So when he finally awoke, he was ready to find himself still helpless on the floor of Stangcreek Cottage.
His eyes weren’t functioning properly but at least they were registering images albeit dimly on his retina and he could make out someone standing over him.
Oh shit. He was right. It was still the cottage …
He tried to move. Couldn’t. This got worse. He was bound down.
He tried to speak. His mouth was dry as …
There were half a dozen laddish similes in common canteen use but he couldn’t recall any of them.
The looming figure stepped closer.
The features came into focus. They were frightful, contorted, menacing.
The dreadful lips moved.
“She’s all right, lad.”
And the ogreish features dissolved and resolved themselves into the comfortable because familiar dissonances of Edgar Wield’s face while at the same time the bonds which held him down turned into the starched and tightly tucked sheets of a hospital bed.
“She’s all right,” repeated Wield.
If Wieldy said it, then it must be true. And he knew he’d be eternally grateful to the sergeant for knowing the one question his disfunctional tongue had wanted to ask.
He closed his eyes again.
Next time he opened them, Pascoe was there.
The DCI called a nurse who helped him raise his head, which he only now realized was heavily bandaged, and gave him water.
“Thanks,” he gasped. “My throat was dry as a screech owl’s crotch.”
Vulture’s, he meant. But it was coming back.
The nurse said to Pascoe, “Don’t overtire him. Don’t let him move too much. I’ll let the doctor know he’s awake.”
Hey, I’m not only awake, I’m here! thought Hat. But he was too weak in body and will to protest.
“Where …? How long …?” he croaked.
Pascoe said, “You’re in the Central Hospital. You’ve been here for eleven days.”
“Eleven …? I’ve been out of it for eleven days?”
Eleven days was worrying. Eleven days was a huge step on the way to brain death.
Pascoe smiled.
“It’s all right. Mr. Dalziel allows a fortnight before he tells them to switch everything off. In any case, you were never comatose. But you do have a depressed skull fracture and there was pressure on the brain. It’s OK. They’ve got you sorted. You’ll be able to do The Times crossword again.”
“Never could before,” said Hat. Then thought, Christ! don’t relapse into plucky little trooper mode, you’re fucking terrified!
He said, “You’re not bullshitting me, sir? I mean, eleven days …”
Pascoe said, “Relax. The reason you’ve been out of it so long is mainly because of the sedation. Trouble was, whenever you did wake up, you were so confused that they were worried you’d do even more damage to yourself.”
“Confused?”
“Delirious, if you like. Thrashing around like you were in a mud-bath with Sharon Stone.”
Sharon Stone? thought Hat. No thanks, I’ll pick my own fantasies.
This reaction cheered him up more than the DCI’s reassurances. Time to forget about himself and ask about Rye, put some detail on Wield’s assurance that she was OK. He heard her screams and saw again her naked body being mauled by that bastard Dee and wondered how much detail he was ready for. But he had to find out.
Not yet, though. Pascoe was still speaking.
“And the things you were shouting …” The DCI shook his head as if still unable to believe them.
“Like what?”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got them all taken down so they can be used in evidence against you when you get back to work.”
Comforting words. He was good, Pascoe. Nice bedside manner. Should have been a GP. But not a Georgie Porgie, no, couldn’t see him as that …
“This morning Sergeant Wield said you were back with us. Said you were asking about Ms. Pomona.”
Wield. Knew what you were thinking before you thought it.
He said, “The sarge said she was OK, right?”
“She’s fine. A few bruises and scratches.
Nothing else.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Pascoe emphatically. “You got there in time, Hat. He didn’t have time to do anything to her, believe me.”
He’s telling me the bastard didn’t rape her, thought Hat. Why doesn’t he just come out and say it?
Maybe because I don’t just come out and ask it.
And what if Dee had raped her? What difference would it have made?
To me? Or to her? he asked himself with angry revulsion. A hell of a difference to her. And who gives a toss if it makes any difference to me?
It’s because I’m ill, he tried to reassure himself. Being sick makes you selfish.
He said, “Is she in hospital too?”
“No way. One night for observation. Then she discharged herself. She doesn’t seem fond of hospitals.”
“No, I think she had a bad time once …so she wouldn’t want to hang around …”
“She’s been in to see you every day,” said Pascoe, grinning. “And I gather that the first thing she does every morning and last thing at night is ring to check you’re OK. So you can get that neglected look off your face. Hat, that’s some girl you’ve got yourself there. When you were rolling around with Dee she broke a bottle of wine over his head. He’d dropped his knife, we gather, and was trying to beat your brains in with this crystal dish that weighed a ton. She got it off him and started to give him some of what he was giving you. Some girl.”
“And I got the knife,” said Hat, frowning with the effort of memory. “And I …what’s happened to Dee? Is he …?”
He wanted him dead, yet he wanted him alive, because if he were dead …He recalled the knife rising and plunging, rising and plunging. Minimum force.
“He’s dead,” said Pascoe gently.
“Shit.”
“Saves the cost of a trial,” said Pascoe. “And saves Rye the trauma of a trial.”
“Yeah.”
“There’ll be an enquiry, of course,” Pascoe went on lightly. “Always is when an officer is involved in a death. Nothing to worry about in the circs, just a formality.”
“Sure,” said Hat.
He knows as well as I do that nowadays there’s no such thing as a formality, thought Pascoe. Dead man, cop involved, sod the circumstances, there’s a whole percussion band out there ranging from civil rights activists through religious nuts to fuck-you-all anarchists waiting to beat their different drums in the hope that when the cacophony stops, a cop’s career will lie mortally wounded.
With luck in this case the media would be blaring out the triumphant notes of celebration loud enough to drown the dissenters. The Wordman erased. The killer of at least seven people himself killed. Damsel in distress rescued by heroic young officer. Rumours of romance in the air. This boy deserves a medal!
Pascoe hoped he’d get it. One thing none of the interested parties on either side had seen was that room in Stangcreek Cottage as he saw it when he’d finally burst through the door.
Blood everywhere. Hat, wounded in his side and his head, lying unconscious on his back. The naked girl, stained with gore like an ancient Pict with woad, kneeling by him, cradling his bleeding head. And Dee, sprawled across the Paronomania board like some sacrificial ox, his body rent by so many wounds that the blood from them had joined to cover him in a scarlet cloak, and all across that body, gleaming like stars in some alien red sky, and scattered across the floor like the Milky Way, were the game’s letter tiles, bearing some arcane message for any who could read.
To a neutral observer it might look as if it was Dee who’d been the victim of a maniacal attack.
Dalziel when he arrived hot on Pascoe’s heels had taken this in at a glance.
After they’d called for an ambulance and ministered to Hat and Rye as best they could, the Fat Man had said, “Best try some resuscitation here.”
“Nay, sir, he’s gone,” said his driver with the authority of one who’d attended more major traffic accidents than he cared to recall.