Reginald Hill: Death Comes for the Fat Man

The lips moved a fraction, letting out scarcely enough breath to stir a feather. Pascoe thought he heard his name on the breath.

He said, “Yes?”

“Peter, is that you?”

This was marginally stronger but not so strong it would have done more than tremble a candle flame.

“Yes, Andy, it’s me.”

The Fat Man’s eyes opened. The pupils seemed cloudy and unfocused.

He said, “Peter.”

“Yes.”

His left hand moved. Pascoe instinctively patted it and felt his fingers seized in a grip weaker than he recalled his daughter’s when first he’d held her.

“Pete, mate, I thought you’d gone.”

“No, Andy, still here,” said Pascoe, thinking, Mate! Oh Jesus, this was bad.

“Something I need to…Cap told me…back in Mill Street when I got blown up…”

The voice failed. Were those tears in his eyes? Oh shit, this was very bad!

“It’s OK, Andy,” he said. “You rest now. We’ll talk about it later, OK?”

“No…need to do it now…in case…you know. In case. Cap said…if it weren’t for you I’d likely have…she said you saved me, Pete…you saved me…”

His voice choked, as if the emotion were too much for his depleted strength.

“I can’t recall much about it now, Andy,” said Pascoe, eager to get out of here before the Fat Man said something so cloyingly sentimental it would clog up their relationship forever. But the grip on his fingers was too strong now for him to break away without it being quite clear that that was what he was doing.

“…and what I want to say, Pete…”

The voice was getting fainter again, the eyes had closed. Perhaps the poor bastard’s debility was going to save him! He leaned forward closer to catch the soft-spoken words.

“…what I want to say is…”

And the eyes snapped open and stared straight into Pascoe’s, bright and tearless.

“Just because tha gave me the kiss of life doesn’t mean we’re bloody engaged!”

Now the great mouth opened wide to let out a bellow of laughter so strong Pascoe felt himself blasted upright.

“You rotten bugger,” he said. “Oh you rotten bugger!”

Grinning broadly he made for the door.

The two women, attracted by the sudden outburst within, greeted him anxiously.

“Is he all right?” asked Ellie.

“I’m afraid so,” said Pascoe. “Well, look who’s here.”

Along the corridor, moving on a pair of crutches with a strange crablike motion, came Hector. Tucked into the neck of his T-shirt was a bunch of lilies whose pollen had redistributed itself generously across his gaunt features, giving him the appearance of a man who had just died of some rare form of jaundice.

“How’re you doing, Hec?” inquired Pascoe.

“Fine, thank you, sir. How’s Mr. Dalziel? Can I go in to see him?”

Cap had begun to say, “No, he’s resting…” when Pascoe stepped in front of her and opened the door.

“Mr. Dalziel’s fine,” he said. “And he’d love to see you. In you go, Hec.”

The constable hopped sideways through the door which Pascoe closed gently after him. There was a moment’s silence then came a crash, presumably as Hector dropped one of his crutches in order to extract his bouquet, then a dull thud, presumably as he fell across the bed, followed by a great cry of shock or rage or pain.

“Why did you let Hector in?” asked Ellie curiously as they left the hospital.

“Why not?” asked Pascoe gaily. “After all, in a way it was them two that started it all. Only fitting that they should bring it to an end, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” agreed Ellie, returning his smile. “The end. Only fitting. Now let’s go home.”

But it wasn’t really the end.

The following sunny Sunday Pascoe and Rosie and Tig had gone for a walk to a favorite spot by the river where Tig could swim, Rosie could paddle, and Pascoe could lie in a green shade and think thoughts of whatever color he pleased. Ellie had excused herself on the grounds of a woman’s work never being done.

This was true, but the work in question was not in fact the implied mountain of ironing, it was work on her novel, which had reached a sticky patch.

Not admitting this was of course just silly. In regard to her literary ambitions, Peter had never been anything but a source of support, admiration, and praise. Yet, until she could wave a very large royalty check at their bank balance, she couldn’t avoid this absurd sense of guilt at the inroads into her family life made by the creative impulse.

She switched on the computer and as always checked for e-mail.

There was a small backlog which she dealt with swiftly. Peter had a couple also, one from Cap Marvell. After a moment’s thought, she brought it up.

Cap embraced all new forms of technology and their idiom with a fervor which brought out the mad Luddite in Dalziel. As Ellie picked her way through the message she felt in some sympathy with the Fat Man. If this is what she did to her e-mails, God knows what her text messaging looked like!

Hi! Wnt to see Ktbg at Sndytn ystrdy-rmmbrd ur intrst in E Hodge as I ws lvng-Ktty v trd by thn-sd shd thnk abt it-gt e frm her tdy whch Im frwdng-A mkng gd prgss-tlks of cming hme-dr sys nt 4 a cpl wks at lst-thn cnvlsce smwhre lke Sndytn whre wrks nt on hs drstp! Luv 2El nd Rsi nd Tg Cap

Ellie turned to the forwarded message and was relieved to find that Dame Kitty had not followed her old pupil down the path of mangled language. To her, e-mail was simply a faster way of sending a letter.

The Avalon Nursing Home

Sandytown

East Yorkshire

Dear Amanda,

Thank you for your visit of yesterday. Buried in this necropolis, it is always pleasant to receive news from the world of the living, despite the fact that, as you doubtless observed, I find even the vicarious sharing of a life like yours quite exhausting.

I am sorry I was too fatigued by the end of your visit to deal with your inquiry about Edie Hodge but I woke up this morning feeling much refreshed and all the details of Edie’s adventure came flooding back.

The story that it was I myself who caught them in the potting shed is in fact untrue. The truth is, as so often, both likelier and stranger.

It was in fact Jacob, the boy’s father, who came across them. You might have thought that his concern would have been to keep things quiet for fear of the possible consequences for his son, but his reaction was as Old Testament as his name. The way he saw it, his son was not the seducer but the seduced, led astray and defiled by a Daughter of Satan!

While not able to go along with this completely, knowing Edie as I did left me with the suspicion that it was probably six of one and half a dozen of the other. At least after that onslaught from Jacob, dealing with Matt Hodge was relatively easy. Initially of course he was very angry indeed, such anger being the natural emotion of a good Catholic parent who feels that his child’s welfare has been neglected by those paid to take care of it. But though he was a doting father, he was by no means blindly so, and I do not doubt he was well aware of Edie’s proclivities. Indeed after his initial anger, I wondered whether he did not see this case of in flagrante as an opportunity to re-establish some control over his wayward child.

So the withdrawal of Edie from St. Dot’s was a decision reached amicably on both sides. Jacob dispatched his son to fresh woods and pastures new, and I kept an excellent gardener!

Once the dust had settled, I must confess I was much more surprised by Edith’s rapid return to a state of grace than by her fall from it. I suspect her marriage to Alexander Kewley was a case of her father striking a deal while the iron was hot! The nature of the heat is a matter of speculation, of course. I have no firm facts though the circumstantial evidence does come close to being a trout in the milk. When I was left holding the baby at the Founder’s Day reception (much to the amusement, I do not doubt, of all you girls), I was able to examine the infant at close quarters. And my reaction was, if this is a Kewley, I’m the Queen Mother! The hasty marriage, its speedy outcome, the change in the Kewley fortunes and the Kewley name were all explained, or at least explicable!