Death’s Jest-Book

No sodding trial!

‘Mr Pascoe, I’m so sorry, but it seems we are wasting our time today. Young Mr Linford is too ill to attend. Possibly the advance guard of this new flu virus which is rife in London. Kung Flu, they call it, a play I assume on Kung Fu, because it knocks you down and leaves you helpless. I have the necessary medical certificate, of course. Forgive me. I must go and apprise the Bench.’

The man smiled apologetically. One civilized cultured guardian of the law exchanging courtesies with another, both of them engaged in the great pursuit of justice.

And yet as Pascoe left the court he felt more stitched up than the Bayeux Tapestry.

With Fat Andy being lunched by the Chief Constable and Pascoe locked in mortal combat with Marcus Belchamber, Wield anticipated having the Black Bull pretty much to himself. And if there were any junior colleagues taking advantage of their superiors’ absence to linger late, one glower from the most frightening features in the Force would send them scurrying back to their desks.

But the two DC’s he saw as he entered the bar showed no signs of scurrying.

They were Hat Bowler and Shirley Novello, deep in conversation. Slightly surprising, as he got the impression that Bowler regarded Novello as his most potent rival. Perhaps, both having been wounded in the line of duty, they were swapping scars.

They stopped talking as he approached.

‘Nice to see you, lad,’ he said. ‘When are you due back? Wednesday, isn’t it? Breaking yourself in gradual, is that the idea?’

‘Actually, I was hoping to see you, Sarge,’ said Hat.

‘Is that right?’ said Wield. ‘I’ll just get myself a pie and a pint first.’

‘My shout,’ said Novello.

As she waited at the bar, she saw Bowler talking earnestly to Wield. She guessed he was telling him the story of returning to his girlfriend’s flat and finding it burgled. He’d come in, looking for Wield, but when she told him that the sergeant had gone out at the end of the morning and not reappeared yet, he had started talking to her, not because he regarded her as a confidante, she guessed, but merely as a rehearsal for what he was going to say to Wield. She suspected there was more to his tale than he’d told her, but now that his true audience was here, she’d probably get to hear the lot.

When she returned to the table Bowler was just reaching a rhetorical climax.

‘So, you see, it’s got to be Charley Penn!’ he pronounced with all the fervour of Galileo reaching the end of his detailed proof that the earth went round the sun.

Wield was regarding him with all the enthusiasm of an overworked Inquisition officer who didn’t fancy having to attend yet another bonfire at the height of an Italian summer.

‘Why so?’ he said.

‘Because Lorelei’s that German stuff he messes with, and because he hates me and Rye, and because I’ve got a description … oh hell!’

‘Well well well! What’s this? A wounded heroes’ conference? It’s purple hearts all round! And mine’s a pint!’

Andy Dalziel had burst through the bar-room door, radiating more geniality than a Harrods Santa Claus, but Hat Bowler flinched away from the glow like a scientist in the presence of a reactor gone critical.

How could this be? he asked himself aghast. Hadn’t he in his cleverness rung the station and established that Pascoe was in court and the Fat Man wasn’t expected back from lunch with the Chief before dusk, leaving the way clear for him to buttonhole Wield in the Bull?

What Bowler hadn’t made allowances for was that chief constables earned their extra thousands by being even cleverer than detective constables. Dan Trimble, knowing from experience that lunch with Dalziel could blend imperceptibly into high tea then supper, had arranged to be bleeped by his secretary. The bleep had come with their puddings, the meal already having begun to stretch, but the loss of a crème brûlée seemed a small price to pay for an early escape. He made a brief phone call, put on a concerned look, then explained with much apology that urgent business required his instant return to his office. ‘No need for you to rush, Andy,’ he said as he rose. ‘Enjoy your pudding. Have a drink with your coffee. I’ll leave the bill open.’

Trimble was a decent man and it was guilt that made him utter these words, but the guilt even of a decent man is a delicate flower and his had faded before he reached his car, leaving him asking himself, aghast, ‘Did I really say that?’

