could drop anchor and enjoy shore leave for ever more.

No, I saw it with eyes from which Dwight had removed the scales, and what I saw was an old movie set, looking sad as hell in the rain!

Why on earth would I want to spend my days gossiping and bitching and boozing my life away in a dump like this?

So now I’m packed – my few things only take a minute to throw together – and waiting for Dwight. He should be ready soon, so at last I’ll bring this letter to a conclusion rather than an interruption.

I hope I’ve cleared the air between us. Perhaps some time in the future I may be moved to write to you again. Who knows? In the meantime, as the year draws to its close, may I once again wish yourself and your lovely family a very Merry Christmas?

Yours on the move per ardua ad astra!

Franny Roote

Sore arse and rusty bum,’ said Andy Dalziel.

‘What?’

‘The Aral Sea. Christ, I’ve not thought of that for years. You never know what’s going to stick, do you? Is it really drying up?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Peter Pascoe. ‘But does it matter? I mean …’

‘Matters if you dive in and it’s not there,’ said Dalziel reprovingly. ‘Sore arse and rusty bum! Old Beenie would be chuffed.’

Pascoe looked at Edgar Wield and saw only an incomprehension to match his own.

His decision to bring up Roote’s letters at the CID meeting was mainly pragmatic. He’d spent much of the morning so far following up various lines of enquiry relating to Roote and did not doubt that the eagle eye of Andy Dalziel above and the cat eye of Edgar Wield below would have noticed this, so it was best to make it official. But that triumphant feeling that his enemy had delivered himself into his hands had gradually faded. Indeed recollecting it now made him feel faintly ashamed. The investigation of crime should be a ratiocinative process, not a crusade. So he had introduced the letters in calm measured tones and passed them to his colleagues without (he hoped) letting it show how desperate he was for their confirmation that here was cause for concern.

Instead he was getting the Fat Man, like some portly prophet, speaking in tongues!

The rambling continued.

‘He once said to me, old Beenie, “Dalziel,” he said, “if ever I want to torture a man of letters, I’ll make you read blank verse to him.” Right sharp tongue on him, knew how to draw blood. But, God, it were a long boring poem! Mebbe that’s why I recall the end, because I were so pleased it had got there!’

‘What poem?’ said Pascoe, abandoning his efforts to swim against this muddy tide.

‘I told you. Sore arse and rusty bum, did you learn nowt at that poncy kindergarten of thine?’ said Dalziel. Then relenting he added, ‘“Sohrab and Rustum” were its Sunday name, but we all called it sore arse and rusty bum. Do you not know it?’

Pascoe shook his head.