Above all, where the hell was Andy Dalziel when you needed him?
Andy Dalziel stood with his arms locked around Hat Bowler's body. Whether he was offering comfort or applying restraint he didn't know. He was experiencing a very odd feeling. Utter helplessness.
Later when he gathered together every scrap of information on the circumstances of Rye Pomona's death, he would be able to put them together with all those other scraps and hints and intuitions which added up to a conclusion too monstrous to articulate, and tell himself, this way was best. This drew a necessary line under everything.
But there in that untidy office with the boy in his arms, his body feeling as lifeless as that other sad corpse now lying in the mortuary, he would have given anything to have the power to breathe life back into both of them.
His mobile started squeaking like a bat in his pocket.
He ignored it.
The squeaking went on.
Answer it,' commanded Hat.
He thinks it might be a message saying it's all been a dreadful mistake, thought Dalziel. In a life with too many deaths in it, he had come to understand at what pathetically flimsy straws desperate fingers may rasp.
He removed one arm from its embrace and took the phone out.
'Dalziel’ he. said.
Hat's ear was pressed close so that he could catch the voice coming out of the mobile.
'Guv, it's Novello. I've been trying to get you. Serpent's gone pear-shaped. They've done a switch out at the Estotiland complex. No one seems sure where the Hoard is…'
'Jesus wept!' exclaimed Dalziel.
He let Hat go and headed back to the control room.
Berry looked up from his newspaper.
'Nearly there’ he said cheerfully, nodding towards the screen where the flashing light was just crossing the city boundary. 'Going to join the welcome committee, are you?'
'Wanker!' snarled Dalziel.
He went out again and met Hat coming out of the office.
'Where do you think you're going?' he demanded.
'To the hospital, where else?' retorted the young man.
One straw crumples, you grab at the next.
‘I’ll come with you.'
'Don't be stupid’ said Hat savagely. 'You've got work to do.'
He pushed the Fat Man aside and ran down the stairs.
Dalziel watched him go, that unfamiliar feeling back with reinforcements.
Then he put the phone to his ear again and said, 'Ivor, you still there?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I'm on my way. Listen, you get yourself down to the hospital morgue. Bowler's on his way there. I want you to stick to him like shit to a blanket, OK? Don't let him out of your sight. If he goes to the bog, count ten then kick the door down. Got that? Good.'
He thrust the phone into his pocket and headed down the stairs at a speed to match the young DC's." feeling like a very bad day indeed. At least there was no way he could see for it to get worse.
Pascoe said, 'Yes, there's more and it gets more serious. Jake Frobisher. You remember him?'
Roote's expression turned solemn.
'Yes. I knew him vaguely. A bright young man. Tragic accident. Greatly missed.'
'Especially by Sam Johnson.'
'Indeed. Sam was very close to Jake, and naturally he was cut up when it turned out Jake had overdone it, popping pills to keep him awake to catch up with his course work.'
He enunciated the words carefully, like a kid reciting a lesson.
'Yes, I understand that was the official verdict’ said Pascoe. 'And I can see why, in the circumstances, Sam should feel so cut up he couldn't wait to get away from Sheffield. Which explains his rather precipitous move to MYU, with all its sad consequences. Funny that. You could say, if Jake hadn't died, Sam would still be alive too.'
That got to you! thought Pascoe gleefully as for a second pain fractured the mask of polite interest on Roote's face.
'I've often thought the same’ said the young man quietly.
'I bet you have’ said Pascoe. 'I bet you could write a nice little paper on tragic irony, couldn't you, Mr Roote? Tragic irony and the eternal triangle, by F. X. Roote MA. A new research topic after you've finished exploring Revenge.'
'What are you getting at?'
'Let me spell it out. Sam and Jake were lovers. That got right up your nose. You alone wanted to be Sam's best boy. You chummed up with Jake and waited your chance to break up the relationship. Maybe you even encouraged the boy to believe that his closeness to Sam put him above the uni's normal academic demands. Whatever, it finally came about that the Academic Board forced Sam to wield the big whip and tell Jake, either this course work gets done or you're out. Mission accomplished, you must have thought, except that either it seemed possible Jake might indeed get the work done, or you simply didn't trust Sam not to give him a bunk-up with his grades. So, under pretence of helping Jake out, you sit in his room the night before the deadline, feeding him uppers to keep him mentally right on top of things, only God knows what else you slip in there till finally the boy collapses. Plenty of choice, him being a pedlar in a small way. Then you slip away. Only you made two mistakes, Franny. One, you were seen by a witness who can positively identify you. Two, you couldn't resist taking his drug stash and, more tellingly, this love token, which it must have torn your guts to see Jake flashing around.'
He held up the watch.
He didn't expect Roote to start like a guilty thing surprised, but the youth was full of surprises. His face crumpled and tears came to his eyes as he looked at the watch. Could this at last be confession time? Pascoe asked himself.
The security man's radio crackled. He lifted it to his mouth, pressed the Send button, and said, 'Yes, over.' Then he listened.
Wield couldn't make out the words, but didn’t need to, the body language told all.
The security man took a step back from the Praesidium men.
The radio was still pouring urgent words into his ear.
Don't be a hero, urged Wield, letting the bike move gently forward.
The man pressed the Send button and began to speak.
The taller of the other men reached into the cab of the pantechnicon. When he straightened up, he had something in his hands.
Wield, because he had that kind of mind, identified it even from this distance as a Mossberg 500 ATP8C, shotgun.
He sent the Thunderbird raging forward.
The big man pushed between the Praesidium pair, pointed the gun at the security man, and fired.
The man staggered back drunkenly, took a few steps sideways, then collapsed.
Wield had to swerve to avoid his body and felt the machine going from under him. His loss of control probably saved his life. The big man had swung the gun to cover his approach and now he fired again. Wield heard shot pellets ricocheting off concrete, felt a spatter of them bed themselves into his leathers. One of the Praesidium men was yelling angrily, but his words were drowned by the noise of a fast approaching siren. At the same time, several more security men came racing down the ramp.
Wield hadn't stopped rolling till he fetched up against the front wheel of the van. He came to his feet in a single movement and scrambled through the open door, pulling it shut behind him as the next shot ploughed into the armour-plated side. The key was in the ignition. He turned it on, pressed on the accelerator and swung the wheel over hard, swinging the vehicle round till it crashed into the front of the pantechnicon.
'Get out of that if you can,' he mouthed at the big man, who sent another ball of shot crashing into the van's window, which bulged and crazed but didn't give.