Death’s Jest-Book

‘How nice it must be to have a part of you that’s eternally adolescent,’ said Ellie. ‘But I’m glad he’s come through it all OK. How about the girl?’

‘Oddly enough, she looked a lot worse than him last time I saw her.’

‘Why oddly?’

‘He was the one who got his skull fractured and ended up in hospital, remember?’

‘And she was the one who nearly got raped and murdered,’ retorted Ellie.

They sat in silence for a while, each recollecting the dramatic climax of what came to be known as the Wordman case. The prime suspect, Dick Dee, head of the public library reference section, had lured his assistant, Rye Pomona, out to a remote country cottage. When DC Hat Bowler, who was madly in love with her, had discovered this, he’d gone rushing off to the rescue, with Pascoe and Dalziel in hot pursuit. Bowler had arrived to discover Rye and Dee, both naked and covered with blood, locked in a deadly struggle. In the fight that followed, Hat had managed to get hold of the knife Dee was wielding and stab the man fatally, but not before receiving severe head injuries himself. Pascoe, who’d been next on the scene, had feared the young man might die from his wounds, a fear compounded by his own sense of guilt that he had allowed too much of his own attention to be diverted by the presence among the list of suspects of the man who had come once more to disturb the even tenor of his ways – Franny Roote.

He’d been wrong then. Perhaps he was over-reacting now. Ellie certainly thought so.

She returned to the attack.

‘Getting back to our Fran,’ she said. ‘We are entering the season of comfort and joy, or so the telly ads keep telling us, the season for making contact with people far away in space and time, hence all these sodding cards, which incidentally you might care to help me open. It’s the time to put records and relationships straight. What’s so odd about Roote wanting to do that, especially now things are looking up for him?’

‘OK, I give in,’ said Pascoe. ‘I accept Roote’s forgiveness. But I’m not going to send him a Christmas card. Jesus, look at the size of this one.’

He’d opened an envelope to reveal a reproduction of some alleged Old Master showing what looked like a bunch of sheep rustlers gazing up in understandable alarm at what could have been a police helicopter spotlight surrounded by an all-girl jazz band.

‘And who the hell’s Zipper with three kisses?’ he asked, opening the card. ‘We don’t send cards to anyone called Zipper, do we? I certainly hope we don’t.’

‘Zipper. Rings a bell. Let me see …’

Ellie turned the envelope over and said, ‘Shit. It’s addressed to Rosie. Zipper was that little boy Rosie took up with on holiday. Parents were hang-’em-high Tories. We’d better reseal it else she’ll report us to the Court of Human Rights.’

‘Why not just bin it? Can’t have our daughter mixing with the wrong set, can we?’

Ellie ignored his satirical intent and said, ‘It’s her first billy-doo. Girls treasure such things. I’ll take it up to her and tell her to get her coat on. If you can drag yourself away from your own fan mail, shouldn’t you be getting the car started? You know what it’s like these cold mornings. You really ought to take more care of it.’

This was unjust enough to provoke rebellion. The reason Pascoe’s car froze outside most nights was that Ellie’s ancient vehicle usually occupied the garage on the basis of first come, first protected.

He said, ‘Seeing your wreck is so highly tuned, why don’t you take Rosie?’

‘No chance. I’m meeting Daphne for coffee in Estotiland at ten, then we’re going to break the back of Christmas shopping or die in the attempt. Unless you want to swap?’

‘You for Daphne, you mean? Might be OK … Sorry! But Rosie might be happy to trade in Miss Wintershine for Estotiland.’

Estotiland was a huge R&R complex (R&R standing for Recreation and Retail, and also for Rory and Randy, the Canadian Estoti brothers who’d developed the concept) built on a mainly brownfield site across the boundary between South and Mid-Yorkshire. The Estotis boasted that Estotiland provided everything a man, woman or child could reasonably want. It was as user friendly as such a place could be, with clubs and sports facilities as well as retail floors, and its Junior Jumbo Burger Bar and associated play areas had become the site of choice for kids’ parties.