Behind him Dalziel finished his bread and butter pudding, sampled the Chief’s crème brûlée, ordered two more with the comment, ‘Tell the chef this is nice nosh, only he don’t give a man enough to put in his eye!’ then, washing down his Stilton with a large port, he applied himself to the serious business of choosing what malt to drink while his coffee went cold.

Despite this he was on his way back to the station at half past two, which was a lot earlier than he’d anticipated. He was in a taxi, having gone to the restaurant in the Chief’s official car, and thinking it a shameful thing for a man to have no better place to go to on an afternoon he’d regarded as taken care of than his place of work, he commanded the driver to divert to the Black Bull.

He paid off the cab with a generous tip which went down on the receipt he collected to send to Trimble’s office for reimbursement. The thought of the Chief’s face when he saw it (hopefully at the same time as he registered the extra crème brûlées and the malts) had filled him with a delight which had bubbled over into his somewhat over-effusive reaction at the sight of Hat Bowler.

‘What did I say, Wieldy?’ he went on. ‘Out of his hospital bed and into his lass’s, he’ll be so full of vim, he’ll not be able to wait to get back to work! Isn’t that what I said?’

‘Not as such,’ said Wield, observing that young Bowler, once Dalziel’s bête noir, did not seem delighted at his apparent upgrading to palace favourite, even though it was in the presence of Novello, his main rival for the spot. She had returned from the bar with Dalziel’s drink. To get Wield’s, she’d had to wait her turn, but at the sight of Dalziel, Jolly Jack, the lugubrious landlord, had pulled a pint in a reaction worth a Pavlovian paper.

‘There’s that not as such again, Wieldy,’ reproved the Fat Man, sinking into a chair and taking his glass from Novello.

He drank half of it like a traveller in an antique land who hadn’t seen liquid for many a hot day, and said, ‘Thanks, Ivor. Now what’s the crack?’

Wield hesitated. He’d already begun to suss there was something not quite right about this burglary report. The youngster had escorted his girlfriend home after what had been (if Wield read the signs right) a sexually and emotionally successful holiday and had found her flat had been burgled. Naturally, being a DC, the boy would have promised to kick-start a thorough CID investigation. Which a phone call would have done. Instead of which Bowler had turned up at the Bull and, what was even odder, a couple of hours must have lapsed since the burglary.

There were other things too, and Wield would have been happy to let the full story emerge at the DC’s own pace. But now the case was altered.

He said, ‘DC Bowler was just reporting a burglary to me, sir.’

‘Ee, that’s champion. On the job, off the job, back on the job, all in the twinkle of an eye. That’s the stuff a good detective’s made of. So, fill me in, lad.’

With all the enthusiasm of a politician admitting a bribe, Hat began his story again.

Dalziel soon interrupted, picking up points Wield had not yet commented upon.

‘So nowt taken. She says. You believe her?’

‘Of course.’ Indignantly. ‘Why should she lie?’

‘Summat she was embarrassed by. Sex aids. Pictures of her six illegitimate kids. Summat she didn’t care to tell a cop about. Bag of shit. Bundles of used notes she’d got on the black and wasn’t going to let on to the Revenue about. Summat she didn’t want her employers to hear about. Expensive books she’d liberated from the reference library. Why should a woman lie about anything, lad? Mebbe just because they’ve got a talent for it! Am I right or am I right, Ivor?’

Shirley Novello said, ‘You know I think you’re always right about everything, sir.’

Dalziel looked at her suspiciously, then his face lit up and he exploded into laughter.

‘There, young Bowler, see what I mean! Fortunately us fellows have got a talent for sussing out lies, or ought to have. So, I’ll ask you again. You believe your lass?’

‘Yes,’ said Hat sullenly.

‘That your head or your hormones speaking?’

‘My head.’

‘Grand. No sign of forced entry, you say?’

‘Couple of little scratches round the lock, but nothing positive.’

‘Never mind, we’ll know for sure when we take the lock to pieces.’

Hat looked even more unhappy, but the Fat Man was in full spate.

‘So, just this message on her computer then. OK, what’s it say?’