Reginald Hill - Death

If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy…

I could have stayed there forever, but all things have their natural foreordained ends, and finally we dispersed, some to their student staircases, Dwight and I making our unsteady way back to the Q's Lodging, arm in arm for mutual support.

I undressed and climbed into bed, but I could not go to sleep. At first it was because of my excitement at the world of profit and delight which seemed to be opening up before me. But then a sudden and complete reversal took place… from the migh t/ Of joy in minds that can no further go, / As high as we have mounted in delight / In our dejection do we sink as low. Which is why, dear Mr Pascoe, my old leech-gatherer, I am sitting here propped up against my pillow, penning these words to you. Have I done the right thing in giving in to Albacore? In my last letter I was sure I had your approval. Now I am equally certain that you with your strong principles and unmoveable moral convictions will despise me for my venality. It's so very important for me to get you to see my side of things. I am an innocent abroad here, a pygmy jousting with giants. It is not always given to us to choose the instruments of our elevation. You must have felt this sometimes in your relationship with the egregious Dalziel. You may well have wished on occasion that the glittering prizes of your career were not in the gift of such a one. And by indignities men come to dignities. And it is sometimes base.

So if I seem to be asking for your blessing, it is beca

Another interruption!

What soaps my letters are turning out to be, every instalment ending in a cliffhanger!

And this time what a climactic interruption, fit to rank with those end-of-series episodes of shows like Casualty and ER designed to whet your what-happens-next appetite to such an edge that you will return as hungry as ever after the summer break.

But I mustn't be frivolous. What we have here isn't soap, it's reality. And it's tragic.

It was the fearful clamour of a bell which distracted me.

I leapt out of bed and rushed to the open window. Since my time in the Syke, I always sleep with my window open whatever the season. Looking out into the quad I could see nothing, but I could hear away to the right a growing hubbub of noise and, when I thrust my head out into the night air and looked towards it, it seemed to me that the dark outline of the building forming that side of the quad was already being etched against the sky by the rosy wash of dawn.

Except it was far too early for dawn and anyway I was looking north.

Pausing only to thrust my feet into my shoes and drag a raincoat round my shoulders, I rushed out into the night.

Oh God, the sight I saw when I passed from the Q's quad to the D's quad!

It was the Dean's Lodging, no longer a thing of beauty but now crouched there, squat and ugly as a marauding monster, with a great tongue of flame coiling out of a downstairs window and greedily licking its facade.

I hurried forward, eager to help but not knowing how I could. Firemen bearing hoses from the engine, which seemed to have got wedged under a Gothic arch that gave the only vehicular approach to this part of the college, some wearing breathing apparatus, moved around me with that instancy of purpose which marks the assured professional.

'What's happening for God's sake?' I cried to one who paused beside me to cast an assessing eye over the scene.

'Old building,' he said laconically. 'Lots of wood. Three centuries to dry out. These places are bonfires waiting to be lit. Who're you?'

I'm a…' What was I? Suddenly I didn't know. I'm at a conference here.'

'Oh,' he said, losing interest. 'Need someone who knows who's likely to be in there.'

'I do know,' I said quickly.

He turned out to be the Assistant Chief Fire Officer, a good-looking young man in a clean-cut kind of way.

I told him that, as far as I knew, Sir Justinian and Lady Albacore were the only inmates of the Lodging and tried to indicate from my memory of our tour where they were likely to be found. All of this he repeated into his walkie-talkie. Behind him as we talked, I could see that the fire had reached the upper storeys. My heart began to misgive me that we were witnessing a truly terrible tragedy. Then his radio crackled with the good news that Amaryllis was safe and well. But my joy at hearing this was immediately diluted by the lack of any news about Justin.

It began to rain quite heavily at this point, which was good news for the firefighters. I could see no point in catching my death of cold watching a fire, so I returned to my room and letter. Might as well go on writing as I doubt if I shall be able to fall asleep.

Wrong again!

I was woken in my chair by Dwight shaking my shoulder.

As I struggled out of sleep I could see from his face the news was not good.

Indeed it was the worst.

They'd found Justinian Albacore's body on the ground floor where the fire had been at its fiercest.

I was devastated. I had little cause to love the man but perhaps something in his mockingly subtle character appealed to me and I'd found last night that I had no problem with the prospect of spending much time in his company.

Dwight wanted to talk but all I wanted was to be left to myself.

I got dressed and went outside. The shell of the Dean's Lodging, gently steaming in a Fennish drizzle, stood as a dreadful illustration of the power of flames. As I stood and contemplated it I was joined by my handsome young Fire Officer who gave me the fullest picture they could piece together of last night's events.

It seems that Amaryllis had been woken by Justin getting out of bed in the early hours. Drowsily she asked him what was up, to which he replied he thought he'd heard something downstairs but it was probably nothing so why didn't she go back to sleep, which she did. She woke again some time later to find the room full of smoke. On the landing outside her bedroom she found things even worse with flames plainly visible at the foot of the stairs. She retreated into her room and rang the fire brigade. Then, pausing only to put on slacks, T-shirt, several warm pullovers and a little make-up, she opened the bedroom window which overlooked the roof of an architecturally incongruous conservatory, built by an orchidomaniac Victorian dean before there were such things as conservation orders, on to which she descended with the help of a drainpipe and from which she slid into the arms of the first fireman on the scene.

As for Justin, all that is possible at the moment is speculation.

It seems likely that when he descended the stairs he found his study already well ablaze. His awareness that lying within was the college's greatest treasure, Reginald of Durham's Vita S. Godrid, which he had personally and recklessly removed from the college library, must have blinded his judgment. Instead of raising the alarm, he probably rushed inside to rescue the precious manuscript but found himself driven back by the heat to the threshold where, overcome by fumes, he collapsed and died.

From what I can see for myself and from what my new friend told me, it's pretty clear that not only has the Vita been reduced to ashes, but not a page of Albacore's Beddoes manuscript or a single card from his card-index system can have survived the inferno.

It is still early days to reach conclusions about causes, but when I told the Fire Officer that we had all been sitting around the study last night drinking brandy and smoking cigars, his large blue eyes sparkled and he made a note in his note-pad.

The conference has naturally been cancelled and, after a morning spent answering questions and making statements, I am sitting here once more writing to you, dear Mr Pascoe, in the hope of clearing my thoughts.