‘The girl wants to be an infant prodigy, prodigious is what she’s going to be,’ said Ellie, who saw enough of herself in Rosie to be up to all her wiles. ‘I’ll get her moving.’

She went out. Pascoe shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth, emptied his coffee cup, thrust Roote’s letter into his pocket and headed out to his car.

As forecast, it showed a reluctance to start to match his own and its morning cough was a lot worse. Some time during its third or fourth bout, Rosie climbed into the passenger seat. She sat there in silence for a while then said in her nobly suffering martyr’s voice, ‘When I go with Mum, I’m never late.’

‘Funny that,’ said Pascoe. ‘My experience has been precisely the opposite. Gotcha!’

The cough turned into a splutter then a rhythmic rattle and finally into something like the sound of an internal combustion engine ready to go about its proper business.

‘Now let’s see who’s late,’ said Pascoe.

Ms Wintershine lived in St Margaret Street, which unfortunately meant taking the main road into the city centre. At first they made reasonable progress then the traffic began to thicken.

‘Jesus,’ said Pascoe. ‘There’s not a football match on or something, is there?’

‘It’s Christmas shopping,’ said Rosie. ‘Mum said we should have set off a lot earlier.’

‘You weren’t ready a lot earlier,’ returned Pascoe. Which might have been worth a point if he’d been sitting in the drive with the engine revving when Rosie got into the car.

Gradually the traffic declined from a meander to a crawl and finally to a stop.

Rosie said nothing, but she had inherited from her mother the ability to communicate I-told-you-so by an almost indiscernible flexing of her nose muscles.

‘OK,’ said Pascoe. ‘Here’s something your mother can’t do.’

He reached into the back seat, picked up his magnetic noddy light, opened the window, slammed it on to the roof, and pulled into the empty bus lane to his left.

Siren howling, light flashing, he raced past the stationary traffic.

Rosie expressed her delight at this turn of events by beaming from cheek to cheek and waving madly at the people in the stalled cars.

‘Do me a favour, love,’ said Pascoe. ‘Cut the Royal Progress act. Either look like a dying infant being rushed to hospital or a deadly criminal on her way to jail.’

With some complacency he saw from the clock on St Margaret’s Church as they turned into St Margaret Street that they had almost five minutes to spare. All the parking spaces in front of the house were filled so he pulled into the Hearses Only spot in front of the church, switched off the siren, and said to Rosie, ‘There we are. Early.’

She gave him a quick kiss and said, ‘Thanks, Dad. That was great.’

‘Yeah. But do me another favour. Don’t tell your mum. See you in an hour.’

He watched her run along the pavement. She paused at the top of the steps leading up to the terraced house, waved at him, then disappeared inside.

He relaxed in his seat. Now what? With the shopping traffic the way it was, there was little point in heading home as he’d have to turn round and come back almost straight away. Too early for weddings or funerals, so he might as well wait here. Something to read would have been nice. He should have brought a newspaper. Or a book.

All he had was Franny Roote’s letter.

He took it out of his pocket and started at the beginning again.

What’s the bastard up to? he thought as he read.

In his mind’s eye he could see that pale oval face with its dark unblinking eyes, which somehow managed to be at the same time compassionate and mocking, whether their owner was beating him over the head, lying in a bath with his wrists slit, or merely observing what a lovely day it was.

Had he got anything to reproach himself with in his relationship with Roote? Did his legitimate questioning of the man in pursuit of his investigative duties have any smack of persecution about it?

No! he told himself angrily. If there was any persecution going on here, it was quite the other way round. The obsessiveness was all Roote’s. And why the hell was he worrying about him anyway? At this very moment the bastard would be standing up to deliver the late Sam Johnson’s paper on Death’s Jest-Book.

‘Hope he gets hiccoughs!’ declared Pascoe, glaring towards the church as if challenging it to condemn his lack of charity.