Reginald Hill - Death

Reversing the process required a bit more guile.

'Keep it steady’ he said to his driver.

They'd gradually diminished their speed for the past quarter-hour so that now they were barely doing forty-five. Were the pigs suspicious? Why should they be? In any case it was too late now, he thought, focusing his gaze beyond the trailing car.

The pantechnicon coming up fast in the outside lane had no problem in getting past the police car just as the van began its shallow descent into the underpass. Signs warned, no stopping or overtaking, but the pantechnicon flashed its indicator after passing the police saloon and began to pull in front.

'Plonker!' yelled Rose. 'Get past him, for Christ's sake.'

His driver began to flash to pull out, but there was a white transit van slowly overtaking him now, blocking the manoeuvre.

Polchard watched all this in his mirror, then said 'Go,' when the saloon was completely out of sight.

The driver rammed down the accelerator.

Ahead was a sign with an arrow pointing off left, saying estotiland service area – authorized vehicles only. The security van roared along the slip road. Further on, down the exit slip road from the service area, the original Praesidium van joined the underpass road at a sedate pace.

'It's all right, guv, he's turning off,' said Rose's driver reassuringly as the pantechnicon began to move over on to the exit slip road. 'No need to worry. There's the van up ahead.'

'Where the fuck did you expect it to be? Vanished into thin air?' snarled Rose, annoyed to have let his anxiety show so clearly. 'Close up a bit, will you? And try not to let any other fucker get between us.'

'… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… there they are,' said Berry as the blip reappeared on the computer screen. 'Not long now. Beginning to look like much ado about nowt, isn't it?'

'Yeah’ said Hat Bowler. 'Nowt.'

This oppo couldn't finish too early for him. Though the extreme effects of whatever malaise had hit him over an hour ago hadn't been repeated, he still felt somehow physically cold and mentally spaced out. Another reaction had been a desire verging on a need to hear Rye's voice, so when Berry was called out of the control centre for a few minutes he'd taken the chance to ring the library, only to be told that Rye wasn't due in today.

This had surprised him. When he'd told her he was going to be tied up on Saturday, he'd got the impression she was working too. He then rang her flat. Nothing but the answer machine.

So she was out. What did he expect her to do when he wasn't around? Sit at home and mope?

But he felt uneasy though he knew no reason why.

The door of the control room opened.

'Hello, Superintendent. Come to check up on things?' said Berry. 'Must say you lot are taking this very seriously, but it's all going like a dream so far.'

Hat didn't turn from the screen. All his earlier symptoms were back mob-handed. He knew it wasn't Dalziel who'd come into the room, it was Death.

Death that master of role-play who was yet always himself. For he could come garbed as a nurse, or a close friend, or in the cap and bells of a jester, or as a great fat policeman, but the cavernous eyes and grinning jawbone were still unmistakable.

So he sat and stared at the light pulsing like a heart across the screen.

'Hat’ said Dalziel, 'could you step outside for a moment. I need a word.'

'Watching the van, sir’ said Hat stiffly. 'Won't be long now till it gets to the museum.'

'Mr Berry will watch for us,' said Dalziel gently. 'Come on, lad. We need to talk. Your office all right, Mr Berry?'

By now the manager too knew that a darkness more than the semi-dusk of a grey January day had entered the room.

'Sure’ he said.

Hat rose and, still without looking at the Fat Man, went out of the room.

'Will he be back?' said Berry.

'No’ said Dalziel. 'I don't think he will. You can manage here, I expect?'

'What's to manage?' said Berry, glancing at the screen. 'I reckon it's all over now.'

'I think you're right’ said Dalziel. 'It's all over.'

Pascoe was beginning to wish he'd stayed in bed. He sat on a chair and looked uneasily round Franny Roote's flat.

Normally he was the most meticulous of searchers, missing no possible hiding place in his pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, and just as assiduous in leaving no messy traces of his searching. In fact it was a standing joke among his less particular colleagues that if you wanted to give a room a good tidying, you got Pascoe to search it.

But something had gone wrong today.

Roote's flat looked like it had been done over by a disturbed juvenile on his first job.

With no effect whatsoever, except to waste so much energy he'd broken out in a muck sweat. He took off his jacket and wiped his brow.

What to do? he asked himself desperately.

Flee, and hope it got put down to said disturbed juvenile?

Stay and brazen it out if and when Roote turned up? Or try to tidy things up and cover all traces of his passage?

That was going to be hard, he thought as he looked around. He'd made a real mess and he knew he couldn't put it all down to his illness. He'd often looked at the after-effects of a destructive burglary and wondered why it was that as well as stealing the thief had needed to wreck what he left behind. Now he began to understand. For some people it wasn't enough simply to rob; they had to hate and even blame those they robbed.

He'd found nothing to use against Roote, but by God! he'd let the bastard know what he thought of him!

It was a shameful thing to have done, quite inexcusable.

Though, thank God, there were limits.

There was a bookcase against one wall, serviceable rather than ornamental and stained a funereal black. The only things he hadn't laid violent hands upon were the books.

And, though there'd been nothing conscious in the omission, he thought he knew why.

He went to the case and took a book down. He'd been right. The name on the fly cover was Sam Johnson. These were part of Roote's inheritance from his old friend and tutor. If there was anything at all about Roote that Pascoe trusted, it had to be the genuineness of his grief for Johnson's death.

And, of course, it helped that his theory that Roote was involved in Jake Frobisher's death depended on the existence of a love for Johnson that led to a murderous jealousy.

But it made him feel a little better to think he hadn't reached the point where true pathological hatred would have started, the destruction of what the object loved the most.

There was a two-volume edition of Beddoes' poems he thought he recognized, quite old with marbled paper boards. He took down one of the books and opened it. Yes, it was the Fanfrolico Press edition. This was Volume Two, the very book that had been found open on the dead academic's lap.

He started to replace it carefully, and only then saw there was something behind it, a narrow package wrapped in a black silk handkerchief, rendering it almost invisible against the dark wood.

He took it out and carefully unwound the silk.

It contained an Omega watch with a gold bracelet, very expensive looking.

He turned it over and looked at the back of the watch.

There it was, a circlet of writing, which had been easier to make out on Sophie Frobisher's rubbing than on this shiny surface, but he knew it off by heart anyway.

TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS OVER RUINED WORLDS YOUR S

Well, time into eternity had fallen for both of them now, leaving, like all deaths, ruined worlds behind.

And now at last, he thought with less glee than he'd imagined he'd feel at this moment of justification, he had it in his power to ruin forever the world of Francis Xavier Roote.