Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

That’s when he’d made a note to ring Sheffield, but he’d been too busy to do it on Monday and by Tuesday it had seemed too trivial to make a fuss over. But now on Wednesday like a black bird of ill omen, here was the man once more, this time too close for mere coincidence.

“Oh gosh, yes, I see. In fact I’ve noticed you a couple of times too, and when I saw you coming out of the Staff Club just now, I thought, Good job you’re not paranoiac, Franny boy, else you might think Chief Inspector Pascoe is stalking you.”

This was a reversal to take the breath away.

Also a warning to proceed with great care.

He said, “So, coincidence for both of us. Difference is, of course, I live and work here.”

“Me too,” said Roote. “Don’t mind if I start, do you? Only get an hour.”

He bit deep into the baguette. His teeth were perfectly, almost artistically, regular and had the kind of brilliant whiteness which you expected to see reflecting the flashbulbs at a Hollywood opening. Prison service dentistry must have come on apace in the past few years.

“You live and work here?” said Pascoe. “Since when?”

Roote chewed and swallowed.

“Couple of weeks,” he said.

“And why?”

Roote smiled. The teeth again. He’d been a very beautiful boy.

“Well, I suppose it’s really down to you, Mr. Pascoe. Yes, you could say you’re the reason I came back.”

An admission? Even a confession? No, not with Franny Roote, the great controller. Even when you changed the script in mid-scene, you still felt he was still in charge of direction.

“What’s that mean?” asked Pascoe.

“Well, you know, after that little misunderstanding in Sheffield, I lost my job at the hospital. No, please, don’t think I’m blaming you, Mr. Pascoe. You were only doing your job, and it was my own choice to slit my wrists. But the hospital people seemed to think it showed I was sick, and of course, sick people are the last people you want in a hospital. Unless they’re on their backs, of course. So soon as I was discharged, I was …discharged.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pascoe.

“No, please, like I say, not your responsibility. In any case, I could have fought it, the staff association were ready to take up the cudgels and all my friends were very supportive. Yes, I’m sure a tribunal would have found in my favour. But it felt like time to move on. I didn’t get religion inside, Mr. Pascoe, not in the formal sense, but I certainly came to see that there is a time for all things under the sun and a man is foolish to ignore the signs. So don’t worry yourself.”

He’s offering me absolution! thought Pascoe. One moment I’m snarling and looming, next I’m on my knees being absolved!

He said, “That still doesn’t explain …”

“Why I’m here?” Roote took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “I’m working for the university gardens department. Bit of a change, I know. Very welcome, though. Hospital portering’s a worthwhile job, but you’re inside most of the time, and working with dead people a lot of the time. Now I’m outdoors, and everything’s alive! Even with autumn coming on, there’s still so much of life and growth around. OK, there’s winter to look forward to, but that’s not the end of things, is it? Just a lying dormant, conserving energy, waiting for the signal to reemerge and blossom again. Bit like prison, if that’s not too fanciful.”

I’m being jerked around here, thought Pascoe. Time to crack the whip.

“The world’s full of gardens,” he said coldly. “Why this one? Why have you come back to Mid-Yorkshire?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have said. That’s my other job, my real work-my thesis. You know about my thesis? Revenge and Retribution in English Drama? Of course you do. It was that which helped set you off in the wrong direction, wasn’t it? I can see how it would, with Mrs. Pascoe being threatened and all. You got that sorted, did you? I never read anything in the papers.”

He paused and looked enquiringly at Pascoe who said, “Yes, we got it sorted. No, there wasn’t much in the papers.”

Because there’d been a security cover-up, but Pascoe wasn’t about to go into that. Irritated though he was by Roote, and deeply suspicious of his motives, he still felt guilty at the memory of what had happened. With Ellie being threatened from an unknown source, he’d cast around for likely suspects. Discovering that Roote, whom he’d put away as an accessory to murder some years ago, was now out and writing a thesis on revenge in Sheffield where he was working as a hospital porter, he’d got South Yorkshire to shake him up a bit then gone down himself to have a friendly word. On arrival, he’d found Roote in the bath with his wrists slashed, and when later he’d had to admit that Roote had no involvement whatsoever in the case he was investigating, the probation service had not been slow to cry harassment.

Well, he’d been able to show he’d gone by the book. Just. But he’d felt then the same mixture of guilt and anger he was feeling now.

Roote was talking again.

“Anyway, my supervisor at Sheffield got a new post at the university here, just started this term. He’s the one who helped me get fixed up with the gardening job, in fact, so you see how it all slotted in. I could have got a new supervisor, I suppose, but I’ve just got to the most interesting part of my thesis. I mean, the Elizabethans and Jacobeans have been fascinating, of course, but they’ve been so much pawed over by the scholars, it’s difficult to come up with much that’s really new. But now I’m on to the Romantics: Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, even Wordsworth, they all tried their hands at drama you know. But it’s Beddoes that really fascinates me. Do you know his play Death’s Jest-Book?”

“No,” said Pascoe. “Should I?”

In fact, it came to him as he spoke that he had heard the name Beddoes recently.

“Depends what you mean by should . Deserves to be better known. It’s fantastic. And as my supervisor’s writing a book on Beddoes and probably knows more about him than any man living, I just had to stick with him. But it’s a long way to travel from Sheffield even with a decent car, and the only thing I’ve been able to afford has more breakdowns than an inner-city teaching staff! It really made sense for me to move too. So everything’s turned out for the best in the best of all possible worlds!”

“This supervisor,” said Pascoe, “what’s his name?”

He didn’t need to ask. He’d recalled where he’d heard Beddoes’ name mentioned, and he knew the answer already.

“He’s got the perfect name for an Eng. Lit. teacher,” said Roote, laughing. “Johnson. Dr. Sam Johnson. Do you know him?”

“That’s when I made an excuse and left,” said Pascoe.

“Oh aye? Why was that?” said Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel. “Fucking useless thing!”

It was, Pascoe hoped, the VCR squeaking under the assault of his pistonlike finger that Dalziel was addressing, not himself.

“Because it was Sam Johnson I’d just been playing squash with,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “It seemed like Roote was taking the piss and I felt like taking a swing, so I went straight back inside and caught Sam.”

“And?”

And Johnson had confirmed every word.

It turned out the lecturer knew his student’s background without knowing the details. Pascoe’s involvement in the case had come as a surprise to him but, once filled in, he’d cut right to the chase and said, “If you think that Fran’s got any ulterior motive in coming back here, forget it. Unless he’s got so much influence he arranged for me to get a job here, it’s all happenstance. I moved, he didn’t fancy travelling for supervision and the job he had in Sheffield came to an end, so it made sense for him to make a change too. I’m glad he did. He’s a really bright student.”